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  • Tribute to Rex Heathcote
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  • On Being 82
  • Rubes In the Big Apple
  • Night Hawks
  • Time Out In A Small Town
  • My Brace And I
  • Happy Anniversary
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  • 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
  • More
    • Home
    • Don on Skis
    • OVAL? ROUND?
    • Vitamin C
    • Performance Review
    • LATEST ESSAY
    • Author Interview
    • Buy A Book
    • Some 2020 Postings
    • STAYING CALM
    • Christmas 2019
    • Tribute to Rex Heathcote
    • A Walk For The Ages
    • 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
  • Don on Skis
  • OVAL? ROUND?
  • Vitamin C
  • Performance Review
  • LATEST ESSAY
  • Author Interview
  • Buy A Book
  • Some 2020 Postings
  • STAYING CALM
  • Christmas 2019
  • Tribute to Rex Heathcote
  • A Walk For The Ages
  • 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

THOUGHTS, OVAL & ROUND

  

     A couple of weeks ago (or maybe more) the seat on our downstairs toilet began to wiggle. Not enough of a wiggle to be sexually stimulating but enough for even an un-handyman like myself to know repairs were in order. Sometime. One of the flaps holding the seat to the bowl was broken. 

    Silly me thought that would be an easy fix. Just get a new flap. Ha, ha, ha. I went to two different Ace Hardware stores, and it turned out Ace wasn’t the place. Next up, a plumbing store where a gentleman told me if I had taken a better picture of the toilet-flap problem he could have made better suggestions on what needed to be done. He did provide the name and address of an outfit which handled Kohler toilets, the make I have. Not to be harsh, but the guy said the store I wanted was near a train station. Maybe it used to be. but it isn’t now.

    I went there and quickly confirmed my status as a nincompoop. (Perhaps an appropriate word when dealing with the current subject.) The gentleman at this store asked if my bowl was oval or round. Sensing my deep lack of both toilet and general knowledge, he drew pictures of an oval and a circle. (See drawings above.) He even took me into the showroom to point out oval bowl toilets from round bowl toilets. (In this time of college football bowls is there an Oval Bowl?)

    I took a chance and guessed that we were an oval toilet bowl family and bought not two new flaps—that would be much too simple—but an entirely new toilet seat. I was told flaps aren’t sold separately. When they fail, you replace the entire seat.

    On the drive home, I wondered at age 87 how many more new toilet seats I have in my life, oval or round. Previously I had been consumed by thoughts of how many more presidents there will be before I die. I’ve hinted, only a time or two, about my opinion of the person who takes office next month.

    If I stopped watching the cable comment channels but focused entirely on the dos and don’ts of the toilet seat world, would that make the next four years seem to fly by? Wish me luck.

     And oh, I forgot to mention. I came home with the wrong seat. The one I bought is too big. It’s for an oval, and the McCoys are round-toilet people it seems.  But, for once, I followed instructions given at the store and on the box to measure things before opening the box.

     Who knows when I will try to replace the old seat, the wiggling one? Fortunately, our oldest granddaughter Rachel married a whiz of a handyman and maybe if I hint, or even beg, all I’ll have to do is watch Danny change seats while asking him over and over if he wants something to drink.

(Posted December 23, 2024)

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The Annual Outdoor Games

   At least one day a year I wish I had been brought up Jewish. That day is when I try to string Christmas lights on the bushes in our front yard. I don’t believe in prayer, but maybe I should.

   Before I head outside to the bushes, I test all the strands of lights to make sure they work, that the little devils light up.  Of course, once I’ve fiddled and fiddled and managed to drape the lights over the bushes, there’s always a section or two that won’t cooperate, won’t light up.

   Experience accumulated over many years has shown that just because a pissant string of lights glows indoors doesn’t mean it will behave when plugged in outdoors. What happens to these sons of bitches between indoors and out?

   We put our Christmas tree up more than a week ago, but it wasn’t until last Saturday that I built up the courage to begin testing the bastard lights slated for outside duty. 

   When I thought I was done, having connected one God damn string after another to each other, the lights on one side of the bushes weren’t on at all. Not a single blink or buzz from any of these peckerheads. An autopsy performed the following day, Sunday, determined this shortcoming was due to the lights on that side of the bush not being plugged in to anything. Would you stop laughing, please. 

   On the other side of the bush, some of the freaking lights worked, but only those on the first and last strings, meaning the middle part of that bush was completely dark, as dark as the Republican Party’s platform.

   On Monday, the McCoys went to Ace Hardware and bought two new strands. I’m proud to report the motherF-ing lights on both sides of the bushes now light up when asked to, partly because, I guess, they are plugged in properly. 

   So what if some of the lights are white and the others are colored? How do you say “Who gives a shit?” in Hebrew?

(Posted December 20, 2023) 

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  GOODBYE, AUGUST 

   August 31, 2023

   My Week

   Monday, August 28. Went to see “Barbie” with Irene and our two younger granddaughters, Daniella and Cristiana. The latter young lady has many fine qualities but sharing popcorn doesn’t appear to be one of them. At the movies, she buys a bucket of popcorn. For herself.

   She headed to the concession stand with a $20 bill from Grandpa. He, Grandpa, was given $3 change. Were there Taylor Swift concert tickets buried at the bottom of the popcorn bucket?

   It was the first time Irene and I had gone to a movie in more than two years. I liked “Barbie.” Irene kept saying, “I want to see 'Oppenheimer.' ”. 

   Tuesday, August 29. I spent two or three hours trying to finish the latest edits for my new book, “I Should Have Married My World History Teacher (Confessions of a Hoosier Class Clown).” Whoever is editing the book has done some good work, caught several things I missed. But. Whoever he or she (It?) is editing has comma-itis. There are commas scattered all over the page. Here are a few more ,,,,,,,,

   I fixed an early dinner because I was headed to a meeting of poets, a meeting where I’m allowed to read some prose. Tuesday night’s menu was lamb burgers, peas and carrots and pasta, warmed up from the night before. I got busy on the computer, meaning the complexion of the pasta changed from a creamy color to a brown one. 

   Irene got most of the unscathed pasta. I had most of the penni-burni.

   Off I went to the poets’ session, waiting for my turn at the open mic. I didn’t have a short essay or a snippet of a story as usual. I had only two sentences, two sentences from the new book that I thought were dynamite about being on my bike as a teenager back in Frankfort, Indiana with no shirt on, one hell of a tan, and no hands on the handlebars headed for the swimming pool. It was a dud. Drew blank stares. Luckily, it did not draw anyone’s hands around my neck. I probably could have stirred more excitement among the poets if I had read, out loud, a mattress tag. 

   I wear a mask most of the time when I’m indoors with others. Those of us who wear a mask and hearing aids face a challenge when removing the mask. The hearing aids have a habit of leaving their resting place, your ears, and falling out. 

   In the car after the reading, I took off my mask, and the right hearing aid went bye-bye, escaping  into the narrow opening between the driver’s seat and the transmission tower, or whatever that’s called. Ever put your hand down in that space? You’re lucky if you can get it back after doing this. 

   Since it was dark and I knew where the hearing aid was, I headed home, calling Irene to tell her I was on my way and about the hearing aid. Good lady that she is, there was a flashlight on the counter when I walked into the kitchen.

   I took a butcher knife (it was longer than my first choice, a fondue fork) and went back to the car with the knife and the flashlight. I played my own version of Pokemon, poking and poking the butcher knife in the narrow opening those fine Volkswagen designers had left me.       Eventually, after many pokes and many trips to the back seat, reaching a hand into the slot, I captured the hearing aid. 

The Mrs. of the house was watching the Yankees and when I came in wearing both hearing aids, she asked, “Get it?” “Yes,” I said. She was not impressed. Not a lick. 

   Wednesday, August 30, 2023. I finished the latest edits to the book and emailed them to the publisher. It’s depressing, reading your own writing. A conservative count would show that I wrote 15-20 sentences in which the word “though” is used. I’m through with “though.”.

   Thursday, August 31, 2023. The Yankees were trailing Detroit 3-0 going into the ninth but tied the score, only to lose in the tenth inning because of a throwing error. The Yankee season has been so dreadful I’m hearing they are thinking of signing Mitch McConnell. 

Goodbye, August. 

(Posted August 31, 2023)

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Just Call Me Nurse Larry 

   In my spam folder the other day, there was this: “Are you looking to accelerate your nursing career and shape the future of healthcare?”

   I’ve had a career in nursing? Hey, I’m 85 and don’t remember things as well as I used to. I seem to recall I spent more than 40 years in newsrooms. Nursing and journalism do have a few things in common, including lots of lousy hours and eating and sleeping at unnatural times of the day. During my overnight shifts (midnight to 8 a.m. or thereabouts), I had breakfast before heading to work and dinner—meat and potatoes-- when I got home around 9:30 a.m.

   Nurses have to deal with a number of cranky people known as patients. Same goes for newsroom editors and producers working with difficult people known as anchors or writers. And there’s hand-holding in both professions. Nurses do it to comfort folks. Editors do it to try to get anchors and writers to put solid stories on the air or in print.

   So far I’ve avoided any discussion of what must be the highlight of medical school for some would-be nurses—catheters. How do you learn to do that? Whom or is it who do you practice on? Here again, good nurses and good journalists have something in common.    When an editor working with an anchor or writer who’s always looking for an argument, devises a means of defusing and calming that person down—in other words taking the piss and vinegar out of him---is that not a form of catheterization?  

   I guess maybe the next time someone asks me what I used to do ages ago, I’ll say I was a journalist AND a nurse.

(Posted June 3, 2023)

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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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