My grandson slept for three hours in my lap yesterday afternoon. Slept my legs into their own nap. Slept through phones ringing, dogs barking, and the afternoon sun waning. Wrapped snugly in his swaddling cloth, he might have been another era’s baby, proof against technologies and innovations. One woman, an infant, a cloth. Nothing luxurious,…

Most religions have a version of the Golden Rule: love others as you love yourself. Treat others as you would be treated. Do unto others as you would be done by. Here’s the catch: It means ZIP if you don’t love yourself. Respect yourself. Treat yourself with kindness. And another ‘secret’: most of us DON’T…

I’m working on it, Snoopy. Trying to remember that putting what’s important to me ‘out there’ (out here?) doesn’t mean I have to engage to people who aren’t respectful in their responses. But sometimes I’m the one who forgets to be respectful. Right now, I’m seething over the Texas state school board’s decision to load…

I’m fairly certain that my son’s violin was the reason he stayed in school. That and orchestra. Oh, and photography, later. And maybe the Simpsons Club, during free period. In other words, not academics. Not English, per se, nor science nor math nor history (although he liked history, and turned me on to Jared Diamond,…

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