Opinion

As a 5-year-old boy, Jacques Grelley fell headfirst off of a 12-foot wall. At 7 years old he was thrown 30 feet by an aggressive cow.

As of a month ago, Mary Ellen and I planned to attend her reunion in Ohio where she would celebrate the 50th anniversary of her graduation from college. We had talked extensively about the event, especially since Mary Ellen was one of the organizers. The truth is, we were both hiding how we really felt about the arrangements. I’ve put in parentheses what we were silently thinking when we discussed the trip.

Dear Rusty: We have hosted international college students for years, all of whom needed to apply for a Social Security Number upon arrival in the United States. Would these students be entitled to some Social Security funds at some point? Some have worked as paid graduate assistants, but others have not worked while going to school.

Douglas Hegdahl was born in September of 1946 in a small town in South Dakota. When he was asked to join the Navy in the 1960s he saw it as an opportunity to see the world. Hegdahl was assigned to the USS Canberra, a missile cruiser positioned in the Gulf of Tonkin, three miles off the coast of Vietnam.

Dear Rusty: I'm considering filing for my SS at age 64 in February, before my full retirement age of 66 years and 10 months. I’m working full time and would like to continue earning until I meet the $21,240 limit for this year.

Mary Ellen and I just returned from a wonderful Caribbean cruise. But no one wants to read a humor column about how much fun we had. So instead, I’ll put on my grumpy old man hat and describe everything that went wrong.

My grocery bills have been a challenge recently, so I’ve tried to be better about planning. Quite honestly, it’s been fun. Well, some of it has been. Because of the economy of grocery shopping, I’ve found the need for stricter strategies and more miserly meals. In this vein, I have three goals in mind: to meet my budget, put tasty food on the table and to keep motivated - as egg prices are driving me right out of the quiche market.

At first glance, it seemed like a pretty good deal. Enjoy a complimentary $25.00 gift card from one of the local supermarkets. All it required was answering a few questions online. I figured it was a marketing scam. I wasn’t born yesterday. In fact, as you’ll see, I was born 100 years ago.

Dear Rusty: I am a 62year old Canadian expat who has lived in the U.S. for the last 30-years.