Brian Lowry Photos

06/24/2026

I woke up this morning with Mom on my mind. In memory, I saw her in her flowered apron, the one with scalloped frills along the lower edge. She was in her beloved, little kitchen. The old, wood cutting board rested on the table covered in flour and bits of kneaded dough. Next to the cutting board, two pie tins filled with dough which had already been pressed into the pans.

Along the upper edge, one carried the finished trim work brought on by decades of practice. What I saw active in my mind was the second pie tin, spinning in rhythmic subordination to Mom's hands as she worked the fore and middle finger of her left hand against the dough and into the fore finger of her right hand. In rapid motion, those gnarled, arthritic hands worked painfully, skillfully, artistically around the upper perimeter.

In our youth, I didn't consider the silent, lonely pains Mom carried into her work. I only saw her mastery at baking. Now that my 68th year is approaching, I know her body held pains unexpressed. She kept them, but carried on.

Though her death has kept us apart for thirty-one years, my mind holds her closely. I've learned that we go on, living in the absence of many loved ones. We go on by faith. We go on forever affected by how their lives furnished ours with invaluable, impenetrable lessons and memories.

Grief does not fully pass away. We come to accept it. We come to rejoice in the sweet by and by, knowing we'll meet on that beautiful shore. We come with thankful hearts knowing our loved ones abide in the immediate presence of God. In time, though grief has its continuing place in our lives, we think more often of our loved ones in the present tense. I wonder what Mom's day is like this day in her eternal home. What specifically might she be doing in her own never ceasing praise and joy? I can't be sure of the details, but I am sure of her thorough, perfect, painless peace, love and joy. And that carries my mind from memories I'll continue to hold dear to her present life and much gratitude.

06/23/2026

06/23/2026

What does this say about the Trumpledump administration? Pretty obvious.

06/22/2026

Today's roses in bloom

06/22/2026

December 21, 2010


Clarke Says Republicans Must Put Politics Aside for the Sake of 9/11 Survivors

(Washington D.C.) – Yesterday, H.R. 847, the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, was blocked from passage in the House of Representatives by House Republicans. This legislation would provide medical monitoring and treatment to the World Trade Center first responders and survivors who were exposed to toxins at Ground Zero.

“It is unfortunate that House Republicans decided to vote against legislation that would help the families and heroes of 9/11 get the services they need to continue their healing process,” said Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke. “Our first responders and 9/11 survivors deserve better than this blatant partisan grandstanding.”

06/21/2026

Clarence Alvin Lowry - Dad
March 22, 1915 to Sept 5, 1984

In terms of years, it seems impossible that Dad was born 111 years ago today. 111 years is longer than the period of time between the Civil War and my own birth, 94 years.

I was 25 years old when Dad died of lung cancer. He was 69. He lived through the 1918 flu. He lived through both world wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War. He saw automobiles go from the 20 hp Model T with a top speed of 40 mph, to man on the moon.

He could work the daily crossword puzzle in the Courier Journal in roughly 15 minutes, the entire puzzle, and do it that quickly every day all year long without ever missing a word. Though he wasn't a writer, he stored more words and their meanings in his mind than anyone I've ever known. No one else I've known in my 67 years comes close. He was a thoughtful, logical, quick-witted thinker. Once, recently, I entertained the question, "Why didn't he write and put all those words together into tangible evidence of his knowledge, feelings and talent?"

It took two seconds to answer that question. He literally did not have time. He worked 44 of his 69 years at Morgan's Packing Company, up each morning at 4 am, at work by 5 am, home at 4 to 4:30, thoroughly spent. 44 years. Oh, and he helped Mom raise 11 children, leaving him thoroughly spent. Can you imagine 3 teenage girls, close in age, closer in being strong-willed, and close enough to erupt at each other often.

Can you imagine, after those 3 girls, 4 boys and a very young girl at home, every day, stirring every day, noisy every day when you came home from long hours of work? Can you imagine the 3 oldest kids already married and bringing home, often, their 10 kids who happen to be roughly the same age as your last 2 kids? If you can, you know why Dad wasn't a writer.

He was a hard, dependable worker as noted. Additionally, he was a sports dad. Five of the last six kids played or participated competitively in basketball, baseball, track, tennis, football, cross-country, cheerleading. We took part in Hi-Y, the Sunshine Society, both service groups, French Club, Honor Society, Future Teacher's Association, Class officer positions, etc.

He was a loving brother, who never failed to visit or assist his sisters, Jane, Barbara, Rachel, Exie, and brother, Lowell as they had need.
He loved family gatherings and made them a priority.

He was a master gardener, an avid fisherman, an expert butcher of family-raised cows and hogs. He was a rabbit hunter, a quail hunter, a trapper, a fisherman. Most of his life these activities were necessities for providing enough food.

In later years, fishing, gardening, mushroom hunting, playing euchre became fun activities. By then, he had outlived his youthful days. Every day, you could see the tiredness in his eyes, every day, you could see how much pain he bore in his feet and legs.

Why didn't a man of vast words and understanding, write? He had more pressing things to do and he managed to do them with all of his child-like heart. But, at last, he did write, extensively.

He wrote his character, his love of life, his love of family, his love of singing, his love of the natural world, his love of outdoor sports, especially fishing, into the hearts and minds of his siblings, his children, his grandchildren and his co-workers.

As I look back on it, this 111th year since his birth, he was an exemplary writer. All who knew him are honored to hold the trustworthiness of his words, the goodness of his selflessness, his wonder of the given world, his love, active love, the love of one man toward almost innumerable people.

As long as those of us who knew him personally live, a multitude of people read his writing every day in the lives of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His writing goes beyond a pleasant read and stretches out as a comforting hug and a deep, deep voice still at work, still healing, still teaching, still encouraging.

06/20/2026

United States Christian denominations = several thousand plus thousands more independents with varying ideologies & splits which occur regularly.

An anecdote of a man stranded on a deserted island illustrates one of the issues. After many years, a ship sails close by the island and the man is rescued. The ship’s captain comes ashore, notices three huts that the man built, and asks, “Tell me about these huts.” The man replies, “The first hut is my home, and the second hut is my church.” The captain asks, “What is the third hut?” The man replies, “Oh, that is where I used to go to church.”

And I'm supposed to get in line with the idea of government being more Christian oriented? Christian ideals are far, far too personal and, yes, divisive to ever serve the ideals of a UNITED States.

B.L.

06/19/2026

"America has the best politicians money can buy." ~Will Rogers

"Money often costs too much." R.W. Emerson

That doesn't say much for the beneficence of money, does it? I surely wish the Supreme Court justices had spent some time reading Emerson, Thoreau, Will Rogers, Mother Theresa, John Woolman, the Bible, etc before deciding for Citizens United in 2010. We've suffered since and we'll continue to suffer as long as such laws totally pummel the ideal of "we the people".

"When we quit living in the price and start living in the place, we know we're following a different line of succession."

I keep returning in my mind to the desire to follow the honest line my parents and much of their generation walked rather than the fault line of mere money. They had everything but money.

As Justice Stevens said at the time of the Citizens United debacle, "A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold." There is little doubt that we have not been functioning effectively since, relative to the election process as a whole.

Effective politics (democracy) must come from the local level up, not from the top down. So long as the power elite, from either side, are the only ones who can purchase a spot at the top, then too much will flow from the top down and more and more people will become either disinterested or so beholden to the upper level politicians as merely "providers of jobs" that they lose sight of their own independent abilities.

Wendell Berry nailed it with these thoughts: "We live, as we must sooner or later recognize, in an era of sentimental economics and, consequently, of sentimental politics. Sentimental communism holds in effect that everybody and everything should suffer for the good of "the many" who, though miserable in the present, will be happy in the future for exactly the same reasons that they are miserable in the present.

Sentimental capitalism is not so different from sentimental communism as the corporate and political powers claim. Sentimental capitalism holds in effect that everything small, local, private, personal, natural, good, and beautiful must be sacrificed in the interest of the "free market" and the great corporations, which will bring unprecedented security and happiness to "the many" - in, of course, the future.

These forms of political economy may be described as sentimental because they depend absolutely upon a political faith for which there is no justification, and because they issue a cold check on the virtue of political and/or economic rulers. They seek, that is, to preserve the gullibility of the people by appealing to a fund of political virtue that does not exist. Communism and "free-market" capitalism both are modern versions of oligarchy. In their propaganda, both justify violent means by good ends, which always are put beyond reach by the violence of the means. The trick is to define the end vaguely - "the greatest good of the greatest number" or "the benefit of the many" - and keep it at a distance." ~W.B.

The Washingtons, Jeffersons and Lincolns of the current world are too genius to get caught up in this current model of politics. A change of presidents alone has not and will not correct the problem. Only a fundamental and radical restructuring of the process will do that, a restructuring that allows citizens to choose people of character, not merely people of means.

Our earliest leaders accomplished much from humble beginnings. A good dose of humility, self-doubt and self-scrutiny from potential leaders would be a good beginning. There's some hope that comes out of honest ignorance in search of answers, but little hope that comes out of unbridled pride.

George Washington, Abigail Adams, James Madison, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass, to name a few, demonstrated the strong vein of humility that ran through their lives.

Unhealthy pride pushes one away from others; it destroys the ability to cling to the ideal of community as one should, not in miserable self-debasement, but in reasoned humility. True humility enables true compassion. The recent crap talk about empathy being a weakness is nothing more than a strike against community to the benefit of the single-minded and biggest holders of mammon.

~B.L.

06/17/2026

Never forget what this inhuman thing did leading up to that day, that day, and immediately after.
And never forget his political side for it's correct condemnation, followed soon by their total acceptance of this day and his putrid, harmful life.

06/17/2026

Would someone please show me that trump is loving, kind, patient, gentle, self-controlled, slow to anger, selfless, humble, faithful.

If you're even remotely honest, you'll have an exceedingly hard time.

Would you, on the other hand, have any trouble giving concrete and multiple examples of his sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions?

Galations Chapter 5 does not, in any way, support trump as a man with any Godly character able to reflect Biblical values. So, I remain perplexed at white-evangelical support for this slimy madman.