I’ve never done much trick-or-treating. At Halloween, I dressed up in an old sheet with holes cut for eyes, or wore a fragile, plastic mask with elastic strings that broke quickly. I wore my costume to the school where I got candy – everybody got the same candy and traded it with others. We bobbed for apples, which gave everybody the chance to catch the latest illness going … [Read more...]

When meteorologists talk too often of freezing temperatures, I break out the book Winter for Dummies. This book, which exists only in my mind, covers scary things from the good old days that were done to prepare for the bad old winters. Many of them involved cars, affirming the importance of automobiles in our lives. Jumper cables (booster cables) were put in a trunk as part … [Read more...]

He had run a good race. His name was Dr. Harold Williams. He was a pilot, professor at Auburn University, operated a charter fishing boat (catching salmon and halibut), owned a sporting goods store, and served on the board of the American Bald Eagle Foundation in Haines, Alaska, with me. Actually, I got to serve with him. He had a PhD from the University of Colorado. Some … [Read more...]

By Al Batt In a strange and distant land, in the long-ago year of 1962, a man asked Bob Dylan how he should dry his laundry. Dylan answered famously, "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind." Dylan turned that answer into famous song that posed a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war, freedom and laundry. There you have … [Read more...]

By Al Batt I had decided what I was going to wear for Halloween. My costume will be a gas pump. That will throw a scare into anybody who provides profits for the petroleum industry. The truth is that I haven't gone as anything other than myself at Halloween in eons. I figure I'm frightening enough. Not having to decide on a costume left me with time to do something I'd … [Read more...]

I had fixed a leaking sink. I had retrieved items from tall grocery shelves at the request of two shoppers. I had easily opened plastic produce bags to put my apples in one and tomatoes in another. How did I do those incredible things? The sink repair was due to experience and luck. Success requires good luck. I grabbed the items from the tallest shelf because of genetics. … [Read more...]

By Al Batt Now that I'm the youngest I'll ever be, I've become a person with ambition. I did some minor sink repair, which required me to get down on all fours. I've realized that I've reached the age where I don't kneel without a plan to get back up. Did my reaching the pinnacle of human achievement by fixing the sink impress my wife? No, but it surprised her. The small … [Read more...]

By Al Batt A family member was inducted into something great. As her name was announced, I stood and gave a loud whistle. I'd have done more, but I wasn't sure what the rules allowed because she was one of the first to be introduced. It turned out I could have stomped, screamed and made a complete fool of myself, generally behaving as if civilization had passed me by. A … [Read more...]

The tire blew. It was louder than loud. I was waiting to walk across a road when a truck pulling a flatbed trailer carrying a backhoe had a trailer tire blowout as it went past me. The world became quieter. It reminded me of bowling. Before pickleball, there was bowling. Our phy ed teacher, in an effort to oust us from our opaque corners, decided our steep learning … [Read more...]