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GO SPERMIES!
As I approach the centennial of my birth, one would think that mellowness would settle around me. That is not the case as sharp elbows and abrasiveness still abound within my soul. It was in one of these moods of contrariness that I began to think of religion in my home town of St. Louis.…
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A FURTHER MEMORY OF BLONDIE
A few weeks back, I produced an essay called “Memories of Blondie” which had to do with my thoughts about my older daughter. It seemed to be well received, so I thought one more memory would be in order. Blondie has a sister who is three years younger than she is. Her name is Suzanne.…
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THE THIRD RAIL SQUARED
When someone speaking to me works the phrase “critical mass” into a sentence, this illiterate mangler of words tends to believe that there is a degree of condescension in the conversation. It is much like a former AT&T colleague using the phrase “pro-active.” My impulse was to say, “What the hell does that mean?” But…
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RANDOM ENGLISH LANGUAGE MUSINGS
This morning I managed to cut my leg in a minor manner. When I assured all concerned that the leg would not have to be amputated, I simply said, “It is all right. It just smarts.” I suspect that the use of “smarts” in that sense must have reappeared in my vocabulary after an absence…
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THE HOT STOVE LEAGUE BLUES
Hundreds of years before I became an essayist, there was a grand summit meeting held on the grounds of what would eventually become the Buckingham Palace in London. It was attended by all of the reigning gods, kings, archangels, head rabbis and prophets, as well as by the leading preachers and politicians of the day.…
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LONELY TOWNS
Donald E. Wass was a fellow that you should not have known. Mr. Wass was humorless in the extreme. He was a low-level supervisor in AT&T’s Engineering Department in St. Louis. His responsibility caused him to have frequent conversations with other engineers in New York. Those conversations were so loud that work in the rest…