Child Abuse (serious)

I had a customer come into my Shop one day for a chuck on the front of his machine. He had a thirteen or fourteen year old kid with him as a helper.

As I gathered my tools and the new chuck I noticed that the cord which should have had a push button on/off switch on the end had nothing but two exposed wires. I said, "I have on/off switches on hand. I could pop one on for you." This was more than a mere upsell, Marty sticking his hand in a guy's pocket. To start the machine you had to have that push button switch.

"Naw, I don't need it Cosgriff. That's what the kid is for," explained the customer, pointing at the young teen.

Incredulous, I asked, "What do you mean?"

The guy explained, "I have the kid hold the wires and I tell him to touch them together when I want it on. Then I tell him to pull them apart when I want it off."

"You're gonna kill this kid," I quite emphatically replied. "Oh, he'll be all right," I was told.

I went into my office, brought out a switch, and began installing it on the cord of his machine. "I ain't payin' for that, Cosgriff," the idiot tightwad said.

"I ain't asking you to," I barked back at him. And I barked it too. "But I can't let this thing go outta here knowing how you're using it. You're gonna hurt that boy."

I haven't seen him since, and good riddance to bad rubbish. I mean, really: having anyone let alone a kid touch bare wires together to run a machine? Some things you just have to do simply because they're the right thing to do.

Irish Folk Songs, or, A Long Way To Go For A Very Poor Attempt At Humor

Perhaps my favorite Irish folk song is Whiskey on a Sunday. You can listen to The Irish Rovers take on the tune here if you like.

Believe it or not, there's a lot more to Irish folk music than The Unicorn.  Whiskey on a Sunday is one example of that. Still, irreverent Marty can't help but take a swat at the tune. Maybe that's the Irish in him acting up.

Seth Davy is the main figure in the song. The third verse begins, 'And sad to relate that old Seth Davy died, in Nineteen Hundred and Four,'. Yes, we're supposed to feel pathos then, and I generally do. Indeed I have had a tear come to me eye at that point in the song as it's sung. Yet does that keep me from mockery? No. I sometimes find myself asking, So it would not have been so sad to relate had he died in 1903 or 1905?

I still love the song. Despite me, some days. 

The Impossible Dream

I was going to write about Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed this morning. But I'm not, or, at least, I'm only going to use his candidacy as a jumping off point towards something else. 

My original intent was to use quotes of his from his past (where else might they be found?) as fodder for why he doesn't deserve my vote. But we all know what would happen next. I would either be ignored, which is nearly the preferred response (though my comments would serve no purpose then), or countered vehemently. "He's retracted that statement!" "He's distanced himself from that!" Yadda yadda. Exactly like every other politician not named Donald Trump would try to do if he/she/they/it felt threatened. Har-umph.

As an aside, one of the things I actually like about Trump is that he bulls forward no matter what, almost as though saying, "Yeah? So what? It's out there, deal with it." I prefer that to dancing around legitimate issues and legitimate questions. 

But I digress.

I'm appalled at the idea of again falling into wormholes. It's tiresome. I shouldn't even bother to point out the self-serving and shallow hypocrisy inherent in such things, but I will. What my guy says goes for all times and all places and he's forever an infidel, yet your guy gets a pass. Both sides do it, at least to a degree. It cheapens each.

And it does not help anyone's identification, understanding, or appreciation of the real problems we face. We're all quite adept at seeing the splinter in the other guy's eye yet looking beyond the plank in ours.

Heavy sigh. We need better, but that's the impossible dream, isn't it?

Figuratively Hanging Iron

As the great majority of you know, me Grandpa Joe rented welding equipment for many a year. For a lot of them years me Pops was one of his main delivery drivers. Dad used to love sitting in the office shanty on job sites before the day's work began, listening to the war stories and likely offering a few himself.

One day as he was early with a delivery most all of the weldors on hand were in the shanty drinking coffee and talking, having not yet set out to earn their daily bread. The guys were bragging about how much iron they were going to hang once they got started. It was going to be a big, productive day.

The job foreman, whom I'll call Cloyce just to give him a name, sat by silently taking in the revelry. Finally he had heard enough. Turning to Pops he said, overly loud but wanting everyone to hear, "You know, Red (they called me Pops Red when he was younger because his hair was red back then), if these fellas hung as much iron on the job as they did in the shed, we'd be a high-ballin' outfit."

Cloyce was ribbing them but to a point. They were put on notice to live up to their bragging when the work started. Pride can drive a man to a lot of things. One of them is to put up or shut up.

A Love Hate Relationship

The annual Detroit Free Press Marathon runs (ha, ha, runs) down Avery Street for the sixth straight year today. I have to admit that I'm looking forward to it. Mom really enjoyed it in her day. We weren't sure we should wake her (it began fairly early) but she really got a kick out of watching the street parade of runners and joggers from her own front porch. 

It will pass by a little later this morning. We're just before mile 13 this time around, or about half way through the 26 mile plus route. Any way you slice it, I am truly in great anticipation of the event. The irony is, left up to me I probably would not have it go through my Woodbridge neighborhood.

Yes, yes, yes, I know. It's a blinding contradiction. I like the marathon, I look forward to it, I would change it if I could. Maybe still allow it through Woodbridge but one street over, on Commonwealth rather than Avery, just so I wouldn't be stuck at home. It's only six hours that the street will be closed to vehicular traffic. But doggone it, that includes my vehicle, my ability to come and go as I please, for that six hours. Sure, I'm not going anywhere. Yet I want to be able to go somewhere just the same.

I'm not trying to justify it. I'm only saying that's how I feel.

Swagger is Shallow

You don't brag on yourself. You don't. I'm not saying that it's a moral wrong. But it is crude.

Everyone in Detroit remembers Kirk Gibson punching his fists in the air when his three run shot off Goose Gossage sealed the 1984 World Series for our hometown Detroit Tigers. Some would call it an iconic moment. But what did it actually accomplish? The Tigers were already leading the game 5-4 in the bottom of the eighth and the series 3 games to one. A smarter manager than Dick Williams would have walked Gibson. But who drove in the actual Series winning run? Who was the MVP of that World Series?

You had to look that up didn't you? But aren't those accomplishments really more important than a moment caught on camera when the series was at least arguably already over? Gibson may have been the icing. But he was not the cake.

We're too much for show in the U.S. and in many other parts of the world today. Yet show rarely accomplishes anything. It's the grunts what do that. It's the little things which add up to great things which ultimately matter the most.

Rusty Kuntz and Alan Trammell BTW. You had forgotten that until now I'm sure.

Newness

It has been said, and justifiably I readily admit, that I will not try new things. Indeed, it is not unfair to say that I am downright obstinate in refusing to do or try things I have not before tried or did. I like what I like and have never seen the sense of doing different simply to do so. 

Yet that doesn't mean I absolutely will not try the new. Why, just a few weeks ago I went to a Banana Ball game and found it very entertaining, enough so that I have already entered the ticket lottery for when they play in Detroit again next season. And this morning I am drinking a coffee called White Heather. It has the flavor of toffee and brown sugar with a hint of butter and salt. And it's good. I would buy it again.

So there, all you Marty naysayers. I will try something new. 

But after experiencing two new things in the last few weeks I say, whew! That anything new stuff is off my calendar for a year or better now.