Sunday rerun: DIY NFW

Th' other day the Comcast website had a list of eight jobs that should be taken off the DIY list.

Do NOT try to do these by yourselves -  oil changes, electrical work, tax preparation, pricing heirlooms, representing yourself in court, tree removal, formal or large printing jobs, and getting rid of bugs - according to this article.

Well, it's been many a year since I crawled 'neath the Valiant to remove the old oil and replace it.  I can see where people who a) like doing this sort of thing and b) know what they are doing (not necessarily mutually inclusive groups) would enjoy saving money this way.  And the savings can be considerable.  Why blow 30 semolians at Lube-A-Rama when you can scoot out to AutoLand and get the oil and a filter for $25?  Your savings: 5 dollars, unless you count your time.  But if you enjoy rolling around on the JeepersCreeper, have fun.  Please don't wipe your hands on the kitchen towel, though.

The only sort of electrical work I will undertake is changing light bulbs.  Too many people I know have gotten the shock of their lives by assuming that that red wire is not "hot."  It is so hot! And when the electrician does come over to the house to repair your repair, get him to share all the other stories he has about guys and gals who thought they knew "watt" they were doing.

I have a real accountant friend do our taxes.  I like to tell people that I am heavily invested in pork belly futures, which, in all accuracy, means to say that we buy bacon every week.  But with my diverse portfolio (United Ointments, Amalgamated Vinegar Inc) and our real estate holdings (rental properties on the Boardwalk and Baltic Av) it is best to seek professional help.  Fact is, I just sign on the X, preferring not to know the precarious state of our finances.

My heirlooms are few and far between. I know that someone somewhere would want to purchase my jeans from 1970 with the Keep On Truckin' patch, or a fairly complete set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica (just volume "K" is missing, probably propping up a coffee table someplace).  Any PC more than 6 weeks old is an antique, and we have one for the discriminating shopper.  It takes those floppy disks, for crying out loud.  Estimated retail price: Google it!

We all have that daydream where we are in court, defending ourselves against a lawsuit brought on by Donald Trump, who wanted to buy up our house to make room for a new gambling casino.  In the fantasy, Trump, his impressive legal team, the judge and all the jurors are reduced to tears of laughter, as time after time, our verbal parries fend off the sharp thrusts of the inquisitor.  In fact, the judge repeatedly bangs his gavel and hollers, "There will be order in this court!" but his heart's not really in it, as he is shaking with mirth and a jolly twinkle in his eye.  In one memorable scene, Trump's attorney asks why I am so sure that a spurious deed to my ranch he is proferring is not for real.  " I can spot fake things a mile away," I say, and then I look directly at The Donald and run my fingers through my hair while raising one eyebrow and pointing to his mane.   Pandemonium reigns, and after the trial, in my daydream, several of the jurors ask, as they file out, if it would be all right with me for them to name their firstborn male child after me.

Tree removal?  If it's like January 17th and you're dragging the red Blue Spruce out the front door, with about 17 needles and half a string of burned-out Christmas lights on it, that's the only kind of tree removal the average person ought to try.  Cutting down a tree is dangerous, and should be given over to Paul Bunyan and Babe, his blue ox. Any casual viewer of "America's Funniest Home Videos" has seen dozens of hapless men with chain saws in their hand and a 30-foot pine tree on their head.  Don't be that man.

Printing jobs are best left to the Department of the Treasury.  Most of us who would try to print our own make simple mistakes, such as putting Josh Hamilton instead of Alexander Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill.  Blame Google Image Search all you like, but these little slip-ups mean long-term problems, or just long terms.

Getting rid of bugs can be something that you might like to undertake personally, depending on your shoe size, but when the cicadas come back in 2021, they are going to be man-eating cicadas that time!  Up until now, the most prominent problem with the 17-year Locust has been their annoying hummmming sound, which for years was thought to be made by their hind legs rubbing together.  Recent entomological research has found that the locusts made that noise by listening to disco music and dancing to it.  When they come back and find no Donna Summer or Village People on the radio, they will be mad, and will eat you alive through the back of your neck.  Unless your iPod is playing "YMCA."  You decide.

The Saturday Picture Show, 4/6/13

OK.  You have a farm.  You grow lettuce.  Your heads of lettuce grow big and firm and green in the warm sunshine.  You might say that they grow to be "titanic" in size, but when you combine that word with the style of lettuce you ship out...hmmm.

 I remember getting the big 64-crayon size of Crayolas in second grade.  That was the box that had the little sharpener built right in on the back.  This seems to be a picture of the contents of the new 6400-pack, which comes with a combination sharpener/microwave/DVR player attached.

 Prom season is drawing near, time for one of the annual rituals we associate with April and May's efflorescence of flowers.  If you're around the Olive Garden or Don Pablo's in the early evening of prom night, you'll see a limo or minibus pull up and out will stride the young ladies of 11th and 12th grade, all sleek and turned out, lovely and elegant as the young Audrey Hepburn.  And then, here come the boys, goofily shod in sneakers with ill-fitting tuxedos, ties askew and arms akimbo, punching each other in the shoulder while the ladies stand coolly by, waiting for them to grow up.  The fellow in this picture, surrounded by two bonnie lasses, has no idea what to do with his arms, so is assuming the appropriate posture.

I'm sure this took a wee bit of touching up, either by Photoshop or small kitchen knife, but here's The King, inviting you over for breakfast.  Thank YOU very muchhhhhhhhh.

The Call

I engendered quite a little argy-bargy (dust-up) on Facebook the other day by pointing out that there is no need to call 911 when a meteorite or something else unidentified streaks across the night sky.

A friend pointed out that a meteorite landed in Russia over the winter, injuring a thousand people and doing lots of property damage and so the Russians were right in that case to call 9-1-1ski.

The key word there is landed.  Yes, if a meteorite lands near where you are, by all means, call 911.  My point in that little diatribe was to say that 911 is for use when you want police, fire or EMS to respond to your situation.  Just because your neighbor's banana tree drops little banana splits in your yard, that's not a criminal situation.  Medic units are not meant to be dispatched for when you have a splinter, and the fire department does not get cats out of trees.  Hunger does.

I know it's very natural to hear a boom or see a shooting star or have the power go out for unknown reasons or be told that a fire engine is speeding somewhere to aid someone in need, and want to call 911 to find out what's up.  But 911 is not an information source, and while the wonderful people who work there would love to help you, think of it this way:  if you and a few others all call the emergency number to find out if school is open because it snowed, someone on the other end of town might be calling because of a dwelling fire or heart attack or armed robbery, and the lines should not be tied up by people wondering who was president before Lincoln.**

Ms Niemi

And here's an example, admittedly extreme:  this upstanding citizen, Elizabeth Niemi, called 911 from her palatial estate in Hooksett, NH, so that an ambulance could come and help her order egg foo young.

She didn't care if any other Hooksettians needed emergency services at the time.  But she did know that if she got the medic crew in on the deal, with six, they'd get eggrolls.

Now she needs an Asian carryout that delivers to the Walled-Off Astoria.

**Yes, this was an actual 911 once, as was the call from a woman who asked if taking major appliances from gentlemen callers in exchange for her exquisite favors made her a prostitute.

Putting the 'loco' in 'in loco parentis'

People are saying it was outrageous that this Mike

A well-reasoned leader of men, Rice.

Rice, basketball coach at Rutgers University in New Jersey, was such a brutal oaf, hitting his players with basketballs, grabbing them by their uniforms and yanking them around, and berating them by using awful terms used by brutal oafs to refer to gay people.

I guess that's why he used that sort of language, brutal oaf that he is.

So he got a can tied to him yesterday, fired in disgrace after ESPN aired a video of his dastardly deeds and seemingly psychotic behavior.

But that's not what bothers me.

What bothers me is that Rice's boss, Tim Pernetti, Athletic Director at Rutgers, was told about all this back in November.  Someone in the gym during a practice shot a video and shared it with the big boss.  Pernetti took action then:  a $50,000 fine (which would suggest that Rice's salary was far above that of the average English Lit professor) and a three-game suspension.

Pernetti said, “I am responsible for the decision to attempt a rehabilitation of Coach Rice. Dismissal and corrective action were debated in December and I thought it was in the best interest of everyone to rehabilitate, but I was wrong. Moving forward, I will work to regain the trust of the Rutgers community.”

Which translates to: "I found out that this joker was out of control last fall and I took some money from him and sat him down for a few games and told him to go get help, but now that everyone around the world has seen his unhinged behavior, out he goes!"


There is a phrase in Latin used in educational circles...In loco parentis (in the place of the parents), which means the school takes some responsibility for the care and nurturing of students.  People sent their sons to play basketball at Rutgers, a state college, and had them abused and cursed at, subjected to physical violence and exposed to the deranged activities of this fool.  Why Pernetti thought he could sweep this under the rug in a day and time in which everything that happens in the world happens in front of multiple cameras is anyone's guess.

As is how long he will have his job.

Those Who Can't Teach

I was watching "Bad Teacher," starring Cameron Diaz and that Timberlake fellow, on Encore yesterday, and then it was time to turn to the morning news.  The lead story on the CBS Morning News was all about bad teachers, down in Atlanta.  The news story was not as funny as the movie, and the movie was hardly funny at all.

Down there in the ATL, it seems that the woman formerly in charge of the school system, Beverly Hall, came up with a novel method of raising students' test scores (and earning herself and others some nice performance bonuses as well.) Instead of actually teaching the kids, she is alleged to have reasoned, why don't we just make it look like we taught the kids?  So read the charges: they altered the answers that the kids turned in on standardized exams.

Here's where it went bad: they got a little greedy.  Instead of just bumping up the scores by a little bit at a time, they made it look like all the kids who went to school one year had moved out the next, all replaced by geniuses and wizards.  One middle school reported that 24% of its students had achieved proficiency in math in 2005, and the scores for the same school reported that 86% of the students were acing math in 2006.


All sorts of stories emerge.  Principals were throwing pizza-and-eraser parties, where teachers would sit with a slice of pepperoni pizza in one hand and an artgum eraser in the other, wiping out wrong answers and then penciling in right ones.  Reports are that one principal wore gloves while re-doing tests, so as not to leave fingerprints.

This is not the right answer to the question "How do we teach the children?"

Authorities in Atlanta are on this like sauce on spaghetti in the lunchroom.  Ms Hall was expected to surrender to police yesterday in answer to her 34-count indictment.  And the prosecutors were recommending that bail in her case be set at $7.5 million.

I don't live in Atlanta; all I know is what I see on the news and read online.  Perhaps Ms Hall didn't do anything wrong.  For all I know, she simply set high standards that people below her found unreachable, so they cheated, rather than fail to meet goals set for them.

But from somewhere in my distant chalk-filled past, I remember a teacher or two berating a student found cheating, saying that they really only were cheating themselves.  Personally, I took only a limited role in my education, showing up as sporadically as possible,  and always found it fun to take a test on material I had never read, heard, or even heard about.  For all my sins in school (see: "Rolled-Up Wrestling Mat With A Kid Inside, Smuggled Into The Girls Locker Room"), I didn't cheat.  Nor did my teachers, who happily gave me Bs and Cs and sent me on to the next class.

But the parents that I saw on the news!  That was the sad part. People who paid their taxes and expected the people who took that tax money to educate the kids in the city found that they had been taken for all their money.  Whatever the reason, be it rank dishonesty or flailing efforts to reach a goal, something is wrong when the teachers cheat the students and their families.

That Sinking Feeling

In footwashing news from last week, the popular new Pope Francis washed the feet of Italian youthful offenders as a sign of humility during Easter week. This was done by Jesus Christ, who washed the feet of his disciples before the Last Supper. All around the world, Christians found this gesture moving and uplifting.

Meanwhile, down Tennessee way, State Senator Bill Ketron, a Republican from Murfreesboro, raised all sorts of tarnation over a question from one Judd Matheny, a Republican out of Tullahoma.  

Tennessee Muslim Prayer Sink   

What got old Judd's dander up was his sneaking suspicion that during the $16 million worth of renovation done recently to the state capital building, some good ol' boy built one of those Muslim foot sinks into one of the rooms.

Muslims are required to wash their feet, along with their faces and hands, before praying.  This could be seen as part of their daily ablutions, or down in Tennessee, as an act of terrorism.

Judd went a-hollerin' down to Bill's office with his crazy fear that the Muslims were fixin' to get a foothold, as it were, right there in the state capital!  Lookie here, they're installing a foot sink!

Well, an official inquiry was launched, costing who the heck knows how many dollars and wasted time, and back came the answer that was already known to anyone on earth who has ever taken half a moment to stop running around all busy being important to engage a custodian to see how he/she mops up the soup that you spill all over the break room.  They use what they call a mop sink.

Tennessee mop sink

“I confirmed with the facility administrator for the State Capitol Complex that the floor-level sink installed in the men’s restroom outside the House Chamber is for housekeeping use,” Legislative Administration Director Connie Ridley wrote in an email.

But, Tennessee legislators are doing the right thing, casting a chary eye at the activities of these people.  Imagine, praying in public!  And with clean hands, faces and feet!

Check the Calendar!

Sorry if you slipped on this banana peel, but it's only an April Fool's prank, this story that YouTube is shut down now for judging.

The story moved last night that YouTube had announced that their entire eight-year existence had been solely for the purpose of collecting videos, and now that every possible video in the world - from instructions on how to play the drum part on "Hot For Teacher" to people falling off water skis  - has been posted to the site, they have closed it and will be judging all the videos.

The story says the winner will be announced in 2023.

“We are so close to the end,” Tom Liston, communications director at YouTube, said yesterday. “Tonight at midnight, YouTube.com will no longer be accepting entries. After eight amazing years, it’s finally time to review everything that has been uploaded to our site and begin the process of selecting a winner.”

I hope you didn't fall for it.  And I hope this video wins!

Happy Easter!

The Saturday Picture Show, 3/30/13

 This is not a fake fortune cookie fortune; it's for real.  I had lunch with Tammy, an old friend who refuses to look old, and we went to my favorite Asian buffet, and this is my fortune. I never eat the cookie but I always check out what it says inside.  As to the traditional folklore that you're always hungry an hour after eating Chinese food, I have to point out that this is true for me with almost all foods.   But I go to bed feeling hungry and I'm not as hungry when I wake up.  Is it possible that I sleepwalk to the Kelvinator and fix myself a sandwich in the middle of the night?  Some substance is given to this theory by the fact that I am one of few Americans who actually know who Carson Daly is.

 I saw this somewhere and like it.  The poor punctuation in #5 is almost outweighed by the wisdom of #2.  I think it is healthy not to worry about what others think.  What do you think?  Oh, wait.

 I had this picture hanging on my bulletin board as a kid, near photos of other heroes (Alfred E. Neuman and Sandra Dee.) This is Gus Triandos, who passed away on Thursday at 82.  He was the first big star the Orioles had during his playing days here (1955-1962) and they named a street after him in Timonium, near Peggy's office.  He was a catcher, the way catchers used to be...he'd slug some homers, but you timed his  run from the plate to first with a calendar instead of a stopwatch. Our local, vibrant Greek-American community took to him right away, and he became well-known around town as a guy who would show up at school fairs and whatnot, signing his autograph and spreading good will. I wish him many sunny afternoon doubleheaders up above.

This field of lavender, genus Lavandula, growing in Sunny France, is surely a pretty sight, am I wrong?  And it makes me think of how cool is must be to be a lavender farmer.  Just the lovely aroma makes lavender farmers very glad they aren't garlic ranchers!

I kneed surgery

It was bound to happen.  I am not exactly a trim little slip of a lad, and while I was once a disc jockey, I would never be mistaken for a jockey, so my knee replacement, which dated back to the millennial year 2000, needs to be replaced now.

My future

This should put an end to the limping that I've been strutting around with for the past few months, and once the physical therapy and all that commotion is over with, I will once again be ambling about smoothly, gliding through life with the briskness that once marked my pace.

My lunch

The staff at Sinai Hospital should keep an eye on the admissions chart for early May and plan their vacations accordingly.  I don't like being in the hospital, although my past stays have always been rich in comedy material, once the stitches and staples came out.  And of course, what hospital staffer wouldn't enjoy hearing me say, "What is this on my plate?  I ordered the Chateaubriand!"?

Just kidding.  I don't expect great food on a plate in the hospital.  Last time, I woke up from surgery to see the beaming face of a beautiful nurse staring at my eyes.  At first I thought, uh-oh, something went wrong, this is an angel and I'm in heaven.  But then I heard Oprah chortling on the tv and I knew that was not the case.

Due to some sort of mixup, they brought me a dinner plate, while I was still on an IV drip, and in seconds, an orderly grabbed that tray away from my table like Manny Machado scooping up a hot grounder...but not before I snagged the dinner roll, which I hid beneath my pillow and nibbled on through the night.

As always, the real angel in my life, Peggy, will come through like the champ she is, helping me dress, putting on those daggone tight white socks, bringing me tea and biscuits.  All the while, she can count on hearing those four special words that mean so much to any woman:

"Peggy, is that you?"

I can't hardly wait!

Ars Gratia Artis

One of the many areas in which I have no appreciation for the art of others is the field of "performance art."  People have made tidy fortunes by getting paid to do everyday ordinary stuff, but with an audience oohing and ahhing as they sit there eating a corned beef sandwich on rye.  

Oh listen, I understand that the practitioners of performance art do it as a way to show disdain for traditional theatre.  They say they do these things as an antithesis of theatre.   A fellow named Chris Burden, and I'm sure he is, received his Master of Fine Arts diploma from the University of California and now goes around performing performance art.  In 1972, right out of that college classroom, he had a guy shoot him in the arm from a distance of five feet.  In 1974 he allowed himself to be nailed to a Volkswagen (picture).  1975 saw him lie motionless on a big sheet of glass for 45 hours and 10 minutes.  A guy brought him a pitcher of water and he stood up, using a hammer to break a nearby clock.

So here's the deal: you have to choose pretending to think this sort of insanity is great art, and mooning over the wonderful symbolism in breaking a perfectly good clock and saying that lying on a sheet of glass for almost two days represents man's inability to gain traction against the forces of evil and torpor that even now threaten to engulf us all, or you can say that your innate sense of what represents worthwhile activity precludes this nonsense.



What brings all this to my mind is that actress Tilda Swinton (right) spent Saturday afternoon sleeping inside a glass box at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.  There was a card next to the glass box with this explanation for the uninitiated, the hicks who stumbled across a woman sleeping in a glass box and failed to recognize great art when they saw it: "Living artist, glass, steel, mattress, pillow, linen, water, and spectacles," said the card.

"You paid to get in there!" said the man who sits in Baltimore shaking his head.

Has Ms Swinton been in the box doing card tricks or knitting scarves for the underprivileged or even just reading a book out loud for the benefit of the visually handicapped, she would have been doing something entertaining or valuable.  

But no.  She slept. And they call that art.  

I could just scream.  Will you pay to hear me?

"His future is ahead of him" - Casey Stengel

Julie Scharper is a splendid Baltimore journalist whom I have admired for her writing in the Baltimore SUN and for her contributions to our local public radio station, WYPR.  I am honored to follow her on Facebook and Twitter; she is a local gem for her reporting on our machine politics and local issues.  When you once had a mayor, Sheila Dixon, convicted of "misappropriating" gift cards donated for the use of the needy, you have a lot of fruit to pick on the local news tree, and even though I believe that particular scandal occurred before Ms Scharper worked the City Hall beat, there will be plenty more of that sort of story for her to cover.

Recently, though, she has been off on maternity leave; she and her husband have become parents of a beautiful little baby boy named Charlie.  Part of the magic of Facebook is sharing photographs.  What happier picture could there be than one of a mother and her baby?  So I commented on one of those pictures on her page, wistfully remarking about the wonders this little man will grow up to see.  

And she replied with thanks, and pointed out that "he could live to celebrate New Year's 2100!"

Stop a second to let that one sink in.  Just a few years ago, the world we live in was turned all sideways when Y2K became the big big deal.  Remember the dire predictions that the world was sure to grind to a wrenching halt, that elevators would stop between floors and municipal water systems wouldn't squeeze out a drop as chaos reigned in the streets on January 1, 2000?    And now, here's a darling little boy, just joining the earthly fray, and all he has to do is live through 87 summers in order to watch January 1, 2100 appear on his calendar!

Ritter

What marvels he will see!  Perhaps the eradication of dread diseases, the establishment of world-wise systems of communication and transportation, the elimination of poverty, despair and ignorance, and a suitable vehicle for the talents of Krysten Ritter!  All this and more are possible, and this little baby could see it all, experience it all, live to be a 22nd Century Man.  I wish the youngster a life of grace, knowledge, kindness and comfort.

He'll be there!

And I kinda hope he will become a journalist too.  That way, he could interview Keith Richards on Y2K1 Day and get to meet a man with more stories than Sheila Dixon.

Help Us Get The Word to Ellen

On Saturday on my Picture Show, I showed the picture that our friend Ann sent from Meridian MS, where she and her college colleagues had spent their week of spring break, not cavorting around Mexican beaches, but doing hard good work for their fellow Americans.  Through Habitat For Humanity, they fixed up houses for people who needed a hand.

And I think these young people deserve a lot of credit, not only for forsaking the chance to relax and party and tan for a week, but by going down South and facing up to real life and the problems faced by many real Americans.  Getting to see how others live and what they face every day is a valuable part of their education, and I am very happy that Ann, daughter of some very good friends of ours, chose a fine school   - Villanova - for her college education.

And here's where you can do more than simply read this blog and say, "Oh yeah!  Those kids are splendid."  You can spread the word around that they want to appear on the Ellen Show to spread the word around about how great Habitat For Humanity is.  After all, we preach to the young that "Actions speak louder than words."  Apparently they have heard that, and they picked up hammers and paintbrushes and brooms and got active!  

Villanova Students who went to Mississippi to help!

And those of us who admire their dedication and sense of purpose from afar can do two things:  first, watch this video that the students made.  Marvel at their youthful energy. They were down there doing hard work and they still have the zip within them to dance and let loose like this!  I mean, really!

And then, if a whole lot of us fill in this form and tell Ellen DeGeneres that they want to see the students from Villanova University on the Ellen Show, showing some students who spent a week opening paint cans instead of beer cans, that will show these great kids that we appreciate them and their efforts. 

Because we really do!

One for the book

I've said it before and I'll say it again...this has to end.

Not speaking of the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth caused by the Ravens letting go of some old guys who were close to the end of their careers.  Football is a business, and the people who run the Ravens were smart enough to put together a team that's been in the playoffs for five years running and won the Super Bowl last month.  So please quit worrying.  These people know what they're doing.  Next man up!

Thornton

No, I'm speaking of my weird habit of thinking of people just before they die.  And the coincidences roll on.  Just last week, I checked Wikipedia to see how many of the original cast of the great English britcom "Are You Being Served?" were still trotting around, and the answer was, two of them:  Frank Thornton, the ego-puffed Capt. Peacock, and Nicholas Smith, who will forever be described as "jug-eared" Mr Rumbold.

So long, Captain Peacock.  Frank Thornton died last Saturday.  He lived to be 92, so you can't say he got cheated, but still, it makes me feel bizarre, and also makes me want to stop thinking.

And there are those who will insist that I never started!

But now, things take another turn.

Peggy and I were riding up the road the other day and she mentioned one of the 17 books she is currently reading. (Her reading diet leans toward the intelligent, the learned, the thoughtful, while mine is less so.  And by less, I mean far less!) She mentioned the story of Solomon from the Bible as part of the narrative she wove.

Of course, in an effort to join the conversation or even relate to it, I went to the "Solomon" file in my memory and came up with Solly Hemus, a fiery infielder and former manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.  There was a time that all infielders were "fiery," all outfielders were "fleet of foot" and all left-handed pitchers were either "quirky" or "crafty."  Sometimes both.

Judge Liss

That one didn't land, so I went to the next Solomon I remember...Judge Solomon Liss, who was quite the important figure in Baltimore legal circles years ago.  I knew that, unlike Mr Hemus, this Solomon has already gone to his reward, but I haven't thought of him for years.

Until we went to the Smith College Book Sale, and I, in my lifelong effort to purchase a copy of every book of Robert Benchley's essays, purchased "Love Conquers All," a 1922 compendium.  This is a used book sale, remember, so you never know who used to own the books you buy.

Unless they wrote their name on the inside front cover:

Sunday Rerun: A lovely neighborhood called Audrey Meadows

Yesterday’s entry used the word “tawdry,” and I had heard the word had an interesting etymology, so what I did was, I looked it up. The story reads like “The Princess Bride,” or something from the Brothers Grimm.
Around 640, there lived an English princess named Ethelreda, better known as Audrey. ( Perhaps she did not wish to be confused with Ethel Mertz.) She married a guy to help her father, King Anna (listen! I’m not making these names up!) but hubby #1 bought the farm within three years, and in all that time, they had never got around to consummating the marriage. Even though she had taken a vow of virginity, she got married again, when her Uncle Ethelwold (!) thought it would be a great idea if she tied the knot with Egfrid, son of King Oswy of Northumberland. Old Egfrid wouldn’t go along with the chastity pledge, being married and everything, and so he started making moves on her, to no avail. He attempted to bribe the local bishop, Saint Wilfrid of York, to release Audrey from her vows. Saint Wilfrid refused, and helped Audrey get away. She fled south, with her husband right on her heels. They reached a promontory known as Colbert's Head(sorry - wrong picture!) (there it is!) and it was there that suddenly the waters started to rise, and for seven days Egfrid had to cool his own heels in the muddy waters.(I am going to pause here to tell you that this Colbert's Head is near Dover, and to remind you if you ever go to England and have someone ask you if you saw the White Cliffs of Dover upon your return, the only possible answer is "See them? I had dinner with them on Thursday!"). I mean, "E" was only a man, and he wasn‘t going to hang around forever without his connubials, so he took off and married someone with a more conventional view of marriage. Audrey, taking a conventional view herself, moved to a convent, and went on to build an abbey.

Now here’s where the story takes an interesting turn. Audrey was to die of an huge tumor on her neck, and thought this was visited upon her because, in her youth, she liked to wear many necklaces. But, prior to her death, she had become enormously popular in her area, owing to her many good deeds and steadfast faith, so throughout the Middle Ages, a festival, "St. Audrey's Fair", was held in her town of Ely on her feast day. People, as they will, bought all sorts of cheesy merchandise at these fairs, and the necklaces and neckerchiefs for sale in her honor were considered low-grade, but still, they were dedicated “to Audrey,” and that became corrupted to the present-day word “tawdry.“

Still no explanation on why her father’s name was Anna. This is all true, I’m telling ya! 

Now I’m going to look up why I’ve never met a girl named “Jackie” (or any alternative spelling thereof) who wasn’t a heck of a lot of fun to be around.

The Saturday Picture Show 3/23/13

 Whenever I see a picture of a kangaroo carrying her kid around, I wonder about the bonding process among the marsupials, and if they have a problem cutting the apron string, as it were.  Since there is no Kangaroo Channel with shows about how the offspring is 34 and still hanging around the pouch, perhaps they work it out somehow.

 This is our friend Ann.  We have literally known her since she was born; her mom has been a friend since she attended college here and let me tell you something, Ann is just like her mom: outstanding in every single way.  Ann went on a trip on her spring break this year (she's a freshman at Villanova) to Meridian, Mississippi, where she and other students worked with Habitat for Humanity to help fix up peoples' houses.  I said she was great, didn't I?  I mentioned to Ann that Meridian was the birth and death place of one of the founders of Country Music, the Singing Brakeman, Jimmie Rodgers, and look here: she was kind enough to find Jimmie's star in front of the Civic Opera House down there and show me a picture of it.  Any time you're worried about the future of this world, just write to me and I will tell you all that Ann has done in her 18 years.  "Outstanding" really isn't descriptive enough for how we feel about her and her family!

Well, this must have been right tasty.  This is a menu from the last lunch served aboard the RMS Titanic.  At 11:40 PM that night, the mighty ship struck an iceberg and you know how that worked out.  So, we have to hope that the ship's passengers enjoyed this lunch.  Cockie Leekie, despite its name, is not a situation requiring penicillin, but, rather, a soup consisting of chicken, beef, prunes and leeks.  I can't imagine ordering it without being greeted by a gale of guffaws, but then again, people were so proper in those days.  But notice, you could have Chicken a la Maryland, which is the proper way to serve chicken.  It starts off with frying the chicken, all floured and lightly breaded, in a cast iron pan in plenty of fat.  You're supposed to put a lid ("lead") on the pan to help the chicken steam as well as fry, and then when you've taken the breasts, legs, thighs and wings out of the pan, you add some cream and flour to make gravy.  A bottle of hot sauce later and you're on the way.  It's just interesting to see that they dined so royally on the Titanic.  I'd still rather be on that ship than on anything Carnival floats past us these days.

The top picture shows an interesting sort of windchime at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago.  A friend sent this to me, and here is the story attached with the pictures: When visitors first enter the museum, they will hear a sound like wind chimes coming from above them and their attention will be drawn upward 24 feet to the ceiling of the two-story high atrium.

Dog tags of the more than 58,000 service men and women who died in the Vietnam War hang from the ceiling of the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum in Chicago on Veterans Day, November 11, 2010. The 10-by-40-foot sculpture, entitled Above & Beyond, was designed by Ned Broderick and Richard Stein.

The tens of thousands of metal dog tags are suspended 24 feet in the air, 1 inch apart, from fine lines that allow them to move and chime with shifting air currents. Museum employees using a kiosk and laser pointer help visitors locate the exact dog tag with the imprinted name of their lost friend or relative.

This is something I found online; it appears to date back to the late 19th Century, and while many of us have scroll saws down in the shop (I do!), I daresay most of them are electric and very few are operated by leg power like this dude is doing to his, all the while running the risk of getting his beard tangled up in the saw blades or having a wood chip fly off the board and hit him in his unprotected eye.  And they wonder why need OSHA.

Preach to me

My buddy Rob Dickson down in sunny Florida called to tell me of a preacher who had some common-sensible things to say.  I thought that was a refreshing change, so I asked his name and said I'd check him out.

McOneBar

You know I'm a little dumb, right, and slow on the uptake?  When Rob said the man's name is Ronnie McBrayer, something in my noggin clicked on Scott Player, a former NFL player nicknamed Punty McOneBar, because he was a punter who shall forever be remembered as the last player to wear a one-bar facemark, so we could all enjoy his mustachioed glory.  I was surprised to think he had drifted into preaching, because I was sure he was still down on some 38-yard line, holding for a long field goal attempt by Phil Dawson.

So, once I figured out just whom we were speaking of, I checked out the interwebs and found that McBrayer calls himself a storyteller, scribbler and seeker, who publicly announced that he was leaving religion to follow Jesus.  That must have ruffled some feathered hats down at the First Holy Temple of the Sanctified Brethren, but Ronnie points out that God has a great sense of humor, and so he preaches with that in mind, a little common sense, a little laugh now and then.  And instead of worrying about who might have been doing what, he spends time working with Habitat For Humanity, and did a lot of work on Hurricane Katrina relief.

Yes sir and yes ma'am, as long as there are suits with two pairs of pants (and we spill mustard on the jacket) there will be proof that God has a sense of humor, and again, not to turn this daily whatever into something deep and ponderous, but if you believe that God created Heaven and Earth, then you have to figure He invented humor, and comedy, and the good old guffaw.

I have to think that people like Ronnie McBrayer are on to something.  My early church days were filled with some of the stuffiest, most judgmental and opprobrious souls ever to put on wingtips and Enna Jetticks.  Ronnie's stance seems to be, let's try to lead good lives here and worry more about ourselves than judging that family up the street a bit.

McBrayer

And he shares life lessons.  Here's a link to one of his syndicated newspaper columns in which he talks about the phrase "getting your goat."   It's interesting to me as a lover of words and I hope you like it too.  He not only talks about that expression but also touches on the need some people have to put on a big front, driving a fancy car or hiding some fault or shortcoming, again, worrying too much about what Harry down on the corner says.  

What I get from McBrayer is what I have gotten from other worthwhile speakers:  Harry is not living your life, nor is her responsible for it.  And what's more, while we're so worried about what Harry thinks of everything, Harry is thinking about his next meal and really not at all about our new car.  Unless we use it to bring him a pizza.

It's Only Natural

Those movie people, man, I wanna tell you.  They take a story from real life and turn it into a...movie!

You might have seen that movie "The Natural," starring Robert Redford.  Baseball guy goes to girl's hotel room and she plugs him a good one right in the belly, see?  But then the kid comes back, see?  And hits a ton o' homers, see?

It was all LOOSELY based on a real story.  Eddie Waitkus was the name of the first baseman, and he looked like the young Redford like I look like any two members of 1 Direction.  But he played for the Cubs in postwar Chicago and a teenager named Ruth Ann Steinhagen had the hots for him.

It happens.

She was fine swooning over him from the stands at Historic Wrigley Field, but when Waitkus was traded to the Phillies after the 1948 season, she wasn't about to commute to Philadelphia to see him play.

So she decided to shoot him.

When the Phillies came to Chi to play the Cubs in June of '49, she got a room in their team hotel and sent Waitkus a note, saying that she was in the Edgewater Beach Hotel and had something to discuss with him.

As you might imagine, Eddie about broke his neck to get to her room and see what was up.  So to speak.

She leveled a rifle at him and fired, striking him in the chest.  But he refused to press charges, citing both the 2nd and 5th Amendments.  Waitkus then joined the list of World War II veterans who came home from the war unscathed, only to be shot in his own country.

Waitkus flashes the high sign to an anxious nation

Adjudged insane, Ruth Ann Steinhagen was confined to a mental institution for three years, released in time for the 1952 season.  But she stayed "in the shadows" until she passed away this past December.  So deep in the shadows was she, according to John Theodore, who wrote a book about the subject in 2002, that no one around her seemed to know why she was once so notorious.  There's nothing anywhere about her having a job, family, marriage, anything.

Waitkus returned to play six more big-league seasons,although he was never the great player that his cinematic alter ego Roy Hobbs was, died in 1972, and to his dying day, was wary about visiting strangers in hotel rooms, we may rest assured.  Ruth Ann Steinhagen's parents took her in, and they survived into the 1990s. Even the Cook County Coroner, who confirmed Ruth Ann's death, had no idea in December until a reporter dug up her background last week. 

How a person once so famous can learn to hide in a house, and how the entire community can forget why she was so infamous, are fascinating topics to think about. It would never happen today.  Between TMZ and reality shows, she would be a fixture on television nightly. Hell, she might even have her own show on FOX News.


In the old wire-service picture at right, RA is seen in an institution, apparently writing to her idol while gazing lovingly at his graven image.  This sort of  staged photography used to pass for journalism.

Emerald Legacy

I was sound asleep, I guess, when our culture decided to add spectacular new dimensions to St Patrick's Day.  This was always a holiday that Americans would celebrate by wearing green clothing, eating corned beef and cabbage, and drinking entirely too much alcohol. The popular toast "Sláinte" means "to your health, which may be compromised if you drink a quart of Old Hoolihan's Finest."

Celebration is fine, as far as it goes, and March 18 was traditionally a huge day for the people at Alka Seltzer, but now, overnight, a new aspect was added to all this hoopla.

Over the past weekend, I started seeing statuses on Facebook, people saying that their children were disappointed because "the leprechaun didn't come."  As one mom put it, "What's the Leprechaun supposed to do? Who came up with this? Santa Claus, the Elf on the Shelf, the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy are pressure enough. Stop the madness!!!"

Hallmark Holidays, which have grown to include Sweetest Day and Grandparents' Day, are those holidays that seem to be puffed up by the greeting card industry.  Everyone loves grandparents, but all of a sudden there's a Sunday in September to send them cards?  Sweetest Day was cooked up by the people who cook up candy - it's supposed to be celebrated on the third Saturday in October, a tough stretch on the calendar for America's confectioners, who then have only Halloween to make money from while awaiting Thanksgiving and Christmas and Valentine's Day and Aunt Norma's birthday.

I don't have an Elf On A Shelf, but over my shoulder as I sit here typing my quotidian thoughts sits a little Bart Simpson image. He does not bring me candy or trinkets, but he does bring me cheer when I think of things he has brought to our world. 

Sometimes I wonder if Bart's work among us has been in vain, but then, when I see news like this, I know his message lives on.

Happy Holidays, everyone!  

Heavens above!

It's a rite of passage, or it used to be:  young couple gets married and lives in apartments until they get enough cash to move to a house.  

It was that way for Peggy and me when we got married in the waning days of the Nixon Administration.  It was all right.  For one thing, neither of us had the vast collections of things that we now curate.  We didn't have many possessions or much money. So, we lived in a couple of rental units.

One of them was in a garden apartment complex; we were on the second floor there and right next to the laundry room. This, of course, led neighbors to knock on our door looking for change for the washer and dryer.  It got to where it was easier for me on Saturdays to wear one of those aprons (left) and a paper cap that said CHANGE.

And all current and former apartment dwellers know about the joy of finding a parking space.  They plan the parking lots around those places, seemingly, with one spot per apartment, and when someone throws a party, you'll be lucky to park at the VFW hall's back lot two blocks away.

And then one night, while I was in the bathroom brushing my long luxuriant wavy locks (so wavy that many of them have waved goodbye) I heard the top end of a conversation that two neighbors were having.  Her voice, although raised, was not clear, so I don't know what she said, but it was just like being in the audience at a Tennessee Williams play when I heard him say, "I don't care if you're going to be a (woman of easy virtue), but tonight, you're going to be MY (woman of easy virtue)."

And I always wondered how things went for those two crazy kids during the remaining three weeks of their marriage.

Which brings me to a blog I stumbled upon while riding my web surfer one day.  It's called Dear Girls Above Me, and it contains the thoughts and opinions that a certain guy would love to share with the women who rent the apartment above his.  They're loud, and, it would seem, not terribly bright ("So the right to bear arms has nothing to do with acting like a bear?")

The writer of the blog hears these gems all day and then writes his imaginary responses.  It must be a thin ceiling that divides him from them.  Check out the blog and see how he's doing!