What do you require of your candidates for high office? Must he or she be good looking? Advocate amnesty? Promote gun control? Throw scruples out the window? For my own part, I think the person should be able to pronounce the word, “nuke-le-ar!”

I wonder if anyone else is driven out of his or her home as I am, by unwanted mail. I should take a picture and send it to my correspondents. A lot of it I have brought on myself by going after too many causes. Maybe I’ll mend my ways when I land in the poorhouse, ha. If only these people would share their donations as readily as they do your addresses.

With the arrival of summer, extortionists and swindlers are coming out of the woodwork. Over the phone: “You have just won $2,000,000 in a sweepstakes. Your prize will be on the way after you send its transport fee to — fill in the blanks.” These offers are more and more prevalent. With our new means of communication, scammers can learn everything about everybody and become more and more sophisticated about reeling us in, but the old word of warning still holds. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Hang up.

I’ve had my children visiting off and on for at least two weeks. On Robin’s last day, we went for a great breakfast to the Pig ‘N’ Pancake. There we ran into Sharon and Scott Likwartz. Scott is home on his respite time from the job in Australia. We always look forward to those days because Scott is such a friendly, likeable person to have around. He’s also an exceptional hombre who is kind to old ladies.

Of course you know I’m often irked by small things. One that really gets me is the media habit of adding “gate” to every scandal of the day. In Watergate, the origin of the exercise, “gate” is an integral part of the word. To add “gate” onto deflate or Benghazi is like saying “Watergategate.” I think it’s stupid — and unimaginative, but they do like to play follow the leader.

Sometimes the squeaky wheel does get the grease. You should see the nice job they did on 9th Avenue, except for the lake by Lincoln, which someone translated as “hole,” everything is smoothed out with some new gravel. They even left the excess in my driveway. Thank you, thank you. A Sysco food truck — very large — drove by on the 22nd, tearing off many of my tree leaves because it was just too big for the road. Where was he going? That’s the kind of traffic, which keeps the road broken down and full of potholes.

Bruce Jenner may think he’s a girl now, but his thyroid cartilage (Adam’s Apple to you) gives him away.

Laugh Line

Now that I’m older, here’s what I’ve discovered: I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.