Sweets for the sweet

If it's October, it's time to get the candy for the kids who may or may not show up at your door for Halloween!

It's a shame that we can't bake cookies or brownies or make homemade treats of any sort for the kids, but tampering incidents in the past have made people too wary of anything unless it's manufactured and sealed in a factory far away. A real shame, it is.

So you give out candy or you sit inside watching "Law and Order: SVU" in the dark, hoping that no one will knock on the door. If you choose to go the candy route, again, there are two choices:

• Get the candy you like, the good stuff, that kids will like. This way, if you have leftovers, you have candy all winter, so when you come in from shoveling the driveway, you can grab a Snickers and munch away.
• Get the candy you don't like, so that when you have leftovers, you can take it to work and leave it on the desk in the reception area. The bonus here is that you get to see that person from Accounting - the one suspected of pilfering lunches in the break room - gobbling an Everlasting Gobstopper outside his cubicle.

I like to find and share this list every year about this time. CandyStore.com, a bulk candy delivering service, runs data from all the states and figures out the three most popular Halloween candies in each. They get the figures from candy manufacturers and distributors. 

Once again here in Maryland, the #1 candy is Milky Way. You'll find Reese's Cups in second place, and Hershey Kisses in third. Those first two spots are the same as last year, but in 2017, Blow Pops came in third.

I mean, really. Who wouldn't rather have a Hershey Kiss?

For the record, our favorite, Milky Ways, aren't even in the top 10 nationally.  They roll out this way:

Skittles
M&M's
Snickers
Reese's Cups
Starburst
Candy Corn
Hot Tamales
Hershey's
Tootsie Pops
Jolly Ranchers

And once again, the horrible candy corn ("neither candy, nor corn" - Lewis Black) sneaks into the top 10. I cannot explain some things.

Fizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Do you still drink soda?  Or pop, or whatever they call it where you live? Coke and Pepsi and Royal Crown and root beer and orange and grape and all their diet varieties?

I don't think they sell as much of that stuff as they used to, because that's why all of a sudden you see seltzer for sale, and man, do I love seltzer. No calories, no sugar, no sodium, just water with carbonation. You get that bubble-up tickle on the tongue and gullet without all the stuff that Coca-Cola crams in their cans: CARBONATED WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CARAMEL COLOR, PHOSPHORIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVORS, CAFFEINE.

Does anyone ever have LOW fructose corn syrup?

Who needs all that when you can have a seltzer, and for my money, store brand cheapo seltzer is just as good as the high-test brands, where they soak you for water.

Take the LaCroix brand. Never heard of it a few years ago, and now they are selling at the rate of nearly $1 billion a year, and tripling their profits to $149.8 million since 2015.

So of course, here come the lawsuits and the legal mishegas. First came the SEC (and in that case, that means the Securities and Exchange Commission, not the South Eastern Conference.) The SEC wanted to look at the cannery's sales "metrics," even though we are not on the metric system here.

And then came a lawsuit, claiming that LaCroix is fibbing when they say they are "all natural" and that their seltzers are full of “chemical compounds that have been adjudged synthetic and/or artificial by the Food and Drug Administration.” One ingredient, linalool, is “used as a cockroach insecticide,” the lawsuit says.

So that means you won't find a cockroach in your Pamplemousse.

Anyone who watches lawyer shows on television ought to find a new hobby knows that you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich, and anyone can file suit against anyone for any reason.

So just because someone filed a suit does not mean it's valid.

It turns out that the three ingredients mentioned in the lawsuit—linalool, limonene, and linalyl proprionate are derived from natural sources.

Remember, tobacco is a natural substance.

They squeeze Limonene from citrus peels. Some say it fights tumors. Linalool comes from more than 200 different species of plants, and we use it as a spice or scent.

How many times have you walked into someone's house and asked what the delightful aroma was, and they say "Linalool Candles!" ?

And Linalyl proprionate comes from kumquats and is therefore a hilarious word. It also might inhibit prostate cancer, and it's fun to say "kumquat."

The late mayor Rob Ford of Toronto
tried to drink Canada Dry.

So to sum it up, none of those three things are known to be harmful to humans, and while the people who study these things at USC agree that linalool is used as a pesticide, they also remind you that just because it will off a roach doesn't mean it will harm you.

National Beverage, makers of LaCroix, contest the lawsuit’s allegations.  “Natural flavors in LaCroix are derived from the natural essence oils from the named fruit used in each of the flavors,” the company said. “There are no sugars or artificial ingredients contained in, nor added to, those extracted flavors.”

I recall a certain person I know delivering to me a pithy lecture about the snack foods I enjoy and how harmful Cheez Doodles could be. The fact that he was hooving on a Marlboro at the time only added to my amusement.

Have a seltzer and a smile! It's the real thing!

On the wing

I've heard of Gilbert Bates (Beaver's friend), Gilbert Gottfried (former AFLAC duck voice), Gilbert Arenas (basketball player), and Irish singer Gilbert O'Sullivan, but I'm sure I'm not alone again, naturally, in saying that I've never heard of Gilbert, Minnesota.

But if you aren't seeing as many birds winging around your house these days, it might be because they are all flying up to Gilbert, MN, where the town cops report that birds are getting stewed on fermented berries.

Last week, the Gilbert PD went on Facebook to warn the public that they're receiving "reports of birds that appear to be 'under the influence’ flying into windows, cars and acting confused.”

Here is a robin noshing on a crabapple.

There was an early frost in Minnesota, and people are figuring that the berries got chilled and now are fermenting, and that makes them alcohol-ish.

The Washington Post talked to one Matthew Dodder, who calls himself a “bird guy” from Palo Alto, California, and he says you can spot a drunked-up bird by looking at the way they fly. (There is no such thing as a birdie breathalyzer.)

“They’ll be flying kind of erratically,” he said. “We typically see them flying lower than usual through traffic. They’re just careless and they’re not looking for cars or other obstacles.”

Dodder says robins, cedar waxwings and thrushes are just the types of  birds to get gerschuntken, since those are the berry-eaters up there. And he goes on: “They just get sloppy and clumsy. They have actually fallen out of trees on occasion.”

The Gilbert Police Department, which clearly has very few felonies or other major crimes to handle, says on Facebook that we can expect the birds to sober up soon, so there is no need to leave out mugs full of strong coffee for them.  In other words, please don't call 911 unless you see “Angry Birds laughing and giggling uncontrollably and appearing to be happy” or “Tweety acting as if 10 feet tall and getting into confrontations with cats.”

The Audobon Society recommends that you put decals on large windows to keep birds from flying into them.

This wonderful world. There's something for everyone.

It pays to live longer

I need to get to Missoula, Montana and have dinner at the Montana Club, where they have a special deal when it's your birthday: they give you your age off the bill, expressed as a percentage.  So let's say you turn 40 ("you turn 40"), and now let's say you tie on the feedbag at the club. Your salad, baked patootie and steak will be served with a savings of 40%!

So the older you get, the more you save at the Montana Club! A geezer such as I can really clean up, sure, but how about Helen Self?

She was 100 when she went for a birthday ride on a Harley.

At 108, she made the exclusive list of "the two oldest people in Montana."

So now, she's 109, and off she went to the Montana Club. She had the breaded shrimp platter for $14.99, which came with a salad, a loaded baked potato and coleslaw. 

Nick Alonzo is the owner of the Club, and true to his word, he gave her a dollar and change and charged her nothing!

In return she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

On her way out, Self was heard to say, “I’ll come back next year,”  according to her daughter Shirley Gunter, 86. “Don’t tell his wife I kissed him.”

You gonna bet against her being there?

If You Knew

Last Monday, Peggy Sue Gerron died at University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas at age 78.

If her name sounds familiar, it must be because you've heard it sung a couple of thousand times since 1957, when Buddy Holly and the Crickets cut a hit called "Peggy Sue." You know her as "pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty Peggy Sue."

Buddy sang, "Oh how my heart yearns for you" but his heart was actually yearning for his girl, Echo McGuire.  Peggy Sue was the girlfriend of the drummer in the Crickets, Jerry Allison.

But, as so often happens to high school love affairs, they were rent asunder as she began her senior year because her parents moved the entire family to Sacramento. That was all happening as the Buddy and the band started becoming nationally prominent.

Buddy wrote the song originally as "Cindy Lou," for Holly’s niece. But the producer didn't like the way that name made the tune sound like a cha-cha. Allison came up with an idea to give the song a straight-ahead rock beat...and change the name from Cindy Lou to you-know-who.

And it just so happened that they debuted the song in a concert at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium. Allison called Peggy Sue when the band got to town and invited her to the show, and you can bet she was plenty surprised when she heard her name in a song!


“I think Buddy was playing a little bit of Cupid there,” Gerron told the Austin American-Statesman in 1999, referring to the Sacramento performance.

The song lasted far longer than Peggy Sue and Jerry's marriage, which ended after nine years. But while the times were still good, Buddy wrote a song called "Peggy Sue Got Married" for them. It was one of the songs he wrote and recorded on a home tape recorder in his apartment in Greenwich Village before leaving on tour with the Winter Dance Party, where he met his fate on February 3, 1959. Posthumously, the band filled out the guitar-and-voice track Buddy recorded and made the record.

After her marriage to Jerry Allison, she moved to California and became a dental assistant, and married a man who set up a plumbing business called Rapid Rooter before divorcing him and moving back to Lubbock to care for her mother.

You know what's great about American lives? You take away the rock and roll notoriety in this story, and this could be any other group of American high school friends as they wended their way through life.

Sunday Rerun: Next in sight

It must have been raining or something, because I stopped by a psych class one morning to hear the story I've never forgotten. We heard that a woman who had been in a catatonic state at Baltimore's Sheppard Pratt Hospital was taken for a car ride one day, and on the way back the car in which she was a passenger suddenly veered off the road on one of those bad curves on Charles Street.  The woman either fell out of the car or hit her head inside the car in some way; however it happened, the bump on her noggin took her out of catatonia and back among the sentient!


The guy sitting next to me in class fell out of his chair just then, but he didn't have the same luck as the lady in the car.


I bring this up because I saw something similar happened to Mary Ann Franco, a 70-year-old lady in Florida.  She injured her spine in a car wreck in 1993 and gradually went blind thereafter.


Then, last August, she took a spill in her home.

Ms Taylor

“I was in my living room, going over to the door. My foot caught on a tile, and it flipped me. I hit my head in the back, and hit it on something else, maybe the fireplace,” she said.


As if being blind wasn't enough to deal with, the fall incapacitated her, and she had to wear a neck brace until a four-hour operation earlier this year.


You know how you feel all groggy and mixed up when you come out of a deep sleep, right?  Well, Ms Mary Ann woke up confused...


And she looked at the foot of her bed at a woman standing there, and she said, "Hey, lady in purple, get me something for pain!"


The lady in purple was her niece.  And it was then that she realized she could see again, after all these years!


Her neurosurgeon, Dr John Afshar, said this was totally unexpected: "The restoration of Mary Ann Franco's vision is a true miracle. I really don't have a scientific explanation for it."


He added that one theory could be that the accident could have affected an artery, restricting blood flow to the part of the brain which controls vision.


There's another theory.  But you have to believe in angels and miracles!

The Saturday Picture Show, October 6, 2018

It's good to encourage kids to find good people in whose image they can grow to be fully-realized adults. Say hey to this young lady from Columbia, who got a nice letter from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg after The Notorious RBG saw her getup.

It's a wonder to me that porcupines have never made it to the house pet level in the animal hierarchy.

Of all the seasons of all the years, give me autumn, please!

This week in our series New Uses for Old Buses: two old buses form a bridge.

Either Gogh big or get in your Van and Gogh home!

Happy birthday (#44) to Jeremy Sisto, who is a good actor because he has been in comedies (Clueless, Suburgatory) and dramas (Law and Order, The FBI) with equal ability.

There was one of these burger-and-pancake spots near us when I was a kid, and every time I drove by him, his right arm reminded me that I wanted a hamburger, and his hair reminded me that I wanted a Dip-Top cone from Dairy Queen or Tastee Freez.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is time for that most regal of all American fall desserts, the noble Apple Dumpling. Slop that sauce on top, please.

One day at a time

They say that even a blind squirrel stumbles over an acorn now and then, and a stopped clock is right twice a day, so it must follow that there is ONE thing on which Donnie J. Trump and I agree, and it is this: we both feel that alcohol (and drug) abuse are debilitating to body and soul.

It was just the other night that the Bloviating Blonde brayed for the 342nd time that he abjures alcohol. He didn't say why, but we Trump observers know that it has everything to do with his brother Freddy, eight years older, who died a dissolute mess at age 43 in 1981.

Mother Trump with Freddy

Seeing one's own brother throw his life away for the next Jack and Coke would, or should, be enough to make most people swear off the hooch. If you can't handle it, you shouldn't handle it, and for all his other manifold shortcomings, we must say the president can't blame any of them on being drunk.


I don't know if it's genetics, or one's disposition, or what it is that makes some of us able to have a beer or two and move along with our lives. I'm grateful to be one such person, but I know plenty of folks who are not so lucky.

Such as the person in this piece from the Baltimore SUN:


Baltimore City police have fired an officer who was found intoxicated and slumped over in his patrol vehicle near Pigtown.

Officer Aaron Heilman, working and in full uniform, was found slumped over behind the wheel of his marked patrol vehicle in the 700 block of Washington Blvd. on Tuesday around 1:40 p.m.

Heilman was taken to the Central District under suspicion of being under the influence, police said. A Breathalyzer revealed his blood alcohol level was 0.22.

0.22 means almost three times drunk; in this state, you're considered impaired with a blood alcohol of 0.08 grams per deciliter or higher.

The article goes on to say that Heilman is charged with DUI-related offenses, and that Interim Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle fired him the day after his arrest, saying, "His actions represented a safety issue for himself and the community. I simply won’t tolerate it.”

And this officer was not an old-timer, tired of the world and everything in it and seeking solace from a bottle. Quite the contrary, Heilman is described as a new man, still on probation, and he had been on the clock for three hours when found sitting in his car, parked on a street in Pigtown, with his emergency flashers signaling. He had just been off for the two days prior. Another officer was seen removing Heilman's gunbelt, two others had to prop him up to walk to another patrol car, and a fourth had to drive his car back to the precinct.

I think of so many things. First of all, I'm not holding the man up for being a bad policeman. There are far too many good ones to let this one bad hire taint the majority. For all I care, he could have been a new young school teacher, architect, farmer, fisherman, shoe salesman, warehouseman or photographer.  It's not his profession that matters; it's how he blew the chance to succeed in it by succumbing to demon rum.

I think of his parents, significant other, family members, friends, all so proud when he was graduated from the police academy just months ago. Did any of them know he has problems with intoxicants, and did someone try to get him to help, or look the other way?

It's not enough to look at a person wasting their chances on substance abuse and decide not to go down that road. There is help available for people who need it, and I think the best thing is to take that person where the helpers are.

The Nicks of Time

The Baltimore Ravens have a defensive coordinator (coach) named Don Martindale.  Naturally, his nickname is "Wink" because of the deejay and game show host Wink Martindale, born Winston Martindale.

We tend to rubber-stamp nicknames. Just because of the comic strips, any guy with the surname Sawyer gets called "Buz," and everyone with the last name Mullins is "Moon."

(I'm going parenthetical to tell you that there was a country music pianist named Moon Mullican, and when Ernest Tubb had his producer, Owen Bradley, play piano on a record, he pointed out that Owen was only half as good as Moon by calling him "Half Moon. And ET had a guitarist in the band whose given name was Tommy Paige, but he was best known as "Butterball.)

Butterball.

At some point in their lives, everyone who works with radios and electronics is "Sparky," every tall guy is "Stretch," every tall, skinny guy is "Beanpole," or every big hugger is "Tiny" and every diminutive man is "Big Guy," just to change things around.

There are no acceptable nicknames for a woman who is tall or short or anything physically, trust me.

All bumbling law enforcement officers are "Barney Fife," people who nictitate excessively are "Blinky," people who dance clumsily are "Bushel Foot," and anyone who has dinged the fender on their car in the last six months is "Crash."

This is new - deflated names, like Jennifer Lopez becoming "JLo", and combined nicknames, such as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie being called "Brangelina," which always reminded me of Thumbelina, which is still not a good nickname for a very tiny woman.

Just ask 4th-grade Mark, or "Marky Mark," as I was called by my grandmother, a long time before the Mr Wahlberg took time out of his busy pants-dropping schedule to steal my nickname.  But all Marks go by that.

I've heard of stone crabs, but this...?

You know about the big stinkeroo down here in Maryland, where the PETA people put up billboards exhorting us to be kind to crabs by not steaming them alive and eating them with lots of Old Bay on them and corn on the side and a few ice cold Natty Bohs.

I like beer! I drank beer in high school and I still like it!

But it took a lot more than that to keep me off the Supreme Court. A lack of a law degree and a tendency to catcall people on the bench also contributed, and I'm not even here to talk about that right now.

They love their lobsters up in Maine, and I don't blame them. That is some tasty shellfish, served up with melted butter and an ice cold beer or two. Lobster tastes good.

But there is a woman up there who owns a restaurant called the Lobster Pound who had an interesting way of making the lobsters a little calmer before they got steamed, and now the state health inspectors are investigating her setup, because she was mellowing them out with marijuana before killing them to be served, cracked and eaten.

The Pound is still open, but you can't order the smoked variety for now. Charlotte Gill is the woman who owns the joint, if you will. She is a  state-licensed medical marijuana caregiver. And she is interested in making the world a kinder place, she says.

Meanwhile, no one knows for sure if getting a lobster stoned has any effect on how it's going to feel when they get the steamer treatment.

Emily Spencer is a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, and she won't say if the state had asked Gill to halt such sales.

This whole thing is sort of cloudy to me.

But Gill told the Press Herald newspaper that “after being contacted by the state, and upon reviewing its present laws and codes applicable to this arena, and then making a few minor adjustments to our procedure, we are completely confident that we will be able to proceed as planned”.

“I imagine we will still have a push back from the state on our hands,” she said, “but we are confident that we will be able to field any issues they may have with us, and do it with grace. These are important issues and ones that can also benefit not only the lobster, but the industry as well. Truly we are not trying to go against [the state’s] wishes and would love to work with them in order for us all to make this world a kinder place.”

Spencer said it's time to drag another agency -  the Maine Medical Marijuana Program - and let them figure out if their program is meant to benefit shellfish. And that agency won't even say if they are looking into the deal. 

So, to sum up: a woman wants to drug lobsters, and the Health Dept. won't confirm anything, and neither will the medical marijuana task force, and no one knows if the practice will benefit anyone but the marijuana farmer.

I used to think I would like it in Maine, primarily because of the climate, but now I'm not sure. Just give me a plain old lobster and hold the dope.

From Penn State to State Pen?

In the wild world of college football this past weekend, the Alabama Crimson Tide managed to squeak past the Ragin' Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette by 56-14, and Penn State lost a 12-point lead in the final seven minutes to Ohio State and lost, 27-26.

I know it's wrong to root against Penn State just because of that awful Jerry Sandusky / Joe Paterno child sex abuse stuff of years ago.

I have lots of friends who went there and root for them, so it's nothing against them.

But I see stories like this, and I just have to share them:
(From the York Daily Record)

A Penn State offensive lineman, who was recruited as one of the best in the nation at his position, faces charges in connection with the theft of a bicycle.

Christina Milian, who always shows up in
Christmas movies I love

The player is a freshman from Waldorf, Maryland, down the road in Charles County, home of the Madden brothers, Joel and Benji, from the band Good Charlotte, and the town where the lovely singer/actress Christina Milian grew up. Christina is in half of the Christmas movies on Hallmark and is also the singer of the haunting ballad "Dip It Low."

Back to the football player, he was charged with theft and receiving stolen property  for an incident that occurred Sept. 11, according to the Penn State police.

Here's the crime: the football player stole a mountain bike to ride back to his dorm room BECAUSE HE DID NOT FEEL LIKE WALKING.

Surveillance cameras show him ripping off a bike near the Lasch Football Building - where there is a camera set up to record just this sort of thing - and leaving it in the grass near the residence hall.

The tired athlete is 18, and he has a preliminary hearing scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Oct. 31 before District Judge Carmine W. Prestia Jr.

Since that day is Halloween, perhaps he could come to court dressed as a copy of Vittorio DeSica's 1948 movie "The Bicycle Thief."

Since the arrest, he has continued to play for Penn State, although coach James Franklin told the Centre Daily Times that the matter would be "taken care of like we’ve handled every discipline issue in our program since we’ve been here."

Oh, and this would be a good time to tell you that the name of the football player who was too tired to WALK a couple of blocks back to the dormitory is Rasheed WALKER.

And know you know the rest of the story.

Living on Easy Street, dressing like Skid Row

I tend to spend a lot of time perched on the stool at our kitchen island, so when the first stools we had started getting wobbly, we went to Gardiner's to get new ones.

Out-of-towners might recognize that furniture store as being the one that promised that everything everyone bought the day before the Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2012 if a Raven ran back the opening kickoff of a half. Thanks to Jacoby Jones, a lot of people are now sitting on sofas and La-Z-Boys they got for free.

But I digress. When we ordered the stools, the lady said we could get them in pristine condition OR pre-distressed, with signs of wear. We went that way, to save me the trouble of beating the stools up by myself. They fit right in with our kitchen decor, which closely replicates a Cracker Barrel.

But stools are one thing, and sneakers are another. People just go nuts about their kicks. I have seen people buy shoe protectors to keep their ADIDAS all ADIDAS-Y, in much the same way generations of Baltimoreans have covered their sofas in clear vinyl so their bare legs will stick to them.

OR - people go out of their way to muck up their brand new sneakers. I remember in phys ed, everyone howled if you showed up with blinding white Jack Purcells, so you deliberately walked in mud (or what you thought was mud) on the way to the locker room.

It seems that some of us want to have others look at us as if we are down and out while all along they know we're rolling in it. I've never been sure of the reasons for this, but the good people at Nordstrom are here to help.

For just $530, they will sell you a pair of sneakers that look like they have been worn since 1975, and are being held together by tape.

No, really! And they are selling like crazy! Which is somehow appropriate.

The website describes the Golden Goose brand shoes as featuring
 "crumply, hold-it-all-together tape" and "a grungy rubber cupsole."


Responding to critics who say this is just another way to marginalize the impoverished by mocking their shoe wardrobes, Nordstrom said, "We're always looking to bring in new, different, and unique products. We realize taste is subjective and not every customer will like every product we carry."

I love offering choices, and for anyone willing to go $530 for a pair of ratty shoes, I will sell you TWO pairs of my well-worn Rockports for the same low-low price.

Castles Made of Sand: Sign Posse

I tend to see both sides of this story.  I don't know how it is where you live, but in our county, enough people got sick and tired of the roadside landscapes being ruined by those doggone advertising signs that ruthless corporations stick in the ground...ground that does not belong to them, I must point out...that the county passed a law against shoving their dumb signs in the ground.

So there's a man in the north part of the county who goes around pulling the signs out of the ground (and out of everyone's ruined sight).  Mike Pierce is his name, and I think he deserves a community service medal of some sort, because he has made it his fulltime everyday avocation to yank out what he calls "litter on a stick."

But he ran afoul of a company whose business it is to wreck the roadside vista, and how he has to go to court to defend himself on a misdemeanor criminal charge of theft less than $100. 

He was on Providence Rd near the Baltimore Beltway - just a mile from my once-rural childhood home, where as a child I played and gamboled about "in sweet fragrant meadows of dawn and dew" - and he saw a yellow HOUSE FOR SALE sign.  Mr Pierce rang up a NO SALE and pulled that sucker right on out of the ground.

But he was being observed by one Darren Hahnfeld, owner of iStuff sellers, which does estate sales in Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and DC.  "Marketing is a big portion of what we do," says Hahnfeld, who also told the Baltimore SUNpaper that "one well-placed sign can mean a world of difference."

That is true.  But I don't think that we all think it's the same kind of difference that Hahnfeld thinks. He sees money, and we see a roadside despoiled by ugly little plastic signs.

So Hahnfeld tips off the police, and they show up at Pierce's house, and here is where I have to throw a penalty flag on Pierce. The PD asked him to relinquish the sign he had taken, on the indisputable grounds that it was not his property.  He refused, and some lucky District Court judge will bang the gavel on the whole matter soon. 

After all, the law here does say it's legal "for a person who is not an employee of the county to remove a sign" that is posted in violation of the law. What is left unclarified is what is to happen with the sign after that.  

Pierce is represented by attorney Andrew Alperstein, who says, "It's unusual, but the code seems to sort of deputize citizens to be allowed to remove signs on public rights of way. He's passionate about his community and how it looks and appears."

"He probably would never have been charged with this theft if he hadn't refused to cooperate with us," said Baltimore County Police Officer Jen Peach.

"He could've righted everything by just giving it back," Hahnfeld said.

Pierce figures he has removed 10,000 signs over the years. 

I hope he gets 10,000 more, and that if he's asked again, will return the sign to the person who owns and illegally planted it. Maybe he'll get to remove the same blight twice!

The Saturday Picture Show, September 29, 2018

I'm wondering about this, as in, were people living in the bus when it broke down and they decided to build on to it, or, were they building a hut and decided to use a bus for the fourth wall? Also, when they have something to fix, do they call a carpenter or a mechanic?  I'm so confused.

Sheets of yellow paper, or slices of American cheese? Who knows, but I always laugh out loud at the deli when I get 1/2 pound of sliced American Land O' Lakes cheese and the label says "LOL Cheese."

My question is, when builders landscape a new house and yard, why not use fruit trees so that a few years later, the owners can make a pie?

A flock of crows is called a "murder" of crows, whereas hearing A Flock Of Seagulls makes you want to murder yourself.

I love it when things get updated and upgraded. The cake topper at weddings always looked like Thomas E. Dewey and June Cleaver, but now, they do cooler things.

Today's nature wallpaper features the kind of leaves I like the most - ones that don't need to be raked!

Very soon, we will hear these guys honking over us, heading south. They travel in groups, and they are Canadian Geese.

A zoologist at the Maryland Zoo found this turtle in a park; he had a cracked shell. The turtle did, that is. Anyhow, the zoo made him temporary wheels with Legos and plumbers' putty and they will return him to the park once his shell mends.

You feel safe?

I'm going to sum up the confusion around gun violence in just a few words.  We're told by "gun enthusiasts" that only decent, moral, upstanding, law-abiding citizens can get guns to shoot you with because there is a screening process to keep mentally ill people from getting guns.

Feel good? Good. Because it turns out that the screening process is a questionnaire, a gun permit application, and when you fill it out and see the question "ARE YOU INSANE?" all you have to do is check the "NO" box and strap on whatever weapon(s) you wish to use in killing strangers, family, or coworkers.

Last week, Snochia Moseley, 26, a temporary worker at the Rite Aid warehouse in Harford County, got cheesed off about something, so she went home and got her shootin' iron, came back to work, and killed four people, including herself. 

Moseley suffered from schizophrenia, but recently purchased the gun she used to kill four humans, because she cleverly deceived the gun permit application by denying her mental illness.

"I know so many people out in the public are looking to make some sense of this. There's just no way to make sense of something so senseless," Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler says.

"While no evidence directly related to the shooting was recovered, evidence that the shooter was suffering from a mental illness was identified," Gahler continued. "Friends and family members told detectives over the last few weeks she had become increasingly agitated and they were concerned for her well-being."


These are the people who lost their lives to this gun of hers:

Sunday Aguda, 45, of Baltimore County
Brindra Giri, 41, of Baltimore County
Hayleen Reyes, 21, of Baltimore City

and these three people are still in hospital with their wounds:

Hassan Mitchell, 19, of Harford County
Wilfredo Villegas, 45, of Montgomery County
Purna Acharya, 45, of New York


The sheriff said Moseley legally purchased the Glock 17 9 mm handgun in March, two years after being diagnosed with mental illness. 

IN 2012, four Americans were killed by insurgents in Benghazi, and the sturm und drang over that tragedy roars on in this country, while three people far from any war zones wound up dead just by going to work in Aberdeen, Maryland, and no one is looking for a Congressional investigation over it.

And while I am irritating the "gun enthusiasts," let me share this with you.

Cody Wilson, the genius who invented the 3-D printed gun, allowing any maniac to build his or her own gun right at home, has resigned from his job as director of Defense Distributed, the Austin company he founded. He'll be too busy to help others make their own bullet-shooting machine because he's facing charges of sexual assault of a minor, stemming from an incident earlier this year in which he allegedly had sex with a 16-year-old girl he met online. Wilson was released on $150,000 bail Monday.

Some very fine people on both sides.

They've made Rex of their lives

Do you remember Rex Smith?  I mean, at one time, he had all the irons in the fire. He was in "Grease"on Broadway, he had two hit records (a solo "You Take My Breath Away" in 1979 and a great duet version of "Everlasting Love" with Rachel Sweet in '81), he was in the movie of "The Pirates of Penzance" in 1983 when America went through a short-lived Gilbert and Sullivan revival, he played Jesse Mach in the 1985 TV show Street Hawk, and played Daredevil in the Marvel Comics show.

Right around the time of the end of the 70s and the start of the 80s, you saw his mug on 16 Magazine and Tiger Beat while you waited in line at the supermarket to pay next to nothing for filet mignon.

Now, a couple of nice filets will cost you close to 50 dollars, and do you know what else you can get for that much?

A video greeting from Rex Smith! Personalized, just for you, so like if your cousin from Delaware is still holding a torch for old Rex since the day he took over hosting TV's "Solid Gold" from Andy Gibb, and she's coming up on her 50th birthday, you can just go to https://www.cameo.com/ and make that magic happen. He'll cut a video for Cousin Kate. Hell, for another double sawbucks, you could probably get him to drive over and bring her a cake.

Cameo.com is the home of the almost-famous, the used-to-be-famous and the never-gonna-bes, and for varying prices, these people will record quick video greetings for you.

Scrolling through the pages of people who willingly offer their services, you can't help but feel sorry for some of them. And then you see Tommy Lee is there, asking $250 for his time, and Michael Vick wants $500, doggone it.

No matter how you slice it

A debate took place on the pages of Facebook (page after page after page) about a homeless man in our town who has taken up residence under the city-owned water tower, on the parking lot of the new CVS, and other outdoor sites.

Our councilman took the appropriate steps of contacting the proper county agencies to seek help for the man, and he remains obdurately opposed to moving to a shelter or receiving any sort of help from the government. Fine.

And the conversation moved on to anecdotes from people who regularly stop by his makeshift encampment and give him clothing, blankets, food and I don't know what-all else. This makes them feel better about the situation, but when you think about it (or when I do), it seems to be just a way to perpetuate a situation which should not be perpetuated. Living on public (or someone else's private) land is not the normal course, and I think it's like seeing someone pounding their head with a wooden mallet and giving them a new mallet. 

I recommend watching "The Middle" reruns all day

I'm not against charity by any means but it should be useful for the recipient.

But that's not even my point today. Some of the people chatting about the dude said that he approached their cars on the parking lot and screamed curses at them and their children, which must be awfully hard to explain to the kids. But another woman wrote to say that she thought children should be exposed to this as a "slice of life."

This led me to think of some of the things I have seen done and said by residents of that demimonde, and, frankly, I don't think children need to be exposed to such horrors. Plenty of people enjoy that "Deuces" show on HBO, and I'm not sure I'd want a child to watch the glorification of prostitution and strip bars on Sunday night before heading off to school Monday morning.

Not all slices of life ought to be served up on fine china plates with the good silverware, is all I'm saying. And I'm also saying that if you really want to help a destitute man who's living in the woods or something, help him get ready to go get a job and get his life back on track. Handing him a sandwich today does nothing to prepare him for tomorrow.

Sell phone

Almost as dreadful as the notice from the MVA that it's time to come in, pass a desultory eye test and pose for another flattering GlamorFoto is the time when you realize the two-year contract on your cell is up and it's time to go get in line at the phone store.

Normally we go to the store where our friend works, a patient lady who has been helping us stay connected since I don't know how long, but this year, there's just too much going on with us to take a whole day trip to Delaware. So we miss her, but we wound up at the store near us.

And with the kind of luck that I usually do not come up with, we chose a good day to go, as it was the day before the new i-Phones came out. As we are confirmed Androidians, we love Samsung and leave the Apples to Granny Smith. And the iPhone adherents were probably getting ready to camp out on the Avenue to wait for new smart phones as we left with our new stuff - new phones and tablets for each of us!

They have a new seamless way to transfer your contacts and documents and photos of Uncle Nate in a tanktop, so you don't have to worry about all that anymore, but it does take a little time to get used to a new phone and new apps and what-have-you. It's sort of like driving a new car for the first time, except there's no sunroof or power windows. There is a backup camera, though: just open the camera app and back up.

There was a hitch pairing my new phone to my old car (Peggy's worked without a snag). I wound up having to talk to several wireless techs to the point of striking up lifelong friendships with "Christian" and "Amy" from who-knows-where, but at least I'm connected and paired.

After the first stumbles with hooking up the phone to the car audio, it was like, every time I got in the car there was this awful looooooooong wait while I waited for the dashboard to stop saying "No phone connected" and start saying that it was. It reminded me of that eternity when you're sitting in the stands at a wedding, and the preacher says, ""If anyone sees any reason why these two should not be wed, let them speak now or forever hold their peace."

And it seems like twenty minutes while you sit and see if Uncle Nate is going to holler anything.

Call me by your name

A quick look at my Facebook friends list shows there are seven women on there named Heather.

I love that name! It conjures soft visions of a pink flower in the Scottish Highlands, and all that goes with that...tweedy jackets, mulled cider and wines and soft music played on woodwinds as fires and candles warm and scent the room.

We get a sense from names, and that's my warm glow from the name "Heather." Much more a balm to the soul that, say, Agnes, Mildred, or Hortense, all though there are lovely people by those names as well.

I also like to see the popularity charts for names as they ebb and flow. I remember the days when little boys were John, Steven, Richard (and the occasional Mark) and girls were Carol, Susan, and Barbara. Not so much anymore.

But no name ever took such a precipitous spill in popularity as Heather.

Did you know that in 1975, there were more than 24,000 American baby girls given that name, and that it finished third in the name charts that year, after Jennifer and Amy?

Fast forward to 2017, and if you named your baby Heather, she was one of only 219 to be so called. "Heather" is now the 1,129th most popular girls' name.  "Jennifer" and "Amy" have also fallen off, but not quite so much.

Because I have plenty of time to read stuff, I read an article about a woman named Laura Wattenberg, who is said to be the top expert on US naming trends. She operates a website called Baby Name Wizard, which is a great site for baby name trivia and ideas. (As always, I humbly remind all expectant families of the wonders that could befall a little boy christened "Elvis.") 

Laura (how cool would it be if her name were Heather?) said Americans name their kids according to fad and fashion, and, "When fashion is ready for a name, even a tiny spark can make it take off. Heather climbed gradually into popularity through the 1950s and ’60s, then took its biggest leap in 1969, a year that featured a popular Disney TV movie called Guns in the Heather. A whole generation of Heathers followed, at which point Heather became a ‘mom name’ and young parents pulled away.”

"Heathers" (1988)

It makes sense that the first batch of Heathers became moms and did not want to call their offspring "Heather, Jr."  Wattenberg also says the 1988 movie "Heathers," which concerned some rather evil snotty princesses, all named that, was another factor. 

And the fact that every movie made 30 years ago has, by law, been made into a Broadway musical was the final nail in the coffin.

And get this: Wattenberg also claims that the sound of a name has to do with how popular it is. “Current style favors liquid sounds dominated by long vowels,” she says, liquid sounds being those that involve using the tip of the tongue to create air flow through the mouth. This theory explains why there are so many people being born now called Liam, Noah, Aria, Amelia and Melania.

Just kidding with that last one. 

Sunday Rerun: "Free advice costs nothing, and it's worth the price" - Allan Sherman

One thing I like about REALLY old people is that they become REALLY honest!

Take Tony Bennett, if you will. The longtime saloon singer, born Anthony Dominick Benedetto 90 years ago, was a guest on NPR's "Fresh Air" not long ago, and the host, Terry Gross, asked him what could be the reason for the longevity of his career.

"Talent" was his one-word answer.  

Yes, it takes talent to stay popular in show business for over 65 years; Bennett's first hits came in 1950 - 51. That's a while.  And you know what?  There are plenty of singers just as good as Tony Bennett.  I'll daresay there are many, but he knows something that has kept him around a long long time.

He went on, in the radio interview, to tell Ms Gross that Jack Benny and Bob Hope (who advised him to change his name) gave him lots of advice in the early stages of his career. In fact, he said the best advice was telling him that it would take him a few years of knowing what to do before he learned the more important lessons - knowing what NOT to do.

I've told a million people, seven of whom actually wanted to hear it, that a great lesson I learned as a supervisor was that if you did a favor for one person, the others would not say, "Wowie! What a great guy he is!"  Nope.  What they said was, where is my slice of that pie, please.  And who can blame them?

One of the first things I learned in my lifetime of driving everything from cars to trucks to fire engines is that you can see an car approaching with its turn signal flashing and the driver's arm out of the car giving a back up signal.  I don't care if the driver hollers out the window "I'm turning here! Go ahead and pull out!" I'm not going anywhere until he/she clears the intersection...not that I mistrust my fellow drivers.  I just don't trust them, you see. I remember the sage words of my father, who taught me to assume that every other car on the road was being driven by a drunken sociopath, out to kill me.  

Half the time, he has been proven right.

Knowing what NOT to do pays off.  Frying an egg? Adding three more minutes of pan time is something to avoid. Speaking before a crowd? Don't keep speaking any longer, once you've seen two people stick out their wrists to check the time. Washing your brand new white polo shirt and your brand new blue jeans? Unless you want a periwinkle colored shirt, better make that two trips around the Maytag.


Take it from Steve Harvey <<< or Tony Bennett and me: two old men who will tell you, it doesn't matter if you're repairing a Singer sewing machine or trying to be a professional singer, knowing what NOT to do is something to do.