Life As We Know It with Tom Walton: Recent Episodes
WGTE Public Media
A weekly series of four-minute essays from commentator Tom Walton, retired editor and vice president of the "Toledo Blade." Covering an array of topics, from the intricacies of the English language to the inspiration found within the geometry of a baseball diamond, Walton offers warm and unique insights into the world around us.
Fifty years after its release, Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” still sets the standard for comedy as social satire.
Football teams in the expanded Big 10 will travel more than 150,000 miles to road games this season.
Carefully planned, eating out isn’t much more expensive than eating in. Priced groceries lately?
Be wary of those on-line surveys in your email inbox. There’s usually a hidden agenda in there.
Our national parks are magnificent cathedrals of nature, none more spectacular than Yosemite.
Even six months removed from the gales of November, the Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy still resonated with a Lourdes University audience.
Another fantasy baseball season is underway at my house. I’ll be very busy until October.
Computer analytics can only tell you so much about an athlete. Grit and determination count a lot also.
The challenges of old age impact us all. We learn that “The Cataracts” are not a mountain range in Peru.
The English language provides many words that fun to say. Brouhaha. Lolligag. Kerfuffle.
You have until midnight to file your taxes. Good luck getting them postmarked at 11:59 p.m.
Popular names for babies have evolved over time. Clarence, Phineas, and Mortimer have given way to Chad, Kyle, Ryan, Connor, and Tyler.
Today’s the first day of April, and if you don’t know what that means, the joke’s on you.
Upset by high baggage fees when you fly? Get used to it. The industry makes billions a year from them.
A total solar eclipse will turn day into night at the Cleveland Guardians’ home opener.
The federal government has more to worry about than highway signs that display a sense of humor.
A church school in Texas lost a college basketball game by 141 points, proving that God does not play favorites.
The first salvo in the 2024 presidential election process comes this evening in the cornfields of Iowa.
It’s been another tough year for Harvey and Harriet Fizblister, as their annual holiday letter points out.
Expelled Congressman George Santos has found a new way to make money: personalized videos.
Television’s best early game shows were the ones that offered an intellectual challenge.
Americans are heading back to movie theaters, and they’re taking some familiar bad behavior with them.
Our Constitution sets a minimum age for the president. Maybe it’s time to set a maximum age too.
An American Airlines pilot lays down the law to his passengers: behave yourselves back there.
Given the success of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” maybe we should consider pairing other films as an odd double feature.
A South Carolina Burger King is in big trouble for serving French fries that previous customers have left behind.
A NASA contest is searching for the best way to send enough food for a mission to Mars.
First aired April 3, 2023: A sailor in the Caribbean was rescued after 24 days at sea with nothing to eat but ketchup. Let’s hear it for the mighty tomato!
What’s the best baseball team nickname of all time, the Toledo Mud Hens or the Minot Why Nots?
Baseball icon and civil rights advocate Jackie Robinson was a Hall of Famer in more ways than one.
She only wanted to fight the enemy, but in 1898 women were not allowed in the military.
Harriet and Harvey’s annual holiday letter arrived once again with postage due. Another tough year for the Fizblisters.
Thanks to the internet and Facebook, words that have always been nouns have transitioned to verbs.
Funerals don’t have to be about sadness and tears. Laughter can ease a lot of the stress.
A town in California has enacted a noise ordinance, not because people complained but because the sea lions did.
Recovering from Hurricane Ian will take a long time, but urgency and resolve are already showing the way.
Almost 47 years after the tragedy, the sinking of The Edmund Fitzgerald still resonates in Lucas County.
A West Coast aquarium is taking on the Maine lobster industry in an environmental and economic dispute.
Japan is employing robotic wolves to scare away the bears. Where’s Godzilla when you need him?
This year, most of us can relate to Harriet and Harvey Fizblister’s gloomy holiday letter.
NASA’s mission to the Bennu asteroid was a success, unless we lose the cargo on the way back.
Difficult as it will be, this is one Thanksgiving where our traditional family gatherings are not a good idea.
November 10 is a milestone anniversary for the greatest mystery on the Great Lakes, the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Disinfectant isn’t the only thing in short supply these days. We need pandemic greeting cards.
I have a Nancy Drew book that is a first edition original, like its author, Mildred Benson.
The tragic fire at the African Safari Wildlife Park was a reminder of how passionate we are about animals.
Some iconic, gone but not forgotten cars are coming back, including the Jeep Gladiator, the Ford Ranger and the Chevrolet Trailblazer.
You know what keeps me awake at night? Sleep apps. Mine takes note of every grunt, every wheeze and every deep breath all night long.
Greyhound dog racing is a cruel sport. Fortunately, voters in the state of Florida have decided to ban it.
The newspaper industry is hurting but it’s alive and well in one tiny Iowa community, where the town banker also prints a paper every day.
When Clint Eastwood was upset with city hall, he did what Dirty Harry would do. He ran for mayor.
Sometimes we find our calling in an unexpected way. Mine occurred when I discovered an old typewriter in a farmhouse closet.
Clyde Scoles’ memorial service was held not in a mortuary or a church but in a place he would have appreciated: a library.
Don’t try to figure out the incredibly complex IRS 1040 instructions. Just send in every dime you have. But no pennies please.
Times have changed, and so has the way parents today admonish their kids for misbehaving. Nobody’s mouth is washed out with soap any more.
Notice posted in a field: “The farmer allows walkers to cross the field for free but the bull charges.”
I drafted a list of my all-time favorite movies and I’m willing to be it won’t match your list.
Yes, we get an occasional tornado but think about all the earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, and mudslides we don’t get.
Soon the National Museum of the Great Lakes will open another floating exhibit, the tugboat “Ohio.”
If the Christmas classic “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” is dirty then “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” celebrates bullying. Let’s lighten up.
No sports officials take more abuse than baseball umpires. Spring training is here, so umps are preparing for the worst.
Experts say we have all been eating cheeseburgers the wrong way. Next time try flipping your burger over and eating it upside down.
Everyone has a list of personal pet peeves. Mine usually involve the conduct of other drivers. Don’t get me started.
Online shopping is king now. The most important question is not “how much is it?” but “is there free shipping?”
Life doesn’t always go the way we’d prefer, like when your mechanic informs you he was a little low on that estimate.
Intentionally using the wrong word can have a hilarious effect. It was Archie Bunker who said “patience is a virgin.”
Ever wonder where the world’s fattest bear is? Spoiler alert: it’s a bear named Beadnose in Katmai National Park in Alaska.
Why would you want to ski? Zoom off a mountain at 60 miles an hour and the thrill of human flight gives way to painful reality.
The greatest inventions of all time always include the airplane, the automobile, radio and TV. But what about the cardboard box?
It’s another year of heartbreak as chronicled in the annual holiday letter from Harriet and Harvey Fizblister.
You could be cruisin’ for a bruisin’. I just might give you a knuckle sandwich. We talked a lot differently half a century ago.
A CDC study says that one out of three American adults eats fast food every day. Is it any wonder we’re so overweight?
Buying a new car would be a lot more fun if it didn’t come with an owner’s manual heavy enough to capsize a canoe.
Those internet teasers entice you, like a carnival barker, to come on in. Of course, it will cost you some money.
Marine Sergeant First Class Theodore Jenkins and his son, Marine Colonel Theodore Jenkins, shared much more than the same name.
Over the years it has been my privilege to interview our leaders and trendsetters for the library’s Sight and Sound Video History series.
I miss old-fashioned door-to-door political campaigning. Now, between the phone and the Internet, it’s just annoying.
Kroger says it will phase out single-use plastic bags. Our environment, and our landfills, will be better for it.
If you think there is nothing worthwhile on television, you’re just going to bed too early.
History doesn’t have to be boring. Especially if it’s taught like Kenneth Davis’ book, “Don’t Know Much About History.”
These are some of the things I ponder while wondering if Ivanka Trump had a going out of business sale.
I know I’m not the brightest crayon in the box. Neither is burnt sienna or olive green.
Millions of us are woefully ignorant of history and geography. Can you name the six states bordering Nebraska?
I always thought a GOAT was the player who lost the game. Turns out it’s the Greatest Of All Time.
Sometimes a cliché is the perfect choice of words because it is literally true. So if the shoe fits, wear it.
The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence, but occasionally the algae is.
Maybe it’s a stereotype, but I’m betting most men are like me. We hate shopping, especially for new pants.
Music is the universal language, but occasionally a song can speak to you and never shut up.
It seems we need a password for everything these days. We also have to be creative in coming up with them.
Robocalls have become so ubiquitous that now we have to screen our cell phone calls as vigorously as our landline calls.
That threatening phone call from the Internal Revenue Service scared me, until I remembered the IRS doesn’t operate that way.
Baseball is my favorite sport. But boy, if I were commissioner, I’d make a few changes.
It’s human nature to remember “the good old days” with fondness. But occasionally, things went wrong.
A large framed portrait hangs in my house. Who’s the mysterious 19th Century woman in the picture? Nobody knows.
Dean Martin made celebrity roasts popular. Today the roast is fading away, and with it goes an art form.
Everybody has a junk drawer, usually in the kitchen. I discovered that mine is appropriately named.
Have you heard the one about Remus Reid, Senator Harry Reid’s unsavory ancestor? It’s a hoot.
I don’t like fish. I can’t stand the taste. I hate the smell. Call me a freak of nature.
Forget about writing the Great American Novel. Try the Great American Romance Novel instead. It’s so simple.
Books fill our lives with knowledge and joy. They can also fill up your house if you don’t learn how to say no.
Ever heard of a paraprosdokian”? It’s a figure of speech in which the latter part of a phrase is unexpected and usually funny.
Not everybody in northwest Ohio is a winter snowbird. There is much to do here that you can’t do anywhere else.
A special granddaughter turns 16 and faces an uncertain world. It was the same when I turned 16.
Harvey and Harriet Fizblister’s holiday letter is always just one mishap after another.
The Girl Scouts’ morality train might have jumped the tracks if hugging is now a bad idea.
Why in the world would anybody willingly get their body pierced by a sharp object? I don’t get the fascination with tattoos.
Vending machines have come a long way from the old automats in New York City’s Times Square.
A reunion of former co-workers reminded us all of the special bonds that are formed in the workplace.
When the shoeboxes in our closets are filled with photographs, cleaning out the closet can take a lot longer than it should.
The sport of curling is big in Canada. Here in the U.S., not so much. Some Americans call it “shuffleboard on ice.”
One of life’s little ordeals: the process of buying a new car. Your choice: bells and whistles or simple transportation from Point A to Point B.
The strange things I wonder about surprise even me occasionally. For example, it surprises me every time I get a piece of snail mail and the postage stamp has not been cancelled. What’s up with that?
A few years ago I shared the witticisms displayed by a service station in Seattle, Wash., on its outdoor sign. I wondered if the clever folks who run the place, and the equally clever customers who keep nominating pithy sayings of their own, are still at it. Turns out, they are.
Several weeks ago we had some fun sharing news reports that originally appeared in American newspapers more than a hundred years or so ago. Folks indicated that they enjoyed those. So we’ve dug up some more.
Here's the good news: texting while driving is becoming a primary offense in Toledo. The bad news: it won’t make much difference.
We have all heard the expression “let the buyer beware.” In the original Latin, it was “caveat emptor,” which until recently I thought meant “give me your wallet,” as in “empty your pockets.” I was reminded recently that a buyer who is NOT wary can sometimes fall victim to a scam, or if not a scam, at least a misrepresentation.
Fifty two years ago today, I married the love of my life. Earlier this year I lost her. I don’t know how many more August 28s I have left, but I do know that this date on the calendar will never be the same.
Today I come before you with an essay certain to arouse your senses and send you into your evening full of good cheer. I think it should be obvious that I am speaking of -- are you ready for this? -- the comma.
Summer is going full blast, and you know what that means. Barbecue grills. Family vacations. Cedar Point. Algae blooms.
Once a year folks in Bowling Green head over to their favorite ice cream shop to show a little "sundae kind of love." Their reward: a purple t-shirt, some free ice cream, and the warm feeling that comes from knowing they've smacked cancer in its ugly face.
We're deep into the county fair season in Ohio, one of my favorite times of the year because of all the nostalgic entertainment it provides.
I’ve always been fascinated by history, especially as recorded in America’s newspapers long, long ago.
How and why did that expression become the benchmark against which we measure greatness?
Another baseball season is at the halfway point, and if ever we needed a reminder of saner times, it is now.
Most days the mailbox at my house yields a mix of mail that probably looks a lot like yours.
Take a look at your car keys. I’ll bet you’ve got several key tags identifying you as a lucky rewards program participant for a whole bunch of merchants.
HARDLY A week goes by that I don’t receive a survey request from a merchant or company I’ve done business with.
THIS MEMORIAL Day is the day the nation sets aside to remember our fallen heroes in wars and conflicts past.
If you spend any time on the Internet, you’ve been subjected to marketing tactics that can make it almost impossible to ignore the bait.
A Blade obituary a while back noted that the deceased had taken a rather unusual occupation late in his life: funeral greeter.
One of the most popular features of The Blade is the daily trivia challenge compiled by a friend and former colleague, Mike Kelly.
Guided by the philosophy that good people doing strange things makes a great story, I was steered to Steve Agler’s quest for a million pennies.
Nobody has to tell Zak Vassar the challenges he signed up for at the Toledo Symphony Orchestra.
The calendar says spring has arrived, but I’ll bet you still could use a reminder that warmer days are ahead.
The supermarket where we often shop, the Bowling Green Kroger’s, is nearly finished with a major expansion. Now you need a GPS to find your way around.
One of the outcomes of the presidential election is the return of vigorous public speech. The good old political protest.
Thanks to global warming, green -- the color of money -- is the new white in the Arctic Ocean. History was made several months ago in the Arctic. It was good history if you are in the tourism business in Alaska and northern Canada. It was bad history if you’re into environmental protection.
It's been a while since I got up on my soap box to complain about abuse of the language and improper grammar, so please indulge me while I vent. The target of my distress today? The habit of people who should know better to misuse words such as “amazed,” or “surprised,” or one of my favorites, “appalled.”
Several years ago, when Frank Horton was the president of the University of Toledo, he was chatting with a small group of people, including me, about the desire of many UT students for more parking lots and parking spaces on campus.
For years I have had this little mental exercise where I contemplate what food I would least like to give up for the rest of my life.
What is it about leaving a voice mail message that befuddles us so? Comments that might sound pithy or clever in a face-to-face, two-way conversation tend to lose their zip when we are speaking all by ourselves into someone else’s telephone.
I have decided that when it’s necessary to make a list of my lists, it’s time to reevaluate my life and daily routine.
As America prepares to inaugurate a President who at least half the country doesn’t like, there’s a widely shared presumption that Donald Trump will be erratic on his good days and dangerous on his bad days.
A few months ago I spoke of the dramatic and undeniable changes in the newspaper industry and noted that dwindling home delivery circulation did not necessarily mean fewer readers. Newspapers, including The Blade, adapted, and their websites are visited by millions of Americans every day.
Now that we’ve all turned the page, literally, on 2016, and America has elected a change agent who will take office in just 18 days, the national mood is a mix of hope and apprehension.
In 13 days Americans will pause to take note of the 15th anniversary of 9/11. It will be another milestone anniversary and an appropriate time to ask: has America moved on? Should it?
If you are like me, you had a Viewmaster toy as a kid. Even if you are not like me, you had a Viewmaster toy as a kid. What an amazing experience it was to put the Viewmaster viewer to your face and gaze upon the miracle of 3-D.
There are expressions we all use in modern and polite conversation that I’ve often wondered about. One of them is the ubiquitous phrase “have a nice day.” We hear it from someone and we use it ourselves almost every day. It’s a pleasant way to end a conversation without the awkward silence that could otherwise occur. But it’s a comment I’ve always had an issue with.
Most of us at one time or another have pondered what sits on exactly the opposite side of the earth from our own location. Dig down into the ground and keep on going until you emerge on the other side and what would you find?
Remember as a kid practicing your signature when you were supposed to be listening to the teacher? For reasons I can’t explain, the vertical stroke of my T bends like the left half of a clock dial. I actually had a clerk ask me once, “Your name is Chomas?”
This week, few Americans will even be aware of the 47th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11 to the moon. Some may take note of it but there will be no fanfare, and very little attention will be paid to it by most of us. It’s not a milestone anniversary, and most of us don’t spend much time pondering anniversaries that don’t end in a zero or a five.
Most Veteran politicians share a common skill that serves them, if not necessarily the rest of us, well. They can say a lot while saying nothing. It’s political doublespeak.
The oldest of our six grandchildren graduated from high school a few weeks ago, and her proud grandparents were delighted to make the trip from Ohio down to Alabama to see it. But we assumed that this child of the South would stay close to home and attend college just an hour away from Birmingham.
Somebody sent me a battered magazine clipping offering a number of helpful tips for living a good life. The magazine isn’t identified and there’s no byline attached. It’s just a list. I think it’s worth sharing excerpts of it because these are excellent suggestions
The news is pretty crummy these days. Wars rage on. So does the presidential campaign. Tension in the Middle East never goes away. tornados, earthquakes, and floods remind us of the fragile nature of life. If my e-mails are any indication, people are suffering from illness and fatigue. They are sick and tired of it. They look for anything that will cheer them up.
Someone once noted that journalists are like blackbirds on a utility wire. When one takes off, they all take off. When one lands, they all land. Point being, of course, that we tend to travel in a pack and swoop and circle around an issue or topic and peck away at it until there’s nothing left. There is some truth to the notion, especially among those who make a living as commentators.
Mass Marketing fascinates and irritates me. I’m amazed how often I'm sucked in by it, even though I know what's coming and even though I realize its sole purpose is to separate me from what limited financial resources I have.