Baseball was my thrill, my obsession, and my only darling. During the ever brief school summer vacation, I would spend every waking hour obsessing about baseball, circling the neighborhood, and pulling together a quorum of boys for a game at Crescendoe Field. Our game was slow pitch hardball. This was mainly due to the fact …
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, and curious amoebas, I stand before you today with an absurd purpose, fueled by nonsensical musings and an insatiable hunger for bafflement. Prepare yourselves, for I shall embark upon a convoluted journey of perplexity, where logic is but a distant memory and coherence takes an extended vacation. In this twisted …
Do things really go wrong at the exact, most inconvenient time possible? It seems that way in my life, even though statistically, that seems improbable. Why just today, as I was getting ready to walk out the door, my son called and told me that his car stopped running. What are the odds? I was …
My family owned various dogs, cats, hamsters, and guinea pigs over the years. There were two cats, Cinnamon and Blackie, Christie the short haired pointer, and Scamp the mutt. The most memorable of animals to me was a neighborhood mongrel dog named Spike. Spike was a largish, black and brown, thick furred dog of questionable breeding. …
Spike was a Dog Amongst Dogs and a Friend to Every Man Read More »
I recently happened upon a sonnet entitled “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus. About half way through, I realized that it was the same poem engraved on the plaque inside the Statue of Liberty. It is pasted below for your reading pleasure, along with my commentary Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering …
In the past few years, mainly since I have retired, I’ve felt myself sucked into the world of jazz. Oh, I’ve always been mildly attracted to it, mainly from the more jazzy side of rock music. Bands like Steely Dan have a pseudo jazzy feel, but I have since found out that the band is …
Listening to some old John Prine tunes on my streaming service and my mind drifts back to my late teenage years. I was an aspiring musician, albeit with a minuscule amount of talent. I had hooked up with an older guitar player and singer, who had taken me under his wing as a side man. …
How do others perceive me? I would probably never go so far as to say “Tell me what you really think” due to the fear that they might actually do so. I certainly know how I want others to perceive me, and have a mental picture of myself which is almost certainly distorted by my …
Truth be told, I am not a crook. My brief encounter with crookedness occurred when I was about eight years old. Thankfully, the benevolent powers that be did not send me off to reform school for my heinous crime. On the corner of Crescendoe Road and Perry Street, there was a marvelous little mom-and-pop butcher shop …
As I enter my sixth decade of life, I begin to wonder about my legacy. We probably all do a bit of this as we see our friends and classmates pass into the great beyond. Some even write their own obituary in hopes that they will be remembered in a positive light. Just today I …
