Insights & Guidance for Planning Ahead

We celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14th. I always had a special Valentine: my mom. Mom was born on Valentine’s Day, and was named after it, Vallee. My parents were young—just 20 when they had me as their first born. While growing up, I always had the youngest parents compared to my friends. My mom was beautiful and gregarious. At times she was compared to the famous actress, Elizabeth Taylor. Later in life I learned that most of the other boys in my high school class h

Just a few months ago, we adopted a one year old labrador mix, Milo. This was after we had lost all three of our dogs, Indy, Kiah and Kobe over the space of about six months. The three all had connections to two other labs, Star and Maggie, that had passed away a few years earlier. They were all best of friends. Adoption was not an easy or quick decision. We were adopting a stranger. Sometimes when I look into Milo’s eyes, I feel like I can see Star. When Star looked at

Last week my wife, Barb, and I adopted Milo, an 85 pound one year old labrador mixed dog. We got him from the Hays Humane Society. It was a big step for us. We lost Indy in December 2023; then Kiah in January 2024; and finally our last love, Kobe, in May 2024. The three of them were best friends for many years. We were devastated, and I felt like my heart had been emptied. When trying to decide whether to adopt, we were asking ourselves: Do we jump back into dog owner

My first column that I ever wrote was for a periodic called the “Kansas Senior Times.” I was asked to write articles of interest to older adults. After some deliberation, I decided to call it “Gray Matters.” My thought was that though we are older, we still matter. And there are topics that matter to us. And the gray matter, “our brain,” has so much stored in it by way of knowledge and wisdom, that it needs and should be shared. Now, to the 2024 election. A few years ago,