A New Day

About three years ago, when lifelong family friend Bonnie Baril suffered a major cognitive event that might have been a trans-ischemic attack, she was questioned by the hospitalist, a man I now know to be my neighbors’ son. He was asking her what day of the week it was, what year it was, things to […]

One Nation, In Division

Among the many things I have been pondering of late — not that you would know I’ve been pondering anything, due to the numerous posts I have started but not completed — is this notion of unity. I don’t really mean politically-convenient unity such as that espoused recently by some percentage of congress, completely coincidentally, […]

Surgical Precision

Thirty-some years ago, just about this time of year, I dislocated my shoulder. It was a two-part injury, started on the ski hill one afternoon and finished around 11 p.m. when I lifted a 10-pound weight over my head and felt a distinct pop. This was back when Gunnison was macho and it was, no […]

Another Day, Another Windmill

If I had to personify downtown Gunnison, it would be as a stolid middle-class citizen with aspirations of a glitzy, diamond-studded cocktail-circuit existence. These aspirations have been around probably longer than I have, and they are just as unrealized as they were when I first became aware of them. I have friends who are trying […]

A Shot in the Arm

The other day Lynn and I were almost smashed into in a parking lot here in town. If you live here, or lived here, or ever have visited here, you know which parking lot is the worst one in town, but instead of being on the City Market side we were to the south, approaching […]

Bad Hair Day

It took until this morning to realize it, but stress over a haircut is just about to send me over a literal edge. Covid stress is nothing new, probably to every person on the planet, even those who believe it’s a hoax, but on top of political stress and strife and the part where decisions […]

The Diabetic Arts

Diabetes is a two-handed disease, it turns out, and in a household that generally has four hands but temporarily is reduced to three, that means some changes have been in order this young year. Lynn had shoulder surgery on Dec. 30 and now has her arm strapped into a sling. She also has diabetes, as […]

A Star Descendant

Personal responsibility is hard. Stepping up and owning mistakes must go completely against human nature, given how many of us (you all, I mean — I’m pretty sure I’m perfect) try to duck even the least egregious of actions. As a business owner, I’m well versed in the “I dunno” and “It wasn’t me” responses […]

The Man Who Came to Dinner

Lynn’s physical therapy started Monday, cramming one more thing into jam-packed mornings. I have big ambitions but not so much on the follow-through. Blogging may remain intermittent, no matter my intentions. In a play first produced in 1939 (made into a movie in 1942), a radio celebrity sets out to visit a well-off family in […]

Tough Calls

The other day I called my mother right after she’d received a text from my aunt, the aunt who not that long ago had to put my uncle in a care facility. My uncle who absolutely does not want to be in this facility. The uncle who is wearing his wife and sister to a […]