-
Savvy Senior: Does Medicare Cover Ambulance Rides?
Narration provided by Wondervox
By Jim Miller
Dear Savvy Senior,
A few months ago, I took an ambulance to the hospital emergency room because I had a nasty fall at home, but just received a hefty $1,050 bill from the ambulance company. Doesn’t Medicare cover ambulance rides?
Frustrated Beneficiary
Dear Beneficiary,
Yes, Medicare does cover emergency ambulance services and, in limited cases, nonemergency ambulance services too, but only when they’re deemed medically necessary and reasonable.
So, what does that means?
First, it means that your medical condition must be serious enough that you need an ambulance to transport you safely to a hospital or other facility where you can receive care that Medicare covers.
If a car or taxi could transport you without endangering your health, Medicare won’t pay. For example, Medicare probably won’t pay for an ambulance to take someone with an arm fracture to a hospital. But if the patient goes into shock, or is prone to internal bleeding, ambulance transport may be medically necessary to ensure their safety on the way. The details make a difference.
-
One Thing or Another Column: Cruise Control (All Aboard!)
Narration provided by Wondervox
By Mark McNease
We’ll soon be heading off for our third cruise since January. That’s at least one too many in a calendar year, so we’ll be limiting it to two at most after this. I love to cruise, especially the days at sea when I can relax free from obligations, appointments and cat litter. This time we’re flying to Rome first, which is really how this trip came about—the opportunity to go somewhere both new and very old. I’m especially interested in seeing the Coliseum where the gladiators of my boyhood imagination fought to the death, represented by small plastic figures on the floor of my bedroom. We’ll spend three nights in Rome, then board a cruise ship that sails around the Mediterranean before crossing back across the Atlantic to New Jersey. That’s the other big attraction: we only have to fly one way. I wrote this column several years ago, and every word is still true.
SPENDING TIME ON A FLOATING hotel was never high on my wish list. I no more imagined going on a cruise than I imagined climbing the pyramids at Machu Picchu or hiking the Appalachian Trail. I didn’t have anything against them, they were just things other people did, feature stories in travel magazines I read when I was still flying by choice and not necessity. Then I met the man I’ve spent the last sixteen years with, and cruising entered my life. That can happen when we enter relationships: if you enjoy the unexpected, meet the person of your dreams.
-
Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast #74: Michael Connelly’s ‘Nightshade’ Launches New Series with a Bang
Welcome to my newest recommendation. I won’t call these reviews, at least not technically, because I won’t be offering anything I didn’t like! These are books I’ve read and think you’ll enjoy, too. We’re starting out with a brand new series and character from Michael Connelly, a maestro in the detective genre whose crime novels I’ve been devouring for thirty years. I couldn’t put this one down, which is almost always true for me with a new Michael Connelly. Listen in and see what I think of the author, his writing, and his new must-read ‘Nightshade.’
“Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor—a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig.
Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases. Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as “Nightshade.” Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.”
-
The Weekly Readlines August 9
BIG CUP: THE WEEK’S STOP STORIES
Or maybe just my favorites …
Apple’s Tim Cook Gives Trump a Golden Trinket
It really is that easyCrippling Tariffs Set to Kneecap Economy
Coal in every Christmas stocking!Trumps Calls Epstein Files a Hoax, Victims Disagree
As we finally reach the bottomCavernous Ballroom No One Wants Set to Break Ground
We won’t be calling it the White House much longerLGBTQ
How Food Has Fueled Queer Liberation Movements – The Today Show
Trump Anti-DEI Executive Orders Prompt Phoenix College To Cancel LGBT Film FestLGBTQ+ Ghanaians Found Freedom Online – Now They Might Lose It
-
The Twist Podcast #301: Ice Cream Clones, Jaws at 50, More Fan Photos, and Rick Catches Up with Q Brown
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as practice our survival skills, enjoy the dulcet tones of Mark’s cloned voice, hear Emma’s take on ‘Jaws at 50,’ and catch up with Q Brown in an exclusive Rick Rose chat.
-
This Week’s Video: Poet Andrea Gibson’s ‘When Death Came to Visit’
“I used to believe I knew my purpose,
thought for sure I understood my calling.
But my calling, I now know, has always been
this: to parent my own departure.
To never punish the child for being who she is.To keep a roof over the head of the truth.
To raise what will end me, with love.”I just recently discovered the poet Andrea Gibson through an obituary I saw online. Their poetry, and their person, are extraodinary. This poem was written quite a while before they died, but they didn’t want it shared until death had made its final visit. It reignited my passion for poetry, and my desire to be a much better person than I will ever manage to be.
I’ll be adding a ‘This Week’s Video’ feature staring now!
-
This Week’s Survey: What Would You Rather Be Doing Right Now?
Imagine yourself doing something else at the moment. What would it be?
Walking along a country road or hiking path.
Taking a nap.
Reading a favorite book or watching a favorite show.
Eating a favorite meal or snack.
Something else entirely. What would it be? -
Mark McNease Mysteries Podcast #73: A House in the Woods 2: The Devil’s Due (Chapters 4-6)
Today’s episode continues ‘A House in the Woods 2: The Devil’s Due.’ This story was inspired by an old house along the road where we live. It’s since been torn down—too many ghosts hanging around, possibly—but every time we walked by it when it was empty I kept imagining something evil behind the old faded door. It helped that we live in the woods, providing a read-made title. We called it the spooky house. It soon became the center of two books: A House in the Woods, and A House in Woods 2.
A House in the Woods 2 picks up where A House in the Woods left off. Laurel Calloway is still in the mysterious town of Strickland, New Jersey, where nothing is as it appears to be. Two years have gone by, and they’ve been good to the Calloways. Laurel and her husband Jeremy have a new house, and a new family with baby Isabel about to celebrate her first birthday. Everything seems perfect, until Laurel begins to have dreams. Bad dreams. Something tells her these dreams could really be memories. But of what? Of whom, and of when?
Did she really run over a woman in the road at night? Had they once had a dog? Why are these things trying so hard to surface, swimming slowly up from her subconscious? The more she begins to tell the people around her about these dreams, the more convinced she is that they’re part of it, and that these nightmares aren’t really dreams at all. Page after page, the pace escalates as Laurel begins to learn the truth and plot her escape. But will she succeed? The Devil is in the details.
-
One Thing or Another Column: That Relaxed Fit Time of Life
Narration provided by Wondervox
By Mark McNease
I never did buy the bicycle I mention in this, and it’s just as well. I’m sure it would have gathered dust in the garage. I walk as often as the mood hits me, but I haven’t glided down the road on a two-wheeler in a decade or so. I’m still in a relaxed-fit stage of life, perhaps more so five years later, and it feels increasingly as if I’m exactly where I ought to be.It hit me recently when I was out looking for a new bicycle. I told the young man working at the store that I was mostly concerned with comfort. I’m not trying out for the Tour de France, and I don’t imagine myself riding in that event, unlike many of the people I see zipping around the New Jersey countryside with brand names on their backs and Spandex hugging them more tightly than a human ought to be hugged. I’m just a guy who lives in the woods and wants to get my heart rate up a few times a week by circling the back roads of my rural community.
-
Book Review: The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions, by Arie Kaplan
Narration provided by Wondervox
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions” by Arie Kaplan
c.2025, Wellfleet Press $19.99 255 pagesYour next free weekend is going to be excellent, knock on wood.
The moon will be in the right phase and there’s no Friday the 13th on the horizon, so you’re good. Your lucky socks are clean, you found two pennies this week, and a money spider crawled across your arm yesterday, yay! The weekend will be epic but first, read “The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions” by Arie Kaplan and good luck!
Baseball and football seasons are overlapping soon and if you’re not careful, your team might lose. Use your lucky cup, wear the same t-shirt each week, you can’t be too cautious – and bingo, you’ve just performed “a superstitious act.”
Sorry-not-sorry. Old wives’ tales, protective charms, talismans, obsessive actions, whatever you call them, superstitions and good-luck rituals are practiced in every society around the world, and it’s been that way for centuries – but why?
-
Savvy Senior: Where to Find Senior Discounts in 2025
Narration provided by Wondervox
By Jim Miller
Dear Savvy Senior,
My husband and I are in our 50’s and would like to know what resources you recommend for locating senior discounts, and what age do they kick in?
Frugal Fay
Dear Fay,
One of the great perks of growing older in America is the many discounts that are available. There are literally thousands of senior discounts on a wide variety of products and services including restaurants, travel and lodging, entertainment, retail, health, grocery stores, automotive services and much more. These discounts – typically ranging between 5 and 25 percent off – can add up to save you hundreds of dollars each year.
So, if you don’t mind admitting your age, here are some tips and tools to help you locate the discounts you may be eligible for.
Always Ask
The first thing to know is that most businesses don’t advertise them, but many give senior discounts, so don’t be shy about asking.
You also need to know that while some discounts are available as soon as you turn 50, many others may not kick in until you turn 55, 60, 62 or 65.
-
A House in the Woods 2: The Devil’s Due – Chapter 6 (Audio)
CHAPTER 6
Welcome to the episodic audio edition of A House in the Woods 2: The Devil’s Due. Fasten your headphones and enjoy one new chapter each week. You can find all the episodes here.
A House in the Woods 2: The Devil’s Due picks up where A House in the Woods left off. Laurel Calloway is still in the mysterious town of Strickland, New Jersey, where nothing is as it appears to be. Two years have gone by, and they’ve been good to the Calloways. Laurel and her husband Jeremy have a new house, and a new family with baby Isabel about to celebrate her first birthday. Everything seems perfect, until Laurel begins to have dreams. Bad dreams. Something tells her these dreams could really be memories. But of what? Of whom, and of when?
Did she really run over a woman in the road at night? Had they once had a dog? Why are these things trying so hard to surface, swimming slowly up from her subconscious? The more she begins to tell the people around her about these dreams, the more convinced she is that they’re part of it, and that these nightmares aren’t really dreams at all. Page after page, the pace escalates as Laurel begins to learn the truth and plot her escape. But will she succeed? The Devil is in the details.