Today’s joke: Do moose charge you? Only if you can’t pay cash. Even my great-nephew Andrew, who likely has a promising future in standup comedy, would add that one to his material. Why all of this moose talk, you ask? I’ll tell you. It’s official: We are moose. Well, Rebecca is anyway. No, not Bullwinkle J. Moose, the 6-foot-tall orange one with yellow antlers who starred in the 1960’s cartoon with his buddy Rocket J. Squirrel. And not the Bullwinkle who wore his signature white gloves and occasional “Wossmotta U” sweater. (Tee hee.) I’m talking Moose with a capital M, my friends, as in The Loyal Order of the Moose. To join, you…
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First watch
For the record, this time I did not land on my head. I broke the fall with my left cheek — not the one on my face — then my left elbow and my (formerly) “good” knee. Don’t be alarmed. Nothing to see here. Just a bruised butt and ego. It’s yet another injury time out on the pickleball court for this formerly fit 20-something chick and a painful reminder that she’s 62 with bilateral osteoarthritis in her knees. Before we left Michigan in January, I saw my handsome orthopedist (whom Rebecca lovingly calls “Dr. Kardashian”) and received two cortisone injections to mask the bone-on-bone knee pain that’s worsened over…
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Erasing our history
Another Groundhog Day has come and gone. Keeps happening. Punxsutawney Phil, that lovable western Pennsylvania rodent, saw his shadow in Gobbler’s Knob last Thursday. Six more weeks of winter. As a semi-snowbird, I feel for those back at home in Michigan, but honestly I’m not surprised. It’s February, after all. It’s also Black History Month, a time to remember and celebrate our nation’s African American heritage by removing it from official college curriculums because it makes some people … uncomfortable. Wait, what? That’s right. Before Phil’s handler could don his top hat and tux, the College Board released an official curriculum for its new Advanced Placement course in African American…
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Forever Mayberry
Mount Airy, NC – When in Rome, do as the Romans do. And when in the city that inspired a fictitious little town called Mayberry, you visit all things Andy Griffith. Here we were on the first stop of our circuitous 2023 road trip to Florida – by way of North and South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia, and … The Villages. (More on all that in another blog. Trust me.) On this late Saturday afternoon in January, we had just enough daylight to see the bronze statue outside the Andy Griffith Museum here in Mount Airy, population 10,000, according to the 2020 census. This sleepy North Carolina town just over the Virginia…
