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Sometimes, folks, a column just writes itself.

Before I proceed, let me gently guide those to whom I’m very grateful for reading my columns that they are indeed called…columns. It may be that there are all sorts of digital media with their own titles—blogs, vlogs, etc.—that are confusing to some.

“Hey, Pam, Frank and I so enjoy those essays you write.”

“The columns?”

“The articles.”

“Columns.”

“We just love those essays.”

“Thank you.”

No harm done, really, it just means I probably shouldn’t refer to myself as a columnist. I can be an essayist or an article-ist. Anyway, it’s always nice when something pops up during the week on the farm that makes writing, whatever the heck it is that I write, a breeze.

Paul gratefully received as a Christmas gift from my sister—a small canister that immediately blows up a flat tire like a bicycle pump but made for automobiles. It’s the perfect gift to keep in his vintage car, especially when he takes a long drive with his like-minded car club friends. He’s been keen to use it, and when the double tires on our wheelbarrow became precariously low, he whipped it out, and it was wonderfully effective.

Leaning over the tires, he couldn’t miss that printed on the outside of each tire read, ‘Not for highway use.’ And laughed out loud.

“You realize what this means,” he said. “Somebody took a wheelbarrow wheel and stuck it onto their landscape trailer before going down I-26.”

“Or mistook it for the cheap, tiny spare tires that come with new cars,” I added. “Hey, Earl, how come the truck’s leaning over to the left?”

It made for a handful of belly laughs on an otherwise routine winter’s afternoon, shivering in the feeble late afternoon sun.

“Well, there’s your column for the week,” he pointed out, laughing.

I had to agree. Never has a column/essay/article/story/report written itself so easily.