Ask Your Doctor

The more I watch TV the more annoyed I get by commercials. With a few exceptions, such as the funny duck in the AFLAC commercial, most are an insult to the public's intelligence. For me they have the contrary effect in that the dumber they are the less likely it is that I'll buy their product. If they are really obnoxious, I will make it a point of boycotting the product completely.

Drug companies have discovered a pill(s) for just about every ailment under the sun. It used to be that it was almost taboo to mention diarrhea on TV. Now they have undressed us from head to foot and bared all maladies and imperfections for the world to see.

Men, you have trouble performing, no problem, ASK YOUR DOCTOR, he has an assortment of pills for you to take. Once you take it you'll be throwing a football like Tom Brady. Be careful though because you might be stuck throwing that football for four hours. Don't worry call your doctor and he'll give you a copy of episode 67 of Seinfeld where George Costanza tells you all about shrinkage. Now if my grandmother was still around all she would do is take out her wooden spoon and hit it. That's what she used to use on Grandpa any time he would get overly frisky from too much catnip.

My 82 year old mother has recently experienced a problem with her bladder. Every time she sneezes she has to run to the bathroom. Excuse me mom for divulging this. I told her on her next visit we will ASK THE DOCTOR about this embarrassing problem. Of course the doctor had a remedy - guess what? another pill. As she wrote out the Rx she mentioned that one of the common side effects from taking the medication was dry mouth. Wow, the medication couldn't pinpoint what part of the body to dry out. It dried her out down below while at the same time up above. The pharmaceutical giants haven't come up with the antidote to this problem yet so my mother was forced to drink more fluids forcing more fluids for her bladder to handle. By this time I was ready to call on Noah to build his ark.

Thank God I only asked fo a 30 day supply. The medication that didn't provide any relief cost approximately $50.00 and I could see the shareholders of this drug company laughing all the way to the bank.

ASK YOUR DOCTOR about laughing and see what he tells you. There's no money to be made by prescribing laughter but it's probably the best medicine invented. Somewhere along the line, I want to blame President Nixon (aka Tricky Dick), someone started a movement to suppress laughter. Just look at the steady increase of anti depressants prescribed over the years. Why? ASK YOU DOCTOR they are the ones pushing this stuff.

LAUGHTER is the best medicine! Maybe doctors should practice telling jokes instead of pushing prozac. We could use more doctors like Dr. Vinnie Boombatz.

Texas Attorney: Q. Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
Medical Witness: A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.


Why did the blonde stare at the carton of Orange Juice?
It said 'concentrate'

A preacher was winding up his temperance sermon with great fervor. "If I had all the beer in the world, I'd take it and throw it into the river."
The congregation cried, "Amen!"
"And if I had all the wine in the world,I'd take it and throw it in the river."
The congregation cried, "Amen!"
"And if I had all the whiskey and demon rum in the world, I'd take it all and throw it in the river."
And the congregation cried, "Amen!"
The preacher sat down.
The deacon stood up. "For our closing hymn," he announced, "let us turn to page 126 and sing, 'We shall gather at the river'."

He who laughs ...lasts!

The Ballad of Joe and Sal

Down through the years
We've been blessed with some teams
But the likes of these two
Are what spoil many of a man's dreams

I laughed at Laurel and Hardy
Abbott and Costello too
Then I met Joe and Sal
What a fine how-do-you-do!

Their adventures took place
On the night shift at the P.O.
Struggling to keep their eyes open
Chasing the mail they would happily go.

Sal being older
Would tell Joe what to do
Unless there was a mistake
The he would renege on him too!

Joe and his pal
Had the routine down to a T
The things that they did
Norris never did see

Then one fateful night
While Sal was a 'keying
Many girls passed him by
Joe started laughing at what he was seeing

With one eye on the girls
And the other on the mail
Sal struck the repeat key
Making the good entries now fail

Sal and Joe went home
With a smile from ear to ear
They were called by Mr. Norris
"What the hell happened here?"

Sal started to stutter
Joe said it was a stroke of bad luck
While Sal was keying
Thunder and lightning struck.

I witnessed Dave's face
Turn from beet red to blue
He was cussing and swearing
And repeating, 'what am I going to do?'

Just at that time
Top tech Kevin came a strollin by
He said Dave don't worry
They were all business reply

Well before Joe met Sal
He had teamed up with Kevin
This was a match
That was surely made in heaven

Well Sal has retired
And Norris is babysitting
As for Joe and Kevin
Well, they're never quittin.

Who Stole the Red Sauce?

I don't know about you, but lately I can't seem to find a good Italian restaurant whose chef cooks the 'old fashioned' way. The traditional 'peasant' dishes that I grew up with as a boy are taking a backseat to some nouveaux yuppi concoctions that these so-called culinary masters are creating.

As far as I'm concerned, they can eat with saffron and cilantro and truffle oil. Good Italian food is simple to make, you shouldn't be overwhelmed by the number of ingredients when you look at a recipe. With core ingredients such as olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and basil you can create a palette of tastes. The only catch is that you use the freshest ingredients available.

My friend, Frank Imbergamo's cookbook, "The Good Life! Favorite Italian Recipes" is a compendium of old world homecooked dishes. Frank didn't have to go to any culinary school. His school consisted of growing up in one the country's famous Little Italy's, The North End of Boston. He learned by watching his grandmother and mother prepare a meal that was always spiced with love. If the wind was blowing in the right direction that sweet smell of garlic sauteeing in olive oil would waft over to the Irish neighborhood of Charlestown which was a mile away.

Sunday mornings, the neighborhood would be one giant Opera of aromas as each family would prepare the sauce for dinner. The meat sauce would consist of many types of meats from sausages to meat balls and various types of braciole. Each one would have its own unique taste. You grew up loving your mother's sauce and no one could top it. Frank has taken a little from his mother and grandmother and combined it with the experience gained from visiting restaurants such as Felicia's, Giro's and the Blue Front to make his own unique sauce.

His recipe "Frankie's Gravy and Meatballs" was selected as the winning recipe from 1500 entries submitted to the Food Network, specifically the Emeril Live Show. The show where Emeril recreates Frankie's recipe is going to be aired on Sunday, August 7,2005 at 8:00PM on the Food Network.

The Good Life! Favorite Italian Recipes Cookbook by Frank Imbergamo can be purchased at the Pastene site www.pastene.com. Check out the recipe for Shrimp Parmigiana and you too will enjoy The Good Life. Once you taste the Shrimp Parmigiana you too will be doing the tarantella.

Che Bella Cosa!

Lost in the Mail???

The following is an excerpt of an article from the Wash. Post on Saturday, June 25,2205;

"The chairman of the House ethics committee apparently did not properly file a required report about a $3,170 trip to Canada last year. His staff said it must have been lost in the mail."

What originality!! Didn't they have a better excuse? Couldn't they have pinned the blame on a dog?
No, it must have been lost in the mail. How is it that in the 32 years that I have been married the Postal Service has NEVER lost one of my bills? Yes, they might have arrived a few days late or damaged by machine or even arrived wet and smudged but they NEVER lost one bill.

How convenient it is to have the proverbial scapegoat, the good old incompetent, USPS when all else fails.

How dare they call themselves staff! They are not staff but a bunch of STIFFS.

My Father

My father, who was he?
I simply have no clue,
I never had a chance to talk to him,
He never told me what to do

I know he was a fisherman,
Gaeta, Italy he called home.
It was on this gorgeous peninsula
Where a rowboat became his throne.

He worked hard to make a living
Every day he would cast his net,
And hope that the Lord would bless him
With a catch that would pay off his debt.

He never took me with him
Oh, how I wish it wasn’t so.
He never had the opportunity
The Lord called him and he had to go

I was in my mother’s womb.
It was December of forty six,
The war had just ended
My father was twenty-six

With a coastal storm a’ brewing
A concern of tangled nets,
Brought the fisherman to Serapo beach
To what would be his last catch

As a daughter of a fisherman
My mother learned of the peril
When one deals with storms at sea
You are playing with the devil.

She had warned him many times
But his stubbornness took control
In his fight to save his nets
His last catch, a mine, would explode.

Deep inside my mother’s womb
I could feel that something was wrong.
I was at my father’s side,
One day later he was gone.

I could sense that he truly fought
To stay alive to be with me.
Oh, how I wish I could have touched him
But it just wasn’t meant to be

Two months later I came into the world
Never realizing what was missing,
You see my mother’s brothers and sisters
Played a big part in my upbringing.

I owe quite a bit to my uncle Luigi
I pray to the Lord God to rest his soul
He sacrificed eight years of his life
To be my father figure was his goal

It wasn’t until my teenage years
When I started to feel a void.
I think you too would start questioning
Some of the things you had been told.

At the age of eighteen I was given a gift
What this did for me no money could buy.
It was a picture of my father
Finally seeing him brought tears to my eyes.

I carefully framed it, kept it nearby
So that I could be close by his side
I think of him more with each passing day
And of what could have been if he were alive.