POST 28/2025 SOUTH HAVEN & PERRIN LAKE, MICHIGAN: "I'm going to fly my kite," I told a barber in South Haven a few years ago when he asked me what I was going to do next. I did it again last week, not the haircut, just flew our fifty-year-old kite. Sprite by name. We picked …
Author: John Bender
Hi, my name is John Bender, retired and loving it. I'm writing to help interested people cross bridges to and from the past. Stories from the past can shed light on life in the present and illuminate the future. We've got a lot of living to do. Let's do it!
In the palm of your hand
POST 27/2025: I have a bookmark titled, In The Palm of Your Hand." It quotes the Old Testament book of Isaiah, 49:15: "I will not forget you . . . I have held you in the palm of my hand." The image of being held in God's palm makes me think of my brother-in-law, Gerald, …
Destinations: Ontario, Michigan, Indiana
POS 26/2025 TAWAS CITY, MICHIGAN: We're spending a few days along Lake Huron in Tawas City after. visiting family and friends in southwestern Ontario. More family reunion time awaits this weekend at home in Indiana. Time spent with family and friends nourishes what experts might call "relationship health." Ontario With family and friends we shared …
Summer fest presented with panache
POST 25/2025 GOSHEN IN: It was a doozy of a week, hot days followed by a welcome downpour bookending Greencroft Goshen Summerfest 2025. Shade, breeze, sunhats and water kept us tolerably comfortable for Summerfest, July 15. Resident volunteers, in tandem with Greencroft staff and off-campus participants, presented the third Summerfest with, what better word than, …
Blueberry Pie and Christmas in July: a sweet summer tradition
POST 24/2025 GOSHEN INDIANA: Blueberry season has started. I searched among our cookbooks--those left after multiple purges in recent years--and found only two recipes for blueberry pie. One of the recipes called for 4 cups fresh berries, 3 T. flour, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1 cup sugar, 1/8 tsp. salt. I wanted to prepare an open-face …
Continue reading Blueberry Pie and Christmas in July: a sweet summer tradition
Life in and beyond LaGrange county
POST 23/2025 LAGRANGE COUNTY IN: Fast growing corn, haying with horses, scampering rabbits, an ostrich, neat gardens, Amish traveling in buggies and bikes, fireworks display, the early morning song of the Cardinal (Indiana's state bird)--that's what we saw and heard in the county next door last week. A baler that makes big round bales. The …
Love and loss
Post 22/2025 Goshen, Indiana: In the introduction to The Book of Joy, (Avery, 2016), by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams, Abrams notes, "In this book I have tried to share with you their intimate conversations, which were filled with seemingly endless laughter and punctuated by many poignant moments of …
As the light fades
Post 21/2025 Goshen, Indiana: Summer solstice arrives tonight in the Northern Hemisphere. Longest day, shortest night. Fairbanks, Alaska will have almost 22 hours of daylight. The sun is still shining as I start this blog. It will be a short one. I haven't got all night. No 22 hours of daylight here in northern Indiana. …
Oops-a-daisy
Post 20/2025 Goshen, IN: Who would ever think of using the word "SASSY" in Wordle? Guilty. I must not have been thinking. I used it today as fourth choice before settling on "TAFFY" in the final turn six. I was rewarded with a "Phew!" Oops-a-daisy on that one. While I didn't lose the game, I …
A walk in the woods
Post 19/2025 River Preserve County Park, Elkhart County: We walked in the part of this park that starts in the village of Benton. The linear park of 358 acres follows the Elkhart River, adjacent canal and spillways. I wore my new pair of boots. Did my feet proud. The park includes historic canals, dams and …
It's About Now 