Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, August 28, 2021

OPINION 13 
Mountain Views News Saturday, August 28, 2021 OPINION 13 
Mountain Views News Saturday, August 28, 2021 
MOUNTAIN 

VIEWS 

NEWS 

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson 

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR 

Dean Lee 

PRODUCTION 

SALES 

Patricia Colonello 
626-355-2737 
626-818-2698 

WEBMASTER 

John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION 

CONTRIBUTORS 

Stuart Tolchin 
Dinah Chong WatkinsAudrey SwansonMary Lou CaldwellKevin McGuire 
Chris Leclerc 
Bob Eklund 
Howard HaysPaul CarpenterKim Clymer-KelleyChristopher NyergesPeter Dills 
Rich Johnson 
Lori Ann Harris 
Rev. James SnyderKatie HopkinsDeanne Davis 
Despina ArouzmanJeff Brown 
Marc Garlett 
Keely TotenDan Golden 
Rebecca WrightHail Hamilton 
Joan Schmidt 

Mountain Views News 
has been adjudicated asa newspaper of GeneralCirculation for the County 
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for the City of SierraMadre; in Court CaseGS005940 and for the 
City of Monrovia in CourtCase No. GS006989 and 
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at 80 W. Sierra MadreBlvd., No. 327, Sierra 
Madre, California, 91024.
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A member of 
the 
California 
NewspaperPublishers 
Association 

Mountain Views News 

Mission Statement 

The traditions of 
community newspapers 
and the 
concerns of our readers 
are this newspaper’s 
top priorities. We 
support a prosperouscommunity of well-
informed citizens. We 
hold in high regard the 

values of the exceptional

quality of life in our 
community, including

the magnificence of 


our natural resources. 
Integrity will be our guide. 

STUART TOLCHIN PUT THE LIGHTS ON 
YOU MUST HAVE NOTICED 


Every day as I complain about the heat and walk my dog 

around our canyon circle I can’t help but notice the people 

laboring in the heat. They are out there working, doing hard 

manual work, barely protected by their sombreros and oc


casionally looking up to wave hello. After I return to our 

pleasantly and expensively air conditioned house my wife 

prepares breakfast. After breakfast and a pleasant shower I 

gather up my IPhone and Apple watch and mask and head 

out to our conveniently located and pretty inexpensive Eaton 

Canyon golf course. As I drive to the course I notice the la


borers still working in the sun but I barely notice as I am listening to the radio detailing 

the present horrors of the world.

Some of these horrors such as the restrictions connected to the Pandemic and 

the increased gasoline prices actually affect me and I wish that there were solutions to 

the virus and the climate crisis and food shortages and water shortages and raging fires 

and our system of government which seems to be disintegrating all around us. On a few 

scheduled mornings during the week I drive to Burbank, Van Nuys or San Fernando 

to have a meal with other attorneys and friends who are still working. I am retired and 

admittedly am having some trouble adjusting to the fact that I really don’t have to do 

anything and on the whole am pretty content, or at least ought to be.

Some of my friends are politically active and serve on Boards and write letters 

and donate funds to various candidates and non-profit organizations. What I do is basi


cally play golf having told myself that if, after forty years of continuing ineptitude, I can 

improve my game it will make the world a better place. It’s like recycling which I think 

is basically senseless but if it makes you feel better go ahead and do it. At these lunches 

and breakfasts my friends and I who are mostly of similar educational backgrounds and 

political positions talk about how stupid everyone else is. You know the anti-vaxers 

and those favoring recall. Frankly all of my pals seem pretty comfortable even though 

there is a trend among older men complaining that their wives seem to be increasingly 

demanding and resentful

What I think is going on is that much like the way the younger generations 

chastise we older folk for knowingly tolerating terrible inequalities and environmen


tal destruction and a seemingly disintegrating political system still controlled by the 

wealthiest special interests all of which is largely true there is something else involved. 

Strangely, or not so strangely, most of my male friends are married or were married to 

younger women. It is my conjecture that when these marriages originally took place 

the men were the dominant figures earning more and better educated than their wives. 

Generally this is no longer true, but originally the wives believed that their older hus


bands would protect them and maintain a safe environment in which to live. This was 

the male responsibility just life becoming part of the military and fighting wars to pro


tect everyone else.

One other factor is the inevitable decrepitude of men as they age such that their 

wives almost become caretakers. One other factor is that older males do not possess 

the technological skills to do what the computer commands and women have to rely on 

their own children for assistance. Men can’t even find the engines in their modern cars 

today and cannot even be relied upon to do the tasks that all men (possibly excluding 

Jewish men like me) have universally performed

Really, you must have noticed this in the same way that you must have noticed 

the poor underpaid people, often immigrants, laboring in the hot sun. This underpaid 

and unappreciated work force is indicative of continuing inequalities and overall unfair


ness. Furthermore, the increased longevity of people has created a whole class of re


tired folk generally supported by taxes imposed upon the younger generations. Finally 

speaking of age. I am personally aware of the increasing mental deficits experienced by 

almost every person of the President’s and my age. It is doubtful that any successful pri


vate concern would hire such people together with their diminished faculties. I believe 

that term limits in government and in the judiciary are an absolute necessity and that it 

is ridiculous to be governed or judged by our great-grand parents.

 Do you know the expression that “Science only advances one death at a time”? Think 

about it! 

DINAH CHONG WATKINS 


CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE WRONG KIND 

WHAT I DID FOR LOVE 

My butt slid dangerously in and out of the rubber inner 
tube. The One-Size-Fits-All doughnut hole left 6 inch gaps 
all around. One ill-timed twist and I’d fall through and get 
treated to a Big Gulp-size serving of Lazy River, stinky feet 

and all. 
My son, now bored of drifting along and bumping into other riders in slow-
mo, nagged me to take him to the star attraction of the water park, the Humunga 
Kowabunga. A 5 story vertical drop water slide, totally encased in the 
dark. 

“How about another round on the Lazy River and I’ll think about it.” I lied. 

“Mom, didn’t you pay full price for these tickets?” 

Only ten and he already knew my Pavlovian response to getting my money’s 
worth. We chucked the inner tubes and began the long hike up to the mouth 
of the Humunga Kowabunga. 

With my son pushing me up from behind, we finally made it to the 5th story 
launch pad. Echoes of terrified screams ricocheted from the gaping maw of 
the chute. The teenage attendant, directed us to lie on our backs and cross 
our arms over our chests, in the same way they prep corpses in the morgue. 

“Are you ready lady?” The attendant asked and as I seriously tried to remember 
if I had packed antibiotics, he released the gate. 

I think I experienced rebirth in a secular way that day. Surging down in complete 
and utter darkness, I twisted and flew in the hot, humid tube, taking 
mad corners at sharp 45° angles while gallons of lukewarm water slopped 
over me. Suddenly, a blinding light and I dropped into the receiving tank, 
a bright, new future overrun with screaming kids and wildly inappropriate 
swimsuits on their parents. 

Sunburns, chlorine-streaked hair, water wedgies by the dozen, the unenviable 
task of taking my kids to the water parks fell solely upon my waterlogged 
shoulders as my husband didn’t view it as a “family event” like golfing. 

With experience, we learned one shared washcloth was sufficient to dry ourselves 
off, thanks to the miracle of microfiber and my penchant to carry only 
what would fit in my Fanny pack. Our last trip to the water park ended with 
the theft of all our belongings - clothes, shoes and wallet from our locker. 
The park PR person gave us carte blanche in the gift store, too bad the inventory 
was limited to oversize “Wahoo Kowabunga!” t-shirts and five dollar flip 
flops. I still have that shirt, a reminder of what I did for love. 

I’d like to say my days of water parks was over but it only morphed into the 
dry version a decade later when No.2 came along. On a cold, windy day 
in March, a fine mist of drizzling rain soaked us to the skin as we lined up 
for the ride “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey”. The title of the ride 
should have been a clue but I just wanted to stop the wet. Twenty minutes 
later I was bent over in the bushes, the combination of the motion simulation, 
jarring rocking and bantering trolls was no match for the pint of Butterbeer 
I downed earlier. My daughter wanted a wizarding wand, I hoped it would 
magically take us home. The wand no doubt, is in the back of the closet, another 
reminder of what I did for love. 

The side car jerked from side to side, as the Tilt-A-Whirl snapped around in 
circles. We had just started dating, I laughed and glanced over in his direction. 
He was pale, sweaty and grimaced back at me. The rest of the afternoon 
was spent sitting on a park bench where he tried to recuperate. I learned later 
that he could take airplane turbulence but not zero gravity thrill rides. A few 
decades later I still have the ticket stub to that amusement park, a reminder 
of what he did for love. 

Email me at dinah@aletterfromabroad.com 

Read more at: https://aletterfromabroad.wordpress.com 

RICH JOHNSON NOW THAT’S RICH! 


ENGLISH AND THE WORD UP 

If you think English is easy you were born her. If you 
find American English a little difficult, you are probably 
a member of the British Empire. If English is nigh 
impossible you are from anywhere else on the globe or 
galaxy. Here are examples of our profound language 
that may give you insight into the difficulty of grasping 
our native tongue. 

The bandage was wound around the wound.

The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert. 
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid. 
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row...
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things, when the does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line. 
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the 
present. 

You want more? Okay, I can give you more. 

If writers write why don’t fingers fing; or grocers groce and hammers ham? 

One goose, 2 geese. Why not one moose, 2 meese? Teachers taught but did the 
preacher praught? Vegetarians eat vegetables. So what do humanitarians eat? 
How come slim chance and fat chance mean the same thing but a wise man 
and a wise guy are opposites? You fill in a form by filling it out, and an alarm 
goes off by going on. Did you ever see some poor soul’s house burn up as it 
burned down? 

Possibly the most difficult word in the language is a simple two letter word: UP. 
We wake UP. A topic comes UP. We speak UP. It’s UP to the secretary to write 
UP a report. We call UP our friends. We brighten UP a room, polish UP the 
silver; warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house 
while some guy fixes UP the car. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, 
work UP an appetite and think UP excuses. The various definitions of UP go 
on and on. 

If you are UP for it look UP the definition of UP in the dictionary. It will take 
UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP and build UP a list of the many 
ways UP is used you may wind UP with a hundred or more definitions. Of 
course, it’s UP to you. 

I think I’ll wrap UP my column because I’m certain it is way past the time to 
shut UP!