One of the most popular words in the lexicon of modern society is “care.” People in general don’t like to be handled roughly. Of course, there are exceptions, such as arranged fights, or episodes of sexual passion. But we are delicate creatures, in comparison with the hard surfaces of our natural and man-made environment. When […]
One mark of a civilized society is a code of manners, part of which involves rules of hospitality. How should one behave when one is a guest or a host? We are not usually taught such things at school. There are books of “etiquette” – but, if we learn these rules at all, it is […]
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Some people seem to need a “Supreme Being” in their lives. Others appear to get along quite well without one. If these were only private matters, the world of human society would have been a much less troubled place than it has always been over the past millennia. But unfortunately, such matters are anything but […]
Life is full of beginnings and endings – and sometimes they are so memorable that we tend to forget what comes in between. For example, I could not quote you any other words of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities – but I know it begins with “It was the best of times – It was […]
Nature is so full of miracles that we tend to take some of them for granted, especially if they are there all the time – like our own bodies – or if they, at least, come and go with predictable regularity – like the sun and the moon. But there are others which tend to […]
Why is so much hair wanted where it isn’t, and not wanted where it is? Many of our ideas of beauty, of grooming – even of sexuality – are hair-related. It’s one of the things we have in common with our fellow mammals. (Many non-mammals – even some insects – may appear fuzzy – but, […]
No matter how much the world changes, buyers and sellers will always need each other. But what we have called “stores” were in a way like the dinosaurs – they got bigger and bigger until, so to speak, they ruled the earth, and then something happened, and now, in our own time, we see them […]
Until quite recently, when you wanted to destroy paper and make certain that nothing on it could ever again be read, the preferred method was to burn it. That is still your surest recourse – but burning is now generally in disfavor, because it means polluted air. So, a relatively new manner of destruction has […]
Many children’s games involve “counting out” rhymes for choosing one or more of the players for some special role. Everybody probably knows some version of the one that begins, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” But there is just one other such rhyme of which I retain a possibly fragmentary memory. And although there are probably many […]
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One of the epigrams I have written which I get most requests to quote – particularly from authors of “self-help” type books – says: “Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.” But not everyone agrees with this philosophy. One of my favorite poets, A.E. Housman, has […]
One of the things I remember from my days as a summer-camp counselor was a skit in one of our campfire entertainments, in which someone runs onto the “stage” shouting “The Viper! The Viper is coming!” Then someone else comes screaming, “The Viper! Oh, No! It’s The Viper!” followed by a third, echoing “The Viper! […]
About a century ago, a man named Apsley Cherry-Garrard wrote a book called The Worst Journey In The World. (The title was suggested by his friend George Bernard Shaw.) It was a true account of the author’s participation in the second Scott expedition to Antarctica, in which its leader, Robert Falcon Scott, lost his life, […]
Considering how many things we are warned not to “take for granted,” it is good to bear in mind all the others – of which, may I suggest, the most precious is someone’s love. Love is a gift we grant and receive with no expectation of return. We take it for granted. Therein lies the […]
A gastroenterologist is a doctor whose techniques nowadays include inserting an endoscopic light down into people’s intestines. One member of that elite community recently wrote a book about his work, entitled, The Tunnel at The End of The Light. If I may say so, the whole process of eating, digestion, and elimination is one that […]
