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MY SUN DAY NEWS

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July 3, 2013

The View From Planet Kerth

The schoolyard clash of the bully-battling mantras

Quick now — complete this sentence: “Sticks and stones may break my bones…”
Chances are, if you are old enough to have put classrooms and playgrounds behind you, you ended the quote with something like “but words will never hurt me.”

Blue-plate specials and anatomically correct toddy mugs

If you glanced into the kitchen cupboard of my home when I was a kid, you would think we lived in Random Acres.

Westminster can’t hold a candle to Hetty Pegler’s Tump

Any time you hit the road in a rented car with a handful of people, there’s a good chance hands will curl into fists. After all, not everybody has the same idea of a “good time,” right?

Cuno Barragan, a ball, and the trickster gods of Wrigley

It had to have been in the summer of 1962 that Cuno Barragan tossed me that ball.

The long-ago laundry of the Days of Our Lives

Who can say where such memories come from?
Maybe a random sound. Maybe an errant smell. Maybe some snatch of words in the morning paper.

Coincidentally, if the house starts a-beeping, forget about sleeping

My dream last night proves it — I am the King of Coincidence.

A world of marvelous lights and flights – but not a popper in sight

When I was a young boy, I decided that I wanted to be an inventor.

Hi ho, hi ho, I think his name is … D’oh!

My memory isn’t what it used to be. Well, maybe it is. How would I know?

Be it swab, syringe or sucker, it’s still a bad idea

There is a painful commercial running on TV these days that shows an illustration of a guy cleaning out his ears with a cotton swab. But because the commercial isn’t selling Q-tips, you can imagine what happens next.

I’ve drifted over the e-fence, all a-wiggle with glee

I’ve finally done it. I’ve gone over the fence. Now I know how Dandy felt all those years ago.

Sorry, ladies, the silver fox has left the building

I cut my hair this morning. When I say “I cut my hair,” I mean that my hair was cut by me. It was a self-inflicted haircut, as all my haircuts have been for years and years.

A candy-crazed criminal’s long-overdue apology

I don’t recall her name — I’m not sure if I ever knew it — but I would like to apologize to that skinny, curly-haired girl for giving her a bloody nose.

Sometimes it’s best to know you can’t get there from here

I don’t know if my parents naturally had more patience than I did, or if they came by their patience through long practice, but they somehow managed to resist the temptation to leave me at a gas station after the hundredth time I asked them, “Are we there yet?” on our annual drive to Lake Nicaboyne in northern Wisconsin.

Recalling days when rooftops branched and combed the sky

While walking through my neighborhood the other day, I was stunned by how much I suddenly missed seeing TV antennas standing tall on every house, each as different from the others as the families who slept beneath them.

Memories of times gone by that cut to the heart

Grandpa Kerth, my father’s father, died when I was very young, so I have few memories of him.

Beaten to the draw by the fastest grump in the west

While taking a quiet walk around Wildflower Park the other morning, I bumped into a grump. The sun was shining, the temperature was balmy, the breeze was soft, and I greeted him as I greet most fellow walkers — with a smile and a “Good morning! Beautiful day today!” He nodded, but his grumpitude quickly kicked in.