There were several friends who commented somewhat favorable about last week's column regarding our country's financial state and what I surmised was causing the problem. One fellow found an error and wrote me an e-mail on the story about a couple who could not pronounce the name of the town they were in and asked the employee of a Burger King to pronounce the name of where they were very slowly Burrrrrr, gerrrrrr, Kiiiing. ...more

April 2, 2009

Getting older is getting tougher and tougher every day, especially now that I am midway in my septuagenarian years, somewhere between 70 and 79 years old. Getting to be a centenarian, someone between 100 and 109 years old, is going to take a lot more of paying attention to the ways that could, would, may or definitely will interfere with that accomplishment. ...more

March 12, 2009

As the buzzards that return to Hinckley, Ohio, each March signal the beginning of spring, cruise ships plying their trade in the Caribbean signal the end of the hurricane season. That was brought to mind a few weeks back when my fellow columnist Raleigh Whiteman wrote about the cruise he and his PW took recently. ...more

February 13, 2009

Working Vacation Always Ends Up Being Work I need to apologize to you and my editor for not submitting my column last week as I had planned, but the best made plans of man oft go awry, and my plans certainly did not happen as I had thought they would. ...more

July 17, 2008

This is the year that the PW and I are more or less celebrating our 20 years of retirement. It really is less of a celebration for me because I was only retired for three of those years before I realized that we needed another income in order to continue a more than modest lifestyle. I have never been in a position of not being able to find a decent job because I have had plenty of experience in many hobbies, that while expensive, were capable of earning money if need be. Not being able to accept a more modest lifestyle may eventually prove to have been a mistake. In looking around among my friends and peers I am seeing as many as half are perhaps in the same boat as I. Of course I am speculating and have no certification of that statement. I can only speak of my own experience as a federal retiree. ...more

October 18, 2007