Halloween 2018

Tonight is Halloween, a day that I've come to look forward to more and more as time goes by. I think maybe it's the atmosphere: we simply don't have many days when there is a true neighborhood wide party feeling. My area, Woodbridge, and most neighborhoods I fancy, come to life in a manner which simply doesn't happen often.

Oh, they'll be the occasional annoyance, mild pushing and shoving, even an adult or two who want free candy. That last one used to burn at me, but not so much anymore. You can't let the twerps ruin your mood.

My family will take turns passing out goodies and walking around the hood. I'll wander a bit through my mother's yard, where my brother Patrick goes to town with the outdoor decor, and just be happy to be around it. I'm not even going to get upset over the move-Halloween-to-the-nearest-Saturday for convenience controllers. Damn convenience. This is Halloween, October 31st. Leave it there. Let's not go Monday Holiday over yet another special day.

And now I wish a curmudgeonly Happy Halloween all!

Dealing with the devil

An internet meme making the rounds lately asserts that if you support Donald Trump then you support everything he does. One wonders if the same standard would hold for Maxine Waters or Hillary Clinton backers. Yet that, while I obviously took the time to make it, really isn't my point today. My point is more that in an imperfect world, and our world surely deserves to be called imperfect, we make deals with the devil all the time. We have to.

I am not calling President Trump a devil of course, nor slyly insinuating that Waters or Clinton are either. But all three of them are less than perfect, and all three of them in glaring ways and manners. That means that if we're going to vote for or support any of them we're forced to take them warts and all.

Because of this, a vote for President Trump does not necessarily mean support for his sometimes poor decisions and poor words. Likewise, a vote for Clinton did not of necessity mean you supported how she handled Bengazi or her e-mail server. Perhaps a given voter did support everything Trump or Clinton said or did but not, again and I stress, of necessity. We have no choice but to select among imperfect people. If we ourselves are on the whole good people this will rightly leave bad tastes in our mouths. But tell me, please, what other option do we have?

Are we to wait until someone is perfect before we can vote for them? I should hope not. That is a fool's errand. We must make the best choices we can under the circumstances we've got. In my case, in 2016 that meant voting for Trump because, overall, he had more pluses than Clinton. That does not however give either one of them a pass for their errors, nor that I am not repulsed by stupid actions on the part of either. It's simply a reflection of the fallen world we live in.

So kindly do not call me evil because I've dealt with the devil. You do too.

Bee deaths

Me Grandpaw Hutchins was the most mild mannered, easiest going man I have known. Nothing seemed to bother or rankle him. He just moseyed on with his life. Don't get me wrong: he was principled, he believed in right and wrong and that it was imperative that you do right. Yet he was one of those rare individuals who taught by the force of example rather than with a hammer.

Of course, it seems that there's always something which supremely irritates even the most laid back among us. And there was a certain something with Grandpaw. If he got strung by a bee, that bee had too die. It. Had. To. Die.

Before even tending his wound, Grandpaw would grab the fly swatter hanging by his back door and he would stalk the culprit. With a stealth generally found only in the most experienced ninjas, he would make his way through his house, keeping a steady eye on the miscreant, waiting for the right opportunity. Eventually the insect would settle somewhere, to be stunned in that instant before death by the hard, fast, and true slam of Grandpaw Hutchin's swatter. Justice had been served, North Carolina style.

Then he would become again mild mannered Grandpaw Hutchins. I loved that man.

Late night World Series

I love baseball. I've seen my share of important and unusual events in the game too. But I never imagined that I'd be watching live World Series action at 3:30 in the morning.

That's when last night's game ended, with a walk off home run in the bottom of the 18th inning to give the Los Angeles Dodgers a 3-2 win. Now the Series is 2-1 Boston. And to all you naysayers who think baseball games need to be shortened or quickened, bear in mind that games like this are anomalies, aberrations. So they played two games last night. It won't happen again for a long time, especially in a World Series.

It was a pretty good game, that said. Good pitching and good defense, although there probably was a little too little offense of course. But that happens. Sure, it wouldn't hurt baseball to play during the day at least once in awhile, or maybe begin an hour or so earlier. Yet as odd as it was, hey, that's baseball.

That part I wouldn't change if I could.

The real Frito Bandito

It's probably not PC to revere supposedly stereotypical characters, but, well, the hell with that. I do and I will, depending on the character.

Fifty some years ago Fritos corn chips had an advertising campaign based around the Frito Bandito. It was an obviously Mexican character. Yet that is not what brings the subject to my mind this morning. What did that was the memory of one of my uncles convincing me that he was the model for the Frito Bandito.

He didn't fit the stereotype. But his argument was that, as a youth during school lunches, he ate so many Fritos that everyone began calling him the Frito Bandito. From there, someone in the chip business caught on and developed the cartoon version. Sure, I was a kid, and in typical uncle joke fashion he convinced me of the tale. He was very emphatic and certain about it indeed.

So my uncle was the model, sort of, for the Frito Bandito. If that offends you, deal with it, because it was, is, and always will be simply a harmless tale, one I will always remember fondly.

Super hot coffee

I of all people can appreciate wanting a cup of hot coffee in the morning. It's as American as apple pie, right? Yet I do believe some folks can take it too far.
A good buddy of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, thinks that programmable coffee makers as innovations are right up there with sliced bread. As a percolator man myself, I'll take his word on that. Anyway, he likes that he can have freshly made coffee the instant he gets up every morning. Fair enough.
He also likes microwaves; we all know how convenient they are. But what he really likes is that he can pour a hot cup of joe from his programmable coffee maker and put that cup into the microwave for another two minutes so that it gets really hot.
That's too much for me. I'm not big on piping hot anything. So far as I'm concerned, whether on food or drink, you aren't tasting anything after a point. You're only feeling the sensation of intense heat. It's like when you take of a bite of a bratwurst too quickly off the grill and all the boiling juices burst inside your mouth. You aren't tasting the food, you're feeling the burn. In the case of Cloyce's coffee, we're talking searing, flesh burning hot that way I see it.
I suppose that if that's what he likes, so be it. But I sure don't see the point.

Double or nothing

Well, I did not win the billion dollar lottery. But this morning was a good morning just the same.

While returning from Electric Eel I stopped at a McDonald's in Bellfontaine, Ohio for breakfast. I ordered a meal with a large coffee. The cashier gave me my coffee and said someone would bring my food to my table. So I went and sat with my drink and began surfing the net on my phone.

A few minutes later a young woman brought me my meal...with another coffee. "Uh, they gave me my coffee already," I said.

"Oh," she replied. Then she smiled and said, "Do you want another? I just have to pour it out if I take it back."

"Sure," says I. No $1.6 billion dollars, but hey.

A couple hours later I was at a rest area and decided I wanted a candy bar. I put my money in the machine and made my selection. Lo and behold, two candy cars fall out of the slot. You know what that means?

I'm supposed to play today's lottery because I obviously wasn't intended to win yesterday.

Easy negotiations

Me Grandpa Joe, he didn't negotiate price. Oh, he'd allow his friend Amos to do so in his stead, so I'm probably playing a bit loose with this assertion. Still, Joe to my knowledge never himself negotiated a price.
I found this out on a trip through western Michigan with him, looking for a pump jack as I recall. I'm still not sure what a pump jack is but I know it had to do with the oil wells he was invested in yesteryear, and I know they were big because we had to take his manual shift stake truck with the ten foot bed to get one.
Anyhow, after driving for two days, two days of me learning to drive a stick I might add (so there were a lot of fits and spurts and stalled engines as I learned through trial by error) we ended up at his friend Ford's. Ford was his actual first name; I don't remember his last. Ford took us out into a field of various machinery, about in the middle of which was an old pump jack. It looked like an oversized grasshopper to me. Joe asked Ford what he wanted, and Ford told him. Joe took a drag on a cigarette, then just said kinda quietly, "I think I'll pass." We began the trip home.
Grandpa explained to me that a fella knows what his stuff is worth, and who was he to argue with that? I get what he means. I rarely negotiate myself, usually giving a simply yea or nay myself when dealing with someone one on one. And it ain't like we can typically negotiate anyway: at Kroger you pay what Kroger asks for groceries or you walk on by. I suppose I was just a bit miffed that, after lurching across the state and staying one long night in a tired old hotel, the journey was for naught. In the end though, I respect his point.

Monday update of the weekend, or, life is good

I saw an old friend, a guy I bowled with for several years, on Sunday. We hadn't seen each other in 36 years, not since he'd moved to California. It was like we'd never lost touch; that's pretty cool if you ask me.

Friday saw a family trip to Halloween Nights at Greenfield Village, while Saturday brought a trip to Romeo, Michigan for apples, pumpkins, and goat feeding at a small petting zoo. And it allowed me to get my yearly dose of a specialty coffee, a holiday blend, which is only available late in the year (for obvious reasons). Right now however, I'm drinking a Michigan maple coffee which I bought at the same time.

I texted my two kids who live out of state and couldn't make the apple weekend this year (we've went to Romeo for close to 40 years now). So at least we made easy contact; technology can really be a boon when it works.

What does it all tell me? Simply that life is good.

Bipolar weather

We had an odd weather day yesterday. My granddaughter described it as bipolar; it was an apt description.

Sunny and October comfortable one minute, high winds, thunder, lightning, and sleet the next. Rinse and repeat, all day long. But her best observation, my granddaughter's, that is, was that the temperature dropped so fast it must have seen a state trooper.

Good line.

Why don't they expect sales tax?

"How much is this cutter, Cosgriff?" he asked.

"$40".

"Okay, I'll take it."

"Thanks. That'll be $42.40".

"What?" he asks in shock. "You just told me it was forty dollars!"

You haven't heard of sales tax, buddy? But we get that reaction all the time when making an over the counter sale. Whether you like sales taxes or not, why wouldn't you expect me to charge it? Do you ask the cashier at Kroger the same things when she rings you up? Why do you ask me?

Apparently some customers believe that our store is in some time warped part of Michigan where the state sales tax doesn't apply. To this day it amazes me when guys express dismay at my collecting it. I don't get it. If you have a rational explanation for that, I'd love to hear it.

Fun facts

Did you know that in 1953, Joe Cosgriff Welding Machine rentals bought more new Hobart welders than anyone else in the country except Ford and Chrysler? Well, now you do. I'm not sure how many units that was, but it must have been a lot.
At its height I know me Grandpa had over 200 welders. In the 1970s, I remember them being numbered up to 210. That number, of course, does not include the total number of machines he ever owned. Things go bad; things get scrapped out or, horrors, stolen.
I'll tell what impressed me most, though: me Pops had every serial number memorized. If I asked him the 'Joe Cosgriff' number, say, JC-167, he'd rattle off the machine's factory assigned serial number. Right now kapow. I was awed by that when I was 12. I'm still awed by it. I mean, we're not talking simple little four or five digits with maybe a letter. We're talking 12CW5497 or 5DW68873. I remember the 5DW ones were 400 amp welders, so there was a code to it which could help memorization. But still, over 200 (likely closer to 300 counting machines out of use over time) committed to memory? Wow.
Now they're all gone. The last one we rented, fittingly enough, was the month Joe died, August 1991. The last ones we had we sold to a guy who shipped them to Nigeria. Yes, that sounds like a joke. But it's what the fella told the old man, and he paid cash. He could do whatever he wanted with them after that.
There. Now you're all set for when 'Cosgriff welders' is the Jeopardy category.

Joe's cars

I really don't know where to begin. Me Grandpa Joe had a plethora of cars which ran the gamut from neat to bad, and on downhill to particularly, excruciatingly bad. Yet he was proud of every one of them, and I was somehow proud that he was proud. He often had so many that it qualified him for the fleet rate with his insurance company.
There's the 12 cylinder Packard I wish I had seen. Pops always seemed impressed, even wistful, talking about it. Perhaps Joe's biggest claim to celebrity was a big white Chrysler Imperial (which I did see, and even rode in) which supposedly had a governor of Florida as a former owner. Man, that thing was huge. And who could forget the 1961 Ford Fairlane which he bought for thirty five bucks? It went from zero to sixty in, in, well, I don't think it ever actually made it to sixty. Oh, and a 65 Chevy Bel Air which always smelled burnt because he had flicked a lit cigarette out the driver's window only to have it sucked into an open back window and burn out the rear seat. That one became (more or less) my brother Phil's. It lasted until 1983, when it was t-boned by a guy who ran a stop sign. But the one I remember the fondest was a 1967 Cadillac. It was purple.
Well, more like lilac really. He had bought the car while we, me Pops and Mom and the family, had been in North Carolina visiting her folks. Joe felt it needed painting and found a paint shop running a special obviously intended to get rid of unpopular colors. Since Joe always said "I ain't Hell on pretty," he didn't care about the color. He cared about the great price for the paint job. I can still hear me Pops, as we pulled up behind that beauty on the return home, asking incredulously "I wonder whose purple Cadillac that is?" He should have known.
Joe being Joe, he had a hitch installed on that thing because any vehicle could pull a welder. That's exactly what he had me doing when I was an older teen: delivering welders with it. I heard every purple Cadillac joke imaginable taking machines into factories and onto job sites.
Still, it was a neat car in its own way. It was the last style of Caddy, I believe of any American car, with tail fins, modest though they were. It was the car I drove through a small lake, on orders from Joe, when I was 17. You can read about that here: https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2017/10/high-tide-in-milan.html if you care to.
Yep, me Grandpa Joe had some cars. As I remember more I'll tell you about those too.

The staring contest

Old Amos was tight. He was a good man yet he was very careful with his money. Consequently, me Grandpa Joe would often send Amos out to buy this or that for the welding business. He knew Amos would get him the best deal. One story me Pops liked to tell involved such an event.

I can't remember now what it was Joe wanted, but he sent Dad and Amos after it because it would take two people to handle whatever contraption he wanted to buy. Dad drove, and then simply stood back to watch Amos at work.

Amos tried every way in the world to get the seller to back down on price. He begged, he pleaded, he pointed out flaws in the machine. The guy wouldn't budge. It reached the point where Amos stopped talking and began pacing. He would pace a few steps beyond the man and then return. On his return, Dad said, Amos would stop abruptly right in front of the guy and spend a few seconds just glaring at him. Then he'd walk on, return, and do the same thing. He must have been trying to intimidate him, was all Pops could think.

After as few minutes of this, during which the seller did exchange a quizzical look at the old man, the guy finally said, "Look, just give me my price. But I'll put a lower one on the bill of sale to help you out on the sales tax."

Amos would have none of that. "Now, listen here. I want to get the best price I can out of you," he explained to the seller. "But what goes on paper is going to be right no matter what we agree to." Amos then resumed his pacing tactic.

As I recall (I wish I'd have listened more closely to Pops' stories) they eventually agreed on a price and Dad and Amos took the thing to the Shop because Joe had to have it. But I sure would have liked to have seen that battle of wills, that staring contest.

Child labor

The story, so far as me Pops told it, was that he voluntarily began working at the Shop when he was 10. The story, so far as me Grandpa Joe told it, was that Pops wouldn't leave so he was put to work.

Grandpa Joe claimed that he ran Dad off one too many times one day and finally thought, if you're gonna stay you're gonna work. Dad claimed he just liked hanging around the old barn.

Myself, I remember hanging around the old barn many times before I actually worked there. All those welders, all the dirt and grease of a workshop, all the noise - I never did get entirely accustomed to the sound of a gas drive - were intriguing. I have no idea why.

But I do wonder if Pops felt the same way.

They'll do it every time, or, Cloyce and the sweet rolls

When me Pops were a young lad fresh out of high school, he became, well, sorta the dispatcher for Joe Cosgriff Welding Machine Rentals. While that sounds like an impressive job title, what it meant was that Pops had to be up ahead of any of the drivers to make sure they got on their way promptly.

Bear in mind that in the middle of the 1950s there weren't the kind of superhighways we all complain about today. When a delivery had to be made the driver had to bull through Detroit and then through every wide spot in the road once past the city limits. Have I ever mentioned that me Grandpa Joe's welders went all over Michigan and Ohio? That meant some very early starts when a unit had to be in Muskegon or Bay City Michigan, let alone Ashtabula, Ohio. And me Pops job was to be up early to hitch up welders (if they be gas drives, that is, driven by attached gasoline engines) or load electric drives (electricity powered welders) onto stake trucks in readiness for the drivers. Then he had to make sure the drivers got out on time. It meant a lot of 4 AM wake ups for Pops. But he did it, and he became a good man for it.

So there was this one driver, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who worked for Joe back then. As was his custom, me Pops always had hot coffee ready for the drivers, to help wake them in the wee hours. Several times in a row, when Cloyce would sleepily arrive for an early morning run, he would gratefully enough take a cup from Pops. And every time he would ask me Pops, every single time, "You don't have a roll to go with this?" Pops would apologize as he said no.

After this happening frequently, Pops got ahead of the game. One evening before a morning run he knew Cloyce had, he went to the corner store and bought a package of sweet rolls.

Along about 4:30 the following morning Pops got up and hitched a gas drive to a vehicle in anticipation of a delivery to Midland, Michigan. Cloyce soon appeared at the Old Barn and availed himself of the coffee Dad had at the ready. He and Pops chit chatted for a few minutes as they each sipped at their hot drinks, the previously opened package of rolls between them on a desk.

You know where this is going, right?

After a few minutes of Cloyce not taking one Dad pointed out, "There's some rolls there, Cloyce."

"Nah, I don't believe I feel like any this morning, Bill," he replied.

I doubt the old man bought him any more after that.

Amos and Alice

Yep, Amos and me Grandpa Joe were good friends. They'd visit frequently, Amos stopping by at me grandparents', Joe and Alice's, house regularly for coffee and talk. Amos also worked for Joe for years at the old welding rental shop. And like friends do they would help each other out with things. Within reasonable bounds, of course. No need to go above and beyond the call of duty.

One day me Grandma Cosgriff decided she wanted a new stove. She went out to the appliance store, found what she wanted and paid for it. This left only for Joe and Amos to go get it. Dutifully, they took a truck from work and went to fetch the new stove.

Then somewhere along the line they broke it. Not badly; it was still safely operational. It was a superficial injury: they had managed to crack off a piece of the porcelain which coated one of the knobs for a burner. Well, what can you do? With I'm sure an aw hell from me Grandpa, they took it on home.

Once home, they got the appliance off the truck and up onto the porch. Yet As Joe went to brace the front door open, Amos turned to leave. "Where are ya goin?" me Grandpa demanded.

"You're on yer own now Joe. I ain't about to face Alice's wrath with her new stove broken," Amos explained as he reached the gate.

I don't how Joe got the stove the rest of the way. And I'm sure me Grams wasn't all that angry.

Render under somebody else

Yesterday I had to go into a rendering plant. Let me tell you, if anything could make me vegan, it would be a trip to a rendering plant.

For those of you who don't know, rendering is the process through which animal by-products, the stuff which doesn't go into our meats (or at least isn't supposed to), are made into useful products such as greases and bone meals. This means they get all the bones, honed out carcasses, and entrails left over from the butchering process. Can I get a great big eee-yuck from everybody out there?

And that's as close as I will come to a description of the process, because it gets worse. You do not care to see what I saw yesterday. Truly. And rendering plants smell awful, as you might expect. As an added measure of enjoyment, it feels as though grease is just hanging in the air all around you. You feel slimy when you leave. I felt as though I were still smelling rendered whatever all the way home. It was a 200 mile trip by the way. I could not shower quickly enough when I got home, nor get fast enough what I wore directly into the washer. With an extra rinse.

Some political wag somewhere opined that you do not want to see how laws or sausages are made. I would emphatically add that you do not want to see the rendering process either. Like I said, it could almost make me vegan. I had to make myself eat a Big Mac for lunch just to get over it.

Fifty years ago

Fifty years is a lot different when they're behind you.

Fifty years ago today I raced home from school in time to see the Detroit Tigers win the World Series. That seems so long ago. Of course, at eight years old I wasn't exactly looking fifty years into the future. I doubt I could have imagined fifty years then.

Now I can. Wow. Time does fly.

Picking up the pieces

One of the nice things about aging is that you get to talk about your health. That's because most of the people your age take health more seriously than they used to, and like to brag about it when it's good and moan about it when bad.

Well, other than that I still can't shake occasional dizzy spells and light headedness, mine's pretty good. I have blood work twice a year with regular checkups and all my numbers are where the doctor wants them. Other than my vitamin D. I've been taking a vitamin D supplement every day for two years now. In order that I never forget, I leave the bottle right at my bedside. It's the first thing I see, so therefore the first thing I do in the morning is take my vitamin D.

I noticed awhile back that the gel caps I buy begin to stick together slightly once a bottle is in use. As a result I've gotten into the habit of shaking it in order to loosen up the caps. Naturally I did that this morning as has become my habit. And I learned a valuable lesson today: make sure to shut the bottle after use.

I suppose I shook it harder than necessary even if the cap had been properly closed. But for whatever reason I slung gel caps all across my side of the bed. It took me ten minutes to pick them up...and I'll probably never find them all, depending on exactly where they skittered as the fell across the floor, to hide under the bed or dresser or book case.

So close your meds. And don't shake things up too much.

Rainy day Cloyce

Back in the old neighborhood, so me Pops story goes, there was a house painter. I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. Anyway, he was a good house painter, but he would not work when it rained. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Only Cloyce apparently took it to extremes. As Pops tells it, one day three drops of rain fell. One hit Cloyce.

He postponed his jobs that day. Hey, a man has to have principles...

Intimidating the locals

So we've vacationed in the little town of Hessel, Michigan for coming up on forty years now. Just down the road a piece is Cedarville. Sometimes, it seems, the two villages get a little bit fractious with each another.
One year when my sons were teenagers, there was some small dispute between the towns during our vaycay. Apparently Cedarville was trying to muscle in on Hessel's action, you see, trying to take over an antique boat show which Hessel had hosted since its start. A few Hessel citizens were complaining about that one day as my boys and I stood nearby.
After listening to the complaints for a couple of minutes, my sons walked over to the tiny crowd. Both of them were punching fists from one hand into the open palms of the other. My oldest grunted to get their attention. "Uhmm. We're from Detroit. Ya want us to take of this?" he asked.
The four people looked at them and replied nervously something like, no, that's okay.
But Hessel has kept its boat show ever since.

Not a bum

Me Grandpa Joe rode the rails back in the 1920s. He hopped freights whenever the spirit moved him. Consequently, he lived all over the United States in his late teens and early twenties. I have to admit there's a part of me who admires that roaming lifestyle. Go where you decide when you decide. It was certainly easier to do that a century ago, to stay off the grid and just live your life. Ah well.

He wasn't a bum, though, as many folks think of those who traipsed around the nation as he did back then. He was a hobo. Hobos worked their way around. When Joe got off a train somewhere, he looked for a few weeks' work. Even hobos needed a couple bucks.

Consequently he worked on many farms and in factories, and even a couple stints on ranches, once in Montana and once in North Dakota. Part of his job in Montana, oddly, interestingly enough, was taking the ranch owner's wife to Church. Joe was a serious Catholic and went wherever he landed; in that case the rancher wasn't and didn't attend Church, but his wife was and did. So when Joe was there he drove woman to Church. He was going anyway and at the time it saved the boss the trouble. It didn't hurt that he apparently made a couple extra dollars on an off day doing what he would have done anyway.

But to the real point. Hobos worked (well, okay, other than with the stolen train rides) while bums just wanted a handout. Hobos looked down on bums. Joe was a hobo. Don't call him nuthin' but that.

Fake threats

I like when you can joke with people. Especially folks you only meet once.

A few weeks ago I left very early for a sales trip. I was wide awake and staring at the unentertaining TV and figured, might as well get started. What this meant was that I had a lot of extra time to kill. So, when I came across a truck stop a couple hours out of Detroit, I figured I may just treat myself to a sit down breakfast.

I ordered an omelette and once finished eating I sought out the waitress to pay directly, as I don't like leaving cash on the table. She had given me the bill a few minutes before.

When she came out from the kitchen and started towards the register, I slapped the bill on the counter and said in mock anger, "Let's settle this!"

In a perfect reply she demanded, "Right here, right now!"

We both laughed, then I paid and was on my way. It wasn't the worst start to a day.