Robin Garrison News Today

From the first time Popeye strode across the boards of a black and white pier, his blimpy forearms and clenched fists gyrating in piston motion, I was hooked.

Our high school was a cavern of shadowy hallways interrupted by windowed classrooms on either side. I stowed my lunch in my locker each morning and stepped into the melee of bodies traveling down the halls in trudging rhythm.

Springtime renders me temporarily insane. Year after year, I wake on a warm morning in April and imagine I’m young and energetic and full of tireless vigor. The beautiful weather puts impossible possibilities in my brain and sends me rushing into chaos.

On an ordinary, carefully organized morning, I experienced a terror only 21st Century humans can understand. The gnawing, tingling anxiety. The panic of possible consequences. The sheer helplessness of knowing I was all alone, without assistance from anyone else on earth.

Hear that wind? Not too loud—just a pleasant puff of air that slides across your ears like a whisper. Like pursed lips blowing syllables of fresh thoughts that tickle and excite.

Our country is having a senior moment. We’re all focused on age and how it affects our ability to function as a productive member of society. Particularly, the emphasis is falling to whether older adults can effectively lead a government.

Seventh grade. I was 13 and in love for the first time.

When I married my high school sweetheart in the early 70s, Mom gave me a book of easy recipes that were as familiar as her smile. While she was not a gourmet cook, Mom knew how to feed a big family with a little budget.

I was at my chiropractor’s office, waiting in the private cubicle for a crack at my turn. After putting on the “Velcro in the back” gown, I glanced in the mirror on the wall to be sure my hair was not sticking up and I had no traces of breakfast on my face.

I used to have the perfect bed pillow. It was filled with foam chunks and had gray, striped ticking on the outside. That pillow traveled through life with me for many, many years.