The tin man was on to something

This piece was originally published in September, 2002.  If you or someone you know have a son or daughter heading off to college for the first time, you may find it helpful.

At the end of The Wizard of Oz, as Dorothy is telling her friends goodbye, the Tin Man says something most men would never willingly admit.

He says he knows for sure he has a heart because it’s breaking.

Of course, he wasn’t real. He was tin.

While it’s perfectly acceptable for women to wear their hearts on their sleeves, men rarely do. We’re strong. We’re tough. A man doesn’t acknowledge what’s in his heart, only whatever might be clogging the arteries that feed it.

So it came as a surprise to be reminded on August 30, 2001, the day I delivered our first-born to college, that I have something in common with the Tin Man.

All summer we had been encouraging Ben to get ready, to go to the mall for stuff like sheets, towels and reading lamps. As teenage boys do, he kept putting it off.

Finally, two days before he was to leave, we prevailed. He went shopping, and started packing. Seeing those open duffel bags on his bed, it hit me like a ton of bricks. He wasn’t going off to camp. He was going off to college.

Sure, he would be home for holidays and vacations, but never again would he be a permanent resident under our roof.

I suddenly felt old. And lonely, even though the house would hardly be empty.

My wife, I knew, was feeling the same way, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk with her about it.

Our younger son had soccer practice all that week, so it was decided that I would deliver Ben to college in Michigan. I went outside and sat in the car as he and his mother said their good-byes. I couldn’t watch.

It took us a day to get to our hotel outside Ann Arbor. That night, we went to a restaurant. When I opened my mouth to speak, nothing came out of it. There was a lump in my throat.

The next morning we arrived at the dorm. We made several trips up and down the stairs, carrying computer equipment, duffel bags, a canvas folding chair and his few other possessions.

Boys, I observed, are remarkably easy to move – they bring the bare necessities. Girls bring everything they own.

Once he was situated, we went to Kmart to buy a fan.

Then we had a long, mostly silent lunch – the lump was back.

We stopped at a supermarket to buy some Tide.

Finally, it was time to go.

We hugged.

Ben stepped out of the car and I pulled away quickly. I didn’t want him to see his old man cry.

At a stoplight on the edge of town, I pulled up next to an SUV with Minnesota plates and glanced over at its sole occupant, a middle-aged man. Tears were streaming down his face. We looked at each other and started laughing, two grown men, caught in the act, blubbering like babies.

Still, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself by the time I got home and it took a while to get over it.

I grieved for the Saturdays spent at the office when I should have been taking my son skiing.

I grieved for the school concerts missed because I was traveling.

I grieved for the Knicks games we hadn’t seen, the Scrabble games we never got around to playing, because I was too busy.

In retrospect, I wasn’t grieving for my son who, in phone calls home, reported he was making friends and becoming acclimated.

I was grieving for the father I had always meant to be.

The next week terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center.

That snapped me out of my self-centered stupor big time.

I realized I was counting sorrows when I should have been counting my blessings. Not only was my son safe and well, he had done exactly what we had raised him to do -- fly away on the wings his mother and I had given him.

I hope all you fathers who are delivering your first-borns to college and who, like the Tin Man, find yourselves unexpectedly overwhelmed by the enormity of the moment, will remember that.

And let me share some reassuring news. Your son or daughter will be fine.

And so, eventually, will you.

An interview with Congressman Todd Akin

I just returned from Missouri where, as an Important Journalist from the East,
I was invited to interview Congressman Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate who, until last week, was leading his incumbent opponent, Claire McCaskill, in the polls.

That changed when Akin told an interviewer from a St. Louis television station that women who are raped rarely become pregnant because “… if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” Akin, at the time, was trying to explain why he believes abortion should be outlawed under all circumstances, including rape.

His comment provoked outrage from women and leaders of his own party withdrew support for his candidacy.  So far, he has refused to step aside.

Here’s the transcript from my interview.

TD: Congressman, if you don't believe a rape victim should be allowed to end her pregnancy, what do you propose she do with the child after it’s born?

Akin: What do you mean?

TD: If a woman who has been raped is forced to give birth to a child she doesn’t want, what provision would you make for that child?

Akin: That’s an interesting question.

TD: Would you adopt it?

Akin: I’d love to but I’m so busy serving my constituents I wouldn’t have time.
It wouldn’t be fair to the child.  

TD: Okay then, would you propose public funding for orphanages to care for children of rape?

Akin:  There may not be money to do that. Someone was saying the other day America has a budget deficit.

TD: You didn’t know that?

Akin: I am only aware of one issue in the upcoming election, and that is preventing abortion under any and all circumstances. Like the billboards along Interstate 70 say, when we get to heaven the first thing God is going to ask is, “What did you do for the unborn?”

TD: Do you think God might also ask what you did for the living?

Akin: That’s not my department. Look, I'd like to continue chatting but I have an important meeting. Have a good day.

TD: You, too.

The dangling conversation

Caller: Hello, I'm calling for Thomas Dryden.
TD: Speaking.
Caller: This is Ida from Americans United for Our Future. I'm calling to ask if you have made up your mind who you are voting for in the upcoming election.
TD: Yes I have.
Caller: Would you mind telling me who?

TD: Yes I would.
Caller: Um....OK then.

(Dial tone)

My evening with Helen Gurley Brown

One evening about 20 years ago I boarded a St. Louis-bound TWA 727 at LaGuardia. I was headed for a meeting in Las Vegas but, back then, I always flew TWA, which required a change of planes in St. Louis. My ad agency handled TWA’s account and I usually got upgraded to first class, so it was worth the extra hour or so the layover added to the trip.

My seat mate was an elegant older woman. I recognized her instantly. Helen Gurley Brown, editor of Cosmopolitan. I saw her on the Today Show all the time as I was getting ready for work.

She smiled. I smiled back. The plane taxied out, and took off. As I usually do when I fly, I was writing something on a legal pad.

Are you writing a speech?” she asked. “No,” I answered. “I’m in advertising. I’m writing an ad."

“How fascinating,” she said. “Do tell me what you’re writing about. I used to work for an ad agency.”

I was writing an ad for Hilton Hotels, and we discussed it for a while. She said she liked my headline.

“Do you travel a lot?” she asked. “Yes,” I replied.

"Do you work for an agency or are you on the client side?"

I said I worked for an agency.

This woman who was old enough to be my mother was, I realized, flirting with me.

“Is it your own agency or do you work for someone?”

“I run a small agency that's part of a bigger agency,” I answered, telling her the name of my agency’s parent company.

She said the CEO and his wife were dear friends and that they had dined together a few weeks before.

  

I stashed my legal pad in the seat pocket and we chatted for the rest of the flight. Helen Gurley Brown, believe me, knew how to talk to a man.

I wasn't sure if I should tell her I knew who she was, so I didn’t.

She said she was flying to Oklahoma to visit her sister, who was in a nursing home.

I mentioned that one of my clients was TWA. She said she always flew TWA. She had a contact in the Manhattan ticket office who always guaranteed she got upgraded to first class. “All I have to do is call him.”

She said that, as long as I knew something about airlines, she would value my opinion. She said she and her husband had won two free Singapore Airlines business class tickets that were raffled at some charity event. “I’ve never flown in business class before,” she said. “Do you think we'll be comfortable on a flight that long?”

I could hardly believe my ears. Not only was Helen Gurley Brown editor of Cosmo, her husband, I knew, because I know these things, was David Brown, producer of, among other Hollywood blockbusters, Jaws and The Sting. The Browns could have easily afforded to charter the Concorde.

“It will be fine,” I assured her. “I’ve heard Singapore is an excellent airline."

Helen said she was originally from Arkansas. That she had come to New York as a young woman and gotten a job as a secretary at an ad agency. I knew that, while she was there, she happened to write a rather famous book.

“You wrote Sex and the Single Girl while you worked at the agency, didn’t you?” I asked. “Yes,” she admitted. I think that, up to then, she had been enjoying the idea that a guy 30 years her junior, not knowing who she was, found her interesting.

“On behalf of men everywhere, thank you,” I said. She laughed at that.

I don’t remember what we had for dinner, but for dessert we were served ice cream sandwiches. Not fancy ones. TWA was bankrupt. Ordinary ones -- the kind you buy in a convenience store. “I adore ice cream sandwiches, don’t you?” she asked, eating hers with pleasure. I left mine on the tray, saying I was watching my cholesterol.

Helen said all the talk about cholesterol was ridiculous, that she ate a hard boiled egg every morning. “It’s the perfect food.”

She told me about growing up in a small town in Arkansas. I told her about growing up in a rural Missouri town. She asked if I was married and if I had kids. I said yes and yes.  She said she was worried about her sister, who was having trouble adjusting to the nursing home. That was why she was going out to see her for the weekend.

Two and a half hours after take-off, we landed during a thunderstorm. Both our connecting flights were delayed. I belonged to TWA’s private club, so I invited her to join me while we waited for our flights. She accepted. I had a cocktail. She had orange juice.

After a while, both our planes were announced and we hugged goodbye. “I hope you have a good meeting,” she said. “I hope you have a good visit with your sister,” I told her.

Helen Gurley Brown died Monday at age 90. Though she penned one of the most revolutionary books of the last 100 years, was editor of one of the world’s most successful magazines, and was married to a Hollywood mogul, there wasn’t an ounce of pretension about her. 

She was, that night, a genuine, smart lady from Arkansas, who knew how to charm a man like no woman I have ever met.  

Rest in peace sweet lady.

Out there waiting for his true companion

I write often about our dachshund, Bonnie, but rarely mention our other one,
Billy Ray. That’s because Billy is a one-person dog and that person ain’t me.
He belongs, heart and soul, to my wife.

Billy is obsessed with her to such a degree that, if he were a human, she would have long ago had to obtain a restraining order.

When she goes to the bathroom, Billy accompanies her and watches adoringly. She makes 50 trips up and down the stairs every day. His legs are so short he can’t handle stairs so he insists she carry him. That way he won’t miss anything fascinating, like her making the bed or emptying a wastepaper basket. When I conjure up an image of my wife, I no longer see just her. I see her with a black and cream long-haired dachshund tucked under her arm, and the look on his face is one of triumph -- "She's mine."

When she goes to the mailbox, he sits by the door and waits like Odysseus’ dog waited for him to return from Troy. When she comes back two minutes later, he weeps as if she had been gone 20 years. He will only eat if she’s in the room, encouraging every bite. When I try to talk to her, he begins barking and it’s impossible to continue the conversation until she picks him up, at which point he shuts up. It’s his way of telling me he controls access to her and that he’s allowing me to talk with her. This time.

When we travel back and forth between Connecticut and Florida, he sits in her lap while I'm driving. When she relieves me at the wheel, he immediately climbs into the back to let me know I’m inadequate. But then he tries sneaking back into her lap, which is dangerous, so, after an hour or so, I take over again.

She’s gone right now on an overnight trip and he is beyond distraught. Yesterday afternoon he sat by the door through which she left, shaking like a leaf. He hasn't eaten for 24 hours and I don’t think he slept, either. When I switched off the bedroom light last night, he was staring at the door, trying to will her to walk through it. When I woke up, he was still staring. This morning he keeps nodding off but then jerks awake and runs into the other room to see if she has returned. I feel sorry for him because, in his mind, she has probably been murdered and fed into a wood chipper.

She’ll be back this afternoon. Billy’s joy will know no bounds.

I love her. Our sons love her. Her mother and brother love her. But nobody will ever, ever love my wife as purely and intensely as Billy.

I have to admit I’m a bit jealous of a 10-pound wiener dog, but it is impossible not to love a little creature who can love someone like that. 

If campaign ads were written like Burma Shave signs

I was thinking about Burma Shave advertising the other day.  Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. For those who don’t, Burma Shave was a brand of brushless shaving cream that, until the mid-sixties, was advertised using a series of small roadside signs, in groups of four, five or six. You would read the first line on sign one … then, 100 feet or so down the road, the second line on sign two … then the third … etc.  The last sign always read, “Burma Shave.” Here's one of my favorites:

The wolf is shaved

So neat and trim

Red Riding Hood

Is Chasing

Him

Burma Shave

The reason I was thinking about Burma Shave ads is that we are in for the dirtiest, nastiest, most depressing presidential campaign in generations. It's already started.

I sure wish Congress would pass a law limiting campaign ads to no more than 15 words, and require a rhyme to make us laugh, just like Burma Shave ads. Just think how much more civil and entertaining campaign season would be.

Here are some examples of what might be. (And for the record, I wrote five for each candidate so you don't have to count to try and figure out which one I'm for. Can’t stand either of them.)

                                               

If the wealthy 

You disdain

Remember Romney
Founded                                

Bain

Own a business?
It's well known
You didn't
Build it
On your own

The economy's
No longer slidin'.
Re-elect
Barack and
Biden

What's he doing
For the workforce,
When he's out there
On the
Golf course?

Feeling poorly?                        

Don’t despair.    

You’re covered                     

By                                 

Obamacare

Governor Romney

has a plan

To bring

Jobs back

From Vietnam

If you’re in   

The 1%   

You can thank  

The                    

Government                 

Who would have guessed

Obama could

Make Jimmy Carter

Look so
good?

Wanna know where       

Romney’s going?          

Depends which way            

The wind            

Is blowing  

As president
Barack's unfit.
So make sure
That you vote
For Mitt

Missourians celebrate new-found religious freedom

Here’s a shout out to the voters of my native state, Missouri, who by a margin of five to one yesterday approved an amendment to the state constitution that guarantees every Missourian freedom of religious expression.

Here’s hoping that, someday soon, residents of the Show-Me state will be able to enjoy not just one but all the basic rights those of us in the other 49 states have enjoyed for years, including the right to trial by jury, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to bear arms. Why, I can even foresee a Missouri that someday -- probably not in my lifetime but in my children's -- will allow women to vote!

In the meantime, I look forward to exercising my freedom of religious expression next time I visit -- something I was never allowed to do in that state, which is why I left.

The ultimate Boomer memory test

Facebook was founded to enable Harvard students to keep in touch. Within a few years, it had evolved into a tool that allowed young people worldwide to stay in touch. Today, its purpose is to allow Boomers, when not busy posting photos of their grandchildren, to post pictures of obsolete gizmos like foot dimmer switches, Tupperware popsicle trays, rotary phones and drive-in movie speakers and ask their fellow old farts if they remember them.

No wonder Facebook stock is in the toilet.

I don't know about you but I'm tired of being reminded every time I log on to Facebook that I’m older than Methuselah. So here, for all you fans of the “do you remember this?” genre is what I hope will become the ultimate (e.g. last) test of its type. To make it easy – I know you’re old and your memory may need a jog -- I’ve given you a choice of answers under each photo.

1. Betcha you remember this, don't you? Of course you do! 

( ) Highlights for Children character, Gallant

( ) Page from a reading primer
( ) Comic book

( ) VD awareness poster


2, What are these school children doing?

( ) Listening to a Yoko Ono album

( ) Practicing for Armageddon

( ) Hiding from sniper

( ) Being taught evolution in a Christian school


3. You get heap-um of hoorays if you know what this is.

( ) Cover of Big Chief writing tablet

( ) Lid of box of popular children’s game, "Injun Joe"

( ) Plastic “punch out” 33 rpm record, 10 Little Indians, that was free inside specially-marked boxes of Sugar Pops 

( ) A test pattern TV stations broadcast when they were off the air


4. Who was the sponsor of the TV show that starred these fellas?

( ) Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

( ) Lutheran Church

( ) Purina

( ) Church of Scientology

5. All we are saying ... is what the heck is this?

( ) Logo of the car Janis beseeched the Lord to buy her
( ) Peace sign
( ) '67 GTO steering wheel
( ) Logo of the company whose theme song was, "You can trust your car to the man who wears the star..." 

6. Any woman selected "Queen for a Day" had to have what in order to win?

( ) A large rack

( ) Superior domestic skills

( ) Perfect posture
( ) A miserable life

7. We read all about this guy in the Weekly Reader. What was he saying? 

( ) If the shoe fits, you must acquit

( ) These f#@&*g flies are driving me nuts
( ) We will bury you
( ) I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet

8. Yummy yummy yummy!  This is a flavor of what?

( ) Boone's Farm

( ) Welch's Jam

( ) Lik-M-Aid
( ) Borden's Milk

9. What did millions of Boomers ingest using one of these? 

( ) LSD
( ) Polio vaccine
( ) Both of the above
( ) My grandkid is sitting on my lap and can read so let's move on, OK?

10. Memories are made of this. What is it?

( ) '63 Plymouth 318 V8 air cleaner
( ) Roulette wheel
( ) Kodak slide tray
( ) IBM Selectric type ball

11. Oh, the memories. Now, if I could only remember what it is!  Do you?

( ) Electronic insemination device

( ) Writing instrument

( ) Christmas tree light

( ) Elroy Jetson’s pacifier


12. Last but not least, what in the heck is this funny looking thing?

( ) Toy with which you can do many tricks, including “walk the dog”

( ) What your children insist you wear around your neck to summon help if you fall

( ) Vanilla Oreo with a string on it which makes no sense but then, not much makes sense when you're my age 

( ) Something you wear around finger so you won’t forget to log on to Facebook to see what obsolete thing your friends want to know if you remember

What are the odds of this?

Odds of:

calling a coin toss correctly: 1 in 2.

two blondes, each of whom own more sweaters than Macy’s, both showing up for dinner wearing lilac cardigans: 1 in 100.

a Connecticut supermarket cashier saying “thank you": 1 in 11,543.

two blondes, both of whom own more colored tops than The Gap and more sweaters than Macy’s, meeting for dinner wearing aqua tops and lilac cardigans: 1 in 13,664.

tomdryden.com winning a Pulitzer prize:
1 in 124,253.

two blondes, both of whom own more slacks than Bloomingdales, more tops than The Gap and more sweaters than Macy’s, meeting for dinner wearing white pants, aqua tops, and lilac cardigans: 1 in 264,035.

a dachshund that, after five years of training by the Dog Whisperer, is at least 95 percent housebroken: 1 in 649,740.

two blondes, both of whom own more individual pieces of jewelry than the royal families of Britain, Brunei, Spain and Sweden, more slacks than Bloomingdales, more tops than The Gap and more sweaters than Macy’s, meeting for dinner wearing identical bracelets from same designer, white pants, aqua tops and lilac cardigans: 1 in 2,238,536.

being killed by a frozen turd falling out of the lavatory of an airplane:

1 in 53,320,000.

two blondes meeting for dinner and discovering they are carrying identical Pucci handbags and wearing identical bracelets, white pants, turquoise t-shirts and lilac cardigans: 1 in 159,295,303.

a meteor landing on your house: 1 in 182,138,880,127,006.

those two, meeting for dinner in same restaurant exactly 124 weeks to the day after the above incident, and, once again, wearing five identical items of clothing and accessories, none of which they wore the first time: 1 in 652,253,200,539,231,502.

neither friend’s husband having cell phone with camera on him to record second incident: 100 percent.

Sorry I haven't written but these are the dog days

My grand-dog, Topanga, enjoying the dog days of summer

I haven’t blogged for more than a week. I thought about it, I really did, but these are the dog days and I'm lazy. If I had blogged, I could have told you that my local supermarket is selling tomatoes from New Jersey for $4.95 a pound and that people with more money than sense are happily snapping them up. I could have said how sad it is we have a president who holds businesspeople in contempt. I could have written about why I don’t understand why the hell this country can’t keep guns out of the hands of loons like that nutcase who killed all those kids in Colorado. I could have told you how much I love Apple products. When my beloved six-year-old MacBook finally gave up the ghost the other night,  I left home at 8 pm, drove 15 miles to the Apple Store, and was home by 9 with a fully functioning new MacBook Pro that does everything but wipe my behind and there's probably an app for that somewhere. I could have written about how Mitt Romney is probably going to lose because the guy has the charisma of a deer tick. I could have said that my wife has been obsessed  -- obsessed --  with finding a dress for our son’s wedding in January and that she finally bought it today and it looks great. When I asked why she bought it so early (men usually wait until an hour before an event) she said there won’t be any dresses in January. (So ladies, load up.) I could have written about how sick I am of getting robo calls from that bitch Rachel at Cardmember Services who has called three times a week for two years. I could have told you all about the swanky wedding reception we attended last weekend that made Prince William and Kate Middleton’s look like trailer trash. Yeah, I could have written about a lot of things and I would have probably been too lazy to even indent my paragraphs. But I didn’t. It’s about to rain and I promised I’d grill some shrimp before the sky opens up. Here’s my recipe.

                                Tom’s Secret Shrimp Basting Sauce

Mix ½ stick melted butter with ½ cup honey. Add a coupla tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce. Nuke until bubbly. Brush on shrimp. Go to bank, procure second mortgage and serve with fresh-sliced New Jersey tomatoes.

A wake-up call from Callista Gingrich

We're snoozing happily Saturday morning when the phone rings.

Hello," an automated voice announces. "I'm Callista Gingrich."

Callista, wife of failed presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, is calling to hawk a new movie she produced, based on Newt's 2007 book, "Rediscovering God in America." I listen a minute or so before I hang up.

Two words for the Gingriches: Bite me.

If you two are so righteous, why did you allow your campaign to place robocalls to Jewish Florida voters claiming Romney, as governor of Massachusetts, purposely denied kosher food to Holocaust survivors in nursing homes? Think God approved of that?

How come you enlisted Newt's offspring from marriage #1 to attack his wife from marriage #2 who, just before the South Carolina primary, went on TV to claim wife #3 was a home wrecker? Jesus wept.

I'm not perfect either but then, I don't go around running for president, purporting to know what God wants for America.

Newt, you're way, way, past your due date. The voters have spoken and rejected you soundly. Callista, lay off the hair spray and peroxide and, for God's sake, don't call me bright and early on Saturdays ever again.

Thank you.

Laughing at multiple sclerosis? Sure, why not?

This post is a shameless plug for a book by my friend, Carol Corsini Ervin. It's called The Lighter Side of MS: Life, Laughter, and Sucking It Up.
             . 
Carol, who worked at ABC News in New York for 30 years, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1988. That afternoon, she got teary-eyed when telling a friend. It was the last tear she shed for herself.

Her book is the story of how she has dealt with her illness  -- by finding the humor in it. As Carol explains it, with apologies to Leslie Gore, "It's my disease and I'll laugh if I want to."  If you have to use a cane, she reasons, why not name it Erica, after Erika Kane, the infamous All My Children bitch? If your legs give out suddenly, causing you to collapse into the arms of ABC anchorman Peter Jennings, who falls to the floor with you, you could cry with mortification. Or laugh about it. That's what Carol does.

Other than Miss America by Howard Stern, Carol's book is the only book that has ever made me laugh out loud. It is impossible not to when you turn the page and find a chapter that begins, "My first marriage isn't worth mentioning. But the wedding certainly is."

Not only is The Lighter Side entertaining, it's well written. That's rare these days.

The net net:  If you have MS, know someone who has MS, know someone who knows someone who has MS or, if you're simply looking for a summer read that will make you laugh out loud and forget whatever troubles you may think you have, which pale in comparison to MS, order The Lighter Side of MS today. It is available through amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com for $14.95. Can't wait? Order the Kindle edition for $9.95 and, five minutes from now, you'll be laughing.Trust me on this.

I am dabbing in Beulah Land

My Baptist grandma used to sing a hymn as she dusted. 

I'm living, on the mountain, underneath a cloudless sky

I'm drinking, at the fountain, that never shall run dry

Oh yes! I'm feasting, on the manna, from a bountiful supply

For I am dwelling... in Beulah Land! 

Well, I am not exactly dwelling in Beulah Land  but I'm dabbing in it. Not from a fountain, but from  a stick of Mitchum Power Gel Anti Perspirant that refuses to run dry. 


I bought it in December, have applied it every day since and, months past the time the container should have been tossed in the recycled bin, it still gushes a clear gel that gives me powerful protection every time I twist the knob. If you ask me, it's every bit as miraculous as the image of the Virgin Mary on the grilled cheese sandwich that sold on eBay for $28,000.

I am thinking about offering my Mitchum for sale on eBay, but wanted to give you, my loyal readers, the opportunity to buy it first. Opening bid: $500. Just think how much you can save, not to mention how clean and fresh you'll feel for eternity. 


Checks and money orders accepted.

PS: If, like me, you were raised in a country church and, now that you have read this post, can't quit humming Beulah Land, check out this video featuring a bizarrely upbeat rendition, lip-synched by worshippers so clean-cut they make the Lawrence Welk singers look like the Village People. 

Death to Microsoft!

I don't like ... no, wait a sec.


I hate ...


Oh the hell with it. 


I DESPISE Microsoft.

I wish the whole goddam company would disappear. Poof! The world would be a better place for it.

Of all the companies that waste their customers' time  -- Comcast, Delta and Sprint come to mind --Microsoft wins hands down. Think about it.

How many dozens of hours have you spent trying to retrieve Word or Excel files that vanished into thin air? How many "error" messages have stopped you in your tracks, diverting your attention from the task at hand for hours as you try to figure out what the error might be? How many times have you waited on hold to speak to Microsoft customer service reps? How much have you had to shell out over the years to buy and renew anti-virus software because Microsoft Internet Explorer attracts viruses like a Fairbanks kindergarten class in the middle of winter?

I am a Mac guy. Apple gets it. Their products are intuitively simple. The company treats its customers like royalty. That's why Apple's stock has gone to the moon. Unfortunately, the vast majority of people use programs found only in Microsoft Office -- Word, Excel and/or PowerPoint. To communicate with those people, I have to use them, too. And for years, I did.

Until one day last year when Microsoft Word refused to allow me to save an important document. When I typed in the name I wanted to give it --it was something simple like "Presentation" -- the following message appeared:
This is not a valid file name. Try one or more of the following: 
   -Check the path to make sure it was typed correctly
   -Select a file from the list of files and folders

I can spell. I can type. That wasn't the problem, although I had no idea what "path" referred to. And I didn't understand the second message. Sure, I had other Word files but how could I save my document in one of those?

After spending two hours trying to figure out what to do, I cloned what I had typed, pasted it into my gmail account and emailed it to myself. I hadn't been able to save it in Word, but at least I was able to save it somewhere. I then did what any irrational person would do: I "uninstalled" Microsoft Office. And I've happily been using Google Documents ever since. It's a better program. It's simpler. It's free. What's not to like?

But ... for the last month or so I've been working on a lengthy, involved document I've created and saved, in pieces, on Google Docs, which stores it in something called "The Cloud." For some inexplicable reason, I decided today that, if the Cloud were to be vaporized, I'd be pissed, not to mention hysterical. So I went to Staples and purchased, for $124.99, a new copy of Microsoft Office For Mac 2011, which I spent a half hour installing.

I spent the next hour cutting and pasting my various files from Google Doc onto a new, master Microsoft Word document. And when I went to save it?  I got the "This is not a valid file name" message.

The next hour was spent searching the web, trying to determine if anyone else has ever experienced the same problem. Turns out, lots of people have. There is, I learned, a solution for the problem. If I had a Ph.D. in computer science from MIT, I might have understood it.

The box the product came in says I'm entitled to 90 days of free support. But it doesn't tell me how to get that support. Clearly, I can't comprehend the online gobbledegook, So I spent 10 more minutes looking for a phone number. Finally found it. The line is only open during business hours on weekdays. This is Saturday.

I've pissed away my entire evening and have nothing to show for it. Not surprising whenever a Microsoft product is involved.

So die, Microsoft, die. And may Bill Gates and every one of you nerdy bastards rot in hell.

Good evening, and you can be sure that, first thing Monday morning, I'll be on the line.

Wear your asbestos suits.

If Boehner and Pelosi had been in charge on July 4, 1776

It is July 4, 1776. You are in Philadelphia, a delegate to the Continental Congress, and are waiting for your leaders to agree on the wording for a document you and your fellow delegates pledged to sign two days ago when you voted to declare your new nation's independence.

You look to the front of the room and see that your leaders, John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi, are at it again. Boehner is insisting on inserting an anti-abortion provision into the document. Pelosi wants funding for birth control devices and is demanding that delegates sign the document without reading it.

At that moment, you realize you and your descendants will remain, forever, English subjects.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone. And come election day, November 6, remember what the signers of the Declaration advised us to do about the idiots who so spectacularly misrepresent us in Washington.

... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundations on such principle and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

In other words, they said throw the bums out and start with a fresh slate.

That, after all, is the American way.

Reason #43 I love my grand-dog: She never calls me "grandpa"

The folks at the pound told him they were sure she was mostly beagle with, perhaps, a little Lab mixed in.

Boy, were they wrong.

Within three months, that tiny, fluffy ball of gold and white fur my son adopted from the pound had morphed into a creature roughly the size of a Shetland pony.

Meet my granddog, Topanga, who was adopted by our #2 son three years ago when he was still in grad school.

With her Rockette-long legs, deep chest, narrow waist, bushy tail, mastiff-sized head and soulful eyes that appear as though someone applied eyeliner around them, Topanga is so bizarre looking we had her DNA tested.

Turns out she is half Great Pyrenees (a cousin of the St. Bernard, which accounts for her size), 35 percent Italian greyhound (hence the skinny legs and slim waist) and 15 percent Jack Russell terrier (of which we see no evidence whatsoever.)

Ten years ago we purchased this "Beware of Dog" tile in the
Canary Islands. The dog looks just like Topanga.
What are the odds of that?

Our family has always had neurotic little dogs -- dachshunds, beagles and one terrier-mix -- so a dog the size of a Macy's Thanksgiving parade balloon is new territory for us.

It's rather pleasant actually. Unlike the hyperactive, yappy dogs to which we are accustomed, Topanga is sociable, well-behaved and extremely mellow.

Topanga is visiting for the week, snoring contentedly on the sofa as I write. She leaves cotton-ball size clumps of hair everywhere, drools like Niagara Falls and our elderly dachshund, Bonnie, emits a threatening "get away from me, bitch" growl every time she trots into the room.  It's ridiculous, because Topanga, if she were so inclined, could eat Bonnie and our other dachshund, Billy Ray, as easily as they eat Cesar single-bite treats. To her credit, she ignores her aunt.


As you have guessed by now, my wife and I are crazy about our grand-dog. 


And while friends who have human grandkids say grandparent-dom is the best thing since sliced bread, I'm perfectly content with my grand-dog for now.

I'll never have to take her to Disney World, never have to contribute to her college fund, and she'll never embarrass me by calling me "grandpa" in public.

Not that there's anything wrong with that title, but I'm not ready for it. At least not yet.