As I was checking out at Aldi on Labor Day, it occurred to me how many people have to work on a holiday that celebrates labor. The young man at the register told me he rarely had holidays off in his young career. Early in my career, I could relate.We are supposed to work. The Bible makes that clear for Christians. Not only are we supposed to work, we are supposed to do it … [Read more...]

Over the past few years, I’ve become what you might call a serial failure in a number of art forms. First, there was dance. When my daughter’s dance company choreographed a parent routine for its end-of-the-year recital, my daughter encouraged me to participate. I considered myself a pretty decent dancer in high school, so I thought, “Why not?” By the end of the first … [Read more...]

How did you sleep last night?Was your gel foam mattress topper comfy? Did you pick the right sleep number for your side of the bed? Were your sheets just the right thread count and made from Egyptian cotton? Did the electronic tilt make watching TV a little easier?I exaggerate, yes? Hmmmm.We spend roughly one third of our lives sleeping. Most of us give it little … [Read more...]

June 6 was the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Only a few who actually participated in that momentous event are still around. Just add 80 to their age in 1944 and you understand why. The best guess is that about 4,400 Allied men died on that day alone.July 4 just passed and we ate a lot, drank a lot and maybe shot off some Roman candles or lit a few sparklers. Thank goodness we … [Read more...]

As a former English teacher, I’ve spent years disrespecting the word mostly. My distaste started when a professor insisted the word was an enemy of concise language and deserved elimination from the English vocabulary. According to him, mostly added nothing to a sentence’s meaning. He even offered examples. My kids behaved at dinner … or they didn’t. I burned the … [Read more...]