Blog #438                                July 31, 2025

 

I just came up with a great name for an architect – Joaquin Closet.  And speaking of closets, I don’t have any.  First of all, the woman takes the biggest closet.  My wife’s closet is so big it has a food court.  Then she takes the second biggest closet.  Then (you know I’m right) she takes the third biggest closet.  I have a drawer by the front door and a manila envelope under the couch.  I don’t care.  The less clothes I have, the less choices I have to make in the morning and the less chance of hearing, “If you’re going out dressed like that, I’m not going with you.”

 

Because who really looks at a man the most?  That’s right, his wife.  And who looks at his wife the most?  Well -- she does!  The bathroom wall is 100% mirror.  There are makeup mirrors and hand-held mirrors, magnifying suction mirrors and full-length mirrors.  Next to the front door is a “decorative” mirror.  Decorative my behind! It’s so she can get one last look before she goes out. Then to the car which is loaded with mirrors.  The only reason the rear-view mirror swivels is so she can look at herself while she’s driving.  The only time she ever looks in a man’s eyes is when he is wearing mirrored sunglasses.  With assorted sun-glazed store windows, polished countertops and backs of spoons, she is never too far from a mirror.  Too far from a mirror?  Horrors!

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well and staying cool.  It has been stunningly hot here in St. Louis.  It’s hotter than a Taylor Swift ticket, hotter than a Caitlin Clark rookie card, hotter than the Jeffrey Epstein list, hotter than Joy Behar’s temper.

 

I know you all love Joy Behar, but every time I see her, I tell my wife I’m moving to Mudville.  Why Mudville, she asks.  Because, I reply, there is no Joy in Mudville.  If you don’t get that reference, it’s from a famous poem called Casey at the Bat, one of my favorites.  My favorite poem is The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.  You knew that, of course.  But did you know that I can recite the whole thing?  A few years ago, I just decided to memorize it.  I might have been seeing a psychiatrist at the time, which makes some sense.  I started with the first line, and when I had repeated it hundreds of times and had it down pat, I moved to the second line.  It took me six or eight months to get all 108 lines memorized, and I keep the memory fresh by repeating the entire poem at least once a week.  It takes about 6½ minutes.  Now, please, if you happen to see me out in the real world, don’t ask me to recite The Raven.  It’s happened before and I start and then they get bored and make me stop.  That gets me Raven mad.  Nevermore!

 

I have a new idea for a book, a steamy, sensual, scandal-filled exposé of a high-priced Texas accounting firm.  I’m calling it Debit Does Dallas.  Then. I’m going to write a self-help book for overweight Catholics.  It’s called Original Thin.

 

Speaking of books, I went to the library to pick one up, a 900-page hardback called The Arms of Krupp.  Nine hundred pages!  I asked the librarian if I could have the book longer than two weeks as I didn’t think I could finish the monster in that time.  You never know, she said, maybe you won’t be able to put it down.  Put it down? I said.  I can barely pick it up.

 

Here, in my Wonderful World of Weirdness, I like to tell you stories, mostly about my family and mostly true.  Here’s one.  My grandson Austin is 15 now, but when he was in pre-school, he was proudly showing off his alphabet skills to me one day.  He was perfect until he reached “P”.  Then he stopped; he couldn’t remember the rest.  “Poppy”, he said apologetically, “I only could get up to P”.  I told him it was ok.

 

He did all his letters just right

Then he stopped, but I said “That’s alright

“You got up to P

“And that’s OK by me

“I get up to P every night.”

 

I know that sounds contrived, but it is absolutely a true story, and the last three lines of the limerick were exactly what I said to him.

 

Here’s another story.  My daughter in North Carolina, Jennifer, is an animal lover with a motley collection of dogs, cats and chickens.  A few months ago, I was driving and she was in the back when I heard her say, “Oh-oh”.  I turned around and she pointed out a spider the size of a blueberry pie resting on the back of my seat.  I hate spiders. I hate spiders worse than Trump hates CNN.  Spiders and cement mixers, but that’s another story.  “Kill the damn thing,” I shrieked.  Well, Sister-Save-The-World wasn’t about to destroy a fellow creature, so she coaxed the puppy-sized monster out of the car and onto a nearby lawn.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Weaving spiders, come not here (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). My Pops loves animals.  He loves me.  But if he sees a spider, he always says, “Shakey, go get that thing.”  I never do though.  I hate spiders too.  Purr. 

 

I met a friend and classmate this week and in our discussion the word motlier came up.  I think we both made it up at the same time.  He suggested I should include that as the Weekly Word.  I always try to keep my loyal readers happy, but I looked up motlier and it doesn’t exist.  But motley does.  So, Neil, here it is.  Motley means greatly diversified or multi-colored.

 

Last week, I told you I hated shots.  That elicited a response from another friend and classmate, Joel, who told me the Marine Corps would have taught me how to deal with fear -- and then I would be scared all the time.  I told him I am scared all the time – I’m married.  But I’m brave enough to come back next week with some more drivel.  Don’t miss it.  Meanwhile, stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #437                                July 24, 2025

 

I have not been ashamed, in these weekly messages, to reveal all my quirky eccentricities and special peccadillos.  It’s fine.  I don’t mind sharing with you.  You are part of my electronic family, after all, so I might as well share a few more examples of what makes me what the rest of my family likes to call “that crazy old man”.  Hey, families are like fudge – mostly sweet with a few nuts.  So, eccentricity #1 – I do not trust anything saved electronically.  I don’t trust backups, the cloud, Carbonite or any other form of document security.  I have them all; I pay for them all, but I don’t trust them, so for everything I have written – 1,400 letters to my daughters, 1,500 limericks, several hundred poems and songs, 437 blogs to you – I have a hard copy.  Call me Ishmael!  I know it’s a waste of paper and I hate to waste paper, but it’s my stuff and I want to make sure it’s all there when I die so my family can save it for a year and then throw it in the trash.

 

Eccentricity #2 -- I really do hate to waste paper.  I tear whatever is blank into little squares and use them for scratch paper.  It’s good for the planet.  I wish you would do it too.

 

I’m asking you down on my knees

To re-use your scratch-paper please

So listen to Michael

And always recycle

‘Cause paper does not grow on trees.

 

Does it?

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  What should we talk about?  I never start to write with a plan.  The topics just kind of intrude themselves into my brain.  How about I tell you how brave I am?  A while back, I went to Dr. Skin for a treatment and she asked me to participate in a study.  I like Dr. Skin, was happy to help her out, and, a few weeks later, was back in her office, undressed and waiting for whatever.  The nurse came in and looked at me. “You know you’re going to get stitches,” she said.  “What?” I cried. “Yah,” she continued, “we punch two holes, one in an affected area and one in an unaffected area and then we have to stitch them up.  “What?”  I replied.  My vocabulary becomes very limited when I’m petrified.  John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.”  Maybe so, but this little cowboy galloped out of that office faster than Rosie O’Donnell at an Irish Trump rally.

 

Ok, I’m a wimp.  Let’s just get it out of our system and say it all together now:  YOU’RE A WIMP!  Well, you didn’t have to scream.  I don’t like stitches or drawing blood or shots.  I remember when I was a little kid and the family doctor, Dr. Golub, liked giving shots so much that he would come to my house with Nadine, his nurse, and the two of them would chase me around the bed just to stick a needle in me.  Now, when I get a shot from Dr. Hand or Dr. Knee, I try to work through my fear by telling jokes to whatever medical personnel are around.  The jokes pass the time and sometimes even get a laugh.  “I went to a doctor who told me I was fat.  I said I wanted a second opinion.  He said – you’re ugly too.”

 

 I actually did get a shot in my knee this week.  I was a little anxious about it, and I told the PA and her assistant.  The assistant said, I’ll sing you a song.  And she did, a children’s song about a kitten.  As soon as I heard it, I started to tell her about Shakespeare and by that time the shot was over.  I told you I was a wimp.  And the shot?  Didn’t hurt a bit.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  Blood will have blood (Macbeth).  I love that old man, but he is certainly a wimp.  Sometimes I scratch him a little or give him a bite, and he has to run for a bandage.  What a baby!  Humans!  Purr. 

 

Did you think peccadillo would be the Weekly Word?  You were right.  A peccadillo is a small, relatively unimportant offense or sin.  You probably have your own.

 

Let’s share some more random thoughts.  How about award shows?  I hate them.  Plus, I hate that ubiquitous red-carpet question: Who are you wearing? I’m too old to know who these people are.  They ought to have an award show for old people - The Golden Years Awards, hosted by Dick Clark.  He must still be alive somewhere.  They could give awards for the Oldest Tie or the Most Organized Pill Carrier or the Smart Phone with the Least Apps or the Longest Number of Days Without Losing Your Reading Glasses.  And “who” would all these famous oldies be wearing?  How about:

 

Oscar de la Yenta

Jimmy Choo Slowly

Donna Medi-karan                          

Diuretic Von Furstenberg

 

Calvin Coolidge was well-known as being a man of few words.  At a state dinner once, he was seated next to a woman to whom he had not spoken all evening until she turned to him and said, “Mr. President, a man today bet me that I couldn’t get you to say three words to me.”  The President looked at her and replied, “You lose.”  I, on the other hand, am a man of many words – 1,066 words to be exact – and we’re nearing that threshold now.  Just one final thought.

 

“Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it.  You may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline."

That is a quote from the movie Inherit the Wind.  I am reminded of it often by the ever-growing pace of technological growth and the plethora of new gadgets and ways to download and upload and monopolize your time.  Sometimes it’s nice just to think about a quiet place where the birds are beautiful and the crickets hum and the clouds don’t smell of gasoline.  And you can grow older – and shorter – in peace.  I hope you find that place.

 

Join me again next week.  Please stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Blog #436                                July 17, 2025

 

Hamlet was wrong.  He said there were a “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”.  Now Hamlet may have been good at soliloquies, but his math wasn’t so hot.  He couldn’t even remember what apartment he lived in; he kept saying, “2B or not 2B.”  Anyway, he sorely underestimated the natural shocks that human flesh must deal with.  It seems that people I know are coming up with more exotic and previously unheard-of symptoms, syndromes and diagnoses.  Heart stuff, esophageal stuff, brain stuff, headaches, rashes, back aches.  All of a sudden “ablation” has become a household word.  It’s all very troubling and frightening.  But, here we are, in whatever shape we are, doing the best we can and doing our damnedest to enjoy the world.  I hope I can add to that enjoyment every once in a while.

 

In the past week or so, I’ve had two friends, men in their 80s, tell me they shot their age in golf.  To shoot your age, you must be two things: you must be a really good golfer and you must be old. 

 

Talking about golf makes me think about my father, but before I embark upon this story, I must admit of two probablies.  First, I’ve probably told it to you before and second, you’ve probably forgotten it.  So let’s go.

 

My father loved golf and was pretty good at it.  For about 20 years, from my late 30s to my late 50s, I played golf with my Dad every Friday, weather permitting.  I never beat him, but by the time he was in his late 80s, his vision worsened and he had to give the game up.  He moved into an assisted living facility and got himself prepared by buying a phone (yes, a plug-it-in-the-wall phone) that had large number pads which were easy to see.  Then he memorized every phone number he would need – mine, Carol’s, his three granddaughters, the liquor store, so that by the time he went blind, he could cope.

 

One day he tried to replace the phone receiver into its cradle and put it, instead, in a glass of liquid.  We were never sure whether the glass contained water or vodka, but the result was the same.  He needed a new phone and engaged me to get a replacement.  He insisted it had to be the same one – white, with the big number pads.  Where did you get it, I asked.  Famous-Barr, he replied.  Famous-Barr, for those of you too young to remember, was a department store.

 

So I went to Famous-Barr, but they only had black.  I knew he wanted white, but what difference did it make?  I bought the phone, brought it to him and set it up.  “Is that the same one I had before?” he asked.  I told him it was.  “Is it white?”  Now, I could have lied to him, but he’s my Dad, so I just said, “What difference does it make?  You’re blind.”  “But the white looks better,” he insisted.  Ok, I returned the phone and got him a white one.  Of course I did.  He was my Dad.  He’s the one who taught me how to play golf and baseball and basketball.

 

And speaking of golf.  Were we speaking of golf?  Oh yes, to shoot your age, you must be two things: you must be a good golfer and you must be old.  I qualify in only one of those categories, so I’m not expecting to shoot my age.  I’m happy if I shoot my blood-pressure.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Do you ever have problems with the IRS?  Last week, the mail included a notice from that miserable, draconian agency informing me that I did something wrong and owed them $1700 in penalties.  I was upset, mortified, horrified.  What was I to do?  I took a deep breath and remembered Alice.  This is a story for another time, but there was a period in my life when for two years, every night, every single night, I listened to a song called Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.  The song lasts 22 minutes and used to calm me down.

 

Whenever I’m bitter and callous

And filled with depression and malice

I can always calm down

With the comforting sound

Of 22 minutes with Alice.

 

So I listened to Alice, took another deep breath, found the number to call and prepared myself for the inevitable and endless torture. You know, it isn’t so much the waiting that I mind.  I’m sure all of the vicious, greedy and evil employees of the IRS must be very busy stealing and cheating us poor slobs out of our money.  Plus, I’m certain that each sadistic, sinister agent gets a demonic thrill making us wait on the phone.  No, it isn’t the waiting I mind; it’s the music. Where do they get that crap?  If that’s elevator music, the elevator is on its way to Hell.  I believe most of the mental health problems in America are caused by “hold” music.  Over and over, never-ending, loud and horrible.  But I had no choice, and I punched in the number.  Six minutes later a very polite gentleman answered the phone.  He listened to my story and decided to waive all penalties.  The entire call lasted eleven minutes.  Don’t ever say anything bad about my friends at the IRS.  Thank you, Alice.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  When the sea was calm all ships alike showed mastery in floating (Coriolanus).  He doesn’t need to listen to that song any more ‘cause he has me to calm him down.  When he sits down to read, I jump onto his lap and we purr to each other.  Most of the time, we both fall asleep.  Purr.

 

Mortified is our Weekly Word.  It means embarrassed, ashamed or humiliated, kind of like I feel when I, a college graduate, law-school educated, Phi Beta Kappa member, have to ask help, in order to get a friggin’ sandwich at a fast-food kiosk, from a minimum wage teenager who thought second-grade was the best three years of his life.  Wait, I need to calm down.  You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.

 

I’d better go now.  Stay well, please, and count your blessings.  See you next week.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #435                                         July 10, 2025

 

After dinner most nights I begin my evening activities, which mostly consist of finding a room in which my wife is not watching television.  Oops, too late.  She has both televisions blasting on different channels.  I searched for reasons not to blow my brains out and I found one – writing to you.  I like it, and you do too, I guess.  So, let’s get started

 

I am considering coming out of retirement and becoming a Marriage Counsellor.  You see, I have a unique ability to view a domestic conflict from both sides.  A few years ago, I had a cornea transplant and the donor was a 62-year-old woman from Kansas City.  Thus, my left eye is female.  My right eye, therefore, gives me the male perspective while my left sees things from the feminine point of view.  Hence, the marriage counselling gig.  “Yes, Mr. Smith, I can see with my right eye that you are a dedicated and caring husband.  But with my left eye I see that you always get lost and wear linen in November.”  The first candidate for my transplant was a 50-year-old man who had died of a heart attack.  They told me that was great because the guy was healthy.  Healthy? I asked.  How long had he been healthy before he died of a heart attack?  We switched to the lady from Kansas City.

 

The eye surgery was performed by a local physician named Dr. Blinder.  Seriously!  Now what perverse sense of fate would lead someone with that name to that profession?  My Cardiologist is named Dr. Sewall, which is pretty close to See-Well.  He should have been an eye doctor.  Anyway, I have mentioned the odd coincidence to friends and have been rewarded with other doctors who maybe should have chosen a different specialty.  Apparently, there is a dentist named Dr. Payne and a surgeon named Dr. Butcher.  Someone told me that in Florida resides a plastic surgeon named Dr. Pricey.  In Texas, there is a urologist named Dr. Dickey and an OB-GYN named Dr. Fingers. Unless my friends are fibbing to me, these are all real.

 

But you wouldn’t fib to me, would you?  Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and that you had a nice Independence Day holiday.  You know, I really think that the Founding Fathers made a huge mistake.  They should have put the Fourth of July in the middle of December.  That way, the fireworks could start at 5:00, when it gets dark, and everyone could be in bed by 9:00.  In July, it gets dark so late that by the time the fireworks start, I’m drowsy.  Just a thought.

 

Here’s another thought.  What’s all this kerfuffle about P. Diddy?  Who is he anyway?  The first time I heard “P. Diddy”, I thought it was a diagnosis from a urologist.  Aren’t there more important things to worry about?  Politics, the Big Beautiful Bill, Iran, Israel, what Oprah wore to the Bezos wedding.  Those are important.  But P. Diddy?  Enough.

 

And even more preposterous and puerile is the hotdog-eating contest that many of my friends were talking about.  I don’t give a flying frankfurter about some clown eating 70 hotdogs in ten minutes.  It’s disgusting and stupid and insulting to all the hungry people in the world.

 

Ok, I’d better calm down.  Let’s talk about puerile, the Weekly Word.  It means childishly silly and trivial.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Unquiet meals make ill digestions (Comedy of Errors).  That hotdog thing must have been won by a dog.  If you put a truck-full of hotdogs in front of a dog, the silly thing would eat until it exploded.  A cat would just walk by and order some salmon paté.  Purr.

 

Now back to doctors.  I visited a doctor recently, Dr. Hand, to get a shot for trigger finger.  I love this guy; he’s so entertaining and friendly.  But he’s also late.  He made me wait 45 minutes this time, and I decided to give him some advice.

 

Now talking with you has been great

But it makes your appointments run late

You should know that your patients

Do not have much patience

And we would prefer not to wait.

 

I actually did say that to him, albeit not in rhyming form, and he responded with a smile and said, “I don’t care; I like talking to my patients.”

 

I got a call the other day from some marketing company that wanted to pay me fifty bucks to participate in a 2-hour focus group on radio preferences.  Why not?  I have time between taking pills, reading books, writing letters to my kids, writing a blog, taking pills, doing my errands, visiting doctors, writing a limerick, playing with Shakespeare and taking pills.

 

I even had time to start writing a book about old people.  I got as far as coming up with some potential titles.  Here they are:

 

·        The World According to AARP

·        Rheumatism at the Top

·        To Kill an Early Bird

·        Cataract on a Hot Tin Roof

·        A Clockwork Prune

·         A Tale of Two Colonoscopies

·         Atlas Limped

·         Into Thin Hair

 

Back to the radio marketing.  They started by asking my age, and as soon as they found out I was older than Methuselah’s uncle, they booted me. They don’t care what radio stations old people listen to.  Seniors probably just listen to NPR and Golden Oldies.  And anyway, who cares about old people in general?  They clog up the highways by driving slowly.  They waste our country’s medical resources by taking too long to die.  They pester their children about the simplest technological task.  Who needs these silly old people anyway?  Unless you’re a four-year-old or six or eight or ten, and you want a really cool bedtime story about dinosaurs and princesses and silly old men who fall all over themselves and make you giggle and who never stop loving you no matter what.  That’s ok, I didn’t have time for the stupid survey anyway.

 

Besides, it’s bedtime now, so goodnight to all my grandchildren.  Sleep well, my darlings.  And to all my loyal readers, don’t get all jealous on me.  I’ve told you plenty of stories already, and I’m pretty sure some of them have put you to sleep.  So goodnight, Gracie.  Stay well, enjoy your Summer and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #434                                July 3, 2025

 

I’m feeling old.  No, it’s not because my pacemaker battery needs replacement, and it’s not because every flavor of ice-cream I ever liked has been discontinued.  No, the reason I’m feeling old is Taco Bell.  I should explain.  Someone had told my wife that there was an avocado something-or-other at Taco Bell that she would like.  So, one night last week, we went.  We entered the restaurant so we could look at a menu and ask some questions.  But instead, we found a sign instructing us that we must place our order at the handy-dandy computerized kiosk.  I went to the counter to ask a question but got no response from any of the people working there.  So we tried the kiosk.  It was impossible.  My wife and I are not stupid.  At least that’s what we thought before entering this exercise in mental torture.  Now, I’m sure any normal eight-year-old can order their favorite taco-schmaco with no trouble at all, but to an almost-octogenarian with reading glasses who was unfamiliar with the menu to begin with – not possible.  I was frustrated.  I was embarrassed.  I was furious that there was no-one to ask for help.  We left and went through the Drive-Thru (they can’t even spell “through” right).  At least someone there would have to speak to us.  And she did, a lovely young woman from Bangladesh.  We could not understand one word she said.  Besides which, the speaker through which her lovely voice emerged was salvaged from the Titanic.  Why, in this era of highly-engineered sound equipment, can’t they make an adequate drive-thru speaker?  It was a horrible, demeaning experience.  “The world is too much with us,” wrote William Wordsworth.  I’m pretty sure he wrote that right after visiting a Taco Bell.

 

The next morning, I was scheduled for a CT scan.  I arrived at the hospital, only to find that I was required to register at a computerized kiosk.  Oy!  I did the best I could, and I must have done okay, because they gave me the CT scan – and a chicken quesadilla.

 

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope for are feeling well and enjoying the weather.  In St. Louis, we have two seasons – Winter and my wife’s birthday.  Starting in late June and ending in September, the birthday feting is continuous.  Yesterday was Carol’s actual birthday.  I won’t tell you how old she is, but she looks half her age.  Her birthday is the beginning of a months-long saturnalia of lunches, brunches, dinners, parties, festivals, soirees and celebrations which will involve more revelers than the Bezos wedding.  My wife gets taken out more than the trash.  Well, why not?  It’s not every day you turn – oops, I almost let the cat out of the bag.  No, not you, Shakespeare.  Relax.

 

Summer is always the season to take to the streets in protest to something or other.  This year, they’re complaining about immigration policy and abortion laws and any number of things.  Have you noticed that most of the demonstrators are young?  Now, I don’t want to complain.  The world has an over-abundant supply of self-pity and I really don’t need to add to it, but the truth is that we seniors have plenty to complain about.  Taxes, Social Security, health care, aching backs, salt – but what can we do about it, riot?  Can you just picture a bunch of old people marching the streets chanting:  WHAT DO WE WANT?  WE FORGOT.  WHEN DO WE WANT IT?  WE FORGOT THAT TOO.

 

We’d loot and we’d burn and we’d riot

Except we are too old to try it.

If the Cops told us Halt

We would never assault --

‘Cause we’re on a no-assault diet.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat: I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest (Much Ado About Nothing).  We cats should protest.  CAT LIVES MATTER, PURR.

 

Let’s do the Weekly Word.  A saturnalia is a period of general merrymaking, which is every Thursday, of course, when you receive my goofy blog.

 

And tomorrow will be another period of general merrymaking as it is Independence Day, which celebrates the adoption of The Declaration of Independence.  Enjoy the fireworks and the barbecue.  Don’t get burned by a sparkler or stay up too late.  I don’t have any nostalgic stories about the Fourth of July.  My parents used to take me every year to Washington University, where we would sit in the bleachers and watch what to a small child in the 1950s was a mesmerizing and glorious display of magical lights in the sky.  Then to Pevely Dairy to eat an ice-cream cone and watch the pretty colored fountain.  Wow, that was seventy years ago and more. 

 

 

At the Zoo, the weather was fine and there was a nice steady flow of tourists.  I saw one young woman standing by the Aldabra Giant Tortoises.  Aldabra is one of the Seychelles Islands.  If that’s not helpful, the Seychelles are in the Indian Ocean.  What? – I hear you cry.  Seychelles?  Tortoises?  What is that wordy old fool rambling about now?  You should already know that I read strange books and am a “diligent student of the impractical and the largely useless”.  That’s what they said about Herodotus, and who remembers him?  Actually, he was a Greek who wrote the first history of the world around 380 BC.  You’d think there wasn’t much history to write about back then, but he was somehow prolific.

 

Anyway, the young woman was upset because her young son, whom she was holding, had knocked her sunglasses off into the tortoise enclosure.  There they were, eight inches from a 600-pound tortoise.  It wasn’t possible to lean over and get them, so I told her to wait, and I found a security guy.  He was young and serious looking, and I didn’t want to disturb him, but when I told him the situation, he jumped into action, called the reptile house and summoned a keeper out into the tortoise enclosure.  The keeper retrieved the glasses and gave the tortoise three loving smacks on the shell.  Everyone was happy.

 

And you’re probably happy too, now that I’m done for this week.  But I’ll be back next week.  So enjoy your Fourth of July.  Stay safe and well.  And count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com