Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight
Just a ship out on the ocean,
Just a speck against the sky,
Amelia Earhart flying that sad day;
With her partner, Captain Noonan,
On the second of July,
Her plane fell in the ocean far away.
Half an hour later, her SOS was heard,
Her signal weak, but still her voice was brave;
In shark-infested waters
Her plane went down that night
In the blue Pacific
To a watery grave.
Now you have heard my story
Of this awful tragedy;
We all pray she’ll fly home safe again.
In years to come, though others
Blaze a trail across the sky,
We’ll ne’er forget Amelia and her plane.
There’s a beautiful, beautiful field
Far away in a land that is fair;
Happy landings to you, Amelia Earhart,
Farewell, first lady of the air.
Amelia Ellison’s Last Flight?
Well, after a couple of rude postponements, Siobhan finally got in the air last Saturday morning, a brilliantly sunny and warm sequel to several unFloridalike days of grumpy weather. She went up with Captain Alejandro in his little Cessna and they cavorted around the area, taking off and landing, taking off and landing in exotic locales like Williston and Dunnellon, with barely a snafu to be detected. After all these years of abstinence, Siobhan felt rusty but still remembered the basics: (1) Don’t crash, (2) Don’t crash, (3) Don’t crash. Well, I guess those would be MY basics. Anyway, Siobhan got to pilot the plane all over the place. Up and down. Frontwards and backwards. Just everywhere. A good time was had by all, especially Alejandro, who got a nice stipend and also his plane back in one piece. Siobhan said she enjoyed her trip but things were not the same as in the Good Old Days of Flying, over 25 years ago when every day was a new and bristling adventure, when her senses were keyed to her own plane and what it could do, when she was sharp from the constant flying.
“I was a little teary-eyed going back to the car,” she said, “because I realized it was a time in my life that was gone, that flying could never be the same, that I have different priorities now, different responsibilities. But that’s life.”
We know just how you feel, Siobhan. I felt the same way when I realized I would have to give up being the Lone Ranger.
It Almost Never Happens With “The Funky Cold Medina”
Your story about the song You Are My Sunshine and your mother is pretty amazing because I sang that same song with MY mother this year before she passed away and she could remember the lyrics, too….even with dementia. I sang about every song I could think of for her and she always smiled and tried to sing along but she really only remembered You Are My Sunshine, although I did get a few tears with Surfer Girl by the Beach Boys….which made me realize that even through the fog she remembered that song and the days she took us surfing back before we could drive.
Deb Peterson in Oregon
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. Again.
Well, those pesky Mayans have conjured up a firestorm. Tomorrow, the Mayan calendar runs out and the world comes to an immediate end, speaketh the doomsayers. Of course, our calendar comes to an end pretty soon, too, but we just make up another one, it’s not very hard. Maybe the Mayans did that as well and it just got lost somewhere on its way back from the printer. All I know is that we have been here and heard all this before and great swarms of people have gone off and sold all their earthlies and emigrated to Zambizi, where they are supposed to be picked up by a giant spaceship which will transport them to an indescribable eden somewhere on the other side of the universe while the rest of us poor unbelieving fools go down in flames. I have a question about this: why would the spaceship people bother? I mean, have you actually SEEN these characters who are waiting to make the trip? They are certainly not the type of people I would be imposing on MY planet. And what are they going to do when they get there? They’ve got no stuff, nothing to contribute beyond their little brains, which are obviously vastly inferior to those of their new pals. Maybe the new planet will not have any interstate overpasses to sleep under. Maybe there will be no money to bum and even if there IS, maybe there will be no liquor stores to spend it in. It could be a very huge dilemma. What if you get there and they put you in a ZOO? Oh oh. What if you get there and they make you cook fries in McDonald’s for the rest of your life? Even worse. I don’t think I’M going.
If the world doesn’t come to an end, you’ve got a big problem. You haven’t bought any Christmas presents. You can’t accept a gift from someone and say, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t get you one because I thought the world was coming to an end.” Yeah, right, cheapskate! And people will look at you funny on the street—“there goes the guy who thought the space aliens were coming to save him, haw haw!” Nobody would hire you. You’d end up cooking fries in McDonald’s for the rest of your life. Oh well, we’ll find out about all this soon enough. The New Believers are down in Peru, waiting for the ship as we speak.
On the off chance that they’re right, there will be no column next week.
Bill’s Bad Dreams
When you get old, shit happens to you. I mean, all the time! Big John, one of my friends at the gym, said “When I hit 80, it was like somebody hit me in the head with a hammer.” We know what you mean, John, and we’re not even close to 80. When you’re young, nothing EVER happens to you. You can chain-smoke Camels, drink yourself unconscious and swallow tons of consciousness-expanding drugs and you’re fine. Okay, after a while stuff happens to you but it takes years. But just try getting old and see what happens. You can be the cleanest-living, healthiest-eating, nondrinking exerciser around but when you get old, watch out! One day—right out of nowhere—you’ll wake up and find little black things floating around in your eyes. “Where the hell did THAT stuff come from,” you’ll want to know. And strange things start showing up on your skin, big discolored dry patches, some as big as Iceland—where did they come from? Worse yet, you could get awful things like kidney stones—why does that happen? And nobody ever finds out they have a gall bladder for a good reason. You have to be tough to be old. No matter what you do, sooner or later everything starts falling apart and it seems like your whole life is spent on maintenance activities. If you’re not at the doctor or the dentist or the physical rehab office, you’re down at the health food store buying stuff to keep you away from the doctor or the dentist or the physical rehab office. Not to mention the gym, our leading maintenance depot. The gym is good, though. The gym is where you find out about all the terrible physical reversals other people are having so you are better prepared when they happen to you, which they invariably will. Gym people will tell you their secrets for overcoming rafts of injuries, diseases or other annoyances. This information, by itself, is worth the price of admission. Not that I need any of this help. I’ve got Siobhan, who knows everything medical you could ever want to know. And, if she doesn’t, she’ll make it up.
“Siobhan, I’ve got this weird gurgling in my stomache. It’s kind of like a churning noise. It’s even there at night. What’s going on?”
“Well, you’ve got borborygmi. It comes from food being pushed against your intestinal wall.”
“Well, I think food has probably been pushed against my intestinal wall before and it never made all this racket. Why is it doing it now?”
“When you have intestinal changes, it’s a good idea to see a doctor.”
Not the answer I wanted, but I made an appointment and went. The doctor set up a procedure where a tube would be inserted into my throat and down into my stomach to see what hellions were afoot in that murky neighborhood. He also said I should have a colonoscopy since I have never had one in all my 72 years. The two main reasons for borborygmi, he said, were food in the intestines pushing against a polyp or—the happier alternative—bacterial overgrowth in the small bowel. We’re all cheering for the latter, which is dispatched with the antibiotics I am now taking. I am mulling over the colonoscopic alternative.
One of the problems with these health issues is you think about them too much. Even in your sleep, apparently. The other night, I had a dream in which I visited this very same doctor and, after having this ugly colonoscopy, was advised I had end-stage colon cancer. Information like this can sometimes put a damper on your day, but I am heartened by the fact that I have none of the symptoms of this unpleasant alternative. Of course, as the doctor is happy to advise you, sometimes there are no symptoms. I went back on the internet and read a little more about borborygmi. One of the things I like about the internet is that if you find some information you don’t especially care for you can keep looking until you run across something you like much better. I found a website which said that borborygmi might arise for completely harmless reasons. The site told of a young teenager with a very bad case of the growls which would embarrassingly erupt during high school classes. Doctors couldn’t solve the problem, no treatment was effective. Until, one day, some layman suggested taking one teaspoon of olive oil at breakfast each morning. She did it and the problem disappeared immediately.
This morning, at breakfast, I got out my little spoon and glugged down some olive oil. So far, all is quiet, the cacophony seems held at bay. I don’t mind telling you I am extremely partial to this solution. It beats hell out of a colonoscopy and is miles better than end-stage colon cancer. And yes, I know what you’re going to tell me….
That’s all, folks. And, if the Mayan calendar people are right, it might REALLY be all….
Just a ship out on the ocean,
Just a speck against the sky,
Amelia Earhart flying that sad day;
With her partner, Captain Noonan,
On the second of July,
Her plane fell in the ocean far away.
Half an hour later, her SOS was heard,
Her signal weak, but still her voice was brave;
In shark-infested waters
Her plane went down that night
In the blue Pacific
To a watery grave.
Now you have heard my story
Of this awful tragedy;
We all pray she’ll fly home safe again.
In years to come, though others
Blaze a trail across the sky,
We’ll ne’er forget Amelia and her plane.
There’s a beautiful, beautiful field
Far away in a land that is fair;
Happy landings to you, Amelia Earhart,
Farewell, first lady of the air.
Amelia Ellison’s Last Flight?
Well, after a couple of rude postponements, Siobhan finally got in the air last Saturday morning, a brilliantly sunny and warm sequel to several unFloridalike days of grumpy weather. She went up with Captain Alejandro in his little Cessna and they cavorted around the area, taking off and landing, taking off and landing in exotic locales like Williston and Dunnellon, with barely a snafu to be detected. After all these years of abstinence, Siobhan felt rusty but still remembered the basics: (1) Don’t crash, (2) Don’t crash, (3) Don’t crash. Well, I guess those would be MY basics. Anyway, Siobhan got to pilot the plane all over the place. Up and down. Frontwards and backwards. Just everywhere. A good time was had by all, especially Alejandro, who got a nice stipend and also his plane back in one piece. Siobhan said she enjoyed her trip but things were not the same as in the Good Old Days of Flying, over 25 years ago when every day was a new and bristling adventure, when her senses were keyed to her own plane and what it could do, when she was sharp from the constant flying.
“I was a little teary-eyed going back to the car,” she said, “because I realized it was a time in my life that was gone, that flying could never be the same, that I have different priorities now, different responsibilities. But that’s life.”
We know just how you feel, Siobhan. I felt the same way when I realized I would have to give up being the Lone Ranger.
It Almost Never Happens With “The Funky Cold Medina”
Your story about the song You Are My Sunshine and your mother is pretty amazing because I sang that same song with MY mother this year before she passed away and she could remember the lyrics, too….even with dementia. I sang about every song I could think of for her and she always smiled and tried to sing along but she really only remembered You Are My Sunshine, although I did get a few tears with Surfer Girl by the Beach Boys….which made me realize that even through the fog she remembered that song and the days she took us surfing back before we could drive.
Deb Peterson in Oregon
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It. Again.
Well, those pesky Mayans have conjured up a firestorm. Tomorrow, the Mayan calendar runs out and the world comes to an immediate end, speaketh the doomsayers. Of course, our calendar comes to an end pretty soon, too, but we just make up another one, it’s not very hard. Maybe the Mayans did that as well and it just got lost somewhere on its way back from the printer. All I know is that we have been here and heard all this before and great swarms of people have gone off and sold all their earthlies and emigrated to Zambizi, where they are supposed to be picked up by a giant spaceship which will transport them to an indescribable eden somewhere on the other side of the universe while the rest of us poor unbelieving fools go down in flames. I have a question about this: why would the spaceship people bother? I mean, have you actually SEEN these characters who are waiting to make the trip? They are certainly not the type of people I would be imposing on MY planet. And what are they going to do when they get there? They’ve got no stuff, nothing to contribute beyond their little brains, which are obviously vastly inferior to those of their new pals. Maybe the new planet will not have any interstate overpasses to sleep under. Maybe there will be no money to bum and even if there IS, maybe there will be no liquor stores to spend it in. It could be a very huge dilemma. What if you get there and they put you in a ZOO? Oh oh. What if you get there and they make you cook fries in McDonald’s for the rest of your life? Even worse. I don’t think I’M going.
If the world doesn’t come to an end, you’ve got a big problem. You haven’t bought any Christmas presents. You can’t accept a gift from someone and say, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t get you one because I thought the world was coming to an end.” Yeah, right, cheapskate! And people will look at you funny on the street—“there goes the guy who thought the space aliens were coming to save him, haw haw!” Nobody would hire you. You’d end up cooking fries in McDonald’s for the rest of your life. Oh well, we’ll find out about all this soon enough. The New Believers are down in Peru, waiting for the ship as we speak.
On the off chance that they’re right, there will be no column next week.
Bill’s Bad Dreams
When you get old, shit happens to you. I mean, all the time! Big John, one of my friends at the gym, said “When I hit 80, it was like somebody hit me in the head with a hammer.” We know what you mean, John, and we’re not even close to 80. When you’re young, nothing EVER happens to you. You can chain-smoke Camels, drink yourself unconscious and swallow tons of consciousness-expanding drugs and you’re fine. Okay, after a while stuff happens to you but it takes years. But just try getting old and see what happens. You can be the cleanest-living, healthiest-eating, nondrinking exerciser around but when you get old, watch out! One day—right out of nowhere—you’ll wake up and find little black things floating around in your eyes. “Where the hell did THAT stuff come from,” you’ll want to know. And strange things start showing up on your skin, big discolored dry patches, some as big as Iceland—where did they come from? Worse yet, you could get awful things like kidney stones—why does that happen? And nobody ever finds out they have a gall bladder for a good reason. You have to be tough to be old. No matter what you do, sooner or later everything starts falling apart and it seems like your whole life is spent on maintenance activities. If you’re not at the doctor or the dentist or the physical rehab office, you’re down at the health food store buying stuff to keep you away from the doctor or the dentist or the physical rehab office. Not to mention the gym, our leading maintenance depot. The gym is good, though. The gym is where you find out about all the terrible physical reversals other people are having so you are better prepared when they happen to you, which they invariably will. Gym people will tell you their secrets for overcoming rafts of injuries, diseases or other annoyances. This information, by itself, is worth the price of admission. Not that I need any of this help. I’ve got Siobhan, who knows everything medical you could ever want to know. And, if she doesn’t, she’ll make it up.
“Siobhan, I’ve got this weird gurgling in my stomache. It’s kind of like a churning noise. It’s even there at night. What’s going on?”
“Well, you’ve got borborygmi. It comes from food being pushed against your intestinal wall.”
“Well, I think food has probably been pushed against my intestinal wall before and it never made all this racket. Why is it doing it now?”
“When you have intestinal changes, it’s a good idea to see a doctor.”
Not the answer I wanted, but I made an appointment and went. The doctor set up a procedure where a tube would be inserted into my throat and down into my stomach to see what hellions were afoot in that murky neighborhood. He also said I should have a colonoscopy since I have never had one in all my 72 years. The two main reasons for borborygmi, he said, were food in the intestines pushing against a polyp or—the happier alternative—bacterial overgrowth in the small bowel. We’re all cheering for the latter, which is dispatched with the antibiotics I am now taking. I am mulling over the colonoscopic alternative.
One of the problems with these health issues is you think about them too much. Even in your sleep, apparently. The other night, I had a dream in which I visited this very same doctor and, after having this ugly colonoscopy, was advised I had end-stage colon cancer. Information like this can sometimes put a damper on your day, but I am heartened by the fact that I have none of the symptoms of this unpleasant alternative. Of course, as the doctor is happy to advise you, sometimes there are no symptoms. I went back on the internet and read a little more about borborygmi. One of the things I like about the internet is that if you find some information you don’t especially care for you can keep looking until you run across something you like much better. I found a website which said that borborygmi might arise for completely harmless reasons. The site told of a young teenager with a very bad case of the growls which would embarrassingly erupt during high school classes. Doctors couldn’t solve the problem, no treatment was effective. Until, one day, some layman suggested taking one teaspoon of olive oil at breakfast each morning. She did it and the problem disappeared immediately.
This morning, at breakfast, I got out my little spoon and glugged down some olive oil. So far, all is quiet, the cacophony seems held at bay. I don’t mind telling you I am extremely partial to this solution. It beats hell out of a colonoscopy and is miles better than end-stage colon cancer. And yes, I know what you’re going to tell me….
That’s all, folks. And, if the Mayan calendar people are right, it might REALLY be all….
