Category: default || By jt3y

Being off during the day gives me a chance to do many things that I don't otherwise get to do. Like exercising, fixing up things around the house, and donating time to charities.

Oh, hell, who am I kidding? I'm staying up late, sleeping 'til 11 and reading a lot.

Currently, I'm reading a two-volume history of the United States called The Glory and the Dream by William Manchester, which covers the years between the Great Depression and the end of the Vietnam War. I picked up the books --- long out of print --- at the flea market, and it's probably the best $2 I've ever spent.

In fact, I'm enjoying these books more than many books I've paid full list price for. This is great stuff, even if Manchester's ability as a historian has been questioned over the years (particularly in regard to his book on the assassination of JFK). Indeed, there are a couple of glaring factual flubs in The Glory and the Dream, but none that have detracted from my enjoyment of the prose, or of Manchester's analysis of various events. More about that at a later date.

Among other things I've had time to do has been to tune into Lynn Cullen's always enjoyable talk show on WPTT (1360). Hard to believe that I've been listening to her for nearly 20 years, and I'm not sure she would want to be reminded of it, either.

While I tend to agree with Lynn politically, I enjoy her program more when she's not talking politics. Yesterday, she spent the last hour of the program talking to callers about words that they habitually mispronounced before being corrected. One caller, a retired telephone operator, recalled trying to place a long-distance call for someone to Tuscan. It took several minutes before someone figured out that she was trying to put the call through to Tucson. Someone else reported trying to take a trip to "Yosa-mite" National Park.

Another caller reported that until her teens, she thought that the condition that left someone feeling nervous and uneasy was pronounced "an-EX-it-ee." That's enough to leave one feeling anxious.

It reminded me that years ago, when parking Downtown in Our Fair City was still at a premium, that cars along part of Market Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues were required to park on a diagonal against the curb.

And a relative, who shall remain nameless, spotted the sign in front of Immanuel United Presbyterian Church and said, "Look! Isn't that cute! It says 'Angel Parking Only.'"

You guessed it. It actually said angle parking.

When I was a little tad, I can recall insisting that the name of the big car dealer out on Eden Park Boulevard, where my dad purchased his Impala hardtop, was pronounced Dever-ROCKS. Sacrebleu! Obviously, I wasn't paying close attention to the jingles that ran on the radio: "Get a Chevie from Devie, Dever-ROW Chevrolet!"

And why shouldn't a car named for a French guy have been sold by a guy with a French name like "Deveraux"?

So, as angle-ic choirs sing out above Tuscan, Arizona; Yosamite; and all of the other parts of the world, let us remember the words of our President, who says: "And so during these holiday seasons, we thank our blessings."

Indeed. God help us ... er, I mean, bless us, every one!