The arrival of another Christmas season fills me with welcome feelings. It’s a time of being with people important in my life. That means those at hand: family members, and friends old and new.
WWII in Later Life
In 1940 the Russians and the British produced thirty-six thousand warplanes while the Germans made only ten thousand.
And in 1942, the British controlled ten million tons of oil as contrasted with Germany’s one million.
These numbers and others like them, demonstrating allied superiority in resources, made some German generals recognize early on that they could not win the war.
Garrison
Garrison Keillor, for me, ranks high among American masters of spoken language. I put him up there with Mark Twain though not, of course, as a writer. Keillor’s command of the story and the anecdote strikes me as superb, so much so that I love to listen to at lest parts of his radio show.
Five Minute Talk
This week I delivered a five-minute talk. I spoke in front of some seventy-five members of the Cambridge Club. Most in the audience were civic friends of mine, and could be relied upon to welcome what I say.
In preparing this talk I was mindful of Blaise Pascal, the great French savant, who is credited with saying: “I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”
JFK at BC
As the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy’s death approaches, I am mindful of the speech he gave at Boston College in the spring of 1963. I was sitting in the large crowd gathered to hear him help celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the college’s founding.
Pope
Harvey, a close friend, reports with continuing excitement his meeting with the pope last week.
He had received an invitation to a public audience where he was invited to a seat on a stage where some thirty other people had assembled. After an hour, he was brought to the pope who spoke with him in Spanish and English.
Slowing Down: Plus & Minus
“Is Age Slowing You Down?” So asks a Boston hospital that wants me for a research study.
They promise me three meals a day plus snacks, for six months. And, oddly, either testosterone or a placebo. And medical exams at no cost.