Wednesday, May 21, 2025

Life is a but a dream

 I don't put much stock in dream analysis. Who can say what a dream means? As that wise old Englishman E. Scrooge said,  a dream "may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato.."

And I used to follow a blog called Pepperoni Dreams, in which people deliberately ate spicy pizza right before a nap, and reported on the results. But I haven't seem the blog online lately. Maybe I dreamed about it all along.




All right. Recently, when I am occupying the recliner, I have seen a hornet hovering outside through the deck window. He may well be related to the hornets into whose nest I shoved my nine-year-old hand while climbing a neighbor's tree, which led me to replicate Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity as I plummeted earthward. I don't know. He just hangs around for a minute and then flies off.

But here's the scenario of yesterday's daynap dream: Someone has given Peggy a porch swing for her to use while she sits outside in the morning, sipping coffee and chatting with passersby while I cook breakfast and watch "Kojak." (We are two very different people.) But in the dream, I volunteer to attach the swing to the porch ceiling, so I know I need to brace it with a 2x4. I measure for the 2x4 and go to attach it, and I see a hornet's nest up in the corner, and I head to the garage to get the hornet-and-wasp spray...

And that's when I woke up. 

Dream analysts, do your thing. I know Peggy would enjoy gently swaying on the swing, but she would insist on the hornets being displaced. In the dream, do the hornets represent my longstanding resentment of being bitten by some hornets  and falling out of Mrs Gallup's tree? Does the swing represent the recent fluctuations in the stock market? Is the 2x4 a metaphor for the logs it sounds like I'm sawing when I snore?

I can't wait to hear what you think.


Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Sweet are the uses

I can't blame you if you say you don't know the name of Marsha Hunt, an actress who brought a lot to the world in her life, which ended just five weeks short of her 105th birthday. Yes, 104 years, from 1917 - 2022, and that belies the old saw that says "Only the good die young."

They don't come much better than Marsha Hunt, as you can find out if you stream the documentary "Marsha Hunt's Sweet Adversity" on TCM. She wanted to be an actress and got into it by starting out as a Powers Model at age 16 in New York at the height of the Depression. It wasn't long before she found herself in front of movie cameras in Hollywood and launched a film, stage, and radio career that was going quite well before she was blacklisted for daring to be a compassionate person.

If you don't know about that dark age in American history, it was after World War II. Powerful people here decided that "communists" (or "Godless communists") were out to ruin our nation of freedom and independence, so anyone who had ever spoken out in favor of freedom and independence wound up on a list of people who were not to be hired as actors, screenwriters and so forth.

No it didn't make sense but remember, Ronald Reagan was involved...

Whoever wrote about her in the Wikipedia said it best: "In the midst of the blacklist era, she became active in the humanitarian cause of world hunger and in her later years aided homeless shelters, supported same-sex marriage, raised awareness of climate change, and promoted peace in Third World countries."

Quite a woman. She was not content to simply pose for publicity photos for worthwhile causes or have press agents sign her name to releases. She worked and served on committees to help people.


If you watch the documentary, you will feel pretty good about how helpful a person can be when they devote themselves to worthwhile causes. Marsha's acting career was seriously dented by the right-wing maniacs, but she still played roles and wrote songs and performed them right until the end.

Because, to steal another old phrase, you can't keep a good woman down.

https://www.facebook.com/marshahuntdoc


Monday, May 19, 2025

"Tonight on....."

 Unless you are abnormally prescient, you don't have the faintest idea what's going to happen to you in the day ahead as you pull on your socks and underwear in the morning. Sure, you plan to finish the pile of work that's getting dusty on top of your desk, grab some lunch, go to a work meeting at 2 and go home to a dinner of baked salmon and a nice salad.

Tell me how often that works out. It's more like you get to work and your pc is down, and it takes the IT guy an hour to get to you, and then the boss wants to talk about the O'Hoolahan account, and you wind up having to eat crackers out of the machine for lunch, and there's a cake for some joker you don't even know, but it's his birthday....

Life rarely works out like you plan for it to, which is why I don't like that the guide channel on cable TV puts the little synopsis on the screen when you're streaming a show. "Rusty feels guilty when he's caught rummaging through Pat's trash can. Vernon forgets to hit the ATM and has to bum a dollar to get a soda at lunch. Half of the office is being transferred to Akron, and half of the half doesn't know where Akron even is. And Danny discovers the true meaning of life when he meets a Tibetan working at the emissions test station."

Excuse me, but I would rather have these things come as a surprise to me, as they do in real life. 


I don't want to have to worry about Stewie being forced to throw Rupert in the trash! Let the stories come as surprises.

Sunday, May 18, 2025

Sunday Rerun: I had a braunschweiger called "The Wurst That Could Happen"

 Unless you're of an uncertain age, the name Jimmy Webb doesn't mean much to you. But if you've ever ridden in an elevator, you have heard his music, or someone's version of one of his songs.


He wrote hundreds of songs way back when, stuff like MacArthur Park, Wichita Lineman, The Worst That Could Happen, Galveston, Up, Up And Away, Honey Come Back, By The Time I Get To Phoenix  and Where's The Playground Susie?

His own website modestly proclaims him to be "America's Songwriter," and invites you to subscribe to his emails on the "World Wide Webb."

So now he has published his autobiography, "The Cake And The Rain." The title, of course, refers to the line in "MacArthur Park" about someone leaving a cake out in the rain, and Webb took that allusion from poet W.H. Auden, who said that when he looks in the mirror his face looks like a cake someone left out in the rain.

I don't think that I can take it.

I read the book because I am interested in popular music, but Webb should stick to writing lyrics, because the book is disjointed in the extreme. He jumps between vignettes from the 1950s and the 1970s, he talks of characters in his life without bothering to tell us who they are (there is one person present with him at many events who is only referred to as "the devil") and he leaves out many details. 

But two things he never fails to mention are what a genius he thinks he is, and how unfair it is that the "left-wing folkie exclusivity" fails to give him the respect he is due. Webb was a fine songwriter, no doubt, but that never meant that people wanted to hear him sing his own songs.  Time after time, he tried to mount a performing career, only to receive solid evidence that people preferred The Fifth Dimension and Glen Campbell singing his songs over Webb's weak-throated bleating.

I'm harsh on him because he has obviously had an interesting life but failed to tell us about it clearly. Reading this book, I kept feeling like I was trying to watch a movie on a bad DVD player that kept skipping and stalling. He has stories to tell but he didn't tell them.

He did mention that he consumed an awful lot of drugs, shoving pills down his throat and powder up his nose to ease the pain of his wealth and success. And time after time, he tells of how harshly and cruelly he treated women and fellow musicians. That sort of thing leads to karmic consequences, you know, Jimmy?

I can't recommend this book unless you have a kitchen table with one leg two inches too short.

Saturday, May 17, 2025

The Saturday Picture Show, May 17, 2025

 

It's been awhile since there was a 7-alarm fire in Baltimore, but here it was the other night. It burned for well more than 24 hours at a multi-story mattress warehouse at North Bentalou Street and Edmondson Avenue. What's left of the building will be torn down. If you live here in the Northeast, this is why Amtrak was shut down for a while between here and DC...this is right by the tracks. 
Apparently, Paul was the cause of the formerly-high labor rates, but they tied a can to him, so come on over and get your transmission overhauled for much less!
Here's what can only be called an "idyllic English countryside scene." 
I have seen the Weinermobile, but the LL BeanBoot car has not driven down here, as far as I know. I'd go!

Popeye and Olive Oyl take in the carnival!


If you ever see me out at a swanky restaurant, that's not I. But if someone forces a side of asparagus on me, come on over and help yourself. Nice joke, though!
The new Pope is a baseball fan, so Jason Perash, an Orioles fan from Colorado, took some baseballs to the Vatican in hopes of getting a papal-autographed ball. Before he signed it, Pope Leo XIV asked Perash the key question: "White Sox or Cubs?" Perash got it right and the Pope got write to it.
 
Perhaps it will help you get the joke if I tell you that the beret is sort of raspberry-colored...
Anyone sharing their home with a cat knows, you can buy all the Karpeted Kitty Kondos they make, and Felix would rather have a shoe box. 

One was considered to have "made it" in the cultural world of the 50s and 60s and maybe the 70s by being depicted on the cover of TIME Magazine. Everyone saw your mug on their coffee table, the doctor's waiting room, and the checkout stand at the Try 'N' Save. Today, I don't even know if there is a print edition of TIME, and all you see at the cash register is skinny pictures of Ariana Grande. Sad times.

Friday, May 16, 2025

He got you, babe

 The talk turned to Sonny Bono the other night. The topic had been "people who are born to be salespeople." That list did not include me. I couldn't sell a bucket of water to someone whose pants were on fire. Whatever facility of language I have does not involve persuading people to part with their money, so no sales career for me.

But now, you take Sonny Bono. You might only know him as the shorter, less-attractive half of Sonny & Cher, but he had that gift.

He was born Salvatore Phillip Bono in Detroit, moving with his family to Southern California when he was seven. Even as a kid, he wanted to be in the music business, and started writing songs for others. He was selling meat door-to-door in Los Angeles when he got a job as an all-around office guy for Phil Spector, the greatest producer of rock and roll records ever (but not a great man.) Sonny learned the record business from Spector and lost his job for daring to criticize one of Phil's decisions. By then, he was writing more songs, e.g. "Needles and Pins" for The Searchers and "She Said Yeah" for the Rolling Stones.

By that time, Sonny was ready to make his move. He found Cher and formed a singing and personal partnership with her. They had hit records as a duet and individually.  They made a movie. You wanted entertainment; he was ready to sell it, even if he had to wear a vest that make him look like a yak, and take insults from Cher on national TV about his height, his looks, his atonal singing.

He did not mind this. Sonny knew that the wives at home, in the days when family TV viewing presented a choice among CBS, NBC, ABC, and whatever 1/2ass local station was showing "Highway Patrol" reruns, made the decision on what to watch. Women enjoyed seeing skinny Cher in her Bob Mackie gowns, and their show was a hit for years, until S&C couldn't stand each other any more and went to divorce court. Believe me, showing their divorce proceedings on live TV was something that Sonny would have done had this all taken place in 2025, instead of 1974.

Out on his own, Sonny was not finished selling, so he went into the restaurant business to sell food in Palm Springs, and then sold himself as a politician when he grew frustrated with the machinations of local politics. He became the mayor of Palm Springs and eventually was elected to the US Congress from California's 44th District, where he was serving when he died in a skiing accident in 1998.

To date, Sonny Bono remains the only member of the US Congress to have had a #1 Billboard hit. He was only 62 when he died, and I have absolutely no doubt that if he had lived, he would have become the president of the United States.

I mean, why not?



Thursday, May 15, 2025

On and On

Michael Bosworth Jr. was all set to celebrate the culmination of 12 years of school with his graduation exercises this week from Massaponax High School in Fredericksburg,  Virginia.

The exercises will go on, sadly, without Michael, who was killed on Saturday while filming what people are calling a prank for a social media trend.

Those final seven words are nothing but trouble. Bosworth and two other teens were doing that stupid "ding dong ditch" game, and, Spotsylvania County police say, Tyler Chase Butler, a resident of the pranked home, opened fire. Police say someone had called 911 reporting an attempted residential break-in in progress.

One of the other teens was shot and lived to tell about it.  A third was not injured.

Butler, 27, stands charged with second-degree murder and other offenses. He's being held without bond.

Khamoni Keys, a fellow soon-to-be-graduate, and a close friend of Bosworth, told a Washington TV station, "It's been very emotional, honestly, because you know we graduate (this) week." 

I remember kids in our neighborhood doing this stunt a long time ago. Doorbell rings, you go to the door, no one is there, maybe they do it again, ha ha. Dumb. I get the feeling that the only reason someone 17 or 18 is up to this nonsense is because of the elevated thrill of putting your stunt on TalkTalk or whatever that social media is. 

And when you read more about this, more questions come up. Butler's neighbors say the shooting took place in the back yard, which is not where doorbells are usually located. Clearly, this prank was all wrong.

Your mother used to tell you, "It's all fun until someone falls off the ladder," or whatever minor harm could befall a kid fooling around. But the pranks now intersect with an overly-armed nation. Private Francis Sawyer, in "Stripes," spoke for a huge group of people who are just itching to have a reason to haul out their Smiths and Wessons when he said, "All I know is, I'm finally gonna have a reason to shoot somebody."

Well, in Fredericksburg, on the banks of the mighty Rappahannock River, there was a significant Civil War battle in 1862.  And here we are, 163 years later, and Americans are still shooting Americans for no good reason. 

Isn't it about time to stop it? I think the Bosworth family and all of Fredericksburg might agree. Now, if we can just get the rest of the country to do so...

 


 

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Guidance

This is a perfect example of what the news business calls "burying the lead."

You may have seen this story on the news, about a Kentucky mom who allowed her son to play on her phone "as a reward," only to find out that he went on Amazon and ordered $4,200 worth of Dum-Dums lollipops, without her knowledge, of course.

The woman involved is Holly LaFavers of Somerset. Last week, she told "Good Morning America" that he had the urge to check her bank account last Sunday before church, and found out she was deep in the red because of the $4,200.


Fun fact: 4200 simoleons will get you 70,000 Dum Dums from the big A. That is 70,000 more Dum-Dums than I have ever had, being a Tootsie Pop kid in my day.

Holly does allow her son, Liam, to window-shop on Amazon, but he's a second-grader, so he might not know the difference between "just looking" and "ordering."

Old joke from my childhood: "My girlfriend can't stop window shopping. Last week she went out and came home with 47 windows."

Back to Holly's house...there was a mixup for sure. The Amazon guy dropped off 22 cases of suckers on the front porch and was coming back with more, but Holly contacted Amazon and got the whole thing credited back. So in the end, no harm, no foul.

BUT only if you read all the way to the end of the story do you learn that Liam  lives with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). His mom says he was diagnosed at age 4.

FASD is defined as "a range of physical, behavioral, and cognitive impairments resulting from alcohol exposure during pregnancy. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is the most severe form of FASD. It's characterized by specific birth defects, developmental disabilities, and neurodevelopmental problems due to prenatal alcohol exposure."

I'm no expert in this field, but it's plain to see that the young man will need professional help with the sort of problems that come along with his syndrome, namely, low birth weight, slow growth, physical deformities, learning disabilities, behavioral issues, and mental health challenges, according to experts. 

Can't blame the boy for playing on the phone, and it's probably good for him with his development. BUT can the mother not find a way to disable the app from placing orders? Or give him a phone that doesn't connect to the internet, maybe. 

I feel bad because the mother has allowed the situation and the publicity to point out her son's mistake, and that might not be the best thing for him. I hope someone who is trained in early childhood development can step in and help them both.  

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Give me your tired, your poor, and your money

By the time one gets to be 85 years of age, most people, at least, have figured out the path forward, and have put it in autopilot for the descent.

I don't know any other way to say it, but if you don't have your life plan in place by the time you hit four score and five, you might as well forget it.

OR, you can be like Televangelist Jim Bakker, who with his bizarre wife Tammy Faye was deep into one of the biggest religious scandals since someone swiped the bingo money. Jimbo says he’s in desperate need of cash right now, and if you don't shell out a million clams but quick, he will lose errthang and be homeless.

I'll wait while you dry your eyes.

“If everyone that watches this program will give $1,000, we’ll be able to pay our bills and stay on the air,” he said on his show the other day. “Otherwise we got about another, maybe a month.”

And... 

“If they foreclose on this ministry, they will take my house too, so I’ll be on the street,” he said.

He says he doesn't take a salary out of the all the moolah he rakes in, and that he has no money to call his own. He even adds that an unnamed "they" has been ripping him off for millions! 

It seems that his financial woes began during the pandemic, when he began selling something called "Silver Solution," which he said was an "Enhanced Colloidal Silver Liquid – Ultimate Immune Support Supplement... Immunity Boost & Immune Booster for Adults.


One of the inevitable lawsuits that landed on his altar wound up as a settlement with the Missouri attorney general that involved a restitution of $156,000.

Like all these shifty sinbusters, Bakker used the threat of impending bankruptcy to beg his flock to sheepishly replenish his coffers.

And now he goes with this hoary pitch: if you give him your money, "I guarantee you God’s going to do something. God’s gonna bless you as you give, because when you give, you’re gonna receive.”

And while he asks for your money to line his future with your gold, he continues to claim that we are in the "end times," so he is selling food buckets and prepper items on his shows and website.

So stock up on food for the future that might not take place.

Sounds right.


Monday, May 12, 2025

I see a sad career

I remember watching that "Sixth Sense" movie a long time ago. I think the writers and producers were trying to turn the sentence "I see dead people" into a national catchphrase, but it didn't work out. I think that was because that picture came out just a few years after "Titanic," and that's the movie where, when it (finally) ended, relieved theatregoers were walking out, saying, "Icy dead people," and there was too much confusion.

But that wide-eyed kid from the "6th" movie is back in the news, and not for anything good. For lack of anything else to do, he apparently got himself a little buzzalilly on, went to a ski resort in California, and turned the air fetid with some antisemitic slurs about the officer who was fitting him for a pair of handcuffs.

He's 37 now, well past the age at which he should have known better. He is also the older brother of Emily Osment, who plays Mandy on  "Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage, " so he should stay home on Thursdays and watch that show, rather getting shafaced at ski lodges. 

And Haley Joel Osment wants you to know that he is “absolutely horrified by my behavior. Had I known I used this disgraceful language in the throes of a blackout, I would have spoken up sooner.”

He used some really, really offensive language while discussing his arrest with the officer. The district attorney out in Mono County, Calif., said that Osment was  charged with possession of cocaine and disorderly conduct under the influence of alcohol in public, both misdemeanors.

He blames all this on having lost his house in the recent Altadena Fire in California, but tell me: if you lost your house in a fire, horrible as that is, would you a) shove cocaine up your nose and booze down your neck and go skiing, or b) get to work rebuilding your life?

Come on, son. Pull it together. There are always parts in movies and TV shows for odd-looking former child stars.

Osment's mud shot (left) and movie still (right).



 

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Saturday, May 10, 2025

The Saturday Picture Show, May 10, 2025

 

Beautiful, scenic, Alcatraz Island sits off the San Francisco coast. Its name comes from "La Isla de los Alcatraces" ("The Island of the Pelicans") as it was called by Spanish explorer Lt. Juan Manuel de Ayala. It was closed as a prison facility due to hundreds of practical reasons in 1963, and only someone whose cultural apprehension revolves around Jimmy Cagney gangster movies would want to reopen it as such.
Whenever we can't find Eddie around the house, we know she has taken a people break and found comfort underneath the comforter.
Today's free wallpaper is a closeup of barby branches with a cloudy moon behind them, like that ghostly galleon Alfred Noyes wrote about. 
There was a crematorium in the county that did its business in the early mornings, and every so often, on a cloudy day, the smoky miasma hung low in the atmosphere, prompting people to call 911 and report a fire in the building. I'm sure a great many people have seen the sun reflect on this building's windows and said the same.
Whatever else happens to me in life, I can always say that I was just ten feet away from Alice Cooper when he performed at the County Courthouse steps in September 1991. Now, when I tell people that Peggy was born on the same day as Alice Cooper (Feb 4), they ask, "Who is she?"
My buddy worked at a radio station down the road where one of the other guys was one of those fanatics who stuck a Dymo label on many things, so the cool guys chided him by sticking a Dymo label on EVERYTHING. I would love to see this tag in real life so I could stick a VANITY PLATE sticker on it.
There is no day so bad that it can't be made right with a nice big ol' hunk of blueberry diner pie.
Big dogs are the best, they say, because they guard you against people breaking into the house. Yeah.
This water heater knows he has warmed up the last shower at the house and is now headed to the landfill. Rest well, faithful servant. Stay...warm.
Are you like me? Would you just HAVE to use this table, even if you didn't really need a table?!

Friday, May 9, 2025

In the Loops

With all the talk about Red Dye in your Froot Loops being bad for you (why not talk about the nutritive value of Froot Loops to begin with?), I thought I'd take you back to 1959, when all of our Thanksgivings were wrecked because of Aminotriazole.

Aminotriazole, as it turned out, was not your father's inelegant second cousin twice removed from Philadelphia (and soon to be removed from Baltimore as well.) No, that's the name of an herbicide which had been applied to a certain amount of the cranberry crop from the Pacific Northwest that year, and several weeks before Thanksgiving that year,  Arthur S. Flemming, US Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, had announced that some of the cranberries harvested in  the Pacific Northwest had tested positive for it. The herbicide was known to cause abnormal growths in lab rats.

Ocean Spray, then as now the big name in the cranberry business, claimed that a person would “have to consume carloads” of cranberries to suffer any illness, but Flemming, ever cautious as a good Secretary of Health would be, told berry gobblers not to buy berries, jellies and whatnot if they couldn't determine the origin. That meant a lot of families had to do without the cranberry sauce that year.

 You might not believe it, but in those days, people took health warnings seriously, and by December '59, the industry trade paper "Cranberries" (longtime subscriber here) said that the sales of fresh cranberries were down 63%, with sales of canned jellies down 79%. I love how the jelly plops out of the can with little Van Allen belts dented into it.


This was, at the time, a fifty-million (that's a lot of meeyuns today) dollar per year business, knocked out by a bug spray. And Ocean Spray market researchers found that almost half of those who abstained from cranberry products that winter said they were swearing off the tart red berries for life.

Which brings up a side point: this past week alone, I have seen people vowing not to watch anything ever again on CBS because they dropped "The Equalizer," and a good number of folks saying they will never watch the Baltimore Ravens again because they cut their kicker, a man with charges of sexual misconduct swirling around him.

Say it with me now: Oh well now I mean really!

The 'berry brouhaha was over almost by the time panic shook the nation. Shortly before Christmas '59, the government realized it might have acted a bit hastily and released ton upon ton of berries for dinner. 

In retrospect, we know now that the government inspectors insisted that no product be allowed on the shelves if it was found to induce cancer in man or animal. 

Listed among products already suspected of being carcinogens (cancer-causers) were radiation, and tobacco smoke, both of which are still around. So is cranberry juice and jelly, but it had to go through a lot to get back on the market so that your father's inelegant second cousin could hoove on a Lucky Strike while passing the Ocean Spray Cranberry Jelly to you.



 

  

 


Thursday, May 8, 2025

Play it again, before it breaks

I love music! Many types of music! If you pull up next to me in traffic and my windows are down, you might overhear anything from Jerry Lee Lewis to Porter Wagoner to Phil Harris to Outkast to Matt Monro to Wanda Jackson to The Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose to classical stuff, like Moe Tzart and Bay Toven. 

I grew up listening to radio and also the tunes I played on various record players. The first record I bought was Sixteen Tons by "Tennessee" Ernie Ford, a 45 single. I bought albums by the dozens, and switched to cassettes when that medium became large, and then went over to CDs when the digital revolution caught up to us.

To listen to a favorite song, I used to have to get the record, tape, or CD out and take it to the appropriate machine to play it. Now, after years of digitalization, the songs I want to hear are on an iPod device half the size of a pack of baseball cards...something else I used to collect by the score. I just ask the iPod to play the songs or artists I want to hear, plug in ear pods, and away I go, transformed into my world.

Now, all of a sudden, according to CBS Saturday Morning, the show that keeps its index and middle finger on the nation's cultural carotid pulse, the hep cats and cool chicks are getting into cassettes! What? Why?

That technology was a stopoff between vinyl records and digital music, and it was never intended to be permanent, as anyone who has ever seen 12 to 18 inches of their favorite song get wrapped around the capstan of a cassette player can tell you. Or the tape just breaks, and stretches, making Bonnie Raitt sound like Bob Dylan. Or the shell breaks, or the pressure pad wears out.

I guess it's cool for those who didn't live through the Golden Age of Tape to romanticize cassettes. They will soon find out the hard way, as the rest of us did when our tape of the Grease soundtrack bit the dust, there was a very good reason to move on. 



Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Roll on

We used to have a Congress that would propose, discuss, and pass laws for the general welfare of the citizenry. When we weren't looking, that system was replaced by the chief executive firing off executive orders to suit his fancy, which is pretty fancy.

The one that caught my eye the other day requires commercial truck drivers in the United States to be proficient in English.

“Every day, truckers perform the demanding and dangerous work of transporting the Nation’s goods to businesses, customers, and communities safely, reliably, and efficiently,” says the order, and now, the nation that had to go to the trouble of designating English as its official language is going to stop truck drivers and give them a test on past participles, the subjunctive mood, and the difference between "retired" and "re-tired."

The order goes on to demand that drivers be able to to read and speak English “sufficiently to converse with the general public” if they want to drive a commercial vehicle around these here parts.


All you big 18-wheelin' good buddies out there, get ready for the test. I'm part of the general public, and my standards for literacy are high. You'll be required to write an essay on Thackeray, discuss alternative methods of sentence patterning, and recite from memory any favorite verse from an American poet while backing up your truck.

Watch for the xenophobes to be all over this one, but let me tell you something I know about new Americans. They understand what you're saying. They might not want to give you the satisfaction of letting you know that they know, but they know. 


Tuesday, May 6, 2025

How can they sleep

I worked with a wonderful woman in Police Dispatch who was separated from, and then divorced from, and always terrorized by, her husband.

Counting the ones who only worked for a couple of weeks before bailing out, I must have worked with about five hundred people there, and yet this woman's story, so tragic, still stands in my mind.

When she went missing, we knew, and when they found her deceased in Howard County, it was a relief without surprise.  And the police or the state's attorney never found enough evidence to charge anyone with her murder, so the crime is still unsolved, these 31 years later.

But what I'm thinking about is this. Someone killed sweet Linda and got away with it, so far, on this plane. He or she may never face trial on this plane. 


But I don't understand how someone can be so devoid of conscience as to take another person's life, and then stand there, morning and night, brushing their teeth, looking in the mirror, and not have to turn away in disgust.

The person who did this horrible thing should never enjoy a pleasant day, never sleep well, never have a great meal and walk from the table truly satisfied.

But it's not up to me. 

"Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal."

Monday, May 5, 2025

May the 5th be with you

Well, here it is, the day several of us wait for all year. Cinco de Mayo! May the 5th! The day celebrates the Mexican army defeating the French at the Battle of Puebla on this date in 1862.

If you want to know the truth, this is NOT a very big holiday in Mexico. People of Mexican heritage living in the US tend to celebrate it as a salute to their roots, culture, and heritage, and that's cool. But the two other groups that go all out on May 5 are:

🔘 Grocers and distributors of fresh produce, because they can use the demand for limes (so essential for Margaritas) as a reason to raise the price of limes sky high.

🔘 People of whatever ethnicity who are always on the lookout for a reason to hit the bar. Columbus Day and St. Patrick's Day are also big with this crowd, whose closets at home are filled with special hats, t-shirts, and noisemakers to make the fun all the louder.

The Maryland State Police - our highway patrol - will have extra patrols on the interstates and main drags, looking for those who chug a little too much cerveza or tequila tonight. 


I once had a friend ask me how to say "tequila" in Spanish. You'll probably see him tonight at happy hour at O'Hoolahan's. 

Have fun but don't drive drunk!


Sunday, May 4, 2025

Sunday Rerun: Is that a bottle of catsup or are you just glad it's lunchtime?

 First of all, I still call it catsup, but that's not important now.


What matters is that someone who wanted to live life in the fast lane pulled the biggest heist of her life, ripping off a bottle of Heinz from a Perkins Restaurant in New Jersey.

People who work in restaurants are used to this sort of thing.  There are millions of Americans who are only dimly aware that Equal, Splenda, and Sweet 'N Low are available for purchase in grocery stores. They just load on the little pink or blue packets when they hunker down to the diner to tie on the feedbag.
And people steal salt and pepper shakers right and left, and stacks of napkins.

But I guess people will stick condiment bottles and jars under their tunics and steal away. That's what the Jersey bandit got away with, but she didn't get far.

Here is her letter of apology:



Someone smashed into her (getaway) car, and life itself was going down the dumper, so she went to WalMart, bought two big bottles of Heinz tomato topping and brought them back with this note (above).

Notice the turn of phrase she included with her remorse: "Again, I'm really sorry if I inconvenienced you the same way my life has been inconveniencing me. I'm sorry :( From, an awful person."

We are left to conclude that it was only after someone smashed her Subaru and other parts of her life turned fecal that she realized that theft is a crime, punishable by incarceration and/or fine.

Marie DiLeo is the franchise owner of the Perkins pancake house. Her manager found the bag with the catsup and the note and turned it over to her, and this is what DiLeo told the local news:

"I really felt bad. She's got to be 17, 18, 19. I really did feel bad."

Kindly, Ms DiLeo posted a picture of the bottles and note on Facebook "just to say, 'You're forgiven.'"

And because a) doing the right thing often brings unforeseen rewards and b) large corporations occasionally pause from their soul-crushing days of snaking across the world, relentlessly seeking profit above all, and crushing the competition to seize upon a public relations coup.  The good people at Heinz are appreciative, and will help to pay for some of the damages to the woman's car.






Good ketchup karma, indeed. Just as an aside, I feel that the person seeking a better bottle of catsup hunts for...Hunt's.  Just sayin'.

And DiLeo, who said no one even knew someone stole anything in the first place, said, "I do believe in karma," she said. "But not over a ketchup bottle."

Saturday, May 3, 2025

The Saturday Picture Show, May 3, 2025

 

They call it "Trompe-l'œil" when a masterful painter can make a flat surface appear three-dimensional. They call it "painful" when someone tries to walk down this alley.
Whoever glued this together must have had a lot of friends to help out. "Here, just hold this until it dries!"
The bee pollinates the raspberry, and goes away by the time the berry gets put on your Wheaties.
Reddy Kilowatt makes a point about the dangers of electricity by brandishing a stiletto. Electricity would like a word about the dangers of stilettos. 
No horticulturalist, I, so someone, please name this pretty flower.
AC/DC always fills the arena with people looking to have a hell of a time.





So you wanna eat Maryland food, eh? Let's get you started with a double soft crab, lettuce, and tomato with Old Bay Mayo on sourdough toast. That's good eatin'!
There is a picture like this in every family album. It's not the weird food or the grim visages of Uncle Leon and Aunt Pearl. It's the pants. 
This guy, Señor Wences, cracked me up, dressing his left hand as a little kid who said " 'Salright!" I've always been easy to entertain. 
I'm willing to bet that this lasagna was made by someone who is much better at cooking than spelling. 




Friday, May 2, 2025

Maryland, Missouri, what's the diff?

 If I were to make up stories about our postal "service," people would remember that truth is stranger than fiction, so I stick to the truth.

And this latest mail gem might not be all their fault. Peggy opened the mail the other day and out fell a postcard from Nashville, telling about the fun times Jean and Michael were having, traipsing around The Athens Of The South and looking at antebellum mansions. Only problem is, we don't know a "Michael and Jean" couple, but with her shrewd, calculating way of getting to the bottom of things, Peggy said, this was not addressed to us, but to a Doctor in Columbia, MD.

Problem #1, when I looked the postcard over with a magnifying glance (I was disappointed that there was no picture on the front of the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, or any other cultural landmark) I saw that it was indeed addressed to that Doctor, but he lives in Columbia, Missouri.


If one is not careful with their BIC, Columbia, MO can look like Columbia, MD.

So I googled the man. He is not an M.D, but some sort of professor at Mizzou, as the U of Missouri is always called on "College Football Scoreboard," Saturdays in the fall. Same way Mississippi State is called Mississippi State, but the University of Mississippi is "Ole Miss."

I left a message and I'll let you know if he calls me back. Maybe he thinks I'm a prankster. 

Not this guy, Doc!


Thursday, May 1, 2025

Look more deeply

Children, there was a time when there were only three channels on the TV, so you didn't have 118 options on what to watch. Consequently, yes, there were times that I gave in and watched "Gilligan's Island," but I promise you, I never laughed.

I did, however, state a clear preference for Dawn Wells as Maryann Summers, over the over-the-top Tina Louise in the role of Ginger Grant. She seemed more wholesome. And don't forget Natalie Schafer as Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell III. Many years later, it was revealed that she was with the great writer Robert Benchley at the time of his untimely death. 

Oh the questions I would have had for her!

But I saw this picture on Instagram and it reminded me of someone else. Yes, Russell Johnson ("The Professor") served with distinction in World War II. He was commissioned a second lieutenant after cadet training with the Army Air Forces, right out of high school, and flew 44 combat missions in the Pacific as a bombardier in B-25 twin-engine bombers. One of those planes. with Johnson as navigator, was shot down by Japanese forces in the Philippine Islands on March 4, 1945. Johnson's B-25 crashed in the sea off Zamboanga. His co-pilot was killed; both of Johnson's ankles were broken, and he was awarded the Purple Heart for his valor, along with the Air Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three campaign stars, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one campaign star, and the World War II Victory Medal.

After his discharged, Johnson went on to study acting with college benefits under the G. I. Bill.

The "someone else" I mentioned was a friend of my father at work. The other men considered him diffident and not driven to achieve promotion. He seemed to be happy just doing a simple overseer's job; did not seek to become a supervisor. I was around him a few times at various functions and found he didn't have much to say to anyone. Some people knocked him for "lacking ambition," but he seemed fine with his lot in life, so why push it?

Not until he died did I learn that he was wounded and decorated for valor in the Battle Of The Bulge, and not until I read a great biography of J. D. Salinger did I come to understand the horrors of that battle. It was not only a fierce armed fight, but the weather conditions were abysmal. The soldiers who fought in that battle all deserved commendations, if you read about the horror of it all, and many men were scarred emotionally for years after it. Most people familiar with Salinger and his writing assume that the character of Seymour Glass in his short stories gives us a view into how the war damaged the writer's soul. 

Seymour committed suicide after what he went through. "See More Glass" - get it?

So if Dad's friend was happy sitting alone with his thoughts, never being the life of any party, God Bless Him for simply being at the party at all. 

Russell Johnson and my parents' friend are just two people whose depth was unknown to most around them. 

Let's all look around at the people around us and see the greater picture. Love can bring it out!