The Dayton Daily News reports that fewer Ohio teenagers are getting their driver’s licenses these days. The data shows an almost 10 percent drop in the number of licensed 16- and 17-year-old Ohio drivers, and a nearly 5 percent drop in 18-year-old licensed drivers. These statistics mirror a national trend — a trend that the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Growing Up’
High Expectations And Electric Football
Posted in Growing Up, Humor, Politics, tagged Electric Football, Growing Up, Humor, Politicians, Politics, toys on January 24, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Life can be difficult if you approach it with high expectations. You vote for a new President expecting him to live up to his promises, for example, and inevitably you are disappointed. That’s not a problem for me, because I grew up with Electric Football. Electric Football was a toy, but its ads portrayed it [...]
Hot Cereal Days
Posted in Breakfast Cereal, Growing Up, TV, tagged Bewitched, Breakfast Cereal, Coco Wheat, Cream Of Wheat, Growing Up, Hot Cereal, Malt O Meal, Maypo, Quaker Oats, TV, TV Commercials on January 21, 2012 | 1 Comment »
In the Webner household during the 1960s, there was a hard and fast breakfast rule: during the winter months, you ate hot cereal, period. No Frosted Flakes or Quake! No sir, winter was for Malt O Meal, Cream of Wheat, Coco Wheat, Maypo, and particularly Quaker Oats. On a cold day like today, my mother [...]
The Demotivational Impact Of Empty Platitudes
Posted in America, Growing Up, tagged America, Children, education, Growing Up, Learning, Participation Trophies, School, Schools, Self-Esteem, Trophy Generation on January 19, 2012 | 1 Comment »
According to an article in the Washington Post, schools and teachers have finally begun to recognize that efforts to boost student “self-esteem” that aren’t tied to concrete accomplishment aren’t achieving anything. The article says that three decades of research shows that constant praise irrespective of performance, participation trophies, and the like aren’t actually increasing self-esteem [...]
Twinkie Torment
Posted in Food, Growing Up, Humor, tagged Doggerel, Food, Ghostbusters, Growing Up, Hostess Brands, Humor, Poetry, Twinkies on January 10, 2012 | 2 Comments »
It makes me sad to learn that Hostess Brands, the maker of the Twinkie, is preparing to file for bankruptcy. I’m sure the Twinkie will survive a bankruptcy. As we all know, Twinkies will last forever and are the foodstuff most likely to survive a nuclear holocaust. Still, it is disturbing that the company that [...]
Mr. Jingeling On The Brain
Posted in Growing Up, TV, tagged TV, Cleveland, Growing Up, The Wizard Of Oz, The Beverly Hillbillies, Cleveland TV Personalities, Mr. Jingeling, Halle's Department Store on December 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The human brain is strange. Why is it that I sometimes struggle to remember the names of people at my office but can recall — with sharp, striking clarity — every word to the stupid theme song of Mr. Jingeling? If you lived in northeastern Ohio during the early 1960s, you knew Mr. Jingeling as [...]
Quitting Smoking
Posted in Family, Growing Up, tagged Cigarettes, Family, Growing Up, Health, Quitting Smoking, smoking on December 2, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Uncle Mack’s post about reaching age 70 got me thinking about quitting smoking. It’s one of the things he advises you do to reach that milestone. Of course, every public health expert and doctor agrees. I smoked for years. I started in 1975, after I graduated from high school. When I was in college everyone [...]
A Story With No Good Answers
Posted in Family, Growing Up, Ohio, Politics, tagged childhood obesity, Family, Government, Government Power, Growing Up, Health, Individual Responsibility, News, Obesity, Ohio, Parenting, Politics on November 28, 2011 | 2 Comments »
In Cleveland Heights, county workers have put an eight-year-old boy who weighs more than 200 pounds into foster care after concluding that the boy’s mother isn’t doing enough to control his weight. The boy isn’t suffering from any medical conditions other than sleep apnea, but he is considered at risk of weight-related diseases such as [...]
Seeing Seger, 35 Long Years Later
Posted in Growing Up, Music, tagged Bob Seger, Concerts, Growing Up, Katmandu, Music, Night Moves, Old Time Rock 'N' Rocll on November 3, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Tomorrow night Kish and I and a bunch of our friends are going to see Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band at Nationwide Arena. The show is supposed to be good, at least according to this review of Seger’s Ypsilanti, Michigan concert published in the Morning Sun newspaper. It’s going to be kind [...]
Knowing When To Get To The (Exclamation) Point
Posted in Growing Up, Humor, tagged Email, English Language, Exclamation Points, Growing Up, Humor, Punctuation, Teachers, Texting, Twitter, Writing on October 19, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
If, like me, you were schooled in the proper use of the written word by a stern, ruler-wielding English teacher who applied her red editing pen with liberal glee, it’s been a tough few years. The advent of email and texting and Twitter have stretched the old rules for written communications past the breaking point. [...]
The Cricket In The Room
Posted in Growing Up, Travel, tagged Crickets, Growing Up, Hotel Rooms, Las Vegas, National Lampoon's Vacation, the '60s, Travel on October 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The other day I was walking through a parking garage when I heard a cricket. I thought it was weird to hear a cricket in a downtown parking garage, and almost immediately thought how irritating the sound of a cricket is — and suddenly I remembered something I hadn’t thought about for years. It was [...]
Alpine Village Revisited
Posted in America, Growing Up, Work, tagged Alpine Village, America, de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Growing Up, Lake George, Summer Jobs, Work on September 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
When Kish and I were in upstate New York in June, we decided to visit Alpine Village, the memorable Lake George resort where I worked during the summer of 1976. I’m glad we visited, because it brought back some memories — but it made me sad at the same time. I’m happy to report that [...]
My Alpine Village Summer Of 1976 (Part I)
Posted in America, Growing Up, Work, tagged Alpine Village, America, Growing Up, Lake George, New York, Summer Jobs on September 6, 2011 | 1 Comment »
It was the summer of 1976. It was the year of the Bicentennial, the year after I graduated from high school, when the tall ships came to New York harbor and the Fourth of July was celebrated with a special, round-number, multiple-century vigor. I spent that summer working at the Alpine Village resort in Lake [...]
The First Day Of School
Posted in Growing Up, tagged Back-to-School, Growing Up, School, School Supplies on August 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Today is the first day of school at the Columbus Academy, where Kish works. This morning some kindergartners will go off to school for the first time ever, as their Moms and Dads watch with quivering emotion. Kids in other grades will head back to familiar buildings to see their classmates again, after a long [...]
