I know him.  When he was a teenager, I crawled around in his head as his English Teacher.  Sadly, months ago, his wife of many years died unexpectedly.  A man in his 70s, he fell into a well of grief so deep he considered joining her.  I held my breath as he struggled to find his

The mother sitting across from me at the lunch table sighed when I asked about her daughter.  “She’s thinking about moving to Pennsylvania.  Since she works from home, she can live anywhere.  Rural Pennsylvania seems to be the one place where houses are affordable. “ The dile

If life feels frustrating, there’s a reason. Frustration is a condition throughout the universe.  Even electrons are vulnerable. Because an imbalance exists between the places for them in one layer of the quantum soup and another, each time the layers interact, the quantum particle

Scientists have discovered a way to extract small electrical currents from humid air.  They hadn’t meant to do it.  A student failed to unplug one of their machines at the end of the day.  The next morning, researchers found a spray of microscopic tubes, one-thousandth the diamet

When a high-speed train is barrelling down the track, a person who knows the trestle ahead has been washed away has one obligation–to run in the direction of the impending disaster in the hope of assisting survivors.  Those of us who sense our country is nearing a failed state

Surrounded by books in a well-trafficked bookstore, I sat down to coffee with a former student.  We’ve been meeting this way for many years.  By now, he is in his early 70s while I am staring down at 87.  Happily, we are both in robust health, and I always look forward to our con

“I think my mind just exploded.” Those were a subscriber’s words after reading my blog, The Time Travelers.  I knew the compliment didn’t refer to my writing skills. It was a response to the content. The topic was about advances in science and Artificial Intelligence. (AI). I

Before he took his life to escape the ravages of ALS, a gentleman with a wicked sense of humor shared this thought about his neighbor:  She is a woman of strong opinions—most of them wrong. A little wicked myself, I laughed but felt guilty afterward. Even so, the witticism was apt.

The two tall men pulled out chairs on either side of me as we sat at the lunch table.  Former colleagues from my political days, Covid had severed our connection three years ago. Now we were reviving the contact.  Happily, both men looked well though one admitted he was struggling w

The young woman seated opposite me at the restaurant was an orphan. A few months earlier, her mother had died of cancer. Her father had departed this earth years earlier after a fall from a ladder. Both parents I’d known since college, a bookish pair who remained in the same four-st