She thinks he’s cute in his little blue suit
For some reason my middle-aged friends and I don’t understand, we’re apt to have a problem with anyone or anything that involves a name. We can easily remember other stuff, but names pose a challenge.

Who knows what part of us we leave behind?
The story is that Thomas Jackson, my cousin from Virginia, fell under the enchantment of a 5-year-old girl who sang to him.

Not only is it fun, it’s important to all of us
Tell me if this wouldn’t make a great poster:

This development will bear some watching
Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources is considering a regulation that would punish people who inadvertently feed bears. (Add this to the reasons I am glad to have moved to the relative sanity of West Virginia.)

You’d better eat it, even if it kills you
We occasionally receive news reports about researchers whose studies produce findings that should come as no surprise to any reasonably intelligent person.

Not all doors open, but some doors might
I don’t know what you plan to do with yours, but I’m going to spend the $600 of my money that President Bush and Congress are sending back to me on gasoline, heating my house, paying medical and insurance bills or for other things that all of us need, but which have become too expensive or hard to get, because they were supposed to be running this country but have spent too much time arguing with each other and not doing their damn jobs.

A Moose told us why we have bad weather
To the best of my recollection, it was my Great-Uncle Paul Goldsworthy who gave the first warning I ever heard about “climate change.”

They’d despise what has been done with it
Few people noticed when the last surviving German soldier of World War I died this past New Year’s Day.

The look on her face was one to remember
I recently had my first homework assignment in close to 40 years.

We should thank Noah and Peter for our steaks
A friend of mine looks forward to reading our letters to the editor so he can see who is arguing with whom, and about what, and the ingenuity they bring to the table.

It’s not enough, just to tell them ‘Thank you’
It was my privilege and honor to be asked by Henry Hart Post 1411, VFW, to be a judge in its annual Voice of Democracy Contest and the speaker at the awards dinner

There really are some good uses for that ice
My pal Maude, who occupies the adjoining columns, asked what I think of the snow.

Do the stakeholder and hammerholder have interoperability?
Who thinks up the names for Japanese cars? How much does he get paid to do it? Nothing on the Internet enlightened me, but I did find a list of interesting Japanese show car names:

Thanks for paying in cash; have a nice day
What some folks call Sarge’s Rules of Combat holds that “Friendly fire isn’t” and “Suppressive fire won’t.”

Here’s an Oscar we must never forget
Each time I watch vintage wartime film footage of American troops, I wonder if there are folks out there — the survivors — who are also watching and see themselves as they once were, in a time they might like to forget but cannot.

Let’s call it an exercise in bathroom humor
Some of my friends were discussing what to put on a new sign in their place of business when I recently went to visit them, and they asked if I had any suggestions as to how it should be worded.

Be careful of what you chase, because you might catch it.
If you’ve heard the term “beer goggles” and aren’t sure what it means, I will explain.

Life’s a rollercoaster, on and off the field
When I was younger, I wasn’t sure if I had been born into the right place or even into the right time. I understood very little about life, and it bothered me.

OK, if you want to talk about it, we will
Some of you are probably curious about my opinion on the subject, so we can discuss it for a few minutes.

Call it what you want, it’s a Christmas tree
It is always a relief to find out that other countries have screwballs, too.

Why are you looking down in the mouth?
When I picked up the envelope and saw the return address, I had a gut feeling about what was in it ... and I was right.

Hey! Some turkey on the phone wants you
A friend of mine recently had an experience that left me with mixed feelings, including the suspicion it was a trap that could have caught me or some of my middle-aged contemporaries who also suffer from CRS (Can’t Remember Stuff).

Don’t you recognize Martian camouflage?
t’s a weird sensation, to smell your own flesh burning.
That woke you up, didn’t it?