Free-Floating Stories+

I would never consider driving the wrong way on a one-way street. And since my daughters ran in high school, I’m aware of the traditional counter-clockwise flow of a track meet. But there is a very nice park 1.5 miles from my house that makes for a convenient morning run along a rambling circular trail. … Continue reading Wrong-Way Runner

“Hey, honey,” my wife said as we barreled along M53, “There’s a park up ahead. Sandy Pines. We’ve never been there.” I had. A year before I met her. 52 years ago. But I didn’t want to tell her that. To get into all that. “Let’s stop for lunch,” she suggested. “The site says there’s … Continue reading Memory Check

You can’t work at a profession all your life and not carry over some telling behavioral traits into retirement. I like to observe elder folk, like me, and try to guess their earlier career—a version of the old TV show: ‘What’s my line?’ but instead ‘What was my line?’ For example: I was in a … Continue reading Professional Tells

 I was on a plane out of Chicago a while back, row 32A next to the window. A lady slides in next to me, carefully arranges her gray wool skirt over her knees, shakes her bobbed, unashamedly silver hair and reaches for a Georgette Heyer paperback from her carry-on bag. Finally, a guy, big as … Continue reading Coach Class Oversharing

You’ve heard of…or perhaps, yourself, indulge in ‘dad jokes’. One step past those are ‘granddad jokes.’ It’s interesting to speculate why some elder males have a penchant for that kind of humor. You never find women compulsively telling corny jokes. Certainly not to their grandchildren. A serious discussion with a thoughtful oldster on his choice … Continue reading Granddad Jokes

Fifty years later, my daughter and three of her college roommates take a trip to Florence where I had gone to recover from surgery and the culture shock of living and studying in Rome. Over those four years’ study, I had returned many times. More particularly, I made it back to Fiesole, my retreat on … Continue reading Fiesole

According to so many ads on TV, online, and in magazines us older folks require a whole arsenal of walkers and stair climbers and walk-in bathtubs not to mention hearing aids and orthotic insoles. Well, we certainly can use some mechanical support devices. But the adaptations and accommodations we most lean on, don’t come from … Continue reading Somebody to Lean On

A familiar sight, my grandchild absorbed in his ‘screens.’ Focused on a small rectangle of light and magic, absorbed in animated conflicts, he is cocooned within the world around him. Like a writer subsumed by his concentration, he startles and remonstrates if someone barges into the room with real-life presence and demands. As I age, … Continue reading Screens and memories

joke telling...an art to be shared across the generations I do jokes. Not professionally, since, technically, I don’t get paid. I just perform at family gatherings where sometimes I have to chum the audience with a few one-liners to get the hilarity level up and bubbling. I only fathered daughters who can seem, at times, … Continue reading Getting the Set-up Right

A group of folks in our town work hard to produce old fashioned radio shows. They solicit and select thirty-minute scripts for a live production in a local church before a live audience for ultimate playback on NPR. As you might imagine there are a lot of moving parts from cast auditions, to tech crew … Continue reading Throwback Medium