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Here we are again. Primary election season is well underway. Seems like we just finished this gauntlet a few weeks ago. As we all know, primary elections in Idaho are often the general election. However, for the first time in my memory, our general election this November will have more Democrats running against incumbent Republicans than we are used to seeing. In a bit of a repeat from my column of the same title 2 years ago, I thought I might share some of my personal thoughts on voting. This column is not an endorsement of any candidate or even party affiliation. Just offering up my basic philosophy and observations on the art and science of campaigning, something I have a little bit of experience with, albeit on a small local level.
With the baseball season starting, it’s time for a sports analogy. Team rosters and game schedules are being set and published in city recreation leagues around the area. Great volunteer coaches are taking their valuable time to organize and work with our youth for what will undoubtedly be a great summer experience.
What clubs have you belonged to in the past? Chess club? Debate club? I did not belong to either of those in high school. My interests then were much different than now. If I could go back in time, I would probably join them both as I am more cerebral now. I am less likely to do sports and physical challenges. However, wear and tear have given me association with a few other clubs. Some of you may also have these membership cards in your wallet or purse.
One of my favorite activities and memories is cooking breakfast with my two oldest grandsons. Braxon and Peanut are now teenagers and Grandpa Todd is not as impressionable on them as he was years ago. Braxon getting his driver’s license and both of them now being aware of their female classmates has bumped Grandpa and Grandma down the list of priorities!
Earlier this week, as I drove from patient to patient, I was consumed with the worry of being a parent. Seeing your children, adult or young, struggle with life is the most emotionally painful thing I have ever experienced. I just want to solve everything for them…make life easy for them. Unfortunately, my children and life often have other ideas.
Are you familiar with the idiom: “Curiosity killed the cat?” Truth be told, that is only part of the story. There is more to that saying that I will attempt to unpack as this column wanders to a conclusion.
My mind was rattled today by some tragic events in the life of a family friend, coupled with news of the death of a former elderly patient. His passing was so similar to how I lost my own mother nearly 30 years ago that I felt the urge to just run away. Of course, that just is not practical for most of us, but what else can we do?
A recent study by scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology concluded something I suspected to be true: cursive writing promotes learning more than typing on a keyboard. They used electroencephalogram brain sensors to look at the brain activity of 36 students when they were writing by hand in cursive style and when they were using a computer keyboard.
Shopping with my dad was an educational experience. Sometimes nail biting. Like when I sat next to him in the sales office of Axtell Chevrolet in Logan, Utah back in the spring of 1980. I was a month away from high school graduation and we were there to make a deal on a brand new Chevy Camaro I had picked out. I had saved a few thousand dollars from farm work. Our arrangement was that we would go 50/50 on a car for me to take to college that fall if I met his chosen threshold for my final GPA. He did not believe in buying used cars, “You’re just buying someone else’s problem.” So new it was!
Many people have nicknames…my Dad did. The name he was known to friends and associates was not really his birth certificate name. The publication of his obituary in 1999 let the cat out of the gunny sack for many people who had known him for decades. I asked him once how he got his moniker of “Bud”, already aware of the fact he was not fond of his given first name. “As a little boy”, he said, “my dad referred to me as his little buddy, and it just stuck when shortened to Bud”. I became aware of his real name only when Mom was irritated with him and referred to him with a slightly ill-toned “Melvin!”.
