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The Comfort of Old Friends
I remember a kid back in high school who was an amazing basketball player and a sometimes hellion. The kid and I went to high school here. I remember a kid back in high school who, with a couple of other instigators, set fire to some papers in his desk in Spanish class and who…
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Why I Love My Moto 360 Smart Watch
My darling wife recently bought me a Moto 360 smart watch because, well, because she’s an amazing woman. I gotta tell ya, I love this thing, and here’s why. I love that: I don’t have to worry whether I’ll hear the phone ring when it’s in my pocket, because the watch vibrates to alert me.…
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Why I Love Golf: Reasons 1 through 7
Funny thing, golf. Four hours or so of ecstasy and agony interspersed with exclamations along the lines of: Dammit! Ooh, that’ll play. What the —? Now that felt good. Oh, come on! Gotta love the game. Here are some of my reasons why I’m a golf-adorer. #1 That feeling when you “pure” it off the tee.…
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The Snap That Brings My Mother Back
She has been dead a long time, my mother, more than a quarter century, and I still think of her often. Certain sights, songs, and sounds tend to bring her back, like the explosion that comes from snapping a freshly laundered towel. I’ll bring up a basket of towels from the laundry room, not thinking…
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R.I.P, Wolfgang, You Were a Great Companion
Oh, how Wolfie loved an open briefcase. We had to put a pet down recently, a horrible event under the best of circumstances. Wolfgang, or Wolfie, was a ridiculously handsome cat, black, shiny, strong, with a sphinxlike face and a loving personality. Earlier in life than he should have, he developed acute and then chronic…
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Ask Not What Love Is, This Is It
You can see the Pittsburgh skyline from Ollie’s room. It’s quite lovely in the evening, your eyes scanning the row home rooftops of the working-class neighborhood below and then shifting to the lights on the horizon, a horizon that should signal hope and renewal. This vantage point, though, is the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit of…
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I’m not an idiot, I said
I cannot tell you how many times over the years I’ve called myself an idiot. Gotta be in the gazillions, fer sure. I open the wrong folder in Word, and it’s “Idiot!” Misspell preference, and it’s “Dumbass!” E-mail someone and forget the attachment, and it’s “What a duh!” I probably shouldn’t do that. No, I…
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Saying a Gradual Goodbye to Our Wolfgang
Wolfgang “Wolfie” McPhee Our poor kitty is on his last legs, I believe. Only 8, he has chronic renal failure for reasons unknown. They could be known, I’m told, if we just get an ultrasound. Worse-case scenario, I suppose, would be that the ultrasound shows either a carcinoma or amyloidosis, a condition of protein buildup…
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The Truth in Old Photos, Thanks to Siobhan Finneran of Downton Abbey
There’s a photo going around Facebook that shows Downton Abbey actor Siobhan Finneran as her character, Sarah O’Brien, on one side and Siobhan all “dolled up” on the other. I suspect that most people look at it and think, Gee, she’s much prettier when she has makeup on and her own hair. Frederick Douglass But I saw…
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The ‘Large Uterus’ Or What Not to Say on a Crowded Train
You have a large what? Getting off a rush-hour train the other day I overheard a woman behind me say into her cell phone, quite clearly and rather loudly, “My doctor said I have a large uterus. Never heard that before.” Slap my butt and call me Bobby, I never have either. And I hope…
