Columns

Surprising someone with just the right gift is a risky business, even if you think you know the person well.

I chuckle every time I think of that cartoon of the husband standing outside his bedroom door in his pajamas, wearing some ridiculous looking bunny slippers, trying to coax his wife out, pleading repentantly, “Mildred, I’m sorry. I really do like my bunny slippers.”

We’ve all received one of “those” gifts. What to do with them?

No matter how well-adjusted returning or returned veterans appear, they likely are carrying wounds that cut deep and that pain sticks with them for the rest of their lives.

When I came back from the war, I filed all that pain away as ‘personal,’ but it invariably came out in my creative writing and I think that kept me much more sane.

I‘ve always thought of Elizabethtown as “fair” city — at least for my partner, Sue, and me. We’ve never been turned away from a restaurant or had a problem finding a place to live just because of who we are.

Less than a week after counting our blessings across the table from loved ones during a Thanksgiving feast, the $550 million Powerball jackpot created days filled with daydreams. It provided an interesting contrast.

Instead of focusing on what we have and hold, many conversations last week were punctuated with speculative spending plans for the multi-million promise that seemed just $2 away from reach.