Writings

Earlier this week I spoke at the funeral service of a good friend. He had grown up as a “PK” — a preacher’s kid — in the San Francisco Bay area. Since his dad was a preacher, David went to church. So did his siblings. When David was in high

I grew up in a town of around 6,000 people. It was the biggest town for about 25 or 30 miles, making ours a rural area. All of the paved roads for many miles were two lanes. That means, for you city folks, one lane in each direction. Unpaved roads

Golf? Who can learn anything from golf? Mark Twain famously said that golf was “a good walk spoiled.” Some say the game is called “golf” because all the other four letter words were taken. But there is much to recommend it, and no one did that with more humor than

If you’ve flown on a commercial airline in the last couple of decades, you’ve heard these words: “May I have your attention, please?” For many passengers, the answer appears to be “No.” Newer flyers usually do pay attention. Those who have flown often, like me, watch to see how well

I was already planning to write on the topic of tolerance. Then my friend Chuck sent me an article by a writer we both like, and voila!, my article came into focus. A few decades ago Chuck and I were both on staff at a small college. He was older

Detective stories, whether in books or on TV or in a movie, attract a lot of us. I think part of the reason is because we love puzzles, and a good mystery or detective story is a delightful kind of puzzle. We try to figure out what the lead character

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” So they say, but what does it mean? You could google it, of course, but no need. I’ll explain with some illustrations, including “google it.” Google, as you know, is the proprietary name of a search engine. It was a

If you ever worked for IBM, you have heard the word “think” used as more than a suggestion. As a “motto” (command?), “think” was made famous by the man who named IBM and made it famous, Thomas J. Watson, Sr. At one point he was one of  the highest paid

There once was a man — a long, long time ago — named Diogenes. There could have been more than one, as I think of it, but the Diogenes (di-ah’-jin-eze) we remember lived around 300 to 400 years before Christ. He was witty, wise, and a great teacher. For much

Several years ago I learned a fascinating piece of information about seeing. Even if you already know this, it’s still fun. Mechanically speaking, our eyes see everything upside down. According to an article I found on Mental Floss, “That’s because the process of refraction through a convex lens causes the