In a few days, we will enter the golden gates of National Poetry Month. “There’s no money in poetry,” quoth poet laureate Robert Graves, “but there’s also no poetry in money.” While it is true that rhyme doesn’t pay, poets gain a foothold on eternity through their poems, and that luminous immortality outshines the evanescent […]
Americans have fallen deeply in love with that beguiling conspiracy of light and darkness and color and silence and sound and music that we call the movies. Film megastar Matt Damon says it this way: “Movies are one of the few things that bind us, that allow people to experience the same dreams and memories […]
DEAR RICHARD: In a recent edition of the Union-Tribune, I read the following sentence: “Santee leaders passed an ordinance banning children under age 12 from riding e-bikes in December.” Why only in December? – James Huizenga, Clairemont James Huizenga offers a spot-on example of what happens when one’s modifiers go south — or north or […]
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) generally gets credit for finding America. In grade school, many of us learned this ditty: In fourteen hundred ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And he did. On his first voyage, he sighted the Bahamas and made land on Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). On three subsequent voyages (1493, […]
Here’s a little finger exercise. Make a circle with the fingers on your left hand by touching the tip of your index finger to the tip of your thumb. Now poke your head through that circle. If you unsuccessfully tried to fit your head through the small digital circle, you thought that the phrase “poke […]
DEAR RICHARD: Have you ever seen this tombstone?: Here lies (not “lays”) Billie Woody Robins Reed English Teacher –Bill Plachy, San Marcos Your tombstone is a new one to me, and I am delighted to add it to my cemetery of occupational epitaphs that demonstrate how some folks take their jobs with them to the […]
To celebrate the holiday, I share with you my limericks about funny monsters: Tonight, when the last light is gone And you’re sleepy and yawned your last yawn, Ghosts and ghouls will come out, Witches, bats — but don’t pout. All those monsters will leave before dawn. On a blind date, two Cyclopes said, “Hi!” […]
Let’s go sailing, sailing over the bounding main. A mainstay is a strong rope that helps stabilize a ship’s main mast, but for most of us mainstay means “the most important part of something; someone or something that provides primary support,” as in “The Union-Triune is a mainstay of our San Diego community.” In the […]
In the previous edition of this column, I shared with you a number of pirate riddles and jokes, such as “Where does a pirate go to buy his hook? The second-hand store” and Why are pirate kids so annoying on car trips? They keep asking, “Aaaar we there yet?” As a follow-up, I share, in […]
Arrrrr, me swabbies! Avast, me hearties! Ahoy, me seadogs! Blimey, me scallywags! Schooner or later, it’s Davy Jones’ locker in the briny deep for ye landlubbers. Buckle your swashes. All hands on deck. Batten down the hatches, lower the boom, and hoist the mainsail. Shiver me timbers and blow me down. Take out yer triangular […]