Entry 1:

Ginger,

If that tom turkey gobbles outside our bedroom window at 5:30 a.m. one more morning, we're having him for dinner. He's way late. All the hen babes have already hooked up with other guys. Audubon used to watch hundreds of toms lekking the hens in the bottomlands along the Ohio River; he says in the Ornithological Biography that the toms would keep on courting long after the hens were bored. But this guy's beyond belief: the end of history and the last tom.

Perry Como died. No more Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo. Owned his own barbershop at 14. Wrote his own epitaph: "I was a barber and then I was a singer. That's all there is to say." Mention his songs, "Because," "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes," and the words and tunes scroll right out of memory. Heads full of songs. People say we only use 10 percent of our brains. That's because the other 90 percent is stuffed full of old songs. Do you mind if I sing my all-time favorite, "Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer"?

Bob turned 60, speaking of songs. Won't be long now.

I have to write a lecture for the Supercomputer Conference Los Alamos is sponsoring in Washington in mid-June. Technological paradigm shifts in history. It's the unintended side effects that really change history. Cars were supposed to save us from being swamped with horse manure. If we'd stuck with horses. ... Because of a drought in the hay-growing regions and a refusal of suburbanites to allow pasturage in their backyards, California might be having a hay crisis right now ... and Cheney and the Kid would be stumping for cutting down the redwoods and planting timothy.

Too turbulent up there to go flying today, my love?

Rhodeman