?`s and ANNEswers

Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

Hiroshima Day

Posted on August 6, 2006

Today is Hiroshima Day, the sixty-first anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb in the world’s history. The United States holds the dubious distinction of having been the country that dropped it. And since then politicians, political scientists, professors, and even poets have long debated the value of that event.

I’m not here to add another voice to the chorus; rather, I’m here to express concern about our country’s current arsenal of weaponry. Today seems an appropriate day to do that.

Currently the United States maintains ten thousand nuclear bombs; but, with advances in technology, each of these bombs is the equivalent of fifteen of the bombs that were dropped in Hiroshima and three days later on Nagasaki, Japan. This is not only more than we need; it is enough to demolish the planet, and it costs our government about $17 billion dollars a year.

Those weapons didn’t do a bit of good when terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center; and, given the direction that warfare is going, I’m not sure they can be useful in the future either. This is because we are entering an era of subversive aggression, where battles and counter-battles are not waged according to the standard rules of war. At the same time, I suspect that if we cut our arsenal in half we would still be suitably equipped in the right situation. And the money we would save could go toward education or health or even improving our internal transportation system, all of which are lacking.

Does it make sense to anyone to put more money into improving the quality of life in this country rather than gambling that our way of life will be subjected to bombs the size of those that rained on Hiroshima? I don’t have the answer, but I think we should be raising the question.

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Missing

Posted on August 5, 2006

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the day the young teenage girl was found. She’d been missing for over two years, although not many people noticed. It was a time of upheaval and families everywhere struggled.

When she was found, she seemed in fair health, considering she’d not been outside for the entire time and that her diet was restricted at best. Most likely, however, her immune system was compromised by lack of sunlight and good food. She had been living with seven others in several small rooms above an office building in Amsterdam, and whiled away the hours writing in a diary she’d received on her last birthday before she went missing.

Her discovery was not the stuff of a joyful reunion; in fact, her chances of survival actually depended on not being found. Had she managed to hide for another few months, her life would have been dramatically different. But someone learned of her whereabouts and reported it to the authorities who came and arrested all eight people. In the rush, nobody bothered to pick up the group’s few belongings, and the girl’s diary remained undiscovered.

It was August 4, 1944. Her name was Anne Frank.

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Greeting Cards

Posted on August 4, 2006

I normally purchase greeting cards at a charming little shop in Stevensville, because its cards are the best around. But that little shop went out of business a month or two ago, so I’ve had to make other arrangements. This morning I drove to Walgreen’s to purchase a variety of greeting cards to send during August. There were the usual events: three birthdays, a get-well, and a congratulations.

But what I found at Walgreen’s made me wonder if I’ll be making even more arrangements soon.

Walgreen’s used to have two full aisles dedicated to the greeting card in all its various versions. As card companies found more and more events to honor and also focused on attracting different ethnic groups, the racks bulged. The choices multiplied. There was a card for everything and everyone.

What I found today, however, was an implosion going on. The two full aisles with their teeming racks had been cut to one aisle — a short one at that — and the number of cards had markedly declined. It took effort to find something suitable for my needs. Besides that, the cards themselves were expensive, although none was particularly elaborate.

Maybe email and the Internet have impacted card companies. Snail mail certainly seems less important these days, what with the cost of a first class stamp and as people keep in touch through instant messaging and/or text messaging. In addition, you can send online greetings that pop up on the recipient’s screen, bouncing and jiggling. Snail mail can’t compete with that. Add in the price of gas to visit a card shop, and I’m thinking people just stay home and use their computers or phones to offer good wishes.

I’d wondered why the Stevensville card shop has closed its doors, but maybe not enough people care enough anymore to send the very best.

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Live till I Die

Posted on August 2, 2006

Yesterday’s appointment with my doctor made both of us happy. My blood pressure is great, my cholesterol is great, my liver is great. While I was surprised at all this, having gone to the appointment with low expectations, my doctor was most complimentary on the changes I’ve made recently in my lifestyle and their accompanying results.

“You’re fit to live to good long time,” Dr. S. said, as if handing me carte blanche for the future. “You’ve done really well. Keep it up.”

“But I don’t want to live a good long time,” I countered.

“How old do you want to live to be?” he asked without ever revealing whether my attitude was strange or not. Most physicians see their role as extending life; and I wondered if meeting someone who doesn’t necessarily agree with that view could be jolting.

“Between seventy and seventy-five,” I answered, fully aware that life expectancies are climbing beyond that at a steady pace. In fact, as people live into their late eighties and early nineties, we’ve divided old age into categories: the young old, the old, and the elderly.

If I had my druthers, I’d die as a young old, assuming the boundaries for that category are between seventy and seventy-five. I’ve come late to the benefits of regular exercise; but I know that, even if I work out religiously from today forward, I will never feel as good as I do now. Regardless of age, one’s physical abilities decline even under the best of circumstances.

It isn’t just the physical aspect, however; the mental, the social, and the relevant are all important too. Mentally, my mind is still pretty sharp, but the things it learned in school are clearly outdated. Nobody does multiplication tables, for instance, when they are allowed to use calculators; I find this frustrating at the store when the cashier can’t compute the change from a dollar when the item costs fifty-six cents. So it’s not that I’m falling behind mentally in a brain power sort of way; rather it’s the mental schooling that I had is no longer particularly useful.

My social life has the potential of being the same way, although so far it’s holding on. But I have no siblings, so I have no strong framework for memories about my childhood or communal recollections of various family events. Couple this with the ever increasing effort it takes to stay relevant in today’s world when you come from a world that existed half a century ago, and it’s a real struggle to communicate with those younger. The burden falls on the older person too, as younger people are not particular interested in “When I was your age” observations.

This doesn’t mean I’m ready to sit in a rocker somewhere and twiddle my thumbs, what it does mean is that I’m ready to make the rest of my life be as productive and pleasurable as possible while understanding that I and the rest of my generation are moving, for the most part, from center stage to bit players. Seventy years or so seems like a great run to me.

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Junk Email

Posted on August 1, 2006

I have a new email program — new to me, at least — that filters what it believes is junk. The so-called junk is sent to a file, which I can review later, after I’ve read and responded to my legitimate emails.

The trouble is Junk Email isn’t as smart as it thinks. Recently I received some eagerly awaited technical documents from a patent attorney, but Junk Email thought they were spam. On another occasion, Junk Email decided that emails from some employees who work for the same company I do didn’t pass muster.

So, while I appreciate the idea of separating the wheat from the chaff, I cannot depend one hundred percent on Junk Email making the right decision one hundred percent of the time. Which means that I still need to scan the emails’ senders’ names before hitting the ever powerful “Delete for all time” button. I’m not sure what I’ve accomplished, other than enable my necessary email to go to the head of the line.

It’s true that Junk Email captures such brazen solicitations as are sent by Swiss quality watch knock-offs, real estate agents offering financial nirvana, the best in mortgage rates, and — let us not forget — the cheapest Viagra, Ambien, Valium, and Cialis. I’ve also been offered a tip or two on a promising penny stock and urged to verify my bank account numbers . . . at banks where I don’t even have accounts.

So maybe the real purpose of Junk Email is not to decide what is or isn’t junk; rather it’s to raise a flag, so that the recipient takes special note of these emails and makes sure not to respond in a way that enables some shyster to tap into my credit card information or my bank accounts or even my penchant for jewelry. My only suggestion is that the name of the function be Questionable Email instead of Junk.

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WD-40

Posted on July 31, 2006

Every now and then I get an email from a faithful reader with a suggestion for a blog topic. WD-40 is an example. Ken W. alerted me to the fact that this famous degreaser/oiler/cleanser/sparkler turned fifty this year; and, while I hadn’t heard any hoopla for the occasion in the Big Press, I decided it was worth a mention in my little online publication.

WD-40 began life as an experiment to find a rust preventative solvent and degreaser for missile parts. In other words, the product needed to protect an item from the effects of water. Three technicians in San Diego, California, worked to find an appropriate formula and were successful on the fortieth formulation, which was called Water Displacement 40; hence, the commercial name.

WD-40 had a myriad of undiscovered uses beyond the protection of missile parts; and, as time passed, these uses came to light and led to the product being sold commercially. Currently about 2.5 million gallons of the secret formula are manufactured each year.

What can WD-40 do? Well, in the hope of enlightening readers, here are just a dozen uses for the slimy film that is sprayed from a yellow and blue can.

1. Cleans guitar strings.

2. Removes lipstick stains.

3. Prevents flies from landing on cows.

4. Eliminates noises in rocking chairs, door hinges, and electric fans.

5. Keeps pigeons off balconies.

6. Stops rust from forming on saws and saw blades.

7. Removes the leftover sticky from duct tape.

8. Supposedly attracts fish without expensive lures.

9. Removes tomato stains.

10. Untangles jewelry chains.

11. Prevents water spots on glass shower doors.

12. And, finally, according to the State of New York, WD-40 is used to protect the Statue of Liberty from the elements.

If it’s good enough for the Statue of Liberty, then maybe the rest of us should spray some on ourselves when winter sets in

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Frogs’ Legs

Posted on July 30, 2006

Earl and I just returned from an excursion to Hammond, Indiana, where we had Sunday dinner at Phil Schmidt and Son. I realize it’s a long way from St. Joseph to go for a meal, but we happened to be in the neighborhood for another reason and decided to revisit the restaurant that made a name for itself with its recipe for frogs’ legs.

We stop in at Phil Schmidt’s about once every five years, and the place hasn’t changed at all since our first visit in the early nineties. It’s still in the iffy part of Hammond, although a gigantic casino acts like a stage backdrop these days. It still has a showcase of frog paraphernalia just inside the front door; and the dйcor is still from the fifties, even though our hostess said there had been some repainting and reupholstering.

But the menu was the same. The three most important entrees are frog legs, perch, and chicken; and you can order a combination of any two for dinner. Any two also means a double portion of one item instead of the variety approach.

I have always ordered frog legs in some fashion every time I go there, because that’s what Phil is known for. However, unlike McDonald’s, who used to advertise how many burgers it had sold, Phil Schmidt does not divulge how many frogs have given up their legs for his fifteen minutes of fame. Is it a million frogs, which would equate to four million legs? Or ten million frogs? And where do all those frogs come from in the first place?

This time I tried the sautйed frog legs instead the deep fried. They were lightly floured and heavily sautйed, so I’m not sure I gained anything positive in the calorie count. They were more difficult to eat too because the frog meat wasn’t crispy enough to come of the bone when I bit into it. They were also quite small, which made me wonder if these were baby frogs — aren’t they called tadpoles? I am not a heartless person, so I had to quell my feelings of guilt and think of something cheerier as I chewed. The frogs in the Budweiser commercials came to mind; they certainly have a happier existence than the ones on my plate, even if they must attend Alcoholic Frogs Anonymous meetings.

For the most part, Earl and I enjoyed our Memory Lane meal and are set for another five years before our next visit to Phil Schmidt and Son. In the meantime, maybe someone will organize a nonprofit titled Free Frogs for a Better Planet. Even though I enjoyed my meal, I’d probably join up.

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Hot or Cold?

Posted on July 29, 2006

There are two types of people in our country. And, no, they aren’t the Republicans and the Democrats or the red and blue states or even Northerners and Southerners. All those designations are potentially far too political; besides they don’t really cut to the heart of the matter.

Those who prefer hot weather and those who prefer cold weather are the two types I’m referring to. And while you might not get a straight answer if you asked someone about his or her politics, you definitely get the truth when you ask, “Do you like it hot or cold?”

There are reasons for choosing either side; I personally prefer cold weather and am concerned as I sit in my Michigan home enduring a summer heat wave that global warming is impacting cold weather dramatically. When was the last time the entire continental United States experienced a cold wave as extensive as the recent heat wave where the ONLY state in the lower forty-eight that the daytime temperature didn’t soar above ninety degrees was North Dakota? I don’t believe it’s ever happened before. Even Winnipeg, Ontario, Canada reported a scorching ninety-three degrees just yesterday.

I like cold weather because you can always wear enough clothing to be comfortable, even if you look like a polar bear in the process. You can wear a wooly cap, which helps retain your body’s heat; you can layer from the long underwear out. Of course you can remove your clothing in a heat wave, but there are certain restrictions that accompany shimmying out of everything. The local police don’t take kindly to nudists shopping in the mall, for instance.

But it isn’t only a matter of more or less clothing; I simply feel better in winter because the humidity is lower, the air is crisper, the bugs have disappeared, and so has the pollen. And while I love my flowers and my gardens, I’m always glad to rake the last fallen leaf and call the season quits. I’m also one of those crazy people who actually enjoys shoveling snow.

I doubt anybody truly relishes the extremes of either hot or cold — those one hundred degree days or those with the wind chill in double digits below zero — but I am equally certain that every single person has an answer to the question: Hot or Cold?

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Conestoga Neon

Posted on July 27, 2006

For the past few weeks the families who live on my road probably felt like pioneers when they ventured out in their automobiles. I know I did, and it was because the only road leading to where we live was torn up and removed, leaving only uneven paths of gravel and dirt behind.

Granted, pioneers didn’t drive cars, nor were they the recipients of a shiny black new road to replace the old one. But for those couple weeks when the road was gone, it was a challenge tantamount to crossing the plains years ago. My little Neon struggled at times to keep itself out of ruts, especially when we had a couple torrential rains. By the time I pulled into my garage, it looked as if I’d been in a mud wrestling contest.

When the weather was hot and dry, my car created a cloud of dust, even if I drove at a speed I could probably walk. From the door handles down, a film of earthen-colored dirt covered everything: the bumpers, lights, wheel rims, tires, and my little accessory that helps deer avoid a head-on collision.

I imagine the family Conestoga Wagon started its trip West with clean wheels, clean sides, and clean interiors. And I imagine the terrain those people crossed was more primitive than our temporary dirt road. Nevertheless, I felt a kinship to those people in my Conestoga Neon. The road is back, but my door locks are still sticky, the exterior needs a good wash, and the inside has a souvenir film of dust. I’d admonish anybody who tried to lean against the hood, just as I suppose more than one pioneer mom was heard to say, “Josiah, don’t lean against the wagon; you have to wear those clothes to Kansas.”

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Equipment Classes

Posted on July 26, 2006

I usually shun classes that meet at the same time every week and require a lot of equipment, even when the equipment is provided. It’s too regimented for me. But this afternoon I went to a step class at the local health club at the urging of an acquaintance who attends regularly. She claimed it was a great workout.

I can’t argue with that. If I hadn’t already been working out for the past nine months, I would have collapsed into a heap resembling a pile of limp clothes waiting for the washing machine. But I’m proud to report I managed to make it through the entire class on my feet.

Did I like it? Not really. By my standards, there was a lot of equipment to contend with; there were a variety of moves that the other participants seemed to know already; there was blaring music that sometimes drowned out the instructor’s directions. And there were maybe one hundred crunches as the grand finale to the hour.

I ran to the water fountain a couple times for breathers and then skidded back to my place behind my step, which is a little raised platform that one uses in the various moves. It’s like doing regular aerobics, except that the moves are done partly on the floor and then partly by hopping up and down from the step. I was just getting the hang of it, when the instructor announced that we were to switch from our step to another piece of equipment called a BOSU, which is like half of a large, squishy beach ball that makes the stepping part more difficult. After that we used weights and then came individual mat work and the crunching routine.

Judging from the prevalence of equipment oriented classes, participants must like all that stuff. I went to a yoga class once that looked as if each person had brought along everything from his or her front hall closet. Every one had a folding chair, blocks, blankets, and belts. I watched a swimming for seniors class where you’d have thought they’d all reverted to their youth, what with beach balls and flotation devices and noodles within arm’s reach. (If you don’t know what a noodle is, believe me it isn’t a large piece of pasta even though it looks similar.) And I’ve observed weight lifters who carry an entire bag of gloves and wraps and belts for their routines.

Maybe I’m not as engaged in fitness as others, but I’m attracted most to those activities that don’t require a lot of gear or setting up. Navigating the equipment distracts me from the actual purpose I’m there, which is for a cardio workout. And, if you need to organize your equipment, then you can’t work out on the spur of the moment. What works best for me is a good pair of shoes and an open road (or I’ll grant a treadmill when the weather isn’t cooperative), and I have no trouble getting my BOSU in gear.

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