One final entry …

This will be the final entry in this blog. As regular readers know, Mrs. R. and I have spent a good deal of time in the hands of the medical profession in the five months since Thanksgiving. She has had a number of issues, including three operations. She faces nothing life threatening, other than the […]

Change: Arnie Goes High Tech

From The Arnie Chronicles, the semi-fictional biography of Joshua Bateman Arnold. For those of you who are relatively new to this blog, I must introduce Arnie — Joshua Bateman Arnold, about whom I haven’t written since last November.   He is my neighbor and a retired long haul trucker. He’s also a widower, and Mrs. R. […]

Aging: The Hommmme

One day I passed an elderly lady sitting in a wheelchair outside her room … Our eyes met, and I said “Hi.” She returned the most beautiful smile. A decade ago Mrs. R. belonged to a most collegial bridge group of eight ladies — two tables. They played every Thursday at one of the member’s […]

Life: ‘People can turn around’

“Ryan jumped out and got the bag and opened it up, revealing a thick wad of hundred dollar bills inside.” Back in the last century, when I taught high school journalism for a dozen years, the kids had something called the Fred File. It was a collection of never used story ideas that they could […]

Fantasy: The Case Of The Dead Battery

“Harry. We got a dead battery. Get the crime scene tape. And call the coroner.” LAST FALL MRS. R AND I were in Seattle on our annual retirement trip to the great northwest. Mrs R. grew up in Seattle. She graduated from West Seattle High and later from the University of Washington, these days known […]

It’s Never Too Late: The Short Happy Career of Willie Wood

At long last he putted, and the ball rolled agonizingly slowly across the green, then broke right towards the cup. “Go!” I shouted. “Go!” THIS IS THE STORY of a professional athlete and one of his more ardent fans. The athlete is former PGA touring pro Willie Wood.   I am the fan. I became aware […]

Stroke: Best Defense Is A Healthy Offense

“Experts say that fully 80% of all strokes are preventable.   No kidding — 80%! “ HERE’S A NAME YOU DON’T HEAR EVERY DAY: Johann Jakob Wepfer. He was a Swiss pharmacologist and pathologist who lived from 1620 to 1695 — a remarkable life span for a person of that era. To put that in historical […]

Aging: ‘Dying Young Only Looks Good in the Movies’

Journalist Regina Brett put it all in perspective. When she turned fifty, she wrote, “After having breast cancer at forty-one, I’m thrilled to grow old.” BACK IN THE EARLY 1960’S, before Mrs. R. and I were married, we were both employed at a large defense-oriented research firm in Northern California. The staff was a well-educated […]

Aging: Nerves and the Driving Test

“…you can do everything else right, but if you commit any one of eight critical errors … the test is over and you flunk on the spot.”  Last April I posted a blog about seniors, their automobiles and their driver’s licenses. I wrote, in part, “…to a certain group of seniors, a car is not […]