Bruno Sammartino died a few weeks back. His is not exactly a household name anymore, though his death did merit a story in The New York Times. Sammartino died at 82 in Pittsburgh on April 18.
His name was well-known in our household in the 1960s, when Bruno was heavyweight champion of the World Wide Wrestling Federation for 11 years in the 1960s and 1970s — a record since unmatched. My maternal grandparents were avid wrestling fans, and we spent many Sunday afternoons watching matches on their color television, which was a novelty among the middle class 50 years ago. I didn’t own a color...
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I am on a quest for a new shoulder-style messenger bag. It is not going well.
For more than 25 years, I have used a canvas case — what is often called a messenger bag — to tote around a laptop, portfolio, books, pens, an eyeglasses repair kit, thumb drives, copies of the New Yorker and whatever else I needed. I was given the bag at a meeting of Cox editors in the early 1990s. It was sturdy, weathered well and embroidered with “Cox Newspapers” on the front. I had to have the strap repaired a few years ago, and the fellow stitched it up with brown thread for some reason. The bag and strap...
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I have spent a lot of time moving books in my part-time job at the Margaret Estes Library on the LeTourneau University campus. The library is about to undergo a facelift this summer, getting new paint and carpet. That means shifting a bunch of books around to create sections of shelves that can be moved by a machine able to pick up nine sections at a time — but that’s the most. In a few places we had a dozen sections fastened together and three had to be disassembled and hauled off. The evening I took apart and hauled off dozens of metal shelves almost certainly will be my personal record for most...
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We’re at the peak of azalea season in our neighborhood, which is ablaze in riotous blooms and covered in pollen. It lays a yellow-green carpet on cars, driveways, houses, etc. Past experience has taught me to tamper my obsessive-compulsive instinct to haul out the pressure washer and wash the pollen away — only to discover a fresh coat by the next morning. This time, I will wait until I am certain the trees are finished leafing out, no longer dropping pine peanuts, oak clusters, sweetgum balls and yellow powder before I begin an amphibious assault.
The pollen is a small price to pay for the beauty...
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