Weekly View » Words with Woods

Ink

CJ Woods III — Thu, 07 May 2026 05:08:55 +0000

A friend posted a rant on a social media site that set free the hounds that had been dogging me for some time. The post indicated that he could not understand the proliferation of tattoos on men in the St. Louis Missouri area. He wrote that men were working out in the gym, shirtless, and covered in unreadable script. A former advertising department employee, the poster noted that the script used by one tattooed man was an “unreadable font,” principally designed for headers.
I’ve been curious about the proliferation of tattoos for some time. When I was young in the 1950s and 1960s, there were few people brandishing tats, and those who did were former service-people or prison and jailhouse graduates. In my four years in high school, I saw not one person with a tattoo, and the boys in gym class swam naked when it was pool time. (I was on the swim team, so I was allowed to wear my trunks.) There was a trend, sometime in the 70s or 80s, when women would get what my sister called a “tramp stamp,” which was a tattoo on the back, just above the buttocks. This tattoo was visible when the inked one wore low-riding pants and high-riding tank tops and (gasp!) bent over.
In every bar and restaurant that I visit, there are tattooed people. Servers slide drinks to me, extending arms that have graphics climbing from beneath the sleeves and across those arms, as well as the wrists and hands. Of course, these are not the graphics of the thug life: No one has a teardrop beneath the eye, indicating a murderous moment. But in my observance of the tattooed world, I am always curious about the glorious graphics spread across the backs of people. Do those tatted not want to see the wondrous works inscribed on their bodies? Or do they all have “surround body” mirrors that they can use to admire the work?
When I was an Art Director in the advertising department for Indianapolis’ L.S. Ayres department store, we would contract for models to wear the clothing we photographed to put into the catalogs that we sent to the homes of our customers. When the images from the photo-shoots were processed, we were instructed to remove any tattoos that the models might have had.
My youngest daughter has 6 instances of buzz-work (“bzzzz” being the sound of the tattoo thingy). Among them, on her foot, she has her grandmother’s name (my mother,) date of birth, date of death and a lily; she has her own daughter’s name and footprint on an arm, and her thigh is festooned with daffodils, poppies, water lilies and lily of valley. A swallow flies on her shoulder. (She does not know if it is a barn swallow or tree swallow.) The actor Robert LaSordo played Memmo Fierro, an archenemy of Horatio Caine, played by David Caruso. Caine is a Lieutenant in the Miami-Dade Police department’s crime lab; LaSordo is a bandit, and is tattooed from his neck to his… nethers?
Whenever I see ink climbing into and out of the clothing of the people around me, I try to imagine what kind of will power it must take to allow someone to drill ink onto your skin. I also hear the voice of Jimmy Durante, singing his 1933 song: “Ink a dink a dink, a dink a doo…” Perhaps, with so many young people getting buzz-work, I should be hearing the children’s song: “Skidamarink.” As noted in that ditty, the process of getting some ink could mean, “I love you.”

cjon3acd@att.net

Boom

CJ Woods III — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 05:08:10 +0000

“It’s a bomb!”
When the man on the “cops and robbers” TV show I was watching said that it reminded me of one of the jobs my father held when I was young. He was an automobile mechanic in a garage, and I remember being in the building where the work was being done. The garage was on the top floor of a parking facility with a circular ramp that led up to it. In the 1950s, men called cars that were in less than pristine condition, “bombs,” and when a mechanic brought his own car into the garage, the others would bellow, “BOOM!” This would signal that the car was a “bomb.” It would be many years before I had the opportunity to own a “bomb.”
It was uncommon on the Hill District of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in the 1950s and 1960s for teenagers to possess or have access to cars. When I graduated from high school, I don’t think that many of my fellow graduates had a car to take a date to the prom. I took public transportation to every event that I attended, even to the wedding of a good friend and co-worker. My cousin’s friend was a salesperson for a shoe store (he sold me my first pair of Bally shoes) and he had a red, 1963 Oldsmobile Starfire convertible; the car had a great slab of chrome from the front to the rear. This car was most definitely, not a “bomb.” We walking young men were envious of him, but continued to take buses, streetcars, and jitneys (illegal taxis) to where we had to go.
My first car did not go “boom:” it was a 1963 Volkswagen Bug. My first bride and I purchased it from a friend of her family, and she taught me how to drive in it. (I had no license; she did.) I do not know how many millions of miles it had on it, but we called it “The Dreamer,” since we two were going to set out to seek our dreams in California. The car took us from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles via Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado, and only broke down once. When we got to Los Angeles, I put some unapproved fluid into its aluminum engine and killed it. We sold it to someone who converted it into a dune buggy. Since we had become VW enthusiasts, the next car we bought was a 1972 VW Super Beetle; this was not a bomb, and we drove it until we retired it and purchased a Triumph TR6, which was also not a bomb. It did have a bad habit of accelerating on its own, though. When the dealership could not correct that condition, we got rid of the TR6, and got some 4-door, boring Dad-car. No bomb, this. Nor was it a “hooptie,” or a “bucket,” which are two other slang terms for the 1950s “bomb.”
With the tension in the world these days, we must be careful about the terms we sling about. An adage notes that “freedom of speech” does not allow us to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater. When someone drives their “bucket” past a public assembly, no careful and cautious person is likely to bellow, “bomb!” This is likely to cause a riotous response, replete with a police presence, and an embarrassing visit to the local station. But we can compliment someone’s cooking by saying, “This pie is the BOMB,” or something else is “the bomb-diggity!”
It is safer to note that the passing “hooptie” is a “bucket.”
Definitely: Not a bomb.

cjon3acd@att.net

That Guy

CJ Woods III — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 05:08:10 +0000

The car pulled into the crosswalk just as I stepped into the street; the driver glanced to their left, looking for oncoming cars, as they were trying to safely make a right turn at a red light. I’m sure that the driver saw me: I was in their direct line of sight as I crossed the street. I’m also sure that the driver did not expect to experience “That Guy” in the crosswalk.
As a member of the “Frequent Walker Club,” I have a lot of experience with cars and crosswalks. When I was the daytime caregiver for my youngest granddaughter, we used to pram about Irvington, often to the Bonna Avenue location of the Coal Yard Coffee Company. I remember starting to cross a street and seeing a car in the crosswalk. The woman looked to her left, saw me, Myah, and the pram, and slowly reversed her car out of the crosswalk. I raised my hand in thanks, and she lowered her window. “Tell the baby I’m sorry,” she called out.
People often pull into the crosswalk without checking for pedestrians, to execute that right turn on red; I am often one of the people who are blocked by that maneuver. And those of you who have blocked my passage may remember the way I address your presence: I place my hands on the hood of your car and lean on it. I slowly move around your car, making sure to leave as many of my handprints on it as I can. I do not make eye contact with the driver.
I am aware that in Indiana, one need merely be alive to qualify for ownership of a firearm, and that the possibility that someone may be angered enough by my violation of their property to open fire on me. But I am far more irritated by the incursion into the pedestrian crosswalk than concerned about what the driver may do to me. Foolish, I know, but I am “that guy.” In July of 2023, I wrote of “The Hot Corner,” (The Weekly View, July 20th and 27th, 2023.) I live on a corner that has a 4-way stop, and few drivers actually stop. Some will slow down and glide through the intersection, but a lot of people just hammer on through without so much as a pause. My youngest granddaughter has heard me grumble about the lack of observance of the stop sign and will sometimes call out to me: “Clop! That driver came to a full and complete stop!”
I don’t know if I am changing anyone’s behavior by touching their cars as I make my way around them. When I was actively monitoring the “stop runners” on my street, I would walk to the corner with my camera and aim at the oncoming car. One driver took exception to my recording of his behavior, and stopped (past the actual stop sign, of course) and opened his door.
“Are you taking pictures of me?” he barked. “Yes: I am,” I flexed back. He muttered something, re-entered his car, and drove off. A few days later, I heard his engine roaring, and walked outside to record his passage. He made a full and complete stop at the sign, drove past the intersection, and paused. He opened his car door, stepped out and said to me, “I meant no disrespect.” I saluted him, and he drove away. One person’s behavior changed, and no one died, but if you block an intersection in the Irvington area of Indianapolis, I am that guy who will put handprints on your hood.

cjon3acd@att.net

Bird Song

CJ Woods III — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 05:08:58 +0000

This Spring has been a wild ride, so far; the temperatures have varied from a low of 30º to a high of 80º, all in one week. I have covered and uncovered the little plants in the planters at the side of the property I rent, responding to the “too cold for plants” call of the weather reporters. But one of the constants of this time of year are the cries of the birds.
My youngest daughter can identify the call of a Carolina Wren; she admits that the reason she can, is because I sang it for her. My first granddaughter, who lives in New Jersey, had an encounter with Carolina Wrens that I recounted in a column (“Imani and the Carolina Wrens,” The Weekly View, Jan. 4th, 2018.) When I sit on the glider (old folks know what a “glider” is) the house sparrows gather in the bush in front of the porch railing and chastise me for being in their space. Or perhaps, for not stocking my feeder with the seeds they enjoy.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has developed an application that allows users to identify the calls of birds. (On a cool note: The Cornell website has a Carolina Wren as its photo representative.) I have the Merlin app on my phone, and I will frequently pause and think, “Excuse me while I whip this out,” (thanks, “Blazing Saddles”) and will whip out my phone to set Merlin to the task of identifying the multitude of bird calls. In the year 2013 (I heard the 1969 song “In The Year 2525” by Zager and Evans as I wrote that) I was living in what I called my loft, at the corner of Julian Street and Bolton Avenue. My land-person gave me permission to put up a bird feeder that was visited by a startling number of bird species. One day while I was standing in the back yard, I heard an unfamiliar cry. I looked up to see a small bird; its uplifted tail signified “wren” to me, but that was the first time that I had seen and heard the cry of a Winter Wren. I’m not sure how I managed to track down the bird’s call, as I had yet to meet Wes Homoya, the ornithologist who would become my friend. (See “Hummingbird Down,” The Weekly View, July 3rd, 2019.) But the birds in the bushes and the trees around my house — which is two blocks North of Ellenberger Park — are twittering up a spring storm.
When I am ambling through the neighborhood, I can hear the birds in the trees, and I know the Robin, the Northern Cardinal and of course, the House Sparrows. At the corner of East 10th Street and North Emerson Avenue, the trees are alive with the sounds of bird music. At this time of the year, with the birds vocalizing, I think of a little poem called “Spring Birds” that I wrote three years ago: “Busy birds bringing / Small bits of trash and tiny / Twigs. Boot-knocking, soon?”
And yes: Soon, in the trees and bushes and under the eaves of the houses, nests will grow and those busy birds, singing and winging and fluttering together in the act of procreation, will be tending to eggs, which will hatch and then I will hear the higher-pitched cries of baby birds as they struggle to exit their shells and beg for sustenance. And I will walk the two blocks south on Hawthorne Lane to Ellenberger Park, where I will listen to the bird songs of our lives.

cjon3acd@att.net

I Am Not Who I Think I Am

CJ Woods III — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 05:08:16 +0000

In the tasting room of my favorite cidery, I like to sit in a particular place. When I enter the room, I immediately head for a corner where the L-shaped bar meets a wall. I think of this corner as “my place,” and I am greeted and treated well by all of the staff of Ash & Elm. Most of the staff members know that I have a particular preference in cider but, will come to verify that I am going to maintain my custom, or if I’m bolting the corral and heading for the range. I have a vision of myself as a customer: I am quiet and undemanding and reserved with others unless engaged. That notion was dispelled when the tasting room manger said to me, “You’re actually quite chatty.”
When Melissa said that to me, I was only briefly surprised to hear it; I remembered when a co-worker in the advertising department of a St. Louis department store dryly commented, “You are a fan of your own voice.” That long-ago comment temporarily interrupted the stream of yap to which I had been subjecting the co-worker, but I thought about it again when told that I was “chatty.” I realized that my private description of myself does not match my public persona.
I sent to my first bride a copy of a column I wrote about the “Ws,” the lights atop the Westinghouse Supply Company’s building on the North side of the Allegheny river in Pittsburgh, as she figures prominently in my reminiscences of visiting the river. She read it and told me that when I wrote of my inability to counsel and comfort a grieving person, it was a show of self-awareness and acknowledgement of something about me that she had known for a long time. Comedian Flip Wilson’s character, “Geraldine” used to say, “What you see is what you get,” and in an Indiana firefight that passed for a midterm election, a candidate told his audience, “I am who I say I am.” “Geraldine” was Flip Wilson in drag, so what you saw was not what you got, and when I say that I am quiet and shy, hands in the audience fly up, waving for attention, eager to say: “No way!”
When some people learn that I write a column for this newspaper, they ask, “What do you write about?” I used to struggle with that, and “uhh..” was my best answer. I briefly considered, “Whatever I want,” but that tells you nothing. But I am, after all, an artist, and every artist should have some bloviation describing her work (see what I did there?) and I have settled on, “I write about my collisions with life, and my observations of the human condition.” Has a smell of erudition, don’t you think? But after dropping that knowledge, I think, jeez, man: Nobody knows what that (stuff) means! The creative director of this publication once described me as a “humorist” in an early bio, a description that was apt for the time, since my first columns were rife with hilarious takes on my life: my diligent avoidance of combat (“Fight Club,”) or my disastrous childhood experiments mixing dangerous chemicals (“Invisible, Invisible Ink.”)
I cannot describe myself, except in physical terms: 6’ 1”, gray hair, brown eyes, 172 pounds. The rest of who I might be, I’ll just have to write on the walls of memory and let historians decipher the hieroglyphics, for it is clear to me that, when I think of myself as taciturn and another sees me as chatty, I am not who I think I am.

This column was first published in August 2018.

cjon3acd@att.net

Highways In The Air

CJ Woods III — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:08:30 +0000

My friend was dropping me off at my house and as I prepared to exit her car, I noticed movement on the power line above us. I pointed to the line and said to Paula Nicewanger, “Look: That’s a squirrel highway.”
The squirrels of Irvington are always busy travelers on the wires above the streets. There is a power line pole in the side yard of the space that I rent, and when I interrupt the squirrels in their pillaging of my tomatoes and snap-peas, they scramble to the pole, ascend a few feet, and pause to look at me. If they decide that I might be a continuing danger, they climb to the top of the pole, stop to chatter at me, and take off on the highway.
When I am awaiting a bus at the corner of E. 10th Street and Euclid Drive, I often see squirrels working their way from South to North across 10th Street via the wire stretched from one pole to another. I wondered if the squirrels had previously seen their friends and neighbors getting squashed on the street by speeding automobiles and had looked skyward for help. When I am on that piece of E. 10th Street, I rarely see squirrels crossing the street on the ground; they are always on the high wire. At home once more (thanks, James Wright,) I watch the squirrels as they traverse the wires of the “Above-Ground Highway.” They will sometimes pause above and send chuckles down to me.
In Spring and Summer, I see Rock Pigeons lined up on the wires above the streets, but I cannot remember having seen those birds in any of the trees that populate the neighborhood I live in. Do the pigeons live on the wires? On a Spring day in 2025, when I was walking hand in hand home from Ellenberger Park with my youngest granddaughter, Myah pulled me to a stop. She quietly pointed between the houses to show me a line of Rock Pigeons huddled on a wire. I watch birds, and Myah does also, so when she pointed out the pigeons, I stood quietly with her, glad that she might have seen the beauty of those birds on a wire. When I got home, I wondered if the squirrels might have had some arguments with the pigeons about which species should be on those wires. I always see squirrels traversing the wires, but the pigeons just squat on them. Are the pigeons blocking the passage of the squirrels? Do the pigeons charge a toll for the passage of the squirrels?
Squirrels are wily rodents who probably welcomed Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” as he strung the wire that they would co-opt for their highway in the air. They probably “high-foured” each other (squirrels have four digits on their front paws) as they watched the human string the line that they would soon co-opt for their travels. “Take that, snakes! Uh, oh: Hi, hawks…” Each new mode of travel comes with new challenges. But as for the lines in the air above the squirrel-squashing streets, the big red rats — uh, squirrels — have adopted the wires that humans string, not for the transmission of electricity or words, but for their own mode of safe passage.
My characterization of the line above us a “squirrel highway” amused my friend, and just before she pulled away, Paula noted that the squirrel, which had been travelling East on the wire, had turned South. She chuckled and said that the squirrel had just taken the exit from “Highway 70 to Highway 65.”
Safe travels.

cjon3acd@att.net

Spring Has Sprung

CJ Woods III — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 05:08:04 +0000

“Spring has sprung, // The grass has riz: // I wonder where the birdies is?”
I don’t know from where or when I gathered that piece of doggerel, but the first day of spring has dropped in Indy. Spring leads, in most cases, to my favorite season, summer, so I am happy we have passed that milestone. As for the birdies: They have been raucously chittering and cheeping from the trees and bushes. And the robins on the lawn have been giving me the stink-eye as they hop past the unfilled bird feeder.
There is a saying that, in Indiana, if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute, hour, or day, and it will change. On Tuesday, March 17th, three days before the first day of spring, the low temperature was 18 degrees, and my neighbor’s newly blossomed yellow flowers had flopped over. By the end of the week, another neighbor greeted me on my walk by saying, “This weather (today) is almost like summer.” I cheered on that thought and continued to step into the warmth. This coming week, March 23rd through the 29th, the temperature range is projected to be a low of 34 degrees to a high of 79, with the weekend barreling in with a low of 29 degrees and a high of 56. Perhaps we are fooling with Mother Nature far too much. As my friend is fond of saying, “This is crazy.”
There is a cartoon series that my youngest granddaughter watches occasionally, called “Weather Hunters.” The children of a weatherman, Al Hunter, seek out the changes in the weather. “Al Hunter” is voiced by a real weatherman, Al Roker; the little “hunters” chase down weather phenomenon and have fun adventures. I’ve not seen an episode where the kids are startled to find that the 70-degree day they enjoyed on Tuesday was followed by frost and a hailstorm on Wednesday. As Indiana would say to a 70-degree day, “Hold my beer…”
Spring “sprunging” has forced me to address the dead things in what passes for flowers in the front of my abode. I should take heed when my neighbor tears out her worn out foliage, but I am not a practiced dirt-dauber. It never occurs to me to prepare for spring by pillaging plants in the fall, but then, I am not one with the growing things of the ground. My friend recently noted that she had been pillaging old plant villages, and I had a brief thought: “Should I be clearing out old growth?” I sat down with another beer (cider,) and listened to the House Sparrows chittering in the trees.
The birds are, of course, in tune with the change in the season, no matter what the weather. They have been my “early warning system” for some weeks now, penetrating my sleep with their calls. Dawn is still yawning and stretching when the birds get busy in the pines: “Henry Henry Henry Henry!” And comes the reply: “Grace what? Grace what? Grace Grace Grace what?” After a while, I groan and rise and flop into my recliner, and think of James Wright’s poem, “A Blessing.” There is a line in it that describes two ponies who have “come gladly out of the willows,” and who “begin munching // the young tufts of spring…”
Suddenly, I realize that I will not be stepping out of my body and will not “break // Into blossom,” but will soon, have to prepare the lawnmower to mow down and rake up those young tufts of spring. Such is Spring: Plant, grow, mow, rake.
And cider.

cjon3acd@att.net

Finger Licking: Bad

CJ Woods III — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 05:08:38 +0000

“I don’t know why I keep licking my finger to turn the page on my tablet,” the choral director murmured, and I thought: Why are you licking your finger at all?
During the Covid-19 pandemic people were made aware of Locard’s principle of transfer, something that I read about in one of my murder/mystery novels. Dr. Edmond Locard (1877-1966) “was a pioneer in forensic science,” and posited that “Every contact leaves a trace.” When two people meet and brush against each other, there will be an exchange. This exchange can be of hair, fibers, or cootie. A humorous post on social media during the pandemic noted that people were frustrated because they could not lick their fingers to open the plastic bags in the grocery store. A friend and I were used to exchanging hugs of greeting and goodbye, but we soon developed the “Covid-Hug:” We bumped elbows when we parted.
I have never been a finger licker; when in the grocery store, if the two parts of the plastic bag will not separate, I go to the vegetable section and wet my finger with moisture from the green onions. When I was a young artist, my hands were always grimy with graphite, paint, clay, and acetone. I was constantly washing my hands, so much so that it irritated my cruel father; he once forced me to immerse my hands in a bucket of oil drained from an automobile as a way of teaching me that real men have nasty hands.
My youngest granddaughter has a bad finger-licking habit. I constantly caution her: “Take your finger out of your mouth.” I have a video of her when she was about two years old, and she was climbing the stairs from my basement bedroom. I can be heard in the background, guiding, and encouraging her; the whole moment went sideways when she turned around to look at me, stuck out her tongue, and gave the handrail a swiping lick. “Gack!” I exclaimed; “Now I have to wash the WHOLE BABY!” Despite my many admonitions, Myah will not keep her fingers out of her mouth, fingers that have touched all the possible gack in the world.
I am a Covid-Cowboy; I always have a squirt gun full of anti-bacterial hand sanitizer. The men’s room at the downtown Indianapolis bus transit station – recently, at least – has neither soap nor towels for our hands. The electric hand dryer is non-functional. Which makes my personal packet of hand-cleaning materials very important to me. I believe that I may have commented before, on the lack of concern that many men show for clean hands. I remember being in the “john,” and a man commenting: “You must be a surgeon, the way you’re going after those hands.” I was merely being thorough, as is my wont in a filthy men’s room: We men are pigs.
My first daughter used to drill her two children before turning them loose at a rest stop: “What do we touch in the restroom?” Xavion and Imani would dutifully answer: “Nothing but the toilet paper!” Their cousin Myah has yet to absorb that lesson, which is why her mother and I are on constant finger-watch. I let Myah read a part of this screed, and when she read of licking fingers and turning pages, she told me, with 7 ½ year old gravity, that the principal of her school licks her fingers and turns pages as she reads to the children. As I struggled to find an appropriate response to that information, Myah calmly told me: “She’s the PRINCIPAL.”
Take that, Colonel.

cjon3acd@att.net

Call Me Anytime

CJ Woods III — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 05:08:38 +0000

On several of the police shows that I watch, an officer will give a business card to someone, and say to that person, “Call me if you need me.” I wondered about that commitment when I first saw that exchange, but after the 900th time that I’ve seen and heard it, I wonder how the officer will answer the phone. Will they say, “This is officer Clopensteen: Who dis?”
My bosses at this publication have been kind enough to print business cards for me. The cards have my name and cell phone number on them and identify me as “Columnist/Correspondent” for the Weekly View. I have passed out those cards to some of the people with whom I have interacted, but I’ve tried to make sure that I tell those people that if they want to call me, they should text me first, telling me who they are. If I do not know the number of the person calling me, I will not answer. The phone numbers of my three children (all of them old people) are saved on my phone; I know who has called me. I also have saved the numbers of the two grandchildren that have cellphones, so that when they call me, I answer “Hi, Imani!” Or “Hi, Xavion!” They are both under 40 years old, so they don’t leave messages in the way that we old people do. We old people leave messages that summarize the lives that we have lived since the last time that you saw us, while young people, when they leave messages at all, will say “Hi: Call me. Bye.” Who is “me?” Oh, right: I have that number saved.
When I was in high school, I had a telephone installed in the house that I lived in with my mother. I do not know how that was possible: I was 15 years old. I had a job as a page in the closed stacks of the University of Pittsburgh library, but I was making $1.00 per hour. But I had a phone, and the few people to whom I had given my number would call me. Those “few people” were all girls, and this was long before the 1981 hit by the R&B group Skyy, who sang, “Here’s my number and a dime, call me anytime.” But I did spend some long hours lying on the bed with the phone cradled on my shoulder, talking to my young loves. (Wait: Did I say “loves?” Oops…)
When I lived in St. Louis, one of my good friends would call me as she was driving to school, and we would talk about the lives that we had lived since last we spoke. (The day before.) It would be years before I told her that, when she called me at 7:30 a.m. from New Albany Indiana, I was answering the phone at 6:30 a.m. But it did not matter to me, for she was (is) my friend, and when she calls, I answer. She no longer calls me on the way to school — she has retired from that life — but when she calls me at any other time, I answer.
Few of us have “home phones” these days, and I have deleted those numbers of those who might, from my cell phone records. I would not have called those numbers anyway, but I decided that I did not need to have those digits clogging up my listings. But if I have given you my number, you may call me. If I know you, or your number, I will answer.
If I’m not indisposed.

cjon3acd@att.net

Doing

CJ Woods III — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 06:08:16 +0000

One day, while sitting at the counter of my favorite cidery, dithering away the day, I heard, not for the first time, a customer’s response to a server’s inquiry about what items they wanted from the menu: “I’m gonna do …” the customer began, and I ground my back teeth to powder, and grumbled inside. When did “do” replace “have?”
My dictionary dive found that the verb “do,” with an object, can be used as “perform (an action)” or “work on something;” also, to “make or have available and provide,” such as a single room at a hotel or a favor. The verb can be applied to cooking, producing, or giving a performance at a play. But none of my research indicated that it was proper to use the verb “do” as a substitute for “sample,” or for “have.” The randy young men of the world — at least, in this part of the world — have a way of expressing intentions toward females of the species that include the verb “do,” but the dictionary notes that when used in that way, “do” is classified as “vulgar slang.”
You may sigh, and slap your foreheads, thinking that I make too much of too little, and that I may need a hobby, or another hobby. As the poet William Wordsworth wrote, “The world is too much with us; late and soon…” His famous sonnet chides us for drifting away from nature and by “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers…” That may seem to be contradicted by some of our country’s recent activities, but still: I need a hobby that will keep me from obsessing about the use of language.
I have written before about my adoration of a writer for the New York Times who I later discovered to be an avowed segregationist, and who believed that all who shared the African ancestry that I have, to be unworthy of inclusion at the tables of life. I had been reading his column for years before I learned of his contempt for me, but I still remember the lessons that he taught me about writing, and language. He would never “do” a chicken salad, or “do” a mango cider.
I had a logomachy with a reader about the word “eldest;” the reader sent me an e-mail questioning my usage. Despite my citations from the Oxford English Dictionary and the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, the reader contended that I was both “grammatically and linguistically incorrect.” The reader indicated that his wife, a retired mathematics professor, agreed with him. I did not caution him against bringing a mathematician to a word fight, but I smiled to myself and thought of it as we continued our logomachy (an argument about words).
I recognize that language evolves and hope I can evolve with it. But while being pushed into the next phase of language usage, I will drag my feet in revolt against the way some words are used. My language usage is consistent; I speak in the same way in the pool hall as I do in the lecture hall. I take some heat from the pool hall junkies, but I refuse to “speak down” to anyone. When my youngest granddaughter asks me why I say, “move my bowels,” I explain to the 7-year-old girl that the term is correct for the action being performed. And it is a matter of pride for me that my grandson, who is now 21, once ruefully told his mother that he sent his grandfather a text with “a run-on sentence.”
He won’t “do” a chicken salad, either.

cjon3acd@att.net