Blog #238                                         September 30, 2021

 

What a morning:

 

·        Got a sweet tea at McDonald’s.  It was free because I had a coupon.

·        Got my light treatment.  You know -- goggles, brown paper bag, quoth the raven!  No co-pay, covered by insurance.

·        Got a prescription at the CVS in my grocery store.  Free. Covered by insurance.

·        Bought groceries and checked out.  Got $6 off from a coupon I got when I received my flu shot.  The shot was free, covered by insurance.

·        Got an additional $5 from a pharmacy coupon for being a frequent pill-taker.

·        Tried to think of other places I could go to get free stuff.

·        Went home and got a free kiss from my wife.  Life is good! 

 

Message from Shakespeare:  I love long life better than figs (Antony and Cleopatra).  I don’t know about those figs, but life is good for me too.  I get lots of free stuff.  Actually, I guess I get everything free – food, cushions, climbing things, toys, even a kiss from Pops every day.  Life is Purr-fect!

 

I have come up with an interesting collection of observations.  I’m sure it won’t rival The Theory of Evolution, but interesting nonetheless.  I have discovered a crucial and fundamental dichotomy – inside/outside.  For instance, if a creature, perhaps a spider, is outside, it is one of Nature’s creations, to be respected and treated with dignity and honor.  If it’s inside, it’s a pest and needs to be squashed.  And snow – if it’s outside, it is sparkling and thrilling and beautiful.  If it’s inside, you need a new roof.  And what about the human body?  If it’s inside, it’s urine; if it’s outside it’s piss.  If it’s inside, it’s bile; if it’s outside, it’s puke.  If it’s inside it’s mucus; if it’s outside it’s snot.

 

          When you’re with your Honey

And your nose gets kind of runny,

          You may think it’s funny

          But it’s snot!

 

And human society?  Well, if you’re inside my group, my clan, my religion, then you’re a friend, a compatriot, someone I will confide in and defend and protect.  If you’re outside, you are alien, strange, different.  I try to accept everybody – unless it’s a spider in my house.  God, I know it’s one of Your creatures, but spiders, God?  Seriously?  I mean, race, creed, color, sexual orientation or national origin?  I accept everyone.  But eight legs and eight eyes?  I pass.

 

Hi there, and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and staying away from spiders.  Tomorrow is October already.  Halloween and cool mornings and National Name Your Car Day.  Actually, National Name Your Car Day is this Saturday.  I had a convertible once that I named Lexi.  I loved that car.  Now I have an old Toyota Corolla that I named Betty White.  She’s grown old with me, but she still has some spunk.  My daughter had a minivan once that I christened Hot Tamale.  I named it that on a cool October morning when I borrowed her car after a chilly night when she must have activated the seat warmer.  I didn’t even know the van had a seat warmer.  After two minutes, however, I knew.  After three minutes I was frantically searching for an on-off switch.  After four minutes I was standing up.  Have you ever tried to drive while standing up?  It ought to be a new Olympic event -- Brake Dancing.

 

Let’s get to something funny.  I don’t know if I told you this story.  If I have, you’ve forgotten it.  We just went through the Jewish High Holy Days, and I was reminded of a Jewish wedding we attended some years ago.  Well, it was partially Jewish.  The groom was Jewish; the bride had converted to Judaism, but her parents were Christians.  Got it?  After the ceremony, custom demands music and dancing the hora, during which the celebrants are lifted upon their chairs by three or four strong young people and danced around the room.  On this night, the bride and groom were hoisted, then the parents of the groom were hoisted and all was joyous.  However, when it came to lifting the bride’s parents, the father was willing, but the mother of the bride could not be found.  Perhaps she did not fancy participating in this heathen ritual.  Whatever the reason, she was AWOL – A Wasp On Leave.  What to do?  Tradition, tradition!  So they grabbed a friend of the bride’s family and used her as a stand-in.  I guess that would more properly be called a sit-in.  Everyone applauded.

 

To tell you the truth we had ruther

Been able to lift the bride’s mother

But she wasn’t around

So some stranger we found.

One Christian looks just like another.

 

I have to take up some of your time to report something that happened at my grandson’s high-school last week.  It’s my St. Louis grandson, Tyler, who just turned 16 two days ago.  He’s a very good boy and was patient with me as I gathered all the details.  On Wednesday of last week, various racist graffiti was discovered in the school bathrooms.  Things like I HATE (the N-word) and so on.  That evening, the students got together on Instagram (whatever that is) to organize and plan a protest for the next day, and on Thursday, all the students walked out of the building from 10:00 to about 1:30, remaining on school property.  It made all the local news stations.  The faculty and administration did not interfere and the students returned to the building for their final class.  Tyler told me that the perpetrator has confessed, but the school will not reveal the name or the punishment.  That’s all I know, except that we live in a very difficult world. Hear me now oh thou bleak and unbearable world, thou art base and debauched as can be. (Quick Quiz:  That quote was the opening line of the opening song of a Broadway show.  What’s the show?)

 

Our Weekly Word today is debauched which means indulging in sensual pleasures to a degree perceived to be morally harmful and is in the first song of   Man of La Mancha.  Today, I have treated you to quotes or references from Poe, Shakespeare, Darwin and Don Quixote.  Is it just me that’s weird, or is it everybody?  Don’t answer that.  Stay well, count your blessings and name your car.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #237

 

“Travel makes one modest,” said Flaubert, “you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”  I like travel books and history books and foreign novels.  They take me to places I’ve never been and to times long ago.  I see exotic cities and listen to exotic people and learn many, many things.  And yes, I learn humility as well.  How insignificant and puny we are!  We live in a place that is microscopic compared to the size of the Earth, in a time dwarfed by the thousands of years of human existence, in a society that is only the most recent of the uncountably different ways of life.  In all likelihood we will pass without leaving a mark.  Mae West said, “You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough,” so I am satisfied with my place in this progression of life, for I have my humility and my family and my books – and you!

 

Yes, I have you, my loyal readers.  Hi there and welcome back to Limerick Oyster where together each week we embark on a new adventure.  That’s what I need – an adventure!  I seem to be in one of those low and slow periods right now.  Feeling useless and unwanted – feeling like Motel 6 would not leave the light on for me.  Do you ever feel like that?  Nothing to do?  As bored as Venus de Milo’s manicurist?  As lonely as Donald Trump’s humility coach? 

 

We need an adventure, but alas, I don’t think it’s in the cards for me.  The South Seas?  Timbuktu?  Galapagos?  Who am I kidding?  I’m never going to get there.  The biggest adventure I have all day is discovering where I put my keys.  What adventure book am I going to write?  Dulliver’s Travels.  The most exciting thing that’s happened to me all week was getting a flu shot.  So far in 2021, I’ve gotten three vaccine shots and a flu shot and I have not fainted, thrown up or gotten woozy.  I do think, however, that my left arm is losing air.

 

Carol watched the Emmys this week.  She watches all the awards shows –Emmy, Tony, Gracie, Critics Choice, Oscar, American Music, SAG, Grammy.  And all these awards are being given to rich people clad in luxurious jewelry and outrageously expensive wardrobes.  People to whom “summer” is a verb.  Where are the awards for ordinary people?  Where are the Run of the Mill Awards that go to the average men and women who get up every morning, go to work, raise a family and make life as stable and comfortable as they can for themselves and their children?  And all without the help of a makeup artist or a life coach.  And without lying to a university that their daughter was a rower.  Where are the Average Joe and Jane Awards for the hardworking construction worker or plumber or nurse or teacher who can’t afford a new car every year and who respond to the question who are you wearing by saying Oscar de la Walmart?

 

Summer is over now, and Autumn is a few days old.  I like Autumn.  Of course, at my age, I like any season that will have me.  Still, wouldn’t it be nice to spend Summer in Aspen, Autumn in Vermont, Winter in Florence and Spring in Paris?  I’ll be spending all of those seasons in my condo, I suppose, but that’s fine.  My home is filled with wonderful things – a beautiful wife, a beautiful three-legged cat and my computer, where I can find you every Thursday.

Message from Shakespeare:     You have no such mirrors as will turn Your hidden worthiness into your eye (Julius Caesar).  Did you hear that?  He called me beautiful.  Maybe I am, although I never look in a mirror.  It’s too frightening to look in a mirror.  Every time Pops does, I hear him cry, Mirror, Mirror, on the wall – what the Hell happened?  Purr.

 

Last Thursday was the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, during which many celebrants fast all day.  My wife fasts, but I’m not sure how much good it does.  How could she get any faster?

 

The Universe couldn’t be vaster

Nor Covid a greater disaster

The truth can’t be truer

The sky can’t be bluer

And Carol can’t get any faster.

 

She is, after all, the Princess of Lickety Split.  She walks fast; she thinks fast; she plays cards fast.  And me?  One of her complaints about me is that I drive too slowly.  At least I drive, even at night.  I don’t understand what’s so hard about driving at night.  I can get lost in the dark as easily as I get lost in the daylight.

 

What shall we talk about now?  Whenever I get writer’s block or athlete’s foot or trench mouth or whatever it’s called when you run out of things to say, I look up the strange news on Google.  Here’s what I found:  Researchers in Germany successfully trained cows to use a small, fenced-in area with artificial turf flooring as a bathroom stall.  They trained cows to go in a litter box?  Ok, so what am I going to do with that?  I could write a limerick, I guess.  Litter does rhyme with shitter, after all, but somehow my strange mind decided to do some research instead.  There are 90 million cows and cattle in the United States, a statistic which makes the green crowd scream with horror – cholesterol and cow farts and the planet is doomed!  And yet, back in the elysian days before the dreaded White Man arrived, there were 60 million bison, a comparable number, and the Plains were full of bison and grass and Native Americans and sunshine, lollipops and rainbows.

 

Before Columbus (ugh, horrible, tear his statue down!), there were only 4 million people living in what is now the United States.  Now there are 330 million.  So, whereas the bison/cow population has gone up by 50%, the human population has exploded by 8,200%.   So now who do you think is responsible for farting up the atmosphere with methane gas?

 

I’ll leave you with that thought.  The Weekly Word is elysian, which means peaceful and perfect – just like next week’s blog is going to be.  I promise.  Don’t miss it.  Until then, stay well, count your blessings, take a Gas-X and I’ll see you next Thursday. 

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog # 236                                         September 16, 2021

 

My oldest daughter’s father-in-law passed away.  He was 97 and a very accomplished, intelligent man.  Which got me to thinking:  it doesn’t pay to die old.  All your friends are gone; you’ve been too old and too sick to sustain the adoration of your family and your death has been labeled “a blessing”.  I don’t want my death to be a blessing.  I want mine to be a horrible and devasting shock to my friends and family.  See, I’m always thinking about you.

 

And what to do when I die?  Last week, my grandson, Tyler, introduced me to a 30-minute video about Human Composting.  It’s the new thing, he tells me!  Here are the Cliff Notes:

 

·        Traditional burial takes up too much real-estate, too much wood and too much concrete.

·        Cremation is better, but the ashes are useless.

·        The human body can be composted in 30 days and used as excellent fertilizer for your vegetable garden.

·        I’m not making this up, and it sounds interesting to me.

 

My end-of-life wishes are these:

I want to be composted, please.

My compost should go

To help gardens grow

And make sure that I Rest in Peas.

 

Now that’s what I call really putting your ass in asparagus.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come (Julius Caesar).  I know where I’ll be buried – in the catacombs.  I guess I’ve been hanging around Pops too much because I’m making dumb jokes just like him.  Purr.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Another day, another sunrise, or, as it says in the Odyssey – Dawn came up … with fresh light in her arms for gods and men.  And I hope the fresh light of this morning finds you feeling well and calm.  I am delighted to discover that you were paying careful attention to last week’s blog and were quick to correct me when I said the Jewish New Year was 5781.  It is, indeed, 5782, and I’d like to say I was just testing you, but I never lie to you – at least not too often.  I hereby confess to having made a mistake and am filled with contrition.  Luckily, today is the Day of Atonement, and I trust God has forgiven me.

 

My wife, however, was not so generous.  I was called on the carpet, reviled, castigated and beaten within an inch of my miserable and useless life.  Then she told me I was an oafish, crass and caustic, grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and filthy wretch.  I always appreciate friendly criticism.

 

Enough about funerals and composting and mistaken dates.  Let’s switch to something fun.  How about a quiz for kids?  Are you ready? 

 

THE KIDS QUIZ:

 

1.     Who played the Cincinnati Kid?

2.     Who played the Sundance Kid?

3.     Who played Kid Shelleen?

4.     Who played the Karate Kid?

5.     Who played Lois Lane in the first Superman movie?

6.     In the HBO series, The Undoing, who played Hugh Grant’s wife?

7.     Who played The Cisco Kid in the 1950s TV show?

 

Ok, all you critics out there who were smart enough to correct me, see how many you get right.

 

Did you watch the US Open Tennis?  Wasn’t it exciting?  Did it bother you that there were no lines-people?  All calls were made by electronic devices and recorded voices.  And there are no checkers at Walmart, only self-checkout machines.  And McDonald’s is trying to make everyone order from an electronic kiosk.  The problem with having machines replacing what are mainly low-paying jobs is that our education system is turning out more and more students who are unqualified for anything but low-paying jobs.  The Woke & Broke Generation.  Are we looking toward a future where McDonald’s and Walmart will be saving money on labor costs but paying it all in more taxes so the government can pay a “minimum income” to the unemployed?  And what is this unemployed class supposed to do?  Well, what they’ll do is protest to demand higher government payments which will encourage more working people to join what will be the new “leisure class”.  And so on and so forth until the unemployed class outnumbers the employed class and that will lead to revolution and collapse.  And all because of tennis.  I knew they shouldn’t have replaced the lines-people.

 

I have a new machine.  It scans my clothing and tells me what doesn’t match.  It tells me which parking place to take.  It makes sure I eat at a round table.  It makes all my social plans.  Wait, that’s my wife.  She’s irreplaceable.

 

This past week, we all observed Nine-Eleven with our own thoughts and remembrances.  I was in the kitchen getting ready to leave for work when it happened.  The television was on NBC where Katie Couric and Matt Lauer were beginning to report a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.  You know, on the Today Show, when they say it’s 9:00, it’s 8:00 in St. Louis, but they delay the show one hour so that when we listen to them say it’s 9:00, it’s 9:00 in St. Louis.

 

In 2005, I was in New York buying shoes at Barney’s when Matt Lauer sat down next to me.  Really!  We began to talk, and I asked him why, if his show was on an hour delay in St. Louis, that the Nine-Eleven reporting was live.  He told me that once a breaking news event happens, they switch to a live broadcast.  Interesting.  He wears a size 8½.

 

Ok, here are the answers to the Quiz:

 

1.     The Cincinnati Kid was Steve McQueen in the movie Cincinnati Kid.

2.     The Sundance Kid was Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

3.     Kid Shelleen was Lee Marvin in the movie Cat Ballou.

4.     The Karate Kid was Ralph Macchio.

5.     Lois Lane was played by Margot Kidder.

6.     Hugh Grant’s wife was Nicole Kidman.

7.     The original Cisco Kid was Duncan Renaldo.

 

Oh, Cisco, did you get them all right!  Oh, Pancho, no.  And our Weekly Word is contrition, which means the state of feeling guilt, regret or remorse – a feeling I have every time I put you through another week of this.  Please forgive me and come back again next week, and in the meantime, stay well and count your blessings.

 

The Limerick Kid                               Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

 

 

Blog #235                                         September 9, 2021

 

Carol and I usually have Sunday dinner with our daughter Abby and her wonderful family.  At dinner, my wife often introduces some audacious question for the kids to answer.  They love it.  Her question this week was, “What are you going to say at my funeral?”  They all laughed and said funny things about their Nonnie.  Carol moped.  She was not satisfied with the level of love and admiration they displayed.  She wants them to work on their speeches and have a dry run.  I think that’s a fabulous idea – have a dry run of your funeral and hear what everybody is going to say while you still have the opportunity to change your will.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Our Weekly Word today is audacious, which means showing a willingness to take bold risks.  And now, I will show my own penchant for audacity by venturing into the world of political correctness.  Pray for me.

 

I met a tourist at the Zoo this week, a man about my age, which means somewhat older than Bill Clinton and somewhat younger than the Pyramids.  He said he hadn’t been to the Zoo since he was a kid.  I told him he was still a kid.  Everybody’s a kid at the Zoo.  Paul the Apostle said, When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  With all due respect to Paul (you have to be nice to Apostles), I suspect he was never a grandfather.  Grandfathers are just wrinkled little boys who have never “put away childish things” and still have their youthful love of toys and sports and zoos.  I was young and foolish then: now I am old and foolisher. (Mark Twain).

 

One of the things that we Grandpas do well is reading books to the kids.  I decided once to read them Alice in Wonderland, so I picked it up at the library.  When I got home, I noticed it was not the Alice I grew up with, but a new, improved, politically-correct version called Alice in California.  The plot was similar, but the characters had all been given new names.  There were:

 

§  Tweedle Dee and Tweedle 40^th Percentile

§  The White Privileged Rabbit

§  The Woke Hatter

§  The Walrus and The Union Middle-Class Craftsman

§  The Queen of Color

 

Next week I’m going to read Snow White and the Seven Vertically Challenged Asexual White Men.

 

And if the boys like trains and G. I. Joes, the girls still like dolls.  All right, all you feminists out there -- shoot me, drop me into a vat of organic beet juice, make me listen to old Joan Baez 8-tracks.  I can’t help it if my granddaughters like dolls. One of them wanted some accessories for her American Girl doll.  But when we tried to do the shopping, we found out that her doll was not purchased at American Girl.  It was, as they say, a knock-off.  I choose to refer to it as an Undocumented Doll.  I wonder if you can take your Undocumented Doll to American Girl for lunch.  Well, they can’t refuse to serve the doll, can they?  That’s discrimination!  They can’t refuse service on the basis of age, race, gender, or factory of origin.  The Doll has rights too.  I want a lawyer, a member of the ABA, the American Barbie Association.  I want the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Cabbage Patch.  How about the NRA -- Natives for Raggedy Ann?  We need a sit-in, a demonstration, a boycott.  Or in this case, a girlcott – an American Girlcott.  

 

And now American Girl has a new line of dolls.  If you press the little button under the arm, a recording of the Star-Spangled Banner plays and the doll automatically takes a knee.  It’s called the Un-American Girl Doll.

 

As I was driving home from the Zoo yesterday, I saw a big white van in the lane next to me.  It was an extended passenger van that could hold 10 or 12 people I suppose.  On the side of the van, in big orange letters, it read Machu Picchu Tours.  Machu Picchu, for those of you who think Central America includes Kansas, is in the Peruvian Andes.  Now I’ve been lost many times in my life, but I’ve never been that lost.  I mean, I’ve been known to miss an exit, but this guy missed an entire continent.

 

Professors at school tried to teach you

But somehow they just couldn’t reach you

They erred in their thinkin’

That any old Incan

Would know how to find Machu Picchu.

 

I live to write limericks, and the second I saw that van, I knew I had a challenge.  I don’t even know if the poem makes sense, but to rhyme both Incan and Machu Picchu in one limerick – well, if I smoked, I’d light up a cigar or if I drank, I’d give myself a toast.

 

One more thing and I’ll let you go.  I have this little thing with my foot, and Dr. Foot suggested I wear a thin cushion in my shoe.  Do you know what that means?  With the cushion, I am now 1/32 of an inch taller.  I feel so lofty.  I’m High in Hialeah, Tall in Tallahassee, Macho in Machu Picchu.  Ok, I’m also getting Boring in Bora Bora.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Speak on, but be not over tedious (Henry VI, Part 1).  Mostly, he’s boring wherever he is, but I put up with him because he plays with me and buys me toys.  He even tried to read me a book.  It was called Puss in Three Boots.  Purr. 

 

Happy New Year to all of my Jewish readers.  On the Hebrew calendar, it is now the year 5781.  Seems like only yesterday it was 3528.  My, how the years fly by!  Whatever calendar you use -- the Hebrew, the Gregorian or the Incan -- may the next year be a safe and happy one for each of you.  And now it’s time to go. Stay well, be calm and count your blessings.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                   Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com

 

Blog #234                                         September 2, 2021

 

I want the streets repaired.  I want the banks and utilities regulated.  I want to be protected from criminals and foreign powers.  I want a lot of things, but I can’t do these things by myself, and neither can you.  So we all get together and hire people to do these things for us.  We hire them by electing them to office and we pay them with our taxes.

 

Each of us is the CEO, the Chief Election Officer, of our subdivision, our school board, our city, state and country.  It’s up to us.  We hire the best and the brightest and the most likable people we can find and the instant they start the job, we hate them.  The people we hire, instead of being just some chosen one of us, immediately become THEM!  They can’t do that; they can’t tell us what to do; we need to get rid of them.  But it’s not them that are running things.  It’s not some gang of Hapsburgs who have been dropped from the annals of history to enslave us.  It’s us.  We elected them.

 

And if your candidate did not win, well, you’re in the minority.  You can vote again next time and you can try to persuade your friends and neighbors.  Instead, nowadays, the minority immediately begins to defame, attack and attempt to remove whoever won.  It’s counter-productive, divisive and petulant.  They did it to Trump; now they’re doing it to Biden.  Isn’t politics fun?

 

And isn’t Limerick Oyster fun?  I’m glad you’re back.  Hi there and welcome.  I hope you are feeling well?  Are you wearing your masks and getting your shots and washing your hands?  That hand-washing thing is very important, especially after handling any currency.  The famous faces on those bills that have been in circulation for years are likely smeared with a nasty patina of scum, filth and just plain yuck!

 

On Hamilton’s face is a plant

I’d try to describe but I can’t

There’s something on Lincoln

That’s slimy and stinkin’

And schmutz on Ulyssess S. Grant.

 

 

A few years ago, when I was driving my grandson to Pre-School each day, we would always arrive early.  Punctuality is the Politeness of Kings.  That was actually the quip under my picture in the High School Yearbook.  Can you believe that?  After three years, they did not have one nice thing to say about me except, “The bastard was on time.”  But am I bitter after 58 years?  Does a bear hibernate?  

 

Anyway, since we were early, my grandson and I would play in the car.  One day, he was a Jedi and used a soda straw as his light saber to slice up the evil Darth Vader (that was me).  I put a small, round, orange sticker on my nose to show where he wounded me and I howled in mock pain.  Great fun.  From there, I went to the cable company to talk about my bill, Walmart to buy some things, the Post Office to mail a package and the bookstore to browse.  I bought a small book and, as I was checking out, the clerk said, “You know you have a round sticker on your nose?”  I presume that the previous three people with whom I had had close dealings did not think it odd for an old man to be wearing an orange dot on his nose. Perhaps they thought I was a Hindu woman with bad aim.  Was I mortified?  Not a bit.  Blessed are they that can laugh at themselves, for they will never cease to be amused.

 

The reason I brought this up was because at dinner the other night, I saw my wife examining her face in the reflection on a butter knife.  Yes, a butter knife!  Who does that?  A butter knife!  You see, a woman never goes more than two minutes without examining her reflection in a wall mirror, compact, rear-view mirror, puddle, store window, someone else’s sunglasses or, failing any of those, the nearby cutlery.  It is unimaginable that a woman could visit four stores not knowing that there was an orange sticker on her nose.  Or that she was wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe.  I confess to that one too.  Well, it was dark that morning.

 

I just ordered my wife some makeup product on Amazon.  The product was advertised as Gluten Free and Cruelty Free.  I was confused by the cruelty-free part, so I looked it up.  Cruelty-free means no animal experimentation.  What?  They experiment by trying the products on animals?  They put blush on a thrush?  Mascara on a capybara?  Booster on a rooster?  Stain on a crane?  I know, I’m weird.

 

Message from Shakespeare: God has given you one face and you make yourself another (Hamlet).  I have big eyes surrounded by hair, so I don’t need eye makeup.  Some nail polish might be nice, green to match my eyes.  With only three legs, I won’t need much.  Purr.

 

Let’s talk about The Assassins’ Club.

 

·        On September 5, 1975, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme pointed a loaded gun at President Ford.  She was convicted of attempted assassination and sentenced to life in prison.  She was released in 2009 and moved to New York where she lives with her boyfriend in a house decorated with skulls.

·        On September 22, 1975, Sara Jane Moore fired a shot in an attempted assassination of President Ford.  She was released from prison in 2007 and lives in North Carolina.

·        On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley, Jr. shot President Reagan.  He spent 34 years in a mental institution and was released in 2016, whereupon he moved in with his mother in Virginia.

·        On June 6, 1968, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy and was sentenced to life in prison.  A California Parole Board has just recommended that Sirhan be released on parole.

 

How nice.  Maybe the four of them could get together, maybe at Squeaky’s Skull House, play a little mahjong (boys against girls) and talk about the good old days.  What kind of ridiculous country lets four assassins loose?  Now, I’ve heard, the four of them are starring in a new Netflix series.  It’s called Up Your Assassin.

 

Ok, you can go now.  I apologize if, in this issue, I have been a bit petulant, which means bad-tempered and childish (our Weekly Word, of course).  Stay well; stay away from hurricanes and forest fires and the Taliban.  And count your blessings.

 

Michael                          Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com