Category: Boomers

Looking Back on Cherished Holiday Traditions

Always one to appreciate the many traditions of the season, decorating remains my most cozy memory with my family.  As traditionalists we did not display or light the decorations until the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Of course, we started with the outdoor lights, decorating the front bushes, and hanging lights along the gutters.  Waiting until dark to adjust the…

Safety Packaging

There is very little that is more aggravating on a day to day basis as the frustration of opening packages of food, bottles of medicine, liquid bottles, and purchased over the counter drugs. Millennials take these inconveniences for granted, never really questioning the origin and implications for older Americans. In 1982, in the Chicago suburb…

Zooming

Until this past year, I never even considered zooming anywhere for maybe the past ten years. I used to work three jobs, and it took plenty of energy to zoom to work and then to teaching in the evening and home to writing all night long. This year I learned to Zoom. Really Zoom. Our…

COVID Vocabulary continued: Virtual Hug, Fist Bump, and Social Distancing

In the interest of documenting the changes in our everyday vocabulary, I periodically have been examining the common use of previously loosely associated phrases. I mean, for goodness sake, who went around saying to close friends, “let’s have a virtual hug?” Having a good squeeze was one of the loveliest expressions of caring between friends,…