When I was eight, I found myself at an acreage outside Wilber, Nebraska sitting on a retaining wall peering through the night sky at the moon. It was a warm July night, and upon the surface of the moon inside the Lunar Module Eagle sat Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Shortly, I would be called inside to watch on live TV as Commander Armstrong made that "one small step" into hustory. Eight was a great time to be an American. 

When Cheryl and I were still in the child rearing phase of our family life, we made time for dinner most every night. Despite a hectic schedule of work, school, soccer, dance and music, the four of us found the time to share the evening meal and some conversation.

While still quite young, one of the girls asked the question, “What is money”?

Last fall, one of our fence gates collapsed. We had two gates, one on either side of the house, so we took it as a "sign" that one gate was enough, and we stored the dilapidated gate on the other side of the house. I should've known we wouldn't get off that easy,

Here in West Des Moines, at the corner of 19th and Vine is a four way stop. In the mornings it handles traffic heading north to Dowling Catholic High School and west to Valley High School, while east feeds into heavily trafficked Grand Avenue. It’s a busy place, but the only requirement it places upon drivers is the ability to count to three. Upon reaching your stop sign, wait for three cars to procced you, then resume your route. Easy enough for thirty or so years, but about ten years ago it stopped working well, and there have been a fair number of “incidents”. That in a nutshell is the banking crisis.