Cheat Sheets For Young (ish?) H. sapiens

Introduction and C.S. 1

Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}, a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.

  

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"If the immortality dreamers of Silicon Valley are successful, they may discover that what still seems interesting about life at 80 is a lot less interesting at 200." -Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. 

Dear Gentlereaders,

This is not my first attempt to create cheat sheets; I started down this road once before. What was attempted was a series of cheat sheets intended to leave a bit of advice behind for the Stickies, my now-grown grandkids (legally speaking anyway), and their kids if they should decide to reproduce, that my gentlereaders might also find interesting/useful.  

Me being me — garrulous 1 :given to prosy, rambling, or tedious loquacity (Merriam-Webster — I lost control of the narrative and gave up in short order.

{Don't be too hard on yourself, as your millions of gentlereaders are aware, your columns do "feature the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer."}

Thanks for the commercial, Dana, but due to my impending death, I've decided...

{Your impending death! If you're about to die, that means that I'm about to die! Why am I only now hearing about this?}

Sorry, I'm not about to drop dead, not as far as I know anyway. But when I do dance the mortal coil shuffle, nobody's gonna say (unfortunately), "But he was so young!" which implies I should do this thing ASAP if I really want to get it done. Besides, given that any given H. sapien may drop dead at any age...

{You're a dick, you know that, right?}

Hey! This is a more or less family-friendly column! You know that, right?

{Fine, you're a penis, you know that, right?}

Anyways... I've decided to try again, without creating a virtual verbal prairie dog community for my dear gentlereaders to try and find their way out of.  

{Say what?}

Prairie dogs build entire underground cities that make mere rabbit holes look pathetic by comparison.

{Yup, you're a penis alright.}

FYI, if you find my plan to produce a series of cheat sheets alarming/annoying/boring, fear not, I don't plan to publish them consecutively. They will instead be published now and then till I run out of subjects I wish to comment on. 

{Or till he drops dead at his keyboard, whichever comes first.} 

C.S. 1. Bookends. Memento mori is Latin for remember, you must die.

My personal version is something like, Hey, given that I'm going to die and that it could be today, how do I choose to live in the meantime? There are documented instances of people employing this concept for roughly 2,500 years, although I'm sure it's even older than that. 

As it happens, there are all sorts of H. sapiens working on and/or hoping to become immortal via various and sundry methodologies from digital to electromechanical to spiritual to electrical to etcetrical. My personal favorite is intensive caloric restriction: starving yourself to death to live forever. 

Iregardless, at least for now, as I believe Shakespeare said, life is but an old cell phone battery. If you're young, younger than me anyway, before you know it, you're going to be old like me. Old or young, you need to keep this in mind: Emotionally speaking, you may still feel like you have all the time in the world, even if rationally speaking, you know you don't. 

Traditionally, people have used various and sundry methods to remind them that the light at the end of the tunnel might be a train coming the other way. Monks might keep a human skull in their cells, but merely contemplating death while sitting in silence in a graveyard was sufficient for others.  

I would advise against keeping a human skull in your room for any number of what are hopefully obvious reasons. There are faux versions available on Amazon available in various sizes and made from various materials. I was skimming product descriptions when I found this: "The skull model, made in non-toxic PVC material, tasteless, easy to clean. Able to be washed and the material will last for years."

{Do the descriptions say where they're manufactured? Because if it's Emperor Poo Win Nie's China...}

Being old, I personally know a lot of dead people, famous Boomers seem to be dropping like flies, and I have a personal health problem or three. I don't have to go out of my way to be reminded I'm mortal.

{Alright, I get it, Captain Obvious. Odds are, we're going to die, so we should live accordingly.}

Bonus questions for extra credit: If you could choose some version of immortality, would/should you? Can you explain the following paradox? The older you get the less likely it is you will want to live forever. 

{I thought we weren't going to visit Prairie Dog City? You said bookends, plural?}

The other bookend is another concept that's also been around effectively forever. Picture yourself on your deathbed with the wherewithal to review the life you just led. What will you regret? What would you have done differently if you knew then what you know now? Should you have eaten more or fewer doughnuts?

"Odds are, we're going to die, so we should live accordingly."

{You're quoting yourself again, this time in the same column?}

Well...life is short, and technically speaking, I quoted you. 

Clearly, asking yourself these sorts of questions now would be a good idea, and not just because you hopefully can do something about the answers if you don't like them. 

If you do this honestly/realistically you'll discover that there's no shortage of things that you can't, or at best, only partially change. This will provide clarity and direction. Put that list in a drawer, lock it, stop fretting about it, and get on with your life. Take it out on your birthday to see if it needs updating. 

{Does this mean you've come to grips with the fact you're never going to be an obscenely rich, exceedingly handsome rock star whose reclusive nature makes you that much hotter as far as the chicks are concerned?}   

Well, my dear gentlereaders, thanks for reading this missive. To sum up, try to keep in mind that any given day is a day you could be killed by a Pyro Drone run amok. You need to choose how you wish to live your life lest you regain consciousness one day wondering why your hospital room smells like the aftermath of a fireworks display and everyone is looking at you like that. 

Doctor: "I'm afraid I have some bad news, sir/ma'am/other."

You: "I woulda..., I coulda..., I shoulda..."

{Whoa, hold up there, Sparky. How are people supposed to go about deciding how to live their lives?}

Sorry, I thought that was obvious. Take your pick: goals, no goals, or nihilism. If you choose goals, never forget that life is what happens to you while you're making other plans, and make like a recovering addict and pray/hope for the serenity to accept what can't be changed, the courage to change what you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

Easy peasy.

{Could you, um, expand on that just a bit?}

I personally recommend having a major long-term goal or two in mind, as well as short-term goals that will help you get there, and serve to provide structure along the way. 

Don't just do so to please your Mum or Sister Mary McGillicuddy. Wikipedia says, "The anticipation of most types of rewards increases the level of dopamine in the brain...". The journey is as important as the destination... and provides a dopamine buzz as you go. 

This is why you feel so much better when you have goals than when you don't. It also keeps you from embracing nihilism (put down that axe, Eugene) or getting hooked on substances that flood your brain with dopamine that ultimately stop working: "...many addictive drugs increase dopamine release or block its reuptake...".  

There are reasons why so many seemingly boring and uncool people are happier and more well-adjusted than the estimated 59,300,000 Americans who suffer from mental illness.

{59.3 million? Well, that explains all sorts of stuff, but I think it might be an underestimate.}    

Have an OK day, 

Colonel Cranky

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Copyright 2025-Mark Mehlmauer-All rights reserved

 

Let's Drop the Big One

 A Random Randomnesses Column

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}, a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.

  

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"A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills - no, no. They'd make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while." 
                                                                                                 -Robin Williams      

Dear Gentlereaders,

My favorite Randy Newman song is called Political Science and can be found on one of his early albums, Sail Away, which was released in 1972. Randy Newman has been at it since he was 17; he's now 81 and has created a hooge body of quality work. Trivia question: What was his only top 40 hit? 

In the course of the song in question, Mr. Newman opines that America, like Rodney Dangerfield, doesn't get any respect. He suggests that we "...drop the big one, and see what happens." 

SARCASM WARNING: The verse below is from a sarcastic song written by a sarcastic songwriter famous for his sarcastic songs. If you have a problem separating sarcastic content from sincere sentiments, I sincerely recommend that you stop reading now.  

Boom goes London, boom Paree

More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world 'round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it'll be
We'll set everybody free
You wear a Japanese kimono, babe
There'll be Italian shoes for me
They all hate us anyhow
So let's drop the big one now
Let's drop the big one now

We didn't drop the big one, but we did drop a handful of big-ass bombs on Iran recently, which is what reminded me of the song in question. We knew what was likely to happen, and that's why we did it. 

Good. 

But the usual suspects began maneuvering in short order to exploit the situation for their own benefit. 

The Depublicans are calling for hearings, commissions, and official reports. AOC wants the Donald impeached, again. 

"The enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue," says Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president who's now the deputy chairman of Russia's security council. "A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads." Thanks for the heads up, Dmitry. 

Here ya go, kids, the bomb. Be careful not to drop it on the way home. He neglects to mention exactly who it is that can't wait to give the Mad Mullahs a nuke or two in the Tweet I just quoted. And no, Cranky still doesn't Tweet/X-claim. I found the quote elsewhere. 

Golly, it would appear the Mad Mullahs were fibbing. It turns out they really weren't interested in building power plants that would mitigate any global warming that might result from all that oil they supply to Medvedev's boss, the Pooteen, and China's Emperor Poo Win Nie — via ancient rust buckets with the transponders turned off. 

Just look for the slick, Slick. 

However, I firmly believe that 99.44% of the citizens of the planet Earth are absolutely delighted that, at the very least, the Mad Mullah's quest for a "the bomb" to call their own has been put on hold for now. I'm hoping this holds true till after my mortal coil and I have gone our separate ways. 

I recently read an article in The Wall Street Journal titled The Holy Grail of Automation: Now a Robot Can Unload a Truck. I had no idea this task, one that I've not only done myself, I've also supervised others doing it, was the holy grail of automation. 

Assuming you have a reliable pulse, I betcha a boddelapop (that's soda pop to some of you) you're aware of the endless speculation as to whether or not artificial intelligence technology is going to render we H. sapiens more or less superfluous. 

I keep running into articles claiming that, like in the past, there will ultimately be more jobs created than destroyed. However, I also keep running into articles about white collar jobs also disappearing.  

{Robot mechanic?}

If AI is as powerful as predicted, Dana, in short order, robots will be repairing robots. I predict professional Bread and Circuses promoters will make a good living irregardless. You can get started now by getting a job working for rich (at least on paper), less well-known versions of the Donald, or a "reality" TV show producer. 

Perhaps you could be one of the one in a thousand "Influencers" that make enough money to live on. How hard could it be?

{Look on the bright side, America's building nuclear power plants again.}

Indeed. Who would've thought an accidental side effect of the need to supply electricity to hungry artificial intelligenci that (who?) might destroy our jobs, or us, would be to radically reduce fossil fuel emissions. 

{I'll bet the Mad Mullahs would be willing to take care of all the nuclear waste for us.}

Speaking of fossil fuels, have you heard about President (since 1979) Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, pardoning the two South African oil workers he locked up for more than two years because he could?

FYI, according to his lengthy Wikipedia page, Mr. Mbasogo "...leads one of the most corrupt, ethnocentric, and repressive regimes in the world."

It's a complicated story that I stumbled across in the Wall Street Journal that prompted me to go a-googlin' to verify since it's a you can't make this stuff up kind of story. As a public service, here's my Joe ("All we want are the facts, ma'am") Friday version.

 - South African businessman, Daniel van Rensburg, and President Mbasogo's son and Vice President, "Teddy" Mbasogo, get tangled up in a business dispute. 

- The Mbasongos resolved the problem by tossing van Rensburg in the jug, Black Beach Prison, where rumor has it torture is not unheard of, for 500 days or so, but forgot to charge him with anything. When he gets out, he returns to South Africa and sues Teddy. He's awarded almost three million bucks, plus interest and expenses. 

- The court ordered the seizure of Teddy's two South African villas and a couple of his yachts, which were parked there at the time, to ensure payment.

- Understandably annoyed, Teddy has two South African oil workers in Equatorial Guinea, who have absolutely nothing to do with the kerfuffle in question, busted on a bogus cocaine charge, and he tosses them in the jug. Sentence: twelve years and five million in fines. 

Diplomatic efforts to rescue them ensue, and go nowhere. But then, two plus years later, a happy ending. 

Teddy's dad, the aforementioned President Mbasogo, freed the men, part of a group of 476 prisoners he pardoned to celebrate his recent birthday, without an official explanation. 

Little Teddy cleared things up via a social media post. 

“Once again, His Excellency the President of the Republic has shown the world the values of humanity, solidarity and a sense of reconciliation that he embodies by pardoning two South African nations convicted of drug trafficking. In an increasingly divided world, this pardon reminds us that Africa must continue building bridges between its nations, resolving differences through dialogue, and emphasizing cooperation over punishment, while still upholding the rule of justice."

Answer: Short People

Have an OK day, Colonel Cranky

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Copyright 2025-Mark Mehlmauer-All rights reserved

 

 

 

The Further Adventures of Ice Cream Man

My (one) Amish Summer

Image by Tom Markoski from Pixabay

Letters of eclectic commentary featuring the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer and {Dana}, a persistent hallucination and charming literary device.

  

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"Do you sell pop-seekles by the box too?" -Anonymous Amish Teenager

Dear Gentlereaders,

Late spring and early summer were when neighborhood-based professional popsicle peddlers based north of the Mason-Dixon line had their most profitable days of the season. I assume this is true of the food truck-based version, but I bailed when the former version began to die and before the rise of the latter. 

This is why I, your favorite former off-again-on-again ice cream man, is writing about being a popsicle peddler, again. While I think about it every year at this time, this is the first year I've written about it. If you're interested, I've written two other columns, this one and this one.   

  

My sister-in-law, Aunt Brenda, was the one who told me about _______ Road, just off 422, in Parkman? She was a Yoder Toter at the time, a title she didn't much care for, deeming it demeaning to the Amish people she toted around in a van for a while.

The Urban Dictionary defines Yoder Toter as "A large white 16-seater van that carries the Amish on excursions to Walmart." The Urban Dictionary prioritizes humor over scholarship, but if you live here in Hooterville, or any area that has a large-ish Amish community from what I can tell, this is a relatively accurate definition, although I can't remember if Aunt Brenda's van was a white 16-seater. 

In the unlikely event an Amish person should read this, I apologise if you're offended. I went a-googlin' and found nothing about the Amish finding the term offensive and I've never encountered anyone who used the term in a derogatory fashion when referencing a van, its driver, or the Amish.  

I have encountered a few "English" people (to the Amish, we're the English) who don't care for the Amish for one reason or another. I love the Amish even though I only spent one evening a week, for one summer, selling them ice cream bars and pop-seekles from the ice cream truck I owned towards the end of my on-again-off-again career as an ice cream man.  

Picture this in your mind's eye. You're driving a large, pink ice cream truck down a quiet country road. Except for the fact it's pink and the ceramic-coated signs have been flipped over and now say Carrousel Ice Cream.  It's a "real" Good Humor truck with brass "sleigh bells" but without a loud, obnoxious electronic music box cranking out the same few bars of Turkey in the Straw over and over and over again. 

The houses on this very quiet country road...

{Wait-wait-wait. A "real" Good Humor ice cream truck? Why pink? Why reversed and remounted signs that now say Carrousel Ice Cream? Why is carousel spelled wrong?}

Because this is the greater Hooterville Metropolitan Area, and unlike the Pittsburgh area, there is no tradition of Good Humor trucks, or Goody Bar men/ladies, returning every spring in company bespoke ice cream trucks with ceramic-coated signs. 

In fact, I found out the hard way that ice cream trucks had a bad reputation in these parts. There is, or rather was (this narrative is ancient history), a large fleet based in Cleveland that had a small local depot here at the time featuring high prices and low-born (not all, I was friends with some of them) drivers.

{Low-born drivers?}

A bit of literary fodorol on my part, high prices — low-born drivers? But many of them did look and behave like personal friends of Cheech and Chong in their glory(?) days. Although this was the 90s. Long story short, after experiencing no shortage of kids yelling "rip off man," but otherwise ignoring me, drastic action was needed/taken. To the natives of this part of the world, all ice cream trucks were the same, they all sucked sweaty sox.  

Since the Good Humor name didn't mean much locally, I partially switched to a lower quality product line, flipped the signs, and painted the truck pink, having never encountered a Pink ice cream truck. Pinky had a big smile painted on her large front bumper and headlights that served as the pupils of painted-on eyes. 

There was no mistaking my truck for one of my enemies' trucks. Build a brand, that's what all those Inc. articles said.  

The pièce de résistance (pronounced pizza resistance) was a large 50¢ displayed in the middle of my main menu board that could be seen from fifty feet away. I had a dozen items for sale at that price that I sold for at least twice what I paid for them when I first started. As time went by, there were fewer and fewer of them, but by then I had built a trusted brand and business.

"Yo, everything on this sign is really fifty cents?" 

Where was I... You're driving a large, pink ice cream truck down a very quiet...

{Did you know you had spelled carousel wrong?}

Heavy sigh. 

The standard current spelling is carousel, but carrousel, caroussel, and carousell are used here, there, and even way over there. I deliberately chose two R's (that's how the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum spells it), hoping to get the attention of members of the Spelling Police Department (bad publicity ain't necessarily bad publicity — build the brand), but I was only rarely accosted. I should have gone with carroussell. 

Picture this in your mind's eye. You're driving a large, pink ice cream truck down a very quiet country road. The houses on this road are relatively few and far between, but it's a long road, and the Amish still make lots of babies; the way the English used to. Many of them are adjacent to large gardens or fields of neatly planted rows of various and sundry crops. Barns are not rare. 

There's minimal motorized traffic as there are only a couple of houses with cars or trucks in the driveway. Horse-drawn black buggies occasionally clop, clop, clop by and you have to watch out for large clumps of horse... exhaust that you need to avoid if you don't want your truck to smell like horse... exhaust. 

Fortunately, this is easy to do because of minimal traffic, motorized or otherwise. Besides, you've got to drive super slowly. Many of the houses are far back from the road and you have to work your bell rope enthusiastically to make sure they know you're out and about, Quasimodo.    

Obnoxious electronic music boxes, which can be (and often are) turned up quite loud, would be more efficient for this but you bet the Amish would hate them as much as you do, and for all you know, it might spook the horses. There are not a lot of horses around, but there are always horses around. 

If you're old like me and lived in a neighborhood served daily, sometimes twice daily (parents love that) by an ice cream truck, now you know why you could often hear but not see the maroon that drove your kids into a frenzy on hot summer days.    

You spot a handmade phone booth. The followers of the local Amish Ordnung are somehow managing to survive without dumbphones in their houses or smartphones in their pockets.  

You creep along pulling on your bell rope with a practiced rhythm, alert to what's happening on both sides of the road while always keeping an eye on the rearview for maroons (see Bunny, Bugs) about to pass you at twice the speed of sound. 

A smiling woman wearing a white bonnet steps out onto her front porch (married women wear white bonnets, unmarried black) and holds up her hand. You pull over to the edge of her yard to wait. She goes back into the house, and in short order, a gaggle of kids emerges and spills out over the front yard.

Soon, girls in black bonnets and boys in straw hats are huddled in front of your menu boards, giggling, pointing, quietly conferring. A consensus is reached, and the oldest girl, it's almost always an oldest girl, once in a while a mom or a grandma, proceeds to conduct business with you while the kids fidget, giggle, and look embarrassed if you make eye contact.

I'm in a movie and it's 1955.  

There is no whining. There's is no arguing. None of the boys are busting a sag. None of the girls is so scantily dressed that you have to do your best not to get caught noticing for fear of being accused of something by someone, or worse yet, being flirted with by a little girl in a woman's body.

(I was asked if I was gay, more than once, when I didn't respond to a given teenager's, um... charms, while peddling popsicles over the years; I who have a face and a body made for radio.)

By the end of that first season, I was starting to make friends and having conversations with the adult Amish who lived on _______ Road and had started visiting my truck.  

When school got out the following year, I once again had the time to squeeze in one evening a week in Amish country. I didn't think they'd want me coming up more than once, maybe twice a week anyway. I worked from one end of ______ Road to the other in about half an hour and sold almost nothing. Yikes! Where should I go for the next couple of hours?  I waved to the Amish folks I saw. None waved back, none came near me. 

Finally, a customer, a family with cars in the driveway instead of black buggies. 

"Yeah, some guy in one of those ice cream trucks that plays music has been coming by, every day, for the last two weeks or so. Drives too fast too."  

And that, dear gentlereaders, was that. 

Have an OK day, 

Colonel Cranky

Scroll down to comment, share my work, or scroll through previous columns. I post links to my columns on my Facebook page so you can love me, hate me, or call for my execution via social media. Cranky don't tweet (Xclaim?).

Copyright 2025-Mark Mehlmauer-All rights reserved