This is Where I’ve Been

  Week Thirty-four: Lay Lady Lay Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man a while Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile. His clothes are dirty, but his hands are clean, And you’re the best thing he’s ever seen. —Bob Dylan, Lay Lady Lay, from Nashville Skyline Much to the embarrassment for my wife of 51 years, whenever the opportunity arises I am prone to asking a total stranger to guess the number of years we’ve been married. Now mind you, I am not inclined to approach people on the street to ask them to guess, but in certain well-timed circumstances it seems cool...to me; not Deb so much. I suppose that if I were to be somewhere in a leather-rich office, lying prone, and staring skyward revealing the far reaches of my cluttered mind I could figure out why I do that. Perhaps I am mining for compliments; you know…”Wow, 51 years! You don’t look old enough to be married 51 years!” or “That’s awesome! It takes a special couple to make 51!” I’m pretty sure I don’t need an overpa

  Week Thirty-Three: Instant Karma Instant karma’s gonna get you gonna look you right in the face Better get yourself together darlin’ Join the human race Who in the hell d’you think you are? A superstar? Well, right you are. We all shine on Like the moon and the stars and the sun —John Lennon, Imagine, from the album Imagine Just ten days after John Lennon wrote Instant Karma it was available in stores! Urban legend has Lennon saying something like, “I wrote it in the morning, recorded it in the afternoon, and sold the records in the evening.” In any case, there has never been another example of a song being produced so quickly. Most people my age are at least familiar with the song, even if we never bothered to learn the backstory. As Lennon predicted, “Instant karma’s gonna get you!” Karma is the notion that something deserving but unexpected happens when a person’s actions backfire. As my dear, departed mother used to say, “You’ll get your just desserts.” I think Lennon was shootin