Resourceful and resilient - extraordinarily so, I’ve decided. Who? My grandparents and great-grandparents. I say this based on how they lived versus how I live and having watched them adapt to grand changes. The ones that come to mind revolve around food, water and shelter. ...

Since this column is due the week before it appears, you’ll recall that last week we had a foreboding hiemal forecast for 5 - 7 inches of the stuff that sends the snowbirds among us to warmer spots. Notice how I sneaked that ‘h’ word in? I thought I’d vary the vocabulary a bit since we’ll tire of seeing and hearing all things wintry or snowy if the predictions pan out. This is hardly formal writing; I could have snuck it in just as well...

Several issues back I used column space to spout off my disdain for particular 2024 words of the year. “Authentic” stands out in proud contrast, the word chosen by Webster in 2023, to “brain rot” and “enshittification” topping the list last year...

'Tis the day after Christmas and all thru the house, Every creature is stirring, except for the spouse. The stockings are empty – no one seems to care That all of the contents are tossed everywhere...

Amoebae/Astrology. Bats/Braids. Cars/Chickens. Divots/Dodge Pickups... Random word pairs alphabetized from A to Z wait for me on a scrap of paper somewhere among my notebooks. Words as words intrigue me so much that I can spend tons of time making odd lists, ruminating in rhyme, writing poems with rhythm and chasing origins. You don’t?...

It’s a conundrum. I often hear “Help me to remember…Don’t let me forget…” yet I am one who can (1) lose hammers and screwdrivers in the midst of a task without taking three steps during the process; (2) set a phone or a purse on top of the car then drives off; (3) frantically search for keys while holding them or glasses while wearing them...

Shrimp chowder. I enjoyed a marvelous bowl of that freshly-made soup with Thanksgiving dinner - a brand new culinary experience. Brings to mind my sister’s account of her first holiday meal with clam chowder. She kept wondering when the ham would appear. It didn’t. Has our brother has sampled any chowders? If so, considering his years as a trucker, it might have been from a can if he deviated from his usual shopping list and if such things can be packaged that way...

The summer of my sixteenth birthday reigns front and center in my memories. I would be allowed to date! A particular school chum and I had that first one planned - a burger/movie outing. Were I to tell you how that went, it would be an attempt at writing fiction...

Life carries me along in a whirlwind these days, as though I placed an order heard as, “Surprise me, supersize it, and make it to go!” So many options with not enough time to scope each out, appearing and disappearing in a flash so that little has a chance to become familiar...

Music was part of my raising. I listened and rolled my eyes to old-timey country music (don’t yell, I like it now), heard Mom sing along with big bands, and jived to the now classic rock with transistor at my ear. Dad knew when and where to find the Grand Ol’ Opry on road trips and Mom tuned in to Mitch Miller and Lawrence Welk on television. ...

On deadline day for November 7, you would have found me in the usual tug-of-war with suitable subjects. Unpredictability won. That’s a broad concept for one tiny column, but while it posed in the winner’s circle, I typed a few of my rambling thoughts about it....

Do you realize “Happy Halloween” is hardly a global greeting? Of the 195 countries in the world, as counted by the UN and reported by BBC Science Focus, 37 of them celebrate a holiday on October 31, according to World Population Review. (I’m avoiding referencing AI)...

“The conveyor belt of life” came across a podcast I was listening to. More often I’ve heard about the “hamster wheel” of life. I suppose they are illustrations that could be used interchangeably, but maybe not and be accurate...

Whew! “Hectic” describes the morning I thought I’d have. It turns out the hurrying and scurrying was only in my head, in anticipation of a visit to the vet with the last of my four furry felines. I even pulled on a heavy misshapen sweatshirt as scratch prevention for the hullabaloo that was sure to ensue...

Do you want to while away the hours pondering the imponderable? Consider the definition of time. I don’t mean clock time. That’s not a biggie, unless you’re taking time to explain to someone how to tell time on an analog clock. You will hear the inevitable “Why worry with that when we have screens to tell us?” by someones who are getting increasingly older...

We get stuck in unexplainable ruts sometimes, but marketers have it figured out. It’s not unusual to see Christmas in July sales, and coffee shops have us craving pumpkin lattes in August, way ahead of the seasons and holidays when those dishes are featured...

Stay curious. One comes across that suggestion often when reading about keeping the brain and body healthy and active. Maintaining curiosity poses no problem for me. That’s not exactly the case with other “aging gracefully” tips like walking more and eating enough fiber. They take a bit of planning...

(Apologies to my friend and fellow columnist, a fishing fanatic. Check out A Good Word this week.) Here’s the trouble with fishin’ as I see it. *The simple way never worked for me - bamboo pole, line and bait - because I couldn’t get the hang of throwing the line where the fish were. It always became tangled in a branch above or under water. I wasn’t much luckier with a rod and reel...

You’ve heard “neurons that fire together wire together.” That explains how we learn isolated steps of the Achy Breaky, then put them together to line dance. 120 years ago Henry James alluded to the brain’s malleability, but it didn’t get much attention until 1948 when that characteristic received a name – neuroplasticity – thanks to Polish neuroscientist Jerry Konorski. ...

“Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half have never voted for President. One hopes it’s the same half.” That’s a Gore Vidal quote from the 1992 publication of three of his Harvard University lectures titled “Screening History.”...