Sunday Rerun: 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! 

The Saturday Picture Show, October 31, 2026

 

By way of reminding you to set the clocks back an hour tonight, remember how hard it is in Stonehenge to reset their stones? This is a picture from 1877, before restoration work was done.

You can't convince me that there is any prettier landscape than a fall scene. This is in Illinois.

The real duck is wondering who the imposters are...

 Bobby Wright passed on this week. He had an interesting career, growing up the  son of Kitty Wells and Johnny Wright from the Grand Ole Opry. But he wanted to try acting, and wound up as one of the crew on McHale's Navy. Then he lost interest in acting and moved back to Nashville to sing. His biggest hit was 1971's "Here I Go Again."

And I might add...it's CATSUP.

Well, then, what in tarnation is it?

They were the kids on the "Mr Belvedere" show...Rob Stone as Kevin, Tracy Wells as Heather, and Wesley, played by Brice Beckham. They still mourn Bob Uecker and attended the World Series together to send winning vibes of Bob in heaven.

Maryland is in the pink for this winter's El Niño, so we should have warmer temperatures and higher than average precipitation. Get your slush shovels ready!

There is no such thing as too much Halloween!

It is thoroughly respectful to dress as a First Lady for TRICK or treating.

Take Charge

 Peggy's car battery died a lonesome death the other morning. My fault. She rarely drives it, but I should wedge myself into that Corolla now and then and give it a good pizza run. I should also resume my piano lessons, but we have a better chance of me paying attention to that wee car, trust me.

In 1976, as part of my Bicentennial frenzy, I invested in good tools, one of which was a good set of heavy-gauge jumper cables. Cars were always conking out in those days; I blame that on disco music and post-Nixon melancholia, and I gave and got my share of jump starts. But now, those same cables have been with me in my various cars and trucks over these fifty years, and they still work fine.

My advice is to spend a few extra bucks and get a good set of jumper cables...not those cheesy ones that come packed in a $12.99 Roadside Emergency Kit along with bandaids, luminescent sticks, and a compass. Get the good ones and keep them in one of those canvas tote-sacks you got with your New Yorker subscription. 

You'll thank me one cold night.

What time is it, anyway?

 Here in Baltimore, there are two discussions you can expect toward the end of October every year. #1, what is it with Lamar Jackson? You can hear from every amateur physical therapist and bone surgeon and family counselor on this topic. Lamar says he's hurt, who am I to dispute him, especially without direct knowledge of anything!  (Not that that ever stopped anyone from opining.)

"Be back Sunday."

The other thing is, as the end of Daylight Saving Time mercifully approaches, here come the Howling Hildas and Grumbling Gusses. Yes, it will be dark around 5 PM this coming Sunday, and unless and until Congress does something foolish such as making DST year-round, that's how it's gonna be. Take a flashlight.

Just as you can't take a foot off the end of your blanket and sew it to the top and expect to have a longer blanket, there are only 24 hours in a day, and the sun is tired from baking us all summer long, so he starts working shorter hours.

Just go with it, as the kids used to say, until everyone started actually going.

My Book Report

 I love reading biographies and autobiographies, so I borrowed Hayden Panettiere's memoir from the library, and it left me very sad, not just because she died from drugs earlier this year, but because she was sad before she ended her life.

I have to say, I wasn’t in the audience for her tv shows and movies. I saw more of her in the Neutrogena commercials she did for years, but that company quietly fired her for seeking therapy because she suffered from postpartum depression following the birth of her daughter. Neutrogena consumers, be advised, that company is concerned about skin care, but not emotional care. 

The book tells us she had one of those stage mothers who pushed to get her in front of cameras as soon as she was out of diapers. Soon she was being bullied and her mom took her out of school, which, naturally, stunts social development. She got on the series "Heroes" and was happy for the first year, after which, she said, the writers quit writing and the show became dreck. 

Along the way she played roles in a few good movies, but her career lost its spark when she developed jaundice from too much alcohol intoxication.

She fell in love with a boxer from the Ukraine and she thought it was true love at last, but she was saddened to learn that his fights came first, so even on the few occasions he had time to visit her in the US, his face was in his phone all the time. Next she found a guy who seemed perfect at first, but then he started beating her and leading her down the road of drug abuse added to the physical.

When she died this spring, it was in that guy's apartment in Greenville, SC. The autopsy determined the cause of death to be fatal intoxication by use of fentanyl, 4-ANPP, alprazolam, methocarbamol, and quetiapine.

The people who prey on young, unsophisticated, improperly guarded children should really plan on answering for a lot when they get to the gates. I'm very sorry that I read this book. It makes me sad that people gifted with so much can't find happiness.

Next up: "A Writer's Life" by Gay Talese. That should be easier on my heart.

Go on, take a puff

During World War II, the story went around that Lucky Strike Cigarettes had changed their package color from green to white because the copper-based green pigmentation they used to make that famous green pack was urgently needed for painting tanks and ships to help the USA win the war.

That story was started by the American Tobacco Company bending over backwards to color itself in red-white-and-blue patriotic glory. And everyone said, How wonderful that these selfless cigarette sellers are voluntarily changing the colors of their smokes so that our nation can launch more ships and tanks.

Great story, except for it not being true at all.

Women started puffing on tailor-mades - packaged cigarettes - in the 20s, but they shied away from buying Luckies because the green and red pack clashed with their clothing. American Tobacco even tried changing the fashions to make their cancer sticks acceptable, putting on a “Green Ball” at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where the influencers of the day (!) paraded around in green dresses.

That didn't work. Green was not cool, although the cigarette vendors longed to make piles of the long green of dollar bills.

World War II came along as American fretted. They saw a great opportunity to wrap themselves in glory and any old color except that pea-soup green, changed to white packs, and told the world "Lucky Strike has gone to war!"

Imagine, a tobacco company lying to the public. 

 

A hundred billion schmillion

 

Because I do a lot of the cooking here at the Lazy 'C' Bunkhouse, I click on a lot of recipe sites.  Some ideas I get are very good and have become regulars on the chow rotation around here. Some didn't quite get as far as the plate.

The dishes above are Marry Me Pasta, Million Dollar Potatoes, and Marry Me Chicken Dip. I'm not much for overselling things. For instance, don't try to see me a pair of shoes and tell me they are the finest brogans ever cobbled. Don't tell me the canned soup you're selling is the favorite of the Crowned Heads of Europe. And don't keep telling me Coca-Cola will clean my bathroom porcelain so that it sparkles like a diamond, please.

I don't know anyone who would marry someone over a plate of noodles, or pay anything close to a million clams for some baked potatoes. You can't beat a well-baked potato, but you can't get me to pay a million for it.

Let's keep it real with the foods. And stop telling me you're serving buffalo wings. Buffalos are large land mammals and they don't fly.

Sunday rerun: Take It Easy There!

 In 1922, one I. I. Cammack, superintendent of the Kansas City (MO) school system, asked his state legislature to ban jazz music. 

I checked, and in 1922, Missouri was one of the 48 United States, whose citizens enjoyed the liberties enumerated in various documents back in the 1700s.

I.I. (it would have been great if he had joined the Navy and said "Aye aye, sir" when either given a command or asked his name) said, "I think the time has come when teachers should assume a militant attitude toward all forms of this debasing and degrading music."

I looked up the most popular songs from 1922 (I have all sorts of time for these pursuits) and I see high up on the chart "I'll Stand Beneath Your Window Tonight and Whistle" by Aileen Stanley and Billy Murray (not THAT Billy Murray!)  Then there was "Three O'Clock In The Morning" by Paul Whiteman, and Aileen Stanley left Billy alone long enough to record "Homesick."

None of these songs seemed bad enough to ruin the morals of young Kansas Citizens. Maybe I.I. was just grumpy that day. Perhaps if he had listened to Al Jolson sing "Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye" he wouldn't have been such a Superintendent Cranky Pants.

I Googled Cammack to see what his deal was, just to be able to write a complete report for you. But the only other reference anywhere was an article he wrote in 1926 about "Aviation In The Public Schools," and access to this piece is granted only to subscribers to a website that keeps the past in mothballs for academics and researchers, not people like me who wish people would stop getting all worked up about everyone else's music. 

I'm sure old I.I. was all in favor of his students getting up in an American Eagle A-101 and flying down to Devils Elbow for the weekend, though.

The Saturday Picture Show, October 24, 2026

 

I have owned my share of long johns but we always had a dryer. The thought of putting my karkus in frozen long underwear makes me want a blanket.

Harry "Parkyakarkus" Einstein was a popular radio and nightclub entertainer who regaled audiences with his witty stories. His greatest gift was that he gave the world a son named Albert Einstein. Not the brainiac, the comedian who changed his name to Albert Brooks!

These two men are running for the same seat in the Missouri House of Delegates. Experts are predicting that the count will be a close shave in the end. By the way, isn't it nice that the English language is so specific as to give us the word "mustached" for a man with a mustache and also "mustachioed" a man with an elaborate Missouri mustache?

Been doing a bit of driving around town this week, and people are really going all-out with the Halloween decorations. Always a good sign!

Well, it's the big day for Tommy the Tortoise, Jr. He is about to embark on the ocean of life, and he knows it's going to be cold out there, so he wore his turtleneck.

I suppose it gets hot in Tucumcari, New MEXICO, but I have never seen air conditioning referred to as "100% refrigerated air." Whatever it takes to get you a good night's sleep!

This is the fall view from Washington State and it is lovely!

Banjo pickers keep getting the chance to be the butt of many jokes. I can stand them, but I would outlaw the pan flute, so it's a choice, ain't it?

What the devil has gotten into poor old Poochie?

Legislation passed in the New York City Council the other night which will, if signed by their great mayor, outlaw the 17th-Century practice of having horse-drawn carriages on the city streets competing with cars and bikes and e-cars and e-bikes and I don't know what-all else. There has been support for ending this practice over the years. This summer, a young man was killed when the horse pulling his carriage ran off wild. Yes, it's romantic and reminiscent of the Golden Era, but so is smoking cigarettes, and both are bad for you.

Easy, Lay's

 So, how do you feel about mixed signals? As in, you ask your partner if they want to go to the Fall Festival or the Book Thing or the football game on Saturday, and they say, "Oh sure, okayyyyyy...." but there's a tone in there and you don't know whether they meant to say OK or what.

For a person such as I, this is a problem, because I am constitutionally incapable of saying yes and meaning no, or vice versa. So much so that I am also incapable of saying "vice versa," the Latin adverb meaning "in reverse order." We only have so many days to be alive on this crazily spinning earth, so why waste time saying things we don't mean, and meaning things we don't say?

You can have all of this that you want, but I don't want to mix up my poor overworked taste buds. Pineapple on pizza? Horseradish on an ice cream sundae? Caramel gravy on roast beef? Or, as Neil Diamond pondered, "Ah, but porcupine pie...It weaves its way through my dreams...And I do believe...I'm gonna get one...And leave enough room for dessert....Chicken ripple ice cream!"

It is in this spirit that I share with you the plans of the good people over at Lay's  to bring you a Holiday filled with chocolate-covered potato chips!

Milk Chocolate, and try new Dubai - Style Dark Chocolate!

I mean, really. 

Bum steer

 We're a long way from the cattle drives in Kansas here in Baltimore, but yet...

Someone needs to be told "you're up pasture bedtime" because this bovine was roamin' the old Baltimore Beltway yesterday afternoon. Yeah, I-695 became the stomping grounds for this big ol' Bessie, who got on around the Reisterstown Rd exit and had traffic all snarled up.

County police went to a neighborhood in Pikesville and were told "He went thataway!" So they wound up on the interstate and roped him with a lariat they keep in the police car for people rescues.

It's not unheard of to have future hamburgers afoot (or ahoof, I guess) in Baltimore. There's an abattoir in South Baltimore, and every once in a while some animal gets a glimpse of a short future and makes a run for it, but in leafy suburban Pikesville, you don't see too many cows. It's just unherd of.

I know I've told you about my rustic upbringing, and that there were really cow pens on Cowpens Av, which runs into my old street. All sorts of cattle roamed around there in my childhood. Then they built houses and Spiro Agnew moved in.

I stewed about it for years. 

Anyhow, the cow is back home now and no longer wants to jump over the moon. 

Normal

 If you've ever met me, you know it didn't take long before I started nattering on about how great I always thought Norm MacDonald was. He created the kind of jokes that were far above the average "I'm not saying he's fat, but..." wisecracks.

Norm is dead now, but there's a new documentary on Netflix that shows examples of his wit and philosophy. And if you watch it, you'll see countless examples of how funny and smart he was. 

The documentary shows Norm's memorable appearance on the final David Letterman Show, in which he said "Mr Letterman is not for the mawkish, and he has no truck for the sentimental." "Truck" in this sense has nothing to do with anyone's Tacoma or F-350. It became English from its start as the French word troque, which meant business dealings, or trading. At first, after becoming English, it was neutral, and meant good or bad business,  but over the years it's come to where it refers to things we'd rather avoid.

It's one of the quirky expressions that make me love written and spoken English. It's easier to have no truck with those who don't. 

Empty your pockets!

People were asking about this sign...

...because what possible difference could it make if I carry my Parker T-Ball jotter around in a titanium factory?

And as a man with titanium knees, thank you for leaving that pen in the car. This is why: The teeny rolling ball in your standard Bic ballpoint pen tip is made of tungsten carbide, which is extremely hard, as you will remember from the time in 8th grade that you and that Wellington kid finally popped the roller out of your Papermate and tried to coat it with some mercury secreted from the science lab. You'll have to get a fire underneath tungsten that's 6,192°F to melt it, while they only have to heat titanium to 3,400°F. The deal is, if your pen falls into a molten titanium vat, the tungsten will not melt.  

And while that might not bother you (you can always get another free pen at the Credit Union), that teeny bit o' unmelted tungsten would get into jet airplane rotors or aircraft frames and even something that little can cause a lot of problems, such as fatigue cracks and other performance problems.

There was a guy at work once, went out at lunch came back with a cold cut sub. He asked for "everything" on the sandwich, and when he bit into it, he found more than everything...there was the plastic glove that the sandwich maker had been wearing until it fell off in the middle of my buddy's sandwich.

That's the parallel I draw for unwanted foreign items. Not blaming anyone, but check your lunch carefully (unless you packed it!)

And leave your pens outside whenever you find yourself at a titanium plant!

    

Fly me

Bosses like to say, "There are mistakes, and there are mistakes." Take the case of the errormaker at Alitalia Airlines in 2006. This person was supposed to key in the price of a ticket to fly from Toronto to Cyprus as $2,558.

For some reason, he or she entered the price as $33, which meant that 509 people got tickets at that low-low price before the bosses noticed something wrong in Toronto. 

Getting to fly for 1.29% of the regular price is a pretty sweet deal.

That's why I hang around Jersey Mike's, waiting for a mistake in the price of a giant sized #13 (Provolone, ham, prosciuttini, cappacuolo, salami, and pepperoni) which is enough for two dinners for the two of us. 

That's a lot of gabbagoo for very few buckaroos!

Sunday Rerun: Head East!

  I can't tell you what I was listening to the other day, but I heard someone mention the town of Atlantic, Iowa.

I'm no geographer, but I know Iowa is a state pretty much in the middle of these United 50 States. It seems odd to mention the Atlantic Ocean, way out there in corn-fed Iowa, like when we Marylanders find ourselves in Iowa, being offered "Maryland crab cakes" for dinner. 

I didn't have anything better to do, so I looked it up.  Atlantic is the county seat of Cass County and sits on the banks of the mighty East Nishnabotna River. Last time anyone counted noses (2020) they tallied 6,792 Atlanticans, which was down from 7,257 (2000).

The books tell us that Atlantic was founded in October 1868 by Franklin H. Whitney, B.F. Allen, John P. Cook, and others. 

And they're still arguing about where the name for the town came from. Best guess is that the town fathers figured they were halfway between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, maybe a tad bit closer to the Atlantic.

That little pointer is pointing to Atlantic, Iowa.

What I think, Ocean City, Maryland, should invite the entire town of Atlantic to come east for a weekend and see the ocean for which their town is named. 

The Saturday Picture Show, October 17, 2026

The guys in the warehouse said Gary called out sick today and they
don't want to handle it without him...so wait 'til Monday.

Mama Celeste started selling her pizzas nationwide in 1969, and I would estimate that in my salad days, I oven-baked, and later nuked, at least 200,000 of them. Of course, I preferred the Meat Lovers pizza...and a salad. They're gone now :(

You'll recognize this if you live in Baltimore County and you like the pure goodness of food from the Amish Market in Cockeysville. This mural is on the wall outside the restrooms and it depicts a tranquil life.

I guess at some time we will all have to answer this question. The next question is "Where?"  Try to get that one right.

This is America in 2026.  Suburban Virginia, nice houses - mini-mansions, one might say - right next
 to a data center. The good thing for the residents is, they no longer need reading lamps in the 
living room. They can read by the glow in the air.

Hurricane Isaias was pretty tough on some places down South, and yet, not as devastating as it might have been. On his way out, he played Scrabble with the Waffle House highway sign.

My favorite time of the year is here, so I find lots of autumn pictures to share.

I have never eaten a persimmon, and don't intend to, but I like the way they come scored with e-z cutting lines nicely marked for the persimmonizers out there!

Baltimore gets lit up purple this time of year for the Ravens!

This is Reno, Nevada, in 1963. Not so remarkable to see a man in clown motley at a lunch counter.  We've all seen that, right? But how about a turkey dinner with "all the trimmings" for 69¢? That's just like living!

The cat's pajamas

 Let me take you up the road to semi-rural Harford County, MD, where Cynthia Morgan, a school bus driver with 11 years of time in driving for the public schools (via contractor Cleary Transportation Inc.) had the can tied to her because she let a 10-year-old student hop off the bus to rescue an injured kitten on the road in the north part of the county.

The road where Alex Thomas was the only passenger still on the bus at the time is known as Heaps School Rd, and that should tell you that it's not like pulling over on I-95. It is in fact designated as a low-traffic rural road. So, Alex gets the kitten and the cat is taken for help and Alex gets home maybe 45 seconds late, so what's the issue?

The charges against Ms Morgan: Stopping at an unapproved/non-designated bus stop and letting a student exit the vehicle, alongside policies prohibiting unauthorized animals on school buses.

I've seen the back-and-forth online about all this. Most people take the sensible approach that sometimes, a little flexibility is a good thing when it comes to the choice of leaving an animal - to wit, a little kitten - in a dangerous place.

But then, there is a group of people I call the Whatifs. "What if the kid got off the bus and was run over by a car driven by a drunken politician?" "What if the cat was rabid and clawed her way to freedom, infecting the boy and the driver?" "What if the kitten belonged to a kindle of kittens out in rural Pylesville?"

This is not the actual kitten, but still.....

And to Mr and Mrs Whatif, I always come back with, "What if the 45-second delay in going down the road had saved the lives of the driver and the young man, not to mention the kitten, when a rogue communications satellite dropped out of the sky?"

This thing is dragging its way through the levels of bureaucrazy up there (misspelling intentional) and I hope that people will come to a level of common sense about it. The anonymous poem "Kindness To Animals" points out that gentle care of any animal is always returned. Maybe with affection, maybe with Androclean loyalty, maybe just, as in the poem, with a song from a robin in return for a few crumbs.

What's really crumby is firing the lady for doing the right thing. I expect everyone who had a "WWJD" wristband, tee shirt, or hat to stand up for Ms Morgan.

Reading is fundamental

 The first country radio station I worked for was WICO in Salisbury. The second thing the general manager there ever told me, after telling me not to leave my lunch on the table in the break room because "the river rats might get it" was that he did not allow his DJs to play any records by George Jones and Tammy Wynette because they were scheduled to play a concert in town one night, but Jones showed up drunk and pugnacious, got into a fight with Tammy (his wife) and roared out of town, leaving concert-goers disappointed.

The boss wrote to Jones and told him that he was instituting a lifetime ban on their records, and Jones wrote back - the letter was framed and hanging on the office wall - saying "I'm gonna build me a station right there in your town and put you out of business. - George."

I'm telling you this because I am almost finished Jones's autobiography, "I Lived To Tell It All," and it is one horrible book because every chapter is just "I drank a gallon of whiskey and passed out on stage" over and over and over again. Plus, in the later years of his addiction, someone got him hooked on cocaine, so add that to the toxic mix.

Jones was my favorite country singer, because he had a voice that could convey any emotion, but what I didn't know about him was that he was so desperately hooked on self-destruction that absolutely nothing - legal means, physical restraints, tears from those who loved him, and begging from people who had looked forward to hearing him sing - stood between him and his intoxicants. Even though he had fairly long periods of sobriety, it was always a matter of when, not if, he would plunge headlong into a bottle or a vial again. I knew he was messed up, but I never thought he would write a book bragging about it.

I guess it's true, that old saw about never learning too much about the people you admire. I wish I had never read that book about Andy Griffith and Don Knotts being total philanderers. Imagine cheating on your wife with Miss Crump! 

Kitchen Switchin'

 I'm not one for home decorating tips, which makes it all the more interesting that by logarithms keep sending them to me online. To me, "throw rug" is a verbal command, not a noun, and any time I see a piece of furniture labeled as as "occasional" table, I have to ask what it is the rest of the time. And I get few answers.

But here we go! The other day I was informed that tile backsplashes are no longer cool and I should start digging the grout of mine to make room for what all the cool kids have on the way behind the sink and stove...mirrors! 

Yes, they said that people are breaking their necks to have mirrors replace those old tile backsplashes.

They submitted these pictures to make their point. Couple things. #1, if I'm boilin' grits in the kitchen, I don't want to look up and see my dumb face at that hour of the morning.  And B, I don't want to see the mirror image of a clock while I'm trying to get breakfast on the table. I couldn't tell if it's quarter to six or half past nine!

Here's another picture they sent, but I like our tile backsplash. It doesn't look back at me, and it doesn't try to make the kitchen look twice its size with smoky mirrors.  Home designers, come back to me when you find a way to make a backsplash out of a 41" TV monitor! Do that, and I will have you over for grits!