Opinion

From Rose City to Mio, M-33 flows smoothly, the orange of traffic cones replaced by crisp white lines and the goldenrod-colored stripes dividing the two lanes. What a relief it is to make that drive without dodging the potholes which previously edged the highway.

September was Suicide Awareness Month. In Michigan 60% of firearm deaths are suicides; each statistic is a person and a life that mattered.

The prognosis was a natural clearing of the obstruction or, failing that, surgical intervention. The diagnosis, following an expensive computed tomography scan, was a small bowel obstruction caused by eating too many raw vegetables.

I have jokingly responded to people asking “How are you doing?” with “I’m riding the wave and flipping off the sharks!” Truly, I’ve never surfed a day in my life. I use the phrase as a metaphor for an approach to living—a basic philosophy.

The events in New York City on September 11, 2001, separate what came before and all that has happened since in American society. The front page of the Heralds and Independent all described local residents as “stunned” by the tragedy, when several commercial airplanes were hijacked and crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, causing thousands of casualties.

Here comes another equinox.