Earworms can be annoying. I suffer from Musical Earworms and Word Earworms.

Before I was married, my roommate was a piano tuner, and there was another tuner in the area named Francis Mehaffey. Jim took great pleasure in walking around the house, muttering Francis Mehaffey. Fifty years later, I occasionally mutter, Francis Mehaffey, along with, “I’m a patient man,” another of Jim’s favorites.

This morning I keep hearing AstraZeneca rolling through my brain. I’m pretty sure that my earworm is saying AsterZeneca, so not only am I plagued by repeated words, they aren’t even the right words. Sort of like Johns Hopkins, which I assumed was John Hopkins for years. No, the man’s first name was Johns.

All this is to say that not only do I repeat words and phrases, but I also don’t even get them correct. And we all know repeating something often enough makes us believe it is true.

Francis Mehaffey––

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I spent my life teaching 6th graders. We have always been involved in church. Now I spend my days in an old stone house, wandering our four acres, and writing.