The Cheap Seats

  I'm a fan of Thanksgiving. It's the holiday of low expectations. There is little fanfare or formality. No gifts are exchanged. No feelings are hurt. It's all about the food. Granted, women are working their asses off in the kitchen - men still falling mostly short in the food prep department - but the payoff is huge. Stuffed and satisfied families blearily wander out of dining rooms to nap away food-induced comas. The only enduring tradition of Thanksgiving (other than football) is the obligatory recitation of what everyone is thankful for. Children typically follow mom and dad's lead, listing the usual suspects - pets, parents, health, siblings, often in that order. You know, the really boring stuff. No one is selfish or specific. I'm also a big fan of the little things in life. No, I don't take family, friends and health for granted  - but the small stuff can also supply its own source of comfort. So, here is a tune in honor of my slices of daily h...

I am a bona fide Kennedy-phile. Whether in books, movies or on TV, stories of the triumphs and tragedies of this American family have received my attention and interest since I was a teenager. And then this past month, as the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination neared, my focus sharpened again to that fateful day in Dallas. Morbidly, I spent some time yesterday watching the scant few moments of gruesome film footage before, during and after the fatal shot that ended the President's life.   The Kennedy Presidency was never part of my conscious memory. I was born three years after it ended. And yet each time I read about or watch this moment in U.S. history unfold in books or onscreen, I have found myself growing anxious as the story moves inexorably toward 12:30pm, CST on November 22, 1963. "Maybe this time the big black Lincoln won't turn right onto Elm," a voice in the back of my mind whispers hopefully. "Maybe t...

An era came to a quiet end last week. Few people cared, and those that may have said very little. This particular end was not met with any of the typical nostalgia requisite of a good ending. Thick slices of nostalgia are served up when a beloved local business closes, an old ballpark is torn down or a former world leader passes away. For a short time we are willing to forget that the store's prices were outrageous, the ballpark had three bathrooms for every 1,000 spectators and the fallen leader - for all of his rhetoric - was not very kind to the poor. None of these things happened. Blockbuster Video - the movie rental giant - announced this past week the closing of its remaining stores. The collective national response? Meh. Blockbuster, and countless other video rental stores, are following the poet T.S. Eliot's oft-paraphrased adage; dying with a whimper rather than a bang. They have been on life support for a decade and no one within the industry had the g...

My definition of a great educator is a person who can teach a student how to do something that the student would not otherwise be able to do or learn on their own. I had many good teachers throughout my childhood, people that worked hard and challenged me and my classmates. The one person who still stands out today in my mind as  great was a smart, surly and sarcastic math genius named Bob Clark.   Mr. Clark's smarts were off the charts. I passed those upper level math classes only because of him, plain and simple. If Mr. Clark knew a student was willing to work,  he didn't let them give up or fail. His surliness was mostly bravado - but definitely by design, keeping students on their toes as well as adding to his reputation. The truth behind Mr. Clark's bluster was that he cared very deeply about his students and his subject. The sarcasm, however, was genuine and undoubtedly what his students remember most about Mr....

I recently bought a "gently used" car. The usual but bizarre scenario quickly followed. I began seeing many more cars on the road of the same make and model as my car. The label for this particular phenomenon is Observational Selection Bias (I had to look it up), and it is something we all experience after major purchases (such as automobiles), life changes like pregnancy (everyone seems knocked up) and trivial things like noticing a specific number or song repeating itself. So no, we haven't developed a marketable superpower. Unexplainable, yes. A reason to don a cape and tights? Save it for the bedroom.   Inexplicably, I have Observational Selection Bias about the damnedest thing - and for about ten years running now. This doesn't seem to fit the OSB pattern, however. After all, what I keep seeing is not unique to me or representative of anything I've purchased recently. So I ask:   Why in the hell do I ...