Last fall, I started a class in neon glass at Milwaukee Makerspace. Our instructor Brett took only a few minutes to do brief introductions to one another and his co-instructor, Rosie, before he led us into a meeting room to view a presentation on neon. He didn’t tell us how we would need to work.…
In 1967 or 1968, I started to become aware of the work of Alfred Adler and Rudolph Dreikurs, theory that would influence my work for decades to come. I learned about Parent Effectiveness Training and Teacher Effectiveness Training in small classrooms in Holton, Garland, Mitchell, and Pearse Halls. One of these classes positioned Adlerian theory…
First, I must clarify that ageing does NOT suck. So, when I hear people use expressions like, “Ageing sucks, but it’s better than the alternative,” I bristle. Second, death is not a failure of the dead nor is it some sort of awful alternative to be avoided at all costs. I cannot think of these…
That’s how I respond to the notion of a bucket list for me. Some friends and many others whom I know have developed these lists of experiences that want to have before they die. People closest to me know that I like doing stuff, going places, meeting people, having a big life. But I know…
Fred Sanford’s Big One was a feigned heart attack pulled out whenever he needed a break from his most recent poor choice. He’d call on his late wife, Elizabeth, and let her know he was going to join her. Whether he was conning Lena Horn or getting his son to stay close by, Fred (Redd…
Part of my appreciation of the world is born in his encouragement of me to “see;” in mine of him, to “look.”
In 2000, I argued that condensing our understanding of voting patterns into two teams, red or blue, was a big mistake. After watching election results that year, I worried aloud that reductionist approaches would only further the political schism in the U.S. Our electoral decisions, after all, are not football scores. I recall asking you…
A year like no other. So far out there. Wonder if we’ll ever get back to normal. It has been an amazing year, for sure. Emily, Mitchell, Erich, Zen, Laya, Jennifer, Jay, Liz, Erica, and Ira are all progressing in school. We met when they were undergrads,…
While coming out as gay man 56 years ago is associated with lots of crap that happened back then and regularly since, coming out has never been the source of the crap itself. Coming out actually launched a world of good for me. At age 16, I got honest with my parents in ways that…
Blue, green, or brown were okay on Thursdays. But not yellow, red, or orange. Those were fruit colors and spoke volumes about you if you wore them on the wrong day. The thing is, when these rules dominated parts of my life in fourth and fifth grade, there was no one to tell how important…
Creating Community for Everyone 