I did a double take as I was at the traffic light.
I was the first car at the intersection and looked across the street at a quaint restaurant.
I saw a man in an upstairs window staring straight ahead.
I was tempted to wave since he was looking right at me.

He was dressed in a black suit and white shirt with a dark tie.
He had dark sunglasses on, even though the day was overcast and dreary.
There was something about his stare.
He never looked away; he never moved.

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After a winter of over 67 inches of snow, we now have to deal with rain in Pennsylvania.
Not just here in my state but many parts of the country are dealing with deadly weather.
Tornadoes, thunderstorms, and torrential rain are all around us this spring.
I have heard something about lions and lambs when discussing spring; now I understand.

In a twenty-four hour period, we were deluged with 4-7 inches of water.
It is said that one inch of rain is equivalent to 10 inches of snow.
If one does the math, we had a terrible storm no matter which way you look at it.
Roads were flooded and closed as the rivers and streams overflowed their banks.

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Every time you turn around there is a new recommended test.
Tests that are scheduled at various ages to insure good health.
Someone, somewhere has determined the when, and the why, and the how.
There are mandates for the proactive care of your health.

The insured will usually go for the recommended tests.
The uninsured will put it off, hoping for good odds that the disease will stay at bay.
It is difficult to determine importance and urgency of some of the recommended tests.
The parameters are always changing and new guidelines are always emerging.

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John Adams wrote something in a 1798 message that is worth pondering
Adams wrote to the Officers of the First Brigade, 3rd Division, Militia of Massachusetts.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

I thought about that statement on my morning walk.

I have been seeing so many pictures of people venturing to the beach.
After a winter of hibernation, people are already going to warmer places.
Still a bit chilly, but they go in an effort to coax summer into coming a little quicker.
I am not a beach person, or a sun person, but time spent at the beach is special.

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It was a simple statement made in passing.
My car has a funny smell when I first start it up in the morning.
So said my high school daughter talking about the little car she drives to school each day.

She has an air freshener attached to her vent.
Cinnamon pumpkin, her favorite scent.
The air freshener was not helping.

It seems like it is coming from the engine.
She keeps her car very neat and clean.
There was nothing, upon a cursory glance, that could be causing the problem.

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Harvey Ross Ball was an American commercial artist.
From Worcester, Massachusetts, he became an apprentice to a local sign painter.
After World War II, Ball worked for an advertising firm and then started his own business.
One of his designs is known the world over.

After a merger of two insurance companies, employee morale was low.
To encourage their workers, a “friendship campaign” was begun.
Ball was employed in 1963 as a freelance artist, to create a smiley face.
This design was to be used on buttons, desk cards, and posters.

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A company in Wales has invented The Mosquito.
This Mosquito is not the insect that bothers us in summer.
That has already been created.
This Mosquito is an anti-loitering device.

The Mosquito is a patented device that resembles a small speaker.
It produces a high frequency sound much like the buzzing of the insect it is named after.
Set to 17 KHz, the Mosquito can only be heard by those 13-25 years old.
Set to 8 KHz, the Mosquito can be heard by all ages.

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There was a game that we played growing up.
Living in a neighborhood with sidewalks, two could easily play, side by side.
Walking to and from school each day may this game a possibility.
It always left you in a sea of giggles.

We would start side by side and walk in step with each other.
We would decide which foot to start off with and then begin walking.
It was very hard to do because of the variation in our heights.
I had long legs, so my one step was really two steps for a shorter person.

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We were reminiscing about computers.
There was a line that was crossed between having a computer and not having one.
There was a time when world wide web could have very well been associated with spiders.
There was a before and after.

We cannot imagine our lives without computers now.
That was not always the case.
Before word documents, there were handwritten papers and letters.
Before Google, there were encyclopedias.

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One of our favorite books, as my children were growing up, was The Giving Tree.
Shel Silverstein wrote this simple book that has become a classic.
It has been translated into many languages.
Many continue to debate what the book really means.

The sweetness of this book can be taken at face value.
The tree provides everything the boy needs throughout his entire life.
Even when there was seemingly nothing left to give, the tree still gave.
The story is an allegory, a parable, a children’s book, a book for everyone.

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