We both did our best on that last, cold day but, like Carole King said, it was too late, baby. My trusty Townie, the bike that had been with me for 18 years, got stuck in first gear and, as I pedaled so furiously and yet so painfully slowly that my young companions had to [...]
An unfamiliar November sun rode in this weekend and we Midwesterners responded with great gulps of glee. Everywhere we looked people rode bikes they had put away for the winter, hauled out the summer shorts, dined al fresco , walked, jogged, raked leaves, climbed playground equipment and tried to stay outside as long as possible. [...]
Fifty years ago, Cat Stevens wrote a song for his seminal Tea for the Tillerman album that asked, "Where do the children play?" While the lyrics refer specifically to the impact of pollution, they also speak in a prescient way about something we're all concerned about today. Will you make us laugh, will you make [...]
Of course, Molly threw her own 21st birthday party. She'd been waiting to celebrate this day for years. "I just want to be able to go where my family and friends go," she said, having grown up the youngest in both her family and her grade. Saturday night in Minneapolis her friends and family went [...]
My daughter Molly has been setting her own pace since she took her first steps (to her Great-Grandpa Fey in the visiting room of his nursing home). A Thoreau-ly confident English major, she occasionally keeps pace with her companions, sometimes trails them and, every now and then, she zooms ahead. She likes to step to [...]