Brian Fleck

Mom and Dad recently celebrated their 71st anniversary without any fanfare. Actually, they were going to do nothing at all, but a late morning doctor appointment found them driving home, Mom sitting on her pillows so she could see over the steering wheel, past Pepe’s Mexican Restaurant on a Tuesday. They like the food, service and price at Pepe’s in general, and they specifically like Taco Tuesday, when they both can get a large lunch, chips and salsa included, for under $6 each.

Most of what I write is true.
Sabra, for example, was moving our raised bed garden boxes 50 feet to the right for no apparent reason, and I was watching her from my office window overlooking the backyard. It was a blustery, cold day and I did pull down the shades because it was distracting to see her drag the heavy frames 1 inch at a time to the new destination.
But she did not dig a trench for the asparagus. You think me a total cad? That was my job.

The ghost is back.
Long time readers of this column know I have history with the other-worldly dating back to the 1990s when I lived in one of the half-dozen, 100-year-old, two-story brick buildings that make up downtown Solon. My loft apartment was originally the meeting place for the local Masonic Lodge, a mystical, civic service organization with roots in the Middle Ages.

In an earlier life, I was a human sacrifice tossed to my death off a precipice.
Nothing else explains the irrational fear I have of heights. While I can stand on a thick rug without getting dizzy, vertigo sets in about half way up a 6-foot ladder. Seriously, the room starts spinning, my heart and lungs race and my legs wobble.

By the time you read this we’ll be in the land of the endless buffet, also called The Reef, an all-inclusive resort in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. We’ve been to our southern neighbor, one of the few places in the world where the citizens don’t hate Americans, many times and have had many adventures, including: