Month: July 2002

The house echoes a bit these days. The corners are bereft of attendant gifts wrapped in patriotic colors and welcoming baskets lined with blue tissue. Only the dust patterns on the table remain of the mountain of fancy dishes, decorations and delicacies reserved for the reception. My endless pages covered with reminders of items “to…

Without guns, knives or grenades, 600 women in Ugboegungun, Nigeria took over a key oil exporting facility the first weekend of July, capturing the attention of Chevron-Texaco management in this oil-rich but poverty-stricken country. The women, some as old as 90 but most in their 40s and 50s surrounded the terminal where hundreds of American,…

“Happy is the bride whom the sun shines on” exemplified my daughter’s July 4th wedding – but it didn’t start out that way. A week before the wedding we were standing under a tree mapping out table arrangements when the skies opened and dumped a torrent of rain on us. The bride welled up in…

The statistic astounded me. According to the U.S. News and World Report, “The average outstanding credit card balance per household is $7,034.” No way, I thought – only to read a letter to Dear Abby from a college senior who said he would graduate owing several thousand dollars on his credit cards with little or…

Time to grumble and gripe about the rising cost of postage; to threaten to do everything over the Internet, no matter what the connection fee. Why? Because, over the weekend, the price of a first class stamp jumped from 34 to 37 cents. My daughter, busy writing thank you notes for the wedding gifts she…