The Trailing Edge

  I am hoping this will be an ongoing series, and that The Urban Blabbermouth will contribute some, too. Back in the 1960s, our closest neighbor was Mrs. Sherman. Her house was corner-wise across the street. She was in her 70s and suffered from "arthur-itis," which apparently was held in abeyance by an advanced medical formula known as Carstairs White Seal American Whiskey. My mother, raised to be polite, joined her in the indulgence whenever we visited her to make sure she was OK. There was a Mr. Sherman, but he apparently spent a lot of time on the road, and I assume Mom thought Mrs. Sherman was lonely, so we spent a lot of time around her kitchen table. I got to drink Pepsi; that's the company Mr. Sherman spent all that time on the road working for. Other than listening to my mother and Mrs. Sherman yak, my other favorite things were walking around her spiral living room rug until I got dizzy, and trying to peek into the two end tables. They were "Pembrooks,"...

    Humans and animals have always talked to each other.  Lest you think this untrue, consider if a human were walking by a pig pen and were to say to a pig therein, hello , the pig would wag its piggly wiggly little tail and come running over.  If a pig were to grunt, hello at a human walking by his pen, the human would look over and keep walking by.  What is never clear is did the human not understand the pig or simply ignored the lower status pig. Humans are like that - ignoring lower status animals while courteous to higher status animals.  If a lion were to roar, hello to a passing human, you can be assured that the human would stop, look at the lion, and gently and as sweetly as possible say, nice lion . Humans are animals too.  We talk to each other, all too often, with not much worthwhile to say. If a rich human is passing by, the other huma...

                       The mobile home park we moved to nearly 11 months ago is great. In fact, I think its advertising motto should be "...A Really Nice Mobile Home Park. No, Really!" Or how about "It's Not Just Nice. It's Pleasant!" Okay, maybe that's why I began a college degree in Marketing but never finished.