March 29, 2024

The Bagpiper

As a bagpiper, I play many different gigs. Recently, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a grave-side service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the back country. As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost, and, being a typical man, I didn’t bother to stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently left, as the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they…

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Four by Four?

Was I sleeping or out of town when they changed the definition of the term “4×4”? I first wondered about this when a few years ago I noticed an all-wheel drive, one-ton “dually” pick-up  with “4×4” painted on the flared rear fender that is so distinctive of the breed. At first I thought that I was mistaken or the owner had transplanted a fender from a different truck, but then I saw another one a few days later. Not long after that I noticed another manufacturer had it painted on the tailgate. Finally, the last of the three U.S. truck…

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Out of the Mouths of Kids

The following are actual answers given on history tests and in Sunday school quizzes by children in 5th and 6th grade in Ohio: “Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by Bernard Shaw for reasons I don’t really understand. The English and French still have problems.” “Queen Elizabeth was the ‘Virgin Queen.’ As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted “hurrah!” and that was the end of the fighting for a long while.” “It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and…

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Inside the Anthill

Sitting on the porch the other day watching the clouds roll by, I felt something tickling my leg. There was an ant making his way up my lego. Not wanting to appear rude by just brushing him off or smashing him to a pulp, I said, “Hi there, Mr. Ant. Where are you going in such a hurry?” Imagine my surprise when he answered me, “Oh, hello. I’m looking for ant food. You don’t happen to have any ant food, do you?” “Well,” I replied, “now that you mention it, I don’t even know what ants eat.” He stared straight…

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Are Men Really Listening? Probably Not!

While some men certainly have come a long way in the area of women’s issues, there evidently is still a lot of room for improvement. Take this refrigerator door posting as an example. After his wife had awakened early to get the children off to school after feeding them breakfast and preparing their lunches, she kissed him goodbye, handing him his coffee and newspaper as she headed off to her full-time job. Then the home phone rang. His wife had given her doctor’s office their home phone number to avoid a call while at work on her cell phone. After…

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Lesser Known April Holidays

April 2nd is National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day! April 1 is . . . One Cent Day April 2 is . . . National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day April 3 is . . . Tweed Day and Don’t Go To Work Unless It’s Fun Day April 4 is . . . Tell-A-Lie Day April 5 is . . . Go For Broke Day April 6 is . . . Sorry Charlie Day April 7 is . . . No Housework Day April 8 is . . . All Is Ours Day April 9 is . . . Winston…

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4 Booze Myths Demythstified

I’ve been dealing quite a bit with the public lately in regards to booze, and it surprises me how much the incorrect myths regarding beverages become entrenched in the minds of people. I wanted to set the record straight on a few things to better educate the readers who enjoy a tasty glass of EtOH (that’s the common chemical abbreviation for ethanol). Myth #1 – The Sulfite-Free Wine The first myth that needs dispelling is sulfites in wine. There is no such thing as sulfite free wine. All fermented beverages will have at least some amount of trace sulfites as they’re…

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Drive-thru Donut Dilemma

It was my turn to bring donuts to work, so I made a detour to the donut shop. Because it was a little after 5 AM, I was not surprised when I saw only one car in the parking lot. The lights were on inside the building, but no customers and only one employee behind the counter. “Great,” I thought, “no line.” I tried the door and found it locked. No problem, I went down a little way, and tried the other door. It was locked, too. Confused, I looked at the woman inside, and she waved her arm around…

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The Cat and the Cabbie…

We were dressed and ready to go out for a party. We turned on a night light, turned the answering machine on, covered our pet parakeet and put the cat in the backyard. We phoned the local cab company and requested a taxi. The taxi arrived and we opened the front door to leave the house. As we walked out the door, the cat we had put out in the yard, scoots back into the house. We didn’t want the cat shut in the house because she always tries to eat the bird. My wife goes on out to the…

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Go Green . . . Bring Back the Clothes Line

You may have to be a “certain age” to appreciate this article. But you younger ones can read about “The good ol’ days”! (If you don’t even know what clotheslines are, then better skip this.) Many Boomers can hear their mothers still as she explained how to hang the wash… You had to hang the socks by the toes…not the top. You hung pants by the bottoms/cuffs…not the waistbands. And all clothes had to be turned inside out just because a bird might fly overhead and you didn’t want that showing. I didn’t want that next to my skin, but…

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It’s for You…

by Joseph G. Evrard The other day I was contemplating the history of the telephone when it occurred to me that you might be interested in what people did before this modern age of instant communication–-cell phones, emails and social media mayhem. My daddy, who (as you will remember) was a mountain man, through and through, told me about life in the mountains before the telephone. The first way people had of communicating was to send smoke signals. It started like this. One day, old man Clem was sitting around his cabin thinking it would be good to have someone…

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The Wisdom of Miyagi

by Joel Mann One of the great cheesey movies from the 80’s is The Karate Kid. Say what you will about the acting, the general plot line, or even the ability of a teenager to learn martial arts at a black belt level in a few months. The real gem of the movie is Mr. Miyagi and his philosophy of life. Balance is the whole key. It’s the old wisdom of all things in moderation. A bit apropos tied into a discussion concerning alcohol. I bring the topic up not to beat the drum of a teetotaler or neo-prohibitionist, as…

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Lesser Known March Holidays

March 20th is Festival of Alien Abductions Day. March 1 . . . National Pig Day & Peanut Butter Lover’s Day March 2 . . . Old Stuff Day March 3 . . . I Want You To Be Happy Day, Peach Blossom Day and National Anthem Day March 4 . . . Holy Experiment Day March 5 . . . Multiple Personalities Day March 6 . . . National Frozen Food Day March 7 . . . National Crown Roast Of Pork Day March 8 . . . Be Nasty Day March 9 . . . Panic Day March…

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The Concept of Antiques

The concept of antiques has always puzzled me. I don’t give a hoot about the old junk itself, but the concept is intriguing. The same old furniture we couldn’t wait to get rid of thirty years ago is now valuable simply because we never reached the point of desperation where we needed to burn it for heat. Other pieces survived only because chrome-plated tubular steel, Formica, and beanbags don’t burn very well. The guy who came up with the antique idea has to be one of the greatest salesmen of all time. I think it had to be a guy…

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The Spanish Computer

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine. “House” for instance, is feminine: “la casa.” “Pencil,” however, is masculine: “el lapiz.” A student asked, “What gender is ‘computer’?” Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether “computer” should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation. The men’s group decided that “computer” should definitely be of the Feminine gender (“la computadora”), because: 1. No one…

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The Cutting Edge

What does it mean to be on the “cutting edge?” We hear of XYZ Computer Company being on the “cutting edge” of technology. Any high tech company worth its salt claims to be on the “cutting edge” of communication or medical treatment or fashion or pasta production or whatever. BUT the cutting edge is a risky place to be. Think about the implications. You have to keep moving to be effective. You’re doing things nobody has done before so you have no idea what you’re going to run into. Chances are, when you do run into something, it will nick…

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It’s a Matter of Waste

Pictured above is a landfill–the place where unwanted waste is disposed of. Huge mounds of waste are dumped into behemoth holes in the earth dug specifically to hold everything discarded by humans. While much of what people toss into heaps is recyclable, people choose to bag it and drop it in their garbage cans along with a large amount of compostable waste, purely for convenience. Only around 25% of recyclable materials currently make it to recycle centers due to human laziness. Now, some haulers are trying to capitalize of people’s lack of knowledge and dump their recyclables in one container…

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Wal-Mart Greeters Deserve Respect…

Charley, a new retiree-greeter at Wal-Mart, just couldn’t seem to get to work on time. Every day he was 5, 10, 15 minutes late. But he was a good worker, really tidy, clean-shaven, sharp-minded and a real credit to the company and obviously demonstrating their “Older Person Friendly” policies. One day the boss called him into the office for a talk. “Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a bang-up job when you finally get here; but your being late so often is quite bothersome.” “Yes, I know boss, and I am working on…

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Dumb Driver Dilemma

I witnessed something disturbing while driving the other day. I saw a person driving the same make, model, year–even the same color–vehicle as mine. The disturbing part was that the other driver executed what I consider to be a particularly stupid driving maneuver. I won’t say what it was, in case that maneuver is a part of your normal driving repertoire, and it’s not important anyway. The important part is: how could a person who is so obviously intelligent when it comes to the selection of a motor vehicle be so patently stupid in its operation? What if one of my friends saw  this other driver and thought it was me? Or what if he caused an accident, and I was arrested? Or the…

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Blind and In the Dark

I’ve seen a few stories recently about trendy gimmicks in the dining world. My favorites are the restaurants that serve dinner in the dark or make patrons wear blindfolds as part of the meal. While I don’t advocate eating with the lights off, as it’s a recipe for spilling and slopping all over yourself, it does emphasize a key concept in the world of sensory perception. People in general are extremely visually dominant when it comes to the five senses. After sight comes hearing. That leaves the senses of  smell, taste and touch lagging behind. The average person is quite often pressed to describe the world…

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Lesser Known February Holidays

February 28th is Public Sleeping Day. February 1 is . . . . . Serpent Day February 2 is . . . . . Purification Day February 3 is . . . . . Cordova Ice Worm Day February 4 is . . . . . Create A Vacuum Day February 5 is . . . . . Disaster Day February 6 is . . . . . Lame Duck Day February 7 is . . . . . Charles Dickens Day February 8 is . . . . . Kite Flying Day February 9 is . . . ….

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Strange Combinations

Some things just go together naturally–like peanut butter and jelly, Abbot and Costello, wine and cheese, and movies and popcorn. Lately I’ve become aware of a number of things that you wouldn’t expect to find paired up. I thought you’d enjoy hearing about some of them. Several years ago at the “Skippy Research Institute,” scientists crossed an elephant with peanut butter. This union produced two types of offspring. One was peanut butter with a long memory. The other was an elephant that stuck to the roof of your mouth. Cotton is combined with many other fibers to produce fabrics that…

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Great Inventions!

by Joseph G. Evrard Staff Kentuckian Any discussion of great inventions will probably include things like the automobile, the airplane, the transistor and the bikini. All of these inventions were possible because of the work of previous inventors. Without the invention of rubber, it would have been impossible to make tires, so in order to invent the automobile, somebody had to first invent rubber. In like manner, the invention of the transistor depended on the earlier invention of the silicon chip upon which the transistor is manufactured. Similarly, the success of the bikini depended upon silicon (in the form of…

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An Editorial from Excentric World

For more than 24 years, this paper has never used its position in the community to pontificate on any serious topic except to satirize it or hide it within the satire. Today, I make an exception due to the anger pervading in our country over the slaughter of innocents versus the individual rights defined in the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The initiative to draft papers representing a Union began when the Federal Convention convened in the State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation. By June, it was clear…

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FOOTBALL DEBATE…by Will Durst

Got an embarrassing admission here. Was scheduled to summarize the Democratic candidates debate last week but also had a deadline about the opening of the football season, and they kind of got mixed up together. Don’t you hate it when two things vie for your attention at the same time? Must be what’s making Donald Trump so irascible. Of course, when you get right down to it, the two do have quite a bit in common. Both politics and football are sports that don’t finish until there’s blood on the field. You cannot comment on either one without your trusty…

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That Really Bunches My Panties…by Brendon Marks

Harold was going fishing. He had looked forward to it for a long time. He finally took a day off and he was going. He didn’t bother to get up early. He had all day to take it slow, easy, and relax. His equipment was already in the boat, left there since his last trip. All that remained was to add ice and beer to the cooler, pack some sandwiches, and hook the boat trailer to the pick-up. Ready to go, he went inside to say good-bye to his wife. “Did you open the garage door?” she asked. That was…

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The Sirens and the Titans

It’s February. That means just one thing. It’s Stupor Bowl time. It wasn’t always this way. When I was a kid, the Stupor Bowl was in January. But that was before football—the American kind where they wear lots of pads, a helmet with a face mask and spend an inordinate amount of time touching one another—became a ‘big deal.” It was a time before they had sixteen teams to sort through before we knew who was playing. I don’t know if any of you were around in 1967, but I remember the first Stupor Bowl. The two teams got there…

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The Bond Between a Man and His Hats

The other day my wife suggested that I discard a hat that I have owned for some time. Her exact words were, “How can you stand to put that grubby thing on your head? You have seventy-three hats, sixty-nine of which you’ve never worn. Get rid of it.” Obviously, she does not know the bond between a man and his hats. They’re actually caps, but I call them hats, because you put a cap on toothpaste, and you put a hat on your head. There’s a big difference (unless it’s a ball cap). A man needs only six hats: One…

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The C C ‘n R’s

Many of us live in complexes or communities that are governed by a thin layer of bureaucracy referred to as a homeowners association.  Most associations use a set of rules and regulations as a guideline for making decisions about our everyday lives. These rules are called “The C C & R’s.” According to the board of directors this stands for Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions, but I found out it really means Convoluted, Confusing & Really stupid. I will go over a few of the rules we live by and the real reasons for having them. Some of these rules may…

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The Joys of Having Boys

The following came from an anonymous mother in Austin, Texas… Things I’ve Learned from My Boys (honest, not  kidding): 1. A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2,000 sq. ft. house 4 inches deep. 2. If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they can ignite. 3. A 3-year old boy’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant. 4. If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 lb boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman…

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