The BoomerGuy Chronicles

  Each one of us is called to reflection, prayer, preparation and action in these challenging times. Advent this year has been meaningful as we brought out  candles and the Dickens Village, decorated a Christmas Tree and posted a wreath and lights outside. We've read  scripture  stories of hope and anticipation and peace and love .  The story  of Mary's visit and Elizabeth's baby "leaping for joy" was especially inspiring to me this year. Whatever one's faith tradition, the natural world's slowing down and darkening toward the Winter Solstice brings feelings of loneliness as well as connection. I've reminisced on  Christmas Seasons past of Joy as well as Sadness.... family meals and parties, pepper nuts and cookies, baked hash brown potatoes and Christmas ham or turkey, hot chocolate and popcorn, football games and "snow bowls", singing carols with family, card games and charades, electric trains and stuffies, Midnight Mass and Santa Lucia,  ...

Last winter,  my younger sister Mary Ellen invited me to join her on a May '24  bike trip along the Mississippi Great River Road. Considering that  at the age of Seventy -Five was daunting to me. The last time I had attempted a multi-day ride was our "Tour De Thumb" five years ago. Prior to that , I had ridden 250+ miles on  the DalMac in 2011 from Lansing to Mackinac City. Several questions roiled around my brain ....   Could I ride a bicycle 300+ miles? Would I have the stamina to make it? What preparations were needed? Was this just a crazy notion? Am I in denial about the limitations faced by this old baby boomer? May 10, 2024 found Cathe and me camping in Muscatine Iowa awaiting the arrival of my sister , Mary Ellen during the middle of her "Holy Ride" from St. Paul , Minnesota to St. Louis Missouri. We celebrated with wine and chili around the campfire with her lifelong friend Mary Lou from Oakland,  our sister Kathy and our part-time Sag Driver, Cath...

                                                 Atomic Bomb Blast, Nagasaki Japan, August 1945 St. Patrick's Day arrives,  the crocuses peek out after a Michigan snowstorm on the first day of Spring and a song from my formative years keeps running through my brain:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZI2aLQ9Sw This song won a Grammy nomination for Edwin Starr in 1971......A  Motown hit, not a folk/ rock protest song by Bob Dylan or  Joan  Baez. Quick  research discovers that this song was censored off Clear Channel radio stations after 9-11-2001. Fast forward to  2024. Ukraine destruction following Russian invasion Terrorists in Moscow Migrants fleeing violence in Central America. 30,000 plus Palestinians killed in Gaza, mostly children. A congressman's brother killed by his son in Flint after a violent confrontation. The Academ...

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 w...

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 Bo...

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 v...