Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Tag: Personal

  • Embracing my inner geek

    Down the Road is on hiatus, returning Monday, 26 September. I’m rerunning old posts in the meantime. I have never been cool. When I was a teenager, I didn’t enjoy how being uncool marginalized me. So I tried to improve my coolness quotient. I wore hipper clothes. I joined clubs at school. I tried not…

  • Eulogy for Buckethead

    Down the Road is on hiatus, returning Monday, 26 September. I’m rerunning old posts in the meantime. This is the story of Sugar, a wonderful dog I had who died eight years ago. My stepson was over at a friend’s house twelve years ago, running around in the back yard, when the Rottweiler next door sailed over…

  • Summer’s denouement

    Down the Road is on hiatus, returning Monday, 26 September. I’m rerunning old posts in the meantime. I’ve run this one many times; it’s one of my favorites. During my 1970s kidhood when schools started after Labor Day as God intended, my mid-August birthday always meant summer was beginning to end. By then, the afternoon sun…

  • 49

    My hair is thinning on top. I wondered if this would ever happen. It started happening to my dad when he was in his late 30s, and he tells me his dad went bald in his 20s. Now it’s my turn. I’m glad I’m tall, or everybody’d be able to see through to my scalp.…

  • A ring and a date

    We’re getting married two months from today! We’re keeping it simple. We’re inviting just immediate family: our parents, our brothers and sisters, our children, and all of their spouses. That’s still a lot of people — Margaret is seventh of eight children, and between us we have seven children! We’re having a small, short, simple…

  • License to grin

    My youngest son just got his learner’s permit, so I want to retell this story from 2009 of me getting my driver’s license. My friends had all had their driver’s licenses for a couple years when I finally got mine. My dad had given me some driving lessons but wasn’t very motivated about it, and…

  • Engaged

    Margaret and I agree: we’ve finally found the love of our lives. And when that happens, there’s just one thing to do. We plan to marry in July and honeymoon in Ireland in September. Margaret’s family is Irish, and some of her family still lives there, and so she’s wanted to make this trip for…

  • Headstone’s

    I first told this story when this blog was young, eight years ago. I haven’t been back to Headstone’s in almost that many years. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I still have the tie-dye shirt I mention in this story. When I was in college, I should have just had my work-study paycheck…

  • My themes for 2016

    Instead of making New Year’s resolutions, at the beginning of each new year I think of three words that represent the growth I want to experience in the coming 12 months. 2015’s words were gratitude, power, and realism. I focused on them as best I could until June, when I lost my job. And then I had the…

  • Making traditions up as you go

    A rerun from Nov. 2011, with an update at the end. It’s my ex-wife’s turn to enjoy Thanksgiving with our sons, so I’ll be home alone tonight. Don’t weep for me – we had the family, the fine china, the turkey, and the post-dinner coma last Saturday. When I was small, we always had Thanksgiving…

  • Grandpa and me

    I’m retelling this story from Sept. 2012 because I alluded to it on Monday and I need time to build up a backlog of posts. I love this story and I hope you do too. This is probably my favorite photograph of all time. Meet my grandfather, who is holding me shortly after my birth…

  • On Rabbit Hill

    It’s high time I retold this story that I first told in 2010. My childhood neighborhood was packed tightly along steep, narrow streets with tiny, thinly built lookalike two- and three-bedroom houses. These weren’t anybody’s dream homes; it was optimistic to call them modest. But they were attractive to working families getting their start. I…