The Kids Are Still Alright

One thing I look forward to every year is the chance to be one of the Experienced People interviewing members of the junior class at my old alma mater and stomping grounds (literally!), Towson High School. 

Every April, every junior prepares a résumé, dresses up as if going to an interview, and reports with their English class to the school library, where they spend 15 minutes or so with one of us, doing a mock interview. Since everyone will be interviewed for something down the line, be it for college admission, military enlistment, or a job, it's best to have a tryout before the real fastballs of life come at you.

I enjoy this every year. With very few exceptions, the students take it very seriously, and do a heck of a job. As someone who still largely clings to his teenaged sensibility, I relate to 17-year-olds, and these folks are at that wonderful age: old enough to drive a car and register to vote, but still young and full of hope, without it being clouded by cynicism. They have the technological advantage of being born with computers and cell phones at their fingertips from the start, and they want to make it a better world. I think they will, if earnestness and sincerity are any indicators.

Tell you the truth, I get a lot out of this annual exercise too. It recharges my belief that the future is very bright, with these guys taking over. This bunch had the COVID awfulness hit them while in 7th grade. Several of them told me they were alone in the house with parents at work and their only connection was their computer, and they did great on their schoolwork because teachers and parents cared enough to keep things reasonably together for them. They've seen sadness and rough times but that teen sheen is still on them, and I hope it never leaves.

Thank you, THS '25!

PS - Speaking to us superannuated types - the school is still full of lockers. The students don't use them! They tote their books and Chromebooks and water bottles and healthy snacks in backpacks just slightly smaller than the ones used for Admiral Byrd's expedition. I wish we had had them!

PSS - There was a certain waxy smell about the library entrance when I first paraded down that hallway in September, 1966. It still smells just the same. I think the school must have purchased a lifetime supply of Johnson's Library Hallway Wax. I'm sure they'll be running out sometime...

 

Burnt

All of a sudden, I hear people talking about the Burnt Toast Theory and I wonder how they knew that I have decided, if I ever get back on the radio, to go by the fake name "Burt Toast." Perfect for a morning deejay, eh?

No, and anyway, they're talking about some sort of Tik-Tok meme about burnt toast, and as a non-Tiky-Toker, I have not seen what they mean, but what I read is that if your toast burns one morning and you have to take time to pop in two more slices of Pepperidge Farm, it might not be the worst thing ever to happen.

I think of the girl who was a year behind me in junior high and high school who, ten years later, was driving down Falls Rd and was hit by a bullet fired by some kids who had found a gun and played with it. The woman was pregnant, and as I recall the story, they saved the baby, but the mom died from the bullet wound, and it led to thinking that if she had been at that exact spot one second earlier or one second later, it would not have happened.

But it did, proving the veracity of Alan Seeger's words about having a rendezvous with death at some disputed barricade.

And on the brighter side, the minutes you spend re-toasting might give you time to think about a new idea for your job, a new way to tell your partner about how deep your love is, a chance to sing "We Want Mine" while the Toastmaster General does its thing... 

Enjoy your extra moments. We all want ours!

Left To Remember

Among my many ( 27 and counting) rituals and daily habits is a nightly half-hour listening to "The Great Gildersleeve" as I perform my nightly ablutions and prepare for another night of golden slumber.

It's an old radio comedy from the 40s and 50s, centered on the antics of a smalltown bachelor water commissioner, his niece and nephew whom he's raising, his cook and housekeeper, his coterie of lady friends, and the members of his social club: the police chief, the town judge, the barber, and the druggist. 

Try it, you might like it. I never try to talk people into hearing it, because it is most definitely not modern or classically witty or cool at all, but I love it because I am none of those myself.

For those who like American History (✋) it's interesting to look at America during the war years. They mention rationing of food and gasoline because they were facts of everyday life. A lot of the shows feature ads for margarine and Velveeta, two food products that came off the bench during the war to fill in for butter and cheese, which were in short supply. The alternative to gasoline, also scarce, was walking to work. Different world.

But while I say it was a different world, and so long ago, I got to thinking about one episode in particular. The show was broadcast live on NBC radio with a studio audience, and if the jokes weren't getting laughs, there was no one to sweeten the sound with more ha ha ha. What was said, and the live audience reaction, was what went over the air.

In the episode I heard the other night, from 1947, there was a man in the audience with one of the most unusual laughs I ever heard...kind of a blend of a bray and a guffaw, like when George W. Bush would chortle, only louder. And what made this man's laugh so noticeable was that many times he was the only person laughing, so you'd hear this "Haw Haw" randomly throughout the show. There was nothing offensive about it, he didn't seem to have ill intent, he just had a nutty laugh, captured on the primitive audio tape of the day.

And I would have to assume that the cracked-up cachinnator has gone to his reward by now, but how interesting that his unique laugh still lives. I tell you, whoever he was, he left his mark in the most natural of ways: just by being himself. 

Swinging Sammy

Let's have a race. I bet that if I give you time enough to assemble the makin's of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (PB, jelly, two pieces of bread) you could make one faster than the time it will take you to read about how you should make more of them and buy fewer Lunchables.

Ready? Go!

I know it's easy (but not cheap at all) to toss a Lunchable snack kit in the kid's lunch box or your own tote or purse. Such variety! Turkey and Cheese and Ham and Some Other Cheese and Pizza and Nachos and Cracker Stackers and Buildable Gumy Candy (don't ask!) !!! 

Sure they are easy, but Consumer Reports wants you to consider two other things they are - high in lead and sodium. Their tests say that various Lunchables and the various imitators have way too much sodium, lots of lead, and high amounts of cadmium, which is a heavy metal you don't want to listen to.

Lunchables Turkey and Cheddar Cracker Stackers have the most, followed by Lunchables Pizza with Pepperoni, Lunchables Extra Cheesy Pizza, and Armour LunchMakers Cracker Crunchers Ham & American.

A good rule of thumb is, the easier a processed food is to plop on a table or toss in a bag, the less healthy it tends to be, so take five minutes, smear a little nutter butter on some 143-grain bread and send the kids off smiling!

  

A massive disappointment

I find a lot of recipes online and in the newspaper because I am always up for trying new ways to cook the foods we like.

I might have to reconsider that. Last night I went with a dinner recipe from Instagram that everyone and their brother was clicking on to say how great it was. "It" was Crockpot Orange Chicken. 

The beauty of it was the simplicity of it, I thought in my simple mind. Just cube some boneless chicken (on sale 1/2 price last week) and toss together BBQ sauce, orange marmalade, corn starch, soy sauce and the zest of one orange, throw it into the slo-cooker, and come back in six hours.

I should have thrown it directly down the disposal. I knew it wouldn't be as good as Chinese Carry-Out Orange Chicken, where the cubes are deep fried and then bathed in orange-garlic-honey sauce, but I thought this could be good, save the mess of frying, and settle in happily over a nice nest of white rice.

Friends, I gotta tell you, it was like "Rapper's Delight" up in here... 

Ever went over a friend's house to eat and the food just ain't no good?

I mean the macaroni's soggy, the peas are mushed, and the chicken tastes like wood

This is what I pictured for six hours.
I won't even show you what I cooked.

This chicken tasted so much like wood, I was thinking of making a little birdhouse out of it. This was the worst meal I have ever cooked and I hereby apologize to Peggy, whose only comment was, "Well, it was edible." At least it was on sale.

I can come back from this, but my shame and self-loathing are at all-time highs.

Sunday Rerun: Good for the goose

 Like all health-conscious adults of a certain age (and I am certain of it!), I have had to stop and look at my dietary choices.  Gone are the days when a whole cheeseburger sub, an order of fries and a quart of beer made for a proper supper.

Of course, when I ate like that, I was 19 and weighed about 150 lbs, so go figure.

The good people at Comcast have a Lifestyle blog written by Audrey Morrison, and the other day the blog listed 14 "superfoods" that are supposed to stretch your budget and boost your health.  I scanned the list, and what do you know? It does not list Doritos, Ding-Dongs or Diet Sprite.  

But here's what's odd.  I actually LIKE a lot of the foods on the list!  To wit:

Beans - this musical fruit encompasses a large family of low-fat protein sources. I like kidney beans in a salad, and even though I love baked beans such as Bush's and even Campbell's, they load them up with enough sugary stuff as to make them not so good for me, so I just take the canned kidney beans, throw a little mustard and horseradish in there, and heat them up!  The website says beans have a lot of potassium, magnesium and iron.  It's a wonder I don't have magnets stuck to me.
Blueberries - During my Opie-like childhood, I used to pick berries of all sorts and gobble them right down. I'm confused about blueberries.  For one thing, they taste great, but they're still good for you because they have "antioxidants."  I thought oxygen was a good thing.  
Broccoli is described in the blog as "nature's perfect food," and it is, as long as it is covered in nature's perfect topping - cheddar cheese (not on the list, oddly.)
Green or black tea - I love tea more than coffee, but here's the deal if you prefer tea with your breakfast in a restaurant.  Coffee drinkers, sure, they wheel out a big 2-gal Tub O'Mocha Java for you, but if you want tea, they give you 1 (one) tea bag and a cup of hot tap water, and if you want another cup of tea, you get the MER* and a mighty sigh.  I'm thinking of coming out with a brand of orange tea called "Mighty Sigh," endorsed by John Boehner.
Oats contain B vitamins, fiber, protein, zinc, copper and potassium, the website says.  The great thing is that oatmeal is easy to nuke, and when you're finished with the box, you have a little drum with a picture of a Quaker on it.
Oranges confuse me too, because everyone know they have Vitamin C, but they are also loaded with "flavinoids."  "Oids" sounds funny, especially the ones from the "Hemorrh" family.
Pumpkin is full of good things but, frankly, are you going to buy a can of pumpkin in May, or order a pumpkin spice lattadoodle from Sbux in August? Pumpkin works from October through New Year's Eve and takes off the first nine months of the year.  Pretty sweet deal!
Soy, not so much. Love the sauce, though.
Spinach makes the list and that's good, but I wonder if the other greens, such as turnip greens, collard greens, mustard greens and kale are just as good, because they are much tastier and fresher tasting to me, and I'm the one who has to eat them.  You can have my spinach.
Tomatoes, long thought of as part of the lettuce-tomato-mayonnaise trio that serve as dressing on cold cut sandwiches, have a life of their own, and proudly walk around all full of "lycopene, a carotenoid and phytonutrient that’s also found in other red fruits like strawberries, watermelons and cherries," according to the blog, and lycopene may be helpful in lowering the risk of lung, stomach and prostate cancer.  All this, and you couldn't have marinara sauce or pizza without them.  Well done!
Turkey is good for more than just one dinner and 27 lunches in November. I prefer ground turkey or chicken (and they are all ground animals: they cannot fly) in burgers or tacos, and the fact that turkey is full of iron, vitamin B and zinc is beside the point.
Walnuts are good nuts to put in salads and other foods or just to munch on. And of course they bring to mind that certain "Dick Van Dyke" episode.
Wild salmon is loaded with vitamins and good nutrition, and when you have one on your plate, you're having dinner with a fish who was strong enough and amorous enough to fight his way upstream to spawn.  And now look.
Yogurt contains probiotics, live bacteria that aid in digestion.  If you're serious about your nutrition, avoid amateur biotics and stick with the pros.

So it turns out that I love most of these foods that are good for me.  I am officially the healthiest person in the room where I am writing this right now.**

*Maximum Eye Roll
** I'm all alone

The Saturday Picture Show, April 13, 2024

 

The debate rages on as to whether animals have a sense of humor, or sadness, or either. I think all we need to do is play a little bit of "Put On A Happy Face" to cheer this little froggie.

Omelet you figure it out...they're all the same inside.

Final Exams at Electric and Phone Line Climber School

Imagine how happy the local birds were when the corn crib car on the train had a little hole in it.

After the security camera shorted out a few times, the building maintenance crew decided that maybe it was not quite mounted in the right place...

Life has not been the same for this fella since they banned plastic straws.

He does commercials for other products...you'd think that Ice-T selling iced tea would be a natural fit.

Funny misunderstandings from childhood: when I heard people talking about their summer home being "right on the water," this is what I pictured.

Progress in Baltimore Harbor: the giant container ship that knocked down the Key Bridge is being emptied of its cargo of 4,700 cargo containers. Progress will be slow but we will rebuild.

The sad reality hit home when Google Maps removed the Key Bridge from its depiction of Baltimore highways. And by the way, if WAZE shows you the way, they still think the bridge is there, so, just no.

Wha' happen'?

Got a minute for something interesting? Well, listen anyway ha ha, because this story has twisties and turns. 

My senior year in high school began with one particular song all over the radio, a silly little thing called "Little Arrows" by a guy called Leapy Lee. Listen and shake your head, but check back in ten minutes and maybe you'll see it was catchy enough to be on the radio day and night. So much so, when it faded in favor among music lovers, you sat back and waited for the inevitable follow-up hit record.  

But wait...there wasn't one.

Leapy was born Graham Pulleyblank, and I'm certain that's the most British name you'll hear all day, unless you encounter Sir Bainbridge Cholmondley in your travels. "Little Arrows" was a huge hit all around the world for a guy who, before getting into the show business, had found work as a Bingo caller and wheelbarrow boy. 

None of his attempts at a follow-up went anywhere here or in Britain, although we did play a song called "Every Road Leads Back To You" on country radio in 1975, inevitably accompanied by questions of "Where has Leapy been, huh?"

Here's where. He was arrested in 1970 following a bar brawl involving his friend Alan Lake (a British actor and the third husband of bosomy actress Diana Dors, who was born Diana Fluck, and who chose future "Family Feud" quizmaster Richard Dawson as a second husband.) Leapy claimed that Diana framed him in the matter, in which he was eventually found guilty of "unlawful wounding" (British Law!!!) and served three years, but his English reputation and career were over.

Once out of prison, Leapy moved abroad and was last reported living in Santa Ponsa, on the island of Mallorca off the southern coast of Spain. 

I am not kidding about any of this, especially Diana's birth name. Trivia is my life.