One day while fat, happy, and retired, I was watching television when there came on the screen a public service plea for help. My state had a shortage of substitute teachers in the public schools, and as a temporary fix, the powers that be were waiving the requirement of a…

It all started in a butcher shop — una carniceria — in Nuevo Arenal, Costa Rica. I knew that “carniceria” meant butcher shop. I went in to buy three pounds of high-fat ground beef to be used in a dinner I planned to cook for my traveling companions. I had…

I took the class, Adult Development and Aging, from Professor Kinderman at Portland State University. He had wanted to be a geologist but couldn’t do the math, so he became a psychology professor. I knew how he felt. I became a lawyer for the same reason. Dr. Kinderman taught a…

I had a cyst on my head. Maybe a tumor. A small lump. It wasn’t noticeable, even though I am mostly bald, but two or three times a day it would be mildly painful and I would rub it to make the pain go away. I’m old. I’d had lumps…

That’s my new standard for a great vacation. My wife and I belong to a group of people who travel together. There are ten of us. Five couples. The other couples are in their fifties. My wife and I are in our seventies. Every other year or so, depending on…

Relationships, not so much. I have a friend who is the excellent single mother of an eleven-year-old boy. She described to me a scene at a coffee shop in which her son asked if he could go sit at a table where several male acquaintances of hers were talking about…

Not All Lawyers are Rich When a trusts and estates lawyer is down on his luck, his calendar empty, his phone silent, his bank account dwindling, and he questions whether he will ever again walk through the courthouse door, there is only one inspiring feel-good story with the power to…

A Greek Drama in One Act by Domestikes Prologue Prior to retirement, the man ran a small law office. The woman, his wife, was a social worker. To them, complex bureaucracies were what the ocean is to a fish. His environment was the legal system. Hers was human services. Both of…

It ain’t all rainbows and unicorns. I am a happy old man. My happiness is not because I made it to old age or because of anything I did along the way. I’ve always been happy. I got lucky in the genetic lottery. When God dealt the cards, he gave…