The Saturday Picture Show, August 29, 2026

 

People were supposed to fill out recipe cards for a wedding shower, with hints for easy meal prep. It doesn't get much easier than ripping open a bag!

So here's another reason to buy a drone - they will clean your windows!

The Breakfast Club: Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, and Molly Ringwald. 1985 and now.

And...this is lovely Lake Ontario. Always and forever.

You can post all the no-fishing signs you care to. This scofflaw is going to fill his craw!

Not named for Earl, but this nest-maker is actually known as a Weaver Bird.

So you say the kids keep losing the remote, huh? I'll bet the guy who made this is an eighth-grade teacher who is tired of people losing the hall pass.

George cannot tell a lie. No one likes these spy cameras and we wish they would get them the flock out of here!

It's a fool who criticizes our fair city, or our football team. High hopes heading into this season!

Last week, Connie Smith surpassed the late Jean Shepard to become the longest-serving female member of the Grand Ole Opry, with 61 years on the stage! Her husband and #1 fan Marty Stuart was there, as always.

Thanks to the kids!

 According to Instagram, this took place at Westerly High School, and the only such school according to Google is in Rhode Island.

And that's where a group of students kept seeing a five-year-old kid named Ryder out there in the elements every morning - sun, rain, wind, snow (remember - it's New England!) waiting for the school bus.

His family had rigged up a patio umbrella, but you know how spotty their coverage is, and when the wind blows the rain sideways...well, you know that, too.

So the shop classes at Westerly saw this and decided NOT to do nothing. They made him a customized weatherproof shelter with room for the family to be with him while waiting for his ride. 

The kids in Carpentry Shop class get a little experience that will hold them in good stead as they prepare to learn their trade, young Ryder gets comfort and the feeling of gratitude, and seeds of good karma are planted in Westerly.

Please don't ever try to tell me that high school kids aren't great people. They are, even though a lot of adults try to jive their strides. 

Post-Parton Depression

I don't want to beat this drum any more than others already have, but hot-a-mighty, the toll has been hard to take these last few days.

• Hayden Panettiere, 36, known for "Nashville" and "Remember the Titans" and dozens of Neutrogena commercials (they let her go when she was dealing with depression following the birth of her daughter, and cited the morality clause in her contract, as if all those people running Neutrogena were not born of mortal women.)
• Shelley Fabares, 82, comic actress from "The Donna Reed Show," "One Day At A Time," and "Coach," plus three Elvis movies.
• Dolly Parton, 80, a woman beloved by just about everyone on earth for her charm, her talent, and her philanthropy.
• Jaye P. Morgan, 94, singer from the classic pop music era perhaps best remembered as bawdy "Jaye P. Morgone" from The Gong Show.
• Tim Curry, 80, British star from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Clue"

I have always noticed how often the "they go in threes" phenomenon seems to come true.  In this case, we are either two over the set of three, or one short of a second set of three. As always, time will tell.

We feel it hard when a favorite celebrity goes all the way home, and it almost seems like a death in the family for some of us some of the time. But watch, this December, when they publish the lost of those we lost this way, there will be about the same amount of the noted and celebrated who will not see 2027.

For those of us who will, let's try to make the best of everything.

Never the Twain

People have been quoting Mark Twain saying, "Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it" for 129 years now. Just let it rain for two days in a row, or let the scorching heat turn your front yard into one of those cocoa doormats, or let a blizzard maroon the kids at home for four days and someone will pull that one out of an old quote bag, and someone will say, "Yes, Mark Twain...very wise fellow."

Twain

And there is a case to be made for Twain's wisdom, but according to The Weather Channel, don't try to make it on the back of this quote, because he did everything but say it.

As the WC says, in in the late 1800s, Mark Twain was the top gun in American wit...sort of the Jimmy Kimmel of his time. And remember, there was no radio or TV or internet back then. The only way jokes got spread around was by newspaper, or maybe some cowboy taking them to Wichita with him on a cattle drive.

We know the "nobody does anything about it" quote came out this day in 1897 in the Hartford Courant, but it was printed in an unsigned editorial most probably written by Charles Dudley Warner, who was the editor of the Courant, and well-known in his own right for brilliant, incisive essays.

Warner

AND he lived next door to Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens, so maybe, when the paper landed on Twain's front lawn the next day, he enjoyed it so much that he said to Warner, "What a great line! I wish I had said it!"

And then Warner could have said, with some justification, "Don't worry. You will!"

With the luxury of history, I can tell both of these gentlemen that we can do a lot more about the weather than people could do in 1897. We're at a point that we know it's going to rain, with thunder and lightning. We know about when it will start and end, and how much precipitation to expect.

We just don't know how to make it start raining, which would be helpful in areas stricken by wildfire or drought, or how to make it stop, for the flood-ravaged parts of the country.

I'm sure Apple is hard at work on their new apps, iWishItWouldRain  and iWishItWouldStop.

 

 

Take tea and see

People who say they don't like tea are not really my cup of...well, you know...

Water is the #1 beverage worldwide, but I hate to tell you residents of Coffeeville, tea is second. Nearly two thirds of people around the world sip tea. 

I have three or four cups of tea daily in my Yeti mug, and lots of iced tea for dinner and after. Because of this, my health is something that people sometimes form a small mob to marvel at.

Here's why: Research is showing us that tea can protect your blood vessels, lower inflammation, aid relaxation and potentially boost your gut microbiome. There's a magazine called Life Sciences (been meaning to subscribe) in which scientists say tea is “Nature’s gift for promoting human health.”

Of course, we all know this is because tea contains many antioxidants, polyphenols and other beneficial plant compounds, according to Jenifer Bowman, a cardiac dietitian at UCHealth in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Of course, not everyone knows this, but no matter what kind of tea is in your mug - green, black, white and oolong - they all come from the same plant: Camellia Sinensis. 

It's been far too oolong since I've seen old Camellia.

And I want you to know that it's a consistent scientific finding that tea drinkers tend to live a little longer than those who don't drink tea.  This is because we tea drinkers do not engage in the kind of behaviors that shorten the lives of others: driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs, taking risks such as doing calisthenics on the roofs of buildings, and forgetting to put money in the kitty by the coffee machine at work.

And research shows that drinking tea promotes relaxation. Scientists did a study that says tea reduces anxiety and helps your memory, but only for things that you want to remember. Forgetting a lot of things is marvelous for those who want to relax.

Now what was I saying?

Mr "No" It All

 There have been way too many arguments online lately - since the return of measles to the list of diseases we once had eradicated, but have come back in full force - about how, instead of listening to doctors and others who have devoted their lives to science, it would be wiser to take advice concerning vaccinations from Hollywood actors and former heroin addicts.

Balderdash!

And then the other night, a local meteorologist here in Baltimore said he was driving past a high school in the late afternoon and football practice was going on despite the fact that a thunder and lightning storm was just beginning.

Here is his post; I deleted his name because I have no right to repost his words.

And from out of the woodwork came the legion of non-meteorologists! To quote from one,

"They have lightening (sic) sirens at schools. They generally go by that. To be paranoid when it rains is not an ideal message in my opinion. That's a bit extreme. Sorry Mr _____ that I disagree."

Oddly enough, a cursory glance at this man's page revealed no degrees or experience in Meteorology or Psychology, so I'm not sure why he pretends to know more than an experienced scientist about the weather or whether being safe with teenaged athletes in a thunderstorm constitutes paranoia. 

Ever since Ozz E. Osbourne bellowed that "Paranoid" song, people are so quick to throw that word around. 

But hear me on this: it is not safe to be outside during a lightning (correct spelling) event. And you can bet your boots that if, heaven forfend, a child had been struck by lightning out on that football field. the hue and cry from the public would have been long and loud.

There's a phrase that is good advice for both driving a car and driving home a point you think you know about, and that is "stay in your lane." When an educated person says something, it tends to be right, hence the adjective.

I'm planning to hear from a cadre of "But I've done my research" folks. Please show your advanced degrees as you file in.

Sunday rerun: The spy who did not seem to like me very much

 A guy I knew (briefly, mercifully) had been in the Air Force, assigned to guard an important missile site in one of the Dakotas: North, or South, or Fanning. I can't remember much about him, except that he was a real Barney Fife kind of guy, loved uniforms and rules and marching around.

He told me one time that while making his rounds about the base, he saw a dog that had somehow "penetrated perimeter security" (service talk for "jumped the fence") but when this guy corralled the pooch and interrogated him (I swear that's how he put it) the dog clammed up and would not bark, and a search of his collar yielded nothing, so he was "taken into custody" for "disposition to be determined at a future date," which I hoped was service talk for "someone with a little sense will take Poochie to the fence and send him home," for crying out loud.

Meanwhile, back in this year, police in India were holding a "suspected Chinese spy pigeon" for eight months, only to find out that the bird was an open-water racing bird from Taiwan. It had escaped Taiwan and gotten to India by air (hitchhiking is forbidden there) and was captured near a port in Mumbai (so maybe it chartered a boat?) When apprehended, the bird had two rings tied to its legs, so police naturally suspected espionage and sent the pigeon to Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals. 

There is a precedent here from 2016, when another pigeon (let's assume it wasn't the same one!) was arrested after being found with a note that threatened Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

But upon asking the bird to write his side of the story, police saw that he, indeed, could not write, which was a strong piece of evidence in the defense claim that he could not have written the note.