Moon walk still a clear memory

Forty years ago this past Mon?day was an awe-inspiring event. I remember exactly where we were for the first manned lunar landing in history.

We lived in Cambridge, Md., in a small upstairs apartment on High Street. We were glued to the TV as Walter Cronkite described this marvelous accomplishment.

It?s ironic that his death occurred as we celebrate the anniversary. One of the many tributes to Cronkite reported two of three televisions were tuned to the moon landing?much easier to do before these days of cable TV and satellite programming.

I even looked out the window at the moon that night to see if I could see activity up there.

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If you have a few people in the room and want to have some fun, discuss the meaning of ?a couple,? ?a few,? ?several,? ?many,? ?large number,? and ?lots.? You can probably think of more words like them.

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I think 60 degrees in the summer is not as cool as 60 degrees in the winter.

Early Sunday morning I looked out the window and saw it was only 60 degrees outside, so thought I needed a long-sleeved polo to go walking.

It didn?t take long to realize it was a big mistake. What to do?

Because my route took me a ways from home, I couldn?t quickly walk back and change. And no one wants to see an old guy without a shirt, especially one who has absolutely no tan.

A good soaking sweat never hurt anyone.

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I still resist purchasing a GPS because I think my built-in system works pretty well. What?s the fun of traveling if someone or something tells you where to go? I?d still rather look at a map or google it, then go for it.

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A recent trip to Iowa for a board meeting proved my internal GPS works just fine.

The meeting was at a relatively new resort built on one of the Corps of Engineers flood-control lakes in southeast Iowa.

The resort was located on the north side of the reservoir, and the map showed the main roads leading to it would take me east of it, then north and back west?far out of my way, it seemed.

Coming home I decided to head west and then south, even after a Department of Natural Resources employee told me my idea was wrong.

Turned out I was right, and cut about 20 miles off the trip.

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So what?s ?a few?? Less than ?many,? more than ?a couple??

Even a few can mean more than one thing: he had a ?few? drinks and ?he?s had a few,? meaning too many.

The definition of ?several? is more than two but not many?but how many is many?

?Many? people attended the event means how many? The definition of many is a ?large number of.? Very unambiguous.

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All of our grandsons from Atlanta are coming to stay with us for a number of days to take in their favorite event, the Marion County Fair, which has several attractions they really like. We are looking forward to many good times while they are here.

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Online readership continues to grow of our flip-through-the-pages edition of the Free Press. It is an exact version of the printed newspaper and features an archive of the previous 52 issues, which is completely searchable. Try it out if you haven?t already.

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