A year later - still spinning our wheels

Once again I have returned to an earlier post, focusing on this new and different world that has me scratching my head. Will this rant of mine change the course of what I fear is our descent? Not likely. Still, there are some things I need to get off my chest before I choke on them.

It was exactly a year ago, as we awaited the beginning of a new presidency, when I first posted my unsettled concerns on these pages. Sad to say, little has happened in the ensuing year---with its party-bound politics, lack of civility, and the apparent demise of everyday truth---to soften my grim uneasiness. 

True, the new tax measures promise to spur the economy. That can’t be bad---though the full price of that windfall remains to be measured and paid. The economy, however, was the least of my worries a year ago, and remains so today.

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As you might expect, over the years I’ve had a few folks take exception with my depiction of our 60s and 70s as “only” October. So far no one has argued for “September,” but quite a few of you have suggested a later month. 

Having recently crossed into my eighty-first year, these days “November” better describes my mood and physical capabilities. Heck, I’ve probably dipped a toe in “December” a time or two. So it was, a while back, that I stepped forward to add “and November too” to the blog’s title.

But of course my use of “October” was never meant to be simply about age. It also denotes a state of mind. More to the point, like the month of October on a calendar, our October and November Years are times of harvest---times to gather the fruits (Some of them dried and withered) of the seeds we’ve sown in the course of a lifetime and the things we’ve learned along the way. I happen to believe that even in these late-life years there are ways we can put that experience of ours to good use.

        I will admit that one of the risks I faced in telling the October stories I told was the temptation to dwell on the maudlin---stressing the negatives and hardships of late life. Of course, by this stage of the game we’ve had our share of bumpy roads and unexpected detours. And there will be more of those. If we’ve been paying attention at all we should expect that. 

But today I am prompted to move beyond those individual circumstances to address something I find even more upsetting ---something for which my personal life journey and the life views I have accumulated along the way have not adequately prepared me to deal with.

You see, if you are my age, odds are infirmity and distress have been part of your personal experience. Most of us have learned to accept that. Yet it seems that every day this November mind of mine struggles to make sense of a more sinister form of reality---the cultural infirmity and divisive distress that plague our society. 

What I perceive as the chaotic unraveling of our national persona has me wondering how much I overlooked as a younger person. Have things always been like this? Was I just too blind to notice? Have we as a  nation been lulled into complacency by decades of relatively-civilized peace? Are we simply experiencing a regression to the human norm, or has there been a fundamental change in the path of social evolution---a new “human norm” being created before our eyes?

How else would you interpret the headlines that assault our sensibilities daily? On the local level it feels like every morning’s newspaper and every evening’s newscast provides new evidence of predators and perverts, addicts and con-men, not to mention politicians gone amuck. Have we simply become accepting of an unprecedented scale of violence and mayhem? 

Have we grown so numb that we look right past the all-too-obvious warning signs---middle-school girls being bullied to death---wide-eyed young men unleashing their lethal revenge in our high schools---an ever-increasing number of us, young and old, dependent on mind-altering pharmaceuticals? There are times when it feels like our beloved nation is drowning in a tsunami of insanity.

And while our towns and neighborhoods struggle to stay afloat, our national political dysfunction continues to stir the flames of discord. Finger pointing and blame have displaced bipartisan problem solving. In a world of spiteful politics and crushing, always mounting debt, most of which will never be repaid, I fear the great majority of us are being hung out to dry. 

Meanwhile the Wall Street and Washington vultures slowly circle, fighting to get an even larger piece of the pie before it vanishes into the economic quicksand. The supposedly “drained swamp” still hides menacing creatures, and smells as bad as ever.

Surely I am not the only one who wonders what has happened to the world we knew. It becomes harder and harder to recognize the country where I grew up and perhaps thought I understood. Small wonder the October characters I wrote about were apt to stumble as they tried to make sense of it.

Again, my question is simple enough. Has it always been like this? We may have grown up hearing our parents and grand-parents grumble about “the younger generation,” and how things were not this bad in “the good old days.” Sometimes they even hinted of ancient cultures where age was venerated, and equated with wisdom. Truth to tell, I’m getting old, but the wisdom and understanding I had hoped to gain seem to have eluded me.

So, are today’s headlines just more of the same? Did the world of our childhood and adolescence always include the troubles we read about now and watch on the tube? And if it did, is it the scale and frequency of those problems that has changed---or is our increased awareness simply a matter of more thorough and divisive reporting, better police work, and cameras on every street corner? 

Whether or not our generation is dealing with something new and different, I have no doubt that for many of us, this crazy new world impacts our ability to “thrive in our 60s and 70s.” If so, I’d say that makes it an October issue.

I would appreciate your help here, your input. If you wish, I hope you'll pass this on to your October  and November friends. (The email link below is easy to use.) As always I'd be interested in hearing your input via “Reply.” (below) 

With that, I will try to calm down a bit in time for the next post. (Who hid the scotch?)

Happy Healing

Happy New Year to all. 2018 is only hours old and already it has me off on a new tangent. Fact is, I did not plan to be writing this. The inspiration---if I may be bold enough to call it that----seemed to arrive out of the blue. I’ll bet that’s happened to you. The path you set out to follow, the one that seemed so right, even tempting, yesterday seems to have lost its appeal. I’m not sure where this detour will take me, but I am willing to spend a day or two to find out.

You see, I have spent years weaving ideas, some of them important and some rather trivial, into stories about late life. It has been an enjoyable challenge---telling what I believe are true-to-life tales about today’s seniors---wrapping the lives of those  friends I have created out of thin air in the values, virtues, and vices that seemed to me worth depicting. 

But I will admit there have been times along the way when I was tempted to forego the storytelling part, and instead take time to focus on those October/November values, virtues, and vices in greater depth than a fictional narrative allows. There are things that happen to us every day---things we too often let pass without notice. With that in mind I decided that for the next few weeks I will concentrate my blogging efforts on recalling the lessons learned in those special moments and how blessed I am to have had them in my lives.

               **********

If you are a late-lifer like me, chances are you view the world from the relative quiet of an October/November perch. From there we sometimes revisit the times and events that shaped our lives. In our more reflective moments we may even consider which of our efforts have been worthy and worthwhile, and which have been a waste of time.

That certainly holds true for this old guy, who claims to tell stories about folks living out their October years. As I said before, of late I have felt less committed to telling those stories, and more inclined to dwell on the hard-learned realities they were meant to illustrate. Having spent a lifetime learning those lessons, perhaps it is not surprising that I want to explore some of the more important ones in depth, without the distraction of weaving them into a story.

That’s what I hope today’s post will be---an in-depth look at one of those realities we have dealt with for a lifetime, but have perhaps never given the attention it deserves. Hopefully by the time we are done you will have spent a few minutes remembering the ways you and your life have been touched by this bit of magic. Whether you consider it a virtue or a vice, it is something everyone of us has experienced, and been thankful for.

At this stage of the game I want to focus on what seems to me the heart of the matter---the handful of lessons that make their way into my thoughts when I leave the door opened a crack. That is exactly what happened a couple nights ago, when a particular notion, or more precisely a particular word, caught my attention.

                *********

The word in question was “Healing,” a plain, but powerful, word that everyone can relate to. In the course of our lifetime each of us has been healed many times, in many ways. Truth is, we are constantly in the process of being healed, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. In any case, for reasons I still don’t understand, my midnight thoughts settled on that seemingly unremarkable word, and a rather remarkable truth I don’t remember considering before---that being healed is one of life’s great blessings. 

Some of the best moments of my life, and yours too, have been times of healing, when we are made well and wholeness has been restored. You know the feeling. Having endured a time of infirmity or deprivation, you are restored to your allotted degree of health and wholeness. That welcome reprieve can arrive in many forms---physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual to name a few. But whatever the burden that has been lifted from your shoulders, the resulting wholeness has qualified as healing.

Like I said, it is a good word, one of many lurking behind those mind doors. There are so many interesting possibilities to choose from---words and ideas I have explored in my stories. I look forward to dwelling on some of the others in future posts---topics like ‘life choices made,’ ‘what is really important,’ ‘starting over,’ ‘family and friends,’ ‘trials and temptation,’ ‘lingering hatred,’ or the old standby ‘true love.’ It is hard to know why, with all those candidates waiting to be explored, it was ‘Healing’ that captured my thoughts the other night, but it did.

So, as I put my thoughts on paper I hope you will take time to refer to your own moments of healing and restoration. I invite you to consider your personal experience---comparing your insights on the universal reality of healing to mine. After all, healing is an important part of life at any age, but especially old age.

               **********

To begin with, I submit that our word-of-the-day---Healing---describes one of life’s greatest blessings. It is also an incredibly versatile word, that can be used in many different ways, to mean many different things. But in every instance it implies ‘making healthy’ or ‘returning to a higher degree of wholeness.’

We most often think of ‘healing’ in terms of physical health. We sometimes refer to health care professions as the ‘healing arts.’ And thankfully they are all that and more. Everyone of us can cite examples how healing has restored health and wholeness to ourselves and loved ones. 

Still, we understand that ‘being healed’ is not the same as ‘being cured.’ Our October/November world is full of people like me who have had more than one brush with cancer or some other life-threatening condition, and been returned to a satisfying and functional lifestyle---without being ‘cured.’

Still, whether our search for physical healing has led us to health-care professionals, faith-based spiritual gurus, or sincere thanks for a fortunate genetic inheritance---at one time or another each of us has sensed the comforting warmth of having been made well again.

                 **********

We realize too that those moments of blessed healing will not last forever. The time will come, tomorrow or ten years from now, when some form of misfortune will once again have us wishing and praying for a new round of healing. Yet, we must not allow that blunt realization to lessen our gratitude for the welcome healing we have experienced in times past.

We are, after all, a vulnerable species. As long as we live our need for restoration, in one form or another, will never end. Beyond that, we know by now that late-life healing is a relative thing. No matter how well the bones heal or the new knee works I will never dunk a basketball again. (Not that I ever could.) I know by now that October/November ‘wholeness’ is at best a mental judgment, a willingness to accept a level of renewal in keeping with the rest of my late-life existence. Truth is, by this time of life it seems we are always healing in one way or another.

For example, Roma’s pacemaker arrived as a mechanical means of coping, not curing. My new round of immunology therapy is simply the next step in an ongoing cancer coping journey. On the very afternoon I started to create my first notes about healing, our daughter Amy lay in a hospital bed, recovering from the ordeal of donating a kidney---itself the very definition of a blessed healing act.

               ************

Healing, however, can mean more than restoring a broken or infirmed body. Some of our most satisfying healing experiences, the ones that have touched us most deeply, had nothing to do with mended bones, restored organs, or renewed health. The same sense of ‘being made whole’ that we usually associate with physical healing applies just as well to other facets of our being. There are innumerable non-physical conditions on our October/November plate---vital elements of our being---that may need restoration and wholeness. Truth is, there are some infirmities the army of caregivers, who stand ready to serve us with their skills and pills, cannot heal.

By this time of life we may be alone or isolated, perhaps dwelling on wrong turns taken in the past, or ‘what if’ moments we managed to misplay. We may be in need of another, more personal, sort of healing---something beyond physical restoration. Perhaps it is a hard-to-define blend of emotional, mental, and spiritual infirmity that has us seeking, in our own way, a more satisfying sort of non-physical healing. Hopefully by this time of life we have cultivated our own means of addressing those intangible healing possibilities.

And for some there are more intimate and personal sorts of ‘unwholeness’ begging to be healed. Relational health---getting along with family and friends---is an important part of a ‘whole’ life. If that is a problem for us, perhaps it is time to mend the relational bridges we have burned over the years. At any time of life, but especially in our October/November years, restored and revitalized personal relationships are a most notable sort of healing.

And then, of course, there is perhaps the most vital and satisfying form of restoration---Spiritual Healing--the soul-deep wholeness we all seek, no matter what we call it. There will be no miracle drugs, space-age cures, or other short cuts to help us accomplish that. A million books have been written on the subject, each claiming to show the way to spiritual health. Yet in the end it is our personal inner compass, not someone else’s advice, that will guide us on that most personal of faith journeys.

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Finally, as you can certainly see by now, I am not here to tell you anything you don’t already know. I do hope, however, that a few minutes spent revisiting the notion of ‘healing’ will help each of us shine a light on our own blessings of healing and wholeness---and perhaps renew our sense of awe at how fortunate we have been, in ways we don’t always stop to appreciate.

In the course of our lifetime we have been healed over and over. But it is not our passing acknowledgment of that healing which matters. Instead, it is our expression of gratitude that validates how good life has been to us.

I Believe in 'Heros' and 'Sheros'

This is a special season for many of us. Truth is, what follows is about as 'preachy' as I get on these pages. Though I've posted this piece before it seems to say what I want to say. Hopefully it speaks to everyone, regardless of their spiritual leanings. And as a extra holiday treat it comes with desert.

My friend Shirley’s post read “EVERYONE YOU MEET IS FIGHTING A BATTLE YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.  BE KIND.  ALWAYS.”

I replied---”Shirley, your post reminded me of this little essay I wrote for a class assignment a few months ago---about those battles we all fight, and what I believe.”

                                          ***

Caring, unselfish, willing to face adversity and do what must be done. Those are some of the things that define a hero. I happen to believe in heros. More to the point, I believe in “heros” and “sheros.”

Like most folks I remember the heros of my childhood---for me that meant The Lone Ranger, Red Ryder, Jack Armstrong. They were the good guys, and they always won. Later there would be Mickey, Willie, and Johnny U---who seemed bigger than life, and although they didn’t always win, they won more than anyone else. 

Fast forward to the present. Perhaps it’s not surprising that by now much of what I know about real-life heros has been learned in the context of my church family. I’ve learned that God’s blessings often arrive in the form of "hes" and "shes." 

Over the years Roma and I have had the opportunity to visit with more than one hundred twenty individuals and couples from our congregation, getting to know them while creating short profiles of their lives and battles. Along the way we were constantly amazed at how many heros we met in the course of those visits. For the last thirteen or fourteen years we’ve also visited shut-ins, and in the process discovered a whole different crop of heros.

Along the way we've learned some important lessons. First of all, heros don’t always win. They become heros by the way they try. In fact, they’re often at their best when it seems that life has turned against them and the bad guys are winning. In times like that those heros are on the job, doing their good work and giving their best---encouraging and comforting, healing and praying. I’m pretty sure you’ll find them in every church on any given Sunday. (Though of course they don’t have to be in any church at all.) In any case, I know for a fact that you’ll find them in my congregation every Sunday morning.

Sometimes we’ll know who they are. Their efforts will be obvious. But at the same time there will be dozens of others dealing with their own struggles---fighting battles we will never know about. For those 'undercover, out-of-sight' heros the focus may not be on winning. Often it’s about coping---dealing with their personal adversity, relying on their own resources and the power of prayer to make it through hard times. I see those heros in every pew, every Sunday, seeking the strength and renewal to carry them through another week.

It’s comforting to know that when I’m in need of inspiration I can find examples all around me. And if you pay attention, you can too.

"Caring, unselfish, willing to face adversity and do what must be done"---those are the characteristics of the heros I believe in, including the pair of special heros who keep me going. Each of us will have our own special list, but our reliance on heros will be the same. Everyone needs “heros,” and “sheros” to help them cope and carry on. That’s why I believe in heros.

Finally, just in case your holiday is starting off a little rocky, this update from Roberta Morin may explain the problem.

WE NEED A REASON TO KEEP GOING

  I suppose there is some comfort in knowing that it is not normally an October/November thing---falling victim to the newest fad, jumping in headfirst before knowing how deep the water is. 

  After all, how many of us late-lifers are willing to make a drastic change of course? Not many, I'm guessing. But perhaps we should be a little bolder. How can the thriving and becoming I so often rant about take place if we refuse to leave the same old rut?

  I won’t pretend to speak for you---not in light of my own sometimes suspect history. For any of us, climbing out of our comfortable rut to move toward something more or better is apt to be a formidable task---a daunting mental journey from the known to the unknown, or at least the less-well-known. 

 As sometimes happens in my November storytelling world, an evolving Tanner Chronicles storyline is apt to have me pausing to examine some “taken-for-granted” part of my own late-life routine. Ironically, the story I am presently dealing with is about an October fellow sunk deep in his own personal rut.

  The new friend I have imagined into being, I call him Neal, is a semi-disabled, apartment-bound senior who has reluctantly resigned himself to a narrow and limited, television-centered life. His most basic of Basic Cable packages allows him a boring routine of morning game shows, afternoons of dated situation comedy reruns, and evenings spent nodding off in the midst of mind-numbing old movies. For all practical purposes that has become his life.

  Of course, scattered throughout those endless hours of uninspired detachment are the quiet moments that overtake all of us from time to time---when bittersweet recollections of times past float to the front of our mind. Remembered bits of childhood, some of them sentimental, some traumatic, may capture our attention. Or the unsettling highs and lows of long-ago school days may hold court. For Neal those reveries will also include endearing, but hurtful memories of special times spent with his recently-departed wife of forty-some years.

  After months spent adapting to his new lifestyle he has come to accept the latest, and apparently final stage of his long life as the only future in sight, the best he can expect.

  But what he has not foreseen are the insistent efforts of his daughters, who are determined to steer their father toward a more fulfilling future. Most surprising of all, they are setting out to expand his nearly-destitute lifestyle by taking advantage of capabilities he had never considered. 

  Though he will grumble each step of the way, railing against the possibilities ‘the girls’ are trying to sell him, there will be no denying the impact of their seductive sales pitch. What can they possibly offer that would move him beyond his rut? Let’s see if I can explain?

      *************

  Perhaps like you, I grew up in front of a television set, weaned on dramas, comedies, and variety shows that reflected the 1950s and 1960s world I knew. Sadly, in today’s 2017 universe, with its too-violent dramas, phony fantasy, too-graphic relational tales, and unfunny comedies there is little left for someone like me to watch. Beyond my nightly news fix, Rachel Madow, a good ballgame or documentary it too often feels like I have been left behind.

  In those long-ago 50s and 60s my peers and I stumbled through our adolescent years with music playing all around us---more than any earlier generation had experienced. The music we heard was new, unlike anything heard before. Moreover, the technology that made it possible was just as new. 

  Today we all know how that music has remained with us in ways we never imagined. Yet, like everything else in this world of ours, both the music and the technology have continued to change, until all these years later they have become something very different than we remember, something totally foreign to an old fossil like me.

  Then, about the time we had resigned ourselves to being left behind, out of step with today’s cultural tastes, we came face to face with the most disruptive change of all---a technological firestorm that rewrote the rules and changed the landscape.

  Could you and I have imagined such a thing in our well-remembered glory years? Just think about the timid, perhaps overwhelmed teenager you were back then. Could you have made your way in the intimidating new world of Twitter and tweet, Gmail, and Facebook?  Could we have handled today’s internet? 

  Of course, that was then. This is now. Here we are, a tick or two past our prime---living, if not thriving, in that brave new internet world. If you are at all like me you have set up shop on the fringes of that on-line techno-world, holding on by your finger tips.

  For a long time my internet involvement was limited to Gmail, Facebook, my own blog, and the Daily Mail. Those became the elements of my after-breakfast routine, before I moved on the day’s more mundane activities---until, that is, I started looking around for more 'online candy.' The more I looked, the more I found, and the more I realized how much the internet, aka ‘the web,’ has to offer.

 In the course of late-life conversations I have met dozens of peers for whom the internet is at best a foreign idea, and at worst a threat they would rather avoid. You probably know folks like that. You might be one of them. It is not my place to say those concerns are wrong. But I do feel an urge to explain, even briefly, what I think they are missing. At least I will try.

            ************

  First of all, long story short, my fictional friend Neal will use the internet possibilities his daughters are selling to expand his life. That is the story I want to tell---how so many of us October/November folks could use those tools to broaden our own horizons. More to the point, if you have been told, or have told yourself, that you can’t do that, YOU ARE WRONG. Again, allow me to explain.

  They tell us that younger generations no longer rely on newspapers to stay current on the issues of the day. But I’m guessing that many of us October/November types have never outgrown our reliance on a morning newspaper with our breakfast coffee. What many of us don’t know is that If you are a ‘newspaper person’ the internet is definitely for you. 

 By now nearly every major newspaper in the world has an online, English-language edition. It has never been easier to follow international events, in a format we can read, often presented from a very different perspective than our home-town press. As an avowed Anglophile one of my personal favorites is the site that lists websites for virtually every newspaper in England.

  Or maybe you are the social sort---perhaps the kind who fostered pen-pal friendships as a youngster. Rest assured that virtually every country has online senior pen-pal sites, making it easy to meet and visit with international friends---including October types like us. While following a few common sense rules, (Do not disclose personal information, succumb to romantic overtures, or send money.) it is still possible to create satisfying and lasting international friendships.

    Or you might be a senior who would rather use the internet for your personal entertainment. It is hard to overstate the range of entertainment and educational videos that await your viewing. There are literally thousands of videos featuring your favorite performers and their music from years gone by, along with classic stand-up routines and the situation comedies you remember from your own glory days.

  And finally there is the ultimate retirement staple---late-life travel. In both photographic and video formats the internet offers an incredible selection of travel material to whet your appetite. Most every country is represented--- each with their own enticing photo essays and comprehensive video presentations, documenting the virtues of travel to and within their country. 

   Whatever your imagined destination, no matter what you hope to see or do, you can be sure that someone has been there, camera in hand, to illustrate the possibilities from every angle. Their efforts have literally taken 'armchair travel' to a whole new level.

  And how do you find all those treasures? If you don't know by now, you  should certainly learn. It is called 'Google.'

 You call it up, type any question you want answered, ("Where can I find old music videos?") and bingo, your screen will be filled with hundreds, if not thousands of answers. That works for any question you can imagine.

  So, it is those possibilities, along with many more, which will finally win Neal’s attention---providing a multitude of ways for him to move beyond his numbing retirement experience. And in the end, when the time comes for a break from those online diversions, his ‘most-favorite-of-all’ internet destination ---Sixteen Exciting Solitaire Games---will remain just a click away.

        **********

  Finally, as I am prone to do, I will end with one more bit of context for the ‘Neal’ story I am telling. It was only a few months ago when an upsetting cancer diagnosis had me seeking a late-life purpose, a reason to keep going.

  I would never claim to speak for the Divine. But it feels as though my meanderings through today’s tangled, but satisfying October/November landscape---trying my best to shine a light, dim as it may be, on late-life opportunities and challenges---is as close as I will find to a valid reason to keep plowing ahead. 

  Too often we allow ourselves to approach these years with dread, when we ought to be focused on the possibilities and potential. That’s what I would like to do. Hopefully, my friend Neal will lend a hand in that effort.

Finally, the truth

HOW THE INTERNET STARTED, 

Perhaps like me, you are cursed with an inquiring mind. If so, you will probably be as glad as I was to see the truth spelled out more clearly than ever before. To give credit where it is due, it was my good friend Ron Staples who finally uncovered the long hidden secret. (Is "Oregon Staples" as catchy as "Indiana Jones"?)

        *********

Please do not Google or check this with Snopes. They will lie to you. Trust me!

In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a healthy young wife by the name of Dorothy.   And Dot Com was a comely woman, large of breast, broad of shoulder and long of leg.  Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com. 

And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?" 

And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply asked, "How, dear?" 

And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. The sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)." 

Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums.  And the drums rang out and were an immediate success.  Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent. 

To prevent neighboring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew  It was known as Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures - Hebrew to the People (HTTP). 

And the young men did take to Dot Com's trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung.  They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS  And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. Indeed he did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates' drum heads and drumsticks. 

And Dot did say, "Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others." And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to be known.  He said, "We need a name that reflects what we are." 

And Dot replied, "Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators."  "YAHOO," said Abraham. And because it was Dot's idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com. 

Abraham's cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot's drums to locate things around the countryside. 

It soon became known as God's Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE). 

That is how it all began. And that's the truth. 

I would not make up this stuff.