Blog #424                                April 24, 2025

 

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

 

Ok, that wasn’t me, that was Longfellow writing about Paul Revere.  (I’m a poet and I know it, ‘cause my feet show it -- they’re Longfellows.)  You remember Paul Revere, don’t you – one if by land and two if by sea?  Well, I remembered that last Friday was the 250^th anniversary of that historic ride and reminded my friends, and am now reminding all of you.

 

Speaking of friends, grateful thanks to my good friends – Alan, Penny and Alex from North Carolina – for having me join them at a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game last week.  We sat in the “Green Seats”.  These are the seats behind home plate reserved for rock stars, corporate magnates and poor old men with great friends.  When we arrived, we were treated to a monstrous display of gustatory delicacies fit for a prince.  They had more food than Lizzo’s pantry – and all free.  Then, when we were in our seats, a server kept bringing us whatever food and beverages we wanted for the entire game.  Now that’s the way to live.  Oh, and the final score?  Three hotdogs, two Diet Cokes and a box of donut holes.  Perfect.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and enjoying nice weather and beautiful scenery.  I was in a doctor’s waiting room this week.  I was getting tired of reading my book (I always have a book) so I got up to stretch and look out the window.  Did I see lovely meadows of verdant veldt and crystal-clear bubbling brooks of cool water?  No, from the fifth-floor doctor’s office the only scenery was a concrete morass of entrance ramps and exit ramps and a cloverleaf that had more bypasses than my heart.  It was ugly and artificial and depressing.  I could not wait to get home, put on my walking stuff and head out on the suburban streets around my house.  The weather was perfect, the birds were melodious and welcoming and the lawns and trees were at their springtime best.  There was even a bubbling brook.  It was probably filled with agricultural runoff and industrial waste, but it calmed me nevertheless.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? (Romeo and Juliet).  I have a wonderful porch to play on with lots of windows that look out to trees and birds and squirrels and people walking their dogs.  Pops leaves a window open so I can sit on my cat-tree and smell and hear everything, watching the birds and laughing at the stupid dogs.  Purr.

 

Yesterday was my Shakespeare’s 6^th birthday.  It really was the poet William Shakespeare’s 451st birthday, but I couldn’t fit that many candles on a cake.  Since my cat was deposited on the shelter’s doorstep, we really don’t know Shakey’s birth date.  I picked the other Shakespeare’s birthday to share, so happy birthday to my wonderful three-legged cat – and to that other guy as well.

 

The big news today was that 41% of Americans are obese.  I thought we had gotten past those harsh, accusatory words like “obese”.  We don’t say “illegal aliens” any more.  Now it’s “undocumented immigrants”.  We don’t use “handicapped”, substituting “challenged” instead.  It’s time we got rid of the hateful word “obese”.  I have a modest suggestion:

 

When words are just too filled with hate

A substitute term we’ll create,

So from now on we’ll cease

Calling people “obese”;

We’ll just say they’re “short for their weight”.

 

And speaking of politically correct phrases makes me think of my dad.  He was brought up in the 20s and 30s and had to struggle sometimes to adapt to the new terminology.  In 1994 when Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa, my dad said to me, “What do you think about South Africa electing an African-American president?”  I replied, “Dad, he’s not an African-American; he’s an African-African.”  He smiled.  As Gabriel Garcia Marquez said, “Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.”  My Dad was doing his job, acting like an old person.  I seem to do that a lot now, but giraffes have giraffes, apples grow on apple trees and old people talk about old people.

 

For instance, I’m sure you have noticed that old folks, to a large degree, are slow drivers, and I want to explain to you why we are.  It’s not that our eyes are blurred or our reflexes are poor.  And it’s not because our cars are old and decrepit.  The real reason we drive slowly is that we are no longer in a hurry.  Where do we have to go, Senior Day at Walgreens?  It can wait.  When you’re young you want everything to come fast.

 

·        I can’t wait till I get rich.

·        I can’t wait till my kids are grown and I have some time to myself.

·        Just ten more years and I’ll have it made.

·        Just ten more years!  I can’t wait. 

 

Well, what young people are waiting for is exciting – success, freedom, prestige.  I have never heard a senior say, “Just ten more years and I’ll have it made.”  We can wait.  We have nothing else to do but wait.  Besides, what could I possibly be looking forward to in ten years? My cell-phone getting more complicated?  My back getting worse?  More pills on my kitchen table?  Oprah getting skinny?  So what difference does it really make if I miss that green light?  I’ll just get to the Dollar Store thirty seconds later.  So don’t honk at slow drivers.  Relax, slow down, take a breath.  One of these days you won’t be in such a hurry any more.

 

I notice things – things that rhyme, things that have patterns, things that are funny.  I just noticed that this is Blog #424 and the date is April 24, also written 4/24.  Isn’t that a strange coincidence?  And now I’ve noticed that it’s time to go.  But not before our Weekly Word, which is gustatory.  It means relating to or associated with eating.

 

Stay well and count your blessings.  And don’t rush; everything can wait.  Even Limerick Oyster can wait till next week.  See you then.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #423                      April 17, 2025

 

One night this week, my wife went out to dinner with “the girls”.  It was Happy Hour at the gas station or something.  For a bunch of old women who can barely tolerate half a glass of wine, they sure don’t miss a Happy Hour.  Which makes me think of cemeteries.  You probably have figured out by now that I have a warped and unpredictable thought process.  Some people have a train of thought; I have a train wreck.  Anyway, it occurs to me that most people really don’t want to trudge out in the weather to visit an old grave in a depressing cemetery.  I sure don’t.  So here’s the light bulb!  Let’s bury our loved ones indoors, in a big warehouse, and then turn it into a bar.  Every night we could have a special memorial time called Sad Hour where we pay respects to Grandma and eat half-priced calamari at the same time.  Hey, that’s where I want to be when I’m gone.  At least I know my widow will be thinking of me over a chilled Chardonnay and a fried artichoke.  “C’mon, girls, I need a drink; let’s go visit what’s his name.”   And though she may not be lachrymose, at least she could drink a toast to my memory while laying shrimp tails and mussel shells on my nameplate.  We’ll call the place “Shots & Plots” or “Tears with Beers” or something goofy like that.  I told you I was warped.

 

But at least I’m on time.  “Punctuality is the politeness of kings,” said Louis XVIII, and here I am just like every Thursday morning.  Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well. Tomorrow is Good Friday and then, of course, comes Easter Sunday.  So may all my Christian friends and readers have a joyous Easter celebration.  And Good Friday?  Well, while you followers of Jesus are religiously busy on Good Friday, we Jews are shopping.

 

While Catholics all worship together

We’re buying some jeans and a sweater

They pray like they should

So their Friday is Good

We shop, so our Friday is Better.

 

Last week, as you know, Carol and I celebrated Passover.  Part of our celebration was watching the movie Fiddler on the Roof.  Yes, I know that the appropriate movie to watch on Passover is The Ten Commandments with Charleton Heston, but Fiddler has better music.  Maybe they should remake The Ten Commandments as a musical.  I already have some song suggestions:

 

·        Pharoah’s opening number:

See the Pyramids Along the Nile

Having Lots of Slaves Just Makes Me Smile

You’re Not Leaving for a Long, Long While

Jews Belong to Me.

·        Then the plagues, and Pharoah sings I’ve Got the Boils in the Morning and the Frogs at Night.

·        And the crossing of the Red Sea, where Moses sings Any Sea You Can Cross, I Can Cross Better.

·        Safely on the other side, all the people praise Moses with Matzo, Matzo Man

·        And once to the Promised Land, the whole cast sings The Days of Wine and Moses.

Let’s see, Donald Trump could play Pharoah and Sterling K. Brown could be Moses.  What, I hear you cry, a black man as Moses?  Well, that seems to be the thing nowadays.  In every production of Hamilton, black men play the parts of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, and that seems to be ok.  I can’t really understand it, because I’m pretty sure that if they did a remake of Porgy and Bess with Hugh Jackman as Porgy and Nicole Kidman as Bess, they’d burn the theater down.  Ok, if there’s anyone still left that I haven’t offended, let’s move on. 

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I’ll so offend, to make offense a skill (Hamlet).  I’m still here, Pops.  I don’t think you’re offensive.  It’s just that sometimes, you’re just not funny.  And why can’t I be in a show on Broadway?  I could be in The Lion King or Cats.  Or Pops and I together could be in Beauty and the Beast.  I, of course, would be the Beauty.  Purr.

 

If you still remember the first paragraph, I used the word lachrymose, which is our Weekly Word.  It means tearful or weepy.  And I was lachrymose myself the other day.  I was with my seventeen-year-old granddaughter, Charley.  She is all grown up and very glamorous, and she was putting on some lipstick when she looked up, struck a pose and said, “I’m just like Nonnie.”  That’s my wife, of course.   I told her, “You’re a very lucky little girl if you’re just like Nonnie.”  And she replied, “That’s because I get to marry someone like you.”  It was all I could do to keep from collapsing into a puddle.

 

I try every week to make this blog fit into three pages.  Remember pages?  We used to have pages to measure the size of a book or an article or a spectacularly clever and humorous blog.  Most likely you are reading this on your smart-phone or iPad.  You start at the top and, if you have the stomach for it, read to the end.  There are no pages.  My wife reads books on her iPad, and when I ask her what page she is on, she replies, “I’m 30% through.”  Now I suppose that’s informative, but it sounds so – modern.  It’s like something my grandchildren would say: “Oh, Poppy, you silly old man, there are no pages anymore.”  And yet, every week I look at my blank computer screen and realize that I have to fill up three pages, about 1066 words, with something that will entertain you.  And boy, are you tough!  When I’m finished and have posted the blog, I print out those three little pages and stack them with the previous installments.  Silly?  Old fashioned?  Retro?  Guilty!  But when Kim Jong Whatever hacks into our internet and fries all our computers as crispy as the special at KFC, there I’ll be – with all my pages.  So if your computer starts smoking and smelling like Kimchi, just come over to my house and I’ll read to you right from the beginning.

 

And that’s it.  I hope you enjoyed my three pages.  Come back next week or just come over to the house for my post-apocalyptic reading.  Either way, stay well and count your blessings. 

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #422                                         April 10, 2025

 

I have many friends who are doctors.  My son-in-law is a doctor and, of course, all my doctors are doctors.  And I have great respect for their dedication and for the time and effort they invested to earn their degrees.  Having said that, I have a little bone to pick with doctors.  And it ain’t no metatarsal.  My wife and I belong to a country club and in the lobby, there is a big board with a list of all the members.  The names are in alphabetical order: John Ames, Frederick Atwater, Rocky Balboa, etc.  But any member who is a doctor has an MD after his name.  You have every right to be proud of what you have accomplished, but this is a country club -- a group of folks who want to get together to eat, drink and play golf -- and nobody gives a rat’s divot if you are a doctor or not.  Yes, you’re successful and rich and highly trained and all that, but so is a plumber or an accountant or a guy who sells street signs, but you don’t see their professions plastered after their names.  And some members have DDS after their name.  Seriously?  One guy even has DVM.  Now that’s insulting.  And bottom line, nobody cares what you are.  You’re just Fred or Joe or Sally.  Take all those letters away from your name and put up your handicap instead.  Then we’ll see how proud you are.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  In two days, we will celebrate Passover in remembrance of the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt.  Let me refresh your memory: the ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, Charlton Heston.  How could you forget?  We call it The Days of Wine and Moses. Late in the story, after the Jews have fled across the Red Sea to safety, Moses shows up with some commandments.

 

Originally, Moses only had two Commandments, Thou shalt not kill and Thou shalt not wear brown sandals with a black yarmulke, but, as he was coming down the mountain, he ran into a couple of slick salesmen.  Moses could never resist a good deal. 

 

He had two Commandments, but then

He met these two fast-talking men

“More Commandments, you see

And besides, they’re all free.”

In that case, he said, I’ll take ten.

 

Those were the Gefilte brothers, Harry and Sol, who then convinced Moses to buy their whole supply of spoiled fish and eat that instead of shellfish.  And that is how Moses became the first April Fool. 

 

Oy, am I in trouble for that story!  God is probably looking on Amazon right now to find a plague for me.  “Hey, God, with all due respect, Covid was enough!  And the last couple of Presidents!”   I’m not really worried. God loves a good story.  I knew that as soon as I read about the Virgin Mary.  Oy, now I’m in trouble with the Jews, the Christians and God.  In hockey, they call that a Hat Trick.  The Jews call it a Yarmulke Trick.

 

By the way, what do you say to God when He sneezes?  Ok, I’d better stop playing with God here.  In Job 38:12, God counters Job’s arrogance by asking, “Have you ever in all your life commanded a day to dawn?”  I can’t even command a cat to get off my pillow.  And I would not even think of commanding my wife to do anything.  You think those plagues were tough?

 

Hey, you want to buy TikTok?  I think the Israeli government is trying to buy it.  They’ll change the name to SchtikTok and merge it with their very popular social media site which is a combination dating site and gossip exchange.  It’s called YENTA.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I am not yet so low that my nails can’t reach into thine eyes! (Hamlet).  Cats have social media too.  We have Cat-Chat and Mew-Tube.  And we love to gossip.  Where do you think the phrase, she has her claws out, came from?  Purr.

 

Tomorrow is National Pet Day, and I love my pet, Shakespeare.  He’s such a good boy. My daughter in North Carolina has pet chickens.  On National Pet Day, she always brings them in to watch a movie.  Their favorite chick flicks are:

 

·        A Few Good Hens

·        The Maltese Chicken

·        A Flock-Work Orange

·        Some Like It Fried

·        Pulp Chicken

 

In honor of National Pet Day, I have a dog joke.  Fritz and Pedro are out walking their dogs.  Fritz has a big, beautiful German Shepherd; Pedro a tiny Chihuahua.  It’s a warm day and Fritz says, “Let’s go into that bar and get a beer.”  Pedro replies, “The sign says NO PETS ALLOWED.”   Fritz says, “Watch this.”  He puts on dark sunglasses and, with perfect sangfroid, saunters into the bar with the German Shepherd.  A few minutes later he comes out looking refreshed.  “Well?” asks Pedro.  “No sweat,” says Fritz, “with the dark glasses they thought I was blind and that the German Shepherd was my seeing-eye dog.  The beer was great.” 

 

So Pedro borrows the dark glasses and heads into the bar where he is immediately accosted by a burly bouncer.  “No dogs, Mister,” he barks.  Pedro responds with confidence, “Can’t you see I’m blind?  This animal is my seeing-eye dog.”  “No chance, Bozo,” growls the bouncer.  “That’s a Chihuahua.”  “What?” shrieks Pedro.  “They gave me a Chihuahua?”

 

We used to have a dog named Alex.  After writing that joke, I started thinking about him and I commented that Alex was a wonderful dog and that I missed him sleeping on my pillow.  Carol said, “That’s alright, you’ll see him in Doggy Heaven.”  Doggy Heaven?  First of all, I’m not even sick.  And second, is that where she thinks I’m going?  Doggy Heaven?  I guess I’m nothing more than an Alta-Cocker Spaniel to her.  Probably on our wedding night she thought to herself, “What! They gave me a Chihuahua.

 

I’d better stop now.  If I make you laugh any more, you might hurt a rib.  But we need a Weekly Word.  How about Sangfroid?  It means composure and coolness under trying circumstances.   Ok, no more laughs, not until next week.  Stay well, count your blessings and have a joyous, peaceful Passover.

 

Michael, JD, BA, ΦΒΚ, ΟΔΚ, ΦΗΣ 

 

Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #421                                April 3, 2025

 

The other day, my granddaughter, Charley (17), gave me and Carol each a Hershey’s kiss.  What a sweetheart!  I ate mine instantly, all 22 calories.  My wife, on the other hand, peeled hers, bit off the tip and threw the rest away.  Who does that?  She barely got one calorie out of it.  It’s like licking a sirloin steak and then giving it to the dog.  It’s like buying one chocolate-covered raisin.  She did that too, you know, a few years ago at a fancy chocolate store.  Not only did she ask the clerk for one raisin, she pointed out which one she wanted, the fat one in the back on the left.  The clerk complied, weighed the lonely little thing and charged us eleven cents.  Who does that?

 

My wife does, that’s who.  She keeps herself in great shape by exercising and by eating only one chocolate-covered raisin every decade.  And she keeps her mind in shape by playing games.  She plays scrabble, bridge and Wordle on line and does Sudoku and crosswords in the paper.  She was doing a crossword the other day and the clue was “Court and Short” – five letters.  She couldn’t get it and asked me.  I said, “Rhyme.”  She asked, “Rhyme?  Why rhyme?”  I said because court and short rhyme.  She said no they don’t.  You see, St. Louis has this funny accent where the number 40 is pronounced farty, the opposite of tall is shart and nobody puts Baby in the carner.  I was raised by a Chicago-an mother, so I don’t have that accent and was able to answer the clue correctly.  It is an ongoing battle between us.

 

I really am sad to report

That my Honey cannot pronounce “short”.

She says “shart” instead

Drives me out of my head,

But I love her with all of my hort.

 

The interesting thing is that my daughters pronounce those words my way.  I guess I was the predominant influence in their lives – the strong, decisive father figure.  (I hope my wife’s not reading this.)  Truth be told, Carol and I have had our share of disagreements in fifty-seven years of marriage, and I have had about as many victories as the Washington Generals.  You see, I have the undergraduate degree in Mathematics, the graduate degree in Law and the Phi Beta Kappa key – but she has the brains.  (Too young to remember the Washington Generals?  Look it up)

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and happy.  What makes you happy?  Well, another granddaughter, Alyssa (19), just texted us a questionnaire to fill out.  It was for her college Sociology class and was about happiness.  She needed input from all age groups, and she chose us because she thinks we’re old enough to be the original cast of The Bible.  My wife and I are both 79 years old, and we look like a 158-year-old couple.  She looks 45 and I look 113.  Hey, mirrors don’t lie.  I just wish mine would stop laughing.  But besides the mirror, there are other nagging little reminders that I have passed my prime.  The main one is that I can’t even remember my prime.  When we were in North Carolina recently, I took my wife to the store to shop. Shopping for clothes is an activity I rate one step below watching C-SPAN and one step above having a tooth pulled without Novocain.  Luckily, I had a volume of short stories by Rudyard Kipling (does that even surprise you by now?) and I went to find a seat.  There were no seats for patient husbands, but near the door were two soft, comfy-looking wheelchairs.  I picked one, relaxed and opened my Rudyard.  Not a minute later, a woman carefully led her shuffling and drowsy mother to the other chair and left her.  And there we were --   the ancient and nearly-comatose woman and me sitting in our wheelchairs.  You don’t have to say it – I know. 

 

Anyway, back to the Sociology questionnaire.  It was about happiness.  One of the questions was to list the following topics in order of how important they are to your happiness:  Money, Friends, Children, Spouse, Job.  My #1 pick, of course, was my spouse.  Carol’s pick was her Friends.  Then her children.  I came in third.  I thought, “Well, third isn’t bad,” but then I recalculated.  Here’s how Carol’s list looks:

 

·        Her 75 closest friends

·        Three children

·        Eight grandchildren

·        Her hairdresser

·        Princess Kate

 

And then there’s me, in 89^th place.  In retrospect, I’m surprised I came in that high.  You see, my greatest pleasure is to mollycoddle my wife.  Mollycoddle, our Weekly Word, means to treat a person with excessive indulgence or attention, and I constantly try to make her happy, while her greatest pleasure is spending time with her friends gossiping and looking for round tables.  You know who you are.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes (As You Like It). What about me, Pops?  Am I not on your list of things that make you happy?  I follow you around more than she does and I spend more time on your lap than she does.  And I don’t shop.  Purr.

 

I was just looking at Shakespeare and thinking about when we adopted him five years ago, which was right about when Covid started.  Can you believe what we all went through back then?  I mean, who could have imagined a year:

 

·        When entering a bank without a mask was forbidden

·        When, at a family gathering where everyone was smoking pot, the only thing that was illegal was the gathering

·        When the only math the children learned all year was how to measure six feet

·        When finding a needle in a haystack was easier than finding a roll of toilet paper in a grocery store

 

That was five years ago, and yes, Shakespeare, you make me very happy.  Such a good boy.  And you make me happy too, coming back each week to read my silliness.  But I think we’ve reached the upper range of your attention span by now, so I’ll let you go.  Stay well, count your blessings and please come back next week.  I want you to, and that’s from the “hort”.  See you then.

 

#89                                Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com