Small World

A bindle

It's Halloween, so I have to reminisce about my old days running around the neighborhood dressed as a hobo with my bindle over my shoulder, tramping around collecting Bonomo's Turkish Taffy, and Chunky ("What a chunk o' chocolate!"). And always, always, the little milk carton went with us, collecting coins for UNICEF.

Having been established in 1946 in the wake of the worldwide devastation of World War II, UNICEF (the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) was developed with the aim of "providing lifesaving health care, clean water, nutrition, education, and emergency relief to children and their families." Of course, people were only too happy to drop some coins in the cartons for those needy kids. It felt good!

I see that "Trick or Treat for UNICEF!" is still a thing, bit I honestly cannot remember the last time a kid came to our porch in their Halloween getup and asked for coins. But, they're still in business, doing good things, so that's good.

Now then. Since it's Halloween, it's a good time to remind everyone that it was
the lovely and talented actress Téa Leoni, star of stage, screen, and TV's "Madam Secretary," whose grandmother, Helenka Pantaleoni, co-founded UNICEF.  Téa's father, Anthony Pantaleoni, was once board chair of UNICEF USA, and the actress herself works for the charity as the third generation in her family to be involved.

Not only that...but guess who her great uncle was! Téa's mother, Emily Ann (née Patterson) was from Amarillo, Texas, and her uncle was the great actor Hank Patterson, known for playing roles in 192 different movie and TV productions, most notably Fred Ziffel on "Green Acres," the husband of Doris Ziffel and the "father" of Arnold Ziffel.

Arnold

It's a small world, and crazy. Someone ought to sell tickets.

"The number you have texted..."

If you're making a permanent sign that will have thousands of copies, you want to proofread it before having it printed.  And then, have someone proofread it again, and then send it down to that guy who could find a mistaken grain of sand on the beach and have him look it over.

Because...

The city of Baltimore ordered hotels to print up thousands of signs for the best of intentions. The signs gave victims of human trafficking a phone number and text line where they could seek help to get out of the hell their lives have become.

The signs are required to be posted in every hotel room in the city, authority of the city council.

But they gave the hoteliers the wrong text number in the wording of the law.

Frank Boston III, a lawyer and lobbyist for the Maryland Hotel Lodging Association, said that the city's hotels have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars complying with the requirement. He suggests that maybe the city could, instead of requiring all the signs to be redone with the correct information, obtain the incorrect number and make that the hotline.

“In good faith our members have cooperated with the legislation,” Boston said. “Unfortunately, signage information provided through the legislation was inaccurate.”

Boston said that hotel operators feel “it would be a tragedy for a cry for help [from a trafficking victim] to fall on deaf ears.”

And of course, hotels being where a lot of prostitution takes place, these unfortunate victims have a good chance of seeing the signs there.

“It was an honest mistake,” says City Councilman Kristerfer Burnett, co-chair of the Baltimore City Human Trafficking Collaborative, the sponsor of the bill. He's sorry about the mistake but he's working on getting it fixed.

The mistake (and there are mistakes, and there are MISTAKES) is that the bill orders hotels, adult entertainment joints, and food service facilities to post a sign with a national hotline number and the words "TEXT 'BEFREE' (233722).

Try it on your keypad, but BEFREE is 233733. But if you text to that wrong number, you hit an error message.

No one even noticed that snafu until legislation was being drafted to have the hotline posted in municipal buildings, and someone said, "Hey wait a minute...."

“It’s unfortunate that it took revisiting it to catch it, but at the same time we are very thankful that we caught it,” Burnett said.

The city is also thinking about stickers with the right number to place over the wrong one, but the hotel chains are not so fond of that idea.

The National Human Trafficking Hotline, says that Maryland, and Baltimore City in particular, records a very high rate of  “domestic human trafficking”  - one of the highest in the country, with more than 440 reports of child sex trafficking  across the state from 2014 to 2018, mostly in Baltimore.

Like someone much smarter than I once said, failing to plan is planning to fail. And every plan needs at least 37 proofreaders.

Sweet deal

Last year we talked about the movement to change the date of Halloween, but it looks like it will be held on October 31 again this year, even though the meteorologists are calling for that day (Thursday) to be rainy and poor weather for door-to-door candy gathering.  That's a shame.

But even if you or the kids can't go traipsing around the neighborhood dressed as Awkwafina or Freddie Mercury, you can have a free Snickers bar.

You see, the people are Snickers were involved in the effort to change the date of Halloween for obvious reasons, but even though they fell short of that goal, which carried with it the promise to reward us all with a free candy bar, they are still going to hand out candy this way:  Just go to OneMillionSnickers.com to sign up for a gift card good for one bag of Snickers Fun Size bars (worth $3.90).

Let me know if it works!

Party City was also involved in this effort, but they had promised no reward. As someone with a lot more time on his hands than brains, I hereby offer this idea to the good partiers at P. City:  offer everyone a free hit of helium!

If you get one, please call me and leave me an extremely high-pitched voicemail!

No joke!

In one of the few clean jokes I have told a million times, my parents went for a picnic out at Loch Raven Reservoir when they were newlyweds, and Mom was feeding bread cubes to the fish when her new wedding ring came off.

They searched and searched and finally gave up when darkness fell. The next weekend, helpful Dad took disconsolate Mom out for a fish dinner to cheer her up.

And when she cut into that fish, what do you think was inside it?

Right!  Bones!

People always fall for that one, because they want it to be true! Well, here it is, in true form, right from the wires of United Press International:

Oct. 21 (UPI) -- A British man who lost his wedding ring while swimming was reunited with the ring thanks to a couple of beach visitors -- and a helpful fish.

Dan Levine, 44, said he was swimming in Penzance, Cornwall, England, when the custom wedding ring designed by his wife fell off his finger.

"I put a post on Facebook asking for people to get in touch if they found it snorkeling or spear fishing but really didn't think I'd see it again. I was gutted. Oona had handmade it. We've been married 13 years. When I told her I'd lost it she was upset too," Levine told Cornwall Live.

Levine's Facebook plea eventually reached Gary and Emma Spires, who were visiting the beach just one day after the ring was lost when they saw a fish splashing around in shallow waters.

"Gary said he kneeled down and the ring was just nestled under the water beneath a little ledge. He might not have seen it had it not been for that little fish," Levine said.

Levine thanked the couple, and the helpful sea creature, in a Facebook post.
"Thanks, little fish," he wrote.

So, what we can learn from the story of the Englishman and his ring? We know now that our wildest dreams can come true. And this gives me hope that the moth story will come true someday!

(Norm Macdonald made that one famous. It seems that a moth showed up in a podiatrist's office one day, and when the podiatrist asked how he could help the moth, the bug went on and on about his cruel boss who humiliates him, the wide he once loved but hardly knows anymore, and the son whom he is not sure he ever really loved. At length, the foot doctor says the moth sure has a lot of problems and would do well to see a psychiatrist, finally asking why did you come here?

And the moth goes, "Because your light was on.")

Sunday Rerun: Frere Jacques

On the page opposite the morning comics in the Baltimore SUN (a page I never read anymore because they stopped carrying "Marmaduke") I always work the Jumble ("That Scrambled Word Game") and I never miss reading "Ask Amy," the advice column for the loveworn and confused.  Always down for a prank, I often muse upon ways to send in a letter to Amy with some totally-made-up scenario, to see how she replies.

Someone else once came up with something more clever!  On March 15, 2004, Amy's predecessor, "Dear Abby," ran a column with a letter from a heartbroken wife that read like this:

Dear Abby: I am 34 and have three children. My husband, "Gene," and I have been married for 10 years. He is greedy, selfish, inconsiderate and rude. I don't know why I married him, nor why our marriage has lasted this long.
Gene put off getting me a birthday gift for as long as he could; then he bought me a bowling ball. It was the last straw. Not only do I not bowl -- he had the holes drilled for his fingers and his name was on it.
The next day I went to the bowling alley determined to keep the ball and learn to bowl. It was there that I met "Franco." Franco is kind, considerate and loving -- the polar opposite of Gene.
Franco and I began bowling together, and he bought me a glove in my size with my name on it. Shortly thereafter, our affair began. (I didn't mention that I was married.)
When Gene saw the bowling glove on our dresser, he became depressed because he realized that I'd met someone. I feel sorry for Gene, but the last time I saw Franco, he proposed.
I no longer love Gene. I want to divorce him and marry Franco. At the same time, I'm worried that Gene won't be able to move on with his life. I also think our kids would be devastated.
What should I do?
-- Stuck In A Love Triangle

Jacques

Well, sir or ma'am, if you're a fan of The Simpsons, you recognize this plot, because that show has discussed every single possible thing that people can do to each other in the 25 years it has blessed us with its presence.  It came directly from a 1990 episode called "Life on the Fast Lane," which featured Albert Brooks as smooth French bowling coach Jacques. "Franco" - get it?

The people who distribute the column, Universal Press Syndicate, pulled it from their pages once it dawned on them that Abby had been duped, but some papers went ahead and ran the letter and Abby's advice, which was to admit to her husband that she had cheated on him: "To save the marriage, he might be willing to change back to the man who bowled you over in the first place." 

When TV re-runs this episode of the Simpsons, the TV Guide synopsis says, "Homer's birthday present 'for Marge' is a bowling ball, prompting Marge to teach him a lesson by taking up the sport — and maybe also a handsome instructor." 

The Dear Abby column was actually written by Abby's daughter Jeanne Phillips, who should watch more TV.  Meanwhile, I am busy working on my fakeola letter:  "Dear Amy, My husband is a highly important man in the film industry. Recently, he had the brilliant idea to produce a comedy, the plot of which involves killing the leader of a sovereign foreign nation. For some reason, the people of that nation have now turned against us and have hacked his firm's computer system, exposing all manner of private information. What sort of apology should we send?  Would a box of chocolates be sufficient, or should we telephone them as well?"

The Saturday Picture Show, October 26, 2019

Everyone has their doppelganger, they say, and these two women are in the same line of work, which makes it easy to confuse Margot Robbie, on the left, with fellow actor Jamie Pressly.

What a great idea! You take that red basket as you shop around in this store, wherever it is, and that's a sign to the staff that you're up for some help finding things. If you're toting the gray one, it means "leave me alone."  Wonderful!

Another great idea: Police horses with tail lights.

It's possible that he's just too funny for most people. Say hi to my favorite comedian, Norm Macdonald!

This is the locomotive named Sweet Toot. It's been used for years around the Domino Sugar factory in Baltimore Harbor, hauling rail cars full of raw and processed sugar products around the lot. Now it's been replaced with a new train, and this one is on the way to the B&O Railroad Museum. It's getting there by train.

Teacher friends, you have me as an ally against parents who contribute nothing to little Abernathy or Hildegarde's education and expect teachers to raise their children. A good education begins at home, and you can start today!

A man and his wife loved the pizza business, boating, and the Virgin Islands. SO they opened a floating pizzeria in St Thomas. Dinghies and small craft can wash right up alongside and order up lunch.

Have you noticed that it's really hard to get into a package of Oreos these days? We'll cross that bridge when we go under it.

"Let's Not Be L-7" means "let's not be squares"

For all parents of teens, tweens, and weens who complain that the kids' music these days is lacking in substance, I remind you that we once thought Domingo Samudio was rather profound, fifty-some years ago.

Domingo is 82 years old now and we never knew him by that name, anyway. He was well known in 1965 and forgotten by 1967 under the name "Sam The Sham" as he performed with his band The Pharoahs.

Sam was born in Dallas to parents of Mexican descent, and in high school was in a band with Trini Lopez, with whom he grew up in the "Little Mexico" section of Dallas. Trini had hit records with "If I Had A Hammer" and "Lemon Tree," and played Pedro Jiminez in "The Dirty Dozen," which is universally regarded as one of the two greatest movies of all time by every single person alive.

Stardom came later for Sam, and followed a six-year Navy stint and some time spent working the carnival circuit before catching on with a bar band called Andy Anderson and the Nightriders. When Andy left, Sam took over, renaming the band and dressing them like characters in the movie "The Ten Commandments." Sam felt that Ramses was a sharp-dressed king, so he named the rest of the group "The Pharoahs."

With a recording contract on the XL label, the band was in the recording studio and began fooling around with songs based on the current dance craze The Hully Gully. They couldn't very well steal that dance, so Sam made up The Wooly Bully, with lyrics that spoke to an entire generation, all over the world:

Matty told Hatty about a thing she saw.
Had two big horns and a wooly jaw.
Wooly bully, wooly bully.
Wooly bully, wooly bully, wooly bully.
Hatty told Matty, "Let's don't take no chance.
Let's not be L-seven, come and learn to dance."
Wooly bully, wooly bully
Wooly bully, wooly bully, wooly bully.
Matty told Hatty, "That's the thing to do.
Get you someone really to pull the wool with you."
Wooly bully, wooly bully.
Wooly bully, wooly bully, wooly bully.

It made a big hit record in 1965, voted Record of the Year in Billboard magazine, and there were two lesser hits that year ("JuJu Hand" and "Ring Dang Doo") before, as so often happens in the world of arts, the rest of the band quit working for Sam and he had to hire all-new Pharoahs.  1966 brought the hit "Little Red Riding Hood" and then, oblivion...until 1982, when the movie "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" gave "Wooly Bully" another day in the sunshine . Then began a period of Sam's life that saw him working as an interpreter in Mexico, a sailor/deck hand on commercial vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, and a gospel preacher.

There was a time when music was fun and didn't have to mean anything so profound. No one ever found out what a wooly bully was, and maybe that's better. It's still a catchy tune, and will become an earwig if you listen just once!

But consider this: when "Fast Times" came out, they danced to the song at their prom, and the song was 16 years old and considered quaint and classic. The movie itself is now 37 years old! All right, Hamilton!

Enough of this

You know, there always has to be some jackanapes to ruin things for everyone.

The Houston Astros are just about universally recognized as baseball's best team, and here they are in the World Series, and some assistant general manager has to go and make horrible remarks and toss leftover garbage in the punchbowl.

What happened was, Astros assistant general manager Brandon Taubman shouted “Thank God we got Osuna!” (expletives deleted) while ranting toward a small group of female journalists.

"Osuna" is Roberto Osuna, a rather good relief pitcher who had to leave his job with the Toronto Blue Jays following unsubstantiated claims that he committed domestic violence. He was not charged criminally, but Major League Baseball suspended him for 75 games and the Blue Jays cut him loose. The Astros were only too glad to take him on their roster.

On Saturday evening, Osuna actually gave up a game-tieing home run before the Astros eventually won the game that clinched the pennant. In the celebration that followed the win, Taubman chose to launch his foul diatribe toward the women. He said the purpose of this was to support his pitcher following a rough outing.

When Sports Illustrated writer Stephanie Apstein, one of the witnesses to the outburst, wrote about what Taubman had said, the Astros denied that it happened, only to have to "walk that back" in current parlance and finally admit that they have an ass't G.M. who is an ass.

Then here comes the part that cheeses me: this apology that wasn't really an apology...Taubman's attempt to close the barn door.

Taubman

“In retrospect, I realize that my comments were unprofessional and inappropriate. My overexuberance in support of a player has been misinterpreted as a demonstration of a regressive attitude about an important social issue. Those that know me know that I am a progressive and charitable member of the community, and a loving and committed husband and father. I hope that those who do not know me understand that the Sports Illustrated article does not reflect who I am or my values. I am sorry if anyone was offended by my actions.”

Friends, any time someone couches their "apology" by saying they are sorry IF you were offended, they are not really in touch with your feelings, and therefore, they aren't apologizing. And please notice that this man even finds a way to salute himself for his progressive and charitable ways!

I'm certain that Major League Baseball will take action, and there will be fines levied and suspensions assessed and handwringing and clutching of pearls by Taubman and his associates.

What I'm sorry for is that there are people who don't know that domestic violence is so monstrous and hideous that people who commit acts of it do not deserve to be encouraged, but I don't know what will teach them.

Dutch Wonderland

Nine years ago - that was the year 2010, when the oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and dumping 42,000 gallons of crude oil into the Gulf per hour, when 33 Chilean miners were trapped underground for 68 days, and the Saints won the Super Bowl.

It was also the year that a Dutch family figured the end of the world was at hand. (Many attribute this to the Saints winning the Super Bowl). So they huddled together in their farmhouse basement and waited.

And waited.

And waited, until last week when the 25-year-old son, Jan, figured he had waited long enough, and escaped, running to a local bar called the Café de Kastelein.

The bar owner, Chris Westerbeek, told the news that Jan had come into the bar recently a few times and finally broke out the whole story.

Westerbeek said, "He said he had not been outside for nine years. Later he also said that he had four brothers and one sister who lived in the farm. He was the oldest and wanted to put an end to the way they lived."

Jan "admitted that he had run away and that he needed help" so Westerbeek helped the young man by calling the police.

I hope he told the police that Jan is 25.

So, the police go to the farmhouse, look things over, and find the family cooped up in the basement, with the stroke-victim father lying in a bed, needing medical attention.

A 58-year-old man, one "Josef B.," was booked on charges of deprivation of liberty and harming the health of others. He is not the father, although he is the person who rented the farm. His relationship to the family is unclear.

Family children ranging in age from 18 to 25 were found in the basement, and the police report that they had no knowledge of any other people alive in the world. Cut off from the world, they raised vegetables and cared for some animals on the farm, and that was their whole life.

Dutch authorities are not releasing the family name or the location of the farm, fearing that too many Americans will find this sort of lifestyle appealing and flood the area with humanity.

H - E - Double Toothpicks

You might remember the time Bart Simpson came home from Sunday School, and when his mom asked what they talked about, he said, "We talked about hell! HELL!"

Not the Towson sign, but you get the point.

That one is the first "cuss word" that most kids pick up, unless they live across the street from a firehouse. We sat and waited for the chance to go around saying, "What the hell" and "It was hotter than the hinges on Hell today!" Those of us who frequented Towson Plaza back in the day will remember the building owned by an oil company up at the top of the hill, and what a thrill it was when the S burned out on the S H E L L sign.

It was a hell of a lot of fun.

Of course, we moved on to the rest of the 7 deadly words you can't say in due time, but there was one particular colloquialism from the long ago that pops up in my mind now and again.  I don't think it's being used currently, so maybe we can revive it.  The term is "play hell."

In one sense, you can use it like this: "This drought is really going to play hell with the crops," but the other quirkier version is when you use it to denote a certain inevitability, as in:

"You broke the garage door opener, and now you're really gonna play hell getting the door raised."

"I have to drive to Catonsville this afternoon and with that beltway traffic, I'm gonna play hell getting there on time."

and

"Joe's really gonna play hell, getting six sandwiches out a half a pound of ham."

I aim to make sure that saying "play hell" does not go the way of "carbon copy," "Jeepers creepers" and "easy as falling off a log."

I know I'm gonna play hell making it happen, but Gee Whiz, I'm gonna try.

Luck of the draw

Over the course of my life, I have met many people of great accomplishment. I've learned from all of them, for better or worse, and one concept I have heard many times from skilled people is that "anyone can do what I do; it just takes practice and dedication."

To be exact, I was interviewing multi-instrumentalist and Hee-Haw star Roy Clark, who told me that anyone willing to practice playing a guitar long enough could learn to play one as well as he. I dunno. I hear lots of people who have been playing (and, I presume practicing) on the guitar for years and years, and they don't pick as well as old Roy.

Sure, we're all bound to get better at things through repetition, but it's not guaranteed, and as evidence, I cite Harvey Korman's efforts to amuse me over the years, and John Grisham's attempts at writing fiction. Swing and a miss, every time.

But a name came to mind the other day that will bring a smile to my fellow Boomers.


Jon Gnagy.

Gnagy (1907 - 1981) was an artist, self-taught, who appeared on TV in the 1950s with shows such as "You Are An Artist" and "Learn To Draw."  We kids watched him and got his home art kits as gifts and did our best, even those of us who are better at drawing crowds of people than drawing anything.

He had that artist-beatnik-beard and mustache-thing going on way back then, which clearly meant to all that he was either an artist or a poet reading beat poetry in a coffeehouse. He was no hipster, though. Jon Gnagy was born in a Mennonite community in Kansas and exhibited his work at the Kansas State Fair, which led to a job as an artist for the oil community in Oklahoma. Having had a taste of success, he went to New York in the 1930s seeking more, not realizing that a Depression was going on. His lack of further success led to what he described as a nervous breakdown in 1935.

The Second World War saw Gnagy working at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, teaching camouflage technique, and at the end of the war he was with NBC for the very first TV broadcasts, at first local, and then across the burgeoning NBC Network.  Early TV needed shows to put on that were easily produced in a studio, and what's easier than putting a camera on a man drawing at an easel.  And in much the same easygoing manner as Bob Ross in years to come, Gnagy, always in his plaid shirts, taught everyone to draw as he had taught himself.

He said that all you had to do was learn to draw four basic shapes: a cube, a circle, a cone, and a cylinder, and then embellish them to form all the images of everything!

''By using these four shapes, I can draw any picture I want. And so can you!'' And so it was that we sat and drew pictures of books stacked outside of tepees, right next to buckets of apples.

Art is so hard to define.

Sunday Rerun: The President Takes His Lunch

I've never been to this restaurant called Charmington's, but like most everything else in this life, it reminds me of The Simpsons, in whose hometown of Springfield, the expensive department store is Costington's (slogan: "Over a century without a slogan.")

The Simpsons do their shopping at the Try 'N' Save, or the Kwik-E-Mart.

Charmington's is in the area of Baltimore where Charles Village meets Remington. If you're not from Baltimore, you will need to understand one thing about us...we are defined by our high schools and our neighborhoods.  You have to keep up with things, because one minute, a neighborhood is known as "hardscrabble" and "tough working class," and then then next minute, someone opens a coffee bar in a space once occupied by a TV repair shop, and someone else rips the cheesy 70's paneling from the wall in their living room, finds an original brick wall, and runs to the porch to hang a sign indicating that herbal cough drops and smudge sticks are for sale within.  And boom, here come the hipsters! And in another part of town where once dwelled the upwardly mobile and the Buick drivers, "Cash for your gold" shops and laundromats suddenly sprout.  In other words, we change.

So, back to the restaurant, the president of the United States came there for lunch last week, on a day when he came to Baltimore to talk about the need for fair sick leave for all.  At this time of the year with the flu reaching epidemic levels, people are told, "If you're sick, stay home from work," but many people don't get paid sick time, and would have trouble explaining to their children that they don't get to eat next week because Daddy or Mommy was ill last week.

The owners of Charmington's have had a progressive policy about sick leave for employees, so the commander in chief came for lunch, and ordered a roasted beet salad (but he asked them to hold the beets), a turkey-avocado wrap, and a roast beef and cheddar sandwich on white (he took half of that with him.)  He picked up the tab for others at his table, to the tune of $60 in all, and left a $30 tip.

The food was prepared under the watchful eye of a Secret Service person, and those seated in the restaurant were given the opportunity to leave before he arrived if they wanted, but once he arrived, they had to stay until he split.

There were no reports of the Secret Service being involved in either hi-jinx or shenanigans, for once.

The Saturday Picture Show. October 19, 2019

In the real-estate ads, they always call a place like this "a handyman's special" or a "Fixer-upper." You don't want to be standing there if a stiff breeze comes along.

The message gets through, after a second.

We've all heard about "the hot seat."  Finally, we see what it looks like.

Here's an odd building, one that was meant to look like this: It's one of the buildings at the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, in Las Vegas.

Homeowners's tip: don't paint or put siding on the outside of the manse...let nature cover it in vines! It's free, if you don't mind waiting.

The term Potemkin Village dates back to Russia in 1783, when a man named Potemkin was wooing Catherine the Great, and wished to show her wonderful vistas on her way to visit Crimea. So he had fake house fronts built and directed the local peasants to get all duded up and wave happily at the Tsarina as she sleighed on by. To this day, when people put up false fronts, be they actual like this above in Sweden, or when their egos put up phony constructs meant to make us think they really have it all going on, we call it a Potemkin Village and we view it with great disdain.

They used to build that Best & Co stores like this, with crumbling facades and so on. This is a building in Milan, Italy, with a little bit of whimsy.

Here you go...if you haven't settled on a getup for Halloween this year, there's still time to be Lt. Dan and Forrest! ("I KNOW that, Gump!")

The Problems roll on

When they started talking about "Brexit" over in Great Britain, I got confused and thought they meant "Weetabix," the cereal that is high on whole grains and low on taste.

But No! Brexit is this deal that they have agreed to over there, to leave the European Common Market (BRitish EXIT) that was all figured out by the English version of our adipose president, one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Call him "Boris."

I'll tell you this right now, if my middle name were "de Pfeffel," I'd be working on an exit from that, I wanna tell ya.

But there are many things to be figured out before October 31, which is when Brexit is supposed to take effect.

For one thing, there is no deal in place to guarantee that items can be shipped into and out of Merrie Olde Englande. This means food and clothing and cars and fuel and those plaid Andy Capp caps so popular over there.

And now comes word that they are worried about running out of toilet paper! Jonathan Edwards, a Member of Parliament (and probably not the Jonathan Edwards who had a #4 hit with "Sunshine" in 1972) mentioned, on the floor of Parliament, and probably in the mens' room as well, that he was concerned about running out of "loo roll."

So he asked the government ministers in charge of such things for a guarantee that he would have enough Charmin to go around, and here is the answer from Cabinet Office minister Simon Hart: "The government would prefer to leave the EU on October 31 with a deal. If this is not possible we will have to leave with no-deal."

It's almost impossible to argue against that. "Either we'll have a deal, or if we don't, then we won't have a deal."

But, Hart also vowed that the government would "prioritize the flow of goods."

So there's that. Deal or no deal, there will be a flow.

There's also the matter of bread and milk to consider, with winter coming on.

The late shift

I remember being 20 and hearing people say, "Life begins at 40."

And then I turned 40, and realized that life began 40 years ago.

I've come to realize that we all decide just when we're going to start living as we should. As someone very wise once asked, "If you're not happy now, when do you plan to be?"

Sad to say, some people schlump along and wait for the end to come, and some make the most of every day. It's up to us all to choose.

But in case you live to be 101 (and so far, so good!) you might want to take inspiration from Rose Landin. She's 101, and still working.

I don't think she's on the job 365 days a year, but she does work every day that the Texas State Fair is open. This year they threw the gates open on September 27 and they'll close the corrals on October 20, so that's a fair stretch of time for someone who's seen 38,365 sunrises and sunsets.

Rose has been doing this shift for 25 years - Monday through Friday, she's a greeter at the hospitality center. She hands out maps and helps people find their way to favorite attractions.

"I feel wonderful because I feel like I'm doing something. Staying at home is not fun when you retire," Landin told her local news station. "[People] always ask, 'How old are you?' I say, 'You're not supposed to ask a woman that,'" she joked.

(I will interject this: you may ask a man his age any time you wish, and staying at home is a LOT of fun when you retire if you have a fun house!)

Ms Landin says that she's been a fairgoer all her life, and used to enter her needlepoint work - Christmas stockings to be exact - for the awards.

"I get up in the morning and I'm happy," she said. "I live for one day, one day at a time. I've enjoyed every minute of it and I hope I enjoy it for 100 more years."

She also told the news, "This year we have a lot of young people [working], which is wonderful," although I have to add that at 101, everyone in the world is younger than she.

Always something interesting down there, deep in the heart of...

I mean, we knew she was Desperate, but come on...

A few numbers for you:

• $1,000,000 -  the bail paid by actress Lori Loughlin to keep out of jail awaiting trial on charges of money laundering and conspiracy in the scheme in which rich people paid to get their kids in good colleges in which they do not belong.
• $30,000 - the fine that actress Felicity Huffman will have to pay when she finishes her federal prison term, which will last
• 14 days and will be followed by
• 250 hours of community service.
• 40 miles east of San Francisco, which is the location of the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, the country club slammer where the formerly respected actress will cool her heels for 
• 2 weeks.
• 1420 out of a possible 1600 is the score on the PSAT test that Huffman's daughter took, after it was doctored by someone to whom Huffman paid
• $15,000 to add
• 400 points to her child's previous score of 1020/1600.
• 56 is the age of Felicity Huffman as she entered prison yesterday.
• 56 will be her age when she is released in
• 336 hours.
•  77806-112 is the federal prison inmate number for Felicity Huffman
• 0 is the amount of respect I have for her and Loughlin and anyone else who thinks their money entitles them to a place at the head of a line in which they don't even belong.

Nuts to you

We had a walnut tree outside when I was a kid and every fall I had a shell of a time opening those bad boys up, but it was worth it.

I never thought to count how many nuts there were on the ground from year to year, but maybe that would have been a good idea for the Persics, Chris and Holly, a couple from Pittsburgh.

They have a walnut tree, and last week, they got to noticing that there seemed to be fewer walnuts on the ground, but as they say on TV, wait til you hear where the nuts went!

Holly was driving her KIA SUV the other day and noticed a funny smell coming from under the hood...like a fresh walnut pie. Sure enough, she popped the hood and there were 200 nuts and enough grass clippings to make a nice little nest for Sammy Squirrel and his family.

"They were everywhere, under the battery, near the radiator fan," Chris said. "The walnuts on the engine block were black and smelt like they were definitely roasting."

They had the car inspected in September, but then the walnuts started falling, so, as Chris said, "The squirrels worked pretty fast!"

It took an hour to de-nut the car and take it a shop, where a mechanic removed a plate beneath the motor and found more you know what.

All told, there were enough walnut to fill half a trash can, and the grass was damp (they have had rain in Pittsburgh!) which at least prevented a fire, they figure.

Chris Persic told the news that he's getting messages from other people who park outside, saying they have taken up the habit of checking things out, and he he agrees....

"Long story short, if you park outside, do yourself a favor and check under the hood every once in awhile," Chris wrote on Facebook.

Scrunchy crunch

I love reading websites such as Good Morning America and the other news shows, so I can keep up with the latest news about the impending impeachment, the murder of a key witness in the Amber Guyger case, our brilliant plan to abandon our Kurdish allies by allowing Turkish forces to crawl into Syria, and what's happening with all those scrunchies in middle school.

The morning news offered full coverage of this trend. The latest little gift that middle schoolers are giving to each other is their hair scrunchy.

Used to be, guys would give girls their varsity sweater or a special ring from Kresge's or a mix tape of favorite Backstreet Boys hit, and the girls would give boys their circle pin or the brownies they baked in Home Ec or a paper heart made from gum wrappers.

Now, the girls give guys their scrunchies, and the guys wear the scrunchies on their wrists until their mothers find them in the laundry (the scrunchies, not the guys) and everyone is puzzled.

A woman named Emily Covington facebooked a PSA about this, and it has, as they say, gone viral.

"One week there were all these scrunchies in the dryer," Covington told "GMA." "The first batch, I didn't think anything of it, and tossed them in the trash thinking it was a fluke or maybe even mine that I forgot."

Her son let her in on the fad, and now the entire nation is hung up on scrunchies.

"It sounds harmless," Covington said, adding that all the moms she's connected with from around the country agree. "But I guess if a boy likes a girl, he gives her his hoodie. I told my son he better be careful 'cause I'm not buying him any new ones and it could be a very cold winter."

Here at the Lazy 'C' Ranch, our cats love to play with those little elastic hair rings, which we buy by the dozen at the Dollar Tree, and when we run out, I just slide a yardstick under the oven or bookshelves and come out with about 27 of them.

But those are cats! Kids have the scrunchies to themselves.

Next month, it'll be something else, you may be sure.

Sunday Rerun: "Yonder lies the castle of my faddah."

And on Thursday, we awoke to this:
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Thu, September 30, 2010 -- 6:31 AM ET
-----Tony Curtis, Hollywood Icon, Dies at 85, The A.P. Reports

Tony Curtis, a classically handsome movie star who earned an
Oscar nomination as an escaped convict in Stanley Kramer's
1958 movie "The Defiant Ones," but whose public preferred him in comic roles in films like "Some Like It Hot" (1959) and
"The Great Race" (1965), died Wednesday of a cardiac arrest
in his Las Vegas area home. He was 85.

As a performer, Mr. Curtis drew first and foremost on his
startlingly good looks. With his dark, curly hair, worn in a
sculptural style later imitated by Elvis Presley, and plucked
eyebrows framing pale blue eyes and wide, full lips, Mr.
Curtis embodied a new kind of feminized male beauty that came into vogue in the early 1950s.

His birth name was Bernard Schwartz.  Today, of course, he would act under the name "Bernie Schwartz" and no one would think he ought to change it.  In the 50s, most of the famous and semi-famous in show biz changed their names, which is why Art Gelien became Tab Hunter.

You really have to wonder.  If the agents and muckety-mucks thought that people wouldn't cotton to the name "Art" for an actor, what the heck kind of a name is "Tab"?  Have you ever met a guy named Tab? Of course not.

"Chad Everett"?  Raymon Lee Cramton.
"Guy Madison"?  Robert Ozell Moseley.
"Rock Hudson"? Roy Fitzgerald.
"Rory Calhoun"? Francis Timothy McCown.  At first his agent changed his name to Troy Donahue, but later settled on calling McCown 'Calhoun'  and saved the Donahue moniker for Merle Johnson, Jr.
"Troy Donahue"?  Merle Johnson, Jr.  (but you knew that.)

In post-World War II America, it seemed that the nation couldn't get enough un-reality.  We turned to movies and television shows that showed a completely artificial view of society, starring people who really couldn't act but had names that sounded actor-ish.  Billy Gray, who played Bud in the sitcom "Father Knows Best," always told people "YOU know best!" and urged them not to take his show as being anything like real life.

We miss the sweet simple 50's, but right now, I have to go to the courthouse to change my name to Ramp Driver.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 12, 2019

The ingenuity of the animal kingdom is too amazing sometimes. Here's a bird with a nest that comes with its own umbrella.

This lady was in the 7-Up ad 63 years ago, and now here she is looking back. By the way, do they still make 7-Up anymore? How about Squirt or Almond Smash? Is America losing its preeminence in the global soda war?

I have a feeling that on a certain farm there is an art student or two in the farm family. These must be the prettiest silos in Farmville.

This is so nice, providing your bird with a nice autumn view! What a world!

How many of these phones do you recognize? I'm pretty sure we had one or two of those Nokias.

Remember when pistachio nuts were dyed red, so that your hands would turn red when you ate them? There was no reason to dye them any color at all, but maybe they chose that color because they come off the tree sort of magenta in color to begin with.

AOL might still be in business if they hadn't spent ten billion dollars sending floppy discs and CDs to every single citizen in the world in the early 90s.

At one time, the mumps had been eradicated in America. The only time you heard it mentioned was when comics dragged out the old "We were so poor growing up, we were only able to afford one mump!" gag. There was a time we took disease prevention so seriously that health officials would slap this sign on the door of a house where a mumpee lived, and no one came or went until the case was cleared up.  Now, thanks to the steadfast work of Jenny McCarthy and her cohorts who fight against the measles-mumps (MMR) vaccine, it's making a comeback and many people are at risk. Brilliant.