Hey, plants have feelings, too

Mr. Smarty Pants, Don Rush, only received an Honorable Mention in this year’s Michigan Press Association Better Newspaper Contest for Local Column Writing. The judges only said of Rush’s efforts: ‘These columns on local issues and people strike a chord with the reader.? Despite his lackluster performance in writing, Rush has taken the week off. […]

Don’s take on being a dad

I must say my stratiegery of brainwashing is (so far) going as scheduled. I’ll be honest, I am trying to influence my boys? lives to my way of thinking. Publicly, some dads say they plan to let their boys be boys, to let nature and the environment take their courses. Publicly, they say they don’t […]

Where others dare not tread

Watching the news reports from the war in Iraq, I (albeit a lily white guy from a lily white part of the world with no experience in matters abroad) have come to this conclusion: The take over has officially begun and in the war for the hearts and minds of Iraqis, we are winning. While […]

To Hollywood from Clarkston, via New York

‘I moved to LA in 2001 to pursue a career as a writer. Today, I took a significant step toward that goal.? This past spring, friends and family of 1986 Clarkston High School graduate Karen Barna received that message via e-mail. Barna landed a job as a staff writer for the Warner Brothers studio. The […]

Life can be such a bummer

Much of what happens at home and around the world — commonly referred to as life — can be summed up in one word. Bummer. Which is not to say life is a bummer. Even when you are living a George Baileyesque wonderful life like me, bummer things happen — your car needs towing, your […]

Bush and Kerry and elections, oh my

Give me a Y. Give me an I. Give me a K. Give me an E and a S, what’s it spell? Yikes . . . Yikes! YIKES! Now that the two parties in control of politics here and across the nation have had their weeks in the spotlight all I can say is, yikes. […]

Hot damn! I got a stye in my eye!

Last week I got some great news. News that had me whistling happy tunes, snapping my fingers and tapping my toes. I had a stye in my eye — left to be exact. That’s it. That is my happy news. I went to the urgent care center in Oxford, sat down on the table-bed thing […]

What does a bear do in the woods?

Let me start out by saying, I feel its pain. What do I have feelings for? It’s something rather large, warm, fuzzy and cuddly (just like me). It is a bear — a bear that was found passed out in a campsite after a night of binge drinking. Seems to me, I vaguely remember a […]

Meow

Now that Walter Elias Disney’s influence on the multi-faceted corporation that bears his name is finally waning (Walt died in December, 1966), I think I have a new Disney movie plot. My movie would be called That Damn Cat! Of course, my movie would not be like one of Walt’s last, That Darn Cat! which […]

Thank you, sir

He is so young. That was what my mind contemplated just before I shook the soldier’s hand. In that nanosecond before our hands touched I didn’t really know what to say — the young man in front of me was a stranger. The people surrounding him in the park’s pavilion were his family and friends. […]