My parents got the newspaper every Sunday when I was growing up.  After church, I would read the comics, then look through all of the sales papers, and if complete boredom still reigned, I would skim through the headlines of the paper.  I always skipped the sports and the fashion sections.  World news got a brief glance, but most of my attention would be devoted to the “Living” section.  I don’t know why it was called this, but it was a hodge-podge of random articles that didn’t fit anywhere else.

One Sunday, I think I was in ninth grade, things must have been really slow because I started actually reading some of the articles.  I read for a while and then hit one that was amazing.  The writing style was perfect.  The humor was amazing.  After I finished, I showed it to my dad and he said “Oh, that’s Dave Barry.  He has an article every Sunday.”  I was hooked.  I even tried writing a few reports in the same style.  (Looking back, I realize that it wasn’t a good idea.  The grade I received helped me reach that conclusion.)

For the rest of my high school days, I read Barry’s columns.  In college, I was fortunate to find his column printed on-line through the Miami Herald.  At my first job, my Monday morning ritual included reading the column from the day before.  (See, my ability to not work has been with me for a long time.) But, all good things must come to an end and Dave decided to leave my Mondays dry and bare.  He now returns with an article that recaps the happenings of each year.  That’s it….just once a year.  And now is that time.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.  Or at a minimum, maybe your company’s internet filter lets it through like mine does.

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/story/1397654.html