Norman makes 5

Norman was in his late 50's when I was in my early 30's--maybe he was already 60.

We used to play a lot of tennis. I was much younger and more athletic and he beat me like a drum.

Once he asked me how I missed easy shots but got lots of difficult shots.

I told him, and it was true--not only in my tennis playing but in my life--"first, you have to be out of position most of them time. Then you learn to get those shots...."

Norman died this morning. In the past few months Reed and Kay and Bill and Susan have died. I preached at all there memorial services. Someone has to find who's doing this and stop them!

Norman was a gentle, humorous, lovely, urbane, sophisticated man. Mostly things I'm not (except for the humorous part). He was a member of St. Paul's in New Haven when I was the Rector there. He supported me beyond what was deserved. I loved him greatly.

A month or more ago, we went to his 90th birthday party. Jeanne, his long time companion was there and most of his family. He'd been through a bad--no, horrible--heath situation and came out on the other side.

It was quick and merciful, as he would have wanted, his dying, I mean.

I'm just tired of people dying. There must be a better way. It just pisses me off. Big time.

Only nasty rotten people should die. Dear ones like these five should go on and on.

When People Die, a friend of mine once wrote for a mutual friend who did die, It's like a bird flying into a window on a chill day....

Just that awful. Just that bad.

Hold on to the ones you love who live on....Hold on tight....

is uniformity too much to ask for?

Credit card gizmos is what comes up most often for me.

Would it be too much to ask that they all be alike? Sometimes I slide my card and feel like I'm lost in the Sahara Desert. I have no idea what to do. I have to ask the clerk for help.

I know I'm getting older and feeble minded, but it would be simpler if all credit card swipe machines were alike. Is that too much to ask?

There's not enough uniformity--and this is from a left-wing nut (normally a supporter of freedom and diversity and the human option to be different)--in our culture.

I went looking for a new pair of sneakers the other day. I went to two stores and there were simply too many choices. I froze up and couldn't do anything but pick up weird looking shoes and stare at them. I really need a new pair of shoes for walking on the canal and at the Y. But I am overwhelmed by the selection. I don't want that many choices. I just don't.

Same thing applies to dental floss. Have you noticed lately that the choices in dental floss have become overwhelming? I went to CVS, Rite Aid and Stop and Shop and in all three cases, I simply couldn't choose between dozens of options. I want one tape dental floss and one string like dental floss. I don't care if they are flavored or not.

Back to shoes--there should be like three styles of loafers, four styles of sneakers, five styles of dress shoes and three styles of winter shoes. That would be enough, thank you, and wouldn't make me crazy and unable to buy shoes. I have a pair of winter shoes I got from Harriet's father after he died, a pair of loafers that must be ten years old and I hate (bought, doubtlessly because I had too many choices, two pairs of sneakers--both worn out and irreplaceable because I have too many choices, a pair of Berkenstock sandals that are like the last three pairs I've had (each lasting a couple of years) and a pair of 'dress' Crocks--black, no holes. Unless things get more uniform and simple, I'm stuck with that footware.

Couldn't things get simple and uniform? Am I just crazy?....don't answer that....

ok, so t his is a rant....

I am, by admission, a National Public Radio junkie. I love NPR. I want my NPR.

One of the things I love about NPR is all the stuff they do about science. Amazing stuff. My mind boggles, my heart races, I am confounded and inspired. Even a confirmed Humanities nerd like me is fascinated by, enhanced by, challenged and hooked by Science.

The constant refrain of all the Physicists, Earth Scientists, Chemists and even more esoteric segments of science and math I encounter on NPR is this: The US has to begin competing again in Science and Math.

My quandary is simple: how do we propose to do that when all the candidates for one of major party's nomination for President are still embroiled in denying evolution and global warming. How can that party--which can, by the way, block any legislation whatsoever--help us regain our leadership in Science and Math? How can anything happen when one of the major parties has wrapped themselves in a 19th century anti-intellectualism? Or, make that 14th century....Never has the time been riper for burning scientists at the stake since then....

And, until we allow teachers to 'teach' rather than 'test', how can we even imagine a turn-around in the steady drop among nations of the world of the US's standing in Science and Math?

Tell me that?

And if you disagree with me I'll probably just yell at you....

Sad news

Bob Ruthman, 92, died yesterday. Probably no one but his family and friends would have known that if it weren't for the fact that he was Andy Rooney's college roommate at Colgate in the '30's and Andy's life long friend.

He died at Andy's memorial service.

I know that is sad news, but I can't help thinking that by now Andy Rooney must have an office and a desk in the Kingdom of God and must be doing commentaries for the Heavenly Host.

I can just see him now, behind his desk, looking into the camera.

"Don't you just hate it when someone dies at your funeral?" He would say.

"Don't you think there are a few things left that are 'just for you'? Shouldn't that be true?"

Then he'd hold up his death certificate and say, "dying is a private thing. No one should horn in on your death by dying at your memorial service.

"Besides Bob and I shared a lot of things. It just doesn't seem right we'd have to share death as well. Bob deserved to die in a way that didn't get all over the internet. Thank God, and I mean that literally, we don't have internet here...."

Good-bye, Andy, I will sorely miss thee and the irony you brought to my world. And good-bye, Bob as well. Sorry you couldn't have a more private departure from this lovely sod.

Unfair

Poor Herman Cain, everyone's on his for alleged sexual abuse.

Heck, one of the women admitted that Cain asked, after he stuck his hand up her skirt and she objected, "You want a job don't you?"

Herman's was just trying to put Americans back to work....

Cut him some slack.

And my man, Mitt Romney. Everyone complains he has come down on both sides of every issue.

Heck, he's just proof that there is a parallel universe and he's stuck in this one.

Then there's Rick and Michele--ah, hell they're so down in the polls it isn't even fun to make fun of them.


****
My friend told me this joke.

Job is calling out to God about all the things he's had to endure though he's really done nothing to deserve the punishment.

"Oh God," Job says, "why me?"

"I don't know Job," God replies, "there's just something about you that pisses me off...."

Calendar issues (again)

I dutifully keep a calendar on my desk and transfer it a week at a time to the sticky note feature on my computer screen. But, from time to time, what I put on my calendar is either so vague or badly abbreviated that I have no idea what it means....

I've got one for Friday, November 18th. I just can't read my writing. From 10-12 I have something to do in some unknown location that is either 'beyond bass' or 'behind base' or 'behind bar' or 'behind bars'.

So, either I'm going fishing for exotic fish ('beyond Bass' or trout or normal things) or I'm supposed to umpire some sort of ball game or I'm meeting someone behind the Dew Drop Inn.
Or, more frightening, I'm supposed to surrender to authorities and serve time for some forgotten offense.

I've stared at the words for so long they seem to transfer themselves around. I suppose the first word could be 'Beyonce' but why would I have her on my calendar.

I flummoxed. (Something I am more often that I'd like to admit.)

The last time this happened, someone reading my blog emailed me and translated it. It was easy when I was working at St. John's because Harriet and Sue had become more able to read my writing than I am and could usually decipher my appointment.

Now, I'm mostly on my own in trying to figure out what my writing means. I'll just hang out around home and see if anyone calls me angry on the 18th....

The storm we missed

Well, not really. We drove by Newark Airport in a white out situation. A big plane suddenly dropped out of the sky just above us. Usually you see them coming for a while. Pretty amazing....

Lots of wrecks on the Jersey Turnpike. One guy in a big, double cab truck, had slid into the median fence and was talking on his cell phone outside his truck, right in traffic on slippery roads.

Another guy had tried to exit at Molly Prichard and slid down into a gully. He was fine but wasn't driving out of that.

An accident going north had backed up traffic for 10 miles.

But we hit Maryland and the snow eased off. And we spent a great 3 days with our grand-daughters.

My friend Fred called and told me power was out in Cheshire. He went to our house and got in, since we leave the back door open, like fools, but he took our two parakeets to his house where there was a generator making warmth.

Saved their lives--Rainy and Maggie--God bless Fred and his generator.

But when we got home on Tuesday afternoon, we had power and Thursday afternoon the phones and TV and internet came back via cable. God bless Cox cable....

So we suffered not and not having email from Saturday to Tuesday makes me wonder why I have it at all. TV too, but I'd miss Masterpiece and football games....

So I could go to a sports bar and drink, eat chicken wings and watch football....if they had WVU on, that would work....