Home Sweat Home. That's what the wall hanging said. It was obviously crocheted by someone living in a home without air conditioning or by a fabric artist who eschewed spellcheck. Coming home is the best part of most vacations. Home is that place where you keep all the junk you might use one day, but probably not.   Home is where you can eat over a sink, yell for … [Read more...]

I grew up happily roaming gravel meant for travel, because I knew that one day, I’d be flying my own car like George Jetson. I dragged my dented fenders through an airport. It’s a battered backpack in slightly better condition than I was. I felt like I’d been built from recycled parts, Play-Doh, silly string, silly putty and duct tape. There was a time when my mother … [Read more...]

When I was a little boy a couple of years ago, I wore clip-on ties to church. I wore a bow tie or a necktie. A clip-on tie is a bow tie or necktie that is permanently tied and worn by attaching it to the front of the shirt collar with a clip or a band around the neck, fastened with a hook and eye. I preferred a bow tie if there was a chance of eating soup, plus it looked … [Read more...]

The car ahead of me was plodding along. It was moving a mile an hour faster than if it had been parked. The driver apparently found driving the speed of a herd of turtles to be invigorating. He was accomplishing as much as if he were milking a Plymouth Rock chicken. As an impatient teenager, I would have mumbled in the direction of the aggravation on wheels, something … [Read more...]

I checked the weather. I should have checked my blood pressure before I checked the weather. The weather report was dire. If I were a crack meteorologist, I’d predict bad weather every day. That way, if we didn’t get bad weather, everyone would be happy because we’d dodged the bullet. If we got bad weather, everyone would think I was a crack meteorologist whose Magic 8 Ball … [Read more...]

It was March 4th. I followed the instructions and marched forth. I do what my calendar tells me to do. I dug to the back of the Greek yogurt shelf because I avoid the front items on grocery shelves. Someone stopped to greet me. My brain had logged out due to inactivity. The friendly man’s name had slipped my mind. I’ve reached the age where I’m incorrectly mistaken … [Read more...]

I like movies. I grew up during the Dark Ages. They were the grim times before cat videos were available 24/7. Cat videos were then available 0/7. Social media consisted of papers tacked to a strategically placed bulletin board. I spent my boyhood in a home with three TV channels and zero TV remotes. There were three movie theaters within a comfortable driving … [Read more...]

My mother put another shovelful of instant coffee into her cup. “Have fun at school,” she said.   Fun? How could we have fun? We couldn’t even Google anything yet. A school bus was bliss and despair on wheels, a consistent and reliable conveyance to amazing learning opportunities. Serenaded by the sounds of a door opening with a mechanical clunk and creak, I boarded … [Read more...]

“How many miles do you have on your car?” I told him. It was a substantial number. “It’s almost broken in,” I added in a feeble attempt at cleverness. The man chewed on that for a moment before saying, “It’s almost broken.” That was unfair. It’s a dependable car. The good kind of dependable. I’ve had a dependably bad car. Each time I shoved a key into the ignition, … [Read more...]

Farms were evacuated. A national emergency was declared. You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Your next stop wasn’t the Twilight Zone. Everyone and their yellow dogs were going to Allis-Chalmers (AC) Day. It was even better than getting the Christmas wish book, a 600-page … [Read more...]