This actually happened

My dog and I have conversations. I talk to her and she talks to me. Not really, of course. When we talk, I provide both sides of the conversation. This one occurred this morning:

Me: You're my girl.
Abby: Yes, I am.
Me: You're a good girl, Abby.
Abby: I agree.
Me: You're my chunky-wunky.
Abby: No, I'm not.
Me: I thought you were. What are you then if you're not my chunky-wunky?
Abby: Look around. It's the Good Old Summertime. Isn't it obvious? I'm your tootsie-wootsie.

We have exchanges like this all the time. Don't tell me my mind is going. It probably already went.

The meanderings continue

This week I threw away an unopened can of Lucky Leaf lemon pie filling. Before you accuse me of being wasteful, I will tell you why I did it.

• It was old. It had been sitting on the back of the pantry shelf since Hector was a pup for a very long time.
• It was dented. I don't remember having dropped it so the possibility of botulism reared its ugly head.
• It instructed me to do so itself. I found the following words stamped on the bottom of the can: "Best if used by 10-1-2016".

Since that was nearly seven years ago, I tossed the can into the trash. To be honest, though, it wasn't just wasted food. It was wasted money. I hate that.

I promise (or at least I will try) not to waste any more food or money in the time I have left.

According to the people who monitor the U.S. Census Bureau's International Data Base (IDB), the population of the world will reach 8,000,000,000 (that's billion, with a B) in October 2023. If people are born at a steady rate throughout a year (they probably aren't), simple math tells us that every single day nearly 22,000,000 people on this planet celebrate their birthdays. Despite that fact, during my 82 years so far on planet Earth I have met only two people who have the same birthday I do, Juanda Seeton of Mansfield, Texas, and Allison Summersill of Cumming, Georgia. I'm not saying there aren't others, I'm just saying I haven't met any.

World War II ended 78 years ago. The war in Europe ended in May 1945 and the war in the Pacific ended for all practical purposes in August after the first atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima on the 6th and the second atomic bomb destroyed Nagasaki on the 9th. Japan formally surrendered aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, exactly 78 years ago this Saturday.

Do the math. The very youngest of the more than 16,000,000 Americans who served in the military during World War II -- that is, someone who entered the military on his or her 17th birthday on September 1, 1945 -- is now 95 years old (78 + 17). So how can "hero flights" ferrying participants to Normandy for D-Day observances (June 6, 1944) or Honolulu for Pearl Harbor Day observances (which occurred even earlier on December 7, 1941) occur with such frequency and be displayed on evening news telecasts?

I will tell you how. We are a big country to start with (335,000,000), plus people are living longer all the time. In 2010, for example, the decennial U.S. Census found 425,000 persons 95 or older. By 2020 the number had increased to 631,000 (a 48% increase in that particular age category).

I heard someone say recently on television that "we are losing U.S. veterans of World War II at the rate of 12,000 to 15,000 per month". If every single one of those 631,000 oldsters were military veterans (they aren't) and the death rate I heard is true (it may not be), they will all be gone in 3½ to 4½ years.

I love statistics of this sort.

But you knew that.

Advice columnist Ann Landers once wrote, "If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade". Apparently she never heard of World War II or Lucky Leaf lemon pie filling.

Summer meanderings

1. Do you know what the followimg individuals had in common?

Mary Ann Evans
Nathan Birnbaum
Eric Arthur Blair
Jacob Gershwin
Prince Albert, Duke of York
Amantine Lucile Aurora Dupin de Francuiel

The answer is that they were all called George. They were George Eliot, George Burns, George Orwell, George Gershwin, George VI, and George Sand. The first and last were women.

Some other Georges were born George. George Gobel, George Jessel, George Hamilton, George Gordon (Lord Byron), George Calvert (Lord Baltimore), and David Lloyd-George come to mind. Even Boy George (a singer) and Gorgeous George (a professional wrestler of a bygone era) were real Georges (George Michael and George Wagner, respectively).

Here's a bonus fun fact: Phyllis George was Miss America of 1971 and later became the wife of the governor of Kentucky.

2. The woke crowd have come up with another new name for something. In addition to telling us to say "egg producer" instead of woman and "sperm producer" instead of man, the self-proclaimed language police and culture influencers now say that the correct way to refer to cow's milk is "bovine mammary secretion".

Moving right along...

3. Our brand-new great-grandson is one month old already. The time is flying. Before we know it he will be finishing his schooling, and I hope I am still around to see it. I read today -- I don't know whether it is true -- that 99% of all the people born in the world between 1930 and 1946 are dead. If you are between the ages of 77 and 93 you are part of "the fortunate 1%" who are still alive. It is a sobering fact to contemplate. I have never been part of such an elite group before. I don't know whether to say "God bless us every one" or "Sic transit gloria mundi". I am suddenly reminded that when a Georgia farm woman in one of Flannery O'Connor's short stories said, "The monks of old slept in their coffins" her hired worker's wife replied, "They wasn't as advanced as we are."

I think that's enough meandering for today. Meandering takes us down some strange roads. Your comments, as always, are not only welcome but also eagerly awaited.

Things could be worse

Most of you are aware, I'm sure, that George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty Four and that Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. Both books describe a fictional dystopian socirty set in the future, and those societies are quite different, as described in the following excerpt from Neil Postman's 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much [information] that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble-puppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." "In 1984 [sic]," Huxley added, "people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure." In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us."

(end of excerpt)

So, friends, if you are interested in knowing the sort of dystopian future other writers have envisioned, you might want to seek out the titles listed below in addition to the two discussed above:

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (1959)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (1953)
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin (1970)

...and by the time you have finished reading them all, the present state of the world will seem positively idyllic.

A new chapter begins

It's true. Last Sunday, Mrs. RWP (the lovely Ellie) and I met our first great-grandchild, a boy, our baby's baby's baby. He was 10 days old, having arrived on July 20th. He is perfect and has lots of dark hair.

We are over the moon. This is the first time since my grandfather died in 1970 that our family has experienced having four generatios alive at the same time. It is a momentous occasion, to be sure, for all concerned.

So here are a few photographs of the new mom and dad, the new paternal grandparents, and the new paternal great-grandparents:

I'm sure there must be other things going on in the world, but right now I don't care about any of them.