I would like you to bear with me.   I taught high school English (and Cinema and Computer Assisted Instruction, and Humanities and a half dozen other electives) for nearly forty years.   Reflection is an important component to learning, and now that I am retired, I am learning from plenty of reflection.   Besides thinking about family, including the loss of some family members), my thoughts...

Brandy is Dandy, But Wine…. Part 2 My maturity as an imbiber of the fruit of the vine was not a smooth transition.  Collegiate bouts with vintages manufactured within the last month along with ales best suited as cleaning solvents had an adverse effect on my palate.  As my professional environment expanded, so did my need to refine my taste buds.  It was not an easy task. One of the legends...

Brandy is Dandy, but Wine……. Part 1 I have a long history with wine.   As young lads, my brother and I were allowed to have a small amount (half a Welch’s Grape Jelly jar) of red wine at holiday dinners. Drinking was no big deal in college (though it seemed to be a big deal for some of my classmates whose parents preached total and unforgiving abstinence).   Actually wine drinking in my family...

A Modest Proposal Redux “Guns don’t kill people People Kill people” How many times have I heard that mantra from opponents of any sort of gun control.  These same guardians of our rights cite the second amendment:   “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”   I used to argue...

Miss Meg “I Touch the Future…I Teach.” Christa McAuliffe Teacher/Astronaut We See What We Think We Know One of the perks of teaching something new for the first time is that you have to become a student again, learning all you can about a subject.  When I was asked to teach a high school humanities class, I began a crash course in art history (a weakness in my collegiate engineering...