Homebody

About once a month I have a long telephone conversation with my friend Ed. When I spoke with him last week, he’d just returned from three months in Spain and France. One of the first things that he did upon returning home was to book airline tickets for his next trip,...

Gazetteer

There are four viable routes between my mom’s house and mine. All of them include a stretch of Highway 41 in the eastern part of the state and 40 miles of Interstate 90 in the west. In between there are options, no single one any better than the others. Last week I...

Weekend in the Big City

Ron, my stepdad, is in his mid-eighties. He has never lived more than five miles from his childhood farmhouse. He rarely leaves Wisconsin. He had been to Madison only once in his life and that was to watch his granddaughter play in a softball game. Ron is a good guy,...

Sink or Swim

In March I wrote a blog about changing fitness centers. My former gym, the recreation center on the UW-La Crosse campus, is a wonderful place, but it has limited hours when students are on break. I did switch facilities, and I am now with an organization that seems to...

Urban Wildlife

A large patch of my front yard died over the winter. I am not sure why. The damaged area is directly below a maple tree, so maybe the grass doesn’t receive enough direct sunlight. Maybe the lack of snow this past January failed to insulate parts of my yard from...
Steven Simpson