Sunday Rerun from 2020: The Most Baltimore Thing

 The Most Baltimore Thing In The World is not the unrest and contumacious behavior we see in the streets and on the news sometimes.

The Most Baltimore Thing In The World showed up the other day when a gas explosion blew up three houses on Labyrinth Avenue in the city's northwest corridor.

It happened just before 10 in the morning, and the news stations had live coverage all day and into the night.  By the time the noon news came on, they were showing people showing up with needed supplies.  It was fortunate, at least, that the scene of the explosion was a few steps away from the Reisterstown Road Plaza, which afforded the helpers plenty of room to set up.

Meanwhile, at the scene, people living nearby had run out of their homes - often without socks or shoes - to start the rescue effort. Seven people were injured, and two lost their lives. Families and friends came together as people emerged from the detritus, with their possessions scattered to the four winds, but, with those exceptions above, their bodies and souls still among the quick.

Baltimore City police were there along with the Fire Departments from the city and Baltimore and Howard Counties. The Jewish community group known as the Chesed Fund was passing out water to neighbors and the many fire, police, utilities and other agencies on site.  The temperature was 90°, with oppressive humidity, so water was a must.  And because of the uncertainty of the source of the gas leak, power had to be shut off in the neighborhood for safety, leaving more people in need of a cool drink and shade.

One of the people rescued was barefoot, according to the article in the Baltimore SUN. Na-Shaé Carter, 20, went to her house and came back with a pair of her mother's pink socks for the lady.

“I got 10,000 socks,” said her mother. “One pair ain’t gonna hurt. To give it to somebody in their time of need, I don’t even care. I was out here giving out water. … I wasn’t worried about me. I was worried about my neighbors.”

Meanwhile, the American Red Cross was on the job to find temporary housing for those left without a home, and they were supplying water and food on the lot near the Applebee’s. 

But here is the most Baltimore thing on an awful Baltimore day: a man was on the news, no bigshot he, just a working class salt of the earth guy. He said, "I had $500. I took $300 and bought 30 pizzas at Papa John's, and $200 worth of water at Giant's*."

And he delivered all that to people he didn't know, just people he wanted to help. That's Baltimore.
___________________________________________________________
*Something else that's pure Baltimore - we make the names of all grocery stores and hardware outlets possesive. I can meet you at Safeway's or Home Depot's if you want to hear more.

The Saturday Picture Show, July 19, 2025

 

I just today read that the giant Ferris Wheel on the amusement pier at Ocean City, MD, is being dismantled for re-assembly at some state fair. I did not know this, but I am reliably told that even amusement rides travel out of town for work.  Anyway. they say the big wheel will be back and they will have a guy check all the bolts and nuts before they let you on it.

Ask your friend the personal injury attorney why table fans don't look like this anymore. Given people's propensity for sticking their fingers in things, it's a wonder fans ever did.

When the USS Missouri visited Pearl Harbor after World War II, that was the time that the place our involvement began in that war came face to face with where it ended. The armistice ending the war was signed on this deck on September 2, 1945 - not four years after the Japanese bombed Pearl.

How nice it would be to visit this old stone house and barn in Scotland!

At first glance, it looks as if the only thing on our bed is the spread and the blanket. But the discerning eye knows Eddie The Cat has secreted herself under her favorite blanket (formerly my favorite blanket.) Don't be fooled by the innocent-looking lump.

All right. Don't park there or they will toe, and then you'll have to foot the bill!

The complainant says his NO SOLICITING sign was defaced. He suspects solicitors.

Some of our greatest philosophers are to be found working in the mug and t-shirt industry. No two ways about that!

This was the mural on the wall of a Chinese restaurant. When a man bought the building and turned it into a Mexican eatery, he didn't have the money to replace the mural, so he added sombreros to the pandas...and no one complained!

Today's free wallpaper for you is so bleak and dreary, you should have a friend with you if you want to copy it.

A choice

A hot, humid day in Georgia. Six prison inmates doing yard maintenance at a cemetery, and the lone deputy guarding them passes out from the heat.

In this situation in the movies, of course, the prisoners swiftly relieve the guard of his keys, guns, and pants, taking off for the state line, leaving him bound and gagged until someone finds him hours later, sputtering, "What in tarnation...?

But that's not what happened in Polk County GA that day last month. Sheriff Johnny Moats was surprised, all right, when the prisoners used the deputy's cell phone to call 911 for help. By the time an ambulance arrived (and plenty of police, you can be sure) the men had taken off the stricken deputy's bulletproof vest to make it easier for the medic crew to treat him, and to cool the man off. 

The inmates performing work detail.

"When that happened, in my opinion, it wasn't about who is in jail and who wasn't," Greg Williams, one of the inmates, told WXIA TV. "It was about a man going down, and we had to help him."

It turns out that the deputy had complications from brain surgery years ago, and that made him more susceptible to heat stroke. But he is fully recovered now, and the Polk County Sheriff's Office is showing their gratitude to the work gang that did the right thing,

There was a pizza picnic in the park where it all took place, with homemade desserts from the family of the deputy who got help when he needed it.  

And even more important, Sheriff Moats is putting in for reduced sentences for the six, all nonviolent offenders.  And some may even be going home soon, with penalties reduced for time served.

Many times, as we weave our way through life, we come upon crossroads where decisions we make will have lasting impact.  All six of these men made decisions earlier that led them to being sentenced to prison, and on a hot muggy day in June, they all made a better choice.

Let's hope they choose a different road for good now.

 

 

 

A special day

You know what I think this old world needs? It needs a big ol' helping of firgun.

Uh, what, now? Firgun is a modern Hebrew term for experiencing true happiness for someone else's positive experiences or achievements. 

Don't get it confused with Fahrvergnügen, the term used in Volkswagen ads in the 1990s to express the joy of driving a VW. 

Think of it as the opposite of “Schadenfreude” – pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.  That's when you see your lifelong enemy slip on the ice and land on his asterisk* as he was getting in line to buy a lotto ticket.

Super Schadenfreude is when you find out that the guy who got ahead of your nemesis as he picked himself up got the ticket that was supposed to go to your scourge, so he won and your bum got the square root of sweet nada.

Today is National Firgun Day. I found this out by checking the day's events. I like to do that so that I don't miss National Hot Fudge Sundae Day. That's coming up on Friday the 25th of this month. Another favorite is the birthday celebration of Dennis Day, the great Irish tenor from the old Jack Benny Show. Dennis was born on May 21, which we mark annually as Dennis Day Day.

Being happy about Dennis's life and happy career and big family is an example of Firgun. We have firgun when we are happy for someone else, without looking for a personal gain from it, and without resentment or jealousy.

According to Wikipedia, "Firgun is a deeply ingrained concept in Israeli culture, often described as a generosity of spirit. 

July 17 is celebrated as International Firgun Day, encouraging people to spread positivity by offering compliments and expressions of genuine pride in others.

I also learned that the word traces its lineage back to the Yiddish word "farginen," which came into use in the 1970s. There seems to be no exact English translation, but they use the word in Israel all the time.

With one exception, I celebrate the achievements and progress of all Americans, and for this very special Firgun Day, I hope you will join me. 

 

Uno Dos Tres

I can't learn card games. It's that simple. While others are breaking out the 52s to play poker and whist and 500 Rummy and Bridge and I don't know what-all else, I sit and wonder why I can't. It's not that I haven't tried to learn, but my mind wanders all over the rules and I start thinking about everything else.

Except for Crazy Eights! I love Crazy Eights! That and pinochle were always going on at the fire house, and I figured I should learn one of them to avoid being the station pariah, and Eights is easier. Been playing it for years. One night during a really bad November storm, Peggy and I played for a couple of hours by candlelight and listened to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 on a transistor radio.

Ah, the memories.

And then came the day that people started touting a whole new game called Uno. After about ten seconds of hearing about the Wonders Of Uno, I realized it was just Crazy Eights with a nice new suit of clothes. I played a time or two, but I prefer the real thing, just like when they came out with New Coke.

BUT! If you are an Uno wizard, it might pay off in Las Vegas! You can actually win big bucks with your mastery of the game over at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. They are putting up a luxury suite based on the game as they launch UNO Social Clubs all across the US of A.

Palms Casino says the plan is to start a nationwide campaign that turns "casual game nights into full-blown entertainment events." They're going to have "vibrant card-game-inspired decor with gaming tables, private dealers, various UNO games and expansions, and multiple other amenities," according to the casino.

“We created UNO Social Clubs to reimagine what game night can be — bringing people together for real-world fun, connection, and a bit of friendly competition,” said Ray Adler, vice president and global head of games at Mattel, according to Business Wire. “The UNO Social Club in Las Vegas is just the beginning, and we’re excited to see how these new experiences inspire players to show up, play hard and make unforgettable memories.”

Cool, Ray.  You're in Las Vegas doing all this glitz and here I am in Baltimore, wondering what it's like when someone asks what you do for a living and you get to say, "Why, I am vice president and global head of games at Mattel. Nice to meet you!"

Can they not think of better names?

I was slowly making my way across a parking lot the other day. I wanted to be stepping faster, for fear that my shoes would sink into melting asphalt and render me immobile in this heat, but I stopped to puzzle at the name of a car I saw parked.

A "Kia Niro." And when I got home, I looked it up and found that Korean car manufacturer Kia also has a car for sale called the "Seltos."

An authentic Niro. Oh, the excitement.

Now, my Korean might be a little rusty, but what is a Seltos?  "Niro" makes me think of Laura Nyro, the great songwriter who gave us "Blowing Away", "Wedding Bell Blues", "Stoned Soul Picnic", "Sweet Blindness", "Save the Country", "And When I Die", "Eli's Comin'", and "Stoney End".

But Nyro was not Laura Nigro's real name, so no.

Volkswagen will sell you a Touareg or a Tiguan.

Renault used to sell a LeCar, but it sucé (sucked, to you and me.)

How about a nice AMC Gremlin or a Dodge Demon to make you not sleep so well? A Chevrolet Citation? That's a parking ticket with wheels! A Ford Probe? They could have called it the DRE - that's the popular Digital Rectal Exam, fellas.

And if you want a real dog of a car, try a Kia K9!

Gone are the days when cars had cool names - Impala! Thunderbird! Mustang! Monte Carlo! 

I was going to wait for the driver of the Niro to come out so I could interrogate him or her, but I had to get in the Rav 4 and get my groceries home.

Bastille Day

Today is Bastille Day in France, their big national holiday, saluting this day in 1789 when a crowd stormed the Bastille in Paris.

Today, historians are drawing a connection between that day and January 6, 2021, when an angry crowd, unwilling to accept the results of the previous fall's presidential election, stormed the U.S. Capitol, the plan being to scare Congress out of certifying that vote and awarding the presidency to the loser of that plebiscite.

The French, way back then, did what no other people had done in our modern history. They overturned a malign monarchy and helped create a democratic government with a constitution.

  

For years and years, France was led by a hereditary monarchy, with the credo being that common people should just zip it and let the king run things.

You will remember from 7th grade that the American Revolution over here led to the creation of that form of government as well.

So let's keep it that way! 

Sunday Rerun: In the frozen isle

 Many people will say, "Oh I could live there!" when talking about some remote outpost on a barren desert or an ice floe somewhere cold. 

And maybe they could, but would they be happy enough to stay? The reason I say, here's a job opportunity for that person you know who says they are tired of the heat and the crowds around here.

It's a position at a post office in Antarctica. Duties include sorting mail, selling stamps, "and other duties as assigned," as job spec sheets always says (that's a sneaky way to avoid telling you that you have to empty the trashcans). Oh! Almost forgot. One of those other duties is counting penguins.

This is the post office at Port Lockroy, which is a popular tourist spot off the west side of Antarctica. Goudier Island, they call it, and 18,000 tourists throng the place every tourist season, which is about how many people are in any pool in Cancún, México at any time, but they lack penguins in México.

Port Lockroy is a British Antarctic territory.  "Base A", where the post office is, was set up in 1944 as a research station. I don't know if they still do much research down there, but they do have the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust running a museum and gift shop. The money they make from the gift shop goes toward renovations of other historic sites in Antarctica.

Now, about that penguin counting...the people at the UKAHT are studying how much impact tourists have on the penguin population, so someone has to get out there and count the number of penguins — and penguin chicks — on the island. With the results of the impact study in hand, officials can determine just how many visitors to allow on the island while striving to "to ensure the environment is properly cared for," according to the territory's website.

Sound good? Well, here's the scoop. Pack your woolies, because it gets down to minus 23° F there, not to mention the wind chill. So we won't.

All the staffers share one bedroom with no flushing toilet, just a camp toilet that, one supposes, the new guy or girl has to empty daily.

Running water? There is none. Sometimes a visiting ship will allow staffers to climb aboard for a shower, but you might wait two weeks between showers.

There are no cell phones or internet access, so there is very little communication with home. Some might see this as a bonus; I don't know.

And don't get sick; it might take up to a week to get you to a hospital.

 "Antarctica is a physically and mentally challenging place to work," advises the information available to job seekers. 

I think I'd rather be the towel boy in Cancún.

The Saturday Picture Show, July 12, 2025

 

It's either an ocean sunrise over an Atlantic Beach such as Ocean City, Maryland, or an ocean sunset, as on the West Coast. Either way, it will be back tomorrow!

Someone posted this picture of a movie theater pretzel. All I can think of is, the word pretzel comes from the Latin "pretiola," meaning a little reward. Way, way back, priests would bake breadsticks in the shape of praying hands for the kids in the church who had learned their prayers as assigned, dividing the little snack into three parts for the Holy Trinity. If I sat and tried to eat this dough monster, I would be praying not to die of terminal indigestion before the movie ended.

This is a place to let your wetsuit dry, and there's a contradiction I ever I heard one!

This Kansas couple is about to embark on a whirlwind engagement. I hope her name is Dorothy.

Pose your tea kettle near your snow-capped Alps for an interesting view!

Law enforcement has changed over the years. Gone are the days when the cop would clop you over the head for littering, and holler, "Go pick it up, ya bum, ya!" at the guilty.  But now, they make you take a multiple choice test and try to lay on the guilt.

W. L. Bacon will fix your plumbing, warm your home, and fix you a nice breakfast.

Tonight on "See? There Was A Time When We Could Stand Elon Musk," we fondly remember his appearance in the kitchen in their Thanksgiving episode (season 9, episode 9).

We decided long ago, we want no part of the metric system in the US, so don't go sneaking in the distance to Knoxville on a really poorly-lettered highway sign.

It's Christmas in July, so you better scoot on over to Costco and get your Christmas ribbons. Before you know it, it'll be Labor Day! 

You're like out!

If you read the 1956 novel "The Last Angry Man, " by Gerald Green, you may recall a passage in which Woody Thrasher, the main character, tells a young man about how he, Woody, came from South Dakota to the big city and tried to fit in...but his cover was blown by a tailor.

In an effort to blend in with the Right People, Woody went to the tailor favorited by the upper crust, got a couple of suits, and thought he had the right clothes - until a co-worker saw his suit jacket and told him he was a "wide-stitch phony."

The co-worker was kind enough to let Woody in on a secret - if the purchaser of a suit was in with the right crowd, the tailor sewed the label onto his inner breast pocket with a nice tight stitch...but for auslanders like Thrasher, they used a wide, loose stitch, to tell one and all of his diminished status.

I thought about old Woody when I read this story about Livvy Dunne. I wouldn't know Livvy from Thin Lizzy, were she not the girlfriend of Pirate pitcher Paul Skenes. She is apparently a big deal among followers of college gymnastics (she competed for Louisiana State) and is now busy being an "influencer," meaning that people look at her posts and videos and decide that what she wears, says, eats, drives, thinks, smells like, and I don't know what-all else is the cool way to go.

It turns out, Livvy is not the last word in who says what. She tried to buy Babe Ruth's old apartment in New York, offering $1.6 million in American money, and the co-op board, the people who decide who gets to live in these high-time NY apartments, said nuh-uh.

Dunne said she was all set to close on 345 W. 88th St., Apartment 7B, when she found out she wasn't set after all.

So she told her 8 million TikTok devotees, "Guys, I'm so upset. So a few months ago, I decided I was going to make my first real estate purchase, which is so exciting. And I was going to get an apartment in New York City. But the gag was, it was Babe Ruth's apartment."

She and Skenes were so excited to buy the place, she even hired an interior decorator so she wouldn't have to use her old college furniture because, "That would be, like, criminal."

"Then the week that I'm supposed to get my keys to my brand new apartment, I get a call: The co-op board denied me, " she said. "So pretty much the people in the building voted to not have me live there, which is fine. Like, honestly, it wasn't financial. "

But she was philosophical about the rejection, probably the first of her life: "It could have been, for all I know, they could have been Alabama fans and I went to LSU. Like, I have no clue. Maybe they didn't want a public figure living there."

It's a long way from Louisiana to Manhattan. But I'm sure she'll find a nice apartment somewhere, maybe near Central Perk?

 

Yes, we know who you are, but we don't know why you are the way you are.

I worked with, and knew, lots of police officers in my day. Almost all of them had fairly good senses of humor, because you need that to get through what they do. But one thing I will promise you is this: if a cop tells you that you flunked a roadside sobriety test, don't ask her or him if she or he is kidding, because they aren't.

We're talking about 1984  U.S. Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton, who could not believe that she failed a series of field sobriety tests during a DWI stop in May in West Virginia.

The police body cam video is sad to see, showing, as it does, an obviously impaired person who also chooses to get a little snitty with the police. It's well known that she suffers from some form of pneumonia, and needs oxygen to breathe at times. That's cool. The screw-top bottle of wine on the seat of her car? Not cool.

And after seven minutes of bumbled sobriety tests, she is asked for her license, and replies, "It's in Texas."

Well, you're not, champ, and it was not becoming at all after refusing to take a breathalyzer test and being told she is being detained, to holler at some friends on the parking lot of the AutoZone parking lot in Fairmont, WV, "They think I'm drunk."

And off to Central Booking she goes, telling the officer, "I mean, really.… I know, you know [who I am]."

She thereby joins the list of celebrities and former celebrities who think that driving a car while blitzed is OK because of who they are. 

The officer looks unimpressed as he says, "Oh, I know who you are."

Later on, she is heard on the video, saying she is the "First Daughter of West Virginia," which is probably something some politician told her she was, while giving her an official Certificate of Achievement 40 years ago.

Anyway, she was blood-tested and charged with one count of driving under the influence of alcohol, controlled substances, or drugs, according to Marion County court records. She went for a personal recognizance bond of $1,500 and is free to walk (or drive) around now. She entered a no-contest plea and was fined $100.

And this is always my favorite part: 

Her attorney, Edmund J. Rollo, put out a statement in which the gold medalist admitted to driving under the influence and apologized. 

"I take full responsibility for my actions," the statement said. "What happened was completely unacceptable. I make no excuses. To my family, friends and my fans: I have let you down, and for that I am deeply sorry. 

"I am determined to learn and grow from this experience, and I am committed to making positive changes in my life. I truly appreciate your concern, encouragement and continued support." 

It's the "I'm So Sorry Samba," a tune we've heard a million times. I say, instead of nicking her for a hundred bucks, why not make her go to whatever trauma center they have in WV and see what happens to people who drive drunk, and, worse, who have the misfortune to have their lives upended by drunks.  Boom.

 

 

What's Yours?

I abbreviate my breakfast choices. Why not? I'm the tall short order chef here, so if I say "BLT," you know the bacon, lettuce, and tomato are going to work. "B&E" doesn't mean breaking and entering any more; eggs are getting broken and bacon is entering the pan along with them.

In Baltimore, we used to have Esskay Meats. The name stood for SK - Schluderberg-Kurdle Co - former purveyors of hams, hot dogs, sausage, bacon and their delectable chipped beef, which brings me to another breakfast favorite: Creamed Chipped Beef. If you say "CCB" around here, no one will think you're referring to the Community College of Baltimore, but the result of strips of dried beef in a simple white gravy (milk, butter, and flour) served on toast.

Soldiers and sailors have traditionally come home asking for more of the breakfast treat they lovingly refer to by the acronym "SOS," which stands for either "Succulence On Sourdough" or "Same Old Snack," depending on which side of the Mississippi River you call home.

 

Do you know what you are?

If you have known me at all (and if you have, you may be entitled to compensation for your troubles!) you know that one of the topics on which I will declaim loud and long (mainly loud) (also long) is the withering of my beloved traditional country music, the kind with the sad lyrics, the sawing fiddles, the howling steel guitar, all that. The Hank Williams School of Country Music seems to be in business no longer, replaced by a dozen guys named Blake and Burke and Zach and Luke and Morgan and another Luke and I don't know who-all else.

It's country technically, but it isn't for me, so I just listen to the old stuff in peace. I'm happy with my headphones, jamming Buck Owens down my ears. I don't go around be-otching about it.

I wouldn't do what Gavin Adcock (is he famous at all?) is doing, which is slagging Beyoncé’s entrance into country music.

This Adcock (I couldn't pick him out of a lineup, although I'm sure he will be in one someday) posted to Instagram last week, a tirade filmed during one of his recent concerts (well-attended, certainly) that contained a jumped-up speech that seemed to deliver a sort of warning to Ms B.

“There’s only three people in front of me on the Apple Music country charts, and one of them is Beyoncé,” Adcock railed. “You can tell her we’re coming for her $@#&@* @$$.”

And with the marvelous use of words that seems to be his hallmark,  Adcock bellowed,  “That (poop) ain’t country music, it ain’t ever been country music and it ain’t gonna be country music.”

Remember when Geo. W. Bush said he was "the decider"? Well, here is one Gavin Adcock, who hath decided that he is the Decider of country music.

Apparently unable to shut his yap, he posted another video, saying, “When I was a little kid, my mama was blasting some Beyoncé in the car. I’ve heard a ton of Beyoncé songs and I actually remember her Super Bowl halftime show being pretty kick-@$$ back in the day, but I really don’t believe that her album should be labeled as country music,” he said. “It doesn’t sound country, it doesn’t feel country, and I just don’t think that people that have dedicated their whole lives to this genre and this lifestyle should have to compete or watch that album just stay at the top just because she’s Beyoncé.”

Well, now, if he has indeed dedicated his whole life to this genre and this lifestyle, then he should sit back and see how the devotees of the genre like his efforts. If they do, yay, Gavin, but if they like Beyoncé better, whaddya gonna do?

Here's what I think you ought to do, Gavin: realize that it's a free country, and if Beyoncé wants to make an album of country, or Latvian folk ballads, just let the market forces decide if she was right to spend her time that way.

I hope that Gavin Whoozit grows as an artist and as a man. He would me to show you his picture. Please enjoy this picture of a turkey we had for Thanksgiving some years ago...

Law & Order Money

You probably don't stand there with a ten dollar bill in your hand when you get the change at the Clip 'N' Go, but maybe you should take a quick glance.

Especially if you're the cashier at an Italian restaurant in New Jersey.

Check out this story about checking out the bills. Up in Gloucester Township, N.J. this past May, a local restaurant did become the scene of a counterfeit crime involving props.

Some wise cracker got a hold of some movie money and treated himself (and a date, I guess) to a big dinner at Villari’s Lakeside Restaurant up in Sicklerville on May 23. I hear he even went for the shrimp cocktail!

And why not; he was using money made to look right in the movies, but not in the cash register of a nice chow place. 

They ran up a bill of $120 and left six of the bogus twenties. That's what irks me; they were too close-fisted to leave a tip, even with the fake bills!  Cheesy.

Police say the guy seen on film walking into the eatery carrying the stack o' bucks was seen running away from the place after everyone had eaten their fill.  And they say he might just be the guy they wish to arrest for several other counterfeit incidents in South Jersey.

It would be the perfect touch to put him in a fake jail until April Fool's Day, following, of course, a legal arrest, arraignment, and conviction at trial. New Jersey ain't Texas, you know.

Sunday Rerun (from pandemic-y 2020) Thought For Food

 There were more than two fascinating things about my father's Aunt Dot from Philadelphia, but I will just share these two:

A - she grew up on the Jersey Shore down around Cape May, and one of her childhood playmates was a little lass who grew to be...drum roll please...Mrs Paul of seafood fame!

2 - she worked as a packer for W. Atlee Burpee & Co, the premier seed supplier. So we never lacked for the freshest of corn and other vegetables and flowers around the yard during my Opie-esque childhood.

I got to thinking about my childhood days running around, barefoot boy with a hoe, when I saw an article about something that's becoming popular again.

People had a lot of time on their hands this year, and that led to having a lot of dirt on their hands, and fertilizer. Being home and having nothing much to do, many people started home gardens as a way to spend time in the out of doors, and also get a some kohlrabi and carrots and poppies for the table. Seeds were bought, seeds were planted.

And then...

After a record-setting spring season for sellers of seeds and garden implements and pain medications (Google searches for "growing food" were up 4650%, and the good people at W. Atlee Burpee & Co had the biggest sales year in their  144-year history), here came the crops!

So many that people were begging their friends to take eggplants, cucumbers, and squash that many got into the habit of locking their cars and night and leaving the porch lights off, lest they find themselves with someone else's bounteous harvest all over the Adirondack chair or the front seat of the Biscayne.

And all that leads to the magic of home canning!

“I have definitely noticed an uptick in canning interest during the pandemic,” says Marisa McClellan. Ms McClellan is a canning expert (who awards these titles?) who runs the Food in Jars website. “Traffic is up on my site, I'm getting more canning questions, and there's a shortage of both mason jars and lids.”

I saw that reflected on the community social pages.  Where to find Mason jars? And the answers came back that stores all over are backordered on canning supplies and there won't be more supplies for a month or two.

Indeed, stores across America are reporting canning supply backorders that won't be filled for months.

But if you find and fill Mason jars, you are taking part in home technology that has been around since the 1850s, when one John Landis Mason, a tinsmith from New Jersey, figured out how to make screw-top jars that are air-and-water-tight.

Our family used the pre-Mason method, which was to make the jam or whatever you were canning, and then cover the surface of the food with molten Esso wax.

A few takeaway thoughts:

• why do we call it home "canning" when it's not going into a can, but a jar?
• this might be a good time to collect Mason jars for next year. They keep very well unfilled, with no need to seal the lids.
• take some paper towels, put them in a jar, fill the jar with liquid cleanser, put a lid on it, and voila! You have canned your own Lysol Wipes!

The Saturday Picture Show, July 5, 2025

 

People are given a lovely park/playground, and they can't be bothered to toss their trash in the can located directly by the exit. 

We just got through an upper 90s heat wave, and we're sure to have another one, so my best advice involves not leaving your Skittles on the dashboard. 

The original poster complained that some relative took a disproportionate amount of brownie. I can't trust anyone who doesn't want at least one edge piece.

In the days of hard luggage, everyone's mother and sister lugged Lady Baltimore around.

Somebody tossed a pumpkin seed down on the ground, and lookie here! A little pumpkin patch on the way! 🎃 

Kids in second grade made a nice mug for their teacher! It's a swell gift, because heaven knows, second-grade teachers deserve a little boost in the afternoon,  right? 

When our third-grade teacher taught us to sing about the kookaburra sitting in the old gum tree ("Merry merry king of the bush is he!") she was not specific about the kookaburra's species. At first, I thought it was some crazy burro, and wondered how it got up in the tree, but reckoned that a kooky burro could find a way.

Always check with your local produce vendor for tips on beating the heat (put a cabbage leaf in your hat) and the sun (make a visor out of cardboard citrus mats).

All my life, I have enjoyed seeing people putting up signs to label their yard as "private property." Gee, Mister, I thought this was a public park!

A new one for my vast collection of courtroom sketch art. This one shows Sean P. Diddycombs huddled with his legal dream team.

In Congress

 

Happy 4th of July!  Enjoy the holiday!

Your home away from home

Over the years, we traveled here and there, and we usually tried to stay in the same hotels/motels. We are not B&B types; sharing a bathroom with a couple from Kissimmee does not appeal to us, and being told what time to show up for breakfast doesn't either. 

And there were times we took a jaunt somewhere without reservations and things turned out great. But other times...the place that reeked of smoke so badly that I walked to a convenience store for air freshener (and wound up dreaming I was asleep in a lemon grove) or the time that the toilet and shower were in a tiny room and the sink was in the sleeping area. That made me wonder how many people had utilized the utilities for other than their intended purposes.

Or the time that our vacation in Williamsburg was during the same time as a middle-school field trip, and the teachers had to do tag-team security duty, sitting on folding chairs in the hallways to prevent Clyde from slipping into Bonnie's room.

Or- this was nice - the absolutely cleanest hotel room we ever saw, in Amish Country. It was a chain motel but the place was cleaner than the operating suites at many hospitals (no names please.) I asked the manager when we checked out if the place had just opened the day before and he said no, they hire nothing but local Amish women to clean. And boy howdy, do they clean!

Now, this is not a place we stayed, but the picture made me think it must be in the middle of Crime Zone USA where the management agreed with the local police to set up klieg lights every ten feet around the place so that the people who committed strongarm robberies and safe heists would photograph well in the predawn darkness.  I don't know where this place is, but here is your room at 3 in the Yawning:

That Old-fashioned Religion

The spellbinding sin-busting preacher, Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, died yesterday after suffering a heart attack several weeks ago.

I'm not here to praise him or damn him. He lived as a perfect example of the truth behind the saying about there being two sides to everyone and everything. 

You probably know his story: a guy from rural Ferriday, Louisiana, who grew up with cousins Mickey Gilley and Jerry Lee Lewis brought the show-biz glitz and glitter that Mickey and Jerry Lee excelled at to the church pulpit, and found great success. 

Cousins: Jimmy Swaggart, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Mickey Gilley.

But while he inveighed about worldly temptations, he succumbed to them.

“Satan, you’re in for a whupping!” he would howl before his congregation, until the day in October 1987, when Swaggart, who posed for countless pictures in his day, had his picture taken entering a sleazeball New Orleans motel with a woman.

So, he was suspended from preaching by his organization, the Assemblies of God, and in a scene seen thousands of times since, he delivered a teary mea culpa to his audience, and turned to his wife with, “Oh, I have sinned against you, and I beg your forgiveness.”

 Swaggart had accused another evangelist, Marvin Gorman, of being a serial adulterer. Gorman then hired a private eye to dog Swaggart to see what he did in private. Gorman also sued Swaggart for defamation, and won a $10 million judgement.

All this was bad for business, and in his line of work, when the donations drop off, you wind up with an older model private jet, and last year's Lexus.

And in October 1991, Reverend Swaggart was surprised to find a prostitute in the front seat of his car, and also shocked to see a police car trailing him - so shocked that trying to hide his pornographic magazine under that seat caused him to swerve out of his lane, which caused the police officer to pull him over and charge him with violating several Commandments.

And this time, he was much less contrite, telling a packed church in Baton Rouge, “The Lord told me it’s flat none of your business."

The congregation soon made it their business to take from other preachers. 

I'm hardly in a position to tell religious leaders how to run their lives, but getting caught time and time again with his draws down, and then deriding other faiths as "false" was not a good look for Jimmy. 

And the ultimate irony was that he was always raising hell with cousin Jerry Lee for chasing women, while he himself chased women and fought Hell.

He can answer for his mistakes, as will we all, and who knows? Along the way, maybe he led some souls to The Way.

A nickel's worth of philosophy

As of yesterday, I have been around for 27, 029 days, and that means 27, 029 days that I have awakened and was looking forward to the day. Looking at life as something not to like is not the way I have ever been.  I'm having a great time here. I've been lucky. I have a lot of friends and people I truly love and I have laughter and heart-stopping moments of joy and love. Yesterday, a lot of people showed me a lot of love, and I am ever thankful for that.

One does not live this long without certain disappointments. I can't control other people, for sure. If I could, would they act the way they do? They're gonna do what they're gonna do. I have to say that I focus most on the times I have let myself down, because I can do something about that and try to do better next time. But one thing I have learned, traipsing around this old earth for that many days, is that the world is not going to end because I forgot to do something or made some other mistake. If anyone ever asks me, "how did you manage to keep going, what with all the mistakes you made?" I say it's  because I would rather learn from a mistake than learn to hate myself for it.

Tell you the truth, I have felt sorry for people who couldn't be happy because their goals were just beyond their reach all the time, people who felt bad because they couldn't afford a certain car or certain house in a certain neighborhood. When you've seen 27,029 sunsets, you have talked to enough people who drive Lamborghinis or live in Morningwood Heights and still aren't happy. And I wonder if they will ever be, and I remind them that in less than 30 more days, there will be a new Naked Gun movie starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr.

There is always something to live for!

Go see it, before they turn your local theater into a Spirit Halloween!