I received an e-mail at home the other day that gave me a lot of laughs.

It was titled parents of the year and it contained photos of parents doing extremely dumb things with their kids.

The picture that got me laughing the most was the one you see here. Like a lot of people, I have never been very fond of clowns. They freak me out. I believe it all stems back to the late 1950s, when Clarabell the Clown served as a foil to Howdy Doody.

I never trusted that clown, because I couldn't figure out if Clarabell was a man or a woman. She/he never spoke, and used a honking horn to communicate, much like Harpo Marx. I came to believe it was probably a transvestite having fun at my expense.

Next to mimes, clowns are the scariest characters I can imagine.

And this one takes the cake. The poor little tot in this clown's arms will no doubt have many sleepless nights ahead of her in life.
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Golf has been keeping me occupied in recent weeks, as I psych myself up in preparation for retirement.

I spent last Saturday on the course with My Three Sons and can't remember when I last enjoyed a day so much. The great thing about golf is that even if you are the worst hacker, occasionally you will make a shot that erases all the memories of the other 100-plus shots you duffed along the way.

I noticed is golf cart manufacturers must think most golfers are complete idiots. The foot pedals on our golf cart had the word STOP imprinted on the brake pedal and GO on the gas pedal. That may be because golf is the only sport that seems to encourage drinking and driving (with apologies to MADD). Perhaps they feel if you have consumed a few dozen wobbly pops while navigating your golf cart around the course, you will forget which pedals are which.

I know I have mentioned this in the past, but it deserves mentioning again that golf courses take advantage of you when offering a cart for rental. Carts cost between $20 and $36 to rent, depending on the course. That gives you a vehicle about the same size as a Smartcar that comes without seatbelts, doors, a radio, heater, windshield wipers, or the ability to cruise faster than 5 km/h.

You get to drive it for about four hours and, depending on your ability to hit a straight drive, you won't put much more than a couple of miles on the odometer (if it had an odometer, which it doesn't).

I have rented real cars for about $35 a day, and they come fully equipped.

I know I could avoid all this unpleasantness by walking the course and I might even benefit from the exercise. But I'm getting old and I have a gimp foot (more on that in another column) and the way I hit the ball, I figure I would have to trudge up and down hills for at least 15 kilometres during a typical round of golf. And the guys I golf with simply won't put up with all that hiking (they're in even worse shape than me).
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Finally, in the spirit of leaving my readers a little smarter at the end of my column than they were at the outset, here are a few facts you may not have known, courtesy of a reader.
• The black box on an airplane isn't black … it’s orange.
• A camel's hair brush is made of squirrel's fur.
• Ecuador is famous for exporting Panama hats.
• The Hundred Years War lasted 116 years.

The next time you win a trivia contest, remember who helped you achieve stardom.