At 58, I like to think I’m still a hip, happenin’ guy. But as it turns out, I’m not. Out of 20 “old school” behaviors that a USA Today article says positively no one does anymore, I still do 12. Possibly 14. But definitely not more than 16. Okay, it’s 18. For instance, I still
This recent headline caught my eye: “Woman Falls to Her Death While Taking Photos at Eagle Falls in Lake Tahoe.” That’s been happening a lot in recent months, and especially since the invention of the selfie. “Oregon State College Student Falls to Her Death from Cliff While Taking Pictures.” “Grand Canyon Tourist Falls 1,000 Feet
Moon Dimple, my back-home pal, recently called me. When I answered, he asked, “How’s it goin,’ sexy?” “Fine,” I answered. “But why are you calling me sexy?” “Because you were raised in the U.P. like me, of course. Didn’t you hear the news?” “Apparently not.” “Some big survey said the Yooper accent is the 14th
The best moment of the past month was seeing the first-ever image of an actual black hole 55 million light years away. How amazing was that? That’s the kind of thing that restores my faith in humanity. We can be really, really smart and cool when we want to be. One news report described
One of the things the lovely-yet-formidable Marcia loves most about me is how I’m always generously sharing fascinating news articles with her, regardless of what she’s doing at the time. For instance, the other day, I said, “Listen to this: These researchers at MSU say dogs’ personality traits are shaped by their owners, and
March is the most loathsome of months – not quite winter, not quite spring, tiresome, gray, gloppy and useless. A month to just get through and onto better things. In months like these, comfort food is needed, even when it comes to magazine columns. You – poor, sun-deprived, cabin-fevered you – probably don’t have
A recent New York Times report said internal Facebook documents indicate that Mark Zuckerberg’s Frankenstein monster, despite promises to keep our info private, in fact, shared and traded it – including our private messages (let that sink in) – with other Silicon Valley giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo!, along with media conglomerates and
Relax, America. It’s okay to talk to your neighbors again. I have proof that we are not as hopelessly and irretrievably different from one another as our ongoing political differences would suggest. What is this proof? “Michigan roads suck.” That’s one of the comments that came to me from readers all over the state
When it comes to the English language, there are three rules that newspaper reporters typically follow: Never use an Oxford comma. If you don’t know what that is, I’m reluctant to tell you in case you’ll start using them, but what the heck: An Oxford comma is the comma that sick, twisted minds insert
People who have read my column for a long time often ask me if I make up the stories I tell about my family, especially the lovely yet formidable Marcia. For instance, I once wrote about the day she phoned me at work and frantically cried, “Hehp eee!” “What’d you say?” I replied. “HEHP EEE!”
“The last one is finally out of the house.” That’s what I’ve been telling people in a jokey sort of “guy” way, with the emphasis on the word finally, as if I simply couldn’t wait for this moment to arrive. But I don’t mean a word of it. When we dropped off Henry, our youngest,
Think we don’t agree on anything anymore? Fine, let’s fix that … Recently, I asked readers to send me examples of things, no matter how basic, that most people – no matter who they are – can agree on. I did this for me. I’ve been truly dispirited lately about how angry and divided the
