This week, something happened that changed everything. Life is like that. Just when we get comfortable, there’s a phone call or a letter or a chance meeting and the ground shifts, the sky changes, and the world is different and can never go back to the way it once was. On Saturday, my wife sent in the card to subscribe to Yankee magazine, and we dropped our subscription to Southern Living. We have officially become northerners. Full Story »

I own the most aggravating, and therefore effective, alarm clock ever invented. It moves around the bedroom while I sleep, then shrieks like a jet engine every morning at 4:55. My wife has thrown it away three times, but it always crawls out of the dumpster and makes it way back to the table beside my bed. Yes, I hate it too, but it keeps me and my neighbors from being late to work.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m always late for other more important things. I didn’t learn the alphabet until I was 6, didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 20, didn’t graduate from college until I was 26, and didn’t find the girl of my dreams until I was almost 40. I fathered a son at 48, moved to Connecticut at 50, and became a reporter and columnist at 51. Full Story »

I love libraries, especially the old, creepy ones. However, most people don’t realize that libraries weren’t built to hold books. That was a function they picked up somewhere along the way, because they‘re hollow, have lots of shelves and are mostly waterproof. Libraries were built to house librarians, because librarians are the smartest, wisest people on earth, and who wants to be bothered by that? So we need a place to keep them away from the rest of us, and nothing does that so well as a library. Full Story »

Not long ago, a reader (not my therapist) asked me why I am the way I am.

“What do you mean?“ I asked back. “Because like everyone, there are two of me: the good me and the evil me. Which one are you interested in?”

“The evil you first,” he replied.

“That’s easy,“ I said. “The evil me is the way I am because I have an older brother.” Full Story »

I don’t want to be a whiner and complainer, but I’m going to whine and complain for a while. I’m losing my teeth! It’s 2010, for crying out loud, and not only do we not have flying cars and floating cities, we don’t have a way to re-grow bone below the gum line. My teeth are shifting and sliding like dancers in a slippery ballroom, or worse: two of the front ones on the bottom are gone. They just fell out, and the timing couldn‘t have been worse. I lost one while eating a banana. You read that right. I was enjoying a banana, a ripe banana, when one of my bottom teeth just wasn’t there anymore. And how lucky was I that I was on my way to a job interview in Myrtle Beach when that happened. I kept my right hand over my lower lip and mumbled through it. Full Story »

In April of 2004, mom decided it was time to clean out my old room, unoccupied and almost untouched since 1978. I was going to bring home what I could and toss the rest, so Nancy and I hopped into the truck, and made the 23 mile drive to the Hargrove Homestead. As we sped over the crest of Lookout Ridge, we came upon a peacock. He was standing in the middle of my lane, with his feathers out in a glorious display, impressing two pea fowls who were on the side of the road. The peacock didn’t see me. He was focused on the females, and his feathers ruffled and swayed, and undulated, and the females’ heads bobbed in appreciation. When my truck struck the peacock, the females fainted at the wondrous display.

“Well,” I said. “We’ve learned something today.”

“Yes,” said Nancy. “Peacocks explode on impact.” Full Story »

One Sunday night last year, I decided to try my hand at some of the math I didn’t understand when I was a high school student. Right away, I came face to face with a long-forgotten nightmare called the distributive property. If I read it correctly, the distributive property says that an expression such as 4 x (2 + 3) is equal to 4 x 2 + 4 x 3. Wondering if such an insight would ever prove beneficial to me, and deciding that it would not, I left the math book on the table and went to watch some television. But my timing was bad. Nancy had the remote control, and despite the pitiful stares I cast toward her, she wouldn‘t share it.

“What are you watching?” I asked. “Because the Patriots are about to play the Cowboys and they’re both undefeated.” Full Story »

I don’t know why I was so bad at wrapping presents. It was a skill I had never mastered, and the harder I tried the worse I got. I carefully observed my co-workers take a rectangular box, a sheet of paper, some tape and ribbon, and transform those simple elements into a masterpiece fit for Santa’s tree. It looked so easy. Full Story »

I love dogs and I love football, so 2007 was painful for me. But the thing that snaps my string beans more than the accusations against a certain professional quarterback, whose comeback is amounting to little, are the statements by a celebrity/cushion, who said dog fighting was a thing that happened all the time in the south. I found that statement puzzling. I lived in Tennessee for 49 years, and was never invited to a dog fight, never heard about a dog fight, and certainly didn’t know there was money to be made at a dog fight. Besides, we all knew that for sheer entertainment, a cat fight was the show of choice. Full Story »

Yesterday, Nancy asked if I’d look at the car because it was making a funny noise when she accelerated.

“Sure, I’ll put The Finger on it,” I said.

“Enough with the stupid finger,” she replied. “I don’t want you to put your finger on anything, I want you to look at the car.”

“All right,” I answered. “But I can look at the car from here. It looks fine. Are you sure you don’t want me to go out there and put The Finger on it?”

She mumbled something and wandered away. I looked at the car. It needed a wash. Full Story »

All right, all right. I’m ashamed to admit this, but confession is good for the soul, so here goes: I entered the Washington Post Pundit Contest. Yes, me, a good liberal, trying to write for the Post. The Post is conservative, right? I guess I should have looked that up, but it doesn‘t matter now. Was I sleeping with the enemy? No, of course not. I was just trying to get close enough to the enemy to give her my phone number, because she’s hot in a weird sort of financial way, and I wanted to impress her so we could hang out together with her successful friends. Ah, but she is a fickle tart, and she threw my heart and my entry away.

But I don’t believe in waste, so I’m posting my entry, my losing entry, here. They would only let me write 400 words, and for long-winded old farts like me, that’s barely enough for a decent introductory paragraph. But I digress. Here it is. Be gentle. And if you see Washington Post out there somewhere, tell her I’ll be all right. Someday. Full Story »

When it comes to managing money, some people have lawyers, some have accountants, and some have financial advisors. Me? I have a money fairy.

The money fairy came to me in 1986. I was at a yard sale in Tennessee, and stumbled upon a plastic egg that was marked at $5. That seemed a little stiff, but when I shook it, something rattled inside (an original Constitution maybe?) so I gave the seller five dollars, and she gladly handed over the egg, then took off at a flat sprint. Later that day, when I finally got the egg open, the money fairy came out. Full Story »

On October 31, 1989, I was teaching my 8th-grade reading class a good and simple lesson.
“In your writing, try to avoid absolutes,” I said. “Don’t use words such as always, never, and impossible. It’s much better to say something is highly improbable.” Then I sat back, smiled, and let the wisdom I had imparted settle upon their impressionable minds.

“But some things are impossible,” said Dan, who hadn’t said anything else all year. I was prepared for this. Full Story »

Now, any normal person could glance at me and see that I was a guy destined to play football. I looked like a football player, talked like one, and ran into things with a violence that suggested a natural linebacker. But I didn’t like football that much. Truth be told, I was just clumsy and always late. Hitting other people was OK, but getting hit by other people hurt. A lot. I was too cerebral for football, so I went to the Babe Ruth Baseball League tryouts for boys aged 13-16, and was drafted by the Elks Lodge, Post 1776. Full Story »

I’ve been desperately in love 79 times. I know that might seem kind of creepy, that I’ve kept count and an accurate count at that, but I still remember my first true love. Or maybe she was my second or third. Anyway, her name was Elizabeth, and I loved her the way all eight-year-old boys love: like an idiot. But if it weren’t for Uncle Tuesday and my crippling lack of balance, I just might have pulled it off. Full Story »

General McChrystal has warned that the United States needs to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan or risk losing that conflict. President Obama is now considering his report. I don’t know what the president will do, or even what he should do, but the whole thing reminds me of a story,.

Boys love to play war. Any guy who grew up before 1970 probably took part in innumerable skirmishes, doomed charges, and pitched battles. I fell in heroic fashion three times during the Battle of Tillman’s Apple Tree, a personal record. My deep fascination with playing war didn’t end until my third minute of boot camp.

But unlike the Union and Confederate forces at Gettysburg, we wouldn’t stage mock battles if the sun was too hot. We still played war, but in a more civilized fashion: with plastic army men. Full Story »

A guy I know once said: “People who teach can’t do anything else.” So I hit him with a chair.

OK, I didn’t hit him with a chair. It was The Dad, after all. Still. I was plenty steamed by his statement. But upon reflection, I realized it wasn’t an insult. I’m a teacher because I really can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. I enjoyed my time as a reporter, but I could see that newspapers were dying, and in defiance of one of The Dad’s favorite sayings, they were taking it with them. And so, after 15 fun and fulfilling months as a reporter and columnist at the Pictorial Gazette (1889-2008, RIP), I returned to the classroom. That is, I tried to return, but most classrooms in this state didn’t want me. Full Story »

Last week, I was in our town’s largest grocery store when my son asked if I would buy him a toy.

“I don’t have any money for toys today,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because I’m not lucky,” I said. “Besides, you have enough toys to start you own Kmart. Why do you need another toy?”

“I need another toy so I won’t scream,” he said. “If I scream, you won’t like it. Mommy doesn‘t.”

“I don’t understand. Do you want toys or ice cream? Joey, I don’t have money to just throw away. I‘ve never had money to throw away. Well, once I did, and it involves ice cream. You did just say ice cream, right?” Full Story »

If you stick around in this world long enough, you’ll see and hear things you never imagined. Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about angry atheists. What’s that all about? Anybody who doesn’t believe in God, has obviously never played mumblypeg.

When I was a kid, every guy I knew had a pocketknife. It was an essential part of our wardrobe, an accoutrement that helped us navigate a world that still didn’t have twist-off tops or cable TV. We needed pocketknives for fishing, to cut string, to whittle, and to play mumblypeg. Full Story »