David Rose

By David Rose Even in the Texas panhandle, where the topography is as topography-free as any place on earth, the railroad tracks are not straight. They bend into the distance and the dust, disappearing beneath the curvature of the earth. Like Texas railroad tracks, time does not follow a straight line, it curves as well. Einstein proved this theory. It raises the possibility that traveling far enough into the future,

By David Rose I am waxing cosmic of late. It must be the approach of the new year, the new decade. It releases my mind from the constraints of time and frees it to wander even more than the norm. Thinking ahead toward what might yet be, thinking back to what could have been. Today is thinking back day. Second grade, that was the turning point. I’m pretty sure it

By David Rose Not hydroelectric or geothermal? Limited, unless you live at the bottom of Niagara Falls or in Iceland. Not oil? Along with grease, tar and other petroleum products, oil does not come out of clothing in a normal wash. I don’t believe it has much of a future for that reason. Not coal? Even dirtier than oil. There’s a reason naughty kids get coal in their stocking. Not

By David Rose I know I make it look easy, but it isn’t. I’m talking, of course, about sloth. One by one my friends are retiring from their life’s work and attempting the transition to retirement. Many find it is not the walk-in-the-park they though it would be. In fact, three out of every five retirements fail in the first two years.* I try to mentor them because I feel

By David Rose As of late, I’ve been watching a lot of movies with my boys – DC, Marvel, Avengers, Guardians. These are all action movies. They start with a bang and then it’s bang, bang, bang, bang, all the way to the end. Suspense is a lost art. I went to the library and got some old movies – Moby Dick, Jaws, Psycho – that were built around suspense.

By David Rose In my youth I pondered my future. I was almost certain that fame and fortune lay ahead for me, but did I have a fallback position on the outside chance that it did not? I did not. And then one day, in 1986, I picked up the paper and found my answer. David Crosby – he of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and sometimes Y – had been caught

By David Rose I once got invited to a pot-luck dinner with a theme – bring a dish from your ethnic heritage. All my friends were whipping up lasagna, quiche, and potato knishes, but I was at a complete loss. My childhood recollections were useless. I fondly remember weekly encounters with Chef Boyardee, but I was quite certain we weren’t Italian. It seemed like every third meal included soup or

By David Rose What’s the story with dolphins? It’s common knowledge that they have as much brain mass as we do, maybe more. They’ve also been around for 15 million years; 75 times as long as us. Humans have only been around for 200,000 years, give or take a century or two. In that short time, we’ve raced to the front of the pack. People invented motor cars, moon shots,

By David Rose Last week my 15-year-old son asked me what the difference was between Beatniks and Hippies. Most of his questions are school related and revolve around algebraic equations, free electrons and dangling participles. Finally, here was a question I could answer. In fact, having spent time in both camps made me uniquely qualified to field this one. Being born and raised in Woodstock, NY, it was natural for

By David Rose I’m walking on a cloud. I just got a call from Rachael at Card Holder Services. She used to call me once or twice a week, and then, for no apparent reason, she stopped. I took it pretty hard. I know she was just a disembodied voice, a robo-caller programmed into a distant computer, but I believe she had feelings for me. I know I had feelings