Carlson

By: John Carlson— Ever notice how we humans under-appreciate rats? Consider Pizza Rat. Remember him? He was the rat purposefully navigating steps into the New York City subway system on YouTube a while back, hauling home a pristine slice of carry-out pizza. Talk about can-do spirit! That was a rat for whom Make America Great Again was a commitment, not some hackneyed political slogan. We could learn a lot from a rat like that. Then there were the rats recently…

By: John Carlson— There’s a lot of Swedish in me, but I always hoped there was some Irish, too, The Auld Sod’s writers like Frank McCourt and Sean O’Faolain being among my favorites. So when our daughter Katie gave Nancy and me a couple DNA tracking kits for Christmas, I spit into my test tube with my fingers crossed. For further good luck, I downed an Irish whiskey on St. Patrick’s Day, begging my personal leprechaun, just in case I…

By: John Carlson— My wife makes a mean ham-and-bean soup, which is fortunate, since I grew up eating some of the very best. A visit down to Mt. Summit and Sparky’s Doghouse –  better known by many of us as The Cultural Center of the Universe – started me obsessing over this. It was my friend Sparky Harris himself, a man who expertly cooks literally hundreds of hams each year, who blessed Nancy and me with a meaty hambone to…

By: John Carlson— Once upon a time, I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. This was nearly 45 years ago, while a student at a small Christian college.  The school was a place which prohibited many things that most young people considered fun, like smoking, drinking and dancing. Falling through the sky trying not to wet your pants, however, was allowed. Thus was born Taylor University’s Parachute Club. About 20 young men and women drove to a small airport…

By: John Carlson— Not to say I am an unsophisticated lout or anything, but the first time I ordered a bottle of wine with dinner at Vera Mae’s Bistro, I nearly sent it back. “Holy crap!” I complained to Kent and Steve. “There’s a cork stuck in it!” Ha–ha! Just joking. While admittedly a 99 percent wine-from-a-spout guy, I knew that cork was jammed in the bottleneck on purpose. It was with that sort of unfortunate faux pas in mind,…

By: John Carlson— A friend recently offered me a refresher course on playing pool, but all I needed help with was that part of the game involving hitting a ball with a stick into one of those tiny holes in a felt-covered table. The rest I had down pat. Like, the look. Having set foot in a number of saloons over the years, early on I learned to approach pool tables with sad, wizened eyes that seemed to have seen…

By: John Carlson— The other day on Facebook, I saw a meme or whatever you call it that asked how many people remembered high school typing classes? I sure as heck do. Once, I even took such a class. This was due to the fact that, because of the many school activities in which I was involved, I had neglected to register in a timely fashion for the advanced physics and calculus classes my guidance counselor urged me to take….

By: John Carlson— After 36 years of marriage, I have finally figured out what separates the women from the men, the ladies from the gents, the chicks from the dudes, the babes from the … well, you get it. Redoing your kitchen. Greg, our neighbor and head guy from Richard’s Kitchens, was over recently taking measurements while Nancy peppered him with questions. What about the countertop options? What about improving the lighting? What about moving the microwave housing? What about…

By: John Carlson— An interesting thing happened to me the other night. I nearly died. OK, that’s probably a little too dramatic, a slight exaggeration. But within three or four minutes, had my wife Nancy not been around, I might have drifted up to my heavenly reward. Given my history of good deeds for humanity, that reward is likely to amount to a crappy black-and-white TV set with rabbit ears antennas, so I’m in no rush to collect it. What…