NAP TIME

From this global pandemic now infecting the most powerful person in the world...Donald Trump, a wild stretch today into naps.  To begin, the U.S. Army just reported:

Turns out Beetle Bailey had it right all along.

The loafing comic-strip Army private has been sleeping on duty for 70 years, to the frequent fury of his platoon sergeant. But on Wednesday, the Army released new guidelines for optimal soldier performance — and they include strategic and aggressive napping.

More so:

“Soldiers can use short, infrequent naps to restore wakefulness and promote performance,” the new manual advises. “When routinely available sleep time is difficult to predict, soldiers might take the longest nap possible as frequently as time is available."

I take naps because I have difficulty sleeping at night.  Typically, I doze off in two or three hour stretches and wake up twice/night.  I succeed 95% of the time to sleep within a few minutes the first time, but the second time, who knows.  However, I usually end up with 5-7 hours/night.  I thus take a nap for an hour or two in the afternoon, when my blood pressure is very low after lunch.  I sleep better in this condition.  I find these naps to be especially satisfying, for I feel so much better for the rest of the day.  In the long term, I'll live longer.  While somewhat controversial, this report says that napping for an hour will increase your longevity.  But watch out:  long naps can reduce your life expectancy.  Maybe more than anything else, though, knowing that I have the opportunity to nap if I don't get enough sleep at night reduces any anxiety.  However, I'm retired.  Good luck if you're not.

How much sleep should you have?

I once worked for Senator Spark Matsunaga, who The Washington Post reported as the Senator Who Never Sleeps.  He did spend long hours at work and only went home for a couple of hours in the early morning.  What he was doing in his office I will not share here, but my problem was that he kept dozing off at hearings.  It was embarrassing.  

Donald Trump only sleeps from 3 to 5 hours/night.  I doubt if he takes naps, although...maybe.  Others:

• Barack Obama:  5 hours
• Bill Clinton:  6 hours
• George W. Bush:  9 hours
• George H.W. Bush:  2 hours...but he took naps
• John Kennedy:  took 1-2 hour naps in the later morning
• Calvin Coolidge:  11 hours
• Winston Churchill napped from 4:30PM to 6:30PM, virtually every day
• Thomas Edison:  3-4 hours/night...but took a lot of naps.

I'm at #88 of my favorite songs.  These all were popular during my college days:

• Patricia:  Perez Prado
• Hushabye:  The Mystics
• The Twist:  Chubby Checkers
• Sad Movies:  Sue Thompson

The Twist by Chubby Checkers got awfully close.  This song was originally released by Hank Ballard in 1958, but Chubby's cover in 1960 gave birth to the dance craze.  It reached #1, and in 1962 hit #1 again to become the only song to return to that spot.  More importantly, The Twist was named by Billboard as its top #1 SONG OF ALL-TIME!

I went to a concert in Honolulu where he was one of the featured performers in a group of oldies.  I think this was filmed in Hawaii, reflecting the others in the cast.

Patricia, though, is my choice for #88.  Before I even showed up in Palo Alto, I spent the summer in Oxnard working at the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory.  One afternoon my brother took me to a party in Los Angeles hosted by a radio DJ. He was a very successful Hispanic who wore ten wrist watches and said, pick one, it's yours, with Patricia blaring in the background.  I didn't, but can say he got them from companies bribing him to play their records.  This was the era of payola.  The song itself is seared in my mind because of this experience.

Prado came from Cuba and settled in Mexico.  He was known as the Mambo King, with Mambo #5 his most popular.

My #88 itself was #1 in the nation the week before the Billboard 100 began in August of 1958.  The first #1 was thus Ricky Nelson's Poor Little Fool.  To bring you up to date, #1 today is Dynamite, by BTS from South Korea.

I'll close with Starry Night, a Paris exhibit of Vincent van Gogh.  I've been to THE van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, which is wonderful, and have a copy of his Blue Iris painting on my Manoa Campus office wall, but this French presentation is worthy of your look.

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