City Slickers is a film about three Manhattan men, lifelong friends, who are wrestling with the harrowing approach of middle age. Together they head out West in the hope of finding adventure (and maybe even themselves) by participating in a cattle drive. One of the characters, named Phil (played by Daniel Stern, wearing the white hat), has recently seen his… Read more »
When Dick and Judy Hoyt became parents on January 10, 1962, it quickly became evident that something had gone terribly wrong. The umbilical cord was wrapped around their son’s neck. Because of oxygen deprivation to his brain, little Rick had cerebral palsy. He would never be able to walk or talk. Numerous physicians assured the Hoyts that their son was… Read more »
There’s a Hall of Fame for almost everything. Seriously. Almost everything. The Polka Hall of Fame is in Cleveland. In New York City you can visit the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame. The Barbed Wire Museum and Hall of Fame is found in Lacrosse, Kansas, which advertises itself as the Barbed Wire Capital of the World. Want to experience… Read more »
Benjamin Franklin was savagely denounced by a fellow member of the Pennsylvania legislature in the mid-1700’s. His antagonist, who apparently enjoyed talking about him, had never even bothered to talk to him. Franklin promptly initiated a response. He had all kinds of weapons at his disposal. A master of linguistic cleverness, he could have nailed his adversary with a few Twitter-length putdowns. An… Read more »
When teammates touch each other, good things happen. That was the conclusion of a study a few years ago at the University of California, Berkeley. Researchers tried to discern the likelihood of success in the National Basketball Association based on how often fellow players went out of their way to experience mutual physical contact. The research group watched hundreds of early season… Read more »
In 1984, the Hasbro company hit a consumer home run. They introduced a set of action figures called Transformers – vehicles, devices, and animals that could be reshaped into robots and then back again. For Gen X kids, these toys were indisputably “more than meets the eye.” After invading playrooms everywhere, the Transformers went global. They became the stars of their own comic… Read more »
What are the most memorable meals you have ever eaten? I’ll never forget a clambake I enjoyed almost 40 years ago near the coast of Maine. I was one of the adult leaders of a high school mission trip. Local people, grateful for the work we had been doing for the past week, spent half a day preparing veritable mountains… Read more »
Joshua’s battle against the Canaanite city of Jericho is one of the great stories of all time. The battle strategy that God proposes is, to put it mildly, non-traditional: “Here’s what you are to do: March around the city, all your soldiers. Circle the city once. Repeat this for six days. Have seven priests carry seven ram’s horn trumpets in… Read more »
It’s almost certainly crossed the mind of every child who’s ever played on a swing set: I wonder if I could swing high enough to go all the way around. That’s the kind of cutting edge issue addressed by Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage and their merry team of scientists and engineers on Mythbusters, the Discovery Channel hit show that… Read more »
Healthcare experts estimate that 80-90% of Americans are dependent on a chemical substance called trimethylxanthine. Most of us know it as caffeine. Botanists have long guessed that caffeine – which occurs naturally in the foliage of coffee trees, cacao beans, and several varieties of tea leaves – functions as a pesticide. Its bitter taste seriously discourages leaf-munching insects. But what… Read more »
