I was stationed in Chicago in 1985. I was the active duty training officer for a reserve unit. We had bought our first home in a small town north of the city. One spring day, the kids were playing in the back yard. There were several very old oak trees…

I was stationed in Hawaii in 1978. It was our first duty station after we were married. Rosie had delivered our son, Chris a few months before. We had lived in base housing for a few weeks. I was the Squadron Officer of the Day that Friday and had to…

The following are my thoughts and reflections on attending the Woodstock 50th anniversary weekend at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts on August 17, 2019. The day of the concert finally arrived, Carl and I had driven up from Allentown the day before and stayed at a hotel about 40…

In the summer of 1969, before my junior year in high school, my family moved from our house in a small Indiana town out to the country. My parents bought some land on a hill overlooking a small lake near a town named Beanblossom. To call Beanblossom a town is…

One summer several years ago some of my co-workers suggested that we go on a white water rafting trip. We needed eight people total so I invited my wife and two teenage kids. One of my colleagues invited her Dad, the other invited her boyfriend. …

Rosann could hear the muffled snickering coming from the choir loft. It was a hot and steamy afternoon and she started to sweat. As she knelt with her hands covering her face, she could feel the questioning eyes of the nuns on the back of her head. …

Halfway up the mountain, us old farts huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Wolf trying to blow down a house of straw. As if he wasn’t carrying a pack at all, our son was whistling a merry tune and outpacing us all. …

On a bitter cold December afternoon in 1973, Navy had just routed Army 51–0 in the annual football game at JFK stadium in Philadelphia. All 4,000 men of the Brigade of Midshipmen were in a very celebratory mood. The now infamous Bellevue-Stratford was hosting the post game festivities for the…