Category: Humor

THE SNEEZE (FROM “LESSONS LEARNED: FIFTH GRADE TRILOGY”

SEPTEMBER 11, 2020 – I learned three memorable things in fifth grade. The first concerned sneezing. Until then, I’d never given sneezing much thought. When I had to sneeze, I sneezed. My sneezes were normal. They didn’t scare the cat or cause my arms to flap. And they didn’t produce improbable sounds—nothing like BZZZZZKK! which …

“DartMOUTH”

AUGUST 8, 2020 – On our recent trip to Connecticut, we passed through Middletown, home of prestigious Wesleyan University. My wife, who’s traveled far but never resided outside the Midwest, pronounced it “Middle-TOWN.” “I think it’s ‘Middle-TUN,’” I said. I knew this mainly because my oldest sister, an alumna of Connecticut College in New London, …

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MONEY

AUGUST 1, 2020 – Yesterday morning brought to Hamburg Cove my oldest sister, from Boston, and my youngest sister, from New York—each exactly a two-hour drive away. For the rest of the day, we enjoyed together this Eden midway between two major metropolitan centers of the country and a short boat trip to the Sound, …

THE UNHAPPY CAMPER (PART I OF II)

JULY 1, 2020 – Many hardy, nature-loving Minnesotans make annual pilgrimages to the million-acre BWCA (“Boundary Waters Canoe Area”) along the Canadian border. I’m not among them—the pilgrims, that is.  Instead, we make regular pilgrimages to our family’s lacustrian Shangri-La in northwestern Wisconsin, south of Lake Superior and well south of the BWCA. Before my …

TRUTH IS IN HUMOR

JUNE 26, 2020 – I have four nieces who are stand-outs.  One is also a stand-up—Erica Rhodes, comedienne-extraordinaire.  Based in L.A., she’s performing this week—live and via Zoom—at the Acme Comedy Club in Minneapolis. In her routine she pokes fun at uncertainties about Covid-19, saying, “No one knows anything anymore!” Her comedic statement reminds me …

“WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?”

JUNE 23, 2020 – People reacting to the recent rash of statue sackings fall into three groups. First: angry folks pulling down symbols of racism—symbols erected by very white, very dead white . . . women (surprise!) who’d organized themselves in 1894 as the United Daughters of the Confederacy, primarily to build all those statues. …

I’M YOUR MAN . . . IF NOT YOUR LAWYER

JUNE 9, 2020 – Yesterday I read about “the cop’s” first court appearance. Upon seeing his lawyer’s name—Eric Nelson—I thought, “Here we go again!” I just can’t get away from Nelson—or from the other downtown Minneapolis lawyer, Eric Nilssen—who . . . get this . . . is the new Minneapolis City Attorney. These incompetent …

STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES (SAYS OR THINKS)

MAY 13, 2020 – A person doesn’t have to look far to see “stupid.” Even if one hasn’t checked the news lately, one can do a “self-reveal.” Specifically, recently when I asked (stupidly) our four-year old granddaughter what she thought made “Grandpa look so old” (she’d been joking that I looked old), she said spontaneously, …

OR . . . USE EARPLUGS

MAY 3, 2020 – With ample time now on hand, I figured it was now time to clean house, er, “garage.” Ours had long rivaled the Caine’s. They were the family that lived in a modern, flat-roofed house at the end of a long drive on a large river lot directly across the street from …

“JENNY WREN” AS JUVENILE DELINQUENT

APRIL 28, 2020 – Recently my wife observed that in these times the neighborhood sounds like the neighborhood of our childhood—ours, not our sons’.  Young kids are playing outside, making lots of old-fashioned noise.  My wife thinks this is good.  I suppose so, except when I’m trying to read out on the porch and the …

THERE’S ALWAYS TOMORROW

APRIL 16, 2020 – As the world struggles with The Virus, we’re learning that the spread of an invisible, highly contagious pathogen is as big a threat to humans as humans are to humans. But this attention-grabbing contagion is doing lots more than making people sick.  It’s revealing in stark fashion many of the flaws …

GOING NUCLEAR: A SURE SIGN OF STRESS

APRIL 4, 2020 – As is the case with everyone these days, I’m learning how to deal with stress created by The Crisis.  Yesterday, I discovered some “deep breathing” exercises. By the time it had occurred to me to search “deep breathing” online, the sun had slipped under the horizon, and the outside temperature had …

TAKE THREE: “APRIL FOOL’S!”

APRIL 1, 2020 – Even in crisis, maintain humor, especially on April Fool’s Day. On this day eons ago, our two sons devised what they thought was a brilliantly hilarious prank. In fact, it was brilliant in its simplicity, but hilarious only to our sons, since my wife or I was always on the receiving …

“SCAM LIKELY”

MARCH 24, 2020 – The nation’s wireless networks deploy a technology that alerts you to a call from a number in a vast database of suspected scam artists. Such a call is alerted by the caller ID, “SCAM LIKELY.”  I do a double take whenever “SCAM LIKELY” lights up. For a nano-second, I think, “Who’s …

SPACE TIME SPACE

MARCH 20, 2020 – As “seniors,” my wife and I are of the “at risk” group for covid-19. Accordingly, with cautiously executed exceptions, we’re self-isolated.  Waiting things out amidst all the knowns, unknowns, claims, data, missing data, apparently reliable information and obviously bogus information, I’ve nailed down one certainty: our imaginations thrive during a crisis. …

QUARANTINE COACH

MARCH 18, 2020 – Yesterday, I enjoyed a long-distance conversation with Dean, one of my brothers-in-law. I introduced my blog-followers to Dean last September (see The Dean of Readers – 9/16).  For newcomers, he’s wheelchair bound by multiple sclerosis. His mind, however, soars freely and far beyond his physical limitations. He and my oldest sister …

PSYCHIC HUMOR FOR SOBER TIMES

MARCH 14, 2020 – Yesterday my wife informed me that the psychic Sylvia Browne had predicted all of this—“this” being the corvid-19 pandemic. Apparently, Ms. Browne envisioned in 2008 that in 2020 a respiratory illness would rage, then disappear as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared.  A decade later the contagion would reappear with a …

PARTY TIME

February 21, 2020 – I have a plan for the Democrats. It goes like this: Just before Super Tuesday, the Las Vegas “debaters” plus Steyer hold a conclave–and create a huge media buzz around it. Then on the day before the multi-state primary, they hold a prime-time press conference. The group strides in led by …

MEANS OF REMOVAL

JANUARY 28, 2020 – Contrary to common assumption, not all who disdain Trump want his removal by impeachment/conviction.  Why not? Vice President Pence. ’Tis far better to defeat the regime by a landslide in November. But how? By a good piece of theater, as in . . . MEANS OF REMOVAL ACT I – “SLAPSTICK” …

(FREEZING) MAD

JANUARY 11, 2020 – It started with a paper cut.  Yesterday at my office, I picked up the phone and sliced my fingertip on a sheet of paper in an untidy stack next to the phone. The tiny cut drew blood. Later, every time I pulled my mitten on or off, my finger cried, “Ouch!” …

ALL SOUPED UP

JANUARY 3, 2020 – For Christmas my wife gave me a soup cookbook. Yesterday, I tried my luck at “Lentil Soup with Lemon.” The signature benefit of my initial soup project was heightened appreciation for people (starting with my wife) who can prepare a whole meal.  Because the recipe involved vegetables, it involved chopping, and …

A PRAIRIE HOME CHRISTMAS

DECEMBER 1, 2019 – Yesterday evening while my poor wife coughed at home, I ventured to Pantages Theater in Minneapolis for Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Christmas. It was a brilliant show: Rich Dworsky at the piano, with the Guy’s All-Star Shoe Band; Tim Russell and Sue Scott as “the voices”; Fred Newman at sound …

DID HE OR DIDN’T HE?

JANUARY 23, 2019 – Awhile back I was hiking across my usual terrain in Little Switzerland . . . the golf course in nearby Como Park. Near the foot of the hill I call “St. Moritz,” I encountered a lost golf ball. I know it was lost because no golfers were anywhere in sight. Initially …