​It started with a simple idea. “I’ve been thinking of taking up the carpet in the living room and on the stairs and having the floors refinished,” I suggested to my husband. “I’m not opposed to that,” he responded. Keep in mind that we have lived in this house for 37 years. In that time we have replaced the carpeting in the living room twice. We’ve had kids and pets and parties that all left their mark on those carpets, but now we decided it was time to let the floors shine. Almost all of the rooms have beautiful red oak floors – it’s how houses were built in the 60’s.
 
Once the decision about the floors was made, we started to look around. Maybe we should repair those cracks in the ceiling and touch up the paint a bit. We probably should replace those fireplace doors, and yes, a mantle on the stone fireplace would be nice. How much would it cost to run a gas line so we could put in a gas fireplace? Oh yes…one thing leads to another. At least the window treatments and furniture could stay!
 
The floors are beautiful, the area rugs are in place, the mantle is in the process of being constructed, and the fireplace doors will ship this week. (We decided against the costly gas line). While one thing almost always leads to another, sometimes it’s worth it. And just in time for the holidays!
 

Last Tuesday was election day, so it made sense that I got into a conversation with my hair dresser about voting. I revealed that I first voted in the 1972 presidential election (the voting age was 21 back then), and that I voted for George McGovern who was running against Richard Nixon. When I happened to mention that although Nixon won by a large margin it was ironic that he ended up resigning from office a few years later, I unwittingly set off a barrage of questions from Tricia. “Oh yeah,” she said, “why did he have to resign again?” That was followed by more questions like, “Why did he do that? How did they find out? Where did this happen?” I am not a history buff, but I did have the experience of knowing about these events as they were happening, so I found myself digging back into my memory for some answers.
 
I believe I was on the right track with the information I gave, although it took some time for me to come up with the names of the two reporters from the Washington Post who broke the story (initially I could only remember that Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman played them in the movie).
 
 I wondered, how could Tricia not remember events that were so prominent at the time? And then I realized that while I was a young adult in the 70’s, Tricia was in elementary school. She was probably no more concerned about Nixon in the 70’s than I was about Khrushchev or McCarthy in the 50’s – we heard about the events surrounding these names, but we weren’t quite at the age to fully understand. Yet these were people and events that shaped the country.
 
            Conclusion: It’s all about perspective.