Teenagers think they know everything, yet they know almost nothing about life. They are barely educated and lack even the smallest morsels of life’s experience. They think their parents are old and out of touch. They truly believe they can … Continue reading
Now that my relationship with Amazon has ended, I am very happy to once again make the entire compliment of Uphill Both Ways available on this blog. I have organized the book on a new page Uphill Both Ways to … Continue reading
30 is such a good age. You’re close enough to your prime in your 20s, yet now growing into a nice maturity where you make fewer mistakes and enjoy life more. You might be getting married or even starting a … Continue reading
Today I sit in the quiet of the morning with the faint tap of rain on the roof and the click of my keyboard. It’s a perfect writing atmosphere. A little while ago, I heard a little whispered voice say, … Continue reading
This is a wonderful Easter rendition of the Leonard Cohen song. Happy Easter everyone.
Life isn’t how great you have become. Life isn’t how rich you are. Life is how many times you’ve been knocked down and still get up. The greatness within you only shines to the world if you let it. Don’t … Continue reading
This is a wonderful example of a mother’s devotion, love, and courage. I am always drawn to these examples that I may also show such traits in my life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMilJO1PjNQ
My father was well known as a teacher. If you’ve read my blog stories, you’ve recognized his unique art of teaching through the use of stories. But all teachers possess that gift to impart knowledge, and often inspiration, to their … Continue reading
This is a re-post of a video that was removed for a time from You Tube. Interestingly, this is a commercial for Thai television that is three minutes long. If only Americans could make such moving commercials. I hope you … Continue reading
This is why I wrote everything down knowing that someday I would lose that ability. I wanted to remember those wonderful moments, those seemingly inconsequential moments of parenting that fill your heart with joy and love forever. As I age … Continue reading
Sometimes we go through life without seeing those little acts of kindness that happen all around us. Then, without warning we start to notice, we start to see, and we start to understand. These small events then begin to affect … Continue reading
Many of us grew up not knowing the true character of our parents. Sadly, it is only much later that we find the evidence that changes our perception of who our parents really were. I found this video exceptionally inspirational … Continue reading
I called this Redux because I wrote this one, Social Security less than a year ago. Government programs that you thought you could rely upon are really at the whim of whoever is in office at the time. The other … Continue reading
Are you thinking about having a ‘mini-me’ running around the house? If you and your partner have functioning biological equipment, you’re good to go. And if you don’t, you can even adopt. There’s no experience or qualifications necessary and there … Continue reading
Each of us is the product of what we learned growing up. Each of us incorporated what we learned into our own personalities and a new person emerged. That person has an individual interpretation of right vs wrong or meat … Continue reading
Let’s say that you’re one half of a happily married couple and that you’ll be married for 50 years before one of you passes into the great beyond. In that 50 year time period, you will have been married 18,250 … Continue reading
I was called by many names in my lifetime: baby, sibling, teenager, Uncle, In-law, parent, grand parent. At each stage, I took pieces of this journey and grew. I am not my father yet many see him in my eyes … Continue reading
“Dad! Is that you?” “Of course, you don’t recognize your own father?” “Well, … you look terrific, I mean, … when I last saw you 10 years ago …” “Ya, Alzheimer’s does that to you. You look pretty chipper for … Continue reading
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My father was a Mechanical Engineer. That was how he defined himself. Sure, he retired as the Executive Vice-President of the company where he worked for 42 years, but he was always an engineer first. The precision necessary for the … Continue reading
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My father was a bit of a pocket philosopher. There wasn’t an occasion or event that couldn’t be summed by a clever quip that he had learned while growing up. Some of these clever quips turned into what appeared to … Continue reading
I drove to work for nearly 30 years. Only briefly did I ever have a passenger along. There was always some excuse for that. My hours were often strange or I lived in places where no one else lived. Of … Continue reading
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The new century has not been kind to us. In 2001 Barbara passed away from Cancer at the age of 60. In 2003 my father had passed away from Alzheimer’s at the age of 89. In 2005 Elinor passed away, … Continue reading
Both Mom and I had been raised with the tradition of the evening meal at the dinner table. So it was easy for us to adopt the same traditions for our family. Mom had eaten dinner many times at my … Continue reading
Karen and I absolutely loved living together in Massachusetts. It is a place of beauty from the Blue Mountains to Cape Ann to Cape Cod. It is a place that has mastered the culinary arts with those resources locally available … Continue reading
Michal Weber arrived in Shamokin, PA, Northumberland County, from Stuttgart, Germany around 1770, changed his name to Michal Weaver, and the family with most of its branches would always live there. He volunteered to fight for his new country and … Continue reading
As the children begin to grow into their own, there is always an event that tells the parent that each child is different. This event is different from what foods they like or their favorite color. In our family, the … Continue reading
I guess you would think that I had nothing better to do while working in that nice office in Falls Church, VA. but look out the window. That woodpecker and I sparred for a few weeks it’s true, but that … Continue reading
As the children were getting a bit older, it was finally time to share some of my own stories at the dinner table. Some of those stories were repetitions of those my father had told me, but some, like the … Continue reading
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We first saw this starving, flea-bitten street dog shortly after we moved here. Patrick was riding his tricycle on the driveway and this strange dog came up the driveway behind him. When my son turned around, the dog was there … Continue reading
When Sarah was very young, I was blessed with the task of comforting her before bedtime. I would sing to her and gently dance with her until she fell asleep. It became a tradition and when Patrick was born I … Continue reading
The schools in the area surrounding the new house were reportedly very good and our future was bright. Sarah and Patrick thrived at this new house. We were in the middle of the Civil War [locally referred to as The … Continue reading
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The remaining 25 of us on the program at GTE were notified on May 1st that we would be going to Northern Virginia on temporary assignment (TDY) on June 1, 1991. The TDY would last for 6 months and then … Continue reading
During this time I had continued to work for GTE Government Systems. I was working on a very important DoD software development program that would eventually be used in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and I was having a great … Continue reading
When Sarah was four and Patrick had yet to experience his second birthday, something happened. It was something that I swore I would never let happen. In my job, I had shunned travel assignments or any other interruptions to my … Continue reading
As a new parent, you are faced with so many challenges, but one of the earliest is trying to control the situation. We had already decided that when our children did something good, we would reward and when they did … Continue reading
So far, in our short married life, my wife and I had made a few conscious decisions. Among other things, we decided we wanted to have a girl and a boy and if that happened right away, our family would … Continue reading
We found out we were pregnant in March of 1989. Yes, we, as I have always believed that creating a family isn’t just, ‘you’re pregnant and I’m along for the ride.’ We were growing our family together and we couldn’t … Continue reading
Here are a few notable examples of life at our house in those early days. We had a nice little patch of lawn at our house in Lakeville. It was perhaps 12,000 square feet and it took me about an … Continue reading
This is a story about two events; one where an 18-month-old child gets very sick and another about how life has changed in the last 25 years. We had just returned from a road trip to Maryland. Sarah seemed to … Continue reading
In those early days when we first began considering parenthood, the question of ‘how many children do you want to have?’ was always a part of the discussion. I would always answer that ‘six is a good number,’ and my … Continue reading
After my wife had been given 48 hours to recover, our new family of three was headed home. The new car seat was inspected first by the hospital staff, approved, and off we went. My mother-in-law had arrived for a … Continue reading
Karen and I were having a wonderful time together as newlyweds. We were learning a lot about each other, enjoying our jobs, and enjoying, for the most part, cookouts at my parents house. We did, however feel the political background … Continue reading
Karen had grown up in a log cabin at New Germany State Park in Garrett County, Western Maryland where her father was the Park Manager. So she was used to a wide variety of creatures that roamed the woods. Bear, … Continue reading
When I took the job at AT&T, part of the move was to rent the apartment that was available in a building that Elinor owned. Her mother (Gram) lived on the first floor, her nephew Gary lived on the second … Continue reading
One of the first things Karen wanted to do when we got back from our honeymoon was find a good job. The job market wasn’t that bad in 1985 and so she had a lot of choices. One ad that … Continue reading
I had never considered myself to be a particularly funny person. Oh sure I could tell a joke if I was forced into it, but I was more known for the bizarre way I looked at things. (See Temperature or … Continue reading
This is such a simple thing. It’s used as a greeting, a salutation, a parting gesture, and sometimes even an epithet signifying the owners’ ignorance. But we all wave at people that we know and don’t know as a way … Continue reading
I got home very late Thursday night, completely exhausted (that happens when you get 3 hours of sleep a night), and full of thoughts of San Francisco. I spent my day off on Friday walking and thinking. I walked to … Continue reading
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Well, my children this is the one. This is the story that you have heard at the dinner table countless times, debated by your mother and I as to how this or that happened, and always ending the same way … Continue reading
The strangest thing happened. The one person that had been tearing me down for years, the person that had confederated with Barbara to find fault in everything I did, called me on the telephone. Elinor told me that I had … Continue reading
J T Weaver 