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Burton Cole

Rainy days and Saturdays always get me drippy thoughts

I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. It was Saturday and I sat on my apartment balcony watching the rain. We’ve had so much rain. Rain and more rain. Soggy thoughts swished around my brain. I wondered, if rain falls on a town, and there’s no one to sit on a balcony to watch it, would the rain still be wet? Hey, I didn’t say I thought great thoughts, nor even well-thought-out thoughts. What’s splashing around up there are just the thoughts of a guy who’s parked his brain in neutral and his seat on a padded chair to watch the rain. The rain tapered. I snaked ...

Future colonel infiltrates Churchill Downs

It’s Kentucky Derby week, which reminds me, it’s time to get back to my plan — not to take over the world. Oh, no. I’m aiming to be crowned a Kentucky Colonel. My quest began last year when this farm boy from northeast Ohio wandered into the bluegrass wilds of Kentucky. “I’ll ...

Shh! I’m watching the black-and-white static

I do not have TV service hooked up in my apartment. I have neither cable, dish nor streaming. Nor do I have rabbit ears wrapped in tin foil — but I have fond memories of such high-tech solutions. (Hey, fellow old-timers, remember smacking the side of the set to fix the vertical hold? Fun times, eh? The kids have no idea what we’re talking about.) What I do have is a hand-me-down screen, and secondhand DVD player and a couple boxes full of childhood memories. The other night, I settled in to relive Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in the 1943 black-and-white movie “Sherlock ...

Drink upstream of the herd, and other life lessons

Years ago, when I was in the market for life lessons, I came across a run of cowboy wisdom. The wisdom included nuggets like these: • Don’t squat with your spurs on. • Always drink upstream from the herd. • Just ’cause trouble comes visiting doesn’t mean you have to offer it a place to sit down. • Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear or a fool from any direction. • An onion can make people cry but there’s never been a vegetable that can make people laugh. My tank has been running low on intelligence lately. Some would say it was never topped ...

What’s for supper? The cap’n says it’s glop

I enjoy cooking. I’m good at baking, boiling or browning good eats. But I came home from my last grocery shopping trip with a gallon of milk, one box of Golden Grahams and one box of Reese’s Puffs. And a tube of peel-and-eat cookie dough for dessert. That’s the thing about being a widower in the kitchen — there’s no point cooking for one, not when you’ve got a buddy named Cap’n Crunch ready to sail on a sea of milk. Occasionally, I’ll get ambitious and fry eggs. I prefer sunny side up — “dippy eggs,” Terry used to call them. But I don’t dip. I love letting ...

Folding sheets with no one fit for blame

The epiphany splatted me upside the head at the laundromat. (Being splatted by an epiphany is something like being socked by a fit, but without the frustration of being swamped by a fitted sheet.) I had just flipped open the washing machine lid to discover “snow” splattered throughout my freshly laundered dress shirts and slacks. That’s when I realized a Great Truth: When you live alone and someone leaves a tissue in their pocket, and the tissue shreds like confetti in the washing machine, the guilty party is fingered immediately, if not sooner. I groaned at the revelation, ...