Vivian is still my favorite Vance

After years of school overcrowding, streets so full of cars that the average commute to work is more like a 45-minute crawl across the Sahara, and restaurant wait times of more than two hours being commonly reported, it would not seem that America is lacking in people. But this J.D. Vance, an elected US Senator and current Republican vice presidential nominee, is all over the "internets" for making two astonishing statements:

👉 "American families aren't having enough children." 

and 

👉 "In particular, there's evidence that the car seat rules that we've imposed, which of course I want kids to drive in car seats, have driven down the number of babies born in this country by over 100,000."

 

Even if we set aside that fragment "which of course I want kids to drive in car seats," (let's hope he means "ride" in car seats, because who wants kids to drive?) I still can't figure this out. 

Someone told me that he means people who have a Cruisemobile with room for two adults in the front seat and three kids in the back will stop reproducing, because there's no seat belt for a fourth child.

Or maybe he is pointing out, accurately for once, that it's impossible to conceive a child, or give birth to one, while wearing a seatbelt, even in the capacious confines of a Land Rover Defender 130 - a "spacious family car with three rows of seats, lots of cargo space, and comfortable seating for passengers of all heights," or a Kia EV9, "the all-electric SUV with three rows of seats, lots of second-row legroom, and an upscale design."

Upscale! That sounds great to J.D, author of "Hillbilly Elegy." 

I mean, really.

 

 

Vance's remarks on car seats are the latest incident of his previous words being resurfaced for political fodder. His 2021 accusations that the country is being run by "childless cat ladies," with less of a stake in the future of the country than those with children, have been a consistent point of attack from Democrats.

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The TikTok of the transportation hearing was widely shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, often with laughing faces or eye-rolling emojis. Several people argued that the economy, not car seats, is deterring people from having kids.

"Yes JD Vance, it's the car seat laws that are keeping ppl from having kids nowadays. Not the astounding daycare or grocery costs, not the fact both parents have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, or have other goals in mind. It's the car seat laws..." one user said in apparent sarcasm.

The economy has been a major issue in this election, as both presidential candidates make the case to voters that they will better support Americans in the face of years-long inflation and the rising cost of living.

Sunday Rerun (from 2021): Dunk 'Em

From NPR, I read about a man on a noble mission: His name is Alex Schwartz, and he has set a goal to "taste and review every fresh apple cider doughnut" he can find.

He's on Instagram with pictures and locations where these delicacies can be found. He calls himself the "Cider Donuteur." 

And he has a map that shows where to take your cider donut craving, but it doesn't include local Baltimore places. Here in the 410, we go to Weber's Farm in Cub Hill, and Richardson's Farm in Middle River/Cowenton. I've had Weber's, and nothing says autumn like a visit there to stock up on donuts and apples.

If you're wondering, here's why apple cider donuts are so good: they contain apple cider. That sounds simple, but stop and consider how people get so happy about "Pumpkin Spice" everything, none of which contains pumpkin. I've said it a million times: if you want your coffee to taste like pumpkin spice, get a can of pie-ready pumpkin and stir a teaspoonful of it into your java.  I say this, and people act as if I recommended stirring some cyanide in with your Chase & Sanborn. But apple cider makes a plain donut so tasty, I might even add some to my tea one day!

Of course, as with any commodity, there are cider donuts, and there are cider donuts. When Schwartz talks about one of the 32,945 donuts he has had, he judges them by freshness, crumb texture, sugar level and, of course, taste.

You have to hand it to Mr Schwartz, because his goal of tasting one from every farm stand is lofty. He once ate six apple cider doughnuts from six different places in a single day. "My stomach was not super jazzed about that," Schwartz said. "But, you know, I was doing it for the cause."

He goes on to say you should try to get them hot and fresh (uh, yeah!) and look for sweetness, airiness, moistness, crispy fry-ness, and sponginess.

Just don't look for Eliot Ness.

Seriously, it's the best part of the year, and cider donuts are the best part of the best part of the year. Eat them slowly or gobble them, chase them with milk, tea, coffee, whatever. 

Better hurry, though. The next thing you know, all the stores will be full of heavily-iced Thanksgiving cookies in the shape of a turkey, and then Christmas cookies, in the shape of Santa Claus.

And you'll wish you had stocked up on cider donuts and frozen some!

The Saturday Picture Show, September 28, 2024

 

I've never missed a chance to vote since I became eligible to do so, and I've always held respect for those who always vote, no matter whom they vote for. I remember waiting for hours at the polls several times, and I would do it again if that's what it took, but now, it's easier to get your ballot in the mail and drop it off in the secure box at the polling place. The only thing we miss that way is being approached by volunteers waving "Cowznofski for Comptroller" literature as we walked in, but we can live with our memories. No matter for whom and how you vote, please make sure you do!

This week's free wallpaper is here to remind us that above the world of commerce and traffic, there is a celestial beauty that should get more attention than all that other stuff.

For sure, the tech has improved since the day in 1997 when this, the first digital image ever taken on a cell phone, was made of this baby, who is now 27.

Continuing our series known as "What does it look like inside of this?" here is the part of the Leaning Tower of Pisa that we haven't seen before.

This year, the great movie "The Shawshank Redemption" celebrates its 30th anniversary. Wonderful film, terrific acting, amazing denim.

Garnet sand is that mineral which, when pulverized and attached to paper, makes fine sandpaper. But if you get a really strong microscope and a human hair, and wrap one grain of garnet in the strand, you get a picture like this!

Tall tall trees in the magnificent Colorado September sunshine.

Lincoln Riley (sounds like a movie star name) is the football coach for the U of Southern California. When he brought his team to the U of Michigan recently, the home scoreboard sought to humble him by exhorting the crowd to holler more loudly, but some unlettered letterman typed the scoreboard message badly.

The adorable rodents known in South America as Capybaras must have hired a press agent, because lately, they are all over the internet. They're gentle and placid and willing to pose with pumpkin hats and I think every house should have one.

This is the work of a Japanese artist who calls himself Lito Leaf. He deals with his ADHD issues by creating meticulously intricate razor cuts on green leaves. It seems so much more real to have such great art made by a person rather than by a person with a Cricut machine.

Oh! Tani

Watching the Orioles game on Saturday evening, the cameras showed a happy fan who was happy as a clam, showing off the baseball he had just caught after it was fouled off.

And two seats away from him was a little girl crying her little heart out, because she didn't get a ball.

The scene was so American: a grown man with joy just jumping off his forehead in his glee, and the little despondent girl in tears.

Later, as the inning ended, they showed the little girl, with a baseball in her hand, so either that guy handed over the ball he caught, or some helpful club official brought Ms Matilda a ball.

Later, as the game ended, I was despondent as once again the Orioles were able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Meanwhile, out west, Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani is now the first player in history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in the same season. He hit a homer against the Marlins the other night that put him into that stratosphere - the first and only player ever to do so - and that ball is going to make someone a very rich person!

Five years ago, there were "experts" claiming that Ohtani would not be successful in American baseball. Huh?

I'll tell you, fans are getting smart: the guy who grabbed that ball out in the stands made like a guy shoplifting a ham - he stuck it in his pocket and made a run for it!

People who know about such things are saying that the Dodgers offered the as-yet-unidentified ballhawk $300,000 for it, and they also say the club is going to have to dodge that figure up by one more zero if they want it.

In case you're thinking "oh any old Jazzbo can buy an official ball, make it look used, and then claim it's the Ohtani homer ball." 

Forget it, Jazzbo. The people who own baseball are way ahead of you, and they mark all balls for later verification before they are pitched in these likely-to-be-famous moments.

You have to be in the right place to catch a moment of history!

 

 

Come and knock on our door

If you watched "Three's Company" on ABC, it most likely was because you liked John Ritter's "Jack" character, the perplexed and frustrated male with two roommates, or Suzanne Somers as Christmas "Chrissy" Snow, who joined Joyce DeWitt as the other roomies. The jiggling and the double entendre jokes were nonstop, which was good, because those things were about all the show had going for it. Naturally, it was what they called a ratings "blockbuster." 

For the real comedy of the show, I enjoyed Norman Fell playing Stanley Roper, the perpetually perturbed landlord, because it was such fun to see him in that sort of role again. He was Mr McCleery in "The Graduate," the landlord who kept accusing Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) of being "one of those outside agitators." 

But life takes its funny twists. Here all these years later, which character from that rather forgettable show is getting the attention?

It's Helen Roper, Stanley's wife, played by Audra Lindley, who flounced around the apartment building all day in a red fright wig and wild caftans, or muu-muus as those huge baggy sack dresses were once known.

Suddenly, people (not just women!) are dressing and cos-playing as Helen all over the nation, and, you have to figure, the world at large. Social Media is promoting these Mrs Roper Romps and people are breaking their necks to be her for the fun of it!

The Helen character was perfect sitcom fodder: she was up in everybody's bidness, arguing with her husband, and, it being the 70s, doing flower arranging and macramé.

As these things are wont to do, it all began in New Orleans at the LGBTQ celebration known as Southern Decadence. “New Orleans is where it occurred first and then San Diego. We just got together and made it happen here,” says Jen Lewis, one of the founders of the "The Ypsilanti Helens."

Kerri Pepperman, whose husband Jason Ringholz participates dressed in a rainbow caftan, says, “This is like pandemic attire. And now we have a license to be comfortable in our caftans in public. I think there might be a little post-pandemic retro thing going on right here.”

When the first news of the incipient pandemic broke in 2020, we had no idea of the toll it could take, the lives lost, the illness, the societal disruption, the changes that we thought would only be temporary. We had no idea what was coming.

But Mrs Roper did.

 

No Limit

I was talking to a woman whose young daughter - I don't even think she's 10 yet - was in a golf tournament for kids. She did not win. Her mother said she plans to move on from this failure and do better next time.

I look to praise and support kids. I said she can't look at this as failure, that it's not always a setback to lose, and the mother said that was right, just being there was a success. 

As so often happens, that thought led me to thinking about song lyrics: specifically, Bob Dylan's words to "Love Minus Zero / No Limit" - -

Some speak of the future,

My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.

As often, there's a lot to ponder there. One good thing about being my old  age is that I have had experience at success and failure. I've told many a younger person that they won't know what good love is until they've had bad love, and the same goes for friendships and jobs. And cars, and pizzas, while I'm thinking of it.

I just don't think it's necessarily a failure not to succeed. I know that puts me in opposition to great sages such as Vince Lombardi, who said, "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." 

I'll go with Zig Ziglar, who said, "Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is." 

Do you believe in curses?

New York claims Babe Ruth as a Yankee, but never forget that he was a Baltimore boy from the cradle up.

"Hooligan," "rakehell," and "ne'er-do-well" are some turn of the 20th Century terms that used to be applied to kids who today would be described as "maladjusted" and "acting out." Young George Herman Ruth, down in inner-city Baltimore, was smoking cigars and guzzling booze at the same age that kids today are watching "Blue's Clues," and the only reason he was not involved in car theft was that there were very few autos on the road.

His parents turned him over to the St Mary's Industrial School for Boys, which is what they called juvenile reformatories in 1902. The Babe learned tailoring and baseball, at the hands of a giant of a man named Brother Matthias Boutlier, and he began his career here with the minor league Baltimore Orioles. He was soon in the major leagues - as a slugging pitcher with excellent skills at both positions. As a pitcher, he twice won 23 games, leading the Boston Red Sox to three world championship titles. 

Along the way, he became an outfielder to give the Sox the advantage of his batting in every game instead of once in every four as a pitcher.  And he was sold to the New York Yankees for cash in 1920, so that Red Sox owner Harry Frazee had the money to invest in the Broadway musicals that were more important to him than baseball.

The Bambino

BUT! during those early winters before he became the toast of baseball around the clock, the Babe spent some time in Baltimore, living in a third-floor room above a bar owned by his father at West Lombard St and South Eutaw St. The elder Ruth was killed outside that bar in 1918, breaking up a fight.

(Nothing much changes in our town.)

And that building, or I should say the interconnected buildings on that corner, suffered a serious fire - a five-alarmer  - on Sunday afternoon.

Around the corner, the Orioles were playing their final home game of the season at a stadium where, according to legend, the Ruth family outhouse was once located in what is now our right field. 

The allegory of the Orioles' season, off to such a good start in March, April and Mary, sputtering to a five-alarm burnout in August in September, is apt. They may back into the playoffs this year; as of this writing another consecutive Division title is a virtual impossibility, and we're all wondering what happened. There were injuries, sure, but every team has people hurt.

Selling the Babe to the Yankees put "The Curse Of The Bambino" on the Red Sox for decades, and I'm starting to think that his ghost was hanging around right field these past few weeks. I'm just saying.

Open Up That Golden Gate!

Real estate agents should try their hands in California, where a literal wreck of a house is on sale for half a million bucks.

It's in Monrovia, near Los Angeles, and in May this big ol' pine tree came a-tumblin' down, splitting the house into two sections: the part that still looks like a house, and the part that looks like a huge pile of lumber.

It's a 645-square foot house, or it was...and it can be yours, Mr or Ms Handy, for $500,000.

That's a lot of zeros for something that looks like the giant version of when someone ran over his sister's doll house with his Big Wheel, but realtor Kevin Wheeler says he won't have any trouble selling it at the asking price.

"Here in California, we like an indoor-outdoor lifestyle. It fits right in with the culture -- open floor plan, now that the tree has gone since it crashed into the house, plenty of light, all of that stuff," he chortled.

And he points out that a complete house down the street went to 900 Gs, so buy this wreck, throw in some improvements, and become a land baron overnight!

Wheeler adds that he realizes that people not from California might think this is crazy, but with the demand for housing for people appearing on silly TV shows growing daily, he's not worried.

He also points out that prospective purchasers don't need to make an appointment to tour the remains of the house....

"I think people without my permission have walked in -- it doesn't take very much because there's no way to really protect it," he said. "I can't put a lockbox on the front door."

Imagine this happening in our town!

Sunday Rerun (from 2022): Raspberry Deluxe

Some people liked The Raspberries, the power-chord pop band from Cleveland from the 1970s. I did! "Go All the Way", "I Wanna Be with You", "Let's Pretend" and "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)" just say so much about that era. Their leader, Eric Carmen, followed up the success of the group with solo numbers such as "All By Myself", "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again", "Sunrise", "She Did It", and "I Wanna Hear It from Your Lips" that all sound like a Saturday night in the 1980s if you play them today.

Raspberries in the 1970s. Eric Carmen, far left. My father, no lover of their music, once called me because he saw them on the Mike Douglas Show. Dad was awestruck by the incredible bouffant pompadour that Eric's hair squad had sprayed atop his head.

And I enjoy adding some fresh raspberries and blackberries along with the grapefruit wedge that floats in my seltzer, so yessireee, Bob, I do love raspberries. And coming soon....

The Girl Scouts of the USA have announced that a new rookie cookie will be joining their lineup in 2023. They call it the the Raspberry Rally cookie!

What we know about this fundraising cookie is that it will be thin and crispy...sort of a “sister” cookie to everyone's favorite Thin Mints, but instead of mintiness, it will be infused with raspberryness and dipped in the same delicious "chocolaty" coating.

(I guess that means it's not real chocolate, the same that they have to say that Velveeta is not cheese, but "cheese food.")

It's a tad bit early for Girl Scout Cookie season; it's January through April, but you can always go to www.girlscoutcookies.org to leave your name so you can be contacted as soon as your local troop starts trooping this cookie your way.

I like to see this program in action.  As they say. "Girl Scouts learn leadership, problem-solving, and community building through the Girl Scout Cookie Program."

I think that every young person should have a job at some point that involves people handing over their money for something. That's where you really learn some lessons about people - how magnanimous they can, and how stingy.

I've never discussed this with anyone, but I have to feel that a lot of women learned a lot about people by sitting in front of the Try 'n' Save Market at a card table with other Scouts and a mom or two, selling cookies. I've seen people treat them rudely and have heard about people ripping off their money or their merchandise. Maybe we adults could offer a little kindness and support.

The Saturday Picture Show, September 21, 2024

 

Just as with the band, only two of the original Beetles are still around.

This motorcycle would be just the thing if you need to run down to the all-night wicker store.

Even at a temple in Nepal, kids are gonna do what kids do.

What looks like fall harvest time as much as Scottish hay bales? OK, maybe American apples. But still, this looks cool.

Zooming in, you can tell these are not real Lego pieces, but, rather, a painting of Lego pieces someone did. But just to keep it all accurate and everything, they arranged to make it really hurt when you step on it!

Give me a hillside all lit up with wildflowers and I'm happy.

One could write an entire textbook about the American economy after the rustbelt rusted over and just discuss a nation busily selling things to each other. And with any sense of humor, the people leasing this empty store to sell Halloween seasonal merchandise would do well to call the temporary business "Blood Bath and Beyond." Go ahead and tell them.

So I guess not all international borders are as rife with turmoil as where the US meets Mexico. Seen here is where Switzerland becomes France, and there's not so much as a hot chocolate vendor in sight!

This little weiner dog is a Lincoln scholar, and, as such, always follows Abe's rule about "With mallets toward none."

This phenomenon exists also in New York City, where they call it Manhattanhenge.  The sun sets in perfect alignment with the street grid as it sinks slowly in the west. And get this - here it is, the same thing happening hours later in San Francisco, on California Street...and it's the SAME SUN! How about that?

"It's a beaut, Clark!"

Peggy and I get a big boot out of the doing the daily Wordle puzzle. It's that game where the player gets six chances to guess a five-letter word. Between that game with our afternoon tea, and the morning Jumble, it helps to keep our minds reasonably agile by the simple act of thinking!

And some simple thinking is what one other Wordler should have done the other day. This person took exception to the winning word on the grounds that she didn't think it's a real word. I can tell you now what the answer was that day ("beaut") because one great feature of the game is that you get 24 hours to play it. You can't save today's game for tomorrow. 

That's why I can now tell you that answer. But a woman who wrote on one of the many grammar pages I follow (quelle surprise, eh?) gave away the answer as she wrote about how she thought it was dumb to have beaut as the answer since she is sure that beaut ain't a word.

Well, it does light up the spellchecker, so...

It's a word that's in everyday use, though, and that's why Wordle used it. 

But the wordle world responded with chagrin that this woman gave away the answer. To those of us who had not gotten around to doing the puzzle yet, it was like having our socks pulled right off our feet while we were still wearing them.

My cup of tea seemed a little hollow after that, so I had an extra ginger snap.

I don't think the woman intended to foul up a so many peoples' days, but it would have been nice to think before she hit "enter" on that post.

Like I'm going to do right now.

Third Time Won't Be Charming

Every town has that one house, the one where the neighbors are used to seeing passing cars slow down and look to see where...it....happened.

This house is in the news again; it's in the leafy Cockeysville northern suburb...where...it...happened twice.

The young man in the lower right is Nicholas Browning, currently a guest of the Maryland Department of Corrections for his next four lifetimes. In 2008, Browning killed his father, mother, and two younger brothers in this house, which was sold by whomever inherited it in 2010.

At age 15, young Nicholas, an honors student at Dulaney High, had grown tired of his parents telling him what to do, and did not want to share in his expected inheritance, so he ended the lives of the other members of his family as they slept.

The new family in the house was the kin of David Emory Linthicum, seen here glowering in the upper left. In 2023, his father called police for help as David became violent in the house. David fired at officers responding to the call, wounding one, before shooting another officer on a nearby road and carjacking his vehicle. One of the injured officers was on life support for some time due to  gunshots to his face, arms and back.

Linthicum was captured two days later up in Harford County, and now, as his trial begins, his attorneys are complaining that the prosecutors know the police and so it's unfair.

Well, son, it says here that prosecutors tend to know police. They spend a lot of time working together to arrange for prison sentences for people who kill their families or shoot police.  

Go watch an old "Law & Order" and tell me you don't like it that Lennie Briscoe and Jack McCoy might go grab a sandwich one night.

Enjoy your time in the calaboose, and re-think your definition of "fair."

Meanwhile, if that house goes up for sale again, who would want to live there?

 

 

Grohl up

I've not a huge fan of Dave Grohl, and from all accounts, he's doing fine without me. 

You know who liked him a lot, was my mother, who died at 89 in 2014. I am not kidding. She must have seen him on Letterman or something, but one day when were over at her senior high-rise she piped up out of the blue with, "I like that Dave Grohl."

I verified that she was indeed talking about the former Nirvana drummer-turned Foo Fighter frontman, and made a mental note to check with the medical staff at the high-ride in reference to Mom's pharmacopeia.

So how would Mom feel about the latest Grohl news? Most likely, she and Mrs Grohl, Jordyn Blum, were both as surprised as the other to find that Dave has fathered a baby with a woman who is not Jordyn Blum.

None of my business, since I am sure the baby will be raised in luxe circumstances, but it had to be tough for him to announce that he's “recently become the father of a new baby daughter, born outside of my marriage. I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her.”

I've never been anywhere near this sort of situation, but I'm pretty sure it's not like he wants to take up skydiving or spelunking as a hobby.

And I might point out that he has three hobbies at home already:  Violet Maye, 18, Harper Willow, 15, and Ophelia Saint, 10.

I guess I'm old fashioned with my "one woman at a time" and "keep it in your pants" philosophies, but I predict a scene in which Daddy Dave is sitting around reading and asks his wife, "Honey, could you get me an iced tea, please? I'm tired because of running from house to house, and I'm bored because I heard one of my records on the radio, so whaddya say, huh?"

And you know the answer to that...

 

How to ruin your career

As any Oriole fan who has of late watched their favorite baseball players head back to the dugout disconsolately can tell you, hitting a baseball that's been thrown at you is a difficult chore.

But you have to figure, it gets a lot easier if you know what kind of pitch they're gonna throw at you. You can time your swing a lot better if you know a slow curve is coming.

All this has led to the early end of the career of  Derek Bender, who just finished college and then spent a month with the Minnesota Twins before being given the royal heave-ho.

ESPN is reporting that the Twins cut Bender because, last week, he was allegedly tipping pitches to opposing batters in a game with the Class A Fort Myers Mighty Mussels.

The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels, don't you know!?

ESPN says that in the second game of a doubleheader on September 6, the Mussels were playing the Lakeland Flying Tigers. Bender, so they say, told "told multiple hitters" "the specific pitches being thrown."

And here's why: Bender told teammates he wanted the season to be over!

Mr Bender was chosen in the sixth round in the major league draft following a stellar career at Coastal Carolina.

Payton Eeles, a second baseman in the Twins' minor league system, knew Bender from their college days, and he was quick to post this support on X that might not be quite as laudatory as he thinks:

Baseball old-timers tell the story of Enos "Country" Slaughter (and for sure, if your given name is Enos Slaughter, you will be nicknamed "Country") who failed to run out a grounder as a rookie. His manager expectorated a quart of tobacco juice and said, "Son, if you're tired, we'll get you a little help out there," and from then on, all during his 19-year big league career, Slaughter never walked on a field again. He ran from spot to spot at all times. 

"Bendy" will tell his children about his month in the minors someday and dress up the fact that he threw the games because he was in a hurry to get in line to see that new Beetlejuice movie.

Generous

People from other countries often have difficulty comprehending the concept (there's that word again!) of volunteer fire companies. I guess it's a purely American idea, people doing something at considerable personal risk, inconvenience, and expense that one could say is the responsibility of the government to handle.

But since the days of Benjamin Franklin, who organized the first "fire brigade" in Philadelphian, people here have dropped - literally! - what they're doing and run to the fire house to go help someone or some someones in need.

Things like this don't happen for free, and that was the problem for a volunteer company in Calhoun, Missouri, where chief Mark Hardin gloomily scanned the balance sheet for his company and saw a bottom line of $169. 

169 bucks won't go far when you need new turnout gear and mobile equipment. They had not been able to afford either since the 1980s.

“It was pretty discouraging — we’d already been paying for stuff out of our own pockets to keep things going,” said Hardin. He retired as a firefighter in Arkansas and moved to Calhoun, winding up as chief of the company, serving a town of maybe 500. “I probably shouldn’t tell how much of our own money we’ve spent. My wife would divorce me," he said. 

On an annual stipend of $4800, his 28 volunteers were trying to keep two engines on the road and scrape by for fuel and other supplies. They are lucky in that they receive donations of hand-me-down gear and other necessities from other departments. Volunteer companies are like that. They'll as likely give a recently-replaced engine to a smaller company down the road as trade it in. It's all part of the giving-back ethos.

As Hardin was noodling his way out of the financial morass, along came a phone call from 91-year-old Sam Sloan, who lives two miles up the road from the fire house.

Hardin said: "I’d never met Sam, but he invited me to breakfast. He wanted to ask me a bunch of general questions about the fire department.”

They went to breakfast again the next week, and the third week, Sloan invited Chief Hardin to come up to his house, where he presented the company with a check for $500,000.

“I walked in the door and Sam said, ‘What do you think about this?’” Hardin said.

And what he thought about that was, that he had never seen that many zeroes in a check.

Sloan told the chief that his cattle and seed businesses had been good for him, and he decided that when he sold his businesses and land that he was determined to make a contribution to the volunteers.

He and his wife Jan have a nice house and 60 acres to pass on to their one son someday, and for now the couple want to share their bounty with deserving people. He just says he has always admired volunteer firefighters.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I knew at this point in my life, I could help. It’s important to have a good fire department, especially with all the grass we have around here.”

Hardin thanked Sloan 20 times for the kind donation, then drove straight to the bank to increase the company's balance to $500,169.

Chief Hardin plans to get a new fire engine and some other equipment, plus new protective gear for all the members. 

And they bought a helmet for their new honorary chief Sloan to wear around.

Sunday Rerun: Anglers' Angles

 Cheating takes place all the time in sports, even more than we think. The Houston Astros stole a page from the cheater's manual when they tipped their batters off to what sort of pitch was coming in the 2017 and 2018 seasons. This was done in much the same fashion by the 1951 New York Giants: someone would watch to see the catcher's signals and then relay the purloined information to the hitter.

In football, Tom Brady can tell you, the best way to cheat is to have someone deflate the other team's footballs. 

Let's face it: as long as there are humans involved in any gainful activity, someone will look for a corner to cut. But surely no one involved in the time-honored sport of fishing, the classic Huckleberry Finn activity where a kid and his dad bond over a bamboo pole, some string, and a bent pin, would do anything so dastardly as to cheat in a fishing tournament, right?

Hold the presses. Officials in Ohio are saying that  Jake Runyan and Chase Cominsky won a pro fishing tournament with a $30,000 purse by stuffing their fish, not with crabmeat, but with weights. They have been indicted; each of them faces three felony charges.

 

The charges are for cheating, attempted grand theft, and possession of criminal tools. The Cuyahoga County prosecutor has filed fifth-degree felony charges that could land these jokers in the Walled-Off Astoria for a year, with $2500 in fines to boot.

 Prosecutor Michael C. O'Malley said,  "I take all crime very seriously, and I believe what these two individuals attempted to do was not only dishonorable but also criminal."

The prosecutor really took a deep dive into the charges he could lodge, adding on top a misdemeanor count of unlawful ownership of wild animals, because they allegedly had raw fish filets on their boat. Their fishing licenses could be suspended indefinitely if they are guilty on the filet rap

It all happened at the Lake Erie Walleye Trail tournament in Cleveland. A routine inspection of the fish they submitted showed lead weights and fish filets shoved down the gullets. Before their stupid scheme was detected, they were set to win the competition and be named Team Of The Year and split a sway of $28, 760.

The scales (!) of justice started turning when someone noticed that the fish they claimed to have caught seemed to weigh a lot more than others of that size. Judges cut the walleyes open, and out came the hardware while the other fishermen howled and carped, their hopes of winning floundering.

"We got weights in fish!" declared Jason Fischer, director of the Lake Erie Walleye Trail fishing tournament.

Some of us who have no interest in fish that don't come from a supermarket seafood counter packed in ice might find it hard to believe that something is fishy with these tournaments, but these contests are a big deal to a lot of people. Runyan and Cominsky claimed to have won more than $300,000 last year - but that was when one of them failed a tournament's polygraph test and had to return some of his ill-gained loot.

I have the same question I have all the time in these matters: how do these people go home and face their friends and families in the wake of such perfidy?

The Saturday Picture Show, September 14, 2024

 

Ed O'Neill told this story on himself: A woman came up to him, seemed to know him, and asked for a selfie. Ed sorta knew he sorta knew her, so he sent the picture to his daughter, who said that he ought to be committed for not recognizing the world's most famous unmarried cat lady.

What are voters looking for in a pickle commissioner? The Committee to Elect Nick Phillips hopes you'll consider their candidate to be the real dill.

You've heard it a million times, and here's one more: timing is everything. Fortunately, fish have a marvelous sense of both cooperation and timing. 

The person who took this photo says the bee was taking a nap in his passion flower. I guess bees need a nap the same as everyone, and a pretty flower is just as nice a place as can be. For bathroom visits, they will still go to the nearest BP station. 

It's odd that they would mention this rule.

The vibrant colors and signature music make this Pow Wow in Santa Fe special. 

Advice for newlyweds: Don't even in this area either. Men, if you think

the objets d'art you and your friends got at Spencer Gifts for your bachelor hovel will be highly regarded by your spouse, you're wrong twice.

Here's that unmarried feline fancier now! With Benjamin Button.

Cal Ripken, Jr, served as Honorary Mr Splash on the 29th anniversary of 2131, and you understand all of that if you are lucky enough to live in Baltimore.

Yes, this really is Willie Nelson, who has just released his first album on Liberty Records in 1962. "And Then I Wrote..." introduced to the world Willie's songs such as "Funny How Time Slips Away," "Crazy," and "Hello Walls," and once the world heard his words and music, well, 62 years later, we're still Willie fans.