Editor's note: This column is a satire and contains fabricated quotes.  The world spins, but not around you. ~ Jasper Comstock Citing the stress level of living next to a development chock full of residents over the age of 50 as being detrimental to their wellbeing, a group calling themselves 40 B Or Not To 40 B, has filed a petition with The Town of Norton protesting the construction of the proposed 230-unit affordable apartment complex adjacent to the pseudo-upscale Red Mill Village. “This is the last thing we need,” said group spokesman Sarah Bellum. “It’s just not fair! We shouldn’t be …

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh. ~ W. H. Auden US (English-born) critic & poet (1907 - 1973) I was astonished by the voracity and scope of the debate triggered by last Saturday’s Patch article, Where Do You Stand on Breastfeeding in Public? There were 46 comments posted in the oftentimes heated, sometimes humorous deliberations; a sizeable response by any standards. In Rantings And Other Despicable Acts In Three Part Harmony, a column I wrote for the Easton Patch in February of last year, I …

Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach... it pisses me off! I'll go over to a little baby and say, “What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!” ~ Steven Wright Well, I’m back. Or I guess I should say, we’re back, since I brought my wife home with me. I did my best to leave Maine without her, but she chased me down the road, pulled the door open and jumped in before I could get away. Of course that’s not true; just a small, feeble attempt at humor. In reality, I’m sure she’d much rather have stayed up in Maine. I packed our SUV for our trip home, …

I’m entering my third full day of ‘ramp down’ mode. Actually, since I’m writing this early on a Monday afternoon, I guess by the time this is published I’ll be in my fifth day of the aforementioned mode. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m on vacation. My wife and I arrived at our rental cottage in Maine on Saturday afternoon, totally psyched for two weeks of R & R and of course, primed to devour vast quantities of lobster along with any other creature known to dwell in the briny deep that doesn’t eat us first! We’re hidden away in a quaint little wooded area on the coast of Southern …

I had my bully, and it was excruciating. Not only the bully, but the intimidation I felt. ~ Robert CormierToday is the Fourth of July and in my 40-plus years in the communications industry, mostly the newspaper business, I’ve learned there is one great truth above all others for those of us who pen words for a living; and that truth is this… On July 4th, no one reads your stuff! Of course there are those who hunker down beneath their beach umbrella with a good book, but this isn’t a book and not too many people are dumb enough to take a laptop to the beach – sand! I suppose there are those …

I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret... if you have any sense, and if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid. ~ Katharine Hepburn In my June 6 column, I asked, “What's so new about bullying? Is it different now than it was when you were a kid?” and I chronicled many of the differences between life when I was in school back in the fifties and sixties and life for kids today. One reader said… There’s teasing and there’s BULLYING...HUGE difference!!! If there had been computers when I was being bullied, I don’t know if I’d be here today. I was…

Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,       Kissed the girls and made them cry.When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away. I graduated from Mansfield High School in the mid-60s; 1966 to be precise. Those were good times – simpler times. There were no computers, so there were no social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and the like. Email wasn’t even a word, never mind a reality. And the only thing resembling cell phones were the telephones at the police station so those arrested could make their ‘one phone call’ before being locked up in their cell – not that I would know …

I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying. ~ Oscar Wilde I’m struggling to come up with a suitable subject about which to pontificate this week. If I were you I’d take advantage of it; enjoy it; bask in my glaring deficiency of loquaciousness, because this doesn’t happen very often. Generally, even during the droughts when I think I have nothing to say, I manage to pound out a fairly substantial column.   It was about a year ago that I last had this problem. I was on deadline for my weekly contribution to the Mansfield Patch and struggling to put even …

“Calvin: Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man? Hobbes: I'm not sure that man needs the help.”  I have a problem. I can never go into the Honey Dew Donut shop in Norton again, or at least not as long as they have the Monte Cristo breakfast sandwich on the menu! Have you seen this thing? It’s ham, egg and Swiss cheese on French toast. I mean, what’s not to like?  I also have to do my best to avoid Hot Dogs and More. It’s not so much the hot dogs I have the problem with as it is the "more"; yummy cheeseburgers…

It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons. ~Friedrich von Schiller My son, Chris, and his wife, Karre surprised me with a ticket to the Red Sox 100th Anniversary Celebration at Fenway Park last Friday. More than 200 former players, coaches and managers returned to the fabled ballpark, among them Bobby Doerr and Johnny Pesky, both nonagenarians [that means they’re in their 90s. I like big words]. It was a great event. The game itself was another story, but I don’t want to put a damper on my column, so I’ll forego the sordid details of that debacle. My son and I …

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. ~ Lily Tomlin First of all, I’d like to squelch a malicious rumor that’s been circulating around town. Regardless of what you may have heard or seen, Iranian submarines have not been sighted off the coast of Pheeney’s Island. Now that I’ve cleared that up we can continue. I have a beef. I know that’s completely out of character for me [he said sarcastically], but everyone should vent once in a while. It’s good for the soul - and the blood pressure! So, here’s my beef. I was driving down N. Worcester Street last Saturday morning when …

I was the kid next door's imaginary friend. ~ Emo Philips There’s an old adage - sometimes you eat the bear - sometimes the bear eats you. I’ve gotta tell ya; that old bear has been fattening up on Bob Havey lately.  I’m not complaining. We all have our share of misadventures. We all take a thrashing now and again. What goes around comes around [apparently it’s old adage day here on The Way I See It]. It just seems that over the past few weeks I’ve had more than my fair share of time tied to the whipping post. Have you ever felt this way? I’m sure you have. And if by some extremely remote …

Don't you wish you had a job like mine? All you have to do is think up a certain number of words! Plus, you can repeat words! And they don't even have to be true! ~ Dave BarryThose who know me are aware of my penchant for finding humor in the strangest of situations. I’m not sure what it is in my psyche that makes me that way; it’s just the way I am. It’s not something I work at.  As much as I may laugh, I’m also tuned in to my deeper emotions. I’m a passionate guy. I’m compassionate. I’m not afraid to cry. I guess I’m a bit complex, though I’m sure I don’t appear that way to those who don’t …

“……we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender….”  ~ Sir Winston Churchill  Battle lines are being drawn. Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong. Thus begins, For What It’s Worth, the classic siren call touting the turmoil and social change of the sixties; an anthem for an entire generation.  It’s now 2012, and it seems that battle lines have again been drawn; not over anything as momentous as radical social change …

I hate the way market forces try to separate us out in to the appropriate demographic - basically in order to sell us things. We need to find stories that we can enjoy together, not separately. ~ Emma Thompson   Today I saw an ad for a pair of sneakers that glow in the dark. They cost $140.  Okay, first of all I’m not paying $140 for sneakers unless they also do windows. I hate washing windows, so that $140 would be money well spent; a well-positioned investment.  Secondly, why on earth would I want a pair of sneakers that glow in the dark? A friend suggested that wearing iridescent footwear …

A rejection is nothing more than a necessary step in the pursuit of success. ~ Bo BennettThere's a disturbing new trend in some public schools, which I’m quite sure will eventually become a mandate as these types of insidious things often do.  The high mucky-mucks at these particular schools are asking their students to refrain from wearing so-called ‘celebratory clothing’; clothes, buttons, t-shirts and the like, which are given to kids who attend birthday parties or other celebrations. The kids then wear these adornments to school as a kind of badge of honor; a way to show they attended the…

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. ~ George Carlin   I think I’m morphing into a curmudgeon. Perhaps not a curmudgeon of the dyed-in-the-wool, full-fledged, card carrying variety, but at the very least; a highly cynical, overly-critical 63-year-old angry, white male who’s just about had it with everyone and everything!  I’ve just said some extremely harsh things about myself. If anyone else had said these things about me I’d likely have attacked them. Not physically; I don’t do that anymore, but at the very least I would have retaliated by unleashing a fiery …

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: ~ Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene I  Stuff …

“It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously.” ~ Oscar Wilde  In the event you’re thinking the title of this week’s offering to The Way I See It doesn’t make any sense, you’re totally wrong. It makes lots of sense. Although I’m not sure saying that it makes lots of sense is any more resounding than simply stating that it makes sense. It either makes sense or it doesn’t, right? Are there actually degrees of sense? Does lots of sense represent more sense than just plain old sense?  Confused? Sorry. This is how my brain works.  Vitriol may be …

  “Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.” ~ Margaret Chittenden I love that quote from novelist, Margaret Chittenden, and I’ve referred to it more than a few times in my writing. There aren’t too many things that can happen to a writer worse than the feeling of an impending deadline closing in as he or she sits helplessly in front of a computer staring off into the abyss of lost ideas.  Been there! Done that! Not fun!  Granted, …