Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
One Dish You Should Never Serve On Thanksgiving
If you’re fortunate enough to have a home-cooked meal for Thanksgiving, it will probably include the sweet potato. There is nothing like enjoying one of my childhood favorites, a sweet potato casserole topped with oven-browned marshmallows. Or is there? Many professional chefs are saying this is one dish we could all do without. The objections
Have You Heard About Zipper Merge?
When you are driving and come to a construction zone that requires traffic to merge out of a lane, what do you do? I usually merge into the first available open space. Frankly, it’s always bothered me when people speed down the soon-to-be-closed lane despite the signage, then merge at the last possible minute. That
Bill Gates Meet Walt Disney
A couple of days ago, I heard on the radio that Bill Gates is planning to build a futuristic community. As soon as I arrived home, I started researching. According to the article “Bill Gates Invests $80 Million to Build Arizona Smart City” by Matt McFarland (http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/13/technology/future/bill-gates-smart-city-arizona/index.html), it sounds wonderful — The community in Belmont
On Trees and Relationships
I have a ginkgo tree in my front yard. It was not my doing; it came with the house. If you’re not familiar with this type, it’s sometimes referred to as the maidenhair tree. The only surviving species in the division Ginkgophyta, it goes back at least 270 million years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_biloba). The probable reason there is
How Not To Cook A Turkey
Of all the Founding Fathers, I think the most fascinating is Benjamin Franklin. He was our first humorist, and in his day the best writer in the Colonies. He was also an inquisitive scientist, perhaps best known for his experiments with electricity. But recently I ran across a Ben Franklin story that I’m sure he
Happy Birthday — Numbered Highways
On November 11, 2016, this country started something we take for granted every day — it established a highway numbering system. This was described so well by an entry in The Writer’s Almanac that I’m just going to quote it verbatim — In the early days of automobile travel, the federal government wasn’t involved
The Sun Is Not Going Away
Remember when I wrote about dihydrogen monoxide, that dangerous chemical that should be banned because it causes thousands of deaths every year (http://www.dhmo.org/truth/Dihydrogen-Monoxide.html)? (News flash: it’s water. Think about it, two hydrogen and one oxygen.) I have another one for you. There are several videos on YouTube claiming that, because of a conjunction between Venus
The Most Difficult Language To Learn, Part II
Yesterday I related a story about how difficult it is to learn the Thai language. But I know every language requires a lot of effort to master. The language I’ve actually studied is Spanish (not counting a Latin course in high school). I was a Latin American Studies major at the Air Force Academy. Although
The Most Difficult Language To Learn, Part I
What is the most difficult language to learn? Based on my personal experience, I would vote for Thai. And that personal experience came in the military. Every generation seems to have a war; mine was Vietnam. Fortunately, I got in on the tail end, when “Vietnamization” was in full swing. I spent little time in-country,
Happy Birthday — Radio
On November 2nd, 1920, radio station KDKA in Pittsburg, PA broadcast the first regular radio transmission in the US — the Harding-Cox presidential election results. Only about 5000 people owned radios at that time, and no one was quite sure how to use this new technology. Some wanted radio used for the good of everyone, funded