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During this time of plague, when the Queen of Viruses and the orange King of Dunces threaten our existence, I find comfort that, as a person well past middle age, I am easily amused by small things. And, in early spring, there are many such things to attract my attention. For example, our house bear,…

Early in October Nancy and I retraced the steps from many years ago when we hiked and camped out in the Canadian Maritime Provinces — Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Isle (“PEI”)and Cape Breton. It was a bus tour this time and at the height of the foliage season. As in the United States, Canada’s national…

We’ve lived to an age where we can fearlessly admit the follies of our youth. In this case it is that, in our forties, fifties and early sixties, we trekked mountains—high ones in the Andes, Alps, Rockies, Himalayas and other places where we strained to breathe thin air. Not technical climbing but trekking with light…

The accumulating infirmities of ageing are reported in many ways, from dry medical descriptions, movies about septuagenarians orchestrating a heist, complaints and/or descriptions of geriatric ailments on social media, and jokes. One of my favorites is about a conversation between two old guys in an elder care facility. Let’s call them Pete and Mike. Over…

Recently, I came across two discouraging articles in the New York Times. One was written by a woman who described her growing infatuation with her cell phone as justification for staring at the screen for more than seven hours a day. The other analyzed findings by social scientists showing that sex in America was on…