New Shoes in the Rain

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Today is the day when we all take time to give thanks for the many blessings we each enjoy.  But I prefer to believe that every day is a day to feel and even express our gratitude. Here are some of the things that make me feel thankful: My wife, whom I met about 37 years ago.  I was not close to any of my immediate family (for a lot of reasons that I won't go into here) but I met my wife and her two amazing kids and I felt a sense of belonging that I had never known before.  The kids grew up, and they married and had kids of their own.  And the love has grown exponentially since then.  There are an awful lot of things about me that have not changed that much, but I prefer to believe that my personal traits that have improved are entirely thanks to her! My kids, whom I mentioned above.  They are both outstanding people, good spouses and excellent parents.  I'm proud of them, certainly, but appreciate them and the relationships we now enjoy as adults

Happy Wednesday, everyone.  Hope your week is going well enough! Had an interesting experience over the weekend, as my grandson's youth hockey team was entered into a tournament in and around South Bend, Indiana.  My wife and I would have said, well, OK, except for the location, as this was a golden opportunity (and you'll pardon the pun) to see some of the campus of the University of Notre Dame. So we threw in and got a room as a part of the tournament block, and last Thursday set sail for Mishawaka, Indiana, which is adjacent to South Bend itself.  Made a pit stop in Milan, Indiana, the home of the "Milan Miracle" upon which the sports movie "Hoosiers" is based.  It's a real place, a little wide place in the road with a couple of stop lights and the kind of "downtown" that would look equally at home with dirt replacing asphalt on the main street and horses tied up in front of the old buildings.  We didn't go in but whatever locations were

Happy middle-of-the-week day, everyone.  Not much on talking about "hump day," so there you go! I think I had mentioned before that I've had some fun with several of my grandkids by referring to myself as Richard, the Knower of All Things.  Most of them chuckle along with me, but our middle granddaughter just can't bring herself to admit that I know a thing or two, and responds by calling me Ricardo. You never can tell. Anyway, I don't have a specific theme for today's post, so it's a little bit of several categories.  Here goes: We watch a show called Morning Joe on MSNBC most weekday mornings, as they routinely discuss politics and national issues and have a pretty good variety of guests on the show.  I began watching a number of years ago, when Joe Scarborough, the primary host and former Congressman, very suddenly replaced Don Imus on MSNBC after Imus offended some viewers with one or another of his comments.  The co-hosts of the show were and are Mika