Author: Tom Purcell

Washington, D.C., routinely ranks high in surveys on America’s most livable cities, but as somebody who’s been a resident of both areas, I can tell you that Pittsburgh’s a far better place to live. Some in D.C. look down on us for living in “flyover…

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Boy, are Americans getting old. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median age – the age at which half of the population is older and half is younger – hit an all-time high of 38.0 in 2017. Why is it rising? Because our massive baby-boom gen…

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“Can you believe that a man dumped a drink on a teenager because the teenager’s baseball cap favored the president? What’s happening to civil discourse in our country?” “That’s a question on a lot of people’s minds. Our political discourse is at a f…

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Maybe a new Utah law will revive the lost art of parents calling their children home for dinner. Utah recently passed the nation’s first “free-range parenting” law to protect parents from prosecution for allowing their children to play in nearby par…

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Burgers on the grill, great discounts at retail stores and amazing fireworks that s why I love the Fourth of July! It s a grand time, to be sure the day every year that we celebrate American independence and the birth of our country. And ther…

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Confusing Facts & Opinions “The Pew Research Center quiz was harder than I expected.” “Ah, yes, you speak of the recently released survey in which Pew quizzed 5,035 adult Americans to determine their ability to distinguish between factual inf…

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Editor’s note: This column was originally distributed by Cagle Cartoons in 2013. Things are mighty heated these days. Tempers are flaring and minds are closed. Here’s the solution: the wit and wisdom of Will Rogers. “The short memory of voters …

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Editor Note: This columnis an excerpt from Tom Purcell’s humorous book, “Misadventures of a 1970s Childhood,” available at Amazon.com. My 84-year-old father still asks me why I did it. The “incident,” as my family refers to it, dates back to 197…

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When I was a 19-year-old college sophomore in 1982, my father gave me advice that makes even more sense for 19-year-olds today. Despite his protestations, you see, I chose English as my major at Penn State. Worried about my ability to land a job, he…

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In my experience, the study’s findings are true. According to The Washington Post, the Vancouver School of Economics and McGill University have determined that people who live in rural areas and small towns are happier than those who live in congest…

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