I couldn’t come up with anything to write about today, so I decided to write about everything. Bear with me, dear readers, I had open heart surgery in late July and principally have been walking and napping since then.

If there is a walking/napping combined event in the next Olympics (and why not?), I would happily represent the USA. With my Hoka sneakers — they are good, the hype is real — nothing would stop me. I give the generously padded footwear the Dan Mackie Seal of Approval, and my feet agree.

My first pair came from the Listen store, which likewise has my full backing. I hate to pay full price anymore, although my wife, Dede, accuses me of sometimes buying thrift store pants that are a little too short, or too tight. I need more realistic sizing. But a chubby former president frequently in the news recently asserted he is 215 pounds (of pure fury, I suppose). What a country, where everyone can dream!

A major chain bookstore has lately come to the Route 12A shopping district, which cheers me. I once resented the Borders store, but came to appreciate its reader-friendly cafe and 40% off coupons. I have never warmed to the Bam! store, maybe because I don’t associate bookselling with exclamation marks. Anyway, we now have a Barnes & Noble, and I say the more the merrier.

I am awfully fond of the Lebanon public libraries, and still mourn the demise of the Dartmouth Bookstore, which was, in hindsight, glorious. As Fenway Park is to baseball, so it was to the college town ideal.

The Norwich Bookstore has a comfy browsing vibe, but I am semi-retired and on a semi-fixed income. I closely examine the free piles and little libraries now. A few years ago I surprised myself by reading a free tome about the Franco-Russian war. For a while I was pretty informed about the subject, but it never came up in casual conversation and I have let most of it fade away. Oh, well, so many books, so little budget.

When is the Jersey Mike’s sandwich shop going to open on 12A? I have read much feverish internet speculation about it, and don’t know how much longer we can contain our hopes and desires. Will it be a game-changer? Maybe so, but I think you can overestimate the effect of sandwich shops on our quality of life. My grown son still misses the old Gondola Deli in White River Junction. Nothing satisfies as much as a side order of nostalgia.

On the other hand, you cannot make too much of the changing of the guard at Dan & Whit’s general store in Norwich. Newcomers who meander its alleys and byways must think they are in Vermont heaven. They are experiencing the peculiar joys of a general store that might carry anything from fine wines to fly strips.

Dan Fraser, who has stepped away from managing the store, brought hope and community during the pandemic, when he kept important information flowing with frequent and lengthy Listserv postings.

Anyway, the store is iconic and Fraser made it even more so amid the COVID darkness.

My recovery from surgery is going well, and I am taking my first expensive medicine — one of the pills promoted on commercials during the Nightly News. Not only do they help you medically, but they turn ordinary life into a musical, or surround you with happy dogs, grandchildren and blue skies (read the fine print for alarming side effects). Filling my monthly prescription would cost around $500 at a national chain pharmacy, but was $75 at Dartmouth Hitchcock Pharmacy at Centerra. Wait, what? How can this be?

To borrow from the movie “Chinatown”: Forget it, Jake. It’s the American health care system.

The Valley News Forum letter of the year might be a recent one submitted by Republican state Rep. John Sellers, of Grafton District 18. The headline, “Democrats represent the evil around us,’’ alerted me that we were in for a bumpy ride.

I am a Democrat and I have a woodstove — Rep. Sellers warned that Democratic mob rule might deprive me of my liberty to employ it, which would upset my wife on certain January nights.

More memorably, Rep. Sellers included quotes from Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin that supposedly reflected the Democratic menace. I happen to believe there are subtle differences between that party’s agenda and those of Hitler, Stalin and Lenin, but this is what political discourse has become.

This column is not primarily political, so I leave it to the voters of Grafton District 18 to judge the merits of their elected representative’s views. God bless them and God bless us all.

Dan Mackie lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.