Preventive Medicine

Throngs scrunched tightly together in long queues for hours, waiting to be vaccinated. What more hospitable conditions for the virus to spread?!

Re: My "Memorable Occasion"

Several friends expressed surprise at my ignorance of robotic trash collection and sardonically welcomed me to the Third Millennium. By way of explication (and in my own defense): I lived for sixteen years in rural Tennessee, where I had to haul my own trash to a County dumpster; then, until recently, I lived for nine years in a hi-rise condominium at the Jersey Shore, where I simply dropped my waste down a chute in a hallway closet. So for the past quarter century, I have been unwittingly insulated from the Remarkable Residential Refuse-removal Revolution!

For most people, there is no The One--there is only the one for now.

A Memorable Occasion

It was Trash-collection Day. I remember the chaos and high-decibel cacophony of dump trucks rumbling into previous neighborhoods, intent on disturbing the pre-dawn peace--each with two or three sweaty drones clinging to the back; who periodically dismounted and flung metal cans and contents about with abandon, then raced after the receding behemoth--only to repeat the teeth-rattling, mind-numbing ritual until all the refuse had been collected, or at least redistributed. Waste disposal was an iffy and noisome proposition. Not so at my new abode! A vehicle resembling an armored personnel carrier (or an orange Stegosaurus on wheels) stopped at the end of my driveway, sans hangers-on--this was a one-man show! As I watched slack-jawed, two metal arms emerged, embraced my plastic trash container, hoisted it skyward, upended it, and delivered its bagged contents into the beast's cavernous maw, then reset the emptied receptacle in its precise curbside footprint. In this manner, 110 homes were serviced by a single individual (who never even got his hands dirty!) in about a half hour. An impressive performance. And more entry-level blue-collar jobs eliminated.

True Love?

I read an epistle from John Keats to Fanny Brawne, "considered to be one of the most beautiful love letters ever written." If Keats' consuming obsession be True Love, I want none of it!