Sunday Souffle

Posted on June 26, 2011


Sometimes I watch my sons while they play outside, and I’m always interested in the new games they invent.  This morning I watched my 7-year-old son, The Fonz, spend almost two hours racing against a rock.  He would count down 3, 2, 1, then flick a rock across the pavement and sprint to overtake it.  He said he was getting faster and faster and by the end of the day he expected to beat the rock every time and would then be “as fast as thunder.”  People normally say as fast as lighting, but the speed of sound isn’t too shabby either, and I think The Fonz deserves some credit for setting the slightly more realistic goal of running at the speed of sound rather than the speed of light.

Faster than they look.

The Fonz did occasionally beat the rock, especially because the rock had a tendency to start fast but then taper off and stop towards the end.  The Fonz played a similar game last summer when he tried to improve his speed by playing catch with himself.  At first I was impressed that he didn’t give up after five minutes but kept trying to play catch with himself for hours.  Then I became worried.  Then I chose to be impressed again.


If you’re a fan of captions, contests, and voting, you might enjoy voting in this week’s caption contest.  Check out the five finalists here.


My 9-year-old son told a joke at dinner, everybody laughed, and he added, “Anybody would think that joke was funny, except maybe a guy whose dad had just died.”  Everybody laughed again but a few minutes later I began to worry.  Kind of seemed like a veiled threat.


The actor Peter Falk–best known as television detective Columbo–died this week.  When I heard the news of his death I couldn’t help but remember the time an actor friend told me he wanted me to guess an impression he had been working on and proceeded to perform a two-minute monologue from Columbo.  If I had ever seen Columbo I might have said Peter Falk, but I guessed Tom Hanks, and he was devastated.  We rarely hung out after that.


I’ve heard people say, “It’s always in the last place you look.”  You know why you always find things in the last place you looked?  Because if you kept looking for something after you’d already found it, you’d be a bit of an idiot.

Posted in: Columns