Goodbye to the Jeep Funny isn’t it how you can get attached to a car. And you don’t even realize how much until the guy from the car dealership drives it off for good. That’s when you think, “I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.” And what would you say anyway? “You’ve been a good one to me, little fella’. I hate to part, but you’re going to a better place. Somewhere where you’ll have a good family, an open field to play in and all the mid-grade fuel and proper oil changes a youngin’ like you can stand.” Funny, isn’t it? You make a decision to get a new car, you’re all decided on getting rid of the old one, and it’s not until you go to get all your stuff out that you realize how much you’re going to miss it. We bought a new car this past weekend after thinking on it for months. The old 1993 Jeep Cherokee was perfect for what it was — a beach vehicle, a dog limo, and ideal for hauling loads of lumber and other materials that snooty models would turn their noses up at. “Monsieur, you will not put that stinky rubbish on my fine carpet. I’m going to Starbucks. You find other transportation.”

If you’re like me, you’ve been consumed by the news recently, and especially politics. It’s become something of an out-of-control sporting event, and I think we’re all kind of feeling it as the mid-term elections approach. Combine politics with Iraq, House E-mail scandals, North Koreans with nuclear weapons, and that mile-wide chunk of rock hurtling toward Topeka (OK, I made that last one up), and you’ve got a good case of information overload. Or, maybe you’re just overloading on the wrong information. Either way, you need a break. We all need a break, and to get away from the hard news. So I’m here to help you purge. To serve as a kind of mental Liquid Plumber for cleansing the mind. You have to get out all that gunk and sticky stuff crammed up there, and the only way to combat serious news is with the exact opposite — ridiculous, outlandish and totally absurd news. Are you up for my simple program? It’ll help! Nothing makes you put it all in perspective better than the grand realization that while the world is full of madness, at least you never crashed your car because the electronic navigation system told you to. Feel better already? This is actually true. Reuters reported that in Germany a motorist was following directions from the global positioning satellite system in the car when it demanded, “Turn right now!” So the driver did … even though there wasn’t a street to turn onto. The car crashed into […]

I read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal everyday just to be dazzled by the riches — both liberal and conservative — that I will never know. News? Who cares about the news? Not when there are $350 bottles of French wine to drink (only not by me) and $2.2 million mini-jets to be flown. (I stare at the pictures and say, “Cool!”) Politics? Who cares? It’s all about money and I have none. These two papers prove it every single day, and it gives me great pleasure to read about it so I can be envious and drool. In the Times’ style section last week they had a feature on cardigan sweaters. I don’t personally like cardigan sweaters. In fact, I pretty aggressively hate them. But that was before I saw one for $500 in the newsprint. Now I want a cardigan. In the Journal, I saw a house in the West Indies on a cliff overlooking the sea that is starting at $10 million. It had a home theater, observatory with retractable dome, grotto with waterfall (I don’t know what a grotto is, but I bet you could put a tiki bar in it) and a dance studio. I ran to the computer to crunch a few numbers, just to see if there was some way I could squeak it out (maybe by cutting out red meat or gas for the cars.) But even if I could get a 30-year loan with a .001 percent […]

You what?” asked my mother, as if my brother’s fiance had just announced she was funding terrorists, or worse, had called her yard nothing but weeds. She was visibly agitated and I think her hand was trembling. “We used to paint faces on our pumpkins as kids back in Indiana,” said Holly, a bit sheepishly. “We never carved them!” A gasp! To make it worse, my Long Island-born wife chimed in: “We painted ours, too. Carving was too dangerous and the squirrels would just eat them.” The squirrels would just eat them! What kind of nonsense.

Oh, little brother! Can you feel it? Can you feel it coming on fast and quick, like a semi bearing down in the dead of night, on a rain-slicked highway with steam rising up, its horn blaring a warning from afar? BA-ROOO! BA-ROOOOO! Oh, my goodness. What have you done? “Do you know your brother’s wedding is just six weeks away?” asked my wife. I think I was eating ice cream and inhaled the spoon. Oh, crap! Crap for him, not for me.

Surf Lesson No. 263: Don’t take your wife to the beach the night your surfboard gives you a good ding on the head. “I knew this sport wasn’t safe! I just knew it,” said Nancy holding the baby as I carried my board from the surf. “Now look at you. You’re horribly disfigured, and you weren’t that good looking before.” I had a small gash on the side of my forehead and a little blood was puddling up. Just barely. It looked worse than it was, but it was puffing out, swollen and starting to bruise. On the bright side, it was pretty damn cool. I’m by no means a good surfer, and barely qualify as mediocre. In reality, I suck. But now I had a nice little head wound to prove I could do something well on the water.

It’s almost toy time. Sure, my 8-month-old has baby toys, but I’m talking the real deal here. What sweet little girl isn’t going to want G.I. Joe figures, the latest Star Wars action dolls, 72,000 Legos to make a fortress for your green army men and a battery-operated monster truck with a real steering wheel and authentic roadkill under the tire? Isn’t that what all little girls grow up with? OK, well maybe I’m bringing too much testosterone to the table. And it’s not a father longing for a little boy. All along I was hoping for a girl … on one condition: she would play army with me outside like I used to with my brother. There’s nothing better than the sound of fake gunfire, smoke bombs and kids yelling, “Hey, I shot you in the guts.” Ah, the joy of it. She’s not there yet, but it’s coming. Amelie is getting to be that age where she sits and plays … a bit. I guess I should clarify the definition of “plays” as it’s more like pulling books off her bookshelf and strewing them about her room like frisbees. This brings her great joy and she has a mighty laugh about it. Why is this so funny? Because I’m going to have to pick it all up! How could that not be funny? Stinker!

Is there any kind of kit — maybe a test or a calculator you buy at a hardware store — that will help you figure out if the house you’ve claimed is a historic grand old dame really is just a clunker with wood siding? By which I mean a shoddy old dump from the past that is likely to fall down on your head. Sure, it looks cute and quaint from the outside — a piece of Americana — but you can get tetanus from the wood, splinters from the metal and no telling what from everything else.I don’t know what has changed the past few months. I’ve always loved my house — that old Florida feel with the tall ceilings, the big windows, the airiness, the heart pine everywhere and the raccoons in the trees that tell you about how it used to be in the old days. I still love my old house. It’s nearly 100 years old, is downtown and has a nice big front porch where you can sit and enjoy the squadrons of mosquitoes who like to launch swarming raids on your ankles. But maybe it’s the new child that makes me think differently now, or wanting to finish projects and add new, modern things I never found important before. No matter what it is, it seems the blinders have come off and I see it through a new light. All of this was running through my mind one day as I stood shin-deep […]

My brother is getting married in November, a date that seemed so long in coming (there were some who doubted it would ever happen) and now not far enough away. There’s only so much time to prepare for a wedding, and never enough. So this past weekend, the groom and his wedding party — his compatriot, George, and myself — got serious about what we would wear and ventured south to Tampa for suit fitting.A road trip to be groped. Why Tampa? Because Tampa is home. Tampa is where tradition began and continues to this day. Tampa is where my mother lives (and no clothing decisions will be made without her on penalty of never hearing the end of it). Tampa is where people know we’re crazy, accept that fact and do business with us anyway. (Most of the blame for this lies with my mother who doesn’t believe she’s getting her money’s worth until she’s caused gray hair to pop out of a salesman’s head.) “Isn’t this fun?” she asks, a big wild-monkey grin stretched across her face while the other employees are running out the back door and the owner is considering a new security device that will warn them when my mother is in the vicinity. She asks too many questions, nitpicks, makes bad jokes and complicates simple things, like “So, how will you be paying?” How can that one question take 20 minutes to answer?

Boy, there’s nothing more boring, or sad, than sitting alone at a hotel bar drinking beer. Even worse is when you’re talking to yourself like right now out loud. What do you do? I don’t know. Never been in this situation before. What are those other stiffs doing? Hmmn. Staring at their beer. Watching baseball on TV. Turning soggy bar napkins into origami that resembles chicken dumplings. I can do that. (Ten minutes later and the napkin looks like porridge.) OK, now what. I’ll look around some more. Lots of interesting people that I could care less about. Is it me, or am I by far the best looking person in this room? Look at me in that mirror. I’m gorgeous! Look at me. Handsome, good lookin’ hair, sharp dresser, and oh crap! is that spinach in my teeth? Jeez, that mirror’s 20 yards away and I can still see it (Ten minutes later and I’ve jury-rigged a toothpick out of a splinter in the bar and discreetly removed the spinach while pretending I was tying my shoe.)