? It’s taken me a lot of my lifetime to acknowledge it’s much more important to have and keep friends, than to move conversation topics into politics and religion where I know from the start we don’t agree. We’ve been good friends of Tom and Irene for a few decades. I’ll admit it might help […]
I’ve been exchanging Jottings weekly for many years with Dick Milliman, and he sends me his columns, ‘The Almanack.? He’s owned several papers, from Grayling to the Indiana border, while being very active in Lansing. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was a recent topic of Dick’s. He wrote, ‘The public has not yet been told the ins […]
I was awakened at 12:35 a.m. on a Sunday morning recently by the sound of hot-rodders spinning wheels and racing engines with modified mufflers. I said to myself, “It must be spring!” I live on mile-long stretch of blacktopped road with few houses. It’s one of those roads, like Baldwin Road, that is a magnet […]
I predict this Jottings will compete for the most boring of the thounsands of columns I have written. (But, because it involves my brother-in-law, Ronald Smith of Durand, I feel compelled to write it.) Way back in the late 1940s, Ron and his wife Ethel, had a well drilling business. To find where to dig […]
When Pero the Shriner clown visited me recently, he gave me a book, ‘The Quotable Will Rogers.? You almost have to be my age to remember Will Rogers. Dubbed the cowboy philosopher, he was an entertainer, humorist, radio personality, actor and newspaper columnists who specialized in lariat tricks on stage. Here are three of his […]
Memorial Day (Decoration Day) is by tradition a practice to honor Americans who gave their lives for their country. With all the wars our country has been involved in, that’s a whole lot of Americans to honor. I haven’t missed many Memorial Day celebrations during my 59 years of small town (Michigan) newspapering. Let me […]
Car builders like General Motors, Ford, Chrysler (excuse me Fiat) and Toyota should have their advertising staffs study Victosa and other pharmaceutical company advertising. As you know, they often include warnings. At the end of the drug commercials somebody talking a million words a minute puts forth disclaimers like, ‘Don’t take this if you are […]
Recently, at the Oxford Rotary Club’s charity roast of me, I gave up my self respect and at the same time lost a lot of respect I had for the roasters. Something happens to these normally normal people when they agree to participate in a roast. They suddenly turn bitter. They rejoice in insulting the […]
You’ve gotta love some business owners? sense of humor. Especially when they display it very publicly on signs, bumper stickers and the like. At tire shop in Milwaukee: ‘Invite us in for your next blowout.? Outside a muffler shop: ‘No appointment necessary. We hear you coming.? Sign on the back of a septic tank truck: […]
? It lightens my day just seeing a bunch of kangaroos bouncing across a desert in some commercial. To the geniuses behind the ‘roo marketing: Trouble is, I don’t remember what they are advertising. Sorry about that. (No, I am not) ? Print media news writers? questions often become space fillers. But, they can be […]