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.
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