The Saturday Picture Show, March 7, 2015

The Great Wall of China runs 5,500 miles across that huge nation, but like everything else, it has to end somewhere, and this is it.

The good people at General Mills make Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch, Multi Grain Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Banana Nut Cheerios, Cinnamon Burst Cheerios, Chocolate Cheerios, Dulce de Leche Cheerios, Multi Grain Cheerios Peanut Butter, Multi Grain Cheerios Dark Chocolate Crunch, Frosted Cheerios, Fruity Cheerios, and Yogurt Burst Cheerios.  On the other hand, this is a picture of a lot of old car tires.

My hero, Mr Garrison Keillor, host of the popular Prairie Home Companion radio show, is talking about retiring again. He first did so when he turned 70 a couple years back, and now seems to be trotting out prospective replacement hosts.  No one else on earth has the same talents as he does - writing, hosting, singing and weaving a short story on the fly while perched on a stool - and the show would not be the same without him.  Still, as Casey Stengel said, the parks are filled with statues of men once considered irreplaceable.

And we were just talking about men of great talent!  Here are two more  - Cal Ripken, Jr and Wm. J. Clinton.  This was September, 1995, the night that Cal set the record for consecutive ballgames.

This is a picture of what used to be my junior high school - Towsontown JHS, as the old building was demolished to make room for more parking or a baseball field or something.  The site is now the home of the Carver Center, a high school that teaches all sorts of skills, but I wish that someone had taught the people in power some history.  The part of the building you see here was once Carver High School, the high school for black students in Baltimore County, before the Brown Supreme Court decision integrated schools. The county then added a large southern wing to the old school and turned it into a junior high, and I would think that at least some consideration for the history of the building could have been offered.  But no.  They tore it all to hell.

Do they still use these wind-power generators on farms?  I used to see them all the time, but not so much anymore.

The pointer finger must have been in use somewhere as an indicator of how to get somewhere.  Imagine how many people over the years wondered where the gift shop, or the exit, or the lavatory was, and there was the answer.

Anyone can write a great book, they say, as long as they just have a dictionary.  After all, all the words are in there.  It's just a matter of which ones to use in which order.  Same deal with this guitar. Press down on one or more of the six strings at one end and pick it at the other, and what you have is a person taking an inanimate object and making it come alive with music and joy.