Rolling Stones

As George Jones sang in his tender love ballad "Nothing Ever Hurt Me Half As Bad As Losing You," there are dozens of maladies waiting to afflict us.

"Well, I've had a splittin' headache from my eyebrows to my backbone
Arthritis, appendicitis, Bright's disease and gall stones
Bleedin' ulcers, ingrown toe nails, swollen adenoids
The Asian flu a time or two and inflamed vocal chords
I've had a toothache so severe my jawbone split in two
But nothing's ever hurt me half as bad as losing you."

If you're looking for a cure for these problems, you have definitely chosen the wrong blog. BUT if it's Kidney Stones that are ailing you, Bunky, then read on...

David Wartinger, a professor emeritus in the Department of Osteopathic Surgical Specialties at Michigan State University, says that riding a roller coaster helps patients pass kidney stones! And he points to a success rate of nearly 70 percent.

We don't know if Medicare covers the price of your ride.

In the study, published in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association (your copy is in the mail today), Wartinger says, “Basically, I had patients telling me that after riding a particular roller coaster at Walt Disney World, they were able to pass their kidney stone. I even had one patient say he passed three different stones after riding multiple times.”

Well, you know how Wartinger is. He just had to make a synthetic kidney and try this thing out! So he stuck three kidney stones into the replica, and he and his fake kidney rode Big Thunder Mountain 20 times. And he got results like people using their own kidneys did.

Roller Coaster enthusiasts will note that Wartinger said, “Big Thunder Mountain was the only one that worked. We tried Space Mountain and Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and both failed.”

Wartinger went on to explain that these other rides are too fast and too violent. But he does feel that people dealing with kidney stones should get on that coaster once a year and see what shakes loose, as it were.

“You need to heed the warnings before going on a roller coaster,” he advised. “If you have a kidney stone, but are otherwise healthy and meet the requirements of the ride, patients should try it. It’s definitely a lower-cost alternative to health care.”

It's Shocking

Man oh man! You really CAN get anything from Amazon!

Or, in this case, from THE Amazon. The noted river is home to two newly-discovered species of electric eels, and one of them goes by the name  Electrophorus voltai.  He can put out some 860 V of electricity in a single zap, and the average low-voltage eel can only do 650 V.

So if you're planning to swim the Amazon this winter, find a way to be grounded, or you might become part of a short circuit!  That much voltage is even more than you might get from a taser gun.

We USED to think there was only one species of electric eel (E. electricus) but as usual, what we do really know? A lot of us think whales are fish!

These eels, which are not eels at all (they're fish) seem to have developed this high voltage over the years because they live in highland water, and that doesn't conduct electricity so well, meaning that the eels had to crank up the juice on the evolutionary scale.

The whole reason for having this electric power is actually twofold. Electric eels sense their surroundings by electricity and they can neutralize prey with it.

It's like they have their own battery pack, and unlike the ones for phones and tablets, theirs do not catch fire on board airplanes, although in fairness, eels usually swim to their destination.

Getting on a plane can be risky if you look like this and Samuel L. Jackson is flying with you:

Sunday Rerun: 1,2,3

Good things seem to come along "in pairs of three," as I once heard someone say.  Take little lists, chock full of advice.

Homer Simpson once shared with us this list of three sentences that will get you out of any situation at work:

1. Great idea, Boss!
2. Cover for me!
3. It was like that when I got here!

Simpson & Simpson

And, never to be outdone, his son offered three handy phrases for anyone caught getting down with something or up to something:

1. I didn't do it.
2. Nobody saw me do it.
3. You can't prove anything.

And for those who aspire to be CEOs and COOs and CMFs of airline companies, graciously quadrupling airfares between DC and NYC when there has been a tragic multifatal AMTRAK collision that shut down the trains, here you go. Michael E. Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed wrote a book entitled The Three Rules: How Exceptional Companies Think, and from them we learn how to make a bundle in the marketplace:

1. Better before cheaper. In other words, don’t compete on price.

2. Revenue before cost. Profits need to come from price and volume, not cost-cutting.

3. There are no other rules.

Shepherd

Oh, but there are.  Three more hints, and then I'm off to do whatever today, as I wish you a happy one too!  Jean Shepherd, radio raconteur best known today for writing "A Christmas Story," said that with just three sentences, you can carry on a conversation with anyone about anything, especially someone who is going on and on about something. So, take these with you today, and be ready:

1. "Beats me!"
2. "That'll be the day!"
3. "I'll be damned!"

The Saturday Picture Show, September 14, 2019

From Nat King Cole to the Rolling Stones, dozens of people have sung the song about this transamerican highway. The song was written by Bobby Troup, who played Dr Joe Early on the "Emergency" TV show.  Have you ever gotten YOUR kicks on Route 66?

What a powerful lesson for kids of all ages! The person in your mirror is in charge.

It looks like a toy from this far above, but these are the total contents of a Dutch police car.  Some assembly required.

The good people over at Quaker Oats are giving their mascot an image update. Now his silk neckerchief is tousled in the breeze as if he were Yanni or something.

If you've ever spent some time banging away on the keys of a real typewriter, you'd appreciate this old/new keyboard

The same couple on the same motorbike, in 1967 and in 2018.

Labor Day means two things to me - a salute to the working class which made America great and keeps it that way, and also, it's time to break out the fall decorations!

The scenes we can see soon when we take that walk down by the pond!

T for Two

Between 1975 and 1978, a horrible man named Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge regime ruled Cambodia, forced people to move and work on collective farms, and murdered somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million of his own citizens!  His name is always mentioned along with Hitler, Mussolini, and other brutal despots.

It is said that the only people Pol Pot feared were kids in American elementary schools, universally regarded as the meanest people under 5 feet tall in the world, viz:

A fourth grader in Altamonte Elementary School in Florida wanted to get in on the fun on "College Colors Day," which the school puts on to engender school spirit (albeit for other schools, but anyway...)

The little tacker did not have any University of Tennessee gear. That's his favorite school, but for reasons that are none of our business, he didn't have a UT t-shirt or cap or anything.

So, he drew up a UT logo and pinned it to an orange T.

His teacher is Laura Snyder, and she said on Facebook, "When the day finally arrived, he was SO EXCITED to show me his shirt. I was impressed that he took it one step further to make his own label."

But apparently that wasn't cool enough for some of the sweet little girls in his school.


"After lunch, he came back to my room, put his head on on his desk and was crying," Snyder wrote. "Some girls at the lunch table next to his (who didn't even participate in college colors day) had made fun of his sign that he had attached to his shirt. He was DEVASTATED."

The magic of social media helped Snyder spread the story. She asked if any of her contacts could help get the little guy (whose name is not given, in the name of decency) some UT swag of some sort.

Well, you know what happened next. The U of Tenn saw the posts and send the boy a big box o' coolness.

Hats, bags, school supplies, bracelets, water bottles, towels and other UT stuff was in the box that came to Snyder's classroom. She feels the experience was a great unifier for her class, and that was the kids were "ecstatic" to have the hats and shirts etc.

But here's the other really cool part. UT took the boy's homemade logo and has made an official t-shirt of it, with a portion of the proceeds to go to STOMP Out Bullying, a national anti-bullying organization.

"When I told him that his design was being made into a real shirt and people wanted to wear it, his jaw dropped. He had a big smile on his face, walked taller and I could tell his confidence grew," Snyder said.

Meanwhile, back on campus, as the UT Volunteers football team stumbled off to an 0-2 start to their season, there was so much demand for the shirt (pictured above) that the campus store website crashed.

And Ms Snyder shared this message from the young man's mom:

"I am overwhelmed by the love I feel from this extended community and the pride I feel for my son and for being a VFL*," she wrote. "Every comment, item sent and action taken on behalf of my son will never be forgotten and hopefully will serve as inspiration for him throughout his life."

I hope so too. It's great, the way people stepped up and did something nice!

*"Volunteer For Life

Too much too much

Michael Greger, M.D. says that nutmeg, the popular spice, is unsafe. It "appears to have a relatively narrow margin of safety," as he says.

Everyone loves nutmeg on certain foods. It adds a lot to applesauce and apple pie and egg nog. It comes from the ground-up seed of the Myristica fragrans tree, which is an evergreen with dark leaves.  You don't have one in your yard, unless you're reading this from your home in the Spice Islands of Indonesia.

Dr Greger, a vegan and an expert on health matters, says he came across "a peculiar paper entitled “Christmas Gingerbread and Christmas Cheer: Review of the Potential Role of Mood Elevating Amphetamine-like Compounds” in which it is suggested that there is something in nutmeg that may form amphetamine compounds after we consume them, to such a degree that they elevate our moods.

Maybe THAT'S why we love our eggnog so much!

Dr Greger reports that way back in the 1960s there was an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in an article called “Nutmeg Intoxication," discussing the possibility that psychopharmacological effects of consuming too much eggnog have been talked about for a long time. And, as far back as the 1500s, people used nutmeg as an abortifacient (a drug given to cause a miscarriage).

I don't know if people still use it for this purpose. Dr Greger also says that people from the 60s were discussing whether nutmeg was a safe alternative to heroin!

But he also points out that turmeric (that yellow curry spice that's as popular as those silly vaping devices all of a sudden) can be harmful if overused. Same with too much tea, or soy, or raw cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, etc).

Long before egg nog was even created for the first blessed time, a Greek poet named Hesiod said,"observe due measure; moderation is best in all things."
He said this around 700 B.C.

That was 2,718 years ago, and we still go nuts for fried chicken sandwiches.

Like Kennedy

Beside the time I saw a car just like the one in which I took Driver's Ed in high school (a 1968 Chevrolet Biscayne the approximate size of that Korean ship that foundered in the Atlantic over the weekend) in the Antique Division at the Fourth of July parade (held in the same streets in Towson in which I raced about in that Chevy as the instructor, Mr Adkins, and a female in my class hung on for dear life), the second time I felt really old was when I asked a grocery cashier what sort of thing she was studying in high school.

The response was swift, and right to my heart: "Oh, old presidents. Like Kennedy."

Our parents had December 7, 1941, as a touchstone. The Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor led the US into a war that had been raging in Europe, turning it into the Second World War.  Mind you, they called the First World War (1914 - 1918) the War To End All Wars, because it was thought there would be no more.  So much for hopeful intentions.

World War II (1941 - 1945) became something for all Americans to work together to win, and with one exception I don't think that sort of esprit de corps nationwide has existed since. After that war, we hardly had time to pull up our socks before the Korean War (1950 - 1953) and the Viet Nam war (1955 - 1975) dragged us overseas to fight to maintain the status quo won in WW2.

The nation had little heart for the Korean Conflict, and the homefront battling over Viet Nam tore that heart out day by day as the death toll and the sense of futility grew.

I bring all this history up because I realize that the students who just began college this fall were born in 2001, and so the events of September 11 of that year are not in their range of memory at all, other than movies and documentaries and history class lessons.

Please, don't forget all you have learned from those sources, but also, remember this: for several months after September 11, 2001, there was a feeling of a pax Americana - an American peace - here on the homefront as the battles raged over it elsewhere.

I clearly remember people being more polite, more considerate. People let each other go ahead in traffic. People who had family members on active duty had others asking about their kin and praying for them to come home safe. People paid it forward, people smiled at each other, and people passed the time of day with total strangers.

This pacific feeling didn't last nearly long enough, but I'll remember it, and I wrote this to pass along that memory to the young who weren't here yet and to those of us who were and might have forgotten.

It wasn't quite Camelot (January 1961 - November 22, 1963) but it was close.

Ask anything

Hey Mom.....?


Mom, what's this?


Mom, are you there? I wonder what would happen if I put cheese in the microwave for 10 minutes...?


A British survey has shown something that every mother in the world knows. Mothers are THE most quizzed people, and on a veritable panoply of topics.

Mothers of three-year-old girls will be chilled to learn that girls aged four ask an amazing 390 questions per day. That's one question for every 1 minute and 56 seconds they're awake.

82% of kids go to dear old Mom first with a question, although only 24% of them will admit to the obvious reason: their fathers would just say, "Go ask your mother."

Four of the leading questions in England, and probably here, as well, are:

• "Why is water wet?"
• "What are shadows made of?"
• "Why do we have to go to school?"
• "Why are you so old?"

Assuming the kids don't ask any of these four again, they will still find a way to say 105,120 sentences that end in question marks per year.

And, if four-year-old girls ask the most questions, nine-year-old boys ask the fewest. 

As someone who once was a nine-year-old boy, the reason for that is simple.  They already know everything.

The survey showed that 82 % of moms admit they can't answer everything, and 90% admit to Googling the answers, leaving 8% of mothers standing in the kitchen with a PB&J on a plate and a perplexed look on their face.

And as far as this "why is water wet" question, I wanted to help the young moms in my life, so I asked the good people at the Univ of Southern California, Santa Barbara.  Their learned scientists were good enough to hop off their surfboards for a minute and say this:

"Being a liquid, water is not itself wet, but can make other solid materials wet."

Water is not wet. I'm sorry I asked.

Something blue

How many times have you heard someone say, "There's no need to curse if you know the right words to say."

Ah, but sometimes, a well-timed epithet IS the right thing to say.

• You get a flat tire and your spare is flat but it doesn't matter because someone stole your jack.
• You let someone pull out from a side street and go ahead of you, and they poke along at 14 miles per hour
• You burn the roof of your mouth on hot pizza
• You cut your thumb on page 382 of volume "M" of the World Book 
• You cut your thumb opening a Band-Aid to put on your other thumb
• You watch the news

All of these irksome tribulations can lead you to malediction. And why not? Even just talking to the guy down the street about those kids hanging around the light pole late at night, you're liable to hear a curse word fly.

Does that wreck your impression of the cursin' person?

Timothy Jay of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts has studied all this and his study of why swear words might bring out the humor.

Jay and his partner, Kristin Janschewitz, authored a study called "The Science Of Swearing," and they concluded that the occasional f-bomb of GD it is necessarily a problem. "We know this because we have recorded over 10,000 episodes of public swearing by children and adults, and rarely have we witnessed negative consequences. We have never seen public swearing lead to physical violence. Most public uses of taboo words are not in anger; they are innocuous or produce positive consequences (e.g., humor elicitation)," they say.

I have a feeling that they did most of their studying in salons, where the well-heeled sip tea and discuss Emily Dickinson.  In such a setting, an occasional imprecation would not cause a raised eyebrow or a lowered pinky.

But just mention Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at Lefty Louie's Trackside Bar and Grill, and you might cause a fracas just by mentioning someone else's Longfellow.  It's all a matter of context.

Jay and Janschewitz (not to be confused with 60's pop sensations Jay and The Americans) say that there are some jokes that must be told with the proper amount of original off-color language, lest the teller seem pusillanimous. What's more, a little profanity can reduce stress (see above), help one fit in with the crowd (remember the time Richard Nixon asked a tv crew, setting up lights and camera for an interview, if any of them "had done any fornicating over the weekend"?).

And they write that "swearing has a cathartic effect, which many of us may have personally experienced in frustration or in response to pain."

So hit your thumb with that hammer and let the pain out with a few blue "Golly gee whizzes!" I won't care.

What I heard at work over the years would embarrass a stevedore who just pushed a longshoreman off a pier.

Sunday Rerun: Who Says?

Maybe it's because I am currently reading a book ("The Class of '65," by Jim Auchmutey) about the high school in Americus, Georgia, a town that refused to integrate their schools until they were forced to do so ten years after Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to have granted equal education to all Americans, but it's irksome to keep seeing instances of how gay people are being abused and discriminated against in a nation that proudly calls itself The Land Of The Free.

I'm not gay or a minority of any other classification, but I don't like it when people are treated shabbily. And it's even worse when the people doing the mistreating are people who run school systems or churches.

Dylan Settles

The latest case in point came from Brookland, Arkansas, where a church told a young man who has been a member there at Woods Chapel General Baptist for six years that he is no longer welcome to attend.

"I'm a little hurt by it but I know how they feel," says Dylan Settles, who had not been attending church all that often lately.  So when he got a letter from Woods Chapel, he figured it was one of those "haven't seen you lately, please come worship with us on Sunday" sort of notes.

But no. The letter told him there had been a vote among the members of the church board, and they voted to take away his membership.

Because he is gay.

"I was like in awe ... I was in so much shock. I couldn't read like the rest of it,” Settles said.

He came out to his parents three months ago, and mentioned on Facebook that he had tried to find a wife or girlfriend but realized that was not his path.  He feels good about having received many messages from people inviting him to come to their church.

The letter from his church went on to say that he can come back if he is willing to repent for his lifestyle, but Settles says, "I don't feel comfortable sitting at pew or sitting beside my parents when all I'm going to see is people pointing their fingers at me because of the lifestyle I chose.”

Please join me in wondering when the people who sent him all that hate in the mail will repent for their lifestyles.  But again, just like Americus GA in the 1960s, there are people all over in 2015 who feel that they are in a position to determine who gets to go to school or pray or eat in a restaurant or marry or get hired or serve in public office or check into a hotel.

And they are wrong to think so.  The people who went to school with one young man from Americus, a young man who was scorned, shunned and abused in many ways because he supported the rights of all Americans to attend all American schools, later sent apologies and reunion invitations to him. That's how the book turned out.

Maybe the people at Woods Chapel could do their apologies and take it all back now, instead of waiting 40 years.

The Saturday Picture Show, September 7, 2019

Major League Baseball, always on the lookout for new ways to separate fans from their money, came up with this idea of "Players' Weekend" a couple of years ago. The teams are togged out in alternative uniforms, and then the money rolls in when fans break their necks to purchase the official caps and jerseys. Not so bad, but this year some genius came up with the notion of having monochromatic uniforms...one team would wear blinding white, and the other would look like they rolled around in a charcoal bin all week. AND each uniformed man was allowed to choose a nickname for the back of his jersey. This shot shows overly large Yankee pitcher C.C. Sabathia, on the right, and bullpen coach Mike Harkey, remonstrating that he is indeed not C.C. Sabathia.

We saw this water tower while traveling down to our sunny Southland along I-85. That stretch of highway has, every ten feet, signs advertising the ready availability of peaches, pancakes, and pornography. It's nice that they chose to adorn the water tower with a peach, all things considered.

The swear jar of old, where people who dropped curses had to drop quarters, now only takes folding money. Inflation!

We have come to learn that cats of all sizes will use anything handy for a pillow.

In 1964, for 15 cents, you bought this little magazine to tell you what was on any of the three channels you could get on your TV.

Speaking of our sunny Southland, this famous American was born in Macon Georgia, as was my paternal grandfather, whom I never met. One of them is famous for saying "Wop bop a loo bop a lop bom bom!" Richard turns 87 on December 5, and it's time to get his card and gift in the mail.

I tried to act like I just hadn't rolled into town on a head of cabbage the day that Peggy and I went to the Milton Inn for our 20th anniversary and I was served a seafood dish on squid ink pasta. PS: It tastes just like untinted pasta.

Do young people still pluck daisy petals and chant, "She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me..." or is there an app for that now?

Chicken Dance

For crying out loud, I love fried chicken! Of course, Friendly Farm has the best, but closer to home, I go with Popeye's, KFC, or Royal Farms.

I don't like Chick-fil-A at all, and not because of their corporate stances, either. It's the greasy slab of chicken on a spongy white hamburger roll I disdain.

No, gimme that chicken on the bone, please. I have seen people eat a sandwich consisting of two pieces of white bread above and below a fried chicken breast, and the people eat around the bone. None of that for me, please. Just a chicken box, the 8-pack, if you will, and pass the hot sauce.  Texas Pete, if you will.

But the furor over this new thing at Popeye's! They came out with a sandwich and people were spending their entire lunch hour driving from Popeye's to Popeye's looking for the daggone thing, and no luck.

The cynic in me might want to hint that the top brass at the chain decided to pull the old trick whereby they create demand and shorten the supply, thereby creating MORE demand and allowing them to raise the prices. America's oil barons have been doing this for years, and many of you will recall the time that the price of sugar went way up and so the soda manufacturers had to apologize, but they had to raise the price of their colas because the ingredients were so expensive now.

Also, they raised the price of their diet sodas, which contain not a grain of sugar.

Hmm.

Anyway, say hi to Craig Barr, a Tennessee man who says he spent "countless time driving" to every Popeye's in his town never did find that sammy.

"I can't get happy; I have this sandwich on my mind. I can't think straight," Craig Barr told The Chattanooga Times Free Press on Thursday. "It just consumes you."

So, this being America in 2019, he did the only reasonable thing.

He SUED.


Barr is accusing Popeyes of deceptive business practices and false advertising, the Times Free Press reported.

He claims that a guy who said he worked for Popeye's took $25 from him behind a restaurant and said he'd be right back with a sandwich.

Guess what?

He never saw the man again. 

He also wants the chicken chain to pay him because, in his haste to race from one outlet to another, he blew out a tire and wrecked his rim.

And also, he felt humiliated because his friends laughed at him over this sandwich quest.

Once he gave the scammer the money, he never saw him again, Barr said. He also claimed he blew out a tire and damaged a rim driving from one Popeyes to another and was humiliated when his friends laughed at his ordeal.

But $5,000 will help balm his soul.

"It's totally deceptive. Who runs out of chicken? It's a big fiasco," he told the paper. "Someone has to stand up to Big Corporate. Everyone is captivated by these sandwiches."

The paper left messages with Restaurant Brands International, owner of the Miami-based chicken chain, but they did not hear back yet.

I'm sure that now that all the news programs have covered America's desire to shove chicken sandwiches down our neck, we will all have one by Halloween.

And if Mr Barr gets his five large as a result of the suit, he can buy me one.

The Great Escape

To a list that already includes "overhauling a transmission," "performing elbow replacement surgery," and "watching a Lifetime movie with Tori Spelling in it" you can add one more Thing I Will Never Do: Pretend to be someone else.

I can't act, and I'll be doggoned if I could put on someone else's clothing and pretend to be they.

And I'll wager that a certain Brazilian gangster wishes he (or someone) had never come up with the idea to bust him out of the calaboose wearing a silicon girl's mask, a dark wig, and a pink shirt.

Pretending to be his own daughter, you see.

Clauvino de Silva is the genius whose plan fell a little bit short. Tight jeans, pink shirt, a mask and a black wig do not a teenager make.

The officials said it was his nervousness that gave him away.

Also his homeliness, but they were gallant enough not to mention that, down in the slammer in the western part of Rio de Janeiro.

Another unresolved feature of the master plan involved leaving his daughter behind. Yes. She wore the outfit into which he changed, and put on his prison garb as he strutted out the door and right back into Gericinó prison. Police are investigating her role as a possible accomplice.

"Possible"?

The State Secretary of Prison Administration put out a video in which you get to see da Silva doffing the mask, some of the trendy clothing, and stating his full name.

Criminal mastermind da Silva was involved in leadership of the Red Command, one of the most powerful criminal groups in Brazil.  Brazilians are saying that he and his gang controlled drug trafficking in a large part of Rio.

With the failed escape in his rearview, da Silva was moved to a maximum-security prison and is really going to be in trouble, according to authorities.

So you want to see how he look as his daughter. Put your bagel down first, please:

I dunno. I think he looks more like Mayim Bialik.

Another chapter

This keeps happening: people I figured had long since gone to their rewards haven't.

If you were around on November 24, 1963, chances are you were watching TV and might have seen the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald as it happened, that Sunday morning long ago.

It's probably one of the worst bungles in police history. The Dallas PD, having arrested Oswald as the assassin of John F. Kennedy and a Dallas patrolman, needed to transfer Oswald from their headquarters to the Dallas County jail.  Did they do so in the night with no media or rogue nightclub operators hanging around the loading area? They did not. They attempted to move the killer in broad daylight in the eyes of the world, allowing Jack Ruby to step out of the crowd and shot LHO.

Why they even allowed a goofball like that in the building is a good question, and you can take it up with any conspiracy theorist.

My focus is on the man in the tan suit and the cowboy hat. He's someone I figured had gone on long, long ago, but actually, we just lost him last Thursday morning at age 99.

99!

His name was James Leavelle, and he had gone to Colorado to celebrate his 99th birthday with his family, said his granddaughter, Kate Griendling.

"We put 99 candles on his birthday cake and blew them all out and just had a great time," Griendling told WFAA TV in Dallas. "But he fell Monday and broke his hip. He was taken to the hospital and died from a massive heart attack this morning."


Bob Jackson is the photographer who was in place to take pictures of Oswald being moved, and wound up getting this unforgettable photo of the shooting.

No one could blame Leavelle for the amazing ineptitude of the Dallas PD, and he was always willing to recount the day in interviews.

"Actually, on that particular day I was supposed to have a day off more or less,” he told WFAA in 2007. "[Oswald] was very polite to me, answering my questions without fussing or anything. The only mistake he made was one question I asked about shooting the officer. He said, 'I didn't shoot anybody.'"

"I had to get him ready for the transfer,” Leavelle told WFAA. "He wanted to put on that black slip-over sweater that he had on. I let him put that on. As he was putting it on, I said to him, 'Lee, if anybody shoots at you, I hope they're as good a shot as you are, meaning they would hit him and not me.'"

"He said, 'Oh, nobody's going to shoot at me,’” Leavelle said. "I said I'm going to handcuff myself to him. If anybody tries to take him, they've got to take me too and I'm not going to go quietly. They're going to have a little problem on their hands."

Ruby (born Jacob Rubenstein in Chicago) ran nightclubs and strip joints and was known to curry the favor of police in his businesses. In return, he was granted tacit approval to indulge his habit of hanging around police stations and being part of the crowd there. Still, there was no sensible reason to have a petty thug like him in the place. But he was there with the photographers and reporters when Leavelle appeared with Oswald handcuffed to him.  Ruby then stepped up and shot Oswald in the torso.

“He went completely blank," Leavelle said. "Instantly. He was out by the time he hit the floor" and "never regained consciousness."

Some might have thought that Leavelle would bear the blame for not protecting his prisoner, but of course that would be unreasonable: the blame went to the person who turned the move of a person who killed a president into an open-air free event. In fact, the DPD later created an award to honor their top detective of the year, and named it for Det. Leavelle.

And in one of the those Paul Harvey moments, history shows us that Leavelle was there at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and survived that attack as well. So he had brushes with both death and history, and went to to thrive for almost a century.

The stories he could tell are now being told elsewhere.

Shake Hands With The Governor

In order to stave off boredom on the highway, I read as I drive along.

Nothing too ponderous or wordy; don't worry. I read license tags. I love a well-done vanity tag and enjoy figuring out the hidden meaning behind classics such as "LB SAND" (my all-time favorite) and "37OH55V" (got to look at some things upside down.)

Up in New Hampshire, the governor, Chris Sununu, had to get involved in the imbroglio over Wendy Auger's license tags.

Wendy is a mom from Rochester, NH, and for 15 years of hauling kids around, she has had one motto and one vanity tag: PB4WEGO.

Suddenly this summer, she was asked to turn in those tags because they’re not in conformance with the “NH Code of Administrative Rules.”

Imagine if you will, someone in a cubicle in the sprawling offices of the New Hampshire Department of Driving who sits there and says, "LUVUNICKY" is ok but "PB4WEGO" has got to go.

Wendy kicked up enough dust that it came to the attention of the governor, whose other duties include explaining a dozen times a day why the state has as its motto "Live Free Or Die." 

I mean, really.

“Upon this being brought to my attention, I reached out to the Division of Motor Vehicles and strongly urged them to allow Wendy to keep the license plate she has had for the last 15 years,” Sununu said in a statement. “I recently left a message on her phone to share the good news that her plate will not be recalled.”

In the original letter, the officials claimed that Ms Auger's tags, which they issued to her in the first place, violate a section of the rules banning plates from having any reference to “sexual or excretory acts or functions.”

To me and all other reasonable people (notice how I lump myself in there!), the advice to tinkle before getting on the road is well taken.

“Please bring your PB4WEGO vanity plates and registration, along with this letter, to the nearest Division of Motor Vehicles Registration office,” the letter demanded. “You may select another vanity plate at no further cost or obtain regular passenger plates.”

Auger, a bartender by trade, decided to live free or die laughing.

“Anybody who has seen it or comes across it — everybody smiles, gives a thumbs up, honks, takes pictures,” she told a news station. “There’s not one person who I can speak of who has ever been offended.”

After the matter was all cut and dried, so to speak, Auger wrote on Facebook  that the governor said “we took care of that issue,” and apologized for “that little bureaucratic hold up up there..and the push back....but obviously common sense prevailed.”

It's great that she didn't get so PO'ed that she couldn't celebrate!

Another victory for common sense.

Happy Labor Day!

Sunday Rerun: Orville and Wilbur Wrong

Drunks on the plane (drunks flying the plane.)  Flight attendants going berserk and then deploying the emergency evacuation chute, and then sliding down that chute on their way to unemployment.  TSA people who check you out on the way to the plane stealing laptops and iPads and anything else they can get their sticky fingers on.  Lost luggage.  Stolen luggage. Landing gear comes down, but backward.  Air traffic controllers are sound asleep in the middle of the day and fail to notice that two gigantic airliners are about to come within 10 yards of each other in the sky over the airport.  It rains in Chi or Atlanta, so your flight from Baltimore to Boston is delayed until Tuesday.  United Air Lines has a computer glitch that knocks out ticketing and boarding operations all across the nation. A flight attendant argues with another flight attendant over whether the second will turn off her cell phone, resulting in a FOUR-HOUR delay.  Alec Baldwin holds up a planeload of fellow travelers while he completes an exciting game of Words With Friends with his friend.

For these and many other reasons, the only way in hell that I will take a plane will be if Capt Sully Sullenberger comes out of retirement to fly it.  Otherwise, you go ahead and try to fly, and wave to me if you ever get off the ground!

The Saturday Picture Show, August 31, 2019

Living proof of the old expression "They're so cute when they're little!" This is a baby warthog at the peak of his/her cuteness.

Art like this is always a pleasure to see. It took great vision and a lot of work to see this wooden lion through.

This is heaven on the table for Baltimore. Steamed crabs and steamed shrimp. The trick is to save the corn until you've got crabs spices and whatnot all over the tablecloth (which is either wrapping paper or newspaper) and then you wipe the corn through all the mess to season it.

Still unexplained is the reason behind this gas explosion at an office/retail complex in Columbia, MD last Sunday. How fortunate that it occurred on a Sunday, without the offices and stores being full of people.

I always liked the Archie comics when I was a kid. I favored the minor characters such as Jughead Jones (I knew a guy who totally looked like him!), Reggie Mantle, Miss Grundy and Ms Weatherbee. I understand that these folks suffered the sad fate of winding up in a vaguely sci-fi sort of show in their later years. I remember Mr Lodge, Veronica's father, always wearing a silk ascot and a velvet smoking jacket. He said "Harrumph" all the time.

The guy in the red sunnies is Ryan Dorsey, a Baltimore City councilman. He is seen here on the subway in Tokyo, where he ran into a German tourist wearing the world-famous Baltimore Orioles cap. Dorsey said, "How bout them O's?" (the universal greeting) and the German said he had no idea who the O's are, but he liked the "duck" on the cap!

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, there dwells an artist who brings new life to dull old street lights with colored chalk. Very nice work!

We bibliophiles secretly still miss the reassuring thump of the due-date stamp on a library book. Yes, it's all computerized now, but I miss the purple ink.

Wooden Shoe love to be able to do this

Who hasn't walked into a Payless shoe store and wanted to buy everything in the place???

(I haven't; they didn't carry Rockports, but anyway.)

Down in Arkansas this summer, as the Payless chain, having pulled out the stopper, was letting everything run down the drain, in walked Carrie Jerrigan to see about some closeout deals for herself and her family.

Her daughter found a pair of really cool Avengers shoes, but the little girl told Carrie they weren't for her...

"She has the biggest heart, and she said, 'There is a boy in my class that loves Avengers and his shoes are too small, could you buy him these?' And I was like, 'of course,'" Jerrigan told Fort Smith, Arkansas, station KFSM-TV.

Somewhere between that moment in the aisle and the time Ms Jerrigan got to the register, she had an idea. Since the store was closing, how much would they want for the entire stock?  Everything must go, right? Let it all go at once!


"I could see the clerk's face, her wheels start to turn. And she finished checking me out and said, 'Can I have your number?'" she recalls. And when she was home later on, the Payless district manager called her up.

He said sure, she could buy out the store BUT they had just gotten in a whole new shipment of shoes, so the inventory - and the price - was going up.

She had planned to pay for 200 to 300 pairs of shoes, but she had to Paymore at Payless (sorry, I had to say it) because there were almost 1500 pairs of shoes on hand (!) by the time she got back, checkbook in hand.

"The next thing you know, we are trying to figure out how to get almost 1,500 shoes home with us that day," she said.

Somehow, they got all those shoes home, and filled their house with shoe boxes. 

Earlier this month, she gave all the shoes away to kids at the Alma Middle School. And the Jerrigan family also teamed up with the Kibler Baptist Church to give out school supplies.

Mrs Jerrigan is just happy that she had this opportunity to instill the spirit of generosity in her children.

"If you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they say be kind. And so, I don't care what they do in life as long as they are kind and good people," she said. "It just reiterates to me that their hearts are in the right place. And if it's in the right place, they can do amazing things."

People love to quote from the Bible, so here's one to work into a conversation:
"For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required"
Luke 12:48

Pop goes the culture

I guess by now you've heard about the brouhaha about Lara Spencer, the "Good Morning America" host and morning doyenne of the odd subculture of current events known by those who care which Jonas Brother married whom as "pop news."

Last Friday, she was snarking her way through a story about a six-year-old, namely Prince George, the eldest child of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.  The kid is about to start school and has indicated an interest in ballet.

“Prince William says George ab-so-lutely loves ballet. I have news for you, Prince William: We’ll see how long that lasts,” she jeered.

The good thing is, Prince William does not take his news from "GMA."

The other good news is that sentient people took notice of her appalling insensitivity.

So over the weekend she wised up and bravely faced the world on Monday with these heartfelt words:

“I screwed up," she said, going on to add her comments were “insensitive and stupid, and I am deeply sorry.”

She brought out three male dancers who told tales of pursuing their dreams, only to have scorn and derision piled on them by thoughtless schoolmates and television presenters, and added, “I have learned about the bravery it takes for a young man to pursue a career in dance.”

“The lesson is that words hurt,” Spencer said, coming off the worst weekend of her life, “and it was not my intention but it was insensitive.”

Most people, while welcoming the apology, thought too much harm was already done.

Peter Stark, a former New York City Ballet dancer and associate director of the Boston Ballet II said, “I would like to believe that Lara Spencer didn’t mean to do harm, but she did great harm. She gave permission for individuals to laugh at boys doing ballet.” Stark pointed out that even his math teacher gave him a hard way to go for studying ballet.

Here I was, thinking that people were way past the point of judging like this. DO people really think that boys deserve to be shamed for wanting to be ballerinos? And more to the point, is a six-year-old not entitled to explore all facets of the world around him or her?

I understand that Spencer is a lightweight in her field. She is not the person ABC would want on the desk in case World War III breaks out, and has found her comfort level talking about banalities in an inane fashion.  (Yes, I know, she is well paid for doing so).

Very very serious apology face.

Spencer is the mother of two teenagers, a boy and a girl.  If this is the sort of attitude she espouses around the house, I can only hope that the kids learn better elsewhere.

And one more thing: Spencer tweeted this: “From ballet to anything one wants to explore in life, I say GO FOR IT. I fully believe we should all be free to pursue our passions.”

There it is. The fully-realized modern apology, complete with a clarification so that we know that the hurtful things said the other day were not really what was in her heart. She doesn't know where that came from!  Look here, it says I fully believe she should all be free to blah blah blah.

Maybe someday I'll rob a bank and then offer this in mitigation: "I fully believe banks should not be robbed."