Dick Summer Connection

I’m sitting on the couch tonight, watching my Lady Wonder Wench. She’s sleeping in my big, comfortable, black leather Poppa chair across the living room. I’m sitting in her usual spot on the couch…with her needlepoint stuff and her little portable dvd player. It’s funny how changing where you usually sit in a living room can actually make the whole house you’ve lived in for years, seem a little strange. So much depends on how you look at things.

And that’s what I told a Proud Podcast Participant by the name of Carol. Carol is upset because a guy she knows is only interested in…as she puts it… “the pleasures of the flesh, instead of the true feelings of the heart.” Lots of people see things that way. “The Forces For Good In The Community”…religious leaders, maiden aunts, self righteous protectors of family values…of all kind talk as if The Lord created everything from the waist up, and the devil made everything from the waist down.

But I’m sitting here looking at My Lady Wonder Wench…and I can’t buy that. She looks like a pretty young girl, curled up in a dream, waiting for some handsome prince to arrive. I keep hoping when she wakes up she won’t be too disappointed that I’m still here instead.  It’s been a long, tough day for her. She’s still wearing her jeans, her orange and blue New York Mets sweatshirt, and a pair of kind of beaten up old, scrunched down pink bunny slippers. She’s a pretty lady. But tonight…I don’t know… maybe it’s the way the light is shining behind her hair…or maybe it’s that soft smile…or…I don’t know…but just looking at her feels like the first time I got an unexpected taste of cherry vanilla ice cream. But that’s another story. This story is about the way you see things.

I have a totally different reaction to my Lady when she looks like she does tonight, as opposed to when she walks into a room wearing something she calls, “a bit more comfortable”…and she looks like Mrs. Slinky Sexy Mamma. When she does that, I tend to lose control of certain of my physical parts. Among other things, my eyebrows tend to twitch, and my ears start to wiggle. That is not supposed to happen any more to Louie-Louie Generation gentlemen like me unless there are prescription drugs involved. I mean… come on…we’ve been together since the Nixon administration. But she still sets my eyes on fire, my feet get cold, and my voice turns into a growl.

When she looks like she does tonight…little girl, tom boy soft… innocent…lovely…sometimes I have to actually touch her face to be sure that I’m really awake. Everything inside my head goes so absolutely quiet that I sometimes hear my dad’s voice from all those years ago… humming that German lullabye that he used to hum to me when I was a little kid trying to avoid going to sleep. I’m hearing the sound of his voice in my head, but it’s coming from someplace way down inside my chest. Right around my heart.

When I was doing seminars I used to tell people how little changes in what you do and what you see, can make you feel so different. I used to ask people to fold your hands like you ordinarily do…as if you were praying. If you’re right handed, you’ll probably have your left thumb on top. Now pay attention to how that feels. Then try folding them with the other thumb on top. Doesn’t that feel strange ?

Here’s another one. Try combing your hair with the part on the other side of your head from the way you usually comb it. You almost can’t get your hand to do that. And when you look in the mirror, you look like somebody else…and you almost feel like somebody else. It depends on how you look at things.

Little changes. Big differences.

Of course, there’s some comfort in doing the same things you do all the time, the same way you’ve always done them. But the problem is that you can get yourself into ruts doing that. There’s a difference between being in a rut and being in a groove. Grooves are good. Ruts ruin you.

Passion is what makes the difference. Passion is what makes a successful career, a successful terrorist, and a successful lover.

When you’re in a groove, you’re pumping your personal juice. But when you’re in a rut, the passion is gone so no matter how hard you pump, you come up dry.

There are some exceptions. Some ruts are ok. Like if you’re flying a little airplane, always land before you get out. And if you get into an argument with your Lady, you should always have the last word. And that last word should always be, “Yes Dear.” I know that’s two words, but don’t quibble. And some things you shouldn’t do never change. For example, secret handshakes are a little over the top. So is dressing like Ronald McDonald, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or any of your more prominent religious leaders. Some ruts…deep doing them. That’s called quit while you’re ahead.

Dick’s Details Quiz. ( All the answers are in the current podcast)

1-    Who doesn’t believe in Dog ?

2-    What worries me about mince pies ?

3-    Why do I have a pretty clear idea of what lots of you will be doing December 31 ?

Dick’s details. They take your mind off your mind.

Ruts will ruin you. There’s a story about that in the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd. It’s called Mr. Small Talk. The pilot in the story was feeling like a complete waste of skin until, just by smiling at him… the lady blew his whole life back on course. Just a smile…and she got him growling again. Every guy who’s worth his testosterone has to be able to growl every once in a while.

Mr.  Small Talk. is from the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd. If you like it you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the Bedtime Stories icon on the opening page of this website.

I know it’s all in how you see things. For me, I’ve always been amazed at how small changes can make such big differences. So I’d really like to make a small change in the last line of the romance novel you’re reading, and the list of sins the holy guys are always preaching about…and more important… in the hurt that’s going on in Carol’s life right now.

It’s a change that hit me one night…in fact the first night I was with my Lady Wonder Wench. For the first time in my life, I was surprised that I couldn’t push some kind of surprising animal growl back down into my chest. It was definitely an animal sound that was directly related to a great pleasure of the flesh. That never happened to me before…and I was afraid I’d scare her. But she didn’t run away. She just gave me the softest smile I have ever seen.

There was a lot of moonlight pouring through the window that night. And when she fell asleep next to me…I had to touch her face to prove to myself that she was real. And the quiet pleasure of that touch was every bit as powerful as the feeling that just a few hours before, had come growling out of my chest.

That’s when I began to respect the pleasures of the flesh as much as the treasures of the heart. It was a small change that made a big difference in the way I’ve led my life.

Because…hey…if your heart is made of flesh…which it is, the pleasure…has to be part of the treasure.

Do you agree ?  Or not ?? Let me know. (Dick@DickSummer.com) It’s really important to me. 

I’m sitting here in my big, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I’m not looking forward to swapping it for  sitting in my car, and taking a 300 mile long drive with lots of worrying at the end of it. We’re leaving as soon as my Lady Wonder Wench is ready to go. One of our sons got hurt, and we’re going to the hospital to see him.

I like to kid you a lot…because I liked BEING a kid, and I LIKE the kid inside me who just won’t seem to grow up. But if you’re going to ride along this road with me by reading this blog, and  listening to the podcasts that go with them, it’s only fair to also tell you when we hit the pot holes. And we’ve just hit a beauty.

Big Louie, his own bad self…the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation has a quote that fits here. Louie says, “Grab the good stuff before your goodies grabber wears out.” My goodies grabber is still working fine, and in fact I think it just latched on to something interesting from this nasty situation.

Last year, when my Lady had her accident, and I almost lost her, I remember getting furious at God, because she’s never done any thing on purpose to hurt anybody…so who is this God and why should He let this happen to her if He’s all good and all powerful.

Well, one of the amazing lessons that came out of those questions, was that God never said He was all good and all powerful. In fact, God and Popeye the Sailor Man define themselves exactly the same way. And now…so do I.

In the bible, God is quoted as saying, “I Am Who Am.” And Popeye says, “I yam what I yam.” And I figure that’s pretty good company, so I have a right to say the same thing about myself. Which means I am who I am too. Just like God and Popeye. And here’s the kicker: None of us really have a choice. Not even God.

But that doesn’t get us off the hook for trying our best. If we’re going to think we have things in common with God and Popeye, we’ve got to remember that Popeye works out hard, and eats his spinach every day, and takes care of Olive Oil the best he can.  I have no Idea what Got has been doing since those first seven days. But the holy guys tell me He spends His time taking care of His people. So I try to do the same thing. I do my job the best I can, and I take care of my people too… especially my Lady Wonder Wench…and our kids.

Some days my results are better than others. But then, Popeye didn’t win all his fights. And remember, God created Hitler. So W.Wench and I are just like any parents… sometimes we wish we had the opportunity for a “do-over” with our son.

My buddy Al talks about “do overs” in his podcast called,  www.BananasCrackersandNuts.com Guys will probably remember “do overs” very well. When we did something really stupid in a game, we’d call for a “do over.” Usually, after a bit of a squabble, the other guys would say, “ok…go ahead.” And we’d get another chance.

One huge advantage that God has over Popeye and me, is that God gets as many do-overs as He wants. We…eventually…run out of ours.

Dick’s Details Quiz …all answers are in the current podcast.

1- What’s the difference between a “Dink” and a “Dork.”

2- What’ the “Pizza Penalty?”

3- Why does the rest of the world think Americans are a bunch of horney guys ?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

There’s a story about a guy who wishes he had one more do-over in his life in the current podcast. It’s from the Bedtime Stories Personal Audio Cd. It’s called the Prince of Fantasy. It’s about one of those days when it’s pretty clear that the screw up fairy has visited again…big time…and you’re fresh out of do-overs. If you like it, you can just keep the podcast, or if you want a fresh copy, just go to the home page and download it from the Bedtime Stories icon.

I like my buddy Al’s idea about life’s do-overs. Al’s an old friend. And like lots of old friends who have heavy duty opinions about everything, we’ve had some pretty loud…discussions… lately …about some things. Politics for example. But I think if old friends can stick it out long enough to get really old together they’ll probably get senile, and then they have the chance to become new friends again.

I think comfort is the key to friendship. Somebody is a friend when  you’ve found you can trust each other enough to take comfort in each other’s company…even when the tires are popping in the potholes. That usually takes years. But not always. My buddy Bob is an example of an old friend I’ve only known for a short time. Lots of good, solid comfort there. It’s not the time…it’s the comfort level that makes an old and trusted friend.

I need old friends and new friends….both…just like we need both guys like the optimist who made the first airplane, and guys like the pessimist who made the first parachute. We need them both.

Whether you’re an old friend who used to listen to me on the radio, or a new friend from reading this blog, and/or listening to the podcast, I want to thank you for traveling my road with me…and putting up with the potholes. I’ll let you know how this works out on the blog as soon as we know anything more…because I know from your e-mails that some of you really care.

Friends can help to bail a guy out… when he hits such a pothole…that he’s afraid he may have completely broken his goodies grabber. 

And only God gets an un-limited number of do-overs on this road. I hope He doesn’t decide Wonder Wench and I have used up our share this time.

It’s time to go.

I spend too much time sitting. I’m sitting in my comfortable, big, black leather poppa chair in my living room right now, after sitting in front of my computer most of the day. I’m pretty sure that my computer was designed by an extremist Muslim terrorist who was passed over by the Taliban for a suicide mission because he was considered too nasty, and he’s taking that deep rooted hatred over his rejection out on me. I turn it on, and it immediately turns itself off, leaving an urgent note about protecting my downloads. And if you look closely you’ll see a quick image of a one finger salute as the screen goes dark. So then I have to turn it on again, and it asks for my user name and password, which of course doesn’t match the name and password on file, which absolutely has to be case sensitive. So it turns off again. You get the idea.

So since it takes lots of turning on and turning off to get anything that makes sense on the screen, I spend a lot of time looking at the wall behind the screen, on which I have a big map of the United States. And I have noticed that there are lots of names on the map that tickle my maturity challenged sense of humor. You ladies who are involved with gentlemen of the Louie-Louie Generation will recognize the results of a maturity challenged sense of humor right away.

For example, there is a Booger in Texas.  You wonder why people would pick Booger for a name. There’s got to be a reason. How about Mississippi. Sounds like a place where married ladies go to drink. Mrs.-sippi. Arkansas may have been named after the tool that Noah used to cut wood for his boat. Arkan-saw. Then there’s Kentucky. That’s probably where Barbie dolls go when they want to get tucked in for the night. Ken-tucky. Tennes-see is where you can watch people in shorts hit a ball over the net.  And who would want to live in a place where there are no girls…like Boise Idaho. Of course if I were a rap singer, I wouldn’t really want to admit that I-da-ho. Violinists must hate Broken Bow, Alabama. And people must be chilly this time of year in Barre, Vermont. Of course there’s Kansas City Kansas, and Kansas City Missouri. Huh ? Or how about one town named Winston-Salem. That’s like “This land is your land, this land is my land.” Sounds like there will be lawyers involved pretty soon. 

Tuscaloosa Alabama doesn’t sound like a good place for your pet elephant.  And is Kalamazoo where they put the wild Kalas on display? Did you know that there’s a Virginia in Minnesota? I suppose Minne-sota must be where they serve very small soft drinks. And if I-owa, she’s out of luck because I’m broke. There’s a place on  Long Island where I used to live where the veterinarians specialize in caring for pigs with holes in them. It’s called Patchogue. There’ a town just down route 112 from there that’s called Happauge. You don’t want to build a fence there.

There’s a town in California that was probably named by 60s hippies. It’s called Weed…man. And Burr-bank is where they keep the hard, cold cash. But please…if you’re in polite company, and there are sensitive ladies around… you’ve got to be very careful how you say the name of that town in Florida…Titusville. And the names of two towns in Pennsylvania absolutely cannot be said with a straight face are Blue Balls and Intercourse.

However, if you want to really cut loose on a Saturday night, you want to be in Mississippi. There’s a place there called Yazoo  City. 

 Dick’s Details Quiz…all answers are in the current podcast.

1-    What have 20% of American men done badly with their buddies in their garages.

2-    What delightful benefit have 14% of Americans gained from swimming?

3-    How is attendence going at self help meetings ? 

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

I suppose I should excuse myself for the outburst of my Louie-Louie Generation gentleman’s goofy humor about the names of places in America, but I’m not going to do it. That kind of thing just happens to guys when we’ve been around for a long time. A very long time. See, when a guy is young, he’s all wrapped up in looking good. That gives him something to think about. It’s like the guys in those bowflex commercials. They’re young. They know they’re sexy because they’re ripped, tight and slim.

Listen, if you’re a fellow member of the Louie-Louie Generation, remember the words of our Chief Mustard Cutter, Big Louie, his own bad self. He says, “Don’t be jealous of those bowflex people. As soon as the rubber bands on that thing break, they’ll become flabby and pasty again, and they’ll look just like us except with more hair.”

That’s what you call taking the long range view. There’s a story about that in the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd. It’s called For The Long Run. It’s in the current podcast. I’ve got to tell you…I’ve found that it takes a lady a while to get those…lady curves…just right. I know that because that’s what happened with my lady Wonder Wench…who has now developed the most dangerous curves known to mankind. And I’ve got to tell you…it’s worth the wait.

If you like For The Long Run, you can just keep the podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, download it from the icon on the home page.

It gets harder to keep yourself in shape when you’ve achieved senior Louie-Louie Generation hood. My doctor put me on an exercise schedule. He gave me the usual warning. He said, “Call me if when you’re exercising, you notice you’re lapsing into a lengthy coma or anything.”

I have a special aerobic exercise that I kind of like. I developed it myself. I just thought about the word aerobic, and it came to me. Aero has to do with the air. And a bic is a pen. So at least three days a week, I spend at least a half hour tossing a pen through the air into a wastebasket. N.B. If you decide to take up aerobics yourself, please remember to drink a lot of water. That’s the most important thing a human can do. Big Louie claims humans were actually invented by water as a means of moving from one place to another. 

But as you’re moving around, please stay away from Miami. Because it’s My Ami. Go get your own Ami.

I’m sitting here in my big, comfortable, black leather pappa chair in my living room, with a left arm full of flu. I haven’t been feeling great, so the doctor sent me for a blood test first. When they were sure they got all the blood out of my arm, they injected a gallon or so of the flu into my arm…to keep me from getting the flu. Have you noticed that whenever you’re not feeling good, they send you for a blood test? Maybe they figure all the germs and stuff are in your blood. So they take all the blood out of you, to make you well. Then they figure if they put the flu shot in your arm, when you don’t have any blood in there the flu can’t get into your blood…because there isn’t any…so the flu goo they put in your empty arm won’t make you sick.

The blood tests aren’t really so bad. At least they’re private. They  take you into a little room that’s painted red to hide the mistakes, then they stick a needle about the size of the Holland Tunnel into a vein and start the pump. It’s not comfortable but it’s private. Not like the urine test, which requires that you come out of the men’s room with that little cup in your hand, and walk past three nuns, a hooters girl, the guy who keeps complaining about the three bullet holes in his leg, a five year old who wants to know what you have in the little cup, a kid in a football uniform with something that looks suspiciously like a bone sticking up out of the left arm of his jersey, and your main client’s human resources vice president.

There’s only one reason we do this. It’s because we want to be healthy so we can look young until we die, which is not easy because we don’t want to die young.

It makes you wonder whether the guy in the sky who’s running all this is paying any attention. I don’t mean any disrespect for God, but is this the way you’d have made the world if it were up to you? In order to live, everything has to eat something else that’s living…just minding it’s own business, just living, and looking for something else to eat…something that’s walking around living, trying to find something else that’s even more confused about life… to eat.

Our scientists  in white lab coats say we’re the top of the food chain. We humans are the guys nobody else gets to eat. I guess they obviously don’t know anything about mosquitoes. And what’s with this flu bug ? What’s he eat ?

I think we’ve ticked God off. Maybe it’s because we don’t even pay enough attention to Him to give him a name. “God” is not a name. It’s a job description. In the old days, people paid enough attention to the guy in the sky to give him…or her… names. You had Zeus, and Thor, and Athena. Maybe we should start a drive to find an appropriate name for our God. Dick wouldn’t be a bad start… but it lacks a certain amount of magesty. How about, “The Bopper.” Naah. Too hip. There are times…like when my Lady Wonder Wench got hurt, when I’ve thought “The Trickster” would be appropriate. But I guess that’s not respectful enough.

Some people seem to think of Him as kind of a puppeteer…just pulling on our strings. For me, He’s more like a Ventriloquist… because sometimes I can’t help myself…I’ve just got to talk back. Maybe that’s why he sent me mosquitoes…and the flu.

Dick’s Details Quiz. All answers are in the current podcast.

1-    In what Bowl do the folks in Green Bay Wisconsin play after the football season ?

2-    How do an average of two Americans a year go out with a bang ?

3-    What’s the only letter in the alphabet with a name that’s two syllables ?

 Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

I hope you don’t get the wrong idea…I have no intention of being disrespectful to God, or the people who know and love Him. The idea of an Almighty Being is just too big for me to understand. Big Louie, his own bad self, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation has been trying to explain it to me. “He says, God is more powerful than mom and dad put together.” I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty heavy duty idea to me.

I just spend my life taking care of the people I love, and trying to figure out what I really want to do when I grow up, before I get too old to do it. I’ve had some really great jobs in my life, and I’ve successfully avoided some really bad ones. Like being president of the United States…which has a lot in common with being a hockey goalie. You make a mistake, and a big red light starts flashing, a horn blasts your eardrums inside out, and a billion people holler boo.

But on the other hand, I do believe that if you’re the kind of guy who likes to keep score…you should bust a gut to win. And if you don’t…well…Big Louie always says, failure isn’t permanent, and neither is success. So I figure I want to live my life to the full extent of the law. And there’s no law against being annoying. Maybe that’s why I decided to become a disc jockey all those years ago.

There’s a story in the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd, that’s kind of a souvenir of those days. Actually those nights. A friend of mine recorded it from my show in New York one night …when my Lady Wonder Wench was in Massachusetts all those years ago. It’s called, I Miss You. That was a long time ago. And it will never happen again. If you like it, you can just keep the podcast, Or if you want a fresh copy, just go back to the home page and download it from the Bedtime Stories icon.

It’s kind of weird thinking about the fact that I have an arm full of the flu where once I had some blood. Of course lots of people probably had a needle in the arm and shot of flu goo today. So let me leave you with one comforting thought. Every time lots of us get a flu shot, there’s a voodoo doll somewhere out there having a really bad day.

I’m proudly wearing my Save The Dinosaurs tee shirt today. Those were the days my friend…we thought they’d never end. It used to be that when you wanted to feed your pet saber tooth tiger, you’d just put a barrel of warm milk out there by the cave door, holler here kitty, kitty, kitty, and jump back pretty fast…because those guys didn’t much care who or what they saber toothed.

One guy over in a cave in Scotland…I think his name was Og MacMurdo…big guy…8 feet tall…450 pounds…you may have read about him on some of the cave walls…they say he invented basketball…so no doubt he had some pretty good moves. But one day he got a little careless while he was feeding one of those big dinosaurs…nasty beast that dino was…but slow. Mac’s big nasty guy was the forefather of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Evolution hadn’t really picked up much speed yet back then…and neither had the dinosaurs. So instead of calling him a ty-Ran-a saurus, Mac called him a Ty-WALK-a saurus Rex. Rex didn’t really like that, so this one day when Mac got a little careless…a little slow…he…didn’t jump back as fast as he should have when he fed the beast. And that’s when that old dinosaur made Og MacMurdo the first Big Mac in recorded history.

I’m sorry.

You came here to learn things didn’t you. Scientific things.  For example you always wanted to know what you call drinking low calorie beer 365 days a year because it’s less filling… right?  You call that a light year. What do you call the time between slipping on a peel and smacking the pavement… one ba-nana-second. Good. Big Louie, his own bad self, the chief mustard cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation knows that his people want to know about the thousands of aches and pains that we seem to attract as we…mature. Louie says a thousand

aches is called one kilo-hurtz.

As you can probably tell by all this I have successfully resisted maturity. I simply refuse to mature. I will ferment instead. My Lady Wonder Wench says I should stop this now…so I will.

Dick’s Details Quiz – all answers are in the current podcast.

1-    When is it a good idea to put a live rat in your medicine chest ?

2-    If they did a re-make of the Wizard of Oz, in what state would they most likely put the star’s trailers ?

3-    What’s the first thing to do when you make a cup of coffee ?

Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.

There really were some good things about the good old days… and nights. I don’t think they were really simpler. We were just younger…so we figured we knew everything, so we could deal with whatever happened. I don’t really remember the dinosaurs, but I remember when kids had paper routes. That was back in the days when we still had newspapers. And I remember when major league baseball players took it one game at a time for the same team for their whole careers. And I remember hula hoops, and record hops, and American Bandstand, and no talking in school, and learning that the best way to protect yourself from a gazillion ton hydrogen bomb blast was to duck under your desk.

And I remember hiding my Emerson portable radio under my pillow to listen to Art Ford, the all night disk jockey on WNEW in New York. He always sounded like he was talking just to me… in the middle of the night. So did the great William B. Williams. They were splendid teachers, because they were such brilliant examples of how the sound of a human voice on the air can be such a comfort…such a companion…even if you’re all by yourself.

There was some information…but mostly…it was just that human sound…that arm around the shoulder feeling that you can get, when somebody is talking to you, and it’s obvious that they care about you.

That’s gone from radio now. And I’m going to bring it back. And you can help. And I’ll tell you how in a few minutes…so please don’t go away.

But let me tell you a true story about how important the sound of a caring voice can be on the radio. There was a time in our lives, when my Lady Wonder Wench and I lived hundreds of miles, apart. For lots of reasons, the only contact we could have was that she could hear me on the air. So I started doing the lovin touch stories on my show. She knew they were for and about her. She had a favorite. She said it helped fill her nights. It’s in the current podcast. It’s called…Walls.

Right up till I wrote that story, I think I knew a lot more about other people than I knew about myself. Must I build walls ? I always wanted to build bridges instead…but writing the story made it pretty clear to me that…I had to come to grips with the fact that the first step in getting what you really want is figuring out what that is. Walls. is from the personal audio cd called lovin touch. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast, or if you want a fresh copy, go back to the home page, and download it from the lovin touch logo.

I used to call the people who listened to me on the air…”The Huddle.” As in a football game when the quarterback gets his guys around him, and they figure a plan to protect each other while they make it to the goal. Back then, we needed to protect each other so we could make it through the night. And a simple human voice can help you feel protected…and help keep you focused on getting where you want to go. That’s the idea behind the personal audio cds. They’re there when you want them.

And it’s also the idea for a streaming radio station that I’m going to put on the internet in a few months. It’ll probably be called “Keeping you company radio.” And that’s exactly what it will do. It’ll just be people talking to you. No politics. No screaming. Maybe a little humor. Mostly…just real people telling you about their lives. And maybe suggesting some ideas that you might want to try in your life.

Here’s how you can help. Some of you have fascinating lives, and fascinating stories to tell about them. If you’d like to tell them on the Keeping you Company radio station, send them to me. Preferably, I’d like you to record them and send them via mp3s. You don’t have to be famous, or race airplanes, or be a firefighter to have an interesting life. If you’re a mom…what’s that really like…not the kind of thing you see on tv…what’s it really like. If you own a grocery store…I’ll bet you slip a couple of extra slices of cheese into a package for somebody you know is having a hard time…tell me about it. There are a couple of pilots who are going to tell their stories….and a guy who chases tornadoes. So…I really want to hear from you. The email address is dick@dicksummer.com

I don’t really remember the dinosaurs…I just like wearing this shirt. But I have been around for a while. And as I looked in the mirror shaving this morning I couldn’t help thinking about something Big Louie always says: “When you’re a kid, you make funny faces in the mirror. When you…mature…the mirror makes funny faces at you.”