Teacher, teacher

 I'm certain that no teacher who ever endured my Punchinello classroom antics would have done this, but out in California, a teenaged male who disappeared in 2020 has been found living with a teacher.  

A California public school teacher has been arrested after she concealed the disappearance of a teenage boy for two years, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. She's under arrest, so at least her students will have the experience of having a substitute for the near future.

The kid was 15, according to his guardian Katte Smith, when he left home in Rancho Cordova following a fight with others in the family.  “He felt like the grass was greener on the other side,” Smith said. 

That was May, 2020, and he did not turn up until this past March, although the family with whom he lives and the local police tried to locate him.  He showed up at the house and asked to move back in, is what happened.

Last week, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office charged Holga Castillo Olivares, 61, with keeping the boy hidden.  Olivares is a second-grade teacher at the Alice Birney Waldorf-Inspired K-8 School. According to the boy, whose identity is not given in news reports, Olivares is the mother of one of his friends. 

Charges for Olivares include detention of a minor with intent to conceal from a parent (a felony), and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, (a misdemeanor). She spent this past weekend in the Sacramento County Main Jail, ineligible for bail, and will be in court this afternoon.

The hoosegow the teacher called home this weekend

Olivares is on leave, according to the Sacramento City Unified School District, while their investigation continues.

“We felt so robbed of all this time with him. You can’t just hide someone’s kid and think that’s OK,” Ms Smith told station KCRA.

I mean, you have to wonder what kind of teacher, let alone what kind of woman, this Olivares is, to think she can harbor a troubled teen as if he were a runaway Labrador Retriever. I am certain the topic of how wrong that would be came up during one or more of her education classes at whatever college she attended.

 

Sunday Rerun: National Velvet

 Somehow I will have to make sure that Peggy does not pick up the book I am reading these days and start reading it.  

Just the right thickness for a wobbly chair leg

It's the autobiography of the noted actor, raconteur, Hollywood swinger and tanmaster George Hamilton.  "Don't Mind If I Do" tells the tale of the life of a man chiefly famous for being famous...sort of the male version of the Gabor sisters, without all that acting talent.  I picked this book up at Barnes & Noble on their reduced rack for $5.98, because I was interested in reading about just how it is that he became an actor, and also because the book looked so lonesome, sitting there atop a gigantic stack of other copies of itself. 


And I'm not even that far into it, to tell you the truth. I've read up the part where his mother, having left his father, supports herself by striking up friendships with Hollywood notables such as Hoagy Carmichael.  

I am telling you, there is a world out there in which people do such things.  Then again, there is a world out there in which people used to be able to spend their vacation at Twitty City, the Hendersonville TN home of country music legend Conway

Conway Twitty (1933 - 1993)

Twitty.  And after paying the admission charge, fans were able to roam the grounds and visit the mansion wherein dwelt the man born Harold Lloyd Jenkins.  Fans could even enter his house and walk around in there.  Sure, there were velvet ropes set up to keep people from entering the bathroom while the great man loofahed his back, but they say that one could actually stand right outside the dining area and watch Conway spooning Shredded Wheat down his neck in the morning.  

And people planned their vacations to be in Twitty City for this.

George Hamilton IV

You ask how in the world does Conway Twitty have anything to do with George Hamilton, and you might think I am confusing Hamilton with George
Hamilton IV, the country singer from North Carolina who had such a big hit with "A Rose and a Baby Ruth" in 1956.  But no.  Here's the angle:


Hamilton had an older brother Bill who was interested in decorating and had a real flair for design.  His mother let Bill decorate their apartment in New York, and Bill got the idea to put one of those velvet ropes in front of the door to a rarely-used closet.  People walking by were to get the impression that the door led to another whole area of the apartment, but it was currently closed for renovation: hence the velvet rope.

I'm not kidding you.  There are people who actually think like that, deceiving people into thinking there is more to   them than the eye can see at first glance. And the velvet rope is all that stands between them and reality. Then there are people who will cluster on the east side of a velvet rope while Conway Twitty goes about his life on the west side.  

I just don't think that Conway would have fronted in any way.  He seemed like a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy.  Hamilton comes from that there-must-be-more-to-see-than-just-this school of thought.  

I think I prefer the Conway.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 22, 2022

 

I like to remind everyone every so often that the first monument to George Washington was built here in Baltimore's Mount Vernon neighborhood, and opened in 1815. I think there's one in Washington, D.C. as well.

If you're a really great poet, you will find out exactly what words are worth.

I'm always shocked when I hear of people who say they don't like coconut! Myself, I love it!

The Dublin, Ohio, Fire Department numbers among its members one or more creative types who can make a hose really seem to come to life!

I never had one of these, but they were the coolest thing before tapes and mp3 players...a record player for the car that played 45s. I wonder if anyone ever slammed into the back of the Rambler in front of them while sliding out a Paul Revere And The Raiders record to insert Jan & Dean.

It hasn't happened here yet, and it sure doesn't look like it will this weekend, but here's how cool it looks when it snows on top of changing leaves!

In our country, we look at this and it doesn't even register, how much courage it takes for an Iranian woman to walk past a mullah on the street while not wearing the approved headscarf. The tragedy in that nation is what happens when religion replaces civil government.

It happens to us all.

Well, now, I guess if you have a really expensive purse, you want to keep it covered so it doesn't get worn-looking. So, put it in an acrylic case. But what about if the acrylic case gets smudgy? Put it all in a bigger case? This could go on forever. 

This is a homemade scarf knitted by Emily Ann Meyer of New Windsor, MD to salute the Baltimore Orioles on their great 2022 season. She knitted three lines after each game - all 162 of them - with Orange yarn for a home win, Black for a road win, and White and Grey representing home and road losses, respectively. What a great scarf! Let's hope she makes another one for 2023 and let's hope it's full of orange and black yarn!

Oh-oh, and you're Mary Tyler Moore

"Ooh-wee-hoo, I look just like Buddy Holly"

You hear those words, and you think of Weezer, the great band led by Rivers Cuomo, and named so because Cuomo's father thought that young Rivers reminded him of Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins from The Little Rascals. 

Contrary to popular belief, Cuomo did not have asthma as a child.  In those films, Wheezer Hutchins was always running after the older kids, all out of breath, so that's where he got the nickname. Apparently Rivers's dad thought his son was that way, too. 

For all their great songs ("Buddy Holly", "Island In The Sun", "Hash Pipe", "Beverly Hills" and dozens more) Weezer has attracted a ton of great fans. And their fans express their devotion in unique ways...

Way out west in the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray, Utah, a man named Cory Winn, CEO and founder of the Lucca International t-shirt company, spent his own excess money to rent the billboard at 5800 S. State Street.

And on that billboard, he had emblazoned just one word:  "WEEZER" in Comic Sans font, all caps.

Those of us who obsess unendingly about fonts take a dim view of Comic Sans unless it's used in an ironic sense such as this.

Anyway, he put up the billboard in June, and here, four months later, the band replied, with a message on another billboard.

Winn told KSTU-TV that he and his business buddy Creed Stump came up with the idea to salute Weezer in the "worst font ever."

One of the t-shirts Lucca sells shows a cartoon image of the members of Weezer with the words "I Love One Direction" below the picture.   

The billboard has now received a response from the band itself, with a new billboard being erected about a mile away with the message: "Thanks to whoever bought the billboard down the road. -Weezer."

 

Winn said, "Never in my wildest dreams did I think that just putting 'Weezer' on a billboard would warrant a response from the band themselves. It wasn't even a call out to them."

And the joke will go on. Winn is planning a new message to replace the original greeting on the billboard he rented. 

"[We'll] likely exchange the panel we already have there, but I'd like to keep this little text message thing going with them, see how far we can take it," he said. "We have a message prepared, ready to go right now, and it'll get up ASAP."

What I love about the USA is that we always find time to be polite.

Cat Scan

Two things you never want to say to a cat parent:

a) Wouldn't you really rather have a dog?

b) Do you have any pictures of your cat handy that you can show me?

This whole smart phone thing (I think it's here to stay) makes it all the easier, of course. When Tabby or Felix is doing something unbearably cute (which happens every 15 minutes) you don't need to go running to the drawer where you keep the Kodak camera. Your phone will do just fine, so snap to it!

And now, there's another reason to! We ailurophiles will be helping our beloved companions by using a app called Tably, which was developed by an animal health technology company, Sylvester.ai,  of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  The Tably app uses the phone's camera to tell whether a feline is feeling pain.

What it does, it checks out Katy Purry's ear and head position, eye-narrowing, muzzle tension, and how whiskers change. The app will detect any distress. The journal Scientific Reports reported in 2019 that there is a thing called the FGS - the Feline Grimace Scale - which is "a valid and reliable tool for acute pain assessment in cats."

So is "whether or not the cat in question is currently gnawing on your thumb."

Miche Priest is Sylvester.ai's leader on this venture, and she says, "It helps human cat owners know if their cat is in pain or not," said. "We were able to train a machine using machine learning and a series of images."

Meantime,  Alice Potter from British animal charity the RSPCA, says we should be checking out Skimbleshanks's entire body, including the tail, for clues as to their well-being.

"Cats that are worried or scared will hold that tail really tight and tense to them. And then aside from that, there's also just thinking about their behavior in terms of are they eating, drinking, toileting, sleeping like they usually do?"

And another sure sign: if Sushi Sioux is using her tail rhythmically to beat out a tom-tom drum pattern on your chest, she is not happy.

He called on the saxophone

In 1841,  Adolphe Sax, an inventor living in Belgium, came up with a great idea: putting maple syrup on a Belgian waffle.

And he also figured out that if he put a reed, from a woodwind instrument, into a brass horn, the resultant device would make music that sounded like a saxophone. Which is why he named it after himself.

Sax and his sax moved to France, where he had all sorts of trouble. The musical instrument business did not like his horn.  Some enemy burned down his factory, someone tried to kill him, and he filed for bankruptcy twice.

At least he had the right instrument to play a mournful wailing solo for his bad luck.

It got worse after he died, even. In Nazi days, German authorities called the sax "entartete kunst" (degenerate art) and sent SS soldiers to clobber anyone caught wailing away on one. 

In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union banned the use of saxes in bands, on the grounds that the instrument was the embodiment of Jazz, which was "the embodiment of bourgeois American imperialist culture." 

And you'll notice that no action was ever taken against the inventor of the recorder, which has been used by schoolchildren to torture their parents with agonizing renditions of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" since Stalin was in junior high.

And now comes news from Italy, where doctors performed delicate brain surgery while the patient stayed awake...while playing his saxophone.

Officials at Paideia International Hospital in Rome reported that 35-year-old patient "G.Z." stayed awake and played a medley of saxophone favorites that lasted all through the 9-hour tumorectomy.

Besides allowing the operating room staff to turn off whatever background music they usually play, G.Z's music let the surgeons "map" different brain functions as they worked.

"Awake surgery makes it possible to map with extreme precision during surgery the neuronal networks that underlie the various brain functions such as playing, speaking, moving, remembering, counting," said lead surgeon Dr. Christian Brogna.

Dr. Brogna said the surgery was a success, even though most hospitals recommend that doctors refrain from having sax while on duty.

Hey Hey We Were The Monkees

There is only one Monkee left. It's Micky Dolenz, the madcap drummer of the Prefab Four, and he wants to see the files the FBI has on the band.

Say what, now?

For context, some people who saw The Beatles in the movie "A Hard Day's Night" had an idea to get four musical types together, have a great writing and production team make great music for them (two great singles and 10 half-fast filler songs per album) and then put the four guys - Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones - in a knockabout tv show with physical comedy, sight gags, and people doing silly things.

It worked great for two years, but the inmates wanted to run the asylum, by which I mean the band decided that the people who were putting their music and their videos together didn't know what they were doing, and insisted on playing their own instruments and writing their own songs. In 1967, they had four #1 albums, a feat unmatched before or since.

In 1968, they were unemployed, and the show sank like a stone in six months.

 

Dolenz now says that their first hit, "Last Train To Clarksville," was a subtle anti-Vietnam War protest. And the FBI, at the time under the direction of the totally sane J. Edgar Hoover, opened a file on these revolutionaries, and now Dolenz is suing the Federal Bureau of Investigation so he can see any records with his name in the fed files.

Actually, some of the file came out in 2011. Through the heavily blackened-out pages, we can see than an FBI fink went to a Monkees concert in 1967, and told the steadfast agency that there was a backscreen to the rear of the stage "that depicted “subliminal messages … which, in the opinion of [redacted], constituted ‘left wing innovations of a political nature.’”

And...“These messages and pictures were flashes of riots in Berkeley, anti-U.S. messages on the war in Vietnam, racial riots in Selma, Alabama, and similar messages which had unfavorable response from the audience.”

The FBI website mentions another document on The Monkees that is "redacted entirely."

Micky filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request this summer, to get a look at those files. With no reply in hand, he's pursuing legal action “to obtain any records the FBI created and/or possesses on the Monkees as well as its individual members.” 

I don't know if this is in the files, but when The Monkees tour played Baltimore in '67, the opening act was a certain Jimi Hendrix, who was booed off the stage by kids screaming for The Monkees. He ran for the hills after playing seven shows as their opener, because If Six Was Nine, he couldn't have taken two more shows.

I'm gonna sit write down and write myself

My handwriting is horrible.  My father was quite a proficient amateur calligrapher, and my mother won prizes in high school for her Palmer Method handwriting, and anything I write tends to look like I was trying to make an old BIC pen write a few more words. 

It doesn't help that I am lefthanded, and my fellow lefties know the agony of "math hand." That's where you've done a whole page of arithmetic with pencil on paper and the heel of your hand looks like a graphite pit with all the pencil smudges over it. 

However, I'm certain that lots of lefthanded writers put out page after page of perfectly legible work, whereas I...don't.

But there is an effort afoot (or at hand) to mark National Handwriting Day every year on January 23, which just happens to be the birthday of John Hancock, first  signer of our Declaration of Independence.  And, according to legend, he signed it in very large letters so “the fat old King could read it without his spectacles."

Pretty impressive, especially when you remember Hancock was using a quill pen made from some poor goose's feather, and not a BIC.

We didn't even know there is such a group, but The Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association is there to promote good penmanship by talking about the history and the influence of it. They feel the pressure of so many of us pounding out notes on a QWERTY keyboard, but then again, lousy typing is still better than lousy penmanship. They started Handwriting Day in 1977 to put a fine point on it, if you will.

And if they really want to promote good handwriting, should they not be sending all of us a handwritten letter, or at least a postcard?

And while I will admit that a nice handwritten-in-cursive letter or thank-you note makes a fine appearance, so many of us would be sending letters and notes that the recipients couldn't read.  What could be more embarrassing that getting a phone call to ask, "What does it say in this letter? That you 'love me forever' or you're 'moving to Rochester'?" 

Sunday Rerun: Leave Me Alone

 According to the National Rake Foundation - and they ought to know - the last autumn leaf to fall off a tree comes down off the Bradford Pear tree in the front yard of the splendid home I share with the wonderful Mrs C.  Every other tree in North America seems to wrap up its Fall Color Show by the time I get to put the rakes and blower back in the shed.

Hey, the county even stopped collecting leaf bags two or three weeks ago. All through October and November we ride around the suburbs, marveling at the lovely colors as the other trees in town see their leaves change color. The oaks turn red, brown and russet. Hickories go all golden bronze; dogwoods become purplish-red. There are birches, all bright yellow, and maples that run the color gamut from orangey red to scarlet.

The rest of the trees on our little slice o'heaven are ash trees, whose leaves have the kindness to turn a kind of paper-bag color and drop off while the lawn is still being cut, so there's not much to rake. 

Oh, but this Bradford Pear ("Bradford" being a word meaning "little inedible pellets that stain the driveway and sidewalks") is stubborn. While every other tree turns colors and their owners rake up the detritus and then put the rakes away for another year, we are stuck waiting for the change to occur.

And we wait.  And wait.

As happened this week, it usually works out that a windy rainstorm finishes denuding the tree, and then after things dry out a bit, I get out there with the annoying leaf blower and round up the crunchy foliage, hiding it in bags otherwise full of household debris.

But all the while as I bag 'em up, I talk to the tree and ask it if it would mind sharing the yard with a nice apple tree.  

Sure, it's rude of me, but this time next year, I could be baking a free pie!

The Saturday Picture Show, October 15, 2022

 

Jennette McCurdy's autobiography has probably the most provocative book title since Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book," and it should be required reading for all parents who want their children to follow a pattern set down by the parents. Jennette has a lot of talent, but she didn't want to do what her mom wanted her to do with it. If a child wishes to be an actress or performer, they will let their parents know. No need to force them.   

They call this flint corn or calico corn. It's pretty as a fall decoration. It is edible, but it helps to have cow teeth and stomach!

Nature's Bounty on full fall display.

See what it says? For motion picture use only? This is Hollywood money, just not the kind you earn by being a movie star.

Ah! The Edsel! Worst product ever idea ever out of Detroit; they were just fancy Fords that looked like they were sucking on lemons.

Now here's a warning sign that needs no words to get its message across. Zap!

At the recent Pole Climbing Championships competition, the yellow helmets did a whole lot better than the white helmets, but everyone enjoyed the view up there.

Your Army At Work: "How's it going, Eisenhower?"  

Even in Australia, the motto is the same: Put the wet stuff on the hot stuff.

This guy was thrilled to find an 1875 Deutsches Reich one cent piece in his change one day. It's worth about $14.50, so it's not enough for a ski chalet or anything, but it's interesting.

One of those surveys!

 40 odd things about me - Please play along!  I think these are the second best thing on the internet, second only to videos of cats playing the piano.

1. Do you put ketchup on hot dogs? Yes and I always call it "catsup" just to be old-fashioned!

2. Choice of Pop/Soda?  Seltzer (sparkling water)  - Plain or grapefruit

3. Do you put salt on your watermelon? Yes

4. Can you swim? Yes, I learned as a child because it seemed likely that I would be tossed off a boat someday

5. Hot dogs or hamburgers? One of each, please. Cheese, catsup, mayo and fried onions on the burger, please/

6. Favorite food?  Gotta say beef

7. Do you believe in ghosts? Not at all

8. What do you drink in the morning? Hot tea

9. Can you do 100 push ups? Sure, just give me a couple of weeks

10. Summer, Winter, Spring, or Fall? Fall

11. Your favorite Pet? My Eddie Cat

12. Tattoos? None yet but I want "BORN TOO LOOSE" on my forearm

13. Do you wear glasses?  I need them to read but I wear them all the time because taking them off and putting them back on is a hassle

14. Do you have a phobia? Not crazy about heights

15. Do you have a nickname? Marky Mark (I had it first. My grandmother called me that, Mr Wahlberg.)

16. Three favorite animals? Cats, prairie dogs, and capybaras 

17. Biggest down fall? Impatience

18. Rain or Snow? Snow and plenty of it

19. Can you change a tire? Can I? Yes. Will I? No.

20. Favorite flower? Pillsbury

21. Can you drive a stick?  Yes

22. Ever gone sky diving? See # 14

23.  Kids? None

24. Favorite colors?  Brown and orange

25. Favorite movie? The Godfather, Stripes, The Dirty Dozen, Office Space

26. Can you whistle?  No

27. Where were you born? Baltimore MD 

28. Siblings? 1

29. Surgeries?  4

30. Shower or bath? Shower

31. Last song you heard? Twisting USA - Danny And The Juniors

32. Broken a bone? No 

33. How many TVs in your home? 4

34. Worst pain? Deaths of loved ones. 

35. Do you like to sing? Yes! I'm naturally a bass, but people often ask me to sing tenor. Ten or twelve miles away.

36. Are your parents still alive? Deceased, 1997 and 2014.

37. Do you like camping ? I can't even imagine it. 

38. What do you binge watch? Right now I'm going back through That 70's Show, streaming year by year. 😄

39. Pumpkin or pecan pie? I like both but pecan is better. I also like blueberry and cherry and sweet potato. 

40. Add a photo of yourself. 

40 odd things about me - Please play along! I love reading them

Yo quiero Taco Bell

When I was younger, I was busier, working and doing whatnot for my parents, so we ate a lot of fast food. I always loved Taco Bell. I think Peggy did too, but not as much as I did. And every time I went in there, I thought of radio legend Don Geronimo saying that he would buy three Nacho Supremes and devour them for a late afternoon snack. I wanted to try to match that but I never did. 

The Bell was like catnip to me, and with two locations close by the Lazy 'C,' I was never far from a bagful of heaven. And for those rare days when I didn't feel like having a taco, the Bell Beefer did the job- it was the taco meat on a hamburger roll. Best of both worlds, right?

But being retired means I cook almost all of our meals, and while I can't say my tacos and tostadas are as good as Taco Bell's, I don't get many complaints. 

And maybe I'll just have to swing in there a time or two, because it says here that by the time this year drags to a close, Taco Bell is supposed to be bringing back some discontinued menu items!

Remember the Double Decker Taco: that was the answer to "what kind of shell do I want?"  You got a hard taco wrapped in a soft flour tortilla, with refried beans as the middle layer. That was on the menu from 1995 until 2019 when, apparently, someone in the home office went crazy. That was the time when they also cut out Fiery Doritos Locos Tacos, among several others.

Maybe it will be one of the originals, from 1970: The Enchirito, which was sort of an enchilada and sort of a burrito...beef, beans, and onions tucked in for a good time in a soft flour tortilla, swimming in shredded cheddar and red sauce. That little crowd-pleaser got the boot in 2013, and who knows why?

Taco Bell Headquarters says the Enchirito and the Double Decker Taco are “two of the most requested menu items.” Voting has been going on online and the results will be announced soon at a gala event emceed by Donald Trump.

And all this came about because the public lobbied successfully for the company to bring back the Mexican Pizza, which was recently reinstated to a permanent spot on the menu.

“On the heels of the love and passion we saw for Mexican Pizza, we wanted to continue elevating the voices of our most loyal fans by giving them exclusive access to a uniquely digital experience that fosters brand love,” Taco Bell chief brand officer Sean Tresvant said in the press release.

Don't we all love corporate-speak? Say, Sean, how about another round of Cinnamon Cinnamon Crispas?

Bar none

I think the first time I saw it on TV was the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, where hardbitten news boss Lou Grant kept a bottle of whiskey in his bottom desk drawer to help himself deal with good news and bad news in the newsroom.

Now it's a standard scene in lawyer shows to have the brilliant barrister have a bottle of hooch on hand. Sometimes it's in his desk, sometimes he has a whole bar set up in his office.

But the tv station and the law firms are private businesses. It crosses the line when things like that happen in government offices, but that's what was going on in Montgomery County, Maryland, right outside Washington D.C.

The head of their planning board has acknowledged keeping a "well-stocked liquor cabinet" in his office, and for that, he has been reprimanded by the County Council and docked four weeks pay.

Casey Anderson is the name of the man in charge of the board. Two other members will find their paychecks lighter by one day as a result of their involvement.

There was an anonymous complaint filed with the county's inspector general, and as the investigation unfolded (what investigation? They walked into his office and it looked like the set of "Cheers") Anderson admitted having dozens of bottles of the devil's brew in his office.

Two things to remember: as with all government structures, the people who work there are being paid by taxpayers, who might not look favorably on their tax-supported workplaces having the ambiance of the Club Pussycat. Montgomery County has a strict stated policy against alcohol in the workplace.

Anderson, as the head of the agency, would oversee the disciplinary process if any of his employees were spotted nipping from the sauce while on the job. 

And he didn't just ride in on a head of cabbage. He's been on the board for eleven years, serving as chairman for the last eight

The nine-member County Council, 100% Democrats, said they were  “extremely disappointed” in the way Anderson, Vice Chair Partap Verma and Commissioner Carol Rubin acted on the job, saying, “Montgomery County Planning Board leadership must model the behavior that we want all employees to display.”

Anderson, Verma, and Rubin will soon be warming seats at Employee Assistance Program counseling, as per the Commission’s protocol.

Anderson made the following statement:  “I remain committed to the important work of our agency and the county government in moving our community forward.” 

He should have added, "Work is a place for work to get done, and alcohol is not a part of that." 

Put that shovel down

Around the middle of March, 2020, as the news of the pandemic became increasingly dire, we felt the world shifting around us. It was sort of like being in a car with failing brakes and a thoroughly inadequate sound system as we hurtled headlong through changes like we had never seen before.

Changes like mask mandates and distance learning and social distancing and everyone reeking of Purell and businesses going under and toilet paper shortages and so much sickness and death.

Some two and a half years later, those who died are not coming back, but we are dying at a much slower rate, thanks to common sense and vaccinations and rules instituted for the good of all, because some people just won't go along with medical recommendations. And yes, the pendulum has swung back to a certain degree, but there are things that are just never going to be the same. Some people will work from home, if not all of the time, a great deal of the time. Supply chain issues will continue, because the people who make cake mix and shirts and gimcracks saw how well it worked for the toilet paper people  - claim a shortage and jack the price way up high - and they want their share, too.

But there is one tradition in America that the pandemic may just about be ready to ruin forever, and I feel it necessary to explain this custom to friends who live in countries where the only snow they see is in a spray can or a snow globe toy. 

In the parts of the US where it snows enough that cars have a hard time getting around, the tradition has been to close school for those days. Children wake up early, turn on the tv or the tablet (they don't even know what a radio is anymore) and wait to hear the official announcement "Baltimore County Schools will be closed today due to inclement conditions." 

With the chance of snow in the air, the kids wore their pajamas inside-out the night before to increase the chance of snow. They might have put a spoon under the pillow for the same reason, they might have performed a ritual "Snow Dance," they might have put some ice cubes out on the porch or flushed ice down the toilet, and any number of localized folkloric steps to assuring schools will be closed. 

Once the word is out, everyone goes back to sleep for awhile and then eats four bowls of highly sugared cereal before going out to play in the snow, which activity parents hope will last until way past dark, at which time it's proper to come in and pray for "just one more day..."

But, as I say, this might be coming to a sad end. The Anne Arundel County Schools have checklisted a Virtual Day Instruction Plan for inclement weather, so that the schools down there can turn a nice snow day to a virtual instruction day.

Oh sure, they say that "the implementation of the plan in no way means that every inclement weather day will become a virtual instructional day." And that the decision will be made on a case-by-case basis.

But you know how these things go. They say they can do this scheme as many as eight days a year, so just put your pajamas on right, put that spoon back in the draw, and get that tablet out. 

Miss Cellaneous wants your attention. Building that snowman can wait until after you have mastered quadratic equations.

 

Here's what we're gonna do:

 

Sunday Rerun: Is that a Balsam, Fir, or Pine tree? I can't deciduous.

 You know, one lawn chore I really don't mind doing is raking leaves.  We don't have that many leaves because we don't exactly have a forest of trees here at the Lazy 'C' Ranch, you understand, but when they come down, they have to meet their fortune at the hands of a rake.

It's my long-held contention that most leaves that people rake are not their own.  A lot of what's on your yard right now belongs to your neighbor's maple or elm or ash or pecan (Southern US only) tree. But it all works out, because YOUR leaves wind up next door, or around the corner.  And then someone else is raking them up.

Next time you find yourself raking up the pieces of tree remains that cover your yard in a foot-deep river, here are some leaf vocabulary words to run over in your mind. 

The abscission layer is the barrier of special cells created at the base of petioles in autumn.  The petiole, as any schoolkid knows, is the stalk connecting the blade of a leaf to the stem.

Now, where's a schoolkid, preferably one with a rake, now that the leaves are all over the yard?  Oh, that's right, they're up at the school, learning about abscission layers and petioles and I don't know what-all else.

The forest gumps who know about these things estimate that the average big oak tree dumps 254,480 leaves on an unwilling homeowner, all of which have to be scooped up and put in XXX large plastic bags.  These bags are sold in packs of 24 and come with cuts and rips in them, made by the guy who boxes them up at the factory, so that just after you fill them up with leaves, the bag breaks, and leaves spill all over the yard.

Just so's you know, he used to work for the Trojan company, doing the same work...

The Saturday Picture Show, October 8, 2022

 

Sometimes, a leather satchel is just a leather satchel. This one is special, though. It's Sigmund Freud's doctor bag, on exhibit at the Freud Museum. I wonder what he meant by that.

This is the cabin in Van Lear, Kentucky, where Loretta Lynn was born and raised. I am sure that the electric line running to the house did not exist in 1932 when she was born. By the way, here's how Loretta got her first name: her parents used old movie magazines for wallpaper, and while giving birth, her mom saw a picture of Loretta Young and thought it was a great name! Loretta sang about being raised in "Butcher Holler," but that's just a name she made up for the song "Coal Miner's Daughter," to give a little flavor to her birthplace. I guess Van Lear didn't sound coal-y enough.

From the Colombian Andes, say hi to the lovely Masked Trogon!

This cannot possibly be safe. How could you sleep in this thing, way up high in the air? Still, you've gotta love the view.

If you weren't around for the 80s, I'm sorry you missed these pants. Patchwork madras was the very epitome of what we called "go to hell pants," meaning that if anyone said they didn't like our pants, we were authorized to tell them to go to hell.

We have a tree like this on our street. It's like a guy with a mullet...business up front, party in the back. The tree is fall up front and spring in back.

Domino's has an interesting advertising angle going...they fill potholes and paint their logo on them to let the world know how civic-minded they are. A better promotion for them would be to make and sell pizzas that don't taste like potholes, but that's none of my beeswax.

Fall in Minnesota. Beautiful!

Times Square in New York City, 1957. Two things stand out: the tail fins on this Plymouth taxi. Who came up with them? Also, that Camel billboard on the left blew fake smoke rings made of steam. The 50s, God bless 'em.

If you need something done around the house and you meet a guy whose tools look like this, hire him at once!

Yacht Rock

By now, I hope that everyone has had a chance to see "Caddyshack" at least five times. That was the movie from 1980, starring Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, and Bill Murray concerning the antics of the snobs at a golf club and the grits who worked there.

It's a movie that probably inspired more lines repeated by more people than any others, lines like:

• “Remember Danny – Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three rights make a left.”
•  “I’m going to give you a little advice. There’s a force in the universe that makes things happen. And all you have to do is get in touch with it, stop thinking, let things happen, and be the ball.” 
• Judge Smails: You know, you should play with Dr. Beeper and myself. I mean, he’s been club champion for three years running and I’m no slouch myself.   Ty Webb: Don’t sell yourself, short Judge, you’re a tremendous slouch.
• “Oh, this is the worst-looking hat I ever saw. What, when you buy a hat like this I bet you get a free bowl of soup, huh?”
•  “Let’s go, while we’re young!” (I still use this one, even though it is hardly applicable anymore.)
• “Oh, this your wife, huh? A lovely lady. Hey baby, you must’ve been something before electricity.” 
• "So I jump ship in Hong Kong and I make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one – big hitter, the Lama – long, into a ten-thousand-foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, “Hey, Dalai Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.” And he says, “Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.” So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.
• "What an incredible Cinderella story. This unknown comes out of nowhere to lead the pack. At Augusta, he's on his final hole. He's about 455 yards away. He's going to hit about a two iron, I think. Well, he got out of that. The crowd is standing on its feet, here at Augusta. The normally reserved Augusta crowd is going wild. For this young Cinderella who's come out of nowhere, he's got about 350 yards left. He's going to hit about a five iron, l expect. Don't you think? He's got a beautiful back swing. That's - oh! He got out of that one! He's got to be pleased with that. The crowd is just on its feet here. He's a Cinderella boy. Tears in his eyes, I guess, as he lines up this last shot. He's got about 195 yards left, and he's gonna - looks like he's got about an eight iron. This crowd has gone deadly silent. Cinderella story. Out of nowhere. A former greenskeeper now about to become the Master's champion. It looks like a miraculous - it's in the hole! It's in the hole!" (This is heard at our house every time I accidentally have to watch golf on TV while waiting for the news to come on.)

So if you remember all that, you remember the name of the boat on which Rodney Dangerfield comes sailing, with its anchor sinking Judge Elihu Smails's boat "The Flying Wasp." It was the Seafood! And now you can own it! 

The powerboat is still afloat (which is more than we can say for Rodney Dangerfield or Ted Knight). And it's up for sale!

The powerboat Seafood is a 60-foot Striker built in 1979, is up for sale, and recently renovated. It's 19 feet wide and has all-new upholstery and "house systems" (electric, plumbing, what-have-you) and updated cockpit and cabins. It has three staterooms plus a master bedroom, full kitchen, storage space. You could say it is a titanic boating value, and you could own it!

If your ship has come in and you've got the stock market beat, pull out a measly $349,000 and call Lidia Goldberg at United Yacht Sales. Then get a new hat and a bowl of soup and invite us all aboard!

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