“Get outta the car, Mabel. It’s goin’ over the cliff.” “Now, why do you want to do that, Wompus. It’s a perfectly good SUV.” “It ain’t gonna be in ‘bout three minutes. Everybody who watches teevee and the Internet has seen this car and are pointin’ at us in ever’ town we been to […]
A Different Drummer: Of mice tails and men
Fishing report: good. Just got back from a fabulous four-day fishing trip in the Sierras. Last week I shared my trepidation and uncertainty about still being able to fish after a healthy childhood of fishing followed by 40 years of dabbling. Could I reconnect with my fishing muse? Did I still have what it […]
A Different Drummer: Raspberry Pi and I
MY DAUGHTER KRISTI TEXTED ME A MONTH AGO WITH A CRYPTIC QUESTION. She wrote, “Tyler wants a Raspberry Pi. Should I get him one?” Tyler is my 10-year-old grandson. I didn’t immediately respond because I didn’t know what the heck she was talking about. I knew, by the spelling, it wasn’t food. I quickly Googled […]
A Different Drummer: What children need
Here’s a possible irony. I’ve never done the clinical studies, but I’m betting that if you ask most children who do not value school and education what things they do value in life they will list concepts like freedom, free will, independence, and no one telling them what to do. People should be free, they’ll […]
A Different Drummer: Thinking chairs
Gino, Susan, and I were sitting in the garage on a hot Wednesday sunset cooling off on the couch and chairs from old Don’s apartment, talking about retirement plans. We kind of went in a circle sharing our aspirations. All three of us partially want some mystery in our futures. We want to let the […]
A Different Drummer: I’m seeing dots
I HAVE BEEN A BUSY BOY. After a long slogging winter, I’ve finally shaken off the homebound blues and taken to my shoes. When I look down at my phone calendar, the little gray dots scattered across dates that signify a TO DO of some sort have finally started to appear on the weekends. For […]
A Different Drummer: Old dogs, new tricks
OLD PEOPLE BEWARE. The day may come where you will have to purchase a new television or new car. Then, if you’re not a technology wonk, expect to have your world turned upside down and lose tufts of precious hair above each ear from the grasping and the pulling. I’ve written about my new television […]
A Different Drummer: The Pac-Man solution
How many times have you faced a problem or a series of problems and once you mulled it over and considered all your options, your final best-guess decision to solve your problems would be to purchase a 1980s vintage-style cocktail-table arcade game? Yeah, me neither. At least I didn’t have those sorts of problems for […]
A Different Drummer: Breakfast
JOHN SAT ALONE AT A WIDE REAR TABLE at Gray’s Diner sipping his second cup of coffee. He still sported a sore ankle from stepping off the curb two days earlier trying to move out the way of four girls coming the other way who insisted on walking side by side. The bell above the […]