Category: Life Lessons

When I was a kid my mom and dad had a percolator to make coffee. They put water in the pot, ground coffee in a metal basket, inserted the basket into a metal tube that fit inside the percolator bottom, put the top on the percolator, placed the percolator on the kitchen stove, and fired …

When I began my look into meeting new women on a dating site, I moved forward cautiously.  It was new territory, and I didn’t want to make any wrong moves.  Turns out I haven’t made many moves at all.  The ones I had in my youth are gone. Over the past several months I’ve seen …

If I ever publish another book, I think I’ll call it Based on a True Story. That’s what all my writing is. While I don’t look down on those who write fiction, writing about my life as the stories reappear is just easier for me. As I’ve written before, it’s the truth as I remember …

I applied to be superintendent of Britton-Macon Area School in 1988.  I was one of six selected to be interviewed.  I had a choice of interview dates and times.  I chose the final day and preferred the final time, but that slot was already taken. I believed that the first and last candidate had an …

My time in Addison was great. That’s where the kids grew up. Ruth and I lived there for forty-three years. We didn’t have Michael when we arrived, and he was forty-two, married for more than ten years, when we left. I was hired on August 16th, 1977, the day Elvis Presley died. Once I knew …

My first thought regarding a master’s degree was, “I’ll study to become a counselor”. I made an appointment with Western’s counseling department, and the dean of the school interviewed me. It was, without a doubt, my worst interview ever. When he asked why I wanted to get into counseling I said, “I like talking to …

I’ve been watching the most recent season of The Crown.  It’s the sixth.  The thing I find most interesting is most of the decisions made by the “royal family” are made by tradition.  They do what is expected and not necessarily what they want to do.  That’s how they operate each of their lives. The …

I don’t recall any of the kids first words. I know they each have a “baby book” and whatever they said is written in their respective book.  If I was to hazard a guess, they probably offered some version of mom or dad.  Probably mom.  I do know David’s first sentence.  We were driving home …

2023 is drawing to a close. It seems like it just arrived and now it’s gone. It was a year to remember for me.  It was my first full year without Ruth.  The end is a bit different than the beginning, but that’s just because her loss was still raw last December.  The passage of …

I recently joined a second writer’s group called Writers League of the Villages.  I heard about them a year ago when I joined the Memoir Writers Group.  I went to my first meeting last Wednesday.  All new members were asked to introduce themselves, tell what type writing we do, and what “village” we live in. …