If given the powers of an all-powerful being, I first would ban folks from using acronyms because I never know what the letters mean. INKWLM. It got this way because too many people are using the same acronym to stand for a wide array of different policies, organizations and procedures. Take the acronym MAPS. A […]

My partner coordinated a November road trip to Florida to assess damage to our homes after Hurricane Ian. His road mates were two men in their mid-80s: my father and uncle. It was a stressful trip, to say the least! There was absolute destruction to the southwest Florida community because of the Category 4 storm […]

My grandfather came to America from Sweden when he was 18. He and his brother and little sister walked from Minnesota to Colorado in about 1905. They worked in the gold mines in Cripple Creek and lived there too. He married and eventually became my grandfather. He played Swedish violin. I loved it. I was […]

“Instructions” is a word that has always given me trouble. It seems innocent – the beginning, really, of everything, even those first steps. With most every leg of life, there are instructions on learning how to learn, learning life skills, taking classes or courses, learning a new job, etc.   Instructions given by parents, teacher, […]

Instructions are often given and received on the run. I remember times, perennially at summer’s end it seems. In the absence of our youthful charges, we in leadership shed our various areas of expertise, never good at saying goodbye. It had been the usual boisterous two weeks on the Maine coast, longer than most conferences […]