Columns

What Love Looks Like

I am a sucker for a proper hug. You know the kind. It’s a hug that leaves an impression on the giver and receiver long after it’s over. I didn’t grow up in a huge hugging family, but we showed each other love in simple ways just as well. Maybe you held hands as you crossed the street and made sure the little brother or sister walked on the sidewalk for safety’s sake. Or when your own child awoke with a bad dream, you comforted them with a lullaby or read them a story until they fell back to sleep. Sometimes love comes in the form of someone’s favorite cookies you baked ...

Blow Out The Candles And Celebrate

A woman I worked with years ago was born on Dec. 24. I would ask her how her birthday was celebrated being that it was on the day before Christmas. Her answer was simple. It was celebrated just like any other birthday — with cake and ice cream, gifts and birthday good wishes. Her parents were loving people who would never think to shortchange their daughter just because of the timing of her birth. Personally I think it would be interesting to have a birthday that lands on a special holiday. I have two brothers who were born on holidays — Jan. 1 and Feb. 14. Another brother’s ...

The Irony Of It All

Some years ago, singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette penned a song titled “Ironic.” Its lyrics probably spoke to most of us at one time or another in our lives. For instance the chorus of the song includes these thoughts: “It’s like rain on your wedding day. It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid. It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take …” All of these things and more are examples of irony. Irony hit me squarely in the face this past Monday, And it wasn’t in a good way, I awoke to the national news outlets reporting that more than 40 people had been shot ...

A Firm Foundation

When I was 3 years old, my parents moved our family of five kids with one on the way to a stately, old Victorian style home in the heart of Woodsdale. I was just a toddler or so, but I clearly remember climbing the wide wooden steps to the front porch. The front door was a broad, heavy door with an oversized brass-looking door knob. The door was flanked by two leaded glass windows that allowed light to enter and create prisms of color on the shining hardwood floors. It felt magical to this young child. Entering the front hall, there were large white pillars that helped form an ...

Games People Play

Remember when you were a child and you and your family and friends played games? Baby boomer kids managed to enjoy some fun without today’s electronics or complicated computers. We had board games such as Monopoly, Sorry, Clue, checkers, Scrabble and a host of others. Then came Twister which presented a physical challenge that could get a bit embarrassing, but Twister always ended in laughter as participants wound up in a pile of bodies on the living room floor. For some of us, card games were the norm. There were an endless number of card games that required some thought and ...

Putting It All Into Perspective

As I sat down in front of my computer to compose this weekend’s column, there was a young man, a Buffalo Bills football player, fighting for his life after a collision on the field of play. Since that tragic mishap on Monday night football, the league decided to postpone the game between the Bills and Cincinnati Bengals to a later date. The concern and focus was put on the football player, Damar Hamlin. Why these things happen we will never fully understand. But it is what happened after the collision that should have us all thinking. During a time in this country of such ...