Chicago, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Marietta GA, Pierre SD, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Placerville CA, Seattle, Portland, Medford OR, Las Vegas, Phoenix AZ, Tucson AZ, Albuquerque NM, Denver CO, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Tulsa OK, Topeka KS, Kansas City KS, Wichita KS, Omaha NE, Lincoln NE, Columbus NE, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Des Moines IA, Sioux City IA, Burlington IA, Cedar Rapids IA, St. Louis, Jefferson City MO, Little Rock AR, Monroe LA, Jackson MS, Memphis TN, Chattanooga TN, Knoxville TN, Cleveland TN, Springfield IL, Decatur IL, Champaign IL, DeKalb IL, Moline IL, Evansville IN, Milwaukee WI, Green Bay WI, Appleton WI, Louisville KY, Lexington KY, Birmingham AL, Montgomery AL, Alexander City AL, Madison WI, Houghton/Hancock MI, Traverse City MI, Detroit MI, Holland MI, Grand Rapids MI, Cleveland OH, Canton OH, Akron OH, Dayton OH, Cincinnati OH, Parkersburg WV, Pittsburgh PA, Harrisburg PA, Butler PA, Buffalo NY, Erie PA, Syracuse NY, New York NY, Boston MA, New Haven CT, Hartford CT, Washington DC, Baltimore MD, Annapolis MD, Richmond VA, Asheville NC, Raleigh/Durham NC, Charlotte NC, Greenville SC, Greensboro NC, Augusta GA, Savannah GA, Hilton Head SC, Gainesville FL, Orlando FL, Miami FL, Ft. Lauderdale FL, San Juan PR, Toronto ON, Edinburgh. London, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney NSW, Honolulu HI, Bogota…

And those are just the ones I remember…

Linda Hill runs Just Jot It January.

There are times I wish I had a "do-over," a mulligan on life. I know it would never happen, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want a do-over.

One of my favorite lines from Grumpy Old Men was uttered by Burgess Meredith, or rather the character he was playing: You can wish in one hand and crap in the other, and see which one gets full first. Or something like that.

And there’s the old adage, "A goal is a wish with a deadline."

Two jokes "borrowed" from the late, great Dave Allen:

This shipwrecked man stumbles upon an old lamp, rubs it and POOF! a genie appears. "What is your first wish?" the genie asks. "Man, I’m thirsty. How about a bottle of beer?" Instantly a bottle of cold beer (if it was Dan, a Corona) appears in the guy’s hand, and he sucks about half of it down. "What is your second wish?" the genie asks. "I’ll tell you when I finish this" the guy says. "That’s a special bottle of beer," the genie laughs. "It’ll never go empty. When you drink from it, it automatically fills back up." "Really? How many more wishes do I get?" "Two," the genie says. "I’ll have two more of these, then!"

Another man is walking through a forest and sees a leprechaun sitting on a tree stump, runs up and grabs the little man and says "Gotcha! You have to give me your pot o’ gold!" The leprechaun says "I ain’t got no pot o’ gold, but I can give ye t’ree wishes! But, there’s a catch: whatever I give you, I give twice as much to O’Malley, your worst enemy!" The guy thinks and says "My first wish is for a mansion with twelve rooms and six bathrooms!" POOF! a mansion with twelve rooms and six bathrooms appears, then POOF! a mansion with 24 rooms and twelve bathrooms appears, with O’Malley sitting on the stoop. "God love ye, boy!" O’Malley says. "I never thought ye liked me!" "What’s yer second wish?" the leprechaun asks. "I’d a dozen of the most beautiful women in the world!" POOF! A dozen of the most beautiful women in the world are standing in front of him, then POOF! two dozen equally beautiful women surround O’Malley. "God LOVE ye, boy!" O’Malley says. "Twenty four of the loveliest creatures on earth, all for me!" The leprechaun says "Okay, lad, what’s yer t’ird wish?" The guy looks at O’Malley, turns to the leprechaun and says "I’d like my libido cut in half."

Linda Hill is the brains behind Just Jot It January. Now here’s Dusty Springfield with "Wishin’ And Hopin’."

Remember the days when you wrote a check for everything? (For those of you not in the United States, that’s a cheque.) Paying the monthly bills (utilities, rent, credit card payments, car payments, etc. etc.) was just part of it. Every time you went out, you carried your checkbook with you, along with an extra pad of checks in case you were running short, plus a pen because they wouldn’t always have one that worked where you were buying something (specifically the grocery store) and, of course, enough forms of ID so that you could prove that yes, you were the same John Holton (or whatever your name happened to be) who was presenting your check to them. Every place had a different list of acceptable ID. The one that almost always got accepted was a driver’s license or a state ID, but there were some places that went further, requiring at least one credit card, and not just any credit card, a national credit card (Visa, Master Card, American Express, Diner’s Club, Carte Blanche, Discover, a gas station credit card etc.), retina scan, blood sample, fingerprint… in other words, more ID than you needed to vote. When I sold clothes in college, they had a book by the register of people who were suspected of passing bad checks, and you had to look them up in the book to see if they had passed a bad check, and if they did you had to get a manager who would then tell them their check was no good.

The purpose of putting a shopper through that amount of grief was to convince them to apply for one of the store’s credit cards….

I don’t think Mary and I have written an actual physical check for anything in the last five years, since Mary’s Avon Lady passed away. We pay everything with a credit card, then pay the credit card electronically at the end of the month. I think most people do that now, much to the chagrin of Harland, Deluxe and other companies that used to print the checks…

Linda Hill runs Just Jot It January.

Mom used to have this expression, "I’m handing in my Brownie button," basically meaning she had had enough and wanted out. I have no idea about the source of that expression: Brownies are the youngest Girl Scouts, and I don’t know if Mom was ever involved in them, or even if Brownies were around when she was that age. But that’s what she’d say.

When we moved to Glenwood Avenue, our original landlords were an older, childless couple named Rabbitt. He was a night watchman and she was a waitress, so we had to be quiet during the day, because Mr. Rabbitt was sleeping and could be quite grouchy if awakened. They had an old cocker spaniel who didn’t esspecially like us, so if we happened to go into the back yard and the dog was out, we’d have to kind of tiptoe past her or she’d growl and bark at us.

Sadly, the dog passed away after a couple of years, and Mrs. Rabbitt was quite sad. One day I was coming home from school, and she and her husband were just getting out of their car. She had something wrapped in a blanket, and she came over to me and showed me that it was a little poodle, who they named Buttons. Kind of cute name for a toy poodle. Maybe not a good name for a pit bull, a mastiff, or a Rottweiler (and you know what I’d name one of those dogs if we ever got one, which we probably won’t). Buttons was the antithesis of their older dog: he was energetic, friendly, and liked to run around and play.

On Sunday night one week, both of the Rabbitts were working, and Buttons was all by himself. And, from the time she left for work until she came home, Buttons howled and HOWLED, disturbing all of us. So Dad went down and suggested that Buttons spend Sunday nights with us. We were home, because Sunday was a school night, and we liked the dog. Even Dad liked the dog, and I always had the impression that he didn’t like dogs.

Dad passed away, and not long after that the Rabbitts sold the building and moved to Pennsylvania. I guess they’re all gone now.

I remember when the first Touch-Tone phones came out, and how they charged extra for the privilege of having one. Needless to say, we didn’t get one right away. The father of one of my classmates, who was also the Scoutmaster, worked for the phone company, so they got one right away. Kind of a perk (which, since that’s short for perquisite, should probably be spelled perq). Anyway, one of the banks started offering a primitive sort of ATM card, and I decided I wanted one (I was 18 or 19 at the time). Problem was you needed to have a Touch-Tone phone to finish the setup, and I ended up having to run to a payphone to do it. When all was said and done, it wasn’t worth it…

Just Jot It January is brought to you by Linda Hill and this station.