How did I know my talk at Fox Chapel Golf Club had gone well? The first guy in line afterwards said he wanted to buy 3 copies each of all five books. Then it got better. The enthusiast is renown architect Louis Astorino, the lead architect of Pittsburgh's jewel-like PNC Ballpark, and the only American to be considered worthy of constructing a building in The Vatican.

Punctuation

Related blog post: “A sober pondering of exclamation points!!!”

• The exclamation point is to punctuation what the erection is to the male ego. The more you expose it, the more likely it begins to bore those it was intended to thrill.

• I’m a writer. My wife is an editor. When I thanked her for turning my comma into an exclamation point she corrected me.

• Try and model your posture after positive punctuation. Be a walking exclamation point, not a question mark.

• Those eager to see a hyphen in this sentence will suffer from dashed hopes

• A hyphen-nation is a land to which grammarians will likely dash.

• Refer to any person who believes in the Socialistic application of unnecessary punctuation as a commanist.

Randoms

• Nero is historically decried for fiddling while Rome burned. That'll never happen to today's leaders in regards to climate crisis. They think the solution is … fireproof fiddles!

• We’re so used to them being linked in Biblical sinfulness but Sodom and Gomorrah were two wicked cities. They must have been fierce rivals. Imagine having to ref a high school football game between Sodom and Gomorrah. Talk about having to throw out the rule book.

• You can roughly calculate your character as a person by dividing the average number of people with whom you interact each day by the frequency any of them gives you the finger. If it’s been six months since anyone’s flipped you the bird, you’re probably a quality person. If it happens weekly you might want to change some of your behaviors. I exclude myself from the formula because I’m raising daughters, ages 21 & 15, so it’s rare that I go more than 4 or 5 hours without enduring the insult.

• I believe there are few writers with a shelf as eclectic as mine. I have authored offbeat biographies on two distinct icons, published one madcap satire, a collection of hopeful essays, and a self-help book on colorful living. Now, that’s diversity. In fact, the only thing my books have in common is none of them make any money.

• It must be a cinch to make a fortune manufacturing fenders for auto industry. Nothing but bumper crops.

As always, special thanks to those of you who continue to make donations to keep me in beer money. Please consider supporting me with some tangible appreciation (PayPal, Venmo, 874 Solomon Temple Rd., Latrobe, Pa, 15650).

All Chris’s books can be purchased through www.ChrisRodell.com

"Use All The Crayons!"

"Crayons!" newsletter; "Punctuation!"