AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN McCAIN

Senator McCain, thank you for helping defeat this latest attempt to modify Obamacare.  I believe that modification is in order and could be very beneficial, but to work it will have to be a product of mature, bipartisan deliberation, and not some frantic push to satisfy a campaign pledge.  Just as you have said.

Senator, I regard you as the best thing that has happened to the Senate in my lifetime.   I supported you for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, and again for President in 2008.  You lost both times, of course.  However, I firmly believe that, had you won, the world would have been and would continue to be, a better place.  Possibly much better.

Glioblastoma is a terrible enemy.  However, you survived the Hanoi Hilton on shear guts.  Maybe, with the help of our best oncologists, a little luck, and those same guts you can beat it.  I hope so.  And, I can scarcely imagine, there can be any truly thoughtful Americans who would disagree.  Senator, we need someone of your caliber to lead the fight for rational, bipartisan, centrist policies.  God knows, we do.

Please get well.

ENERGOPHAGI

You know what a sarcophagus is, right?  That’s what the Ancients – and modern archaeologists – call a stone coffin.  Anthropologists like them, too, as attested to by the Ogden Nash poem:  “Among the anthropophagi, one’s friends are one’s sarcophagi.”  (I don’t know why I like that so much; I’ve kept it stored in my head for at least 60 years!)

Why did they call it that?  Well, because whenever they opened a sarcophagus they found a skeleton: skin and bones, but never any flesh.  They thought (really?  Can they have been that dumb?) that the stone coffin had somehow eaten the flesh, hence “sarco” (flesh in Greek), and “phagus” (eating), yielding sarcophagus.   See what interesting stuff you learn from my blog!

Well, I have come to realize that my favorite chairs all are energophagi, from energos (Greek for energy) and, of course, phagus, as before.  That is because whenever I sit down in them I go almost immediately to sleep.  Sitting in those chairs I can’t even make it all the way through the Bellingham Herald without a nap!  More and more I find that I can do serious reading only while sitting bolt upright before a desktop computer, on a hard wooden chair.

Just a gentle warning, kiddo.  You’ll get here someday.

Obliteride North? Why not?

Young men having fun

Fred Hutch stages a yearly fund-raising bike event they call Obliteride.  In view of the fact that Bellingham is aswarm with bicycles day and night, I would like to suggest that some young, public-spirited Bellinghamite organize an Obliteride North.  Watch the link below to develop enthusiasm, then Google Obliteride  to find out how it is done.  Hell, you could even make a series of races out of it.  I’d do it myself, but I am too old, too fat, and lately somewhat bike-averse.  However, if there is a race, I promise to toast the winner with a glass of my favorite Icelandic hootch!

http://www.king5.com/entertainment/television/programs/new-day-northwest/obliteride-funds-lifesaving-cancer-research-in-fun-filled-bike-riding-weekend-/463359472

Well, okay. I'm an idiot

Okay, let’s agree on that this discussion is to be conducted in light of the following non-negotiable premises.

1)      This is MY life.

2)      I am old enough to make up my own mind.

3)      I am not senile.

4)      All of you want the best for me, but only I can decide what that is!

I am going to stay in this house, and sell #33 Parkway Village.  I will spend whatever it takes to make this feasible.  I will park my car in the driveway and use the front door exclusively, which will chop nine steps off my to-ing and fro-ing.  I will hire somebody to shop for me, garden for me, and do anything else I might want but have too little energy to pursue on my own.  I will subscribe to one of those alert services in case I fall, etc.  If a problem arises I will smoother it in money.  When #3 (above) becomes no longer true I will go directly to assisted living – or, with luck – Bayview  Cemetery.  In the meantime I am going to stay right here, where I feel comfortable.  So there!

I find that this became less of a discussion and more of an announcement.  So be it.

Oh, by the way – this “downsizing” business ….  #33 is nearly as big as the living part of 1811, and has only two fewer steps.

And, besides….  My cat is at home here.

So, in conclusion I want to thank you all for your concerns, and acknowledge that you think I’m an idiot.  But I’m not.

Dad/Myrl