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"Forever stamp" or Jehovah Witnesses?
March 30, 2007If you want to give your newborn child or grandchild a really nice gift, buy stamps.
A thousand bucks worth of “forever stamps� can mean a real savings on down the line.
The new “forever stamp� costs 39 cents.
For your thousand, you can buy 2,564 stamps.
If the cost of stamps continues to rise -- like it has in my lifetime, here is what will happen.
By the time the kid graduates from high school, those stamps will have turned a 66 percent profit.
By the time he gets a real job, the profit will be 166 percent.
By the time he has a child of his own, it will jump to 300 percent.
By the time a second child comes along, it will be 400 percent.
Those 2,564 stamps are now worth 12,820 stamps.
And by the time that little baby grows up to be an old man like me, that number will have increased to 35,050 stamps.
While in the year, 2067, his friends are paying $5.57 to mail a letter, thanks to you, it is costing him only 39 cents
Since I was born, a postage stamp has gone up in price 1,266 percent.
And, come May 14, there will have been 19 different price increases.
I think the comedian Gallagher may have had the best idea.
Gallagher used to say that Instead of paying all those postmen to deliver our mail, why not let those Jehovah’s Witness people do it.
Heck, they show up on your front porch every day anyway.
They might as well deliver the mail.
Posted by at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
If a tornado hits, I have a game plan
March 29, 2007With the chance of tornadoes in town yesterday, the editor scheduled a meeting to come up with a game plan on what we here at the paper should do.
Because I had an interview scheduled at the same time, I wasn’t able to attend the meeting.
But having lived and worked through the 1979 tornado, I already know what to do.
Hug the commode.
Pray a lot.
Then head to work.
I missed the first part of the plan back in 1979 because I was at the Texas Rangers’ season opener in Arlington when the big one hit Wichita Falls.
But on that long drive back home, I did a whole of praying.
Then headed to work.
That last part is a bummer, but if you are in the newspaper business, it comes with the job.
We didn’t put out a morning paper on April 11, 1979 -- the only time that I know of in the 100-year history of the paper that we didn’t.
No electricity. No telephones. No game plan.
Thanks to Southwestern Bell, the Dallas Times Herald and a whole bunch of dedicated journalists here at the Times Record News, we did have a paper that afternoon.
Southwestern Bell rigged up one phone line here at the paper so that we could have contact with the outside world.
Although an angry managing editor slammed down that phone to bitch out a reporter that afternoon, the phone company was nice enough to fix it again.
We reporters banged stories on standard typewriters and dictated them over the phone to people at the Times Herald.
The Times Herald also sent writers and photographers up here to help cover the big story.
My small part in all of that was to cover what had happened at the National Guard Armory the night before. It served as a storm shelter for a lot of lucky people.
That same managing editor who angrily hung up our only workable telephone during the crisis had come in earlier that day and declared that it would take our city at least 25 years to recover from this disaster.
It only took a year or so before we were up and running again.
After that first day working as a reporter. I served as news editor of the Times in the long weeks and months after the storm,
In fact, I wrote the award-winning headline “Storm without Pity.�
The period right after the storm was the closest this paper and our community have ever been.
People in town counted on us to provide them with important information every day -- where to get loans, where to get water, where to find clothes and food and shelter.
The newspaper was vital to their everyday lives.
Every day we came to work knowing we had a huge responsibility.
Nobody was bitching the paper being too conservative or too liberal.
Nobody was laughing and calling us the Times and Wretched News.
Unlike some others in West Texas, we here in Wichita Falls survived yesterday.
In fact, we have survived a lot of yesterdays the past 28 years.
Yet we never know what today or tomorrow may bring.
But it brings a tornado, this old guy know exactly what to do.
Hug the commode.
Pray a lot.
Then head to work.
Posted by at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Is idiocy a requirement for vice presidents?
March 28, 2007As goofy as our current president is -- it could always be worse.
We could have the vice president running the show.
For the most part, vice presidents are idiots.
Dan Quayle couldn’t spell potato.
Al Gore invented the Internet.
Dick Cheney shot his hunting buddy.
The United States has had 46 vice presidents.
Only 15 of those ever became president.
Five of those were never elected into the oval office but got there only because the president didn’t’ finish a four-year term.
The reason that only 10 vice presidents have ever been elected president is because once the country gets to see one of these idiots in action for four years, we decide we sure don’t want him running the show.
One of the 10 who was elected -- Richard Nixon -- lost one election and had to wait eight years to get in. That gave us a lot of time to forget what a dope he really was.
Vice presidents should show up at dinners and funerals that the president doesn’t want to go to. He can preside over the Senate but for the most part just sits there and looks stupid. Thank God he can only vote in case of a tie.
“24� is now showing us just how dangerous it could be having a vice president making big decisions.
With President Palmer in an induced a coma, Vice President Daniels is in charge and seems intent on starting World War III.
Come hell or high water, this VP is going to nuke the Mideast.
Even though Jack Bauer is out there catching the bad guys and trying to save the world, this idiot VP gave the go-ahead for a nuclear submarine to take out Muslim Land
He said he wants it to be “a reminder to the world there are consequences to attacking our country.�
Now all of us have probably thought something like that a few times.
But we didn’t actually have the authority to pull the nuclear trigger.
This VP does.
But at 8:58 p.m. -- two minutes until next week -- President Palmer is out of a coma and on the phone with his VP -- telling him he is resuming his authority as Commander and Chief and ordering him to call off nuking Muslim Land.
This really pisses off Daniels.
At 8:59, he tells everybody that the president is not thinking clearly.
“Get me the attorney general,� he orders.
Next week, he will be told that the attorney general is busy firing nosey lawyers and can’t be immediately reached.
The world is saved from the loony VP for at least one more week.
.
Posted by at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Town gossip strikes again
March 27, 2007An open letter to the town gossip of Hooterville Falls:
As of 8:20 a.m. CDT today, March 27, 2007. neither I nor Carroll Wilson has been fired by the Times Record News.
So quit telling everyone that we have.
I am not going to call you by name.
You know who you are.
Heck, everyone knows who you are.
I used the phrase “town gossip� at lunch Monday, and every person in the joint called out your name.
You’ve got quite a reputation, my dear.
But I guess the gossip about me being fired is much better than spreading around a lie that I had at gerbilostophy.
That one did in my old weatherman friend years ago.
Did you start that one, dear?
Probably not, but I bet you helped spread it.
Told all the people you ran into that you knew someone who worked at the hospital who saw the little gerbil crawl right out of the guy’s hiney.
Pat yourself on the back if you played a role in spreading that gossip, dear.
By noon, everybody in town knew someone who knew someone who was related to someone who personally witnessed the gerbil extraction.
You helped ruin a man’s life, my dear.
That should be a grand slam for slanderers like you.
Posted by at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Remembering the 50's in Hooterville Falls
March 26, 2007“Seventy years are given to us.
Some even live to 80.
But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble;
Soon they disappear, and we fly away.�
That was the way Moses looked at life in the 10th verse of Psalm 90.
The best years of my life were the 50’s.
I was only 3 when the decade began and 13 when it ended.
But those 10 years brought us TV, rock and roll and Marilyn Monroe.
And a “letter to the editor� from Jerry Self last week reminded me of all the fun times guys like me and him had growing up in HootervilleFalls in the 50’s.
Self’s list of memories were:
Junior high school: It’s hard to describe what a rivalry Reagan vs. Zundy was back then. I am 60 years old and I still hate the Zundy bums.
M.B. Corral: Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino --- and yes, even Elvis -- played in that old building. But my best M.B. memory was still Bob Wills.
Elvis in concert: I missed it and don’t know how.
Wichita Falls Boys Club: Monk Barnett; swimming nekid and wearing that card around your neck at all times.
Weeks Park Golf Course. I didn’t play golf back then, but I remember those dances in the clubhouse. We called it the Shack.
KMA Ditch: I wonder whatever happened to Beatrice Trevino.
Westmoreland Swimming Pool: Shirley Bates in a bathing suit.
Sand Beach Swimming Pool: That cool slide.
The WFHS Coyotes. In the 50’s, it was the WFSH Coyotes. Two state championship football teams and a lifetime of memories from Coyote Canyon. Oh, yeah, the WFSH was changed to WFHS after I graduated so the high school wasn’t confused with the state hospital that had the same initials.
Fillmore Hill. I found my thrill. . .
The Auditorium Hill. Sliding down it in a cardboard box was our hometown version of the Winter Olympics.
Seymour Road Drive-In Theater. And the Twin Falls, the Twin Shepherd, the Scottic, and the Grant Street Drive In.
Wichita River. It is still there and brown as ever.
Coyote Canyon: See the WFHS Coyotes.
Wichita Falls Spudders: Sitting with the knothole gang on left field line and cheering for our heroes. I still know the names of the entire starting lineup of the 1956 Spudders. Whatever happened to Don LeJohn?
Northside: Estep Drug Store and August Fried Pies.
Dog Patch. I lived on 34th Street for a few years. It was outside the city limits at the time and just a short walk away from Haven Park.
Wichita Falls Country Club. Never went there. Way too poor.
Downtown. The Hub (Subway downstairs); Muehlbergers; Sammy’s Hut; Tower Theater. Kress.
P-4: Nothing has really worked in that location since. Remember Evelyn Fisher?
Lester’s Hickory Inn. Both my mama and daddy worked there at one time. Best steak in town.
Frisco burgers. Gene’s were good, but Jimmy Brown made ‘em better than anybody.
Shuffle-In. the basement of the Downtown Y. I actually did a limbo there one night. Never again.
YMCA. Ping pong heaven. Do you remember the little snack bar inside with cherry phosphates?
Red River Drag Strip: Eddie Hill is still the king.
Long drive to “Boys Town� and back. 277 south through Seymour, Munday, Haskell, Stamford, Anson, Abilene, Bronte, San Angelo, Christoval, El Dorado, Sonora and Del Rio. The “Number 8� was a lucky number for a lot of young boys.
Posted by at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Hooterville Falls not just a 'fast food' town
March 23, 2007Chef’s Table went belly-up this week.
Surprise, surprise, surprise!
The restaurant on Maplewood was open about a year and a half.
I never went there.
A buddy ate there right after it opened and told me it was way overpriced.
Having grown up in Hooterville Falls, I understand that “overpriced� here often means more than five bucks.
But from what my friend said, Chef’s Table was just a plain and simple rip-off.
Not a smart idea when you’re located on the same side of the street as a Pioneer. And really two Pioneers, when you throw in Fat’s steakhouse.
But the owner didn’t’ blame location or high prices on his failure.
Instead, he criticized Hooterville Falls for being a “fast-food supporting town.�
Every town in America is a “fast food supporting town.�
That’s why there’s a McDonald’s and a Taco Bell on every street corner.
But if you have good food at fair prices and friendly service -- there’s a good chance you will make it here in Hooterville.
Just look at Casa Manana.
This family-owned Mexican restaurant has had the worst location in town for more than 50 years.
But it’s still going strong.
And P-3.
Here’s a restaurant that has two or three tables in its non-smoking section and provides a smoking section for 90 percent of its customers.
They haven’t changed the seat cushions in their booths since the Eisenhower administration -- although they do turn them over every couple of years.
But the famous enchiladas with French fries on one side and cole slaw on the other are the best.
And the chicken fried steak is great.
And it’s surrounded by little beer joints and located right up the road from a bunch of salvage yards and a peep show.
Bar-L:
Barbecue, Humphrey burgers and chicken livers.
And cold red draws to wash it down.
Location: Across the street from the mission.
Branding Iron.
They close after lunch every week day and about 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
But right before they open up each day, there’s a line waiting outside.
Great barbecue will do that.
Parking stinks and the location is next door to Tommy’s House of Music. And surrounded by a bunch of hole-in-the-wall beer joints.
Luby’s Cafeteria.
I have been to a lot of cafeterias, and our hometown one is as good as it gets.
A quality meal every time and a wide range of selections.
All of these hometown places have been in business for more than 50 years.
Texas Road House and Cheddars and all these other new restaurants haven’t shut their doors.
And don’t’ call them “fast food.�
The definition of fast food is “designed for ready availability, use or consumption with little consideration given to quality or significance.�
The chips at hot sauce at Casa Manana are quality.
Those famous enchiladas at the Pioneer are quality.
A chicken liver basket and a pitcher of red draw at Bar-L are quality.
A combination plate at Branding Iron is quality.
Take you pick at Luby’s. It’s all quality.
And you don’t have to take out a bank loan to eat there.
Posted by at 8:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Dancing for Dannielynn
March 22, 2007I stayed away from “Dancing with the Stars� for as long as I could.
Dancing just never has been my thing -- other than maybe table dancing or lap dancing.
And I really had better things to do with my evenings than watch Jerry Springer do the cha-cha-cha.
But last November I just had to tune in for the final dance.
I covered all of Emmitt Smith’s 13 seasons with the Dallas Cowboys. I watched him win three Super Bowls. I just had to watch him win a dancing championship.
If Heather Mills or Apollo Ohno advance very far, I might have to watch a bit of this season’s show, but as of right now, I have better things to do with my time.
Like drink beer and play poker or read “War and Peace.�
But I have an idea that might make “Dancing with the Stars� much more interesting.
It is called “Dancing for Dannielynn.�
The contestants would be all the guys who claim to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby girl and -- for the sake of avoiding sexual discrimination -- we would let Grandma Virgie shake a stubby leg, too.
Anna Nicole started her career as a dancer. Maybe tubby mommy has a shot.
But the real contenders are:
Howard K. Stern.
Larry Birkhead.
Prince von Anhalt (Zsa Zsa’s hubby).
J. Howard Marshall III (only living son of the old billionaire coot husband of Anna).
North Korean president Kim Jong-il. (Why not?)
And finally -- a drum roll, please -- O.J. Simpson.
O.J. is the latest custody contender after a photographer friend said that O.J. and Anna were close friends and that O.J. had confessed that he had a “lethargic sperm� and could be the daddy.
And after all, the “Juice� has been known to love big-busted blondes named Nicole who die suspiciously.
Dance away, guys.
The winner gets the kid.
ABC gets the ratings.
My money’s on O.J.
Posted by at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
First Lady stabs President; No big deal on '24'
March 21, 2007I know it has been a busy day for Jack Bauer.
After all, he has had to kill a lot of guys - including biting into a terrorist’s jugular and later shooting his good buddy Curtis.
He has tortured his own brother and been tortured.
His daddy held a gun to his head.
And now he finds out his No. 1 squeeze has been murdered by the Chinese, setting up a Season 7 in which Jack declares war on China. (That should help Fox’s ratings war with NBC and the Beijing Olympics).
And from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. this week, Jack - despite floating rib fragments and internal bleeding in his chest -- diverted a nuclear weapon-armed drone away from San Francisco at the very last second.
The President of the United States is still in a coma.
A goofy VP is intent on nuking the Mideast.
And there are still dead Russians lying on the lawn of the Russian Consulate after an U.S. invasion between 6 and 7 p.m.
But what about Charles and Martha?
The former First Lady stabs the former President with a kitchen knife.
He is rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.
She is taken away in handcuffs.
Isn’t that a pretty big story?
Wouldn’t CNN and Fox and all the other 24-hour news channels drop Anna Nicole for at least a minute or two to cover such a story?
Wouldn’t Greta at least leave quit her search for Natalee Holloway in Aruba?
Well on “24,� a first lady stabbing the president apparently no big deal.
The show just dropped that storyline this week.
I guess saving San Francisco from being nuked is more important.
Hopefully, though, before this 24-hour day is over, we will find out what happened.
Will Charles Logan die?
Will Martha Logan be locked away, find her soul mate in prison and star in “Women in Cages II?�
Stay tuned. We still have 10 more hours to go.
Posted by at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
No lions, tigers or bears -- oh, my
March 20, 2007The “Greatest Show on Earth� is no longer the greatest show on earth.
Heck, it’s not even the “Goodest Show on Earth.�
In fact, it pretty much sucks.
So I guess P.T. Barnum -- the guy who started it all 135 years ago -- was right.
There really is a sucker born every minute.
I know.
I am one.
But I wasn’t sucker enough to buy $37 circus tickets like some people did.
No, I won four “free� tickets in an office racket.
Notice I said “free.�
The quotation marks are there for a reason.
I was 23 bucks in the hole before I ever got to my seat.
You see, I am not really one of those suckers old P.T. was talking about.
Guys like me -- who are raised in a pool hall -- aren’t easily hustled or conned.
But I am a sucker for my grandson.
I promised Nicholas that I would buy him a toy at the circus.
I didn’t realize it would be the official “Elephant Streamers Spinning Light.�
Goodbye 20 bucks.
And then my wife just had to have a candy apple.
Three more dollars disappear from my billfold.
And before the day was over, I spent another six bucks on some stale popcorn.
So by the end of the day, “free� had turned into a minus-29 in the dollar department.
But look at it this way. I am still eight bucks ahead of the guy in the $37 seat.
You would think for that kind of money, we would at least see a tiger.
I had promised my grandson that he would get to see elephants and tigers and lions, so all through the show, he would ask:
“Grandpa, when are we going to see the animals?’
“They’re coming. It won’t be long,� I always answered.
Grandpa lied.
There no tigers at this circus.
And no lions or leopards or bears.
Besides the one -- and only one -- elephant, the only animals in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus were a few horses and a couple of Frisbee-chasing dogs.
I guess the PETA protesters won.
The nekid girl who painted her body in tiger stripes and crawled in a cage down got the circus folks’ attention.
But if I can’t get a few lions and tigers for my 29 bucks, I would at least like to see the nekid girl again.
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has three tours.
Wichita Falls got the Upside Down World (Gold) Tour.
To get “Asian elephants, Royal Bengal and white tigers,� you have to get the Bellobration (Red) Tour.
The upside down act was pretty cool, but Grandpa and Grandson really wanted to see some lions, tigers and bears.
Ringling Bros. promises that “no city will ever see the same show twice.�
I can promise Ringling Brothers that I will never see their circus twice.
Sucker that, Mr. Barnum.
Posted by at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
This preacher has guts
March 19, 2007Most of the time when I get an e-mail asking me to forward it on to all the people in my address book, I usually forward it on to the delete file.
And wonder how it ever got past the junk e-mail file with all the stuff from China.
But this e-mail caught my attention, and I think it is worth passing on.
It is a prayer said by Minister Joe Wright at the opening session of the Kansas City.
If the senators expected, “thank you for the birds that sing, thank you God for everything. Amen,� they were in for quite a surprise.
You may not agree with everything in the prayer -- many Christians voted for Bush only because he said he was against abortion and gay marriage. (And really did nothing to stop either one)
But there is still a lot of truth in this preacher’s prayer.
So, here it is:
"Heavenly Father,
We come before you today
To ask your forgiveness and
To seek your direction and guidance.
We know Your Word says,
"Woe to those who call evil good"
But that is exactly what we have done.
We have lost our spiritual equilibrium
And reversed our values.
We have exploited the poor and
Called it the lottery.
We have rewarded laziness
And called it welfare
We have killed our unborn and called it choice.
We have shot abortionists
And called it justifiable.
We have neglected to discipline
Our children and called it
Building self esteem.
> We have abused power
And called it politics.
We have coveted our neighbor's
Possessions and called it ambition.
> We have polluted the air
With profanity and
Pornography and called it
Freedom of speech and expression.
>
> We have ridiculed the time
Honored values of our
Forefathers and called it enlightenment.
> Search us, Oh, God,
And know our hearts today;
Cleanse us from every sin
And set us free.
Amen!"
The person who sent this to me said that a number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest.
In six weeks, the Central Christian Church, where Wright preaches, received more than 5,000 phone calls. Only 47 were negative.
The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa and Korea.
What is your opinion?
Posted by at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Just five numbers short of $370 million
March 7, 2007 I didn’t win the lottery last night.
If I had, I doubt that you would be reading this right now.
I would first hire the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to stand in front of my boss’ office and sing “Take this Job and Shove it.�
Then a giant balloon resembling a bare butt would fly over this office with
“Kiss� on one cheek
and “This� on the other one.
Nah, I wouldn’t do that.
I love my job.
And before I hired the choir and the balloon, I most certainly would first double check the lottery numbers printed in the Times Record (News?).
Can you imagine while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is singing, you find out that the paper’s copy desk mistakenly ran the wrong numbers?
Hey, it could happen. Believe me.
So, maybe I did win. Hold on a minute and let me check on-line.
OK, I’m back. And the paper did print the right numbers.
There were two winning tickets sold -- one in New Jersey and one in Georgia.
I usually never buy lottery tickets.
I am also not a scratch-off sucker.
But when the bait is $370 million, I just have to bet five bucks.
What would a dirty old man do with $370 million?
Any damn thing he wanted to.
The odds of winning are 1 in 176 -- or 175,999,999-to-1.
Five quick picks don’t improve those odds very much.
Four of my five lines didn’t have a single number.
But line “B� was almost a winner.
It was just five numbers short.
Yep, I had “42� on that line.
All I needed was 16, 22, 29, 39 and a Mega Ball 20.
So there will be no choir singing to the boss today.
And no butt balloons flying in the sky.
Except maybe in New Jersey and Georgia.
Posted by at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Watch out for flying mud
March 6, 2007John Edwards has been called a “faggot� by Ann Coulter.
A slip of right-wing tongues has often mistaken Obama as Osama.
And it won’t be long before we star seeing more and more of Hillary’s nerdy college photos and hear more and more worthless Whitewater BS.
There will be a lot of mud slung between now and November 2008.
Nobody slings better than the Republicans.
And they are really good at it.
They sold us John Kerry as a traitor and George Bush as a hero in 2004.
Many bought that lie and have been paying a hefty price for it ever since.
But nobody knew more about Republican mud-slinging than Thomas Eagleton.
Eagleton -- who died on Sunday -- will not be remembered for the 18 years he served in the Senate.
He won’t be remembered for being instrumental in the passage of the Clear Air Act and Clean Water.
No will he even be remembered for sponsoring an amendment that stopped the bombing in Cambodia and eventually ended American involvement in the Vietnam War.
No, Thomas Eagleton -- thanks to really good mud slinging -- will always be the “nut� that George McGovern chose as his running mate in 1972.
Eagleton had bouts with depression and between 1960 and 1966, he checked himself into the hospital three times for physical and nervous exhaustion. Twice he received electric shock treatments -- used as psychiatric treatments in those days.
Eagleton made a mistake by thinking he could hide his past from McGovern and the nation.
Remember this was the same year that Tricky Dicky and his buddies were burglarizing Democratic headquarters at the Watergate?
Once Eagleton told his story, the GOP quickly labeled him as crazy.
At first, Eagleton joked about it, saying he would undergo a psychiatric examination if other candidates -- like the paranoid Nixon -- would do the same.
Then columnist Jack Anderson wrote a column falsely accusing Eagleton of being arrested for drunk driving (wonder which one of Nixon’s burglars leaked that). Anderson had to retract the charge.
But Eagleton bowed out of the race.
And really out of public life for most of us -- although the people of Missouri, who knew him best, kept him in the Senate for another 14 years.
Posted by at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Warning: You may want to wait until you get home to read this
March 5, 2007A buddy of mine told me his girlfriend no longer reads by blogs at work.
She still reads them at home, but not on the job.
She says they have too much sex in them.
“Nick is a dirty old man,� she told him.
I confess.
But I have not always been a dirty old man.
Not all that long ago, I was a dirty young man.
The first 16 years of my life were all about imagination.
Pretty normal for most of us Baby Boomer boys.
There’s not too much we wouldn’t do to just get a glimpse of a nekid woman.
Then finally on Halloween 1957, it happened.
A bunch of his guys talked this girl named Sandra to show all.
She was dressed as a ballerina and we told her all she had to do was pull down those leotards and she could have a boatload of candy.
Sandra ate free Tootsie Rolls for months.
But we boys had a memory that has lasted a lifetime.
It was just my luck that the miniskirt was not invented until the year after I graduated from high school.
So all through school, about the most exotic part of the female anatomy I got to see was a knee cap.
The mini skirt, my friend, was one of the great inventions of all time -- right up there with electricity and the automobile.
I was 17 when I lost my virginity.
I say “lost,� but I gladly threw it away.
I am not about to tell you what happened, but I will tell you Bob Hayes’ 100-meter dash at the Olympics lasted longer.
9.99 seconds.
For the 35 years or so, I tried to set my own world records.
Wilt Chamberlain is still my idol.
I am now happily married, and devoted to just one woman.
But I still look.
I’m not dead yet -- and neither is my imagination.
Posted by at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Blessed are the peacemakers
March 2, 2007Although I’m just the “sports guy� around here, I do have strong political opinions.
Bush sucks.
War stinks.
I’m a Democrat.
Many of my friends now think I’m a kook.
They liked me more when I used to think like them.
And now that I wised up, all they want to do is argue.
Just this week, two guys jumped all over me when I said that I thought George W. is the worst president in my lifetime.
He got us into a war we can’t win and don’t know how to get out of.
Every day he’s in the White House just makes Jimmy Carter look better.
All of a sudden the guy I’m eating lunch with turns into George Patton.
By the time he’s finished ranting and raving, I felt like just saluting and walking away.
Some of my church buddies also don’t want to hear my anti-Bush opinions.
They really think God is a Republican.
Somewhere along the line, they skipped the part about
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God�
So, for now, I will just keep my political opinions to myself.
I’ll just be the “How ’bout them Cowboys?� sports guy.
That’s the best way I know of keeping peace.
(Except for maybe impeachment)
Posted by at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Speech police on the beat in California
March 1, 2007Never in my 60 years of walking this earth have I ever said:
“That’s so gay.�
I don’t even say “gay� with the exception of at Christmas time when I sometimes sing:
“Don we now our gay apparel.�
I have never sung those words with the intention of putting on a dress and high heels.
“Gay,� back in the 16th century, simply meant: fine or showy or brilliant in colors.
Webster’s original main definition for “gay� was:
“Merry, airy, jovial, sportive, frolicsome.
“Belinda smiled and all the world was gay.�
Take that one sentence from an 1828 dictionary and apply it to the world today and what do you get?
This transvestite named Belinda is trying to turn everybody into homosexuals.
My point here is that this high school in Santa Rosa, Calif., is so off base in disciplining a girl for saying: “That’s so gay.�
First of all, this was a response from 14-year-old freshman who was being teased by classmates because she was a Mormon.
“Do you have 10 moms?� one kid allegedly asked her.
To that she responded with “That’s so gay.�
So, this school supposedly thinks it is OK to tease another student about his or her religious beliefs but not OK to with anything that might be offensive to a homosexual student.
That’s nuts.
The girls’ parents have sued and the case has finally found its way to a California courtroom.
In Utah, this family might have a chance.
In California, they quite literally don’t have a prayer.
And in another stupid story just to the right of this one on Page 4A of today’s Times Record (News?), the president of the College of William and Mary decided to take down a cross that was hanging in the campus chapel to make sure that students of all faiths will feel welcome there.
That decision has led to one of the university’s big donors to pull back a $12 million to the school.
Just shows that having “President� in front of your name doesn’t always mean a person has a brain.
But we already knew that, didn’t we, George W?
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