Alan C. Fox's Blog, page 36

I like to be efficient. Mistakes are wasteful, so I have developed a number of rules for myself. There is a very good reason for each rule, as I sometimes learn to my regret.

Many years ago I was in Beverly Hills and returned to my car with a large box which I wanted to put in the trunk. This was before the age of remote controls which now open and close most everything. I used my key to open the trunk.

My rule, of course, which I never break, is WHEN YOU OPEN THE TRUNK TO YOUR CAR NEVER PUT TH...

is infallible,

ministering

to the feet

of the poor,

later

resting,

in a simple

bed.

So said Henry Clay, Sr. (1777-1852), a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate and House of Representatives. He was also Secretary of State from 1825 to 1829.

The question in my mind is not whether I would rather be right than President, because who in their right mind would want to be President? (With due respect to Barack, George W., Bill, George H., etc.)

My question is: Would I rather be right, or would I rather succeed?

Many of us, per...

things

in life

are free

or cheap

unless

you consider

your time

or heart.

It’s been quite a weekend. Yesterday at 2:00 PM I attended a performance of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams at the Booth Theater in New York City. Today at 2:00 PM I arrived, front row center, to experience a concert by Itzhak Perlman at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

Yesterday the painfully shy Laura made her startling yet entirely fitting entrance through the sofa at the back of The Glass Menagerie set. Today the gregarious Itzhak moved on stage from the righ...

For the first time

in recorded

and unrecorded

history, everyone

in the world,

now and forever,

can discover what you ate

for breakfast. Whoopee!

“Foster” is variously defined as “substitute,” “temporary,” or “short-term.” So a “foster child” is an actual human being who is a “substitute,” “temporary,” or “short-term.” The antonym is “natural,” so a foster child is also not natural.

We met N (No One’s Child) after her mother could no longer care for her. N was about ten years old and a friend of one of our daughters in school. Both were young girls, both were in the same class, both were smart and ambitious. There was one slight differe...

says that

she married

Mr. Right.

She just

didn’t realize

that my

first name

is Always.

WEEKEND TREAT- AN 8-LINE POEM AT THE END OF THE WEEK. A NEW TRADITION AT PEOPLE TOOLS.

Yesterday afternoon the airplane carrying me from London was on approach to the airport in Palma, Majorca. As I looked through my window I was concerned that we were landing in a rather heavy fog, but I had confidence in ground radar and our pilots. After we landed safely I looked through a window on the opposite side of the plane, to see no fog at all. I looked back through my window. Heavy fog.

Was there fog on my side of the plane and not on the other? No. My window was fogged over, creatin...

Years ago I was at a comedy show in Inverness, Scotland, and remember one joke which was very funny but still cuts me to my core.

“I’m on a seafood diet,” the comedian said. “I see food, I eat it.”

I have always been on the plus side of the scale. When I was ten or eleven my father tried to help me lose a few pounds. We had a running “bet” – lose weight, he paid me, gain weight, I paid him. That arrangement ended when he realized I was manipulating the scale so that I could instantly “lose” bet...