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It all started with Pong

I’m going to make a safe assumption: most of the world’s population today cannot remember a time when there were no electronic games. This is based on two facts: (1) the world’s median population is approximately 30.9 years old (meaning half of the world’s population is older than 30.9); and, (2) the world’s first electronic games — Galaxy and Pong — were introduced in 1971 and 1972, respectively. This realization occurred when Julie and I watched three of her grandchildren for a week in June while their parents vacationed with friends in Minnesota. On Friday afternoon ...

Mrs. Miller was right.

It wasn’t smart to bet against Dorothy S. Miller, my fifth-grade teacher at Washington Grade School in Bloomington, Illinois. She said many memorable things, including one day in civics class: (sic) “It’s the duty of good citizens to read a daily newspaper.” Every day at 8.20 a.m. we ...

Eb’s Spanish lessons

The waitress had just refilled my coffee cup when a familiar character slid into the opposite side of the coffee shop booth. It was my old buddy, Eb Griper. I’m not saying Eb has a sour personality but he can curdle a pitcher of cream just by staring at it. “Morning, Eb,” I offered. “Yep,” Eb said glumly. “Bad day?” “Is there any other kind?” “Boy,” I said, “you can make a Friday seem like a Monday. Why so glum?” “Hilda.” “And what did Hilda do to upset you today?” Eb sighed. “She decided I need more culture.” “And you believe ...

Memories go way back

While chatting with a high school classmate recently we discussed some childhood and school memories. He said he could remember back to his pre-kindergarten years and I said I can remember bits and pieces of when I was two years old. That’s nothing special but it is uncommon. Psychologists tell us that most people cannot remember beyond age three. Children’s memory abilities, it is understood, don’t fully mature until about age seven. They call this inability to recall memories from early childhood “infantile amnesia” and believe this is not due to a lack of memory ...

The toys of summer

Many of the toys kids play with nowadays had not been invented when I was a kid. In fact, today’s kids probably would not recognize many of the ways we entertained ourselves in the 1950s. As the days heat up I think back to the summers of my childhood. These memories often include the toys we played with back then. During the winter we played with Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys and board games but in the outdoors of summer our toys were even more fun. Bicycles were essential in the summers of the 1950s. Most families had only one car and moms were not chauffeurs. You want to go ...

We are all going to die

This is for you, Doug. I will never forget the moment I told you I was going to take over the DFJ for two months. You rolled your eyes. That was back in the spring of 2022. This is for you, Loween, whose expressions I remember clearly when I presented at a Rotary meeting in the basement of the Second Street Emporium so very long ago. I recall I was introducing my play "Afternoon." I read from the dry research material I had gathered and, hoo boy, did your face tell a story. I think you would agree that dry is an understatement. But then I began to tell a greater story, that of ...