TRAUMATIC CHILDHOOD HUMOR

As a little Boomer, one of my chores involved pushing — more like guiding, since it was self-propelled, after a fashion — a lawnmower something like #3304 in the picture above around our 3/4-acre lawn. Something like it anyway. Imagine #3304 and the red one nearby got together and gave birth to a monstrous love child. In recollection it was like the red one except that menacing blades protruded something like #3304 but without the little guide wheels or whatever they are. What I do remember is that it was heavy AF.

Guiding it around was a bear, and I…

GRACEFUL AGING

Everybody knows we had the internet in the ‘60s. We put on our beads & off we went. Except it wasn’t called cyberspace. We called it head space. Whatever. Except that we didn’t say “Whatever.” Whatever. In cyberspace everybody yells at each other and otherwise gets ugly, whereas in head space everybody stares into the vacant spaces in front of their heads and says things like “far out” while listening to psychedelic music.

The world needs more head space.

Sorry, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. I was supposed to be talking about the secrets of graceful aging and…

THE CRANKY OLD MAN CRANKS AGAIN

Opening my very favorite thing in the wide world, Medium, I see that number in the little balloon stuck to your profile pic, that is, the one that appears on my “following” scroll. Yes! I would not follow¹ you if I didn’t love, or at least like, your stories, so I go to your profile page to see what’s new. What do I find? Something new? I’m sure it must be there somewhere, but that monstrosity of current Medium fashion confronts me.

I am serious about that warning. I believe it is well written, introspective, and revealing but if you are squeamish do not tap it open. Instead, please move on to my next story.

Don’t

say

I

didn’t

warn

you.

ALL THE LITTLE STATE STUFF

As Susan Brearley pointed out in All The State Stuff, Rhode Island has a state mollusk, the Quahog. If you look at the Wikipedia article about Rhode Island you won’t find it so listed but trust me. The Quahog is the state mollusk. By extension,

State Sport: quahogging

As you must be able to guess, quahogging is the act of digging up quahogs from any of the innumerable fetid estuaries up and down our overly lengthy coast. I read somewhere that Rhode Island has the longest coastline/geographic area of any state, but if you know anything about math, more specifically…

By the Power of B.I.T.S.O.W.

Way back in the 1970s I took my undergraduate degree at New York University. As part of my English Composition 101 course, whatever it was called, we read George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language. Therein he proposed six rules for truthful and comprehensible writing. In this article I will limit myself numbers one, three, and four. For the sake of brevity, of course. Wait — this is a six-minute read? May G-d forgive me.

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(iii) If it is possible to…

Grumpy old men need a laugh too

You have no idea what it’s like, you kids. I come out here to do a little lawn care and what do I find? Unnecessary words scattered all over the place. I know I told you to lose them, but I didn’t mean lose them here. I’m not exactly Lawn Boy. I know I let it get a little muddy. Weedy too. Does that mean you have to leave your periods all over the end of my driveway?

I try to be nice about it. I explain oh so nicely why you shouldn’t clutter things up. I’m only trying to…

HUMOR FROM PLANET POTTY

Back in 2007, Sheryl Crow told everybody to limit toilet paper usage to one square per visit¹.

Ms. Crow caught considerable crap over this bit of too-earnest environmentalism.

My immediate thought was, wait a minute. Since, as a guy, I don’t always use toilet paper for #1, can I apply these saved sheets to my #2 trips? The idea appeals to my retired engineer’s inner geek. I’d have to keep a diary in order to determine my bathroom going number ratio, that is, #1/#2. I’d also have to include in my entries whether or not I’d used toilet paper for…