Category: Life Lessons

My parents took a trip to Hawaii while I was working in Addison.  I’m not sure of the year, but they left in the fall.  I was at a conference in Dearborn just prior to the trip, so I stopped in one evening to see them.  They were excited, shared some minimal trip details, and …

Ruth is a Tegestologist.  She hasn’t always been one. Her compulsion began like most.  She had one and then another. She could have walked away, but she chose not to.  Addiction is difficult to handle on your own and there are no support groups for Tegestologists. She came down with the affliction twenty-five years ago …

A little black book is a notebook containing an individual’s contacts and their personal information.  Like many phrases containing the word black, this one refers to something mysterious.  People sometimes refer to a journal, or part of a journal, as their black book or little black book. Some have been known to be full of personal secrets that might be …

The following summer, Ruth, the three kids, and I planted a garden in a community plot a few miles from our house.  We thought it would be a good learning experience for David, Elizabeth and Michael.  The gardening project was sponsored by Jackson Community College.  The college prepped the land, provided access to water, and …

Our first summer as a married couple, Ruth and I lived on Kalamazoo’s Stockbridge Avenue, and I decided to plant a garden.  I’d never planted one before but thought it couldn’t be that difficult, so I dug up a ten-by-ten patch of earth behind our garage.  I just turned over the soil, did my best …

I had my first interaction with a transexual during the early 80’s.  I was the middle school principal in Addison and a mom made an appointment with me to discuss transferring her son to our school.  She came into my office and took a seat. She explained she wanted to transfer her son to Addison …

I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot. He lived to be seventy-nine and a half. I’m four and a half years short of his mark. Although I made a deal with my mom to live at least as long as she did, there’s no guarantee I’ll make another eighteen years. That’s the goal, but …

My cousin, Gene, was a big brother to me.  He was four years older, so he passed several of his discoveries on to me.  When I was nine, he asked me if I still believed in Santa Claus.  I did because I knew my mom and dad wouldn’t buy the things I received from Santa.  …

I enjoy playing cards.  I got the bug from my parents. Mom played pinocle with a group of friends for several years.  They rotated the host site from lady to lady. They played for a few hours and ate fancy snacks and desserts. When they played at our house, my sisters and I got the …

The Parkinson support group helped both Mom and Dad learn what to expect from the disease.  They knew he wasn’t going to “get better” because there’s no cure. He could “live better” if he followed the advice of his doctors and adjusted as he aged.  They learned people didn’t die from Parkinson’s, but rather with …