Good friends make fun of me when they discover I enjoy singing along to country and western songs. I take the insults with great pride and belt out, “I’m a member of a country club. Country music is what I love.” That generally gets the bad guys on their way. These are the …
Here is a special opportunity for us, thanks to Ben. I’ve known Ben for over 50 years, his wife Ann for even longer. I love them both. Ben is in his final stages of chronic kidney disease: incurable, final, close to death. Ben and Ann have agreed to share his last few …
I can’t help it. I fell in love with the letter Mark Twain’s brother wrote back in Muscatine, Iowa, on November 21, 1854. It might give a precious few of you a tip on how to proceed with your romantic endeavors. For the rest of us, it will remind us of a time long, long …
Joey died on December 8, a cool Tuesday in 2020. I just found out today. He lived in a small town in central Iowa. It’s been over 20 years since I chatted with Joey at a little cafe on the edge of his town off Highway 30. I remember laughing until tears came to our …
I’m sitting at the Cracker Box, having lunch with a few of my old buddies. We promised long ago we’d never dwell on our latest ailments or surgeries, but we can’t help ourselves. So much medical stuff is going on with us that we begin to out-story one another’s latest …
I often thought it was strange how older people took naps in the middle of the day. One afternoon around 2 p.m., while visiting my parents in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, I caught my dad, Vern, wrapped around his pillow, sound asleep. I knew he was out of it because he …
The older I get, the more I recognize the importance of friendship. My conviction was reinforced by a study from the University of Pennsylvania. It found when employees do not have friendships among colleagues at their jobs, they tend to care less about the quality of their …
Loneliness is a bigger thing than I ever imagined. I believe a few of my best friends are suffering from it and don’t want me to know (or don’t know it yet themselves). Thomas Wolfe wrote in “God’s Lonely Man,” “The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief …
One error I continue to make is waiting for big things to happen. Big things can be super-duper good, like winning the lottery or discovering your old best friend moved back to your hometown. Big things also can be negative, like finding out you need another knee surgery or …
My mother was one of the most powerful forces in my life. Irene Kuhl could snap me to attention from a deep slumber. First came the command, such as, “Don, take out the garbage right now,” or “Don, you better apologize to Father Ryan for missing his religion class …
