If you’ve read my book, Random Thoughts: A Writer’s Notebook, you know I was employed as a hospital orderly in Meriden, Connecticut, from mid-1972 to mid-1974. I worked the first shift, which was 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. My duties consisted of lifting and transporting patients, taking bodies to the morgue, occasionally assisting with autopsies […]

It’s a little-known fact that if the number of steps in your house — including the ones leading into the house — isn’t even, the house won’t be level. When I learned that, it freaked me out to the point that I decided to count all the steps in and around our home. I counted […]

Over the weekend, Anne and I went to Ballek’s Garden Center to buy a plant for the inside of the house and a planter for the outside. Anne goes there much more frequently than I do. And every time I go, I wonder why I don’t go more often. As you drive up the winding […]

The story you’re about to read is true. The names haven’t been changed to protect the innocent because everyone in the story is innocent, some more than others. The telling of this story is inspired by my friend, Charlotte Wittenkamp, by whom I was moved to tell the first part of it in a LinkedIn […]

There’s been much speculation about Ernest Hemingway’s novel, A Farewell to Arms, which was published by Scribner in 1929. On the surface, it appears to be the story of the American, Frederic Henry, who’s serving as a lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian army in WWI. But psychosexual scholars find a deeper meaning, […]

The University of Michigan’s National Poll on Healthy Aging reports that 10% of people age 50 and older have no close friends. 48% have 1 to 3 close friends and 42% have 4 or more. Remember in high school when we may have had 10 close friends? What happened? Friendships are not self-sustaining; they require […]

Unless you came here from another planet, you’ve likely heard Michael Jackson’s song, “Billie Jean”, at some point in your life. Come to think of it, at least one person who came here from another planet did hear the song. Superman had it played at his wedding to Lois Lane. And he did the moonwalk […]

It seems as if more and more people are in need of validation and positive reinforcement as of late. I don’t know if this is a reaction to our being in the last year of the first quarter of the 21st century. I’m not sure if there’s something in the water that’s causing levels of […]

I love reading spam emails for the same reason I love watching bad movies. They always make me wonder: Who wrote them? Did they actually make sense to whomever wrote them? Did the people who wrote them have any questions about them? Who released them? Did they actually make sense to the people who released […]

If you read Part One of this series, you recall my having learned Melitta Coffee filters were invented by a German woman, Melitta Bentz. Since then, Anne has been to the store to buy more coffee Melitta coffee filters. And now I’ve learned they come in two colors — white and brown. Since I was […]