Month: October 2023

You can’t just fluidly wander any more. The shuffling / freezing and balance-related falling phenomena of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is something that won’t go away. PD is progressive. As the clock turns, the symptoms worsen. The one thing that has been found (so far) to help SLOW the progression and to mediate between body and…

More than just a mechanical goat … My 25-year old riding lawn mower died last week right in the middle of … well … mowing my yard. My yard has a slight incline (ever so slight, you barely notice it when you’re playing football or baseball, soccer, or kickball out there) but I was mowing…

Football team manages to win even without the encouraging prescience of its biggest football fan. I don’t know what happenend; I mean I still haven’t figured it out. Somewhere along the line connecting this Sunday (today) to last Sunday, something went askew. I lost a day in the shuffle there, somewhere. I’ve tried replaying the…

There is no place like Nebraska. My oldest son, then age four, had just witnessed the second of three national championships that the Nebraska Cornhusker football would win over the course of four seasons (1994, 1995, and 1997). In my son’s first five years of life, the Huskers went 60-3. That is, sixty wins against…

This is a poem that my great-grandfather, John Stevens Jr., wrote in 1957. He left it untitled, but I gave it a name. The Desert of Memory The truant fancy of the agedLoves to penetrate the vast and barren wasteWhich we call memory,Although its vain and profitless expanseIs thickly strewn with rough, forbidding rocksAnd angry…

I received this in the mail the other day, good words from a friend. There are some good thoughts in here. Balance Sheet of Life The most destructive habit — Worry.The greatest joy — Giving.The most satisfying work — Helping Others.The ugliest personality trait — Selfishness.The greatest shot in the arm — Encouragement.The greatest problem…

In a way, this book was my mentor for five years. I learned more as the author than I could have imagined I would. Pouring through family history: very old postcards (with very old stamps), family histories, family trees … In one branch, I found (from the “other side”) a not-too-distant cousin who was starting…

The Husker – Wolverines game wasn’t even a contest, but at least it wasn’t ugly. I knew going into the game that the score likely would not be close. I figured if we could hold Michigan to 14 or 17 points, and if our offense could manage to squeak out a couple of scores, then…