April 16, 2022 Time, time time, see what’s become of me While I looked around for my possibilities I was so hard to please - Paul Simon, A Hazy Shade of Winter In Tony Hillerman’s spellbinding mystery “ A Thief of Time, “ the thief is one who loots artifacts, pieces of the…

April 1, 2022 UPDATE / CORRECTION, April 2: It appear that at least part of the local case surge discussed below is from a batch of previously unreported tests administered in January. I’ve changed the text to reflect this info and added a link with details. I apologize for passing along any incorrect…

March 1, 2022 I’m sure glad my wife and I had a safe room built into the basement of our house. We did it because we were worried about tornados and the dangers of climate change, but it’ll make a fine fallout shelter too. To someone born early in the Cold War…

February 15, 2022

February 10, 2022 My neighbors love to walk. From my desk in front of the window, I see a parade of them: solos, couples, pairs of women, and lots of folks with dogs. Yesterday while taking my own stretch break, I spotted four people and their pups out enjoying the sun on a…

January 29, 2022 Last spring, we began hearing about Covid patients who were suddenly afflicted with tinnitus, a ringing or buzzing in one or both ears that sometimes persisted after other symptoms went away. Others who already had tinnitus found it had gotten worse. Like a lot of things about the pandemic, the…

January 5, 2022 Years ago I knew a kid named Mark. We both belonged to the youth group at our Methodist church, and the summer after my senior year, a bunch of us traveled to Kentucky on a service project, helping people fix up their houses. Mark was a couple of years younger…

December 22, 2021 It’s roomier than it looks. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons) I’m glad my wife and I never stopped taking pandemic precautions. We spend very little time in public spaces, wear masks everywhere except the house, go through barrels of hand sanitizer, and got boosted as soon as we had the chance. …