My dad was born with personality. Pure, unfiltered personality. The kind that made strangers feel like old friends and old friends feel like family. If he walked into a room, he quickly owned it. We were close, he and I. The kind of close where you don鈥檛 have to explain things because the ...
At about 9 years old, I decided I wanted to build a treehouse. We had a sturdy black walnut tree in our backyard, and I had amassed a pile of old weathered fence slats with enough splinters to disable a battalion of enemy soldiers. I had a handful of nails I had painstakingly pulled from ...
As I write this, Lola, our seven-pound Shorkie, is sleeping beside my left leg. Her breathing and heartbeat seem synchronized with mine. Every few minutes she opens one eye to make sure I am still there. A few months ago, a friend passed away at age 92. His family ended his obituary with ...
One of the ideas I carried with me into hospital administration came from a place that had little to do with healthcare. It came from my years as a band director. In that world, growth is easy to observe. More students join the band. The sound improves. The performances get better. The ...
I鈥檝e been trying to figure out what most Americans really care about. If I had to guess, it would be the seven F鈥檚: Family. Friends. Finances. Faith. Fairness. Feelings. And Freedom. Family comes first. At least it should. No matter what shape it takes, traditional, blended, adopted, ...
Most of the compliments I get about my articles come with the qualifier, 鈥淢y favorite stories were about your grandkids.鈥� Here鈥檚 the problem: all but one of the kids are pushing hard on adulthood. While I was busy writing stories about them, they were busy growing up. Someday, if my ...
