What are your harbingers of Spring? — I have lived in various parts of the country — mostly the northern tier of states — and rejoice in the various spring signifiers. This has been a long, dark and cold lead-up to spring, even here in Oregon. Today is a harbinger of more days to come, a bright…

I didn’t, I won’t. — This story about marriage needs to go in the Way Back Machine for women and men in the boomer/change generation (and maybe before and after). I was raised on Disney happily-ever-after fairytales and read through the entire section of fairytales in the children’s section of the library. …

A pro’s and con’s listicle for the older person — Self-storage units seem to be a growth industry. Up and down American commercial strip highways you see self-storage unit complexes. Surely you have made jokes to yourself as you drive by. It could be a fantasy to own self-storage as a retirement business. …

Schroeder helped enact laws to support equality — Pat Schroeder sat in the small living room of a house in Denver, a meet-the-new-congresswoman event in 1973. She had just been elected to the House of Representatives at age 32, two years older than Senator-elect Joe Biden who also was elected in 1972. Congresswoman Schroeder died on March 13. …

Last seen when Brett Favre left the Packers — Bret Favre was the Hamlet of 2008, when he finally went to the Jets. Will he or won’t he? The retirement saga limped along for years. Brett Favre, like others before him, was a great quarterback for the Packers. However, the newest young thing, the back-up and future quarterback, Aaron…

Have you taken the Blue Zones Vitality Test? — I took the Blue Zones Vitality Test. You can too, right here: Blue Zones Vitality Test. Full disclosure: I will turn 70 this year, and I got back from the doctor’s office, had one of my least favorite procedures, and was feeling a little down. I was feeling old, and…

Taize and living-room seekers — Each Taize service I have attended is different. The first one, decades ago, was a large number of people in a large candle-lit space. The simple chants took on different dimensions with repetition: soaring, quiet, rising, falling. …

The Human Story: Exquisite Beauty and Garbage — The James Webb space telescope is a marvel, showing us new reaches of our amazing and beautiful universe. The European Space Agency estimates we have 30,000 pieces of space detritus, of human making, in orbit around the Earth. They have even issued an environmental space report. Recently, the Hubble space…

Who was your best writing teacher? — When I meet old high school friends, we all agree that we were lucky to have had great high school teachers. The legendary teachers were English staff. We benefited from the days before women had a wide choice of jobs — some very talented and brilliant women taught. Now, those…