Blog #416                                February 27, 2025

 

I got on an elevator the other day along with another man – tall, big, 40ish.  In other times, you would look at the person, smile, nod your head, maybe say an innocuous word or two.  Not anymore.  Now, you can’t even make eye contact because everyone is reading a device.  They are reading their texts or their emails or their Twitter or Limerick Oyster.  What have we become when we no longer interact with the people around us?  We have become a sad and robotic society.  Social media has made us anti-social.  Obviously, Mr. Big-Tall-40ish and I did not communicate.  His loss.  Maybe mine too.

 

But, later that day, I went to get a blood test.  I hate blood tests.  Even somebody else’s blood test!  When the young man began to take my blood, he asked me about my book.  I had a book. Is there ever a time when I’m without a book?  Is there ever a day when a mattress is not on sale?  I sat with this young man for 15 minutes after he was finished.  We talked about books and his job and his trip to the Grand Canyon.  What a pleasure.  I didn’t want to leave.  He didn’t want me to leave.  Simple, friendly, social contact.  If you’re ever down on people and need a lift, just go get your blood taken.  It’s fun.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  Tomorrow Carol and I are going to sea.  No, not a three-hour tour on the Minnow with a rotund and jolly Skipper.  Not a three-year voyage on the Pequod with a wretched and maniacal Ahab.  We will be embarking instead on a three-day cruise to Key West and the Bahamas.  I am certainly relishing a chance to get away from the freezing winter in St. Louis, but I do harbor (there’s a nautical term for you) a good deal of trepidation about traveling.

 

Carol and I travel almost every year to Naples to visit friends, then to Carol’s sister in West Palm and up to my daughter in North Carolina, but it always makes me anxious when I go out of town.  And for good reason.  Once, when I was out of town, I had quadruple bypass surgery.  Another time I was in the hospital with pneumonia.  Another time I was hit with a urinary infection.  I think I have a new plan:

 

Whenever I travel I dread

Winding up in a hospital bed

I’m thinking next year

I should leave my wife here

And take all my doctors instead.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave I am! (Hamlet).  Why doesn’t he take me?  I hate being alone.  My neighbors come by and feed me and pet me, but I’m so sad.  Send him home soon.  Purr.

 

You know, everything I tell you here is the truth.  Sure, there is an obvious joke here and there, but the stories I tell you are true.  And I know you can tell they are.  There is something about the truth that makes itself understood.  I don’t have to make up funny things; much of life is funny.  You just have to listen.

 

For instance, I heard a funny thing on the TV the other day.  It was Princess Kate advising other women how to be a good mother.  We all love Princess Kate, don’t we?  She’s pretty and the kids are cute and – they’re Royalty.  Here in the Colonies, we love the English Royalty.  I mean -- Downton Abbey!  We loved Princess Di; we adored her as if she were our own Princess.  And now we adore Princess Kate.  But not satisfied with pretty little princesses from across the Pond; we try to create our own royalty.  When I was growing up, we worshipped Elvis Presley, so we called him The King.  And John Wayne – he was the Duke.  Even today, well, would you go to see a singer named Stefani Gaga?  Of course not!  But call her Lady and she’s a star.  How about Dana Latifah?  No chance.  But call her Queen and she makes the big bucks. 

 

But I digress.  I passed up the major point which was:  Princess Kate is telling us how to raise our children!  Are you kidding me?  Her children are never woebegone.  Their only trauma is that on Tuesdays and Thursdays they have to share the same palace.  Raise her children?  She doesn’t raise her children; they have nannies, maids, tutors, riding coaches, voice coaches, piano teachers and, of course, royalty coaches.  And besides, they’re grandfather is the King.  Kate is the only person in the world whose father-in-law, husband and son are all a King or in line to be a King, and she is presuming to “relate” with the common woman?  Nobody in my family is a king, although I do have a queen and a few princesses.  And I am the poor Court Jester, just a silly fool in a funny hat.

 

Weekly Word:  Woebegone means sad or miserable.

 

I finished a book the other day, and the ending made me cry.  I’m not embarrassed.  A lot of things make me cry:

 

·        The ending of Puff the Magic Dragon

·        The ending of The Miracle Worker

·        Every episode of The View.

 

Now I’m looking for a new book.  I have a bad back.  Do you have a bad back?  I hope not, but if you are vertical long enough, your back gets messy.  So I looked on Amazon for books about bad backs.  Here’s what I found:

                            

Moby Disc                                         Frankenspine

A Farewell to Backs                           Bonfire of the Vertebrae

Atlas Limped                                     Up the Down Steroids

Fifty Shades of Ouch                         The Andromeda Pain

 

Have you noticed that this is Blog #416?  Do you know what that means?  Well, to those of you who thought 2^nd Grade was the best three years of your life, let me explain:  416 blogs in 416 weeks; divide by 52 weeks in a year and you have eight years of blogging and whining and rhyming and scolding.  How could you have put up with it all?  You deserve a medal.  And I deserve a rest.  But no, your indefatigable correspondent will faithfully plod onward and be back next week.  Be there.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com