The Pace Slows as Years Grow Shorter for a Much-Loved Dog

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The Pace Slows as Years Grow Shorter for a Much-Loved Dog

She walks more slowly these days. She doesn't bound to the door, she ambles. She doesn't rush at visitors. She saunters. Her bark is as strong as it has always been and her tail remains in overdrive, but her legs buck and stall, old legs suddenly, though Molly's heart is still young. She has such skinny legs for a big dog, legs like a horse, legs that she could always depend on. How many mornings did she lunge up the stairs, hurl herself onto our bed, dance and bark and groan and nudge us awake…

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Sox should remember Sherm

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Sox should remember Sherm

It's a personal thing with Gary Titus. He'll tell you this. Sherm Feller was his friend. How good a friend? Titus and his wife, Sarah, named their son Louis "Sherman" Titus "to keep Sherm in our memory always." Last spring when Titus logged on to the Boston Red Sox Web site and was greeted by his friend's familiar voice, "Ladies and gentlemen - boys and girls," he was thrilled. The voice belonged on the site. Sherm Feller was and always will be the voice of Fenway Park.

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Her heroics were simply a way of life

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Helen McLean died the way she lived, trying not to inconvenience anyone, accepting what she couldn't change. The diagnosis was cancer and the prognosis was bad. But she didn't fight it or the doctors who gave her the news. She simply went ahead and did what she had to do, the way she did what she had to do her whole life. We build statues of men who, under the gun, stand and fight when they could have run. We call them heroes for their valor, and we honor and respect them. Their images adorn our capitals and parks. Their life stories fill our history books. We even write songs about them. The bravery of men is legend…

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Dear Abby misses a beat with answer to 'Trying'

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Dear Abby misses a beat with answer to 'Trying'

I think you've been kidnapped. I think someone from the school of It's All About Me has commandeered your computer. It must be. I've been reading you since I could read, which makes me certain that you could never have written the response to "Trying to Do the Right Thing" in last Friday's paper. Can we talk about this? What's happening in Los Angeles? Are you at the controls or have you been replaced? Or is it that you've been in L.A. so long that the Me, Myself and I culture has finally worn off on you, too?

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Gym rats are born, not made

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Gym rats are born, not made

The new gym rat in the family has been nagging me. He starts even before I open my eyes. "Power Pump is today. You really should go," he says at 5 a.m. The clock radio has just clicked on. The announcer's voice is a whisper because the radio takes time to warm up. Mr. Stretch and Bend doesn't have this problem. I said I'd go to the gym in the spring. Spring has arrived. He has deemed it his duty to get me there…

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Friendship can last a lifetime with planning

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Friendship can last a lifetime with planning

Anne used to live on my street, a quarter of a mile away. A million years ago when our children were small we hung out together, at her house in the winter and at my house in the summer. Lauren and Amy were best friends. They were 8 and 9 then, bright, fanciful little girls who were always doing cartwheels and singing and playing dress up and creating dramas that they insisted we watch…

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For those of a certain age, good manners make the man

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For those of a certain age, good manners make the man

He didn't know me from Adam. We'd just met, talked a little, exchanged the usual pleasantries. He used to write sports for the Herald, he said. He was originally from Somerville. He was married for 43 years. He was man of a certain age. We left the university together because we were both going home instead of staying for a dinner. He was taking the T back to Melrose. I was hailing a cab back to the paper…

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Bright side won't arrive until March marches on

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Bright side won't arrive until March marches on

I am trying to look at the bright side of things. Count my blessings. Give thanks for the moment and not wish the moment away. The bright side: This isn't the Yukon. The ice on the front walk has finally melted, making both the mailman and me happy. The days are getting longer, never mind that they're cold and gray and cheerless. And we are on the right side of the year. This is not, thank God, November…

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Rich, poor gap grows wider

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Rich, poor gap grows wider

My sixth-grade teacher, Mr. O'Neil, explained the derivation of the word "salary" way back in 1957, when I didn't make a salary and didn't much care about the salaries of anyone else. He said, out of the blue, the way he said a lot of things, that in Roman times salt was scarce and of such value that Roman soldiers were paid with it. "It was called 'salarium,"' he said. "Salarium became salary."…

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Clintons need reminder of conscience, honesty

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Clintons need reminder of conscience, honesty

It's a story in an old book, not even a story, just a thought for the day kind of thing, written half a century ago, but oh so appropriate for today. "A Needed Reminder" is the title and this is the tale: After the fall of Rome, when conquering generals returned to the city to celebrate their triumph, a slave was assigned to each of them. The sole function of this slave was to crouch in the victorious warrior's chariot and constantly remind the conqueror that the greatest human glory passes quickly…

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Sisters are truly a blessing to elderly community home

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Sisters are truly a blessing to elderly community home

At 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, two women, one in her 80s, the other half her age, climbed into a maroon Dodge Ram, bowed their heads, asked for God's blessing, then headed over to New England Produce in Chelsea to beg for food. It was a raw, cold morning, and icy underfoot, the mammoth dry dock where vendors sell fruits and vegetables to grocers throughout New England, crowded with men, crates, fork lifts and oversized trucks…

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Faith, love sustain a family

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Faith, love sustain a family

There are no feelings of doom and gloom in the sprawling ranch in Walpole where Debbie and Mark Bernabei live with their two sons, Nicky and Brett. No "Woe is me," or "Why us?" There is instead the sound of Brett's laughter, cartoons on TV, rays of sunlight pouring in from huge windows, photographs of the boys at different ages on the walls and on the bookshelves and flowers, or the feel of them, in every room…

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But the grief still overwhelms

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But the grief still overwhelms

Nestor "Tito" Herrera should be outside playing in the snow today, trudging through it on his way to school, making snowballs, laughing with friends, his cheeks rosy, his smile bright, his tiny corner of the world a fine place for an 11-year-old boy to be. Instead Tito Herrera is dead, his small body in a coffin on its way back to Puerto Rico, stabbed by another 11-year-old at a movie theater Saturday after a matinee…

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Lights, camera, childbirth!

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Lights, camera, childbirth!

You wonder exactly what combination of words is used to get a woman to agree to give birth on national television. Something like: "We'll stick with soft lighting. We'll shoot you from your best side," or: "No, no, no, you are definitely not fat and swollen. You have never looked lovelier." Could it be a rush of hormones that overloads the natural circuitry of the brain, that makes a woman actually nod and smile and say: "Sure! Why not film the birth?

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