Category Archives: Columns

Originally published in Keystone Motorcycle Press, December 2024 Paean. Probably a word Dick would not have been familiar with. Truth be told, every time I use it, I first have to look it up, to see how to spell it and to reassure myself of its proper usage. In this case, it’s the perfect word.Continue reading “A Paean to Dick”

Let’s see, I was probably age 13-15. That makes it about 1960. Some years before, my parents had given me an AM radio. It was brown plastic, with a big circular, lighted tuning dial and one of those fiberboard backs that allowed the smell of the heated vacuum tubes to vent through its holes. Somehow,Continue reading “Radio Days, Pt 1”

Every year, following the annual ordeal of reducing the mountain of mulch dumped in our driveway, I dutifully wash down the wheelbarrow and the shovel we roll out every spring to accomplish that task. Each time, I carefully rub a coating of oil on the shovel, least it rust during its long annual sleep. InContinue reading “Touchstones”

Just when you thought he was over, irrelevant at last, about to ride into the sunset, it looks like Donald Trump may make another mucus-slimed slide out of trouble and back into the limelight. We really thought we had him. All the legal pundits on MSNBC said this documents thing was the low hanging fruit.Continue reading “Trump Rides, or Slides, Again”

It wasn’t that long ago, in a conversation with our millennial familials, that I used the term “Oriental” in describing someone. Oi! One would think I’d uttered the actual name of God and that the Earth was about to be rent asunder. Apparently, unbeknownst to my wife and I, the term had entered the realmContinue reading “The “O” Word”

Generally my musings in this space run to a pretty uniform length. But this time I’d like you to consider just three images from the recent news. First, the whining and literal weeping of Gen Z’ers over their inability to spend hundreds, if not thousands, to purchase Taylor Swift concert tickets. Next, the news footageContinue reading “Giving Up?”

Maybe it’s a function of old age. Or it could be the tinnitus I trace to that earplug-less airboat ride in Florida many years back. But I am increasingly annoyed by the noise that permeates our culture. I’ve previously written how I love our nearby Target because they have no blaring music to accompany myContinue reading “Quiet, Please!”

There are times, happenings, even moments, in our lives that truly change their courses. When this thought recently occurred to me, I looked back on my 76 years and thought about the most significant in my own. Likely the first was when my father died. Funny, that Sunday he’d called and asked if we wereContinue reading “Deflection Points”

Having just gotten back from a trip to coastal Georgia and having my TV watching there bombarded by Ron DeSantis political ads from just over the border, I returned loaded for bear. People in the know told me what a mean, vindictive person DeSantis is, so I’m thinking that we might be better off toContinue reading “Crossing the Line?”