Maine Is a Long Way to Go for a Lobster Roll

I spent the summer in Maine a few years ago.  I had always wanted to go but it is so darn far.  And when I finally went, I drove all the way up to the highest point in the state.,.,,.and also the

eastern most point in the U.S.  I rented a "camp" in a 5,000 acre wildlife preserve.  Camp is what they call cabins.  It was remote and primitive, although it was right on a body of water and I could watch the lobster boats working the area every day.

 

     The wildlife preserve had originally been owned by a  bunch of Philadelphia millionaires...they had cottages throughout the area, plus a hotel and a little chapel.  This was back in the early l900's.

They would come up by train and spend the summer there.  Wisely the heirs to the cottages had

decided to donate most of the land to the government for a preserve and keep their cottages and a small tract of land.  That way they didn't have to pay taxes on all the property.

 

     My camp was a long log cabin with two bedrooms on each end of the house...two living rooms with fireplaces and a single small kitchen.  It was June, and still cold up there.  My granddaughter went with me.  She had one end of the house and I had the other.  We would load every quilt we could find on us at night and then stay in the same spot without moving.

 

     I don't know where I was when they taught campfire building, but I could not get fires started in the big stone fireplaces.  I had logs but I was using newspaper for "kindling".  I had some friends coming to visit from Maryland...and the man was a longtime farmer.  I knew he would know how to build a fire so I asked him to bring some kindling wood and to teach me to make a fire.   He arrived with a trunk load of kindling.

 

     Maine was as beautiful as I expected but you could hardly enjoy the outdoors because of the pesky Black Flies.  They are big suckers too and they bite.  You can't kill them with a fly swatter. You need a rifle to blow them out of the air.  And the Maine Tourist Bureau never mentions the darn things.  Why would they?

 

     The people who live way up in Maine where we were are fairly...stupid.  If you doubt me,

read the book, THE BEANS OF EGYPT, MAINE.  Everybody in the book was nutty. There

was so much cross-breeding (and gross-breeding), not a single person had two eyes of the

same color.  The cattle didn't either.  They made our Southern Hillbillies seem like rocket

scientists.  Fortunately there were not a lot of locals left.  Anybody that was reasonably smart

had left years ago.

 

     The county were I was staying was the biggest producing area for wild blueberries.  They

were truly a sight to see.  I had been accustomed to blueberries that grew on bushes.  These

wild blueberries grew on very short ground cover.  The hills literally turned blue when the blueberries came on.  And then the migrant workers all the way from Florida showed up to

pick them.  We had them growing in the wildlife preserve so I picked quite a few for us to eat.

But it was back-breaking work, more suited to midget laborers.

 

     We had a little chapel in the preserve so anytime people would come visit we would take

a tour of the grounds and I would insist on taking a picture of them as bride and groom.  There

were a lot of plastic flowers there for real weddings so I would outfit the couples accordingly.

I have some same-sex photos although I did not actually marry them.  Just took pictures.

 

     I sort of expected that lobsters would be cheaper in Maine.  But they weren't.  They were plentiful, but not cheap.  Most of the cafes made lobster rolls...a delicious treat using pulled

boiled lobster from the shell and tossing it ever so slightly with mayo.  Then they would put

it in a roll shape and serve it on a grilled hot dog bun.  Even McDonald's had lobster rolls.

And they were $7 each even at McDonald's.

 

     There were lobster pounds everywhere...places you could buy live lobsters to take home

and cook.  So my granddaughter and I decided to buy a big lobster and take home.  She sort of grew attached to it and was not too keen on cooking it.  But I had paid too much to turn it into

a pet.  You cook them while they are still alive, like you do with crabs.  Problem was, we could

not find a pot that was as big as the lobster.  But I found a tall one and heated some water.  He

had to go part way and be cooked, then turned and be cooked on the other end.

 

     I asked my granddaughter, "If you were going to be boiled, would you rather go in head first

or tail first?"  She didn't want to be boiled at all, but thought we should put the lobster in head

first or we would hear him crying out for help if we put him in tail first.  So we put him in head

first and actually managed to get him all the way in once he was relaxed.  We used him to make

Lobster Thermidor.  But it was easier to buy lobster rolls.

 

     Since we were so remote, we didn't have a lot of traffic unless we tried to go to some place

interesting.  Then every tourist in Maine was backed up on the roads into towns.  Maine is a very artsy place so we found dozens of interesting galleries and artists.  We also went sailing on a

Tall Ship...these are big wooden boats with high masts.  Even on a sunny day, it was cold out on the water which of course they didn't mention until you were out on the water.

 

      There was a ferry service from the nearest town over to Nova Scotia.  We had to get up at

4 AM to get into town and get the car on the boat. I decided to book a stateroom so I could go

back to bed seeing as how it was still dark and there would be nothing to see..  I loved Nova

Scotia.  They had no black flies.  I went to the Bay of Fundy which is the scallop capital of the world.  I love scallops more than I like lobsters, so was able to have them for breakfast, lunch

and dinner.

 

    Once I was back in Maine, my wife came to visit from South Carolina and some friends came from Arkansas.  My wife immediately declared that my camp was "a dump".  I thought "primitive" was a better word.  I mean, we had two indoor toilets and showers and, by then, I had learned to build fires in the fireplace.  I think the mail problem was that my friends from Arkansas

took us to see a friend of theirs who "takes a house every summer" in a town not far away.  It

was a 14 bedroom house, not exactly a "camp".  My wife isn't what I would call "flexible". That's what she thought I should have rented but I explained that it wasn't available. I like contrasts...high life, low life...both interest me.  And to prove it, I took them on a tour of a famous sardine factory.  I called it famous because it is my brand of sardine and I as so happy to discover that they were packed near the camp.  They had their logo ... a 20 foot

high statue of a seaman...out front.  When we arrived they claimed they didn't allow tours, but

I sweet-talked them by telling them I had driven all the way from South Carolina (which I had) to see the sardines being packed (this wasn't exactly the truth...I had gone out of my way to see

the ice cream factory at Ben and Jerry's in Vermont).  I had always wondered how they got those little fish in there so perfectly.  You know, head-to-toe, toe-to-head so to speak although they don't have heads.  I could not figure out how they could get them packed like that with a machine and they don't.  They have women (see previous note regarding The Beans of Egypt Maine) who work by conveyor belts clipping off heads of sardines...and other ones grabbing the slimy little things and putting them in the cans, head-to-toe.  They finally allowed us to go inside but told us not to take pictures.  The women might have been sardine factory slaves is what I was thinking  Can you imagine walking home from work after a long day in the sardine factory and having every cat in town on your trail?  Life's not easy in Maine.

 

     I'm never going back to Maine in this lifetime.  But you can go.  Everybody should go at least once.

 

 

 

The Robots Are Coming! They're Coming!

    It's bad enough we have to worry about illegal aliens taking our jobs away here in America.  Now we have to worry about Robots taking them.  The Japanese are planning to send more than 100,000 our way by 2010.  And what are they going to be doing?  Caregivers for the elderly!

 

     I'm an elder and I didn't ask for any shiny robot to take care of me.  I want some HUMAN contact not some whirring mechanical robot bringing me my coffee.   And what do you think they'll feed me for lunch?  Sushi, probably.  And sushi is not real food.  The name doesn't sound like  anything you

would want to put in your mouth that's for sure.

 

     I don't think the Japanese have really forgiven us for dropping The Bomb, so  I especially wouldn't want to trust a Japanese robot

 

     I realize that we are far behind Japan and China in terms of our use of robots.  General Motors

had them as early as 1960 but then the robots joined the union and there went that idea out the

factory window.

 

     Robots are already big in Japan and China...mainly working to build cars.  Now they'll probably put aprons on them and send them over here as caregivers.  I need someone who can

shave me and  I'm not trusting some Japanese robot to do it, especially one that's singing show tunes from Sweeney Todd.  In Japanese.

 

     I might look more favorably on the robots as caregivers if they made them look more human.

I could see me having one that looked like Aunt Bee, for example.  Nice little old lady robot with

a bun on the back of her metallic head and pinch-nosed glasses.  And she would have to be able to cook stuff like chicken fried steak, catfish and biscuits. Although if they're going to make them

human like, I'd pay extra to get a caregiver that looks like Pamela from Baywatch.  I live on a lake and having one that's a good swimmer would be handy.  She wouldn't have to cook; we could go down to the diner for breakfast and lunch.  Or I could get two robots...one that looks like Pam to be my lifeguard and one that looks like Aunt Bee to do the cooking and cleaning. She would need to go to bed early.

 

     One of the advantages I see in having a robot caregiver is that you wouldn't have to feed them.

Just give them a squirt of WD-40 ever once in a while.

 

     We've been very slow here in the U.S.  to adopt the use of robots.  It's really no wonder.  We

sent one up in the latest space shuttle.  It had to be sent in three parts and assembled once the

space shuttle landed.  It's 7 feet tall.  And it has arms that are 15 feet long.  They don't know what they will have it do.  Maybe he can play first base if they start a baseball team. With 15 foot arms he wouldn't miss many balls that came his way.  I know the government does some dumb

things, but why would they send a robot with l5 foot arms out in space with no plans for what he

was going to be doing?  His name is Derek, if you want to send him a postcard.

 

     There may be a lot of people out there who want a robot.  I googled the word on the computer and 57,400,000 entries came up.  Some  people are apparently buying kits to build their own

robots.  That's a do-it-yourself project that could go bad.  They even have a flying robot competition...birds and insect robots.  I have enough trouble with termites and rats.  I don't want

to have to hire Terminex to get rid of my insect robots.  But I didn't see anything in all the googled entries of any old guys wanting caregiver robots.  If the Japs send all those robots over

here and nobody wants them, I guess we could modify them slightly and we could put them

to work waiting tables at Hooters.

 

 

MOVING ON UP

When I was twelve years old, we lived in the tiny hamlet of Dallas.  Life was sweet.  We didn't have indoor plumbing because we lived a half a block from where the town sewer line stopped.  But we were happy.

 

Then suddenly we were moving to Washington, D.C.  My father was always in a quest for Big Money and he heard that he could make Big Money as an electrician in Washington.  We didn't sell our house or move our furniture because this was going to be a test run to see how we liked it.  The Big City awaited.

 

All the avenues in Washington are named after states...so being from North Carolina, we moved to North Carolina Avenue and it had a lot of people from North Carolina living there so we weren't the only dumb ones. 

 

Our first apartment (and I use the word loosely) had one room and a closet that had been converted to a little kitchen.  It was a basement apartment.  We weren't all the way underground.  When we sat in our room we could see people's legs as they walked by.  And every five minutes or so, a big streetcar would go clanking by rattling our windows as it flashed by.  We didn't have streetcars in Dallas; we didn't have buses either.

 

There was no bathroom in our apartment.  We had to go upstairs and use a bathroom that was also shared by people on the first floor of the building.  At least it was indoors.

 

We had no furniture so we went to a used furniture store near the apartment.  My father bought a double bed, one rocking chair and a small  table to hold our radio.  We used to gather around the radio to listen to our favorite programs...my mother and I sat on the bed; my father in the rocking chair.  We would sit and stare at the radio as if it were a tv.  I liked radio.  You had to create your own mental pictures of what was happening and I was good at that.  We ate our dinners sitting on the bed since we didn't have a table.

 

Actually we had one other room and that's where I slept.  It was the furnace room and I slept on a roller way bed.  There was just enough room to open the bed beside the furnace.  I had never seen a furnace before in my life and especially not one that big.  There was a pilot light but when the furnace came on, it was with a blast of fire that lighted the whole room and made me sure we were all going to be blasted back to North Carolina.  Scary.  Scary indeed.

 

The apartment had roaches which we all hated.  These weren't little roaches...they were big and they could fly.  We tried spraying them but they would grab the spray can and squirt us with it.  We put out Roach Motels, but they ate them.  They came out mainly at night and when I was sleeping in the furnace room and the furnace would blaze on, I could see them scurrying all over the place.  I slept with a broom and in the morning, I would use the broom to turn on the lights and give the roaches a chance to go wherever they go in the daytime.

 

My mother  cried and wanted to go home to North Carolina.  But my father was studying to get a journeyman's license and it was time for me to go to school.

 

The school was gigantic and it looked like a big brick castle.  It had high chain link fences all around the building and the playground.  On the first day of school, I went to three different front doors and they were all locked.  I could see kids on the playground but I couldn't figure out how to get into the school.  I went home and told my mother and father that there was no way to get in.  My father didn't like that answer and just said, "Well tomorrow you will find a way in."  And I did. You went onto the playground and they let everyone in at once.  I was really so frightened.  I was a nervous kid anyway.  But eventually I found the office and they welcomed me.  I had to take tests for most of the day.  They had what they called a "track system".  They had a college-bound track; a business track and a I-Hope-You-Can-Find-Work-of-Some-Kind track.  And each track had two sections: smart and smarter.  I got put in the college bound, smarter track.  This was the greatest blessing that probably ever happened to me because it gave me some direction in my life.  I was college bound!

 

The Worst Salesman in the World

Years ago when I was a student at the University of 'Wisconsin, I got a call one day from a good friend of mine who announced that he has become a salesman.

 

 I yelled through the phone,  "You can't be a salesman."  He wanted to know why not.  I said, "You are totally devoid of personality.  A salesman has to have personality."

 

But George insisted that someone was going to teach him everything he needed to know to become a successful salesman.  I wanted to know if he was selling encyclopedias.  Those were popular with door to door salesmen back then although we didn't get too many of them because we lived on the third floor of an apartment building and carrying those books was too much for most of them.

 

George said he wasn't doing door to door sales.  He was selling only by appointments and he would be selling something every household needed: Kirby Vacuum Cleaners.  I laughed out loud.  We certainly didn't need a vacuum cleaner.  We had no rugs and very little furniture.  We were lucky to be able to afford a broom.

 

He wanted to make an appointment to come and demonstrate the Kirby Vacuum Cleaner but I

told him in no uncertain terms that we were not buying one of the things under any circumstance.

He told me he really needed some practice so he wasn't expecting us to buy.  But I figured that was what they had trained him to say.  Then he said he would give us a free case of Pepsi's if I would allow him to demonstrate the machine. I was still reluctant but in my heart I knew he would never be able to talk me into buying anything so I finally said o.k.  He wanted to know if the "lady of the house" would be there for the demo. I said, "You mean my wife, Carol?"  He said we both had to be present in order to qualify for the free drinks.

 

When he came over he really had to struggle to get the Kirby up the steps.  They weigh more than a set of encyclopedias...and I made him go back down and bring the Pepsi's up.  I didn't

trust him. I wanted the Pepsi's in the apartment before we started.

 

I kept laughing as he got his equipment out because he had memorized the sales pitch word for

word.  He said we would be amazed at how much dirt the Kirby would pick up out of the rugs.

I reminded him, pointing to the floor, that we had no rugs. 

 

"I'll do the couch then," he said, "You'll be amazed at how much dirt the Kirby will pull out of the

couch."  I reminded him that the couch was brand new; we had just got it from Sears the week

before.

 

"No matter.  You will be amazed.  I'll put the upholstery cleaner on and show you how filthy

and germ ridden your couch is."

 

He turned on the Kirby and it sounded like an airplane engine.  He made one swipe down the seat of the couch...and it sucked four buttons off!

 

"Look what you've done, you nut.  You have ruined our new couch.  This is going to cost you more than a case of Pepsi's."  I yelled.

 

He told me he could get the buttons out of the Kirby.  But getting them back on the couch was

what I wanted.

 

Next he wanted to do our mattress and moved into the bedroom.  I had painted the room.  I wanted a bold pink color but it came out more red, so I had painted watermelon seeds on the

wall.  He wanted to know if I wanted him to suck the seeds off the wall.  I made him  move out

of the bedroom.

 

We went into the kitchen and before I knew what was happening, he turned on the Kirby to

do the curtains...and it sucked them right off the rods.  "I guess I should have put it on low",

he said.  He also sucked up a three foot high bean plant.  I had been studying about germination in botany class and had germinated some pinto beans.  The bean plant was like Jack in the

Beanstalk.  It had taken off right toward Heaven and I was encouraging it by having daily talks

with it.  But now it had been sucked into a Kirby along with all  the bean seeds and what little

dirt was left in the pot.

 

"You've got to leave," I yelled at him.

 

"But we haven't talked about price yet," he insisted.

 

"We don't need to talk about price,  George, because I have absolutely no intention of buying

one of these things. It sucked the buttons off my couch, you idiot."

 

"Other than that, how did my presentation go?" he wanted to know.

 

"You were incredible.  Incrediably bad."  I felt like I was speaking from the heart.

 

George kept trying to sell the Kirby's using the free Pepsi's as a foot in the door.  He worked for

about four months and after not selling a single Kirby, he decided to quit.  He owed the company

$l87.00 for all the Pepsi's he had given away.  Probably the first salesman that had to pay his own company.  And that's bad.

 

 

 

 

The Art of Robert 7

CAROLINA VOICES

I DIDN'T SEE HOW I COULD RESIST

 

The direct mail flyer said "12 Pair of Eyeglasses Only $12...free shipping."  I couldn't believe my eyes.  Twelve pair of glasses...a

dollar each.  Sure, I know they are those cheap magnifying glasses,

but still...a dollar a pair was unbelievable.

 

I never have my glasses with me when I want to read something.  I'm always looking for them.  Last year I bought those plastic cords that you hook onto your glasses so they are always hanging around your neck. Then when I would go to read, I had to read through my breakfast oatmeal and other foodstuff.  And the cords broke within a week.  They aren't made like cafeteria trays.

 

This was the answer!  I could put glasses everywhere I roost during the day...back porch, nightstand, bathroom, kitchen, computer, car,

pocket...and I would still have five other pair to misplace. You had

a choice of 5 strengths...I've bought these things before and the lower

strengths don't do that much good.  But I was nervous getting the high

powered ones for fear they would make me cross-eyed.

 

Long ago before eyeglasses became a fashion statement...when I was a teenager...there was a saying that "boys never made passes at girl's who wore glasses."  You could tell which girls really needed glasses however...their dogs were a sure giveaway.  Actually my first love interest in the 8th grade was a girl who wore glasses.  But believe me,

nobody noticed her glasses!  She was built like a brick...well, you get the message.

 

I really hate it that glasses have become such a fashion statement because it means the frames now have designer logos and prices to

match.  When you go to an eyeglass place they've got hundreds to

choose from.  You make your selection only to discover that the price on the board only covers the frames.  The glass part is extra.

 

Last year I needed new prescription glasses.  I went to the doctor to get my eyes checked, but I went to Wal-Mart to order my glasses.

I took my old frames because I like them and they were still good.  So

when I talked to the salesperson, I told her I wanted new prescriptions put into the old frames.

 

She said, "We can do that, but it's still going to cost $180."

 

I said, "Why?"

 

She told me because I had not bought the glasses at Wal-Mart, they

would have to charge me the full price.  But I complained and told her

that I had in fact bought them at Wal-Mart.  Then she said, "Yes, but

it was more than a year ago, so I'm still going to have to charge full

price."

 

Usually at this point, smoke starts coming out of my ears and I start

ranting and raving...making a public spectacle out of myself.  But I

decided to try a different tact.

 

I looked at her very calmly and said, "You know, you are probably going to go the Hell for this."

 

She got so flustered...tried to explain to me that it was management's

decision and not hers.

 

I said, "Well, management is going to Hell, too.  There will be a whole

EyeWear Section in Hell."

 

When she wrote up my order, she said very quietly, "I'm only charging you for the glasses, not the frames."

 

I told her, "O.K.  You aren't going to Hell.  But management still is."

 

My wife laughed when I told her the story...but she was nervous because she claimed I would try to send people to Hell anytime I

didn't get my way.

 

"Damned right, Missy," I said.

 

"Why do people think you have the power to send them to Hell?" she

wanted to know.

 

I told her I had a very persuasive manner...that when I talked about Hell, I pointed to "down there" for emphasis.  Of course everyone isn't a Christian...but at Wal-Mart they are.

CAROLINA VOICES ARTICLE

Oh, Mother! What's Your Kid Doing on the Computer?

 

     Don't get me wrong.  I'm not saying that YOUR kid is doing anything strange on the computer.  But hundreds of kids are.  Probably millions.

 

    
     The computer games are bad enough.  But they should probably be the least of your worries.

 

     You've no doubt heard of MY SPACE; you might even have a page of your own.  Seems like everybody does.  It's one of the new and very

successful "friends" sites.  You put a picture of yourself and a brief profile, then people all over the world can write to you and offer to be your friend.

 

     Alyss wants to be my friend.  I can't imagine why since I posted a picture of Millard Fillmore on my site.  Of course maybe she likes the

way he looks.  I listed my age as 99.  Maybe Alyss is thinking, "It worked for Nicole Smith.  She found a multi-millionaire husband who

was 89 years old.  And found him just in time."  I don't think she met him on MY SPACE.  I think it was in a pole dancing place.

 

     People put pictures on their sites because they can easily now with their cell phones.  And, who knows?  They might be taking pictures of a checkout woman at the grocery store.  Friends are always asking for "unusual pictures" and there's where the trouble begins.  I can't imagine there's anything unusual left to show anymore.  Not that I personally look.  People have told me about the pictures (he says,

lying through his teeth).  I am really nervous about looking at pictures on the internet.  I'm afraid I will see one or more of my loved ones.

 

     I wouldn't believe anything I read or saw on these sites.  People fib

about their age.  They fib about their jobs.  They post fake pictures.

(I am not the only Millard Fillmore on MY SPACE...there are at least

eleven of us.  Will the real Millard Fillmore please stand up?)

 

     You are encouraged to chat with your "friends". I put that word in quotes because I doubt that they are really friends.  They won't come to your funeral or lend you a few bucks when you are short of cash.

And I don't like the word chat.  I wouldn't talk to anybody who came up to me and said, "Let's chat."  (A friend and I used to go to a greasy spoon cafe in Maryland called CHAT AND CHEW.  He loved the name.  There's a place near me in S.C. that's called SQUAT AND GOBBLE.  You don't have to chat there unless you really want to.

You just squat and eat.)

 

     The thing about chatting is that notices come through the computer while you are working on line that say:  "Marie wants to chat."  I'M WORKING!  And Maria knows I'm busy so why does she think I want to be interrupted to chat.

 

     The thing that really gets me is that the people on MY SPACE sound so perfect.  They are all beautiful.  They all have a great sense

of humor.  They all love to cuddle.  They all cry at sad movies.  If they are so ideal, why don't they have friends in their neighborhood? Makes you wonder.

 

     I have a friend who writes to women all over the world.  I keep telling him that anyone west of the Mississippi and across the Atlantic Ocean should be considered geographically undesirables.  But he

persists and he has a dozen Russian women begging him to send them money so they can come to America.   Scary.

 

      He doesn't send them any money.  He doesn't have any.  But he has travelled many, many miles to meet women.  And at today's

gasoline prices, you need to have honest people before you go driving off to Ohio.  He doesn't like chubby women (and that's a shortcoming

on his part)...but the woman from Ohio who sent him a picture and invited him to come visit was surely going to be overweight.  Her picture was a real close-up of her face...she looked thin.  How many

times have you heard, "She has such a pretty face" meaning the rest of her is B-I-G.  He wouldn't listen to me...drove up to see her and was surprised that she was B-I-G.  He said, "But she was a great cook."

Sure, and so is Denny.

 

 

The Whole House Was Shaking

For two days, I felt this continuous vibration.  I'm deaf so I couldn't hear anything but the house was vibrating as if we were living in a trailer on a major earthquake fault line.  Finally I went upstairs to

investigate.  My wife was in her office shredding everything in sight.  She had bought a heavy duty shredder and was systematically eliminating every evidence that we existed.

 

She claimed she was protecting us from identify theft.  But I tried to tell her if she shredded everything, we wouldn't know who we were.  She said in a couple of years we wouldn't know anyway and she wasn't so sure that I even knew now.

 

But I hated to see all the stuff shredded...she was loving the whirring sound of the shredder and she

was stuffing things into it.  She was mesmerized.

 

"Is that our marriage license you have there?" I asked.

 

She said, "Sure.  We don't need it.  We've been married more than 50 years and nobody has ever asked to see it."

 

I said, "Your Father did."

 

"He was a very suspicious man," she said, "And the license is written in German.  Nobody can

read it except Germans.  We might have registered to vote over there."

 

I tried to tell her that she might have to show the marriage license in order go get any of my goodies when I die.  But she said she planned to shred any of my goodies that would fit in the

shredder.  The woman has gone crazy!

 

She did the same thing last year with dozens of photo albums.  she ripped out pictures of our

daughters and gave them to each of the girls.  The rest she was going to throw out.  Fortunately I was able to get them away from her.  I know that in a few years I probably won't be able to remember who the people are (there are some now that I don't recognize!) but the photos are hard evidence that we had a life...and in all the pictures, we were smiling so it looks like a good

life.

 

She says people always smile when they see a camera and it doesn't mean we were having a good time just because we were smiling.  I suppose she's right.  A camera does sort of say, "Cheese".  Although prisoners don't smile when they get their pictures taken.  And my Grandmother never smiled.

 

I love the photo albums and I now have them hidden from The Grim Reaper.  I look at them and it's like a stroll down memory lane.

 

I also have a drawer full of pictures that people have sent me at Christmas time...mainly photos of their kids at various ages.  I never throw any of them away.  I may need to lock them up now that the shredder is in the house.  I think it will be a good mental exercise when I am old and in a nursing home, trying to figure out who's who.  I have a Chinese friend and I can always recognize her daughter, Gloria.  And I have pictures of her from age one until she just got ready to go to Harvard.

 

They sell a lot of shredders at Staples so my wife probably isn't the only one that's into shredding.  My wife shreds all of our junk mail.  She doesn't want anyone to know we buy

our clothes from Haband.

 

I caught her shredding a box of old love letters that I sent her years ago when I was a lonely G.I.

over in Germany.  I couldn't believe my words were being ripped apart.

 

"You're shredding my love letters?" I asked. 

 

"I've already read them," she answered.

 

"I know, but you saved them for more than 50 years, so why are you shredding them now,"

I demanded to know.

 

"I didn't have a shredder before," she said with a shrug.

 

I should have written them on unshreddable paper.

 

"Why don't you just burn them?  That would be more romantic."

 

"Bad for the environment.  Pollution, you know,."

 

I was beginning to take this personally.  "I didn't shred your love letters," I told her.

 

"You probably threw them away," she said.

 

"No.  No.  I recycled them.  I gave them to other G.I.'s who never got any mail of their own.

"I'm surprised that none of them ever wrote to you," I added.

 

I guess I should be more concerned about identity theft but the world has given me so many other things to be fearful about.  I'm afraid I'll start shaking like the shredder.  I'm not really afraid of anything and I don't want to start.

 

"I'm coming in your room next," my wife yells, "and I'm shredding all of those old newspaper

clippings you have from junior high."

 

"Those are MY clippings," I yelled back.  "They were the first things that I wrote for publication and you might need them if someone wants to write my life story later."

 

"You were the editor of the junior high newspaper," she said.  "And that's the only reason they

got published."

 

She's right about that.  But what's the point of being editor if you can't publish your own stuff?