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Tom Brody (1969)
One month ago, Pacific Viking Ralph Martin asked, "Does anybody have any happy news?" Yes, I have some happy news. Other Pacific Vikings are welcome to practice some of the same techniques that I've used to stay happy. With my wife, we took hikes at (1) Founder's Grove in Humboldt State Park, (2) Sam McDonald Park near Pescadero, (3) Twice at Point Pinole Regional Shoreline, (4) Skunk Cabbage Trail, a little north of Orick in Redwoods National Park, (5) Trinidad Head at Trinidad, CA, (6) Twice at Jack London State Park near Glen Ellen, CA, (7) Roy's Redwood Loop Trail at Roy's Preserve in Marin County, (8) Flat Frog Trail and Middle Ridge Trail at Henry Coe State Park, (9) High Peaks Trail at Pinnacles National Park, (10) Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, (11) Brown Creek Trail near Lady Bird Grove at Redwood National Park, and (12) Pescadero Marsh. Also, during the past year, I have posted about thirty reviews on Amazon dot com, including reviews for: (1) Time and Trouble by Julia Vinograd, (2) Berkeley Street Cannibals by Julia Vinograd, (3) Paper Television by Julia Vinograd, (4) Physical Geography of Wisconsin by Lawrence Martin, (5) Cataclysms of the Columbia by Allen and Burns, (6) Hindemith Orchestral Works, (7) Wisconsin State Parks by Spoolman, (8) Apostle Islands by Blacklock, (9) Apostle Islands by Newman, (10) Scuffy the Tugboat, (11) John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West, (12) Glacial Lake Missoula by David Alt, and (13) CREAM A PEOPLE'S HISTORY by Richard Houghton. Here is another technique for staying happy. If I need to do an errand that requires a five minute drive to a nearby shopping mall, on two occasions I've used the following technique. A few months ago, I rolled down the windows of my HONDA FIT, and I played the song OOGUM BOOGUM by Brenton Wood. I turned my stereo set up full blast. The lyrics go, "When you wear your high heeled boots with your hip hugger suit, It's all right, you're out of sight. And your cute mini-skirt with your brother's sloppy shirt, I admit it, girl, that I can dig it." An old lady, perhaps 70 years old, was walking near Lincoln Avenue in Alameda Island, and she heard this song and she smiled, and looked towards me, and she started dancing. And today (December 26, 2021), I drove around the parking lot at SOUTH CENTER MALL on Alameda Island, and I played SATISFACTION by the Rolling Stones. I drove around and around with my windows rolled down, with SATISFACTION blasting from my windows. Nobody noticed, but finally a tall 30-year old girl with blonde hair noticed. She looked towards me and smiled, and I smiled back, and while continuing to drive, I did the SHIMMY-SHIMMY THING with my shoulders and I whirled my fingers around in the air. The 30-year old girl kept smiling. This incident occupied only FIVE SECONDS, but it was the most glorious moment of the entire year. And more happy news. During the past several yeas, I've written a few more articles about patent law. A few months ago, four of these were accepted for publication in Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society (JPTOS). Publishing articles on patent law does not earn me any money (not one penny), but it is great fun to write these things, and in the past several years, I won two different awards for these articles. UH-OH, UH-OH, UH-OH, too much information (T.M.I.).
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