Putz is gone, Katherine de Chevalle is on hiatus, and I’m not feeling too well myself

Our old friend Putz is not really gone, as in gone gone, as far as I know, although he sometimes seems gone even when he is here, if you get my drift. I have every reason to believe he is still working as a school crossing guard and tooling around Tooele, Utah, not living on the planet Kolob as he would like us to think. But having posted only once in all of 2013 he appears to be gone from Blogworld, at least for the time being.

Speaking of the time being, Katherine de Chevalle down in New Zealand has also taken a little hiatus of indeterminate length -- she calls it a Bloggus Interruptus -- because, in her own words, “I have a lot of painting to do for my exhibition and am also working on getting my art website looking good and up-to-date.” As the head of the parole board said to H.I. “Hi” McDunnough (Nicholas Cage) in Raising Arizona at the end of every one of his parole hearings, “Well, okay then.”

Daphne over in Leeds, whose Dad was a Communist, hasn’t posted since May 19th, the day Mrs. RWP and I observed our 50th wedding anniversary. I miss Daphne’s wit and her love of swimming and her work in patient roleplay with medical students and her inclination to travel through Europe at the drop of a hat. Her mother, who lives next door to her, was beginning to have some health problems in her late eighties and I do hope all is well with both of them.

Ian, who also lives in Leeds, stayed in England last winter instead of spending his usual six months a year in Florida, and it seems to have dampened his enthusiasm for blogging. His photographs are always marvelous, but he has posted less and less often lately. It would be worth your while to take a little time and check out his few posts in 2013.

Our old friend Carolina in Nederland has posted only five times since the beginning of the year, and has said absolutely nothing since the middle of April. If I may say so, dat is niet goed.

Reamus hasn’t been heard from since the first day of Baseball’s spring training back in February, but he may be traveling around the country in his new La Coachasita, the old one having given up the ghost somewhere in South Dakota last summer. One never knows, but one will find out eventually.

Pat (an Arkansas stamper) was getting ready for stamp camp around the end of May. Surely the camp has ended by now.

Vonda out in Oregon seems to have given up her Little Egg Farm and gone to making souvenirs for the tourists to buy. As Ezio Pinza said or rather sang in “Some Enchanted Evening” in South Pacific, “Who can explain it? who can tell you why?” (The next line, as I recall, is “Fools give you reasons; wise men never try.” For the record, when I mentioned Ezio Pinza I was speaking of his role as Emile de Becque in the stage version of South Pacific. In the movie version, Rossano Brazzi never sang a note. His part was dubbed by the Metropolitan Opera star, Giorgio Tozzi. And even though Mitzi Gaynor did her own singing as Ensign Nellie Forbush in the film version, she was not Mary Martin. But I digress.)

Where was I? Oh, yes.

Dr. John Linna of Neenah, Wisconsin, a retired Lutheran minister, died on February 15, 2010. He had a town, Pigeon Falls, in his basement and told us many strange and wonderful things that happened there. Every Sunday he shared nuggets of wisdom with us from his own personal treasure-trove. I still like to go back there and read his posts, even though there are some typographical errors. Maybe you will too.

Doctor John was one of a kind. Come to think of it, they don’t make ’em like Buford Pickleberry any more either.

In summation, some people say “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and other people say “Out of sight, out of mind.” I guess for every proverb there is an equal but opposite proverb. You will have to decide for yourself which is true, and ultimately land on one side of the fence or the other.

I do hope each of you had a pleasant Bastille Day yesterday, and that it was filled with, well, you know, liberté, égalité, fraternité.