No one has ever proved luck actually exists. Webster calls it a “force” that brings good fortune or bad. That could mean it’s related to the weather, the stock market, the Communist Party or even the office Christmas party. But maybe it’s just a word we made up to explain life’s up and downs.

Purists insist events are subject to the laws of probability and any other explanation is just wishful thinking. But can’t we fudge those laws by increasing our efforts to reach our goals? Movie magnate Samuel Goldwyn once claimed, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

Others believe in a mysterious source of unearned good fortune like “dumb luck” and “Beginner’s luck”. Shakespeare wrote “Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.” An Arab proverb puts it another way: “Throw a lucky man into the sea and he will come up with a fish in his mouth.” Some only half believe in luck like the man who blames his failures on bad luck, but takes complete responsibility for his hole in one.

We should be active participants in our pursuit of good fortune. There’s the story of the woman who prayed for help to win a lottery prize. After weeks of praying with no results, she shook her fist at the sky and cried, “You haven’t been listening to my desperate prayers to be a lottery winner!” Just then there was a clap of thunder and a voice roared from the clouds, “For heaven’s sake, buy a ticket!”

Religion and luck have been partners for centuries as the devout have asked heaven to deliver good fortune, some paying the shipping and handling charges in advance. The Aztecs, Mayans and Incas paid with human sacrifices, voluntary and otherwise. Most of us, these days, politely ask heaven to tilt the odds in our favor from time to time. There probably are as many prayers said during church bingo games as at the Sunday services. ( Please, Lord, have him call B-14 and I’ll split the pot with you.”)

What is your best guess about luck? Is it the main force behind someone’s successful career? Someone said, “You can always tell luck from ability by the duration.” My favorite luck comment was by the author Jean Cocteau: “We must believe in luck, for how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like.”

Pictures of the first Thanksgiving observance of the Pilgrims 398 years ago have always raised a question in my mind. Governor William Bradford and the 50 survivors of the original 102 Mayflower passengers, along with members of the friendly Wampanoag Tribe, are shown about to give thanks after a harrowing year when more than half the Pilgrim party perished from disease and hardship as the Plymouth settlement was hacked out of the wilderness.

I assume the artists strove for authenticity and consulted surviving contemporary accounts of the historic event. If so, how come the feast is shone as taking place out of doors? Late autumn in Massachusetts can be frigid and yet the celebrants are seen sitting at tables beneath the trees while cozy log cabins are shone in the background. I think I may have figured out one possible reason for this incongruity.

Bill Bradford probably came home one day and announced to his wife, “Dear, I’ve proclaimed a thanksgiving feast here for a week from today. I just sent a runner over to invite Chief Massasoit and some of his people. They’ve been so helpful. The harvest has been good, Miles Standish and John Alden will hunt for venison and turkeys, we’ll get lobsters and clams from the beaches and we’ll brew some beer. Maybe we’ll even have some foot races. It should be a lot of fun.”

“A week from today? Oh no!” exclaimed Mrs. Bradford. “I’ll never get this place ready in just one week. The floors have to be scraped and refinished, the windows washed and I’ll want you to paint the cabinets and fix our rickety chairs. And, oh dear, the dishes are all chipped and we don’t have enough pewter mugs or utensils. Oh dear!”

“I had no idea we were living in such squalor,” the governor said, trying to add a little levity.

“The hearth’s to be scrubbed and I’ll have to weave a new tablecloth and do something about our ragged curtains, ” Mrs. Bradford moaned. “I don’t want us disgraced in front of our guests, the Wampanoags.” she said.

“But, dear, they live in huts made out of bark and deerskins,” the governor pleaded, but to no avail.

And that’s why he amended his proclamation to call for an outdoor event and why most husbands today would agree to make Thanksgiving feasts simpler as long as there’s a roast turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie, foot races by the younger attendees and a nearby TV to watch the gridiron games.

We should be mature enough not to overreact to minor housekeeping setbacks. Compared to the major disturbances occuring around the world, these problems are trivial, almost laughable. However, that being said, they can be *#!*X+* annoying!

Announcements like, “I think there’s something wrong with the clothes dryer,” can send chills down my spine as I visualize how stressful the next few weeks would be after the passing of a major appliance.

First comes the period of denial. “You probably set the dial wrong, or the clothes were extra wet or maybe it just choked temporarily on one of those missing socks that it eats.” But the next two loads come out equally drenched so we consult the trouble-shooting section of the instruction book, hoping in vain there’s a quick and simple solution explained in the “Sopping Wet” chapter. No luck.

After a few days of wishful thinking and with dripping underwear and shirts hung at various places around the house, we contact a serviceman. Hopefully, besides his $100 walk-in fee, he’ll tell us all we need is a $4.95 whatchamacallit to resume normal drying. Dream on.

If this were a real news item, the copy would read: “The dryer was declared dead at the scene of the tragedy and the family did not request an autopsy. Services will be private at the town dump. In lieu of flowers, friends, relatives and caring strangers are asked to donate to the Replacement Fund.”

We study appliance ads for a week and then start making the rounds in search of a salesman who speaks with an unforked tongue. Finally, exhausted physically and financially, we point to a big white thing and say, “We’ll take that one.” Delivery will be the following Wednesday between dawn and midnight, so we can’t plan on anything less important like going to work or lunch at the White House.

The delivery crew arrives at our dinner time and advises the big white thing can’t be carried in until we remove our front door and its framework. The crew chief also explains they don’t install, a professional will come the following Wednesday during our dinner hour. Until then, we’ll be walking around in damp clothing relying on body heat to finish the job.

Finally, the stressful episode comes to an end and we sit back, warm and snug in our dry garments and relax, listening to the pitter patter of rain drops on our windows. But wait a minute! It’s not raining! It looks like the dishwasher is leaking!

Jack Benny, the beloved comedian, insisted he was 39 years old and kept insisting that for 40 years. After awhile we fans thought, “Who are we to doubt him? He should know.”

According to Jack, years aren’t important, attitude is. “Age is strictly a case of mind over matter,” he said. “If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

I agree. We oldsters should just keep plugging along until they pull the plug, enjoying every precious minute. After all, it’s better to be over the hill than under it. We should even laugh at some of the old-age jokes the young whippersnappers tell. But don’t they realize eventually, God willing, they’ll become old whippersnappers?

I have to admit some of their gags are real knee-slappers like, “When we were young we thought about buying new hip clothes. Now we think about buying new hips.” I choked on my Metamucil laughing at that one.

Then there’s the ones that start: “You know you’re getting old when,” followed by a list of symptoms. “Your knees begin to buckle but your belt won’t” and “Your back goes out more often than you do.”

I did get a little irritated when a young slim standup comic pointed me out in the audience and said, “Sir, you look like you once had a physique the girls thought was swell. Too bad now it’s just swollen.” May fifty thousand calories find their way into his tofu entree.

We even pull these oldster jokes on our contemporaries. A buddy recently bragged about still being attractive. “A woman tried to pick me up at the senior dance last night,” he said.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” I replied. “Did you fall down again?”

Then there was the new fellow, reluctantly joining our superannuated ranks. “I’m turning 80 next week,” he groaned, “and I’m dreading it.”

“You’re perfectly right, ” I said. “Eighty is a terrible age. Not much good can be said about it. I’m so glad I’m not 80 anymore.”

Computers, cellphones and texting have made us a nation of hunt-and-peck typists, but they are also helping to eradicate the teaching and practice of cursive writing. If the trend continues, with significant differences between cursive and block letters, cursive may become as unreadable for some as an ancient Etruscan laundry list.

Children may become unable to read hand-written letters from their Grandma and how will they endorse Grandma’s happy birthday checks?

Block letters came first, but Anglo-Saxons in Britain were into cursive writing before the Norman invasion in 1066 A.D. Flowing script was said to have been invented to save time and reduce ink blots from leaky quills raised after each block letter. It also added a personal touch.

Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence was almost completely cursive and Abraham Lincoln wrote his Gettysburg Address in handwriting that can easily be read by today’s students provided cursive is still in their curriculum.

California officials are debating whether to promote cursive penmanship in their schools. Teachers there say it stimulates brain development. Eleven other states require or at least encourage cursive and ten others are considering legislation to prevent its decline.

Old-timers will remember the graceful curves of the Palmer Method and the medals awarded to students who achieved a “fair hand”. That may never return. Recently I watched a young store clerk fill out a form in block letters using a ballpoint pen that she gripped like a dagger.

Another loss would be the ability to analyze handwriting to discover someone’s personality and talents. Block letters can be unchangeably boring while there are many possible variations in the shapes of all 26 cursive letters. A handwriting analyst I once interviewed told me she was hired by corporations to study job-seekers’ application forms to gauge their potential as employees. Apparently our individual loops, circles, stems, T-crossings and I-dots can provide a look into our psyche.

For those wanting to fake a personal touch, cursive fonts are available in various styles for all types of correspondence including thank you notes to Grandma. Just press a button and your block sentences turn cursive. But wait, there’s more! You can also choose a font for your job application’s handwritten resume that resembles the penmanship of famous people like Albert Einstein or Charles Edison. Let them analyse that.

We have so much to say and life is so short. Therefore we invented abbrs, initials, contractions, symbols, acronyms, icons, memes, etc. It’s ok w/me & my PC. It saves us hrs/yr, paper & ink. When I want to finish a blog ASAP (this one, e.g.), I go into my PDQ mode. However, I think we’re overdoing it, i.e., a texter wd hv shortened this para. by 50%.

Old-fashioned abbrs are more decipherable than today’s texting codes. A neophyte could receive salacious msgs w/o realizing it. LOL (laughing out loud) is cute, but wouldn’t “HaHa” also work? And ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing) is overkill. Try “LOL x 2”.

I think texters want to seal us off like our parents did when they discussed neighborhood scandals at the dinner table, spelling out their gossip not realizing how far we’d advanced in school. “Mom, there’s no ‘S’ in divorce,” we’d say, or “Dad, there are two ‘C’s’ in alcoholic, they’re not ‘K’s “.

If necessity is the father of invention, laziness must be the mother. A weary monument maker in ancient Rome, tired of chiseling “Senatus Populusque Romanus” (The Senate and People of Rome) shortened it to SPQR one day to get home to dinner on time. Two milleniums later the initials are still part of the city’s official emblem.

Perhaps a medieval Irish monk, after hours of tedious transcribing decided “Anno Domini” (The year of Our Lord) should become A.D. which, with B.C. (Before Christ), is sometimes replaced now with C.E. (Common Era). Where are we headed? Heaven knows.

We’ll never return to the long versions. Imagine telling someone you’ll meet them at nine of the clock ante meridiem, or have a cop say he caught you speeding with his radio detecting and ranging apparatus. Radar is an acronym, a string of initials that became a word, like NATO, NASA, laser and UNICEF. Korean War G.I.’s had one called FIGMO, but that’s all I have to say about that.

A standard greeting, “How are you?” has morphed to “Hiya” and then “Hi” while the common salutation “Hello” has been cut to “Lo”. So two friends meeting will say “Hi” and “Lo”.

ESL students must wonder why “oz” and “lb” stand for ounce and pound. “Teacher, does that mean Judy Garland starred in ‘The Wizard of Ounce’ and was President Johnson’s first name Pound?”

The letters SOB stand for “Senate Office Building” and dozens of other phrases, one of which is indelicate. When writing to a member of the Upper House you could therefore address the envelope: U.S. Senator (name) SOB, Wash. D.C. But don’t mention this blog.

Archeological evidence indicates some of our Stone Age ancestors had already begun to dine on manufactured tableware. Diggings in a late Paleolithic campsite have unearthed animal bones, primitive cooking tools and, surprisingly, remnants of ceramic dishes. There was no evidence of soap or dish towels at the 20,000-year old barbecue site so we can only assume the primeval dishes were licked clean by the diners. There were also no surviving fragments of fortune cookies at the dig in Hunan, China.

Before cave people learned how to make pottery, food was served on shells or flat stones or were hand-to-mouth meals and every day was potluck day, serving whatever the hunters managed to bring home. On very bad days, sabertooth tigers dined on the hunters. I would rather have been a gatherer rather than a hunter back then. No one has ever been attacked and eaten by a blueberry bush or a mushroom patch.

Shakespeare mentions trenchers on the feasting tables of his characters. Trenchers were large slices of stale bread used as dinner plates. After the entree was finished the “plate” was soaked in sauce and eaten or it was given to the poor. Trenchers are making a comeback as bread bowls for soup. I’ve found, the hard way, that to avoid a mess, one must swallow the last spoonful of soup before starting to eat the bowl.

Pewter dishes have been popular for many years and might be the reason for the original unpopularity of tomatoes. Pewter is mostly tin with a dash of lead. It was feared the acid in tomatoes would leach out the lead and produce sickening salads. The tomato was therefore known then as the “deadly nightshade” which wouldn’t be a very inviting menu item. Imagine telling a diner waitress to bring you a bacon, lettuce and deadly nightshade on rye toast.

We have made significant strides to replace dish-licking since the Stone Age. We don’t hear complaints of “dishpan hands” since the introduction of dishwashing machines, labor-saving devices that are supposed to turn out sparkling tableware if you use the expensive washing and rinsing concoctions.

I am not altogether opposed to dish-licking. I wouldn’t do it in a restaurant, but at home when a favorite entree has been served and the last dollop consumed except for the residue on my plate. Well, what’s the big deal? It’s all in the family.

It isn’t fair to burden a friend with a juicy secret about one of your personal problems and then warn him “not to tell a soul”. That’s like giving a lollipop to a little kid and saying, “Now don’t lick this.”

If a potentially embarrassing situation begins to wear you down and you feel you just have to talk it over with someone, resist the urge. It’s better to discuss these delicate subjects with your dog who will listen sympathetically while you get it off your chest and get some relief.

This doesn’t work as well with cats or goldfish and never, ever discuss your private affairs with your parrot.

Some people have a way of rationalizing their clumsy handling of a friend’s secret. “When I told you about my problem you swore it was ‘in the vault’ and now I find it’s common knowledge all over town. Did you tell anybody?”

“Well yes I did, but very discreetly, and I told him, quite emphatically, that your problem was a deep, dark secret and not to mention it to anyone.”

It goes something like this. Your name comes up in a conversation between your confidant and another blabbermouth and your confidant says, “Oh, poor man, he’s got a serious problem. I could tell you a lot, but my lips are sealed. However, I can give you a small hint without breaking my oath.

The “small hint” becomes, after cross-examination, a four-paragraph detailed description of your problem which the secondary blabbermouth edits, adding his own colorful assumptions before forwarding, and the doctored version of your problem goes viral.

“Letting the cat out of the bag is a lot easier than getting him back in,” said humorist Will Rogers. Ben Franklin, in the same vein, said “Three can keep a secret if two are dead.” I’m not sure even that works. One potential tattletale is still at large and the dead ones might have left memoirs.

If someone tries to unload their scandalous secret on you, tell him you’re flattered, but you must decline because you often talk in your sleep and your wife might take notes. If they don’t accept this excuse, you can offer to arrange a private consultation for them with your dog.

I have never owned a cat. However, over the years several cats have owned me. I’ve always been able to reach working arrangements with our pet dogs. They’ve been less demanding, more forgiving and , unlike cats, less prone to having attitudes.

There are about 76 pet million cats in America now so a lot of people would probably say I’m misjudging cats, but if our 90 million pet dogs are allowed to participate in the survey, I think I’d have a solid majority on my side.

A kitten that’s brought into the house will be treated like a princess. (“Oh what a sweet little kitty! Listen to her purr. It’s my turn now. Let me pet her.”) But before you know it, the beast grows up and one day she calls a family meeting. “Listen you guys,” she snarls. “This is the way it’s going to be from now on if you don’t want your sofa and drapes shredded, your carpets corrupted and your dog traumatized.” So you end up with a foul-smelling litter box and a closet full of Friskies, and catnip treats and toys.

Cats don’t bark and that’s one of their few saving qualities. A friend of mine had a cat who, when his screeching was being ignored, would claw the family dog and make him bark. It was like having an agent.

Thank goodness we don’t have to walk cats. That would involve high-speed squirrel chases, fence-jumping and tree-climbing, something like qualifying for the Olympics twice a day.

But tree-climbing? Why are fire fighters called to rescue cats in trees? Certainly it’s the cat owners rather than the cats who make the rescue calls (as far as we know). Cats are not in much danger perched a mere 50 feet up in a sycamore. There are records of cats falling 26 stories (about 260 feet) without suffering serious injury. That’s attributed to their large body surface compared to their lightness which reduces the terminal velocity of their landing, resulting in a 90 percent survival rate for long distance falls.

So if you get angry with your cat don’t toss him out the window. He’ll most likely come back to get revenge. If you really want to get even, do what I did. I named my last cat Fido.

Once when I was a lot younger and a little more daring, I decided to go to a local Halloween party as Frankenstein’s monster. I worked up an imaginative combination of homemade makeup and props which turned out to be a little too frightening.

I scared the bejeebers out of the babysitter when I greeted her at the door and I shouldn’t have gone in to say goodnight to the kids before we left. My wife, dressed as the fairy queen, managed to calm them down.

Driving to the party I wondered what kind of a reaction I would get if a cop pulled me over for creeping over the speed limit. I could have told him I was racing to the emergency room which would have been convincing with my pale green complexion and fake bloody scars. But what if he insisted on calling ahead and leading the way with siren blaring and roof lights flashing? Who knows, I might have ended up in the morgue, despite my protests. I maintained a steady 25 miles per hour.

I thought my realistic monster getup would make me a contender in the party’s costume contest, but I didn’t even get horrible mention. A pretty young woman wearing a huge papier-mache pumpkin to hide her delicate condition took the prize. The judges said her costume was a “pregnant idea”. They didn’t even compliment me on the painful “bolts” (curtain rod ends) sticking out of my neck.

There were rude comments from “friends” at the party, like “Hello, Gene. How come you didn’t come in a costume?” and the tipsy wise guy who kept following me around the dance floor shouting “It’s alive! It’s alive!” Boris Karloff would have taken care of him with one swipe.

The final blow was at the diner where we went for coffee after the party, when Monica, our usual waitress, remarked. “Oh, I see you took my advice about plastic surgery. Congratulations, it’s quite an improvement.” She got the minimum tip.