About two and half years ago our long-haired Chihuahua died. He was an incredibly sweet little guy. He defied the breed stereotype by being a mellow cuddler who loved belly rubs. I never cared for small dogs, until we got him. I wound up loving him more than any dog… Continue reading
I am not a game person. They seem like a waste of mental energy and pointless competition. But I have some exceptions. I like the interaction that games encourage. You get to let your hair down and have some fun with people. Scrabble has some appeal because at least you… Continue reading
That’s a photo of my new baby. I have four others. So, you must think I am a good guitarist or play in a band. Nope. I just play for me. However, it would be fun to play in a band. In a sense I do play in a band… Continue reading
This post has nothing to do with atmospheric conditions or skin care. It is a reflection about our trips around the sun. Tomorrow I will celebrate 71 of them. I am not fishing for birthday wishes of happiness and joy (though always appreciated). Rather, I am using it as an… Continue reading
I had planned to write a tribute to my Chiefs while basking in the warm glow of victory. Instead, I am writing to process my grief. I never really thought about the Chiefs losing after their victorious season of generally doing just enough to win game after game. I didn’t… Continue reading
It’s time for us to do a final clean out of our house before we meet with our realtor March 1st and put our home of twenty-five years on the market in early April. Fortunately, we also did some of this last fall knowing this time was coming. We have gotten… Continue reading
If necessity is the mother of invention, then desperation is the mother of writing. The desperation is the need to understand our own hearts and minds. Stating things so another can understand is a key component of our own understanding. That’s the cathartic element of writing non-fiction. The human spirit… Continue reading
Christmas 1981 The news hit us hard. Everything in our busy lives faded from our minds as our thoughts were consumed with one new haunting fact. Patty had a large tumor that required a hysterectomy. She was twenty-five. We got married very young. Patty was only eighteen. I was all… Continue reading
I have been wanting to write about this for so long that I am now only two months from turning 7 – One. I remember the milestone birthdays, 40, 50, 60, 70, especially seventy, though 50 was interesting, since it was at Chucky Cheese. When I was a kid, if… Continue reading
About 300,000 people move out of Illinois every year, for a net loss of 116,000. We are moving out of Illinois. About 226, 000 people move to Tennessee every year. The net gain is 43,000. We are moving to Tennessee. I have a few people to “blame” for this: My… Continue reading
It is so easy to enumerate what I am done with when it comes to religion. It is profoundly more difficult to figure out what to hang onto. I feel like I should occasionally ask myself that question to see if I am total heretic or just a free spirit. … Continue reading
I feel like I need to write a disclaimer every time I write a post that is critical of the institutional church. I write about my experience over several decades, both very much inside the church and outside of it. I am not mad at anybody. There are no “sour… Continue reading
This is one of the easiest and most cathartic posts I have ever written. It’s easy because I can clearly catalog the characteristics of evangelical religion that are distasteful to me. Since I write this at the peak fervor of our presidential campaign, Evangelical entanglement with politics immediately comes to… Continue reading
It has been a long while since I have posted here and I have missed it. I realize that my readers come from different perspectives and some of the posts I put up are not exactly their cup of tea. A long time ago, I went through my social media… Continue reading
Finally, a little time to think, and pray. God made an unassuming entrance into our little world. The creator became the creation. You would think his entrance would have been grandiose. Instead, it was humiliating. He was born into a blue color, working class family. It was a really bad… Continue reading
I have been blessed with good health and hardly ever get ill. Now that I am an old man, some things don’t work quite as good as they used to, but I really don’t have anything to complain about. I don’t have any of the chronic conditions that many of… Continue reading
A few years ago, I was having some back pain, so the doctor ordered some x-rays. A couple of days later someone from his office who was probably about the age of my favorite sweater called to inform I had osteo arthritis. I was taken aback by this news and… Continue reading
The Christmas Letter is something I don’t recall ever coming across until we moved to this area about twenty-five years ago. It basically is a way to stay in touch with folks we have encountered through our life and relay to them on what has been happening over the last… Continue reading
My brother died of Covid December 29th, 2020. Because of the pandemic, we just held his memorial service back in Missouri last Thursday. Bill was 72, five years older than me. He was not in good health and resided in a nursing home. Yet, this disease that has taken hundreds… Continue reading
It doesn’t feel like Christmas to me. It’s hard to say why, since emotions can be hard to figure out, but it is safe to say some of these things have had an effect on me an many others. Covid has cancelled all festive events; for many it has had… Continue reading
Every year when Christmas rolls around, I feel like I should feel something; something warm and cozy that evokes a sense of joy, gratitude, and peace. Usually, things are just too busy for me to get around to that until very late in the season. There are those moments late… Continue reading
Kenosha, Wisconsin (pop.100,164, about 150,000 with suburbs)) is our nearest city at about 10 minutes away. We are there several times a week. It was a manufacturing city that has successfully re-invented itself as a distribution center and tourist destination. It’s growing. The downtown is rapidly redeveloping and the Lake… Continue reading
I’m a t-shirt, shorts, flip flop, beach sort of guy who likes it toasty outside and air-conditioned inside. This summer has miraculously come through. That’s downright rare to have consistently warm weather here in the upper Midwest on the shores of Lake Michigan. What a wonderful gift in the midst… Continue reading
Today will be a departure from the COVID pandemic of disease, information, misinformation, varied projections, confusing advice, and conspiracy theories. Instead, I want to talk about my gallbladder. Hold on there, partner! Don’t skip to the next marvelous insight from the internet because much wisdom came from my encounter with… Continue reading
Ever notice how the cows all face the same direction in the pasture, but there is one that didn’t seem to get the memo and is separate from the herd doing his own thing? That’s me. I dislike housing tracts where the nearly identical a dwellings are crammed in close… Continue reading
A few years ago, when I was having some back pain, I got a call from my doctor’s office informing me of the results of my x-rays. The nurse who was probably not as old as some of my clothes, informed me I had osteo arthritis. I was shocked and… Continue reading
The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl last night after a fifty-year drought. But does it really matter? If I didn’t know better, I would think the NFL was enterprise invented by billionaires, lawyers, and modern-day gladiators. It is an American oddity. The world has soccer, known elsewhere as… Continue reading
The call comes.Everything changes.A flurry of activity ensues. Sunken cheeks.Is she aware?Is she there? Each breath scrutinized.Sit and watch.Was there a slight change? Nurses care.Hospice explains.We speak words of love, not knowing if they are heard. Even the aids kiss her forehead as tears roll down their faces.Our hearts melt.We love their love. Faith and… Continue reading
It’s so pervasive. Songs, shopping, Santa. Sometimes we feel it. Sometimes we don’t. Warm memories fill our hearts. Sad realities replay over again in our minds. It’s fun. It’s obligatory. Rooted in faith. Embedded in culture. Yet, it is real. Though, we have made it fake. It was… Continue reading
My favorite breakfast place in the world is The Coffee Pot. What’s not to love? The food is fabulous, the menu interesting, the location full of character and charm, and the service is dependably friendly and efficient. So, I decided to meet with owners, Julie Zorn and Janis Barnhil to… Continue reading
The view from the mayor’s office on the third floor of the municipal building is impressive. Harbor Park is on full display on one side and downtown on the other. It is just high enough to be grand, but not so high that you can’t see a lot of detail… Continue reading
This question is probably more important than you realize, because it applies to more than novels and screenplays. It’s a question that rolls around in my mind from time to time since I have a written a novel and am writing another. Hopefully, before long I will have the courage,… Continue reading
Unfortunately, I believed some myths about downtown Kenosha. Maybe, you have, too. Downtown is not dead. It is a vibrant, entrepreneurial business community. If you haven’t been there for awhile, then revisit your downtown. Catch lunch at Loula’s or the Buzz Café. Plan a night out enjoy dinner at Wine… Continue reading
Wisconsin has something special to offer to the rest of the world, besides the Packers and cheese. It is the supper club capital of the world. While these dimly-lit destinations from decades gone by are an upper Midwest phenomenon, Wisconsin hosts by far the largest concentration. The Badger State is… Continue reading
Have you ever surprised yourself? What I am really talking about is change. I usually fight change, but appreciate it in retrospect. I used to think that art museums and galleries were a waste of time. Now I am the one who who moves the slowest when we visit one.… Continue reading
The cicadas have been singing their song. Somehow it reminds me of the summers of my youth. Everyday it gets to the eighties or nineties. That’s very unusual here in the upper Midwest near the shores of Lake Michigan, but it has been normal this year. When the inhabitants of… Continue reading
Where I live in the upper Midwest/Great Lakes region, we are experiencing a summer we thought would never come. It was a full month late, with the dependably warm weather not kicking in until July. It’s so funny because July and August are crammed full of fairs and outdoor festivals,… Continue reading
All of the photos of are of the vintage garden apartment where I wrote this post. For the last couple of days, I have done pretty much nothing. It’s called a vacation, really, a three-day mini get-a-way. We came to place where there is nothing to do, and are staying in a… Continue reading
Boyd & Ava chillin’ in a chair I didn’t know if it would work. We had inherited two long-haired Chihuahuas. Due to no fault of their own, we were their fourth home. They are siblings, brother and sister. While they are off-the-charts cute, they are also needy, attention hogs, who… Continue reading
It’s humid, sticky, sultry. It’s summer, the end of summer. For kids, the freedom of June has turned to into the boredom of August. They have resigned themselves to heading back to school. Parents are shelling out money hand-over-fist for clothes, school supplies, and hefty fees for every program imaginable.… Continue reading
Patty and I were vendors at the Kenosha Harbor Market last Saturday, which happened to also be our fortieth anniversary. The weekly market is an altogether lovely event in a beautiful location. There are over one hundred white 10×10 tents in a two block area and some side streets flanked by… Continue reading
I was in a funk, terribly bored by the Internet, television, and movies; despising the regular patterns of my life. The more I dreamed of something that would bring a glimmer of life to my soul, the more unattainable it seemed. Fear was holding me tightly, even though I hardly… Continue reading
A reprint of my column in the Kenosha (Wisconsin) News: I have a confession. Brace yourself. I live in Illinois. There, I said it. Please, don’t stop reading. Even though I’m from “south of the border,” it’s only by a block and a half. And that’s how I explain to… Continue reading
This post is part of a synchrobog in which we recount our favorite prank. The links to the other writer’s contributions are listed at the end of this post. After work, the kids and I met Patty at Giordano’s, a deep dish, Chicago-style pizza place in a neighboring suburb. Upon… Continue reading
The war on Christmas is all the “rage” in some conservative and Christian circles. Their cry is to keep Christ in Christmas. Everybody knows that our cultural celebration of the holiday involves a lot of traditions that do not overtly express the origins and deepest meaning of the season. I… Continue reading
The call came when I least expected it. I had just finished a huge late season window cleaning job and came home exhausted and I was falling asleep while opening the mail. Then Patty called. She said. “It’s time. He’s coming early.” In a daze, I replied, “Time? Coming?” Being… Continue reading
It was one of those times in life when everything else seems to stop and all of the important and pressing matters are no longer important or pressing. I remember it like it happened in slow motion. Patty and I were walking along main street in the Kansas City suburb… Continue reading
I have to tell you what happened while we were in St. Paul enjoying Thanksgiving, our grandson’s birthday, and our daughter and son-in-law’s anniversary, all between last Wednesday and this Sunday. First, I asked a neighbor to take care of our crazed cat and watch over the place while we… Continue reading
I usually think about values in terms of my obituary, what I would want people to remember about me when I am gone. I would like them to say: He was real. Pretension makes me nauseous, and sometimes I am nauseating, but my goal is to be real. Being real gives other… Continue reading
We have recently been to a couple of huge area festivals that attract thousands, the Strawberry Festival in Cedarburg, Wisconsin and Fish Day in Port Washington, Wisconsin. The Strawberry Festival in a massive array of all kinds of vendors taking up several blocks of charming, historical downtown Cedarburg. There is… Continue reading
