The young woman seated opposite me at the restaurant was an orphan. A few months earlier, her mother had died of cancer. Her father had departed this earth years earlier after a fall from a ladder. Both parents I’d known since college, a bookish pair who remained in the same four-st

Are writers soon to be replaced by Artificial intelligence (AI)?  A reader sent me an article that raised the question. Its genesis came from a story about a man who wrote a children’s book using AI. Once released, reports of the publication raised hoopla in the writing community.

(I’m taking a lap victory by repeating my blog of November 2020, after Joe Biden’s defeat of Donald Trump.)                                      *** The 2020 election makes clear that neither political party will be setting the course for the country. Gr

A friend of mine took a series of tests to determine her mental decline as she aged. Happily, for her, the tests were comforting.  Even so, I admired her courage.  What she’d done was like poking a sleeping bear with a sharp stick.  If the news hadn’t been good, how would she h

He was hunched against the retirement center’s brick wall, his figure illuminated by the light from a single bulb overhead. A hoodie covered most of his face, but by his crouched position, I knew he was young. He was probably one of the homeless in the area, though I’d not seen hi

I sat down to brunch with a married couple I’ve known for years.  The friendship is so comfortable, we dare to talk about religion and politics.  Mostly we discuss books. The husband told me he was working through the novels of a Japanese woman who wrote fantasy.  He couldn’t r

Getting Lost to Find Home, my upcoming memoir, will reveal my childhood relationship with my father was a rocky one.  We didn’t make our separate peace until I’d graduated from college.  Even then, communication wasn’t easy.  He was an Indiana farm boy with an 8th-grade educa

According to historians, the Age of Enlightenment dominated western thinking in the 17 and 18th centuries. Coming on the heels of the Scientific Revolution, it valued evidence of the senses, individual liberty, religious tolerance, and a separation between church and state. The major

Sometimes, in the course of human affairs, actions are so preposterous, laws don’t exist to prevent them from occurring.  For example, no one has suggested we need a rule that bars killer whales from competing in Olympic swimming competitions.  Dogs aren’t required to have drive

The budget pamphlet in my mailbox was titled “Financial Realities.”  I laughed.  As a person once responsible for a  $200 million budget, I know financial realities are imaginary.  Budgets are guestimates of the future based on the unlikely assumption that history will repeat