Tag Archives: humor

September 7, 2023 · 12:57 am

Weirdie Poetry

Mr. R RabbitThe Man Who Had Bird Knees

I once knew a man…

Who had knees…

That bent backwards, like a bird’s…

And this man…

Could only walk…

Like a limping, lame old duck.

The children all laughed…

And pointed at him…

When he passed them in the park…

And it made him smile…

And laugh to himself…

That his handicap made them happy.

Every single night…

He oiled his weary knees…

And tried to fight the pain…

And every single day…

He used his silly legs…

To do the Chicken Dance for kids.

And then there came a day…

When the bird legs came no more…

To be noticed by kids at the park…

And the parents all learned…

That the poor man had died…

And the whole world brought him flowers.

The next day in Heaven…

St. Peter saw a man…

Whose knees bent backwards like a bird’s…

And all of Heaven laughed…

As he did the Chicken Dance…

While angels clapped in Heaven.

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The thing I find to be most witlessly true about both poetry and life is that things can be funny, and make you laugh, and at the same time make you cry on the inside.  Humor is hard to write because it can be both happy and sad at the same exact moment.  How do you define that quality?  The bitter-sweet nature of nature?  That’s saying it in a way that is both contradictory and odd.  It can give you a wry smile at the same moment it both confounds and confuses you.  So better just to shrug your shoulders and tell yourself you know it when you see it… and this either is or isn’t it.  Sorry if I made you think too hard, cause I know that sometimes thinking hurts.

Mickey at the Wishing Well of Souls

I found a country well, and I thought I had a quarter,

But I fished in pockets hard, and found nothing for the warter,

And since I had to warp a line to make the poem rhyme,

I figured I would just look in, because I had the time.

I looked into the warty water which sat there still and deep,

And could not see the bottom, and I began to weep.

The water was clear and dark and black,

And the only thing I saw… was Mickey looking back.

And nothing of the wishing well, its magic could I see,

For only there just staring back, the secret thing was me.

Kops

I apologize for inflicting poetry on you when you probably came here looking for goofy stuff to laugh at.  But my poetry is just like all my word-mangling and picture-crayoning.  It tends to be goofy and weird and walking a tightrope over a shark tank between chuckle-inducing and tear-jerking.  You probably can’t even tell which is the poetry and which are the burbled brain-farts of commentary that pad this thing out to five hundred words.  Four hundred and ninety six, actually.

mANDY

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September 6, 2023 · 12:48 am

Devotion in Motion

How long have I been a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals?  Since Bob Gibson and the World Series victories of the 60’s.  When will it end?  I have to know if there is baseball in Heaven before I can tell you.  And I believe there is.

970012_598081996889896_1749856650_nA true baseball fan never abandons the team he or she loves.  They live and breathe and die with the team.  In the 1960’s I got to experience my Cardinals win the World Series against the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.  I got to experience the defeat in seven games by the Detroit Tigers and Mickey Lolich their star pitcher in 1968.  And I followed them mostly by the sports page in the Mason City Globe Gazette.  And sometimes second hand when I listened to the Twins’ games on radio with Great Grandpa Milo Raymond.  I followed the individual players and their numbers.  Curt Flood, the center fielder was a vacuum cleaner with legs in center field.  Lou Brock could steal a base, though he was even more amazing at it in the 1970’s with veteran savvy and know-how on his side.  Gibson was extraordinary as pitcher.  And I followed the others too.  Dal Maxvill at short stop, Tim McCarver at catcher.  Mike Shannon at third.  And a fading Roger Maris in right field, having never reached the heights again as the Yankee slugger who hit 61 home runs in 1961. 1010493_520267051372821_2054131685_n

I watched and waited in the 1970’s, when I could follow them on television at least occasionally.  I didn’t get more World Series victories that decade, but I listened to the ball game on radio when Bob Gibson pitched his no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates.  I was giddy about the base stealing record that Lou Brock set in the 70’s, later to be eclipsed by Ricky Henderson.  I followed Ted Simmons, the catcher, and Joe Torre the third baseman.

The 1980’s brought more World Series with victory in 1981 over the Milwaukee Brewers, and losses against the Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins.  I invented some new cuss words the night the Royals came from behind to win the sixth game of the series because an umpire blew the call at first base that would’ve given the Cardinals the series win.  That bad call (the runner was clearly out at first) changed the series from a Cardinals’ win in six games to a Royals’ victory in seven games.

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In the late 1990’s I cheered for Mark McGwire to break Roger Maris’ single season home run record.  I watched on TV as he did it, holding my young son in my lap and cheering loudly enough to scare all the cockroaches out of the house in South Texas.  It burned me later that the steroids scandals and Barry Bonds would later tarnish that moment.  But I lived it never-the-less, and it was a highlight of my life as a Cardinals’ fan.

62722_574692719263587_14180130_n378194_10151001599341840_1087304628_nAnd now, this year, as everything is going wrong in my life and my body is breaking down more often than my car does, the Cardinals are surging again.  They could win a hundred games this year.  They could win World Series number twelve.  We have history, this team and I.  And I am a devoted fan.  I can no more explain my love of the team to you than any baseball fan anywhere could ever explain to you why they love baseball.  Or what the heck Fredbird is all about.  12032015_547957218694150_5911281379869985407_nBut there it is.  We don’t wait til next year.  Not the Cardinals.

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Jun 9, 2015; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols (5) reacts at home plate after he hit a solo home run during the fifth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Jun 9, 2015; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols (5) reacts at home plate after he hit a solo home run during the fifth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Albert Pujols will always be a Cardinal in my mind.  We won it all in 2011.

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September 5, 2023 · 1:18 am

Mangled Metaphors and Purple Paisley Prose

Color boy

I have rather regularly been revising and editing old writing.  One thing I have discovered is that I am capable of the most gawd-awful convoluted sentences filled with mangled metaphors and ideas that can only be followed while doing mental back-flips or managing miracles of interpretation.    That last sentence is a perfect example of purple paisley prose.  Paisley, in case you didn’t know this, is a printed pattern on clothing or other cloth that makes an intricate design out of the basic twisted teardrop shape borrowed from Persian art.   The basic motif, the teardrop shape, is a leaf or vegetable design often referred to as the Persian pickle.  I write like that.  You can pick out the Persian pickles in this very paragraph.  Alliterations, mangled metaphors, rhyming words, sound patterns, the occasional literary allusion, personification, bungles, jungles, and junk.  “How can you actually write like that?” you ask.  Easy.  I think like that.

To make a point about mangled metaphors, let me visit a couple of recent scenes in novels I have been working on;

From The Bicycle Wheel Genius; page 189

Mike Murphy and Frosty Anderson sat at the kitchen table eating a batch of Orben’s pancakes, the twentieth try at pancakes, and nearly edible.  Mike could eat anything with maple syrup on it… well, maybe not dog poop, but these were slightly better than dog poop.

From The Magical Miss Morgan; page 7

Blue looked at Mike and grinned.  It was an impish and fully disarming grin.  It made Mike do whatever Blue said, even being willing to eat a lump of dog poop if she asked him to, though she would never ask him to.

So, here’s the thing.  Why is there a repetition of the dog-poop-eating metaphor?  In one case it is Mike Murphy expressing in metaphorical terms his love of maple syrup.  In the other, it is Mike Murphy expressing his love of Blueberry Bates’ dimpled grin.  He is a somewhat unique character, but why would anybody associate love with eating dog poop?  I don’t know.  I just wrote the dang things.

I like to take a convoluted plot and complicate it with complex sentences and numerous running gags, with a seasoned-sauce of mangled metaphors poured on top like gravy.  I will use sentences like this either to make you laugh, or give you a headache.  I’m almost sure it is one of those.  So if you have gotten this far in this post without a headache, then I guess it must be funny.

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September 2, 2023 · 1:20 am

The Road Home

The Road Home

This sofa-sized oil Paffooney is called the Road Home because it was painted from a photograph looking west on US Highway 3 towards Rowan, Iowa, the little town I grew up in.  I painted it when I lived by myself in South Texas, believing that one day I would go back to Iowa to live out the rest of my life.  Here’s where today’s post gets mortifyingly morbid.  Yes, I know that last expression is repetitively repetitive, but that little bit of alliteration was necessary to lighten the load of this non-laughing part of my post.  I am not going to make it.  I am stuck in a North Dallas metroplex that I sincerely do not love.  My kids are not done growing up there.  I have family and roots there.  I have them in Iowa, too, but like a Sioux warrior, I belong to my wife’s tribe once I married into it.   I am old.  I have six incurable diseases and I am a cancer survivor since 1983.  Every day of life is a new miracle.  but the miracles are running out.  My COPD makes my chest hurt, and I have trouble breathing, especially at night.  The house is rotting away around us, courtesy of the housing bubble we bought it in back in 2005.  Doing what maintenance and repair that I can makes my arthritic body ache intolerably, more than Aleve can cure.  I will not go back to drugs like Vioxx or Celebrex and let them kill me to enrich the pharmaceutical industry.  My diabetes has made it almost impossible to eat without enduring a round of high blood sugar and nausea.  I do not look forward to either insulin or the possibility of losing an arm or leg.  So, if I get out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, it will probably be by curling up my toes and going bye-bye, followed by a cremation.  I would like to have my ashes scattered in Iowa, but the family will probably find flush toilets much cheaper. Ah well… dark part done.  Now for the part about going home.

The reason I feel uplifted, and crazily feel justified in calling this post “humor” is because I have already won my battle.  I was a teacher for 31 years.  I touched more than 2,500 lives, some of them profoundly.  I have almost raised three wonderful, talented children.  I have written and published three books, and if I can scratch out enough time, I have at least two more ready to be published.  I have shared what little wisdom I have acquired along with a lot of really goofy artwork I have done in this blog, and, although I used to be the best author no one had ever read, people are actually reading and liking my books.  In my stories, I have told about growing up in Iowa, about being a teacher, about being a friend, about being in love, about facing fear, and ultimately about being able to laugh about all of it.  In my fiction, I have already gone home, repeatedly.  When I get my cheapo flushing-funeral, that will not be me.  I will be in the cornfields under the blue Iowa sky with a threat of thunderstorms in the distance.  And while I may cry a little bit, because what is life worth without some of that? I will be mostly laughing and laughing and laughing.  Because life may end in death, but nothing about it is sad if you don’t let it be.  I like to delude myself into thinking the world is a little bit better now than when I got here, and I pretend that I have had something to do with that.  The game is won.  Everything else is just gravy!  (Sorry about that.  I do realize that gravy goes on mashed potatoes, not a game, but mangled metaphors are one of my specialties.)

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September 1, 2023 · 1:18 am

Doofy Dog Doings

I noted before that I have so far used an alarming number of dog-poop jokes in my creative writing projects.  (All right, two instances may not really be alarming, but it does indicate that I am thinking about dog poop way too much.)  I guess the reason for it is that I have a dog, and she is not a genius dog.  She is smarter than I can cope with, but she only beats me at chess once out of every thirty games.  She inspired today’s Paffooney, so let me show you the picture before I tell you everything that is wrong with my little dog.

Dingledum dog

Okay, my dog looks nothing like this.  She is a Cardigan Corgi, a dog bred to chase and kill barn rats, or to protect the baby’s crib when the adults are not in the room.  She is highly possessive, and she considers me her property.  So, here’s where the dog poop comes in.  I have to walk her twice a day, and I have to take a Walmart bag with me to pick up the poop in the park (even though it is obvious that no one else in our neighborhood does it despite the posted law).  And it turns out that this is not enough to keep her from pooping in the house.  The little poop factory can make as many as five times in one day.  And even worse, she will poop in punishment if we commit the crime of leaving her alone to go somewhere.  We get back from the dollar movie and she has pooped on the dining room carpet, or in front of my bedroom door, somewhere where she knows I will see it and get mad.  She doesn’t care if she gets punished in return.  She is satisfied if she made her point.  So I am drowning in dog poop on a daily basis.  It’s no wonder it’s on my mind and I end up writing about it.  God help me, of all the things to have on your mind, I have dog poop on mine!

If you are wondering about the rat in the picture, there is a rat part to my doggy nightmare.  We live near a city park where there are lots of storm drains and rain gutters for rats to inhabit.  And there are throngs of rats.  When we kept the dog in the yard on a chain, the rats would come by daily to laugh at her before coming into the house and gnawing rat holes into the walls and ceilings and eat the glues out of the spines of many of my books.  So rats are a part of the reason she now gets to live in the house.  My wife goes ballistic from seeing or hearing rats.  But I think they still laugh at her as they come in anyway. It’s just that they stay quieter with her around and my wife doesn’t see or hear them.  So, it would be problem solved if only the poop problem would go away.

Here’s her actual portrait.  Sorry if it is too scary for children and the faint of heart.

Jade Monster1

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August 16, 2023 · 1:31 am

Mr. Bean

Rowan Atkinson is a genius comedian, and the character of Mr. Bean is the greatest work he has done, the best proof of his genius.  As someone who works at humor and tries to get it right, I have to analyze and carefully study the work of the master.  How does he do it?  What does it all mean?  And what can I learn from it?

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Atkinson not only created the character, he co-wrote the entire television series and controls every aspect of the performance as the central character.  Mr. Bean is the bumbling every-man, going through horrific troubles because of the cascade effect of simple little errors.  We laugh at him because we have all been there.  Tasting the hot sauce leads to a meltdown that causes chaos and disaster for the entire store.  Overcoming fear of heights makes him the center of attention for the entire pool-house when can’t overcome the urge to use the diving board, and yet, can’t make himself jump off.  We have all lived the nightmare of being trapped naked in the hotel hallway, locked out of our room, just when the hallway becomes crowded.

There is a certain charm to Mr. Bean.  He is a childlike character, blissfully unaware of how much he doesn’t know about the complex society around him.  He has a teddy bear that sleeps with him and comforts him.  He lays out his supplies for the big exam, and he’s thought of practically everything he will possibly need, but basic physics fails him and makes the pencils keep rolling out of place.

Rowan Atkinson is a master of the art form because he has such tremendous control of his rubberized goofy face and manic body.  He can drive his goofy little yellow car from a sofa mounted on top.  He can change clothes while driving.  Just watching him shave with an electric razor is a total hoot.

This is a picture of Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean. It is NOT a picture of me.

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It is mostly physical comedy, almost slapstick, and yet it is not the broad unfeeling poke-in-the-eye you get with the Three Stooges.  Most of the real damage is done to himself, though pompous and deserving people are often near enough to get a helping of it smack in the face.  A lot of it is practically pantomime, with hardly any real dialogue.  Much of it, like the sword fight with the bumblebee using a butter knife, is simply silly.

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The movie, Mr. Bean’s Holiday, extends the character by making him actually interact with other characters, though in his own inimitable Mr. Bean way.  The limited dialogue thing is amplified by the fact that he is traveling in France and does not speak French.  Still, he interacts with the boy he accidentally kidnaps, the girl who wants to be a movie star whom he helps in her quest by an accident at the Cannes Film Festival, and the movie director whom he almost kills but ends up saving his career with a hit home movie.

Mr. Bean makes the ridiculous an art form by helping us to laugh at ourselves as we are beset by all the little troubles of life that Bean magically floats through.

So, now I have told you why I love Rowan Atkinson as a comedian.  He is a comedic genius.  Of course, you knew that already, right?

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August 15, 2023 · 12:45 am

Conversations With the Ghost of Miss M…

DSCN5148Beneath the old cottonwood tree there once stood a one-room school house.  My mother went to school there as a girl, a short walk from home along the Iowa country road.  Misty mornings on a road between cornfields and soybean fields can often conjure up ghosts.

I took this morning walk with the dog while I was visiting my old Iowegian home, and I was writing my fictional story Magical Miss Morgan in my head, not yet having had time to sit down and write.  I was reflecting on times long past and a school long gone, though Miss Morgan’s story is really about my own teaching experience.  Miss Morgan is in many ways me.  But I am not a female teacher.  I am a goofy old man.  So, why am I writing the main character as a female?

Well, the ghosts from the old school house heard that and decided to send an answer.

Miss Mennenga was my third grade and fourth grade teacher from the Rowan school.  The building I attended her classes in has been gone for thirty years.  Miss M herself has long since passed to the other side.  So when she appeared at the corner…  Yes, I know… I have said countless times that I don’t believe in ghosts, but she had the same flower-patterned dress, the glasses, the large, magnified brown eyes that could look into your soul and see all your secrets, yet love you enough to not tell them to anyone else.  Suddenly, I knew where the character of Miss Morgan had actually come from.  I also realized why I was drawn to teaching in the first place.  Teachers teach you more than just long division, lessons about the circulatory systems of frogs, and the Battle of Gettysburg…  They shape your soul.

“You remember getting in trouble for doing jokes in class when you were supposed to be studying your spelling words?”

“Yes, Miss M, but I didn’t make any noise.. they were pantomime jokes that I stole from watching Red Skelton on TV.”

“But you pulled your heart out of your chest and made it beat in your hand.  You had to know that was going to make the boys smirk and the girls giggle.”

“I did.  But making them happy was part of the reason God put me there.”

“But not during spelling.  I was trying to teach math to fourth graders.  You interrupted.”

“You made that point.  I still remember vividly.  You let me read the story to the class out loud afterwords.  You said I needed to use my talent for entertaining to help others learn, not distract them from learning.”

“I was very proud of the way you learned that lesson.”

“I tried very hard as a teacher to never miss a teachable moment like that.  It was part of the reason that God put you there.”

“And I did love to hear you read aloud to the class.  You were always such an expressive reader, Michael.  Do you remember what book it was?”

“It was Ribsy, by Beverly Cleary.   How could I have forgotten that until now?  You made me love reading out loud so much that I always did it in my own classes, at every opportunity.”

I remembered the smile above all else as the lingering image faded from my view through the eyes of memory.  She had a warm and loving smile.  I can only hope my goofy grin didn’t scare too many kids throughout my career.

10931430_1392374101067123_2624334665191497015_n I needed a post for 1000 Voices that was about reconnecting with someone.  I could’ve used any number of real life examples from everything that has happened to me since poor health forced me to retire from teaching  I could’ve written any number of things that would not make me feel all sad and goopy about retiring and would not make me cry at my keyboard again like I am doing now… like I did all through that silly novel I wrote… even during the funny parts.  But I had to choose this.  A debt had to be paid.  I love you, Miss M… and I had to pay it forward.

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August 12, 2023 · 1:00 am

My Mother’s Dolls

Tom Sawyer without the straw hat, as created by Lois Beyer

Tom Sawyer without the straw hat, as created by Lois Beyer

You may already know about my doll-collecting mania.  You may have already called the mental health people to come take care of the problem, and they just haven’t arrived at my door yet with the white coat that has the extra long sleeves.  But you may not know that my mother is a doll-maker and has something to do with my doll-collecting hoarding disorder.

In the early 1990’s my mother and I put our money together and bought a kiln while we were visiting my sister’s family out in California.  It wasn’t the most expensive model, but it wasn’t the cheapest, either.  We both had enough experience with ceramics that we didn’t want to buy a burning box that was merely going to blow our porcelain projects to kingdom come.  Mother had doll-making friends in Texas who taught her about firing greenware and glazing and porcelain paint and all the other arcane stuff you have to know to make expensive hand-made dolls.  Now, honestly, at the start we could’ve made some money at it selling to seriously ill doll collectors and other kooks, but we were not willing to part with our early art, and by the time we were ready to do more than just have an expensive hobby, everyone who would’ve paid money for the product was making their own.  So dreams of commercial success were supplanted by the hobbyist’s mania that made more and more charming little things to occasionally display at the county fair.

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The two dolls I have left to share on my blog from that era were both crafted by my mother.  She lovingly fired the porcelain body parts, painted the faces by hand, and created the wardrobe on her Singer sewing machine.  I made some dolls too, but never with the wondrous craft and care that made my mother’s dolls beyond compare.

Tom Sawyer was originally a boy doll who was supposed to be able to hold a model train in his hands.  My mother had the pattern for the little engineer’s uniform and hat that she would use on another doll instead.  He is named after the Tom Sawyer clothing pattern that my mother bought and sewed together to dress him in.  He has a cloth and stuffing body underneath his clothes together with porcelain head, hands, and bare feet.

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The other doll I have left to brag unctuously about is a doll named Nicole after the niece my wife and I have whom this doll bares a striking resemblance to.  She displays a beautiful little girl’s sun dress with quilted accent colors that my mother sewed from scratch with the help of a pattern she was truly fond of and used more than once.

These dolls were gifts to my wife and I, presented shortly after my mother bought out my share of the kiln when she retired and moved back to the frosty land of the Iowegians.  I haven’t kept them as thoroughly dusted and cobweb-free as they deserve because I have been a somewhat lazy and slovenly son… but I do love them almost as much as (and sometimes more depending on recent behavior) my own children.  (After all, porcelain kids rarely make a mess, overspend allowances, or hog the television too much.)

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August 9, 2023 · 12:39 am

Uncle Michael, Why Is There Tinfoil On Your Head?

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The impact of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination was decisive for me.

Why-ever would a relatively rational and aware intellectual embrace the idea that human society is based on lies and the truth lies buried out there?  In my case, I would claim it is because I am relatively goofy and prone to believing things because I am wholly deceived by a core belief that all human beings are by nature good, and have to be taught to be evil.
But while I have a misguided misconception about the goodness of people, I also have a dark side… a faith in my own ability to dig into facts and controversies and make sense of them with powers of reason.  My world changed forever in 1963, when I was seven years old.  I have never forgotten how wrenching the assassination was to my Iowan family and Iowegian friends.  I remember how the world can be turned upside down and feelings of love and security can be totally usurped by fear and irrational feelings.  You have an innate desire to believe the grownups will put things right again and the world can go on as before.  Accept what the authorities say, and all will be just as it was.

I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but E. Howard Hunt, the Watergate burglar and CIA dirty-tricks operator confessed to the part the government played in the death of JFK.  He died shortly there-after.  About the only benefits he could get from telling this story was a conscience that would have been about one per cent less black and horrible as he died.  There are numerous ways to cast doubt on this deathbed confession, but as you follow and research each line of evidence about what Hunt says, you find that far more of these details are accurate than there are details that seem slightly questionable.  I know that in the conspiracy world that “if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it’s probably an ostrich”.  But the one thing conspiracy theorists say that gives support to their position is, “You can do the research for yourself.”

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So why, if it is so clear that the CIA, FBI, and LBJ got together to kill Kennedy for a variety of nefarious reasons, is the information not common knowledge and plastered all over the headlines in every major newspaper?   Well, the Inquirer and its ilk are a big part of the reason.  Sensationalist journalism is not above making stuff up and distorting what is real.  It leads my relatives and friends to think I am so convinced about the guilt of the CIA, FBI, and LBJ only because those letters keep coming up on my word tray during Scrabble games.  I do actually cross-reference things and look for books and articles that have verifiable footnotes.  I am always more convinced by things stated by writers who source their details.

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Jim Marrs, the author of Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, offers detailed notations on his research and interviews numerous sources on YouTube.

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This red-faced bozo only offers the research of others, and often distorts it when he uses it.

So, when you look at these things with a rational and thoroughly inquisitive mind, you begin to find a number of things about Roswell, 9/11, and Elvis faking his death that are quite unnerving and threaten your cherished worldview.  I continue to put tinfoil on my head to protect me from alien mind-reading powers because… Dang!  Some of that crap is TRUE!

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August 9, 2023 · 12:34 am

The Family That Slays Trolls Together…

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As a family, we play Dungeons and Dragons.  Well, all of us, that is, except Mom.  It’s basically against her religion and means the Jehovah’s Witness version of Hell for us. (Which is a spiritual condition where God refuses to talk to you, and play checkers with you, and then you die.)  But let’s not discuss that here.  I don’t need her to start thinking about reasons to divorce me.  She accepts that it is a thing we do and like and keep mostly to ourselves.  (I just rolled a 15 on a twenty-sided dice to succeed in that charm-enemy spell and avert disaster.)

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As a family we have chosen to use the Eberron campaign available from Wizards of the Coast, the company that now publishes all official D&D stuff.  It is a medieval/Renaissance sort of setting where magic is every-day common and takes the place of science in the real world.

I get to be game master and creator of the basic plots and stories.  My three kids, Dorin, Henry, and the Princess are the player characters who interact with the world and determine the outcomes of the adventures through the rolling of Dungeon Dice.

I want to assure you at this point that my eldest son does not actually have a watermelon for a head.  Maybe metaphorically, but he is easily the smartest and most likely to be a leader of my three kids.  His character routinely pursues ideas like replacing his arms with magical metal arms, or grafting additional arms on his body.  He has chosen the phoenix to be the symbol on his personal flag and coat of arms, but his artifice roll to create the magical ship’s flag turned out to make it look more like a pigeon that someone set on fire.  (You have to watch out for those rolls of “1” on a 20-sided dice.)

Henry, my middle child, likes to play a halfling.  The little hobbit-like character is the one called upon to disarm all the tiger traps and poison-arrow traps that line the dungeon tunnels ahead.  He is a problem-solver in real life.  And he wants to be an architect.  In D&D games, he is often the first one to run up to danger and look it in the blood-shot eye.

Every D&D group needs a wizard or some other magic-user.  Ours has Mira, the Kalashtar mind- wizard.  My daughter’s character can use mind powers to float in the air, pick up and throw things with her mind alone, and figure out ways to do things using as little physical effort as possible.  Oh, and she loves to eat chocolate.  (The character, I mean… or is it actually the daughter?  I don’t know.  It is sometimes hard to tell them apart.)

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In our last adventure, we went to investigate the evil doings going in Evernight Keep, a castle in the country of Aundair.  We were able to not only defeat the evil mind-flayer, Dr. Zorgo, who had turned everyone into golems in the castle, but also to win the castle and the title of the Duke of Passage.  Now that they own a castle, my little band of adventurers will have to defend it, and I know of one old game master who will definitely throw all kinds of evil challenges at them.

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