A voracious appetite for novels

(My wife could probably read all the books shown here in a month.)

My wife spends more time reading novels than she does talking to me, and she talks to me a lot. During the past three weeks, she has finished eight novels, and she is half-way through the ninth. Of the approximately two dozen authors she loves to read, they, collectively, can not publish fast enough to keep up with my wife's appetite. She sends them notes of encouragement from time to time to spur them on: "Do you really need to take a vacation this year, when you should be writing?", "Please don't get another dog; they take up a lot of time." "I recommend you limit your family size to only one child. Valuable energy is expended on raising children." "If I were you, I wouldn't spend precious time watching tv." "Coffee, or some other strongly caffeinated beverage, might improve your efficiency."

Her book habit was also getting expensive. At about $12 a pop for a new paperback, I was having to cut back on my cigars and scotch. On more than one occasion, she bought a book at the store only to get home and realize she had already read it. The publishers had changed the paperback cover, and she had not recognized it. So I strongly encouraged her to use the public libraries, which she resisted because the new books were always checked out, and there was that dreaded due date when we had to drive into town to return the book, and who knew what germs were hidden in that Ludlum plot from a previous reader's sneeze. But eventually, she acquiesced. Sometimes I do win an argument with Management.

Actually, there was a time when she had no choice but to use a library.  During 1986-87, we lived in Monteverde, a remote village in the Tilaran Mountains of Costa Rica mostly inhabited by American Quakers.  Quakers hold education in high esteem, so they had a nice little library there.  There was absolutely no place within a 4-hour drive to buy a book that was worthy of my wife's attention.  The library was within walking distance of the farm house we were renting, so she spent a great deal of time there.  In addition, the house we rented was owned by the family of a former law professor from George Washington University, and it contained a very nice collection of books.  After my wife had read everything of a fictional nature in that house, she started gobbling up the novels in the Monteverde library.  At the end of that year, I noticed that she had not been reading for a couple of weeks.  When I asked her about visiting our local repository of novels to resupply, she quipped, "I've done that library."

So we returned to the states, and to the plethora of large public libraries and bookstores that abound.  Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring!  Heaven on earth!  Hosanna in the highest!  Out of the wilderness we have come, into the light of a Barnes and Noble, of libraries on wheels, of more ISBN numbers than one can fathom, and into the country that boasts The Library of Congress with 33 million cataloged books.  I would soon become a book widower again.

Finally, back at home, I kissed my wife goodbye, dropped her off at the Ithaca library, and reminded her that we have an anniversary coming up in eight months.  Could she spend some time with me on that important date?  It wouldn't have to be all day, just a few hours in the evening for dinner or a movie?  She wondered if it was OK if we went to a restaurant that was well-lighted, and not too noisy, a place suitable for some light reading?  I suppose the waiter could put another candle on the table.  Maybe he could also turn down the romantic mood music they usually play there.  We could order ahead so that the hostess would not have to interrupt us very much with questions about entrees and dessert.  When the big night came, everything came off without a hitch, even though my wife's book bag knocked over a glass of cabernet sitting in front of me.  Small price to pay for some quality time alone with the woman I love.

At present, my wife is working her way through the tiny library in Danby, where we live.  This should take only a few weeks.  But you know, the irony of all this is that I published a digital book in April, and my wife has yet to read it.  What's up with that?  I'll bet if I used the pen name "Daniel Silva" or "Jeffery Deaver", she would have devoured my book while the ink was still wet, so to speak.  But I'm not complaining.  After all, if I need to know something about international spies, or fingerprint analysis, or explosives used by terrorists, all I do is ask.  I rarely use Google anymore.

On mowing the lawn

(I doubt these guys are saving any gas.)

I've been mowing lawns since I was about 7 years old.  We would never let our young kids use dangerous power equipment like that today, but that was a different time.  The yard had to be mowed, my father worked long hours away from home, and my mother was busy with two younger siblings.  I've mowed lawns of houses in which I have lived in Ohio, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Oklahoma, and New York, so I have given the activity a great deal of thought.  In fact, thinking is mostly what one does while mowing the lawn.

I mow about a half acre here in Ithaca.  Until 5 years ago, I used a walk-behind mower and it took 3-3 1/2 hours to complete the job; after I got a riding mower, the job was reduced to a third the time, so it gave me less time to think than doing it the old way.  Now I feel rushed.  I have to cover a lot of mental ground in only an hour or so.  I used to have time to outline my classroom lectures in my head while on the mower.  Now, I can barely enumerate the names of my kids and grandkids before I am finished.  When we rented a farm in Monteverde, Costa Rica years ago, the peon who worked the place mowed our lawn by hand, with a machete.  Wow!  He must have gotten a lot of thinking done.  He always seemed like he had life pretty well figured out, and the abundant time he had cutting grass probably contributed to that.  We modern North Americans can cut the grass lickety-split with our fancy machines, and we are clueless about almost everything.  See the correlation?

One of the first issues in mowing is exactly how you are going to do the cutting.  What pattern will you adopt?  Most of us mowers probably go around in a square, shooting the cut grass to the outside of the mowed area.  That means you are going counter-clockwise, because the outlet on the mower is on the right side.  I have seen some mowers simply go back and forth, first shooting the grass to the outside, and then shooting it to the inside of the mowed area.  That seems bipolar to me.  Some of the vegetation gets cut once, some gets cut twice.  Some aficionados have recommended that I mow my lawn using swaths that are diagonal within the yard, rather than horizontal or vertical.  Pretty fancy, so it would look good from a Google Earth photo.  But I stick with the counter-clockwise square, so I can easily determine that the geometric shape remaining to cut is diminishing in size as I go.  I need that positive reinforcement.

I have learned a great deal of ecology while mowing lawns for five decades in half a dozen states.  I apply no chemical spray to my lawn, so it is a bit rough with all sorts of herbaceous biodiversity that tell me something about what is under my feet.  One learns where the wet areas and the dry areas in the yard are located.  This often comes in handy later if you want to plant flowers or trees in the yard.  I learn where the yellow jackets have their hole in the ground, after they find me first.  I know where the pickerel frogs, which like wet meadows, live in my yard.  I enjoy the beautiful orange hawkweed blooms, just before I whack their little heads off, and I have followed the health of the same patch of buttercups for years.  I am aware of when crickets hatch in August, and I then anticipate the female turkeys that bring their brood through the yard to feed on the abundant insects.  I see deer droppings, and dog poop, and the occasional raccoon pile.  I know where moles like to dig their tunnels, and I know where they never dare to try.  And I see the non-sentient seedlings of white ash trees that are forever trying to find a home in a yard that is cut to the ground repeatedly.

So I think and I examine and I reduce the height of the vegetation. I accomplish mental work, I learn some ecology, and I make the yard look better simultaneously.  It's multi-tasking, the manly way.  When the mower is put away in October for the winter, I feel like I have closed up my mobile office or my lab for the season, and I truly look forward to all the mental stimulation that next May will bring.  Next time you have this chore to do, focus on nature's classroom that is all around you, and try to enjoy the relative solitude the job provides.  And remember, don't drink and drive, or try to send text messages as you negotiate that counter-clockwise square.

Cell phones: The device I love to hate

I have hated cell phones since their inception. Maybe it is because I have always hated talking on the phone to almost anyone at anytime. I just don't like to talk that much, so the act of actually carrying around a device in your pocket where people can talk to you anytime is totally repulsive. Maybe it is because my family and I lived in Monteverde, Costa Rica in the mid-1980s, where we had no phone. Mail was delivered only once per week, and any mail from the states took about three weeks to arrive. And there was no internet there then. And we had no car. And life was pretty good there. So I know we can live happily without cell phones.

But there is more to it than that. It is the almost narcotic-like attachment that other people seem to have to their cell phones that repels, angers, and disgusts me. I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, so I know what that kind of addiction is. When you are a smoker, you can't wait to get out of a meeting or a class so you can go someplace to light up. For the past decade, when I saw students leave a classroom, the first thing they did was to retrieve their cell (remove the pack of cigs from their pocket), flip open the cover (flip up a cig from the pack), dial a number (light up), and begin to talk (take a drag). Of course, this sequence is then followed by a slight smile of pleasure as you hear the voice of the person you called (as the nicotine hits your lungs). This compulsion to use the phone as soon as it is socially acceptable to do so looks exactly like the cigarette smoking habit with which I was all too familiar.

If I see someone driving their car while talking on a cell phone, I literally want to ram their car with mine. They are putting other people's lives in danger so they can find out whether they were supposed to pick up Miracle Whip or real mayo at the grocery, or whether Emily or April is picking up the kids after soccer practice, or whether Harry should get black olives on the pizza he is about to pick up. I don't really know what those drivers are talking about, but I will bet my dog's first born that 99% of the time it is about nothing important. The cell phone is mostly for chit chat, gossip, and entertainment in a life that seems boring without constant digital stimulation.

So for many years, I resisted getting a cell. After all, if I ever wanted to make a call on the fly, everyone with me always had one. Cell owners are all too proud to offer up their phone for use, to show you all the neat things it can do and how kewl it looks. I parasitized this pride for a long time and, in the process, probably saved thousands of dollars in cell phones and cell plans.

However, last year my wife and I got our first cell. We actually have two landlines at home, but my wife’s work often has them both tied up for hours or days. Our children insisted that we get a cell so they can contact us during the day if necessary. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. But I am still basically clueless. I can dial and receive a call, but I don’t know how to text, to send a picture, to retrieve a message, or even to put it on vibrate. I really don’t care to know, because Management can do some of these things. It is a basic model that we got free with our plan, so it is not a “smart” phone. Therefore, I guess it must be a dumb phone.

My ignorance about cell phones can result in some interesting moments. A few months ago, my wife handed me the cell that she had just put on vibrate to put in my pocket in a restaurant in Albany, NY. A few minutes later, I felt a very strange sensation coming from my mid-section. I waited, it passed. A short while later, it happened again. I jumped out of my seat, wondering what was happening to my stomach. I was about to alert my wife to dial 911, because this is not normal. When you get to be my age, you wake up every day wondering if this is the day you get THE CALL. Turns out, I was getting A CALL, just not THE CALL, from the cell in my pants. I always thought that vibration machines were supposed to bring pleasure, not trepidation.

Then, last weekend, my daughter and her family decided to go to the local mall when visiting us. After she left, I realized I needed to call her about something REALLY IMPORTANT. I dialed her cell from my cell, because Management was using our landline. As soon as I dialed, another cell phone that was sitting on our kitchen counter began to ring. Not our phone; we only have one. I hung up, ran over to answer it, and no one was there. I redialed my daughter on my cell, and the same thing happened again. What an incredible coincidence that that cell rings at exactly the same time I am using mine. I hung up again, jumped across the kitchen to answer it quickly, but no one was there. I HATE PHONES! About an hour later, I realized I was calling my daughter’s cell from my cell in the same room. I guess if I had not hung up my cell, I could have had a pretty interesting conversation with myself.

It should be clear by now that I hate cell phones, and I suppose I always will. The myth we tell is that cell phones were developed to make our lives better, but they were actually developed so companies could make money selling them. But in addition to the irritations enumerated above, there is another. On nearly every hill of any size in America, there is a cell tower. Another bit of environmental degradation, another bit of visual pollution, another ugliness on the landscape. All this, so Harry can find out whether he should get olives on his pizza. Go progress!

The color-blind naturalist

(If you see a number in this circle, then you are not one of us.)

I am willing to come out of the closet and tell the world that I don't see things the same way most people do.  Along with 7% of American males and 0.4% of American females, I am color-blind.  The genetic basis of this condition and the myriad of details surrounding the types of color-blindness are too esoteric for this post, and their description would bore most of you to drink (even more than you currently do).

Color-blind people are apparently interesting and curious to normal-sighted people.  Holding up some item at hand, the perennial question is always: "What does this look like to you?"  Come on.  Think hard about that question for a minute.  You are asking someone who does not see objects as you do what the world looks like.  The color-blind person could only describe the world as he sees it, not the way you see it, so no matter what the answer is, it will be of no value to you at all.  It is a ridiculous question, but non-color blind people ALWAYS ask it.  Do you do it just so you can laugh behind our backs?  To make yourself feel superior? I'm really sick of the ignorance of the colored-sighted persons.  It is high time that color-blindees stand up and complain about the bigotry and ignorance that exists in the U.S. toward those of us who happen to have been born with a weird density or arrangement of cones in the retina of our eyes.  This "defect" is not our fault, and being grilled relentlessly by our children, and now grandchildren, who try to teach us the colors by holding up those stupid Crayola crayons is not helping.  What the hell is mauve, anyway?

And besides, how do we know that an object that you say is "red" is really that color?  That is just the way YOU see it.  I see it differently.  Maybe I am correct, and the majority of people are incorrect.  Is it correct to call it red because more than 50% of humans say that is what it is?  Or, to get even more complicated.  Because I have been told all my life that the color of the shirt you are holding up is called "red", I may have learned to call it that, even though I see something very different from what you see.

To publicize the plight of color-blind persons, I propose we initiate a Special Olympics of sorts.  The main event, which would actually constitute an extreme sport for color-blindees, involves a railroad crossing in an actual rural setting. The exciting spectator part of this is that the umpires wait until a train is coming at full speed.  The umps hold up a green flag when it is safe to cross and a red flag when it is not safe.  If the contestant gets it wrong, they lose, big time. 

Actually, this railroad crossing event simulates what real life is like for us all the time.  Years ago, my brothers (who are both also color-blind) and I went grouse hunting in southern Ohio.  As we crossed an intersection in a small town, cars screeched to a halt from two directions and started blasting their horns.  We pulled the car over to see what the heck was wrong.  After studying the situation for a few minutes, we realized that the traffic light had the green light on top and the red light on the bottom.  Go figure.  It was Ohio.  Our M.O. had always been to drive through any intersection when the bottom light was on and stop when the top light was lit.  This had worked for years.  The color never mattered to us.  Whoops!  It matters in southern Ohio.  Was this some kind of trick to kill off color-blind innocents like us?  (By the way, in Romania and Turkey, color-blind people are not given a driver's license.)

I went through life bearing this burden from primary school until I was 40 thinking I simply saw objects slightly differently from other people.  Then, when we were on sabbatic in Costa Rica in the mid-80s, I was taking a hike with my son Matt along a trail in the Monteverde cloud forest.  At one point in the walk he said: "Dad, look at those red flowers on that plant."  I said: "What red flowers?"  And he patiently pointed out to me that there were dozens of red flowers all over a patch of some herbaceous plants about two feet tall immediately next to the trail.  I realized then that not only did I see colors differently from normal people, but that I was not seeing some objects at all.  Only two weeks ago, my wife was exclaiming about the red apples all over our tree about 50 feet from where we were standing.  I could not see a single apple unless I stood right next to the damn thing.  I have been quasi-depressed about this startling revelation ever since that day in Monteverde.

In 1968, I thought I might turn this handicap to my advantage.  I had received my draft notice to report to Uncle Sam.  You know, that uncle who has 300 million nieces and nephews.  The Vietnam War was at its peak, and the military took every body they could find.  I heard a rumor that they even picked up a road-kill deer at one point, because the body was still warm.  They probably figured the deer could at least serve as a company clerk.  So I thought I might fail my physical if I was color-blind and, thereby, not have to go into this dangerous situation.  I took my physical in Columbus, Ohio and, immediately after the eye exam, I asked the technician if I was color-blind.  His response: "Yep. Next."  I spent the next three years in the U.S. Army.

So I am a nature lover, and I have been all of my life.  But think how much more beautiful it would seem to me and to color-blind people everywhere if we actually saw the world in all its incredible, colorful reality.  Brilliant flowers and ripe fruits and autumn leaves on trees that we hear everyone exclaiming about.  And rainbows.  And blushing girls.  And birds.  And Christmas lights.  And even traffic lights.  Damn those deficient cones!

The scorpion house

(A scorpion under UV light.  Would you take a shower with this critter?)

Let's go back in time a bit for this anecdote.  I find all organisms absolutely fascinating, from elephants to the malaria parasite. Their morphology, behavior, and physiology are incredible manifestations of natural selection. They are all interesting, often beautiful, and sometimes obnoxious. In my book, scorpions are one of those animals that cause immediate repulsion, with their pair of claws at the front of their brown or black body, and that ominous stinger that they hold over the body in strike readiness. For about a year, my wife and I and our three children rented a farmhouse in Monteverde, a small community in the Tilaran Mountains in Costa Rica. Months after moving there, we passed a local resident on the dirt road who asked where we lived. After describing the location to him, he immediately said without fanfare, “Oh, you live in the scorpion house.”  It turns out that the house was also home to a family of Watson's tree rats, a whistling mouse, some fruit-eating bats, and dozens of species of moths, ants, wasps, katydids, and spiders.

Of course, by that time we had already discovered the fact that the house had a healthy population of a species of black scorpion about three inches long. Why was this fact not advertised by the landlord? Why did the multiple listing book not inform us of this? Why wasn’t the house cleared of this hideous looking invertebrate by Acme Pest Control before our arrival with a 5-year old child? I guess we were not in Kansas anymore.

This stingy occupant of our home could be found almost anywhere in the house, but scorpions like to be in a dark place during the day, and then to move about after dark. We regularly checked the cushions of the sofa, our shoes, the shower curtain, bed pillows, clothes, and closets for the sneaky critters. We acquired a house cat during our stay there, and the best thing about this feline friend was his proclivity to hunt down scorpions in the house. In fact, on Christmas morning 1986, we found a freshly killed scorpion placed carefully on the white sheet beneath the tree where there were precious few gifts that year. Just what I always wanted!

But what about the biology of this 8-legged arachnid? From the DesertUSA website: “Scorpions are predatory. They often ambush their prey, lying in wait as they sense its approach. They consume all types of insects, spiders, centipedes, and other scorpions. Larger scorpions may feed on vertebrates, such as smaller lizards, snakes, and mice if they are able to subdue them. They capture their prey with their pedipalps, paralyzing them with their venom as well if necessary. The immobilized prey is then subjected to an acid spray that dissolves the tissues, allowing the scorpion to suck up the remains”.  Sounds just great.

Scorpions often appeared at night and would crawl on the wooden ceiling or open rafters of this rustic house. One night, my wife and I retired to bed, turned off the light, gave each other a kiss, and then turned our heads in opposite directions to settle in for the night. At that very instant, I felt a light “thump” on the pillow between our heads, in the exact location where we had kissed about 10 seconds before. I just knew from the heft of the thump, what it had to be.  I jumped out of bed, turned on the light, flipped up the pillow, and there was a large scorpion that had already hidden itself beneath the cushiony refuge. I was happy it had not fallen from the ceiling a few seconds earlier. Damn, this is disturbing.

Several weeks later I was taking a shower. I always checked the shower stall thoroughly just to make sure that it was free of “friends”. All clear. I started the water, shampooed my head, and while I was scrubbing away with my eyes closed due to the soap, I felt something crawling up my leg. You guessed it, and I knew it again. I opened my eyes to see the forward progress of a large scorpion, now at knee level and moving rapidly. Another 18 inches higher and this thing would be in DrTom's "no-fly zone".  The scorpion must have been in the drain, and when the water began to flow, it crawled out of the drain and up the nearest vertical structure, which was my left leg. I flicked it off quickly. Geez, is nothing sacred?

During all these close calls, only my wife ever got stung. She was folding clean clothes and patted a scorpion she did not see. The sting is much like a wasp sting, but has a burning sensation that lasts for several hours. Other scorpion species in Arizona and New Mexico are apparently more toxic than this Costa Rican relative. About 10 years after we returned to the states, I visited friends who were living in the scorpion house in Monteverde. In the morning, I put on my jeans hastily and was immediately stung on the inside of my thigh. I ripped off the pants, which I had left on the floor overnight, to find a scorpion inside the leg. I had forgotten what had become a daily routine when we lived there—the vigorous shake of the clothes before you put them on.

I often say that bad memories are better than no memories at all. I am, of course, overstating the case, because our year in Monteverde was truly magical, and it changed our family forever in many ways. But I can do without the daily vigilance that comes with living with an unwanted guest that can inflict pain. Now, when a mosquito or black fly lands on my arm in upstate New York, I look down at the puny wimp and think to myself, “You’re nothin”.

A brief anatomy of a 41-year marriage

(I don't think I have ever kissed my wife on the beach under a setting sun.  Real life is better than that.)

Today, my wife and I celebrate our 41st wedding anniversary.  Holy crap.  Has it been that long?  We got married young and, as the saying goes, we were so green that if you put us in the ground we would have grown.  Now, we are old enough that we can't remember half of what we have learned.  But this can work to your advantage men.  I have two anniversary cards, on which I have written a very small "e" or "o".  When my wife is finished with the card after receiving it, I collect it and hide it away.  I use the "e" card every even-numbered year, and the "o" for odd years.  No way can she remember the card from two years ago.  They are, however, getting a bit tattered, so I tell her I buy my cards at the vintage store.

My wife has endured more than most wives would tolerate.  Within two months of our wedding, I received a draft notice from Uncle Sam during the height of the Vietnam War.  The biggest argument we have had in 41 years occurred that autumn, as we tried to decide how to play out this dangerous situation.  I wanted to take the military draft, which required two years of service, and she insisted that I enlist for three years in order to get some choice in my military assignment and, hopefully, reduce the chances of going to war as an infantry grunt.  I took her advice and ended up in Korea instead, where she later joined me for a rich experience.  Within 12 years of getting married, we lived in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, New York, and Korea, thanks to the U.S. Army and the pursuit of my education.  A few years later, we added Costa Rica to the list.

We rented a small house in Korea (our daughter was a baby then), which would fit into the kitchen/dining room area of our current house.  It had no usable bathroom inside or out, and the only running water was a cold water spigot in the gated yard.  We relieved ourselves into a plastic pail, which our Korean mama-san emptied each day outside.  We went to bed every night hoping that the rats fighting overhead would not fall through the paper ceiling into our daughter's crib.  But we learned a lot about life, made many friends, and came away stronger than we went in.  Our daughter's first word was "sei", the Korean word for bird.  My friend and roommate from college was not so lucky, and lost his life in Vietnam after having seen his newborn daughter only once. 

After completing my Ph.D. years later, I accepted my first faculty job at Oklahoma State University.  We arrived there with two kids, an English Setter, and a cat, and had no place to live.  A friend at the university found an unoccupied trailer at the edge of campus for us to use until we found a better place.  It had not been lived in for a couple years, so it was full of dust and cobwebs and spiders about half the size of your fist.  It sat right out in the sun (it was August), and it had no air-conditioning.  That night, we went to bed and lay there with sweat rolling down our faces and I said: "Honey, we have arrived."  We laughed so hard we almost got sick.  But it was then that I realized that the following American cliche may not be as true as we are led to believe: "if you work hard, and you're honest, and you get a good education, then life will be full of tangible rewards".  It is to someone's benefit for us to believe and follow that advice, but to whose benefit exactly?

In the mid-1980s, I got my first sabbatic leave from Cornell.  We decided to spend that year in Costa Rica, so I could learn more about tropical biology.  We rented a farm in Monteverde, a remote village in the Tilaran Mountains.  Because my wife had to quit her job to go, and I had to go on half-salary, we were broke the entire year we were there.  Finding food for a family of five was a real challenge because the local pulperia only got fresh vegetables once a week, which were totally gone two hours after the doors opened that morning.  The nearest town was Santa Elena, about three miles away, but there wasn't a great selection of edibles there and we had no car.  We finally bought a horse for transportation, and that changed the mobility equation quite a bit.  Robin dealt with traumatic injuries for each of our three children that year (broken bones, horse accidents, serious infections) and kept us fed, in a house that we later learned was called The Scorpion House by the locals.  Robin was the only one stung by one of our little friends.  We returned to the U.S. after that life-changing year with $50 to our name and all our credit cards cancelled, so we drove straight through from Florida back to New York, where we lived in our Coleman camping trailer for a month until the lease ran out for the family that was renting our home.

Robin has worked every year of the 41 except for three, and always worked to within 24 hours of giving birth to each of our three children.  She invariably got a job as a nurse within a day or two in every place we lived, then sold real estate, then worked as a marketing director at a life-care facility, and now works from home as a medical abstractor.  Like most women who are mothers, she is the lioness that fiercely protects her cubs, and she has been steadfastly supportive of my goals.  She has won every major argument we have ever had about how to proceed with aspects of our lives and, in hindsight, she was right every time.

When young people ask us what is the secret of staying happily married for so long, we honestly don't know what to say.  I suppose that loving and respecting your mate as much or more than you love and respect yourself, if that is biologically possible, is a key ingredient.  In a previous post, I mentioned that my wife and I have almost nothing in common, but when it comes to the big issues (e.g., kids, politics, religion), we are on the exact same page.  And then comes humor and laughter.  As we did in that sweltering trailer in Oklahoma 30 years ago, we have laughed ourselves to sleep over some event of the day literally thousands of times.  I believe a sense of humor is absolutely essential to making it through this life.

And so now, I will give my wife a kiss on the forehead while I distract her a bit, and collect her anniversary card with the little "o" on it for use in 2011.  Then, Robin, her sister, and I will travel to the Turning Stone Casino for a day of entertainment, and to make our financial fortune.  Now that is a laughing matter.