For the record, none of these “tweets” ever appeared on Twitter. I’m fed up with Musk. Tired of the repeated password exchange. Done with reading news about blue checks, etc. Still, these are best described as tweet-like, so …• SnapChat, Instagram, TikTok — 10 years ago none of us had ever heard of these. Now, […]

 (754 words)An admiring student of mine flattered me by saying he wants to become interesting “just like me.”At least I think he was admiring. He could have just been very adept at brown nosing, a tactic I’ll fall for every single time. Bona fide flatterer or skillful butt smoocher, it all has the same effect: […]

 Dog (Snickers) on left from back when he was a remote-sized puppy.  No reason for posting. No reason at all. Enjoy your weekend!• I’m so conditioned to every innovation being related to snack foods that when I heard Elon Musk was promoting brain chips, I thought, man, I hope he makes some with sea salt […]

 This is the letter I wrote to the 10-year-old girl, an aspiring writer, after she gave me the only copy of her 22-page handwritten book to review and I lost it.I had her father read it first. I thought there was a chance he’d hit me. Instead, he got choked up and shook my hand.I […]

 (578 words)I’ve said before that a father teaching a daughter to drive is like a warden teaching an inmate how to escape.So as of yesterday it was, “One-Adam-12! One-Adam-12! We have an APB for a female 16-year-old known to come to a complete stop even at desolate intersections. Suspect exhibits pathological disdain for having to […]

 (478 words)Charlie Appleton, the extraordinary newsman, would have frowned at all the adulatory words being used to mourn the passing of Charlie Appleton, the ordinary family man. And just the sight of the word “adulatory” in a scrappy newspaper would have set him off.He came from the man-bites-dog school of news gathering, but then raised the […]

 • Legendary escape artist Harry Houdini could extricate himself from a straight jacket in just 4 minutes and 9 seconds. I have to imagine escaping from an LBGTQIA jacket would be much more time consuming.• Restitution is the act of restoring ownership of something that was illegally taken. The act of restoring something that was […]

 (849 words)The Pittsburgh Pirates made a bold move when they signed veteran superstar and beloved former Bucco Andrew McCutchen.I love Cutch. Besides being an outstanding Pirate centerfielder from 2009-’17 and league MVP in ‘13, McCutchen plays the game like a kid. He laughs, he jokes, he cheers his teammates and generally cavorts like he can’t […]

 (932 words) I turn 60 today. That’s what my driver’s license says so it must be true. The number is vintage enough to provoke friends into telling me I’m only as old as I feel.  It’s a charming concept, but I’m old school.  In fact, I’m so old school I’m willing to concede that any […]

 (757 words)I hadn’t been on a blind date in more than 30 years. I wasn’t seeking companionship. I wasn’t needy or desperate. My life was fulfilling. And then there was this:I was married. Had a couple of kids. A dog. The whole nine yards (and, no, none of the nine yards was mowed, raked nor […]