The War of the Words

It's December 31, 2017, the last day of the year. We're supposed to reminisce on such days, aren't we? Well, then, so as not to disappoint, I shall. And it all comes down to words.

I'm not really sure why the reading bug bit me so hard in 2017 but it did, so much so that much of what I did this past year was read. It was a grand, fulfilling endeavor.

The basic theme which developed could best be described as baseball and history. To the former I submit Ty Cobb, A Terrible Beauty which argued that, while not perfect, Cobb was not the ogre so many people believe of him. The Kid, a quite readable biography of the Splendid Splinter, Ted Williams, was engrossing though more crude than it needed to be (and how many books and movies can we say that of, eh?). Shades of Glory was my first real look at Negro League baseball, and a good look it was. Remembrances of Swings Past was okay yet too obviously ghost written. That was all topped off with an anthology, Great Baseball Writing, compiled from articles originally printed on the pages of Sports Illustrated over 50 years. Great stuff, if you're any kind of baseball wonk. And you should be some kind of baseball wonk, if you have any appreciation of America at all.

1944: FDR and the Year that Changed History was very good. The Arsenal of Democracy, about Detroit's role in World War II, was excellent, and I only got it at Christmas and have already read it through. It gave me a new appreciation for the effort necessary to win that war. I read David McCullough's biographies of John Adams and Harry Truman, both outstanding, though the trouble with biographies is that the hero always dies at the end. Rock of the Marne was also a very good read on how raw American troops single-handedly held off the Germans during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I, stopping Crown Prince Wilhelm's 'Peace Offensive' and likely winning the war for the Allied nations.

On a more esoteric level I read Strange History, a collection of interesting yet mostly obscure incidences in human history, and The Inklings, a history of the great writers' group of that name from (mainly) the 1930s and 40s. It featured C. S. Lewis of Narnia fame and J. R. R. Tolkien of Hobbitdom. Those two really ought to have collaborated on a book.

All of this actually only scratches the surface. I can't recall everything I read off the top of my head, which included of course reading the Sunday paper and all kinds of (often tripe) online. But reading-wise 2017 was good to me. And now 2018 needs to step up its game and top that.

The Mighty Cosgriff Snowplow

I've said before, and recently, that I have come to the realization that I don't like snow. But at one time snow and I had a truce, and playing in the snow could even be fun. Yes, as a young kid. But as an older kid too.

Once back while I was in high school we had a pretty good snowfall, a foot or better as I recall. We got a few days off school yet that didn't mean a few days off work. Me Pops and me Grandpa Joe had me go up to the Shop, to be useful as they saw it with my new free time.

It wasn't entirely a drag though. Joe sent me to the hardware for something or another, and on the return I encountered Canfield Avenue. It was about three blocks long where I encountered it, and covered with all that fresh snow. Nary a vehicle had trespassed upon it afore I that morn. There weren't even no parked cars. This was going to be fun, I remember thinking. And I meant fun.

I started onto Canfield in that big old red GMC Suburban of me Pops and I let into the flat white blanket. For the first block I simply made two deep tire tracks. For the second and third I played around with the steering wheel, swerving the Suburban to and fro, letting loose cascades of powder in all directions, creating my own cloud as I plowed along the street. Then I turned around and did it again.

When I was through I actually stopped and got out of the old car to survey my artwork. There were moguls and ruts and graying, churned up snow all along the path of my carnage. I must say I was impressed with the damage I had inflicted on the once quiet avenue.

So, yeah, I still hate it. But snow can be fun.

The buried dog

As all friends and relatives would attest, as a rule Grandpa Joe had a less than subtle way of getting his point across. Still, there were times when he could be impressively restrained yet make his point well understood.

He rented arc welders. Some of these weighed 1100 or 1200 pounds, so when they were shipped they had to be loaded by an electric hoist or crane onto the back of a pickup truck or flatbed. They tended to swirl in a gentle circle as they were raised or lowered. Sometimes they would have to be raised several stories, and I had gotten into the bad habit of standing nearly under the machines as they were raised, simply to watch the twirl.

One day as a young teen while out on a job site with Joe, I was doing just that. Without a word he stepped near enough for me to hear. Looking up at the welder too as it rose he asked, "We used to have an old dog that would watch from underneath as we raised a load. You know what we did with him?"

"No, what?" I asked in return, only half listening and still looking up.

"We buried him."

As his point slowly dawned on me, and as he had already walked away, I took several steps from the action myself. Dummy me wasn't thinking that things can fall, and that half-ton things falling a long way can hurt you bad.

Point taken, Joe.

The American

Swede. I don't know who he was. But me Grandpa Joe, he called him Swede.

During the War, when it was bad to be German, Joe called him Swede because of his accent. Because Swede, because of his accent, might be thought of bein' un-American. But he weren't. He was American.

Joe knew that. But not all Americans did. They thought he might be German. Joe thought he might protect him.

So that man, he became Swedish. Because that man, he was American, but he needed help. And me Grandpa, he helped him.

Because that's what Americans do. We help Americans.

Understating Christmas

I made myself take my morning walk today. And when I say made myself, I mean it. It was cold out there folks.

But it was a good walk. The streets were quiet, and for whatever reason it was nice to see Christmas lights twinkling in the early morning. It made I thought an interesting juxtaposition from their appearances at night. They were more subtle. More sublime in fact.

Lately as I've went to sleep I've kept a small tree which my oldest son bought a few years back, next to my bed. I switch on its lights before climbing under the covers and doze off to its muted glow. Although I like the big tree in the living room, I find I like the small one equally.

Charlie actually bought quite a few of those baby trees, maybe a dozen, placing them all over the house that year, in windows and cubbies, and even in the basement, one by itself on a table over against an inside wall. I remember going downstairs greeted only by that softly lighted little fake evergreen. I found I was extremely happy to see it. I kind of hated turning on the regular lights; it spoiled the weak, tiny reminder of Christmas.

Power is one thing, subtlety another. I like the powerful, grand displays of Christmas. But at times the greatest power seems to come from the smaller things.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Christmas 1972

It was, I think, Christmas 1972. I'm not really sure anymore as even I was still young then, but I do know that it was the only Christmas which me Grandpa and Grandma Hutchins from North Carolina spent in Detroit.
The living room was dark except for the lights of the Christmas tree. I was sitting alone on the couch when Grandpa had come into the room and sat opposite of me. And that was it. We sat there, never exchanging a word, for what in my mind seemed hours.
I'll never forget it. It felt to me then and now like the best time we ever had together. Oh, we got along great (it was a sorry man who could not get along with Clarence Malachi Hutchins) and had many good discussions and good visits over the years. Yet that night is my favorite time with him, my favorite memory.
How a house with 11 people could have stayed so still, so quiet while he and I sat there I don't know. I'm not sure we even looked at each other. We looked at the tree with the softly glowing lights. It is etched in our history.

Comes to mind

Relatively random Thursday thoughts...

It's the first day of winter. That means we're that much closer to spring. Hoo-ray!

Someday I'll have to relate about Price and his story about helping an army doctor with hemorrhoid surgery. But I'll never do it justice, so I'm slow to try.

I'm glad last week's snow is already gone. Snow looks nice only when it's fresh. Then it's just gray, icy piles and slush. Is it too early to hope we don't any measurable snow the rest of the year in Detroit?

As much of a baseball fan as I am I never got into the hot stove league. Too much conjecture, too much meaningless talk.

I think Christmas and New Year's day are just right this year: on Mondays. Three day weekends with not needing to plan around midweek holidays.

I wonder if the customer who has supposed to have come by for the last month actually gets to the Shop today?

I'm still looking for the next book to read. Thanks for the help with that, readers.

That was sarcastic. Ah well, see you tomorrow.

That was not sarcastic by the way.

Wednesday wailing

My oldest son turns 35 today. I've found myself asking myself several times, 'When did I get old enough to have a 35 year old kid?' Then I remember me Pops asking himself the same thing when I turned 35. In 1995. 22 years ago. When my oldest turned then 13, and I wondered how that happened so fast.

Have I beaten the point to death yet?

On another front: first world problems. At the start of my lunch hour today, I went to my fridge to get a glass of Faygo Rock and Rye soda. If you've never had Faygo Rock and Rye, let alone any Faygo (60/40 grapefruit soda is another good one) yours is a sad, deprived existence. Anyway, on opening the fridge I saw that the bottle was packed away in the back. Aw man, I gotta move the milk, some eggs, a quart of egg nog, a cake and a box of feta cheese and what-all else just to get me a glass of pop? But I made myself do it, because, well, it is Faygo Rock and Rye.

Oh, I grumbled under my breath as I, ah, worked towards my goal. And I made sure to leave it front and center for next time too. I mean, needing 10 seconds to get a glass of pop...even if it is Faygo Rock and Rye.

The vital search

I've just finished an interesting book 1944: FDR and the Year that changed History. Other than the fact that every year changes history, and that the author, Jay Winik, really is too considerate of President Roosevelt, it is a very good book. My trouble now is that I don't know what to read next.
There simply aren't enough good books in the world. There are a lot of books, yes, but so many of them are tripe, and maybe the majority of them. I do not believe in the argument that we should read just to read. Reading ought to be enlightening in some way, or short of that an enjoyable recreation. I've set aside many books which did not address either of those concerns. I will even concede that some books need to be fought through in order to get the point. Orwell's classic 1984 for example took me about five tries to get through because the first thirty or thirty five pages are just dreary. But when I finally finished it, I had to conclude that it deserves its classic status.
Yes, I realize that taste is in play, and that taste does vary. I know of people who have enjoyed books which I just could not get into, and no doubt I've loved books others despise. Then there are authors who write very well yet I cannot read with any satisfaction. The science fiction author Robert Heinlein comes to mind for me. He writes very well but at the end of the day his philosophy is too different from mine, and that clouds my reading. And it isn't as though I haven't made a serious try at reading him. I've read four of his works and just can't get beyond my ultimate disagreements with the man. However, if you are interested in how Hollywood can destroy an intriguing idea, read Heinlein's Starship Troopers then watch the movie of the same name. Even though I don't, in the end, agree with his premise, Hollywood simply massacred what is arguably a subject worth serious discussion.
So the bottom line is this. I'm stuck wanting to read something new and worthwhile and have no idea what to look for. Any suggestions?

The Ladder Incident

Me Pops had among his friends a big guy, a mountain of a man as he told it. I don't know if that meant the guy was simply huge in the intimidating way or that he was very fat. Whichever it was, that doesn't matter. I'll call the fellow Cloyce just to give him a name.

Cloyce was a roofer. His company was a decent size, so that he had several crews working for him who could of course be occupied on several jobs at once. So Cloyce basically gave estimates, got contracts signed, and went around inspecting progress.

As it were, me Grandpa Joe once contracted him to put a roof on the Old Barn. The Shop is only one floor tall, with a ten foot ceiling. This meant the roof was about 11 feet high. This meant that what was needed to access it was a twelve foot ladder. As I said, Cloyce didn't do much of the work but he did go around checking on his crews. In the course of things, then, he stopped by to see how it was going at the Shop.

He spoke to Pops and Joe for a minute, them climbed the nearby ladder to look over the progress of his men. Bear in mind that at that point in history ladders were wooden, not aluminum or fiberglass as they are today. As Cloyce returned to the ladder to climb down, the third rung from the top broke the instant Cloyce put all his weight on it. Yet instead of the man falling, and as he has grasped the ladder in each hand on each respective side rail, all that happened was Cloyce dropped a foot to the next rung. Which then broke. Dropping another foot, that rung broke with Cloyce's weight. Then the next, and the next , whump whump, whump, snap, snap, snap, until Cloyce was standing on the ground, still holding the side rails up by his gloved hands. He went down the ladder hesitatingly, in slow motion really, as one rung at a time cracked under his weight.

Grandpa Joe laughed so he hard he had to dab his eyes with his handkerchief. Pops just knew he had a good story to tell in the coming years.

Laughing at a Nativity Scene

As I drove back from Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs, and I mean that) this past Monday, I saw a Nativity scene in a yard next to a house. There's nothing surprising about that of course. It's that time of year.
It was one of those sets that was made up of plastic statues which could be lit up from the inside. So they were, every statue. The family had the three wise men already up, which arguably is being ahead of times as they didn't arrive until several days after Jesus' birth. But who am I to argue over minor details?
Anyway, one of the wise men was laying on his side, presumably due to the wind or whatever. It faced away from the road and also blocked the view of the crib so that you could not see the Christ Child. But as the other statues were duly kneeling with their hands in the prayer position, facing the road and thus the tipped over wise man, it looked to me as though they were all praying over a recently fallen comrade. I burst into laughter at this nativity scene askew.
Am I a bad person?

Hating winter

It's official. I'm calling it right now, just like an election.

After shoveling snow off and on for over 24 hours, after clearing it from my home and my work, and after digging three cars out, I'm calling it.

Winter sucks. And it's only December 12.

Christmas aside, it is no longer the most wonderful time of the year. Nope, not by a long shot. Spring cannot get here quickly enough.

Curling

I'm going curling tomorrow. I don't know that I want to.

It's a grand game, curling is. I've met a great many great friends through it, and that's a good thing. They are always in my heart. Still, I really don't want to curl tomorrow.

I've gotten my name on some hardware. But that's not really on my count. The boys, the girls, they've curled great a'fore me. I did nuthin'. They earned it, not me.

The triple kill lose the shooter, now there's a curling shot. I did not make it. Yet the stats don't show it.

I show it now. See ya tomorrow old boy.

Ruining a holiday favorite

This Saturday if memory serves me right, the classic Christmas special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer will be televised for, what, the fifty third year I think? I intend to watch, but I don't know if my family will watch it with me. You see, I think I ruined it for them.

We were watching it a few years ago, and my sense of humor wandered into the viewing. You remember the scene where he first meets his reindeer girlfriend? She asked what his name was and he replied, of course, Rudolph. He then asked her her name; she answered, "Mine's Clarice." I then said in my best Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lechter voice, "Hello Clarice."

I've been told that that joke ruined the show for them. But by gum, it was funny, if you ask me.

Exploding pandas

Like many a soul these days, I play online games. I play mostly on facebook, and have become somewhat adept at those games I play. You know how it is: you start playing and build up points, cruise through new levels, make your team stronger so that you play stronger teams and so on. It gets addictive, to be sure.

I've played WGT baseball for so long that I have a regular championship squad. Poker? I've played tens of thousands of hands, all with fake money. So I get get fake wins; it's not like it's fake news, right? I've played enough farkle, a dice game, that I'm so far advanced that it will be two years before I can level up again. Yeppers, I've wasted a lot of time on pointless gaming.

My latest addiction is Panda Pop. You save mama panda's babies in a variation of the old balloon pop games which have been around since Atari was a real player in the video game world. The panda cubs are trapped in bubbles in the sky and you have to save them, often using explosives. And it finally popped, hee, hee, hee, into my head this morning: I'm saving baby pandas by blowing them up.

Doesn't that seem somehow wrong? I mean, how do you save a life by blowing it to smithereens anyway? Especially lovable little pandas.

The useless handshake

When something gets ingrained, it stays ingrained. Especially when it's ingrained in Uncle Patrick.

Grandpa Joe and Uncle Patrick did a lot of work together. It was mostly short day projects around the Shop. When the work was over, Joe would always offer his hand to Pat and they would shake. It was Joe's signal that they were through with another well done job.

One day, at a time when he and Pat were not working together, Joe had gotten down on the floor looking for something or other. And as happens with many of us as we get older, he couldn't get back up. And as it was, Uncle Patrick was walking by. Joe held out his right hand to Pat...who took it and shook it heartily, released it, then went on his way. Without helping his grandfather up off the floor.

Joe thought it was hilarious enough that he told the tale over and over. It is pretty funny at that.

The boss of the applesauce

Last night I made a batch of Marty's World Famous Applesauce. If you haven't heard of it, you're in the wrong world. But it's so good everyone should try it. So as a public service, today I'm going to tell you how to make it.

First, get apples. I recommend red delicious, mackintosh, or the northern spy variety. They're okay to eat but make better sauce. Do not use gala or golden delicious; them's eatin' apples, and it's a sacrilege to cook those. They're that good. Similarly, using Mutsu apples for applesauce is a sin even if you aren't religious. Eat them as they are you heathen.

Anyway, peel and core the apples. How many, you ask? I dunno. How much applesauce do you want? I make my batches using 40 - 50 apples, and a good peeler/corer can do that many in about an hour. If you want to make a smaller batch I ask, why would you want to? To repeat: this is great applesauce. You don't want a wee bit. That's just a tease. It would only make you insane.

Now, put those peeled apples in a big pot and boil them down. Put about six cups of water in the pot with them to start. Without some water you'll burn the apples. But too much water isn't good either, as more liquid will form as the apples boil down. Stir regularly and stir properly, bringing the apples at the bottom of the pot to the top. You can handle that, right?

When everything's boiled down to a saucy consistency, with some small chunks of soft apples left for bulk, add sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The sugar makes it sweet, the cinnamon makes it cinnamony, and the nutmeg...well, I don't know what the nutmeg does. But if it ain't there your applesauce will not be good, and you will have failed Applesauce 101. Miserably.

How much sugar and stuff? I don't know. I just mix it to taste, so mix it my taste. How do you know my taste? I can't tell you everything you know, heh-heh.

Oh all right. Between four and five cups of sugar and about two teaspoons of cinnamon and one teaspoon of nutmeg. Don't forget the nutmeg. It's important for some reason.

Now, you eat it. You will be singing my praises as you do. If you've successfully made it to my taste of course.

Washington and morality

And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion...reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

- George Washington, from his Farewell Address

I have said many times that morality, indeed any issues of right and wrong, must have a God of some sort behind them. Without an objective norm to fall back on, any and all questions of good and evil, even issues of simple prudence, are nothing more than your word against mine. In such a case, problems would be resolved only through might makes right, whether at the hand of a single tyrant or that old saw consensus, which is but a name for the tyranny of the majority. We must do right because it is right on its own terms as instituted by the Creator of the natural law.

Consensus cannot make something right. Consensus is merely what the majority of the people at a given time happen to want which they are able to subject upon the minority. I have been told further that morality 'develops' as people 'discover' what works and what does not; that sounds like consensus in a varied form, and little more. Do we honestly believe that such is the best way to create good law and rational public policy?

Obviously it is not. We require a Supreme Being, a supreme and final Law, in order to do well and avoid evil. To those who object, which God?, I say, the one whom philosophy as much as religion insists is there. From that point we can safely speculate on how such a being would expect us to act. It is then when we start to cross into religious principle because at that point we begin to realize that people are special, that doing wrong against them is an evil in itself because it is an affront to their dignity as individuals. A dignity they have by virtue of their humanity, as given them by God. It does not come from them or anything they do.

So there is no reason to base morality and law on anything slippery such as convention, which can and will change as generations do. We need that eternal sense, that eternal reality, if we are to make a good society, and become good people. For any ideal of dignity must come from the religious ideal that everyone deserves proper respect. That cannot come from any simple human act. It can only come from above, overarching each individual. We recognize that and live accordingly, or we slowly perish.

Cloyce and locks

That old employee, friend, and erstwhile compatriot of me Grandpa Joe, the one I call Cloyce just to give him a name, was, shall we say, dense. A few straws shy of a bale. A brick short of a load. A bubble off plumb. A good guy, just not particularly smart. He was as sharp as a bowling ball. He had a room temperature IQ. He...you get it.

Years ago, Joe had bought a new trailer for carrying welders, pipe threaders, and other equipment around. But he had nowhere to put it, and wanted it as safe as could be. So he decided that the thing to do would be to get a heavy chain and solid lock, and chain the trailer to a large elm in his back yard. He went to the hardware and purchased the necessaries. On return, he sent Cloyce to lock the trailer up. "Lock her up tight!" were he last instructions to Cloyce. Cloyce went off to attend the chore.

After work that night, Joe was sitting on his back porch with a smoke and decided to go admire his new trailer. He walked up to it, looked it over, and walked around it just for pleasure. When he was half way around it, he saw that it was not locked to the tree. The chain however was wound as tight as could be around the trunk of the elm, the lock glistening in the evening sun and forced right up upon the trunk itself. That tree weren't going nowhere.

Joe got the key and rectified the situation, stopping occasional to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes.

Locking nothing

You see things, obviously, when you take regular walks around the neighborhood. Some stay the same, some change, and some are downright odd.

For weeks now I have passed a house with not one but two sections of fence missing. Why they were removed I don't know, but I'm guessing it was to allow the owners to park their truck inside their yard. Even at that, I don't see why two sections of fence needed removal as the truck clearly could fit through one open section.

Be that as it may, what really puzzles me about this is that there is a gate one standing fence section down from the missing ones. On that gate is one big, honking lock.

I wonder, did someone miss a memo? What's the point of a very sturdy lock on a gate with a wide open yard? Oh, maybe there is some reasonable explanation. But it's more fun to presume it's stupidity, isn't?

Be honest. It is, isn't it? And hey, maybe it is stupidity after all.

Spending someone else's money

Yeah, I know I've said that I wouldn't dabble into political issues much here, and I meant it. But I did reserve the right to do it every now and then. Well, today is now. Or then, take your pick.
I am a political conservative. Why? For many reasons, really, yet one does kind of stand out. I think we have to be very careful about taking other people's money and spending it however we like. The essence of government spending is exactly that: taking other people's money and spending it however we like.
I'm not arguing against any and all forms of taxing and spending. We need government, and government does need money in order to work. Still, the idea that something should have public money spent on it simply because I want it spent, because the majority of voters want it spent, that way, is hubris, even arrogance. No matter how good of an idea it might be on certain levels, and especially no matter how good of an idea you may think it is, it doesn't automatically follow that you should force other people to pay for it.
The simple guideline is that government should generally only spend for a substantial public interest. I would look at the 18 basic ways of public spending as outlined in Article 1 of the Constitution as a good guideline. After that, we really shouldn't be too quick to demand, yes, demand, that individuals cough up their cash for what someone else believes right and just. Simply put, that is the tyranny of the majority. That's as bad as the tyranny of a king.

Cloyce and the broken welder in Rochester

Grandpa Joe rented arc welders, some of which were powered by six cylinder gasoline engines. He had a mechanic, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who worked for him part time. Cloyce was a very good mechanic, to give him his due. He also didn't drive. He also drank profoundly. One day when a welder was on the fritz in Rochester, about 30 miles north of Detroit, and no one else was available, Joe had me drive Cloyce out to fix it.

We loaded some tools and a box of commonly used repair parts into a pickup truck and off we went. I was a rather naive young lad of 16 and had only been driving for a couple of months. Consequently I was slow to read the signals that something was going seriously wrong.

At first it wasn't much. Cloyce had begun, well, not quite slurring his words but drawing them out. When he would speak to me he would start sentences with, Mawr-ty, and then say whatever he had to say. It didn't matter to me. I was just doing my job. Then he said with an odd emphasis, "Mawrty", almost like a command. I turned and said, "Yeah, Cloyce?". He was pointing his cigarette lighter, which looked like a pistol, at me. He made the sound of a gunshot - pschew - as he pulled the trigger, lighting a flame at me. "Funny, Cloyce", I said. But at the time I needed more than a simple clue that things were amiss. I needed to be hit with a pile of bricks.

The bricks fell on me when we were almost to our destination. "Mawrty," I heard, "Could you pull over to that pawrty store so I can get some Coke to mix with this?" I looked over to see him displaying a half drained fifth of vodka.

"Put that away Cloyce! Do you know how much trouble that could get us into?" I half screamed. By us, I meant me. I was the driver who knew what the law said about open intoxicants. And then I remembered, I'm 16. I don't know anything about fixing welders. He's got to get that thing working.

What to do, what to do? All I could think was to get him to the job and hope for the best. So that's what I did.

We arrived, and I made Cloyce stay in the pickup while I found the foreman. He came out of his trailer office and directed me to where the machine sat. It was on the other side of an eight foot berm. Great.

I drove over to it, got the tools and parts over to the welder and then got Cloyce and hobbled him over the berm next. He commenced to stumble around the machine, doing this and that and I don't know what while I prayed he would somehow get us out of the mess we faced. I faced. In a few minutes the foreman came along to check on our progress. He couldn't help notice the state Cloyce was in. He leaned towards me and whispered, "Is he okay?"

"Oh, yeah," I answered. "He's just got a neurological disorder." It was all I could think of.

The foreman looked at me with a skeptical raised eyebrow. But right then we heard the roar of an engine. Cloyce had gotten that welder running, Lord knows how.

The foreman pursed his lips and patted my head as if to say, all right kid, we're good, problem solved, but I know all you just did was give me an excuse in case I get asked. He walked away. I got Cloyce and the tools and parts back over the berm and started home gratefully. But the next time I took Cloyce to a job, I made certain there were no hidden bottles in the truck.

Another Black Friday

Once there was a day called Black Friday. It was meant to launch the holiday shopping season, and was known to start as early as 4 or 5 in the morning on the day after Thanksgiving. Yet that, it seems, was not good enough. We have reached the point where the sales are encroaching so far into Thanksgiving itself that there are stores opening as early as 3 or 5PM Thursday afternoon. We are now faced with Black Thursday.

There is something seriously wrong with this picture, something which speaks to a serious ill in American society. Why do we need these sales? Why do people think they have they right to them? And before all the rabid libertarian free marketers go livid about it (no one makes them do it, what about freedom?) let's ask you two things: aren't some folks (if not most involved, quite frankly) being made to do things?, and, isn't their freedom thus being sacrificed?

It is hard to imagine that the bulk of sales and support staff at stores would rather be working than at home with their families and friends on a major holiday. The same can be said of those working arenas for sporting events as well, or even at television stations and entertainment establishments. Why do we think we have the right to expect those people to have to work for our leisure?

This isn't capitalism. It's consumerism, and it's the worst example of bacchanalia. It is the time of year when we least like free markets, and perhaps the best time to remind those who do preach them that economics aren't everything. Simple, unfettered economics may well infringe on someone's freedom as well as any government attempt to stifle a reasoned liberty. Yet there is a difference. There's at least a small chance that, with a bit of discipline at the voting booth door, we might actually stop government. Is there any way we might stop the Invisible Hand?

Anything which does not practice a decent amount self examination and a reasonable self discipline will become a devil. The free market is no different. Yet it does create quite the hypocrites among its defenders, doesn't it? They express a disdain for coercion. Yet they sure don't mind the coercion which the markets force upon people.

That strikes us as violence against the person as hateful as any government encroachment upon the person. But the free marketers won't see it. They have their own god attending to their business. And it is not constrained by care for humanity.

Thanksgiving 2017

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789

Anyone who claims that we weren't founded on Christian principles, read these words well and carefully. And have a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving in that light.

Non-denominational is good

It's all about the Benjamins, the saying goes. The Benjamins are cool, yes. But so are the Georges, the Abrahams, and the Andrews. Money comes like religion: by denomination. I have been paid by several denominations, often in a nice mix. Sometimes those payments have been a bit unusual.

Yesterday a customer's order came to $140.00. He said, "I hope you like change," and paid me in all five dollar bills. Yep, 28 Lincolns. Another time on a $470.00 tab a guy from Canada gave me 47 tens. He said it was what they gave him at the currency exchange. Hey, I don't care. It all spends.

But about 40 years ago Pops was paid off in the most unusual way I've seen so far. For a $1900 dollar machine he was paid with 1890 singles and a ten dollar bill. Yessir, One Thousand Eight Hundred Ninety dollar bills. The customer owned several laundry mats and most of income was dollar bills, from change to run the washers and dryers to buying the single load boxes of detergent from the self service machines. He lived on singles.

Pops didn't even bother to count it. The stack was impressive enough that he took the guy at his word. And it all spent.

Canada vs. The United States

While channel surfing yesterday I ended up watching a few minutes of the Toronto-Saskatchewan Canadian Football League playoff game. It was on ESPN News, so there must not have been much news to report.
Hey, my many Canadian friends, I joke!
Anyway, it reminded me of all the relatively minor differences between the two games, the NFL here with the CFL there. Let's see how many I can list:
Three downs instead of four.
A one yard neutral zone between the offensive and defensive lines.
12 men on the field per side rather than 11.
Numerous men in motion on the offensive side of the ball, and towards the line of scrimmage (that takes getting used to).
Red penalty flags instead of yellow.
The 'rouge', the single point a defensive team gets if the offense can't get the ball out of the end zone on a punt or kickoff return.
A longer field (110 yards) with deeper end zones (20 yards). They don't have a 50 yard line but a centre line at the 55 yard mark.
A wider field (not sure by how much).
No fair catches on punts, but a five yard halo to allow the catch.
A three minute warning at the end of the half or game. Apparently it takes longer for Canadians to see to their needs (Hey, I joke again!).
Is there more? Maybe. This is what I remembered, and without the help of Wikipedia I might add. Feel free to tack onto this list or correct me. And remember, this is what's starting your Monday off right.
By the way, Toronto won 25-21.

Baby it's cold outside

It's that time of year. That time where I have to ask myself how much longer I can take morning walks. Beyond there being snow and ice on the ground I have no hard and fast rules about when to give up the daily constitutional. But today left me thinking about when I should stop.

There were snowflakes wafting by me this morning. The skies were gray and the air chill, though the sun did try to sneak through the clouds. It was, at the risk of understatement, dreary.

I'll not quit for a few weeks yet, to be sure. So long as I can layer and not feel too much frost on my nose I'll keep going. Part of the trouble is that walking's become my favorite form of exercise. It offers change with continuity if only on a small scale, something regular readers will know I value. Sure, we have a motorized treadmill and an exercise bike in the basement. But man, they're dull, even with the TV or radio on, or a CD playing. At least walking through even the same neighborhood varies a bit: you can wind around it differently. And walking by itself feels like progress. Staying in the same place feels just like that.

So we'll see. Last year I made until the first significant snowfall, which happened in mid-December. December 11, I believe, was my last walk last year. So my goal is beat that. Otherwise, to the exercise bike!

At least, that's my mantra. Making it into reality will be the actual challenge of course.

Alternate universes

You see some odd things in my world. Let me see if I can paint you enough of a picture to understand a recent instance.
A customer brought in three eight foot lengths of drain cable to be repaired. No surprises there: we fix drain snakes. Yet instead of bringing them in singly or in a box, he had connected them together, so that they were in a circle with a twenty-four foot circumference. Oh-kay.
But he went farther than that. He twist looped that large circle into a figure eight, then folded that figure eight into itself to form a smaller circle. He tied that circle together with wire. After that, he looped that second circle into another figure eight, folded it into a still smaller circle, tied that one up with wire, and wrapped it up in four places with duct tape.
Of course, we didn't know all that until we went to fix the cables. The truth spread itself before us on the shop floor as we made what might be described as an archaeological dismantling of the circled cables. We wondered why this guy would go to such bizarre extremes. My brother Phil asked it best: "In what universe did he think this made sense?"
Indeed.

This is sympathy?

As many of you know I'm not curling this year. I'm afraid my vertigo might be a problem while playing.

I was talking about this to my son Frank a few days ago. "I'm afraid I could fall and hurt myself, or hurt someone else while I'm out on the ice," I lamented.

"Yeah. Or you could burn a rock!" he remarked, a little too enthusiastic on the point. Or perhaps too critical, eh?

You cannot touch a curling stone in motion. That's called 'burning' the rock, and is illegal. If I were to become dizzy and fall, touching the rock at all, it would violate the rules. Still, can I live with such sympathy?

Mud flap Cloyce

An old friend of the old man's, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, was from Tennessee. One day when he wanted to visit home, he asked if Pops would like to tag along for the ride, so Pops did. Cloyce took the first shift driving, so Dad settled into the passenger's seat and promptly feel asleep.
He was eventually woken up by an odd sound. It was kind of between a rhythmic slap and thwap, slap-thwap, slap-thwap, slap-thwap, all in pretty quick succession. He raised his eyes to see that the noise was caused by the mud flaps of the truck in front of them. Cloyce was cruising along at 60 miles per hour about eighteen inches behind a semi trailer.
Pops was self aware enough to not shout out and maybe cause an accident. He raised himself, yawned, and asked pointedly, "Hadn't you better back off a bit, Cloyce?"
"I'm fine."
"I'm. Not." Pops had responded just like that, two one word sentences. He then continued similarly. "Back. Off."
Cloyce backed off about two feet.
A restaurant soon loomed in the distance, and Pops said to pull over, he was hungry. When they parked, he demanded the car keys. "Why?" Cloyce demanded.
"Because I never want to see a speeding truck that close again on purpose!" Dad drove the rest of the way to Tennessee, and home too. I'm not sure he was ever again a passenger of ol' Cloyce.

A tribute to drain snakes

I sell drain snakes. My mind is always in the sewer.
I get a lot of miles with that quip, yet it's sometimes not well received. My cousin Patty slapped my shoulder after I told it to a Dominican nun who is a common cousin. "You can't say that to a nun!" she exclaimed. Oh, I don't know. Sister Veronica seemed to think it funny enough. Patty was laughing too, so I'm not sure it was all that bad.
I'm actually wondering if I could profitably open a museum of drain cleaning equipment. I have several unique things already in my possession, and there's quite a bit more variety to drain snakes than you might think. At one point there were over 15 manufacturers in the US alone, although I'm not sure that's still the case. I know one company for certain no longer in production; actually two now that I think about it. Each company has or had many different models of their own too. It's not as though there have been only one Electric Eel for example.
Shameless plug time: if you need a snake, you need an Electric Eel. I say that because I sell them. But I also firmly believe they're the best drain cleaners out there. That's because they are.
There are all kinds of cutting heads too, and there are water jetters and drain inspection cameras as well. There surely is a varied enough array of equipment that a small building could house many items. And I could finally achieve my life long dream of being a docent.
I'll try to keep my mind out of the sewer for long enough to give it real thought.

Newark, North Carolina

I spent a few precious hours over three days last week with my son's family in relatively rural Ohio. There is a large cornfield right outside their back door perhaps 15 feet from the porch, just, and I mean only just, past their driveway. Once in particular I stepped outside and looked across the lightly rolling country, over the currently plowed up cornfield, and I smiled reflexively. I was ambushed by an old feeling, one I hadn't felt in years. I felt like I was back in North Carolina in my youth, looking out over the 13 acres of my grandfather's small farm. You could step off his back porch and spy a similar sight.

What goes around, eh? I find that the older I get the more often I am overtaken by old sensations, even those now decades old. This is not a bad thing. I wonder if it's what keeps us sane; there's something good to be said about continuity within cycles, of similarities with differences. We have the seasons, each distinct (in much of the world anyway) yet returning. It allows us change while also grounding us. We need change. But we need constants too.

So I had the opportunity to remember what it was like to be with me old Grandpaw Hutchins, up early and checking out the crops, if only for a relatively fleeting moment. I found in an instant a connection between my oldest son and the great-grandfather he only met once, and that as a six month old infant. We have a picture of them somewhere; I need to find it.

Anyway, what goes around. Life is good.

Jake Redux

While we nowadays do most of our own pickup and delivery for the Shop, at one time we had most things shipped. This meant that our large orders came truck freight. One day as we unloaded a shipment out of the trailer of a semi, the driver asked me Pops, "What are these things?"

Dad answered, "Drain snakes, parts and accessories. What people use to open drains."

"Oh." the man replied. After a pause he asked, "Know a guy they call Jake the Snake?"

Dad answered questioningly, "Yeah?"

"Ya like him?"

Pops figured by then the fella must know old Jake. Still, he responded tactfully, "I don't care for his company."

"Neither do I. None of the family does. I'm Ron; I'm Jake's brother." Ron went on to explain the family excluded Jake from all and any functions because all he would do is disrupt them in any way he could.

Blood runs thick, but apparently has its limits too.

Dad and Jake the Snake (not the wrestler)

Me Pops could hold his temper very well. He held it often when he would have been within his rights to lose it. Still, when he let it go, you were impressed. He let it go once on a guy known as Jake the Snake. And not the wrestler.

I'm not sure exactly how Jake earned his moniker, but I have a suspicion. He argued everything. If a part was available in red he wanted to know why it wasn't scarlet. If told cables were readily available in twenty-five foot increments he'd cry he had to have one thirty foot long, nothing else would do. Yet most of all he argued price. He argued price until the day Pops was sick of it.

Jake came in for some ten dollar part. "Ten dollars," Dad told him.

"You give it to me for seven," Jake countered, demanding rather than asking.

That set Pops off. He slammed the part back into its bin and yelled, and I mean yelled, "Get out of my Shop. I don't want your business!"

"You throwing me out?" Jake asked, appalled. "I can buy you out ten times over!"

Pops barked back like a drill sergeant, "The Hell you can, 'cause I'm not selling. Now get out of my Shop!" Jake stomped out, and Dad stomped into his office.

You could get away with a lot with Pops. But you could still push him too far.

Hillbillies from the north of England

Now, me Irish heritage Pops, he married a hillbilly. A proud hillbilly. So being immensely proud of her meself, I'm a half proud hillbilly, me maw being from the western hills of North Carolina. And I do indeed wear that half badge fully proudly.
Now also me Pops grew up in the mixed village of nearly downtown Detroit. So mixed in fact that even a few pure Englishmen still survived there back in the day, when me Pops were young. One of them whom me Pops knew well was Mr. Britton. That be no joke, pun, nor misdemeanor. His name be Mr. Britton. Mr. Britton was a true, fine son of Olde England. And, having committed himself to the northern United States, he (to his shame) hated American hillbillies.
They was the scourge of the earth, them rapscallions of the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern U-nited States. He spewed venom at them always, everyways, and many ways in between.
Well, it happened that a long, tall, thin son of England, every bit of six foot one as it be, one appropriately monikered Slim, an emigrant himself of England as Pops recalled, delivered product to me Grandpa Joe's shop. And one fine morning, he came by with a truckload of fine product. And one morning, me Pops happened to see Mr. Britton opening his garage that he might take his fine Chevy out on a morning trek.
"Mr. Britton,' me Pops called, "I have here a son of your land."
The two exchanged greetings, after which old Slim asked, "So where are ye from?"
"Birmingh'm", answered Mr. Britton proudly, forgettin' the vowel.
"Ah, bloody hillbilly are ya?" responded Slim immediately. Apparently English folk from Birmingh'm were, in English parlance, hillbillies.
As Pops told it, Mr. Britton yanked his cigar from his mouth, tossed it angrily on the ground, stomped its flame out, and, falling into his Chevy, sped away. But Slim, he merely opined, "Ah well".

Mr. Hannah, teller of tall tales

Old Charley Hannah wasn't a bad sort of fellow. I always fancied he thought himself a storyteller. He was more a teller of tall tales, quite frankly, and at the heart of it I think he just loved to hear himself talk. That lead to certain lapses in continuity when he spoke.

He was in the Old Barn one day years ago while Dad was off somewhere. As I worked on his machine and my brother worked nearby Charley remarked, "I bet I'm about as old as your daddy."

"Could be, Mr. Hannah," I replied. "Pops was born in 1936."

Old Charley began wistfully, "Nineteen thutty six,' and I felt a story was coming on. He continued, "I was fidteen years old in 1936..."

I don't remember the tale. I spent the whole time thinking, 'But, you said you were about Dad's age, but now say you were 15 when he was born, and that's not that close, so how could you, why would you think...'

About that time Charley finished the story and broke into a laugh. I read the signal and laughed too. But I don't recall a thing about what he told. I only remember my confusion.

Stay off the streets, pedestrians

I wish I owned the roads as much as a lot of pedestrians seem to think they do. I am sick and tired of folks walking in the middle of the road, only begrudgingly giving way to vehicular traffic as it approaches. Approaches slowly, mind you, because if Heaven forbid you hit them it's on you, despite the fact that they're where they should not be.

The lack of consideration for drivers as well as their own safety is appalling. This morning two people were blocking the farthest right driving lane walking towards me on a main artery four lanes wide, while the sidewalks alongside had no obstructions whatsoever. I could cut them slack if they were in the curb lane and the walks overrun with snow or debris or what have you, but they were clear and easy to step along. Why were those two idiots in the road? Then one woman, a phone to her ear, wove in and around cars at an intersection. You can't move when can't be sure of where some moron's walking next.

It's actually worse on side streets. I've come along high schoolers walking five abreast in the middle of the road, blocking it completely. Before you dismiss this as simply younger folks not thinking, I've seen it with adults all too often. Then, as I said, they'll only grudgingly part enough for your car, and I mean only just enough for your car to pass by, sneering at you as you do. They act as though you're the one intruding on their space.

I've been offered explanations but, quite frankly, none pan out. A guy told me it was to keep off the walks for safety; someone might run out from between houses and grab or rob them. Sorry, my friends, that's just grasping for justification. Why couldn't someone run from a crouch between cars and get you? Perhaps the walks aren't clear? But we've addressed that. It doesn't wash, either.

The short story is that it's arrogance. They walk in the street because they can, and it's a way of showing they own you. If you have a better explanation, I'm all ears. Until then, I hold that they ought to be smacked upside the head and told to be considerate of how the road was intended to be used.

The World Series

To Hell with the Super Bowl. To Hell with that very fictional college football championship. This is the summit of sports. The peak. The. Highest. Point.

Baseball is the peak. The point all others strive for, vainly. The Houston Astros sit there.

This is baseball.

No city, locale, region, no vaguely defined area, wants a Super Bowl more than they want a World Series championship.

Houston now has it. J. J. Watt is a great man. But he did nothing compared to what the Houston Astros just did. The Texans can now rot.

Houston won a World Series.

This is life. This is good. Life begins again in late February, when the first pitch of the Grapefruit League is thrown. See ya then.

Halloween 2017

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. Then when we're done we'll go inside and order the Charlie Brown Halloween special to cap off the night.
Happy Halloween all!

Mom

She just sits there, mostly. Where she used to waltz around, barking orders, butting in on conversations, asking if everyone has had enough to eat, she now just sits. When she does offer conversation it's usually sudden and incongruent. "How's everyone doing your way?" she asks me out of the blue, right as my brothers are in the middle of ranting about something unimportant. I just answer that we're all okay. Silence follows.

Her right hand shakes, not tremulously but noticeably, but she takes it in her left to control it. It's an unconditioned reaction. You can tell. You just can.

I've begun driving her to Church on Saturday afternoons, even though I don't like her Church. But it satisfies my Sunday obligation, and, though it's the only driving she had still until then done, we feel she should not do that. And it was Dad's Church, Dad's Mass, so it's important to her to go there. She's an usher, like he was, and she smartly marches down her aisle collecting donations, although the other guy handles the cash.

She seems to like my being there, to drive and at Church. She introduces me as her son to the same people I met last week. I pretend it is new. So do they, bless their souls.

I'm no martyr. My brothers, especially Phil, bear the brunt of her illness. I do next to nothing. But the parents raise the kids, then the kids raise the parents, eh?

The trouble is, the kids know the endgame.

The true to himself jerk

I've come to discover that I don't much like the phrase be true to yourself, or any of its various incantations. I find it ultimately, as I find so much else, conditional. Left unexamined, it begs a lot of questions, the most important of which is, what if you're a jerk?

I mean, if a guy's a jerk and he just stays that way, isn't he being 'true' to 'himself'? Why shouldn't he, if being magnificently whatever he innately is is the standard to live by? He would be being true to himself. But we don't say that. We tell him, don't be such a jerk.

So I'm officially kicking a whole phrase into the pile of meaningless words (if unexamined) such as peace, freedom, education and so forth. I assert that you should not be true to yourself unless and until you have become a better person. That means asking yourself and answering honestly what actions and beliefs will make you positively better. Before you do that, I suggest that you should not be true to yourself. A child will always be a child unless he grows into adulthood. And jerks will stay jerks until they evolve past that.

Memories in the rubble

Yesterday afternoon I felt all kinds of emotions, running the gamut from, well, the sublime to the ridiculous.

I watched like a giddy child as a demolition crew tore down an abandoned house in the neighborhood. It's interesting how destruction enthralls us. Maybe we wish we were handling the levers of that scoop shovel ourselves as it ravenously engulfed and tore down walls. It's easy to be impressed by such power over otherwise strong materials such as wood and brick. I even filmed through my camera phone four minutes of the work. The once magnificent house of the middle class was a pile of debris in less than an hour.

Yet there was a sadness in the air too. Most houses in my neighborhood have stood since the 1890's, so that old girl was in the range of 120 years old. Workmen, professionals like brick masons, carpenters, plasterers (everything was wet plastered back then), electricians, roofers and more had pried their skills over several months to create a tidy Victorian home which had served as refuge for who knew how many for over a century. It had all fell down in a matter of minutes.

And there was a piquancy as well. The folks I knew who had lived there were a sister and a brother. Miss Jeter always had a laugh, smile, or honestly pleasant how are you. She had a big blue Buick she loved. I still see her and that car rolling across the hood. Her brother, Mr. Wilson A. Watson, was about as unassuming an old gentleman as you could know. He lost a leg in World War II and hobbled around as best he could with his cane. He would laugh and joke with you quickly, and wore a grin which was all sunshine despite his obvious challenges. He never in my presence complained over them. I don't remember when they died, and I'm ashamed that I don't know.

This world just keeps on turning. Yet every once'n awhile it does seem to stop to let us reflect.

A new door on the old barn

Hey Pops, hey Joe, you'll never believe what we did today.

We put a new door on the old Shop.

I think you guys'd like it too. We contracted the local handyman, who made the new one from scratch as the old door and frame were, well, um, not exactly done according to industry standards. He made it out of new wood, and boy is it solid. I'm surprised myself the old door stayed up so long. Between you two back in the day and me and Phil lately, well, it had been scabbed over so often the hinges should not have held up from the weight. Even at that, it had become so loose that it could have easily been ripped down.

Yeah, I hear ya. We were afraid too that a new door would stand out, making folks realize something was going on in the old barn and attract their mischief. So what'd we do? We took the old boards off the outer layer of the old door and nailed 'em to the outside of the new one. From the street, it looks like an old door on an old, maybe abandoned building. From inside it looks new and purty. Smart thinkin', eh?

Yep, there's a new door on the old barn. Shuts tight too. As I say, you guys would like it.

Until next time,

Marty

Woodbridge wildlife

Nature is resilient. That's one of the reasons that I'm not all that concerned about global warming/climate change/nuclear winter or whatever it's now being called. Nature will rebound; it will adapt. I need look no further than my neighborhood, Woodbridge in Detroit, to see that's true.

Over the years we've seen pheasant, rabbits, and raccoons living vibrantly nearby. And along with them come the predators. I recall watching a hawk land upon the top of a utility pole, it's wingspan at least five feet, the large bird honestly majestic as it settled gently on its perch. It looked down at me like, yeah, I could take you. If I wanted to. I'm glad it did not want.

But recently an unexpected denizen has taken up in our area. Three times recently, right outside the Shop, my humble workplace, I've seen a beaver. I have no idea where it came from, although there is a larger block nearby which appears to have turned to swamp or wetland. I presume it comes from there.

If such a variety of wildlife can adapt to a central city, I'm not too worried about the world as a whole.

The polar opposite

As I related yesterday, I took my van to my mechanic. He tuned it up and it's running great. Yet there's still something wrong.
Driving home, I couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't quite right. It drove smoothly and accelerated well. It did better than it's done in a long time in fact. I couldn't quite put my finger on the problem though.
That's when I noticed this blank spot on the dashboard. That blank spot didn't look right at all. I wondered what it could be. I began to worry about what it could be.
Then I realized that my service engine soon light was not on. My mechanic had tuned up the van, and that apparently caused the warning light to stay off. So today, right after stating that I did not worry about idiot lights begin on, I'm concerned about the fact that one particular idiot light, one that I'm very used to being on, is off.
It'll be weeks now before I'm really comfortable driving the thing. Maybe I should have left well enough alone.

It's just a car

I took my van to the mechanic today. It's been running rough when accelerating, although when I get to speed it holds the speed well.

I tend not to fret about my cars. If they start and get me from point A to point B, I'm happy. To give you an idea of how little I watch my cars, I never, ever worry about the 'check engine' or 'service engine soon' lights being on. All they mean are that the mix of air and gas isn't spot on or that the engine is somehow not running ideally. I say the hell with that. Live with it; all those sensors cars have these days simply detect too many things too delicately. Check oil lights and heat gauges are the ones to watch. If you're car's running too hot or has low oil pressure, those are the real danger signs. If it's making noises it obviously shouldn't make, then be concerned. And of course, check fluids regularly. Otherwise, no worries.

Anyway, the old girl's been running rough enough that I figured it should be checked this time around. "Does the check engine light come on?" my long time and no doubt long suffering mechanic asked.

"It's always on, Sam. You should know that, " I answered.

He snickered, "Right. Well, does the light flash when you accelerate hard?"

"That it does. Then it stops flashing when I reach speed."

Sam responded, "It probably just needs a tune up. I'll put the tester on it and let you know."

Boom. No worries, no big deal. Don't worry so much about your cars, folks. I would have kept driving it if I'd known that was all there was to it.

Dumpster diving Dan

When we moved into our house, the upstairs bathroom had a nice mahogany toilet seat. But as with all things human made, it eventually broke. I went to the hardware and bought a decent replacement. We simply threw the old one in the common dumpster which we shared at that time with about six neighbors.
Several days later I happened to be in my neighbor Dan's house. Excusing myself to use his washroom, I saw a nicely refinished mahogany toilet seat. "When did you get this, Dan?" I asked.
"Out of the dumpster. Isn't it cool? Someone was throwing it out; can you believe that?" He had taken the thing, reglued and refinshed it, and put it on his commode.
I answered, "Yes I can, because it was mine. I can't believe you took something like from a dumpster!"
"It's perfectly good," he protested. But that didn't keep him from chastising me several days later when the seat had rebroken and left a blood blister on the back of his thigh. "You toilet seat did that to me," he whined.
"Serves you right dumpster diving stuff like that," was all I said.

Talk is cheap

There are many things which no one seems to oppose. We're all for peace, correct? Education? The environment? Observing the Golden Rule, perhaps, if such references are not too religious? Yet so often these claims ring hollow. They must, you see: for peace and education are just words. By themselves, they really mean nothing.

It is critically important that we bring up and discuss the questions which must follow these words if our actions are to mean anything; indeed, if the words themselves are at some point to be of value, of good use. WE must ask: peace under what circumstances? Peace for whom? Because of course peace in the sense of a lack of war was very useful for Hitler yet was a rather poor mantra for Austria.

Simply put, the next time someone asks you if you are for peace, or education, or the environment, ask them relevant questions before you answer. Ask them, peace under what conditions? Education to what purpose and in what manner? The environment for whom and how? Before these issues are addressed we have nothing but a shallow and insipid pool of vacuous semi-thought. Yet afterwards, we may actually accomplish things.

Squirrel bacon

Tonight, after work, I get to work some more. One of the problems with living in the city is the number of squirrels that need places to live. The large furry rats seem particularly adept at finding the worst possible place to homestead.

Such as the rafters in my house. This evening I will be repairing the fifth hole in my roof line where the obnoxious and definitely not cute little rodents have chewed their way into my humble abode. Obnoxious? That isn't even near to the best word to describe them. When you are woken up at four in the morning because of their skittering around in your walls and ceilings (I do so hope they're only skittering around) the thing you want most is a shotgun. Which is probably why it is good that I don't have one, or I would be repairing dozens of holes in my inside walls too.

They make my wonderful daughter say bad things: things that wonderful daughters definitely should never say except, one day, to husbands who deserve it. But as she has a loft type bed which puts her very close to the ceiling, I will cut her slack. The dancing of the rabid giant rats is closer to her than me in my more traditional bed, so I assume more startling and maddening. Still, I am mad enough all of five feet farther below them.

Some folks go on and on about animal rights. Animal rights? There is no animal with the right to wake my family in the wee hours of the morning. Well, maybe the dog, if she has to go out. But she's trained to do that and saves me a worse issue later, so she's being considerate. She has a reason.

I am told squirrel tastes like bacon. I like bacon. The little fuzzballs might be in worse trouble now.

Cloyce in reverse

A good friend of mine back in high school, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, was the first of our troop to earn his driver's license. He was proud of that, as a teenager would be, and we envied him, as teenagers would. But the first time I rode with him proved to tarnish some of the luster on his driving ability.

I happened to be around when his mother asked him to go to the store for something or other, so I went with. He drove the few blocks to the old A & P and, seeing the parking lot jammed, decided he would show off his skills by parallel parking on the street. He pulled just past a space, lined up his seat with the driver's door of a parked car, shifted, then turned all the way around in his seat, arm over the back, and began to gently give the family's old station wagon gas. Rrrrrrrrr, the engine revved easily. But the car didn't move.

Cloyce looked confused, but went on applying the gas. RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRR...but still nothing.

RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. He was soon giving it too much gas. The engine was racing as though participating at Indianapolis yet would not even try to move. He finally let off the accelerator, and saw that he hadn't shifted all the way into reverse. The car was only in neutral. Seeing this myself, and seeing as this was in the days before texting, I began rolling on the floor laughing out loud.

Cloyce punched me in shoulder, hard, and made me swear I wouldn't tell anyone about this tale. But as I haven't seen him in ages and the statute of limitations having surely ran out, I decided to tell it today.

I'm not who you think I am

I certainly hope this post comes across as innocuous. That's my intention, just to write a fun post based on something that actually happened.

Last week I found myself needing a valve stem for an old sink. When I say old, I mean sixty to seventy years, if not more. Fortunately I knew where to go for the stem. There's a place called Tenny's Plumbing in Hazel Park, and they specialize in old, hard to get parts. They've helped me before, and I highly recommend them.

And they did have the part I needed. But before paying, I had to take a call, so I stepped back from the counter and dealt with it.

When I apologized and returned to the counter Mr. Tenny was there. He looked at me and asked, "You're Cosgriff, right? Bill Cosgriff?"

"No, he was my dad. He passed away a couple years ago," I answered.

He coughed and said, "Sorry to hear that. But Cosgriff was a black guy, wasn't he?"

"No," I replied.

"But he had two black guys working for him?" Mr. Tenny pressed.

"No. Just my brother and I."

He studied me more closely and ventured, "Your shop is across from Murray-Wright High School, on Rosa Parks. Just after a green house, back from the street."

"That's right," I said.

Tenny just kinda shook his head and said, "But Cosgriff was a black guy. He had black guys working for him."

"I'm afraid not," I responded. I even showed him my license, just so he'd know I was me. He then shrugged his shoulders, and I paid for the valve stem and left. It was all on good terms, and he just seemed to have a mental block about it.

And I think he still thinks we're black guys. Ah well. No harm no foul, right?

What I could buy with enough money

What would I do if I had all the money in the world?

I'd get lawn service before anything else. I hate yard work with a passion.

I would buy a Stradivarius, but only allow Orange Blossom Special to be played on it. Okay, and The Devil Went Down to Georgia. It's just a fancy fiddle after all, isn't it?

I would completely rehabilitate the Old Barn. Lord knows she needs it.

I'd donate heavily to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

I'd buy seasons tickets for one year only for the Detroit Tigers, and go to every game that year. And make someone else bring me hot dogs of course. Hell, I might even ride the Ferris Wheel and Merry Go Round. Or at least pay for a couple hundred kids to ride them.

Yeah, my dreams are simple.

Pops and Ty Cobb

No, Dad never actually met Ty Cobb. But one of his favorite jokes revolved around a supposedly true story about the famous Detroit center fielder. So why, as they say, let questions of truth interfere with a good story?

Cobb was visiting a ballpark one day in the late 1950s, openly lamenting what he believed the woeful pitching of the era. Finally he was asked, "So what would do you think you could hit against today's pitchers?" Bear in mind that Cobb's lifetime batting average was (and still is) a record .367.

Cobb thought about it for a minute, then answered, ".270."

"You'd only hit .270 against these guys?" the inquisitor responded, taken aback at an answer from someone known to be cocky.

"Give me a break. I'm 70 years old," Cobb said.

Rim shot!

The old bat

I still have it: the old bat. It was the first one I ever bought.
It cost me I believe five bucks of birthday money. It was at the K-Mart in east Dearborn: an Eddie Matthews signature model Hillerich and Bradsby Louisville Slugger. He was on the cover of the first Sports Illustrated as a member of the Milwaukee Braves, you know, and a member of the 1968 World Champion Detroit Tigers. That last part was serendipity. He was not yet a Tiger when I bought the bat, but I used it proudly once he became one. Mom was with me when I bought it, patiently allowing me to look over the baseball bat selection until I finally made my choice.
I used it for years as I played pickup baseball in the old neighborhood. It served me well in my mind. I might even loan it out to you for an at bat, if you promised to hit with the label away from the ball. I used it until I was 12 or 13. It had begun chipping by then, and I retired it out of fear it would break. That was a thought that I could not stand. It would have killed me for that to happen, so I set old Ed aside.
He now sits in my hall closet more than 50 years after purchase and about 43 years after last use. 16 years after Matthews himself passed away in fact. The main chipping is on the knob, though there is a noticeable crack on the barrel just before the label. And although it is tempting to take it out to a batting cage and swing it one last time, I would never dare do that. I think I'd cry like a baby to break it now.
It's silly to be that attached to something so unimportant, isn't it? That old bat.

A minor family squabble

I come from a relatively large family; I'm the second oldest of seven. My sister Susan arrived a little more than a year after me. Consequently, she was just a grade behind me all through school.
One day a teacher asked me, as Susan and I stood in the hall near his door, "Cosgriff, just how many of you are there?" I answered that I had four brothers and two sisters.
"No you don't," Susan corrected me. "You have five brothers and one sister."
I was caught off guard for a moment before her confusion dawned on me. "Nooo, YOU have five brothers and one sister. I have four brothers and two sisters," I explained, surely in that denegrating voice elder siblings speak with towards their younger ones caught in obvious mistakes.
But I'm right, aren't I?

Going old school

I'm begining to go old school again. I've found myself buying the morning newspaper on a more and more regular basis rather than catching up on news through my computer. That's not to say I don't use my desktop or laptop for, especially, breaking news. But buying the paper does seem to have its advantages.

It begins with my now routine morning walk. There's a party store/gas station near the end of my usual route. One day at the end of my daily constitutional I just decided I wanted a paper. For a buck and a half day it's not a bad deal. And other things are at work too.

The newspaper never freezes. It never takes forever to load; if I'm reading and article which concludes on page 3D, I simply turn to page 3D and it's right there. And while there are adds trying top distract me they are easy to ignore. Nothing pops up on my newspaper page forcing me to click it off, nor does my text get shoved downward on the page where I have to scroll to keep up with, or look for that insolent little tiny box with the 'x' to click on, to roll what I'm reading back up. I also get the puzzles for my entertainment, and the comics are found nicely arranged on one page. No going to a couple dozen different web pages for a comic fix.

My computer and smart phone will always be available, and I certainly get my use out of them. Still, the morning paper has reacquired for me a certain charm. I read as I want to read, jumping from page to page I feel more quickly than my computer sometimes does. It's simply a nice way to ease into my news day. Into any day.

Wow. I'm loving golf and reading actual newspapers. I am getting old school.

The silent non-killer

Ah, Biology 10, the science course I took during my sophomore year at old St. Hedwig. I don't remember much about the course except that it was taught by Sr. Christine, a sweetheart of a nun, one of the most pleasant people I've ever known. Subject matter-wise, I really only remember the day when she spoke about how heart disease develops and affects the body.
Sister went over all the usual things which typically precipitate a heart attack: chest pain or pressure, numbness in the arms (particularly the left), sweating, difficulty breathing and so on. Then she lectured on something which none of us kids had ever imagined. She spoke about silent heart attacks, those where there are no obvious symptoms.
As Sister went on with her talk, several of us, myself included, began feeling our chests and monitoring our bodies. If the other students' thought processes were anything like mine, they were something like: 'No sweats, no trouble breathing, no chest pain. Oh my God, I'm having a silent heart attack!'
The power of suggestion however unintended (Sr. Christine of course meant nothing, as she was merely teaching a section of a class) can be very strong, and rather childish, in adolescents.

Cosgrove the horse thief

Mom's had a few brushes with celebrity. She met George Clooney once when he was filming a movie (Out of Sight, for those interested) in her neighborhood. She met Jennifer Lopez then too, but said that Clooney was much nicer.
Once she met Martin Sheen. He had come to Mass at her Church and somehow they were introduced. When told she was Ella Cosgriff, he asked, as so many people seem to about our surname, "Cosgrove?"
"No, Cosgriff," she replied. Then she repeated the family tale that we were once Cosgroves, but as an ancestor was reputedly a horse thief back in Ireland we had changed our name so as not to be associated with villainy. "Cosgrove was a horse thief," she finished.
The actor laughed out loud. "Really? I'll have to tell my lawyer that story. His name is Cosgrove," Martin Sheen explained to Mom.
The legend continues...

Reading within the lines

I wish I had read more in days gone by. Now I have a lot to read and nowhere near the time to do it. This is considering that I watch hardly any television anymore. TV entertainment quickly becomes the same old stuff; so too do movies I've found.
But it's finally struck me that with reading, you control the medium. No channel surfing, trying to discover something by chance. No risking ten bucks on a movie; let's face it, movies really are a great unknown. You're taking a chance that it won't be worth the time much less the money. I feel similarly with movies on TV, albeit with less cost.
Books, though, you control them. Yes, they do cost something. That's where patrolling discount shops and second hand stores comes in. The costs aren't so high. The risks are lower that you get a bad book than see a bad movie. You could, of course, get a bad book. But you at least get the chance to peruse it, at least a little bit, before purchase. And you learn what authors and genres you like.
When I discovered Ellery Queen and Sherlock Holmes I had built in supplies of new (for me) books to grab. Even before that, if you like a genre it's easy to find good, cheap books in subject areas you like. This summer alone I read my first book on black baseball, Shades of Glory, which I picked up at a discount store for $2.99. It was a good, informative, entertaining book. Similarly I'm now in the middle of The Kid, a biography of Red Sox slugger Ted Williams, which was at the same store for the same price and has been a good read too.
You get the picture. Can you turn on your TV and be assured of finding the entertainment you want? Maybe, but not necessarily. But your book is your book, and it waits patiently while you channel surf. That's a pretty good friend in my, uh, book.

High tide in Milan

I drove past Milan, Michigan yesterday, and it reminded me of something I had long forgotten.

Back when I was a teen, I was there with Grandpa Joe picking up one of his welders. It was at a Ford plant when they were doing an expansion. It had apparently rained the night before, and rained hard. Although we were in a building, there was a large pool of water, about three feet deep and a hundred yards wide on all sides. The welder itself was land locked on the other side of that pool. And the only way to get to it was straight through that water. "You have to drive straight," a foreman was telling Joe. "If you drift to either side the water's about six feet deep." Joe got out of the car and told me to drive through the water to the welder just like the guy said.

Thanks Grandpa.

Of course I did it; you don't argue with your grandfather when you're 17.

I drove that old Cadillac he had right through that water, straight as a tack. In my memory the water came to right below the driver's side window; how the engine didn't stall is beyond me. I was nervous and scared. But I got that Caddy through the ocean and right up to that welder, slowly but surely. But then the powers that be decided that the machine was too heavy to be pulled through the water by a car. They would get a bulldozer with a long heavy chain and drag it through the water.

And I would have to back the car out through the pool, as there was no way to turn it around. I hadn't known that when I started. I have no idea how we were supposed to hook up the welder now that I think about it.

But I backed through it and lived to tell the tale. The tale I remembered after 40 years yesterday.

Half in jest

Remember a few days ago, I blogged about the jokes that sometimes just pop into my mind? How some of them were silly, and some actually rather crass, or at least of questionable taste? I've had another crass one I'm afraid.
I was leaving a funeral home the other afternoon (you know, the other one), to find that an ambulance was sitting in the parking lot, lights flashing. I immediately thought, "Aren't you guys a little late?"
Am I a bad person?

120/70

120/70. Man, them are some good numbers.

This morning I had my regular checkup with my regular doctor and I think those numbers tell it all.

120/70.

My blood pressure as of 8 O'clock this morning.

To say I'm pleased is understatement. Sublime understatement. It hasn't been that low since high school. Even then, I seemed to have the opposite problem. For my senior year physical it was 101/59; the doc then was concerned that maybe it was too low.

But now - contented sigh - 120/70.

Oh, I've somehow gained three pounds since June, and my pulse (48bpm) is a bit low. The Doctor chided me over those factoids. They have to complain about something, you know. I know how I gained the weight too: I have not in the least bit watched what I eat in the last few months. But for now...

120/70. I think I'll make it my mantra.

Helping me do my job

A customer brought a machine in for repair this morning. There's no real news there: we repair what we sell. Yet before he left he took a minute to tell me all that he had checked. "That'll save you time, Cosgriff," he explained. I thanked him and he went on. And the first thing I did as I began to work on his unit was to double check everything he told me he had done.
Part of me hates to be that way. But the fact is that when someone who doesn't know what they're doing begins to do something anyway, they miss stuff. Sometimes they make it worse. Sometimes I have to undo everything they did just to get back to square one. They don't do it on purpose I know. Still, it delays me rather than helps.
So unless you know what you're doing, and what I do isn't brain surgery anyway so I will allow that a guy could well be able to fix his own snake, be careful about trying to help. Even though you mean well.

Snorting Coke

No, it isn't what you think. But what a hook, huh?

The traffic light caught me as I made a Michigan left on Telegraph Road in Taylor yesterday. As it happened, directly across from me as I waited I saw a family restaurant which used to be a Denny's. It was a Denny's when I was in high school back in the seventies (the NINETEEN seventies, just to clarify). My friends and I back then ate there with some modest regularity.

One such time, six of us stopped there on a Saturday night after a movie for a late dinner. We ordered food and pop. Of course, with six people there were orders for a few different types of pop: Coke, Dr. Pepper, and likely even a Diet Pepsi were in the mix. The waitress as was the norm brought our drinks first.

Only she had apparently forgotten who ordered what and what was what. She had too neglected to somehow mark them as some servers did even then, with two straws for the Coke, one for the Dr. Pepper, and so forth. So arriving at our booth, the young woman improvised. She stuck her nose almost into a pop, snorted loudly and, deciding the first was a Coke, handed it to one of us who ordered one. Then she snorted the next, another Coke, and set it before the next of us, then likewise determined which was the Dr. Pepper and handed it out.

Caught between silent snickering and uproarious laughter, we did what teenage boys would naturally do. We laughed uproariously. The girl looked at us as if we were insane and asked if everything was okay.

It more than was. In fact, her entertainment was better than the movie we had seen. It brought a whole new meaning to snorting coke.

The Simple Truth

There is only one thing which it takes courage to say and that is a truism.

- G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton had a way about him, didn't he? He could cut to the chase better than anyone, and today's quote is a prime example of that.

Why is it so hard to mouth a truism? All truth is built on things so obvious that no rational mind would reject them. Call them truisms, axioms, first principles, self evidence; it's all the same thing. And all reason is built upon them. All that an anti-abortion activist need point out is that human beings have human babies and all other truths about the pro-life issue fall squarely into place. For the rational mind, that is. That's why so many pro-abortion activists are simply shrill. They have no rational option to offer.

Still, I can see where speaking a truism can be difficult. There is a degree to which they appear too simple, and simplicity can be scary exactly because of that. Another great British Christian, Mr. C. S. Lewis, famously remarked that he was never less sure of an issue than right after he had successfully defended it. That makes sense to me. It's daunting to believe that's that's all there is to it, so to speak. There's a part of us which has trouble believing the great questions have simple answers. The questions appear, at a glance, too great to have answers so obvious.

That's where trust comes in. No matter how obvious something may be, scientifically, philosophically, or theologically, we have to take a leap of faith to fully accept it. We see what seem to be apparent complications in the world and have a tough time cutting through all that noise to understand truth. That is why, to employ Mr. Lewis again, we must be obstinate in belief. Until the proof is incontrovertible that our position is wrong, then believe it is right. There's no shame in that. Why ought anyone abandon a position merely because the wind might be blowing against them?

There's no point making the world a more complicated place that it may seem, and certainly no point complicating issues through nothing more than ignorance and human frailty. The truth is indeed out there. It can be expressed in the most simple ways as well. Take strength in that. Take that leap of faith.

Sales and teaching are quite alike

I haven't been in a classroom now in over four years. I had taught various classes in various locations for 24 years. Now all that's past history, as me Grandpa Joe used to say.

For years I had the best of both worlds. I was using my college degree and, hopefully, helping high schoolers and young (and some not as young) adults in starting to make their marks on the world. At the same time I was working in a family business, keeping and deepening close family relationships. I still have that and the pride that goes along with it. And I do find that sales and education share certain traits.

I've ran training sessions and given product demonstrations for work which are very similar to teaching. You show how something is used, you help a customer determine what exactly they need, and you answer questions; you deal with a wide range of experience and adjust your approach to that. Hopefully it helps people along in their jobs as it (one likes to believe) helped students find their way in the world.

I really still have the best of both. Part of me would like to be in a more formal classroom again. The rest of me sees the big picture. It's not too bad of a picture either. I'm just waxing philosophic on this chilly Friday morning in Michigan.

We old guys get to do that. And it's leaving a smile on my face today. Why not? In a half hour I get to educate a young man on why his machine is shocking him, and I'm sure I'll feel that old satisfaction when I solve that problem.

Random Thursday thoughts

Yesterday was the 17th Anniversary of the last baseball game at Tiger Stadium. The then Kansas City batter, Carlos Beltran, who made the last out at the old ballpark is now the last active major league player to have actually played there. I find a certain symmetry in that.

I bought a cured ham once but never ate it. I was worried what it had had.

I've always thought that Darth Vader's mother's name should have been Ella.

The NFL is being really hypocritical on the Anthem issue. They enforce all sorts of regulations on the players without worry about their supposed rights. Why is this different?

Oh heck, I got nothing else. Next time...

The special chemical compound

Sometimes at the Shop we have to heat things. Maybe two parts won't come apart, maybe a bolt won't loosen; you get the idea. Consequently we keep a large bucket of water near our work bench in case we need to cool hot metal. You know, for safety's sake. Because we Cosgriffs are all about safety.

So one day Pops was heating something or other while fixing a machine for a customer; I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. When Dad finished he dropped the red hot whatever into the bucket of water. Cloyce asked, "Is that water, Cosgriff?"

With a twinkle in his eye Pops answered, "No. It's a special chemical compound called H2O".

"Oh," Cloyce responded with about half a laugh.

A few months later Cloyce was back, this time with a friend. Pops was heating something up again, and dropped the part in the water as he finished. Cloyce said to his buddy, "I bet you think that's water, don't you?"

"Uhh, yeah," the guy answered uncertainly.

"Nope. That's a special chemical compound called H2O," Cloyce responded. Dad said you tell that Cloyce was proud of that scientific factoid because he clearly did not realize that H2O was water.

"Really?" the man in turn responded, giving a curious eye towards Pops, who simply but mildly shrugged his shoulders. The man himself clearly knew H2O was water, but left it at that.

I believe Dad was happy that he did. After all, he was only cracking a joke however many months ago. He was not out to embarrass old Cloyce.

Cornball humor

I have to confess, in fact I quite cheerfully admit, that my sense of humor is sometimes subtle and goofball. Do you care for some examples? You don't, I'm sure, but I'll offer them anyway.
I drive a lot for my job so I see many signs for many things. Most are ads, but some are for various attractions and activities. Some of course are just plain old road signs. Take for instance, as my son and I were driving to Boston in summer 2016. As we approached an overpass a yellow sign warned us, Bridge may be icy. And I thought, faux incredulously, what, today?
Many of the recreation signs indicate that after a turn and a mile or two you'll find Rolling Hills golf club or some such. I always think, so I'll go that way and find a five iron on the highway?
At times my internal jokes get borderline crass. Not that that stops me from internally making them, mind you. All around Michigan at one time were billboards which asserted that 1 in 5 children face hunger. I found myself thinking, so turn that kid around.
Yeah, I know. But you did have to choke back a snicker, didn't you?

This NFL National Anthem nonsense

I've been trying to stay away from social and political rants. They're ultimately not the most fun to write, and you risk offending a good chunk of your audience. Still, it's my blog. If I want to delve into social issues I will. So I will.

This whole flag protest business is nothing more than obnoxious. I believe it tells us all we need to know about the National Football League: it's okay if its players don't stand for the national anthem. Let that be as it may. That it won't respect the flag and the anthem just points out how arrogant the game has become.

I see the protests as nothing short of hyperbole, and for myself, well, I've been paying less and less attention to football for most of the last decade anyway. It's simply too brutal to be called mere sport. Then the constant overreactions after simple plays, touchdown celebrations and the like (I once saw a player celebrate a muffed snap which the quarterback immediately fell upon as though it was his doing rather than the error between two opponents as it was) are increasingly annoying. If I want sports entertainment I'll watch the WWE. At least they're honest about their intentions.

Then to have NFL commissioner Roger Goodell call US President Donald Trumps' words divisive is nothing short of disingenuos. His minion started this, not the President. True, Mr. Trump did not help things with his comments. But if Colin what's his name hadn't knelt first and the League not supported it, Trump would not have had the forum.

So it's just another reason not to watch the NFL anyway. If it doesn't feel the need to support the nation, fine. I feel no need to support it. That's the real bottom line; I hope that more people feel like me.

Grandpa Joe

I always knew Joe would be the last of my grandparents to take the final journey. He didn't take care of himself. He smoked like a chimney, as the saying goes. He took chances that would have surely killed any other man yet he, somehow, survived. Exercise? What was that?
He was the perfect candidate to outlive the other three.
He was not easy to get along with. But damn it, you could get along with him. If you wanted to. If you tried. We hear so much anymore about just getting along. Well, it took more than just getting along to get along with Joe. Yet he could be got along with. If you let go of your predispositions and tried.
He was tender. Yes, I know that those of you among my friends and relatives are laughing right now. Yet he was. He made me a simple little toy out of string and a button. He grinned as I played with it, laughed a bit, happy at the gift, happy at my glee. It lead to the only time I saw me Pops jealous, when he saw me playing with what his father had made for me. That's okay, I get it. The relationships between grandson and grandfather are different from that of father and son. The dynamics aren't the same.
But if I could have anything more human right now beyond my own father, I wish I had that string and button.

What are the odds?

Dad liked to play poker. Well, once years ago when he and his brothers and friends played almost every Saturday night he found himself on a hot streak which lasted several weeks. As most games were played at his house, Pops was teased a lot about marking the cards before the guys arrived for a game. So he decided one day to, I guess you'd say call their bluff.

He bought a brand new deck of cards to use for the next Saturday's game. He left it in the plastic wrapping until time for the first deal, which would be his. Dad was going to make a show of how that game would be fair by opening the cards in front of the guys.

So Saturday night came, everyone sat down, and Pops pulls out the new deck. You can all see for yourselves, fellahs, that this is a new set of playing cards which are obviously untouched, he says, or something similar. He gets a knife and cuts the clear plastic wrap, opens one end of the box, and triumphantly fans out the red-backed poker cards for all to see.

The guys saw the cards all right. Each card was red...except the one blue-backed card (which happened to be an ace of spades) amidst all the others. Sure, Bill, you don't mark deck.

Even Dad got a belly laugh out of that. As poker players might say about such things, 'What are the odds?'

The feel of small town America

The things you see, the things you learn on the road.
Yesterday morning at 4:30 in the little hamlet of Arlington, Ohio (Flag Village USA you might recall) I saw two young teenage paperboys riding their bikes along the main drag, delivering (obviously) their papers. I don't think I've seen an actual paperboy in twenty years. And I'd have never let my boys ride unsupervised in Detroit at that time.
Then I came to Bellefontaine, Ohio. It boasts of having the first concrete street in America, dating to 1891. I saw the stretch of road; it does look like it dates to 1891. But hey, who am I to question Bellefontaine or its claim to fame?
Finally, during the afternoon I made a stop in Fairmount, Indiana. This small town holds 2,992 people according to Wikipedia (and who am I to question Wikipedia?). But more than that: the actor James Dean grew up in town, and is also buried there. And there's still more: Jim Davis, creator of Garfield the cat, grew up there. Talk about the proverbial sublime to the ridiculous!
Yeah, a bit of a shameless plug, that last line. However that may be, it does seem that you can see a lot of interesting things in small town America even until yet.