Dick Wolfsie

Here is part 2 of excerpts from my favorite columns from this past year. Looking forward to 2026. In one column, I celebrated the history of the parking meter. The parking meters in Chicago back in the 30s made very little money. The mafia only parked in front of banks for two minutes, just enough…

This week, I have a few final observations as we head into 2026.Every few days, my printer temporarily refuses to print. It sounds like it’s trying to process something, maybe something disagreeable that I wrote, and struggles to spit it out. Then I see a display saying the device is running a self-diagnosis, with a…

This is about a medical concern I had last summer.  I’m fine, but this is my only chance to write funny stuff about a lung biopsy. I hope. When I arrived at the hospital, I met Jill, the RN, and immediately asked her if the doctor assigned to me was good at what he did.…

HOOF IN YOUR MOUTH DISEASE!!!!! I read yesterday that IKEA was “withdrawing” one of its most popular food offerings from supermarkets in Sweden after discovering traces of horse meat in the product. In racing terminology, horses are not “withdrawn,” they’re scratched.  But no shopper wants to hear the phrase, “Effective immediately, we are scratching our…

Have you already figured out what happened? Yes, most of the messages I intended to send to myself were going to Dick Guernsey. (He told me to use his real name because he wanted to see his name in print.) I began to realize there was a problem when I saw Dick at church, and…

My wife has run off with my sister. They were only supposed to vacation together for a little over a week, but when Linda asked Mary Ellen if I could manage alright being alone for so long, Mary Ellen said, “He’ll be fine. I’ll only be gone 10 years.” I assume she meant 10 days.…

There should be a law against having phone numbers that denote words instead of, well, numbers. It’s a phone number, not a phone word. For example, there is a national organization dedicated to educating people about a common, but potentially serious illness. Their phone number spells the name of the disease.  Is that an incredible coincidence,…

(CURRENT) It’s already October, and I haven’t seen my Christmas Hammacher Schlemmer gift catalog. This historic company is closing. Their publication is 144 years old. And I have been making fun of their quirky gifts for more than two decades. The company has had a good sense of humor about my ribbing. In fact, they sent me…

Ouch! Ow! Ooh, that really hurts… Please stop. Are you trying to kill me? We can all agree that having a lousy dentist can be an agonizing experience. But I don’t have a lousy dentist—I have a very good one. The only yelp ever heard during one of my appointments was the day I accidentally…

There are many people in our neighborhood with diverse professions.  There are insurance agents, physicians, pharmacists, computer software experts, and salespeople, among others.  All of these individuals not only excelled in their respective fields but are also accomplished in other areas. For many retirees, this is a way to make the most of their newfound…