Sir Isaac Newton was a life-long bachelor who died in 1727 at the age of 84. He is considered by many to be the most influential scientist who ever lived. He built the world’s first reflective telescope; he developed the theory of the visible light spectrum; he shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of important theories in calculus; and his monograph, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, did no less than establish the very foundation for classical mechanics (physics). One might wonder whether the breadth and depth of Sir Newton’s accomplishments were made possible due to his apparent lack of interest in having a wife and family. That is, could he have pulled this off as a husband and father of a gaggle of small children living in rural England?

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You will never know how shocked I was, as a lad, to learn that bananas grow with their stems down and their tips up. I mean, that’s just crazy. Imagine apples growing upward instead of hanging from their stems. It defies logic. Maybe this is why people who have one wheel in the sand are sometimes said to have gone “bananas.” Continue “Going bananas”

A couple of weeks ago I posted an article about cowboys and cowgirls and “the cowboy way.” If you are old enough to remember those characters you probably also remember that each of them had a sidekick: Wild Bill Hickock had Jingles; Gene Autry had a sidekick played by Pat Buttram; Cisco had Pancho; and the Lone Ranger had Tonto. And then there was Don Quixote, who had a sidekick in Sancho. Achilles had Petroclus in the Iliad; Moses had Aaron; Martin had Lewis; Batman had Robin; Holmes had Watson and Thelma had Louise (or was it the other way around–don’t recall). The list goes on.

So, what’s up with all the sidekicks?

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As a youngster, there was never any doubt in my mind that I was supposed to grow up to be a cowboy. I watched Spin and Marty on TV along with the Cisco Kid and Pancho, Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Roy was my favorite of all because, among other things, he had an incredibly cool cowboy hat. Roy and Dale even had a German Shepherd in the family just as we did. Roy’s dog was named Bullet and, from watching various episodes, one would be led to believe that that dog could run just as fast as Trigger, Roy’s trusty palomino. Ours was a female named Queenie. The only time I remember Queenie running much was when I called her for dinner.

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My 89 year-old widowed mother, my sister Carol and her husband along with many other members of my extended family all reside in Buchanan, Michigan, my home town, and the surrounding area. It was 7:02 AM this past Wednesday, March 27th, when I received the call from Carol that our mom had passed after a long and difficult eight months. In short order I was packed and on my way north out of Florida, arriving in Buchanan two days later.

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