Happy New Year 2010

Another year come and gone...and another Laughing Horse Award from Yorkshire Pudding!

I'd like to thank my parents, my agent, and all the little people that helped me achieve the success that warrants a Granddad Blogger of the Year award from Yorkie!

The Annual Post Christmas Post

Christmas 1956...from left to right: Linda, Thom, me and Diane. (This was several years before Thom broke his radio and somehow convinced me to trade my good radio for it.)

It's now 53 years later, and Beatrice is older than I was when that picture was taken. And judging by this clip and picture, I'd say the technology has improved somewhat. You couldn't even take movies with your phone back in those days. I just don't know HOW we survived!




Each year, there seems to be a Christmas gift that stands out, and this year is no exception. It turns out that Dorothy hired an artist go out to Wyndanwood to create two oil paintings. It was left to the artist to determine the views, and surprisingly, the pond did not make it into either painting. But they are just beautiful, and my challenge is to find an appropriate place to hang them. These photos do not do justice, but feast your eyes...

Season's Greetings 2009

Another year has come and gone. But this has been good a year, capped off by a trip the the Bahamas, whence we returned last night.

The trip began last Friday, and it didn't start out very well. We arrived in Nassau at about 2:30 in the afternoon, but our luggage was still stateside. The next flight from Atlanta was coming in at 4, so we decided to wait for that flight, hoping that our luggage would be on it. We headed to the airport bar, where I enjoyed a few cold Kaliks, and Dorothy had a Pina Colada. Unfortunately, she was not feeling well, so she drank about half of her drink, then found the most comfortable accommodations she could and laid down while I stayed at the bar.

As 4 o'clock neared, I went back to the Delta Airlines counter, and the agent told me the flight was now delayed until almost 6 o'clock, and he could not guarantee that our bags would even be on that flight. So we hopped into a cab and headed to Paradise Island.

We stayed at the Riu Palace (next door to Atlantis), and this is the first all-inclusive trip I've taken. And when I say all-inclusive, that is exactly what I mean. All food and beverage was included in the price, including 24-hour room service. Considering Dorothy's status, and the fact that we couldn't clean up to go have dinner, we ordered room service, and we didn't have to wait long for a nice meal of salad, a club sandwich and chocolate cake. Our luggage arrived at 11:30 that night.

The rest of the trip was about the beach, and two trips to Nassau - one by taxi, one by ferry. The weather was not ideal - it was windy most of the time, and I don't think it even got to 70 on Monday. But there was much less wind in town than at the beach, and we did see some sunshine. We also saw the little drummer boy of song...appropriate for the Christmas season.










We took several walks along the beach, and it is one of the cleanest I've ever seen. It is also the softest - it's actually hard to walk the beach because you sink deep into the sand, regardless of whether it's wet or dry.










So, after 6 days of Paradise Island, we returned to Ohio, and as usual, my living room is decorated for Christmas. Dorothy's theme for the tree this year is, appropriately, Wyndanwood.



Wyndanwood is all about trees and nature and fish and other animals.












This Christmas will be special, because it will be Beatrice's first Christmas at Grandpa Sam's house. Her stocking makes a nice addition to the mantel!

To all who read this, Merry Christmas and all the best for the coming new year.

Those Crazy Belgians

This scene is from the main train station in Antwerp, Belgium. You've got to smile...

The Sedated Ape

I ran across The Sedated Ape a few days ago, and it is one of the most entertaining blogs I've ever read. It's not for the faint of heart, and if you can't abide a bit of foul language, you'll probably want to avoid it. But anything that makes me laugh out loud is meant to be shared!


The Sedated Ape has earned a spot on the Official Golden Hill Blog Roll.

I Think I'm Not Dead

They say if you live long enough, you'll see everything. Here is an actual e-mail I received this week:


EMS/Speedpost Corporate Headquarters
8, Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way,
P.M.B. 022, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria.
Tel: 01-4764431

Re: DELIVERY OF PACKAGE S.T.C ATM CARD:

Attn: Sir/Madam,

This is to inform you that one Mr. Gabriel Evans and Mr. Alan Mills stormed my office this afternoon via comprehensive email with copy of your DEATH CERTIFICATE and CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP attached, thereby notifying us that you are dead and that before your death, you appointed both of them as your Next-of-Kin to your outstanding sum of US$1.5 million uploaded on your ATM card presently under our custody and demanded that the ATM card should be release to them and ready to pay for the delivery cost. But when the debit note was submitted to my desk for approvals of Release Order to these men, I noticed some discrepancies as there was no evidence of authorization letter from you for the change of beneficiary.

I urgently stopped further movement of the release of the ATM card and at the same time placed a STOP ORDER instruction on the shipping of your ATM card whether delivery charges paid or not pending when your views and comments are received with regards to this matter.

Please get back to us immediately for your consent if you are still alive because we will not hesitate to continue the onward delivery of the ATM card in favour of the two gentleman if there is no response from you within the next 48 hours from now as your silence will be a clear indication that you are actually dead and have authorized the change of ownership in favour Mr. Gabriel Evans and Mr. Alan Mills.

Best Regards,

Mr. Samuel C. Ado.
International Shipping Manager.
Direct Cell-Phone: +234-8062324746.

I really do appreciate this guy looking out for me, and urgently stopping further movement of the release of the ATM card. And I really like how he signs off with "Best Regards" after telling me in the preceding paragraph that I am actually dead. And how does one storm another's office via comprehensive e-mail?

Stuff That Bird

A reminder...if you need a good recipe for stuffing, follow this link....

Fantastic Machine

Courtesy of the official One Voice Music Festival...

If you're a musician or an engineer, you'll enjoy this. If you're neither, you'll still enjoy it...wish I had thought of this.

More From Wyndanwood

I can't seem to find the time to compose one of my typical awe-inspiring posts, so enjoy some scenes from Wyndanwood. These pictures were taken two weeks ago before the leaves fell off the trees. I just love it out there.


There is nothing like the smell of bacon frying in the open air. I made breakfast for everyone before they came over to the clearing where we took the pictures.



I think Beatrice likes it out here too.



The colors were just phenomenal, and the way they reflected off the pond made it hard to tell where the water ended and the land started.



Good thing Sonja remembered to bring the tripod!

Odds & Ends

These two items recently came to me via e-mail. I thought they were worth posting...can someone explain Copperfield?

Wyndanwood

I got home a little while ago from Wyndanwood. This will require some explanation, and I need to go back about 9 1/2 years ago to start this story.

June 2000: My buddy Paul and I came off the golf course and headed to Gibby's on the River, a nice restaurant and bar that is about a mile from my house. While there, two women walked in, and I had my eye on one of them - the slim, attractive blonde. After navigating my way to the proper seat (and outwitting Paul to do so), I met Dorothy. We had a nice talk, I got her phone number, and I called her the next day. The rest, as they say, is history.

Like me, Dorothy grew up on a farm. You learn certain things when you grow up that way, and we have a lot in common because of it. We're frugal, we're not afraid to get our hands dirty, and you learn early in life that you can live without a lot of the things the city kids had. One of the things we have in common is a love of the outdoors, especially where water is involved.

The farm on which Dorothy grew up was a 200 acre tract at one time, but her father sold off parts of it and it is now 100 acres. The house where Dorothy and her siblings were raised still stands, and a friend of ours recently rented it from Dorothy's mother. There are two ponds and about 70 acres of woods.

Last February, Dorothy broached me with an idea: should we look into buying part of the farm? I hadn't been out there in several years, and buying it had never crossed my mind, so we drove out to take a look. And that's all it took for me to agree that we should pursue it. Words can't describe the beauty of the place. We spent quite a bit of time out there over the summer, just enjoying the scenery and the peace and quiet.

We initially thought we'd buy 30 acres, and we had the land surveyed and an appraisal done. As it turned out, that 30 acres was priced too high for us, so we had it resurveyed and reappraised. The second time we got it right, and we now own 18 acres in Union County, Ohio, complete with a 4 acre pond and about 12 acres of woods.

There are trails going through the woods, and sitting in a canoe in the middle of a pond that is situated in the middle of the woods is about the most serene feeling there is. The only sounds you hear are the wind and the wildlife. There are deer and turkeys and woodpeckers and blue jays and wood ducks and probably some coyotes, too. The pond is full of blue gills and largemouth bass, but we couldn't hear them.


We closed on the property a week ago Friday, and today was the first day we went out to start maintaining it. The pond will need some work, and the trails will need some cleaning up, and I spent nine hours in a clearing today cutting off low limbs and burning them. Dorothy came over in the canoe with soup and sandwiches, and all is well with the world.

By next spring, the pond will have the silt removed, we'll put in a couple of docks, and buy a little boat suitable for bass fishing. (The canoe is great, but my back complains every time I get in and out of it.)

I'll close this post with some pictures of Wyndanwood -- the name Dorothy chose for the property. I look forward to spending time with her on our little piece of heaven.


I can think of worse places to be.



I think she likes it out here...


The Cathedral - and a newly cleared trail. We spent most of our time today working on this.


No contest!

Lobbyists Have Talent

Every two years, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce hosts a legislative conference at Salt Fork State Park. Salt Fork is well off the beaten path, and it's so large that when you pull into the entrance, it's still another 6 miles to the lodge.

The Salt Fork conference is one of those events that one shouldn't miss. There are always good speakers (this year's keynote speaker was former US Senate Majority Leader Tom Dashle) and great hospitality. The event is themed, this year's theme being Capitol Square's Got Talent! A committee was formed to write material for a talent show of sorts. We thought we had 4 or 5 legislators lined up to perform, but in the end, only two of them did. But we had several lobbyists willing to take the stage.

There is an unwritten code between lobbyists and legislators: Thou shalt not take pictures where legislators and lobbyists mingle. Well, given this year's theme, I thought it was important to document some of the talent. The clip you are about to see is a duet sung by Jenn Klein and Mike Carroll. For those not in the business, "Sabety" refers to Pari Sabety, the Director of the Ohio Office of Budget & Management. The song is about the state budget, which was billions of dollars in the hole, and Sabety's way of making the budget balance. Jenn and Mike graciously gave their assent to me posting this here. They rehearsed for many hours, and we were a little worried about how this was going to come off, but as you'll see, it worked out just fine. In fact, many thought it was the best part of the entire program.


Next stop: American Idol!

Beware the Scam

Women often receive warnings about protecting themselves at the mall and in dark parking lots, etc. This is the first warning I have seen for men. I wanted to pass it on in case you haven't heard about it.

A 'heads up' for those men who may be regular Lowe’s, Home Depot, or Costco customers. This one caught me by surprise.

Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends.

Here's how the scam works:

Two seriously good-looking 20-something girls come over to your car as you are packing your shopping into the trunk. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts. It is impossible not to look. When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' and instead they ask you for a ride to McDonalds.

You agree and they get into the back seat. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet. I had my wallet stolen August 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th, 24th, & 29th. Also September 1st & 4th, twice on the 8th, 16th, three times last Monday and very likely again this upcoming weekend.

So tell your friends to be careful. What a horrible way to take advantage of older men. Warn your friends to be vigilant!

This story has been on the web for quite a long time, but I still get a chuckle out of it.

I Have a Headache

A friend sent this little monster to me, and it's been driving me nuts.



I've managed to figure out 27 of them, but the remaining 6 have eluded me. Have a go...

The Class of 1974

I haven't posted in quite a while, and with good reason. The past few weeks have been exceedingly busy. But that's good news, because I have a lot of new blog fodder. I'll be posting about a trip to Indiana, a recent comedy show (political satire), a pond and wild animals. But first things first...

Thursday two weeks ago, three friends of mine flew into Columbus for our high school class reunion. The plan was to stay at my house Thursday night, play golf Friday morning, then head north to Bellevue for 4 days and 3 nights of frivolity and golf. We got the frivolity part right, but our golf plans were rendered moot by long hours of adult beverages. Try getting these guys up for a 9 o'clock tee-time after they were out until 3 o'clock that morning. It just doesn't work.

So midday Thursday I headed to the airport, where I found Chuck having a beer at Max & Erma's. He had just flown in from Las Vegas, where's he's lived for many years. I ordered a beer and that is how things start.


Mike arrived from Baton Rouge about an hour and a half later, and shortly after came Dennis from Houston. They had arranged for a rental car because my car is not big enough for all four of us, plus luggage, plus golf clubs, plus a cooler for the beer. So Chuck rode with me for the rest of the trip, while Mike and Dennis traveled in the rental.



We sat on my porch and had some beers and talked, followed by a few hours at my local watering hole. Then we got back to my house, where we sat on the porch for hours talking. (I wish I had taken a picture of my porch on Friday morning -- it looked like a crime scene. There were countless empty beer cans, the ash tray was overflowing, and about a thousand ants had converged on the piece of sausage someone dropped on the porch.) We finally called it a night so we could be well rested for our round of golf at New Albany Links.

After golf, we drove north. Mike had reserved a room at Bellevue's only (I think) hotel: The Bellevue Hotel and Suites. We had heard some horror stories about the place, but the price was right. We would have a suite with 4 beds and 4 baths for $20 per night per man. The picture below does not do this room justice. The room was 70 feet long, and the TV was so far away from me, I couldn't even tell if it was turned on. We had to text each other to communicate.



The plan for Friday was to go on the Booze Cruise, which leaves the Sandusky dock at 7 o'clock. There were 7 or 8 of us on the cruise, and we had a great time catching up with each other. We also had a great meal of perch at the Village Pump. When we got back to the mainland, we headed straight for the Bellevue Beer Dock, arriving there around 12:30. You can now begin to understand why we didn't play golf Saturday morning as planned. That Friday night was the first time I've been in a bar at closing time in many years. (For those who live outside Ohio, the bars close at 2:30 in the morning.)

On Saturday, we had a late breakfast and went to the Elks club to watch the Ohio State football game with my mother. Most of my classmates know mom, in part because she taught second grade at Immaculate Conception School, and many of them had her for a teacher. After the game, we went back to the hotel to clean up for the pre-reunion party that was being held at my brother's house. I've posted about Thom's place before -- suffice it to say, he has a great place for an outdoor party. So we ate and drank and had a great time sitting by the fire, then we headed to the Bellevue Beer Dock. We didn't play golf Sunday morning, either.

We did manage to play golf Sunday afternoon, at the new and improved Twin Lakes Golf Course, which just happened to be where the reunion was being held. The reunion was a blast. There were a few people there whom I hadn't seen since 1974, and the turnout was much better than we had for our 30th. And there was something different about this one: people really were themselves. Any pretense that some may have had in their younger years was gone, and the conversations were more likely to be about grandchildren and arthritis than about the new Lexus someone just bought.

The reunion wound down around 10 o'clock, so we headed to the Bellevue Beer Dock.


This picture was taken at the Bellevue Beer Dock!

After a quick trip to Sandusky on Monday morning (Chuck bought 20 pounds of yellow perch, which you surely can't get in Las Vegas), we came back to my place, and made one more trip to my watering hole. By Tuesday morning, I knew I had made a good decision to take a vacation day, because my body needed a day off before returning to work. By mid-afternoon, everyone was either at the airport or in the air, and I went home and took a long nap.

The Sun and the Moon

She's just shy of nine months old, and she's sort of crawling!

The question was whether she would choose golf or astronomy as her hobby...

It's What's For Dinner

I took a vacation day this week so I could spend a little time with my brother back at the farm. We pulled the truck into the barn to unload some feed, and there were his cows. Last year, I took some pictures of the cows, but this year I was able to take a little movie from my iPhone.


The cows apparently have never heard the Moon River joke.

The barn is next to the house in which we grew up, and Thom lives a quarter mile down the road in the house in which our mother grew up. We took the lane back to his house. I'm including this clip of our trip down the lane because you need to experience driving between walls of field corn at least once in your life. You can see part of the Golden Hill Cemetery on the left where we make the right turn at the end.



We reached our destination and sat for hours on Thom's back porch drinking beer and shooting the breeze. The air was very comfortable, and there are few things as beautiful as a full, brilliant orange moon rising over a field of corn. It was a good day.

Home Alone

As I remember the story, a guy had a pool in his backyard, and on most days he would return home from work to find that the water level in his pool was significantly lower than when he had left in the morning. After eliminating the possibility that his pool had a leak, he decided there could only have been one cause.

Convinced that someone was using his pool during the day, he set up a video camera to catch the culprits. This is what he saw.

Peter & Gordon

I've been dealing with an illness in the family over the past several days. I've had no time to post, and this one will be brief. I'll get back at it next weekend.

Read this obit in the paper yesterday:



A year and a half ago (hardly seems like it's been that long), we learned of the death of Mike Smith of the Dave Clark Five. That brought back a flood of memories, and although Peter & Gordon did not have the widespread fame of the Dave Clark Five, they were still a quintessential 1960's band.

Gordon Waller's partner in the band, Peter Asher, had a sister named Jane who spent a lot of time with Paul McCartney at the time the Beatles' fame was skyrocketing. If you're a fan of the era, I'd recommend The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz (Little, Brown and Company, 2005). It has a lot of great stories about those days, including the story of how Paul essentially created Peter & Gordon.

Rest in peace, Gordon Waller.

Becoming God (Rev. 1)

Note - I revised the original post to clarify things.

The first rule of political campaigns is: not everyone thinks as you do. The same could be said for religion, which is why it's good practice not to discuss either subject in polite company.

Yorkshire Pudding had a recent post that provoked some thinking on my part. The post describes his visit to Lourdes, which for the uninformed, is a shrine in the Catholic religion. His experience at Lourdes was quite different than mine would have been. That's some speculation on my part, because I've never been to Lourdes. But I think we would approach the place from different perspectives.



My theory goes something like this: ever since human beings have been able to wonder about their surroundings, they have been trying to find God, or more precisely, they have been trying to become God. Take a look at the night sky - you can't help but be awed by the sight. Our ancestors had their own ideas about what those little twinkling lights were all about. It's only been in the last three or four hundred years that we have come to realize what the stars really are, and that the earth is not the center of the universe.

But how did we obtain that knowledge? The answer is science. Through a method of testing various hypotheses, we can eliminate some possibilities, and ultimately, we arrive at what we believe to be the truth. And our desire to learn what makes things tick is what compelled us to travel to the moon and beyond. We want to know how it all began, we want to know how life emerged on this planet, and we want to know if life exists elsewhere. By "we," I mean humankind. There are plenty of people on this earth who could not care less about these things, but it is the yearning for knowledge -- complete knowledge -- that propels the human race forward.

I'm using space exploration and cosmology as examples here, but you could replace them with any other human endeavor and arrive at the same conclusion. We want to know everything there is to know about everything. Think of the human genome, the pursuit of a cancer cure, and the attempts to find the Grand Unified Theory. Once you have achieved full knowledge of everything, you have become God because you no longer need a higher power to provide the answers.

Marx called religion the opiate of the masses, and more than one war has been fought on religious grounds. To see how badly things can turn out, look no further than September 11. It's hard to disagree with those who say that religion has caused many sufferings, but it's vital to understand the context of the blame. It is most likely the practitioner of religion, not the religion itself, that is to blame. Different cultures have different views of God, not all of which can be true. And adhering to a religion is not the same as accepting all aspects of that religion, let alone accepting the premise of an unmoved mover.


We continue our pursuit of perfection and full knowledge, even while we have no way of knowing how it all began. The Big Bang Theory is generally accepted in the scientific community, but there is no way to know, given our current state of technology, if it actually happened. Even if it did, its very existence would beg the question: what was there before the Big Bang? We're told it was a singularity, which is just a nice way of saying, "Who the hell knows?" Cynics might ask what God was doing before the Big Bang. The answer: he was creating hell for people who ask questions like that.

Back in a college philosophy class, I ran across a passage that really amused me. But as I thought further about it, my amusement turned into resignation. Science can't answer everything. As so cleverly put by Robert Jastrow in God and the Astronomers:

For the scientist who has lived by faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

And that is the end of the story.

A Fourth of July Story

Well, this is kinda sorta a July 4th story...no wonder the divorce rate is so high in this country!

Word Games

I've taken many standardized tests over the years, and in all cases, my highest scores are in math. Numbers are easy for me, and I can calculate a lot in my head, and that ability has served me well.

But I also like word games. I do at least one crossword puzzle each day, and on some days, I'll do three or four. I like the USA Today crosswords late in the week, but not early in the week. They are too easy on Monday and Tuesday, but by Wednesday, they start to become a challenge.

I also like to play Scrabble, and by recently joining Facebook, I'm able to play multiple games of Scrabble with my siblings, nieces, nephews, children, and friends. At this moment, I think I have 6 games going. Some of the people I play against are very good, and it is a real challenge to win the games. I also like to solve the word jumble, which involves rearranging the letters of 5 words, and then using the circled letters of the answers to solve the riddle.

Then there is the daily cryptogram. I pride myself on solving these without use of a pen (I never use a pencil for any word game - it gives you a false sense of security). Some are tough, some are easy, but all are rewarding to solve. This morning's paper had the cryptogram you'll find below, and it had a cadence that seemed familiar. This one is not very hard to solve, and if you've been reading this blog for very long, you'll understand why I am posting it here. (Just click on it if you need to print it.)

The Demise of the Golfing Horses

Lots of stuff recently.

This video, for example.

Sad, yet funny. Provocative, yet morose. Golf, yet philosophy. Horsehide, yet metal.

Well, you'll get it in a minute.

Zombies and Subtlety

Just read a post from rhymeswithplague that reminded me of one of the most subtle movie lines of all time. Subtlety, of course, being in the eye and ear of the beholder.

The land is crawling with zombies...watch your step!

Achieving Dreams

This picture was taken in May of 1982...a young father graduating from college, his dreams for his young daughter apparent.




Fast forward 27 years to yesterday.



I'm happy to say that Natalie can now put the initials "MBA" after her name if she so chooses. I give her a lot of credit -- working full-time, attending school 10 or 12 hours per week (and all that goes along with that), traveling, running, getting SCUBA certified, running a conversational German club, and so on and so forth -- and she completed her MBA on schedule.

I couldn't be prouder.

Blog Roll Additions

Carolina at Brinkbeest in English has a very nice blog that is being added to the Golden Hill Blog Roll. She writes good stories, and she takes good pictures! Interesting that she maintains two Brinkbeests - one in Dutch, the other in English. Were I so talented...

I also added Rhymeswithplague to the Blog Roll a couple weeks ago, but failed to mention it in a post (sorry about that, Robert). When you visit his blog, be prepared to think!

Hollywood Squares

In the mid-1960s, a game show called "Hollywood Squares" began airing on TV. It was one of the simplest game shows ever devised: the object of the game was to win a tic-tac-toe game. Celebrities occupied the squares, and were given questions. The contestant had to determine if the answer was correct or made-up by the celebrity. If you guessed right, you earned your X or your O.

The show ran intermittently for close to 40 years, with several different hosts and many different celebrities. The success of the show was based completely on the comedic quality of the answers given by the celebrities. You can judge for yourself - here are some examples.

Q. Do female frogs croak?
A. Paul Lynde: If you hold their little heads under water long enough.

Q. If you're going to make a parachute jump, at least how high should you be?
A. Charley Weaver: Three days of steady drinking should do it.

Q. True or False, a pea can last as long as 5,000 years.
A. George Gobel: Boy, it sure seems that way sometimes.

Q. You've been having trouble going to sleep. Are you probably a man or a woman?
A. Don Knotts: That's what's been keeping me awake.

Q. According to Cosmopolitan, if you meet a stranger at a party and you think that he is attractive, is it okay to come out and ask him if he's married?
A. Rose Marie: No; wait until morning.

Q. Which of your five senses tends to diminish as you get older?
A. Charley Weaver: My sense of decency.

Q. In Hawaiian, does it take more than three words to say "I Love You"?
A. Vincent Price: No, you can say it with a pineapple and a twenty.

Q. Paul, why do Hell's Angels wear leather?
A. Paul Lynde: Because chiffon wrinkles too easily.

Q. Charley, you've just decided to grow strawberries. Are you going to get any during the first year?
A. Charley Weaver: Of course not, I'm too busy growing strawberries.

Q. In bowling, what's a perfect score?
A. Rose Marie: Ralph, the pin boy.

Q. During a tornado , are you safer in the bedroom or in the closet?
A. Rose Marie: Unfortunately Peter, I'm always safe in the bedroom.

Q. When you pat a dog on its head he will wag his tail. What will a goose do?
A. Paul Lynde: Make him bark?

Q. It is the most abused and neglected part of your body, what is it?
A. Paul Lynde: Mine may be abused, but it certainly isn't neglected.

Q. Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?
A. George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.

Q. Who stays pregnant for a longer period of time, your wife or your elephant?
A. Paul Lynde: Who told you about my elephant?

Q. When a couple have a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A. Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car, the rest is up to him.

Q. Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
A. Charley Weaver: His feet.

Q. According to Ann Landers, what are two things you should never do in bed?
A. Paul Lynde: Point and laugh.

Q. According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A. Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army.

Half The Man I Used To Be

I'm cleaning up some folders on my computer, and this video clip has been on my hard drive long enough.

I have no idea how this works...I wish the images were clearer, but I don't think that would make it any easier to figure out. If you have any ideas, please post a comment!

Determination

More from the do-it-yourself section of Despair.com. The picture was taken from the bottom of the spiral staircase in the Marblehead lighthouse. I must have too much time on my hands...