What?

Early this morning on the Today Show, the 3 hosts were discussing Tiger Wood's dental condition, and amidst all the back and forth comments, Charlie intersperses, "I learned to snow ski with Wilt Chamberlain."   No one acknowledged or commented on the remark. 

Retro Virus

   In one of my many vain attempts to access the internet on the ailing wraith that is my computer, a blank page appears with the pop up :  Remember the liberation of Auschwitz.  And I don't.

Word on the Street

     I woke this morning at 5 a.m. to the weather reporter's, "Sometimes life just throws you a curveball."   This in way of apology, or excuse, because the anticipated snowfall is not going to happen.    I grew up hearing, "It's too cold to snow."  So I could have told him that. 

P

 
I'm leaving you two alone,"  I told the oldest and youngest, "while I take the middle one to his lesson.  Lock the door and don't let anyone in, except for your parents, Papa, the President, or the Pope."  "Or the police," piped up the youngest, with the oldest adding, "But not a pervert."

Time Warp Wrap

     When I was 12 years old, my mother was the same age as my oldest child is now. 


     I was the age that  my oldest grandchild is now.  I felt grown up then. I'd had the responsibility of a daily "job" for more than a year.  I didn't think of my parents as taking care of me, unmindful of their supplying food and shelter for us.   Laundry was minimal, as we owned few clothes, so my sister and I often washed by hand our own socks and undies. Except for the school bus, which we took to Schaghticoke for grades 5 to 7, no one drove us anyplace---there was no place to go that we didn't walk to, except for trips to my grandmother's house every 2 weeks or so.  But I had stopped going anyway because I had to work, and toward the end of that year my grandmother died, so the visits there became fewer and stopped altogether the next year when the old homestead was sold.  That  pretty much signified the official end of our childhood.
    

CENSORED

    The outside of the envelope is stamped:  OPENED BY CENSOR 3820. The envelope bears a one-cent stamp, the year is 1917, and the address is to Mrs. John Donovan, 21 Orr Street, Troy, NY.
                                                                           strand
                                                                           Garrick on suir
                                                                           Jan 31/ 1/ 1917
Dear sister I received your very kind and welcome letter and was ever so glad to hear from you and Father also as he is old and Feeble now so he cant get out of bed at all this 3 years since he buried the old one and he have nothing now but the old pinsen (pension?) and that would not keep tobacco with him now  and the way everything is in Ireland everything is so dear but when he had it he did not want me or come near me    Now he is glad to come to me when he have nothing and he is always speaking about you and William that he would not think it worth ye while to write to him   Dear Sister I was sorry to hear about your boy it was a terrible death he got but we must be satificed  with the will of god  Dear Sister I am after meeting my own share of trouble   I buried the 2 eldest girls and there Father and now poor Pat in that country and while Pat was in that country he was no good for me  he only send 5 pound in 13 years   whatever he was doing in America I don't know  he must be with the Briens all the time and my other boy Jack is in England and Mary is married this 3 years and have one baby  14 months  her husband is in the war he is in Salonilnd (No clue as to what this is)  at present and she looks after the old man while I do be working out and as for friends they are all gone Aunt Mary and all   Well Dear Sister if you see me now you would not know me do you see William at all   I had a letter from him about 6 months ago and he told me his eldest girl was going to be married   I suppose he is all right   Dear Sister since we got your letter Father is crying he felt lonely   Dear Sister I have no more to say till I hear from you again  hope it wont be long and if you have any foto of yours and the children send one on and remember us to your daughter ellen 
    I will now say good bye till I hear from you again  from your fond Father and sister
                                                                                                With love to all
     I will send you along letter in the nesat  (next?)
  

Old and Young 27 & 72 Time Warp

     When my father died, in  the bitter cold of St.Agnes' Eve, he was 71 years of age, and I was 27.  I had never thought of him as being young, as he was past 40 when he got married, and was almost a decade older than my mother, who appeared even younger than her age. 
    When my sister died, in the warmth of June, she was 71 years of age, and I was 72.  I had always thought of her as being young, born a year and a half after me, and so always my younger sister. 
     My father, the oldest member of our family,  and my sister, who was the youngest,  were exactly the same age when they died, 71 years and 6 months.  What had once seemed an advanced age was changed to an age far too young to leave.  I was young back then, and unknowing, and  now aware that I and  those who were young with me are now ourselves years beyond the age of 71. 

Final January

     The last time I saw my father alive was the night of January 19th.  He and I were in the living room, the house in its strange silence.  Everybody else  had gone to bed.  Five  other people lived in the house at that time, but the night isolated each from the other.  My father was sitting in his usual chair by the window, reading as he did every night of his life.  His unlikely companion, a miniature pinscher named Susie, was, also as usual, snuggled next to him in the chair.  His literary  interest was primarily non-fiction.  He read the papers, doing the daily  crossword and word jumble. He read "True Magazine" and the "Saturday Evening Post,"  which carried the only work of fiction I ever recall his reading, some series which I seem to remember featured a character called Tugboat Annie.  I  never read those stories, so don't know why they appealed to him.  Maybe someday I'll look them up. 
     I was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the living room stove, correcting papers from the high school English classes I was teaching.  In front of the stove because the night was cold, and sitting cross-legged because I was 27 years old and didn't have to think about it.  I can't remember if we talked about anything.  I think he was pleased that I'd gone back to teaching, maybe even proud, but we didn't acknowledge those things.  I know he went upstairs first, but probably not long before I did.  I don't remember if we said good night.
    Some hours later, in the early morning of January 20th, I woke to my mother's voice calling up the back stairway.  She had heard Susie barking, had gone downstairs and found my father. He was gone.
   

Oh, please.

   Does anyone for one moment believe the celebrities who show up with their dogs, or pictures of their dogs, and claim that they are rescue dogs?  The dogs are obviously purebred dogs that command a high price; the celebs qualify by saying the dogs came from a puppy mill.  Seriously?

Computer Kill

  The latest message I've received from  my computer is that the pages are not responding and I can choose to either ""wait or kill them."   I killed them.

Rash of Cases/ Cases of Rash

Pretty soon the number of cases of measles traced to Disney Land will approach the number of  cases of sexual abuse attributed to Bill Cosby.  (It seems odd that there are no cases of Cosby offspring emerging, but maybe he was more careful in that respect.  Who knows?

History? Or Memory?

Syndrome

     Orthorexia Nervosa, it's called.  And I kind of wish I had it.

Drive-Thru Throwdown

     I don't know the statistics as to how many pedestrians are injured or killed in parking lots, but I would guess that the number must be fairly high.
     The other day at Clifton Park Center, a car drove around the corner and directly past the entrance of Boscov's Department Store with no regard for any patrons who may have been entering or leaving the store as he, while not speeding at 60 miles per hour, was driving at least 30 mph right through the designated crosswalk area.  And anyone who has ever visited that particular store knows it is a haven for senior citizens, who are often accompanied by canes, even walkers.  Apparently the driver has trust in his own reflexes and his ability to stop in time, but he seems unaware that others may not be up to his standards.  Or maybe he's just an idiot.
      Last week, I was preparing to step out of the Shop N' Save parking lot to cross the lane to enter the store just as a young man with a shopping cart was exiting the store.  A driver, maybe cutting the stoplight, drove directly down the lane in front of the store as if he had the open road to himself.  I saw him as he was in the further lane, where the young man had just started to push his cart.  We both abruptly stopped, with the young man pulling his cart back, saying, "He just wasn't going to stop, was he?"  I can't figure out if these drivers are ignorant, careless, or just don't care about others.  Even so, filling out an accident report would be more time consuming than slowing down, it would seem.
    Individual instances of such are one thing, but I could never understand how architects and traffic pattern planners at places like McDonald's could construct their businesses so that people, including lots of kids,  enter and exit directly into the flow of traffic, not only to the parking lots, but, even worse, right into the path of Drive-Thru traffic.  Walk out the door with your Happy Meal, and hold on tight to dodge the cars lining up for the window.  One of the local McD's has altered the original design, diverting the Drive Thru traffic away from the main door, but I guess the public will never know why, whether accidents or near-accidents precipitated the change, the need for which should have been apparent from the start.
       I find it hard to believe that there would not have been scores of accidents or near misses there just as I find it almost impossible to believe that there is not at least one accident a day in the Price Chopper parking lot.  With passenger cars attempting to back out between 2 SUV's or vans, drivers who can not bend their necks, see into a rear-view mirror, or even know how to use one------it's a jungle out there.
  

Donna Douglas Remembered

    I had the pleasure of meeting Donna Douglas one time, in the basement of the old Albany Armory. A group of us from Valley Falls rode down in somebody's station wagon to serve as volunteers answering donation calls for a charity fund drive.  It may have been the Jerry Lewis Telethon, and it was in the early 70's.  I think the station wagon was Sandy's, and other members of our group included Sally D., Bonnie C., Elaine S., and probably Sharon S.  So long ago. 
    I remember one of the celebrities there was Vicki Lawrence, who sang her one and only hit song, "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia."  It may have been a nice recording, but her voice and the melody fell flat in the concrete walls of the old building.  It was pretty dreadful.
    Donna Douglas was there also, and answering phones along with the rest of us.  She was, in person, stunningly beautiful in her blue jeans and long blonde braids.  During a bathroom break, which was down in the cellar, and very stuffy, Donna came down and, remarking that fresh air was needed, leapt up to where the narrow windows were situated along the top of the wall, and succeeded in cranking it open.  She was very friendly and gracious---a breath of fresh air herself.