I like it when people come to visit me. So it was particularly nice when – a couple weeks ago – a group of people came for a visit. They started out north of Mahomet at the Sangamon River Forest Preserve – nine of them, in four canoes and a kayak. They arrived a little after 9 in the morning […]

Life seems to proceed in cycles and phases. It’s been the nature of things for my family and me. Cycles change, a new phase begins, yet in another sense things seem to circle back, making new connections. Invisible threads seem to connect things together, pulling us in directions we’re destined to go. All we need do is feel the threads, […]

I loved you. I’m pretty sure I still do, but I don’t really know too much about such things. Because if you found this note, it means you must have moved my bed from the floor beside your bed which you never do. And that means I must have passed on. So I wanted to be sure you knew how […]

There was that smile. Or a quick-witted sarcastic comeback, always coupled with that knowing grin and a twinkle in his eye that says he knows he just gotcha. When I think back on the time that I had the privilege to know our USRC Brother Tom Meachum, I guess that’s what I’ll remember most. And it will always make me […]

The man reached out from his kayak, extending his arm trying to grab what he saw before him: the object of his desire. It was not a safe situation, and he recognized the hazards. His kayak was sideways, pressed up against a recently fallen silver maple, perpendicular to the surprisingly strong current. He had seen not a few kayaks and […]

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? We seem to have a woodchuck living under our shed these days, so to answer this perennial question, I decided to go to the source. And he replied: “Whaddya mean if a woodchuck could chuck wood? I mean, how could I know what it is to chuck […]