THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

VIRUS | 2006-01-02

One of many blessing of diversity is the interesting new diseases we have pouring in.

I am in the middle of a dandy. My sister had it. It feels just like a cold and sore throat but it debilitates you for about four weeks. In DC I had everything that came in so I'm becoming a poster codger for flu.

I must add, though, that I was NEVER sick outside the United States. When I reached a new environment, I would have one lucid day and a day and and a half in a coma and half a day dazed. Apparently my body automatically threw everything off. The fourth or fifth day I was fine.

Anyway, I got a lot of comments for a couple of days and none today.

Poor, sick old man!

Not that I'm complaining.

Like the Greatest Generation, I'm too rough and tough to say how hard I had it and how everybody else owes me.

COMMENTS (5)

#1 joe rorke | 2006-01-02 20:26

I wish you wouldn't call yourself "old man." I'm as old as you and older and I won't call myself "old man." You got at least twenty years before you call yourself "old man." And that's just an older man. My youngest son calls me "old man." He's got a respect problem. I should give him a copy of your book "Why Johnny Can't Think." Maybe he'll learn something from it. At the moment, he's like so many people I know. He knows it all. Where have I heard that before? Sorry to hear you're feeling under the weather, old chap. Do recovery quickly. Please. We're out here waiting to hear your next bushel of knowledge. Not wisdom, mind you. Knowledge. As you mentioned, there is a difference. Wisdom, in my not humble opinion, is not often found among professors. Babbling,yes. Wisdom, no. Knowledge sometimes. Until it changes the next day. If we get lucky you might tell us more about the Beachhead. There's got to be more than a Beachhead in this movie. We can't just establish the Beachhead and linger there getting a suntan. The Beachhead is just a temporary gig. You know what we gotta do next, don't you? Something Bill Rusher wouldn't do.

#2 whitake | 2006-01-03 14:23

I've got a little of that myself.

I wasn't feeling well after Christmas and finally realized, New Year's Day,

that I have something.

I think I have a mild case of the flu. (I got my flu shot the 19th, and

they say full immunity doesn't occur until two weeks after you get the shot.)

I have found, much to my sorrow, that, when I don't get the flu shot, I

get very, very sick and don't get completely well for at least four or

five months.

Elizabeth

#3 Mark | 2006-01-03 18:44

I've had that very same flu since Christmas day. I thought it was because my wife works in a hospital or because my kids go to government school or possibly because my clients are all really old and Flu Bug Carriers Elite, but now I know the truth: Bob sneezed and wheezed and coughed all over his moniter and spread it to all of us via the internet.

Thanks Bob...

#4 Bob | 2006-01-04 02:09

Mark, it was the least I could do.

Spreading a virus on the internet? I should have known that pun would come up!

#5 Bob | 2006-01-06 21:29

But, Elizabeth, you just got a bit of it.

I SUFFERED!

How DARE you brats compare your discomfort to REAL SUFFERING.

This just shows you're anti-Semtitic, you know.