WOMEN

 "Women weren't created to do everything a man can do.  Women were created to do everything a man can't do."

 

I WAS A TEENAGE BRAIN SURGEON

Here's one of my favorite songs from my favorite album when I was ten.  You can listen to it HERE, and here are the lyrics.

 I WAS A TEENAGE BRAIN SURGEON

I was out of grade school at six
High school at eight
College at 10… and a half
And after three years pre-med
I was the head
Doctor of brain surgery

After operating I pause
Tighten the gauze
Wait for applause
While my patients laughed
Hysterically
Obviously
They were in stitches over me

I was a teenage brain surgeon
A teenage brain surgeon
A knocked out, fractured brain surgeon
The sharpest operator in town

While the other kids were digging
Dick Clark from coast to coast
I was digging Doctor Kildare
That man you know the most

Even when I was in grade school
I had that medical look
I never got past the appendix
Whenever I opened a book

Scalpel… scalpel (screaming)
Forceps… forceps (screaming)
Suture… suture (screaming)
Oops, anesthetic… (yelling that trails off into snoring)

Whenever I went out dancing
To make my night complete
I brought along my stethoscope
Man, you hear the wildest beat

One night the band was playing
I’ve got you under my skin
I scared a fella half to death
When I said, “May I cut in?”

I was a teenage brain surgeon
A teenage brain surgeon
A rockin’ rollin’ brain surgeon
The sharpest operator in town

 

 

HOW TO CONVERT SHELVES INTO COFFIN, BY WILLIAM WARREN

 

MY GRANDFATHER WAS A GENIUS

 

       My maternal grandfather, Peter Haugland, once remodeled The Egg and I author, Betty MacDonald's house on Vashon Island.  She said he was a genius.

       He was a carpenter and cabinet maker in the days when they did all the work in building a house, not just specialized on one part of it.  And he built his last house at the age of 88.

       He died just short of 98, and I was privileged to be one of the pall bearers at his funeral. Of course he had built his coffin, too.

 

 

AND HE HAD BARE FEET

       Back when our youngest son Andrew had long hair, we went to Busiek State Park at Highlandville, Missouri, and stopped at a gravel pit on the way in, for something to do.  And Andrew thought of something to do.

 

       And when we took a trip across country, we explored the Badlands in South Dakota, and stopped at an overview beside the highway.  Andrew disappeared, and the next thing we saw was him, not climbing, but running, up the side of this dangerously eroding hill, about twice as tall as in the picture, much in the way you see him above.  The people gathered there for the view, held their breath watching Andrew.  The lady standing beside me said, "Oh dear, I'm glad he's not my son," and I admitted, "He's our son."

       When Andrew got to the peak, he quickly sat down and assumed this position as if meditating.  Later he told us he wasn't planning on sitting down like that, but when he got to the top, there was a straight drop behind it for hundreds of feet, and he got scared.  Yet after resting, he came down as fast as he went up, and we drove away, leaving the amazed people.