The BoomerGuy Chronicles

Late Fall and the onset of Winter in Michigan can be downright dreary.  Bright snow falling back in the day used to blanket the ugly bare ground, but climate change has squashed that. Damp, cold, dark days pile up. Nature has her ways of  slowing down, gathering warmth, sheltering from  the storm;  a wayward bat found it's way into our laundry room  to find refuge from the elements as the cold weather  advanced in November. On Thanksgiving, I turned seventy-five and the Lions lost to the Packers at Ford Field.  Turning seventy-five was more of a milestone than I expected.  It's a big number!   My family coordinated the assembly of a reflection/memories book of photos and writing which touched me deeply.  This birthday set me upon a course of reflection amid the Winter doldrums that persisted throughout the Christmas Season and into the  New Year. At the end of January, I traveled South to reflect, to explore, to socialize, to walk, to ride, to discover, to listen. The monks at

In my formative years during undergraduate time at St. Louis University, I confronted the world as a young adult for the first time. The War in Vietnam affected me personally, in that I was required to register for the Draft. As a full time college student, I was deferred; that is I was not called to enlist while a student.  My childhood next door neighbor, Gary Miller, chose not to attend full time college; he was Drafted (or perhaps enlisted),  served in the War and earned a Purple Heart. My cousin Tommy married Barb upon graduation from John Carroll; he received one of the last 'marriage deferments.' I found out later in life that my friend Geoff Neithercut received a deferment to go to Seminary. My father had served in the military during World War II as had my uncles, fathers of neighbors and friends. Growing up in the fifties meant movies about the War, T.V. Westerns, B.B. guns and  nuclear war shelters.  My grade school (St. Luke's ) had as its mascot , The Bombradie

Road trips are wonderful for the soul. In retirement I’ve taken lots more journeys on the road than by  plane.  Airports can be crowded with people and stuff that is anything but relaxing. All the reservations and preparations and security precautions get in the way of appreciating  the serendipitous nature of travel. That said, the common view is that the LAST place one should drive through is the American Midwest. Conventional wisdom says this ”Flyover Country” is boring, flat, conservative, and sorely lacking in interesting people or places…thus the smart traveler flys over this area. This month, I headed out on the road from Ann Arbor, Michigan to Boulder Colorado (from one bubble to another). After a pleasant stay in a motel near Oglesbee Illinois I stopped at the local Mc Donald’s for a couple of senior coffees.(We’ve discovered Mickey D’s coffee far surpasses Comfort Inn Java!).  While waiting in line for my coffee (I did NOT use the apps or kiosk, thank you very much) a fella s

  Michigan in March was  bitter cold, isolating and downright gloomy. What makes this so vivid is that  a glimmer of  warmth and Spring appeared early in the month that tantalized the soul. The sun showed up and for a brief moment we believed  that winter was done. Then we got hammered by an ice storm which cut off power to nearly one million people followed by a blizzard paralyzing traffic,  schools and businesses.The gray skies and arctic winds told us to hunker down, stay home and withdraw again into hibernation mode. So....when the Haisley Elementary School Play showed up on the schedule, I admit to hoping it would be canceled so I could wallow on the couch in my pajamas and binge on movies and /or college basketball. The last thing I wanted was to get presentable (shower, shave, wear clothes and shoes) and venture out to an elementary school gymnasium with 250 of my closest friends! But I soldiered up and traversed out into the cold night air.  When I arrived, to my surprise, the

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration,  by Isabel Wilkerson Never Forget Our People were Always Free: A Parable of American Healing , by Ben Jealous The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,                            by Heather Mc Ghee Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery,  by Mark Charles and Song-Chan Rah From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century,  by William Darity and A. Kirsten Mullen The Color of Money: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,  by Richard Rothstein Children of the Dream:Why School Integration Works,  by Rucker C. Johnson with with Alexander Nazaryan Frederick Douglas: Prophet of Freedom , by David W. Blight His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and The Power of Hope,  by John Meacham US The Resurrection of American Terror: An Evangelical Pastor's Cry, Alarm, and Warning, By Rev. Kenneth W

  Frederick Douglass, Circa 1879                                                                    Black History Month highlights an opportunity to discover more of the actual history of how people of color have been treated in the U.S.A. The stories of enslaved people, indigenous Americans, indentured servants and  immigrants are only recently getting told widely. My own view is that more and more people have researched original documents, family stories, and oral history so that 21st Century Americans (if we choose to) can discover  the whole story of our Nation's history. The facts have always been there; the difference is that the facts are now being told in detail more and more by those descended from people of color. For many years, school history books focused on the aspirational nature of the American experience as first  expressed in the founding documents.  By definition, this  gave  an overview without the detail needed to listen and learn about the lived experience of