Historian Thomas Carlyle once said, "Blessed be Cadmus, the Phoenicians, or whoever it was that invented books." His sentiment reflects that of most bibliophiles, those of us who can't imagine life without books. You know, books: collections of paper pages, bound together and held intact betwee......

Where will we go? That was our dilemma while a friend was visiting from out of state. We wanted to show her local areas of interest without misleading her with tourist kitsch ... because the real Lancaster isn't Route 30's garish gateway to the city, the retail outlets that beckon shoppers from afar...

A longtime friend visited us recently from her home in Wyoming and, because Old Dad and I wanted to show her this area, we went for a drive, meandering through Lancaster County, passing fields of corn and tobacco and roadside produce stands. Our friend, familiar with open plains and majestic mountai...

From the doorway, as Old Dad and I peered at the crowd gathered in the banquet room, our first thought was: "Who are all those old people?" The men and women we saw didn't resemble the friends who shared our high school adventures, the classmates who agonized with us over geometry tests and Eng......

An article in a recent "Reader's Digest" discussed "why we're happy." The writer, Arthur C. Brooks, has found that happiness is tied to values, faith, hard work, marriage, charity and freedom. In his happiness investigation, he learned that those who practice religion regularly are happier than......

Summer, for many, is synonymous with "vacation" and, although the cost of gasoline is keeping us closer to home than in previous years, Old Dad and I are planning at least one out-of-town journey. We will travel to our native Long Island to attend a reunion with schoolmates from the distant past....

So this is summer — what we longed for six months ago, when we were wearing multilayers of clothing with our collars turned up and our woolly hats pulled down. Back then, we looked forward to the warmth of summer sunshine and dreamed of how grand it would be to step outdoors without an ex......

"It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood ..."
It is 7 a.m., a quiet time in my neighborhood, devoid of almost any traffic and it is, in fact, such a lovely day that the song from "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" kicks in and I hum it to myself as I enjoy my daily......

Wilted by an early summer heat wave, I seek relief in the shade of a grand old oak tree and settle down for a peaceful hour of uninterrupted reading and/or daydreaming. I am on "Grandma duty" today, transporting Grandson to swim practice at his community pool; and, while he is perfecting his freesty...

It is a sunny, almost-summer day and Old Dad and I are enjoying our once-annual visit to Hersheypark. The park is busy enough to give us opportunity for a favorite sport: people-watching. There are teenagers, their energy spilling over, dashing from one attraction to the next, each ride more th......

Not long ago, one of my girls sent me a photograph of a hammock she'd hung between two backyard trees. Daughter didn't shoot the picture, deliver film to the developer, pick up the finished product and place it in the mail. She took the picture with her cell phone and sent it directly from there to ...

Sitting at my daughter's kitchen table, which is directly in front of a sliding glass door, Old Dad and I laugh as we watch a chipmunk skitter across the patio. At the same time, a lively squirrel leaps from one tree branch to another. Daughter has a grand view of wildlife from her suburban bac......

While spring flowers are blooming pink and yellow and lilac, this is a red-white-and-blue weekend. Looking around, we see the nation's colors everywhere. There are flags, of course — waving from poles, hanging in windows, pasted on rear bumpers, emblazoned across the fronts of T-shirts....

They are such an ordinary thing, few people pay attention to them. Sure, they're in our kitchens, at our playgrounds, on our street corners, but how often do we actually look carefully at a trash can? At home, Old Dad and I see that ours are emptied before they overflow and we make sure there i......

Attached to a window in the rear of our house is a bird feeder — a small one, just the right size for the pair of house finches that have been using it as their friendly neighborhood restaurant. Although sometimes only one of the birds is there, most of the time the two of them are togeth......

Through the windows opposite my seat at the computer, I see beautiful, bright sunshine. Not far from my front door is a dogwood tree dressed in pink flowers. Outside the back door, two house finches poke away at the ingredients in a window feeder. On days like this, I am energized — and i......

Every day, we are offered a long list of bad news. Just pick up the paper or turn on the TV, and you will hear of a variety of disasters facing us: mortgage foreclosures, crumbling infrastructure, ever-new threats to the environment. Those of us who live in Lancaster County hear of puppy mills ......

Now two-thirds of the way through April, we are witnessing sure signs of spring. The grass is green; daffodils and forsythia wave their sunny yellow blossoms in the breezes; buds burst forth on the flowering pear trees. My spirits are lifted by the weather and thoughts turn from in-house projec......

Forget "bling." It's over. At least, according to fashionistas, who are telling us the new look for spring is "simplicity." A consumer researcher says that, in America, we are "just scratching the surface" of a new-found eco-consciousness, which has caused us t......

Smiling, the television newswoman reported that, last year, Americans spent more than a billion dollars on cosmetic surgery. That's billion, with a "b." Among the most common procedures were anti-wrinkle injections, tummy tucks and the ever-popular breast enhancements. On the same day Old Dad a......

Some random thoughts on what a strange world we live in: • The Federal Communications Commission has charged Fox Broadcasting Co. with airing some shows that included "fleeting expletives," citing indecency rules. Fox has appealed the decision and the case will be sent to the Supreme Court......

Easter Sunday. Can you believe it? We are only three days past the vernal equinox, still keeping our bulky sweaters close at hand and — because March is fickle — wondering if today will be springlike or frigid. Still, we bring out all the Easter paraphernalia that's been stored......

Perhaps you saw the news item on television about a race held recently in The Netherlands. It wasn't your ordinary competition with participants in running shorts and sneakers, but a contest only for women wearing shoes with heels at least 3½-inches-high. The newscast showed the ladies, ......

One cold, wintry day, I received a package bearing a small winged figure labeled "Angel of Friendship," a gift from Joanne, the friend who has been a part of my life for ... actually, most of my life. The gift reminded me of the cold, wintry day that we first met, when neighborhood kids gathered wit...

Looking for something productive to do during a cold, winter day, I march into the bedroom closet, determined to clean it out. I will have a closet that is well-organized, uncluttered and — even better — have room for some new clothing that will add interest to my everyday outfits. ......

In the heart of winter, burdened with overcoats, woolen scarves and mittens, Old Dad and I think of how nice it would be to spend a little time in the sunshine. So we begin to plan a trip: Where we will go, what must be done at home before we leave, what clothes we will need. Will we be eating ......

Passing the time on a cloudy winter day, Old Dad is playing with the TV remote. Flip, flip, flip. Because we rarely watch the television during daytime hours, we aren't familiar with the programming, so each time he switches channels, we are surprised at what we see.

Flip....

Do you ever feel that your house needs an overhaul? That the living room blinds and bedroom curtains you once thought stylish have become boring? Well, here I am, casting an eye around the house looking for ways to "jazz it up." Maybe a new shower curtain here, a different watercolor there. My ......

Every now and then, something takes place to remind me that change is always taking place. Situations change. Preferences change. People change. Something like that happened recently while I was standing over an ironing board, turning one of Old Dad's seriously wrinkled shirts into a rather han......

With the Yuletide holidays now only a sweet memory, we are challenged to find something else to make the cold, gray January days interesting. Until February brings us Groundhog, Valentine's and Presidents days, what can we find to celebrate this month? First, of course, would be Martin Luther K......

Some books by Robert Fulghum stand on a shelf of my bookcase. In one of the works, "It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It," there is an essay on what it means to be an adult. One might expect Fulghum to emphasize the standard "ingredients" for maturity: responsibility, independence and maybe gen......

The boy lives 3,000 miles away, the girl 1,000. We see the girl infrequently and the boy rarely, but during the Christmas holidays we are able to see them both. It is one of the happiest events to take place during the season: the faraway grandchildren's homecoming. He is, of course, no longer ......

So another year is gone; 365 days have passed and while many things in our lives have changed, many remain the same. In our house, we still get up every morning and reach for our daily newspaper. On one rare day, when the paper was late in delivery, we were hardly able to eat our breakfast, so ......

December, the beginning of our winter months, brings us the prospect of long weeks of cold winds, limited daylight hours and icy roads. But as bleak as that sounds, this month also offers periods of joy and celebration. Earlier this month, some of our neighbors celebrated the eight days of Hanu......

We are browsing the aisles of a large discount store, Old Dad and I, not really shopping, just looking at the interesting products and wondering how people ever managed to survive before electricity and electronics became part of our daily lives. We stop by the TV sets, noting the very large, v......

In preparation for the Christmas holiday, some folks are shopping by catalog and completing their gift lists by mail or via Internet connections. And, often, they choose to shop this way because they are able to find products that are a little unusual. I propose that browsing through our local ......

With only 23 days to go until Christmas, most of us have shifted into high-gear shopping mode. It's time to get serious about finding those gifts not yet stashed away in the attic. To gather ideas for some of the people on my gift list, I've been reading the fliers that arrive with the daily ne......

Once upon a time, as the holiday season drew near, our mailbox was filled with promotions for things that were fun. We'd pull out fliers from craft shops and catalogs from toy stores and we'd pore over their pages looking for something the kids would include on their Christmas "wish lists." But......

Not long ago, my friend announced to us that she is expecting a new grandchild. What happy news — the prospect of another baby to love, another opportunity to watch a small person grow and blossom into adulthood. Still, the prospective grandma seemed more concerned than one would expect. ......

Thinking it needed a good cleaning, I stepped into the bedroom closet the other day to begin sorting things out. It's a large area, so it was obvious that, if it was too crowded, there was more in there than was necessary. It was time to weed it out. I am always amazed at the amount of "stuff" ......

Old Dad and I recently spent 10 days traveling with another couple, longtime friends, with whom we share many memories. We wondered, before we left home, if 10 days in such close company might be risky. Would we tire of each other? Would we find we have less in common than we thought? Still, we......

It was a wonderful week. Old Dad and I, with two friends, roamed the winding, country roads, delighting in the brilliant fall foliage in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Still, it was a different vacation than one might expect. After all, people go to Vermont to ski or snowboard or hike up rocky......

We had a call from friends a while ago with an invitation to join them in exploring the beauty of an autumn week in Vermont. The idea of spending days traveling through forests of brilliant fall colors was irresistible, and we quickly signed on. As weeks passed, plans for the trip expanded. Because ...

Driving into town a few days ago, I pulled up at a stoplight and noticed, in the car next to me, a young woman bouncing up and down and side to side. Her mouth was moving, too, and she seemed to be totally enjoying herself. Watching the rhythm of her bouncing, it took me only a second or two to real...

Hmmm. Despite the prolonged warm weather through September, which had us thinking summer was going to go on forever, the calendar reminds us that changes are coming. Tomorrow is Columbus Day and that, to me, has always signaled the beginning of crisp fall days and the transformation of once-gre......

One of the best things in our house is a photograph of our children — all nine of them, all grown, and all, when the picture was taken, living in different places. The photo was a surprise Christmas gift to Old Dad and me many years ago, and we treasure it. To this day, we are amazed that the ...

Just when we've had a few uneventful days and I'm beginning to think the world is a boring place, something comes up to change my mind. Maybe it's an item in the morning paper or a report from a friend about one of her own life adventures, but there it will be: something to make me chuckle — o...

With apologies to Garrison Keillor … • It was a quiet week in Lancaster County. Schools are open, so streets and playgrounds are silent now until after 3:30 p.m. Here and there a young mother watches a toddler bounce on a spring horse in a community park, but the little ones don't m......

One of my best friends when I was a kid was a furry critter. He was white with black spots, the biggest of which was a big, black patch over one eye; so, naturally, his name was Shiner. Shiner slept on my bed, got up early every day, then waited at the foot of the stairs for me to come down ......

So this is it, the end of summer. Another season of beach-and-barbecue has passed. And I am sitting here wondering: Where did it go? This summer, we were going to spend days at the shore. I would read dozens of books while my husband reeled in bushels of fish. We didn't. This summer, we th......

Although we can still hear the occasional buzz of a bee flying around the petunias and the plaintive cry of mourning doves in the early hours of the day, there are some new sounds in the air these days — the rumble of school buses making their rounds and the ringing of bells that signal: "...

Britney. Paris. Nicole. Lindsay. Aren't most of us getting tired of hearing about their goofy, irresponsible, sometimes illegal activities? Aren't most of us weary of seeing their photographs in our newspapers and, on TV, watching their vapid smiles as they leave a nightclub, a party -— o......