How Did We Survive Childhood?

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Growing up, I remember our family of seven going places in one car. I remember the lap belts in the front seat. I remember five children packed into the back seat with no seatbelts at all. As the oldest of those five kids, I’m talking about the years before 1974, when I left home at eighteen.

I remember my mom holding my infant sister, Jeni, in the front seat while my dad drove. We never had baby car seats for any of us, so she probably held Jeff and Todd when they were babies too. It sounds horrifying now, but at the time it felt completely normal. Luckily for us, we were never in an accident that caused any harm.

Thinking about this sent me down a rabbit hole. I got curious about when seat belt laws came into effect in Ohio. I discovered that Ohio enacted its first mandatory seat belt law on May 6, 1986. At first, it only applied to front seat passengers, with full enforcement beginning after July 4 of that year. Children under four were required to be in a car seat or booster. Children and teens ages four through fifteen were required to wear seat belts in the back seat. Interestingly, Ohio still does not require adults sitting in the back seat to wear seat belts.

That last part was news to me. Anyone sitting in my back seat has to buckle up or we all get to listen to the relentless ding, ding, ding of the seat belt alarm. Highly annoying, but effective. It did make me wonder whether cars sold in Ohio have those alarms disconnected, or if people just ignore them.

This blog is a classic example of how my brain works. The original prompt for today was simple: “What seemed harmless to you as a kid that you now look back on in horror?” My answer was easy. No seatbelts for kids. But of course, I couldn’t stop there. I had to look up seat belt laws not just in Ohio, but also in California, where I lived from 1974 to 2023, and Minnesota, our home since 2023. For the record, both California and Minnesota require adult passengers in the back seat to wear seat belts.

Once I opened that door, more memories came flooding in.

There was trying to swing high enough on a swing set to flip over the top bar by wrapping the chains around it. I never quite made it, but I got pretty high. At my grandparents’ house, my brothers or cousins had to hold down the legs of the swing set so it wouldn’t tip over. Park swings felt luxurious because their legs were set in concrete.

There was walking to the bathroom at the drive in by myself as a little kid, barefoot on stones and small rocks. First, how did I never slice my feet open? Second, how was I not kidnapped?

And then there was leaving the house at age ten to walk into town to visit or play with other kids. It was probably a quarter mile, out in the countryside, walking along the road where maybe three or four cars passed by. There were no mobile phones. I don’t even remember if we had a house phone in that particular house. What I do remember is that it was important to be home when my mom said to be home. I also suspect that other adults in the community were quietly keeping an eye on me and all the other kids wandering around.

Looking back, it’s tempting to gasp at how reckless it all seems. But it was also a different time, shaped by different expectations, fewer safeguards, and a lot of trust. Some of what we did was genuinely dangerous. Some of it was survivorship bias at work. And some of it was simply childhood, lived with scraped knees, bare feet, and a freedom that feels almost unreal now.

I wouldn’t trade modern safety standards for nostalgia, but I’m grateful I lived long enough to look back and say, with equal parts disbelief and relief, “Well, that could have gone badly.”

The YUM Box Finale (Starring Oliver)

Yesterday our family finished the very last of our YUM International snack boxes, this one from Italy. For most of 2024 and 2025 we sampled snacks from a different country each month. In 2025, with the arrival of the new baby, we fell behind a bit. The final box arrived back in November, but yesterday was the first time we were finally able to slow down and open it together.

When I announced that this was the last box, Caleb (11) and Charlotte (10) both looked a little disappointed. Caleb has loved almost every snack we have ever opened. Charlotte has enjoyed quite a few as well, though she has also politely rejected her fair share. She also sits out anything with nuts because of allergies. We talked about the idea of creating our own international snack boxes going forward. That might be even more fun, since we could take the grandchildren shopping and let them see what international foods are sold right here in local markets.

While it was our final official YUM box, it was Oliver’s very first snack tasting. He started out sitting on Megan’s lap, but that arrangement did not last long. He quickly figured out how to grab snacks straight off her plate before she even had a chance to try them. Eventually Oliver rotated between Grandpa’s lap and his high chair, sampling everything along the way. He seemed to like every single snack, especially the Italian cake he claimed from Megan’s plate. Apparently he decided it was similar enough to his recent birthday smash cake and therefore belonged entirely to him.

It felt fitting that our last box was shared across generations, with older kids reflecting on what they had loved and a baby discovering it all for the first time. The boxes may be done, but the curiosity, the laughter, and the small ritual of sitting together and tasting something new are not going anywhere. Those are the parts worth keeping.

When “Voluntary” Doesn’t Mean Voluntary

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Today I learned something that made me angry. Maybe you already knew about it. I didn’t, and when I first read about it I honestly thought, “This has to be fake news.” It was so cringeworthy that I felt compelled to look it up for myself.

It’s been a long day, so I am going to try to keep this short and sweet, with minimal hostility. That said, I am prepared to take full responsibility if a few hostile words slip through.

The discovery? The ICE Voluntary Work Program.

This came up in a friend’s Facebook post about ICE purchasing warehouses in small and mid-sized communities to house detained immigrants. My first reaction was simple: if the government is supposedly deporting people as quickly as possible, why invest in warehouses to house them at all? Would they eventually be used to house American citizens who did not agree with the regime (probably still a valid question)? My friend suggested that the detainees would not be deported but would be kept in the United States as a cheap source of labor.

That idea sent me down a research rabbit hole.

Here is what I have learned so far.

Although ICE itself did not exist in 1950, it operates using detention policies that were written long before the agency was created. One of those policies allows detained immigrants to be paid as little as one dollar per day for internal labor which includes work such as cooking, cleaning, and general maintenance inside detention facilities. This rule originated when immigration detention was overseen by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and was later absorbed into ICE after its formation following 9/11. While the work is officially described as voluntary, dozens of lawsuits allege that private contractors use coercion, including threats of solitary confinement or denial of basic necessities, to force detainees to participate.

Then there is the question of external labor. At present, there is no formal federal program that sends detained immigrants out to farms or hotels for a dollar a day. However, the Trump administration has recently floated the idea of a so-called temporary immigration pass. Under this proposal, undocumented workers in agriculture or hospitality could remain in the U.S. legally if their employers vouch for them and they pay taxes. Critics have been quick to point out what this really looks like: a pipeline to cheap, employer-controlled labor. 

There are also legal challenges piling up. Courts are increasingly ruling against the one-dollar-a-day system when private contractors are involved. In Washington state, a jury ordered GEO Group to pay more than $23 million in back pay after finding that state minimum wage laws apply even inside private detention centers. The U.S. Supreme Court is now weighing whether these companies can claim sovereign immunity to shield themselves from similar lawsuits.

Here is where my anger really kicks in.

The White House keeps insisting they are only trying to remove “the worst of the worst.” That is a lie. But even if it weren’t, why would anyone put the so-called worst of the worst to work in farms and hotels? Does that logic make sense to anyone?

Because to me, it sounds a whole lot like slavery dressed up in bureaucratic language.

I am still learning about this program, and I suspect there is more to uncover. But what I have seen so far is deeply disturbing.

What do you think of this program?

Slavery has a way of resurfacing in history, especially when we try to disguise it with softer language and official policies. We have been here before, as a country that justified exploitation by calling it necessary, legal, or temporary. Programs like this force us to confront uncomfortable questions about who we believe is worthy of dignity and fair treatment, and who we decide can be used for convenience. If we cannot look at this honestly and call it what it is, then we are not just repeating history, we are choosing it.

Connection Matters. Especially Now.

Today was one of those days when there simply were not enough hours.

Even though I set an alarm to leave the Friday morning coffee time with the neighbor ladies, I was enjoying the conversation so much that I did not even hear it go off. That may also be because my ears are plugged this week. I ended up spending an extra hour chatting with one of the ladies, and honestly, it was worth it.

I rushed home just in time for my monthly call with my friend Mary Anne in Pennsylvania. I am so glad I made it. We talked for a full hour, well, more like an hour and fifteen minutes, before she had to get back to work. Time with her always feels grounding.

After that, Joe and I headed out to run errands. Costco and the local market for groceries, a stop at a tool company in a nearby town, and then Menards to buy yet another tool along with some hardware odds and ends. It was one of those errands-heavy stretches that eats up more time than you expect.

When we finally got home, I squeezed in a short thirty minute session on the NuStep before Charlotte and Megan arrived. We went out to dinner and then clothes shopping to celebrate Charlotte’s birthday. A good evening, full of ordinary joys.

Now I am home again, trying to wrap up chores, write a bit, and get back on the NuStep for another forty minutes before calling it a night.

Life is good in so many ways these days.

And then there is the world outside my bubble.

Sadness over the death of Catherine O’Hara. More documents released from the Epstein file. I am all for consequences for molesters and abusers. I am not interested in their political affiliation, and I am not interested in their excuses. There is no excuse for what they did.

Then there is the arrest of independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for following protesters into a Minnesota church to continue their reporting. Note that Lemon and Fort are both African American. Note, too, that there was more outrage from people in the White House over this incident than there was over the children killed and injured in the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in August 2025.

And that is only what I know about. I have not even looked to see what has happened since earlier this afternoon.

With all of the awful and scary news piling up, I find myself even more grateful for the connections in my own life. The coffee conversations, the long-distance friendships, the errands run together, the birthday dinners, the quiet routines that hold me steady. I know I am blessed, and I know I am privileged. For today, at least.

If Someone Else Ran My Life for a Day

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My brain insisted today that it needed a brief hiatus from the news. Frankly, being immersed in the news challenges my ability to be creative. In today’s America, I need some form of creativity to help me find joy.

So what do I do when my creativity feels buried? I pull a card from the Delve Deck I have used in the past for ideas.

Today’s card asked this:

“If a stranger had to live your life for 24 hours, what would they probably screw up the most?”

Below are the ideas that immediately popped into my head, in the order they appeared. The tricky part is figuring out which one would be screwed up the most.

1. Finances

This one jumped to the top quickly. Checking bank account balances against my accounting software and monitoring credit card balances is important to me. I do this both to watch for fraudulent activity and because I use free accounting software to create a budget a year in advance.

We know our cash flow for the entire year at all times, which allows us to plan projects and home improvements without surprises. It also gives me a sense of control. That mattered a lot when we still had family at home, and it helped us build a nest egg so we could retire comfortably.

Honestly, I would not want a stranger having access to our money for 24 hours, let alone trying to keep track of the accounts.

2. Relationships

First off, Joe might notice there is a stranger in the house and wonder why. I say “might” because it depends on whether it is a workday. When he comes home at 2:00 a.m., he is very quiet as he showers and gets ready for bed. I wake up about half the time, and we talk about how his workday went.

In the mornings, I am usually up before him and downstairs. Depending on when the stranger shows up, Joe could go nearly 20 hours before realizing there was even someone else in the house. Those last four hours would likely include questions like, “Where is Beth?” Remember, we have ICE in Minnesota.

Then there is my daughter, son-in-law, and the grandkids. Jeremy and Megan have clear boundaries with the kids, and I respect those boundaries. I would not want to be the stranger if any of those lines got crossed. Caleb and Charlotte are older and would probably be fine meeting someone new. Oliver, the baby, has entered the “shy of strangers” phase and might not be thrilled to have an unfamiliar person in his play space.

As long as the stranger shows up on a day with no virtual chats scheduled, friends would not be an issue. That said, it might be fun if the stranger had to join one of those calls. My friends would likely be up for the challenge and would welcome them. After all, I was once a stranger to them too, and they welcomed and kept me.

My neighbors would not notice unless it was a Friday, when the women meet for coffee. Like my regular friends, they are a welcoming bunch. I can picture them asking, “Do you need anything?” or “How is the life of Beth going for you?” and then offering sweet treats.

My three brothers all live in Ohio. They already think I am strange.

3. My health regimen

I hope the stranger has the self-control to stay within my daily macronutrient goals. I also hope they are familiar with Excel, Google Drive, and how to use the NuStep. Beans would be an issue. I eat a lot of beans. Drinking lots of water too.

After completing the day’s workouts, everything has to be logged in my Excel activity sheet and summarized in the daily report I submit weekly to Coach Becky. This might be where the stranger could mess up the most, except that Coach Becky would simply say, “This is not a one-day program. One day will not cancel your success so far. Relax. Nobody is perfect.”

I am still trying to prove her wrong about the “nobody is perfect” part, which is fairly easy since her definition of perfect has a lot of wiggle room. “Tried your best for the day? That’s perfect!”

4. Writing my daily blog

Frankly, nothing could go wrong here unless the stranger wrote from a MAGA mindset.

In the grand scheme of my life, a life I enjoy, they could not do too much damage in 24 hours. Mostly because I have surrounded myself with kind, loving, and honorable people who would not be flummoxed by a stranger standing in for me.

 

Streets of Minneapolis Lyrics

Bruce Springsteen released a new song today. The link to listen to the song on YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWKSoxG1K7w

Streets of Minneapolis

Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In chants of ICE out now
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

Memes of the Day

 

A Prayer I Needed to Hear

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Today’s blog shares the prayer offered by Reverend Tom Widlund during yesterday’s service at the Woodland (California) United Methodist Church. I found it extraordinarily moving. Many thanks to our friend Kara for sharing the prayer and for securing Reverend Widlund’s permission to pass it along here. My hope is that it will bless you and offer comfort and support on your own journey toward healing.

Today, we come to this candle in a different spirit.

Not as Democrats or Republicans, but as people seeking to follow your way.

We confess that:

We are tired

We are weary

We are heartbroken

We are filled with fear

We are angry

We are confused

We are even hopeless

We bear this week in the depths of our souls

 

So, we light this candle not just as a symbol today, but acknowledging the real presence and power of Christ.

The Light that breaks into the darkness

The light that leads the way through and out of darkness

The light that brings back hope

The light that sets our feet on the right path

 

We light this candle and pray for God’s presence to be

With the people of Minneapolis

With the family of Rene Good

With the family of Alex Pretti

With Liam Conejo Ramos and his family

With those who have been abused, locked away, disappeared, and killed at the hands of our government

With the immigrant communities across the nation who are being terrorized

With those who stand up and stand alongside these communities

 

We light this candle and pray for God’s presence to be

With us this morning

With our weariness

With our confusion

With our uncertainty

With our hopelessness

With our anger

With our downright mad-as-hell spirits

 

God, we also light this candle for those in power, those who wear the masks, hold the tear gas, and wield the power to take life, who demonize, who lie, and who harm

May they know your presence

May they know your love

May they feel the pain that is in your heart

May you turn them to compassion

May they see and hear

May the light break in on them

May they know that what we do to the least of these, we do to YOU!

 

God be with us, be with us all today

Break into the darkness and empower us to

DO JUSTICE
LOVE MERCY
WALK HUMBLY WITH YOU

AMEN!

Rest, Resistance, and Remembering Alex Pretti

      Photo taken from Pretti GoFundMe page

One day a week, usually Sunday, I take the day to rest. Part of that rest is staying away from social media. The other part is staying off the NuStep and allowing my body to recover. It is a small act of care, but one I have learned to protect.

This evening, though, I did a quick check-in on the news. There were a few developments that felt cautiously heartening. More and more members of Congress are saying they will vote for Secretary Noem’s impeachment. There is also pushback on giving ICE the additional funding they requested, funding that would need to pass by January 31st.

Today marked the first full day of Minnesota National Guard activation by Governor Walz. Reports indicate that Guard troops were telling protesters they were there to protect their right to protest, not suppress it. They were even handing out donuts and coffee. That matters. Presence matters. Tone matters.

There are also reports that the White House is unhappy with how the facts are emerging in the shooting death of Alex Pretti. As more witness statements and videos have surfaced, the picture has only become clearer and more horrifying. It appears to be exactly what the video shows, a murder. Why it happened, I still have not heard a credible explanation. And why the enforcers continued to shoot is something I cannot wrap my head around.

One of the most disturbing accounts I read came from a witness who is a pediatrician living nearby. He stated that he did not see Pretti attack federal agents or brandish a weapon. The witness ran outside, identified himself as a physician, and asked to assess Pretti’s condition. At first, agents refused, repeatedly demanding to see his medical license, which he did not have with him. None of the agents were performing CPR.

Eventually, one agent agreed to let the physician assess Pretti, after patting him down to make sure he was unarmed.

“I saw that the victim was lying on his side and was surrounded by several ICE agents. I was confused as to why the victim was on his side, because that is not standard practice when a victim has been shot,” the witness wrote. “Checking for a pulse and administering CPR is standard practice. Instead of doing either of those things, the ICE agents appeared to be counting his bullet wounds.”

The physician reported seeing at least three bullet wounds in Pretti’s back, another in his upper left chest, and a possible wound to his neck. He could not feel a pulse and began CPR until EMS arrived shortly afterward.

Source:
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/01/25/shooting-witness-accounts-legal-cases-challenging-federal-operation-minnesota

It is so incredibly sad. And so completely needless. The part I struggle with most is the number of shots fired after the first one, especially given reports that the first shot struck Pretti in the back and that he was already on the ground.

The Border Patrol agents involved in the shooting were removed from Minneapolis, but they have not been suspended. Instead, they were sent out of state to another site that has not been disclosed in media reports and they remain on active duty.

A GoFundMe account has been set up for the Pretti family, and it has already raised a significant amount because people know injustice when they see it and because grief should never have to come with a financial burden.

GoFundMe for the Pretti family:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/alex-pretti-is-an-american-hero

On a day meant for rest, I find myself still processing all of this at once. The small signs of resistance, the quiet decency of people protecting protest, and the unbearable weight of a life taken for no defensible reason. I step away when I can because I have to, but I check back in because I must. Rest, for me, is not forgetting what is happening. It is gathering the strength to keep naming it, mourning it, and refusing to accept it as normal.

When Filming the Government Gets You Killed

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I have spent the day trying to process the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by Border Patrol. What happened today isn’t something you just process. It’s something that hollows you out. Frankly, I’m not doing a very good job of processing it at all. Mostly I am angry, saddened, and disgusted.

Pretti was a 37-year-old ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, a man who dedicated his life to caring for others, and he was shot and killed by a Border Patrol agent as federal immigration enforcement operations swarmed Minneapolis.

I have watched every available video I can find. So far, there is no evidence supporting the government’s repeated contention that Pretti was “impeding ICE” or attacking agents. What is clear from the footage is this: he was recording what was happening, trying to help people around him, and then a group of agents tackled him, pepper-sprayed him, and ultimately shot him multiple times while he was on the ground.

The official story from DHS and Border Patrol leans heavily on the claim that Pretti had a gun and that agents feared for their lives. But video evidence and witness accounts show that he was filming, not threatening, when this all began, and that the weapon was only recovered after he was restrained.

I am angriest not just at what happened, but at the grotesquely asinine responses from people supporting it.

“Stay off the streets and let ICE do their job.”

What job is that?

Arresting legal immigrants with no criminal records?
Detaining people because of the color of their skin or because they have an accent?
Going door to door and interrogating neighbors about who might be “here illegally”?
Asking detained people for the names of their family members?
Withholding medical attention from pregnant women or people with serious health conditions?

This isn’t law enforcement. This is intimidation. This is terror. This is the kind of thing that makes normal people, people like a nurse who cared about his community, step in and document what is happening.

Thank God for the brave people filming these encounters. Without their phones and their courage, how many people would have been disappeared, including American citizens, with no record and no accountability?

There is no humane justification for what ICE and Border Patrol are doing in Minneapolis or anywhere else. The only purpose it serves is to prop up a wannabe dictator in the White House and a cabinet full of cronies with no integrity, no compassion, and no respect for human life. Not a single one of them has earned the benefit of the doubt.

I am so over this Nazi crap.
I am so over people pretending that violence against civilians is acceptable as long as it is done in the name of enforcement.
I am so over watching the government watch its own citizens be shot in the streets and call it something other than murder.

If this makes you uncomfortable, it should. Silence is part of how this keeps happening. Pay attention. Watch the videos. Support journalists and everyday people who are documenting what they see. Call your representatives and demand accountability. Refuse to normalize this.

Because once we accept that filming the government can get you killed, we are no longer pretending to be a free country.

NIght Off!

 A friend came by to visit earlier this evening and we ended up having a lovely long chat. Therefore I am foregoing writing tonight.

Breaking the Habit

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Today’s writing prompt is: “What bad habit have you managed to quit?”

I’ve probably written about this before, but the big one for me was quitting smoking. I quit on New Year’s Day, 1991.

At the time, I was smoking two packs a day of Salems, a menthol cigarette. They cost $2.50 a pack back then, with a new California tax about to kick in. I didn’t want to quit. I actually enjoyed smoking.

My dad had died of lung cancer in December of 1989. On his deathbed, he begged all the smokers in the family to quit. I don’t remember promising him that I would. The truth is, the only reason I quit was because my husband wanted to quit, and I did it to support him.

I went cold turkey, armed with cinnamon candy. Within a few weeks, the roof of my mouth started peeling from sucking on so much of it.

By early March, I felt awful all the time and went to the doctor. He told me he could help with the nicotine withdrawal by prescribing a medication. I remember looking at him and asking, “Why would I trade one addiction for another?” By the end of March, I started to feel better. It really was just a matter of time.

In late April, we attended a neighbor’s wedding. At the reception, I took one sip of a mimosa and became violently ill. I barely made it to the bathroom and was sicker than I had ever been up to that point. My first thought was, “Wow. Still in nicotine recovery.”

We eventually named our “nicotine recovery” Megan.

It turns out that once I quit smoking, I became fertile. During pregnancy, I never wanted a cigarette. I couldn’t stand the smell of hot dogs, let alone cigarette smoke.

After Megan was born in February of 1992, I never once craved nicotine again. I did, however, have dreams about smoking for nearly ten years afterward. I’d wake up feeling guilty, and it would take several minutes to realize I hadn’t actually smoked.

Old habits can linger in strange ways - even after they’re gone.

Have you ever quit a bad habit?

Treasured Toys and Risky Fun

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Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of toys, which was fine because we spent loads of time outdoors playing. When toys did come our way, they were treasured.

My favorite of all time was a Baby First Step doll. That doll came out in 1964, when I was eight years old, and I wanted her with all of my heart. I told every adult in my life about her, hoping that someone, anyone, in our large family had an inside scoop with Santa.

It worked.

Come Christmas morning, the very last gift under the tree to be opened was… BABY FIRST STEP.

During my high school years, “Baby” lived in my bedroom in a makeshift baby bed, a small top drawer of my dresser. Every morning, I opened the drawer and left it open throughout the day so she could see the light. Every night, I tucked her back into her bed. I didn’t really play with her so much as care for her. I thought she was the most beautiful doll ever made. I kept that doll until I got married at eighteen and left home.

Which brings me to some of the other toys we had over the years, also enjoyed, but probably considered far too dangerous to give to children today.

Lawn darts! I loved lawn darts. There was something seriously gratifying about throwing those plastic winged, metal tipped darts through the air and watching them land inside a round plastic circle. We played, adults and children alike, at friends’ houses, family picnics, and during visits to grandparents. The fact that none of us were ever injured makes me believe we had angels watching over us.

Metal toy pistols were also popular, along with long strips of caps that we loaded into the guns to make that wonderful popping sound. We often struck the cap strips with stones, setting off a whole string of pops at once. The smell of freshly popped caps is still one of my favorite childhood smells.

Metal guns were eventually removed from our toy collection after my brother Buddy, also known as Kenny, around age eight, threw one at my brother Jeff. Jeff ended up needing stitches in his face. Somehow, in the years that followed, I think my younger brothers regained custody of those guns, because I distinctly remember sitting in an emergency room while a doctor stitched a cut above my baby brother Todd’s eye. This time, Jeff had thrown a metal pistol at him.

If my memory is even close, Jeff would have been nine and Todd five.

Looking back, those toys were never really about the toys at all. They were about freedom, imagination, and a kind of trust that felt woven into childhood. We played hard, we took risks we didn’t even recognize as risks, and most of the time we came home in one piece, carrying stories instead of scars. I am grateful for the dolls that were loved quietly, the games played outdoors until dark, and even the toys that would never pass today’s safety tests. They were part of a time when childhood felt wide open, and we were allowed to explore it fully.

 

Some Trends Are Best Left to the Young (and Warm)

There is a current fashion trend that I cannot comprehend. Not at all. It is the trend to go pantless. This trend involves wearing underwear or very short bottoms like bloomers, hot pants, or briefs instead of pants or a skirt in public. Some people will wear a bulky sweater or a fitted jacket, while others will go with skimpier tops.

A daring look meant to draw attention to the legs and to denote individualism may work for confident and beautiful models/actors/singers. Let's face it, it is not a look for an overweight sixty-nine year old. Even when I was younger, and thinner, I would never have had the confidence to wear my underwear in public and call it fashion. Though I do remember a neighbor in the 1960's who wore really short shorts. I would go to play with her children and she would wear those shorts and I would be embarassed for her. I was ten years old and she was the first woman (not a girl or a teen) that I had ever seen in shorts. I don't remember my mom or my aunts ever wearing shorts.

I asked ChatGPT to create a cartton image of an elderly woman wearing granny underwear, boots, and a bulky sweater for my blog on pantless styles. ChatGPT's appeared to be creating an image and then responded: "We’re so sorry, but the image we created may violate our guardrails around nudity, sexuality, or erotic content. If you think we got it wrong, please retry or edit your prompt."

I tried again with this prompt: No nudity please! The woman should be wearing granny underwear or bloomers , a sweater, and boots. The woman should be elderly and a cartoon figure. There is a trend for people to go pantless - instead they wear underwear, short shorts, or bloomers and then a jacket or sweater. 

This time, ChatGPT produced the image below and even offered to tweak it later if I wanted to change the colors.

Color was not my concern, but I did wonder whether the image might look more attractive with a thinner model and a more fashionable boot.

I will let you judge for yourself.

I admire the confidence it takes to step outside wearing little more than underwear and a sweater. Truly, I do. But at this stage of my life, and in a Minnesota winter, my boldest fashion statement is choosing warmth over spectacle. When the windchill is flirting with zero, pants are not just unfashionable to skip, they are essential. Pantless may be trending, but long underwear, wool socks, and a good pair of pants still reign supreme in my closet.

So tell me, would you be willing to go pantless to make a fashion statement?

A Lesson From a Small Ohio Classroom

This morning, as I scrolled through the news, I found myself thinking about a lesson I learned in a small Ohio junior high classroom in 1969. I attended a consolidated school in a town of about 400 people, with roughly 200 students from several surrounding communities. This was not a big-city school. It was a small, rural place.

In that setting, Mrs. Chiles taught us World History and told us that one of the things that made the United States a great country to live in was freedom of speech. She talked about countries like Russia and China, where people could be arrested and imprisoned simply for speaking their minds. One day she said something that has stayed with me all these years: “The stronger the leaders, the more free speech will be found. Only leaders who are weak will shut down the right of people to speak out.”

I was thirteen at the time. It is hard to believe that fifty-seven years later, our current leadership treats free speech as if it were a crime. Journalists, activists, political pundits, historians, and everyday people are threatened, ridiculed, and investigated in an effort to silence them.

I live in Minnesota now, but as the headlines grow heavier, I realize how deeply those early lessons about democracy and free speech still shape how I see what is happening around us.

Last week a friend reached out to me and wrote, “I did want to warn you … the majority of people in our county are MAGA, so you may want to tread lightly.” This came after we had connected on Facebook and moved beyond occasional group get-togethers. Anyone new to my private Facebook page could quickly figure out that I am a liberal. According to forty-seven, that apparently makes me “scum” or Antifa. I am just grateful Antifa does not require dues or ask for five dollars today to support the cause, or I would be broke.

She began her message by assuring me that she is not MAGA and has never voted for forty-seven. I appreciated both the honesty and the warning. I told her I already suspected it was a red county and that I had done my homework. So far, I have not had any direct political confrontations in the communities where we shop or dine out.

I have met conservatives who voted for forty-seven, and I have also heard concerns from some of those same people about threats toward Greenland, the way ICE is operating, and reports of Venezuelans being killed on boats accused of drug trafficking.  Many Republicans I know who voted for forty-seven simply because they are multi-generational Republicans have grown noticeably quiet.

I am deeply proud of every single person showing up to protest in this region. Kudos to those buying groceries, taking children of immigrants to school, and standing up for immigrant families in real, tangible ways. When I see people on social media telling protesters to stop “getting in the way” of ICE, I cannot help but wonder what they are willing to tolerate if their advice is simply to comply with this regime.

Most of all, I am thankful for Martin Luther King, Jr. and for every person involved in the Civil Rights Movement. They are the ones who taught this country how to protest. They showed us that nonviolent resistance, public witness, and moral courage can move a nation. Yet the deep irony is that Black lives remain at risk in the very country they helped reshape, even as others now borrow their methods to defend freedom. Their courage, their willingness to pay the price, sometimes with their lives, and their eventual success continue to guide and strengthen today’s resistance to ICE and to the current political regime, at a time when people like Stephen Miller are pushing the United States toward white nationalism.

Thank you to everyone who refuses to be silenced.

 

Day of Rest and A Few Things to Think About (or Smile About)

Oliver's First Birthday Bash

Our youngest grandchild turned one this week, and today was his big birthday bash at Megan and Jeremy’s house. Friends and family gathered, filling the house with people for Oliver to study. And study he did.

Joe and I arrived about an hour before the party, while Oliver was still taking his morning nap. When Jeremy brought him down from the nursery, Grandma Hilda and her partner, Larry, had just arrived too. Oliver was very much in waking-up mode and stared at them intently. Their last visit had been when he was a newborn, and his stare now was serious and focused, like he was taking notes. Oliver doesn’t glance at people. He studies them.

The first smile of the day appeared when Grandpa Joe walked into the room. That smile alone felt like a small celebration.

As more guests arrived and made a well-deserved fuss over the birthday boy, Oliver continued his careful observations. New faces, familiar faces, and perhaps the growing realization that he seems to have a lot of grandmas and grandpas. Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Greg stayed behind in California this time, but everyone else showed up in full force.

Two of Oliver’s one-year-old playmates came with their mamas. One little boy is already walking, while the little girl is close, moving confidently from one piece of furniture to the next. Between the people, the babies, and the steady stream of attention, Oliver seemed quite content with his crowded world.

By the time we got home, I was done. I stretched out and took a two-hour nap, which felt every bit as celebratory as the party itself. It turns out my wild party days are behind me, but watching a one-year-old take in his world is a pretty sweet way to spend them now.

Brrr… Baby It’s Cold Outside: Things I Can’t Live Without (Part 6)

Beth created image using ChatGPT

The first winter we lived in Minnesota, in 2024, I bought a heavy duty winter jacket. I wore it once. Most days I grabbed a flannel jacket I had picked up at Costco because I liked the style, or I wore a sweater instead. The same thing happened during the winter of 2025. That heavy duty jacket mostly hung in the closet.

This winter is a different story. That jacket is finally earning its keep and getting plenty of wear.

I also bought heavy duty snow boots, which I have yet to wear. Still, it is comforting to know they are there if I ever need them after a heavy snow. So far, my system has worked just fine. I stay home, or Joe and I drive from the garage to wherever we are going. I wait in the car while Joe shops, then we drive home and back into the garage. Voila. No trudging through snow for me.

As for gloves and mittens, I have plenty. They live upstairs in a drawer and are remembered maybe two or three times over the years.

All of this is to say, I am keeping all of my winter outdoor wear.

The updated list of things I can’t live without:

1. Vehicle (KEEP)
2. Cell phone (KEEP)
3. Computer (KEEP)
4. Printer/Copier (KEEP)
5. Kitchen “stuff” (KEEP)
6. Sentimental keepsakes (KEEP)
7. Pets (Live without, eventually)
8. Plants, garden and inside house plants (KEEP)
9. Beans (KEEP)
10. Winter outdoor wear (KEEP)

Winter outdoor wear is the tenth and final item on the list, so tonight I am officially wrapping up this series. Now it is time to come up with something new to write about. Hmmm. Maybe five personality traits that aggravate me. Other people’s, or my own.