A New Medicare Surprise

I had a column all written and ready to publish for this week. Then we picked up our mail the other day and I got a statement from Medicare for my wife’s latest visit to her doctor.

Everything changed…

Included in the Medicare Summary Statement was a charge of $160 for something coded PPPS, Initial visit (G0438). Of that amount charged, Medicare paid $156.30, but the good news was that the column labeled, “You May Be Billed” showed a zero balance.
Since the $160 charge was in addition to the Office/outpatient visit of $125, I decided to investigate and learn what the above charge covered.

I went to my Medicare & You 2011 booklet to decode the esoteric charge code. Sure enough, on page 39 there was reference to a “Wellness Exam” for which Medicare patients are eligible once a year. It was further defined as a personalized prevention plan screening. In case you hadn’t noticed, the acronym for that long definition is PPPS.

So, the next question to be answered was, “What exactly is a personalized prevention plan screening?” To have a cost of $160 – more by far than the office visit itself – it must consist of several tests and some blood work and such.

Well, no, it actually consists of a nurse asking you several seemingly innocuous questions. Questions like, “Do you ever feel depressed or helpless?” and “Is there any abuse in your home?” and “What day is today?” Then there are some repetitive tests where the nurse names three animals and then asks you to repeat those names several minutes later.

My wife informed me that the screening lasted several minutes and some of the questions were silly while others were highly inflammatory and personally embarrassing. She was reluctant to even answer some of them.

Okay, now you know what PPPS, Initial visit (G0438) means, and what it costs Medicare. What you don’t yet know, but you will now, is that this test is approved by Medicare for annual repetition. Those same questions will be asked every year and the doctor will charge Medicare (maybe, if the charge doesn’t get inflated) $160 for it and will get paid (maybe, if Medicare doesn’t reduce payments) $156.30.

I read an article today that stated that our current United States population contains slightly over 35 million people over the age of 65. Just for the heck of it, I multiplied 35 million times $156.30 to see what the total cost of those annual screenings would be.

Are you ready for this? $5,470,500,000 is the total, but if you would rather I state it longhand it is 5 billion, 470 million, 500 thousand dollars PER YEAR.

And just to further factor in the increase in the elderly population, which was estimated to be 71 million by 2030, that number will be over 11 billion dollars. That is not for any kind of treatment at all, but merely for asking a series of questions and posing some memory skill tests.

If this doesn’t make you the tiniest bit upset, you must be one of those young kids who wish that us old folks would hurry up and die. And if it does make your blood boil like it did mine then I have more bad news for you.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

A Damned Yankee in Dixie

Now that we’ve lived in Georgia for almost five years and actually own property here, I guess I can consider my self a Damn Yankee. In case you don’t know the difference between a plain Yankee and a Damn Yankee, the Yankee comes south in the winter to get away from winter, but the Damn Yankee stays.

I’ve noticed that most of the southern states have a town named “Green” plus something. Like Greenville, Greensboro, Greenwood and Bowling Green. (Well yes, a lot of northern states have towns with “green” in their names, but they prefer to pronounce it as “gren”, as in Greenwich, CT – How do you get to Grenich from Greenwich? Just drive north.)

And what southern state would be complete without naming at least one highway the Jefferson Davis Highway. Old Jeff wasn’t much of a hit in the North, but he sure lives on in the South long after his mortal soul passed on.

Now the area that I live in, Augusta, Georgia, shares a border with South Carolina and the metropolitan area continues on to North Augusta and even Aiken, SC. Our particular stretch of highway known as “The Jefferson Davis Highway” is route 1 between the two cities. There are several stone monuments at intersections along the route designating it as such, and each one flies a Confederate flag along with Old Glory.

The total area comprising Augusta and Aiken is referred to as the Central Savannah River Area, or CSRA for short. I know that the natives here won’t agree with me, but I truly think the abbreviation is code for CSA, which we all know stands for Confederate States of America.

One thing I really like about Georgia, everybody seems to be laid back and casual. True, there are a lot of bible-thumping Baptists here, but for the most part they are not prone to proselytizing. I have to say they do build some pretty impressive churches though.

An interesting custom that the southern states observe is Confederate Memorial Day. Each state has its own day, but they mostly fall in April or May. However, it is never celebrated on the same day as the national holiday of Memorial Day, the last Monday in May. No, it is a special day to honor those Confederate troops who fought in the War of Northern Aggression—their title for what northerners know as the Civil War.

Don’t misinterpret what I’m telling you, though. I’ve got nothing against Dixie, and in fact I like it a lot better here than I did up north. The climate is a lot more people-friendly, as are the people themselves, and a lot of the manufacturing that used to exist only north of the Mason/Dixon line has migrated south now.

I even sing that southern classic, Dixie, with my quartet, and down here we don’t sing it like they do up north as a spirited march. No, down in Dixie it’s a hymn and you sing it with reverence in your voice and heart. And whenever it is sung, everyone in the room stands up and some even have tears in their eyes.

I often wonder what would happen if the states that seceded from the Union back in 1861 did so again today. Would it create another Civil War? Could there be two separate nations that lived in peace with each other but with different forms of government?

I sometimes think that the only way we’re ever going to straighten out the mess that the federal government has gotten us into is to divide into two countries along the lines of the current Blue States and Red States. But then, that’s just too simplistic, and a lot of those Blue States are separated by what is deridingly called “flyover territory.”

I know it is just idle pipe dreaming, but there certainly are a lot of us who are vehemently opposed to the welfare nation that Congress has made us. And please note that I am not blaming any one party; both are guilty of the creating the current mess. Neither seems capable of solving it.

So here I am, a Damn Yankee converted to a Dixie Confederate with a dream that probably won’t ever come true in my lifetime. But I can still dream, can’t I? At least I don’t think they’ve taken that away yet. Heck, I get tears in my eyes just thinking about it.

I think I’ll sing a verse of Dixie.

Capulin Volcano

I originally wrote this column in 2005, just after I had returned from one of my extensive road trips. That was prior to my publishing in blog format, and also prior to many of you becoming readers of the column.

The subject of this column is a national treasure tucked away in the northeast corner of New Mexico. The shame of it is that millions of travelers pass within a few miles of it without ever knowing of its existence, although it is designated a national monument. You won’t find it in any of the New Mexico tourist guides or on the official state map, and even the Rand McNally Road Atlas only shows it as a tiny square with a four-word designation.

The only reason I knew about it was because of a chance call of nature several years ago that caused my wife and me to stop at a rest area near Las Vegas, New Mexico. The wall between the rest rooms showed pictures and described an attraction north of us near Raton, the northernmost town on Interstate 25 in New Mexico.

We had some time to kill en route to Colorado Springs to visit our son, so we decided to visit Capulin (Cah-pew-LEEN) Volcano National Monument. It is off the beaten path a little ways, so you have to make a 60-mile round trip detouhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifr and plan about 2-3 hours to go there, but it is well worth the effort. After all, how many times will you be able to walk down to the volcanic plug and then walk completely around the rim of a volcano that last erupted 60,000 years ago?

I will provide the Website link http://www.nps.gov/cavo/ but the Website doesn't do it justice. I also want to describe for you what you would encounter on your visit. There is only one road in, US Highway 64/87, and you find that at exit 451 on I-25 in Raton. Turning east you will travel across undulating prairie with some cattle and lots of pronghorn antelope. Don’t worry though; the pronghorns are unable to leap fences, so the chance of hitting one is practically nil.

After a drive of about 24 miles you top a rise and see in front of you a conical hill with a flat top and dissected by a diagonal slash along the side. You have to turn left onto NM Highway 325 to get to the volcano. As you drive up to the Visitor Center you pass rocky outcroppings with scrub pine. These are remnants of the volcanic flow from Capulin. Entrance to the park costs $5 per vehicle, unless you have a National Parks Pass or a Golden Eagle Pass; then it is free.

A two-mile volcanic (paved) road spirals around the volcano to the top, some 1,300 feet above the surrounding plain. It doesn’t have any offending guardrails to obstruct the view, which is quite spectacular all the way up. There is a parking lot at the rim with parking for about 25 vehicles. From the parking lot, you can hike down into the bowl on a spiral path about 200 yards in length to the very core (plug), a depression filled with more volcanic debris. Along the path you will encounter piñon pine, juniper, mountain mahogany, Gambel oak and chokecherry (Capulin means chokecherry in Spanish). Once you’ve visited the bowl, you can also take a moderately strenuous hike around the entire rim on a one-mile paved path. The views are spectacular and there are several benches to rest along the way. You can easily hike the rim trail in thirty minutes, even allowing for some stopping along the way.

Some of the scenery you can view from the rim trail includes the snow-capped Sangré De Cristo Mountains of New Mexico, where the Angel Fire and Eagle Nest ski resorts are located. You can also see the Raton Pass into Colorado and portions of the states of Oklahoma and Texas. But the scenery in the immediate vicinity is good too. The rock-strewn plain below shows the pressure ridges caused by the lava flow in secondary vents, which caused the perfect symmetry in Capulin. Since lava didn’t flow directly from the cone, it is a good example of a cinder cone volcano. Some other cinder cones and volcanic ridges can be seen nearby, including Sierra Grande, a larger and higher cone, but not nearly as nicely defined.

Okay, I know that most of you will never have the opportunity to visit Capulin Volcano National Monument, but if you ever do get the chance, or if you know of someone else who will be traveling between Albuquerque and Denver on I-25, it is well worth the time and gasoline to make the detour at Raton. I have been there three times, and I introduced my daughter, son-in-law and grandson to the natural wonder. Oh, and if you have a little extra time, ask at the Visitor Center about the alternate route back to Raton. It is even more scenic, but takes a little longer to traverse.

It seems appropriate for me to end this column with the phrase, Bon Voyage!

You Call This Progress?

This week I am going to share with you a column written by a guy named Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI institute in California. Before I even get into the meat of it, I have a few observations. (Was that a pun? Astronomer-observations. Hmmm?)

1. What parent in the modern world names a kid Seth?
2. Astronomers must have lots of time to waste during the day.
3. It’s much easier to give credit and then copy and paste – less typing.

Okay, having said that, here is the work of Mr. Shostak. I’ll make a few remarks of my own at the end of it.

You Call This Progress?

By Seth Shostak
Newsweek, January 18, 1999

E-mail has become a steady drip of dubious prose, bad jokes and impatient requests. It's as ubiquitous as winter damp, a pernicious miasma that brings rot and ruin to society's delicate underpinnings. I speak of e-mail, the greatest threat to civilization since lead dinnerware addled the brains of the Roman aristocracy.

A technical byproduct of the Internet, e-mail lets 10 million Americans pound out correspondence faster than you can say QWERTY. One twitch of the finger is all it takes to dispatch missives to the next continent or the next cubicle at light speed. The result is a flood of what is loosely called communication, a tsunami of bytes that is threatening to drown white-collar workers everywhere. Masquerading as a better way to put everyone in touch, e-mail has become an incessant distraction, a nonstop obligation and a sure source of stress and anxiety. I expect that a public statement by the surgeon general is in the offing.

Mind you, e-mail started out cute and cuddly, an inoffensive spin-off from a government defense project. The technically inclined used it to send personal messages to colleagues without the need for a stamp or a wait. Only a small group of folks—mostly at universities—were plugged in to this select network. The amount of traffic was manageable. E-mail was something to be checked every week or so. But technology marches on. Today access to the Internet is widespread, as common and accessible as a cheap motel. Everyone's wired, and everyone has something to say.

Unfortunately, this is not polite correspondence, the gentle art of letter writing in electronic form. E-mail is aggressive. It has a built-in, insistent arrogance. Because it arrives more or less instantaneously, the assumption is that you will deal with it quickly. "Quickly" might mean minutes, or possibly hours, certainly not days. Failure to respond directly usually produces a second missive sporting the mildly critical plaint, "Didn't you get my last e-mail?" This imperative for the immediate makes me yearn for old-style written communication, in which a week might lapse between inquiry and response. Questions and discussion could be considered in depth. A reply could be considered (or mentally shelved, depending on circumstance). Today, however, all is knee-jerk reaction.

In addition, there is the dismaying fact that electronically generated mail, despite being easy to edit, is usually prose at its worst. Of every 10 e-mails I read, nine suffer from major spelling faults, convoluted grammar and a stunning lack of logical organization. ASCII graffiti. For years I assumed this was an inevitable byproduct of the low student test scores so regularly lamented in newspaper editorials. Johnny can't read, so it's not surprising that he can't write either. But now I believe that the reason for all this unimpressive prose is something else: e-mail has made correspondents of folks who would otherwise never compose a text. It encourages messaging because it is relatively anonymous. The shy, the introverted and the socially inept can all hunker down before a glowing computer and whisper to the world. This is not the telephone, with its brutally personal, audible contact. It's not the post, for which an actual sheet of paper, touched by the writer and displaying his imperfect calligraphic skills, will end up under the nose of the recipient. E-mails are surreptitiously thrown over an electronic transom in the dead of night, packaged in plain manila envelopes.

Still, it is not these esthetic debilities that make e-mail such a threat. Rather, it's the unstoppable proliferation. Like the brooms unleashed by the sorcerer's apprentice, e-mails are beginning to overwhelm those who use them. Electronic correspondence is not one to one. It is one to many, and that's bad news on the receiving end. The ease with which copies of any correspondence can be dispensed to the world ensures that I am "kept informed" of my co-workers' every move. Such bureaucratic banter was once held in check by the technical limitations of carbon paper. Now my colleagues just punch a plastic mouse to ensure my exposure to their thoughts, their plans and the endless missives that supposedly prove that they're doing their jobs.

Because of e-mail's many-tentacled reach, its practitioners hardly care whether I'm around or not. I'm just another address in a list. So the deluge of digital correspondence continues irrespective of whether I'm sitting in my cubicle doing the boss's business or lying on the Côte d'Azur squeezing sand through my toes. Either way the e-mail, like a horde of motivated Mongolians, just keeps a-comin'. Vacations have lost their allure, and I hesitate to leave town. Consider: if I disappear for two weeks of rest and recreation, I can be sure of confronting screenfuls of e-mail upon my return. It's enough to make a grown man groan. The alternative is to take a laptop computer along, in the desperate hope of keeping up with e-mail's steady drip, drip, drip. Needless to say, there's something unholy about answering e-mails from your holiday suite. A friend recently told me that he can't afford to die: the e-mail would pile up and nobody could handle it.

Today I will receive 50 electronic messages. Of that number, at least half require a reply. (Many of the others consist of jokes, irrelevant bulletins and important announcements about secret cookie recipes. I actually like getting such junk e-mails, as they allow the pleasure of a quick delete without guilt.) If I spend five minutes considering and composing a response to each correspondence, then two hours of my day are busied with e-mail, even if I don't initiate a single one. Since the number of Internet users is doubling about once a year, I expect that by the start of the new millennium, I—and millions like me—will be doing nothing but writing e-mails. The collapse of commerce and polite society will quickly follow.

I'm as much in favor of technology as the next guy. Personally, I think the Luddites should have welcomed the steam looms. But if you insist on telling me that e-mail is an advance, do me a favor and use the phone.

Okay, on to my remarks… Did you note the date of that missive? Twelve years have elapsed since Seth wrote that piece of vitriolic verse, and his prediction for the millennium notwithstanding, we have survived the onslaught of exponential increase in electronic mail. I don’t know about you, but the first thing I do in the morning, even before I get my first cup of coffee, is check my e-mail. And there are usually a dozen or more of the messages waiting for me. (One of my buddies is a night owl, and I can always tell when he’s been hitting the sauce, too.)

I share some of the author’s complaints, especially those about the grammar and spelling. Every e-mail template has a spell-checker and most will even detect fragmented and awkward sentence structure. Yet, much of the mail I receive has numerous typos, misspellings and meaningless phrases that masquerade as prose. You will not find that in mine if I can help it, I promise you.

However, having put all that down, I still enjoy seeing a full mailbox in Outlook. I don’t even mind when I get the same joke for the umpteenth time, or when the message promises to reward or punish me, based on my willingness to forward it to 7—have you noticed that 7 is the magic number—of my closest friends and confidants.

Of course there have been some additional technological advances in the years following Mr. Shostak’s lament. The advent of “smart phones” with texting capabilities has opened a whole new field of communication that is probably equally annoying and much more dangerous than the e-mail circuit—I can’t speak from experience, because I have never sent a text message, don’t own a “smart phone” and don’t intend to ever buy one.

Finally, though I know that Mr. Shostak was annoyed, I also detect some great humor in his lament. I suspect that, like you and me, he would be disappointed if he went to his PC some day and there was not a single e-mail message waiting for his perusal. Let’s face it, we’re social animals, and we love attention no matter how we get it.

Tipping Etiquette

Tips is actually an acronym - To Insure Prompt Service

Over the past two decades our country has become service-oriented, and that is especially true now that we have this huge recession. Because many people who lost their jobs have had to take on lower paying service jobs, tipping is more important than it has ever been.

Since I once worked at one of those low-pay service jobs where customers expected good service, while I depended on tips as the major source of my income, I thought it would be appropriate to review tipping protocol this week.

The necessity for tipping is misunderstood by many people. Some are offended that they are expected to give a gratuity to someone who is obviously paid to do their job. The fact that the job usually requires a low level of skill and knowledge only exacerbates the dilemma.

Did you know that most people who wait on you at restaurants, carry or check your bags at transportation terminal entrances, make up your room at hotels and motels, or do any of the menial tasks that we demand and expect while away from home are paid far less than minimum wage? The almost universal hourly wage when I worked as a waiter and later as a skycap was $2.17 per hour. I doubt that it is any different today.

Could you support yourself much less a family on $2.17 an hour? I certainly couldn’t.

When I worked as a waiter—I was a teenager at the time—I developed a routine of always writing down the order in the same sequence around the table so that the food would be delivered to the right person when it was served. I also tried to always return to the table a few minutes after serving the food to make certain that everything was okay. I memorized the specials of the day, and always knew which desserts were still available so that I could make suggestions. As a result, I got pretty good tips.

As a skycap I always made it a point to use the customer’s name—last name with a title—at least twice during the check in. I thanked the customer by name for using the service, gave directions to the gate and made sure that he or she knew that it wasn’t necessary to go through the ticket line inside. Again, I received good tips.

Soliciting tips is considered very bad form, although there are subtle and not-so-subtle ways of asking for them. A tip jar on the counter is one of the poorer methods, but it does work, providing your employer will allow it.. The envelope or note left in a hotel room with a maid’s name on it is another cute way of suggesting without actually soliciting tips.

I don’t mind telling you that I had my own unique means of getting tips. If I saw that no tip was forthcoming, I would thank the customer and add, “I’m sorry if it wasn’t a rewarding experience for you.” Solicitation? I think not, since I truly was sorry about it, but more often than not, the hint produced the gratuity.

The next question is, “How much should I tip?” Well, that depends on what the tip is for and whether or not there is a bill to be paid. If there is a bill, fifteen percent is the minimum amount to tip, but up to twenty percent is appropriate for really good service. I don’t agree with those who say that the fancier the establishment, the higher the tip percentage should be. The bill will obviously be higher at fancy restaurants and such, so the tip will also be higher even at fifteen percent. In some of those establishments, you can check the menu for the notice that says. “For large parties a gratuity of (*) percent will be added to the bill.” Whatever that amount is will provide you a good guide for what your tip should be. However, as you’ll discover in the next paragraph, it is only a guide, not a fast rule.

Next, should the tip be based on the total bill, including tax, or should the base amount be used? Since taxes vary widely, I prefer to tip on the base amount. And I always check to be certain a tip wasn’t already included on the bill. That is sometimes the case, especially if you are one of those large parties. The tip in that case is often figured at eighteen percent of the base, since there are usually two servers for the table. There is a little leeway when only one server is waiting on a smaller party of 5 or less.

The minimum tip for restaurant service should be one dollar. That would be the right amount for beverage only service where refills are free. Therefore, if I only order coffee, and I sit for half-an-hour and get two refills, even though the coffee only cost me $1.25, I really got the equivalent of $3.75 worth, so a dollar is a reasonable tip.

Most of us carry some type of cell phone these days. Even the least sophisticated ones, the “throw-away” phones, have some form of calculator in their “tools” menu. There are usually two calculators, the second being a tip calculator. It makes it very easy to determine the proper tip, merely by inputting the bill amount and a tip percentage in the blanks. It will give you the correct tip amount at the bottom of the screen.

When there is no direct bill for the service, hotel porters, maids, skycaps, etc., tips should be commensurate with the service. If the person gives extremely good service, the tip should be up to a dollar per bag for porters. Maids should be tipped $3-5 per night during your stay, and the tip should be given daily if you are on an extended stay at the hotel. There are usually several maids and the same one won’t be servicing your room every day. Five dollars would be the minimum tip for room service too, but if the server is one who uncovers the dish and makes sure your order is correct and prepared to your satisfaction, then a ten or twenty dollar tip is appropriate, especially in fancier hotels.

If you receive poor service from any of the above ‘servants’, then I think it sends a better message to leave a token tip that shows your disdain for that poor service. You don’t have to make a scene, but the person will know what you meant by the small gratuity. Maybe they will make an effort to improve, too.

One more caution: In some countries, such as Japan and Iceland, tipping is not expected and might be interpreted as a sign of poor taste. Be certain to check out the customs of any foreign countries regarding tipping to avoid embarrassing and humiliating situations.

Locking Onto The Great Lakes

On our tour of Upper Michigan last year, my friend Tom and I visited the “Soo locks” in Sault Ste. Marie. They were built to bypass the waterfall in the St. Marys River and lift or lower boats from Lake Superior to Lake Huron or vice versa.

We arrived in the evening near sunset, and there was no traffic in any of the four parallel locks that make up the complex. The only boat that went through the locks while we were there was a small work vessel about the size of a tugboat. It traversed the lock from east to west.

We were able to watch and photograph the entire process of lock operation from a glass enclosed viewing tower that looked like an elevated train station. It was good that it was enclosed because there was a good breeze blowing and it wasn’t very warm despite the late June date. Neither of us had a video camera, so we only took still digital pictures.
The small boat approaches the MacArthur Lock, the farthest south of the four parallel locks. This is the approach from Lake Huron to the east.
The lower gates open to admit the boat into the lock.
The boat is in the lock and the lock is flooding to raise it to the next level.After about 10-12 minutes, the boat proceeds out of the lock to the St Marys River and eventually to Lake Superior.

If you ever are anywhere near Sault Ste. Marie during the shipping months when the locks are open, you must visit the Soo Locks and watch a huge lake freighter go through. It is one of the best free attractions you can visit in Upper Michigan.

If you want even more fun, book one of the cruises that transit the lock. Those are not free, and rates vary depending on the time of day, type of cruise and age of passenger. No passport is required for any of the cruises.

Note: I am not promoting the cruise, nor do I receive any commission for recommending it. In fact, I didn’t take a cruise due to time constraints, but I wish I had done so, since it does look very enticing. If you want more information, go to the cruise website:
http://www.soolocks.com/index.phtml

Now, the real focus of this column is not the Soo Locks, but rather another set of locks in a canal further east on the Great Lakes. The Welland Canal runs north and south between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. It is entirely in Canada (passport is needed if you are not a citizen) and it has 8 locks that lift or lower boats over the Niagara Escarpment. Guess which waterfall it bypasses. (Niagara, of course)

I won’t give you all the details of the Welland Canal, but if you care to pursue some of the facts, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welland_Canal or any of several other websites about this important waterway that bypassed the Erie Canal and just about put Buffalo off the map, while making Toronto the major city it is today.

I was born near Buffalo and aside from my tour in the Air Force, spent the first 38 years of my life there, yet never once visited the Welland Canal. How unfortunate for me that I missed this manmade wonder. Of course, there are no boat tours there like there are up in Michigan.

Last week I received an email from a friend in Buffalo that contained a YouTube video of a lake freighter ship going through the Welland Canal from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It was taken in time-lapse photography, and a good thing it was, because it takes about eleven hours to complete the transit, as you’ll see. If this is the closest you ever get to go through the locks on either the Welland Canal or the Soo locks, it is still an amazing journey that you can take in less than ten minutes.

Enjoy the ride!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U15Fwo9tbJ4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Potpourri

Sometimes there are subjects that just don't rate a whole column. This column will be a compendium of such topics, all thrown together in a stew known as potpourri. Don't look for a common thread, because there isn't any; these are just the wanderings of my fertile mind.

1. I recently read a mystery in which I came across a term used by the police to refer to a person who informs on an associate in crime. The term itself has lost all meaning, due first to inflation and later to technology.

In cop jargon, the act of informing is called either "diming him out" or "dropping a dime on him". Of course, the reference is to calling the police from a pay phone, which for years cost a dime. Then the price for a local call went up to a quarter and eventually got up to fifty cents. That was the inflation effect.

Now you would be hard pressed to even find a pay phone in most public places. Where they do exist, they don't take coins anymore, but require a credit card to even use them. That is where the technology comes in.

The use of cellular phones has become so commonplace that few of us would ever think of putting money into a pay phone to place a call. But the really strange thing about the cell phone world is that it is much easier to trace a cell call than it ever was to trace a call from a public pay phone.

So in effect, it is nearly impossible to remain anonymous when you use a cell phone, and "diming him out" is a lost art. That doesn't prevent the police from using the term to describe the act of informing on a criminal, though.

2. I guess everybody has had ramen at one time or another. Heck, that very fact that it is synonymous with soup says it all. It always makes for a quick pick-me-up lunch, and some are reduced to eating it as a meal in order to save money.

Noodles and broth go way back in Japan, and I fondly remember my stay there in the 1950s, when the soba man came around in the middle of the night playing a haunting tune on his flute to hawk his tasty treat. If you’ve never heard that tune at 2 or 3 o’clock in the early morning, you’ve missed both treats.

There is a world of difference between ramen and soba, but they are still somewhat similar. One of the differences is that ramen is just noodles with a flavoring packet, while soba noodles come with lots of vegetables and meats in there.

When you buy ramen you get to choose which flavor to have. I was making that choice recently when it came to me that there is one flavor that defies description. There is beef, pork, chicken, creamy chicken, chili and shrimp, all of which can be easily identified. But what about Oriental flavor?

I ask you, what the heck flavor is "Oriental"? Is that a broth with the flavor of a Japanese, Chinese or Korean person? Or is it maybe "dog"? (They do eat a lot of them over there, you know) It does taste a little spicy, but I just can't quite put my finger on where I've tasted that before. Well, perhaps I'll stay away from Oriental flavored ramen from now on until somebody can tell me which Oriental I'm dining on.

3. Why are we forced to place our garbage into plastic bags before they are loaded into a garbage truck? Those plastic bags never degrade, so our landfills – the PC name for garbage dumps – never really become earth again, but become manmade mountains of trash.

In some cities we are supposed to separate the cardboard, cans, plastic and glass bottles and other items out for recycling. Wouldn't it make sense to also keep the organic refuse out of those plastic bags that never degrade?

As long as we're recycling, why not make a landfill for fruits and vegetables and yard waste and such? We can have a community compost heap, and everybody will be welcome to come and share in it. Now, isn't that a great way to save the earth?

4. Here’s a question for you to complete the category. If the fellow who buries dead people is referred to as an undertaker, then what does that make the person who cremates bodies? An afterburner?