Health Arms

uthor's Note: Just before the birth of my first grandchild, I wanted to include him in a WWII story, a legacy of my wife's family. This account was written from his perspective, and, of course, the story is true. The train station in Sparta, Wisconsin was a sad place that spring morning of 1943. Training was over, so soldiers who had their families still with them took their wives and children to the station to send them home. After the Louisiana Maneuvers, then cold weather training in Wisconsin, the Second Infantry Division finally had its orders to Europe. These soldiers would be boarding troop ships headed for Ireland and final staging. Their ultimate goal: Join with others to defeat the rascal Hitler on his own soil. Paw Paw carried my great-aunt Kay onto the train while my great-grandmother Nana took her seat. As my great-grandfather gently placed his infant daughter into the arms of his wife, I can only imagine the emotion that came over them. Before he kissed them g...

20th century, Ladies in Occidental countries were no longer, mere house-wives, They were working women, by and large, Oriental women lagged behind by nearly a century; now the gap is closing due to literacy among women. The homely house wife, was an asset in the family; But she had no independent identity of her own. The change in society is irreversible, It may overshoot the goal, Soon we may have house-husbands in the homes, But, let us now bask in the memory of good old days. She When she got married 41 years ago, Her mother guided her: 'The path to a man's heart is through his belly, Give him good food three times a day, He will be grateful to God for you, daily, as many times.' What more a wife can ask for! In the hindsight, now I wish, If she has added, 'But remember, a man does not live by bread alone, He needs frequent hugging,expects to extrapolate it as well.' Me My bookish knowledge, depended heavily on two c...

he best part of being a grandparent perhaps is that you get to visit the kids when they are smiling, and the parents have to deal with them all the time, change their diapers, and take care of all the other nonsense. You get the best of all worlds. It's fun to watch the grandkids run around and play, and reminisce about what it was like to be young, or how you raised your own kids. Having grandkids visit is fun, raising grandkids can be quite a chore, perhaps you are getting too old for that. If you are, you certainly wouldn't be the first person to say so. Secondly, no parent is perfect, and you probably weren't either, but you did learn eventually from your mistakes. Still, it's hard when your grandkids' parents are making mistakes and you have to sit and watch all of this go on. It might make you depressed knowing that you can't do anything about it, or eventually make you depressed because the kids have all that youthful energy, and it just makes you feel...

ven-year-old girl said about her grandmother: "She's old on the outside but she acts like she's young on the inside." She hit the nail on the head! Most of us older adults remain active today with some of us still working into our seventies. Even those of us who retire during our sixties may spend as much as one-third of our lives after retirement with our families sometimes encompassing even five generations. By the middle of this century as the "baby boomers" are the elderly, the entire United States will resemble present-day Florida in the proportion of the population composed of older adults. In 1790 less than two percent of the population was over 65. In l990 that figure was twelve percent; by 2030 it will be over twenty percent. Living longer means that more of us now lead three lives: first as children, second as adults with careers and most likely as parents, and third as retirees from careers - and for most of us as grandparents. During each ...

aration that one parent needs to move in with their own parents in order to make financial ends meet. What happens when the grandparents become overly involved in parenting the grandchildren during visitation? Let's take a look at Joe and Sarah. Joe left the marital residence and moved in with his parents. Joe and Sarah found some common parenting ground and established rules for both parents to follow with their children. The problem: Joe's parents have additional rules in their household. Some are contradictory to the ones that Joe and Sarah have come up with in their co-parenting agreement. When the children become confused by the contradictory rules, they begin to act out. Joe, feeling like he is caught between a rock and a hard place (his parent's rules and the co parent agreement) doesn't know what to do but tries his best. When his best fails, his parents step in and take over the parenting role leaving Joe to look powerless in his children's eyes. W...

It's crazy to think back about some of my past experiences. Some of them don't even feel real anymore, except for the fact that they are safely tucked away in my long term memory bank. I will probably even remember them when I am old and gray, and at that point they will seem like ancient history. Maybe even of someone else's life. Will I even be able to recognize that girl that lived those moments and experienced those tidbits of time? For now I will document them, and then maybe later they will seem more believable. Starting with my trip to Israel. I traveled to Israel with my Grandma when I was 15 years old. Primarily because she wanted me to connect with my Jewish roots, and thought a tour around Israel in it's entirety would do the trick. I was able to place a note in the Wailing Wall, jump off of yacht diving board into the Red Sea, cover myself in mud at the Dead Sea, and soak in bathwater in the Med. I partied on the beach with the city that received Satu...

was 67 years old last Monday. I have 3 sons and 4.6 grandsons. The newest is due in 3 months, which will be January 2013. My wife says she would be considered a Queen in China for having all these masculine dependents, I told her she is considered a Queen here. So what do I want to write about my Grandkids, I'm thinking pretty much the same thing every Grandparent and specifically Grandfathers want to say? I said in the summary that it's my job to spoil them and that's a good place to start this article. I tell young people with little kids that are driving them crazy to sell them at about 10 and then buy them back again when they have a good paying job. Surviving the teen years with my three sons was an adventure. I'll bet a lot of people that read this can identify with what I'm saying. I think the movie "Parenthood" captured what I'm talking about extremely well. I will just end this thought by mentioning that my middle son is a lawyer, but durin...