George Lee Cunningham - George Lee Cunningham

FEATURED POSTS

August 5, 2015

A DIGITAL DILEMMA

By George Cunningham

I want to surprise my wife with a little gift every now and then. But there is a gang of evil-doers out there with nothing better to do than thwart my efforts to be a good husband. Those evil-doers go by the names of American Express aka AMEX, MasterCard aka MC, and Visa, aka Visa.

Here’s an example. My wife has a birthday coming up in a few weeks and I thought I would surprise her with a funny gift. This is not a big deal – just a little gag to make her laugh. How much is my wife’s surprise and laughter worth? Let’s say 20 bucks.

So, I go on line and I order her a Colorama coloring book. You may have seen the ads for the Colorama book on TV. This is the commercial where the woman enthusiastically declares, “I look forward to jumping into bed with my Colorama book, and melting away the stress of the day,” then it shows a picture of her in bed, coloring her heart out. It’s so sad, that it’s funny. And every time we see the ad, we laugh at that poor woman, who after all is just an actress.

So I figure when the Colorama book arrives, I will wrap it up real pretty and give it to my wife and wait for the howls of laughter to begin. Unfortunately, that’s never going to happen, because my wife is a woman of the 21^st Century. Within hours after I order her gift, American Express sends her an email saying our joint card was used to order a Colorama adult coloring book, and is that OK with her. American Express claims they do this for security reasons, but I suspect they just have a grudge against me and want to break up my marriage. Why would they harbor such animosity against me? You’ll have to ask them.

All I know is that instead of howls of birthday laughter, what I got for my money is my wife, sitting at her computer, saying why in hell did you order one of those stupid Colorama books? Well, I explained, and of course, she forgave me … no thanks to American Express.

I liked the old days better. Back when if you used your credit card foolishly, you just threw away that little receipt and nobody was the wiser until the monthly bill arrived in the mail. As they say, “that ship has sailed” and here I am standing on the dock with a stupid look on my face and a coloring book in my hand.

Thanks a lot, American Express. I hope you’re happy now.

###

July 29, 2015

PORT TOWN SIGNING

We finished writing Port Town on Halloween of last year, but there is a huge difference between completing a manuscript and holding the finished product in your hand. The editing and design folks at the Port of Long Beach did an incredible job of putting together the commemorative copy of the book with leatherette cover and copper-gilded pages. We spent a recent afternoon signing the books for special presentations. The book – Port Town, How the People of Long Beach Built, Defended, and Profited from Their Harbor – is available in both printed soft-cover on Amazon.com for $10.70 and in digital format for $1.99. It is free for download on iTunes. A limited number of the commemorative copies will be available for sale at the Long Beach Historic Society in August.

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News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

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Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.