Some laws are meant to be broken.  Some laws are meant to break us. Take Stapp’s Ironical Paradox and Murphy’s Law, for example. Murphy’s Law sagely observes that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. If you haven’t heard of Stapp’s Ironical Paradox, recognize it possesses even greater insight into the human condition: “The universal […]

We rarely went to the beach when I was a child, but one day Mom promised my 4-year-old brother, and 5-year-old me, that if the following day was “beach weather,” we’d pack a picnic lunch and spend the day frolicking in the cool waves and building sand castles. The next morning we woke to a […]

I had pals who inspired mischief, and I wanted to get away with the same or better than they did. I know this particular mischief wasn’t really clever, and it didn’t turn destructive, or I’d never ’fess up to it in a family newspaper. Much of the time it started in garages when our parents […]

After basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in 1961, I went to the Army Signal School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, which was close to Eatontown. We all had to do KP (kitchen police – we set up for and cleaned up after meals), which I hated. So I joined the Drum and Bugle […]