I have two walnut trees in my front yard. Every year I engage in a multi-month skirmish with the resident tribe of squirrels. Over the 17 years we have lived here, I have employed several techniques to protect my crop: some legal, some sporting, some questionable. The cumulative scoreboard shows me somewhat ahead (to be […]
Category Archives: Humor
Midnight Fantasy in Sevilla
June 11, 2015 – 5:59 am
In the summer of 2002, on a vacation in Spain, Ann and I were in Sevilla, walking back to our lodging after a typically late dinner. It was midnight, but the twisty, cobbled lanes were not entirely deserted. As we entered a three-way street junction, lit only by a few faraway home lights, two young […]
Father’s Day in Australia
September 7, 2014 – 3:26 am
It’s Sunday, Father’s Day in Australia. Looking for lunch on the South Coast of NSW, we see a sign for a bistro. It appears to be housed at the Coledale RSL, so we pull over. Many cars. Many people. What’s an RSL? We have no idea, but we vote unanimously to give it a look-see. […]
On Balance
July 21, 2014 – 11:25 am
There is very little to recommend California’s Interstate 5 except straightness and speed. In a midsummer’s sunset somewhere south of Buttonwillow, I am rolling at 80, glazed by oncoming lights and nearly listening to bad luck and worse love on a Country FM out of Visalia. I lift, drink, and am down to an inch in […]
Gas(p) Prices!
July 17, 2014 – 9:27 pm
After a terrific cioppino lunch at Duarte’s Tavern in Pescadero (the huge quantity of crab paired extremely well with the wallet-slimming price), my wife and I motivated south on California’s Highway 1. She was driving. I was marveling at guano-encrusted rocks jumping up from the seabed. It was a bright blue day, and we were in our Prius, […]
Motivating Your Children
August 3, 2012 – 7:58 am
Posted on the refrigerator. ‘Nuff sed. – – – – – – – – – –
Are Milk Duds Duds?
June 5, 2012 – 2:44 pm
I think this will bring a curl to your lip…you tell me whether it’s a smile or a sneer. I am working on the website for the second book in the Cheesie Mack series: Cheesie Mack Is Cool in a Duel. The book will be released later this month. In this book, Cheesie wonders…since the […]
A Teenager Selling Shoes
July 14, 2011 – 9:06 am
Marty Stein and Benny Silverstein operated shoe stores in Oxnard, my California childhood’s small town. Marty’s store (Kirby’s Shoes) was on A Street’s east side, right next to my father’s men’s & boys’ clothing store. Benny’s store (GallenKamp’s Shoes) was directly across the street. Marty carried a marginally higher-priced line, but in a town that […]
No Sunglasses, No Service
May 23, 2011 – 12:30 am
I know a woman (she shall remain nameless) who loses her sunglasses repeatedly. A retired attorney, she is neither careless nor insouciant. It just happens. And each time her cheaters go AWOL, she reacts with dismay and a bit of self-directed anger. Then, after a mourning period shortened imperatively by the next glary day, her […]
Bridget over troubled Waters–1
December 11, 2010 – 10:14 pm
So that the world’s level of good humor may be raised, Violet Charles, my cartoonist/illustrator daughter, has inaugurated the Bridget over troubled Waters comic strip. For all the panels, go to the Bridget over troubled Waters website.
