Santa had come and gone. The children were nestled all snug in their beds but the sugar plums that once danced in their heads had been devoured and, by now, the resulting ‘high’ subsided settling things back to a dull roar. Even the nastiest little crumb cruncher hadn’t received coal in his stocking and all was well.  Or was it?

Here it was New Year’s Eve and each year the same two things always amaze me. The first is how the nature of my celebration has changed with time.  The other is our tradition of getting misty-eyed over a song to which most people know the words but few know either the meaning or how to spell it.

For years I held that Christmas was the holiday for kids and New Year’s was the adult holiday.  To prove it, I’d whip up a batch of lethal Read the rest of this entry

Part of almost every guy’s wiring leads to the bone in his head that generates perpetual kidhood. A few somehow received only bone fragments and are old men by thirty, but I’m not interested in exceptions, only the rule. Most women’s wiring is more complex than ours and frequently shorts out at this level of operation, so I’ll leave them off the circuit board for a while, too … do not pass ‘go’, do not collect $200.  What I’m referring to are basic guy things like a fascination with flashing lights, digital readouts, switches that go click and cars that go fast!

Some guys can sit for hours, staring at row of colored lights with the same fascination a child has for the shiny new quarter his Read the rest of this entry

Click for the ultimate in ‘Green’

Green has always been a pleasant color. Christmas trees are green, the soft grass tickling your toes in the backyard is green, some of the most nourishing veggies are green and my money is green … at least most of it. They’ve been mixing in other rainbow-like hues lately and making it look more like Monopoly money. That’s a good balance though, because it spends more like Monopoly money everyday, only I don’t have any hotels on Boardwalk or Park Place.

So how come, all of a sudden, ‘Green’ has become a politically correct religion and we’re being pummeled about the head and shoulders with it like a piñata? Ever see one of those lunatics risking his life Read the rest of this entry

The high school I occupied during my pre-adult period was nearly ninety percent Jewish. When many of the more important Hebrew holidays were celebrated, like in September and October, they actually consolidated as many as three or four classes for any given subject into a single room. Even with that arrangement, I was one of only a tiny hand-full of students in there. We had a lot of fall study halls back then.

Chanukah was different because it usually seemed to coincide pretty closely with Christmas and everybody was off from school … even the kids that celebrated holidays with names most of us never heard of, until ‘political correctness’ came to town a few years later. In those days you were either a Christian Read the rest of this entry

I remember when I thought communication was two Campbell’s soup cans with a string in-between. That home made ‘walkie-talkie’ was not only a blast but it taught a couple of young kids something-or-other about sound conductivity. Besides, it really didn’t cost much and I could see my friend Ralphie over at the other end. There were [only] two things wrong with this device: Sometimes the string would break if you pulled it too tight, and you had to eat the soup before you could use the cans.

About ten years later, I discovered a more stimulating method of communication. It had nothing to do with walkie-talkies, string or my friend Ralphie. We called it ‘legalized.’ Nobody ever talked much about just what it was that was legalized but instead of soup cans, it involved dancing really close with a girl. There were no formal steps and it didn’t matter what music was playing … or if there was music playing at all! One of the many added benefits was, you didn’t have to eat any soup.

Enter 21st Century technology: Electronic games, e-mails, chat rooms, cell phones and now the wonderful world of text messaging. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a technology junkie. Like most guys I love dials, buttons and flashing lights, whether or not they serve a purpose. Some guys can be entertained for hours by almost any shiny metal object, but that’s pretty extreme … still I don’t guess I’ll ever get a grip on the whole idea behind texting.

I mean, if someone hands me a telephone my first impulse is to speak into it, not to write on it. Call me crazy, but I like the warmth of a human voice at the other end plus there’s less margin for error when you can hear the other person’s vocal inflection. For instance, if your wife texts you the message, “I’m mad” that’s informative but sort of vague; on the phone, you can actually hear just how much trouble you’re in. The only higher level of communication would be to see the corners of her eyes scrunch up and that little vein pop out on her forehead. However fear not, that questionable ability is already edging its way into cell phone circles with picture phones! And you wanna’ text?

If I stick with traditional phone functions, I don’t have to pick at a bunch of tiny rice-size buttons with my not-so-tiny ham-size fingers or worry about my speling … yet my response from the person at other end is every bit as fast as I used to get from Ralphie with the soup cans. Hm-m-m. Of course, the act of texting employs so many abbreviations [CU@4] that most grammar rules are tossed to the wind and no one really cares whether cat is spelled with a ‘C’ or a ‘K’.

When I was a kid we were never inside, except for rainy afternoons when we drove our parents crazy. These days ‘Computer Potatoes’ are getting so bad, the government is trying to mandate that kids be pushed outside to play for at least an hour per day. Inhaling a molecule or two of fresh air is fine but working on a few social skills may be even more important somewhere down the road. Getting along comfortably with others isn’t part of everyone’s DNA; it takes effort and is something that’s tough to work on alone … or with one’s face leaving nose prints on the screen of a computer or cell phone.

I think I may have witnessed the ultimate in un-communication the other day when I saw two kids sitting together on a pair of swings, not saying a word but sending TEXT messages to each other! How ironic that the very electronic marvels we’ve invented to expand our universe have, instead, begun to isolate so many of us in our own, private little caves.

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

For a long time, I’ve been saying that the only constant you can count on in life is change. I was wrong. That statement is not quite true, which is somewhat like being only a little pregnant. The lightbulb that usually hovers just above my head began to glow when I visited my favorite bank recently and saw a sign on the wall right next to the shadow-boxed .38 Police Special and old-time gas mask. It’s a fascinating old bank that has been preserved pretty much the way it was in the 1920′s, with bullet proof glass and ports through which the tellers could poke a gun in case of a holdup. Rows of once electrified wires adorn the top of the teller area, just above the four inch spikes … with stone, marble and mahogany everywhere, adding to the impression that if Jesse and the boys rode in, they’d be riding out with empty saddle bags.

The sign that had pulled my attention away from these historic bits of early bankdom read, “Christmas Club” and announced payment number 21 was due that week. I didn’t even know they had those anymore! I figured folks just pulled out the plastic and dug the hole deeper at Christmas like they do the rest of the year. But when I remarked about it, the perpetually smiling face on the other side of the two inch glass informed me that Christmas Clubs are still very popular. For whatever reason, perhaps being a throwback to much simpler times, I found that thought comforting … kind of like seeing Lipton Tea on the grocery store shelf or a water pistol in the toy shop window. These things had survived the ravages of time. They were things you could still count on. Then, I really scared the daylights out of myself … I couldn’t think of anything else to put in that category!

As it turned out, the log jam between my ears had more to do with square pegs and round holes than any dark vision of life I might have been nurturing. My blockage broke up a few mornings later, when the smells of fresh coffee brewing and bacon frying brought back the same “all is right with the world” feeling I had experienced at the bank.  That’s when I realized I had mistakenly been trying to apply the weight of textbook logic to simple items that sprang from emotion! Before long, my list began to fill up with little sensory things like the taste of cold chocolate milk on a hot day, the smell of a summer shower when the earth has been baking all afternoon, and the feel of a soft fuzzy puppy with a cold wet nose.

Little boys still smell of bubblegum and earthworms, phone calls with old friends still fuel the fires of time … and if you put one hand softly on the cheek of a woman who loves you, the other on her waist, pull her close and kiss her softly on the lips, she’ll still kiss you back. Things like these have been constants since fig leaves came into fashion as garments, and I’d like to think we can count on them remaining constant until the last leaf has turned to dust.

Of course, every coin has a flip side and you can usually count on what’s over there too. For instance, every time I get hooked on a favorite food I can always be sure that either the store will discontinue it or the manufacturer will improve it right out of existence. Remember the expression, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” That’s another great thing about my bank … so far, they’ve kept their stick out of the spokes.

As surely as a seventeen year old can count on a new pimple just before the prom, a sixty-seven year old can be assured that hair will grow everyplace but where it’s wanted … and, one day, the washing machine will decide to shrink your favorite shirt for no apparent reason. Come to think of it, the thing has been shrinking a lot of my pants lately, too!

You can count on the weather prognosticator calling for rain until it finally appears, costs going up, endurance going down, and not getting out of this world alive. What’s that? Money? No, you can’t take it with you … count on that, too. It burns!

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.

As I approached the drug store checkout I was greeted by the biggest, brightest smile to dazzle these eyes in 30 years. It could have lit up Detroit for a week! The owner of that particular row of  pearly whites was a young lady who, just for a twinkling, tweaked my twenty year old and transported me out of my 200,000 mile carcass.

The trip was over as quickly as it had begun when I placed my bottles of pain pills and Centrum Silver on the counter. “Do you have one of our Health Saver cards, sir?” she asked. “Somewhere,” I replied. “Maybe you can look it up in your computer.” “I’d be happy to but you should carry it with you” the teeth advised. Just what I needed … a lecture from a kid whose grandfather was probably around my age. Funny, but suddenly she looked even younger, especially with that gold ring in her left eyebrow.

“Do you have any idea what you’re asking?” I inquired, with a slight edge to my tone. Cool. I could still roar! Well, maybe a pushy purr. “You know how fat my wallet would be if I stuck everybody’s discount card in here?” Several bats escaped as I opened my leather filing cabinet. “I manage … no problem” she said with child-like innocence, hoisting a satchel that passed for a purse with one hand and punching the computer with the other. It all happened in the space of a wink and a smile, but it got me thinking.

I wonder if women appreciate how lucky they are to carry purses. When you come right down to it, they’re just big, portable pockets but oh-h-h the amount of stuff you can stuff inside! I’ve always been amazed that more women don’t actually buckle under the sheer weight of all that convenience.

Behold the guy, on the other hand, with only a thin, folded slab of animal hide supplemented by small cloth pouches sewn into his trousers … limited in practicality by any number of factors, ranging from capacity to dignity. Ever slip a ten-function Swiss Army Knife into your pants and have women greet you with a smirk that asks, “Got something in your pocket fella’ or are you just glad to see me?” To make matters worse, a guy has to sacrifice one pocket to store his wallet and leave enough room in the rest so he can get his hand in to take things out! To make matters worse, clothing designers are starting to eliminate some shirt and rear pockets completely in the name of style.

While we don’t carry the same number of items women do, I’ve often wondered whether that’s because guys don’t have to or because we can’t. In my wallet, for example, I have a couple of credit cards, motor vehicle documents, some permits, an insurance card, a bunch of receipts and some pictures that I frequently sit on but rarely see. Oh … once in a while there’s a little money in there, too.

Looking into a woman’s purse, on the other hand, can be an adventure. Did you ever see the movie Journey to the Center of the Earth? I took the trip once, right after I noticed my wife spending an eternity rummaging around in her bag just to extract something simple, like lipstick. Stuff expands to fit the space, so I was comfortable assuming that the combs, brushes, mirrors, things in tubes, various sharp pointy objects and other unidentifiables, plus a wallet with the usual contents, was typical. When ads say that something fits “conveniently into pocket or purse” they have no idea what they’re talking about … those are two different containers!

By the way, have you noticed how men either fold their money into a money clip or press it neatly into their wallets, while women just jam it randomly into their purses? I’ve always wondered how money got so wrinkled when it starts out at the bank looking so ironed. After taking my dark, mysterious journey into the unknown, I also wondered if there might be a more efficient way for women to reclaim objects from the nether regions of pursedom. Thus my short-lived Purse Tag Retrieval System (PTRS) was born.

It was a really simple idea: Just attach a piece of string to an object inside the purse, lead it out over top and place an identifying tag on the other end. Repeat this action for every item inside the purse. Then when the lady wants something, she merely pulls the appropriate string and voilà!

There were two keys to successful deployment of the PTRS system. First, it was important to keep the strings from tangling … second, and I must emphasize this, it was even more important not to get caught. Failure on this second point could necessitate quickly engaging another system, the PART (Pivot and Run Technique) taught to me at my Father’s knee.

I’ve wondered about all kinds of things through the years but boundless experience has made me a good learner. While it’s always fun to reminisce about certain aspects of pre-seniorhood, I’ve ultimately learned to keep my hands in my pockets and not to toy with the clerk.

Listen to Bananas Crackers and Nuts Podcast. Find Links under “Recent Podcasts”… and more shows on my Podcast Page.