More of This & That

When I was invited to write a weekly column for The Bolivar Commercial twenty years ago, I decided to file away the essays for safekeeping, not knowing for certainty what I would do with them-pass them on, burn them to start a barbecue fire, or let my family (after my demise) ask, "What are we going to do with these essays?"Fortunately, I have a creative nephew, Steven Macklyn Hubbell, who is my assistant publisher and who has been willing to scan my newspaper clippings and assemble them in book form. In 2004, Bet and I self-published my first collection of weekly essays, titled This & That (which was also the title given to my weekly articles). I have continued to contribute my weekly observations to our fine local newspaper, and it has now been more than twenty years since I submitted my first article; so it seemed like this would be a good time to assemble the articles into a new collection. The result of this effort has been a three-volume collection titled More of This & That: Twenty Years of Essays. Volume 1 of the collection includes more than 200 hand-picked articles to launch the series, and Volume 2 contains nearly 300 articles published from 2003 through 2011. The book in your hands, More of This & That: Twenty Years of Essays, Volume 3 concludes the collection, and includes my newspaper columns published from 2011 through my most current essays as of the time of this book's publication (2019). I refer to myself as a "hobby writer," but I will confess that God has graced me with a keen eye for observation, a long life to enjoy learning about the magnificent nuances of the world around me, and a hunger to chronicle and share the remarkable things I have witnessed. It is with a thankful heart and a joyful spirit that I offer these reflections about my life journey for your enjoyment.