Often, when Italians raise a glass of wine, they say “Saluté,” and then sometimes add the words, “Cent’Anni,” a traditional toast. Loosely translated, it means “May you live 100 years.” Pronounced in some regional dialects as “gen-DAHN,” the phrase is meant to imply a hundred years of health. We should all be so lucky. My mother would have turned 100 today. Not sure what she’d make of becoming a centenarian, but you can bet she would be flabbergasted that her youngest child was 60. Elia Marie Guella was born September 30, 1920, in Biella, a small city in the northern Italian region of Piedmont, about 50 miles northwest of Milan.…
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Happy glampers
If a couple can survive a seventh-month pandemic quarantine together and still like each other after a weeklong camping trip in an RV barely big enough for two humans and a small dog, one thing’s for sure: They’re a good match. Buy the ring. Call the caterer. This one’s a keeper. After months under lockdown with Michigan’s COVID-19 orders and barely leaving the house except to pick up groceries or gas up the car, Rebecca and I decided to join millions of other antsy Americans and take a vacation. To ease our health and safety concerns, we headed to an area devoid of many people where the coronavirus is known…
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Spark joy
This is about discovery, joy and hugs. Just not necessarily in that order. Perhaps I’ve been watching too much TV (I am allowed to blame Rebecca for this) and one too many “Marcella” episodes on Netflix. Even the opening theme song to this “Nordic-noir” detective series creeps me out. Think crime thriller with a deranged undercover cop who experiences blackouts between serial killer chases. No wonder I can’t sleep. Over the past five months living amid COVID-19, we have become accustomed to wearing face masks, honoring social distancing, eating at home and ordering groceries online, among other things. I’m not complaining. We consider ourselves fortunate to be among those who have…
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Funk lifted
“Oww, we want the funk, give up the funkOww, we need the funk, we gotta have that funkOww, we want the funk, give up the funkOww, we need the funk, we gotta have that funk” – “Give Up the Funk” by George Clinton and his band, Parliament-Funkadelic, 1975 Five months into this pandemic, I’m feeling the effects of COVID-19. Not literally, thank goodness. Figuratively. Emotionally. Spiritually. I’m just not myself. I don’t read anymore. Is there such a thing as reader’s block? Same for my writing, which has become, well, flat. Not completely blocked, just in need of Drano. Do plumbers get plumber’s block? Doubtful. Besides, as a former newspaper…
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Balls
The boys of summer are back. If all goes well, Major League Baseball returns next week with a shortened 60-game season. It won’t be the standard 162 games. It won’t go from early spring to late fall. Instead, it will last just a little over three months, beginning July 23 and running through Sept. 27, with playoffs in October. Don’t you wish presidential campaigns were that long? The timing of this baseball season start isn’t lost on me. It makes me think of the anniversary of my first open-heart surgery – July 24, 2001 – to remove a benign cardiac tumor the size of a tennis ball. Nineteen years later, I’m still…
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Quarantine 15
Rebecca’s the only person I know who has actually lost weight during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ten pounds. Unfortunately, I found them. And then some. They’re calling it the “Quarantine 15.” Think “Freshman 15” for new college students. But in this case, I’m the senior. Summa cum grande. Although, I gotta say, I swear I dropped at least five pounds when I finally got a haircut last week. Even Najah, my ultra-sanitized stylist, was so astonished that she insisted on a commemorative iPhone photo. After nearly three months of uninterrupted root growth, there was enough salt and pepper on the floor of her shop to season a Thanksgiving turkey. Two of Rebecca’s doctors,…
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Summer love
Awhile back, I wrote a silly limerick for my writing group. It went something like this: There once was a girl from Alliance, Who said “no” till he was in compliance. “If you want the milk now, You must purchase the cow.” They eloped, leaving the rest up to science. This five-line masterpiece is about my parents, who were known as “The Bickersons” because they liked to spar with each other. But not always. Theirs was a love story for the ages. In 1940, after graduating from McKinley High School in Canton, Ohio, James John left for Detroit to work at the Ford Motor Company. Two years later, he returned…
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GUEST BLOG: White like me
The other night I was on a mass Zoom call with the author of White Fragility. The group sponsoring the call was Women for Biden, and from the nature of the questions I’m guessing most of the several hundred participants were white suburban women like me. One of the questions for writer Robin DiAngelo was how to deal with racist comments made by others. The speaker said the first step was to recognize your own racism. As in, stop trying to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye when there’s a big fat log in your own, even if you’re very, very sure it’s the other way around. She said we…
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Eye spy
If I were a cat, my breed would not be a Sphynx. Hairlessness isn’t in my DNA. What could evoke such an unusual start to a blog post, you may wonder? Too much sun, perhaps? “She’s a dog person,” you say. “Why in the world would she ever want to be a cat?” I don’t. Cats make me sneeze. And they’re too moody like people. In fact, the Sphynx reference stems from something called a “writing prompt,” put forth by my writers group instructor, whom we fondly call Anastasia Beaverhausen (“AB,” to her face) for reasons I cannot go into. Our regular Wednesday two-hour Zoom sessions have given each of…
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Everything
To everything (turn, turn, turn)There is a season (turn, turn, turn)And a time to every purpose, under heaven. A time to be born, a time to dieA time to plant, a time to reapA time to kill, a time to healA time to laugh, a time to weep … Lyrics excerpt from “Turn, Turn, Turn” by folk music icon Pete Seeger Weeding in the yard the other day, it occurred to me that more than likely the most useless thing I’ve ever bought was a 2020 planner. I should have listened to my gut and stuck with the iPhone calendar. But no, I required old-school backup. It’s no wonder they…
