drjamesarnold.com

 I don't usually post stuff from others, but this is from my brother Les.  He has what our parents used to call a "smart aleck" sense of humor, or something like that.  You can judge for yourself. Names were changed (except for his) to protect the innocent and the guilty. Jim Arnold Dammit Boy!        Names can be confusing. Monikers of all types have been chosen or assigned to people. There are first names, middle names, last names, proper names, given names, nicknames, pet names, aliases as well as derogatory or descriptive names assigned by others or even themselves. Names can be shortened, truncated, even the pronunciation of a name can be altered. Generally, people accept the name commonly assigned to them by their inner circle of friends and family.      All of this can cause confusion for a five-year-old boy. I was never the sharpest knife in the drawer anyway. Some sociological interactions escape me. At five I tended to answer to whatever I assumed was meant to r

      Mama didn’t have much luck growing flowers and plants in the yard.  Almost everything she planted, with the exception of the family garden, was dug up, torn apart, eaten or otherwise inhumanely tortured and killed by me, my brothers and our dog.  We were allowed an enormous amount of playtime in the yard, and often invented things to do that she may not have approved of if we had thought to ask her before we did them. It was a hard thing to remember, for example, to turn the hose off after it had been turned on, and it was only after a couple of hours that we discovered the mud hole we had accidentally created right where she had just planted gardenias was absolutely perfect for mud wrestling, and we couldn’t resist the temptation.  Neither could the dog. Evidently newly planted gardenias come up easily when surrounded by water and a mud wrestling contest, and while she did notice their plight when she thought we had been too quiet for too long and came out to see what we were do