Blog #450                                October 23, 2025

 

Every morning, I throw out the trash.  This consists of tying off the trash bag which has remained in the kitchen since the morning before and now contains the candy wrappers, banana peels, old strings, avocado husks, empty food containers and other sundry detritus of the previous twenty-four hours.  I tie a knot, carry the bag down the hall, open the trash chute and drop it in.  The bag drops down into something and then someone takes it somewhere.  They must care; they must have it under control, for I never see it again.  How simple.  How easy to dispose of all the physical trash and to start the new day fresh and free.  If only we could cleanse the mental garbage as effortlessly as the physical.  Just toss out the medical problems, the money worries, the anxiety for those we love, the disorientation and useless feelings of old age – throw them all in a large, recyclable, renewable, free-range, gluten-free bag and toss them down the same chute.  Let them mix with the banana peels and go wherever the empty avocados go.  And start the new day fresh and free.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling fresh and free and getting ready for Halloween – all the frightening house decorations, the horror movies that cable TV saves up for this season, the hungry and excited little urchins in their minatory costumes.  It’s all so much fun.  Our local grandkids are too old to trick-or-treat, and our condo building does not attract any kids, so Carol and I will go out to dinner.  And I know exactly where we’re going – wherever she tells me.  You know, of course, that there are two ways of arguing with a woman – and neither one works.

 

Let’s see, what shall we talk about?  How about our Weekly Word, which is minatory.  It means threatening.  I’ll bet you didn’t know that.  I didn’t either, until I read it in a book about Winston Churchill.  Learning new words makes you smart.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Lord, what fools these mortals be! (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  A few days ago, the WORDLE was CATTY.  What a wonderful, beautiful word.  Catty!  It took Pops six tries to get it.  He’s not as smart as you think he is.

 

With no sense of shame or timidity

I’ll tell you the truth with rapidity

He’s smart, you might guess

But he’s full of A-S

Which means Artificial Stupidity.

Purr.

 

Well, Shakespeare, my Artificial Stupidity says that was a pretty good limerick – for a cat.  The unstoppable advance of Artificial Intelligence frightens me. “What happens if we create a machine that is a little bit cleverer than we are?” said Lisbeth Salander, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Soon after that, the machines will figure out that the worst thing for them is to have people around.  It’s minatory.  That was our Weekly Word.  You haven’t forgotten already, have you?  Stop smoking pot.   It dulls your memory.

 

Trends indicate that the legal sale of marijuana is sweeping the nation, and soon it will be legal to buy pot in every state.  I can clearly envision McDonald’s adjusting their menu to add a Really Happy Meal which will include fries and a Diet-Toke.  They’re already training their staff to say, “Would you like highs with that?”

 

Of course, we’re going to see national chains created just to sell pot, so we need to come up with appropriate names.  I am up to the challenge.  Unfortunately, the perfect name for a national pot chain is already taken – Quik Trip.  But I have some alternative suggestions:

 

Pot-Belly’s            Toke-O-Bell          Grass Pro Shops

H & R Pot            Bed, Bath and Way Beyond

 

And if the whole pot thing works out well, then I’m sure they will quickly move all of us up to the harder substances.  A new drive-through chain for heavy drugs is already in the works.  It’s called Crack-In-The-Box.

 

And speaking of Happy Meals, I was at McDonald’s today, reading a book, when a lady my age came up to me.  “Oh,” she said, “I love old books and that looks like an old one.”  It was a nature book I got from the library, published in 1960, so indeed it was an old book – 65 years.  The sobering and depressing conclusion to that thought is that I was 14 when it was published.  How did I get this old?  There’s a lesson to be learned here -- never use an old book as a chick-magnet.  It only attracts old chicks.  Come to think of it, I like old chicks.  I’m married to one.  I think I’ll stick with the old books, the old chicks, the old songs and all that old stuff that clutters up my closet.  And if that makes all the young people think I’m “old”, well. blessed are they that can laugh at themselves, for they will never cease to be amused.

 

I like to look at other people’s books.  I can learn a lot by the books somebody reads.  I can tell what they like, whether we have similarities in taste, what interests them.  I can start conversations with a person just by looking at the book he’s reading.  But now people have “devices”.  I can’t tell what they’re reading on a device.  I don’t have a device; I have a book.  I like to smell it, feel it, hold it --   and fight off all the old chicks it attracts.

 

I met a woman today whose name was Sharifa.  She was Lebanese and married to a Spanish man.  We talked and I told her about my grandchildren.  She was much younger than me and had two young children, twin boys.  She said their names were Amal and Juan.  I asked if she had any pictures.  She pulled out her phone and showed me a photo. “This is Juan,” she said.  “Where’s the other?” I asked.  “Oh,” she said, “they’re identical twins.  If you’ve seen Juan, you’ve seen Amal.”

 

If that didn’t give you a laugh, go back to the Pot Store.

 

Well, we’ve come to the end of another adventure. I’m proud of you for staying awake for the whole thing.  I hope you enjoyed.  Stay well, count your blessings and come back next week.  And don’t be late.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog # 449                               October 16, 2025

 

Monday was Columbus Day.  Remember Columbus?  He’s the guy who founded Ohio State University.  Nobody remembers Columbus anymore except a few old Italians.  They don’t even call it Columbus Day.  Now it’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day, as if the American Indians were here when the Earth was created.  They were here before Columbus, but they displaced other peoples and tribes who, in return, had replaced other people.  None of this replacing thing was ever peaceful, fair or equitable.  It was just the ineluctable survival of the fittest.  Now the America that Columbus bumped into is populated by roughly 65% Europeans, 13% Africans, 22% South Americans and almost no Indigenous People.  And in another 200 years, it will be 80% South Americans, a few Europeans and a few Africans.  Like sand through the hourglass – right?

 

I’ll bet you guessed that the Weekly Word is ineluctable.  It means inescapable or unavoidable.  Good word to remember, though remembering things gets harder all the time.  Sometimes I forget my doctor’s name.  Often, I forget where my keys are – or my wallet or my phone or my bathroom.  Sometimes I forget what day it is.  But I can still remember the lyrics to songs I heard when I was a kid.  When I was five (1951), the Four Lads had a song called Istanbul, Not Constantinople.  I know the words.  Carol knows the words.  I think that’s why I married her.  Anytime the word Istanbul ever comes up in a conversation, Carol and I break into an annoying duet which ends with the phrase – Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.  My children hate it.  They’ve heard us do it a hundred times – at home, in a restaurant, in a taxi -- and it embarrasses them.  Last week, my oldest daughter was on her way to Croatia, and I got a phone call from her.  “Where are you?” I asked.  “Oh” she said, “we’re on the plane about to leave from Istanbul.”  Big mistake!  Carol and I reflexively burst into a loud version of the melody we knew so well, but by the time the song was through, my daughter was gone.  Either the plane took off or she hung up on us.

 

And speaking of remembering old songs, I have a Movie Review for you. Well, it wasn’t a movie; it was a Broadway show called Beautiful about singer-songwriter Carole King.  Anybody my age who remembers music from the 1960s will love this show.  I knew every word to every song and had to stifle myself from singing out loud.  Really spectacular!

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  In sweet music is such art (Henry VIII).  I remember old songs too.  Like What’s New Pussycat and How Much Is That Kitty in the Window.  Is that what it was?  Sometimes I forget too.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Or, as we used to say:  Hey there, hi there, ho there you’re as welcome as can be.  I hope you are feeling well.  We did another fast-food outing this week.  It was fun, we all laughed and enjoyed the company for two hours.  The food sucked, but at least I got a limerick out of it.

 

Let’s go eat fast food, everyone

It really will be lots of fun

We’ll meet and we’ll greet

Then sit down to eat

A whole lot of crap on a bun.

 

I just saw another crazy sign at a museum.  We’ll call it the Yummy Museum.  I am not making this up!

 

Diversity Statement:

The Yummy Museum is a community resource where all families raising young children are welcome. You are included without regard to race, age, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation, family structure, citizenship, or socioeconomic background.

 

Wow, it must have taken them a long time to decide which kinds of people they will not discriminate against.  I did not see a category for People who read Moby Dick.  Why do we have to make an endless list of differences for which we will not discriminate? Why can’t we just say everybody is welcome?  Or, in Yummy’s case, everybody is welcome if you have $5.00 admission and no nuts. (It’s a peanut-allergy thing. You have a filthy mind.)  Really, a simple “Everyone Is Welcome” sign in 47 languages and Esperanto would be just fine.  And what’s with the family structure item?  Do they think we expect to be rejected because our family has two fathers, six mothers, a crazy uncle and a camel?  C’mon Yummy, lose the guilt of the world and just say everybody’s welcome. 

 

It seems like the more tolerant our society purports to be, the more we tend to cubbyhole everyone into racial, religious and sexual corners.  But what do I know?  I’m just an elderly, Jewish, third generation Russian-American, carnivorous, Midwestern, average height, Caucasian, married, straight, male United States citizen who can recite The Raven.  Pretty typical.

 

In any event, we had a wonderful time at the museum and by the time we left, my grandkids were happy and sleepy.  I guess that makes me Dopey and Grumpy.  And as Snow White used to say to all the dwarfs, “I do not discriminate on the basis of height or silly names.  But no nuts.”  Snow had a filthy mind too

 

I just heard a terrifying news broadcast on the radio that went like this:  Avalanche destroys Detroit; Flames burn Vancouver; Hurricanes rip through Florida; Lightning decimates Philadelphia.  My God, I thought, has the world come to an end?  I was relieved when I learned it was just the hockey scores. 

 

I have to go now.  I have to buy something from Amazon.  I really don’t need anything, but it’s so much fun.  Yesterday, I bought something from Amazon.   True story. The order was placed at 11:30; the item was shipped at 1:00 and arrived at 2:30. How is that possible?  Are they waiting outside with a van stuffed with things I might buy?  I think I’ll order something they can’t possibly deliver.  I’ll order a humorous and informative essay of exactly 1,066 words that has a Weekly Word and a message from a weird cat.  Let’s see them try to deliver that!  But if you want another one, I can deliver it to you next Thursday.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #448                                October 9, 2025

 

Stay well and count your blessings.  Wait, that’s what I say at the end of the blog, not the beginning.  I’m so confused.  I’m turned upside down, and it’s all because of my grocery store.  I always go in the entrance on the right, near the produce.  I start at bananas and end with bread and that’s the way it’s been for thousands of years.  It all started King Tut shopped 3,350 years ago at the local Yummy Mummy.  Well, Mrs. Tut probably did the shopping.  Her name was Ankhesenamun.  He called her Cupcake.  Anyway, Ankhe would start with bananas and work her way right to left and we’ve all been doing that for millennia.  But today they were doing some construction and the right-side entrance was closed.  I had to enter on the left side.  Well, you can imagine my disorientation.  I felt like an American trying to drive in London.  I felt like a breech baby.  I felt like the world was a tuxedo and I was a pair of brown shoes.  (Thank you, George Gobel.)  So, did I adapt?  Did I improvise?  Did I overcome?  No, I am maddeningly sclerotic, so I walked like an Egyptian down the length of the store and started at bananas.  You would have done the same.

 

Weekly Word: Sclerotic means rigid and unresponsive; without the ability to adapt.  I think that describes me, don’t you?  Hi there and welcome back.  The government is shut down, but Limerick Oyster is still in business, so wipe off your reading glasses and let’s get started.  I hope you’re feeling well and enjoying the beautiful Fall weather.  What is all this hullaballoo about Russia?  Why are we afraid of them?  And how could we ever have worried that X, Y and Z had colluded with Й, Щ and Э?  I don’t get it.  I’ve been to Russia and they have nothing to offer but a bunch of palaces built by cruel and horrible despots who killed their own people and stole all their money.  As I left Russia, I turned around, looked at their sterile, ugly and decrepit apartment blocks and their sullen, overdressed and impolite border officials and told them how I felt.

 

I’ve read about all of your Czars

I’ve tasted your strange caviars

I’ve taken your tours

And I’ve seen what is yours

And I really prefer what is ours.

 

Take that, Vladimir!

 

I get a physical exam every year with Dr. Primary, and of course they take my blood pressure. Wouldn’t it be great if Carol and I could just average our blood pressure?  Can you guess which one of us has high versus low pressure?  Isn’t it obvious?  Carol runs on so much energy, we used to call her Ethel, and I am so passive that last week I was reading at the library and somebody put lilies in my lap.  After the blood pressure, the nurse always gives me some kind of cognitive test.  What day is it?  Who’s the President?  Who’s your Daddy?  Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?  Then she asks me to write any sentence, and I always write, “I hate needles!”  Then she asks me to memorize three words.  The first time she did that, the words were – apple, penny, table.  Ok, I passed.  A year later I was back and she was back and the questions were the same.  When she said, “I have three words for you to memorize, I immediately said, “You mean apple, penny, table?”  She looked at me, then looked at her paper and said, “I guess you pass.”

 

So how about if we give you a small cognitive test?  Can you say 60 words in 60 seconds without ever repeating a word twice or using a word that has the letter “a”?  Ready? Go!  I’ll get back to you later.

 

As I have told you, we went to a charity polo match last week.  I was sitting at a table, and I asked my wife to get me a Diet Coke at the bar.  She returned; I took a sip, and long before the vile liquid reached my stomach, I said, “This is Pepsi.”  She said that’s all they had and she hoped I wouldn’t notice.  What?  Not notice?  I have had a Diet Coke every morning for four decades.  Diet Coke is as different from Diet Pepsi as 7-Up is from motor oil.  Jeesh!

 

Someone asked me the other day what Disney character I most resemble.  I know, I can hear all of you yelling Dumbo.  That’s not nice.  But I thought for a while – there’s Captain Jack Sparrow, Aladdin, Prince Charming (somehow that always reminds me of years ago when we actually had cameras and we took the film to the camera shop to get it developed; then we’d sit around the house singing “Someday My Prints Will Come”).  I finally decided the Disney character I most resemble is Geppetto.   He’s the old man in Pinocchio who uses his experience and love to help mold little boys and girls out of their rough raw materials.  With three daughters and eight grandchildren, I like to think I’ve accomplished that.  Plus, it looks like my nose has grown a lot along the way.  So, what Disney character do you most resemble?  Sleeping Beauty?  No, most of you can’t sleep.  Cinderella?  No, you don’t do windows.  Aladdin’s Genie?  I’ve seen you in a bottle.  Goofy?  Just saying.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  What’s in a name? (Romeo and Juliet).  If Pops gets to be Gepetto, I get to be Gepetto’s little tuxedo cat.  His name was Figaro.  My name is much better.  And Tabby Cats are much handsomer than tuxedo cats.  Just purring!

 

Ok, the cognitive test about saying sixty words in sixty seconds without using an “a”.  Easy, peasy!  Just count from one to sixty.  There are no “a”s.  In fact, the first number that has an “a” is one thousand.  And the first number that has a “b” is one billion.  And the first number that has a “c” is one octillion.  How’s that for useless trivia?

 

I think I’m finished with all this silliness.  Thank you for coming back.  Stay well and count your blessings.  (I’ve heard that somewhere before.)  See you next week.

 

Geppetto                                           send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

  

 

Blog #447                                October 2, 2025

 

Do you realize what an exhaustive effort goes into writing these blogs?  Have you ever tried writing a thousand-word essay every week?  I know you haven’t because you have very busy lives.  Me too!  I have to throw out the trash and squeeze the last droplet out of my toothpaste tube and do all my quotidian chores.  But I take this writing thing very seriously.  (That probably means there aren’t a lot of yucks to look forward to here.)

 

One chore I had to do this week was my Sirius call.  Every year, I get a message from Sirius Radio.  Your subscription expires on October 25 and we will begin to automatically bill you $23 a month.  Then I call and reach a person in the Philippines named Juanita and I tell her I’m only paying $7 a month now and want that to be my rate for next year.  She hesitates and fumfehs for a while and says she’ll have to talk to her manager and then comes back to tell me the $7 rate will be renewed.

 

This year was different.  I called and got this:  Hello, my name is Harmony, your Artificial Intelligence assistant.  How can I help you?  Harmony was wonderful, understood everything I said and renewed me for $6 month.  Very fast, very efficient, very sad.  What have we come to?  How is Juanita going to compete with Artificial Intelligence?  She’ll be out of a job.  What do we do when we make the world so wired up and efficient that no-one has a job?

 

That poor little Philippine sister

Was replaced by a sterile transistor

Now Juanita is gone

And the world travels on

Till we all realize that we missed her.

 

Artificial Intelligence frightens me a lot.  I mean machines named R2D2 and C-3PO were fine.  They were helpful and followed instructions.  But as soon as you give them human names like Harmony or Siri or Alexa, my pacemaker begins to heat up.  Remember HAL?  How’d that work out?

 

In honor of the Jewish New Year (5786) and Yom Kippur, which is today, our Weekly Word is the Yiddish word fumfeh, which means to mumble or speak unclearly.  I will try to hold my fumfehing to a minimum.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Fall is here as well as the Jewish New Year, and Shakespeare is bugging me to let him say something about that. 

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  O, call back yesterday, bid time return (Richard II).  I hear it’s the Jewish year 5786.  Those Jews think they’ve been around a long time, but we cats have been around much longer.  Do you know anybody named Katz?  They got that from us.  And, of course, we’re the ones who invented Yom Ki-Purr.

 

Thank you, Shakespeare.  I feel very simpatico with you today because I’m missing the use of one paw.  That’s because my left arm is in a sling.  On Monday, they sliced open my chest to replace the battery in my pacemaker and they don’t want me to pull out the stitches.  Please do not send sympathy cards.  A Mercedes would be nice or some Rolexes or maybe a Tiffany gift card.  Actually, I have recovered from the procedure quite easily and don’t need anything.  Well, the Mercedes maybe.

 

Speaking of sympathy cards, I visited Dollar Tree this week to buy greeting cards.  What, you think I spent $4.95 for that birthday card I got you?  Besides stocking up on some birthday and sympathy cards, I actually found a card congratulating you on your last colonoscopy which I guess is when you’re 75.  It reads: I ran into your proctologist the other day and your name came up.  He said “I never want to see that asshole again”.  Congratulations!   

 

When I approached the register to pay for the cards, there was an obnoxious young man arguing with the cashier about something.  He was rude and crude and I didn’t like him.  The only satisfaction in dealing with a young jerk like that is knowing that he has all his colonoscopies in front of him.  (Can you actually have one “in front” of you?  I guess not, but we have spent too much time on this subject, so let’s put it behind us.)

 

Do you have dreams?  I dream once in a while, and I always thought my dreams were different from your dreams.  But yesterday, I read a book where the author was describing a dream in which his dream person was in college and completely unprepared for an upcoming test.  Wait, that’s my dream!  How could he have my dream?  Does everybody have that dream?  Do you?  How about the dream where you are in a movie theater and discover that you’re naked?  Do you have that one too?  How about the one where the driver of a cement mixer gets out and beats you up?  Or the one with the tuba and the sheep?  Well, never mind about that one.

 

The other day I dropped my keys right between the two front seats – you know, the place where everything disappears forever.  I looked; I reached – nothing!  There I was, freaking out and reaching between the seats with two restless grandchildren in the back seat wondering what Oldilocks was up to.  I got out and felt under the front seat – nothing.  I pulled the driver’s seat as far up as it would go; then I went to the back seat to see what was uncovered.  Holy Buried Treasure, Batman!  There, in the revealed space formerly under the front seat, were nine colored markers, two straw wrappers, a Nilla Wafer, Jimmy Hoffa, the Cardinals World Series chances and a previously unknown Kardashian sister – and my car keys.  Whew!

 

This week we went to a charity polo match sponsored by the Old Newsboys Fund for Children’s Charities, a very worthwhile charity that helps children all over the area.  Did you know that all polo players are right-handed?  Did you know that I played water polo?  I only played once because my horse drowned.

 

Alright, I’m done with you now.  You can go back to your daily chores or dreaming about that sheep.  Just be sure to come back next week.  Please stay well and count your blessings.  See ya!

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com.

 

 

 

Blog #446                      September 25, 2025

 

A lot of people have told me that I should have my head examined!  Well, I did.  Twice!  The first time I had a CT scan on my brain was several years ago; the official result was “Unremarkable”.  Unremarkable?  Are you kidding me?  After twenty-one years of schooling, 400,000 pages of obscure and arcane books, fifteen hundred limericks – that’s all they can say about my brain?  Unremarkable?  I was insulted! 

 

Years later I had another brain scan, looking for a more complimentary opinion.  It came back “Normal”.  Normal?  Is reading Moby Dick seven times normal?  Is listening to Alice’s Restaurant every night for nine months straight normal?  Is reciting The Raven in your shorts every Tuesday morning with a brown-paper bag over your head while getting a tan normal?  There shouldn’t be much disagreement on that one.  If you missed the explanation of that, I’ll fill you in.  I go to Dr. Skin’s office every other Monday to stand in an ultraviolet light box for five minutes, and while I’m there, in my boxers with a brown paper bag over my head, I recite The Raven from beginning to end.  And this clown thinks I’m normal?

 

Some doctor who thinks he’s a whiz

Said my brain is as normal as his.

I read Moby Dick, Dude

And spout Poe in the nude,

And if that’s not abnormal, what is?

 

Hi there.  Are you normal?  I don’t think anybody who has suffered through this many of my looney-tune ramblings is normal, but welcome back anyway.  I hope you’re doing well. 

 

And speaking of Dr. Skin, I went to see her last week, and as I sat in the examination room, I realized I had forgotten to drink a lot of water.  Dr. Skin often takes blood to make sure the medicine isn’t affecting my liver or something and I have learned that it makes it easier to find a vein if I have drunk a few glasses of water.  I looked around for a cup and found one in a cabinet.  It read the following: “For Urine Samples”.  Well there wasn’t any alternative and, what the hell, in one end and out the other.  I drank three cups.  She didn’t take blood.

 

I just received my fourth butt-call of the week, all from friends.  I know my friends really well, and I’m pretty sure that some of them find it challenging to make a call with both eyes, a brain and all ten fingers.  How is it that they find it so easy to make a call with their ass?  And why me?  Is their phone programmed to call me when someone sits on it?  Is Apple trying to tell me something?

 

My wife just got a new Apple phone, the newest version with a thousand bells and whistles not one per cent of which she is likely to use.  But hey, she’s the love of my life and deserves all the comforts I can provide.  Me?  I don’t need a new phone.  I’ll just sit in the dark in my broken chair with my obsolete phone, a weathered old book, bad eyes and a three-legged cat.  It’s ok.  That’s good enough.

 

Do you know why the Apple logo has a bite out of the apple?  The story goes that Alan Turing, the man who pretty much invented computer science and the subject of the movie The Imitation Game, committed suicide by dousing an apple with poison and taking a bite.  So Apple, wanting to show their reverence for Mr. Turing, made their logo with the bite.  That was before they decided to direct every butt-call west of the Mississippi directly to me.

 

Disney is having some trouble now after suspending Jimmy Kimmel.  It’s not the first time that their decisions have engendered widespread opprobrium.  Some years ago, Disney decided it would be a nice and humane gesture to allow handicapped visitors at its amusement parks to go to the front of the line along with their families.  Very nice; very thoughtful.  Soon, families were faking handicaps or hiring handicapped strangers to pose as family members in order to beat the system and gain an advantage.  This is absolutely true.  It got so common and elicited so many complaints that Disney cancelled the program.  Thanks to the selfish and greedy, the handicapped suffered.  Yes, it’s a cruel world after all.  Everybody sing along with Mickey:

 

It’s a world of greed -- It’s a world of sin

Where the good guys lose -- And the bad guys win

Only babies and fools -- Seem to play by the rules

It’s a cruel world after all

 

No, that doesn’t count as a limerick.  You got a problem with that?  Go sit on your phone.  But it does count as our Weekly Word, opprobrium which means harsh criticism or censure.

 

Let’s talk murder.  First, there’s this Robinson guy who killed Charlie Kirk.  They have charged him with, among other things, Aggravated Murder.  The charge of Murder comes with the death penalty which, in Utah, is by firing squad.  What could possibly be more aggravating than that?  Well, I’ve found out.  The punishment for Aggravated Murder is that while waiting for the firing squad, you will be forced to watch a re-run of the 2025 Emmy Awards.

 

And then there is this Luigi Mangione guy.  We all have seen the video of him emerging from the shadows to shoot his victim in the back.  But he’s only charged with Second-Degree Murder.  I am a wordy fellow, as you well know, but I must say I have no words to explain how that’s not First-Degree Murder.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Tremble, thou wretch. Thou hast within thee undivulged crimes (King Lear).  Pops says I should be charged with a crime.  I bit him yesterday and he said I was guilty of Assault and Cattery.  He thinks he’s funny.  Purr.

 

Ok, we’ll end with some acronyms.  We all know SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) and AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave), but my daughter Jennifer just told me what LOL stands for -- Limerick Oyster Laughs.  I hope you’ve had some.  Stay well, count your blessings and come back to my asylum next week.  And to my Jewish friends, Happy New Year 5786.  May it be happy and peaceful.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #445                                September 18, 2025

 

The other day, I overheard the television.  I wasn’t watching it, of course, but I overheard Jenna interviewing a facial “expert” who was instructing her audience of 30 and 40-year-old women how to avoid wrinkles.  Her advice was to stop laughing.  Preposterous!  This is why we call television a “vast wasteland”. 

 

And speaking of wrinkles, a while back I took my grandson out for dessert.  He ordered a Coke.  He was 15!  Coke for dessert?  “Yes, Poppy, I’m replacing you.”  He knows I have a Diet Coke every single morning.  “You can never replace me,” I replied.  “Sure I can; someday I’ll be old and wrinkled and drinking Coke – just like you.”  I know I’ve never been Paul Newman, but I seem to be trending toward Quasimodo. 

 

There was a time when I actually gave up Coke in protest against one of their ads in which America the Beautiful was sung in seven languages.  Is there no pride in America anymore?  Aren’t Americans allowed a heritage and a music of their own?  We have only one official language.  I don’t want to hear America the Beautiful sung in Chinese.  Try going to Paris and singing France’s national song in English.  Try going to Israel and singing Hatikvah in Arabic.  Go to Iran and sing their national song in Hebrew.  Good luck. What are these people thinking?

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come (Merchant of Venice).  My Pops has wrinkles, but I like his face.  If I rub my head against his cheeks, it feels like a scratching board.  Purr.

 

Hi, everybody, and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  Are you laughing?  Stop it!  It gives you wrinkles.  I will try not to say anything funny

 

University City is a medium-sized suburb of St. Louis with many streets named after universities – Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Swarthmore (hence the name University City).  My wife and I both grew up there and, in 1963, we graduated University City High School among a class of 550 happy and hopeful souls.  Each reunion or get-together of our class reveals how our numbers have been winnowed, but last weekend, about 90 of those souls congregated to celebrate the fact that we were all turning 80.  Maybe we were not as happy and hopeful as we were in 1963; maybe grateful and cautious would be more descriptive, but we were loud and talkative and happy to renew friendships that may have faded, but not disappeared.  Many of my faithful readers were there, and let me tell you something – you looked marrrrvelous!  Certainly you girls did, and yes, even though you’re 80, I can still call you girls.  And the guys – well, maybe a little less hair and a little less height, but all-in-all, not bad.  We’ll see you all at our 90^th birthday bash.  I hope we’re all there and still in good shape, but even if we’re not physically perfect, there are plenty of good rock-n-roll songs suitable for 90-year-olds.

 

Wheelin’ in the Years

Limping Jack Flash

I Wanna Hold Your Cane

Let’s Get a Physical

I’ll Be in the Home for Christmas

The Day the Bridge Group Died

 

At the event, there were pictures of previous reunions – pictures that were 30 and 40 years old.  And you know how people react to old pictures.  The women look and say, “God, look at my hair!”  And the men look and say, “I still have that shirt.”  Oh, and a shout out to that fabulous woman at my table.  You know who you are.  It was great to see you guys.

 

Weekly Word:  Winnow -- to reduce the number of items in a list.

 

Why do we remember some things and forget others?  How come I can tell you every word to every Johnny Mathis song but not where my reading glasses are?  Why can I recite all 1,085 words of the Raven but not have a clue where I ate dinner last Saturday night?  Well, at least you remembered to come back today.

 

We all have our list of medical issues.  I have mine, but I’m feeling pretty good lately.  The last time I was feeling poorly, I visited Dr. Intern.  He said I was perfect.  Then I went to Dr. Heart.  He said I was perfect.  I tried Dr. Lung and he agreed – Perfect!  Where did these people go to medical school?  Don’t they know I’m sick?  On the other hand, when I’m feeling great, like today, they find something wrong.  Oh, your calcium is high or your blood count is low.  Your brain is too tight or your pants are too loose.  Let’s add two new pills and cut this pill in half.  It’s like cooking – we add some salt and only use half as many onions and see how it tastes.  Sometimes I think they treat my body like it’s a casserole.

 

If suddenly you’re feeling crummy

Put parsley and sage in your tummy

Rub salt on your glands

And thyme on your hands

You’ll die, but at least you’ll taste yummy.

 

How did we all get this old?  I’m older than the Beaver!  What an idyllic, elysian world they lived in, Wally and the Beav.  Every day they went out to ride their bikes without supervision and without sunscreen or helmets.  They didn’t have seatbelts or gluten-free pretzels or video games or The View.  And I’m positive I never heard the Beav call his grandpa ugly and wrinkled.  Well, they probably didn’t even have grandparents.  All the old folks died off before they could become useless, unemployed, wrinkled old burdens to their family.  Yah, but I never saw anybody take the Beav to the Zoo or tell him pirate stories or sing him songs like “There’s a Dinosaur in My Diaper.”

 

That’s a song I actually wrote for my grandchildren.  They all loved it, especially when they were one or two-years-old and scooting around in diapers.  I don’t need the song now – my youngest is 12½ -- but you never know.  Carol asked me if I would ever sing the Diaper Song again, and you know what my answer was?  “Depends!”

 

Stop it.  I promised not to make you laugh.  It causes wrinkles, you know.  Please stay well, please count your blessings and come back next week. 

 

Quasimodo                     Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #444                                September 11, 2025

 

I am an ordinary man.  I am not unique.  I am not special.  Yet, last Tuesday morning, something happened to me that will never happen to any of you or to 99.99% of the world’s people.  At about 8:45, as I sat reading with Shakespeare on my lap, I heard some chimes.  And they were coming from my chest!  It scared the Beelzebub out of me and my excited, but histrionic, reaction made the cat screech and run away.  The first thing I realized was that it must be my pacemaker giving me a warning.  And then it stopped, lasting perhaps 5 seconds.  Ok, but what kind of warning was it giving me and would it do it again?  I was pretty nervous, but also reasonably sure it was telling me that my battery needed replacement.  My Dr. Rhythm had told me the battery was about to run out, but what he forgot to tell me was that my heart would start singing a tune.  Anyway, I took some deep breaths to calm myself and called the office.  “What’s your name?  What’s your date of birth?  Oh yes, Mr. Fox, we got the notification this morning and someone will call you to schedule a battery replacement.”  I informed the lady that it would have been nice if they had warned me that my aorta was going to explode into Yankee Doodle Dandy without a heads up.  She told me it would warn me at the same time every morning until it was replaced.  Great.  See you tomorrow at 8:45.

 

It went off again, same time, same tune.  Couldn’t they at least have picked something more apropos of music originating from inside your body?  How about:

 

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my spleen in Abilene

I left my kidney way down in Sydney

I lost a tooth in old Duluth.

 

Now that’s what I call Organ Music.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Today is Nine-Eleven.  Can you believe it has been 24 years?  Twenty-four years since 9/11.  Fifty-eight years since we were married.  Thirty years since my last cigarette.  So many years!  But, we can still try to be young.  Carol and I and some of our friends try to stay young by having “fast-food” nights.  We pick a fast-food place, where mostly young people go, and go there for dinner.  This week it was Dave’s Hot Chicken.  As usual, we spent an hour and a half at this “fast” food place.  First of all, we have to read the menu, then we have to interrogate the staff to determine what options we have.  Special meals, different sauces, small fries or large, can I get the hamburger without salt, is there a coupon.  We’re a pain, but we always make the staff like us by pretending to be ignorant.  Then we wind up chatting with the manager and each other.  It fills up the night.

 

We liked the fast-food place a lot

The food was delicious and hot

We had laugh after laugh

For an hour and a half

Cause the food may be fast – but we’re not.

 

It was fun.  While we were finishing up, sitting outside, the manager came to ask how everything was and we all said it was great.  Then I said, what you need are some ice-cream desserts.  He said, “We have milk shakes.  Let me bring you some, on me.”  So we had free milk shakes.  Except for me, of course.  I don’t do milk, ice-cream, alcohol, nicotine, kale or peaches.  That’s just me.

 

Our Weekly Word is histrionic which means excessively emotional or dramatic.

 

The Zoo was delightful yesterday, but pretty empty.  I still find people to talk to – the few visitors, some of the staff and volunteers, even some animals.  I saw some flamingos, an alligator, some Galapagos tortoises, each the size of a Volvo, some prairie dogs inside their enclosure and a squirrel running free.  Before I went home, I got a soda and sat on the restaurant patio overlooking the lake and watched the pelicans.

 

A wonderful bird is the Pelican.
His beak can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week!
But I'll be darned if I know how the hellican?

 

No, I didn’t write that.  Even though I am the King of Limerick, that one was written by Dixon Lanier Merritt, who is famous for nothing else at all.  While I was so occupied, I felt something brushing against my legs.  I looked down and spotted about five ducks, each about the size of a baked potato, looking for some fallen bread or French fries.  Those are the animals I talked to.  I said, Hi Boys, but they didn’t respond.  They were so cute, but they soon became bored with me and left to search for better pickings.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  That, as a duck for life that dives, So up and down the poor ship drives (Pericles).  He’s talking to ducks now?  What kind of crazy nutso did I pick for a Pops?  Actually, he talks to me too and I like it.  I guess I’ll keep him.  Purr.

 

I have an old car.  I like it.  I know where everything is and what everything does.  If I want something to happen, I push the right button.  If I want something different, I use a different button.  I borrowed my daughter’s new car the other day and you know what I found?  A screen.  No buttons, just a screen.  And every time I tried to turn the radio on, I activated the seat warmer.  I couldn’t get the radio to work or the A/C or the fan, and I couldn’t find how to turn off the seat warmer.  By the time I got to McDonald’s, my tush was as warm and tender as a pot roast.  I basically know only two things about cars – the pedal on the right makes it go and the pedal on the left makes it stop.  Or is it the other way around?

 

Oops, my heart is singing again.  Must be 8:45. Time to send you the blog.  I hope you enjoy it and hope you stay well.  Count your blessings and be back next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com