Blog #62

The Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910.  Good things – old things – things that shouldn’t change!  But they do, and now the Boy Scouts will be just The Scouts.  You know, I could see it coming.  The girls want to join the Boy Scouts because the Girl Scouts are fumbling and fading and out of money.  I could tell just from reading the cookie box.  I mean, what kind of lesson is it for these young women to be selling cookies that have four grams of fat per cookie?  Just to make a buck?  The Samoas will bloat you up like the Hindenburg, the Thin Mints will make you fat, the S’mores will make s’more of you and the Tagalongs will make you bigger than Eric Schneiderman’s bag of lies.  And all to make money!  I recently acquired a leaked Girl Scout internal memo.  Well, everybody else is getting leaks.  Why not me?  Here it is:

Now listen up Girl Scout Cadets

These cookies will pay all our debts

They’re poison we know                   

But we need the dough

And next year we’ll sell cigarettes.

I knew if they were that desperate for money, they’d be gone soon and now the girls have nowhere to go but the neutral-gender Scouts.  And so the name change.

I’ll tell you another organization that needs a name change -- the NAACP.  The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is one year older than the Boy Scouts.  It’s about time, I believe, to change the “colored people” designation to “African Americans”.  Don’t you agree?  That will make it the National Association for the Advancement of African Americans, NAAAA, the N Double-A Double-A.  It’s still a catchy name, and I sent a letter to the organization asking if they’d like to make the change.  Their answer --  “Naaaa”.   Well, I tried.

Welcome back, you gluttons for punishment.  I’m so glad you’re here and hoping you are well and happy.  Do you feel smart today?  Do you feel like Sherlock?  If you said “Sherlock who”, skip this section.  My student at the County Jail last week was Steve.  His left arm was completely tattooed with Cardinal logos and other stuff.  His right arm had no tattoos.  Can you find a logical explanation for that?  More later.

Do you like dogs?  I like dogs.  On my last trip to North Carolina, I took one of my daughter’s dogs to my granddaughter’s soccer game.  There were lots of dogs there and the routine is always the same.  My dog sniffs your dog; your dog sniffs my dog and then we exchange breeds.  Mine is an Australian Shepherd kind of mutt, I volunteered.  She’s a rescue dog.  “Oh, mine is a Gerberian Shepsky,” the haughty, short-haired woman replied.  A Gerberian WHATSKY?  Is that the name of a dog or a hockey goalie?  “A dog,” she replied without the slightest display of a sense of humor, “It’s a mix of a German Shepherd and a Siberian Husky.”

Well, excuuuuuse moi!  You know, it used to be we’d show off our wealth with an expensive purchase.  “Have you seen my new 911 Carrera or my 300-SL?  Do you like my Judith Leiber or my Jimmy Choos?”  Now the glitterati among us show their hifalutin bona fides by mixing up a batch of doggie genes in a blender.  And when they blend the dogs, they blend the names.  No longer do they have collies or poodles or cocker spaniels.  Now they have Yoranians, Chiweenies and Double Doodles.  They have Cockapoos, Corgipoos and Labskies.  They have Bassadors, Cavapoochons and Pitt Plotts.  These are real.  How could I make these up?  Now, instead of hearing “Hi, what a cute dog”, I hear “Would your Double Doodle like to sniff my Chiweenie?”  I just want to go up to these people and scream, “Kiss my Bassador!  Save the two thousand bucks and adopt a rescue dog.”  And Cockapoos?  I haven’t heard that since I was toilet-training my first grandchild.

Names change, dogs change, even the Bible changes.  I don’t like talking about religion to you because I don’t want to step on anyone’s sacred toes so I’ll be brief.  Carol and I were at Friday evening services at our Temple.  There was a Bible in the pocket in front of my seat, and I picked it up.  I went right to the beginning because at the beginning is, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  Simple enough; I can understand that.  We have heard that all our lives.  We get it.  But that’s not what I found.  What I found was, “When God was about to create heaven and earth”.  What was wrong with in the beginning?

And what was wrong with “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want?”  Now it’s “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing”.  And “My cup runneth over” is now “My cup overflows.”  Nothing is like what it was.

I’m almost in tears right now, or should I say, “My eyes runneth over.”  My youngest St. Louis grandchild, Austin, just presented me with a flower.  I asked him what the flower was for.  He said, “It’s Teacher Appreciation Day and you’re my teacher.”  Whenever I drive him somewhere he says, “Poppy, teach me something.”  And I do – chemistry, evolution, the Periodic Table.  He’s in 2^nd Grade and he laps it all up and understands most of it.  My dream is that someday Austin will discover the 135^th Element and name it Poppium.

It's strange that I used the name Judith Leiber before, because I just discovered she passed away last month at the age of 97.  I wonder if they buried her in a tiny, little heart-shaped coffin covered in rhinestones.

Whenever I start talking about coffins, I know it’s time to end.  Except for the Case of the Tattooed Left Arm.  The answer, which you all should have gotten, is – he did the tattoos himself and he’s right-handed, so he could only tattoo his left arm.  I didn’t get it either.  I asked Steve if it hurt.  He said yes!

Now I’ll let you go.  I hope you enjoyed.  Count your blessings, stay well, hug your Chiweenie and come back next week.  I’ll be here.

Michael                                            Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com