Have it their way

We've all had that sad experience of ordering something from, say, a fast-food place, with memories of how wonderful that item looked on the TV commercial or even in the giant color picture hanging up at the restaurant. The bun looks fresh, the meat grilled to a perfect turn, the lettuce and tomato peek out invitingly, maybe there's a dabble of mustard and catsup...

And then you sit down and unwrap your lunch and it's like you expect to see a major-league baseball team, and the New York Yankees show up. Sorry, couldn't resist.

It only stands to reason that the companies make the food in the commercial look perfect. So why can't they go to the same trouble to make your Whopper look scrumptious and delectable?

What you order.

That's the crux of a lawsuit currently wending its way through the courts, and the latest is that a judge said "no" to Burger King when they tried to have a lawsuit dismissed - and the lawsuit says BK "cheated hungry customers by making its Whopper sandwich appear larger than it actually is."

What you get.

Not so fast, says U.S. District Judge Roy Altman down in Miami. He said the King must defend against a claim that reasonable customers were misled by the depiction of Whoppers on in-store menu boards. And that means breach of contract, because participants in this class action suit say the King pictures his Whoppers as having ingredients that overflow the bun, with meat patties 35% larger than they really are.

Burger King's lawyers, all of whom went to law school, say they weren't required to hand you a hamburger that looks just like the picture. The judge, who also has a law shingle hanging on his wall, is asking jurors to "tell us what reasonable people think."

In another courtroom across our land, McDonald's and Wendy's  are dealing with the same sort of suit in Brooklyn, New York's federal court, where just last month, Taco Bell was sued for selling Crunchwraps and Mexican pizzas that contained only half as much filling as advertised, according to the filing.

The case at hand is Coleman et al v Burger King Corp, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, No. 22-20925. I would love to go down there just to hear the bailiff announce that trial out loud. And maybe the jurors would dress in BK uniforms and hand down their verdict like they hand you a bag full of burgers and fries.

The biggest and the brightest

Astronomer Bart Simpson wants to remind you that we'll have a blue moon tonight at 9:35 PM. It will be the biggest, brightest full moon all the year long, and it's a blue Moon because it's the second full Moon of this calendar month.

That term came into being to describe something that just could not be, like a John Mayer song people would want to hear twice, or a bad filet mignon. In the 16th century, since there was no real entertainment available, people amused themselves by saying “the Moon is blue,” and then everyone laughed.

But in 1883, after the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia blew its stack, people all over the world said their sunsets were oddly-colored, and that their Moon looked blue. But with no crackpot radio shows to call into, people shrugged off their blue Moon and stuck an orange in it.

 

What's Spanish for "Yuck!" ?

It seems that we talk about this sort of thing all the time, which is a sign that it happens far too often.

Did you see that awful scene from Spain in which Luis Rubiales, head of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, gave a forceful, unwanted kiss on the kisser to a member of that nation's championship soccer team?  And as they say, he is doubling down (the polite way of saying "Being even stupider"), saying on Friday that he will not resign.

The unwavering arrogance continues.

So, now the women on the team that won the Women’s World Cup say they will not take the field until he is gone. 

These women have a union! And the union issued a statement saying that the players will not get on a field to play for Spain “if the current managers continue.” Meanwhile, FIFA, the governing body of soccer worldwide, said it was suspending Rubiales from “all football-related activities at national and international level” for 90 days while disciplinary proceedings proceed.

It also reiterated that the victim of the assault, Jennifer Hermoso, said that “at no time did I consent to the kiss that he gave me.”

Rubiales, who really should learn to keep his mouth shut - literally and figuratively - argues that he was the victim of “social assassination,” and accuses his critics of "false feminism."

The players say his behavior violated the dignity of women and they expect "forceful answers from the public powers" to address the whole sorry event.

Earth to Rubiales:  Women are not here to be grabbed, osculated, and treated like possessions of men. They are to be treated with decency and respect. It's only right that you learn that, and demonstrate your newfound raised consciousness by resigning in disgrace and doing something else somewhere else.

 

 

Way back then

Today will be a pretty cool day the at the US Military Academy at West Point.  You see, they found an old time time capsule from the 1820s there recently, and today they will open it up and see what the cadets from 200 years ago left behind for posterity.

We are "posterity," don't you know...

In May, while workers were doing restoration to a monument honoring Revolutionary War hero Thaddeus Kosciuszko, they came upon this lead box, about a cubic foot in size.

Kosciuszko was a Polish military engineer, who came here to serve the Continental Army and assisted in designing military fortifications along the Hudson River.  The military academy was founded there in 1802.

Things were much different in the 1820s for America's future Army officers. About 40 cadets were graduated per year in those days, having completed their military education in wooden barracks that had no running water. 

The box has been x-rayed, and it seems there is a box inside...but what's in the box? A box of air, a box of old memorabilia, a box of rain...?

“It’s a mystery, right? A mystery of history,” says Jennifer Voigtschild, the academy’s command historian.

We'll find out today.  Watch this space!

 

 

 

 

Sunday Rerun: Give Him A Good Dressing Down

 Out in Topeka, Kansas, where the Kansas State Legislature meets, Sen. Mitch Holmes, Republican chairman of the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, has put forth an 11-point code of conduct for citizens who wish to testify before his august committee.

He said Rule No. 2 is intended to make certain each participant shows up "dressed in a respectful manner." What he says is that each conferee must wear "professional attire."

So if you are jetting out to Kansas to make known your feelings about the ethics of the Sunflower State, forget about wearing "skimpy blouses or plunging necklines."

You're right if you figure that this stricture only applies to the ladies. Sen. Holmes, who apparently fell asleep in 1963 and has not noticed the subsequent changes in our society, says he has observed "provocatively clad" females at the Capitol. And, showing too much while testifying is a distraction, he said, seemingly believing that looking at a comely woman stops male legislators from concentrating on their briefs.

Asked why there are no guidelines to stop male from testifying in Zubaz pants, a tank top and a porkpie hat, Holmes said “It’s one of those things that’s hard to define. Put it out there and let people know we’re really looking for you to be addressing the issue rather than trying to distract or bring eyes to yourself.”

Yes, ladies, every time you put on that one special dress - you know which one! - you only do it because it so bewitches men who, as we all know, have no self-restraint in public, nor should they have any, to Holmes's way of thinking.

Four women senators — two Republicans and two Democrats — said there should be unilateral demands on citizens who wish to testify about public policy in a public hearing dressed as they see fit to appear in public.

“Oh, for crying out loud, what century is this?” - Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat.

It was a Republican, Sen. Carolyn McGinn, who pointed out that this might undermine the committee's ability to hear the truth that would come from members of the public who are not able to dress up to the standards of, say, the panelists on "The View."

“I am more interested in what they have to say about the direction our state should go than what they’re wearing that day,” McGinn said.

Holmes

Senator Holmes, whose Facebook page shows him wearing one of those K-Mart ties that reaches halfway down to his belly like the way Oliver Hardy used to dress, is clearly out of his league when it comes to delivering sartorial advice.  Just sayin'.

Hardy (left)

The Saturday Picture Show, August 26, 2023

 

This farmer is really a big fan of The Doors.

Reflectors on an exercycle? You're expecting someone to ride up on your tail?

This is the wreck of the Amoco Cadiz, an oil tanker that capsized off the coast of France in March 1978. It just looks like a giant dolphin now, that's all.

This cat in Rome knows where to wet his whistle.

You'd be smiling too, if you were wearing a free down jacket!

I'm going to have to insist on this.

Pro football in the 1950s: no facemarks, and re-used jerseys! Look at the numbers on the uniform top of  Y.A. Tittle here. You can see they removed someone else's number and sewed Tittle's 14 in its place. Imagine asking Lamar Jackson to wear someone's used uniform from last year. 

For Heaven's sake, do not waste money on substitutes. Insist on the real Klutch!

Air Travel back in the day...no one has told Mr. Worthington here that his suitcase is going to Sheboygan while he flies to Ashtabula.

Wherever it was, this was one fine record store. While you shopped, you heard this.

30 minutes, please

I make no pretensions of being thoroughly cultured. I don't care for subtle comedy, or movies loaded with symbolism. When I have seen one, other people have to tell me, "Mark, you understand, when he set fire to his shoes, that was the filmmaker's way of showing the rejection of conformity as evidenced by the blah blah blah."

What I have loved since childhood is a good half-hour situation comedy. I could name dozens of favorites - "The Life Of Riley" starring William Bendix, "The Andy Griffith Show," "Barney Miller," "That 70's Show," "Mom," and one that I just got into, "Fresh Off The Boat."

To me, a good sitcom is one that I can watch a hundred times and still laugh at the same joke, like when Jackie Gleason roars at Art Carney on "The Honeymooners" or when Sgt. Frank Drebin on "Police Squad" is asked by a gangster who he is and how he got in the guy's office and replies, "I'm a locksmith. AND I'm a locksmith."

It's great that there are so many streaming channels that we sitcom nuts can swim in. I could watch them all, and often do. 

But for all these years, I have noticed three cardinal rules about sitcoms that should never be broken:

🠶 Never have the family suddenly adopt an adorable moppet with a shiny head of hair and a winsome smile. "The Brady Bunch" was done when that little kid who looked like John Denver showed up.

🠶Never have the whole gang go on a merry trip, be it to Hawaii (Brady Bunch) or Taiwan (Fresh Off The Boat) or Australia (Modern Family). These episodes are never classic, and leave me with the impression that the producers were just trying to get a free trip out of it.

🠶Never have a one-hour season or series finale. It upsets the balance, like Double-Stuff Oreos or Snickers Minis. Everyone will agree that the worst episode of Seinfeld was their lengthy closer, which made me wish that Alton Benes would come back and clunk their heads together like Moe.

Ten Dollars on Regular

The list of American states where drivers can expect to have someone pump gasoline into their tanks now contains just one entry: New Jersey.  And who knows how long that will last, so I encourage all Marylanders to drive up I-95 and cross over that imposing Delaware Memorial Bridge and go into NJ. Pick up Route 40 and sail along through the towns with names like Woodstown, Elmer, Newfield, and Buena. 

In any of these boroughs, you can pull into a filling station and remain in your car! In fact, you have to. And while you sit and fiddle with the radio, someone will come to your window and ask how much and what grade. It's just like Chuck Berry wrote about in "Too Much Monkey Business":

Workin' in the fillin' station, too many tasks

Wipe the windows, check the tires, check the oil, dollar gas

Too much monkey business, too much monkey business

Don't want your botheration, get away, leave me be...

Of course, when Chuck wrote that, a dollar's worth of gas would get you a lot farther than it would today. But the song remains the same; it's a luxury to have someone top off the Toyota for you.

Oregon had been the other state where U-Fill-It was No-U-Can't, but they just changed their law this summer, and Alex Fox, out in Portland, welcomed self-serve. 

Alex is 28 and he just learned how gas pumps work!

“I was a little bit anxious. I actually had to ask someone next to me if they knew how to do it. But once they explained it, it was pretty easy.”

Oregon changed the law in 1951 to make it unlawful for people to squeeze Ethyl, citing fire safety and the need to maintain solid jobs for gas station attendants.

If you really know how to cruise the gas pumps, try to find a station around here where you can get a soft ice cream cone to fill your tummy after you fill your tank. 

There is no better feeling than Soft-Serv on top of Self-Serve.  

 

 

Where are you?

I know what you're thinking....free advice costs nothing and it's worth the price.

But let me give you just a little of it.

Recently in Baltimore there was a mass shooting at the Brooklyn Homes. 28 people were shot, and two others, so unfortunately, were killed. 

The news played the audio tapes of people in distress calling 911 for help. You could hear the commotion and panic in the background as they called and said a number of people have been shot, please send help, we need police and an ambulance....

"OK. Where are you?"

The advice, for what it's worth.  Always know where you are! It sounds silly, maybe, but I can't tell you how many times in my 911 days people just didn't have a handle on where they were, especially out of their homes, reporting an auto accident. You would be amazed at how many people call every highway - I95, I83, I70, I895, I795, I695 "The Beltway" -  when, in fact, among those roads, only I695 is our beltway, engirdling the city and county.

My advice, if you're in a car or driving one, pay attention to the road signs, know what road you're on, and your direction of travel. If you go out somewhere, mentally file away the address or at least the closest street names. When you need help, you'll need it in a hurry, and being able to tell 911 your exact location will save time.

"Yes, 911, I am at 3144 North Pierce Avenue, Springfield, Missouri 65803."

Just always assume that within the next 5 minutes, someone will ask you exactly where you are. Eventually, you'll be right!

Read Some About It

Here's a fun variation on that "Florida man" game that was going around (just type "Florida man" in Google, hit enter, and be rewarded with a story about some goober shooting his rifle to stop a thunderstorm or some such...)

Let's play "Florida Schools." Ready?

Florida schools are removing Shakespeare due to sexual content concerns. Yes, the schools in the Too Much Sunshine State have concerns about sexual content in the educational material in their "schools." The State That Made DeSantis Famous has something called "Bench-marks for Excellent Student Thinking" and how do you like this, that dirty old Willie Shakespeare is on the list for writing materials with sexual content.  

Several Florida school districts are now avoiding Shakespeare's works, and other classics, because Ron D. Santis feels there is too much sexual content in them. Hillsborough County is instructing teachers to assign excerpts from plays like "Romeo and Juliet," instead of having them read the whole daggone play, says the  Tampa Bay Times.

Joseph Cool is a teacher at Gaither High School. He points out that  "Taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd." He added “I think the rest of the nation — no, the world, is laughing at us." 

The teacher is right, as usual.

I never thought I would see the day when classic literature is taken out of the classroom. Of course, they need the time down there during the school day to teach kids that slavery was a marvelous internship opportunity, and that Native Americans were offered the chance to relocate to a Valhalla at the end of the Trail Of Tears.

Oh Ron, it's time you Woke Up.

 

 

 

Tell the teacher he's surfin', surfin' USA

A young man I once taught was arrested years after I apparently taught him nothing. He committed a felonious assault, and failed to plan on a smooth escape from the scene of the crime.

He was on an airplane at the time. Last I heard, he was a guest at a federal prison.

But here's a guy who was out to top that fool, up in North Wildwood, New Jersey.

He was wanted for burglary and theft last week and he thought a nice escape route would be to run into the ocean.

Yes, the Atlantic Ocean. 

North Wildwood police simply ran right into the water and pulled him in, so to speak. 

The man charged is Ryan Verdi. He's 38 and comes from Mullica Hill, a nice little town up the road from Wildwood where antiques and niceness abound. 

Actually, Verdi was arrested twice by North Wildwood PD last week.

The first time, they spotted him with a flashlight in one hand while the other hand sifted through the contents of the vehicle he was sitting in that wasn't his.

(That might be the most awkward sentence I ever wrote, and also one of the saddest, according to R. Verdi of Mullica Hill, NJ.)

He then got out of that car and tried to open the door of another when he was arrested and charged with burglary.

Two days later, while Wildwood was dealing with a massive power outage, the police say he entered a garage that had a door stuck open, and stole the bicycle he was riding when arrested again.

As police approached him about the allegedly stolen bike, he ditched the two-wheeler, ran onto the beach, and into the ocean. Police Sgt. Brian Harkins and Officer Domonic DeMusz splashed into the surf, and arrested him for burglary, theft, and other offenses. 

It's not known whether he had a valid beach tag in his possession, or if he was wearing adequate sun protection.

Sunday Rerun: Burgers and Sighs

 I'm seriously contemplating changing the name of this blog to "Oh, For Crying Out Loud."

Here we go with today's asinine behavior: some members of a volunteer fire company went to the new Sonic drive-in in their town and demanded the same discount that is given to cops and military personnel.

And they didn't get the discount.

They aren't cops or military personnel.

Oh, but they do have Facebook accounts, and so now eight members of the fire company are in hot water (!) because they wrote things on Facebook about how "unfair 'your' being" (for the five millionth time, it's "you're"! "YOU'RE!" "YOU'RE"!) and how maybe they just might not respond to a fire at the Sonic.  And then one of the brainiacs wrote that maybe they ought to set fire to the dumpster at the Sonic.

And the fire company president had to apologize for these guys and the image of the volunteer fire service takes another punch in the eye.

Place #1, any smart fast food operator offers discounts to police.  Nothing deters an armed robbery like pulling up to the place you plan to take down and seeing a prowl car in the parking lot.  Second best is the thought that if the cops aren't here now, they might be sliding by for a burger any minute now.

Volunteer firefighters, people do appreciate your service and sacrifice.  But if you are willing to withdraw your service and sacrifice over a 50% discount on a bacon double cheeseburger (pictured) and a shake, perhaps you might want to think about why you got into the Fire Department in the first place.

And place #2 - on the comments page of one of the news sites discussing this burger imbroglio, a woman who claims to be a lawyer (although she uses the term "bi-laws" in place of "by-laws") says that the firefighters do not give up their right of free speech by donning turnout gear.  And she could not be more correct.  We all have the right to say what we think.  And we all have to face the consequences of saying something wrong.

For a firefighter to threaten to commit arson or threaten not to respond to an emergency call is the ultimate dereliction.

And all this over a damned cheeseburger.

Oh, for crying out loud.

The Saturday Picture Show, August 19, 2023

 

I'm sharing this without comment, except to report that it was posted as "Bathtub shared by roommates, one female, one male."

After we hear from Janet on this, we should see who else in the room has been hysterical. 

Is it really necessary to label your Corolla with a vanity tag that says the same thing? It reminds me of these people who get a Dymo or Brother Tag Maker and set about labelling every single item in their house. 

You remember the autoharp from fourth-grade Music class. I asked the teacher if we could play "Take an Old Cold Tater (And Wait)" by "Little" Jimmy Dickens and got nothing but an old cold stare.

Wouldn't this be a great place for a stroll on a crisp Autumn afternoon?

Sunflower season! Where's everyone going this year to walk among the mammoth plants?

Cursive writing practice from 1910, found in an old bureau in Baltimore and written by Alexander Cummings. Do they still teach cursive? 

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome warmly, The Discontinued Colors Of Crayola! I always have to check to make sure my favorite, Burnt Sienna, is still around.

There was a time when signs told the story of a business, and even those who could not quite read the words knew this would be the place to get new soles and heels on those beat-up brogans.

There have been 488 episodes of the original (and still best) Law & Order on NBC. We like to pick one out to enjoy Sunday Breakfast With Lennie! You can't beat this cast, with Jerry Orbach as Det. Lennie Briscoe.

Safe at home

There are only two or three, well, four, tops, things more intriguing than a long-locked safe of which no one knows the contents. Sitting around a taco restaurant waiting to see the server bring your fajitas while enveloped in a steamy miasma is one of them...seeing how big a prat your new boss is one...and peeling off a Maryland Lottery scratcher is a third. 

But here in Baltimore, there was a mystery of a big safe at a place called Red Emma's Bookstore, and the results were just as disappointing as the time Geraldo Rivera pried open Al Capone's vault to find the square root of zero.

No bags of money, no stock certificates or pieces of eight from a pirate shipwreck, and certainly no antique art or books, or even one of those kitchen wall clocks with a cat face and tail.

There was a scrap of history almost a century old, though: excited onlookers report finding a pay stub from February 1924. Someone worked for seven hours and was paid a little over $5.

I can hear a lot of schoolteachers out there right now, saying, "Righteous bucks!" 

A safe-cracker from Canada saw an online appeal from Red Emma's, looking for someone to swing open that door. He came, he saw it, he opened it, and his dreams of taking big money back to Canada crumbled like the Yankees' dreams of playing in the World Series. 

Too bad, Eugene!

 

Round One!

It usually happened on one of the first bright Spring days, that someone in high school would challenge someone else to a fight that was to take place off school grounds after school that afternoon. The reasons for the fight were generally things like "he tried to get with my girl" or "he bumped into me in the hallway outside the gym." For whatever reason, the opponents were locked in, and their seconds readied themselves to support their buddy, and everyone buzzed about it all afternoon.

Then, when the melee began, the police would show up within three minutes, having been tipped off by school administration. Then everyone got in their cars and went to Gino's, building up the fight in their minds to where it was sort of a local version of the Battle of Gettysburg.

And every time I drive past the BMW dealer in Towson, I remember the epic battle that took place at that corner of West Rd & Kenilworth Drive one nice afternoon. Not one punch was thrown, just a lot of shoving and taunting and bragging. That spirit lives on today in the 2023 BMW M8 Convertible, which is advertised as being "ADRENALINE AT ITS APEX." 

Talk about adrenaline and testosterone! Look who is supposed to be duking it out...worldwide tough guys Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Elon Musk of X.

These rascals have been bloviating about having a cage match, and it was supposed to be all ready to go, but now Elon says his back hurts and he needs an operation.

 

Zuck took to his new Threads social network and said, “I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on. I offered a real date. Elon won’t confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead. If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me. Otherwise, time to move on. I’m going to focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously.”

Just like a couple of high school Harrys...they didn't really WANT to fight, they just wanted to want to fight.

Time to move on. 

"Talitha, cumi" is in the Bible, Mark 5:41. Jesus spoke this when He raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead.

 Note: I post this poem by John Updike every year on the date of Elvis's passing. When I read it in The New Yorker in December, 1999, we were getting ready for the Y2K nonsense, fearing that our computers and water pipes and elevators and clocks were all going to stop at midnight on New Year's Eve. Even so, the words and imagery moved me, then as now.

January 1, 2000 came in as scheduled. We simple believers got up and went to work, still believing in The King. I still do.

From The New Yorker, December 6, 1999

 

JESUS AND ELVIS



Twenty years after the death, St. Paul

was sending the first of his epistles,

and bits of myth or faithful memory -

multitudes fed on scraps, the dead small girl

told "Talitha, cumi" - were self-assembling

as proto-Gospels.  Twenty years since pills

and chiliburgers did another in,

they gather at Graceland, the simple believers,

the turnpike pilgrims from the sere Midwest,

mother and daughter bleached to look alike,

Marys and Lazaruses, you and me,

brains riddled with song, with hand-tinted visions

of a lovely young man, reckless and cool

as a lily.  He lives. We live. He lives.



                                           John Updike

In the alley of the Jolly Green Giant

All of a sudden, everything is about "the farm." I have never lived on a farm, but we were farm-adjacent when I was a kid. 150 acres of corn and tomatoes and squash and rutabagas were literally in our backyard, and we were privileged to pick, cook, and eat what we wanted all week, and then settle up with the farmer when he set up his roadside stand on Sundays. I like the farm lifestyle from the distance it is from me, meaning what I don't have to get up and 5 AM to shovel manure (unless you want to count writing this blog....)

And I don't know what started all this.  Perhaps it was when restaurants started claiming their food was of the "farm to table" variety.  Yes, that okra was grown on a farm, but it took lots of detours on the way to your plate.  And what difference would it make?

Not long ago, out on Harford Rd, they built some houses on a big lot where a restaurant used to be. They advertised the houses as being "farmhouse townhouses." Townhouse is the Baltimore term for what other cities call rowhouses. That's fine, but in all the farms I have visited or driven past, there were always individual houses, not a row of them. Each farm family had their own house, so they wouldn't wake the other families while shoveling manure at 5 AM. The houses they built in this development look nice and substantial, but they are no more "farmhouses" than Rocky Mountain oysters are seafood. And no farmer I have ever spoken with referred to his house as a "pied-à-terre," so there goes that. 

Of course, you like shredded cheese on your taco and burrito, but why do the cheese companies now call the thicker shreds of cheddar "farm style" shreds? You could get a brick of cheese and grate it yourself in the kitchen of Trump Tower, and that's as far from a farm style home as you can get.  

It's a honor to know farmers, and I'm sorry that city folks are trying to co-opt their lifestyles for commercial purposes. I have to figure they don't really care. They know how people are!

Winter Ahead

I don't know how it is in the rest of the world, but in America, there are two accurate ways of predicting the weather: Listening to the forecasts of a trained and educated meteorologist, and seeing how your Uncle Eugene's knee is doing.

It's stunning, how many of us eschew the words of people who have studied weather and climate forecasting and prepare detailed reports for us, which they present around the clock on television, and put their faith in old husband's tales. They say that when you see pigs gathering sticks and woodpeckers sharing the same tree, that means to keep the snow shovel handy and the hatches battened down.  

The Farmers' Almanac says that when you see this - one Woody moving into Apartment A, and another moving above him into the penthouse, that means we're going to have a harsh winter. These two pileated woodpeckers are just beginning to make this tree a duplex.

Or you might have that guy down the street who says to look at the next woolly bear caterpillar you see, and the wider his orange stripe is, the milder the winter ahead will be. You can take your time watching him; he doesn't move fast.

I actually feel sorry for the men and women who have devoted their lives to the scientific study of weather, only to have their voices drowned out in the chorus of people claiming that it's going to rain all weekend because Uncle Nutsy's goiter is acting up again.

Then there's the Farmers’ Almanac, which annually prints "The 20 Signs of a Hard Winter Ahead.” Their winter 2023-24 forecast  predicts “traditional cool temperatures and snowy weather conditions” will return. Here in the Northeast/ Mid-Atlantic, we can expect “lots of rain/sleet and snowstorms to contend with.”

In other words, hold on to your hopes, fellow snow lovers, but don't put your tank tops and shorts too deep in your storage!

Some of the harbingers of lots of snow and sleet include: 

• Thicker than normal onions and corn husks
• Woodpeckers sharing a tree
• Snowy owls arriving early, geese and ducks leaving early and Monarch butterflies migrating early
• The hair on the nape of a cow’s neck is thicker than usual, raccoons have thick tails and bright bands
• Heavy and frequent fog in August
• The “early arrival of crickets on the hearth”
• Pigs gathering sticks
• Ants marching in a line
• Early seclusion of bees in the hive
• An abundance of acorns and squirrels gathering them earlier than usual
• Muskrats burrowing holes high on a river bank
• High hornet nests “will tell how high the snow will rest”
• “Frequent halos or rings around the sun or moon” indicate “numerous snowfalls”
• And of course, the absence of milk, bread, and toilet paper on store shelves is the sure sign.

 

Sunday Rerun: You Take The Highway

 

Since the late 1950s, the Baltimore Beltway has engirdled the Baltimore Metropolitan area like a boa constrictor squeezing the last boar at a buffet. The plan was for a road that would take one from one part of town to another by means of a high-speed limited access highway. And it's a great idea on paper. The problem is, we do our driving on asphalt, not paper.

When I worked midnight shift, I would pile into the car and drive for miles and miles in the middle of the night (the beauty of a 3 AM lunch hour). No one else was on the Beltway (fun fact for Baltimoreans: the official name of what we call the Baltimore Beltway is the McKeldin Beltway. Since 2005, it has been named for former Governor Theodore "Beaver" McKeldin, during whose administration many big roads were planned and constructed. I would be four quarters short of a buck if I had a quarter for every time I have heard someone call it that, though) at that hour, so I could pretty much loop the town and enjoy the all-night radio serenade as I cruised about.

The official speed limit on I-695 is 55 miles an hour, but depending on the hour you happen to be on it, you might not get much above 20 miles an hour. It's like anything else with these roads: when everyone wants to use them, there can't be enough, and the rest of the time, it's wide open. The West Side of town is where your national Social Security Headquarters is, so you have a lot of people working there who need to get there when the pandemic is over. The East Side used to have a steel plant and a Chevrolet plant; now they have an Amazon warehouse, and that tells you all you need to know about your American economy. The Central part of town - my stomping grounds when I do get in the mood to do some stomping - has universities and colleges and courts and lawyers.

And 99% of the working population gets on the Beltway any time I happen to use it. I had to go to the west side the other day, and no, nothing has changed. There are still fools trying to go 90 in the left lane, and fools trying to go 30 in the right lane, and fools who have watched too much NASCAR zipping in and out of lane and lane to get ten feet ahead. And people who may be going only 45 miles an hour, but have that tricky muffler that makes it sound like a fully loaded Kenworth Tractor-Trailer is right behind you. 

I do mean right behind you, too. A guy (notice, it is ALWAYS "a guy") in a maroon Honda tailgated me from Greenspring Av to I-795, and if he had gotten an inch closer, I was going to have to ask him to put a mask on his hood, I wanna tell ya. Tailgating is a popular means of driving that allows many people to meet their fellow commuter, a state trooper, a body and fender repairman, and a chiropractor.

And of course, it always seems that no one pays attention in Driver Education to the part where they discuss merging onto a highway. Git out my way, sucker, is the approach as they zoom off the ramp.  You stop or else!

The all-too-often aftermath

As Bernie Mac used to say, "America, I'll be honest with you." As a retired American, if I drive anywhere, it's to the grocery store or the hardware store or Popeye's, so I don't encounter crazy rush-hour driving. 

But for those of you who must drive the McKeldin, please slow down or switch to the Enya station or recite calming mantras. The way some of you drive reminds me of the old bumper sticker: Drive Like Hell And You'll Get There.

The Saturday Picture Show, August 12. 2023

 

These dinette sets were very popular in the 1950s, an era in which so many cakes were baked that they didn't even bother storing the MixMaster in one of the cabinets, so often was it used. This is called the polished steel-and-vinyl Mid Century Modern look, and when everyone switched over to wooden seats and tables, all of these were stored in a giant warehouse in Topeka to be brought back out for sale as part of the Mid Century Modern Revival.

You've heard of the Little Deuce Coupe, right? The Beach Boys song was about these very cars - 1932 (hence the "deuce") Ford 5-Window Coupes, which had tons of room to drop in much bigger engines to make these the hottest of hot rods. 

The popularity of cowboy boots ebbs and flows, but now a certain diminutive Florida governor is stomping around in a pair to make himself appear to be an inch or two taller as he tells one and all that slavery was just a happy internship.

I've seen pictures of these swimming pools on the edges of roofs around the world and I am certain I can do without getting in one.

On the other hand, I can testify that I never saw these hats for sale, or perched atop someone's head. Maybe they only sold them in certain areas. If I had seen them for sale, I would be wearing one right now. 

Notice that the still-standing 2,000-year-old Pula Amphitheater in Croatia shares a design with those multi-purpose stadiums that were built in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and other towns in the 1970s. But this one is still in use!

Whoever drew this has a cat and knows that look on its face.

I hope that wherever this cool tree carving is, there's a library right nearby.

What a treat for us Baltimore Orioles fans last Saturday! The World Series champs from the 1983 team held their 40th reunion at the ballpark downtown. 40 years zipped right on by, I wanna tell you.

This is my final post for today.