Homesick For California In 1967 Barbara and I moved to California. We were young, and found it to be an exciting place to live. We were welcomed into a friendly church and made many friends. There were all sorts of entertaining places and things to do: amusement parks, sporting events, plays and restaurants. And ah, the weather. We lived about ten miles from the beach; as a result we didn’t experience the searing heat farther inland. Our average daytime high during the summer was 85 º; during the winter we thought it was cold when it occasionally dropped into the 50s. After 35 years we began to think about retirement. At the invitation of church friends we visited a retirement campus, and quickly discovered that a small apartment was far more than we hoped to pay in our old age, although there was one perk: the establishment was willing to iron our sheets. While visiting our local senior center Barbara observed an event which illustrates the general attitude toward o
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.