Blog #493                                August 20, 2026

 

Movie Review: The movie SIX was a filmed production of the live musical performed in London.  SIX is the story of the six wives of Henry VIII.  Henry was the English monarch from 1509 to 1547, the father of Queen Elizabeth I and a song by Herman’s Hermits.  The cast consisted of six women, each playing one of the wives, and they sang and danced energetically while telling their stories.  They were very good.  But, as George Bernard Shaw said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language", and it was very difficult to understand what these girls were saying.  What few words we did understand, however, made it clear that the whole emphasis of the show was a celebration of Woman Power and how pusillanimous men are.  By the way, every member of the musical band was a woman.  So, if you’re looking for a Women’s Lib “high”, go for it.  You’ll enjoy the exuberant vivacity of the cast, but you won’t understand much of what they’re saying.

 

We are going out to dinner tonight.  I asked where we were going and my lovely bride said, “We’re going to Lester’s; be ready at 6:30.  Wear the khaki pants and the pink shirt.  You’re getting the chef salad no onions, no cucumbers. And don’t slow down for any yellow lights.”  I’m wondering -- why exactly does she need me to go?  I bet if I dressed a mannequin in the khaki pants and the pink shirt, she wouldn’t even know the difference.  She’d probably just say, You acted like a dummy tonight.

 

Hi there and welcome to Blog #493.  Man, these numbers are getting big.  Where does the time go?  It feels like just yesterday I was picking out my own clothes and deciding what I wanted to eat for dinner.  I hope you’re feeling well.

 

And speaking of movies, how about a story? You have nothing else to do.  As Shakespeare would say, a tale told by an idiot.  This happened a couple of years ago, when Carol said we were going to a movie.  I didn’t know which movie we were going to see, but it didn’t much matter.  I dropped her at the entrance.  Every morning she crawls, climbs and stomps around the house doing yoga-esque contortions and smiling like Richard Simmons on speed.  Then she hops on the treadmill for multiple miles.  But it is apparently too much of an effort for her to walk from the parking lot to the entrance.  So I dropped her.  Prince Charming! 

 

She bought two tickets, and when I entered, she handed me one and went to the ladies’ room.  I got a glass of water, showed the attendant the ticket that said Film A, and was directed to Theater 4.  I went in.  No Carol.  I picked a seat and waited.  No Carol.  I watched the coming trailers – all 827 of them.  At which point Carol entered and, in a voice loud enough to be heard in Istanbul, said, “You’re in the wrong theater!”  The patrons began to chuckle mercilessly as I slinked sheepishly out to follow my wife to a different theater.  And how, I hear you snicker, had I wound up in the wrong theater when my ticket clearly said the movie that was playing there?  Well, they printed Film A when she bought the tickets even though she wanted to see Film B.  No big deal; she just went to the theater showing Film B.  EXCEPT SHE FAILED TO TELL HER POOR DUMB HUSBAND.   And now everyone in the county is talking about the ignorant namby-pamby who couldn’t find the right theater and his skinny wife who had to come rescue him.  I think tonight I’ll just wear a sign that says USELESS SLOB.  Best to warn everybody up front.  See, a tale told by an idiot.  That Shakespeare was pretty smart.

 

I don’t really understand why she didn’t tell me where to go.  She does it all the time.  In fact, she and all her buttinsky ancestors have been telling men where to go, what to say and how to live their lives all throughout history.  For instance,

 

“No, Chris, don’t pick the first New World you see.  Let’s keep looking.  Maybe we’ll find one on sale.” 

 

“No, Abe, you don’t need to waste time shopping now.  Let’s go see a play.  And wear that tall hat”

 

“Forget it, Arthur, see if they have a round table.”

 

“Adam, put down that candy bar – too much fat.  Have an apple instead.”

 

“Sorry, Attila, I need more room.  You’ll have to move your clothes to Europe.  Thanks, Hun.”

 

“What did God offer you, Moses, eight commandments?  Go back up there.  See if you can get ten.”

 

Message from Shakespeare:  The play’s the thing (Hamlet).  Pops keeps talking about that other Shakespeare.  Who cares about some dumb old poet that nobody can understand when you can have a soft, intelligent cat?  I’ll bet there are more people reading this message right now than are reading Hamlet.  Purr. 

 

Let’s talk about something other than my wife, like Foreign Accent Syndrome.  Yes, there actually is such a thing.  Trust me.  Google it.  I just love Google.  The entire knowledge of Mankind is on Google.  Or should that be Womankind?  Personkind? Himandherkind?  Oh, who gives a rat’s Google?

 

Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) occurs when someone has a head injury and responds by talking with an unfamiliar foreign accent.  There have been cases with British, Chinese and Hungarian accents following blows to the head.  Honest!  I know this one is harder to accept than Anthony Fauci saying, I’m not in it for the money, but it’s true.

                            

There once was a fellow named Dennis

Who fell down one day playing tennis

The trauma and stress

Gave the guy FAS

And he talks now like Jose Jimenez.

 

How about a Weekly Word?  It’s namby-pamby, and it means a feeble person lacking in strength or courage.

 

Well, this poor player has strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage and is ready to wind it up.  That was more BS (Bill Shakespeare).  Go on, read Hamlet or Macbeth between now and next week.  You’ll like it.  And there’s going to be a pop quiz.  Don’t forget to count your blessings and try to stay well.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #492                                August 13, 2026

 

Hi there.  Thanks for coming back.  I hope you are feeling young and wonderful and can help me understand how my wife’s brain works.  Just the other day she called me.  “Fred and Ethel are going to a movie at 4:45.”  No, she didn’t use those names, but everything else I’m about to tell you is true.  She continued, “I really don’t care one bit about this movie, but if you want, we can go with them or just meet them for dinner.”  I asked her the name of the movie and she told me, adding, “I couldn’t care less.  I have no interest in that movie.”  I said ok, let’s just meet them for dinner.  And she said, “Or maybe I’ll just go to the movie with them and you can meet us later.”

 

Now you tell me, is this woman making any sense?  It’s like being married to Yogi Berra.  Yogi, the bad boy of badinage, was famous for his strange sayings.  Like you can observe a lot by watching and if they don’t want to come, you can’t stop them and of course I didn’t really say everything I said.  My own little Yogi is actually famous for some of her sayings as well.  The grandkids call them Nonnie-isms.  One goes like this: you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your relatives.  I told you she was like Yogi.

 

But she is loyal and caring.  She went with me to visit Dr. Heart for a stress test. The instructions did not allow me any caffeine for 24 hours before the test. What?  No caffeine?  No Diet-Coke in the morning?  That’s like telling Donald Trump, NO TWEETING.  It’s like telling Kim Jong Un, NO HAIR GEL.  It’s like telling a Catholic priest, NO ALTAR BOYS.  By the time I reached the doctor’s office, I was as jumpy as a caterpillar at a Sumo Wrestling tournament. 

 

I don’t do the treadmill variety stress test.  Instead, I get an injection of the nuclear isotope Thallium-201.  It’s a little risky, but I’m glad I did it.  With these things, you have to be aggressive.

 

For chest pains I should be pro-active

So a stress test just sounded attractive

And the good news, my friend:

I survived to the end

But the bad news: I’m radioactive.

 

I really don’t like talking about personal health issues, but it is part of my world.  And if you’re loyal enough to waste a few minutes of your Thursdays with me, then I guess I’m part of your world now.  Wow, that sounds like a lot of responsibility on my part.  I guess I’d better make you laugh.  The two choices for my stress test were the treadmill or the nuclear injection.  Those choices are the modern Scylla and Charybdis.  If you’ve seen The Odyssey, you should know what that means.  Anyway, I became stressed another way they hadn’t even thought of.  By the time I was in there five minutes, I was shivering enough from the cold to stress out a polar bear.  I was shaking more than a starlet at a meeting with Harvey Weinstein.  Why are the labs so cold? 

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  I am to wait, though waiting so be hell (Sonnet 58).  I don’t need a stress test because I don’t have much stress.  I do a lot of sleeping and a lot of resting on a warm lap.  The only stress I have is when Pops goes away, and I have to worry if he’s coming back.  I always wait by the door for him.  Purr.

 

Doctors and stress tests and medications!  It’s a lot of work being a senior.  But we all adapt and come to terms with it.  The other evening, we went to dinner with friends and one of the guys at the table asked the waiter what wine goes well with Lipitor.  Maybe we should just eat dinner at the Emergency Room.  They have a new restaurant there called Broken Bonefish Grill.

 

By the way, the result of my stress test was that I was going to live to be 120.  I’m not sure I want to live that long.  You’ll be a bunch of old people by then and I won’t know how to deal with you.  So while you’re still young, let’s talk.

 

Many of you send me comments from time to time, and I honestly love getting them, but I have noticed a trend lately.  Here’s a typical comment: Love your blog, keep talking about Carol, she’s just like me. Or sometimes I get: Love your blog, quit picking on Carol, you drive too slow.  I spend ten hours writing and re-writing and editing each one of these, strain and suffer with anxiety over what to say and how to say it, and after all that – my wife gets all the fan mail.  Well, she does have to put up with me, and that deserves some kind of award I suppose.

 

What should we talk about now?  Yogi said if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else, so let’s see where we wind up.  There’s an Olympic event called Race-Walking.  My daughter Jennifer used to do it.  She said it was fabulous exercise.  You’ve seen it, I’m sure.  The racers walk heel to toe and must stay in contact with the ground at all times.  Bob Costas said seeing who can walk the fastest is like seeing who can whisper the loudest.  I think it looks silly.  Yes, Jen, I know it does take skill and stamina.  But so does eating an Audi.

 

Which reminds me that I think last week was National Gluttony Day.  It was August 8.  And what did I do on 8/8?  I ate/ate.  And that’s why it’s National Gluttony Day!  But I’ve run out of my time and your patient indulgence.  Yogi said it’s not over till it’s over.  And you know what?  It’s over!

 

Except for the Weekly Word.  It is badinage, which means humorous or witty conversation, something we try to do here every week.  At least we try.

 

Thanks for sticking with me for so long.  Stay well, count your blessings and come back to see me next week. 

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

                                                Or just call Carol directly.

 

 

 

 

Blog #491                                August 6, 2026

 

I have many faults.  One is, according to my wife, not driving fast enough.  I know I don’t drive as fast or aggressively as she’d like, but I look at it this way – in the car I can adjust the temperature precisely as I like, listen to whatever kind of music I want and rest comfortably in a cushioned seat.  I’m happy!  Do I need to go faster?  Do I need to get to the doctor’s office two minutes earlier so that I can wait forty minutes?  Do I need to race home so I won’t miss the opening minutes of The View?  What’s the hurry?  Relax and enjoy the Summer.  I could eliminate her criticism of my driving just by letting her drive, but she makes me nervous when she’s behind the wheel.  First of all, she sits too far forward.  She’s closer to the steering wheel than the guy who painted it.

 

And second, my wife is good at everything -- except waiting.  She is starting now to time the red lights and is majorly unhappy if they are too long.  And she has zero patience for anyone that is in her way.  “I’m going around that person. Who allows them to drive?  I’m not stopping for that light.  MOVE!”  She’s like a Maxine Waters who has skipped her Ritalin.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well, and I hope you feel like going to a movie, because I have a Movie Review for you.  Hades Town is a movie recording of the stage musical as performed in London.  It was terrific.  It follows the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, two lovers with great singing voices and names too difficult to pronounce.  And don’t bother to read up on the story before you see it.  That would only give away the ending.  What’s important is that the voices are spectacular, the staging is clever and professional and the rhyming of the lyrics is wondrous (I’m a rhyming guy).  Go see it!

 

Did you vote this week?  In Missouri, we had primary races and a few propositions to vote on.  The problem is, the ads are so confusing that you don’t know which side they’re promoting.  I wish the ad would just be the Republican leader of the state legislature standing up there and saying, “Listen, if you’re a Republican, here’s how I want you to vote.  Period!”  The same for the Democrats.  Voters are sheep.  They need somebody to direct them.  They know what party they support.  They just don’t know how that party wants them to vote.

 

I know this will sound weird, but someone very reliable told me that the Tupperware Company, besides making all the kitchen stuff you love, also makes coffins.  I told you it was weird.  Weird enough to deserve a rhyme:

 

The Tupperware party? Fantastic!

But it ended in something quite drastic

When we buried old Sid

With a burp from the lid

In a box made of Tupperware plastic.

 

This Fall, I will have four grandchildren in college.  They just grow up so fast.  I remember telling them stories.  I did most of the storytelling because I was good at it and because I couldn’t trust Carol to do it.  Once I heard her telling the story of Cinderella, but she left out any reference to glass slippers.  Cinderella with no slippers?  Where does the woman come up with this garbage?  I asked her why she left out the slipper part, and she replied, “Nobody wears glass slippers.”  Hard to argue with, I suppose.  She was so flippant about the Fairy Tales, that I told her never to tell stories to the grandkids any more.  She always seemed to forget the facts.  Like when she told them a Little Red Riding Hood doesn’t go with brown boots.  Or that The Tortoise and the Hare was about a couple named Michael and Carol.  Or that Beauty and the Beast was about a Princess named Melania. 

 

But her favorite story is Goldilocks and the Three Tables.  It’s about a girl who goes to a restaurant with a party of six and the mean old hostess wants to seat them at a rectangular table.  No, no, says Goldilocks, this table is tooooo square!  Then the mean old hostess tries to seat them at a table for eight.  No, no, says Goldilocks, this table is tooooo big. 

 

When we go to a restaurant now, I never sit down at the first table.  I know better.  I stand peacefully in a corner while Goldilocks and her cronies wander the entire establishment looking for a table that is juuuuust right. 

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul (Hamlet).  My favorite Fairy Tale is Puss in Boots, although I only need three boots.  I actually like when Pops tells me a story when I’m sitting on his lap.  His voice is very soft and kind.  He’s such a good boy.  Purr.

 

Our Weekly Word is flippant which means not showing a serious or respectable attitude.

 

A couple of weeks ago, near the end of the blog, I said I hoped that I brightened your Thursdays.  That’s a pretty slimy way of begging for a compliment, isn’t it?  It was gratifying to learn that none of you would fall for a cheap trick like that.

 

You men know what begging for a compliment is.  It’s when your wife says, “Honey, do you think this dress makes me look fat?”  A husband must either know how to respond to that properly or have a good orthopedic surgeon.

 

Actually, I did receive a few responses that said, “Yes, you do brighten my day.”  Most of them were from my female readers, and I thank them very much.  I wonder if my wife is upset that I talk to so many of my limerick girlfriends via email.  Just to be safe, let’s keep it among ourselves.  If she got mad and stopped picking out my clothes, that would be a bad thing. I’d leave the house half the time looking like Clarabell.  

 

And if you remember Clarabell, you’re my kind of people.  Thanks for visiting with me today.  Stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll see you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send Comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

  

 

Blog #490                                July 30, 2026

 

It’s almost August and summer will soon be gone.  But there’s still time for vacationing and outdoor activities like boating.  We used to go boating once in a while with friends at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.  It’s a large, beautiful lake surrounded by very expensive lake houses.  I remember the last time we boated there, three senior guys and their wives.  As we pulled away from the dock, the friend who was driving handed me a map of the lake.  Now I could show you on a globe where Djibouti is, or Komodo or the Andaman Islands or Timbuktu for that matter.  But with directions – well, not so good.  Men, although they will never admit it, are just not good at directions.  Let me put it this way – if they dropped me on first base, I couldn’t find second base.  But, we puttered around while the girls enjoyed the outdoors by sitting in the part of the boat farthest away from the sunshine and the water and discussing the color of their toenails and whether Donald and Melania will stay married.

 

The guys ignored the girls (isn’t it cute that I call these 80+ women “girls”?), because we were too busy obsessing over the multi- million-dollar mansions crowding the shoreline.  That one must cost $3 million.  Look at that one.  It looks like a castle.  I just don’t get a thrill ogling an $8 million mansion, knowing that I couldn’t afford the light-fixture in the 9^th bathroom.

 

I used to be rich, and it was good to be rich for a couple of years, until it all went away.  But I can’t say I spent my life that much differently.  I just spent it in different places – Hawaii, France, Italy, Martha’s Vineyard, Russia.  Talking about getting lost, that tortuous Russia trip was a challenge.  We started in Stockholm on a cruise ship and visited Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Germany and Denmark.  By the sixth day, I was totally confused.

 

There are so many places I’ve been

I don’t know what country I’m in

I cannot determine

A Swede from a German

And can’t tell a Pole from a Finn.

 

Poor Poland!  Being stuck between Russians and Germans for a thousand years makes Dante’s Inferno look like Canyon Ranch.

 

Tortuous will be our Weekly Word.  It means full of twists and turns.  And here’s a tortuous little story for you:  President Donald Trump, Vice-President J.D. Vance and Senator Chuck Schumer were flying on Air Force One when the President said, “You know, I could throw a thousand hundred-dollar bills out the window and make a thousand people happy.”  The Vice-President responded, “Well, I could throw two thousand fifty-dollar bills out the window and make two thousand people happy.”  Chuck Schumer just smirked and thought, “I could throw both of your asses out the window and make half the world ecstatic.”

 

Ok, just a little joke to keep you smiling.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re smiling and I hope you’re feeling well.  I’m reading a Larry McMurtry book in which one of the characters says, “Old age is a worthless damn thing.”  I can’t agree.  I believe my senior years are filled with great opportunities to add and contribute.  And I don’t mean reading more books or going to classes or visiting places I’ve never seen.  Whatever I might gain from those things will be gone when I’m gone.  No, I mean the opportunities to leave behind some of yourself in the things you teach, in the care you take of others, even in the entertainment you might provide.  “It’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.”  Helen Walton said that, and Helen should know.  Being the wife of Sam Walton, and the richest woman in America at one time, she gathered and scattered more than most.  Helen is also famous for another quote:  Marriage is a relationship where one is always right and the other is always the husband.

 

Summer also means golf and swimming and vacations.  I remember one Summer, my granddaughter was vacationing on the beach, when I got a call.  “Poppy,” she said, “I got splashed by a whale!”  I, of course, responded with the dumbest question of the year:  Was it a big whale?  A big whale?  Of course it was a big whale, you ignorant old poop.  They don’t make little whales.  That’s why they call them whales!  The book’s not called Moby Little Dick, is it?   She’s precocious.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring (Romeo and Juliet).  Summer, winter, who cares?  I never go outside anyway.  It’s always comfy in our home, and if I’m ever cold I can go schnoogle with Pops.  Life is good!  Purr.

 

I love my doctors.  I love them so much that I have forgotten their names.  That’s why I call them Dr. Heart and Dr. Skin and Dr. Hand.  I do have one criticism of doctors – they all seem to be in love with their titles.  On every list – donors’ list, membership list, guest list – their names have to have the DR in front.  Nobody else has his or her occupation permanently affixed to his or her name. 

 

So I was at a funeral (yes, another one) and there, on the marble walls lining the chapel, were names memorializing the deceased.  And on one, instead of Joe Schmo, it said Dr. Joe Schmo.  Seriously?  I thought death was the Grand Equalizer.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  I guess now it’s dust to Dr. Dust.

 

My favorite doctor is Dr. David, my son-in-law in North Carolina.  Not only is he a radiologist, but he has his own rock n’ roll band.  He has some goofy name for the band, and I don’t like it, so I gave him a list of names appropriate for a radiologist’s band.  Here they are:

 

·        The Rolling Bones

·         X-Ray Charles

·         Cat Scan Stevens

·         The Mammograms and the Papagrams

·         Donnie & MRI

·         Jethro Skull

·         Pelvis Presley.

And now it’s time to go.  I hope you enjoyed this week’s goofiness.  Stay well, stay out of the heat and count your blessings.  I’ll be back next week.  Don’t get lost. See you then.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

Blog #489                                July 23, 2026

 

Have you noticed that on every corner, they’re building a new Senior Citizens Residence Center?  Do you know who they’re building them for?  They’re building them for all those people who rode bikes without a helmet when they were kids.  All those people who drank water from a hose, played outside without sunscreen, put butter on their popcorn and rode with nine other kids in the back of the station wagon with no seatbelts.  All those people who played with dirt and acorns and bugs, ate hotdogs every day and swam in the quarry.  And all those people who stared for hours at Howdy Doody and Lash Larue while double-dipping their spoon in the Peter Pan jar.  I wonder how we all made it this far.

 

But I’m glad we did.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling spiffy!  My wife is out celebrating her birthday for the 23^rd time, so I have some time to chat.  My coevals and I have made it this far, they tell us, by eating healthily.  By “they”, I mean the ever-increasing accumulation of supercilious busybodies who think they know how to run my life.  Well, I have a bulletin for them – there is only one person who knows how to run my life - Carol.   And she does not need your help!

 

How about coeval as our Weekly Word?  A coeval is a person of roughly the same age as oneself; a contemporary.  Where else can you learn a useless word every week?

 

You probably can tell that I love telling stories.  Most of my stories have been told to my grandchildren.  Tyler used to sit on my lap and say, “Poppy, say a once-upon-a-time.”  I tried telling stories to Carol, but it didn’t work out.  She’d always be working a crossword puzzle, reading a book and making dates for one of her birthday celebrations all at the same time.  Yet she was still able to criticize every Mother Goose or Brothers Grimm story that I told.

 

Forget that Rapunzel woman.  Nobody wears their hair that long anymore.

What mother would name a kid Rumpelstiltskin?  That’s ridiculous.

Glass slippers are out!

The tortoise beats the hare?  That’s stupid.  The tortoise is too slow.

Jill would never have gone up that hill with Jack.  She would have gone shopping.

Gotta go now.  Thanks for the story.  Next time talk faster.

 

Maybe I’ll do better telling you a once-upon-a-time.  Once upon a time, 59 years ago, a skinny little boy (21) married a beautiful girl (21).  They saved her wedding gown for over 30 years thinking their first daughter, Jennifer, would wear it, but Jennifer was taller than her mother.  Besides, a bride wants her own dress.  I’m surmising this, of course, never having been a bride or being in possession of even the smallest sliver of fashion acumen.  Anyway, Jennifer got her own wedding gown and we saved that and then there was Abby’s wedding dress and we saved that too.  And that made three. Stephanie was married at a ranch in the wine country of California, and the wedding attire was more blue-jean than white.  

 

I’m rambling here, but it’s making me think of the time years ago when one of my employees told me her granddaughter was getting married and they were doing everything without spending money.  Grandma was doing the cooking and a friend had offered their house for the reception.  In the spirit, I told her we had three wedding dresses in the cedar closet and I’d be happy to let her granddaughter choose one.  I don’t think it would fit, the Grandma said; she’s 8 ½ months pregnant.  Wow, I said, I hope she doesn’t have the baby while she’s walking down the aisle.

 

The wedding was slightly belated

The bride was already dilated

We sang “Here Comes the Bride

Eight centimeters wide

To get herself wed, then sedated.”

 

Carol has begun to listen to classical music when she reads.  First of all, I cannot do two things at once.  I cannot read while listening to anything.  I cannot talk and drive at the same time.  Anyway, the classical music she plays is very pleasant, but it’s not for me, and the reason is that it takes too long.  If you have something good, get it done in three minutes.  That’s about my limit, and that’s why I love Rock ‘n Roll.

 

But there was one exception.  I have often shared with you some of my eccentricities, peculiarities and peccadillos, and if you’ve read enough of these blogs, you will have realized that this kind of crap cannot be coming from a stable mind, and you’d be right.  One of my most unstable periods occurred about 20 years ago, when I actually began to visit a shrink.  My symptom was that I was listening to the same song every night, Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.  Every night, every single night, I would sit in the kitchen with my iPod, or whatever it was we were using then, and listen to Alice’s Restaurant, which doesn’t seem so bad until you realize that Alice’s Restaurant lasts for 22 minutes and 26 seconds.  I don’t think the shrink helped me any, and my devotion to the song faded away over the years, but the experience did lead to my understanding of Snow White.

 

Snow White was actually the first psychiatrist, and she began practicing when she was visited by the Seven Dwarfs.  She asked each one of them if he was Happy, and when only one said yes, she knew they needed help.  She hung up a Psychiatrist shingle, and one day, a neighbor saw the dwarfs leaving her office and said, “What is she doing to those little fellows, shrinking them?  And that’s how the term “shrink” became associated with psychiatrists.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Come, now a roundel and a fairy song (A Midsummer Night’s Dream).  I think it should have been Snow White and the Seven Cats, and they’d elect me as their leader and call me Chairman Meow.  Purr.

 

Ok, that’s enough crazy for one week.  Please come back next week.  I’ll tell you another story if you do.  And in the meantime, stay well and count your blessings.  And remember, you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@mail.com