Ponder on this!

Yesterday, at the Doctor's office, I reaquainted myself with Harper's Magazine. I had forgotten what a great communications document it is. One of the features of the magazine is Harper's Index. Two items in that index "grabbed" me:

01. The estimated number of cars that it takes to produce as much co2 as a single cargo ship = 10,000! This estimate was attributed to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration in Juneau, Alaska.

Some time ago, I heard on National Public Radio that if all of the containers on just one cargo ship were placed on multi-wheeled trucks, and the trucks were lined up from the unloading dock in a line.. that line would extend (in Baltimore, Maryland's case) all the way to the start of the New Jersey turnpike!

I tried to calculate this myself.. I figured that the average container is 50 feet long and the front of the truck is 10 feet long. That means a length of 60 feet for each unit and if there were 1,000 units on the container ship... the total length would be 60,000 feet or only about 11 miles. The turnpike is a lot farther away than that. (40 miles?)

Maybe the length of the front of a truck is longer? Maybe the size of containers is greater than 50 feet? Maybe the number of containers on a ship is greater than 1,000? Maybe NPR made a
mistake? Maybe Joe Vaughan mis-heard? Could someone set me straight on this?

02. The Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland has estimated that there are 37,964 planets in the galaxy that are hospitable enough to support life as intelligent as human beings.

Who said that human beings are intelligent? (And don't put too much stock in IQ tests and LSAT scores. As a Mensa member for 30 years, I feel qualified to say that.)

I read that Catholic Bishops have been meeting lately to figure out what to do if life is found on other planets. I'm sure that they are reasoning that if God is all-powerful, He (or She) could place intelligent creatures anywhere he wants to in the universe.

(Did you hear the one about the Priest, the Minister and the Rabbi who set out in a space ship?)

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That's funny...

Listening to the Sunday radio news, I noticed that Oprah's plan to quit her popular show in 2011 was mentioned earlier than the Senate news on Health Care Reform.... Some of us remember her when she was on Baltimore TV.. she has indeed "come a long way, baby!" She is, of course, . a multi-billionaire, and stands to increase her wealth with her new Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

I think that it would be wonderful for the people of the world if she and Bill Gates would each donate one billion dollars of their wealth to stem cell research. Perhaps they could fund some million dollar prizes to be given to the first scientists to make breakthroughs in that area. (Although maybe that would be duplicating a Nobel prize... Well then, how about a billion dollar prize to the scientist who shows the first practical application of stem cell methodology to breast cancer?)

Oprah has a dignified manner of speaking, and does not "trash talk" like some other communicators.

Sometimes, while listening to XM radio, I accidently switch to the channel that bills itself as a "laugh" channel, but which has "comedians" who think that every other word should be a vulgarism. What has that to do with humor? XM Channel 151 is my choice for a true "laugh" channel. The real comedians, who don' t have to rely on vulgarisms to be funny, are heard on that channel.

A little risque humor is fine, and "double entendres" are fun, and ordinary, old fashioned cuss words don't seem to detract from intelligent jokes. But "jokes" that rely on the use of "naughty" words that the "jokester" thinks will get a laugh, fall flat, in my opinion. The only comedian who got away with the use of vulgarisms in his routine was Redd Foxx.. but when you listened to him, you knew that he was being satiric in his usage.. and, as those of us who loved his TV show, he could be hilarious without the vulgarity.

I've told this story before somewhere in my blogs, but here I go again. Tony, a high school buddy of one of our friends here in Baltimore (Jim) was a comedian who performed in night clubs. Tony was performing in a downtown bar and called Jim to invite him to come down and watch the show. What Tony did not realize was that Jim would bring his wife and me and my wife along with him.

The bar was a sleezy joint that was probably the last place for strippers before they applied for Social Security. Our table was next to the door from which the strippers would emerge and it was a good vantage point to observe the appendix scars, c-section scars and hairy moles of these senior citizens.

Each table was in an alcove so that patrons (and the police) could not observe what was transpiring within. The 3-piece band kept up a sufficiently noisy "bump and grind" sound so that one could also not hear what was transpiring within the alcoves.

Tony was surprised and extremely nervous when he found out that Jim had brought his wife and friends. When his time came to tell his jokes, he decided to clean them up in order not to shock Jim's wife and guests. The audience did not like that.. and the manager began to yell at him from the wings: "Tell the dirty jokes or you're out of here!" We decided that by us being there, we were going to get him fired, so we left.

Jim lost touch with Tony and always wondered what became of him. Maybe he is one of the "performers" on the raunchy XM laugh channel.

Now, I am not a prude.. I think that "damn" and "hell" and mild curse words are great when used for emphasis.. but I do think that the constant use of very strong vulgarisms governs how ordinary people think about you and how you get placed within society and your community. It can also control the kinds of jobs you will be able to have in your life. .So.. save the vulgarisms for when you hit your thumb with a hammer.. or for when you are alone in your car in irritating traffic with the windows rolled up. (Meanwhile, did you hear the one about the two naked ladies and the yard sale?)

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A Weird Problem for a .-- . .. .-. -.. Person

I wonder if anyone else has the curse (-.-- ..- .-. ... .) that I have. It's a problem I have had since I learned Morse Code in the Air Force. Ever since then, my mind is always sending or receiving code in the background of my mind. For example, while doing a crossword puzzle today, the clue was: 7 letter word for "chains". Immediately, my mind began coding .-.. . - - . .-. ... (fetters). That code was being generated and transmitted by my brain subconsciously.. and I only realized it when I made an effort to concentrate on what was being transmitted in my head at the time.

When I was going to radio operators school, I had trouble with the Morse Code for "p" and "c", so I began to repeat the code for "percent" in my mind, over and over... (.--. . .-. -.-. . -. -) because of the presence of code for "c" and "p". It worked, I learned those code letters; the repetition caused the code for those letters to no longer be unlearnable... however, this learning aid never stopped generating and continues to generate in my mind when I am not thinking of other things.. even today.. over 50 (!) years later.

Let's see what is generating right now. Based on what I am involved it, it is not generating the usual "percent", but rather -... .-.. --- --. (blog) Let me make this clear.. this generation of Morse Code in my brain is continuous. Something is being coded every minute. Sometimes I even wake up with a "code in my head" ... Although this is a pun...(.--. ..- -.) I am serious about this.

This is a problem for me, but not a big problem. I guess it is like when I was stationed in Germany for almost 4 years.. at the end of that time, I was thinking in German and translating into English in my head. (Yes.. the Morse Code then spelled out German and English words.) So, I guess that Morse Code is like a language that lies in the background of your brain. However, after I got back to the US, in a few weeks I was thinking in English and German was shoved out of sight for a while.

But Morse Code seems to go on forever, generating in the background.

Another language I was a fluent in was French, but it never took over my brain and lies dormant.

So, why does Morse Code refuse to lie dormant, but continues to generate in the background.

Anyway.. if anybody is reading this who has (or had) "the Morse Code in the background" situation, could you let me know how you got rid of it.. if you did.

--. --- --- -.. -... -.-- . (Goodbye)
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More Wait Wait Info from Nov 7, 2009

One learns so much from NPR's great show: Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! For instance, today I was amazed to learn this information:

01. The 7-11 stores will be selling their own brand of wine shortly. (As this was mentioned, the music in the background had what sounded like these lyrics: "I've got cheap wine, and free time...")

02. The hard hat was invented by Franz Kafka. (I find this utterly fantastic, but one should not be too surprised by anything that Mr. Kafka created.)

03. Someone somewhere has combined an MP3 player with a tazer.

04. Coco Krispies boxes boasted that the cereal could boost children's immunity. (But probably not to diabetes, someone said.) According to a television report last night, the company may have agreed to take the boast off the box.

05. According to a study, 22% of male texters are ending their messages with "hugs and kisses" symbols. (Cute!)

06. It was reported that a judge somewhere visited x-rated adult book stores hundreds of times recently. The judge said that he went to the store because they had such delicious chicken soup in their vending machine.

07. A Canadian study found that pregnant women who have a lot of morning sickness end up with babies with high IQ's. (Ok, fellow Mensa members, what do you think of that?)

08. Another study found that bad drivers are not to blame for their problems.. they inherited the traits from genes passed on from their parents.

09. In Germany, some inventive advertising person placed banners on flies legs and they displayed his messages as they flew about the audience.

10. South Korean cab drivers are now allowed to watch TV while they drive.

11. A woman called 911 to report that she was driving drunk. (or maybe to report all those cars that were driving on the wrong side of the freeway.)
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More "Stuff" from a 1962 Scrapbook

I need to take a break from all of the things I have to do today, so I will get back to some items in a 1962 scrapbook. I think it's fun to see if anything has changed in 47 years.

01. In Kobe, Japanese farmers are fattening their cattle with sake and beer, and then massaging them to marble the meat, making some of the best beef in the world. (I wonder if aliens invented beer so they could enjoy marbled human beef when they come back to earth at harvest time? Sorry.)

02. One should try a Hong Kong delicacy, duck eggs that have been buried in lime for 60 days, or immersed for months in salted water. (Don't knock it until you've tried it.. or so
I've been told...)

03. Saigon swallow's nests are reported to be the best in the world.

04. In Hong Kong, one can buy cobra gall mixed with rice wine. Its supposed to be a good medicine for arthritis.

05. Hong Kong menu items: Lotus seed buns, shrimp and bean cakes, pig's tongue, shark fin buns, and dried macaroni and egg. (Yum!)

06. Another Hong Kong delicacy: Beggar's chicken wrapped in lotus leaves and cooked in clay. It is brought to the table with a hammer and is bashed open right at your elbow.

07. Albert Camus at age 43 writes: "The theater is the greatest of literary forms because it is the most difficult. The difficulty consists in putting lofty ideas to a wide audience where imbeciles sit side by side with intelligent people. It demands great art."

08. Camus has always held that life is an absurdity, but he has somewhat modified that view by the 1960's.

09. A guy with an amazing name: Townsend Hoen, has built a patio outside of his home on St. Georges Road (Baltimore?). It consists of lithographic stones used in the family business to print maps, labels and diplomas. (If you get tired of gazing at the sunset, you can check out the bricks to see who got an MD from Hopkins in the 1930's.)

10. Dr. Daniel Torrance of Ruxton (Baltimore) grows bonsai and some of them are over 75 years old. Most bonsai range from 12 to 24 inches, but there are some that are smaller than an inch!

11. There is a picture of a baby born in Philadelphia weighing 13 pounds 8 ounces. Nearby is the proud father, blowing cigar smoke into the air space around his fat baby. (I've heard that babies with such a weight are not that uncommon for French-Canadian families in Quebec.)

12. At Cincinnati's Good Samaritan Hospital, a waiting room for expectant fathers has opened. It is called the "Heirport."

13. A spurned girlfriend tried to get back at her ex-boyfriend by attacking his firehouse with her car. She broke doors, smashed an ambulance, dented a fire engine and a hook-and-ladder. Her tactic didn't work as well as she expected because her boyfriend worked at a different firehouse.

14. Two Baltimore 16-year olds were arrested for beating a tired old cart horse with a sledge hammer. (Not much has changed in this regard.)

15. Psychiatrist Peter Ostwald is trying to find out why people hum. (Save your money, Pete, it's because they don't know the words!)

16. A New York import firm is offering cigarette boxes with lids made of real rock with lichen growing over it.. guaranteed to live for 1,000 years.

17. Douglas Bottom painted his name on the lid of his garbage cans as is customary. Guess how the garbage men place his empty cans in his driveway.

18. J. Paul Getty gave some reasons why he should not be tossed from a balloon to keep it aloft.
a. I am probably lighter than the others in the balloon.
b. At 68, I'm probably younger than the other millionaires in the balloon. Oldsters should go first.
c. I pay more taxes than anyone else in the US.

19. Strickland Gililan wrote a literary work whose title was longer than the work itself.

Title: Lines Upon the Antiquity of Fleas

Body: Adam had 'em.

20. While idling in her driveway, the 1955-model car of Mrs. Doris Heddgepath of Glen Burnie (Maryland) blew up. Suspected cause: pressure build-up in the transmission.

21. Sun paper news item: "The two suspects were held at police headquarters and are to be enraged tomorrow with narcotics violations, police said."

22. A Xenia, Ohio town ordinance says that three days leave of absence with pay will be granted any city employee who submits proof of death.

23. High winds in Memphis, Tennessee, blew Harry Howard's $220. over a parking lot. With the help of friends, he recovered $221.

24. Typical Baltimore headline: Scheffing Thinks Sept Losses to Birds Hurts Tigers.

25. Finally, a cartoon from the Chicago Tribune: A man in a suit is taking off his coat and saying to his wife: The boss is beginning to notice my work.. he fired me today."


Enough!
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Catching up on the news.

I've been tied up for some time planning a conference. Now that it is over, I can concentrate on other things and maybe catch up on the news. Reading my favorite magazine The Week for November 6, 2009, and watching a little TV, I found the following news items to be quite interesting:



01. GOLF. There now is an 850 mile long golf course in Australia. Par 71. (Golfers have to be wary of wombat holes.)



02. SPY. Who would have thought that Fidel Castro's sister would have been a spy for the CIA? (Mr. Cheney may not know that she "outed" herself.)



03. RATINGS. FOX News is apparently enjoying being called "a wing of the Republican Party.



04. SEX. The "US Federales" have captured 700 bad people across the country in three days. This included a lot of alleged pimps engaged in child prostitution. Some child prostitutes are as young as ten!



05. SWINE FLU. I read that some "shock" radio persons are spreading rumors that the H1N1 vaccine "is tainted with antifreeze" as part of a plot by the Government to kill Americans.



This is extremely ridiculous and irresponsible. Some people who should get the vaccine, may not get it because of this misinformation. People need to take this situation seriously and make rational decisions about the vaccine. During the Flu Pandemic of many years ago, my Grandfather served his community as a volunteer nurse. In that community, nearly every family lost a member. There was no vaccine against the flu then. (Luckily, none of his 15 children got the flu bad enough to die from it.)



06. RODENT. Once again, a small animal has panicked lots of great big humans. Three hundred people were delayed for three hours while their airplane to London was "de-miced".



07. SUICIDE Epidemic. Palo Alto, California, is having a problem with teen suicides. Four students from the same high school have stepped in front of commuter trains on purpose. Eight more have been prevented from doing so. Is this the result of "ennui" for living in such a wealthy town?



08. FLY-PAPER?. A Florida man wore a "defective" pair of underwear for two weeks and claimed that the fly flap rubbed his genitals like sand-paper. He sued for compensation. Thank goodness the judge threw this one out.



09. WATCH OUT FOR STRANGE VEHICLES. If you travel in Minnesota, watch out for a drunk guy driving a motorized recliner with a built-in stereo set.



10. BRUSH UP YOUR SHAKESPEARE: If you travel in Dallas, be careful, police are ticketing motorists for being "non-English-speaking drivers." George Bernard Shaw was fond of saying that Americans haven't spoken the English language for years.



11. WHERE'S THE BEEF? The owner of the three McDonald restaurants in Iceland is closing them down because the current cost of importing ingredients would cause him to have to charge the equivalent of $7 for a Big Mac, apparently too many KRONA for folks to pay.





12. ARE YOU A NONE? A study found that 14 million Americans have no religious affiliation.. they are called "nones". Some of them believe in God, some are atheists, some agnostics, and some find labels unimportant.



13. ENDANGERED SPECIES. Several Canadian provinces have banned smoking in both public and private places, even in cars and apartment buildings! However, crackheads, who have a disease called addiction, are exempted and will have medical places where they can legally "inhale"!



14. PIE IN THE FACE. Soupy Sales died last week. He was 83. His claim to fame was that he had had 20,000 shaving cream filled pies hit him in the face over the years. If that is funny, he was a very funny man.



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Best "Wait, Wait" Halloween Show Yet?

Some of the topics for the October 31, 2009 "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" show were interesting. Zombies, beer, Barbie, toplessness in Disney film, hoaxes, Colonel Sanders, homelessness, golf, Halloween.

01. Beer: Officials at DC's FedEx Field admitted that they were selling beer in the men's restroom. (Is this is what is known as "The Cycle of Life".. ? It seems ecologically sound to me; however, it probably could be considered discrimination to women.)

02. Avoiding Discrimination to women: In response to a claim that women are left out of the President's athletic endeavors, President Obama played golf with a woman. (A number of other Presidents have also enjoyed sports with women.. although of a more intimate nature.)

03. Zombies: I learned that Zombies do not run, because they would snap their legs off at the ankle. Also, I learned that they may be organizing.. like Italian Americans, and Afro-Americans, they would be called Zombie-Americans.

04. Halloween: A man dressed himself as Colonel Sanders (KFC) and invaded the UN offices in New York. He even got so far as to meet the Secretary General before he got caught. Apparently, everyone thought that he probably was the head of some country that had had a military take-over.

(I remember great times when I was in elementary school when my Aunt Marjorie would get us kids together on Halloween and lead us into a dark cellar where she would pass around grapes and say they were eyes, licorice sticks and say they were ghost's hair.. you get the idea.. she would scare the daylights out of us.. and we loved it!)

(The first time that I went to a Halloween Party where grownups were, (First Baptist Church) I dressed as a clown magician. I had some simple pocket tricks and a deck of playing cards. As I was doing one of the card tricks I had practiced for hours, one of the "'church ladies" grabbed my cards, chewed me out, and made me leave. It took me a while to figure out that I was ousted because I had violated one of the Ten Commandments, in the view of the Church.)

05. Barbie: I hear that Barbie has a new boy friend... supposedly, he is called: "Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken."

06. Disney movies and Sex: It was mentioned that in one 1977 Disney movie, as some cute little animals are cavorting in a building, if you looked closely through one of the windows, you would see a topless woman.

Disney once made a movie called: "The Story of Menstruation", sponsored by Kotex.

07. Bed Clothes: It was reported that some bedding clothing company is making bedding that looks like the nighttime coverings of homeless people. You know, cardboard and newspapers and that sort of thing.

08. Surprise!: I learned that ex-President George W. Bush has started a new job as a motivational speaker! (His mother has been one for a while. I'm not sure about his father, who likes to spend his spare time jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.)

09. Thieves: A one-legged man stole one shoe... and was quickly caught.

And remember the dumbest burglers of the year: They disguised themselves by marking their faces using black markers. What these guys didn't realize was that these were "permanent" markers.. and they were also quickly caught.

... If you have never listened to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me", do yourself a favor. It has to be the funniest program on the radio. If the broadcast time is bad for you, "google" the title and plug into their easy to find website where you can easily listen to the show whenever you want.

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More Old News

Things are a bit hectic right now, so, to relax, I'm looking through my 1962 scrapbook again. Take a look over my shoulder, read the articles and enjoy the pictures.. let your mind wander back to that year.

01. A nice aerial view of Ocean City at the height of its flooding by a terrific northeaster in March. It was termed worse than the famous 1933 hurricane. The city is completely covered by the ocean; however, it looks like there is not much damage, except to a luxury apartment hotel on the beach at 39th street.

An expensive, at the time, $80,000 home survived the storm by being on steel pilings.

02. The Russians claim to be planning a 160 mile tunnel under the Caspian Sea, linking Baku with Krasnovodsk. They want to use atomic blasts to dig it out... but Western countries think that this is just a ploy for the USSR to get moving on secret weapons testing.

03. Frank Lloyd Wright made some sketches for a planetarium to be built on Sugarloaf Mountain south of Frederick, Maryland. The planetarium was never built.

04. University of California scientists have discovered that the chloroplast, like the gene and the virus, contains genetic material and controls its own reproduction within the living cell.

05. J. Robert Moskin, Look Magazine Senior Editor wrote: "In the next 25 years (1987!) it is likely that man will create life in a test tube. He will transform chemicals into living material that can grow and reproduce itself. He will perform an act of God."

Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate, foresees the day when scientists will be able to make artificial genes and put them into living bodies.

06. A cartoon of JFK sitting in an ambulance labeled Old Age Health. Running after him, hoping for a ride are three men, labeled: Health Insurance Companies, GOP Plan, and Rep Miller. (So, you see, even back in 1962 people were fighting over Health Insurance.. at that time it was for the elderly and was pushed through Congress as Medicare by Lyndon Johnson.. if Obama studies what Johnson did and he uses the resources that he already has, he should be able to push through universal health insurance.)

07. Mrs Leila Mae Simhof writes the Baltimore Sun that after paying their monthly rents, old people are left with the magnificent balance of from six to ten dollars for their month's food, clothing and insurance. (The time is right for Medicare.)

08. The Social Security Administration building in Woodlawn, Maryland, receives hundred of foreign visitors each week. It also sends out major press releases in 22 languages. They also publish pamphlets in Spanish, for distribution in New York City and in areas along the Mexican border and in southern California.

09. A woman in a coma delivers a baby. She had been injured in an automobile accident.

10. Robert M. Ball becomes Commissioner of Social Security and its 34,661 employees.

11. Maurice, the book man of Greenwich Village is having a problem with the subway locker people. Even though he stores hundreds of books in 49 lockers, and even though he pays for them with dimes every time he thinks of it.. the "Locker Nazi" wants him to get his books out of the lockers so people can use them for personal items. Maurice says that each subway station has lots of unused lockers and he really is a good customer for the company.

12. The Smith College Club of Baltimore is getting ready for their 4th annual used book sale. (As my daughter, Elizabeth, was being born in 1961, I was not allowed anywhere near the Delivery Room, so I went outside on the street to wait. Next to the hospital was an empty store and inside the 3rd annual Smith College Book Sale was going on. I bought a lot of books before I went back in to see my new daughter. To celebrate Elizabeth's birth, I visited all of the Smith College Book Sales for the next 40 years! Changes in location and prices has made the sale quite different than it was.. but it still is fun... if you want to get that book that you always wanted to read.. you will find it there.

13. Arthur C. Clarke quotes K. E. Tsiolkovski (1857-1935) : "Earth is the cradle of the mind: but one cannot live in the cradle forever." Clarke says: "... as we reach out into space, sooner or later we will discover that we are not alone. It may well be that our civilization is one of the most primitive now existing..."

14. A review of African Genesis by Robert Ardrey. "This book is presented as a personal investigation into the animal origins and nature of man." Ardrey's basic argument is that man is instinctively an aggressive and ruthless animal .. an innate killer. This is a very provocative and controversial book.

15. A Long Island supermarket has worked out a plan whereby customers turn cash register slips in to any local church. The store pledges to pay churches one percent of amounts shown on slips.

16. A beautiful picture of snow-capped Mount Fujiyama in Japan.

17. Some beautiful prints by Japanese artist Harunobu from around 1720.

18. An interesting article about Tokyo, titled: On Ginza, Glitter, Gastronomy and Girlie Shows.. and Geishas.

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Just a couple of things.

Think about these few things for a while:

01. The McDonald's bun plant in Bomporto, Italy, has made 1.5 billion buns since it opened. How do they get them to the stores before they get stale?

02. Mensan Gary Sitwell, Ph.D, has written Where was God? .. Evil, Theodicy, and Modern Science in an attempt to address the age-old syllogism: "If God is all-powerful and all-good, He would have created a universe with no suffering and no evil. But evil and suffering exist. Therefore, there is no God." Gary has proposed a new theodicy based on modern science.. quantum physics, relativity and chaos theory, that he feels may counter that atheist argument.

03. Mensan Elizabeth Amarante visited former President John Tyler's Virginia plantation in 1998. She found that a grandson of Tyler's was still living. Now, Tyler was born in 1790 and was six Presidents before Abraham Lincoln. How could he have a living grandson over two hundred years later?

President Tyler had 15 children by two different wives. In 1853, at age 63, he fathered a son, who, in turn, fathered the current Tyler grandson in 1928 at the age of 75. The grandson, Harrison Tyler lives at the plantation with his family.

04. Mayo Shattuck III received $15.7 million dollars in compensation from the Constellation Energy Group, Inc. Nolan D. Archibald received $13.7 million dollars in compensation from the Black and Decker Corporation. Bill Smith received $48,500. in compensation from one of these companies for a job which required him to put his life in danger 40 hours a week.
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Portuguese Treat

My daughter, Diane, received about one thousand pounds of kale from a friend. She offered it to me and I quickly took it off her hand. I found an authentic New Bedford, Massachusetts, recipe for Portuguese Kale Soup and I spent a couple of hours today making the best smelling kale soup I have ever had the experience of smelling.

I had to change the recipe a bit because Elaine doesn't do garlic. I love garlic, so I sneaked in some garlic powder. Also, I couldn't get linguica, so I got a similar sausage to use. The great thing about Kale Soup is that you only have to cook it for 30 to 40 minutes, after sauteing the meat and onions.

We usually have fun on a Sunday night making special food that we can't get at the restaurant we use on other days, so we will now enjoy our kale soup with some nice red wine.. Elaine will probably have milk instead of wine. Perhaps, as we eat, I will regale Elaine with some Portuguese phrases that I learned as a child in New Bedford.

New Bedford is a great place for people who like good food. Some of the food: Quahog chowder! Twin lobsters! Lobster rolls (even McDonald's serves them)! Portuguese wine.. Madeira, Port, etc; Portuguese rolls; Linguica/curica (sp?); mussels; clams, scallops, etc etc.

I talked to my daughter, Elizabeth, and she reminded me that my late wife made kale soup quite a bit. The first time that Elizabeth ate some, her mother asked her if she liked it... Elizabeth said.. "Oh yes! Except for the green stuff!"

My daughter, Diane, accompanied me to New Bedford for my uncle Allen's funeral recently. After the service, we had supper at Davy Jones' Locker... we had New Bedford seafood and Diane loved it. I would highly recommend a trip to New Bedford, and a sampling of the great food.

New Bedford is a great place for tourism. However, the Fisherman's Union for years has downplayed the tourism issue because they want the city to be known more for scallops and fish instead. I always wanted to offer my services to advertise the city around the world. At least the city finally was able to get the cobblestoned area declared a National Park.

There are still scores of beautiful homes in the city.. most were the homes of Whaling Captains. I lived in one of them for a couple of years. It was a beautiful building.

After the demise of whaling, because of the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania, the textile industry took over in the City. However, when the union movement bothered the mill owners, they moved down to the South and New Bedford became a poor place (after being the richest US city during the whaling era).. until fishing took over .. I think that New Bedford is now the largest fishing port in the US.

If you get a chance to visit New Bedford and/or try kale soup... bon appetit!

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Just some weird news again.

These are some of the stories in the news that interest me this week.

01. Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Joe Arpaio.. you remember, the guy who makes jail inmates wear pink underwear.. and who has been called America's toughest sheriff .. has been stripped of his federal authority to make on the street arrests of suspected illegal immigrants by using racial profiling. (Maybe he should quit his police job and go to work for Victoria's Secret.)

02. David M. Rubenstein celebrated his 60th birthday by donating $10 million to the Lincoln Center. I guess this is small change for a guy worth almost $3 billion. When he turned 54, he said: "I have 27 years to go. I could be like the pharaohs and say 'bury me with my money'. Or, I could start giving it away." (Hey, Dave, how about giving one of your billions to cancer research!)

03. WQXR is the only classical music station in New York City. New York and it's surrounding suburbs has a population of 16 million people. Surely the city could support a few more classical music stations. Anyway, WQXR will now become a public radio station.. I wonder how that will affect the amount of music to be played. (I'll bet there are hundreds of rock stations in NYC.)

04. A flock of sheep in Jordan suffered spontaneous combustion because of methane in the soil and a stray spark. (I wonder if that could be the cause of some of the many spontaneous combustion human cases over the years.)

05. A mile of manatee poop has washed ashore in Vero Beach, Florida. (How did they determine that it came from manatees?)

06. The Wall Street Journal reports that 1.8 million bags checked at airlines last year did not arrive at their destinations at the same time as their owners.

07. Former Vice President Cheney will be bashing his former boss in a new book he is writing. The Washington Post reports that Cheney accuses Former President Bush of "going soft," and becoming just "an ordinary politician."

08. Aesop tells about the crow who drops stones in a pitcher to get to the water. Now, researchers have found that this intelligent action is indeed something that crow-like birds can do. The only other creature (outside of man) who would be able to do that is an orangutan.

09. Stray dogs in Moscow have taught themselves to use the subway, or so it is reported in the tabloids. Every morning they take the train into central Moscow, where food is easier to obtain.. and at night they take the train back home to sleep.

10. New Justice Sotomayor has asked more questions in her few days on the court than Clarence Thomas has asked in all the years he has been a Justice.

11. Rubik's Cube has gone high tech. For $150, you can get a cute little cube that flips colors when you swipe your finger against its sides. There are no moving parts.. a "kachunk" sound is broadcast when the flip occurs. (I struggled for many hours with an old-fashioned Rubik's Cube years ago, got frustrated, and gave it up. My son did not have to struggle at all. He just picked it up and solved it in a few seconds!)

12. I haven''t looked recently, but sunsets are supposed to be more colorful than usual, because of the eruption of Russia's Sarychev Peak in June. A lot of sulfur dioxide was thrown into the stratosphere and its tiny particles are scattering blue light and mixing it with the normal red, to produce some weird purple colors.

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Knives and Common Sense

Two scenarios:

#1. I am a teen-ager.
I have a straight A average in High School.
I am an Eagle Scout.
I have saved a relative by using CPR.
I am a safe driver, with no citations and no accidents.
I want to attend West Point.
I am a church-going good kid.

A teacher asked me if I carried a weapon in the car I drive to school.
I said that I just had a small 1 1/2" blade in the emergency kit in my car.
I let the teacher open my glove compartment and take out the blade.

The teacher reported me to the principal, and I was suspended for 45 days.
The suspension was changed to 30 days, but will still be on my record.
I will probably not be able to go to West Point now.
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Question: Where was the common sense in this punishment?
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Scenario #2:

I am six years old.
I am a cub scout.
At a camping trip, I was given an eating tool, with a knife, a fork, and a spoon.
I use my eating tool all the time.
I took my eating tool to school so that I could use it when I have my lunch.
I dropped my eating tool in the school bus.
The school bus driver reported to the school that I was carrying a dangerous weapon.
I was ordered to go to reform school for three years.
My sentence was dropped, but not before the school board amended a rule at a special meeting.

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Question: What would have happened if the rule had not been changed? Reform school for elementary school kids? Where is the common sense in that?
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My TRIAD police friends agree with me that there should be common sense applied to cases that fit into such categories.

Some people are of the opinion that "La loi est la loi!" The law is the law. Like in Les Miserables, where a man is hounded for the rest of his life because he stole a loaf of bread many years earlier when he was dying of hunger. It didn't matter that he had become an honored man, who had helped make the world a better place.

The position of Judge was created initially to make sure that the law is upheld... and that should still be the case for the Supreme Court of the United States. But other judges are supposed to temper justice with mercy. I agree that "Three strikes you're out" seems to be fair, and seems to work... but "One strike you're out" is ridiculous in my opinion.

When I worked at Social Security, I had a chance to become an Administrative Law Judge. I wanted to be a judge and make sure that applicants and beneficiaries got a fair hearing before being arbitrarily eliminated from consideration. My boss said that I was too valuable to him to lose, so my hopes in the legal direction fell through. However, as an empath, I still am deeply concerned about the two cases I mentioned above.

Will the teen-ager be able to overcome his record of "bringing a weapon to school?" Will West Point or other colleges hold that against him? Will a potential employer decide not to hire him because of this "horrible" infraction?

Will the six-year old's school record show that he brought a weapon to school? Will this cause his future teachers to watch him extra closely and maybe search him for more "weapons"? What about the seven and eight-year olds in the same school... if they have the same utensil, will they get the mandatory 3 year reform school term... where they can learn some real neat criminal tips from the older inmates?

Come on school teachers and principals... let's bring some common sense to our schools and stop trying to cover your butts by destroying the lives of little kids.
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Solution for Unemployment?

According to Parade Magazine for October 11, 2009, the State of Georgia has come up with an innovative and cost-effective way to reduce unemployment. The Georgia Works program allows jobless citizens to work part-time for up to six weeks at businesses with job openings. No salary is paid, but Georgia pays unemployment benefits and also a weekly amount for transportation and other expenses.

The businesses involved do not pay the workers, but they do provide on-the-job training. So far, 58% of the people in tthe program have been hired by the places where they are working. Michael Thurmond, Georgia's State's Labor Commissioner has said that the employers have saved 15 million dollars in training and labor costs, while the State of Georgia has saved 5 million dollars in money they would have paid to these people, had they remained unemployed.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

It's funny, many years ago, the labor secretary of New Jersey came to SSA to discuss unemployment and he mentioned that (for instance) there were 2,000 job openings in the Newark classified pages.. and 2,000 people looking for work in Newark at the time. He said that his job was to do a match up. Unfortunately, people are picky about the jobs they want. An engineer will not submit to a job at McDonalds, I'm sure.

However, in my work effort mentality, I would not mind working at whatever job there was, in order to provide my family with food.

What happened to the immigrant work ethic? It is probably still alive in the Hispanic neighborhoods.. and that is a good thing, in my opinion.

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Survival of the Fittest

In skimming through a book proof (Simply an Inspired Life) by Mary Anne Radmacher and Jonathan Lockwood Huie, I found this observation of theirs that I think is a great insight: "Fear of the unknown is ... probably our greatest fear, and it has undoubtedly been intensified through evolution."

"Paranoia has had great survival value for the human species. Someone who is very afraid of everything becomes very careful, and lives longer - at least long enough to reproduce and nurture offspring."

"The ancestors of those who are alive today were the men and women who were very afraid of all the potential dangers and acted cautiously. Those who were fearless and foolhardy tended to die at a young age, before they could reproduce and pass on genes carrying their tendency toward fearlessness..."

Doesn't this ring true? And how does this match up with the theory that the medula oblongata of young males does not mature until they are around 25 years old and that accounts for the foolish and foolhardy stuff that they do?

When I was a young High School freshman, I thought of myself as a tough daredevil kid, so I went out for the football team. I had played sandlot ball and loved to take chances and run with the ball.

The coach had me "suit up" for a practice scrimmage. We "new blood guys" would be playing against a few of the first team, including a refrigerator-shaped guy named Bobby Watkins. (Bobby later went on to become an "all American" at Ohio State.)

At the first play, I grabbed the ball and started to run towards the goal, knocking guys down as I ran... all of a sudden, I experienced an earthquake of a high magnitude.. Bobby Watkins hit me and knocked me down. I laid there for a minute, pain coursing through my body, when a great insight ocurred to me... You could get hurt playing this game!

I got up, shook the dust, dirt and blood off of me, wobbled off the field, and said "goodbye" to contact sports forever.

So... I was a survivor.. and therefore my genes were able to be passed on to my progeny.

But what about guys like Evel Kaneval (sp?).. Johnny Unitas? .. Flacco (?) the Hulkster?

These are deep things to think about, my friends. Meanwhile, I would advise my grandson, Jack, to take a lot of extra care while he is playing football. He is really good at the game.. but I would rather that he played baseball.. or maybe golf.. or maybe tiddly-winks and therefore make sure that he will be able to pass his genes (diluted from this old grandfather) on to his progeny.

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Extra Protein

Watch it! WATCH IT! If you received a free sample of Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters with your morning newspaper. I received two.. one with the Baltimore Sun and one with The Carroll County (MD) Times. The little packets looked very appetising. Elaine ate one and enjoyed it. I ate half of one and then noticed little creatures running through the remaining crumbs.

Weevils, apparently. I threw up a bit and immediately drank a bottle of beer to see if the alcohol would kill the little rascals. Maybe.. maybe not.

I appreciate General Mills giving me that extra protein.. but I would have like to have had it in a better form.

I wrote an email to General Mills to complain, but their web contact info appeared to kill my message as it was being sent.

I called to General Mills, but nobody was there to hear me.

Anyway, be careful... I don't think weevils will kill you, but they probably will tickle the inside of your gut and make you giggle a lot. Also, if you put the little buggers in your closet, they will have a ball, getting into your flour and other grain products.
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A Horrible Event

A 100 year old woman was found strangled at Brandon Woods nursing home in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts. This woman was in good health and had been out shopping with her son earlier in the day. This disturbs me even more than it normally would because my mother and step-father were residents of this facility for some time in their later life.

Was this a case of euthenasia by some nurse who believes that a 100 year old person has lived long enough? Was it the act of some nutcase elderly patient? Brandon Woods had a number of nutcase patients, if I recall correctly. Thank God that my sister was able to keep tabs on the situation of our mother and at one time found a fellow patient striking her.

Yes, fellow patients as well as care-givers can sometimes be a problem for incapacitated seniors.

During my TRIAD Conference on October 29th of this year at Carroll Lutheran Village in Westminster, Maryland, Ms. Toni Katz will be telling us about drug abuse at nursing homes and hospice locations. I've heard this lecture and seen the secretly filmed activity of some care-givers. Some nurses have even taken pain patches off the bodies of terminally ill patients and sucked the drugs out of the bandages! Toni also can tell lots of stories about the physical abuse of patients.

There is an ombudsman program in Maryland where nursing homes are visited by caring persons who listen to the complaints of residents and take measures to have abusive situations corrected. I hope that the program is being used in other States as well.
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Home from down 'e ocean, Hon (good bye ghost!)

(Yes, we had a ghost!)

Well, we are back home after three weeks at the ocean. It was an interesting time. The first week was "biker week".. with 100,000 motorcycle guys descending upon the town. They were everywhere 24 hours a day. It was an adventure trying to drive down the main drag without hitting any of them. One was hit a block ahead of me and clothing was strewn all over the highway.

The next week was "Sunfest" week... Elaine was able to see the "Village People" and also to buy lots and lots of special stuff at the little shops.

The last week was a bit quiet.. lots and lots of fisherguys with trucks parading up and down the sand. I did not see any of the surf fishers catch anything, but that isn't the real reason they are there anyway. Of course, it is to get away from the wife for a few hours.

Our big fun this three weeks was dealing with the "micro ghost." The first morning there, we put Elaine's coffee into the microwave to be zapped. After taking the heated coffee out, the microwave decided to start up again, on its own. It did this over and over for a long time, until I pulled the plug.

When I plugged in again to heat something, it immediately began to heat for 4minutes and 59 seconds. I put water in a cup and placed it in the microwave oven. The micro "ghost" began to heat it for 7 minutes and 45 seconds, on its own.

The next time, it was quiet for a while and let me heat something. After about an hour, it went: beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, and different numbers appeared on the dial. It settled on 2 minutes and took off. After two minutes, it went for two minutes again. After a few iterations, it started its strange beeps again and gave us a cute little melody. I pulled the plug.

For three weeks we suffered the playful vagaries of the "micro ghost". (It was kind of fun, not knowing what the damn thing was going to do next.) The owner, Rose, was contacted and warned about the ghost... I could tell that she didn't really believe me... but, since she showed up just as we were leaving.. I'm sure she got the ghost's treatment. I'll have to call her and find out.

Even though it gave us a few laughs, it was nice to come home to a rational, conservative microwave.

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Many years ago, when I migrated to Baltimore, I began to create a series of scrapbooks reflecting what was going on at the time. Today, I want to reconstruct some of a scrapbook I created in 1961.. maybe it will trigger some of your memories or at least give you a little insight about what it was like to live 48 years (!) ago.

01. Saying: He who buys what he doesn't need, steals from himself.

How does that relate to today's stimulus payments?

02. A cartoon by A. Toussaint of Belgium: A man in his shirt sleeves stands near an open door. Across the open door is his pants and shoes. Through the door, we see three ladies chattering away. The joke is.. he doesn't know how to cross the open door to get his clothes.

Today, he probably would say: "What the hell." and go across to get his pants without thinking twice about it.

03. A drawing by Leonard Vosburgh in "The Lords Baltimore." It shows a horse team rolling a hogshead of tobacco to a ship in early Maryland.

Rolling Road in Baltimore County was the main "highway" for rolling those hogsheads down to the Patapsco so they could be loaded on boats and ferried to the Chesapeake.

04. A beautiful black and white photograph: Baltimore's Washington monument in the evening, in a snow storm.

05. A newspaper account of crime in Baltimore: There was an outbreak of crime, some of them in broad daylight. In just one week:

A retired tailor was beaten and stomped to death in Mount Vernon Square.

A 16 year old was hit on the head with a thick board.

A motorist in a collision with a taxi, got out and hit the cabbie with a beer can.

A 46 year old man was beaten to death with a tree limb.

A policeman was hit with an empty can thrown by an 11-year old body.

An advertising collector was beaten and robbed by two teen-agers.

A 19 year old girl was thrown off the Orleans Street viaduct.

A purse-snatcher knocked a 63 year old woman to the ground and stole her purse with $12.

A policeman was cut with a knife while being ejected from a bar.

The police suggested that the assaults were the results of long daylight hours and fair weather.

06. A nice black and white photograph: Downtown Baltimore at Fire station #6.. about 1925. One of the store signs reads: Everything Electric Radio (Holmes Electric).

07. Newspaper article: An 8-foot high trash can, dubbed as "Cleanup Charlie" broadcast announcements every few minutes at Howard and Lexington Streets. Sharp-eyed members of the Women's Civic League watched the intersection from a second story window and pointed out litterbugs over a loudspeaker. "Charlie was on duty daily during "Cleanup Week."

08. Photo of a disaster: An apartment house being built in Lutherville collapsed in recent heavy rain and will have to be completely rebuilt.

09. Saying: A miser isn't much fun to live with, but he makes a wonderful ancestor.

10. Newspaper article: 600 French tourists will visit Baltimore.

Wait a minute, they came to our fair city because DC had no available rooms. At night, they will sleep in the Southern Hotel.. during the day, they will tour DC.

11. Letter to the Editor: What is wrong with Baltimore's Heritage that the French tourists have to tour DC and not our fair city? What about:

The Walters Art Gallery
The Cone Collection at the BMA
The home and grave of Edgar Allen Poe
St. Mary's Seminary
The Chapel at St. Mary's and the Battle Monument, both designed by Maximillian Godefroy
Betsy Patterson who married Jerome Bonaparte
The oldest school of pharmacy in the US
Dr. Pierre Chatard
Louis Pascault
Archbishop Ambrose Marchal
The widow Lacombe
J. Pinaud
Fort McHenry
Mount Vernon Place

12. Drawing: A little boy with a flower growing out of his navel. ?

13. Depictions of Baltimore's famous painted screens. It is impossible to see through a painting from outside.

A South Curley street house with painted screens on every window.
Twol screens by Frank Abremski for his house at North Ellwood Avenue.
Two Baltimore scenes custom painted for A. Aubrey Bodine, to reflect two of his famous photos.
A cool painting on a storm window at South East Avenue.
Swan depictions in screens at South Curley and South Chester.

14. Ocean City scenes: The Boardwalk is continuing from 19th to 26th street.

There was a major storm in March which flooded the city and destroyed a lot of property. The Jamaican, a recently completed luxury apartment hotel was completely destroyed. There is a picture of a house on steel stilts that survived.

15. Newspaper article: A 150-year old two-story log house has been renovated in York, PA and furnished with antiques. Usually, log houses are much smaller.

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Odds and Ends

We'll be heading to Ocean City on Sunday, and I need to purge myself of some news comments that I have been saving up. You don't need to read this. I won't get mad.



01. Lester Young, "the President of Jazz" would have been 100 years old last week, if he had lived. He blew a very sweet sax. He died at age 49. (The army discharged him for using marijuana.. its just as well, because he refused to fire a gun and kill anyone.)



02. Somebody named "the great Zucchini" performed in DC last Saturday. What he did, I haven't the faintest idea.. but with a name like that it was probably wonderful.



03. Shoppers grocery shops in Maryland will no longer supply paper towels in their rest rooms. They feel this will help the environment. Instead, mechanical air blowers will dry your hands. Hey.. I've got news for you.. if you have ever been in a Men's Room you would know that men who don't see paper towels do not wash their hands. So, what would you rather have? A paperless environment or germ-infested hand shakes?

04. A company in Spain is making laptop holding bags that show front pages of newspapers as disguise. Urban camouflage!

05. An 87-year old is accused of killing a 91-year old fellow resident in a Columbia, Maryland senior citizen residence. The 87-year old beat the other to death with his fists. He was a former boxer.


My grandfather was forced to go into a nursing home when he was 86 years old, for his own protection. His children thought that he would burn his home down when he lit his pipe. The nursing home just happened to be in the house in which he was born.. in fact, his room was the room in which he was born. He liked to control TV in "his" common room in the building and another octogenarian resident didn't always like what he watched. He and my grandfather used to stand there arguing about TV, punching each other, like they used to do, 60 years earlier. Luckily, they were always stopped before they beat each other to death.


06. The Discovery Channel is starting a 5-year series called "Curiosity". Some of the episodes will be called: "Are we alone in the Universe?", "What is a virus?", "What is consciousness?", and other titles designed to bend our minds.


07. Cal Ripken, Jr's Number 8 is back at Camden Yards. Four guys had kidnapped it for a while.


08. Nicolas Sarkozy is getting ready to talk about a proposed carbon tax that would raise the cost of driving a car or heating a home in France. Will the French stand for more taxes? "Let them eat gas!"

09. A proposed tower building as tall as the Empire State Building has been circumcised in New York City. The City Planning Department ruled that 200 feet would have to be lopped off of the top of the building so that it would not upstage the city's long-reigning tallest building.


10. Bose has come out with the QuietComfort 15. It is a noise-cancellation headphone. Supposedly, for $300, you no longer have to hear "the rumble of the subway train, the rattle of the taxis..." as Stephen Williams of the New York Times reports.


11. Lang Lang, a 27-year old Chinese pianist is being called "Bang Bang" for his noisy rendition of one of Chopin's etudes.

12. A Republican candidate for governor of Idaho, Rex Rammell, heard someone talk about tags bought by hunters to allow them to shoot wolves. When that person also mentioned there should be tags for killing the President, Rammell said: "Obama tags? We'd buy some of those." He later told people that this was a joke.. and "besides, Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue tags in DC." Big joke, eh, Rex? What a jerk!

13. Along the same lines, the head of the Carroll County Republican Party has made it known that she is very upset that the name for September 11 was changed through Democratic efforts from Patriot's Day to A Day of Remembrance and Service. Huh?!

I am now an Independent and can look objectively at the utterances of both parties... but utterances like this one and the one before cause me to wonder what the devil is going on with the current members of the Party of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a uniter and not a divider.

14. Katharine Q. Seelye wrote about some statements that independents believe and disbelieve about Health Care Reform:

Independents believe these.. says Katharine:

The Federal Government will become directly in involved in making personal health care decisions for the public. (MYTH)

Health care will be rationed. (DEBATABLE)

Taxpayers will be required to pay for abortions. (MYTH)

Independents do not believe these.. says Katharine:

The Government will make the elderly decide how and when to die. (MYTH)

A public option will put private insurance companies out of business. (MYTH)

Illegal immigrants will be covered. (MYTH)

Regardless of the comments made by Rep. Wilson of South Carolina and FOX news, the items labeled MYTH above, remain MYTHS.

15. After all this, I will finish with what is supposed to be a joke.. but is probably a real situation, experienced by many husbands:

One day, a mild-mannered man decides that he is tired of his wife always bossing him around, so he decides to put his foot down and let his wife know, once and for all, who is in charge.

When he comes home from work that night he tells her:

"From now on, I'm the man of this home, and my word is law! When I come home from work, I want my supper on the table. Also, I want you to press a shirt and pants for me to wear tonight, because I am going out drinking with the boys. After that, I want you to draw me a hot bath. And after my bath, guess who is going to dress me and comb my hair?"

His wife replies: "The Undertaker!"

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Some News for September 10th, 2009

Believe it or not, there was some news today, other than President Obama's speech.

01. A Quebec Canada man was sentenced to life in prison after his 19th conviction for drunken driving. Last year, he ran over a woman in a wheelchair.. on her birthday!

I know a person in New Bedford, Massachusetts who was convicted of drunk driving many times, and each time all it took to get his license back was a small bribe. This was a long time ago, so I hope this type of situation is a thing of the past.

02. The Mint will be issuing another special series of quarters. It will be called "America the Beautiful" and will feature famous National sites throughout the States and Territories. The complete series will consist of 56 coins that will be released about every ten weeks, starting in 2010. That means it will probably take around ten years to get a complete set.

03. If you eat a fast-food fish filet, you are probably now eating a fish called the Hoki, according to William Broad of the New York Times. (I must admit that Mr. Broad may be trying to fool us.. hoki = hoaky? But I'm probably wrong about that.) The hoki is described as a deep Pacific fish, swimming around New Zealand, and is very ugly, but tasty. The fish is supposedly taking the place of the rapidly disappearing Orange Roughy. Orange Roughy lives more than 100 years according to Mr. Broad, and reproduces very slowly. Hoki only lives 25 years and has a quicker rate of reproduction. One of my stocks, Yum Brands, likes the use of this fish.

04. I noticed that American Express is advertising that they have "the card that's ready for the unexpected." Today I was told, unofficially, that they have updated the cost of using their card to $400 a year. That is hard for me to believe... if it is indeed true. I use Visa or Discover and as of yet, they have not charged me a fee. However, I was also warned today to read my monthly statements very carefully. Someone also mentioned that Discover began to charge them a large fee because they had not used their card for some time.

05. A Bolivian man tried to highjack a plane at Mexico City's airport. He threatened to blow up the plane if Mexico's President did not talk to him about a coming disaster.. he said that he had seen the devil in the Mexican flag and knew that bad things were about to happen. Federales overpowered the man and led him off to jail.

06. Speaking of delusional thinking, Sarah Palin has written to the Wall Street Journal that "death panels" are still a concern for the elderly, regardless of what the Administration says.

07. Continuing on that theme, I read where the mayor of Glenn Beck's hometown of Mount Vernon, Washington, is about to give the "keys to the city" to their famous "home town boy." Quite an honor for a guy who has called President Obama a "racist." (Because of his statement, several big time advertisers have canceled commercials on his show, and as I said somewhere before, Ed Schultz says that his radio audience is now greater than Beck's TV show.)

08. The Hubble telescope is working great again and is sending back remarkable pictures. These pictures boggle my mind. I'm trying to remember who made the following statement, I think it was Goethe: "Only two things amaze me. The glorious heavens above and the wondrous earth below." This certainly is a great time to live for people who want to learn about the marvelous universe we live in.

09. Massachusetts lawmakers are struggling to find a way to get a quick replacement for the late Senator Kennedy. (Did I mention that Massachusetts is replete with signs that say "Ted, we love you and will miss you!" and others of a similar nature?)

10. Over 30 years ago, I read about a massive Manhattan, New York City, apartment complex. It was hard for me to imagine such a huge development. Three years ago, that complex of 110 (yes thats one hundred and ten) red-brick apartment buildings at Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town, was sold for $5.4 billion dollars. However, during this recession, the buyers are losing money.. more than half of its value. Sad. I hope they will get back to normal during 2010, when I feel sure this damnable problem time will end. A lot of people live in that complex and it would be a disaster if they had to move somewhere else.
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Lots happening since I got home from Uncle Allen's funeral. My Toyota Camry was making noises that said it was on its last legs.. so I had to buy a new car. This was probably cheaper than throwing money down the old car money-pit. I bought a 2009 Toyota Rav4. Elaine helped me pick it out.

She wanted a gold colored one ("sandy beach metallic").. but they are only available on the beaches in Hawaii. But we did finally get a west coast color: "Pacific blue metallic." A very nice car, but we will have to get a ladder so Elaine can climb in. The name of the car (RAV) stands for "Recreational Activity Vehicle".. that means "small SUV".

In making the transition from old car to new car, I lost my Social Security identity pass. Under the Patriot Act, this is a major problem. I will have to find someone to sign me into the building and then I will have to spend hours convincing "Security" that I did not sell my pass to some terrorist.

Meanwhile, I learned today that my daughter was charged for her motel room in New Bedford, even though I had already paid for it. I can see this taking hours and hours of phone calls to straighten out.

Elaine received notice that the doctor who gave her one stitch to close a wound charged her insurance $2,ooo! I don't think that the insurance company will pay him, and Elaine may get the bill. More need for Health Care Reform.

I purchased four pairs of pants at Boscov's and lost the claim ticket for tailoring. Tailoring is necessary because pants makers now make their pants' lengths at the average length of American legs. I'm no longer average since I lost several inches in height as I have aged. So, in addition to the price of pants, I have to pay an extra $9 each to have them shortened. I told you that it's tough to get old, guys.

After some interrogation, the clerk agreed to release my altered pants to me. He was telling me that in the "old days" when Boscov's was super busy, I would not have been able to get my pants without receipts. He said that a couple of years ago, the men's clothing section had 5 employees. Now they have 2 1/2. (I didn't ask him if the 1/2 person was a "little person.")

I talked to a lady in Hagerstown, Maryland, who makes "comfort dolls". These are dolls given to children who are in accidents, have to appear in court, or are in the hospital. The dolls calm the kids down and make them feel better. This lady wanted to know if we (the TRIAD group) wanted to learn how to make the dolls.. if not, she volunteered to make them for us. I will discuss this at the next TRIAD meeting.

I purchased another HP black ink cartridge.. they seem to run out after just a few pages.. and will now be able to print my eulogy of Uncle Allen. I will send copies to Allen's family survivors.

I finally got my Federal Income Tax Refund and now it is time to send it back for estimated taxes.

Elaine and I got haircuts today. Kim does my haircuts and also trims my beard. If she gets caught trimming a beard, she can get fined. Apparently, you have to have a special license to do mustaches and beards and the "beard police" can make it difficult for you.

We ate lunch today at the Frisco Pub. I had a local craft brew, spicy crab soup and a delicious Polish dog. Elaine had a soda, the crab soup, and the most delicious clam strips I've had since I used to buy them from vendors at Horseneck Beach, in Massachusetts.

Once when I was in college, I got a political appointment for the summer at Horseneck Beach. Along with a bunch of other guys who were pretty muscular, we had the job of digging out houses buried under the sand dunes during the hurricane of 1938. This was twenty years later, and there were still a lot of buried houses. I was surprized to learn that people in 1938 used the same plastic-like-type tablecloths that we were using. These cloths were the best survivors of the storm.

Anyway, after lunch, after getting Elaine in the car and getting ready to put her wheelchair in, I forgot to lock the chair legs and when I turned my back, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw something black start to speed down the hill. It was the damn wheelchair! Luckily, so far, it had just missed by inches all the other parked cars and was about to travel out into heavy traffic... summoning my hidden superman strength, I ran as fast as I could and rescued the chair in the nick of time. And guess what, even with all that exertion, I did not get a heart attack.

I have been reading that the best form of exercise is sudden exertion. That is the way humans have managed all these many years.. quiet times, with sudden spurts of energy when needed to avoid predators and to catch prey. So, I had my good exercise today. And, I gave a lot of healthful entertainment to the bystanders.

Learning about my new car has been fun. I also managed to wedge my cell phone in the back door of the car. I didn't notice it, but the car kept up a loud whistle until I figured out what was wrong. Elaine also made some noise when she hit the car's "panic button" on the key I gave her. She was inside, and the car was outside.. and when she pushed it inside, all Hell broke loose outside in the highest decibels. It probably hit "high C".

I got a call tonight that my caller ID told me was "Pizza Sam". I answered the phone with "Hey, I can't wait to hear this one." The man on the other end said, "My name is Sam Piazza, and I am calling to ask for your help on a special project." It was a legitimate call and I was embarassed to tell Sam that I misread his last name on the caller ID.

This morning, I made twenty or so calls, most requiring a call back. Since we have "call waiting" whenever someone calls back and we are on the phone already, a loud beeping and static is generated on the line to let us know... then, we are supposed to say to the party we are talking to, "excuse me, I have another caller on the line." I find this rude and discourteous... as though the person you are talking to is not as important as the new caller. I hate this feature, but it is "bundled" and I am told I can't drop it without dropping caller ID.

I think that "caller ID" is the greatest telephone innovation ever.. it has saved me so many times from having to answer telemarketers, scam artists and crashing bores. I highly recommend it.

I will now end this crashing bore of a blog. Just wanted to keep you up to date on some of the ordinary things we are doing these days in beautiful downtown Westminster Maryland.

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Religious Tolerance?

On the Teaching Tolerance website, Thom Ronk cites a quote by Jonathan Swift: "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another." Unfortunately, I think this is true in many cases.

I've already mentioned a book that someone sent me, that purports to give people a reason to live a good life. Sounds OK to me, but when I opened the book at random, I came upon some words that said in effect: "If you do not believe what I believe, even though you have never heard of what I believe, because you lived on a tropical island somewhere... you will burn in the everlasting fire of hell!" Give me a break! What kind of belief is that!

Why do the Sunnis hate the Shiites, and vice versa? Isn't it the same religion? The same religious book? Or am I missing something?

Why do the Catholics hate the Protestants in Ireland, and vice versa? Isn't it the same religion? The same religious book? Or am I missing something?

Years ago, the TV program Star Trek had an episode I found very interesting. The people in this portion of the galaxy were bi-colored. One half of their bodies was white, the other half was black. Most of these people hated each other and continually fought. When asked why they fought each other, they were told "Can't you see? It's perfectly clear. They are different from us and obviously inferior." Captain Kirk said: "Wait a minute, you look alike to me." The answer was: "But, are you blind? Don't you see that their colors are on the opposite side of their bodies from ours!"

A few years ago, the little girl next door came home from her first day in the second grade. My wife asked her how she liked her new teacher. The little girl said: "Miss Elaine, she's black."

"Yes, but is she nice?"

"Miss Elaine, she's black."

"But do you like her?"

"Miss Elaine, she's black."

What is this little girl learning in Sunday School... or at the kitchen table?

As an empath, I get a sick feeling in my stomach when supposedly religious people talk trash about people they don't like, or who are different from themselves. Some even bad-mouth President Obama. Is he a bad man? Why compare him to a maniac like Hitler?

And why do supposedly religious people forward demeaning and false emails about the President and his Administration? It is so easy to do a fact check these days.. why not do that first?

I detect an underlying racism in most of these utterances of the so-called religious right. I hope I am wrong, but I don't think so. I would hope that our country has progressed a bit since the days before the Civil War. It is discouraging to me to see a "closet racist" point to their cheek when talking about a black person.. although at least it is a little better than using the "n" word.

And yet.. there are religious and non-religious people I know who do truly love their neighbors and are tolerant of others who are different from themselves and try to lead ethical lives. Isn't this what it really means to be a human being?

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Hodge Podge for Saturday September 5th, 2009

While on my train ride to Massachusetts last week, I read quite a few newspapers and a few things caught my interest. I want to share them with you.

01. The ratio of civilian contractors to military personnel is higher now in Afghanistan than it has been anywhere else, in any other war. Check out the following approximate percentages:

World War I: 5%
World War II: 10%
Korea: 25%
VietNam: 15%
Balkans: 50%
Iraq: 50%
Afghanistan: 70%

Source: Congressional Research Service.. by the New York Times.

Well, at least our soldiers don't have to pull KP anymore or clean latrines.

Although it might anger some of my contractor friends, I would like to say that even though my experience with contractors in the Federal Government was cordial, I did feel that what they were doing could probably be much cheaper done with Government employees. For example, one project that my Branch was responsible for concerned 10,000 elderly people. I felt that one programmer in my Branch could do the job on a PC and complete it in a couple of years.

I was overruled. The job was contracted out as a large-scale computer job and when I last checked, years later, the job is still in existence, not quite completed.

02. Dr. Mark B. McClellan, former Medicare administrator under George W. Bush, has proposed promoting personal health by taxing sugary soft drinks.

Right now, I am trying to buy a Toyota Rav4. This is a small car, but is considered a "mini SUV". Being an SUV, it has giant cup holders like all SUV's. I read somewhere that SUV's that do not have giant cup holders do not get sold. People need a place to put their "supersized" calorie-loaded cokes and pepsi's. (The Toyota Rav4 has added inserts to put into the giant holders, so that us guys who drink "undersized" fluids won't have our drinks rattling around as we drive. They have also added water bottle holders in the side doors. Nice touch!)

A few years ago, I sold my Coke stock... bad move. However, I did keep my Pepsi stock. In spite of the Recession, Pepsi has continued to send me small quarterly dividends. I do not drink sugary soft drinks myself, and neither does Elaine, unless she needs a swift caffeine "fix".

03. I see where a one-story 3,100 square foot building in the Clinton area of Manhattan (10th Ave at 52nd St) is on the market for $3.8 million. It offers a potential income of $75,000. from billboards and has 18,912 square feet in "air rights". (What does that mean? Can't airplanes fly over it? Can the building be built into a skyscraper? Not a very high one I would guess. If they just relied on the billboard income, it would take about 50 years to break even.)

04. Two of the three largest U.S. tobacco companies have filed suit to block marketing restrictions in a law that gives the Food and Drug Administration authority over tobacco. The tobacco makers of Camels, Newport, and others claim that the law (The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act) severely restricts the few remaining channels open for them to communicate with adult tobacco consumers. They claim that they won't even be able to use color lettering in their ads.

Too bad, guys! I think that the ads should be outlawed completely. Most ads that I have seen (like the suggestive Joe Camel and others) are made to appeal directly to those of our population, namely the young, whose medula oblongatas have not yet matured and who cannot see far enough into the future to visualize their painful throat and lung cancer deaths.

05. The Chicago-based Mercy for Animals organization has issued an undercover video shot at an Iowa chicken hatchery. The video shows unwanted male chicks being tossed alive into a grinder. Apparently, this is common industry practice. (Where is Sinclair Lewis when we need him?)

06. If you have a spare $8.75 million, you can buy Bernie Madoff's Long Island beach home. The ocean-front location is spectacular, but the house is kind of small for a millionaire. Also, there is no garage and no walk-in closets. The home was seized by the U.S. Marshals Service and they have put the property on the market to pay back some investors. Go to www.nytimes.com/business for a slide show of the house.

07. A giant identity theft ring, run by a man from Waldorf, Maryland, has been broken up. There were hundreds of victims, including the wife of Ben Bernanke. The gang of ten people would obtain bank information from stolen wallets and purses and a "bewigged" member of the gang would go to the banks and clean them out.

08. There was a recent cartoon by Horsey in the Providence Journal that showed a Fox Newsman interviewing a middle-aged gentleman carrying a sub-machine gun, and wearing two pistols in holsters. The interviewer asks: "What message are you trying to send by bringing guns to a Presidential event?" The armed man replies: "Guns are chick magnets."
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Hecklers at AARP Meetings

Yesterday, Elaine and I attended our monthly AARP Chapter meeting. On display was a letter to one of the Carroll County newspapers complaining about AARP and telling everyone to cancel their memberships because of AARP's supposed support for "death panels". The writer said that he had attended one of our meetings where two ladies from AARP had said certain things that he did not like. Reading his letter, it seemed to me that he must have attended a different meeting than I did.. or, he heard things there that I did not hear.. but I must admit, I did not have my hearing aid in at the time and may have missed something.. but I doubt that.

I attended two recent AARP Chapter meetings in which two ladies spoke. At one meeting, the two ladies did represent Maryland AARP and they proposed that the attendees examine all Health Care proposals and decide about the issues. They hoped, but did not push, that people consider that Heath Care Reform is needed. At the meeting, there was one gentleman who asked obnoxious, and, in my opinion, dumb questions. If the writer of the letter to the editor was this gentleman, I would ask him: Why did he partake so freely and greedily of the free lunch provided to him by AARP? Why did he interupt the speakers so rudely? Why didn't he walk out in protest? Why had we never seen him at an AARP meeting before? Why does he like Medicare so much when it is a "public option" program? Does he honestly think that "death panels" could ever exist in the U.S.? Was he appointed by his organization to come and heckle the speakers?

At the second meeting, the two ladies did not represent AARP, but rather the Emergency Preparedness department of Carroll County (a Republican lead County in Maryland). They were trying to inform the attendees about available emergency facilities in the County. At that meeting as well, there was one gentleman who asked obnoxious and dumb questions. One could tell that he was not listening closely enough and had his mind set that these were enemies to his way of life. (This was not the same gentleman from the prior meeting.) If the writer of the letter to the editor was this gentleman I would ask him basically the same questions: Why did he partake so readily and greedily of the lunch provided to him by AARP? (he was later part of musical entertainment) Why does he like the "public option" Medicare so well? Why was he so rude to the young ladies? Why does he think that "death panels" could ever exist in the U.S.? Is he a member of the same group as the heckler from the earlier meeting?

Once again, we have had to put up with loud-mouthed, mis-informed meeting disrupters. Fortunately, in this case, only one person in each meeting made a jerk of himself.. that is only 1% of the attendees. Free speech is wonderful and I am all for it.. but sometimes I wish that these loud persons would get a soap-box to stand on and spout off in a public park where those that want to hear them could and those that do not want to hear them would be able to walk away.
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Eulogy for Allen T. Vaughan, Sr

This is a written text related to the eulogy that I presented on September 1, 2009 for my Uncle Allen Vaughan, at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Padanaram, MA and then added to at the Century House in Acushnet, MA. I give a lot of eulogies in my senior citizen organizations, and I seldom break up. I did break up while doing this one. I loved my uncle Allen.
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Last week, two of my heroes died.. one was named Kennedy; one was named Vaughan. Today, I want to talk about one of them.

Allen T. Vaughan came from a line that stretches back to eleven members of the Mayflower Pilgrims, with the straightest line directly to William Bradford, the Governor of the Plymouth Colony.

He was the 15th child of Arthur and Alice Vaughan. He was the "baby" of the family.

Sometimes he was a little bad as a kid. Once, at the age of 7, when his teacher left the room, he and another kid climbed on top of their desks and began to yell out every naughty word that they had ever heard. The other kid got down in time, but Allen got caught.. and got punished. (In the over 70 years that I knew Allen, I never once heard him curse!)

Allen grew into a tough city kid. In fact, his nickname was "Popeye." I grew up in the house with him and he wanted me to be tough too.

Years ago, one could walk through the city without fear, and kids were allowed to go around unchaperoned. When I turned 5, someone took me by the hand and escorted me the 8 blocks to the Harrington Elementary School for Kindergarten. The next day, I was on my own. Along the way, two bullies, Walter and Richard, jumped me and beat me up. I ran home crying.

I told Allen what had happened and he told me that I had better be brave and fight back next time, or he would have to beat me up too. I know now that he would not have done that, but at the time, I was more afraid of what Allen would do than I was of what the bullies would do. However, I was small and needed help, so when Allen left the house, I went into his room and looked around for a weapon of some kind. I found a ballpean hammer.

The next day, I stuck the hammer in my knickers and went to school. Sure enough, Walter and Richard showed up and started to punch and kick me. I was on the ground with Walter punching me while Richard kicked at my head, when I reached into my knickers and took the hammer and hit Walter squarely in the forehead. Walter and Richard ran away crying and never bothered me again.

That night Allen asked if I had taken care of the bullies. I said "yes" and he said he was proud of me.. but I never told him I had the help of his ballpean hammer. (Many years later, around the age of 60, Walter died, and I was told that as he lay in his coffin, one could make out the outline of a round dent in his forehead. Over the years, I had been too ashamed to tell Walter that I was the one who had "bopped" him so long ago.)

In 1945, when Allen felt that he had sowed all of his "wild oats", he met a beautiful young girl named Doris Mulcairns, and decided to settle down. They got married and started this beautiful family that you see before you. Allen and Doris were married 64 years! How many people can say that in this day and age?

Over the years, Allen became a musician. He taught himself to play the organ and the harmonica. He often serenaded his fellow "Council on Aging" members and people confined to nursing homes. Just last week, as sick as he was, he played 20 songs for the people in the nursing home where he was recuperating.

Allen became a quite a comedian. I loved his jokes. Once, he visited us in Baltimore and we went to a famous restaurant (Peabody Book Store, an old Speakeasy) and when the owner asked if anyone wanted to entertain, he got up and sang numerous verses of "Enery the 8th, I am, I am". He also told lots of jokes to the diners. They loved it. Several of my fellow workers from Social Security were there and they asked me to invite Allen back because he was so much fun.

Once I heard Henny Youngman do a standup joke routine and I wondered why he had stolen Allen's jokes.

Allen became a "fixer." I brought him a big problem to solve.

During the Korean War, I was about to be drafted into the Army. I wanted to get into the Air Force. However, the quota was filled. Allen told me not to worry. He sat down with one of his buddies, who just happened to be the Air Force recruiter. They looked at all of the lists of new recruits that came almost daily across the desk in the New Bedford office, until they found one that had someone with the name of Vaughan on it.

They took that list and typed my name under that name and sent it to Air Force headquarters with a note that there had been a mixup with names. It worked. Both of the Vaughan boys on the list were allowed to go to Basic Training for the Air Force. Thank you, Allen!

Allen became a craftsman. At my house, the basement is my domain. In a corner of the place, I have lots of New Bedford whale artifacts, crafted by Allen. I also have some of this creations in a display case. One might call this location, the Allen T. Vaughan Museum.

Once when I had taken my family on a visit back to New Bedford in our small Volkswagen Rabbit, Allen told me he had a gift for us. I expected a small box of New Bedford memoribilia. Instead, he handed me a 6 foot long exact replica of a whaling harpoon. I loved it, but it did pose a problem. How would I get a 6 foot long harpoon home in a 4 foot wide car which was already filled with a wife, luggage and children?

We solved it somewhat by letting my two daughters ride home on the train. My wife and son and luggage and harpoon all squeezed into the car. The tip of the harpoon stuck out about three feet into the traffic, which was alright until we got to New York City. NYC is full of wiseguys, and every car that passed us would yell at us: "Hey.. Captain Ahab!" or "I love your spear!" or other "choice" phrases. But we made it through.

We decided to make it a 2-day trip, so we stopped at a motel. It was a 2-story place with stairs leading up to a balcony surounding a swimming pool on 4 sides. I did not want to have the harpoon stolen, so I carried it up to our room which was on the second floor. As I topped the stairs and turned, I bumped into a maid who had her arms full of sheets and towels. She screamed when she saw this man holding a long spear and everything went over the railing and into the swimming pool.

We finally made it home and decided to make a place of honor in our house for Allen's harpoon. We hooked it up to a brass chain and hung it on the wall of our paneled den. Underneath the harpoon, we placed shelving and on the top put our prized possession, the last goblet of a set of finely etched glassware we had received years earlier as a wedding gift. The etching was of a (New Bedford style) sperm whale and was beautifully executed.

A few weeks later, at 3 am, we heard a loud crash. When I investigated, I found that Allen's harpoon had broken loose from the chain and had fallen down and harpooned the sperm whale in the goblet! When I called Allen and told him about it he was sympathetic, and a week later, the mailman brought me a package from Allen. In it was another hand-crafted harpoon, but this time it was only 10 inches long!

In Allen's later years, he felt something lacking in his life and began the studies that led him to join the Catholic religion. I'm sure that his faith helped him weather this final illness.

There are not many people in this world who everybody likes... Allen Vaughan was one of those people, a likeable, humorous, giving person. There is a word in German and Yiddish to describe those rare individuals like Allen. The word is "mensch" and Allen was a "mensch." Our lives are so much richer for having known him.

Farewell, my uncle, my brother, my friend, and my hero!
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New Bedford, Massachusetts Trip Aug/Sep 2009

On Monday, my daughter, Diane, accompanied me on a train trip to New Bedford to pay our respects to my uncle, brother, friend and hero, Allen T. Vaughan, Sr.

Although it was a sad time, we had an enjoyable trip on Amtrak to Providence, RI, where I walked the half-mile downhill to the Avis Rental office. I drove back in some kind of Japanese car (not Toyota like mine) and picked up Diane, carefully avoiding all the problem areas there are for motorists in Providence, and we zoomed to North Dartmouth, MA, to a new Best Western motel. Although new, it only rated 2 stars on the internet. But it was relatively clean and kind of quiet when you left the AC fan on.

We drove to the Saunders Funeral Home in New Bedford, for Uncle Allen's "viewing".. I hate that usage.. people do come to "view" the person who has passed on, but I like to think that they are really "paying their respects" to the family of the deceased and to the memory of the person who no longer is with us bodily.

Allen looked very peaceful and not at all "ravaged" by the ordeal of the last few weeks. Allen was 89 years old, but looked a lot younger.

At the funeral home, we paid our respects to Aunt Doris and the whole family that came into existence because of the marriage of Allen and Doris 64 years ago. A beautiful family.

Several of my cousins showed up, all of the aunts and uncles are gone now. Almost all of the Vaughan cousins are still alive. I think only one has passed away, but I could be wrong about that. We talked a lot and laughed a lot, and that would have been the way Allen would have wanted it.

Aunt Doris asked me to deliver the eulogy at the mass the next morning, so I pumped some of the cousins for stories about Allen, and they had some good ones that even Aunt Doris had not heard about. I had some stories myself to tell.

The next morning, we met at Saunder again. (Incidentally, the Saunders undertakers knew the Vaughan family very well, and even have a framed copy of one of the Vaughan Funeral Parlor bills from 1909. The cost of an average funeral at that time was $66. Times certainly have changed.)

We were asked to provide a ride for Aunt Doris' brother, Freddie Mulcairns. Fred is now 94, and his family did not want him to have to drive for long distances. Fred has good hearing and eyesight and has never had an accident in 78 years of driving! (Fred had lots of great stories to tell us on the trip to the church and again to the military cemetary.)

We attended a mass (Allen was a convert to Catholicism) and I had my chance to deliver the eulogy. I give a lot of eulogies here in Maryland because I am involved with so many senior citizen groups and I usually do not break up. This time I did.

Small world? During the eulogy, I mentioned how Allen had interacted with people here during a trip to Baltimore. After the service, the priest talked to me about Hausners and Peabody's Book Store. He said he spent a happy 6 years in Baltimore while he learned to become a priest.

After the mass, we were treated to lunch at the Century House, a nice catering place in Acushnet. After eating, I was given an opportunity to speak again and tell the "rest of the story"... those happenings that I didn't have time to cover earlier at the church. (I will write up my remarks on another blog entry so that my other children who couldn't go to the funeral will be able to read them. They also loved Uncle Allen.)

We traveled to Cape Cod, to the Bourne Military Cemetery, where a full military service was held for Allen, who served in World War II.

After all this, we had supper at Davy Jones Locker in New Bedford. Then we retired early so that we could get an early morning start the next day.

Unfortunately, our early start was not early enough. We got caught in a massive traffic jam going into Providence and almost missed the train. We left the car off at Avis and had to run the half mile (uphill) to the train station. We made it by just a few minutes.

The train ride back was pleasant and Emily and Lily met us at the train station and gave us a ride to our homes.

All in all, it was a sad, but pleasant, trip. I was very pleased that my daughter, Diane, was able to accompany me.

Farewell, Uncle, Brother, Friend, and Hero: Allen T. Vaughan, SR.
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