The Saturday Picture Show, February 28, 2026

Teachers and others who deal with adolescents: we now know that it was Johnny Carson and James Stewart who started this 6-7 craze a long time ago. And they don't care!

You have seen the fabled ivy walls of Chicago's Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs. This winter, they were doing maintenance on the brickwork, so the ivy was carefully removed and stored in a special greenhouse of sorts. Let's hope it's back for opening day!

Consider the work, the dedication, and the basic athletic talent that led Alysa Liu to be the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympic women's figure skating gold medalist. And remain a very cool person as well! 

I have long been in favor of lengthy prison terms for anyone who does anything untoward to a library book. You dog-ear a book or write in it, you're off to the Ironbar Hilton for sixty days, wise guy!

I hope this officer charges this galoot with everything in and off the books, including the 1864 Crédit Mobilier scandal. Way to go, pal.

Honey! I think the milk expires on Monday, but don't ask which Monday. 

They usually cover up the zipper after they finish the brick part, but here is a secret construction secret.

Today's free wallpaper is a close-up view of a glass marble.

Why go all the way to Callahan Auto Parts for the right door latch for the Oldsmobile? Take the knob off the shed door and don't tell anyone!

An ambulance and a school bus got married and here's their first baby!
 

Ferris Wheeler's Day Off

Up in Phoenixville, Pa., where they are proud to have been named (by Travel & Leisure) as the best small town in America last year, they are hoping to celebrate 2026 by bringing a big deal back to town.

It's the Phoenix Wheel, the oldest amusement wheel in existence, which thrilled 'em by the hundreds from 1895 to 1988 in Asbury Park, N. J.  It's coming back to where it was crafted way back when, but don't get too excited about going for a spin up in the air, because it's coming back as a still statue, brightly illuminated for the boys from the local high schools, who will be sure to climb up there.

78' high and 68' feet wide, the wheel is being reassembled now, rising from the junkpile right in the center of Phoenixville. They hope to have it back together next spring at a newly-cleared plot of land adjacent to the Township Building and the French Creek Trail.

Plenty of parking for the High School High Climbers

“The Phoenix Wheel's revival is more than just restoring an artifact,” said Barbara Cohen, President of the Schuylkill River Heritage Commission, a non-profit museum that "celebrates the industrial legacy of Phoenixville and the Schuylkill River." 

“It’s about community, heritage, resilience, and the power of preserving Phoenixville’s unique history for future generations," Ms Cohen concluded. 

It's a two-million dollar project, and I can't wait to see the first "Class of '27" graffiti adorn it. 

Count 'em!

 Who enjoys rolling up a sleeve on a freezing Tuesday morning so that someone can stick a needle in it and suck blood out of a vein? 

I don’t mind it. It's for a physical,  so they need the juice. And the people at the Quest lab are remarkably friendly at what some consider an awful hour ( 7 AM) and in no time at all, I'll be tuckering down to a great breakfast as soon as I cook it.

On my way out, two ladies were sitting in the waiting room, so I chatted with them. I'm an irrepressible chatterbox. And one of them said to me, as I donned my hoodie (Alabama)  and cap (Orioles), "Have a blessed day!"

Well, ma'am, thank you for that! I am fortunate to be blessed. I look at my life and I can't help but be grateful for all my blessings! I have love (the greatest and most patient wife, friends and family), health (thanks in part to a tremendous squad of doctors and my own stubbornness), a marvelous house (come see our new front door latch, expertly installed by Easter Lock & Key!) and all the happiness this old heart can hold.

And laughter. What a blessing that is. Did you hear the one about the old man and his blog?

Things Change

If you remember watching the Baltimore-centric movie "Diner," you'll recall a scene in which Kevin Bacon is drunk and rambunctious, lying amid the outdoor crèche scene at a church.  That church, in the middle of a very nice neighborhood in Towson, is known as First and St. Stephen’s Church, and according to Céilí Doyle in the Banner newspaper, the church building, its land and stone parsonage have all been sold to a man from the neighborhood for $1.1 million.

The congregation now numbers just 20 people. Church attendance is way down in this country.  Twenty years ago, 42% of American adults attended religious services on the regular. Ten years ago, that number was 38%. Today, it's 30%.

I'm not about to list all the reasons for the decline, but it's fair to state that if more adults felt services were relevant to their lives, they would be there. Not to drag Yogi Berra into this blog for a second time this week, but as he said about baseball attendance, "If people don't want to come, how are you gonna stop them?"

No. I'm not here to discuss church attendance. But what's happening here in an affluent community with First and St. Stephen’s must be happening in hundreds of churches, temples and mosques around the country.

Instead of it being a religious issue, it becomes a matter of commercial real estate. There are churches around that have become taverns, libraries, senior centers and what-have-you. Faced with a dwindling membership, First and St. Stephen's sold out to Steve McIntire, whose plan for the property involves selling off the parsonage as a private home, and turning the church into a community or recreation center. 

The church building, with the parsonage in the far left

There's a preschool downstairs, which will continue to operate. Stacking on a few more leases, as McIntire puts it, will leave the building reconfigured but still serving the community.

As Emily Perl, president of the church’s governing body, says, “As a church we have to morph and change, and that’s what we’re doing.”

People change, the nature of the building will change, but it will still continue to serve the public in a meaningful way.

And who knows? Someday, some people might want to turn it into a church again!

What the shell

For my money, and there isn't much of it, you can keep your raw kale and your sauteed blowfish and your coriander-honey pomegranates. I have always felt that the best snack is right in a shell, and now we know that this simple little treat can  supercharge blood flow in our brains. You might have guessed, that's a vital function that gets a bit weaker as we get older, which must be happening to me, since almost all of my mail and email seems to be about moving to some Seniorville where life is a pleasant dream of companionship, fine chow, and round-the-clock health care.

And speaking of, the treat I mention here is good for your memory and also for your heart health, so the ticker will keep ticking fine.

Here's the dealio: Researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands took (not forcefully, I hope) 31 healthy adults ages 60 to 75 - just a bunch of kids! - and got them to eat just over two ounces of unsalted, skin-roasted peanuts every day for 16 weeks.

Blood tests at the onset, halfway mark, and finish line of the trial showed "a significant improvement in brain vascular responsiveness, or the ability of their blood vessels to widen and constrict to regulate blood flow."

And after the 16 weeks, participants’ global cerebral blood flow (CBF) was up by 3.6%.

“CBF is an important physiological marker of brain vascular function and refers to the amount of blood that flows through the brain, delivering oxygen and nutrients that are essential for maintaining brain health,” Dr. Peter Joris, the study’s author, said in a statement. 

(Wouldn't it be great if Dr Joris's nickname were "Peter Pan"?)

So eat your peanuts every day and make friends with an elephant! Don't forget.

Sacred Grounds

Toward the end of his legendary playing career with the Yankees, Yogi Berra got up from behind the plate and played left field, to save his knees from all the squatting a catcher has to do. 

And so it was that Yogi was in left for the Yankees in game 7 of the 1960 World Series, and it was his sad task to watch the winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning sail over his head and into the history books. That leadoff homer was hit by Pittsburgh Pirate third baseman Bill Mazeroski, who died last week at 89.

They saved a portion of the outfield wall in Pittsburgh as a memorial to that 1960 team. It's not in the original location where Forbes Field once stood, rather, it has stood, restored and placed on the Riverwalk outside of PNC Park since 2009 to honor that 1960 championship.

If those bricks could talk

I'm all for celebrating the past like this. Sparks Elementary School in northern Baltimore County burned down in 1995 (irony noted) and the school board kept the old threshold in place, even though the school was rebuilt several miles away on Belfast Rd.

The County also kept historic old entrances intact at Martin Boulevard Elementary School and Essex Elementary down on the east side after big fires. I can't say for sure if those entryways are intact; I don't get down that way anymore, to be honest. Someone will know!

And, on the site of the old Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, the YMCA has offices and a multipurpose athletic field on the sacred ground once trod by Johnny Unitas and Brooks Robinson. In fact, home plate there is the exact location as the old ballpark had it.

I think it's very cool when we can honor the past without paving it over. 

 

Sunday Rerun: The Hand That Rocks

 You won't believe this (or at least you won't want to believe it) but there is a preacher, to wit, a Bishop, named Edir Macedo who says that "daughters should not be allowed to seek out higher education because if they do they will be smarter than their husbands."

Oh yes he did!

Bishop Macedo is with the very well-known Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, and he unwisely continued to speak, explaining that it's his belief that he didn't want his daughters to attend college because he believes that "an educated woman cannot have a happy marriage."

I'm sure that by this time, someone much wiser than he was begging him to call it a day or a night or a career, but he droned on, saying that higher education is not for women because they supposed to “serve God” and not themselves:

"When they (his daughters) went out, I said they would just go to high school and they wouldn’t go to college. My wife supported me, but the relatives found it absurd. Why don’t you go to college? Because if you graduate from a particular profession, you will serve yourself, you will work for yourself. But I don’t want that, you came to serve God."

And there's more:

"Because if … she was a doctor and had a high degree of knowledge and found a boy who had a low degree of knowledge, he would not be the head, she would be the head. And if it were the head, it would not serve God’s will."

"I want my daughters to marry a male. A man who has to be head. They have to be head. Because if they are not head their marriage is doomed to failure."

SO, The Bish says that only by submitting to man can a woman find happiness.

AND he's not alone in this.

There is a "Christian" radio host Jesse Lee Peterson who says that you won't find good wives and/or mothers among the educated.

He sayeth:

"Women, God has given you the gift of being the assistant of the man, to watch over his children, to make sure things are well at home, to be there when the kids come home, to cook, clean, provide in that way. There is no greater job for a woman than that. And I don’t know why these men would marry these women if they don’t have that mindset. It’s like being married to another man. It’s selfishness, it’s not love."

"Men, you need to come back to your proper state of being so God can give you the right kind of woman to marry. I wouldn’t recommend you marry these educated women with these degrees; they don’t make for good wives and mothers."

Ever see a woman do this? No.  And you won't.

Owing to a rare outburst of common sense, I have chosen to let these men speak for themselves here. They feel that uneducated women make the best spouses, and urge men seeking female mates to look for one unschooled.

They don't want men to get involved with women smarter than themselves.

But if they listen to this mindless blather, they aren't going to find anyone as foolish as they are.

Most men have all they can do to be as smart as they were yesterday, and most women are smarter than tomorrow already.

The Saturday Picture Show, February 21, 2026

 

If you see odd markings like this on your barn door, check this glossary to see if the local hobo is trying to tell you or his friend something. To be honest, I only posted this because I always go out of my way to find a reason to say "hobo."

This is a bit of a reach, but with only 130 days until my birthday, here's my annual reminder that the one piece of art I desperately crave for hanging on my den wall is a sketch - a 'simple charcoal rendering,' as they say on The Simpsons - showing me as rendered by a courtroom sketch artist. With the possible exception of boardwalk Spin-Art, there is no more American artform extant.

I hope you agree that the cracker aisle is just not the same since Stoned Wheat Thins went away to the same place where Wheatsworth disappeared. Where oh where am I to shmear my Camembert?

Six more weeks of winter! The pea plant sprout saw its shadow.

This is why Franklin D. Roosevelt was a great man and president. 

Two things about this headline amuse me: the fact that there is such a thing as a double-yolk Dino egg, and that a literal reading means that scientists were buried for 68 million years and still made this discovery.

I used to take sport in calling places like this, just to hear the receptionist chirp, "Flossmore Dental! How may I help you today?"

On my way to Towson, back in the day, over by Bob Davidson Ford, someone posted a sign on the telephone pile reading simply "When?" I hope they got a good answer.

This doggie ran out in the snow and did not take long about changing its mind. We might get more snow tomorrow evening, or then again, we might not, but this dog is staying in.

I don't know which international border(s) we've crossed here, but just in Baltimore County, we have Texas, Nottingham, Jacksonville, and Phoenix, and the charming town of Boring. So Paris can't be too far away.

How can you mend a broken heart?

If you remember the good old days in the late 1980s, MTV had a game show called "Remote Control." It had everything I could ask for in a game show...a young Adam Sandler, TV trivia questions, losing contestants being physically ejected from the recliner chairs they sat in, and Kari Wuhrer.

Kari was not the quizmaster - that was Ken Ober - but she was more than just a letter-turner, taking fun parts in the skits and questions that made up the show. And woe unto anyone who pronounced her name like "Carrie"! It's KAHRRY!

But, as things go in show business, the last few years have not been so happy for her. I follow her on Instagram; she recently lost her dad, and feels that her ex-husband has cheated her out of a lot of money. I'm not a doctor, but I have to agree with Kari, who writes on Insta that she is just out of the hospital, suffering from..

"Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. Or broken heart syndrome put me in the hospital for 8 days. I can’t thank my family and friends enough for the support and concern..."

I don't need to repeat this; I am not a doctor, so I will quote from the American Heart Association: "Takotsubo syndrome, or broken heart syndrome, is a temporary heart condition often triggered by intense emotional or physical stress (e.g., grief, fear, or severe illness), resulting in sudden chest pain and shortness of breath. It causes temporary dysfunction of the left ventricle, resembling a heart attack, but without blocked coronary arteries. The condition, which disproportionately affects postmenopausal women, typically resolves within 1–4 weeks with supportive care."

So, if someone or something "breaks your heart," that old expression might be more accurate than we know. It's sad to live in a world which Roger Miller once described as "A world so full of love yet not enough to go around."

Sweet healing, Kari, and may 2026 be a better year for you!

Call the Llama Squad

Any police officer worth his or her salt knows that it's good to take help from non-police in cracking a case, even if the help in question walks on four hooves instead of two feet, and makes a laughing kind of sound to alert others in the area that there's trouble afoot...or on hoof.

The scene is Derbyshire, England, where last week, psychiatric nurse Heidi Price came home after a long day at work and found her road jammed with police cars.

And they were telling her partner, Graham Oliver, that their llamas were heroes. Which is not a sentence many people hear in the course of their lives. But what happened was, Oliver came home and let the couple's dogs out to run around their farm, and that's when he heard their llamas hollering.

"It's quite a weird and haunting sound,” Oliver said. “It sounds like someone laughing.”

There are eight llamas on the farm, and they were forming a circle around a man in a black puffer jacket. Oliver found out that the man was cutting through the farm to get away from the law.

The rogue claimed he had gotten in through a hole in the fence, but Oliver, who also has cattle and peacocks on the farm, asked to see this purported hole, worried that a critter or two might get out through it. But instead of showing the bad spot in the fence, Oliver said, the man ran for it.

He saw the police on the edge of his property and told them what was going on, and what do you know? They were looking for a man in a black puffer jacket too! The police told Oliver to be wary of the guy, because he had stolen two of tobacco from a woman near by.

The police soon found the thief with the llamas keeping him in custody, thanks to the llama squad, and took him off to the Ironbar Hilton, charged with petty theft and not at all ready to tell the tale of his apprehension to his buddies.

“They acted responsibly, efficiently, in an organized manner,” Nurse Price told the local news. “Quite frankly, I think they did pretty good police work.”

 

Bow Wow

Yesterday being the Lunar New Year, the Chinese custom of visiting loved ones to bring them wishes for the new year is still in place, but there was a mobile app that let you hire proxies who would go and literally bow to your aging relatives. Until now, that is, because the app has been taken down at the urging of the People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper, and many others.

"Filial piety should not be commoditised," said one commenter, and so that's that. You will have to go see the old folks in person!

With all these duties and obligations by custom, there has come to be a lively business in what is called China's "hire-anyone-for-anything" service sector. And the for-hire folks were ready to deliver the goods. One advertisement showed a person in an orange uniform on their knees, bowing their forehead almost to the floor, as an elderly couple beamed with delight.

This was not going to be cheap. The bowing-to-the-old folks package would have cost  999 yuan ($144.77) but now you can just drive on over to your relatives' house and bow to them yourself.

If they're anything like American old-timers, they will have a nut dish out with all the good nuts (cashews, Brazils, pistachios) already claimed, leaving an assortment consisting mainly of peanuts, most of which have their jackets half off, like they don't want to be there either.

For those planning to come over and wish old Mark and Peggy a happy Lunar New Year, the driveway is just about clear of that snow and ice, and we have some of those tube cookies we can toss in the oven for you.

This seems like a worthwhile custom to me. The young, which I once was, should venerate the old, which I am. And when I was young, I never would have balked at visiting Uncle Albert and Aunt Halsey, as long as they were going to put out a decent spread.

 

 

Pass the Maple Surple!

I need to run over to the supermarket around the corner and hope that I get there this morning before the bus from the old folks' home  Senior Living Center gets there.

(Don't worry. I'm a card-carrying senior myself.  We're not ready to move out just yet, though. Check with me next week.) 

It's Shrove Tuesday! Pancake Tuesday! Pancake Day! The final day of the pre-lenten season known as Shrovetide. Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. 

The plan for Shrove Tuesday among Christians is making a deep confession (I have a long list), choosing a Lenten sacrifice (I can't tell you what I'm eliminating, but let's just say I'll need a smaller belt by Good Friday), and eating pancakes.

Why pancakes? It's a traditionally good way to give up rich, fatty foods like batter and syrup before the season of Lent, with its austere menus low in fats and sweets. This is why today is Mardi Gras - literally, Fat Tuesday. Gorge today and put the rules into practice for the 40 days beginning tomorrow!

This is what Peggy's will look like. If I'm lucky enough to find buckwheat flour, I'll be flapping a mess o' buckwheat cakes for myself.

Holiday

 

Today is the holiday legally known as Presidents Day. Not President's Day, or Presidents' Day. No apostrophe, just love and respect for the two born in February, seen as bookends here: Geo. Washington and Abe Lincoln.

Think about what they gave us, enduring legacies of justice and fairness. No, they weren't perfect, far from it, but they truly cared about this country, and you can't always say that about a president.

Sunday Rerun from 2022: Pub Mix

When we see the word "vogue," we usually think it's a typo, and the writer meant to say "vague." There is a lot of vagueness all up in here nowadays.

Or you might think of Madonna, who used to be popular. 32 years ago she had a hit song called "Vogue," in which people are advised to strike a pose and wait for people to notice them. 

Maybe "Vogue" reminds you of a woman's fashion magazine published by Condé Nast, in which a woman named Anna Wintour rules with a mighty hand over the Kingdom of Fashion and tells people what it's ok to wear. I recently sent an anniversary card to a polo shirt I bought in the waning days of the Bill Clinton presidency. It's khaki in color, and I wear it whenever the odds favor me getting some sort of goop  - spaghetti sauce, creamed spinach, butterscotch ice cream topping - all down the front of me, because every stain comes out of this shirt with just a pre-wash squirt of blue Dawn dish detergent and a little marinating. I feel certain that even if I put the shirt out in the Goodwill pickup bag, the next day I would find it hanging on the front lamppost, all neatly laundered, ironed, and hanging on a hanger.

Or you might know about a little village in England named Vogue, but the chances are slim, unless you're from in the southwestern county named Cornwall. 4,500 people live in Vogue; it's the kind of town that used to be in the movies. Everyone knows everyone!

A man by the name of Mark Graham happens to own a pub there; it's called The Star Inn at Vogue. Not long ago he got a letter from Condé Nast that I suppose was meant to instill fear in him, but it didn't, since he had no idea who or what "Condé Nast" is.

The letter began: 

“Dear Sirs, 

Our company is the proprietor of the Vogue mark, not only for its world-famous magazine first published in November 1916 but in respect of other goods and services offered to the public by our company.”

An adz (woodworking tool)

So you get the deal. The letter broadly hinted that people who don't know their adz from their elbow might think this Cornish neighborhood watering hole has some connection to a snooty fashion rag, and states that Graham should consider changing his bar’s name “to avoid problems arising.”

“My first reaction is that my customers were having a laugh,” Graham told The Washington Post.

But then Mr Graham Googled Condé Nast and saw that these purveyors of silly pictures of silly people wearing tarpaulins were a BFD - a big financial deal - that took in $2 billion last year because P.T. Barnum was right about how often suckers are born. That made Graham realize, “They were absolutely serious.”

Graham and his wife Rachel live above the pub; it's literally the nexus of their lives and has been for 17 years. Locals come for the ale and pie and stay for club meetings or to talk about football or knitting or whatever. It's a popular place among people who haven't the slightest idea what some American magazine thinks of their clothing. 

For two weeks, everyone talked about this apparent shakedown, and then Graham wrote his reply:

“Whilst I found your letter interesting on the one hand I also found it hilariously funny on the other. If a member of your staff had taken the time to investigate they would have discovered that our company, the Star Inn, is in the small village of Vogue, near St. Day in Cornwall.”

He went on the tell the magazine people that the word "Vogue" has been in use for hundreds of years in the Cornish dialect, meaning a tin house. And he pointed out that Madonna did not seek his permission to release her hit record in 1990.

“In answer to your question of whether we would change the name of our company, it is a categoric NO,” Graham wrote, but he did invite the addressees to stop by for a beer and a free lunch.

On May 13, Condé Nast finally replied with a letter from an English staffer saying they were "grateful to learn more about your business in this beautiful part of our country.”

“I am sure you will appreciate why we regularly monitor use of the name VOGUE," wrote Christopher P. Donnellan. “However, you are quite correct to note that further research by our team would have identified that we did not need to send such a letter on this occasion.”

At first, Graham said he was still "miffed" (madder than "vexed," less mad than "irked") and called this whole thing a case of "a big multinational company trying to stomp on the little guy.” But then, along came a framed apology to hang up in the pub, and all is cool.

 

The Grahams and the letter that put everything right.

I often think of how much people like the CN executive who decided to hassle these nice innkeepers are paid to sit in offices and do foolish things. I'll let you know if they have any openings.

The Saturday Picture Show, February 14, 2026

 

Abandoned schools, churches, warehouses, all sad, but there is nothing on earth more heartbreaking than seeing an abandoned Taco Bell.

We had the big snowfall, covered in ice, on January 25, and just yesterday, I saw some grass peeking out from the mini-arctic on the edge of the yard. We will remember this one for a while!

This piano washed up on the shore by the Brooklyn Bridge.  Word is, it once belonged to a washed-up piano player.

If it's time to "have the talk" with your children about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees, please be patient and kind. They will answer all of your questions right away!

Men know what to buy their partners for Valentine's Day, and women in the know, know their man wants a dozen ham and salami roses!

It's unisex, and it's for all levels of discomfort.

I'm told this is a game among the kids, to holler, "Guess what?" and the expected answer is "Chicken Butt." Did that come before hollering "6-7" about everything?

Dear WV Governor Patrick Morrisey: You know what else is affordable! A dictionary, to help your staff spell the name of their state correctly.

This week in 1964, the Beatles hit America, and the love never ends. But this week in America in 1964, TV was still in black and white, so we didn't see them in color until someone faked it later.

Bad Bunny did very well on the halftime at the game last week, and his crew even looked out for the people who performed as shocks of grass - notice the hydration bottles ready to go. Everyone knows, you have to water the grass!

That's a keeper

 Zach Wheeler is a pretty good pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, but this past September, he had thoracic outlet decompression surgery.  As we all know, that requires the removal of the first rib near our right shoulder.

Thoracic Outlet Decompression Surgery, or "TODS," as it likes to be called, takes away the pressure on your nerves and blood vessels in your thoracic outlet. To do so, skilled surgeons remove your first rib through an incision above the collarbone. I feel like we all know this, but for those who just got here, that's the deal. Healing begins as your surgeon looks around to find spare ribs for you, and often can get some with a tasty side of slaw with just one phone call.

Anyway,  Wheeler hopes to pitch again soon. He was doing great last year, until a blood clot turned up in his shoulder, leading to the surgery.

He showed up at the Phillies' spring training camp in Clearwater, FL, the other day, announcing that all was going well, and that the doctors made him a gift of that rib after the surgery.

He says it's sitting home in a case ready to display. “You have to do a bunch of stuff to it, so I guess it doesn’t decay,” he added.

In my spine, I have a part of a bone from a cadaver, someone generous enough to leave his/her body for spare parts. Every time I stand up nice and tall, I thank that person.

And several times, I have been accused of talking someone's ear off, but they never offer to let me keep it.

That's not the Norway

All I know about cheating on a significant other is that I never did it, but as a former country music DJ, I can play you plenty of songs about it.

The existentialist in me would say, if you're not in love anymore, end it and move along. But Sturla Holm Laegreid, the Norwegian skier, does not roll that way. He won the bronze in the 20km individual biathlon race at the Winter Olympics, and then bellyached that he couldn't really enjoy his third-place finish, what with his heart hanging heavy since he cheated on his girlfriend.

“It’s been the worst week of my life,” he told Norwegian broadcast outlet NRK.

“There’s someone I wanted to share it with who might not be watching. Six months ago, I met the love of my life — the most beautiful and kindest person in the world. Three months ago, I made my biggest mistake and cheated on her."

He goes on:  “I had the gold medal in life, and I am sure there are many people who will see things differently, but I only have eyes for her. Sport has come second these last few days. Yes, I wish I could share this with her,” he claimed. He would not say the name of the ex.

At the après-ski press gathering (I have waited for years to have some reason to use the term "après-ski"!) he lamented, “Of course, now I hope I didn’t ruin Johan’s day,” (Johan-Olav Botn, his fellow Norwegian, won gold in the event.) “I don’t know if it was the right choice or not, but it was the choice I made."

Speaking of the woman he claims to adore with all his Nordic heart, he said, “I made the choice to tell the world what I did so maybe there’s a chance she will see what she really means to me — maybe not, but I don’t want to think I didn’t try everything to get her back. My only way to solve it is to tell everything and put everything on the table, and hope that she can still love me.”

And here I was, thinking that these European skiers were the strong, silent types, taciturn, letting their skiing do the talking. The way this guy yammers on, it's a wonder he has the energy to pull on his ski boots.

OK, Sturla, here it is: you don't get a medal for cheating on your love. You're not supposed to do that! If she takes you back, she will always remember your treachery and deceit. That will put a permanent crimp in your get-along.

Next time, with whomever, try to keep it in your ski pants.

Bennu and the Jets

I always enjoy talking to a friend of mine who had a baby in 2012, and realized that the boy simply needs to live to be 88 yoa to ring in the year 2100!

And the older I get, the more I realize that 88 is not all that old, and also, I won't see 2100, but that young man will. He's only got 74 years to go! 

I bring this all up because no one around today - not I, not you, not that young man, and not even a baby born this morning will be around on September 24, 2182.  That's 156 years from now, and way out of reach for all of us currently bopping around on Earth - especially those who take health advice from RFK, Jr.

However - astronomers have worked out that date - 9/24/2182 - as arrival day for the asteroid Bennu. If The Big B hits Earth, the impact could be significant:  the impact could trigger a global winter, causing significant cooling (7°F cooler), 15% less rain, and 20-30% less photosynthesis, resulting in disrupted food security for years.

Now before you go running down to the fallout shelter to see if you have enough Charmin tucked away, as it were, you should know, the chance for Benny hitting earth is 1 in 2,700.

What's more, Bennu is only a medium-sized asteroid, maybe a third of a mile wide. That is much smaller than the 'roid that wiped out all the dinosaurs. 

So cheer up! You won't be around, and it might not happen, anyway.

And, for crying out loud,  Bennu is messy! He left behind all these space crumbs as he rocketed around!

 

Squeeze Me

My wonderful Peggy loves her morning orange juice, while I am a cranberry juice and seltzer breakfaster.

It won't bother Peggy one whit that Minute Maid's parent company is halting sales of frozen juice concentrates both here and in Canada, because fresh juices are selling more.

I know they make a big deal of labeling fresh juice "not from concentrate" as if it makes a big deal. Listen a minute! That "fresh" juice - it's not like someone just schqueezed it out of a dozen ripe Valencias right before you ankled in to the Try'n'Shop. It's been sitting in that waxy cardboard container since Hector was a pup.

When I was an associate of The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company - hereinafter known as "The A&P" - we sold tons of cans of frozen OJ concentrate, in the regular size and the BA size. For the same money, you could have Donald Duck brand, and we would even put the cans in a freezer bag for you, so you wouldn't have orange soup by the time you got home in August. 

Once home, you dumped the slushy citrus into a glass "juice jug" and reconstituted it with water, and there was your morning guzzle. You threw out the metal can. Now, everyone drinks it out of plastic bottles, which are filling landfills from sea to shining sea.

The juice jug usually had pictures of really old cars on it. 

This is progress?

I suggested this long ago, but no one liked the idea. I said, why not have America's favorite cartoon family advertise for frozen orange juice? Who wouldn't want to start their morning off with a tall glass of "OJ Simpsons"?

Early Edition

 In 2005, cornball chronicler-of-the-times Mitch Albom, along with four editors who were supposed to keep an eye on what Albom foisted off on the public, were suspended from the Detroit Free Press. That paper published a column Albom wrote, all about two college basketball players being in attendance at an NCAA tournament game, and how they reminisced about the good old days yada yada yada.

Problem was, the men were NOT at the game. In the trite style for which he became famous with the publication of "Tuesdays With Morrie," Albom wrote of  two former Michigan State players who had made it to the NBA coming back to cheer for their alma mater. The players told Albom they were going to the game, so he churned out his column on a Friday night for publication on Sunday, but they did not show up for the Saturday game. This stained his reputation and makes me question every single word he has ever written or will ever write.

In tribute to Mitch Albom, here is my breaking news story about last night's Superbowl. I must say in advance, I am uninterested in who won, so I am writing this in advance, and will depend on the copy editors at Blogger to make the necessary adjustments. Thanks everyone!

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Well, sir, wasn't that a helluva game? Congratulations to the (Seahawks) (Patriots) for a magnificent win in Super Bowl LX. Led by the deadly accurate passing of (Sam Darnold)(Drake Maye), the vaunted running attack featuring (Seattle's Kenneth Walker III) (New England's Rhamondre Stevenson) and the stout defense led by (Patriot outside linebacker K'Lavon Chaisson)(Patriot middle linebacker Ernest Jones IV).

The outcome of the game was in serious doubt all the way to the very end, when (Patriot star __________) (Seahawk great ____________) scored in unbelievable fashion, securing his team's hard-fought Super Bowl victory for the first time in  (12) (8) years.

Across the nation, fans put down their drinks and fajitas long enough to cheer the triumphant halftime show starring (Bad Bunny) (Kid Rock).

President (Donald Trump) (was) (was not) in attendance, but was still (gracious) (conscious) enough to extend congratulations to winning coach (Mike Vrabel) (Mike Macdonald).

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Thanks, editors! I had more fun watching (PBS British shows) (King of Queens reruns).

-MC