The older you get, somebody once said, the more things turn into symptoms.
Call me Rusty.
My mother couldn’t sew worth a darn — and she couldn’t do that either.
Autumn, popularly known as fall, is almost here as I write this, and the signs of it are all around.
Sometimes you just suspect you’re an idiot.
Everything you could possibly think of, I thought I thought of.
(Maude is sort of enjoying vacation, so you have to read this column from March, 1983.)
Bird lovers only today, please.
Don’t you love a whistling man?
Call me Rusty.
Call me Rusty.
It’s about time I cleared up something that has been going on for a long time.
The more I live in this world, the more I think there must be a bunch of laws that regulate matters in ways I cannot even dream of. They may not be written down, but they rule the world.
With all the rain we’ve been having lately, you can’t help but remember back to the days of the big flood of 1936.
Yesterday on the way to church, I had to brake for a robin.
You know how it works.
Listen, my ancients, and you shall hear of modern developments quite queer: the peculiar habits of everyone raised, as or by Baby Boomers, and you’ll be amazed.
There’s no excuse for what I did last week.
Things never get so bad that you can’t laugh about them.
When I was young, “Heidi” was one of my favorite books.
You’d think, at my age, I’d understand a good bit about what goes on in the world these days.
This afternoon I was driving west along Route 68 past LaVale, the sun was out, and the hills were the most beautiful I’ve ever seen them.
You know, I’m starting to worry about scientists.
It’s no wonder we’re in a recession, really.
If I see another Christmas cookie recipe, I think I will — not make it.
When I was a pre-teen, I loved it.
O’Toole worked in the lumber yard for 20 years, and all that time he had been stealing the wood and selling it. At last, his conscience began to bother him, and he went to confession to repent.
Sometimes it seems to me that I am caught up in a continuous argument about history.
Not many folks in the past ever lived past 50 or 60, so there’s not a lot of evidence around on what it’s like, getting old. From time to time, in this column, I try to fill in the blanks.
Curiosity killed the cat and it’s not always kind to human beings either.
Quick, before summer’s all gone, I have to talk to you about insects.
These days you can’t help wondering what kind of a president you would be.
Hate to admit it, but one thing I did on vacation this summer was — watch television. Only at night, but still way too much television, especially counting the Olympics.
Deeply embedded in vacation, Maude is reprinting this old column from 2001.
Modern technology is beginning to get upsetting, and I’m not just referring to the atomic bomb.
You know, I really get ticked off sometimes. Well, lots of times, actually, but in this case, it’s when people say, “This (automobile, culture, or whatever) is not your father’s (automobile, culture, or whatever.)” Or your mother’s. Just the other day, in a medical TV show about the modern dangers of sunlight on skin, someone said, “This is not your mother’s sun.”
Yesterday I got a call from an old friend of mine.
You know why old people suffer from high blood pressure?
It’s all that salt.
You know salt.
It’s the stuff that, the older you get, the more you take everything with a grain of it.
Here’s good news. In England, dogs born after April 6, 2007, will not be allowed into the show ring if their tails are docked.
Personal confession: When I stop by the library these days, I head for the fiction shelf. Right away. Sometimes, I don’t even pause at the hardback fiction, but go at once to the paperbacks, the thrillers and historical romances that seem to be much of what I read nowadays for pleasure.
Personal confession: When I stop by the library these days, I head for the fiction shelf
Oh, how I used to dread Mother’s Day!
Whoa! Don’t take this wrong but the world is getting too adolescent for me to stand anymore. Now, I will understand if you reply, “Hey, it’s my turn to sound off, for a change ... .”
Well, sorry, kid. Remember? I’m the one with the column!
Diplomacy is important in my book, but sometimes it can go too far
Honest. I was planning to write this column on dumbness (to go with the last one on niceness) before Eliot Spitzer turned into such a perfect target for sport shooting.
This just in: a movie review in the Washington Post that actually called a new movie (“Miss Pettigrew”) “nice” — and then recommended it! Instead of making fun of it! Will wonders never cease?
After a whole column on the old-fogy take on life, today I give equal time to the young folks
Here I go again, reporting from the Great Beyond. Beyond 60, that is.
It’s about time I paid some attention to one of the most formative elements of our culture, and I’m not referring to American Idol.
You really wouldn’t think that a simple little greeting card, under $6 as I remember, would cause such a fuss.
As soon as I got up this morning, I knew it was going to be a bad day. Every time I threw something in the waste basket, I missed.
That’s always a tip-off right there.