Feeling My Age

Today is my birthday. I'm 87 years old today. At least I feel that way sometimes.

I asked my introductory economics students if any of them had heard of Frank Zappa. They developed a puzzled, "Who's that?" look on their collective faces.

Here is (I think) the first album of The Mothers of Invention, Freak Out; I first heard it in 1965. It had such classics as "Wowie Zowie" and "Help! I'm a Rock".

Many afficiandos will disagree, but the other great album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention was this one:

It had the classics "Dinah - Moe - Hum", "Camarillo Brillo", and probably my all-time favourite, "Montana", which I have often used to illustrate production functions in my microeconomics theory classes: Production of dental floss as a function of beeswax, tweezers, pygmy ponies, white boxes, dental-floss bushes, and labour.

When I sing along with the song nowadays, I substitute "Alberta" for "Montana" to good effect.....

Well I might be movin' to Alberta soon
Just to raise me up a crop of dental floss.

... Raisin' it up, waxin' it down.
In a little white box that I can sell uptown.

By myself, I wouldn't have no boss,
But I'd be raisin' my lonely, dental floss.