There’s way too many things to worry about

Newscasts start with, ‘There’s breaking news!? Newspapers? headlines scream: H1N1, Unemployment Rises, Storms, Too Many Potholes. All are meant to startle listeners and readers enough to drive us to drink, then the headlines will read, ‘Drunkenness on the Rise! Well, don’t let me change the mood. Here’s a Sunday headline: ‘Group says 17,291 species threatened […]

Pledging Allegiance this Veteran’s Day

In late June, 1945 I asked my mother if I could volunteer for the U. S. Navy. One brother had been in the Navy since 1943, another in the Marines since 1944. She said I could. She told me later she didn’t believe I could pass the physical. I was six-foot, four-inches and weighed 152 […]

Will Rogers? life; roping, quipping, acting

‘The income tax has made more liars out of people than golf.? — Will Rogers. I’ve been using comments from Will Rogers for over 20 years. It occurred to me recently that fewer and fewer people know who he was or what he did. In 1935, Rogers was killed in an airplane crash in Alaska […]

Something for nearly everyone this week

? Dove, the soap maker, has a new lotion, Deep Moisture. Their commercial claims other lotions just lay on your skin, and they show a woman lathered up in a shower with her clothes on. They make that sound like that’s a bad idea, but speaking for an old single male, that kind of showering […]

We’re a bad news lovin? people; media knows it

The media, including this one, way too often see the glass as half empty. Bad news sells. Gossip is in and always has been. People say, ‘I don’t want to hear about it,? all the while cupping their ear. The unemployment rate in Michigan topped 15 percent, and nationally it’s over 10 percent. When is […]

We’re a bad news lovin? people; media knows it

The media, including this one, way too often see the glass as half empty. Bad news sells. Gossip is in and always has been. People say, ‘I don’t want to hear about it,? all the while cupping their ear. The unemployment rate in Michigan topped 15 percent, and nationally it’s over 10 percent. When is […]

A story with a moral, and incidental stuff

Once upon a time there was a sparrow that delayed too long in deciding to fly south. A freezing rainstorm finally persuaded him that he’d better get going. Four hours later, nearly half frozen, heavily coated with ice and totally exhausted, he plummeted to earth. A passing horse almost stepped on him, then paused and […]

Aging is for grapes, and they just hang around

It was like any other day. I put the bacon back in the toaster, the muffins in the freezer and the orange juice in the cupboard. Doctor, that medicine you gave me for my dog Shayna, isn’t working. So, I tried a few doses myself. Didn’t stop my itching, either. I’m not aging gracefully. Speaking […]

Udder nonsense and other stunning items

Here’s an item to make all Michigan State University grads proud. I attended MSU for just one semester and feel a tinge of pride myself. MSU has a W. K. Kellogg Biological Station in Hickory Corners, where robots milk the farm’s 100 productive cows. When told of this my sister said, ‘I hope they warm […]

Some humor, tax woes and the tomato season

I watch the Comedy Channel more than ESPN. I’d much rather smile than cringe, take humor over the sports ego-trippers and retire at least semi-happy rather than irritated. Oh, I watch a lot of sports when favorite teams are playing, but I get more pleasure from ‘Seinfeld? reruns, Jeff Foxworthy and his crew and pure-mouthed […]

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