The BoomerGuy Chronicles

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...

  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.  Wh...

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 Res...

  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 ...

  The question of how to respond to disturbing information has challenged me for many years. I consider myself generally hopeful and optimistic. When presented with sad news, I've often listened and quickly changed the subject or looked for the silver lining. When feelings are involved, I don’t identify them; I've been told by my family that I'm in denial.  Rather than face the facts, feel the suffering, or sadness, or anger, or conflict, I want to move on right away. My approach starts with the rational side of events. I think, analyze, compare and contrast quickly rather than feel what’s happening in the present moment.  For example, on January 6th, 2021, while watching Congress prepare to certify the 2020 Election , my initial reaction to protesters storming the Capitol was to disbelieve what I was watching on live T.V. Upon reflection, I understand that I was suppressing my anger and dismay by denying what I was observing in real time. Despite  problems with t...

 Mark Twain famously wrote about the positive aspects of travel: " Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." I was privileged in 2022 to travel all over the U.S.A. in our pop-up camper and then spend 33 days in Scotland and North England in August and September. I enjoyed the beaches and art scene in St. Petersburg while celebrating a family get together of cousins. The Gullah History in South Carolina, the "Redneck Coast " of Florida and some amazing Civil Rights sites across the South brought diverse perspectives to my 73 year old brain.   Whitney Plantation in Louisiana was particularly informative , since it focused on plantation life from the perspective of enslaved people.  Spring bought me to the Nashville Lutheran Retreat Center, along the ...

The best boss I had in my working life (1962-2015) was a fella named Carl Gromek, Michigan's State  Court Administrator from 2004 to 2011. I enjoyed working with and for him and learned a lot during our seven  years as colleagues. When he  retired,  I asked him what his plans were. He thought a minute and then said,"You know all those books that you've wanted to read and just never got around to reading? Well,  I've piled them up next to my favorite chair; I intend to read them once I've stopped working here at the Supreme Court."  When we're busy making a living ,  we're required to spend an inordinate amount of time reading. We read letters, memos, reports, strategic plans, professional journals, newspapers, magazines..... In 2022 there are texts and tweets, e-mails and blogs, You Tube videos and Tik Toks, Facebook  and    Linked-In posts.... Since a lot of this stuff is required, 'necessary', we may or may not 'like' what we're r...