Author: admin

This kindly bit of graffiti greeted me as I came down the driveway earlier on my natal day. Just one more example of the many fun & thoughtful kindnesses so many of you have paid me lo these several decades. I can think of no man more fortunate than I am this very day, and a great part of those blessings comes from you – my countless friends. Thanks for all your good wishes….and No, Peter. I did not have to use my glasses to read the two-foot-high letters, and no I did not depend on a walker, cane, or wife to make it to the end of the drive.
My greatest gratitude to you all. – Bart

Forget the media panic, forget governments’ statistical forecasting, If you want to make understandable sense of this Coronavirus visit: https://worldcares.org/ and click on “Coronavirus FAQs.”

Lisa Orloff and her World Cares team have been handling disaster relief for 20 years.  Hard-headed, experienced, knowledgeable an entirely without bias, Lisa lays out the facts about the what the virus is, where it comes from, what you should be doing to protect yourself, and what avenues of fear you need not go down.

Lisa is a recipient of the 2019 Prometheus Social Enterprise Award, to learn more about her and World Cares, visit https://bartsbooks.com/ – “Prometheus Awards.”

And on a personal note, I beg you not to fall prey to the plague of grim seriousness that seems to accompany this situation.  The benefits of scowling seriousness, like old Scotch, are highly overrated, but the curative value of sharing a smile and some laughter are beyond estimation.

With malice towards none – Comedy’s Masterful Maestro entertained us last night with a wealth of non-stop, original jokes and stories – never letting up with the flow of belly laughs for a full 75 memorable minutes.  “They’re telling us that cannabis can cure everything nowadays.  They are even telling me that it will cure my hemorrhoids…but frankly I think they are just blowing smoke up my butt.”  And on and on.

My dear wife Lorraine, as an early birthday gift, took me to New Brunswick’s State Theatre to watch Jay perform last night (March 12) and like the rest of us in the hall, I sat mesmerized.  As a humble scribbler of business quips, I felt like a little leaguer watching a Super Bowl quarterback. Still “the hardest working man in show business,” Jay employed clean, clever & wry wit to hold a hilarious mirror to ourselves, leaving us with many smiles and a new perspective.  Proof once again that the greatest wisdom flies in on the wings of laughter.  Thanks Jay.

Keep on grinning,

– Bart

With no little undue pride, yesterday I took axe and bowsaw to felling a 2-foot diameter maple tree out back that needed to be brought down and cut up.  Sweat mingled with joy as I recalled wise words of Abraham Lincoln:  If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the six sharpening my axe.  (And this time, I wisely did stop several times to sharpen the axe.)

Looking at my handiwork now, brings to mind two more quotes:

“Every man looks at his own woodpile with pride.” – H.D. Thoreau

and

“I have to sharpen all the stumps around our property so my lazy husband can’t sit down.” – Lorraine Jackson.

An enraptured group of wriggling kindergartners from Trenton’s Foundation Academy Charter School learn how the Elephant Got His Trunk, as Bart reads Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories’ The Elephant’s Child  to the class on Tuesday morn – during “Drop Everything and Read Week.”  Principal Graig Weiss and his exceptionally dedicated staff have developed scores of ways to involve the community into the educational process.  Keep up the good work, Graig and all Academy educators – you are spreading the joy to those who teach and those who learn.

My gratitude

– Bart  Jackson

To Learn More About Trenton’s Foundation Academy Charter School visit https://foundationacademies.org/