Hey, I'm back! I can walk a straight line

Today my friend Dorrie picked me up for breakfast at the one and only Daddypop's in Hatboro, PA. She's a wealth of information about the town. Her husband Norman is the mayor so he hears just about everything.

I mentioned "the White Walker," a colorful local figure who I used to see at Daddypops and talk to on the streets. She told me his real name, something like Bill Babcock. You could find him pushing a lawn mower down the street. He was so helpful she said. Everyone in town knew him.

He passed away a couple of years ago. I still see him in my mind's eye. He lived on the property of Jarrett Dodge, maybe as a watchman.

Driving with Dorrie felt like my world was slowly coming back. At my age, when you don't leave home for a couple weeks except to go to and from Abington Hospital or Einstein Hospital, the world shrinks and you've gotta relearn it again.

Did I tell you I watched the wonderful movie Hud? Starring Paul Newman, Patricia Neal, and Melvyn Douglas, it was spectacularly filmed in B&W in Texas, where author Larry McMurtry sets all his novels.

Hud is a cad. Few people like him. He gets drunk and attempts to rape Patricia Neal (sorry I slept thru that part), but she tells him at the end of the movie, We would've eventually gotten it on. I put down my dish towel a time or two when I saw you standing in your undershirt.

Melvyn Douglas was superb as the old rancher who kept everything together until hoof n mouth disease struck his herd. I tell you, if you don't know a thing about cattle - and I feel privileged that my ex's widow, Donna - showed us the cattle on her ranch in Ardmore, TX - you will be terribly moved by Douglas's struggle to put his cattle down when the US Ag Department showed up and insisted he and his men shoot the animals and bury them in a lime pit.

I never know what I'm gonna blog about till my fingers get going, as they are at 10:11 p.m.

Worked on the New Directions' website a lot today. "Lenny" was hospitalized at a local psych unit. I got a call wanting to know what residential facilities he might live in, since, sadly, he is unable to care for himself.

Here's what I came up with:

Residential Facilities for People with Mental Illness It's located on the very bottom

We've had loads of unusual calls lately.

While my back was healing and I was on painkillers, which I went off last nite, I could not talk on the phone. I was exhausted and totally into myself.

I forgot who I was.

Surgery is a curious thing. Why should it take so much out of a person? Well, certainly the anesthesia does something profound to your body. Many people go into a depression afterward. I was simply not myself, nor could I experience pleasure, except when eating! or seeing Baby Grace!

I don't have an alarm clark, so ya know how I get up in the morning?

I call my Verizon answering machine and create a "Reminder." But as we know if we listen to the news, the landline is becoming obsolete, and people are getting rid of cable TV by the hundreds of thousands. If they'd lower the price, I'd pay $10 a month so I could watch Turner Classic Films. Or perhaps not. I love checking out free DVDs at the library.

I was fascinated by Republican candidate Michele Bachmann, so did an Internet search on her. She's greatly influenced by the teachings of the Schaeffer Family. I just requested two books by Schaeffer's son, who has come full circle and become an atheist. He's embarrassed that he and his family are responsible for the conservative Christians that brought about Bush Jr and that whole league of bigots, racists, and class elitists.

The world is reeling as we speak - Greece, Paris, London.

And Obama. The man with the sonorous voice has lost the voice and the hope for change and sits in his bedroom crying. This is the time when an Edith Wilson could be most helpful. Michele, get your husband back in the saddle.

Well, I guess I was just busting to write about politics.

Who knew?

Here's Scott in his work clothes. He takes the garbage out for me. We marvel at all the junk mail I get.