Benedict Arnold

Hi Arnold -

Got your message late last night and by then it was way too late to call you back. Of course, you and Arnold Jr can crash on our sofas next weekend on your way to Hyannisport to apologize to your inlaws.  They always enjoyed your puckish, Teutonic wit, and I'm sure they will see their way clear to giving you just one more chance.  One example of your wit was the time you said... oh never mind.  Someone wrote that for you.    

You know, Arnie, I've always been a fan of the Kennedys, because they so believe in justice and opportunity for all, so when you married into that family, I was willing to give you a pass, figuring they saw something in you that I hadn't.  Your over-the-top portrayals of musclebound goons in film after film, your arrogant strut with a plume of disgusting cigar smoke trailing behind you, and your idiotic statements about the nature of mankind ("My relationship to power and authority is that I'm all for it. People need somebody to watch over them. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave" is how you described humanity in 1990 to U.S. News magazine) all make you tend to look like a petty Neanderthal, unwilling to see things through modern enlightened eyes.

But, I kept thinking, Maria loves him, must be something good.

There's one thing you seem unable to process, and that is that Americans will line up to pay money at the MallPlex17 to see movies, or rent them for dollar from a red box, or even purchase the DVD if they really love the picture.  But we see this as entertainment, diversion from the lives we lead.  You take a guy and his wife and kids.  Let's say the guy works as a history teacher, his wife works part time selling real estate, and the kids go to middle school and high school.  Unless they attend school with that kid from 2 1/2 Men, there's not a lot of excitement there, and Dad spends his week going on about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff to kids who, if they are named Michelle Bachmann, will somehow get elected to Congress and think that the bill was called the Hoot-Smalley Tariff and blame it on Franklin Roosevelt, when Willis Hawley and Reed Smoot  were not only a couple of Republican congressmen from out west somewhere but were also the shortstop and second basemen on the Brooklyn Dodgers in the early 30s.  Just kidding. About the last part. Anyhow, by the time the weekend rolls around, the entire family needs a little lift, and just in case it's that odd week with no new Amy Adams movie coming out, they can always rent something like "Commando."  You were great in that one, Schwarzie.  The bad guys grabbed your daughter Alyssa Milano, and the one bad guy dressed like Freddie Mercury, and there was a guy named Sully, and you got to say that line:

You're a funny guy, Sully.
I like you.
                  
That's why I'll kill you laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast. 

But, Arn, remember when we all got together at the Dodger game and I was trying to 

tell you that "three strikes, you're out" is not a valid part of American Labor Law? 

And we talked about how the movies are not real life, because in real life, bad guys 

shoot with real bullets, and they don't take numbers and wait their turn to be beaten

by the hero.  And we said that movie audiences might forgive a man some 

indiscretions because they're not invested in the guy for real, and fiction is not fact, 

people with four kids and a loving wife should not run around impregnating the 

household help.  Because that hurts your wife and your children, AS.  Your one son 

Patrick now signs his tweets with his mother's surname, so ashamed is he of your 

actions. 

This - for what it's worth, for what we all make of it - this is our REAL LIFE and we

owe it to ourselves and to those who love us - even more than we deserve - to try 

at least to live in a decent, honorable fashion.  The next time you go to insert a

part of yourself into somewhere where it should not be, why not say, is this what I

ought to be doing right now?  If the people who love me were here right now, would

they approve of this unsanctified insertion?

And yes, Arnold palm-er, you said something in the message about "Bill Clinton did

it and John Edwards did it and even Teddy, John and maybe Bobby did it" and yes,

that's sad but true. The rest of us didn't exactly turn cartwheels of joy upon reading

that of them, but at least none of those men went around claiming the moral 

superiority that you and your fellows do.  You align yourself with the "family values"

and "bedrock core decency Middle America" faction, and you can't even keep lil'

Arnie zipped up?  Yes, lots of men have been caught with their hands in the nookie

jar, but even in the New Math, two wrongs still don't make one right. 

And, Arn, listen, when you touch down here in BMore, check your calendar.  It's 2011

and we don't say things like this: "She's either Puerto Rican, or the same thing 

as Cuban, I mean they are all very hot. They have the, you know, part of the black blood in them 
and part of the Latino blood in them that together makes it," which is what you said about 

Bonnie Garcia, a Latina Assemblywoman back there in Cali who was just trying to

to her job and not pose for your wandering eyes.   

So, call us when you get to town, and we'll run down to the Airport and pick you

guys up.  We have some extra throws you can put on the Barca-lounger, and we'll

have a great weekend before you head for the Cape.  This is not your proudest

moment, Eggy, but you know a really great thing about your adopted homeland? 

We forgive, we move on, but we need to know that you realize that life is not a 

movie. 

Because, if you do realize that, that's As Good As It Gets. 

Disney Whirled

What was your reaction to the news about bin Laden buying the farm at the hands of US Navy Seals a couple of weeks ago?

A lot of Americans took to the streets in sheer expressions of joyous jubilation, and I think it was only partly attributable to a sense of justice and payback.  A lot of people are glad that he won't have the chance to harm us again, the rat.

A lot of Americans prayed and tried to find a spiritual answer in their souls.  Is what he did a sufficient justification for what we did to him? they asked.  It's still a good question to ponder - if you had the chance to shoot Adolf Hitler in 1939, knowing what he was going to do, and without worrying about getting caught or tried, would you have done it?  Questions like this can keep me up all night.

A few Americans, a minority to be sure but their opinions are to be heard, did not care for this action, and they have the right to their opinion.  I mean it.

But - how come none of my friends or I were smart enough to say "Hey, let's trademark the Navy Seals Team 6 logo and likenesses for sale in merchandise and films, etc!"


That was late Sunday night, May 1, when those brave men went in and did bin Laden in.  Bu Tuesday, the good folks at Disney®, never ones to miss a chance to sell, market, lease or profit, had copyrighted the Seal Team logo with intentions to take advantage of the deal in merchandising "shirts, shoes, hats and feet wear” as well as "action figurines” and “snow globes,” “Christmas ornaments” and “Christmas stockings.” 

This is not to say that Disney® plans to defile the most Christian of holidays with tree decorations depicting Osama getting plugged.  I believe we can expect a movie - get in line to play BHO, Robert Gates, Hillary Clinton and the members of the Seal Team - and Halloween costumes, hoodies, ball caps and even those rear window decals showing a guy in a Navy uniform peeing all over OBL. 

I'm not even saying this is a bad thing - it's a capitalist society, and people have a right to sell (and buy!) what they wish!  But just remember, when you heard that news a couple of weeks ago, you felt a swelling of national pride, and Disney's crack team of lawyers saw a chance to sell you a snuggie.

Uncle Scrooge McDuck just made another vault full of moolah!
 

Ektorp My Tuvull, please

On Saturday while Peggy prowled the mall for A New Outfit To Wear To Abbey's Wedding, I decided to strut on over to Ikea. From the mall, Ikea on a foggy day looks like a giant Cub Scout uniform, all blue and yellow.  But it's a Swedish furniture store, and from the looks of the parking lot, I should be ABBA so grateful that they have a store right near us.  People come from all over to shop there: Philadelphians, New Yorkers, Virginians: the parking lot is a veritable treasure if you happen to be playing license tag bingo.

It's a furniture store that also sells food and has both a sit-down restaurant and a hot dog and pizza take out deal, where you can wash down the tube steaks with a nice cold lingonberry soda.   No foolin'!

Ikea's founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who must be worth a few zillion Swedish semolians, rides on public transport to save money. 'Ikea' stands for Ingvar Kamprad, Elmtaryd Agunnaryd (the last two letters stand for the farm and village where Kamprad grew up). This means that if I founded an international chain of furniture stores, it would be called MCPT, which people would then call 'Mc Pit' and not want to go there for fear of falling in.

If you fall in at Ikea, try to land in the ballpit, which is where smart shoppers can drop off their kids for two or three days while they shop for sofas and spatulas, mirrors and meatballs.

There are 202 Ikea stores in 32 countries, and they claim that a million people per day visit the stores.  I claim that almost all of those million people spent almost all of their time figuring how to get the hell back to where the office furniture is sold, because they went to the men's room and are now wandering in circles around the kiddie furnishing area.


Ektorp is a brand of armchair and Tuvull is a travel rug.   These are real, although, the good people at the Blogadilla blogadilla have given us the name generator so we can give anything we want an Ikea name. Sometimes, we can't make them funnier than they already are, however.

What are you doing on that pc?

You probably remember the Simpsons episode called "Eight Misbehavin' " - that's the one in which Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and his wife Manjula become sudden parents of eight babies:
Poonam, Sashi, Pria, Uma, Anoop, Sandeep, Nabendu, and Gheet.   Homer, whose advice on procreation led the shop owner and his wife led to having octuplets,  finds himself at a store called SHØP!  The Springfield version of Ikea!

Back in Scandinavia, the Ikea team is busy coming up with unpronounceable names (DUKTIG is for children's furniture, Klippan is for upholstered furniture) for their products, but they maintain that puckish Swedish sense of humor, don't you know. All their floor coverings are named after Danish towns and cities. Denmark was enraged! One blazing headline said, Denmark will not be Sweden's doormat.

Oh, we should have such troubles.  Here you go, Denmark.  Have a meatball and some lingonberry soda.  You've got to see this place!

The End of Daze

Preakness crowd discussing Goethe

Well, here we go with this again, and right off the bat, I wanna say, I'm not judging, not mocking.  But a lady handed me this flier as I left the Try 'N' Bag the other night, and I was rather surprised.  May 21 just is not going to be a good day for me.  It's a Saturday, and there goes my nap.  And not just any Saturday - it's Preakness Saturday here in Baltimore, where around 100,000 inebriated people jam the infield at Old Hilltop, as we fondly call Pimlico Racetrack, and spend the entire day guzzling beer and urinating in holes they dig in the ground, unaware that horse racing is going on all around them.  I heard a jockey whose hoss lost the Kentucky Derby speaking on the tv the other night.  He said that coming down the backstretch, his steed started paying more attention to what was going on in the infield at Churchill Downs than to the track in front of him.  If that's the case, you might want to put blinders on Old Swayback for the Preakness.  What he sees will surely make him stumble a bit.

Very few women leave their tops on.

Anyhow, if the end of the world really does occur this Saturday, just remember, you read it here first.  I asked the lady who handed this to me if there were any wiggle room on this due-date, but she smiled sweetly and told me no.  I remember the dire predictions of yesteryear, including the one that swept my junior high school that claimed that Martians were coming to earth to take us all away.  Apparently, wiser Martians realized how annoying a planet full of American junior high school kids would be, and the plans were scrapped.  (They sent Snooki here instead).

Brunch at your place Sunday?  Lookin' forward to it!

Check This Out

As a former member in good standing of Retail Clerks International (Local 692, Baltimore MD) I have always disliked those self-checkout lines at the Food Clown. I thought it would put someone out of work, replaced by an optical scanner and a grating recorded voice.  ("Please move your VINE RIPE TOMATOES off the belt!")

But no!  We were using one of them last night down to the Giant, and OF COURSE it got all screwed up when my VINE RIPE TOMATOES got in the way of my EGGS JUMBO DOZ.

And two clerks had to come over and sort the whole thing out.  Adding to the confusion was the way the deli guy put my roast beef in a baggie and charged me for it at the price of ham, which to me is like ordering a Rosie O'Donnell movie and getting Vince Vaughn. The two clerks were looking at the bag full of roast beef and a ham price tag, the VINE RIPE TOMATOES that the disembodied voice kept hollering about, and it took no more than half an hour to get me on my way.  Well, maybe not that long, but what's time to a man who is keeping two clerks busy doing what one could have done in 1/2 the time?

Good thing I didn't cut myself during all this. I hate to think of going to the hospital and finding that they have the same sort of thing for an incision, only to find that they have a "suture self" station.

Saturday rerun: Be funny if she came from Reading, PA.

 

So I had to run down to one of our sites today for a clinic, and when things were well in hand I headed back to the main office. Right there on a main road, I drove in the center lane. A woman in her early-to-late 60s was driving in the right lane. I say she was driving, because she was doing something more than driving. She was reading a book. I swear this is true.

I thought at first that she was looking down at the steering wheel on acct. of some sort of mechanical problem. The mechanical problem was that the last time her mechanic serviced the car, he should have disabled the starter. I pulled up next to her and saw that the book was, I guess, a novel. I mean, who reads Toynbee or Edith Hamilton while they're driving their car? What fun would that be? Anyway, she and her paperback pageturner rolled along. Just before the traffic light at Josenhans Corner, she turned the page, no doubt in eager anticipation of what was to be revealed on the next page.

Having learned long ago from the wisdom of "Animal House" ("You'll be glad later if you're not here now") I vamoosed away from her, fast as I could. For all I know, she's still out there tonight, reading her Danielle Steel, being a menace to society, driving her little white econobox. A Corolla, I think it was, and you know, that's kind of a frugal chariot, am I wrong, Emily?
There Is No Frigate Like A Book
Emily Dickinson

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

I hope to avoid her on the roads forever..my pickup also bears a human soul who's in no rush to earn his wings, Clarence!

  

 

It Happened One Spring

Yep, she's broken!

Friends and neighbors, I urge you to look at the picture to the left.  If you know what it is, it's likely that you have been a victim of the Heartbreak of Overhead Torsion Spring Failure.

That big beauty up there is the spring that provides counterbalance to the garage doors in our lives.  The fact that this big spring broke and turned into two smaller springs is not a cause for celebration, unless you own an overhead garage door company.

You see, the other night, I hauled the recycling down to the end of the driveway and lumbered back up to the garage.  As I've done a hundred million times, I hit the garage door closer button.  The door closed just like it has the previous hundred million times, but when it landed down at the bottom there arose such a clatter, I turned to the door to see what was the matter!

"What the (heck) is going on out there?" hollered Peggy, a woman who leads in any contest of wondering what the (heck) any noise is.  There was a springy sound, which, when I described it minutes later to Donnie, our friend who is also the King Of All Handymen, led him to diagnose the problem expertly.  The people hired by our homebuilder to install the door had left 27 stickers and magnets with their name and phone number, so we could reach them at any time.  I called, but it was after hours, and the recording explained how much it would cost to get a guy out to the house after hours.  For less than that, I could have had Dr Ben Carson scoot over and perform brain surgery on me, so I decided to wait until regular business hours.

Which left us with the problem of how I was going to drive to work in the morning, because the SUV was in the garage and with the door down I couldn't drive very far at all...maybe a foot or two! Adrenalin pumping through my veins, beads of sweat forming on my forehead, and the little muscles in my cerebellum rippling like a Kansas wheatfield, I grabbed that door and man, was it heavy!  Peggy gave a shove too and finally we got it raised.  So then, I asked Peggy to dart in and get the key, which she did, and then she drove it out as I stood there like Big Bad John holding up the mineshaft in the old Jimmy Dean song.  Our song had a happier ending, though, since I am still alive to tell you that the guy showed up yesterday, ignored my joke about "springing" into action, replaced the springs and drove off with a check signed by me for $283.  Not a bad half-hour's work!

It did remind me of the need for an word to be the antonym of "deja vu."  As soon as Peggy and I started telling friends the story, people were breaking their necks to tell us that the same thing happened to them, the reason I bring this up. There is an opposite of deja vu, where you find yourself in a scene that everyone else but you knows all about!  I am the last to know that you are supposed to lube that big boy with WD40 once or twice a year! But I get the point now.


And every time I come down with a medical condition or a traffic ticket, I always say, "That's a new one to me!" only to be greeted with lots of friends who have had dipoxy of the lingual frenum, or already knew that 42 was too fast to drive in front of the high school.

I'm always the last to know!

Another BP disaster

As if it isn't tough enough going through life named "Bristol," our Alaskan pal Bristol Palin decided she needed a facial overhaul, now that she in is show biz, with a reality show on the BIO channel (we get it, but I had to check. It's down there near The Military Channel and BBQ America) and her new home in Arizona.  Bristol is, of course, the daughter of  comedian Sarah Palin, who appears on FOXNews with her pithy observations on modern life - sort of like Erma Bombast, if you will.

I really am sad to think that a fairly attractive 20-year-old mom and student has time, money, and most of all, the inclination for having work done on the old kisser, but one look at the before-and-after photos removes all doubt.  Plus, BP spills all about it in US Weekly, saying that "It's not plastic surgery, it's a procedure!" She says this is all from corrective jaw surgery in December.  Her face now appears thinner, with higher cheekbones and an angular jaw. Sort of a female version of Jay Leno.

She also lost 5 pounds and trotted out her new look the weekend before last

 at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in D.C.

"Yes, it improved the way I look, but this surgery was necessary for medical reasons," she told the US magazine.  Bristol claims she had the procedure so her jaw and teeth could properly realign.

(Jaws are really important in that family, what with all the talkin' and feudin' and pointin' out Russia and all! And you need well-aligned teeth for chewin' all that whale meat!)

"I look older, more mature and don't have as much of a chubby little baby face," she told US.

And that non-chubby face will soon beam out at you from this reality series which will show her and sonny Tripp moving to Los Angeles to work for a charity.  And she's writin' a book! She's going to publish "Not Afraid of Life"  this summer.  The publishing firm says the memoir would provide "an inside look at her life." That would be the life of which she is so unafraid, you understand.


And baby daddy Levi has a book coming out soon! This fall, look for  "Deer in the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin's Crosshairs."

I never want to be in or near Sarah Palin's crosshairs.

Sounds like all three of these people - Sarah, Bristol, and Levi, are right on target.

But I once worked with someone who was in a minor auto accident, had to be out for three months for "rehab," and came back looking like Groucho Marx when he played in "The Mikado."  Life gives you a face. Unless you're in the show business, it's the one you should stick with, unless you feel more comfortable having...two faces.

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”

Tennessee "Tuxedo" Williams said that quote above, and I have to agree.  

I am, by nature, gregarious, and also, I enjoy meeting new people and maintaining friendships old and new.  People are endlessly fascinating to me, because each and every one of our fellow citizens is like an artichoke.  You keep finding layer after layer of good things, and it's always fun to discover that someone you know happens to be the world champion in hopscotch.  

Scotch has a lot to do with a lot of people I know, come to think of it.

But really, finding out that one of my parents' friends was a man who earned a handful of ribbons and stars at the Battle of the Bulge was a big deal to me.  Everyone is more than they seem.

And sometimes, just being what we seem to be is more than enough.

I bring all this up because of something stunning on my facebook page.  I noticed the other night that I have a stunning amount of friends there.  Now look, as BHO would say: they're not all close boon companions or anything.  In fact, you could categorize them pretty well in five groups:

•  really close friends!
• kinfolk by blood or marriage
• people I have known since I was a barefoot boy with cheek of tan
• people I have never met but we friended because of fic's (friends in common)
• people I went to school with or knew long ago 

 
I am a lucky man.  I look at the tiny pictures of my friends and for each one, I recall a dozen happy memories right off the bat. Maybe I'm crazy, but I'd rather have my friends than all the money in the world.  Friends can say nice things and support us when we're down, pat us on the back in good times and bad, and make a crumby day into a slice of crumb-cake in a jiffy. 

We have Mother's Day and Father's Day and Arbor Day and Doris Day: all great celebrations.  I think that at least one day a month, we all should take time to thank our friends for being our friends.

Thanks, friends! I appreciate it!

Bad Office Manners

Never ones to be outdone, the good folks at the Comcast website have published a list of the Top Ten obnoxious things that people do at work.  I looked it over, but I can't say they hit everything.  I mean, for some people, the obnoxiety starts before they even GET to work, the way they drive and, once there, take up two places or so.  The other day, we got an email advising that someone had parked out front in a B.A. Ford Excursion, taking up FOUR spots at once.  That's got to be some sort of record, but where would you look it up?

I haven't even taken a gander at the Comcast list of offensive things to do at work.  I thought of my own - and I must point out that this list is not reflective of where I work now!  Those people are all angels, and put up with my singing and bad jokes. 

But let's go with:

I like to use a picture every day. Say hi to Phil Silvers!

1. wearing stanky cologne or perfume or aftershave, or having other forms of bodystank.  Will cause people to use the fisheye.
2. playing someone's favorite music loudly on a scratchy cheap broken clock radio that they didn't want in their bedroom any longer, it's such a brokedown relic, but it's good enough to play Cyndi Lauper's execrable "Time After Time" every day around 10.
3. having an office that looks like the Rain Forest down at the Aquarium, with vines and trailing arbutus hanging in one's face when one stops by to pick up the Bramblebury account folder.  Notice: this sort of foliage is often accompanied by macrame.  Beware.
4. Setting up what looks like the Salad Bar area from a Golden Corral buffet on the work area.  
5. Similarly, setting up what looks (and smells like) the coffee section at a WaWa.  Mr Coffee, Keurig, French Press, Drip-O-Lator: we've seen all the coffee setups in offices, with the little note about remembering to feed the kitty, and the IOU's in the coffee mug where dollars ought to be.
6. The people who have something to sell on behalf of their children, fraternal group or Chowder And Marching Society every week.  Every so often, sure, and everyone likes a chance to purchase pizzas and candles and popcorn, especially when it benefits a good cause.  But...every week?? For young Brattleboro's Free Form Ballet group?  How much candy can we eat?
7. Smokers who congregate right by the door so they can exhale something KOOL right in your face as you enter the building.  I am sorry for smokers, a group that once numbered me among them, but I am willing to betcha that most smokers would still go out and puff up if they were required to put on some sort of clown costume and ride around the parking lot on a unicycle while getting their nicotine fix.
8. People whose cell phones are set on maximum volume with the weirdest ringtones you ever heard...and will hear...all day.  Enchanting as the lilting love ballad "Beaten, Gagged, Bound and Chained," by Sadie O' Masochist might be to you, others  might find it, well, repugnant.
9. People who "speak' to service personnel by using only hand gestures (pointing the index finger at them, and then pointing that finger at a spill or pile or trash) or third-person irregular ("Custodial! Custodial! Overflowing bidet in executive men's room!")
10. Insensitive, inappropriate "jokes" or comments about someone else's race, color, creed, ethnic background, physical condition, area of domicile, or sexual preference tell us a lot about the boors who spout this bilge.

That's your Top Ten, and be sure to tune in next week to see if anything changes.  "Using swear words, cheap vulgar terms or taking the Lord's name in vain" is moving up fast!
 

Look at me, I'm an Old Timer already

And then was I was 16, I decided to end my on-and-off romance with Sandra Dee.  I say "on-and-off" because her lawyers told me if they caught me ON her property again they would see to it that I was hauled OFF to jail. Just kidding. I've never been to Hollywood or even any further west than Oakland...Maryland. Sandra was my first crushlet, but I doubt that she even knew I existed.  Had she known the depths of my love and devotion, she certainly wouldn't have married that Bobby Darin character.  I just loved her, but I'm sure I was only one of millions of young men whose hearts were set aflutter by the adorable visage of the woman born Alexandra Zuck.

So, I decided to join my local volunteer fire company to put Sandra's rejection behind me, and in June, 1967, I joined the Providence Volunteer Fire Company. I always point out that if the requirement for high school kids to do a certain amount of public service hours had been in place back then, that would have been one high school requirement I could accomplish easily.  I spent many an hour learning the skills of firefighting and putting those skills to work in all sorts of emergency situations.  Not only did this teenage avocation lead directly to the career path I have followed in the public safety field, it taught me lots of things that come in handy to this day, such as preparation.  I never pull into a parking spot or garage; I always back in, so I can leave without delay if I need to. I never enter a gathering hall without scouting out all the exits, and to the many shop owners and grocery store managers I have hectored over the years when their fire exit doors were blocked, I am not the least bit sorry.  I always make sure to have emergency tools and equipment and basic life support gear in my vehicle - you never know when they will come in handy.

And more valuable than anything are the relationships with the people from the volunteer days.  We had our "Old Timer's Night" the other evening, and if you ever want to feel your bones creaking, just open your mailbox one day and find yourself on the Old Timer's list for anything.  Boom. Reach for the Geritol. Some of the guys have gone to their rewards, in many cases far too soon, and lots are still kickin' around and have gone on to see their children take their own places in the fire company.  That's got to be an awesome feeling. 

As you might expect, the science of firefighting and handling emergencies in general has changed a billion percent since 1967.  The predominant theory in those days was, if something's burning, or some fluid is somewhere where there shouldn't be fluid, pour many hundreds of gallons of water on it.  Since then, we have learned that for certain types of fires and hazardous material situations, the last thing you'd want to do is add water, but again, we did what we knew how back then.  


And no one ever dreamed, 44 Septembers ago, that a foreign enemy would so coldly and calculatingly hijack airplanes full of jet fuel for really long flights and crash them into buildings and the Pentagon (and try for the Capitol, only to be thwarted by incredibly brave men and women).  No one ever envisioned the resultant hellish inferno of 9/11/01, and no fire department anywhere ever lost 343 firefighters in one Stygian river of pain and agony until that awful Tuesday.


The ineffable loss of that day can't be summed up in words, which might be why, even as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, we haven't seen a flood of books and special editions of magazines on the topic.  Better to let symbols speak for us, and that is behind the significance of my old company obtaining a section of a steel beam from the World Trade Center.  It was acquired through New York City officials, and brought down to the fire house here outside Baltimore to serve as an inspiration, a touchstone, a sacred symbol of the losses of that day, and the resolve that saw the nation through them.  It will be mounted outside the meeting/training room, where everyone will have a chance to be in the presence of something that was with those 343.  The significance is profound, and the fact that our Old Timer's Night came five days after the death of the bastard bin Laden, who wreaked this wretchedness, reminds me that, in whatever fiery corner he now dwells, my only regret is that it took almost ten years. AMF, OBL.

During those ten years, the lovely Sandra Dee, my childhood ideal of beauty and wholesomeness and all attractive things, passed away (2005).  I'm sure she is in a special sweet place in Heaven.  


They tell that it's not for us to predict or discuss, but I'm gonna go out on a beam here and say that bin Laden is far, far away from there. 

Sunday Rerun: Fishing for Compliments

When you order Chilean Sea Bass

at Chez Can You Sea, would you let me know if you would have ordered it if it were on the menu under its original name: Patagonian Toothfish?

Hah?






Monkfish (r)

is another one.  Nice name, makes you think of a frugal, monastic sort of person who would order this especially on Fridays.  Fishmongers started selling this fish heavily a few years ago and promoted it as "poor man's lobster."  Well, this poor man didn't confuse it with lobster, but maybe that's because I remember these guys when they used to be called Goosefish.  And the taste won't make you forget lobster at all.  You know what it really tastes like?  Monkfish!

It's all in the nomenclature.  I love how real estate developers, building new houses in a crime-ridden, sketchy part of town, name the streets "Hobson's Choice Lane" and "Admiral's Helm Way."  Well, I checked with Hobson, and his choice is not to live in a neighborhood where gunfire rings out like downtown Beirut every night.  The Admiral steered himself a good many nautical miles away as well.  And watch for this trick:  say they build some houses in Stankville, but the crime rate in Stankville rivals that of Crackton in The

Simpsons.  Down the road in the valley, a good 10 miles away is the quiet hamlet of Happytown.  The developer will name the new community Happytown Heights, sure as shooting.  If you will.

One more fish story - and these are all true examples of modern piscatorial marketing at its best - everyone loves Orange

Roughy, right? (There it is, on the right >>)
I mean, it sounds perfect. Orange, so you feel like you're getting some fruit, and Roughy, so you're adding a good bit of roughage.  And the taste is so...so...so-so.  Still, you order it because it sounds good now.  Back in the day, they called these beauties Slimeheads.  Not what you want to order on a first date, unless your date comes from Crackton!

Don't Cell Yourself Short

Now that we have the bin Laden matter wrapped up satisfactorily, there are other concerns plaguing the nation, and we should discuss them, if you have a minute.

I don't think there is a more pressing concern than cell phone etiquette.  Take ringtones. Currently, people within one hundred yards of me get to hear "Roll Tide Roll," as performed by the University of Alabama Million Dollar Band when someone calls.  I can also switch over to that bell sound from the beginning of AC/DC's "Hells' Bells" or the theme songs to TV favorites "The Price Is Right" or "Human Target," or one of those cartoon sound effects: hapless pedestrian slips on banana peel, guy gets clomped on melon by frying pan.  I like to mix it up.

It's for you

But please don't use some soppy love ballad with intensely personal lyrics if you want to avoid the stankeye when you're in line at Pete Ceria's and someone calls you and everyone else waiting hears "Crazy" by Patsy Cline, or "Blue" by LeAnn Rimes, or "The World is a Horrible Place Full of Pain and Misery and I Don't Know How Much Longer I Can Possibly Hold onto my Sanity or my Position" by Tori Amos. Also, you want to be careful where you are and what your posture is, should you get an incoming ring-a-ling and your ringtone is that "I Love Big Butts" song.  

And clearly, I don't know what goes on in ladies' rooms, and perhaps it's best that I don't.  But guys in stalls on cell phones?  Really, men! Nothing will weird your afternoon quite like ankling up to the porcelain and hearing this from the stall:

"Really good baby...yeah...you know I'm your man..."

or

"It makes that rrrr-rrrr-rrrrrr noise every time I turn it on..."

or

"You got papers on me? I got papers on YOU!"

or, perhaps worst of all:
 
"Hi there!"

There needs to be a signal, some sort of way to let those not in the stall know that the person in the stall just has to be on the phone right now, so his remarks, although tender or humorous or just plain weird, are not meant for you.  In college, a necktie hanging on a doorknob is an indication that the person within is getting with the hibbidy-dibbidy, and barging in would not be appreciated.  In business, a white placard in the front window is a signal for the FedEx man to stop.  Two palms upraised by a third-base coach let a ballplayer know not to try to go past third.  Similarly, two hands upraised by Dick Cheney's friends mean "Stop! Don't Shoot!"

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign.  

And of course, the ultimate rude cell behavior - taking a phone call OUT LOUD during a movie, concert, play or bris. The last three are great examples of live performances in which the performers really need to concentrate on their craft. My buddy Dennis down in Prince Frederick points out that we should assume that anyone who brings a live cell phone to such events must be on the waiting list for a vital organ. If the phone should ring, it's The Uvula Center, calling about their replacement part.

Just take your seat, and we'll come and get you when that call comes in!

Bunker Mentality

I saw an interesting story about Cary Grant on CBS Sunday Morning on Sunday morning, and they shared the old one about the time Cary Grant showed up without a ticket for some sort of Hollywood gala.  Without looking at him, the lady taking tickets said, "Who are you?" and the Sultan of Suave, the Cardinal of Cool, the High Priest of Handsome said, "I'm Cary Grant."  And the ticket lady looked up and said, "You don't look like Cary Grant," and the Übermensch of Urbanity replied, "No one does."

And they didn't tell the one  - and try to stop me if you've heard it before - where a reporter on deadline, writing a story about the Dean of Dapper, sent a telegram to his agent asking, "HOW OLD CARY GRANT?"  And Grant himself got the wire and sent a reply: "OLD CARY GRANT JUST FINE. HOW YOU?"

We know that Cary Grant was born Archibald Leach in England and that he took his stage name by looking for names that started with a 'C' and a 'G' because that combination had been lucky for Clark Gable and Gary Cooper.  (Not so much for Charles Grodin, but it also worked great for George Clooney and Curious George!) It wouldn't have lessened his total coolness by one whit had he gone into the movies with the name Archie Leach, would it?

Sammy's famous scene

Wally

Archie

Archie Bunker: that would not have been as cool, but then again the laughable lug from "All In The Family" was saying goofy flamethrowing things 40 years ago that today sound a lot like a certain party's leading presidential candidates, if you catch my drift.  Did you know that when Norman Lear and his writers were crafting the role of Archie Bunker for Carroll O'Connor, they settled on the surname Bunker because of its connotations with hunkering down in the bunker of long-held specious theories, and then they planned to call him "Wally" Bunker because that name sounded so typical of a New York kinda guy.  No sports fans, they.  But just before they started shooting the pilot for the series, someone pointed out that the Orioles had a pretty good right-handed pitcher by the name of Wally Bunker, a flamethrower whose career peaked with a win in the '66 World Series over the Dodgers.

Cary Grant, Archie Bunker, Wally Bunker.  Three men with nothing in common, and yet, here I am writing about them. 

What do you get when you cross an overly licentious individual with an encyclopedia?

I might be opening a giant can of worms here, so I'll say right up front, I don't know how I feel about all this.  But I value what I hear from y'all quite highly, so here's what happened, and let's talk about it.

When Peggy and I were in an antique store last week up in PA, I was waiting to buy some old LIFE magazines when I saw four people huddled around an old book. Apparently, the book was a now-outdated volume on astronomy.  

Any book on astronomy is outdated as soon as someone with a telescope finds a new planet or asteroid flying around, anyway.

But in this case, a youngster, male, roughly ten years of age, was holding forth on the shortcoming and inaccuracies he had found in the book.  For one thing, I am quite certain that this young fella knows a lot more about what's up in the sky than I do.  I do remember the mnemonic device M VEM J SUN, which helped us learn the planets in order: Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune.  In those days, Pluto was a dog in the pre-frozen Disney era, and then it became a planet, and now it isn't again. But that is all I know, I'm telling you, and if this young man was discoursing on how and why the book was wrong, I'd have had to take him at his word.

But the man who ran the store was beaming! And the boy's parents were a-beam! And the boy beamed more brightly than the sun! They beamed all four, as he explained why the book was wrong.  And then he continued ranting about how much he knew about all this, and why didn't someone just let HIM write a book, and everyone else is just dumb dumb dumb, and the man who ran the store beamed no more.  The parents and the boy were the only three beamers left, as they turned to foray more deeply into the aged merchandise, the better for Einstein, Jr., to find more things that have changed since the day they were made.

And here comes the kicker:  As they ankled by me, triumphantly, I noticed that the buy wore a t-shirt with this printed on front:

 I was able to find the image at right through a quick Google search.  There are thousands of images for this, which I take to be the defiant slogan of the homeschool community.  These parents were definitely, defiantly, proud of their unsocialized little asteroid.


I look at it this way: people who are very smart and well-educated and sensible, and who have the time and inclination to do so, should, by all means, school their children at home IF they can also find a way to incorporate socialization into the curriculum.  Being unsocialized is one of four ways NOT to go through life, the others being (say it with me) "Fat, drunk and stupid."  


As to the education aspect, again, if you know what you're doing, go ahead.  It's just that I once talked to a person who said, "I don't want no kid of mine in no public school.  They don't teach 'em nothin'!" See, it's been my experience that people don't talk that way to me at noon, and then speak like John Gielgud when they get home.  Bad grammar sticks around, even when people try to bring out the good.  


And even people who use good grammar and teach it to their kids are not apt to be scholars in every field, which is why schools employ more than one teacher.  There are math teachers, science teachers, history teachers, French teachers,  physical education teachers, metal shop teachers, home ec teachers, fried shrimp, shrimp salad and...well, you know.  Being well-intended and following an approved curriculum guide: is that enough?  


And the socialization skills that come from being in a building with others of the same age can't be replaced by sitting at the kitchen table while mom cooks dinner and talks about the Peloponnesian Wars.  There's a real skill in asking out a girl during a class break and then, five minutes later, having to go to the front of the class and solve for 'x' in a complicated equation.  Depending on the girl's answer, the equation of your life may or may not have just become more complicated, and you still have to solve for 'x'.


So, again, I'd like some opinions on homeschooling from those who have tried it or even those who have not.  I can see that a capable parent or two would make a fine teacher, but there is more to school than readin', writin' and cipherin'.  There's socializin', too!

It's Too Oily

So Osama bin Laden is dead. Navy SEALS did him in, although the lanky terrorist son of a millionaire went down firing. Not what you'd call a great loss, and still our fighting forces had the dignity to follow the traditional Muslim rituals of washing the body and wrapping it in a white sheet before burying it at sea off the bow of the USS Carl Vinson.  

This wraps up the most intense manhunt in our nation's history and opens up a slot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, where bin Laden has resided since shortly after that awful day in 2001.  He's probably going to be replaced by a bank robber from Oregon named Rob Banks, or a guy who steals airplanes in flight, named Hi Jackson.

George Bush and his henchman, Mr Cheney, could not accomplish this and it's to President Obama's great credit that under his direction, bin Laden was taken care of in the best way possible.  Of course, people are now quick to holler that Obama's success in this venture was just piggybacking on the groundwork laid by Bush's staff, which, if you will stop to think about it, DID NOT CAPTURE BIN LADEN so this jelly is full of sour grapes.

It gave the nation cause to celebrate, and as soon as that tumult quiets down some, maybe we can stop and look around and figure out what's next.

Retaliation seems a given, but you have to wonder where...and how.  We have learned a lot since 2001, and we have to hope that our intelligence will enable us to head off a return punch from the horrible terrorists over in the Mideast. 

Meanwhile, oil prices went down and so did the stock market.  But if you were losing sleep over how well our good neighbors down at Exxon are doing, well, rest easy: (from Bloomberg News)

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest company by market value, posted its largest profit in almost three years as soaring gasoline prices fueled discontent among consumers and policymakers. 

With U.S. motorists paying the most for gasoline since prices reached a record $4.11 a gallon in the summer of 2008, Exxon said that its first-quarter net income jumped 69 percent to $10.7 billion. The Irving, Texas-based company is sitting on a cash pile of $13.2 billion, even after distributing more than $7 billion to shareholders in buybacks and dividends. 

Net income in Jan-Feb-Mar '11 = $10,700,000,000.  Minus the cost of the calendars they gave away, and the juice glasses with every fillup, and the road maps...wait.  What?  They don't give anything away any more?  And they took in 10.7 BILLION semolians?  An oil company did that?

Well, who cares?  The other night it was time to buy some pretty plants to decorate the front porch where Peggy and I will sit on a summer evening, listening to:

• crickets chirping
• carloads of angry teenagers with low-riding cars with speakers the size of tanning beds
• the guy down the street and his wife bickering 
• and the ballgame.  

All the while swatting 'skeeters.  And we needed little plastic pans to catch the runoff water from the planters.

 Two plastic pans, the size of dinner plates, at Home Depot, $3.49 each.  They're made of a petroleum derivative. 

It's a gas!

The Land Down Under

It happened in an outlet mall, at a place called either Socks Galore or Socks, Socks and More Socks.  Peggy whispered to me, "Do you need boxer shorts?"

Like most men, I need new underwear but keep on wearing the old.  Once you get used to a pair, it's tough to say goodbye, and if you're going to say,"Oh look! You have a couple of holes in you!" and then toss away an otherwise perfectly fine pair, well, what does that say about your loyalty?

So the answer there is, of course I do, and I'd be willing to see about investing in some new ones if they are of an interesting plaid pattern, or show Stewie Griffin doing something outrageous.  But the amusing thing is that Peggy, always the discreet one between us, whispered this to me, lest the teenager at the register hear talk of What's Underneath It All.

Not I.

I lack discretion, among other things.  I'll tell you right here and now that I wear underwear.  I think most of us do.  I'd just as soon not be seen publicly wearing underwear, so I spare my neighbors the sight of me darting out to chase the trash truck with my B.A. drawers flapping behind me.  I do find it amusing that so many people would just about have a conniption if you walked in on them and they were only wearing their skivvies, but will wear less than that ten minutes later, prancing down to the beach. And this goes for both men and women, although I will have to say that you'll see Donald Trump wearing a crew cut before you'll see me in a Speedo®.  You're welcome.


I have never had problems buying anything for anyone in any kind of store, and of course, that usually means asking someone a question.  I can tell you how they figure a baseball player's slugging percentage, I can tell you three different ways to get anywhere around here (scenic route, quickest route, or shortest), and I can bake an apple pie from scratch, but, for all my many failings, I cannot tell you what "wings" are - as in, the kind of wings on certain products only used by the female gender and sold in that one aisle at the Try 'N' Buy down which most males will not venture.  All I need is to have it written down - blue box, pink writing, "wings," and then I show it to a woman, asking, "Is this the right thing?" Simple. 

How do I know the woman knows what I'm trying to buy? Simple again.  Women know everything they need to know!

Make Your Breaks

I once met a man whose life was not turning out the way he had seen it unspooling in his youthful dreams.  Problem seemed to be that no one accepted him for the genius that he was (or considered himself to be).  He had a very good job in his 20s but quit that in a moment of peevishness, and then began that slow, sad spiral of descent that leaves those around him wrinkling their brows and shaking their shaggy heads.  He sold aluminum siding, but "Baltimore's a crummy town for selling something like that."  He worked in a retail store, but "I can't deal with these jerks, always wanting to buy something they don't even know how to operate." He worked for a drugstore, but "business is way down and I got laid off."  Back to his original line of work, he got an entry-level job up the road in the field in which he once was a supervisor, but that didn't work because "They were out to get me from Day One.  They knew I coulda come in there and run the place, so of course they wanted to keep me out of their lives."  Another job didn't work out because "they stacked the deck so I was physically unable to do the work."  

A cynic might point out that if aluminum were magnetic, most of Baltimore would be facing the North Pole, for all the siding on our houses.  It's amazing that people here don't have their cars enhanced with siding. Also, money spent by people on things they don't need or can't work right is called "money just the same" in most towns. The drug business around here - and I'm speaking only of the Rx's from your kindly doctor - means we keep seeing drugstores the size of the Astrodome on most big corners. No one is out to get anyone. Most firms welcome the chance to hire someone who might have innovative ways and usable ideas for the business. And employers with openings really don't have the time, money or the inclination to hire people clearly unable to do the work.  Employers tend not to have time to stack decks, unless they're in the porch business.

I thought about this man, whom I haven't seen in many a summer, because the other day at a work event I met a young woman who works for our local school system as a night-shift custodian.  I am fascinated by "off-hours" jobs like that, so of course, right away I had to ask if she ever goes to the band room late at night and pounds on the bass drum ("no") or blasts a note on the tuba ("No!") because, truth to tell, those are things I would do.  But we had a while to chat, waiting for something to happen for this event, and she told me that she and her husband both work the overnight shift - he as a nursing assistant in a nursing home - and go to college in the afternoon - she for paralegal studies, he for his RN degree.  Her sister lives with them and functions as baby sitter for their little girl and will do so for their little one on the way with a July arrival.  

That's a couple of heapin' plates right there: jobs, school, parenting.  She told me that she had seen people who just sat and waited for life to come to them, for all their dreams to come true, and she had vowed as a young woman that she would not be like that.  So she works, maybe not in the most glamorous of jobs for now, but she is on the track to making her life what she wants it to be.

And somewhere along the way, she realized that if she and her husband wanted the better things in life, she and her husband would be two fine candidates for the job of making that happen.

I'm willing to bet that good things will come her way, and even though cynics like my man above here will say, "Oh they got a lucky break/ they knew someone/ they were in the right place at the right time? etc etc etc," this lady and her husband will know better than that how they got there.

I don't know where I'll be in thirty years, but I bet I know where these two will wind up! 

Crime means punishment

Last week, Monday evening, one of the brilliant young people in our town, all of 13, went out in his backyard and aimed his laser pointer at the Maryland State Police helicopter flying overhead on a training mission.

This had the result of temporarily blinding the two pilots and one paramedic in the aircraft.  Big fun, huh?

But the thirteen-year-old then ran back into his own house, which was spotlighted by the MSP chopper, whose crew radioed to county police, who drove over to the youngster's house and filed juvie papers on him for reckless endangerment and unsafe use of a laser device.  They also confiscated the laser device. Experienced police were able to deduce that the youngster was an inexperienced prankster, because he ran to his own house while being jacklighted like a deer by the helicopter!

By now the young man has had time to repent.  I wonder, though, how will his parents weigh in on this.  Two scenarios come to mind:

a) his parents will realize that his actions placed the lives of three people in jeopardy, along with those on the ground, others in the air, and the aircraft itself and take appropriate measures, e.g. grounding him until his honeymoon

b) his parents will say this was a harmless prank, and why the heck are those nasty old police picking on young Brattleboro, who was only expressing himself in his own back yard?

Now, the truth is, Peggy and I don't have any kids of our own, because of certain codicils in the Smoot-Hawley Tariffs and the Stamp Act.  But one thing I do know about child-rearin' is, the parents ought to be the ones to a) model the correct behavior and b) point it out to the child when the child fails to a).   I hear all the time from parents who don't want to hurt little Petunia's fragile ego by correcting her, and all the while, Petunia keeps acting up, doing anything she can to get her parents' attention for a minute, hoping for some direction in her 17-year-old life.

Anyway, back to Brainiac and his pointer, this is not really something to make fun of.  We have to hope that either his parents or the juvenile justice system will see that he learns the error of his ways.   A great deal of today's parents are loath to correct their children, lest they harm their psyches in some way.  I'm telling you this: kids want direction, same as you do when you set out on a car trip for Ashtabula.  You don't want just to drive around until you stumble upon the Ohio town whose name derives from softening the Algonquin Indian term originally pronounced "Hush-tah-buh-lah", which means "River of many fish."

You know the Native American term for parents who don't take the time to provide direction to their children? They don't have one! They teach their children well!