Ha Ha. I am laughing so hard at my stupidity that I am almost falling off my kitchen stool. I thought retirement meant lazy days spent lounging on the couch popping chocolate covered cherries into my eager mouth, while avidly reading mindless romantic, bodice-tearing novels. Boy was I in for a big surprise. So far [ Read More...]

It looks like a normal Monday morning – a bright, gentle warm day in April. The traffic is still roaring by on the busy corner upon which my house sits. The neighbor’s dog is still incessantly barking. The kitchen sink still has a coffee cup or two waiting to be put into the dishwasher. And [ Read More...]

Incidentally Iris

By Iris Ruth Pastor Contributing Columnist I stood at the window and watched the rain. The trees were still barren, although the buds were just starting to appear all over the wobbly branches. Across the street, I could see the lights in my neighbor’s family room. They were still strangers to me. I turned around [ Read More...]

By Iris Ruth Pastor Contributing Columnist When I was a little girl, my family and I lived two streets away from the state’s insane asylum – Longview State Hospital. From the 1930s through the 1970s, any person committed there, remained there, until death. Records show that 1,160 men and women of various ages and races [ Read More...]

When I was a little girl, I had a bad case of Christmas Envy. It was exacerbated by our next door neighbors, who prominently showed off their beautifully decorated Christmas tree in their front window – along with a view of their personalized Christmas stockings hung from the fireplace with care. The fact that they [ Read More...]

By Iris Ruth Pastor What mother doesn’t know what her kids are thinking when Chanukah comes early in December? Even if they don’t utter it aloud? It would go something like the following: “This Sucks. The holidays haven’t even arrived and it’s over for us already.” But it need not be. There are plenty of [ Read More...]

Okay. I have this deep, dark, dirty secret to share with the world. While Hurricane Sandy was wreaking havoc across 1,000 miles of our fair country – including the domiciles of three out of my five children and every one of my grandchildren – I was also distracted by another matter. In between compulsively tracking [ Read More...]

I lost my dad about a month ago. He would have been 90 in October. This column isn’t about him, at least not directly. It’s more about coming to terms with life in the aftermath of my loss, recognizing there is one less person in this world that loves me unconditionally. And about filling that [ Read More...]

The year is 1961 and I am 14- years-old and in the throes of a fierce case of puppy love. I go to see the movie “Splendour in the Grass” starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. So moved by the movie’s plot of doomed and thwarted love, I beg my mom to drive me to [ Read More...]