One of the dividends of having written these jottings for nearly seven years, is you can go back and read what you wrote. It’s a good refresher. Sometimes it is not too enlightening and you wonder what ever made you discuss “that” subject. But it is fun and sure helps the memory. I have sometimes even retained clippings or letters of that time. They too bring happy memories most of the time.
Looking back two years I am reminded of our visit to St. Michael’s and Baltimore Harbor at that time just prior to and including Valentine’s day. We made a great tour of the Naval Academy, tried the various restaurants in the quaint village named for its church, St. Michael’s. We learned it was the birthplace of Stephen Douglas, the slave who became a diplomat. We promised some day we would go back. In that month of
1997 the world received the twins, Aidan and Alex Yake. We lost a friend, and brother-in-law of Dan Walsh, Stanley Karminski. Just a year ago we told of our visit to Busch Gardens and the visit of John and Mary MacDonald. It was also the beginning of the Paula Jones and Lewinsky dirges. We lamented, with Maureen Dowd, a columnist, the age of tawdriness and it’s being continually considered news by the media.
It is beginning to feel more and more that this is home. Our activities in and with the church community, the familiarity with places in the area like restaurants, etc., or maybe it is our guests who now can say, “Do you remember ‘last year’ when we…?”
Mary and John MacDonald have been here since last Thursday. John and I had a round of golf together on Friday. He went with me on Saturday to a Men’s Breakfast. Sunday we all walked the Bayview Drive by the Pier with an ending at the St. Pete’s Hilton Hotel for a brunch. It is one of the perks of having guests, you get to eat and walk in favorite places. It seems that “favorite places” only makes that status any more when we do have guest. Our other activities have kept us from partaking of them at other times. It may be one more sign that we are really at “home”.
We ventured over to Orlando once again with Mary. This time we visited a new spot, Cypress Gardens. It had an ice show and it is the place where the first water skiing shows began. We ended the day by meeting John at a hotel in the city of Orlando. The next day we visited and enjoyed once again Sea World with its magic dolphins and killer whales that perform on cue. We headed home with a stop at our favorite roadhouse “The Cracker BarreI”. I learned recently, it is also John Gotti, Jr., of Mafia fame, favorite restaurant. His patronage still hasn’t changed the quality of the food and service.
They now have a machine that rates essays. It is called “e-rater”. It was developed to rate the essays written by some 200,000 business school applicants who take the Graduate Management Admissions Test. “E-rater likes subordinate and complementary clauses and words like ‘however’ and ‘therefore’ that some people think suggest a tidy mind. There was a time when essays were thought to be more than the sum of their therefores. They were distinguished by their originality, (Ed. note: not quotes from others sources!) insight, and personal voice, by their graceful style, lack of affectation and willingness to meander. Instead of stomping toward a conclusion, many never arrived.” It has made me wonder how my ramblings would be rated? The purpose of the e-rater is to have less need for human raters. It, the computer, looks for “syntactic variety”, such as different kinds of clauses. It also looks for words associated with organization of ideas, such as “first”, “second”, and “third”. It seems to be the kind of writing I had to experience as an attorney. It would certainly fall into the “boring-orderly mind class. But unfortunately as I read, and reread, some of my spoutings I continually find that the “habit” is hard lose. I get right in there with the “one, two, three” and “therefore” crowd. But I will continue to try.
The computer programmed to evaluate writing is not surprising. The computer gets to do more and more word tasks. What was, and is surprising, is to read of a transplant of a human hand! It is a first here in United States but two others have been done elsewhere. The medical miracles continue. It, the transplant, has only modest success but the thought of attempting it boggles the mind. We seem to be getting closer and closer to the “Six Million Dollar Man”. It maybe however be that with inflation the Six might be replace with Ten or Twenty.
June and I had a walk in the moonlight. It was at 6AM on the last day of January. It is the only time we get to do that anymore. It was the second moon of the month. It is phenomenon that only happens every so often, or “once in a blue moon”. The last time was 18 years ago. The blue moon has only been around a couple times and it is the result of something being added to the atmosphere such a smoke. In fact, moon-lovers (lunatics?) never refer to this incident as being “once in a blue” one. Looking up at as we walked, I recalled that it was 1999 and just 30 years since a man walked on it. My Dad was doubtful of it really being done. He even inquired if I believed it. He didn’t live long enough to see the other marvels in space, such as, the launching a rocket to bring back “stardust” seven years from now! I am sure that having an essay rated by a computer would also have tested his beliefs.
Today is the day of June’s operation. I am sitting in the Public Library passing time. It is located across the street from the Doctor’s office. Now one can just sign up and have a word processor at his fingertips. It is another of those wonders of the Age. I am praying for her quick recovery as I reminisce. I learned some good news this morning. I gave blood on Sunday. Three days later you can call and obtain your Cholesterol count. I did so this morning and found it was below 200. It is the first time I can recall it being so since I stopped running. I can only attribute it to the reduction in the amount of food eaten for the week, since all other things that might affect it have remained the same. One week before the test I began to change my eating habits. I had entered a program sponsored by the Church called “Weigh Down”. It is not a diet. It is a spiritually oriented program using scriptures and common sense to change your focus. A diet requires you focus on food. The focus here is on eating only when you’re hungry and stopping when you are full. The secret is in knowing when each occurs. The first natural step is to see how long you can go without being hungry and then cutting the quantity in half. Everyone agrees, since it is a law of physics and nature, if you eat less you’ll lose weight. So there is no great help there. What does seem to help is the idea of not thinking about food. The focus is on the spirit. The idea is as old as asceticism. It is taught by a beautiful Georgia Girl nutritionist who sings with a southern drawl of the focus on Christ as what is needed to replace the focus on food. I have been to two classes, both consisting of hour-long videos of her lecturing. In between classes (which are once a week) we have audiotapes to listen to at home. It may sound a bit idealistic in my exposition of it here, but the success so far has made me a believer. I have lost a pouch that was forming and the pounds are down, now we head for “weigh down”. I have just as much energy and am sleeping as well as ever so I plan to continue. One of the claims made by the program is that it can even reduce your Cholesterol count without concentrating on “fat content”. It has at least so far appeared to do so. But we still have 10 weeks to go, so we shall see.
The first Sunday of February during the service June was installed as a member of the Church Council. She handled it admirably, though her face displayed a bit of apprehension, especially when she was required to turn and face the congregation as they orally accepted her. I know she will do a good job even though she keeps feeling she “bit off more than she can chew”. Here present problem is of getting over the surgery and it will keep her busy for at least the rest of the week.
We’ll end here with the hope to add a note.