So much to be angry about and so little time. Okay, everybody. I just want you to tune in and mellow out, as they said in the commune before it was time-shared into a condo. Take a few deep breaths and count to ten. Now tell me, as calmly as you can: Why are we all so angry? Why all the sputtering and spitting? Have things really reached such a sad state? How is it that we’ve [...] READ MORE
Don’t be lonely too long or you might not have long to be lonely. Only the lonely know the way I feel tonight…— Roy Orbison Are you lonesome tonight? — Elvis Presley All by myself. Don’t wanna be all by myself.— Eric Carmen (covered by Celine Dion) Synonyms for loneliness and being lonesome include desolation, forlornness, reclusiveness and friendlessness. Just being alone doesn’t make all of us lonely or longing for companionship. Sometimes it can be quite [...] READ MORE
Jake, our smiling Corgi and the last chapter of my seven-dog life. When I get to thinking I’m old and approaching senility, I try to remember that in dog years I’m barely ten. In many ways, dogs are like milestones along my life’s journey. A dog’s life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Dogs are over the hill, or under the ground, before they reach 16. When you’re lazy, people accuse you of dogging it. When [...] READ MORE
Is there a difference between old and too old? Looking ahead to becoming a centenarian. Eight years ago, when I was a wet-behind-the-ears age of sixty-six, I wrote about “joining the legions of 90-and-older” one day, which was still almost two dozen years into the future. Well, that one day would have been October 7, 2037, which doesn’t seem so far away now. Therefore, with increasing optimism, I have expanded my goal to breaking the 100-year age [...] READ MORE
As with human triumph and celebrity, the sands of time eventually run out on us all. I was just a young reporter, still in my twenties, when I met Homer Baker. He was well into his 82nd year, had been blind for more than half of his life and he was living in a sparsely appointed room in the Williamsport YMCA. His vision began to desert him when he was still in his twenties and was totally [...] READ MORE
Cheer up! We’ve always got death to look forward to. Sometimes we get so caught up in the mean spiritedness of politics and man’s inhumanity to man, which is one male chauvinistic expression feminists don’t seem to mind, that we lose our grasp on humanity and the shared assets and liabilities that make us more similar than different. We cringe through morning updates on the slaughter of innocents in the Ukraine as we brave the tirade of [...] READ MORE
And the deaths keep piling up as gun rights and gun control positions solidify. The idea that TV networks and newspapers get their jollies from school children and other innocents murdered by a mentally ill or just plain evil shooter is both understandable and unfair. Most take pride in reporting the real story, fairly, factually and respectfully, and mass shootings often lead to dozens of stories in the ensuing months. The respectfully part is the key, and [...] READ MORE
Ralph was not just another face in the crowd but someone who will be long remembered. Here’s a story a fellow shared with me after the funeral of a mutual friend. He swore it was true, but even if it’s not, the message is worth repeating. The names have been changed to protect the ignorant. Ralph had worked in a management capacity for a small company whose founder and chief executive officer not only took him for [...] READ MORE
Jeremy with wife, Karen, and nephew, Ben. Learning strengths of being a survivor. September 11th seldom passes without notice in our household, which has dwindled to an elderly couple in an empty nest. We were 19 years younger, still adjusting to the youngest of our two kids embarking on a career after college, when our world was rocked— mine while covering my news beat at the county courthouse and my wife in her classroom at the local [...] READ MORE
Some slackers faced death sentences during the 1918 pandemic. I guess we are all familiar with the idea that history repeats itself, and, accordingly, if we don’t learn from the mistakes of the past, we’ll keep on making the same blunders. The Philosopher George Santayana gets the credit for best expressing this theorem with this assessment: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." He was looking at this from a historical perspective, a world view, [...] READ MORE
