Living in the Vail Valley seems light-years removed from my youth growing up on Chicago’s west side.  But watching the White Sox from my lounge chair in Kauai has taken me back to 1959—the year of the Go-Go Sox. The recent success of the “pale hose” has precipitated...

I love reading the letters-to-the-editor and the Wisdom-from-the-Web comments that detail the significant concerns of the valley’s residents.  While issues such as the height of the proposed new Crossroads center, the cyclist v. pedestrian war-of-the-pathways, and the...

My sister Lois lives in Chicago and always seems to have the perfect remedy for those little household emergencies.  While I was speaking with her the other day I casually asked how she would remove an indentation from a carpet that’s had a sofa sitting on it for 5...

Each year onn February 14th we “celebrate” the day of St. Valentine by exchanging gifts with our loved ones—or at least that’s what the marketing people in the flower and candy industries would have us believe. In actuality, it’s a day when the price of flowers are...

I no longer attend New Year’s Eve parties because of a little bit too much dissolution during my youth.  Nowadays, I go out for a quiet (albeit over-priced) dinner or stay home and kick back.  Besides, all too often New Year’s Eve is like Ted Mack’s 1950s TV show,...

Do you know what makes you happy?  Are you sure?  According to research done by a small group of psychologists from Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia, along with an economist from Carnegie-Mellon, it seems that Americans aren’t very good at predicting...

In part one of this two-part series, we discussed timelines to help keep parents and students on track during the college preparation process.  Part II focuses on college selection. Ever-larger numbers of students are applying for college admission and the application...

“If college is supposed to prepare young people for the real world, the college admission process is quickly becoming a precursor to the rat-race of adulthood.”  Nathan Bierma. This the first of a two-installment commentary about the college entrance gantlet.  This...

“We came here for the skiing; but stayed for he summers,” has become a cliché.  It reminds me of the story about a guy who moved to Scottsdale from Boston; who when questioned by an old friend about living in the Southwest, said with a tone of resignation, “It’s just...

It can be argued that English is the richest of all the world’s languages.  If nothing else, it certainly has the most words.  Scholar’s estimate that our language now has in excess of 500,000 words or word forms—excluding technical and scientific words, which add...