Blog #490                                July 30, 2026

 

It’s almost August and summer will soon be gone.  But there’s still time for vacationing and outdoor activities like boating.  We used to go boating once in a while with friends at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri.  It’s a large, beautiful lake surrounded by very expensive lake houses.  I remember the last time we boated there, three senior guys and their wives.  As we pulled away from the dock, the friend who was driving handed me a map of the lake.  Now I could show you on a globe where Djibouti is, or Komodo or the Andaman Islands or Timbuktu for that matter.  But with directions – well, not so good.  Men, although they will never admit it, are just not good at directions.  Let me put it this way – if they dropped me on first base, I couldn’t find second base.  But, we puttered around while the girls enjoyed the outdoors by sitting in the part of the boat farthest away from the sunshine and the water and discussing the color of their toenails and whether Donald and Melania will stay married.

 

The guys ignored the girls (isn’t it cute that I call these 80+ women “girls”?), because we were too busy obsessing over the multi- million-dollar mansions crowding the shoreline.  That one must cost $3 million.  Look at that one.  It looks like a castle.  I just don’t get a thrill ogling an $8 million mansion, knowing that I couldn’t afford the light-fixture in the 9^th bathroom.

 

I used to be rich, and it was good to be rich for a couple of years, until it all went away.  But I can’t say I spent my life that much differently.  I just spent it in different places – Hawaii, France, Italy, Martha’s Vineyard, Russia.  Talking about getting lost, that tortuous Russia trip was a challenge.  We started in Stockholm on a cruise ship and visited Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Germany and Denmark.  By the sixth day, I was totally confused.

 

There are so many places I’ve been

I don’t know what country I’m in

I cannot determine

A Swede from a German

And can’t tell a Pole from a Finn.

 

Poor Poland!  Being stuck between Russians and Germans for a thousand years makes Dante’s Inferno look like Canyon Ranch.

 

Tortuous will be our Weekly Word.  It means full of twists and turns.  And here’s a tortuous little story for you:  President Donald Trump, Vice-President J.D. Vance and Senator Chuck Schumer were flying on Air Force One when the President said, “You know, I could throw a thousand hundred-dollar bills out the window and make a thousand people happy.”  The Vice-President responded, “Well, I could throw two thousand fifty-dollar bills out the window and make two thousand people happy.”  Chuck Schumer just smirked and thought, “I could throw both of your asses out the window and make half the world ecstatic.”

 

Ok, just a little joke to keep you smiling.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re smiling and I hope you’re feeling well.  I’m reading a Larry McMurtry book in which one of the characters says, “Old age is a worthless damn thing.”  I can’t agree.  I believe my senior years are filled with great opportunities to add and contribute.  And I don’t mean reading more books or going to classes or visiting places I’ve never seen.  Whatever I might gain from those things will be gone when I’m gone.  No, I mean the opportunities to leave behind some of yourself in the things you teach, in the care you take of others, even in the entertainment you might provide.  “It’s not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.”  Helen Walton said that, and Helen should know.  Being the wife of Sam Walton, and the richest woman in America at one time, she gathered and scattered more than most.  Helen is also famous for another quote:  Marriage is a relationship where one is always right and the other is always the husband.

 

Summer also means golf and swimming and vacations.  I remember one Summer, my granddaughter was vacationing on the beach, when I got a call.  “Poppy,” she said, “I got splashed by a whale!”  I, of course, responded with the dumbest question of the year:  Was it a big whale?  A big whale?  Of course it was a big whale, you ignorant old poop.  They don’t make little whales.  That’s why they call them whales!  The book’s not called Moby Little Dick, is it?   She’s precocious.

 

Message from Shakespeare, the three-legged cat:  For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring (Romeo and Juliet).  Summer, winter, who cares?  I never go outside anyway.  It’s always comfy in our home, and if I’m ever cold I can go schnoogle with Pops.  Life is good!  Purr.

 

I love my doctors.  I love them so much that I have forgotten their names.  That’s why I call them Dr. Heart and Dr. Skin and Dr. Hand.  I do have one criticism of doctors – they all seem to be in love with their titles.  On every list – donors’ list, membership list, guest list – their names have to have the DR in front.  Nobody else has his or her occupation permanently affixed to his or her name. 

 

So I was at a funeral (yes, another one) and there, on the marble walls lining the chapel, were names memorializing the deceased.  And on one, instead of Joe Schmo, it said Dr. Joe Schmo.  Seriously?  I thought death was the Grand Equalizer.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  I guess now it’s dust to Dr. Dust.

 

My favorite doctor is Dr. David, my son-in-law in North Carolina.  Not only is he a radiologist, but he has his own rock n’ roll band.  He has some goofy name for the band, and I don’t like it, so I gave him a list of names appropriate for a radiologist’s band.  Here they are:

 

·        The Rolling Bones

·         X-Ray Charles

·         Cat Scan Stevens

·         The Mammograms and the Papagrams

·         Donnie & MRI

·         Jethro Skull

·         Pelvis Presley.

And now it’s time to go.  I hope you enjoyed this week’s goofiness.  Stay well, stay out of the heat and count your blessings.  I’ll be back next week.  Don’t get lost. See you then.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com