Important People in my Life

Forty years ago, I heard noted Toastmaster Allan Kaufman tell this joke at a Toastmasters Club session.

Three men were sitting in a hospital waiting room  while their wives gave birth. A nurse came out and told the first man "Your wife just had twins."

"That's funny," he said.  "I play for the 'Twins' baseball team."

Just then, another nurse came out and told the second man that he was the father of triplets.

"That's strange," he said.  I work for the Triple M Corporation."

At that, the third man fainted.  The nurse asked what was wrong with him. 

"I guess he's worried," one of the new fathers said,

"He works for 7-Up."

Allan is a consummate joke teller.  He also likes to tell humorous personal stories, such as:

One day, Allan was in Ocean City, waiting for a movie theater to open.  Allan is a short man and was very aware of the tall man standing in line ahead of him.  "He must have been over seven feet tall!"

Allan couldn't resist.  He tapped the man on his knee and asked: "Do you play basketball?"  The giant turned around, looked down and replied: "No, do you play miniature golf?"

I've told the following several times, but I like to tell it.  So, here goes:

All of my life I suffered from "stage fright."  I could speak in public if necessary, and I had to, in my Social Security job. But before doing so, I would "die a thousand deaths" and stutter and then suffer vocal quivers when doing so.

Somehow, Allan heard about my problem and he and my co-worker Bob Crum would try mightily to get me to join Toastmasters (TM), where they were sure I would lose my fear.  I resisted for a long time until one day I gave in and visited a TM meeting.

It was a nice friendly meeting until the leader asked me to join in Table Topics, where contestants gave 3-minute mini speeches. I felt tricked.   I sputtered something and walked out.  To teach them a lesson, I avoided TM for several years more.

When my public speaking requirements were getting out of hand, I decided to visit another meeting at which I joined the organization. 

It worked.  Over the years I won speech contests, gave humorous monologs, earned quite a bit of recognition and gave over 100 speeches, eulogies and roasts.  Thanks to you, Allan.

Allan has a friend who is also a great joke teller.  Allan Misch.  I could not begin to duplicate the wonderful accents that he uses in his presentations.  I learned a lot from him as well. 

The two Allans published the book "No Sweat Speaking." I highly recommend it.  They also are developers of "The Going North Podcast," hosted by Dom Brightmon. The sub-title is: "Tips and Techniques to Advance Yourself."  I'm looking forward to listening. 

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 Some More Thoughts

ARTLE

Have you tried it?  I really like it.  As I've mentioned, you are provided with pictures of four works by an artist and are asked to identify that artist with four guesses. I'm not sure if they keep track of your score, but it doesn't matter to me.  I think it's fun to play.

I was able to identify today's artist, but I missed yesterday because I had never heard of him or seen any of his work.  I looked him up in a number of places and saw hundreds of beautiful etchings, paintings and sculptures that he had created way back in the 16th century! 

Bare Facts

Baltimore's own H. L. Mencken wrote about a lot of interesting things in his "American Language," but I like this best.

At one time he was writing about job titles.  He said that workers feel better about what they must do if they have a decent title.  For instance, "sanitary engineer" sounds so much better than "garbage man." 

While he was editing his articles, he received a long telegram from a distraught lady.  She said that she was a "strip-tease artist," and that title causes people to consider her a second-class citizen.

She had heard how Mencken had been writing about improving job titles and wondered if he could come up with a better name for her profession.

With tongue in cheek, H.L. responded to the lady: "... Unfortunately, no really persuasive new name suggests itself.  It might be a good idea to relate strip-teasing to the associated zoological phenomenon of molting.  Thus the word moltician comes to mind, but it must be rejected because of its likeness to mortician.

A resort to the scientific name for molting, which is ecdysis, produces both ecdysist and ecdysiast. ... "

Mencken heard nothing further from this lady, but soon learned that she and her press agent had decided to adopt ecdysiast, and it was sticking.

A few years later, the Association of Ecdysiasts, Parade and Specialty Dancers was established.

Gypsy Rose Lee refused to adopt the new name and said the following: "Ecdysiast, he calls me. Why the man is an intellectual snob. He has been reading books. Dictionaries.  We don't wear feathers and molt them off ... What does he know about stripping?"

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Thoughts

Fifth of July

If I were a drinking man, I think that today would be the day to guzzle.

Yesterday was a "glorious" Fourth of July for me and Elaine.  We sat in her bedroom and enjoyed some home-cooked pan pizza while we watched the annual PBS DC presentation of talented folks showing off.  I hate to admit that I had only heard of one participant, Chita Rivera, who starred in the original West Side Story (WSS) from 65 (!) years ago.  She still looks good at 80+ years old.

Speaking of WSS, a young lady sang "Somewhere" from that musical.  And her voice was magical!

The DC fireworks were ok, but nowhere near as good or as long as the fireworks here in tiny Westminster, Maryland.  Elaine's bedroom windows were a great place for fireworks viewing. 

Question: Was there a lot more greens and reds this year than usual?

I went to bed contented.  Elaine and I had had a nice Fourth.  But, when I woke up this morning I was hit with the news that some sub-Cretan had opened fire on people watching a parade in Highland Park, Illinois.  He managed to kill seven persons and wound many more.

Highland Park is home to a large number of Jewish people, so I would guess that this was another hate crime. 

There is a suspect; a 22-year-old rapper who has been known to spew hatred.  Police found the rifle that was used and took a DNA extract which  matched the subject's.

Once again... 309 mass shootings in the US so far this year, which is only half-way through.  Who's next?  I hope it's not our children.

"When will we ever learn?"

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LOTS TO THINK ABOUT

The Fourth of July

What a glorious day here in Maryland. All of our relatives are "down'a beach, Hon."  Elaine and I can't participate in family functions lately, because of the fear of covid and illnesses.

Some relatives are going on whale watches out of Plymouth, Massachusetts and have sent us some amazing pictures. 

I always looked forward to eating steamed crabs on the fourth.  I don't think I could afford to do so right now.  Unbelievable prices!  Why?

Crab supplies have dwindled.  Why?

Mexican laborers who formerly were allowed to "pick" crabs are not allowed into the country. Why?

President Ronald Reagan said that immigration is the "lifeblood" of our Democracy.

Why do some folks insist that we build a super-expensive, 30-foot-high monstrosity of a wall to keep immigrants out?

Gardening

So far, I've seen three green tomatoes and two 8" long zucchinis. All the plants look healthy.

I was getting tired of carrying tons of water out to the deck each morning to feed my thirsty plants,  so I bought a 25' expanding hose and a modern nozzle sprayer.

My problem was: How do I get water onto the deck from a faucet many moons away?  Our wonderful helper, Kathy worked it out and now I don't have to get a hernia, and my plants are happily singing "Thank You!"

ARTLE

I just learned about a new puzzle inspired by Wordle.  It's called Artle and it is a daily puzzle where art works are shown and one must guess who the artist is in four tries.

I tried a sample today and failed to recognize an artist I am very familiar with.  But it seems like fun and their database holds over 107,000 art pictures, so I signed up.

The World's Best Joke

Dr. Richard Wiseman invited 1.5 million people around the world to rate the funniest joke out of a database of 40,000.  The one found to be the funniest is:

TADA! DRUMROLL!

Two hunters are out in the woods when one collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glassy.

The other guy calls 911 and gasps "My friend is dead, what can I do?"

The operator says, "Calm down, I can help.  First, make sure he's dead."

There is silence, then a shot is heard. 

Back on the phone the guy says, "OK. Now what?

Keep this date open:  August 16, 2022.  That is National Tell A Joke Day!

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Institutes of Higher Learning?

1. Mc Daniel College, Westminster, Maryland

I was just checking a Westminster German Group article that was published in their Vereinsnachrichten for April 2019. (I was in the hospital then and missed my usual readings.)

The author was upset that McDaniel College had recently eliminated the German Major and German minor, citing lack of students wanting such degrees.

Having enjoyed my German studies, I was saddened by these eliminations. But I was irritated that in the same timeframe, they had dropped these studies:

Art History

Latin

French

Music

Religion

Wait a minute! I thought this was a Liberal Arts College!

Here is what they substituted for the dropped studies:

Arabic

American Sign Language

Chinese

French and Spanish Together (?)

I have nothing bad to say about the new courses, I'm just upset about the ones that were dropped.

MONEY!

2.  Boston University (BU)

I look forward to a sparsely issued magazine called Bostonia, that is delivered to all living alumni. The Spring and Summer 2022 issue was quite interesting in my opinion.

Besides other subjects like Medicine, Communications and Liberal Arts, BU has become heavily involved in the scientific usage by computers.  (They may be trying to rival nearby MIT.)

To house all of their laboratories, lecture space, study halls and technical libraries, they are having built a monstrosity of an edifice which will tower over Boston and spoil the looks of its skyline forever. (IMHO)

    

It looks to me as if someone stacked a bunch of Lego bricks and a bunch of them need to be shoved in to "even up" the stack.

What do you think?

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Even More Stuff

Disaster

Today I bombed on Wordle and now my 100% score has been lost.  It was just sheer stupidity.  I momentarily forgot that if the letter picked shows orange (tan?) other than green, it's not included in the solution.  Even though I finally remembered that fact, I was only able to get 4 letters solved before time was up.  I'm ashamed.

Gardening

I was just watching a You Tube video showing how to grow sweet peppers in plastic bottles.  Very interesting. Maybe I'll try it someday.

That reminded me of our friend Joe Leitschuh who was an amazing gardener. At his home in Spartanburg, South Carolina, he was able to clone all kinds of plants.  All he needed was a small piece of stem or leaf.  I tried some plant cloning under his direction, but I was too clumsy and failed.

Joe was an amazing guy in many respects.  He designed and invented all kinds of massive metal contraptions that helped his company mass-produce home-building equipment, and often traveled to one of the Scandinavian countries to oversee their workers building what he had designed.

Joe had a great future ahead of him when he suddenly died of the same type of brain tumor that my late daughter Elizabeth had.  They were both about the same age.

Wanna Make Money?

I'm reading about Government I Series Bonds that supposedly pay a hefty 9.62% interest.  (I looked it up and it looks like it is a pain to set up.)

Columnist Michelle Singletary writes that 17.5 billion I Bonds have been sold in the last 6 months.  Better hurry and get on the bandwagon. (Sound too good to be true?)

Wanna Save Money?

Join a carpool.

Take a bus.

Stay home and find out how it was before gasoline polluted the air.

Wanna Lose Money?

Invest in Crypto currency. (Remember Ponzi?)

Wanna Forget About Money

Become a monk.

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NONTECH JOE

Although I was involved with computers for around 40 years, current technology has passed me by.  For instance, I bought a large letter keyboard to make it easy for my fat fingers to strike one letter at a time and to help my tired old eyes actually see the letter I want to strike.

I casually unplugged the old keyboard and casually plugged in the new one.

Bam!  Everything went dark, so I unplugged the new and plugged the old back in.

Nothing.

Panicking, I tried everything I could and I was worried that my Wordle winning streak and my daily blog entries were in jeopardy, when suddenly everything popped back to normal I haven't the faintest idea what I did.

Later, I'll try my new keyboard again.

When I was an Air Force radio operator/cryptologist, my typing speed was phenomenal.  However, in my dotage, I have had to stop typing with both hands and now strike the keys with the arthritic second finger on my right hand.  Yes, it means that I take a long time writing these blog entries.  I'm just glad that I still am able to type.

News?

Years ago, this blog was called "Joe Reads the News."  I actually wrote about articles and letters appearing in our local "Carroll County Times." Today I decided to try that again.

Centenarian

There is a nice article and picture of a rather young-looking lady who is celebrating her 100th birthday.  She was the local "Jitterbug Queen"back in 1939 when she was 17 years old.  She looks as though she could still "cut a rug!"

I learned today that there is a lady here where I live that has seen 104 Summers.  I know that there is at least one other person who is 100.  It must be the country air.

Insulting Letter

A person known for her vindictiveness has submitted a nasty letter criticizing an elected official by name.   I believe that in Britain a person insulted in a public forum can be sued. 

Hot News

Ben and Jerry's ice cream sales will be resuming soon in East Jerusalem, West Bank, despite their criticism of Israeli policies.

If you get a chance, visit their company in Vermont.  Ask for some samples, their ice cream is delicious.  Somewhere in my readings today I scanned a nice article about how they came to settle in New England, especially Vermont.

Yachting in Dubai

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become a safe haven for those massive Russian yachts.  One of those is "The Nirvana," which is 289 feet long, has a glass elevator, gym, hot tub, 3D cinema, and two terrariums of exotic reptiles.  

Such extravagance seems to mock the whole concept of Communism.

Landmark Appointment

Yesterday Ketanji Brown Jackson became the first black woman on the Supreme Court.  She recited this oath:

"With a full heart, I accept the solemn responsibility of supporting and defending the Constitution of the United States and administering justice without fear or favor, so help me God."

I suspect that some justices crossed their fingers as they recited this oath.

Enough!

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