Is this what you expected life to look like a year ago? When my children were all young, the changes I noticed from year to year were often typical milestones: first steps, potty training, starting school, riding bikes. In those labor-intensive years coated with more body fluids than I care to recount, raising children felt like my […]
Month: December 2021
Try for a lighter, more meaningful Christmas
Shortly after the Thanksgiving leftovers have been polished off, holiday stress begins its annual escalation. This year the inevitable pressure to find the perfect holiday gifts seems accentuated, given the supply shortages caused by the ongoing pandemic. University of Minnesota professor Joel Waldfogel, who wrote “Scroogenomics: Why You Shouldn’t Buy Presents for the Holidays,” claims that […]
Not today, COVID
While none of us gets out of here alive, we do have the ability to influence how we exit or, more pointedly, how we don’t. A healthy diet and exercise, for example, can prevent myriad issues from diabetes to heart disease. But without the fangs or claws of imminent demise, distant consequences seem improbable and […]
WWII soldier’s dilemma then and now
For several years, I’ve had biweekly dinners with my friend Bascom Hill Biggers III. He turned 99 this past summer, but let me correct the image you may have of a doddering old man: That same week he danced a jig outside the Bureau of Motor Vehicles after renewing his driver’s license. Raised in Atlanta, Bascom […]