One of the coolest things about being a humor writer is that if you get busted at work scrolling through memes on social media, you can claim it’s research. Not that I’m not confessing to anything. In a completely unrelated matter that I don’t care to explain, let me share some of my ...

A mystique used to surround people who were in charge. I knew that to be put in charge of a group, business or sovereign country, a person met the highest standards and strictest credentials for stellar leadership and impeccable decision-making. That illusion shattered the first time a boss ...

Whatever happened to the humble but loveable handkerchief? I don’t mean the fancy square of silk decorating a suit jacket, nor the monogrammed Sunday handkerchief that showed up under Christmas trees. I’m talking about a big ol’ pocket rag meant to mop sweat and carry snot. For us farm ...

The mending pile is where good clothes with small problems go to die. It’s like prison for pants — you might see them again in three to five years. Most serve a life sentence. “Sweetheart, can you fix this hole in my pocket?” I called out from the bedroom. “Quarters keep rolling ...

Editor’s note: Humor columnist Burton Cole’s father, Frank A. Cole Jr., passed away peacefully Tuesday at the age of 89. Today, Cole is rerunning a column that was published Feb. 1, 2015, as a birthday present to his father. Today my dad celebrates his 82nd birthday, and I think it’s ...

Punctuation can get you punched. It doesn’t matter if it’s good punctuation or bad. I’ve irked people using either. There was the time that I was suckered into working on a group project to produce a document. They brought brains and ideas. I fixed the commas and apostrophes. “An ...