ASPEN DENTAL MENTAL FLOSSED

Office Manager

ASPEN DENTAL

257 North Plainfield Road

W. Lebanon, NH 03784

Dear Aspen Dental:

I’m writing as a former (and please note the emphasis on former) customer.

Yesterday, 09/17/2019, I went to your West Lebanon, NH office looking to have my broken dentures repaired. I had no appointment, but you've always offered "Emergency" and "Walk-Ins Welcome" as part of your services. In fact, you broadcast it in foot-high letters on your office windows.

Truth in advertising. Uh-huh.

It all goes to hell from there:

I traveled to your office (a 50-mile round trip for me) because no one would answer the phone when I called at 8:45 a.m.  You advertise your office hours as 8am to 6pm, but apparently not for humans who answer phones. I got a recorded message, asking me to call back "during office hours." Right.

See the first problem?

Your office hours are 8am to 6pm.

I called at 8:45am. No sign of a live human.

I still left a message requesting that someone at AD please return my call asap, though I knew it to be futile. Sure enough, hours later at home, no one had, so I reluctantly drove the 25 miles to your office. And, as of today, incidentally, still no return call or acknowledgement of mine.

I arrived to find an overflowing parking lot, not a space to be had, so I parked two business lots away and walked back to the office, difficult for me because of reasons I will cite below.

And, in the waiting room, not one available chair.

Your receptionist, after I explained my problem, said "Well, there's no way we can help you on 'oral surgery' day," and was rather glib about it. (Never ceases to amaze me why people who aren't good with people choose to work in the people business. She needs to find a widget assembly line job somewhere and avoid any contact with the public).

Yes, apparently, you schedule all your oral surgeries for the same day, according to her, so tough luck. I told her that I'd TRIED to call first, and again, she blew this off and restated how everyone there (as I could see) was too busy to answer the phones on oral surgery day. How dumb of me. Why wouldn’t I know that.

I’ve watched this evolve over the long time I’ve been a customer of yours. You’re overbooked. Understaffed. Overcrowded, inside and out. And, your communications (phone) have become non-existent. This is so typical of businesses that grow faster than they can accommodate the needs of their customers. You move into strict profiteering at the expense of all else.

Customer “service” unravels, and people become names & numbers on paper.

Before I left, your flip receptionist did make an appointment for me for today at 9 a.m.  So, I left.

I arrived today, 09/18/2019, at 8:20 a.m., checked in, same receptionist. She took my teeth and disappeared, returning a minute later to inform me that it would 3 hours before they could be repaired, and told me what my bill would be (apparently the only thing you can do in a timely manner is figure what I owe you before you’ve done anything.)

THREE HOURS.

Right about here, you need to know the following:

I have Stage Four cancer in my lung, liver and brain. I am being treated with chemo and radiation. It’s difficult for me to sit anywhere for very long because of the revolving pains I have and the medications I’m taking.

I called my wife there in the waiting room and told her that I’d had enough of Aspen Dental nonsense. I told her that I was going to ask for my teeth back and get the hell out of there.

Your receptionist (who has the personality of a bottle of hand sanitizer) overheard this, and said “I’ll see if he can do them sooner,” again disappeared, and returned abruptly with my unrepaired dentures. “Here they are,” she said, putting them on the desk and turning away from me. And that was that.

And, for me, that was it. Let’s just say I took that opportunity to loudly tell her and your rapidly filling-up waiting room (yes, I made a bit of a scene) just what I thought of Aspen Dental, its (lack) of customer service, and its overall decline and  depersonalizations, again so typical of businesses that plan and act poorly.

Oh … and just for seriocomic relief … whoever was back out of sight in the lab had dipped my dentures in a bitter solution that caused a wave of nausea when I left the office and put the partial-partial back in my mouth. I was not informed of this. Was that his idea of a JOKE? Did he and your snippy receptionist put their pinheads together and decide to prank this disgruntled (and vocal) customer?? I am still tasting the effects of it.

Clearly, to me, it was done deliberately, as was not informing me of what your techie had done. I can’t prove it, but I believe it was malicious.

Finally, I will now take the opportunity to report all of this --- on social media, my website, and wherever I can influence anyone looking for dental services. I have been in the healthcare business for over 35 years.

In my opinion, you’ve become corrupted beyond repair. All mouth and no open.

Shame on you.

P.S. Your CEO’s statement: “We’re big advocates for the patient” is outright amusing. And, I’ve been reading the thousands of lodged complaints and lawsuits against Aspen Dental online.  Stunning that you’re still in business.

Cc:

CEO

Aspen Dental Management, Inc.

13, Ocala Ave

Jacksonville, Florida 32220

HAPPY NO-TRUMP INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Today is not about the megalomania of Donald Trump.

It's about my great-great-great-great Grandfather Reuben and his Grandfather Samuel.

Samuel Sherman lived on a farm in Lisbon, New Hampshire, and served as a private in Captain Caleb Whitings Company during the American Revolution. He marched on the alarm of 19 Apr 1775 to Roxbury.

At that time the country was a wilderness. Bears and other wild animals undisputedly held the territory.

There was a great scarcity of provisions among the settlers. Samuel’s grandson Reuben, then a lad of sixteen, traveled to Barnet, VT through the wilderness, and procured three pecks of flour, without the sign of a road or anything to guide him.

When he arrived almost in sight of home, his dog met him and barked vigorously at some object in a tall pine, which he discovered to be a bear. Crying lustily, he was heard by his mother, and ordered their family musket, which was without a lock, with ammunition and a firebrand.

The boy held the gun while his brother touched it off with the firebrand and killed the bear. The body lodged in a fork of the tree, which obliged them to cut it down. The meat furnished by the bear was a Godsend, and saved the family, with the flour which the boy had carried ten miles on his shoulder, from starvation. 

Happy Fourth of July, America.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

GRANITE STATE GOOBERNATORIAL

Governor “Crazy Chris” Sununu

State House
107 North Main Street
Concord, NH 03301

Dear Crazy:

I know you won’t mind the disparaging nickname; this is a favorite vehicle of your hero in the White house: insulting and belittling anyone who won’t get in his lying locksteps.

Similarly, I’m sure you’ll appreciate my rendering of your image (I did the same for Trump). When your interior actions are ugly, distorted and deceitful, your exterior should reflect that.)

But, I’m writing re: Your recent comments during a Fox interview:

Shame on you.

It’s never a surprise to me when members of your Party favor the interests of the privileged and powerful versus “the little guy” (usually with a degree of meanness that beggars explanation), so the apparent glee you expressed when you told your Fox “interviewer” that you “couldn’t wait” to veto the Paid Family Leave bill … well … that’s par for the course. Mean. Gutless.

Lest you forget (because Me The People won’t): when running for governor, you were asked in a debate if you supported paid family leave, you said “Absolutely.” Liar. (Yes, yes, yes, I’m sure we took your “absolutely” out of context. Bullpuckey. You lied.)

You supported Trump’s pulling us out of Paris Climate Accord. You refused to join other governors in the bipartisan US Climate Alliance. You have visited the Trump White House more than any other governor. Political toady.

And, speaking of guts, I also take great exception to your comment that Donald Trump will win in New Hampshire because he appeals to the voters here “on a gut level.”

Wrong-headed, asinine, and you certainly don’t speak for me.

Yes, I do indeed have a visceral reaction to the criminal who currently occupies our White House, but it’s on a level that reeks of revulsion. As a native Granite Stater, I’m ashamed, embarrassed, and disgusted that you occupy our State House.

It’s stunning to me that anyone who can think critically, or who can think at all, for that matter, supports this lying, despicable wretch we have as a president. This is the most puzzling: clearly you’re not “crazy,” but your actions are. In the end, I don’t make the distinction. Crazy is as crazy does.

As a man, a father, a husband? Do you have no moral compass? No sense of what’s decent, fair and just?

-- As a man, apparently, it’s okay with you to mock the disabled, ridicule the parents of a fallen soldier, dishonor a true American hero’s (John McCain) sacrifice and suffering for his country? You admire a man who said that his struggle to avoid getting a sexually transmitted disease was his "personal Vietnam"? Seriously? That’s beyond insulting. It’s the mark of an arrogant, sniveling coward.

-- As a father, apparently, it’s okay with you to support a degenerate who called his daughter “hot,” and said that if she wasn’t his daughter, he’d be dating her. That doesn’t bother you? Would you say (or even think) such a thing about your own child?

You’re not disturbed that children and babies are wrenched from their parents’ arms --- parents who are desperate for help and who come here hoping to protect those children from certain harm? What is WRONG with you? What are YOU made of?

--And, as a husband, apparently, you’d have no problem if I greeted your wife by grabbing her in the crotch? This is the example you set for your sons? Is that how you want them to grow up in this world? Objectifying and disrespecting and in fact assaulting women like that?

HOW can ANYONE support a Donald Trump without being of this same ilk? In my book, that makes you one sorry human being, and just plain creepy. And THAT, sir, is MY New Hampshire gut level.

Shame, shame, shame on you.

In the future, should you elect to seek reelection, I’ll be doing whatever I can to support your opponent and to see that you return to (a disgraced) civilian life.

Update: Yes, you’ve just announced that you’re running for governor again. Here we go!

And, just for some seriocomic aside, I especially liked how gave yourself a $22,000 pay raise the day after you took office. That’s 18% more than your female predecessor. A true Republican.

Even seriously funnier, you’ve claimed that you worked for eight years in California as “an environmental engineer.” Lie. You never earned a professional engineer’s license in any state. You had an EIT (engineer-in-training) certificate. You were a subordinate, supervised employee. Amazing how all you guys make things up.

Perhaps I should say, you don’t lie, it’s just how you take yourselves out of context.

B. Elwin Sherman

New Hampshire Native, Resident, Voter

Registered Independent

Honorably-Discharged Marine Veteran

UPDATE: 07/09/2019  Now comes news that at an auction/GOP fundraiser, you jokingly offered a copy of your Paid Family Leave bill veto to the highest bidder, adding that from now on you'll just "veto everything." Good work, Crazy Chris. You think that's funny? All it does it continue to show you up as elitist, ugly, and mean-spirited.

UPDATE: 07/22/2019 In the give-credit where it's due department, I see where you've done the right and true thing by signing SB142, the "period poverty bill," into law. Frankly, I'm shocked, given the fact that nearly every New Hampshire Republican voted against it, and nearly every Democrat for it. Even your words are stupefying.

This bill requires that all public schools provide free menstrual products -- tampons and pads -- to students at no cost.

And, you signed it.

And, you said this: “This legislation is about equality and dignity. SB 142 will help ensure young women in New Hampshire public schools will have the freedom to learn without disruption ― and free of shame, or fear of stigma.”

Almost unbelievable, given your misguided and baffling allegiance to our current misogynistic sexual predator-in-chief, and the fact that almost all your fellow GOP'ers held against it. WHY?  I don't trust your motives, and I'll never understand them. WHY? As I've noted in the above posts, you are all (typically) elitist, ugly, mean-spirited and just plain creepy. WHY?

But, in the end, I don't care. You did the right thing; you said the right thing, and a good thing happened for our young students. Congratulations, Crazy.

UPDATE: 08/10/2019  There you go again, Crazy Chris:

Veto: A bill that would require a 3-day waiting period before the purchase & delivery of a firearm.
Veto: A bill which closes the so-called gun show loophole and requires background checks for virtually all commercial firearms sales or transfers.
Veto: A bill that prohibits carrying a firearm on school property.

Again, we see who owns you and your Party cohorts (though I really want to mean conspirators).

Next time someone gets a gun who shouldn't have, next time someone shoots up a school, I will personally consider you an accessory to the murder, mayhem and madness that you seem hellbent to perpetuate. You say you want to protect our "individual freedom"?

You might start by protecting our lives.

UPDATE: 09/08/2019  "Sununu Vetoes Bill To Expand Absentee Voting."  Yep, there you go again, And, you are now the vetoing-est Governor in NH history.  You and your Party know that making voting easier and open insures that Democrats will win.  This is how YOU win: You cheat. Lie. Steal. Great parenting skills (of course, your support for the wretched POS in the White House tells us all we need to know about you as a father.) What a sorry legacy to leave: Cheater. Liar. Stealer. Crazy Chris. As a New Hampshirean, I apologize for you every day.

ON YOUR BIRD, GET SET ...

EVERYONE should have a pigeon head, Quaker Oats, compression stockings, a comfy chair and Harley-wear on their birthday, I always say. Thanks to all for your visits and support of the art(s)!

El

POETRY BREAK -- "The Comparison Study"

THE COMPARISON STUDY

How else could she say it with appropriate fuego?

Until their passions met,

she’d never loved and laughed so hard,

so soft, or felt so adored and amused.

But, yesterday he asked her:

"Do you love raisins as much as I do?"

That sent her into an existential tailspin,

wondering again if she could ever again

know another man’s love without comparing it

to what she’d put into
and taken out of her affairs with others.

She must allow it instead to float free,

without judgment.

The quiet and gentle, the passionate and sensual,

the tough and gnarly, the fun and exuberant.

That’s how she answered him.

But, today he hit her with another one:

“Is it hot in here, or is it me?” 

“It’s you,” she immediately replied,

sick of all his endless introspection,

and it wasn’t well-received.

Not the answer he’d wanted.

He’d wanted a flopsweat camaraderie.

She’ll now put it to her readers:

“Do you love raisins as much as I do?”

She can only hope you love poems

ending with grapes.

----

From "THE DIOECIANS -- His And Her Love". Copyright 2017 B. Elwin Sherman. Used here with permission. 

FUNNY AS CANCER

  

   Without researching it, I’ll bet that cancer in Colorado is no funnier than cancer in New Hampshire, but I can only speak for the Granite State and my lung tumor.

   Google reveals that no one living here has ever said: “as funny as cancer in New Hampshire.” That’s why I must say it now, living and writing as your native nurse humorist-tumorist.

    The ER doc unceremoniously said: “You have a mass on your lung.” With an inspired aplomb that only a New Englander would appreciate, I said: “I’m assuming you don’t mean Massachusetts.”

   Bang. Pow. Zoom. (I’m reserving exclamation points for the first finale of my second act, and that’s my first living with cancer in New Hampshire inside joke).

   When I heard my diagnosis, the words “Live Free or Die” shifted from the affairs of my state to my state of affairs, and immediately became my adopted up close and personal motto. I felt like a rock-tumbled Old Man of the Valley as an internal voice interrupted my shock: “Wait. Could you spare a minute for mortality?” Why, yes, I could but---

   Funny as cancer?

   My training and thirty-five-year career as a bedside care nurse taught me that humor is as essential to healing as not getting there is from here.

   I had cancer, so I did what only a New Hampshirite would do: started a wicked pissah cancer blog, made a Fluffernutter and washed it down with a frappe. Massachusettsans will claim the latter as theirs, but they do things like that.

   I then began searching my muse for the lighter side of what I knew would be hauling a heavy load down a long road.

   I’ve attended many patients with cancer, so I know the lie of its rugged landscape and many perils. But, when it’s MY trip as amateur pilot, not professional navigator? Funny as cancer? Here, in a state where freedom or death is a mandate?

   Yes. Especially here.

   First chore? Name my tumor. Men do this. We personalize our body parts and functions, errant and otherwise, and women will never understand it, beginning with the otherwise devoted wife lying next to me. She thinks it’s weird.

   I needed both radiation and chemotherapy, so I came up with “Rad Chemo.” Great moniker for a body-ambushing villain, and it kept with our New Hampshire tradition of seriously naming funny locales:

   My sympathies and apologies to the residents of Effingham, who undoubtedly live with a year-round tongue-in-cheek at the ready for any inquiring tourists. Effingham has always sounded to me like something expletively done to a ham.

   Or, when you think Kanca, is it suffixed with Mangus or Magus? Forever funny, and even we can’t decide.

   I was also inspired by other typically New Hampshire seriously funny things: Squirrel-proof birdfeeders (ha!), no-see-ums, wearing shorts with winter coats, and no-faultlessly driving unlicensed but self-designated road-legal snowmobiles, golf carts and riding mowers to the winter carnivals.

When I began my radiation, I found the spirit of our White Mountain State humor alive and free at Dartmouth-Hitchcock hospital, when they snugged me up and into my treatment table mold with Rad Chemo. I felt like a human skewer hosting a hitchhiking saboteur kabob on a stationary spit as the linear accelerator rotated around us.

   The “Radionettes” (the techs I’d so-dubbed because they knew my musical likes and dark sense of humor), played “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” through the overhead speakers.

 No, you can’t, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what we need.

----
Illustration by Brad Fitzpatrick. All rights reserved. Used here with permission.

This column is appearing in the February 2019 issue of New Hampshire Magazine.

Senior Wire News Service Syndicated Humor Columnist B. Elwin Sherman writes from Bethlehem, NH. He is an author, humorist, agony uncle columnist and poet. His latest book is “THE DIOECIANS – His and Her Love“. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved. Used here with permission.

B. ELWIN SHERMAN -- AS TIME GOES BY

Sometimes, it's about the music. When I got cancer this year, I took up with the keyboard again after years of neglect. As I reorient to reading and muscle memory, I've been clunking along with some of my favorites. I'm a sucker for the iconic jazz/pop Classics. If you can hear past my wannabe piano bar/tip jar mindset and stumbly treatments, I'll keep practicing. Enjoy!

 

For my Dad, Alger Sherman: piano barman extraordinaire,
 who could play everything. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, and to all a good ride!

Love, El and Di, son Gabe, and dahlin' daughter Erin Lovett Sherman and grandsons Myles and Bodhi!

BUILDING A WINTER FALL

I’m not here to debate changes in the global environment. Let’s just say that this past spring was the first time I can remember riding the Harley in 80-degree weather, and the following week I was mowing the lawn, and the week after that I was shoveling 14 inches of snow.

     Not really that unusual for New Hampshire, where “nine months of winter and three months of poor tobogganing” has long been the mantra.

     That does bring us to what we won’t debate: the difference between weather and climate. We can all agree that weather is the six inches of partly cloudy in our basements, and climate is when it’s in our attics.

     Those of us who began as children and stubbornly refuse to give up those origins, all have stories about the “normal” outdoor seasonal conditions when we were kids. “When I was a kid,” I would say, “the snowbanks were up to the window sills.”

     “When you were a kid,” my mother reminded me, “you never came out of the basement.” Funny, because I remember it as the attic.

     There was once a TV show called “The Imploders.” For me and my off-season sense of humor, this may have been the most unintentionally hilarious reality program ever produced, as I watched a family of “demolition experts” travel around the country and “bring down buildings.”

     They didn’t employ the usual bang-boom application used to pancake an obsolete structure, but rather the “tripping” method. Here, the building is weakened by cutting holes in it, (no one in the crew could agree on how many were needed) tying a cable to it and pulling it over. Simple enough. Right?

     The crew chief, whose knowledge of building-pulling was seemingly based on his frat house prank days of attempting to stuff a grand piano into an occupied shower stall, then said to the guy operating the building-puller: “Hey!  If she starts to go, get out of there!”

     (Warning: When someone needs to tell or be told this, they might need another year of postsecondary bathroom piano-stuffing before they start knocking down buildings using methods and forces that could … well … knock down a building.)

     They used this scientific method of wreckification on an old paper mill near here in the North Country, and we locals were there to watch the spectacle and re-live their attic-dwelling childhood roots.

     When the time came, I watched them give it a mighty non-explosive heave and, voila! It shuddered a little and stood there.  Someone, apparently, had forgotten to make the pressure-relieving cuts in the back, and the resulting tug was like trying to raise the Titanic with a Slinky.

     This is where I stand with weather forecasters and climate change experts. Their collective expertise alternately tells us that we’re either in for a light sprinkle or a re-enactment of Noah’s maiden voyage. This usually translates as a foot of snow.

     Who should we believe? Should we entrust our Icelandic retirement plans to an “expert” who says things like “inter-glacial warmth is driven by orbital mechanics”? Or, should we accept that if we wait long enough, we’ll be low & dry because of the old New England salt’s riposte, when asked if it will ever stop raining:

     “Always has.”

     One scientist says that “we should not stop breathing, even though it would be one of the most immediate steps to slow CO2 emissions.” I do love egghead humor, but I’m not convinced he was trying to be funny.

     Or, as the well-seasoned North Country sage would offer, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”

     I think I’m going with the time-tested building destructor’s code: “If she starts to go, get out of there!”

     I’m not sure where “there” will be, but if any of us hope to make it from here, we should pack up our umbrellas and our sunscreens and head way up northeast, just south of the western skyline.

     Either that, or it’s back to the winterized subterranean attics of long-past summers. 

* * * * *

Senior Wire News Service Syndicated Humor Columnist B. Elwin Sherman writes from Bethlehem, NH. He is an author, humorist, agony uncle columnist and poet. His latest book is “THE DIOECIANS – His and Her Love“. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved. Used here with permission.

MEET YOU BACK AT HINDQUARTERS

   I live in the New Hampshire boonies, and every late summer and fall it’s possible to spend months full of weekends doing nothing but hopping the archipelago of Country Fairs.  All one needs is a lawn chair, sensible shoes, an appetite and the intestinal fortitude for steamed burgers, dogs and fried dough.

   Upon arrival, prepare to wait for a moment above the fairgrounds in a high pasture parking lot, as two retired firemen in red vests, blue hats, and wielding orange batons argue over whether you should “back in heah” or “head in over theah” to that gap in the stone wall.

   Be patient. This is just an extension of the lifelong arguments they’ve had over checkerboard strategies and tractor maintenance, and when they’re through you’ll end up wedged in an impossible parallel park by the rock maples anyway.

   Urban street smarts will serve you no good here; these are country folk. At the ribbon awards for “Best Udder,” the qualitative and quantitative differences in cow udders may be lost on you, but to the dairy farmer who has bag-balmed Bessie’s undercarriage all year, it’s his milk, butter and crop of the cream.

   On to the live music. If Rick Norcross and TheRamblers’ country boogie rendition of “Paint It Like A Cow” doesn’t give you happy feet, you’ve been sitting too long in the concrete jungle.

   Don’t pass up The Pork Chop Revue, where you’ll see a 50-pound, five-year old boy onstage singing “Popeye The Sailor Man,” with an 800-pound pig. Thus:

   Boy with microphone: “I’m Popeye the sailor man.”

   Big pig singing into microphone held by boy: “Toot-Snort.”

   If you couldn’t justify the price of admission and the shoehorned parking place up to then, that alone should do it.

   No Fair is complete without the carnival rides and midway. Here, you’ll fill up on cotton candy, snow cones and candied apples. Lady Luck might also find you winning a giant stuffed pink duck, your prize after you finally succeed in hooking an eight-inch basketball through a seven- and three-quarter-inch hoop.

   It can be done, and it will seem like a bargain.

   The rides: Here you’ll be launched above the treetops, slungshot and whiplashed silly while strapped in a human bird cage. Momentarily upended at the top of one perfectly-named ride known as “The Zipper,” you’ll catch a glimpse of your vehicle on the hill being completely blocked in by a horse trailer.

   At the ox-pulling contest, you’ll witness two sweaty guys each the size of your car, backing up two yoked animals each the size of your garage, tethering them onto a concrete sled, and upon a cue known only to this team of man and beast, prompting them to haul it a designated distance.

   My favorite was the young man who stood between these tensing, hoofed freight trains and eyeballed them into submission, freezing them stock-still in the ancient power of his hypnotic, bovine whammy, then leapt out of the lane, snapped his whip, and whoop-hollered them to the winning pull.

   Before the sun sets beneath the tilting row of portable potties, and after you’ve seen your first Sheep Obstacle Course and more jams, hams and quilts than you can stick a Shaker at, it will dawn on you, too:

   The Country Fair is not just kids living grown-up dreams or oldsters reliving glory days --- it is the patchwork of life, and the best we can be.

   At the end of it, if you can find your car and get out of theah from heah, I’ll meet you back at hindquarters.

   Fair enough.

----
Illustration by Brad Fitzpatrick. All rights reserved. Used here with permission.

This column first appeared in New Hampshire Magazine.

Senior Wire News Service Syndicated Humor Columnist B. Elwin Sherman writes from Bethlehem, NH. He is an author, humorist, agony uncle columnist and poet. His latest book is “THE DIOECIANS – His and Her Love“. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved. Used here with permission.

ULTRACREPIDARIANS ANONYMOUS

  Long time, no posting.

  I could complicate things by explaining and/or excusing why I’ve neglected this space since June, but let’s go with the simple:

  I got cancer.

  And, because the only time I can abide duplicity is with cookies and rollercoasters, I’ll just direct you to where I have applied the muse since then, at my cancer blog.

  On this day, August 31, 2018, I’m just on the other side of completing weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

  If you are in any way connected with this disease --- family, friends, even yourself --- I think you’ll find the daily reportage on my blog helpful, if not informative, and dare I say it, even entertaining (I am an incorrigible humorist, after all).

  I’ll leave it there for you to explore.

  Meanwhile, let’s revisit some chestnuts that still ring fun, funny and true.

  Hey! Dave Barry makes a living recycling ten-year old humor columns. Good enough for Dave, good enough for a cancerous fellow funster.

  Enjoy both spaces, here and there.

      All best, El

      P.S. Okay, okay … cookies, rollercoasters AND past humor columns. That ought to do it.

* * * * *

ULTRACREPIDARIANS ANONYMOUS

  I knew there was another noun to describe me:

  Ultracrepidarian.   

 
  Don’t run away, I had to look it up, too. I just needed a label for this tendency of mine to sometimes operate away from my area of expertise. The word means: “a person out of his or her element.” I’m by no means a consummate Ultracrep; I do know my limits in most things. But, I wrote the Ultracrepidarian Bible when it comes to one field of endeavor:  the Mr. Fix-It home front.

 
  For this outing only, we will cover excerpts from Genesis and Prophecies:

  In the beginning, Man created machines and machine parts. And the machines ran smoothly until they broke, and the machine parts were called upon to fill the void, and this is where I got into trouble.

  And Man said: “Let there be a connection between machines and machine parts,” and I’ve been looking for it ever since.

 
  And the partner of Man said: “Honey, don’t bother about that old lawnmower, it’s time to replace it, anyway.” And the man said: “What, are you kidding?  I can fix that.

 
  And the Man’s partner rolled her eyes and became mute and dark, smug in her unspoken prediction.

  And on the second day, cast out from the lawn and garden, the lurching, smoking, three-wheeled grasscutter was brought forth to the scrap metal pile in the Garden of Landfill as prophesized by the partner’s silent treatment, followed by a gathering together of man and partner in the Land of Outdoor Tools in Eastern Wal-Mart. Amen.

 
  This is not all my fault.

 
  I am equipped with the temperamental curve of a scientific poet, one who at once believes the mysteries of tree rings and bone structures can be finite blueprints, while sump pumps sometimes require exorcism along with priming. Hence the limping, spitting lawn machine that, despite my earnest tinkering with recycled sinktrap parts, became a pouting recluse in a combustible cave.

 
  Now, hold on, I’m not dumb to the nomenclature and workings of machines; I’m just stuck with this idea that nothing mechanical works entirely right without a dash of body English and a pinch of “Go baby go!” Conversely, feeling blue must have some roots in a dysfunctional thyroid.

 
  The mathematics of freshly baked bread. The tantrums of my truck transmission.

 
  If I investigated the inner workings of a toilet tank, I could tell you, coil and spring, and in strict, structural terms, why in fact the “jiggling the handle” remedy is effective. But, even then, were I to pass on the procedure to a novice flusher, I’d have to add, “No, here, see it’s all in the wrist."

 
  This dooms me to forever suffer from two infernal conclusions:

  1. The exact same amount of flour, sugar, oil, salt and yeast mixed, kneaded, risen, greased and baked in the exact same pans, oven and temperature will always yield slightly different loaves.

 
  2. Pounding a steering wheel will sometimes start a cold engine.

 
  And lo, the shivering crankcase brought forth the hissy fit parallelogram, which begat the incontinent sinktrap, which begat the asymmetrical tulip bed, which begat the bipolar lawnmower.

 
  In his poem, “All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace,” Richard Brautigan wrote:

     

I like to think of a cybernetic forest

filled with pines and electronics

where deer stroll peacefully past computers

as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms.

  And Man looked ahead and said, “Let us move into snow season as our conspiratorial snowblowers lurk in the shed.

 
  And Man’s partner said, “Woe be unto us, should the toilet water rise or the bread collapse."

 
  And life was good.   

* * * * *

Senior Wire News Service Syndicated Humor Columnist B. Elwin Sherman writes from Bethlehem, NH. He is an author, humorist, agony uncle columnist and poet. His latest book is “THE DIOECIANS – His and Her Love“. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved. Used here with permission.

HARLEY WHITE CANE

Somewhere out beyond bucket lists and prescriptions ... 

EVERYTHING LOVE IS OLD AGAIN

  Before you meet Annie, I must set the stage.  No better way than to give you a gift from long ago.

   Let's look at some rules of etiquette from "The Treasury Of Useful And Entertaining Knowledge," compiled by Nugent Robinson in 1882, given here as they were written. If we're not careful, (and, if we're lucky) everything love might become old again.

    In 1882:

LADIES:

  1.  Visits should be short. Beware of letting your call exceed half an hour’s length.  It’s always better to let your friends regret rather than desire your withdrawal.

  2.   In the morning, limit your jewelry to a brooch, gold chain, and watch. Your diamonds and pearls are as much out of place in the morning as a wreath.

  3.  Dressing well is a duty every lady owes to society, but make it not your idol. Fashion is made for woman, not woman for fashion.

  4.  When entertaining, try to suit your music to your company. A Beethoven solo is as much out of place in some circles as a comic song at a Quaker’s meeting.

  5.  Upon entering the carriage, if you are going to take the seat facing the horses, go in such a way as to drop into it at once.

GENTLEMEN:

  1.  If you are on horseback and wish to converse with a lady who is on foot, dismount and lead your horse, so as not to cause her fatigue in looking up to your level.

  2.  A man should always be so well dressed that his clothes shall never be observed at all. Perfect simplicity is perfect elegance.  Let a wise man seek to be appreciated for something of higher worth than the studs on his shirt or the trinkets on his chain.

  3.  When eating or drinking, avoid every kind of audible testimony to the fact.

  4.   Use your handkerchief noiselessly; do not blow your nose as if it were a trombone.               

  5.  If a man be a bachelor giving a dinner, he had better do so at a good hotel.

   This brings us to Annie, a centenarian pearl who arrived on earth in an era when women knew when to leave and men knew when (and where) to stay.

   In her lifetime, Annie has traveled the world. She’s made her bones as a dancer, sculptor, photographer and poet. She continues to write poetry, and gives readings to her fellow artificial hipsters in the nursing home where she still tends to most of her own needs.

   She climbs aboard her electric cart and zips around the complex, running in the fast lane past the walkers and quad canes. There has been talk about either revoking her buggy license or installing speed bumps in the hallways.

   Though she accepts it, she thinks it silly that her children never visit her. “They’re in their eighties, you know, and don’t get around like they used to,” she says, her bright eyes shining. " Upon her reaching the century mark, I asked her how she’d done it. She must have learned something special, and practiced some secret formula for living that had carried her so far. What had she done, or not done, to have lived so long?

   She just looked at me, astonished that anyone would ask such a thing.

   “Don’t die, you damn fool,” she said, winking.

   We both laughed, and she went on to explain:

   “No, I mean use all the tools you have, play all the instruments in your orchestra, switch to other gears, do whatever you have to do to keep going. When the world goes mute, stick in a hearing aid and turn up the music. When you can’t smell, look at the colors and shapes of things. When you can’t taste, pour on the sugar. When you can’t see, get a looking glass.  When you can’t play the notes --- sing ‘em!”

    “Sounds too simple,” I said.

   “It is. Don’t be a melon head. When your body goes, use your mind. When your mind goes, use your soul. When your soul goes, get on with the next life. Just keep living.”

   She added one more thing: “And, don’t waste time.  When you can’t walk --- RIDE!” and sped off into her next hundred years, facing the horses, narrowly missing my toes and leaving me on the horseback of humility.

   Annie has an embroidered sign above her bed. It reads: THE OLDER THE VIOLIN, THE SWEETER THE MUSIC.

   So, if there is a five-score Romeo out there looking for a tuneful, high-riding Juliet, have I got a date for you. Be dapper yet sublime, dress casual, call the Hilton, cue-up the mood music --- and get down off your horse, you damn fool.

* * * * *

Senior Wire News Service Syndicated Humor Columnist B. Elwin Sherman writes from Bethlehem, NH. He is an author, humorist, agony uncle columnist and poet. His latest book is “THE DIOECIANS – His and Her Love“. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved. Used here with permission.

"DEAR WITBONES" --- Ask A Humorist!

            DEAR WITBONES:

          I'm a senior living alone, and a polio survivor confined to my wheelchair. No complaints there, but I have two other nagging problems:

            1. I need to find a way to dog-hair proof the wheels. Eventually, it wraps around the axles so badly that it slows me down.

            2. Worse, because of my rolling hairball, when I'm out and about in public, dogs will follow me around, and sometimes come over and "mark their territory," if you know what I mean. Later, when I get home, my dog goes nuts over the smell, and he does the same thing! He's long been house-trained, but dogs will be dogs. What can I do?

          ---DOGGIE DON’TS IN DENVER

DEAR DOGGIE:

            Whenever I’m flummoxed by a submission like yours, I turn my fieldwork to the home of our collective lowest common denominators. Google.

            I asked: "How do I remove dog hair from wheelchair wheels?" and I found a chat room with the following answers:

            "I use drain cleaner and a hacksaw."

            "Try a cigarette lighter, CAREFULLY, and it works fine if you don't mind the smell of burning dog hair." The next comment took that a step further:

            “Have you tried a blow torch?"

            Lastly, my favorite: "A very high-powered vacuum should do it."

            I can't help you much with the doggy urine smell problem, though I did find (again, using my crackerjack research skills) that you could try an application of tea tree and bergamot oils. I don't know if it works or not, but someone on the internet said it did, and because they took the time to write-in about it on a public forum, I'm giving it both a thumbs and paws up. Maybe you should, too.

            Thanks for Witboning, and please keep me posted. 

            DEAR WITBONES:

            I am about to be a remarried woman heading into my late middle-aged years. When I tell my friends and colleagues that they’ll need to update their address books with my new last name, I am often asked: (and rather aggressively, too) "WHY will you change your name?! You don’t have to do that, you know!" It’s really beginning to bother me. I have a hard time explaining it, and I’m tired of trying. Can you help me with a response? 

--- NOM DE GROOM IN GARDEN GROVE

           

           DEAR NOM:

            You’re in luck, because I too am “heading into my late middle-aged years” and have recently remarried. For the record, my wife calls me a “senior junior.”

            Before we wed, I non-aggressively asked Diane Lillian Church if she was planning to change her name. She said yes, she wanted to be Mrs. Sherman. When I asked why, she said “because I want to be.” Reason enough. I sense that you’ve been giving your friends and colleagues a similar response, but it’s leaving you peeved and them unsatisfied.

            These days, you do have other options besides a complete birth name surrender and new designation. You could use your maiden name as your new middle name. Or, in nine states, and yours is one of them, your husband could change his last name to yours. Or, (my favorite) you could legally “blend” your names.

            If Diane and I had wanted, we could now be the Churchmans or the Shmurches, or we could’ve even anagrammed Church/Sherman and re-dubbed ourselves: Mr. & Mrs. Hunchcharmers. We actually discussed doing the latter as a way to create exactly the kind of thing you’re trying to avoid. I believe a little public spectacle on occasion is good for the soul.

            “Hunchcharmers?  Party of two?”

            Your call.

            Thanks for Witboning,and please keep me posted.

DEAR WITBONES:

            “My kids are all grown up but they won't leave home. I thought these would be my Golden Years but I'm still shelling out money for gas, buying milk by the barrel, and I can't find my phones or remote control. What can I do?” --- WITLESS IN WELLS RIVER

            DEAR WITLESS:

            If you’re in your “Golden Years,” then your kids must still be living at home in their fifties. I’m not surprised that you’ve finally lost your “remote control,” because that’s obviously the only kind of control you’ve had for some time.

            If your middle-aged offspring haven’t gotten the hint by now, they never will. At this late date, the only way left for you to change their lives is by radically changing yours. I’d suggest the following:

            Stop buying groceries and remove your car battery. Then, start a naked tuba & bagpipes band and have nightly rehearsals at your house.

            Fake a few heart attacks.

            Start talking to dead people at meals.

            When you write-in six months from now complaining that you never see your children anymore, we’ll deal with it.

            Thanks for WITBONING, and please keep me posted.

----

Senior Wire News Service Syndicated Humor Columnist B. Elwin Sherman writes from Bethlehem, NH. He is an author, humorist, agony uncle columnist and poet. His latest book is “THE DIOECIANS – His and Her Love“. You may submit your Witboner via his website at Witbones.com, or write to P.O. Box 300, Bethlehem, NH  03574. Copyright 2018. All rights reserved. Used here with permission.