Mostly Mort

Before, during and since a 40-year career that included "presidenting" almost half of those years, I have been a student of humor with releases on print and at lecterns--the latter some 6,000 times over 50+ years. My weekly column of humor and inspiration runs in some 200 newspapers, and a frequent feature is my imaginary "Uncle Mort," a denizen of the thicket. He is assigned to provide quotes that sometimes are, uh, ill-fitting if uttered by a distinguished educator. He has helped me maintain the status of reference as the nation's "unstuffiest" college president who has taken students parasailing, officiated basketball games, edited country weekly newspapers, and carefully recorded important stories and events described in "Mostly Mort." Blackie Sherrod, long-time prize-winning sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News, once described fellow journalist George Dolan, daily front page columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in this manner: "Before God made George Dolan, he broke the mold." Well, maybe that's the deal; I, too, may have come from a broken mold. Zany is a fitting description for this book, which, my wife of almost 50 years, has said, "a further example of how you're driving me crazy." I answered, "That's not a drive, it's a putt." Further, I reminded her of an answer she provided my question a while back. "In your wildest dreams, did you ever expect to marry a man like me?" Her answer: "You weren't in my wildest dreams."...