By Eddie Pipkin Image by Marc Pascual from Pixabay I’ve noticed this thing lately. It doesn’t matter if it’s a pop culture reference, a personal lifestyle option, or a theological difference, it’s not enough for some people to state a preference; they feel a strong desire to express outright disdain for any choice [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Image by Schorsch from Pixabay We can’t close out March without me composing a riff on the basketball paradise that is March Madness. It’s been an amazing tournament this year, with ESPN announcing after the first day of play for the opening round of 64 teams that all 24 million [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Image by Carlos Lincoln from Pixabay I was reading last week about the inventor, Thomas Midgley, Jr. His name was unfamiliar to me, but his inventions. He was responsible for two of the developments that made the Twentieth Century as we lived it possible: the CFCs that made air conditioning [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Image by Günther Mayrwöger from Pixabay We were on a road trip this past weekend, and I was treated yet again to an interstate phenomenon that seems to me to have become more of a trend in the past couple of years: the unexpected awkward-side overtaker. Imagine yourself on a [...]
by Eddie Pipkin Image by Stefan Kuhn from Pixabay Everything old is new again, and all formerly popular things eventually come back into fashion. It’s true for high-waisted jeans; it’s true for mullets (although, honestly, do they ever quite go out of style); and it’s apparently true for phone calls. Person-to-person audio as [...]
by Eddie Pipkin Image by Yerson Retamal from Pixabay My mother-in-law passed away in early December, and my wife and her brother found themselves in that scenario in which we all inevitably find ourselves: overwhelmed by grief by obligated to work out the complex logistics of funeral arrangements. My mother-in-law, God bless her, [...]
by Eddie Pipkin Image by Aritha from Pixabay I was struck by the headline in a recent news scroll on my phone. “Am I fun enough?” Before I clicked it, I thought maybe it was going to be a playful challenge to parents (because we all know that as parents we’re supposed to [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay Among the many heart-wrenching narratives from the recent catastrophic earthquake that impacted Turkey and Syria, none was more tragic than the realization that one of the principal reasons so many structures collapsed was that earthquake safety building codes had been willfully subverted. Countless thousands of [...]
By Eddie Pipkin Image by Cheryl Holt from Pixabay I went with my wife on a cruise a few weeks ago. It was one of those small ships, no more than 240 people on board for our sailing, which meant that the crew was also small. A core group of crew members rotated [...]
By Eddie Pipkin I was at a race event at Daytona International Speedway last weekend, and I happened to have a pass that allowed me infield access. Looking up from ground level from some distance away to the enormous grandstands that front the iconic 2.5-mile track, I was astonished to see how many people were [...]
