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Bruce’s Top Ten Hot Takes for September 14, 2023

hot takes

I have never been an Aaron Rogers fan, but after watching him on Hard Knocks, I’m more sympathetic towards the man. Rogers blew out his Achilles tendon minutes into the Jets’ first game and is done for the year. I genuinely feel sorry for him.

Jets quarterback Zach Wilson will not lead the team to the Promised Land. The Jets need to sign a seasoned quarterback; someone who is a caretaker. Don’t throw the ball away and let the defense do the rest.

Last night’s low was 45 degrees. Where did summer go? I wanted to turn the furnace on. My bed partner didn’t want to crank up the heat. Who won? I froze.

I introduced my five-year-old grandson to newspapers — a sales insert from a farm supply business. Made his day. Sadly, children born over the past ten years know no little to nothing about newspapers.

Our six children grew up in a home that received a morning and evening newspaper every day. They especially remember Dad’s paper rule: keep the sections in the proper order. They also remember that on Sundays no one read the paper before Dad (though I think they sometimes ignored this rule, reading the comics and sports sections, and then putting them back in place — Dad none the wiser).

I no longer subscribe to any newspaper, getting my daily news from a plethora of online sites. I miss not physically reading a daily newspaper. Both local papers are dying. Outside of finding out who died or what Ney’s council did at their meeting, local newspapers offer little value to me.

I set a record yesterday: 12 vials of blood were drawn from my left hand — over $1,000 in tests. The pessimist in me wonders if any of this will matter. Every specialist interprets the numbers differently.

I’m anemic, with low potassium, B12, and testosterone numbers. Supplements keep these numbers hovering around low normal. I reminded the doctor that I was taking significant levels of supplements to keep these numbers out of the basement. Without the supplements, I would be dead. The question, then, is why I have these deficiencies. So far, no doctor has a clue.

Ohio State will not play in the national championship game this year. Neither will Alabama.

My youngest grandson found a cricket in the living room and freaked out. I stopped him from killing it. At Grandpa and Nana’s house, if necessary we capture and release. Spiders? More often than not, we ignore them. Polly swears a big wolf spider is stalking her. Maybe. 🙂

Bonus: Out of all the serious health problems I have, nausea is the worst. I’m nauseous every day, often without relief. You can’t escape nausea. Eating is one of the few pleasures I still enjoy, but nausea often ruins this pleasure. Hard to enjoy eating when you feel like throwing up. I take Zofran to limit the vomiting, but that dull, achy nauseous feeling remains.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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14 Comments

  1. Avatar
    Neil Rickert

    Newpapers: Yes, grew up with daily newspapers. I learned to read relatively early because I wanted to be able to read those newpapers. These days I mostly get my news from the Internet.

    I usually leave spiders alone. I figure that they get the annoying insects such as mosquitos.

  2. Avatar
    BJW

    Nausea is pretty bad. I had it for my entire first pregnancy and that wasn’t so hot. I lost weight in the first half of my second pregnancy. Bleh. I’m sorry the medicine isn’t doing more.

    This year, I just noticed that the dynasty of spiders that lived over our back door are not around, the first time in 26 years! Each year, the spider and later, descendants, would make a lovely web over the top of the back door outside. That wasn’t so bad, as the first step was on the stairs and most of us missed the web. We do now have some birds nesting in an opening in the eaves, and maybe they have eaten the spiders. 🙁

  3. Avatar
    Troy

    Video may not have killed the radio star, but the internet sure killed the newspaper. I have to wonder if it saves trees. Probably not, since they are essentially farmed anyway. I used to deliver newspapers. There was nothing like the feeling coming home after the Saturday delivery and watching cartoons we had recorded.

    I’m not a football fan, but I know Aaron Rogers from two things, his stint hosting Jeopardy! and lying about being vaccinated for Covid. I’m sure he’ll turn to modern medicine to remedy his torn Achilles tendon of course.

  4. Avatar
    Ted M. Gossard

    Sorry, bummer, Bruce! Yes, looks like it’s Michigan’s turn to be in the championship game this year. I wish newspapers were still around. I wish each locality had their own. I think it would help civic life and civility. Instead we have what we have, much of it being a big part of the problem. Hope they can get to the bottom of your discomfort and also get you some help for health issues. I’ve been relatively well over the years, but have had struggles with mental health and emotional issues. Or I suppose that’s how I would have been diagnosed, and perhaps was just before the pandemic hit. But meds never lasted. So here I am, just as I am. That’s awful, not being able to enjoy food. Hopefully that is resolved.

  5. Avatar
    Matilda

    Not newspapers, but I took my broken radio to my son in law as he repairs stuff. Small g/sons saw me take it out of my bag and fell on it to twiddle the dials and press the buttons, as no kid can ever resist doing. ‘Where do you get the picture?’ asked the 6yo. When I explained radios didn’t have them….he and his brother looked at me with an air of disbelief, further proof, if it were needed that their granny is at least 1000 years old!
    Randomly just happened to read in a mystery novel where the cop was interviewing the neighbour of a murder victim out in rural USA. She asked him if he had a gun, if he went hunting and he replied, ‘No, I never kill any living creature, there are spiders in my house who must be eligible for their old age pensions by now.’
    (My own garage has spiders probably that age too, I don’t kill things either.)

    • Avatar
      TheDutchGuy

      Oh Matilda I had that benign attitude toward spiders until I moved to the southwest.. Black widow spider bites gave me a wakeup. I learned to shake clothing and bedding in case of spiders hiding in sleeves and between sheets.

  6. Avatar
    TheDutchGuy

    Bruce, again you remind me of my life in Ohio. We also got two papers a day. BryanTimes and Toledo Blade, and it’s no exaggeration to say those papers taught me to read and write. Those physical papers are also sorely missed by me but progress means things of the past are left behind.

    • Avatar
      Bruce Gerencser

      Yeah, the Bryan Times and the Defiance Crescent-News are shells of what they once were. I suspect they will one day go bankrupt. The Crescent-News only publishes three days a week; the Times Mon-Thursday and Saturday. I used to buy the Columbus Dispatch and the Cleveland Plain Dealer at the local newsstand. Those days are gone. The newsstand is now a restaurant. 😢

  7. Avatar
    MJ Lisbeth

    Bruce, I wish I could ease your pain and restore some of your pleasure in eating.

    I love your anecdotes about you and your grandkids.

    I agree with you about Aaron Rodgers. I feel bad for him because of the pain he must be experiencing. Could “the curse of the Jets” be real? Or do they simply need to vow never to sign another aging Green Bay Packers quarterback? (Remember Brett Fabre?)

    • Avatar
      Bruce Gerencser

      I was good enough to make the team (baseball/basketbal),but not a superstar. I was better at basketball than baseball. I was left-handed and fleet of foot. I suspect these two things led coaches to give me a second look. “Gerencser, you are up. Bunt and run like hell.” 🤣🤣

      I played competitive athletics into my early thirties. I miss those days. 😢❤️😢

  8. Avatar
    W.W. Jacobs

    I used to work a part-time receptionist job on the weekend, in the same building where my Congressman’s local office was situated. The building was mostly locked (accessible only by key card) on Sunday, and he never worked on Sunday, so his paper was always put in the entryway. When work slowed down in the early afternoon (as it always did) I would grab his paper, read it, then put it back in the bag and leave it outside his office door.

    I thought I was slick, but one day he came in early to get some work done … and brought the paper to me as he was leaving.

    I wasn’t completely aligned with him politically, but he was genuinely a nice guy.

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