I was an insider for about forty weeks but that was a long time ago, and I’d have to stretch my brain to find myself an insider since I was born. Wait, maybe I was an insider when I was a Boy Scout leader. A watermelon seed is an insider, I guess, but it must give up its status to achieve its purpose. Oh phooey, I give up. Where’s the dictionary?

Insider: a person recognized or accepted as a member of a group, category, or organization as a person who is in position of power or has acce...(click to continue reading)

An item in the news a few days ago informed us that a bunch of people such a PETA, or some similar outfit, had demanded that a mayor of a small town change its name. As if it were any of their business, they went so far as to suggest a new name for the town. The town under verbal siege was Turkey, Texas. I can’t be sure what the specific objection was but judging from the suggested new name, and the fact that the news came just before Thanksgiving Day, that it had something to do with eating tur...(click to continue reading)

The family arrived at a campground in Acadia National Park late in the afternoon. Rain was still falling, as it had all day. We carefully unloaded our tents from the Volkswagen minibus, erected them and set up the tent fly over the camp table. The rain slacked to a light drizzle and we were able to unload the rest of our gear and prepare supper without getting excessively wet.

Here we sat like birds in the wilderness wondering what tomorrow would bring. We had hoped to spend the day exp...(click to continue reading)

Going to Granny’s was always a special treat for my children so long as they could play outdoors. There were so many things they could get into. They all liked to play near or in the little creek.

Bess lived just outside of Lima, Ohio on a 5-acre plot, bisected by a drainage ditch referred to by the inhabitants as a creek. The house and yard were west of the ditch while to the east was an apple orchard. On a few days in May when the orchard bloomed the sight and smell of it were too del...(click to continue reading)

The trip had been longer than we had expected. Sarwar and Catherine had done all the driving. I was just along for the ride to visit my other daughter Susanna and her husband, Dick. We had arrived the previous day and had rested overnight. Yet the little pain in my lower back nagged at me, as it had for the last few days. It was one of those devilish little gremlins that sneak up on a body when it is least expected; one that keeps the victim uncomfortable no matter what position he assumes.
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On occasions I have noticed things that I thought could be done a better way, perhaps improved with a slight change, maybe to simplify it. I never considered that advice, but maybe it was. In a previous writing I did give what I considered real advice, and I still think it’s good advice. It was directed to my children.

There was a time in our lives when all my children managed with some difficulty to get together at least once a year. Sometimes it was at a campground and sometimes at a ...(click to continue reading)