Terry has had during the night some terrible leg cramps in recent years. I was certain that he must be in terrible pain to let out those yelps as he awoke and tried to get himself out of bed and walk them off. I was sure of that pain because, of course, he would always…
When I attended Mark Twain Elementary School in St. Joseph, Mo., it was a relatively new building. I remember a vast expanse of grass that lined either side of a wide sidewalk that ran from the street to the front door. I also recall that one of the strict rules we were directed to…
One summer between university classes, I took a job as a counselor for the Campfire Girls. The camp was located near Parkville, Mo., in the deep woods above the Missouri River north of Kansas City. I had been a Brownie and a Girl Scout from elementary through junior high school years but Campfire Girls was…
I’m not sure how it got started. Perhaps I needed to feel like I was exerting some control in my life. But a couple weeks ago, I started cleaning. Deep cleaning. It began with taking 15 big garbage bags of clothes to the local charitable thrift shop. That alone took days, maybe even a week…
There was a time when I did a short stint at the Omaha headquarters of Northwestern Bell in their corporate public relations department. My parents were ecstatic. Working for the “phone company” was the epitome of stability in terms of both job and benefits. The only place to go was up. How many times had…
I suspect the photo could just stand on its own, but then it wouldn’t be much of a blog entry. The state bird of Missouri is the bluebird but I swear that even though I was born and raised there, I never laid eyes on a bluebird until we moved to Wisconsin a few years…
It was the perfect storm. Overnight on Friday, Microsoft provided an update to Windows 10. When I powered off my computer that night I had a choice between updating and shutting down or updating and restarting. So I chose to update and shut down and I headed off to bed. The next morning when I…
We’re fast approaching Memorial Day, the beginning of summer for many. And of all the things we associate with summer, baseball, whether we are fans of it or not, has to be among the top of the list. Most of us know the basics of baseball. The offensive team bats, tries to hit the ball,…
I distinctly remember the first symphony concert I ever attended. We were kids in elementary school and our twice-a-week music teacher prepared us for it weeks in advance so our anticipation was building. Not only were we going on a field trip, but we were joining elementary school kids from all over the city in…
Dad used to smoke filterless Camel cigarettes. I asked him why he smoked and he said he started smoking when he was 11 years old and he just couldn’t quit. When he was 11, it was 1922. There were no surgeon general warnings about tobacco and its side effects. It’s just what kids, mostly boys,…