Wendy Hodge Articles

Keeping Watch

By WENDY HODGE It’s a torturous thing we humans do, keeping watch over the dying. We gather around a bed, sometimes as a family and sometimes alone, and wait for someone we love to ease into death … like an antique clock winding down, ticking slower with every hour...

In Flames

By WENDY HODGE It’s been a while since I drove downtown to visit my spot at the fountain in the courthouse square. For a long time, that was where I went to write, and to think and to just breathe. But then life got so busy, as it always seems to do. New job, new...

Bibliophilia

By WENDY HODGE In all of my travels, in this country and overseas, I’ve seen monuments and artwork, natural wonders and famous folks. I’ve listened to symphonies and watched famous plays. I’ve been to concerts and parties. The memories I’ve made while on a trip are...

Headlines

By WENDY HODGE There’s been a shooting at a mall in Indiana. A Nascar driver was stabbed to death while getting gas at a filling station. Someone with a gun interrupted a stand-up comedy show in Philadelphia. A bomb threat cleared out a government building in San...
Cracker Barrel

Cracker Barrel

By WENDY HODGE It’s amazing what you may find if you wait about a year and a half to clean out your purse. This past weekend, when I could no longer...

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Cracker Barrel

The Wee Small Hours

By WENDY HODGE Alexander McCall Smith wrote “At night we are all strangers, even to ourselves.” Tonight I am relearning the truth in that. I have...

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Cracker Barrel

Without Words

By WENDY HODGE Occasionally there are days when I sit in front of a blank screen with only a blinking cursor and the silence of my thoughts to keep...

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Cracker Barrel

Carpe Diem

By WENDY HODGE Christmas is behind us. All the gifts are opened, and all that’s left of the feasts are leftovers in second-hand Cool Whip and...

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Cracker Barrel

CHRISTMAS LAGNIAPPE

By WENDY HODGE This past weekend, I spent a couple of hours sitting in the living room floor surrounded by a dozen rolls of wrapping paper, a couple...

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Cracker Barrel

QUIET

By WENDY HODGE It’s that time of year again. I love Christmas and the whole month from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve – all the planning and buying...

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Cracker Barrel

HELPER PART III

By WENDY HODGE Let me see … Where did I leave off? … Oh, yes — I stood huddled with my sister’s best friend, a terrified girl whose sister had been...

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Cracker Barrel

HELPER PART II

By WENDY HODGE When last we met, I was parked on the access road next to the local park in my town — the Monkey Park, as all Opelikans know it —...

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