Ezra's Essays

Month: September 2012

  • DON’T FORGET YOUR CHANGE

    In Missouri where I come from, we don’t like fanciful titles or road signs.  The main highway leading from St. Louis to Clayton, Missouri, my home town, is called Clayton Road.  It is so called because it goes to Clayton.  Similarly, in the suburbs of St. Louis there was a road called North and South. …

  • BOA CONSTRICTORS REDUX

    [A quite note from Kevin — This is now the third essay in this, er, saga. Check out parts one and two first. Part one was about both dicks and snakes, part two was mainly about dicks, and now part three concerns primarily snakes.] ~~~ The word redux is a fancy one and it simply…

  • SYNONYMS FOR THE MALE UNMENTIONABLE

    Over the past few days or weeks, I have been negotiating with an entrepreneur who wishes to establish a new website for the purpose of making my essays available to all of mankind.  I view this as a means of spreading the gospel to all four corners of the world.  You can find it at…

  • JOHN EAMONN THE EIGHTH

    This week there is a ground-breaking aspect to this essay in that it is being dictated before breakfast.  Of the nearly 700 essays that I have written, this is the first one to be dictated without anything in my stomach.  More than anything else, this essay is to commemorate the birthday party that was given…

  • MITT AND WILLIE

    The principal characters in this essay are Mitt Romney, the Republican aspirant to the presidency of the United States, and a fellow called Willie Nelson, who is a singer of folk songs.  My memory is that Willie Nelson is perilously close to being 80 years of age. The knock on Mitt Romney is that he…

  • RETIRING RETROACTIVELY

    The network news broadcasts and the politicians are attempting to determine what was meant by Mitt Romney’s saying that he had retired retroactively.  I fancy myself a wordsmith but I am thoroughly baffled by the use of the term “retired retroactively.” The case in point involves Mr. Romney filing papers with the Securities and Exchange…

  • CHRISTIAN MINGLE

    I rarely listen to commercials broadcast on television.  One recently caught my attention.  The title is “Christian Mingle.”  Under ordinary circumstances, when I have some curiosity about a commercial, I ask the sponsors of the commercial for some detail.  In this case, I do not desire to get involved with Christian Mingle because I suspect…

  • LEARNING TO DANCE

    Earlier today I dictated a small essay having to do with Polk salad.  I identified that as an essay which had a nostalgic ring to it.  It involved my mother and her habit of gathering the Polk weed or vegetable in the early springtime. I was raised largely as an only child.  All my siblings…

  • COPENHAGEN SNUFF

    At the moment, I am involved with this essay on the horns of a modest dilemma.  The dilemma has to do with the Republican Party whose candidate in the year 2012 in all likelihood will be Mitt Romney. As it turns out Mitt Romney is a Mormon.  This may be hard to be believed in…

  • A.W.K. UND STALIES

    As most of you are aware, I spent a good part of my time with the Bell System in the field of labor relations.  The management of AT&T, principally Verne Bagnell, decided in July of 1951 that I should become a management employee.  There were two moves in the future to Kansas City and then…