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!