JIM'S JOTTINGS - JULY 14, 2017

Welcome to the “new” column. For now, we’ll call it “Jim’s Jottings,” but that could change. Since many of you wanted this to continue, I got the official approval of our director and new President, so off we go…

I will not be talking about Board stuff, but you probably do want to know that at our July 10 meeting, we elected the following officers: Linda Jacknowitz, President, Ed Johnson, Vice-President, Earl Melby, Secretary, and George Trapp, Treasurer. I know we’ll all support their work and step up to volunteer to serve on committees and such.

Strange as it may seem, I don’t have a special topic for today. I have been too immersed in Leonard Bernstein and the Film Forum to do much else. On the other hand, doesn’t it feel like mid-August right now, with this sickeningly high humidity? At least it’s not 100 degrees like in the mid-west. Aren’t we grateful for our central air? As a youngster, my family would drive from California to Oklahoma to visit the grandparents in July, positively the worst time to go there! And there was no a/c! But that’s when dad could get leave from the Marine Corps, so that’s when we’d go. And yet, and yet, I do love the change of seasons here, so stop complaining, Jim!

Next Wednesday, July 19, is Jim Benner’s 92^nd birthday, so if you want to send him a card, he’s still at the Evergreen Assisted Living place on Collins Ferry Road. I’m sure he would love to be remembered by as many as possible.

I’ll try to be more exciting next week. While I will not discuss politics or religion, it did help me to hear the great historian David McCullough tell Charlie Rose a week or so ago that our republic has survived much worse than the current political conflict. To make his point, he offered the Civil War and the Spanish Influenza outbreak following World War I as examples! Puts it in perspective, doesn’t it?

Jim Held, Past-Whatever