At the end of November a secret Santa paid off dozens of Walmart layaway tabs in New York. In May someone paid off $10,000 in school lunch debts in Maine. In 2014 an anonymous benefactor paid off everyone’s layaway accounts ($24,000) at a Toys R Us outlet. These benefactors aren’t Bill or Melinda Gates. You […]
Archives for 2018
Home from Home: Pick-up and drop-off
People are talking about how divided this country is, and I see it every day. Not just in a sense of politics – and you know this column was never meant to make any political statements. I find that there is one part of the population who drops off and another who picks up.
Family Evidence
My wife and I have a closet stacked from floor to ceiling with boxes of old photographs. Okay, so they’re not all photographs . . . there are piles of albums and boxes of slides, as well. Some albums have never been opened and some have only a few pages of photos and then blank […]
Money for Nothing and Just a Small Fee
Ellen and Jerry have been retired for some time. Jerry can still do some odd jobs for other seniors for cash. They get by. Near the end of the month they count on Pierce County Meal Sites where they can get a meal for $2.50 to $3.00. Sometimes they have to count their change to […]
The Upside and Down of Bedding
Apparently I missed the conversion from traditional bedding to millennial bedding. It seems that millennials prefer a bottom sheet and a duvet. A duvet is a cotton cover over a comforter filled with down, feathers, or synthetic fibers. Laundry is still recommended on a weekly basis, but it is quicker, faster, and cheaper with just […]
Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association to meet Dec. 6
The Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association will meet December 6 (and every first Thursday) at 6:30 P.M. at the Tillicum Community Center, 14916, Washington Ave. SW. The December 2018 TWNA newsletter can be read here. The board elections for the Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association have been postponed until January; and do you have a New Year’s […]
Film Review: Fantasia
The films that have been made by The Walt Disney Company in the 85 years of its existence number in the hundreds, and you’d be hard pressed to find one film that everyone agrees is the best. However, there is one Disney film I feel doesn’t get brought up enough in conversations concerning the best […]
Maple Nut Goodies – Hard Candy
Not every time, but quite often when I visit the Dollar Tree on Sixth Avenue in Tacoma, I purchase a bag of Brach’s Maple Nut Goodies. Memories fade, but I seem to recall them available by the pound at Woolworth’s in downtown Tacoma in the early 1950s. They always looked interesting. Here is how Brach’s […]
Surviving the Holidays After Life Changing Events on Swimming Upstream
How to Handle the holidays after a big life change is the topic of the new edition of the internet radio show, Swimming Upstream. This week, authors Bonnie King and Susanne Bacon join host Dorothy Wilhelm to talk about how they managed to continue to find hope and the way to a rewarding life after […]