Miscellaneous

Many kids, parents, families are having a hard time finding that easy feeling this summer.    Think back to your best summer memories.    Cal remembers long, hot days moving sprinklers and pitching hay on his uncle’s dairy farm. Hard work? Yes, but also satisfying and done in the company of cousins and an uncle…

It was the summer of ‘69, and I couldn’t wait for summer school to start. I was thrilled to get up early and walk over to the high school.    REALLY? Actually, yes, really.    Because, you see, all year I’d watched EVERYONE ELSE enroll in Driver’s ED, that coveted rite of passage into the…

“Have you ever eaten a walkie talkie?” asked our grandson Calvert’s friend, a young man from Birmingham, England.   He had a pretty strong accent, so my first reaction was to assume I had misunderstood him, or he was playing some kind of joke on me.  Of course, I hadn’t eaten a two-way radio.   …

  I remember it well. It was the winter of 1964, and I was a sophomore in high school. Sitting in history class, I started a conversation with Joan. The Beatles were on their first tour of the United States and had appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show the night before, so, Joan, who it…

Mr. Stuckenschneinder was my ninth-grade math teacher. Most of the students in my junior high thought he was a nice man, but I thought he was strict and very intimidating.   All three of my younger sisters had him and really liked him, and they all got good grades. I have always wondered what crossed…

Here in the US, Memorial Day has come and gone, the days are getting longer, the nights are sweet and warm, and our thoughts turn to summer. Yesterday I spent the day with family on the lake in our kayaks. You might be imagining a vigorous day of paddling, and that can be fun sometimes…