Blog #483                                June 11, 2026

 

Do your kids or grandkids play a musical instrument?  Do you remember when they were in 3^rd grade and it was time for the class recital?  There they were, my little angel and 43 brats who couldn’t possibly be as cute as mine.  Each one had a violin.  They were eight.  How horrible was this going to be?  Did I bring enough cotton balls to shove into my ears?  The Music Director walked onto the stage, accepted the applause of the anxious parents and addressed his mini-Paganinis. Here were his instructions:

 

Please take your position right now

And fiddle as if you knew how.                  

At the start of the show

You will all take a bow;

At the end you will all take a bow.

 

By now, you should be very adept at reading limericks, so I shouldn’t have to tell you that the word “bow” in the above rhyme has two different meanings and two different pronunciations.  Should I?  Well, I thought it was clever.

 

Movie Review:  Michael, the story of Michael Jackson was terrific.  If you are of my generation or younger, you cannot deny what a phenomenon Michael Jackson’s stardom was and how compelling was his music.  The actor playing Jackson, Michael’s actual nephew, was sensational.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  I have two things to celebrate with you today.  First, today is Carol’s and my 59^th anniversary.  Can you believe that she has put up with me for so long?  I can’t.  I am very, very lucky to have been allowed to spend six decades with that beautiful woman.  My love for her is amaranthine.  Second, we are on Bald Head Island, just off the coast of North Carolina.  When I say “we”, I mean 15 of us, children, spouses, grandchildren.  Oh, and a dog.  So, let’s see, 15 times 2, carry the four and divide by π – that makes 34 feet puttering, pattering and prancing around one large rental house.  It’s been crowded, but great fun.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  O pardon: since a crooked figure may attest in little place a million (Henry V).  They didn’t take me, probably because I have an odd number of legs, so I’m home alone all week.  But they took a dog.  Scruffy, stupid dog.  I hope he gets sand in his tail.  Purr.

 

Yes, amaranthine is our Weekly Word.  It means undying, never-ending.

 

Carol and I flew to North Carolina, and as we were boarding the plane, walking down the aisle to our seat, Carol grabbed some young man sitting in an aisle a couple of rows forward of ours.  “Young man, could you help my old, decrepit, useless husband to lift his carry-on bag to the overhead?” she sweetly asked.  Of course he did.  He was very nice.  In fact, when we landed, he got up, walked back to our row and asked if he could help get my bag down.  Wasn’t that nice?  Then some lady behind us asked if he could help her too.  Then another.  I think he’s still on the plane.  No good deed goes unpunished, right?  That’s not true, of course.  Every good deed is rewarded by the goodwill it engenders and the good feeling it leaves with the doer.

 

Did you know the longest running scripted show that is still on the air?  It’s The Simpsons, which has run for 37 seasons.  I have never seen one episode, but I’m guessing Bart Simpson has never matured -- or have his viewers.  But there are plenty of programs that have grown older and have decided to change their names to reflect the extreme old-age of their audiences.  Modern Family is now Ancient Family.  Blue Bloods has been changed to Thin Bloods.  And, for the extremely old, there’s Hawaii Nine-O, Grey Haired Anatomy and Wheelchair of Fortune.

 

How are you at song lyrics?  I must admit I’m still pretty good for songs from the  50s through the 70s.  But sometimes, you just get something in your head that’s wrong, but sticks anyway.  For instance, you know the Do-Re-Mi song?  “Do, a deer, a female deer”.  For years I thought one of the lines was “Ti-A drink with Jan and Fred.”  Seriously.

 

Well, the other day, Carol was watching Jeopardy or playing bridge online or something.  Anyway, Carol shouts, “Who sang, Hold me closer, Tony Danza?”  It was Elton John, I said, and it’s “Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer”.  I think he wrote that song right after he wrote Pop goes Vin Diesel and Here we go ‘round George W. Bush, George W. Bush, George W. Bush.

 

I told my daughter Abby about the Tony Danza story and she said that happened on an episode of Friends.  Well, it happened with Carol also.  Funny!

 

I had to borrow my granddaughter’s pickup truck the other day.  This is the truck that’s so tall I need a Sherpa to get in.  Once in, however, I was tooling along nicely, feeling like your average American Redneck, when I decided to turn on the radio.  This is a teenager’s ride, and I prepared myself for the Death Metal Burn in Hell Kill Your Parents and Take Some Drugs station.  But you know what I got?  National Public Radio.  My granddaughter listens to NPR?  I was impressed!  Until, that is, they started a piece on why some lizards have green blood.  No wonder our teenagers are so messed up!  They listen to NPR!  I would have enjoyed the Death Metal station more.

 

I don’t believe in omens or fortune-telling or parapsychology or magic.  I’m a scientist, after all, and yet – well, something happened the day before we left that has me a bit shaken.  A couple of years ago, my son-in-law Robert bought me a bobble-head made to look like me standing in a golf shirt holding my putter.  That’s PUTTER!  You have a filthy mind.  Today I moved the little figurine from one spot to another and the head fell off and rolled under my chair.  The head that looked exactly like me!  It was very spooky!  Does that mean this is my last blog?  Who knows?  I will try to be very careful this week. You should be careful too.  Stay well and count your blessings.  I’ll see you next week.  I hope.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com