Rock of ages.

You know, you don't have to hit Social Security age to realize you just don't bounce back the way you used to. A couple of weeks ago I was putting down some nice store-bought rocks around the front-yard bushes to make the place look nicer, hoping to entire a buyer for the house. I had already distributed mulch and dug up weeds, and so far all was well. 

Then the irony. 

Because while it's called egg rock, it was I that broke.

Well, not broken eggactly (har!). I lifted properly, showed good form, but then I turned in a funny way, and my body took a funny turn. It was one of those muscle pulls that you feel as it happens, and it happens that I felt it. 

It didn't seem that bad at first, but it was pretty painful. When I was a strapping young lad (well, not that strapping) I could bounce back in a couple of days from this kind of thing. But it took me most of a week to stop groaning every time I bent over or stood up. Worse, my ability to twist to the right was severely impacted -- there, the pain was so bad it was almost impossible to force myself to do it. You never know how often you make a particular motion until it hurts every time you do it. 

I'm glad to have recovered now, and the place does look a bit better with the new rocks. 

All this got me thinking about getting older, and thus about an elderly friend of mine who retired to The Villages in Florida. If you are not familiar with that particular patch of real estate, it is a community for people 55 and up about 20 miles south of Ocala, Florida. In the year 2000 it had about eight thousand people, but now almost EIGHTY THOUSAND people live there. 

My friend tells me that on Friday nights the widow women still doll themselves up and go to the bars (people get around by trolley and golf cart, I hear). A couple of years ago the place was labeled "The STD Capital of America," although that turned out to be a myth. However, I'm willing to bet there's a lot of shenanigans afoot all the same. It may be a foot that needs podiatric care, but afoot all the same. 

My question is: Why is there no reality show about The Villages? It's a natural! And it would appeal to the people who still use cable for most of their TV watching -- that is, the 55+ folks. 

I think it would be huge. People would get caught up in the drama. Who's sleeping with whom? Whose kids are visiting and likely to cause trouble? Which guys are doing drunk wheelchair races in the middle of the night? Which black widow is looking to land a rich dude with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel? 

It'd be a regular Polident Place. The Old and the Restless. Medicare Hospital. All My Great Grandchildren. Dwindling Days of Our Lives. Insert your own jokes in the comments. 

I can only assume that the governing body of the tri-county Villages frowns on such coverage. Well, more's the pity. Not that I'd watch the show -- at least, not until I'm riding a wheelchair myself. Which, if I keep fooling around with these sacks of rocks, could happen sooner than I think. 

Scary time.

For little American kids, the journey from the start of school in the fall to the next big event, Halloween, takes approximately eight years. Not so for adults. 

Hallowhine

As wise person once noted that life is like a roll of toilet paper; the further into it you are, the faster it goes. There's no better example than seeing how quickly life moves for adults than children. As I've noted here before, how could it be otherwise? For a man of fifty, one year is 1/50th of his entire life; for a kid of four, it's an entire quarter, and he doesn't even remember the first half. The kid would have no way to understand the internal reference of time's passage that an older man has. 

That's the scary thing about time -- you don't have to be Einstein to see that it's a relative phenomenon. No wonder even the ancients tried to invent timepieces. No one could agree on how long anything took. 

"You said this would be over in a short time!"  

"It was! Wasn't it great?"

"It sucked! And it lasted for ... a very LONG time!"

"If only we had some means of knowing how long things took, we could see who's right."

"There's the passage of the sun."

"It's cloudy."

"Well -- I'm right and you're wrong and it lasted a WHOLE LOT of time!"

I was thinking about relativity recently, Einstein's little killjoy for universal exploration. Before he got all smarty-pants about the speed of light and everything, we could think that if we only could make something fast enough, we could get to other stars in no time. Then Albie is like, "Wait, there's a speed limit! No going past C." And we were like, "Oh, man! At that speed, the next galaxy is more than two million years away!" And he's like "Sorry, dude. Better pack a lunch."

But it gets worse. Now we know that time would pass differently for the people moving near that speed than for us on Earth, moving at Earth speed. What kind of craziness does that lead us to? It's why space-faring capitalist companies like in the Alien movies would never work. You'd launch from Earth as an employee of Earthy McEarth Enterprises (EME), and by the time you got to your destination, EME had merged, failed, the pieces bought up, a new company planned, created to fanfare with various funding rounds, had an IPO, got absorbed in an LBO, the main company failed, tried to get a government handout, crashed, and everyone is dead because the sun went nova. 

Don't be fooled by so-called Universal Time. It doesn't apply to the universe. Is it ever the same time all at the same time throughout the universe? If at my house it's Monday, August 15, 2033, 8:09:12 a.m., is it something different all over the place? I can't understand it. 

Well, one thing young and old can both agree on with time, and that's when it's something fun, it's over too soon. And that's true on whatever planet you happen to be on. 

Stunad time.

You know you're getting older when you think of something you have to do and you know you will forget to do it and then it comes up and you forget to do it even though you knew that was exactly what you were going to do. 

Makes me wonder sometimes if I got one of those Abby Normal brains. 

But then I'll come up with a memory of something so far back that I can't believe I pulled it not just out of left field, but out of left field in a ballpark of a foreign country where they don't even know what baseball is. Some core memory, often of a person or place or product, that I wouldn't have recalled on a bet, but that some trigger has set off a memory cascade and there it is. Like one of those guys who remain awake during brain surgery, and when the surgeon pokes him in a particular spot, he remembers the girl with the red sunglasses who tried to get him to take the brown acid fifty-six years ago. He hasn't thought of her since then and is amazed that that datum is still floating around in the attic.

And that's what a lot of people in the hinterland of years will say, that the reason they are forgetful is not senility, but that there's so only so much capacity in the old hard drive and they've been socking data away for decades like the Library of Congress. If it's useless information, well, welcome to the club. A ten-year-old still has lots of data storage available but is using it for character profiles from Dora the Explorer and episode details from Paw Patrol. By now she'd like to offload that for more room, but sorry, kid. No cloud storage available for the brain. 

Another age-related issue I think is misunderstood is falls. Falls are a danger to everyone, but especially old people, and yet they seem to enjoy them, as they fall almost as much as toddlers. But really, why? Poor vision? Muscle loss? No, I think the main reasons are pain and data storage failure. Pain, because even though you've been down those steps a thousand times, that new pain in the hip/knee/foot/back causes an involuntary hitch in the giddyap that ruins your rhythm, and down you go*. Data storage failure, because (and I'm not joking about this) even though you've been down those steps a thousand times, at a crucial second in the journey the brain will toss up Cal Ripken's batting average in his final season** and you will literally forget how many steps you've walked. Your brain will think five but you've done six, so you hit that ground like you're going down another step and blam! Flat. 

Our best bet is to do things more (ugh) mindfully, a word I hate as much as yummy, belly, or inflammation.*** But Mom always did say to stop daydreaming and pay attention. Back then it was so I'd do better in school. Now it's so I don't stumble into the road and die.  

🧠🧠🧠

* I remember a ballplayer with a chronic back injury that ruined his career. He was still strong and otherwise healthy, but the pain would ruin his mechanics. With the strongest will in the world, it is still hard to do something you know will hurt, and when it's something like hitting a baseball -- the most difficult feat in sports -- that little difference makes all the difference.

** .239

***Everything wrong with you is caused by chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is because of your bad living. Broken leg? It's because you eat too much bacon, lardass. 

Man scammed.

ELDERLY MAN SCAMMED FOR
$3.6 TRILLION

"They Were Very Convincing," Says Befuddled Oldster

WASHINGTON, DC (March 21, 2024) -- The nation's capital witnessed another awful example of telephone scams and elder abuse, as the chief elected officer of the country was bamboozled by an artful trickster. 

"Sounded totally legit," said Mr. Joseph Biden of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. "Said they were calling from the debt service place. Well, I keep hearing about the debt this and the debt that and I was glad that I had started the old ball rolling to get that taken care of. Thought I'd just left the paperwork in Delaware or something. All they needed, she said, was the main treasury account number and some passwords, no big deal. They were very convincing." 

An estimated $3.6 trillion has subsequently gone missing from the United States treasury following this event. Mr. Biden's coworkers were quick to point out that it's not really lost, however. 

"It's not like it's real money," said Janet Yellen, who oversees the treasury for Mr. Biden. "Just a bunch of IOUs, actually. We'll just run out a few trillion on the printing presses and replace it as fast as we can get the paper."

Mr. Biden says he regrets being taken in by a hoax, and intends to find the culprit and press charges. "Sounded like an Indian fellow, or maybe Chinese," he told reporters. "Shouldn't be too hard to track down. Just check the Seven-Elevens and Chinese restaurants in the area code." When asked what area code was displayed when he received the call, he explained that it was from "someplace called Potential Spam." 

Old mailroom Joe.

Guys in the mailroom are my pals. At one time I worked for a not-for-profit organization that had a dull official holiday party, but down in the cellar, the guys in the mailroom had a Christmas party that absolutely kicked. Later in my fabulous career I had a desk job in a tiny office, and every morning Mike (I'll call him) made his mail rounds, and he would stop in to talk sports. I liked him and all, but sometimes I had to literally tell him to leave so I could get some work done and not get in Dutch with the boss. Mike later got canned for, well, using the executive can, although he denied it.  

But before either of those jobs I was a mailroom man myself, starting as a part-timer. They hired two of us to deliver the mail throughout an organization that had several buildings, so that meant shoving the mail cart through burning sun and pouring rain, through ice and snow. 

It looked like this one. Note that the
wheels are not made for ice and snow.

I, young whippersnapper, did the mornings, and old Joe got the afternoons. Our shifts were expected to overlap. But we spent the first couple of days together, learning the route and meeting everyone, and that's how I got to know old Joe.

Like Mike, old Joe liked to talk, but not about sports. He talked about his former career; he talked about his son (who seemed to be on the outs with him somehow, if I recall correctly). He talked about the kind of work he had done, but the details did not impress on my mind. What did was one thing he said on that second day of training, while we were sitting around waiting for the boss. It went something like this: 

"I think as we work together, you'll find that I have a lot of life experience. And you will begin to see that you can learn a lot from an older guy like me. In time you may come to think of me as a father figure."

And I nodded and thought What is the matter with this man?

It was like he had already scripted our relationship past the pilot episode, deep into the first season. I had just met him the day before!

Maybe he had. Maybe he spent too much time alone, thinking of how things ought to go. I'm pretty sure he was not married anymore, but I don't know if he was a widower. He may have watched too much TV. I don't recall a single bit of wisdom from him. I don't remember him ever asking me or anyone else about ourselves. 

Not that I had a long time to see him in action -- they fired him after the first week and put me on full-time. I never knew why, but were I to guess, I'd say he spent way too much time bugging people who were trying to work and way too little time doing his job. 

That was many years ago, and I'm sure old mailroom Joe has gone to his reward. I think about him sometimes. I think he was very lonely, but in his loneliness, he developed odd habits of selfishness that pushed others away, cementing him deeper in his solitude. There's lesson he taught me -- albeit as a cautionary tale. 

I hope he and his son restored their relationship. I hope he found someone who liked him and could spend time with him. I hope he didn't need the chump change from that mail job, because it did not pay well. And -- why not? -- I hope he found someone who did respect him like a father, even if it had to be his own kid.  

Forgotten men.

After thinking of the vanished Little Pete a couple of weeks ago, I got to thinking about a few old men I knew early in my so-called career who have always kind of stuck in my mind. I thought I'd share a few with you, starting with a man I'll call Gabe.

When I was in college I worked a couple of days a week as a general flunky for a small office in midtown. I was never quite sure what they did, but it appears in retrospect that they held and managed real estate in different spots in the nation. One of my jobs was distributing the mail, and we would get newspapers from all over. On my breaks I would read the papers, see which funnies were running in places like Ocala or Kansas City. Everyone there was really nice to me, which was impressive, because I had some classic screwups in that job. Like throwing out cartons of flyers that were due to be mailed, and breaking a toilet while trying to put on a new toilet seat. (A little hole in the rim can become an attractive fountain when you flush!)

Gabe was the founder, I think, and had the only private office, one of those walled-off corner ones of the kind common then, where the walls didn't reach the ceiling. He seemed to me to be about a hundred years old. He would come in late, get greeted by everyone, take off his hat, go into his office, and -- do nothing, I think. His son was running the place. Gabe was, as I would come to find out, out of it. He didn't bug anyone, but he couldn't do anything. The man was senile, I guess, but he didn't cause trouble and he wasn't mean. 

Gabe (Dickens version)

One day he cornered me while I was sitting in my area -- the back room, where real estate flyers and the like sat in boxes on large metal shelves, or piled on skids, waiting for mailing. I may have been stuffing envelopes, something I did a lot of in that job and others in years to come. Gabe came over and sat next to me to tell me about his idea for a new business, one that was going to fill a niche, and bring some serious money into the firm.

His idea was to publish a new kind of business directory -- as he spoke we were sitting in front of a library of the (then lucrative) Thomson business directories -- and gave an example of how it would work. Say, if one were to be in the bicycle parts trade, you’d have a directory for manufacturers, suppliers, and customers. And from that point on I have no idea what he was talking about, because as far as I could tell he had just described exactly the books on the shelves next to us. He promised to keep me apprised of the situation, as good opportunities would come forth. I thanked him. It was the only conversation we ever had. 

It wasn't much longer before Gabe left this world, and immediately after sitting shiva his son moved into that corner walled office. It still seemed pretty cold to me, going in that fast, but I imagine Gabe’s son had put up with a lot in Dad's later years and just wanted to move on with things. 

All of it to say, we men can have an awful time letting go of work, even when we don't need to do it, even when the work doesn't need us anymore, even when we have nothing left to offer.

I've never forgotten Gabe, though, and he did teach me a lesson. And he gave me another thing about old age to be scared of. 

We'll revisit this topic another time soon. Meanwhile, Gabe, rest in peace. 

Look! Gettin' up there!

It's a bird! A plane! A sagging blimp!

No, it's the hottest superhero team to ever limp into comics -- the Geriatric League! 

Featuring:

POLLY GRIP! 

She looks ancient but what a wrestler! Polly Grip has the superstrength that helps her to take on all opponents. There's no challenge she won't sink her teeth into!

AMNESIOSO!

Ever forget why you went into a room? Maybe Amnesioso used his magic power of forgetfulness on you! He's been known to make an entire bank vault of supervillains forget what they went in there for. If you forget him, you'll regret him!

POPS!

What's that popping sound? Knees? Knuckles? All that and more! If Pops doesn't knock you flat with his sonic popping sounds, he'll slay you with his horrible dad jokes. Gotta have your Pops! 

JULIUS GEEZER!

A truly commanding presence, Julius Geezer is the public face of the GL. His strategic brilliance and his undeniable charisma assure friends and scatter foes. Together with him, the League will cross the Rubicon... of justice!

SLOTHMAN!

What's mightier than superspeed? How about superslowness? No one can get past Slothman, especially when he's doing 35 on the right lane of a 65. Inflicting slowness upon and causing infuriation in his enemies, Slothman is one of the most dreaded of these golden oldies. 

BINGO WINGS! 

She glides as gracefully as an eagle but strikes with the suddenness of an owl. If your number comes up, Bingo Wings, will swoop down and put her marker on you -- and that's BINGO! my friend. The early-bird special is Bad Guy Surprise.

And of course, we must not neglect the inspirational leader of the League, that super (old) patriot:

CAPTAIN PRO-STATE! 

Radioactive seeds unleashed the mighty powers of Captain Pro-State, and he uses them to fight for truth, justice, and the American way! The Captain never sleeps in his quest for righteousness -- he was not dozing! His eyes were open! 

Okay, so why am I dragging out yet another superhero parody that pokes fun at old timers? Probably because we still haven't cut cable and gone over to streaming, and because of that I am noticing the advertisers on cable seem to focus more and more on commercials for the elderly. I guess the feeling is that only old farts have not gone over to streaming video. 

So, after the hundredth drug commercial, fake drug commercial, reverse mortgage commercial, and medical help pendants, I just went nuts and decided that what this country needs is a bunch of old superheroes who will protect the rights of the feeble and incontinent. Plus, considering that the frontrunners for the job of US President in 2024 will have a combined age of 159 on election day, we may need the help of some superheroes to keep our country afloat. Why not older heroes? 

Not like they have to worry about keeping normal jobs in their secret identities. They're all retired! Superheroing just beats mall-walking, pickleball, and pestering the grandkids, that's all. 

Dog has his day.

So baby dog Izzy is turning two -- or is he? Maybe he's fourteen? Or maybe twenty-four? 

For many years people have used the 1:7 ratio for dog years, assuming for instance that when the dog turns three he is the equivalent of a twenty-one-year-old human. As it turns out, that's not a bad rule of thumb, but it depends on the dog. 

I have long suggested that, thanks to humans, there is more variety among the canines than any other species. Take two perfectly healthy dogs -- a chihuahua, for example, and a Leonberger -- and you're looking at adult weights of 4.5 pounds and 170 pounds. One is almost 38 times the size of the other, and yet you could probably make a crossbreed between them -- presumably in a laboratory -- because they are the same species. Does any other mammal species have as much variety as C. familiaris?

We know that the bigger the dog, the shorter the lifespan tends to be. It's brutal for those of us who love the big galoots, and it's something prospective owners of said galoots are warned about going in. I was interested to get this chart via email from a local animal hospital, which gives a better estimate of a dog's age dependent upon its size.

 

Izzy's a large dog, so by this reckoning he is turning twenty-four. It makes sense; on a recent visit the vet said that he was fully grown now, and any further weight he gains will probably be fat (as she gave me the side eye). But no, he still can't drive the car. Get a job, Izzy!

What makes this sad, though, is the thought that our other guys didn't make it to what could be considered a ripe old age for big dogs. Fazzy was a giant, and almost made it to nine years old; that would have put him at seventy-one, six years under the US human male life expectancy. And Nipper, a large breed, was only four when cancer got him -- just a kid in his thirties. 

However old Izzy is, though, we count by trips around the sun, and we celebrate his birthday. He was the most frustrating of the puppies, though. I saw my wife get more insane over his behavior one time than she's ever gotten over mine, or that of her crazy family, and trust me when I say that's a strong statement. And yet he has turned into the most affectionate dog of them all, a total cuddle muffin. I hope he has a long and happy life with us. 

Happy birthday, Iz.

The ancients.

When I get up in the morning and I feel a little ancient, I remind myself -- well, no, I'm too busy schlepping to the bathroom and wondering what time it is to remind myself of anything. But if it is a morning where I feel the aches and pains that begin in middle age and end five hours after death, I remind myself that age is only a number. An enormous number, but a number.

Of course, when applied to various things, ancient is a relative term. Here's a little list I drew up to show how the word ancient, when commonly applied, changes depending on the subject:

Actors - Richard Burbage

Actors to Americans - Edwin Booth

Actors to Millennials - Robert Downey Jr.

Religions - Hinduism

Rocks - Bedrock, Hudson Bay, Canada (4.28 billion years old a week from Friday)

Colleges - Oxford

Buildings -

Duh.

Authors - Aristophanes 

Novelists - Cervantes

Novelists to Millennials - Stephen King

Stars - Methuselah (age: 16 billion; looks not a day over 15 billion)

Music -  “Seikilos Epitaph,” 1st century AD

Pop Music - Britney Spears 

Medicine - Belladonna

Topical Medicine - Coal Tar

Medical Treatment - Leeches

Nations - Iceland

Automobiles - Model T

Bloggers - Instapundit

Websites - Amazon

Computer - ENIAC

Modern Computer - iMac

Telephone - Candlestick

Telephone to Millennials - Flip Phone

TV Sitcom - Father Knows Best

TV Sitcom to Millennials - Full House

👴👴👴

So you see, it's all relative. And speaking of relatives, I have some who are older than I am, so as long as they're still kicking I am not going to consider myself ancient. 

Ha.

Several of my friends are devotees of the dad joke, the sometimes-clever pun or other play on words that makes some people happy. Other people will look at you like this:

As does my wife. 

Poor thing: With no children within target range at the present time, she has to absorb the brunt of my dad jokes. And I am constantly tempted to fire them off, even when I know she's going to get mad. Not kidding -- she has run upstairs in disgust, cursing the day I ever thought I was funny. I don't recall what the joke was; it wasn't the classic about the agriculturist who is outstanding in his field, nor the golfer's favorite socks that got a hole in one. I'm sure it was a groaner, but still -- just because she was having a serious conversation doesn't mean she should be mad at attempts to lighten the mood. Sheesh.

And don't try to tell me people don't love dad jokes. The Internet is a cornucopia of dad jokes these days, and guys like my friend Wink (not his real name) memorizes them to spring on his children. I'm talking beauties like these: 

And my personal all-time favorite:

On Instagram there are many purveyors of dad jokes, but my favorite is FitDadCEO. He sets up his jokes as something he asked his son, who responds with a bad joke -- and is topped by a worse dad joke. (I've tried to link to a good one.)

PLWoodstock, who frequently comments on this site, is a walking library of bad jokes. I wonder if he maintains a secret presence online as a writer of dad jokes under another handle, or if just steals them like I do. 

Either way, all of us dad jokesters can agree on one thing -- our audience. 

But I'm afraid if I keep this up, I'll be like the calendar -- my days will be numbered. 

The Pickleball Menace.

I'm not old enough, and perhaps young enough either, to play pickleball, but the intrepid New York Post makes me wary of the sport. "Pickleball Mania Leading to an Epidemic of Injuries Among Baby Boomers," reports the newspaper. Just looking at this ferocious action shot exposes the menace.

The Post reports, "Pickleball has been billed as a more accessible and a less intense tennis alternative, but experts say the popular pastime is still leading to a rash of injuries amongst the senior set. 'Obsessed' retirees are playing several hours per day, leading to overuse injuries. The older demo is also more likely to have weak bones, putting them at a greater risk for fractures."

The people profiled are not very old; we're not talking nonagenarians here. More like early sixties. Yet somehow, despite being able-bodied, they spend hours playing pickleball instead of working honest jobs. And they don't stretch enough, or take a break when they're hurt. It's just pickleball, morning, night, and noon.

It makes me wonder what other activities are causing overuse injuries in these crazy retirement villages. Is shuffleboard elbow a serious problem? Maybe mall-walking tendonitis? Croquet knee? Horseshoes carpal tunnel? Quoits wrist? I don't even want to ask what problems cornhole might be causing. 

I know a lot of doctors may be harrumphing at me; I can almost hear them through the computer. "Harrumph," they say, "a little overuse injury is nothing compared to the diseases of overweight and inactivity. Do you know that 80 percent of Americans don't get enough exercise, Fred? Well, do you, punk?" 

Well, I counter, do you doctors know that fully a third of Americans don't get enough sleep? Which problem is easier to fix? Mightn't a well-rested person be more likely to engage in exercise, and do it properly, with good stretching and other injury-prevention measures?

What I'm saying is -- avoid the pickleball menace and take a nap. That's what I intend to do, anyway. Maybe right now. 

😴

Have you seen my glasses?

I have been unable to find my glasses for weeks, and it's annoying.

Fortunately it isn't worse than that. I'm mildly nearsighted, so I usually need them only for driving at night and in large areas like churches or supermarkets -- and for the latter use, the return of the mask mandates mean they fog up indoors anyway. 

Unfortunately, last week I had to drive at night in a pounding rain in an unfamiliar route because an accident blocked a street and sent me around a long detour. My wife was following in her car (long dog-related story) and I had to apologize for making us make two U-turns because I missed the signs until it was too late. 

So I'd like my glasses back. I have, however, searched everywhere with no luck. This seems to be like the last time I lost my glasses, when it appears I threw them away by accident. St. Anthony cannot help you when your lost item is in the landfill. Ditto the valet key for my car, so I am down to one car key. Also assorted books and tools and things.

My wife got tired of hearing me krex & moan about it, so she got me a Tile set for Christmas. 

The idea behind the Tile is simple, but the execution is complex. You attach one to something you lose a lot and sync it with your phone. You can use the Tile app to set off an alarm on the little Tile to find your item. Ah, but what if you left your wallet, say, in the library or in the house of ill repute? The wallet-size Tile card can show you where it is on a map. Apparently the system works not just through satellites but also through the Tile apps on phones belonging to random people passing by as well -- I'm not sure what to make of that, or even if I've summed it up properly. It sounds like using Tile drafts you into the Tile Army. But it does seem like your missing item has a much better chance of being found.

Not my glasses, though. These Tiles are too big to put on a pair of glasses. Even the little dot, which can stick to anything. I stuck it on the back of my phone, and then realized that if the phone is lost I can't locate the dot anyway. I thought I could use the Tile site online to activate the dot, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do that. Perhaps if my wife had the Tile app she could find the dot on my phone. She does not have the Tile because she doesn't lose things. 

I guess I could have put the dot in my glasses case, but I didn't lose that. 

I do appreciate the Tile, and I have misplaced my wallet and keys enough for it to be a very handy thing, especially as I march forth into decrepitude. My eye doctor swears I'll go farsighted eventually, but maybe my vision will just even out. If that's the case, I won't need to attach a Tile to my glasses, and can get on with just losing my keys as usual. 

The Florida menace.

People keep wondering: Why do so many people in New York retire to Florida? They got hurricanes, they got alligators, they got weird and incompatible cultures from Miami to Orlando to the Panhandle, and most of all they got Florida Man (as detailed most Fridays by PJMedia's own VodkaPundit). Plus, it's hot and humid, so they can't even claim they have a "dry heat" as in the Southwest. So why Florida?

There are theories, of course. We have to discount the "Because New York Sucks" theory first, because while it is true, it does not explain why New Yorkers go to Florida rather than, say, Colorado or Arizona. So let's look at the plausible theories.

1) Leisure police. It's not that older people want to go to Florida; they have to. Jerry Seinfeld explained this about his parents long time ago: "They don't want to move to Florida, but they're in their sixties and that's the law. They got the leisure police. They pull up in front of the old people's house with a golf cart, jump out: 'Let's go, Pop, white belt, white pants, white shoes, get in the back. Drop the snow shovel right there, drop it!'" Maybe, but I've never seen the leisure police in action.  

2) Lower taxes. AARP (which doesn't stand for anything anymore, except maybe dog with a speech impediment) says, "Nine states — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — have no income taxes. Tennessee and New Hampshire, however, tax interest and dividends, although Tennessee is phasing out its tax in 2021. New Hampshire is phasing out its interest and dividends tax by 2025, according to the Tax Foundation." But why should the Sunshine State get all the AARPers in New York? Maybe because...

3) Weirdness magnet. Back in 2007, Miami humor columnist Dave Barry proposed the existence of a "weirdness magnet" that drew weirdness to South Florida. "We need to find it, dig it up, and get rid of it. I’m talking about the South Florida Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet. It’s buried around here somewhere. It has to be. How else can you explain why so many major freak-show news stories either happen, or end up, in South Florida? O.J. Simpson, for example. Why is he here? Did anybody in South Florida ever say, 'Hey O.J.! Why don’t you pack up your golf clubs, your one glove and your remaining cutlery, and come be part of our community!'? Of course not! Nobody WANTED him here. He was DRAWN here, by the Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet." It's not hard to imagine that the magnet is strong enough to pull people to Florida, but they may be able to stop anywhere along I-95 once they cross the border. Maybe the major Floridian weirdness is in the southernmost part of the state, but it's not all there. 

4) I-95. Speaking of Interstate 95, that majestic road that runs from the Maine/New Brunswick border to Miami, I can tell you that it seems to exert its own attraction over New Yorkers in a way our west-bound Interstates like I-90 and I-84 do not. There's a feeling that all of civilization worth seeing must lie on I-95 somewhere. The theory is that New Yorkers can't bear to live too far away from this modern Appian Way. Go west, young man? Nay -- go south, New Yawk man.

These are all valid reasons, but my personal favorite is:

5) They can't feel their fingers. When you're a child you can play in the snow all day and still feel all your appendages. When you get a little older, like over forty, suddenly an hour in the cold makes you wonder if your hands are covered in frostbite and will have to come off. After enough winters of this you succumb to the temptation to get in the car and keep driving south until you run out of road. Thus, ultimately, Florida.

Perhaps all these are true. New Yorkers, a little weird by nature, after being taxed like Hagar the Horrible long enough, and sick of freezing half to death, are guided by the leisure police to the I-95 corridor, and the weirdness magnet does the rest. 

I might fall for it, but my dogs won't let me. They're furry and they like the cold. They reminded me I'm too young to retire. I asked them and they both said "AARP! AARP!"

It's for the public good.

Once again the medical profession has not covered itself in glory, with a news report yesterday that medical studies are being skewed by so-called professional study subjects, people who misrepresent their health conditions or treatment history in order to take part in paid studies:

For researchers, these so-called 'professional study subjects' are much more than a nuisance. Their deception can ruin the chances of an otherwise effective agent reaching the market, potentially dashing the hopes and jeopardizing the health of real patients living with a variety of acute and chronic illnesses.  

Misrepresentation of medical conditions, failing to accurately disclose the medications they are taking, or fabricating a clinical response to an agent in development can also skew skews results — in some cases enough to invalidate outcomes and even halt further research.

Isn't that just swell. Another case where the hard science of medicine looks as hard as a crème brûlée.

I joked about this stuff earlier in the week, but it's pretty serious. It's not like it was ten years ago when the much-beloved Dr. Anthony Fauci said not to bother with masks, as reported by Andy Larsen in the Salt Lake Tribune:

On Feb. 29, the U.S. surgeon general begged people not to buy masks, saying they were “not effective in preventing general public from catching #coronavirus.” On March 8, Dr. Anthony Fauci went on “60 Minutes” and said “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”

Andrew Klavan notes that this whole coronavirus thing has gotten politicized, which we all know, and how terribly stupid it is. He says his non-political daughter would just like to know how to protect her family, and he agrees. But somehow in our current climate, nothing is allowed to be apolitical, certainly not a massive health crisis in an election year. And public health officials like the execrable 1,200 who signed the pro-protest letter have done more to set back the cause of public health than every anti-vaxxer on earth put together.

Here in New York, everyone seems to love Governor Sonny Corleone, who has the blood of thousands of old people on his hands for refusing federal hospital help and shoving sick people into nursing homes. 

This is no joke or exaggeration: We have a local nursing home, and during flu season that thing is shut down tight as a fly's rectum to any visitors. But during the huge and deadly Chinese Death Virus plague, Andy stuffed sick people in the same place, like the grandmother of a friend of mine. She had her own apartment, but when she got COVID-19 they sent her to the nursing home, where she died. And who knows how many more died with her, after she brought her share of the virus in. National Review actually got this wrong when the editors wrote:

Most disastrously, Cuomo and New Jersey governor Phil Murphy both ordered nursing homes to take back patients who tested positive for the virus, unleashing catastrophic death tolls in both states’ nursing-home populations.

Evil-Eyes Cuomo didn't just send nursing home patients back to the nursing homes; he sent people who didn't even live at the nursing home to the nursing home. A nursing home that in saner days wouldn't have allowed anyone in during flu season, symptomatic or not.

So at this point I would rather trust the five-year-old in the corner house than any so-called public health official in the country. At least he's a nice kid, and would want to help me. These idiots may have entered the field of public health hoping to help others, but they wind up helping nothing but themselves to the spotlight and the public trough. And politicians are even worse, and even dumber, especially in New York.

Seventies revival.

Don't you make him come down there!

Kindergarten for oldsters.

Having back pain certainly does not make me feel young, but you know what does? Going for physical therapy.

I have just completed the second week of my War on Sciatica, and I want to assure the public that the fighting is going well, but no progress has been made at all.

I had an assessment and was given exercises to do at home daily, which I have done dutifully each day. (The way I feel when I wake up, if they'd told me I had to eat a pound of kale every day, I'd have done that, too. I'm a desperate man.) So now it's twice-weekly PT appointments, not covered by insurance until I meet the enormous deductible -- thanks, Obama! The ladies at the desk of the PT center can't believe how much I'm paying out of pocket. I'm not even joking about that; they're shocked, and it's their own place.

There is one advantage, though. PT makes me feel young. Why? Because I'm the youngest patient I've seen.

As my title today suggests, PT feels like kindergarten for old-timers. You have a big room with project equipment; there are nappy beds and pillows (although no one really naps); there are toys to play with, like pull-straps and bars to climb and balls in various sizes, and nice women who shuffle you through your tasks.

Take two and call me in the morning.

Everyone gets little jobs to do, and it's all very upbeat and cheerful. And bless the therapists for that; it can't be easy to deal with people recovering from injury or coping with chronic pain.

And that's me, or so it looks to this point. They ask me how I'm doing, and my answer pretty much depends on how hard I've been abusing the OTC painkillers. So far my biggest help has been to wake up at three to use the can, and while I'm in there eat a couple of Advil. Then, when I get up at six, it's still in effect, and the pain is manageable.

I think that my insurance company approved me for 54 PT sessions. Of course they would! Why would they care? It's not costing them anything! They're probably using our premiums to pay for gender-reassignment surgery for six-year-olds! Go ahead, Fred, go as much as you want! Yeah, thanks, Generosity Insurance!

Well, we'll see what happens. I've known people who dropped out of physical therapy, usually because they had a lot of pain during the appointments, or because they didn't see any improvement and became discouraged. I can't afford to drop out. The dogs have to pee at six a.m. They're counting on me. And I can barely walk at that hour. Unless I had to pee at three a.m.

Fred's Book Club: Ms. Plow.

Welcome to another edition of the Humpback Writers, the book feature that has "hump" in its name for neither medical nor prurient reasons, but only because it appears on Wednesday. And keep your minds out of the gutter, boys, because today we have a kids' picture book, the first book I ever read... OR DID I?

Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton was first published in 1943 and has never been out of print. Burton was an illustrator as well as a writer, and I love her drawings on this and other stories. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel is probably her most famous book, but she had others like this one and Maybelle the Cable Car, Calico the Wonder Horse, and The Little House, which was adapted as a cartoon by Disney, the first cartoon about urban sprawl I know of.

I always remembered, and not without some pride, that Katy and the Big Snow was the very first book I read all by myself, without help.

OR DID I?

Now, to tell this story, I guess I need to say SPOILER ALERT! If you don't want to hear about what happens to Katy when the humongous blizzard socks in Geoppolis, then close the screen! Don't keep reading!

Okay, here's the deal.

I borrowed the book either from our nearest city library or from the library at school; I'm not sure but it was probably the local library, which was very small. I don't recall the elementary school library lending books, and I don't know that they would have to kids just learning to read, but the teacher may have lent them out. I remember standing in the hall of the house in which I grew up, trying to read the story aloud. It was very dramatic, you know, full of Burton's stylish and colorful art. The story was about Katy, a bulldozer in the summer and a snowplow in the winter, who was turfed out because of her age and replaced by new snowplows. Then the town gets whaled on by snow, and all the new plows break down, and Katy emerges from the garage to show she's still the strongest and toughest plow there is. Katy's heroic feat in the face of disparagement was inspiring to me, and I remembered it for decades.

Except that was not the story.

When I got the book as an adult, I was stunned to find out that the story had changed. Katy was stuck in the garage when the snow started, but only because the snow was not deep enough -- something I understand now but wouldn't have as a child. Plows usually don't clear snow until it's at least a couple of inches deep. So only when the snow gets really deep do they send out Katy, who frees the streets for emergency services and saves the town, as the Highway Department knew she would. No drama.

Whuh?!?!?

One of two things happened: Either they changed the story in later editions to make it less combative, more friendly, or I just thought I was reading the book and made up my own story by ripping off a plot from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and all the other misfit-saves-the-day stories that were so popular for children. (By the time I was reading, the Biblical prophecy that "The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" was so well-ingrained that, if I'd been a builder, I would have probably started my projects with the least-appropriate stones I could find.)

So I don't really think that they changed the story of Katy, although if anyone knows otherwise, please pass along the information. I give myself marks for writing my own story, as a means of covering up the fact that I actually could not read, or not much. I may have stolen some plot points, but that made me perfectly suitable to write for television.

But now I wonder what the first book I actually did read on my own was.

Katy beats the ever-lovin' crap out of the snow, no prob

Anyway, hats off to Katy, who of course does save the day in the book. The book's lesson of quiet determination in the face of adversity is even better than the one I made up. Plus, it's got a great town map.

And I'll tell you one last thing -- to this day, whenever we have a blizzard, I think of this book, and how the snow got up to the second story windows and nothing in town could move.

Nothing, that is, except Katy! Chug! Chug! Chug!

Bran new day.

One of the things I enjoy about Mr. Breakfast's Cereal Project is its dedication to defunct brands. It's basically a crowdsourced clearinghouse of information on breakfast cereals that have come and gone since Quaker started playing with his Oats. (I apologize to all members of the Religious Society of Friends for that stupid joke.)

And you can also make your own cereal box on the site.

Olde-tyme cereals that have gone to the Great Bowl in the Sky include a lot of newer ones that were released as a tie-in to a movie or TV show, like the Superman and Batman cereals I reviewed on this very blog. Others are brands are like Product 19, released to great fanfare and promoted for decades, but never quite as big as the food companies hoped.

Here are some weird, doomed cereals that are listed in the Project:

Indiana Jones Cereal (2008)
Millenios (1999) (yeah, really)
Donkey King (1982)
Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs (1976) (Ralston)
Freakies (1973) (clearly hippies invaded Ralston)
Corn Crackos (1967)
Tutti Frutti Twinkles (1965)
Concentrate (1959) (sounds painful)
Popeye Puffed Wheat (1949)
Ranger Joe (1939)
Heinz Rice Flakes (1930s) (Heinz made cereal!)
Elijah's Manna (1904) (caused an outrage)
Force (1901) (also sounds painful -- but its mascot was called Sunny Jim)
Granose Flakes (1895)

The history of American culture since the 19th century is echoed in its breakfast cereals.

I think every child born in the United States ate some kind of cereal growing up, even if his or her parents were policing the sugar or there were concerns about gluten or allergens. And since we tend to be nostalgic about the things of our youth, we can all enjoy the Cereal Project's brilliant year-by-year Cereal Timeline, where you can see what cereals were introduced the year you were born.

Of course, I was born the year that George Carlin (in cartoon form) appeared on a cereal box. Yes, I am referring to Bill & Ted's Excellent Cereal.

That's right, I'm 29. Again.

Wise words.

"Max, Grandpa doesn't have much time. Hurry down. He wants to see you."

Sure enough, Grandpa had taken a turn. He lay in the hospital bed white as the sheet, the only color on the old man from his big brown spectacle frames and the little blue dots on his gown.

"Give us a minute," he told everyone else, and shooed them out with shaky hands.

I knelt by his bed. "I'm here, Grandpa."

"I know." He sighed. "There are some important things you need to know, Sam."

"Max."

"Max, yeah. I knew it was one of those three-letter names."

"Uh-huh."

"With an A in the middle."

"Like Pam or Tag."

"Right. So I-- Tag?"

"Short for Taggart. Anyway, I'm here. Max."

"Who the hell names his kid Taggart?"

"I don't know. I had two of them in my high school."

"Dumb first name."

"Okay, fine. You wanted to say something?"

"Yeah, Sam, it's important."

"Max."

"I'm not Max, I'm Ralph."

"No, I'm Max, not Sam."

"Of course you are. Who's Sam?"

"I don't know."

"Then why do you keep bringing him up?"

"Ah... no idea."

"Must be related to your friend Taggart."

"Undoubtedly."

"Max, I have some words of wisdom before I go to the Great Beyond."

"Yes, Grandpa."

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, Grandpa."

"You don't look ready. You didn't shave."

"It's the modern look. Looks rugged."

"Really? In my day we killed Commies and built skyscrapers and we all shaved. Now you sit at a desk and play with toys and you don't shave."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Rugged. Huh."

"Okay, I'll shave."

"Good. But that's not the wise words."

"Okay."

"Here they come."

"Great."

"Listen closely."

"Righto."

"It's... don't go cheap on the toilet paper."

"...."

"Well?"

"That's it?"

"What? It's important. You're a young man, you want to save money and get ahead, but I'm telling you, you go cheap on the toilet paper, you'll regret it."

"I see."

"You think the roll is cheap, but you have to use twice as much of it."

"Right."

"It makes a mess."

"Yeah, that's--"

"And sometimes it feels like it's sanding down your hinder and you wind up walking funny."

"Buy expensive toilet paper. Got it."

"I didn't say to go spending all your money on toilet paper, I just said don't go cheap."

"Noted."

"No need to max out your cards on TP."

"That would be silly."

"There's no need for gold-plated toilet paper."

"I suppose that might be a little uncomfortable anyway."

"Not absorbent, no."

"Yeah. Okay, well, Grandpa, thanks for the wise words."

"Oh, sure, Tag, that's fine."

"I'm Max."

"Oh, yeah, that's right. Tag is Sam's brother."

"You bet, Grandpa."

"I love you, Max."

"I love you too, Grandpa."

I left to summon back the others, but in the minute I was gone, Grandpa had passed away.

On the way out of the hospital, my dad asked how I was holding up. "After all, I've lost a father-in-law," he said, "but to you that's a blood relative."

"Yeah, Dad. I'll miss him."

"What was the advice he wanted to give you?"

"Uh... I'm not sure if I should tell anyone. He seemed to want that to be between us." And Sam and Tag, maybe, I thought.

"Sure, son, I understand. Well, I hope it wasn't career advice. He was a wonderful guy, but he always had terrible luck in business."

"Really?"

"You bet. He told me once that he had a big deal ready to go, but had to secure a loan from the bank. Well, for some reason when the meeting came he waddled into the meeting room like a crazy man and the loan fell through. Can you believe it?"

Get off your own lawn!

[Minor language warning below, but it's not my fault! Just reporting the facts.]

I turned into an old fogy this past weekend. It happened so fast it left me breathless. One day I was a (sort of) hip guy, (kind of) kickin' it with the youngsters, (maybe but not really) youthful in every aspect. The next, I was an old fart, wondering where the time went.

Here's what happened:

The town is full of graduation parties at the moment, and a family a few doors down was having theirs. I've seen a lot of house parties on this block, but none of them drew so many cars as this one -- there had to be thirty to forty cars parked up the street and around the corner at its height. They rented a tent and chairs, decorated with banners and balloons, and let loose the DJ.

Oooookay.

At first it was no big deal. You expect things like this to be loud. They were playing a lot of club music, which may have included a lot of swearing, but as much of it was not in English, I didn't know. When I was inside with the TV on, it wasn't so bad. Seemed pretty PG-13 to me. The fogyitis started to creep up, though, as I began to realize that most club music consists of a lot of screaming and songs that have a four-note progression repeated ad infinitum. All right, I never liked dance music much anyway, because I dance like a double-amputee rhinoceros, so I assumed that I was being picky and let it go at that.

As the sun went down, the music got louder, and the lyrics moved from PG-13 to R. Now, I am aware enough to know that "show ya titties!" is pretty tame for modern music, however many times it is shouted, but bear in mind that this is a neighborhood with lots of children under the age of ten, including at least one living in that house. By now it's nine o'clock. I'd had a busy Saturday that had started at five, and I was hoping to be in bed by ten.

At 9:30, the music was louder. People started shooting fireworks. I took junior dog Nipper out to pee at one point, and he was so startled and distracted that he couldn't focus enough to do so. It was like charging onto Normandy Beach and having to take a leak. (Fortunately he was able to go later.)

At about 10:30, I went up to try to go to sleep. My wife was staying up a bit watching the tube, and she recommended I use earplugs that I keep for situations like this (usually leaf blowers). In the second-floor bedroom, under the blankets, wearing earplugs, I could still hear the party going on.

And that's when I became a fogy.

I called the cops.

What else could I do? Walk alone into a party full of teenagers and act like Mean Mr. Wilson? I'd be lucky to find just a flaming sack of poop on the porch.

Funny thing about it: I thought the local ordinance said no loud party music after ten. I was informed that it actually says after nine. I can't tell you why none of my neighbors had called the police before then, or at least the dispatcher didn't tell me if they had, but I'll wager none of them wanted to be a buzzkill party-pooping killjoy, no matter how rude the party house was. Neither did I. But I also wanted me and the dogs to get some sleep. And it was making me angry that anyone would be so unconcerned with the feelings of the people they have to live near.

Within twenty minutes, the music shut off. It didn't go back on.

The next day a neighbor was complaining to me about the noise. I didn't ask why he didn't call the police. I didn't cop to it myself. Hey, maybe everyone was calling the police, who were shutting down parties all over town, and just needed my call to make it critical mass for them to visit our street. This is a town that has an eight o'clock curfew on trick-or-treating. We're not 24-hour party people.

So I hated to be That Guy, That Old Fogy, but you know what? To hell with it. When I was a kid, in the Paleolithic Era, parents would be humiliated for the police to be called on their house. They would have sent the DJ packing at nine on the dot. Now? People seem to be willing to get away with whatever they can.

Maybe your experiences in the Paleolithic Era were different, but bear in mind also that I grew up in New York City, a place not known for its kindness and consideration. And yet I would never have allowed that kind of noise to go on that late. Hell, one 120-decibel "show ya titties!" and the DJ and his equipment would be scattered all over the street.

If that makes me old, then pass the Metamucil and get off my lawn.