Out with a bang

Here is news from Willemstad, Curaçao. It's an island in the southern Caribbean Sea with a temperate climate (82°-88° year-round) and a location out of the standard hurricane path. It belongs to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as an autonomous, self-governing constituent country. 

Speaking of which, a guy Baltimore remembers fondly for his skills at playing second base for the Orioles, Jonathan Schoop, got himself in Dutch down there. It's his home country, but last January, he was arrested after an investigation at his home turned up firearms, ammunition, cartridge casings and knives. He was locked up for a month at the time, and after his trial, he was sentenced on Friday to 30 months in prison with six months suspended.

And this is actually a lighter sentence than he might have received had the judge followed the prosecution's request for four years with eight months suspended. He also missed playing for the Kingdom of the Netherlands team in the World Baseball Classic in March, although his major league career in the US ended in 2023 with his release by the Detroit Tigers.

Now, you have to figure he knew the gun laws were strict in Curaçao, having grown up there. Why he felt the next to have an artillery handy is something he can ponder for the next 24 months.

I salute the island nation for taking steps to keep guns out. You're probably less likely to get shot to death in a place like that. Yes, the US homicide-by-gun rate is decreasing, probably because people can't afford the gas to go out and buy bullets, but it's still unacceptable to have people strutting around in any nation carrying weapons of mass destruction.

Let's contact old #6 in a couple of years and see how he feels about the proliferation of guns.

 

Sunday Rerun: Here Come The Renters

 Two of my favorite Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison, have gone on to their rewards, leaving my third favorite, Ringo Starr, and that guy with the eyebrows, Paul, I think is his name.

And as we all know, all four of the Fab Four came from working class backgrounds in Merrie Olde England. George came from such a family: his father, Harold, was a school bus driver; his mom, Louise, kept the home, raised four kids, and taught ballroom dance.

And I would think that a real Beatles fan would jump at the chance to do an Airbnb thing, and rent that house where George lived from ages 6 to 18, right?  Here's the story...

The home where The Beatles rehearsed many times is at 25 Upton Green in Speke, which is a southeast suburb of Liverpool, England.  It's what the British call a terrace house, and we call a rowhouse or a townhouse. George and his three siblings and their parents moved in in 1949, moving out in 1962 just as Beatlemania swept England and headed for our shores.

Another family bought the house from the Harrisons; they stayed for 50-some years, moving out in 2014. At that point, the new owners turned it into a rental for a while until 2021, when it went up for auction. A Beatle fan from New Hampshire, Ken Lambert, bought it then for £171,000, (about $223,000), having seen the listing from Omega Auctions calling the house a “truly unique opportunity to own the property where George spent his formative years and that played an important part in helping The Beatles flourish.”

Lambert, with help of a Liverpudlian local, has been ever since working on the place, getting it ready for company.  He found furniture and wall treatments appropriate to the time of the fifties and early sixties, and posted photos and added furniture for the right feel. He studied old photographs and found period-appropriate furniture and wallpaper to help transport guests back in time. Of course, he brought in a record player and a stack of Beatles albums.  

“I wanted to do it for myself, to play the guitar and play the Beatles in the room the Beatles played guitar,” Lambert tells the Herald. “That really is a cool thing for people to experience.”

While the childhood homes of Paul McCartney (THAT'S his name!) and John Lennon are maintained for preservation by the National Trust, a European conservation organization, Harrison’s house has not been given that treatment. I don't know why. But Mr Lambert is doing his part, opening the place for rental by fans on a pilgrimage.

And you can rent it for less than the price of a top beach resort! The erstwhile  Harrison home is available for short-term rentals on Airbnb (£200, or $260, per night). 

If you go, please share lots of pictures, and send me a postcard!

The Saturday Picture Show, September 12, 2026

 

This orange will give your morning a smile and he hasn't even been turned into juice yet!

Compact Cars Only? Sure, and this is my compact little Rolls Royce Phantom.

I'll have half a dozen figs, hold the Newton.

He's a baby, sure, but he's still a rattlesnake and will grow to be a bigger one!

This is in Hanoi, North Viet Nam, where the train comes right through the shopping district.

The remote will never get lost again if you chain it to a couple of pounds of marble.

How cool would it be to have a national leader as cool as Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister seen here having lunch with Bryan Adams in Ontario?

If you don't own a cat, the first two things you will learn about them when you get one are A) they sit where they wish to sit and 2) no box is "too small."

I cannot explain this one, except to guess that the angry man is also the photographer. Why was he angry and how did he channel that anger? Those are two questions I might assign to a Creative Writing seminar, were I teaching one.

Burt Reynolds had a fine sense of humor, if you like pranks like the time he grew tired of the National Enquirer printing half-truths and untruths about him, so he rented a helicopter and flew over their headquarters in Florida for the purpose of dumping several buckets of meadow muffins, cow patties, and cattle dung on them. 

A rerun of a 9/11 story

It's September 11, and everyone has their memories and feelings about that day that really changed everything.

And it's good for us "of a certain age" to remember that 9/11/2001 was 19 years ago, meaning that for people currently in high school, and some in college,
they have no personal connection to the events. Sure, they have seen video and heard a lot about it, but there's always room for everyone to learn more.

F'rinstance, not a whole lot of us know a whole lot about the 9/11 Boatlift. With what seemed to be the entire world crashing down on them, people who found themselves around Ground Zero came to a staggering realization: Manhattan is an island, and when the streets and highways that are usually clogged in the town where gridlock began, there's only going to be one escape.

The water.

Those who know such things believe that more than half a million people needed to be transported out of the southern tip of Lower Manhattan.  You remember the videos, the dazed survivors out in the streets, a long way from home and comfort.

As so often happens here in the greatest country in the world (it never needed to be made great again; it always has been) saw ordinary people respond to an extraordinary situation and become a team of heroes in what is regarded as the world's largest water evacuation of all time.

Of course, there was no plan for how to get 500,000+ humans off the island and on their way. It's hard for civic officials to even grasp the concept. (Here in Maryland, the last plan I ever heard about for what we would do in case of a nuclear attack, devastating earthquake or catastrophic weather event was no more detailed than "Everyone get in your cars and head for West Virginia.")

And there certainly was no way for New York officials to lay out a plan for getting folks off Manhattan.  But as so often happens, leave it to the people, and good things result.  Boats and ferries are always active in those waters, of course, and they began turning for shore to pick people up.  Destination? To be determined. Just getting away from the desolation was the goal.

What happened was that feeling we get when there's a chance to help a stranger - someone we don't know, nothing in it for us but the feeling of helping a fellow citizen. So mariners did what they could.  And the United States Coast Guard -  the first to protect our seas and shores - operates the marine radios that all afloat listen to, and they put out the Mayday call for everyone to come help.

And along came tugboats, party pontoons, water taxis, runabouts, whatever, heading for the scene to take on passengers.

Let us not forget that all who headed for the tip of Manhattan that horrible but beautiful Tuesday morning saw what they were headed for - smoke and gases in the air and airborne debris were plentiful.  And that's what they SAW. None of them had the slightest idea if there would be further attacks, exposing the makeshift fleet to disaster. In fact, it's probable that few of them knew a whole lot about what HAD happened, and none of what might.

But with steadfast determination, the American kind, they loaded as many as their vessels held, dropped people off at a safe dock, and went back for more, as many times as it took to move 500,000 terrified fellow citizens.

The Coast Guard adds it up as more than 150 boats, crewed by 800-some people, getting that half a million off Manhattan.  It took until well into the night, but no one was left stranded.

Tom Hanks narrated a documentary entitled “Boatlift: An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience” in 2011. It told tales of people such as Vincent Ardolino of Brooklyn, captain of the Amberjack V. He recalls saying to his wife,“I’ve got to go do something … I’m going to take the Amberjack up into the city and help … I have to do what I have to do … Even if I rescue one person, that’s one person less that will suffer or die.”

And remember, he had no way of knowing if he would come home to his wife. America was at war, and he did what he could, and if you multiply that by 800 other good people, that's how every one of those survivors got on their way home on September 11, 2001.

Blow-up about a blow-up

You might remember seeing this on the local news, if you live in Maryland. It was August of 2024 when a house on Arthurs Woods Drive in Harford County exploded early one morning, killing the homeowner and a contractor working there, and injuring three others. The blowup also damaged several neighboring houses. The house itself was literally blown to tiny bits.

The National Transportation Safety Board investigated, and found that there were  communication failures at Baltimore Gas and Electric and its parent company, Exelon.

An underground electrical fault - electric lines were buried too close to gas lines - was the initial cause of the explosion, but the NTSB blames the deaths on BGE's "ineffective response to the initial gas leak."

The night before, a passerby sniffed the gas in the neighborhood and followed protocol, reporting his findings to BGE.

The BGE gas dispatcher sent a trouble truck to check the situation, but sent it to an intersection, instead of the exact address of the ill-fated house.

There seemed to be confusion at the utility, and no one was sent to the right location to look for the problem. It came to light that the BGE dispatcher was consuming alcohol and fell asleep at his work station, although his supervisors failed to send him for drug and alcohol testing.

In a classic case of locking the barn door a bit too late, BGE says they have made several policy changes. All gas leak calls are now monitored 24/7, dispatchers are receiving additional training, and there is now fitness-for-duty screening of their calltakers and dispatchers.

This is not like sending a truck to replace a street light. People all know that gas leaks can be deadly and should be handled with utmost care at once.  You would like to think that the gas company knew that.

Lightnin' Strikes

Before 1994, about the only music that  Antony (" Tony") Cicoria listened to was that good old rock 'n' roll. His parents had stuck him in piano lessons when he was 7, but he hated it and it did not stick.

In 1994, aged 42, he was a medical doctor, specializing in orthopedic medicine, orthopedic surgery, orthotics, prosthetic supplies, and sports medicine. He kept himself in excellent condition, which may explain why he lived through getting struck by lightning in Albany, New York, that summer.

Another reason he may have survived? He was outside waiting to use a pay phone when the bolt hit him. The next person in line to use the phone was an intensive care nurse.

Aside from a burn mark on his head and left foot where the lightning hit him and exited, he seemed to have no physical damage at first. Several weeks later, he developed memory issues and was sluggish. He consulted a neurologist, whose examination (EEG and MRI) found nothing wrong.

He went back to work, and two weeks later, his memory was restored and he felt energetic again.

Over the next few days, Dr Cicoria became obsessed with an insatiable desire to hear piano music. He bought a piano. He taught himself to play it, and within three months of the lightning strike, he was spending nearly off of his days writing and playing piano music.

Doctors who studied the case said that he had suffered a cardiac arrest during the incident, and that may have caused his brain to re-wire itself. He still practices medicine and the piano.

I always wanted to play the piano, too, so maybe I'll take out the garbage during the next electrical storm. Don't worry; I'll wear rubber-soled shoes to ground myself.

I mean, really

I don't know what part of this is worst! Starting from the beginning: last Friday night the umpire Doug Eddings was behind the plate for the game between St Louis and Colorado.

For whatever reason, he got a wild hair about the way that the Cardinals' rookie pitcher Hancel Rincon was wearing his hat while pitching. It was sort of cockeyed across his forehead, but facing the right way. Lots of guys have worn their hats that way. The Orioles used to have a guy (George Sherrill) who wore his hat right as it came out of the box, with a totally flat brim. They even called him "The Brim Reaper," but no one made a big deal of it.

Of course, as things tend to happen when people get off on power trips, things spun downhill fast. Eddings actually ordered the young man from the Dominican Republic to straighten out his cap. 

During the ensuing argument with St. Louis manager Oli Marmol, Eddings handed Rincon a pitch clock violation for not pitching during the specified time even though the umpire and the pitcher's manager were busy hollering at each other. 

 

And then the umpire made a dubious call that gave the Rockies the lead. Just absolutely inane. I guess that ump was just having manopause symptoms or something.

But I don't know that that was the worst of it, because on Saturday, someone calling herself Holly Baylor of "FAX Sports" wrote a tweet "reporting" that "MLB has suspended umpire Doug Eddings for the remainder of the 2026 season, including the entire postseason, following his controversial performance during Friday night’s Cardinals-Rockies game.

This did not turn out to be true, of course. But just as someone needs to sit down with Doug Eddings and tell him that his personal choices in millinery have nothing to do with the onfield hats of the ballplayers, someone somewhere needs to prevent "Holly Baylor" (if that is her name) from writing literal fake news stories.

And it's my personal feeling that every player in baseball should turn their brims 30 degrees toward their left ear for the next three games.

And that Doug Eddings should have to umpire whatever games he is assigned to for three days while wearing a complete clown outfit - giant shoes, rubber nose, red fright wig. If he needs to clean the plate, let him use a seltzer bottle spray.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 

Eddings heard from someone - maybe his bosses at Major League Baseball, maybe his inner sense. Who knows? But he did apologize to the pitcher before the game on Saturday, a game in which all of the Cardinals wore their hats off-center.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that maybe Eddings came to his senses shortly after the whole thing started, but refused to back down. When that happens, you might as well back down right away. 

 

Everything the workers have and appreciate came because they had to demand it. Think of what Labor Day means.

Sunday Rerun: You don't have to call me "Mister," Mister.

 I read the great "Ask Amy" column every day in the SUN paper, because I am that kind of guy who needs help handling the vicissitudes of life.

One thing I have learned is that it's best to handle your own vicissitudes, but in private.

Anyway, the other day, a 77-year old lady wrote to ask Amy about how to deal with the cringe she gets from being called "young lady."  She is active, still working, so it's not like she's obviously worn down by life. So why do people - she cites "waiters, tour guides and all kinds of public servants" - and mentions that it's ALWAYS a man - marginalize her this way?

I submit, not by any kind of excuse because there is no excuse for such condescending behavior, but the problem is that most men don't know how to appreciate women.  This situation is emblematic of that. There is no reason to use this smarmy attempt at reverse flattery.  How about realizing that a 77-year-old woman is not a "young lady" or an "old lady," but, rather, a "woman"? Age has nothing to do with it. Lots of people of lots of genders are youthful well into their 80s, and plenty of us decided to seem superannuated at 25. Go figure.

And while I was mulling this over, I heard from an online friend who said she did not like being referred to as "honey" by a female customer service rep on the phone. I think it best to save "honey" for people we really know and are sweet on (and they, on us).  BUT there is one exception.

In Baltimore, one of the remaining vestiges of our onetime Southernness is a simple rule that any customer of any retail establishment is often called "hon." Sometimes, it's "honey," but usually, it's "hon," as in, "Did you want the white American cheese, or the yellow, hon?"

And "ma'am" and "sir" are still in vogue here. In my case, I dealt with citizens for most of my working life as a public servant, and referring to them by those honorifics is second nature to me. And noted Southerner Elvis A. Presley addressed everyone that way right up to his sad end.

So will I stop saying that? No ma'am, no sir. And I'll take the yellow cheese, hon.

The Saturday Picture Show, September 5, 2026

The trading card people had their printers working day and night after Colton Cowser made this sensational game-saving catch the other night. This is starting to look like the peak Oriole highlight for this season, though.

So you wonder what it looks like when water drops drop on 35-mm film? Wonder no more.

This just reinforces my notion that Scotland is a terrifically cool place. The horse hs hung her shawls right out in her pen!

You know you have a reputation for lead-footed driving when people are personalizing speed signs just for you. Slow down, Donna!

All my friends love the low rider. I understand that this truck has airbags so it can be lowered to the ground to park at Concrete Blocks 'R' Us.

A bit of philosophy from your local graffito-vandal.

This sort of competitive pricing is just why Grocery Outlet failed to catch on in Baltimore. No math majors, they.

I would feel really insulted if I cracked my Chinese cookie and got this sort of warning, rather than some Asian wisdom. For the record, our pet does not do her business in public, so nyahh nyahh.

No, he's not. He is of this plain no longer. That was 32 years ago! Hope you remember.

But that one commercial says to "tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection." Now you won't let me in the hospital to tell him. I'm so confused.
 

Lean on Me

Remember that oldie by The Rooftop Singers, "Walk Right In"? Well sir or ma'am, modern research says they should have called it "Walk Left In." 

And don't blame the Rooftops; the song dates back to 1929 and an original record by Carson's Jug Stompers.

But, according to science (and since school is back in sesh, better pay attention!) we humans tend to walk the way the other humans walk, and that means veering to the left as you strut about.

They even go so far as to say that we still do this even if no one else is around! 

A new study says humans instinctively drift left, or counterclockwise, when we walk — even if no one else is around.

These were the highly-regarded researchers from the University of Navarra.  They checked out the gaits of hundreds of people in Spain and Japan, and they say no matter what, no matter where, and even if the people are right-or-left handed - they're leaning left!

“Our findings are highly consistent,” the researchers recently wrote in the journal, Nature Communications....because, “regardless of crowd size, boundary effects or laterality traits such as handedness, footedness and eye dominance, counterclockwise motion systematically emerges.”

The ancients never suspected that the feet have their own brain!

The researches looked at all sorts of people in all sorts of situations on all kinds of terrain, and they are dead to rights, we walk left.

I can only hope that I was not among the unsuspecting amblers being tracked or filmed or whatever they did.  As the owner-operator of two replaced knees, I tend to left them decide which way to go.

It does no good to argue with titanium.

 

They put a spell on you

Do you have any little superstitious gestures? Such as what I read about the other day.  Apparently, every time some people board an airplane, they give that silver bird a little love tap as they climb aboard.

One flier described it as “like you give a dog a little pat on the head.” It establishes a connection.

This woman told the POST she gives the Boeing a triple tap and that she got the habit from her husband, who gives it the Boeing-Boeing double tap.

And it seems that a lot of people are in the habit of making themselves feel like that the plane will get them to where they hope to get because of that tap.

Whatever.

“Our bodies, I don’t think, are made to understand flying through the air,” said the triple tapper.

That's the thing about superstitions - they are specially geared to each person, and we all seem to have our own. Some people can't think of opening the morning news (online now, folded paper back then) without a sip of coffee.

A lot of people get all worked up about a broken mirror. This dates back to the ancient belief that mirrors capture a part of our souls. And because a leaning ladder forms a triangle that might stand for the Holy Trinity, many people will not walk under a ladder up against a wall. 

As Steve Allen once said, some people have a fear of falling, and some have a fear of loud noises. I personally have a fear of making a loud noise while falling.

Mister Lister

 Here's a fun list from the good folks at Mental Floss! It's a roster of everyday household items which were ubiquitous in the 70s and are now rarely seen, like a turn signal on a BMW.

• The Percolator: as in who makes bubble covfefe anymore? 
• The Fondue Pot: we got married in 1973, which was probably the peak year of fondue gifting in America. I think we got three, never used any, and I am far too self-conscious to regift a device for dunking chunks in molten cheese. Hello, Goodwill!
• The Aluminum TV Dinner Tray: they still had these by the time microwave ovens came into vogue, but try nuking your Stouffer's that way! Sparks and short circuits for the microwave and a still-frozen pot pie you had to eat like a Popsicle
• Avocado Green Appliances: We had a green blender and were proud to put it out for the years we lived in Glenmont Apts, with the green kitchen decor. Once we moved to our first house, that avocado blender that never blended an avocado wound up in storage next to the unused bread maker.
• The Popcorn Ceiling: that first house had one of these, and let me tell you, the edges on those joint compound ripples are razor sharp! Ask my right hand.
• The Rented Telephone: An odd concept to grasp. It was said to be illegal to hook up a phone to the Bell System, even if you owned a phone. We didn't.
• TV Guide: 15 cents a week back in the day and that included listings for all the shows on all the stations our antenna could pull in. Plus the easiest puzzle on earth, with the exception of Junior Jumble.
• The Encyclopedia Set: Many a term paper and report on World War II had their start in our good blue World Book, the three-ton printed Wikipedia of its time.
• The 8-Track Player: Never had one.
• The Kodak Carousel: Parents had one. Everyone's parents had one. Labor Day weekend always featured a slide show with pictures of everyone's days at camp, doing cannonballs in the pool, and eating crabs. 
• S&H Green Stamps: it was my job to fill the books with stamps. I used to use a soggy wad of paper towels to moisten the pages of stamps that would give us that long-wanted electric can opener or fake wicker picnic set. 
  
  
  

• The Glass Fever Thermometer: run it under hot water for a second and get another sick day out of it!

Some day, future generations will fight over antique Keurig machines and long-dead cell phones, but they won't know the thrill of setting up a new one of either!

Bear fact

If you have ever been in one of those situations where people are sleeping in one of those platonic setups, no slap-and-tickle going on, just honest slumber at, say, an open dormitory or firehouse or jury panel, you know there are people who just can't wait to try to wake people up and make it look like they weren't trying to wake them up...

The loud rustling of papers, the overloud sneeze, the accidental doorslam...and then, "Oh, you're awake! Well, Janeen is going for crullers, do you want anything? And can you spot us ten bucks?"

Leave people to sleep! Polar bears too!

Here's a story about a boat operator near Norway. Last week, he was fined over $5,000 for blowing his foghorn to wake up a sleeping polar bear!

There they were, happily steaming along the coast of the Svalbard archipelago, some 620 miles away from the North Pole, earlier this month when the operator airhorned the poor ursine awake and made it more, according to CBS News.

“Its occupants are said to have spotted a polar bear sleeping on land,” Lars Fause, governor of the territory, said in a statement. “A person on board then used the ship’s foghorn, waking the animal, which moved to another location,” he also said.

So if you decide to sail over that away, leave the polar bears alone. And try to figure out why you would want to annoy a huge animal like that!

Under local rules, “It is forbidden to needlessly disturb, attract or pursue a polar bear,” which was declared a protected species in Svalbard in 1972.

So, sail on and leave the bears alone, whaddya say?

As Austin Powers would say, "Oh, behave!"

Here's the thing about leaving home - when you get where you're going, you're not home anymore.  So your behavior might require a little definition.

In Bali, the Indonesian resort Island, they have a sacred Hindu ritual on the Day of Silence (known locally as Nyepi, March 19.) It would never work out well for me, but for those 24 hours, everyone -  residents and visitors - has to stay in, in homes or hotels, keep the lights and the noise low, and perform quiet meditation.

Well, Swiss tourist Luzian Andrin Zgraggen, 26, couldn't/wouldn't comply, and as a result, he is serving a yearlong sentence because he was in Bali on vacation at the time of the holiday, and despite being briefed on the proper way to commemorate it by the staff where he was lodged, defiled it.

  

Here's how: Zgraggen became angry that he could not leave his hotel and strut around looking for food. Then, he “displayed his anger” on social media, according to his indictment.

 He posted videos of himself walking in the dark and saying it was "pretty peaceful  outside," and then he chose to curse about the religious holiday rules. Naturally, this was met with lots of negative comments, so he took down the videos, but as we all know, The Internet Is Forever, and people reposted the screen recordings they had made of his blasphemy.

In response, Zgraggen reposted his videos and said, "They want smoke."

He tried to apologize, but was met by the cybercrime unit of the Bali Police, and found himself charged with disseminating hate speech based on religion through electronic information.

His trial was last week and he was given a year in the Ironbar Hilton.

So, when you go away, when in Bali, follow the rules or don't plan on going home right away.

Simple enough. 

Sunday Rerun: That Shirtin' Feeling

 So, what do you do with your old shirts?

Speaking for myself, I wear them until they vanish. I once gave a few of my old T-shirts to the kids in the neighborhood who wore them around as beach coverups, too.

But - if you are friends with someone who you feel is destined to become a baseball legend, and that person offers you his soiled, game-worn jersey, hang on to that garment. Here's why:

You've heard of Babe Ruth, the baseball player from the streets of Baltimore, right? And probably, you have heard of his "called shot" in the 1932 World Series.

Ruth's Yankees were playing the Chicago Cubs in that "fall classic," and he was receiving maybe even more than his usual hoots and catcalls from the Windy City crowd. According to the legend of Ruth, he stopped for a moment to make sure all eyes were on him during game 3, as the shrieking reached a crescendo. It was then that Babe took a step out of the batter's box, and with his Ruthian bat, which was a whale of a war club at 35 ¾ inches and weighing approximately 38 ounces, he pointed to the deep center field stands without a word.

Then, he stepped back into the box and hit the next pitch right where he had pointed. Instant legend! Another chapter in the Book of Ruth.

Ruth, an expert shirtmaker himself (a trade he learned at the St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, having been shipped off there after a judge found him "incorrigible and vicious...beyond the control" of his parents) later gave the jersey he wore on that historic day to one of his golfing buddies, who really should have told his descendants to hang onto it!

Because...that "New York" uniform jersey sold this past weekend at auction for a sweet $24.1 million, making it the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever.

These Yankee fans have deep pockets! The previous record was the $12.6 million someone shelled out for a Mickey Mantle baseball card, and you can't even put that on and wear it around.

Well, you could, but there would be trouble.

 

The Saturday Picture Show, August 29, 2026

 

People were supposed to fill out recipe cards for a wedding shower, with hints for easy meal prep. It doesn't get much easier than ripping open a bag!

So here's another reason to buy a drone - they will clean your windows!

The Breakfast Club: Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, and Molly Ringwald. 1985 and now.

And...this is lovely Lake Ontario. Always and forever.

You can post all the no-fishing signs you care to. This scofflaw is going to fill his craw!

Not named for Earl, but this nest-maker is actually known as a Weaver Bird.

So you say the kids keep losing the remote, huh? I'll bet the guy who made this is an eighth-grade teacher who is tired of people losing the hall pass.

George cannot tell a lie. No one likes these spy cameras and we wish they would get them the flock out of here!

It's a fool who criticizes our fair city, or our football team. High hopes heading into this season!

Last week, Connie Smith surpassed the late Jean Shepard to become the longest-serving female member of the Grand Ole Opry, with 61 years on the stage! Her husband and #1 fan Marty Stuart was there, as always.

Thanks to the kids!

 According to Instagram, this took place at Westerly High School, and the only such school according to Google is in Rhode Island.

And that's where a group of students kept seeing a five-year-old kid named Ryder out there in the elements every morning - sun, rain, wind, snow (remember - it's New England!) waiting for the school bus.

His family had rigged up a patio umbrella, but you know how spotty their coverage is, and when the wind blows the rain sideways...well, you know that, too.

So the shop classes at Westerly saw this and decided NOT to do nothing. They made him a customized weatherproof shelter with room for the family to be with him while waiting for his ride. 

The kids in Carpentry Shop class get a little experience that will hold them in good stead as they prepare to learn their trade, young Ryder gets comfort and the feeling of gratitude, and seeds of good karma are planted in Westerly.

Please don't ever try to tell me that high school kids aren't great people. They are, even though a lot of adults try to jive their strides. 

Post-Parton Depression

I don't want to beat this drum any more than others already have, but hot-a-mighty, the toll has been hard to take these last few days.

• Hayden Panettiere, 36, known for "Nashville" and "Remember the Titans" and dozens of Neutrogena commercials (they let her go when she was dealing with depression following the birth of her daughter, and cited the morality clause in her contract, as if all those people running Neutrogena were not born of mortal women.)
• Shelley Fabares, 82, comic actress from "The Donna Reed Show," "One Day At A Time," and "Coach," plus three Elvis movies.
• Dolly Parton, 80, a woman beloved by just about everyone on earth for her charm, her talent, and her philanthropy.
• Jaye P. Morgan, 94, singer from the classic pop music era perhaps best remembered as bawdy "Jaye P. Morgone" from The Gong Show.
• Tim Curry, 80, British star from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Clue"

I have always noticed how often the "they go in threes" phenomenon seems to come true.  In this case, we are either two over the set of three, or one short of a second set of three. As always, time will tell.

We feel it hard when a favorite celebrity goes all the way home, and it almost seems like a death in the family for some of us some of the time. But watch, this December, when they publish the lost of those we lost this way, there will be about the same amount of the noted and celebrated who will not see 2027.

For those of us who will, let's try to make the best of everything.

Never the Twain

People have been quoting Mark Twain saying, "Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it" for 129 years now. Just let it rain for two days in a row, or let the scorching heat turn your front yard into one of those cocoa doormats, or let a blizzard maroon the kids at home for four days and someone will pull that one out of an old quote bag, and someone will say, "Yes, Mark Twain...very wise fellow."

Twain

And there is a case to be made for Twain's wisdom, but according to The Weather Channel, don't try to make it on the back of this quote, because he did everything but say it.

As the WC says, in in the late 1800s, Mark Twain was the top gun in American wit...sort of the Jimmy Kimmel of his time. And remember, there was no radio or TV or internet back then. The only way jokes got spread around was by newspaper, or maybe some cowboy taking them to Wichita with him on a cattle drive.

We know the "nobody does anything about it" quote came out this day in 1897 in the Hartford Courant, but it was printed in an unsigned editorial most probably written by Charles Dudley Warner, who was the editor of the Courant, and well-known in his own right for brilliant, incisive essays.

Warner

AND he lived next door to Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens, so maybe, when the paper landed on Twain's front lawn the next day, he enjoyed it so much that he said to Warner, "What a great line! I wish I had said it!"

And then Warner could have said, with some justification, "Don't worry. You will!"

With the luxury of history, I can tell both of these gentlemen that we can do a lot more about the weather than people could do in 1897. We're at a point that we know it's going to rain, with thunder and lightning. We know about when it will start and end, and how much precipitation to expect.

We just don't know how to make it start raining, which would be helpful in areas stricken by wildfire or drought, or how to make it stop, for the flood-ravaged parts of the country.

I'm sure Apple is hard at work on their new apps, iWishItWouldRain  and iWishItWouldStop.