Archive for October 2021

Perhaps you’ve heard that a certain person refuses to get vaccinated in order to play professional basketball because he’s “doing what’s best for me.” This same person also believes that the world may be flat. I’d like to humbly suggest that we should talk about him far less often based upon these two things. If…

In a recent post, I mentioned that I became the subject of an article in a medical journal after canine scabies managed to burrow under my skin. That’s a delightful sentence. I was asked if I could elaborate on this incident. Here is the story. Back in the summer of 2012, Elysha and I thought…

Charlie, age 9, has begun writing his next edition of The Francis Drive Weekly, a less-than-weekly newspaper that he distributes to neighbors on our street. Hearing about the latest edition, Clara, age 12, asked if she could place an ad in his paper, promoting her mother’s helper services. Charlie and Clara then began negotiating the…

I played golf with my friend, Rob, yesterday morning. Happily, it was just the two of us, because watching us play would’ve been painful for anyone to see. I played my worst round of golf all year, unable to strike the ball with any authority. I lost four balls over the course of 9 holes,…

I’m a New York Yankees fan. I grew up in the Boston area, deep in the heart of Red Sox country, but I hated my stepfather and enjoyed annoying my brother whenever possible, so early on, I decided to become a Yankees fan. I would tune the television to New York’s channel 11, which carried…

Big week for Charlie. Earlier in the week, he came home with his trumpet, and with just two lessons under his belt, he seems remarkably adept at playing it. His tone is good and his stamina is already impressive. He’s been walking all over the neighborhood, trumpet in hand, playing it constantly in between playing…

Back in August, I made a list of my 18 visits to the emergency room throughout my life, which included: 2011: Bay leaf caught in throat (ambulance) Readers asked about this item, wondering what the hell happened. Here is the story: In the fall of 2011, Elysha and I were having lunch with one of…

Author Gary Paulsen passed away yesterday at the age of 82. Paulsen was a young adult author best known for coming of age stories about the wilderness. He was the author of more than 200 books over the course of his storied career, and he also wrote more than 200 magazine articles,  short stories, and…

Last week I wrote a post complaining about a couple who posed for a piece on the supposed trend of solomoons or unimoons, criticizing both their yearlong honeymoon and their willingness to publicize the existence of their yearlong honeymoon, which included three months apart, in the New York Times. My storytelling friend, John, reached out…

This photo, taken in September of 2004 at Camp Jewell in Colebrook, CT, was handed to me by a fifth grader last week. “My mom wanted you to see this,” she said. Her mom is sitting in the front row of the photo, all the way on the right, huge smile on her face. She…