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Giving Proof & Living Proof

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I’ve had a booth in an antique mall for several years. I use it to make a few extra bucks and, more importantly, justify my basement being such a mess. There’s a woman who works there named Magan. I’ve never asked her age, but I suspect she’s in her early-40s. She’s cute as a bug and always has a smile that suggests mischief, like somebody who just did something and got away with it. For all the years I’ve been at the antique mall, Magan and I have had a friendly, but not overly close, relationship. I’ve always thought it was a good idea to be well acquainted with someone who hands you a check every few weeks. A few months ago, however, things changed. Through our conversations, I knew her husband, Rickey, was having kidney problems. They were serious. So serious, that he needed a kidney transplant. And Magan was not only a perfect match, she was going to give him one of her kidneys. Being the shallow human being I am, aka a man, several jokes immediately came to mind. For exam...
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Why Don’t They Just Quit?

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  Most people who know me know I have an addiction. It’s a weakness for old music. If one of my favorite artists from the ‘60s or ‘70s is within driving distance, there’s a good chance I’ll be sitting somewhere in the audience. However, I’ll admit there have been a few concerts where I leaned over to my wife and whispered, “It might be time for them to hang up the ol' microphone.” Earlier this year, I paid to see a couple of the biggest acts of the sixties, only to walk out shaking my head,  frustrated that I shelled out good money to hear something I barely recognized.  But I’ve become a little less critical. Think about what we’re asking these performers to do. Most of them are in their 70s or 80s, yet we still expect them to sound like they did when they were 22 years old. That’s a pretty big ask. As I aged as a golfer, I've moved up beyond the senior tees to the super senior tees. It was the natural thing to do because Father Time has  diminished my skil...
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Treasure in a Briefcase

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    We started cleaning out our basement the other day, and I quickly realized this wasn’t going to be a Saturday afternoon project. It was more like a long term archaeological dig, complete with dirt, dust, and relics from a long lost  civilization, circa 1987.  Our basement has become the official storage unit for everything we couldn’t  part with: toys (old and new), tools (useful and otherwise), gas cans, car parts, Christmas decorations, quilts, and boxes labeled “Important Papers”, which were tax returns from the seventies.  Apparently the Statue of Limitations expires before my wife’s filing system does.  Our basement is full of postponed decisions.  As we sorted through decades of accumulated treasures, or junk, depending on who was doing the evaluating, my  wife picked up an old leather briefcase. “What are we going to do with this?” she asked. It was moldy from years of sitting beside the air-conditioning unit. “I’ll deci...
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