Most kids drown within 25 yards of an adult. Why aren’t they rescued? Because most of us have watched too many dramatized drownings on TV and have no idea what a real one looks like.
Driving Versus Steering
The ability to drive a shift is becoming a lost art. Or so we’ve been told by the smug automatic transmission fans who have been predicting the demise of the stick shift since the 1940s.
Terrible Tenants
“Be careful about rentals,” he’d warn. “It’s hard as heck to evict anyone.”
Fitbit’s Bid For Female Business
Will Fitbit tell Amazon to deliver a load of Midol and Tampax to your doorstep before you even know they’re needed? Perhaps they could stick a box of chocolates in there, too. And a heating pad.
Life Imitates Art
We’ve read about 336 books and drunk about 1,008 bottles of wine together.
Some People Love to Cook. Not Me.
I will do almost anything to avoid preparing food at home and I have my reasons. One, I hate to mess up my kitchen. Two, I don’t like food smells wafting around the house. And three, I detest leftovers.
Graduation Platitudes
What you see before you is living proof that C students really can land paying jobs and earn enough to eventually move out of the parental homestead.
Writer’s Block And Netflix
Would you rather watch the gloomy news or see Chris Rock and Seinfeld get a speeding ticket in a 1969 Lamborghini P400S Miura - “The most beautiful car ever designed”?
Royal Wedding Overload
Look, Harry and Meg are a cute couple. News commentators assure us “they’re very much in love.” I hope that’s true and I wish them every happiness. Yet I can’t help but wonder what James Madison would make of America’s love affair with royalty.
Noah’s Ark In The Air
I just flew to Memphis and back in absolutely packed Delta aircraft. The seats in coach were so cramped that our arms became useless appendages pinned to our sides. The aisles were so narrow, most folks had to walk sideways. You could barely breathe in there.
There wasn’t room for a Yorkshire puppy on any of my full flights, let alone a little pony.
There’s Something About Mississippi
Whether it was the magnolias, the lovely Southern architecture or the 10-acre Grove in the center of campus, I don’t know. Maybe it was the dean of students offering to walk us to the art department when we were lost. Perhaps it was the stories we heard about Eli Manning’s years there. Or the sweet reverence toward Faulkner and other great Mississippi authors.
Mom's Night Out
Since we didn’t know “the girls,” I imagined them to be a bunch of peroxide blondes who drank too much and danced with strange men. Every year, I worried that my mother would find the girls more exciting than our family and leave us to enter a childless world of smoky nightclubs and seductive music.
Must Be An Election Year At The Beach: No New Taxes
Ninety two bucks may be pocket change to Beach politicians and their Porsche-driving pals, but to the cashier at Kroger who drives a 20-year-old Chevy and works two jobs to support her family, that increase is painful.
“Fahrenheit 451:” Remake Has To Be Better Than The Original.
Ultimately, they splurged and found ourselves in a dark theater near Times Square. We sat in the middle of a row in this order: my father, my mother, my brother and me.
That’s important.
Living On A Volcano: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Five volcanoes. One tiny island. Sorry, not moving there.
May 7, 1998
“Daddy’s on his way to the hospital,” came the quavering voice of my mother. “He had a heart attack.”
Goat Cheese Is Heinous. Don’t Argue With Me.
Goat cheese tastes exactly like "Wilford Brimley's navel.”
Cacophony In The Sky? Or The Sound Of Freedom.
Once ensconced in a dilapidated 1930s North End money pit I enjoyed the quiet skies. For a while. Until the ear-splitting FA-18 Hornets came to town. And the Navy began to buzz my new house with them.
Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places
Facebook exercised such exemplary care of our personal information in the past, why wouldn’t we trust them with truly intimate stuff needed for a dating profile?