By: John Carlson— Until I’m doing handstands and cartwheels while rebounding from a couple inconvenient back and spinal issues, my world seems a pretty small place. It’s not a bad place, though. There’s my house, which is airy and open and easy to get around in, plus there’s a pretty nice summer sausage in the fridge. Then there’s the garage where my Harley pines away its days, awaiting my return to the saddle. After 40 years of riding, I can’t…
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By: John Carlson— You know your life lacks excitement when the wildest thing you do all day is drive through the carwash. We did this yesterday. With Nan behind the wheel, I coached her into Clancy’s tire tracker gizmo, offering helpful hints like “Left,” and “Right,” and then “A little righter,” and finally “Geez, woman, not that far right! Open your eyes, why don’tcha?” I know she appreciated my help, because she began flipping me the coveted “You’re the World’s…
By: John Carlson— Spring is here and summer is on the way, along with the promise of sunny days spent wearing Speedos and bikinis at poolside parties and beaches. Regrettably, it is also time for some of us to shed those pesky 60 to 70 pounds of rippling, gurgling blubber that somehow snuck up on us over the winter. Afterward, we can once again seductively waddle, er, walk the sand like the Girl, or even the Guy, from Ipanema, without…
By: John Carlson— One cool thing about working in the newspaper business is it affords you experiences you might not otherwise enjoy, like meeting Elizabeth Coblentz. Name ring a bell? If so, it’s because she was the original Amish Cook who first authored the newspaper column that has run for years in Muncie’s Star Press and other newspapers scattered around the country. While her column was well traveled, Elizabeth herself mostly lived and worked just up the road near Geneva,…
By: John Carlson— There aren’t many physical activities I’m really good at, but one of them is definitely snoring. In noting this, I am not tooting my own horn, forgive the pun. Based on my personal knowledge, I would say I am lousy at snoring, a guy who peacefully slips off to Nappyland every night without making a peep. It’s my wife, Nan, who told me I am great at snoring. Well, she never actually “told” me so. What happened…
By: John Carlson— You know, when dinnertime rolls around, nothing “hits the spot” like some delicious snails. I didn’t always feel this way, though. Like, take way back before my culinary awakening to snails – meaning two whole weeks ago. At that time, my opinion of eating snails was best represented by Steve Martin’s confrontation with the waiter in his movie “The Jerk.” He and Bernadette Peters are dining in a fancy restaurant. Then he spots something disgusting. “Waiter!” he…
By: John Carlson— Once upon a time I had a sweet ride. And I do mean ride. This started off as one of those bad news/good news/bad news things. Having recently flown into Clearwater, FL, for vacation, Nan went to where our car rental place had reserved us a vehicle, only to learn they hadn’t reserved us a vehicle and, furthermore, had no vehicles available. “Well, shoot!” I exclaimed, or words to that effect. But it being late and we…
By: John Carlson— Our annual vacation to the Gulf of Mexico is coming up, so naturally I’m getting a trifle twitchy. You see, the gulf has – there’s no easy way to put this – sharks. I never used to think much about sharks before we started vacationing on beaches adjoining large bodies of salt water. My standard joke was I wouldn’t bother them in the ocean if they didn’t bother me while driving through Clancy’s Car Wash. This always…
By: John Carlson— Stinkbugs. They’re not just in Muncie anymore. Please forgive my riff on the old TV commercial touting, “Orange juice. It’s not just for breakfast anymore.” But some recent Facebook traffic leads me to believe that stinkbugs are now as ubiquitous as America’s favorite fruit drink. This came as a shock to me. See, there was a time when we had so many stinkbugs around here, I figured my neighborhood was the Western Hemisphere’s center of stinkbug reproduction….
By: John Carlson— Clouds? You gotta love ‘em. I love watching them form and drift and, alas, dissipate. And who doesn’t love how they dress up the sky during a spectacular sunset? What’s more, I’m told the same glorious thing sometimes occurs at sunrise, though being retired now, I wouldn’t know from personal experience. Cloudless skies, in turn, bore me. Recently I took my love of clouds to a new level by joining The Cloud Appreciation Society, which is a…