Huh? What's Up With That?

Rebecca and the outdoors! Great Chemistry!   She drove past the 40-foot-wide clock for the last time and never looked back.  This particular  clock was seen in the movie, The Insider,  with Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.  It's an octagonal timepiece which faces the Ohio River in Clarksville, Indiana and is known simply as the Colgate Clock. It sits on top of a multi-story building and is held up by an Erector Set looking structure that's almost four stories tall.  The second largest clock in the world has been owned by the toothpaste company since 1924.  This is not a story about the clock, but rather a portrait of an impelling retired person who lives her life to the fullest.   HUH ? What's up with that ? caught up with former Colgate chemist, Rebecca Beyerle.     After graduating college, Rebecca began her career in 1977 at the Colgate-Palmolive plant across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky.  She retired 31 years later...

Where was grandpa?   HUH? What's up with that ? is about many different things, but chiefly deals with the disparity of treatment shown older people by a younger generation.  Too many times we speak without thought or consideration of others. All too frequently, we fail to activate any kind of filter and the gap between thought and deed becomes miniscule.  But, an area that is almost excluded from criticism of any kind from anyone is what we politely refer to as grandma's cooking !  In fact, grandma's cooking is very nearly on hallowed ground.   Every culture I can think of reveres grandma's cooking.  Family stories gain legendary proportions when reminiscing about a speciality or particular dish prepared by a grandmother on one side of the family or the other.  Sometimes a family really lucks out and two grandmas are fabulous cooks!  Interestingly, families of various ethnic backgrounds seem to have fostered many, many great cooks. ...

Ruth....   Ruth is 104 and plays Bingo or another game every Thursday at Wellbrooke Retirement Community in Westfield, Indiana.  For as long as I've known her, she is a woman who has commanded the room with her kindness and sincerity.  Judging by the Wellbrooke staff and fellow residents, she may very well be the most sought after lady in the house.  No one passes her without speaking or acknowledging her presence, and, in turn, she never fails to address the speaker with a smile and cheerful greeting of her own.  Ruth is in a wheelchair and is losing her hearing.  Her short-term memory is also fading, but she still knows me and her other three sons, Dave, Carl, and Ken, along with other family members and friends.  Just a few months ago, I had a conversation with her that focused on some of her early recollections of girlhood.   When she was 13 years old, my mother worked in her dad's corner grocery store.  A year later, she ...