Back in the day

Some days, it's just like it used to be back in the days when we all went to bed fearing that Nikita Khrushchev (or worse, a woman who looked like him) was going to come over here from Russia and start a war, or at least, a period of great unpleasantness. Some American politicians have found it worthwhile to exploit these fears, and so it was that former movie performer Ronald W. Reagan, having been elected president of the United States in 1980, decided it would make him look good at home and abroad by rattling the sabers of war. Just by causing trouble with other countries, he could make himself look capable, he thought.

A perfect example was the time in 1984 when the aging actor parked his carcass on a chair in his vacation home near Santa Barbara in order to make his weekly radio address to the nation. He was supposed to announce that he "signed legislation that will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they've too long been denied—the freedom to meet in public high schools during nonschool hours, just as other student groups are allowed to do."

Instead, for reasons no one ever figured out, Reagan said into the microphone, "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." 

It took a lot of phone calls, cablegrams, and apologies to clear that one up!

That was just to give you an idea of the tenor of the times. There was always an undercurrent of impending war, and fooling around like that was not helpful.

I'll tell you who WAS helpful, and that was a young lady named Samantha Smith. She was only ten years of age in December,1982, when she spoke for and to children of all ages by writing a letter to Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was the leader of the Soviet Union at the time, having just been promoted from his old job as head of the KGB, the state security agency.

Samantha watched the news on television and became concerned about the arms race between our countries. So she wrote a letter to Andropov to see what he planned to do to avoid a nuclear war:

 

Dear Mr. Andropov,

My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren’t please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country. God made the world for us to live together in peace and not to fight.

Sincerely,

Samantha Smith

By April, 1983, having had no response from Andropov, Samantha invested in another stamp and wrote to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin. 

Just like when you write to Apple about a messed-up pc, she soon got a letter from the head guy!  Andropov replied later that month, acknowledging Smith’s specific question, agreeing that nuclear weapons were not for the best for anyone, and promising not to use nukes in a first strike anywhere.

And he mentioned that he thought Samantha reminded him of Becky, a courageous and honest character in Mark Twain's book "Huckleberry Finn."

American leaders saw this as a direct slap at Reagan, who was not known for familiarity with any book by any author. 

In that summer of 1983, Smith and her entire family visited the Soviet Union, touring Moscow, Leningrad, and the Artek children’s camp on the Black Sea. She came home and appeared on many television shows, and even wrote a book about her experiences ("Journey to the Soviet Union") in 1985.

She spoke in 1983 at the International Children’s Symposium in  Japan, suggesting that that U.S. and Soviet leaders exchange granddaughters for two weeks every year, since no leader would bomb a country where his granddaughter was visiting.

In 1984, an election year that would see Reagan win in a landslide, Samantha was host for an interview show about the issues of the day, called "Samantha Smith Goes to Washington: Campaign ’84."

Reagan, speaking in Louisville, Kentucky that spring, said he had begun attending church "here in Washington," and also commented on military members' "costumes," or uniforms, as we call them.

Samantha was offered chances to succeed in Reagan's line of work, and was playing a part in a TV series "Lime Street," starring Robert Wagner.

She and her father died in August, 1985, in a plane crash, returning from shooting a segment of the show in London. She was fondly remembered in Russia, where a postage stamp was issued in her honor, and in her home state of Maine, a statue showing her releasing a dove of peace is on display. Her mother has since established the Samantha Smith Foundation, a group with the goals of peace education and fostering international friendships among children.

Ronald Reagan served two full terms, accomplishing very little.

Sunday Rerun: The Other Mickey

In 1957, you could buy a copy of the Saturday Evening POST magazine for 15 cents. The cover painting for the March 2 issue of that year was a salute to baseball and the eternal hope of young rookies hoping the impress the brass and make it to the big leagues.

Norman Rockwell painted that cover, depicting Red Sox veterans Ted Williams,  Jackie Jensen, Frank Sullivan, Sammy White, and Billy Goodman all looking over a hayseed who just rolled in on a head of cabbage, toting his bat and glove, his cardboard suitcase fastened with an old leather belt.

According to legend, the rookie on the POST cover was Maurice Joseph "Mickey" McDermott, Jr.  Most fans either never knew of him or can't remember him at all from his big league career (1949 - 1961)...but you know a couple of his friends, and his story alone is interesting.

In the first place, he was signed by the Red Sox at age 15, even though clubs were not supposed to sign people below the age of 18. His father worked out a deal: Dad received $5,000 and two truckloads of Ballantine Beer, and Mickey Jr received a bus ticket for Scranton, Pennsylvania, to begin his pro career with the minor league Sox.

His major league days were not stellar. Sure, he hung around the majors for twelve seasons, compiling a won-loss record of 69-69 and a batting average of .252 - not bad for a pitcher as a hitter.  He would be the first to admit that his habits of boozing it up and running around bars and bistros at all hours limited his performance, and when his playing days ground to an end, he did what ballplayers tend to do. He found work as a pitching coach and scout and batting practice pitcher, and then as a player agent.

All in all, not noteworthy, and I wouldn't even be writing about Mickey except for some interesting facts. First, the POST cover, and by the way, the original Norman Rockwell painting sold at auction in 2014 for over 20 million American semolians.

Speaking of millions of dollars, Mickey and his wife Betty came into 7 of them. In 1991, tired of his lifelong dissolution, a string of DWI convictions and a 60-day prison sentence for piling up his car while driving blotto, Mickey went down the right path and gave up the hooch.

And THEN he and his wife hit the Arizona Lottery for $7,000,000.

And to me, those are not even the most fascinating aspects of Mickey McDermott.

THIS guy!

Do you remember the movie "The Breakfast Club"?  And how about "Arthur"? The good one, with Dudley Moore?  The first "Die Hard"?  Then you'll remember the actor named Paul Gleason, who played Ass't Principal Richard Vernon, a snarky executive who gets shut down by the John Gielgud, and Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T. Robinson, respectively, in those great movies.

And of course the great beat writer Jack Kerouac.

Why do I mention all these people? Because they were like best friends for a time when Jack was down and out, Mickey was getting up from being down and out, and Paul was giving up his minor league baseball career and getting up into the acting business (with help from Ozzie Nelson!)

I would have paid a pretty penny to hear a conversation held among those three interesting men.

The Saturday Picture Show, January 29, 2022

 

My suggestion for Elizabeth, had I been alive in 1886 (and no, I was not!) would have been to spend more time making friends and less time stitching. I know it was more or less required for young ladies to make samplers like this, but Elizabeth was an early rebel!

This image was required by law to be affixed to every surface in America between 1967 and 1976, when it was replaced by a picture of dogs playing poker.

If you have a garden, you'll find turtles nipping away at your corn and tomatoes. In the Galapagos Islands, these giant tortoises eat higher on the food chain.

As a former clerk at the A&P Food Stores around town, I ground many a bag of Bokar or Red Circle or Eight O'Clock. My secret was, I swiped a bean out of every bag and popped it in my mouth like a caffeine LifeSaver. Tasty!

How come these sheaves of straw remind me of furled beach umbrellas?

This is art from the school known as "Trompe-l'œil" - French for "Deceive The Eye." It's a lot cheaper to paint on a fake addition than to build a real addition. Remember that: "Trompe" means to deceive. Gotcha.

This example of stupidity took place in Yosemite National Park. I know, that sign means for everyone else not to enter.

Nice quote from Richard Wagner, the German composer known for the heavy, ponderous music drama operas he composed. He called his style "Gesamtkunstwerk," which is German for "you can't dance to it."

No Coke. Pepsi. New York, 1963.

Even this seahorse knows enough to take a mask with him! Greek Isles, 2022.

Don't Come In Yet, We're Dressing!

"And your salad dressing, please?"

My default is usually bleu cheese, sometimes pepper parm ranch or creamy Italian. 

But there are two sentences no one has ever heard me say, and they are:

"What time does Oprah come on?"

and

"Make mine French dressing, please"

I even keep a bottle of 1000 Island dressing handy for Reuben sandwiches, but I'm certain I have never poured gloppy orangish French dressing on any salad of mine. So the fact that it has been regulated by your vigilant federal government for 70 years, and no longer will be, is immaterial to me.

"When the standard of identity was established in 1950, French dressing was one of three types of dressings we identified," the Food and Drug Administration said in the final rule posted in the Federal Register recently.  The other two were mayonnaise and just "salad dressing."

This is fascinating to know: French dressing is the only pourable salad dressing that has to live up to federal standards requiring it to contain oil, acidifying ingredients and seasoning. If you shop for breads, jam, and juices, those items stand on their own, but for reasons I will never get, French dressing has always had to toe a very precise line.

But this is weird:  none of those standards concern having a reddish-orange color or even a trace of tomato.

In 1998, the Association for Dressing and Sauces, an industry group that has kept an eye on the salad dressing tureens of our land since 1926, asked for the revocation of these standards. As reason, they cite the vast array of other dressings on the shelf - among them ranch, bleu cheese, peppercorn and Italian. The now-overlooked French has been "marginalized and is no longer a baseline for other dressings," the association said.

So the FDA acted hastily, ruling just 22 years after that request to remove the stipulations making French dressing French dressing, "in the name of 'flexibility' and 'innovation.'  

1960 advertisement

 

"There are a wide variety of French-style dressings on the market, and these will continue to be available based on consumer demand," the AFDAS said in a public statement. 

If you're in the habit of dousing your Romaine with Orange Wishbone, the good news is, the new rule will not require manufacturers to change their practices a bit. Enjoy!

 

Millie Come Home!

At one time, we found ourselves dogsitting a relative's Min-Pin, a teeny version of a Doberman Pinscher. Unlike a cat, a dog needs to be escorted to the men's room, which is also known as The Great Outdoors, and then his/her escort gets to pull out a plastic bag and remove the evidence. 

A cat, by comparison, will take itself to the rest room, often carrying a newspaper along to read, and will bury the evidence, even going so far as to round up the clumped waste, bag it neatly, and leave it for you to take out on trash night.

Not looking to start a dog vs. cat war, just saying that if you enjoy staying inside as much as I do, cats are the ticket, because this happens with dogs:

In Hampshire, southern England, a dog named Millie was out playing on a dangerous tidal flat. She slipped her collar, and away she went!

British Hampshire-Volunteers got the call on Thursday, January 13, that Millie was on the loose.  Millie is a cross between a Jack Russell and a whippet, so she moves about as fast as a dragstrip car, and a human can't run that fast.

Stephanie Dennis, 20, is Millie's human, and she knew that the tidal flat was prone to flooding, so she got in touch with a volunteer organization called Denmy Drone Search and Rescue (DDSAR), and they came up with a new idea: a drone.

At first, people went on foot and in a kayak to get to Millie, but no soap.

The Coast Guard, the local fire department, and the police also tried to help catch her.

But the pooch kept creeping farther away the closer the humans got to her.

By Sunday the 16th, the volunteers were getting frantic, and one of them came up with an idea: Let's hang sausages from the drone and lure Millie back to safety.

A neighbor who lives out by the beach stepped up and offered to cook the sausages. "She was under great pressure. The world is on her shoulders. But these sausages were obviously very tasty.”

Someone came up with string, and people tied the cooked bangers (sausages) to the drone and sent them out as bait.

“The string was tied around the drone’s body and the sausage and hung about a couple of meters. It was very difficult to determine how close it was to the ground, but it worked."

“People were passing by and didn’t know what was going on. It was cheerful,” she said.

Millie, no fool, caught on fast. She sniffed the air and tried to catch a tube of meat.

“She was very hungry and got it at some point, and she almost took a drone and got about half of the sausage.”

The dog ran from the tidal flats to safe ground, finally running back to her owner's happy arms on Monday the 17th.

“I think we all cried. I’m very grateful she got home,” Dennis said. “Millie was saved in a way that the community got together.”

Happy ending!

Does U2 like Yoo-Hoo?

I see that Bono, the frontman for the band U2, was on a podcast saying that he "still" doesn't like U2's band name and he turns off the radio when he hears himself sing.

I always knew I had something in common with that Irishman!

He was on the Awards Chatter podcast talking about his career and his music.

"I still don’t [like it]," he said of the band's name. "I really don’t. But I was late into some kind of dyslexia. I didn’t realise that The Beatles was a bad pun either. In our head it was like the spy plane, U-boat, it was futuristic — as it turned out to imply this kind of acquiescence, no I don’t like that name. I still don’t really like the name.

OK, the Beatle name was a pun, a tribute to rock founding father Buddy Holly and his band The Crickets. I don't call that a bad pun at all. 

But U2? Yes, that was a spy plane, and thereby hangs a tale, if you have a minute.

On May 1,1960, the Eisenhower era of somnolent living was coming to an end. That fall, John F. Kennedy would be elected, ushering in an administration he called "The New Frontier." 

But as the clock ran out on "Ike," there was one last international incident to deal with.  On May 1, former Air Force pilot Francis Gary Powers, who had retired from the military to fly a CIA spy plane over the Soviet Union, was captured by the Russians, who took exception to being spied on.

Powers with his U2

In Washington, Eisenhower and his military brass harrumphed away the very notion of spying! America would never do that! Powers was flying a weather observation plane, and somehow got lost! 

Yeah, that's the ticket.  

And America didn't worry about someone calling us out on this, because they counted on Powers to kill himself if captured in the act of spying. He had been issued a coin containing a poison needle, and the military figured he had offed himself.

But he didn't. Russia had both the pilot and the plane almost fully intact, in their possession. It was a major embarrassment for Eisenhower to admit that the US had been spying with the U2 plane. 

Powers spent almost two years in a Russian prison before being traded, along with American college student Frederic Pryor, for a Russian spy and a third-round draft pick in the next CIA rookie draft. He lived 15 years in relative ignominy, generally regarded as insufficiently valiant for not using the self-destruct charge that the plane carried, which would have destroyed, and kept out of Russian hands, the camera, photographic film, and other related classified parts. And there were those who criticized him for not killing himself.

He came home, and divorced his wife, who had been known to be with other men during his incarceration and have numerous affairs. She broke her leg dancing with one gentleman, and failed to go with the CIA-issued cover story that she broke it waterskiing. Powers's sad life came to a heroic end, however, in 1977, when he was flying a helicopter for a Los Angeles TV that ran out of power. During descent, Powers steered the chopper away from a group of children playing. This evasive maneuver disrupted the helicopter's autorotative system.

So, if you are in contact with Bono, please clue him in to the derivation of his band's name. He probably won't care.

It's an extra 50 cents if you want mustard

I am not a fan of bologna, although I appreciate how much money I would have saved over the years if I had been willing to brown bag a bologna on white with American cheese. But "baloney," fried and wrapped around a kosher hot dog, now that's good lunch! 

So, bologna has that secondary use, and now there's this: 

It seems that it was (or is) popular to take a slice of bologna and bite out holes for eyes and mouth, and call it a face mask.

Bologna King Oscar Mayer is paying dutiful homage to this meat mask business with a skin care product! Really!

The Kraft Heinz brand is partnering with a Korean beauty and skin care outfit called Seoul Mamas. That company is making "face sheets," which they want you to know give the user “a hydrating and restoring hydrogel that promote skin elasticity, improve hydration and moisture retention.”

And they are smart enough to cadge $5 out of you for this. They went on sale last week, but the market was flooded.  The bologna masks are all sold out for on Amazon, but they "could be" restocked. “Due to unexpected incredibly high demand, we are working to get the sheet masks back in stock over the coming days,” Kraft Heinz told USA TODAY.  Amazon also listed them as Amazon’s "#1 new release"  in beauty and personal care, even as they told you that you couldn't order any.

“Oscar Mayer has a legacy bringing levity to things that have gotten too serious, and beauty is a ripe territory to playfully subvert,” Lindsey Ressler, a senior marketing analyst for Oscar Mayer, said in a statement.

The masks, if you can ever get your hands on one and your face in one, contain Witch Hazel Botanical and seaweed-derived ingredients. Oscar wants you to know they are NOT edible and come with a warning to "not eat" them because "that's what bologna slices are for."

The product listing on Amazon proudly sings, "Our bologna has a nickname and it’s B-E-A-U-T-Y," not O-S-C-A-R. "No, this sheet mask is not real bologna. Put it on your face, not your sandwich."

The mask packaging looks similar to a pack of Oscar Mayer bologna complete with the Wienermobile, which was added to packages last year as part of the "Keep It Oscar" rebranding and transformation campaign.

Here are the complete directions for using a bologna face mask:

• Clean face
• Apply mask
• Relax for 10-20 minutes
• Remove mask
• Feel like fool.

I Think He Made It

Normally, I love January, but this one can go right to heck. I mean, starting with Betty White on New Year's Eve, look at how many bright stars we have lost! Sidney Poitier, Ronnie Spector, Fred Parris of the Five Satins, Yvette Mimieux, Bob Saget, Louie Anderson, and now, Meat Loaf.

I think back to 1977 and the day when Gerry Thompson, the local Columbia/Epic Records promotion guy, stopped at the radio station to deliver the latest batch of new records, one of which was "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," by someone or some group named Meat Loaf. Gerry was quick to tell us that it was one performer, and that record company employees had been asked to address him as "Mr. Loaf," which seemed a bit formal to me. I latched onto a copy of the "Bat Out Of Hell" album, took it home, and liked it a lot, never figuring it for a hit of any sort.

Shows what I know.  The record, which was the brilliant result of the work of co-producers Jim Steinman (who died last April) and the great Todd Rundgren, went on to sell 43 million copies. It's been certified 14 times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Even Loaf's names have stories behind them. He was born Marvin Lee Aday in Texas (1947), but changed "Marvin" to "Michael" because, as a child, he was too husky to fit into Levi's, and the jeans company had a radio commercial that taunted him: "Poor fat Marvin can't wear Levi's."

His father called him "Meat" because he was "born the color of ground beef, " and the rest of his stage name was appended at age 13 when, "I stepped on a [football] coach's foot, and he screamed, 'Get off my foot, you hunk of meat loaf!' "

We all have our fond memories, don't we?

"Paradise" never became a huge hit single, although it's still a popular cut for DJs who need 7 minutes and 55 seconds* to run down the hall to shake hands with the governor.  But Loaf's first hit, a Steinman song, paid tribute to Elvis.

The King had had a hit with "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You" in 1956, but Steinman wrote a song about a guy who yes, wanted and needed someone, but was not willing to dot the final "i" and say, "I love you." Steinman called it "Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad."

Give a listen to "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," and appreciate that Mr. Loaf brought theatrical performance to rock and both of those arts were the better for it. By the way, the baseball play-by-play on the record was recorded by Phil Rizzuto, the former shortstop and announcer for the damn Yankees. Phil would later claim that he had no idea that his words were being spliced into a ribald tale of teen longing. Steinman said that was not so, and Phil just wanted to deflect criticism for being the first guy to holler "Holy Cow,I think he's gonna make it!" on a record.

* A record which, by the way, was actually 8 minutes and 29 seconds long, but the prevailing wisdom was that no radio station would play a record that long, so "Let's tell 'em it's less than 8 minutes! Yeah, that's the ticket!"

I miss the 70s.

Sunday Rerun (from 2011): Don't Talk Back

 You like to sing in the car, don't you?  Come on!  I see you at stop lights and making sharp turns, belting out a medley of Broadway show tunes, country classics and rock 'n' rollers.  I do too.  It's amazing how great I sound in the truck, and I always think some sharpie ought to hook up a recorder in here and really make some fine records.  Of me singing along with someone else's records.

To someone else's songs.  Just think of how great it would be if we could compose a lilting melody and smart lyrics of our own!  Just think, if we had a happy day and were in the Biscayne heading home and could just write a happy-day song about it all!  How great would that be!

Also great: being Jerry Leiber, who, along with partner Mike Stoller, wrote a few songs you might have heard over the years.  A few!  Such as, for starters:
 

• "There Goes My Baby" 
• "Hound Dog"
• "Kansas City"
• "Smokey Joe's Cafe"
• "Yakety Yak"
• "Poison Ivy"
• "Charlie Brown"
• "Ruby Baby"
• "Stand By Me" 
• "Jailhouse Rock"
• "Love Potion No. 9"
• "Searchin'"
• "Young Blood" 
• "Is That All There Is?"
• "I'm a Woman" 
• "On Broadway" 

 Baltimore claims Jerry Leiber as a native son, although he didn't hang around here for long.  In fact, he was in Los Angeles, finishing high school in 1950, when he met Stoller and began their collaboration with the tender love ballad "Real Ugly Woman."  (They got better after that.)

Leiber and Stoller wrote "Hound Dog" for the King (left) and also gave him "Love Me," "Loving You," "Don't," "Jailhouse Rock" and "King Creole."

Leiber, who passed away last week at 78,  and Stoller were among the crowd that made what's called "Brill Building" music.  The Brill Building is an office building on Broadway in fashionable New York City, where songwriters sat around all day in the 60's - people such as Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Sedaka, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Neil Diamond, and Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry - and wrote songs that got lots of dimes dropped into lots of jukeboxes in lots of malt shops.  You've done songs like "Be My Baby," "Save the Last Dance for Me," "Stand by Me," "Up on the Roof" and "On Broadway" while you were nowhere near Broadway!  But I bet you were somebody's baby, up on the roof dancing with him or her one summer night, and those songs remind you of the then that is always part of the now.

 

The Saturday Picture Show, January 22, 2022

This might be one of those spite houses, built with the main purpose of obstructing someone's view. I don't know, but I do know, the bedroom is small enough that you'll have to step out into the hall to change your mind.

In Brazil, a brilliant Brazilian artist has transformed this ugly bridge abutment into a work of elegance and style. Bite my shorts, man!

William T. Mullen, of Clayton, Alabama, loved his whiskey, oh yeah. He came back from brief service in the War Of Southern Disrespect after just two months in the Confederate Army because he preferred his booze over everything else in life, including his wife Mary, the daughter of the county jailor. She always said that the hooch was going to put him in an early grave. He got there in 1863, and she had a special bottle-shaped headstone made for him.

What on earth is prettier on a cold snowy morning than a nice warm sunrise?

This frozen arctic fox was found in Siberia, and he is 18,350 years old. We know for sure that while he roamed the tundra, he maintained a conscientious program of oral hygiene: all teeth intact!

This is "Comfort Town," a suburb of Kiev, Ukraine, where the locals have painted buildings and houses and apartments and offices in bright happy colors to stand apart from the surrounding grey Soviet style buildings that surround them. 

Continuing our series of really cool places and nooks where one can sit and read in peace...look how comfortable that leather chair looks!

So, the lesson is, get a yellow car. It will be easier to find.

You might think that this shows a young budding physician, trying out the tools of the trade as a child, and then reaching her goal. But what it really is, is a picture of a man seeing the young doctor, and how long it took him to get a follow-up appointment.

You don't have these in Miami or Cairo or Mexico City, but in Baltimore we have some hilly streets that get slick with ice in winter, and a little saltbox full of salt adds traction and a chance to salute some local heroes.
 

Out on the lawn

There has never been a school year like these last three! And it doesn't look like things are getting better for the schools, either. Should we hold class or go virtual? How about asynchronous learning? Are students better off socializing at social distances, or safer at home without the cooties of others getting all over them?

No one knows for sure, and that's why there are as many educational programs going on from sea to shining sea as there are counties and cities.

But once things do simmer down a bit, let's think about this school out in Iowa that features a curriculum that lets students receive physical education credits by going around and doing yard work for senior citizens and people with disabilities. 

Tim Hitzler is a teacher at Dubuque's Alternative Learning Center, and he says that kids who elect to help can do a number of chores to earn credits in their final two weeks of school...and many times, those final two weeks make or break a diploma. 

“Could be raking leaves, pulling weeds, cutting grass, cleaning gutters, just depends on what they need,” Hitzler said.

The ALC teaches high school students at risk of dropping out, who struggle to complete their education.

“The students aren’t typically too excited at the beginning but once they get involved and start doing the yard work they become more motivated,” Hitzler went on to say.  “What they really like is helping people,” he added. “They really like giving back to people and meeting the person.”

I don't picture a whole lot of kids getting thrills over spreading mulch or mowing lawns, but it sounds like the kind of thing that, once you get into it, might be even more fun than doing jumping jacks or archery. Perhaps our local schools here might look into it!

What a card

Unless you are Novak Djokovic, you probably have a good idea where your COVID-19 vaccination card is right this very minute, right?

Well. maybe you do, and maybe you were using it as a bookmark while reading "57 Shades Of Heinz" and then when you threw the book out in disgust over inadequate character development and a certain stilted writing style, out went your card. 

Or maybe it got lost in your gym bag where it lies moldering today. 

Quite possibly, you used it to write a quick grocery list (milk  ham  cheese  sardines) and left it by the checkout stand where you now get to do dual duty as shopper and cashier.

Don't fret. The Baltimore County Dept of Health (one of many institutions that claim me as an erstwhile employee) says, here's how to get a replacement card! (Don't lose this!)

Give Blood, please

COVID-19 is having more effects on our world than we even thought about in those early days two years ago. You know, when we were told it would all go away as soon as it warmed up in April...

Now the virus has moved the the American Red Cross to announce that the US is facing its worst blood shortage in over a decade.

This means there is a  “concerning risk” to the treatment of patients, the Red Cross says, because doctors are going to have to make some tough calls about who will receive blood transfusions and who will have to wait.

It's that two-edged sword right now: more people in hospitals due to the virus, and 10 percent fewer people donating blood these days.

 

Dr. Baia Lasky, the medical director for the ARC, says, “There’s just been such an upending of the normal rhythm of our lives,” referring to those who regularly donated blood in the past. “It’s just really hard to get back into the swing of things,” she said, pointing out that so people do not wish to go into a public space if it's not essential.

And what's more, staff shortages have caused blood drives to be cancelled, there has been bad weather all over, and that all adds up to a serious shortage of blood.

Dr Lasky reminds us that “Blood cannot be manufactured or stockpiled,” nor stored indefinitely.  “It’s really the blood on our shelves that we have today that saves lives today.”

Of late, the Red Cross has had less than a day’s worth of the most critical blood types.  This is serious business.

And you can help. I started donating in 1984 to repay a debt I felt I owed for blood transfusions Peggy received during an illness. My next donation will be my 86th, and if you know me at all, you know I am not prone to doing anything that makes me uncomfortable or causes pain. The needle will not hurt you. You will be well-cared for as you donate, and you won't leave without having a drink and a snack and some warm words from a grateful staffer or two. It takes maybe 90 minutes out of your day, and you were just going to watch a rerun of "Everybody Loves Raymond," anyway, so why not go do something to help others?  Marie Barone would be proud of you, as will I.

Enjoy your Lorna Doone cookies! Call today, please.

Apply Preparation H for this Asteroid

If you are reading this on the morning/early afternoon of January 18, sometime before 4:51 PM, it's not too late to warn you of what's going to happen at that fateful moment.

If you are reading it after that point, and the best estimates by skywatchers at NASA were off by 1.2 million miles, what had happened was that an asteroid that NASA calls a "Near-Earth object" collided with Earth. It's as close as this big hugger will come to earth for the next 200 years. In that matter, it's like a Meatloaf reunion tour. 

This asteroid is officially known as 7482, but his friends call him "7." He's supposed to do a drive-by this afternoon in a Ford Galaxie (what else?) at a speed of about 43,754 mph, according to NASA.

“Near-Earth #asteroid 1994 PC1 (~1 km wide) is very well known and has been studied for decades by our #PlanetaryDefense experts. Rest assured, 1994 PC1 will safely fly past our planet 1.2 million miles away.”

NASA tweeted the above last week, a remarkable feat in itself, considering that they typed with one hand. The other was busy crossing its fingers.

I couldn't find a picture of the asteroid, but doesn't this potato chip look just like it?

The asteroid is more than twice as big as the Empire State Building.

And who doesn't love reading that there is "no threat" that the asteroid will land on Cleveland or something?  NASA still says it's a “potentially hazardous object” because it's so doggone big and so far away.

It's not quite big enough to see with the naked eye, so put some clothes on and try using that telescope that Aunt Hildegarde got you in tenth grade instead of the gram scale you really wanted. Just don't get too close to the window. Or watch the fiery end on the Virtual Telescope Project’s livestream, which will begin its feed starting at noon with a cartoon festival.

Listen, I'm not foretelling anything wrong, but remember, the Titanic was built by experts.

 

In honor of Dr King (from 2016)

 “With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” - Dr Martin Luther King, Jr

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. was a preacher in from Atlanta, serving as minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Ala. It's hard to believe, but this occurred in America some sixty years ago: Black citizens were required to ride in the back of the municipal buses (they did pay the same fare as all others), and were not allowed to shop in certain stores, dine at some restaurants, or even use public toilets or water fountains. Or Vote. 

Inspired by the resistance of a hard-working seamstress named Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man and move to the back of the bus, Dr King led a boycott of those buses.  It took almost two years, but in the end, the buses in Montgomery were desegregated, open to all.  

Today, we pause from the day-to-day to honor a man who had the courage to lead the nation away from the awful practices of legal racial prejudice and discrimination.

 He went on to lead the fight to allow all citizens to vote.  Again, I am writing this for the benefit of the young, who might find it hard to believe there was a time and place in this country when a man or woman of legal voting age could be denied the right to vote because of the color of their skin.

Of course, even the young can see that a political platform that damns an entire race or religious group or seeks to keep them from coming to the Land Of The Free is based on "hair-brained" foolishness.

There was an interesting article in the Washington POST the other day about the Dr King Memorial in Washington.  National Park Service guide John W. McCaskill, stationed there, encounters all sorts of visitors to the monument.  Some are just learning about the fight for civil rights in the US, and some are people who were there on the front lines of the fight - literally.

One day, he met Rev. C.T. Vivian.  In 1965, Rev. Vivian was on the steps of the Birmingham municipal building, trying to register new voters. And a violent sheriff, one Jim Clark, stood in their way and said they could not register.  

Vivian stood firm for the right to vote. Clark hit Vivian so hard that he broke his hand. As blood poured from his nose and mouth, Rev Vivian had the courage to say this to the news cameras recording this horror:  

   "We are willing to be beaten for democracy."

And that courage flowed from the heart of the man whom we honor today. 

Please remember that, the next time that voting seems an inconvenience, or kindness to persons of a different faith or background seems to be too much trouble. 

Sunday Rerun: The Terrorism Of Toms River

 Meanwhile, in New Jersey:

Former NY Met and NY Yankee ballplayer Todd Frazier checks in to report that he is the victim of terrorism.

I guess you'd have to call it domestic terrorism, because the perpetrators are a rafter of wild turkeys, estimated to number 40-60, parading around the town of Toms River, where he lives, waiting by the phone to see if he'll be hired by another team for next season.

(We call male turkeys, be they wild or Perdue, "toms" the same way we call male cats "tomcats." This deal with calling male animals "toms" dates back to Benjamin Franklin, which makes one wonder why he didn't propose calling them "bens." This has nothing to do with this story taking place in Toms River. We guess.)

Toms River has a section called Holiday City, which is where these gobblers are strutting around (they can run at 20 mph), blocking driveways, chasing people around, even making prank phone calls and ordering pizzas under phony names.

Frazier went on Twitter to say, "They have come close to harming my family and friends, ruined my cars, trashed my yard and much more." And he complained about "Toms River and the Toms River wildlife" not being empowered to force the birds to leave the area, and, in the manner of rich, well-known people everywhere, demanded that the governor get involved, because that's what being a state governor is all about.

"Animal control needs to step up and move these animals ASAP. State wildlife control needs to figure it out," Frazier tweeted.

Mr Frazier might be surprised to hear that humans share the land with all sorts of flora and fauna. Meanwhile, someone who does understand how things work is Larry Hajna, spokesperson for the Dept. of Environmental Protection.

Hajna said the Fish & Wildlife people are working with Holiday Citizen and the local homeowner’s association, but...

"The Division of Fish and Wildlife has offered to trap the birds but so far has not been granted access to a large enough open area to set traps," Hajna said on Friday.

So.  "Come fix this problem but stay off my land to do it."

We had one wild turkey on our deck years ago. Quite an impressive beast. I wasn't fast enough with my snare to be able to have him for dinner.

The Saturday Picture Show, January 15, 2022

 

For the real feeling of security while camping, try this refitted English armored car-camper. 

Mr Jackman is currently on Broadway in the role of Professor Harold Hill in "The Music Man." The Yakman is currently serving a 41-month sentence for breaking into Congress last year.

There's a good chance that with a hotshot and a screwdriver for a key, you could get a few of these old VWs running. They really built them strong back then.

The Beaver Construction Company at work along the banks of the Gunpowder River in Baltimore County.

Ever see one of those people giving you the side eye like this? Or is it the front eye???

This is a spice market in Marrakesh. I hope they sell "striped djellebas we can wear at home."

One spot on the globe, four seasons, your choice. It's the last one for me!

I can see this being an idea for a cafe in a place like Hampden...you can have an organic taco, a chai tea, and fix the seam in your pants while you sit and chat.

One of my favorite things about being a cat dad is watching them watching things out the window!

You know what they say: Nature has a mind of its own. This tree decided to change course some time ago and eventually got straightened out.