This 1620 painting by Jan Brueghel The Elder was called "Bacchanalia." I show this to you now because tomorrow morning at this time, should you not heed the warnings to be moderate in your consumption this evening, you will know how many of these people felt the next morning, too.
Have a safe, sensible, Happy New Year's Eve.
I've been a fan of "A Christmas Carol" since I was a tiny little tim myself (and that's been a while). But I have always wondered about something...something at the very end of the story, where now-giddy Scrooge is running around his bedroom and hollers out at a little boy passing by in the snow.
He asks the boy if he knows the poulterer's shop around the corner with the big prize turkey hanging in the window, and when the lad says he should hope he did, Scrooge tells him to go buy it.
In the original story:
“It’s hanging there now,” replied the boy.
“Is it?” said Scrooge. “Go and buy it.”
“Walk-ER!” exclaimed the boy.
I've wondered ever since what "Walk-ER!" meant. I used the closed captioning on the tv when I watch the 1951 version of the story, and that says the kid says "What cor?" and on my second-favorite version, "Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol," the closed captioner typed "Wha cur?" and none of that makes sense. The dictionary says a cur is a poorly-behaved mongrel, and up until that Christmas morning, Scrooge was too cheap to keep a pet around, so that wasn't it.
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| The little turkey-fetcher, from the movie |
Recently, though, someone invented Google, and it finally dawned on me to look it up! And the Oxford English Dictionary, a walloping hearty meatloaf of a book if ever there was such a thing, defines it for us:
"WALKER" "More fully, Hookey Walker. An exclamation expressive of incredulity, as in 'That is all Walker.'
and then Eric Partridge, in his book "A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1949) p 403, says "Hooky Walker! A phrase signifying that something either is not true or will not occur."
Digging into the matter more deeply (what else do I have to do all day?) it turns out that "John Walker" was the name of an untrustworthy spy in literature of the 1830s, a bad guy with a hooked nose. So, saying "Hooky Walker!" became a way to damn something as untrue, and that was shortened to just using "Walker!"
Now, with that mystery out of the way, I can spend some time figuring out why people will spend money for coffee at BigBucks when they can make it at home better, for less.
Like millions of Americans, I began wearing eyeglasses in elementary school so I could see what was being written on the chalkboard, way up front in the classroom. I also thought it would be handy to be able to see baseballs flying at my face, movies, and the giant dog that knocked me off my bicycle one Saturday afternoon.
One thing I was able to see that day was stars.
As the years went by, I needed bifocals, and then trifocals, and then cataract surgery, which replaced the lens in my peepers so that I can see almost perfectly at a distance.
So where's that big dog now?
I do need help with small print, and now there is help for those of us in the "over 40" boat. And above.
Help is on the way! There's an eye drop coming out to solve the problem of age-related blurred near vision.
It's called Vuity. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in October, and it might be just what the eye doctor ordered for some of the 128 million Americans who have trouble seeing close-up. Just instill one drop in each eye, wait 15 minutes, and you'll have eagle eyes for six to 10 hours, according to the company that makes it.
750 people tested the drug in clinical trials, and Toni Wright was one of them. She liked what she saw (get it?)
Was at time, Ms Wright had to keep cheaters everywhere - in her office, bathroom, kitchen and car - if she was going to read.
"I was in denial because to me that was a sign of growing older, you know, needing to wear glasses," she said.
A couple of years ago, her doctor pitched her on this new eye drop. She tried them and liked the result right off.
"I would not need my readers as much, especially on the computer, where I would always need to have them on," she said.
Age-related blurry near vision is known to medicine as presbyopia. This is the first drug to treat the situation by utilizing the eye's natural ability to reduce its pupil size, said Dr. George Waring, the principal investigator for the trial.
"Reducing the pupil size expands the depth of field or the depth of focus, and that allows you to focus at different ranges naturally," he said. And I'm sure we can all agree.
It ain't cheap, as they used to say. For a month's supply of Vuity, you'll shell out 80 clams. And it won't be covered by insurance because it's not "medically necessary."
Side effects among test participants included headaches, red eyes, and wondering where they left their reading glasses.
The manufacturer points out that they don't want you using Vuity when driving at night or "performing activities" in "low-light conditions."
Ahem.
We saw more than one German Chocolate Cake over the holidays. Now, if you ask me, German Chocolate Cake is all that a cake needs to be. I am not a big fan of chocolate, and German Chocolate Cake uses a kind of chocolate that is marked "mild dark" and that suits me fine. And the icing! So tasty. Now, cake purists will tell you that it's actually a custard, made by low-boiling brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, egg yolks, and evaporated milk, and adding vanilla, pecans, and coconut to make a gooey slathering for the cake.
As long as I'm sharing my thoughts, I think there is nothing that can't be made better by adding coconut to it.
Something else we need to talk about...German Chocolate Cake has nothing to do with Germany at all. You can go to Bermuda and tell them how much you love wearing Bermuda shorts in summer, and the people of Merrie Olde England are delighted to hear that you toast one of their muffins every morning, and I once told a woman in Winnipeg, Manitoba, that any bacon she ate was automatically Canadian bacon.
But you can't walk up to Hans, the baker, in Munich and tell him how much you love his German Chocolate Cake without him calling you a dummkopf. That's because we call it "German" Chocolate Cake after one Sam German, a baker who developed that sweet baking chocolate for the Baker's Chocolate Company in 1852.
And old Sam was long gone by 1957, for sure. That's when a woman in Dallas, identified as "Mrs George Clay" in the inane sexist terminology of the day, sent a recipe to the Dallas Morning News for its popular "Recipe Of The Day" column for what she called "German's Chocolate Cake." General Foods, the multinational conglomerate which was absorbed by Kraft Foods in 1989, owned the Baker's brand at the time, and they about broke their necks to pass the recipe on to other papers all over the country. Within a year, sales of Baker's German's Chocolate were up by 73%, and while none of that money accrued to either Mr or Mrs Clay, we all knew they ate some tasty cakes.
And they changed the name of the chocolate to Baker's German Chocolate, which is where the old rumor about it being German started.
Two more things I have to say before I go start working off the holiday cakes...you can't take a regular chocolate cake and cover it with coconut-pecan icing and call it German Chocolate Cake. That won't do.
And where did this thing of calling Ralph O'Hoolahan's wife "Mrs Ralph O'Hoolahan" get started? Everyone knows her name is Mitzi...Mrs Mitzi O'Hoolahan! You wouldn't call him "Mr Mitzi O'Hoolahan," would you?
And is it ok to bring a Devil's Food Cake to a church supper?
One day, people will look back on how civilization acted during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they will probably shudder in disbelief.
But that's what history gives us: the chance to look back on lunatic behavior with a shake of the head and a hearty disapproval.
I don't think enough people study history enough, a belief borne out recently when the National Football League acted surprised when groups of 75+ men working together started up with outbreaks of the virus. Several head coaches were unable to take their field with their squads the weekend before Christmas, leading the local Baltimore sporting media to ask Ravens head coach John Harbaugh who would take charge of the team should he be sidelined with the disease some still call a Chinese hoax.
Here is the reply, directly from the official transcript of Harbaugh utterances:
"Oh my gosh, you already have me buried! (laughter) You're throwing dirt on me – come on." (laughter) (Reporter: "But do you have any plans?")"I will cross that bridge when we get there, how about that? I do have a plan, yes. There is a plan in place. … It's not Alexander Haig, I can tell you that. It wasn't Alexander Haig then, either. Some of you guys appreciate that reference, right? …(points to a reporter)You don't even know. You don't even know the Alexander Haig reference. Wow. You're a history guy?"(Reporter: "Yes, but I don't know it.")"Ronald Reagan, Alexander Haig. … Do you want me to go through it? When Ronald Reagan … Remember when he got shot?"(Reporters: "Yes.")"Right, and he was in the hospital. There was a succession order, and something happened with the vice president, I'm not sure. Maybe he was … Who was the vice president? [Walter] Mondale?"(Reporter: "No, no. It was … It was [George H.W.] Bush.")"[George H.W.] Bush, he wasn't there for some reason. I think it would've been the 'pro tem' [pro tempore] of the House, I'm pretty sure. Check me on that. But Alexander Haig, the Secretary of State, came storming in and did a press conference and said, 'I'm in charge,' which he wasn't, but he thought he was. So, that's the Alexander Haig reference."
What this tells us is to stick with the historians on the topic of presidents, not football coaches who say that lifelong Democrat Walter Mondale would have been part of the ill-fated Reagan administration.
But, to keep with the sports analogies, in baseball, the "neighborhood play" is a recognized part of the game. That's there the shortstop or second baseman takes a throw as part of a double play. Said player is supposed to touch second base to make an out, but umpires will usually call an out if the infielder is somewhere in the neighborhood of second base, rather than actually being there and getting stampeded by 282 pounds of Aaron Judge.
Taking away that Mondale foolishness, Coach Harbaugh gets partial credit for the allusion to Haig, a former Army general who worked his way into the White House time and again, chiefly because he said things like, "The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood" and people thought him to be profound. He was Chief of Staff under Nixon and Ford, and became Secretary of State for Reagan.
Two months after Reagan was sworn in, he was shot by a guy who was trying to impress Jodie Foster. Really! And in the confusion of the White House that afternoon, as Reagan was being taken into surgery and reporters were asking where Vice President George H.W. Bush was (he was making a speech in Austin, Texas), Haig stepped up before the microphones and cameras and shouldered everyone else aside to say "I am in control here."
Actually, he wasn't, under any understanding of the law and US Constitution. As Secretary of State, to be in line to be acting HMFIC, Haig was behind Vice President Bush, Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, President pro tempore of the Senate Strom Thurmond, and Billy Martin, who was managing the Oakland Athletics that season.
But it was fun to remember the bantam rooster that Haig always seemed to be, trying to wrest power that he didn't have in a vainglorious attempt to seem important. In 1988, he ran for president, garnering an impressive 1% of the primary vote after calling eventual winner G.W. Bush a "wimp."
The 80s. You really had to be there.
Note: this was written 5 years ago! We currently have Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. No Disney +, though. There are limits, yes.
December is such a great month! It gets dark so early, there might be snow, and there are major holidays...and, for those who think this year can't end soon enough, New Year's Eve with all its promises and hopes.
4. Winter Clothes - I don't have to modify my wardrobe greatly; it's not a huge deal to switch from cargo shorts to cargo longs. Add a long-sleeve tee under my short-sleeve tee, and you have the complete Brick Heck look that I favor. Timberland boots, Carhartt jacket, a woolen stocking cap and scarf and gloves and I'm ready to go. 
9. 
Rerun Week saunters on...this one is from 2009...
It's Guest Editor day - because I got this information about one of my favorite carols from a friend online, so I thought I'd pass it along...while you read what Pat sent to me, click on this link and you can see/hear the 12 Days of Christmas on YouTube!
There is one Christmas Carol that has always baffled me.
What in the world do leaping lords, French hens,
swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas?
This week, I found out.
From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were
not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone
during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics.
It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning
plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.
-The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ.
-Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.
-Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.
-The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.
-The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.
-The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.
-Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.
-The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.
-Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.
-The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.
-The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples.
-The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.
Again, this is all new to me - hope you liked it!
Wasn't it the good folks over at Walt Disney who urged us to "let it go!"? Sorry, folks, but the holidays aren't just for Christians. The moose out front shoulda told you.The United States of America is a vast, huge nation. Last time I checked (2014), 318.9 million people live here within our 3.797 million square miles. 4,745 of them live in Dardanelle, a city in Yell County, Arkansas.
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| Grainy surveillance photo |
Editor's Note: I decided to give myself a week off, so here we go with some reruns! Happy Holidays!
I'm talking about a man who dropped out of high school (and later was graduated at age 21), a man who became a songwriter, performer, arranger, singer, actor, voiceover actor and radio host, and then left far too soon.
Isaac's Baltimore connection was that he was one of the owners of the Memphis Sounds basketball team which was moved to Baltimore in 1975, but folded before their season even began. He did better with other things.It's just me talking, but I am not a Harry Potter fan. I don't think that all the inconveniences in life can be solved by casting spells, and speaking of spell, I wish that people would learn to! Muggles and mugworts and people named Petunia do not exist in the real world, and even as a kid, I was all about learning facts, not imagining how great it would be to be at Gryffindor.
But she's not about to sit in some castle, counting golden coins and hiring someone to walk ahead of her strewing rose petals in her path (that was Mick Jagger) or feeding her dogs Kobe beef sauteed in truffle butter. You know how they ask for a dollar at the supermarket checkout to fight childhood diseases now and then?
There used to be a country music comedian, popular on the Grand Ole Opry and on stages all over the south, who was born Benjamin Ford, but was known as Whitey Ford (not to be confused with the Yankee pitcher of the same name).
Ford billed himself as The Duke Of Paducah, which is a city in McCracken County, Kentucky where he never lived (he was born in Missouri and died in Tennessee). I mentioned this fact in 7th grade, but the teacher (Mrs Goldstein) just looked at me with a look I've seen time after time when I go off on tangents.
Now, in 2021, I suggest a new person to be given the title of The Duke Of Paducah, and it's the man named Jim Finch, whom we all saw this week on the news.
Jim Finch was born in Paducah, lives elsewhere in KY, and like everyone else, he woke up on Saturday morning and saw the devastation wrought by the tornado late last Friday.
But most people saw the news, shook their heads and made vague promises to themselves to donate to Red Cross or other organizations arranging help for the people of Mayfield and other areas in the five-state swath of natural destruction.
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| Jim Finch |
Jim Finch grabbed his grill and as much food as he could pick up in his pickup and drove half an hour to Mayfield, where he parked in the middle of what used to be the town, fired up the grill, and fixed people up with food for the body and soul.
“I know they don’t have electricity. No restaurants. No running water. I just figured I would do what I could do. So I showed up with some food and some water," is how he put it.
He said it as simply and plainly as possible:
“We trying to feed the people. We got hamburgers, chicken, I got sausage, egg.”
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| A welcome sight! |
“What a blessing he is. He is warming hearts and bellies with his act of kindness,” wrote a Twitter tweeter.
“Such a kind human being. I am humbled by his generosity of spirit!” said another.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said that when the big local business, a candle factory, collapsed in the mighty wind, more than 100 people were inside, working.
“That will be, we believe, the largest site, the largest place of loss,” the governor told the Weekend TODAY show.
There is despair and there is hope, thanks to people like Jim Finch, who chose to act and help.
By the way, Whitey Ford was known for ending his shows with this gag: "I'm goin' back to the wagon, boys, these shoes are killin' me."
Let's hope that when his time and work in Mayfield are over, the new Duke will be known worldwide for his kindness and service to others.
We see the word "paleo" bandied about a lot these days; it's used in the sense of The Paleo Diet, which means you can eat all you want as long as your diet consists of anything a caveman or cavewoman could have eaten, is popular, and allows a certain latitude for including Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Chocolate Brownie Nut Chunk, on the grounds that Gnetzut Flintstone could have conceivable milked a mammal, made ice cream, and found cocoa beans and walnuts somewhere.
That footprint proves to the scientists that two bipedal humans roamed the earth at the same time, and were known as the Jonas Brothers.
“These footprints demonstrate that the evolution of upright walking was more complicated and more interesting than we previously thought,” says Jeremy DeSilva, an anthropology professor at Dartmouth College.
Up til now, it was thought that only one species of human lived at the time — Australopithecus afarensis (known as "Ozzy"), who roamed ancient Africa 3.9 to 2.9 million years ago.
Lucy the skeleton is the most famous example of Australopithecus afarensis.
But the second pair of footprints seem to belong to a different kind of human, with a peculiar way of walking. Instead of walking in a straight line, the footprints suggest they swung their foot forward and landed it in front of the other.
So that's how we used to get around - putting one foot in front of the other all day. No wonder it took forever to get to Cleveland then. Later we developed the sashay and never looked back.
And do you remember the 1963 hit recording of "Walk Right In" by the Rooftop Singers? It had that great line, "Everybody's talkin' about a new way of walkin', do you want to lose your mind?"
History wants us to remember the original version of the song, by Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers, from 1929. Gus lived until 1979 but never had another hit record.
But he never lost his mind!
Faced with a shortage of vital fluid, the great nation has decided that the only course of action would be to uncork some of the precious reserves it has laid up for just such a rainy day as this.
No, we're not talking about the US tapping into our strategic oil reserves. That's old news, and we don't deal in that. We're talking about Canada, the great nation to our north, and they have a shortage of their own. This is serious: they are short on maple syrup.
The Quebec Maple Syrup Producers has opened the stopper to allow 50 million pounds of their strategic syrup reserves. That's about half of their emergency stash.
70% of the world's maple syrup comes from Quebec. The US, where we know that there ain't no substitute for the real sweet thang, is Canada's biggest customer, but this year, as more people stayed home eating waffles, worldwide demand for real maple syrup jumped by 21%.
People are often surprised to hear that the goo sitting atop their pancakes is made from the sap of the maple tree. The sap is harvested by tapping a metal tap (so that's where they got that term) right into the tree's trunk.
In Grandpa's era, a bucket was hung from the tap to catch those precious drips, but now, a network of plastic tubes and vacuums collects the drips and transports the product to a syrup refinery.
The trees will only yield sap under very specific weather conditions. This year's short and warm Spring resulted a very low flow, according to industry spokesperson Mrs Butterworth.
That was a fake! I hope you caught it.
But Helene Normandin is a real person. She is the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers' communications director, and she says, "That's why the reserve is made, to never miss maple syrup. And we won't miss maple syrup!"
She sounds quite resolute about this winter's breakfasts, and she also is when discussing plans to avoid another shortage next year.
"What we can figure at this moment is maybe the season here in Quebec will start a bit earlier in February, instead of March, and end earlier also," she said.
The Quebec Maple Syrup Producers will be sticking their taps into some 7 million more trees soon to refill the reserve tanks.
Syrup costs money, and money does not grow on trees. It does grow IN trees, however.
