Who has your back?
I was enjoying my time in the water with five large Caribbean reef sharks. I had the sharks in front of me. I had a camera with a large underwater housing in my hands that I could use to push them away should they get to close. The water was clear and warm and I…
Read MoreVoices in the Dark
I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, some 2700 miles away from any Mainland area…the most remote island in the world. Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are both nearly 14,000 feet tall and isolated from any city lights. I often go up those mountains to areas that are between 8000 feet and 14,000 feet,…
Read MoreMy Uncareful Life
This story is not in the book…not much to it, except perhaps a smile from you. Linda and I had sold a house we owned and were moving out the next day. Linda was cleaning the carpet and I crawled up into the attic to make sure we had left nothing up there. It was…
Read MoreSmells Like Retirement and This Damn Virus
Got to admit, I never saw nor planned for anything like this Corona Virus thing. As I write this, I have been home with my wife for about a month. We go out to get food, to walk or run three miles a day…and that is about it. Never experienced anything like this…bet you haven’t…
Read MoreBe True To Your Teeth or They Will Be False To You
One of my favorite philosophers, Soupy Sales, came up with that quote long ago. And…he was right. If you have not been to see a dentist in a while…please get on the phone and set an appointment. As you get older, you have fewer second chances with your teeth. When I was young, I got…
Read MoreLessons from Water Skiing
There are two rules you absolutely must master if you are going to become a decent water skier. Rule One: Bend at the knees. Rule two: If you fall, let go of the rope. Pretty simple stuff. You need to bend at the knees to stay flexible, because water skiing is bound to take you…
Read MoreCelebrity Endorsements
This may not be about retirement…but it is about being old. Growing up, the celebrities I trusted most endorsed cigarettes. Someone paid them and they then told us it was in our best interests to smoke that particular type of cigarette. Think about that for a moment. Those trusted…often beloved…endorsers helped millions of people to…
Read MoreTwo Sidecars for Mom
My mom has always loved a 1950’s drink called a Sidecar. A simple cocktail…cognac, orange liqueur and lemon…with sugar around the rim of the glass. In all my 71 years of knowing my mom…I have never seen her drunk…but I have seen her with a big smile on her face after a couple of Sidecars.…
Read MoreHaving Fun With Joan Rivers on the Radio
In the late 1990’s, Linda and I lived in NYC at 45 Wall Street. Strange place to live, but we loved it. In fact, I loved just about everything about living in NYC. NYC had the best of everything, including radio. One day, I rented a car and was on my way to apologize to…
Read MoreHow I Horrified One of the Great Columnists of All-Time
Even as a kid, I loved people who could write succinctly and with humor. Loved an old columnist named Walter Winchell. He wrote little, right to the point, sentences about the latest gossip or happenings of the day. Put enough of them together each day to produce the number one newspaper column of his time.…
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