No one knows for sure what causes cataracts. It may have something to do with not eating the required 6 daily helpings of fruits and vegetables and not flossing your eyeballs twice a day. It also seems that age has something to do with developing these nasty little blobs, which can occur unannounced any time after age 50. There was once a time when I could not only read license plates on cars … [Read more...]

  On most balmy evenings before dinner, I offer wood sacrifices to the smoke gods in my now-falling-apart fire pit, an outside fireplace. Bourbon helps since my fire pit has a mind of its own. Sometimes the rusted incinerator will engulf my wood chunks in hot, blue flames while other times it spits billowing mouthfuls of smoke in my direction – no matter where I sit. It helps greatly, … [Read more...]

“Dad, let’s catch a turtle and cook it.” How well I remember those words. My 13-year old son, Jimmie, had approached me one day suggesting a turtle hunt followed by a turtle skinning and turtle cooking. It would be one of those days I would like to forget. Before braces, before three sets of college tuitions and two major weddings, my wife and I owned a neat little cottage on a private lake … [Read more...]

  A few years back, our good friends Charlotte and Dick Forrester took us on a Tacky Light Tour in their hometown, Richmond. All I can say is that those folks in RVA really do it right when it comes to Christmas decorations. But as we passed by many houses, I noted a common theme. Many had a single tree decorated that made absolutely no sense. There would be green lights on one branch and … [Read more...]

  Stuff bothers me. Like can you really get 20 clowns in a Volkswagen, and how can the radio in my car snatch invisible signals out of thin air and turn it into a song? Why does smoke from a firepit always know where I’m sitting and go that way and can woolly worms really predict cold winters or are they just guessing? That brings me to a flock of blackbirds. I saw a big ball of … [Read more...]

  Our local Department of Motor Vehicle Customer Service Center, otherwise known as the closest place to hell that you can find on this earth, will temporarily close for an interior renovation starting Oct. 31. They have some remodeling to do and think they can get back in the customer trashing and abasing business by December 6. DMV suggests that those who may need their services go … [Read more...]

Everybody has a favorite poem. Poetry is one of those artforms that can express intense feeling and emotions. It can be like an inspirational painting. Frost, Dickinson, Whitman, Eliot, Kipling, Emerson – great poets, one and all. My favorite poem was written by a fellow named Rufus Jones. It brings tears to my eyes when I recite it. It goes like this: It was a cold and wintry night A man … [Read more...]

A new sport is sweeping the nation, so popular that the International Olympic Committee is considering it as an event. It is Meal Worm Tossing. Tens of thousands are now honing their skills by tossing meal worms in mid-air to awaiting frogs in goldfish ponds. I stand corrected. Snopes, the friendly fact checker, says my numbers aren’t exactly right. Instead of tens of thousands, it’s more like … [Read more...]

We stocked our little goldfish pond with a half-dozen bullfrog tadpoles this spring, and one by one, they emerged. Then we saw a 7th frog, then an 8th. Some hanky panky was going on. The unaccounted-for amphibians were leopard frogs. One night this spring, there were some frog shenanigans going on and now we have a pond full of leopard frogs. There was even one born in our small lily pond, though … [Read more...]

  I bought myself a farm this week with a thousand head of livestock. Well, I call them livestock. Others might call them worms. Yes, I bought a worm farm with a thousand red wigglers. Why? My wife asked the same question, but there are four good reasons. First, I like worms. They are one of the most interesting creatures on the planet. Second, I have a small goldfish pond full of baby … [Read more...]