The Restory Retreat Centre

  It is said that Calvin Coolidge, or Silent Cal, the 30 th  US president, didn’t work himself to a stanstill.    Taking into account that he generally slept 11 hours a night, supplemented by daily naps and some  three-month extended vacations, the conclusion that he worked a maximum of 4 and a half hours a day doesn’t seem too far-fetched. And the times he was in the Oval Office, he often pulled out  the bottom drawer of his desk, put his feet into it and counted the cars passing by on Pennsylvania Avenue.   When he passed away in 1933, Gertrude Stein reportedly remarked: “Coolidge dead? How can you tell?”   In 2 Kings 6 we are told of another leader, King Jehoram of Israel. With his city under siege by the Syrian army and Samaria experiencing a terrible famine, he walks on the  city wall. While doing so, he hears the horrific story of two mothers who started eating their children in an effort to stay alive. On hearing that he tear...

WHAT I HEARD AT THE DISCOUNT DEPARTMENT STORE Don’t touch that. And stop your whining too. Stop it. I mean it. You know I do. If you don’t stop, I’ll give you fucking something to cry about right here and don’t you think I won’t either. So she did. She slapped him across the face. And you could hear the snap of flesh against flesh half-way across the store. Then he wasn’t whining anymore. Instead, he wept. His little body heaved and shivered and wept. He was seven or eight. She was maybe thirty. Above her left breast, the pin said: Nurse’s Aide. Now they walk hand in hand down the aisle between the tables piled with tennis shoes and underpants and plastic bags of socks. I told you I would. You knew I would. You can’t get away with shit like that with me, You know you can’t. You’re not in school anymore. You’re with your mother now. You can get away with fucking murder there, but you can’t get away with shit like that with me. Stop that cry...