When I was young I used to love to see my parents go out on the town. That was in a day when people would still dress up to go out. They would dress up, and he would look so handsome and she so sophisticatedly glamorous to me. They would stop at the door and have our babysitter take a photo of them. I would like to watch them as they went out the door. It was also very reassuring to me that they looked so happy with each other.

Also, the two boys who live with us (my stepson and a distant relative from Siberia who is living with us for two years) both grew up in broken and single-parent homes where there was only one parent or there was an unhappy marriage. We take every opportunity to show appropriate spousal affection in front of them both because it makes us happy, and in the hope that they will be able to translate that into happier marriages for themselves.

I think if schools would teach all social skills for dating, that would be very useful, too. If the 18 year old boys were polished slightly, they might start to appeal to 18 y.o. girls.

>>>A boy who knows that he needs to get married at 18-19 (chassidish-style) will mature at that age. If he knows he doesn’t have to get married till 22-23 – he’ll <<<

some will, some won’t. In my experience, many 18 year old girls find 18 year old boys rather immature and boring, but I”m not against giving it a try.

I do not have either, but I have watched sports on HDTV’s. What’s the big deal? You can see the drops of sweat on their foreheads, and see the tobacco chaw in vivid living color, but what’s the point?

perhaps the store owner’s insurance company should send you some money, for avoiding the lawsuit that would inevitably have resulted from that woman buying the gluten-laden ice cream cones.

what do you do about the maturity gap? With a few exceptions girls at 18 are much more mature than boys at 18.

the mother of a boy and his new wife (or affianced) engage in a turf war where the turf is the boy.

Every mother of a boy has a mixture of natural feelings when he prepares to marry.

The wise mother will soon realize what is going on, and that the natural feelings that occur to her (e.g. that girl is not good enough for my boy) are not legitimate feelings, and should not come between her and her daughter-in-law. The smart mother-in-law will never vocalize it, and will surrender graciously, preferably before the serious fighting has begun.

My own mother had about 36 hours of these feelings but she expressed them only to me. She expressed them kindly and with love. At the end of the 36 hours she surrendered graciously and my wife-to-be never knew that a shot had been fired. They get along with each other just swell, thanks to the wisdom and self-restraint of my mother.

I have some problems with my mother-in-law. They are the same legitimate problems that my wife has with her mother and I am clearly on my wife’s side. I suppose I married the problems. However, I never let them get in the way of my relationship with my m-i-l and I always treat her with the respect I treat my own mother. She is pretty happy with me since her daughter is happy with me.

and here we all thought it was Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

over the last 40 years in America, the average new house has been getting larger. Our expectations change and we are unwilling to live as compactly as our grandparents did.

How many people lived in your grandparents’ home? How many live in your home (adjust for square footage). Did your grandparents have a game room? a home office? a room for the pets?

The good news is that the trend seems to have peaked, and we are seeing fewer of these McMansions than in the past decade.

no emotion will depress you quite as fast as envy.

dear popa, I admire your responsibility. The sawed-off shotgun is exactly the right weapon to have around your house, particularly if you live in an apartment building. This way, if you shoot the perpetrator and miss, you are not likely to hurt your wife, child or neighbor.

It is good to see people who follow the rules of gun safety.

ron “not so well informed” rsr

there are online parts dealers. Usually they specialize in a particular brand of cars. I used to buy my used Saab parts at Goldwing.

Google “used auto parts” and then the brand of your car, and you’ll find them.

I was very pleased with the parts I got. There was no sense in putting new parts on an 11-year old car.

Gumbo Limbo Nature Preserve – includes a hospital and nursery for wounded turtles, and a butterfly garden. A nice learning center and lots of florida wilderness and wildlife, but not too wild.

why not windmills? quite a few towns up here in Massachusetts are successfully using them to provide a large part of the public electric supply.

as my dear grandmother once wisely said to me, “It is better to be attractive, healthy and rich than ugly, poor and sick.”

Though it is almost 35 years since she told me this, it still rings true today.

anyone who posts regularly in the coffeeroom will never post while dead.

dear BEST IMA – there are many safe yet accessible lockboxes designed for guns. Some use combinations, some check your fingerprints or other biometrics. All allow relatively fast access. If you google or search amazon for “gun safe accessible” you should find the latest and greatest models.

Regardless of whether you own a gun or a lockbox or both, you should teach your the rules of gun safety, because other people DO own guns and they don’t always store them responsibly.

If you see a gun: Stop; Don’t Touch; Leave the area; Tell an adult.

Stop – to take time to remember the rest of the instructions

Don’t touch – A firearm that is not touched or acted upon by an outside force is highly unlikely to fire, or endanger a person.

Leave the area – By leaving the area the child removes himself/herself from temptation, as well as from the danger that another person might pick up the gun and negligently cause it to fire.

Tell an adult – An adult, if not personally trained in handling firearms, should know enough to seek professional assistance

These rules are from the NRA’s Eddie Eagle program. Though I am not in favor of much of what the NRA does, they have hit the nail on the head with these rules for children.

I found it! I found it! the old gun thread from last year!

rude people

mean people

dull people

I suspect this may be a widely-known riddle, but you never know. I learned it in Hebrew School:

Who are the three cowboys whose names appear in Adon Olam?

dear shlomozalman, I saw Koufax pitch, too, and it was a sight to behold.

The reason I am hesitant to say Koufax, is that the stellar part of his career only covered six seasons. I think that the greatest athlete should be someone who played well over a long career.

If you asked me who pitched better than anyone else ever, I would not hesitate to say Sandy Koufax.

If you asked me who was the best pitcher of all time, I’d have to name someone other than Koufax.

Congratulations, dear egbooks. Welcome to the Society of Successful Losers!

Oops. I’ve been meaning to change that name for the longest time.

he was far more successful at recovering money for duped investors and putting the perpetrators behind bars than any other attorney-general in another state, such as mine. Not even close.

I went from 180 pounds to 110 pounds when I was 11. I was still a chunky kid, but before I was really fat. Why did I stop at 110 pounds?

One day, a relative asked me if I ever cheated. I said, no, I didn’t know that that was an option. Of course, that was the end of the weight loss for me once my eyes were opened.

dear Dave Hirsch, I can dream, can’t I.

In the documentary film about that other great Jewish ballshpieler,, Hank Greenberg (who also did not play on Yom Kippur), Alan Dershowitz states that when he was a young boy (and baseball fan) in the late 1930s, he believed that Hank Greenberg would be the first Jewish president. Greenberg was handsome, well-spoken, determined, famous, free from scandal, and an all-around great guy. When Hitler, Goebbels and Father Coughlin were ranting about the athletic inferiority of Jews, here was a Jewish man you could reasonably argue was the best baseball player of his time.

Well, Hank Greenberg is no longer alive, but Sandy Koufax is, and he is handsome, well-spoken, determined, and an all-around great guy. You could make an argument that he pitched better than anyone else ever pitched, and instilled pride in another generation of Jewish boys, specifically mine.

Maybe I should have nominated Koufax/Bloomberg.

Contrary to what my mother told me, Koufax did not refuse to pitch on Yom Kippur. He was spared that since Don Drysdale would have normally pitched in the rotation that day. This doesn’t lessen my admiration for Koufax.

His accomplishments on the field were not limited to not pitching on YK.

“I can see how he (Sandy Koufax) won twenty-five games. What I don’t understand is how he lost five.” – Yogi Berra on Sandy Koufax’s 1963 record, after he faced Koufax in the World Series.