When we first started this Jim’s Jottings holiday tradition, the two grandchildren pictured on the wall (Dan and Karen Offer) were small enough to fit on my knees. It was 1988. Dan was 3-years-old and Karen was four-months-old. In that first picture, Karen had no hair, I had more and I still wore a suit […]
Seems like there’s way too much of everything on the tube. Of course, my having a way too long viewing time has something to do with my thinking. Take football ferinstance. There aren’t enough number ones allowed to teams with so many ultra-ego players and so many coaches who promise number ones in recruiting. I […]
Remember the crying, venom spewing and insults hurled at Governor Engler when he proposed a cut in grants to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, museums and other so-called cultural organizations? Engler was depicted as the lowest form of life, a man crueler than cruel, wicked, unmoral, without feeling and hater of the arts. Now comes Governor […]
This is the fifth and last in my series on Henry Ford, 1863-1947. This will be some highlights in his career, as written in The Automotive News on the 100th birthday of Ford, 1963. ? In June 1903, after two failed attempts by Henry Ford to start the auto company, he joined with 11 investors […]
Daughter Luan planned last Christmas’ dinner at our house. Among the too-much food, she bought a box of ice cream cakes, shaped and colored like Santa Clauses. “The three-year-old twins will love them,” she said. She put the box in our freezer and promptly forgot it. I spotted the box in late February and called […]
This is the fourth in my series on Henry Ford, recounted from the 1938 Detroit Free columns by Iffy the Dopester (aka Malcomb Bingay.) Titled ‘Who does Henry Ford think he is?? I first repeated the story of Ford rejecting the New Dealers early in the century, then came his $5 a day plan, then […]
I’ve been writing Jottings for over 50 years. That means 50 Thanksgivings I could have written about. But as I looked back to see if there was one I could repeat for this Thanksgiving, I found none. This year as I thought about writing this holiday column my mind went quickly to my wife, Hazel. […]
When I drove up to our garage at 4:30 on a recent Friday afternoon and the automatic opener didn’t work, I assumed the batteries were dead. When I came inside and flipped an electrical switch I quit blaming the batteries. When I saw that all the fuses in the electrical box were still in place […]
There’s an oft repeated truism that all those fine and fancy hotels in Las Vegas were not built by charitable organizations. Well that new 300-room hotel at Sault Saint Marie wasn’t either. We gambling losers (is that redundant?) might want to urge our elected officials in Lansing to eliminate the Saint from the names of […]
I’ve been writing Jottings for over 50 years. That means 50 Thanksgivings I could have written about. But as I looked back to see if there was one I could repeat for this Thanksgiving, I found none. This year as I thought about writing this holiday column my mind went quickly to my wife, Hazel. […]