All of us sit on a powderkeg of emotions. The worst of all is anger. Anger throws bricks through windows. It speeds up behind another driver, draws a gun, and starts shooting. It slaps a wife, batters children, and burns forests. It holds a keyboard as it types bitter all-cap letters into Twitter or Facebook. Harsh words wound. All are the results [...]
Tick…. Tick…. Tick… The clock counts down to midnight to close out the weird year 2020. For most, it is something to forget. It’s essential, though, to start a new year better after such a challenging year. We should take our cue from the Romans, who created a god to express what we all feel. He had two faces. One looked backward, [...]
Today is Thanksgiving Day. We mark Thanksgiving differently than in the past. We buy out the supermarket, stuff ourselves full, sleep through boring football games, and wake up in time to look for Black Friday deals in the stores. We know the story of the pilgrims. And we say that is where Thanksgiving came from. That's only a smidgen of the truth. [...]
For fifty years, the name Greenberg and Thanksgiving occupied the same breath. If you are not familiar with the former, let me explain. The Greenberg family owns a small plant in Tyler, Texas, that specializes in one product. Smoked turkeys. When I was a teenager, my mother discovered them and decided to try them. They were the best turkey I or anyone [...]
Is there a keeper of the spring in your life? Perhaps you need to heed the counsel of a Scottish preacher named Peter Marshall. Marshall had a gift. His Scottish brogue did more than enchant. It allowed him to communicate relevant ideas. His post-war generation was so different, yet so much the same as ours. “The Keeper of the Spring” became one [...]
This is the year I received my official “old-man card” (aka Medicare). It arrived in the trail of gray hair, bifocals, and hearing loss. Such is life when you get to a certain age. The concept of an age at which things change is nothing new. The idea of retirement came from Otto Von Bismarck to rid himself of rivals and control [...]
On August 13, 1968, life changed. My parents went to a strange place and signed papers. We then went to Paula Stringer Realtors office (no longer there) on Central Expressway and picked up a key. We drove to the place the key fit. 620 Kindred Lane in Richardson. We opened the door to a two-story house, twice the size [...]
In this COVID-19 situation, people ask the same question? When. When will the virus be gone? When will our lives return to normal? Will I still have a job? Are restaurants and small businesses going to survive? All are questions longing for certainty. People like certainty. We want to know food is available. They turn to the weatherman on the TV, [...]
When COVID-19 (or as it was called then coronavirus) started rippling the news, I did not sound serious. After all, all media makes money by scaring people to death. I soon grew weary of breathless news anchors prophesying Armageddon. (I always thought that was the realm of end-times evangelicals.) But then, it did start getting serious. Doctors I knew and trusted seemed [...]
They are everywhere. The multi-room units pop up squeezed between properties and on vacant lots. They are not apartments, but storage facilities. In America, there are more than 48,000 storage facilities. Their popularity comes from a thirst for more. Two out of three American households with garages also have a storage unit. It has become a particular problem for Baby-Boomers, those people [...]
