Elizabeth Foreman. "Hot Summer Hippie Love."

"Is this a fruit or vegetable? Mind you, it has seeds in it." I looked up to see the hottest hippie ever pointing a raw green bean at me and waving it back in forth, waving like the waving of the flag that his hippie parents burned to protest ‘Nam. 

"It's a fruit- a legume." That's right, I speak French!

J. R. Salling. "The Six Beards of Henry VIII."

While leafing through records of the Company of Barbers on another fun-filled evening at my house, I stumbled upon an unusual ordinance issued by the City of London in 1531, which denied the liberties and freedom to those with beards longer than the King's. The discovery sheds light upon an ill-understood aspect of the much studied realm of Henry VIII, the role of facial hair in fomenting revolution.

Todd Werkhoven. "Please Don't Make Me Shower."

There's been an interesting culture shift in the past couple years regarding baby showers.  In the “old days,” it used to be that showers were the domain of the female friends of the mother-to-be, giving the husbands and boyfriends a free afternoon to loaf around in their underpants and eat Manwich straight out of a saucepan. I call these the “glory days.” .

FICTION

J. M. Becker. "The Mystery of Michael Landon and the Destiny of Jon ."

Jon never liked being a man, so when he heard of a Shaman who could perform a sex change by only using herbs and spices, Jon stuffed a change of clothing in to his pack and headed for Budapest.

Greg Richard Bernard. "Hindsight."

In my defense, I'd never seen either man naked. Not that it would have helped, I suppose, what with my eyesight the way it is. But you never know, right? A birthmark here, botched circumcision there. Something. Anything. One tiny frame of reference. One little sign that would have kept me from opening my mouth.

But no.

Benjamin Graber. "Camels Light but Unfiltered."

Finally, there’s something that takes me into Tom Robbins’ mind—inside the place where a story can be written about a pack of Camel cigarettes and a Princess and pyramids and all the other crazy things that lunatic gets paid for writing about, while the rest of us have to sit around writing what my esteemed Welsh friend calls womaggy crap.

 Martin Green. "Advice on the Debate."

I was at home trying to finish the frigging New York Times crossword puzzle when the telephone rang.