The Saturday Picture Show, August 23, 2014

Let's start for today by thinking about the wisdom of purchasing false teeth from a DDS in Chicago who hasn't seen the interior of your mouth any more than he's seen mine...and that was never. He said he would send you impression plates for you to chomp down on and then you could hang around the mailbox for a month or so, waiting for those chompers to come by mail.  I wonder how people could bite on a deal like that.

Someplace on this earth is an airport that shares its runway with a highway, to which I say, "No way."

Well, here's a great idea that's only halfway finished.  Sure, take an old railway car and turn it into an instant bridge.  But why not go all the way and turn it into a diner?

The amazing beauty of nature, its colors and infinite geometry, as demonstrated by half a head of purple cabbage.

Before glue sticks, Elmer's Glue and sticky notes, there were sticky pants, the results of office pranks played with Stick-Phast glue.

"I love you and your nutty heart!"

Cool old things stay cool even when they're not functional anymore.  Take this rusty old kerosene lamp.  Why, you could run a wire and a lightbulb socket in there and hang it up on the porch as a lamp!

We leave you today with the hopes that you will take the advice of this otter cub and take a nice nap when you get the chance.

It just doesn't suit me

If you know me or ever have seen me strutting around someplace like I own the place, you know darn well that I am no fashion plate. I'm more of a dinner plate.

My standard garb in summer is ankle length black socks, cargo shorts (a man purse you can wear !), a t-shirt and a ball cap.  For formal, dressier occasions, I'll swap the t-shirt for a polo shirt. In winter, it's khaki cargos, a sport shirt and a hoodie.  

It takes something along the lines of a funeral, wedding or supermarket opening to get me into one of my suits. 

I'm going to level with you.  We don't like to wear suits and tie, but we do it when the times require it.  Also, most guys have a time when they are the same size as their father.  For me this occurred when I was 16, and I could wear his jackets and sweaters for about a week until I got taller.  That was the year that my back-to-school pants, whose hems gracefully broke over my Weejuns in September, became high-water pants by Thanksgiving, leading to the heartbreak of sockgap.

For the life of me, I look at the suits worn by hipsters and I cannot figure out why they want to wear clothing that looks like they stole them from their younger brother or older smaller father.  It reminds me of those dumb merry-mixup situation comedies in which a dude is supposed to be given a plaque as Rotarian Of The Year, but at the last minute his well-meaning wife accidentally gives his suit to the church rummage sale, so he has to show up at the Rotarian banquet wearing his son's suit and an embarrassed grin.  

I know the men's fashion designers of the world are sort of stymied, in that pants, shirts, jackets and ties have already been invented, so there's not really much for them to do except to decree that this year, men will wear those skinny ties that look like shoelaces, and next year, it'll be those wide ties that look like crime scene tape hanging around their necks.

The real crime was in talking men into wearing suits that fit like the suit on a circus monkey.  And if you forced these guys to dress like this, everyone would call it cruel and unusual.  

But it's their choice! So what the heck.

He'll be working at the Pearly Gates, calling names of new arrivals

Most people, when they think of the late Don Pardo, who passed away this week at the age of 96, think of his intro to "Saturday Night Live," in which he would introduce the comedians, guest host (love that oxymoron!) and musical guest like this.  Don worked as a staff announcer for NBC from 1944 until forever caught up with him, but to me, the best Pardo was the game show Pardo.

I always felt there was no higher calling for mankind than to be the host of a game show.  Bob Barker!  Bill Cullen!  Jack Narz! Richard Dawson!  Peter Marshall! Jim Lange!  Tom Kennedy! Allen Ludden! Bob Eubanks! Chuck Barris! Gene Rayburn! Don Francisco from Sabado Gigante!

Not to mention Pat Sajak, so I won't.

Being the quizmaster was the ultimate honor, but I was also a big fan of what I called the "Be Glad To" guy.  Those guys were guys like Don Pardo, Jay Stewart, Johnny Jacobs, Rod Roddy, Johnny Gilbert, George Fenneman and Art James...the guys who came on in booming baritones (all baritones are "booming," just as all left-handed pitchers are "crafty") when someone from Dubuque solved the puzzle or spun the wheel or got the price right.  The glib host (always "glib") would say, "Tell her what's she won, Don!" and the announcer would boom..."Be glad to, Bob! It's a twenty-volume set of The Encyclopedia Brittanica! A case of Turtle wax! A year's supply of Rice-A-Roni (the San Francisco Treat!) and a new gas range from Tappan!  (Tappan - the leader in kitchen appliances since 1881!")

This was why sick days and snow days were always so great when I was a young 'un.  After the game shows, after a soup-and-sammy lunch, after "Search For Tomorrow," along came Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin and Pete The Pirate.

It says here that our deductive and memory skills were sharpened by watching "Concentration," our ability to make wise consumer decisions by "The Price Is Right," and our ability to discern between Alexander the Great and Alexander the Graham Bell by enjoying "The G.E. College Bowl."

Thanks and farewell, Don.

While you were sleeping....

Just down the road apiece from the Lazy 'C' Ranch where we live is a road called Cromwell Bridge Road.  The old Ma & Pa (Maryland and Pennsylvania) Railroad used to run through there, and you still can see mighty remnants of the old bridges that the trains ran along.  It's a pretty area, it runs to the Loch Raven Reservoir, and the stories we could tell about that site would fill a whole 'nother blog.

Along Cromwell Bridge Rd, someone got out of his or her car and painted a perfect little white heart on the macadam.  As you see, there is no shoulder along the road whatsoever.  In fact, I wanted to get a picture of the painted heart, but there is no place to park the car and get out to snap a photo.  Walking or jogging along this road is a risky proposition.  The cars and the trucks, they do whiz right on by.

That's why I deduce that whoever painted that heart did so in the middle of the night, the only time when you're not about to get "runned over" while trying to get the picture.  He or she pulled over, hopped out with the can of spray paint, and did his or her thing.  And it's been there a couple of years now, so someone came back and refreshed the heart not long ago.

It makes me wonder what else happens in the night. Take those real estate and "O'Hoolahan for Sheriff" signs you see along the medians and sidewalks.  Have you ever actually seen anyone pounding those staked signs into the ground?  Nor have I.

Fresh bread and milk get delivered to the Bag-Ur-Self and you never see the trucks.  For that matter, you never see the trucks leaving the dairy farms, shiny tankers full of raw milk, and you'd have to get up pretty early to drive past the bakery to whiff on the rye and whole wheat loaves.

The paper gets tossed into the driveway, cars get repossessed, great truckloads of Pepsi and cat food are hauled in giant trucks. Insomniacs wrestle with their pillows, police maintain their vigils, bartenders and all-night servers wipe down the same table for the millionth time, and new parents sleepily pad down the hall for the 4 AM feeding.

A little world of its own takes place overnight in the darkness, and when the sun climbs over the horizon at dawn, day side people should take a minute to appreciate what got done as they slumbered and snored.

All Day I Dream About Shoes

7-eyed Jacks

Time was, if you left the house wearing sneakers, or "tennis shoes," (even though you weren't going to be anywhere near a tennis court) you had to be wearing Jack Purcells, or hide your feet in shame. And that's not so easy, especially when you're walking.

I never cared for that sort of forced-fashion-conformity, yet I followed the crowd until one day, while sitting in a college classroom in which transcendental poetry was being discussed at great length, I deduced that I should wear what I wanted to, when I wanted to, and since that day I have paid little attention to what other people thought about my wardrobe, and to transcendental poetry, except for those poems beginning with "There once was a man named Thoreau..."

How they look best

But, no matter what sort of tennis shoes you like, there are two camps among wearers...those who feel that their shoes must be kept pure white and pristine, free from dirt and wear, and those who like that lived-in look for their footwear.  It was a rite of late August to get new Jacks and run around the baseball field a few times so they would pick up that nice dusty beige color, the better to wear while parading into school. 

Well, son, this is 2014, and we don't have time to get our own shoes dirty.  Adidas - the brand name that we all know to be an acronym for "all day I dream about sex" - has come out with their X KZK ZX 750 RG 84-Lab model shoes.  The RG stands for Really Grubby, I guess, because if the shoe seeker is too lazy to go out and get his or her shoes dirtied up a little, these babies come to you pre-muddied.

Oh well, now I mean, really.

All In The Family

There seems to be something about history, how it loves to twirl itself around a story like a kudzu vine, or even a creeping phlox.  

And if your phlox ever crept up on you, you know that awful feeling.

There are twists and turns to almost every story, and this is why we say that "truth is stranger than fiction."  Other things thought to be stranger than fiction include deep-fried Snickers Bars, the listing of side effects from every prescription medication (you take Lexapro for depression and then you get to deal with "Nausea, dry mouth, trouble sleeping, constipation, tiredness, drowsiness, dizziness, or increased sweating," many of which sound like symptoms of the very thing you are trying to get rid of) and the continued popularity of "reality" shows that show American culture at its loathsome perigee (we know that families such as the BooBoos of McIntyre, Georgia, live among us, but is that reason enough to glorify their dreadful existence?) 

Right up Harford Road from where we live is Harford County, Maryland, home to many fine citizens and businesses.  We like to drive up there to shop, buy cars, dine, and spend time in the rolling hills of Bel Air, Abingdon, Forest Hill, and Havre de Grace, among other towns there.  We know a lot of people who have moved up there and found happiness and joy.  

In 1822, an actor named Junius Brutus Booth, who had only the year before sailed to America from his native England, moved to Bel Air and founded a family. (The fact that he left a wife and child back home to come here with his pregnant girlfriend Mary Ann Holmes only amplifies the point that libertine behavior didn't just start last week.) Booth and Mary Ann got busy right away and raised eight of his ten children in a log cabin.

Hmmm. Are there any other famous Americans noted for having been born in a log cabin?  

Two of the Booth kids became famous actors in America, and they were named Randolph Mantooth and Benedict Cumberbatch.  No. They were Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth.

John Wilkes Booth, villain

On John Wilkes Booth's 13th birthday, his father celebrated by marrying Mary Ann, having been granted a divorce from his English wife, Adelaide.  John Wilkes Booth thereafter became a well-known actor on the legitimate stage, and also a rabid secessionist during the Civil War.  He hated Abraham Lincoln, so, gun laws being what they were before we knew better, he got a handgun and shot the 16th president dead during a performance at Ford's Theater in DC. Ever the performer, he leapt from the loge in which Lincoln had been sitting onto the stage, but caught his spur on the red-white-and-blue bunting surrounding the presidential box seat, so he landed awkwardly and broke his leg, impeding his getaway.  He was caught in Virginia, trapped in a barn hideaway.  Union forces set fire to the barn, but still he refused to surrender, and was shot to death for his trouble.

Edwin Booth, hero

Edwin was the more famous of the brothers, having starred in Shakespearean productions, and also having played Al Bundy in the theatre production of  "Married: With Children."  (No, that was Ed O'Neill.) A Union loyalist, he supported Lincoln, and, the year before his brother committed his heinous assassination, he saved the life of one of Lincoln's children!

Robert Lincoln

The story is that Robert Todd Lincoln, a student, was waiting along with Booth and a crowd of others at a train station to buy tickets for sleeping cars when the train began to move. Young Lincoln slipped off the platform, onto the tracks, and Edwin Booth grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back to his feet. This was the 1864 equivalent of having Channing Tatum yank you back from the path of an oncoming jet airliner. Recognizing the actor, Robert Lincoln thanked him for his efforts, and wrote of the incident many times.  At the time, Booth did not know it was the son of the man his brother was to kill the next year whom he had saved. 

I thought that, Paul Harvey being gone, I should share the rest of the story.

Sunday rerun: Dupree plus ça change

I watched a film on ESPN the other night; it was part of their "30 on 30" series of sports documentaries and this one featured the past of  Marcus Dupree, the high school running back with the can't-miss future.

Like so many of the best-laid plans, his went awry!  The show is called "The Best That Never Was," and I commend it to your attention.  Even if you're not the big sports fan, it will speak to you about how things can change...sometimes for the good, and sometimes not.

Dupree, out of Philadelphia, Mississippi, had an amazing ability to take a football and run with it.  In high school, it didn't seem to matter how many guys on the other team tried to tackle him.  Old game footage in the documentary lets you see Dupree shaking off would-be tacklers the same way that Sarah Palin ignores rules of grammar and diction - with a gleeful alacrity that defied "refudiation."

And for what happened to him in college and beyond, I'm going to let you watch the show, because I hate to spoil the ending.  But there is an interesting sidestory to all this.

You who remember or have read of the civil rights struggle in this nation will recall Philadelphia, MS, as the place in which the based-on-fact movie "Mississippi Burning" was set.  Three civil rights workers, on their way to help African-Americans register to vote in that state (yes, this was 1964, not 1864) were waylaid on "speeding" charges as they traveled down Highway 19, held for several hours, and then set free.  From all appearances, it seemed that the sheriff held them long enough for local Klansmen to marshal their forces, and once the hooded hoodlums were ready, the three were let go, only to be beaten and killed by local horrors.



The Law of Neshoba County on trial.  Cecil Price, left.

The nation sat stunned, watching as a three-month long search finally resulted in the young men being found dead.  The local cops - Sheriff Lawrence Rainey and his deputy, Cecil Price, went up on murder charges and finally went to jail on severely compromised verdicts.  (The presiding judge having referred to the dead men by the 'n' word, you know the trial wasn't exactly on the up and up.)

But after serving four years of a seven (!) year sentence, Cecil Price came out of prison a changed man, accepting finally the changes that had come to the nation.  His son Cecil, Jr., and Dupree went to school together, entering local schools in 1970 that were desegregated for the first time that year.  "Little Cecil" and Dupree played high school football together in the 80's, hung out together, and visited in each other's homes.

At the end of his career, Marcus Dupree called Cecil Price, the man who had gone to jail for killing black and Jewish civil rights volunteers, and asked for, and received, a huge favor.

Watch the show, please.  ESPN will be repeating it.  If you're a young person, remember: my generation lived through this when we were in our teens.  It's hard to imagine that sort of hatred could exist in America, isn't it?

The Saturday Picture Show, Special January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977 edition

“ ‘Til we meet again, may God bless you. Adios.”

Nickel-and-diming him

Some people just don't think about the consequences of their actions.

Out in Los Angeles, a man named Andres Carrasco, apparently an upright clean-living citizen, retired bus driver, used to have his car insurance through Adriana's Insurance, but one day he went to their office to find out why they had dropped him.

An employee of Adriana's Insurance attempted to explain the situation to Mr Carrasco by bodily throwing him out of the office.

So Mr Carrasco went to the courts to sue the insurance company, and he won a settlement of $12,000.

So the good people over at Adriana's decided that the best way to shell out that kind of change would be to send over that kind of change.

Eight paint buckets full of American coins were delivered to Mr Carrasco by eight goons working for the Adriana firm.

His attorney, Anthony Gallo, said he can't even lift the buckets and he doesn't feel that Mr Carrasco, recently recovering from hernia surgery, should even try.

"I am disappointed by the way Adriana's treats their customers and the elderly," Carrasco told KNBC-TV. "We might be poor, but we are people too."

Even if he were not poor and elderly, and I wish he weren't either one of them, Mr Carrasco has a right not be assaulted by insurance agents.  It doesn't sound like Adriana's is a firm with which I would do business.  My car insurance company has a cute little gecko and Little Richard doing their commercials; Adriana's just doesn't seem to care how many people hear about their nastiness.  It cannot be good for their business to treat the gentleman this way.

The one bright note in all this is that Mr Carrasco now has 8 paint buckets!  You can never have too many of them around the house.

You've been!

Out of the following two things, I bet you have heard about only one of them...

....AC/DC's rock anthem "Thunderstruck"
....the Stuxnet computer virus

Freedom Fighters!

Because we AC/DC fanatics tend not to delve into the intricacies of computer malware and the dirty things that governments do to each other in the name of waging peace, I know the song, but not the bug.  

The Stuxnet virus was cooked up in 2010 with the specific intention of derailing Iran's nuclear program.  There has been talk that the hackers were, indeed, employees of the American and/or Israeli government(s), but who's to say?  

What we do know about it is that, in the middle of one dark Iranian night, 20% of Iran's nuclear centrifuges went berserk because the computers that control them told them to spin like a record playing at 45,000 rpm.  Used in a dairy, a centrifuge separates cream from milk, leaving us with tasty Almond-Pistachio ice cream cones for dessert.  Pistachios are grown in Iran, and until that night so were nuclear reactors, which require enriched uranium.  You get enriched uranium from nuclear centrifuges, but 20% of the Iranian centrifuges don't work anymore because "someone" put the Stuxnet hex on them, causing...

...the centrifuges to spin out of control, burning themselves up

..."Thunderstruck" to come blasting at top volume out of the speakers of the affected computers.  They couldn't turn the music off, either.  While it attacked the computers and the uranium spinners, it soaked the Iranian atmosphere with a good uncontrolled dose of Angus Young's guitar and Brian Johnson's vocal.

I have never loved the world's computer geek squad more in my entire life. 

Thunderstruck!

This Ain't Vegas

Not to get into all the debate over Ray Rice and his weak punishment for assaulting his fiancee at a casino in New Jersey, but have you noticed that casino business up there in Atlantic City is not exactly booming?

The Revel

As a matter of fact, the Revel Casino-Hotel, the site of Ray's indiscretions, was supposed to be on the proverbial auction block this week, but at the last minute, several "Credible offers" to purchase it seemed to crop up.  That leaves two other casinos that might close down by the end of this year - the Showboat Casino Hotel, and the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.  Donald Trump, man of great modesty, is suddenly embarrassed to have his name on the Trump Plaza, and is suing to have it removed.  From a business he invested in, when things were looking good for that business.

I have to tell you, I've been in exactly one (1) casino in my life, and that was because we heard the buffet at Maryland's Hollywood Casino in luxurious Perryville was pretty good.  It was!  But you have to walk through rows and rows of people playing slot machines and other gambling devices, and if any of them were having a good time feeding money into those machines, they surely hid it well.  I don't see it as fun, but my tastes and choices often run counter to the popular.  

I don't know how the casino business in Maryland is doing. I know they're just about to open another huge pleasure palace down near the ballparks in Baltimore, and the one at the Arundel Mills Mall seems to be packed all the time - so much so that the people who hang around the attached parking garage to wait for winners to emerge with their pockets full of twenties so that they can hold them up at gunpoint are having a hard time finding parking, and often have to park at satellite locations and get bused in.

The television commercials show young, zesty, lusty people tossing dice and playing cards, raking in chips, sipping the finest liquors and just having one Big Night Out, and I wish them the best, for all concerned.  Up in New Jersey, the Atlantic City boom seems to be ending, and I'd hate to see that happen here before it even really begins.

...Keeps the doctor away

Here's a report from NBC the other night that tells about a study claiming that taking an aspirin a day has been found to be helpful in preventing certain cancers - esophageal, stomach and colon among them.  Years ago, we found out that taking an aspirin a day was good for preventing heart attack and stroke.

Now, I'm no doctor, regardless of what I told certain people when I was on dates with them at age 16.  But I know that an aspirin a day is fairly safe, although they say that one person in a thousand suffers stomach bleeding from regular aspirin use.  I'll take those odds.

Pop a Bayer

But, whenever I tell people that I "pop a Bayer" every morning, sometimes they look at me as if I had just said I shoot speed with my bagel.  (To be honest with you, I don't buy Bayer or any other name brand aspirin, since all aspirin ARE alike, except when you pay for them.  You can get five bottles full of many Dollar Tree aspirins for what you'd pay for one small bottle of the big brand.  But - go ahead if you wish!)  They're aghast!  "You take an aspirin every day?" they demand.

And think, what if I didn't take my daily 325-mg dose of acetylsalicylic acid  - aspirin - which is not only an analgesic to relieve aches and pains, but also an antipyretic to reduce fever, and also an anti-inflammatory?  I might have pain and fever and be all inflamed!  And one pill saves all that!

Fiddling Around

It's just short of two and a half minutes and it was filmed when Eisenhower was president, for crying out loud, but it still cracks me up to this day!

It's a video of Jack Benny and Gisele MacKenzie doing a violin duet on "Getting to Know You."  Jack Benny was the American man for whom the clarification was made: a comic is a man who says funny things, a comedian is a man who says things funny.  Or says nothing, funny.   I'm sorry for those of you who missed seeing Jack in his weekly TV show or hearing him on the radio.  He developed a character over the years of a stingy, vain, foolish miser, who claimed to be 39 perpetually.  The classic joke was when a stickup man stuck him up and said,"Your money or your life!" and Jack, pausing with perfect timing, finally gasped, "I'm thinking it over!"

Of course, he was nothing like that character in real life, but we loved that guy - probably because deep within us all there is a hidden desire to be a little bit vain and tight-waddish.  We keep that hidden but like to see it acted out.

Gisele MacKenzie, born Gisèle Marie Louise Marguerite LaFlèche (1927 - 2003) was from Canada and was quite a fine singer, violinist and even an actress (in 1986, when Jeanne Cooper took sick for a stretch, she filled in on "The Young and the Restless" as Katherine Chancellor!) So she was a versatile entertainer, and Jack had her on his show in the 50's, helping her become known in America.

Jack and Gisele

It was a naturally funny idea for Jack and Gisele to team up on this duet.  "Getting to Know You" was a popular song from the Broadway and movie musical "The King and I," and has a pretty melody that lends itself to a duet.  But watch what happens when Gisele breaks off and adds a little flourish of her own!  Jack can't help but put himself out there, and the result is something that people have been laughing at even longer than they've been laughing at The Twist, 3-D movies, and making out at drive-in movies, three other amusing aspects of the 1950s.

Picture this

The other day, I listened to a conversation on WAMU's Kojo Nnamdi Show, in which several restaurateurs, a restaurant critic, and an etiquette expert talked about the use of cell phones at dinner, and in restaurants.  One man, owner a few different types of beaneries in the DC area, forbids taking pictures of food and/or making or receiving phone calls at one of his more formal places, but allows those practices in his pizza place and another casual location.

Some callers to the show averred that they are renting a space while tying on the feedbag at an eatery, which grants them the right to take a picture of their chow if they so desire.  And after all, if that picture lands on Instagram or Facebook or any of 101 other similar sites, it's good press for the hash house involved. One of the restaurant people said that taking a picture of your dinner adds ten minutes to the meal. (That must mean that someone brings in a professional photographer with those reflective umbrellas and big flash guns to take a picture of your bacon cheeseburger.)  Other people said that other people's flashes going off during the meal irritates them, and then a woman called up all around the bend because the other night a young couple brought their little daughter to a estaminet, and the little girl opened up her iPad and watched a movie, with headset on, while sliding mac and cheese down her neck.

And that's worse than doing the Crayola all over a placemat, somehow?   I don't think so.

It really got goofy when a guy said that some restaurants in the Los Angeles area confiscate cell phones from incoming chowhounds. Yeah.  Try that here!

For the record, if you want to take an entire photo album of the meal that God's bounty has provided you, it's oke by me. If you want to check your email or update your Facebook or do your fantasy football draft while you tuck away your supper, have at it. I'm not a fan of LOUD TALKING during meals but I do enjoy hearing people's stories, so I have that going for me.

One topic I want to hear about in one of these discussions is why there is no such thing as a nice slice of bacon anymore.  No matter what sort of greasy spoon or swanky joint you're in, from a side of bacon to a fancy omelette, all bacon these days is Applewood Smoked bacon.

This must be why apples cost around a dollar each, since all the trees where they used to grow are apparently being used to smoke bacon.

Sunday Rerun: Driving Me Crazy

I am always intrigued to see the gadgets and gizmos that people have on their cars. I love those rear-deck cameras that allow you to see just what you're about to run over or back into! (Don't try this at home, but you can always ask the driver to put it in reverse to activate the camera, then scamper around to the back bumper, drop trou and show 'em how pretty the moon is tonight!) Some cars allow you to plug your iPod - and soon, probably, your iPad - right into the sound system to jack out the hits. No self-respecting kiddie-hauler SUV is complete without twin rear fold-down plasma DVD screens so that little EmmyLou and Jim Bob can see a movie while enroute to the movies. (Heaven forbid that the children go without entertainment for 10 minutes!)

Radar detectors, satellite radio, intelligent parking assist (I.P.A.), under the grandstand (I.P. Daily), and on the Prius, Toyota offers something called the Pre-Collision Package, which is supposed to "help minimize the effects of a collision." Another thing that helps to minimize the effects of a collision is paying attention to the road and the traffic around you, instead of fooling with the entertainment systems in your car, but hey, that's just I.

This parking assist thing. Would you really sit back, press a button, and allow your car to parallel-park itself? Wouldn't you want some sort of input into the process, or would you rather just sit and sip your lemonade as the Biscayne parks itself 'neath a tree of shade? What's more American than a grumpy Daddy riding shotgun in the Rambler on some huge empty parking lot while Bud or Princess try to learn to parallel park between two upright posts - goal posts, if you will - so spread out as to allow parking for a 1962 American LaFrance fire engine? And, as I have advised countless youngsters over the years, once you pass the driver's test, you will never have to parallel park again for the rest of your life, unless you want to!

Same advice for struggling math scholars: get past Algebra, and you will never have to solve for 'x' again unless YOU want to! And this business with the one train leaving Albany at 4:18 going 135 mph towards Brattleboro...and what time will it meet the 5:27 train coming from Brattleboro...you tell your teacher there is no answer to that one, because in all of recorded history, we find no evidence of any time when two trains left their respective stations on time!

But anyway. I just thought of one more option that the new car manufactures ought to consider. We have fog lights and hazard flashers, hi-beam headlights, lo-beam headlights, parking lights, turn signals, every which-kind of light. But...for those people who sit through an entire red light, with 17 cars behind them in traffic, only to turn on the left turn signal when the light turns green...for those who pull onto a highway ramp behind you and then pull out and cut you off...for those who ride behind you for 23 miles through the pine barrens of New Jersey with their headlights illuminating the interior of your car like a crime scene...for those who pull out from a side street right in your path, only to putter along at 23 mph in front of you...for those who pull up next to you in traffic on a quiet morning playing the latest CD ("The World Is A Terrible Place Full Of Pain And Suffering") by a band of the same name...for these goofs and so much more...

How about an optional light that would look like this, for the rear window?

The Saturday Picture Show, August 9, 2014

Sunset on Mars - no, not a movie, the REAL Mars - taken in 2005 by the Spirit Rover.  Chances are, there are at least two Starbucks and a 17-screen movie theater right on this spot now.

 A man posted this online and said his grandmother stole the knife and fork while a prisoner of the Nazis in World War II - and she still uses it for every meal.

 This is a garage in Japan, where a Japanese person is attempting to fit a full-size SUV in a space made for a microcar.  Hey, if you don't mind, he doesn't mind...

 This would make a nice wallpaper for surf lovers, no?

 I like to Dole out information whenever I get any.  This is how pineapples are grown.  Are you like me, and until just now, you thought they grew on trees?

This is the Chicago Elevated train in 1969 - the same commuter rail line we saw in "Trains, Plains and Automobiles" and the opening to the Bob Newhart Show.

"Women hold up half the sky" - Mao Zedong

I'll admit to being from that generation when everyone's mother was like June Cleaver...home all day, vacuuming and making a nice layer cake while wearing a smart dress and pearls.  It was a different era for women, and for the American family all over the place.

I've told this a thousand times, but now it just seems impossible. In high school I worked for the A&P, a nice union job paying $2.15 an hour.  Guys twice and thrice my age were at the top of the clerk pay scale, earning $3/ hr for 40 hours of work - a gross of $120 a week.  And they were raising kids, buying houses and cars and groceries, on that salary.

Things change, and now the family structure quite often has both Mom and Dad out there working.  Sometimes the mother is home with the kids, and sometimes the father is.  It's whatever works these days.

If you remember the first time you saw a woman in a police uniform who was not a 'meter maid' or matron to protect female subjects, that was a step, along with women doing just about any job there is.  It's been a long time since anyone said anything disparaging about woman doing a "man's job," because there isn't really such a thing.

So it's a little sad to see people in the shoe business expecting women to take backward steps by casting them as man-hunting she-devils in tiger shoes. This shoe company, which I will not name except to say that they are about Nine miles West of reality, puts everything in ancient terms in this ad campaign for the right kind of shoes to wear while searching for a 'starter husband." Yes, companies selling to men use the same sort of sexist approach, but that hardly makes it right.  Women today can do just fine without starter husbands to bankroll them til the right sugar daddy comes along, and they certainly can handle dropping off the kids at kindergarten without dissolving into the puddle of tears in which swim the ghosts of long-ago stereotypes of helpless women.

Becky Hammon

So let this make you feel better about the world we live in today: the San Antonio Spurs basketball team has hired Becky Hammon as a full-time assistant coach, and no one, least of all the men on the Spurs, has been heard to say, "Ewwwww, a girl!"  She's qualified by dint of her experience in college, Olympic, and WNBA basketball, so let her do the job  - in whatever kind of shoes she feels comfortable.

Get the truck out of here

I am making the conscious decision to watch and read less news, because after following world events all my life, now, in my dotage, it is dawning on me that knowing what's going on doesn't give me the power to do anything about it.

So I'm planning to do a lot less with Alex Wagner and a lot more with Honus Wagner.

But one thing I enjoy on the news is the American influence all over the world.  For instance, you watch the Super Bowl and the other championship ball games, and within 3 seconds of the game being over, the winners are pulling on their WORLD CHAMPS t-shirts and caps, which were made up in advance, clearly, for both teams.

This never happened.

Which means that the losing team has a couple thousand shirts and caps that are no longer applicable or wearable.  This apparel is immediately sent to third-world countries, which is why you'll be watching Brian Williams With The News and see a report about a story in deepest Africa and see a guy wearing a t-shirt that says "TEXAS RANGERS WORLD CHAMPIONS"  or a guy in Gaza with a cap saluting the Denver Broncos for being Super Bowl champs in their minds only.

Another thing - advertising companies, take note.  How many stories have you seen in which a Toyota pick-'em-up truck is carrying 17 men and their guns and equipment through some distant war-torn area?  Why is Toyota not using these men to endorse their legendarily tough Tacomas and Tundras?  Have you ever seen a story in which it was reported that a group of terrorists or defenders intended to wage battle, but couldn't,
because their truck needed a hotshot?

The world would be a more peaceful place if everyone planning to fight a war had to drive Ford Explorers.

No Homophones Aloud

Blogger Torkildson

I (knead, need) to tell you that out in Utah, a state in which they (wear, where) those bolo ties without a hint of self-consciousness, a man says he has been fired for writing about homophones in his blog.

Homophones!  Why, the very idea! That may (seem, seam) to be the sort of thing you would discuss in your (cellar, seller) with your closest friends, but using the (phrase, frays) "Modern Homophones" will get your name (tact, tacked) up on the list of Former Employees where this man worked.

I'm sure he feels that everyone is (teeming, teaming) up against him, but he knows what his boss doesn't - that a homophone is a word that has an aural twin, another word that sounds the same, with different spelling and meaning.  For example, when you see someone send a text that says they are sorry for all you've been "threw," that's a sad example to put you through.  To hear Frankie Valli sing the theme song from the 70s musical "Greece" is another one.

After the blogger, Tim Torkildson, was (shone, shown) the door one recent (summery, summary) day, he told the Salt Lake Tribune that he was fired from (some, sum) school called the Nomen Global Language Center.

This is a school that teaches languages!  And the owner fired him, complaining, "now our school is going to be associated with homosexuality."  He said that because he didn't understand the (dual, duel) meanings, I guess.

I'm not going to (mints, mince) words here...

It just makes you (sigh, psi).

As Herbert Hoover said, "I'll be (dammed, damned)."

[Editor's note: last week when my orthopedist was examining my left (humerus, humorous) bone, I (told, tolled) him I didn't find it funny at all.]

Way off Target

"I don't want to sound complaining, but you know there's always rain in my heart..."   The Beatles, Please Please Me

I really don't mean to sound complaining, but there is something I want to share about the way certain people run their stores.  I don't want to mention any names, but I'm sure I'll hit the Target if I mention the store's name to you.  Everyone who works there has to wear a red shirt, which does not bother me. But it seems like everyone who works there also has to have a 500-watt walkie talkie to exchange information with people one aisle away.  At top volume.

Getting specific, we went to Target the other afternoon, the new one down in Canton.  It's good for us to walk and strutting around a store that size is a nice walk if you do a few laps.  Usually, it's nice and peaceful in a Target, but a few minutes in this store showed me that the establishment is suffering from the heartache of HMS.

You've all seen HMS in action, and, sad to say, many of you have had to deal with it in your own profession.  HMS is my code for Hyper Manager Syndrome and it manifests itself in the big head cheese stomping around barking out orders to his staff like Capt Bligh.  And in the new modern age, he has his walkie talkie (and they have theirs) so he can get things straightened out in Electronics while he's rearranging a display in Home Decor.

And it's not just the almost-constant caterwauling from Barney Fife On The Floor, rebroadcast over a couple of dozen radios.  Other people join in ("ALL DEPARTMENTS  prepare for inventory check" "Congratulations to our Guest Service Team for achieving top scores in the region") and soon the air is full of words, when all you wanted was some peace and quiet, the perfect atmosphere for looking for no-show socks and taco shells. And then everyone from the cashiers to the guy working the machine that brings back 150 carts at a time joins the Roman chorus and chimes in.

As it happened, I had just decided to go hang around Harris Teeter instead.  (They surely have taco shells, and quite possibly, socks.) As I turned to leave, the Loud Logorrheic chirped up with a sprightly, "Are you finding everything ok today, sir?" and I said, "What I hoped to find was a tranquil time to shop, but your radios are loud and annoying," and he said, "Yeah!  Welcome to MY world!"

Or goodbye to it.  Harris Teeter took me in kindly.

The Dollar Store

I don't know the first thing about selling real estate and I doubt that I'd be very good at it, because my sales pitch would be along the lines of "Do you like this house?  Well, then, I think you should buy it" and that might not be enough to get me into the Top Sellers' Club.

But these deals I hear about on the radio...a guy who has made a fortune in the real estate business is coming to town, pitching both his tent and his foolproof plan for making your own million.  All you have to do is get a bunch of people who own houses that they are willing to sell you for maybe $200,000.  Then you turn around and flip that dwelling for $250,000, pocketing the 50 grand for yourself and heading for one of your many vacation getaway spots.

I used to work with a guy who had "figured out a surefire way" to make money by betting on horse races.  He was willing to let me in on the scheme if I would just pony up (get it?) half a hundred G's to get the plan off the ground.

Every so often, someone will come along and offer to let you in on their business, which involves them buying soaps and other home products from a large company and selling it to you so you can sell it to your friends, neighbors and co-workers.  The big company makes a mint, the local distributor makes half a mint, and you make space in your cellar for cases of unsold laundry detergent.

And don't forget this one - a man ran an ad in the National Perspirer or whatever they call it.  The ad said "Make $100,000 in direct mail marketing - send $1 to Box XXX Itchy, Indiana for details."  And people sent off their singles and got back a xeroxed sheet that said "Buy an ad that says "Make $100,000 in direct mail marketing.."

All of these plans rest on the generosity of someone who knows how to turn a dollar bill into a million just like it, and the incredible thing about it all is that they are so willing to share it with you and me, rather than just keeping all the money for themselves and their indolent brothers-in-law!  How very kind.

Sunday rerun! Keep this under your hat!

Maybe it was a pizza shell

What was it, April of this year, when Prince William of Merrie Olde Englande marriede thate nice ladye Kate, who is now known as Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge?

People from here drive through Cambridge all the time on their way to the ocean, and we don't see how anyone from a nice town on Maryland's Eastern Shore would want to move to England, but it's up to her.  There is an opening in Kentucky if she and her husband wish to move down there; he could be the new Duke of Paducah. He could crack 'em up down at the Grand Ole Opry! I can hear him now..."I'm not saying my brother is awkward, but he tripped over a cordless phone! I say! Jolly good!  Cheerio, stiff upper lip, by Jeeves!"

Anyway, we all thought, gee, what a pretty girl he chose to be princess, and possibly queen someday, because it looks like his grandmother Liz is good for another couple of decades, and no one over there seems to want his father Charlie to be king, since that would put Camilla Parker-Carr in the position of queen, and well, we just shan't have that, shall we?

But I imagine it was the usual deal with newlyweds this past weekend when old Willie boy came home and said, "You know, sugarlumps, we have my cousin Zara's wedding coming up on Saturday, I say, jolly good.  Do you have something silly, something that looks like a giant flour burrito, that you could wear on your head?"

Kate and her hat

And she said something like, "No, Your Travesty, but I do have the old satellite dish we used to use to watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" reruns...could I wear that on me 'ead?"

And he said something like, "Sure, m'love, because Zara is going wear a tiara that once belonged to her great-grandmother, whose name was Princess Andrew."

Zara Phillips wore a tiara belonging to her great-grandmother, Princess Andrew of Greece, for her wedding to Mike Tindall in Edinburgh, Scotland

And off to the wedding they went!