No one asks me for advice these days, which is ironic, because after all these years I have picked up some pretty good ideas, and I have figured out how to choose good ideas  over the bad ones that can cause folks a lot of problems.  Which is another way of saying I’ve learned a lot from my mistakes.

Here’s a good idea:  If you have less than admirable friends, find new ones.

Here’s another: If you live in a remote place, like Pecos or Hotchkiss or Maui or Salem, read the NY Times online.  Not so much for the “news.”  You can get that 24/7 anyplace you happen to be.  Avoiding the 24/7 and sorting through it is the challenge, so turn it off.  That’s my advice. Just turn it off!  But with the Times, you get book reviews, TV suggestions, all sorts of fascinating opinions to sort through in the Op-Ed section, and even a great “recipe of the day.”

And grow something.  Great or small.

Even if you can only have a pot on a window sill or on a porch ledge. Grow something.  Here endeth the lesson.