Jim Bartlett’s Blog

This is Maizie. If she looks a little upset, it’s because this photo was taken at the vet a couple of weeks ago, as she hunkered down and tried to make herself invisible before the vet came in to see us. I know her well enough to recognize that she’s

In my last blog post, I mentioned the phenomenon of shy people who go into radio anyway. It happens more often than you think. (There’s a difference between shyness and being afraid to go on the air. None of us is especially nervous about the latter, at least not after

Forty years ago this month, I came close to achieving a real-life radio job. It started when a group at my high school had a fund-raising auction. One of the items up for bid was a 15-minute show on WEKZ in Monroe. I paid $6.25 for it, and within a

The rhythm of our days is defined more by television than we realize, I think. For many Midwesterners, the 10:00 local news marks the end of the evening and time to go to bed, so you get in your eight hours before rising at 6 for another day. Do East

(Pictured: Aretha Franklin onstage; credit: Joseph Sohm, Shutterstock.com) My wife and I have no children and few expensive vices, and we don’t live extravagantly. Nevertheless, we try to keep the fun budget in balance. We don’t go to every concert or every show we’d like to attend, because tickets cost

(Pictured: musician Keith Emerson was a wizard of the analog synthesizer, which required a player not only to work the keys but to plug and unplug cords and twist knobs.) You may have heard that Keith Emerson, keyboard player in 70s rock band Emerson Lake and Palmer, died earlier this

Earlier this week, our two cats were acting strangely, fascinated with spots in the kitchen and dining room that don’t usually fascinate them, even during those times of the day and night when they’re usually asleep. After 24 hours of this, I finally saw the reason why, when a mouse

Statistics say that about 200,000 Americans and 4.1 million people worldwide are Leap Year babies, born on February 29, the day that comes only once every four years. I am one of them. Once my nephews figured out they’d had more birthdays than I have had, they thought it was

Many years ago, I worked with a woman who had been a high-school teacher in another life. She didn’t seem to be the kind of person who would embellish a story or pass off a made-up tale as real, so I am fairly sure the story below actually happened. In

As of this moment, I have 217 pictures on my phone. At least half of them are pictures of beer. Same thing on my Facebook page. Lots of beer pictures. The picture at the top of this post is one of them.  I have mentioned at this blog before that