Cane and able

I'm happy these days because my post-knee replacement rehabilitation has progressed to the point of "Goodbye walker, hello cane!"

Not having to push that walker around like that creepy movie producer Weinstein is a nice step forward, if you'll pardon the metaphor. 

I have to say, the tennis balls are essential. They help the walker glide. Why walkers don't come like this from the factory, I can't tell you. 

Anyway, I'm strutting around like Michigan J. Frog

from the old WB Network these days, and I was telling my old friend Lee, down Texas way, about it, because just the other day, he had a surgeon saw his leg in half and install a new knee. I wanted him to know he'll be strutting soon enough.

We're both history nuts, so before long, the topic turned to 1856, when, in the US Congress, Representative Preston Brooks, a slaveholder from South Carolina, beat the bejabbers out of Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist from Massachusetts. The whole thing started when Sumner made a strong speech against slavery, and the gentleman from South Carolina could not abide that.

Sumner almost lost his life in the attack, and was out of work until 1859. This sad affair contributed to the great divide in this country over whether it should be legal to own human beings. They fought a civil war over it, the outcome of which is still being debated deep down South.

I promise not to strike, or goose, anyone with my cane while I use it. I can't promise not to hook a shopping cart, or push an elevator button with it, but even if you are pro-slavery, I won't hit you. 

Heaven will take care of that.