The Vietnam War ended in April 1975, I graduated from High School in June of 1975. What if I had been born just a little earlier, or if the war had lasted just a little longer? Today I ate lunch with a group of guys who didn’t have to wonder, they were called and they served.

I can’t help but sigh when people ask, “What kind of dog is that?” If I feel like being flippant, I answer, “A big, black dog.”

I have taken many first aid classes over the years, everything from 4-hour CPR to the Coast Guard 80-hour Medical Person-In-Charge. I was even a Coast Guard/Red Cross approved instructor. What else could I learn?

​Forty-five minutes from our house is the west entrance to Glacier National Park. We have lived here for a year and a half now and I had only been to Glacier twice. Of course, I lived in New York for most of 60 years and never made it to the Empire State building so I guess I was still ahead of the game.

Don’t believe everything you see on T.V.
Television portrays the real estate business as a beach-front, McMansion, GQ dressed kind of business. Maybe that’s the way of things in the Hamptons, but in Montana it can get a little closer to mother nature.

The other night was exactly one year in our new house on the mountain. This morning we woke to see a small herd of elk standing on the hill above the house. I don’t remember that ever happening in Monroe, NY. What else is different one year later?

My long-term plan had always been to retire at 60. It didn’t work out. It took me until I was 62. People said I’d be bored. It turns out we are all as busy as we want to be.

The direction of life can change in a second. One minute you’re driving down the road, the next minute you’re sitting in the snow bleeding while gasoline drips from your overturned vehicle.

​It was something I didn’t know I missed until I found it.

​Back when my son Brian was a senior in high school, maybe 16 years ago, he volunteered for a while at the Monroe, NY animal shelter. He and a friend would give the dogs some attention and take them for walks. That’s nice, I thought. Then he wanted to bring one home.