Category: Encounters of the Every Day Kind

CLOUD NINE

OCTOBER 12, 2024 – Today our granddaughter celebrated her ninth birthday. At our son’s request my wife and I “got scarce” for nearly the entire duration of the shindig, which was staged at our house. At first we were a bit miffed at being excluded, but as I observed the birthday girl’s mother and dad …

GOD AS GOLFER II

OCTOBER 1, 2024 – Today in the Heartland fall was in the air, though the sun was bright in a cloudless sky. After reviewing convoluted legal descriptions all morning, I burst out of work mode and embarked on my daily power walk up and down the hills of Little Switzerland. On my second climb to …

COSTCO COSMOS

AUGUST 25, 2024 – The other day I found myself aboard a spacecraft entering the parking lot of a Costco store in East Lyme, CT. It could just as well have been a Costco store back home in Minnesota: the lot was jammed with cars, except their license plates bore the motto, “The Constitution State” …

ENJOYING FIRST GRADE AGAIN

MAY 15, 2023 – For a half hour today, I slowed down the merry-go-round and savored time with our first grade granddaughter. It was my turn to pick up Illiana from school, and when she slipped into the car, she asked if we could go to a playground. “Sure,” I said. “Which one?” “How about …

ACCENTED

APRIL 28, 2023 – To catch up on my continuing legal education credits, lately I’ve been attending web-based seminars featuring a bevy of lawyers talking about the finer points of one sub-set or another of . . . the law. I shouldn’t be surprised that many of them speak with a very strong Minnesota accent; …

DUMPSTER STORY (PART I OF III)

MARCH 4, 2023 – We live in an older neighborhood adjacent to even older neighborhoods. Except for times when we’ve been out of town, nearly every day of the past three and half decades I’ve passed by the same old—or renovated—houses on my daily exercise routine. For the most part, these dwellings are tidy and …

ONLY IN MINNESOTA (PART I OF II)

DECEMBER 21, 2022 – The temperature on the dashboard of the car read 1F. Honestly, the air hadn’t felt that cold, except when I was skiing into the wind blowing across “Little Switzerland.” The car warmed up quickly, as did the icicles hanging off my face, then dripping and dropping onto my lap. However invigorating …