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The Irony Of It All

Some years ago, singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette penned a song titled “Ironic.” Its lyrics probably spoke to most of us at one time or another in our lives. For instance the chorus of the song includes these thoughts: “It’s like rain on your wedding day. It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid. It’s the good advice that you just didn’t take …” All of these things and more are examples of irony. Irony hit me squarely in the face this past Monday, And it wasn’t in a good way, I awoke to the national news outlets reporting that more than 40 people had been shot ...

A Firm Foundation

When I was 3 years old, my parents moved our family of five kids with one on the way to a stately, old Victorian style home in the heart of Woodsdale. I was just a toddler or so, but I clearly remember climbing the wide wooden steps to the front porch. The front door was a broad, heavy door with an oversized brass-looking door knob. The door was flanked by two leaded glass windows that allowed light to enter and create prisms of color on the shining hardwood floors. It felt magical to this young child. Entering the front hall, there were large white pillars that helped form an ...

Games People Play

Remember when you were a child and you and your family and friends played games? Baby boomer kids managed to enjoy some fun without today’s electronics or complicated computers. We had board games such as Monopoly, Sorry, Clue, checkers, Scrabble and a host of others. Then came Twister which presented a physical challenge that could get a bit embarrassing, but Twister always ended in laughter as participants wound up in a pile of bodies on the living room floor. For some of us, card games were the norm. There were an endless number of card games that required some thought and ...

Putting It All Into Perspective

As I sat down in front of my computer to compose this weekend’s column, there was a young man, a Buffalo Bills football player, fighting for his life after a collision on the field of play. Since that tragic mishap on Monday night football, the league decided to postpone the game between the Bills and Cincinnati Bengals to a later date. The concern and focus was put on the football player, Damar Hamlin. Why these things happen we will never fully understand. But it is what happened after the collision that should have us all thinking. During a time in this country of such ...

Lights Out, Now What?

There is something very humbling about losing one’s power. People in lofty positions in business or politics know what I mean for sure. But what about the loss of the power that turns on the heat and lights in our homes? Coming home the day after Christmas following time with family, we were met with the fact that our power had just gone out and it would be about six hours before it would be restored. The temperature outside was 18 degrees and falling. That wind that made us hold our breath for fear of power outages days earlier was still blowing briskly as we entered our dark ...

Angels Among Us

Angie the Angel has returned. She’s back at the top of our Christmas tree where she belongs. Angie is a plastic cherub illuminated by a single light bulb. She is more than 50 years old, but she’s aged well. She was passed down to my husband from his family who named her Angie probably before he was even born. Angie has survived an assortment of floods in her early years in her then-South Wheeling home and again when the family home on Boggs Run in Benwood was flooded in the early 1970s. Since then, Angie has been packed and unpacked at three of our own homes. She became a special ...