Two Gents' Worth
November 23, 2024
Out with the old – and good riddance! In with the new – and good luck! Of course, this being the time for my usual “end of one year, start of another” column – the “old” I’m referring to is that terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year we are about to say good-bye to….
Read More about 2020: Going, Going…
A few weeks ago, Sharon and I decided we’d had enough. We had reached the point where we needed to get out of Dodge – or in this case, Paso Robles – because we’d had it up to our eyeballs with such affronts as record-breaking heat waves, horrible wildfires, terribly smoky skies, the ongoing coronavirus…
Read More about North by Northwest
This morning, we woke up inside our Paso Robles place and discovered, first, the smell of smoke. Fortunately, our house was not on fire. But a whole lot of California was. Hundreds of wildfires were burning around Our State. No, I am not exaggerating. Our Department of Forestry reported that we had 10,800 lightning strikes…
Read More about What Hell Is This?
Each week, the great Carol Burnett used to close her legendary CBS variety show by singing, “I’m so glad we had this time together, just to have a laugh or sing a song. Seems we just get started and before you know it, comes the time we have to say, ‘So long.’” Well, Ames, the…
Read More about Leaving Ames, Too SoonThere is little good to be said about the Covid-19 pandemic — it has ruined lives and permanently STAINED our country, in fact, the whole world. Yet if there is anything at all to profit from the deadly virus it is that some people are being drawn closer together. While all civility appears absent from…
Read More about Walk Away From The Virus
We were just about ready to write off this Summer of Our Coronavirus Discontent here in Ames — until the tornado sirens went off this past Tuesday night. Up to then, our stay here in the heartland had been quiet, if not somewhat boring. After all, the coronavirus had forced the shutdown or cancellation of…
Read More about Into the Basement, Again
The Fourth of July dawned bright and beautiful in our lovely old university town of Ames, Iowa, this morning. And then nothing went as it should have. The street in front of City Hall was empty this morning. Hundreds of people — if not thousands — did not line up at 8:30, as they usually…
Read More about Our Dispirited Fourth
Those lazy, hazy — and, especially this summer, crazy — days of summer have come to the Heartland again. That means — as it always has — hot, humid days and fireflies at night. But this summer is different — oh, so different — because of the coronavirus. Yes, flowers still bloom at Bandshell…
Read More about This Heartland Summer
Here we are once again, back in Ames, Iowa — the great Heart of the American Heartland. Ames is the home of Iowa State University, but this fine old town also boasts a fine old-fashioned downtown Main Street, majestic churches and many historic homes, some dating back to the 1860’s. Yes, we’re finally here, after…
Read More about Back in the HeartlandIn a fit of appalling civil disobedience, a band of rebellious neighbors in a certain north Fresno neighborhood staged a block party late Saturday afternoon almost within sight of, and certainly within earshot of, not one but two city councilors. Dangerous, to be sure. Here it was lawlessness on a molecular scale — not as…
Read More about THE BLOCK PARTY