Tell me your life story in 4 minutes. This is a question I have been asking my friends and family. Their first reaction is stunned silence, a deer in headlights. Then slowly, the wheels begin to turn and they speak, measured and careful words, maneuvering around covered landmines. The years roll away and they become…
My wife travels with me and my golf partner, Shawn Barker...not because she loves golf. She simply loves the surroundings and the time spent wandering places like Flagstaff and Monterey and Santa Rosa. After a yoga session in Santa Rosa this past week, she sat alone in a coffee shop and a man across the…
There are two kinds of people in the world. (there are more than that, but let’s not nitpick) People who love to stay home and people who love to wander. Home people nest and settle in for the long haul as nostalgia rules the day. Wanderers are restless horizon watchers who understand that to be a…
I tagged along with Karen to a yoga studio in Denver on our vacation. On the mat next to Karen is a woman who lives in Connecticut, although she grew up in Red Bank, NJ. Karen grew up in New Jersey and we lived in Tabernacle, NJ during our early years of marriage. We are…
We pulled our car into the driveway, narrowly missing a huge sycamore tree while striking the curb with the front wheel, and I told Karen that one can guess the age of a particular house by the width of the driveway. This house was from the Leave it to Beaver era. Dinner at Picasso's in…
...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?
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.…
My son texted me last night and said, "We have some really big news." This is life; we are born and given a name without our approval, then we fall in love and marry, have children, who then leave and have their own children, and only then are we empowered to rename ourselves. This is…
I have received many Christmas gifts, but can only remember a few. Likewise, my wife remembers the magic of Christmas, but not so much specific presents received. Karen's father, Thom Mason, worked three jobs to provide a magical Christmas for five children. His third job was bartender and he left a glass tip jar filled…
This past Sunday, Preacher Daryl told us that grumbling and complaining is a sin as a friend of mine sunk lower in the pew after posting a Facebook rant about donuts, "Why are there no donuts shops open on Sunday morning?" Which made me think of Garrison Keillor's story about the man who wrote a…
