What was my mom like when I was a kid? She was the same mom all through her life. Loving, kind, protective, making sure we had what we needed living on a tight budget. She was a traditional Italian through and through, and raised all three of her children in that traditional Italian way. Traditional Italian culture, like most European cultures, is male-dominated with the women subservient. I have to admit, in the male-dominated Italian culture, the male offspring received much more favorable treatment over their female siblings. Not only was I born a boy—the only son—I was also born last, the baby of the family. So yeah, I was allowed more latitude and got away with more stuff than my older sisters. Not that they resented me for that (ha!).

That was the way of life not only in European cultures, but in the post-war era, where European cultures continued to influence American life. Despite the “Americanization” of the era, the cultural and social contributions of European immigrant groups became more visible. Men were encouraged and expected to get a well-paying job in an era of growing economic opportunity to support their families while, by and large, women returned to domestic roles. Being a homemaker was highly undervalued and, in my opinion, greatly underestimated. It was very common back then to barely spend time with dads because they went to work all day and left us in the care of moms. Moms pretty much ran the ship. They had to. And without them, “the whole dang circus would have fallen apart!”

Today, for the most part, dual income families are the norm and the kids are spending more time with nannies or grandparents, or a combination of both. There are more single moms raising children by themselves than ever before. The kids today are exposed to so much more than we were growing up. We had the beginning of the television culture, much more innocent, muted and demure than the digital streaming culture of today. We had three channels. That was it. And those channels went dark at midnight, not returning to air until six o’clock the next morning. We didn’t have cell phones, computers, or video games. We had the blessing of being able to go outside after school and on weekends to ride our bikes and play with friends, most times all day long, and not returning home until dinner time when Mom called our name from the front door. Speaking of friends, my mom wrapped her arms around my sister’s friends and mine, treating them with love, care, and respect as she treated her own kids. At that time, in the fifties and early sixties, racial discrimination was common. Italians could be very guilty of this, especially toward African Americans. My mother was no different. She talked in a racist way that was kind of embarrassing for us later in life, but when I brought my Black friend, Reggie, over to play at our house, she welcomed him with open arms and a giant hug. That’s who she was. While she grew up with racist beliefs in her Italian upbringing, my mother had a beautiful heart and soul, and it NEVER mattered if our friends were Black, white, green, or purple, she embraced them and treated them with kindness and respect because she genuinely cared about them.

As a teenager in the more liberal sixties and seventies culture, I got into music. I wanted to play the drums, but we couldn’t afford them. So my mom encouraged me to take up the guitar. I was obstinate and refused that advice. But Mom knew best. I ended up learning to play guitar, starting with a bass guitar and forming a “garage band” with my friends. We would practice at our drummer’s house but as our amps got louder, we had to find another basement. My mother actually encouraged us to practice in our basement and it didn’t matter how loud we got. She wanted us to be there.

As a young teen, I took up smoking. I thought I was hiding it from my parents pretty well, of course, my mom knew. While she would’ve rather I didn’t smoke, she told me “if you’re going to smoke, I would rather you do it in front of me.” She never wanted us to hide anything from her.

It was my mother who taught me how to drive a car. In the sixties, as domestic roles were changing and in order to supplement the family income, my mother became “The Tupperware Lady”, selling Tupperware to other ladies at sales “parties.” She was pretty successful at it. Part of her responsibility was not only to sell the product but also to deliver it to her customers. Tupperware had no shipping arrangements with delivery companies, so salespeople had to make deliveries themselves. I used to go with her to help deliver products to many customers at one time, carrying stuff into homes for her and kind of being a “bodyguard” for her as well. Once I got my temporary driver’s license, she would make me drive to deliver to customers. Lots of deliveries all over the city of Cleveland gave me some great experience driving freeways and backstreets alike.

From Cub Scouts involvement, letting me play baseball and football pickup games after school, teaching me to drive, tolerating rock band practices, and later helping to babysit my daughters, and everything in between, my mom was a big influence in my life.

Which holiday? For me, THE holiday… of course, is Christmas. And if you asked me what my favorite meal at Christmastime was, until about ten years ago, I would’ve said Sausage, Peppers and Onions with my big sister’s Italian Rice casserole. However, a very recent favorite Christmas meal take-over since I began learning to cook in earnest is now Beef Wellington.

For some reason this has become a Christmas tradition with my immediate family, and we now have it every year. But going back to my childhood Christmas celebrations, my favorite meal was always sausage and peppers…a long-standing tradition at Christmas on the Italian side of the family. In fact, most all our holiday traditions came from the Italian celebrations ever since I can remember. We would all gather for Christmas at my Nana & Nanu’s house in Cleveland. And by all, I mean ALL our extended family, which included the families of my mother’s three siblings. Aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws. Occasionally, from the Puerto Rican side of the family, my father’s brother Uncle Louis and his wife Aunt Jean (Italian side) would be there with Uncle Louis’s specialty—Spanish rice (to die for).

Every year, my Nana’s basement was decked out with Christmas decorations, and tables of delicious food like sausage, peppers and caramelized onions, pasta and meatballs, lots of homemade bread (for sausage sandwiches), salads, shrimp, charcuterie trays of salami, prosciutto, olives, and lots of cheeses, and pizza—both with and without (white) sauce. And of course, a large spread of traditional Italian Christmas cookies. My mother and sisters would bake cookies such as “Do-Do’s” (dough-DOUGHS), which are small balls of chocolaty, nutty goodness frosted with a smooth lemony icing. Sesame seed cookies known as “Giuggiulena” (joo-joo-LENA) which feature a combination of anise and toasted sesame seeds, “Pizzelle” (pit-ZELL-eh), thin, wafer-like, and crispy, traditionally flavored with anise and, my favorite, “Pignoli” (peen-YO-lee), made with almond paste and covered with pine nuts. Other Italian styles of cookies occasionally made an appearance in various years, such as rainbow cookies, wedding cookies (snowballs), chocolate sandwich cookies and something called “Dead Man’s Bones”…which it seems is traditionally known as “Dead Man’s Beans”.

And of course…we didn’t eat any of the main dishes like pasta and sausages and peppers without first welcoming a visit from Santa Claus! Maybe just nibbling on the charcuterie meats & cheeses while we waited for Santa.

Our Italian family Christmas celebrations were colorful, very loud…and really delicious!

My father grew up in Caguas, Puerto Rico, an American territory since 1898 when Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the U.S. after the Spanish-American War. As an American citizen, my father served honorably for this country in WWII. In post-war 1950s America, Latinos faced harsh discrimination from landlords and employers, were ostracized by society and often profiled by law enforcement based on their appearance or language (Hey, 2025…sound familiar?)

My father was a very quiet man, one of those people who only spoke when spoken to. I learned from my mother that he had a rough go of it early in their married life. He spoke mostly Spanish and had a broken English accent, which improved over the years. He was one of 14 children growing up in Puerto Rico and wasn’t a well-educated man, attaining only a middle-school-level education before having to quit to help on the family farm. I believe that quiet persona was the unfortunate result of the ostracism based on how he looked and spoke. For these reasons, I believe he preferred to keep his opinions and judgments to himself. We have all learned what the ravages of war can do to the human psyche. I’ve read many accounts of soldiers who don’t wish to speak of their experiences in battle. My father was one of those soldiers. In my teens, I finally got him to tell me; he was a field artillery infantryman, fighting in Germany firing cannons and killing human beings. It’s not easy to forget horrible events like those, especially for a man of quiet peace as my father was.

Growing up with my father, you wouldn’t know he had been through many trials and tribulations. He loved me and my sisters unconditionally, although admittedly, I was the “favorite” simply because I was:
a) a boy
b) I was the baby.
In European cultures like mine (Italian and Spanish) I’ve hit the familial lottery when it comes to favoritism:

My father LOVED baseball, as almost all Puerto Ricans do. Baseball was truly THE national pastime in Puerto Rico and naturally, my father was a New York Yankees fan growing up because the Yankees always won and their games were covered extensively in Puerto Rico. When he and my mom settled in Cleveland, Ohio, he was “sentenced” to listen only to Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) games, which at the time, was the sorriest team in baseball.

I remember him walking me down to the corner drugstore once a week—just he and I—to buy me some superman and Batman comic books, or, in his broken English-accented, “comedy books” (his accent always reminded me of “Ricky Ricardo” on I Love Lucy!) He taught me how to cut the grass (mow the lawn), how to tie a necktie, how to take care of our dog, how to fix things using only duct tape and string (he was NOT a handyman by any stretch of the imagination), and how to drive a car. And he passed on his love of baseball to me. One lasting image of my father is him sitting in our basement near the radio tuned to a Tribe game, lights dimmed and the burning ember of his cigar lighting the room like a beacon. My father occasionally suffered from migraine headaches, and I remember his self-treatment technique of sitting at the kitchen table with a towel draped over his head, breathing the steam from a hot bowl of Vicks VapoRub. My father didn’t really cook, but I remember his amazing oatmeal raisin cookies he would bake. Only he could bake them that well. Believe me, I tried. I remember he would let my daughters play with his hair—Nanu hair, as they called it—and he was just sitting in his chair, soaking it all in.

Of all the things I learned from my dad, I’m blessed to have learned how to be a loving husband, a proud father, and a good person to my friends and extended family. He was a kind and gentle soul, who loved his children and grandchildren with every inch of his huge heart.

I lost my father in 1993 to Alzheimer’s. Although, because of that terrible disease, I had lost him over a year before, when his memories failed and the genial man we knew retreated to stoic confusion and silence. Tomorrow, my wife and I will donate and participate in my third Walk To End Alzheimer’s event, dedicated to my father’s memory. This awful disease took hold and slowly stole his essence, his quiet, loving personality, but how he shaped my life and the great person he truly was, will be with me forever, and I cannot wait to see him again on the other side of the rainbow.

Alzheimer’s Association

If I had to go back in time and start a brand-new career, what would it be? That’s a fascinating question. And I’m not sure I have only one answer.

Ever since I could remember, I have always wanted a “creative” career, whether that was in art (I always wanted to draw cartoons—or even be a cartoon. More on that later) or music (learning an instrument and playing in a band like The Beatles) or becoming an actor for television and movies.

Perhaps, if I could go back in time, I might have pursued a career as an artist/illustrator or a cartoonist. As a young boy, when everyone went to bed, I would stay up into the early morning hours sitting at the dining room table with pencils, magic markers, and paper, just copying, freehand, the illustrations I saw in all the Mad Magazines I collected. That era of Mad Magazine featured some of the most talented illustrators and cartoonists, like Mort Drucker, whose specialty was caricature, and Don Martin, with unique, stylized characters in zany situations. Many other talented artists were contributing to Mad Magazine during that era, including Paul Coker Jr., Al Jaffee (the back cover fold-ins), Jack Rickard, Dave Berg, and Sergio Aragones’s “Drawn Out Dramas,” —little drawings that filled the margins of pages throughout every Mad issue. I was emulating each artist’s unique style, learning the economy of lines and shapes and how they went together to form an image. For me, it was like my own little master class in cartooning.

And then, I discovered The Beatles. I wanted to play music like The Beatles. If I could go back in time, I would seriously consider a career in music. I was attracted to drumming for some reason, and similar to copying Mad Magazine Illustrators, I copied Ringo Starr’s drumming that I heard on all those Beatles hits. My big sister was a Huge Beatles fan, and would play Beatles 45s for hours up in her attic dorm bedroom. I would sit at the bottom of the stairs and listen and drum with my hands on my knees, perfecting the timing and hand coordination to keep a beat. So, in a way, Ringo and other “British Invasion” musicians provided my masterclass in drumming. My parents couldn’t afford to buy me a drum kit, and I never had formal training except for a few lessons using a rubber pad and drumsticks. Later, as a teen, with the help of my friend, Ron, I learned to play his bass guitar after he started playing rhythm/lead guitar. Eventually, I played well enough to join a garage cover band with Ron and other friends and spent my teen years playing live music. It was during that time that I discovered I could just sit behind a drum kit and play, applying the techniques I learned by listening to Ringo. Of course, I was NOT Ringo by any stretch, and nowhere near as good as our drummer in the band, who is still, to this day, one of the best drummers I’ve ever heard. I have since taken up music as a hobby, teaching myself guitar and even trying my hand at the keyboard, and writing, playing, and recording songs with the help of my computers.

If I could go back in time, I believe, if I applied myself totally to the craft, I would have been a successful full-time actor. I love the craft of acting, the ability to perform and entertain, to create characters for a living, and working with other like-minded, talented people would have been an incredible life. As I mentioned earlier, I either wanted to draw a cartoon or become one. Which meant if I couldn’t draw them, then creating and voicing cartoon characters was always a high goal as an actor. As a kid, I never watched Saturday morning cartoons to be entertained. I was intrigued by the characters. When I found out that Warner Bros. used only one actor, Mel Blanc, to create and perform nearly all of those lovable characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the cat, Tweety Bird, Foghorn Leghorn, and many more. Daws Butler was an actor who did the same for Hanna Barbera, giving life to Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Quickdraw McGraw, Snagglepuss, Dixie and Mr. Jinx, Cap’n Crunch, and on and on. However, I soon learned the full-time job of being an actor requires total commitment to practicing the craft every day, acting classes, seeking employment through auditions, dealing with constant rejection, supplementing an income with other temp jobs (waiting tables, part-time retail jobs, etc) in between acting gigs, in reality, was something I didn’t have the patience for. And besides, as a young actor, I wasn’t particularly good-looking or photogenic, which was a big deterrent at the time.

In my actual career in radio, being a good communicator was mandatory, but being an actor in radio was extremely helpful. And fun! The acting skills and techniques I learned from watching TV, movies, and more specifically, cartoons, have been applied to my job in broadcasting and voice acting for over 45 years. My daily job was on-air DJ or “radio personality,” but I was also able to carve out a rewarding career as a voice actor. Through the years, I was also able to perform in lots of community theater productions to hone my skills as an actor and have the joy of entertaining a live audience. Today, although retired from the daily radio broadcasting world, I continue my career behind the microphone as a voice actor, with a few acting jobs in short films and TV commercials along the way. I have spent 45 years voicing local and national radio and TV commercials, industrial narrations, promos for national TV stations, satellite and internet radio, and yeah, even a few animations. It’s been a rewarding career that I am so grateful for. No fame or fortune, just a fulfilling experience using all the self-taught skills and techniques I learned in a lifetime of art, music, and creating characters, in a full-time career that I would go back in time and do all over again.

For my 70th birthday this year, my daughters gave me a Storyworth subscription. On this website, the “storyteller” (the person telling their story) receives an email with a question (writing prompt) to answer. Storyworth Memoirs are designed to make it easy to turn your memories into a memoir your loved ones can cherish forever. I think it’s a great gift and I’ve started the memoir ball rolling with the first question: What’s your favorite holiday tradition? Where does it come from?

What’s my favorite holiday tradition? Well…that’s a tough one as there have been many holiday “traditions” through the years, with new ones being adopted as our children grew into adults and we welcomed grandchildren into the mix.

For me, Christmas was always a special time. My birthday lands exactly a week before Christmas, and the holiday decorations and twinkling lights always make my birthday feel unique and extraordinary. And there’s music! All the Christmas tunes, both old and new, invigorate and brighten the mood for that oh-so-limited amount of time before the “big day”… although my wife believes the limited time for Christmas music isn’t limited enough. When I was a kid, there were several times I received just one gift from family or friends that covered both occasions and, even though I was grateful for the gift, it was kind of a bummer. Still, it never dampened my spirit and love of this magical time of year. As I grew up, the memory of sometimes receiving just one gift for my birthday and Christmas lingered and influenced how we celebrate the birthdays of two of our children who were also born during the holiday season. My wife and I make sure to celebrate their birthdays and Christmas as two special, separate events…as if their birthdays occurred in July.

As a boy, my extended Sicilian family of aunts, uncles, and cousins always gathered on Christmas Eve at my Nana and Nanu’s house. It was a large and loud party where I would get to hang out all night with my cousins. A delicious evening filled with comforting Italian food like sausage and peppers with onions, pasta with meatballs and sauce, and shrimp and charcuterie plates. Desert featured all kinds of traditional Italian Christmas cookies that you only got once a year. It was a night filled with excited anticipation for a visit from Santa, who made a special stop on his long journey around the world to hand out presents to the “cugine” and then be back on his way. It took us cousins quite a few years to figure out that our Uncle Joe was the one who facilitated Santa’s appearance at Nana’s house every year, which was always extra special and has remained the one-holiday tradition that continues to this day.

Over the years I inherited the hosting of our family Christmas Eve celebration, which is truly a blessing, wherever our home may be. Since we moved to California eight years ago, our celebration has been scaled down to our immediate but growing family. The traditional Italian food is still served, as are the traditional Italian cookies, which these days are store-bought instead of homemade. And it seems I have inherited more than just hosting duties each year, as Santa, in his bright red and white suit and sack of presents on his back, still makes a special visit to our Christmas party to hand out presents to the kids.

So, my favorite holiday tradition? The Christmas Eve celebration with my family, holiday lights and decorations all over the house, separate and special birthday parties, and that much-anticipated visit from Santa dropping by!

A Facebook friend posted an article on Corporate Price Gouging and how it isn’t true….corporations are NOT price gouging. S0, as suggested in the article, I looked it up and found a minimum of a dozen articles on the causes of inflation, price gouging, etc… written by sources or “experts” that spout facts and opinions that lean toward their particular ideology on either side of the political aisle! And then there’s this CNBC article:

It posits neither the Trump nor Biden administrations are responsible for inflation. So…who’s right? Look, I learned a long time ago that posting this political crap on a platform like Facebook or Threads or Twitter (I refuse to call it what Elon Musk named it) changes NOTHING! It only tends to further the division of friends and family on the platform. I ain’t voting differently because of reading a right-leaning, Trumpion ideological post. And if I post left-leaning articles stating the current economic conditions under Biden/Harris created more jobs, lowered unemployment, posted record-high stock markets, (Trump’s favorite metric), created infrastructure movement, and blah, blah, blah… making the USA economy the best it’s been in years and the best in the world (look it up)…you AIN’T voting for Harris. All these ideological Facebook posts only serve to earn us a virtual pat on the back and an “Atta Boy” from people who believe as we do. Or condemnation and mean-spirited, derogatory comments from people who disagree. But It doesn’t have to be this way.

I moved a lot in my career and made friends in different cities and states. Facebook helps us keep in touch with these now life-long friends. The person who posted the price gouging article I mentioned is a friend that I worked with for over 12 years and we kinda became a family during that time. I will always be interested in his family’s growth and all the info about their lives thathe shares. I was extremely concerned that he nearly lost his life due to accidental carbon monoxide poisoning…and so very happy he didn’t. And because of his experience, I agreed wholeheartedly with his campaign to urge folks to get carbon monoxide detectors (I have two.) After life took us in different directions, I was happy to learn on Facebook that he did stand-up comedy, and continued his career in radio—an industry that we loved, but didn’t love us back. I will always respect his beliefs in life, love, and yes, politics. But I learned through experience, that while it may feel cathartic to vent your political beliefs on Facebook, posting these political views on that platform—or any social media platform—won’t change a thing. It just creates more division in an already extremely divided country. A country that should be united no matter what! Hell, it’s even in our name: UNITED States of America!!

People will vote for their beliefs—as they should—no matter what political stuff I post here or on Facebook. But please know, your posts spouting political ideology won’t change people’s minds.

After 3 1/2 years of dodging it, “The VID” finally got me and my wife. Now, I have some comorbidities (gawd I hate that term) that made me at a higher risk for more severe symptoms of COVID, so when the vaccines came out, I did the smart thing and asked my doctor if it was right for me and also did my homework on the vaccines. I came to the conclusion to get the vaccine and all the boosters thereafter, knowing that it was safe for me to take. And I will definitely be getting the new booster that is coming out later this month as well. And I am SO glad we were vaccinated.

I had the distinct pleasure to not only have COVID but I was also diagnosed with pneumonia about a week before my positive COVID test. So, yes, I had pneumonia AND COVID at the same time. Sweet. However, I DID NOT have any of the symptoms associated with either disease; no fever, no chills, no body aches. Just a bad ass, very annoying cough that strained my stomach muscles, or what could be called my abs, which I didn’t know I had underneath all this belly flab.

A few years ago, I had a severe case of pneumonia that stemmed from the flu. At that time, the pneumonia knocked me on my ass! I had all of the symptoms; fever, chills, body aches, night sweats. It was so bad I had to have fluid drained from around one of my lungs…about two liters worth. So when the annoying cough started this time it was very reminiscent of that previous case of pneumonia, and not wanting to go through THAT again, I was proactive and had a chest X-ray which confirmed pneumonia. I was prescribed antibiotics and was good to go to fight it off. Then within the same week, I noticed I couldn’t smell–or taste–my morning coffee. And as Scooby Do would say: “Ruh-Ro!” So I took the home COVID test and there it was! I was pregnant! Uhhmmm…I mean…positive!

So my wife and I quarantined for 10 days and everything is getting back to normal. We were both amazed that my pneumonia and COVID were not as bad as they could have been. We are convinced that the vaccines kept us symptom-free for the most part. And I can’t be sure but they might have kept us out of the hospital as well.

Please beware of what Ron DeSantis or any of the outright lies those idiot MAGA republican cult members tell you about not getting a vaccine. THEY ARE POLITICAL ANIMALS, NOT MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS, only telling you what is in their political benefit. NO, there is no truth backed by science and common sense to what they are saying on social media, or FOX News for that matter, that the COVID vaccine, or any vaccine will harm you. NO, there are no “electrical nano micro-bots” embedded in the vaccine so the deep state government can track your every move! YES, you can get COVID even after being vaccinated. It was never meant to absolutely prevent infection, but as in my case, the infection isn’t as severe. YES, “it hasn’t been around long enough.” Scientists did develop the COVID vaccine in an incredibly short amount of time which Trump, the twice-impeached, 4-time indicted with 91 felonies, former “president” initially took credit for but has since reluctantly debunked because it was the political thing to do in both instances. However, it turns out scientists had a running start with viral technology and research that has been known and available for years According to a September 2021 story at AARP.org YES, side effects can occur in some patients but are only around for a day or maybe two (I was lucky and just had a sore arm from the injection.)

Look, I could go on and I’m sure those that oppose the vaccine could too. I am definitely NOT a medical professional (although I have played one on TV) but in my OPINION, based on my personal experience, I believe that the pneumococcal, flu and COVID vaccines kept me…and my wife…upright and out of the hospital. I just ask that you won’t be swayed, one way or the other, by social media hearsay on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok — or even a blog like this one. Now, that said, here’s the disclaimer:

Ask your doctor if any vaccine is right for you. Don’t take them if you are known to be allergic to any ingredients in the vaccines, or if you have legitimate questions about their safety. Be proactive and do your research with your own medical professionals and reputable medical resources to determine if vaccines are right for YOU.

And my time on the soap box is done!

This month, my 50th High School Reunion takes place back home in Cleveland. I really wanted to go but, unfortunately, had to make a choice financially. Now that I’m retired and living on a fixed income, I had to decide if I wanted to “vacation” in Cleveland for a week or go somewhere on an actual vacation. My wife and I have been back and forth from LA to Cleveland for the last couple of years dealing with the passing of my mother-in-law and cleaning out her home and getting it ready for sale.

This year, we decided to have a mini vacation in Chicago and visit our daughter and meet her new forever friend, her rescue dog, Glinda. We had a great time and lucked out with a terrific weather weekend in Chi-Town which can be very iffy in the spring. We got to take our grandboys to a White Sox game, with VIP tickets and treatment, thanks to my daughter’s wonderful friends.

We also decided another trip to Disneyland with the grandboys would be in order this summer, and we will welcome cousins from South Africa, whom I have never met before, for a visit to LA. All of these events cost some bucks, so we had to make choices about how we will spend our vacation funds this year.

I really will miss reconnecting with old high school friends. I mean, it’s been 50 years since I’ve seen many of them. It would be great to learn how their lives have turned out and what they’re doing today.

BUT 50 YEARS!!! Good-Googlie-Mooglie!! When you’re young, the thought of what life might be like when you’re 65 (or over) may cross your mind but, “Nah…that’s such a long way away, I’ll worry about that when I’m 50 or something.” But then, BINGO! Sixty-five and retirement gets here sooner than you thought it ever would. Every day, in my head, I’m still 25 years old….only with a lot more experience. And every day, in my mirror, I see a reflection that belies all those thoughts in my head.

I still choose to believe in what’s in my head because thinking young keeps me young….and active. The alternative is to give in to the reflection and give up on living life for as long as I can. There are so many things my 25-year-old mind thinks I can still do, but my over sixty-five-year-old body just can’t comply anymore. I will never “wear a rug”, hold in my gut with a girdle, or elect plastic surgery to try to look younger. So, I do what I can—try to eat right, exercise where and when I can, push the boundaries where and while I can, know my limitations, and refuse to let my age define me.

Holy Moley!  

Things are moving along REALLY fast. My wife and I decided to finally retire from the work-a-day world and, if that wasn’t stressful enough, we are also…moving to the LA area from the Bay Area…all at the same time!!!

Retirement comes officially at the end of July and moving in the first week of August. We have spent this entire month of July buying boxes and packing supplies…packing…downsizing (yet again) …and packing some more. This move is all out of pocket for us. The other moves were paid for by companies relocating us. But this one…all on us. YIKES!!!

We initially wanted to stay in the Bay Area for a while to enjoy all this beautiful area has to offer a little longer.  However, we realized we just wanted to get on with this next chapter of life and get the show on the road. So…a lot of stuff goin’ on here. The next chapter of life seems to be shaping up initially as a very quick read, that’s for sure.

I went to our favorite car wash early this morning to have my wife’s car washed and detailed to get rid of the tree sap accumulated on it. Tree sap on your car is one of the hazards of parking outside because you’re using your garage as a storage facility (it’s a California thing.) I’ve been promising her for weeks now, and today I was determined to get it done. I was told it would take about an hour and a half so, with Kindle in hand, I walked over to a nearby plaza to grab a coffee at a bagel shop and read my Jonathan Kellerman “Alex Delaware” novel while I waited. Standing in line at the bagel counter, there was a young Asian woman in front of me and when her order was complete she left and I ordered my coffee. I handed the cash to the server but she said it was already paid for…by that young woman ahead of me. I was kinda flabbergasted but truly appreciated that totally unexpected random act of kindness. Her kindness motivated me to pay it forward to someone else with my next opportunity.THAT random gesture of benevolence from one person to another is truly what America is and who we are as citizens. In this world of political divisiveness and irrational hatred of “the other side,” we’ve forgotten our self-effacing propensity to help others. I’m so very grateful for that reminder and hope that we can once again find kindness and courtesy, and treat one another with respect …and peace.

Oh …and having a pretty woman randomly buy you coffee makes you think “yeah, I still got it” …but since I never had it, to begin with, I was very flabbergasted indeed.