Articles By Author - David McCoy
Where am I? Brain isn't playing fair
Last week, while out of town and staying in a hotel, I had a most exasperating experience.
McCoy: Men, watch your step at weddings
If you're a man who's been invited to a wedding, you need to heed my advice so you know what to do at these alien affairs.
Clip-on tie is the devil’s work
As a kid, I hated Sunday mornings with a passion I now reserve only for unimaginable evils such as genocide and raw onions. Sunday - "the day of rest" - was far from restful for me, and I blame it on a weekly ritual, "dressing up for Sunday school."
McCoy: Sweet memories of kindergarten
Let your mind wander back to kindergarten, and think about those simpler times and all the fun you had. It doesn't matter where you come from; you have to admit that kindergarten was fun. You played with toys, sang songs, colored pictures of fire trucks, and learned radically new concepts like sharing and the letter Q.
A fat boy and his pies
There's an interesting picture hanging in the bathroom of a particular shop here in town.
Spring fever mind games
I wish the weather would stop playing games with us here in the South. It wasn't more than a few weeks ago that I slipped into a pair of short pants for puttering around the house.
McCoy: The joys of a garden
Spring is here, and after we sailed past Good Friday and the risk of frost, it is now planting time! I've bought seeds and pots and I'm ready to plant something.
McCoy: Have a great mid-life crisis
I decided to let my remaining hair grow a lot longer than it normally does, and someone suggested I "must be in a mid-life crisis." Well, yeah! I've been in a mid-life crisis for at least 12 years now, and I have no intention of ending it anytime soon.
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Archive By Author - David McCoy
McCoy: How not to hold a baby
Gentlemen...you need to go to baby-holding school. You know how you get when you're around newborns. When the parents come by with their little bundles, you lay your arms by your sides and say, "Let someone else hold it ... first." Yes, you actually say "it." And what's this "first" business? You know you have no intention of being number two or number 20. You don't ever plan to hold that baby. Women hold tiny ...
Visiting the ‘ladies’ room’
It happened again today. Something was wrong with the gents' toilet and I wanted to wash my hands. What to do? What to do? Yep. I did it. I washed my paws in the room marked "Ladies." The door was wide open, no one was in there and the sink was calling my name: "David ... David ... come wash up in here." If you've ever heard a sink calling your name, you'd best just ...
Please “Teach Your Children Well”
I titled this column after Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's famous song because it properly reflects the story I'll tell, and because I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one on the planet who has realized the truth about home schooling.
McCoy: How to remain manly while sick
Let's be painfully blunt: It's not possible for a man to be sick and remain manly. I'd like to claim that testosterone is the cure-all that keeps guys burly and ferocious through all kinds of challenges, but that hormone bows in defeat before the cold, the flu, or - in my case - bronchitis. I spent much of the new year fighting off a nasty infection, and that's when I learned just how far we ...
McCoy: Goodbye Mr. Butternut and 2012
Many of your respected newspaper columnists are offering New Year's resolutions, but notice I said, "respected." That's your first clue that I'm not going in for the tradition resolutions game. Instead, I want to look back on 2012 and review some things that just didn't work for me. I'm resolving nothing about 2013, but I'll remember these mistakes and maybe I won't repeat them. This is a lighter approach to resolutions where I'll make a ...
A new holiday: Whew Day!
We need a new holiday, not so much for the sake of the greeting card industry, but for our own peace of mind and perspective. We have Thanksgiving, where we give thanks, and we have Christmas where we receive gifts. We need a special holiday combining both themes into one glorious day of giving thanks for gifts never received. Let's call this holiday, "Whew Day" in honor of the comic books of my youth. "Whew" ...
Yeah, I’m delighted
Congratulations! If you're reading this, it means you survived the Mayan calendar's alleged prediction of total world destruction. But, if the world has been destroyed, then you're not reading this, and I just wasted a perfectly good "congratulations" on a bunch of cosmic dust. Either way, let's move to today's topic: cloying customer service.
Out of my time
Here's some ugly math I wish I hadn't calculated. It's 2012 and I'm 52 years old. If the Mayans and their silly calendars leave us alone, and I live to be 90, I'll have 38 years left. Thirty-eight years seems like a lot of life remaining... until you think about it. Thirty-eight years ago was 1974. Back in that strange year, I turned 14, learned to play the guitar, listened to ABBA and moped around ...
My little boo boo
I skinned my knee today. I wasn't too smart, stepping out of the shower, realizing my towel was out in the hall, trying to navigate slick floors with wet feet. I moved across the floor and then I went down, slipping and skidding. Ouch! And when I looked at my knee, it was bleeding, and there were little bits of skin - little bits of me - that weren't attached to me anymore. Did I ...
McCoy: The right skills for a crisis
I've been re-reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, and my brain is reeling with spaceships, robots, time travel and towels. But one passage I read is more a real-world warning than it is science fiction. Arthur Dent, the protagonist, is stranded on a remote and primitive planet. Nothing in his training has prepared him for a world that's this simpleminded, and despite his supposed learning and skills, he feels useless. Instead of doing ...
McCoy: Successful aging
You might say "successful aging" means finding another candle on the old birthday cake, but I don't believe success can be defined in such simple terms where quantity equals quality. I think successful aging means something more complex, like coming to grips with your mortality and the small, but important role you play in life. You also have to wise up about your dreams. I abandoned my childhood dream of becoming an astronaut. I also ...
McCoy: The last unspoiled holiday
Thanksgiving is one of the last unspoiled holidays we have - a holiday that's still celebrated roughly the same way it's always been celebrated. Sure, there's always the unwavering Arbor Day, but when was the last time your boss gave you a day off to have a fancy dinner party with a bunch of trees? No, Thanksgiving is one of our last major holidays that would still be recognized by the originators. Do you think ...
Dreams of lost loves
Maybe it's an ailment only men will understand, but let it be known that I suffer from recurring dreams about my old cars. It'll be three in the morning, and I'll be enjoying a nice snooze under a warm blanket when my subconscious will grab its little photo album of all our old cars. "Oh, look! There's that tiny MG you had! And here's that ancient Mercedes. Remember that one?" And I will remember each ...
McCoy: My long lost quarter
Numbers don't mean what they once did, do they? When I was a child, a quarter was real money, a dollar was manna from heaven, and a 20 meant you'd just celebrated a birthday. We kept our 10s and 20s in a bank that called itself the "Home of the Thousandaires." Becoming a thousandaire was a realistic goal when your deposit slip was nothing special. I'm sure a few of the people I knew dreamed ...
McCoy: World’s Greatest Dad
I guess celebrities are everywhere, but I was really shocked to learn that the World's Greatest Dad lives in our town! What are the odds of that happening? By definition, there can only be one "World's Greatest Dad," and he lives right here, not over in a Tibetan hut or Australian wilderness protecting his kids from wild dingoes and snakes. I haven't met the guy, but I know he lives here because I've seen World's Greatest Dad shirts, pens and coffee cups for sale in the local stores.
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