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
Sir Paul McCartney wrote “When I’m Sixty-Four” when he was only 16. I first heard it on the “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” album when I was 16. At the time, it was nothing more than another really good … 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
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 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
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
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
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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
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
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
In a previously written post, “You Better Hurry Up,” I told the story of how my father very logically suggested that at 36 I was getting a little old for children. While I didn’t appreciate his interference, I did heed … 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
My decision to return home and marry Paula was not well received by my family. Generally they were pleased that I was doing well in San Francisco and pleased that they didn’t have to deal with ‘that’ girl. Elinor and … Continue reading
“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco” – probably Mark Twain. I arrived in San Francisco on a sunny Friday afternoon in August 1975. What a beautiful city! I was having dinner at a small … Continue reading
In the five years since I had lived with Greg and John there were some substantial changes to my life. Despite my efforts to the contrary, I had learned a lot at school. The Viet Nam war ended, and with … Continue reading
Sophomore year was ending and the cycle of looking for an apartment for next year was beginning. I don’t know how it happened but we all had decided to part ways and get an apartment on our own. That might … Continue reading
The cocktail party was the main adult social event for upwardly mobile couples in the 1950s. If you were going to host one of these parties, it was important that your home had some essential elements. The first was a … Continue reading
The next time I would play tennis would be at military school. A golf team at a military school wasn’t very likely. But at least I had the tennis. I played in the Florida heat every chance I got but … Continue reading
Greg, Rod, John and I had become really good friends throughout freshman year. The four of us had a lot of good times together then. I even hitchhiked to Charlottesville, VA with Rod for no apparent reason, at least none … Continue reading
I was finally allowed to work a real job over the summer and so I arrived in Boston with $750 in the bank. I thought that was a lot of money but it didn’t last long. I was in sensory … Continue reading
It was the summer of 1968. I was a camp counselor at a small boys camp in western Massachusetts. I was the new Massachusetts Junior Smallbore Champion. I had passed my NRA instructors test and so I was qualified to … Continue reading
Academically I was doing fine for my junior and senior years at Tabor. It wasn’t the easy excellence that I had known in elementary school, but I was never really in danger of not passing a subject, except maybe French. … Continue reading
J T Weaver 