Tuesday

This evening Walter headed off to the doctor again. We were able to see his x-rays and it looks like he'll likely be out much longer that we had initally anticipated. But for now at least he knows what's going on and why it is going to take longer.

The doctor did give him permission to drive, so at least he can now take his own self to the doctor and pick up a prescription if he needs to without having to wait on someone to take him. I don't think he'll be doing much driving, but it is good to know that he can if he needs to.

Email & Newsletter Gleanings:

Black and White
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)
You could hardly see for all the snow, spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.
Pull a chair up to the TV set, "Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e coli.

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE, and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Keds (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

Flunking gym was not an option - even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.

Oh yeah . and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either; because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?

We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T; SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING.

Little Johnny...
A new teacher was trying to make use of her psychology courses.

She started her class by saying, "Everyone who thinks they're stupid, stand up!"

After a few seconds, Little Johnny stood up. The teacher said, "Do you think you're stupid, Little Johnny?"

"No, ma'am, but I hate to see you standing there all by yourself!"

Little Johnny watched, fascinated, as his mother smoothed cold cream on her face.

"Why do you do that, mommy?" he asked.

"To make myself beautiful," said his mother, who then began removing the cream with a tissue.

"What's the matter?" asked Little Johnny. "Giving up?"

The math teacher saw that little Johnny wasn't paying attention in class.

She called on him and said, "Johnny! What are 2 and 4 and 28 and 44?"

Little Johnny quickly replied, "NBC, FOX, ESPN and the Cartoon Network!"

Little Johnny's kindergarten class was on a field trip to their local police station where they saw pictures tacked to a bulletin board of the 10 most wanted criminals.

One of the youngsters pointed to a picture and asked if it really was the photo of a wanted person. "Yes," said the policeman. "The detectives want very badly to capture him."

Little Johnny asked, "Why didn't you keep him when you took his picture?"

Little Johnny attended a horse auction with his father.

He watched as his father moved from horse to horse, running his hands up and down the horse's legs and rump, and chest. After a few minutes, Johnny asked, "Dad, why are you doing that?"

His father replied, "Because when I'm buying horses, I have to make sure that they are healthy and in good shape before I buy."

Johnny, looking worried, said, "Dad, I think the UPS guy wants to buy Mom."