Such strange news stories. In Florida, a man was sentenced to five years in prison for sexual misconduct with his pit-bull pup. What!? And Starbucks is thinking of putting out a beer-flavored coffee. What!!? Residents in Sun City West just finished putting two 18,000-piece jigsaw puzzles together and are now working on one with 33,500 pieces. What!!!? A Florida woman paid $20,000 to get a third breast because she wanted to be less attractive to men. What!!!!? A Malaysian man had ten steel balls implanted in his penis to increase his sexual abilities, but then had to have them removed when they began to rust. What, What, What!!!!!? And here’s one, not a news story but one that simply blows my mind. I went on Google Earth to have a look at our old house in Lakewood, NY. Then I did an on-street view that showed me the front of our next-door neighbor’s house, and there in the side yard I caught sight of my old neighbor Beanie. I realize how far technology has taken us in the last decade, but to be able to drive visually down any street in the country and see clear shots of places and people just amazes me. Especially when I see someone I know. This last merits another “What!!!!!!?”
In a time when we have too many wars and conflicts in which we can’t even determine who the combatants are or why they’re fighting in the first place, when a man can still vault over the fence in front of the White House and make it to an unlocked front door with the intention of doing bodily harm to the president or members of his family, when it seems like the entire state of California will be destroyed by wildfires, when the weather all around the world seems to be chaotically out of whack, when we now have teachers carrying guns into their classrooms—we need a bit of humor to help us face all the craziness. So, here’s one a friend of mine sent me. Its title is “Longevity.” A 104-year-old woman, when asked about how she managed to live so long, responded: "For better digestion, I drink beer. In the case of appetite loss, I drink white wine. In the case of low blood pressure, I drink red wine. In the case of high blood pressure, I drink scotch. And when I have a cold, I drink schnapps.”
“When do you drink water?” her interviewer asked.
“I’ve never been that sick,” the old woman responded.
My advice to my readers: don’t watch any local, national, or world news; don’t drink any water; and go to Google Earth to find old friends.
I've always collected errors in diction, things people mis-hear, like "windshield factor" and "the next store neighbors." Years ago, one of my students wrote an essay in which she described the world as being harsh and cruel, "a doggy-dog world." I've since come to think she may have been more astute and accurate than those who describe it in the usual way. My Stories - Mobridge Memories -
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Most of what I've written has been published as e-books and is available at Amazon. Match Play is a golf/suspense novel. Dust of Autumn is a bloody one set in upstate New York. Prairie View is set in South Dakota, with a final scene atop Rattlesnake Butte. Life in the Arbor is a children's book about Rollie Rabbit and his friends (on about a fourth grade level). The Black Widow involves an elaborate extortion scheme. Happy Valley is set in a retirement community. Doggy-Dog World is my memoir. And ES3 is a description of my method for examining English sentence structure.
In case anyone is interested in any of my past posts, an archive list can be found at the bottom of this page. I'd appreciate any feedback you may have by sending me an e-mail note--jertrav33@aol.com. Thanks for your interest.
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