I guess maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks. Shortly after my wife and I were married, we visited Hawaii. We visited several of the beaches; Diamond Head, the volcanic cone on Oahu; and the Pearl Harbor National Memorial. (I can't recommend enough stopping by the national memorial, especially the USS Arizona, it's a... Continue Reading →
Put your pencils down
I racked my brain. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing to my son. I didn’t want to put too much pressure on him, but I also wanted to let him know that I understood the importance of the week and that we had his back. My son is finishing up his first semester... Continue Reading →
A misplaced note
If it was a lost set of keys, I would have asked the receptionist if anyone had dropped off a set. If it was a missing person, I would have filed a report with the police. This is different. I came across some interesting writing advice a month or two ago and wrote it down... Continue Reading →
Buckling up
A few weeks ago, I pulled the car over and turned off the engine. I had been making a couple of errands and was driving home when I rounded a corner and narrowly missed hitting a large deer that had darted across the road. I let out a sigh and tried to catch my breath.... Continue Reading →
Some Mountain State love
We had barely pulled into Morgantown for a visit with our son, a freshman at West Virginia University, when he had asked us to make a Target run. When we got back to his dorm, he pulled the shopping bags out of our SUV like they were coming off an assembly line, handing them out... Continue Reading →
Some good news
There’s so much bad news right now. Russia threatens to use its nuclear arsenal to hold on to its slipping territorial gains in Ukraine. A landslide in Venezuela has killed at least 25 people with another 50 missing. Economists continue to worry about inflation and if you listen closely, they even talk in hushed tones... Continue Reading →
A teacher going the extra mile
The professor asked the class to drop off our papers on our way out of the room. My heart sank. I knew it was a long shot, but I had hoped he would forget, and I’d get a reprieve, at least for the weekend. I pulled my paper out of my bag and waited my... Continue Reading →
My first plane trip — looking for a ticket north
It's late February 1989. Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Khomeini places a $3 million bounty on the head of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie. President George H. Bush attends the funeral of Japanese Emperor Hirohito, before meeting with China's Deng Xiaoping and South Korea's Roh Tae-woo. The Dallas Cowboys fire coach Tom Landry after... Continue Reading →
Getting an assigned seat
We’d walk into class and sit down next to our friends. I’d try to sit next to Darren or Steve. If they weren’t in my class, maybe Robbie or Dana from the school bus. We were crazy elementary school kids, full of first day jitters. If you didn’t have any friends in the same class,... Continue Reading →

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