Blog #20

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.”  Horrible joke, but I’m getting the feeling that you like horrible jokes.  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, fungal infections.  All of a sudden “ablation” has become a household word.  As my friend, Fern, told me, “These aren’t the Golden Years; they’re the Rusty Years.”  It’s all very troubling and scary.  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.

So, hi there and welcome back.  Glad you could join me today.  What should we talk about?  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 Kathy Griffin at a 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. Back or Dr. Pain, 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 told you a few weeks ago that I tasted octopus, and I liked it.  But I really am not a culinary daredevil.  I’m not into quinoa or kale; I don’t tend to order food that sounds unfamiliar; and I think avocados should be banned from the planet.  So it astounds me that I actually love two foods the mention of which makes most of my family and friends shiver in disgust:  herring and sardines.  I just made myself some tomato soup and herring for lunch.  Delicious!

Then my wife made herself lunch.  I’m telling you, no collection of animal droppings could possibly be as unappetizing as her plate.  Little, yellow, slimy-looking blobs accompanied by a mound of white mush surrounded by torn pieces of green and yellow growths.  Raccoons wouldn’t eat that stuff.  She calls it melted cheese, hummus and peppers.  I call it road kill.

I have not been ashamed, in these blogs, to reveal all my weirdnesses and eccentricities.  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 – 1,000 letters to my daughters, 1,000 limericks, several hundred poems and songs, 20 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?

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.”  This is an often-repeated anecdote, probably true and certainly beside the point, but I thought I’d share.

Lately I have been busier than a termite on Pinocchio’s nose.  Even busier than Justin Bieber’s bail bondsman.  I have a letter to send to Carol and our three daughters.  I have a blog to finish up and I have four letters to send to four assorted grandchildren at camp.  The old man has to work hard.  They’re all labors of love, but sometimes my fingers just get stiff from punching the keys.  You know what it’s called when an old grandpa’s fingers get stiff?  Writer’s Gramp.  See, I knew you liked horrible jokes.  Here’s a suggestion the next time you send a letter to a kid at camp.  Write the letter, then cut it up into jigsaw pieces and throw them in an envelope. They’ll have to piece it together to read the letter.  They love it.  Or write one starting in the middle of the paper and continue to write in a spiral so that to read it, they have to keep turning the paper.

That’s about it for this week.  I’d cut the blog up into little jigsaw pieces, but it might hurt the computer.  Thanks for joining me today and stay well.  Writer’s Gramp or not, I’ll keep writing until you tell me to stop.  See you next week.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com