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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20231 min read
Guns
Sept. 28, 2009 I'm not keen on guns, but I don't object to people having a reasonable number of them if that's what they absolutely have...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20231 min read
Self-promotion
Oct. 2, 2009 I just got back from Toronto and the launch of my new novel, Broken Road, by Exile Editions. It went really well and I want...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20232 min read
Martha Nell Hardy
Oct. 14, 2009 Four years ago today my spectacular mother, Martha Nell Hardy, died. I was with her when she passed away, for which I am...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20238 min read
Land as story: a road broken and the tragic undoing of the Cherokee Nation
Feb. 12, 2010 My novel Broken Road is set against an historical backdrop of the events leading up to 1838 Removal of the Cherokee Nation...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20233 min read
My dog just died
Apr. 30, 2010 For me the line from Leonard Cohen's, "I'm Your Man" that goes, "Everybody got this broken feeling /Like their father or...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20234 min read
Let them eat happy animals
May 7, 2010 Back in the mid-seventies when I was a graduate student in Toronto, I was opening a tin of corned beef in the communal...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20233 min read
Essential creep
June 4, 2010 When my mother died, mysterious forces began to shape me in ways I am only beginning to comprehend. Whole chunks of her must...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20233 min read
Returning to my roots
June 11, 2010 I have been highlighting my hair for twenty years. Just being able to say that makes me feel old, which is only fair. I...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20233 min read
Black dog day
Jul. 15, 2010 My dopamine is down a pint; I’m having what Dan Carlin calls a Black Dog Day. I’m not sure why. Generally I’m...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20233 min read
As my mother used to say....
Jul. 21, 2010 My mother, Martha Nell Hardy, was a transcendently beautiful woman who, as she aged, began to trade more on wisdom and an...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20233 min read
Our war ... on drugs!
Aug. 13, 2013 In the previous century we watched Europe self-destruct twice, then clamber out of the ruins and put itself back together...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20233 min read
A peck of dirt
Aug. 12, 2013 I want to come clean about something: for many years I did not wash my hands after using a public lavatory. I’m not sure...
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melissa39316
Dec 18, 20234 min read
Lunar Tunes
Aug. 22, 2013 August 20 was the Full Barley Moon . . . or Sturgeon Moon . . . or Fruit Moon . . . depending on whether you’re English or...
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melissa39316
Dec 17, 20232 min read
Risky business
Aug. 28, 2013 What pleasure people get from gambling eludes me. It seems. . . I don’t know . . . risky? My attitude is partially rooted...
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melissa39316
Dec 17, 20232 min read
"The Horse"
Aug. 29, 2013 My Uncle Leon was a mean man. My mother and grandparents referred to him as, “The Horse.” Later, after my aunt divorced...
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melissa39316
Dec 17, 20233 min read
True patriot hearts
Sept. 3, 2013 National anthems make me cry. Not all national anthems, just mine. Because I’m a hybrid – that is to say, an Americanadian...
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melissa39316
Dec 17, 20232 min read
The night Kennedy was elected
Sept. 6, 2013 On the evening of November 8, 1960, when the Presidential election was called for John F. Kennedy, my father, Bill Hardy,...
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melissa39316
Dec 17, 20233 min read
Colored washrooms
Sept. 10, 2013 I grew up in the American South. I remember colored washrooms and water fountains and swimming pools – clearly being...
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melissa39316
Dec 17, 20233 min read
Hanky panky and Driver's Ed
Sept. 12, 2013 I took Drivers Ed when I was sixteen. That was back when it was offered in high school and you didn’t have to pay for it. ...
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melissa39316
Dec 15, 20234 min read
Daisy Miller ... in a hat
Sept. 17, 2013 My husband and I recently watched Woody Allen’s 2009 romantic comedy Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona and I found myself flooded...
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