Starting in fifth grade, I always had a job. My first job was picking up golf balls at a driving range before school and on weekends. Then I worked at a funeral home tidying up before and after services. That job was kind of creepy. My next professional position was at a …
As I age, at times even gracefully, it dawns on me how important it is to spend time with people who bring something to the table. I don’t mean something like cinnamon rolls or money, but something like knowledge, friendship and honest feedback. If you like literature, I’d …
I have a trunk full of family photographs that have been just sitting in the back of my closet for years. Some are in little albums with torn covers, others are in glass frames, cracked and dusty with age. I thought I ought to pull out the photos to see what treasures I …
I want to be like Bat Masterson. He makes my life appear rather boring and mundane. As a young man in the 1870s, he was a buffalo hunter and scout. Bat became a gunfighter and tamed Dodge City, Kansas, when it was rough and wild. He was friends with Wyatt Earp and, later in …
So many of my aging buddies are playing more golf. Several of them have a dream of shooting a round that matches their age. Maybe it’s my poor selection of friends, but I don’t think it will ever happen to any of them. Those who play regularly establish what is called a …
I’m a lucky guy. I receive love from quite a large number of people. It comes in many forms, from close intimacy with a few individuals to acts of kindness and recognition from many others. Love drives me upward when I’m at my best. It also gives me footholds when I need to …
Love, as we age, is shown in many personal and strange ways. Close friend: “Don, I’m noticing your big right ear sticks out further from your head than your big left ear.” Me: “Why do you find it necessary to point this out to me today?” Close friend: “Well, …
Scott Stanley may have saved my marriage…my second one. He’s a friend and a research professor at The University of Denver who specializes in studying relationships. I thought I was an expert at retelling conversations of the past to win heated arguments. Not only did I …
Artie: “Here Don, I finished my autobiography. This is my whole story. What do you think?” Artie plops down hundreds and hundreds of typed pages on my desk. Me: “Wow, that’s a lot of pages.” Artie: “How long will it take you to publish ‘The Life of Artie’? All my …
I hate it when I write like I’m giving sage advice about aging. Yet, for today, I can’t help it. Another friend has retired without thinking through the consequences of leaving a career before figuring out what comes next. Based on a sample size of around 20, here are the …
