After a lifetime, it seems, of writing this column - some 30 years - I am remembering when I irritated old and young dames.

I can go back 70 years to when this nun, whose name I can no longer remember, told my late mother, who would be 111 on August 7, that I was a sneak and not to be trusted.

Gosh, she had that right.

All my life, my mother, Marie (nee Fink) Olsen, reminded me that I was a damn thief.

By the time I was about seven, I stole this girl's squirt gun when our two families were picnicking at Nine Mile Creek.

Back then, it was pretty rustic.

And here this girl, whose name was Ka...