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I confess I've been reading other people's mail for many of the past decades. No, I've not been opening stuff misdelivered to my mailbox. I'm talking about the letters of people famous enough to have theirs collected into books. But that's gotten me to thinking about the words of the rest of us - we who are not famous - whose stuff will never be collected into books. I've heard it said that ultimately, all we have to leave behind are our stories. I fear, by that measure, we...
Early into the school shutdowns this past spring, I got reassured by the two girls next door. Not missing a beat, Caroline began Zooming ballet, younger Julia hip hop. Caroline took violin, Julia the clarinet, and both took piano - also virtually. While I doubted this to be as effective as in-person learning, I was much impressed by their resilience, enthusiasm and optimism. I pondered all this more, weeks later. News of the California fires brought video of adults and...
The current crisis has triggered the recollection of a question in the muddle in the middle of my head, where there's plenty of room for faint relevance. The recollection was of something I'd read, perhaps 30 years ago, in a Chicago business publication. It was an exchange between several real estate agents about what they'd do with bookcases encountered in houses they were trying to market. All agreed bookcases were a problem, and the solutions they offered ranged from the...
The small stack of elderly firewood beside my garage occasionally reminds me of Chet and Ron. They were my first two project bosses after I was hired by a management consulting firm, soon after grad school. Guys in their late 50s, Chet and Ron were managers of big consulting contracts for airlines, insurance companies, manufacturers. As a rookie "green pea" analyst, my job was to collect data and run my thinking by them before parading it before a client. My chief task,...
One year and one day ago, a 93-year-old woman ran down my wife, Susan, on the sidewalk on First Street, shattering her, shoulders to knees. Sue and I were out for our daily walk. Those were our times to share, argue about national news, talk about kids and families, and to hold hands. And yeah, more than once, I stopped to kiss her, still smitten like a high school boy even after 45 years of marriage. Coming onto First, we noticed westbound cars stopped all the way back to Gar...
