I'm now the guy who waves at passing cars when I walk

Bill Reid is a man I admire. He is a legend here in Wickliffe for several reasons, not the least of which is that he served as mayor of our town and has also donated hundreds of pints of rare type AB blood to the Red Cross over many decades.

He also became, at some point, the Waving Guy.

Bill used to walk around Wickliffe a lot. Maybe he still does. I'll have to ask the next time I see him at a high school sporting event.

When he would walk, he would wave to each and every passing car. You could count on getting a wave from Bill if you drove past him.

That is not Bill in the photo above, by the way, but he did always have the same friendly smile when he waved.

I used to think this was so funny. Kind of a quirky old guy thing.

Until I started doing it myself.

Now, let it be said that when I'm out walking or running, I only wave at cars I pass on my street (Miller) and the adjoining street (West Miller). I don't do it on other, busier streets in town.

More specifically, I do it when I'm walking/running in the street because there are no sidewalks available. And as much as I intend it as a friendly greeting, it's also a simple acknowledgement of the fact that the passing motorist has seen me and moved over to give me some room.

"Thank you for noticing me and not killing me with your 5,000-pound SUV," is what I'm in effect telling people.

I do the things you're supposed to do when you walk/run on the side of the road, including going against traffic and wearing a yellow reflective vest. Still, you would be surprised how many clueless people speed up Miller and don't notice me until the last second because they're on their phone.

Actually, maybe you wouldn't be surprised.

Either way, I'm grateful to every driver who allows me to live another day. Waving to them is probably the least I can do.

This is what we looked like on June 6, 1992

My wife and I were married 29 years ago today. It was a Saturday, and while it looked like it was going to rain, we got away with pretty good weather for the whole shindig.

I have written about our anniversary at least three times in the history of this blog, so I'm not sure there's anything new to say. Those prior anniversary posts can be read here (2012), here (2015), and here (2017).

Life goes on, and we go on. That's not something to be taken lightly or for granted, though sometimes in the everyday grind we do lose sight of the things that are most valuable in our lives.

And that's all I have to say about that. Happy anniversary to the best wife a guy could ask for.

Rearranging your living room: The pinnacle of excitement

A couple of months ago we rejiggered the furniture in our living room. It was the first time we had done this in a while, and it caused quite the stir.

Quite the stir, that is, not only among the people who live in our house, but among our regular visitors as well.

Everyone had their own opinions on the new configuration, which saw the TV switch places with the piano and the sectional couch pulled around at a new angle, along with a few other minor changes.

We were able to move the TV only because we switched from WOW cable to AT&T TV streaming service. Previously, the TV was placed right where the cable came up through the floor from the basement. But a streaming TV can go anywhere in the house where you have WiFi, so that opened up a lot of design possibilities.

The important thing is that my wife, the person who spends the most time in the living room, liked the change.

But seriously, you know your life has fallen into what might be described as a mundane routine when a living room rearrangement is the only thing you can talk about as a family for a week.

Don't forget that printers are miracles

Every now and then I'll write a post about the good/bad old days in which we lacked certain technology that is now commonplace, and how none of us should ever take it for granted.

This is one of those posts.

I am of sufficient age to appreciate how amazing it is to have a desktop printer, because I grew up at a time when no one had them.

All of your school reports back then were handwritten or, if you were fancy, produced on a typewriter.

We had a typewriter in my house, and I remember using it to write reports on Theodore Roosevelt (when we had to pick a president to write about), Iceland (when we had to pick a country to write about), and Vermont (when we had to pick a state to write about). This involved setting margins and manual carriage returns, and if God forbid you made a mistake, reaching for the foul-smelling White Out to correct it.

It was cumbersome, but the final product always looked nice.

Like a lot of people, the first printer I owned was of the dot matrix variety, and much like a typewriter, it required changing out the ink ribbon every so often.

It only printed in black and white, of course, but that didn't matter. The fact was, it printed! I would create something on my Commodore 64, and a couple of minutes later, there it was on paper, looking all professional (or so it seemed).

You have to understand, this was a revelation. Then they came out with Print Shop software and you could create banners and flyers and all sorts of things that previously could only be handled by a graphic designer and a printing service.

In retrospect, it all looks pretty bland and cheesy. But to say that is to ignore how transformative portable printers really were. What had before involved a large investment of time and money could now be done in an instant at home. Mind blowing.

The next time I want to complain about my Epson printer, I'm going to stop for a second and appreciate the fact it exists it all.

They're tearing down my high school, but I was more sad when they got rid of my elementary school

 

Rendering of the new Wickliffe Schools campus

One of the biggest things going on right now in my little hometown of Wickliffe, Ohio, is the building of a new PK-12 school campus. It's a long, long, long overdue project, and it's going to bring our educational facilities out of the early to mid-20th century and into the 21st.

One result is that our three current school buildings will all be torn down. I attended two of those (the middle and high schools) and have plenty of memories wrapped up in both.

Still, I'm completely fine with it, given the expense of operating those ancient structures and the  opportunities afforded to our students at the new campus.

What I haven't gotten over, though, is the demolition of good old Mapledale Elementary, the school that stood at the end of my street where I attended kindergarten through sixth grade. That one hurt.

I spent more than half of my public school career there. I developed a love of reading, of sports, and of music there. In many ways I grew up at Mapledale.

And now it's gone, replaced by nice little houses for somewhat older folks without children, as I understand it.

Wickliffe students nowadays are dumbfounded when I tell them our city used to have three separate elementary schools. Those schools shaped so many lives, but they've faded into distant memory.

That's progress for you. On balance it's a good thing, but the older you get, the sadder it is when vestiges of your childhood fall victim to the bulldozer.

Somewhere in between 24/7 kale and a bag-a-day Cheetos habit is your sensible diet

I know exactly what I should be eating. You probably do, too.

I own a copy of a book called "The China Study." It's popular with the clean eating crowd, and while some quibble a bit with its science, I don't think anyone would read it and say, "Nah, this guy's wrong. I'm opting for the Bacon Grease Diet."

We know leafy greens are good for us. We know nuts and seeds should be part of our diet, as should fruits, vegetables, "good" fats and complex carbs. We know we should use some common sense when it comes to things like red meat, processed foods, and trans fats.

Yet we Americans still tend to eat in a manner that can only be described as decidedly unhealthy. We eat bad stuff and we eat a lot of it (ask a visitor from another country what strikes them about America, and stunningly often they'll mention the gargantuan portion sizes in our restaurants).

Still, you can't blame anyone for eating what they enjoy. People want to eat what tastes good. Dietitians, physicians and others whose job it is to guide us toward healthier food choices will tell you your palate evolves and that eventually the good stuff will start tasting better, but in my experience, well...that's at best partially true.

I eat pretty healthy, I guess. I get kale and spinach in my daily smoothies, I try to stick to whole grains, I eat a lot of fruit, and my dairy intake is relatively minimal.

But I'm inconsistent with nuts, almost never eat seeds, will drink multiple cups of coffee with half-and-half until the day I die, and don't get nearly as much fish as I should.

On balance, I feel like I'm doing OK, and over the years my blood work has supported that idea. I'm not perfect, but I am intentional about what I eat.

You may be in the same boat. Or maybe you have a much healthier diet than me, in which case kudos to you.

Realistically speaking, though, a lot of us are going to eat Ding Dongs and ice cream, and we're simply not going to stop. The secret, as always, is getting us to do it in some moderation. God bless the people trying to get us there.

The promise of June

For some people, the start of a new year is the time to reenergize and look ahead with optimism. For others it's the coming of spring.

To me, though, you can't beat the arrival of June.

I once called June "the greatest month of the year," and I stand by that.

Part of it is the weather. I am grateful to live in Northeast Ohio 365 days a year, but when it comes to getting outside and being active, June has the best balance of warm, sunny days without the near-Florida-like humidity that comes along in July and August.

Also, for the first several years of your life, June probably meant summer vacation. You played, you relaxed, and you got yourself ready for the next grade up in school, whatever that may have been.

It is also as good a time as any to address whatever it is in your life that needs addressing. Just as the cold and snow are behind us, so too can be the problems and issues that have weighed on your mind for so long. The calendar has flipped, so your attitude may as well change with it.

Easier said than done, I understand, but you have to start sometime. June 1st is a pretty good candidate.

Happy June, everybody (even to my Southern Hemisphere friends for whom June is more a reminder that winter is on the way...on balance, you still have better weather than we do.)