Resolutions

Doesn’t seem like the day after Christmas. Seems more like a week before New Year’s. Isn’t New Year’s when were supposed to promise to do better? Isn’t making it through the year enough? Must we really give something up? Isn’t that what Lent is for? Let me get back to you on giving things up for Lent.

I remember my days at the gym at the old YMCA in downtown Little Rock. Come the 2nd of Jan., the place was packed. Seems everyone wore new exercise togs, except the old crowd with their faded shorts and their “I’m With Stupid,” tee-shirts. They all formed a dandy crowd. On Jan. 5, it was a crowd minus half-a-dozen. A week later, we saw a crowd minus 20 and by the 30^th, it was the same old hollow-eyed OCD crew as before.

Still, I sense I must give up something or take up something. Let’s see.

Oh, I’ll give up watching the Super Bowl since they’re going to feature the dog murderer. No, don’t think that will work. I’ve only watched one of them in my life. That was when Joe Namath and crew defeated the Baltimore Colts. It was a few years ago, I think and was only because I had weekend duty aboard the USS Hunley and it was either watch the game or make “Macnamara Lace” on the fantail. Tough choice.

I could take up baking bread as a hobby. Somehow I don’t think that meets the spirit and intent of the act of “resolutionizing.”

I could redouble my efforts at the local gym. Do more walking while I dream of a Trump-free world. Yeah, that’s it. I can feel my blood pressure rising already.

Running buddies and old friends ...

I’ve told about the decision my neighbor and I made once to run a marathon. We made the decision in the fall of 1979 and were training in serious by the end of the year. We had picked up some compadres since then. One was the late John Woodruff, who lived six or seven blocks from us. Another was the late Robert Johnston who lived, for a while, across Broadway. The others are still living as far as I know, and probably wouldn’t want their association with me made public.

John Woodruff figured largely into this marathon thing. He wasn’t a fast runner, so when we ran in a pack (yeah, kind of like a wolf pack), the others would sometimes take off at a faster pace and leave the two of us. I guess the others felt that as long as I was with John, that qualified as adult supervision.

John was a journalist. He worked for the Arkansas Gazette, the “oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi.” He covered North Little Rock, the politics and all. This was a plum assignment back then for the city was known for its “rip-roaring” approach to life, as exemplified by its legendary mayor Casey Layman. He was, in fact, too colorful to write about in a family-oriented blog. Let’s just leave it at that.

Anyway, John and I put in some miles together and shared an unforgettable experience I’ll cover later. For now, John was a glorious companion. He talked slowly, choosing his words with care, as you might expect from one who had spent years writing sentences that would be dissected and attacked from the nastiest of editors to the ACLU. He had this habit of turning his head slowly and looking at you when he wanted to say something important. And John didn't waste much time on unimportant things.

One of the most touching stories he told, as we were on a long run together, involved journalism as they practiced it in the old days. He told me how he would return from a City Council meeting, and pound out a piece in time for the next day's paper. Having finished his work day, he would sit in the press room with other reporters and relax. Then he told how, after some time had passed, the old Gazette Building would start to rumble and shake.

It was the presses starting up and announcing that the First Amendment was secure for another day.

John died of cancer a few years ago. Maybe it's good that he didn’t live to see a day when that precious piece of our Constitution is in such danger. I miss the comfort that people like John Woodruff bring to this world.

You don't meet many like
John in this short life.

Tax law and training bras ...

My wife called him “your little running buddy” and we did go out jogging almost every morning the weather allowed. Now that he had talked me into training for a marathon, we became serious about it. It was in the fall of 1979 that we began our quest, so we would meet mornings way before sunrise and head off north from South Broadway. Sometimes we would drift over and make a circle into North Little Rock and sometimes we would turn west and head out Markham Street and back.

In addition to tacking on distance, I found that he had quietly increased the pace. He was just a tad shorter than I, and probably weighted less than 160 pounds. It was pure torture and I would complain if he got too aggressive. Saturdays and Sundays, we began to extend our routes, mostly pushing our distances to the ten-mile range. "Be a man," he would say when I whined, as if manhood were a choice.

Why I was doing this, I had no idea. I guess the most obvious plea would be insanity.

In inclement weather, we would meet at the reliable old Downtown YMCA. There, we carried out our daily mission on an indoor track that measured at 16 laps per mile. Mornings usually weren’t crowded, so it allowed for collegial conversation as we circled for what seemed like days. We talked of history, literature, politics, art, and sometimes tax law. Oh yes, tax law. That’s what he taught at the law school and he enjoyed pontificating about it. It eased the boredom of the incessant circulation, so I listened. I always felt they should have given me credit for taking his class had I entered law school. On practical matters involving litigation, he remained reticent, fearing, I think, that he might unknowingly give legal advice.

I’ll leave us there, spinning around that little track like specks on a phonograph record. These days we walk, my wife and I, around a similar track at a local gym. We manage a mile or two a day, which at our age might be considered respectable.

We don’t talk about history or literature now as we circle the track. I can’t keep up with her, so we each walk alone with our separate thoughts. I recently read somewhere that enjoying quiet time alone with those thoughts each day improves your memory. I hope so for our sakes, though I feel for the youth of today, whose greatest fear seems to be having a quiet, lonely moment, sans cell phone, forced upon them.

Oh well, it’s time to don my gym attire and head for a walk. Today I think I’ll try and see if I can remember anything about tax law while I stroll.

Nah. Who am I kidding? I'll probably see if I can remember anything about Betty Anne Bohanon, the only girl in Junior High who, they said, never bothered with a training bra. For the life of me, I can't recall why I ever found that to be interesting.

Now that I concentrate,
it's coming back to me.

Life's Challenges

 I think I mentioned once that right near the end of 1979, my next-door neighbor, and jogging partner, said one morning, quite casually, “Let’s run a marathon.” He sounded quite a bit like Mickey Rooney’s character in the old films, when he would say, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!”

It made about as much sense.

Yes, I had been jogging for nearly five years. Yes, I had shed over 50 pounds. Yes, my blood pressure was a steady and reliable 120/80. Yes, I had actually run 10 kilometers once without stopping. Yes, that was 6.2 miles, and over rough terrain. Yes, we were jogging, on average, five miles per day. Yes, I was a strapping 36-year-old, if you can believe that.

But a marathon is 26.2 miles. In a nod to Greek history, the first marathon commemorated the run of the soldier Pheidippides from a battlefield near the town of Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 B.C. According to legend, Pheidippides ran the approximately 25 miles to announce the defeat of the Persians to some anxious Athenians. Not quite in mid-season shape, he delivered the message "Niki!" (Victory!) then keeled over and died. (https://www.livescience.com/11011-marathons-26-2-miles-long.html0.

Get that? He died. People die trying to run marathons, maybe not as often as the ones trying to climb Mt. Everest, but they do die. They expire. They fall down and achieve ambient temperature ere the ambulance arrives. They are referred to as “the late imbecile” by their spouses and friends. It makes no sense. Your body completely runs “out of gas” before it is over. They call that “hitting the wall.” I had no desire to experience the phenomenon. The very idea was ludicrous. Five years earlier I had been a wobbling slob. Further, I had failed at every sport to which an American child was subjected back then. Who was he kidding? I would choose to live a while longer.

“What marathon?” I asked.

“The Arkansas Marathon,” he said. “It will be in Booneville on March First.”

“March First? We can’t ready by then.”

“We could if we tried.”

“Well, I’m not going to try.”

“Come on. It’ll be fun.”

“No way.”

“We’ll move up to seven miles a day and be at ten a day by the end of the year. Then all we’ll have to do is work in some long runs after the first of next year.”

“You must be kidding.”

“No, I’ve started making some notes for a training schedule.”

“Well, erase my name. The very idea is ludicrous.” I used words like “ludicrous” when talking to him. He was a graduate of Harvard Law School and I thought it made me sound less like a country bumpkin that could be led around like a trained pig.

“I’ve already mapped out a seven-mile route,” he said. “We can start it on Sunday.”

“Take your seven-mile route and put it … uh … don’t assume collaboration on my part.”

“We’ll have to leave 30 minutes earlier than we’ve been leaving. That will still get us to work on time.”

“I don’t see how we could make it by March.”

“I knew you’d come around.”

“Where’s this new seven-mile route you’ve worked out?”

Thus began one of the strangest episodes in an already strange life.

Do you remember that life insurance
policy you were talking about getting?

Truths and challenges ...

In many aspects of life, it helps to have a partner. Quit your giggling. I’m talking about a health regimen. Geez!

I had been at it for a little over four years now. I had gone from a 250-pound wheezing slug on the verge of cardiac arrest to a hunk. At least I thought so. I was pleasing the beloved country-doc in Brenda’s hometown of Lonoke. I was at what the experts called the ideal weight for a six-footer, around 190 pounds. He didn’t approve of my methodology, however. “You’ll ruin your knees jogging,” he said. It was his adult version of “You’ll shoot your eye out.”

Of course, I ignored him. He, his name was Byron E. Holmes, M.D. and he died four or five years ago. He was a wondrous man, maybe the last true country doc in our state. Other than his prejudice toward jogging, we got along fine. I think of him each morning now when I struggle to get my replaced knee functioning normally, but that’s another story for another day.

Back then, I only thought of three things on a constant basis. Work was going fine and my health was still improving. Each morning, around 5:00 a.m. my neighbor or I would call one another for confirmation and then meet on the sidewalk along South Broadway. It made it easier if you knew someone was depending upon you. We would normally make five miles, first east on 27^th Street, (this was pre-drug-gang days) and then through the National Cemetery up through Downtown and back on Spring Street. We would talk about the law, the military, literature, wives, and youth, among other things.

He would only speak of the law in generalities. Once I had a contract to appear as an expert witness on a zoning case and figured that he would enlighten me as to how I should act. No such luck. I don’t think attorneys like to give away “trade secrets” to Outlanders. The only advice he offered was, “Don’t live and die on every point. If you argue with the opposing attorney constantly, she or he will take it as a challenge and make your life miserable beyond belief. It also pisses the judge off.”

“What then? Just give up?”

“Hell no. Keep your basic kernel of truth inviolate. Just be willing to give up some worthless points. The opposing attorney will latch onto them like a dog on a burglar and then he will wind up pissing the judge off. Keep your truths inviolate and the meaningless worthy of debate.”

I’ve found that advice to be sound in many other aspects of life.

Anyway, speaking of life, mine was about to change. One morning, as we were running past the immaculately ordered rows of white tombstones honoring the dead who had served their country, he turned to me and made a suggestion that reverberates to this day. We were in a wondrously peaceful place, one most conducive to contemplating life's opportunities and failures.

“Let’s run a marathon,” he said.

Pride going before all ...

It was back in the late 1970s and my exercise phase showed real progress. I had entered an affair to run around the state capitol in Little Rock, each lap being a kilometer and people had pledged so much for each one I ran. I finished the whole 10K. First time. I remember that then Governor Bill Clinton came out and ran a lap or two. Just as he climbed the biggest hill in the course and was panting like crazy, a TV crew came along in a golf cart wanting an interview. That was pretty funny to everyone except the Governor.

Anyway, I ran a couple more 10Ks after that, 6.2 miles each. Remember that I was at stroke-level blood-pressure when I had wandered into the Downtown YMCA in Little Rock a couple of years before to seek help. I was at my “fighting weight” by now, 50 pounds or so down from the bulk I had gained after I quit smoking in the Navy.

At any rate, I thought I was hot stuff, all new clothes, a practiced strut, and I was having my hair “styled” and not cut. My neighbor and I were hitting five miles a day. In bad weather, I used a 16-lap running track at the “Y.” Ready for the big time, I was. I was certain that a modelling contract lay in my future.

Then an awful thing happened. Not a disastrous awful, but an embarrassing awful. I had to go and invite my wife to watch me perform. To my surprise, she agreed. She always was the one to spot premonitions and avail herself of them.

It happened this way.

Someone announced a 5K race at Burns Park in North Little Rock. A 5K? A mere 3.1 miles? Child’s play. Come on Baby.

First thing she said when we got out of the car at the race site was, “There’s an old boyfriend of mine.” I felt a shard of dread until I looked at the object of her pointing. It was, well, how can I put it? It was seriously out-of-shape looking guy, resembling more Lou Costello than Bill Rogers. “Him?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “We dated in college.” Then she left to talk to him as I registered. When I came back to them, they were deep in conversation, ignoring me completely. No problem. I took one look at him and determined that he would probably expire after the first kilometer. He left to register. She turned to me and smiled that little smile she uses when she knows something I don’t.

“Can he run three miles?” I said. “He doesn’t look to be in good shape to me.”

She just smiled and turned back to him as he returned from registering. I ignored them and walked over to visit some friends from the “Y.” I’d finish as he was having his first heart seizure and get her away from here long before they carried him to the finish line. I did happen to notice that he was well-tanned, though. I also noticed he was standing closer to her than before. Just before I turned toward the starting line, they both laughed and she touched his arm with a hand.

“I’ll enjoy watching him suffer,” I thought.

“He lined up beside me without saying a word and the race started. This old boyfriend took off ahead of me with wads of stomach fat flopping from side to side with each stride. He was soon out of sight, but this just heightened my anticipation at seeing him kneeled over at the side of the path retching violently as I passed. I readied myself for the pleasure.

But, I didn’t see him again until I crossed the finish line. There he was, under a tree and standing even closer to my beloved than before. Now when they laughed, she put her hand even higher on his arm. I wandered over with, I’m sure, a great deal of puzzlement clouding my face.

“At last,” she said. “Finally finish, did you?” It was only at that point that she introduced us and returned to the act of ignoring me.

We’ve never mentioned that day again, even after all these years.

"The past is never dead.

It's not even past."

- William Faulkner

My Redacted Life: Blessings and praise ...

The weather was warming and I was making progress restoring my health. About that time, two wonderful things happened. I like to kid my little pal, but she is a wonder. Also, I don’t think we appreciate our blessings. My life manifested both in 1975.

It happened this way.

I had reached the one-mile mark on the little 30-lap track at the YMCA. The second mile proved easier. I was breathing easy after 60 laps of jogging. Then a couple of wonderful things happened. First, I’ve always been a believer in the advice I heard once that we should give thanks for the blessings we are about to receive each day. I don’t ascribe it to religion, just life. It’s a lot easier to change the way we look at what happens to us, than it is to change the things that happen to us. So why not just give thanks in advance for a wonderful life?

One morning, I arrived early at the gym to hear the sounds of construction. At the front desk, I asked Ersel what was happening.

“Construction on the second floor,” he said. “We’re putting in a new gym and track. You’ll have to jog outdoors for a few days.”

“What kind of improvements?”

A new gym with new equipment and …?

“And?”

“A new running track with banked turns at the ends.”

“Same as the old?”

“No. Sixteen laps to the mile.”

Oh goodness. What a blessing.

For a couple of weeks, I ran outdoors. It was coming on spring so I didn’t mind. In fact, I ran without a shirt and started a tan, the first time in years I wouldn’t have been embarrassed to do that. Then the other thing happened.

We had been working on the Victorian cottage and I had taken a day off regular work to do manual labor. We had pulled a flat bed farm truck into the drive and I was loading stuff onto it with my shirt off when my Little Pal drove by, staring like she had just seen Sean Connery. She went around to the alley and parked. Then she went into the house and came out soon after in work clothes.

“Hell's bells,” she said. That was the way she talked back then. “I didn’t think you were here. I thought that was someone else working there. I didn’t even recognize you. Have you lost weight?" She grinned. "You look kinda sexy, all sweaty and everything."

Was there ever a more beautiful thing uttered by a Trophy Wife?

"It is kinda hot," I said, stepping forward.

"Get your ass back to work," she said. That's the way she talked back then.

La Jefa

My Redacted Life: A milestone ...

Then came that wonderful day.

After my little pal played her trick with taking up my pants two inches (see previous entry) I doubled my efforts toward good health at the Downtown “Y” in Little Rock. The little 30-lap track and I became good friends, though it did tend to make me dizzy.

I added to the distance and put more effort into the “strength and stretch” classes. Then one day …

One day I had little to do after lunch, so I gave it an extra try. Remember that I was a few beats away from a heart attack and over 230 pounds when I entered the gym for the first time, maybe four months ago. I felt good after 20 laps, so guess what?

Yep. I finished a mile. A whole mile. Thirty laps. The big prize. Give the man a cigar.

I couldn’t wait until I got back to the office to call my little pal and tell her the good news. She answered but with a drowsy voice.

“Guess what?” I said.

“I was wondering about that,” she said.

“No,” I said. “Listen to me.”

“I think I may go to the grocery store,” she said.

“I ran a mile today.”

“Momma called and woke me up early.”

“A mile,” I said. “I ran a whole mile without stopping.”

“Daddy said something about going fishing this weekend.”

“Are you listening to me? A mile. I ran a mile without stopping.”

“That’s the most interesting thing.”

“It’s interesting, but it also makes me feel wonderful.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Running a mile. What are you talking about?”

“There’s this one-legged blackbird hopping around in the back yard. I want to watch it. Did you have anything important?”

“No. Watch your blackbird.”

“Thanks.” Click.

It’s nice to have dreams, but best not share them without the proper preparation.

I don't know. It was something
about going several miles to
go fishing this weekend.

For 90 days or so, I had religiously attended a daily routine of exercise at the Downtown YMCA in Little Rock. It was 1975 and the first time I had followed a healthy pattern of living since Navy Boot Camp. A wonderful fitness expert and trainer named Ersel Tillery was guiding me and I was making progress. You betcha.

At my 90-day checkup, Ersel and I were thrilled. My readings were fast approaching those of a 50-year old man, down from the early 70s when I had started. I had lost fifteen pounds or so, and you could see the vestiges of my chin again. Along the way, I had noticed my pants getting loose around the waist. I had even bought a pair a size smaller.

I was walk/jogging around the little 30-lap track for nearly a half-mile a day now. I was “born-again.” I had started projects around our old Victorian Home. I was on my way.

Then, I hit a bump on the highway to perfect health.

Getting ready for work one day, I chose an old pair of pants, the loose ones. I liked to wear them to work because I sensed that it made the other guys jealous.

Guess what? The pants weren’t loose at all. In fact, they were snug as could be. What happened? I re-traced my steps. I hadn’t been on a wild spree. I hadn’t missed a day exercising. I had even started walking on Sundays. There was no reason for bloating. Jeeez!

After donning some warmups, I trudged into the kitchen where my Trophy Wife (yeah, it’s easier just to marry one right off) was enjoying a bowl of cereal. I made me one and sat. I didn’t feel like talking.

“How are your pants fitting?” She smiled and spooned some cereal.

What the …? Now here was a nice philosophical problem. A Kantian Moral Imperative would demand that I tell the truth. A sense of “Pascal's Wager” would suggest that I take the route offering the least chance of future disaster. I discarded both and used my old standby that I call “The Lie of French Impressionism.” That is to tell two truths and let the listener mix them as the listener wishes. If the result is misleading, the fault lies with the listener.

“I’ll try them on in a bit,” I said. “You can’t expect overnight results.” I squirmed.

She nodded in that quixotic way she has of proclaiming a non-verbal “Bullshit.”

“I just wondered,” she said, “since I took them up two inches.”

Have I ever mentioned that she is a first-class seamstress? She smiled in that quixotic way she has of proclaiming, “Ha. Gotcha, you old fool.”

Would you like to hear about how I practically skipped into work that morning? At the noon exercise class, Ersel even found the episode funny. Brenda? After all these years, she still delights in telling the story. Did I ever mentioned that she has a bit of mean streak about her at times? I love her anyway.

Did I ever tell you how much
I like to mess with his mind?

My Redacted Life ... health

Been thinking about going to the gym. Also thinking about not going. It’s Friday and I’m tired. Also, gyms are funny places that make me think. The most out-of-shape folks are on the machines with the most moving parts. The most fit-looking are those walking around the track. The most muscular are the weight-lifters. The angriest-looking are on treadmills, and the ones who most look like they are having fun are the kids playing basketball. I think about lessons of life one can learn from the gym. It’s a microcosm of life.

Mostly I think about how a gym saved my life once. It happened this way.

In December 1968, I returned from overseas and reported to a U.S. Naval ship stationed in Charleston, South Carolina. Two days after checking on board, I had to stand the midwatch and forgot to bring cigarettes. I had been up to, depending on how the security watches in Da Nang fell, maybe three packs of Marlboros a day. A day earlier, at the ship’s store, I had purchased a carton of cigs for $2.10, or 21 cents a pack. I had opened one pack, but, as I say, I had left it in my bunk.

Well, there ain’t much going on below decks on a navy ship at three o’clock in the morn after midrats, so I was stuck for four hours without a smoke. When someone relieved me, I went straight to bed for I didn’t know if the “smoking lamp” was on above decks.

Next morning, I got to thinking. I’d gone something like 12 hours without a butt. I’d just hold out until noon. I’ve never smoked a cigarette since. Two months later, I gave the unused carton to a shipmate. I laugh at the ads about using chemicals to quit smoking. Hell, it ain’t hard. You just quit, that’s all. Pharmaceuticals are for sissies.

You do gain weight though. At least I did. In the old Navy, I don’t know about the new—they seem a little gentrified to me—you could eat four meals a day if you stayed up long enough. Then they had a “gedunk” stand that opened for a break in the morning. And, of course. they sold beer in the clubs on the beach. Let's just say that I partook of opportunities.

I didn’t transfer out of the Navy two years later as much as I waddled out. They almost didn’t let me go due to high blood pressure. At least that’s what they said. I thought they were bluffing and told them so. Anyway, I landed in Little Rock, Arkansas in the company of a splendiferous young woman who didn’t seem to mind my affection for carbohydrates. I don’t know what she saw in me but it surely wasn’t manly heartthrob type stuff.

Things limped along. Then we bought an old Victorian house. My corpulence began to acknowledge its inherent weaknesses and I decided to do something about my weight. I was 30 years old and about to die.

Then there appeared the Downtown YMCA at Sixth and Broadway. My life changed forever.

Stay tuned.

Fat, dumb, and married
to a beautiful woman is
no way to go through life. 

Morning Thoughts: December 2, 2017

It all started because I forgot to grab a pack of cigarettes ere I went on the midwatch. That led to one of my best decisions ever.

Conditions were right. I had only been aboard the USS Hunley (AS31) for two days. I didn’t know a soul, unless you count the personnel officer who told me he was assigning me to a crappy detail because he didn’t like Vietnam veterans. (I had foolishly asked for East Coast duty as my new assignment. Big mistake).

That afternoon, I had gone to the PX on board and bought a carton of Marlboros. It cost me $2.10, or 21 cents a pack. I had smoked a half-pack up when the messenger from the quarterdeck woke me up for duty guarding the chow hall. About 0015, I realized that I had forgotten my cigarettes. Send me aft for a fathom of waterline, but I was pissed. Few people were awake, and I could have easily snuck out on the main deck for a smoke.

I thought about it a lot for the next hour or so. I had been accustomed to sometimes three packs a day on my last assignment, depending on how the watches fell. (We had stood 6 on and 12 off).

Somewhere around 0130, a drunken sailor weaved across the empty chow hall heading for his bunking area. I had a flash. He probably had cigarettes and would gladly share one with a shipmate. I started across the deck.

Something made me stop. “Here you are,” I said. “Going to accost a perfect stranger and beg for a favor. You can make it until you are off watch.” I turned and waited. It made me have something to look forward to on what was turning out to be a miserable tour of duty.

My relief came, and I rushed forward to where I bunked, thinking about that beautiful package of Marlboros, the same ones that cowboy smoked. They were, the claim stated, as fresh as the great outdoors.

Reaching my bunk. I had another thought. “You’ve gone for hours lad. Can’t you wait until morning? “Yeah. Why not?”

Morning, and another thought got underway. “Hell,” I says to myself, “you’ve gone over 12 hours without a cigarette. What if you went all day in addition to that?” Guess what I did the next day? I just didn’t smoke and began training myself not to think about it. Luckily, I didn’t have anyone much with whom to talk about it. Talking about quitting is a sure sign you’re not going to succeed.

That was 49 years ago. I threw the half-used pack away a month later. Two months following that, I sold the rest of the carton to a shipmate. I shit-canned my Zippo lighter that had gone to war and back with me then, and my deliverance was complete.

Here’s the deal. Breaking the habit of smoking is real simple. You just quit. You don’t taper off. That means you haven’t quit. You don’t use pharmaceuticals. That only signals to your brain that you are too weak to quit. You don’t talk about it. That uses up much of the psychic energy that is required for resolve. Mainly, you just don’t smoke.

It helps if you are thrown, as I was, into a new environment. I never associated life aboard a ship with smoking. Mainly, you just don’t smoke.

Is it easy? Hell no. For 20 years or more, I would dream that I had resumed smoking and boy did it seem nice. I would awaken and, after some time, would remember that I had quit years before and never started back.

That was 1968. Some 15 or so years later, I ran a complete marathon, 26.2 miles. Okay, I waddled the last three miles, but who was counting? Now, when I enter a downtown bank building when it’s below freezing and see office workers huddled against the wind, shivering and puffing, I can’t help thinking how simple salvation would be. Mainly, you just don’t smoke.

Don’t blabber to me about how you plan to quit smoking, or how you haven’t smoked a cigarette in eight hours. Don’t go spending good money on drugs to help. Save that money for wine or Four Roses to celebrate anniversaries of your victory. Unlike other victories, you don’t have to do anything. You just have not to do something.

It ain’t no big thing.

Mainly, you just don’t smoke.

They say he died of cancer.

Sailing To Oblivium: September 2, 2017

Did some informal research last evening while watching a little television. Discovered that I know very little about modern business, nor care to. That’s what happens when one strays from PBS into The Wasteland. I formed some amazing conclusions, to wit:

- In over 35.6 percent of the TV commercials displayed, I had no idea what product or service was being advertised.

- Unlike in my youth, when movie trailers (we called them “previews of coming attractions” in those days) made you, by design, want to see the movie being featured, today’s trailers are warnings that a normal person should not allow themselves to be dragged to see the film by a team of horses.

- The chances of a modern drug (A) curing you, or (B) killing you, are 1 in 25.

- In this modern world, a patient seeing a physician must be warned, for some reason, not to forget to tell their physician if they are pregnant or have had an organ transplant. Has the concept of “top of mind awareness” fled our modern psyche as did the ability to utilize cognitive logic?

- Every cell phone service is the cheapest with the broadest service area and the most doodads. A few even still offer the ability to call someone up and talk by voice, although this feature is considered arcane and increasingly unnecessary.

- The female models in TV commercials are all beginning to resemble, to a marked degree, the president’s wife or daughter.

- The primary purchasing factor in a new automobile is its ability to transport the driver via public streets at speeds far beyond the legal limit or within safety regulations.

- Americans have grown weak. Unlike my wife or me, or millions within our age group, they cannot quit smoking by simply ceasing to smoke, they must have some medication to help them. Sad. I simply can’t imagine another physical benefit that would require pharmaceutical input to produce happiness.

- Self-mutilation, or worse, resulting from a poor credit rating may be the next crisis in America.

- To earn the title “feel-good hit of the summer,” future films will probably be forced to include multiple gunfights and at least one car chase exceeding 45 minutes in length.

- The future of America will largely be guided by a long-standing academic relic that academicians refer to as “Miles Law,” originated by a high-ranking bureaucrat during the Truman era. It states that “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” There is a slight variation to its modern definition: the phrase “where you sit” has been expanded to include “what TV news channel you watch.”

I think I’ll go read some Charles Dickens.

Nobody asked me, but …