A maize maze

Corn was important to Dolly Parton's family down there in Sevierville, eastern Tennessee - her "Tennessee Mountain Home" that she sang of. It was one of the crops that helped her Dad put food on the table for his large family.

They were not rich, as you know, but Dolly had a little dolly as a girl. Her mother made a doll out of a corn cob and used the shuck to make the toy a little dress, and Dolly was as happy as could be with that simple dolly.

All that is why Dolly was always pleased that people took the making corn mazes at this time of the year, and now, I see that many communities are making Dolly-themed mazes. In fact, as of now, the total is 20!

This is one I just read about in South Carolina, down near Enoree, with a maze in Dolly's image that was actually planned long before God called her home. And - good to hear - a portion of the proceeds will go to Dolly's Imagination Library, which gives books to kids. What could be better?

The organizers say if you don't find your way out in an hour and a half, they will send the "corn cops" in to help you out!

Lose Some, Winsome

Even if you aren't into football, just as a human being, you have to be interested in the tragedy and triumph of a young man named Tyler Loop, whose job it is to kick footballs for the Baltimore Ravens football team. 

How fast things can turn! This past January, Loop missed what would have been a game-winning field goal against the dreaded Pittsburgh Steelers. The 26-24 loss gave the American Football Conference title to the Steelers, denying same to the Ravens.

It must have been an awful off-season for Loop. How many times do you think he played out that final kick in his mind? And lots of people were screaming for the Ravens to find another kicker.

But they didn't. And yesterday, in the third game of the new season, Loop came through against the Dallas Cowboys in a game played a Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Once again, it came down to the final play, and this time, Loop made the points, hitting a field goal from 56 yards out for a 34-31 Ravens win.

They're calling it the Redemption in Rio, and I'll be there is not a happier young man in the air as I write this and the Ravens fly home on happy wings.

The whole thing reminds me of the faces of comedy and tragedy that dramatists employ to show the range of how things can go on this mortal coil. You're not meant to lose every time, and it stings when you do.

You're not going to win every time either, but it sure takes away some of that sting when you do!

 

 

Sunday Rerun: Yeah Yeah Yeah

 

Above, the picture from the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album, showing the Fab Four in the picture that led to so much speculation.  You see, the license tag on the Volkswagen parked all crazy behind the band reads LMW 28IF, which played into the rampant speculation (sparked by a bored all-night disc jockey*) that Paul McCartney was dead, slain in a bloody car crash, and he WOULD have been 28 by now IF he had lived.

Another part of the rumor was that The Beatles were dressed for a funeral. John Lennon is dressed in white, the color for mourning clothes in Eastern religions. Ringo Starr is in black, the Western funeral mufti.  George Harrison is in denim, the traditional cloth for mourners among people whose idea of a proper vacation was a week in Twitty City. And McCartney is barefoot, because in some cultures, they bury people without shoes. I am taking my fireproof Rockports with me.

Well, Paul's still around, at 77, and so is that white VW. I don't know if it's the exact car in the other picture up there, but Volkswagen took a picture of a white Beetle (!) at the same place on Abbey Road to plug their new assistive parking technology in an advertisement.

The real car belonged to someone who lived in the neighborhood and did not park so well, but they sold it in an auction in 1986, and now that car can be seen at the Autostadt Museum in Wolfsburg, Germany.


* That DJ was Russ Gibb, who took a call from someone in October, 1969. That person told him to spin "Revolution 9" on the Beatles’ White Album backwards.  The words “number nine, number nine” were said to come out sounding like “Turn me on, dead man.” Play the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever" backward and you hear John say, “I buried Paul.”

And the classic example of that puckish Beatles humor came when someone from their office called to tell Paul he was reported as dead, and the cheeky bassist replied, "Oh, I don’t agree with that.”

All this happened after The Beatles stopped covering Larry Williams ("Bad Boy", "Slow Down", and "Dizzy, Miss Lizzy") and Carl Perkins ("Honey Don't", "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" and "Matchbox") songs and began Taking Themselves Very Seriously ("I am he as you are he as you are me/ And we are all together" are actual lyrics in "I am The Walrus") which is always the part where I reach for the remote.

Did you know that if you take any Kanye West CD and hit yourself in the head with it, you will hear voices singing, "Some people will buy anything"?

The Saturday Picture Show, September 26, 2026

 

This is the gravesite of Frances Bavier, the actress who played Aunt Bee for so many great years on the Andy Griffith Show. Bee was great at everything around the house, so the one episode known as The Pickle Story (Season 2, episode 11) shows her one weakness in the kitchen: every time she tries to make homemade pickles, she gets what Barney calls "kerosene cucumbers." Fans have taken to leaving jars of pickles, homemade and otherwise, at the gravesite. I think Bee would be pleased if someone rounded up the jars now and then for the hungry among us.

Wasn't it great the other night, after the final Orioles home game, that First Baseman and Most Valuable Oriole Pete Alonso led them back on the field to doff their caps and thank the fans? No, it was not a great season, but just wait 'til next year!

Oh give me a home on the open range!

I might have to rethink my options for Halloween this year. I had my heart set on being a minion, but maybe ET suits me better...

Dig this getup for the Renaissance Fair! Maryland-themed all the way, and we DO have the coolest state flag of all!

1950 on Broadway in New York City. Right out of "Guys and Dolls" with the orange juice and 15-cent slices of pizza. 

For those of us on the city water system: the drought is forcing the city to start siphoning in some Susgquehanna River water into our spigots. So that's why, if your coffee starts tasting like Havre de Grace soon...

Baltimore City made a poor decision to sell old "battle tested" police car parts to souvenir collectors. Not wise. Someone will attach this door to their Explorer and go around playing Adam-12 one day....

Someone far smarter than I (and there are millions) will come up with the idea to sell a tin that's half Danish cookies and half sewing notions - buttons, threads, and what not. The best of both uses!

A chicken fulfilling his destiny of getting to the other side! Which is where Popeye is waiting to serve him.

Free advice costs nothing and it's worth the price

 I see that it's the fall of the year, and people have put away their bathing apparel and summer wardrobes. That's usually a sign that people are (gasp!) going to work, often for the first time ever!

So, as a man who went to work on many first days, may I share something I saw online? Someone's wise father typed up this list of hints, and I urge the newly-employed and future employees alike to check it out:

 Yes! For those bosses who think being on time is being late, be early! Make a lot of new friends, and this starts with a pleasant greeting first thing. Yes, the receptionist knows everything, and trust me, you will learn how true this question is: "Do you want to speak to the Man In Charge, or the Woman Who Knows What's Going On?"

I was often the older guy but never the quiet older guy, but either way, go on. No, it's not a family. It's a workplace, and you have to be aware of whom to trust, and that may or may not be the person you are told to trust. Hold your gossip until you know for sure who is friends/married to/related to/sleeping with whom.

Yes, have a pen and a something to write on. A little stack of index cards will come in handy often! But don't be the goofus whose boss asks them to jot down something important, only to have to say, do you have a pen?

And by all means, respect yourself and your own time, too! This unpaid overtime "It's all for the good of the company" nonsense is nonsense. You deserve your lunch break and you deserve to go home when the day is done, and don't let them guilt trip you into hanging around til 7 to clear up that O'Hoolahan matter.

Rest in peace?

How many times have you seen this? A beloved celebrity dies, and the family problems come pouring out of the woodwork.

Late last year, right around Christmas time, the father of Tejano music star, the dearly beloved and sadly departed Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, died. His name was Abraham Quintanilla, Jr. He had been running the family business and Selena's estate since she was murdered in 1995. And then the curtain came up on the family drama. 

Selena's brother, A.B. Quintanilla, and her sister, Suzette Quintanilla, are going after each other in a legal battle over the family business (Q Productions) and Selena's personal estate.  

A.B. sued Suzette and the production company earlier this month, seeking a million dollars in damages and a complete financial accounting of the family money.

Suzette and her mother, Marcella, deny any mishandling of the money.

Remember, this family hung together and helped Selena become the queen that she was until she was murdered by a woman she trusted. Now, 31 years later, with the father gone, they're fighting over the money.

Sometimes it doesn't take decades for the fighting to begin. Dolly Parton has just been laid to rest, and her relatives are fighting already. 

Dolly's estate has filed suit against her nephew Bryan Seaver, the son of her sister Cassie. He was Dolly's head of security for more than 20 years, and he got bounced earlier this month. So now comes the family suit, claiming he threatened to ruin the wonderful name and legacy Dolly left behind. It also claims he made repeated violent threats toward her employees.

All of this brings up the age-old question of why people can't just let each live in peace. Dolly and Selena deserve better!

Deez nutcrackers

I am proud of another member of my family, one who can fly around and bury seeds and remember where they are buried!

There is this bird, see, a whole lot of them, sharing the name Clark's Nutcracker, and every fall, they round up as many as 98,000 pine seeds and bury them in about 5,000 little caches, 2 to 4 seeds per location.

Technically, they are passerine birds in the family Corvidae, native to the mountains of western North America. So they don't live around here, but they do send pretty pictures....

And then, they remember where they buried almost all of those seeds! They have a map in their tiny bird brains about where they left those snacks behind, meaning that no matter how cold and long the winter is, they remember their cache of seeds. Science knows that they use triangulation...measuring angles and distances between landscape features (rocks, big trees, fallen logs) to pinpoint the hiding places.

And get this! They intentionally over-cache, so there are seeds planted they will not need and will not return for, and a certain amount of those seeds will germinate and become new pine forests.

I mean, what could be better for nature than this? I am proud to be kin to these nutcrackers!