Month: March 2026

We have a long-standing affection for courtroom dramas. “Perry Mason” set the standard years ago. He’s still questioning witnesses, introducing dramatic pieces of evidence, and consulting with Paul Drake and Della Street in black and white, albeit in the wee hours of the morning on local channels.

When Andy and Barney finished corralling jay walkers in Mayberry, they were given new life in “Matlock.” Murder mysteries were often solved in a courtroom by a man with a southern drawl whose quirky next-door neighbor, Les, was once known as Barney.

And who got through school without reading or watching “12 Angry Men” or “To Kill a Mockingbird”?

We like mystery and we like justice: “Boston Legal,” “Law & Order,” “The Practice.”

In every courtroom drama there’s always the telling moment with the penetrating question, the new piece of crucial evidence or the unexpected testimony. The best stories have surprising endings.

Perhaps the most-watched-real-life courtroom drama in our lifetime was the O.J. Simpson trial. “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

At Easter, Holy Week revolves around a trial as well. Jesus, beaten and bloody, stands accused before Pilate. There was no attorney for the defense, or surprise witness to cinch a favorable verdict. Pilate found no fault in Jesus. He had healed the sick, fed the hungry, encouraged the downtrodden, taught of the love of God and raised a man from the dead.

Pilate asks the mob, “What then should I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

“Crucify him!” they screamed.

Pilate’s question lingers these many years later. “What then should I do with Jesus?”

C.S. Lewis framed possible answers in terms of “Lunatic, Liar or Lord.”

It’s a good question. What then should I do with Jesus—when the bottom falls out, when test results are bad news, when prayers bounce off the ceiling, when grief and darkness threaten to swallow you whole?

What should I do with Jesus in the grind of the everyday, the busy years of raising family and holding a home and a marriage together, or the unexpected twists and turns of retirement? What should I do with Jesus in small everyday choices between right and wrong?

What should I do with Jesus in the breathtaking wonder of new life, the beauty of spring and the faithfulness of dawn breaking over the horizon each morning?

As for me, I choose “Lord”—and belief—in good days and in hard. I choose faith in ultimate victory over sin, and in trials and tribulations. I choose hope for today, tomorrow and for life after death.

Grandma is close at heart. Literally. And permanently.

A picture was in the paper of a young man proudly showing off a tattoo of his beloved late grandma on his chest, along with a quote from her.

Sweet. Very, very sweet.

Naturally, with 11 grands, I ask myself, “What are the chances?”

At this stage of the game, the best I could hope for is a wild drawing of myself made by two 7-year-olds in possession of Sharpies.

The only experience our grands have with tattoos is the temporary press-on kind. They weren’t all that temporary. A set of fiesta tattoos left some of the grands plastered with tacos for weeks.

Truthfully, I don’t want my face tattooed on anyone’s body. Over time, skin thins, loses elasticity, succumbs to gravity and sags. A tattoo that looks like grandma today, may look like a giraffe 40 years from now. It could even be a guessing game: person, place or thing?

I was once in a line at the bank, standing behind an older woman wearing a cropped top exposing a large tattoo of an American flag on her lower back. Let’s just say the flag was waving.

It’s important to consider the long-range consequences of something as permanent as a tattoo. Will a tattoo of Grandma on your chest be a conversation starter at the pool? What happens when a romantic interest sees a tattoo of an older woman on your body and asks, “Who’s that?”

Plus, how do you rationalize a tattoo of Grandma and leave out Grandpa? A lot of grandmas and grandpas work hard at keeping things even between all the grands. And you’re not going to keep things even for them?

If you add a grandpa tattoo, won’t all the aunts and uncles bellyache because they weren’t included? Next thing you know, your entire body is covered with aunts, uncles, first cousins, second cousins and first cousins twice removed.

There is also the matter of choosing a quote to accompany the face of the beloved. I can only imagine what our grands would highlight from my repertoire.

“Come down from that tree NOW!”

“Who trashed the bathroom?”

“No frogs in the house!”

Or maybe, just maybe, they’ll remember me saying, “I love you to the moon and back.”

No need for a tattoo of this grandma. Just think of me when the moon shines bright.

In this Age of Review and Return, almost 93 percent of all shoppers read reviews before making a purchase. Even though we review before we buy, we often return the purchase after it arrives.

There was a time when making a return was a rarity. Oh, there were exceptions, but you had to face a stern clerk, who often consulted a stern manager. Now, you just drive by a designated Amazon drop off and hurl your return out the car window. Instant refund.

I am big on the review part of the Review and Return equation. I search items by review ratings so often it has become a habit. I was putting together an online grocery pickup order and saw that milk had more than 110,000 reviews.

Who reviews milk? Who reads reviews on milk? Apparently, I do. I clicked out of curiosity. The first review advised not to leave milk sitting out on the counter. Good to know.

A granddaughter is in the process of buying some pet fish. Being a savvy 10-year-old consumer, she is doing online research before spending her hard-earned money.

She made a chart of different stores that sell fish. Her comparison metrics are how many reviews each variety of fish received, whether the fish look overcrowded in the photos, whether they appear fed, whether the water is cloudy and whether any fish are floating upside down.

Proprietors with fish floating belly up are automatically ruled out. Dead in the water, so to speak.

Two stores were eliminated due to cloudy water. One of those earned an additional demerit because there were no reviews for the variety of fish she is interested in. No reviews, no sale.

She checked the overcrowded box for all the stores she reviewed. She’s a free-range fish kind of girl. You don’t crowd fish. It’s bad enough that fish have to spend their entire lives in schools. At least they should be in schools with big rooms.

All her sources received satisfactory marks for feeding the fish. I’m not sure how she determined the fish had been fed, but I don’t know fish. Well, other than tuna, salmon and cod. But those are in a pan, not an aquarium.

Our grand announced she finished her research  and is about to spring for some fish. To which we said, “You go, gill!”

I can catch a plane, a ball, a cold and the flu, but the one thing I can’t catch is home improvement skills.

I recently painted a small bathroom cabinet. The project took three days, not including 11 trips to the big box hardware store.

Meanwhile, on six different cable channels, people with home improvement skills ripped out small half-baths and replaced them with master baths featuring double sinks, heated floors, lighted mirrors, saunas and walk-in showers large enough to wash a team of Clydesdales. What’s more, they did it all in under 60 minutes.

This week, my inner home-improvement self was prompted to redo the shelf paper in the kitchen cabinets. I upped my game thinking I could try peel-and-stick vinyl tile. I asked a clerk if it was hard to cut vinyl tile. He guffawed and said all I’d need is a knife.

The man in the blue vest lied. After leaving a small trail of blood from the kitchen to the bathroom medicine cabinet, I returned the vinyl squares and bought peel-and-stick shelf paper.

Peel-and-stick lives up to its name. You peel and it sticks—to you, your clothes, your scissors, your hair, the sides of the cabinets, the tops of the cabinets and to every other inch of peel-and-stick in a 3-mile range.

My skill set deficiencies are not new. In seventh grade, girls took home economics and boys took industrial arts. Boys made projects with hammers and saws.

Girls learned how to sew a shift. A shift is a dress resembling a pillowcase with an armhole on each side and a zipper in the back. Our teacher Miss Grove, the first person I ever knew to wear contact lenses, made me rip my zipper out and put it in again. Miss Grove blinked her eyes a lot.

The fourth time Miss Grove told me to rip out the zipper and try again, I had to buy a new zipper. Miss Grove’s eyes blinked faster and faster each time she checked my work. Eventually, the entire left side of her face began twitching wildly.

Being that our school was progressive, for one week the boys took home ec and the girls took shop. I was sure I would do well in shop. My dad knew how to build; my brother knew how to build. Surely, I could build, too.

We made letter holders—three pieces of wood, nailed and glued together. At some point in the process, we were to put the letter holder in a vice. I crushed it.

Literally.

The shop teacher had me try again with new pieces of wood. As he watched over my shoulder, he took the soon-to-be letter holder from my hands, finished it, put it in the vice and said I could watch the glue dry.

Those sorts of experiences might set a lot of people back, but not me.

I remain a home improvement visionary—albeit without the skills or tools.

It happened at our oldest daughter’s place. I rang the bell, peeked in the side window and saw an ill-defined, furry mass lumbering toward the door.

My mind flashed back to my days in the Pacific Northwest when Bigfoot sightings were common. Was it a Bigfoot sighting? Here and now, in a sprawling Midwestern suburb?

As the creature drew closer, I could see facial features. It was not Big Foot; it was our oldest daughter wearing a thick, plush throw. She’s petite, so it was more like Little Foot, if you want to get technical.

Throws are all the rage these days. A throw is a soft, fuzzy, cuddly blanket, which apparently you can never own too many of. We have received throws as gifts and have thrown throws as gifts. We are one more layer on an ever-growing trend.

A throw is home décor and fashion accessory all in one.

Once a throw leaves a sofa or chair and is wrapped around your winter-weary body, know that it does not add pounds. It adds cubits. Perhaps even an invitation to play for the NFL.

The throw our daughter was wearing was basically a sleeping bag with sleeves. It is a throw that allows the wearer to stay warm and read a book at the same time, which for most of us is the short road to a long winter’s nap.

We were given a large, soft electric throw recently. Think XXL heating pad that could easily cover a family of five. When the grands come over, it’s the most popular item in the house (outranking even homemade chocolate chip cookies).

On a visit to another wing of the family, one of the grands, looked at me and said, “Grandma, you wanna throw?”

It took a few seconds before I realized she meant a fuzzy blanket, not a ball.

The grands are often wrapped in throws. Not only in their own homes, but in ours as well. We have become an extended family of human burritos. Somebody, pass the chips and salsa.

This season of the Great Coverup makes me anxious for spring. I hope when everyone unwraps we all still recognize one another without all the extra bulk and padding. It will look like the weight loss of the century.