What the train wanderers taught me about waiting for the right opportunity to arrive
While it would be unheard of today, I walked to elementary school every day as a kid in the south. It was a long trek, about 25 minutes in total, through the old brick neighborhoods, then past the big steepled church, art deco post office, and the modern supermarket just beyond the edge of the main street.
The most exciting part of my journey was crossing the railroad tracks that split our town in half. If my pals and I got the timing right, we could catch the Northfolk Southern Railway freight train come roaring across our path.
The sheer…
To love your lover is to love their dreams.
“I can’t wait for you to get this childish hobby out of your system!” Marie shouted as Harry laid on the floor, wrestling with one of his students.
And with that, she stormed out of the gym in a huff.
Harry looked embarrassed…as if his mother just told him he was too old to be still playing with GI Joe’s.
As students, we weren’t used to seeing our action-hero smacked down like this. There was an awkward silence for a few breathless seconds. …
The three fences couples must get over to “make it”.
“So, what’d you think of my new girl?” Felix asked as if he were referring to a new convertible sports car he just leased.
“She seems like a wonderful human,” I said.
He was hoping for a more enthusiastic response from me. But I didn’t want to participate in this visual evaluation game with him like we were judges holding scorecards at a dog show.
Felix always had a new modelesque girl on his arm, but these relationships never went far beyond the first few dates.
My friend was a serial dater, and he had all the trappings of a…
How marketing and advertising try to alter and shape our relationship to food
Although my parents meant well, it’s hard to believe how ignorant we were about food products in the late 1960s and ’70s. As a kid, I’d start my day off with a big bowl (or two) of milk and the sweetest, most candy-like cereals my little hands could reach from the grocery store aisle. I’d then wash it all down with a large glass of imitation orange juice or Tang.
With my blood cells locked and loaded with hyperactive sugars, I’d bounce around the station wagon’s rearview seat and arrive at elementary school feeling nauseous. …
How the future of working in an office could affect your business
“Only an architect would obsess about the design of the telephone handset or how the numbers look on the keypad instead of how the phone system functions,” my father complained.
But when I set out to buy a new phone system for our growing company, the appearance was my top priority.
It was the early 1990s, and we didn’t have access to the world-wide-web yet to search for the perfect product solutions. Instead, we had to dig through catalogs, go to office equipment showrooms, or wait for the salesperson to come around with their product samples.
But when I found…
