So many things to talk about! Really? Yes. Detective Colombo had a wife

Let's see, today is Sunday. The Beehive met here yesterday b/c Queen B had company buzzing around her hive.

I wrote a short story called The Gift. It took place in the Shenandoah Valley. It contained so much erroneous information I'm rewriting it now and moving it to Vermont.

Hold on while I freshen my cup of tea.

Oh, thank you Eddie, I appreciate that.


Eddie Muller is host of Noir Alley.

YOGURT
A NEW APPRECIATION
OF WHOLE MILK
PLAIN YOGURT

In Bible Days
our herdsmen milked
their animals and
carried the creamy
whitish product
in their saddlebag,
made from the animal's
stomach, and found as if
by magic, the liquid
had changed.

Pudding like and delicious
though the days were long
and hot, the yogurt remained
sweet, not sour like today's
lemon drops.

Yoplait? Chobani? Fage? Siggi's?

Dannon was the first to be produced.
Barcelona, ole! Year of 1919.
First called Danone, named for his
little son, Daniel, it finally
became Dannon.

The first factory was in the
The Bronx. Could it still be
there or did it slowly decay,
the bricks spattered with
pigeon crap,its windows smashed,
the home, perhaps, of a massive
new Stephen King novel.

Do comparison tests as my friend
Helene used to do. Why you do like
this? The thickness? The loosesness.

I am still making up my mind.

Dyou think bare-chested Putin
eats yogurt? My guess is he
does, to get in shape for
his voracious march to
take over the world.

***

   John P Creveling and wife Christina Robertson

Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, his life has taken on a new meaning.

Read story about him here.    Here's anudder one.

He asked me to review his book that's being published.

John P. Creveling is one of the wisest men I know. When he ran his Career Resources Management he helped many folks find jobs. Then, in 2009, the unthinkable happened. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. With the saucy redhead by his side - his wife Christina Robertson - he began a new life. He became a visual artist with gorgeous explosions of colors. With his new book "More than What You see" his artistic legacy expands. He's a poet, who writes his odyssey of the new life he's fashioned for himself. Run, don't walk, to buy this remarkable, inspirational tour de force.

***

I keep copies, if possible, of all the newspaper stories I've written, or my own writing. I was talking to my friend Rem who loves Columbo and has the entire series, including a few with Columbo's. I dunno what that's about as she was always a mystery and used as a foil - Oh, my wife would love that.

Anyway here's my article about Columbo when I worked at Patch.

Reruns are on COZI-TV, peppered with long commercials.

Rem has the entire series of Colombo and writes about his wife:

Mrs. Colombo works for a local newspaper, so her press badge allows her access to crimes, which she solves. You never see Mr. Colombo, but you see the young daughter, the cigars in the ashtray, and the basset hound, which is the one thing you will also see in Colombo. I watched the last Colombo episode from season five (1975-76), which was good but strange with a lot of abrupt cuts and you didn't know who did it until the end, which is atypical for the show.

It was directed by Peter Falk's buddy Patrick McGoohan, who also wrote for the show, starred as the murderer in two episodes, and won two Emmy's for his work in Colombo. I'm a big McGoohan fan by the way. Born in NYC, raised in the U.K., he can play an American or a Brit, and of course had his own shows, Secret Agent and the Prisoner.

Like Falk, he likes cigars and hates guns, you will never see him use a gun in Secret Agent or the Prisoner, and out of respect for his wife you will not see him womanizing or even kissing, was offered the Bond role in Live and Let Die, I mean they offered it to him, but he refused because he thought Bond was too immoral, who does that?--Rem 

***

I was fixing my blog archive and saw, as I do many times, that one of the links was broken. When I attempted to fix it I saw that the Father of Transplantation, Thomas E Starzl, had died.

I wrote Dr Stalin Campos of this, who said he was just showing a pic of my transplant to someone, and then I sent him my poem.

PIONEERING LIVER SURGEON DIES
WRITES THE NEW YORK TIMES
1926 - 2017

Born in March, died in March
Thomas E Starzl, surrounded
by his family, his wife and
soulmate, Joy, and others who
flew to be by his side

His work here on earth finished.

But never really finished.

The man had an obsession
the livers of dogs
a liver? Yes, a gorgeous
pinkish organ, when healthy.

Huge, with many parts like
states of the USA, each
part responsible for
digesting and processing food.

Say, they're picnicking today in
Tennessee, the little bits of
celery in the potato salad
are macerated by the right or
the left lobe.

God thought of every little thing
when designing this master organ.

And so I celebrate you, give thanks
for you, Thomas E Starzl, for making
it possible for me to be alive on this
rainy morning in Willow Grove.

My transplanted kidney pulses with
joy since my daughter, Sarah Lynn Deming,
donated her kidney to me and
surgeons Radi Zaki and Stalin Campos
fitted it in, just so.

It's great to be alive, n'est-ce pas?


***