Birthdays are a special gift in and of themselves. There is something breathtaking about making it to another milestone even when the road there may have been a bit rough. It’s one of those days when the greetings prove that you are never really alone. There is more love in your life than you may ever imagine. Birthdays are a time when you realize that you are probably a great deal tougher than you may have thought, especially when you get into the higher numbers that indicate that you are one of the senior members of society.
I must admit that the events of this past year have been devastating at times. I have been so saddened by the amount of evil that exists in the world and I really do worry about how it will ultimately affect my grandchildren. My birthday was an opportunity to put things into perspective. Sure there were more terrorist attacks and I watched a Frontline production that was as frightening as anything that I have ever seen but the sun came out and the world kept moving forward. Besides, I learned that Mickey and Minnie Mouse share the same birthday as mine. Continue reading “Me and Mickey”
My social calendar includes far too many funerals these days. I recall a time when my mother-in-law seemed to be attending a farewell service of some kind almost once a month. She joked that at the rate her friends and relatives were going there would be nobody left to honor her when she died. That proved to be entirely false because she had been such a generous soul in life that the church was crowded with people who wanted to honor her in death. It’s not an easy thing to lose a loved one and the nature of funerals is to recall the best moments of the deceased’s life. In today’s world that almost always includes a slideshow of photographs outlining the human milestones that are universal to our society. 
It’s common place for some of today’s political sorts to speak of the present economic time as being quite horrible as compared to the past. They speak of the troubles that face young people and insist that this is the first generation that will not have the opportunities that were available in earlier times. I can’t speak for anybody else but I know that in my own case opportunity meant hard work. My first job was a summer gig in which I served as a receptionist at a medical clinic. I arrived promptly at eight thirty each morning so that I might be ready to answer the phones when they began to ring at the opening hour of nine. I generally worked until six in the evening but sometimes one of the doctors requested that I stay a bit longer to help close up after the late patients had left. For my efforts I was paid the grand salary of eighty eight dollars per month! (Yes, you read that correctly. I received twenty two dollars a week for working forty plus hours. A quick bit of math confirms that my salary was about fifty cents per hour.)
My recent journey has been about family, history, roots. It is only fitting that I would find myself standing in the middle of Notre Dame University in the middle of my travels because almost fifty years ago I made a personal decision about that place that would alter the direction of my life. As I have visited the locales where my ancestors once lived and worked I have reflected on the choices that they made that eventually led to me and my brothers. At Purdue University I thought of all of the forces of the universe that gave me my grandson, Andrew, and then brought him back to the place of his birth. Each of us has a rather amazing story if one really thinks about it. From the very beginnings of time the world has been moving toward the destinies that we call our lives. 
All It Takes Is A Little Love 