John R Purcell

When I am sleeping, I sometimes have dreams. Some of these dreams are really strange and I cannot think of any reason why I have them. When i wake up I can remember them in great detail. I suppose that my brain must have a storage compartment in which memories of events that happened a long time ago are stored. Occasionally one of these events is recalled and is played out in my dreams, or maybe it is because I ate too much pasta for dinner the night before.

Looking at old family photos can be a pleasant and sometimes emotional experience. They can bring back memories of your own childhood when you and your siblings were youngsters. Photos of your own children when they were just babies and even pictures of all the pet dogs you have had over the years can be especially emotional. If we knew how much the photos would mean to us, we would have taken many more. I am glad that my parents and their parents also had many photos taken and it is a pleasure to see them and other family members from many years ago.

At one time, most homes in the suburbs had clothes lines in their back yards to hang laundry to dry. Usually they consisted of two metal or wood poles with a cross arm at the top to which the clothes lines were attached. These have pretty much become extinct since the invention of the 5 cycle, 3 temperature, electric or gas clothes dryer Even though we do have that modern appliance, we still have the same clothes poles in our backyard.

Most pople have had one or more pets in their lifetime and more than likely it has been either a dog or a cat. I believe that dogs make better pets than cats. Dogs are highly intelligent, very devoted to their human families, extremely protective and can be very entertaining. Cats, however, are unlike that. They usually are house cats and they stay indoors all the time which means they must be provided with facilities for necessary bodily functions. Maintaining litter boxes cannot be a very pleasant task. Cats do not seem to interact much with their humans like dogs do.

There has been a lot of talk recently about giving gay couples the same legal rights and benefits as a typical heterosexual married couple. I have not given much thought to this issue until recently when I read a story, which I believe to be true, about a woman's account of how she and her family reacted when they learned that a family member was gay.

My newspaper has a feature which accepts and prints letters from readers who can sound off about any gripes they may have about anything or anyone. I don't know why anyone would be interested in this sort of thing except for, perhaps, the humor that some of them provide. Along with the gripes that are printed, they also print, in rebuttal, some letters about nice things that some reader has been fortunate enough to come across. It is refreshing that people appreciate it when someone is exceptionally kind enough to help them in some way.