Human Contact – Professional Copywriter | Wyalusing, PA Bradford County

Friendships Fade as Living Pulls Us Apart

Note: This is an updated version of a Memorial Day blog I wrote about five years ago, both celebrating and mourning personages of the past who can only be reached by memories today. It’s funny how people in your life are there, flashing bright, briefly and with intensity, and then they are gone. This is especially true of military service in general and wartime duty in particular. You mourn the loss of guys you were close to— literally a [...]

By Wes Skillings|2023-02-19T01:49:22+00:00February 19, 2023|Aging, Companionship, Friends, Vietnam, War|

Get Over the Anger; Get on with What’s Left in Your Life

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 [...]

By Wes Skillings|2023-01-18T15:47:16+00:00January 18, 2023|Aging, Anger, Baby Boomers, death, Diet, Happiness, Hope, Politics, Retirement, Unity|

Common Sense Origins: Brain, Heart or Gut?

Why are pea-brained horses dubbed as creatures with common sense while more intelligent species are known for the silliness of monkey business and monkeying around? We hear a lot about common sense whenever disagreements occur nowadays. When someone is cornered to defend some position he or she takes, the source of this knowledge is often credited to common sense. I’ve explored this topic before, because common sense, judging by what we as individuals choose to believe, is [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-08-29T13:23:55+00:00August 29, 2022|Common Sense, Intelligence, Language, Learning, Social Issues, Social Media|

Quarantining with Covid Challenges Your Attention Span

Reading can be a challenge to your attention span. Then again, it’s a way to get one back — if you ever had one. Mary and I have another day of isolation before we can venture out into the real world. We both tested positive for Covid earlier this week while on a family vacation at a beautiful home on the shore of Lake Champlain just a handful of miles below the Canadian border. It was a [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-07-23T15:21:53+00:00July 23, 2022|Attention Span, COVID-19, Family, Health, Reading, Social Media|

Getting a Step Ahead of the Running Boom

Where were the real Camptown Races? This version making its own history. I grew up in Camptown, PA, and was there when this strange concept of people running through the woods for several miles was devised as the theme around which to build a community event and fund-raiser. When I say I was there, I should point out I was just a kid, but like everyone else in the village I had a job to do. It [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:41+00:00August 25, 2021|Camptown Races, Community Spirit, Running|

Be Grateful for Those Small Doses of Happiness

Life isn’t always a lark, so savor those happy memories and moments. “There is no happiness,” according to one proverb. “There are only moments of happiness.” Nobody is always happy, and the most you can hope for is happiness in small doses that sustain you over a lifetime. Often it is the memory of happy times that fuels overall enjoyment and contentment. The human mind is empowered with the magic of transforming unhappy times into happy memories [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:50+00:00June 9, 2021|Family, Friends, Fun, Happiness, Happy, Love, Memory|

Modern Superheroes Still Wear Masks

Why all the complaints about wearing masks? It’s creating a new industry. Masks, for some, have become a symbol of individualism and a reason to resist and proclaim their Constitution rights. What about the rights of people who don’t want to be exposed to bare-faced people? It’s not about your right to wear one. It’s about our right to get through this with as few casualties as possible. Masks, in comic book America, denote bravery and heroism. [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:09:59+00:00May 20, 2020|1918, Masks, Pandemics, Politics, Science|

Mosquitoes and Bats and Swine , Oh My!

Mosquitoes make even bats look good. How does a weakling become a bully— one of such immensity that the whole world cowers before its invisible fury? This bully, known familiarly as COVID-19, has a posse of some familiar characters in the animal kingdom who have helped set it free while imprisoning the human race. The corona of the coronavirus is a cushion of protein, reportedly fragile and easy to vanquish with sudsy soap, alcohol, bleach and other [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:10:00+00:00April 1, 2020|Bats, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Health, Humor, Mosquitoes, Pandemics, Rodents, Viruses|

Coming Remotely and Virtually Together

Your child’s access to bringing school into your home? I confess. I was one of the old cranks who pooh-poohed modern parents who bowed to arming their tweens and teens with smart phones, tablets and other devices that allowed them to inhabit the virtual realm. I reasoned, unreasonably I suppose, that they: 1. were afraid of being branded bad parents by their adult peers; 2. didn’t have the backbone to just say no their kids’ materialistic demands, [...]

By Wes Skillings|2022-01-24T09:10:01+00:00March 18, 2020|College, Computers, COVID-19, Education, Teachers, Technology, Virtual Learning|

What’s So Interesting in the Palm of Your Hand?

If it sometimes seems that life is spiraling out of control— or, for others, getting remarkably easier to control— due to technology. Nothing tells the story better than the cell phone. It’s as if science fiction is playing out in real time. I have seen this phenomenon a number of times in restaurants. Couples, even groups of three or four in a booth, absorbed in virtual reality and absolutely oblivious to each other. In one Florida establishment where you [...]

By Jeremy21|2022-01-24T09:10:40+00:00October 13, 2015|Social Media, Technology, Texting|