Living with his parents for the boy was never easy. So often he dreamed of moving out; of going to live with his grandparents. He wouldn’t exactly say that he hated them, but he thought it often. Now, 40 years later, he knew that this was part of growing up. No family is perfect. Most of his friends had problems and conflicts with their parents.

When I worked as a camp counselor, the kids loved when I told campfire stories about wanderers who had been lost and were seeking their way home. The kids in my care had been taken from their homes and were wards of the state, so it’s no surprise that they would identify with lost wayfarers.

They sat there fuming. The two junior partners on the litigation team put in 80-hour weeks for a solid year to win a multimillion-dollar case for the firm. They missed anniversaries, birthdays, and vacations with their families. Throughout, they kept saying, “Well, at least the money will be good.”

Not long ago I attended the funeral of my beloved uncle, Don. At the end of the Mass, one of his three sons, Tom, stood to give the eulogy. Tom talked about his father’s growing up in New Jersey, his migration to the Midwest to attend college, and his marriage to Mary Jane, their mother.

When I was a college student I visited Ireland, the land of my ancestors. The spiritual highlight of my trip was when my Irish cousins brought me to the town of Raercross to stand among the ruins of a stone hut where my grandmother was born.

Those ubiquitous Post-It notes we use—to mark a page, write a quick note, or place on a co-worker's desk—were a mistake. The 3M Company was trying to come up with a new kind of glue mixture and instead they created a glue that didn’t really stick. How absurd! Such a blunder!

Two of my best friends, husband and wife Mike and Melissa, are accomplished journalists. We met in our 20s when the three of us were reporters at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

There’s a moment in the movie Stand by Me when the young hero, Gordie, is bestowed a gift from nature. He and his pals are on an adventure of the type that young boys are drawn to—following railroad tracks out of town and into the wilderness. When they stop to camp out they each take a “watch” during the night, keeping an eye out for dangers that might come their way.

It was no surprise who won the award of excellence. Year after year for nearly 15 consecutive, he was top in his field. With a new panel of judges every year no one suspected favoritism.

Some old-timers look back fondly at all that used to be a part of Lenten fasting and abstinence. Some felt it provided them with benefits beyond the spiritual renewal intended.