“Fear of the latest technology is often assumed without proof of harm. While it’s true that industrial robots have killed several people working around them, the fault in most cases was the human’s.…

“The relatively recent appearance (c. 1920) of what I call the ‘third generation’ has led to the poverty of idioms and proverbs alluding to grandparents. ‘Grandfather clock’ is solidly ensconced even as the…

“Marry, young Russet. Now, don thy hooded cape incarnadine and hie thee to the forest o’er yon high eastward hill. Keep to the path no matter how the harebells beckon, and, I beseech…

“Clark Gable is remembered as a thrice-divorced and five-time married screen actor, but he understood what ‘home’ meant: a place you approach knowing someone inside is listening for your footsteps. Whether it’s an…

“My father, a charter subscriber to ‘Playboy,’ who never discussed the ‘articles’ therein with anyone except his golfing friends, apparently feared he’d left a gap in my education. He took me, therefore, to…

“Actuarial tables show that far more pedestrians die in a crosswalk than jaywalking. Risk takers often cite those tables as justification for the chances they take. Of course, far more people cross city…

“The purest fooling is neither stupid nor ignorant; it’s wit, and it often strikes like lightning turning sand to glass.”—Skip Eisiminger Skip the B.S. By Skip Eisiminger “Ignorance, the lost part of ‘virginal,’/is…

“I grew up in a military family that moved 17 times in 17 years. Yet, like Huck, I always felt that our apartment, duplex, or house was a home because I was loved…

“Having flown over Treblinka and snatched a few grapes from the Warsaw grapevine, he strongly suspected but could not confirm the horror. Occupying his mind were two brothers at two fronts, and a…

“Born in the Great Depression, John and his six brothers grew up at the base of ‘Eitel Mountain,’ a few miles east of and downhill from Boone, NC. A hillock in reality, the…