The View From 96---February

View96Feb

The View From 96---February

     As stated in the January installment of View my big project for February was putting together The View From 95 and getting it on Amazon and from there to Kindle.  Like the Potpourri IX project in January this was an arduous task, made even more arduous by the copy and paste routine not operating as it was supposed to.  However, I eventually prevailed without having a nervous breakdown or smashing my computer, which I was tempted to do, and it joined Potpourri IX as an e-book on Amazon and then on my Kindle.  I hoped a few others would also get it on their Kindle and told my Sun Senior News readers that it was there for their reading pleasure. 

     I forget if I’ve reported that my son C--- had given me a subscription to Storyworth as a birthday present.  This enabled him to ask me questions about my life and my answers would go to him and whomever else he put on a list and at the end of the year would be put into a book.  I would guess that if anyone wanted to buy the book it would be pretty pricey.

     At any rate, one of the questions was what was the most beautiful place I’d ever been to and my answer was easy---Paris, which I’d gone to first when a soldier stationed in Germany, then a few more times afterward.  This stirred up a lot of memories as my first time to Paris was on what I thought of as my “Grand European Tour,” a trip I made just before my discharge to use up the leave I’d accumulated, four weeks worth.  This became another writing project as I wanted to do a Potpourri X, which would consist mostly of things from my life I thought were worth writing about and was mainly meant for my sons and grandchildren.  This in turn spurred another writing project, my time in the Army, which I also thought was worth writing about.  At least it interested me to look back on it and see what it led to.

     Besides these writing projects the most noteworthy thing I did this month was to get started on my taxes.  You couldn’t just simply send for the forms you needed from the IRS any more so I had to order them online and the same was true for the state tax.  I thought the IRS was doing its best to have everyone get Turbotax or someone to do everyone’s taxes but I’d done my own for all these years and was going to continue to do so.

     Regarding old movies, I happened to catch “Picnic” on TCM so recorded most of it.  The movie was still good but I’d forgotten it ended with Kim Novcak getting on a bus to join William Holden and found it hard to believe she would join up with such a drifter.  I usually Google a movie after watching it and also found it also hard to believe but Kim Novak was still here in her nineties.

     The big news story of the month was the apparent kidnapping of a lady named Nancy Guthrie, who was the mother of the co-host of the “Today” tv show.  This was one of those news stories where nobody knew what had happened and there was endless speculation by a variety of “experts” with persons of interest being detained and then released, ransom notes that may or may not have been real and the daughter making pleas and offering ransom money.  As of this writing nothing has been found and of course the story has been forgotten.  I’m afraid when Nancy Guthrie is finally found it won’t be a happy ending.

     The other big story didn’t happen until the last day of the month when the U.S. and Israel launched an air war against Iran called Epic Fury.  The initial attack killed Iran’s leder, the Ayatollah Khomenie and a number of other high-ranking Iranian officials wo must jave made the mistake of gathering in one place,  Despite this success, like anything involving Trump this endeavor was bound to cause controversy, which will be duly covered in succeeding months.

s.