Ezra's Essays

Month: June 2014

  • Obituary: Ezra Edgar Carr passed away on June 11, 2014

    Ezra Edgar Carr passed away at his home on Wednesday, June 11, 2014. Ed was born in Clayton, Mo., in 1922; he was the youngest of eight children, five of whom survived childhood. As a child, he was so shy he was once sent to the Missouri School for the Deaf under the mistaken impression…

  • EHHH… WHAT’S THAT YOU SAID?

    Here is a little Missouri story that has no effect on the current state of the world. It is memorialized here not because it is a great story; but rather, as time takes its toll on my brain, I may forget all about it. So if I write these thoughts down now, when the television…

  • “I’M EVERYBODY” – VERNON LUDLOFF

    It may very well be that this essay should be entitled “Back to the Future.” In my current situation, I am of course unable to see the action taking place on television. I listen to the dialogue on television and in many cases, I can determine who the speaker may be but in other cases…

  • TAKE ME OUT TO THE AFRICAN BALL GAME

    The title of this essay is a bit misleading because at the time this game took place, Africans played no baseball at all. On the other hand, it is a celebration of a game played by GI’s late in 1944 or 1945 between two clubs whose managers disliked each other with such intensity as to…

  • ON FEAR AND DUTY

    When it comes to fear, this might be the first essay you will ever read which does not make an allusion to Franklin Roosevelt’s thought that we have “nothing to fear but fear itself.” In this essay, I propose to comment on three kinds of fear that are prevalent today. Under ordinary circumstances, I avoid…

  • MILLBURN AND TERRORISM | Everybody Has A Story

    Advancing age seems to have done considerable violence to my memory. From the time I started to school, it was my belief, which I thought was shared by all other Americans, that this was a nation of immigrants. As it turns out now, people who seek asylum in this country are more often regarded as…

  • COMPASSION BEYOND ALL REASON

    This is an essay that was run over by the events of this week. For two or three weeks, it had been my intention to write an essay having to do with civility. I had thought that the title of the proposed essay might be, “Civility, Decency, and Compassion Toward Others.” But as I said,…

  • BE A MAN

    William Meredith Carr must have had a terrible hangover on October 10, 1881, because he named his newly born son Ezra Edgar. That mistake was compounded when in 1922, that Ezra passed that name on to me. It has always been my belief that only the Holy Ghost or Moqtada al Sadr has a more…

  • CARR PORTFOLIO

    Among the news items that were offered today on July 13, 2006, was the auction of the plays of William Shakespeare. Apparently Mr. Shakespeare had thirty five plays that were included in a volume called “The Folio.” It was auctioned today and the winning bidder was a gentleman who offered five million dollars for the…

  • DOCTOR, MAY I HELP YOU WITH YOUR WORK? A TREATISE ON PRETENTIOUSNESS

    This essay is intended primarily for those who practice the art of medicine. The first part is devoted largely to those who practice ophthalmology. The second part refers to all of the physicians who are currently in practice. The title of this essay will inform you that it is my intention to offer some cogent…