“Draw what it feels like when you’re not able to write,” Amy told me.
“Do what?
“Just draw it. It can be whatever you want. I’m going to the restroom.”
She was trying to help me overcome my “writer’s block”. I stared at my pint glass, almost empty, before taking the last sip. There were dollar bills with people’s names, or football teams, or hometowns written on them, stapled to the walls and ceiling. A man sat down two stools to my left and asked the bartender how many were up there. I …

In memory of Corion, a favorite SideWalk Chalk student who passed away July 10, 2011,
and for all of the kids who still get to be a part of our lives today.

On Mother’s Day, I posted about both of the women who have been mothers in my life: my birth mother, Vicki, and my adopted mother, Barbara.

Now it’s time to honor the men that have been a father to me.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last four years working with kids. Some come from great families. Some from families that are just trying to hold it all together. Some don’t even know what the word “family” means.
I’m really lucky. I have two: my birth parents- still together- John and Vicki, and my “adopted parents,” Buddy and Barbara. They didn’t adopt me. I adopted them.
I could write about all the ways both sets have been there for me. But, it’s Mother’s Day weekend, so dads are getting …

A beat up truck pulled into the middle of the field in Afghanistan during half-time, and a man and woman, both blindfolded and screaming, were pushed out. Another man, holding a microphone, told the crowds watching from the stands the sins of the two prisoners. Before he finished speaking, the guards escorting the two picked up their stones. They hurled them at two faces, two backs, two chests.
The whole thing was hard to watch, really, even in a movie theater when you knew the people were actors. I glanced …