I knew something was up with Mom when her usually meticulous grooming began to fail. Daily applications of Oil of Olay that was the foundation for her porcelain complexion seemed to have been abandoned. Crisply ironed blouses began to show wrinkles and clues to what she had eaten that morning.

There was something up with Mom. Either she was losing her marbles, or morphing into Janis Joplin. She never touched Jack Daniels and couldn't sing the blues to save herself, so it became evident that something was wrong.

Mom's downward spiral into dementia, and in all probability Alzheimer's, was punctuated by periods of brilliance. The brain seems to have an uncanny ability to radiate a hidden awareness as if to shake a fist at the threat of shut down. It's like a star that goes supernova before it is extinguished. All the energy and...

There was a time in my life when I needed help.

Many of us have gone through it. Writing about it makes it seem more dramatic than it was. Most of us get through it. Some of us don't, but those of us who do come out on the other side possess a new-found appreciation for life as a result of someone else's care. Someone recognizes something inside us that we find foreign, or that we avoid, or that we deny.

That kernel of a survival instinct sometimes appears as a button that merely needs to be pushed. Or it's a word that is slipped to us at the right time, where the impact is greatest. Other times it's merely another person's interest in your well-being and his or her refusal to allow you to slip away further than you have.

Care comes in many forms. I know care junkies who always seem to be positioned to...

I grew up making prank calls.

Back then, I would call a supermarket and ask if they "had Prince Albert in the can?" I was a schmuck among other young schmucks whose collective heads were pressed against a Princess Phone as if it were a modern day glory-hole, in order to hear a muffled response.

A short pause while the harried clerk looked into his tobacco inventory would often bring the reply "yes," to which I would gasp out in a hurried retort, "Well let him out!" and hang up before any FBI trace could be put on my parents' phone.

My friends and I would be breathless laughing that we had put one over on the poor grocery guy.  Hell, we weren't even smoking pot at that point. We had no excuse for our idiocy. It was the pure innocence of those early years before sarcasm and parody overshadowed whatever wit I could lay...

We've all seen the commercials -- the affable yet aged 1970s TV star looks earnestly into the camera, feigning a concern for his audience and then clueing them into what may be financial salvation in their final years.

The actor's once youthful and chiseled features now appear doughy, a cravat or turtleneck conceals skin that was once taught. Hair the color of burnt ochre lies like a varnish that conceals the greying natural color of age -- all in a ploy to mentor those whose access to Botox, hair plugs and a personal stylist are relegated in priority far behind the price of medication, the cost of food, and the rising expense of heating or cooling their home.

Welcome to the promise of the reversible mortgage, as explained by pitch men who urge seniors to '"Pick up the phone NOW!" They scare the bejeesus out of them while forecasting...