.
Niccolò Mauruzi at the Battle of San Romano: Paolo Uccello, c. 1438-1440 (National Gallery, London)
Walking on water wasn't built in a day, or was that Rome? Florence? The memory of facts is not what it was. And while we are on confessions, it must be admitted I'm still working on the fine-tuning of the standard-issue Medicarecane. That screw that holds the adjustable shaft in place continues to defy my weak and gnarled senior digits. But I find that if I can get it tightened up, the metallic banging noise of semi-mechanical ambulation is somewhat less likely to cause undue apprehension in my fellow pedestrians. (What's that they used to say about children, they appear to best advantage when seen and not heard? May not the same truism apply to old campaigners, with their endless yawping and harping and aarping of slurred and mumbled rallying cries? Could that be what is meant by the Advantage Plan? But no, it's so hard keeping the red tape sorted, I don't believe I'm signed up for that one.)
Niccolò Mauruzi da Tolentino unseats Bernardino della Ciarda at the Battle of San Romano: Paolo Uccello, c. 1435-1455 (Gallería degli Uffizi, Florence)
However, where there's life, as they also used to say. When a full crew of creaking Medicarecaners is folded into the gangway of a city bus, all the canes sticking up at once, to the dim eyes of an Ancient it is almost a vision of the Uccello panoramic triptych of the clashing horsemen with bristling lances at the Battle of San Romano. (Wake me when it's time for the counter-attack...)
The Counterattack of Michelotto da Cotignola at the Battle of San Romano: Paolo Uccello, c. 1455 (Musée du Louvre, Paris)
now to see how to build an huge shiny 1942 aireoplane engine so's I can fly my virtual B-47 Bomber over ... and if the bomb doesn't get "them"
I'll beat 'em with my Medicare cane!
-- Ed Baker
