Category: April 2007

  • AN ADOPTED GRANDPA

    Over a long span of years, I have been a son, a brother, a grandson, a husband, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, and a brother-in-law. Over that same span of years, I have been a filling station attendant, a soldier, a telephone worker, a union president, a lobbyist, and an international telecommunications representative. But…

  • FLAGS AND ANTHEMS

    Haggis is a meal consumed by Scots on ceremonial occasions. I use the word “consumed” advisedly because it is impossible to imagine that anyone would actually enjoy eating haggis. To prepare haggis, it is necessary to have a sheep’s stomach into which are poured quantities of oatmeal as well as the sheep’s kidneys, heart, lungs,…

  • THE PENTAGON’S EASTER SURPRISE

    On Good Friday, 2007, which was April 6, the Pentagon leaked the information that 12,000 National Guardsmen would be activated and called to service starting early next year. They will be sent to Iraq and will serve at least one year there.* There are some significant thoughts about this development. This will be an involuntary…

  • A NICKEL’S WORTH OF NOSTALGIA FOR OLD GEEZERS, FOGIES, AND CODGERS

    The speech patterns of my parents had Elizabethan overtones. For example, if my mother were to be told that her seventh child had become an Anglican priest or a Baptist Bible-thumping preacher, she would have fainted. Upon regaining consciousness, I am certain that she would have said, “Well, I swan!” The term “swan” is an…

  • ALBERTO’S FORGETTERY

    On April 19th, the Attorney General of the United States appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the firing of eight prosecutors. In five hours of testimony, the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, was not very helpful in that he said on more than 70 occasions, “I can’t recall.” Two weeks earlier, his…

  • EATING OUR OWN SEED CORN

    Informed citizens such as myself believe that the earth is completely flat. We also have an unshakeable belief that Joshua did in fact stop the sun. If that were untrue, why did he write about it in the Bible? Please see Joshua, Chapter 10, Verses 12 and 13. The flat earth doctrine and Joshua stopping…

  • “IT DON’T MEAN I DON’T”

    It has been 71 years and three months since I last saw Miss Maxwell, my eighth grade teacher. That period has passed with little lament from your old essayist. For most of the boys in Miss Maxwell’s eighth grade class, I think it would be fair to say that if the lamentable and regrettable period…