Crew Cars of America
A little-known benefit of flying away from home base for business or pleasure is the ubiquitous crew car. I don’t know how it got started, but it is a tradition and a courtesy that exists to this day. Crew cars [...]
February 2020
January 2020
A Boeing is not a Boeing, is not a Boeing
The only difference between one Dodge Ram and another is the options each owner ordered. One person might want the sunroof, but someone else might not, buy the basics like fuel systems, suspensions, and engines are pretty much the same. [...]
December 2019
Flying the Unfriendly Skies
Colorful leaves fall all around us, clogging gutters and making the way slippery. Leaves aren’t the only objects falling from the sky; Fall makes my yard a hard-hat area due to walnut trees shedding baseball-size nuts. Falling nuts also mean [...]
November 2019
ZERO-SUM GAME
Zero-Sum Games are like Socialism—someone gains by robbing another. Doesn’t that sound like fun, and why would anyone like to play such games? Yet, there are plenty of games where someone wins at the expense of another, think horseraces and [...]
October 2019
October
The Wall Street Journal has several gifted writers. Dan Neil is their automotive editor, and he is unusually literate, as are all the WSJ subject editors. After all, cars and airplanes are not merely utilitarian assemblies of nuts and bolts, [...]
August 2019
Numerology
Numerology is a belief in the mystical relationship between numbers and one or more coinciding event. That’s mostly bunk, but Divine Providence, well, that’s another matter entirely. The Guiding Hand employs numbers as a way of getting us wherever we’re [...]
July 2019
ALL BUT ONE MAN DIED
“All but one man died There at Bitter Creek And they say he ran away Branded Scorned as the one who ran What do you do when you’re branded And you know you’re a man?” Actor Chuck Connors wasn’t just [...]
June 2019
JUNE – #4 – Epilogue
EPILOGUE Well, I never contracted polio, but I did get two more of those shots; bad things always come in threes. Confederate General Jeb Stuart said: “Always mystify, mislead, and confuse your enemy.” I did the best I could, but [...]
JUNE – #3 – The Chase
THE CHASE Never taking “the eye” off his prey, the doctor slowly approached the white cabinet, and sure enough, he pulled out a needle the size of a sled. It was one of those metal frame jobs with a needle [...]
JUNE – #2 – The Deal
THE DEAL Our town doctor was not the sensitive type. He was a big man, really big, with the large fleshy hands that only a doctor can have. As I recall, he drove a Jaguar and liked to race with [...]