Good Night

I'm back here sitting in my big, comfortable, manly black leather poppa chair in my living room again, having survived another terrifying road trip, with my Lady Wonder Wench driving. We went to a family gathering a couple of states away, and the weather was too messy to fly there in our little airplane. I've told you about my Lady's creative driving habits and her tendency to swerve back onto the road when she sees a cop in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot. But it was worth the frightening trip to see all those folks most of whom I haven't seen in years.

Our daughter Kris and cousin Donna were the main organizers, and they did a great job. But I noticed that people have changed since I saw them last. I couldn't believe how some of them have become walking, talking wrinkles. But nevertheless lots of the conversations were about how good we were looking anyway. Many of us looked quite life like I guess. That seems to be happening to me more and more as I get older. People keep saying, "My you're looking good." I expect I will reach the peak of my handsomeness on the day before I die.

I'm sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I think I've found a simple solution to a serious situation. The serious situation is how I feel about a world full of starving kids, screaming politicians, internet scams, hurricanes and blizzards, big piles of bills, and empty spaces that people we loved used to fill. Stuff that always seems to be trying to break our hearts. Unfortunatlely, I know that my simple solution won't feed the kids, stick a sock in the politicians' pie holes, delete the internet scams or pay the bills. But it seems to help me. It keeps my beaten up old heart going just fine. The price is right, and it's so simple some people think it's silly...and I don't care. I call it my "My Mental See-Saw" and it works for me...usually...not always...but often enough that I figured you might want to know about it. So I'ts in this podcast.

I have a confession to make. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night, and sit here in my big, comfortable black leather pappa chair in the living room, and I sneak a look at my Lady Wonder Wench's magazines...in what is probably a futile attempt to learn something...anything...about women. When I'm trying to figure out what's going on in a woman's mind about a situation, It could give an asprin a headache it's so confusing.

For example, here's a statistic that says 6 out of 7 women wear clothes to bed. Why do you people do that? One of the great lines in the classic Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton Cleopatra movie is when Cleo is giving Ceasar a hard time about his wife, and she says, "I hear your wife even wears clothes to bed." I suppose it's ok if you're a kid, and you're used to wearing your jammies to bed...but if you're a grown up Louie-Louie Generation Lady...you must have figured out by now that you shouldn't be in bed with somebody you shouldn't be in bed with. And if you ARE in bed with somebody you shouldn't be in bed with, why the heck would you be wearing clothes ? Unless of course we're talking about something from Victoria's Secret...which is a whole different idea.

Thank you for dropping in here on my podcast. I really enjoy your company. I'm sitting here in my big, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room trying to figure out how to explain why a guy wants to become a disc jockey, because I have to tell you about a wonderful thing that happened to me. Clint Eastwood understood that guys want to become disc jockeys mainly to get girls. That's why he loved starring in and directing "Play Misty For Me" all those years ago. If you're too young to remember, Jessica Walter was the young lovely, purring on the phone… "Dave, please play Misty for me." Every time the request line rings (it doesn't actually ring, it lights up), every disc jockey I've ever known gets a quick vision of a scantily clad young lovely, slowly flexing her long, tapered legs and licking her lips, just waiting to breathe her request into his ear. There is no other reason for a young guy to want to become a disc jockey. Until you get to the big time, the money stinks. Especially for a late night disc jockey. And the amazing thing is that often the vision of the lady involved is reasonably accurate. Not always, but more often than you might think.

Thanks for dropping in here on my podcast. I very much enjoy your company. I'm sitting here in my big, comfortable, manly black leather poppa chair in my living room trying to figure out how to break some news to you about something very big that's happening to me. But I think I'm going to have to put some context around it first. So here's a Quickie quiz...what famous pretend tv newscaster liked to describe his start in broadcasting as..."It all started at a 500 watt station..." (No fair going to Google.) For those of you who have perhaps wisely managed to avoid spending any time in the broadcasting business, here's a little context. Fire hose AM stations like (the late, great) WNBC and WNEW in New York and WBZ in Boston pour 50,000 watts of power from coast to coast at night. 500 watt stations are more like water pistols that sometimes squirt half way across the sandbox. Everything has to start somewhere, and like the famous pretend tv newscaster, I also started my career at a 500 watt station...WNRC in New Rochelle.

The station gave me an on air name ..."Platter Pappa." Honest to God, that was their idea not mine. I was a junior at Fordham University, andfor some reason I was convinced that WNBC and WNEW or WBZ were just waiting till I graduated to start some kind of bidding war for my services. Wow, was I ever an egotistical, dumb college kid.

The only person who looks good early in the morning is my Lady Wonder Wench. That's why the good Lord made it so hard for us to get our eyes open early in the morning. When we first get up, our hair looks like we stuck a wet toe in a hot socket…our faces are a little off center from sleeping on a lumpy pillow and like most guys I have stubble sticking out of my chin. I think if we actually saw each other clearly early in the morning, the price of brown paper bags of exactly your head size and the head size of your nearest and dearest would soar beyond the means of most middle class families. And when they talk about traffic snarls in the morning rush hour, it doesn't refer just to too many car on the roads, it also refers to the expressions on the driver's faces.

Thanks for dropping in here on my podcast. I like having your company. I think I heard from my dad today. Dad has been playing keyboards with Beethoven's Big Band in heaven for quite a few years now. But I woke up this morning with a song called The Leader of the Band running around in my head. You know how that works...a song just starts going around and around for no apparent reason.

I'm sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair now, but I just came back from driving down to the supermarket to get some flowers for my Lady Wonder Wench, and over to the post office to mail a note to my brother Jeff. On the way back, the radio station was playing the same song that was going around in my head. Dan Folgelberg was singing, "He gave to me a gift I know I never can repay. A quiet man of music, denied a simpler fate, he tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn't wait." That was Dad. He was a musician, a teacher, and a man...in the finest sense of the word.

There's a story about him in my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot. Part of it goes like this: "Dad was my only hero. He was a teacher. Most heroes are teachers in one way or another. The things he taught were simple but profound. He said things like ‘There's a big difference between soft and gentle. It takes real strength to be gentle', and ‘there's a time for pulling yourself together, and a time for letting yourself go. He also said, ‘Be a man.' And there wasn't any doubt about what he meant when he said that."

Dick's Details...a bunch of totally un-important stuff for you to stuff in one ear, so you can squeeze the important stuff that's rubbing your wrinkles the wrong way out the other ear, and you can grab a grin.

There was a story in the paper today about a rock group that's upset with an airline. The headline reads: "Smashing Pumpkin sues Virgin." Makes it seem like a modern Cinderella story. If the answer is "He would put it in our pockets" what is the question. The smart guys in the white lab coats tell us that kids 2 to 5 put their hands in their mouths an average of 10 times an hour. That's nothing. Our average politician puts his foot in his mouth a lot more often than that. Mormon leader Brigham Young had 56 kids by 27 wives. No wonder Mormons call him the founding father. I can't help wonder if he got his name from telling whoever supplied his wives, "I don't care how you bring em. Just bring em young. If the answer is "He would put it in our pockets" the question is "What would the average politician do if we gave him a completely free hand." There's a bit in there about doing a poll dance too, but I'll skip it in deference to your delicate sensibilities. Dick's Details. They take your mind off your mind.

Thanks for dropping in here on my podcast. Glad to have your company. I'm sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room, wondering how I ever got this lucky. I figure I have finally proven that men are smarter than women. Because if women were as smart as men, how come I married my Lady Wonder Wench and she married me? I know some of you are going through tough times, and I'm not telling you how happy I am to make you feel worse. In fact I want to remind you of the words of Big Louie in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot. Louie says, "You can never tell when something wonderful is going to happen." The other side of that is true too.

I've found an amazing thing in my life. Only about half of the things I worry about ever happen. In fact only about half of all the things I expect to happen in my life actually happen. I'm not kidding about that. And I wonder if you've found the same thing to be true. Please let me know. Email is dick at dick summer dot net. So look, if only about half the things we worry about ever really happen, that means we're worrying twice as much as necessary. And don't get me wrong, I'm not looking at life through rose colored glasses. I had an experience this morning that made it very clear that I'm at the bi-focals part of my life. And this morning my glasses got a little teared up when I suddenly realized that every day I'm watching the Summer sunshine of my life that I have loved so much fade into Autumn gold.

Thanks for dropping in on my podcast, glad to have you here. I'm sitting here in my big, comfortable, manly, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I'm watching my laptop un-zipping stuff as it's changing into an operating system that Microsoft says I'll find a little more comfortable... Windows 10...and it looks like my laptop doesn't want me to watch it un-zip and change. The screen says something to the effect of, "This will take a while. You don't have to watch. I'll let you know when we're finished. And for God's sake don't touch anything on the keyboard." What the hell is it doing in there that I'm not supposed to see? It's like enjoying watching the girl in the house across the street change into something more comfortable, until she pulls down her shade. She's obviously not into letting me to touch anything either. And I don't especially like the implication that there's no sense watching something I wouldn't understand. That's just plain nasty. Big Louie, the star of my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot always says, "TV may insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like a computer."