Well, my back hasn’t gotten any better since February. OK, it got better, but then on Easter Sunday I went for a run and, halfway through, I suddenly felt the same lower-back seizing that laid me out initially. I was able to finish the run, but it was enough to convince me to get...
Good Old Boys
With all the talk about blasting levees lately, I just had to listen to Randy Newman’s classic album Good Old Boys, with the song Louisiana 1927 today. I first heard this song in 1977, when he came and played at Jesse Hall at Mizzou. None of my friends wanted to go, so I went...
If I had…
Boy, if I had a nickel for each time I’d started a post here and didn’t finish it … well, maybe I wouldn’t be rich, but I’d sure have a nice pocketful of nickels. It’s been an extraordinarily busy last few weeks for me. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel, and...
Looking Back: The First Year
So it’s been a year, more or less, for this blog. Always one for looking back and keeping track, I thought I’d take a moment to highlight some of my favorite posts from the first year, the ones I had the most fun writing, each for a different reason. Think of this as an...
A Month, Lost
Yes, it has been more than a month since I last wrote here. The entire month of February didn’t see a single post from me — the first time that’s happened since I started this blog a year ago. And unfortunately, it wasn’t just the keyboard that I neglected last month; my running shoes...
The Y In The Sky
The Post-Dispatch asks: Where were you when the Challenger exploded? I was in a job interview with the editor of the Clayton/West Citizen Journals. (“Do you mind if I smoke?” the editor asked at the beginning of the interview. “It’s your office,” I replied somewhat awkwardly. Am I going to say “yes, I mind,”...
Forecast: Snow, Ice, Slush, Snow, Slush…
Six inches of snow, followed by several days of temperatures in the teens or 20s. Rinse. Repeat. That’s January in St. Louis so far. Or at least the last couple of weeks. And although the driving portions of the roads have been cleared nicely, the edges of the roads and the sidewalks have been...
My Likes Are My Own, Thanks
I was cruising Facebook today, and there, over on the right side in the “ads” section, was something new: it was a picture of one of my FB “friends” (whose name I am editing out here, to protect the innocent), with the message, “XXX Likes Malaria No More.” Now, there’s an awful lot wrong...
Countdown To Zero
So Keith Olberman and MSNBC have parted ways. No word yet on what he’ll do next, but he’s obviously an eloquent, talented and passionate guy, and he’ll undoubtedly wind up with a good gig somewhere. Heck, maybe even back at ESPN, though I doubt it. The thing is, the three minutes and 12 seconds...
On Editing
From The Missouri Review today, this blog post on the importance of grammar. An excerpt: Over the holidays, I received the page proofs of my forthcoming collection. It was my last chance to read the book and catch any errors before publication. By this point, the stories had been revised and revised again. Many had...