Well-deserved

The great national treasure Dolly Parton is about to add an Oscar statuette to her trophy case. Come November, she will be given the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars’ annual Governors Awards. 

Among Dolly's good works is Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, which gives free books to kids from birth to age five. She's been quietly buying band uniforms for Tennessee high schools for years.  She used the songwriting royalties from "I Will Always Love You" to purchase a strip mall in Nashville to honor and support the Black neighborhood it's in. And when COVID-19 hit, it was her million dollars that provided seed money for Moderna to create a vaccine. Dolly's philanthropy is a daily blessing, but, “I don’t do it for attention,” she said when receiving the  Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.  “But look! I’m getting a lot of attention by doing it.”

And don't forget, she is always the first to donate money and supplies after natural disasters. She's just an all-around good person who believes in sharing. 

Who was Jean Hersholt? Hersholt (1886 - 1956) was a Danish American screen and radio actor. He served as president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund for 18 years. He was credited with playing a large part in establishing the Fund, now known as the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Its purpose is to give help to Hollywood industry employees - not just actors, but people in all facets of the business out there. They help those in need due to illness, old age, or whatever challenges they may face. To honor Hersholt's philanthropy, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - the Oscar people - established the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to recognize an "individual in the motion picture industry whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry." 

Wonderful things can be said about Dolly and Jean, and of course, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that Hersholt was the paternal half-uncle (by marriage) of actor Leslie Nielsen. Surely, you remember him.

 

 

Moon Shot

 One of my hobbies is listening to old radio shows on the internet. I particularly like The Great Gildersleeve, a wholesome family comedy from the 1940s and 1950s, a time when we still had wholesome families.

Just kidding! I know your family is wholesome...

Anyway, the shows were live then, and many times they were interrupted by important news bulletins about World War II. Listening back to them today, the juxtapositioning of Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve's crazy madcap adventures raising his niece and nephew while serving as water commissioner in the mythical town of Summerfield and dating every single single woman who crossed his path with the invasion of Anzio was a contrast, for sure. The announcer would cut in, deliver the breaking news, and then go back to the program as, surely, millions of Americans with family in the service said an extra prayer.

My thought today is that, in those days, when people like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite came on with news, you could believe what they said. Today, one must be more judicious, and evaluate what you read and hear, because of things like this... 

Dan Driscoll, the U.S. Secretary of the Army, was on some channel called Fox News (correct me if I got their name wrong) last week, hyping the upcoming military parade in Washington, D.C. 

Here is a direct quote from the man who runs your Army:

 “As young Americans across the country get to see all of the amazing things that the army has done, whether it’s helping with floods in North Carolina or wildfires in California, or, we talked to an astronaut yesterday who’s on the moon who’s a soldier.”

OK, listen, I know the schools are closed, so Sis and Junior can't ask Ms. O'Hoolahan about it, so let me assure you that no American has been on the moon since Eugene Cernan walked on the green cheese in 1972. I look at it every night and see no one trucking around.

So we are left with the big question: Was someone left behind when Apollo 17 came home? Does Driscoll know more than he lets on? If someone is up there, how will they calculate his overtime pay? Or was there a recent moon shot, possibly when one of Elon's rockets didn't blow up?

Driscoll, who will be played in the inevitable movie by Gary Busey, might have been thinking about Jonny Kim, who is not a soldier and is not on the moon, but is a former Navy SEAL on an eight-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). He's been sky high since April 8 and is expected back on earth this fall.

Unless Driscoll knows something he's not letting on....

Yakety-yak

 What I think:

If you really know what you are talking about, that will come through to your listener or reader. There are topics on which I could declaim endlessly (or so it would seem!) and not have to hem and/or haw, or make stuff up.

On the other hand, ask me to write or speak about how nuclear fission works, or how digital music turns numbers into notes, or why the earth revolves, and I can't say much. In fact, my knowledge of the solar system is no minute as to fit into a thimble. I must have been out sick the day that was explained. 

I bring this up because I saw a guy on television the other morning, and in virtually every sentence, he said, "Do you know what I'm saying?" or "You know what I mean?" 

My problem is, I am quite a literal person, meaning that if you ask me a question, you will get an answer if I have one. So, saying "Do you know what I mean?" only slows matters down, because then I answer, "Yeah, so far so good" or "Not a clue" and it slows the conversation. Sometimes it slows it to a halt.

My fear is that the person who asks if I know what they are saying is not so sure of what they are saying at all, hence the need for reinforcement.

So here's a deal - you keep talking and I'll keep listening (or reading) and if I can't figure it out, you will be among the first to know. Proceed apace until I ask for clarification.

Heartache is real!

With the wisdom that I gained from many years of being a country music radio DJ, I know a thing or two about broken hearts.

But I thought they were all in the head! No, that's not true.

Turns out, "Broken heart syndrome" is a real heart condition. It can be brought on by dealing with tough times and emotional extremes. As Elvis sang, "When you find your sweetheart in the arms of a friend, buddy, that's when your heartache begins." Getting the old heave-ho is hard on the ticker.  

The doctors say, broken heart syndrome goes away eventually for most...but some people never get over it, apparently. Or they accept the pain as part of their lives and slump along from day to day.

Really, the physical part of this is that sufferers of BHS may all of a sudden report chest pain as the syndrome causes the heart to change the way it pumps blood.

This is a sign that, if sadness overwhelms you, you might need to seek help from mental health providers as well as medical doctors.

And listen to light symphonic music for a while! No country, whatever you do. 

 

Shiny

Lately, the Baltimore Orioles tv broadcasts have had annoying commercials for some energy swill called "Celsius." So I thought I would be "Fair, And Hype" this new product.

There is no depth to which I will not pursue a bad pun. And I don't know any good ones.

So anyway, this energy drink...in the commercial, all sorts of cool people are guzzling it with alacrity, and I want to be cool, but not as much as I wish to continue enjoying my usual tipples - hot tea, iced tea, seltzer water with cranberry juice.

We decided to see what was in this joy-giving elixir, and here's the story:

Celsius energy drinks contain a blend of ingredients designed to boost metabolism and provide energy. Key components include carbonated filtered water, citric acid, taurine, guarana seed extract, green tea extract, caffeine, and various vitamins and minerals like B vitamins, vitamin C, and chromium. They are also formulated without sugar, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, or artificial colors or flavors. 

And then came this caveat: while Celsius is pitched as a healthy alternative to traditional sugary energy drinks, some individuals may have bad effects from the caffeine and other stimulants, especially if you swig too much Celsius or are sensitive to stimulants.

Looking at what's in the can, ok, carbonated water is my drink, and what is Taurine? Doesn't sound tasty, or salubrious, or even healthy.  Sure, every adult needs a certain amt. of guarana seed extract...and then get this part...CHROMIUM! 

Like hello? You're gonna look like the front bumper of a 1957 Plymouth? Chromium? In my drink? 

I'm gonna say no, thanks. I am not cool enough for Celsius.

Sunday Rerun: It's The Berries

 I am always in search of superlatives. Tell me something or someone is the best or the tallest or the tastiest, and I'm right there with you, wanting to know more. 

And if Casey Stengel, a man who once doffed his cap at home plate to allow a bird to fly away off his head, says someone is the strangest man ever to play baseball, that man automatically enters my Hall of Heroes.

Stengel said that about Moe Berg, the polymath who played a almost a decade and a half in the major leagues, but never took it too seriously.  What the backup catcher took seriously was learning, and he did that in 12 languages, reading books and newspapers by the ton.  

I can hardly imagine how happy he would be to be alive today, what with the internet serving a torrent of information with the stroke of a few keys! Plus, he would be 123 years of age, so he'd have that going for him.

But today I don't want to write about his baseball exploits, or how he went on a tour of Japan in the 1930s to spread the love of baseball worldwide and wound up taking home movies of Japanese defense plants and munitions storage that wound up being used by US spy agencies in World War II, or that he parachuted into Yugoslavia as a spy, or that he did not speak to his brother, Dr Sam Berg M.D. for over 30 years, or that Moe trained as a lawyer and worked for several of the big firms in New York during baseball offseasons, but gave up the practice of law because he found it boring.

No, I want to give gardening advice, because one of my favorite stories in one of the books I've read about Moe, and there have been a few, came from The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg, written by Nicholas Dawidoff and published by Pantheon Books in 1994.

 And in that book we learn that Moe's sister Ethel, who was a kindergarten teacher for many years and served as a trainer for new teachers, had the habit of roller skating through the halls of her school. And that she raised raspberries in her home garden, raspberries so tasty that she would regularly trade a quart of them for a meal at New York's finest restaurants, where the pastry chefs used them for their finest pies and tarts.

And that the secret to her great raspberries was that she lived a block away from a mounted police stable.

The Saturday Picture Show, June 14, 2025

Make a note of this! So many of us look out for everyone else first. Remember to put yourself up toward the top of the list every once in a while.

I just had my annual eye exam and then I found this, so I will have to wait 'til next year to slip a Russian eye chart in the machine.

If you see the local firefighters opening the hydrant, it's not that they're trying to dye the streets rusty, but, rather, they are flushing the lines so that the water will flow clean and clear through their pumper, should there be a fire, God forbid.

I have never hung around barrooms so much that I would ever be given the bum's rush like this, but if someone were to hand me this card, I would have to tell them that they should have said "You have been cut off" instead of "cutoff." I don't like to be pedantic, but then again, I do.

Narcissus was a very pretty boy, his image in the brook filled him with joy....so much so that he fell in love with himself, and you know that didn't go very well for him. Later he invented the mirror so he didn't have to hang around the water to get a peek at his lovely self. 

Officials in Maine were forced to call in extra butter trucks from Wisconsin for this big lobster.

Two kids + one camera  = big laffs. Next up, the old wallet-on-a-string gag.

I used to like telling my doctor that it was my plan to die of either rickets, or scurvy. My motto is "always leave them laughing," even during that digital exam.

There are people who purchase those Stik-On Google Eyes and do what they can with them. Support them!

 In Alabama, one has to choose between liking the U of Alabama or second-rate Auburn. The choice is clear. Up in Chi-town, North Siders like the Cubs and South Siders go with the White Sox, whose most prominent fan swapped caps last week and was seen warming up in the bullpen.

Silver threads

Up on top of my melon, melanocyte stem cells (McSCs) were stuck, and unable to make the protein needed to keep my lustrous brown hair brown.  Some scientists are saying this is why I have so much gray hair.

This was all written up in the journal Nature, where researchers from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine talked about how McSCs "travel between compartments of developing hair follicles in a healthy situation." They figured this using mice, and let's be frank: Mickey is about 100 years old, and I don't see any gray hair on his head.

But in some cases, the McSCs can get stuck in the hair follicle bulge compartment, and that means no pigment cells...and no color except "snow on the roof."

And what's more, scientists should take note that we non-scientists don't like seeing the word "bulge" used to refer to any part of our bodies.

That explains why so many of us are called "fatheads."

Good news: these folks say if they can find a way to get the proteins in our hair to hang around the right compartment in our hairs, we can ditch the Clairol and look like we're still 18 forever.

Or have people say, yeah, he's old, but he sure can throw down.

Or fall down, whatever. 

 

I hope there's not a third

I almost got to see Brian Wilson, touring with the Beach Boys in 1965, but he was hors de combat by the time the band played at the Baltimore Civic Center (which has changed its name 19 times, but not to me!) so they had a replacement on bass and high harmonies. Fella named Glen Campbell.

We East Coast kids didn't know nuttin' about no surfin', but we learned the lingo and loved the songs from California with the Beach Boys and Jan And Dean. "Surfin' USA" sent us running to the dictionary (no Google in 1963) to find out what huarache sandals were.  Along with the surf music, there were car tunes ("409", "Little Deuce Coupe", "Shut Down") and songs about being cool kids ("Be True To Your School", "Fun Fun Fun") and songs about love going well ("Don't Worry Baby", "She Knows Me Too Well") and love not going well ("Help Me, Rhonda", "Let Him Run Wild") and, well, songs about who knew what? ("Heroes And Villains").  

I never owned or operated a pair of huarache sandals, but I did have a bushy bushy blonde hairdo. Never had a little deuce coupe, but I found true love, and through every stage of my life from teendom on, the Beach Boys were either on my speakers or in my head.

I hope I'm not speaking too esoterically, but Sly And The Family Stone were all that Love with Arthur Lee could have been. Sly Stone - Sylvester Stewart should thank the grade-school classmate who transposed the "y" and the "l" that gave him his nickname - accomplished what Arthur was trying to do, blend rock and soul and jazz and even a little country, and create a whole new music. "Dance To The Music", "Stand", "Hot Fun In The Summertime", "Everyday People," "Family Affair"....so many great songs, and not once did you say, "That sounds just like their last one."

How sad it was that both Sly and Brian are gone in the same week, both aged 82. Both flourished brightly while young, and both fell prey to the traps and trappings of stardom and plenty of money. I'm not the first to try to figure out how to put this in words, but their music will be around as long as there are radios and speakers and whatever medium is available. I can't think of a better way to kick off a dance than with "Dance To The Music," or a better way for a couple to reassure each other than "She Knows Me Too Well."

Nobody asked me, but here is my favorite Beach Boys song out of all of them, from the "Beach Boys Today" album in 1965, listen to "Please Let Me Wonder." 

For so long I thought about it

And now I just can't live without it

This beautiful image I have of you.

 

Three simple lines that share emotions every feeling heart has known.

High Seize

 Scrolling through Instagram,  I saw a video from St. Kitts or St. Catt's or some exotic port of call that I've never called. One of those BA cruise ships, the Liberty Of The Seas, was at the dock, idling, or whatever you call it when it's a boat, waiting for two passengers to get on board before they set sail for St. Joseph's, where aspirin is made. 

According to the 'Gram, the couple showed up over 30 minutes late, by which time the mighty ship had cast off its moorings and was a couple dozen nautical yards away from the pier as the man and woman glowered, shopping bags in hand.

It would be a scream if the shopping bag contained a t-shirt that said "My aunt and uncle missed their ship departure because they stopped to buy me this shirt."

Seriously, what is it with people? Why can't we seem to be on time? It's not just a matter of being discourteous to the other passengers, who were eager to get on the road, as it were.

It's also self-respect. I don't see how one can feel like an efficient member of society by being non-prompt all the time. 

Set the alarm on your phone, strap on a Timex, carry a sundial. Just be on time, please! 

Never the twain

 If you remember the great Albert Brooks movie "Lost in America," you might recall a scene in which Albert is firming up the deal for the new Mercedes-Benz he wants. Brilliant as ever, Albert plays the salesman on the phone (crediting himself as "Hans Wagner") and says there's just one little thing David, the buyer, might want to add...

"Just leather, that's all you'd have to add, nothing else"; David was astounded: "Really?...It doesn't come with leather?" - the dealer specified: "It's what they call Mercedes leather"; David asked about the inferior leather: "What would that be?" - and he was told: "It's a very thick vinyl, a beautiful seat."

That was 40+ years ago, and the lies just keep on coming. "Vegan cheese" is not cheese, "Vegan leather" is vinyl, faux suede isn't suede, and just today, Peggy pointed out to me a book about the life and career of Lee Krasner, the widow of splatter-art king Jackson Pollock. 

It's up to you if you want to call whatever Pollock dripped on canvas "art." He sold this one (painted in his barn) called "Lavender Mist" for $1500 in 1950, and later, someone found $2,000,000 in sofa coins and bought it for their barn.

As I say, art is in the eye of. But words should be precise, which is why I scoffed, guffawed, and winced when Peggy told me the book about Krasner is "historical fiction."

As Sheriff Andy Taylor used to say, "they ain't no such a thing" as fiction, where history is concerned. Fiction is not fact, and the fact is, I'm not reading a book that doesn't know the difference. 

Answer the question!

Richard Thomas (no, not the actor!) was a wildlife technician, and like so many of us, he devoted a great part of his childhood to asking, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

But, being a man of action, he didn't just SAY it. He got off his fat sofa and did the math. His rough estimate came to around 700 pounds, and who among us can gainsay that?

First off, a woodchuck is also known by the similarly-appealing name "groundhog."  Word experts feel that we got "woodchuck" from the Algonquian people, who used the word "wejack" to mean groundhog.

Later, they developed the word "Sajak" to mean game show host.

Back to the story...in 1988, the Associated Press press reported that Thomas had calculated the amount of dirt in a typical 25–30-foot long woodchuck burrow and had determined that if the woodchuck had moved an equivalent volume of wood, it could move "about 700 pounds on a good day, with the wind at his back". 

In Cincinnati, Joe Burrow can throw a football with 700 pounds of Ravens hanging off of him.

While in Alabama, the Tuscaloosa. But that's entirely irrelephant.

Sunday rerun from 2011: How to spend $203,150

 Here it is Saturday, and your paycheck is still warm in the bank, and maybe you have some spare dollars to spend.  Let's say you have $203,150 to spend.

"You have $203,150 to spend."

Now let's say you can't really buy a great house with that, and that sum is too much to spend on a car, although you could get a nice car and a great RV with that much, and hit the road for a while.

You could give it to any number of deserving charities.

You could really spruce up your wardrobe, or get new furniture for the house, or have a brick pizza oven installed in the living room. 

OR you could have bought the original color portrait, done by Norman Mingo, of Alfred E. Neuman, which appeared on MAD magazine issue #30 in 1956.  The original brought in, at an art auction in November, 2008, that sum: $203,150, from some guy with a REALLY mad wife.

I bet he hung it in his den and his friends come over all the time to see it and his friends' wives hang downstairs with his wife, all going, "WHAT?  He bought WHAT?"

What, him worry?  If you have that much money for that picture, you surely have enough for some other things.  But I'd love to see that picture!

 

The Saturday Picture Show, June 7, 2025

 

Joining heat, humidity, mosquitoes, and sweatiness on my list of reasons not to like summer very much are these blobs, called sea nettles or bay nettles or jellyfish or their scientific name, Chrysaora quinquecirrha. If they sting you, the cure is Adolph's Meat Tenderizer. Really. Or Texas Pete Hot Sauce.

Just as we were promised, grocery prices are really coming down!

"Auntie Em! Auntie Em! Uncle Earl says he won't come down the storm cellar until he finishes the back yard!"

All right, it's not a great foot massage, but it's an OK foot massage.

The owl doesn't give a hoot about the cats watching him. Which they will.

So the first goldfinch says to the second goldfinch, "Did you hear about that owl over on Elm Avenue?"

Thailand's entry in the Miss Universe pageant, Sueangam-iam, wore a gown made of discarded soda tabs to honor her parents, who were refuse collectors in Bangkok. That said more than a lot of words would have.

The convicts who escaped the Orleans Parish Prison in Louisiana left behind taunting notes and cartoons. One hopes that when they are all rounded up, they will attend English classes.

Extra for me, please.

People try to re-create this weathered look, and they come mighty close, but the best way to have your exterior wall look this distressed is to paint it twenty years ago.

D-Day Rerun - D-Day is today

 Today, June 6, marks the day in 1944 when the fortunes of the world took a great turn for the better. That was D-Day (the D stood for nothing but "Day," signifying how much was riding on this military operation), the invasion of France by beach landings in Normandy to defeat German troops occupying France. Planning for it began in 1943, and General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed Supreme Commander of the entire operation, which all might have been scuttled in that very year except for one man's nearsightedness.

An early version of the plan blew out a window that summer in London's Norfolk House, but a man who picked the papers off the street couldn't read them without his glasses and could only see the large type, indicating that they had some military import, so he dropped his find off at a military post.

And the plans called for the invasion, which brought 156,000 troops or paratroopers ashore (73,000 from the U.S., 83,000 from Great Britain and Canada) to take place on June 5, but bad weather forced a 24-hour postponement.  When June 6, 1944, dawned clear, Eisenhower told troops: “You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.”

1,900 Allied bombers attacked German lines, dropping seven million pounds of bombs that day.

10,521 combat aircraft flew a total of 15,000 flights, with 113 lost.

The naval bombardment was delivered by seven battleships, 18 cruisers, and 43 destroyers.

By the evening of June 6, 20,000 vehicles and 150,000 soldiers were in place on French soil to begin pushing German forces all the way back to Germany, leading to the merciful end of the war in 1945.

50,000 German troops were in place to counteract the invasion, but several things hampered them.

For one, the Germans were deceived by a fake army of dummy camps, planes and tanks built further up the English coast at  Kent and Essex, leading the Germans to figure on an invasion at Calais.

For a second, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. the man in charge of defending German holdings in northern France from any invasion, was not around. His staff told him that the English Channel was far too rough for a landing, so he was in Germany, celebrating his wife’s 50th birthday.

And for a third, Adolf Hitler, Chancellor and Fuhrer of Germany, was also back home, sound asleep, and his aides so feared waking him that they let him sleep in, which severely delayed getting additional troops sent in. 

Nice work, dummkopfs. Thanks!

And speaking of using dummies...Eisenhower and his men were truly geniuses, thinking of everything as they planned. On the morning of the 6th, as the invasion began, they had planes flying over other locations, dropping DUMMY paratroopers to convince the Germans that the invasion was taking place elsewhere.

Oh for the days when brilliance and fortitude saved the world!

If you have a spare minute today, think a minute today about what it felt like for all involved, from the newest private to Eisenhower, to know that failure would have cost the world its freedom, and think of the men invading that beach, and be glad they did, and mourn those lost.

Behave!

 I'm not a very smart guy, but I am at least smart enough not to wade into the current Broadway imbroglio involving Patti LuPone.

It all started with a profile on the legendary LuPone in the New Yorker magazine in which she complained about loud noise from a loud show in the theater adjoining the one in which she was enchanting audiences. She did not like this and said so. But she did so by calling the other actress a beyotch, but not like that. I read the article when the magazine wound up in my mailbox as soon as the mailman had figured out the Caption Contest winner, and it thought it unwise of her to be unkind.

And then the other actress had a friend who defended her and the whole thing went back and forth online.  And with the broadcast of the Tony Awards (named in honor of Tony Danza, did you know that?) coming up on Sunday, people are all worked up about this, and saying they hope it all be resolved in time for the curtain to go up Sunday evening and maybe they can open the show with the two combatants duetting on "Getting To Know You" and doing “You Don’t Know/I Am the One” from Next to Normal as the show-stopper.

From reading the article about LuPone, I see she has that self-centered philosophy that many people in her line of work have...nothing matters but her and her act and you had better get out of her way while she sings or dances or acts.

Again, it's not any of my beeswax, but Patti is 76 yoa - older than I, even! - and she should know better than to call people nasty names. These showbiz types will hug each other tight and talk about being best friends forever, so let's keep that face on and stop being such a nasty lady, all right? 

The world is in a lot of turmoil spinning around and we don't need the very people who are paid handsomely to entertain us acting like children. We have children for that. 

Ooooh that smell

Inquisitive minds want to know, and so do I:  What's the deal on all these wildfires in Canada? They send smoky, ashy air way down here to Maryland, and it's like when Spicoli and his friends roll up on the parking lot at Ridgemont High.

I put on my Google goggles and looked it up. These fires are out of control across Western Canada. The reasons are the deadly triumvirate of an ongoing drought, warmer-than-usual temperatures, and lack of rainfall.

The big one going on now started late last week in British Columbia and has quadrupled in size since it flamed.

The drought has dried out forests, and led Saskatchewan and Manitoba to declare provincial emergencies.

And the outlook for the immediate future is not so rosy, either. You hear the meteorologists talk about upper-level winds and the jet stream, and they are spreading the smoke out of Canada eastward and southward, and that's how we wind up with it.

Not only that, but the smoke is causing air quality issues in many areas. The Air Quality Index in lot of places (not Maryland yet) has reached unhealthy levels. And...the visibility is being reduced with all the hazy skies.

Smoke is expected to keep on billowing down on our way for the next few days.

The only good thing about all this is that we haven't heard any more silly talk about Canada becoming the "51st State." 

They have enough problems to deal with already.

This map shows how many Americans are listening to Céline Dion at any given moment.

 

The fates

You're probably smarter than I, and more prone to picking up on the little cues that life sometimes offers. I wouldn't necessarily think it's a bad omen if I tripped over a sidewalk crack or or found a coin face down in the gutter. 

But if things kept happening to me, I would get out of the town where they happened. 

So, like, if I went to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York and got bopped on the melon by the gigantic Cat In The Hat balloon and wound up in a coma for a month, I would not go to that parade again, or any gathering with inflated felines being toted around by men and women on the other end of long ropes.

That's what happened to Gothamite Kathleen Caronna in 1997. She was watching the floats at 72nd Street near Central Park West when the Cat hit a lamppost. The lamppost knocked her lights out for a month, as I say, and the lawsuits were flying before she got back to her husband and eight-month-old son. 

She sued and won an undisclosed amount from Macy's and the city. It was enough for her and her husband and son to move on up to a deluxe apartment in the skyyyyyyyy. 

And then in 2006, New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was piloting a private plane that crashed into her new flat - on 72nd and York Avenue, several blocks east of where she met the big cat.

Lidle's private jet had taken off from New Jersey and crashed into the Belaire Apartments in Manhattan, killing Lidle and his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger. The  engine of the Cirrus SR20 landed in Caronna's bedroom, causing the apartment to be consumed by flames right away. Fortunately, Mrs Caronna was not home just yet, but she was on the way, and arrived shortly thereafter to this: 

21 people in the building were injured.

I hope Mrs Caronna took the advice of her sister-in-law, Lisa Brown, who told the Daily News paper, "How do you go through two major things like this? It’s spooky. It’s very spooky.”

One final twist: the flight instructor, Stanger, had a friend named Bob Cartwright, who was supposed to have joined him and the Yankee for this flight. 

Luckily, Cartwright changed his plans and did not go, and survived.

For a month, until he was on a plane that crashed, and he died.

So, when you hear a voice telling you not to do something, listen!

Fame's the game

 I'm no stranger to the celebrity set. Why, I once stood right next to the legendary performer M.C. Hammer at an Orioles ballgame, and I once browsed for cut-price books with John Waters, although you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who's been in Baltimore for more than ten minutes who can't say that.

So, I thought it was just another cog in the Wheel Of Well-Known People when I got a friend request from Carrie Underwood, the famous singer. I thought about how much fun it was going to be, sharing vacation photos and clips of favorite country songs with "Car," as she likes me to call her.

My close friend 

Of course it was a fakeout, and it really made me sad, not because Carrie Underwood, from Broken Taillight, Oklahoma, didn't really want to be my boon companion in real life, but because underneath all this is some person, probably male, sitting in a tub of pudding with a laptop and a desire to bask in adulation, even if that adulation is not meant for him.

Or maybe "her," I don't know.

I do know that celebrity status in America is quite an odd thing. If you saw the news a couple weeks ago when some deluded maniac tried to drive his car through the heavily fortified gate at the home of Jennifer Aniston, you saw the conditions under which she lives: high walls on the perimeter of the property, remote controlled steel gates, armed guards on duty around the clock.

From the air, it looks a lot like a building near where I worked, but that was the Baltimore County Detention Center, and even though I'm certain that Ms Aniston's home is appointed with the finest of furnishings and objets d'art, what she has in common with the denizens of the county hoosegow is that she just can't up and go to Trader Joe's any time she takes a notion to, either. 

Being famous is a prison with velvet bars, and it's quite sad that anyone would voluntarily pretend to be there.

Sunday Rerun: Fast Times at New Brunswick High

 I can't help it. I am still living in what the late humorist Doug Kenney called "a homeroom of the mind." I love everything about high school culture - the easy availability of ice cream sandwiches, having a stash bin locker for my stuff, lots of friends to talk to, exercise in fresh air, and, occasionally, learning something. 

I will readily admit that I would be spotted as an outlier, were I to try to blend in and fake being a high school student again. Gray hair and an unsteady gait would give me away at once. But hats off to Hyejeong Shin! She's 29 and faked them out for a whole week, posing as a new student at New Brunswick High School in New Jersey before the school administrators got wise to her fake birth certificate.

It's not as if Ms Shin was trying to make up for missed education. She is a graduate of Rutgers University, for crying out loud. Her attorney says she knows she goofed, but it was all out of her longing to have the kind of friendships she had in high school that made her do it

See what I mean?

Shin is a South Korean citizen who was sent here at 16 to attend a private boarding school, and she just missed that atmosphere.  The pep rallies! The smoke-filled lavatories! The Geometry quizzes! The morning announcements! 

Her attorney, Darren Gelber, said, "At no time was anyone or any student in danger and this entire case is more about my client wanting to return to a place of safety and welcoming and an environment that she looks back on fondly and nothing more." 

Maybe he gets paid by the word.

I think this is a serious case of hyperprosecution, but she has been indicted by a grand jury and been charged with issuing false documents and hindering her own prosecution in the third degree. Through her attorney, Shin says she is hoping to be accepted into a  pre-trial intervention program and serve no time.

Gallantly, the New Brunswick Police released a statement, saying their investigation found nothing to indicate her enrollment was part of a plan to bring harm or violence to anyone. 

Gelber says as soon as this is over, Shin wants to return to South Korea, after 13 years in the US.

Maybe if I dye my hair and buy the cool clothes that kids today wear, I could pull it off...