The other day I got very excited. Excitement is very important for seasoned citizens because it may be the only time they exhibit life.

My excitement came from the announcement that a movie about Nancy Drew was opening in Oneonta.

For those of you who do not know who Nancy Drew is _ "shame on you." You have missed out on a very important part of your childhood because Nancy Drew was a girl who was always solving a mystery.

Nancy could be walking down the street and it was like she was covered in fly paper because mysteries leaped out of any nook or cranny begging to be solved.

I read the Nancy Drew series after I had finished all of the Tom Swift books and if memory serves me, Nancy had a best chum named "George" who was just this side of plump. George was different in that she had to shave her chin and under her nose every day and her voice was "changing."

I had questions about old George but then I would get lost in the fast-moving plot regarding a haunted clock or a mansion that would moan at midnight.

I could read one of the books cover-to-cover in one night.

Nancy was a young lad’s dream.

She naturally had auburn hair (and couldn’t be the brunt of blonde jokes) a svelte figure, perky attitude, a keen mind and a personality that knew not the word "fear."

She didn’t have to stuff her bra with tissue paper.

She was the girl every guy would want to take to the prom.

Carolyn Keene, author of the Nancy Drew mysteries, could grind out these stories faster than my father could stuff and make knockwurst. Looking back I realize that they all had the same plot format.

The beginning of the book was dedicated to a short synopsis of who Nancy Drew was in case you were a chowder head and this was the first book you picked up and were out of "sequence."

In the first few books, Nancy wasn’t old enough to drive so it was a red letter day when her father bought her a coupe. (Ford?) (Gas was 9.9 cents per gallon.) This immediately extended the range in which she could find life’s adventures and get into trouble.

The bulk of the middle of the book was dedicated to the "big" mystery. Nancy would notice an old clock that didn’t keep time so she examines it and lo and behold there is a secret compartment with a treasure map and the skeleton of a mouse. The bones in the tail of the mouse were caught up in the gears, causing incorrect time and possibility the cause of the demise of the mouse. The mouse put his tail where it didn’t belong and was caught in the gears until death did him part. It almost sounds like there should be a moral there.

Nancy takes the treasure map and George (who had been using an electric razor on her 4 o’clock shadow) jumps into the coupe and foils an international gem cartel from destroying world trade. The final words from the head of the cartel are "Curse you, Nancy Drew," to which she mockingly laughs.

I loved it when Nancy would laugh mockingly _ a slight sneer to the curl of her lip. (The sneer was obvious but it did not detract from her loveliness.) "Ha! Ha! Ha!" she would chortle like a song of victory written by Wagner. I decided I wanted to develop a mockingly laugh of my own.

I stood in front of a mirror and put a slight curl in my lip by using my fingers. (I washed first.) Then I gave a burst of air from the depths of my lungs where nothing but disdain survives. "He-Haw, He-Haw!" I was crestfallen. No mocking laugh, not even a hint of one. I was ready to end my life when I saw a matchbook on the floor advertising in block letters "LEARN TO LAUGH MOCKINGLY." I was saved once more by the Close Cover Before Striking School of Laughter.

Soon a very large package arrived for me and I started to learn the intricate mouth shapes and breath control necessary to master the ability to laugh mockingly. I would practice with and without three washed pebbles in my mouth. (Although the instructions were unclear, I would suggest the smallest pebbles you can find because three large pebbles make you look like you have the mumps or a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. Also, big pebbles make it hard for people to understand you.)

Two months went by. Two months of talking with three pebbles in my mouth. (In truth I had only two pebbles, I swallowed one when my sister clapped me on the back.) Then I got a letter from CCBSSL stating that I owed them $149.99 for the cost of the course. My lip curled in anger and from the depths of my body came "Ha! Ha! Ha!" It was the perfect mocking laugh that informed CCBSSL that their money was not going to be sent. I even spit the two pebbles on the bill.

But as time went by, I did pay them _ who was I to say that the bill for $149.99 wasn’t the trigger?

Henry Geerken is a three-time NYSUT award-winner writing humorous articles addressing retiree and senior citizen concerns. He can be reached by e-mail at hgeerken@stny.rr.com.