From an early age I swam competitively. In high school I swam on a city AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) team as well as with my high school’s team. That AAU coach was a stickler for form. We watched underwater footage of Mark Spitz swimming, and the coach would point out little nuances the Olympic gold …
A series of children’s books featured Amelia Bedelia, a maid who consistently misinterpreted directions (with disastrous results) dismaying her employers. She took every directive literally: planting lightbulbs (instead of flower bulbs) in pots, cutting holes in a polka-dot dress to “remove the spots,” and tying expensive cuts of meat in the garden to “stake the …
In The Adventure of Silver Blaze, a Sherlock Holmes short story, the famous detective was drawn to a “curious incident”—a silent dog. This fact, unobserved by everyone else, unlocked the mystery of a missing racehorse. The others’ wrong questions, and the ensuing wrong answers, had resulted in the arrest of an innocent man, and it …
In my characteristic outside-the-box thinking, I recently suggested, “Let’s get rid of some furniture and put a ping-pong table in the living room.” So we did! But that meant also converting the dining room into a TV room. (Welcome to my unconventional world!) We reconfigured the TV and antenna, having dropped cable years ago. Since …
Many of the earliest stories we hear start with, “Once upon a time…” From there the author paints the setting and introduces the characters. Schools offer classes such as America History: 1492-1865 or AP World History. We tell stories and histories to our kids chronologically so they can understand the sequence of events. In a …
Still somewhat in summer vacation mode, I recently pondered seating on planes. Some discount airlines require you to pay extra to choose your seat. The rest get assigned a seat at random. But whether you pay for your seat or choose to be subject to the airline’s whim, they allow all sorts of people on …
A few times a year I fly to visit my mom in another state. Everyone on the plane takes it for granted that the plane will leave the ground at the end of the runway. None of us doubt that the law of lift will defy the law of gravity. Scientists such as Cayley, Bernoulli, …
Decades ago, I sang in our high school’s choral group. One evening I drove two other members to a nursing home where we would sing. None of us had been there before and (as this was in the 70’s) we only had written instructions—no Siri or cell phones. I had a terrible sense of direction …
In the 1970s the world was introduced to the game Dungeons and Dragons. In this (sometimes addictive) role-playing game, each player takes on the persona of an imaginary character, interacting with other characters in various situations, with the goal of gaining power over obstacles and others in a fantasy world. Never having played it myself, …
The longer I live, the less inclined I am to delve into politics. Too often to my eyes and ears politicians spend most of their time patting themselves on the back and sounding like the “Wah, wah, wah…” of Charlie Brown’s cartoon teacher. I do, however, get excited thinking about law–God’s law, that is–and why …
