MORE DETAILS

 
The word needs to get around that I was awake all the time someone was in my apartment. I want others to know someone did this, though not necessarily need know the name of the culprit. It should remind others not to leave their doors unlocked.

 It occurred to me tonight that the would-be burglar might have planned to use the can of room spray as a weapon against me, to my eyes for example, to make her get away.

 One of my friends said she did not know her apartment had a safe. She has a two-bedroom suite, as I do, and I advised her to check the second bathroom for it. Her highly intelligent son (who passed away) might have left something in it.

 This bit of action would not make enough to serve as backbone to a story. People ask me if I plan to write it up as a story. I say no. I need more time to finish the one in progress.

 Merry Christmas to you all!

 

THE REST OF THE TRUE STORY

The Director did come to see me about the would-be burglar. It was good to learn that these safes here do not open to a burglar’s key. It takes a code number by the resident and if that fails, the director will get the safe opened, but I will not say how. I suppose I knew this when I moved in but had forgotten it since I was not into safes. The suspect might not have known this either. 

 

A TRUE STORY

Have you ever been at home alone in the wee hours when you suddenly realized someone else was in your house? This happened to me, not in a house alone, but with hundreds in the building. Read on.

Last Wednesday night I did not sleep one minute, not the first time in my life for this ridiculous action. I was nursing a bruised right arm caused by a hematoma near the armpit and had trouble getting comfortable. About 6:30 (I later learned) I thought I just might finally drop off to sleep when I began to hear metallic  sounds that were emanating from a source inside the apartment. I became instantly alert without making a sound of my own. Then the bright ceiling light in the second bathroom turned on. I could not see into the bathroom but could see a slender strip of light from ceiling to floor about which there is no doubt. I looked and looked, and listened to the tinkling metal sounds. By instinct I knew the sounds came from keys, not a handful of heavy keys a janitor might wear on a chain, but small completely-flat-on-both-sides keys, such as those manufactured to unlock a box of trinkets. Make-believe keys I call them.

My first suspicion was that Geraldine had come to work earlier than usual and was going to start up the washing machine. But I did not have clothes ready for her to wash; so why was she staying so long in the bathroom with the bright light on? I looked out a window and saw it was still quite dark. Gerry did not arrive on her days here till 8:30 and it was always getting light by then. Now I began to be concerned about the drama playing in my territory. Then the bathroom light went out. I heard nothing. I waited for Act 2, with my eyes glued to my bedroom door. Then it moved. Yes, the door moved. It was ajar about a distance of 15 inches, because I had left a lamp burning in the living room for Gerry's arrival. I also had unlocked the door for her around 6:00 and went back to bed, and hopefully, to sleep. I did not sleep. My thoughts ranged that it was a woman intruder but finally settled on a man. He was quick and silent except for the keys. And he really knew what he was doing. He probably thought the resident here needed a light to sleep by and just forgot to lock her door! Man, if he knew the truth about these presumptions! Anyway, because he almost closed my door but not quite, he allowed a breeze from the windstorm outside my open bedroom window to blow the door fully shut and it made a sound. I could no longer see into the other rooms. I got out of bed in the dark and in silence and went into my bathroom to see the clock there. I got back into bed and when I felt the man had gone, I went into the living room and turned on lights, and into my study, and the second bathroom. I saw nothing amiss. The only thing he could have been tampering with was the safe in the wall. How glad I was he was rewarded with its emptiness! When I checked the closet the safe was in, I found one thing out of place: a can of room deodorant lay on the floor. He probably left in a hurry after the wind closed the door and didn't take time to pick up the can dropped on the floor.

There are so many appointments and such, I haven't had the chance to talk with our director about this. I hope to see her tomorrow afternoon in my apartment. I think the authorities should make a check for fingerprints.

EACH DAY A NEW BLAST

Today it's another attack on someone who criticized him. Can you imagine a daily White House attack on a head-of-state who is fed up with such childishness and effrontery from a buffoon? There is one hope possible: perhaps the polls for him are filled with votes by Democrats who are not going to vote for him. He could therefore, put Hillary into office. There might not be much difference between the two blatant mouths.

Where is there a real statesman for office? There is one running for this position. His name is Dr. Ben Carson. With the proper key selections for his Cabinet, he would be the perfect president of the United States.

WHEN WILL TRUMP GIVE UP?

 Finally this new computer is ready for my inexpert use. However, the news is so interesting these days one can spend all one’s writing time watching that. I read on AOL that the United Kingdom was to ban Trump from its shores, but I’ve heard no more about that. He has been compared with Hitler with his ideas about Muslims entering the USA. Perhaps you’ve noticed how he repeats a simple sentence such as, “She’s the worst Secretary of State we’ve ever had,” and in the next breath, say that again. It almost seems to be a practiced nuisance, but whom is he copying? Or does he just need a little more time to think up an answer?

 Not long ago Trump promised the Republican party he would not run on a third party ticket.  However, more recently he has been talking about deserting the GOP and doing just that. And he is calling another candidate a liar? The sooner he’s out of the election picture , the better for the country.   

THE SPY WITH MY NAME

My friend Norm finally brought me the book which contained a reference to a character with my name. It was encased in a Kindle and that’s why it took so long; he was reading another book in the Kindle. But he had been mistaken about the name. Although we had the same first name, our surnames were different: she was a Renard (French) while my married name is Rinard (German). The true story was of the World War II period, so how could I have been a spy then? I was just out of my teens. But I’d like to read the book. Its title is The Wolf Is at the Door. I think. ♥

A COMMENT THAT CAME AS AN E-MAIL

The Blog called “My Early Loves” elicited an interesting reply in an e-mail. (I do not know why some readers often prefer a personal note rather than a published one.)  This reader had also been a devotee of “The First Nighter” long ago via her family’s Majestic radio. She remembered also Italian Balm, the most popular hand lotion of the period. I have always associated that hand lotion with this radio program; so “The First Nighter” must have advertised Italian Balm. This product is no longer manufactured, in case you’d like to buy some. ♥ 

Author's Note

The following Blog is the one promised, for I had inadvertently erased it. I mentioned it would be out of chronological order. Then when I did that, I made a mistake, and early this morning I repaired that. If you read this yesterday, you can read just the first two or three paragraphs and know the rest of the story.  

LIFE  AFTER  EAST  HIGH, PART 1 

After graduating from East Nashville High School, I had a job with Sears while I did my first two years of college.  At the city’s largest department store I sold boy’s clothing and caught shoplifters.  I didn’t arrest shoplifters, but alerted the floorwalkers and assisted them in several respects leading to arrests. In fact, I was a better detective than salesperson.

But World War II was still going on after several years of it and my older brother was in the Signal Corps of the Army somewhere in Europe.  Several cousins were also there and in Southeast Asia.  I wanted to see the long war over and America and our Allies the victor, with our family’s menfolk once again home. I thought about all this and made a decision.

Sears gave me an extra day off but I left home that May morning as if I were going to work as usual. I spent the day at the Naval Recruiting Office. No member of my family or any of my friends knew what I was doing. I enlisted in the WAVES for the duration and six months afterward.

I chose the Navy for several reasons. The requirements for getting into it were higher than those for getting into the WACS. To get into the latter a girl did not have to be a high school graduate and could be only eighteen, whereas the WAVES demanded a high school diploma and age twenty-one. I had had two years of college while also working more than two years at Sears and the combination of these two filled a requisite for Officers’ Candidate School.  I would aim for that. 

Another reason for choosing the WAVES was the uniform. The navy blues and the dress whites were beautiful, designed by a prominent New York couturier, Mainbocher. Khaki would have been terrible for me. I would have wanted to add a bit of red to that uniform.

During the next thirty days, while waiting for orders to head for boot training, I got somewhat frightened about what I had done. Not being much into politics at that time, I considered the war’s continuing for many more years and the military changing.  I might actually have to fight. I did not tell anyone of these fears, however, and was excited again when the official papers arrived.

 

Of course, I already knew boot training would be in New York City and I had never been there. (This was before the days when the average American thought nothing of getting on a plane and going anywhere.)  I rode the train -- Pullman car -- from Nashville to The Bronx. I was stationed at Hunter College, which consisted mainly of four large, rather grand, stone buildings, laid out in a square and connected by exceptionally wide, light and comfortable underground tunnels with concrete floors, which we would use when it rained.  

Today, after we’ve all seen wars on our television screens and in movies -- and some of us in reality -- it is almost unbelievable when I relate my experience in the military. First, that my training was in New York City. Then, that we lived in civilian apartment houses which families had to give up for the Navy’s purposes. My building was huge, with three wings and several stories. Each apartment had an entry hall large enough to serve as a dining area, two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom  We were not allowed to use the kitchen, but we had to have it spotless for Captain’s Inspection (white gloves). Each bedroom held two sets of bunks; therefore, eight Waves lived in one apartment. Eight females to one bathroom and one closet located between the bedrooms. No problem. We were kept to such a rigid schedule no one had time to spend in front of a mirror. For the closet each one had two sets of dress blues, two gray-striped seersucker dresses, two white shirts, one blue shirt, appropriate ties and a second pair of “old-woman laced and tied” shoes.

We each had one hat and it always had to be with us. One day in Regimental Review, my hat blew off my head and away. Since we were instructed never to break step while marching, even if the one in front of us fainted in the heat, I marched on. My hat got back to barracks before I did and was waiting for me.

 

We had the first shoulder bags to be used by American women, black leather, its strap on our right shoulder but the bag on our left hip, smart and practical.  Perhaps that is why I can hardly endure the current trend in huge handbags worn on only one side.

We had exactly seventeen minutes for eating each meal, then dipped our metal trays in dirty water and used a big brush to clear them before they went into a huge dishwasher. We learned early on to turn up the cuffs of our raincoats before we began eating or someone would say, “What’s up, Doc?”  “Updoc” was what you got on your sleeve if you didn’t.

Boot training lasted eight weeks and I had a ball. Each floor of a wing of the apartment building had one apartment set aside as a smoker. The girls who smoked and some who didn’t, rushed to the smoker whenever there was a free five minutes. I did not, but instead, wrote letters home. Later, they would be envious when at mail call I would receive up to thirty letters a day.

 

An interesting situation in Boot Training occurred when it was time for my platoon to have work detail for one week. As we were billeted alphabetically and the work-detail jobs were also listed alphabetically, the other seven girls in my apartment whose last initials were “J,” “K” and one “L,” all got kitchen and laundry detail while I got the library! They had to get up at five o’clock and don galoshes for their watery work, while I didn’t get called till six o’clock. If they imagined I slept in for another hour after their wake-up call, they were mistaken, for even then the writer’s closest companion -- insomnia -- had already moved in to stay. I got up right after they left, showered, scrubbed the tub and got dressed in the uniform of the day and after breakfast, spent the rest of the day in the library, talking mainly with the Padre and the Red Cross Representative. Certainly no Boots came in for reading material.

Another reason for choosing the Navy is that after Boot Training one automatically is promoted to the next step. I became a Seaman, Second Class. And I was asked what kind of work I would like to do. When I said Officers’ Candidate School, I learned it had closed down before I arrived in New York. “They” had been working on part of The Bomb just down the highway at Oak Ridge, of course, but they hadn’t told me. So, instead of attending OCS, I stayed on in New York for further training in personnel supervision. After those four weeks I got another stripe and was Seaman, First Class. 

But while I was in Specialist School, we celebrated V-E Day on Times Square and had extended liberty. Four of us WAVES went together by subway. When we passed sailors on the street, they would shake salt on the shoulders of our dress blues from a shaker they’d picked up in some restaurant and called us “old Salt.” The happiness among all the people there in the Square was really something to behold. 

Before the evening was over, we ran into an Italian block party, the area roped off and with dancing in the street. We sampled many Italian foods and turned down all the drinks. They toasted us because we were in military uniform, treating us as if we had won the war, when we had not even finished our training. We had a wonderful night and got back to barracks on time.

MY EARLY LOVES

While reading Killing Reagan, I learned he had a 30-minute acting role on radio for several years and I thought, “Only 30 minutes?” I was accustomed to the two-hour thriller in my day. Then I remembered a radio show that pre-dated Reagan’s 30 minutes. Here it is:

Back in the days of radio, our family was the first on our street to purchase one of the magic boxes. It was a floor model with a brand name of Majestic. It seems strange to me now to realize people actually sat there, watching the . . . sound? Not our family, but the neighbors, who volunteered to drop in on Saturday night to hear The Grand Ole Opry. My father played the host and sat with them, not that much talking transpired; while mother went about her duties for the Sabbath.

Where we children were is anyone’s guess, perhaps trying to dodge a Saturday night bath, testing the fancy dessert mother had prepared for tomorrow, or just trying to avoid the noise from the living room. I was one of the latter.

I never cared for opry music and grew to prefer real opera in time. But at this special period in my life, radio gave me a great half hour of entertainment once a week. It was called “The First Nighter,” a three-act comedy- romance play in thirty minutes with breaks, I suppose short commercials. I learned what the Great White Way was, and the real Broadway, Though I was quite young for such, this was my introduction to the world of romance. No other family member ever paid any attention to what I was enjoying.

On the same weekend, every weekend, in  the mornings, I think it was, I also listened to the Metropolitan Opera with the same fervor as that for the dramas. These were two elements that helped to shape my character. I am thankful.♥♥♥

A BIG JOB AHEAD—CATCHING UP

First, books. Remember War and Peace? I have covered several hundred pages but also have several more to read. Its most fascinating aspect to me so far is Tolstoy’s writing as if he were there, not the usual way we mean that, but as if he is actually on the historic scene. His use of “our” instead of “their” is just one instance of his doing so. He also refers to Count Tolstoy, a real family connection, or is this Tolstoy himself? (The notes, afterward, should clarify this.) Some of the war talk is tedious going and I’m always delighted when the women are back in the story. Let’s hope this reading will end by Christmas. Or maybe New Year’s? Or if the 2016 election doesn’t get in the way?

I’ve donated several books to our library on the second floor, books I would never read, nor would my family. Also in the donation were numerous DVDs. Right after giving these DVDs, I noticed “Amadeus” was to show one night. I had the feeling it was the one I donated, rather than one ordered. I will probably ask about that and stick a feather in my hat. (Later: no, it was not my donation;  it was ordered. No feather.)

Well, where has my time gone during these weeks I was not writing Blogs? If my computer was not functioning properly (and it wasn’t), it was I not doing so. I have had more than one visit to the doctor’s office, and the arrival of some household help every morning disturbing my routine and delaying the progress I’d expected. So, now those seven days have been cut to two days a week. I got the best woman in the business for that. She is a retired Registered Nurse but hasn’t kept up her accreditation for nursing. She s a minister’s wife (of the denomination I grew up in), and is so quiet when she arrives that I don’t know she is around. I unlock the door for her around 5:00 and go back to bed. I find she has taken care of the trash, has taken the dishes from the dishwasher and put them away, if any, and has done any clothes washing I’ve put out for her to do. When I’m up, she makes up my bed. On one day soon, she will roll all my coins and I’ll get them to the bank when Amy takes me out next time. The cleaning lady is different from this lady: she cleans the whole apartment on Tuesday.

Later date for this part. The book in my reading progress is Killing Reagan by O’Reilly and Dugard. I’ve read all their killing books: on Lincoln, Kennedy, Jesus, Patton, Hitler, and now Reagan. O’Reilly has mentioned the next book in the series is now in progress but he won’t say about whom. Something in Reagan made me attempt a guess on the identity. I guess Marilyn Monroe. Why not? After all, O’Reilly is interested in making money and if sensationally, the better. There are enough books on hand to furnish the facts. I read one that convinced me she was murdered. ♥♥♥

HAUNTING EYES

Here she is again. If you hurry, you'll see The Afghan girl with the "haunted and haunting" eyes as a child living under Soviet occupation. I wrote about her months ago on AOL. Hurry!

OOPS!

Oops! I accidentally erased PART 1, just one of the many mistakes I am making these days. If time allows, I will replace it though it will be out of chronological order. 

LIFE AFTER EAST HIGH, PART 2 

Soon, my time in New York was over and I was asked where I would like to be stationed. I said the West Coast and got it. I was one of several in charge of two cars of the train, with a Chief Petty Officer WAVE over us all. The two cars parted at Barstow and mine went on to Oakland. The Oakland Wave Barracks were close to a Sears store. When Christmas came, I did all my shopping there, for the Sears in Nashville had sent me coupons to use like cash in any Sears store, a few hundred dollars’ worth.

In Oakland I had charge of barracks and the WAVES who worked elsewhere.  Navy busses transported them everyday to Treasure Island and other places. While here, I received my first chevron on my sleeve and became Petty Officer, Third Class.  When the Oakland WAVE Barracks closed down, I transferred to Oak Knoll Naval Hospital, again in personnel. This was a more interesting post, for thousands of men were stationed there. In chow line one day, I actually met a friend from my home church in Nashville. Many were invalided from the war, of course, and now my WAVE charges were hospital corpsmen. (We weren’t politically correct in those days.) Just a few weeks before I left the service, I got another chevron for my sleeve.   

I was in military service only fourteen months and left it as a Petty Officer, second class, the same rank as Staff Sergeant in the Army. It wasn’t nearly so easy for the men to rise in rank. My brother got to be only a corporal during his four-year stretch in the Signal Corps and he was on the front lines. But he had enlisted right after high school while I had two years of college behind me. Except for the Naval Nursing Corps, women in the Navy did not serve aboard ship and never overseas. Otherwise, I would not have enlisted.

In those days the women’s services were not permanently organized. Just think of Boots in the WAVES ousting several hundred families from their apartments to house the recruits. Just think of the need for putting in a new floor in the lobby on the main floor because WAVES had swabbed the hardwood to destruction when working off demerits. (I swabbed it once for two hours when someone’s hankie was found on the floor under my laundry bag. My laundry bag was labeled, remember, and one didn’t talk back and say the hankie was not hers. Besides, it was mine.)   

After discharge from the Navy, I traveled to southern California to visit an uncle whom I had never met except when I was just a baby. He had palomino horses and orange groves and was a captain in the sheriff’s posse that led the Rose Bowl Parade each year. The back of his olive drab shirt, expertly creased to the hilt, was embroidered in satin stitch with a huge pink rose. These men would not think of leaning those shirts back against anything before they rode out in parade.  

Since Uncle Hal’s wife was a complete invalid, whom I never really got to know and whose name I can’t now remember, he took me to dinner at Mike Lyman’s, where he ordered for me my first entree of really rare roast beef, from which time I have always preferred it. I must add that Uncle Hal did take his wife in her wheelchair out to dinner at the finest restaurants once a week and helped her eat. He was Monrovia’s City Manager and everyone knew him. 

My train traveling from Los Angeles to New Orleans and then on to Nashville that August was almost empty, apparently allowing the one young male in the car to think it would be hospitable if he conversed with the lone young female. We did converse and before long sat side by side with our feet propped up on the seat in front of us, which he had adjusted to face us. He was a nice man, having just had a short vacation in the west from his job in Ohio, a job of running the family’s company which for several years had been manufacturing war materiel. I asked him what they manufactured in peacetime. He said, “Little things, like metal closures for salt and pepper shakers.” I thought at the time, “This is something to remember, to put later in a story.”

When we got to New Orleans, I thought I would die from the humidity. Nashville and New York had been humid enough but this was unbearable and we had nearly three hours to kill before we would reboard the train for Nashville. The coolest place we could think of was a movie theater; so, we saw “Northwest Mounted Police.” They were Canadian, I think, in red jackets. Once outside again, I could hardly wait to get back on the cool train. But we walked around a while, doing a little sight-seeing. We would eat dinner on the train.

Several towns before we pulled into the vast breadth of tracks at Nashville’s Union Station, this nice young man from Ohio, this mogul of industry who was probably already a millionaire (though he didn’t say so, didn’t brag at all), asked me to marry him. Of course I told him no. Today I don’t even recall his name. The situation reminds me of Lady Bird Johnson, who said yes to Lyndon right after she met him. A whole different situation. I wasn’t in love. 

After another short stint of work in Nashville, with National Life and Accident Insurance Company, I came west again and with only eight dollars and fifty cents in my purse. But now I had the G. I. Bill. I arrived in Nampa by train on a January night and found two girls waiting up for me. I slept in the guest room at Morrison Hall on the NNC campus and to the surprise of Miss Helen Wilson, the Dean of Women, was up by six o’clock, looking for breakfast.  

By arriving there at the beginning of the second semester, I was a stranger among students who, for the most part, already knew each other. My southern accent stood out like the proverbial sore thumb but it was a modulated accent, tempered by time away from the south. 

I was assigned to the Lamda Sigma Phi Literary Society and when it came time for us to present our drama “Harriet,” for competition with the other three societies, I tried out for the role of Harriet Beecher Stowe. I learned after the fact that Professor Finkbeiner wanted me to have that role, but the powers that be decided only I could talk like a southern Negro! (This would really have been a laugh in the south.) So, in Act One I was the Negro mammy; in Act Three, years later, I was a Negro maid. I was five feet, six inches tall, weighed less than one hundred and twenty pounds. They blackened my skin and stuffed my clothes with pillows and I became a big, fat, waddling Negro mammy. I recall the line, “Yo hush yo mouf!” That’s all I had to read at the tryouts and the hoorays resounded. Afterwards I was glad I had not got the role of Harriet, for she had over three hundred lines, most of them without cues from other actors. And Petey Montgomery did an excellent Harriet and we won the trophy.         

I finished college with a major in English and minors in German and social sciences at Northwest Nazarene College (now University). I helped pay my way by being Assistant Dean of Women because of my training in the Navy, and by grading papers for the German professor after I’d had a year of German One in eight weeks of  summer school. My boot and specialist naval training of three months had earned me several college credits in physical education, health, sociology and psychology.   

My original plan for college was to get a Ph. D. in literature. However, soon after I got to Idaho, I met John, an Idaho man who had shortly before I met him graduated from the School of Forestry at the University of Idaho. For one of my few science classes, I had a botany textbook just off the press, which he had waited for while he was studying botany. I told him if he would help me get an “A” in the class, I would give him the book. But I got a “B” and he had to marry me to get the book. 

The church wedding was one semester before I finished college. He lived in Emmett at the time and I in Morrison Hall in Nampa. I went “home” to Emmett on the weekends and John came to Nampa on Wednesday nights for a date. I finished college in January, two years from the time I had arrived in Nampa, and graduated in May.  Then we went where my husband’s work took us. 

MY VISIT AWAY

The wall of windows in my hospital room did not show the usual scenery; we could not see the foothills which are not far away, because of the heavy smoke from the fires west of this location. Saint Alphonsus is a beautiful hospital, nine floors tall, with a huge curving façade, and the rooms were full.

I found the most comfortable bed to be the one I had in the Emergency room. But I didn’t notice it the night of my admission (Tuesday); I was too full of pain. Time came when I was able to make a joke with an audience of three or four. I complained about the typical uncomfortable hospital bed. Then I said, “I’m used to a Temper-PEDIC bed.” After a moment, I added, “When I become Empress, I’ll give everyone a Temper-PEDIC mattress.” After another moment for them to swallow that foolishness, I closed with, “My middle name is Trump.” That got the laughs.

But when I returned home on Friday, and took the new prescription that night, I wanted that uncomfortable hospital bed, for I was in pain and seeing hallucinations (sheets of music which I could read in the dark)! I didn’t sleep, of course, and the concierge downstairs was able to reach my primary doctor Saturday morning. He said, “Get her back into the hospital.” To the Emergency room I went again and enjoyed a beautiful situation.

Almost as soon as I got into the examination room, in came the doctor with his full team. The curtain was closed fully and no one interrupted the procedure. The doctor never left me to see another patient.

The tall, slender Japanese doctor introduced himself as Dr. Kim. No one else talked. Except me, of course. He asked me questions. Then everyone was quiet.

How strange to see three of the team busy with their respective machines in silence. They all wore blue, one of my shades of blue, “grayed navy,” not looking like the ordinary hospital uniforms. They looked dressed up!

The doctor stood on my right, near the foot of my bed; a guy on my left was the only one who smiled. He wore a gorgeous blue-flowered shirt, the design beautiful enough for a lady’s long party dress.

To the right of the doctor was a young lady, her dark hair up and out of her face.  A “halo” of tiny reddish flowers (as far as I could tell) framed the pretty face.  She faced the same way as the doctor and never looked at me or said a word while there.

After typing in some information, Dr. Kim began consulting his little pocket machine. I knew he was looking for a different drug for me. I spoke up and asked the young man at the head of the bed, “Where’s your machine?” He laughed and said he didn’t have one. Perhaps he hadn’t graduated yet. He had the job of moving the bed , if necessary, for the other three were professionals.

The rooms were the same colors as the attire of the personnel, the same blue on the railings on my bed, the perfect contrasting walls, an off white, gray, blue, whatever, take your pick.  

The point I want to make is that this doctor had apparently trained his team to know their places, look great, work efficiently, and not talk. I wonder if other doctors at St. Al’s are doing this.

I would like to tell you more about this scene, but it’s almost 11:30. Time to sleep.  ♥

A BEAUTIFUL POEM

Today, just after the teams finished playing Word Wars, my friend Norm showed up looking for me. He had something for me to read critically. He had written a poem about, and for, his wife Donna who is now in another location, for she was diagnosed as having dementia. We sat down in that room (Movie Room) and I listened as Norm read the poem aloud. It was truly beautiful and quite touching. 

Then as I headed for my apartment, I saw him at the door of the office for the two lades who work the Enrichment activities here. I do hope they listened to his poem. Norm used to be in my writers’ gathering at my house one day a month for five years. Usually there were about a dozen of us at a session. We called ourselves SMAGS (for Second Monday Afternoon Group).

Norm also says he came across my name in a book! He couldn’t remember the title or the author’s name, but a woman. He has been saying he’s going to give me a copy of the page or something like that. He said the woman wrote about spying, I don’t know if fiction or nonfiction. My only guess is that she was once a student of mine.

DR. BEN CARSON

How exciting it is on the election front! It does not surprise me that Dr. Carson is in second place; that Hilary is in deep water; that the average American doesn’t realize what Sanders’s Socialism would be like living under; that Fiorina is climbing in the polls; or that Trump seems to get smarter day by day.

Dr. Carson is the most brilliant of them all, but he may be too brilliant for electability. While some candidates have their eye on winning the election, he has his on saving the generations. If someone else gets elected, Carlson should become “Czar to Save Civilization.” He recommends we all read the history of such an atrocity as abortion, following the life of Margaret Sanger. We learned her name in school, but we had no idea she was a racist or that she had a wild plan to decimate certain elements of our society. You might call it one form of genocide. Do, please, pay attention to what Dr. Carson says. 

CANDIDATES AND SOME FINDS

Since I wrote the previous Blogs about the election, I’ve learned a few more facts expressed by candidates directly or indirectly. Hillary has stated she wants 135 billion dollars for education. Jeb is still moving his head too often. (Isn’t anyone going to tell him?) One poll showed Ted Cruz is second place, but another one this morning says Jeb is. Both are far behind Trump, of course.

One commentator said on Sunday that Trump is a phenomenon, but it remains to be seen if he is a short-term phenomenon or a long-term one. But Rand Paul explained Trump pretty well in a news shot yesterday. The newsman called it an attack on Trump, but it was not on the same planet as Trump’s attack on anyone. Paul was exceedingly proper. He did not over emote and I agreed with everything he said. (That makes him correct, right?) I wonder what sort of upbringing those two lads had, Trump and Paul. It might be helpful if we could see something of their private lives now, not just afterwards see such of the one who wins.

For example, how many times has Trump been married? How many times for Fiorina? Anyone else? So far as I know, Reagan is the only president we have had who was legally divorced. It sort of seemed the nation made an exception for him, because he was so loved by the people.

JFK’s first marriage is still mainly a secret. Money talks, I suppose. But there are books you can read that tell about his early marriage to someone other than Jackie. So, what is happening now; are we going Hollywood? God forbid!

A QUESTION FOR TRUMP

Would you, as president, act alone, or would you have the Congress vote on your plan of surrounding ISIS, wiping them out, and taking all the oil from the area for America? Should we anticipate the Obamaesque habit of Executive Orders running our Republic?

AND AGAIN

I’m getting the two sets of competitors blurred into one. After all, one set performed just before the second set did. We heard only good comments about the second bunch, who ran first. That was a good maneuver to execute.  So, I will not differinciate between them from this point on.

One candidate I like is John Kasich of Ohio. His honesty and sincerity show through more than for some other candidates. He seems not just after the job, but really wants to save the country.

I must have fallen asleep during the debates for I can’t remember Scott Walker except for his look. Handsome man, but I don’t know what he said. Maybe next go-round I will know him better.

Rick Perry of Texas will build a wall, we’ve heard several times. Or we could build factories in Mexico and have its people stay in their own country (my idea). Perry is one of those who repeat too often. Compare with Carson.

Carly Fiorina is the new kid on the block. Read about her on your computer. She’s well accomplished but her life has been filled with enough misery—my word, not hers—that such could revisit her, even the Big C. We don’t need that in the Oval Office. I think I’m not ready for a woman to be our president.

I don’t suppose Trump is ready for a woman president either. But I hear it was he who drew 24 million to watch these first debates. Pundits are saying that was a good thing, but . . .

To be continued. 

MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

Where I live, many people do not know what I mean when I ask them, “Did you see the GOP debates?” They look at me as if I were the endangered one, not them. But the ones who play Trivia on Tuesdays are much more aware of what’s going on in the world. When I asked this same question of one of them, she threw up her hands and said, “Yes. I had to see what those Republicans are up to!” But I already had her number. It’s rare to find a teacher or former teacher who is not a liberal. I am grateful not to have been brainwashed. If I was brainwashed, it was by the Constitution and the Bible. No better literature anywhere!

Anyway, I’ve already changed my mind about one of the candidates I mentioned in the first blog about the debates. I will not say who but it turns out he’s faintly recognized as having liberal ideas about education.  I trust I heard this correctly: Chris Wallace asked this candidate a question three times without getting a straight answer to it. That’s a red flag for me. It will be interesting if he’s one of the ten in the second debate.

I did not like to hear Christie’s rudeness to Rand Paul. Why were they all not talking against the Democrats instead of each other? Even if one of them disagreed with the candidate beside him, he doesn’t need to attack his partyman but just show his ideas are better than those of the Democrats. If the shoe fits, this partyman could wear it.

Here I must point out the politeness of Dr. Ben Carson. I believe he did not pinpoint anyone on the stage with a personal criticism. He is a gentleman of the first order. He also did not slouch, as another one did, and he is, I believe, the oldest candidate running.

As for the one who slouched, I wonder about his health. Was he so tired that he had to prop himself up? What about decreasing some of that avoirdupois?

To be continued.

THE FIRST GOP DEBATE: Random Thoughts

(A special note here first: On today’s AOL news photos is the picture of the girl with haunting eyes Steve McCurry once photographed in the Middle East and years later went back to find her. You read about that in my blog “You Must Go Back.” Now you can see her on AOL if you hurry.)

My choice of the best performance in last night’s debates was that of Dr. Ben Carson. Extremely intelligent and charming.

Donald Trunk – Tramp – whatever his name is -- has no appeal for me. Is he just another Ross Perot, wanting to divide the elephants?  

Two of the male candidates have had face-lifts but I won’t tell you which ones.

Mike Huckabee did VERY well. A good man with a good head on his shoulders. He has a good chance, I think.

Jeb Bush did okay, but he could have done MUCH better if he had held his head still. When anyone doesn’t do that, it’s likely to hide something, like crossed eyes, or eyes too close together, etc. Is Jeb hiding something from us?

Tim Cruz made a good impression on me, gave some really good statements.

Marco Rubio did well, too.

I must cut this short, for the men are here to install my new dishwasher. ♥

CANDIDATES, TAKE NOTICE

I've already suggested here that voters ascertain NOW if their choices of candidates have naturally colored hair and not wait months to notice and start speculating about it THEN. Now I wish to tell those candidates with solid black hair how to disguise that look. Just have your hairdresser add some permanent highlights. These will most likely be a dark brown shade. You will look younger with the highlights than without them. 

After you have moved into the White House, we trust you will be too busy to think about such trivial matters; just let the White House barber take this burden off your shoulders (and off your scalp). 

When you are in residence about twenty months, a little gray on the temples will be a distinguishing look. You will have earned it. If your hair doesn't begin to go gray by the end of your first term, some will argue that you've been playing golf too often and letting the job go.

YOU  MUST  GO  BACK

 If less can ever be more, perhaps going back may help you in going forward. If the urge to go back is there, how can you relax till you do? I don’t mean going back home. After all, plenty of people have made that pilgrimage, only to report you can’t go home again. But I write of something much bigger and much more important to one’s fulfillment as a writer, involving geography. Here are three brief stories to illustrate what I do mean.

 The first story perhaps the whole world knows about now. A National Geographic photographer, Steve McCurry, had to go back to Pakistan to look for the young woman he caught on camera in 1984, just one child among several he photographed in the school tent at a refugee camp. What captivated him, when he saw his finished pictures, were her enormous sea-green eyes, in a land where eyes are so brown, they look black. A portrait that “sears the heart,” her picture ran on the cover of the June 1985 National Geographic. 

McCurry went back and found the girl, now a married woman and the mother of three children, but with the same “haunted and haunting” eyes. These eyes haunted McCurry for seventeen years.

Many people might think this silly, a waste of time and energy. But I understand the man and applaud his efforts. In addition to intriguing people like me, it made a good story for National Geographic and for television. One might say, if you could use a little excitement in your life, go back somewhere to finish a dream or a story, but not back home. Home would be too subjective a destination; you need to be objective about this.

The second story appeared as an episode during an escape on foot over the Pyrenees Mountains during World War II, before America got into it. In Yours Is the Earth, Margaret Vail, an American married into the French upper crust, stays in France as long as she dares, to be as close as possible to her husband, Robert, in a German prison camp. She waits so long to leave France that her only way to escape is to travel on foot with her four-year-old daughter Rose-Hélène, across the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain, in a group of eight, with a guide.

When they rest for the night in the house of strangers, sitting by the fire and listening to their hosts and each other talk, after Rose-Hélène is asleep, Margaret hears the lady of the house say the young man who appears not so intelligent is smart. “He has read that book over there,” she says. Margaret Vail wants to get out of her chair and see what the book’s title is but she is too tired to make the effort. She leaves the house the next morning, before day and without learning what the title is.

Margaret Vail determines at that point she will return someday to that house in the Pyrenees to thank the people there more thoroughly for their kindness and help. She also wants to find out the title of that book.

When I read this, perhaps ten years after Vail wrote it, I too wanted to know the title of that book. This wish nagged me so, I finally wrote to the author, in care of her publisher, to ask her the title. That began a most pleasant period of correspondence with an American lady in France, who had her husband back from the war, but who lived in a huge ancestral house on vast lands where everyone spoke French and some working on the estate could not even read their own language. Robert knew English because of his private schooling and Rose-Hélène grew up speaking both French and English equally well. Yet Vail was lonely for communication with a native of her own language. In her first letter to me she said she had not returned to the house in the mountains, and still didn’t know the title of the book, but she was still planning to make that return journey, with Robert.

I’m sure she never did. If she had, during the years we wrote to each other, she would have told me. We corresponded until one day her light blue, dark-blue-lined envelope with family crest arrived with only an almost incomprehensible bit of scratch saying she’d had a stroke and could no longer write. I doubt she was able to make such a trip after that.

I did not have to travel to go back, for my return would have been entirely through Margaret Vail. I merely wrote to ask her if she had gone back. But I believe my need to know the book’s title was as great as hers. Her never satisfying her desire to know has not put closure to my frustration.

Perhaps all three of us presented here were unreasonable but I’ve never heard reason is a prerequisite for what writers do. Margaret Vail was a journalist before her marriage. The photographer’s job must be akin to writing. All three of us merely followed some drummer others didn’t hear. What did it do for us?

Only one of us three truly went back. Photographer McCurry was bound to have experienced some disappointment, possibly enough to shatter a dream he was happier with than he was with the reality. But if it was only all in a day’s work, he was successful and may live happily ever after.

Margaret Vail could have forgotten all about her anticipated going back when her illness struck. And yet, in the strange ways of the human mind, going back to that cabin in the mountains to learn the title of a book might have been the very thing that stayed with her, while she forgot everything else. Who can know what goes on in the brain of a stroke victim?

As for me, I have remained frustrated over not knowing that book’s title. I will probably never be normal again—if I ever was—until I write this story as fiction in a geography I know, not an escape from Hitler, but from something else. The most exciting aspect of such a story for me will be choosing a title for the elusive book

We must go back—not to experience full memories that can be merely recalled and, if your brain is alive and well, fall short of joy and cause useless nostalgia—but go back only for the memory that never was finished and needs to be. If such an unfinished memory should actually be “back home,” go back just for it and avoid all roads that would lead to nostalgia. When we do that, we are still looking to the future, for we seek knowledge of the unknown, one constant attribute of a true writer. It helps to keep you young, to boot.

THE CHARLESTON

Back in the Dark Ages, the 1920’s, the Charleston was the dance to learn and do with its costume to facilitate the technique. It amazes me that it never resurfaced in recent years. Not the least of it were the skirts that came to the knees and flared out with great drama; the low waist that came down on the hips where suitable decoration trim (beads, ribbons, etc.) dangled; a plain high-necked sleeveless top supporting a long string of pearls without benefit of a 40-D cup bra. Shoes looked high-heeled but were merely shaped that way and rather low. To top this off, the hair was bobbed, cutely. The bottle blonde was a rarity, perhaps looked upon as non-virtuous; the brownette was adorable and popular in this outfit. And if any dance can be good exercise for the body, this one must take the lead. It never stands still but is constantly working the knees and elbows, guaranteeing that one dances alone and the partner doing the same. I doubt Elvis could have managed this one.

What in the world did the men wear for this dance? I never noticed them! ♥

THE FIRST LINES

The first few lines of a story, a book, or a film, are perhaps the deciding factor as to whether we will indulge in it or not. Occasionally I will watch those first few minutes of a favorite film and then shut it off. I don‘t enjoy the remainder of the film as much as the first part. Two such favorites are from “My House in Umbria” and “The 39 Steps” (2008 version).

These two films are nothing alike; one has a young man herding his goats in the hills of Italy with a bit of modern civilization in a sportscast at his ears when a motorcar intrudes, carrying the main character of the story. The other begins in a men’s club in England (London, I presume) where a young man among all those old guys gets fed up with such a life and wants to head back to his work on another continent when a neighbor intrudes with a top-secret message for him to deliver; the messenger has only minutes to live.  

But I have yet to run across a story that starts with a bloodcurdling scream of one second’s duration. But one of mine does, and it’s finished. Maybe I’ll run it here soon. Then again, maybe not. There is enough scream-worthy material in the news these days to take our time. Yesterday it was in Tennessee; tomorrow it may be your birth state, as mine was yesterday. But wherever it is, it hurts too much to be writing.

But back a minute to the two films mentioned above. “The 39 Steps” in my most-read blogs is Number One with 656 pageviews (April, 2011) and I haven’t written up the other one. ♥♥♥

A POWERFUL WHISPER

It is stated in Hitler’s Last Days that Martin Bormann, the head of the Nazi Party’s Chancellery, could “slit a throat with a whisper.” A close-up photo of him shows a face of gentle innocence. With that, I plan to leave this subject and get on to the next book 

HITLER’S LAST DAYS

This book Hitler’s Last Days reads fast, for it is loaded with photographs. Even two non-contiguous pages are entirely black. I promised to write here only what seemed to be new material for most of us readers. For that, the book begins with a startling quote from Hitler, “I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.” He was, and more so.

He ordered deaths not only for Jews, but also for homosexuals, gypsies, cripples, and others. I recall reading (in another book) about a deformed man who came through the line, who was immediately put to death so that they could boil his body in a big kettle outside, and get rid of his flesh so that their doctors could study this imperfect carcass which was then put on display to demonstrate how Jews didn’t deserve to live. This is the worst true story I’ve ever heard of in the genocide of any class of people.

The day before Hitler committed suicide, he married his long-time mistress Eva Braun. I wonder what good he thought that would do. Help him get through the Pearly Gates? He left a will, part of which is in the book, but we find nothing in it referring to an afterlife. He was only 56 when he died. For the occasion, he tried one of the cyanide capsules on his dog Blondi. She died instantly. Then Eva Braun, who chose to die with Hitler, sat on the end of a sofa, and took the pill. She died instantly. Then he sat on the other end of the sofa and when he died (instantly) he slumped toward Eva. He had just committed his last murder. 

THE LAST DAYS

“The Last Days” can have several different connotations, the most common one probably being a reference to the end of our time on the earth.  Some human beings, being human and imperfect, likely cast the thought aside for they just don’t want to think about such a time.  This Blog is not about that except its application to a book I’m reading, Bill O’Reilly’s Hitler’s Last Days. I am looking for those little bits of information that I might have missed in my lifetime of wide reading. But I will not say what I learn unless I come across something that the average person might not have heard.

And that brings me to “Downton Abbey.” The Director (I think that is who he was) announced recently that in the upcoming and last season for that program there is one person who will not be in the series. One can guess, or perhaps some of you have read elsewhere WHO, but I think it’s not the dowager grandmother (Maggie Smith who has said she must be 110 by now), but someone notorious, just this very dictator, Adolf Hitler. I am glad if he’s not going to be in the story. Anyway, who would want to play that part? It’s not so long till next January, when, soon afterwards, we will find out WHO. ♥

INSIDE INFO

If you are in a quandary about which candidate is your choice of the dozen or so who’ve announced for the GOP nomination, go slowly at this point. There may be others yet. This many running is almost phenomenal. In the meantime, listen to the smartest man on television, Charles Krauthammer, on Special Report (Fox News). He is on a panel and the others always speak first. He is absolutely brilliant, with a Doctor of Medicine degree, psychiatry his specialty, I think. I wrote about him in 2013 on this very Blog, and my readers quickly climbed to 235. He is soft spoken and I turn up the volume for him, not for the others. A Pulitzer Prize winner (journalism) he comes up with fascinating facts and interpretations we need to know before we vote. The book that won him the Prize was Things That Matter, a wonderful read.  ♥♥♥

THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

If the "scholars" now trying to change our Constitution would just study a bit more, they might run into the correct interpretation, the one that our Founders meant. The separation of "church and state" does NOT mean the separation of God and state. It refers to religious denominations. Read The Federalist Papers to discover what our Founders meant. No one in this country seeking a Federal job should have the job without passing a thorough test on these papers. 

WHAT’S IN A NAME

A few nights ago, after midnight, I took down from my shelves a thick book titled Great Short Stories of the World in which the authors’ signatures appeared at the beginning of the stories. Knowing a small measure about handwriting analysis, I gave it a try. I turned every page of the 788 pages just for the signatures. Many of them I could not decipher at all. One thing for sure, it is easy to determine which signatures were practiced and learned for effect and which ones derived their uniqueness through instruction in penmanship (the Palmer method in America) and time. Younger doctors don’t know how to “write like a doctor” anymore, for they didn’t study penmanship in school as older generations did.

Several characteristics we need to consider in analyzing handwriting, say, of a long-dead writer: at what age did he write this signature; does it slant to the left or to the right, or is it straight up and down; is it level, or does it go up or down  as it progresses across the page; is the letter “i” dotted high in the sky or close to earth and does it have a childish circle above it; how is the “t” crossed, mostly to the left of the trunk, or to the right or up in the air above it; are loops below the line fat and generous or are they skinny; what about a line drawn below the name (sign of self-confidence or even ego)? And what does it all mean?

As I began to turn the pages, I noticed that most of the signatures leaned to the left. That could mean those writers were not gregarious or fond of company, or perhaps of people generally. It was a surprise to come to Isak Dinesen’s signature which leaned to an extreme right. I recall her being in America (from Denmark) the year she was campaigning for the Nobel Prize (which someone else got). I had imagined her with a left-leaning handwriting. But then I never knew her, but just some of her writings.

The prettiest signature, in my estimation, is Hemingway’s, pretty enough to be framed and hung on the wall of a writer’s study. But it says bad news: left-leaning and with other signs, it fits the picture of his not really liking people, or of an inferiority complex. Did you read the article many years ago in Life or a similar magazine which told about his 35 or so cats in his house in Cuba, rather than people? Somewhere I read that when you visited him, you immediately got a pair of boxing gloves which you had to use so that he could show his performance in boxing and too bad about your lack of it! His signature looks practiced, as if it must be such-and-such. The part of a word that goes below the line, as the “g” and “y” are just straight lines. The dot over the “i” is clearly up in the air and well toward the “-ay.” Perhaps the most telling aspect is not a straight line below the name, but through the name from the “E” to the “H.” I see extreme writing talent in this name, but a personality that could kill that talent. And it did.

Two of the easiest names to read are those of Pearl S. Buck and W. Somerset Maugham. Apparently their personal problems did not interfere with their writing. Maugham’s signature even climbs upward on the right, a good sign. I’ve read. But the writer that takes the prize for writing upward on the right is that of Guy de Maupassant, the father of the French short story.

There are too many signatures in this huge book—and I knew this before I started—but I must leave off with these few. Edgar Allan Poe is not in this collection. He was born in 1809, a different historical age when real short stories did not appear on the presses. Then he was finally recognized as one of the best and was allowed to adopt all those other writers. Yes, he is the father of the American short story. The book contains no Introduction or Preface, but I trust my memory is holding up well.  ♥

A LOOK AT MEMORY

Several months ago our Trivia leader here used some of

the questions (with answers) that I had made up for the game. Since the questions were not on little Trivia Pursuit cards, some asked where they came from. The leader said they came from me. I had not wanted that known. But at the end of the game, a clear voice came from the back of the room: These were awfully good questions. However, the leader told me privately she would not continue with my questions, for “they were too hard!” I knew they were not too hard, but perhaps such a comment had stemmed from jealousy. I bided my time.

When last week’s questions typified “What was the name of the dog that belonged to Ricky Willis’s cousin in Ohio?” I had had enough of this nonsense. I asked her to give my questions another try but not to tell who this time. Two days ago she did that. No one asked where they came from, though they could see the white pages, printer copy size. I played dumb and even answered a question wrong on purpose.

All the above was to prepare you for this most revealing aspect of the game. Several months ago one of the questions was this: In what city is the world’s only exact replica of the Parthenon [original in Athens, Greece]. At that time a lady guessed Athens, Georgia. When she heard the correct answer, she kept saying she thought it was Athens, Georgia. She’d always believed so. Well, this time around, when this question was asked, this same lady guessed Paris and London. Another person on her side then guessed New York. When my side got one chance to answer it, a lady in the back said, “Nashville, Tennessee.” Hooray! I don’t know if she remembered it from the earlier game or if she has “been there and done that.” Second time around, they liked the questions and want more of them next time. And no one seemed to have a thought about the answers from before or who created them.

These Trivia Nuts are all in my age group, a few younger and a few older. Advice won’t help. But the best thing for your memory, they say, is to choose your ancestors wisely. ♥

WHERE DID THEY ALL GO?

Today the gallery of some of my readers has disappeared. When the latest member joined that group, I promised him other readers could click on his picture and read about him and his new book. Alas! from that point on, this feature no longer worked. My computer tech says this is not the fault of my machine, but of whoever has the responsibility of putting the photos there in the beginning. Several readers have said they could never get their pictures there in the first place. Now I'm beginning to think this might be a vindictive action of someone(s) who hold the reins of this venture. There have been ads and other kinds of communication, inviting me to join face book, or whatever it is called, and however it is spelled. Since I have no audience with such "editors," let me spell it out here. I don't read anyone's face book; I once tried it and could hardly get rid of it. To me, and to others, "no way out" is criminal. I've read quite a few prominent men say, in a derogatory way, they don't do face book. The end result of such a "publication" is vanity, vanity, vanity, with pictures of the vain all over the place. These photos can go by e-mail, and not annoy those who are not interested. 

During the brief time I tried face book, I actually saw a photo I would call plagiarism in the writing world, but it was appearing to "copy" a picture of my daughter from a famous magazine, Glamour, I think it was. It was a shot of a girl bursting through the water at a swimming facility, her arms reaching for the sky and her face full of joy. Exactly the same pose, but from a distance. My daughter's was a close-up, full page; this copy was a tiny shot that perhaps on face book could be enlarged, I don't know. I didn't try.   

The size of font is also a hindrance. Anything that comes to me in size 12 looks as if it came from a stingy person. Yes, I know e-mail gets the prize for this. but no layperson has to adopt it. Don't say, "You can enlarge it," for so can you, the sender. If you want to be read, be kind to your readers. If this white print on the beautiful blue here, is too large for you, just back up an inch or two. 

So, I had the tech remove all the photos, since they are no longer valuable to you. And to Roger, I apologize, for misleading you. It was certainly born of my ignorance of the situation. 

A DAY OF WRITING

The wind stirs again today, starting just after sunrise. But the sun shines gloriously. All that makes a great time for writing. I am finishing the writing of another short story today, and to do that, so far all my meals have been eaten in my apartment. I do not anticipate even going downstairs for dinner tonight in order to complete this story and then take a rest. I waste much time waiting for the food to appear downstairs and the typical conversation is a bigger waste of time. 

A wee book from my shelves waits for me to pick it up again and finish that reading of 258 pages. It's called The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett. This is a true crime story containing the thief, an amateur detective and a world of literary obsession. Next it goes to the husband of our director here, he who loves books too, but I doubt he steals them. I've never met him. 

War and Peace moseys along. It wouldn't surprise me if I read 100 shorter books while I swim or sink in this Tolstoy masterpiece. But I'm hoping to read it all in time. It may take a lot of days of eating my meals "at home." It's more costly this way, of course, for I pay for meals downstairs, eaten or not eaten. All for the writing. 

HOW TO PICK YOUR CANDIDATE

It’s time for big speeches, hugs and kisses on stage, clapping hands when no one else does [Did you see that?], paying $500 or more for your banquet meal, hearing promises that are too good to be true, and the thrill of something new. Are you ready? First to consider is that so many people want the job of president of the USA. Do they all think they can clean up that mess in Washington? It’s never been this bad-off before. So, you should be sure to study everything about the candidates. Here are a few ideas for men and women, You decide which.

1-Ask yourself if the man is just out to get the top job, or is the best for the country his goal?

2-Learn now if he wears a toupee. Does he dye his hair? If it is all one color, it’s probably dyed.

3-Does she show off too much jewelry?

4-Does he smile too often, just to show his excellent and expensive dental work?

5-When she sits, does she display her thighs? Does she show cleavage or is she the modest type?

6-Is he a fast reader as JFK was? Does he read all the important books that are published today? AND the great ones of the past?

7-Are you sure there is no history of hanky-panky in his background?

8-When he talks, how does his mouth look, like a little round hole, or a wider gap, one that you hardly notice, for you are intent on what he says? (The little round hole interferes with oratory.)

9-Does he repeat himself too often?

10-Is she photogenic? Does she pose to look a certain way?