Blog #487                                July 9, 2026

 

We all just celebrated the Fourth of July, Independence Day. the 250^th birthday of the United States of America.  We celebrated our flag and our Constitution and our national Anthem.  Do you have a problem with any of that?  Well, some people do and they show it with protests and demonstrations.  But just like other things, protests just aren’t what they used to be.  In the 60s, we had real protests – fiery protests.   Feminists burned their bras, young men burned their draft cards, anti-war activists burned the flag, students burned the ROTC building, blacks burned Watts and the occasional Buddhist burned himself.  Those were the days!  Everybody had a Zippo and they knew how to use it.

 

Nowadays, people don’t burn anything on the Fourth except the burgers.  But be careful!  The golf, the fireworks, the barbecue -- they could all kill you.  Especially golf!   I used to play golf twice a week.  I was never great.  I was never horrible.  But as the years go by and my age becomes four times my handicap, I play less and worry less about my score.  My friends are the same.  Why worry about pars and birdies when you can worry about tripping over your putter and breaking a hip.  Or being thrown from a cart and gouging your leg.  Or driving into a lake and drowning.  Or having a heart attack from the heat.  It’s a par-72 jungle out there!  Now, a good day at golf looks like this:

 

At golf today nobody died

And nobody fainted or cried

No back pain, no scars

No birdies or pars

So all that was hurt was our pride.

 

Another dangerous summer activity is boating.  Riding a boat is great fun and brings out, mostly in men, some ancient instinct that has come down to us from Ulysses that makes us believe we actually know how to tie a knot and steer a boat.  Of course I can’t do any of that.  I’m Jewish!  If Jews could sail a boat, God would not have had to part the Red Sea.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well, and I hope you had a great holiday celebrating our country’s semiquincentennial celebration.  Yes, that’s a word, our Weekly Word in fact, and it means, obviously, a 250^th anniversary.  None of us, most likely, will ever see that word again, but if you do, remember who taught it to you.

 

Often, I have a reader ask me, “why don’t you ever mention me in your blog?”  It’s really simple, I tell them.  Just say something outrageously stupid and that may get you in.  Usually that ends the conversation.  But recently, I did have a friend say something that shocked me.  He said he didn’t think America was the best place to live.  Ok, here’s where I stand, for better or worse.  I’m a proud American.  I think it’s the best country in the world and I will always root for the Americans.  Certainly, there are times when I don’t like the President or the laws that are passed or the decisions that are made.  But that’s Democracy!  I get to vote, and if I lose, I live with it.  And that’s what America is about.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Service and the loyalty I owe, In doing it, pays itself (Macbeth).  And I’m a Yankee Doodle Pussycat.  Some of the Founders were related to me, like James Catison and Catrick Henry.  But one relative I’m not proud of – Aaron Purr.   Meow.

 

I just received an email from a high-school friend, a psychiatrist from Philadelphia.  He told me he was writing a book about mental illness and wanted to use a poem I had written back in high-school.  Why he has saved one of my 60-year-old poems till now, I can’t say.  Maybe he had a crush on me.  I won’t bore you with the poem, but it was a 12-line rhyming version of the following joke:

 

A man took his wife to a faith-healer.  “Guru,” he said, “my wife is sick.”  The Guru looked into the woman’s tired and swollen eyes and touched her pallid, shrunken skin and said, “No, my friend, your wife is well.  She only thinks she’s sick.”  A week later the man saw the healer again.  “Well,” said the Guru, “is your wife better?”  “She’s worse,” said the man.  “She thinks she’s dead.”  It figures -- I finally get a poem published and it’s in a book about mental illness!

 

Did you notice I used the word till two paragraphs earlier?  The word is actually until.  For a while, I tried writing ‘til, the apostrophe being my sacrifice to the Grammar Gods, but I have decided to give in to the common usage of till.  I feel somehow dirty and weathered by that decision, but life goes on, the language changes and we old dinosaurs of diction must adapt or become extinct.

 

And speaking of words, a friend told me that some woman on the TV used a word with a C that was not rated G.  There’s a limerick there somewhere, but you only get one a week.  Yes, my friend said, she used the dreaded C-Word.  “What,” I exclaimed, “Constipation?”  Well, each generation has its own forbidden words.  When I was young, Hell, Damn and Bitch were forbidden in my house.  Lucy and Desi were not allowed to share a bed.  And “gay” meant lively and carefree.  Things are certainly different today!  As the Wicked Witch of the West would say, “What a world!”  Besides constipation, there is another dreaded and forbidden word for those of the older generation.  It’s the F-Word – Fried Foods.

 

And you know what else has changed?  Toilets.  Now, when I walk away from a public urinal or seat, it flushes itself.  Then at the sink I just pass my hand under the soap dispenser and soap comes out.  I wave my hands under the faucet and water comes out.  I approach the towel dispenser and towels come out.  If they could just figure it out so that if we waved our hands behind us, crap would come out, then we wouldn’t need laxatives.

 

Ok, I’m talking about toilets again, and that means it’s time to leave.  See you next week.  Stay well and count your blessings.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@ gmail.com