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    • Home
    • LATEST ESSAY
    • HUH?
    • Author Interview
    • Buy A Book
    • Some 2020 Postings
    • Car Talk
    • STAYING CALM
    • Skiing Tips
    • Christmas 2019
    • Tribute to Rex Heathcote
    • A Walk For The Ages
    • Bright Side of a Firing
    • Macy's Mattress
    • On Being 82
    • Rubes In the Big Apple
    • Night Hawks
    • Time Out In A Small Town
    • My Brace And I
    • Happy Anniversary
    • Uncle Ernest
    • Email To Mitch McConnell
    • Letter to Trump
    • Angry And Ashamed
    • A Diamond Of Our Own
    • Yellow Jello
    • Acting Like An Adult
    • Austria, Lufthansa & Me
    • Preparing For Austria
    • Economic Pain Without DJT
    • Regarding Your Resume
    • A Suave Lady's Man
    • Future Holiday Gifts
    • Jimmy The Horse
    • Year In Review -2043
    • My 81st
    • Strawberries
    • Some Favorites
    • Brand New
    • Code of Conduct

  • Home
  • LATEST ESSAY
  • HUH?
  • Author Interview
  • Buy A Book
  • Some 2020 Postings
  • Car Talk
  • STAYING CALM
  • Skiing Tips
  • Christmas 2019
  • Tribute to Rex Heathcote
  • A Walk For The Ages
  • Bright Side of a Firing
  • Macy's Mattress
  • On Being 82
  • Rubes In the Big Apple
  • Night Hawks
  • Time Out In A Small Town
  • My Brace And I
  • Happy Anniversary
  • Uncle Ernest
  • Email To Mitch McConnell
  • Letter to Trump
  • Angry And Ashamed
  • A Diamond Of Our Own
  • Yellow Jello
  • Acting Like An Adult
  • Austria, Lufthansa & Me
  • Preparing For Austria
  • Economic Pain Without DJT
  • Regarding Your Resume
  • A Suave Lady's Man
  • Future Holiday Gifts
  • Jimmy The Horse
  • Year In Review -2043
  • My 81st
  • Strawberries
  • Some Favorites
  • Brand New
  • Code of Conduct

LETTER TO JIM McCOY

  

   My older brother, Jim McCoy, a retired Southern Baptist minister, died March 3, 2023. He was 88 and had lived for years in Missouri.

  

March 8, 2023

   Dear Jim,

   You’re in Heaven now I guess, but you   had a hell of a funeral yesterday. Mark (son-in-law) gave a moving tribute to your devotion to reading and to baseball and to trying to persuade people to let Jesus into their lives.

   He also told the delightful story about you meeting your wife in the Yellow Pages. When you were in the Army   (and stationed at Fort Tilden, I believe), you opened the Yellow Pages, looking for a church that had evening Sunday services. You found one—Mark  didn’t say where—and when you walked in Ruthanne saw you, pointed and said   “Who’s that tall guy?” The two of you were married for 63 years.

   One of your great granddaughters told   the crowd how much she loved you and how many good memories she has of being with you. She had a little trouble getting started with this, and a couple of   ladies went up to the podium to comfort her—a Christian act if I do say so.       Reverend McCoy, you have a flock of good-looking granddaughters and great   granddaughters. One of the granddaughters, her husband and another young lady sang a song and did a good job.

    The minister of the New Hope Baptist   Church presided. The Reverend David Ray read your obituary that appeared in a  Columbia, Missouri newspaper. When he got to the list of survivors and came   across Ruthanne’s maiden name—Grimm with two “ms” —he said “There is nothing grim about Ruthanne. She’s lively and always smiling.” It got a good laugh.

   I spoke and talked about the baseball   diamond you created out of an empty field at the fairgrounds near our house   and how cows grazed there at times so our second base was often a dry cow   patty and you didn’t have to step on it or slide into it. Laura (daughter) gave me a hug when I finished. Maybe she was just relieved I didn’t use any swear words. Laura also spoke and led the mourners in one of your favorite songs.

   The turnout of people was impressive. It included the doctor (or was he a   dentist?) Ruthanne worked for, a man who valued her work so much he paid for   you and Ruthanne to go to Hawaii, twice I believe.

   Nicholas, my grandson, made the trip   with me and drove from the St. Louis airport to Columbia where we spent the   night in a Doubletree Hotel. Do you know why some hotels have two shower   heads in their bathtubs? Are these for use by Siamese twins?

   Columbia is a handsome town. Why did you never brag about your next door neighbor? I bought breakfast at the hotel   yesterday for Sherrilyn (sister), Mark (her husband), Margie (niece), and Nick and myself. That was five of us and three of us had omelets. When the waitress brought the bill, I told her it couldn’t be right—only $57. She said it was. Wow, oh, wow. Both Margie and Nick pointed out, twice each, that I had cheese from the omelet on my chin. Heck, I was just getting my money’s worth. .

   After the funeral service, many folks   came up to Ruthanne, in tears, and hugged her long and hard. Nicholas and I   didn’t go to your burial. We needed to get back to the St. Louis airport for a number of reasons.

   I realize you’ve been there only a few   days, but tell me: Are there forms to fill out before they let you in? Can you have a Twitter account in Heaven? If you have access to our TV down here,  please tell me neither the View nor Tucker Carlson is available there? If the answer is yes, they aren’t, Praise the Lord. One last question, Mark and others mentioned in their remarks how you liked to eat, so how’s the food?

   Love,

   Larry

   P.S. As you know, I’m not religious (a   big disappointment to you), but as I left the house Saturday morning to go to the gym the classical music station I listen to was playing “Amazing Grace,”  just a piano performing the song, no singing. It was beautiful, and I thought of you.

(Posted March   9, 2023)


 

 



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HOLY CANNOLI

   If you have a grandkid 16 years old or younger, you should never visit an ice cream parlor without them. Trust me. Your chances of having an “adventure” skyrocket with them along.

   We took our youngest granddaughter, Cristiana, to lunch recently, one of the last days of her school break. After lunch, we headed to an ice cream place a couple of blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. It was a chilly day, so I suggested that Cristiana go inside and not wait for her aging grandparents to waddle in.   

        When Irene and I entered the store, Cristiana had taken up a position near the ices counter. She’s big on ices and like her mother, Deena, seems to delight in making complicated orders with several (make that 17) flavors. 

   While the older man who I think owns the store was dipping away to fill Cristiana’s order, she asked, “Is this a family-owned business?” “Yes,” the man said. 

   Irene at this point had given her ice cream order (maple walnut) to a young boy who was digging with all his might in a bucket of ice cream under the glass counter. He kept piling scoop after scoop into what the shop calls a medium cup. When he was done, he put it on the counter and said, “Here’s your holy cannoli.” Irene replied, “I didn’t order that. I asked for maple walnut.” The two flavors were side-by-side in the ice cream case. 

   The boy didn’t know how to handle this and the older man—I’m guessing his grandfather—took charge. He put a lid on the cup of holy cannoli and left it under the refrigerated counter.    After ten seconds or so, I said, “I’ll take that. It’s all ready, so I’ll take it.” The man said in a friendly tone, “No you won’t. You’ll get what you want.”    He then started using a dipper to strong-arm some maple walnut into a cup for Irene. As he was doing this, I asked, “Is this a family-owned business?” He chuckled but kept scooping.

   The boy asked me what I wanted and I walked to another part of the display case and pointed at what I think was a flavor, created by the Devil, called dark fudge chocolate.  

   Way before any of this had happened, Cristiana, who turns 16 late this summer, had asked for a cup of vanilla bean ice cream to take home to her sister Daniella. Not thinking the man had heard her, the words “vanilla bean” came out of her mouth a second time three or four minutes later. 

   When it was time to pay, the man took the cup of holy cannoli and put it in our bag and said it was free. He also, the best I can make out, didn’t charge us for the second cup of vanilla bean. To recap: the three of us left the place with five cups of ice cream or ice and only paid for three. 

   We sat in the car eating away while looking at clever signs in the store window. They included: “Dinosaurs didn’t eat ice cream. Look at what happened to them.”

   The medium portions were so big both Irene and I only ate half of our ice cream in the car, taking the remainder home for enjoying after dinner. An afternoon later I got a text from Cristiana: “Holy cannoli is scrumptious.” Irene and I agreed our ice cream was delicious.
   We can’t wait for Cristiana’s next school break and hope she’ll want to make a return visit with us. 


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 More Things I Don't Understand  

   (The List Keeps Growing)

   I discovered a few days ago that a university not far from me offers courses in “pre-early childhood.” Would that be when the mother is pregnant? Do the courses include the proper technique to speak directly into a woman’s belly so the little one inside also hears you? 

   I’m seeing more and more notices about people who want to be known as they/them. Does this mean people with split personalities are asking to be called we/us? 

   Writing classes have what are called “prompts,” a word, phrase or subject the instructor wants the class to write about and bring in for the next session. The most recent prompt for one of my classes is “almost.” This is what I’ve come up: “If I had my way, we would rename soccer and call it ‘Almost.’ That would more accurately describe what this activity is all about. You watch/listen to a game and the play-by-play is full of almosts. ‘Oh, what a shot! Carpenter almost scored.’ Or ‘Woah! What an incredible save that was by Watkins. If that had gone in, you could almost call it curtains for Manchester.’” Right. Please do not relay this information to my son Jack who spent ten of his early years in Munich and loves soccer. I mean he loves almost.

   Drivers of large SUVs who don’t pull all the way into a diagonal parking space, leaving the rear of their vehicles sticking out into the traffic lane. 

   In the produce section of a high-end Italian grocery store, there was a scale with a sign over it: “Customer Scale.” It was about five feet off the floor. Knowing I was too old to try to get up on the scale, I didn’t. In the 20 minutes or so we were there, I didn’t see any of the much younger customers try it either. Wimps. 

   At the gym recently, I noticed something new—a bright red scale. I stepped on it every day, every day until a sign went up telling folks like me to stay the hell off. The note claims it’s a medical device and not a scale. I asked one of the trainers what it was, and he didn’t know either. I’ve never seen anyone else get on it.

   Morning TV anchors who think it’s okay to say on the air that any news that broke after they left work happened “overnight.” Well, busters and busteresses if it was on the evening news it didn’t happen “overnight.” Wake up.

   My primary care doctor told me the other day, “drink more water.” I drink water all day and make many a visit to the place where you dispose of used water. I have a bottle of water with me at the gym, on my weekly visit to the supermarket and anytime I get in the car. “Drink more water” yourself, Dr. S. When’s the last time you were in a doctor’s office and saw any of the doctors or nurses guzzling water or walking around with a bottle in their hands? Exactly. They talk a good water game. It’s just talk. 

(Posted January 30, 2023)

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January 3, 2023

     

   Dear R.,

   You’ve heard me say a thousand times “you buy the best gifts.” There was the fine watch you gave me for Christmas three years ago. There was a handsome jacket one year, and then this year the fascinating New York Times book on their coverage of the New York Yankees through the years. 

   And there was that warm drawing you gave Grandma and Grandpa, showing the two of us with all four grandkids seated and facing a snow-covered mountain. Sometime ago you gave Grandma a puzzle, which I gather, when assembled, would duplicate the picture of us and the grandkids.

   As you know, Grandma is smarter than I am. For one thing, she has a Masters and I don’t. She never opened the puzzle box. (Apparently living with me is puzzle enough for her.) She’s made clear she never ever, ever, ever planned to open the box. Well, two days ago I did and dumped all the pieces on the coffee table.

   You should have heard me grunt when I saw how many pieces there were and how small they were. Did you talk to your doctor friends before ordering the puzzle? Is it some kind of test of how far gone into senility we are? Would it be regarded as a good display of mental acuity if I could finish this thing in time for my 90thbirthday, five years away?

   I spent an hour fooling with your gift, and all I got done was one small row which goes, I think, at the bottom of the damn thing. My performance was worse than the Jets who lost 23-6.

   Are you going to help me finish this, so I can clear the mess off Grandma’s coffee table or—and I’m serious here—am I going to have to sue you? Any fair judge would order you to help with the completion of the puzzle. There’s no need to be shocked by this threat of legal action. Family members sue each other. Just look at the Trump niece who is suing him. We’re as good or better than the Trumps, yes?

   Hope to hear from you soon.

   Love,

   Grandpa

   P.S. No, neither one of us would use a unicycle. 

(Posted January 3, 2023).)  

  

  

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