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Tom PurcellYuma Sun |
by Tom Purcell on December 2, 2024 The death of cursive handwriting reared its ugly head during the recent presidential election. Since 2010,...
A story from my childhood came to mind as I read a recent ABC News report about a mother who was arrested after her son was seen walking alone to the...
One of the great benefits of streaming TV is that I’m able to watch old network shows that I enjoyed while growing up in the 1970s. One of my...
When he was told he had only weeks to live, his response was telling. He was calm and at peace. At 82, he told his children he had lived much longer...
Get this: life expectancy has apparently hit its peak. According to msn.com, a recent study published in the journal Nature Aging finds that, barring...
Not until it got dark! That was the trick or treating rule my mother set down every year. She didn’t want me to embarrass her by interrupting...
When I was a 14-year-old kid in 1977, I rode my bike, played ball with my friends and had virtually no responsibility. During that same time, halfway...
I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face when he learned about the crook who stole my British sports car. It was the spring of 1988 and I...
As a self-employed writer, I’ve become knowledgeable about how high my income taxes really are. Every now and then I like to reply to readers with...
As more Americans can do their jobs from any remote location, a trend has been to relocate from urban and suburban areas to lower-cost, rural areas,...
I’ve been listening to old crooners on Pandora lately, and one of my favorite Frank Sinatra songs is “The House I Live In.” Sinatra performed...
by Tom Purcell on September 3, 2024 I've been listening to old crooners on Pandora lately, and one of my favorite Frank Sinatra songs is "The House I...
Editor’s note: This column is an excerpt from Tom Purcell’s humorous memoir, “Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood,” that was previously...
by Tom Purcell on August 27, 2024 Editor's note: This column is an excerpt from Tom Purcell's humorous memoir, "Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood,"...
All anybody needs to know about a free economy is that it is alive and well thanks to social-media flea markets, such as Facebook Marketplace. While...
Why do some politicians and bureaucrats constantly forget that when governments meddle in our mostly free market that bad things happen? Vice...
Sen. Bernie Sanders has sponsored a bill to mandate paid vacations for all employees. Like so many of Bernie’s proposals, it sounds good until you...
Editor’s Note: This column is an excerpt from Tom Purcell’s book, “Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood.” The MSNBC.com article said that kids...
Bowling didn’t make the cut again. Neither will baseball and softball, ballroom dancing, pole dancing and a host of other sports be featured in the...
What a bunch of BS. BS is all over television, blogs, podcasts and newspapers these days. It’s spouted by politicians and pitched by product...
I grew up in Bethel Park, the middle-class suburb south of Pittsburgh where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks lived with his parents. Crooks’...
I miss watching the spectacular fireworks display at Eddie G’s house every Fourth of July. Eddie G. was my grandmother’s longtime companion. For...
Thank God Willis Haviland Carrier invented air conditioning – for the most part. Before air conditioning, the heat drove us outside and brought us...
During the Great Depression, the government established the Works Progress Administration. The program hired nearly 8 million unemployed people to...
Here’s a story that is growing bigger by the day: Cyber scams are on the rise. My elderly family member fell for a common scam a few weeks ago: His...
Our politics sure is divided these days. Tempers are flaring and minds are rigid and closed. Here’s the solution: the wit and wisdom of legendary...
It was the first time in my childhood I had an excuse for coming home late for dinner, but nobody – not even the cops – would listen. In the...
Ida Ayres never served a day in the armed forces, but at 95, she knows plenty about the sacrifices of war. “Through six wars, I have been the...
Boy, is technology making us ruder. It all started with email. You see, long before the era of nasty Facebook posts and mean tweets – long before...
by Tom Purcell on April 22, 2024 Boy, is technology making is ruder. It all started with email. You see, long before the era of nasty Facebook posts...
‘Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” is on April 25, and I think we should try something different this year: Let’s take our daughters and...
‘It wasn’t my fault the car in front of me hit me. I glanced at my text message for only a second when our bumpers collided.” “How could the...
by Tom Purcell on April 8, 2024 "It wasn't my fault the car in front of me hit me. I glanced at my text message for only a second when our bumpers...
My 13-year-old goddaughter still can’t understand how telephone busy signals used to work. She can’t help it. At 13, she’s a member of the Gen...
Piglet! My Irish surname means piglet! Like millions of Americans, I’ve been poking into my heritage using ancestry sites, such as FamilySearch.com....
Get this: Men and women’s brains are different. Using a powerful, first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence model, Stanford Medicine was able to...
President Biden recently sent an email to 153,000 student-loan borrowers reminding them to vote for him this autumn. Actually, his email said that he...
When I read about the “silent book club” trend, it filled me with instant calm and hope. As it goes, in 2012, two friends in San Francisco came up...
I’m in hiding again, as I always am this time of the year. We’re in the thick of Girl Scout Cookie season, after all, and I’m on my winter diet....
The city of Toronto is in the news for outlawing sled and toboggan riding on 45 of its hillsides. According to the Toronto Star, the ban has sparked a...
Get this: Gen Z job applicants are bringing their parents to job interviews, reports the New York Post. As it goes, for several decades America’s...
Cyber attacks will be significantly worse in 2024 for anyone who uses a digital device. Yet few are aware of, or prepared for, the threats they face...
Here’s a great New Year’s resolution: get a pet. As we wrap up a very inflationary 2023, pet shelters across the country are at maximum capacity...
The best Christmas gift I ever gave anyone was the one I gave my father about 20 years ago: a Lionel train set. Every year, we got him the same gifts,...
Here’s a regrettable trend: as profanity has become commonplace, swear words are losing their usefulness. The Wall Street Journal reported this week...