Meditation Repudiation

Mary Ellen and I just got back from a trip to visit my sister and brother. In my sister’s lovely condominium in Great Neck, New York, she has a little windowed room off her kitchen that’s no more than 6 by 8 feet. In that room she meditates every day, and she claims she has…

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How to Read a Redhead!

My wife is a redhead. We went to New York last month and several strangers commented about how thick and beautiful her hair is. Sometimes when I ask Mary Ellen what she is planning for the next morning, she’ll say, “Washing my hair.” Then I say, “Okay, how about tomorrow afternoon?” And she says, “Drying…

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Spreading the News

Whenever I read a newspaper article that begs to become the basis of my next humor column, I cut it out and save it.  Then I forget where I put it.  (I also do that with car titles, birth certificates, and my life insurance policy.)  But here’s one rich article I did find on my…

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More Cutting Remarks

Mary Ellen is insightful enough to know that in most of my columns I’m poking fun at myself. Take last week, for example. Wait, that’s not a good example. You see, last week, I gently chided my loving wife in my column for having no desire to mow the lawn. It was not one of…

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Cutting Remarks

I see women in my neighborhood mowing their lawns. My wife doesn’t mow our lawn. I don’t think she will ever mow the lawn. Lawn mowing season is here and it just kinda drives me crazy trying to figure out why she won’t mow the lawn. I want to ask her about this, but I…

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Let Me Sleep On It

I recently got tested to see if I had sleep apnea. Sleep disorders can be serious, but my overnight stay in a “sleep lab,” had a few lighter moments. Before leaving that evening, Mary Ellen helped me lay out a few things we thought were important to take with me, like extra underwear, a toothbrush,…

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Ala Carte

On the Wolfsie refrigerator, next to a photo of me hugging Goofy at Disney World (I was a mere 57 years old at the time) is Mary Ellen’s list of items to be purchased on her next trip to the supermarket. Needless to say, there is frequent updating, like if we consume the last of…

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Not Even Remotely Funny

You’re probably familiar with the newest TV remote control technology.  No longer do you have to “enter” the channel on the device: in many cases you can simply say what channel you want into the remote and voila! There it is on the screen. Of course, most times you will be asked to repeat yourself,…

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Laugh Lines

My wife, Mary Ellen, is usually a warm, caring, and sensitive person, so when I turned to her the other night at dinner and said, “I can’t think of anything funny left to make fun of anymore. I may have to stop writing my humor column,” I was surprised when she replied, “Could you please…

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Split Decision

While at a recent speaking engagement in Lafayette, I chatted with a man from nearby Otterbein, a dot on the map in northwest Indiana, with a population around 1,200.  I wasn’t familiar with the town, despite my having visited much of the state several years ago for a book I was writing, called Indiana Curiosities.…

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