It isSunday, August 25 and there are only 95 days until Thanksgiving, so there is still time for the marshmallow/no marshmallow on the yams debate.  It is the birthday of Ivan IV (Ivan theTerrible), Leonard Bernstein and Margaret Murdock.  In 1609, Galileo demonstrated his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers, in 1916 the National Park Service was established in the Department of the Interior and Paraguay accepted its constitution in 1967.  It is Liberation Day in France, Constitution Day in (of all places) Paraguay and Independence Day in Uruguay.

One of the things I want to talk about today is dreams. I occasionally have dreams that are not only strange but very detailed.  I also remember them when I wake up.  One dream I had a few months ago was where I was working with all the people I used to work with at the credit union.  The difference was that we were all working at a Pizza Hut and the Pizza Hut was in a store that is, in real life, a Kohls.   That was why we needed so many people to work there.  The dream took place during an apparently typical day and we were busy.  The call center, where I worked, took all the orders and passed them on to the kitchen. We had a fleet of delivery cars and a very active dining room.  I wished I owned that franchise.

More recently, I had a dream that the guy who owns a local funeral home opened a catering hall that was connected to a cemetery. If you used his funeral home, he offered special packages for the cemetery plot and the repast.  The facility was also open to outsiders who just wanted to have a party.  In the dream, I was involved with running a birthday party for a group of 8 year-olds. The party had a Mickey Mouse theme and all the kids were running through the cemetery, wearing velvet Mickey Mouse ears and playing tag.  For those of you who are interested, yes, I got the look from the lovely Elaine when I told her about the dreams.  There isn’t any more to tell about them.  I just thought you might find them interesting.

Another issue I wanted to discuss is getting old. I know I have talked about this before, but it is an issue that keeps coming up.  For example, I find it harder to get out of a car and it takes longer to get everything working and to stand up straight now than it used to.  That is why I drive an SUV.  Getting in is easier because there are handles to grab hold of and a running board that acts as a step.  Getting out is simple because you can use gravity to get you out of the car. The only problem is stopping your descent when your feet hit the ground.  I have found that, with practice, I have been able to master that part.

One of the things that disturbs me is seeing people who are older than I am and what they are going through.  My father is in a nursing home and is slowly fading out. It bothers me on several levels to hear how he is failing.  He has reached a point where he does not want to eat.  He no longer recognizes us from pictures my brother shows him.  He does not even recognize himself.  My brother says that he generally cannot even complete a sentence when he speaks.  This is a man who was a chemical engineer for Exxon.  During WW II, he worked on the Manhattan project.  Now his only concern is that he gets strawberry ice cream once in a while.  During a recent visit, his big question for my brother was when is Halloween.  It bothers me to know that such a man has deteriorated to this point and that this is what we all have to look forward to.

My mother-in-law is in an assisted living facility. She complains that all she does is eat a meal, get her medications and then wait for the next meal.  One night after I brought her back from our house, we were going to her room and she said, “Now you know what you have to look forward to.”  I responded that at least there was something to look forward to. But I understand what she means. You live your life looking forward to the future and when you get there you find it isn’t all it is cracked up to be.

All I know is that the New York World’s Fair and the Jetsons promised me flying cars.  I have yet to see them.  I don’t know if flying cars will be all that great based on the way people drive lately. Maybe with all of them flying around, the rest of us will be safe inregular cars, on the ground.  But I digress …

My father always said that old age does not come alone. From what I can tell, he is right. It brings frailty, aches, pains, baldness, hair growing from places it shouldn’t be and wrinkles galore.  But as I have always said, old age beats the alternative.   I have always told my son that I wanted to grow very old and become a burden to my family. He told me he will just put me in a home and leave me there.  At least I will be a burden to someone so I will have achieved part of the goal.

This week’s fact tells us that 7-11 sells 10,000 pots of coffee an hour, every hour, every day.  That would explain the busy restrooms.