let's get back to basics

My siblings and I were taught the Golden Rule before we knew it by that name. Whenever we used to do mischievous things to one another, Mom would pull the guilty party aside and ask, “Would you like it if he/she did those things to you? No? Then don’t do them to him/her.” That logic to be very persuasive, even as children, and in retrospect it’s impressive how effective Mom was at modifying our behavior with such a simple concept. 

As adults, the Golden Rule remains just as simple and powerful. Throughout history it has acted as the backbone of the moral systems of just about all civilizations.

The amazing similarities of the quotes below show how different religions sum up their moral systems through nearly identical expressions of the common Golden Rule: that you should treat others the way you wish to be treated, spreading kindness and refraining from actions that would harm others.

We have committed the Golden Rule to memory; let us now commit it to life. 

~ Edwin Markham

 

monday's mulling: farewell to a blog friend

Last Wednesday morning, coffee in hand, I was doing my usual round of blog reading when I clicked on Oddball Observations, written by Bruce Taylor, also known as Catalyst. A new post greeted readers: All Good Things Must Come to An End.

Bruce hadn’t posted for a while. He’d been dealing with health issues, including a stroke in early February, and writing had become physically difficult. I assumed this would be his final message, his own sign-off from the blog he had started in February 2006.

It wasn’t.

The post was written by his granddaughters, sharing the news that Bruce had passed away on March 24.

Bruce and I never met face-to-face, but through blogging, we formed a connection. I had commented on his blog a couple times and then his first comment on my blog appeared on November 8, 2024. The post was about some herby ricotta cheese biscuits that I had made, and he wrote, “Those are gorgeous!” I replied, “Thank you. You make some tasty creations, too.” That small exchange was the beginning of his nearly daily presence in the comments on my posts.

From reading Oddball Observations, I learned that Bruce grew up in North Dakota and lived in many places throughout his career in broadcast journalism. He covered political conventions, interviewed John Wayne, and reported on the Red River floods and other natural disasters. He and his wife, Judy, spent four years in Mexico before settling in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

Whenever I posted about Ohio weather, especially in winter, I could count on a familiar suggestion from Catalyst: “You should think about moving to Arizona!”

Bruce also loved cooking, particularly baking. His blog was filled with photos of quick breads, brownies, and other treats. I suspect he had a bit of a sweet tooth.

He often referred to his wife Judy as SWMBO—She Who Must Be Obeyed. She was an artist who painted a beautiful outdoor scene on the wooden fence in their backyard. Together, they built a life that included watching Arizona sunsets with cocktails on the patio. They were married for 55 years.

Judy passed away unexpectedly on January 4 of this year. In the weeks that followed, Bruce wasn’t sure he would continue his Friday Funnies. As he wrote, “There are, after all, plenty of blogs with plenty of humor. But in spite of personal loss, in spite of what’s going on in the world, in spite of everything… there’s always time to step back and smile a little.”

Not long after, the Friday Funnies returned.

Now there’s an empty space in the blog world. Through shared stories, comments, and daily posts, we come to know people across the miles. It’s a quiet kind of friendship, but a real one all the same. And it leaves a real absence when someone is gone.

Bruce will be missed.

easter bunny 2026

Year four for Owen of tears with the Easter Bunny; this is Hallie's first. Looks like we'll have to wait until Christmastime for pics with Santa to see if we get any smiles.

This is AJ's 3rd year to visit the Easter Bunny and he's not sure about this giant rabbit. Dad gets in this year's photo, otherwise it wouldn't have happened!

the friday feed: soup with a reputation

Somebody missed a letter. The most important letter. The entire genre of homemade soup has been changed. 

The whole family and some friends were at dinner for Hallie's birthday weekend. We were on our 3rd bottle of Chianti and my daughter Sara laughed and said, "Mom. You gonna get any soup?" The soup… poor soup. It went from “homemade,” warm and comforting, to “hoemade,” which sounds like it belongs in a completely different establishment entirely. And that was enough for some mildly spicy wordplay. (There were kids around).

Seasoned with a lot of experience.

Been around the pot a few times.

Comfort food for the whole neighborhood.

Seasoned with spice and questionable decisions.

Homemade warms the heart. Hoemade warms the group chat.

And this, my friends, shows the impotence of proofreading 😊

a daffo-dilly of a day

All around town the daffodils have burst out in their full glory. Patches of yellow are everywhere...sunshine on the ground.

 

wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

Yesterday's "Oy" computer panic moment turned into a real "DUH" moment with the young tech guru at the Apple store. I explained what was going on and in less than the time it took me to tell him about my computer, he figured out the problem. Somehow I had changed my user screen to the guest user screen. He fixed it with a couple clicks. Gen Z youngster to this ole Boomer's rescue. On my way out of the store, I stopped to ask a customer service rep about phones and ended up buying a new one. A good day for technology!

This past weekend we went to Cleveland for our granddaughter's first birthday party. She turned one at the beginning of March but the party venue's availability was at the end of the month. She sure attacked that birthday cake with enthusiasm, aided by her brother and cousin. Such fun to have family and friends together to celebrate this little lady.

Owen, wearing his dinosaur scooter-riding helmet, gives me his "Thumbs up, you're a cool dude, Didi" approval.

Back in the day, I had a speech disfluency where my "s" came out as a "th" and I took thome thpeech therapy to thtraighten thingth out. When my daughter was little, she had a speech disfluency where the "th" sound came out as as "f." With was wif, think came out as fink. This license plate took me back to her days of working with her speech-language pathologist to fix this fing wif her fs.

This car driver 's sparkling clean white vehicle with the daisy hubcaps is ready to welcome some spring and summer flowers! 

Some kitchen fun - making pickled red onions to put on ground chicken tacos. Pickling softens the onion flavor but adds a little zestiness to balance heavier dishes, like homemade tacos.

oy

 Computer difficulties. Going to see the Apple gurus and crossing fingers to be up and running soon 🤞

monday's mulling_ super powers

Public art. I love it. It’s artwork in any medium - murals, sculpture, installations - created specifically for public spaces, making it accessible to everyone. It transforms shared spaces, tells community stories, boosts local economies, and fosters social cohesion.

While in New York a few years ago "Stand Here to Activate Your Super Powers” was stenciled on the sidewalks all around Manhattan. I stopped for a moment to think about what was it asking. What is my potential for creativity, courage, or purpose?

That stencil is a tiny spell disguised as street art.

The sidewalks of Manhattan are a sea of motion. Shoes tapping, taxis growling, thoughts racing faster than traffic. Then suddenly, there's this quiet interruption: STAND HERE TO ACTIVATE YOUR SUPER POWERS. No cape issued. No instructions. Just a pause button hidden in plain sight.

And I stepped on it.

That’s a “power." Attention to detail. In a place engineered for distraction, I chose to notice. Like a flaneur.

So what does creativity, courage, and purpose do for us?

Creativity

Not lightning bolts or fireworks, creativity is quiet. More like rearranging the furniture of reality. Asking, How could this be different? Creativity lives in the small edits: the way you frame a problem, the story you tell yourself, the angle you choose when everyone else is looking straight ahead.

Courage

Often mistaken for volume or spectacle. But the sidewalk version is quieter. It’s the decision to step forward without guarantees. Courage is less a roar and more a steady pulse: go anyway.

Purpose

This one doesn’t arrive like a delivery package stamped URGENT. Purpose is  assembled over time and grows where your attention, values, and actions keep meeting each other again and again.

That stencil works because it refuses to define your powers for you. It hands you a question instead of an answer. Questions are more durable; they travel well.

If you stood there long enough, you might notice something else: nothing visibly changes… and yet something does. The world doesn’t tilt, but your orientation within it shifts a few degrees. And that’s enough. A few degrees, sustained over time, can redraw an entire life’s trajectory.

So maybe the stencil wasn’t asking you to become anything new.
Maybe it was inviting you to recognize what was already there, just waiting for a conscious acknowledgement.

Where do you think you’ve already used one of those “powers” without realizing it?

 

harriet powers stamps

The post office got me again with the recent issue of stamps that celebrate Harriet Powers' quilts. I went in to mail a letter that required extra postage and came out with two sheets of Harriet Powers quilt making stamps.

Harriet Powers was an African American quilt maker born into slavery in 1837 in rural northeast Georgia. She most likely learned her sewing and quilt-making skills on the plantation where she was enslaved.

After emancipation, she lived and worked near Athens, and over time became known for the remarkable pictorial quilts she created - quilts full of symbolism that read like illustrated panels that tell a narrative story. Powers used her quilting as a way to preserve her faith, her African American culture, and her own personal story.

Only two of her quilts are known to survive today, but those two works have become cornerstones in the story of American quilting - especially the tradition of story quilts. Each of the blocks in her quilts is its own little scene, almost like a storyboard.

Today one of Harriet Powers’ quilts is in the collection of the Smithsonian Museum of American History. The other is housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

History is told in many forms - through oral traditions, written narratives, documentary films, museum exhibitions, performance, art, and digital storytelling - all working to humanize the past. But what could be more intimate, more deeply human, than being wrapped in a handmade quilt, feeling the care, intention, and love stitched into every piece of fabric?

the friday feed: an irish meal

"For the whole world is Irish on the Seventeenth o' March!" – Thomas Augustine Daly

Every March 17, the United States turns emerald for a day. Americans wear green clothes and raise glasses of green beer. Menus fill with green milkshakes, bagels, even grits. In a bit of leprechaun-worthy mischief, Chicago dyes its river green.

I’ll wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, but skip the dyed drinks and foods. I’ve been in Chicago for the occasion, walking along that famously green river.

My own celebration happens in the kitchen. This year’s meal: corned beef, colcannon twice-baked potatoes, and roasted cabbage, carrots, and parsnips - traditional fare with a few twists.

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!

sunflowers!

Not complaining, but I'm definitely over winter. To shake off the funk, I ordered some Crème Brûlée sunflower seeds from Burpee. Honestly, how could I not? Crème brûlée is one of my favorite desserts.

The catalog's description was the icing on the cake: "Bound to be the sweetest, most sophisticated sunflower on your block. Elegant crowns of golden-yellow petals surround fluffy, amber-bronze centers – a floral reflection of the caramelized sugar atop dessert classic ‘crème brûlée’. Refined plants stand 4-5’ tall with a bushy, branching habit and a continuous bounty of blooms. If you’re craving something new and spectacular for your border, this sunflower is for you."

Now I'm craving créme brûlée!

 

wednesday's words and wanderings and wonderings

On the road last weekend to watch some college basketball. The Dayton Flyers belong to the A-10 Conference and we made the trek to PPG Arena in Pittsburgh to watch our Flyers in their tournament games. The road to March Madness begins

Back in the day of traveling from the Midwest to visit my grandparents in New Jersey, we always took the Pennsylvania Turnpike which primarily cuts through the Appalachian Mountains. It was a long, boring drive for four young children but what got us through the tedium of the drive were the stops at the service plazas and going through the tunnels that were cut through the mountains. We always looked forward to the Kittatinny and Blue Mountain Tunnels - one right after the other. 

On the drive to Pittsburgh didn't take us on the Pennslvania Turnpike but we did get to drive through two tunnels, one in Wheeling, WVA, and one right before getting to Pittsburgh. That little kid excitement of going through these tunnels is still there.

My son and grandson joined us to watch the games. 3 1/2 year old Owen could watch only so much basketball so to help him get his wiggles out we went up and down the escalators too many times to count. "Let's do it again, Didi!"

All smiles after an exciting win to get into the championship game. We beat #1 seeded Saint Louis University by one point in the last .5 second.

Nothing like a messy red, white, and blue popsicle to keep a kid happy!

One of Pittsburgh's nicknames is the Confluence City. Three rivers converge at Point State Park. The Allegheny River is in the forefront of this photo, the barge is starting its voyage down the Monongahela River, and Point State Park where the concrete platform comes out into the rivers marks where the Ohio River begins. 

Pittsburgh is also known as the City of Bridges. It has 446 bridges, which is more than any other city in the world.

While walking around Pittsburgh I saw lots of references to "Yinz" and "Yinzer." Come to find out "yinz" is equivalent to "you all" or "y'all." It originated from the Scottish-Irish immigrants who used "you ones" (or "you'uns") and it evolved into a signature phrase of "Pittsburghese" dialect. A person who speaks this way is often called a "Yinzer." 

We arrived home Sunday night and then in the wee hours of Monday morning, I woke to the sound of howling winds and rain slamming into the house. Very scary. No tornado sirens going off but it was enough to keep me awake for a couple hours. Monday morning my neighbor was in the street with his chain saw cutting up a huge branch that had broken from his old, massive tree and was blocking the street. He wanted to clear a path before the school bus arrived. He got a lane open and then the city street crew arrived to finish the job.

The storm caused our power to go out for a few hours and our wifi was out for most of the day. My son's power was out longer than ours so he came over to do his laundry. It was nice to have him around and have a catch up visit. I invited him and his wife to come over for dinner. I wanted to surf the 'net for some dinner ideas and got shut down because of no wifi. So I went old school and thumbed through a lot of cookbooks. It was like becoming reacquainted with old friends. I do love my cookbooks and got a lot of smiles from finding old favorites and just being taken back to how I used to plan meals when the internet wasn't around. I found a recipe and prepared Chicken Cacciatore from Cucina Povera. Comfort food that came from the stress of a storm.

st. patrick's day

May your blessings outnumber the shamrocks that grow, and may trouble avoid you wherever you go. ~ Irish Blessing

Oh, the music in the air!
An’ the joy that’s ivrywhere –
Shure, the whole blue vault of heaven is wan grand triumphal arch,
An’ the earth below is gay
Wid its tender green th’-day,
Fur the whole world is Irish on the Seventeenth o’ March!

~Thomas Augustin Daly

monday's mulling: shine!

Walt Whitman believed that life should be lived fully, authentically, and joyfully. In this short and concise thought he’s essentially saying:

You can choose any path in life.

The specific activity matters less than the spirit behind it.

What truly matters is that your actions create genuine joy, vitality, and meaning.

Whatever you choose to do in life - work, art, love, travel, learning - make sure it fills you with a sense of joy and aliveness. 

In other words, don’t just exist - live in a way that lights you up!

"donut" fear the ides of march

 

the daffodil debut

A drive past the "Daffodil House" shows some bright yellow buds and blooms. In a week or two the yard will be a sea of gold.

The Daffodils' Debut

On the sloping lawn where winter lingered thin,
The daffodils arrived like whispered news -
Small trumpets lifted to the wind,
Bright as a promise the cold couldn’t refuse. 

They gathered first along the hill’s soft spine,
Where thawing earth breathed out its sleepy steam,
Gold cups tipping sunlight into time,
As if the yard itself had learned to dream.

Each stem a quiet banner newly raised,
Each petal catching morning’s silver thread,
Till even the bare trees paused, amazed
At little suns where frost had lately spread.

And walking there, you’d swear the hillside knew
The art of celebration long before you -
For every step the spring breeze softly made
Was answered by the daffodils’ parade. 

the friday feed: fresh squeezed orange juice

In February, we took a weekend trip to Chicago to celebrate our grandson’s second birthday. While we were there, my sister-in-law called and asked if we had received our oranges. She didn’t know we were out of town. When I told her we weren’t home, she said, “Well, you have two boxes of oranges sitting on your front porch. Can Patrick go pick them up?”

“No,” I told her, “Patrick’s here with us. I’ll call my neighbor.”

Unfortunately, the oranges sat outside overnight - in 0° weather.

When we got home, I called my neighbor to let her know I was coming over to pick them up. She laughed and said, “You might want to bring your car. There are two big boxes.”

She wasn’t kidding. The two boxes held four dozen oranges - 48 in all! That’s a lot of oranges for two people. I did have to throw a few away because of the frigid temperatures, but we still had a mountain of citrus.

Oranges from Florida in the winter are the best. They’re at their peak for freshness, flavor, and juiciness. I started eating a couple a day, but it takes a while to make a dent in 48 oranges. Before long, a few more were starting to go bad. Time to go the fresh squeezed orange juice route.

So I bought a juicer - and that finally solved the orange surplus. As that long ago orange juice commercial said, "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine." We've enjoyed our liquid sunshine!

dad's shoes

Sometimes things just come together in a serendipitous moment. A few weeks ago in the The New York Times Spelling Bee the clue brought back a long ago memory of my dad. A few days later while looking through boxes of “stuff,” I came across this cloth from my dad’s career with Sears. 

What do they have in common? 

The word using all of the letters in the Spelling Bee is cordovan and the shoe shining cloth is a gift from the old Downtown Dayton Sears shoe department after a leather shoe purchase was made.

My dad had a shoe shining kit filled with many soft cotton flannel rags, brushes of different textures - stiff horsehair brushes for buffing and smaller applicator brushes - and metal tins of paste polish (Kiwi or Esquire brands), in black, tan, brown, and cordovan, a rich, dark burgundy or a reddish-brown color. I so remember his shoe shining kit - a dark wood hinged-lid box with a built-in footrest on top for stabilizing shoes as they were being polished and all the dividers inside for organizing the polish, brushes, and rags. Dad taught me how to shine his shoes, first dusting the shoes off, applying the polish rubbing it with the soft rags in circles on the flatter surfaces, wrapping the rag around my index finger to get the polish into those tough-to-get cracks and crevices. Then came the fun part - wiping the polish off and then giving the shoes the final shine with the soft brushes. Back and forth, back and forth to a high gloss finish.

Dad wore suits and ties to work every day of his job at Sears from the beginning management training classes until his retirement in 1993. Business casual dress was becoming more commonplace but dad refused to end his career in khakis, a polo shirt, and casual shoes. He believed that shiny shoes, when wearing suits to work, symbolized professionalism, attention to detail, and personal discipline. He believed a polished look conveyed respect for the workplace, helped create a positive, professional first impression, and ensured a classic image. Wow, how times have changed, not for better, not for worse. It's just change, a new attitude.