I know it has been a while since I have written, or duplicated, anything in this column space.

As we all know, it has been extremely busy the past month with city celebrations, which all had great turnouts!

With that being said, I have been presented the 12 commandments for seniors. Depending on who you ask, I am now a senior citizen at age 57. Others say it is 60 and yet others say it is 65. When I read these commandments, I realized I think I might qualify right now as a senior.

1. Talk to yourself. There are times you need an expert opinion.

Welcome to the jungle. We have art and cartoons. What is your fancy? 

My name is ed. 

How can we go to a new place if we are rehashing the old? 

I was venturing back through some of my first columns and came across this Schneid Remarks from 1990 when I worked at the Waseca County News. I actually thought it was quite funny.
I wrote this column about the art of refereeing basketball, something which I have always had a frustration with. Since playing high school and college basketball, and now reporting on the sport, I have grown to appreciate what referees have to go through.

Driving my kids to school one morning, and my fourth grader reports from the back seat:
“Mom! ‘Bob’ and I were talking, and he told me that his mom is going to drive him to and from the field trip next week because he gets sick when he rides a bus. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!” my little redhead spouted in utter disbelief.
A quick glance in my rearview mirror revealed her mouth hung wide and her eyes lit up in shock.

As my family gathered for dinner the other night, we noticed we were one cat short.
Usually, our three felines join us.
Honey, our big orange boy, stretches out to expose his great, wide fluffy belly near 12-year-old Anna’s chair.
Penelope, our sassy, but sweet little tortie, will try to sneak her way onto 9-yearold Ellen’s lap or will spend dinnertime weaving between our chairs, looking for dropped morsels.

I was having an in-depth discussion with a long-lost friend of mine the other day.
We were talking about goofy things which people probably scratch their head about for hours.
He showed me a website which includes many of these wild realizations people have on buzzfeed.com Here are some of my favorites to get your brain waves working…
"The best part of a cucumber tastes like the worst part of a watermelon.” I personally don’t agree with this one.
"Drinking water with a minty mouth is the cold version of spicy."

Are my kids the only ones who forgot how to act in public?
It has been months since the COVID lockdown guidelines were lifted, but I still find myself having to retrain my offspring on the basics.  It’s baffling, frustrating, and a bit hilarious.
Last weekend, my family of four ventured to Kohl’s and Target because 9-yearold Ellen needed a few things for camp.

As I sit at my desk at 7 a.m. Monday morning I started to tear up a bit. One because I was up this early after Bullhead Days and two because of a special event which is about to happen in our family.
The following day, Tuesday, June 15, is/was our son Jayson’s 21st birthday.
There are so many milestones in a person’s life and it seems as if this is one of the last ones which gets a dad a little bit sentimental.

I have been a huge music enthusiast ever since I got that first transistor radio when I was six or seven years old.
As I got older, my music boxes continued to get bigger and louder. The transistor just didn’t cut it. So I got another radio, which had not only a large speaker in it, but you could also play cassette tapes in it.

“Spring has sprung. The grass has riz, I wonder where the birdies is?”…so goes the old saying. Apparently, there are several versions of this as well as a longer poem. Everyone of a certain age seems to know this saying one way or the other, and it is recited as soon as it feels like spring.
It sure has felt like spring here and there over the last few weeks, with the usual snowstorm thrown in, just in case we forget we live in Minnesota. “It must snow on the robin’s tail three times before spring can begin” is another often-quoted tale.

I wanted a unicycle.
I was 10 years old and wanted nothing else—just a unicycle.
I begged for one for my birthday. Begged.
I cut a picture of one out of a magazine and dreamed of riding the darn thing around my driveway.
I would have been so cool.
But, instead, I got a pogo stick.
My parents were “concerned” I’d severely injure myself learning how to ride a unicycle, but for some reason… a pogo stick was “just fine” in their minds.
I was not pleased when I unwrapped the pogo stick.

I wanted a unicycle.
I was 10 years old and wanted nothing else—just a unicycle.
I begged for one for my birthday. Begged.
I cut a picture of one out of a magazine and dreamed of riding the darn thing around my driveway.
I would have been so cool.
But, instead, I got a pogo stick.
My parents were “concerned” I’d severely injure myself learning how to ride a unicycle, but for some reason… a pogo stick was “just fine” in their minds.
I was not pleased when I unwrapped the pogo stick.

So now that the snow is gone for now, how many of you have started cleaning up your yard? Obviously this column was written before Monday…UGH
This time of year it is always interesting to see what you were not able to get to before that first snow fall.
As I was walking around our home the other day I realized either I was very lazy earlier in the year or the snow came too fast to pick items up.

It just isn’t the same but I guess it is all we have at this time.
I have attended thousands of games during my newspaper career.
You get used to many things when traveling to different schools, gyms, and communities.
You get used to things at your own school.
The first thing is knowing where to park so you are as close to the front door as possible.
When you get inside, what is the first thing you notice? Of course it is the smell of either popcorn or pizza.
Jordan High School has carmel corn so that is a much different smell, but oh so good.

Doesn’t it seem like 2020 just flew by?
With many months of business shut downs, students in school and not in school, and masks being mandated it seemed like this year would never end.
I can’t believe most of us made it through.
Many of us have suffered through COVID-19 one way...
To read more on this story, pick up the January 14, 2021 print edition of the LifeEnterprise.

Does your family set a goal each year?
In 2021, my family will be focusing on basic life skills.
Throughout the past year, we, like many families, have hunkered down and spent more time at home together. And, over the course of this pandemic, my husband and I have come to realize how few basic skills our kids--ages 8 and 11--possess.
I’m not talking academics.
I’m talking the basics: changing a lightbulb, emptying a full vacuum cleaner, lighting a match, sewing on a button, and changing batteries.