My Life As A Hobby

  “City Lights, the pretty lights, they can warm the coldest nights.”                Neon Rainbow                     The Box Tops 1969 There’s something special about city lights.  They are so pretty, so peaceful. I was a teenager the first time I really noticed them.  My friends and I climbed a condemned fire tower near Red Mountain in Birmingham. All of three of us were tightly focused on avoiding rotten or missing steps until we reached the top and faced the downtown skyline in the distance.  At once, we were mesmerized by the blanket of shimmering lights that lay before us. We felt like gods looking down on a starlit sky.  Traffic signals flashed red and green. Automobile headlights moved in glowing, flowing lines. Multi colored signs adorned the building tops. And all around them thousands them of street lights sparkled. It was like watching a beautiful woman...

  I recently saw another news special about the drone sightings over New Jersey. It’s scary; however, it’s not the first time there were unidentified objects over a metropolitan area. In the late 70s, lots of people in Birmingham periodically saw strange lights in the sky. I know because I’m the one that did it.   I have to make a confession: UFO‘s have always fascinated me. Maybe that’s because I watched The Day The Earth Stood Still when I was a kid, and it scared the bejeezus out of me. Scared or not, I would frequently buy UFO  magazines with my allowance.   In fact, I can still remember one of the articles I read 60 years ago. It told readers how to make fake UFOs using   dry cleaning bags, birthday candles, and drinking straws. Supposedly, they would drift high in the air with an unearthly glow. For whatever reason, that stuck with me. Maybe it’s because boys like the idea of making something that flies.   Years went by, and this nonsense was ...

  When I first get out of bed, I do what I always do - go over my pain checklist. Lower back - stiff. Right hip - ouch. Right elbow - check. Right shoulder - owww.  Left foot - ohh. Neck - yep. It’s just another typical morning. I’m moving slower than the Tin Man before Dorothy oils his joints. I could write a country song about waking up and call it “Another Three Motrin Morning.” And I get no sympathy from my 81 year-old brother. When I complain about my maladies, he just laughs and said,” Just wait.” At my last check up I told my doctor that the warranty on this body has expired. I know pains are just a natural by-product of the aging process, but it’s hard to understand. In my younger days, only lots of exercise would make me sore. I knew that a hard workout at the gym was sure to make me stiff the next day. Now, every morning, every single morning, I wake up sore. Apparently sleeping seven hours was too much exertion for me. What’s worse, more times than not,...

  By now, I’m sure most of you have your Christmas tree and home decorations up. Not me - I’m a world class procrastinator. Think I’m kidding? I still have a rotten Jack O’Lantern on my front porch. Of course, soon I will be forced to give in to my wife’s persistent requests (aka nagging), and begin hauling up boxes from the basement to make our house a quaint holiday home - for about 3 weeks when it all goes back in the boxes again.  At the risk of sounding like Scrooge, all of this fuss putting out holiday decorations for a few weeks ranks right up there with prepping for a colonoscopy.  The first box I retrieve is the biggest and the worst - the dreaded Christmas tree. Ours comes in several parts which must be fit together just so in order for the lights to work. Then the limbs must be bent out in such a way to avoid “gaps” - the high crime of Christmas tree  assembly. Finally, it must be ramrod straight and sturdy, so I end up using books as levelers until ...

  We just got a new oven - one of those sleek, stainless steel jobs.  Just looking at it’s simple lines, you get the impression that it would be a snap to operate. And you would be wrong. The only way to effectively work this device is to have a doctorate in engineering and a bottle of Valium.  It has an instruction manual that’s 68 pages long.  I don’t think the instruction manual for a Stealth Bomber has that many pages.   Aside from all the technical hooey, the manual has some very important advice all new appliance owners need to know - things like, don’t use the oven door as a seat, and wear proper clothing while operating the oven. Honestly, I don’t know what proper cooking clothes are. I just know you shouldn’t fry bacon naked.  Here’s another biggie: the manufacturer implores us not to heat up corrosive chemicals on the cooktop. That’s certainly disappointing news for all those folks who like to warm up their hydrochloric acid.  But ...