Blog #212

 

Back in St. Louis now after a brief trip to North Carolina and Florida.  We made the drive from West Palm Beach to St. Louis in one day – 18½ hours – and arrived with a sore back, a sore tush and bugs from eleven states plastered to the windshield.  Shakespeare was very glad to see us and we schnuggled for a long time.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness (Henry VI, Part 2).  As much as I complain about the old man, I was very happy to see him.  We hugged and scratched.  We’re best buddies and I’m glad he’s back.  Don’t tell him I said that.  It’ll make him even more arrogant than usual. Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Have you all gotten vaccinated?  I hope so.  Maybe we are finally emerging from the horror that was 2020.  Who could have imagined a year:

 

·        When entering a bank without a mask was forbidden

·        When, at a family gathering where everyone was smoking pot, the only thing that was illegal was the gathering

·        When the only math the children learned all year was how to measure six feet

·        When “dining out” really meant out

·        When finding a needle in a haystack was easier than finding a roll of toilet paper in a grocery store

 

The shots have allowed Carol and me to feel liberated and almost normal.  Well, I suppose I will never be almost normal.  You probably have figured that out by now.  It’s April already.  Be careful and don’t let anyone play any April Fools’ Day tricks on you.

 

You know, April Fools’ Day is connected with the Jewish celebration of Passover.  We celebrated Passover this week in remembrance of the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt.  Let me refresh your memory: The Ten Plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, Charlton Heston.  How could you forget?  We call it The Days of Wine and Moses. Late in the story, after the Jews have fled to safety, Moses shows up with some commandments.

 

Originally, Moses only had two Commandments, Thou shalt not kill and Thou shalt not wear brown sandals with a black yarmulke, but, as he was coming down the mountain, he ran into a couple of slick salesmen.  Moses could never resist a good deal. 

 

He had two Commandments, but then

He met these two fast-talking men

“More Commandments, you see

And besides, they’re all free.”

In that case, he said, I’ll take ten.

 

Those were the Gefilte brothers, Harry and Sol, who then convinced Moses to buy their whole supply of spoiled fish and eat that instead of shellfish.  And that is how Moses became the first April Fool. 

 

Oy, am I in trouble for that story!  God is probably looking on Amazon right now to find a plague for me.  “Hey, God, with all due respect, Covid was enough!”   I’m not really worried. God loves a good story.  I knew that as soon as I read about the Virgin Mary.  Oy, now I’m in trouble with the Jews, the Christians and God.  In hockey, they call that a Hat Trick.  The Jews call it a Yarmulke Trick.

 

By the way, what do you say to God when God sneezes?  Ok, I’d better stop playing with God here.  In Job 38:12, God counters Job’s arrogance by asking, “Have you ever in all your life commanded a day to dawn?”  I can’t even command a cat to get off my pillow.  And I would not even think of commanding my wife to do anything.  You think those plagues were tough?

 

It is ironic that just as Jews were celebrating their escape across the Red Sea, an immense cargo ship, the size of a shopping center, was stuck in the Suez Canal, preventing hundreds of other ships from escaping the Red Sea.  So they called Charlton Heston and he and Yul Brynner dug it out.  Tell me how it is that a “boat” that weighs half a billion pounds can float and yet every time I go into a pool, I sink like a jar of the Gefilte Brothers’ fish.

 

In related news, the football coach at Duxbury High School in Massachusetts has instituted a new series of audible signals.  Those are the code names for football plays that the quarterback calls out at the line of scrimmage when the defense has changed position.  Usually you’ll hear “Red Left” or “Fox Down” or something like that.  This coach invented plays whose code names were “Hitler”, "Auschwitz” and “Holocaust”.  I have not made up one word of this story.  God, if You’re still listening, do You have any plagues left over for that moron?

 

In other news - - - let me just point out that if you are writing a blog and need some extra wacky, weird and strangely unbelievable material, the news is just full of it.  Funny, that’s just what my wife says about me.

 

Back to the news, Bill Gates is about to institute a plan to shoot chalk dust into the atmosphere of Sweden to absorb the sunlight and cool down the planet.  Does this not frighten you?  Surely the inventors of the internal-combustion engine did not imagine they were polluting the atmosphere with their carbon-dioxide.  They were wrong.  But now Billionaire Bill has the hubris to shoot calcium carbonate (chalk dust, also full of carbon) into our air without knowing the consequences.  One of the side effects of this lunacy will be that the sound of thunder will henceforward be the sound of fingernails scratching a chalkboard.

 

Our Weekly Word is hubris, which means extreme pride or arrogance, and I am proud to be the poster boy for both.  I will come back next week to exhibit more of the same.  That is, if God lets me.  For those of you who celebrated Passover, I hope you had a wonderful holiday.  For those who celebrate Easter, I hope yours is full of peace and love.  And for all of you, keep counting your holiday blessings and stay well.  I’ll be back next week, whether you want me or not.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com