A divorced dad, I would meet my ex midway between residences to exchange our little ones—two girls. It was an hour to and from the rendezvous point and I would frequently tell stories to make the trip pass. The tales told were of magic places with creatures of all sorts; leprechauns, fairies, pixies, ghosts, and such. [...]
Finding silence has been a challenge for me, and I think for others as well. I remember, when in the waning days of seventh grade, our teacher asked that we all be completely quiet. The windows were open as we had no air conditioning and it was unusually hot. She repeated her request several times and [...]
When a boy, I had little tolerance for sitting still, as I believe I mentioned in previous posts, whereas brother and sister would immerse themselves between the covers of book. At that time, I had no interest in this worthy endeavor. Later in life I recognized value of reading and went at it with vigor, but [...]
Our maternal grandmother’s heritage was Romanian. Her name was Elizabeth, but she went by what a grandmother in Romania would, bunică, which we pronounced boonie. She was not a tall woman, which she frequently lamented, standing some five-feet four-inches, though she stood above her mother who grew to a scant four-foot ten-inches. Not surprisingly, her mother [...]
When a boy, I helped my father with household projects—I liked being with him and enjoyed discovering how things worked. Yet very young, I had much to learn of the trades practiced by plumber, carpenter, electrician, and so on. I seemed to emerge from womb with a patient manner willing to take time to study situation [...]
This falls into the, “I should have made a better decision”, bin. Yes, I was young and didn’t know how tenacious water can be in finding low ground, but those are excuses. This then is the second story in which I describe how I unwittingly “screwed” my brother. I was driving an old telephone van purchased [...]
When attending university I had little in the way of resources and when, on infrequent occasions, I stepped out for a meal I was selective. At the time I was living in an old apartment building in an artsy neighborhood, whose main street was lined with shops, a nightclub or two, and a restaurant or two. [...]
I believe in was seventh grade when the experiment began. I’m certain there was a professor, the inventor, who sat in an office clad with raised panel mahogany walls who believed he was advancing a generation, and if the stakes were lower you could chalk it up as an interesting study in mass education, but it [...]
I was installing new solid vinyl tile in a beautiful home in a beautiful suburb—the hardest part being the preparation. In order to achieve the optimum result I first needed to lay a lauan sub-floor. This plywood was hand nailed with 1.25 inch ring-shank with spacing between nail no more than two inches at seams and [...]
I was a handy man of sorts and had just departed my current worksite—it had been a long day. A restroom visit before leaving job site would have been wise, but the drive home was all of two miles and I foresaw no problems. One detour was taken, that being a left into the parking lot [...]
