Normal

 If you've ever met me, you know it didn't take long before I started nattering on about how great I always thought Norm MacDonald was. He created the kind of jokes that were far above the average "I'm not saying he's fat, but..." wisecracks.

Norm is dead now, but there's a new documentary on Netflix that shows examples of his wit and philosophy. And if you watch it, you'll see countless examples of how funny and smart he was. 

The documentary shows Norm's memorable appearance on the final David Letterman Show, in which he said "Mr Letterman is not for the mawkish, and he has no truck for the sentimental." "Truck" in this sense has nothing to do with anyone's Tacoma or F-350. It became English from its start as the French word troque, which meant business dealings, or trading. At first, after becoming English, it was neutral, and meant good or bad business,  but over the years it's come to where it refers to things we'd rather avoid.

It's one of the quirky expressions that make me love written and spoken English. It's easier to have no truck with those who don't. 

Empty your pockets!

People were asking about this sign...

...because what possible difference could it make if I carry my Parker T-Ball jotter around in a titanium factory?

And as a man with titanium knees, thank you for leaving that pen in the car. This is why: The teeny rolling ball in your standard Bic ballpoint pen tip is made of tungsten carbide, which is extremely hard, as you will remember from the time in 8th grade that you and that Wellington kid finally popped the roller out of your Papermate and tried to coat it with some mercury secreted from the science lab. You'll have to get a fire underneath tungsten that's 6,192°F to melt it, while they only have to heat titanium to 3,400°F. The deal is, if your pen falls into a molten titanium vat, the tungsten will not melt.  

And while that might not bother you (you can always get another free pen at the Credit Union), that teeny bit o' unmelted tungsten would get into jet airplane rotors or aircraft frames and even something that little can cause a lot of problems, such as fatigue cracks and other performance problems.

There was a guy at work once, went out at lunch came back with a cold cut sub. He asked for "everything" on the sandwich, and when he bit into it, he found more than everything...there was the plastic glove that the sandwich maker had been wearing until it fell off in the middle of my buddy's sandwich.

That's the parallel I draw for unwanted foreign items. Not blaming anyone, but check your lunch carefully (unless you packed it!)

And leave your pens outside whenever you find yourself at a titanium plant!

    

Fly me

Bosses like to say, "There are mistakes, and there are mistakes." Take the case of the errormaker at Alitalia Airlines in 2006. This person was supposed to key in the price of a ticket to fly from Toronto to Cyprus as $2,558.

For some reason, he or she entered the price as $33, which meant that 509 people got tickets at that low-low price before the bosses noticed something wrong in Toronto. 

Getting to fly for 1.29% of the regular price is a pretty sweet deal.

That's why I hang around Jersey Mike's, waiting for a mistake in the price of a giant sized #13 (Provolone, ham, prosciuttini, cappacuolo, salami, and pepperoni) which is enough for two dinners for the two of us. 

That's a lot of gabbagoo for very few buckaroos!

Sunday Rerun: Head East!

  I can't tell you what I was listening to the other day, but I heard someone mention the town of Atlantic, Iowa.

I'm no geographer, but I know Iowa is a state pretty much in the middle of these United 50 States. It seems odd to mention the Atlantic Ocean, way out there in corn-fed Iowa, like when we Marylanders find ourselves in Iowa, being offered "Maryland crab cakes" for dinner. 

I didn't have anything better to do, so I looked it up.  Atlantic is the county seat of Cass County and sits on the banks of the mighty East Nishnabotna River. Last time anyone counted noses (2020) they tallied 6,792 Atlanticans, which was down from 7,257 (2000).

The books tell us that Atlantic was founded in October 1868 by Franklin H. Whitney, B.F. Allen, John P. Cook, and others. 

And they're still arguing about where the name for the town came from. Best guess is that the town fathers figured they were halfway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, maybe a tad bit closer to the Atlantic.

That little pointer is pointing to Atlantic, Iowa.

What I think, Ocean City, Maryland, should invite the entire town of Atlantic to come east for a weekend and see the ocean for which their town is named. 

The Saturday Picture Show, October 17, 2026

The guys in the warehouse said Gary called out sick today and they
don't want to handle it without him...so wait 'til Monday.

Mama Celeste started selling her pizzas nationwide in 1969, and I would estimate that in my salad days, I oven-baked, and later nuked, at least 200,000 of them. Of course, I preferred the Meat Lovers pizza...and a salad. They're gone now :(

You'll recognize this if you live in Baltimore County and you like the pure goodness of food from the Amish Market in Cockeysville. This mural is on the wall outside the restrooms and it depicts a tranquil life.

I guess at some time we will all have to answer this question. The next question is "Where?"  Try to get that one right.

This is America in 2026.  Suburban Virginia, nice houses - mini-mansions, one might say - right next
 to a data center. The good thing for the residents is, they no longer need reading lamps in the 
living room. They can read by the glow in the air.

Hurricane Isaias was pretty tough on some places down South, and yet, not as devastating as it might have been. On his way out, he played Scrabble with the Waffle House highway sign.

My favorite time of the year is here, so I find lots of autumn pictures to share.

I have never eaten a persimmon, and don't intend to, but I like the way they come scored with e-z cutting lines nicely marked for the persimmonizers out there!

Baltimore gets lit up purple this time of year for the Ravens!

This is Reno, Nevada, in 1963. Not so remarkable to see a man in clown motley at a lunch counter.  We've all seen that, right? But how about a turkey dinner with "all the trimmings" for 69¢? That's just like living!

The cat's pajamas

 Let me take you up the road to semi-rural Harford County, MD, where Cynthia Morgan, a school bus driver with 11 years of time in driving for the public schools (via contractor Cleary Transportation Inc.) had the can tied to her because she let a 10-year-old student hop off the bus to rescue an injured kitten on the road in the north part of the county.

The road where Alex Thomas was the only passenger still on the bus at the time is known as Heaps School Rd, and that should tell you that it's not like pulling over on I-95. It is in fact designated as a low-traffic rural road. So, Alex gets the kitten and the cat is taken for help and Alex gets home maybe 45 seconds late, so what's the issue?

The charges against Ms Morgan: Stopping at an unapproved/non-designated bus stop and letting a student exit the vehicle, alongside policies prohibiting unauthorized animals on school buses.

I've seen the back-and-forth online about all this. Most people take the sensible approach that sometimes, a little flexibility is a good thing when it comes to the choice of leaving an animal - to wit, a little kitten - in a dangerous place.

But then, there is a group of people I call the Whatifs. "What if the kid got off the bus and was run over by a car driven by a drunken politician?" "What if the cat was rabid and clawed her way to freedom, infecting the boy and the driver?" "What if the kitten belonged to a kindle of kittens out in rural Pylesville?"

This is not the actual kitten, but still.....

And to Mr and Mrs Whatif, I always come back with, "What if the 45-second delay in going down the road had saved the lives of the driver and the young man, not to mention the kitten, when a rogue communications satellite dropped out of the sky?"

This thing is dragging its way through the levels of bureaucrazy up there (misspelling intentional) and I hope that people will come to a level of common sense about it. The anonymous poem "Kindness To Animals" points out that gentle care of any animal is always returned. Maybe with affection, maybe with Androclean loyalty, maybe just, as in the poem, with a song from a robin in return for a few crumbs.

What's really crumby is firing the lady for doing the right thing. I expect everyone who had a "WWJD" wristband, tee shirt, or hat to stand up for Ms Morgan.

Reading is fundamental

 The first country radio station I worked for was WICO in Salisbury. The second thing the general manager there ever told me, after telling me not to leave my lunch on the table in the break room because "the river rats might get it" was that he did not allow his DJs to play any records by George Jones and Tammy Wynette because they were scheduled to play a concert in town one night, but Jones showed up drunk and pugnacious, got into a fight with Tammy (his wife) and roared out of town, leaving concert-goers disappointed.

The boss wrote to Jones and told him that he was instituting a lifetime ban on their records, and Jones wrote back - the letter was framed and hanging on the office wall - saying "I'm gonna build me a station right there in your town and put you out of business. - George."

I'm telling you this because I am almost finished Jones's autobiography, "I Lived To Tell It All," and it is one horrible book because every chapter is just "I drank a gallon of whiskey and passed out on stage" over and over and over again. Plus, in the later years of his addiction, someone got him hooked on cocaine, so add that to the toxic mix.

Jones was my favorite country singer, because he had a voice that could convey any emotion, but what I didn't know about him was that he was so desperately hooked on self-destruction that absolutely nothing - legal means, physical restraints, tears from those who loved him, and begging from people who had looked forward to hearing him sing - stood between him and his intoxicants. Even though he had fairly long periods of sobriety, it was always a matter of when, not if, he would plunge headlong into a bottle or a vial again. I knew he was messed up, but I never thought he would write a book bragging about it.

I guess it's true, that old saw about never learning too much about the people you admire. I wish I had never read that book about Andy Griffith and Don Knotts being total philanderers. Imagine cheating on your wife with Miss Crump! 

Kitchen Switchin'

 I'm not one for home decorating tips, which makes it all the more interesting that by logarithms keep sending them to me online. To me, "throw rug" is a verbal command, not a noun, and any time I see a piece of furniture labeled as as "occasional" table, I have to ask what it is the rest of the time. And I get few answers.

But here we go! The other day I was informed that tile backsplashes are no longer cool and I should start digging the grout of mine to make room for what all the cool kids have on the way behind the sink and stove...mirrors! 

Yes, they said that people are breaking their necks to have mirrors replace those old tile backsplashes.

They submitted these pictures to make their point. Couple things. #1, if I'm boilin' grits in the kitchen, I don't want to look up and see my dumb face at that hour of the morning.  And B, I don't want to see the mirror image of a clock while I'm trying to get breakfast on the table. I couldn't tell if it's quarter to six or half past nine!

Here's another picture they sent, but I like our tile backsplash. It doesn't look back at me, and it doesn't try to make the kitchen look twice its size with smoky mirrors.  Home designers, come back to me when you find a way to make a backsplash out of a 41" TV monitor! Do that, and I will have you over for grits!

Tuesday rerun: Fact known by few

  This is a fact known by few! Do you know Rachel Scott, the marvelous ABC news reporter? She's on TV most every night and she works hard to help us understand what goes on in Washington, DC.

Years ago, she was brand new to national news and was covering one of those early presidential primaries in an ice-cold state. She mentioned on Instagram that she was freezing under her top coat and I mentioned that she ought to look into purchasing a down vest. Being a California native, she had no idea such a thing existed, but I don't think she's been that cold ever since then. Down is marvelous for keeping warm. Ask any goose!

The happy couple, Rachel with husband Elliott Smith!

But that's not the fact known by few, and you will be among the few soon. Rachel got married earlier this month, and I read the wedding story in the New York Times because I am a romantic at heart. The article talked about her lovely trousseau, which included no down garments, and all the fun she and her new husband and their friends and family had, and that crowd included singer Gene Chandler, who is her grandfather.

The happy grandpa

You cannot have listened to an oldies station for five minutes without hearing his big hit "Duke of Earl," a huge hit in 1961 that really sets the mood in a lot of movies about the good old days, and I wish they were back. Gene really did it up fancy back then! He would come out on stage with a top hat and fancy cane and cape, as any proper duke would.

I like knowing that Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty are brother and sister, and that Peter Graves and James Arness were brother and brother, and that Keisha Lance Bottoms, former mayor of Atlanta and advisor to President Biden, is the daughter of Major Lance, whose hit songs included "The Monkey Time" and "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um".

But being the granddaughter of a duke confers a certain status on Rachel, who is a  royally wonderful reporter and seems to be a very good person as well. Congratulations to her and her husband!