I met Wilke in Eldridge Hall, one of the newest dorms on Western Michigan’s campus, in the fall of 1965 . He wasn’t the first guy I met, and to tell you the truth, we really didn’t hangout together until the summer prior to our junior year. Most of us were known best by our …
Regret and Fear
It isn’t the burden of today that drives men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today. Matthew Kelly “The Rhythm of Life” To be honest, I’ve never read Kelly’s book. I ran across the quote somewhere and it struck …
Crash Up Derby
I contemplated becoming a race car driver in my early teens. If I made the move, I would have favored road races. I didn’t see the point of racing around an oval track. I saw it as a series of left hand turns. Road races were more my style. You made right as well as …
Marking History
I’ve run across several ways to keep track of a family’s growth on-line. People have come up with several creative ways to track all sorts of things. I saw one father who took a picture of his daughter everyday for the first year of her life. Another took a picture each week until the day …
13
Eva “turned” 13 yesterday, and that’s what the day she was born seems like, yesterday. We all gathered for her birth. The day was scheduled in advance, so even Uncle Mike could make the trip from California to be on hand like he had two years prior when Brady was born. Her birth was uneventful. …
My Movie Daze
I ran across a publicity picture of my movie daze the other day. It’s amazing what you find while packing up 43 years. I have a lot of stuff. In any case, the picture reminded me of the first time Ruth and I took Michael and BZ to Vegas. It was over a holiday break …
Magnus Strongbeard
Back in the day when a child was born you got what you got. Each birth was a surprise. No one knew in advance if they were having a boy or a girl. I recall how disappointed I was when our neighbor, Polly, told me my mom and dad went to the hospital to get …
The Summer of 2020
The summer of 2020 has been challenging for everyone. We’ve been asked to mask up, wash rinse and repeat, stand six feet apart, and stay home. Ruth and I have followed the directions as prescribed but still managed to keep life interesting. In June we explored homes in Holland and Saugatuck because two of our …
Hogan, Hagen, and Proben
I play golf every Wednesday morning in a two man “senior” scramble at the The Grande in Jackson. You must be at least sixty years old to participate. I started playing right after I retired. I’ve had two partners for the past baker’s dozen years. Early on my partner and I placed “in the money” …
You Can’t Take It Personally
I worked in public education for forty years. The longer I worked, the less I knew. Knowing what you don’t know may be the most important thing to know. Public education is a challenging career. You deal with the two things that matter most to parents, their children and their money. Everyone has been to …