Many years ago, my son Ned and I were invited to spend a summer weekend in Chicago as guests of my cousins John, Tim and Molly – children of my legendary uncle Jack – the world’s (and possibly history’s) most dangerous salesman. John and Tim were going to take me to a Saturday afternoon Cubs game after which their wives would join us as John took us out to, “A real Chicago restaurant.”
I started out in business two weeks after my 16th birthday. I got my driver’s license, and my dad and I started a TV rental business in St. Joseph’s Hospital. Six months later we did the same thing at the General Hospital. In those days, St. Pat’s High School was half way between the two hospitals. I did the General hospital on my lunch hour and St. Joe’s after school. If I needed to, it was a short walk to our store where I could grab a delivery truck and move the TV’s wherever they were needed.
I have a cousin named Dan, the son of my legendary Uncle Jack, the world’s most dangerous salesman. Daniel and I have become great friends over the years. I see him when I go to Austin, Texas to visit the Stevie Ray Vaughn style music scene or to attend the Wizard of Ads academies and University of Texas football games. We’ve rafted the Middle Fork of The Salmon River in Idaho together, fished for Tarpon in Belize, hiked up the Lembert Dome in the Tuolomne Meadows in Yosemite and sailed from Antigua to Lunenburg with Derek Hatfield, Canada’s legendary sailor.
I met Ray Griffiths back in 1960. We were both in grade 11. He was a nice guy, a good athlete and a real studier. I always had the feeling he was the kind of guy who took life seriously. After two years at St. Pat’s I moved over to Northern – for a reason I will only mention in public when I’m doing my standup bit at Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle in Royal Oak, Michigan. And I only do it there because it usually gets a good laugh.
My daughter Kate – who lives in Toronto – has a good friend there named Mais: a very attractive, young woman from Iraq. One day last fall, Kate and Mais were at our place for dinner and Mais told Sylvia and I about an experience she’d had as a result of her decision – a few years ago – to try on-line dating.
Have you ever been in a situation where somebody said something to you and you had no idea what to say? Then being the schmuck that you are, you went right ahead and said something anyway and as soon as you said it, you knew it was the wrong thing to say. You did it not because you had something to say, but because you knew you had to say something… or at least you thought you did. Don’t feel bad if you answered, “Yes.” I’ve done it too. More than once.
I bought my first Apple computer back in the 80’s and used it for 8 or 9 years before I switched to PC in order to be able to use Windows and the Microsoft Office suite. I was also starting to write back then and everything was being written - and published - in Microsoft Word. Also, all the accounting software available used the Windows operating system while Apple was the darling of the graphic artists and students.
In the spirit of the season
Definition: Claustrophobia – fear of fat people in red suits.
Bill Waterson (Calvin and Hobbes)
“The surest sign that intelligent life exists somewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.”
William E. Simon
“Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.”
F.Y.I… That doesn’t just happen in Washington. Brian Keelan
Okay then… so now that pot has been re-legalized, we are back to being a nation where it is, once more, legal to smoke pot. Pot was made illegal in 1923. Over 95 years ago pot was legal, or at least not “illegal”. Why do you think our government made pot illegal, or as Dr. Timothy Leary famously said, “outlawed the number one vegetable on the planet?”
Famous Marijuana quote # 1:
Groucho Marx defined politics as: “The art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then applying the wrong remedies.” The last four years have produced an almost unbelievable amount of controversy and disharmony between the mayor, the council and the staff at City Hall. Many of us are unable to decide for sure just exactly who is at fault. Who is telling the truth?
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