The Good Life

Our weekend was made happy by the visit of a son and daughter-in-law and another son stopping by to join us for dinner. Having time to sit down with ones grown sons to exchange ideas, viewpoints, opinions and information is the sweet culmination of rearing a house full of little boys. If one can call four sons a houseful of boys. He Who Must Be Obeyed was the fifth of ten, eight of them boys. That is a house full of sons.

Then there is that Finnish research about mothers of sons and the immunosuppressant testosterone that shortens her life. No wonder my real age is 15 years over my calendar age. It is, however, worth it for the hilarity that many sons bring to the dinner table of life. We heard another story that would have horrified us at the time; some hilarity is best saved for parents in their old age.

Today is the day in 1863 that Pres. Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address at the dedication of a new cemetary. His speech followed the two hour keynote speaker. Most watched the photographer set up his equipment and didn't hear a word Lincoln said. His address was ten sentences, just 272 words, and one that the school pupils in my era memorized. This was in the Writer's Almanac today, with Garrison Keillor.

In my inbox was a Tale Spinner story from an e-friend, Zvonko, of how he helped build a new nation of Tito's Yugoslavia. It begins: "I got out of the POW camp on August 15, 1945. I was happy to be back home in Osijek after the most frightening and dreadful four months of my young life. Several weeks passed before I recovered part of my body weight and some strength returned after sleeping many hours in my own bed. Slowly and persistently I succeeded in burying deep in my subconscious all the horrors and humiliations I had been through."

I have one of his books in my "To Read" pile. Joining it is a thoughtful book review from a learned cousin that arrived last night. Life is good.