Point Made

Sorry about last week. Sorry about what? Ah, I'm sorry I didn't publish my weekly post. Oh, you didn't notice. Okay. Moving on. The week before this, I attended the Annual Bud Wittwer / Mark de Young Memorial Golf Tournament. It has been a tradition of many years and is always held at Pine Hills Golf course in Gresham and hosted by Sue and Dave Lee. The gathering memorializes those members of the Royal Order of Toads who have received the Croak Award. They are awarded this distinction because they have passed on. The day begins at Sue and Dave Lee's cabin on Pine Lake for breakfast, then eighteen holes of golf at Pine Hills, followed by a cookout and awards ceremony back at the cabin. The day was hot and humid. I played, or at least hit shots, on all eighteen holes for the first time this year. I knew something was wrong when I found that I had to lay down and rest after we got back to the cabin. I took about a forty-five-minute nap, fo...

Time heals many wounds. Forgiveness seems to come slower. Forgetting may be impossible until a number of people die. I think of the way our society is today with its multifaceted divisive issues. Some say the problem is the internet and social media. I disagree to an extent. I believe the divisions in our society over many issues has been in place for a long time. However, I will grant you not having to face our neighbors face to face, by inventing an online identity name with the randomly drawn letters from a Scrabble game and being able to imitate the many talking heads on television Social media provides a place to exercise our frustrations. We all look outside of our silo for a world we wish would exist. When we don't find it, we are disappointed which can fester into anger. When we find people that don't agree with us, we question their intelligence and motivation. Even in the face of good evidence, facts become disputed We use and invent derisive na...

If there ever was a time to review my lifestyle it was when I found out I gained five pounds. Yup there it was. My jeans didn't feel tight because they always need stretching when they come out of the wash. The need to wear my belt over one hole wasn't because I was tucking in my shirt. No, I had put on weight. I checked my food log.  (A habit I developed while on Weightwatchers. If you bite it, write it) Was I truly using only two teaspoons of peanut butter on my morning toast? Is that Skinny Cow treat really only 150 calories? Did I count my gummy bears or guess? All the important questions. The thing that disappointed me is I know I'm exercising more besides going to the gym, I'm mowing the lawn, bike riding and walking more. Oh, Wait! I've only been to the gym once in two weeks. But that was because I was on vacation in Seattle. So then, there was all of that walking in the airline terminals. Well, Twice anyway. How about...? Nothing ...

Vacation. How's the Weather? After my wife and I returned from our visit to Seattle, with an unexpected side trip to O'Hare in Chicago, I'm back in my writing chair. First the Seattle trip. We always seem to be in Seattle when the weather is nice. Don't ask me why. I haven't a clue. I think it might be just a comparative thing. Anytime people from that area complain about their cold and damp climate, I tell them what cold means in Wisconsin and that when they have to shovel the rain they are complaining about I feel bad for them. While we were there, the sun shined brightly even if it occasionally had to fight some big puffy clouds. Truth be told like Wisconsin, Washington needs some rain. The true test of weather in Seattle is your ability to "see the mountain". In the gloomiest of circumstances seeing Mount Rainer is impossible. On a clear day, you can't miss it. We were leaving the downtown stadium where the Seattle Sounder's, the Major Lea...

Tis Summer,   where every weekend seems to be hot, humid and eventful. We are in the midst of, what I call, the one hundred and twenty days of possible good weather in Northern Wisconsin. Our drought continues. As a result, my lawn experiment reveals unintended but interesting outcomes. I and this was against my better judgment, treated our lawn with "Weed and Feed". This branded product is supposed to eliminate weeds and promote the growth of green grass. The other thing, the thing you have to think about, it does is increase the number of times you have to cut the grass. I've often stopped people in the middle of their tirade about how many times they cut the grass to inquire if they fertilize their lawn. If they tell me they do, my mindset switches from empathy to contempt. Because I volunteered to cut my neighbor, Harley's lawn this summer, I thought about treating his also. In the end, I did not spread the chem...

We old folk at some point start thinking of how much time we have left. Some of us think about it a lot and others not so much, but we do think about it. Having looked at life, I would have to say I lived it both rationally and often irrationally. I would categorize my taking the motorcycle safety courses at the age of 68 as one of those irrational moments. It was only when I was satisfied with the options I had left, I calmed down a little. I recognized there are some things older folks have in common during this period. Those of us who are healthy want to be relevant. By that I mean, we want to be doing something useful. We want to be doing something that if we couldn't do it anymore, they would have to get someone else to do it. In reflecting back on my life, I have to say that I have a restless spirit. Endlessly curious, I have done a lot of things, but none of them particularly good. I was what we used to call a jack of all tra...

Living in a racist society: So much has been said and written about how we fooled ourselves into thinking we were in a Post Racist Society because we voted for a black President and even re-elected him. It took the nomination of Donald Trump with his blatant and outright legitimizing of Far Right Wing of bigots and white supremacists to require us to recognize how wrong we were. If anything, The election of Barak Obama was a rallying point for that part of our society that is frightened of losing its control of their relevance in our future. To them becoming a minority and to coexist with people that don't look like them is incomprehensible and unacceptable. Their leaders are varied but most visible in the political world are what many, including myself, refer to as "old white men". They could be called silly old white men except that what they do and say causes so much pain and suffering to people who for the most part cannot defend themselves, that it's not fun...