Dear Wake Up Family: On 22 March 1978, I watched Karl Wallenda, the tight-rope walker, lose his balance and fall ten stories to his death as he attempted to walk across a high wire strung between two towers in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was fourteen then, but have never forgotten that television program or…
Dear Wake Up Family: On the morning of 2 June 2025 around 11 am, Mount Etna erupted. Video of the event showed an ashen, soot-filled smoke cloud rising 4 miles into the air. Soon after the initial eruption, a hot pyroclastic lava flow began streaming from its summit. Because the mountain is in southern Italy,…
Dear Wake Up Family: Several days ago, someone reached out to me and asked if I could help. She knew that Larry must have written an article on the subject of suicide and desperately needed to share it with a friend whose dad had taken his own life. Her dear friend was struggling with understanding…
Dear Wake Up Family: My grandparents adopted me in 1963. Back then, parents did that when their daughters were underage and unwed. I always called them mom and dad; I never knew them as anything else…until I was seven. One evening, about 10 days before starting first grade, mom had me come and lay beside…
Dear Wake Up Family: New Year’s Day historically is a time of reflection. A time for new habits, new beginnings, positive changes that take life in a new direction: something that redirects life so that we are now different than we were. A new birth, if you will. Recently, at a country store near our…
Dear Wake Up Family: If you were driving your car and came to a railroad crossing, its lights flashing and gates lowered, would you rush around them to be on your way? No one in their right mind would do that. A flashing red light means, “Danger! There’s trouble ahead. Be Careful.” Before the flood,…
