Author Archives: rike52

When you punch “health greed” into Google translate with the output set to German, that’s what you get.  Kathy and I were talking about activities that make you feel so much more healthy that sometimes you approach them with greed for more.  At the time, we were out for a long walk in the woods,Continue reading “Gesundheitsgier (“health greed”)”

While working on my book this morning, I’ve been diving deep into my “Writing and Philosophy” folder.  Here’s an item I found there that I thought worth sharing.  I know it’s baseball season, but college basketball schedules are being announced and it’s barely 2 months to kickoff at Michigan Stadium.  Off season is time toContinue reading “college mascots”

One of the many joys of living in Ann Arbor is the Amtrak service. So much more relaxing to take a train anywhere than to drive. Chicago is a favorite long weekend destination. But you don’t have to ride the Wolverine all the way to Union Station to have a good good time. About halfwayContinue reading “ARB-KAL”

I don’t mean to be a tease, but I’m so excited about an entry I’ll be posting later this week or early next, that I had to tender a preliminary. Below is an e-mail I sent to my friend Ana, an attorney in Santa Fe, friend of my brother-in-law Bob. After a very successful careerContinue reading “heart warming”

As the masks come off and normalcy begins to pervade, the issue of vaccination persists.  With the common trope at stores that masks are optional for the vaccinated, Kathy and I leave ours off as we’ve been vaccinated plenty over the years: polio, smallpox, measles, mumps, etc.  We continue to avoid these COVID science fairContinue reading “vaccines again”

On the coffee table of Tony’s beach house, where we’ve been staying in South Haven, is Richard Applegate’s very entertaining pictorial history of the area Photographic Memories Grand Rapids: Josten’s Printing and Publishing, 1996.  In the section on sports, of which SH has a proud tradition (they always beat our asses), is a picture ofContinue reading “football!”

What could be better on a rainy Saturday morning than buttermilk pancakes, slathered with butter and drowned with maple syrup?  Add some bacon on the side and a big glass of cold milk to wash it down with and you’ve got breakfast heaven.  My late Grandpa Slater – Grand Rapids fireman who liked to entertainContinue reading “Undaunted flapjacks”

Can there be anything better than a bowl of fresh strawberries in June, bright red flecked with their little seeds like freckles, sparkling in a glass bowl? And that smell!  Like taking in all the wonder of a pretty girl.  The only thing better than that wonder is imagining the pleasure that will be yoursContinue reading “it’s the berries”

Of 169 graduates of Vicksburg High School in 1970, 4 went to the University of Michigan, a haul that has yet to be surpassed.  We all experienced Ann Arbor differently, but we shared football, sitting in the yet-to-be-filled stadium and watching Bo’s early teams grind out boring football, but winning, winning, winning, going 9-1, 11-1Continue reading “more Bo”

This nonsense has to stop.  With the scalp of Fielding Yost not totally yanked off, they’re coming after Bo, starting with an affront led by his step son https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2021/06/09/michigan-football-matt-bo-schembechler-sexual-assault-1969/7627659002/.  Soon the whole Anderson affair, quashed successfully by some of Bo’s old boys during last football season when it should be by all rights have beenContinue reading “et tu, Bo?”