Must be in the form of a question

 Winning 1.6 million American smackeroos on "Jeopardy" made Amy Schneider the ninth biggest winner of all time in American game show history. Ms Schneider owns the second-longest win streak in the quiz show's long and storied history, trailing only Ken Jennings.

 Ms Schneider has written her autobiography.  I think it's safe to say that anyone selected by their eighth-grade as "Most likely to win on Jeopardy" would have quite a story to tell. I'll add it to my want list at our library. She's on Facebook drumming up sales for the book.

Some people on the FBook had some things to say to Ms Schneider, whose status as a transgender American seems to trouble people who have met the Enough brothers and can't leave Well Enough alone. 

Nasty comments ensued, and I wonder why it's a deal to some people if others change their gender to the one in which they feel more comfortable. One of the nasty Nellies made it clear that she advocates FOR cat adoption and AGAINST human vaccination. So she has mercy for a cat who needs two square meals alongside places to poop and snooze, but none for a fellow human being who struggled and, one hopes, found peace.

Well, I'll tell you what, if she's going to be all "I can do what I want, but you can't!," I hope her cat refuses to snuggle her anymore until she learns to live and let live.

There goes the judge

Up in rural Petersburgh, New York, they need a new town justice.

Former Town Justice Richard T. Snyder was ridden off on a rail because he said something out loud that he really should have not said (let alone thought): in an effort to get himself excused from jury duty, he actually said, "all defendants are guilty."

He said this to another judge, who adjudged Snyder egregiously wrong, and quickly reported him to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct, which august body conducted a lengthy investigation.

Summonsed for grand jury duty, Snyder introduced himself as a judge, and said he couldn't do the job of a juror because he figures all the defendants brought before him are guilty.

So, he couldn’t be impartial. 

“I know everybody come in front of me, I know they are guilty,” he told the presiding judge, according to the court transcript. “They would not be in front of me.”

That was enough to get him off the jury. But then he explained himself to the Commission: 

“I meant that, reason why people got tickets is because they did something wrong, but I know people’s [sic] not guilty. They’re innocent until proven guilty,” he said. “I know they’re guilty because they did something wrong. That’s how they got a ticket.”

 “I mean, that they were guilty because they did something wrong. But they’re not guilty till they come to court. They’re innocent till proven guilty.”

His Honor is seen here either hauling off a box of extra robes and gavels, or working a new delivery job. I can't say.

The Commission sent him packing with a promise that he go far, far away, and never seek a judgeship again.

in the words of Commission Administrator Robert Tembeckjian, “It is bad enough that a judge would seek to avoid such a fundamental civic responsibility as jury service. It is astounding that the judge would claim an inability to be impartial, and to declare under oath that the accused must be guilty or they would not be in court.” 

You think you've heard it all; now here's a judge who hadn't heard a word in freshman Civics.

Trust me on this

 Really, trust me on anything, because I never developed the skill of saying one thing and meaning another. 

If some doctor ever ankles up to me, white jacket on, stethoscope around his or her neck, and a clipboard in hand, and says to me, "Well, Mr Clark, all the test results are back, and I'm sorry to tell you this, but you must never eat chocolate again..."

I can assure you that I'd say, "Is that all?"

I know, I'm living in a country where National Chocolate Day is celebrated three times a  year (July 7, October 28 and December 28) but I'm not there for any of it. 

I know many people who live for their next chunka chocolate 🍫 but you can have mine!

Hey, are you gonna eat that whole shrimp egg roll? I'll be glad to go halfsies with ya...

I just don't like chocolate! 

Attention pharmacy clerks!

Some 5,000 volunteers have signed up for the Citizen Archivist program, and you can be #5,001, if you hurry. 

The deal is, our National Archives - the nation's dusty file cabinet - is bulging with old letters, deeds, wills, and other ephemera...papers that could yield tons of information valuable to historians and casual browsers alike, except...

There weren't typewriters available for Josiah Goodpasture as he fought Ye Olde Revolutionarye Warre; everything was written in pen. And not a handy Bic Stic, oh no. They plucked feathers 🪶 and made a point of turning them into ink pens.

And now, in an era when kids can only read a digital clock and don't even learn to write in, let alone read, cursive, the only chance to get these ancient documents put into readable form is to have Citizen Archivists help "unlock history" for the edification of the scholars of today and tomorrow.

The Nat'l Archives digitizes tens of millions of old pages, using artificial intelligence, real intelligence, and a gizmo called an optical character recognition device to turn the words of 1776 into the preserved text images of 2025.

Uhhh...what, now?

Interested? Just go to secure.gov.login and follow a techno-trail that Josiah and his friends never got to see.

“There’s no application,” Suzanne Isaacs, a community manager with the National Archives, tells USA Today’s Elizabeth Weise. “You just pick a record that hasn’t been done and read the instructions. It’s easy to do for a half hour a day or a week.”

Josiah would fairly beam with joy if some modern people could see his original payroll records from so long ago.

And archivists who excel at online translation will be given a chance to help me read my handwritten grocery list every week. Does that say "a lb. of butter" or "a leg of mutton"? 

I need to know. 

If You Knew

 On the sad anniversary (the 66th) of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) in a plane crash in Iowa, a couple of tidbits...

In this picture we see Peggy Sue Gerron, Buddy Holly,  María Elena Santiago Holly, and Buddy's drummer, Jerry Allison. You've heard Buddy's song "Peggy Sue" from 1957. Most people figure Buddy had a girlfriend by that name,  but such was not the case. Buddy and Jerry had written a song with a paradiddle drum beat and fit the words "Cindy Lou" into the beat to honor Buddy's cousin eponymously. But Jerry asked if they could change the title to "Peggy Sue" after he flipped over Ms Gerron. Buddy's girl in those days was the enchantingly-named Echo McGuire. 

But that was a high-school romance that didn't last, and seven months from the end of his life, Buddy met and married María Elena, who survives him to this day. She was pregnant and heard the news of the fatal plane crash on the news, a shock that caused her to suffer a miscarriage. That tragedy led to the change in policy in use ever since in broadcast newsrooms under which such bad news is not broadcast until the next-of-kin are notified. 

And speaking of flipping...you've heard of the legendary coin flips that decided who got the other two seats on the ill-fated plane. Waylon Jennings, bass player, lost his seat to Big Bopper before going on to fame in country music, but until his own death in 2002 was haunted by his taunting final words as the doomed three boarded the Beechcraft Bonanza: "I hope your damn plane crashes!"

The other coin flip loser was guitarist Tommy Allsup, whose seat went to Ritchie Valens when Valens correctly called "Heads."

Allsup would later own a Dallas saloon called "Tommy's Heads-Up Saloon."

Sunday Rerun: You Never Know

 I remember the first few weeks after I quit smoking at 9:10 AM on September 17, 1988 (but who's counting?) because most everyone was supportive, and from that day to this, I haven't smoked, not a puff, and have no desire to.

'55 Buick

But, within a week of tossing away the butts, I was walking back to my truck after work, and saw a woman driving one of those gigantic 1955 tu-tone Buicks on Chesapeake Avenue in Towson. She couldn't have been more than 107 years of age, and was gripping the wheel with one hand as she piloted the barge through the pedestrians and other cars.

The other hand was occupied holding what I guessed was a Pall Mall cigarette that she was hooving on like it was the last cig she would ever enjoy.  Puff, puff, puff.

And it dawned on me that she was going to live and smoke forever. For all I know, she is even today cruising around the traffic circle in Towson, on her way to the Safeway for another carton of Pall Malls.

Happy Birthday, Ms Sullivan!

I thought of that lady when I saw this story from Texas
about a woman named Elizabeth Sullivan, who recently blew out 104 candles on her birthday cake, and attributes her superannuation to drinking three cans of Dr Pepper per day. "Every doctor that sees me says they’ll kill you, but they die and I don’t," Sullivan told CBS as she reached for another chilly 12-ouncer . "So there must be a mistake somewhere.”

In Texas, Dr Pepper flows from many public drinking fountains, it's so popular.  I don't like soda at all anymore but I used to like Coca-Cola and ginger ale. Dr Pepper, however, has a curious cherry taste that reminded me of carbonated cough syrup.

Their slogan used to be "Drink a bite to eat at 10, 2, and 4," which was designed to have consumers drink three Peps a day to ward off the slump between meals by slipping a cup of liquid sugar into their bloodstream.

Still, I don't see myself living to be 104, since I don't smoke or guzzle Dr Pepper, but if I did, it would mean I lived long enough to see Ms Sullivan dating Keith Richards in the year 2055.

The Saturday Picture Show, February 1, 2025

 

A painting of a horse is much less costly than a real hoss, and the bonus is, you don't have to clean up after him.

Autumn Sunday evenings in Baltimore are for watching Sunday Night Football and realizing you have to go work on Monday morning. But! At least you don't have to work with Cris Collinsworth, seen here in his playing days...

Interesting! If you're small, you can park your carcass on these handpainted curb chairs.

The good old days of Computer Lab 101, so long ago that the keyboard was still part of the machine! Perfect for learning Lotus 123 and Word Perfect. 

Nappin' in the snack aisle with Mama Duck and her ducklings!

This little guy can get on your finger for fifteen minutes and get you a money-saving quote on your auto insurance. 

Anyone for mountain climbing? OK, you go ahead...

This is the companion joke to the one about the nudist who knew how to go pick up a dozen donuts 🍩 to go...

Who's going to be the one to tell a polar bear he shouldn't snooze half the day away?

Maybe my lifelong dream of becoming a country singer will come true, now that I've chosen a fake name...Rusty Wheeler. 

Exit gracefully

 There was always a maid in the old movies. She was often married to the butler. She cooked and cleaned. He laid out clothes and tended to matters around the house. And he greeted guests at the door, wearing a stiff collar and matching upper lip.

There's a new definition of "maid," now that we don't live like a lot of Rockefellers. MAID is the acronym for Medical Assistance In Dying. 

TV's "Hazel."

CBS showed the story of Barbara Goodfriend this week. Ms Goodfriend was an 83-year-old widow from New Jersey. Last April, her doctor told her she had ALS,  (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), that horrible disease that devastates the nervous system and leaves one with no muscle control.

She was told that she hadn't long to live, so she opted for ending her life, rather than living it in the grip of what's called Lou Gehrig's Disease.

She went with MAID, in which a medical doctor provides a lethal medication for people of sound mind with less than six months to live. The person must take the dose themselves, which is where this differs from euthanasia, in which a doctor administers the lethal medication. Euthanasia is illegal in the U.S.

Ms Goodfriend said she wouldn't otherwise wish to die, but, "What am I going to give this up for? To be in a wheelchair? To have a feeding tube? I wish I had more time to live, but I don't want more time as a patient."

MAID is legal in ten states and Washington D.C. Last year, the Maryland legislature did not pass a Death With Dignity law.

I wonder how you feel about this.  For my part, I would never consider suicide, because there are still so many people I haven't had time to irritate yet. But living with ALS? I don't think I would.

Timing is everything

 Last week, here in my fair and frantic Baltimore, all the brass monkeys were being brought inside as the outside became Yukon cold. I mean, overnight lows were in the single digits for several nights, and the days weren't that much warmer.

We dug out our fleecy undies and vests and wool sox and knit caps and paraded around snug as bugs in rugs, until we braved the out-of-doors. Most of us ran back indoors as fast as we could, but in the end, we were fine. 

Cold, but fine. 

Fast forward to this week, and it's much warmer, and heavy coats are being tossed aside in favor of light hoodies and jackets. Sure, there's hopeful talk of going back in the deep freeze (I like it c-c-c-cold!) But everyone gets their turn for their favorite weather.

However, last night at dinnertime, and again around 9:30, power went out on our street and on the streets all around us. Facebook, the great authority on everything in the neighborhoods since Next Door devolved into a forum for reporting coyotes and door-to-door solicitation, lit up with people asking "Anyone else lose power just now?" and that's how I knew how widespread the outage was...and then it was over! 

Power and lights came back on, cable boxes and modems reset themselves, and order was restored as soon as everyone figured out how to reset the digital clocks on their appliances. 

But was I the only one thinking about what an outage of any appreciable length would have meant during the sub-freezing days of last week?  We only have so many down vests and wool scarves around here.

News about a fake

Let me tell you about a husband and wife who ought to go to Hell as fast as they can get there in their fire engine.

I know, I know, that's a lot to say. But Dustin Nehl (31) and his wife Jennifer (44) were arrested while trying to sneak into the Palisades Fire evacuation zone while those awful fires out west were running wild.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman is charging the fun couple with one misdemeanor charge each, specifically "fraudulent impersonation of a specific fire personnel, unauthorized activities with respect to badges or related matter, and false representation."

 L.A. County Sheriff’s Department personnel detained them  on Jan. 18. They were trying to enter an evacuation zone in Malibu while wearing fake firefighter gear, including Cal Fire uniform shirts, and they were driving a fire engine they bought at an auction.

They were claiming to be with the "Roaring River Fire Department" in Oregon.

Looks real, except...

I put quotation marks around that because there ain't no such a thing as the Roaring River Fire Department. 

I reckon they'll have an attorney show up at their trial, claiming they took a notion to buy a used fire engine and show up at the scene of those devastating fires with no motive in mind other than to protect and serve humanity. 

If they get away with this, I'm going to buy an old police car and go help out the local gendarmerie. Just 'cause, and all.

Policy

 Recently, we canceled our subscription to the Baltimore SUN after 50-some years. I told the person on the phone from somewhere very far away that I was sick of their editorial policy, sneaky added charges, and crooked double billing. 

Naturally, the SUN started calling me on the phone, emailing me, and sending me cute "We miss you" cards in the mail.

Unless they sell the paper to someone decent, we don't want this right-wing fishwrap in our house, but that's the way things are done today in business. 

And the tablets we bought from Verizon last month have had trouble staying connected to the Verizon network. So I called Verizon and was talking to a woman in some far-flung corner of the globe, and she had no idea what to do.

So she just disconnected the call!

That's no way to do business. I called back and got someone else. It took a while, but he got us back on the system. I mentioned that the previous person had hung up in the middle of a sentence and did not call back, even though she obviously had my number.

He said that was not Verizon policy.

Oh!

And he shall be Elon

 And in other Elon Musk news...

His SpaceX giant toy Starship project has been grounded by  US authorities because one of his spaceships exploded during a recent test flight.

Fun Fact: Elon was the original Fonzie on "Happy Days"

Boom boom! went the rocket. It did make it from Texas to the Caribbean before becoming smithereens. Airline flights had to play Dodge-'Em with musky bits as debris fell.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was checking into reports of property damage on the Turks and Caicos Islands. There were no reports of injuries, except to Elon's massive ego.

The line that really got me in the story I read was that "Starship is the biggest, most powerful rocket ever built, and is key to Musk's ambitions of colonizing Mars."

Why on Earth would anyone want to move to a colony on Mars? 

Sunday Rerun: Cut it into six pieces; i don't think I can eat eight

 Everyone knows of the great inventors such as Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, and Henry Ford.  Ford had such a nimble mind that he figured out ways to make money out of making money, such as taking the wood scraps from the process of making wheels for the Model T and turning them into charcoal.  Along with a relative named Kingsford, old Henry did for the grilling industry what he also did for the auto industry.

But Tom, Bill and Henry will all bow deeply to Sean Berthiaume, a man of vision and taste, a man whose notion will soon transform the way we all eat, a man employed by Vinnie's Pizzeria, of 148 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY.

We have all yearned for and sought after new toppings for pizza. Pepperoni, sausage, mushroom, Canadian bacon, ham, fried eggs, spinach, artichokes, asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes, baby arugula, mature arugula:  all have been tried, with or without extra cheese.

There's a place near us that offers a cheese steak sub pizza.  They sizzle up the steak 'n' provolone 'n' onions that they normally would put on a roll, but instead, they lovingly slide it atop a cheese pizza, which they then top with another crust and bake until you just can't stand it no more.

But Sean has seen the future of pizza and it is a pizza pizza.  That's right, a pizza topped with cut up pieces of another pizza. Here is what this slice of heaven looks like:

Bill Gates, the man who gave the world the ability to sit down in front of a screen and see pictures of dancing babies and Mitt Romney boxing with Mike Tyson, once said, "Until we're educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do."

Thomas Edison, without whose light bulb we would be watching television in the dark, once said, "When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting, I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes."

Henry Ford, who got the nation out of horse-and-buggy days and into broken-down Ford cars, is famous for saying, "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it."

These great minds and thoughts are all reflected in Sean Berthiaume, who will be remembered for saying, "I see inspiration all around, in the hearts and minds of the customers that frequent Vinnie's everyday (sic). Their eyes seem to say, ‘Pizza, I like it, I would like more of it.' That, and I was bored on my break."

If you can be ready by 9, we could be at Vinnie's for lunch!

The Saturday Picture Show, January 25, 2025

Now, you order a pork chop sandwich, and they bring you this, and I'd say, "hot sauce,  please, and a side of slaw...and extra napkins!"

Even an ice-cold Hershey's Kiss can warm your heart. This is what the street lights look like in Chocolate Town!"

"All employees are welcome to make use of our spacious and lighted break room. One at a time, please."

It's getting to where, if you see a rock outside that hasn't been painted, that's something remarkable!

These lights are in the southernmost point in the US, the Florida Keys.

Well,  I've been eating pistachio nuts since the days when they came dyed red, and pistachio is one of my 31 favorite ice creams. But I never saw them as nature intended until now! This lovely shrub is a pistachio tree in Sicily, Italy. 

"God's in His heaven, Potato's in the paddy wagon, and the window box is full of baby squirrels."

With a little turquoise paint, an authentic name plate, and some loose automotive trim, and you've got a '57 Chevy mailbox, and you're the talk of of the town!

Catch up to the joke by watching "Raising Arizona." It will make up for any recent loss of laughter! 

 

Oh Lord, it's c-c-c-cold

 With outside temperatures hovering in the balmy 10° - 14° range this week, thoughts turn to ice cream and that traditional Baltimore favorite, the snowball (known in some areas as a sno-cone).

Whatever your pleasure, be it frozen milk or cream or just good ol' ice, shaved to bits and doused with flavored syrup (make mine egg custard, please), cold treats require proper mouth management, or you will suffer the heartbreak known as "brain freeze" or "ice cream headache."

The reason this happens is that your brain has very little idea what the heck you are up to. It spends its days trying to maintain a nice core temperature for you, and you treat it like this? For shame.

Because, dunking ice or ice cream on the roof of your mouth sends a signal to your brain..."Hey! It's cold in here!"

In turn, your brain tells the blood vessels in your head to constrict, in an effort to maintain a robust core temperature. This is called a "survival reflex," like when you're flipping around on the TV and land on a channel showing nature films or Harry Potter or Snoop Dogg E. Dogg. You can't change the channel fast enough, and that's what your blood vessels do...they get smaller until the cold goes away.

However, there's this. You can now call out sick from work or blind dates just by claiming you've come down with a bad case of “sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.” That's doctor talk for brain freeze.

Take two aspirins and call me in the morning.

Reading the crowd

Take a look at the Amazon best-selling book list these days (remember when books were all Amazon sold?) and you'll see a volume you might have seen being read during the Philadelphia Eagles playoff game last weekend. 

 Eagles star receiver A.J. Brown seems to get inspiration from one of those self-help books, so much so that he had a copy at his seat on the team bench during the game. It's a book called "Inner Excellence," by Jim Murphy.

Things happen fast these days, and so many people who saw Brown's choice of sideline reading put down their remotes and picked up their phones to order "Inner Excellence" that the Amazon was swamped.

“I was not expecting that. A real gift,” Murphy says. “I just looked at Amazon last night and it got to No. 1, so that was a surprise. It had probably never been higher than probably 8 or 9,000. In the thousands, somewhere.”

Excellence! Enjoy reading!

Better days

Ever had a bad day at work?

Of course you have; we all have. But if you misfile the Peterson papers in the Peckerson file...if you spill a tray of hot roast beef and gravy...if you forget to order new hoodies for the yard crew...these are forgivable errors.

What happened to Mark Andrews, a veteran tight end for the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday evening, was forgivable too. The normally reliable Andrews dropped a pass at the end of the Ravens' playoff game with the Buffalo Bills, a pass that would have scored two points if caught, tying the game.

Andrews, in happier days.

But Andrews dropped it, ending the local NFL season with the latest killer wave in a sea of heartache for Ravens fans.

It's tough, but it happens. Mature fans accept loss as part of life. Immature fans spew bile and vitriol, vilifying the player involved online or on sports talk radio. 

Never would they approach the 6' 5", 249-lb Andrews in person, y'unnerstan'.

But good vibes tend to win out. Up in Buffalo, fans unite in what they call the Bills Mafia, and they do good things for people. 

Having heard of the idiocy thrown Andrews's way, this Mafia decided to turn a drop into a dream, by starting a fundraiser for Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF), a nonprofit supporting research into therapies and treatments for Type 1 diabetes. Andrews is himself a Type 1 diabetic and has supported the charity in the past.

"As many of you know (the) Ravens TE wasn't able to catch the the game-tying 2-point conversion and upset Ravens fans," reads the fundraiser's description. "On top of that the TE has been receiving death threats and nasty comments [after] his performance last night. We want Bills Mafia to donate to Mark's charity for Juvenile diabetes. Let's reach a goal of at least 5k."

It's the idea of college bloggers Nicholas Howard and Ryan Patato, and as of yesterday they had already raked in over $5,000. The new goal is $20,000, and let's hope they get there, and lets hope the Bills beat the Chiefs on Sunday so they can go to the Super Bowl this year.

Next year will be the Ravens' turn, and I hope the winning touchdown is carried by the capable hands of Mark Andrews. 

 

Splat

One of the therapeutic exercises the physical therapist has me doing is squeezing a soccer ball between my knees for ten seconds, five times. 

Beside helping me regain my loping, lumbering gait, these exercises might just pay off for me in a field I had never even heard of, until I read that a Turkish woman squashed five watermelons in one minute, using only her awesome thighs. 

This feat accomplished by Gozde Dogan set a new world record, you should know.

There's a video showing Ms Dogan seated, surrounded by watermelons, picking up one at a time and giving it the thunder-thigh treatment. And she cleans up her mess, which is not a feature of the July Fourth Hot Dog eating contest.

It would probably take me many years to achieve the level of proficiency displayed by Ms Dogan, and watermelons aren't cheap, but it gives me something to plan for this summer. 

For the Rev. Dr King

   “With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” - Dr Martin Luther King, Jr

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. was a preacher in from Atlanta, serving as minister of a Baptist church in Montgomery, Ala. It's hard to believe, but this occurred in America sixty-some years ago: Black citizens were required to ride in the back of the municipal buses (they did pay the same fare as all others), and were not allowed to shop in certain stores, dine at some restaurants, or even use public toilets or water fountains. Or Vote. 

Inspired by the resistance of a hard-working seamstress named Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man and move to the back of the bus, Dr King led a boycott of those buses.  It took almost two years, but in the end, the buses in Montgomery were desegregated, open to all.  

Today, we pause from the day-to-day to honor a man who had the courage to lead the nation away from the awful practices of legal racial prejudice and discrimination.

 He went on to lead the fight to allow all citizens to vote.  Again, I am writing this for the benefit of the young, who might find it hard to believe there was a time and place in this country when a man or woman of legal voting age could be denied the right to vote because of the color of their skin.

Of course, even the young can see that a political platform that damns an entire race or religious group or seeks to keep them from coming to the Land Of The Free is based on "hair-brained" foolishness.

There was an interesting article in the Washington POST the other day about the Dr King Memorial in Washington.  National Park Service guide John W. McCaskill, stationed there, encounters all sorts of visitors to the monument.  Some are just learning about the fight for civil rights in the US, and some are people who were there on the front lines of the fight - literally.

One day, he met Rev. C.T. Vivian.  In 1965, Rev. Vivian was on the steps of the Birmingham municipal building, trying to register new voters. And a violent sheriff, one Jim Clark, stood in their way and said they could not register.  

Vivian stood firm for the right to vote. Clark hit Vivian so hard that he broke his hand. As blood poured from his nose and mouth, Rev Vivian had the courage to say this to the news cameras recording this horror:  

   "We are willing to be beaten for democracy."

And that courage flowed from the heart of the man whom we honor today. 

Please remember that, the next time that voting seems an inconvenience, or kindness to persons of a different faith or background seems to be too much trouble. 

Sunday Rerun: Bottom of the Barrel

 I don't see why we have to keep going through the same stuff all the time. 

This is America, land of the free, but that freedom does not extend to a point at which we get to tell each other how (and whom) to worship.  

If you disagree with that sentence, you might as well stop reading this now and try an animal camera site instead, because I have trouble coping with people who have decided that their religion and method of experiencing it is the only way for everyone to live.

And here is what got me all cheesed off today.  Down in South Carolina, a Cracker Barrel waitress served an apparently married couple in their 50s their supper and then found, in place of a tip, a note that told her she should be home and not working! 

And of course, because she is out working, her husband comes home from work and then goes out visiting Cheat Street because she's not home, according to Mr and Mrs Selfrighteous. 

They gobbled their chow and then left the dining area, darting back in to drop off a napkin with the mean note (poorly) written on it. Here is the text, and I won't trouble you with adding a "sic" to every spelling or grammar error.  For once, that's not the point!

"Thank you for your excelent service today - Your a good waitress. Here's your tip: The womans place is in the home. You're place is in the home. It even says so in the Bible. You may think that your contributing to your household by coming into work, but your not. While your in here 'working' this is the reason your husband must see another women on his way home from a long day at his work. Because you should be takeing care of the household duties. You may think what you are doing 'working' is right, it is really essentially a disgrace to his manhood and to the American family. So instead of coming to your 'job' and looking for hand out's to feed your family, hows about going home and cleaning your house and cooking a hot meal for your husband and children, the way you're husband and God intended, and help make America great again. Praying for families and our nation."

I added the emphasis to "make America great again" to show what sort of people believe this country is not currently great. 

In an ironic twist, the couple ends the note "Love" and their last name.  

Not that it's any of their business, but it turns out the server is not married to anyone, but is working to earn money toward her higher education, and has a supportive boyfriend.  

She told the local news down in SC that the couple were friendly and polite during dinner, and that this deplorable (!) note was all the more surprising, given their earlier kindness.

This whole stupid story brings to mind several things about people.  The comments from the news station site contain statements from Cracker Barrel habitués who said that many times, they have tied on the feedbag at the Barrel on a Sunday and heard other diners telling their servers that it's sinful for them to be working there on Sunday!

While they're eating there on Sunday.

How very kind.

And of course, there is a need some feel to decide that their religion is the only worthwhile faith. And the tendency of some to make a religion of being penurious and miserly. It's almost a sport for some to sit and figure ways to cheat servers out of the money they deserve for plopping down plates of Uncle Nutsy's Pancake Breakfast and a side of grits before them and then watching them mop their maws with a paper napkin.

So what?  So tip your server, live your faith, and don't use one to stint the other.