Carlson

By: John Carlson— So the other day I have an eye exam and the doctor finds a splotchy, whitish, non-serious anomaly in the depths of one eyeball which, nonetheless, shocks me in its diagnosis. “It’s probably just a bit of histoplasmosis,” he says. “Just?” I think. Indeed, this diagnosis sort of stuns me, since I know full well that histoplasmosis is caused by contact with guano, which is polite society’s word for “bird poop.” “Bird po … I mean, guano!” I exclaim in a panic, before the doctor goes on to assure me it is quite common. Histoplasmosis, that is….

By: John Carlson— Working at a local carnival not long ago, this being part of a volunteer fundraising effort for the Back to School Teachers Store, reminded me of when I was employed in the amusement park business. Having just finished college back then, I told myself this job was merely to hold me over the summer until I had time to fully analyze the many offers for more lucrative positions that were bound to come flying my way. Meanwhile, I was probably the only guy in America with a bachelor’s degree who was operating a Tilt-a-Whirl. Still, I soon…

By: John Carlson— With the recent ringing of our front door bell I found my dear friend Jimmy Hayes standing on my porch, tears of joy splashing from his eyes and a package in his hands giving off an angelic, heavenly light. Now, if I may digress a moment, for years I’ve heard folks credit Martin Luther with saying beer is proof God loves us. Ben Franklin, in turn, has been credited with saying wine is proof God loves us. Finally, some fella named Old Grandad – or maybe it was Pappy VanWinkle – has been credited with saying bourbon…

By: John Carlson— For a fresh look that’s sure to draw admiring glances from people of the fairer sex, there’s nothing like having your throat cut. I know. Mine was cut a month or so ago. My cut is fully eight inches long. Well, OK. It would be eight inches long if it were five inches longer. It’s really only three inches long. Still, with the lumpy little keloid that has developed on the wound, it looks pretty impressive.  It’s like my wife told me as it was coagulating and healing … “That’s nasty,” Nan said, grimacing. “Thanks, honey bunch!”…

By: John Carlson— There’s nothing like recent spinal surgery to make crawling in and out of small airplanes a big challenge. But I digress. It was a glorious spring afternoon two weeks ago when I received a phone call from my friend Bill Finney, offering me a ride in his beautiful warbird – a classic Cessna L-19 Bird Dog, such as was used for the risky job of artillery and air-strike spotting during the Vietnam War. Bill had been offering me this flight for years, and somehow I’d never taken him up on it. It was with great joy, then,…

By: John Carlson— Snakes scare the bejesus out of me. Not long ago on Facebook I ran into a short video posted by an old newspaper buddy, photographer Kurt Hostetler, that documented him and his boy Owen’s encounter with a harmless garden-variety snake. What a nice father-son nature moment, I thought. Inside, though, I was screaming “Mommy!” My reaction is likely rooted in a traumatic childhood snake encounter. Just eight or nine years old at the time, I was nearly killed back in northern Ohio by a giant python. The only thing standing between me and certain death in its…

By: John Carlson— For more than a year-and-a-half, back in the waning days of my newspaper career at The Star Press, I wrote a weekly feature story about World War II veterans. This fed a natural hunger on my part, one that began with hearing the stories I begged my own father to tell about his combat service as a Navy gunner in that war. But it was also an attempt, as those veterans’ numbers were quickly dwindling, to engage in a larger effort to capture as many of their stories as possible before it was too late. Everyone realized…

By: John Carlson— Having started a diet a month ago, what I ended up with is skinny fingers. I can’t say skinny fingers is what I was shooting for, though I suppose one reaches a point in any diet where one figures skinny fingers are better than skinny nothing. But then, thanks to my skinny fingers, I lost my wedding ring. Beats me exactly where or when it slipped off. For some reason I began staring at my left hand the other day, sensed a vague notion that something was amiss, then realized, “Crap! My wedding ring is gone!” Adding…

By: John Carlson— A couple times recently I’ve seen a meme on Facebook, the crux of which is that a person of integrity will treat a janitor the same way he or she treats a successful company’s CEO. As a former janitor, I completely agree. My year piloting a broom for pay came in 1966, when I needed money for flying around the sky in rented airplanes, an expensive addiction I had just acquired. Receiving word that my high school occasionally employed pupils as “student-janitors” to help clean up at day’s end, I applied and was hired. There were only…