Month: June 2026
Strange Beasts
Why do I enjoy the Tarzan books of Edgar Rice Burroughs? Partly, it’s gems such as this conclusion of Tarzan the Invincible:
“This man has a casket,” reported one of the warriors, “which he says contains The Father of Diamonds.”
“The true Father of Diamonds, which Herkuf just brought with him from Thobos,” said Chon, “rests here in its casket on the altar before me. There cannot be two. Let us have a look at what the man has in his casket.”
“No!” shrieked Alan Thorne. “Don’t open it! It is mine, and I have been waiting to open it in Paris. I shall buy all of Paris with it and be king of France!”
“Silence, mortal!” commanded Chon; then, very deliberately, he opened the casket, while the trembling Thorne stared with mad eyes at the contents — a small lump of coal. At sight of it, realizing what it was, Alan Thorne screamed, clutched his heart, and fell dead at the foot of the altar of the true god.
“For this false and accursed thing,” exclaimed Brian Gregory, “we have all suffered, and many have died; yet the irony of it is that it is, in truth, The Father of Diamonds.”
“Men are strange beasts,” said Tarzan.
It Could Have Been Worse
Last year I reported that I was venturing into Linux World. I’m back to report that while interest is still with me, progress isn’t. There’s always something else that’s a higher priority. Examples? Leaky faucets, car repairs and maintenance, taxes, trying to catch up with email, trying to resolve glitches with one thing or another, getting things done for the very few clients who haven’t accepted my retirement, and more. I thought retirement would give me time to do things like update my various websites, install and learn Linux, write stories or even books, travel, play my harmonicas, strum my ukulele, learn to use the unused set of wood carving knives I acquired decades ago, touch base with old friends, and so much more. At age 75, the sense of running out of time before the final deadline arrives generates anxiety which can be disabling and interfere with just about everything including sleep, exercise, and diet which ought to be a top priority instead of irregular events. The only consolation about the failures in such things is that once I die I won’t care. While yet alive, there’s some consolation, albeit rather small and rather fragile, in knowing that things could be worse. But, how pathetic that, at the end of one’s life, the best one can say about it is, “It could have been worse.”
22 Years
June 22, 2026
Life, Memory Lane, Wisdom
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John Chappell
I actually get periodic emails from Google Analytics (Your Google Analytics Performance Report) with information about how the Chappell Family Website is doing in terms of how many visitors have visited which pages, how long they stuck around, whether they visited another page, and much more. These are matters of interest to “webmasters” or “web developers” as they assist them with their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies to get more visitors (traffic), especially for websites that have commercial objectives (getting money). I got one of those reports recently and, interesting as it was in regard to such matters, I was most struck by a reference to a page entitled The Blog is Open. At first, I wasn’t even sure there was such a page. So, I clicked the link, and there it was! I posted it on March 30, 2004. Being now 75 years of age, it took me a moment to do the arithmetic that told me that was twenty-two years ago. Twenty-two years! More arithmetic informed me that I was a mere 53 years of age back then. 53!!! That’s still young! It’s only about 3 years older than my son is now. Good God A’mighty, how time has flown by, gone up in smoke, been flushed down the… Actually, I’m not sure time getting flushed is an aphorism in general usage. Since 2004, two grandchildren have been born and grown to teenagers, one nigh onto 18 and the other hot on her heels. Well, as I ponder this, I sense symptoms of depression trying to get hold, so I’m going to quit this particular “post” and find something else to do for a while.
agetime