Blog #374                                          May 9, 2024

 

Did you know that the average American walks 1,400 miles a year?  Did you know that the average American drinks 2.3 gallons of alcohol a year?  That’s over 600 miles per gallon.  And you thought you needed a Prius?

 

Drinking alcohol can be a dangerous habit, as you know.  I’ve had my share of bad habits – drinking, smoking, wearing linen in October, chewing gum.  I still have a piece of gum once in a while, but I gave up chewing in the presence of my wife.  The impetus came one night when I was lying in bed watching a German soccer game (I keep telling you I’m weird) and chewing a piece of Trident Spearmint.  I must admit I was cracking and smacking and making myself thoroughly annoying, when Carol turned her head to the right.  She always sleeps on the same side of the bed.  In every home we have shared and every hotel room, Carol has always slept on the same side – the side nearest the bathroom.  Why do women always have to be close to the bathroom?  Are they expecting to need an emergency eyebrow plucking at three a.m.?  Back to my obnoxious chewing.  She could have said, “If you don’t stop cracking that gum, I’m going to shoot hairspray up your nose.”  She didn’t.  Instead, she sweetly said, “Honey, does it bother you when I crack my gum?”  Well, I gave her maximum style points for that and immediately gave up chewing gum in bed.  See, you can catch more flies with honey than with hairspray.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Are you feeling well?  Feeling strong?  Feeling tall?  When I was a teenager, my parents’ friends would hold their hands down at my waist-level and say, “I knew you when you were this tall.”  Now, sad to say, my friends hold their hands six inches above my head and say the same thing.  I’ve been offered a job standing on the top of wedding cakes.

 

Other than short, however, I am feeling great.  I know you think I have all these health issues, and I do have a few, but I think Carol and I are as well as can be expected for our ages.  Last Saturday, a representative of our health insurance company visited us for a Healthy Home Visit.  The lady took our vitals and asked about our medications.  She concluded I had more pills than an old sweater.  Then she went through a checklist of ailments, and although I said “yes” to many of the items on the checklist, I said “no” to most.  She asked me to memorize three words and then asked me to repeat them later.  I did that, of course, and volunteered to recite all 18 stanzas of The Raven for her.   Hey, getting old is easy.  It’s having fun while you’re doing it that’s the challenge.

 

So let’s have some fun.  How about a cute story?  And it’s totally true.  My oldest grandchild, Zachary, is almost 23 now.  He lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin now, and I am very proud of him.  When he was 14 or so, like many boys that age, he became interested in magic and worked up a little routine of card tricks.  He was pretty good, and his mom suggested he could put on a little show at the nearby senior-living home.  He agreed; the home agreed and off he went.  It didn’t turn out well.  The first card trick he did involved laying out a group of nine cards on the table and asking one of the inmates (I guess “resident” would be a kinder term) to pick a card, but not to tell him what it was.  The nice, elderly lady did, and he proceeded to run through some prestidigitory flim-flam at the end of which he proudly held up a card and asked, “Is this your card?”  The nice lady smiled at him and said, “I’m sorry young man, I’ve forgotten.”  True story.

 

I’ve avoided the issue so far, but I cannot end this blog without addressing the elephant in the room, the protests on college campuses.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy (Troilus and Cressida).  Wait, there’s an elephant in the room?  Is he serious?  I’d better hide.  If I got stepped on, I’d be just a piece of hairy toast.  Is he trying to kill me?  Yesterday, I thought I heard him say he was going to send me to South Dakota. The Governor there needs a new pet.  Purr. 

 

Ok, back to the college protests.  They have saddened me and infuriated me.  I’m glad they are arresting the protestors, at least half of whom apparently are not students at all.  What arrogance, what hubris – to think, at their age, they could possibly know all there is to know.  In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer says

 

Age has a great advantage over youth

In wisdom and by custom, that’s the truth.

 

What stupidity and disloyalty to pull down American flags and replace them with Palestinian flags.  I’d like to see someone in Gaza pull down a Palestinian flag and raise an American flag.  I wonder what his life expectancy would be.  I have no respect for their tactics, their Kafkaesque beliefs or their lack of understanding.  I’m sorry if any of them are your grandchildren.  I’m sorry if any of them are my grandchildren.

 

I’m going to tell you poetically

That those students are acting pathetically

It makes me irate

That they’re so full of hate

And behaving so antisemitically.

 

I apologize for the limerick.  It’s what I do.  But that’s enough.  Time to ignore me and go on about your day.  Until next Thursday, that is.  Be back then.  Stay well and count your blessings that you live in America.

 

Oh, the Weekly Word is Kafkaesque, which means having a nightmarish, bizarre or illogical quality. Franz Kafka was a Bohemian writer of the early 20^th Century.  He’s the one who wrote a book about a guy waking up to discover that overnight he had been turned into a cockroach, so you can tell what a joy his books were.  See you next week.  And have a Happy Mothers’ Day on Sunday.  My mother died about this time of year in 1995.  Happy Mothers’ Day, Mom.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com