Category: Health

Family, Health, Humor, Life, Memoir, Uncategorized8 Comments

Why Do I Play Pickleball?

brent taylor

Karen and I just got back from Edmond where we won a medal in mixed doubles. Karen thinks we should get money rather than medals. I remind her that I’m a two time loser in side jobs…golf (I made $271.00 in 1982 as a pro) and writing (I received $107.20 in book royalties in 2019) which works out to 4 cents an hour. We should just be grateful for a medal and love of sport. Folks often ask me these days about pickleball. What is it? Why do I play? I often reply with details…the size of the court and … Continue reading Why Do I Play Pickleball?

Arts & Culture, Family, Food, Health, Life, Uncategorized2 Comments

55

brent taylor

…children believe their parents to be fools when they are of “a certain age” and then they pass through vintage moment(s), return to us, and want to hang out, ask for advice, laugh at our jokes (or at least not roll their eyes quite as dramatically)…and yet they are still our children, only smarter than us, better looking, and somehow poised and eloquent and we think it strangely odd? Continue reading 55

Health, Life, Psychology, taking chances, Uncategorized, writing3 Comments

30 days to change

brent taylor

Studies show that if you repeat something often enough, say 30 days in a row, it becomes part of you. A habit if you will. That’s not really science, I made it up, but it seems true. I’ve decided to practice this to see if it works. I’ll  give you a report after thirty days. I have many 30 day regimens already planned, but I will begin simply. My first thought is to change something in my diet, to change my stance from vile hatred to, dare I say, affection. So I’m going to eat something I hate for 30 … Continue reading 30 days to change

Health, Life, Uncategorized2 Comments

Prairie Grass and Good Bones

brent taylor

As I showered next to a field of corn in Wisconsin I realized that this is no Hampton Inn. The rustic wood shower provides moderate screening from the house and barns south and west, but the view is entirely uninhibited north and east where dry corn stalks curve along the hill, the rustling ghosts of summer refusing to make way for autumn, and chipmunks scurry past me indifferent to the water falling on my head from a spout hung from a gnarled cedar branch   I’m at Cynthia’s farmhouse, built on a lovely ridge near Pepin, Wisconsin, circa 1900, which … Continue reading Prairie Grass and Good Bones

Arts & Culture, Health, Humor1 Comment

The Cruise of the Rolling Junk

brent taylor

I was ready to say, “One Provolone With”, which means give me one Pat’s cheesesteak with provolone cheese and fried onions. But I choked. Since the lines at Pat’s King of Steak often stretch out onto Passyunk Avenue, you have to order quickly or risk the disdain of the cashier, not to mention the withering stares of South Philly cheese steak veterans who order with the swagger of Peyton Manning calling an audible while shouting “Omaha.” “I guess I’ll have a…umm…a cheese steak. Oh, and provolone cheese with it also. And I forgot the onions, can you do those fried? I … Continue reading The Cruise of the Rolling Junk

Family, Getting older, Health, Humor8 Comments

All the Laughs on Your Side

brent taylor

“Do you have time to come home and help Dad? He fell and broke his leg.” Well, yes Mom, since you put it that way, I think I can find the time. And thanks for phrasing it in a non-urgent way so as not to alarm me and also give me an out in case I had an important meeting. “I’m on my way,” I told her. Mom has a way of not wanting to impose and so even emergencies are cloaked in the soft composure of her Midwestern tendency to not make a big scene when her husband snaps … Continue reading All the Laughs on Your Side