Tallahassee Area Mensa
Welcome to the home page of Tallahassee Area Mensa!
Tallahassee Area Mensa a local chapter of the High IQ Society, American Mensa. The Tallahassee
area serves Florida from the Apalachicola River east through Taylor County including part of
Madison County and even a bit of Dixie County. Our area is also the only area in all of Florida,
Region 10 of American Mensa, to include a portion of Georgia. For a full view of the area we
cover, visit our map.
Interested in joining Mensa? The only qualification for membership is a score at or above the
98th percentile on an approved IQ test. There are two different ways you can join. One is by
submitting evidence of scores from any of a number of approved intelligence tests that you have
already taken, or you can take the Mensa Admission Test. For more information about qualifying
to join, visit the Join Mensa page.
Robin's Roost - rest your feathers!
Thanksgiving is past, the leftovers have been consumed or frozen for later or turned into soup, and the refrigerator finally has
room again for more mundane things like milk and eggs and water. But that will all change later this month when it is once again packed
for the Christmas feast. I mailed all of my Christmas packages in early November so they would not get caught in the delays from the plane
crash causing all those planes to be grounded and early enough that our beleaguered post office would have time to get them to their
destinations. I don't have any holiday decorations up yet, but that will happen soon.
Our Thanksgiving was a bit unusual. Ray got sick the week before Thanksgiving but didn't seek medical attention because he kept thinking
he was getting better. When it moved from a head cold down into bronchitis, he finally called his doctor on Wednesday morning, but they were
only open a half day that day and closed the rest of the week, so he never got a call back. As a result, poor Ray ate very little of the feast
and was pretty miserable. Don came down from Atlanta and wanted to contribute even though I said we had LOTS of food, but he really wanted to
bring something and suggested a small ham we could snack on. I agreed, but he arrived with a 9-pound spiral cut ham. Delicious, but my goodness!!
That, in addition to the turkey and everything else, made the fridge insanely full! Most of that ham will end up in the freezer and possibly
some split pea soup.
I may have mentioned previously about my transcribing the V-Mails that my father exchanged with my mother (then his fiancée) and his family
while he was serving in WWII. I have finished transcribing 1943. It is a tedious process, I scan each of the V-Mails so I can blow them up on
my computer and read them, then I type them out - misspellings and all. Once I had completed 1943, I added some notes in the beginning
explaining what V-Mail is, as I have learned many people around now have never heard of it, and gave a brief cheat sheet of who is related to
whom and what nicknames they had so as the letters are read the reader will know who is being talked about. The result is over 400 pages long.
At this time, my parents were very much in love, were in that magical stage where you think your feelings will never change and you will always
feel this way about the person, and that no one has ever loved as deeply and eternally as you and your beloved - the Romeo and Juliet stage.
Sadly they did not quite enjoy the happily ever after of fairy tales.
My father had a roving eye and several affairs, a couple of them nearly resulted in divorce, but they stayed together. My mother coped with
this harsh reality by taking refuge in food and religion and a finely honed company front so no one would see how dysfunctional the family
actually was. So reading these letters is very bittersweet. Two of my 5 siblings have no desire to read them because of their feeling about
our childhood and our parents. Two of them have started reading them and find them funny and compelling and fascinating - particularly the
letters from elderly relatives that they barely knew. My younger brother, who has been hassling me for years to get this done, has not
responded to it at all, but I assume he is reading them. I still have 1944 and 1945 to do and I am currently transcribing the diary/letters he
wrote in 1942 from his starting in the service to when he was sent overseas. His pattern was to write these diary pages and mail them home for
everyone at home to pass around and read, then compile into one big book (he numbered the pages). Reading about his life in Basic Training and
then going to the cryptography school is quite fascinating! I have found this entire exercise to be absorbing and enjoyed my parents' humor.
The MRI on my knee showed a cyst in the back of my knee (something called a Baker's cyst) and a torn meniscus, but they said they would
not recommend treatment until my knee is clicking and popping. So for the time being, if/when the pain gets too bad I'll get another injection
to ease the pain and hope for the best. I am NOT looking for a knee replacement anytime soon, but it sure would be nice to have it not hurt.
When the doctor recommended I rest and stay off of it until it had settled down, Ray broke out laughing, he knows me.
Our newly-elected RVC Mel Dahl will be joining us at Osaka this month. It will be a good opportunity to meet him as well as give your
suggestions for locations for the coming year. Please let me know if you plan to come, and I really do hope you can make it! Have a joyous
and peaceful holiday season, my fellow Mensans. Stay safe,
Robin
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