P.S. A Column On Things

Start of Dec. 2 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Creativity

 Oops! Accidental rerun from Nov 15

Making The Top Five

I recently pulled a rare double play on the Top 5 list, admittedly a double-length one. The topic two days in a row was Signs Your Presidential Campaign Is Cooked. My two winners:

Oct. 30 Top 5: Your poll numbers took a nosedive when your baseball-hating VP came out against both Mom and apple pie

Oct. 31 Top 5: The ghost of Francis Scott Key demands you stop playing the Star Spangled Banner at rallies.

More Life Lessons For 2024

I am simply going to extend 72 Life Lessons For My 72^nd Birthday with new lessons as I go along. First, there is the Grams section, from my paternal grandmother.

If wishes were horses beggars would ride.
We get too soon old, und too late schmart
Sorry doesn’t make the grass grow

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And from a psychotherapist: Hatred is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies.

Meme O’ The Week: Halloween, Belated

 

Two from LinkedIn

Thank you Nick Chandler-Ciaccio

 

And Steven Vaughn-Williams

What, you said you wanted a transformer costume for Halloween.

This and That

Reading: This Modern World ($2, $5, $10/month).
As Homer Simpson says, it’s funny because it’s true. Sparky’s List delivers each column via email. Pay artist Tom Tomorrow $2, $5, or $10 a month on Patreon.
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Reading: Santa Cruz Comic News ($38.00/year)
Monthly issues of terrific editorial cartoons. A great tip sheet for editorial cartoonists to follow. Get the dead-tree version to support this worthwhile venture.
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Reading: Funny Times ($38.00 10 issues)
I have been reading this work of love for decades. Cartoons of all kinds and narrative humor. Jon Winokur’s regular Curmudgeon columns appear only in the paper edition.

End of December 2 Column (No. 958)

Start of Nov. 25 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998

Relatively Big News: My Song Is Covered

In the music biz, when someone else sings one of your songs, it is called a cover. An anonymous folksinger has decided to cover You’re The Only Woman Man Enough (To Bask In My Love). He does a really swell job; worth a listen.

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

For 26 years, I have been running variations of this Thanksgiving column. During the years when I had stopped posting regular blog entries, I started writing regular entries in a gratitude journal, which got me to thinking of the difference between thankful and grateful. Google isn't much help:

Grateful: feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful.
Thankful: pleased and relieved, grateful

So, basically, it treats the words as synonymous. I do still give thanks for my health and my family. I am also grateful to have them in my life. I am grateful to be of use, to my family and others. [Turns out service is a Love Language] I am grateful for the love I get and the loving kindness I am now obliged to give everyone, since my heart Chakra opened.

If you feel life has been dealing to you from the bottom of the deck, I recommend the practice of keeping a gratitude journal. Write down one or two things each day for which you are grateful. Big or small, serious or silly. It can be an interesting and rewarding activity.

Me? I’m grateful for everything. Family, career, health, another beautiful day, and one more chance to set foot on this good green Earth. Happy Thanksgiving!

Link To My Poem: Pandemic Thanksgiving

Things I Am Grateful For

(IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER)

• Children
• Consciousness
• Family
• Friends
• Grandchildren
• Intelligence
• Life
• Lovers
• Opportunity I had to be something else wonderful
• Opportunity to almost be what I wanted to be when I grew up
• Parents
• Teachers And Mentors
• Time I had as a teacher
• Vicki’s Parents

Things no one will ever do again 3: Wander the neighborhood

My best friend in grade school, Tom Kervin, lived a block over from me in our working class neighborhood, an area of perfectly flat 50X100 lots. Easy to bicycle. Easy to Trick or Treat. Easy to deliver newspapers.

Tom’s parents were from the Midwest, and they didn’t lock the door to their house. The most serious problem they ever suffered from that in the 60’s was moochers showing up at dinner time for some of Tom’s mother’s amazing cooking. Even I showed up now and then, for a second dinner (I also showed up for a second breakfast at Lavada Nudo’s house, but I think I’ve already told that story).

We wandered the neighborhood, played baseball on the street, spent time in each other’s backyards, garages and basements. Many of the people in the neighborhood had been there since the 40’s, when my dad grew up in the house next door. My dad and I both created newspapers called the Beech Street Bugle. We sold subscriptions (25 cents) to many of the same people.

The point of all this? We were free-range children, a group now so rare that they are identified that way, as a minority. Today’s frightened parents in a scary world will insure that almost no one will wander the neighborhood again with unlocked doors, street baseball, and all-day games of Risk.

This and That

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If you get around much, you’ve seen some content creator ask you to subscribe to them on Patreon. Real money. If you are a creator, sign up. If you Patreon, sign up. I follow Tom Rush.
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Reading: Gocomics ($14.99 a year or free)
I pay the premium to get reminders by mail. I love Tom the Dancing Bug, Lay Lines, and Over The Hedge, not available in my local paper. If you’re into Zombies, see Popeye or Mutt and Jeff.

End of November 25 Column (No. 957)

Start of Nov. 18 Column. More or Less Continuous News Service since 1998