A Day of Beauty

March 20, 2012

Ed. Note; Originally published in 2004, this column hits home with many gentlemen down the street, around town or across the country. Remember one thing brothers, even if it is an hour, call it a “day of beauty” it’s worth more man points.

I recently stopped by a friend’s house to help him with a few chores. It was rather quiet as he opened the door, which prompted my question. “Where’s Kathy?”

He hesitated a second and with the gravest of deliveries informed me. “She’s out. For a day of beauty.”

I nodded with equal gravity, not knowing what the heck he was talking about.

He explained. “You know… a day of beauty. That’s when she goes out ‘to be attended to’. It could be a massage, to have her nails done, her hair cut. And no matter what it is, it always takes a day. A day of beauty. This one’s her massage.”

I understood then. I could identify with my wife’s similar day of beauty at the hairdresser. She calls it her “cut and color”. I, the one with all the words, simply call it her “dye job”. She never was enamored of me using that terminology, especially when she would ask me to write her hair appointments on the calendar. “Joanne. Dye job, 7 p.m.” I’d scribble. She doesn’t ask me to do that anymore.

We two wizened men proceeded to ponder this phenomenon known as a day of beauty. It indeed seemed true to both of us that such a day provides some measure of soothing relaxation to our better halves. It also seemed true that we were just a tad poorer at the end of each of these sessions. Our hands went simultaneously to our chins, with that classic scratching gesture that men use as they ponder.

My wife once told me that her favorite relaxation – her ultimate day of beauty, I suppose – is a pedicure. That fascinating procedure involves soaking her feet in water, cutting her toenails, massaging her feet and calves, and – the piece de resistance – applying the toenail polish. I tried explaining these soothing qualities to my friend. His initial reaction was similar to mine. Neither of us could imagine who in their right mind would enjoy doing such a job. Although no doubt soaking the feet first probably makes the task more tolerable.

I mentioned that additional touch of pedicure finesse that my wife loves – when the pedicurist places her hands in paraffin wax and then slides them inside warm mitts. All while classical music plays in the background and her feet receive the royal treatment. “Just like Madge,” I said.

“Huh?” he inquired.

“Madge. Madge!” I exclaimed. “The lady with the carrot red hair in the old Palmolive commercials? She played the part of a manicurist who soaked her clients hands in dish detergent to soften them.”

“Ah, yes. Madge. The industry’s come a long way since then, hasn’t it?” mused my friend. “Now a one dollar bottle of dish soap, good for a million soakings, has been replaced by a $50-per-hour specialist.”

“With music,” I quickly added.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course. With music. No extra charge.”

We had, by then, exhausted this heady topic of a day of beauty. I felt like rushing right out to his kitchen for a hot towel, to apply soothingly to my face. I thought I saw him eyeing the drawer where they keep their toenail clippers.

But then Kathy came floating through the doorway, a tired but rested look on her face. That massage had obviously left her very relaxed, as supple as a jellyfish.

“Day of beauty, huh?” I asked offhandedly.

She looked at me, a bit surprised, then glanced at my friend. He just shrugged. “Joanne has a similar ritual. No big secret.”

“It was wonderful,” she sighed. “Wonderful.”

We nodded our heads in unison, as we pondered and scratched.

Finally, my friend broke the silence. “Kathy,” he asked, “…do we have any paraffin wax?”

Visit Londonderry Hometown Online News every Tuesday Morning for another one of Joe’s great columns! Select “Share this story” and share your favorite columnist with your friends!

Happy Anniversary Joe! Interesting you decide to share this story today.  Joe has been writing “only online” for Londonderry Hometown Online News for three years today.  Not a week goes by that we are not thanked by someone for publishing his column. One hundred fifty six Tuesday’s later we think he is still just as funny or sometimes full of wit as he was on the first Tuesday.

Joe’s Two Cents – It’s Great To Be Alive is Joe Paradis’ first published book and gathers 40 of his most popular stories, enhancing them with humorous photography. The book is a compilation of forty of Joe’s best short stories.

Injecting humor into topics from everyday life, Joe answers those earth-shattering questions we all have about the beach, the bathroom, the junk drawer. From guys’ tools to girl talk. High school seniors to the senior years.

This classic collection has been updated to include pictures and a short introduction for each story. Until now, only God knew what possessed Joe to write about these things. Now you can too!

Joe Paradis is one of Londonderry’s most popular columnists and authors. Visit his web site at www.joes2cents.com today and order his latest autographed book, “It’s Great to Be Alive!”

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PBBJ and An Old-Fashioned Guy

March 13, 2012

I guess I’m really just an old-fashioned guy. I wear my shirt tucked into my pants – with a belt, as God intended. And the belt actual circles my waist, not the tops of my thighs. I also wear my wedding band all the time, because I’m married – and that’s what you’re supposed to do. I believe in holding a door open for someone, stopping for pedestrians, and actually smiling and saying ‘hi’ to strangers. Yep, I’m really old-fashioned.

And I recall vividly what started it all. Mrs. Adams’ old-fashioned peanut butter, butter, and jelly sandwiches. The venerable PBBJ.

Chucky and Kevin Adams, and my brother Paul and I used to hang out together as kids. We were a close-knit team of cool eight- and ten-year-olds, or so we thought, growing up in those innocent summer days of the early sixties, before all hell broke loose with the Vietnam War and civil strife. We’d spend those carefree days roaming the neighborhood on our bikes, often stopping to climb the willow tree in Mrs. Perry’s backyard. We’d sit up there for hours, talking kids’ stuff, reading comic books, and whittling the bark off twigs.

When the fire station whistle blew at noon, we’d head back to the Adams’ house for lunch. Mrs. Adams would already be at the kitchen counter, laying out her magic ingredients – a loaf of Wonder Bread, a jar of Skippy Chunky Peanut Butter, the venerable Welch’s Grape Jelly, and a stick of butter. Then with the deftness of a surgeon, she’d compose her signature lunchtime delicacy – Mrs. Adams’ PBBJ sandwiches.

These weren’t just your typical PBJ sandwiches. Between those two slabs of lily white Wonder Bread lay enough butter to clog a few arteries, smooshed in there for good measure to even off the bumps in the peanut chunks. It’s what brought out the flavor and kept the peanut butter from sticking, in a big wad, to the roof of your mouth. The butter was a particular necessity in the Adams’ household, because unlike my mom, Mrs. Adams never served her kids milk with their meals. So they needed all the lubrication they could get to wolf down that chunky peanut butter.

I liked Mrs. Adams. Tall and graceful, with jet-black hair, she always wore colorful pink and blue pedal pushers, also called clam diggers, and today known as capris. But I was a little wary of her too. I’d seen her toss a wooden spoon at Chucky from across the room and nail him right in the chest, when he decided on occasion to give her that kind of grief that only a ten-year old boy can provide. She had pinpoint accuracy. I never wanted to be on the wrong side of that spoon.

So it was with a measure of caution that I saddled up to Mrs. Adams, after one particularly lip-smacking PBBJ lunch, and asked if I could have her recipe. She smiled down on me and to my amazement, gathered the bread, the peanut butter, the grape jelly, and the butter into a paper bag from the A&P, and placed the precious package in my hands. “You go show your mother how we do it,” she said, with a wink.

My brother and I raced down the street with our sacred parcel and climbed the back stairs to our second floor home. We had finally brought home the secret of Mrs. Adams’ PBBJ sandwiches. Mom was never gonna believe this.

But Mom was busy hanging the bed sheets out in the backyard, so Paul and I decided to attempt making a few PBBJ sandwiches on our own, without parental supervision. We laid everything out on the kitchen table and just stared at it all. “Where do we start?” asked my brother.

“With the bread, stupid,” I remember telling him. That remark would have gotten me the spoon from Mrs. Adams. Our mom would have cuffed me in the back of the head. But neither was there at the time, so I used my older brother status flagrantly. We pulled four slices of Wonder Bread from the bag and laid them out.

“Now what do we do?” little brother asked.

“I don’t know…” was my honest response. Should we put the peanut butter on one side and the jelly on the other? And then try to stick the butter in the middle? Or should we just pile it all up on one slice real quick and mash it down with the other slice before it slid off? Was there some other trick that worked? We’d never made a three-ingredient sandwich before. Heck, we’d never made any kind of sandwich before.

We couldn’t remember how Mrs. Adams concocted her sandwiches either. So we experimented. I recall that the peanut butter went down nice and smooth on one slice of the bread. And the jelly stuck pretty well to the matching slice, although we really flattened that out, with the pressure it took to keep blobs of jelly from sliding off the knife or oozing off the bread. It stuck really well to our shirts too, and to the wallpaper above the table. But the butter, that was the real problem. It didn’t adhere well to either the jelly or the peanut butter. So we melted the stick in a pan on the stove (no microwaves in those days), and just poured it over the peanut butter. That worked okay, but it just didn’t taste like Mrs. Adams old fashioned PBBJ.

We did, however, succeed in making one of our biggest messes ever in the kitchen, with jelly on the wall, peanut butter in our laps, and hot melted butter dribbling down the table leg and puddling on the floor. And, as we heard mom’s humming and her footsteps on the back stairs, we knew we were in for something else old-fashioned. An old-fashioned spanking.

And it all began with a sandwich.

Visit Londonderry Hometown Online News every Tuesday Morning for another one of Joe’s great columns! Select “Share this story” and tell a friend Joe is back!

Joe’s Two Cents – It’s Great To Be Alive is Joe Paradis’ first published book and gathers 40 of his most popular stories, enhancing them with humorous photography. The book is a compilation of forty of Joe’s best short stories.

Injecting humor into topics from everyday life, Joe answers those earth-shattering questions we all have about the beach, the bathroom, the junk drawer. From guys’ tools to girl talk. High school seniors to the senior years.

This classic collection has been updated to include pictures and a short introduction for each story. Until now, only God knew what possessed Joe to write about these things. Now you can too!

Joe Paradis is one of Londonderry’s most popular columnists and authors. Visit his web site at www.joes2cents.com today and order his latest autographed book, “It’s Great to Be Alive!”

 

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The Art of Tipping

February 28, 2012

“I’m curious, he started, as we were finishing our meal, “… what do you usually give for a tip here in the US?”

“Well,” I replied, “15 to 20 percent is about the norm.”

“Oh, my!” he said. “I never give more than 10 percent if the service is good. Do you think that’s wrong?”

“Not as long as you never go back to the same restaurant!” I responded. With that, he pulled out his wallet, paid the bill in cash, and excused himself to visit the men’s room. I took a peek at the bill. He had left enough for a 15 percent tip. Exactly to the penny.

This conversation took place years ago with a gentleman who lived in Nova Scotia and had come down to New Hampshire to recruit me to work for him. A really great guy, he claimed that his Scottish heritage provided him with a frugality that had served him well him entire life. I suspect, however, that he had never waited tables…

Tipping is a part of our society. It’s kind of an unwritten rule that, in many service industries, something more than the customary fee is owed to the people who provide you a service. Waiters, waitresses, cab drivers, valets, chambermaids, the paperboy, even the staffs at some coffee and fast food places – they all, to one degree or another either deserve, or in some cases merely expect, to be tipped. That could ruin a cheap guy’s vacation.

If you’ve ever taken a cruise, you know that, either up front when you book your trip or at checkout time when you pay for all those drinks you consumed onboard, you will be told precisely what you should tip for the guy who oversees your room, the girl who cleans it, and the head waiter, servers, and drink waiter who can make or break your dining experience. Tipping everyone just comes with that territory. You probably won’t have to do all that if you book a vacation at Motel 6 in Kalamazoo.

Few other service occupations are as upfront and straightforward about their tips as the cruise industry, but the underlying expectations are still there. Check into any hotel or motel and you’ll see the little envelop on the counter in your room, telling you that this room was cleaned especially by (fill in the name of your choice), who hopes you are satisfied with its cleanliness. Some of those envelopes are pretty dog-eared, suggesting that no tips have been forthcoming for a while. Which might be a telltale sign by itself.

Many people have pretty strong beliefs about tipping. Some set a range within which they will leave a tip, based on complicated factors. In a restaurant, those might include how good the service is, how good the food is, and how clean the place is. Then, they adjust accordingly, even though a waiter or waitress has no control over some of those factors, such as the overflowing trash can in the bathroom.

Other people tip only on the amount of the bill and will subtract the tax before calculating the tip – and like my Nova Scotian friend, usually leave a tip that is right to the penny. Most of these folks carry small calculators with them everywhere they go, and are especially popular among multiple parties who are splitting one bill.

Many young adults or teenagers who utilize services don’t even leave a tip, either because they were never taught social etiquette, or they just barely have enough for the service they are purchasing. Those are inevitably the kids who themselves never worked for less than minimum wage waiting tables in high school, an experience everyone should be forced to have, if only to appreciate the crap those folks often endure from ungrateful, ignorant, or cheap customers.

Tipping is indeed a strange thing. My sister and I visited Greece years ago. The cab driver who brought us to our hotel wouldn’t release our baggage from the trunk of the cab until we had given him a tip. He stood there with his hand out, waiting. When he wasn’t happy with what we gave him, he continued to hold out his hand until we added more – about the equivalent of the cab fare itself. It was tough to hold back from popping a guy like that, but considering we were in a strange land and knew no one there, I thought it wiser to capitulate – and overtip this scumbag. Besides, there was graffiti everywhere saying “American Pigs Go Home”. I didn’t think we’d get a lot of sympathy from the local constabulary.

My general rule these days is to give 20 percent in restaurants – and the service has to suck pretty badly for me to give less. Most wait staff knows where their bread is buttered and are generally friendly anyhow or they wouldn’t last in that business. Some waiters in the more expensive restaurants can be a little stiff, maybe snobby even, but, hey, adapt. I tip cabbies well – few of them are getting rich – and if I stay more than one night at a hotel, I’ll put something in that dog-eared envelope. For most other services, a few bucks can go a long way. Those are my tipping quirks. I operate on the knowledge that none of these folks are retiring after 20 years, with lifelong pensions anyhow – so why not appreciate them for what they do.

So how do you handle the fine art of tipping?

Visit Londonderry Hometown Online News every Tuesday Morning for another one of Joe’s great columns! Select “Share this story” and tell a friend Joe is back!

Joe’s Two Cents – It’s Great To Be Alive is Joe Paradis’ first published book and gathers 40 of his most popular stories, enhancing them with humorous photography. The book is a compilation of forty of Joe’s best short stories.

Injecting humor into topics from everyday life, Joe answers those earth-shattering questions we all have about the beach, the bathroom, the junk drawer. From guys’ tools to girl talk. High school seniors to the senior years.

This classic collection has been updated to include pictures and a short introduction for each story. Until now, only God knew what possessed Joe to write about these things. Now you can too!

Joe Paradis is one of Londonderry’s most popular columnists and authors. Visit his web site at www.joes2cents.com today and order his latest autographed book, “It’s Great to Be Alive!”

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The Green Thing

February 21, 2012

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this’ green’ thing back in my earlier days.”

The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”

She was right — our generation didn’t have the “green” thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn’t have the “green” thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn’t have the “green” thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn’t have the “green” thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working, so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she’s right. We didn’t have the “green” thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty, instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn’t have the “green” thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it sad that the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the “green” thing back then?

Please share these thoughts with another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person.

And remember, youngsters: Don’t make old people mad. We don’t like being old in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to piss us off.

(Author unknown, but dontcha know this story was sent through the Internet? Guess it that satellite 2,000 miles out in space has a few good uses…)

Visit Londonderry Hometown Online News every Tuesday Morning for another one of Joe’s great columns! Select “Share this story” and tell a friend Joe is back!

Joe’s Two Cents – It’s Great To Be Alive is Joe Paradis’ first published book and gathers 40 of his most popular stories, enhancing them with humorous photography. The book is a compilation of forty of Joe’s best short stories.

Injecting humor into topics from everyday life, Joe answers those earth-shattering questions we all have about the beach, the bathroom, the junk drawer. From guys’ tools to girl talk. High school seniors to the senior years.

This classic collection has been updated to include pictures and a short introduction for each story. Until now, only God knew what possessed Joe to write about these things. Now you can too!

Joe Paradis is one of Londonderry’s most popular columnists and authors. Visit his web site at www.joes2cents.com today and order his latest autographed book, “It’s Great to Be Alive!”

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The Cab Ride

February 7, 2012

“Yes, it is strange weather, sir,” agreed the taxi driver in his lilting accent. “Seventy degrees today – in February! That is a record for Washington DC.” He gently loaded my suitcase into the back of his cab and we headed off on our $60 cab ride from Reston, Virginia to DC.

He continued chatting, apparently happy to have a customer who would actually converse with him, rather than ignore him in favor of a cell phone or text messaging. “Yes, even in the mountains of northern India, there was snow last week. Snow! We never have snow there! It is crazy, sir, just crazy.” He kept glancing at me through the rear view mirror, gracefully waving his hand as he spoke.

Our weather conversation drifted to talk of India. “I have a friend who lives in India. He has a business over here, but he prefers to live in India. I ask him why. He tells me – you know, in India, I have people who cook for me. People who take care of my garden. My children go to wonderful private schools. Life is pretty good. I cannot do that if I live in the US all the time. So I come back to the US for two months to do my taxes and look in on my business and then I go back to India. He has a nice deal. I wish him good luck.”

I agreed. I told him of my experiences with Indians in my part of the country. “They always seem to be very pleasant. Polite. Many whom I interact with are doctors, professionals. They care for my parents who are getting old.”

“Yes, yes,” he replied. “Of course, in that culture, it depends where you are on the social level. Some people cannot climb that high.”

“You mean the caste system?” I asked.

“Yes, yes. That is the way life is. Now, myself, I am from Afghanistan. It is different. I came to this country 27 years ago. “ (So much for my thinking he was Indian!) He continued. “I have been driving a cab for all those years. My children are in high school and they are doing well. But I am getting tired of driving a cab. I cannot stop because this is how I feed my family. And it is very expensive to live in this area. Very expensive. But what can you do? It is still a good country. In Afghanistan, so many people don’t even know each other. The government is not good at that.”

Now, I don’t get to talk with a lot of Afghanis, so I couldn’t help but pursue this while I had the opportunity. “My son just returned from Afghanistan. He told me that, in the area where he was stationed, people in a village on one side of the road didn’t even know the people in the village on the other side of the road.”
“Yes, this is true. For a thousand years. That is why it is hard to make the villagers see the benefit of having one country.”

“So you don’t think much of President Karzai’s government?”

“I will tell you. India gives a lot of assistance to Afghanistan. But they will not give one dime unless they know where it goes. They make sure that it goes directly to the groups that give out the assistance to the people. But the United States – they give the aid directly to the government. And corruption is much in the government. That is what Mr. Karzai does. It is not the best way for the people.”

I always knew that, but it was interesting hearing that sentiment from an Afghani. “That makes sense,” I said. “But I think that America just gives so much money that they need to send it through the biggest funnel and hope that most of it gets through to the right people.” I knew that was a lame comment. The driver helped me out.

“Well, I can tell you. People need to eat. If they have no food, they hang around. If they have food, they go away, back to their homes. Some men, they have shops. Maybe in Kabul. Maybe in the small villages. And other men, many of them young, they have no jobs, so they hang around these shops. And bad men see this from across the road. They see these young men who are hungry. So they talk to them and they feed them. And that is where problems begin. Very bad men. They know what is important to people who are hungry. The government must keep the people’s bellies full. Then they will just go home and there will be no problems.”

I pondered this for a minute. By then, we had arrived at my destination, which unfortunately ended this interesting conversation. I paid my chatty driver and he retrieved my suitcase from the trunk. I shook hands with this slightly stooped man of 60, with the graying hair, friendly smile, and calm demeanor. “Be well, my friend,” I said. “Thank you for the conversation. And don’t work too hard.”

He laughed softly and gave me a short graceful bow. “I will not work too hard,” he said with a chuckle.

This DC cabbie of 27 years doesn’t expect to ever do anything more than drive a taxi around DC and worry about his children growing up safely. But a simple 20-minute conversation with him was the education of a lifetime for me. And a perspective that, as simple as it was, shouldn’t be lost on those leading a war in Afghanistan half a world away.

Visit Londonderry Hometown Online News every Tuesday Morning for another one of Joe’s great columns! Select “Share this story” and tell a friend Joe is back!

Joe’s Two Cents – It’s Great To Be Alive is Joe Paradis’ first published book and gathers 40 of his most popular stories, enhancing them with humorous photography. The book is a compilation of forty of Joe’s best short stories.

Injecting humor into topics from everyday life, Joe answers those earth-shattering questions we all have about the beach, the bathroom, the junk drawer. From guys’ tools to girl talk. High school seniors to the senior years.

This classic collection has been updated to include pictures and a short introduction for each story. Until now, only God knew what possessed Joe to write about these things. Now you can too!

Joe Paradis is one of Londonderry’s most popular columnists and authors. Visit his web site at www.joes2cents.com today and order his latest autographed book, “It’s Great to Be Alive!”

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Marvin’s Maladies

January 31, 2012

They were just playing catch in the street, like any two twelve-year-old boys living in the close confines of the city. Marvin peddled backwards to catch a mile-high toss and leapt at the last minute to snag the ball against a chain link fence. But the fence snagged him too and the sharp metal pickets ripped a two-inch gash in his side that bled for hours afterward. But it healed completely in a week and left only a scar that he could brag about later. It was his first real injury, one he never revealed to his mother.

Over the years, he broke only one bone, if cartilage counts – a nasty broken nose in his high school days that occurred at a 4th of July fair. He and a friend were on one of those old-fashioned carnival rides, in which they stand you in a cage that can swing the cage over a bar, very much like a Ferris wheel. The operator gives the cage a little push and the occupants do the rest of the work. The objective is to build up enough momentum to swing the cage over the bar and keep it going. It’s all done with the strength and coordination of the occupants. As the two friends built their momentum, Marvin miscalculated and slammed his nose into the metal bar. Two opposite momentums working against one another. His nose lost that fight. That injury healed quickly too, but he would not breathe correctly through his nose for another 15 years, when a surgeon rearranged his deviated septum.

He sustained other usual types of minor injuries as life went on. Once, while jogging in the city as a college kid, he suffered a sprained ankle and hobbled on crutches for a week. The day he got off the crutches, he began running again – and promptly sprained the other ankle. That too healed in another week.

Marvin used to jog a lot. Rain or shine. Wind or hale. Winter, spring, summer, and fall. Every other morning at 5:30 on the dot, he left the house for a brisk two-mile jog through the neighborhood. Luckily for him, he avoided further injuries. But he was in his thirties then; he’s now in his fifties. The knees have had enough jogging; they tend to swell now if he overdoes it. They don’t bounce back as they once did. And lately, it’s just a wee bit tougher for him to straighten his legs after kneeling down. Although he still walks fast when in the full upright position.

But he falls fast too, as a slip on the ice last winter would attest. Trying to save his cup of coffee on the way to the ground, he wrenched his thumb. Tore all the ligaments on one side. The coffee went everywhere, but the Styrofoam cup hit the ground intact, with only a hole pushed into it. A testimony to his perseverance. The thumb is still recovering two months later. He still can’t use that thumb to turn a doorknob or open a jar of peanut butter.

Marvin also can’t bend the toes on his right foot without pain, thanks to a fall off a tall curb in the city last summer. One of those free-fall face plops to the ground, the ultimate embarrassment. So he gimps around just a bit these days, especially when wearing the wrong shoes. No matter how tall a curb, that shouldn’t happen. But it does…as you get older.

His exercise regiment has been curtailed slightly these days, as, with the self-inflicted injuries to his foot and his thumb, it’s more difficult to get through his routine. And a subtle but constant pain in his lower back also gives him pause before making any sudden moves. A quick twist to the right a few weeks ago left him with a back spasm that only a chiropractor could love.

Last week, Marvin received the ultimate proof that he doesn’t heal as quickly as he once did. He had his first stress test ever, which he passed, but during which the doctor discovered that he has a touch of high blood pressure. As a result, Marvin has now entered that exclusive club of older Americans who enjoy their “meds” on a daily basis. He’s looking forward to putting in his own two cents about this, when he next visits his parents. As always, that conversation will inevitably turn to their aches and pains, their medications, and their list of doctor appointments. He feels they’ll now have more in common than they’ve had since that grease fire drove them all out of the house together some forty years ago.

Marvin has now entered the Twilight Zone, that eerie phase of life when his body is just beginning to hint that it wants to slow down a bit. But we doubt that Martin will listen. In his mind, he’s still a twelve-year-old kid, shagging those fly balls out in the street. And there’s nothing at all wrong with that.

Visit Londonderry Hometown Online News every Tuesday Morning for another one of Joe’s great columns! Select “Share this story” and tell a friend Joe is back!

Joe’s Two Cents – It’s Great To Be Alive is Joe Paradis’ first published book and gathers 40 of his most popular stories, enhancing them with humorous photography. The book is a compilation of forty of Joe’s best short stories.

Injecting humor into topics from everyday life, Joe answers those earth-shattering questions we all have about the beach, the bathroom, the junk drawer. From guys’ tools to girl talk. High school seniors to the senior years.

This classic collection has been updated to include pictures and a short introduction for each story. Until now, only God knew what possessed Joe to write about these things. Now you can too!

Joe Paradis is one of Londonderry’s most popular columnists and authors. Visit his web site at www.joes2cents.com today and order his latest autographed book, “It’s Great to Be Alive!”

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