EDISTO ISLAND, SC – For us, the magic of Steamboat Landing Road begins where the pavement ends, where the asphalt turns to dirt. From there, it is less than a mile to the landing, but at dusk it seems longer than that when we are on one of our nightly walks, watching the crabs crisscross in front of us as we search for frogs no bigger around than a penny. After it rains, as it often does on sweltering Edisto afternoons, the frogs are plentiful.

Even though our children are teenagers now, they still delight in capturing these frogs — just for a few minutes, anyways, giving them cute little names like Eddie or Gloria and rubbing their tiny pale bellies. Their legs, suspended in the air, are not much bigger than eyelashes.

Quite a few people have contacted me this week seeking an English translation of President Donald Trump’s recent reflections on Elton John, breaking records, hockey, which people need space and which ones do not, whether the brain is or is not attached to the mouth, and the correct order of importance of different body parts.

It has been about eight months since my stepfather died. My mother has been talking about getting her house in order for a while, but now she has reached the point of putting her thoughts into action. The question is what to keep, what to sell, what to pass on to the kin, what to donate, what to burn, and what to take to the landfill. We are outside, taking a brief and informal inventory. Plus, it’s the second day of summer and nice out, so it is just good to walk off a breakfast of pancakes and bacon with a little time in the sun.

I was only vaguely aware of who Anthony Bourdain was when news of his suicide swept the internet last week. Even though his show “Parts Unknown” had been on the air for the past five years and he had developed quite a devoted following during that time, somehow I had missed out. All I knew was that he was a television personality of some sort and his show had something to do with food. I guess I had foolishly dismissed it as just another of the scores of cooking shows and didn’t bother investigating it further.

My wife and I are introverts who pretend to be extroverts, both personally and professionally, which means that we are the kind of people who plan a party, and then immediately regret it once the invitations are sent.  

My daughter has become the person she hoped she would be at age seven. We should all be so lucky.

“When I was seven, I had a vision of my junior year in high school,” she said. “I wanted a car, a boyfriend and a nice dress for the prom.”

The first time I met Owen Gibby, he immediately reminded me of my favorite television character of all time, Deputy Barney Fife, and as I got to know him, that impression only intensified. They are about the same size and are both prone to exaggerated bug-eyed facial expressions, double takes, and dramatic pauses. I suspect that they learned at a very young age that being the funniest guy in the room has a lot of advantages for smaller guys trying to find their way in the world. Not only is being funny disarming, it turns out to be a better way to meet girls than anybody could have guessed.

When I was a student at Appalachian State University, I could have made the walk from Anne Belk Library to Sanford Hall in my sleep and often did, or nearly so, on those mornings after a late, coffee-drenched night writing a paper on one of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories, or working through the impossible genealogy of a William Faulkner novel, or racing the sentences of James Joyce toward the dawn.

It’s one of those late March days that can’t make up its mind whether winter is really over or might hang on for another of weeks. When the sun elbows through a patch of low, gray clouds, it’s warm enough to take off your jacket, but then the wind picks up and you put it back on.

Last week, a United Airlines flight attendant forced a passenger with a small dog to put the dog in an overhead storage bin during a flight, even though there were no vents for the dog to breathe. The dog did not survive the flight, and in less than a week, legislation was introduced into Congress to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. The bill is called the WOOFF Act — the Welfare Of Our Furry Friends.

When a defenseless puppy dies on an airplane, Congress is almost instantly roused to action. Why then, are our legislators so reluctant to provide the same level of care and concern for our children, when we have already lost so many to gun violence? How many mass shootings will it take before we see some meaningful legislation that could begin to turn the tide and make our schools, theaters, malls, and other public places safer?