Blog #501                                October 15, 2026

 

I care about a lot of things.  I care about my wife and my cat, my daughters and my grandchildren and their cats.  And their dogs.  I care about my friends and my loyal readers and about politics.  But the thing I care the least about in all the world is Amelia Earhart.  Why do we still give a rat’s propellor about Amelia Damn Earhart after all these years?  Do you think she’s out there on some island at the age of 129?  She’s been gone for 89 years.  And yet every few years, some apocryphal headline comes up about somebody finding Amelia Earhart’s tooth in their Big Mac.  Do you think she’s hiding on some Pacific atoll playing mahjong with Jimmy Hoffa and D. B. Cooper?  Give it up, people.  Worry about something else.  Like why bakers can’t count to twelve.

 

Ok, there are three possibilities here:

1.     You knew who D. B. Cooper was.

2.     You didn’t know who he was, so you looked him up on Google.

3.     You don’t give a rat’s propellor about D. B. Cooper.

And yes, you guessed it.  Apocryphal is our Weekly Word.  It means of questionable authorship or authenticity.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I’m here and you’re there, so let’s talk.  I hope you are feeling well and enjoying the Fall weather.  “Autumn repays the earth the leaves which summer lent it,” said Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, an 18^th Century German physicist and philosopher famous for his many quotable phrases.  Aren’t you glad I told you that?  It is now Autumn, of course, and the season of falling leaves.  Many of you will spend Autumn in Florida where the leaves don’t fall or Arizona where there are no leaves, but here in Missouri we have a glorious and colorful Autumn to look forward to.

 

Did you have a nice Columbus Day last Monday.  I’m not sure exactly why we celebrate a day for a man who never set foot on this continent.  Nothing around here was named after him except a city in Ohio.  And, of course, he was a nasty white European colonialist who ordered the extermination of indigenous populations.  But he made good pomodoro sauce, so I guess it’s alright.  The day has turned into something of a celebration of Italian Heritage, even though there was no such country as Italy in Chris’ day.  He was from Genoa, a country unto itself, and sailed under the flag of Spain – which is why everybody south of the border is Hispanic, not Histalian.  Isn’t this informative?  It’s like continuing education.

 

Columbus was actually lost when he discovered America.  He was looking for India.  He should have had my wife along with him.  She would have set him straight.

 

The crew is all down with infections

You haven’t met any projections

You’re sailing too slow

You don’t know where to go

Pull over and ask for directions.

 

Is it just me, or are all men so poorly disregarded by women?  Sure, when they need to know how to spell something or how to screw in a lightbulb or they need a poem for their cat’s neutering party or whatever – they come right to me.  But when it comes to driving, dressing, directions or common sense, they avoid me like Will Smith.  Am I that useless?  (This is the part where you go to your computers and e-mail poor, helpless old Michael and tell him how respected and important and loved he is.  That’ll be nice.)

 

Let’s move on to something light and amusing.  Like baseball.  Even though the Cardinals’ chances are deader than Bill Cosby’s Mastercard, the Baseball Playoff Season is here.  Did you know that Cosby was a football player at Temple University?  Temple just announced yesterday that they were retiring his number – PA4974482.

 

I hear Cosby is going to manage a new Major League Baseball team next year, the San Quentin Felons.  Their uniforms are striped and some of these guys actually stole second base.  The pitcher and catcher are known as the Aggravated Battery.  When they announce the lineup, these guys really get in a lineup.  How many more dumb jokes do you want?  The numbers on the back of their uniforms read 5 to 10 or 20 to life. 

 

Here’s the roster: Enos Manslaughter, Alcatraz Pujols, Barry Bondsman, Ernie Banksrobber, Don Larceny, Roger Clemency, Yadier Molester, Babe Ruthless and Johnnie Benchwarrant. 

 

Carol is obsessed with beautiful women.  Heidi Klum – who can argue with that?  Jane Fonda – Carol just watched a Jane Fonda special on HBO.  Melania Trump – “she’ll dump him as soon as he’s out of office”.  Kate and Meghan – the English Royalty.  The Royals are her major obsession – first Diana, then Kate and now Meghan.  My wife is most assuredly a princess; all she lacks is a crown. 

 

It’s not fair to be jealous of people just because they’re beautiful.  As Charles Dickens said, Persons don’t make their own faces, and it’s no more my fault if mine is a good one than it is other people’s fault if theirs is a bad one.

 

I hope you are feeling well and staying away from all the natural shocks that flesh is heir to.  (A little Shakespeare there.)  I’m good.  I remember fifty or sixty years ago when we would get together with friends and talk about who was pregnant and who was buying a house and who got a promotion.  Now we get together and talk about who’s in the hospital and who’s in the nursing home and who’s in the obituaries.   Pretty sad.  Please don’t get sick and don’t fall and don’t forget my name.

 

Message from Shakespeare: The empty vessel makes the loudest sound (King Lear).  Wait a minute, did I hear him say “a little Shakespeare”?  That’s me.  I hate when he mentions that other Shakespeare, some old, dead, mothball poet that I can’t understand.  I never say perchance, I say Purr.   I never say methought, I say Meow.  And I still make more sense than that dumb poet.  Purr.

 

Ok, this blog had a lot of stuff – stories about Columbus, quotes from Dickens and Shakespeare and Lichtenberg, a clever limerick.  You don’t get that from The View!  And on that obvious note, I shall end Blog #501.  Stay well and count your blessings.  See you next week.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com