Your pity is misplaced if you have been hoping that someone will invent a “cure” for baldness. If you want to cure something, cure the abnormal crop of hair on a mature man's skull. Scientists who condescendingly try to find a “cure” for the non-disease of baldness might as well be developing a potion to make women stop growing breasts. Talk about confusing a normal condition with an ailment. Speaking of “curing” baldness is like curing handsome. It's like the daffy terminology for depriving an animal of its reproductive possibilities by saying you have had the dog or cat “fixed.” Wrong. What you do in that situation is to have the animal broken. You sever its natural ability to produce offspring and thereby convert it to an unnatural state of reproductive dysfunction. Consequently, I was not among those shiny-headed men who ran cheering into the street at the recent news that science may actually have found a “cure” for male-pattern baldness — some new goo to rub on a bare head to grow a childish clump of head hair/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Have you fought to stop your receding hairline or let nature take its course without whining?

They have been called the young indestructibles, young adults in the prime of life who are pretty darned sure they are immortal and don't need medical insurance. Life can have wicked surprises for people who don't have insurance. When you suddenly decide you need insurance, it's usually too late. Insurance doesn't get your attention until you have run up a large and unexpected medical bill. Insurance is a strange purchase. You buy it hoping you never get your money's worth. If you didn't get your money's worth this year, it's because you didn't get seriously sick or hurt. However, if people who shun insurance protection are called the young indestructibles, then most of the rest of us should be called the old suckers because we end up not only buying our own protection but paying for the medical care of those who walk the tightrope of life without an insurance net beneath them/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More to come.

Question: What life's lesson taught you that you aren't indestructible?

I received a call from a reader one time who was hot under the collar that Mormons had posthumously baptized her dead son. After her son died, his young widow joined the LDS Church and the mother was offended that members of that church were trying to win the dearly departed an eternal ticket to the right kind of heaven. The mom wanted me to chastise them for their impertinence. She was livid, and I understand why, but the offense, though insensitive, was meant as a favor. More often than not, hurtful differences among religions are based on badmouthing each other. But this was well intended. Mind you, those LDS baptizers might at least have notified the mother what they were planning to do. But I tried to get the mother to look on the kind side of what happened. Strangers had tried to do something that they sincerely considered a favor to the son/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Bill Hall has a point: If you don't believe in the Mormon practice of baptizing for the dead, why should you be upset that they do so?

English is a moving target. Like all languages, it never stops changing. Words drop in. Words drop out. The longer you live, the more words you need to retire from your speaking or writing because they are unknown to newer portions of the population. For instance, we went to a fast food shop the other day and the clerk asked me if I wanted chopped onions in my chicken salad. “Hold the onions,” I said.The clerk looked at me with a hint of alarm in her young eyes. She thought I actually meant she should hold the onions in her hand or in her armpits or something. I quickly realized that what we had there was a failure to communicate. She was working in a restaurant but she had never heard the old hash house (a restaurant) slang “hold the onions.” She didn't know that meant leave out the onions/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More to come.

Question: Hall goes on to say that a grocery clerk referred to his wife recently as “your old lady”? Do you ever use that expression for your wife or “my old man” for your husband?

The Internet website LiveScience.com recklessly reveals a dirty little secret about cats with no apparent realization that the information might put cats out of business if we all come to realize what we have been sponsoring all these years. What we have been sponsoring is wholesale mayhem. We have been harboring fuzzy little murder machines that cut a merciless swath of daily death through millions of well-intentioned though filthy rodents.LiveScience.com makes the brave and honest point, whether we want to hear it or not, that rodent populations would explode without cats — our cats — carrying out their constant savagery/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Is your cat a good mouser?

Oh, great. I just finished reading a book by John Steinbeck and now I owe him another apology. Pity that he's dead. He was also dead the first time I owed him an apology. In fact, it was his dying that made me so regretful I hadn't written to him.We humans love our lists - the best movies we ever saw, the biggest fish we ever caught, the most beautiful actress we never caught (Sophia Loren) and the best novel we ever read (“East of Eden” by John Steinbeck.)Actually, it's virtually impossible to choose No. 1 in such matters. The best movie and the best novel are like your favorite child; there's usually no such thing. You love one kid for this and the other for that and they both shine in your mind and in your heart. It's like trying to decide whether your favorite food is fried chicken, pizza, caramel ice cream or chocolate chip cookies/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Which John Steinbeck novel is your favorite?

A few years ago, I had a flat tire on my car after decades without one. But long, long ago, I had several flat tires every year. Similarly, it had been many years since a car of mine refused to start. And then the other day, it happened. I immediately knew why, though I am far short of being widely recognized as a mechanical genius. It had dawned on me one day that the battery in the car we bought new almost seven years ago had yet to need a replacement. So even I realized that was a stretch. I vowed I would, in a timely matter, replace the battery before it stranded us somewhere. To dysfunctional mechanics like me, a timely manner means one of these days. Thus it was that the battery was rude enough to die on me/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: When did you last have a flat tire on your vehicle? And/or: When did you last experience a dead battery on your vehicle?

Was it really only three weeks ago that I was standing coatless in the vegetable garden ingesting a substance so intoxicating that it probably should be declared a dangerous drug? I speak of tomatoes - hot tomatoes straight off the bush, so hot from the sun, so succulent and slobbery that devouring them verges on an erotic, almost biblical experience. The weather made a sharp turn this autumn from late warmth to sudden winter. Hot tomatoes one day, black tomatoes the next. We are still eating blushing green tomatoes from the kitchen counter, but the outside heat has gone into hibernation. Heat does wild things to tomatoes and to some other fruits that are normally eaten chilled/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Which vegetables or fruit do you enjoy eating off the vine in the garden?

Tell me something: Why is it that members of the military repeatedly risk their lives for their country but most members of Congress won’t even risk losing an election?  Why is it that policemen routinely go out there in the night along lonely highways and down dark alleys daring death, but members of the House and Senate tremble in their boots at the thought of defying moneyed lobbyists and ignorant voters on matters of principle? Why is it that members of the fire department dare run into a fire to save a child, but most members of Congress don’t dare tell a menacing lobbyist with a pot full of cash to put it where the sun don’t shine? Most members of Congress would rather become puppets of pressure groups than die a mere political death at the polls. What is it that they fear?/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Do you think columnist Bill Hall is right — that most congressmen would rather be toadies for lobbyists and special interests than put their jobs at risk?

One of the most annoying things about elders my age is that we have lived long enough to see humanity rise high and fall low and we can't resist blurting out judgments on whether our unstable species is getting calmer or crazier. When you look back across three or four generations, you see a changed world. Unfortunately, we in the geriatric portion of the population can't agree on whether humankind is mellowing or barely clinging to its marginal sanity. Some see the glass half full. Some see it half empty. Count me in neither column. I see the glass two-thirds full. Over recent decades, we have taken more steps forward than backward/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Do you think humanity is advancing or digressing as a species?

When I hear someone boasting that “I never watch television,” as I did the other day, I always want to ask a few cheeky questions: Have you also forsaken electric lights? Do you use indoor plumbing? How long does it take you to drive your buggy to work? When your foot gets infected, do you refuse modern cures like antibiotics? Do you remain true to your old standby, rubbing bat mucus and cobwebs on that pesky foot? If you don't watch television, do you ever listen to that new-fangled gadget, the radio? Do you write letters with a quill pen or do you use those satanic invitations to wasting time, the computer, the Internet and e-mail? Do you read parchment scrolls instead of books?/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Some are all too willing to tell us about the evils of television. What do you consider to be the greatest benefits of TV?

Many among our kind are built like a buffalo, and I don't mean because they eat too much fast food. The sacrificial urge is in our genes, whether we all heed the urge or not. We are designed to rush to the rescue of strangers, to save fellow humans, those who are part of our pack. Just like a buffalo, we aren't built to do nothing. Consider the recent reminder in Arizona. When a distorted man started shooting people, the most common reaction of bystanders was to run to the rescue  They threw themselves on top of others almost instinctively, using their own bodies as shields. Among those who sacrificed themselves was a federal judge, John Role. He decided in an almost irresistible impulse to impose himself between flying bullets and another defenseless human being. That cost him his life/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Any idea what you might do in a situation like the one that Judge Role and others faced when crazed shooter Jared Loughner shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others?

I was almost disappointed while boarding a plane the other day that nobody wanted to search my body in exquisite detail.  I entered the airport terminal patriotically ready for whatever the security forces had in store for me - even if that meant using a level of electronic scrutiny that reveals the absence of weapons on my peaceful person, albeit at a cost of exposing the saggy old man beneath my youthful duds. I went into that experience ready to put my best face forward, not to mention other parts, trying to look as attractive as I possibly could for my sake and for the sake of the poor inspector. He must stand there all day looking at constant anatomical imperfection with a device that peers through clothing/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: How have your close encounters with airport security been since the TSA ramped-up the visual & touchy-feely inspections?

My last uncle on Earth died the other day. My last aunt on Earth died a few months before. Suddenly, no more uncles. No more aunts. The aunts and uncles in a kid’s life tend to get overshadowed by parents and grandparents. But in many ways, aunts and uncles are more credible observers and advisers than chronically hysterical parents or those candy-pushing spoilers of children, the grandparents. I was born with two parents, four aunts and eight uncles. When first one of your parents dies, and then the other one, the blow is doubly hard. You lose your last parent and become an orphan on the same day. But at least a person has some aunts and uncles left over as worthy stand-ins. Until now/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: How many aunts & uncles do you still have?

n the last three months, I have had two gall bladder operations, a stopped heart and a heart artery reamed, almost all without any appreciable pain - except for a severe case of writer’s cramp caused by filling out the same set of medical forms from one doctor and hospital after another. They are almost the same identical forms - asking me to list my allergies, my family health history, previous operations, previous illnesses and conditions, including pregnancies, not to mention whether I use tobacco, booze or illicit drugs. And of course, the form requires a complete list of any non-prescription medications you are taking, including aspirin, vitamins and strawberry lattes. (I’m kidding about the lattes. They don’t want to know that. And I wouldn’t admit it if I ever had ordered a strawberry latte. I couldn’t stand the embarrassment.)/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Does it bug you to fill out the same questionnaire repeatedly when you are a patient at a doctor’s office, E/R, or hospital?

I initially became a Facebooker (Facebookie? Facepusher?) the way many people my age do: I got e-mails from a couple of grandchildren asking me to “be a friend.” Mind you, it’s not that my grandchildren and I aren’t already friends. It’s that there is so much vanity and social climbing going on with Facebook. They should call it “Mebook,” because “me” is most of what it’s all about. Part of the purpose of the site is to acquire bragging rights on how many “friends” you can acquire and display on your page.You send messages to real friends and to absolute strangers asking them to be sudden friends whether you have ever heard of them before or not/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: What do you think of Bill’s analysis of MeBook, er, Facebook?

If I may differ with some of my fellow hysterics in the press, I’m not as amazed as they are at the political ignorance of a minority of Americans. I have had no illusions on that score since I was in high school and read that fully 15 percent of Americans couldn’t name the vice president of the United States. (It was some guy named Nixon). So why all the gasping and melodramatic hissy fits among the talking heads on television and the typing heads in newspapers that a few more than 15 percent of the American people irrationally think President Obama is a Muslim. That’s a normal level of lunacy during any administration. Such hostile fantasies are the norm among a minority of the people of this and other lands. For that matter, those in the mushy-minded minority are not always wrong to tenaciously maintain their ignorance of American vice presidents. I have seen many of those same vice presidents and several of them were utterly forgettable/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Who’s the most forgettable vice president of your lifetime?

We socially twitchy human beings tend to judge other people not only by the color of their skins but by the weird accents of their voices. For instance, I know a man who speaks upper crust English in the same accent as former English Prime Minister Tony Blair. But that’s misleading. My friend is a man of ordinary interests no smarter than most of us. But when you hear him speak, the accent tends to make a person think the speaker has some giant brain. We don’t often experience that accent around here. But when we hear it on television, it is often some brainy British politician, philosopher or scientist. So we tend to equate that accent with smart people, whether they are or not. On the other hand, President Lyndon Johnson and President George W. Bush - two men with down-home Texas accents - sound like uneducated hicks to my bigoted ear/Bill Hall, Lewiston Tribune. More here.

DFO: My father-in-law was a sharp man who taught math and science in high school. However, he had an accent that made him sound as though he came from the streets of Brooklyn. Which he did — and an orphanage, to boot.

Question: Do you form opinions of others as a result of their accents?