The Chair's Chair Virus

Virus

Part 8 of 30

Anyway, as I said yesterday, my once-nice-brown-haired Pa had the virus known as cancer and died. Immediately having gone to heaven, his soul, we later buried him on the hill back home, with his mortal remains remaining there with his hopes of being resurrected someday. My own thought on the religion of it all is that the body will likely remain there till the end of time but that his soul/spirit did indeed majestically flit-flit-flit its way to his reward, a fast flit and more or less instant.

He also had a nasty cough. I seem to remember it was in his lungs, a terrible way to die. Which might be like the virus today, since we’re all afraid of being touched, having the breath of strangers or loved ones on us, I think. I know they put up plexiglass dividers at the grocery store to keep the nastiness of customers off the checkout people. It’s all extremely serious business, and even when the virus is no more, I would guess the plexiglass dividers will remain forever. They're industrially fastened. So no more handshaking even after this is over. The new greeting upon meeting someone will be to step back three feet and bow, but not such a deep bow that we’re breathing on anything that’s settled near the floor.

So Pa died, with his light brown hair, around 20 years ago, leaving behind a bunch of furniture that Mom (still alive at the time) wanted to get rid of. Dad’s personal den had a chair and ottoman that were gorgeous in their time, procured by my family after another guy died and they were on sale at a garage sale where he lived. Dad knew they were used but accepted them anyway, having no scruple at that time about sitting in a chair that a potentially infected person sat in. (These days, with the virus, we’ll avoid all floor models that aren’t sold or even sitting in them for a test.) As for Pa, it was never known definitively whether his lung cancer was a result of a prior infection of his chair or something to do with an old ashtray he used to use.

Once Pa flitted off to his heavenly reward -- my inspiring post yesterday, and I’ve already heard that a few souls have been saved based on it -- that left us with the quandary of what to do with his filthy old chair. You sell it at a garage sale, you’re open to legal action if someone gets lung cancer from it. Or who knows what other kinds of cancer! I do remember one of the dogs sleeping on its back, then wriggling around in a dream, and falling out and getting hurt. The dog's attorney tried to make a federal case of it, but they settled for a few biscuits and a red squeeze toy.

Sorry to tell you now the chair’s gone. We did indeed put it on the curb with a sign, and it was snatched up actually before the ink on the sign was dry! So there’s someone out there -- no doubt now dead -- willing to live dangerously, with basically nothing left to live for.

Empty Sorghum Jars

 
It is beyond all debate, there is nothing more beautiful in all creation than the sight of a full sorghum jar. You see it, jam-packed with delicious, shining, brown sorghum. God bless anyone who agrees with me thus far. And shame on you, if -- the very thought of it is unimaginable -- you happen to disagree. Shame! Shame! Shame!

That is to say, I like it. And perhaps I've gone beyond liking sorghum, to the point of loving it. One night a guy I know who works at the store called me, prefacing his remarks with, "You didn't hear it from me," then he proceeded to tell me the new sorghum would be in around 10:00 a.m. I was glad to get the heads up, and -- this is important -- managed to be in line before nearly every other sorghum hawk in town. Somehow there was a couple who obviously knew higher-ups in the system, if not the delivery guy's family. Because there they were, looking like the cat that ate the canary. Foiled me again, scourges of the earth.

OK, the flip side of the argument -- that there's nothing more beautiful in all creation than the sight of a full sorghum jar -- is the exact opposite: There's nothing less beautiful, or more ugly, uglier, than the sight of a sorghum jar that's spent, empty, down to the nubbins, stripped bare of its payload. Snuff films paint a prettier picture. (For the above photo I tried to downplay the hideousness of it all with an attractive background.)

What good are empty sorghum jars? This is a true fact: I save each and every used sorghum jar. I have a theory, and I've heard from friends that "It's not a bad theory," that the essence of sorghum is still present in empties. And that someday, perhaps, hopefully, scientists will be able to produce a full jar of sorghum from nothing more than its microscopic essence. When that happens, if indeed it turns out to be true, one entire wall of my cellar's going to be well-stocked with sorghum!

I'm about done, but I want to get a jab in on the other sorghum hawks. (Most of them already know what I did, but I'm going to brag on myself for the few of you out there who still haven't heard it.) It was the year 2000. With me so far? When an inside source gave me the incredible scoop, that the Maasdam Sorghum Mills was going to open its gates and barns for a rare tour. This gets good! I didn't say a word to anyone till I nearly reached rural Lynnville, Iowa. Then I told my dad. We were riding together, him and mom and me. Dad was all like, "Where we going?" And finally I told him.

The bad thing here is that Dad had just found out he had cancer. But when I told him we were going to the sorghum plant, he was happy as a kid. That was a bright spot in an otherwise devastating time. He perked right up, and my mom was happy too just looking at the two of us laughing. He couldn't believe it. But it was true! We found the place, out in the country, and headed for the barn, pumping fists. He wasn't thinking of cancer for that day anyway! They showed us around, showed us how they bring the sorghum plants in, how they stack it, etc., etc., and with an old huffing/puffing machine with conveyor belts and all the rest, are able to put out big containers of sorghum.

One of the real treats was we got to see alive the guy who started the place! He's no doubt since passed on, like my mom and dad have, since he was practically 100 at the time. He was sitting in a chair, looking around, a nice looking guy. That's enough. I'm getting emotional. It's terrible to recall my dad's failing health and that whole terrible time. And the fact that that tour had to come to an end, and the founder being passed on, etc. If I had a jar of sorghum right this minute, I know I'd overdose and I'm not going to say what would probably happen to me, except I'd no doubt go to Heaven.

Truth and Tobacco Spit

To me, the picture says it all. It's the age-old story, as old as time itself -- Abel and Cain -- yet told again and again, ever new: Two brothers of the same flag who can't get along, try as they may.

These two guys share the same story. There's good and there's evil, one who lives for truth and one who lives for chewing tobacco. As far as I'm concerned, there's no competition; truth wins every time hands down, because I have literally never been a fan of chewing tobacco. And I had the chance!

The man I grew up with, other than my dad, my grandfather, was a dedicated follower of the unholy chewable weed. From the time I was a boy, I just assumed refrigerators came with a tall stack of small cans wrapped in brown paper, his brand being Copenhagen. I never really "discovered" it, since it was always there, part and parcel of life itself. And grandpas chewed it.

In my Grandpa's case, he seemed to have little bitsy teeth, perennially stained with the juice. Here, there, and everywhere, he was chewing, and spitting. Out fishing, working in the yard, and driving, that was his thing. Which never became my thing. This is one of the so-called "temptations" of life that I can honestly say I never felt, and so never acted on. Not even the tiniest smidgen. It's never entered my mouth. Meaning, you'd about have to agree, that I'm a person of truth, not tobacco spit.

That's a great feeling. I hadn't thought of it in quite those terms before. Being never tempted. Because, had I been tempted (and I've never yielded to every temptation I've had), seeing it as a solo venture, I'm sure I would've tried it. But chalk it up to me being a person of truth, at least in this one instance, and not tobacco spit. I'm proud of it and I'm not proud of it, know what I mean?

I do, however, think it's a good lesson on life, because there are those two options; that's indisputable. Truth or tobacco spit, what's it gonna be? You can be a person of truth and your brother can be a person of tobacco spit, obviously, and you're still brothers in every sense of the word, and under the same flag. As long as you don't let it drive you apart.

The illustration shows the terrible division that can come if the negatives of your relationship are allowed to fester. I think the story goes something like this: The brother of truth shared with his brother the dangers of tobacco chewing. Back in Grandpa's day we didn't realize there were consequences to our actions, but today we know, you can get in some serious trouble based simply on choices and the things you do. Tobacco chewing can cause mouth cancer, and who knows what else.

The brother of truth, as the saga goes, elicited a tentative promise from the other, who was to seal the deal by getting both professional help and options other than chewing tobacco. These would include gum, mints, and you know something else that's good to chew, although most people have never heard of it, these licorice sticks that are almost like wood. They make an interesting chew. I remember talking with a man in the early 2000s who chewed these, but then soon died of other causes. True story.

You've probably guessed the end. The evil brother never "found the time" to set up an appointment for professional help, vowing on their common flag that he had the strength to end the habit on his own. But what happens when the good brother comes home? He finds him with a plug the size of a cantaloupe! Going at it with everything he can muster! If he'd had jaws of steel and pistons in place of mandibles he couldn't have chewed it with more gusto!

They came to verbal blows, the one calling the other a damned fool, and the evil brother -- it's sickening to think of it -- willfully spitting close to a gallon of spit, like a reservoir, and coating his brother. Then, predictably, one went one way and the other went the other way. And that's it, they left behind their common flag.

I don't know if you're a tobacco spitter or a person of truth. You alone have to live with the consequences.

My Mom's Been Dead One Year

Well, friends, it's been a weird time of reflection for me -- the honest to God truth -- now that my mom has been passed on for one whole year. I bet I thought of it and reflected on it more than for any other person in my whole life that's died. And now that I'm getting old myself -- 61 -- virtually every one of my loved ones, with a few exceptions, from that generation is gone.

There's something about a mother dying, I've found, that makes a hole that's just brutal. I always pictured it as being bad, of course, but nothing like the complete dead end void that exists in reality. My imagination didn't come near to it. It feels like a strange total silence out there, no door, no window, no nothing.

I never really saw her that much, truthfully, just a few times a year, since we didn't live extremely close to each other. But I heard from her numerous times a year. And online.

Anyway, the anniversary came, and I remembered it. About the time at night, a little earlier since it's past my bedtime, I looked at a few pictures of her and lingered on them, then went to bed thinking pretty much of what I'm jotting down here.

But it's not all that terribly sad -- let's say it isn't for a minute. Because my mom was quite the humorous person. We laughed and joked around a lot. I remember that about us being together more than anything else. I remember the only time I saw my mom ever finger anyone. That's a great memory I cherish. My dad was in the hospital, dying. One of the nurses did something, snotted off to mom, or something, and as the nurse left the room my mom fingered her. We both cracked up laughing. I was semi-shocked, but glad to see it. I thought of that on the anniversary of her death, my dear mom fingering the nurse.

Mom was also extravagant. She did everything in a big way. One of the last times I saw her before she died she was in a total manic state, thanks to meds. She seemed well. This was the last "good day" I ever saw her, since I was just there for the day. She had wild plans -- and had met with the artist -- to put a $10,000-$12,000 statue and bench on her grave site. We were going over the information, she was digging into it like a person possessed, and she was going to swing it. When everything went to pot right after that, it was all forgotten. But those moments were actually her, the way she dreamt and got things done all her life.

I guess I'm not going to put too many actual memories here. I have to save things for next year.

PHOTO: Mom died of cancer, as seen in the blood cell photo. The picture is from the movie, "Night of the Blood Beast," a Roger Corman production from the '50s. I don't know that she ever saw that movie, and I don't know that she didn't. But if she did see it, I can hardly believe she ever expected this frame to be used in a blog post about her own passing. :)

Cancer -- Everything's Gotta Eat

I've been accused of being heartless and cruel, and even rooting for people's suffering and evil, simply because of my realistic recognition that everything's gotta eat. This isn't something I came up with myself, but it's a teaching passed on to me by my dad, who got it from his dad, etc., probably. I haven't actually traced it back multiple generations. But it has nothing to do with rooting for suffering...

My dad, every time we had a complaint about something -- mice droppings in the cupboard, coons at the campsite -- would say, "Everything's gotta eat." Which, he pointed out, was something we depended on when we needed it, and therefore should appreciate. Which is true. If we want to catch a mouse in a trap we take advantage of the fact that it has to eat. And the same for coons. And fish. Imagine going to fish and not wanting fish to eat! You'd have to catch them in a net. And they'd be bone skinny, since they didn't eat.

Like I said, this is truth and it's realistic. If people suffer because something's eating them, they (we, I) need to be more accepting of how things are. If we can eat the source of the problem, or find something else to eat it, that's the same thing, but in a curative way. So we have medicine/radiation to eat it, in a sense. For some things you can get leeches, to get in there and go to town.

I've also been called fatalistic when it comes to this teaching about eating, but really I'm not. Again, it's realism, not that you have to accept it. Just like in another saying, "Eat or be eaten." If you're being eaten by something, in my opinion -- and I'm not expecting contradiction on this -- you have the prerogative and instinct to eat it back. May he with the best appetite and chompers win!

We as men have it in our arsenal to co-opt the eating talents of other agents. Like I said above, medicine, leeches. Or doctors. Doctors are just as good as leeches, if not better. Both bring their natural talents to the task, but doctors, because of their human minds and in-depth training, have additional talents. If it's a job for a leech, I'll go with a leech. If it's a job for a doctor -- and sometimes the doctor has to make this judgment for me -- I'll go with the doctor. In my experience, thinking back, I haven't used leeches as much as I might have.

OK, friends, before you criticize me for my stance on cancer, just remember, I too have suffered this scourge. Yes, I call it a scourge, since it killed my father, my mother, and other relatives, no doubt, many whom I haven't even known. It will probably get me, eventually. But if it does, I will maintain the same truth that I live by today: Everything's gotta eat. If the thing exists and perpetuates itself by eating, then to hope (or deny it) is folly.

The big difference, in our sentiments, is we don't mind doing the eating, but we don't want to be the eaten. Reminding me of the old illustration of the little fish being eaten by a bigger fish that's being eaten by yet a bigger fish being eaten, and on and on. If you're anywhere on that chain, you might not want to be eaten, but you can't deny the guy behind you his prerogative, unless you get out of the way.

When it comes to cancer, there are certain proactive things we can do, at least for a while, to keep ourselves from being eaten. Like don't smoke, don't chew, and don't go with girls who do. That might work. Everyday there's something else being brought forth as another cause of cancer. The best thing you can do, one imagines, is lock yourself in a room and do nothing. Except letting yourself out at certain times of the day to exercise and eat good meals and drink water.

Please, then, the next time you see cancer eating you or someone you know and love, remember, that's the way it is. Everything's gotta eat. If you can eat it back, by all means go for it; you have my blessing. If not, let this philosophical truth be your guiding light and, I might say, your comfort.

I Laugh in the Face of Disease

I'm big, I'm bad, where others cry, I laugh in the face of disease. Ha ha! (Like that.) Of course I feel, just like in the Declaration of Independence, that such a claim demands an explanation to justify it in the opinion of mankind, my fellow withering-away organisms.

Disease causes lots of heartbreak, am I right? In fact, it's major Heartbreak City. But these are the things I don't worry about. I look at it this way: Millions of people have gone before me, and they're all pleasantly a'moldering. All suffering is momentary, relief relatively swift. Plus, que sera sera.

Of course, the best thing is to avoid all suffering, if you can, which you can't, so just hit the high spots and avoid anything prolonged. And if you can't do that either, then let it roll over you like the other balms of life, relaxing and luxuriating in the fact that you were apparently chosen, perhaps bearing the sins of the world. If you have to dream, dream big!

We hear it so often that we should not laugh in the face of disease, that we should not sneer in the face of heartbreak. I've heard that all my life; it's been very hush hush. But really, that's not a rule we have to obey, since we're all going to go. What really is suffering, but the breakdown of finite forms? Eventually our finite forms are so broken down that they appear to disperse entirely. Grandma had a disease, to give an example, and it got her. She broke down to the point that she died, and I haven't seen her since. I assume there's still bones or something, but huggable she ain't.

Probably it will actually be harder for me, assuming I ever get a disease that threatens to take me, to laugh in its face. But I shall try. I'm only reluctant to say I will because, frankly, I don't presently laugh in the face of the smaller things that come my way. Like heartburn. I strive to overcome it. I do what I can, as most physical conscious entities would. And I try to stave off the inevitable heartbreak. But I believe that if I get something really bad I will find a way to laugh about it.

I'll give an example of something I don't suffer from. Bulimia. I don't have that, so it's easy to laugh it off. I have a little song* for it:

Only a bull named Imic,
only a little steer,
He knew they wouldn't eat him,
and he would always be here.
But for me that's not a problem,
so eat him, yes, I must,
Only a bull named Imic,
he'll someday lose his trust.

That's right, boys and girls, Imic will someday lose his trust. He's thinking today I'm a mighty bull, and indeed a mighty bull is he. But there will come a day... it could be he will wait it out and fall apart and turn to dust. But let it be written: He shall lose his trust! Going beyond that fate, it will more likely be that someone will eat him. Someone who still has his trust, namely, me.

Or Cancer. Cancer is something I very well might get. If I had to bet, I'd say I will. My parents both died from cancer. Obviously cancer's something to laugh in the face of. My earliest memories of cancer is in the old joke:

TEACHER - Tommy, use the word cancer in a sentence.
TOMMY - I'm sorry, I can't, sir.

So far, cancer's not a problem I've had. I've been spared. Remember, I gave $50 to the anti-cancer society, so I'm hoping that gives me a certain immunity. I've had a lot of relatives die of cancer, those I've known and doubtless those I never knew. If anything major gets me, it'll likely be this disease. Yet I laugh in the face of cancer! I'm struttin' like a rooster, can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!

Join me in laughing in the face of disease. How can I do that? you ask. Start with a small smile, a tentative smile. Work your way up to a frightened chuckle, etc., then pretty soon you're bold faced, sneering, struttin', talkin' trash, philosophically dunking your way (basketball language) to rich and vibrant glory in the face of disease and suffering, your own and the disease others.

*Tune of Only a Boy Named David

Lost Ambition -- The Auctioneer's HEP Guy

It's been forever since I've been to an auction. I just feel like I don't need more stuff and somehow I've had the discipline to stick to it. But a decent auction sale can be fun, if you got all the time in the world and don't mind waiting till they come to what you want.

The best fun I've had at auctions was when I was a kid. We used to go to sales on people's farms, and back then kids had the run of the place. We'd be climbing in the barns, swinging from the rafters, getting stuck down in the cracks and crevices of the hay in the mow, etc. If only the adults back then knew! But, as an aside, back then no one cared about liability issues all that much; this was before lawyers could advertise on TV.

We had some favorite auctioneers back then from here in town. I think the son is still alive, at least last time I heard. Although he'd be probably 75 or 80 now, the son and his old dad, once the auctioneer of the family till the son took that spot. You probably know where that put the dad; he became the HEP guy; I frankly don't know if the son was the HEP guy when he was a kid, but probably. We loved these guys.

I even have some auctioneer semi-shirttail relation, and one guy I've known around 50 years whom we used to go to church with. I still see him once in a while. He had cancer in 2001, the same time as my dad. They even sat in easy chairs next to each other getting chemo. But whereas it killed Dad -- they were about the same age -- this other guy is still going strong. And doing his auctions. I went to one of his auctions where it was the place next door to his home! They sold beefburgers right out of their own garage, which doesn't happen often.

His HEP guy -- I think he was a guy I also knew, but can't remember. I do know that there's my semi-shirttail relation who's an auctioneer, and it really could've been him, the HEP guy for him that day. I think they get together, being old church relation also, and help each other out as much as they can. Different, no doubt, from the HEP guys in the big city, although I'm sure they get that HEP guy jive going no matter who they are and who the auctioneer is.

I suppose I ought to clear up the terminology. I don't know if they call them HEP guys where you are. The HEP guy is the head second banana to the main auctioneer, who's in charge of scanning the crowd for bidders. When he sees one, when he sees action, he yells "HEP!", being a slurred way of saying "YES!" or "YEP!" You can also hear them say "HUP!," "YUP!," and other variations, depending on how carried away they get.

What I prefer seeing, and there's no guarantee you're going to see it, is an auctioneer who's shorter and maybe squat, and a HEP guy who's taller, maybe a beanpole. His skinniness and being crazy gangly makes for some comedic stretching, pointing, peering over folks, and looking down on the auctioneer. Who, being the boss, looks up and gives the HEP guy faux dirty looks and just generally questions his abilities as a man. Wow, this is taking me back, the delights of seeing these guys chiding one another.

I remember this one HEP guy. He had a real lazy character, like he almost couldn't be bothered to sell the item. "This is a TV, we think it works. It worked last time they watched it," leading to the auctioneer rolling his eyes and looking disgusted. "It worked last time they watched it," he repeats, like Ollie Hardy, before getting the first dollar bid, at which point the skinny HEP guy really comes to life and starts working the crowd.

Auctioneers always look for a bid about $10 more than the first bid's likely to be. The HEP guy stands there moving his fingers back and forth, soliciting. But they often have to work it down to a dollar, which isn't always that exciting. This one auctioneer was trying to get a decent opening bid on a desk, but just couldn't, leading him to complain, plaintively, "What's wrong with my little desk?" I about cried. The HEP guy looked hangdog too and moved his hands, and I believe they eventually sold that little desk for $25, a decent price. "HEP! HEP! HEP!"

What I'd really like to see, and frankly never have seen, is a HEP guy with an inferiority complex. Like "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride," that kind of "Whoa is me" defeatist attitude. Maybe he comes to the sale a little tipsy, always wishing he might-ever could've moved his lips like the auctioneer, but nothing's ever good enough. Always the second banana. Then he acts out and finally chews out the auctioneer for having the plum job while "Here I stand, forever the HEP guy, always the HEP guy..." Always with the ambition, but always losing out to this, that, and the other auctioneers.

I've been to lots of auctions, but I've never seen one spoiled like that by drama. Incredible discipline.

The Two Ways Of Flicking An Ash

Smoking isn't cool. It's not cool to me. And I say that as a former smoker. It was a different world back then. But the same stupidity.

I was looking at a lady smoking the other day -- and I have maybe four or five photos of her, but I'm not posting them, as it turns out, as a matter of avoiding lawsuits from the people I dress down. If she reads this, maybe she'll know I'm talking about her, but how to prove it, that's her problem!

Anyway, I looked at her and was thinking, how can anyone with any intelligence (and she didn't look like your typical dullard) be sitting there smoking a cigarette? In this day and age! How gross, how despicable. Doesn't she know that her doctor's having a fit? Doesn't she know her life insurance rates and maybe health insurance rates might be so much less? Doesn't she realize that lung cancer is a real pain in the ass?

I myself, as I said, quit. I quit cold turkey. It was a long time ago, 1978, and the first few days were terrible. I bought a pack, then threw them away, etc., the usual story. So I know how hard it can be. But once you exercise a little discipline, a little willpower, and this is key, once you make it X number of days, you've got it made. The only puff of anything I've had since was off a cigar in the '80s to celebrate a friend's proud papa moment, and that's it. The thought of smoking now totally sickens me.

But I remember how it went, of course, as dramatized in the pictures. There's two basic ways of flicking your ash, of course with variations.

1) Flicking with your thumb. There's some real violence to the ash with this one, because it doesn't see it coming. Your thumb is back behind your curled fingers. So the ash is sitting there thinking it's safe. "I can grow out to there and no one will be the wiser!" Then, as a total surprise, it's dislodged from its perch and is the sudden, unexpected victim of gravity. It's severed so quickly, never to be reattached, and never to recover. What a shock!

2) The finger tap. This one is gentler and noticed more often by the ash. The finger's right out in the open. It's not sneaking up on anyone. And it never has the same violence as the thumb flick. The same force is not exercised. Maybe it's because of the downward motion, you're not bucking gravity. Maybe it's because of the leverage, you're closer to the ash. But I think it was more to do with not wanting to break the cigarette in half. Just a tap gets the job done. The result is of course the same, the ash falls, but without the same trauma.

If you smoke, quit. If you don't smoke, don't start. If you start and don't quit, don't smoke around me!

I'm Way Too Cool To Post Something Like That

Please pardon my dizziness and discomfort. I just got back from reading my Facebook updates and slamming my head into a wall, in that order. Must they repost crap like this? I'm always kind of stunned by the things people copy and paste, for various reasons.

Here's one that came around:

Stupid cancer... we all want a new car... a new phone... freedom... a person who has cancer only wants one thing... to survive. I know that a lot of you "who think you're too cool" probably won't re-post this. But a very little amount of my friends will. Put this on your wall if you know someone or just want to honor someone who died of cancer, survived, or who is fighting against it now.

This seems to be a rewrite or restatement of a better status against cancer I've seen before. Both draw a contrast between the things the average person wants and what the cancer victim wants. Those of us who haven't yet gotten the diagnosis want normal material things, a new car and a new phone, but the one with cancer only wants to survive, presumably so they can get back to wanting a new car and a new phone...

The weird difference in this status is that the rest of us want "freedom." Huh? Cancer is out there, making us draw the contrast between our wants, so in addition to us wanting a new car and a new phone, we want freedom? But the person with cancer, it says, inexplicably doesn't want freedom. No, that person only wants one thing ... to survive. If they have to be a slave in the Gulag, so be it, just so they survive!

I'm a guy who speaks English, maybe not the greatest, but I've been doing it all my life. And I'm discerning that this status wasn't written by a native English-speaker. And that might be part of the problem. You can see it in a few ways. One, it starts off weird, "Stupid cancer..." But the dead giveaway is this phrase, "But a very little amount of my friends..." There's no English-speaker I've ever met who would talk that way. Like cancer, they'd have to be "stupid" to do so. But I'll be charitable. Maybe it's a translation a generation or two removed from whatever language it originally was. My advice: If you're going to post these statuses, at least rewrite it so it sounds like you!

The next thing to mention is how these statuses always try to manipulate people into reposting them. This one takes the usual path, by saying you'll be among the minority if you do. You'll be consciously and purposefully special, at one with the poster. You don't want to be someone who thinks "you're too cool" to do so. Although, really, if this is such a compelling message, where would be the coolness factor in ignoring it? Let's skip on. "But a very little amount of my friends will." This is odd, like an insult to your friends, while trying to highlight the specialness of your friends who will repost.

Then the conclusion gives another motivator to repost, which isn't so terrible, so you can "honor" someone who has cancer, died, or is fighting it. But why precisely they need to be "honored" for something they didn't sign up for, didn't want, and wouldn't want again, that's another matter. They actually might feel more honored if you just left them alone and treated them like normal.

Let's get rid of cancer! Then you can get back to wanting "freedom" like the rest of us. You know what, I actually would like to have a new car. And my phone is getting fairly old, too...

REPOST THIS IF YOU'RE SICK OF PEOPLE ASKING YOU TO REPOST STUFF. :)

Cancer Cured In 1911

This ad is from 1911. Meaning we've gone almost 100 years and the good news hasn't sunk in yet, that cancer is cured.

This guy, Samuel Franklin De Vore, M.D., was able to do it with "no knife, no operation, no chloroform, little or no pain." I don't know what that would leave exactly, maybe magnets and garlic necklaces. But whatever it was, His method succeeds in all cases not too far advanced.

Maybe that last phrase was his out. If his method didn't succeed, that would've been a case too far advanced. But no one had to wait forever to find out, because, "I tell you at once whether you can be cured..." Once he accepted your case you knew you'd be OK, because, "I positively will not accept a hopeless case under any circumstance."

And no need for an expensive hospital stay, since you would be right there in Dr. De Vore's own home! Just his reasonable terms, with satisfaction guaranteed. Can't beat that.

The American Cancer Society

Is the American Cancer Society a legitimate and worthwhile charity?

We've all heard of it, of course, but still, who knows? It might be like the phony policemen who constantly call trying to sell lightbulbs. You wonder, how did these guys ever get in the lightbulb business? Then you realize, it goes way back, one of the first Associates program. Sell lightbulbs for an unrelated third party company and they'll give the police a dime for every dollar.

They do the same thing in school when your kids are selling stuff. Seeds, candy, maybe lightbulbs. The school gets a cut off each sale, making your kids kind of like taxpayers before their time. At least they're exploiting their labors for a bill the taxpayers ought to be footing.

We get all these calls from the police, I mentioned that. And what's the other big one? Oh, I had one from the Special Olympics the other day. "We're not selling anything. We are not asking for money," I don't know precisely what their pitch was. But it came down, I believe, to subscribing to a newsletter or magazine or something. "No, I don't care about it."

Now I have the Cancer Society on my case. I was watching American Idol and right at one terrible audition the phone rings. It's the Cancer Society guy. So I told him send me the stuff and I'd look at it. It might be a local guy. I gave to that once. He sounded amateurish enough to be local, and you know my feelings on "local guys." So today I get his mailing. Nothing local in the mailing, just a form donation sheet from the American Cancer Society, suggesting $20.

I'm thinking, what do I need with the Cancer Society? If I get cancer and die, well, I got cancer and died. I don't think we're going to cure every disease and live forever anyway ... at least in this world. So at some point, why don't we just accept it? We're going to die.