Leave It To Beaver, Redux Last month, on our trip to Colorado, I bought myself another hat----It has a picture of a leaping rainbow trout and the logo “Willow Fly Anglers.”  When we got home, I tossed it on my pile of hats accumulated down through the ages.  Apparently the Willow Fly Anglers hat was the last straw----the pile came tumbling down.  As I rebuilt the mountain of hats, memories of...

The Beard Last week I shaved off my beard.  It was time.  During my winter stay in the hospital, I was too weak to raise my arm, let alone put razor to chin.  As an incentive to use my energy to recover my health, I promised myself I would shave when I returned to relative healthiness.  So I let the hairs on my face grow, which, unfortunately, seemed to grow faster than the hairs on my scalp. ...

Survival to the Fullest   I can’t help it. I’m addicted to reality shows involving survival in the wild. Not the competing survival shows where teams subliminate their essential humanities and sabotage each other to win the grand prize of a trip to Hawaii or whatever.   I am referring to those shows where people choose a simpler life living, as Lennie in Of Mice and Men says, ”Off the fat...

Parkinson’s and Exercise and Ay Morena   In 1987 Polley pressured me to start exercising.  She knew my family cardiac history.  She had to pressure me because I was reluctant.  Teaching for me was not only a profession, but a passion, and I did not see how amongst the preparation and the grading of student work from five high school classes I was ever going to find two hours, three times a...

The Triangle Part 2 If truth be told, it was the fault of Joe Croce and his brother Stephen for initiating our attempts to upgrade the Triangle (see previous blog, The Triangle Part 1).  Joe and Stephen’s older cousins played semi-professional baseball, and they donated their old uniforms to their kin.  When Joe and his younger brother showed up at the Triangle sporting blue-striped cotton...