Tidbits as we start daylight saving time

It's the best day of the year: The first day of daylight saving time, when we regain the end-of-the-day hour of sunshine that the government stole from us in early November.

Starting tonight, you can drive home from work without headlights. You can mow the lawn in the evening. Kids can play after dinner. Summer is coming. The rains will soon end.

Our long winter is nearly over. It's the end of daylight wasting time.

Contrary to what all the sun-hating quacks say, this is the way it's supposed to be. We're supposed to have sunny evenings, even if it means using our headlights in the morning.

We didn't fight the British in the Revolutionary War to have it be dark at 5 p.m.!

Oh, and it might be an hour later than you think, although the fact that our phones and most electronic devices automatically update.

It's daylight saving time, which also means it's time for me to empty a long winter's worth of notes:

• Golden State Warriors radio play-by-play announcer Tim Roye, who lives in Fairfield, is among the best in the world at his job.

Roye, who has been broadcasting Warriors games for 22 years (after six years in various roles with the Sacramento Kings), can be heard locally on KUIC (95.3 FM). Anyone who has tried to broadcast basketball – or even describe a play as it's happening – knows how difficult it is. Roye makes it seem easy.

He not only describes the game at the pace it's played, he frequently gives score and time updates (crucial on radio) and interjects humor into his broadcasts.

He also occasionally adds local color, such as describing a Rio Vista listener as living in "the gateway to the Delta."

With all due respect to the Giants' cluster of great broadcasters and Oakland Raiders tonsil Greg Papa, Tim Roye is the best radio play-by-play announcer in the Bay Area.

• If they ever finish the Green Valley Road overpass above Interstate 80, it will be great.

Until that happens, it will remain a 30-minute drive to go a quarter-mile. I feel bad for anyone who has to drive it regularly.

• Remind me, again: Is this a drought or flood?

We're always in one or the other, but I can't keep track.

• Phone app idea of the year: Something that starts playing music and applause, like they do to end long speeches at televised awards shows, on demand. Use it when someone starts to bore you with a long story, so you can get out of it and still appear gracious.

Wait! Are you playing me off?

• Despite all the undeserved grief he initially took at the Academy Awards, Warren Beatty reminded us that this remains true for him at 79: He's the coolest guy in any room.

I also choose to believe, despite recent explanations to the contrary, that he's the subject of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain."

• "The Great British Baking Show," back on Netflix, disproves that the theory behind American reality TV programming – that conflict is mandatory for success.

The show is about a group of nice, charming real British people who like each other and try to bake well. Sounds boring, but it's actually charming and enjoyable.

And nearly makes me forgive England for all that nonsense around 1776. Except the daylight saving time issue, of course.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

How I almost lost my car in floods of 2017

I survived the Northern California floods of 2017, but not unscathed.

Not even close. And my life-changing dance with death may end up on one of those Weather Channel specials about disasters. It was that crazy.

It all started one Tuesday – the day Interstate 80 in the Sierra was closed due to whiteout conditions and Highway 50 had a chunk fall away. The Oroville Dam spillway remained frighteningly close to collapsing.

And Mrs. Brad and I nearly lost our 2005 Prius.

We drove to meet with a group of church friends at the home of Matt and Atasha, who live in the semirural part of Green Valley. They have a circular driveway, so I decided to be polite (give room to others) and selfish (make it so no one can block me in) and parked on the dirt, just off the pavement.

We went in, had a great time and prepared to leave. I got in the car and Mrs. Brad stood in the driveway (since her shoes had gotten muddy while getting out. You can see where this is going, even though I couldn't) as I tried to back up.

The car didn't move. I thought there was something goofy (stupid hybrid! Maybe I forgot to turn it on!), so I tried again. Nothing. I got out. I looked at the front tires.

They were half-buried in the mud. The car had sunk in the mud! It was . . . (was it possible? Was my childhood nightmare coming true?) like quicksand!

It couldn't be serious. It was just a little mud. I had Mrs. Brad drive and I pushed.

No luck.

I went inside and got Matt. He came out and we both pushed.

No luck.

We found some boards he had lying around and put them right behind the front tires to provide traction.

No luck.

We got Matt's truck (by now, Mrs. Brad was inside, undoubtedly muttering about my decision to park on mud) and hooked up straps to pull the car out.

No luck. The straps broke.

We found a chain. No luck. The chain broke.

I stood in the Green Valley darkness, pondering whether my car was a goner. Priuses (Priui?) aren't built for off-roading and I could see that the bottom of the car was flush with the mud.

It was like a disaster movie!

Finally, I called a tow truck. About 30 minutes later, the driver arrived, used some sort of voodoo to lift the car and charged my insurance company (yes!) for the work. To his credit, the driver didn't ask why I thought it was a good idea to park on mud after weeks of rain.

Of course, my car had problems. The wheels wobbled once I hit 60 mph, which is necessary on my daily commute, but I took the car to a tire place.

The man there said that guys who drive four-wheelers often bring their vehicles in after mud gets stuck and they merely hose it off, which is what happened with the Prius.

He never asked why the car was so muddy. He never asked why I would park a Prius on mud. He never asked whether I saw my life flash before my eyes.

And he didn't charge me. But lesson learned. I'll never park in dirt again.

The floods of 2017 taught me that much.

And that I am a survivor.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Maybe your irritating jokester is really just sick

Did you hear about the two silk worms that raced? They ended up in a tie!

Ha ha ha.

I told you that gut-busting gag to tell you this: Pity the poor jokester. He might not be just irritating. He might be ill.

At least that's the conclusion of a pair of recent studies by two UCLA brain researchers (more like UCLA "bruin" researchers, am I right?) that were recently published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. According the studies, two subjects' brain trauma and dementia led to what the scientists describe as “intractable joking.”

Or intractable brilliance, am I right?

Of course, I don't want to make the scientists angry, because I'm afraid of a mad scientist. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, two men had problems with their wit.

In one case, one man would wake his wife up in the middle of the night to tell her jokes he made up. When she complained about not sleeping, he began to write them down – and accumulated 50 pages of puns and poop jokes that he later revealed to the researchers. Lucky researchers!

Which reminds me of the constipated mathematician. He worked it out with the pencil! Get it?

Anyway, back to the guy. It turns out he had a brain hemorrhage 10 years earlier that led to other erratic behavior, including obsessions about recycling and restaurant napkins.

I presume the restaurant napkin obsession started after he visited the "Star Wars" restaurant. You know, the one with Darth Waiter! Get it?

The other case study involved a guy with dementia who lost his job due to continually joking. He "would frequently break out in laughter, almost cackling, at his own comments, opinions or jokes, many of which were borderline sexual or political in content," according to researchers.

Please, don't let those researchers talk to my co-workers!

Anyway, after that impressive opening, the UCLA report descended into scientific mumbo-jumbo, with information about lesions and other stuff I couldn't understand (it was almost like reading a French foreign lesion! Get it?). The article didn't share why those around the men didn't simply appreciate having a funny colleague or husband.

The scientists examined one man's brain after he died (fortunately, he didn't die of laughter. We think.) and found that he had the aforementioned lesions on the right front of his brain, just like the other (still living) guy. According to the study, people with lesions on the right frontal lobe of their brain still respond to silly puns and slapstick, but can’t appreciate more complicated jokes or those that are new to them.

That reminds me of this: What does a brain do when it sees its friend across the street? It gives a brainwave. Get it?

Well, let's just be glad that we're not addicted to dumb jokes, unable to stop.

Which reminds me, did you hear about the two silkworms that raced?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Norwegian TV makes boredom exciting

You know what they say about Norwegians.

Neither do I, but here's what they should say: Norwegians sure like slow TV.

I learned that recently when Mrs. Brad and I (well, mostly Mrs. Brad) started watching "Slow TV" programs from Norway that are now on Netflix. So far, we've watched the seven-hour "Train Ride, Bergen to Oslo" and now we're viewing the 11-plus-hour "Telemark Canal."

What are they, you ask? "Train Ride, Bergen to Oslo" is seven hours of video shot from the front of a train making the trip from . . . Bergen to Oslo. "Telemark Canal" records an 11-hour boat ride through Norway's . . . Telemark Canal.

They're exactly what they say they are. But longer. Hours, hours and hours of slow-moving, beautiful scenery and almost no dialogue (especially if you don't speak Norwegian).

Mrs. Brad likes it.

In fact, I came home after an evening meeting recently to find her watching a train go through the Norwegian mountains in silence.

"Are you watching this? Seriously?" I asked her, in the same tone teenage Brad asked my parents if they really wanted to have another cup of coffee after eating dinner at a restaurant.

It's another example of how we're different.

The greatest thing I saw on TV recently was the "Skills Challenge" at the NFL Pro Bowl in late January. I haven't watched a Pro Bowl since I was about 10, but the skills challenge was awesome.

It involved quarterbacks throwing at moving targets, like in a carnival; wide receivers catching balls dropped by drones (drones!) flying 80 to 125 feet above them; a multiplayer relay race; and best of all, a 10-on-10 dodgeball competition with the same rules you had in middle school (if they catch it, you're out. If you hit someone in the head, you're out. And so on.). While Mrs. Brad was busy in another room, I gripped the arms of my chair, hoping Indianapolis Colts receiver T.Y. Hilton could keep catching balls fired at him by eight players on the other team.

"This is the greatest thing I've ever seen!" I shouted.

"That's nice," she said, probably thinking of how peaceful it would be to take a solo train ride through the Norwegian countryside.

And it would be, based on "Train Ride, Bergen to Oslo." I watched several hours with Mrs. Brad (a great way to relax during a 15-minute Golden State Warriors halftime, by the way) and we amused ourselves by guessing how to spell the cities that were overheard on the PA system (most sounded like "Hernenbergen" to me).

Slow TV is a thing in Norway. Norwegians consistently tune into the slow programs on NRK, the nation's public broadcasting network. As many as 40 percent of Norwegians have watched various slow programs, which include such things as the opening day of fishing season, firewood chopping and the subsequent fire, a knitting marathon and more.

According to the people who write about Netflix, it's an emerging trend here, too. Mrs. Brad sure thinks so, although I hope she draws the line at the knitting marathon.

I'll keep watching "Telemark Canal," because I'm interested in a peaceful program, the waterways of Norway and spending time with Mrs. Brad.

However, if they can drop a football from a drone to someone on the ship or have a game of dodgeball break out?

We'll both be thrilled!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Sad farewell to my first journalism mentor

Ted Sillanpaa changed my life 30-some years ago.

Ted died Feb. 3. He was a 60-year-old sports writer, coach, mentor, father and friend, gone too soon because of cancer. It's appropriate to commemorate a newspaper lifer with a column in the medium where he served most of his life.

Ted gave me my first newspaper job. While I was attending college and trying to figure out what to do with my life, he asked if I was interested in being a sports writer at the Times-Standard newspaper in Eureka. I said yes. It was amazing. It was miraculous. It was the most fun I'd had, working with interesting people, writing about things I loved.

Ted taught me how to write professionally and modeled how to lead. We left Eureka the same week, me coming to Fairfield, him heading to Southern California before returning to Eureka a few years later. In 2000 – nearly 15 years after we last worked together – I recruited him to be my assistant sports editor in Fairfield.

We were back together again.

Ted and I were friends. Our personalities were very different – I was the class clown, trying to make people laugh; he was the kid sitting in the back of the room, making snide remarks out of the side of his mouth. But we shared a love of sports, of old-time celebrities, of journalism. We laughed at the same things at work. We cared about each other's families.

In recent years, long after we stopped working together, we still texted back and forth during Giants or Warriors games. During last year's baseball playoffs, he sent me several messages about celebrities in the stands, writing in the style of Larry King.

Ted was complicated. He was funny, smart, an outstanding writer (we used to tell each other: "We write better than people who write faster, we write faster than people who write better.") and versatile.

But he also liked to start dust-ups with readers. He would write things that demanded a reaction. That was Ted.

Ted succeeded me as sports editor, then began a truly nomadic journalism career, working in Napa, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Walnut Creek and at various online publications. As newspaper staff sizes shrunk, he bounced from job to job, staying near his kids (three of whom had bylines in the Daily Republic) and trying to hang on. Ted loved newspapers, but it was a one-way love affair.

He kept writing. He kept loving his kids – he was a remarkable father and grandfather. His four children were the center of his life. They knew how much their dad loved them.

Ted mentored generations of sports writers. West Coast newspapers are filled with people who credit Ted with teaching them the basics. Literally dozens of people's lives were changed because Ted Sillanpaa hired them, worked with them and taught them how to be professional journalists – lessons some of us carried beyond our newspaper jobs.

Cancer hit him a few years ago. Typically, he not only didn't seek sympathy, but showed disdain for it. When I heard that he was near death, it came as a surprise: He had said nothing to indicate the severity of his illness. When his oldest son called to tell me he died, it seemed impossible.

Ted?

There are a lot of ways to gauge lives. Ted Sillanpaa wrote thousands of newspaper articles and made tens of thousands of newspaper readers laugh, think and get angry.

But perhaps the best measure of the man is this: Ted left behind scores of athletes he coached (he was a longtime youth sports coach, too), journalists he mentored and friends to whom he was fiercely loyal.

And, especially, he raised four extraordinary children.

Our lives were made richer by a sometimes-cantankerous sports writer who loved his kids, loved his athletes and loved his writing proteges.

RIP, Ted. Thanks for being my friend and for making my professional life possible.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

A non-fan's guide to picking a Super Bowl team

You can make the case that today's Super Bowl LI isn't the ultimate game. Because, as Dallas Cowboys running back Duane Thomas pointed out 45 years ago, if it's the ultimate game, why are they playing another one next year?

Still, it's today. And it's on TV. And everyone will be talking about it tomorrow, assuming the new president doesn't do something to upstage it in the next 24 hours.

You might as well watch, in the same way you'll watch the Academy Awards, any royal wedding and every episode of a new "Battle of the Network Stars."

This is football and you need a team. That's where I provide a service – for the non-fan or anyone who can't decide who to support.

In the spirit of those voter's guides we get before elections that feature the pros and cons to each proposition on the ballot, I present the arguments for and against each team, based on things that don't require extensive football knowledge and could be based on facts (or wild conjecture).

Why the Patriots: Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback in NFL history and, although he's kept it quiet, is the son of Peter Brady of "The Brady Bunch." The team is from New England, which is clearly an improvement over Old England. Also, the Patriots are, by definition, patriotic, which we support. The Patriots are playing in their seventh Super Bowl since 2001, which is five more than the 49ers and Raiders combined during that time, so they must be good. Finally, Patriots owner Robert Kraft wears shirts with collars that are a different color from the rest of the shirt, which is cool. Finally, Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston (which is the real home of the team).

Why not the Patriots: Boston sports fans are insufferable boors and another championship will just add to their arrogance – and who needs to hear another team described as "wicked good?" Brady, while the grandson of Mike and Carol Brady (she's his step-grandmother), was suspended for four games this year for cheating (details not important, but they involved deflating a football), so a win for him would disprove the old saying that "cheaters never prosper." Their owner, Robert Kraft, wears those dumb shirts with collars that are a different color from the shirt. Finally, Bobby Brown was born in Boston.

Why the Falcons: The franchise has never won a Super Bowl and is long overdue. Quarterback Matt Ryan is the youngest son of Jack Ryan, star of the Tom Clancy books and who was played in the movies by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine, so he probably knows what to do in case of a terrorist attack. The Falcons share a nickname with both Fairfield High School and Solano Community College, so there's a local connection. In addition to being the unofficial capital of the South, Atlanta has the nickname of "Hotlanta," which is awesome (I've tried to get people to call my hometown "Hotsun City," but it didn't work even though the sun is hot). Finally, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.

Why not the Falcons: Atlanta has among the worst fans in sports – the Braves played postseason games in front of empty seats, the Hawks frequently perform in front of crowds that are more interested in the opposition and the Falcons have, at times, had to give away tickets to get fans to fill their stadium. Michael Vick played for the Falcons and he did some bad stuff. Their owner comes to the sidelines too much and dances badly. Finally, Kanye West was born in Atlanta.

So here's the big question: Do you cheer for the hometown of Kanye West or Bobby Brown?

When are the Academy Awards?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Solano urban legends about Kardashian, presidents

Did you know that Kim Kardashian attended Vanden High School briefly during her freshman year?

Did you know that Jimmy Carter owns some land near Birds Landing?

Did you know that Richard Nixon hid in a bomb shelter at Travis Air Force Base during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962?

Neither did I, and there's no evidence they happened, but they all could have happened. And they’re all part of this year’s edition of Solano Urban Legends, my attempt to create stories to give our county more cachet – with stories that could possibly be true. All that's missing are facts.

However . . .

It was a persistent local urban legend that Creedence Clearwater Revival’s song “Green River” was actually about Putah Creek. The band was from the East Bay Area, so the possibility existed, since any creek could be called a "green river." This urban legend was told to me 30 years ago by former Daily Republic City Editor Rick Jensen, who grew up in Vacaville, and I assumed it was ridiculous. But a recent trip to Wikipedia (which may have been updated by Rick, for all I know) confirmed the legend!

Wikipedia says it's true: "Green River" is about Putah Creek!

So the following urban legends could be true. Maybe they'll be confirmed 30 years from now.

Let's start with Kardashian. Well, I once overheard a customer at the checkout stand at the Suisun City Raley’s say something that sounded like she could have been a freshman classmate of Kardashian at Vanden. (Alternately, she could have been said "car crashing in Vanden." It was noisy.)

That would have been 1994 or 1995, when Vanden’s athletic program was at its peak – and isn’t it possible that Kim’s parents sent her to Solano County to stay with relatives and attend a good academic and athletic school? Go ahead and tell people that – Kim Kardashian  probably attended part of her freshman year at Vanden. We think.

Similarly, have you ever seen that house out by Birds Landing? The old one with the big field around it? Yeah, that one.

Well, one story that I may have heard was that when Jimmy Carter was simply a peanut farmer – before he became governor of Georgia or even president – his family considered moving their farming operations to California. Property near Birds Landing was inexpensive and there was talk of building a port in nearby Collinsville, which was enough to persuade the Carters to purchase a farm in California. As I heard it, Carter kept his property secret as governor and then couldn't sell it when he was president due to some regulation. Decades later, the rumor indicates that its still in his family and the county gets a check every year from Plains, Georgia, to pay the property tax.

To be clear, it's just a rumor.

Nixon, on the other hand, certainly could have taken shelter near Travis AFB during his campaign for governor in 1962, when the Cuban Missile Crisis hit. Nixon, a former vice president, would have been considered a significant target and could have taken shelter there. Let's say he did, because can you prove he didn't? I can't.

There are plenty more urban legends, including the one about Howard Hughes and the Rio Vista airport, Bob Hope appearing at the Nut Tree and rapper E-40 giving out full-sized candy bars on Halloween at his home in Rancho Solano.

Some of them might even be true. Don't believe me? Well, I didn't believe Rick Jensen about "Green River" and now Wikipedia confirms it.

If Wikipedia can be said to "confirm" anything.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Sports rules: Why you can't have a 'second team'

In sports, there is no such thing as a "second team."

The need for this clarification became obvious when I saw my niece post on Facebook last week that the Dallas Cowboys were her "second team," behind the Oakland Raiders.

It's disturbing enough that a family member is a Raiders fan. The "second team" concept? It's heresy.

Allow me to explain.

There are certain rules that come with being a serious sports fan. For instance (and I previously covered this topic), there are three acceptable reasons to cheer for a team: You live (or have lived) in their geographic region; a parent or important adult in your childhood was a fan of said team; or there is an unusual connection between you and the team (you're a Dodgers fan because of Jackie Robinson, someone from your hometown played for the Milwaukee Bucks, a member of the Cleveland Indians once saved your life).

That's it. Otherwise, you're wrong. (Yes, I'm saying you are wrong to be a Lakers fan or Cowboys fan if you were raised in Solano County and have no other connection. You're a front-runner, not a real fan.)

The "second-team" rule is equally obvious: If you are a fan of a professional sports team, they're your only team. There is no second team. There is one.

There are acceptable pseudo second-team instances. For instance, that the San Francisco Giants are your favorite team and "whoever is playing the Dodgers" is your second team, is fine.

Also acceptable is to have a team that you adopt for a specific season after your team is eliminated – as long as you only jump on the bandwagon for one postseason, then return to your beloved team the next year.

My niece's admission – that she somehow had a "second team" behind the Raiders – was shattering. It was like hearing your spouse had a long-term affair, but still considered you their first choice.

A second team?

Are you kidding me?

Perhaps this is a natural outcome of society's softness. In an era when we want to give everyone a participation trophy, maybe people pick a second team so they won't feel so bad when their team is eliminated. Maybe we should extend that and have a third, fourth and fifth team. Maybe we should say we don't care who wins in sports, because we like all teams.

Maybe we should just shut down competition, because we've gotten so soft that it doesn't make any difference!

Yes, I used an exclamation mark and italics to emphasize my outrage at that last sentence.

It matters. Having favorite sports teams means that you celebrate when they win, suffer when they lose. Having a "second team" is a betrayal of your favorite team and anathema to everything sacred in being a sports fan.

Rule 1 in sports: There are three acceptable reasons for picking your favorite team.

Rule 2 in sports: There is no "second team."

Rule 3 in sports: Don't argue with the first two rules and call yourself a real fan.

Rule 4 in sports: I reserve the right to change my opinion for people I like, including my misguided niece.

But as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young sang in their classic song, "Teach Your Children": You, living on the road, must have a code that you can live by.

Part of the code is no second teams.

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Our attention span is shorter than a ... hey! What's that?

Mobile phone technology, the internet and TV have made their mark. On our brains.

According to a study by the Microsoft Corp., human attention span dropped from 12 seconds in 2002 to eight seconds in 2013.

Even more significant: The attention span of a goldfish is nine seconds. Longer than ours.

Which reminds me of my friend Brianne, who bought her daughter some items for her goldfish this Christmas – and then accidentally poured the fish into the sink and killed it. Fortunately, goldfish are cheap, even if Brianne's daughter's memories aren't. According to Google, you can buy a goldfish for about $1, which is pretty good for something with an attention span longer than ours.

But getting back to the attention-span study: Researchers found a decrease in attention span across all age groups of their subjects, who were Canadian.

The idea that they used Canadians begs the question of whether researchers used the metric system or our imperial system to measure things. Of course they measured time and the clock is not metric – if it were, I presume there would be 100 minutes in an hour, 10 hours in a day, 10 days in a week and 100 weeks in a year. If that were the case, the Canadian year would be just over 694 days!

But to get back to the attention-span study: Researchers said a major factor in the decrease is the use of smartphones, which they said reduced humans' ability to focus on one task.

Did you know that the first smartphone was created in 1993 and 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator? I didn't. Personal digital assistants – popularly called PDAs – were the forerunners of smartphones. They included such brands as BlackBerry and Palm Pilot. Which reminds me, when I was the Daily Republic sports editor, we used Palm Pilots to transmit articles from remote sites. They worked roughly half the time. The other 50 percent of the time, the articles left the phone – there was no folder for sent emails – and went somewhere in the ether. The sports writer was left to dictate their article over a pay phone from somewhere in Lodi or Auburn.

But back to the attention-span study: Researchers found good news out of our smartphone-controlled lives. We can multitask better, probably due to the fact that smartphones require that skill.

I'm not sure whether that means I'll be able to pat my stomach and rub my head now – or is it the other way around? Are you supposed to pat your head? Speaking of that, did you know that legendary University of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt's maiden name was Pat Head? Seriously. I wonder if she could multitask.

But back to the attention-span study: The takeaway, despite the sexy goldfish angle (idea for a band name: Sexy Goldfish), is that our brains adapt. Since we're now in the information age, we've sacrificed some attention for the ability to multitask, which I'll discuss as soon as I finish posting a clever update on Facebook.

The human brain is amazingly adaptable. And goldfish are terrible at texting, so we win.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

My eyebrow-raising adventure with tweezers

Sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone – especially when it concerns your eyebrows and results in your spouse laughing so hard that her legs buckle.

Yes, Mrs. Brad laughed at me. Again.

It started a few weeks ago when I spotted a few renegade gray eyebrows growing straight out, like a unicorn's horn. If you don't have gray hair, you may not realize this, but gray hair is courser and straighter than your natural color.

At least mine is. And it's especially obvious in my eyebrows. (An aside: The outside one-third of my eyebrows are wispy and nearly blonde, giving me a Muppet appearance. So I'm already eyebrow-challenged.)

On the day in question, I did what I've taken to doing in recent years when I see the random albino unicorn eyebrow hair: I get Mrs. Brad's tweezers and pull out the offending strand. I should note that I don't pull out all the gray hair – I don't want to look like Martin Scorsese, who has black eyebrows and gray hair. I just want the protruding locks removed.

So I plucked. But eyebrow hairs are thin, so I missed and pulled out an adjacent hair. (Note: It hurts. Not like plucking nose hairs would feel, but it hurts. I understand why women might choose to stop plucking their eyebrows and instead do whatever it is that they do – despite having three sisters and being married for 30-plus years, makeup is still a mystery to me.)

Anyway, the albino unicorn eyebrow hair remained, so I plucked again. And again. The gray hair spot looked bigger! So plucked again. And again.

I stood back.

Better.

Until I looked closer.

It was worse. I had a large white spot on my eyebrow.

It wasn't from gray hairs. It was pale, sun-protected skin showing through. I had plucked a bald spot in my left eyebrow!

It wasn't noticeable, I told myself. I wear glasses, so the spot was hidden behind my frames. At least that's my story.

I was guilty of the mature version of what nearly every kid does, when they cut their own hair and keep making adjustments until they look like Mo Howard from the Three Stooges. I tried to remove a renegade eyebrow hair and wound up with a white skin patch.

When I told Mrs. Brad the story, she listened intently. She didn't know where it was going. Perhaps she thought it was a confession of how I broke her tweezers.

When I got to the end and showed her the bald spot, she laughed so hard that she had to sit down. And wheeze. As always, she told me that these things only happen to me.

I disagree. I'm sure this has happened to someone else.

It's like actor Jack Black once said: "You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow."

If only I'd thought of that before plucking.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.