IMPROVE YOURSELF WITH THESE SCROLLING STOPS

Trying to ‘improve yourself’ brings out opinions and questions, the main one being, “Why?”

At a certain age it’s okay to stop improving yourself?

My research pegged that age somewhere between twelve years old and ninety.

Those are the ballpark numbers I’m presenting here, which is why this is such an informative site.

As a man of history, not to be confused with an historical man, I improve myself by tactically scrolling to fill in knowledge gaps.

Turns out there are more than I suspected.

Like WWII in Italy.

I’ve never been to Italy, but I’ve walked around the Gothic Quarter in Barcelona, so it’s pretty much the same thing?

I try to imagine walking a combat patrol on those streets and come up with two problems.

First, I’ve never walked a combat patrol outside the night hike under live fire in boot camp. Second, I was an Army medic.

In my WWII in Italy story, If I wasn’t running around to guys yelling “MEDIC” I would have come in later after the place calmed down.

I could see myself remfing around Italy way, way, back from the frontlines, looking around and finding out.

That would be my war story, not the God-awful meat grinder.

I’d end up staying in Italy and making a fortune on the blackmarket making offers hard to refuse.

What’s Your Italy Story

Improve yourself with forty one Italian movies, or take a walk through 1975 South Philadelphia.

Window after open window on a warm weekend afternoon I heard Frank Sinatra singing his song. I remember an entire row-house block tuned to Radio Frank.

Sidewalk fashion showed men in black leather shoes, cuffed slacks, strapped white undershirt, a short-brimmed hat, and a cigarette.

It was a place to fall in love and live forever, which is a good place to start a plan to improve yourself.

Scroll with a timer on the rabbit hole, then reflect.

Dial up some Frank and sing along.

Why do I do just as you say
Why must I just give you your way
Why do I sigh, why don’t I try to forget
It must have been that something lovers call fate
Kept me saying I have to wait
I saw them all, just couldn’t fall, ’til we met

It had to be you
It had to be you
I wandered around, and I finally found
The somebody who
Could make me be true
And could make me be blue
And even be glad
Just to be sad – thinking of you

Cook a pot of soup, set a table.

Make Mine A Love Story

It starts on a train.

On Christmas morning 2011, Linda Wenger boarded a Metro-North train from New York’s Grand Central Station to head upstate to Katonah.

(East coast city train stations are more than expected, more transportation cathedral than train barn. Located at the intersection of Park Avenue and 42nd Street (89 E. 42nd Street, to be exact!), Grand Central is easily accessible by foot, by subway, by bus, and by Metro-North train.)

Blah, blah blah, and then,

There were only a handful of other people in Wenger’s carriage, including a man of a similar age, who was sat opposite.

(Two people traveling alone on a train? What could happen?)

Once the two had started talking, their conversation didn’t stop, and as the train rolled through the New York countryside, they realized they were enjoying one another’s company immensely.

Then McTwigan asked if Wenger would like to meet when they were both back in the city. He suggested a live event in New York, run by storytelling group The Moth.

They’d both been married before, and they were approaching falling in love again with both excitement and trepidation.

On Christmas Day 2012, the two boarded the Metro-North train from Grand Station to Katonah, just as they had the year before. But while 12 months previously they’d been strangers, now they were a couple, traveling together to visit Wenger’s family.

This Christmas marks 10 years since Wenger and McTwigan sat opposite one another on the train.

There’s more than a train ride here, more of a magic carpet. Hop on to improve yourself, hang on over the bumps, and tell someone you love them.

Go ahead. It sound like this, “I love you.”