Chariots of Fire

It started out to be a commute home from work like any other day. Rush hour is never a pleasant experience. Everybody wants to get home as fast as they can, it seems, and they don't really want anything getting in their way.

Suddenly there was a strange noise like the tail pipe was hitting the bottom of the car. "Is that our car making that noise?" I asked.

Georgia on My Mind

I'm not going to say that it is hot in South Georgia. After all, there were enough other things going on at the newspaper columnists' conference that you almost didn't notice the heat. However, I should have known that "Macon" was too close to "bacon" for comfort.

The first day of the conference was great. We were welcomed by the mayor, greeted by distinguished guests from the local university, and met the publisher of the local paper. We had interesting panels and people who talked about writing, the newspaper business, and other stuff columnists are interested in.

Going in Circles

We were trying to drive to Macon, Georgia, for a newspaper columnists conference. Notice how things never seem to go right when you are trying to get somewhere? A few miles down the road, Honey remembered he forgot something. After we got off the interstate, he remember that he didn't. We circled the cloverleaf on exit ramps until I was dizzy.

If Only Life had an Undo Button

The undo button on Microsoft Word is a wonderful thing. Backspace will fix a little error, like forgetting that the caps lock is locked or typing fdsjkl;ty when you got on the wrong row of keys. But for really big errors, you need the "undo" button.

Sooner or later, nearly everyone who uses a computer tries to do something that doesn't work. You are clicking along and doing the best you can when something goes terribly awry. You try to fix it only to find that your page has turned into a crossword puzzle. You don't have the foggiest idea how to fix this because you don't even know what you did to cause it.

The Barbecue Joint

We were going to an anniversary party in a nearby town. My aunt and uncle have been married 70 years. Imagine that! Seventy years of marriage and they haven't killed each other yet, a rare occasion.

It was getting close to lunch time. "Should we eat first or should we find the party place first and then eat?" We decided it would probably be better to find where we were going first and then eat real food or fast food depending on how much time was left.

With modern technology like GPS, it didn't take long to find the church hall, but we didn't see any restaurants nearby. Once again, modern technology came to the rescue. My sister pulled her Android out of her purse and as luck would have it, she found a barbecue restaurant just down the road.

My Can Runneth Over

I don't know where it all comes from, but it seems that I am carrying out more trash lately than ever before. I don't think I've suddenly started using more consumer products, at least not enough to account for my growing trash collection.

A lot of it comes in the mail. I've found myself throwing away more and more unopened mail even though I'm on every "do not contact" list I can find. I get an annoying number of catalogs. I think businesses could save consumers a lot of money if so much was not spent on printing colorful advertisements.

Lewis Grizzard's Typewriter

I've been looking at pictures of Lewis Grizzard and his manual typewriter. I'm pretty sure that it is exactly like my old Royal that I have retired to the back of a closet. I'm relatively certain my vintage Royal still works if I could find a ribbon for it. Grizzard wrote a column about his typewriter in 1983. Unlike Grizzard's typewriter, my Royal has all the keys -- and will type both an "e" and "u" -- at least it would the last time I saw it.

iPhone is Not for Dummies

"Open it." He said, handing me a small box.

It isn't my birthday and it is too early for Christmas. The box had an apple with a bite out of it on front. Even I knew what that logo meant. And when I opened it, there it was -- a shiny new black iPhone.

Big C, little c: What begins with C?

I couldn't believe it when I heard myself agreeing with my doctor. "You really need to do this", he said. "How long has it been? Never? Well, I'm going refer you." He had referred me once before, but I conveniently forgot to call and set up the appointment.

"It's not a pleasant thing, so people tend to put it off."

I could easily agree with that.