I hate the Chicago Cubs

It was two months ago when my 7-year-old daughter asked me if there were any teams I hated. And I could sense that she didn’t mean it in that gee-I-hope-those-guys-lose sort of hatred.

She meant it in the way that liberals hate George Bush, that conservatives hate Hillary Clinton and that she hates her cruel and tyrannical second grade gym teacher.

It was a good question. I grew up nurturing vicious hatreds for at various times, the New York Mets, the Dallas Cowboys, The Oakland Raiders and any professional team with an Ohio zip code.

I gave it some thought and looked deep in my heart.

The answer was no.

There was no team I so despised that I rooted for them and their fans to not only lose their games by humiliating margins, but for them all to develop things like leprosy and large pervasive boogers that smelled really, really bad.

Sure, I’m passionately Pittsburgh and want our teams to win ‘em all. It’s great for the city I love and only enhances an image that’s still under-appreciated. But the last two times Pittsburgh teams have competed for the respective championships -- Steelers in 2006 and the Penguins in June -- I was unable to muster any fan-imosity toward their opponents (Seattle and Detroit).

I felt marginally proud of myself that I was no longer one of those frothing idiots who goes on-line and calls talk shows hosted by addle-minded cementheads who do nothing but foment irrational anxieties over simple games.

I was setting a good example for my kids. They could look at me and understand what perspective and wisdom I bring to the sporting world. And that, by extension, their Daddy was one of the good guys.

Not anymore.

I now hate the Chicago Cubs. I want them to suffer soul-crushing defeats from now through eternity. I want them to feel sharp pains in places Monica-gate prosecutor Ken Starr used to call their distinguishing characteristics. I want them to work with and be constantly surrounded at airports by mean-spirited, petty guys like me who’ll do nothing but remind them their sorry franchise hasn’t won in 100 years . . . and counting.

It all happened last night after my buddy brought me with him to the Pirates game at PNC Park. We’ve seen hundreds of games together all over the country. We both know the game and all the etiquette that goes with it.

Right now the Cubs have the best record in baseball and their best chance in years to shuck the burden of being one of the losingest and most luckless franchises in sports.

The Pirates? They stink. They’re one of the worst teams in baseball and have been for 16 years. But this city and this team enjoy one of the longest and proudest sports histories in all America. In my lifetime, I’ve lustily cheered 10 world champions in baseball, hockey and football, an unparalleled record for a small-market city and better than Chicago’s if you toss out Michael Jordan and professional basketball, which I do because I don’t consider basketball a sport.

Every sport requires a skill. All basketball requires is freakish height. Sure, the sport attracts some good athletes, but if you or I woke up tomorrow and had a growth spurt that left us 7-foot-8 inches tall, guaranteed, some NBA team would make us instant millionaires. Why? Simply because we’re tall. So, sorry, MJ, but basketball’s not a sport.

So Pittsburgh takes a backseat to no one in sports history.

But you can’t tell that to the thousands of Cub fans who showed up at PNC Park, named by ESPN as the most beautiful ballpark in America, which means the most beautiful ballpark in the universe.

This is an important point. PNC’s so beautiful that couples regularly choose it as a place to wed. In fact, I’ve been to one of the weddings there (congratulations, Howard & Mary!) and a more elegant affair there’s never been. This wasn’t some scoreboard proposal deal either. This was a fairytale wedding that graced the fabulous club level and happened, as it does more than 30 times a year, when the home team’s away. The service is so posh and delightfully unusual it’s been featured in Modern Bride (and I, ahem, wrote the story).

Wrigley Field, on the other hand, is a beer-soaked toilet. Chicago drunks go there to vomit, urinate in their seats and delude themselves into thinking it’s something special. And they fill it whether the team wins or not. In fact, they fill it when the team has no chance at all, and that’s often been the case since Roosevelt was president. Teddy Roosevelt.

No good fan should reward their cheap ownership with full attendance. In Pittsburgh, if the team stinks, we stay home until the owners put up a winner. It’s that way in sensible cities around the country.

So as the game dwindled down to its final outs, Paul and I were about the only Pirate fans left amidst several thousand wearing Cubby blue. Had any survivors from the Alamo time-traveled to enjoy a summer evening at PNC they would have said, “Man, and we thought we were outnumbered!”

That’s when it started, all the disparaging remarks.

“Didn’t these guys used to be good? . . . Where are all the Pirate fans? . . . This is like a home game . . . The vendors outnumber the Pirate fans . . .”

There was none of the friendly banter, camaraderie or commiseration that is the hallmark of good baseball fans everywhere. Paul and I stewed.

I don’t know what set me off, I think I remember hearing the word “lame,” but I detonated.

I’ve always prided myself on being a witty guy. Like the great comic -- and Pittsburgh native -- Dennis Miller, I can usually come up with devastating and intelligent zinger that’ll disarm even the nastiest of bullies.

Where that part of me was Tuesday in the bottom of the ninth, I don’t know.

Because all I could think to shout was a two-word epithet that got Ralphie in so much trouble while he was helping his dad change the tire in “A Christmas Story.”

It was like those nature scenes where flocks of birds are startled from the trees. Every head in the place turned. The ushers came rushing up like they smelled burning babies. Later Paul assured me my singular profanity was certainly picked up by microphones and broadcast around the globe on satellite and terrestrial radio.

I instinctually did what years as a troublemaking wiseguy prepared me to do. I pointed at the Cub fan behind me.

For some reason, I didn’t get ejected. Maybe the ushers didn’t want to leave Paul all by himself. Maybe they really wanted to thank me for saying what they felt like telling all those obnoxious Cub fans themselves.

But I immediately felt very small. As we got up to leave -- final score Cubs 14, Pirates 9 -- I got into one of those endless and pointless staring contests with the guy behind me. He told me I was a coward for not having the guts to admit I’d been the culprit.

And he was right.

Now, when my daughters look to me for an example of right and wrong, I’ll just have to pretend I’m a highroad guy when deep down I know the truth.

That I’m a lowdown, gutless, impetuously immature jerk who can’t control his fragile emotions when confronted with even mild taunting. I’m no longer one of the good guys. I’m a sad loser and that’s probably all I’ll ever be. I'm a disgraceful human being.

Still beats being a Cub fan!

Non-worker takes daughter to work

I was reminded again last week how even the best of intentions can become corrupted by individual realties. There’s “Take Your Daughter To Work Day,” for instance.

I’m sure when organizers came up with this noble idea, they envisioned bright, fresh-faced girls heading to some corporate office so they could spend a day watching their mommies and daddies conducting productive meetings in organizational settings where everyone’s bright, shiny and can daily demonstrate they’re contributing to society’s overall good.

In fact, those are probably the exact sorts of jobs the very organizers had the day they dreamed up with the idea in first place, the uppity showoffs.

Guaranteed, the guys who haul my trash didn’t think it up. Nice guys doing a job you can argue is more necessary than most, but it’s doubtful they’re ever hanging off the back of the stinking truck thinking, “Oh, how I wish my daughter could see how I heaved that last bin of trash! I wish she could have seen me frisbee the lid over into yonder bushes!”

Same goes for folks working in slaughterhouses, sewage plants and other pivotal, but unheralded jobs.

And the same goes for me.

It’s not that I’m ashamed of what I do for a living. Far from it. It’s just that I set a terrible example for anyone who’s been taught we all need to be ambitious and work hard to get anywhere in life.

With me, it’s been just the opposite, and that wasn’t the lesson I wanted to impart to our 7-year-old daughter, Josie, when circumstances meant she could either spend the day with the sitter or tagging along with how I spend a normal day.

“I promise I won’t bother you, Daddy! Please, please, I’ll let you work!”

With those words, she proved she’s mastered one requirement in any number of demanding fields. She’s a really fine liar.

During the one usually productive segment of my at-home morning -- writing this no-pay blog -- she pestered and distracted me without end. She asked if she could play on mommy’s computer (no), if I’d play “Battleship” (no), if she could watch TV (no), and if I’d come with her to the woods to poke a really big spider with a stick (yes).

I’d planned on devoting that day at the office to re-working a story on the upcoming 9/11 commemorations of Flight 93 at nearby Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Instead, I imparted her with another lesson likely to doom her from future career advancement:

When faced with distractions and obstacles, don’t try and overcome them. Just give up.

That’s what I did. I took her for a long sunshine walk along the nearby train tracks. That finished off the morning and meant it was time for one of my favorite parts of the day.

The Price is Right!

If the day’s going smoothly, I can usually time the instant my rear end hits the bar stool with Rich Fields’ announcement that -- DA! da! Da! DAAAA! -- it’s time for the Showcase Showdown! I have great memories of my old man taking me into bars with him for lunch so I thought she should see where I eat most lunches when I’m not home watching TPIR with the family.

I don’t think she ever realized the show was such a spectator sport. One of my buddies was screaming at the set when some lame brain bid $21,000 on a camper combo worth, he said, at least twice that much: “You shouldn’t be allowed on the show if you’ve never bothered to watch it!” he screamed (he was right on the money, too. It was $42,150).

It was fun for me to look into her little brown eyes and see the dawning awareness that much older men were just as childish as her little boyfriends who were about to enter second grade.

The part, I’m sure, she’ll remember most vividly was what we did after lunch. It’s something I’ve been doing on and off for the better part of the 18 months I’ve worked in the tiny apartment overlooking the bar’s rear parking lot.

We stood behind the curtains waiting for cars to park or depart. The instant the drivers closed their car doors, I’d remotely deploy my car horn alarm with my own key set, instigating panic and confusion among the drivers and their parties.

Twice we had befuddled drivers set off their own horns in vain efforts to silence mine. Together, we roared at the chaos.

So that was my impromptu take-my-daughter-to-work day.

To sum up, I produced something inconsequential that’ll be quickly forgotten. I romped about in the sunshine. Played a few jokes. Laughed with a loved one. Didn’t earn a dime.

Come to think of it, that about sums up my entire career, too.

China power? Tso what

There are 1.3 billion Chinese people on the planet and I don’t know a single one of them. I don’t know what motivates them, what they aspire to or where we can find common ground, if any.

All I know, for sure, is that they really know how to throw a great Olympics. I was enthralled. I believe it’ll be remembered as one of the greatest shows in television history (and please don’t take that as a personal slap at my hero, J.R. Ewing).

But as for the people who put it on, I know zip. My life is shockingly lilly-white. Latrobe is where the gentle PBS legend Fred Rogers grew up. He patterned his enduring children’s show on my town. I live, literally, in Mister Rogers Neighborhood.

Sure, I know a few Chinese Americans, but our relationship doesn’t exceed the customer-businessman level. I say, “Hello, Huang. I’d like the General Tso chicken today.”

He says, “Big surprise. One General Tso chicken. You never get anything else. Always same. I guess that mean I can look forward to another 50-cent tip, too.”

Well, I guess I do know one thing about the Chinese: Years of cheap tips can leave them just as surly as their American counterparts.

Nothing about the Chinese fascinated more than their ability to choreograph thousands of people into those sublime human towers and floor patterns. It was compelling and at the same time a little scary to some viewers.

What if they used that same discipline for evil purposes, they wondered? Readers of the old Weekly World News (sample headline: “Baby Born with Wooden Leg!!!”) knew years ago that this could happen.

I vividly recall one story that detailed how the Chinese government had ordered all one billion of its citizens to jump up at precisely the same instant. Their evil scientists had divined that all those people landing at the same second would throw the earth of orbit and doom us all.

“They know it’ll mean their utter destruction as well as the entire planet’s, but they’re eager to show how powerful they are,” said one expert.

The day passed without event. It wasn’t until the next issue of the Batboy tabloid arrived that I learned why. A bar full of about two dozen beer-bellied WWN readers in New Jersey learned of the plot, jumped up at the same time and provided the lifesaving oomph needed to keep this woe-begotten world on track.

So now we’re at a crossroads. The Beijing Olympics has been an unparalleled success. Do the Chinese use the global goodwill they’ve engendered to become more open and progressive? Or will they continue to treat their citizens like chattel, stacking them up for the televised amusement of a mostly American audience that sits there and thinks nothing of human rights while they stuff their faces with pizza, chips and big steaming bowls of General Tso’s chicken.

Time will tell.

I just know this: I’m glad I live in a country so uniformly prosperous that 24 guys from a New Jersey bar weigh as much as 1.3 billion Chinese.

The perfect phone message

I’ve foisted yet another example on my wife about why being married to me is no day at the beach.

Sure, there’s upsides to being my Mrs. Rodell. I’m good for giggles, take her on nice trips, help around the house, am good with the kids, smell nice, am devastatingly handsome . . . modest.

But, yep, there’s baggage. For now, let’s skip the biggies (no ambition, impatient, excessive thirst for bar products) and go to the infuriating little ones, the straws that strain the camel’s back (and, yes, I’m aware equating her with a camel can be misread by people unfamiliar with her beauty so add “sloppy analogizyer” to the baggage list).

Take my latest instructions about the phone message. I have a real thing about idiot phone messages -- and hers was not one of them. Most phone messages prattle on and on with so many unnecessary and detailed instructions that it seems like we’re all being taught how to defuse live bombs, not leave a message.

We just got a new phone system and she innocently recorded something perfectly utilitarian. “Hi, you’ve reached the Rodells. We’re not home right now. Please leave a message and we’ll call you right back.”

Nine out of 10 times, that message will convey at least two outrageous lies and is scattered with insults to the poor caller. Let’s break it down:

“Hi, you’ve reached the Rodells.” Well, no they haven’t. They’ve failed to reach the Rodells. This is a busy world and these five words eat up time. Most people know who they’re calling. Still, it’s a small matter so let’s move on.

“We’re not home right now.” Oh, yes we are. In fact, we’re standing there staring at the Caller ID -- or as I call it, the “In-Law Detector” -- and thinking when it’ll be convenient for us to call you back or if we ever will. My mind’s running through questions like, “Do I owe this woman money? Does she owe me money? Will there be any selfish benefit for me to ever bother returning her phone call?” It’s impossible for me to convey just how much heartfelt affection I have for the Caller ID function.

“Please leave a message . . .” This one always gets me. It’s redundantly unnecessary. Every single person capable of hearing and speech knows instantly what to do when they reach a recording. Phone machines have been in widespread use for more than 15 years now. We all know the drill.

“ . . . and we’ll get right back to you.” Another outrageous falsehood. We’ll get back to you when we’re damn good and ready.

The perfect phone message is simply, “Go!” It’s lets the callers know they’ve gotten through and they can commence with their business.

But that’s a bit abrupt. That’s why the previous phone message, the one I composed, was splashed with sunshine. “Hi! This is Chris. That’s Val. That’s Josie. That’s Lucinda. Have a splendid day!”

Try and improve on it. You can’t. It paints a Rockwellian picture of a happy family, gives the full family roster and ends with a rosy salutation.

Really, if people weren’t so busy, I’d love to elaborate on the ending with “and we hope you have a wonderful day, and that every day after this gets better and better until your life is complicated by a jackpot winning Powerball ticket!”

That’s a message that would put even the grumpiest bank manager in a sunny mood.

And that’s what I’m all about. I’m out to make every single person on the planet's life a little bit better, a little more hopeful, a little more happy.

I’m sure Val will argue that last point pretty convincingly, though.

This has been Chris wishing you a really great day.

To bike or not to bike

I recently bought a bike for health purposes and I’m keeping it deep in the garage for health purposes.

With gas prices skyrocketing this spring, stopping at a yard full of used bikes to buy a spiffy 10-speeder for $80 seemed to make sense. I could ride it the two miles to my office in town. It would be good cardiovascular exercise and would help me stay tone and fit.

I’ve always liked riding bikes. Unlike running, people who ride bikes are almost always smiling and you never hear grim news stories about the kick stand crowd suffering from bouts of things like bike rage.

I took a bike tour of Philadelphia -- a city you wouldn’t normally associate with biking -- and it was a splendid. We hit all the great historic sites and had a picnic lunch at a lovely park. And I have great memories of an overnight bike trip with my wife through scenic Ohiopyle State Park.

So I thought biking to work would be a pleasant way to save gas, keep fit and enjoy that smug eco-superiority we’re all striving for these days.

Of course, as with any impulse buy, I immediately began experiencing regrets.

I failed to realize commuter biking is not conducive to where I live and work. I live in the Laurel Mountains of southwestern Pennsylvania. The first part of my two-mile commute is nearly straight downhill. I road it one Saturday morning to get the paper while suffering from a mild hangover. I made the mistake of thinking a bike ride would sweat the toxins out.

The ride down was great. I felt the “Wind in the hair! Lead in the pencil!” euphoria that Jack Nicholson exhalted about in “Terms of Endearment” moments before wrecking the T-Top he was steering along the beach with his feet. I didn’t wreck, but I didn’t figure on the “ride” back up the mountain being enough to kill me.

I wound up laying on the side of the road, cold sweat covering my pale skin, until Val and the kids responded to my humiliated cellphone calls for assistance. Their ridicule and laughter did nothing to help my hangover.

I chalked it up to being out of shape. I figured I could scale the hill after a week or so of two-wheeled exertions.

But then I began to do a little thoughtful reconnaissance about the entire two-mile trip to my office above The Pond (the tavern that, if you’re not counting parking lot puddles, is about three miles from the nearest body of water).

Riding mostly downhill to the office would be a cinch. I’d be motivated and eager to get to my destination. Riding back uphill was another matter. The hill’s daunting enough. Worse, the ride home requires navigating past four lively taverns.

That means dodging drunks as they come and go. And I’m not even counting myself. I might become so fatigued that I’ll need to stop in for refreshment. Once there, generous friendlies might insist on refreshing me so much that I’ll be unable to mount the bike again.

The perfect solution is to could get The IOC to build one of those Olympic tracks from my house to The Pond. There’d be no traffic, gentle slopes and thousands of smiling Chinese children yelling patriotic slogans in fractured English for NBC cameras.

I began to conclude that my route is simply too dangerous for me to dare it. The odds are that I’ll either fall or get hit on these country roads. Drivers are too distracted. They’re yapping on their cell phones, switching iPod playlists -- doing anything but watching out for a gentle soul who’s single-footedly trying to pedal America to energy independence.

Plus, I read about CBS golf analyst David Feherty and his near-fatal bike accident in his Dallas neighborhood. He nearly lost a limb. Just two years after recovering from alcoholism, his newly virtuous life nearly ended when a truck went crooked and wide into his straight and narrow.

A man with so much to live for nearly had to kiss it all goodbye.

Life’s so funny like that.

The only way for some of us to save our sorry asses is to do something that’ll ensure we’ll be forever saddled with flabby butts.

"You're the greatest swimmer ever! Now what?"

It was because of Michael Phelps, underwater cameras and glorious 48-inch HDTV that I’ve said things in the past week I never thought I’d say about a nearly naked man.

“Look, it’s so beautiful. Do you see how the splash of bubbles runs over his body? Look at the dolphin-like way he moves. Magnificent! I’ve never seen anything like it. Go Michael! Go! Go! Go!”

And away he went for eight gold medals. He’s the world’s greatest swimmer and the hands-down star of these great Olympics.

And in five years, that’ll mean precisely, what?

ESPN’s “Mike and Mike” were talking on Monday about what Phelps will do next to capitalize on his instant and well-deserved global fame. Will he turn to acting? Will he continue to compete? Advertising? Corporate sponsorships?

They thoroughly cited every proven example of what he could do to ensure he remains relevant, if anyone who spends hour after mind-numbing hour in a pool without devolving back into a sea creature could ever be considered relevant at all.

All but one.

The only logical and fun option for a 23-year-old swimmer who experts say is on the verge of a multi-million dollar payday is to become Arthur.

Arthur was the Dudley Moore character in the title role of the 1981 movie of the same name.

He’ll be the role model for me if, cross your fingers, I’m ever bestowed instant and bottom-less wealth. There’s never been a better example of a happy drunk than Arthur Bach. He left $1,000 tips, was kind to and revered by his staff of flunkies and drivers, and generally laughed through life as though he were being tickled by a giant invisible feather.

I remember the first time I saw the movie and thinking they were going to ruin him in the end by making him poor and happy or -- worse -- sober and happy, but the producers never flinched. In the end he got all the money, he got the girl and, I suppose, went through the rest of his life without ever drawing a single sober breath.

And if I can ever shed the shackles of my wage-earning requirements, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

I advise the same for Phelps. Certainly, the appeal -- if ever there was one -- of getting up every day, tucking his goodies into the Speedo and jumping into a chilly pool is waning. Swimming-wise, it’s all downhill from here. Further competition will only dim his luster.

Acting? Not going to happen for him. He’s got a good-natured and goofy smile that would be great for Jay Leno skits, but the ladies are never going to line up to watch him star in a remake of, say, “The Bodyguard.”

Forget corporate sponsorships. That would be a life of going around and glad-handing with obnoxious mostly white, mostly male corporate Republicans whose idea of humor is making cheap Speedo jokes like the ones I only flirted with in previous paragraphs.

It would be enough to drive any man to drink.

That’s why I’m urging him to become the first man to swim to drink.

Phelps should reap the waiting bonanza of endorsements experts say is in the neighborhood of $10 million, retire, and simply enjoy life.

He should build a huge mansion near the Inner Harbor at his Baltimore hometown, a great place to party. He should build an enormous and lavish pool with waterslides, a lazy river and invite all the inner city and neighborhood kids to stop by anytime they’d want. An adults-only section could feature the world’s largest swim-up Hooters.

He’d be the king of Baltimore (happily dethroning weirdo filmmaker John Waters). He’d be revered for his good nature. We’d all feel a little better about ourselves every time he’d make the news for some charitable act. And he could enjoy it all with the kind of endless buzz that made Arthur such a wonderful character.

I just hope he’ll hire a sober squad of lifeguards to tend to him whenever he’s near the water.

It wouldn’t do to have a man who’d made his fortune swimming like a fish drown after drinking like one.

Amazing, but true: time for 2010 calendars

It’s doubtful any aspiring writer ever sat in a journalism class and thought, “Boy, someday I’d like to write those little page-a-day calendars that people read, tear off and throw away.”

I know it’s something I never aspired to. In fact, my stream-of-consciousness in journalism class went something like this: “Man, this hangover’s killing me. Why did I drink that sixth shot of Ouzo? I’m so stupid! Well, at least I’m smart enough to have chosen journalism for a career. Industries will come and go, but people are always going to need daily newspapers. Man, I sure could use a drink . . .”

Yet, here I am, embarking on my 10th year of doing those perky little calendars. I’ve done them, at least one a year, on a range of “Amazing But True” topics.

I’ve done them on fishing: “More than 5,000 ice fishing 'huts' on Mille Lacs, Minnesota, have ceiling fans, computers, satellite TV, kitchens -- even hot tubs. Each winter, the frozen lake becomes home to the world’s largest temporary city with more than 100 miles of ploughed roads, street signs, a police force, pizza delivery and regular trash pickup.”

I’ve done them on new Dads: “Jack Somano is America’s greatest Mr. Mom. The Orlando father stays at home raising the quintuplets his wife Kathy delivered in 2000. She is the breadwinning branch manager for Thrifty Car Rental and the family relies on her benefits to keep the family afloat.”

I’ve done ‘em on grandparents: “In the presence of your beloved grandchild, answer any ringing phone and pretend it's the President of the United States calling to ask your opinion on important world affairs. The unwitting caller will be confused, but the wide-eyed child will be mighty impressed.”

And, lordy, lordy, have I done ‘em on golf. The template for the 2010 “Amazing But True Golf Facts” page-a-day golf calendar just arrived. My friend, Allan Zullo, owner of the franchise, has farmed these out to me for 10 years now.

Their arrival has become like a visit from an old friend. It means one week in the next month or so I’ll absolutely immerse myself in golf trivia as I comb through a year’s worth of old golf magazines and news stories for source information. God help you if you get paired with me for a round of golf within the days after the project wraps.

I’m bleary from the work and a Tourette’s-like stream of golf trivia's always blurting out of my mouth. For instance: “Playing ‘barefoot’ in the U.K. isn’t an invitation to intimacy. It means no strokes will be exchanged in a competitive match.”

Very few people on the planet have ever done even one of these, but I think everybody should and they should be ranked based on the result. They’re very revealing. Doing the calendars mirrors my moods throughout the entire year. On the calendars, I can be witty and sharp through March. I’m enlightening through July. I’m relevent through September, mildly informative through October and after Halloween I got nothing left.

The work doesn’t pay a huge sum, but it’s a nifty earner for the time invested, especially now that I do them with such machine-like intensity. The fruit is they make great Christmas presents to golf pros at nice courses who often return the favor with a free round of golf for me and my buddies. And free golf beats money any day (a thought that’s ensuring my continued poverty for at least another two years of golf calendars).

I doubt I’ll be starting the 2010 version until October. But I already know what the January 1, 2010, entry will be.

It fell into my lap last month when I went to interview Arnold Palmer at his Latrobe office. I’d never noticed one before, but right there where most people keep a computer was my 2008 “Amazing, but True Golf Calendar.” I told him how flattered I was that he was a reader.

“Not, only am I a reader,” he said reaching into his desk for a sizable stack, “but I keep a bunch of them for reference purposes. I’m always telling people about something I’ve found in these. They’re great!”

Arnold Palmer reads my convenience store Confusionisms first thing every day.

It’d be like Elvis waking up and playing a commercial jingle I’d written just because he thinks the tune’s catchy.

Amazing, but true.