Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, July 22, 2023

13

OPINIONOPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, July 22, 2023 

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

Peter Lamendola

CONTRIBUTORS

Stuart Tolchin 

Harvey Hyde

Audrey Swanson

Meghan Malooley

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Dinah Chong Watkins

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

STUART TOLCHIN

RICH JOHNSON 

NOW THAT’S RICH


PUT THE LIGHTS 
ON


HABITS AND QUIRKS

IT MIGHT BE A MISTAKE

How are your habits coming along? Got any quirks?

According to the Cambridge Dictionary the word habit has several meanings. 
I like the top two:

 1. Something you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing 
that you are doing it.

 2. Something annoying that someone else does.

The Cambridge crew also defines quirks as following:

 1. An unusual habit or part of someone’s personality, or something that 
is strange and unexpected (Strange and unexpected? Good name for a column).

Let’s take a peek at quirks and habits of famous people. Hey, we may find motivation to 
adopt a new quirk for ourselves. Ready?

Albert Einstein didn’t wear socks. Who knew? Apparently, he had oversized big toes 
(right and left) and those toes kept punching through the socks.

Charles Dickens always slept facing north, convinced it would improve his creativity. He 
slept with a compass to make sure he was sleeping north.

Pablo Picasso disliked discussing his art with fans so much that he would fire a small 
revolver loaded with blanks whenever a fan asked too many questions.

Speaking of Picasso, I did find out his full name. If anyone asks it’s “Pablo Diego Jose 
Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisma 
Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso”.

Serena Williams wears the same pair of lucky socks in all her tennis matches. (Hope she 
washes them).

Benjamin Franklin talked to himself. He also would spend an hour every morning standing 
naked in front of an open window. Why? He called it “air bathing”. Go figure!

Beethoven, while composing, would pour water over himself periodically throughout the 
day convinced it would help him compose.

Amadeus Mozart was fixated on fart jokes. He even wrote a six-voice musical on farting.

Leonardo DaVinci, followed the Uberman sleep schedule, 20-minute naps every four 
hours. By the way, DaVinci was a left-handed dyslexic polymath. He wrote backwards in 
all of his notebooks. (I might give it a try).

Poet William Wadsworth, read his poems to his dog. If his dog barked or got agitated 
Wadsworth would rewrite the poem.

Cameron Diaz opens doors with her elbows to keep her hands from getting contaminated.

Andrew Jackson constantly challenged people to duels participating in hundreds of them.

Stephen King eats a slice of cheesecake every day before he starts writing. Hmmm, wonder 
if that works.

Writer William Faulkner typed with his toes and kept shoes on his hands while he worked 
(Hey, I don’t make this stuff up!)

Alexander Graham Bell kept his windows covered. He was protecting himself from the 
harmful rays…of the moon.

Noted Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote the following about habits: Вторая 
половина жизни человека состоит только из привычек, приобретенных им в 
первой половине.

French thinker Blaise Pascal penned this about habits: L'habitude est une seconde nature 
qui détruit la première.

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi told us: “Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so 
is losing.”

Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain told us nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.

And finally, (wait until you hear this), my editor and publisher, Susan Henderson…never 
mind!

 Yes, it might be a mistake but I am 
going to include my email address at the 
bottom of this article. Although I have 
been writing these articles since before Obama’s election I 
have never included my email address. This was at the advice 
of my wife who advised me that I already had enough 
conflicts in my life and it was absolutely unnecessary for me 
to get into arguments with unknown readers. It was

bad enough that I got into arguments with my friends.

 Well the arguments with friends haven’t changed 
and furthermore, following my wife’s direction I have never 
become a part of Social Media. This failure, or perhaps it has 
been a benefit, results from my reluctance to familiarize myself 
with the necessary procedures to join these, I will call 
them “information providers” or in my terms “false information” 
providers. I regularly personally send my articles, 
pre-publication to about twenty-five friends and relatives 
that I have acquired over the years. In fact, quoting from 
a recent friend’s description “your column comes from, as 
Lippman argued a hundred years ago, the newspaper reader’s 
hankering to look into the newspaper and see himself 
or herself. You manage to accomplish that trick just about 
every time.” Pretty great compliment don’t you think? Yes, 
and it does seem like most of my new friends are smarter 
than my old friends. Well, it isn’t really that. It’s just that my 
old friends and I know each other so well that nothing we 
say to one another is very new or very interesting.

 Recently I discovered that Upton Sinclair lived in a 
house in Monrovia from 1942 until 1966. You may not have 
heard of Upton Sinclair but he was an immensely famous 
person. In my mind he was famous as being the writer of 
The Jungle which documented the abuses within the meatpacking 
industry and lead to the passage of the Pure Food 
and Drug Act and helped to expose corruption and injustices. 
He and fellow journalists known as the muckrakers 
risked their lives to write stories about the terrible hidden 
conditions of the poor and powerless, and to highlight the 
corruption of politicians and wealthy businessmen. The 
Jungle was written in 1905 and, notwithstanding any progress 
that has arguably been made, these problems remain. 
Did you happen to see the news today implying that Universal 
Studios tried to discourage the picketers outside their 
gates by eliminating sidewalks and shade trees outside their 
gates thus endangering the lives of demonstrators in this 
hundred plus degree heat?

 Of course, I have wandered off from my subject. After 
learning about Sinclair’s long-time presence near here 
in Monrovia I went over to the Arboretum Library where 
I am presentlyvolunteering, and talked to the librarian. She 
helped me to find Sinclair’s books located at other libraries. 
We had a brief conversation and I later provider her with 
a copy of my article of last week called Inner Voices along 
with my e-mail address if she wanted to comment on the 
article. I went over to other libraries and obtained two books 
about Sinclair Lewis which describe his house and give its 
location atop Myrtle Avenue. The overleaf of the front cover 
describes Lewis as “a man who connected better with his 
readers than with his own family”.

 Soon after reading this description I received an e-
mail response from the librarian which absolutely delighted 
me. In response to the article she explained how it inspired 
her to review her own life-long patterns and choices and 
gain some new perspective. Hooray for her and hooray for 
new readers. 

 This morning an old-friend across the canyon emphasized 
to me that he regularly read my columns which I 
send to him but believed that I was confined by my limited 
contacts with the real world. He said my columns would be 
of greater interest and relevance if I opened myself to replies 
from people outside my limited comfort-zone. Perhaps he’s 
right and, contrary to my wife’s best intended advice, here 
goes. 

 I welcome any and all responses which can be sent 
to the following e-mail address: stuarttolchin@gmail.com. I 
await your reply.

Mountain Views News 
has been adjudicated as 
a newspaper of General 
Circulation for the County 
of Los Angeles in Court 
Case number GS004724: 
for the City of Sierra 
Madre; in Court Case 
GS005940 and for the 
City of Monrovia in Court 
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Madre, California, 91024. 
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Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com