Memories by HenryM

I’M ALWAYS RECOMMENDING MOVIES to my friend around the corner, but I know that he never watches them. Some people, for some reason, aren’t keen on cinema. Me, I’ve been going to the movies since I was old enough to ride my bike to the theatre to see ‘From Here to Eternity’ when it first came out in 1953, the year that I turned eleven. Since the onset of the pandemic, all my movie ...

DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY WEAR PAJAMAS ANY MORE? Especially with an ostomy, I don’t want any potential obstructions, like a waistline, while I’m sleeping. I wear night shirts. I have some flannel for winter, and some light cotton for summer. Even after I’ve discarded that, once I’ve made my way into my day, I will often shun pants in favor of a kaftan, which I will frequently wear throu ...

THERE WAS A SPOT IN MY FRONT YARD where I wanted to plant a medium-size tree. I chose a southeastern deciduous tree that, like most cats, has more than one name. It is a black gum, also called a sour gum, or a black tupelo, or just tupelo (or, if you want to get technical: Nyssa sylvatica). Just that one word – tupelo – has such a sweet, Southern sound, it alone is enough to attract so ...

SOME PEOPLE ENVY WEALTH, OR POWER, OR FAME. Me, I always envied my mother’s ability to raise just one eyebrow. We might be in the midst of some family gathering and, suddenly, I would see that one eyebrow go up as she stared in my direction. I must have done something, or said something, about which she was now raising her objection. That crooked eyebrow evoked my conscience which, at my ...

NUMEROLOGISTS ARE HAVING ORGASMS TODAY: 2/22/22. The pseudoscience numerology touts a supposed divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. They consider TWO to be an angelic number, the number of intuition, observation, and relationships. Let them have their day but, it has to be noted, numerology stands alongside astrology, necromancy, tarot cards, and ...

IT WAS A SURPRISE TO ME that following the removal of skin cancers from two places – right bicep and top of head – I would need to be stitched up. The young man who sewed me up also removed the sutures yesterday, and he did both expertly. “If any brain matter leaked out,” I told him, “I hope that it was the part that causes me to have an irrational attraction to Baskin & Robbins pral ...

WE JUST CELEBRATED OUR 53rd anniversary by watching two movies from 1968, the year we were married. My wife picked “2001: A Space Odyssey.” My choice was “Planet of the Apes.” Interestingly, both films dealt with space travel, and both films involved apes. The contrast between the imaginations of Stanley Kubrick (2001) and Rod Serling (Planet of the Apes) is fascinating. Both films hav ...

W. C. FIELDS WAS EXPRESSING an aversion for innocence when he said: “Anyone who hates children and animals can’t be all bad.” Fields unwittingly was touching upon the very reason that I like animals better than people: their inherent innocence. The company of a good dog or cat, in my experience, grows into a bond that is simply absent with most humans. Even watching a movie, one becomes ...

It may be ignorantly un-Southern of me to say this, but I dislike magnolia trees. As a tree lover generally, it pains me to admit this awful prejudice, but I have come to it honestly, that is to say, after having experienced a number of magnolia trees on my very own property. The trees produce magnificent blossoms, huge fragrant things that we used to pick and float in bowls of water on the di ...

For years following my 1964 surgery, I used a United appliance that compared to what I wear now as a Model T compares to a Lexus. It had a rubber-coated, malleable metal piece that went 'round my stoma and attached to my skin after I brushed on some sticky, white cement (called Skin Bond) that would later have to be removed with an alcohol-based solvent. The attached bag was rubber (or a rub ...

PERHAPS BECAUSE I LIKE TO WHISTLE it was no surprise that, the other night, I dreamed that I was a mockingbird in a pine tree singing my heart out, chirping a volley of different tunes and showing off my musical repertoire. But then, I woke up, and I was Henry laying in bed, staring at the dresser visible by the night light. Then it came into my head that I was a mockingbird, dreaming that I ...

WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID, my grandfather called me ‘Butch.’ I have no idea where that came from, though I suspect that it was simply his version of ‘Buddy.’ Lots of people have nicknames, and for lots of reasons. It may be complimentary (Hotshot Harry Smith), or pejorative (Lazy Lucy Brown), or it may originate from some unique physical trait (Red McGuire, Pugnose Petrocelli). A nic ...

IT LOOKS LIKE FLORIDA will get its first hurricane of the season this coming week. The forecasters have it coming right at me. Watching Floridians prepare for an approaching storm is like witnessing atoms being tossed about in a mass spectrometer. They’re bouncing all around, converging on gas stations, banks and grocery stores in a panic, gassing up, withdrawing emergency cash, and empty ...

“BRITAIN AND AMERICA are two nations divided by a common language,” said George Bernard Shaw. Our American language, sometimes blithely referred to as ‘English,’ sounds different depending upon what part of the country from which the speaker hails. The photo shows the USA dialect map, breaking down the various offshoots of our glorious language. Not all people who speak a language s ...

“IT IS A MISTAKE,” said Douglas Adams, “TO THINK YOU CAN SOLVE ANY MAJOR PROBLEMS JUST WITH POTATOES.” Well, of course, maybe MAJOR problems, but there are lots of MINOR problems you can solve with potatoes. Morning blahs can readily be made to disappear by a nice, large portion of potatoes with onion. There are countless wonderful recipes for breakfast potatoes. Lunch boredom alwa ...