Lighten Up, People

I was a little more productive yesterday than I was on Sunday, but not a whole lot more. After taking Alli out for her morning potty and requisite ball chasing, I posted my blog to Facebook, and then started dealing with emails. A lot of emails.

A surprising number of people took exception to my comments about comedian Matt Rife in yesterday’s blog. Several wrote to tell me I obviously had no empathy for people with physical handicaps if I thought Matt’s humor was funny. What’s really funny to me is that the people I know with physical handicaps have some of the greatest senses of humor about their own afflictions.

Roberta Jensen, one of my proofreaders, is blind and in a wheelchair. Roberta is an extraordinary woman who, as a single mom in her 30s, decided to go back to college and get a degree in law. Not only did she graduate near the top of her class at the University of Arizona, she also graduated magna cum laude. I have known Roberta for 40 years, and in one of the first conversations I had with her, she asked me if I knew why blind people didn’t skydive. I told her that no, I had no idea why. She replied, “Because it scares the hell out of our seeing eye dogs.”

The late Mike Howard, another dear friend, was probably as close to a brother as I will ever have. Mike was a thalidomide baby. He was born with no legs from the knees down, his right arm ended at the elbow, and his left arm had a thumb and part of a finger. He had prosthetic legs but no arm and there was nothing he could not do if he set his mind to it. He drove cars and 4x4s, rode a motorcycle, worked as a cactus cop for the Arizona Department of Agriculture, and was one of the best shots with a handgun that I’ve ever known. Mike used to say that he was always popular as a kid in Little League. I asked him what position he played, and he said that his teammates used him for third base. Another time years ago, when someone was complaining about the price of gasoline, they said it cost them an arm and a leg to fill their tank. Mike just shook his head and smiled and said, ” Oh, please, bitch.”

I love people like that. It’s like when people ask me how I’m doing, and I tell them, “Not too bad for an old fat man.” I learned a long time ago that if you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re going to have a pretty miserable life.

Besides dealing with email, I added some new subscribers to my free author’s newsletter, and did a few other light office duties, as well as getting another one of the home security cameras set up. Then I dropped Terry off at Safeway while I ran to the post office to mail out a book order and stopped at Cal Ranch before going back and helping her finish up the grocery shopping.

As we were putting the groceries in the back of the truck, Terry saw a bird flying past close by that she thought was a hawk. It landed on top of the line of shopping carts outside the store. I’m not a birdwatcher, but according to Google, it is a juvenile Cooper’s hawk. It sat there and allowed us to take some pictures of it and didn’t seem bothered by the shoppers coming and going.

In closing, I want to thank everybody who purchased my newest book, Big Lake Parolee, or downloaded it to read on Kindle Unlimited. It’s climbing up the charts, and I’m very pleased with the sales numbers. You folks are the best.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Life is short, smile while you still have teeth.