Sunday rerun: They Let George Do It

One person I wish I could have met during his lifetime (1927 - 2003) was George Plimpton.  For one thing, he didn't talk like anyone else I ever met.  Click on the link to see him do an Intellivision spot and listen to him, please!  That voice was Upper Northeast US Cultured, topped with Old Money Nasal and European Traveler.


Who was he? you may ask.  Well, George Ames Plimpton came from well-to-do parents, and just from the name alone you can tell that,  but they were of the always-been-well-off class, which doesn't always mean they are as rich as they might act.  He was of that group that didn't mind if their shirt collars were a little frayed or their Topsiders >>>were a tad bit run down at the heels.  He always appeared comfortable to me, is all I know.

So, come on, who was he, you keep asking.  Well, after college and Army service, he wound up in Paris in the early 1950's.  At that time, writers and artists from all over wound up in Paris once again, following the end of a World War.  George founded a literary magazine called the Paris Review in 1953 and spent the rest of his life involved with the magazine, whose circulation was maybe 1/10 of 1% of Reader's Digest or TV Guide, but it did contain works of fiction, poetry and art, as well as interviews with intellectual giants of the age, so there was merit in his work there.  Just not a lot of money.

For money, he wrote and participated in lots of events.  He came up with a whole new field of journalism, becoming a "professional amateur."  He performed in many venues and then wrote books and essays on experiences such as:

• playing quarterback for the Detroit Lions in an NFL exhibition game
• pitching to the National League All-Stars in their warmup game
• playing in a pro golf match
• playing the triangle in a symphony orchestra
• walking the high wire in a circus
• doing standup comedy
• playing tennis against Pancho Gonzales, a top pro of the era

And he became famous that way, so much so that he received the ultimate accolade of being the punch line in several New Yorker cartoons. 

He was also, on a sad note, a footnote in history, by being one of the men who wrested away the gun that Sirhan B. Sirhan had just used to assassinate Robert Kennedy.  Of all the interesting experiences that George had, that was one of which he would not speak or write for many years. 

If people speak of him today at all, it's because of Sidd Finch.  This was a character he created for the April 1, 1985 issue of Sports Illustrated, a guy who came out of nowhere but somewhere, had learned the yogic mastery of mind and body, enabling him to throw a baseball 160 mph.  George hired a guy to be photographed as Sidd and wrote the story up in such a convincing fashion that many people were fooled by it, until they took another look at the date of the magazine.

George had an amazing life and he was that rare patrician gentleman who was able to mix with people from all walks of life and then, once back in his office in New York, write about it so we all could share.  

Saturday Rerun: NASA's gone funky

Stop me if you've heard this story before.  It's true, and it says a lot about predictions.

Gaylord Perry was a major league baseball pitcher from 1962 - 1983.  When I say "major league," I mean it, because he pitched for just about every team in the major leagues.

His strong points as a pitcher were two: throwing spitballs, and making batters believe he was throwing spitters.  You know that putting a foreign substance on the ball - saliva, Vaseline, WD40, mayonnaise, tofu - is totally against the rules of baseball.  Wetting the ball makes the pitcher able to throw an elusive dipping pitch.  Making the batter think that an elusive pitch is coming his way is effective too - and drier!

Gaylord Perry

Gaylord won 314 games in the big leagues and was voted #97 in the Sporting News list of the 100 greatest baseball players.  This was not for his batting prowess.  In fact, his manager for the San Francisco Giants, Alvin Dark, said in 1964 that the US would put a man on the moon before Gaylord Perry hit a home run.

In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon one warm Sunday afternoon.  An hour after Apollo 11 got to the moon and found a parking spot, Gaylord Perry hit the first of his six career home runs. While Neil and Buzz flipped packages of Tang to see who would hop out first, Perry ran around the bases on earth while the astronauts were on the moon.

And I read about it in the SUN!

Homer Homer

Many people have gone to baseball games for all their lives in hopes of seeing a winning ballclub.

That wish is coming true this season for lots of people who weren't around prior to 1997, the last time the Orioles finished above .500

Many people go to games in hopes of catching a home run ball.  Or a foul ball.  Or a ground-rule double that hops off their field into their big tub o' beer.

But imagine catching the first major league home run ball hit by Oriole rookie Manny Machado, widely regarded as the future superstar of the club.

Adam Corder of Millersville MD did just that, last Friday night at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.  Machado deposited a fifth-inning Luke Hochevar pitch into Section 78, Row 14, right into the waiting mitts of 14-year-old Adam, making him the envy of souvenir hunters everywhere.

And then...

In the 6th inning, Machado connected for his second MLB homerun.  This time, the ball was caught in the same section by the same young Mr Corder.

Machado swings (SUN photo)

That has to be some sort of lightning-strikes-twice record.  Years ago Bob Feller, pitching for the Indians, threw a pitch that a batter hit foul into the stands...on Ladies' Day...and hit Feller's mother on the bean.  But that only happened once, I'm happy to say.

Adam Corder (SUN photo)

Adam traded the most valuable of the balls - the first one - to Machado for four signed balls and a bat.  He kept the second ball.


What a night!

Proverbs 5:18-19 – “... and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth."

And then we turn for news to Hammond, Indiana, where one of those megapastors with a megachurch (not to mention a wife) has lost his job because he was fooling around with a 16-year-old female.

Boys and girls will get together, I'll grant you that, but this fellow, Pastor Jack Schaap, is 54, making him 38 years older than the girl he was making out with in the picture that someone sexted to his cell phone while the deacon had Jack's phone in his hand.

This is more complicated than Victor Newman's womanizing, huh?

The interesting thing here, to me, is that the church, the First Baptist, with a seating capacity for 7,500 upright members, fired happy Jack for the sin of adultery.  They did not seem to mind the fact that his co-sinner was 16, but they did point out that he committed "a sin that has caused him to forfeit his right to be our pastor."

Oh, and his father-in-law was the founder of the church.

But wait!  There's more!  While they were sorting out the initial mess, another teenaged girl came along and said that she was messin' with the minister too.

Pastor Jack Schaap is now learning how to deal. His wife is mad at him for two-timing, and so is his girlfriend.

It should never happen

I saw this online the other day, and it made me sad...to think that it's time for school to start again, and to think that a certain amount of kids will have to endure bullying again.

I have Facebook friends who have been real life friends since we were in first grade together (there was no kindergarten or pre-k in our frontier upbringing.)  They would be able to verify that my size, my verbal dexterity and my all-around cocky attitude made me a non-target for bullies.  In fact, I can't recall anyone pushing me around, but I surely do wish that people today who see this stuff going on would do something about it.  We seem to be largely desensitized in this country; death and violence are served up on the news and in movies, tv shows and video games as if to be mistaken for entertainment. But today's mass killer might have been that kid who shoved other kids around on the playground twenty years ago.

Please help both of those kids.  Report it and follow through.  Make sure something is done, please.

And for those of you who have friends and a pack of kids to hang with: it wouldn't hurt to add a new person or two to your club.  I always found that new kids sometimes knew things that might come in handy at school.  Some of these things were even educational!

A reptile dysfunction

Consider the term, "alligator trainer."  Here's a story from ABC News about a guy who works for a traveling carnival attraction called "Kachunga and the Alligator Show." 

There must be a market for this; people just about break their necks reaching for their wallets to plunk down money to see this show. 

(And all I ever hear about is how the economy is so horrible that people "can't hardly make do no more." Sic.)

So, watch the video.  You get to see a bored-looking kid craning his neck around to see what else is going on at this carnival and then you hear the master of ceremonies ask the crowd if they, indeed, wish to see Dan stick his arm in the animal's mouth.  And the first time, Dan's cat-like reflexes don't fail him.  The second time, now, that was a bite.

I am hardly a PETA member, for such is my love of meat, fowl, seafood, and my leather jacket.  But common sense would tell us that alligators don't really enjoy having a human hand crammed into their toothy maws, and are likely to chew the hand that feeds them if they're feeling a bit cranky that day.

On the ABC video page, you'll also see a story from Las Vegas, where people have had the inconvenience of having first two, and then one, chimpanzee run through their neighborhood.   Again, people?  You want a pet, go to the Animal Shelter and pick yourself a dog or cat or one of each, for added family fun.  Chimpanzees, possessing seven times the strength of humans, make poor companions, and the only place an alligator belongs, outside of a swamp, is on your shirt.

One or the other

I know this makes me a maverick, a loner, a man of old fashion.  But, it's fashion that I'm thinking of here.

What is this current trend of men wearing full dress suits and leaving the tie at home on the rack? It seems incomplete somehow, like a lettuce and tomato sandwich with no bacon.

No man likes wearing ties,  and doing so is part of a penance that we all pay for some long-ago sin.  A tie cuts off air to the vital neckular area, leading to the heartbreak of neckular rash.  But still, for occasions such as weddings, homegoings, homecomings and supermarket openings, it's the thing to wrap around a man's neck.  We wear ties as adults for the same reason we did as kids:  "You just do!"

 As much as I loved Goober <<<, what if leading politicians started dressing like him?

Once we get this settled, then we can talk about not wearing a suit at all, in favor of a nice pair of cotton slacks, a polo shirt and proper foundation garmentry.  Or jeans, but just not with a suit jacket. That's sort of like syrup on a pizza.

Sunday rerun: Wherefore art though, art?

Was it not the great legal scholar Oliver Wendell Douglas who sagely advised that your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins?  I think so.  

What's the first rule we learn when we commence attending school, or dating?  Keep your hands to yourself!

Learning to respect the rights of others seems a quaint, old-fashioned notion in these hurly-burly times, when people are dashing around faster than Mrs Gingrich at a buy -one-get one FREE hairspray sale.

Now, I'm all for artistic expression!  Heaven knows, I'm the first to salute anyone who hangs a velvet Elvis or wide-eyed kid painting in their family room.  Under my sobriquet "Phil S. Styne," I donate such art to the needy families of Newport, Rhode Island, Malibu, California, and Palm Beach, Florida. 

But help me to understand why people are defending kids who go around with their spray paint and their b.a. Sharpies and leave their graffiti on cars, houses, buildings and slow-moving pedestrians.  

Here's what I'm talking about, specifically.  According to the Perry Hall PATCH, one of our local Vincent vandal Goghs was caught at 0250 hours the other morning spray-painting the building at Pete's Cycle shop on Belair Rd.  We assume that this redecoration was not done under the auspices, supervision or permission of the proprietors of Pete's, but the post-pubescent Picasso, while under interrogation down at the station house, gave it up, naming two other places that had come under his decorative touch.  

OK, let's stop right there.  You got a kid, 18, caught vandalizing the property of another person.  There's hardly a need for a trial, since he was caught in the act in the middle of the night.  So does he:

a) admit his act, say he was "just foolin' around and all," and await his chance to do useful Community Service hours, removing the handiwork of others?

b) clam up, tell the cops, "You ain't got nothing on me, see, copper?" and refuse to talk anymore "without my mouthpiece, see?"

c) claim that this is his "way of expressing (his) artistic side"?

You've taken quizzes like this before, so you know we stack the right answer on the bottom.  Yes, the youth said that.  His "tag" is "Toe" or "Toenail," so we know there is trouble afoot when he kneels and says, "Let us spray."

So, we know he needs some more education, which we can hope will be meted out to him by a wise and wonderful judge.

But as usual, that's not the worst part of the story.  

The article in the PATCH engendered a lively debate, and when you read down to the bottom of the page, you are treated to the views of fellow adults who say things such as,"No, he did not commit a "white collar crime", (which are usually worse by the way...) but somebody giving away their art for free."

 

I'm not even going to comment on the syntactic struggles of that sentence.  This is a woman, trying to tell us that spray-painted graffiti on SOMEONE ELSE'S PROPERTY should not be considered a crime, but a gift of art. And she goes on with a whole new theory: "...the pre-frontal cortex (risk assessment, decision making) is not developed until around 25yo. He can go to war, but not drink... so, not totally an adult in terms of the law."

Attention attorneys everywhere!  A brand-new defense has just been offered by a woman who goes on to say "maybe I've been involved in education too long."  In her view, no one under the age of 25 really knows how to assess risk or make a good decision, so we can't hold their actions against them.

To you 18-year-olds who work full or part time, go to school, have a car and a social life and no time for damaging the property of others at ten minutes til three in the morning, I am sorry, but this woman feels that your brain stems have not borne ripe fruit just yet, and so she discounts everything you say, do, touch or feel.  

She has no respect for your accomplishments, though they are many and varied, as she is too busy defending the misguided actions of a guy who is most assuredly representative of but a tiny fraction of your number.

And now you know the worst part of the story.

Saturday rerun: You gotta know how to pony

Photo from the Aegis

I'm writing this on Saturday morning, so by the time you are seeing this (and thank you for doing so!) the ballgame between the Ravens and the Patriots will be in the history books.  I really think that for a lot of folks around here, the buildup to big Ravens games is almost as exciting as the game itself.  Everyone is wearing purple in some form, it seems, and jerseys of favorites replace dress shirts for me and dresses for women.  Gorgeous cheerleaders are all over town stirring support, and the Ravens band is playing stirring music.  I heard them on TV playing "Land of 1000 Dances."

Now, you might say, what song is that?  And then I might say, you might know that song as "Na Na Na Na NAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" because the phrase "Land of 1000 Dances" is not mentioned in the lyrics.  And there are but 16 dances mentioned, according to Wikipedia: the Pony, the Chicken, the Mashed Potato, the Alligator, the Watusi, the Twist, the Fly, the Jerk, the Tango, the Yo-Yo, the Sweet Pea, the Hand jive, the Slop, the Bop, the Fish, and the Popeye.

The dance formerly known as "The Italian Cruise Liner Captain" is now known as "The Jerk."

C & the H's

"Land of 1000 Dances" was first done in 1962 by Chris Kenner, who is also remembered for his other hits "I Like It Like That" and "Something You Got." Kenner wrote it, along with Antoine "Fats" Domino. But when Cannibal And The Headhunters recorded it in 1965, lead singer Frankie "Cannibal" Garcia forgot a couple of lines, substituting "Na na na na naaaaaaa" and vaulting into history in the process.  No one talks about the Chris Kenner version so much, but the Cannibal version and the Wilson "Wicked" Pickett version from '66 were staples at every teen center and swimming pool dance in the 60s.

So the Ravens Marching Band is doing that song and that's why the Ravens won the Battle of the Bands..and more...

Forever Endeavor

If you get a chance, saunter over to the YouTube and punch up this selection and see Randy Travis sing "I Told You So" with Carrie Underwood.  Something about the amazing Carrie - and I think she is just about as great a singer as ever graced this planet - blending her voice with Randy's country-hewn goodness just makes for a doggone good song.

Randy Travis (born Randy Bruce Traywick in Marshville, North Carolina, 1959) has seen the peaks and valleys of life.  If you watch the video to "Forever and Ever, Amen," which was his first big hit back in the 1980's, you see a much healthier Randy than you see in this mugshot, taken just the other day. In fact, it might be a good idea to start making some changes if you are hauled in nekkid as a jaybird, after crashing your car and taking a nap alongside the wreck.  When you get arrested in a place called Grayson County, Texas, that sounds a bit scary.

Travis's prognathous jaw always reminded me of another Randy - the puppet from Pee Wee's Playhouse.  But Randy the puppet was on a fun show, a piece of entertainment, who poured cereal in Pee Wee's bowl to comic effect.  Otis Campbell, the lovable town drunk of Mayberry, reflects a long-ago age in America.  Today we realize that people with alcohol abuse issues need help, not laughter. 

Travis had been arrested this past February, drunk in his car at a church parking lot somewhere else in Texas.  This latest run-in would indicate that he is running with a bad idea.  His friends and family should get him to help before his forever and ever comes way too early.

Why I Can't Understand Capitalism

I sat through all the required economics courses and I have the basic understanding that Joe Blow and his wife Mildred invest their money in the stock market.  Their two thousand bucks, which they came into following the not unexpected passing of Joe's aging uncle Cyrus, goes directly from the palm of their stockbroker to the coffers at Amalgamated Meat and Cheese.  Then the honchos at AM & C buy more cows and cow products (the yellow kind) and sell them and everyone is happy.

That much, I get.  But yesterday I was enjoying my third shower of the day and was unable to turn off the radio as the business report came on.  As tepid water coursed over me, the newscaster said that sales at McDonald's were down 1.6 % in July, and this is recently unprecedented.  It's been a while since business at the Golden Arches dipped, so we were told.

Even that much, I get.  People have dozens of choices of where to find chow these days, and Burger King, Wendy's and Taco Bell are advertising like crazy to get your money into their tills.  So, when people start using all those buy-one-get-one-free coupons that come in the mail, business will go up at other places.

Here's what I don't get:  the woman on the radio talked to some stock analyst bigshot and reported that this dip in McDonald's business was being attributed to "lowered consumer confidence."

I can see holding back a little on buying a new car when things are dicey on the economic front.  Maybe the Plymouth will run a few more years and we can forget about the new car.  And certainly, when layoffs and belt-tightening are regular forms of exercise in your neighborhood, you don't want to go out on a limb and buy a whole new house or anything.

But if lowered consumer confidence is holding you back from investing in a Big Mac®, then I say "Oh, go ahead and live a little!"

Hoosier worst state senator

Any list of states in which I am tickled not to live would have to include Indiana, where they have a town called Terrible Hot.  It's a place where they can't even decide whether to use Daylight Savings Time or not.

But dagnab it if the wise solons in the Indiana Legislature didn't pass a bill and get it signed by Governor Mitch Daniels that allows citizens out there to shoot police officers if they feel endangered by a cop.

You read it right - a new state law allows residents to use deadly force in response to the “unlawful intrusion” by a “public servant” to protect themselves and others, or their property.

This all comes to light in a summer of unprecedented gun violence in America, and not long ago, a dufus in Florida shot to death a door to door salesman who came around selling steaks and seafood.  He took advantage of the Florida "stand your ground" law to kill this man, lest the salesman wing him with some frozen sirloins or salmon filets.

But getting back to the Hoosier state, and I promise that I never will, State Senator R. Michael Young (surprise! He's a Republican!) pushed this bill, with some help on the heavy pushin' from the good folks over at the National Rifle Association.  That's the group that pushes for all guns and ammunition to be legal at all times, no matter that they had to move their headquarters out of DC because staffers kept getting held up at gunpoint.  This Young man said that his law would allow homeowners to defend themselves during a violent, unjustified attack.

Sergeant Joseph Hubbard of the Jeffersonville PD says, “If I pull over a car and I walk up to it and the guy shoots me, he’s going to say, ‘Well, he was trying to illegally enter my property.’”  Hubbard, president of Jeffersonville Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 100, adds, “Somebody is going get away with killing a cop because of this law.”

There are people in this country who sit around believing that the police are coming to take them away and put them in some sort of concentration camp.  So this will give them all the ammo they need, you should pardon the expression, to fire like madmen, you should pardon the expression, should a police officer come within 100 yds. of them.

We should pardon Sen. Young and his NRA friends, too, I suppose, because they're not out there about to get shot at.  

Iron Man comes through again

I am completely impressed with Cal Ripken, Jr, in every way.  In fact, if you step into the den in which I type away at this pc, there are gigantic posters and other memorabilia about the Iron Man's Oriole career all over the place. 

I only need to tell this part of the story to the non-baseball-nuts among us, but Cal comes from a baseball family; his dad, Cal, Sr, was a longtime coach in the Orioles' glory days and taught two of his three sons how to play the game the right way. The third son, Fred, chose not to follow Cal Jr and Billy onto the diamond, and that was his choice.  A cool family they are, and even though the recent abduction of the widowed mom, "Miss Vi," shook the area, she is safe now and I have no doubt that the kidnapper will be rounded up presently.

I want to stress that Cal is still every bit the gentleman, now that his playing days have ended and he has become a businessman.  I have been lucky enough to be around him three times over the years, and he has always treated everyone in the crowd like they were important to him - and not in the phony way, either.

I have to share this:  The other night, a lady I used to work with took her mom to the Bonefish Grill in Bel Air to celebrate her mom's 88th birthday.  I'll let my friend finish the story:

We were sitting 2 tables away from Cal Ripken and 3 of his business associates. He came over after dinner and wished Mom a Happy Birthday and let me take a photo of the 2 of them. He really is a nice man to allow us to butt into his dinner! Thanks, Cal!

And, look at this photo of a happy lady on her 88th, and a man with business and his own family on his mind, who still took time to come over and wish the lady a happy birthday!  Can you imagine how happy she is? I'm thrilled for her, and for all of us who get to see this fine man live his life with us in such an exemplary fashion.

 On behalf of all of us fans, thank you, Cal!

The Needles and the Damage Done

The death of De'Andre McCullough made the news all around the world:

He died in the Baltimore suburb of Woodlawn, out on the west side of town, of an apparent drug overdose.  De'Andre was the focus of the book "The Corner," about the drug-infested section of West Baltimore where he was born into squalor and began dealing drugs at an early age, eventually succumbing to drug use, and eventually succumbing to that.  You can't say that society is to blame for his wasted life and early death at 35; other people born to even worse circumstances make successes of their lives, if only by becoming productive citizens and members of the community.  But let's say that some people a little further up the road got a head start on the road of life, a boost that De'Andre did not get.

Up the road outside Philadelphia, the Eagles' Andy Reid raised his family in the sort of luxury that an NFL head coach's salary will provide.  And yet, four days after De'Andre McCullough bought it, Coach Reid awoke yesterday to news that his eldest son Garrett, 29, was dead in his dorm room at the Eagles' training camp in Lehigh, PA.

The cause of Garrett's death is, as yet, undetermined.  He had had big trouble with narcotics over the years.  He and his younger brother Britt  were arrested and put in jail in 2007 after their arrest on drug charges. Garrett went up twice on drug convictions, and had been to court-ordered rehab, but both Garrett and Britt had "by all accounts turned their lives around" according to the online article at CSN Philly.com.  Garrett was working with the team as an assistant when he passed.

It seems that when you get into that hard stuff, you are headed down a one-way path on which it's hard to turn the speeding car around.  De'Andre McCullough, born dirt poor but grown street-tough, hadn't the strength to reverse his course.  Garrett Reid's father will earn 5.5 million dollars this year to coach other men to play football, but all that money and public acclaim were not enough to keep his son out of the graveyard.

Court records say that  Garrett Reid told a judge in July 2007, "I liked being a drug dealer. (But) I don't want to die doing drugs. I don't want to be that kid who was the son of the head coach of the Eagles, who was spoiled and on drugs and OD'd and just faded into oblivion."
 
I don't want him to fade into oblivion.  I want everyone to remember his story and do what we all can to make sure no one else repeats it.  Same for De'Andre McCullough. 

Sunday rerun: I still have my nametag somewhere

Everyone drove Mustangs to the A & P

In the spring of my senior year, just before my graduation from the exclusive Towson High School (admission by zip code only!) I went to work for The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, also known as the "A & P," and that's pronounced "Ann P" around these parts.  I had hoped to start out as District Manager or Vice-President of Sales, Grocery Division, but it seemed that the only openings they had were for "clerk," so I took that, figuring on biding my time for the inevitable promotions that never came.

Rat Fink t-shirt decal

Some interesting facts about that job: we had to wear a white shirt and tie and pants that could be any color but could not be jeans of any fabric.  We got around the shirt thing by wearing t-shirts underneath with various slogans and depictions of cartoon characters.

My starting salary was a whopping $2.15 per hour, not bad when my classmates worked at Gino's or McDonald's for fifty cents.  In fact, top pay on the clerk scale was $3, and there were full time guys there, working 40 hours, grossing $120/wk, and raising families and buying houses, cars and cheap beer on that pay. We wore red aprons and name tags. The store sold all the national brands, of course, but we had our own - in fact, the tea bags were called "Our Own" tea bags - brands, such as Jane Parker baked goods and Ann Page canned foods.  I used to wonder about the people who worked in the packaging end.  Working the early shift, I would be stocking the bread aisle and found it endlessly humorous that Jane Parker's Old-Fashioned Home-Style Bread carried the description "A hearty, firm-type loaf."  And one of my best buddies on the crew, Charlie (known as "Cholly" in BalMoreEse) had a younger brother whose detestation of cole slaw was so thickly ingrained in his diet that he carried the sobriquet "Slaws-A-Balls."

Please don't try to understand that nickname unless you are 18 and male.  That's the only way it's funny.

Tool of the trade

We would set this to 2/69¢!

I didn't usually work a cash register, so it was not to be my fate to have experiences like John Updike wrote about in his short story "A&P," but I would never have acted like the guy in that story anyway.  We had our share of pretty girls parading through the store in various states of deshabille and decolletage, and there was lots of ogling going on in the time-honored manner of adolescent males.  I spent a lot of time unloading freight trucks and placing items on the shelves for sale, so I always had one of those box-cutter knives and a Garvey price kerchunker ready for business.

Sometimes in the evenings, taking the trash out, or having a smoke break, we would see two cars pull up and park, and then a woman would get into a car driven by a man, and they would drive away, casting furtive looks as they left.  Of course, as major-league suburban sophisticates, we knew something was up.  We just didn't know what, to tell you the truth.  And in the apartments behind the store - now torn down and replaced with apartments - I don't know why either - there lived a woman who was quite uninhibited in her manner of dressing, which is to say that she paraded around naked and stood in the bathroom window, providing endless amusement for the easily amused.  We don't know where she got her groceries, because she did not come into our store.  We did know that she got her clothes at the same place The Emperor did!

So that part of my career lasted through my college days and then I took a cut in pay to go into radio, but I am writing today because the A&P chain is done in Baltimore as of today.  All the stores are closed; some will reopen as Shoppers' Food Warehouses, and some as Shop-Rites, and some will remain empty, corpses of a company that shot itself in the foot time and again changing its name from A&P to WEO ("Where Economy Originates" - snappy, huh?) and then SuperFresh, where they tried to be all things to all people.  Gourmet foods? Sure! Cheapie no-name brands?  Aisle 5, I think! Sit awhile and have some pizza and a soda?  Steam that shrimp for you?  Power tools, aisle 16!

Back in the day, we addressed customers as 'Sir' and 'Ma'am' and we thanked them for shopping with us and the acceptable answer to any question about where an item was shelved was never, "Gee, I don't know!"   But I heard that a lot lately in SuperFresh, and while I am sad to see them go, I can tell you this about Baltimore:  we like to eat food,  and you have to be pretty lousy at running a food store to drive people away like this chain did.

Shame, too.  They did have tasty cheese rolls.

Saturday rerun: "And so, in closing..."

Quick quiz for you:  You're asked to get up and say a few words at a meeting.  One of your tasks will involve introducing to the crowd some people you have never met.  Do you...

a) get a list of the names of the people you'll be introducing so you can practice saying them and/or ask the person, "How do you pronounce your last name, please, Mr Mxyzptlk?"

b) wait until you're in front of a hundred people and go, "And now, I'd like you to meet our new assistant regional field manager, Mr. Phil Mis ...Mix ...Mixaplatik ...however you say it..."

If you're like the person I saw at a meeting the other evening, you did 'b' and that ain't so good.  I don't think that any of you would be that way, though. You see, there is nothing sweeter to a person than the sound of his or her own name (unless their name is "Newt" or "Gingrich") and it only takes a second to check with them - someone - ANYone - and find out how to say it!

This person also committed the other cardinal foul in the Gettin' Up 'n' Speakin' game...printing out your "spontaneous, off the cuff remarks."  Out here in the audience, we can tell you did that, because we are looking at the top of your head while you "talk" to us.  

This is always the worst when someone writes themselves a joke into their script.  Then they read, "It seems there were two men who went into a bar..."  No, it didn't happen; it only seemed that way. 

There is no need to print out what you're going to say.  Listen, I know it's not easy for a lot of people to get up in front of a group and speak.  It only takes practice, and you can't get that practice by sitting in the audience toying with your green beans almondine and twice-baked potato, so the thing to do is, volunteer, say you'll do it, practice a couple of times at home in front of the bathroom mirror and then do it with as much grace as you can muster.  Keep your clothes on while doing so, in case you decide to follow the old advice about picturing all the members of the audience nekkid as jaybirds while you're talking to them.  But you don't want to be in your birthday suit in the bathroom picturing all that, so put on some shorts and a t-shirt already, please. 

Know what you're going to say and be confident when you get up there, and you'll do fine.  We'll be out here in the audience, enjoying your remarks and picturing you buck nekkid.

A Real Turner Classic

Believe it or not, in 1945, 90 million people  - 60% of the population - attended a movie at least once per week in America.

We went to see "Ted" a couple of weeks ago because I support Seth McFarlane's right to say anything he wants to.  He's like that Chicken Man, only with something worthwhile to share.  But before that, I can't tell you the last time Peggy was at a picture show, and I have only been to the movies to see Jackass films.  You cannot apprehend the beauty, the subtle nuance of 3-D flying poop at home on your TV, you understand. 

Why don't we go more often?  Answers most often given include "why should I pay those bastards 12 bucks to sit there while people eat chicken tenders, their lips smacking like giraffes consuming combretum leaves from atop a tree?" and "I can see this bomb in three weeks on pay per view for a lot less," And of course, staying home means not having to share the theater with the likes of Kyle Tanner (above).

Getting back to the days when almost all of America was headed for the Bijou to see Lana Turner or Clark Gable, I am a huge fan of Turner Classic Movies, conveniently located at channel 890 on Comcast.  The other day, while watching the merry mixups of Ms Turner, Robert Young and Walter Brennan in a little movie called "Slightly Dangerous," I tried to picture myself in the movies on a Saturday night in 1943 when the movie came out.  Let's say I was then the same age as I am now, making me about 50 years too old for the draft.  So I'm at the Towson Theater with my bag of popcorn and a soda and having a heckuva time watching Lana pretend to be a missing heiress but giving it all up for love for Robert Young, before Father Knows Best.  And Walter Brennan - 14 years before he starred in The Real McCoys - was the rich guy who suddenly wound up getting to pretend that Lana was his daughter.  And then after the movie, I might get in the roadster and go for a coddie somewhere.

No 24-screen multiplexes, no 3D, no chicken tenders. One theater, one screen, take it or leave it. 
 
I'd take it!

Next topic, please

Now that everyone in the country spent Wednesday eating chicken sandwiches, or not eating chicken sandwiches, or arguing about whether your free speech rights give you the right to say bad things about a whole group of people...I have an idea.

Could we all try to get behind a movement to ignore ignorance?  By which I mean that wacky church group from the midwest that shows up at the funerals of fallen soldiers, police, firefighters and says that God wants them dead because of America's sinfulness.

I'm not going to mention their name, but you know who they are, with their signs and their hateful speech.  Yes, as a free speech advocate I have to support anyone's right to speak their minds.  But there are some minds that just really have spoken all they need to.



It's like George Carlin's idea about gun control: don't try to limit the amount of guns that people can have.  Just limit the amount of bullets they can have, and they can throw their guns at each other all day.  Let this church group show up with their placards and their mean thoughts.  If the TV news and the press and the bloggers would stop talking about them, perhaps they'd start hitting each other over the head with their signs like Moe and no one would even notice.

Cuba Badding

 From the news wire!

NEW ORLEANS, July 31 (Reuters) - New Orleans police issued an arrest warrant for Cuba Gooding Jr on Tuesday after the actor allegedly pushed a bartender twice during a dispute in the city's renowned French Quarter.

New Orleans police said the incident happened early on Tuesday morning at a bar on raucous Bourbon Street. A female bartender told police that Gooding became agitated when customers recognized him and asked him to take photos with them.

Gooding allegedly pushed the bartender when she asked him to calm down. She asked him to leave and he pushed her again, a police statement said.
been arrested bn early afternoon on Tuesday, police spokeswoman Hilal Williams said.

New Orleans police said Tuesday afternoon they were in contact with Gooding's attorney, Peter Toumbekis of New York, who said Gooding is taking necessary actions to address the matter. The attorney told Reuters he would comment on the incident later.

$77,000 tax deduction

At 61, barring some sort of scandal involving me riding through the streets of Towson dressed in full cowboy regalia and shouting "Ya-HOOOOOO!" while riding Mitt Romney's Dancing Horse, it seems quite obvious that I will never be famous, and I am so glad for that.  Famous people like Cuba Gooding, Jr, get paid big-time bucks for acting and what-have-you.  In return for truckloads of money, he and other famous people have to make certain sacrifices.  Among them: it's a good idea to stay away from a place where the public is stirred along with the booze.

Cuba, Jr.

Famous person walks into a bar!  It's a joke opener begging for a punch line.  In this case, Cuba supplied it by (allegedly) shoving the barkeep.  How could he have avoided this sort of bad publicity?  Well, he could have stayed home, or in his hotel room watching Nick at Nite. He could have realized that people get all up in the air when a celebrity is spotted in their midst, and just posed for the pictures and jackpotted a little with the people he expects to shell out about ten semolians to see his movies.  He could have said, "Aww, no thanks, I'm not feeling like a picture tonight, but it's nice to meet you.  What's your name?"

Actually, he had many options, and shoving someone, if indeed that happened, was about the worst of them.

And, he could have learned from his father's records!  His father, Cuba Gooding, Sr, is the main singer for the recording group The Main Ingredient.  They are chiefly remembered for two hit songs, and the titles of both could be woven into Cuba's story from the other morning:

"I Just Don't Want To Be Lonely"


             and


"Everybody Plays The Fool"

No one wants to be lonely, and no one should want to play the fool.  

All this over a soggy sandwich?

I've got no dog in this fight about Chick-Fil-A because I don't really care to eat there anyway because I don't like their food.  So it's no skin off my filet if I never go there again.

The man who runs the place, Dan Cathy, is a firm believer in Christian values, so he closes up shop on Sunday so his employees can attend church and be with their families.  And he contributes his influence and his money to the cause of promoting marriage as between just one man and just one woman.  This is what he believes.  It's in the Bible, right near where it says in Deuteronomy 22:20-21 that if a woman gets married and she is not a virgin that she shall be stoned to death.  And don't even think about having the Shrimp and Lobster pu-pu platter over at China Chow...the good book says seafood without fins is an abomination (Leviticus 10-11).

Whatever your faith, I think it's wrong to jump up and down telling people what to do with their faith.  So no, I don't give a Chick if anyone wants to eat there.

But I do wish that those who are so mad at gay rights supporters would try to see why people are upset at what they consider a biased stance.  Surely Dan Cathy has a right to his opinion, and surely Dan Savage does too. 

And here's an idea.  If you support the idea of August 1 being Eat More Chikin Day because you strongly support the right of a person to hold their own truths while running a business, then surely you'll want to join me at Jane Fonda's Fish 'n' Chips someday soon.

Right?

You bet

The only thing that interests me about the gaming parlors that now dot Maryland is the buffet.  I love a good buffet, where you can have a nice salad and then some meat and veggies and maybe a teeny sliver of pie if no one is looking.

They have this Hollywood Casino up in Perryville, off I-95, and we were up that way once and stopped in to tie on the feedbag.  That part was good.  The rest of the time  we were there, we wandered around a little bit and heard a lot of noise and saw a bewildering ballet of people playing slot machines and other devices.  I really have no idea how any of this stuff works, but boy oh boy did the people who played the games know how!  They were having a great time.

I have to tell you this.  The TV ads for the state casinos show a crowd of glammed-up happy young people, dressed in the latest styles with the shimmering tops and the high heels and the tight skinny pants with just a touch of dangling bling.

And the women are dressed nicely too.

Point is, when you see the casino-goers on the TV, it looks like Taylor Swift and that Tatum Channing guy plunking money into the games. 

When you get there, the people who are there in real life tend to look a little more like Andy Taylor and Carol Channing. 

And maybe that's better.

Another thing.  Apparently, some people want to build more casinos in this state.  They want to do this at some place called National Harbor.  Now, I've lived my life in the state of Maryland, with the exception of the two months I spent in the south of France as Mick Jagger's man Friday. (We parted ways over a schedule disagreement: I wanted Fridays off.)  But I have never heard of National Harbor, and here all of a sudden they want to build a casino there! 

And then someone will say, let's go to National Harbor and gamble, and no one will know how to get there!

There are radio and TV ads being presented by both sides of this debate.  One side says, "If even one slot machine is brought into our sacred National Harbor, the entire state of Maryland will be swallowed whole by a fiery serpent and regurgigated all over Wyoming."

This is countered by the pro-slot forces, who say that another derecho will come along and drag you, your spouse, your children and most of your pets and your aged Aunt Mildred off to play slots for free, and you will go home with no less than $590 in your pants pocket every time you set foot in the place.

Surely the truth lies in the middle someplace.  But as long as there's no law that says we have to gamble, I'll be right here on the sidelines.  Me and my pie.

Sunday rerun: The Names Ring a Bell

I saw surprised to receive an invitation to "Old-Timer's Night" at my old volunteer fire house a few weeks ago. When the invitation arrived, at first I couldn't imagine to whom it was supposed to be addressed, and then it dawned on me: I was the Old Timer.

Well. I joined the Providence Volunteer Fire Company at the age of 16, right after the Civil War and before the birth of commercial aviation. Not really, but it was 1967, and things were different then in the world and in the fire service. Firefighters rode on the back step of the engines, for one thing, and the science involved in putting out a fire, or washing away hazardous chemicals at the scene of a car wreck or leaky tank was more rudimentary: grab a hose and pour water all over it. We didn't know about air tanks for breathing in a smoky atmosphere, and hazardous materials handling, and so many other things, but we were there to do the best we could, the best way we knew how.

I was a member for six years, right up until the time I got married, and they were six of the best years of my life. Besides the avocational aspect of helping the community, putting out fires, standing by downed power lines and helping people with flooded basements, there is a social aspect, a brotherhood, that can't be denied. It's marvelously instructive for a young man to learn to work with others for a productive purpose, and to learn to follow orders and directions without stopping to think about one's own idea of what to do. At the scene of an emergency, someone has to be in charge, and that person's orders need to be followed, or you have chaos and disorder, and nothing gets done. This message is not getting through to a lot of young people, as I see it today, because schools, organizations, and far too many parents are more concerned with how young Earl or Mildred might feel about how to proceed, and if their psychic needs are being considered when the directions are being given, and whether or not the orders are in alignment with their wishes. It's not easy to learn, when one has been the object of personal veneration, that only a team effort can subdue a mighty opponent, and there is no "I" in "team."

There is "meat" in "team," however, and there were plenty of social occasions with the gang at the fire house. That's what I mean. It's good for young people to learn lessons and learn to socialize. A compatible group at a fire house learns to do both, and lifelong friendships are often formed there.

So, the reunion was great. It was held at the fire house, which has twice been rebuilt since my days there. Back in the day, the building had the architectural charm of a Texaco station, but now it looks like a spa in the middle of an elegant setting, all glass and brick and subdued lighting. I saw guys that I am still in touch with and guys that I haven't seen since bell-bottoms and platform shoes were all the rage. And the stories! Oh, the stories! Funny stuff that happened, funny stuff that people said, serious stuff that happened, serious stuff that people said...all retold, no embellishment needed, and recounted for the enjoyment of all. It was great. We're all doing well, and we had wistful thoughts of those who have gone on, and we know, each of us, that when we go to join them, we will take memories like this with us.

Saturday rerun: Lightin' up McGraw

Giving up cigarettes is a tough thing to do.  As the old Bob Seger song said, "I used to smoke five packs of cigarettes a day.  It was the hardest thing to put them away..."

Well, I didn't smoke five packs a day, but I was good for a pack, more or less.  And I enjoyed it, to tell you the truth, even knowing that it was bad for me.  It was that knowledge that eventually wore me down.

Today's young smoker might be fascinated, or envious, to learn of a time in America when more or less everyone smoked, more or less everywhere.  Restaurants, offices, grocery stores, funeral parlors, buses: you name a place, and the chances are that one could light up with impunity at any time.  And demand "an ashtray, if it's not too much trouble..."

In the late 1980's, things started to change, and smoking was banned in more places every day.  Bars and restaurants were the last public places to change.  You might recall the plaintive cries of Baltimore's bar and restaurant owners, who all claimed long and loud that without the right to puff a Camel, their customers would not come in, and their business would be gone in a puff of smoke.

This, of course, did not happen, nor did the increase of sales tax on the smokes themselves stop the dedicated smokers from smoking in their own areas.  I leave it to you to decide if that tax increase was fair, but I think that it's fair that smoking be done either in the Great Outdoors or someone else's Great Indoors. You want to smoke, or commit acts of self-defenestration, or listen to vile radio programs, go for it, but please don't force it on me.

Take a puff - it's springtime!

So all this comes to mind upon reading that President Barack Obama has been nine months without a smoke break, and I salute him for that.  In my case, after three months, the temptation to bum one and light it up was all gone, and there was nothing left to go but go around apologizing for my crabby behavior during those three months.

Those three long, long months.

Big Tough Guy

This fella Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the big tough guy who brags about being America's toughest sheriff, is on trial defending himself in a class-action lawsuit brought by new Americans who are sick and tired of being harassed by Arpaio's deputies in Maricopa Co, Arizona, a place I pretty much can promise myself never to visit.

We've read about this guy for years, how he likes to serve substandard food to his prisoners, how he sends his men and women out to round up anyone who looks Mexican.  This current trial will be followed by a federal case against him for biased law enforcement.

Sheriff Joe swears to tell the truth in court, so I guess we have to figure he's being honest when he denies any prejudice against people of Mexican background.  "We don't make arrests based on skin color," he says in court.

All immigrants "exclusive of those from Mexico, hold to certain hopes and truths" is what he said in a book he wrote, handily titled "Joe's Law, America's Toughest Sheriff Takes on Illegal Immigration, Drugs and Everything Else that Threatens America."

Did you really write that, tough Sheriff Joe, he was asked in court? 

He said that was written by a co-author.

Outside the courtroom in Phoenix, a crowd gathered to counteract a group protesting Arpaio's violations.  They chanted a favorite motto of the unenlightened: "Don't believe the liberal media."

But you can believe what Joe writes in a book...unless he didn't write it.

By the way, you know what they say about Phoenix...how it might be 110°, but it's a dry heat?

Well, when Sheriff Joe speaks, it's a big steaming pile of bullhockey, but it's a dry steaming pile of bullhockey.

Mrs Ripken kidnapped!

Cal (r) with father and brother

If there is anything close to a family that most everyone around here admires without a second thought, it would be the Ripkens, of nearby Aberdeen, MD.  You know Cal, the Iron Man of baseball, and how he became the great player he was under the tutelage of his father Cal, Sr.  And he has a brother Billy who was a pretty fair major-leaguer himself for a long time, and another brother, and a sister.

And a mom named Vi who has been the glue of the family for all these years.  At 74, she's still active with the Harford County Boys and Girls Club, and is a regular at Ripken Stadium, the complex of fields where kids from all over the world play ball, as does an Oriole minor league team.  The widow of "Senior" is a beloved figure in her town, her county, and the entire state of Maryland.

Cal and Vi

So when we awoke yesterday morning to hear that she was missing from her home, and then that she had turned up on her own street, it was shocking.  It seems that on Tuesday morning, she was abducted in her garage and led to her own car, in which this crook drove her around for almost a day.  When he stopped along Ebenezer Rd in Baltimore County, he told an inquiring motorist that he was seeking medical help for his mother, who was having seizures.  The other driver wisely deduced that something was amiss, since wrapping duct tape around a mother's mouth is not recommended first aid for seizures.  That person called police, and the hunt was on.  Eventually, Mrs Ripken found herself waking up Wednesday morning in her own car, still bound, and blew the horn for help.


Once this guy is found - and trust me - he will be found, we will know what his story is.  It might be very tough to find twelve citizens of this state who would give him a fair hearing, though.  That's how much we love our Ripkens.

See ya later

My two favorite things from Louisiana are still hot sauce and Britney Spears, and that doesn't seem likely to change after watching this video about a cat who lives at a place where people pay cash money to pile onto a pontoon boat and take off down the Louisiana Bayou to see alligators sunning themselves and climbing out of primordial ooze.

The hook on the video is that the cat, Mugsy, is a ferocious guardian of his own food and his own feline body, fending off attacks by these current-day dinosaurs on the shores of the bayou.  I watched the video with a certain horror, in dread of someday finding myself in the swamps, watching a cat slap an alligator silly.

Coming over for dinner

It looks humid and hot down there, and to anyone planning a fun vacay among the reptilia of the American Southeast, you go on ahead without me.  And remember, it is true that an alligator will not attack you while carrying a flashlight.  But it's rare to find an alligator who needs a flashlight.