In 1967, The Who performed on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. At the end of their second song, “My Generation,” the band begins destroying their instruments, as they were wont to do. Amid this destruction,…

On Saturday, I’m standing at the counter at my local bank, waiting for a teller to help me escape a particularly challenging corner of red tape hell. A man approaches the teller to my left.…

Want to know how to annoy kids of all ages? When they ask you for your favorite number or color, tell them you don’t have one. It completely disrupts their understanding of the world. For…

On a flight to Washington, DC, earlier this summer, Clara, who talks to everyone, mentioned to the flight attendant as we were boarding that Charlie loves aviation and hopes to be a pilot someday. Less…

Follow-up on the letter I received from customer representative Dora C. on the Pirate Booty quandary. If you’re not aware, I wrote to the makers of Pirate Booty earlier this year asking if the name…

A couple of years ago, I was playing golf with friends in Bermuda. We were standing in an elevated tee box, Atlantic Ocean to our left, condominiums to our right, and a large fairway down…

I did not attend the Patriots home opener on Sunday. It was the first home opener I missed in two decades. Instead, I was officiating the wedding of the daughter of a friend. It was…

As an elementary school teacher, I have made it my policy for two decades to avoid commenting on a student’s physical appearance. A student’s appearance should be the last thing of concern to a teacher,…

Every year since the fall of 2011, I’ve posted an annual list of my flaws and shortcomings online for people to read. I’m a weirdo. I know. It was a tradition born initially from spite.…

A couple of weeks ago, while playing golf with Gus, he told me: “Tell those teachers to ignore the nonsense in the news. The crazy gets the attention, but for every crazy person, there are…