What if?

   Let’s relax a little from all the turmoil and emotions surrounding both the election and memories of Veterans Day.

What if . . . President-Elect Trump, after the first week in office, decided he really didn’t want the job, the position, the restrictions of the office, the constrictions of expectations, to have to live in the White House EVERY day, so he resigned? Vice-President Pence became Mr. President and what if he soon nominated Mr. Trump to the Supreme Court?

Okay, I thought that up while waiting for the sandman. Don’t expect any more prognostications like this from me. So, I go looking for other “what ifs.” I e-mail my California brother if he has any; he’ll get back to me, he says. And he did: “[Once] while sitting in a darkened concert hall listening to the philharmonic playing a Brahms symphony, I noticed in the violins what looked like Mom.  My mind began to wonder ‘what if’ instead of marriage and family for her, she had pursued a creative career?” I’ve lately wondered about too.

Robert Byrne’s The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said fit the bill, when I add “What if” to the quotes he gives. Here are a few:

(What) “[i]f I had been present at creation [?] I would have given some useful hints.” –Alfonso the Wise (1221-1284)

(What if) “[m]an is a god in ruins[?]” – Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

(What) [i]f I had been the Virgin Mary [?] I would have said ‘No.’” – Margaret “Stevie” Smith (1902-1971)

(What if) “[l]iving with a saint is more grueling than being one[?]” –Robert Neville

(What if), “[u]nder certain circumstances, profanity provided a relief denied even to prayer[?]”—Mark Twain (1835—1910)

(What if) “[life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews[?]” – John Updike

(What if) “[t]here is more to life than increasing its speed[?]” – Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

(What if) [d]eath is nature’s way of saying ‘Howdy’” [?] – Unknown

(What if) “[f]or three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow, but phone calls taper off[?]” – Johnny Carson

(What if) “[t]he writing of more than 75 poems in any fiscal year should be punishable by a fine of $500[?]” – Ed Sanders

(What if) “[t]he human mind treat[ed] a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it[?]” –Biologist P. B. Medawar (1915—1985)

(What if) [w]it is educated insolence[?]”— Aristotle (384—322 B. C.)

(What if) “[l]ike all self-made men, he worships his creator[?]” – Unknown

(What if) “[a] vegetarian is a person who won’t eat anything that can have children[?]” – David Brenner

(What if) “[t]he reason husbands and wives do not understand each other is because they belong to different sexes[?]” – Dorothy Dix (1870 – 1951)

(What if) “[t]he reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy[?]”—Sam Levenson (1911 – 1980)

(What if) “[l]ove is a grave mental disease[?]” – Plato (427? – 348? B.C.)

(What if) “[a]n archeologist is the best husband a woman can have[?] [T]he older she gets, the more interested he is in her.” – Agatha Christie (1891-1976), who was married to one

(What if) “[i]t is better to be a coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life[?]” – Irish proverb)

OKAY, that’s enough levity for one reading. But there’s more where these came from.

c 2016 by PL d.b.a. lovepat press