Reaching out for alternatives . . . Throughout history people have used everything from large green leaves to their bare hands, from corn cobs, or to snow in cleaning up the poop from their butts. Sticks and leaves have always been ready and available. If those were missing, people could always turn to wiping with […]
To Ponder
Letter: The last bus
Submitted by Greg Alderete. It was a dark, wet night in Belgium—one of those nights that seeps into your bones and makes you wish you were anywhere but trudging along cobblestone streets, soaked to the skin. I was a teenager then, living off-post, which was my dad’s idea of “broadening our horizons.” While most of […]
The Magic of Good Teachers
It was one of those days. The weather was ice cold, but it had a beautiful blue sky. I had some business to do with a client and had hurried myself along a bit when I realized I was actually hungry and needed at least a good cup of coffee. I was one block away […]
A Time of Discoveries
I am just thrilled . . . all around the world, we are finding surprising, historical, and mind-plowing connections to our pasts and possibly futures. Astronomers discover first evidence of hot water on the surface of Mars . . . ‘King Arthur’s Hall’ is five times older than thought, researchers discover . . . A […]
Letter: The power of the potluck
Submitted by Gregory Alderete. Years ago, while working for the Department of Defense, I gained an unexpected insight into human behavior at a simple potluck lunch. As a former Army officer, I was conditioned to eat last, so I would wait patiently on the side until everyone had gone through the line. One day, while […]
Let’s Talk! – The Day after the Funeral
Are you ready to switch off your screens and ponder or discuss another writing/conversation prompt during dinner tonight? You want to know about my thoughts on it? Here’s my take: The longer a life lasts, inevitably, the more funerals you get to go to. Not necessarily over here in the U.S., though, where often the […]
Reality Stepping Forward
My wife Peg and I have been pushing the stories of ancient times here in Tacoma and other locations in both North and South America for ages as well as Europe and beyond. By reading little pieces of details, finding old pieces of battles and locating old, old, old canoes we have been pushing the […]
Across the Fence: Ansatz
Todays’ Germanism in the English language is a rather philosophical, but also a very hands-on one when it comes just to the German language: Ansatz (prounounce: ‘un-zuts, meaning beginning, approach). Scientists of any field will have dealt with this from the very start of their profession. If a bigger problem is to be solved, you […]
Letter: Message in a Bowl
We had gone through a car wash on the morning of our wedding. Whirring sounds, like that of rapidly vibrating wings; blurring motions, like a flock of thousands of starlings changing direction and shape in the sky; splashing and slapping and spraying explosions against our windshield, like ospreys and cormorants and gannets plunging and crashing […]