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 […]
Delicious desire
It is fascinating to establish the connection between Bordeaux and England. You may recall from an earlier column that, in the 4th century, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Bordeaux area had suffered incursions by both the Goths and the Vandals, who were just passing through. The Visigoths later resettled the area. It […]
NFL Hall of Fame
Inductees of 2011 “Turn out the lights! The party’s over!” Those were the words of “Dandy” Don Meredith, a former Dallas Cowboy. Every Monday night, when there was no doubt in the outcome of a National Football League contest, Meredith would sing that tune, horribly. The Super Bowl party is over in Dallas. The Packers […]