18 Comments
User's avatar
John Olson's avatar

New York City has become so unlivable that even the dead are moving out.

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

Amen!

Expand full comment
Anna Hom's avatar

I’ve always loved your writing and your ability to tell a good story! It’s a gift…you should write a book! I’d definitely buy a copy! Thanks for sharing!

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

Be careful! You could end up in one of my stories. :) Thanks so much, Anna. Glad you’re enjoying these. I’m so glad we’re still in touch after so many decades. :)

Expand full comment
Anna Hom's avatar

Do you remember when you made me sign a declaration that I wouldn’t pursue a PhD in economics?

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

I don’t, but there is a whole community of grateful people who ask me that question from time to time. :)

Expand full comment
Lola Murray's avatar

Regarding your recollections of you and Alanna dressing as the Smith brothers cough drop brothers,: I remember as a child that we knew them by their first names.

It was right there on the box: Trade and Mark!

Best wishes, Lola

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

Another reader mentioned that, too!

Expand full comment
John Olson's avatar

Although we've sold

A million others

We still can't sell

Those cough drop brothers.--Burma Shave

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

Eisenhower’s fault. his interstate speeds destroyed those Burma Shave signs.

Expand full comment
Gathering Goateggs's avatar

The Stephane Grappelli/Yo Yo Ma recording “Anything Goes” is one of my favorites to play when I’m in the workshop fussing with some piece of machinery. How marvelous that you got to see him in person in such intimate venues!

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

It was great seeing him. Close enough that you could see that eternal twinkle in his eyes. I had not heard the “Anything Goes” recording, but I’m listening to the whole album as I write this. Yo-Yo Ma has recorded with as many people as Grappelli did—if not more. I love listening to him play with unexpected folks like Alison Krauss, Carlos Santana, or Miley Cyrus (playing Metallica!).

Expand full comment
JD Wangler's avatar

One of the greats. I discovered his work watching him play with bluegrass greats on Austin city limits. Thanks for the stories.

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

He was something else! And thanks to you for reading and commenting.

Expand full comment
Ehud Neor's avatar

Like coffee when you unexpectedly have to break out of a drunk: Keep 'em commin', Keep 'em commin.'

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

Hah!

Expand full comment
Debra's avatar

Since I can't respond to your flexnor report article on the Sensible Medicine substack without paying, I wanted to mention here that the rockefeller and carnegie commissioned the flexnor report and rockefeller pretty much owned the medical industrial complex by then and still does to this day. https://archive.org/details/carnegieflexnerreport abraham flexner's brother, simon, worked for rockefeller and commissioned abraham to write this report which ended up wiping out all of the holistic medical schools, as well, in favor of the drug based schools purposely. The rockefellers wanted to find a way to use their petroleum in new ways so they could expand their wealth. You might want to read some of William Engdahl's work and the history of the rockefellers since he's an expert on them and their nefarious history.

Expand full comment
Robert F. Graboyes's avatar

Hi. Thanks for writing. I will be re-posting this article on my own Substack, where you will be welcome to post this comment or others. For mystified readers, Debra is discussing my article "The Foibles of Flexner," posted today at the Sensible Medicine substack (https://sensiblemed.substack.com/p/the-foibles-of-flexner). Yes, Simon Flexner was a Rockefeller acolyte, and the interconnections among all those characters can be dizzying. In another recent piece, "The Briar and the Rose: The Common Origins of Eugenics and Mathematical Statistics" (https://graboyes.substack.com/p/the-briar-and-the-rose), I mentioned that, "[In] 1911, a Carnegie Institute-supported study casually raised the possibility of euthanizing those deemed 'unfit.'” (This was a different Carnegie arm.) The report also suggested polygamy and "life segregation (or segregation during the reproductive period)." The craziness was palpable.

Expand full comment