Category: Jump up, Bub!

Forgive an old curmudgeon for asking, but… 

What has happened to us?

Not to them. To us.

When did reading become something we only do if someone can summarize it in thirty seconds? When did every article need a “Too Long; Didn’t Read” version? When did we decide that scrolling was somehow the intellectual equivalent of reading?

Our primary education began with Fun with Dick and Jane. Our secondary education had us wrestling our way through To Kill a Mockingbird, The Scarlet Letter, and enough Shakespeare to convince us that English wasn’t actually English.

We didn’t enjoy all of it.

But we read it.

Today, children are handed tablets before they can tie their shoes. By kindergarten they’re swiping screens better than they can print their names. By middle school they’re fluent in emojis, GIFs, and acronyms. By graduation they can communicate almost any emotion with a yellow face wearing sunglasses—but ask them to read twelve uninterrupted pages without checking a notification and you’ve proposed an Olympic event.

Long-form journalism has become clickbait. Essays have become listicles. Books become podcasts. Podcasts become sixty-second clips.

Even our conversations have been reduced to abbreviations.

LOL.

OMG.

IDK.

SMH.

We’re communicating more than ever while saying less than ever.

We once learned to diagram sentences. Now we’re lucky if we can finish one.

We used to argue about what the author meant. Now we argue about whether the article was too long.

Somewhere along the way we confused having information at our fingertips with having wisdom in our heads. I don’t think we’ve become less intelligent. I think we’ve become less patient with intelligence.

Now permit one more curmudgeonly observation.

My grandkids read. And this Bubba couldn’t be happier. 

Yes, they have tablets. (Insert appropriately exaggerated eye roll here.) They know how to navigate technology better than I know how to reset the television after I accidentally change the input.

But they also curl up with books. Good books. They disappear into stories. They ask questions. They laugh at characters. They imagine worlds.

And that doesn’t happen by accident.

Their parents—my kids, and yes, this is absolutely a Proud Dad Moment—have made reading part of who they are as a family.

Because here’s what I’ve come to believe: Children don’t become readers because we tell them reading is important. They become readers because they grow up in homes where books are loved.

Maybe the future isn’t determined by artificial intelligence after all. Maybe it’s determined by whether a six-year-old still believes there’s magic hidden between the covers of a book.

I don’t worry nearly as much about whether my grandkids know how to use an iPad. I worry about whether they’ll still know how to lose themselves in a good book.

Judging by the love of books I see in them as children… I think they’re going to be just fine.

I grew up watching college football with my dad, back when you knew the teams, the conferences, the coaches, and the players—and bowl season felt like something you waited for, not something you scrolled past.

I rooted for Florida teams by geography. Michigan had the coolest fight song. Notre Dame was pretty cool too—they had shiny gold helmets… and Joe Montana.

It was an era.

A good one.

Then everything shifted.

College football turned into free agency with helmets. Media became clickbait. Writing became visibility instead of voice. Music got shorter. Attention spans got thinner. And somehow people started making real money playing video games and dancing online while the rest of us were still trying to figure out what the hell the gig economy even was.

By day, I make my living as a writer. I’ve lived through the slow migration from print to digital, from storytelling to algorithms, from craft to clicks and conversions. Somewhere along the way, I’ve become a reluctant curmudgeon—not angry at change, just trying to understand it without becoming bitter… or pretending I love everything simply because it’s new.

I live on Merritt Island, on Florida’s Space Coast, where rocket launches interrupt beach walks and The Jetsons feel less like a cartoon and more like a user manual. I write with island-casual ease, gentle humor, and just enough wonder to notice the patterns, ironies, and truths that tend to sneak past us when we’re rushing.

I’m also a Jesus Freak—not the loud kind, not the judgmental kind, and definitely not the kind with an ax to grind. I believe in the sweetness of Jesus. In a Christ who listens more than lectures, loves without shaming, and leaves room for questions. Faith shows up in my writing the same way it shows up in my life: honestly, humbly, and without any pressure for others to agree or follow the same path.

So every now and then, I’ll post a few random observations from the perspective of a reluctant island curmudgeon.

Reluctant Island Curmudgeon (n.) A middle-aged writer, lifelong sports fan, and beach-dwelling observer of a world that seems to have changed faster than he did—and didn’t bother to explain itself along the way.

These essays will wander wherever curiosity leads: sports, work, money, music, media, technology, aging, creativity, faith, and what it feels like to live long enough to watch the world reinvent itself more than once.

I’ll poke fun at the new stuff. I’ll poke even more fun at myself. And I’ll keep trying to choose curiosity over contempt every damn time.

I’m not yelling at the clouds.

I’m sitting beneath them, watching them change shape, wondering what they’re trying to teach me about time, grace, and us.

If that sounds like your kind of conversation, pull up a beach chair… or a barstool at the tiki bar.

The next round’s on perspective.