Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company, State Street, Chicago, Ill  As a college student approaching the end of my school years and looking forward to a career—whatever it would be—I learned my school, North Central College, had Co-Op arrangements with several corporations in which students could enter fulltime training programs while still earning […]

I always enjoyed writing but was a poor speller—and still am—so didn’t share my compositions with many people. In 1980 I became aware of machines called word processors that corrected spelling. Actually, they had been around for about 10-years but in much simpler form. IBM had a Selectric typewriter they introduced in 1969 that was […]

My plan for the summer of 2014’s extended motorcycle ride was to head up into Canada, stopping in Michigan to visit favorite places and then cross into Toronto and Ottawa with camping stays in Montreal and Quebec. I would return to the U.S. in Maine revisiting favorite haunts, then follow the St Lawrence River on […]

In 2011 I headed west again, titling my travel journal “Chasing the Sun.” The title could actually have been named “Chasing the SON” because my youngest son, Brian, had been challenged to run across Nevada on trails, and to set a record doing so. It was 500 miles across the state and climbed fifteen mountain ranges. The State […]

In May 2001, a few months after I retired, I signed on as crew for a three-week sailboat delivery from the British Virgin Islands (BVI), across the Gulf of Mexico to Texas. Such opportunities are available by doing searches on the internet. My wife, Michele, and I had discussed buying a blue-water sailboat and doing […]