What strong utterance did your mom blurt out at you when you weren’t being the perfect child she had dreamed of raising? (Come on now, your mother must have lost it every now and then.) My mother, Irene, valued gumption over any other positive trait. Just sitting or standing …
Lucy, a good friend, tells me she wants everyone to like her. She gets downhearted if she suspects someone doesn’t warm up to her affable way. I tell Lucy I fix a wonderful chicken vegetable soup based on suggestions I’ve received from many people over the years. I …
Simple tasks that were second nature to me for decades have now become challenges. Putting my socks on in the morning is one of them. Either my legs got longer or my arms shorter, but now there are often a few inches separating my foot from the outstretched sock shaking in …
Looking back on my sports career, only a few minor obstacles kept me from being a famous pro athlete in either basketball or football. I close my eyes and see visions of me being interviewed by ESPN or signing autographs for all the little kids who have dreams of being just …
For those of you falling behind in Aging 101, you have the opportunity to complete this extra credit assignment. Make a list of those things you know you should be doing, but you don’t. Below are five of out of the nearly 100 I came up with. This was a no-brainer challenge …
Some men, as they age, continue to have that rugged, masculine look. That’s not me. I never was a Clint Eastwood kind of guy, and aging hasn’t helped me a bunch. The same goes for a close friend of mine, Tony, who worked at The University of Wisconsin with me decades ago. We …
I try to follow Shakespeare’s advice when writing this blog. But darn, that’s a hard order for me to follow. Adjectives and adverbs can look so delectable. They can dress up a boring sentence to make it appear to be a bigger deal than what it is. I get sucked in by …
My daughter, Kate, left this morning to go back home to Denver. It’s such a joy to have her visit. We’ve been a loving team for over 50 years. I think there’s something magical about the relationship between a dad and a daughter. Kate and I have always been close. In the …
Stanley Proctor was a favorite of the nuns and Father Michael at Saint Cecilia Grade School. He looked so pious. He was the first to learn the Latin necessary to be an altar boy. Often, Stanley stayed in at recess to help clean the chalkboards or just follow Sister Mary …
In their late 70s, Vern and Irene lived in a little house in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. I’d visit them often as I roamed the East, selling Interactive Journals. The weather became a huge point of concern. My parents would hunker down in what they called the Florida Room, …
