It is Sunday, May 12 and there are only 53 days until the Fourth of July (it can’t always be about Christmas).  If you are interested, we can usually see the New York City fireworks from our deck, so come on by this year.  Today is the birthday of Jan F van Bloom, Florence Nightingale and Steven Baldwin.  In 1792 a toilet that flushed itself at regular intervals was patented, in 1932 Goofy, aka Dippy Dawg, first appeared in “Mickey’s Revue” by Walt Disney and in 1993 the last episode of “Cheers” was broadcast on NBC-TV.  It is Snellman Day in Finland, National Hospital Day here in the US and in many countries, including the US, it is Mother’s Day.

For those who are interested, Mother’s Day was first celebrated in 1908 when Anna Jarvis held a memorial to her mother.  She worked for a number of years to get Mother’s Day recognized as a holiday in the US and finally succeeded in 1914.  By the 1920’s she was already disappointed with the commercialization of the holiday.  It never ceases to amaze me at the way we can take pretty much anything and screw it up by commercializing it.

Take, as an example, Memorial Day.  Originally called Decoration Day, it was created to honor those who died during the Civil War.  It is a federal holiday remembering the men and women who died while serving in the US Armed Forces.  I would be willing to bet that most people do not even know what the day is all about.  Through commercialization over the years, the day has become the unofficial first day of summer.  People have barbecues, parties, go shopping and start wearing white shoes and tan slacks.  While I am not opposed to those things (except maybe the white shoes) I still feel that there should be more recognition of the actual purpose of the day and less attention to all the other stuff.  More about this in a couple weeks.

Okay, on to other issues.  As some of you already know, I am officially retired.  I filed the papers with Social Security the other day.  I decided to make the move because my unemployment is running out and there just are not that many jobs for 63 year old people.  One of the things that concerned me was the ease with which it can be done.  You can go on-line and have it all taken care of in 15 minutes.  I was surprised because it is a government thing and they are not usually simple.  When my brother filed his application a couple years ago, he was so concerned about how easy it was that he called the Social Security office.  He was told not to worry, that it was, in fact, that simple to do.

Now all I have to do is wait for the lovely Elaine to retire and then we can become one of those couples you see in all the ads for retirement communities.  You know the ones I mean.  The ones showing people with neatly coiffed white hair who walk around smiling all the time with their equally neatly coiffed white-haired friends.  All of them are laughing and playing tennis and swimming and having meals together and they are always smiling.  We do not play tennis.  We tried once and the sport just did not work for us.  However, we will be glad to sit under an umbrella and drink margaritas while the rest of our white haired friends play.

When I see these ads I always wonder if retirement is really that grand a thing or do they put something in the water at these communities that makes everyone think they are having fun even when they are not.  I also wonder why more of the people in the ads do not have walkers or move slowly or take several minutes to get up after sitting for an hour or so.  I guess if you go to the right retirement community, those things are not a problem.

It reminds me of a joke from a number of years ago:  Several kids are talking about what they would do if they had some money.  One boy said he would buy a new bike.  Another boy said he would buy ice cream.  The other boy said he would buy a box of Kotex.  His friends looked at him like he was crazy and asked why a box of Kotex.  He told them because in an ad he saw it said that with Kotex you could go bowling, swimming, sky diving, boating and other things.

So, if we go to one of those communities we can do all the stuff they do and not have to worry about having to use devices to help us walk, stand and generally move around.  We can spend our time smiling and enjoying all that life has to offer with our white-haired friends, when they aren’t playing tennis.

I have decided that my weekly prattle should be more than slightly amusing.  It should also be educational.  So each week I will be including interesting facts for you. 

 Did you know that you burn more calories sleeping than you do watching TV?  You do, so put down the remote and take a nap!