Sunday Rerun: Do you have a Denarius for two nickels?

 I once found a copy of the cassette version of "America's Greatest Hits" on the sidewalk in Towson during a pouring rainstorm. I let it dry out for a week or so, and then it played just fine, but it was only a matter of time before it was replaced by a CD of the same album, which I am still looking for on the sidewalks of the county seat. No luck yet.

Another time I found the a tiny version of a Swiss Army knife. It has a small blade, scissors, and a screwdriver. Not bad for something I found free for nothing while walking a nature trail.

And that's about it for the entries in the What I Found file, but we can't all be lucky like 8-year-old Bjarne, over in Bremen, Germany, who was playing in the sandbox at his school when he dug up a silver Denarius. 

No, that's not a fancy racing car, it's a Roman coin at least 1,800 years ago. 

Uta Halle, the Bremen state archaeologist, says, “We are glad that Bjarne was so careful. [The discovery is] very special, because there have only been two comparable coin finds from the Roman Empire in the city of Bremen.”

It's a puzzle how the coin even got there, because much of what we now call Germany was within the borders of the old Roman Empire, but Bremen was not!

So maybe someone in the last 1,800 years went to Rome and bought sandals or something and went back home with this coin as change from the purchase.

Or maybe it fell in the River Weser and washed up on shore in Bremen and was part of a pile of sand scooped up for the sandbox.

Or it could be that a careless coin collector was playing in the sandbox.

It's a pretty cool souvenir and I wish young Bjarne a lot of fun showing it to people for the rest of his life. 

Two sides of the same coin.

The Saturday Picture Show, August 30, 2025

I don’t know where this is, but I guess it's a museum where one can insert one's hand into a slot and touch a piece of Mars. If that doesn't do it for you, try aisle 11C at your BuySumMore supermarket and grab a full-size Mars bar.

This owl in North Carolina is Raleigh good at camouflage, and i think that's a hoot.

Just a little time and some seeds, and you, too, can make your own hot sauce! 

Hold up real quick! Is this giant billboard not also a giant distraction? "Well, Judge, I ran off the road because I was driving and saw this sign about not getting distracted..."

As many times as I went to the movies as a kid, I never once had Dots. No Black Crows, Necco wafers, or nonpareils either. I did put a hurting on some Milk Duds, I want to tell you.

Here's a look at two pigeons: one just born, and one yet to hatch. 

Sunrise at Yosemite. Not YO-sem-ite.

It says here, there's nothing like creamy, cheesy, Baltimore cheesecake. They’re great after crabcakes.

Warm, inviting light in this painting of a house so real that it seems to invite you to come in and get warm. 

You have to imagine that these steps once led to a magnificent mansion. Once.
 

Running Rings Around Us

The other day, just as school was getting underway again for the year, we were, and were not, shocked at yet another school shooting. Minneapolis, this time. In a church school during a Catholic mass, of all things. Two children, ages 8 and 10, dead. Seventeen other people injured by gunfire: 14 children ages 6 to 15, and three adults in their 80s who were parishioners in the church.

I went online to get more information. There was the usual partisan finger-pointing. "She's a transgender!" "The rifle contained various inflammatory remarks about the president!" "It's those _______ again."  You fill in the blank: Republicans, Democrats, gun "enthusiasts," trans-rights advocates, trans-rights adversaries.

We Americans tend not to wish to discuss the hard topics in a meaningful way, preferring to shout invectives on radio call-in shows or type them on Facebook. We're dazed and confused and it's easier to to turn away.

So, no one seemed willing to delve into the matter of how it is that someone clearly mentally clouded can have access to murder weapons. That entire issue got the shunt, off to the side, while the national zeitgeist turned to the important matter of Taylor Swift's engagement ring, placed on her third-finger-left-hand by America's Big Bother, Travis Kelce.

These are the words of a person who makes it her business to follow Ms Swift.

"This ring deserves our attention for a moment. The symmetry and the choice of a diamond definitely put it in the classically elegant category, and it’s certainly on the old-timey side (look at Taylor, reaching for the eternally chic, Olsen twin-beloved old mine cut).... Calling it now: This is the inflection point at which bezel settings become the official hottest trend in engagement jewelry.

I didn't know the Olsen Twins were involved in all this, but, anyway, I don't see anything so bad about the ring. Lots of people spent their afternoons weighing in on it.  As Alex Holley from FOX29 Philadelphia put it, if you're giving Taylor Swift an engagement ring, you'd better spend a million on it. She is used to the big and elaborate, and I think this ring is just her style.  And she is the one who will wear it, so be happy for her.

And I'm being told I misspelled "brother," as in "Big Brother," above, but it's too late. I already hit "enter."

Wined it up

Calling all oenophiles! You who appreciate wine and know how to pronounce "oenophile" (I'm the latter only) appreciate restaurants like La Popote, a French joint in Northern England where the hosts reach out to those who don't care for fermented grape juice by offering...three different bottled waters, four sparkling waters (and free tap water, if you wish) along with your choice from a wine rack boasting 140 varieties of wine.

Actually, I might be wrong there. Maybe the wine rack isn't boastful at all. 

This is getting to be some deal, serving fine water to those disinclined to have wine. "Installez-vous confortablement, et buvez une bière,*" as we say in Baltimore County's luxe French Quarter. 

But the head cheese at La Popote is reading that fewer people are sucking up alcohol. Here in America, it crosses the lips of 58% of us, down from 67% three years ago. It's probably the same all over, so bring on the water, Pierre!

 

This is Joseph Rawlins and Gaëlle Radigon, owners of La Popote. 

As a kid who was raised on well water, I know what good drinking water tastes like, and it doesn't taste like well water. I do think it's funny that TDS plays a part in how good your water is, TDS in this case standing for "Total Dissolved Solids,"  - the measurement of minerals in water. That's what makes water tasty.

So now we know: you don't need wine, and TDS is a good thing. 

OK.

___________________________________________________________

* Take it easy. Drink a beer.

Squirrely

Baseball card collectors, save your coffee and burger money and get ready to add this to your box of cardboard.

You see, last Friday there was a ballgame as Yankee Stadium pitting the New York Yankees against the Boston Red Sox. 9 players at a time per side, plus a pitcher, and out of that was born a new star.

The game stopped in the fourth inning that night as the giant crowd sat transfixed, watching the athleticism of an eye-catching performer. This performer wore not the Yankee home white or the Red Sox road light gray uniform, but a darker gray, like the fur of a squirrel.

Max Fried of the Yankees was on the mound in the top of the fourth inning when a squirrel ran onto the field. 

Fried told reporters, "That's the first time it's happened to me. My first reaction was, 'Don't do anything that might embarrass you.' I thought it was just going to run around, but it came straight to me and went in the little hole I created on the mound."

"At one point, I think I just said, 'OK, buddy, let's go,'" Fried said. "He just did his thing. It's definitely a little strange, but it's all in good fun."

After the staredown, Squirrely Joe ran off to foul territory, and made his exit through the chainlink fence out near the scoreboard.

And if he was sent to bring the Yanks good luck, that wasn't happening. They lost, 1-0.

But for $8.99, Topps will sell you a trading card about the rodent's big night. Your collection is not complete without it!

Swap you!

There are now airport versions of the Little Free Libraries we see sprouting up on lawns out by the mailbox, and although our Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI) is not among them yet, someone is bound to get one going.

You're asked to "Take a Book - Leave a Book" but there are no deputies around to make sure you do a one-for-one. I don't think that's the spirit of the LFLs anyway. The goal is to get people to share books, and anything that accomplishes that goal is noteworthy. I always stop at the one in Perry Hall off Belair Rd near Planet Fitness. I have scored some decent "reads" there, too!

There is a keychain exchange in Towson's tony Rodgers Forge neighborhood, too! This is a great idea in every part of every city that's lucky enough to have people want to share.

And with school back in session, the always popular lunch exchanges will be taking place. I'll trade a peanut butter and pickle sammy for some sweet Lebanon bologna!

The Maze of Maize

You've seen those aerial photos of corn mazes, and some have words cut into them, right?

We see them, here far from corn country, and we think, aww that's cool, and then move on to the next reel.

But there is a planning and scheduling involved in those messages. Take it from Tim Sullivan, who got the idea to send a corngram to his girlfriend asking her to be his wife way back in April.

In Ohio, where the corn grows tall, Tim wanted his girl Caroline Liggett to tie the knot, so he got a computer program on the case and some help from a friend who's a crop consultant.

Armed with all this know-how, Tim got on his tractor on the family cornfield (13 acres) and planted 75-foot-long letters spelling out  “Will you marry me, Caroline?”

Corn seeds went in on June 3 and you could start to read the words by the 20th.

 “It’s kind of corny, but, you know … it’s what we live, it’s what we breathe,” Sullivan said.

BUT! He had to keep her away from the farm while the plants took shape, and even when they went raspberry pickin' in the field across the way, he worried that she'd start to read her surprise.

And then, when Tim asked Caroline if she would like to go up in a small plane or hot air balloon, he was scared when she said. "Absolutely not!"

Nonetheless, he persisted. (Sorry.) And he told her he was thinking about getting his pilot's license and that a friend was offering to take them both up in the sky, she finally gave in.

Up they went, and the first time the plane passed over the letters, she was looking the other way.  When the pilot doubled back, Tim revealed that he wasn't interested in learning to fly at all, but wanted to ask Caroline to marry him. 

“She was speechless,” Sullivan says. “I’ve never seen her smile so big.”

They landed, he popped the question on one knee, and she said yes! They took a romantic walk through the maze, which will soon be full of visitors for the farm's "Fall Fun Days," after which, the corn will be harvested for ethanol. 

Plans are underway for a wedding after next year's planting is done, with a sage green and yellow for their colors.

Caroline will tell you, though, it's not going to be yellow for the color of corn: “So many people outside of the industry would probably look at a corn maze and think that is really a cheesy way to ask somebody to marry you. But for us … what we live and breathe every day is feeding this world, and we’re passionate about that.”

 

Sunday Rerun: Later, he went to the roof to adjust the aerial

 THIS comes to us from the UK...the Mirror newspaper  (online version) ran this story and a picture.

Perched 34 storeys up, a daredevil flat-dweller leans precariously across a narrow ledge… to clean his windows.
The bare-chested spiderman took his life in his hands as he stepped out with a long-handled squeegee, clinging to the frame to steady himself.

His scary exploits drew gasps from other residents in the Jumeirah Beach area of Dubai.

One said: “He must have an incredible head for heights. One slip and he would have faced certain death.”

Happily the high-rise window cleaner disappeared safely back inside after his nerve-jangling once-over – and didn’t kick the bucket.

My thoughts are two:  a) the English have a funny way of spelling "stories," and b) do your windows need cleaning that muc

The Saturday Picture Show, August 23, 2025

This fool decided that the rest of the people who paid to see the ballgame would prefer to see him pirouette around the outfield and elude police until he didn’t. 

Stress relief, Irish style.

Painting of fire hydrants to look like squat little people began during the Bicentennial era. So as we approach the Demimooresesquecentennial era, hydrant morphing has made a triumphant comeback. 

Here's the deal: if you spot a steak that someone mis-weighed, grab it. Quick, before the meat department misses it!

I'd say, "Don't look down!" but it would be OK in this case, because this is a painted trompe-l'œil projection on a flat floor,  made to look 3-D. Still, someone will fall for it.

If you have a cat, and if there is the slightest little sliver of sunshine coming in, guaranteed, the cat will find it.

Climbing the spiral staircase to the observation area at Gibraltar, you might make a new friend. 

Ladies and gentlemen, these are the spacious skies and the amber waves of grain of which we sing.

I didn't know they had this kind of hot-air balloon! Not that I'll get any closer to one than this picture. 

This is either good news or bad, depending on the desired outcome. Whichever it is, it doesn't belong on the parking lot.

 

Cottage Industry

I don't mind telling you, I love cottage cheese and I think more people would try it and like it, if they could just get past the name and understand it doesn't taste like a cottage at all.

You put a scoop of cottage cheese on your plate and top it with a dollop of apple butter and you're in tall cotton, I want to tell you.

And now, cottage cheese is the thing among trendy food types, so the demand is, as they say, skyrocketing.

Sales of the lumpy dairy treat are up 20% this year, after bumps of 17% last year and 11% in 2023. The dairy guy at your Try'N'Save market is going nuts trying to keep it in stock. “I had to double check the numbers, but cottage cheese is actually a strong growth category,” said Susan Morris, the CEO of Albertsons (a big chain out west).

“Organic Valley Cottage Cheese is selling faster than we can make it,” said Andrew Westrich, marketing manager at Organic Valley.

Remember when Krispy Kreme donuts were all the rage for half an hour? Then everyone said this is nothing but sugar and no protein. Cottage cheese was happy to step into the donut hole, offering high protein and low sugar.

There are people online showing ways to make CC more fun and less lumpy.  But we like it Lumpy! Don't forget the apple butter, too!

Defined

Two things you can count on hearing around here, as summer prepares to hibernate and allow schools to open: one, of course, is the plaintive cry of Ocean City merchants, hoteliers, and maître d's that they barely made two nickels to rub together this summer, that they face economic devastation when all the coins are toted up this year, and may have to cut back on servants at their winter homes in France's tony Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur.

The winter home of the guy who sold you a t-shirt for $35.

And the other expression is "last hurrah," as in "Hurricane Erin might blow away some people's plans for one Last Hurrah down at the beach this weekend..."

We say that "Last Hurrah" all the time, referring to a final crack at something, so, waiting for the ballgame the other night, I looked it up. A last hurrah, defined as "any final attempt, competition, performance, success, or the like" is not all that old an expression. 

It's the title of a 1956 novel by U.S. author Edwin O'Connor (1918-1968), about a Boston politician running for office for the last time.

So now I know. And this will not be my last hurrah at looking stuff up!

Achooo!

We used to go to Amish County frequently, and besides the great chow at the smorgasbords up there, I miss the people. "Plain," they call themselves. Yes, because they don't go in for ritzy jewelry and designer labels and bizarre hairstyles. They are good, decent people, and I just found out another thing I like about them: they're not always sneezin' and scratchin' as we "English" are prone to do. (Up there, if you aren't Amish, you're "English.")

It's true: the Amish seem somehow virtually immune from allergies, be it pollen, dander, peanuts, whatever, they skate on by.

People who look into these things ran tests, and only 7 percent of Amish children tested  positive to common allergens in a skin prick test. For the rest of us, more than half get the miseries. And even kids from non-Amish farm families, who have lower rates of allergic disease than nonfarm children, are more allergic than the Amish.

Carole Ober, chair of human genetics at the University of Chicago, says, “Generally, across the country, about 8 to 10 percent of kids have asthma. In the Amish kids, it’s probably 1 to 2 percent. A few of them do have allergies, but at much, much lower rates compared to the general population.”

Good for them. So, why? Ober and others are trying to figure out why Amish and  other traditional farming communities are unique in this way. Maybe science could develop a treatment, like a probiotic or essential oil containing substances found in farm dust. Maybe that's the key.

I'd like to think that science and medicine and our magnificent pharmaceutical firms (!) can come up with something. I'd also like to think that my spring allergies will fade away soon to make room for the fall allergies on deck.

 

Hand in hand

We have a lot to learn from our cousins in the primate family, and the monkeys and apes and so forth have always been very patient in teaching us how to live better.  AND they don't make a big deal and rub it in because they don't go around buying trampolines or $2,000 bottles of wine.

And we are helping monkeys.  

Way down in Mississippi, at the Gulf Coast Primate Sanctuary,  April Stewart, the founder, has hopes that her monkeys will help victims of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder deal with the condition.

And she is finding a happy side benefit: it's good for the volunteers who work with the victims, as well. There are some 30 volunteers, some of whom are veterans such as Ms Stewart (Air Force).

 All in all, it comes down to monkeys who were once parts of families, but then were "surrendered" (the polite way to say "dumped") and people who suffered trauma in their days are learning together to trust again.

Ms Stewart, 51, says, “There’s something magical that’s happening here. There’s such a peace that we have.”

She herself suffered PTSD when, as a member of the Air Force Security Forces, she was sexually assaulted by a fellow service member in 1997. 

She soon thereafter left the USAF and left her PTSD unaddressed for years, until her youngest child left home to live on his own, and she suffered panic attacks and sleeplessness. She found that rescuing animals was a fine way to build herself up, so here came the dogs, cats, and monkeys to her home!

Louie, the monkey pictured below, came along in 2023 as a baby dropped off by someone unable to care for him. In 2023, Stewart adopted Louie, then still a baby, from someone who could no longer care for him. She met a man named Richard, who had volunteered to build animal enclosures for the rescue, but found help in the very act of helping others. He had not wished to leave his home for many years, but getting involved with the sanctuary changed all that. 

After a gas chamber training incident at Fort Knox in the 1980s, Richard dealt with PTSD and "crippling" anxiety. But now, when he sees "his little buddy" Louie, he feels good because his afflictions seem not to matter to the monkey and his other monkey friends.

"I don’t have to worry about talking to them,” said Richard, 64. “They can feel you without speaking.”

Richard still works on the enclosures for the primates, and finds it rewarding to build nice homes for them.

And you get the feeling that the monkeys are grateful, too!

 

 

Everybody talks about the weather

 I really do feel sorry for meteorologists. We depend on them to let us know if we can have our picnic or hike or hang the laundry outside, and if they get the forecast wrong (very rare!) we give them what-for!

I have heard reliable stories about weather forecasters being accosted by irate citizens while out in public buying groceries. "It rained on my daughter's wedding day! How dare you make it rain on her special day!"

Grrr.

And it's not just citizens that are the raspberry seed in their teeth. The poor weather people have to sit there while the news anchor gives them credit for a nice day or mildly berates them for rain. "Well, let's thank J.P. over in Weather Central 49 for a beee-yootiful day yesterday! How about that sunny sky!?"

Yes, thanks, J.P.

Here's the other thing. No matter what the meteorologist says online, he or she will get questions online, such as, "You said it's going to rain two weeks from Thursday. I live down in Painan Acres. Will it rain there, too? We have the soccer tournament that afternoon.

"I'm going skiing in three months! Can you tell me which mountain will get the most snow?"

"How should we dress next Friday evening for the cookout? Will my dotted swiss pantsuit be ok, or will we have a chill in the air? I really need to know. Thanks!"

And of course, any time a hurricane makes its way up the East Coast, everyone wants to know if it's safe to send the kids down to the beach any day in the next dozen.

These people have a hard enough job to do. Let them do it, and not deal with unanswerable questions.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. 

Sunday Rerun: Plumb Crazy

I was thrilled to read that the “Mona Lisa” has given up yet another secret.

Scientists who devote their lives to such matters got an X-ray to look into the chemical skeleton of a little teeny bit of paint from the treasured artwork, and now they know more than they used to know.

Look in your mailbox for the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (we all subscribe!) and you'll find the article that says Leonardo da Vinci was experimenting with new types of paint when he painted Mona way back in the 16th Century.

They have also ruled out any possibility that the rumor, which I started, that the painting was a paint-by-number project was true. 

Leonardo painted the portrait on a panel of poplar wood, and the scientists have concluded that he mixed up his own based layer to prepare the panel. It's a distinctive chemical preparation, and painters in the pre-Amazon had to make up their own supplies.

In the first layer of paint, researchers found a compound known as plumbonacrite. This proves the long-held theory that Leonardo used lead oxide powder stirred into his paint to thicken it and make it dry faster.

I don't know how they got the paint fragment, but they got a little chunk that was no larger than the diameter of a human hair from the top right corner of the masterpiece.

 The piece of paint was then put into a synchrotron, a machine that accelerates particles to almost the speed of light. It's such a great device that McDonald's is considering buying hundreds of them to install as soft ice cream dispensers, since the ones they have are always breaking down. 

You'll get your ice cream so fast at lunchtime, it'll be served with your breakfast!

 

The Saturday Picture Show, August 16, 2025

To protect the reindeer, Finnish farmers spray their antlers with light-reflective paint.




Behr Paints says "Hidden Gem" is the color of the year. It looks like "Elementary School Chalkboard" to me.




This is the real Smokey The Bear, saved from a New Mexico forest fire in
 1945. 

That's a real alligator, just a bit north of his usual surf. He was found in a lake in Bucks County, PA. Authorities figure he was a pet who wore out his welcome...

These little plastic nuggets are on their way to becoming Lego pieces. For now, they could play the part of "corn" in a Green Giant ad.

Art by Josh Byer entitled "Runaway Cow." It's nice that it packed a bindle for the road.

 

That's Lafayette Baker, a Union spy and investigator, in the center, leading the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth after the Lincoln assassination. They gave Patton Oswalt that Baker name in the TV series "Manhunt," which I have never seen, but he was great on "King of Queens," so maybe we should see it.

I love the Maryland Flag so much! It even looks great in Las Vegas on the Sphere.

Elizabeth Eaton Rosenthal, 84, of Brooklyn, NY, favors green, and has worn nothing but green clothing for 25 years. Match Game question: "Elizabeth's friends see her dressed this way daily and are _____ with envy." 

These are the only two photos in existence that show all four tones of tigers. The one second from the left on the bottom is from Cincinnati, I know. I will Burrow as deeply as I need for a joke.

I love noises

If you've ever been a teacher, a preacher, or some who conducts life-insurance seminars, you’re familiar with the sound of snoring. 

Notice, I was smart enough not to mention "husband" or "wife."

Anyway, if you or someone you love is a snorer, the solution to your snoring - and the medical term for snoring is stertor (from the Latin stertere, meaning 'to snore') - may be as close as the nearest conch shell.

Studies are telling the doctors that blowing air to make a noise through a conch shell may alleviate symptoms of Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), and that's what snoring is all about.

Why is that, you might ask?

Well, conch shell blowing involves inhaling deeply and forcefully exhaling through the shell. The noise comes from the vibrations created, and the airflow resistance. This gives you better muscles in the throat and the soft palate, and those are the very muscles that collapse if you have OSA. 

A study concluded that people who regularly practiced conch blowing aren't as sleepy during the day, sleep better at night, and deal with fewer breathing interruptions. 

A word of caution: a separate study concluded that people who go around making noises in seashells often go to bed earlier than they wanted to, and often have been smacked silly before retiring for the night. Just sayin'.

 

The Wrong Brother

I used to smoke cigarettes, and it was tough to give them up for good (9/17/88 at 10 AM, but who's counting?)

But even at my nicotine-eist, I could have gone two hours without a smoke. 

Nguyen and the FA who brought him up short.

Peter Nguyen can't, so when he was on an airplane August 4 headed to San Francisco from Phoenix, he went into the restroom of the plane and took "one puff" from his vape device, which is that thing that makes a person blow steam like a teakettle.

A flight attendant barged in on him and made him stop. He replied that he is an influencer with 25,000 followers, and also claimed to be a lawyer.

The attendant said she didn't care what he is or is not, but he is NOT going to be puffing on the plane. He said he was sorry.

"You can keep saying you’re sorry, but I care about all these passengers," the flight attendant replied.

Smoking of any kind, including vaping, is illegal on an aircraft. It's a federal offense.

Nguyen now says, "I wish I never picked up a vape to begin with," but he was having nicotine withdrawal.

"It sucks knowing in order to be myself, I have to have nicotine," said Nguyen. "I feel so helpless."

And now he says he wants to give up his battery-powered joy stick because, "The more you do it, like, the less effective it is. "It's like your body builds a tolerance to it."

It's not easy giving up the nicotine addiction, but it's easier than making a patootie of yourself on a plane. Get some nicotine pouches or gum and join the smoke-free generation! The Wright Brothers will applaud you.

Think of how impressed your followers will be! Maybe one of them is a real lawyer, and could tell you how wrong it is to claim to be one. 

 

Safe!

I have to wonder why some people - most of them being male, but not all - are so quick to hoot and holler at Jen Pawol being given a chance to advance to the major leagues in her chosen field, that of umpiring baseball games.  

She's 48, so she didn't just ride in here on a turnip truck. She called more than 1,200 games in the minor leagues, the crucible for getting to the bigs, and when the Marlins and Braves had a doubleheader scheduled over the weekend, an extra person was needed on the umpire crew, and she got her chance.

And she did well, scoring a 93% accuracy on balls and strikes, according to the Statcast system of rating officials. That's right up there with many fulltime MLB umps.

 

With camera replays and technology that didn't even exist in the imagination back in the day, umpires are subject to a lot more scrutiny. This has been a change for the better. One can cite countless cases of wrong calls back before replay was available, and nothing could be done. A Detroit pitcher years ago had one out to go for a perfect game, and  MALE ump Jim Joyce called a guy safe at first, when people three counties over could see he was out. But in those days, the only voice that mattered was not a camera or a computer, just one man. 

Now the man or woman who makes the calls has all the tools he or she needs to make a correct decision, and that's good. 

As to why some people don't want to see a woman do the job, ask them! The answers are ridiculous versions of "It's a man's game!" or "But we've never had a woman ump before!" 

Well, you do now. Get with it. She will make mistakes, just like the men. She will please people and anger people in her days, but the ultimate accolade to pay to any official is that you watch the game and don't even notice who's in blue. 

When we get to that point, we'll be better off.

 

Good Call

If you've worked with, or known, the kind of guys who can tinker with electronics and turn what you thought was junk into a functioning radio or VCR or whatever, then you've known guys like Patrick Schlott, from out of Tunbridge, Vt. He is an electrician in his work career, and now, living in rural Vermont, he saw a way to turn his hobby into something good for everyone around. 

Electronics wizards like Patrick do things like doodling around with old pay phones, and he realized that penchant could provide a valuable public service out in the country. 

“I realized, wow, there’s no cell service for 10 miles in either direction,” he said. “The community could really benefit from something like this.”

Think about it...you never see pay phones around anymore, and that can be a problem when you're in a jam five miles from Smallville and you need to reach someone. So Schlott asked the owners of the general store out his way if he could put a refurbished coin phone outside the store. He's also installed them at the local public library, and at the information booth down by interstate 89.

There's no cost to the hosts, or to the user. Schott rounds up the old payphones and rigs them up to work via the wonderful internet. "Basically, there’s a small piece of equipment that converts an internet telephone line to an analog line that these phones can operate off of,” he said.

“Everyone’s pretty surprised, and they’re like, ‘Is that a real payphone? Does that really work?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it doesn’t cost any money now,’" said the general store owner, Mike Gross. "We’ve had people use it that broke down. It’s a great thing because service is so spotty in Vermont.”

So, instead of being out of touch, people out of cell phone range and unable to call Uncle Nutsy for a lift can make that call - for free - just because a guy took the time to do what so few have done, namely, figuring out what to solder to what. Good going!

.