“Back-to-school” sales have once again run their course. The county and state fairs of a waning summer are history. It is now time to sing this year’s September Song and again Let The Good Times Roll like calendar pages off the wall. Despite whatever calendar page you may see left on the wall, the school of life is still in session

“Back-to-school” is not just for our children and grandchildren. We seniors know that learning is life-long for as long as you open your mind to life. Some folks take time off from life-learning just like many kids take time off from school-learning. As fun as mental vacation might be, though, we dare not stay on brain holiday for too long a time.

“Back-to school” is more than a sales promo gimmick for stores that sell stuff to growing families. It can also be an attitude; a mental state; a way of life, if you will. I have found that it is possible (yea, even joyous) to get through a day without buying anything at the store. But it is impossible for me to get through a day without encountering change and thereby learning something new. Each day my morning newspaper informs me that the world I expected to find out there upon awakening...no longer exists as I expected it would when I went to bed last night. Now I need to learn about that new world before I can be of any use in it and any good to it.

“Back-to-school” is one way to summarize the calendar pages remaining on the wall ahead of us here at our changing Senior Federation in this ever changing world. My mentors at American Indian Institute at Bemidji State University taught me that the wise person observes the path of nature and strives to flow along and not oppose nature. In the months of change ahead of us we must observe our world and our society and learn to flow with it, not obstinately agin’ it. This old dawg has learned some new tricks, but you, my friends, and those rolling calendar pages remind me that I don’t know it all. So, then, its...

“Back-to-school!”