Mr. Fancy's 30th high school reunion

My daughter, 5, complains full-day kindergarten is a drag. She wondered if there was anything she could do to make it less boring? I nearly blurted out the perfect solution: Grow breasts. Because that’s when it all gets really, really interesting. The Mt.

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When a Sultan gets "Occupied"

  I suspect one of the reasons I can’t land my opinion pieces in more prominent media is I’m not emphatic enough. To my critical detriment, I usually see both sides of every issue and base my decision on the opinion on whatever the last person I hear had to say. …

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A fan's rooting guide to MLB playoffs

  This, my favorite sports season of the year, is being sullied by love.

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Sweetness! Free Wendy's for life

So I just finished reading a Sports Illustrated excerpt from Jeff Pearlman’s biography of NFL great Walter Payton, “Sweetness.” Of course, “Sweetness” is sour, portraying Payton as a drug-addicted, petulant, philandering, gun-toting, employee-shooti …

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Seeing red over NFL pink

  A flamboyant shade is making an unwelcome intrusion amidst all the splendid fall foliage. It’s pink and it’s everywhere.

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Farewell, Sarah, America's flirt

  I’ve spent the morning hearing moving tributes to Steve Jobs and am disappointed no one’s mentioned what will surely be his last great contribution to mankind. News of his death bumped Sarah Palin right off the front pages, clear back to page A-10 in my mornin …

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Hank, Rick Perry and redneck risings

  I have a tanned friend with a white collar job at a green Orlando hotel who told me about the time Hank Williams Jr.

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A sexy ode to Heinz Ketchup

So I had this news clip on my desk for about the last three months. I’d pick it up and look at it again and again. It seemed too trivial to indulge with a full post, yet too fascinating to dispense with a tweet. But I can’t shake its import.

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America getting too smart for its own good

  My daughter, 11 and already beginning to sense fatherly failures, asked if I’d be teaching again this year. For three of the past four years I’ve taught creative non-fiction to graduate students at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. No, I said.

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Happy Birthday Maj. Frank Burns!

  Take the day off and do something incompetent and mean-spirited today: It’s the 72th birthday of Maj. Frank Burns. Larry Linville, the man who crafted perhaps the most indelible character in American pop culture, was born on this day in 1939.

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Custer's Last Penis

  The topic of General George Armstrong Custer’s penis has been on my mind for several months now.

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Mom's making crazy contagious by a nose

If you think by writing about personal issues involving personal tissues twice in three days I’m developing an unhealthy obsession, you are correct. But like a bad cold, it’s something I can’t shake. Oh, how I only wish it were a common cold.

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Don't ever say don't ever change

I sent in my $60 high school reunion registration fee and in 23 days will show up with multiple scores to settle. I’ve for 30 years bore a grudge against the people who were once my very best friends, the ones who taught me all I know about laughter and friendship. Today I …

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Bacon, our most sinful staple

I am trying to think of the one naughty, illicit and dangerous thing I could do morning, noon and night and I keep coming back to bacon. It wouldn’t work with drugs, which I guess is the long-story-short of shows like “Breaking Bad.” I remember having some wond …

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Wingin' it at The Pond

I’m convinced homelessness will be eliminated when Habitat for Humanity begins using discarded chicken wing bones to construct residential dwellings. This occurred to me yesterday afternoon when I watched one of the Regular Joes run through a plate of hot wings like his pa …

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An alphabetically ordered world

I was hashing out the first week of school recently with a high school English teacher friend of mine. He said the year’s off to a great start. The kids seem interested, well-behaved, etc. Who’s in your home room, I asked. “A good bunch.

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Still waiting for an Iraq War apology

The interview could have taken place on any number of cable news programs involving any number of Capital opinion mongers.

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To hell with ethics, eat at Claddagh Irish Pub!

  The assembled journalists were asking pointed business questions of our hosts at Claddagh Irish Pub at the South Side Works in Pittsburgh. “How do you plan to use the new Fall menu to drive sales?” “How satisfied are you with current market penetration?& …

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Cheer up, America!

It hasn’t even been 10 years since 2002 when Dick Cheney famously said, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” It was the reason he used to justify the massive Bush tax cuts to then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill.

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Rooster risings: Alarm clock alternatives

  Being sensitive to any potential feelings, I try not to refer to our bedroom timepiece as an “alarm clock,” but rather “the clock that sometimes alarms.” I don’t feel knee-jerk alarm anytime I look at it.

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What you're reading right now

  One of the things I enjoy most about blogging is it is virtually self-perpetuating. It used to be pre-internet columnists for newspapers had to maintain a level of consistency or be banished. “I could write the world’s greatest story today and then I’ll  …

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Five li'l piggies went, "Ouch!"

  It’s been two days and I remain enthralled with the interview I saw with John Hutt, the Colorado lumberjack who severed five of his own toes when a piece of heavy equipment pinned his foot. The guy was so funny, so matter-of-fact, that if it wasn’t so anatomic …

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Splendors that out-glitter gold

If grandma really does have a heart of a gold you might want to rethink that humanitarian organ donation.

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First day of school for a real Lulu

It used to be I got sent to see the principal all the time. These days, the principal comes to see me. He comes in for a drink or two in the local watering hole where I’m a regular and I’m always glad to see him.

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Chris Rodell

Articles Posted: 56
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Member Since: 12/2010Last Seen: 5/16/2012

Chris Rodell lives in Latrobe, Pa., and, yes, he's friends with Arnold Palmer. He's ridden most everything with either legs or wheels and always prefe …

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