For every distasteful task and unpleasant chore, Dad assured us that “it builds character.” “The whole pig pen? You want us to shovel and scrape all the muck and gunk down the cement? Why? They’re just going to mess it up again.” “Mucking hogs builds character,” Dad said. I ...
Here’s what I’m getting you for Christmas: one sturdy piece of cardboard; one bottle of Elmer’s glue; one can of gold spray paint; and one box of elbow macaroni. Merry Christmas! It’s a rooster. Or a pig. Or a cow. Or whatever macaroni critter or creation your little crafter’s heart ...
Editor’s note: A little bug bothered Burt this week, so while he’s home taking a nap, we present this Cole Clasic originally published May 20, 1997. Use it as Christmas shopping advice. I believe the single, greatest gift my mother instilled in me was her philosophy for life, which can be summed up in this thought-provoking maxim: “For $5, you can wear them.” It was, at the time, a difficult truth to embrace. Now, I guide my whole life by it. Mom first declared this wisdom over the shoe bin at the “Last Chance For Sale Before We Shred it into Bedding for Aging ...
In fits of forced boredom, I used to ponder that age-old question of if a tree fell in the forest, and there was no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Or if a man speaks in a forest and there’s no woman there to hear him, is he still wrong? Coughs and sniffles have kept me at ...
My wife left me. But only for two weeks. “Do you miss me?” she asked in one of our nightly phone calls. “Absolutely,” I said, while muting the TV. I didn’t want her to overhear that I was watching wrestling, which apparently is “stupid” and “ridiculous” and “without ...
I came across an article the other day titled, “Energy, and how to get it.” I didn’t read it. Too much effort. I used to have energy. The pedal hit the metal by the time I was 2 and my energy didn’t ease off the gas until I was 22. Back then, I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning. ...
