Back Home Again

A collar is the canine equivalent of the wedding ring. Once a collar is purchased for a dog, there is no going back.

The invention of the tubeless tire must have been a sore disappointment to boys everywhere. Inner tubes served as our boats in the summer and our sleds in the winter.

This year, we’re not leaving Indiana. The little woman and I will head to our farm in Orange County, where the people are humble, the landscape inviting, the snakes few and modest in size, and nothing untoward ever happens.

I was at a doctor’s office recently, and as I sat in the waiting room, I read People, easily the worst magazine in the universe.

We’ve forgotten how to die in this country. Death with dignity? Fuhgeddaboudit. Not so long as there are fortunes to be made in keeping us alive.

These days, most gripers seem to be white guys. Every now and then, I hear a disgruntled woman whine about things, but she’s likely married to a grouchy white guy, and the surliness has rubbed off on her.

When I start my third party, I’ll have to suck up to some rich people to get their money. I don’t ordinarily like spending time with billionaires, but I’ll do it for the good of the country.

If your spouse ever asks if you’re mad at him or her, do not say “yes.” Don’t believe that psychobabble about the importance of open and honest communication in a marriage. Everyone who says that is divorced

The preponderance of ugly houses suggests most architects are either overworked or undersmart. In either case, it’s time I lent a hand.

Toss that bed, take down those posters, rent the room to gypsies if you must, but do not give your grown children a toehold back in.

Let us call Indiana’s prohibition against gay marriage what it is: a spiteful effort to deny one group a blessing another group enjoys.

I like being a minister, but if I had known I was going to write books anyway, maybe I would have taught college to get the summers off.

There’s an art to motorcycle negotiation. One must strike the perfect balance between indifference and slight interest.

As the narrative goes, Hank the Dog was born in Oklahoma, abused by his original owner, and taken in by some well-meaning soul who had too many dogs already. There is, from what little information I can coax from my reticent son, an Underground Railroad for rescued dogs, and Hank came north to Putnam County, not far from our home.

From The Libertine to Recess and Oakleys to Bluebeard, Korean to Latin and sushi to steak, our critics choose the cream of Indy’s dining crop.