Today is Sunday, December 30 and there are only 360 days until Christmas. If you get out and get going you should be able to get some great bargains for next year. Today we remember the birthdays of Titus, Asa Griggs Candler and Tracey Ullman. On this day in 1809 wearing masks at balls was forbidden in Boston, in 1817 the first coffee was planted in Hawaii and in 1963 “Let’s Make A Deal” debuted on NBC-TV. In Bolivia and Chile it is a Bank Holiday, in Philippines it is Rizal Day and in the US it is National Bicarbonate of Soda Day and Bacon Day. 

As you know, tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve. That is the one night of the year when people go crazy celebrating the coming of a new year. Well, younger people do. People in their early to mid 20’s go out and party until well into the new year. They drink, eat, dance and have a great time. They also spend time wondering who Dick Clark is and why would you associate Ryan Seacrest with anything titled “Rockin’ …” As they get older, get married and start having a family, they have friends over and celebrate at home. They still eat, drink and have a great time, but things have mellowed a little because of the kids. As they head into their 40’s, the number of people they invite is smaller, but they still have a lot of fun. The kids are out celebrating with friends and they call at midnight. 

Once they are in their fifties they invite a few close friends, have some good food, toast the new year, call the kids and send kisses to the grandkids and at midnight drink a toast and then wish their friends a safe trip home. When they reach their sixties, they are lucky if they stay awake until midnight. They are usually wakened by their phone ringing when the kids call and they try to sound like they have been awake all night. I will let you know what the 70’s are like once I get there.

I used to enjoy New Year’s Day because of the Tournament of Roses parade and all the football games. Nowadays, the bowl games are spread out over several days and you really have no idea what any of them are because they go by a sponsor name. I was not a big college football fan, but I enjoyed a good football game, regardless of who was playing. Now, I miss some of the games because I have no idea when they are playing. Oh well. If there is no game I can always use it as an excuse to take a nap.

For Christmas this year, Barbara and I went to South Carolina. I had planned on leaving on the Friday before Christmas for the drive down. We could not fly because the cost to ship everything that we were taking would have been exorbitant. As it was we had the car so packed that I was afraid to open the tailgate for fear everything would just spring out of the car and … but I digress. I thought leaving on that Friday was a good idea. My plan was bolstered by the fact that AAA claimed that the heaviest travel day would be Thursday. Someone forgot to tell everyone that they were supposed to have travelled the day before.

We were fine until we got to Virginia. I do not know what the story is in that state, but there is one section that is bumper-to-bumper, in both directions, not matter what time of the day you get there. The worst part is that at some point (after sitting in traffic for over an hour) everything opens up. There is never any sign of why it was backed up. There is not roadwork, no accident or anything that would indicate why we were taking forever. It just opens up. I feel that if I am sitting in traffic that long there should be several smashed cars, at least one of which should be burning. There should be ambulances, fire engines, police cars and tow trucks everywhere and there should be people with bandages held to their heads and other body parts.

We left to come home two days after Christmas. My theory then was that it was part of Christmas week and people would be where they were going to spend the holiday and not out on the roads. I figured that if we left by around 8 in the morning, we would be fine. We actually got on the road by 8:30. We were doing fine and, while I didn’t want to jinx the trip by saying how well the drive was going, I did feel we would make the trip in under 12 hours. WRONG! 

We got to that area in Virginia and got jammed up again. To make matters worse, we ended up dragging into rush hour. I won’t bore you with the agonizing details, but we got home around 10:30. And, yes, there was a great deal of profanity involved. It is almost like there is an alert system that tells everyone to get out on the highway and slow things down because I am on the way. I am pretty sure that is not the case because other people complain about the same thing, but you start to wonder after it happens every time, in both directions!

This week our fact tells us that 15% of Americans secretly bite their toes. They do not tell us what percentage bite their toes openly, but I am sure there is a small number that do. One thing I am pretty sure of is that none of them, secretly or otherwise, are over 60. No one over that age would be able to bend over that far and if they did, they would need help getting back up. Having seen the toes of a number of people in my lifetime, I can’t help but wonder why anyone would want to bite them in the first place. They are not the least bit appetizing to look at.

I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year! I hope you have a safe, happy, healthy year.  I would like to thank you for joining me each week and I hope I have made you chuckle and smile. See you next week.

Today is Sunday, December 23 and there are ONLY TWO DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!! By now you should be scrambling around for last minute stocking stuffers and trying to find those few gifts you bought in October and now have no idea where they are. Today we remember the birthdays of John Davy, Giacomo Puccini and Queen Silvia. On this day in 1690 John Flamstead observed Uranus without realizing it was undiscovered, in 1888 Vincent Van Gogh cut off his left ear and in 1996 four women were ordained in Jamaica, the first in the 300-year history of the Anglican Church. In Egypt it is Victory Day, in Montego Bay, Jamaica it is John Canoe Day and in the US it is National Pfeffernuse Day and Festivus.

There is not one specific thing that I want to talk about this week so I am just going to make some random observations. One thing I want to note is that, in a way, we are lucky we do not have the flying cars we were promised at the New York World’s Fair and on the “Jetsons”. Based on the way people drive, we would be in danger of being hit by falling car parts after all the mid-air collisions there would be. Newscaster: “Bob Everyman was struck by a fender that fell off a flying car today while walking to buy lottery tickets. According to witnesses, two cars collided while trying to merge from the river corridor into local city air lanes. Mr. Everyman suffered a broken shoulder. He decided it was not a good day to buy lottery tickets.”

I hate to be repetitive, but it drives me crazy to listen to people speak. I never realized it was that difficult to say words correctly. One that gets me is the word “for.” It should be pronounced like the number – four – not like the tree – fir. Another word that people have a problem with is “escape.” For some reason they want to add a k, making the word ekscape (or are they adding an x for exscape?”). Either way it is wrong! People reading commercials for TV should take a few moments to look over their script to be sure they know what they are selling or talking about. I heard a commercial recently that referred to the disease spinal bifida. Somewhere along the line someone should have caught that.

I realized recently that I am becoming my father (shudder). I was telling my grandsons about when I was young and worked at McDonald’s. I started talking about prices and how burgers were only $.19 (I do miss the cents symbol) fries were $.15, etc. It suddenly occurred to me that I was sounding like my father when he used to talk about things when he was young. We used to make fun of him and often welcomed him to the 20th century. Fortunately my grandsons are not that rude, yet.

Here is another thing I noticed that is age related. Young guys in their 20’s and 30’s go out without shaving and they have an unkempt look that everyone thinks is so cool. Once you get into your 60’s that doesn’t work anymore. Recently I was getting ready to go out and run some errands. I took a shower , but decided not to shave. I have been shaving almost everyday since I was in the 7th grade and decided not to for a change. I used deodorant and a little cologne, put on jeans and an ironed shirt and went to get my chores done. In several stores I noticed people looking at me and seeing I had not shaved. They started to avoid me like I lived in a box under the highway and had been using my pants for a toilet.

I saw a guy the other day who had to be in his fifties. He was sporting a mullet hairdo, made more attractive by the fact that his hairline had pulled back from the front of his head leaving one of those hair islands in the front. He was wearing cut-off sweatpants shorts and a t-shirt that had not seen the inside of a washing machine for some time. He, too, was going with the unshaven look, but he was also going with the uncombed hair look and the lack of dental hygiene look. I can only hope that people from the place he escaped from found him and took him back with them.

I was at the doctor’s office a couple weeks ago and saw something that disturbed me. There was an older gentleman coming out of the building. He was using a cane, was not able to stand up straight and, even with a cane, was having difficulty walking. It took him several minutes to get from the door to the parking lot and a few more to get to his car. I thought he was going to get in on the passenger side, but NO! He was driving!! Now I know why we have so many silver alerts.

For those of you who do not know what a silver alert is, it is a notice sent out when a senior citizen is missing. The highway department puts up notices on the electronic signs on highways giving the car make the missing person was driving and the license plate number. It is hoped that someone will spot the car and call it in … but I digress. Guys like this get into their car, start to drive off and realize they can only make left turns because of their disabilities. They will ultimately get home, but will have to get there by way of Ohio.

This week our fact tells us that in South Carolina you can be fined for not denouncing “the evils of intemperance” on the fourth Friday of every October. There is nothing that says you have to actually stop drinking, but once a year you have to denounce the evils of it. I can live with that. Set up a round for the house!

Today is Sunday, December 16 and there are only 9 days until Christmas! By now you should have most of your gifts wrapped and should be getting started on writing cards to people that you received cards from but didn’t mail one to. Today we remember the birthdays of Catherine of Aragon, Jane Austen and Steven Bochco. On this day in 1631 Mount Vesuvius erupted, in 1893 Anton Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” premiered and in 1953 the first White House press conference was held with President Eisenhower and 161 reporters. In Bahrain it is National Day, in Nepal it is Constitution Day, in South Africa it is Dingaan’s Day and in the US it is National Chocolate-covered Anything Day.

I was grocery shopping recently and it occurred to me that I am becoming, at best curmudgeonly and at worst a curmudgeon. The former means that I am still the “me” I have always been, but things can get me peeved. The latter means that everything gets me peeved and I am not the loveable guy I used to be. I want to believe that I am curmudgeonly, at least for now.

I realized that many of the things I experienced on my shopping sojourn set me off. The drive to the store entailed riding behind every 90 year old with a driver’s license. I swear that one woman in front of me had to alternate between seeing where she was going and using the gas and brake pedals. There was no way she was doing them at the same time. I managed to get behind one guy that made me want to run up to his car and ask if he was okay. He drove as if he was in the middle of a seizure or something. I found myself complaining out loud, as if it would help. For information purposes let me just say that it does not.

When I got to the store parking lot, it seemed like every car in front of me was waiting for the same handicapped parking space to open up, although I did think that a couple of the old guys were just napping. At least one third of the lot was empty, but most of the cars were waiting for people to load their groceries and leave so that they could take the space and not have to walk an extra 10 feet. Maybe if they walked a little they would not have a butt the size of Rhode Island. The problem was getting by them to the open spaces. These people who are so reluctant to walk pull their car up in such a way that you cannot get by them. I guess they feel they are preventing you from getting their space. What makes it worse is that they pull up so far that the car in the space cannot get out. Now they have to back up which creates a whole other set of problems.

Let me just tell you something else I discovered. Early afternoon is not a good time to go grocery shopping. Unless, of course, you like putting yourself in situations that make you want to strangle people. I was behind one man who walked down the middle of the aisle.  He would take seven or eight steps, stop and look around as if on a tour, take another set of seven or eight steps, look around and on and on and on. Fortunately, the rows are not that long and after 15 minutes we got to the end and I was able to get around him. When I was finished and leaving the store I saw him again and he was about one third of the way through the store and only had six items in his cart.

Understand, I do not expect everyone to move through the store at the same pace as I do. My pace is motivated by a desire to get done and out of there and by the need to do so before I have to hurt someone. I really think that you should have some idea of what you are shopping for before you go to the store. The best idea would be to have a list.  This way you can go in and find the items that you need and then get out. There were people in that store who were not even sure where they were, let alone what they wanted. Of course, you have to remember to bring the list with you, but that’s a topic for another time.

One thing that bothered me was my concern that in a few years I will become one of those people who were driving me crazy. I suppose that will be my revenge for all the times I was made crazy. Maybe I will be lucky and will be a vexation for the family members of the people who were such an ordeal for me. 

The ride home was no better. The second shift of crazies was out and this was comprised of the same old folks as earlier, with the addition of moms trying to get things done before they went to school 45 minutes early to get a parking space so they could pick up their offspring. The whole “don’t park too far away” and Rhode Island butt thing was at work there, too. I managed to get behind one person who was apparently practicing to pull a float in the Tournament of Roses parade. Based on our progress, this person is set to go.

As I said, I wonder if I am curmudgeonly or a curmudgeon. I would like to think that I am the former, but it won’t take much to move me to the other side. So, watch it and stay out of my way!

This week our fact tells us that our sun has an expected lifetime of about 11 billion years. My question is – when did that number start counting down? Do we still have several billion years before it becomes a concern or do we only have 100. How do we know that there will be light when we wake up in the morning? If there is no sun how will we know it is morning? These are some questions that should brighten your day.

Today is Sunday, December 9 and there are only 16 days until Christmas! If you haven’t started baking, get going! Today we remember the birthdays of John Milton, John Malkovich and Nancy Currie.  On this day in 1212 Frederik II crowned himself Roman Catholic king, in 1793 Noah Webster established New York’s first daily newspaper and in 1965 “A Charlie Brown Christmas” premiered. In Tanzania it is Independence Day and in the US it is National Pastry Day.

I was feeling rebellious recently. I took a shower and washed my hair. I lathered and rinsed, but didn’t repeat! I know, the next thing you know I’ll be hanging out on street corners smoking and drinking with the guys. Not to worry, I quit smoking and most of the guys I know either can’t or don’t drink and wouldn’t be able to hang out on a corner unless there was a place to sit. 

I know I seem to be hung up on this age thing, but you start to realize that you can’t do things you used to be able to do. Most of the time, when we are younger, we are ignorant about the possibilities in life.  Many times I think of something I want to do and realize that, for a number of reasons, I cannot. I always think, “Too bad I didn’t know about this 20 years ago when I could have tried it.”

Of course, there are things I tried when I was young and never tried again. One in particular that comes to mind is skateboarding. Yes, they had them when I was young. Why is it that kids today think that everything they have is a new idea?  Much of the time it is, but not so with skateboards … but I digress  Anyway, a friend had one and asked me if I wanted to try it. I had watched him and figured I could handle it. I got on, stood there for a couple seconds and then the board rolled out from under me and I fell on my face. That was the only time I ever tried that and do not regret passing on further opportunities.

I have thought that I might like to try sky diving, but I don’t think the jump suit would fit over the Depends I would have to wear. I would need that because as soon as I jumped, I would realize that I was plummeting toward earth at an uncontrollable speed, hoping that when I pulled the cord the chute would come out. In the back of my mind would be the cartoons we saw as kids where the cord was pulled and out came the underwear and socks from someone’s backpack. Funny when it is the coyote, but not so much when it is me. 
When you are young you go and do things without any real concerns. Afterward, when you are lying in the hospital with your leg in a cast and recovering from a concussion, you wonder if maybe you should have given the idea more thought. As you get older you give everything a great deal of thought.

You consider things like how much coffee you had for breakfast and will you have access to a rest room.  You wonder if you should take your medications before you do things, because sometimes you get dizzy. You always look around to see where the first aid kit is. Before I go do something, I always want to know if there will be food available. I also hope there will be cocktails.  

I realize that our faculties start to wane, too. I am reminded of the joke where an older woman goes to a doctor to complain about a health issue.  She tells him that she has a problem with constant, silent breaking of wind. He says, “Yes that can be a problem, but first I think we should check your hearing.”

This week our fact tells us that in Topeka, Kansas no one may sing the alphabet on the streets at night. There is no real explanation, but I think it has something to do with hearing a song and then having it stay with you all night. Apparently, someone does not like that song when they hear it at night. Maybe it is because it is generally being sung by someone who is inebriated and, as a result is loud, slurs the letters and leaves some out or does them in the wrong order. This would cause people like me to have to do it right to correct the errors. As an aside from the major issue, have you ever had a song stuck in your head and then you sing a different one to get rid of the song and now the new one is stuck? Me too.

Today is Sunday, December 2 and there are just 23 days until Christmas! By now you should be dusting off the fruit cake that has been passed around for the past ten years and getting ready to send it on to the next unlucky recipient. Today we remember the birthdays of Ruth Draper, Randolph Hearst and Britney Spears. On this day in 1763 the Touro shul (the oldest existing US synagogue) of Newport, Rhode Island was dedicated, in 1816 the first savings bank in the US opened (Philadelphia Savings Fund Society) and in 1952 the first televised human birth was aired in Denver. In the UAE it is Independence Day and in the US it is National Fritter Day.

Since this is the beginning of a new month, let’s open the December trivia folder. The name December comes from the Latin word ‘decem’ meaning ten as December was the Roman Calendar’s 10th month. While winter doesn’t actually begin until the solstice, many folks move South well before winter begins – the Snowbirds as they are known. For those of you who don’t know the term, Snowbird is a North American term for a person who migrates from the higher latitudes and colder climates of the northern United States and Canada in the southward direction in winter to warmer locales such as Florida, California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas or elsewhere along the Sun Belt of the southern US.

Snowbirds are typically retirees who wish to avoid the snow and cold temperatures of northern winter, but maintain ties with family and friends by staying there the rest of the year. A significant portion of the snowbird community is made up of recreational vehicle users (RV’ers). Often they go to the same location every year and consider the other RVers that do the same a "second family" … but I digress

To finish up the month’s information, the December birth flower is the narcissus and the birthstones are turquoise, zircon and tanzanite. First and foremost, Christmas is this month; however, December is also National Egg Nog Month, National Fruit Cake Month, National Pear Month and National Car Donation Month. That should tell you more than you need to know about the month.

This time of year I do something I don’t generally do the rest of the year. I pay attention to commercials, to a point. I don’t watch them because I am actually interested in the products. I watch them because I want to see all the different things they want people to buy as presents. In the early evening, the commercials are about toys and electronics. I remember when the big commercial was Santa riding down a snow-covered hill on floating shaving heads. Things have gotten much more advanced now.

Now, they push phone plans that allow you three or four phones so that you can get them for your kids. Why young kids need phones is beyond me, but I am not trying to sell phone plans. These commercials always show the young children opening the phone on Christmas morning and yelling and being beyond happy. There are also the new devices that allow you to connect to family and friends and see them and talk to them. Why can’t they just use the new phones they got?

As it gets later in the evening, they start to push the jewelry (pronounced jew-el-ry, not jew-le-ry) and cars and trucks. There was a time when they only tried to push cars, but trucks are now gaining popularity. I have a hard time thinking of a car or truck as a Christmas present. I am from a time when a present for a spouse or girl friend was a necklace or bracelet, a nice blouse or sweater, perfume or something like that. Nowadays, to get the things the commercials are pushing, you will also need to get a second job.

The other thing that gets touted all the time is candy. I can’t prove it but I think the ADA is behind all those commercials. There are the standards that are always being sold. Did you know that around 200,000,000 M&M’s are sold each day? There are the specialties that are always around, but are always highlighted at this time of the year. Then there are the required candy canes and gum drops. Now, they also have white, red and green Christmas candy corn. Many of the companies depart from their standard shaped product and come out with Christmas tree-shaped items. From what I, myself, can attest to, you don’t need fancy shapes to get me, or I would guess anyone else, to eat candy. I hate to sound like a conspiracy advocate, but I think the candy and other holiday treats are just to set us up for the exercise equipment that they start pushing in the new year. I could be wrong, but …

This week our fact tells us that arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Why is that a fear? A drink of milk will clear that up right away. Why do we have to have a word like this to describe such a fear. Why can’t we just say that person has a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of his/her mouth? It is a lot simpler to say and people will know what it means. The official name is difficult to say normally, but imagine trying to say it when the peanut butter is actually stuck to the roof of your mouth and you are panicking because you have the fear. 

I want to start a movement – Call It What It is! No more fancy names for things. Please join the cause and stop calling things by names that no one understands or can easily pronounce. Just Call It What It Is! Thank you.