My dream was maybe someday, one night I can be a guest on a talk show, and then I will have achieved everything I want.

There were several things a Yale freshman was supposed to be able to do. You had to demonstrate in the Olympic-size Yale pool that you could swim 50 yards or be inducted into swimming class.

Being the offspring of English teachers is a mixed blessing. When the film star says to you, on the air, 'It was a perfect script for she and I,' inside your head you hear, in the sarcastic voice of your late father, 'Perfect for she, eh? And perfect for I, also?'

Its fun for me to go on other folks talk shows. When youve endured the ups and downs and tensions and pitfalls of hosting, being a guest is a piece of angel food.

There are online forms you can fill out to send to your lawmakers, demanding that nothing - nothing at all or in any way - be done about any guns whatever, anywhere.

When I was a kid in Nebraska, a cantankerous farmer, known for plinking with his '22 at passing cars in which he perceived enemies, ingeniously rigged up a shotgun in his house, trained on the inside of his front door so as to widely distribute any intruder.

In the main, ghosts are said to be forlorn and generally miserable, if not downright depressed. The jolly ghost is rare.