From Asheville: Thanks for the $$$, suckeeeers!

I don't know what's wrong with my wife.

Again, this is just a totally random picture I took while walking around my neighborhood. It feels like more of Asheville looks like this now than doesn’t.

So, I told my wife Cat, “Boy, people are being so generous and kind about trusting us to use with their money to help people around here.”

“What do you mean, they’re trusting us?” said Cat.

“Whaddaya mean what do I mean? People are trusting that we’ll use their money to help others.”

“No,” said Cat. “People are trusting you with that. I never said anything to anybody about it.”

“What are you talking about? We said—”

“No, you said. Anyway, boo, let’s not argue. All I’m saying is that I get it: People gave you money—”

“Gave us money.”

“Gave us money to help people who are suffering from the hurricane.”

“Yes. That’s all I’m saying.”

“And what I’m saying is that you know who’s suffering in the aftermath of Helene?”

“Who?”

“Me, motherfucker! Me! I’m suffering! So let me tell you what you and I are going to do with that money, okay? We’re going to Charlotte, that’s what. Where we are going to stay in a nice hotel. Where I’m gonna take a fucking shower. I haven’t had a shower in three weeks!”

“I don’t think it’ll be three weeks till day after tom—”

“I will kill you. Do you understand? Kill you. Dead. I want a shower, Bucko. And I want to eat in a restaurant! Where I sit down, at a nice table, and they bring me a hot delicious meal that isn’t fucking crackers and cheese on a fucking paper plate!”

---

Har! Oh man, it was fun to write that. None of it’s true, of course. But it cracked me up to write it. Cat, for some reason, seemed to have a different response to it.

“You know what’s funny to me?” she said after my excellent reading of it to her.

“What?” I said.

“That you think you’re funny.”

But that’s okay. She’s under a lot of stress right now. I get it.

Okay, for real now, because I’m returning to my job at Home Depot this morning, and I’m thinking I should probably do a little grooming before I show up there, so that my bosses and co-workers will greet me with a hearty, “John! You’re back!” rather than, “We don’t know you. Take off that apron. Security!”

Your generosity has been both humbling and inspiring. So far you and/or readers like you—about 60 of you, I’d say—have sent in some $3,000. That’s a lot of money, and Cat and I will be able to do a lot of good with it. Despite my hilarious routine above, you can be 100% certain that she and I will spend your money in a way that’s worthy of the trust with which it was given.

And I’ll keep you up on exactly how we spend it, too. I’ll update you with that information right here on this blog.

Oh, speaking of which! You might notice I changed the name of this, my Substack newsletter and blog. It was called Hey Boomer, and now it’s called A Shore Thing.

Because I’m John Shore? Get it?! A Shore Thing? John Shore?

I know. It’s impossible to understand how Cat doesn’t think I’m a veritable genius of witticisms. I guess there’s just no understanding some people.

Anyway, I first called this blogletter (?) Hey Boomer, because I wanted to use it to write about the insane phenomenon of actually Growing Old. (I also wanted to make clear, in the course of what I’d write on Hey Boomer, that I was talking to myself as much as anyone.) But then I kept writing about all kinds of stuff that didn’t have anything to do with . . . you know, the constant looming terror of your own steadily waxing mortality. (I didn’t say that exactly right, but you know what I mean.) Plus, people kept writing me to say, “I’m not a boomer. Why should I read this? Go away.”

Anyway, the first newspaper column I ever wrote was called A Shore Thing—and now this is too. Yay. Done.

Listen, please: Thank you, thank you, thank you for helping Cat and I help others whose lives have been completely upended by Hurricane Helene. If you would like to donate money to help us do more of that, the best/easiest way is through Venmo (@Norman-Shore-1 or john@johnshore.com) or PayPal (john@johnshore.com).

Talk to you soon. Your friend, John.