According to unverified estimates bandied about on the internet, every year Americans spend about 37 billion hours waiting in line. Over their lifetime, Americans will spend some 2 to 3 years of their life in queue. I have absorbed the routine lines of daily living, rarely noticing the wait at the bank, grocery store, post…
Read MoreMilestones came at a rapid clip when our son Ned was an infant – crawling, sitting, standing and first words. Once school started, these milestones slowed down, replaced by the predictable progress through one grade after the next. But now here was he was standing in the kitchen in blue blazer and khaki pants –…
Read MoreForty-five minutes into our seven hour drive north the traffic comes to a complete standstill just south of Milwaukee. The highway is in the middle of construction and we are totally boxed in with concrete dividers and idling semis; there is no way to peek around to see what is going on. The midday traffic has…
Read MoreI could think of nothing to recommend me when Susie asked me to join their senior women’s ice hockey team. After all I had only skated on figure skates, and that was over forty years ago, a time when hockey was still resolutely a boys-only sport. Susie explained the team was made up of moms…
Read MoreAfter an arduous morning of weeding and other nap-worthy chores, I head to the screened porch, supplement the spring breeze with the overhead fan, plump the pillows and then settle in with a shimmering glass of beaded ice water. My book is merely a prop; I know that within ten pages it will transition to…
Read MoreI am joyful walker but reluctant hiker. Both involve putting one foot in front of the other, but beyond that share little. A walk is an umbrella term that includes saunters, strolls, meanders or moseys – all are defined by their low-energy expenditure and modest distance. In contrast, hikes – including treks, tramps, trudges, tromps,…
Read MoreThe other day at bell choir rehearsal we were practicing a tricky piece that had a riff of competing doublets and triplets, and I requested that we drill on several problematic measures. Just as we launched into the piece, I felt a tick marching across my forehead. The bells in both of my hands prevented…
Read MoreI am a sixty year old woman with nothing obvious in common with a pro football player. My forty yard dash could be timed with a clogged hour glass, my bench press might not exceed a full load of laundry, and most embarrassingly, I throw like a girl. But today I have found some common…
Read MoreIt seems very strange that I didn’t put everything together until I was cleaning out my parent’s safety deposit box after their deaths. The bank clerk handed me the little card they had filled out, probably just after their marriage in 1950. My parents had just bought a car and then a house in the…
Read MoreI was in my early fifties when I started to wonder where I would be exactly when I learned that my mother was dying. Would I be in the midst of a routine errand, idling in traffic at the busy intersection of Greenbay and Deerpath? If it was winter, would I be skiing in Utah,…
Read More