Sunday rerun: He brought Nixon down

 Today is a very important anniversary in American history.  Very few of us will ever forget waking up to the news the day after an inept group of burglars, masterminded by the mentally unbalanced G. Gordon Liddy, attempted to break into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington DC.  

You know, they would have gotten away with it had it not been for Frank Wills, a security guard who noticed tape covering the latches on doors leading to the DNC offices, removed it, and then found tape re-attached an hour later as he made his rounds.  If not for his vigilance, the five clowns sent by the President of the United States of America, one Richard M. Nixon,  to install spying devices in phones and photocopy documents would not have been caught, there would have been no ensuing scandal as the facts came out linking Nixon and his criminal cohorts to the stupidest crime in history, and the crook who later insisted "I'm not a crook" would have been able to serve out his entire second term instead of being sent off in abject disgrace, which is what he was anyway. 

What made it so stupid was that Nixon ordered all this espionage because he feared that he could lose the 1972 election to whomever the Dems threw against him.  As if!  He was a lock, being so popular in his beloved "Middle America," where he sent Vice President Spiro Agnew out to deliver speeches in which he regularly insulted people of all sorts.  Nice couple of guys, and they had 99 problems, but that election wasn't one of them.

Frank Wills

It took diligent reporting by the team of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward to uncover the many criminal secrets and coverups that sprang out of the well that Frank Wills (1948- 2000) uncapped this day, 42 years ago.  If not for him, and the Washington Post, history would be far different.  For want of a nail, the shoe was lost....

The Saturday Picture Show, August 8, 2026

 

My nature-loving bride Peggy saw this cardinal on the back fence, and he was kind enough to hand around and pose. It's said that cardinals bring messages from the beyond, a little love song from the departed.

I think this is a nice policy. I remember when our cats came home for the first time. Deanna was sort of shy and sweet, and took her time looking around. Eddie ran upstairs and downstairs, checking out all three floors and the garage, and then decided that these humble digs would suit Her Majesty. I guess they still do; she hasn't said otherwise.

It's never been an issue for me, but I think I would rather be honestly short than dishonestly tall. You agree, MarKwayne?

You could drive a nail with a hammer still in its wrapping, and you could stir your oatmeal with a spoon still covered in cellophane. But when you bring home a doorstop, it's better to take it out and give it some air before putting it to work!

Attention all ships at sea: There has been a Mothra sighting off the Chilean coast.

Pizza: the round meal in a square box served in love triangles!

I guess the expiration date was supposed to be on the burrito wrapper, but this makes sense, so you can see if your lunch is still good.

Jimothy, the raccoon born with spine issues, is having a great summer, and here is someone who did a 3-D Jimmie at a street fair. Love it when art meets nature!

I don't know how to explain this picture to anyone who wasn't around in 1965, but let's say one of these men went on to become a United States Congressman, and Bob Dylan didn't.

You wanted to come back as a whatttttttt?

Lend me your comb

One of the wonderful gifts that come with subscribing to Comcast Xfinity cable TV is that channel 4164 is the LITB channel, which plays every episode of "Leave It To Beaver" in sequence, beginning with the first one in 1957, and ending with the series finale, 1963. You can turn it on any time day or night and see a little page from the memory book.

Yesterday while cleaning up breakfast, I saw "Wally's Haircomb" (season 2, episode 34) in which Wally, inspired by Eddie Haskell, began combing his hair in an elaborate pompadour. Of course, his mother about had a cow, and had to deal with the shame of having a son with an outré hairdid.

Kookie

Looking back, it's hard to believe that people made such a big deal about hair, but that was the day of Edd "Kookie" Byrnes combing his hair so much on "77 Sunset Strip" that it inspired a hit record. Check this out to see a real 50's frenzy: https://youtu.be/MT9QZBGyXjU?si=LIGYlRJuad-7E8De

Of course, the next thing you know, it's 1977, and there's Kookie playing the Dick Clark character in the "Grease" movie.

Before that, the next thing you know, it was 1964, and The Beatles wore hair so long that it drove everyone crazy. Parents had to unite against the menace of young men whose hair actually touched their ears or collar. Long hair became the symbol of youthful revolution, and old people just couldn't put up with that! 

I am glad to see that parents have better things to do (and more important things to worry about) than how their sons and daughters wear their hair. They finally got that smog out of their noggins!

 

Slice of life

I am telling you, some times the littlest things become the biggest, you know what I mean? Here's an example:

Up in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, a nice quiet oceanside town, one of the 47 pizzerias they have is all up in a hassle with a customer and everyone around with social media. The whole thing started when a family brought in a cake for a kid's fifth birthday party.

You should know, if you haven't had your first morning chuckle, the pizza joint is called Joey Tomato's. There you go. 

And the family brought a cake to the restaurant, which we have all seen done 40 million times. 

But when the family asked to borrow a knife to cut the cake (which doesn't seem so unreasonable) a female who works for the Tomato's concern went a little pizza-postal, telling the family they were "inappropriate" for even asking. "You just don't walk into a restaurant and do whatever you want," she said. "OK, so when I come to your house with my candles and my cake, am I going to be able to do whatever I want to there now? You just don't walk into a restaurant and do whatever you want. It's inappropriate. You owe us an apology. I don't owe you anything," she continued, against all good sense and decorum.

Perhaps she didn't know that the people she was berating didn't just roll in there on a head of cabbage. The father of the child is Tom Jurkowski, founder of Vintage New Jersey, a website with hundreds of thousands of followers. He posted the video of the entire unpleasant thing, said his family called in advance to make sure it was ok to bring a cake, and spent around $250 on food.

Jurkowski said, "We simply asked if we could borrow a knife to cut our birthday cake. We were even willing to pay any additional fee if there was one."

It's the talk of the Jersey Shore, but Joey Tomato's isn't talking. They shut down their website and their social media is blanked. Their Yelp page has so many irate comments that there's a special note appended to it.

You have to wonder if some people have forgotten the hospitality aspect of the restaurant business. 

I imagine a lot of people are forgetting about that restaurant, whatever it was called.

I believe I once met a lawyer named Selkirk Bannock

Flatbreads are a big deal now in carryout shops and sit-'em-down restaurants. I think the perceived advantage is that you get the grain and flour or whatever but without the added weight of leavened loaves. 

I read that medieval peasants made a simple flatbread out of oats, barley, dried peas, and beans. 

Hold the beans and dried peas on mine. No, wait, hold the whole thing and give me a big slab of grainy bread by Dave's Killer Bread.

This Middle Age cracker, if you will, was called Bannock. The Scots invented it and had one variety - Selkirk Bannock - made with wheat flour and fruit. 

What I read in the Encyclopedia Britannica is that old-time people back in the day made these crusty flatbreads all the time, but the common superstition of the day warned against stirring the batter clockwise, because that action was believed to bring bad luck to the whole house. 

I don't hesitate to point out that while the Middle Ages are commonly held to have taken place from 500 AD to 1500 AD, and clocks were invented in 13th-Century Europe, which means that from the year 500 to the year 1200-and-some, if you told someone not to do something "clockwise," the only answer you could have expected was, "What? What's a clock and why is it wise?"

 

Coming and going

 The owners and management of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team sometimes have to make tough choices. Yesterday, they did a housecleaning, because if there's anything that the first 2/3 of this season is proving, it's that being in the playoffs is not in the cards for the current team. So they discard and deal again.

People around here are howling mad because popular catcher Adley Rutschman was traded to the Red Sox for some prospects with what's thought to be very high potential - so high, in fact, that Red Sox fans are taking to the internet, howling mad because they feel their club gave up too much to get Rutschman. "We were fleeced," they vehemently cry.

We all know that Adley was the cornerstone of the rebuilding of the Orioles, the re-establishment of values and skills that were to take the team back to the top again. Check the calendar, folks. He's been here since 2022 and we have won exactly zero (0) playoff games since then. Not that it's his fault, although he has been bogged down with injuries lately. He's had a comeback year this year, which is why the Sox wanted him, so dealing him (and his newly-acquired backup Jake Rogers) for some promising talent, while ceding the #1 catcher spot to  Samuel Basallo, seems to make sense on paper.

Farewell, Adley!

But baseball is not played on paper; it's played on dirt and turf.  I'm sorry that so many people are upset about losing a popular player, but the management of the team has to shuffle around their chess pieces as they see fit, and maybe in the next couple of years, these new guys will be just what makes the pieces fit, and the O's will be back in the playoffs.

If that doesn't happen, just forget I said anything. I've been a baseball fan since I was a little boy, and I try not to take it personally.  

More than one

The other day, I saw a woman at the self checkout who had selected Spanish as her language, so the machine was talking to her in the words she understood best, and I hoped that no one would come over and start berating her to "Speak English!"

And it was a reminder that not everyone speaks English first, or even second.

I read in the Washington POST that learning a new language is good for your brain, and that's good for any brain at any age anywhere.

They went on to explain that being conversant in another tongue offers mental stimulation, and that keeps the old noodle active and sharp. They're even thinking that knowing more than one language may delay a diagnosis of dementia, or stop your brain from aging (or at least slow that down!)

Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research professor emeritus of psychology at York University in Canada, has looked into this for more than fifty years. She says that some people might practice music for a couple of hours a day, but the study of new language(s) is "intense and constant," so that's like strength training for your brain.

And even if you aren't actively speaking your second language, your brain has it "on" at all times.

Que será, será’!

And please remember, when you are hearing someone speaking haltingly in English, it's probably their second language!