My dad graduated from the school of hard knocks

...but this post isn't going to be about him, it's going to be about me.

I had a good education, as far as it went. Most of the teachers in our local achool system were excellent, and with their help I wound up as valedictorian of the class of 1958. True, there were only 46 of us in the class of 1958, but it was a significant achievement nonetheless. I then attended four different institutions of higher learning in three different states but never received a degree, which fact brings to mind a scene from the 1972 screwball comedy What's Up, Doc? (it was supposedly modeled on Bugs Bunny cartoons) in which Barbra Streisand, after rattling off a long litany of universities she had attended and various courses of study she had pursued, answered someone's question, "What were you trying to do?" with a single word: "Graduate."

Well, so was I but life got in the way. I ran out of money, I left school, I joined the Air Force, I married Mrs. RWP, we began having children, you know, normal interruptions. As time went by, my desire to finish university simply became less and less important and the children's education became more and more important. I am happy to report that all three of our offspring turned out well (I would even say magnificently but I am biased, of course) and two of them have earned masters degrees.

On the strength of having more than three years of college credits (because the military gave me credit for two years worth of R.O.T.C. courses plus physical education) and three years of computer programming experience in the military, IBM graciously hired me after I received my honorable discharge and re-entered civilian life.

Near the end of the year at my second campus of higher learning, I concluded that a degree from some schools meant absolutely nothing or, to be more charitable, very little, chiefly because they were for all intents and purposes just diploma mills, churning out half-educated graduates year after year. So basically I ended up throwing out the baby with the bathwater but I did continue my never-ending education by following the very good advice written on signs at railroad crossings all over the country: Stop, Look, and Listen. In addition, I never stopped reading. By and large, my approach has stood me in good stead.

One thing having a college degree definitely helps determine is one's starting salary in many corporations. And not having a degree at the start of one's career but getting one later on seems to make very little difference to the powers-that-be in most Human Resources departments (formerly known as Personnel departments).

So I am that rarest of birds, a valedictorian who became a college dropout. Interestingly (I hope), I think I was the first person on my dad's side of the family who ever went to college and the first person on my mom's side of the family who failed to finish.

If you think I have painted too bleak a picture, tell me so in a comment, but please refrain from telling me about my lack of stick-to-it-iveness by not finishing what I started. I am well aware of that.

At least Tasker Dunham in Yorkshire and I both know what 65,536 is. Do you?

I have tried to keep snarkiness out of my writing, but it is an uphill and mostly losing battle.

Enough (more than enough) about me. Today our older son and his family are coming over to take us out to lunch in celebration of Mrs. RWP's birthday, which is four days away.

I’m slipping in more ways than one.

Bastille Day came and went this year with nary a mention about it from me. Slipping.

In certain areas, however, I am on solid ground and others are the ones slipping. Take speaking English, for instance. Words that used to be necessary for communicating clearly are often dispensed with in casual conversation nowadays. Here are two examples that set my teeth on edge:

"It was so fun." Really? Adverbs do not modify nouns, people. Say "It was so much fun" instead. "So much fun" is right; "so fun" is wrong.

"It needs to happen sooner than later." Again, a word is needed that has inexplicably disappeared. You should say "It needs to happen sooner rather than later" if you want to make sense, at least in my circles. The word 'rather' provides the difference between speaking Englsh and speaking, well, gibberish.

On another subject, the price of bedroom slippers, I am still the one slipping (no pun intended). A nice pair of comfy bedroom slippers should cost what, $6.99 tops, right? No way, José. The man who foisted My Pillow on an unsuspecting world has now made a television commercial for his company's bedroom slippers that cost a mere $49.98 (gulp) along with the news that this is $90.00 below the regular price (double gulp, followed by a dead faint). If bedroom slippers now cost $139.98 and nobody bats an eye, clearly I am out of touch.

But you probably knew that already.

Nine things I know that are of no value whatsoever

1. Yves St. Laurent succeeded Christian Dior at the House of Dior and Karl Lagerfeld succeeded Coco Chanel at the House of Chanel.
2. The Washington Monument in Washington, DC, is 13 feet shorter than the San Jacinto Monument near Houston, Texas.
3. Victorian-era poet Arthur Hugh Clough spent six years as Florence Nightingale's secretary, during which time he wrote no poetry at all.
4. Rock-and-roll star Jerry Lee Lewis, who has been married seven times, is the first cousin of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.
5. The name of the horse ridden by Roy Rogers's wife Dale Evans in all those western movies was Buttermilk.
6. Charles the Bald's parents were Louis the Pious and Judith of Bavaria.
7. Although there definitely was a Pepin the Short, no record has been found of a Pepin the Tall.
8. The country of Russia covers 11 time zones.
9. Camilla Rosemary Shand Parker Bowles Mountbatten-Windsor, Duchess of Cornwall, and her husband, Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor, Prince of Wales, are ninth cousins, once removed.

I close with an old rhyme:

"A wise old owl sat in an oak.
The more he saw, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
Why can't we all be like that wise old bird?"

Especially me.

A one-topic post because the dog days are here

It's very hot but there's been a slight break in the weather around these parts. It's probably only temporary but it is very welcome. A few days ago our high was 97°F (36°C) here in Cherokee County with a heat index (factoring in humidity) of 104°F (40°C). That same day the high temperature in Plano, Texas, where I have relatives, was 105°F. I don't even want to think about the heat index.

In contrast, at 11 a.m. today our temperature was 74°F (23°C) and I actually felt a cool breeze while walking Abby.

I repeat, this little break in the heat is very welcome. We still have the rest of July, all of August, and part of September to go before the hope of having an early autumn would even be a remote possibility.

How is it where you live?

Thoughts on blogging on a hot summer day

The American writer Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) was once asked to describe the difference between writing a novel and writing a short story. Her answer--this may not be an exact quote--was that it was like finally emerging from wandering for a long time in a deep, dark forest only to be set upon by a pack of wolves.

I'm not sure what she meant exactly (more on this below) but I feel her pain. As a sometime writer of blogposts, I find that writing is fun except when it is anguish; it is easy except when it is extremely difficult. Most of the time I am my own worst critic and discard more posts than I publish.

Some bloggers seem to write with eloquence effortlessly while others seem to dump onto paper (okay, the screen) whatever garbage comes into their heads. Some pad their posts with photographs and some would never dream of doing that. Some strive to achieve a happy balance of words and pictures. Some blogposts succeed wildly and some fail miserably. The trick to successful blogging is being able to figure out which are which, to separate the wheat from the chaff.

The point Flannery O'Connor was making, I think, is that every type of writing is different; each type has its own set of surprises and challenges and obstacles to be overcome.

Why should blogging be any different? Some days I want to do it forever. Some days I never want to do it again. The best part, of course, is obvious: I get to interact with people I would never have met otherwise.

As Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Beegman in Casablanca, "Here's looking at you, kid."