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January 14, 2016

The View From Planet Kerth

A birdhouse by any other name would squeak, not peep

Go ahead, call it a birdhouse if you want to. But you’d be wrong.

It’s time to get your garden-team MVP into the game

Ah, the joys of late October—giving treats tomonster-clad kids, glorying in the trees’ technicolor display, putting in the first plantings of my 2016 vegetable garden… Wait… what? Planting veggies in October?

Debating the lowdown on the latest shower-door craze

My buddies Mike and Bill swung by last week to pick me up for a round of golf—a happy surprise, because lately Mike’s life has been held hostage by home remodeling.

Letting the eclipse tell his side of the story

A lady walked up to me recently, shook my hand, and stared deeply—searchingly—into my eyes. “I just wanted to see the other half of your face,” she said.

Seeing the world through a good-guy’s eyes — as I see it

We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are. I think that might be the most insightful line I ever came up with—even though Anais Nin came up with it first. But still, I’m taking credit for it because I don’t think Nin should get all the credit just because she was born almost 50 years before me and got to say the line first.

The best place for helping hands may be in your pockets

On my nature-trail bike ride not long ago, I passed an older man poking a turtle with his cane. It was a snapping turtle—not a big one by snapper standards, but probably newly mature. And it took the poking with grim determination, rather than with a hiss and gaping jaws as you would think a snapper might.

‘When I’m driving in my car, and a man comes on the radio…’

Of all the wonders that music offers, nothing can beat its powers as a vehicle of time travel.

Seeking a heartbeat in a world of robot overlords

It happened at the grocery store the other day as I stood at the end of a long checkout line. And it happened last week when I went into the bank.

A late-blooming superhero reveals his Power of Stupid

Someone once said, “Knowledge is power,” but what little knowledge I possess can’t hold a candle to my newly discovered “Power of Stupid.”

You know you really want to — and now you probably should!

How many times do you have to catch them in a lie before you stop listening to them?

The way it should have been is just the way it was

Even if you’re not a fan of soccer—or of women’s sports in general—now that the Women’s World Cup is in the news again there’s no avoiding memories of that iconic photo of US soccer star Brandi Chastain on her knees, fists clenched, arms raised, mouth open in a joyous roar of celebration after scoring the winning penalty kick against China to capture the cup on July 10, 1999, in front of more than 90,000 stadium fans, and perhaps a billion more worldwide.

So long, Cuervo, it’s been good to know you

I guess you could call me a “commitment” kind of guy. Married to the same woman for 46 years and counting. Driving the same car since 2002. And don’t even ask about that old-school archive of ancient garments that is my underwear drawer.

There’s nothing cheesy about my crossword quirk

They say that doing mental problems like crossword puzzles can help keep an aging brain from turning to cheese—or at least it can slow down the process and keep the brain gouda-like instead of being completely limburgered before its time.

That’s why the lady is a champ

A couple weeks ago, I decided to do what pretty much all the rest of America was doing: I watched the Diane Sawyer interview with Bruce Jenner.

Pressing the flesh—it’s not just for politicians any more

A century ago in the early days of automobiles, the motto went: “You can buy a Ford motorcar in any color you like—as long as it’s black.” An equal number of choices were available when it came to brand name or body style.

M-m-m-m, you can really taste the deprivation!

I started a new diet a week ago, and I’ve already lost six pounds.

That got your attention.

Call the potty patrol, because I’m going in!

If you keep your eye on the crime reports over the next several weeks, you might see my face as the cops haul me away.

Don’t blink, or the future will be behind you

In the fall of 1971, which was a million years ago for those of you younger than 45 or so, I was just starting a job as a new teacher. Marlan Davis, my department chairman, opened his greeting to the English department by stating, “As we sit here in 1971, we are closer to the start of the 21st Century than we are to the start of World War II.”

A time-tested tale of plush micro-fibered self-sacrifice

“Hero” is too strong a word in this case. Instead, call me “loving husband,” or “caring friend.” But not “hero.”

Wait for it… wait for it… here comes the sun!

OK, so the days are short and the nights are long. It’s winter, after all. But look on the bright side: The solstice has passed, the wee days are creeping slightly longer, the groundhog has spoken, and before you know it the long lazy days of summer will be here!

The crime spree is over, but the lessons have just begun

Now that the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde teen fugitives have been caught, parents across the nation are no doubt sitting their adolescent children down and wagging their lesson-loaded fingers in their faces.

Coming soon to a theater near you: More of the same!

Recently, as my wife and I sat in a darkened theater waiting for the start of yet another Hobbit movie—the sixth, if memory serves—the previews came on the screen, tempting us with a festival of “new” films. And every “new” film preview, every single one of them, was a sequel to some other film that is now old.

Finding that elusive but dependable spirit once again

It’s not hard to find Christmas. It’s right there on the calendar—that big 25 near the end of December. But though Christmas is easy to find, finding the Christmas spirit is another thing altogether. There’s no telling when it will arrive.

Who put Dr. Seuss in charge of the kennel?

I miss seeing dogs.

I don’t mean all those odd jumbles of animal parts that people generously call “dogs” these days—those canine collisions with cute labels like poopadoops or shitzadumps, animals that would never have been bred if the mash-up of their parents’ names didn’t sound so doggone cute.

Go fast, turn left, and other intimate advice

NASCAR claims the second-largest viewing audience in America, right after pornography. And probably for the same reason: Sooner or later, somebody’s going to spin out and slam into the wall. I’ll never understand the appeal, because what’s the point of watching somebody on TV doing something you do every day?

It’s not my fault that this page is blank today

There’s a truck parked in the street outside my house—a lime-green pickup truck with a little lime-green trailer attached to it, looking like a big shiny version of something you’d give to your grandson to play with in the sandbox.