Blog #81

“Autumn repays the earth the leaves which summer lent it,” said Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, an 18^th Century German physicist and philosopher famous for his many quotable phrases.  Aren’t you glad I told you that?  Now you can quote old Georgy to your friends.  It is now Autumn, of course, and the season of falling leaves.  Many of you will spend Autumn in Florida where the leaves don’t fall or Arizona where there are no leaves, but here in Missouri we have a glorious and colorful Autumn to look forward to.

Good old Georg also said, “Man loves company,” so let’s keep each other company for a few paragraphs.  My oldest grandson is now a senior in high school and is exploring colleges.  The cost of attending college has become scandalous.  A four-year education at Stanford is upward of $300,000.  But wait – if your family makes less than $125,000 per year, Stanford considers you impoverished (well, it’s California) and your tuition is free.  That’s right.  Under $125,000 income – free.  Over $125,000 income – they’ll stick it to you big time..

If poverty is your condition

You won’t have to pay the tuition

But if you have dough

We’ll charge enough so

You won’t have a pot you can pish in.

I don’t know whether you think that taking from the rich and giving to the poor is a good thing or not, but certainly that is what occurs in the calculus of college tuitions.  A rich family pays twice what the rate should be so that a poorer student can attend for free.  I’m not sure the one-to-one ratio is the correct permutation, but you get the point.

I apologize for the excess of mathematical terms – calculus, permutation, ratio -- but, you see, I used to be a math teacher and I sometimes lapse unknowingly into math-speak.  I’m planning to write a racy and erotic novel about a math teacher one day.  I think I’ll call it Fraction in the Rye.  Or maybe Five Squared Times Two Shades of Grey.  Or Tropic of Calculus.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well.  Thinking of my grandson Zach brought back memories of a Hanukah we spent in North Carolina when he was six.  When we gave out gifts, Zach got a Playmobile Rescue Helicopter.  He assembled it all by himself in about an hour, an endeavor that would have taken his Phi Beta Kappa, Juris Doctor Poppy six months and the constant aid of a staff of rocket scientists to accomplish.  Zoey (age 4) got a sticker-making machine.  Alyssa (age 2) got some crayons.  My son-in-law got some socks.  Jennifer got some shirts.  Carol got some stationery.  I got what the arrow-maker’s husband got – the shaft.  My gift, I was told, was watching my loved-ones’ pleasure at opening their presents.  I felt like the coach of the Washington Generals.

After the presents, Zach and I made up a whole adventure using his helicopter and told stories till bedtime.  Sometimes I wish I was six and had a Poppy to take me to movies and buy me popcorn and tell me scary stories.

Frank Smith was recovering successfully from bypass surgery he had had a month earlier.  He told his wife that the doctor said he could have sex, but she didn’t believe him and refused.  “I want a letter from the doctor,” she said.  So Frank went to the office and got a letter that said, Dear Mrs. Smith, I have treated Frank and released him from my care.  He is one hundred per cent healthy and may participate in any romantic endeavor that he chooses.  Frank looked at the letter, thanked the doctor and said, “Doc, can I ask one more thing?  Can you address it instead TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN?”

“What are we doing tonight?”  I asked my Honey last Saturday night.  By Honey, I mean my wife, in case you thought I had another Honey lying around.  “Movie and dinner with J&A,” she replied.  I asked her what movie and she stumbled and stuttered like Porky Pig with some lame answer like. “Oh, just one of those movies that’s around.”  Ok, I was born during the day, but it wasn’t yesterday.  I have been married to this woman for 51 years and can translate Carol-speak pretty accurately.  Last week we saw a movie, and during the seemingly endless Coming Attractions, I told her which ones looked interesting and which ones I refused to see.  When she stuttered out just one of those movies, I knew it meant – We’re seeing one of those movies you refused to see, but you’re a man and I don’t care what you want and I wouldn’t vote for you to be on the Supreme Court either.  For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, but not at the movies.

Should I be mad about being ignored?  No, I look at it this way.  It gives me something to write to you about so you’ll get a chuckle.  Did you?

Speaking of wifely irritations, Carol and all her friends like to talk about who’s seeing who, what widow is dating what widower and should I fix this one up with that one.  It’s as if they were still in high school and wondering who’s going to ask them to the Prom.  “Once I’m gone”, she tells me, “you’ll be getting casseroles and everyone will want you because you can play bridge and drive at night.”  I just hate talking about this depressing subject, but she thinks it’s as much fun as watching The Bachelorette.  She even has my next wife picked out for me.  “She’s perfect.  She can cook and has lots of money.”   As if I would abandon all thoughts of romantic attraction for a Caribbean cruise and a meat loaf!  I have never met this woman she has picked out for me nor, more importantly, does the woman know Carol’s plans for her future.

Carol and her friends, of course, have no interest in romance.  They’re too practical.  “Well,” my wife says to me, “If you go first, I want someone who makes me laugh and who likes to travel.”  Slow down, Zsa Zsa, I’m not even coughing.

Ok, I’d better let you go.  Count your blessings and stay well.  I’d better stay well too.  One sneeze from me and she’ll start reading travel brochures.  By the way, I like lasagna better than meatloaf.  See you next week.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #80

My daughter Jennifer lives in North Carolina, as those of you who follow my weekly lapses into insanity have learned by now.  As I begin to write to you, Hurricane Florence is looming dangerously off the coast about 100 miles from where she lives.  Naturally, CNN has been airing a continuous plea for residents to evacuate the shore areas.  I wonder if CNN truly cares about the people’s safety or if they have some other motive.

Go grab all your sons and your daughters

And hurry to find higher quarters

It’s raining in torrents

So run far from Florence

To make room for all our reporters.

Ok, you’ve gotten the obligatory limerick out of the way.  You liked it; you didn’t like it.  It’s over.  Let’s move on.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are feeling well today.  Do you have pronouns?  I have a wonderful friend named Amy, a young lawyer in California.  Amy and I were emailing the other day when I noticed the signature at the bottom of the email.  Included with her name and her professional and contact information was a line that said (Pronouns: She, her).  Well, ok, I am from a different generation and am not capable of processing the rapid changes in gender awareness, but, I decided, if she has pronouns, I guess I should have pronouns too.  Just to stay current, you understand.  So I wrote her back:  I see your pronouns are she and her.  Mine are it and old.

Update:  Jennifer and her family (husband, three children, one exchange student, three dogs, two cats and twelve chickens) lost power for three days and endured a long spell of rain.  But everyone is fine, even the chickens.  I know you care about those chickens.  Over the past week, many of you have contacted me with concerns for the safety of my daughter and her family. You are very nice people to be so thoughtful.  That’s why I write to you every week.  Thank you very much.

I have, in my English class, several Chinese students, and we were recently talking about the animals of the Chinese Zodiac.  This year is the Year of the Dog.  Why should you care?  Well, there are one billion, four hundred million Chinese on your doorstep trying to take over the world.  It might be worth your while to learn a bit about them.  The Chinese rotate their years through a menagerie of twelve animals: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig.  Hey, Chinese folk, I love your egg rolls, but your choice of animals is a bit bizarre.  I like Tiger – fierce, strong, unchallenged.  And Horse – fast, beautiful, useful.  Even Rabbit – cute, soft. But Snakes and Pigs and Rats?  Who do you have choosing your animals – General Tsao and his Chickens? 

I was at Walgreens recently and picked up a box of assorted sized flesh-colored Band Aids.  When I got home, Carol noticed the bag.  She notices everything.  She knows what I eat, what I wear and what the second half of each of my sentences is going to be.

What’s in the bag? She asked.

Oh, I replied, I just needed some . . .

flesh-colored Band-Aids, she said.

How did you . . .

Know?  I just did.  But they’re really not flesh-colored Band-Aids.

Well, I said, yes they . . .

No they’re not.  Read the box.

I did and discovered two things.  First, it did not say “Flesh Colored”.  In today’s world the term flesh-colored is unacceptable.  What color is flesh-colored anyway?  Perhaps it should be labeled “Flesh of White Americans of European Descent Colored”.  It occurs to me now that white people are not People of Color.  I feel so drained!  But do not be alarmed.  There is a brand called Tru-Colour Adhesive Bandages – Diversity in Healing which are the color of – well, people of color.

And second, (there was a first somewhere in the last paragraph, so now here’s the second) they weren’t Band-Aids.  They were Walgreen’s Adhesive Bandages.  So Carol was right.  She always is.  Just ask her.  But you can understand my mistake.  Band-Aids have been such a familiar commodity in our lives for so many decades that we presume it’s just the name of the commodity itself, not a brand name.

There are lots more like that.  The most familiar brand names that have become synonymous for the generic product are Kleenex, Scotch Tape and Coke.  But there are lots of others.  Aspirin, for instance, is a brand name as are Jell-O, Chapstick, Bubble Wrap, Q-Tips, Crock-Pot and Frisbee.  And now Google just means to look something up on any old search engine, just like Xeroxing used to mean making a copy.  Oh, did I tell you Carol was right about the Band-Aids?  She wanted to make sure you knew.

She never, however, cares if I know anything.  Babies are born, hurricanes strike, friends move to smaller quarters – whatever it is, I am the last to know.  It is obvious that I am on a need-to-know basis and she never thinks I need to know anything.  Except what to pick up on the way home.

As Dopey often said to Snow White, “I am not Happy.”  Why am I not happy?  Well, besides the fact that nobody ever tells me anything and the disappointment that I am not a person of color, there is always the fact that two hundred years from the date of my birth, your Google page will not mention my name.  It did for Edgar Allan Poe.  But for me?  Alas, nevermore.

Still, I have no time for weeping.  I’ve got work to do, people to see, places to go, fires to put out, dreams to dream, Diet Cokes to drink, lots of people to love and things to pick up on the way home.  Do you need anything, Honey?  Don’t worry, I’ll save enough time to write to you next week.  Until then, stay well and count your blessings.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Pronouns: it and old

Blog #79

I cannot fathom how the human brain works, especially my own.  Why, for instance, while driving home today did I suddenly realize that Peter Piper could not possibly have picked a peck of pickled peppers?  Wikipedia estimates there are 50,000 different kinds of peppers.  Fifty thousand!  There are pimiento, tobasco, cayenne, chili peppers, paprika, jalapeno, banana peppers and of course the common green pepper.  Did you know that green peppers, like green tomatoes, are just unripened bell peppers?  Peppers do not grow already pickled, so no one can pick a pickled pepper, any more than one could pick a stewed tomato or a pumpkin pie.  Even Peter Piper could not pick a pickled pepper, let alone a peck of them.  Case closed!  I sometimes frighten myself. 

But I apparently don’t frighten you, because you’re back and I’m glad of it.  I hope you’re feeling dandy and are ready for more of my methodical madness.  Let’s talk about dogs.  My friend took her support dog to a movie.  Really!  I think she saw Crazy Rich Afghans.  Maybe it was Jurassic Bark or Raging Bulldog or Paws! or The Good, the Bad and the Shar Pei.  I could go on forever, but I know you have places to go and people to see, so let’s move on.

Last week, the State of Missouri, where, as you know, Carol and I live, changed the legal minimum age for marriage from fifteen to sixteen.  That means that no child of 15 will be able to drink alcohol, vote, drive a car, buy cigarettes or get married.  Gee, it hardly pays to be a teenager.  Well, at least there are some things a teenager can still do, like burying themselves behind their smart-phones and mouthing off to their parents.  I love my grandchildren.

So in Missouri, a 16-year-old girl can marry a 17-year-old boy, but they still won’t allow her to marry a guy over 21, fearing a young girl being overwhelmed by an older man. I’m using guy and girl, but it’s also true, I suppose, for girl-girl, guy-guy or any of the other 2,553 combinations of wedded couples using Facebook’s 71 approved gender choices.  I, of course, as a member of the old fuddy-duddy male contingency, do not understand most of that.  I mean, did you ever hear of a baby doctor coming into the waiting room to tell the family members, “Congratulations, it’s a Cisgender Male!”

Speaking of older guys marrying younger girls, my sister married an older guy.  She was 47 and he was 92.  Honestly!  My sister was crazy -- half Baby Jane and half Sybil.  In fact, when I was growing up my family made the Addams Family look like Ozzie and Harriet.  It’s a miracle I turned out so perfectly normal!

In the absence of anything else interesting to talk about, there is always something medical going on in my life.  Last week I went to Dr. Skin.  Something was bothering me on my back and I wanted someone to look at it.  She did and told me it was Susqeepalomous Poppi-noppi-cozitis, or some such mumbo-jumbo.  Have you noticed that doctors tend to speak in a language intelligible only to other doctors so as to impress us ignorant laymen with their profound intelligence?  I think they learn it at Jabberwocky class.  Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwock, as you know, is famous for words like slithy tove, mimsy, borogoves and mome raths.

Sounds just like a doctor!  “Yes, Ma’am, you have an enlarged Mome Rath.  But your borogoves are normal.”  Anyway, whatever was on my back is no more.  She froze it off and told me I didn’t have to worry about it.  It was only a mimsy.  Maybe the O-B should come out and say, “Congratulations, it’s a slithy tove!”

I’ve been struggling with my car lately.  It’s been a little sluggish the last couple of weeks.  When I step on the gas, it just has too much resistance, almost like there’s something under the pedal.  I decided to fix it.  As you know, my succeeding in fixing anything mechanical is about as likely as Roseanne Barr starring in Carmen.  As likely as Maxine Waters doing a foxtrot with David Duke.  As likely as Donald Trump buying a pair of Nikes.  As likely as Carol eating at a square table.  But as a first step, I bent down and felt under the pedal, and you know what?  There was something under there.  The floor-mat had bunched up under the pedal and was keeping it from depressing all the way.  I moved the mat and everything was fine.  How about that?  Just call me Mr. Goodwrench.  No?  How about Mr. Luckywrench?  No?  How about Mr. Idiotwrench?

Last week at the Zoo, a boy asked me, “Where’s the werewolf?”  Today a little girl asked me, “Are unicorns real?”  Sure, I said.  Well, aren’t they?  Then she said, “Do you have any here?”  No, I replied, but we have green alligators and long-necked geese, some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees.  She looked at me like I was Mork from Ork, but her Grandma smiled.

When little kids come to the Zoo

They want to see Winnie the Pooh

And a dragon with horns

And some pink unicorns.

That’s cool – I believe in them too.

I just spoke with a friend of mine, whose name shall be withheld.  No, she’s not the Anonymous who wrote the NY Times op. ed.  I’m just withholding her name for reasons which will become obvious.  She had a non-life-threatening operation and just returned home.  She told me that while recuperating in the hospital, a member of the clergy visited her room to offer prayers for a speedy recovery.  The clergy person asked if there was anything else bothering her, and my friend responded that yes, she did have a problem.  She was constipated.  So the clergy person scribbled a prayer for her.  This is all true!  I was hysterical.  A prayer to relieve constipation?  This must be a joke, but no, I looked it up.  Here are some of the highlights.

The Lord is my shepherd

His figs and his prunes, they comfort me

He preparest a table in the presence of mine enemas

He restoreth my stool.

And, as you know, when I start talking potty, it’s time to go.  At least I didn’t talk about anything runnething over.  Stay well, count your blessings, keep away from borogoves and be regular.  See you next week.  Can you wait that long?

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #78

It’s September already, and that means the schools are open and the elections are only two months away.  Who are you going to vote for?  How can you tell?  If you watch CNN you get one set of facts, but if you watch FOX you get a different set.  It’s like going to a baseball game where all the Cardinal fans thought the guy was safe but all the Cub fans thought he was out.  And all the white folks thought O.J. was guilty while all the black folks thought he was innocent.  I’m not sure truth has any meaning anymore.  But then your truth might not be the same as mine.

Don’t listen to their candidate

In the “What Two And Two Is” Debate

He’ll use dirty tricks

To convince you it’s six

When everyone knows that it’s eight.

William Blake said, “the tree which moves someone to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way.”  We look at things today with such radically opposed points of view, it’s amazing that we haven’t started another Civil War.  Except, after listening to all the hate-filled and profane rhetoric on both sides, we’ll have to call it The Uncivil War.  

There will be some differences, however, between the old war and the new. That old one was between the North and the South; this is between the Left and the Right.  That was between the Blue and the Gray; this is between the Red States and the Blue States.  In the Civil War, both sides had guns.  In the Uncivil War only one side has guns.  Now that’s an interesting thought.  But it’s ok because the other side has poster-board and magic markers.  There’s even a new Japanese car especially designed for sign-carrying protest marchers with special compartments for cardboard and crayons.  It’s called the Toyota Crayola.

In 1839, Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrase the pen is mightier than the sword.  I’m not sure, however, that the crayon is mightier than the AK-47.  If it gets any worse, I might have to leave the country.  Maybe I’ll go to California.  That’s not part of America anymore, is it?

And speaking of voting, our Congressional representatives tend to be disappointing, don’t they?  As Will Rogers said, “Taxpayers are sending Congressmen on expensive trips abroad. It might be worth it except they keep coming back.”  That was the third obscure person I have quoted so far.  No more, I promise!  You might begin to think I’m not clever enough to write my own lines.

Hi there.  I’m glad you’re here and hope you are feeling well.  Does it feel like you’ve been watching funerals all week?  John McCain’s funeral was an international extravaganza, and Aretha Franklin’s lasted so long they had to change her clothes.  I’m not kidding.  And all of her outfits came from the Funereal Collections of famous designers.  On the first day she wore a ruby red dress made of lace and designed by Diane von Hearstenberg; on the second she wore a powder blue dress and matching shoes from Michael Korpse; and on the final day she was dressed in a rose gold number by Christian Die-or based on a classic design by Edith Dead.  I think when I’m gone, I’d like to go casual – something by Undertaker Armour.

I got the strangest question at the Zoo yesterday.  I often get questions like, “Which way should we go?”  I ask what they want to see, and when they say “everything”, I just tell them it doesn’t matter which way they go.  Or I get questions like, “How do you tell a boy zebra from a girl zebra?”  My stock answer is, the girl zebra has bigger closets.  Or I see some youngster frowning because the snow leopard cage is empty, and I say, “Sorry, s’no leopard.”  I try to make them smile if I can.

But today’s question stumped me.  “Where’s the werewolf?” the young man asked.  And I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just told him we didn’t have a werewolf.  He frowned, turned into a bat and flew away.  Seriously, I wonder what clever answer I could have come up with if I had had more time.  Did you ever want to say something clever, but couldn’t compose that killer retort until hours later when you thought of something that would have made you sound brilliant and witty and superior?  Damn, too late --  and it would have been perfect.   Yes, I know that’s happened to you.  And it happened to me today when two hours later I came up with the perfect response to the little boy who asked where the werewolf was.  I should have said, “Sorry, only when there’s a full moon.”  Damn!

Children say wonderful things, don’t they?  My friend Bill told me a story about his grandson.  When the boy was seven and in kindergarten, he came home one day and confronted his mother.  “How come you held me back?” he said.  His mother stumbled through an explanation, but the boy wasn’t satisfied.  “If you hadn’t held me back,” he insisted, “I’d be eight!”

Someone else, I forget who, told me a story about his grandson who had a play-date at a new friend’s house.  The house had an attic which held trains and toys and game consoles.  When the grandfather picked the boy up, he exclaimed, “Pops, you should have gone upstairs to see what they had.  They’ve got a whole basement up there.”

My friend Bobby is in the hospital with pneumonia.  I visited him and stayed about three doctors.  That’s how you measure time in a hospital, by counting how many different doctors come to your room.  First was the Hospitalist from China, then the Pulmonologist from Iran and the Cardiologist from India.  They’ve changed the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, you know.  It now reads Give us your tired, your poor, your Anesthesiologists.  There’s one thing that’s comforting about having Asian doctors.  You know they graduated at the top of their class.

Well, I hope by the time you read this that Bobby is recovered and I hope each of you stays well all week.  You have to stay strong and alert, because next Thursday I’ll be back!  Sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger, doesn’t it?  I’ll bet he can’t write a limerick.  Count your blessings.  See you next week.

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com