I’ve enjoyed a sweaty week as I tackled the grass strip running down the middle of our driveway. After several years of driving in the same track the middle of the driveway is never disturbed and a variety of weeds assume that they have the right to grow there. There’s something unbecoming when a driveway has a six inch tall strip of grass marring its appearance. I would classify it a “bush league” appearing driveway and passerby’s probably smile and…..
I have always loved animals. Even my own children have made fun of me for the extremes I go to protect animals. They laugh as I shoo boxelder bugs out the front door or transport a giant spider to a safer place. When I was a coordinator at the Bonanza Education Center I experienced animal cruelty that haunts me to this day. A third grade student screamed, “Mr. Mike!” and pointed to a huge, and I mean huge, spider resting…..
It was a Sunday and we had decided to take a road trip. My wife Kathie and I both love small towns so we decided to explore some towns we had never visited before. But as we began our journey I just wasn’t feeling it. Exploring small towns just didn’t seem to be the thing to do on this particular Sunday. Looking back I realize that feeling was a premonition of what was about to take place. We were traveling…..
It was fifty-seven years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday. We were gathered around our family’s kitchen table visiting with Mr. Findlay. He was in the process of negotiating with my Dad for the purchase of our family home. Dad had been forced to sell the farm and it had become the property of the Federal Wetlands. That required that all the farm buildings had to be removed and the farm relinquished back to nature. I was…..
I have always admired one of nature’s amazing creatures the hummingbird. Nature’s ‘helicopter’ describes this delicate little bird that hovers, flies in reverse seemingly as easily as it flies forward and does it all with astonishing speed. Around our yard they are very rare and when one is spotted our whole family crowds to the windows, noses pressed against the glass watching the little bird’s acrobatics as it searches the flowers for nectar. I have been feeding birds for many…..
Seven years ago I received a blow to my ego but as the years have passed my bruised ego has fortunately begun to heal. The moment the injury occurred I realized it had been my ego that had taken the hit. But just to be sure I grabbed my iPad and asked it for a definition of the word ego. I have never been able to stump my iPad and it quickly responded, “a person’s sense of self-esteem or self…..
Spring is one of my four favorite seasons of the year. Yep, there’s something to love about all four seasons. But spring can be the most frustrating. As I’m sitting down to write this blog I am exhausted. I’m not sure if it’s because I just finished planting the garden this morning or because I’m still recovering from the eighteen holes of golf I played yesterday afternoon. Actually it might be a combination of the two. There is also the…..
One of the first investments I made when I retired from teaching was to buy a metal detector. I have not used it as much as I’ve wanted to however. It seems golfing, writing blogs, gardening, lawn work, Facebook, Hallmark movies and marketing books have tended to dominate my waking hours. This weekend I decided it was time to get the twenty year old metal detector out of the closet, replace the batteries and go exploring. Again I faced the…..
I had a sizeable amount of cash stored in an online bank. Well, okay to me it was sizeable, to many of my readers it might just be considered a pittance. Since it was part of my ‘rainy day’ savings I did not frequent the account. I just assumed it would be safe and available should the time arise when it would be needed. Then I got a call from my income tax lady who was in the process of…..
Perhaps I’m using the word ‘friendship’ a little loosely as I begin this blog. It was a very short friendship as I look back on the experience. It began in the early summer of 1961 and it lasted about two minutes and thirty seconds. Okay, okay I realize this needs a little clarification. I had just completed my junior year in Clinton High School. My two brothers and I had just begun our summer jobs working for a farmer throwing…..