Positive, Productive, Profitable Retirement News

Occasionally, I like to play in games of chance - the games I feel fairly competent in being able to figure out the odds - but when if comes to figuring out US health costs I’m a dumb and dumber class.

Every winter, like thousands of other snowbirds, I have to budget for out-of-province health insurance and, fortunately, for the past number of years I’ve paid out but never put in a claim.

However, costs are climbing especially in my case - on the wrong side of eighty - plus there’s the by-pass thing,

Sidebar The insurance stat guys have figured out heart by-pass operations are good for only ten years and anytime after that the odds favour redo time - it’s been twenty-three years since my quad so few insurance companies will take my action and the willing sock-to-me with extra premiums.

So this year I figure I’m on a streak - so far no claims - so I decide to up the deductible and save a few bucks - after all - I figure - this insurance is for the costly big hit like a heart attack, aneurism or drive by shooting - what are the odds?

If I’m in a car accident the auto insurance picks up the tab so what can minor mishaps cost? The odds - I figure - favour a higher deductible - that’s the way I figured it - but I’m an idiot.

Last month, while in Florida, I had a problem with the water works and had to go to emergency - no big whoops - with the help of an ex marine who is a nurse technician - whatever the hell that is - he installs a catheter and I’m out of there in under an hour - never saw a Doctor, just the ex marine - so I went to check out and pay the bill - total cost - $1,865 - guess what I decided for my deductible - $2,000 - then to add salt to the wee-wee - I was given a prescription and later that day I paid $78.25 for five pills as compared to $6.11 I would have paid back home.

Moral of this story - do not put a toe-tip across the border unless you have zero deductible out of province insurance.

Follow-up - we returned to my homeland of universal health care that very week and called my Doctor - four days later I’m in the hospital for a out patient fix-up and now Oscar and the twins are operating and happy once again.

One more to illustrate how lucky we are and so help me this is a true story - the conversation took place on my street in our Florida retirement community.

Close Canadian neighbours of ours, on their way to visit us, stopped to chat with an American neighbour - they told him how I had to visit emergency at the local hospital the night before for what turned out to be minor repair job and how I was complaining about the high cost of what I considered to be a minor undertaking.

"Welcome to my World." he said "By the way, on the subject of health care, can I ask you something?"
"Is it true all that stuff we’re hearing about how, in your health coverage the government has committees who decide what seniors get medical attention and which ones don’t?"

My friends reacted with jaw dropping disbelief - they were aware that such misinformation was being used by anti health care forces in the US, but who in their right mind would believe such crap - apparently many Americans do.

My friends explained our health system, noting that we pay higher taxes to pay for universal health care - how its based on a priority need basis, to which the American senior said he would gladly pay higher taxes.

So to would my wife’s Florida hairdresser - a single mom who pays five hundred a month for health insurance - her son became ill but her coverage didn’t cover the treatment - she is now seven thou in the hole and her insurance has been cancelled until she pays the seven grand.

In a recent issue of the St. Pete Times I read a letter to the editor from a retired American living in Port Richey who claims to have interviewed over a hundred Canadian snowbirds and reports that not one of them had a seriously bad thing to say about our universal health care - a few minor complaints - mostly about wait times.

Anyway, at the risk of having my father spinning in his grave - here’s to Tommy Douglas the democratic socialist who provided the blueprint for our medical care act - we are a lucky group of syrup suckers.

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I lost the file that contained the name of the person who sent me this video and if whoever reads this - many thanks for doing so.

This bit is hilarious - a video taken from the play for the love of Mrs. Brown Boys which, as I understand it is - or soon will be a BBC Television Series

WARNING As noted, I find this hilarious but that’s me - some folks may find the adult language offensive - but anyone over the age of 65 should get a kick out it - but it's not for kids so be careful who is near by when you view the video.

This was nice of him - Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor of NBC News posted the following letter on his blog:

After tonight's broadcast and after looting our hotel mini-bars, we're going to try to brave the blizzard and fly east to home and hearth, and to do laundry well into next week. Before we leave this thoroughly polite country, the polite thing to do is leave behind a thank-you note.

Thank you , Canada :

For being such good hosts.
For your unfailing courtesy.
For your (mostly) beautiful weather.

For scheduling no more than 60 percent of your float plane departures at the exact moment when I was trying to say something on television.

For not seeming to mind the occasional (or constant) good-natured mimicry of your accents.
For your unique TV commercials -- for companies like Tim Hortons -- which made us laugh and cry.

For securing this massive event without choking security, and without publicly displaying a single automatic weapon.

For having the best garment design and logo-wear of the games -- you've made wearing your name a cool thing to do.

For the sportsmanship we saw most of your athletes display.

For not honking your horns. I didn't hear one car horn in 15 days -- which also means none of my fellow New Yorkers rented cars while visiting.
For making us aware of how many of you have been watching NBC all these years.
For having the good taste to have an anchorman named Brian Williams on your CTV network, who turns out to be such a nice guy.
For the body scans at the airport which make pat-downs and cavity searches unnecessary.

For designing those really cool LED Olympic rings in the harbor, which turned to gold when your athletes won one.

For always saying nice things about the United States ...when you know we're listening.
For sharing Joannie Rochette with us.

For reminding some of us we used to be a more civil society.

Mostly, for welcoming the world with such ease and making lasting friends with all of us.

Brian Williams NBC

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My thanks to retired American buddy Tom Adams for sending in the following.

The Very First "Senior Moment"

Have a good one folks and remember, if you would like to make a few extra retirement bucks why not use sell your knowledge and experience on the internet - start here -

(Go to URL)

January 18, 2010 - The Laughing Heart - Take the Quiz - Dust If You Must - Taps

Whoever said "laughter is the best medicine" never had gonorrhea.
Kat Likkel and John Hoberg, My Name Is Earl

It started out as just another day - nothing on the schedule of any great importance - I wasn’t fired up to do anything special - a ho-hum morning.

Then I received a phone call from a retired buddy and we chatted about this and that - no headline revelations - no obituaries to update - just the usual guys-getting-on-in-age conversation which ended with him telling me a joke he heard the day before.

He’s a great storyteller and when he hit the punch line I laughed so hard I nearly dropped the phone - my laugh was more of an eruption - uncontrollable fall about laughter - as someone once noted - " Laughter is an orgasm triggered by the intercourse of sense and nonsense."

I wish I could relay the joke here but I think not - it was the type of bawdy humour best told in a controlled environment like a longshoreman’s locker room.

Anyway, for the rest of the day I was eager to retell it to anyone who would stand still long enough to wait for the punch line and in all case but one, I was rewarded with hearty, from-the-gut guffaws which in turn set me off on another laughing fit.
The one telling that earned only an embarrassed giggle was when I told the joke to a female neighbour who almost daily sends me naughty, x-rated emails. Apparently, face-to-face joke telling is not politically correct, but computer generated lewd and rude is OK.

But back to the laughing part. The point here is, with each laugh, my day brightened - I was a young man - I felt good about myself and everything around me - the positives erased any negatives that tried to creep into my day.

I have to laugh more if for no other reason than to keep my ticker ticking.
I Googled for more information on the importance of laughter in one’s life and found that laughter, along with an active sense of humour, may help protect you against a heart attack, according to a study by cardiologists at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

Michael Miller, M.D., F.A.C.C., director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center noted "The old saying that 'laughter is the best medicine,' definitely appears to be true when it comes to protecting your heart. We don't know yet why laughing protects the heart, but we know that mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium, the protective barrier lining our blood vessels. This can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries and ultimately to a heart attack,"

Dr. Miller says it may be possible to incorporate laugher into our daily activities, just as we do with other heart-healthy activities, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

"We could perhaps read something humorous or watch a funny video and try to find ways to take ourselves less seriously," Dr. Miller says. "The recommendation for a healthy heart may one day be -- exercise, eat right and laugh a few times a day."

So think of all the email jokes that swamp your inbox every day as prescription forms - better than popping pills.

Here’s another great quote from W.H.Auden:

"Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love I can: all of them make me laugh"

By the way, if you would like to complete the two questionnaires used in the University of Maryland Medical Center study, click here - one questionnaire had a series of multiple-choice answers to find out how much or how little the participant laughs in certain situations. The second questionnaire used 50 true or false answers to measure anger and hostility.

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Thanks to daughter Brenda who suggested I pass this on to the ladies who may read this journal.

Life is Short - Enjoy it

Dust if you must

-but wouldn't it be better to paint a picture or write a letter, bake cookies or a cake and lick the spoon or plant a seed, ponder the difference between want and need?!

Dust if you must

… but there's not much time . . . . with beer to drink , rivers to swim and mountains to climb, music to hear and books to read, friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must,

but the world's out there with the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair, a flutter of snow, a shower of rain.
This day will not come around, again.

Dust if you must ,

but bear in mind, old age will come and it's not kind. . . And when you go - and go you must - you, yourself will make more dust!

It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.

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A follow-up to the last Blog entry - Re: Boogie Woogie - and the item about my dancing capabilities then and now - an interesting article in the London Times under the headline - Old Men make the Best Dancers.

They call it "Dad Dancing the phenomenon in which middle aged men appal their families by strutting their stuff on the dance floor many have evolutionary explanation, a new survey suggests.

When Dr. Peter Lovatt, a psychologist from the University of Hertfordshire, asked 14,000 people to rate their self-assurance as dancers, he found that male confidence rises steadily between ages 16 to 30.

After that, it remains about the same for three decades. Then, at around 60, it suddenly soars.

He speculates that aging men make their flamboyant dance moves subconsciously to repel young women, and thereby leave the field clear for men who are at the peak of fertility." -Ya right.

The study suggests that female dancing confidence plummets during and after menopause.

One more item from the Times written by David Aaronovitch - "After Richard Reid tried to ignite his shoe over the Atlantic, we all had to remove our footwear before we were allowed on the plane. The bomb threat of 06 led to a liquids ban. Now that someone has tried to ignite his underpants above Detroit, one can only imagine the consequences."

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Now, from laughter to tears - many thanks to retired buddy Bill Jessome for sending me this video with the following message - "The conductor of the orchestra is Andre Rieu from Austria. The young lady, her trumpet and her rendition of TAPS Is wonderful. Many of you may never have heard taps played in its entirety. (I certainly haven't and have been unaware of the uncut version.) This is an opportunity you won't want to miss and I guarantee you'll never forget."

Want to make extra retirement money? Start here - (Go to URL)

January 5, 2010 - Normal Part of Aging - Boogie-Woogie - Old and Rich - Crazy Canucks

So here we are - new month, new year, but instead of looking forward, I’m looking back - 22 years back - to the days immediately following quad heart by-pass and when I walked my cracked open-then-wired sternum would shift in my chest with every tortured step - for several days I walked like a zombie who inhaled a bag of Acapulco red.

But this time the ticker, operating on at least six of eight cylinders is not the culprit - it’s my neck - with not a hint of approaching trouble - suddenly I couldn’t turn my head without causing sharp, stabbing pain that for me was a 12 on what my lady calls her "Men are such babies scale of one to ten" - you know the one I mean - the "give birth then talk to me about pain " scale.

So I hold still long enough for an X-ray and the medics inform me I’ve got DDD - degenerative disc disease - vertebrae 4, 5, 6, plus some arthritis thrown into the mix - the Doc tells me disc degeneration is a normal part of aging - I don’t remember getting that message when I signed up for my old age pension.

But the good news is that following a series of therapy sessions, plus popping nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pills, I’m shuffling along at a slow but steady pace and pain on my lady’s scale of one to ten has slipped to a four - except on occasions like last week’s Vikings - Bears football game - a sporting event on which I had placed an ample no-line wager with a fellow football fan neighbour who has already paid his monthly rent with my money during the Christmas month.

I went large with the old quarterback for sentimental reasons - and he was leading his Vikes down the field to victory in overtime when his running back fumbled the ball and I jumped out of my chair with a curse and shout and was decked by a bolt of pain that even my lady’s pain scale couldn’t register.

Anyway, I’m still marching on in my eighth decade a tad slower perhaps with my head pivoting like a rusted bolt, but hell, it’s just a minor injury suffered in the fourth quarter of the game of life.

I relate all this because of an Email I received from my Maritime buddy Bill Mckay who attached a YouTube video that reminded me of how I was able to play the game in the first quarter.

As I pop another pain pill and painfully turn my head to look at this video I remember I could once move like this - Balmy Beach Canoe Club - Palace Pier - this is a then and now comparison - the normal part of aging.

Another "normal part of aging" item - this submitted by retired buddies Kathy and Craig Olson.

WHO SAYS WE'RE NOT RICH!!!

Silver in the Hair
Gold in the Teeth.
Sugar in the Blood.
Lead in the Feet.
Iron in the Arteries.
And an inexhaustible supply of Natural Gas.

I never thought I'd accumulate such wealth.

At the time of this writing, most of North America was covered with a frozen blanket - which is nothing new for Canadians of course - most of us just moan, bitch and bundle up. But there’s another group - a minority to be sure - who go to extremes to earn the title of a Crazy Canucks - my thanks to Carrie Van Loon for sening me this video.

The last of the "normal part of aging" items - thanks to retired buddy Dan Dominski for sending me this - Observations on Growing Older

Your kids are becoming you...and you don't like them
but your grandchildren are perfect!
Going out is good - Coming home is better!
When people say you look "Great" - then they add "for your age!"
When you needed the discount you paid full price - Now you get discounts on everything - movies, hotels, flights.

You forget names ... but it's OK - because other people forgot they even knew you!!!
The 5 pounds you wanted to lose is now 15
and you have a better chance of losing your keys than the 15 pounds.
You realize you're never going to be really good at anything .... especially golf.

Your husband is counting on you to remember things you don't remember.
The things you cared to do, you don't care to do, but you care that you don't care to do them anymore.

Your husband sleeps better on a lounge chair with the TV blaring than he does in bed - It's called his "pre-sleep".
Remember when your mother said "Wear clean underwear in case you GET in an accident"?
Now you bring clean underwear in case you HAVE an accident!
You used to say, "I hope my kids GET married - Now, "I hope they STAY married!"

You miss the days when everything worked with just an "ON" and "OFF" switch.
When GOOGLE, ipod, email, modem were unheard of and a mouse was something that made you climb on a table.
You use more 4 letter words - "what?"..."when?" ???
Now that you can afford expensive jewelry, it's not safe to wear it anywhere.
Your husband has a night out with the guys but he's home by 9:00 P.M. ...next week it will be 8:30 P.M.
You read 100 pages into a book before you realize you've read it.
Notice everything they sell in stores is "sleeveless"?!!!>
What used to be freckles are now liver spots - Everybody whispers.
Now that your husband has retired - you'd give anything if he'd find a job!

You have 3 sizes of clothes in your closet - 2 of which you will never wear.

But old is good in some things:
old songs
old movies

And best of all OLD FRIENDS!!

Now let’s working on building a creative retirement - (Go to URL)

November 2, 2009 - The CAA meeting - Amazing Video - The Tyranny of E-Mail

I believe their meetings start something like this.

"Hi, my name is Boomer and I’m an addict."
Audience responds; "Hi Boomer"

"I wouldn’t admit to being an addict - I thought I had it under control - I could quit anytime - some days I didn’t take my first hit until nearly noon although most days I would get juiced up right after breakfast.

Then, early last week, I had to give up my computer - it wasn’t an easy decision - at first I thought I could do it myself but I soon realized the odds were that I would screw it up big time so I took my baby to the computer store to have them install the new Windows 7.

However, after I paid up and signed all the responsibility release forms they tell me their resident Geek was off with the swine flue or some kind of ailment plus they’ve had a flood of orders and they work on a first-come-first-serve basis - so I would be computerless for several days.

So anxious was I to rid myself of the frustrating, crash prone, megabyte bundle of misery that Bill Gates labeled Vista, I agreed to wait and so began three days of cyber celibacy that proved I’m hooked - I have to have my internet hit on a regular basis or I become an irritable old geezer with a Scrooge-like attitude and outlook - I’m talking about his before-the-ghosts persona.

As soon as I returned home from the store, a buddy called asking me to email a picture I took of his daughter - I can’t - I don’t have a computer.
Next morning - how much money came in overnight from Google Adsense and affiliate links - I have no flippin’ idea - I don’t have a computer.
Phone call from another buddy - didn’t you get my email? - no - I don’t have a damn computer.
CiC working her cross word puzzle - three down - the star of the movie Gaslight - can you Google - No I can’t Google - I don’t have a friggin’ computer.

I was totally out of sync - even extra picture taking didn’t ease my discomfort - when I arrived home I was unable to see and edit my pictures - because I didn’t have a @!###%&* computer.

Reading helped a tad as did movie matinees but the majority of time I was wondering what was happening in my web world. - not being able to rid myself of the feeling I was missing out on something.

Anyway, my baby is back home - blazing away on all of its Intel cylinders - cleaned of long forgotten and useless files and programs - fueled by a speedy new system that so far is living up to its favorable reviews - my world is back on its regular orbit.

Yes, I’m hooked, for better or worse, to the web and its instrument of torment - the computer - even though I haven‘t a techie clue as to how it does what it does - its like my car - I know how to start it up but I haven’t the foggiest as to how the engine works yet it expands my horizons by taking me to new and familiar places.

Yes folks, I’m an web world enthusiast - a fumbling, two finger typing computer addict - so this meeting is over - anyone for coffee and doughnuts?"

Many thanks to retired buddy Bill Jessome for altering me to this amazing video even though it shakes my video shooting confidence to see stuff like this - I can only wish I had such talent - The Bear - a film by Jean Jacques Annaud

Getting back to computers and such - there was an interesting interview in MacLean’s Magazine with John Freeman, the American editor of the British literary magazine Granta, and his book The Tyranny of E-Mail: The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox

Noting the latest e-mail stats - 650 million messages every ten minutes - 37 trillion a year in total - Freeman says the whole e-mail thing is out of control and - "it’s going to make us all incredibly tetchy and angry and more prone to talk rather than listen and to misunderstand each other."

Freeman suggests that we have devoted out lives to e-mail and we don’t even realize it’s a problem - " One of my favourite New Yorker cartoons—it was about a month ago—there’s a guy just going to bed and his wife is sleeping next to him, and the door to his bedroom is open and his boss is sitting there. He says, "Can you just do this one more thing before you turn down for the night?" Because e-mail has gone portable, and because we have a hard time shutting it off, it has exploded all the boundaries that we worked very hard to create."

Freeman points out that although we may not realize it - as we are willing participants in this e-mail world - that we are building up our stress levels by spending so much time eye-fixed on a bright screen.

" I think there’s something very major in the way that we now spend seven, eight, nine hours a day looking at a screen and reading on a screen. When light is beamed into your eyes all day long it creates a weariness. And there have been some studies about the drop-off in eyesight, but more importantly I think the distance between you and a text is crucial to respect it, and that goes for letters too. When you look at a letter and it’s written on a paper or printed out, at least it’s an object. It forces you to slow down to read it……..It’s funny, a friend of mine who’s a novelist, went to Singapore for a book tour and he said, "God, you would not believe the future of the Internet; it’s there in Singapore." He described being on the subways and public transit and seeing people, everybody, instead of holding a newspaper or a book, everybody was holding a hand-held device or a screen."

Freeman warns that this is just the beginning of the tyranny of e-mail;

"In so many novels, you read scenes—perhaps less so now but certainly in the 19th century—where people were alone with their thoughts. How would that be portrayed now? You couldn’t actually portray it because the character would probably have an iPod plugged into his ear, and he’d be checking his BlackBerry every eight minutes. If you saw it written down you’d think, "Jesus Christ, this person’s crazy!" But if you spend a lot of time in an office and you do use these devices, that’s what our thoughts are like…….

One of the directions of the book, I hope, was to try to focus on what the purpose of communication was so that we could decide what the parameters we’d allow it within our lives. Communication isn’t just about sharing information for business and for the purpose of doing your day-to-day tasks at the office, it’s also about sharing something, and if you don’t have a life outside the office—which e-mail makes harder and harder—you won’t have anything to share."

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Thanks to retired buddies Kathy and Craig Olson for the following:

I was out walking with my 4-year-old granddaughter. She picked up something off of the ground and started to put it in her mouth.

I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that.

'Why?' my Granddaughter asked.
'Because it's been on the ground; you don't know where it's been, it's dirty, and probably has germs,' I replied.

At this point, my Granddaughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, 'Grandma, how do you know all this stuff? You are so smart.'

I was thinking quickly. 'All Grandmas know this stuff. It's on the Grandma Test. You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Grandma.'

We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information. 'Oh.....I get it!' she beamed, 'So if you don't pass the test, you have to be the Grandpa'.

'Exactly,' I replied with a big smile on my face.

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Now let’s working on building a creative retirement - (Go to URL)

October 19, 2009 - The Summer of 09 - Tap dancing away From Retirement - Brain Boosters

It’s been over six months since my last entry - weird the way it went down - several days after hitting my 81st, while munching a Boston cream and gulping a Tim’s double-double, I decided to take a holiday from all this website stuff and concentrate on learning photography and editing my work in this new RAW digital format.

The CIC was delighted - in fact this entire summertime exercise earned me mega brownie points because it moved me off my backside and out of the house - away from the computer except for the short photo editing sessions.

It’s coming along - I even made fifty bucks when the Toronto Star used one of my photos - but the creative process of producing impact photos is a real brain booster and a hobby I urge bored retirees to try. There’s nothing like it when someone asks - "Did you really take this picture - wow" and if you will allow me just one little tap on the back, may I humbly suggest that my summer photo experience adds to the mountain of evidence proving - one: you’re never too old to try something new and two: If I can do it then anyone can do it.

In all, this past summer was a creative blast - at least when I wasn’t contemplating building an arch - record rain - I don’t know how it was in your neck-of-the-woods, but here ,at the gateway to cottage country, residents looked like pissed-off villagers anxious to tie mother nature to the stake.

You’ve heard the expression that ends………"Where the sun don’t shine"? - well, you would have shoved it here.

Even on the rare days the sun broke through the locals continued to walk around wearing that bedraggled look one gets after being hit on the side of the head with a two-by-four because of the slow, parking lot type traffic on the highways leading out of the big smoke and into our community producing a massive, short-stay sun-seeking visitor invasion,

But despite the biblical amount of rain, I just kept click-click-clicking and then studied and worked the magic of RAW in Photoshop elements developing my own style of pictures - it’s amazing and great fun

Anyway, the importance of retirees finding some creative challenge to keep them sharp and alive is emphasized once again in a new book - "Don’t just retire; Live it Love it!" by Richard Atkinson, a 68 year old retiree who spent over 35 years as a human resource management specialist.

He notes that a Stats Canada survey found that seniors who spent most of their leisure time watching TV, listening to music or doing nothing much of anything are the ones least satisfied with their retirement - well, hello.

He also urges folks to challenge themselves mentally and physically on a regular basis - nothing just hit and miss.

As noted in the past, I found that learning how to work the internet via websites - in my case it was from scratch - is a fascinating way to achieve the creative, brain boosting balance one needs to stay mentally sharp - and any extra income you may bank is a nifty way to gauge your success - check out the home page from some ideas - you will find everything you need to get started.

Now - thanks to retired buddy Jim Hill who contributed the following - I was brought down to earth with a mighty thud this morning when I watch the following video - I thought - as my grandaughter would say I was "movin’ goooooood" for my age - I’m not even in the same block as this lady - Dorothy Kloss - who was featured on NBC’s Today show - see how you feel.

Want to test yourself? While goggling on an entirely different subject, I came across this interesting website worthy of an extended visit - opens new window

From another contributor - retired buddy Bernice Denni - these interesting tombstone inscriptions:

• Here lies Lester Moore
  Four slugs from a .44 - No Les no more.

• Harry Edsel Smith of Albany , New York :
  Born 1903--Died 1942.
  Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was.

• In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:
  Here lies an Atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.

• On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia :
  Here lies Ezekial Aikle, Age 102. Only The Good Die Young.

• London , England cemetery:
  Here lies Ann Mann, Who lived an old maid but died an old Mann. Dec. 8, 1767

• In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:
  Anna Wallace
  The children of Israel wanted bread, And the Lord sent them manna.
  Clark Wallace wanted a wife, And the Devil sent him Anna.

• In a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery:
  Here lies Johnny Yeast...Pardon me for not rising.

• In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania , cemetery:Br> Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.

• In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:
  Here lays The Kid.
  We planted him raw.
  He was quick on the trigger - But slow on the draw.

• John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery:
  Reader, if cash thou art in want of any,
  Dig 6 feet deep and thou wilt find a Penny.

• In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England:
  On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune.

• Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls,Vermont:
  Here lies the body of our Anna,
  Done to death by a banana.
  It wasn't the fruit that laid her low, But the skin of the thing that made her go.

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Have a great day - hope to hear from you.

-

Now let’s working on building a creative retirement - (Go to URL)