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Burton Cole column

Dear Morning Person, please go back to bed!

My Uncle Tom was one of those annoying people who popped out of bed in the morning like a breakfast pastry from the toaster. Only instead of fruit filling, he was filled with energy and jokes, with an icing of a sunny smile and merriment in his eyes. I avoided Uncle Tom in the morning. To be fair, I avoid pretty much everyone in the morning, but I especially hide under the covers from Pop-Tart people. I want to slap them with soggy pancakes. It was the great philosopher Punit Ghadge who said, “Keep the dream alive: Hit the snooze button.” If it wasn’t for the fact that I have ...

Prepping for winter, one Oreo at a time

This is the time of year when people get concerned about how much they’ve been feasting the last month — Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Tuesday, etc. We’ve been packing it in and packing it on. Do not panic! There is no need to sign up for a gym membership. You weren’t going to go anyway. Nor is there any need to do something insane, like go on a diet. It’ll just make everyone around you miserable, because they’ll have to put up with your grouchiness. Let me remind you, it’s January. Winter. And adding a few pounds of protection simply is nature’s way of ...

New Year’s questions that gray my hair

Mark Twain once said of fellow author Rudyard Kipling, “Between us, we cover all knowledge; he knows all that can be known, and I know the rest.” There’s great wisdom in that. Like Twain, I, too, am pretty handy with things that can’t be known. Why do I focus on what can’t be ...

Thoughtful shopping without leaving your recliner

It’s the last weekend before Christmas, which has me thinking — I’m thinking that it’s almost time to round up a bunch of thoughtful gifts to give. The best part is I don’t even have to put on pants. I can recline here in my easy chair, tap a few keys, scroll through a few screens, ...

When? I’ll get to it precisely at — later

What is it about detail people? If I tell you I’ll get back to you later, that’s precisely when you’ll hear back from me — later. I don’t see how I can be any more exact than that. Yet some persnickety people insist on knowing the time, down to the minute. My late wife — and the word “late” applies a couple of different ways — was gifted a watch commemorating something that her family called “Terry Time.” For Terry, time was relative. She’d get there when she got there. The face of the watch features Mr. Relativity himself, Albert Einstein. And the ...

Remember, just keep on driving, keep on driving

I don’t mean to brag, but I drove somewhere without my GPS. And arrived where I meant to be. Without getting lost once. Seriously. This would be ho-hum news a few decades ago. Then technology began erasing our memories. Not erasing, exactly. More like replacing. When I was a teen, I carried a Rolodex of telephone numbers in my head. Then I gained a smartphone and lost my smarts. Since the phone remembers all the phone numbers I need, I can’t recall more than a couple of digits on my own. The GPS did in our brains a similar disservice. In the old days, if I didn’t already ...