If I remember anything about the pandemic, it was the empty shelves at Kroger. There was plenty of beer available. There was lots of Dasani bottled water on the shelves. Airport rental lots were full. No shortage of rental cars. There was plenty of chocolate hummus, plant-based sausage, and, most importantly, cauliflower-crust pizza. But toilet…
I recently turned seventy. I’m still getting used to saying that. Seventy has always sounded old to me. My grandparents were seventy. I would see old people sitting in McDonald’s drinking coffee. They were seventy. People who complain about their knees and have five doctors, they’re seventy. And now, so am I. The thing is,…
August 16, 2026. Nine hikers get lost near Indian Staircase in Red River Gorge. This report by Wolfe County Search and Rescue Team indicated that students from Indiana and Kentucky had hoped to watch the sunset from Indian Staircase but became disoriented by the numerous user trails. They sent a text to the rescue team,…
Sometimes your real superpower is realizing that you’re no longer a young man or young woman and then realizing that there are things that are better left for younger people to do. I’m sitting on the backside of the Cirque of the Towers in the Wind River Range, Wyoming. Quite a view. I woke up…
I’m 70 for exactly 12 months, and I’ve planned some adventures during this period. Adventure #1 I’m writing this at Gate 15 at Chicago Midway Airport on a layover to Colorado Springs. I’ll be there a couple of days and then go on to the Wind River Range in Wyoming for a five-day backpacking trip…
Two sobering things happened to me this week. The first was my Garmin watch announcing that my fitness age is 60. It uses my average resting heart rate, which has been 53 BPM, my body fat percentage, and the number of vigorous minutes and vigorous days I spend exercising. Turning 60 on my 70th birthday…
A Blue Dude Living in a Red Neighborhood I live in a Red State. And in a Red County. My neighborhood is mostly Red. It’s a small neighborhood. Not very diverse unless you count the 2 white-passing women with Middle Eastern descent. I’m very fond of one of them. Thus far, I have very little…
You need a map and a compass. And, you need to know where you are right now on the map. Use a compass to orient your map to the north. Line up the edge of the compass along the imaginary line to where you’re going. This gives you a bearing. If you’re in the woods,…
January 16, 1991, 4 PM EST I was sitting in my living room, watching on TV the beginning of the Gulf War. As a young teenager in the late 60s, I remember watching news clips of the Vietnam War, the death count for the day during Walter Cronkite’s Evening newscasts. But the Gulf War was…
I was asked to do several eulogies, as a young Baptist Minister, in the one-church town of Coahoma, Texas. I was asked to say some nice things for the recently deceased that were unchurched. This was during the bust of the 1980s and the joke was, “What do you call a Geologist in Midland?” Answer:…
