With one to two people dying every minute in the United States as the coronavirus surges, it’s challenging to get into the holiday spirit. However, even in these pandemic times, people are looking for joy, hope, and love during the holiday season. Read more →

The pandemic is really changing things for Thanksgiving this week. I gave up in March any idea of going to Madrid or Sacramento where my daughters live with their families for the holidays. My hope is we can visit next year. Read more →

The Nov. 3 election is coming up soon. Make sure you’re registered to vote. It’s an important election with a lot at stake. Here are the deadlines in October for 24 states. You can register online in all these states: Read more →

One of the articles in our blogging roundup stands out this week. Tom Sightings of Sightings Over Sixty described how he fell while playing golf. He climbed up onto the tee box, and without thinking about it, stepped onto a wet railroad tie. His feet shot out from under him, and boom. Read more →

Today is the 100th anniversary of ratification of the 19th amendment, which guarantees the right for women to vote Women fought long and hard for the vote – before the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which states the right to vote “shall not be denied … on account of sex.” Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change to the constitution. Read more →

It’s been a wearisome week for some of our boomer bloggers. They’ve been hunkered down during Hurricane Isaias. As a result of the storm, some had their internet and cable conk out for up to four days. One also had her computer malfunction, and it spent two days in the computer clinic. Fortunately, she didn’t have to get a new computer. Her Mac was returned in working order. Macs are good machines, in my experience. The boomers whose internets are working wrote about. Read more →

The world as we know it is changing due to the coronavirus pandemic. But as it exposes inequities in the health and food systems, many people hope that the pandemic offers an opportunity to build a new and more sustainable food system. To understand what it will take to move forward, the Food Tank has compiled its summer reading list to examine the issues that affect the country's food system today. These 20 books provide insight into food access and justice in black communities, food relief and school nutrition programs, the effects of technology on global food supply chains, the relationship between climate change and food production, and more: "Be My Guest: Reflections on Food, Community, and the Meaning of Generosity" by Priya Basil. Forthcoming November 2020 Priya Basil explores the meaning of hospitality within a variety of cultural, linguistic, and sociopolitical contexts. Basil uses her cross-cultural experience to illustrate how food amplifies discourse within families and touches on the hospitality and the lack thereof that migrants and refugees experience. Read more →

One of the big things that’s been canceled in my life due to the pandemic is all the celebrations that were being planned in my community to celebrate the 100th anniversary of women winning the vote in the United States. Events and parades have been canceled. Read more →

The first Mother's Day was celebrated in 1914, but a holiday honoring fathers didn’t become official until 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson declared that the third Sunday in June would be Father's Day. President Richard Nixon made this proclamation permanent in 1972. However, Father’s Day was celebrated before then. The idea for Father's Day is attributed to Sonora Dodd, who was raised by her father after her mother's death during childbirth. While listening to a sermon at church on Mother's Day, she thought about all her father had done for her and her siblings and decided fathers should have a day, too. Because Dodd's father was born in June, she encouraged churches in her area, Spokane, Washington, to honor fathers that month. The first Father's Day was celebrated in Spokane in 1910. Over the years, the idea spread, and people lobbied Congress to establish the holiday. Shopping This year three-quarters of consumers say they plan to celebrate Father's Day, according to the annual survey conducted for the National Retail Federation. Read more →

We’re living the life of the coronavirus pandemic. We’re staying home and picking up groceries or having them delivered. Then, George Floyd is murdered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when a police officer pressed his knee on his neck for 9 minutes. Despite stay-at-home orders, thousands of people burst out of their homes to protest in cities throughout the nation, some not wearing masks. Then, the riots and looting begin. It’s upsetting in so many ways. Another black person killed by police, needlessly. Local officials slow to take the right action. Black and brown people continuing to face police brutality and lack of job opportunities, housing, health care, and more. Read more →