Dick Summer Connection

The job has been driving me nuts. So have the kids and grandkids. Nothing but bad news on tv. And my feet hurt. It’s been that kind of week. I was thinking…I need a change of scene…fast. It was definitely time to tell Scotty to beam me up. Come on Scotty, zap me. Get me out of here. That’s what I was thinking. And all of a sudden…Zap…I saw a quick window of opportunity. And I opened it, and I stuck my left arm out.

Here’s what happened. I was grousing around my office…working on a new Binder and Binder commercial that wasn’t working. It was a gorgeous day in the neighborhood, and I got this terrible urge to play hooky from work…right in the middle of the day. And I did it. I got in the car and started off for the airport. I haven’t been flying my little airplane very much lately, I miss that, and it was a day full of sunshine and blue skies. So I hit the highway. And without thinking, I did something I haven’t done in years. Only Louie-Louie Generation folks will understand this. I was zooming down the highway, and I popped all four windows, slid the sun roof back, turned up the bluesy Tom Jones CD to stun, and I stuck my left elbow out the window…and it must have been exactly the window of opportunity that I was looking for, because all of a sudden, my whole world went ZAP.

The Pimple People would never understand. They’ve always had air conditioning in their cars. They have no idea of what it’s like to stick your left arm out the window, and feel the wind slide up your sleeve and mess up your hair, while you let the sunlight, and the music, and the laughs tear away a lot of years. They haven’t been around for a lot of years. For a few magical minutes, I wasn’t worried about my job, or the kids, or the bad news on tv, or even my aching feet. When I stuck my arm out that window, for a few magic minutes, I was a happy, sun-tanned, Coney Island lifeguard hunk again…for just a little while. 

I got to the airport…pulled my little airplane out of the hanger…strapped her on…fired her up, bounced down the runway, zoomed up into a lot of blue, took a few turns around the airport, wiggled my wings at a couple of girls riding horses, and came in for one of those landings when you’re not quite sure when the wheels actually touched down. Pretty perfect.

Good window of opportunity zaps like that usually happen in threes, and this one did too. Bill, our mail guy, arrived a few minutes after I got home. Along with the usual catalogs and bills, he had a business envelope, and a box from an address I didn’t recognize. The box was from Proud Podcast Participant “California Dennis,” the transplanted New Yorker. It seems I was talking about good kid things last week, and Dennis sent me a Duncan yo-yo. Zap…another window opened. I stuck my arm through that window too, and I tied the string around my third finger (that’s called your signal finger in Brooklyn) and I flipped my wrist…and the yo-yo went down and came up just like always. Thank you Dennis. I got so excited that I made the mistake of rushing upstairs to show my Lady Wonder Wench how I could make the yo-yo sleep. I flipped my wrist again, and pulled the string, just like I used to… but it just went to sleep and stayed there instead of climbing up again…while she was watching. The performance anxiety got to me I guess. But she didn’t slam the happy window closed. She just rolled her eyes, put her hands on her hips, and gave me that, “He’ll never grow up, but I love him anyway” Louie-Louie Lady smile. You know…like wives do…if you’re lucky.

The third window of opportunity zap was in the envelope. My lower reptilian brain went on maximum red overdrive when I opened it. It was our tickets to each of the last few New York Mets Spring Training games in Port St. Luice, Florida. I love the Mets. I don’t care that they play awful baseball. I love baseball. And I love Port St. Lucie, Florida. It’s God’s waiting room. I’m the youngest guy there every year when we go there for Spring Training. Downtown Port St. Lucie looks like Haloween every day. If you can cross the street without oxygen, during only one red light, everybody starts cheering. You can hear them…“All the Way, All the Way.” Then they bang their walkers on the pavement for you.

Dick’s Details Quiz. All details in the current podcast.

1-   What makes most guys feel guilty ?

2-   What’s the matter with the fancy water bottle labels ?

3-   What do fruit flies like ?

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

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, with a slightly sun-tanned left arm, a sleeping yo-yo, and tickets for my Lady Wonder Wench and I to see a bunch of millionaires playing a kid’s game that I have loved for a long time. Life is good. Three quick window of opportunity zaps in a row. Something I’ve found out about quick zap windows of opportunity is that you’ve got to be ready to grab them pretty fast, because they sometimes don’t last very long. There’s a story about that in the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd. It’s called, “Got A Minute.”

When I wrote “Got A Minute,” I couldn’t promise my Lady Wonder Wench anything. Certainly I couldn’t promise her …forever. We both knew, being together might last only that one moment. And the only thing I had to give her was…being with me…for that one moment. That’s really all I had. She knew it. I could see it in her eyes. That was ok…a long time ago. And it was ok…again this morning. And with a little luck, it’ll still be ok tomorrow. “Got A Minute” is from the Bedtime Stories personal audio CD. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the Bedtime Stories icon on the home page.

Sometimes the good stuff happens so fast…and it almost always comes when you least expect it. It sneaks up on you. The trick is you’ve got to roll down that window of opportunity as soon as you feel the zap. If you hesitate, you can get your fingers caught when the window goes up and closes again. Then all you’ve got left in your week is work that’s not working, kids and grandkids that are worrying the wheels off you, bad news on TV, and feet that hurt.

No podcast and no blog for the next couple of weeks. I am taking My Lady Wonder Wench and my ever so slightly tanned left elbow, and my trusty Tom Jones blues album for a quick trip to Florida. I’m not taking my computer. Because, no offence…but I feel a great big zap coming on. 

He’s right, of course (don’t tell him I said so!), but life really is pretty basic. 

 Just knowing I can come home to him. 

 Hearing our daughter Kristin laugh when she tells me about her welding class.

 Making it through another of Jane’s YMCA classes.

Talking with Tall Beth and Brooklyn Nancy about yarn colors and material.

And thumbing my nose at Big Louie when he thinks I can’t do something because I got hurt awhile ago.

 As for “Capt. Chuck” – you Louie-Louie Lasses know how rare it is to meet a guy who actually talks to … you?  We had dinner with the big-stripes-on-his-sleeve guy and it was such fun being out with two pilots who were concerned for me.  Basic, I know, but loverly anyway.Basic is more than that, of course, but basic is as basic does.  And I have yet to meet a less than Louie-Louie Lad who either knows how or cares to know how to be that honest.  That, of course, is exactly what basic is.  Honesty.

 Like (can I say it without choking?) Big Louie.  And my Lad.  Notice, ladies, I said MY Lad.

I’m sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room…I was just having some laughs with my Lady Wonder Wench, and I was thinking this is the best life has ever been for me. Just laughing with my Lady. Pretty basic isn’t it. Among other things, we were discussing the possible mating rituals of Big Bird, and Oscar the grouch. And the ethics involved if you are at the ten items or less, supermarket fast checkout lane. For example, if you have 6 apples, that’s one item if they’re in a bag. And 6 bananas without a bag, is also one item, because they’re all attached to each other.  But suppose you have two grapefruit, and there’s no bag big enough for both of them. I maintain that since they’re both grapefruit, that’s one item. She claims reasoning like that is due to the fact that I’m from Brooklyn, and therefore I am inclined to cheat. And I remind her that if we get in the back of the slow lines, we could be there so long, we’d be in danger of being enveloped by a glasier. And I tell her cheating is allowed when it’s self preservation. Life is good. Mostly, because she’s in it. Very basic. I like basics better than fancys.

I’m not so old that I don’t buy green bananas any more. And they don’t make me pay in advance at the doctor’s office. But I am a Louie-Louie Generation guy. That means bad knees, a rash of wrinkles, and a bald spot that’s getting noticeable on the back of my head. She calls it the solar panel for my love machine. Basic stuff for a Louie-Louie Generation guy.

She’s a Louie-Louie Generation lady. Her neck and back still hurt from her accident, she thinks her butt is too big…it’s just right by the way…and when she looked in the mirror this morning, I saw a little tear. She’s having trouble seeing how beautiful she is. So I spent a while trying to explain what I see when I look at her. I guess that’s basic stuff too.

Basic stuff sometimes makes Louie-Louie Lads and ladies do surprising things. Take the case of proud podcast participant, Capt. Chuck. Capt. Chuck used to listen to me as he was driving home from work at night while I was on WNBC in New York. And when he found www dot dick summer dot com on the website, he started listening to the podcasts…and then he decided to drop me an e-mail to say hello. We started a very pleasant conversation, back and forth. As I’ve told you, I fly a little four seat Piper airplane. Very basic. Capt. Chuck flies a 300 passenger Airbus jet for a major airline. Very fancy. He’s an airline senior four striper. I’m a weekend private pilot. But basically, pilots just like to talk to each other about flying.

So I tell him about my adventures taking my Lady Wonder Wench flying to little airports around here that have diners for lunch. I tell him about flying up to New England or down to Virginia to see family. And I’m planning on a longer trip to North Carolina soon to see my brother and sister in law who just moved there from Brooklyn. Pretty basic. Capt Chuck, on the other hand, just sent me an email from Honolulu. He was in his 28th floor hotel room, overlooking the Pacific ocean. He said, “I’ve got to turn in early tonight. I have early morning flight to Paris tomorrow.”

But basic sometimes surprises fancy. There’s a Piper Cub in the hanger next to my plane. The Cub is as basic an airplane as you’ll ever see. It doesn’t even have an electrical system, so there’s no starter. You have to spin the prop by hand to start the engine. I took a picture of my airplane to send to Capt. Chuck, and he saw the Cub behind my plane. He looked up the identification numbers on the tail, called the owner, and offered to buy the plane. It turns out that Capt. Chuck, sitting in the left front seat of a 300 passenger jet, going 600 miles an hour, 34,000 feet over the Pacific ocean, with his hands on a zillion pounds of thrust, and enough electronics to bring down the power grid of a small town, two relief pilots getting sore arms from saluting him, and a small squadron of flight attendants…can’t wait to pull that prop, and jump into the back seat of a canvas Cub cabin that’s about the size of a refrigerator, and trundle down a runway behind an 85 horsepower piston engine that was new when Truman was president, so he can drift up to around 2,000 feet…open a window, look around, and break out into your very basic grin… because…that’s the basic reasons pilots…even Capt. pilots, learned to fly.

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

1- What did Henry Ford claim he was going to do with his marijuana ?

2- How come birds alway bullseye your newly waxed car ?

3- What did early Egyptian girls think of their guy’s birth control device ?

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

Big Louie, his own bad self, the chief mustard cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation always says, “The biggest feelings hide in the smallest words. Love. Birth. Hate. War. Safe. Tears. Basic stuff. I almost lost my Lady Wonder Wench once…a long time ago. My fault. I was on the air one night, and I knew she was listening. And the story that’s in the current podcast, just…came out.

We couldn’t afford much back then. It was a very basic life. We’d buy an ice cream cup, and ask for two of those little flat wooden spoons so we could go sit on the grass and share it. We got strange looks, and that just made us laugh. She has such a lovely laugh. Well… look where it’s been. That story is called, I Miss You. It’s now in the Bedtime Stories personal audio CD. If you like it, you can just download it from the Bedtime Stories icon on the home page.

I’m not knocking fancy. Fancy’s fine. But I just think Basic’s better. Which would you guys like better…getting dressed up like a penguin for a formal dinner party, or sitting in the sand, dressed in almost nothing, listening to someone lovely laughing, mixed in with the crackle of a beach bonfire, and the sound of some quiet waves? How about listening to “She Loves Ya, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” on a scratchy old 45rpm record that you just found, packed away with a player that has that big spindle in the middle. How about picking up a yo-yo, and finding out that you can still make it sleep.

And you Louie-Louie ladies…what’s better…really…bringing home a new pair of very expensive shoes, or finding baby shoes and old love letters in the bottom of a trunk in the attic. How about just having someone to come home to. That’s going to hit some of you who don’t have someone right now…pretty hard…but that’s the way it is with basics.

Love. Hate. Laughs. Tears. War. Birth. Basics. There was nothing fancy about sitting there in my poppa chair, laughing about the possible sex lives of Big Bird and Oscar the grouch…and the ethics of counting two grapefruits as one item at the fast check out line. It was pretty simple. It was just that I was laughing with HER…the girl I almost lost all those years ago…that makes this the best life has ever been for me.

The Incredible Shrinking Man?  Nah … Of course he can shrink if he wants to. 

But … he looks and feels as tall as he ever did.  I still look up at him.  And there always seems just as much of him to hold as ever.

I know, I know, I have to be careful what we eat ‘cause things have a habit of settling in the wrong places.  But that isn’t what I mean when I say “just as much of him” … there is absolutely no credence to the much believed fact that older guys get – well, rounder.  He sure hasn’t.   Well … not much anyway.

And since we are discussing shrinking, how come my boobs haven’t?

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I am shrinking. I can’t feel it, but I now know for sure that I am shrinking ! Isn’t that what the Wicked Witch of the West said in The Wizard of Oz? I am shrinking. Because my age index is pretty high, but my maturity level hasn’t kept up with it, I often wonder if, “I’m shrinking” is what psychologists say when the phone rings while they’re working. “I can’t talk to you now, I’m shrinking.” Can you imagine listening to a shrink dealing with a manic depressive patient. “Cheer up. Calm down. Cheer up. Calm down.” That would wear anybody down. Maybe that’s why they call Psychiatrists shrinks. They’re all worn down.

I guess a patient who gives a shrink a hard time, might be called shrink resistant. I have some shirts that claim to be shrink resistant. And that always confuses me. If a shirt is shrink resistant, does that mean that it’s not shrink proof, but it really tries hard not to shrink. Obviously, it’s bad enough to have a shirt that can’t help shrinking…but now I have to contend with the fact that I am shrinking…and I can’t help it. And I don’t want to. The irony here is that I was a rather successful competitive swimmer…and I was an ocean lifeguard…I spent a lot of time in the water…and I never had any problems with shrinking before this. And speaking of irony, maybe we should consider the question of whether irony is the opposite of wrinkly. Because besides shrinking, I seem to be getting wrinkly too.

I had an appointment with Dr. Boyd today. Just regular check up. And before I saw Dr. Boyd, his new nurse had me take off my shoes, and stand on the scale. She wanted to check both my weight and my size. So I stood up as tall and straight as I could…just like my mom used to tell me to do. “Stand up straight, Dickie. Respect yourself.” she used to say. But it turned out that no matter how straight I stood, there are two inches less of me than there was back when I was a hunk. Wasn’t that just yesterday? It’s especially embarrassing for a guy, when a woman as pretty as that nurse measures you, and tells you you’re two inches shorter than you’ve been claiming to be for years.

I like Dr. Boyd, even though he keeps insisting I should have a colonoscopy. I always tell him I’m not sitting still for that. Then he always gives a chuckle that sounds a little like Clint Eastwood choking on a potato chip, and then he always gives me that lecture about polyps and other very disgusting things. But he’s a good guy, and when he gets finished making me sick telling me about the stuff they find when they poke around inside your bowels, we always tell each other a couple of jokes. He tells me doctor jokes, and I tell him pilot jokes. He said a patient came in the other day with a cucumber stuck in his right ear, a carrot stuck in his left hear, and a banana up his nose. I bit. I said, “What did you tell him?” He said I told him he wasn’t eating right. Then I told him one I heard from a flight instructor, who said, “Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing. If you can use the plane again, it’s a great landing.” We both had a good laugh. Then he said, “Go stand up against the wall.” And he made a pencil mark on the wall at the top of my head. He said, “Go get a colonoscopy, or next time you come in, I’ll show you how much you’ve shrunk since this time.” I hate shrinking.

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

1- What is it that some guys will never wake up ?

2- What do cats and humans both do to their tails ?

3- What about Bonobo osculation ?

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

I am shrinking. Why ? Why are we designed like this. Look at us. Why did God put something as drippy and disgusting as your nose over your mouth ? Why didn’t He put our ears under our arms. That would keep them warm in the winter, and you’d get some exercise, because every time somebody said something, you’d have to lift your elbow and say, “Huh?” Why does hair stop growing on guys heads and start growing in silly places like their ears? And while I’m complaining how God set things up on for us, how come everything on the planet has to eat the other stuff on the planet to survive. That leads to stuff like life is sacred…but only human life. Look at that cute little lamb. Pow. Lamb chops anyone ? Hey…we have to eat.

How come having sex isn’t illegal, but showing pictures of it is. No wonder we are called homo sapiens. That kind of thinking is not something you’d expect from homo smartiens. We talk to each other as if we’re all sapiens. Drive safely. Be careful. Have a nice day. Have safe sex. Stupid. Doesn’t mean anything. Back in Brooklyn when I was a teenager, safe sex meant seeing to it that your car had a padded dashboard, or her parents wouldn’t be home till midnight.  If we were homo smartiens, we’d admit that there is no such thing as safe sex. Nothing that powerful is safe. Part of its power comes from the fact that it’s not safe. It’s exciting. And dangerous. It’s like love. Fall in love, and you’re risking getting hurt big time…or worse yet…hurting the last person you want to hurt. Love’s not safe either. Nothing that powerful is safe.

So how come we love love? And other things that aren’t safe? How come some of us love riding roller coasters, or flying a small airplane, or falling in love with someone we aren’t supposed to love? There’s a story about that in the Bedtime Stories personal audio cd. It’s called, “You Shine.”I know it’s kind of hard to keep shining when things are kicking you in the head. Like when some pretty girl measures you and tells you you’re 2 inches shorter than you’ve been telling people…or you lose your job…or you lose your love…it’s hard to remember that you shine. And it’s dangerous to shine. It makes it easier for the bad guys to find you. And it makes the puffed up powers for good in the community a little un-easy. Shining is powerful stuff. Like sex. It’s not safe. Nothing that powerful is safe. That’s why way too many people I know, turn off their shine and spend their lives hiding in the shadows.

“You Shine” is from the Bedtime Stories personal audio Cd. If you like it you can just keep this podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the Bedtime Stories icon on the home page.

So, I’m shrinking. I guess most Louie-Louie Generation folks are shrinking. Some of us think that makes us somehow smaller, and less significant. But personally, I’m not going to take shrinking lying down. I’m doing something about it. I’m taking mom’s advice from all those years ago. I’m two inches shorter than I used to be. But I’m making up for it by standing up as straight as I can. And it’s amazing. Try it. Pull your shoulders back, and reach for the sky with the back of your head. It makes you feel like you’ve just plugged your shine into a million volt socket. It makes you respect yourself again. Thanks mom. You were right.

Fore … !!! … 5 – 6 – 7 –

Well, yeah, foreplay is great and AFTERplay is even better.  But – play?

Since when is serious lovemaking … or whatever else you wanna call it … play?  There is great fun involved, I don’t argue – at least if you’re doing it right and not following any rules.  But no woman worth her salt is playing when she is seriously making love.  Before – after – yup, all the play you want.

But when your eyes are closed and you’re concentrating with every nerve and fiber in your body – NOT play, Lad, not play.

Just plain old lusty need. And utter and complete joy

I am sitting here in my big, comfortable, manly, black leather poppa chair in my living room, trying to get the picture of a soft shoulder, sliding out of a long, pink, satin nightgown out of my mind. And it’s not easy. It is a fantasy that seeps into my head just about every time my Lady Wonder Wench goes to take a shower…which she is doing right now. I can hear the water running.  She thinks she’s just taking a shower. She’s innocent. I haven’t been for some time. She doesn’t even know that what she’s also doing…to my head…amounts to some pretty powerful Pre-fore-Play.

Let me explain. Big Louie, his own bad self, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation, says there are six gears on your love boat. There’s Neutral…when there’s nothing going on. There’s Pre-fore-Play…like when Lady Wonder Wench is taking a shower. There’s Fore-Play, like stuff having to do with feathers. There’s Play, of course. Then there’s After Play, which is the gear that most people don’t think about. And there’s Reverse… which is a condition that is marked by silence, serious sulking, exaggerated politeness, needing your own space, having an affair, or moving to seperate states. Those are the six gears on your love boat. If you don’t deal with number five the right way, number six will hit you. And your love boat will back up and crash on the rocks.

Now don’t think you’re going to have to climb into your socks drawer and pull it closed so you won’t be embarrassed reading the rest of this blog. All Louie-Louie Generation lads and ladies know there are a lot of gears on our love boats. But as Big Louie says, “You hear plenty about fore-play and you even hear lots of stuff about play itself. But you never hear about the other four gears on your love boat…especially After Play. And you should. That’s where you spend most of your life.” And it’s true. You never hear about After Play. Not even in the women’s magazines. I’ve seen the advice in those things.

You get things like, “Your bedroom should be a comfortable place for both you and your partner. So take the oil paintings of you with your last 8 lovers off the wall. Be sure to have some good solid drapes so you have something to grab and hold on to if things get a little out of control. And for heaven’s sake, lock the dog in the other room.”

Some of those magazines even have some Pre-fore-Play advice. “Watch out if everybody in your new boyfriend’s family are Elvis impersonators…including the women. Be careful of guys who have a tendency to walk around doing the goose step, wearing their pants so tight, they have to clip their toenails daily to get them on. Avoid any relationship with a man who  flushes the toilet while you’re taking a shower, just to hear you shriek when the hot water hits you.”

And you get plenty of Fore-pPay advice, which we won’t get into here, because I know it’s not comfortable there in your socks drawer. And some of those magazines give you graphic enough advice about Play itself, that after reading it you could probably pass a course on gynecology. But you never hear anything about After-Play. And After-Play is where you spend most of your life. So we’ll have some After-Play ideas…coming up.

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

1-    How intense do basketball games get in Natoma, Kansas?

2-    What have the smart guys in the white lab coats said that validates what the woman’s movement has been saying all along ?

3-    On which day of the week will you probably die, if you’re an average person?

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

Neutral, Pre-fore-Play, Fore-play, Play, After-Play, and Reverse. The six gears on a Louie-Louie Generation love boat. And possibly the least understood is number five…After-Play…which is where we spend most of our lives. It’s the rest of the living, that goes with the lovin.

Think Sir Lancelot guys. He was mighty in battle, and he wore his lady’s scarf on his helmet with pride. Her name was Guinevere. She was the queen. And watching him do battle wearing her scarf was one of the things that eventually made her his woman. When is the last time you showed someone a picture of your lady, and said…”Hey…want to see something beautiful ?” How’s your hand holding technique ? Do you open doors, and hold her chair ? When you leave her room, do you touch her hair? Then kiss her gently on the wrist. Do you call her every day…with some very private words? When’s the last time you brought her flowers…for no reason, except she’s the main reason you love your life. Can she count on you to supply a strong, broad, soft shoulder to cry on ? If you’ve been together for a long time, do you take the time to shave, put on a clean pair of jeans, and comb your hair before you sit down to watch a chick flick that she likes together ? Do you take the trash out without being asked ? How about cooking her dinner once in a while…if you’re bad in the kitchen like I am, you can always check out some of the fancy stuff at the supermarket that you can just heat up. Been to see a performance by her favorite band or singer lately ? Why not read to her for a few minutes every night. And back rubs should be your middle name. How about asking her how you got so lucky having her in your life.

There’s a story about a couple who seem to have their After-Play gears going pretty well. It’s in the Night Connections Personal Audio CD. It’s called “An Aging Wild Child.” The woman in the story has become a very happy wife. I think it surprised her…how happy she’s become. He’s no super-hero. But he brings her flowers. And he spends time looking into her eyes. And he smiles at her. And he holds her hand…everywhere they go. And he keeps her safe. And he tells her how beautiful she is. Which is why she loves to slip her soft shoulder out of her long, pink satin night gown, and into her sheer black Teddy…just for him.

“An Aging Wild Child” is from the Night Connections Personal Audio CD. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the Night Connections icon on the home page.

Neutral, Pre-fore-play, Fore-play, Play, After-Play, and Reverse…the six gears on a Louie-Louie lover’s love boat. A love boat doesn’t have an automatic transmission. It’s always manual. That means hands on. You’ve got to have the strength and skill to pull the rope that starts the engine. You have to practice using the clutch…to change the gears. Sometimes, no matter how careful you are, you grind those gears. But it’s worth it to feel the wind in your hair when she gets up to speed…and the ocean spray all over your body and your mind…as you’re racing around in the sunshine. And when the race is over, you get to share the experience of watching the wake disappear into the moonlight together.

That After-Play gear…it’s where we spend most of our lives. I was reminded of that again a few weeks ago, when my Lady Wonder Wench and I caught a concert by Kris Kristofferson. He wrote a song called, “Me And Bobby Magee.” He wrote it about Janice Joplin when they were lovers. As you know, Janice died of too much living a long time ago. But when he sang that song…his head was certainly in After-Play gear. Because it was pretty obvious to everyone in the theater, that she still sleeps with him every night in his dreams.

I think Big Louie has zapped the bad guys for hacking our blog. Please let me know if I’m wrong. Thanks. Louie’s friend, Dick Summer

Somebody has hacked into my computer, and is sending out junk that looks like it came from me. I do not send junk. There are a couple of smart guys working on the problem, and I hope to have it cleared up today. In case the hacker is reading this, you should be aware that Big Louie has a car with a very large trunk…with which you will shortly becoming very familiar.

Dick

Manly?  Testosterone?  Well, I’ll give you chest hair … don’t want that. 

 But women have the same testosterone you guys have … it’s just called guts when Big Louie talks about it.  I mean, come on now, when that damned chain saw revs up and I know my Louie-Louie Lad is out there ALONE, my heart just doesn’t go pitter pat anymore.  It actually stops.  Then I grit my teeth and don’t go to the door and yell, “Please stop!”  I actually sit on my hands so as not to bang on the window and beg him not to attack those poor trees.

 All right, yes, I know all the definitions of manly, and he more than lives up to all of them.

 But put a tool in his hot little hands and I get scared.  Truly frightened.  Mr. Manly laughs at danger … only he doesn’t always see it.  I remember a bright orange lawn mower cord that he ran right over and fortunately didn’t burn himself to a crisp.  I remember 50 mile an hour winds that he and our son Eric ignored so they could fly in our small plane… FLY IN A SMALL  AIRPLANE … up toBoston from Long Island because our daughter Kris was having her first baby.  Eric’s wife and I drove with their daughter and got there about the same time without all the banging around.

Manly … yes, absolutely.  But, Big Louie, couldn’t you just temper all that testosterone with a little feminine common sense?