Sunday Rerun: For a Swim

 

If you ever want to get a lot of opinions churning in the air, here’s a topic that will get things going. It's more controversial than regular vs. decaf, vanilla vs. chocolate, grits vs. Home fries, and "versus" vs "verse," which is particularly concerning to me.

The topic is anchovies. To the bewilderment of all, Peggy and I both love those salty little fish. Pizza chefs and servers always give us the fisheye when we order one with extra cheese, sausage, and anchovies. Servers have even told us that the kitchen crew gives them a hard time for turning in an order for that tasty pie.

And many restaurants will offer a salad with Caesar dressing, but they durst not call it a Caesar salad (more in a minute). And if you ask for anchovies, they act like you requested 14 "carrot" gold flakes on your salad. 

To make a proper salad, you need romaine lettuce, croutons, and a rich dressing, which would contain olive oil, raw egg, Parmesan cheese, Worcestershire sauce, and a dash of lemon juice.

And, for pity's sake, give anchovies a try next time you strap on a salad feedbag. Attempting to cajole a friend into signing up for the We ❤️ Anchovies club, I told him I like to arrange 4 or 5 of them on top of a salad in such a pattern that suggests an entire school of them swimming in a hurry to join the lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and dressing in my bowl.

At least, he said he'd think about it! 

The Saturday Picture Show, June 27, 2026

 

Big doin's in Baltimore this weekend! Sail 250 with the tall ships and flyovers and big crowds downtown. Should be something to see!

Free Wallpaper for the week features a chipmunk. I did not know they were tree-climbers, but it looks like this one has a pretty good grip on the branch.

Don't tell me birds aren't smart. While humans intentionally seek sun, birds know what to do. Not shady at all!

Well, Andy, we didn't get an invitation either, but we wish her and that big lug lots of love and happiness!

Every year at this time, they send the press photographers to the Naval Academy in Annapolis to cover the induction of a new class of middies. They always show people getting the mandatory Navy haircut and I always think of John Candy in "Stripes."

I don't know either. Just don't say anything.

A guy goes to the trouble of building a protected box for dropping off package deliveries. Amazon just can't go to the trouble.

"The Princess Bride" is one of those pictures that you just have to see, if only to know what everyone is talking about with gags like this!

You just have to set boundaries somewhere!

From a wristwatch to a huge TV screen, see me for all your box needs. Really. I cannot throw them out!

JP Moregone

She's a New York Knicks basketball fan, she's 40 (old enough to know better) and her name is Angie Báez. We didn't know her until the other day, but when video of her dumping out the contents of a Knicks-themed trash can after their victory parade last week hit the internet, we all found out something new about Ms Angie - namely, that she is no longer a DEI executive with JPMorgan Chase. 

It would appear that she wanted the trash can to use at her home in Harlem, so she emptied it, got on the subway home and presumably was using it in her house when word got around who she was.

Advice to anyone thinking of doing anything wrong anywhere: there is video of you that will soon be seen on every channel, including Martha Stewart's. So, just don't.

She has returned the stolen goods — and found herself slapped with $175 in fines for the foolish theft of city property which must have seemed like a great idea AT THE TIME.

The happy ride home. 

That smile must have faded fast this past Tuesday, when Chase tied a can to her. So, the final score reads Trash Cans: 0, Jobs: 0. 

Lessons learned: 1.

But if they decide to make a TV movie out of this, she can be portrayed by Meg Griffin from "Family Guy."

 

Don't weep

I belong to a subscription for a daily word sit called Wordsmith (wordsmith.org). They send a word out daily; I know some of them, some are complete surprises. So I want to share this one from the other day:

 psithurism pronounced (SITH-yuh-riz-uhm) 

It means the rustling or whispering sound, such as of leaves in the wind. Wordsmith says the word comes from the Greek psithurizein (to whisper), from psithuros (whispering, slanderous). Earliest documented use: 1848.

Who has not experienced psithurism? And who, having experienced it, has known the name for the whispering sound of leaves and green branches swaying in the breeze? 

We had a large weeping willow tree in the back yard when I was just a little psithurer (that is not a real word) and, while we didn't have an American flag flying (the one at the fire house was right across the street) we did have the whistling willow branches, not far from the clothesline, where sheets and t-shirts and boxer shorts got dry from the winds of summer. 

In winter, if you didn't get outside soon enough, the laundry froze, and you took it inside stacked up, and sometimes the next morning saw me putting on pants and shirts that crackled as if they had been heavily starched.

As the years went by, we got a clothes dryer, which meant no more running outside at the first sign of a thunderstorm, and the willow wept alone.

 

 

Riddle me this

So we were driving up a country road yesterday afternoon when the car ahead of us slowed for no reason we could see.

And very soon, we could see the reason after all.  A chicken was crossing the road.

I guess she wanted to get to the other side.

It's cool, lots of people have fowl right in their yards these days. In fact, not far from where the chicken was takin' her time getting across, there was a sign "TURKEY EGGS FOR SALE".

But ever since, I've been wondering if other childhood riddles can come true. If I still got the newspaper delivered, I could tell if were indeed "black and white and read all over." 

In the very room from which I write to you, I see a clock my father made, and it does have a face and two hands but no arms or legs.

I once won a spelling bee in sixth grade, so I know a spelling bee beats a talking parrot.

"I’m tall when I’m young, and I’m short when I’m old" reminds me to order more dining room candles from Amazon.

 I once saw a guy two doors down in the middle of a domestic "disagreement," throwing his son's computer and desk out the front window. I hung around for a while in case he threw out a wall clock, so that I could say I have seen time fly. (Absolutely true story!)

And, with today being election day, remember, there are two questions to which you cannot expect an honest answer: "Whom are you voting for?" and "Are you awake yet?"

Riddles are fun.

Snapshot of sadness

 There was a time when we saw something we wanted a picture of - a sunset, kids on the beach, Lyndon Johnson showing his gall bladder surgery scars- and we grabbed the old Kodak Instamatic, snapped a snapshot or two, and then took the film to the drugstore for processing.

And we waited, and waited, to get the prints back.

The middle of next week, someone stopped off at Drugs-So-Lo and picked up the 4 x 6 pictures, and then we took them home, sent one in the mail to Aunt Gladys in Kankakee, and put the others in a shoebox.

Now, we all carry a wonderful camera right in our hand, with a smart phone.  It's too bad the qualities of being "smart" don't necessarily rub off on the smart phone user, but it seems that the phones are a lot smarter than we.

The most recent tragedy occurred two years ago, when Sydney Monfries, 22, a senior at Fordham University just weeks short of graduation, fell 30 feet in the bell tower of the school, landing at the bottom of a stairway in a horrible, sad, death.

She actually fell through an opening in a stairway landing at Keating Hall, plunging down the inside of the clockworks.  The tower is supposed to be locked at all times and is strictly off-limits to students, who are told from day one at Fordham to stay away, but, according to the student newspaper, The Observer, climbing the tower is a "rite of passage" for seniors.

“There are no words sufficient to describe the loss of someone so young and full of promise — and mere weeks from graduation,” university president Rev. Joseph M. McShane said in a statement.

Why was Monfries up there? Early on that Sunday, just before her fatal fall, she was posting video of the great view of New York to Snapchat.

There have been several fatal falls among tourists at the Grand Canyon this year, people who leaned over just a bit too far to get that perfect picture.

I hope these warnings don't fall on deaf ears, but there is no Snapchat, no Instagram, no picture or video whatsoever that is worth risking your life to get. Ms Monfries was set to receive her degree and start law school in the fall, and now she is gone for not a very good reason at all, unless her loss is enough warning to save others.

And you can bet that Fordham has installed a new security system on that bell tower by now.

Sunday Rerun: Tales of Brave Ulysses

 President Ulysses S. Grant was still in office when he got in trouble with the law. 

Now, Ulysses was a war hero, having been the leader of the Union troops in the American Civil War (1861 - 1865) who sent the Confederate running home, no longer able to own other human beings. (They're still mad about it.)

Grant was a brilliant military tactician, outfoxing Confederate General Robert E. Lee time after time, but he did like to hit the sauce now and then.

And then, he would get behind the reins of his horse and buggy and haul ass around the streets of Washington. It was on M Street, to be precise, where Grant was stopped several times in 1872 by Officer William H. West. West, a formerly enslaved person, was one of two Black police officers on the DC force at the time when he saw Grant speeding around. 

The first time, West allowed Grant to pay a fine and walk home to the White House, but the very next day, West (like Grant, a Civil War veteran) caught the president breaking the law again and took action.

"I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation and I am nothing but a policeman, but duty is duty, sir, and I will have to place you under arrest," West said, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund. 

Grant was released on $20 bond ($430 in 2023 money). 

The Washington Evening Star newspaper wrote about the arrest in 1908. West retired in 1901 and lived another 14 years, telling the Star, "The General's Love for Horses and His Pleasure in Driving Were the Cause of His Trouble."

Things change, but not too much.