Contributors

 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 thou…

 This is the letter…

 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 gotta be honest: I gave a lot of serious thought to trying to lie my way out of this one …Dear Grace,When your father

 (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 …

 (578 words)I’ve …

 (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 parallel park.”That comes from me. Here’s the sum of my parallel

 (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 sigh…

 (478 words)Charlie…

 (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 bar by becoming a de facto dean of 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 co…

 • Legendary esca…

 • 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 illegally taken but doing it with island rhythms and bales of ganga

 (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 2…

 (849 words)The Pit…

 (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 believe he’s getting $5 million a year to play a