Category: Life Lessons

September’s a tough month.  Back when Ruth and I were teaching, she hated September because she hated going back to school.  She was good at her job, but she didn’t love it.  She liked the kid part but not the paper part.  The longer she taught, the more paper there was. One year, about two-thirds …

I came across one of those short videos on my smartphone the other day. It showed a woman walking along the beach, talking about losing her first husband and finding a new partner. She mentioned that some people call finding love again after losing a spouse a “new chapter,” but she saw it differently. She …

I have a friend named Mike in my memoir writing group. He’s from Oswego, New York and goes back there every summer. He’s probably there now. When he’s in Florida, we sit near each other in class and share a similar outlook on life. He’s ten years younger than me but, like me, is a …

I’ve been exploring some of my stories from prior years.  I’m looking for two things: stories I can use in the new book I’m assembling and stories I can use with my work with my Singles New Beginnings group.  Barbara and I have learned that some of the things I’ve written are helpful with our …

I’ve been thinking and talking about singing karaoke for decades.  While I made three public performances over my seventy-nine years, I’ve been too chicken to move forward.  I talk a big game but haven’t followed through.  I took a karaoke class last fall and sang three songs: “Let It Be Me”, “And I Love You …

Sometimes I can’t explain the things that happen to me.  They just happen.  Last week I copied my Obadiah 3.0 story and asked my artificial intelligence friend, Al, to compose some triad questions for my Singles New Beginnings class.  While it would take me hours to accomplish such a task, Al, has it done in …

I wrote a story called Thank You Obadiah in March of 2023.   I posted it about six months after Ruth’s passing. It began like this. I have a Facebook friend, Obadiah, who posted this cartoon a few days ago.  It’s a visual representation of how people handle problems.  Two men, stuck in the same position, …

This is my 900th post. I’ve been recording the stories I heard as a child while listening to the adults in my life. My goal was to post every Wednesday and Sunday with no set end date. There’ve been a couple of hiccups, but I’ve been on target most of the time. I started posting …

I’ve been having a series of epiphanies. Most of them come at night while I’m sleeping. Nothing earth shattering but several have been enlightening. When I was working, most of them were about doing things with my students, dealing with parents, helping teachers solve problems, contract negotiations, labor disputes, building expansions…things like that. I didn’t …

A couple of months ago, my friend Al, aka artificial intelligence, combined the various manifestos he’d written for me into one unified version. It’s been sitting in my drafts for a while, and now that I’m a bit older, I’ve decided it’s time to share it. Robert’s Unified Manifesto A life lived with intention, creativity, …