EDITOR’S NOTE: This Burt’s Eye View column originally was published June 21, 2015. Cole lovingly read snippets of this particular column in his eulogy to his wife, Terry, during her funeral last week. Terry Cole died unexpectedly June 18. Help! I’m being held captive in a thrift store! ...

“Let us know if there’s anything we can do.” It’s a beautiful, caring offer I heard umpteen times a day after my sweet Terry passed away last Sunday morning. I have no clue. I always asked Terry the hard questions. The day she died, Terry was scheduled to leave for a weeklong ...

A buddy from high school just fixed the plumbing in his house. “I watched a bunch of YouTube videos. Then I did it,” he said. My brother-in-law makes his living as a handyman: “If I run into a problem I haven’t seen before, I tell them I have to go to my truck for my tools. That’s ...

We busied ourselves building a fort in the hayloft of the old barn. While Dale, Scott and Bill excavated a tunnel to another secret chamber, I nudged a block into place on one of the turrets. Hay bales are king-sized Legos for farm kids. “Throw me another block,” I hollered. Cousin ...

Aging changes one’s perspectives — including one’s perspective on when, exactly, old age begins. I’ll let you know when I find out. It’s not yet. Sure, there’s a glitch in my hip, a creak in my knees and a blinding lightening of my hair. Yes, we are required to file for a permit ...

I was supposed to be mowing the lawn or paying bills or fixing the dryer or something boring like that. Instead, I flopped into my easy chair and scrolled through my phone to research the latest memes. For my job, of course. One of the memes I saw went something like this: “I’m fairly ...