In the time of what is known as Mad Magazine's heyday during the 50's and 60's there was an occasional feature in which a television set was pictured in several panels as a hand kept, "Click!", changing the channels and it was if the viewer was landing on some fortuitously timed jokes. To wit, in one frame there were the solemnly framed words "Written by William Shakespeare", and the ensuing click showed the tail end of an ad, ". . .with a Paper Mate Pen!"

A previous blog featured thoughts as I drove home from a favored Saturday morning exercise class on Coldwater Canyon listening to Paul McCartney's "Bip Bop" on a likewise regular KCSN Beatle themed show under a Catalina Eddy sky. Today's drive was in a light rain from a storm that is chilly by our pampered standards.

This time the initial station on tap was KCRW and as moody arpeggiated light electric guitar, similar to that in Californication, rolled out I figured I was listening to their eclectic music show. No, a voice came in, deep male narrating, and I heard him say, with a lady sighing assent, that those who say "God doesn't give us any more than we can stand" are full of it.

It was a couple telling the story of their tribulations with an autistic son, Ben. I listened long enough to hear Ben grew into a 6 feet and change tall and 250 pound adolescent, and as they introduced a story about a "scene" in a store I punched the button to get KCSN.

It was indeed the Beatlemania, from which the "m" can be dropped, show and a much bigger post-Abbey Road standard from another member. Yes, the rolling piano, and up came "Imagine there's no countries . . ." One desires to write what happened, but the timing was such I didn't hear "Imagine there's no heaven."

If I had I would have missed some of Ben's details, mainly the unruly behavior no surprise to me as a dear friend had been a teacher to the autistic. Timing is a funny beast though I did stay for ". . .and no religion, too."

Back to the story and the husband, a big guy for a long time, lost 90 pounds and developed an exercise regimen so he could handle Ben. Briefly back to Mr. Lennon and here was the song "Starting Over".

The Ben narrative had the Dad, shortly before relating the eventual institutionalization they had resisted, saying parents hope there is a cure for everything with a child. Not here. And then I reflected on Mr. Lennon. What was a remedy for the hatred for him by many reactionaries? An obsessed fan? One wielding a Yugo among hand guns?

Science says many hard facts, probably among them time moves steadily---though I'm not here to crash on the reef of theoretical physics---but don't we know better? The lights go on, the lights go off, and so do our definitions of the bright and the dark.