Growing Bolder Community

Reader’s note: The following deals with a rather morbid matter – death. It also presents various ideas (ideas you may or may not agree with) about how humans deal with it. Enter at your own risk. Michael Shermer is a provocative columnist for the Scientific American magazine. He often takes on topics that are disputed and dissects them with the twin scalpels of objectivity and...

I thought it might be appropriate to repeat this. Someone near and dear to me graduated as an RN today. I proudly attended her graduation. It is called a pinning for nurses, but it still a graduation ceremony with all the elements expected, including the keynote address. This is the graduation season, and in high schools and colleges across the land there are graduation ceremonies...

In memory of Mom on this Mother’s Day. As I said at the start of the entry about my dad, I wrote the following less for others, though they may enjoy it, as I did for my own sake and for my son. Family is important. Mom was born some fifty miles from Budapest, Hungary in 1912 and was baptized Yolan. She was the first born of my maternal grandparents, Barbara and Joseph....

Mother’s Day is just about here so it seems appropriate to talk about mothers and praise them for what is performing one of the most difficult tasks life has to offer. But that is not what this musing is all about. Having a great mother, one who loves and supports, is a gift beyond measure. But one of the sad facts in life is not all mothers are created equal. Not all mothers devote...

I was born in Northeastern Pennsylvania and spent the first eleven years of my life there among my extended family (and it was extended). Then my parents moved to Fairmont, West Virginia and took me with them. It was there that I spend my teens in junior high (now called middle school) and high school. Maybe it was because my brain was a bit more developed and was able to retain more of...

The following is for the love of my life and girl of my dreams, and lovers everywhere. SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT - William Wordsworth She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From...

I originally published this a few years ago, but given its May again and I recently got a new car, I thought it worth repeating. It is is something I never experienced when I lived "up North". It’s the invasion of the lovebugs. They are also known as the honeymoon flies, kissing bugs or double-headed bugs; it is the Plecia nearctica. It appears twice year here in Florida - in May...

It’s time, once again, for those random things in life that aren’t worthy of a full length musing. There’s hope for my golf game - I’ve been playing golf got 53 of my 75 years here on earth. Contrary to the old saying, practice doesn’t make perfect. If it did, I’d have been on the tour a long time ago. However, there is an achievement I’m looking forward to – it’s...

For the love of my life and girl of my dreams (and lovers everywhere): How Do I Love Thee - Elizabeth Barrett Browning - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by...

Like everyone else, I often say i don't have enough time - enough time to do all I want, enough time to help others when asked, enough time to fit everything into my daily routine. That seems ludicrous on the face of it. I'm retired, and time is what I was supposed to have enough of, in fact, too much of. It's supposed to be time on my hands to be spent like the golden coins in a...