Thank you for Reading

Joe Vaughan, the man who wrote this blog, and several others, passed away on June 20, 2023 at 6:20AM.  Joe lived a life of service to other people.  He was born during the Great Depression to an unwed mother, and lived in his Grandfather's house with many aunts and uncles.  As a child, he took any job he could find to help his family make ends meet.  During the winter he delivered papers, worked sweeping up at the local YMCA, and helped make margarine during the World War II.  He graduated from High School in 1952 and went into the Air Force, where he was stationed atop a mountain in Germany and decrypted radio signals during the Korean War.  After the war, he went to Boston University where he earned his Bachelors degree. As soon as he graduated, he married his long-time sweetheart Elaine Langlois.  They moved to Baltimore, Maryland when the Social Security Administration recruited him to be a Claims Examiner in 1960, but he quickly transitioned to computers.  He became a Branch Chief, where he earned a reputation as a champion of his staff; often going to bat for them despite pressure from superiors to back off.  He was a civil servant for more than 35 years, finally retiring in 1996.  Then he volunteered for the SSA Alumni Association, NARFE, Carroll County Triad, AARP, and other organizations where he typically served as officers.  His wife passed away in 2000, and Joe would wait several years before meeting Elaine Lottes.  He lived with her until his passing at the Carroll Lutheran Village.

I am Joe's son, and I'm very proud of my dad.  He's told me thousands of stories and left behind lots of articles and thoughts that I will share with people on a new Blog named "The Spirit of Prepop".  Until then, thank you for reading Prepop's blog.

 Another kind of boring day, except for the gigantic chocolate banana milkshake that Dianie brought me  ...delicious!!! I'd worried about getting fat ..  what  ..you didn.t know that I am getting skinny.  This is the lowest I've weighed ever!  I'm not going to tell you the amount. Just remember that I once weighed 225!

I told Hospice that if they keep draining my bodily fluids I'll float away in the next strong breeze.

But one good thing about the weight hoss ... I'm walking like a normal human being, and I am able to see a portion of my body that has been invisible for some time.

Speaking of bodily parts, I'm not sure of the name of the show I stumbled upon last night, but it's a compilation of all of the shows I listened to about Arnold Schwarzenegger over the years. As a budding weightlifter, I was extremely interested in his life, especially the amount of weight he was lifting at any given time. 

After Big Arnie did his thing, I fell asleep.

 Stuff in my In Basket:

Test Takers

Chinese civil servants had to take a test for their jobs as far back as 1115 BC.

Love Lasts

Archaeologists in Leicestershire uncovered a pair of skeletons in a church graveyard that were still holding hands after years in the ground.

Alex Said

The last words of Alex, a famous talking parrot were:

"You be good.  See you tomorrow. I love you!"

Shine On...

Scientists in Uruguay have discovered how to make sheep glow in the dark.

WHY?

Evils of Gambling

A New Hampshire man spent his entire life's savings ($2,600) on a carnival toss game, only to win a stuffed banana.  

More Big-Time Gambling

Police in Tampa, Florida raided a friendly mah-jongg game played by Helen Greenspan and Zelda King, because they were gambling.  The players were between 87 and 95,

 Time is God's way of keeping everything from happening at once.

By the time you become old enough to know all the answers, nobody asks you the questions.

"For every human problem, there is a neat, plain solution ... and it's always wrong."  H. L. Mencken

ETC.  An abbreviation used to make believe know more than you do.

 It was Autumn and the trees had dropped most of their colorful leaves.  I was waiting in line at the Branch Post Office in the Woodlawn, Maryland Social Security Headquarters. A gentleman ahead of me was holding a neatly wrapped package. 

I was curious about the package and asked what it contained.  He told me that he and his son had spent their weekend collecting brightly colored leaves to send to a relative in Arabia.  The recipient was raised in a town in New England and missed the fall colors. The gentleman handed the neatly wrapped package to the Post Office clerk, who then asked?  "Do you want this to go First Class?"

Hearing a "yes" answer," the clerk reached over to his ample supply of rubber stamps, pulled out the one labeled "First Class, and stamped with all his might on the package.

(A true story.)

 A kid went to a computer show and tried his hand at a computer on display.

It was very hard to figure out how to key -in, and the salesmen didn't seem to want to help a kid.

The kid persisted and finally one of the salesmen jokingly told the kid: "fishbone."

This key-word, of course, did not work and the computer said:  Do you want to change the password?"

While the salesmen looked  another way, the kid typed: "yes."and then typed "JkIr@mPT" and walked away.

 Interesting Facts

01. Linguist

Maya Angelou, noted author and poet died at 86.  She had a knowledge of 6 languages. 

02.  Obesity

The Associated Press   says that 30% of the world is fat.  So, since fat people do not like to fight, lets appoint them as the peace-makers in world situations.

03.  Kid Stuff

My sister and her family had always lived in the city and decided that it was time to move to the suburbs.  After a day of house-hunting, they found one they liked.

"What do you think -- should we buy it?" My sister asked her four-year old son.

"Yeah," he said, "But how will we get it home?  (Chris Gartman after RD magazine.)

04. Household

We were beginning to get flies in our house, so I arranged a visit by an exterminator.

The very next day, a guy showed up with a rolled-up newspaper under his arm.