Last week, I wrote about my career in musical theater. It was as uneventful as it was short — five nights as a literal walk-on in “The Music Man.” I was in our long-gone summer theater, tooting away on my trombone, as part of the “before” group of incompetent marching band ...

The summer of ‘62 marked the peak of my musical career. It happened in a performance of “The Music Man” that I played perfectly. Then again, it was impossible NOT to be perfect, since the script called for me and my fellow bandmates to play atrociously. First, some vital ...

When people ask me where I grew up, I tell them I haven’t — at least not yet. But then I tell them I was born here, have spent all but 10 years of my life here, and if I have any say in the matter, I’m gonna shuffle off this mortal coil here. Looking back, I’d say I lived a ...

Something amazing about language: We speak it, we read it, we write it ... and we know doodle-squat about it. And more’s the pity when it comes to English, because I find its length and breadth fascinating. For one thing, if English were a dog, it’d be a mixed breed — in other words, a ...

Last week’s column was about one of my hobbies, etymology — the tracing of word and phrase origins. One of the words I mentioned was “Hoosegow,” a word for “jail,” which I heard in the cowboy movies of my childhood. But it wasn’t used only in cowboy movies; apparently, it was ...

Last week’s column was about one of my hobbies, etymology — the tracing of word and phrase origins. One of the words I mentioned was “Hoosegow,” a word for “jail,” which I heard in the cowboy movies of my childhood. But it wasn’t used only in cowboy movies; apparently, it was ...