When I learned the news, I did the same thing I did when my musical hero John Prine died of covid three years ago: I pulled out my guitar and started playing as many of his songs as I knew, fighting back the tears before my throat choked each song to a premature end.

Both Jimmy and John were only about a year older than me—and I have a personal connection to each of them.

After WWII ended in 1945, it took 20 years before “Hogan’s Heroes” could crack jokes about life in a German prisoner of war camp. It took a similar number of decades before “Mash” could get us laughing about a Korean War triage medical hospital.

And although I have no jokes to share about Covid 19, I can’t help but feel that in some ways the “pandemic years” were among the best years of my life — because a world-wide disaster like a pandemic can bring sighs of fond nostalgia if you tuck it in between the two most personally disastrous periods of your life.

I spent my tween and teen years in sighs and sulks, muttering under my breath all the ways I was being deprived of the over-the-top 80s childhood to which I felt entitled.

Rule 1: Do nothing.

Rule 2: See Rule 1.

So lately I’ve been leaving my garden alone as much as I can. You might say I’m idling my fingers to the metaphorical bone, all in the name of saving the world.

You’re welcome.

So how am I saving the world with my garden?

Well, I guess you might say that Gary is not my neighbor, but my tenant, because Gary is a garter snake living in my garden. I call him Gary because… well, he looks like a Gary to me.

I first met him in early June when I skirted the edge of the lawn, yanking weeds, and I almost stepped on him.

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There are those first few seconds when, after glancing over their shoulder, the realization sets in: Dad has let go of the back of the seat and they are, in fact, riding a two-wheeled bike.

She was an avid gardener, so most of her flags were inspired by the season. Goldfinches and lilacs in April and May. Red cardinals and orange leaves in October. Turkeys and pumpkins in November.

Of course, sometimes she honored other things with her flags. Sundays during football season she flew a Bears flag. During July every other year she flew a soccer flag to honor the World Cups, both men’s and women’s.

My newest fascination is hand weaving on a loom. I made this bookmark for you. It’s one of my first, but I’ll send another one after I’ve had more practice. Hopefully you’ll see my progress. Happy Reading!

A hands-on fiber arts exhibit at an art museum in Wisconsin was where I first tried a loom —— just a wooden frame strung with cotton thread.

The old microwave had served me for nineteen years, a long enough career I suppose for kitchen appliances and quarterbacks not named Brady. It still worked well enough, except that the handle had cracked and was held together by packing tape, and when turned on it whirred and sputtered like an asthmatic chipmunk riding a bike with a baseball card clothes-pinned to fan the spokes.

Somehow I can’t let go of those endless summer days.

Oh, it’s not something I’m proud of. It’s just that over the years, roadkill and I have often crossed paths, and I guess you could say that I took the path less traveled by most people.

Take, for example, that freshly killed mink I found on Springinsguth Road in Schaumburg 35 years ago. It lay at the edge of the street next to the bridge over the creek, and I could see that it had been a beautiful, healthy animal before it crossed paths with a vehicle just the night before.

—Will Rogers

As much as I’d like you to think that my Gentleman Friend and I have been married blissfully and perfectly happy for the past several decades, I’m going to take a risk and tell you that sometimes, we fight. Our fights aren’t typically the loud, plate-throwing variety. We’ve mastered the art of subtle tiffs, starting out as a tiny slight that grows into a stand-off —— and I am the half of us most guilty of this —— in an all-encompassing silence that can be louder than a freight train.

But sometimes you know exactly to the moment when it happens.

The house where our kids grew up was in Schaumburg. It was ten years old when we bought it, so it had already been somebody else’s home, and as my wife and I toured it during their open house, we wanted to see what would make us feel that this house could be home to us.

For me, that happened when the owners took us into the attached garage.

We are a bird-friendly family. We don’t put chemicals on our lawn, put out birdseed in the winter, and we are delighted when our bird friends chirp happily from the branches of our crabapple tree out our front window. But even our bird loving has limits.

Most weeknights, I’m out on the front porch catching up on the day with my husband or daughter.

The word was “sonder.”

She did not include the definition — which was either a passive-aggressive prod to get me to join the rest of the Facebook folk, or a generous compliment implying that I must surely already know this word.

It was 1970, and I was just finishing up my Bachelor of Arts degree at Western Illinois University, about to start a career as a high school teacher. I was married with a very pregnant wife, and Barrington High School, where I had completed my student-teaching, had offered me a teaching job once my degree was complete.

Given the choice, I will always choose a spanakopita appetizer or entree at a restaurant or party.

Anyway, I never made it before. It was too hard to make at home; at least that’s what I’d heard. I envisioned a scene wiping away the sweat at my temples with the back of my hand, flyaway strands of hair escaping my ponytail.

But there is one segment that always comes up short for me: the point when a family member or two describe their loved one.

Well, I can’t tell you why she was ordered to change seats, because as I write this, I am in the Free State of Florida, as the governor calls it without a hint of irony.

For our family it’s egg bread. When you’re just about out of everything, hopefully you can at least scrounge up an egg and a slice of bread. We heat up our favorite tiny cast iron skillet, dab it with a bit of butter or oil, then crack an egg and drop it onto the hot skillet.