Sherry and I were walking our way through the county roads of Iowa going from the northern border of the state to the south when we came upon a farm auction not far out of the little town of Boone. Pickup trucks and dusty cars lined either side of the road, and the miked …
Carl Jung is one of my three favorite psychologists. What he said about aging has got to be true. “A human being would certainly not grow to be 70 or 80 years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species to which it belongs. The afternoon of human life must also have …
Monday, October 22nd, 2018, 11:10 a.m. My name is Amy Beth Baker, I’m five years old and I’m a black German Shepherd. I am the guard dog for Sherry and Don and my pals, two white Swiss shepherds, who prefer to play more than protect. I stare down packs of coyotes, chase …
I went to high school with a class of 900. One of them was Jim Stevenson. He was bright, good looking and sensitive: a boy that might grow old and do great things. Two years after graduation, he died in combat in Vietnam. When I think of aging, I think of Jim and others cut …
As long as I can remember, I’ve had this nagging fear of being around people. I stuttered as a kid (a friend told me last week I still do), and I always thought I was letting someone down, although I wasn’t sure just who. I tried to mask my fear. Years ago I drank …
Back in high school, I had this old, old journalism teacher by the name of Ms. Keefe. She was brutal when it came to curbing my creative writing talents. I had a weekly column in a Chicago suburban newspaper that she had set up for me. I was to write interesting stories …
You know how it feels when you visit friends you haven’t seen for years, and by golly, they look so much different than you remembered? Yet, when you see a friend almost every day, it’s hard to detect how he or she has aged at all. It’s the same with yourself. I don’t notice …
I did a scientific survey to study the huge impact I have on my three closest friends. I asked friend #1: “Did you think about the advice I gave you yesterday?” Close friend #1: “Nope. I played 18 holes of golf and had a cold beer.” I asked friend #2: “I bet you got a …
If I could pass one piece of advice to the younger me, it would be to practice being more interested than interesting. For decades I attempted to be an interesting guy to both friends and acquaintances. I had jokes and stories relevant to any group. Didn’t people want to …
With my lower back issues, it’s getting increasingly difficult for me to walk upstairs. That didn’t keep me from a Wisconsin Badger Football game last weekend. Right before halftime, I began the climb from my row up to the second level of Camp Randall stadium. The first 15 …
