You said it

The other day, I told someone who had shared a picture of their impossibly adorable little girl that, "if she ain't cute, grits ain't groceries," and I hope the mom and dad knew what that means. Not that many people eat grits any more, and when they look up the word grits, they find that someone takes dry corn, soaks it in lye to remove the husk (which results in a bowlful of hominy) and then once the hominy dries out, they grind it up so it looks like sand.

Now, you boil that down in some water, add salt and pepper and butter and cheese to the resultant porridge, and you've got something there, I want to tell you.

It tastes better than it sounds, I promise you!

It'll be better with some cheddar.

Bosses and parents used to come out with "put some elbow grease on it." That meant to bear down and work harder, especially in the physical sense. Literalist that I am, I was once told to apply more elbow grease to some task I was supposed to be doing, and I covered both elbows in lithium grease to see if that would make the yardwork go faster. It didn't, but it did slow me down in getting washed up for supper.

This one still confuses people, when I say, "I haven't talked to you since Hector was a pup." They say it goes back to the Trojan War (and many a fight has been fought over Trojans, I must say) and Hector, one of the participants who had been around for a dog's age. I guess. But I can't see Greek soldiers standing around talking about old dogs, what with a war going on. I tend to associate the name Héctor with Héctor López, the old Panamanian-born Yankee outfielder who became the first black manager in AAA minor league baseball. That Héctor was born in 1929, so he was a pup a long time ago. 

And there's always this: "You need to get all the food and the supplies and make the reservation for the picnic grove. Get all that together, and Bob's your uncle."

Bob was not my uncle. Barrett was my uncle. "Bob's your uncle" means you've got the hook up and everything will be taken care of because you know the right people.

I know all the right people, because only the right people read this blog. Thank you for being one of them!

Heat of the moment

Sometimes, our futures are made clear to us in the midst of a hot moment. 

The other morning, 16-year-old Tyler Sowden was on the phone in the family's home in Cleveland. He heard a scream, and unlike many people, he went outside to see what was up. 

What he saw was black smoke pouring from a neighbor's house.

A lot of people would have stood there and said, "Huh! Someone's house is on fire!" So Tyler grabbed a ladder from his garage and beat feet down the street.  At the burning house, a woman, a baby, and a child were screaming for help from the second story porch roof.

Tyler chocked the ladder, climbed up and grabbed the baby with one arm, holding onto the ladder with the other. Down he went, taking the baby to safety before helping the mother and her son down the ladder as well.

A minute later, the house was fully involved in fire.

“It was God who used him like an angel to save our lives,” said Judith Avila Padilla, the mother whose family owe Tyler their lives. She had awakened to acrid black smoke filling her second floor bedroom as she rounded up her 11-month-old daughter, Grace, and her 7-year-old son, Caleb. As they crawled out onto the roof, she heard her other song, Abner, 12, yelling as she jumped off another porch roof.

And then here came Tyler with that 40-foot extension ladder (100 lbs) to make the rescue. He had learned to throw the ladder by tagging along on construction jobs with his father.

It was another minute before the Cleveland Fire Dept arrived. Lt. Mike Norman said, "(Tyler) certainly put himself in harm’s way to help that family."

 And as rain began to fall on the scene, he felt exhausted as he watched the firefighters extinguish the flames. “It was just kind of insane to think what I did,” he said.

And then his mom took him to Taco Bell for a grilled cheese burrito.

And then he slept for more than eight hours.

And then, a few days later, Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star Donovan Mitchell called Sowden one of “the real heroes in this community.”

And then, Tyler decided he wants to be a firefighter when he's old enough (he's already grown up enough!)

“I didn’t really have a plan until this kind of happened,” Sowden said. “I’m like, ‘Maybe that’s a sign.’”

It certainly is.

Buy the book

One of the regular events on my social calendar every year was the Smith College Alumnae Association Used Book Sale, in which books stored in Baltimore attics, basements, back rooms and I don't know where-all else were boxed up, hauled to the National Guard Armory in Towson, placed on long tables, and sold for cheap.

Now the Armory belongs to Towson University and (one hopes) is no longer used for military weapons storage, and the nice ladies from Smith College, after several years of holding their event at the State Fairgrounds, have given up the ghostwriters. 

An event a few blocks east at the public library is almost as huge. It's the 28th annual Friends of the Towson Library Book Sale! It starts today and runs through Saturday the 12th on the first floor of their great building at 320 York Rd. 

They feature books of all types (well, almost all types) and they have a huge selection of children's books, most of which were written by such noted scribes as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jenna Bush Hager, Billy Crystal, and Jimmy Fallon. 

You can't beat the prices, either: $1 to $5 today through Friday, and on Saturday, load up the SUV, Mom and Dad - everything is $5 a foot!

 

Dates and Times 

Wednesday, April 9, noon to 7 p.m.

Thursday, April 10, noon to 7 p.m. 

Friday, April 11, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Saturday, April 12, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  

Last year's sale raked in over $21,000, which the FOTL wisely invested in pain and new tables for the library, as well as programs such as Baby Craft Time, Black Business Fair and Teen Chill Time.

Go buy some books! 

 

Look down when you're walking around!

I was at the diner one day for breakfast when I found a really wonderful omelet, and then Ziv Nitzan outdid me while on a nature walk with her folks.

Ziv lives in central Israel. She's three, and that means she does what three-year-olds do on walks - she picked up just about everything the ground had to share with her delighted eyes.  She found a little stone, rounded, just about the size of her little palm. She dusted it off and asked her mom what those little markings were on the rock.

I'm glad (and so are many others!) that the family didn't just toss the stone down, because it turned out to be, not an omelet, but an amulet, 3,800 years old. It dates back to the Middle Bronze Age (2100 to 1600 B.C.E., according to the Israel Antiquities Authority.)

These little stone objects were designed in the shape of dung beetles, or scarabs. Scarabs were considered sacred in Ancient Egypt because they symbolized new life.

That was in the old days in Egypt, but these are the new days, and Ziv's folks knew what to do with the stone. They let Google Lens take a look at it, and then they were off to the Antiquities Authority the next day to share their child's find.

Ziv was awarded a certificate of appreciation for good citizenship, and the amulet is on display now through Passover.

My omelet is long gone, but it deserved a special certificate, too! 

Lighten up

 You may have heard of the "27 Club," based on the folklore of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain dying way too young at three over two dozen years.

I hasten to point out to readers under 27 that none of the celebrities above were known for their salubrious lifestyles, so it's not like they should worry, as long as they're following reasonable guidelines for safe living.

But there's an odd subtext to this, called the "white lighter myth," a fable that holds that all or at least several of the club members were toting white Bic lighters when they met their maker.

But the claim was soon reduced to Balderdash when someone noticed that Bic didn't even produce disposable lighters until 1973 (I remember!)

And Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison had long since cashed in their chips by then.

What's more, all the members of Blue Öyster Cult, so beloved for their 1976 anthem "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," outlived their fame by decades, so there's that.

Sunday Rerun: Marriage, Then and Now

We got married in 1973, shortly after the end of the Pleistocene Era, comparatively. Peggy was a blushing bride of 19, and I, the cause of the blushing, was a worldly 22 with a lot of hair and and a 32" waist, both of which have seen some change in the intervening years. But we were right in the midst of how these things were done back in the day. We were kids and we had nothing but love and some argyle socks and a complete collection of the first three years of National Lampoon magazine.

I often think about another couple we met on our honeymoon in Colonial Williamsburg. We were parading around the main drag of the town, Duke of Gloucester Street, and spotted five 20-dollar bills wadded up on the curb. I looked around with my patented furtive look, suspecting at first that it was some sort of "Candid Camera" setup. But, we picked up the loot and called the police, who sent a town cop right over.

He must have spent his off hours watching "Kojak," because he did all he could to assume the affect of a jaded big city police officer. "This found currency WILL be held at our main headquarters for a period of 30 days, after which time you MAY apply for possession thereof, should the rightful owner not be found by that time," he exclaimed, as he took our contact information and rode off, adjusting his hat.

A day went by and no call came from the police, and then, after dinner on the second day, we came home to a flashing red light on the motel phone. The message was from the town police. "The money has been claimed by a young couple on their honeymoon; request permission to divulge your information to them so they can contact you directly," barked the desk sergeant. Sure thing we said; send 'em on over. In just a few minutes, a scared-looking couple of kids, about our age, showed up at the room. We talked for a few minutes; they were from New Jersey, my second-favorite state of them all, and the guy told us how it happened that he dropped five double sawbucks on the street. It seems that someone in the know told him to stash the twenties in his shoes. I remember the shoes.  They were butter-colored, and had thick soles and high heels, the sort of thing that David Cassidy was often seen wearing while prancing about concert halls and tv shows. Ultra-70's. But many's the time I have wondered how things have gone for that couple from the Garden State Parkway State. How is their marriage going? Did they have kids? What have been the highs and lows and whatnot? Why, I'd pay a hundred bucks today to get to see them and hear their story. They were, as I say, just a couple of crazy kids who loved each other. I hope that did not change.

I've done a lot of things over the course of this American life, and I have had varying degrees of success in them all, but I surely got lucky when I fell in love. As anyone who knows me can verify, Peggy is a saint, the most patient person on earth, and definitely the sweetest. I say this all the time, and it's true so true, but she still makes my heart get all skittery just to see her edging near. If you're getting married this spring or this century, I can't wish you anything better than that.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 5, 2025

 

It's a little light on the pixels, but I like this picture of our porch. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to be outside when the Amazon person arrives, and Peggy and I can get in the picture!

I like this quarter-moon moon effect.

I enjoyed it when I had a pair of denim overalls back in the day. Never had to find a belt, lots of pockets and a hammer hanger, and maybe I'll find a new pair on the porch some sweet day.

It's sad to see an old ballpark fall into disrepair and decline, and before Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia (formerly Shibe Park) was demolished to make way for a church, it was home to the Philadelphia Athletics from 1909-1954, the Phillies (1938-1970), and even the football Eagles (1940-1958). Misty, water-colored memories...

This was someone's great idea! People might go to the library to seek information on a touchy topic, and this will guide them if they'd just as soon not ask out loud where to look.

It's a daybed that could be a boat, who knows?

I'll take the elevator, or stay on the first floor...

Warm bagel, toasty bagel...

The amazing thing about those old time TV dinners was not so much that the peas tasted like the carrots, or the little butter pat plucked down perfectly in the middle of the "snowy" mashed potatoes. It was wondering where they found those tiny chicken legs, thighs, and wings!

This skating banana statue is there for you to see, next time your travels take you to Arkansas. 

Why is he popular?

I have not said much about Baltimore's Own Luigi Mangione, scion of a notable local family who's facing the death penalty for imposing the death penalty on an insurance executive.

Two reasons: I continued to think that Luigimania would die down, and it seems to have done so somewhat, and I just could not believe the amount of people who insisted that killing the HMFIC of an insurance company was acceptable.

We've all had beefs with our health and car insurance, and even if you feel particularly aggrieved because a dear relative died and you are certain that the insurer could have done more, approved something else, made arrangements for other medications in their case, I don't think that justifies murder. Sorry, I just don't. Sue the bastids, take them to court, show up at their offices daily to demand accomodation, but when you take out a gun to take out a CEO, you are doing what you said he did to your mother or whomever. 

And I like to think that right-thinking Americans are better than that. 

It helps some to regard young Luigi as a picaresque Robin Hood sort of guy...local preppie, valedictorian, descendant of business leaders and a Republican Maryland State delegate. Some apparently see a resemblance to some video game character. He's a folk hero to some, and it reminds me of when John Dillinger was running around the country holding up banks in the 1930s. Some got the idea that Dillinger was so sort of good guy, and they convinced themselves that he divided the loot he looted from banks among the needy in the towns where he stole. And he never did anything of the sort, but depression-era America needed a hero, and there he was.

In February, someone sent Luigi a heart-shaped note hidden in a pair of socks delivered to him for wearing to a court appearance.

Let me know what a Google search gives you on "John Dillinger soup kitchens" or "Dillinger pays mortgages for hard-hit farmers." John Dillinger loved that part of being famous. Towns even posted "Welcome Dillinger" signs along their outskirt roads, hoping to lure the Indiana badman to their town, ostensibly to share his wealth.

I don't profess to know what's going on in young Mangione's head, but even if he thinks he's right to carry the cudgel for those whose insurance companies did them wrong, he's wrong. Go become a lawyer and fight for those people the right way, in courts, or with your Uncle Nino down at the state capital. In becoming a murderer, you became what you found so wrong in others.

And if you think that this man's death changed anything, you're wrong again.

 

Penny wise

At 6' 3", Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan, former bassist for Guns N' Roses, towers above many people, especially where moolah is concerned.

Duff

His name is not the inspiration for Homer Simpson's favorite beer (Duff, Duff Light and Duff Ice all come from the same vat); McKagan said the Simpsons used his name and the creator of the Simpsons, Matt Groening, says he never heard of a Duff McKagan.

He's not the richest Roser; that would be William Bruce Rose, Jr, better known as Axl Rose.

He doesn't have the coolest name in the band; that honor has to go to Izzy Stradlin, né Jeffrey Dean Isbell.

And McKagan has been thrice married, meaning that he's had three mothers-in-law, and they are all proud of his financial acumen, because in 1994, at the age of 30, Duff was told his time on earth would be measured in weeks, not years, if he didn't give up his dissolute way of life.

Here's the Paul Harvey Rest Of The Story - in order to use up the time that he used to spend on intemperance, McKagan enrolled in college, took a few business courses, and scraped together $100,000 that he had not yet snorted up his nose or run through his liver, and bought stock in three nascent businesses: Amazon, Microsoft, and Starbucks....all local Seattle firms.

Since he bought those stocks,  Starbucks is up 5,337.14%, Microsoft is +2,347.92%, and Amazon is +21,934.67%.

Had you stopped spending all your money on acid-washed jeans and Zubaz pants in 1994, and scraped together $10,000 to buy shares of Amazon, you would be worth $2,203,467 right now.

And we would still love you!

Current estimates of McKagan's wealth range from $30 million to $90 million. 

What's so funny?

Q: What happens once a year and is not nearly as much fun as it used to be?

A: April Fools' Day!

What happened? Have we grown more jaded, more cynical, not so ready to fall for the old switch-the-sugar-and-the-salt gag that I personally got from Dennis The Menace and pulled off successfully in third grade?

The time was, people would go to great lengths to pull off great pranks on this most special of foolin' around days. Hugh Troy (1908 - 1964) was regarded as the greatest practical joker of all time, because his stunts required planning and execution. (I planned my salt-and-sugar bit so well that I was nearly executed, but anyway...)

Troy would buy a large pile of newspapers when a huge event was in the headlines (Lindbergh lands, WWII ends, etc) and save them for a year or so, and then he would take the papers and hand them out to people riding the bus home from work, asking the people to whom he gave the papers to read them intently. Imagine the laughs a couple of April Firsts later when people were shocked to see old news again.

He would buy a park-type bench from, I don't know, Wards or Sears, and take it to a park, sit down and read his paper until he saw a policeman, at which point he would pick up the bench and carry it off, surely to be followed by a cop, for whom he would produce the bill of sale for one park bench.

Today, not so much. Fast food places go on Facebook to announce that they are no longer going to sell their most popular items, and will carry kangaroo burgers instead. Stuff like that. Not up to the standards of Hugh Troy, for sure.

The Washington POST made a weak attempt to claim that gondola service would soon be available in the nation's capital. But nothing has been funny for several months there...

Nice try, but weak.

Keep your orders in order

 I never worked in a restaurant in my life (and at this point, it would seem doubtful that I ever will) but I love restaurant stories, not so much about the food - I can cook my OWN food - but the tales of crabby customers and stingy tips, and the opposites too. 

I know the tips can be good for a server who is willing to go the extra mile. They often find that customers will go the extra twenty bucks with their tip in response. It really takes just a little bit of friendliness in the greeting, a little hustle on the service, and looking out for the little things like topping off water, bringing extra napkins, and so forth. Still, I know it's tough, because when you are greeted by your server, he or she may be a person who was just treated rudely by some lout. It's all part of the wonderful game we call "leaving the house."

And, from what I glean from following the Facebook page "Restaurant workers Be Like," it's not just churlish patrons who give the staff a hard way to go. Owners and managers can be pretty tough to work for as well, how about that? Check this out:

It brings back to my mind the advice I have given a lot of young people who were not smart enough to get away from what I was droning on about, but anyway, one more time: When you have a job, you are hired to perform a service, be it slinging food in a diner, sawing wood at a lumberyard, changing oil in auto engines, whatever. You are paid for that work and that's the deal. So many people think that if they work an extra 30 hours a week, someone will notice this and reward them with a new company car and a trip to the south of France before they move you into the corner office with your name on the door and a carpet as thick as a 30-dollar tenderloin. It just doesn't happen, at least not often enough to make it a good investment of your time.

What's more likely is that you will suffer the fate of poor Frank, above, working hard and doing a great job, and then crossing the Jordan one sad day, and your boss, Chris, is so suffused with sadness over it all that he gives you a standard two-line goodbye before turning your eulogy into a help-wanted ad to bring in the next beloved line cook.

Do your job and then go home and live your life. Don't combine the two. The boss does not care. 

Full of himself

 The legend of Morgan Wallen's obstreperous behavior wrote another chapter over the weekend. The moderately talented country singer did his two tunes from the upcoming album he was on Saturday Night Live to promote, and then walked off the set at the show's close.

You've seen the show end for 50 years now. Guest host says "thanks and good night" while the musical act and the other performers form an eddying mob. But on Saturday, the bumptious Wallen just lumbered off as the music played. Later he posted a photo of his private jet, captioned "Get me to God's country," presumably meaning that the Good Lord does not exist in New York City.

As if he knows.

No need exists to go into detail about the rudeness of a man who throws a folding chair off a roof toward a crowded street.  He's not as talented as he is obnoxious or as popular as as he is disrespectful of all others, so maybe his career will be as short-lived as his frequent promises to behave better. 

Oh, this new album he's promoting has a perfectly harmoniously suited name: "I'm The Problem."

Sunday rerun from 2010: Ill-gotten gains

 To those who have only recently moved to Maryland, the news that the county executive in Prince George's County, which is down near DC, was arrested along with his wife and charged with various corrupt activities must have been quite a shock.  People were shocked - shocked! - to hear of frantic phone conversations with the man and his wife as he told her to flush a check down the toilet and put cash in her bra, as feds were pounding on the front door.

Not for nothing did National Lampoon magazine label Maryland as the "Cradle Of Graft" back in the good old days.  And a man named Spiro Agnew took our area to the top of the junk heap of crooks.

Agnew, as a local politician, began shaking down contractors and builders.  You want to do business here, you give me 5% of what you take, was the plan, and so contractors and builders started showing up with envelopes and canvas bags full of money.

Nixon (r) picked Agnew. Agnew (l) picked pockets.

Running on a platform of unbridled ("You've seen one slum, you've seen them all") racism, Agnew became governor of Maryland and after two nonglorious years in that office, was chosen to be vice-president of the United States, for crying out loud, by Richard Nixon.  This was 1968, six years after Nixon lost the California governor's race to Jerry Brown's father, and Nixon promised at that time that he would not run for office ever again anywhere.

So much for that.  He took Agnew along for the ride and won election as president in '68, and thereafter let Agnew be his mouthpiece for spewing out hateful, albeit alliterative, rhetoric.  Agnew referred to those who opposed any Nixonian policy as "pusillanimous pussyfooters", "nattering nabobs of negativism" and "hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history".  This man, who went around taking cash kickbacks as a government official, had the nerve to call opponents "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals."

Guys like that always hate people with intellect, and intellectual honesty.

It was funny;  you never saw Nixon and Agnew doing anything together.  Even Nixon must have found his company undesirable, I don't know.  And when Nixon's Watergate chickens came home to roost, Agnew would have been next in line to be president, presumably the first president to be receiving foreign dignitaries and heads of state AND men bearing canvas sacks stuffed with loot in the Oval Office on the same day.  Yes, he could have moved into the White House!

Except that back home here, federal prosecutors were going over the books of some of the guys who had bought Agnew off, and they were more than willing to sing like canaries to avoid having to move to the Big House.  They talked, Agnew walked, and lived out his days in infamy as a disgrace to our area.

But whenever crooks gather and talk about the greats of the past, that's when they bring up his name, and his canvas sacks, and his ignominious deeds.  His wife never had to hide cash in her bra!

The Saturday Picture Show, March 29, 2025

I always wondered just what kind of nonsense old Ralph though I was up to. But since he was gone long before I was born, he should be resting assured that I've ne'er surrendered my serenity. 

When your pants are strapped around you just south of your sternum, the only acceptable thing to do is to call them "trousers."

These are balconies on adjoining apartments in Egypt. The advantage is, if you have pizza and want to share a slice with your pal from six or seven apts. away, you can just pass it right on through. 

Ducklings learn to share, and why not? How much can a duck eat?

I don't know that I would feel comfortable sitting on a settee that looks like it might get up and walk away.

A lot of Marylanders have visited this spot. It's a high view of Harper's Ferry, WV, from the Maryland side. The picture was taken for the National Geographic magazine in 1962.

I guzzled more than my share of Coca-Cola in my day. I probably had your share and your sister's too. I liked it, but the sugar and empty calories turned me away. I like full calories, like those found in grits and gravy.

We cat lovers admire their feline courage. Whether it's a fully grown tiger or an even larger man, they do not back down.

146 people, the great majority of them women employed as sweatshop seamstresses, died because their employer put profits above human decency and safety. Because workers stood up for what's always been right, unions forced management to do what's right. Power never concedes without a demand.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed there are eleven pictures today, instead of the customary ten. That's a tip of the cap to former student and longtime friend John Gross, who recently passed away far too young. When I started the Saturday Picture Show, I always used four pictures. John, always one to push others just as hard as he did himself, challenged me to do ten every week, which I've done ever since. John was a proud native of Havre de Grace, Maryland, and this extra picture of that town's noted lighthouse is for him to enjoy up beyond the sunset, where health concerns don't roil our souls. Say hi to our mutual friends up there, J.D!

 

Free advice

 As graduation time draws near (I see that the University of Maryland is having Kermit The Frog as their commencement speaker, the reason I bring this up) I have advice for our young people who will be beginning careers that will bring them daily heaps of happiness, financial compensation beyond their wildest dreams, and personal benefits such as contentment and satisfaction. (Pause for applause and shouts of joy).

Invest in a bunch of these notebooks and, every night when you skip home on wings of joy after work, jot down the magic moments you're going to want to look back on in your dotage.

As you sit back happily retired, on the rare days that you don't have to go to a doctor's office or a physical therapy appointment, you will derive pleasure from reminiscing about the time that someone threw a tureen of coleslaw at the holiday party, or the person who did the payroll didn't notice that you took a week of vacation in April, so you wound up with five extra vacation days at the end of the year...

Magic moments! 

Tempus Fugit

Hello and welcome to Opening Day for baseball! The Orioles will begin their 2025 season in Toronto, where they will see old local favorite Anthony Santander togged out in a silly Blue Jay uniform, but life, she do go on, you know?

I am still a baseball fan, have been since I was a barefoot boy with cheek of tan, and it's because of moments like this one from 2014. We will never forget The Legend Of Delmon Young, as the guy said on tv, knocking a three-run double off the old left-field wall at Camden Yards, and another local favorite, J.J. Hardy, chugging around the bases to score the third run from first by a whisker.

The exultant moment

I often reflect on the career of Young, a man with great talent at hitting baseballs, but he seemed to have trouble in his soul. He was in trouble a lot during his stay in the major leagues, and by July of 2015, the year after his legendary hit, the Orioles released him, and no other team bothered with him. He tried playing in Mexico and Australia, but never got back to the big time.

Which is why I preach to the young people who come to me for advice (I'm sure someone will someday!), don't take success for granted. If it takes a lot to get to the top, it takes that much and more to stay there.

Santander was a great player here, much beloved by the faithful. But other, younger guys are ready to trot out to right field and do just as well, if not better, so when his contract expired, the O's didn't exactly back a Brinks truck to his door to get him to stay.  We all wish him well and we all know when it's time to move along. 

Time to play ball! 3:07 today!

When the impossible happened

 

It has been a year now, just today, that we all awoke to the news that the Key Bridge in Baltimore had collapsed after being hit by a humungous freighter ship. I am fortunate enough to have friends all over the world, thanks to the interwebs, and so I was jarred wide awake that morning to find a slew of texts from across many seas, asking if I was all right. "Dude! Tell me you're ok! I heard the bridge fell down in your town!" read one of them, from a friend in Turkey. So there I was, a little past five in the yawning, turning on the morning local news, and seeing an array of attractive, but stunned, faces, telling us the awful news. What once seemed impossible, not just unlikely, had occurred.

So many thoughts racing through so many minds. Most tragically, six men died when they were dropped into the water below along with their work truck. That was six too many deaths, but just think how many there would have been had the ship hit the bridge at the peak of morning rush hour?

Businesses were/are disrupted. People whose commute from the east side of Baltimore County to Anne Arundel County, or vice versa, now have a much longer ride. 

The shipping channel was closed for a time, setting off ripple effects of supply problems across the nation.

But last December, Congress set aside money for disaster relief, including two billion for replacing the bridge.

A design for that replacement has been unveiled; construction is soon to get underway, with assurances that the project will be done by 2028 and will incorporate the latest structural protection technology.

And on the day it opens, I will send pictures to my friends around the world. All stories should have happy endings and new beginnings.

Watch out

By now, you must have seen the story from the Adirondack region in upstate New York where the male coach of a high school girls’ basketball team pulled a player’s ponytail as his team was losing a state championship game on Friday.

The coach's name is Jim Zullo, until recently the whistle-blower for Northville Central. I say it that way, because Sarah Chauncey, the district supervisor, canned him over the weekend. 

As the story goes, Zullo had been upbraiding (pun intentional) a star player from his team because, as he alleges, the athlete cursed at him when he told her to go shake hands with the winners. This caused the televised scene in which he hollers at the young woman, pulls her hair, and has to be separated from from her by one of the players. 

And now, the moment you've waited for:

Two days after the whole sickening incident, Zullo came out with a half-fast apology:

“I deeply regret my behavior following the loss to LaFargeville Friday night in the Class D state championship game. As a coach, under no circumstance is it acceptable to put my hands on a player, and I am truly sorry. I wish I could have those moments back."

My take? It goes without saying that a coach should keep his mitts off of the players, no matter how irksome the provocation. He deserved to have the can tied to him, and getting fired is only one of his problems now. He's headed to court to answer charges of second-degree harassment.

My second take? Is this the same country that, prior to last November 5, was apoplectic over the very notion that females had to live in fear every moment that transsexuals lurked at every turn, ready to commit mayhem, when in fact, it's the all-American good guy, affable heroic coach that they should shun?

Now and Then

Old pictures are fun, especially when you can compare them with brand-new pictures from the same site. We all enjoy seeing pictures from when we were little, out in the front yard posing with Uncle Nutsy in front of the rhododendron. Comparing the old with the now, we see that both the plant and Nutsy both got a lot bigger and much greener as the years went slowly by.

Actually, I think Nutsy got greener and the plant got a little more blushy pink, but I can't deciduous.

So...let's look at the apartment building located at 497 Dean Street in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, New York. 

This photo was taken in March, 1942. It shows local resident Edna Egbert, distraught over her mental health struggles and saddened because her son had been called to active duty in the armed forces, as police respond to her attempt to commit suicide. In the heavy-handed fashion of the day, they were dealing with this crisis by hollering at her, grabbing for her, and stretching a rope net beneath the cornice from which she threatened to jump.

As it turned out, she was coaxed back to safety. 

This picture from Google Maps shows the same building as it looks today. I wonder if the guy sitting on the stoop has any idea what took place there 83 years ago. If those steps could talk, what a story, eh?

Sunday Rerun: Belief

 It's the middle of August, what I call Elvis Week, and once again, our crepe myrtle in the back yard is fully ablaze in pink!

Funny tree, or shrub, or bush, whatever it is. Some people spell it Crepe Myrtle, some go with Crape Myrtle, and now and then you'll see Crepemyrtle.  However you spell or name it, its blooms appear right in the middle of hellish summer heat, long after the forsythias and azaleas have lost their luster and retreated back to stubborn green.

Ms Myrtle waits until all the other bloomers have had their turns, and then she does her thing. And with her blooms at the top of long tall branches, they wave majestically at the people piling into their SUVs to get back-to-school shopping done.

(Kids - ask your folks if they had Trapper Keepers back in the day! They drove teachers nuts, for some reason.)

We planted our CM shortly after we moved in, maybe 2001 or '02. And every year since it took a notion to bloom, it has done so in this very week. Like being able to expect people to say, "The Ravens will never win a Super Bowl with Lamar," it's as dependable as an Accutron watch. 

Except for one year, and I will tell you this with my hand on a Bible if you wish...

D.

In 2014, that sad June, my mother (who bought and brought the little plant to us) died, and in July, our dear Deanna went to be with the Lord. Deanna's funeral was in Phila on July 19 that year, and when we got home that night, we looked out back and the crepe myrtle was gloriously pink and waving greetings from above.

A month early.  And it never happened before then, or since.

I believe in signs and messages. This is one that lives with us every day.