Wichita Falls, Texas, 1960: My cousins Bobby and Danny lived in this nearby city. Their father Pfeiffer sold insurance and had a fancy red Farmer’s Insurance sign painted on the doors of their white Studebaker. “It makes the car deductible,” he said.

His wife, formerly Rosemary Hurn, my mother’s older sister, was in fact the eldest of the Hurn children, and she was quite beautiful. As we remember that screen sirens of the 1940’s were somber-faced and dramatic explains a lot about how Rosemary and my mother dressed when they were dressing up. The difference between them was that my mother, a plump and cheery-natured woman, didn’t really fit in that picture, but Rosemary brought it off fairly well.

Rosemary, in my opinion as a child, rather put on airs. It was this snooty outlook which made Bobby’s first Communion so unfortunate for her.

For you see, Rosemary was the secretary to Dr. Hoggard, the smiling and pompous minister of Floral Height Methodist Church, which was lots snootier than the First Methodist Church of Henrietta which I was used to.

Floral Heights Methodist had a ceiling several stories high, and added a vast cathedral echo to the minister’s words. Perhaps that’s what made him pompous. Or perhaps I just imagined it as a child.

Bobby and Danny, and husband Pfeiffer, were expected to maintain a especially diligent decorum at Floral Heights Methodist Church, seeing as how Rosemary had such a position of importance there. So no whispering, and no fidgeting! The boys knew better.

When young Bobby was deemed old enough to attend Communion, he was anxious to do it right. Now, for the benefit of our heathen readers, in the Methodist Church, Communion is held but once per month, unlike the Catholics, who have Mass at most every service. The Catholics also have fancy wafers and red wine, but the Methodists just use crumbled pieces of Saltine Crackers and Welch’s grape juice, for as everybody knows the Catholics are a drunken, unruly lot, unlike the proper and sanctified Methodists.

Floral Heights Methodist being large and proper and sanctified, the Communion service takes a long time, for the congregation must trudge down to the great circle in crews. The ushers select a pewful of parishioners. Down in a line march these folks in their Sunday attire, to kneel upon the padded bench surrounding the low circular railing. Along come the priests- Oops I mean Ministerians, the first one offering to each worshipper a silver plate with the Saltine pieces, then the other guy offering tiny glasses of grape juice.

Bobby marched down behind Rosemary and Pfeiffer and knelt properly, craning his neck to see the silver platter approach. He took a piece of the holy Saltine, and the serving Ministerians moved on to Rosemary and Pfeiffer.

Suddenly the beauty of the service was marred. Bobby was crawling around on the carpet, scurrying in hasty circles on hands and knees.

“Oh my gawrsh!” he cried out, “I dropped my cracker!“

Some years ago, in Chicago, lived a petty hoodlum named Benny, a miserable fellow, who never had a girlfriend, was always coughing with a cold, and was always broke.

So it was that, pawing through a trashcan, he was surprised to find a small and ornate urn, because he seldom had good fortune. He took it home to his hovel, and was rubbing the dust off, when — poof! — in a puff of smoke appeared a genii!

“You have three wishes,” the genii said, “but there’s a condition.”

As you can imagine, Benny was very surprised, and naturally suspicious. “What kind of condition?” he demanded.

“Nothing much,” said the genii with a smile. “You can have anything you wish, but you must agree never to get a shave or a haircut.”

“What happens if I do?” asked Benny. The genii looked somber.

“Then you will spend the rest of your very long life trapped inside the urn,” said the genii, “Just as I have done.”

“It’s a deal!” said Benny.

“What are your wishes?” asked the genii.

“I’d like health, and happiness, and more money than I can ever spend,” said Benny.

“Done!” said the genii, and vanished in a puff of smoke. There was a knock on the door. When Benny answered, he found Ed McMahon from Publishers Clearing House, with a very large check.

Benny didn’t know what to think, but, oddly, he felt happy and healthy. And that’s the way it went. He spent money madly, but more kept showing up. He started dressing better and going out more, and women began to pay attention.

Some years later, his hair fell down his back below his knees, and his beard almost as long in front. But he had a great life, and a good woman. Everything was wonderful.

Well, there was one little thing. The woman. The woman was very, very happy, except that she kept bugging him to get a shave and a haircut. Relentless, she was, and it was making him crazy. While on a world cruise, in the tiny cabin, after a few too many margaritas, she was chiding him to get a haircut and he blew up.

“All right!” Benny yelled, and stomped to the barber, and ordered a shave and a haircut. The barber rolled his eyes, and began. Some time later, the barber handed him a mirror to see how it looked, but a genii appeared in a puff of smoke, and then Benny and the genii vanished, and the mirror clattered to the floor.

There is a moral to this story:

A Benny shaved is a Benny urned.

Glitch Manor, Weardale England, June 1856: Not long ago, through an odd circumstance, I became aware of the following letter from Ernest Glitch of Weardale to Michael Faraday. The letter describes the demonstration of a nitrogen TEA (Transversely Excited, Atmospheric pressure) laser, using air as the lasing medium. This occured in Victorian England over a century before Maiman`s ruby laser or Javan`s helium-neon laser. The letter reads as follows …

“My Dear Faraday,

“I would like to expound to you a phenomenon of singular curiosity, apparent during investigations into expanding the electrical spark. It affords me little joy as my discovery took the sight from Hodges right eye and I have had to dismiss him. As my last correspondence indicated, I have surmised that the experiments are deleterious to poor Hodges, his health having sharply deteriorated due, I think, to the quicksilver effluvia he breathed during leyden phial silvering.

“The leyden battery is now complete! What a detonation is delivered after charging for some time! I had Hodges place a ball of box-wood in the path of the spark …

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Mount Shasta, CA, September 2, 2003: Adrienne has done it right. The best time to leave a job or profession is when you’re at the top. She is, and she has.

For the last ten years she’s operated Adrienne’s All-Weather DogWalking Service in Marin County. A month ago, she sent a letter to her clients, to let them know she was closing her business, because we were moving away.

Oh, the tears! She’s become part of the lives of these families, including the Mayor of Ross and one of Arnold Schwartzenegger’s current advisory panel. The lovely letters she’s received are quite touching. She says all the dogs could tell. She told each one. The last day, she saw Izzy and Coley.

She and Coley Mulroy, a large black lab, like to dance to country music. He puts his paws on her shoulders, and she says, “Shake it, Coley” and he does the shimmy, to the strains of Shania Twain. She had her last dance with Coley. She said good bye.

When I picked Adrienne up on Sunday, she and I and Tulip and Percy got into the new Ford.

And we drove away.

Henrietta, Texas, 1963: It is a time-honored tradition among college-age boys that they drive home on weekends, and there consume mightily of home-cooked meals prepared by their mothers, and by a remarkable coincidence they often have brought a duffle bag filled with laundry which they somehow failed to find time to wash while at school, what with their busy schedule of studying, and etc.

Although these college lads may be large, hulking, beer-swilling brutes, each is still mama’s dear baby, and so these mothers feed the boys and do their washing, and after the weekend send the young warriors off with bellies full and clean clothing. This cycle repeats over and over again, apparently eternally.

I was no exception.

On this particular weekend, I was desparate, for I was down to wearing a dirty shirt, and two mismatched socks. One sock was pale blue and the other white with a faint orange stripe.

In the laundry room, my mother looked me up and down as I plopped down the swollen laundry duffle. Staring at my feet, she frowned.

“It’s the funniest thing,” she said.

“What is?” I asked.

“You have another pair of socks here,” she said, “exactly like that pair you’re wearing.”

San Anselmo: Russell wasn’t actually named Russell. It’s so long ago, I don’t recall clearly, but I think he was named Orville after his father. When he was in grade school, one day he decided to change his name.

He wanted to be called ‘Rusty’, like the kid on the TV show “Rin Tin Tin”. By the simple strategy of stubbornly ignoring all friends, teachers, parents, and others until they addressed him as “Rusty,” he soon became Rusty, and some time later decided that “Russell” was even better.

I admire Russell because he built a home-made hang-glider of fishing poles and plastic sheeting, and jumped off Mount Tamalpais. It worked all right, for a while, but then about 50 yards above the earth, the main spar broke, and he fell to the ground. About like falling out a sixth-floor window. He broke a collar-bone and ruptured his spleen. When he got out of the hospital, he rebuilt the hang-glider to be stronger, and jumped off Mount Tamalpais again, so that he wouldn’t have to be afraid of it any more. That’s the spirit!

So last week, I got a call from my friend Russell.

Russell lives in the hills just north of Los Angeles. He does high-end cabinetry and contracting. He is a mighty woodman, and has two grown boys of his own. One of them, Alec, makes movies these days.

Russell’s mother, Billie Jane, a long-ago crony of my mother’s, and long-time friend from my childhoot, is now very, very long-lived like all of her maternal line. Not letting that slow her down, she pulled a copy of my college story “Ralph the Cat” from some ancient file, and sent it to Alec. Alec likes it. Now Alec wants to make a movie of it. I’ve just written a letter of permission to film the story. Funny. I wrote it when I was about the same age as Alec is now, and that was a long, long time ago.

If things go well, soon coming to a Film Festival or Art Theatre near you … “Ralph the Cat.”