Category: Stories

Though generally of a favorable frame of mind, like me, Tony was bothered by disinformation, misinformation, and pisinformation. Here’s some nuisances he shared with me now and then. The Truth Can Be Annoying Good...

Social media is fiery slop from a cesspool of negativity where rumor, stupidity, and lying trump reality in efforts to sell or bolster self-promotion. The trouble with this garbage is that it is talking...

Watching television with the sound off, I am frequently depressed by the number of advertisements there are for prescription and non-prescription products and disheartened seeing the side-effects “warnings” that often get more air-time than...

When a colleague asked me if I could analyze some data as part of a research project, I responded, “Of course I can, it’s just numbers.” My dad was the Assistant Manager of the...

In the name of social movements and doing the right thing, “woke” is the woke way to declare awareness, withitness, and uneasiness for issues of inequality in inclusion, discrimination, and justice. Of course, there...

I don’t know if this is true, but I have read that many fathers write letters to their unborn children professing unbounded love and promising unbridled joy and fulfilment. I hope that our children...

In 1977, I moved from State College, Pennsylvania to Gainesville, Florida with my family for a tenure-track position at the University of Florida. We survived the trip in a blue ’68 Chevy station wagon...

In 1992, Ann Patchett launched a remarkable career with the publication of her debut novel, The Patron Saint of Liars. I am not much of a reader and have not read this work by...

Mrs. Tice commented on my first-grade report card: “Gets along well with others but seldom plays with them because he always has to have things “his way; is very good with numbers but has...

When I was in high school, I got caught smoking in the boy’s room. This earned a week of detention and a butt burner from the principal who was a good friend of mine....