Any library is a splendid place. I would be at least mildly enthralled even in the poor little Kanab, Utah city library, where half a dozen aisles of book stacks could hold my interest for a couple of hours, and simple browsing would become exploration of the highest order. As a young boy in Miami, Florida, I loved going to the main public library downtown, a monstrous treasury of bound knowledge where I would wander like an untethered dog in a forest, glancing at books that randomly attracted my unschooled eye, flipping through, reading h...

A native Floridian, I spent fourteen years in rural Utah because it is beautiful there. Our home was at one corner of the vast and desolate Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. One day we drove into the Monument and stopped to hike Lick Wash, which included a stunningly narrow slot canyon. A slot canyon is a rare formation, the result of the combined forces of wind and water on sandstone. A slender crevice sliced through a mesa by rushing water evolves from a hairline crack into a series of convoluted hollows, often hundreds of fee...

Many of us are hotdog lovers. Easy to fix, simple to eat. Just shove it into a fresh bun, plop on your favorite additives (mustard etc. – no self-respecting hotdog devotee would sully it with ketchup), and you got your meal. But most people don’t know how the hot dog came to be so named. Despite being ever present at American picnics and holiday gatherings, the simple hot dog was originally a unique Far Eastern delicacy. In Viet Nam, where they have eaten dog for centuries, they used to just roast it on a spit like a rabbit (on...

Hello. I'm New to all this. Still working out the forums. I've seen people giving so much advice and I'm reading so many blogs. I have a colostomy bag, permanent new addition to my body. Five weeks and counting. I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling about it yet cause I'm on my 5th cycle of chemo and my emotions are pretty crappy anyway. ( no pun intended) ... to long a story to share so in short, have bowel cancer, tumour very large, had chemo to shrink tumour before surgery. Surgery success, cancer gone, clean up chemo, 3 cycles left to...

      Hi there , my name is Eamon , born in The West of Ireland , transplanted to New York ( Bronx ) too many years ago to contemplate . I loved America as soon as I sat in the gigantic convertible on the way from the airport to ...

EVERYONE HAS SEEN a photograph of a campus quad. The requisite red brick buildings, the sidewalks at 90 degree angles to one another, and the ever-present diagonal path worn across the grass by students hurrying to class, what is known in the vernacular as a shortcut.Shortcuts are a part of our lives in many ways. A shorter, quicker, easier way to get to a place. There are keyboard shortcuts, iPhone shortcuts, Photoshop shortcuts, and even a shortcuts.net where one can seek “smarter business technology.” There is a movie titled...

IN MY LATE seventies, I didn’t need to come across this article. As reported in THE WEEK magazine, research regarding the effect of aerobic activity on age-related brain deterioration indicated that after people hit forty years of age, their brains commence to shrink by about five percent every ten years. Even though I was an English major, I can do that math, and it is unnerving. Some scientists set out to study the impact of exercise on the hippocampus, that area of one’s brain where memories are created and stored. What they...

Just when you start to see a light at the end of the tunnel.........you realize it's an oncoming train!  Think I'll make a conscious effort to NOT buy anything made in China anymore.  Even if I need it.  I'll make do.  Enough is enough.   Sorry for the bad news folks; https://nypost.com/2020/09/24/covid-19-mutation-ma y-be-evolving-to-bypass-masks-hand-washing/   Hang in there, bob

Had a full colectomy last year due to UC. Was diagnosed 30 years ago! Looking to meet a guy who gets it! Hoping for a reversal but some issues involved. Moving out of NM soon. Just waiting for my last son at home to go Active Duty and I am out o...

A CYNIC is defined as one who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons. Permit me to point out that, as H. L. Mencken said, “The cynics are right nine times out of ten.” Years later, the great Lily Tomlin added: “No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.”I suspect that Mencken and I arrived at a similar point in life – the point of cynicism – in different ways. He was a lot smarter than I am and was a cynic at a muc...

I FEEL THERE ARE SOME GREAT ADDITIONAL ADVANTAGES TO CONTRIBUTING TO A SITE LIKE MAO, which may not be immediately apparent in the daily correspondence relating directly to stoma issues.  As a writer and a rhymist the good people on here h...

“Rhapsody in Blue” is not only George Gershwin’s most famous piece, it is also the name of the 1945 biographical film. I happened to be in a St. George, Utah hospital, getting a couple of days’ worth of IVs for dehydration, when the flick came on just before midnight on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). As everyone knows, sleep doesn’t necessarily occur in hospitals at night. Terrific movie; sad ending [spoiler alert: the hero dies]. Old movies are often fascinating things. You have to be able to handle the black &...

People who attend college are supposed to increase by their educational pursuit the sum total of their lifetime earnings. That is not to say, however, that those who go no further than high school can’t get wealthy; it all depends upon what line of work they enter. My advice to a child not wishing to get a higher education would be… learn how to fix inanimate objects. They would be THING doctors. Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major sub-categories: things that don’t work, things that break dow...

So what’s it all about? Most of us are born, live any number of years, then we die. So what’s it mean? Did we take someone else’s place? Will someone take our place? Was it mostly fun? Was some of it too difficult or was it a b...

Many words have multiple meanings. The word TIP, for instance, could be the extremity of something, or a gratuity for someone who has done you a service, or a bit of practical advice. The word ACCIDENT has more subtle variations. It can be a car crash; it might mean most any unfortunate, unforeseen incident that occurs unexpectedly, typically resulting in damage or injury; it even has been used euphemistically to refer to an incident of incontinence, as in “uh oh, he’s had an accident.”But let’s narrow the scope of ...

AM I A COMPLETE IMBECILE, or just old? I know that we lose points off our IQ as we age, but I figured I at least had a firm grasp on basic common sense. Then I see things that I never would have seen in my younger days and I realize that I must be in a new and different world. The status quo is neither status nor quo. It is a struggle for me to come to terms with this. I guess I’ve never been as progressive as I thought. I remember “the old days” with fondness, not disdain. Popular singing groups had names like The Four T...

Just found out my ex Narc significant other is trolling on the same Ostomy sites ....AWKWARD! I really thought he was my Ostomate for life.. Honest people are hard to come by and the World is seeming like a MUCH smaller place. I have been on the...

My wife always hated the rabbitbrush that grew all over our property in Utah. She would have torn out all of it. While I will admit that it is an invasive plant, it has benefits that she just doesn’t appreciate. Rabbitbrush blooms a gorgeous golden yellow from mid-summer to early fall, and in September it is in its glory. This plant, chrysothamnus nauseosus, was useful to the native Americans who lived out west. They made chewing gum with it, cough syrup, and yellow dye. It can also be used to make rubber but that process is not cos...

Don’t you just want to go crazy sometimes? We lead such restricted lives, partly out of concern for our own safety, partly due to fear of the unknown, partly as a result of the moral ceiling under which we reside so traditionally. Some days (I know you’ve thought about this) you would like to go jump off that proverbial cliff and see what it feels like to paraglide, or hit the water 150 feet down, or maybe even sky dive. And there are crazier things as well. That’s why they say “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas...

When this is over may we never take for granted: A handshake with a stranger Full shelves at the store Conversations with neighbors A crowded theatre Friday night out A routine checkup The school or work rush every morning Coffee with a friend The stadium roaring Each deep breath Life itself When this ends may we find: That we have become more like the people We wanted to be We hoped to be And may we stay that way...... Better for each other Because of the worst! Just, K

W. C. FIELDS WAS EXPRESSING an aversion for innocence when he said: “Anyone who hates children and animals can’t be all bad.” Fields unwittingly was touching upon the very reason that I like animals better than people: their inherent innocence. The company of a good dog or cat, in my experience, grows into a bond that is simply absent with most humans. Even watching a movie, one becomes inured to the violence between humans, of which there is often way too much, but don’t let anything happen to the dog!Because I gre...