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IN MEMORIAM, MARGARET M. MURPHY
It is with a heavy heart that I record the passage of Margaret Murphy from this life. Margaret was 88 years old and lived a complete life span. Nonetheless, I am grieved to think that there will be no more happy laughter from Margaret Murphy. When we worked, we referred to Margaret as Three M…
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MORE ON THE MOTHER TONGUE
Whenever I dictate an essay about language, I specifically mean English, which always recalls the words of Sven Lernevall who observed, “The English language is a very rich one.” I will try to add three words that will increase its richness. Two of them are of modern vintage. The third one goes back to my…
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JOSEPH RATZINGER, POPE EMERITUS
It has been about 600 years since a pope resigned. Consequently, there is some confusion about what the former Pope should be called. At the moment, he is simply known as the Pope Emeritus. Whether he adopts this title as his formal title remains to be seen. Joseph Ratzinger had been the Pope of the…
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SMOKERS MUST BE WEALTHY PEOPLE
Everyone knows that I am not a man of great wealth. The fact that I worked for 43 years for AT&T will tell you that I am not a man of considerable means. But nonetheless I smoked cigarettes for 16 years, starting at age 16. Finally I quit smoking cigarettes or, as my father put…
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THE MAN AT THE FEED STORE
This essay is about the man who works at a feed store in eastern Kansas. It comes to me from a woman who was born in Olomouc in the Czech Republic. Since her birth, she has migrated first to England and then to New York. So you see, there are international implications to this simple…
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THE BRAIN OF JUNIOR SEAU FINALLY REST IN PEACE
I am not an obsessive follower of professional football. The fact of the matter is that there are millions of other people who follow professional football stories with avid interest. As it turns out, there was a recent development having to do with one of the premier linebackers of recent memory. His name was Junior…
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A FEW FURTHER THOUGHTS ON LANGUAGE
The author of this essay was born in the United States of America. Accordingly, that makes his native tongue the tongue of English. Perhaps that should read the American version of the English language. Nonetheless, the author of this essay has an abiding interest in the twists and turns that the language has taken as…
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ETERNAL LIFE
The title of this essay might lead some people to assume that in my later years I have succumbed to the teachings and the blathering of Christian preachers. That clearly is not the case. It is my intention in this instance to review what might take place if a few or many of us were…
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A SORRY TALE OF TWO EGREGIOUS PISSANTS
This is the second case in which I have occasion to refer to pissants. For those who did not see my earlier description of pissants, it should be remembered that pissants are living creatures. They exist primarily in rural areas of this country. They have no eyesight but their hearing apparatus seems to be in…