I eat very little butter. I don’t put it on toast or pancakes or corn on the cob. I do use a little butter on vegetables when I cook, which is every night. So what the hell was I doing eating raw butter the other day?
Well, I had run out of the 1000 mg vitamin C pills I take every morning along with a bunch of other stuff intended to keep me alive and cute. When looking at a supermarket for a new bottle, all they had was a 500mg version. No, big deal, I thought. I’ll just take two of them.
When opening the new bottle, I saw they were discs. Not Frisbee size but about as big as a nickel. I grabbed two of those babies and tossed them down along with some water. Soon, I realized I couldn’t swallow properly.
Water would go down, but I could feel there was something stuck in my throat. I asked Irene, my suffering companion of 64 years, to come into the kitchen and pound me on the back. With her hand not a skillet.
She did but there was still a problem. Although I wasn’t choking, this was scary. I went to my mini iPad and looked up “what does a dummy do when he has something stuck in his throat.” Drinking carbonated soda or taking Alka-Seltzer were two of the suggestions. We had neither. Another suggestion was to eat butter to more or less lubricate things. I cut two slabs of butter and ate them.
This didn’t work right away, but eventually I felt normal again and could swallow.
The next morning I took my usual assortment of pills, opening the vitamin C bottle last. I grabbed two of the discs and then noticed the label said “chewable.” It did not say “swallowable” but “chewable.” Yet another senior moment. I hope it ain’t my last.
(Posted November 21, 2024)
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National Honor Society
Hello,
Would you please dig back into your files for 1954 and rescind Larry McCoy’s membership in the National Honor Society. He simply isn’t bright enough to deserve or to retain that honor.
Why do I say that –and this is Larry, by the way— because he had a stupid habit of putting on a mask before getting out of the car to walk a short distance to the gym. In the chilly morning air of October, that usually meant his glasses fogged up. See what I mean about not being very bright? Who tries to walk with fogged up glasses? Larry McCoy, that’s who.
The other day, Larry had walked about 40 feet from the car with frosted lens when down he went. Fell. Hard. On the sidewalk under the Long Island Rail Road tracks. Three people headed for the train asked if he was okay and offered to help him up. Amid some rather loud moaning, he insisted he was swell and managed to get erect on his own. (Attention National Honor Society people: the use of both the sexual terms “swell” and “erect” in that previous sentence should give you a clue to his mental focus.)
Once on his feet, what did Larry do? He went to the gym despite bloody knuckles on his left hand and pain on his right side. This fool rode the bike for half an hour as if nothing had happened. To his credit, he did only minimal stretching, normally a sizeable part of his six-day-a-week gym routine.
After arriving home, he got on the phone and managed to get an appointment that day with an orthopedic group where x-rays were taken, and he was informed he had broken a rib, number five or six, on his right side. The doctor said time and Tylenol were the treatments for this condition.
When he returned home is when the fun began. Larry is a napper, normally a flat-on-his-back napper on the couch. Getting level or trying to was painful, very. So he stopped trying and napped sitting upright in an armchair, and it wasn’t all that bad. After two nights of restless tossing on the couch, Larry McCoy, 1954 admittee to the National Honor Society, decided to experiment with a different mode of slumber. He slouched on a rocking chair with his feet extended out to the seat of a cushy desk chair. The National Honor Society doesn’t tolerate slouching, yet another reason McCoy belongs off your rolls.
If sleeping was a problem, so was sneezing. A better writer would be able to flesh out a description of how a good big old sneeze feels with a broken rib. The pain reverberates and reverberates and lingers and lingers.
In conclusion. Larry McCoy is asking that his name be excised from your records. Perhaps the Society would like to remind its older members who wear glasses that it’s dangerous and stupid to don a mask outdoors in chilly weather. Not only that, everyone should remember to pick up their damn feet.
Sincerely.
Larry McCoy
(Posted November 5, 2024)
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LAST RITES
I've reached that age where my kids aren’t bashful about reminding me I don’t have much time left and I should get my affairs in order. That includes giving them a document in writing about what I want done after I die.
A few years back I signed a deal with a funeral home to be cremated, but I haven’t made any other arrangements.
I would like a memorial service either right after I’m cremated or a few weeks later. There could be some pictures of me, including the one that I so inappropriately kept on the wall in my office at CBS News, the one in which I’m displaying my middle finger. At least I hope that’s all it was, just my finger. I’m about to be 87 and everything’s a little foggy these days.
One of the kids or grandkids would preside at the service, and people I worked with in various newsrooms would be invited to speak. I’m confident there would be tale after tale of me yelling at someone or me telling a very off-color joke. Each speaker would be expected to close his or her remarks with the words, “As we all know, Larry was a son-of-a-bitch” to which the audience would respond, “Yes, but he was our son-of-a-bitch.” What a wonderful tribute, yes?
There should be music. I’d like it to be Jimmy Buffett’s “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw?” and Roger Miller’s “Dang Me, Dang Me, They Oughta Take a Rope and Hang Me.” These two classics would play over and over and over. I guarantee you there would be applause after every playing of “Dang Me.”
There’s a deli I like just half a block from the funeral home in Rockville Centre where the service would be held. The deli would be asked to serve my favorite lunch to mourners—yogurt with unsalted peanuts mixed in it and an orange. That ought to weed out the crowd pretty quickly and keep down expenses.
As for my ashes, I’d like little packages of them sent to misbehaving journalists:
…Reporters or anchors who, after a storm tell us, there are “10 thousand people without power” when what they should say is “10 thousand customers.”
…Reporters or anchors who talk to their audience about “Martin Luther King” when they really mean “Martin Luther King Jr.” Junior’s father, Daddy King, was also well known.
…And to any reporter sent to the scene of a mishap who tells viewers what he is seeing is “indescribable.”
The way things are going in the news biz these days it wouldn’t take long for there to be none of me left.
(Posted September 13, 2024)
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SPEAKING OF CHARACTERS
I go to writing classes where a gentleman named Lloyd writes drabbles, fine drabbles, which by definition are 100-words long excluding the title. At times I tease him, saying when I go home I do a word count to make sure his latest drabbles do in fact come in at the required 100-word limit.
The other day I was trying to set up an online account with the Western & Southern Life Insurance Company and read that my password could be “between 8-255 characters.” While you might think that’s lot of characters, don’t forget the U.S. Congress has way over 255 characters.
If you like to take things to the limit, what would a 255-character password be like? Here’s some possibilities:
western&southernlifeinsuranceisalousycompanyandidomeanareallylousycompanyandeveryoneworkingforthistravestyshouldbearrestedimmediatelyandsentencedquickly
Or
fourscoreandsevenyearsagobythedawnsearlylightwhatsoproudlywehailedthat thisfordcarmightstandinfrontofthebontonstoreiamnotacrookandididnothavesexwiththatwoman.
Both of those passwords would be pretty damn hard to remember, so let me offer a third possibility that doesn’t have that drawback:
Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit
No, I have no idea how close any of these come to the 255-character limit. Although I should have better things to do with my time than count it all up, I probably don’t. But I’m lazy so we’ll use that as my excuse.
Oh, and there’s a fourth possibility for my Western & Southern password—steal from Lloyd, use two and one-half of his drabbles.
(Posted July 18, 2024)
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Recent Events
I go into a bar with a friend, and we both order beers—non-alcoholic beers. The young bartender puts two bottles of beer on the bar, but I have to explain, “I’m an old guy. May I have a glass, please?”
While chatting, the friend asks me to feel two lumps on his head. Any young’un seeing this –and the bar is full of young’uns--might think he’s watching two ancient homosexuals engaged in foreplay. The lumps in the head are connected to wires running down one side of my friend’s neck into a device in his chest.
The wires and device, he says, are helping him handle Parkinson’s. His device is made by Medtronic, a company in Minnesota. I mention that Irene’s spinal cord stimulator is a Medtronic product as is my brand-new pacemaker. Before long there will probably be a Medtronic Man.
During a check-up of my pacemaker, I’m behind a curtain while a nurse and technician test how my new companion is doing. I hear an employee on the other side of the curtain say something is “all fucked up.” I ask. “Is that a medical term?”
Later the nurse asks, “How’s your groin?” All I say is “bruised but fine.” They invaded my groin to implant the pacemaker. My tepid response is another sign of my decline. In the good old Larry days, I would have said, “Fine. How’s yours?”
Every morning I check Newsday to see who’s having a birthday. Many a morning I’m upset to find I’m older, allegedly, than some really wrinkled old fart. Just the other day, Newsday told me Harvey Keitel was younger than me. Baloney with a capital B.
A Republican friend at the gym has disappeared. I suspect he’s left this gym because it no longer accepts his insurance. We’ve had many political discussions, several of them very heated. He has three adult kids, all Democrats. He recently became a grandfather for the first time, and whenever I asked about the baby boy I always said, “How’s that young Democrat doing?”
Earlier this week, I had a brief talk outside the gym with a guy who once worked as a desk assistant at CBS News during my days as a manager. He’s in his 50s now and an executive who never tires of reminding me that my old-style newsroom conduct of sarcasm and yelling wouldn’t be tolerated these days. We chatted a while about the dreadful political situation in this country. Before getting on his bike to head home, he put on his hoodie. He put it on backwards. It was a delicious moment I plan to remind him of-- frequently.
And, by the way, if the folks at Medtronic do develop a Medtronic Man, I hope they name it Larry.
(Posted May 16, 2024)
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Class Assignment: Trump Obit
Obituaries 101
Good Afternoon, Class.
You have 15 minutes to complete this assignment on the elements of an obituary for Donald John Trump--what they should be and what prominence they should be given.
Ready, set, go.
1. The two impeachments and the several court cases against Trump obviously need to be squeezed into the lede. How about the “grab them by the pussy” quote?
--Yes, in the lede.
-In the second paragraph.
--Included but wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.
2. How would you treat the various Trump bankruptcies (we’re talking business not moral bankruptcies here)?
--In the lede and expanded later.
--In the second or third paragraph.
--Included but not all that prominently.
3. How would you deal with the women in his life, both those he acknowledges and those he doesn’t?
--A mention of his multiple weddings in the lede.
--In the second or third paragraph along with any well-sourced comments about his sexual prowess or lack thereof.
--Included but wouldn’t make a big deal out of it.
4. Has there been any dependable gossip that he might roller skate in both directions, and if so how would you deal with the men, if any, in his life?
--Do a ton of research before deciding how to handle or not handle this.
--Spend my time on more important matters.
--Interview his niece Mary who seems not to care much for Uncle Donald to see if she knows anything.
5. How much attention would you give to all the people who worked for Trump who have been sent to prison?
--Squeeze a reference to this in the lede and expand it later.
--Include it in the third or fourth paragraph.
--Not make a big deal of this but write a sidebar that would encompass this angle.
6. What sort of emphasis would you place on his rhetoric, such as there are “good people on both sides,” “bloodbath,” and describing the January 6th rioters as “hostages”?
--A strong mention in the lede and expanded later.
--Include in second or third paragraph.
--Included somewhere in the obit plus do a separate sidebar on this.
7. Covid: How would you handle both what he did and what he said about this?
---Work in the bleach injection idea in the lede.
--Do a fresh interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci and, depending on what he says, decide where the Covid element goes in the whole package.
--Include in second or third paragraph.
8. What will you make of Trump’s affinity for authoritarian leaders? (And should reports he kept a copy of “Mein Kampf” by his bed be mentioned?)
--His “love” of Kim Jong Un belongs somehow in the lede and expanded later.
--Part of the second or third paragraph would be an ideal slot for the “Mein Kampf” business.
--Mention his coziness with dictators somewhere in the obit and, here again, write a separate sidebar.
9. Should the obit have room for a discussion of Trump’s reading and bathroom habits, i.e. reports that he had a penchant for tearing up documents and tossing them in the toilet?
--Yes.
--No.
10. Obviously, it’s going to be a challenge to keep the first paragraph to under 40 lines, and I suspect (hope, really) that all of you have other matters you think need some emphasis in a Trump obit. List as many as three in the space below.
There are no wrong answers here, meaning whatever you suggest won’t make you, to use one of DJT’s favorite words, a “loser."
Good luck. And have a nice day.
Assistant Professor Eggleston
(Posted April 11, 2024)
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The Bright Side Of Losing Your Job
(A chapter from my latest book, now available, “Grandma Told Me to Never Believe Anything Grandpa Says.” As is obvious from the picture, I'm not a photographer but that's the fridge.)
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It doesn’t hurt as much when you get fired if there is a four-year-old grandkid waiting for you at home. Trust me.
The day that the new boss at CBS News, Radio nodded in agreement when I asked if he wanted me to leave, I was feeling a little worthless, although it had been clear for a long time that I no longer belonged there.
Heading for the train home, I stepped off a curb into ankle-deep water, adding to my sense of accomplishment. Things got brighter after I walked into the house and saw that a young granddaughter was there.
She wasn’t, however, her usual cheerful self. She had a sad tale of her own to relate.
A boy she really liked at her babysitter’s was moving to Buffalo.
“I’ll never see him again,” she said in her saddest voice.
“Well, maybe he’ll come back to Long Island sometime to visit, and you’ll see him then,” I replied.
“I don’t know. He’s moving to Buffalo!”
I patted her on the head, trying to console her. I clearly remember that, in relaying this painful story to me, she was standing right in front of the refrigerator while I was holding an empty glass in my hand, a glass begging to take on its nightly cargo of ice and bourbon.
She was my granddaughter, and she was not in my way. She had my full attention and sympathy as I reached over her head into the freezer compartment and grabbed a fistful of ice.
Her story went on; I kept listening and commenting, plopping ice and pouring bourbon into my glass. My concentration never lagged even while I was taking that first wonderful sip of the best Kentucky has to offer.
Who knows if the loveable boy ever made his way back to Long Island to see his relatives? The moral of this tale is twofold: never buy a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom rather than on the top, and if you get fired, try to have a short person on the premises when you arrive home even if you have to rent one for the evening.