Of all the blessings I’ve had this year, one of the greatest gifts was spending a couple of hours with my brother-in-law at an Amish horse auction. While the rest of the family headed to the apple orchards for fresh cider and warm donuts, Wayne and I headed to the county fairgrounds in my rural Wisconsin hometown. We slid onto the cold, metal bleachers on this unseasonably cool late September day. I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my one-shade-away-from-gawdy green jacket, and Continue Reading
Have you ever been lonely? Not just words in a song
Have you ever been lonely, have you ever been blue? Seriously, I’m asking. Have you ever been lonely? Not the kind that Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison or Bobby Vinton sang about back in 1962, but true loneliness that can steer you into social isolation. One day last week, I caught the end of an interview on TV with two health professionals talking about loneliness and how it’s crept to be a leading public health issue in our country. Later that afternoon, an article popped up on my Twitter feed Continue Reading
The Winter Olympics of My Youth
When I am reunited with my father in heaven, one of the the first questions I’m going to ask is this: Why the heck did you get me a pair of used, brown hockey skates when I was twelve? Frankly, I know the answer. It was the only pair of skates K&L had in my size. Every small town had a store like K&L. Diamonds in the front that morphed into trophies and engraving in the middle of the store that spilled into cleats and the ball of the season in the back. And a few odd pairs of ice Continue Reading
Home Again, part 2
As soon as I was on the path from my car to the cabin, a snake slithered across the grass in front of me. I was so busy swatting the black cloud of biting gnats heading my direction, I almost missed it. Undeterred, I walked up the five steps to the porch and before I unlocked the door, I spotted the bat tucked into the corner of the porch ceiling. Great, just great. I was truly in the woods for the next six nights. Early that evening, I heard a slight scratch on the screen door and as I Continue Reading