I’ll be the judge of that
Well, here I am. On the west coast. I’ve never been here at this time of year. The “not really winter” time and the “not really spring” time of the year. The city I’ve grown to love, and consider my second home, seems dirty, grey and crowded—without promise. On the “correct- change-only #20 bus,” coming […]
Life’s Mysteries from the Twilight Zone
The Minnesota Twins spring training complex is located in the heart of Fort Myers. There are several baseball fields, a main stadium, and other locations for players to ply the trade. You enter the ball park off Six Mile Cypress Expressway, and you can park at any of the crossroads, named after the Twins’ great […]
Pushing and shoving
A good friend of mine said, “If you have a choice between being honest and being nice, be nice.” It’s pretty good advice and goodness knows I try to be nice, but what really works for my conscience is “being nice, with a side of honest.” Sometimes the honest part gets me into a spot […]
The twelfth century
The twelfth century saw the rise of city-states in Italy, which were originally outposts of the eastern Roman Empire of Constantinople. These states came into being by need of Crusaders requiring transportation to the Holy Land. At this time, the Mediterranean was a Saracen lake and the first city-states deployed fleets that preyed upon the […]
Take me out to the hockey game, please!
Forty years ago, I climbed a tower to the top of Big Walker Mountain. They said that you could see five states from that viewpoint. Since then, they have pared that number down to three. Thus I was able to see North Carolina and West Virginia, and I was standing in the state of Virginia. […]
Packaged goods
You’ve come a long way, baby. Remember that catchphrase? If you do remember it, you know, really remember it, then you’ll remember what it was all about. Cigarettes. Virginia Slims cigarettes, to be precise. Pretty smokes just for pretty babes. Apparently, in the late 1960s women were just waiting for a stylin’ cigarette to show […]
Cody McCormick
A perfect role The head honchos of the Buffalo Sabres huddled together about half an hour after their recent victory over the Florida Panthers. The teams had played evenly for four minutes and 55 seconds of overtime. Tyler Myers had slipped over the Cats blueline, and had blasted a slap shot at the Panthers’ net. […]
Outside the box
Last week we discovered the link between the English and their love of Bordeaux wines. The wine imported by the English wine merchants was known as Claret. This name was derived from the French word clairet, which was a pale or rosé wine. Claret was made in a similar manner as a rosé wine is […]
Of dead fish and stickers
The noxious green plastic package arrived in early January and sits on my desk like a dead fish. My tax return, needless to say. Perhaps to compensate, I have been reading my other mail more carefully. Fascinating things, those gas bills. And the mail I have been reading most thoroughly (I insist, I do have […]
Mother, father, sister, brother
Family. Family Day. One way or the other, we’ve all got family. Ya, you can deny it if you want, but you’ve got family. And what does a family really look like? Even today, a lot of folks don’t stray too far in their definition of family. When I was a kid going to a […]