Stirrings from the empty nest

For a large part of my adult life, I have offered wondered where people get the time to do the things that people do. You know, stuff aside ...

My son, Sean, turned 21 a few days ago. I don't know how it happened, but it happened and it beats the alternative of not happenning, wh...

My oldest son, Sean, turned 21 today. So today I celebrate his ascension to adulthood and mourn the loss of a damned good tax break. I wish ...

This is my mother, you met her some months ago -- July 4th, to be exact -- a day she considers the last day of summer. She's sitting, I ...

This is one of those fall days in Minnesota where you begin to realize what a man feels when taking his dying breath. The sun is warm, the t...

When my kids were growing up, I didn't really dream of them becoming president of the United States, or changing the world with Nobel pr...

I can't really say I'm a big fan of organized religion anymore. I haven't been to church in a few years, pretty much since my wi...

A week or so ago, Minnesota Public Radio hired a fine photographer to snap some "publicity" photos of people who are on the air. S...

I've always been interested in the space program. When I was a kid, my folks gave me a Panasonic reel-to-reel recorder and I'd stay ...

How many churches do Islamists have to firebomb in order to make their point that the Pope was wrong to have quoted 14th century Byzantine ...

Today was my wife's birthday. She needs a break; bad things tend to happen on her birthday. In 1986, my grandmother died on her birthda...

I come from a long line of worriers. Or maybe it's a short line. And maybe it's not "worrying," per se. Maybe it's jus...

Click for a larger image. Patrick and I played what is probably our last golf game of the summer. And perhaps one of the reasons why I'm...

One of Carolie and my favorite pasttimes is taking pictures of people who might not be in their most -- shall we say -- positive light. One ...

Every now and again, I get slapped in the face by the confirmation that I'm changing; swept into a different dimension by technology. No...

I have returned to Minnesota after a two-day drive back from Fitchburg, Massachusetts with a stop overnight in Napoleon, Ohio. My mother tol...

Since he died in February 2004, nobody has done much in "the little room," the workshop of my father in the barn just down the str...

The great Eastern vacation has moved to the homestead in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. My mother, bless her heart, was just telling me about the...

I suppose it's time to get back to the business of this column, musings on life from the empty nest. My wife and I arrived at Newark...

You know how I said I had a feeling I'd break 100 golfing during this trip. Well, I haven't, at least so far. But I came close. Toda...