"B" Is For Basking Shark

My poor sister. For years, I made up names for sharks and quizzed her relentlessly on them.

"A" Is For Aye-Aye

In Madagascar, many people believe that if an Aye-aye points its middle finger at you, you're cursed.

Also, no one knows what "Aye-aye" means because the language it was coined in is extinct.

Regarding Serving Sizes

There's no honor in eating an entire 7-oz. bag of Jax Real Cheddar Cheese Curls in one sitting. I have checked.

A Confident Gait

"You have kind of a mosey," he said, having recognized me from the opposite end of a very long hallway. "You know, it's confident." He bounced his head slowly and relaxed his shoulders to demonstrate, smiling.

So I smiled. And, hopefully without sounding too self-deprecating, mentioned that I didn't generally think of myself as a confident fellow.

I don't know. Maybe moseying uses all my confidence up. Burns through it like fuel. So there isn't much left over for more important things.

Of course, if I think about that mosey of mine too much while in mid-stride... well, I might just tumble over.

Enid Caldwell, 1926-2003

If Heaven exists, I wonder if Enid Caldwell ever looks down from it at the park bench dedicated to her memory—the one by the Spy Pond in Arlington, Massachusetts, near the drinking fountain, next to the rocks jutting out into the water—and ponders the inscription:

"A tireless bulb planter and clean-up organizer who loved this pond and all its beauty."

Is she proud and pleased by it? Has some critical detail been forever left out? Is she irked for all eternity?

Either way, I think—and I'm sure you'll agree—that it's a lovely inscription. I think that after I'm gone, I'd be very fortunate to be remembered for such lovely things... or to have such a pleasant object dedicated to my memory.

We'll see.

A Young Matt Savage Develops A Taste For Pop Music

The Bay City Rollers were probably the first thing I liked that wasn't a dinosaur or a truck. (I still like dinosaurs, but have become indifferent to trucks.) They were ruthlessly smiley, wore a lot of tartan and spelled out the word Saturday in a hit song.

I hadn't turned six yet, and it just really worked for me.

Whoosh, Splat

Sometimes it's not falling off the cliff that gets you, but the anxiety you suffer through beforehand while anticipating the drop. After that, plummeting can almost feel like a relief.