Columns

With Election Day two weeks away, Republican prospects of taking control of the House of Representatives, already strong, appear to have solidified. Barring the unexpected, President Joe Biden’s next two years will be shaped by challenges from a House led by some of his most zealous opponents.

As we anxiously await the upcoming mid-term elections, it’s time for a reality check. Through a mix of intent and ineptitude, the past two years have been a period unmatched in our history. Nothing has worked, no one has cared, everything has failed. And while this new abnormal has been an unmitigated disaster, Democrats can’t run from “the big guy,” Joe Biden, fast enough.

I’m lying in bed, trying to convince myself that I should rise and shine and take on the new day. I hearken back to my youth, when our mother would open the door to the stairway leading to our upstairs bedrooms, slap a hand on the step and call out, “Shake a leg, time to get up, there’s work to do!”

If the shoe fits, let someone else wear it. That’s my motto now that I have donated four pairs of clodhoppers to my granddaughters’ school fundraiser.

Honestly, Tony, my first instinct was to ignore you.

Some people like a good jump scare. They enjoy that heightened sense of knowing something awful is just around the corner. They don’t feel totally alive until they’re screaming in terror.

This week I dug up an amazing – and scary – radio commentary my father delivered on Sept. 1, 1976.

The fine print describing the rental I secured for a leaf-peeping jaunt to Maine said the cabin had everything we could possibly need. All the reviews said that, too.

As a devotee of Seinfeld during the show’s 180-episode run during its nine seasons from the late 1980s through most of the ‘90s, I remember most of the episodes’ openings, which feature Jerry in a nightclub setting doing his standup. In one of those openings, the routine focuses on the difference between how men watch TV and how women watch, depending upon who controls the remote.

Gifts include money, labor and items of value. The difference between a discounted sale price of an item and the fair market value of that item is also considered a gift. In other words, if I sell my truck to my niece for $1,000 less than the truck’s fair market value, I have given my niece a $1,000 gift.