SLOW TALKING HAND-SANITIZER
Since we’ve entered into this phase of our existence regarding pandemics and all I must tell you that hand-washing has become something of an art-form. My friend Louise in North Carolina is a clean-freak of the nicest kind. She sings “Happy Birthday” while washing with soap and water to verify that she has spent enough time scrubbing the palms together and twisting the fingers and thumb enough. It’s quite entertaining visiting with her what with the music and the vocals and all. I’ve tried emulating her efforts. Unfortunately, I’ve not mastered the skill of washing my hands in such a way that it doesn’t drive my neighbors and close friends nuts. You see, I have a habit of over explaining things, no matter what the topic is. I tend to go on and on with detail, technical data, technique, and the like. More often than not I get into long discussion on closely related topics, side-bars, etcetera. This morning, in fact, I got lost in conversation with a person on the other end of the telephone line who was trying to take my order for a subscription to The Atlantic magazine. I was telling Agnes, the person on the telephone, about the first time I saw the Mediterranean Sea. That was back in ’64, I think. Maybe ’63, not sure, nope, nope, it was ‘64. The Mediterranean Sea is quite large although it is surrounded by land masses that extend quite far into it from multiple directions. Oddly enough, the Mediterranean is quite long and wide but it is narrow enough in places to present navigational hazards and ship meetings are frequent in the summer, more so than in winter. In fact, while on patrol on those long underwater voyages our sonarmen would log over two thousand ship contacts in the summer but less than a few hundred in the winter. That’s in a two-month period. We would get underway and stay at sea for an average of sixty-five to seventy-odd days. Believe me when I tell you that the fresh produce didn’t last us two months. In fact, we were lucky to get two weeks out of the fresh stuff. After that we were eating out of cans the rest of the trip. Um, let’s see, hand-washing technique. Yes, thank you. I had to read the first parts of this paragraph to find out where I was.
So, Louise sings “Happy Birthday” and I have finally gotten the hang of that strategy. Oh, by the way. Today is the anniversary of when the state of Maine became a state of the United States. That’s right. Two hundred years ago today Maine became a state. March 15th, 1820. Yessir! Happy Birthday to Maine. Maine was part of Massachusetts before then. Maine got fed up with the Mass-holes and voted to separate. It all had to do with taxation. Collecting the tax money and then trying to decide where to spend it. Of course, the big-wigs down in Boston wanted to spend it on buying land in Maine and selling it to outsiders and keeping the profits for investments in Beantown certainly. The attitude towards people from Massachusetts remains to this day. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I had trouble in the beginning because I could never choose a name for the part where it goes, “Happy Birthday, dear so-and-so…” I always hesitated and that would muck things up. I’d get stuck for a name and then I’d forget where I was in the song. I settled on “You Who”. I’d sing, “Happy Birthday, dear you-who!” Then I’d be able to smoothly transition into the remainder of the song. This might be a good time to start singing happy birthday to Maine, eh? Regardless, it takes me more than one bar of soap to get through one hand-washing.
Gentle George
15 March 2020
Playing Fair and Being Kind 