Thoughts of a Common Man

I went to school at Gannon University. I had a lot of friends on the golf team, and they decided to play in a memorial tournament at Whispering Woods in Erie. Three all-American golfers and me! Now, I’ve played in this foursome before, and it’s a lot of fun watching great golf up close. This year, I wanted to participate. I set up at the tee on a par 3 that was 178 yards away. A hole in one would win me free steak for a year. I can eat a lot of steak. I hit a great shot… …that was about 6’ from all that steak. The next golfer… …put it within 3’. “I couldn’t let you have that,” he said. On the very next hole we were about 40 yards off the green following our drive. I went first, and as I set up, my longtime buddy who routinely golfs around par said, ‘Hang on a second.’ Then he told me where to put the ball in my stance, and aimed at the spot on the green I needed to hit to put it close. I hit the spot. Holed it for an eagle. And man, we laughed all day. Four guys who’ve known one anothe...

So, a judge ruled that the Pedo Pig couldn’t ban the press, but when the media tried to access the White House in the morning they were denied. However, right around noon, just a half an hour before they’d have to show up in court, the White House lifted the ban. And the press stayed away in droves. They allowed the pug to meet with President Xi without any coverage. And then the orange mouth complained that the press wasn’t there! Good. Stay away! We’ve heard all his bits. We know he’s going to lie and tell us everything is going great. It ain’t. It was learned this week that his approval rating is now at 29%. Nixon got bounced when he was at 24%. It’s widely believed that there is a blue wave coming, and Pedo Pig knows that if they lose the senate and the house that he may wind up in Federal prison. What are his options? 1). They will try to cancel the elections. This doesn’t seem plausible, but a run at martial law is on the table. Make up an emergency and declare that the election ...

It’s funny how we salute one another. “How’s it going?” Is usually answered with: “It’s going?” “How are you?” Often gets: “Same shit, different day.” We all have stock answers. When someone asks me how I am I usually answer: “Lovely.” I see different people each day, which is good. I can’t imagine working in an office where you run into the same people every day. That’s dangerous because you get invested! At the same time, there was a plumber that I ran into the day after Kathy had her surgery. About a month later I saw him again, and the first thing he asked was: “How’s your bride?” Which was very thoughtful given that I’m not sure I even know his first name. There is one good day for greeting people. “How’s it going?” “It’s Friday.” That’s always the response on Friday morning, and yeah, it puts a little pep in the step. That’s followed by: “Have a great weekend.” And then on Monday we have to deal with the: “How was your weekend?” question. “I played all right,” is my response to t...

This is the final week of the baseball season. It hurts me to write that sentence, but of course, we have the playoffs coming up, and baseball playoffs are incredible. It’s been a weird year, as the Yankees have had a lot of major injuries. Aaron Judge hasn’t played much at all since May, and Stanton checked out in late April. That’s about 75 homers missing from the lineup, and still, they won 90+ games, but not the division. Which means they will be seeded behind teams that won considerably less than the Yankees. Just stupid. The Yankees will face Boston and then the winner of the series will face Tampa while the other 3 teams with way worse records will battle it out. One of those lesser teams will be in the championship series. Ridiculous. Teams should be seeded by the number of wins. Period. The Yankees should be the 2nd seed. Boston should be the 3rd seed. Whatever. Beat the best to win it all. And for the first time in decades, the Yankees will win a title if they pitch as they’r...

Finally. The media decided to work together. Instead of cowering, they decided to band together in solidarity with the entities that were banned. White House events went off without audio. Which was close to heaven… …he couldn’t be heard! No talk of windmills causing cancer, or the fact that no one ever knew there was a ‘b’ in dumb until he figured it out. Just silence. And why I say it was ‘almost heaven’ is because he could still be seen. The accordion playing hands as he tries to reason his way through his lies. And I mention all this because it brought to mind the glorious day, off in the hopefully near future, when he won’t be part of the daily conversation. Do you remember the days when we hardly ever thought of politics? Someone asked me about 9/11/01.  How’d I feel about America leading into it? “I was clueless,” I said. “I barely knew Bin Laden from Saddam Hussein.” And that was the truth. There was far less drama, and we trusted that those in charge had the best interest ...

I remember the first time I ever went online. I had received a floppy disc from AOL, and I had a PC, so, I put the disc in and man… …it made an awful sound! I was online! Now what? I remember telling Kathy that it was awesome because I can talk to anyone in the world. I went in a chat room and was in a conversation with someone in Colorado. “You don’t even like talking to someone you know who is in the same room as you. Why do you want to talk to a stranger?” A couple of months after that we ordered a movie and it was sent to our television! Amazing!! We watched ‘Waterworld’ with Kevin Costner. The movie wasn’t great, but watching it from my couch? That was outstanding! Fast forward 28 years. We have screens at the gas pump because God help us if we just stand there filling our tank without looking at a screen. There are 40 screens in every sports bar. People drive and look at their screens, and they argue with strangers, from all over the world, everywhere. I found that: I hate talkin...