If It Suited Joe

I do wonder sometimes whether we are fashion conscious enough. Yeah, I know. Sounds real weird coming from me. But still, I wonder.

When me Pops took me to my first baseball game at old Tiger Stadium in Detroit, he wore a suit and tie. One of the times I noticed me Grandpa Joe wear a suit coat was when he did his weekly banking. That's right, he cleaned up and put on a coat and tie to go to the bank. Meanwhile, although I wore a suit and tie to the funerals of both my parents, I didn't to the viewings the night before. I had my reasons; with Mom, there was one particular pullover shirt of mine which she without fail would compliment when I had it on. So I wore that to the funeral home.

What do we wear suits for these days? You don't see them at Church, or, at least, I don't. In offices, yes, although that doesn't appear as universal as it once was. News shows, yes. But by and large, men don't wear suitcoats. 

I'm no longer sure that such relaxation is an improvement in style. After all, when Joe Cosgriff would dress up just to put money in his bank account, I do wonder if he had a better idea of proper dress than we seem to have these days.

Newark Technical Support

Yesterday morning, my computer screen began blinking in and out. It would stay on for about two seconds, then blink out, to reappear for a second or two before blinking again. Now, I'm a man who is rather complimented by a wink. Just not from my desktop screen. What to do, what to do. I know! I'll contact Newark, Ohio Technical Support.

Once the texts had begun, I filmed around a half minute of the monitor winking and sent it. The tech asked me to try hitting four buttons on the keyboard all at the same time. No result. So he said to try three different keys. 

The screen changed. I snapped a pic of that and texted it. Aha, we're getting somewhere, responded the tech. Click on blah-blah option.

A new screen came up. In fact, it was the start up screen. Enter your PIN, I was told, and see what happens. 

Viola! The computer, she worked, and right fine. I expressed profound gratitude.

Newark Technical Support. Five stars!

Cash Is Indeed King

I have been consciously going back to using cash, at least on smaller purchases. The libertarian in me has come to suspect the increasing use of credit and debit cards because, yes, the government could use that against me if I'm a bad boy. China is the obvious example. Yet Canada used it recently against COVID protesters, and Canada is supposed to believe in freedom.

But I digress. While I carry a debit and a credit card, cash is becoming king, and it should. I've stopped taking cards at the Shop because I see no reason to pay someone three percent or so for a service I simply don't need. Every single customer whom I've told bring me cash has brought it, and with no debate. I think more and more of them see the advantage too. 

I do see where, based on a supposed penny shortage, some businesses round change. The tendency is to round up, I suppose to avoid argument, yet many places do give me exactly what I'm owed. I don't argue when they round down; it's a nuisance, and perhaps wrong, I'll say, yet not worth the fight. But I have begun keeping track of whether I am ahead on such transactions, or the stores and shops I deal with.

In calendar 2026, I'm $1.64 in front. A pittance, but, well, my pittance. I wouldn't get it using a card.

Lunch With Cloyce

Nowadays the operators of drain snakes are taught never to handle the rotating steel cable because of the threat of serious injury. But that wasn't always the case. 

Time out of mind, drain cleaners opened sewers by shoving the spinning cable into the line by hand. The real old timers actually did it bare handed, would you believe it? They handled the greasy black cables, the greasy black coming from the sewer sludge, without gloves. One old plumber, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, took it to a new level. 

To tell it true, Cloyce was a top notch sewer man. Still, his personal habits left something to be desired. He did not for example wash his hands while working. He allowed all that greasy gook to build up on his paws while unclogging those drains all day.

When lunch came, typically an oily sardine sandwich, he would find a place to park his van and eat. With horribly dirty hands. Cloyce would hold his sandwich by a corner, and eat around it until all that would be left was that corner held by slick, black, greasy fingers.

Cloyce would then throw away that part. He wasn't that gross.

Fr. John

One of our pastors at old St. Dominic in Detroit was Fr. John. We liked him a lot, and he was comfortable enough to show up at our house unannounced for coffee and conversation. Those were good times, back in 1990-1991. The only bad thing was that he insisted on walking home, alone, after dark. He wouldn't take a ride; it was only four blocks to the rectory, he said, and he liked the quiet. He wouldn't even let me walk the dog along with him. I mean, I'm a lifelong Detroiter who genuinely feels comfortable around the neighborhood. But safety's safety.

So I did what my conscience compelled me to do. I would put the dog on the leash and shadow him. I'd give him about a block head start and then I'd follow him until I was sure he was safe at the Church.

Yet as it was, Fr. John liked to meander. He liked to take different routes home just to see different things. Then he would stop to smell the roses, so to speak. If something caught his eye, a building under renovation, a star or satellite in the sky, maybe even an actual flower, he'd stop to study it. And boy, could he study. Sometimes it was 45 minutes before I got back home.

One night, I was caught. I got a little too close and he spotted me, coming back to assuage my fears. "Don't worry about me, Marty. I know where I'm going if something happens."

"I don't doubt that," I replied. "I just don't want St. Peter's first question to me be, why'd you let that priest walk home alone at midnight?"

We had a laugh, but he finally indulged my fears and let me, and the dog, walk him home after visits.

Bill Cosgriff, Tax Expert

Me Grandpa Joe, he had that welding rental business. He also had rooming houses. You might imagine that required a lot of accounting. Joe, then, had contracted with an accounting firm.

Me Pops was always good with numbers, and he worked with Joe, his dad. One year as tax season approached, Joe asked Pops (my dad) about what he thought his taxes might be.

Dad proceeded to look over Joe's books, scribbling numbers on a paper as he went along. He eventually gave his dad a number of what he might expect to pay the IRS.

It turns out dad was within about ten bucks of the actual total. "Why am I paying Jack Donahue (his accountant) when you can do my taxes for me? Why don't you do them from here on out?" Joe asked his son.

Me Pops flatly refused. "No way. Maybe my numbers are good, but Donahue knows where to put those numbers on the right lines on all those tax forms." 

So Pops got out of being Joe's accountant. It was surely best for both of them. All three, counting Mr. Donahue.

Huh?

The things you see while driving around making drain snake deliveries...

Yesterday, west of Midland, Michigan, a pickup with New York plates passed me. Neither is unusual. I see New York license plates with some regularity, and my new old van is routinely passed. What caught my eye, though, was the vanity plate on that pickup. EVL DAD. Evil Dad?

I am curious what the story is behind that one.