More or less

I think Old Dog's cousin would have done well to invest in a better doctor.

The Coke/potato chip cause of heart problems was not based on any medical opinion.  As far as I know it was a sneaky way for my parents to keep what they considered a frivolous expense out of the household food budget, and it worked.  As a kid I didn't realize the harsh economic realities of raising a family and, looking back, I think things were pretty tight, money-wise.  There was no real deprivation but Mom didn't shop at Marshall Field's; Sears was about as high end as it got.

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Where did the reference to Dick and Jane come from?  Those names weren't mentioned in the post by Mr. Beagles but I remember them from the primary school reading books.  Run, Spot, run!  Another book publisher had a different cast of children, Alice and Jerry, and instead of a dog I think had a cat.  Dick and Jane may have had a cat too but I wouldn't bet on it although the name "Puff" is stirring in my memory.

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All I know for sure about the Bible is that parts of it were written thousands of years ago.  I suspect that much of it was written after years of an oral tradition and people decided that some of stuff was important enough to write down as part of a "permanent record."  And, human memory being what it is, there are embellishments and exaggerations galore, especially with tales passed down through the generations.  We will never be able to fill in all the gaps of recorded history and who knows what was lost when the Library of Alexandria was destroyed?  Maybe those historic biblical figures were actual human beings, maybe they weren't.  They could be composites of numerous people, but who cares?  I think the content is more important than determination of the actual authorship but Uncle Ken hints at the same thing.  The Bible could also be a complete work of fiction but that's okay with me; it's  good enough to have stood the test of time.  You can't say it hasn't had an impact, for better or worse.

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I seem to remember that the school culture in those days did not tolerate the use of nicknames like Johnny and Susie.

I don't recall anything like that, Mr. Beagles, but it's not something I've ever thought about.  It may have depended on the individual teacher and not an official policy.  The teachers I had usually called us by the same names our classmates called us, and not a Jim Shoe in the bunch.  Some kids didn't like their full first name and a diminutive form was okay to use, and some even went by their middle name instead.  There was a guy in my class in high school whose name was Knute Knusten and it was only at graduation we found out his actual first name was Julius.  There were quite a few chuckles when he accepted his diploma.

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I generally don't feel like I am giving a full post if I stop writing before I get to the bottom of the box and begin to scroll down.

Do you compose your posts in the Blogspot window?  I use Notepad, with three skinny windows: one window of past posts, one window of notes, ideas, and links that I've accumulated, and one window for the actual post composition.  When I'm satisfied with what I've written I copy & paste into the "New Post" window of Blogspot, adding links, italics, and proofreading, making little changes if necessary.  Then I do a preview to make sure everything looks right and I'm not adding any extra word or line spacing before I publish the post.  And then I close Blogspot and open it up again to make sure the links go where they're supposed to go.  It's a fussy system but it works for me.  I don't feel compelled to meet any word count minimum although I don't like it when I make very short posts.  But if I've said what I wanted to say I'm not going to go on and on if I can avoid it.  A famous architect once said "Less is more," and it sure wasn't Louis Sullivan (he wrote, jokingly).