The Saturday Picture Show, May 10, 2025

 

Beautiful, scenic, Alcatraz Island sits off the San Francisco coast. Its name comes from "La Isla de los Alcatraces" ("The Island of the Pelicans") as it was called by Spanish explorer Lt. Juan Manuel de Ayala. It was closed as a prison facility due to hundreds of practical reasons in 1963, and only someone whose cultural apprehension revolves around Jimmy Cagney gangster movies would want to reopen it as such.

Whenever we can't find Eddie around the house, we know she has taken a people break and found comfort underneath the comforter.

Today's free wallpaper is a closeup of barby branches with a cloudy moon behind them, like that ghostly galleon Alfred Noyes wrote about. 

There was a crematorium in the county that did its business in the early mornings, and every so often, on a cloudy day, the smoky miasma hung low in the atmosphere, prompting people to call 911 and report a fire in the building. I'm sure a great many people have seen the sun reflect on this building's windows and said the same.

Whatever else happens to me in life, I can always say that I was just ten feet away from Alice Cooper when he performed at the County Courthouse steps in September 1991. Now, when I tell people that Peggy was born on the same day as Alice Cooper (Feb 4), they ask, "Who is she?"

My buddy worked at a radio station down the road where one of the other guys was one of those fanatics who stuck a Dymo label on many things, so the cool guys chided him by sticking a Dymo label on EVERYTHING. I would love to see this tag in real life so I could stick a VANITY PLATE sticker on it.

There is no day so bad that it can't be made right with a nice big ol' hunk of blueberry diner pie.

Big dogs are the best, they say, because they guard you against people breaking into the house. Yeah.

This water heater knows he has warmed up the last shower at the house and is now headed to the landfill. Rest well, faithful servant. Stay...warm.

Are you like me? Would you just HAVE to use this table, even if you didn't really need a table?!

In the Loops

With all the talk about Red Dye in your Froot Loops being bad for you (why not talk about the nutritive value of Froot Loops to begin with?), I thought I'd take you back to 1959, when all of our Thanksgivings were wrecked because of Aminotriazole.

Aminotriazole, as it turned out, was not your father's inelegant second cousin twice removed from Philadelphia (and soon to be removed from Baltimore as well.) No, that's the name of an herbicide which had been applied to a certain amount of the cranberry crop from the Pacific Northwest that year, and several weeks before Thanksgiving that year,  Arthur S. Flemming, US Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, had announced that some of the cranberries harvested in  the Pacific Northwest had tested positive for it. The herbicide was known to cause abnormal growths in lab rats.

Ocean Spray, then as now the big name in the cranberry business, claimed that a person would “have to consume carloads” of cranberries to suffer any illness, but Flemming, ever cautious as a good Secretary of Health would be, told berry gobblers not to buy berries, jellies and whatnot if they couldn't determine the origin. That meant a lot of families had to do without the cranberry sauce that year.

 You might not believe it, but in those days, people took health warnings seriously, and by December '59, the industry trade paper "Cranberries" (longtime subscriber here) said that the sales of fresh cranberries were down 63%, with sales of canned jellies down 79%. I love how the jelly plops out of the can with little Van Allen belts dented into it.

This was, at the time, a fifty-million (that's a lot of meeyuns today) dollar per year business, knocked out by a bug spray. And Ocean Spray market researchers found that almost half of those who abstained from cranberry products that winter said they were swearing off the tart red berries for life.

Which brings up a side point: this past week alone, I have seen people vowing not to watch anything ever again on CBS because they dropped "The Equalizer," and a good number of folks saying they will never watch the Baltimore Ravens again because they cut their kicker, a man with charges of sexual misconduct swirling around him.

Say it with me now: Oh well now I mean really!

The 'berry brouhaha was over almost by the time panic shook the nation. Shortly before Christmas '59, the government realized it might have acted a bit hastily and released ton upon ton of berries for dinner. 

In retrospect, we know now that the government inspectors insisted that no product be allowed on the shelves if it was found to induce cancer in man or animal. 

Listed among products already suspected of being carcinogens (cancer-causers) were radiation, and tobacco smoke, both of which are still around. So is cranberry juice and jelly, but it had to go through a lot to get back on the market so that your father's inelegant second cousin could hoove on a Lucky Strike while passing the Ocean Spray Cranberry Jelly to you.

 

  

 

Play it again, before it breaks

I love music! Many types of music! If you pull up next to me in traffic and my windows are down, you might overhear anything from Jerry Lee Lewis to Porter Wagoner to Phil Harris to Outkast to Matt Monro to Wanda Jackson to The Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose to classical stuff, like Moe Tzart and Bay Toven. 

I grew up listening to radio and also the tunes I played on various record players. The first record I bought was Sixteen Tons by "Tennessee" Ernie Ford, a 45 single. I bought albums by the dozens, and switched to cassettes when that medium became large, and then went over to CDs when the digital revolution caught up to us.

To listen to a favorite song, I used to have to get the record, tape, or CD out and take it to the appropriate machine to play it. Now, after years of digitalization, the songs I want to hear are on an iPod device half the size of a pack of baseball cards...something else I used to collect by the score. I just ask the iPod to play the songs or artists I want to hear, plug in ear pods, and away I go, transformed into my world.

Now, all of a sudden, according to CBS Saturday Morning, the show that keeps its index and middle finger on the nation's cultural carotid pulse, the hep cats and cool chicks are getting into cassettes! What? Why?

That technology was a stopoff between vinyl records and digital music, and it was never intended to be permanent, as anyone who has ever seen 12 to 18 inches of their favorite song get wrapped around the capstan of a cassette player can tell you. Or the tape just breaks, and stretches, making Bonnie Raitt sound like Bob Dylan. Or the shell breaks, or the pressure pad wears out.

I guess it's cool for those who didn't live through the Golden Age of Tape to romanticize cassettes. They will soon find out the hard way, as the rest of us did when our tape of the Grease soundtrack bit the dust, there was a very good reason to move on. 

Roll on

We used to have a Congress that would propose, discuss, and pass laws for the general welfare of the citizenry. When we weren't looking, that system was replaced by the chief executive firing off executive orders to suit his fancy, which is pretty fancy.

The one that caught my eye the other day requires commercial truck drivers in the United States to be proficient in English.

“Every day, truckers perform the demanding and dangerous work of transporting the Nation’s goods to businesses, customers, and communities safely, reliably, and efficiently,” says the order, and now, the nation that had to go to the trouble of designating English as its official language is going to stop truck drivers and give them a test on past participles, the subjunctive mood, and the difference between "retired" and "re-tired."

The order goes on to demand that drivers be able to to read and speak English “sufficiently to converse with the general public” if they want to drive a commercial vehicle around these here parts.

All you big 18-wheelin' good buddies out there, get ready for the test. I'm part of the general public, and my standards for literacy are high. You'll be required to write an essay on Thackeray, discuss alternative methods of sentence patterning, and recite from memory any favorite verse from an American poet while backing up your truck.

Watch for the xenophobes to be all over this one, but let me tell you something I know about new Americans. They understand what you're saying. They might not want to give you the satisfaction of letting you know that they know, but they know. 

How can they sleep

I worked with a wonderful woman in Police Dispatch who was separated from, and then divorced from, and always terrorized by, her husband.

Counting the ones who only worked for a couple of weeks before bailing out, I must have worked with about five hundred people there, and yet this woman's story, so tragic, still stands in my mind.

When she went missing, we knew, and when they found her deceased in Howard County, it was a relief without surprise.  And the police or the state's attorney never found enough evidence to charge anyone with her murder, so the crime is still unsolved, these 31 years later.

But what I'm thinking about is this. Someone killed sweet Linda and got away with it, so far, on this plane. He or she may never face trial on this plane. 

But I don't understand how someone can be so devoid of conscience as to take another person's life, and then stand there, morning and night, brushing their teeth, looking in the mirror, and not have to turn away in disgust.

The person who did this horrible thing should never enjoy a pleasant day, never sleep well, never have a great meal and walk from the table truly satisfied.

But it's not up to me. 

"Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal."

May the 5th be with you

Well, here it is, the day several of us wait for all year. Cinco de Mayo! May the 5th! The day celebrates the Mexican army defeating the French at the Battle of Puebla on this date in 1862.

If you want to know the truth, this is NOT a very big holiday in Mexico. People of Mexican heritage living in the US tend to celebrate it as a salute to their roots, culture, and heritage, and that's cool. But the two other groups that go all out on May 5 are:

🔘 Grocers and distributors of fresh produce, because they can use the demand for limes (so essential for Margaritas) as a reason to raise the price of limes sky high.

🔘 People of whatever ethnicity who are always on the lookout for a reason to hit the bar. Columbus Day and St. Patrick's Day are also big with this crowd, whose closets at home are filled with special hats, t-shirts, and noisemakers to make the fun all the louder.

The Maryland State Police - our highway patrol - will have extra patrols on the interstates and main drags, looking for those who chug a little too much cerveza or tequila tonight. 

I once had a friend ask me how to say "tequila" in Spanish. You'll probably see him tonight at happy hour at O'Hoolahan's. 

Have fun but don't drive drunk!

Sunday Rerun: Is that a bottle of catsup or are you just glad it's lunchtime?

 First of all, I still call it catsup, but that's not important now.

What matters is that someone who wanted to live life in the fast lane pulled the biggest heist of her life, ripping off a bottle of Heinz from a Perkins Restaurant in New Jersey.

People who work in restaurants are used to this sort of thing.  There are millions of Americans who are only dimly aware that Equal, Splenda, and Sweet 'N Low are available for purchase in grocery stores. They just load on the little pink or blue packets when they hunker down to the diner to tie on the feedbag.
And people steal salt and pepper shakers right and left, and stacks of napkins.

But I guess people will stick condiment bottles and jars under their tunics and steal away. That's what the Jersey bandit got away with, but she didn't get far.

Here is her letter of apology:

Someone smashed into her (getaway) car, and life itself was going down the dumper, so she went to WalMart, bought two big bottles of Heinz tomato topping and brought them back with this note (above).

Notice the turn of phrase she included with her remorse: "Again, I'm really sorry if I inconvenienced you the same way my life has been inconveniencing me. I'm sorry :( From, an awful person."

We are left to conclude that it was only after someone smashed her Subaru and other parts of her life turned fecal that she realized that theft is a crime, punishable by incarceration and/or fine.

Marie DiLeo is the franchise owner of the Perkins pancake house. Her manager found the bag with the catsup and the note and turned it over to her, and this is what DiLeo told the local news:

"I really felt bad. She's got to be 17, 18, 19. I really did feel bad."

Kindly, Ms DiLeo posted a picture of the bottles and note on Facebook "just to say, 'You're forgiven.'"

And because a) doing the right thing often brings unforeseen rewards and b) large corporations occasionally pause from their soul-crushing days of snaking across the world, relentlessly seeking profit above all, and crushing the competition to seize upon a public relations coup.  The good people at Heinz are appreciative, and will help to pay for some of the damages to the woman's car.

Good ketchup karma, indeed. Just as an aside, I feel that the person seeking a better bottle of catsup hunts for...Hunt's.  Just sayin'.

And DiLeo, who said no one even knew someone stole anything in the first place, said, "I do believe in karma," she said. "But not over a ketchup bottle."

The Saturday Picture Show, May 3, 2025

 

They call it "Trompe-l'œil" when a masterful painter can make a flat surface appear three-dimensional. They call it "painful" when someone tries to walk down this alley.

Whoever glued this together must have had a lot of friends to help out. "Here, just hold this until it dries!"

The bee pollinates the raspberry, and goes away by the time the berry gets put on your Wheaties.

Reddy Kilowatt makes a point about the dangers of electricity by brandishing a stiletto. Electricity would like a word about the dangers of stilettos. 

No horticulturalist, I, so someone, please name this pretty flower.

AC/DC always fills the arena with people looking to have a hell of a time.

So you wanna eat Maryland food, eh? Let's get you started with a double soft crab, lettuce, and tomato with Old Bay Mayo on sourdough toast. That's good eatin'!

There is a picture like this in every family album. It's not the weird food or the grim visages of Uncle Leon and Aunt Pearl. It's the pants. 

This guy, Señor Wences, cracked me up, dressing his left hand as a little kid who said " 'Salright!" I've always been easy to entertain. 

I'm willing to bet that this lasagna was made by someone who is much better at cooking than spelling. 

Maryland, Missouri, what's the diff?

 If I were to make up stories about our postal "service," people would remember that truth is stranger than fiction, so I stick to the truth.

And this latest mail gem might not be all their fault. Peggy opened the mail the other day and out fell a postcard from Nashville, telling about the fun times Jean and Michael were having, traipsing around The Athens Of The South and looking at antebellum mansions. Only problem is, we don't know a "Michael and Jean" couple, but with her shrewd, calculating way of getting to the bottom of things, Peggy said, this was not addressed to us, but to a Doctor in Columbia, MD.

Problem #1, when I looked the postcard over with a magnifying glance (I was disappointed that there was no picture on the front of the Ernest Tubb Record Shop, or any other cultural landmark) I saw that it was indeed addressed to that Doctor, but he lives in Columbia, Missouri.

If one is not careful with their BIC, Columbia, MO can look like Columbia, MD.

So I googled the man. He is not an M.D, but some sort of professor at Mizzou, as the U of Missouri is always called on "College Football Scoreboard," Saturdays in the fall. Same way Mississippi State is called Mississippi State, but the University of Mississippi is "Ole Miss."

I left a message and I'll let you know if he calls me back. Maybe he thinks I'm a prankster. 

Not this guy, Doc!

Look more deeply

Children, there was a time when there were only three channels on the TV, so you didn't have 118 options on what to watch. Consequently, yes, there were times that I gave in and watched "Gilligan's Island," but I promise you, I never laughed.

I did, however, state a clear preference for Dawn Wells as Maryann Summers, over the over-the-top Tina Louise in the role of Ginger Grant. She seemed more wholesome. And don't forget Natalie Schafer as Eunice "Lovey" Wentworth Howell III. Many years later, it was revealed that she was with the great writer Robert Benchley at the time of his untimely death. 

Oh the questions I would have had for her!

But I saw this picture on Instagram and it reminded me of someone else. Yes, Russell Johnson ("The Professor") served with distinction in World War II. He was commissioned a second lieutenant after cadet training with the Army Air Forces, right out of high school, and flew 44 combat missions in the Pacific as a bombardier in B-25 twin-engine bombers. One of those planes. with Johnson as navigator, was shot down by Japanese forces in the Philippine Islands on March 4, 1945. Johnson's B-25 crashed in the sea off Zamboanga. His co-pilot was killed; both of Johnson's ankles were broken, and he was awarded the Purple Heart for his valor, along with the Air Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three campaign stars, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one campaign star, and the World War II Victory Medal.

After his discharged, Johnson went on to study acting with college benefits under the G. I. Bill.

The "someone else" I mentioned was a friend of my father at work. The other men considered him diffident and not driven to achieve promotion. He seemed to be happy just doing a simple overseer's job; did not seek to become a supervisor. I was around him a few times at various functions and found he didn't have much to say to anyone. Some people knocked him for "lacking ambition," but he seemed fine with his lot in life, so why push it?

Not until he died did I learn that he was wounded and decorated for valor in the Battle Of The Bulge, and not until I read a great biography of J. D. Salinger did I come to understand the horrors of that battle. It was not only a fierce armed fight, but the weather conditions were abysmal. The soldiers who fought in that battle all deserved commendations, if you read about the horror of it all, and many men were scarred emotionally for years after it. Most people familiar with Salinger and his writing assume that the character of Seymour Glass in his short stories gives us a view into how the war damaged the writer's soul. 

Seymour committed suicide after what he went through. "See More Glass" - get it?

So if Dad's friend was happy sitting alone with his thoughts, never being the life of any party, God Bless Him for simply being at the party at all. 

Russell Johnson and my parents' friend are just two people whose depth was unknown to most around them. 

Let's all look around at the people around us and see the greater picture. Love can bring it out!

  

I'll have a Danish, please

The other night, watching the Orioles game, Peggy jokingly referred to left fielder Heston Kjerstad as "Kierkegaard," and a good time was had by all.

Now, Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social observer, and Christian author. He was only around for 42 years (1813 - 1855) but in that short life, he founded what is called the philosophical school known as existentialism.

"Søren The K"

Existentialism is often confused or misidentified as the very concept of existence. You're likely to see this among the blurbs on the back covers of cheesy novels in whose scenarios frustrated, unfulfilled suburbanites seek the meaning of life as they pilot their Range Rovers home from Whole Foods..."Walston was struck by the existential nature of life, realizing that if he hadn't joined the water polo team at Yale, he would never have known the love of Heather, whose father owned a chain of lumberyards in the Fair Hills area."

Walston's imaginary plush life notwithstanding, Existentialism holds that we have the freedom and responsibility to make the right choices to lead our lives down successful, proper paths.

In other words, "If it is to be, it is up to me."

The most notable existentialists include Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, and Orioles color commentator Ben McDonald, who pointed out in a game this past Saturday against the Tigers that each player is responsible for his own performance. 

And therein lies the meaning of life! 

Ben McDonald can hold 7 baseballs in his hand.

1-800- HELPPPP

 If you want to get people all worked up, just ask how they feel about their health insurance. "It's a lot more expensive than it used to be," and "it's confusing," those are the gripes.

Anyone you talk to (and a lot of people you don't) will pause from their daily activities to describe in minute detail just what happened when their cousin Charlotte's hypothalamus went on the fritz. Over and over come the stories about how the Admitting Clerk at St. Hoolahan's Hospital was really a) surly b) busy  c) confused or d) Charlotte's daughter's best friend from the Hammerjacks era.

And the nurse and the doctors and so many stories, and I feel bad for everyone who ever had a bad time at the hands of the health care industry. 

It's just my luck that things go well for me in that area. The medical team that keeps me going, and the pharmacy at Giant, are always reasonable and professional. 

And get this - last week the Computer That Runs The World said that Aetna Medicare rejected my claim for something, so I called Aetna on the phone.  It was almost 6 PM, when most 800 numbers are answered with a curt "our offices are now closed," but no, they were on the job, and a most helpful woman answered, found out that the problem involved "durable medical equipment" and not a drug, and she was back on the phone in a trice, problem solved.

You know what I've learned over the years? When something goes wrong, asking for help works a lot better than DEMANDING A SOLUTION RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE! 

Unless your problem is with the US Post Office. In that case, hollering is usually the only fix. 

Big Bad Bill

There really and truly is no fool like an old fool.

Say, on another topic, did you happen to see the interview Bill Belichick, former coach of the New England Patriots and current head coach at the U of North Carolina, gave to "CBS Sunday Morning" on Sunday morning? 

Nattily attired as always.

There's a change in Bill these days. If you remember his post-game interviews from his heyday in NE, it was as if he regarded every word that he forced out of his mouth as a golden pellet of wisdom he hated to give away. One or two word answers were his game, and then he would bolt away from the mic as if he had heard himself being called in to supper.

Oh but now! OH! He has a book, an autobiography to sell you, and the words just came out like they opened the sluicegate on some hydroelectric dam. Buy my book! I'm a nice enough sort! Read my stories!

Until Tony Dukoupil asked the 73-year-old swain about the 24-year lady sitting over there eagle-eying the interview about how those two crazy lovebirds met. She is one Jordon Hudson, the current girlfriend of Talkative Bill. She said, "We're not talking about this."

You'd better do as she says, Bill. You know that look all too well.

And doggone if he didn't just sit there and not answer the question! He looked like he was afraid she would send him off without his Ovaltine tonight if he said another word about it.

There was an old song about something like this...here's Leon Redbone's version of "Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now."

I wish them many happy years together. He can tell her all about things that happened before she was born, and she can pretend to care!

Sunday Rerun: Growing Up

 Perhaps this will be a key moment in the maturation of Tyrique Stevenson. Tyrique is 24, and is a cornerback for the Chicago Bears, who had just taken the lead Sunday over the Washington Commanders in exciting National Football League action. With mere seconds left, the Commanders lined up for a last-ditch attempt at a longshot touchdown pass. 

But... instead of preparing for the play, Tyrique spent time waving to the DC fans, taunting them even after the play began.

It gets worse. The fans hooted back at him, gesticulating that he would do well to turn around and play football with the other 21 men on the field, because the play was underway.

That he did, and it seems that it would have gone better for the Bears had Tyrique continued his antics, because when he did get into the action, he tipped the toss-up pass into the waiting hands of Washington receiver Noah Brown, who scampered into the end zone to win the game.

Of course, the twitterverse took Stevenson to task, and he replied: "To Chicago and teammates my apologies for lack of awareness and focus," he wrote. "The game ain't over until zeros hit the clock. Can't take anything for granted. Notes taken, improvement will happen."

Stevenson added Monday, "I let the moment get too big and it's something that can never happen again and won't ever happen again."

Moments have a way of taking on the size we allow them to have. Meanwhile, I'm saving that phrase for the next time I forget to check the catbox or buy too many pork chops or say something untoward: "Notes taken, improvement will happen."

Doesn't sound like me, but I won't let the moment get too big.

The Saturday Picture Show, April 26, 2025

 

This has to be the all-time record for the gap in years between the deaths of twins...poor Emily, alive for but two days, and Minnie lived to see 101 candles on her cake. I can just imagine them catching up on things up in Heaven.

Someone with an artistic bent took a pile of garbage and made shadow art!

In the show business, they call one-hundred-dollar bills "C notes" (C as in Century, as in a hundred) and show biz is the one place they use this fake currency. "That's quite a a pile of lettuce you got there, Lefty!"

This is a pygmy owl. He looks full-size to me. Maybe another owl should pose next to him.

I love the part of nature that makes fallen trees look artistic, and the way the setting sun lights up these weeds and makes them beautiful.

Special shoes used by cattle thieves so that their human footprints look bovine.

It's that sad time of the year when the snow shovels are washed off and set out to dry in the sun before being put away until, we hope, maybe October, November, the latest.

Wile E. Coyote is not messing around this time. This is the Acme of Serious business!

When you ask a stranger to snap your gag vacation photo of you purporting to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, make sure to select a stranger who knows how to figure the angles.

A local VFW post (unknown where) made an interesting mural of their back wall.

Everybody's crazy about a sharp-dressed man

Robert Benchley first came to attention on Broadway by performing a bit called "The Treasurer's Report," which started out with him saying, "First, I would like to remind everyone that it was never my idea to be the treasurer in the first place."

I say that just to remind one and all that I am not a Roman Catholic, although I am going to comment on the shoe choices of the recently departed Pope Francis.

His predecessor, Benedict XVI, went in for the fancy outfits, most notably red shoes. I know you aren't supposed to wear white shoes after Labor Day, but when are red ones ok for a man who is not an outfielder for the Los Angeles Angels?

As the Washington Post said about the fondly-remembered Francis, his vision for the church was “less beholden to its own hierarchy,” meaning he wasn't afraid to change thing up. 

Stories abound of him driving himself around Rome in a Ford Focus, buying his own eyeglasses, bunking in a Vatican City guesthouse, rather than a deluxe apartment he might have occupied.

Eschewing (eshoeing?) the flashy red pumps for serviceable black dress shoes was a good move to me, someone who has no say in the matter and yet butts in on everything under the sun.

Simple black rubber-soled Oxfords.

I mean, he couldn't very well go around in Weejuns (too informal) or Rockports (too casual) but the papal kicks look fine to me. The man was trying to reach the people with the message from God, not dazzle them with his footwear.

Indeed, whenever I saw the Pope on television, he seemed no more duded up than any local parish priest, and maybe that was the plan - not to try to be flashy, just to be a regular servant of God.

Filippo Sorcinelli, the Italian designer who put together his official wardrobe, said that Francis wanted to present a “noble simplicity.”

He was simple and humble, as all leaders should be. If you know what I mean.