FOUND IN MY FILES, 1985

One of my favorite pasttimes as a child was reading a sad story to my sister and bawling together at the top of our lungs.  The most effective vehicle for this cathartic endeavor was entitled The Dog of Pompeii, in which a boy is forced to leave his dog behind on the shores under erupting Vesuvius.

Our imaginations constructed with horrified relish the scenario in which the dog arrives on the scene, finds his master has left him, and is engulfed in flames with great sorrow.

One can only speculate as to the needs for grief expression  that were met by us in this  tragic-quaint and somewhat comic manner.

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FRIENDS, AGAIN …

How old do you think your followers are?  And/or your own follows, if there is a difference.  When Keith Wilson says in his title, Musings of an Old Fart, we might imagine, but turns out his “old” isn’t my “old.” Jill Dennison has too much energy to be old, as do Gronda Morin, Dr. Rex and Diane Ravitch, though we may not be surprised at Lobotero due to his drawn gravatar,  nor certainly by Dr. John Persico’s  “Aging Capriciously.”  I’ve sort of gotten hung up on the idea of a tea party for followers and those followed, so I may ramble on about that idea from time to time, unless there’s some objection.  This may have been done before and outlawed, idk.

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OH DEAR

Just when I’ve started to get comfortable with myself,  I read in Michael Gazzaniga’s book Who’s in Charge?” the following:   “…this social group size [150] has been constant for humans from prehistoric times through today.  Not only was this the size of related groups that gathered together once a year for traditional ceremonies in ancestral hunter-gatherers, it is also the size of modern-day hunter-gatherer societies  and modern-day Christmas card lists in personal address books.”

I don’t know about you, but my Christmas card list is on the shady side of ten….