Superficial knowledge. That’s what we got from technology.

I am neither unaffected nor blameless. I write mostly about sports for an increasingly modest living. I don’t know as much about sports since I stopped buying bubble-gum cards. Ten years ago, I knew a lot more about NASCAR and the Boston Red Sox. The reason for both those declines is obvious.

Sure, I know more about what’s going on at Wilder Stadium now than when I was listening to Buddy Bridges on the radio from a hotel room in Dover, Del.

The only newspaper I read regularly is the Laurens County Advertiser. I check out the Greenville News Presented by USA Today at the barber shop, but I generally get a haircut about two months after I start thinking about it.

A friend wrote me that a major newspaper conglomerate is experimenting with the notion that editors are unneeded.

Most of what is freely available really stinks. Today I saw a headline on my home page about the cancellation of a Jelly Rolly concert. I saw a notice that a singer died. I thought he was already dead. He was. In 2022. That notice was predicated on people clicking to make sure. I go to Wikipedia. Take that.

A man’s got to keep up with our president. The war is over one day, still going the next. Never take pictures of sea shells at the beach.

I contribute to the madness. I can’t resist writing the name of an obscure NFL player when social media asks me if I remember any Patriots not named Brady or Gronk.

Mike Taliaferro.

Here’s what I won’t do. Could I give up fried chicken for the rest of my life for $1 million? Show me the money. I don’t believe completing a quiz makes me more intelligent than 99 percent of the American people, though I suspect I’m rising up through the percentiles.

I pay for this knowledge. It is common for me to refer to a great athlete in a conversation with a young athlete while, at the same time realizing the great athlete retired 10 years before the young athlete was born. There must be a conspiracy to hide the fact that history is something else in school today.

Once a kid told me, “Oh, yeah, I played with him on Madden.”

The first two “grown-up” books I ever read were about Mel Ott, dead the year I was born, and Eddie Mathews, whom at least I later knew.

I’m reading a book about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt on my phone. My personal, unscientific poll tells me that about 10 percent, tops, reads at all. For the 10 percent of that 10 percent who might read something I suggest, I recommend a novel, The Sweetness of Water, by Nathan Harris, and a book of essays, Raised in Captivity, by Chuck Klosterman, who apparently envisioned in 2019 exactly what the world is like now.

Many thanks to the advertisers. The site is also supported by reader contributions. If you’re interested, you can make modest monthly payments on my Patreon page or a one-time contribution via Venmo (@DHKSports).

Or, if you’d like to make a contribution by check or cash, my mailing address is: Monte Dutton, P.O. 221, Clinton, S.C.  29325 (hutdut@outlook.com).

It means a lot to me that you enjoy what I write.

Most of my books are available at Amazon. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions.