Columns

As we head into the start of another year with which we are all blessed, there’s always some accounting to be done as to what we’ve gained and what we’ve lost in the year now in the history books.

The fruit lady has my number.

In 1974, when I was in the eighth grade, Mr. Allwood (I still can’t use his first name), told us always to do our best. He further commanded us to follow this rule our entire lives. If we were mowing the yard, feeding the dog, cleaning our room, and even in the future job we were going to have, he said to always do our best. If we mowed the yard, we should do it well enough to feel good about putting our name in the grass. We will not always achieve perfection, but we should always strive to do so.

As a devotee of “Seinfeld” during the show’s 180-episode run during its nine seasons from the late 1980s through most of the ‘90s, I remember most of the episodes’ openings, which feature Jerry in a nightclub setting doing his standup. In one of those openings, the routine focuses on the difference between how men watch TV and how women watch, depending upon who controls the remote.

At this time I rarely drink. I’ll have a glass of red wine at dinner, but I really don’t particularly like it — I’m convinced it’s good for my heart. However, there was a time in my past that I often drank to excess. Again, not because I liked the taste of alcohol, but because I was cavorting with friends. It’s lucky I made it through that period. There was a moment or two when it was touch and go. Drinking and driving was the cause of death for several of my friends. One friend got a taste of buckshot after a drunken brawl in Wilmington. But that was 50 years ago.

The early morning light was just peeking over the trees as I sat down at the table on the back deck and watched the ripples streaming south down our little creek, across the rocks, and quickly disappearing into the distance.

Norfolk Southern Railroad is the corporation responsible for the catastrophe in East Palestine, Ohio. In case you missed it, on Feb. 3, 2023, a train derailed in East Palestine and vented toxic vinyl chloride gas. The vented gas was intentionally set aflame and an enormous plume of black gas was visible from a commercial airliner flying over the region. A photograph taken from the airliner is vivid and terrifying in how large a scope of a disaster it was.

Editor’s note — This is the second part of a multi-part column.

Does your family eat together?

My husband, Peter, and I feel like social butterflies.