Dear Sir or Madam

I lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for not quite a year, during which time I was mostly broke and unemployed. It was 1980, the economy was in the toilet, jobs were scarce, and there wasn’t a big demand for someone with a master’s degree in music theory.

One day it occurred to me that Kalamazoo had a symphony orchestra. I typed them a letter that was – well, let’s say – whimsical. Serious inquiries hadn’t done me any good with other local employers, so I thought maybe something bright and engaging and humorous might pique their interest.

I signed it and sealed it and put a stamp on it. I intended to mail it the next day when I went out for the morning newspaper.

I woke up the next day with a sore throat, so I didn’t go out, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought that it was a good thing I hadn’t mailed that letter. I was about to drop it in the trash, but I thought I’d try to save the stamp. I had never tried it, but I had heard you could loosen the glue by freezing it, so I put the letter in the freezer.

As the day went on, I got sicker – runny nose, headache. I had heard about some flu that was going around, the Bangkok flu they called it, and people were dying from it.

I lay in bed half asleep, thinking, What if that’s what I have? And what if I die from it? And what will my family think when they come to deal with my things and find a letter to the Kalamazoo Symphony in my freezer?

Kind of like the man with no feet

A number of years ago I came home early from work one day before our house cleaner had finished. On the kitchen table next to her purse and cell phone, I saw a small stack of socks that looked like the kind I wear.

"Are those mine?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. "I happened to see them in the waste basket in your bedroom."

"What do you use them for," I asked, "dusting?"

She gave me an indulgent smile. "No, I'm going to take them to the homeless shelter where I volunteer."

"But all of those socks all have holes in the toes," I protested, "that's why I threw them away."

"The people at the shelter who have no socks at all won't care about the holes."

Thoroughly shamefaced? Yes. Have I changed my ways? No. I still throw away things that have a little wear or use still in them, but now I feel guilty when I do it.

Happy Black History Month

When I was very young – somewhere between three and five – I heard my parents talking one evening when they thought I was asleep. They were discussing the two baby dolls I had which were alike in most ways, except that one was a white baby and the other one was black. They had noticed that I played with the white doll more than the other one.

I understood that this troubled them, but I didn’t understand why. As far as I can remember, that was the last I heard of it, and it was years later that I was able to understand their concern.

If they had asked me why I preferred the white doll, I would have explained that the body of the black baby doll was made of some hard material, possibly hard plastic, whereas the white baby had a cloth body stuffed with something soft, and a head of soft plastic, and was infinitely nicer to cuddle.

I give my parents credit for keeping an eye out for signs of incipient racism, but they needn’t have worried. I grew up to be an equal opportunity cuddler.

How do you solve a problem like a blogger?

I have neglected this here blog thing again lately for no good reason. I've had plenty of fugitive thoughts but it reminds me of that song from "The Sound of Music" that asks "How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?" I don't seem to be able to pin one down long enough to write about it. 

So, since that's one of my favorite shows, how about I throw a knife at it and see if I can stick it to the wall.

We actually saw that movie recently. Our New Year’s Eve habit of many years is to while away the hours until midnight with champagne, a delicacy we call California Bread, and a long movie. For a lot of years we watched “Gone With the Wind,” but we wanted something different this year and chose “The Sound of Music."

I got my wife an Echo Dot for Christmas. She has been testing it regularly, and the other evening she asked it to play the music from "The Sound of Music."  Interestingly enough, it played the soundtrack not from the movie but from the live television version of 2013 in which Carrie Underwood pretends to be Julie Andrews.

I watched that broadcast, and while the young lady was a decent Maria von Trapp, I thought the production as a whole had the character of community theater. It was, however, completely worth sitting through to hear Audra McDonald sing “Climb Every Mountain." Of course, almost any boring thing would be worth sitting through to hear Audra McDonald sing anything.

"The Sound of Music" and I go way back. I saw the Broadway touring company when it played at the Michael Todd Theater in Chicago in 1961, although none of the original cast (Mary Martin, Theodore Bikel) came to town with it. When the 1965 movie with Julie Andrews came out, it was a big deal requiring dressing up and buying advance-sale tickets for reserved seats. It came to Chicago’s fabulous old McVicker's Theater, and I attended with some friends from work.

There's probably more. Like my high school choir singing songs from the show, and my experience with recordings (vinyl, cassette, CD, VHS, DVD), and my inability to watch the movie or hear the songs without singing, often at the top of my lungs. But enough is enough.

So, whether or not I caught a cloud, at least I took a stab at it.

The man knew his stuff all right

Winter isn’t officially here yet, but Mid-Michigan is already under snow and experiencing temperatures hovering around the freezing mark.

By the way, do you know why Mr. Fahrenheit’s “freezing” is 32 degrees instead of zero? Because his zero degrees is the temperature at which salt water freezes.  Just a little trivia.

Okay, back to it’s cold outside. It is also cold inside. Earlier my wife got up out of her recliner, walked over to the wall with the thermostat on it, and leaned over to give it a good look.

“Are you cold?” asked I.

“Yes,” she replied, “but I shouldn’t be. It says it’s 75!”

“And what would Uncle Frank say about that?”

My father’s older brother was in the heating and air conditioning business. He frequently got calls in the middle of the night from someone wanting him to come over right away to fix their furnace because even though their thermostat was set to 72, it was cold in their house. He said he wished thermostats didn’t have numbers, that they were basically meaningless.

“Well, what would Uncle Frank say?” I prompted.

“Don’t worry about the number.”

“And?”

“If you’re cold, turn it up.”

“Exactly right.”

She didn’t, though. Instead she took one of her comfy afghans and curled up under it. Thanks anyway, Uncle Frank.

Bless me father, for I am sick

Sometimes two distinct and somewhat disjunct things will come together in my mind and form an odd sort of juxtaposition that I find interesting or, as in today’s example, ironic at least.

One of the things is that a few weeks ago we replaced both the toilets in our house.

The other is that because the posture of a person kneeling in front of and vomiting into a toilet resembles a supplicant at prayer, it is sometimes (especially if overconsumption of alcohol is involved) referred to colloquially as “praying to the porcelain god.”

What I noticed today was the brand name of the new toilet seats.

I should have said "None"

When I was in college in Wisconsin back in ’65, it happened that right after my birthday at the beginning of November, I started getting sick. At first I thought maybe it was just too much birthday cake or something, but in a few days it developed into a serious stomach ache and then into abdominal pain.

Late one evening my roommate came into our dorm room to find me doubled over and raised the alarm. Eventually our house mother and all the resident assistants were summoned, and it was decided I needed to go to a hospital. Luckily, St. Michael’s was right across the street.

At least four people escorted me over to the hospital where I was deposited into a wheel chair and pushed into the emergency room. A clerk hurriedly quizzed me for personal information -- name, address, birth date, religion, next of kin, insurance, allergies, all that stuff. Then I was whisked away to where nurses took blood and inserted an IV and a doctor poked and prodded.

Everyone thought it was appendicitis, but no test or procedure they tried would confirm it. They decided to wait and see but were afraid to send me back to the dorm, so I was admitted.

The next morning a distinguished-looking gentleman wearing a conservative suit and tie walked into my room and stood at the foot of the bed. He looked as if he wanted me to say something, but I didn't know what, so I just looked back at him.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Should I?”

“Well, you would if you’d been to church.”

Oops. The local Methodist minister visiting all the patients who listed "Methodist” on the admitting form.

He promised not to tell my mom.