The Glorious Fourth

It is not yet the Glorious Eighth, but since the rest of the country celebrates the Fourth....

The 153rd Pennsylvania, "Northampton's Own"
Barlow's Knob, Gettysburg

Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might
And by their right
It waves forever.
-- Stars and Stripes Forever

And to salute our Marine Corps:

Adam and the Baloney

So Margie picked me up at the client in Jersey City and drove me home.  In the back seat was Adam the Wonder Baby.  He announced he was hungry and, nothing loathe, we stopped along the way at a Panera's.  Adam assumed the Mood Cranque and refused to eat the Grilled Cheese.  Okay.  That's it then.

But as we resumed the Journey Interrupted, Adam announced from the back seat that he wanted a baloney sandwich when he got home. 

No, you had your chance to eat.  Now you'll have to wait for dinner time. 

No, he told us, you have to feed me.  It's your job. 

Our job? 

Yeah.  If you don't feed me, I'll get sick again.  Then I might cough on you and you'll get sick, too.  (He then explained the Adam Theory of Communicable Diseases, of which Being Hungry was evidently one.) 

He repeated the "it's your job" argument several times.  Then, when we got home, he went to the drawer and got out the bread, to the fridge and got the baloney and a squeegee of Miracle Whip as well as the cheese.  All these he arranged on the counter and then summoned me to assemble them. 

I laid it all out for you, he explained. 

You 'laid it out' all by yourself? 

Yes, he said, most seriously.  I watch what people do.  Then I assume their powers. 

Adam Discovers the Mulligan

The adventures of Adam, a.k.a., the Energizer Bunny, continue.  A couple weeks ago, he had the Walking Pneumonia (and the Boogie-Woogie Blues).  His mother took him to the clinic and thence to the emergency room.  I asked him later how he enjoyed his adventure. 

I had germs, he told me.  But at the hospital the doctor wiped all the germs off me.  (A pause)  But he didn't get them all, so mama has to wipe the rest of the germs off me. 

+ + +

At another point, the weather had gotten warm enough so that he and his brother could play in the back yard with some Christmas toys they had gotten.  There was a (three wheeled) scooter for which he was garbed in more armor than the guy in the bomb squad who does the detail work.  There was also a tether ball set up.  On this, a ball attached to a lanyard is placed upon a tee.  You hit the ball and it sails off, but then you can haul it back.  Anyhow, he does this thing.  The ball flies off to the maximum extent of the lanyard. 

"I got high score!" he proclaims.  Evidently, all life is a computer game.

Then he plays golf.  He has a Self-Esteem golf set.  By this I mean a golf ball roughly the size of an apple and a plastic gold club whose head is about the size of his own head.  The idea, I think, is that it makes it almost impossible to miss the ball. 

He missed. 

The ball dribbled off to the side. 

"Do it over!" he declared, fetched the ball, and placed it in the same spot from which he had tried to hit it. 

Adam had discovered the mulligan. 

SAMBBITU Strikes Again!

Writer Extraordinaire

Noelle, who once held the title of Smartest and Most Beautiful Baby in the Universe (SAMBBITU), has once again displayed the prowess of her genetic heritage, having won second place in the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group annual short story contest with a two kiloword story entitled "A Black Crepe Hat, a Short Story on Jack the Ripper's Final Act."  The prize carries with it a cash emolument, and is the third such contest she has won.  She follows in the footsteps of her mother, who won the Andalusia prize twice, and her grandfather, who has sold a few science fiction stories here and there; as well as her great-uncle, author of two true-crime books. 

4th Annual GLVWG
Short Story Contest Winners:

1st place - Carl Wandersee (Phillipsburg High School) for his short story "The Book"

2nd place - Noelle Flynn (Easton High School)  for her short story "A Black Crepe Hat"

3rd place - Rachel Schnalzer (Southern Lehigh High School) for her short story "The Makeover"

www.glvwg.org/index.htm

Baby Talk

I will try to transcribe this as I heard it.  Adam (aged 4) is telling us about his imaginary girl friends. 

My first girl friend is Elizabeth and my second one is Nito.  [He holds up fingers to indicate the number, in case we are confused on this point.]  Your brain is like a map.  You can see pictures and talk to people, and kiss them.  Nito is talking to me now. 

[His sister asks him if he means "in his thoughts".] 

No, these are visions.  Thoughts are... [Hesitation]  Thoughts are in the bone.  [He points to his arm, where there is presumably a bone.] 

[Well, it makes as much sense as most theories of the mind.]   

I'm not a real baby.  I'm a fake baby.  I'm four years old.  A baby is one years.  Or a little bit more.  All big boys are like four year olds. 

[I can't say he's too far wrong on that last point.]

All the words are pronounced and the sentences are correct, but which planet he is from is so far unrevealed.

A Blast from the Past

M&M the millennial couple!

Here is a photo of a photo, taken by one of my bros from one of Pere's photo albums.  She is still every bit as beautiful as then.  I, on the other hand....





It seems like only yesterday.

The Benefits of Youth

One of the benefits of youth is the ability to go to sleep anywhere at any time: