It's Only Natural

Those movie people, man, I wanna tell you.  They take a story from real life and turn it into a...movie!

You might have seen that movie "The Natural," starring Robert Redford.  Baseball guy goes to girl's hotel room and she plugs him a good one right in the belly, see?  But then the kid comes back, see?  And hits a ton o' homers, see?

It was all LOOSELY based on a real story.  Eddie Waitkus was the name of the first baseman, and he looked like the young Redford like I look like any two members of 1 Direction.  But he played for the Cubs in postwar Chicago and a teenager named Ruth Ann Steinhagen had the hots for him.

It happens.

She was fine swooning over him from the stands at Historic Wrigley Field, but when Waitkus was traded to the Phillies after the 1948 season, she wasn't about to commute to Philadelphia to see him play.

So she decided to shoot him.

When the Phillies came to Chi to play the Cubs in June of '49, she got a room in their team hotel and sent Waitkus a note, saying that she was in the Edgewater Beach Hotel and had something to discuss with him.

As you might imagine, Eddie about broke his neck to get to her room and see what was up.  So to speak.

She leveled a rifle at him and fired, striking him in the chest.  But he refused to press charges, citing both the 2nd and 5th Amendments.  Waitkus then joined the list of World War II veterans who came home from the war unscathed, only to be shot in his own country.

Waitkus flashes the high sign to an anxious nation

Adjudged insane, Ruth Ann Steinhagen was confined to a mental institution for three years, released in time for the 1952 season.  But she stayed "in the shadows" until she passed away this past December.  So deep in the shadows was she, according to John Theodore, who wrote a book about the subject in 2002, that no one around her seemed to know why she was once so notorious.  There's nothing anywhere about her having a job, family, marriage, anything.

Waitkus returned to play six more big-league seasons,although he was never the great player that his cinematic alter ego Roy Hobbs was, died in 1972, and to his dying day, was wary about visiting strangers in hotel rooms, we may rest assured.  Ruth Ann Steinhagen's parents took her in, and they survived into the 1990s. Even the Cook County Coroner, who confirmed Ruth Ann's death, had no idea in December until a reporter dug up her background last week. 

How a person once so famous can learn to hide in a house, and how the entire community can forget why she was so infamous, are fascinating topics to think about. It would never happen today.  Between TMZ and reality shows, she would be a fixture on television nightly. Hell, she might even have her own show on FOX News.


In the old wire-service picture at right, RA is seen in an institution, apparently writing to her idol while gazing lovingly at his graven image.  This sort of  staged photography used to pass for journalism.

Emerald Legacy

I was sound asleep, I guess, when our culture decided to add spectacular new dimensions to St Patrick's Day.  This was always a holiday that Americans would celebrate by wearing green clothing, eating corned beef and cabbage, and drinking entirely too much alcohol. The popular toast "Sláinte" means "to your health, which may be compromised if you drink a quart of Old Hoolihan's Finest."

Celebration is fine, as far as it goes, and March 18 was traditionally a huge day for the people at Alka Seltzer, but now, overnight, a new aspect was added to all this hoopla.

Over the past weekend, I started seeing statuses on Facebook, people saying that their children were disappointed because "the leprechaun didn't come."  As one mom put it, "What's the Leprechaun supposed to do? Who came up with this? Santa Claus, the Elf on the Shelf, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy are pressure enough. Stop the madness!!!"

Hallmark Holidays, which have grown to include Sweetest Day and Grandparents' Day, are those holidays that seem to be puffed up by the greeting card industry.  Everyone loves grandparents, but all of a sudden there's a Sunday in September to send them cards?  Sweetest Day was cooked up by the people who cook up candy - it's supposed to be celebrated on the third Saturday in October, a tough stretch on the calendar for America's confectioners, who then have only Halloween to make money from while awaiting Thanksgiving and Christmas and Valentine's Day and Aunt Norma's birthday.

I don't have an Elf On A Shelf, but over my shoulder as I sit here typing my quotidian thoughts sits a little Bart Simpson image. He does not bring me candy or trinkets, but he does bring me cheer when I think of things he has brought to our world. 

Sometimes I wonder if Bart's work among us has been in vain, but then, when I see news like this, I know his message lives on.

Happy Holidays, everyone!  

Heavens above!

It's a rite of passage, or it used to be:  young couple gets married and lives in apartments until they get enough cash to move to a house.  

It was that way for Peggy and me when we got married in the waning days of the Nixon Administration.  It was all right.  For one thing, neither of us had the vast collections of things that we now curate.  We didn't have many possessions or much money. So, we lived in a couple of rental units.

One of them was in a garden apartment complex; we were on the second floor there and right next to the laundry room. This, of course, led neighbors to knock on our door looking for change for the washer and dryer.  It got to where it was easier for me on Saturdays to wear one of those aprons (left) and a paper cap that said CHANGE.

And all current and former apartment dwellers know about the joy of finding a parking space.  They plan the parking lots around those places, seemingly, with one spot per apartment, and when someone throws a party, you'll be lucky to park at the VFW hall's back lot two blocks away.

And then one night, while I was in the bathroom brushing my long luxuriant wavy locks (so wavy that many of them have waved goodbye) I heard the top end of a conversation that two neighbors were having.  Her voice, although raised, was not clear, so I don't know what she said, but it was just like being in the audience at a Tennessee Williams play when I heard him say, "I don't care if you're going to be a (woman of easy virtue), but tonight, you're going to be MY (woman of easy virtue)."

And I always wondered how things went for those two crazy kids during the remaining three weeks of their marriage.

Which brings me to a blog I stumbled upon while riding my web surfer one day.  It's called Dear Girls Above Me, and it contains the thoughts and opinions that a certain guy would love to share with the women who rent the apartment above his.  They're loud, and, it would seem, not terribly bright ("So the right to bear arms has nothing to do with acting like a bear?")

The writer of the blog hears these gems all day and then writes his imaginary responses.  It must be a thin ceiling that divides him from them.  Check out the blog and see how he's doing!

The Pope and I

My ears perked right up the other day, believing that the new Pope, Francis I, had read my blog.  I heard on the news that he said that faith without foundation is washed away like a child building sandcastles on the beach.

The foundation is a faith and belief in Jesus, and I profess that belief as well.  I'm not in a position to say much about the new Pope, not being Catholic.  But a lot of people are saying that he might bring a new vision to the 1.2 billion members of his church.

Two things I remember from my early days in Vacation Bible School: singing "The Wise Man Builds His House Upon a Rock," which, evidently, was written by someone who never thought of drilling for well water, and the awful taste of Kool-Aid, also known as "bug juice."  

Hendrix's album cover photo

A few years after my days in Vacation Bible School, I spent a summer in Vacation Algebra School, following a dispute with my Algebra II teacher.  I thought that I deserved a higher grade than a 'D' for my dedicated work involving trains leaving Chicago at different times, and the detailed research I turned in concerning my opinion of the Quadratic Equation (I was all for it.)  He thought I was damn lucky to slide through with a 'D' and recommended summer school, because he was not teaching summer school. 1967, this was...The Summer of Love.  I did not love being in summer school, but six weeks in a non-air-conditioned classroom reinforced in me a lifelong distaste for solving for 'X'.  But...that summer brought us the "Axis: Bold As Love" album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.  

One of the songs on that album, "Castles Made of Sand," has a captivating melody line and words that bring a novel's worth of wisdom to a 2 minute, 45 second song.  The last verse was especially meaningful to me, as I had a friend up the road, a girl just a little older than I who was confined to a wheelchair by cerebral palsy.  She could not speak, but she communicated by means of striking the keys on an electric typewriter with a prong fitted to a headband she would wear.  And her words were lovely and thoughtful, and spoke of her faith in a bright future in a land where her spirit would soar freely.

So in the last verse of the song, when the girl in the wheelchair contemplates an awful ending, the golden winged ship comes along just in time.  It's not clear what happens to her, but the song speaks to me of the faith and the deep foundation I find in religion.  That same ship has brought me favor time and again, and even though I'm like everyone else in having built castles of sand while watching it sail by, I've learned how important the foundation is.

I do not mean to proselytize; you can take this for what it's worth to you, but if the Pope is interested in knowing that I titled my blog for a song about the same topic he brought up the other day in his homily, I'd be glad to play the song for him.

Sunday rerun: I wanted an Ümlaut, but whaddya gonna do?

If you don't have an IKEA near you, I'd consider moving. Of all the great Swedish furniture stores that we have in the greater Baltimore area (JC Torkelson and Montgomery Gottfrid spring to mind), IKEA is the greatest. They have a scratch-and-dent room where a handy man, or I, can buy wood shelves that fell out of a bookshelf for 50 cents and make our own bookshelves, or not. They have all sorts of furniture and home items. They even have Swedish food for sale - grog! salmon! loganberry juice! And a restaurant with Swedish meatballs and cold salmon plates. It's the sort of a place that's suitable for a family field trip, and I think that just being there makes one feel, I dunno, sort of Ikea-ish.


IF YOU GO, you'll notice the brand names on everything from sofas to light bulbs are not you're used to seeing down at Value Village. Hearty, stocky Swedish names! Vivika! Komplement! Furuskug! Ofelia! Fortunately, if you have any questions, you can ask Courtney, Lauren or Justin, who all work there along with Jessica, Nicole and Matthew.




But I found this site on which you simply enter your own first name and the amazing computer machine, right over what a former president calls "the internets," will bestow upon you your own Ikea brand name. That's mine, right above: Markind, a walloping, hearty meatloaf of a table. Hope you like yours!

The Saturday Picture Show, 3/16/13

I am a diner-loving guy and so I share this picture of a classic diner sandwich - the chicken salad BLT.  I would like to share something else - my newfound affection for turkey bacon!  Fry it up and try some.  It's great, and you get that feel-good feeling from saving calories. 86 the fries and soda for bonus diet points!

Pictures taken in St Peter's Square eight years apart, showing the jubilant crowds after the announcements of new Popes.  Notice the difference - in the 2005 shot, I don't even see a camera in use, and this year, almost everyone has their cell or tablet out, getting a picture of history.  8 years. 

Yes, I did this once and I admit to stealing the gag from Robert Benchley.  I did indeed call a coworker and, when she was not in, I left a message with her assistant" "Arrived Venice, streets flooded, please advise."  That pink message slip stayed on her bulletin board for many a year.

From the Dept of Plenty of Time:  This is one pencil.  See what the person did?  They whittled the wood away to leave only the graphite "lead," and then they cut these intricate chain links out of the lead.  How amazing it is, what people can do when they put their minds to it.

It takes brains

We talked the other day about baseball wit Mickey Rivers, who, upon hearing that Reggie Jackson claimed to have an IQ of 160,  asked,"Out of what? A thousand?"

Lauren Marbe

And then, I surfstumbled across an article about 16-year-old female Lauren Marbe from Essex, England, whose IQ measures 161.  This puts her one point ahead of both Reginald Martinez Jackson and Albert Einstein, who used his noodle to come up with "  E=mc²" and we all understand that completely, don't we?

So here is the article, and as it says, Einstein was never actually given an IQ test, but the geniuses who admire genuises have always figured him for a 160, and a 44 regular in sports jackets.  Being legendary for forgetfulness, Einstein might not have even shown up, had he been scheduled to take an IQ test.

Lauren, daughter of a cab driver, is the possessor of a mighty mind, and she seems like any other 16-year-old.  She likes to dude herself up and go out, and she is wavering in her career path between being an architect and being a singer/actress.  There seems to be no middle ground there, although it would seem that the people behind certain buildings were only acting like they were real architects...
Here is a sample IQ test question:  


 Which number should come next in this series?

25,24,22,19,15

A. 4
B. 5
C. 10
D. 14


If your answer is (c) 10, congratulations!  You and Lauren should spend some time together being smart.  My answer was (b) 5, because a list that has #25, Don Baylor, #24, Rick Dempsey, #22, Jim Palmer, #19, Johnny Unitas, and #15, Davey Johnson, needs a great third baseman:  #5, the one, the only, Brooks Robinson.

The above serves to show how (and if) my noggin works, and why I am a stranger to the people who select the top IQ people.  

Congratulations, Lauren, and good luck in your career. It must be nice to be brainy!

Face It

Like most people, I eventually figured out that what other people thought about me was not even a tiny bit important, right up there alongside whether they even thought about me at all.  I was a self-conscious kid, but I got over it.

Which is why I'd like to say a big hello to Jackson Blankenship as he rounds second base and finishes his sophomore year at the University of Alabama.  You've seen him, if you've ever seen the Crimson Tide basketball team on TV.  And no, he wasn't on the court playing basketball.  

He was in the stands, playing with basketball players' heads.  Jackson is the guy who began the trend of casting an exophthalmic (medical term for bulging-eyed) look at players on the other team at critical moments in the game.

Oh, you're saying!  Spectators have been giving the stink-eye to the other team since Betty White was in third grade!  True, but Jack Blankenship came up with the Mega Stink-Eye:

He got this giant picture of his mug and he takes it to the games, which led to imitation...

Remember  during the National Championship football game, when the cameras couldn't get enough of the lovely Katherine Webb, girlfriend of 'Bama quarterback AJ McCarron? And the announcer Brent Musburger, with the game's outcome no longer in doubt after the first ten minutes or so, was so taken that he burbled on for a long embarrassing time about her?  Well, now there are Big Heads of Brent and Katherine on display at games.

And the Alabama basketball team is here represented by people much shorter than they!  

I think the key to this is that young Blankenship felt so at ease that he was able to start this trend by displaying his immense face.  He says he's been embarrassing himself since 1992.

That being the case, he's six years ahead of Paul Ryan, elected to Congress in 1998!

My secret addiction

I'm fairly well-versed in poetry, and can handle myself in any discussion of the Seven Lively Arts (music, literature, dance, poetry, painting, drama, and Carney) although a bum knee keeps me from talking about dancing for long.

I'm no intellectual, not a high class guy by any means, but what I'm saying is, I know enough about enough things to get by in case the dinner conversation rises to the level of "All Things Considered."

But by any standards, there is no reason for a man of 61 summers (and almost that many falls!) to be able to sit here right now and tell you he was stunned when Olivia dumped Nick the other night.  Did NOT see that one coming. I mean, as often as we advise people to get to know themselves before committing to another in a relationship, I never thought that Olivia would heed those words.

And Gigi broke up with Carmine, after he finished painting her living room wall, and then did a special day at the Gatsby called "I'll Dye 4 U," in which she demonstrated her mastery of the art of applying new hair color over old.  And, she now seemingly wishes to be called Genelle, please.

Corey and Tracy are making their wedding plans, her family's disapproval notwithstanding.  Jackie was steamed because she heard that Gigi told Michelle that she (Jackie) is not a good mother, which Michelle intends to be just as soon as she becomes a wife again.

Yes, dear friends, my secret is out of the Jerseylicious closet now.  I am hooked on the goin's on and big doin's up in the Garden State on the Jerseylicious show on the Style Network.

About half the cast.

It all concerns the relationships, pairings and breakups, and  jealousies, romantic and professional, of people in northern New Jersey who do hair and makeup in two salons - the Gatsby and Anthony Robert.  Even the network hedges away from calling it a reality show - it's officially a "docudrama," because no group of people could pack that much commotion into a 24-hour day without a team of scriptwriters back in a dim office, writing "Gigi gets mad at Miguel because he feels marginalized by being asked to be her assistant on the special hair color day."  And then they all act out their parts.

To be honest, as I always am, there was a day about a year ago when I was ill, and spent the day on the recliner with the bottle of Robitussin in one hand and the remote in the other.  During a particularly lengthy coughing fit, I failed to change the channel fast enough, and wound up watching a Jerseylicious marathon, as entranced as a young seminarian listening to a cardinal preach.  Later that day, Peggy came home, took a glance at the TV, and asked the question that has come to be asked so often in our marriage (by her): "What in hell are you watching?"

Twenty minutes later, she was saying, "Now wait...Frankie and Gigi are breaking up because she said what....?"  and I saw another victim of the insidious Jerseylicious plot factory.  

It ain't Shakespeare, it ain't Arthur Miller, hey, it's not even "Dallas," but it's free.  Feel free to join us one Sunday evening if you're free as well.

The Almighty Tired Man

I have made some promises in my life, and one of them is to avoid talking about sports too often in this blog.  The last thing I want to do is turn this into a forum in which people will feel like engaging me in a discussion of Who Is The Best Outfielder Available In A Trade For The Orioles or Whether The Ravens Can Repeat Their Super Bowl Victory or, worst of all, Here Is Why Nascar Really Is A Sport And All Its Drivers Are Too Athletes!

No time for all that. And any time I talk about sports, I try to avoid deep discussions of what happened in the games anyway.   The people who play the games know what they are doing, much better than "Joe from Overlea - first time caller!" who seems to be on every sports talk radio show in town.

It's the people inside the uniforms that are darting about the field that I like to think about.  For instance, one outfielder that I wish the Orioles could have added to their roster in the 1970s was the man born John Milton Rivers, but better known as Mickey.

I always wondered whether "Mick The Quick" was, indeed, named for English poet and polemicist John Milton. You have to be careful, though.  I once knew a dude whose first and middle names were Chester and Arthur.  I asked him if he had been named for the president, and he said, "Which one?"

Mickey Rivers, to get back on topic, was a pretty good leadoff hitter for the Angels, Yankees and Rangers during his 14-year big league stay (1970-1984).  He was not the perfect leadoff man, because he didn't get many walks, thereby reducing his on-base percentage, but he could steal bases when he did bat his way onto first, and he could dart across the field and catch long flies with the best of them.  

But why is he so fondly remembered?  He is remembered for the things he said, and for the jaunty nonchalance he brought to life. Teammate Sandy Alomar called him "The Almighty Tired Man," and can you imagine a cooler nickname than the one Mickey used for everyone whose name he couldn't recall: "Gozzlehead"?  A writer once said Mickey looked as if he had been assembled from spare parts; he had a way of walking like a string puppet, and he always seemed to be leaning forward, no matter whether he was running, walking or standing.  And, he claimed many times that his plan for how to spend his days once he was through playing ball was that he wanted to be a bus driver.  There is no indication that he achieved that goal, but take a moment and revel in the casual wisdom of the man who left us with these quotes:



"Me and George and Billy are two of a kind."

To Reggie Jackson, after Reggie claimed to have an IQ of 160:
"Out of what, a thousand?" 

"It was so cold today that I saw a dog chasing a cat, and the dog was walking"

"Pitching is 80% of the game and the other half is hitting and fielding"

On playing in Texas:  "I was brought up in Florida, so there isn't much difference between playing there and playing here.  The climax are about the same."

And, the greatest of them all, a quote that distills all the wisdom in every self-improvement book that Barnes & Noble ever sold:

"Ain't no sense worrying: If you have no control over something, ain't no sense worrying about it -you have no control over it anyway. If you do have control, why worry? So either way, there ain't no sense worrying."

Learned men and women have spent countless hours trying to get that point across to us, in words far too thick to understand.  They would have done better to just listen to Mr Rivers.

Sad lessons

The last thing I want to do is seem unsympathetic to the young woman who was killed by a lion at a big cat zoo in California.  

Ms Hanson

Dianna Hanson was a self-described big cat aficionada, and she was a volunteer at Cat Haven, out near Fresno.  She told her father that she chafed at the zoo's policy of not allowing people to be in the cage with the lion, a four-year-old named Cous Cous.

So last Wednesday, she unlocked a door which was supposed to be locked and, in so doing, unlocked the door to her own mortality.  The lion broke her neck when he attacked, killing her at once.  Responding personnel had no way of knowing for sure that she had died, and were unable to get the lion away from her recumbent form, and so were forced to kill the lion as well.

Her brother, Paul Hanson, told CBS News, "Anybody that encountered Dianna couldn't help being enraptured with her and with her enthusiasm," he said on Thursday. "She knew the risks and we knew the risks, but that was her passion. You always wondered when she was going to work, but the risks were part of that."

Ms Hanson loved these animals, but sometimes, love is just not enough.  Again, I hate to say anything critical of her in death, but this seems like another case of someone so in love with something that they feel the rules really don't apply to them - or can be broken "just this once."  After all, maybe 99 times out of 100, the lion would sit docilely by as an attendant cleaned the cage.  Maybe 999 times out of 1000.

But this rule was not put into effect to curtail the volunteers' enjoyment of the animal, or to do anything other than make them safe.  There is a tendency in our world today for people to assess the rules that are in place and then to decide if following the rule is really what they care to do.

In our county seat, we have the annual Towsontown Spring Festival.  Signs are all over the place asking people not to bring their dogs to a crowded street festival.  This policy is mentioned in the ads, and in most of the promotional articles in the local papers.  

I happened to be present at the Festival on the day that a little girl was sitting on the front steps of a bank, eating a pit beef sandwich.  A dog in the crowd attacked her and severely mauled her face.

This is why the policy is there.  People love dogs, but large crowds and dogs don't mix well.  But ask any officer who deals with someone who has brought Poochie to the festival, and they will tell you, the answer they get all the time is, "But people LOVE my dog and it would break his heart to miss the festival."

Ms Hanson's brother said she would be "devastated" to know that Cous Cous was put down.  And to think, none of this had to happen, had the rules been followed.

Perhaps her life was lost so that others will be saved. I'd like to think that personnel at these zoos will learn from her sad, sad death. 

Sunday Rerun: I Never Would Have Guest It

Here's a tricky etiquette question:

You receive a wedding shower invitation and a "hold-the-date" for a wedding..from a woman whom you have never met, who briefly worked with your husband several years ago.  Unless her husband saved this woman's life through a well-timed Heimlich Maneuver or CPR, why are you getting an invite to the nuptials?  

Ahhh...cast a wide gift net.  So many people just get invitations, say, "Meh," and send some Corningware® or a Keurig coffee machine, those little K-cup deals that work so well for two months and then just make gagging, grinding noises when all you want is an honest cup of mocha java.

BUT there is an alternative!  Here's how it works.  You buy the gift and send it along via ME!  I'm looking for a steady source of retirement income, and surely a well-paying job as Wedding Guest Stand-In would do me well.  I have a nice pinstripe suit, some shirts and ties, and I'll even find a pair of dark socks to wear in place of my customary crimson footwear.  

In return, I will take along ZipLoc bags so I can bring you some Lobster Newburg.  I will shout out "Nice pull!" when the groom toasts the bride. And I will lift up the centerpiece, look underneath and claim that it has my seat number written on a little label, thereby entitling me to take it home.  

I don't enter this profession without a background.  I love weddings, I love love, I love the church part even when everyone oooohs and aaaaaahs, and then I love piling back into the Biscayne and driving over to the conception. What better way to wile away a Saturday than to hear the DJ croon,"And now...making their first appearance as husband and wife...will you please give it up for Dickie and Dixie Normus!!!!!!!!!!!"

And while all this is going on, I'm sizing up the fruit table or the giant lasagna, as it sits bubbling away. 

And I can Chicken Dance like nobody's business. Snap snap snap snap!

I had that buddy Johnny years ago who made a Saturday habit of putting on his sports jacket and tie and showing up at receptions, blending in after everyone was seated for the main meal, showing up in time to scarf up chow and guzzle free suds.  If anyone asked who he was, he would just reply that he was an old friend of the bride.  Or groom.  His great gift was his ability to look nondescript. He just blended right on in.  I think a lot of that was owing to his sport jacket being the exact color of Lobster Newburg.

Wedding season is coming up; please contact me soon and arrange to stay home while people whom you don't even know, and/or like very much, get married.  Let Mr Guest be there for you!

The Saturday Picture Show, 3/9/13

 Back in 1917-1918, this was the latest in body armor.  Depending on what is was made of, it looks like it would protect the critical organs in the torso and midriff, but leave the arms and legs vulnerable.  Police today wear their body armor under the uniform shirt, and we pray for all the police I know and love that a) their armor is never tested  and b) if it is, it works perfectly!
This was always the signal to your friends or date or creditor that you were tapped...pulling out the pockets to indicate their complete and utter emptiness. I haven't seen anyone do this move for years, so that's why I clipped the picture to share with you.  Congratulations to all of us - it looks like we're all rich as Trump, but with our own hair.

For the love of timeliness, please don't forget to set your clock ahead tonight.  This time of year, I always think of my days as a supervisor.  One year on the day of St Clock Setter's Day, a new employee showed up an hour late, because she had not set her clock ahead.  It was a slow Sunday morning, so I didn't belabor the point beyond a mild reminder that we were a 24-hour operation.  Well, next day, doggone if she didn't roll in an hour late, and this time I wasn't quite so mellow about it.  I told her that I had been on the job for (however many years it had been) and I said,"You know what, in all that time, I've only been late once, and that was because a truck got stuck on the beltway off-ramp one icy morning and no one could get past him. And now you're been late twice in two days and you've only been here a couple of months!"  She considered this information with a furrowed brow, and said, "So, you've only been late once in all that time?" and I said that was right, and she said, "Dude, you're way uptight!"

Everybody loves mimosas.  This is the sort that grows on trees.  Almost spring!

Pay Day

Once Joe Flacco signed his contract with the Baltimore Ravens, which could wind up paying him $120 million, it didn't take long for the nay-sayers to put down their coffee mugs and pick up their keyboards so they could put down their quarterback.

The online objections took two basic forms:

1 - "He's good, but he's not all that good."  This, of the man who has been in the NFL for five years, has led his team into the playoffs as the starting quarterback ever since he got here from right up the road at the U of Delaware, and won the Super Bowl this past season, being named MVP of the game.  What he could have done to be better goes unsaid, but remember, these are people who don't play the game; they merely criticize those who do.

2 - "Why should he make all that money when police officers, firefighters, schoolteachers and surgeons don't?"  First, I'm not sure that surgeons don't make that sort of money.  And as far as police, firefighters, teachers and other valuable public servants are concerned, yes, they do deserve a nice living for all they do.  If the world were fair, we'd all be making a salary commensurate with our contributions to society.  But life is not fair.  The fact is, if people were willing to pay over a hundred dollars for a ticket and 25 more for a hot dog and a beer, and television networks could sell commercials for millions more in order to show them on TV, cops, firefighters and teachers would all be driving Rolls-Royces to the bank a couple of times a week.  Flacco and the other players in the NFL are in show business, you have to understand.  For everyone who says, "Oh, they're just men playing a boys' game!" I say they are men whom people are willing to pay for the right to watch them play that game.  Play-acting is a kids' game too, and it's fun when little Ethan down the street stands in the front of little Sally's front porch and she does that "Wherefore art thou?" speech.  But when people become professional at it, you're shelling out 12 bucks at the CineMagic17 to watch Jennifer Lawrence play-act in a movie.  It's entertainment for the masses, and the masses pay to be entertained.

For those still concerned about the pay inequities between a cop and a quarterback, I'll add this...You can help make the cop feel better by not whining to him or her about how bank robbers are running loose while they're writing you a ticket for speeding in a school zone.  And you can make the teachers in your life feel better by supporting them at home and in the classroom by helping your kids with their homework,  and by not calling the Board of Education because Ms Krobapple made little Brattleboro upset by reminding him for the 17th time since September not to holler out in class.  

Tomorrow, let's talk about why we mustn't holler at the weather forecaster.

Yesterday's weather today

We had an interesting teacher in sixth grade, a man named Mr Myers.  He taught us what was a new word to us back then: "googol," the mathematical term for a 1 followed by a hundred zeroes.

Years and years later, a couple of brainiacs from Stanford University started a little search engine business and called it "Google," because they misspelled googol.  They liked the concept of a very large number, which is how they intended to serve up information to web browsers: in staggeringly high numbers.  For instance, when you google images of this Justin Bieber character, you get 655,000,000 results in less than a tenth of second, and there you sit, wondering what you're going to do with all those pictures.

Meanwhile, the guys who invented this incredible search engine are rolling in dough, hauling it away in googol-sized amounts, and misspelling googol was about the last mistake they ever made.

Mr Myers also stands out in my memory for taking points off an essay I wrote in which I used the term "fizzled out," as in, something big was supposed to occur and did not.

If you live around where we live, you know where I'm going with this...ALL the weathercasters were calling for a huge snowstorm yesterday.  In fact, it was supposed to be ending just this morning.  Predictions were dire, I wanna tell you.  This BA storm started out in the Pacific Northwest and was to sweep across the length and breadth of America, picking up ocean moisture and a cod-fishing boat or two on its march up the Eastern seaboard, a march that was to leave between 6 to 13 inches of snow on my driveway.  And others.

Well, if you look at the map above, you can see my tony home town, fashionable Carney, MD, marked by an "A" on the map.   Looking at the map will give you an idea of where we are in the world.  Now, if you have a second, please take a look at the map at left.  See where the "A" is in the word "Heaviest"?  That's right about where we live.  We were supposed to be buried under snow like nobody's business.  Actually, a lot of people are in business to remove snow, but anyway, the predictions were wrong, as they often are.  We got a little bit of snow and rain and slush and snain, and by lunchtime it was all over, except for the kids outside trying in vain to make a mudman with a corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of coal.  And all the parents spent the evening talking about what's wrong with the meteorologists, and how could everyone have gotten this storm wrong.  And that's not the point!  Meteorology, by definition, is not a precise science.  Like the people who predict the outcomes of football games and presidential elections, they're going to be right sometimes and not right at others.  Why holler about the broadcast weather people?  They do their best.  And they're right more often than not.

Out in Western Maryland, they got some snow, but not much, and the area of the state most affected was Ocean City, which got so much rain that some parts of the town flooded and they had to open up emergency shelters. Back here in Bmore, the big AM radio station used the word "fizzled" to describe the storm, so I guess Mr Myers didn't teach anyone who works there.

Because if he had, he would have also taught them this handy aphorism:  "Man proposes, God disposes."

My favorite kid

Down in Dallas, Texas, the City Council got schooled by a young man who will probably be doing great things very soon.

His name is David Williams, he's 11, and he was on a class trip to observe the goings-on in government.  Given a chance to address that august body, David asked a question about ways to keep students and teachers safe without turning teachers into a gun-totin' posse.

And this is Texas, known as wide-open gun country.

Anyway, David asked his question, and the councilmembers demonstrated their total lack of civility by eddying about, talking to each other, coming and going from the room and paying him and his question very little, if any, attention.

Now, a lot of people would say, as have many who have witnessed the horror of laws being made in public, "Oh, they are so busy, scurrying about like ants; they don't have time to hear me speak."

David Williams, 11

David is not a lot of people, which is why I predict great things for him.  He had another question:

"Do you feel it is acceptable for city council members to be up and walking around while constituents are addressing them?"

Well.

You're gonna think I made up this name, but there is a member of the Dallas City Council named Dwaine Caraway.  The Honorable Mr Caraway provided this seedy response:

"Let me first be apologetic to you, because I do walk a lot around here, but we had to keep things going at times, but it is not so respectful to walk around when visitors are speaking, so I will adhere to that as well."

Not so respectful?  How about totally disrespectful?  So, Dwaine, instead of adhering to concepts, how about sitting down in your plush chair and listening to people?

Just like here in Baltimore County, where a councilmember stands accused of driving a county-owned vehicle drunk at 3 AM and then, in a huff, calls the chief of police at home, politicians all over need a little cold shower wakeup like the one Mr Williams provided down in the Big D. 

He'll be a college graduate in about ten years.  I expect we'll hear from him again. 

It pays to advertise

I saw a commercial on the news the other night.  There's good news for all of you who have had to live with the heartbreak of upraised toilet seats!  Some company has finally pushed American technology to frontiers as yet unexplored:  they have invented a toilet seat that lowers itself automatically once the males in the family have rid themselves of excess liquid.  In the commercial, the wife hears the dang fool husband stumbling back into the marital bed and she smiles just ever so, comfortable in the knowledge that the seat has automatically lowered itself.  Thank God and the good folks at Stanley or Moen or whoever came up with this idea while they should have been inventing a practical home bidet for the American market.

I can point to the fact that we have always tried to have multiple bathrooms in our houses as a big reason for the long-lasting success of our marriage.  People who share bathrooms are on my sympathy list right behind people who are right behind Chris Christie* at a buffet.  

Commercials on TV can be irksome because they are so guileless in their unabashed pitches.  Under the assumption that  women make most of the decisions about food and health matters in the family, the makers of vitamins and Cheerios aim their spots at them, while the beer and pickup truck companies want the guys to see their commercials, so they advertise on sports events or the like.

And then there are the erectile dysfunction ads!  They always show a couple who are a bit on the gray side, but obviously just as playful as couple of honeymooners.  Then the announcer says, in so many words, "When it's your turn at the plate, will you swing and miss?  Because if you just take our oddly-shaped blue pill, you'll be rounding third and heading for home in just a few minutes!"  And then there's the guy in the commercial, garden hose a-flow, washing his Camaro.  You don't have to be Fellini to get the symbolism in that.

Grits

I also wonder about the products for which you NEVER see commercials!  Ever see an ad for grits on the Brian Williams news?  Nope!  How about that company that makes the hot air hand driers?  Somebody has to buy them for all the restrooms across our wonderful nation, and yet they don't advertise!  Nor do the people who produce bandannas, rubber bands or toothpicks, yet just try living your life without those things.  Can't be done.

Here's how advertising works:  they put an idea in your head and create the need.  I got to go now and whomp up a mess of grits.  See you tomorrow!

*For our international readers (2): Chris Christie is the King-sized governor of the great state of New Jersey.

A blessed day

It was one of those chance encounters, two strangers on a hospital elevator.  I was leaving my orthopedic surgeon's office after he told me to take my knee trouble to my back surgeon.  That kind of a day...

But I held the elevator door for a lady, a bit older than I, one of those nice people you meet every so often.  She apologized for taking a while to get in the elevator car, but, as I said, I'm not in a hurry, take your time, and what floor did you need, ma'am?

Well, she didn't know; it was her first time seeing this new doctor and she was having a hard time finding his office, but she had tried 3 and 4 and so now she was ready to give the second floor a once-over to see if he was there.

We got to 2 and I asked if she wanted me to hold the car while she looked.  She said no, thanks just the same, and then she said, "Have a blessed day!"

Well, that's the kind of thing that many people use as a "Take care!" sort of farewell expression...a throwaway line...but from this dignified and kind lady, it seemed like so much more. 

I got back in the car, popped on the Bluetooth, called Peggy (Blessing #1) and told her where things stood, and drove home (#2) in my car that started, ran and stopped at the right times (#3) and all along the way, I saw (#4) things for which to be thankful.  I stopped at the grocery store (#5) and spent some of my money on some milk (#6) to put in my tea (#7) when I got home.  I thought of family (#8) and friends (#9) and the fact that we live in the greatest country on earth (#10) and then I sat down at the pc (#11) to read my emails (#12) and check in with my Facebook family (#13).

Then Peggy came home and took me to the Double T Diner (#14) to celebrate my first year of retirement (#15) and we had a wonderful meal (#16).

That lady inspired me to have a blessed day, so I counted my blessings! And I haven't stopped counting because I haven't come close to counting them all.

Sunday rerun: Only a bird in a guilty Cage

Well I lost my job ain't got a dime
I need a shave I need a shine
I'm all hungover, got a mouth full of cotton
Guess I've arrived: this must be the bottom   (Del Reeves)

For those who remember Nicolas Cage as a bigtime movie star, winning an Academy Award for "Leaving Las Vegas," and my eternal respect for "Raising Arizona," it's quite a comedown to see that he has skidded to the bottom of the showbiz rungs in a huge hurry.

I know the five stages of an actor's career (Who's Nicolas Cage? Get me Nicolas Cage! Get Me a Nicolas Cage type! Get me a young Nicolas Cage! Who's Nicolas Cage?) and who knows which stage he is currently inhabiting? He first came to attention in "Valley Girl," which was one of those movies that Showtime and HBO ran a million times a month back when we all first got cable, so we became used to his sputtery slackjawedness and went back to see him in many movies.

But all of a sudden you read that he's in debt up to his arrears and making movies with titles such as "I Really Drive Way Too Fast 2" and we sadly realize that ol' Nic is really driving way too fast on his way to Palookaville.  

So now this, from Newser online: 

In a case of reality not imitating "art," Dog the notorious bounty hunter bailed actor Nicolas Cage out of jail. Reality star Duane "Dog" Chapman posted Cage's $11,000 bond after he was charged with domestic abuse and disturbing the peace over the weekend in New Orleans. "I am a truly dedicated fan," Dog, 58, said by way of explanation. "There are two sides of my job: I release my clients after they have been arrested; and pick them up if they don't show up in court. I do not believe the latter will be the case for Mr. Cage." Cage, 47, was busted after arguing loudly with his 27-year-old wife and dragging her down the street, said police. The actor, who appeared to be "heavily intoxicated" then began hitting cars, according to cops. He's due in court next month, reports People. Click for more details on Cage's French Quarter bust.

According to what the network news said over the weekend, New Orleans cops found Cage in this pixillated condition and said something like "Go home and sleep it off, Mac."  At least, that's what they always said in the old movies.  But no, Cage demanded to be arrested.  And then publicity-mad Duane Chapman, who prefers to be called "Dog" and presents a canine appearance to match, saw the opportunity to grab some headline sunshine of attention and showed up at the police station, waving the bail money.

They say that you really deserve a nice vacation if you look like your passport photo.  I guess we can also say, you need to take a few steps back if your mug shot looks like this    and someone who looks like this      comes to bail you out.   Come on back, Nicolas.  Give up the booze, get things in order and give us some more of that earnest-like-Jimmy Stewart yet edgy-like-Bogart acting, and let's forget this weekend, all right?

The Saturday Picture Show 3/2/13

  Do people still go daisy-petal picking?  You find a daisy and pluck each petal, saying, "She loves me...she loves me not...she loves me" and then when you wind up with all these petals on the ground by your sneakers, you hope your poor old broken heart isn't down there with them.  But it will be, if you picked the last petal while saying, "She loves me not."  For my part, I wish you days full of daisies and nights full of love.

So, how many guys saw this ad back in the day and said, "I gots to get me some of them jeans!  So's I can kick butt and take names and not have to deal with the agony of crotchular strangulation, since they have 'hidden-gusset and stretch in the fabric' (that's some might fine copy-writing there!) to give my twig and berries all the room they crave as I cavort about"?     

I also like the notation "Schools: Send for wholesale information."  Apparently there was a feeling among the Board of Directors of Century Martial Arts Supply that, among the many schools across the land dedicated to teaching young men how to balance on one booted foot while showing the sole of the other foot to a passerby, there would be a groundswell of support for jeans that offer a little extra...support.

Whenever students of philosophy and theology gather to gabble, the talk soon turns to theoretical questions:  Could God, who can do anything, create a boulder so heavy that He couldn't lift it?  Is it possible to formulate an acid so strong that it could eat its way through any sort of container that we'd try to put it in?  

Add this one to the list:  Should Rustoleum use Rustoleum on their own cans of paint? 

I don't know...this one seems sort of staged.  Maybe the turtle had some help getting into this pose.  But doesn't his wistful gaze, his plaintive yearning for sunnier days ahead, speak to us all, no matter how hard-shelled we may be?

Finders Returners

When you read this story about a couple who finds $11,000 in cash in a camera bag in Cali, do you feel like I do...that the great part of the story is that there are people who would return the money, and the sad part of the story is that the mere fact that they returned the loot is so noteworthy as to garner nationwide attention.

On a trip to the Golden Gate Bridge on Valentine's Day, Barbara and Carlos Landeros (right >>) stumbled across the bag, and went to a lot of trouble turning it in to the police, who were able to trace it to its owners by airline tickets inside along with money.  Lots and lots of money.  And all of it went home with its rightful owner.

Just the other day at BJ's Wholesale Club, where I was shopping for the 85-lb box of Corn Flakes, I spotted a woman's purse, left behind atop a display. I told a guy unloading a crate containing 40-lb boxes of raspberries, and he took the purse to the office.  It just wouldn't even dawn on me to rip the money off or anything, and I hate to think that others might have done just that.

Call it fate, call it karma, call it The Golden Rule: I love what Mrs Landeros said: 

"Our parents taught us, if you find something,  return it. It doesn't belong to you."

 Would that we all could remember that.