Dude, let’s ease Gen Z on down the road to Funky Town

August 19, 2018

I read the other day that people born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s — today’s young adults — cannot fathom a world before the internet, cellphones and instant entertainment. They are Generation Z. Most likely, you will find them with their noses melded to a digital screen. I do not belong to Generation Z. I am from Generation Disco. My junior high and high school years were spent among polyester, elephant bells, medallions and chest hair. Get down tonight and take me to Funky Town. I’m stayin’ alive. And talk about technology, baby, we had it. Dig this — ...

Don’t forget to remember to forget so you can remember

August 12, 2018

Today’s column was going to be brilliant. I laughed out loud at the silly thought that popped into my mind. I sprinted through the house to relay the hilarity to Terry. “Oh, there you are,” she said. “What was the date of your cousin’s wedding?” “It’s, uh...” I sighed and dug the cellphone out of my pocket. “I don’t remember. But I think I stored it in here somewhere.” I flipped through screens and apps and pages. “Here it is. Oct. 12.” “Oct. 12,” she said. “I better write that down or I’ll forget.” She scribbled in the margin of her newspaper. ...

Column writing requires deadline, panic and disaster

August 5, 2018

Occasionally, someone asks me how I’ve managed to write a column every week for the last 25 years. Usually, that person is an insomniac hoping to be bored to sleep. “Panic,” I answer before he can drift off. “Panic and deadlines. And a good disaster.” It’s the deadline thing that sparks the panic. Remember when you were 8 years old and the week before Christmas dragged on for six or seven months? Sometimes, it took a whole year for that long, long week to crawl past. Not anymore. Now, when deadline’s involved, a week whizzes by in something like six hours. I’ve barely ...

Ocean critter, space alien or sea spider — octopus debate rages

July 29, 2018

Octopuses — or possibly octopi — came from outer space. That’s the word from 33 scientists who postulated their octopus ponderings in the March issue of “Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology.” My wife, Terry, has another theory — octopuses are spiders that fell into the sea and adapted. The scientific community as a whole remains rather skeptical about the space alien theory. Terry, too. “I’m telling you, they’re spiders,” Terry said. The thing about octopi — or possibly octopuses, or even octopodes — is there’s so much we don’t know about them. ...

How I spent my summer vacation — will there be cookies?

July 22, 2018

Remember those first essay assignments of the school year? Teachers tried to ease us kids back into the classroom drudgery by assigning us to write how we spent our summer vacation. It was the very topic most of us jabbered about right up to the ringing of the class bell. Now our minds were as blank as the fresh pages of line paper lying on our desks. Over the summer, we’d jammed and packed more adventures into our 10 or so weeks off than seemed humanly possible — games, picnics, bruises, trips, bike rides, broken bones, birthdays, swimming, snake hunts... Thing after thing, ...

Phone books had all the answers

July 15, 2018

I miss telephone books. They could level a chair with a short leg, help little kids sit tall enough to join the big people’s table at Thanksgiving, and they’d swat flies like nobody’s business. The coolest thing of all — they were chock-full of phone numbers. Or turn to the Yellow Pages and let your fingers do the walking to whatever business you needed. We never had to plug the phone book into a charger overnight. We flipped it open any time of day or night and all the numbers were displayed instantly. We didn’t even have to wait for them to load. Phone book delivery day ...