The Saturday Picture Show, April 30, 2022

 

Every spring, most Baltimoreans plan a visit to Sherwood Gardens, a private park open to all (dawn to dusk) in the Guilford section of the city. It's really truly lovely.

Actor Jon Bernthal is playing corrupt Baltimore Police Sgt. Wayne Jenkins in the HBO miniseries "We Own This City," all about the crooks in the defunct Gun Trace Task Force. These rotten bums sullied the relationship between the city cops and the residents of Baltimore. Jenkins is in a federal lockup until 2038, so maybe the series will still be streaming when he gets out.

If you've ever seen the giant bolts and nuts on structures such as highway lights and signs, you think "they must have some king-size wrenches to build them!" See the banana for size comparison.

These are just normal size tools, but don't try tightening anything with them. They are made of chocolate, in a chocolate shop in Krakow, Poland.

This one reminds me of the one where the skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and a mop. I love skeleton jokes.

Continuing our series of WorldWide Mobile Homes, this combination school bus/ski chalet/outhouse offers getaway fun in high style!

Not the greatest grill in the world, although we had a little hibachi long ago and it worked great! But what a view for an Italian vacation!

$12.95 for a hot fudge sundae at Peter Luger's Steak House in New York doesn't seem so bad when you see the price of a steak there!

Chris Rock, still wearing a somewhat surprised look, came to town last weekend for two shows and found a minute to pose with a fan at a store in Fell's Point.

There used to be two or three "local" beers in every city before the giant breweries took over.  This is the former American brewery in East Baltimore. In their heyday, a six-pack of their beer cost 99 cents. It sold well on Sundays, after everyone spent the big money on better beer on Friday and Saturday.

Want probation with that?

It has long been a policy of fast food places, and many food service establishments in general, to offer police a discount on their food. It's good for business. Frankly, Burger King is not going to go broke by knocking a couple bucks off the cost of a Whopper With Cheese. 

And there is something to be said for having police around in terms of crime deterrence. Our credit union does not have to worry about being held up, because crooks know that guy in line behind them in flip flops and surfer shorts might very well be a cop on the way to the beach, pulling out a little folding money for the trip. 

But, you give some people a break, and there are always others trying to break in and get theirs, too. Sad but true.

Down in Bunnell, Florida, a man named David Stover was arrested at Wendy's for trying to get a discount on his Baconator by impersonating a DEA agent, according to police.

Stover, 57, (I wonder if his friends call him "Smokey") was arrested at the Wendy’s at 2570 Commerce Parkway.

It all started with police getting a call reporting a customer was arguing with the staff.

Stover, who really looks like he knows his fast foods, was demanding a police discount on his chow, and threatening to report the staff to Wendy's Corporate Headquarters for not giving him a break on prices, according to police.

Police said Stover has been a regular diner at that particular Wendy's for the past two years.  Wendy's staff said he used to get a discount because he had a friend who worked there and gave him bucks off the bill, but when that friend walked out the door for the last time, so did Stover's discount.

So Stover took to calling himself a law enforcement officer.

The store manager said that Stover would often tell workers he was an undercover DEA agent and would occasionally show a badge when asked for proof, as per the report.

Now Stover tells investigators he never claimed to be a DEA agent, but does carry a real official-looking concealed carry permit badge, and says he displayed it to employees when they asked to see a badge to go with his burgers and fries.

Stover is charged with impersonating a law enforcement officer.

You can go out tonight and buy one of those phony tin badges, but you will still need to pay full prices for your Wendy's® $5 Biggie™ Bag.

C'est la vie

If you want to appear worldly, throw some French words into your ordinary patois (!) and see how people will step back in awe!

Let's say your wish is to seem romantic and continental. If you want to ask someone to have dinner with you, the way to ask is NOT to say, "Hey, whaddya say we tie on the old feedbag?" That sounds too rural.

But, pull "Dînons ensemble" out of your bag of tricks, and make reservations for tonight at Un Endroit Pour Manger.

Similarly, just calling those deep-fried shoestring spuds "French Fries" sounds way too McDonald's-y when you wish to seem all Johnny Depp-y. (By the way, let's hear it for Kentucky native John Christopher Depp II, changing his accent for his televised trial to make it sound like he's Johnny Gielgud all of a sudden!)

Just say, "pommes frites" (pahm freet) and you'll sound like you just got in from Cannes yesterday morning.

And why just sound all elegant when you can also smell all elegant?

The Idaho Potato Commission is here to help. They celebrate romance while saluting their signature crop with a limited edition potato perfume.

The fragrance is called Frites by Idaho. They made it by distilling Idaho potatoes and essential oils. They say it smells just like a fresh dish of fries!

"Whether you're at a drive through restaurant or dining in, it's near impossible to not grab a fry and take a bite before you dive into your meal. The smell is too good to resist," IPC President and CEO Jamey Higham said in a news release. "This perfume is a great gift for anyone who can't refuse a French fry."

And that's just about everyone, let's be honest.

The commission said the $1.89 bottles of the fragrance sold out quickly on the IPC website, but social media users can still enter an Instagram contest to win free bottles.

And, there's no need to tell the recipient that the gift of potato perfume you gave them only set you back $1.89. That's ₣10.98392 in French francs! That could be a thousand US dollars for all anyone knows!

Another Spring Sunday In America

The arrival of April brings with it every year baseball games to enjoy in person, or on radio or tv, spring fairs and festivals in town squares and churchyards, snowball stands opening for business, and people decked out in shorts and t-shirts.  All good.

Of course, spring brings with it certain annoyances, such as golf matches, stock car races, and tennis tournaments on Sunday afternoon TV, which makes the news come on late (or not at all), mosquitoes the size of military aircraft, and, the most American nonsense of all, aircraft stunts on Sunday afternoons that, sadly, wind up on the news (if it comes on) as planes crash and pilots eject, and for what valid purpose?

The perfect example, and mercifully no one died in it, occurred Sunday, when Red Bull, manufacturers of the caffeine-laden energy drink, concocted a trick in which two pilots bailed out of their own airplanes and tried to skydive into each other's plane way up in the air.

Now the federal government has been called into the matter to find out what was up (in the air) with all that.

Andy Farrington, 42, and his cousin, Luke Aikins, 48, were up there, each at the controls of a Cessna prop plane at 12,000 feet. They called it "The First Midair Plane Swap," and maybe there was a reason why no one in history ever thought it would be a good idea. But hey, it was live on Hulu, so let's go!

So there they were, flying too high in the sky, and they sky dive out of their respective planes. And then, one of the planes went into a flat spin. Falling earthward at a rate of 140 miles per hour, Farrington used his parachute to come down, and Aikins somehow made it to Farrington's plane and took over the controls.

The other plane came down to earth when its tail chute deployed. Both pilots wound up on the ground, predictably, and they were both unharmed.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has much more important things to worry about than these imbecilic stunts, told NBC News it did not sanction this nonsense. They have launched a full investigation. NBC News asked Red Bull if this silly exhibition required FAA approval.

 "The Red Bull Air Force maintains a close working relationship with the FAA for all aircraft and aviation feats," Red Bull wrote in an email.

And now we know there is a Red Bull Air Force!

But the FAA told NBC that it had denied Red Bull's request for "an exemption from federal regulations that cover the safe operation of an aircraft.”

All the top generals of the Red Bull Air Force are investigating how things could have gone so wrong.  

"We are investigating how — despite our careful planning — this occurred," a Red Bull Air Force spokesperson told NBC, which added that the pilots could be fined or have their licenses revoked as a result of the FAA investigation.

Also,  the FAA could fine or ground the Red Bull Air Force, and that would be a shame, because the Red Bull Air Force is such a vital part of our national defense against sluggishness.

Remember when things made sense?

  

Here Come The Renters

Two of my favorite Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison, have gone on to their rewards, leaving my third favorite, Ringo Starr, and that guy with the eyebrows, Paul, I think is his name.

And as we all know, all four of the Fab Four came from working class backgrounds in Merrie Olde England. George came from such a family: his father, Harold, was a school bus driver; his mom, Louise, kept the home, raised four kids, and taught ballroom dance.

And I would think that a real Beatles fan would jump at the chance to do an Airbnb thing, and rent that house where George lived from ages 6 to 18, right?  Here's the story...

The home where The Beatles rehearsed many times is at 25 Upton Green in Speke, which is a southeast suburb of Liverpool, England.  It's what the British call a terrace house, and we call a rowhouse or a townhouse. George and his three siblings and their parents moved in in 1949, moving out in 1962 just as Beatlemania swept England and headed for our shores.

Another family bought the house from the Harrisons; they stayed for 50-some years, moving out in 2014. At that point, the new owners turned it into a rental for a while until 2021, when it went up for auction. A Beatle fan from New Hampshire, Ken Lambert, bought it then for £171,000, (about $223,000), having seen the listing from Omega Auctions calling the house a “truly unique opportunity to own the property where George spent his formative years and that played an important part in helping The Beatles flourish.”

Lambert, with help of a Liverpudlian local, has been ever since working on the place, getting it ready for company.  He found furniture and wall treatments appropriate to the time of the fifties and early sixties, and posted photos and added furniture for the right feel. He studied old photographs and found period-appropriate furniture and wallpaper to help transport guests back in time. Of course, he brought in a record player and a stack of Beatles albums.  

“I wanted to do it for myself, to play the guitar and play the Beatles in the room the Beatles played guitar,” Lambert tells the Herald. “That really is a cool thing for people to experience.”

While the childhood homes of Paul McCartney (THAT'S his name!) and John Lennon are maintained for preservation by the National Trust, a European conservation organization, Harrison’s house has not been given that treatment. I don't know why. But Mr Lambert is doing his part, opening the place for rental by fans on a pilgrimage.

And you can rent it for less than the price of a top beach resort! The erstwhile  Harrison home is available for short-term rentals on Airbnb (£200, or $260, per night). 

If you go, please share lots of pictures, and send me a postcard!

35 years

I am steadfast in my admiration for Don Geronimo, the Washington DC DJ who is one of the last remaining shock jocks from the golden age of radio, which has been sadly replaced by podcasts and streaming services and music saved on telephones, for crying out loud.

During his glory days as (the better) half of the "Don And Mike (O'Meara) Show," Don frequently played a clip of Bart Simpson saying, "Country music sucks! All it does is take precious air space away from shock DJs whose cruelty and profanity amuse us all!"

Don will be the first to tell you now that things have changed on the radio landscape, not that he really dealt in cruelty, but yes, he danced around the edges of propriety back when we all were more nimble. His kind of fun was having people send their cell phone in the tube at the drive-thru bank to see if he could get the teller to come on the air with him. 

He's alive and well, doing mornings on Big 100 in Washington, playing classic rock hits that were Top 40 hits when he played them originally.

And on the sad side of those Top 40 days...it was in 1987, when Don was doing the Morning Zoo show on WAVA, a man claiming to be Don Geronimo called a 14-year-old girl on the phone, telling her that she had won a trip to Hawaii and a thousand dollars.

Another radio station was running that contest at the time, but the man was able to fool the teenager into thinking he was, indeed, Donnie G.  And he told her that all she needed to do to claim her prizes was to meet him at yet another radio station.

She went to that station. The man abducted her, took her to a desolate dirt road, and raped her.

That was 1987, a day Geronimo calls "the worst day of (his) life." Imagine, having his name involved in perpetrating this heinous unspeakable crime. And after all these years, thank Heaven, science apparently has solved the crime.

Last week, Fairfax County police arrested and charged a 59-year-old Ashburn (VA) man for that terrible crime. They used the same genetic technique that California detectives employed to get the Golden State Killer.

The guy's name was William Clark (no relation!) and he will face counts of rape, abduction with intent to defile, and attempted forcible sodomy, according to the  police, who are holding him at the Fairfax County jail without bond. Clark was 24 at the time of the assault and living in Herndon, police said.  

Geronimo!

At a news conference, Fairfax County PD Maj. Ed O’Carroll said that police had investigated more than 70 suspects over the years. Clark was not an original suspect at the time, however, nor did he even come to the attention of the police until this past January, when genetic genealogy revealed what police call enough clues to charge him. 

Genetic genealogy investigators take DNA samples from a crime scene and upload them to a database of genetic profiles, painstakingly building a family tree of people who might be connected. O’Carroll said it was just this type of crime-solving that led his agency to Clark. In mid-February Fairfax County police collected a DNA sample from him, a sample which matched DNA from the original crime scene, according to O’Carroll.

Geronimo, clearly pleased by the arrest, devoted about 20 minutes of his show the day after last week's arrest to discussing the matter. No matter how great it feels to have the ALLEGED perpetrator behind bars awaiting trial, one cannot forget the victim, then 14, now 49. Geronimo says the police told him she is in shock over all this. That's easy to see.

After all these years, my hope is that the young victim will take solace in the case being closed, and that Clark will be behind bars forever, if he is indeed guilty. But I wonder how he lived for these 35 years. Every time someone knocked on his door, rang his phone, followed him down the road in his car, did he think "this is finally it, and the cops figured out I did it"? Or was he able to forget it?

Geronimo related the details the other day, saying that the vile rapist got the victim's home phone number, spoke to her mother, and laid his evil trap by telling the mom her daughter had won the prize. Don remembered being broken-hearted by all this, then and now, but did add that somehow he has been able to compartmentalize the events in his mind, in order to live as his alter ego on the radio.

And just why did the police never once suspect that he might be involved? That's the most shock-jock part of the whole story.

Back in the day, there was an Oklahoma televangelist named Oral Roberts, one of the first specious sinbusters to have sick people troop up to his altar, where we would smite them a good one and bellow "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaal!" and then turn to the camera and remind the good folks at home to keep those five and ten dollar bills coming in. 

In 1987, when the money must not have been coming fast enough, Oral went on TV and said that if he didn't raise 8 million dollars by a certain date, the Lord was going to call him home.

Don and Mike went to Tulsa, to Oral's home, to cover his funeral, but Roberts was not called home! He lived another 22 years, for heaven's sake. Don and Mike were there on deadline day, and did their show from there. The fact that he and his crew were flying home to DC from Tulsa afterwards, while the sick creep brutalized that young lady, cleared Don.

And now the cops have the bad guy. "There's nothing bad enough that could happen to him," as Don said on the radio the other morning.

 

Sunday Rerun: Take Two And Call Me In The Morning

 If you knew this, you're one up on me: "Aspirin" is a trademark owned by the Bayer company, a German pharmaceutical firm. So technically, they aren't fooling around when they say "All aspirin are not alike," in that only Bayer aspirin is real aspirin.

Now, you are certainly free to go ahead and buy a bottle of 50 Bayer aspirin for around 5 bucks at your big name drug store if buying the name brand makes you feel better! That's the aspirin's job, anyway, making you feel better. Plus, you'll feel richer if you do like I do and go to the Dollar Tree with your fiver. That's where you get 5 bottles of 24 tablets each, a total of 120 little white pain relievers for that 5 dollars.

The kicker is, no matter what you spend on it, aspirin tablets are acetylsalicylic acid, no matter the brand name. And now these little tiny miracle pills, which I use for everyday pain relief, have a use we didn't suspect until a new study at the University of Maryland School of Medicine dug it up.

They found that  COVID-19 patients taking one daily low-dose aspirin (many people pop one a day to protect against cardiovascular disease) are also significantly lowering the chance of death and complications from coronavirus.

For real, while the world chases after expensive cures and palliatives and vaccines, it turns out that an aspirin makes a Coronavirus patient 50% less likely to pass away in the hospital, and much less likely to wind up on a ventilator in the ICU.

Research says that the COVID tends to cause blood clots, and aspirin is excellent for that!

Dr. Jonathan Chow,  Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at the U of M Med School, says, “When you have a disease like COVID that leads to increased formation of blood clots, and then you have a medication like aspirin which thins your blood and prevents those blood clots from forming, it makes clinical sense that it would work.” 

He studied the records of 400 patients this spring and summer.

But! although this would mean that aspirin would be the first over-the-counter drug to reduce mortality in COVID patients, Dr Chow says don't go running out and starting a self-prescribed aspirin regimen.

“That is not what we are suggesting,” Dr. Chow said. “We advise that patients go to their primary care doctor because they are the ones that are qualified to determine the risks and benefits of this drug.”

Doctors are optimistic, but they still need to do a "randomized control trial" to get final approval.

But as my personal physician, Dr Pepper, said on more than one occasion, "It can't hurt."

The Saturday Picture Show, April 23, 2022

 

I see the young cool people online using the word "goals" to denote things they would like to have in their lives. "Squad" goals, "couple" goals, "car" goals. So in that spirit, I present to you my library goals, the collection of Johns Hopkins professor Dr Richard Macksey. If I had this many books, I would never leave the house again!

From Hershey, PA: Chocolatetown USA, where even the street lights are shaped like Hershey's kisses!

One day he was on top of the chart, but before that, he was working at the Pump 'N' Go! But no matter what, he's never gonna fill you up.

Puckish architects have their little fun, giving houses certain human qualities!

I don't know how comfortable it would be to sit here, but you'd sure have something to talk about while you squirmed!

Which building is newer? But, which building is more interesting to see?

Good to see Waldo again!

Many people will be surprised to see that sewing kits originally come packed full of Danish cookies!

One shopper tries to make up his mind about what seed to bring home to the family.

Top Cat was only on tv for one year! The 1961-62 season was it for him and his feline companions and their nemesis, Officer Dibble. But my acculturation ended in 1962, so I am right there with him to this day.  "Top Cat! The indisputable leader of the gang...He's the boss, he's a VIP, he's a championship!" He had a vest, four whiskers, and a porkpie hat, thereby setting style trends for alley cats that endure to this day.

There is always a whey

If you were here for the 1980s, you probably remember the term "government cheese." It was as if American Cheese and Velveeta dated and had a child that came in five-pound logs. It was salty, pale orange in color, but it fed a lot of people in need and provided income for farmers, a win/win if ever there was one.

Dairy farmers got a nice break in 1949 when Congress passed the Agricultural Act. This created the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) and authorized subsidies for dairy farmers. The government purchased their excess milk, which, as we said, helped the farmers and fed the needy.

 

In the 1970s there was a dairy shortage in America, often blamed on the changing nature of the farming industry. Many family farms were sold off for housing developments, and giant corporate farms took their place in the supply chain.  This shortage of dairy product came about as inflation raged on. The government stepped in (actually, "stepping in it" is to be avoided on dairy farms) and shelled out $2 billion in subsidies awarded to dairy farmers over four years.

And then, before anyone could say "Turn off the milking machines" the US government became the largest consumer of US dairy supplies. Here we were, the most powerful nation on Earth, and we were busy churning butter, making two kinds of Italian cheese (provolone, and amateur volone), and filling spray cans with whipped cream for pie topping.

The federal government had warehouses in 35 states, stockpiling 500 million pounds of dairy stuff. There was so much milk and butter and cheese that they almost had to start building igloos of cheese in which to store cheese. 

Then came the day when the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, John R. Block, showed up at the White House with a five-pound chunk of government cheese. He held it skyward and told the press, “We’ve got 60 million of these that the government owns. It’s moldy, deteriorating … we can’t find a market for it, we can’t sell it, and we’re looking to try to give some of it away.” 

And then, after everyone at the White House enjoyed grilled cheese sammies, someone had the idea to distribute millions of pounds of cheese to the elderly, low-income families, and organizations who served them.

As with anything, people had differing responses. Some appreciated the gift of cheese, and saw saw it as a sign of bad times, to be given free food.  And some people thought it was tasty and some did not. Everyone agreed that it was on the stanky side and had a strong flavor most often described as "cheesy." But everyone thought it was swell for grilled cheese sandwiches and mac and cheese.

By the 1990s, the economy righted itself, and the Feds were no longer the cheese whizzes. But I knew people who were daggone glad to have it, back in the day. 

It's not like they were handing out liverwurst or gummy worms or beets!

 

Science Marches On

What could you do with $15 million? Well, let's see. You could buy sixty $250,000 houses and give them to people in need...you could pay for 745,000 dark meat chicken boxes from Popeye's...you could underwrite the salary of a top professional athlete for a season...or you could revive the woolly mammoth.

Yes, woolly mammoths went on the extinct list 10,000 years ago, but a biologist by the name of George Church has raised $15 million and he wants to bring them back. His plan is to read and edit the DNA code of Asian elephants, who share a common ancestor with the mammoth.

I share a common ancestor with Thomas Jefferson, but you won't see me moving to Virginia! Although they do have nice hams down there.

Church didn't just ride into town on a head of cabbage. He is a Harvard Medical School graduate, and his assertion is that it would only take about fifty changes to the Asian elephant's genomic code, and there would stand your brand new 2022 model mammoth.

 

And because all scientists seem to like to tinker around, Church's plan to to refine his Frankenstein creature so that it can stand up to climate change and find itself genetically fit to live in the Arctic.

“Our goal is to make a cold-resistant elephant, but it is going to look and behave like a mammoth,” he said. “Not because we are trying to trick anybody, but because we want something that is functionally equivalent to the mammoth, that will enjoy its time at -40C, and do all the things that elephants and mammoths do.”

Just like the time someone tried to put a Ford V-8 motor on a skateboard, there are still bugs to be worked out. No one before has ever tried to harvest an elephant embryo and then create an artificial womb to bear a baby mammoth during a two-year gestation period. 

Listen, I'm all for science. I have a knee that is basically metal, and some dead person's bone replaced a part of my spine (thank you, anonymous donor!) But is there a need for a new version of the wooly mammoth? I mean, maybe Auburn could use something new for a football team mascot, but beyond that, do we need wooly mammoths parading around the arctic, having seals and penguins and polar bears walking up, saying, "You must be new here..."

Charley Weaver used to tell about a guy who developed a tonic that would grow hair on a billiard ball. He went broke, because no one wanted a hairy billiard ball.

Diggin' the past

Still an embarrassment

 So it turns out, you can use Google Earth   for more than looking at it to see people   jogging in their underwear, or goofy signs,   or the one time I put all the recycling out   in beer boxes and the camera car came   by that very morning. 

 There are better uses for Google Earth!

Just ask amateur paleontologists Neville and Sally Hollingworth, who were sitting around in July, 2021, bored as only amateur paleontologists can be during a COVID lockdown.  What they did, they got on Google Earth, looking for archeological sites to examine, and made the biggest find ever!

Neville is 60. He and his wife are British. He's been into this since he found a fossil at age 12, a discovery that led him to wind up with a Pd.D. in Geology.  So he knows what he's doing when he goes online to look at images of a limestone quarry in Cotswolds, England.

Next thing you know, Neville and Sally spotted more than 1,000 fossils from the Jurassic Period.

Just from the satellite images, he could tell that a certain area in Gloucestershire had lots of ancient remnants just below the surface, the same way that I look on Earth on hot days in July to find which neighbors have swimming pools.  And then, once the lockdown was lifted, the Hollingworths went to the site and found - get this - a treasure trove dating back 167 million years, full of fossilized starfish, brittle stars, and feather stars.

That is the the oldest discovery of Jurassic echinoderms ever found in the United Kingdom. At first, officials kept the excavation site a strict secret so that every Nigel, Reginald, and Clive wouldn't come trooping up looking for old stuff.

In addition to sharing all this now, British scientists have revealed that the dig turned up three new species of feather star, brittle star, and sea cucumber, although you have to bring your own salad.

The remains of five mammoths - two adults, two juveniles and an infant - were unearthed as the site they're now calling "Jurassic Pompei," and the hunch is that there may be many more bones down in the old quarry.

One romantic touch for you today:  The Hollingworths only recently got married, and they cut their cake with a Neanderthal hand axe found at the site. They were thrilled to be using a tool untouched by other hands for 200,000 years!

 

Go fish

Fishkeepers all over have been abuzz over a latebreaking development in their world. The fish you see above is called a rose-veiled fairy wrasse, a fish native to the Maldives. Now, the Maldives is a nation of islands in the Indian Ocean. There are 1192 islands that make up the country there, southwest of Sri Lanka and India, and aren't you glad you don't have to remember the names of all those islands? But back to the fish above. He was first noticed in the 1990s, same as Weezer and the Spice Girls, but at first, fishlovers thought they were another example of a different species, the red velvet fairy wrasse. 

But the confusion was cleared up when everyone recognized that "red velvet" is a type of cupcake. It was a Maldivian scientist named Ahmed Najeeb who said no, this is an entirely new species and he lives in the Maldives' "twilight zone" reefs, which was down deep in the sea. And because these twilight zones are so deep down, they are largely unexplored. That means, grab your goggles and head for the Maldives, and you might find an entire new fish and get to name it yourself.

You may NOT call your discovery the "Filet-O-Fish," however. That is a copyrighted name for what McDonald's calls "Heaven on a bun."

As reef fishes go the fairy wrasses are fairly small - adults coming in between three and six inches. They are sexually dimorphic, but don't get all worked up and call the governor of Florida to make sure the poor students down there aren't being taught about sexual dimorphism. That only means that the males and females of a species have different body forms. 

By the way, you'll be either amused or shocked to find that Florida is now rejecting the purchase of a large percentage of mathematics textbooks in use elsewhere. I suppose they have word problems in Algebra dealing with two trains leaving terminals hundreds of miles apart, traveling toward each other at specified rates of speed, and how many of the people on the train heading for Florida are known to be cross-dressers?

 

Oh, K!

Before KMart, the same company ran S.S. Kresge stores all over America. Think of a mini-KMart, with a delicatessen and lunch counter/soda fountain, stationery, yard goods for those who made their own clothing and draperies. a smattering of tools and hardware, live goldfish, baby clothes, some books and magazines...you get the picture: a little of everything and not enough of anything. 

Starting in 1962, the company opened KMart stores, and for a while, they were big...bigger than WalMart and Target, two competitors who swallowed them whole over the years (not to mention Amazon, which is threatening to shutter just about everything but mortuaries and gas stations, and will probably figure out a way to deliver caskets and gasoline to Americans at home), leaving KMart in the sad state they currently occupy: just three stores left in the US. Once there were more than 2,000.  Now, there are three.

If you have the urge to hear "Attention KMart shoppers!" one last time, and sip a Slush Puppy while gnawing on salty popcorn, here are the final three: 

• Miami, Florida: 14091 SW 88th St.
• Westwood, New Jersey: 700 Broadway
• Bridgehampton, New York: 2044 Montauk Highway

Fortune magazine, the people who spend time sweeping up the figurative rubble left behind when formerly big businesses get tiny and then close up, say Big K "often focused on discounts, but failing to appeal to a specific demographic hurt the business. Kmart wanted to appeal to everyone, but instead it became bland and lacked an image.”

Having shopped at all these chains, I tell you, I can't really say there is a difference between the KMart crowd and the WalMartians. 

“Kmart was part of America,” said Michael Lisicky, a Baltimore-based author who has written several books on U.S. retail history. “Everybody went to Kmart, whether you liked it or not. They had everything. You had toys. You had sporting goods. You had candy. You had stationery. It was something for everybody. This was almost as much of a social visit as it was a shopping visit. You could spend hours here. And these just dotted the American landscape over the years.”

You could spend hours there, and I heard from lots of people who said they knew parents who dropped little Abercrombie and Ursula off at noon on a Saturday, did their errands, and returned about 4 to pick up the kids, all sticky from Cherry Guzzles and Sugar Daddy candies. 

It was in front of our KMart in the North Plaza Mall  which is no longer a mall that I first felt the creaking of old age, for it was there that I pulled up in front of the store to let Peggy run in and pick up one thing one day when I was maybe 30 and a county police officer drove up slowly and said, "Sir, you're going to have to move, please."

My father's words rang in my ears: "The first time a policeman calls you 'sir,' you're old."

PS - That store closed a couple of winters ago. They are turning it into a flooring and rug store, with no slush puppies.

Sunday Rerun from 2013: That sinking Feeling

 In footwashing news from last week, the popular new Pope Francis washed the feet of Italian youthful offenders as a sign of humility during Easter week. This was done by Jesus Christ, who washed the feet of his disciples before the Last Supper. All around the world, Christians found this gesture moving and uplifting.

Meanwhile, down Tennessee way, State Senator Bill Ketron, a Republican from Murfreesboro, raised all sorts of tarnation over a question from one Judd Matheny, a Republican out of Tullahoma.  

Tennessee Muslim Prayer Sink   

What got old Judd's dander up was his sneaking suspicion that during the $16 million worth of renovation done recently to the state capital building, some good ol' boy built one of those Muslim foot sinks into one of the rooms.

Muslims are required to wash their feet, along with their faces and hands, before praying.  This could be seen as part of their daily ablutions, or down in Tennessee, as an act of terrorism.

Judd went a-hollerin' down to Bill's office with his crazy fear that the Muslims were fixin' to get a foothold, as it were, right there in the state capital!  Lookie here, they're installing a foot sink!

Well, an official inquiry was launched, costing who the heck knows how many dollars and wasted time, and back came the answer that was already known to anyone on earth who has ever taken half a moment to stop running around all busy being important to engage a custodian to see how he/she mops up the soup that you spill all over the break room.  They use what they call a mop sink.

Tennessee mop sink

“I confirmed with the facility administrator for the State Capitol Complex that the floor-level sink installed in the men’s restroom outside the House Chamber is for housekeeping use,” Legislative Administration Director Connie Ridley wrote in an email.

But, Tennessee legislators are doing the right thing, casting a chary eye at the activities of these people.  Imagine, praying in public!  And with clean hands, faces and feet!

The Saturday Picture Show, April 16, 2022

 

This picture was described as "A morning walk in England." A foggy, misty morning indeed!

We've all wondered, and now here it is: this is what sunset looks like when you're flying high above it!

Devotees of the 70s band T Rex know their deep cut "Raw Ramp," part of a song trilogy that also included "There Was A Time" and "Electric Boogie." Whatever connotation they gave the word ramp, it really and truly is a plant, like a spring onion or a leek. Supposed to be very tasty, but then again, they say that about beets.

Just the other day Ginger Zee was on ABC showing hailstones the size of lemons, We've seen them before, but what's new is a hailstone that looks like a jackrabbit or cat. Mother Nature is always coming up with something new, so stay tuned.

This 2,000-year-old Roman shoe, found in an Italian well, shows that wingtips have been around for a long, long time. 

I'll tell you what's always fun to do in Baltimore. Take an out-of-towner or a new-to-towner out to dinner and get a softshell crab sammy.  I/2 the time they will ask if that's a spider on your plate.

Having saturated urban, suburban, and exurban markets with their quasi-authentic Mexican cuisine, Taco Bell is making a move to take on the rural competition.

You may ask me really nicely and everything but I am not climbing these stairs!

The old pizza wheel is out of style, replaced by the new pizza axe. With this behind the counter, I bet they get very few complaints about not having enough toppings.

In the 1950s, families would pile into the Chevy or Ford or Studebaker and go buy everyone a new Hula-Hoop or coonskin cap. A stop at the Tastee-Freez on the way home made it a perfect day!

Anyone for cannoli?

We sure do love to talk about tomato sauce here, don't we? I mean, we love anything but the canned stuff, and jarred Ragu. Make it yourself; it's easy! Would Clemenza lie?

Peter Clemenza was a mafia soldier in Don Corleone's army, and his duties were many and varied in "The Godfather." He taught Michael Corleone how to shoot, and drop, a gun, he remembered to bring home the cannolis so his wife didn't kill him, and when the gangs were going to the mattresses (preparing for warfare) he showed Michael how to cook pasta sauce for twenty guys. All good skills to have, in his line of work.

Never break a promise to your wife

So how many times have you heard someone offer you an authentic homemade Italian dinner, with a promise that it's gonna be good because "I follow Clemenza's recipe!"?

Maybe you saw the movie in the theater, where it's hard to take notes, and maybe you saw it on home video, where someone is always walking off with the pencil you leave by the TV, but anyway, here it is, in honor of "The Godfather" 's 50th anniversary.

"You never know, you might have to cook for 20 guys someday."

I believe it was watching the movie over and over again that convinced me, the WASP of all time, that I could try a Sicilian favorite. And even though I have never had to cook for 20 armed and angry people, I have cooked for six or seven peevish ones (names withheld).

You can use this sauce as gravy over pasta or you can use it as the red part of a lasagna.

"You see, you start out with a little bit of oil. Then you fry some garlic."

Get the EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil) hot in the frying pan, but not smoking hot. Saute some garlic along with a fresh sweet onion 'til all is golden brown

"Then you throw in some tomatoes, tomato paste, you fry it; you make sure it doesn't stick. You get it to a boil . . ."

Clemenza uses two large cans of tomatoes (spend a little extra and get San Marzanos) and two cans of tomato paste (it is all the same, no matter how much more they want for the name brand over the cheap Aldi can. There is somewhere in Italy a huge processing plant for tomato paste; they produce giant storage tanks of it, and all cans of all brands come from there.

By "frying" it, Clemenza means to let it simmer just below the point where giant globs leap out of the pan and onto your white shirt, but let it bubble awhile, and then cut the heat way down to "simmer." I leave the lid on so that the condensate goes right back into the pan. Let it simmer while you go watch your show.

" . . . You shove in all your sausage and your meatballs."

Fry the meats a little first before letting them swim in the sauce, what I do. You could always fry them along with the garlic and onions at the beginning and then fish them out of the pan until this step. However you do it, this is where the meatballs and sausage go for a swim awhile while you watch the news.

 "Add a little bit o' wine, and a little bit of sugar, and that's my trick."

Add some wine (cheap Chianti) at this point, then stir, and stick a spoon in it and see how sweet it is. Some like it sweeter than others. If you want to sweeten it, add some of that honey that Aunt Heloise brought you back from Coral Gables instead of the coconut patties you were hoping for.

I saw a Hallmark movie about an Italian restaurant and they were all acting like it's a sin against God to break your spaghetti in half before you boil it. I hereby say it's ok to do that if you want to. I checked with Clemenza and he said it's ok, and he will bring dessert.

 

  

Remember The Maine Helmet!

If you have time on your hands and are looking for something to do with most of it, why not think about joining the Wide World of Blogging? I enjoy finding interesting stories to share and it gives me something to do between the early morning news and the noon news. My blog  - the one you're holding in your hands right now, so to speak - is what you might call a "general' blog, meaning that it's generally a chaotic mess. 

But let's say you are a person of specific interests. In that case, why not consider a blog that focuses on one narrow area or realm? I might suggest one...you could delve into the worldwide problem of things floating all the way across the ocean and winding up on distant shores!

For instance: Sigbjørn Eide, a Norwegian, came across a Maine Department of Transportation hard hat more than 3,300 miles away from its home.

There was Mr. Eide, out there picking up trash along Norway’s coast, and what does he come across, all buried in seaweed, but a white helmet. The American flag and a MaineDOT logo gave him all the clues he needed as to its provenance.

Mr. Eide took the hard hat home, Googled the Maine DOT, and reached out to them.

He told them via social media that he “was astonished and impressed about the long voyage the small helmet had taken,” the Boston GLOBE reported.

The MaineDOT Facebook page told the tale of the long voyage the helmet took, so many miles away from Maine.

“Sigbjørn was on a walk and found a MaineDOT hard hat in a fjord, about 3,300 miles from MaineDOT headquarters,” the department said. “We’re not quite sure how this happened, but we’re glad we have a new pen pal!”

Always big-hearted, MaineDOT says they didn't ask Eide to return the hat, and is planning to send him some more items from the state. Hmmm, maybe some local maple syrup to put on some Norwegian pannekaken (pancakes) and skanke (ham)!

Mr Eide