I hate dog movies. In dog movies, the good, loyal, lovable dog always dies at the end, and I end up sitting there in the dark with big tears streaming down my cheeks. No dog movies for me. Especially now that I have said goodbye to my canine pal of the last 14 years, my Cookie. Cancer had wracked her [...]
I see where a Dutch company is looking for volunteers to build a human colony on Mars. Pass. I guess I’m just not an adventurer anymore. Yes, I said anymore. At another period in my life I would have jumped at the chance to be among the first Earthlings to settle on another planet, to be a pioneer in the [...]
Baseball season is here and so our thoughts turn to cricket, a game that is just like baseball except for the myriad ways in which it is not. Cricket jumps up, so to speak, because there is a movement underway (as opposed to underfoot) to make Indianapolis, a city familiar to most of us, the Cricket Capital Of The World. [...]
It is getting to be Prom Season, so naturally my mind turns to memories of my own prom, back during the Flintstonian Era, when the Lakeland High School gym was transformed into a magical wonderland and the evening lived up to its theme, “Disaster Under The Stars.” No, not really. I think the theme was “Moonlight and Magnolias” or something [...]
I look around and I see a country divided, two sides facing off in bitter opposition, neither showing the slightest inclination to compromise or indicating any interest in closing the rift between them. I wonder: Is there any way, any way at all, to bridge the gap between Mayonnaise People and Miracle Whip People? No kidding: When it comes to [...]
We said goodbye to Mom the other day. Oh, no. Not that. She’s still alive and kicking. Watch your shins. It’s just that there’s so much basketball on TV these days that Mom has more or less disappeared. It happens every year. She plants herself in front of the set and doesn’t really emerge except for quick meals and infrequent [...]
Kind of a big-deal week going on for me right now. I’m having bariatric surgery. (Note: I hereby promise not to write extensively about the experience. Unless, of course, it means I can write something off on my income taxes. In that case, get ready for My Weight-Loss Surgery Travelogue. I have noticed that announcing my surgery to family and [...]
Occasionally I am seized by what I like to call “diabolical impulses.” These are not like your regular, garden-variety impulses, the ones that make you buy the candy bar from that display next to the cash register, or purchase that tractor I mentioned a couple of weeks back. A diabolical impulse can (A.) get you into trouble, (B.) forever alter [...]
There are advantages to getting older, and I’m not just talking about reduced prices on fried chicken when you eat supper at 4:30 in the afternoon. Chief among these advantages, in my view, is no longer having to worry because you don’t understand popular culture. This would have been the kiss of death, popularity-wise, when I was a young man: [...]
Did you catch this gem in the news? “Older people who see the glass as half emptyand who harbor low expectations for a satisfying future may be more likely to live longer, healthier lives than those who are more optimistic, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.” Great. Just as I was trying to renew my optimistic [...]
