Still Advocating
Writings of a retired educator, advocate, & baby boomer

I naively (and arrogantly) thought there were ways to avoid some of the pretty bad encounters my brother and friends have had recently...

Let’s get the personal blame game over quickly. My brother has just started peritoneal dialysis for advanced kidney disease. That part...

Despite efforts to make people’s perception of pain quantifiable or more objective (think all of those pain scale ratings, zero being no...

We opened the wall In 1624, John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” Of course, he was writing about the...

On November 30, 2023, the City of Evanston Equity and Empowerment Commission held a special meeting with one agenda item. It was to vote...

It is my first “where were you when this happened” memory. On November 22, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I was...

I always hated this option on multiple choice exams. There was often a reason to suspect that one of the suggested answers could be...

Thanksgiving 1989 My children would probably say that I am a lot like my mother (pictured above). By the time they were old enough to...

Part One: My Childhood At my writers’ group, we talked about a challenge suggested by Nina Raskin: Think about who sat at your table from...

2013 — Just retired and on a trip When I was 65, I stepped down from being Executive Director of Cherry Preschool to mentor the new...