“Evergreen Heights,” has nurtured six generations since the 1860s. Five of these generations produced poets. My father is now compiling a family poetry anthology from the works of these five generations.
STARLIGHT
Stars wink high in the sky,
as dawn draws on
sun reaps the sky.
When she is done
colors blaze
as she pulls down her scythe.
Since my mother’s death on May 1st, 2006, my father Erwin Thompson has taken on clearing brush on our 100-acre place, Evergreen Heights, in a major way…this, in addition to completing several new novels, calling squaredances, and hosting a weekly musical open house. Oh yes, and he’s about to celebrate his 92nd birthday on November…
My father loves womankind, and he is kindness itself to women. At 92 his current hobby is shepherding a family of adopted daughters through their tearful life moments…in extremely practical and tangible ways at times…in poetic ways at other times as in the poem we share with you today. This adopted daughter is my father’s…
Gary and Patty Thompson Happy birthday, Gary, as you celebrate 62 years of your happiness genius dedicated to being a good solid citizen, a good father and now grandfather and uncle and great-uncle and brother and son and husband, a good teacher, a good fix-it man (is hard to find)…a good human being. Today my…
I knew him personally. In my growing up years he was a legend. He lived on Clifton Hill, so designated because it was a pretty formidable hill on the road from the main highway to the little settlement of Clifton Terrace. He was a veteran of the 1898 Spanish-American war. In his younger years he…
Writing is an effort of untangling the skeins of thought. Rather than rolling them up in a ball, all neat and tidy, the writer finds plain cloth to embroider them. With each strand of thought stitching through the other the writer makes a new design. My sister and I embroidered in the back seat of…
When my brother, Gary Thompson, was 13 years old, he took a step into manhood. My father, Erwin A. Thompson, remembers the event like this. —JGR Gary always liked the out of doors. Fishing, hunting, and trapping were things that he enjoyed and liked to spend his time at. We used to trap rabbits in…