Memories by HenryM

EVERYONE VIOLATES TRAFFIC LAWS, sometimes without realizing it. You can’t drive anywhere without there being a posted speed limit, yet drivers habitually go faster than those limits. It is a common belief that one is safe exceeding these limits somewhat, that cops won’t do anything unless your speed is too much to ignore. There is a certain amount of truth to that, since no officer wants t ...

YESTERDAY I NOTICED that the cover I throw over my grill is getting old and brittle, like me. There is a rigidity that has taken over its former suppleness, like mine. I believe that my loyal spouse gets frustrated at times having to deal with me. I’m not exactly dogmatic, but I am, shall I say, predisposed. I should probably give my mind a good shaking, like my porch rug, just to remove ...

Any library is a splendid place. I would be at least mildly enthralled even in the poor little Kanab, Utah city library, where half a dozen aisles of book stacks could hold my interest for a couple of hours, and simple browsing would become exploration of the highest order. As a young boy in Miami, Florida, I loved going to the main public library downtown, a monstrous treasury of bound knowle ...

MY HATRED OF WAR MUST STEM FROM WHEN I WAS IN THE WOMB. I was born in late 1942. My parents used to listen to war news on the radio every day, and my mother liked Tommy Dorsey. I could hear it while I was growing in her warm belly, the sound of the radio penetrating right through her body and into my cute little fetus ears. Swing music gave me a good feeling, and I love to listen to it eve ...

“DON’T USE THE VENDING MACHINE IN THE REC ROOM,” Harry told me one day when we were in the clubhouse. “Why not?” I asked. “It never works right,” Harry said. I walked over to the vending machine, put my money in the slot, punched the button for the bag of chips, and out it came. “I use it all the time,” I told him, opening my chips. “You got lucky. I hear it never wor ...

MY WIFE GOT PREGNANT and I wanted a daughter, not a son. If you asked me why, I wouldn’t be sure how to explain it. We had our house up for sale and were leaving to go to the hospital to have the baby when a prospective buyer pulled up. I sat my wife in the car and gave the people a tour, then we went on. While I was pacing the floor in the maternity wing and my wife was in the delivery ...

SOMETIMES KEEPING YOUR MOUTH SHUT is the wisest tactic. We have occasion to deal regularly with a fellow who appears to be my political opposite number. He spouts rightwing bumper sticker concepts all the time. My wife worries that I’m going to respond and cause our ongoing brief but regular interaction with this guy to be at risk. So far I have been able to adhere to the maxim of Publilius ...

SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST MORE NATURALLY assertive than others, but when that aggressiveness crosses the line into downright hostility, we have a personality disorder on our hands. Have we entered a new Age of American Belligerence? The stories and reports of people attacking other people seem to be mushrooming of late. There have been many assaults in restaurants and fast-food drive through lines. ...

MOST MORNINGS, AFTER MY EARLY WALK AND AFTER BREAKFAST, I walk the neighborhood with my friend Vince, who lives around the corner at the farthest end of our dead end. His house, you might say, is deader than mine. He has an unusual speech mannerism that I am slowly getting used to; in a thirty-minute walk, he will use the term “in any event” at least eight times. I take this to be the outw ...

My new Smart Watch isn’t so smart. Of the various functions it is supposed to provide, the main one that interests me is the distance measurement. I want to know how far I’ve walked. Just before I head out, I turn it on and allow it to connect with the satellite. In moments, the GPS is in position and off I go. However, whichever orbiting satellite this instrument connects to, I suspect it ...

THERE MAY BE NO CRYING IN BASEBALL, but there’s plenty of prayer in football. What happened was that, many years ago, the Haines City Hillbillies were losing by five points in the final minute of the fourth quarter of their game with the rival Podunk Porkbellies. A time out was called and the team gathered at the sideline with their coach, the local parish priest. “We don’t have a pra ...

MY FIRST GOOD JOB out of college was as a copywriter for a chain of department stores. The advertising department was squirrelled away on an upper floor of the downtown store. My cubbyhole cohabited with a few other writers and commercial artists who produced ads for the newspapers. I was assigned to focus upon men’s clothing and hard appliances (refrigerators, ovens, etc). The experienc ...

A LITTLE MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED MILES north of the Grand Canyon in southern Utah, along scenic U.S. Highway 89 in red rock country of the high desert, late spring and early to mid-summer provides a glorious treat for drivers: the blossoming rough mule’s ears (Wyethia scabra). It is a perennial native to the area, and the large bright yellow flowers are impossible to miss against the mostly ...

APPROACHING APALACHICOLA, FLORIDA from the east along U.S. Highway 98, a driver is surrounded by the ominously named Tate’s Hell swamp on the right, unseen behind some coastal houses, and St. George Sound on the left, separated from the Gulf of Mexico by a 22-mile-long barrier island called St. George Island. Turning left at Eastpoint, just ahead is the 4-mile-long bridge to the island wher ...

SOMETIMES I WONDER IF I SHOULD BE ASHAMED that I live in Florida, a state that has become a laughing-stock of late. Comedians make fun of it all the time and, if you look at a map, the state looks like a limp penis hanging from the State of Georgia. The whole place is as flat as week-old road kill, the highest point being 345 feet surrounded by everything else essentially at sea level. That ...