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We had plenty of rules when I was growing up. No throwing cheese into the ceiling fan. Stop pouring ketchup on your pancakes. Obey your parents, that it may go well with you and that you may live past Thursday. Mom taught me other rules too: Love God with everything you've got. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Make the bed when you wake up. He who starts the day cleaning his own messes will learn responsibility and make a fine husband one day. Through the years...
School. Do we really need it? English? We already speak it. Math? We have calculators. History? Those people are gone. Physical education? We have the great outdoors. Spanish? We have Dora the Explorer. Okay. I'm kidding. Truth is, I'm grateful for school. Without it I would be a very bad speelor. As it was, my grades began slipping in kindergarten. If I didn't know the answer, I got creative. What ended in 1945? 1944. Here are answers kids have written on tests. Q: If you...
Tabloids do their best to start rumours. Here are a few headlines I'm not making up: "Farmer shoots 23-pound grasshopper." "Man's 174 MPH Sneeze Blows Wife's Hair Off." "Satan's Skull Found. Bible experts call it the find of the century." Speaking of the devil, I heard a rumour that he was going out of business. He had a Blow Out Sale at his store there on 666th Avenue, offering to sell his tools to the highest bidder. His minions welcomed customers with sneers. Tools were...
Love according to kids Sometimes we run out of wise advice on love, so we ask kids about it. Eric, age 6, was asked, "What exactly is marriage?" He said, "Marriage is when you get to keep your girl and don't have to give her back to her parents!" Kally, age 9, was asked, "How do you decide who to marry?" "You flip a nickel," she said, "heads means you stay with him. Tails means you try the next one." Eddie, age 6, was asked how to tell if two people are married. He said, "If...
Ah, winter. That season when our mothers draped us in 40 pounds of parka, thick mittens and winter boots so heavy you could barely walk to school. "You'll catch your death of cold," mom said while she wrapped four or five scarves around my head and pulled them so tight that I could see stars. I had to feel my way to school. If I fell over, I rolled a little, but I couldn't get up. I just stayed in a snowdrift until school was over and someone had mercy on me. Other than that,...
A little boy asked a friend, "How do you spell mousetrap? The friend said, "C-A-T." How is your spelling? Winnie the Pooh said, "My spelling is wobbly; it's good spelling but it wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places." Teachers have encountered some letters in the wrong places on tests and assignments. Here are a few of my favorites. 1. "I didn't get to sleep much all night because next doors dog was baking." Well, that kid had a ruff night, don't you think? (Pardon...
I love baseball. Oh, I know it isn't as fast paced as golf or lawn bowling, but I enjoy the delicate game of cat and mouse between pitcher and batter. The tension of a ninth inning full count with bases loaded. I enjoy watching the players with their odd quirks and superstitions. Take Wade Boggs, for instance. As a Boston Red Sox third baseman, Wade attributed his stunning success to eating chicken before each game. "I had pork chops before one game," he said, "I went 0 for...
One summer night during a thunderstorm a mother was tucking her son into bed. He asked in a trembling voice, "Will you stay with me all night?" She gave him a warm, reassuring hug and said, "I can't, dear. I have to sleep in Daddy's room." Silence followed. At last the little guy said, "The big baby!" Fear. Do you have some? We just spent the weekend with five grandbabies all under the age of four. You spend a weekend with this many small kids and you think, It's a very good...
It's the start of a New Year. A new beginning. New hope. Some people resolve to get some exercise-to start walking between the fridge and the couch, rather than using a scooter. Others ask, "What kind of person do I want to be by the end of the year?" This year I'm asking, "What kind of person do I not want to be? I think we've all met some people we don't want to become. Like the lady down the block who owns 49 ferrets and stands at her front window pointing her hair dryer...
My older brothers had a favorite Christmas tradition. They used to save up the cardboard tubes from rolls of wrapping paper and whap me with them Christmas Eve until my mother made them stop. Through the years, our Christmas traditions became less violent. They involved sleeping under the Christmas tree, watching Star Wars, making Norwegian lefsa and cramming our house with relatives on Christmas Eve to eat too much and retell stories of Christmas past. Around the world,...
I was speaking at a summer camp for aboriginal teens. The rule with teens is that if you get one of them by himself or herself he or she has many, many functioning brain cells. Put two teens together and the number of functioning brain cells is immediately halved. But these were great kids with great potential. Life is challenging for them, though. Drug and alcohol abuse is common. A father in their lives is not. Many have considered suicide. One told me, "Things are dark...
As a well-traveled North American, I'm fascinated by culture. I've been in every Canadian province and most U.S. States. In Nova Scotia, my wife and I were treated like family by complete strangers. Trust me, this does not happen in New Jersey. Americans are more likely to say "um" than "eh." Canadians are more likely to apologize than our American cousins. When I cross the pond to Europe, the rules change further. I tried to tip a waiter in Germany, and he looked at me like...
It seems like last Thursday that our kids were teenagers. People would ask, "What do you do?" and I would say, "I follow teenagers around the house. I shut lights off. It's a full time job." Suddenly our teens grew up and had children of their own. And now, we follow grandkids around the house shutting lights off, vacuuming, mopping and hosing down the disaster area. With six of them under the age of three, we have no idea what they're gonna do next. One minute they reach...
What would you do if you had nine minutes to live? My wife and I were in Hawaii. I was preparing to speak the next day. I know, it's a tough life. All that sand in your shorts. Ramona and I enjoyed an early breakfast. Then suddenly at 8:07 a.m., the world went crazier than a cageful of monkeys. A zillion cell phones buzzed and a message flashed onscreen: "Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill." Now, I'd be a liar if I told you...
Have you ever complained? My daughter worked as a server, so she knows a little about complaints. Here are a few grievances aired in eateries. I think it's important to tell you that I am not making any of these up. • "I'm sending the fish back. It was staring at me." • "The plate color clashes with my food. It's too ugly to Instagram." • "This cup is right-handed. I'm left handed." • "The ice was too cold. It should have been left out for a few minutes." • "I'm sending the ch...
A short time ago, after a short courtship our son was married. “The time is short,” he said. “We’re thirty.” So he married Dallas, a short girl. Actually, she’s not short at all. She’s a world-record holding power lifter. That’s right. She carried our son over the threshold. I, on the other hand, am not built for lifting large objects. In ninth grade I lay on my back, hoisting barbells straight up above my face, and somehow the whole contraption got away and fell on me. I’m...
Cathy decided to meet her friend Jane after not seeing her for several months. When they met, Cathy exclaimed: “Jane! How did you lose all that weight?” Jane replied: “It’s my husband. He never washes his dishes, he leaves his dirty laundry everywhere, his work papers are all over the place, and each night I run around the house cleaning up after him.” “That’s horrible!” Cathy said. “You should confront him.” “Oh I will,” answered Jane. “In six more pounds!” Maybe you’d like...
I love to win. I imagine you do too. I don’t meet many who say, “Some of my fondest memories involve being clobbered in checkers and belted at backgammon.” You don’t hear sports fans chanting, “We’re number two! We’re number two!” We prefer to win. For one thing, it’s easier to brag when you win. Baseball great Ted Williams said, “I can’t stand it, I’m so good.” Major League Pitcher Bo Belinski said, “My only regret is that I can’t sit in the stands and watch myself pitch...
There are seven wonders of the world. But for a child there are millions. We were in a mall and my granddaughter couldn’t get over how many people there were. She had to say hi to everyone. And bye too. People were laughing. She pointed up at a mannequin and said, “Bumpa.” Which is me. That’s my name. I saw no resemblance at all. Except that the mannequin was completely bald. Another of my granddaughters loves to say car and plane. “Car, plane, car plane!” I think she wants t...
Sports interviews can be very entertaining. Golfer Greg Norman once said, “I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.” Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees said: “Therapy can be a good thing. It can be…therapeutic.” After a pitcher hit baseball player Tito Fuentes, Tito said, “They shouldn’t throw at me. I’m the father of five or six kids.” My favorite is from NFL superstar Joe Theisman, “Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy lik...
I was in second grade when Miss Barzley came to town. Like little lambs, we were lined up single file in the hallway and shot one by one. I stood near the back of the line. Those who had gone on ahead filed by saying “OWWWW!” and clutching their arms. Miss Barzley was an imposing figure, even without that long needle in her hand. She would have done well as a Sumo wrestler, but had gone into nursing instead. Her glasses were so thick she reminded me of a huge insect. “Ro...
I love to hear from children. Not all the time. Not while we are shopping and our two-year-old yells, "Look, that man is gonna have a baby!" But children sure write interesting notes to pastors. Here are a few that are just too good not to share. • "Dear Pastor: Please say in your sermon that Peter Peterson has been a good boy all week. Sincerely, Peter Peterson" • From Arnold: "I know God loves everybody, but He never met my sister." • "I'm sorry I can't leave more money...
Today we present, “How to have a baby fast.” Are you ready? Call your dad at 3:45 in the afternoon and leave a voice message, “We’re heading to the hospital. Likely a false alarm. It’s 3 weeks early, so I wouldn’t worry at all. We’ll call if anything happens. Don’t worry. Talk to you later. Bye.” It was my son Jeff on the line. What? Me worry? Of course not. It’s just that my third grandchild is about to be born. Eighteen months ago this same son and his wife Raelyn were ou...
My son has been single for 29 years. Since flying from our nest he has kept a fairly clean house, done his laundry and become adept at cooking. Although he does show up at our house often just to gaze into the fridge and drool. But a grown man can only eat so much of his Mother's lasagna before she sends him out to pasture. He lost weight in the pasture and began considering marriage. Before long, he had more dates than a palm tree. They came from online dating services,...
My wife and I were in Oregon sitting around a campfire with some fabulous people. They asked what's the difference between Canadians and Americans? I said that Canadians are always apologizing and that I'm very sorry we apologize so much. Canadians are sort of like the people living above a tavern, I said. Americans are making a lot of noise down below and every once in awhile we poke our heads out windows and say, "Hey! Keep it down!" They laughed. One handed me a laser...
