I told Denise that I would give some serious consideration to asking the roommate to find a different place to live as well – leaving a door open overnight (or longer) is completely irresponsible – they could have easily been robbed! I really don’t like how helpless I feel to do anything to protect her when she is so far away from here.

She emailed me some pictures of her new completed bathroom. She has a new granite countertop vanity with two clear vessel sinks, a new walk-in tub and a new dual-flush toilet. She had a new sky light window put in for additional light, and she enlarged the window to make it an easier fire-escape route. She is really excited about her new bathroom! I hope that the renovations help her allergies!

Regardless, when I heard that Mike Wallace had passed away, I was thinking about how many men work as long as they possibly can and then pass away shortly after retiring. In the past I’ve read about how so many men derive their sense of identity from their job that they are afraid to retire, for fear of becoming “useless.” So they stay at work until their own poor health forces them to quit or retire.

Both Andy Rooney and Mike Wallace will be missed on the Sixty Minutes show. I hope that they and their families are at peace.

While reading the article, a memory of a class in Sociology in college came back to me. The professor was talking about how society creates rules and social mores, and how in our own American society public nudity was taboo, not just from a legal standpoint, but because our own culture has taught us that it was shameful to be nude in public.

To make his point, the professor told the entire class that if any one of us showed up in class the next scheduled day completely naked that he would give that student an “A” for the entire course and the student would not have to attend any more classes. He was very specific and said that the person would have to arrive in class from the hallway completely naked; disrobing in class would not be admissible. To be perfectly honest, I actually considered doing that, but fear of being arrested kept me in check.

Trisha said that it was no big deal, and that maybe I was over-reacting about the situation. Of course I denied that; the premise of my argument was that he was trespassing on our property and he had no right or business being on our property. Trisha said we should thank him for mowing, but I wanted to cuss him out. I told her that if I ever caught him mowing our lawn again I’d shoot a hole in his lawn mower.  After all, property lines are there for a reason, if I let him trespass on our lawn, what is to prevent him from coming into my shop in the back yard and helping himself to my tools? It’s the principle of the thing.

When my sister moved from this area to a rural area in Virginia, she met some of the local firefighters in her town and she was talking with them about how the local volunteer fire department was run in her town. When she asked if any of the volunteers worked locally she was told that none of them work locally. She was going to ask them if the local employers let the firefighters leave their work stations to respond to a fire call, but I guess if none of them work locally that would be a nonsensical question. The closest fire department that has paid staff is about fourteen miles away. That’s really too bad.

The truth be told, however, he had married a wealthy man’s daughter and had access to a lot of money through that marriage. But that is a different story.

He had bought some property in Arlington VA, in a business district and put one of his plumbing retail showrooms there in a storefront. But that was not just a showroom, this was also where the fleet of trucks parked, and the parts warehouse was in the back of the store.

He wanted to erect a stockade fence around the back part of the property where he parked his trucks. So he built one. Not too long afterwards the city government informed him that he was in violation of a code and should have applied for a permit. So he applied for the permit and they rejected his application; he had to tear down the fence.

Undaunted, he tore down the fence. Then he started dumping all of the old bathtubs, toilets, and sinks that his company acquired as a result of all of the remodeling jobs that they worked on. Within a very short time, the back yard looked like a horrible junk yard. Apparently doing that was within the law, and within a very short time the city government sent him a letter requesting him to install the exact same stockade fence that he had installed and removed!

That story was one of his very favorite stories about how you can use the system to beat the system.  He was an ornery and cantankerous old man, but from time to time he did have an interesting story to tell!

That makes for some interesting family gatherings for the holidays. Since they are all easily offended, I never know during the gathering if there is going to be an explosion of tempers and hurt feelings.

Lately I have found myself in the very uncomfortable position of trying to be the rational one that tries to patch things up between these folks.  These are people that feel as if the other people owe them an apology, and vice versa. And no one is going to be adult enough to come forward and speak the words of peace.  I hate the repercussions and complaints among the family members between family gatherings. Life is too short for this type of energy.

Although I have several friends that go on cruises frequently, and rave about how much fun they have had, when I take a closer look at how small the rooms are, and remember tales from my parents about how when they went on a cruise how sick they got and how they could not get any medicine stronger than an aspirin or tylenol I start to think that going on a cruise just probably is not a very good idea for me.