Category Archives: Getting Old

Investing in Our Future

Posted on May 27, 2015 by hessd

According to our long range plan, Bette and I will trundle ourselves off to a really good senior center by the time I am eighty years old. I met Bette when I was 68, so we’ve been talking about it … Continue reading →

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“Tangerines” is beautiful

Posted on May 25, 2015 by hessd

Ida, the Polish movie that won the Oscar for the best foreign film in 2014, is a more complicated movie, certainly. But Tangerines, nominated in the same year, is every bit as powerful.  Just to give you a sense of … Continue reading →

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My Victory Lap

Posted on April 18, 2015 by hessd

Long before I began to think of my life as a mile (= four laps) run, I knew the popular version of a saying from Psalm 90: “the days of a man are three score and ten or by reason … Continue reading →

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Gladly Teach and Gladly Learn

Posted on February 26, 2015 by hessd

Let’s say you are young and idealistic and haven’t been married even once. Please accept my sincere congratulations and condolences. You have emotional heights before you that I can remember only with disciplined memory. A dark and quiet room would … Continue reading →

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Jesus and the Lost Velociraptor

Posted on February 21, 2015 by hessd

Here is a satirical picture that my son Dan passed along to me. I think it is laugh-out-loud funny. He and I enjoyed it together. I call it “satire.” What is satire? From a collection of similar definitions in the … Continue reading →

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Starbucks and the balanced diet

Posted on February 8, 2015 by hessd

This isn’t really about food.  It’s about conversation.  I will want to use the balanced food diet as a metaphor to help me explore the balanced conversational diet. Here is the protein bistro box, which is my normal Starbucks breakfast.  … Continue reading →

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Obamacare and “Death Panels”

Posted on January 11, 2015 by hessd

This is a question that has gotten a lot more attention than it deserves.  Let’s take a look at it.  A “death panel” would have to be a number of people (panel) that is empowered to take an action or … Continue reading →

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Can you really prepare for Alzheimer’s?

Posted on December 29, 2014 by hessd

I think so. Last night, I watched a really good TED talk my brother, Karl, sent to me.  The talk is about Alzheimers disease and Karl is my older brother—the only one of the four of us to have cracked … Continue reading →

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Green Chri$tma$, 1958

Posted on December 21, 2014 by hessd

When Green Chri$tma$ came out in 1958, I was about twenty years old.  I thought it was the funniest broadcast parody I ever heard.  I memorized it immediately—not much of a trick at twenty, really—and performed little impromptu snatches of … Continue reading →

Posted in Getting Old, Theology, Words | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Experience of Competence

Posted on November 14, 2014 by hessd

In a recent piece, I described myself as an AHOG—an amazing, high-performance old guy.   At first glance, that looks like a substantial and probably incredible claim.  It is not.  I justified “amazing” on the grounds that I was, in fact, … Continue reading →

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