Recently, I’ve lost some weight (portion control, if you must know), and my pants have been falling. Pants that fit me at the waist allow enough room in the rear compartment for Shaggy and the Scooby-Doo van. I’ve never had a butt. I’m apple-shaped.

I’m tired of saggy clothes, and don’t get me started on my undergarments. (This is a family show so that I will use “undergarments”.) Actually, it’s not a family show, so let’s go with f*&^ing undergarments.)

For years, I’ve purchased my undergarments from Lane Bryant, a brand called Cacique (Cake? Cakey?) that worked out fine. The Lane Bryant sizes mirror their jeans sizes. I wore size 20 jeans and purchased size 20 panties (oops, F*&^ing undergarments).

I have this bad habit of ordering things off the Internet, and in my family, my reputation for buying worthless crap is well known. So I saw an ad for another major store, and ordered. (Not that I’m paranoid, but I’m pretty sure Alexa listens to all my conversations and reads my email, so she knew I was in shopping mode.)

From another national plus-size store, I ordered 10 pairs of undergarments, all in different shades of pink, in size 16, which is now the size of the jeans I’m wearing (which are still too big in the rear)

The order came, and I was surprised by how big the box was. When I opened the box, I got a bigger surprise.

I’ve been overweight almost all of my life. I know some people wear this size, but this is not for me even before my recent weight loss. My immediate impulse was to grab Abraham Lincoln (he grew up ‘round here) and take off for the Troy, Indiana, boat launch where Abe and his pal set off for N’Awlins on the Ohio River in a keelboat. These super-sized undergarments would provide a good, stiff sail for the trip back upriver.

I have reached out to the company (and they think I’m VERY stupid for not checking the size chart, because I do not have a sixty-five-inch waist; those voluptuous panties will fit.) I can take them to a post office, and when they have been received, they will send me a size eight instead.

And all will be right with the world.

What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever ordered online?

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I appreciate you reading and commenting on my babble…

As told to Amy by her friend.

My husband and I traveled over the weekend and came home on Monday. I’m the primary driver these days, and I was tired. It had been a long weekend.

Like Amy, I wear oxygen, and I forgot the cord to my compressor and spent nearly 72 hours without oxygen. At least that’s my excuse.

And like Amy, I have a brother who drives a red Corvette.

It’s funny then, when we were somewhere in the open country between Hither and Yon, I said to my husband, “This piece of road is so flat that I imagine if my brother drove his Corvette down this stretch, he would go very fast.”

Several miles later we reached an intersection, and I looked in my rearview mirror, and yes, right here near Hither, Indiana, was a representative of the Indiana State Police, lights blaring.

Like Amy, I just turned 69. And the courtly State Police officer informed me that I was traveling my age in a 55 mph zone. This did not faze the courtly State Police officer. He then noted that we were driving on expired plates, and he cited me for that.

He said he could impound the car, but that he wasn’t going to, nor would he write me a citation for the speeding. I had not received a speeding ticket for several years.

(That was a special time in my life. My father liked to brag to people that both of his children were involved in higher education that year, as both my brother and I were in traffic school. Dad was so proud of our wanting to advance our education.)

The citation noted that I could appear in court in Bloomington sometime this fall or could plead guilty, pay the fine, and resolve the expired plates issue.

Last night I spoke to three friends and/or family members (who will not be revealed), who told me that they all, or their partners, had expired plates in the last year. It looks like the state is now sending e-notifications instead of the letters we’ve gotten since Gutenberg invented the printing press.

Interestingly enough, the three people I called are the first three people I would call to pick us up, and they’ve fallen into this pit as well.

Finally arrived home to Yon, Indiana, too late and tired to go to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I checked online and found that the lone office in my home county would be closed Tuesday, and that I could go to the Eastside office in the adjacent city. The BMV site also noted that that location had a self-serve kiosk open 24/7. I looked again on Tuesday morning and found that same information.

Couldn’t go in my home county, so I went to the eastside location. It turns out it's only a kiosk, and it was closed. I fail to understand why it was reported as open 24/7.

I did not get the plates renewed, and I came home and decided to try it on the Internet. I also made a note in my phone calendar to do this in early February. Like Amy, my last name begins with A (my full name is Amy Astonished), and so we get our plates early in the year.

So this is a cautionary tale for my fellow young/old, old/old, or just merely moronic friends. Pay attention to when your plates are due.

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From Amy: an example of why AI sucks is that the dashboard of the vehicle in the AI drawing is on the passenger door.

“The earth laughs in flowers.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I gave myself a present for my birthday: the completion of something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Both my husband and I have enjoyed photography in our many travels. While many of these are prints in photo albums, the crop from the last two decades is digitized.

I chose among my favorites for this Mixtile display in our living room, and I am very pleased with it. With asthma and lung issues, I am highly sensitive to most floral scents and am no longer able to even be near them. But this garden is accessible year-round, and I’m thrilled with it.

Here are the locations of the pictures. I cannot identify all the types of flowers. Maybe you can?

Bottom row: (l-r), Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France; Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France; rose garden, Westminster Village, West Lafayette, Indiana.

Third row from top: (l-r) National Botanic Garden, Washington, D.C.; Balboa Park, San Diego, California; Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France; Ulster American Folk Park, Northern Ireland; on the grounds of the Del Coronado Hotel, Coronado Island, California; Botanic Garden, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Second row from top: (l-r) Bishop’s Garden, National Cathedral Grounds, Washington, D.C.; unknown; Glenveigh Castle, Ireland; Blue Grass NWA, Evansville, Indiana; unknown.

Top row: (l-r) Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France; Balboa Park, San Diego, California; Lilac Garden, my backyard; Flower Bed, Center City government buildings, Antwerp, Belgium; Glenveigh Castle, Ireland.

Of all the places I’ve ever shot pictures, Monet’s Garden in France has to be the most special. I fluttered around like a butterfly and could have made this display of all the pictures from that day (I was using three cameras, my phone, my tablet, and a digital camera). We were there for several hours on a perfect June day, and I swear I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as that place. Here are a few more shots from that day (not worthy of the wall).

What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen? I appreciate you reading my articles and commenting.

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During Seth Meyers’ A Closer Look segment on July 15, he used several pictures of Wile E. Coyote blowing something up to illustrate the phrase “explosive diarrhea” about the bug cyclosporiasis that was horrifying the country. Myers stated that Wile trained at A.C.M.E., the American College of Medical Examiners. Meyers meant the ubiquitous ACME products in many Looney Tunes comics.

I am a fan of Looney Tunes, and I have been since I was about five years old. What’s great about the Warner Bros.-produced 7-minute shorts is that they provide a laugh to a child or an adult. Well, an adult with a perverse sense of humor. I want to share some of my favorite Looney Tunes, so you’ll have something to watch when there’s no new “Law and Order” or “Perry Mason” has been pre-empted by the Indiana Fever games.

Watch enough Looney Tunes, and you’ll soon discover the screen covered with Easter eggs not meant for children. The hand-drawn animation is so superior to what we have today, and the use of music and background art conveys layers of comedy you can return to again and again.

Of All The Juice Joints in all the World.

In a famous send-up of “Casablanca” with Bugs Bunny playing Rick, the outskirts of the town feature a billboard featuring “Eleanor Roosevelt All-Girl Revue.”

Bugs plays Rick Blaine, and Pepe Le Pew’s long-time feline girlfriend plays the Ingrid Bergman role. Pepe shows up to call her “my little Swedish meatball” before Sylvester, playing the Victor Laszlo role of the great hero. Even little Tweety Bird makes an appearance with the mournful voice and eyes of Peter Lorre.

This tune sticks to the film, amazingly, including my favorite part, when Daffy Duck as Sam the piano player plays "You've Got Trouble,” just like in the film—a must-see.

Boobs in the Woods.

While I love almost all of the Tunes characters, Daffy is one of my favorites. When the news of the day is getting you down, watch “Boobs in the Woods,” a strange short from 1950 that shows Daffy being Daffy and annoying Porky Pig.

This clip only shows the opening, as not all Looney Tunes are available (though most are in the public domain), and you’ll hear the nonsense song. Whenever I see or hear a certain high official of our government, I am reminded of Daffy singing this song. Only Daffy is much more endearing.

Devil May Hare.

As a child, we had no Internet to look up Looney Tunes, so when you caught a favorite, it was great. The Tasmanian Devil was a long-term favorite for me. (I had high-top Tasmanian Devil sneakers, and still have a Tasmanian Devil watch (which obviously I didn’t wear to work) but occasionally sport it.)

Taz doesn’t often speak, except for his special growl, but in this 1954 episode after Bugs tricks him to bury himself, Taz asks, “What for you bury me in the cold, cold ground?” a saying as famous in our house as the balcony speech in “Romeo and Juliet.”

“Devil May Hare” was the first time Taz appeared in a short, and a high-level WB executive didn’t like the character and banned him from future toons. Jack Warner, head of WB Studios, had received thousands of letters about the short and revived Taz in 1957 in a nearly identical short called “Bedeviled Rabbit.”

The Classics in the Toons

What makes Looney Tunes so special and far superior to today’s cartoons and some of the pablum from my childhood (Scooby Doo) is that the stories operate on various levels. Children will get a laugh, but adults get the joke, sometimes smarmy.

And Warner Brothers used art and music to tell the story. One of my favorites is a rare black-and-white cartoon from the 1930s that shows Porky Pig flying off to Africa to find the elusive Dodo bird. He finds the bird, but also a strange world inspired by Salvador Dalí's art (soft watches, etc.).

You can’t throw a rubber chicken without hitting a toon that features classical music. There are multiple cartoons, such as “Long-Haired Hare,” that show Bugs, as famous conductor Leopold Stokowski, mocking a singer performing “Lucia di Lammermoor.” There are nearly 40 tunes that feature classical music. But if you listen carefully, you’ll pick up threads of classical and the Great American Songbook in other shorts.

I Shoulda Made a Right Turn in Albuquerque.

Looney Tunes didn’t ignore history; in fact, there are multiple tunes from the early 1940s against the Nazis, including this one, where Bugs Bunny plays Hitler in Herr Meets Hare (1945). Of course, music from German composer Wagner has a prominent place in this toon, as well as a few operatic character send-ups like the proverbial Brünnhilde, the “Ring” diva who shows up in many shorts.

Why We Have Looney Tunes.

When “Steamboat Willie” by Walt Disney became popular in the late 1920s, the Warner brothers looked for a vehicle to promote their products. Warner Brothers started making the seven-minute shorts to play before their own movies, so many feature parodies of real-life actors, like “Hooray for Hollywood.” Look closely, and you’ll spot Gable and Mae West and other famous people as well as the song for which the piece is named. Moving from black and white into color, the short features Daffy Duck giving a backstage tour, including a look at some on-set homes for the stars. Jimmy Durante’s home includes space for his nose.

Overall, I believe Looney Tunes are the best of America’s cartoons, going back nearly 100 years. I have to mention Rocky and Bullwinkle, which I believe fall in the same class. I’m also fond of “Top Cat,” “The Jetsons,” and “The Flintstones.

When I was growing up, I could watch a full hour of Looney Tunes at 8 a.m. on Saturdays. Today, METV shows an hour of Looney Tunes on Saturdays at 8 a.m. Pure absolute bliss.

What is your favorite cartoon and why do you like it so much?

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I’ve been an armchair family history scholar all of my life. And when I say ALL of my life, I mean that I was encouraged by my maternal grandmother from my birth. I have all her boxes of treasures and found multiple notes that said, “For Amy LeNore,” one dated 1958 when I was a year old.

The genealogy bug bit me hard, and I’ve spent my life researching generations of German Lutheran farmers who came to this country before Ellis Island was even an idea on paper. Not a brag, just a fact. Many people who do this have taken their family trees back centuries.

After writing several books about family history and multiple articles for local and state history publications, I stopped looking about four or five years ago. I think I was just exhausted by all of it. I’m proud of my work as a legacy for our son and my nephew and his children.

Yesterday I read on Facebook that my friend Barb Hamp Weicksel, a fine writer from San Diego, found that she had famous relatives through Family Search. My records are on another proprietary site, but I decided to give it a try.

Something very weird happened. Results came up instantly that I was related to more than 200 famous people. I was gobsmacked. This could not be possible.

So, two hundred famous people, including five people on the Mayflower, most of the presidents, Winston Churchill, and most of the royal family, every famous writer you can imagine, including Shakespeare and Poe. But wait for it.

This could not be possible. I went to the first record, which was George Washington. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Our first President, fake teeth, had a big party at his house last night?

Turns out Washington and the rest of the elite ancestors are related to my second great-grandfather’s SECOND WIFE. Her name was Albina Adelaide Gleason Flagg, and she and my second great-grandfather, Washington Long, had no children. Albina was born in Van Wert, Ohio, in 1845 and lost her first husband, William Heath.

Washington Long’s first wife, Mary Jane Baker, died after giving birth to their five children. Mary Jane Baker Long died in 1880, when my great-grandmother Anna Long Hoard was three. Washington remarried in 1882. How he found this woman who was 75 miles away is interesting to me, and I’ll dig to find more about her.

Albina was married to Washington Long for the rest of her life and passed away in 1917. This means my grandmother LeNore Hoard Enz would have known her, as she was born in 1908. I don’t remember her ever mentioning this woman.

Her grandfather, Washington Long, was a big fish in their tiny pond, serving on many civic and political committees, and was a Democratic county councilman. He also greatly expanded the family farm his father had purchased in the federal land patent program in 1837. The farm stayed in the family until 2010 when it was sold.

So I am not related to that elite litany of presidents, poets, royalty, and celebrities. Once I removed Albina from my list, I found five famous people, but I’ll only share one. I am a distant cousin of Adam West, TV’s Batman. Zapf! Pow!

PS: The picture at the top of the piece I used for the cover of “Centennial Farm Family,” the story of those who farmed our family farm from 1837 to 1937. I stopped at the century mark because the story got too complicated and personal after that. Albina looks quite stern in this picture.

Have you studied your family history? Do you have famous relatives? What’s the most unusual thing you’ve learned about your family? I appreciate your comments, and thank you for reading my Substack.

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My mother had a wonderful machine that I loved and so wanted to use. It was a Royal portable typewriter in its own case that could nearly do magic.

But I was only four years old, and she felt that a four-year-old could not use a typewriter. The only photo I could find among the family slides was this photo from my second birthday. My parents lived in a tiny walk-up apartment, and the typewriter is in its case on a black portable typewriter table to the right of the fridge.

By the time I was six, Mom decided I could use the typewriter. I was doing well with reading, so why not? When you start typing in first grade, frankly, you don’t pay much attention to learning cursive. By the time I was in junior high, I was using the typewriter for almost everything. My handwriting went to hell and never came back (despite the bribery of my maternal grandmother one summer, when she said she would pay me fifty dollars if I practiced my handwriting every day. I did not.) Today I can barely write via my hands, and I have a hard time reading cursive handwriting (so I’m trendy)

In high school, I took typing, as every girl was expected to in 1971. The typing lab had huge white manual typewriters and held timed typing sessions. Because I had learned earlier (and Mom taught me the correct way to place my hands, etc.), I could type much faster than anyone in the class. One day we’re doing a timed test, and I’m just tooling along, slamming the keys, and I hit the carriage return at the end of a line, and BOOM, the carriage comes off and goes flying across the room. No one was expecting it, especially me, and I about had a heart attack at age 14.

Mom received a new electric typewriter as she typed a lot of Dad’s tests and handouts for school, so I was using the old Royal portable, which I loved.

When I was a senior, my parents bought me a Smith-Corona electric typewriter as a graduation gift. This model was very funky and had different-colored ribbons in cartridges you could pop in and out. I just thought this was so cool, though my professors didn’t want a term paper submitted in purple ink, so I had to stick to black ink.

In most of my student publication jobs, I also typed on large manual typewriters, including very large and heavy Underwoods at the daily paper where I worked summers and vacations in college. There was always something so satisfying about writing on a manual typewriter, as if I had really accomplished something.

Honestly, when I was a senior in college, I had had enough of the jumpy, skittish Smith-Corona electric and traded it in on a manual Olympic portable. My future husband also decided to buy a new typewriter that same day, an Olympic electric.

Several years later, when he was in graduate school after we were married, a big IBM truck sold computers on the USF campus. We bought our first computer, and we were so excited. And it didn’t even have an operating system—you had two floppy disk drives, and one of the disks held the operating system. A couple of years later, we added a 20 mg. hard drive, and we thought we were flying!!!

In 1987, my husband had to do a paper for a graduate degree. Getting the margins set to the university’s rules for all theses was very complicated on a 24-pin printer with fan-fold paper.

At my work, we changed to IBM Selectric typewriters, and I wouldn’t have my first work computer until 1991. Around that time, we purchased a Gateway computer for home use. Remember the cow boxes? Windows would come next. We never had any Apple products because my husband needed to be connected to the university, and they only allowed DOS-based products.

Of course, throughout both of our careers, we each had a variety of devices, from desktops and laptops to handheld devices (before phones). Now everyone has the computing power that launched man to the moon in their phones.

And yet, we still both have our Olympic typewriters. I can see the black case in my office closet. I also have a box of black/red typewriter ribbons (likely dry by now) just in case. Just in case the grid goes down. Or whatever,

I don’t see myself making papyrus in the backyard and then distilling some ink, as romantic as that sounds. I’ve been reading a book about the ancient city of Alexandria, and it once had the greatest scholarly library in the world. It was considered one of the Ancient Wonders of the World with 500K scrolls. Not one typed or printed document, as this was centuries before Gutenberg invented the printing press. Blow my mind.

Okay, you are correct. This Substack has no point. There is no angle or particular narrative arc. I’m wandering all over the place, but I was thinking about typewriters and how much I miss them. Some of my writer pals still write on typewriters, but now I have arthritis in my hands and pounding those keys isn’t an option for me. (That’s what happens when you start using a manual typewriter 63 years ago.)

Do you have a typewriter story? Do you still keep your typewriter?

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I write because I cannot stop. I like to read your comments and thoughts. Because I’m a mind-reader.

I’m constantly preaching about finding joy. It’s how I survive in this crazy world and this crazy period in my life.

But in my dotage, I’m far less discriminating than I used to be. And damned lucky.

Six weeks ago, I went on a theater trip to New York. Sitting in a darkened theater watching a play or a musical is my happy place. I’ve been fortunate to see live theater for my entire life. This trip was especially special, and I went with four female family members I treasure. I will never forget about it.

But most days are ordinary and don’t involve orchestra seats to the hottest play on Broadway in the world’s greatest city.

So I’ve become less discriminating (though I do live off the memories of big, special events like that for some time, which is why I still look at my son and DIL’s wedding pictures almost a year out.)

Thursday was Toenail Day. Don’t you celebrate Toenail Day at your house? Oh, you will.

A decade ago, I had a most horrific and most First World event happen. I dropped a frozen New York strip on my left big toenail, which cracked it right down the middle. Tragically, this meant the end of wearing sandals for me, unless I could find a pair that covered the toes.

That toenail died, and something new grew in its place. I don’t have the words to describe the new toenail. Well, maybe hideous or grotesque. And then it started growing straight up, yes, vertically, like a hard little Venus de Milo right out of my toe.

I use the example of the famous Louvre-based statue because it is made of Greek marble, one of the hardest substances on earth much like my toenails, which I am now unable to trim.

After this event, I started going to a podiatrist because of the Vertical Toenail and the hardness of the other nails. I had long had pedicures by myself and with friends, but I no longer dared to show anyone without emergency training that obscene digit.

And I discovered something. Getting your toenails clipped by a professional is amazing. I go to a nurse who is especially trained in dealing with nails, and my husband has started accompanying me, as Medicare will pay for this every three months.

After using a tool resembling the Jaws of Life, which ably cuts through the rock-hard nails, the nurse uses a polishing machine to file the nails to perfection. (Of course, she has to shave down the Vertical Toenail, but the details are even too gross to reveal.)

The filing is wonderful, plus if you have a little callous on the side of your foot, she zaps that also. And then she rubs your feet.

Yes, it is joy on an ordinary summer day.

This time on Toenail Day, they called both my husband and me back at the same time. This was new, and it occurred to me we might have been nominated for the Gnarly Toenail Hall of Fame. His aren’t the greatest, but he can tell his own story, or you can wait for the feature film. We were not so honored, but got the royal treatment, and both felt very satisfied.

Like I say, you’ve got to find joy every. single. day. When we put our Sketchers shoes and Bombas socks back on, life was so good.

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What tiny pleasure gives you joy?

UPDATE: I have changed the title to reflect the correct name of the song from “La Cage aux Folles.”

I was twelve when I saw the bright lights of 42nd Street for the first time. We visited family in Boston, and we came back through New York City and then on to Philly.

My father drove the family Truckster, a green 1968 Impala, directly into Manhattan on a late Friday afternoon, headed for the Sheraton at Times Square.

New York is much, much more than the peep shows and porn shops that popped up in a tiny part of one borough. But imagine the wide eyes of a 12-year-old Hoosier who lived in the country, a mile from her hometown of 1200 people. Her maternal grandparents still lived on the family farm that ancestors purchased through the federal land patent program in 1837.

The social, cultural, and physical distances between her rural environs and New York City were about the same as her distance from the moon.

My parents were teachers and prioritized experiences. Every summer we traveled, journeys filled with art, history, agriculture, and experiences. (Unfortunately, this involved a visit to the Corn Place in Some Way Yonder Northern stater as well as three unexplainable visits to the Agriculture Hall of Fame in Bonner Springs, Kansas.)

My brother and I still frequently share memories of our trips and argue about whether we stayed at the Sheraton or the Howard Johnson’s in Times Square. (Both very bad choices.)

Like reading a good book, watching a theatrical production transports me to another time and place. My parents exposed us to the world beyond South Whitley, Indiana. Travel gave me a deep curiosity about the world, whether seeing the Diego Rivera murals at the Detroit Museum of Art, every single market across the Antietam Battlefield, or the wonders of Yellowstone and the Tetons.

I have visited New York City multiple times to see beloved Broadway revivals and new shows, as well as to visit cultural institutions. I worked for a Manhattan-based company for a decade, had the opportunity to travel there on business, and always picked up a show or two. I’ve made many trips where I’ve gone to multiple shows in a few days, including a 2011 trips where our son met us from his college in Washington, D.C., and we saw five shows together.

Today I’m a white-haired, bifocal-wearing, retired woman. Over the weekend, my wide eyes experienced the joys of three different shows (two musicals) and one drama. This is my happy place, a space beyond our current daily hellscape of war, crumbling governments, climate change, and devastating poverty, where I commune through art and beauty.

It is a place where the arts are recognized for their contribution to the world, in a time when the humanities don’t seem to matter much. And I am aware of my great privilege in life, having never lacked food or shelter, and of being raised by educated people who appreciated the role the arts play in society.

Always Be Closing

We saw two musicals and a drama. “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller is in a limited run with Tony winners Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf as the Lomans. The set was minimal, yet the production established space and passage of time through exquisite lighting.

Characters drive the show, and the performances were intense yet peppered with humor. Like all great art, Miller’s play works for more than the fifties, the time in which it was written. The theme punches right into relationships and family dysfunction, the business of aging, and regrets. I read this play in high school when I could relate more to the young children than the parents.

Maybe Happy Ending

This show won the 2025 Tony for Best Musical. My daughter-in-law is a fan of Darren Criss and wanted to see it, and she could not have chosen a better show. The music is 1950s jazz. It’s about robots who have outlived their shelf life and sent to an old folks home for bots. They meet and fall in love, and the plot is charming and hits home about the meaning of life. And maybe it’s just me but it also hit on appreciating life and aging. My parts are sometimes no longer replaceable, and it’s happening to everyone I love. And will happen to all of us, whether we come with lithium batteries or not.

The technology was so sublime and amazing it is beyond my ability to describe.

Make Them Hear You

Our third show was “Ragtime” at Lincoln Center. Note to other Luddites. Lincoln Center is a huge complex of theates. My beloved spouse and I did not know this when trying to find the John Jay Theatre to see Mikhail Baryshnikov in “Forbidden Christmas, or the Doctor and the Patient” at John Jay College as part of the Lincoln Center Festival.

This was before the ride-share era; it was raining, so we walked from our hotel and got soaked.

The Vivian Beaumont Theater, currently hosting “Ragtime” is on 65th so we didn’t make that mistake again.

“Ragtime” was first produced thirty-plus years ago and is based on a story by E,L. Doctorow. The musical, in the tradition of Golden Era Broadway shows, features more music than dialogue. The show dives into the lives of three families: an affluent white family, an unmarried couple of color who have a child, and an Eastern European Jewish immigrant father and motherless daughter.

“Ragtime” reflects the world at the turn of the 20th century, based on real events features famous people including Emma Goldman (Mother Jones), Harry Houdini, and Booker T. Washington. More than a century later, we are still seeking the ideals of freedom and justice for all. It was a stunning play to see as American comes to our 250th anniversary.

Now I’m home. I love to go to the theater, and I especially loved this one with my beloved family. But I’m an Indiana girl, and I missed my Indiana sweetheart.

The joy and laughter and love of this trip is like an elixir for me that I will draw on for the rest of my life. Experiencing these touches of heaven with beloved family, especially my new daughter-in-law, was such a gift.

Do you like the theater? What’s the best show you’ve ever seen? (A difficult question I cannot answer.) I appreciate shares and especially comments. Writers like to be read. Thanks for giving me your time today.

In high school and particularly in college, I didn’t always make the most prudent decisions. I won’t outline the sins of 1970s teenagers, but I sometimes made stupid choices. I was awfully lucky and avoided trouble.

Who could imagine that I would have an accident WHILE DOING LAUNDRY in my sixties?

I don’t know what happened. I took a load of socks and delicates out of the dryer and put them in a laundry basket. I picked up the basket and headed for the living room, where my husband watched TV.

Then boom. Apparently, one of my Bombas rainbow anklets jumped out of the basket and under my foot.

Face plant on a tile floor. The laundry basket caught my middle, but my face hit hard, as did my knees and lower legs. There was blood everywhere, and my husband came running with towels.

I didn’t think I could get up by myself, and I didn’t know how badly I was hurt. My entire face throbbed, as did my right knees and the front of my right lower leg.

My husband called 911, and within a few minutes, two ambulances and four paramedics bounded in the front door. I suspect the operator said, “Well, it’s the Abbotts, you might as well send two.” They’ve been here before.

Two paramedics wiped blood off me and took my vitals, and then discussed how to get me up and onto the cart. One guy, whom I swear weighed 150 lbs, picked me straight up from a sitting position. (While my driver’s license may say I also weigh 150 lbs, well, I don’t.)

This little guy grabbed me from behind under each arm and pulled me straight up. My neck and back cracked in about six places, which was pretty satisfying, though the sound was horrifying. Felt like six chiropractic visits in one.

They put me in a gurney that was also a chair and told my husband to take his time coming to the hospital.

I must have been in shock because I really don’t remember much until I saw a familiar face walking into my room at Ascension, wearing a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap. He asked if they gave me a heart test, and I said I didn’t think so (until I arrived home and found a bunch of those electrical leads on my chest)

The clinicians x-rayed my leg. A tech gave me multiple CT scans (the tech said 1,000 scans of head, face, cervical spine, and knees and legs)

Rather quickly, the doctor came in and said the only problem was multiple fractures in the nasal area. I was pleased I didn’t have a broken jaw or teeth. I’ll see an ENT as soon as I can get in, and for the sake of caution, I’m going to my ophthalmologist. I have 2200 vision in my left eye, and the right eye is the one damaged. I want to make sure there’s no retinal tear.

My husband decided on the way home that the medicine I most needed was a chocolate malt. Very different from the Friday evenings of our youth when our beverage of choice was Miller Lite.

I could not sleep when we got home (thankfully, they did not admit me), and so I stayed in the living room and watched “Oklahoma” and “South Pacific” to end my unenchanted evening. I’m telling this tale as a cautionary one. Our balance changes as we grow older, and I’m going to need to pay more attention to my surroundings.

Thanks for reading. Any “fall prevention” suggestions are appreciated.

I have finished Ketanji Brown Jackson’s 2024 memoir, “Lovely One.” As the first African-American woman to serve on the Supreme Court, Brown Jackson has a wonderful story to tell. She is also, as I expected, given her education, a gifted storyteller.

In a speech at the Library of Congress before she took the oath, Brown Jackson mentioned that her family went from segregation to the Supreme Court in one generation. Wow! Her parents had experienced Jim Crow, and now she would be the first African-American female to sit on the highest court in the land.

The new Associate Justice was raised in Miami, the child of parents who were the first in their respective families to attend college. Her parents deliberately gave her a West African name meaning “Lovely One” to ensure she was tied to her heritage.

Brown Jackson attended Palmetto High School in the Miami area, where she participated in many activities, none more important to her than speech and debate. She attended Harvard University as an undergraduate and Harvard Law School, where she served on the Law Review editorial board and clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer. Justice Breyer, whom Brown Jackson would replace on the bench, honored his former clerk by administering her oath of office in 2022.

While the book does a great job of tracing her career ups and downs, what I liked best was how she balanced her work and personal life. I suspect most working mothers can relate.

Brown Jackson married a man who would become a general surgeon and had residencies lasting years at hospitals in Boston and D.C.

The oldest of her two daughters is on the autism spectrum, and I related to that as my adult son has autism.

Despite being an attorney and judge, Brown Jackson went through many of the trials and tribulations that working mothers face, even with the privileges in her life. Sometimes, she admitted, she felt like a single parent as her husband, as a surgeon, couldn’t leave “someone on anesthesia in the operating room” to pick up a sick child at school or take her to lessons or an event. I appreciated her candor, as well as some of the solutions she found to daily logistics problems. Neither she nor her husband had family in the D.C. area where they lived after college.

I particularly appreciated the book’s epilogue, which cites three Broadway plays that wrap up her story well.

I have loved American history all my life, and now read biographies and history primarily. I know I was short-changed with my understanding of people of color. Even as a history minor in college, I barely got beyond Frederick Douglass. I’ve been trying to catch up and appreciate recommendations. Brown Jackson talks a great deal about Constance Baker Motley, a mentor, and I will be reading about her tenure as a federal judge in the Southern District of New York.

Click here to purchase“Lovely One.” Used copies are available at ThriftBooks and ABE Books.

I am interested in your thoughts. Do you feel you were short-shrifted in the full American story? Please share your comments. I write to be read.

February and early March tend to be glum in southwestern Indiana. Thankfully, we don’t get much snow, but we get rainy, glum days until our one week of spring gives way to humid, 100-degree-plus days until October. (Sounds like a travel brochure, lol.)

But Turner Classic Movies offers a cornucopia of films to watch before the next Academy Awards. With my husband recovering from dental surgery, we’re not exactly painting the town. So we’re happy watching two to three films a day.

I’m very excited to watch “On the Beach” tonight because, as a young person who ducked and covered under her elementary school desk, I was interested in what would happen after the Soviets bombed our little town. (Where a first-grader’s tiny wooden desk would save me from certain peril.) “On the Beach” is followed tonight on TCM by “The China Syndrome” and “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Love the Bomb.”

The other day, we watched “Double Indemnity” and “Rear Window,” both of which check in my Top Ten list (I keep musicals in a different category).

“Double Indemnity” may be the finest film noir. How Fred MacMurray ended up doing the “Flubber” movies and the genial Steve Douglas on “My Three Sons” is beyond me, because this performance, as well as others in the same genre, shows his chops for evil with a touch of nuance. I actually find him sexy in this film, the way he looks at Barbara Stanwyck and calls her “baby.” Slowly, he realizes that Phyllis (the Barbara Stanwyck character) has manipulated him for her own good.

“Double Indemnity” would not be the same film had it been shot in color. The cinematography uses tricks of light and shadow to convey tension. A great example is how the Venetian blinds cast light and shadow across the living room of the home of Phyllis Deidrich and her soon-to-be-murdered husband.

The opposite is true for “Rear Window,” the second film we watched. Hitchcock likely decided that the real lives of people in the apartment from which Jimmy Stewart would be best represented in glorious Technicolor. Thus, we see Raymond Burr’s shock of white hair, the colorful studio of the musician, and the dancing costumes of the Torso girl.

Tension is built wonderfully in this film through the music and sound effects, and through the mix of real-life happenings in the apartments, the courtyard, and on the street. And the last shot of Grace Kelly, no longer in her model garb, is perfect. Tonight is “My Fair Lady” for those readers who can tolerate musicals.

Here’s my list of Always Watch films (excluding musicals): To Kill a Mockingbird, The Birdcage, Roman Holiday, Double Indemnity, The Apartment, Top Hat, The Best Years of Our Lives, Houseboat, All About Eve, The Right Stuff, and The Graduate.

Are you watching 31 Days of Oscar? What are your favorites?

Last night, when I picked out a nightgown, I grabbed one that belonged to my mom. She’s been gone, and I still have three or four of some old Sears mid-length flannel nightgowns. They are looking a little ratty, but I don’t care. Wearing one makes me feel closer to her.

As January creeps into cold February, I’m always aware that this was the time in 2012 when my mother was dying. She missed her eightieth birthday by about six weeks. She had been sick for fifteen years.

She died on February 17, 2012.

Fourteen years later, I am still sometimes overcome with grief. Not often, but once or twice a year, maybe around this time, her birthday, my birthday, and holidays.

During the early part of my life, my mom drove me crazy. Like all of us, she was complicated (and so am I.) We clashed on so many things. My mom suffered from depression from about the time I started high school until about 1990. Interestingly, those years bookended her own empty nest and the arrival of her two grandchildren, four months apart.

As a teenager, I didn’t understand this at all. At 68, I have much more appreciation for her life and the sacrifices she made for her family, especially her children. My mom graduated from Indiana University (in case you didn’t hear, their football team had a perfect season this year and is the current national champion. Gloriana, frangipani.) in elementary education, with additional training in reading instruction.

The day after Mom and Dad married, they moved to West Lafayette so Dad could go to graduate school. Mom taught second grade in the city schools, and they lived in these little, hideous apartments (that are of course still there) next to the football stadium.

It’s difficult not to think about one’s own grief when one is surrounded by grief in a changing world and with health problems of family, friends, and sometimes oneself, and deaths of those you love and their loved ones. In 2025, I lost two very special friends.

Those lucky to survive the first six decades of life now get an orchestra seat to the continuing drama that comes with age. For me, that comes with a huge sense of helplessness as I watch the people I love struggle through the hardest days of their lives.

My friend lost her forty-something son two weeks ago to melanoma. He was a smart, funny, and wonderful person, very loved by his family, and there’s now a huge hole in his mother’s heart that can never be filled.

Losing a parent is the natural order of life, but losing a child, no matter the age, is a cruel tragedy.

The poet Dylan Thomas wrote a famous poem as his father was dying.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning, they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas.

I do not rage against the dying of the light, but I am aware of it. One cannot help but consider one’s own mortality as evening grows closer.

And then there’s 95-year-old father, who has planned his entire funeral, had his stone up since the last century, and has chosen all the hymns and Bible verses. He has this filed in his filing cabinet under “D” for “Dead.” One problem I can see right away is that most of his pallbearers have died.

Dad is happy almost every day when he wakes up, and enjoys very simple things like college basketball and Cubs MLB games. He is getting forgetful and doesn’t always remember how to answer his cell phone, but you can say the same about me, and I’m 27 years younger than he is.

We’ve had a rough couple of weeks in my house. My husband had surgery; we had a terrible snowstorm,m which left us unable to go anywhere for five days (less than most other people I know, so Ishouldn'td complain). With the turn of each new year, our Medicare plans change the rules, so I’ve been fighting to get each of us the drugs we need for our various health problems. This makes Jack a very dull girl and a lot cranky.

My husband, who is NOT a complainer and who is the one who had the actual wicked dental surgery (five extractions and four bone grafts), reminds me when I complain that “everyone I know” is in Florida, that we’ve been there multiple times, including living there for six years. And he’s right. I went to Clearwater Beach for spring break 1958 when I was less than a year old.

So I was complaining to Dad. There, I said it, I’m a terrible person complaining to a 95-year-old man about how it had been a rough week. And Dad says, “I wish I lived closer so I could come over and help you.” I’m not sure he could find the way to the main front door of the very large senior facility he’s lived in for 21 years, but he’s going to help me. Isn’t that sweet? It makes me want to quitmybitching about my mom being gone, and be grateful that my Dad is still here for a kind word.

There’s an object lesson in my Dad’s life about grief. He has had many, many serious losses in his life, including the death of his father when he was only four.

So, on the anniversary of her death, I will mourn my mother and remember her. Her light, like all of us, went out. But every day I need to be grateful that my father is still with us, and that my husband and I celebrated 41 years of marriage last fall.

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Do you think about death? I appreciate your comments.

In 2009, I was in New York for a theater trip, and had the great pleasure of seeing an all-Spanish version of “West Side Story.” The story of rival white and Puerto Rican gangs is familiar from the stage show and the 1960s film. I didn’t need to speak Spanish to understand the story, appreciate the music and dancing, and follow the performance.

Now, I’m not a football fan, so I didn’t watch the Super Bowl. Nor did I tune in to see any of the celebrated commercials or the halftime concert with Bad Bunny.

Controversy seemed to burble up soon after the halftime performance. Almost everything online and the news channels these days seems to dredge up something untoward, making me often wonder what the hell I’m doing spending any time there. We all have much to worry about; why add to it? But that’s another story.

One person said about Bad Bunny’s performance, “No one could understand the words.” That person was the President of the United States. According to USAFacts, 65 million people in the US speak Spanish, with 45 million using it as their primary language.

A friend sent me a clip of the Bad Bunny show, and I found it fun and joyful.

Ironic how people attend operas and listen to beautiful music in Italian or other languages, and it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

To me, it sounds like an issue of racism, or at the very least, not understanding another culture. The USA is a melting pot and always has been. When my immigrant relatives came from the provinces that would eventually make up Germany, they spoke German until the First World War, when we fought Germany. My mother could remember hearing some German from her paternal grandparents, who were two generations away from the Fatherland. Both of her paternal grandparents died in the late 1940s and were proud of their German heritage.

Thankfully, Bad Bunny had legions of supporters and fans who validated his performance. He is from Puerto Rico, a proud part of our country, and affirming his love for fellow Puerto Ricans was joyful and great. We need more of that, not less.

Please restack if you like, and I would love to know what you think. Please comment.

My friend Donya calls that white stuff falling from the sky “S#%W,” treating it with the same horror as a four-letter word. A native Georgian, she finally moved back to her warmer homeland after decades in Indiana—though I doubt she’s safe from the precipitation today.

The Golden Age of Shoveling
Growing up “lake-effect adjacent,” I never viewed snow as a problem. From November to March—roughly the span of the high school basketball season—the snow seemed constant. We went wherever we wanted because of the man who lived in our house: my dad. He had a great cardiovascular profile and shoveled nearly every day, often warming up the car for our family in the garage. (I spoke to him yesterday; he’s 95 and was on a machine in the facility gym when he answered.)

Dad made snowmen and took us sledding on the local dentist’s hill. My brother, Dad, and I would all pile onto a Flexible Flyer—brother in front, me in the middle, and Dad at the back with the controls.

The Blizzard of ’78
They say the snowiest Indiana winters were 1977–1982, my college years. Tomorrow is the 48th anniversary of the infamous Blizzard of ’78. Ball State canceled classes for five days.

The storm hit on a Wednesday, right as the yearbook staff (my employer) got paid. We decided to drive an hour to a “Mister Happy Burger” in Elwood. When we saw people at the drive-up window on horseback, we realized the storm might be serious. We hustled back—which took twice as long—after a mandatory stop for “supplies” to sneak into the dorm. My future husband and best man walked through the drifts two nights in a row just to hang out, play games, and drink screwdrivers.

Six weeks later, I finally tried to dig my car out of a snowbank. After two hours of shoveling, I realized I was digging out the wrong car.

The “Secret Code” Years
After college, I worked in University Relations at the Fort Wayne campus of Indiana Purdue. As the “low man”, I had to be on campus by 6:00 a.m. to call in a secret code to radio and TV stations announcing whether we were closed. The code was known to few people and had to be secret or random students would call in and cancel classes.

That winter, the snowmelt caused the three rivers to flood so badly it made national news. That was my breaking point: I moved to Florida to escape the cold.

Full Circle
Life has a funny way of working out. I married a fellow yearbook staffer while living in Florida, but by the late eighties, we moved back to Indiana.

In 2004, we hit a record 20 inches of snow. My 14-year-old son and my husband spent hours shoveling the driveway.

Now, we are on the cusp of another hyped-up storm. Forecasters are calling for 8 to 14 inches. In an amazing feat of coordination, I managed to back our SUV up the hill and into the garage so it is facing outward. We can get out, but we probably can’t get back in.

Our street has been plowed exactly once since 1996. On the county’s priority list, we fall somewhere below “rabbit hutches” and “liquor stores.”

So, we are hunkering down. I have an oversupply of Yoplait, and while the cookies I bought for our “incarceration” are already gone, I have 15 lbs of Chex Mix ingredients ready. As long as the power stays on, we’ll be watching old movies and waiting it out.

How about you? Are you in one of the states affected by this madness? Stay safe, especially if you’re in the ice zone!

What’s a good excuse to get out of shoveling snow?

What’s the forecast for your areas?

In a world that seems so dark, it’s up to us to find the light. I’ve fallen back on comfortable habits from childhood, reading until late, and recently, I started seriously listening to music I loved from my youth.

On their RCA Victor hi-fi, Mom and Dad often played Broadway albums. They both enjoyed the music. As a toddler, I sat on my dad’s lap conducting the orchestra for “Oklahoma,” “The Music Man,” or half a dozen of the most familiar musicals of the 1950s and early 1960s. (And I would love to discuss with you why Mary Martin is so much better in the Broadway version of “The Sound of Music” than Julie Andrews was in the film, despite my loving the film. I love Mary Martin’s version more and wish there were an age-adjusted Christopher Plummer/Mary Martin version. And some songs were eliminated from the Broadway show.)

My interest bloomed with encouragement, and as an adult, I’ve seen many New York shows as well as theater in Chicago, London, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Toronto. (Two things help: working for a company on East 42nd Street in Manhattan, and a spouse who also likes theater and is willing to see four shows in two days.)

I’ve been lifting my spirits by making a playlist (available on Amazon Music as “Amy’s Old School Broadway.” It has 31 songs and is public, just search for it on Amazon Music if you have an Amazon account.

I’ve also been reading “Fosse,” a 2013 book that encompasses more than just choreographer Bob Fosse and his wife, Gwen Verdon. The book is a history of the leap from vaudeville to legit theater, and all those consequences and changes.

Also, if you like George Abbott (Damn Yankees, Pal Joey, On the Town), you’ll enjoy all the anecdotes about the love/hate relationships between the kings of Broadway in the Abbott Robbins, Coleman, etc..

A story that fascinated me was the long-suffering Verdon, married forever to one of the great horn dogs of all time. Verdon had the lead in the Broadway version of “Sweet Charity,” choreographed by her husband Bob Fosse. The critics loved Verdon, but the show, not so much.

By 1966, Verdon was reaching her peak dancing years, despite being the toast of Broadway for years. Fosse would be involved with the film, but a younger dancer, Shirley MacLaine (who had danced in the chorus of Fosse’s “The Pajama Game” a decade before), was cast as Charity. When filming began, Verdon was still in the middle of her run on Broadway.

After finishing, she packed up and went out to Hollywood to do what she always did, stand by her husband and help him in whatever way she could. According to the “Fosse” book, Verdon was calm and patient, while Fosse was volatile and could be petulant. While skater/dancer Sonja Hennie worked with McLaine, Verdon stayed low-key in the studio, helping however she could. As the book said, it must have been very difficult to watch the younger McLaine learned the steps Verdon made famous on the stage.

Yet, nine years later, Verdon came back as the toast of the town in her husband’s “Chicago.”

Choosing a favorite musical, for me, is like choosing among beloved friends. You love them deeply, and all for different reasons. Currently, I’m bullish on “Chicago,” which Fosse produced, directed, choreographed, and co-wrote the book with Fred Ebb (half of Kander and Ebb) and wrote ‘New York, New York.)

The 1975 original cast of “Chicago” featured Verdon as Roxie Hart, Chita Rivera as Velma Kelly, and Jerry Orbach as Billy Flynn. “Chicago” wasn’t on my radar until the first revival a decade later, and I love the performance of “All That Jazz” featuring Bebe Neuwirth, which I’ve only seen on film. I: didn’t see the show in New York until a 2004 revival. Still rocks, and I would go see it tomorrow if given the opportunity.

I promise that if you like musicals, you can find the light and warmth you need in the old-school ones. Listen to my playlist on Amazon Music (free with Amazon Prime) or make your own and find the magic that first drew you there.

What’s your favorite Broadway show and why?

Please comment or share on Substack or social media. I write to be read.

Four weeks ago, my dishwasher leaked at the end of a cycle, water coming out from the door near the bottom. The dishwasher, a national brand, was purchased in either 2020 or 2021 (we can’t agree). With just two of us, we don’t use it every day, so I can’t blame excessive use. While it wasn’t the most inexpensive model, it wasn’t the most expensive either, as I tend to buy just above the middle in most things. Moderation, we call it.

First Visit: The plumber came, said there was a problem with the door, and ordered a $500 part. It took a week for the part to come in.

Second Visit: The plumber returned to the Scene of the Crime and replaced the expensive part on the door bottom. When he put the door back on, I noticed immediately after he went out the door that it didn’t fit as it had before. The controls had stuck out just enough to see them, and after the “repair,” all the controls were under the counter and out of reach. I had no idea how to turn the machine on, and chased his truck down the driveway after I noticed the change.

He said that all dishwashers are now made this way, and that it had been installed incorrectly in the first place. He had not mentioned that during his first visit or this time when he replaced the expensive part. He explained that one pushes the controls before shutting the door, and there’s a 5-second delay to give the operator time to shut it. Then the machine starts.

Apparently, I had been doing it wrong for years, but I was still suspicious that the door had been put back on wrong. So I ran the dishwasher again, and guess what, even with the expensive new part, the damned thing leaked.

Third Visit: After running through the appliance repair center’s phone tree to get the plumber to come back (which was a week later), I obtained much practice for my Girl Scout badge in Washing Dishes. Rule number one: Water must be hot, as in “Wilma-Hot,” which is the temperature my late mother-in-law recommended, a temperature so hot that it could nearly dissolve Tupperware.

A week after my dishpan hands became part of my beauty journey, the plumber returned and said that my use of “Dawn” pre-soak to soak dishes was causing the dishwasher to leak due to excess suds. He decided it hadn’t been caused by the part he'd installed the week before and said he would refund my money. He ran the dishwasher without dishes for thirty minutes and pronounced it problem-free

He left, and I put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and ran it. The video below shows what happened next:

I called the appliance repair center back immediately and set up an appointment for the following day. Amazingly, they did not show up.

I decided it was time to bring in a plumber and not an appliance repair person.

The plumber came out the day after I called, and found no problem with the connections (we had redone the kitchen down to the studs about a decade ago). On his way out, he suggested we might want to buy a new dishwasher.

So this is how I find myself, on the last day I want to go shopping, heading to the Store Where Dishwashers are sold to purchase a dishwasher. We have also decided to “go for it” and buy a better model, but we are still not sure whether it will work.

While planning today’s shopping, I looked at some online reviews and found that one can now converse with a dishwasher via Alexa or Google. I have a long list of things I would like to say to my current dishwasher, but none of them are printable.

I don’t know why I am surprised that a dishwasher only lasts a few years, or that it takes four visits to realize I need a new one.

As my great-great-grandfather Washington Long once said, “Things ain’t like they used to was.”

We bought a refrigerator a month before our son was born. (They’ll both be 36 this spring.) That fridge chugs along fine in our basement, but our thousands-of-dollars four-door newish fridge needed a new compressor recently, and the compressor alone was $1200 (we paid less than half that for the basement fridge).

My husband is afraid the new dishwasher will talk back to me and has suggested a few things it might say. Again, not printable.

What’s your worst appliance story?

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Thank you for reading. I appreciate your comments and restacks. I write to be read.

My only phone, a cell, rang, and I saw it was a number in my area code I didn’t recognize. I know I should let it go to voicemail, but I didn't.

"This is Dylan,” a man in a heavy accent said. I understand you need a new Medicare supplement.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

They say my name and I say something like,” Oh, I’m so sorry. She was killed by a rogue Zamboni last week at her grandson’s Peewee hockey game.

And that’s not the WEIRD part. The weird part is what they say next. Not, I'm sorry for your loss,” but it doesn’t matter. I can talk to you.”

His lack of reaction makes me want to ratchet up the horror.

Rinse. Repeat. Three or four times a day

I have been fortunate to be eligible for Medicare for several years, which is terrific. However, one aspect I despise is the open enrollment season, when my phone rings from dawn until dusk (and usually daily at 8 a.m.) with calls from Medicare sales teams trying to get me to look at their Medicare Advantage plan or sign up for some brace that Medicare will pay for, sight unseen.

Did I know about Part C and the other benefits I can receive?

Just look up your ZIP CODE.

Yada yada yada.

I stay on top of my health insurance and generally make my elections very early in the season.

Yet every single day I get calls from real people and robots who want me to check out their option. My family and friends are tired of my whining and tell me not to answer the phone. But what if it is Ed McMahon telling me I've won the Publishers Clearing House fifty-million-dollar prize?

That's why I came up with the new plan, albeit a perverse one, involving my own tortured death (possibly after watching way too many episodes of “Law and Order SVU”“

The robots don’t respond, but if I get a real live person, I have a sick little bit of fun with them.

Here are some of my scenarios:

My favorite involves the Zamboni, a large, heavy machine that flattens and smooths ice rinks. Here are some other favorites, and I’m open to suggestions.

• Madam'ss husband gave her thirty whacks with an axe, just like Lizzie Borden. She can’t come to the phone.

• This is Mamie, Amy's wife. I'm sorry to tell you, but last week Amy was in northern Italy, practicing with the Senior Olympics luge team, and the weight of her oxygen compressor made the sled go off the track and over the mountain. The last thing she said was “heeeeeellllllllllppppppp”“

• Amy is no longer with us. She and her college friends were ziplining over the Mississippi River, and Amy had eaten one too many Hershey bars and slipped out of her harness and drowned in the Big Muddy. We all miss her very much.

• She unfortunately fell asleep while listening to the hours-long autobiography of Barbara Streisand (the one without an index that lets you jump ahead), and the earbuds attached to her phone choked her to death. Her husband found her in her recliner, Babs still babbling on the phone.

• While using one of her prized fountain pens, Amy scratched her mouth with a glass bottle of purple fountain pen ink from Spain, which apparently wasn’t regulated by the American FDA, and she was poisoned. Talk about purple prose!

In a couple of weeks, Medicare enrollment will be over, and I’ll be back to just getting calls from Orthopedic Groups based in Malaysia, who are trying to sell me a brace for some painful part of my body that Medicare will provide sight unseen.

How do you handle those calls?

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This piece is a joke and not meant to offend anyone, though I suspect it will offend almost everyone. Sometimes we just have to laugh.

Your comments are welcomed.

For weeks, I’ve waited for the new Ken Burns series. I’ve loved Burns’ approach to American History since his iconic “Civil War” series. And I’ve always been inspired to read as much as I can about the subject. I’m holding a new book called “We the People", a deep dive into the US Constitution for when the series is over.

But something has happened since the last series, which was either “Jazz” or “Country Music.”

My husband and I sat in our recliners at 7 p.m. on Sunday, awaiting the first episode.

First, all the thank-yous to rich PBS donors for supporting the efforts, then the velvet-toned, narrative voice of Peter Coyote and the smooth, evocative music behind the voices.

Twenty minutes later, both of us were sound asleep. I woke up about the time the narrator started talking about Acton, and I was reminded of a wonderful ice cream place there. (We have family in the area and have visited multiple times.)

But I was having no part of the “shot heard ‘round the world,” as Coyote’s voice, the music, and the slow Zooming in and out of static pictures were hypnotic and put me right back to sleep.

I’ve been retired for 8 years, and since then, my sleep patterns have gone wild. I don’t use an alarm unless I need to get up very early, but I can wake up anytime between six a.m. and ten, depending on the day. I’m not a person who goes to bed early, but I also realize that’s part of a cycle of napping during the day.

I feel like an infant. If I sit down after I eat, it’s lights out. Yet if I try to go to bed at 10 p.m., my brain dances around for no apparent reason. My mind starts to spin and soon I’ll be off on some adventure that moves quickly.

A 2020 study from the Centers for Disease Control noted that older adults have more trouble sleeping than their younger counterparts.

Percentage of adults aged 18 and over who had trouble falling asleep most days or every day in the past 30 days, by age, sex, and race and Hispanic origin: United States, 2020

So it’s not just us. Frankly, when I do kaffee klatches with friends, sleep is usually one of the topics. For me, it was being on a very rigid schedule and moving to a non-rigid one. While I try to keep to somewhat of a schedule, I’m not willing to get up at the crack of dawn as I did for many years. Many of my friends get up with the chickens just like my paternal grandmother did every day of her life. Grandma went to bed at 8 p.m. and got up at four or five a.m., which was very strange when she came to visit us.

A July 2025 article by the medical school at UCLA noted five reasons for sleep problems in older adults, including:

1. Changing sleep patterns, circadian rhythms shift forward as we age.

2. Chaining health issues, older adults with health issues, including those with chronic pain like arthritis, anxiety, diabetes, and heart disease, may experience more sleep problems. The medications to treat these conditions may change one’s normal sleep patterns.

3. Hormonal fluctuations. Melatonin is the hormone that regulates our sleep. As we age, our natural melatonin level may fall out of sync with our circadian rhythms, affecting our sleep-wake patterns.

4. Lifestyle changes. Changes in routine from a tight work schedule to following children’s activities or a less rigorous exercise life may also affect sleep. And lifestyle changes may bring about an entirely new routine that is opposite to former years.

5. Sleep disorders. Of course, some individuals have sleep disorders that may need medical assessment and/or treatment. According to the Sleep Foundation, these may include insomnia, nocturia (getting up to go to the bathroom), restless leg syndrome, and sleep apnea.

(None of this is intended as medical advice. If you have questions or concerns, check with your medical doctor.)

Most folks know to keep their screens out of the bedroom as the blue light can diminish natural melatonin, and the audiobook playing Barbara Streisand’s endless million-word autobiography can really alienate your spouse.

We try to keep our room as dark as possible, yet not so dark that, on our evening adventures to the bathroom, we don’t fall. We also like to sleep in a cool room, which seems to help. Yet, despite our having a new, wonderful Stearns and Foster mattress, at least one or two nights a week, one of us will be found sleeping in the living room on our electric recliners, covered with an electric throw.

I wish I could find data on why sleeping in a recliner is better, but I haven’t come across any peer-reviewed articles. There are, however, hundreds of articles from people who swear by their recliners. You can even buy a recliner that converts into a sort of bed. The Zecliner brand looks very comfortable, features an LED-lit base, cooling or heating technology, and, of course, a remote for all the electronic features.

In our house, we’re both getting enough sleep; it just happens to be at the wrong time. This is not news to me. My mom tells me that all the babies at the hospital nursery woke up every three hours, and I woke up every two. Of course, I was hungry. Now I don’t wake up hungry in the middle of the night, but I either can’t fall asleep or wake up.

Maybe I need to play a recording of Peter Coyote’s voice each night in my bedroom.

Do you have sleep problems? Is this something new for you as you’ve aged?

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“A House of Dynamite” is currently ranked #1 in Netflix films since its release last week. Director Kathryn Bigelow (^“The Hurt Locker,” “Zero Dark Thirty”) dives directly into the genre of apocalyptic films.

Three segments illustrate an 18-minute period in which the United States military has identified an incoming ballistic missile over the Pacific. The country or organization that sent the missile is not known, but some suspect it is North Korea. This method of storytelling shows us the perspectives of various characters through essentially repeated segments, each from a different view.

According to “Tom’s Guide,” many viewers disliked how the story was told. “I was glued to the TV, then with that ending I was praying the Nuke hit me,” said one X user. “Has to be in the conversation for worst movie ending of all time.”

“Nobody wants to hear the same story 3 times and have it end without an end. Sad that so many good actors were involved in this rubbish,” said another. “The Director literally antagonizes viewers 3 times and then walks out the door.”

I watched the film on Saturday and will watch it again as soon as I have time. I completely disagree with the viewers. Telling the story three times from different characters' perspectives adds layers of nuance. If the story were told straight, it might turn into a huge trope. In a world where polarity is the norm, hearing different perspectives enriched the story. It’s not a way I would have conceived to tell a story, but I was open to it and liked it.

Now I won’t give away the ending, but to me it was not a surprise, and if any watcher would think about it, they won’t be surprised. I could totally understand the ending.

I’m a long-time devotee of this genre, and as strange as it may sound, I’ve always loved watching these kinds of movies. And yes, I’m old enough to remember the Daisy commercial for LBJ (click here) during the 1964 presidential campaign. (As I was about the same age as the girl in the commercial, I’m not sure if I remember it from TV or from studying it in history.

But I do remember having to “duck and cover” in the early grades of elementary school, a fruitless activity if indeed a nuclear bomb blew up South Whitley Elementary School. We would all have been dust, along with our copies of Tom, Betty, and Susan (the school was too poor for Dick and Jane). To watch the original commercial from Civil Defense, go here.

Failsafe, On the Beach, and Dr. Strangelove

“A House of Dynamite” lifts some aspects of my favorite apocalyptic films, “Failsafe,” and several other films of the era, “On the Beach” and “Dr. Strangelove.”

Directed by Sidney Lumet, the original black-and-white “Fail-Safe” film was released in 1964, during the Cold War. In the film, a computer error sends a group of American bombers loaded with nukes to Moscow, past the “fail-safe” position. A fail-safe is a system designed to prevent a missile from accidentally being launched or detonated.

Much of the film focuses on the negotiations between the American President and the Russian leader, with future “Dallas” star Larry Hagman playing the interpreter. When the bombers hit Moscow, the American President sends his own bomber, a friend he asks to make this sacrifice, into New York City with a nuke. The film — like Bigelow’s current movie — is fast-paced, intense, and filled with the horror of “this cannot be happening.”

I watched “A House of Dynamite” without the excitement of seeing the old black-and-white footage, knowing that “Mr. Gorbachev did tear down that wall,” and, for a time, the Cold War was over. Now the world is more dangerous than ever, with more evil actors having their hands on nuclear material, and “A House of Dynamite” seems very plausible.

I give it five stars.

What did you think?

I appreciate your comments, restacks, and social shares. I write to be read, and my special interest is the intersection of pop culture and history.

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Earlier this month, administrators at Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana) halted the physical printing of a special Homecoming edition of the “Indiana Daily Student,” the 158-year-old student newspaper of this original Big Ten school.

Jim Rodenbush, Director of Student Media for IU, was terminated by the university after he refused to remove news content from the Homecoming print edition. Editors fought with the university, citing IU’s Student Media Charter.

On Thursday, the IDS newspaper ran an edition with “Censored” on the cover.

IU administration told WFYI that the decision was financial.

Student journalists from IU’s long-time upstate rival, Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana), offered to print the Homecoming edition, but the IDS editors turned them down.

“The Exponent’s” (Purdue’s student paper) publisher, Kyle Charters, also told WFYI that he understood why the IDS staff declined the West Lafayette student journalists’ offer to print the special edition. “I think out of fear…that there would be some further retribution from the school.”

The Purdue journalists have not been without their troubles. Earlier in the year, the university disassociated itself with “The Exponent” and asked that it not be considered a Purdue publication.

Challenges to a publication’s freedom to publish are not new. I pay particular interest as I was once a student journalist. When I was a junior in high school, the administration rejected a new series of classes, Man: A Course of Study (commonly referred to by the acronym MACOS or M.A.C.O.S.). It is an American humanities curriculum project based on the theories of Jerome Bruner. Bruner believed that it was possible to teach children to be more humane and eliminate racism and ethnocentrism by studying another culture closely.

When the student editor of my high school paper wrote an essay explaining why the series should be taught, our journalism advisor pulled the story. The editor printed it on mimeo (1973) and distributed copies throughout the school.

In college, I did not work on the college paper, but rather the magazine-style yearbook. Our journalism curriculum focused strongly on freedom of the press, under the guidance of Dr. Louis Inglehart, a national expert on the subject. Unfortunately, my alma mater is now being sued by a fired program director who posted something on her private Facebook page, which was screen-shotted and put on a site called “Eyes on Education,” sponsored by Todd Rokita, Indiana’s Attorney General.

In summary, journalists are called the fourth estate for a reason. A free press keeps a country free. As we see so many of our norms disappearing before our eyes, we need to have the sense to understand that yelling “fire in a crowded theatre and reporting it exceeds the freedom journalists deserve, but much else — whether we like it or not — deserves to be told.

It was gratifying and heartfelt for me to see the student journalists at Purdue University set aside their century-old rivalry to stand up for their peers at Indiana University.

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