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IT’S ONLY MY OPINION: So many questions, so many answers

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See this story at BrooklynDaily.com.

By Stanley P. Gershbein

Brooklyn Daily

Question: what do senior citizens and women in high heels have in common?

Answer: They both have difficulty running and because of that they are victims of a new con.

A very sweet-looking young man of high-school or even junior-high-school age approaches and says, “Can you help me? I was supposed to telephone my mother and I have the quarter but there are no pay telephones around here. She is probably very worried about me. I’ll be happy to pay you the quarter if you let me use your cellphone to call her.”

Who can resist such a nice young man worried about his mother? And who of us would really take his quarter? As soon as your phone is in his hands, you’ve been had. It is now “bye-bye kid and bye-bye to your super-duper $300 iPhone 5S.” He takes off and he can run a lot faster than you can in your high heels. Beware.

• • •

When did the “pound sign” become a “hash mark?” Why don’t we make it simple and go back to when we were young and called it the “tic-tac-toe symbol?”

• • •

About three months ago, 16 tornadoes hit and destroyed a large part of central Illinois. Two days later there was an earthquake in Ohio which caused damage and was felt as far away as Pennsylvania.

Then came the not-so-grateful days near Thanksgiving when a large portion of the United States was affected by a powerful winter storm. A very deep freeze coupled with icy rain, sleet, snow, more snow, more sleet, black ice, and dangerously high frigid winds affected the travel plans of many millions here in America.

Also in November many thousands were killed and many more thousands in the Philippines were displaced by Typhoon Haiyan.

On. Nov. 26, an earthquake in Oklahoma; On Dec. 5, another earthquake in Oklahoma; and on Dec. 7, you guessed it. The Sooner State got hit with another earthquake.

Also on Dec. 7, Brutal cold temperature records were set in many Texas cities. The record cold temperatures throughout Oregon wrote new chapters in the weather history book of the Beaver State.

In the interest of saving ink and space, I am jumping now to our home territory and surroundings. New York and great big parts of the northeast were hit with record-setting blizzards. Headlines shouted “Record cold snap closes many schools” and “2010s to become snowiest decade on record for east.” And under the headline of the Jan. 22 story, “Blizzard socks northeast,” we read the “heavy wind-driven snow closes part of the I-95 corridor” and “another 15 inches fell in New Jersey” and “thousands of flights cancelled.”

Add the power outages and the downed trees and I am StanGershbein@Bellsouth.net asking you, is this any time to remove “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance?

Read Stan Gershbein's column every Monday on BrooklynDaily.com.

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