Lee Martin

Last week, I posted an old photo on Facebook, a picture of me when I was 14 or 15. It was a Polaroid shot that my friend Doug took. In the photo, I’m sitting beneath a tree in my backyard holding my cat, Clyde. At first glance, this is a picture that makes me chuckle…

I saw my father juggle oranges once. No, that’s a lie, a flat-out impossibility because, as you know, my dad lost his hands in a farming accident when I was barely a year old. So, of course, I never saw him juggle oranges. Oh, but how I wish I had. I wish I had a…

When I wrote my second memoir, Turning Bones, I combined twelve years of research into my father’s side of the family with my imagination. These ancestors had left few documents behind, and furthermore, my family never talked much about them when I was growing up. My ancestors, then, were mysteries to me. They were, for…

Let’s start with the calla lilies. Cathy and I got home from a trip to Illinois late Wednesday night and found a box from ProFlowers, an online delivery service, on our front porch. A dozen calla lilies, complete with vase. Yellow calla lilies and white ones and purple ones and peach ones. Beautiful trumpet blooms…

Cathy and I enjoyed a weekend of company. First, a friend and former-colleague was our house guest. We all attended the wedding of a former student. Then on Sunday afternoon, a former student and her husband came out to the house just for some porch-sitting. What a vibrant weekend of connections with the dear ones…

This is my post for Memorial Day. Rather than reading my words, read these words from Brian Doyle, a wonderful writer and person, who left us much too soon. Last Prayer by Brian Doyle Dear Coherent Mercy: thanks. Best life ever. Personally I never thought a cool woman would come close to understanding me, let…

Summer Sundays, my thoughts turn to baseball and the way my father would “listen” to a St. Louis Cardinals game on the radio while he napped. Our house was full of stillness those days. After a week of labor on the farm, we slipped easily into rest come Sunday. My mother read the newspaper and…

This morning I find myself in my native southeastern Illinois on a day that promises to be summery: temperatures in the mid-80s and plenty of sunshine. In fact, I’m writing this from the public library that I used during high school back in the day when there was still something called a card catalog and…