Last Sunday, Harold Melin ushered in the center aisle at 9:30. This Sunday, Harold is in Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital with heart problems. He needs a pacemaker. But, so far, they haven’t been able to install one. It seems that Harold has funny veins. They cross….where they aren’t supposed to.

Dear John,

Greetings from Birmingham, Michigan….home to Oakland Hills and a lot of other nice places. And home to a polyglot of people….some of whom love golf….some of whom love gambling….some of whom love Miller Lite….some of whom love the Lord….and some of whom love all four. 

Last week’s mail brought a Christmas letter from friends, the first line of which reads: “Well, another year under our belts….and I mean that literally.” And most of us can identify with that, since we will be saying pretty much the same thing, come the middle of January. For whatever else Christmas may be, it is an unbridled adventure of tasting and feasting, nibbling and snacking, that commences around the time the Thanksgiving Day Parade rolls down Woodward Avenue and concludes shortly after half time of the Orange Bowl.

Pardon me if I exaggerate, but it sometimes seems as if everyone I know is either starting a diet, or breaking one. We have become a people preoccupied with poundage. There is a slice of conventional wisdom which says: “You can never be too rich or too thin.” But we know better, don’t we? Especially the part about being too thin. “Thin” kills….some of our brightest and some of our best.