Author: Keith Howard
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Pops and AA
Dear Hope Nation, Don’t ask me why but I’ve gotten a fair number of messages asking for more fiction. My theory is folks can only take so much Keith. They need characters who are younger and more interesting than I, and who can blame them? The piece below needs a little introduction. Clayton is 15…
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What Television Taught Me
Dear Hope Nation, I’ve spent a lot of time in various recovery meetings over the years. Thus, I’ve heard a lot of explanations for the source, the cause, the genesis of addiction. For example, many folks believe in a genetic marker for addiction. The person prone to addiction has a gene switch that will be…
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Lab notes from my search for sleep
Dear Hope Nation, COVID-19 Vaccine update: It seems to have led to exhaustion and a need for excessive sleep. Inadequate (due to sleepiness?) lab notes follow. Lab Notes It’s early Monday morning as I write this. That last sentence is a lie except in a relative way, because it’s almost 9 am and I’m just…
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Elections Have Consequences
Dear Hope Nation, Elections have consequences. Although I don’t talk about it a lot these days, I am a veteran. For four years I served my country, primarily with the 8th Infantry Division in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. Although to younger readers this may sound as distant as the sinking of the battleship Maine in Cuba, the…
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Good scientists keep good lab notes. I am not a good scientist.
Dear Hope Nation, It’s Saturday morning at 8:27. Yesterday, I got my first vaccination for COVID-19. It was quick and easy and the only side- or after-effect was my left arm was sore this morning, with a minor pain that went away with a couple ibuprofens. I did have a dream last night in which…
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Platonic Drunkeness
For at least two reasons, I don’t get to write about philosophy very often. First, most people’s eyes and brains glaze over when the subject comes up, believing they’re in for Latin phrases and other even less clear language. I promise no cogito ergo sum nor ontological proofs will cross my lips here. Second, although…
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7 Habits of Highly Addicted People
Dear Hope Nation, While I have new thoughts bubbling up all the time, I’m not above stealing borrowing employing the fair-use doctrine to create derivative works for the purpose of satire. Typically, and in this case, I take smart and decent people’s ideas and render them either unintelligible or at least vastly different from their intended purpose, much…
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98% Excited and 2% Nervous
Dear Hope Nation, As you may have heard, a vaccine for COVID-19 has been released for distribution. Because we spend so much time with folks who may be positive for the virus, the Hope staff falls into a priority group for receiving the vaccine. In fact, I’ve signed up with the state and with the…
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Portraits
Dear Hope Nation, As I write this, I’m looking at a woman who is looking at me. It’s disconcerting, since I’ve been doing this for 30 minutes or so, all in the name of a project I’m very excited about. As you may know, I have three daughters in their 20’s. They get along well…
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We’ll Sing the Songs That Let You Know
Dear Hope Nation, You matter. I matter. We matter. That’s how I end of these letters and there’s a reason for that. Like many of you, I’ve been in that place where there is no friendly direction, where I rotated between being invisible or disgusting or embarrassing to the folks around me, where the mere…
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Archeologists & Detectives
Dear Hope Nation, Archaeology has to work with the stuff that gets found. For instance, much of what we know about Roman Britain isn’t based on written records left lying around for 1600 years; it’s conjecture drawn from types of pottery and crockery exhumed from the earth. It’s all a matter of inductive reasoning—drawing conclusions…
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Larissa – the complete story
Dear Hope Nation, A trigger warning: if long intricate profiles of people are not your cup of tea, you shouldn’t read today’s letter. Go grab a cup of coffee and find something shorter. This is a lengthy read. Good. It’s just us now. We’ve cleared out the folks for whom reading more than 1000 words…
Tiny White Box--Thoughts on Life, Death, Recovery, and Other Mundane Topics 