Blog #29

Do you realize what an exhaustive effort goes into writing these blogs?  Have you ever tried writing an 1150 word essay every week?  I know you can’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 put all my unmatched socks in a pile, hoping they’ll mate.  I take this writing thing very seriously.  (That probably means there aren’t a lot of yucks to look forward to here.)  Anyway, since I have already done my chores today, I’d better get started.

Holidays like Labor Day are great, but not what they used to be.  You see, when you’re retired and unemployed, you don’t get the day off for a holiday.  A three-day-weekend means nothing to a man who exists in a seven-day weekend.  Yet somehow, even though I have nothing to do, I seem to stay very busy.  There’s bridge and poker and the Zoo and tutoring at the jail.  There’s lunch with my friends, picking up prescriptions, Walmart for essentials, Dollar Tree for reading-glasses, envelopes and greeting cards.  Then I have to read my books and write my letter to my daughters and put this blog together.  And, of course, doctors.  I’m exhausted just thinking about how busy my days are, even though I really have nothing to do.

Each day as I try to get through it

I find that there ain’t nothin’ to it.

It seems to be true

When there’s nothing to do

That it takes me all day not to do it.

And, yes, I gave myself away.  To my friends out there, I love you, but I do not spend $4.95 on a greeting card for your birthday, your anniversary or your final colonoscopy (I think that’s when you’re 75).  I get the cards two for a dollar at the Dollar Tree.  There actually is a card for a final colonoscopy.  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!   Only kidding.

But I’m not kidding when I tell you that my friend, Mel, went to buy a new car when he was 74 or thereabouts.  The creepy juvenile who was his salesman said, “Sir (I hate when they call you Sir), since this is probably the last car you’re going to buy . . .”  What a jerk!  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.)

A few weeks ago, September 3^rd actually, was International Vulture Awareness Day.  Did you miss the party?  Too bad.  Can you even imagine such a thing?  The Zoo was all over it, displaying posters with cartoon likenesses of cute, little, smiling vultures.  First of all, birds do not have teeth and cannot smile.  Second, vultures are neither little nor cute.  If they wanted an accurate Vulture Awareness Day, they would show real pictures of real vultures.  Then everyone would go out, buy a gun and slaughter all the horrible creatures.  I wonder who eats a dead vulture.

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 children 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!

It’s High School Reunion season.  I’ve got a 55^th coming up next year, and I know what to expect – a registration package requesting a picture and a summary of my life.  Ridiculous!  Forget the picture.  The only way anyone is going to be attracted to my face after 55 years is if it has four strips of crispy bacon taped to it.  Or if it looks older than theirs.  And the life resumé -- they all look the same.  The last one I looked at was:  Married with four wonderful children and six beautiful grandchildren.  Have travelled extensively.  Love to read!

Where do I start?  Let’s start with the six beautiful grandchildren.  I have eight of my own, but grandchildren are like slobbering dogs.  I can tolerate mine, but keep yours at a very healthy distance.  And your travels?  Do I really care if you have a coconut autographed by Don Ho’s drummer?  And the reading part?  If I remember my class correctly, there are a few who would surprise me if they could read at all.

C’mon people, I know you agree with me.  We don’t care what all those old classmates look like and we don’t care what they’ve been up to for all those years.  Lose the picture and the synopsis and give us what we really want – a list of your medications.  I mean how much fun would it be to learn that Ken (yes, we actually had people named Ken back in the days when women would rather have their Poodle skirts spayed than name a child Chayse) – how much fun to learn that Ken was taking Prilosec?  It serves him right, by the way; he was such a pain all those years.

And what about knowing that Freddy is taking Melatonin?  I’m convinced the reason he can’t sleep now is because he slept through Mrs. Kimmel’s Geometry class in Sophomore year.  And did you know that Sharon is on Zoloft?  I’m not surprised.  If I had to live with that Klingon she’s married to, I’d be depressed too.  I’ve learned a lot of words in those 55 years, and my favorite is Schadenfreude.

Look, I’ve got issues of my own, and naturally if I read that someone was on some bad medicine I would suffer for them and pray for them, but wouldn’t that exact information help me to empathize and re-connect better than knowing that their son works for Google or that their six-year-old took second in a regional oboe competition?  And do I really care that they had their picture taken at Mt. Rushmore next to Pat Boone’s grandson?  Save all that for the obituary.

See, I told you there weren’t going to be any yucks today. Stay well and please come back next week.

Michael

(Married with three wonderful children and eight beautiful grandchildren.  Have travelled extensively.  Love to read!)

Send comments (please no pictures or resumés) to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

Blog #28

A lot of people have told me that I should have my head examined!  So I did.  Twice!  The first time I had a CT scan on my brain, the official result was “Unremarkable”.  Unremarkable?  Are you kidding me?  After twenty-one years of schooling, 300,000 pages of obscure and arcane books, a thousand limericks and 34 trillion Diet Cokes – 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 five 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?  Well, there shouldn’t be much disagreement on that one.  If you missed the explanation a few weeks ago, I’ll fill you in.  I go to Dr. Skin’s office every Tuesday to stand in an ultraviolet light box for 5½ 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?

Don’t ever call me normal!  Hi there.  Are you normal?  I don’t think anybody who has suffered through this many of my looney-tune ramblings is normal, so welcome back, my lovely basket of abnormals.  I hope you’re doing well.  The following story is totally true, yet truly unbelievable.  I went to a place called Smash Burger and ordered two sandwiches for me and Carol.  Is that for here or to go?  To go, I said.  Can I have a name please?  Michael, I said.  Let’s see, that’s M-I-C-A-L.   Just make it Mike, I said.  Yah, Michael’s my middle name but I never learned how to spell it. What, you simpering, useless waste of protoplasm!  You can’t spell your own middle name?  Go immediately into the Men’s Room and flush yourself into oblivion. Well, I didn’t actually say that.  What I did actually say was: Go home and get your birth certificate and learn how to spell your name.  Yes, I did.

I just received my fourth butt-call of the week, all from friends who had called me earlier.  I know my friends really well, and I’m pretty sure that some of them find it challenging to make a call with two 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?

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 recent movie The Imitation Game, committed suicide by dousing an apple with poison and taking a bite.  So Apple, wanting to show their reverence for and gratitude to Mr. Turing, made their logo with that bite.  That was before they decided to direct every butt-call west of the Mississippi directly to me.

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.  It got so common and egregious 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.

Speaking of Disney, 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. I like that and I 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. 

My phone just rang.  It wasn’t you.  It was Zach.  “Hey, Poppy, can I interview you?”  Wow, my first grandchild, my brilliant and talented boy wants to interview me?  He must have an assignment from school to interview the most interesting, smart, talented, creative and handsome person he knows.  And he chose me!  What a perceptive, intellectual, loving and thoughtful child he is!  “Of course, Zach,” I replied.  “I’d love to be interviewed, but I can’t do it right now.  I’m with some friends.  How about tomorrow?”  “No,” he said, “I’ll get somebody else.”  I love you, Zach, you ungrateful little brat!

Florence, a 60-year-old woman, had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital.  In the emergency room, her heart failed again and she figured her time was up.  “God, is this it?” she asked.  Then she heard God’s voice: “No, Florence, I’ve given you another 30 years to live.  Enjoy.”  So she ordered a face lift.  And a tummy tuck and a chin implant and larger breasts and lipo-suction.  Well, why not?  If I’ve got 30 more years, I might as well look great.  When she was discharged, she looked in the mirror, liked what she saw, took the elevator to the first floor and left the hospital.  While crossing the street she was hit by a UPS truck and killed.  Upon entering Heaven, she immediately went to God.  “God,” she cried, “You said I had 30 more years to live!  What happened?”  “Damn, Florence,” God replied, “I didn’t recognize you.”

Stay well and come back.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

Or, if you want to call me, just sit on your phone.  That seems to work. 

Blog #27

Why do we remember some things and forget others?  How come I can tell you every word to every Johnny Mathis song (Walk my way and a thousand violins begin to play), 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?  I used to know the answer to that, but I forgot.  Well, at least you remembered to come back today.  Welcome.

Last night I told a lady acquaintance that I was 71.  “Oh, my God,” she cried, “I can’t believe you’re only 71.”  I’m pretty sure that was an insult.  Don’t you think that was an insult?  But really, I don’t care about wrinkles.  Shakespeare said, “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”  Mark Twain said, “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.”  Of course, they were both old and wrinkled when they said those things.

Strangely enough, I was writing yesterday when I overheard the television.  I wasn’t watching it, of course, but I overheard Hoda 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.  This is why we call television a “vast wasteland”.  This sad-looking (and wrinkle-free), little woman was telling us not to laugh?  Preposterous!

And speaking of ugly, a while back I took my oldest grandson (Zach is 16) out for dessert.  He ordered a Coke.  Coke for dessert?  “Yes, Poppy, I’m replacing you.”  He knows I have a Diet Coke every single morning.  “You can never replace me, Zach,” I replied.  “Sure I can; someday I’ll be old and ugly and drinking Coke.”  There’s that ugly thing again.  I know I’ve never been Paul Newman, but I seem to be trending toward Quasimodo.  I love you, Zach, and hope your grandchildren are nice to you.  And yes, I love Coke too, but not Pepsi.  Coke is to Pepsi as Mercedes is to Yugo.  Do they still make Yugos?

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 Hatikva in Arabic.  Go to Iran and sing their national song in Hebrew.  Good luck. What are these people thinking? 

Hi, everybody.  I hope you are feeling well.  Are you laughing?  Stop it!  I will try not to say anything funny.

I often pick on my wife here, but it’s really the husband-wife conflict that I am exposing, not her.  (Boy, I hope that apology makes her stop complaining.)  The truth is we have a great relationship.  She does what she wants and I do what I want.  For instance, a few years ago three of my friends and I planned a golfing trip to San Antonio.  All by ourselves.  This was our trip, our time, just us men!

The guys all developed a plan

To go where a man is a man

Where we can be free

To be all we can be

As long as our wives say we can.

They said we could.  We missed them.  You know, of course, that there are two ways of arguing with a woman – and neither one works.

Last week we went to a memorial service for a man who lived in our building. No, not the dead man I found in the hall.  This man had been cremated a week before and this was a memorial service at the funeral home.  Several friends and relatives spoke, but about half-way through, the Baptist minister took the microphone and said, “I have some bad news for you.”  What, I wondered, could that bad news possibly be?  All your cars have been stolen?  We discovered the guy wasn’t really dead when we cremated him?  Kim Jong Nutso has acid reflux?  I just could not imagine what she was about to say.  What she did say was, “The Cardinals lost 3-2.”  She interrupted a gathering of this dead man’s friends and relatives to tell us the Cardinals lost!  I couldn’t believe it.  I know the guy was a big Cardinal fan, but Geez, have a little respect. 

Listen to me, I do not want the Cardinal score announced at my funeral.  Promise me that.  Or the Blues score or the Dow Jones average or the President’s approval ratings or the Heat Index.  Don’t worry about the Wind Chill Factor; I promised Carol that I’m not going to die in the winter.  She doesn’t like going out in the cold.

You know that a bunch of cows is called a herd and a bunch of wolves is a pack.  But there are a few offbeat names for groups of other animals: a crash of rhinos, a dazzle of zebras, a journey of giraffes (I love that one), a pride of lions, an exaltation of larks.  All of these are real, and I would like to propose one more – a Cacophony of Women.  Well, have you ever heard Carol and four or five of her friends?

The Beaver is 69 years old.  How did we all get this old?  I’m older than the Beaver?  I thought I was just a little kid when I watched Ward and June and Wally and Eddie Haskell and the Beav.  I guess he was a little kid too. (Do you remember what the Beav’s first name was?)  What an idyllic, elysian world they lived in.  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.  Did Wally and Beaver even have grandparents?  I’ll get back to you.  I’m back.  Wikipedia informed me that the Beav had no living grandparents during the show.  Sure, back in the Dark Ages 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 scattering around in diapers.  I don’t need the song now – my youngest is 4½ -- 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.  Stay well and come back next week.  Oh, the Beaver’s name was Theodore.

Quasimodo                                        Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

Blog #26

The biggest problem I have in writing this thing every week is that, when I start a new subject, I forget whether I’ve used it before.  But I plow ahead anyway, knowing that if I can’t remember what I said 20 weeks ago, neither can you.

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, but 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?

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-self was in college and completely unprepared for an upcoming test.  But 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 goat?  Well, never mind about that one.

Hi there, all you dreamers.  Are you feeling well today?  I hope so.  What shall we talk about?  Carol and I watched a movie in bed last night called Magic Mike.  It was about a male stripper played by Channing Tatum.  I liked it.  Carol thought that might be a career opportunity for me – a male stripper.  Of course it would have to be in an old-folks’ home.

The gals at the home said they’d pay

To see me get naked some day

So I’ll be a stripper

And pull down my zipper

Who cares —they can’t see anyway!

C’mon, boys, I think this might work.  The women would probably pay just for the right to go back to their rooms.  But I’ll bet we could find some good songs for old men to strip to (you knew this was coming, didn’t you?)  How about:

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

And the finale – Stayin’ Alive (Well you can tell by the way I use my walker).

I know I make fun of old people a lot, but confess – old people are funny!  I hope this old person is funny enough to make you smile once in a while.  Besides, laughing at yourself is the sweetest laugh of all.  And nobody gets offended.

Today everyone is offended.  Confederate statues, American flags, everything. There is a large and very concerted push right now to make the Washington Redskins change their name so as not to offend Native Americans.  But the popularity ratings of our politicians are dropping so precipitously these days that the most offensive word in “Washington Redskins” is no longer Redskins.  I think the team name should be changed to The Washington Honest Politicians – there aren’t any of those, so no-one could be offended.

Summer is almost over, so I’d better get this bit in before Fall arrives.  These lyrics are from songs about Summer from four different decades.  Can you come up with the song titles?  I’ll give you the answers later.

·        Fish are jumpin and the cotton is high

·        I’d like to help you, Son, but you’re too young to vote

·        Back o’ my neck feelin’ dirt and gritty

·        Out on the road today I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac

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.”

I guess I should tell you about the dead man in the hall.  I live in a 24-unit condo building, and I was walking to my unit when I noticed a man lying in front of his door.  I shook him and tried to get a response from him, but he was cold.  I called 911 and the EMTs came and worked for thirty minutes, to no avail.  As you can imagine, it was distressing.  I’m telling you now mainly to express my absolute awe and respect for the Fire Department EMTs.  They were focused, fast and dedicated to doing everything possible to help this man.  Thank goodness we have them.

Did you watch Mayweather vs McGregor?  That was the Pay-Per-View extravaganza between a 40-year-old boxer and a cage fighter that raised around $700 million dollars in revenue.  If people would pay that much money to see an old fighter boxing for the last time and a wrestler boxing for the first time, just think what they’d pay for a no-holds-barred screaming match between Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell?  We could pay off the National Debt!  Or how about charging $1 just to read his tweets every day?  We don’t need taxes, we need showmanship!  Is P. T. Barnum still alive?

I went to Dr. Skin this 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 lot of water.  I looked around for a cup.  I looked on the counter and in the cabinets and finally found a stack of plastic cups.  I picked one off the top and 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 full.  She didn’t take blood.

Here are the Summer songs:

Summertime – Porgy and Bess  (1935)

Summertime Blues – Eddie Cochran  (1958)

Summer in the City – Lovin Spoonful  (1966)

Boys of Summer – Don Henley  (1984)

I’m tired now, so I think I’ll take a nap.  Maybe I’ll dream about that tuba.  See you next week.  Stay well.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com