Here at The Last Half, we consider it our responsibility to educate the American public, which has demonstrated a remarkable absence of mind when it comes to knowledge of Science-y stuff.
And we have an addiction to reading Science blurbs.
And we email the best ones to ourselves and want to share.
So every Sunday, give or take 51 or so Sundays a year, we will post the best Science blurbs of the week, or of whenever we got around to reading them, put into layperson’s terms–words a person could understand while laying in bed half-asleep. Get ready for…
…Amazing Science!
Men Make Boobs Grow
It’s a fact, Jack. Once, this totally cool dude I was dating, a programmer-analyst type just like I was, smarter than smart ( đ ), said the dumbest-#ss thing to me whilst we were between the sheets:
” —
Oh, wait–You need a little context first:
He wouldn’t stop playing with my boobs.
I mean, he wouldn’t stop. Now, I’m pretty darn fond of having my boobs played with, but there comes a point where anything gets old, and he was seventeen minutes and thirty-five seconds past that point. So I had just said:
“What the frig? What’s with all the boob-playing?!”
NOW you have the context. And then HE said:
“It’s so they’ll grow.”
Have you ever heard anything so d#mned dumb in all your life?! And this from one of the otherwise-smartest guys you’d hope to meet!
I just about laughed my boobs off! I ragged on him so bad! He actually told me he’d always figured
“…the only reason some chicks are flat-chested is because they haven’t had their boobs played with enough.”
Oh, my aching chest.
Well now I may have to eat my words. At least when it comes to pregnant boobs, single mom rats wind up with smaller boobs than married mom rats. Their boobs grow less during pregnancy, getting less milk in them.
We don’t know that the same man magic happens to human boobs, but it might. In which case, I owe that long-ago dude an apology:
Sorry, dude. If man-magic can grow pregnant boobs, maybe it can grow unpregnant ones too.
Ladies with big boobs, let this be your warning:
STAY AWAY FROM MEN!!!
ADDENDUM: MEN STINK
The paper this stuff came from will tell you the theory about why the boobs grow is that men stink. The ratty-men’s smelly pheromones make the ratty-women’s breasts go all a titter (I’m tittering typing that).
The paper also tells you that the single (i.e. unscented) ratty-moms nurse their babies less, and their babies are a bit less smart. THAT is interesting.
ADDENDUM: EXTRA SCIENCE LESSON FOR IDIOTS
No, you idiot. Her boobs are not tiny because no one ever liked them and no one ever played with them. Playing with them more will not make them grow. Does your dick reach the ceiling yet? Idiot.
ADDENDUM: WHERE ARE THE “OTHER SCIENCE-Y FACTS?”
I’m sorry. That’s all we have time for this week. If the world is still here next Sunday–if the world’s boobs haven’t yet destroyed it–maybe next week! Here’s a video instead:
Babe sits at her desk all day,
Seems to dream the day away.
But if to that she did admit,
Employer and Babe would soon be split.
(It isn’t that she doesn’t try;
It’s just that thinking makes her cry.)
But Babe is wise in one small way:
She knows daydreaming doesn’t pay,
So rather than her habits change,
The syntax she has rearranged:
“The arrangement of words…to create well-formed sentences.”
Management, always impressed
By “looked at” stated reassessed,
Or “Now” said as This point in time,
Has chosen to ignore her crime,
Has left her to her own devices,
While other peoples pays the prices.
“This isn’t laziness” says she,
“A better word is:
‘Entropy’.”
“Lack of order or predictabililty; gradual decline into disorder.”
***
The actions and work habits of the project members in these adjoining offices are not at all fishy. Daily, they industriously visit each others’ project areas to chat, until, exhausted from their efforts, they settle slowly to the sandy bottom floor.
Poetry in Ocean đ
“K” is Karla Kraken, their single (1) efficient manager, who has earned 5 out of 5 Productivity Stars. Whoo-Hoo! Way to go, Karla!!
***
One Baad Dog
OR
A Single Occurrence of
A Deviant Canine or
Canine-Comparable
Mammal
It is sad, I suppose,
When a word dons new clothes;
Because how does we knows,
If it comes or it goes?
Like when NASA torqued ânormalâ,
Into something more formal,
And came up with ânominalâ!
Truly abominal.
âWHAT?! You lied? To a priest?
During CONFESSION?”
Meg has really shocked me.
We’re chatting on the phone and I’ve shared that I’ve been reading John Cornwell’s âThe Dark Box: A Secret History of Confessionâ.
This led Meg and me to childhood reminiscences, and on to a discussion of Good Catholics versus Bad Catholics:
Pop Quiz: Which Do You Think THESE Are?
Good Catholics went to confession weekly, like we did. Bad Catholics showed up only once a year. Shame on those sinners, saving up all that dirt on their soiled souls!
âEw!–Don’t brush up against us! Your dirty sins might brush off!â
We were on solid theological ground here:
Blessed is the person who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners… (Psalm 1:1)
I told Meg that while I waited each Saturday for my turn with the priest in the little confessional box, I used to do math to figure out my sin count: I’d estimate how many times each day I did something wrong to each of my siblings, and then multiply by seven days.
âLemmee see…I lie about once a day to Meg, twice to Paul (he was so youngâit was just too easy). I don’t usually lie to Macy, ’cause I don’t really talk to her much any more…Then there’s the hitting…â
The fact that I needed to go by number of times per day per sin gives a good indication of what a nasty little girl I was.
I seriously don’t recall that anything I did to the adults I lived with counted as wrong. Ohâwait! I DO remember something that I used to feel tremendous guilt about:
I would sneak food. Even emaciated as I appeared, and hungry as I always felt, my mom had weird rules about food and would make me feel guilty about eating. She would prefer I eat an entire box of Ring-Dings (non-food) than eat my preferred entire loaf of bread and quart of milk.
âI drank that quart of milk after school, God.â
My sin-counting was an arithmetic of anxietyâone which I took very seriouslyâbecause each week it re-emphasized what a bad person I was. And, if I missed only one sin, I would not be shriven [forgiven] of any.
Better to over-confess than under!
But now, here’s Meggy, confessing to me that SHE made up her entire confession!
âMeg! That means you actually would have told the priest a lie about lying!â
âYup.â
Wicked unrepentant chortles come from the other end of the phone.
âWell, I hope you remembered to add THAT to the list of sins you confessed, or you’re going straight to hell!â
We both laugh like demons.
I Look Different Minus Makeup, Don’t I?
A-DAMNED-UM
Meg and I will have a lot of company down there. A lot of Catholic company. She and I are no longer Catholic, so of course we no longer worry about weekly or yearly confession, but, I just learned, neither do 97% of Catholics. In the U.S., you’ll only find confession going on in a bare handful of the biggest, best-attended cathedrals and churches.
Golly. All those important scenes in the movies inside the confessional box? Don’t happen. Not since the 1970’s.
Cornwell’s book had a bunch of interesting confession tidbits (as well as lots of other non-confession-related churchy facts not mentioned here). Warning: If you were born with normal non-nerd human genes, you may just want to stop right here, unless you’re hooked on catatonics.
Confession Is the Jews’ Fault
Noâseriously. Ya’ know Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement? Even before that, for centuries, the tradition was that when you screwed up big time, you had to publicly show you were sorry by moaning and wailing, tearing at your clothes and yourself, and covering yourself with ashes.
Guess where the Catholics got the idea of Ash Wednesday from? Yup. THAT’s the Jews’ fault, too.
When the Christian church started out, there was no confession. Christ already died for everybody’s sins, except Adam and Eve’s original sin, and baptism took care of that. But over time, when Christians messed up big-time, by killing someone or doing something equally evil, like masturbating, the church needed a way to welcome them back. It had to be a big public something, or everybody would think masturbation, say, was no big deal.
(Of course I wouldn’t know, but I’ve heard that, in some cases, it CAN be a big deal. With inflatable embraces, or the proper electronic interfaces.)
So the Christians borrowed from their not-distant Jewish heritage and added a Christian twist: The ashy sinner had to walk up to the altar at the pre-Easter Lenten church service with a shaved head, and confess in front of everyone s/he knew.
Whoa.
Confession Is the Fault of the Irish
They’re the ones who decided it was better to whisper sins kneeling at the foot of a priest in private than to shout them out loud in front of your friends.
You’re thinking âThat’s mighty thoughtful.â
Well, that’s where you’re wrong, boy-o. Or girl-o. Those private meetings enabled the charm o’ the Irish to apply itself in private. To privates.
A Little Too Much Closeness. Back Then, It Was Women Who Were the Targets. And Not Girls: An Average Age of 27
The early church actually tried to address this. You’ll never guess how. Through designing a device which would keep priest and penitent apart while still allowing private, personal confession: The confessional box!
Pretty much backfired, didn’t it? Lots of diddling has gone on inside those boxes down through the years.
***
This post was gonna be longer–the book is good, and really deserves a read, and a more thoughtful post–but instead, it sorta peters out. And if youâre Catholic, or if youâve ever been Catholic, or if you even have a friend whoâs Catholic, you know whose fault THAT is. The same person whose fault EVERYTHING is:
âMea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.â
âMy fault, my fault, my most grievous fault.â
Yes, the Bible was talking about the death of Jesus, but somehow Catholicism makes the guilt transferrable to every poor choice you or I ever made or may make.
I took my liddle wagon,
I pumped it very hard,
And then my tail was draggin’,
‘Cause handcar work is hard.
***
My Uncle Bill helped start the first train museum in Illinois. He loved trains, and so do I.
I remember my first train ride, when I was two. The clackety-clack sounds and the rocking motion were so relaxing. I saw an elevated subway train out the window of our real train that day, and was amazed that another train could be up so high in the air.
Imagine If I’d Seen THIS That Day (In 1960, This One Oopsed and Hit a Building)
Do children still put pennies on train tracks to see them get squished?
Fun.
One time we got to ride back from Chicago in a Pullman: A sleeper car. We kids loved it. We each had a tiny bed with a curtain. The porter kept pulling on our curtains to ask if we were all right, but really he just liked kids, and was making us laugh.
My parents didnât like the ride so much. If you have never seen an old-style Pullman, the beds are really tiny. A grownup would have had to keep their knees bent all night.
Pullman Blanket–See the Adult’s Feet At Top Left? Tiny Blanket, Tiny Beds.
The best train-y thing that ever happened to me is when my sisters and brother and I got to ride on a real handcar: One of those little cars you push up and down on a handle to make go (they’re also called Kalamazoos–did you know that?).
How It Looked At Day’s Start
After WE Got Through With It
Someone we visited had an old length of abandoned track behind their property, and there was an abandoned Kalamazoo, too.
I had always wanted to use one–Didn’t you, when you saw them in the cartoons and movies? They look so fun!
They are! It was hard work, but we kids did have tremendous fun pumping our way up and down that short piece of track.
The funniest thing that ever happened to me on a train happened at my uncleâs train museum. We were touring a very posh velvet-seated private car.
My brother was still little, and when he saw the handsome mahogany toilet, all he could think about was wondering what happened to the âstuffâ when you flushed. (He didnât remember that Pullman ride.) I was more than happy to educate him:
“It falls right down under the train onto the tracks, where it sits all STINKY!“ (A small preview of my future teaching strengths!)
Paul thought I was pulling his leg–possibly, despite his tender age, I had already been guilty of doing so repeatedly. He wanted to look for himself.
Macy Girl lifted the beautiful golden lid. Our three older heads of molasses, cinnamon, and shiny butter leaned over Paul’s smaller sugar-white one as we all four stared down.
At the bottom of that fancy toilet, the museum people had thoughtfully placed an official museum label card with one neatly-typed word at its very center:
Poo.
***
All these decades since that Pullman ride when I was a single digit old, I had remembered our funny porter’s name: George.
But I recently learned, to my dismay:
ALL train porters were named George. Porters, all black men, were required to set aside their own identities while on the job and answer as one to “George”. One, big, happy interchangeable set of Steppin Fetchits[think Jar-Jar Binks], as far as white people at the time were concerned.
When railroads first began using porters, they didn’t even pay them–it was tips only.
White bosses were so convinced that blacks were “no-account” that they tried entrapment: Female “passengers”–disguised railroad employees–tried to seduce porters, or “accidentally” left expensive jewelry behind to tempt black maids and waitresses to steal.
I learned this and other really interesting-to-nerds train facts from The Iron Road: An Illustrated History of the Railroad, by Christian Wolmar.
Trains were first drawn by horses.
I’d known mine-mules drew mine cars, but hadn’t known about full-sized above-ground horsey-trains, on tracks, with freight or passengers. Had you? ALL of Austria’s trains were originally horse-drawn.
How did the horses manage walking over the spaced-out ties (the wooden boards) without stumbles? Was the distance between ties decided only by rail support, or by fewest hoof-trips per train-trip?
Germany’s first railroad existed because of classism and racism.
Snoot-snoot! Toot-toot!
For centuries, Nurenberg, in Hitler’s homeland, Bavaria, had not allowed mere laborers or foreigners to live inside the town. Such lower forms of life had to commute from a town miles away. A train in 1835 finally cut their commute time.
The Jews had to buy TICKETS to ride the trains carrying them to their deaths. (I was unable to type that without crying.) And this was a major source of revenue for the Nazis. It generated around 240 million Reutchmarks–201 million dollars.
I wonder, seriously, if the humorous expression “It’s like buying a ticket to your own funeral.” originated from knowledge of this horrible fact.
Using trucks would have “damaged the German war effort”. I guess trucks were needed for moving battle materiel and troops.
I’m also guessing that masses of stumbling women, children, and elderly travelling along open roads would have let the walking dead cats out of the bag. Possibly made killing them harder, although Armenians might disagree. So trains fit the tic…you know.
In the 21st century, several railroads have apologized.
Just like with the internet, the freedoms offered by railroads brought out Government Overlord syndrome. No one-way tickets were sold–you had to buy return tickets. Children under twelve (12) were not allowed to travel. All passengers were locked inside their compartments.
Governments wanted you to come home again–They didn’t want their citizens leaving permanently for greener stations in other nations.
“If He Asks Me One More Time Where His Socks Are…”
The locked-compartment policy changed after some horrific collision accidents in which entire trainloads of passengers, unable to leave their locked compartments, were suffocated or incinerated inside tunnel fires.
India and Russia protected their nations by train track widths. The world eventually settled down to tracks (rails) the same width apart–the same “gauge” [rhymes with cage]–4′ 8″. India and Russia, though, chose 5′ apart. They thought they’d be harder to invade if outsiders’ trains couldn’t cross their borders.
Prussian Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck quietly bought up shares in the railroads he was about to have nationalized. Tsk! Not what he Otto have done.
There was a Railroad Robin Hood!, Redpath (so aptly and artfully appelled! [named]) stole beaucoup [boo-coo–lots of] bucks from the railroads while he worked for them, by, for example, just adding the digit 1 in front of the amount on stock certificates (to increase their value).
Record Title: “I’ve Been Working On the Railroad–And Robin Hood”–Ha ha ha! And Redpath!
Redpath lived very well, but he also donated very well to the poor. These are his words in a ballad sung about him after his death:
I have one consolation, perhaps I’ve more,
All the days of my life / ne’er injured the poor.
I procured for the widow and orphan their bread,
The naked I clothed, and the hungry I fed…
Leopold (for that was his disappointingly non-alliterative first name) was finally caught and banished to a penal colony. Some of you Aussie readers may be descendants of this pioneering economist-slash-socialist who devised his own 1%-to-99% trickle-down distribution system. Be proud!
Thomas the Tank Engine not only WAS real–he still IS!
Say Hello to Thomas đ
The Darjeeling-Himalayan Railway (DHR) is a specially-built narrow gauge (skinny track) railway made smaller to allow it to make smaller, tighter turns so that it can climb around and around the mountains it travels. The DHR’s tracks are only two feet wide, and they make tight loops for climbing.
The DHR’s Loops Are Teensy-Weensier
It is a very famous train line, traversing difficult, crumbling passes, and most of its engines from 1881 are still in use today (!). The Toy Train puffs and toots and thinks it can, and it does.
Am I Not a Thing of Beauty? Do You Not Wish You Could Ride Me Right Now?
1%-ers have disdained we lesser folk from WAY back. During World War II, railroads had gained expertise in rapid movement of people and materials. They learned that moving freight yielded more profit than people.
As soon as the war was over, they RUSHED to close most passenger routes–even in the middle of a day. Passengers who’d travelled 400 miles by train in the morning were left stranded 400 miles from home with no way to return that night. Niiiice.
EVERYTHING-KALAMAZOO ADDENDUM
If you are an absolute handcar NUT, you will love this fellow’s post, in which he shows an actual for really-real handcar he built as a KID, back in 1958!
He Did This Wooden Center With Hand Tools! (and…weeks… of… pa…tience…)
and another he built more recently.
Do You Feel Like a Slacker? Or Do You Think SOMEone Still Has Too Much Time On His Hands?
Here’s a little (very poor-quality) youtube of him sailing along on it with a friend:
And if you know anything about Kalamazoos, you know there’s a famous one in Michigan, made even more famous by a song:
Which Came First: The Kalamazoo, or Kalamazoo?
The handcar was named for the town. The town was named for the river. The river was PROBABLY named after an Ojibwe (Indian) word. Or phrase. But no one agrees what that is, or what it meant. Perhaps “bubbling or boiling”, perhaps “smoky or smoking”, or perhaps “runs quickly” (like a fast river).
The Kalamazoo
Was the place where the who
Put the pot on to brew?
The Ojibwe,
That’s who!
Or the Kalamazoo,
Was when smoky fires grew,
And you heard “Ah-ah-choo!”
“Pardon me.”
“God bless you.”
Or the Kalamazoo,
Was the place where the crew,
Needn’t paddle canoe,
Because man,
Those boats flew.
This is not a Kalamazoo. This is a Kala Mazooka:
The Hungry Half
The “Pam! Pam-Pam!” Half
GET OUT YOUR PENCILS:
WORD PROBLEM
If Kala fires his bazooka
at a moving handcar car,
And his marshmallow-projectiles
travel forty feet (so far)
And the handcar’s moving 20
miles an hour, pumped by bar,
If the car begins in Boise,
when will marshmallow meet car?
If a little boy in Illinois
does number two by train,
And the package sent, when it is spent,
drops down beneath the drain,
When do you think now a passing cow
will slip and ankle-sprain,
And be thus up-scooped;
Because of —,
a blameless beast is slain!
* * *
(Please don’t let it be, Themes rectally,
Have become my blog’s refrain!)
Rest assured that modern trains have modern toilets.
*** DORK ALERT *** DORK ALERT ***
If you like this post, you am one of us.
Welcome to the pocket-pencil club!
(No History fan?
Skip to Thumbelina Rashomon or The “River-Bulldozer”)
Oh, Ba-by…
We’re Explor-iman-iacs!
We have pray for pay contracts;
When we land on someone else’s land,
We always say “It’s mine!”
Explorimaniacs!
EXPLORERS OF THE WORLD
Music (“The Mexican Hat Dance”),
Lyrics by O. Babe
Columbus gets credit, but Erik the Red, it
Was his son Leif Erikson who,
Departed from Iceland to find a more nice land
And landed where Scotia was New!
Big Deal. Looks Here Like It Only Took About a Day.
Bartolomew Dias and Vasco de Gama
The Cape of Good Hope sailed around,
Balboa left Cuba and crossed over Panama’s
Isthmus Pacifically-bound.
We got horses, sheeps, cows, and some piggies,
Bananas, pineapples, and cane,
Just try to imagine our life now,
Without those explorers from Spain!
I Know There’d Be Fewer Chipotles– Is THAT What the Lyric is Say’ng?
Of course, there’s Columbus, who started the whole fuss
Of trying to sail west for east,
Then a man named Amerigo found Chris’s error so
Circumference distance increased.
On Canada’s border in search for some water,
The Northwestern Passage the name,
Up the St. Lawrence went England’s John Cabot,
Then French Cartier and Champlain.
There was Ponce de Leon down in Florida,
Who was looking for Fountains of Youth;
And Hudson’s Half Moon up in New York,
Before all his men set him looth.
That Ole “Monkey Paw” Rule: There’s Always a Catch.
Cartier struck it rich with some rocks in a ditch
That were shiny and sparkly and grand;
When he sailed back to France, they could tell at a glance
Those were fake jewels he held in his hand.
Champlain and the Hurons fired up friendship neurons;
Quebec started out with a bang;
And it didn’t much hurt that the stones in the dirt
Were real diamondsâHow Cartier complained!
Quit Your Gripin’, Jacques–Why Didn’t YOU Bring a Cubic Zirconium and Newspaper Like Samuel Did?
We got rouge, and garage, and mirages,
And Illinois spelled Illi-noise;
Just try to imagine our language
Without that French je nais ce “quois”!
Along Mississippi, LaSalle took a trip,
He sailed all of the way north to south;
While French men were down there,
They founded a town there:
New Orleans we find at the mouth.
“A Delta Below Sea Level, On a Storm-Tossed Coast? Let Us Found Our Town Here!”
DeSoto looked east there, and west Coronado,
But neither one found a darn thing,
So please tell me why
We named cars for those guys,
And their names are what we have to sing?
We got horses, sheeps, cows, and some piggies,
Bananas, pineapples, and cane,
Just try to imagine our life now,
Without those explorers from Spain!
In Mexico, Aztecs threw bloody hearts down steps,
And Cortes’s swords took their gold;
In Peru, F. Pizarro brought on Inca sorrow,
And even more stole gold was sold! (tsk! grammmar!)
Can There EVER Be Too Much?
Cabral missed a turn: In Brazil they now learn
Portugese ‘stead of Spanish today;
Cabrillo was really a man of the sea, and he
Visited Monterey Bay!
We got horses, sheeps, cows, and some piggies,
Bananas, pineapples, and cane,
Just try to imagine our life now,
Without those explorers from Spain!
I Wouldn’t Be Getting My Nooky–From Hottie-Boy Mexican Fang!
The Cath-o-lic leaders were selling forgiveness:
Indulgences let sinners through;
And young Martin Luther, a teller-of-truther,
Gave 95 reasons to boo!
So Protestants started, and soon they departed,
More freedom to have in the West,
And Puritans, Pilgrims, and Quakers, and Calvinists,
Even French Hu-ge-nots left!
We got Meth-odists, E-pis-co-palians,
Je-ho-vahs and Bap-tists galore,
Just try to imagine our life now,
Without those from Spain who explored!
We Maybe Would Get Along Better, ‘Cause Differences Would Be Ignored?
So Much Easier Than Galleons
LOOKING FOR THE GOLD
Music traditional (Turkey in the Straw)
Lyrics by O. Babe
The Dark Ages were a-endin’
and the Renaissance begun,
And Prince Henry wanted sailor men
to have a little fun,
With their lanteen sails, their astrolabes,
and sextants in their hands,
Everybody took their compasses
and sailed for foreign lands!
Looking for the gold, gold, gold,
Spices to be sold, sold, sold,
Every European country wanted spices for their meat,
So it wouldn’t smell so stinky when it rotted in the heat.
“Or So Babes would Sleep With Men Who Never Bathed Or Washed Their Feet.”
Things accelerated quickly
when the Muslim Middle East,
Told the Christians that Constantinople
trading days had ceased,
If they wanted eastern spices,
they would have to sail around,
Down past Africa and its Good Cape
if Oriental-bound!
“Allah’s On OUR Side Now, Bubbeleh.”
Looking for the gold, gold, gold,
Spices to be sold, sold, sold,
So Bartholomew and Vasco set their sails and set their sights,
And they made it past the Cape and showed that they could do it right.
Then a little book by Polo
made the searching get more hot,
All of Europe learned that Kublai Khan
had everything they’d not,
Everybody got excited
and more countries joined the fray,
Ferdinand and Isabella
sent Columbus on his way!
Actual Top View of the Famous Pleasure Dome
Looking for the gold, gold, gold,
Spices to be sold, sold, sold,
Not even knowing longitude, or how far east or west,
Cristobal was good at measuring and guessing on his quest.
When Columbus showed the cool stuff
that the New World had to share,
Like tomatoes and potatoes
and the chili peppers there,
And they thought he’d proved by sailing west
that he had reached the East,
All of Europe salivated
for their spicy stink-free feast!
Hey–Don’t Point Fingers At ME. People Actually Get PAID To Write Textbooks With This Cr#p In ‘Em.
Looking for the gold, gold, gold,
Spices to be sold, sold, sold,
Columbus brought a little gold; they thought there’d be lots more,
So they started out for western shores and sailed here by the score!
The Opening Lines to Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
2014-03-20–Added Kubla Khan poem and name of Mexican Hat Dance. 2014-03-20–I haven’t finalized or final-proofed this post, but I’m tired of looking at it and I’ve got stuff to do, so out the door it goes!
Many of the posts herein consist of opinions. Others, memories. Memories are subjective, and, we now know from research, fallible.
Statements made about others in the posts and replies to comments on this blog are based upon the memories and opinions of the blogger. Readers are left to draw their own conclusions about the the accuracy of these statements.
I do not do reciprocal Follows (I cannot keep up with reading posts on the few blogs I currently follow) and to my great and deserved shame, have even been remiss about visiting and thanking you, my more recently-added Followers
:(
or popping in for occasional visits among the rest of my wonderful readers. But I will be trying to catch up with everyone over the next couple of months.
We'll see how well I manage and how long it takes!
The Last Half 