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JUNE
21, 2025
Last weekend I returned to Ohio for my 60-year high school reunion. The Richwood High School Class of 1965 was one of eleven honored classes (at five-year intervals) who were welcomed to the 106th annual Alumni Banquet.
As noted earlier, I've attended these shindigs before. Of 76 graduates from the Class of 1965, 48 of us are still living, and 18 were there on Saturday night to pose for a picture by Bobbi Craft. I'm on the upper right this time. Needless to say, it was great to talk again with old friends!
Front Row: Sandy Ridge, Pat Ransome Kyle, Lynne Glass Ledley, Dee Ann DeBolt Payne, Doris Schrote Ebbert and Roxye Carter Cieply. Middle Row: Frank Carter, Dan Rush, John Caudill, Keith Forrider, Dan Converse, Bonnie Bell and JoAnn Prichard Bright. Back Row: Bob Marvin, Ed Olson, Denny Roberts, Richard Ridge and Tom Thomas.
JUNE
18, 2025
At the age of nine, comic-book fan Mark Evanier wrote an article about the Hanna-Barbera Studio. I can't think of any publisher who would have printed it. When something's on my mind, I often like to write about it even when there's no money. This is now known as blogging. I too like to write for fun. However, minor improvements are often necessary. I need to go back over it again and again when I write something. Perhaps I notice that a phrase like when I write something would work better at the beginning of its sentence. Then my repetition of write in its paragraph could be avoided by changing one of its occurrences to create. Another example: The Washington Post recently reported on disagreements at an alt-weekly, the Reader.
When I first read the sentence, it seemed that Goodman supported transitioning the alt-weekly into something called a nonprofit contingent. Then the rest of the sentence became nonsensical. Who are the some and why will they say over? It ought to be reworded to make it clear that he supports
Editing, says Andrew Katzenstein, is largely a rehearsal of all the ways a piece of writing might be misunderstood. Writing allows me to speak in extreme slow motion (at least compared to conversation). Writing, says Robert Elisberg, is looking at a blank piece of paper, putting down your first thoughts, going over it to rephrase things, then going over it again and again, cutting out full passages, changing lines, editing single words, editing for pacing. But those blank pieces of paper have largely been replaced by computer screens. Harlan Ellison's reaction: This is not a good idea. Using PCs for doing term papers, or scientific treatises, for lists for stuff like that, it's fine, but not for creative work. Many writers say it has made them write in a more slovenly fashion. They are not nearly as alert to the fact that they're going to actually have to do the physical labor of changing something. If they do it wrong, all they have to do is press a button. That's true. When I had to use pen and ink, like this example from 1965, it was necessary to compose each sentence carefully in my mind before irrevocably committing it to paper.
Now I can use a computer to simply slap the words down as they occur to me, then go back and press a button to impose composure on them. Does word processing make me a lazy writer? I know it makes it easier, Evanier says, but I think it makes it better. It used to be that when I had what could have been a finished script, I mailed it off. Now, I fiddle with it longer. I replace some words with better words, punch up jokes, trim out redundant passages, smooth out speeches, try moving around sections, trim out redundant passages ... and then I hit Send and it's off. It can be waiting in the inbox of the editor/producer tomorrow morning. He or she can give me notes that day and I can upload revisions while the writer who writes at a typewriter is still looking for a manila envelope and some stamps.
JUNE
16, 2025
For Father's Day, I quote portions of psychologist Joshua Coleman's April 30 article for The Atlantic, What Parents of Boys Should Know. Coleman writes:
JUNE
10, 2025
When I was a kid, I learned the rhythms of television series: one episode a week for 39 weeks, then 13 weeks of reruns. (For a live show that couldn't be repeated, we got 13 weeks of a summer replacement show.) Nowadays I watch not only broadcast TV but also cable. A recent development seems wrong.
JUNE
7, 2025
Most folks speak in the manner shown on the left below, but some speak as on the right.
Pittsburgh-area natives tend to drop the to be from the first example. I don't know why, and either way works, but the second way sounds odd to me. Other folks tend to add the do in the second example, as the British do. I don't know why, and either way works, but the second way sounds odd to me.
So I looked up Sewickley-Oakmont Road and discovered it's only one mile long. It shows up as a little green squiggle above. It can't possibly connect Sewickley to Oakmont. Except once it did. Over time, sections of the route have been upgraded or renamed, and now all that remains of S-OR is this mile with fewer than 50 houses. It's part of the Green Belt.
And what's the Green Belt? Some explanation is needed. As far as major highways around here are concerned, it seems to be that all roads lead to Pittsburgh. At rush hour, these parkways often are congested parking lots. Out in the plains of the Midwest, cities like Columbus and Indianapolis are circled by ring roads like Interstate 270 and Interstate 465, but Pittsburgh's hills don't lend themselves to many limited-access expressways. Making a trip from the northwest suburbs to the northeast, say, requires navigating a confusing sequence of mile-long local roads with lots of turns and intersections. Therefore Joseph White, an engineer with the Allegheny County Department of Public Works, cobbled together a low-cost way to lead motorists around the city. He drafted some of those existing local roads to be elements of a system of belt routes, identified not by name or number but by color. The signs went up in 1951-52, and now you could drive from Sewickley to Oakmont on a portion of the Green Belt (flashing).
JUNE
1, 2025
Welcome to Pride Month. As Jesus said in Matthew 5:11-12:
Blessed
are you when people insult you, persecute you,
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