“The problem with surveys,” an old editor of mine once told me as I proudly handed him copy I compiled based largely on the results of a survey, “is that you can find one to tell you whatever you want to hear.”
We like to call it “The Coastal Point Retirement Plan” around these parts.
Who doesn’t love a good whodunit?
Those of us who love sports hold sacred our “wow” memories.
The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting a bit crisper and the offerings at coffee shops are getting a little pumpkin-spicier. Yes, indeed, Wednesday marked the first day of fall, and maybe the world’s a slightly better place for that very reason.
There are a lot of things that I don’t know. Or, at the very least, a lot of things that I don’t understand.
I was planning to start this out by saying that 20 years ago, I had hair.
“Hey, you rotten clouds. Get off my lawn!”
If a gentleman goes by the name of “Treetop Lover” to the ladies, and the men just call him “Sir,” well, it stands to reason that you better just beware of said gentleman.
How about we put away the daggers for a moment? What do you say?
When the zombies arrive — and, oh, they will arrive — where do you want to be to give you the best chance of survival? Huntington Beach, Calif.? Bellevue, Wash.? Selbyville?
We’ve all watched development across these fruited plains transform amber waves of grain into tidy subdivisions of vinyl.
They come from a variety of different backgrounds, races, genders, political-belief systems and religions, but there are a few common denominators in the people I consider to be my closest friends — they’ve never screwed me over, and they have the ability to make me laugh.
During a random conversation last week, Point Publisher and rabid postcard collector Susan Lyons was telling me about a postcard she had seen in a newsletter from one of her hobby sites that shared a photo of “The Famous Coleman Frog” of Frederictown, New Brunswick.
I’m a little late to this, but if there’s one thing I learned from this story, it’s that being late to the party isn’t always a bad thing.
Surprisingly enough, I actually collect a few thoughts before I sit down to write this thing every week. I’m not claiming they are strong thoughts or, heck, even coherent thoughts. But they are mine, and they usually help me start out this column with at least the semblance of a plan on wher…
On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress stuck a collective thumb in the figurative eye of Great Britain by unanimously adopting the Declaration of Independence.
You ever have “one of those days?”
Fortuna favet fatuis.
Teaching is what spins our globe, right?
A lot can happen over the course of 10 years.
Let’s just start this column with this: Memorial Day is not a celebration.
A picture is worth 1,000 words, right?
While a room filled with police officers and masked people can conjure images of a bank heist gone terribly wrong, there was an entirely different vibe coming out of Signatures at Bayside on Friday, May 7: one of appreciation.
American poet Maya Angelou held more than 50 honorary degrees, championed civil rights, worked with both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and penned more stunningly beautiful words than the world around her really had a right to absorb, if we’re being completely honest. In totality, she…
The Rise of the Joshes is upon us.
I’m not a police officer.
So, we have a problem heading our way.
The world truly doesn’t know how fortunate it is.
It’s been said that the true key to enjoying one’s life is to embrace “the little things.”
In about the span of a week, America saw two more mass shootings that orphaned children, destroyed families and broke the heart of, well, anyone with a heart beating in his or her chest.
Spring has sprung.
Things change over time.
Was that a pulse I felt? The beating heart of a community coming back to life? A sliver of hope in the form of... massive blocks of ice and a motorized hot dog?
So, who wants to talk politics? Religion? College loan programs? Immigration? The eliteness of NFL quarterbacks?
“What did you do to get in trouble when you were a kid?”
One of the joys of being able to work remotely in this age of technology is that you, well, work remotely.
How are we to be remembered?
Is a community a microcosm of society at large, or do the characteristics of the greater society infiltrate the smaller community, making it reflective of the greater whole?
If you’re trying to get a hold of me after this weekend, have your people get up with my people.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
Has there ever been a more roundly-anticipated end to a year than the don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-where-the-good-Lord-split-you collective middle finger thrust forward by the collective soul of humanity to 2020?
One of my favorite exercises of every December is to sift through each issue of that year and put together this relatively brief year-in-review column.
Do you believe in magic?
If there’s one thing that’s, hopefully, grown deep inside all of us during these curve-flattening, soul-sucking, economy-obliterating, life-stealing months of COVID-Mania, it is the concept of appreciation.
It’s easy to feel a little disenchanted this time of year. In fact, pick your poison on that front.
I really don’t want to imagine a world where I no longer look forward to things with childlike anticipation.
If there is one thing I can be grateful about in this twisted, depressing, toilet-paper-lacking, heart-breaking, economy-busting, Zoom-infested year of ours, it’s that, well, I am indeed thankful.
So, I’m begging.
We all have our own impressions of what constitutes “The American Dream.”
In 1992, at the age of 19, Eduard Seitan immigrated to the United States from Romania, according to a story on Today.com. Though he didn’t speak a lick of English, he did speak Italian, which helped him secure a job as a food runner at Italian restaurant Club Lucky in Chicago.
