As a Red-Blooded All-American Boy, I started riding a bike as soon as I could. Or more exactly, I started TRYING to ride a bike. I was six or seven and it was a daunting task, as my mother, who raised only RBAAB’s, refused to let me have training wheels. My mother was almost 40 when I ...

We use the word nemesis loosely, as in someone or something that annoys us. But, strictly speaking, it’s one’s agent of doom. It’s derived from Nemesis, the Greek goddess of retribution. And if you know anything about the Greek gods and goddesses, you can surmise when Nemesis retributed, ...

In my column two weeks ago, I wrote about my God-given talent of losing everything either not stashed in my safety deposit box or pop-riveted to my dupa. So now let me present the latest episode of The Great Lost Dope Chronicles. It stars my iPad, which vanished in the time between when I ...

According to the English poet Alexander Pope, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” But I’ll add a corollary, namely that a lot of learning can be even more dangerous. I know that doesn’t sound right, but bear with me, willya? A perfect example was a barfly who haunted the ...

One sad truth of my life is I lost stuff all the time when I was a kid; I keep losing stuff, and as sure as decaf ain’t worth squat, I’ll continue to lose stuff till the cows come home. My inability to keep track of my things (or if you prefer, my ability to lose almost everything) is ...

“The Merry Month of May” was the title of a poem written by someone named Thomas Dekker in 1599. I don’t know what May 1599 was like for Good Old Tom, but for me in 2025 it was anything but merry. Looking back, I see it as grey, cold, rainy, and about as merry as a five-mile funeral ...