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if my wife wished to change me for the better, she would try to change me to be more like my dog.
My dog had an excellent disposition that I always envied. She wouldn’t stay mad at her loved ones for more than a few minutes, and was always happy to see her loved ones, enthusiastic, playful and loyal. I have always tried to be more like her, but have achieved only limited success.
oh, no need, dear canine. I have no illusions about it. I did have to write an essay about why Millard Fillmore was the greatest US president ever. Believe me, that wasn’t easy, since he was a man of very few accomplishments.
I do have a Masters Degree which I did earn through the more conventional route: attending classes, writing a thesis, doing hard work and research for professors who got credit for it, and polishing apples for the department chairman for two years. You may, if you wish, address me as Master. That would be more accurate. I prefer Ron, though.
I would prefer not to have that moniker, but if the moderator feels compelled to add it, it should say, “Ph.D. h.c. (h.c. = honoris causa, latin for “the sake of honor.”
from the sage, Sheldon Harnick:
Who must know the way to make a proper home
A quiet home, a kosher home?
Who must raise a family and run the home
So papa’s free to read the holy books?
The Mama, The Mama! – the Moderator, the Moderator!
Yesterday? there’ve been several this week, so you have to specify. Was it the one surrounding the neurologist in Park Slope, or the 10 individuals, including three doctors and one physical therapist, who were charged with fraud schemes involving $90 million in false billings for physical therapy, proctology services and nerve conduction tests? Neither of these happened yesterday, but all happened within the last week.
I suggest skywriting.
You can take Salem out of the country but . . l
you can’t take the country out of Salem. (Salem Cigarettes)
A silly millimeter longer .. . . (Virginia Slims 101’s)
You deserve a break today,
so get up and get away
to McDonald’s.
Have it your way – Burger King
See the USA in your Chevrolet
Double your pleasure,
double your fun,
with doublemint, doublemint, doublemint gum.
It’s the real thing – Coca Cola.
Be part of the Pepsi Generation.
I love Bosco.
dear guy-ocho, Oh, but it is baseball season. Don’t let the snow in the northeast fool you. Somewhere, very talented men are being paid lots of money to play a boys’ game.
To quote Ernest Thayer:
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
Somewhere someone is striking out.
I am modest about the honor. I have been here for over a year and a half, and have not mentioned it before.
As for my posts, you may judge them on their own merit.
Call Roto-Rooter,
that’s the name
and away goes trouble
down the drain.
When the values go up, up, up…
and the prices go down, down down.
Robert Hall this season
will show you the reason
high quality, economy.
(alternative last line: low overhead, low overhead.)
dear Turns, I don’t like to brag about it, but I have an honorary Ph.D. from the Millard Fillmore Institute. I won it for entering an essay contest, circa 1970.
I’m not sure where you can buy a Ph.D., but you can buy a D.D., a Doctor of Divinity degree. The Universal Life Church sells them very reasonably. I’m pretty sure there’s not problem with idolatry or anything because their only doctrine is, “Do only that which is right.”
So, you can buy it, or earn it the old-fashioned way as I did.
There is some merit to Graphology, unfortunately it has never been studied thoroughly. There are graphologists who do testify in court. I associate certain types of handwriting with certain types of personality, and I’m usually right.
I had a cousin who would entertain in Catskills hotels doing her graphology shtick. When she visited Israel in the early ’60s, she wrote a letter to David Ben Gurion and offered to interpret his handwriting. Indeed, Ben Gurion replied and she did do a reading for him. At least, that’s the story she told me.
Don’t cross the street in the middle, in the middle, in the middle of the block…
dear phillybubby, I love that song, and can sing it for you. I don’t think advertisers and makers of Public Service Announcements today realize how powerful jingles can be. I could forget my name before I forget that jingle. ” . . . and wait, and wait, until you see the light turn green.”
That jingle was recently recorded by the music group, They Might Be Giants, and brought back nostalgia to some of us, and opened the ears of a whole new generation to one of the greatest jingles of all time.
Yakov eats WELL – not good.
Chaim throws a football WELL – not good
Asher designs houses WELL – not good.
verbs of sense are an exception to that rule – taste, feel, SOUND, ETC.
I feel good vs. I feel well. They both mean something in English, but they mean different things.
I taste good vs. I taste well – ditto.
verbs of sense don’t take an adverb when you are describing what you sense.
Troll my Gosh.
from Wikipedia:
it is now a matter of personal preference should an honorary doctor use the formal title of “doctor”, regardless of the background circumstances for the award.
Written communications where an honorary doctorate has been awarded may include the letters h.c. (honoris causa) after the award to indicate the status.
personally, I wouldn’t. I always thought it looked kind of pretentious to do so.
Winston tastes bad
like the one I just had
no filter, not taste
just a 30 cent waste.
shingles?
pneumonia?
someone should invent an aches and pains vaccine.
reading the sex of a child from sonograms is subject to fallibility. It’s really hard to pick out the main difference, and mistakes can be made.
all the stores I shop in have a service desk that will help with these things, or at least a manager. Finish your checkout, then take it up there.
they have a cemetery plot club in high school? Talk about planning for the future.
dear Turns, here in Massachusetts we also had a string of different names for the phone company. Originally, for the longest time it was New England Telephone. Then, in the 80’s, New York Telephone bought New England Telephone. N.Y.T. claims it was a merger. The joke at the time was that they took the NEW from NEW ENGLAND and the YORK from New York and named the new, larger company New York Telephone – it was that for a while, then became NYNEX …. then Verizon. Verizon sounded like such a strange name the first time I heard it, but today it is just part of the lexicon of corporate names.
some abbreviations go back to the telegraph age, when you paid for every word you sent. Some go back even further, to the Quipu system of the Incas (talking knots).
Many words that were two separate words, like “to day” became one word, today. Western Union would count the words, and disallow words it thought were illegitimate compound words. The newspapers, which were very large users of telegraph services (think foreign correspondents) would show Western Union that these were indeed single words, just look at what they’re printing in the newspaper.
this goes back:
ASAP – as soon as possible.
SAP – soon as possible.
SAPIEST – sooner than soon as possible.
Decency also says the merchant thanks the customer. Thank you for choosing me out of the hundreds of other people who are in the same business. Thank you for being such a pleasant customer!
I named my new dog “Vashti.”
Why? She doesn’t come when called, either.
Executive summary of Megillat Esther:
Jews 1, Haman 0.
(additional commentary: As Dizzy Dean, entertainingly and oddly loquacious Major League Baseball pitcher in the 1930’s and 40’s remarked, after losing a game 1-0: “It was a lot closer game than the score indicates.”)
I still say we do what our grandparents and great-grandparents did for the shidduch crisis in their time.
We contact a yeshiva in Poland, and have them send more boys over!
Smallpox vaccines – do you have that mark on your arm? Thank heavens that that disease was completely eliminated – twice now.
Tuberculosis tests in school – they’d jab you with this pointy device, then read the mark a few days later.
Setting an extra place at the Passover seder for the Soviet Jewry.
Postage stamps you had to lick.
Copy & Paste – involved scissors and real paste (glue).
also gone are:
printing presses – from the little AB Dick 360, to the giant presses on which they printed the New York Times and Daily News, they were beautiful behemoths, moving in harmony to create the printed word.
I had a friend whose father worked for a large entertainment retailer. In 1971, he brought a 35mm movie projector home, and a movie, I think it might have been Patton. This was the first time I ever watched a full-length feature movie in someone’s home, a few years before Betamax was widely available.
dear phillybubby, wasn’t it more like, “Eddie, keesa me goo’night!”
RONRSR If you remmber a choice of Salk Vs Sabin this was in the 60s
It was probably 1961, coulda been 1962 – summer time- they were giving them out on the football field of the high school. What a miracle that was! How much suffering was eliminated due to those vaccines.
steam-powered typewriters.
(only kidding)
Ma Bell – dialing with a real dial.
Western Union – telegram for you. stop.
dear Turns, I had the same problem several times last week. I also do not like to delay other shoppers.
I go right to the service desk and let them solve the problem. Really, it’s not the cashier’s business. They don’t have the power or the time to fix those things.
How about lining up with hundreds of other families to get the new miraculous polio vaccine? (Salk vaccine by injection, Sabin vaccine in a sugar cube, you know which we preferred).
dear Aries – the fax machine goes back to 1840s, I know you’re not that old.
I don’t know what precursor to the fax you are thinking of in an era before the telephone, but faxes (facsimile machines) more or less as we know them, only started to appear in ’70s. – YW Moderator.
dear Haifagirl, please don’t forget Fresca as one of the first (awful) diet drinks. Don’t forget Metrecal, either, for weight loss. Or the appetite suppressant candies, Ayds.
John Cameron Swayze hawking Timex watches on TV.
Alan Shephard blasting off into space.
John Glenn blasting off into orbit.
The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday night. Everyone would talk about it on Monday.
Who remembers that January is Alien Registration Month — register your alien.
pre-Zip code addresses with zone numbers: e.g. New York, 25, New York, instead of 10025.
Don’t be a litterbug!
The brand new Verrazano Narrows bridge! the longest suspension bridge in the world.
The great east-coast blackout of 1965.
When your whole family would come to the airport to see you off. Just like when you left on an oceanliner. They could accompany you right up to the gate.
Idlewild Airport.
The 1964 Worlds’ Fair and the Unisphere.
the Bell Picturephone. Never really caught on, but it was cool. They would demonstrate it in Grand Central Station.
I also remember when we chiseled our emails into the walls of our cave.
Incandescent lights had not yet been invented, so we had to read our emails by candlelight.
Why do the mods allow goyish song lyrics on ywn?
First of all they are not goyish lyrics. They are lyrics written by a Jewish man. The composer of that song is also Jewish, the son of a cantor.
If both your parents are Jewish, doesn’t that make you Jewish?
oh, dear mnchm12, I went through that over 40 years ago, and you have my sympathy. I hope they have ways of handling that better these days. It was extremely humiliating when it happened.
Perhaps your parents should talk to the camp administration before camp starts, and find a way to deal with this problem when it happens, in a less humiliating way.
Eisenhower was our best president ever, as far as I’m concerned. Things were really good for me when he was in charge, and they have never been that good since.
All I had to do was cry out, and someone would come to feed or comfort me. Women, both related and unrelated, would pinch my cheek and tell me what a good-looking fellow I was.
Meals were prepared for me, free-of-charge, and there was always dessert. I did not have to work.
Yes, things have not been that good since. Our best president ever.
I was fortunate to be able to shake Willie Mays’ hand when I was a boy. I noticed two things:
1. His hands were really large.
2. His nails were beautifully manicured and buffed. It looked very good on him. I don’t think there was any polish involved, but it looked good.
you need very little brain to live. this was proven by Mike, the Headless Chicken who had his head (and most of his brain) chopped off by Farmer Olsen. Mike lived for another year or two doing chicken things, such as trying to peck and preen himself, but being fed with an eye dropper.
Photos and further info is available, as always, on the Internet.
why buy a brain, when you can just borrow one:
There is a brain bank at Mclean Hospital in Belmont, MA. Its proper name is the Harvard Brain Tissue Resource Center. There is one in New York at Columbia University, too. THey are a resource for researchers who are seeking reasons and cures for neurological and mental diseases, may their successes come soon!
I think I saw a sign on this thread, “Abandon all hope, ye who post here.”
you also can not predict whom the Chicagoans will blame for their problems.
Do you think for a moment that it was ACTUALLY Mrs. O’Leary’s cow that started the great fire? The cow was framed!
2) he is called jewish & when something will go wrong people like rev. wrights will blame all jews
Where are we living now? The ghettos of Europe?
dear Ofcourse, you could always carpool to the mountains. You’d be surprised how little it costs when the gas is split four ways.
I am in the habit of saying “Thank you” to everyone I come across. I even thank the toll collector and the policeman who gives me a ticket.
Politeness is the lubrication for the social wheels. I have found, that everything goes better with a “please” and a “thank you.” My mother taught me this over 50 years ago, and it is still true. Thanks to her training, I do this automatically.
Thank you for reading my post.
Oh, 600kilob., it is so good to have you back each year. No, I mean it.
They are what they are. Lots of good, lots of bad, an awful lot of in-between.
If you are blessed with a long life, you will get to see life from every stage, an infant, a toddler, a child, a teenager, an adult, an elderly person, etc. We have no control over the stage, so your job is to live whatever stage you’re at to the fullest.
We have a 17 y.o. foster-son from Russia living with us. He laments every day that he was considered a man in Russia (I sort of doubt it) and could buy vodka. Here, he can’t buy vodka. I tell him he should just enjoy his teenage years, where most of his responsibilities are school-related. He will be 21 soon enough, B”H.
I’ve got the system beat. I put in $10 worth of gas per week, no matter what.
Of course, my food and other necessities also become more expensive as the price of gas goes up.
I have a fear of acquiring an irrational fear.
I have nothing to fear but fear itself.