Now at the age when many parents deny they watch TV, Dave and I can look down our noses at TV fans who set their personal lives’ agenda to correspond with a favorite show. We watch very little TV, we repeat, smugly.

We were married so long ago that television had not yet scrambled high enough to throw a clear signal across the Pennsylvania hills and valleys in which we lived. If you could just make out that the shadow on the screen was the hero and the one on the left the villain, and as long as you could hear the dialogue, why, that was enough to follow the plot and marvel. Read More»

Ever since Dave became a grandpa, he has been positively ebullient about children and babies, and never passes up an opportunity to goo-goo in the sometimes startled face of a tyke in a grocery cart or a car seat.

I keep an eye on him, lest a young mother misreads his approach. He’s harmless, I want to say, and soon Mama relaxes and enjoys the attention paid her priceless treasure. And usually the tot responds with a gurgle. Read More»

Since we don’t see each other a lot, I salute Mary’s accomplishments in emails and columns. I am so glad she’s my daughter. Although our time together was much less than I’d expected, we tried to spend as much of it with each other as we could.

She is having a wonderful life. Just wish a little more of it happened on the same continent as mine. Read More»

When I search files looking for a ragtag of information I need for a column, I frequently find something I don’t even remember writing. I have all sorts of ideas, and the sudden discovery of notes or references may give me a start. Or not.

I’ve mentioned the tyrants that live in our house. Clocks. Real clocks, mechanically driven by weights or springs, not electric or battery-driven. Purists cringe to hear someone call an electronic device a clock. Read More»

These short stories really have nothing in common except they are being published on the same day…

I don’t remember what aroused my interest in Superman a few weeks ago. Was looking for something else and lost track of time – when, “Look! Up in the sky!” There he was, on my laptop screen. No, actually it was a TV movie I had never watched. So I did, and found it winsome. Read More»

The Summer of ’99 will go down in our personal history as one of the best we’ve had together.

We didn’t travel to speak of. Didn’t do much boating. The weather was not especially pleasant.

But this was the Summer of the Boat. This was the summer we refurbished, added to and made a 25-foot Nimble Nomad our own.

Two previous owners had loaded her with toys that would have taken us years to add. Life jackets for more people than the boat would comfortably carry. Electronics Dave had only dreamed of. Pots and pans, plates and tableware – even a tinkly little set of wind chimes. Read More»

The past recent years of schoolhouse bloodshed has loosed a torrent of ink in the debate about what has gone wrong with America. An alarming bout of writer’s block has made me seek a subject published in June of 1999, and still current today.

Theories abound. We pick and choose among them: The Internet. God having been thrown out of schools.

The entertainment industry. The media. Failure of educators. Failure of parents. Failure of society.

Here’s my take, and a word of hope. Read More»

Dear Isaac,

Mama-Jean reminded me that you had a birthday last week. I’m glad she did, since you and your sisters spread cheer for three months after Christmas.

Do you remember how we met? I think you were about 6. It was in a state park near your home, where Jean had arranged for us to meet. I don’t know how they choreographed it, but as we were pulling into the parking lot, your dad and our daughter walked toward us from stage right, holding hands, and Grandma and Grandpa Withnell from stage left. Read More»

Talk about contrasts. Did anyone else sense the irony? Police officers on camels and horseback vying for crowd control in Cairo’s Tahrir Square? Cell phones and the Internet providing communication and updates to widely scattered groups surging into the melee?

More than one of the newscasters following the revolution in Egypt for the last couple of weeks said it took them so by surprise that they were not ready for what would happen next. Read More»

If you are a knowledgeable avian aficionado, you can take a break from today’s column and go refill your bird feeders.

Winter, especially one as prolonged and bitterly cold as this one has been, is one of the two times in the year that bird lovers ask me what birds need to survive. The other is early spring, before berries and bugs mature. Summer and fall needs are easier to answer, with the wealth of seeds they contribute to the birds’ menu.

Actually bird feeders provide only about half the food birds eat, with the rest found in the woods and fields. And city neighborhoods. Read More»