Harris’ Hints
Harris’ Hints
Copyright 2007, Harris B. McKee
I’ve written elsewhere about my struggles with French at Dartmouth. Who could have guessed that I’d be drawing an analogy between a story in French literature that I read in 1958 with the suggestions that I’m about to make. The analogy lies in the probable lack of utility of my ideas to others. Nevertheless, I will proceed to make known these truths that I’ve discovered just as Rabelais’ characters Gargantua and Pantagruel discovered after much trial and error that a gooses neck provided them, in those pre T-P days, the very best arse-wipe.
Here then are Harris’ hints, also derived after much trial and error.
1) The home team is white. I’ve recognized for some time that in televised baseball games that when the Runs-Hit-Errors table is listed that the home team is always the lower of the two. I’ve struggled, until this winter, in watching basketball games to identify which team was wearing color and which white. It was with some chagrin that I realized that the home team is always wearing white and will be listed on the bottom when teams are stacked or second when arranged on the same line.
2) Heel and Toe, Heel and Toe. On the TV program All in the Family Archie Bunker and “Meathead” debated the merits of sock and a shoe, sock and a shoe vs sock and a sock, shoe and a shoe. When I was more agile, it was easy to stand on one leg, stork-like, and pull on a sock so their argument seemed pretty silly. More recently, I’ve found that the footwear maneuver was greatly aided when I could lean against the door post for balance. But just last week, I discovered the ultimate technique. My wife immediately congratulated me, with a broad smile, on one more “Cheaper by the Dozen” industrial engineering improvement.
Here it is. When seated on a comfortable bench, place your heel on the floor; over upraised toes, pull your sock on until your toes are placed comfortably in the toe of the sock. Then put your toes down and pull the sock over the raised heel and as far up the ankle or calf as it is designed to reach. The stability of the technique is unquestioned. It’s ok to try this at home.