I was strolling near my home in downtown San Diego and admiring America’s Finest City when I answered my phone and learned that my mother was dying in a hospital 3,000 miles away. I hung up and purchased the next airplane ticket to Baton Rouge. Two days later, my plane began its decent and I […]
FBI reports say that one year before President Kennedy was assassinated, my grandfather, Edward Grady Partin, and Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa plotted to kill the president’s little brother, US Attorney General Bobby Kennedy by either plastic explosives tossed into his family’s home or recruiting a lone sniper that would shoot him as he rode through […]
In July of 1984, seventeen armed men surrounded our partially completed cabin, and demanded our surrender. My dad and I heard them after turning off the table saw, and we surrendered peacefully. They allowed my dad to put on a shirt that was draped across the porch, near the door. I was fully clothed, which […]
My grandfather, Edward Grady Partin, was a big man with a small part in history. FBI reports say that one year before President Kennedy was assassinated, he and Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa plotted to kill the president’s little brother, US Attorney General Bobby Kennedy by tossing plastic explosives tossed into his family’s home or by […]
My mom used to joke that she was born Wendy Anne Rothdram, WAR, and that marrying a Partin WARP’ed her. I never understood that joke as a kid, and I didn’t even know Wendy was my mom for many years.
My first memory of my grandfather was a few weeks after my first memory of my dad. I was four years old, the first year that Stretch Armstrong toys were advertised on color television, and I had been in a hospital, Our Lady of the Lake in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, recovering from a head laceration […]
When I learned that mother was dying, I flew to Baton Rouge and went straight to her hospital. The night receptionist told me her room number, and, after I asked, directed me to a room dedicated to prayer and meditation. A few minutes later, I left the small chapel and rode the elevator to Wendy’s […]
I arrived at my grandfather’s funeral riding a motorcycle and wearing my high school letterman jacket. I turned off the motorcycle and took off my helmet, left it and my jacket on the bike, and walked past a crowd of reporters and the mayor’s police escorts. But I couldn’t get past the crowd of people […]
Andrea and I arrived at her parents house and walked in, barely able to squeeze in the living room because of all of her dad’s partially completed projects and her mom’s collection of things that she felt added decor. Her mom waved from the kitchen, where she was feeding the baby. Alice, Andrea’s younger sister […]