Ty Cobb and me Pops

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 facts 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.

Good one, eh?

About certain books

I like reading, as you know. But I don't care for biographies. All too often, the main character dies at the end.

Then there's autobiographies. They aren't among my favorites, because I'm just not that into cars.

Can I get a couple of rim shots now?

Raccoon eyes

Sometimes, you wonder what a guy was thinking.

A friend of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, has one of the chiminea outdoor fireplaces. You know, the kind that is often made of pottery and looks like something the Aztecs would have used. Anyway, Cloyce goes to light it one night for a family gathering. Only he got impatient.

You see, he loaded it up with wood and then poured gasoline on it to get the fire started more quickly. Then he put his face right up to the opening as he lit a match. It hadn't occurred to him that gas fumes would have already been building up in the chimney of the thing.

With a powerful whoosh a flame shot from the opening, temporarily enveloping Cloyce's head. He was okay, although his eyebrows had been burnt off and half his hair was left charred. His eyes, thankfully, were saved harm because he had sunglasses on. But when he removed them, he looked like a raccoon because his face around the eyes and where the ear flaps were were unscarred.

Sometimes you wonder what a guy was thinking. Sometimes you wonder if he was thinking at all.

A fresh coat of paint

I'll never get this story quite right. But it is, in my mind, a neat little story, so I'll try.

It was either me Mother's grandmother or great grandmother, I just don't recall exactly. So we'll assume her great grandmother, and I'll refer to her as great great Grams as that's what she'd then be to me.

Great-Great-Grams lived in a small house behind one of me other great great relatives. Family legend says she lived to be 108, though I really don't know about that. One day she decided that her house, maybe three rooms in size, needed to be painted. Only she didn't have the money to pay for it. Neither did anybody else, the time being the Depression with cash particularly scarce in the South those years. Yet she really wanted the house painted.

The solution? Friends and relatives went through their homes and barns and garages and came up with a pint of paint left in a can here, a quart there, maybe most of a gallon in another can and so forth. They mixed it all in a large bucket, furnished a few paint brushes from their various collections, and painted Great-Great-Grams house a nice grey-lavender kind of color. She loved it, her newly painted little home, and everyone involved felt a certain pride of neighborliness and kinship.

So that's the story. I haven't told it well, but it was worth trying to tell anyway.

Marty's designer jeans

I bet that everyone out there believes that I, Marty Cosgriff, have no fashion style. Well, I'll have you know you're wrong. In fact, I am wearing designer labelled jeans right now. An authentic brand from an authentic store.

My jeans are great. They are branded Rural King. Right on the wallet pocket.

You laugh. I know you laugh. But they're great jeans. They're comfortable, they're roomy, they're cheap. And that is not why I bought the four pairs I did. All right, it's a factor. Maybe even a big factor. But they're great jeans.

Rural King is a well known chain store in the American Midwest. 'America's Farm and Home Store,' it brands itself. And as with any high end store, it has its own brand. That tells you it's quality.

So I sit here hammering out a blog post, and I'm stylin' in my Rural King jeans. Jealous much?

Christmas trivia

Our oldest son was born on December 20, 1982. As brand new parents being overly worried as brand new parents tend to be, we weren't sure whether we should take a five day old baby out and about on Christmas. We knew everyone would want to see him, but, you know, Christmas is typically cold. Very cold.

The mercury that Christmas hit 65, to this day still the record high for Christmas in Detroit. We had no fears about taking our new baby out in such balmy weather.

But wait, there's more.

The very next Christmas, December 25, 1983, was the coldest Christmas to date in Detroit. It was twelve below zero. Of course, we were experienced parents by then. We bundled him up and took out for the holiday as though it were nothing.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Another curmudgeon rant

Here's another curmudgeonly rant. Why? Because I feel like it.

There's a local deli which I like a lot, and once a week I allow myself to buy lunch there. Yesterday was that day for this week. I waited patiently, at least, I waited patiently outwardly, behind the only person ahead of me as I arrived at the deli counter. Bear in mind that there's a large display board with prices, situated behind the counter in plain view of everyone. Bear in mind also that virtually anybody should have the basic ability to figure out, at least roughly, what they're spending while they're spending it.

The person ahead of me asked for two pieces of chicken. They were placed in an open container before her, left open as she had indicated she was ordering more. Yet before continuing her order she asked, "What's my total so far?"

I inhaled deeply. I so very much wanted to step up to her and say, "Excuse me. See that board up there, the one that says two pieces of chicken are five dollars?"

"Yes."

"See how many pieces of chicken are in front of you?"

"Yes, two."

"THEN YOUR TOTAL SO FAR IS FIVE DOLLARS!"

I mean, really.

A curmudgeon's rant

I see no point in changing anything, not my habits, not my attitudes, just to change them. It borders on senseless and, quite frankly, is arguably childish.

There's nothing wrong with change per se either, I'll admit. And sometimes change is good and necessary. That being the case, why change? is still a fair question to ask.

Expand your horizons, perhaps? Well, what if the horizon isn't all that clear? Besides, what's wrong with what I'm doing now? I realize that either question calls for a certain amount of extrapolation and introspection. It's ultimately all in the details. But remember the question is, why change simply to change?

When we took the kids out for ice cream I almost always got black cherry. Why? Because I liked it. Why try something new when you know you can get what you know you like?

Am I being obstinate? Sure I am; but aren't you being equally obstinate in ordering me to change? I mean, what's it to you? It's not like I'm doing anything immoral (on the ice cream question, anyway). I have the right in that sphere to order what I want; what argument do you really have against me?

It might be nice to change. Okay, but it might be nice to get what you want too. It's a wash; wait, no it isn't. It's my right to do what I want among legitimate moral choices. What you think I should do means nothing. It's only you being bossy.

Don't try to change me just because you think the change is good. That's all there is to it.

Rant over.

Joe's life lesson

Me Grandpa Joe could be, he generally was, quite emphatic about what he thought. Yet every now and then he could be surprisingly understated. This trait is displayed in one tale told by me Pops.
In the old neighborhood, Joe had a garage behind his house. Garages in that part of Detroit as now were accessed through the alleys. Several times, when Joe was getting in late, a certain inconsiderate neighbor would have his car parked in the alley blocking Joe's garage. He would park his own car and go get inconsiderate neighbor to move his. The guy would grumble (like he didn't know what the problem was) but he would do it.
This happened again for umpteenth time one night when me Pops, about 14, was with his dad. Grandpa told Pops to go to the guy's door and ask him to move the car. This time the man, sneering at the young teen in front of him, said no, he wasn't going to do it.
Dad went back to Joe, expecting the old man to explode and go after the miscreant himself. Instead me Grandpa just took a drag on a cigarette and said, "Well, I guess we oughta go get a cop." They found one (that could actually happen in Detroit in 1950) and the officer went to the house and told the man to move his car as it was blocking Joe's garage and was parked illegally anyway. Inconsiderate neighbor complied with the nice policeman's order.
Yet he wasn't so nice to Joe. After Joe had parked, the guy came around the corner and began to berate him. "You ain't man enough to do your own work, eh? You send your boy to do it, then get a cop," and so on and so forth, in bluer language than I'm using.
Grandpa Joe smoked passively the whole time. 'I can't believe he's taking this so easily,' me Pops thought over and over.
Finally, Joe finished his cigarette. He looked at inconsiderate neighbor and said quietly, "Well, I can see you won't be happy until I whip your ass." He tossed down the cigarette butt and lunged at the guy, getting maybe one punch in.
Inconsiderate neighbor avoided another and skittered away. Dashing back to his house he yelled, "I'm getting my shotgun, and you better not be here when I get back!"
Me Grandpa Joe, and I get a kick out of seeing this in my mind's eye, simply leaned against the wall of the garage and lit another smoke. He stood drawing on it, waiting patiently.
'C'mon, Joe, let's go,' Dad thought over and over. 'He's getting a shotgun.'
After a second cigarette Joe said to Pops, "Let's go, boy. We're done with him."
Me Pops always figured it was meant as a lesson in dealing with petty bullies. And there may be something to that. I.N.'s car never blocked Joe's garage again.

Dr. Cloyce

Dad's doctor, whom I'll call Dr. Cloyce just to give him a name, one day walked into the examination room where Pops waited for him. Dr. Cloyce was looking down. "Why so glum, Doc?" the old man asked.

"Oh, my wife and I had a little spat last night," He replied. "I arrived home from a long day at the office and she immediately went into an unending diatribe on her day. She went on and on and I just stood there staring at her. Finally she asked, well, are you going to say anything?"

'In a minute, I replied," said Dr. Cloyce. "I first have to determine the important from the unimportant information." He looked at Dad and said, "Not a smart thing to say to your wife, Bill."

"I imagine not," Pops laughed.

Road Change

Road change, not road rage. I want to emphasize that. Although I suppose the terms aren't all that close. But almost, right?

Anyway, Warren Avenue in my part of Detroit has been a one way street my whole life. But they've gone and made it a two way and that's going to take some getting used to.

For starters, I have to remember to look both ways when entering it. Granted, you should do that anyways for safety's sake, as it isn't that unusual for someone to be coming the wrong way down a one way here in the hood. It's simply that now it becomes imperative. I actually found myself yesterday making a left turn into what would have been oncoming traffic had there been any. Thank goodness there wasn't.

Then, when I reached the point where the one way part of Warren ended, I had to remind myself that the oncoming traffic there was going to continue oncoming. That's important when you intend to make a left turn; you gotta remember that the guy coming towards you isn't turning right.

It does have its fun, though. It's neat in a weird way to be going the 'wrong' way on a street. Driving east on Warren this morning, I felt like I was getting away with something devious. I sneered, and laughed maniacally to myself.

Two way Warren will take some adjustments. But I'm sure in a few months it will be old hat. Even after a couple of fender benders.

Curling for potatoes

Curling in a bonspiel yesterday reminded me of a bonspiel I participated in about 30 years ago. It did not go well.

We were two teams from the Detroit Curling Club, and we had driven up to Forest, Ontario for a tournament. There were eight teams in each flight. And as I said, it did not go well. We finished seventh and eighth in our group.

But in the curling world, no one goes home without something. As a food chain was the sponsor of this particular spiel, most curlers won meat entrees. We won ten pounds of potatoes. Each. At four players per team times two teams, that's a lot of taters. And we had to cross the border with them.

So we pull up to the gate and get asked for our IDs (we were all travelling in one big van). "What were doing in Canada?" the border agent asked the driver, whom I'll call Cloyce just to give him a name.

"Curling," he responded simply.

"Anything to declare?" the guard queried.

Cloyce replied honestly, "Eighty pounds of potatoes."

Without missing a beat the guard said with a smile, "You were in the losers bracket then?"

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we take our spuds and go home now?

Joe's hat

He was brought up in a time where men wore hats, even to work, even in less respected occupations. Why, me old curling hat, a Dickees hat I bought only because it reminded me of me old Grandpa Joe's work hat, the hat I wear adorned with curling pins, the hat I bought at Pickford Dry Goods in Pickford, Michigan, is the style he wore to work for many years.
Of course, his last work hat was different. It was an abomination of pressed, woven flat plastic, weaved to look impressive. It was what I chose to keep, along with his Rosary, when me Aunt, lookin' over his property, allowed us grandchildren a choice of. She allowed me to keep them both.
To my shame, I cannot find his Rosary, the one adorned with his name from the Rosary Shrine of St. Jude here in Detroit, Michigan. But I have his hat. I wear it just now.
It is dirty, oily, and fits a little tight. And I wear it because, well, I wear it. I think maybe I'll ask to be buried with it. You know, so I can offer it back to Joe when the time comes.

The doctors pass the test

Now me Grandpa Joe had this friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who suffered from pancreatitis most of his life. I don't know how he dealt with it but he did. I'm not sure all that much could have been done for the man sixty years ago anyway.

Cloyce lived in Detroit for most of his life, but moved to another state, I believe Minnesota for what that's worth, at some point. And there he began feeling the symptoms of his disease quite acutely. He developed pain in his abdomen, and nausea. It became strong enough that he went to the hospital, where the doctors began performing a series of tests.

One after another they came back negative, confounding the doctors. A few days passed and the medicos still couldn't figure out the problem. On about the fifth day, a doctor came into Cloyce's room and said somberly, "Cloyce, I'm afraid you've got pancreatitis."

"Yeah, I know that," Cloyce responded.

Incredulous, the physician dropped his clipboard on the bed. He asked, more demanded, "Why didn't you tell us?"

Cloyce explained simply, "I wanted to see if you knew what you were doing."

Good old Cloyce.

Crissmas

I am increasingly of the opinion that we overdo Christmas. The secular world, in its drive for getting more and more things and keeping the economy afloat (as though buying trivial fluff is an obligation) has, no doubt in my mind, hijacked Christmas. But even among Christians, I believe we've become too much into the process and not nearly enough into the real point of the Holiday.

That real point is the birth of Christ. Cards and gifts are fine, but they kind of miss that point. I mean, shouldn't we be giving gifts and keeping in touch with family and friends all the time? If we're only doing that around Christmas then the whole thing strikes me as, well, shallow, even desperate. Christmas slowly becomes a backdrop; I believe that the most honest reason the Charlie Brown Christmas special had become so classic is that it puts the Nativity front and center and, properly, makes the froth the unimportant background.

I don't intend this to knock gift giving and celebration. What brings this on is an article I read this morning. You may find it here:

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/cs-lewis-lost-parable-meaning-christmas?fbclid=IwAR1JjLGWW4g8pfcUDAzxiiEe89PqIrETKzUEhxsyfRrZpNf2sB_QZyhI5y8

If we do things without meaning, then the doing, of course, becomes meaningless. I fear we are headed that way with Christmas, and I wonder if it might be better if the secular world did not celebrate it at all than to celebrate it shallowly. Christians should not do that simply as a matter of their Faith.

The train wreck at the altar

You think I'm going to write about someone's wedding, don't you? Well, the joke's on you. Sure, we all know marriages which have been disasters waiting to happen. But this is something completely different.

Yesterday I went to Mass at St. Hedwig, where I graduated from high school over 40 years ago now. It reminded me of a band concert from way back then.

I was in the high school band, playing tuba. Yes, it was surely the best use of Marty's blowhard ability ever, if the least inspired. We would have our Christmas concerts in the Church. The altar would be moved aside, and risers put in place for the choir. The band would be arranged below the choir, closer to the altar rail. Carols and hymns would be sung and played. Those concerts were always great fun.

Anyway, one year we set up for the concert. At seven that night we began. All went well for the first four or five numbers; we sounded quite good, I thought. I played almost exclusively background as tubas do. I had the melody part for all of two measures in my entire high school band career, and I nailed it. But more on that, perhaps, later.

Anyway again, it was on about the sixth tune that we lost it. Mister Bacharowski, our band director, Mr. B as we were allowed to call him, tapped the dais. One, two, three, he mouthed, in the timing he wanted. Yet before he could raise his baton for us to start, someone jumped the gun. I don't know who, but it happened.

An instrument began playing, followed by his section. Then the choir began, and the winds, then the brass, and pretty soon there was the oddest cacophony of noise ever heard from a Church altar. Every voice, every instrument was rising to a crescendo then dying, the sounds mixing into themselves like a torrent of ill wind followed by vaguely quiet confusion. And then repeated. Every person and instrument sought something which would bring order to the mess. Everyone stole glances at everyone else, seeking some hint as what to do. Let me tell you, you cannot make order out of such chaos. It was an awful din. It wasn't even as organized as an orchestra warming up before a performance. You could at least glimpse a hint of real tunes, real organization in that.

Mr. B finally gave up, tapped for us to stop, turned and made some quip to the assembly, and returned to his minions. His raised eyebrow said to forget what just happened and move on. So we did, and finished the concert in proper style.

The song we botched by the way was Do You Hear What I Hear? There is a certain irony in that, don't you think?

Donut anxiety

For a few years I taught college test prep classes. In an attempt to make students feel more comfortable and, hopefully, more open to learning, we allowed food and snacks in our classrooms. So I thought little initially when a young woman brought coffee and a donut into class one day. She set down her coffee, put the donut on a napkin, and, with the rest of the students, dutifully opened a textbook to the page I had indicated.

I began to expound about English grammar. She listened quietly and wrote a couple of notes as I went along. After a minute of two she took a pinch, literally a pinch, hardly enough to call a crumb, off of her donut and ate it. I thought quietly to myself, and very calmly, 'Take a bite of the donut'.

I continued with my lecture. Before long the young lady had another infinitesimal bit of her donut, then a tiny, bare, meager sip at her coffee. 'Eat the donut,' I said to myself, a little more encouragingly.

Rules of the comma were the rule of the day, so I pressed on. She took another vague nip of her pastry. 'Take a bite of the donut,' said Marty to himself, becoming perturbed at her manner of consumption.

After an explanation of comma rule three and a note about such, another pinch of donut. 'Take. A bite. Of your donut,' I thought emphatically. By then it looked as though a mouse had been nibbling at it rather than a human being eating it.

Comma rule five followed comma rule four. Pick, pick, pick at the donut. She wasn't eating the doughy ring so much as slow torturing it. That pastry was undergoing a horrible, painful death. My pulse raced; a drip of sweat formed on my forehead. My blood pressure rose volcanically. In my mind I was yelling, 'For the love of all that's good and holy in this world, take a bite out of that stupid donut!

The math instructor appeared in the doorway. We tagged teamed our classes and she had arrived to do a math review. I finished up, gave a homework assignment, and rose to go to the other room to talk about the comma there. As I made my exit I took a furtive glance over my shoulder. The young woman had just had another atom of her snack.

'Eat that donut,' the math teacher thought calmly. I could see it in her eyes.

The day so far

I had to go to Electric Eel, the company I sell for, early this morning. That's no big deal. I drive to Eel in the wee hours regularly. But late yesterday I was speaking to a customer in Urbana, Ohio, a scant 15 miles from Eel. He wanted me to stop by today but couldn't meet until 9. No problem; I can handle that.

So I went to bed last night thinking, okay, I don't have to leave at 1:30 in the morning like I typically do. I can leave about 3:30 and make my trip comfortably. So I set my alarm for 2:45. That would give me plenty of time to run through the shower and be out the door by half past three.

I was wide awake and staring at the clock by 1:15. I was awake before then, I'm not sure how long, but you know how that goes. Even though you haven't heard the alarm, even though you know you have tons of time, there's simply no way you can force yourself back to sleep, is there?

I was on my way well before 2:45. The alarm on my phone let me know that as I drove south along I-75.

Hangin' Marty

Jury duty is a drag. Yes, yes, yes, I know how important of a right trial by jury is, although I'm not that sure how many of the people I sat with in the jury room yesterday I would want on a panel where I was in the dock. But so it goes...

The coffee was free but weaker than a skip's sweeping. The magazines were about what you'd find in a doctor's office: I read a Golf Digest article about whether Rory McIlroy would win the Masters...in 2014. And as if jury service wasn't tedious enough, the movie they had us watch was Maid in Manhattan. I tried to doze, but that's difficult in a room with the least comfortable chairs imaginable. It was a long six (or so) hours.

Still, they paid us cash as we left, so that's something. We were given vouchers as we left the jury room, presented them to a cashier down the hall, and got forty bucks cash money on the spot. I never imagined that. Sure, that forty is already long gone. But at least I didn't have to wait eight weeks for it. And I didn't have to hang anybody for it either.

Sophie's Stare

As many of you know, I taught adult education for 23 years. One of my favorite students was Sophie, a woman who had returned to academia in her sixties to finish her high school diploma. She had had to quit school as a teenager to work to help her family, and wanted the achievement of a diploma. She worked diligently and earned her sheepskin.

But perhaps the best thing she ever did for me as my student was help me maintain discipline. You see, while we catered to adult students we took in regular high school students who needed to make up credits to graduate on time. They didn't necessarily have the best work ethic (they would not have been making up credits if they had) and could at times be as disruptive as high schoolers could be.

One evening two young men were sitting at the back of the classroom while Sophie had taken her usual seat front and center. The guys began to whisper to each other and chuckle lowly, and soon become enough of a distraction that I had decided to say something to them. Yet right before I could, Sophie set down her pen and turned around to glare at the guys. It took a few seconds, but when they noticed her staring them down they picked up their pens and got back to their schoolwork.

This pattern repeated itself two more times that night. The guys would get a bit rambunctious and Sophie would turn to face them, whereupon they'd sheepishly return to task. And after that night they never gave me any more trouble.

I had to ask Sophie how she did it. The elderly Polish matron squinted her eyes at me and said, "I give them the grandma stare."

I had never actually faced the Sophie Stare myself. Judging by its effect on those two lads, I'm glad I never did.

How Grandpa Joe became Grandpa Joe

Grandpa Joe was one of the few men I knew who taught their kids to call them by their first name. Every now and then I might hear my own Dad call him Pops, but almost always Dad called his dad Joe. So did the rest of Joe's kids. The only other guy I knew who did likewise was Joe's friend Ed, who had his kids call him Ed. I have no real idea why they wanted things that way, but they did.

With my older brother and I as Joe's two oldest grandkids, he set out to have us call him Joe. On a day when we were both barely toddlers and only just beginning to speak, he came by the house to encourage us to call him Joe.

Me Mom would have none of that. Where she came from, Mom was Mom and Dad was Dad and Grandpa was Grandpa and so on, and that's all there was to it. She told Grandpa that the first one of use who called him Joe would be punished. He was a grandfather and he would be grandpa. Joe figured she didn't mean it and went to call her bluff. But Mom meant it; God bless them, they were both pretty stubborn.

Eventually one of us called him Joe and got punished. Joe was horrified; he didn't want to see a kid punished over some such as that. So in the true spirit of ending partisan activities a compromised was reached, a pact likely brokered by me Pops. Joe would be Grandpa Joe. Each side uneasily accepted the terms of the truce. Grandpa Joe was henceforth Grandpa Joe.

As an adult, though, working with him, I did at times call him Joe. But that never got back to Mom.

Family confusion

Did I ever tell you about how my first cousin married my uncle? Well, it's true. The entire family will attest to it.

While that sounds like a joke, it's serious business. My cousin in this case is from my mother's side of the family. My uncle is a younger brother of me Pops. No blood relation to each other, of course. Yet it has led to many family debates. Some of those are funny.

So as the wife of my uncle, my cousin is my aunt. Or is my uncle my cousin in law? Can I just call him by his first name now? Or do I need to call my cousin aunt?

Their kids are both my first cousins and my first cousins once removed. My kids are their kids second cousins. Or are they all second cousins once removed? And does the third cousins scenario figure into this at all? I think my kids could be third cousins or maybe second cousins twice removed to their kids.

As my aunt, my kids are first cousins once removed. Well, if she's their cousin that is. They might be her nieces and nephews you know. My granddaughter to my aunt is either a grand-niece or a first cousin twice removed.

My mother is my uncle's sister in law. Or her nephew by marriage. Or is my cousin my mother's sister in law?

My dad's brother is his nephew by marriage. Or maybe he's simply his brother. By aren't my dad and mother uncle and aunt to them both, as she (my cousin) is a child of my mother's brother? Or do we simply say, like Grandpa Joe, aw hell, we're just family?

I would have loved to have heard my uncle call his brother Uncle Bill though. That would have been a hoot.

The tablespoon hypothesis

Me Pops rarely complained about his dad, me Grandpa Joe. When he did it tended to be emphatic; remember the episode with the buzz boxes? If not, look it up. It's in here somewhere. Yet even that story Dad recalled with a certain fondness.

One of the few tales me Pops ever told with a shaking head involved a speech Grandpa gave him when Dad was 12 or 13. It involved the value of hard work. Hard work was good for a man, if it was productive and had a point. It built character, it made you a better man; you know, all the ancient platitudes which are, to be fair, true. Then he proceeded to have me Pops dig up all the weeds from the lawn with a tablespoon.

Pops never did get the point of that one. It must have been intended to illustrate the value of hard work. Perhaps it was to teach discipline: do as you're told. But digging up weeds with a tablespoon? Dad always contended that there were better ways to do that even in the early 1950s.

On the whole, me Pops and me Grandpa Joe got along well. This was one of the few stories the old man told with a certain upset, vaguely angry quality in his voice.

In solitary confinement

Awhile back I found myself stuck on jury duty. Yes, I know that jury duty is an important function of the citizenry. I also know that it can be tedious.

To be fair, the court allowed certain diversions in the jury room for the (many) times we were left there to stew as finer legal points were hammered out between judge, prosecutor, and defense counsel. There were crossword and sudoku books, magazines, and decks of cards. Once as I sat impatient and bored, I grabbed a deck and began playing solitaire. Almost as soon as I began the face of the young woman sitting across from me lit up. "Wow. I used to watch my grandfather play that!"

Why, no, that didn't make me feel old at all. But the truth is I learned solitaire sitting at my own grandfather's kitchen table watching him play, so I did appreciate her sentiment.

When I had finished she took the cards and played a few hands of her own. Soon enough four guys - that translated into all of us grandfathers in the room - were watching her play and giving her tips when she thought she was beaten. 'Play the red 6 on the black 7' or, 'Move that stack to the other row' and such as that. She was quickly expert at the game and set the cards down, vowing to keep up her new tradition.

The passing on of customs from the old to the curious young. I guess jury duty can serve a higher purpose.

Amos's turkey day

The story may sound contrived, trite, or obvious. Yet it's a true story. I haven't even changed the names to protect the innocent.

Amos, you'll recall, was an old friend of me Grandpa Joe. You may remember also that he was considered tight. However true that might be, and I suspect that it's been a bit embellished by the myth-makers of family history, he didn't mind spending a few dimes on good causes. One such cause was St. Dominic's annual Fall Festival.

As should be expected at a large party celebrating autumn, among the games and spinning wheels was a turkey booth. You pick a number, you put your money or ticket on that number, the wheel is spun, and should that number come up, you have your entree for your Thanksgiving feast. Amos approached the booth, selected some number not 13 (he was also superstitious, remember?), and waited for the spin of the wheel. He anticipated nothing, but lo and behold, won a turkey on that first try.

Now, two things were at work that day. Amos was genuinely there to support the Church. But then, he also knew his reputation. He figured he couldn't just walk away with the bird. So he played a second time with a second number (still not 13). He won another turkey.

Then a third one.

And finally, a fourth one.

You may rest assured that Amos spread his largesse. He gave away three of the four turkeys. I've no doubt also that he made his way around the school gymnasium and spent his share of hard earned dollars to help old St. Dominic. But to hear me Pops tell it, the look on his face, the sheer mortification at winning four turkeys in a row at a charitable event, was priceless.

Thanksgiving 1984

Giving thanks means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Sometimes I wonder if it might help if we were to whittle that down to one or two specifics, simply to emphacize what we really should be thankful for. You know, find something small and specific as an illustration of a broader point.

We might say as a general point that we are thankful for family. That's a good thing, right? Yet how about a concrete example of that? For me, one such example is Thanksgiving 1984.

There were only just the three of us in the immediate family at the time. We had Thanksgiving Dinner at Nana and Paw Paw's, and waddled down the block home in the late afternoon, an hour or so before dark. There had been about a two inch snowfall, enough so everything was covered in a nice and clean white blanket. We went into the backyard to play in the snow a bit before actually going inside.

My wife and I began tossing snow up in the air, and Charlie followed suit as best an almost two year old could, all of us laughing and giggling as we watched the spray dissipate. Then we found a slat from an old picket fence and I made a snowball, while Gail took the piece of fence and held it like a bat in Charlie's hands. I pitched the snowball gently; Charlie 'swung' mightily with his mother's help. The ball exploded when hit, and all three of us laughed out loud. Charlie laughed especially hard, as only small children can laugh, without holding back, in a more free spirited manner than us adults. We did it again and again, several times over, each time cackling madly when the snowball vanished in a spray of white. We did it, I don't know how many times. But each time was a laugh riot. It's a memory that even then, thirty five years ago now, I knew I would never forget.

It's a prime example of being thankful for family. You'll hear more from me involving everyone else in the family as time goes on. But this being Thanksgiving, I felt it a good place to start.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Niece's knees

I am far too proud of the little joke I made last night. But that never stopped me before.
I curl on Tuesday nights this season. Our lead is from Scotland, and still has much of the accent to prove it. At one point he turned to our skip, who is having issues with his knees, and asked, "How's your knees?" It sounded vaguely like 'kneese'.
So I said, "Why are you asking about his niece?"
The Scotsman seemed to ponder what I asked for a moment, then looked over at me like, ha, ha, very funny.
Well, clever more than funny. In my opinion.

If I had a million dollars

Some guys, when they dream about hitting it big on the lottery, think they'll retire early and take big, bucket list trips. Others say they'll build that mansion on the hill. A few will shower family and friends with jaw dropping gifts. The better ones among us may even vow to become great philanthropists, helping the poor and ailing. For me, the first two words which spring to mind when I fantasize about coming into money are: lawn service.

I hate yard work. Despise it really. I like a well manicured lawn and brightly flowered gardens and great green trees. But I hate the chores that go into creating and maintaining them. I hate mowing the lawn and planting foliage and mulching gardens. And this time of year, I hate raking leaves.

Why can't we just let them rot on the ground? Isn't that simply nature's own recycling measure? Freddie the Leaf wants to become compost. He takes a bizarre, sublime, cloying delight in the thought. Shouldn't we stay out of the way and let him and his brother and sister leaves go back to be with Mother Nature as they wish? Isn't that what she wants too, to bring them home so that she can fashion them into more and greater leaves next summer?

I say, who am I to stand in Momma's way?

That darn cat

I was tired after spending a fine Saturday evening cooking up a batch of Marty's World Famous Applesauce (patent pending) so I stretched out on the couch, turned on the TV, and quickly dozed off. I was awakened suddenly about two hours later when a soft weight fell onto my abdomen. In being jolted awake I thought, 'Darn cat!'

The trouble is that the cat, my daughter and son-in-law's who had lived with us for awhile, is in Arizona where they have moved. I was awakened by a small throw pillow which had slid off the top of the couch. Yet I instinctively blamed the cat.

The worst thing is that I left the pillow alone for about a half hour as I tried to get back to sleep because I didn't want to disturb the 'cat'. I laid still, not moving for the cat's sake. The cat that was 2500 miles away.

I guess being groggy does that to you.

The small frail voice

We chanted the Our Father at Mass yesterday. Normally we just say it en masse, but yesterday we chanted it.

I stood next to Mom as I do, since I take her to Church most Saturdays. All I could hear was her small, frail voice as she chanted. It was as though memory and habit had kicked in as she dutifully half sung the prayer. Her voice was a bit raspy. Yet it was one of the most poignant, quietly beautiful things I've heard.

I'm trying desperately not to become maudlin here. That would undermine anything I want to say. It might destroy whatever point I'm trying to make. But that small, frail voice.

I couldn't continue the chant myself once I actually heard Mom. That voice, little but lithe and lovely, overpowered me. I had to stop; I was too choked up, and it wouldn't do to upset her if she saw me upset. So I just listened, and, I think, appreciated the moment.

Great Grandpa James and Cloyce

I'm going to try to get this story right. I'll just ask all of you out there to remember that stories and memories can get garbled over time.

Me Great Grandpa James wasn't a drinker. Yet one day he found himself with a jug of whiskey; I just don't recall how. But as he tooled along in his horse drawn wagon (this would have been in early 1900s Illinois) he noticed the town drunk ambling towards him. I'll call the guy Cloyce just to give him a name.

Anyway, me great grandfather could tell that Cloyce was ailing. So he pulled up and asked what was wrong. He was recovering from a drunk, Cloyce explained, and that maybe a little hair of the dog would help but he didn't know where he might find any that morning, a fine Sunday morning as it were. James gave him the whiskey he had and went about his business.

He ran into Cloyce a few days later and asked how the whiskey was. "Just fine, sir, just fine," Cloyce answered. "Any worse and I couldn't have drunk it, and any better and you wouldn't have given it to me." As an aside, me Great Grandpa later found out that Cloyce had been going all over town bragging that he had gotten a drink from old Jim Cosgriff, and on a Sunday morning no less. But he didn't mind such tales making the rounds.

Uncle John kills Grandpa Joe

Perhaps it's just one of me Uncle John's stories expanded beyond the normal apocalyptic standards of his tale telling. Perhaps it really happened as I will say. Perhaps it's full disclosure that I recognize that I do understand that safety is an issue with towing. Perhaps all of that. But I do know that towing with a tow rope can be hazardous.

The set of curves on Interstate 75 just south of Nine Mile Road in Ferndale, Michigan, is famous to Michiganders. After moving along at the breezy pace of 70 or even 55 miles per hour one suddenly has to slow down to negotiate two sharp turns, left and then right, right before you get to Detroit proper. It was at this juncture that Uncle John thought he had killed Grandpa Joe.

Zeke had broken down somewhere above this point driving one of the Joe Cosgriff Welding Machine Rentals flatbed trucks, while on his way home after a delivery. It was his bad luck that Grandpa Joe was the one to rescue him with a tow rope. Joe went out with a 1969 Chevy car to tow home a truck with a 14 foot bed. You know, standard procedure for us Cosgriffs, a lighter vehicle towing a heavier.

Well, Joe hooked up the truck to his car and off they went. All was fine until they reached the Nine Mile curve. Then, as Zeke saw it, Joe began trying to light a cigarette. In doing so, Joe couldn't find the lighter. So he took his eyes off the road, bent down to seek the lighter, an unignited johnny smoke dangling from his lips, and in so doing let the slack out of the tow rope.

You don't do that. You must keep the tow rope taut. All of us Detroit Cosgriffs, well experienced in the art of vehicle towing, know that. We also know the trailing vehicle has a much more difficult chore when it comes to stopping. The following vehicle requires the lead be alert to that fact.

But this was Joe. Anyone working with that man, Lord love him, needed to take on extra precaution for themselves.

So Joe lets the rope go slack for the sake of his Carlton. And Uncle John can't stop. Joe's Chevy drifts towards the shoulder. Zeke's truck drifts helplessly towards it as well, Uncle John pumping the brakes frantically, pointlessly. Joe's old car jumps slightly into the air on hitting the curb of the shoulder. Zeke's truck, heavier and therefore with greater kinetic energy, jumps the same curb only much higher. The expectant force drives the stake truck upwards. It lands squarely atop the old Chevy. Time stops.

I've killed him, me Uncle John thinks. I've killed my old man.

Years of seconds pass, Zeke considering the weight of what had happened. Eventually he raises up his head from the steering wheel where it rested. He must face the music. He must check on Joe.

Me Grandpa Joe meanwhile had already left his car, and was pacing in front of the Chevy smoking one cigarette after another, his nerves undoubtedly themselves frayed. Me Uncle John said that it was cartoonish. Joe was lighting one smoke after another and dragging it all in, the little red flame running up the entire length of each cigarette one draw at a time. Joe was okay. Zeke, well, it was a while longer returning to sanity.

Towing three cars at once

I honestly don't know why it's illegal to tow a disabled vehicle with a tow rope. Yes, yes, yes, people will argue safety. But I think that that argument's overblown. I believe it's a way for towing companies, a special interest, to get more money. And don't think, towers, that I haven't noticed all your 'contributions' to police societies. Mandatory, legally obliged towing is a racket, and to hell with what anyone says. It's one of the micro reasons I'm politically conservative: another example of government and a special interest wrapping up in a tidy package with a pretty bow a good deal for themselves. Talk about scratching each other's backs.

Rant over. Now I will talk about what I actually wanted to talk about.

If you haven't figured it out by now, we Cosgriffs towed a lot of cars and trucks in our time. We've towed them long distances, in some cases a couple hundred miles. If a vehicle broke down wherever, someone got a call and went on their way with a tow rope to fetch the marooned driver.

Once me Pops broke down in Kenton, Ohio, about an hour from Electric Eel as he was returning with a load of drain cleaning equipment. He called my brother Phil, who dutifully went down to rescue him. But then Phil's car broke down, so I got a call.

And I did exactly what a good son should do. I went down into Ohio with my car and a tow rope and rescued them both.

So here we were with three vehicles, one with a large round cable rack attached to its roof (I think it was Phil's Chevy Malibu), being towed around 125 miles up Interstate 75 into Detroit. We kept our blinkers on and never went faster than 35, and made it home safely.

Even I will admit it must have been a sight.

The new Who

I have always been a lukewarm fan of the long running British science fiction show Doctor Who. I haven't seen many of the earliest shows, some of which have been lost to TV history because the BBC used to tape over old television shows when filming new ones. I've caught more of the newer ones, the ones since the (I think it was) 2005 reboot.

Tom Baker, the one with the absurdly long scarf, was for the longest time my favorite Doctor. The cheesy sets and plot lines of the seventies were, in their own way, pretty cool. I liked David Tennant a lot, and perhaps he is a better Doctor than Baker. My jury is still out on that.

I have a soft spot for Peter Cushing's version of Doctor Who, from two 1960s movies, but that comes partly from the RIFFTRAXes of them and the fact that I like Cushing. I suspect they're not canon anyway. But my head was turned when I learned that the latest incarnation of Doctor Who, the thirteenth, would be a woman.

I resisted watching it at first. I don't like the PC game and initially saw the whole thing as entirely PC and I did not want to support that. Yet in a month or so I warmed to the idea. I finally thought, why not give it a chance? Even if it is PC, it isn't wrong as a plot device to have a character who habitually morphs morphing into a woman. So I began watching the series on BBC America over the weekend.

I'm glad I relented. Jodie Whittaker, who is the new Doctor, is personable and comely. Her acting is pretty much spot on so far as I expect a Doctor to be. The backing cast who aid her in her adventures are likable, the three of them, and all four roles have the potential for good development. The three shows I've watched so far have been a solid mix of drama, action, pathos, and nearly the perfect amount of comic relief. They've been enjoyable romps through time and space, as are the best of the older shows.

So I'm glad I've given the new Who a chance. And I think I've developed a bit of a schoolboy crush on Jodie Whittaker.

A typical uncle joke

Me Uncle John, me old golf buddy from back in the day, had his own special form of humor. When he got on a roll I would laugh until I cried.

He had this story where he and another driver for Grandpa Joe, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, were racing south on Interstate 75, each with a truckload of welding machines, weaving in and out of lanes trying to best each other, to get to their destination first, recklessly tearin' up jack, all the while being trailed by an undertaker in anticipation of business. That was one hilarious tale. I wish I could recreate me Uncle's style when he was on his game. But I can't, so I won't even attempt that. I will, however, tell you one of his favorite, more droll jokes.

There was at one time, there probably still is I would assume, a school in Florida ran by MLB which trained its on field baseball officials. Uncle John used to say that if he had the money he would open up a restaurant directly across the street from the school. It would specialize in beef entrees. He would name the restaurant...

...wait for it...

...the Umpire Steak Building.

I have always liked that quip. Thanks Zeke.

Two out of three ain't bad

The following is a joke. It is only a joke. Please put your sectional, religious, and political preferences aside and take it that way, a bit of humor which has become part of family lore.

On the surface, you wouldn't think me Mom and me Pops could get along. Dad was a Catholic, a northerner, and a Democrat. Mom was Southern, Baptist, and from one of the few Republican enclaves in 1940s Dixie. Yet they were happily married for 56 years and had seven wonderful children. Particularly the second.

As me Pops himself tells the story, when he proposed Mom (obviously) said yes, but with three conditions. "I will raise my children Catholic. I will even raise them Yankees. But I will not raise them Democrats," she told him.

Well, two out of three ain't bad, Pops must've figured, because he accepted her terms. And things worked out. Pops even became a Republican.

Pop's cuisine choices

Me Pops was a simple eater with a simple diet. Burgers, hot dogs, and pizza were high on his list. He was big on fish, which is not a surprise seeing as he was a Catholic raised in the days when all Fridays were, for Churchgoers, meatless. He loved Mom's spaghetti the most. I'm not saying this to get maudlin, but his last meal at home was spaghetti. I believe that was good and proper, an alignment of the planets if you will. He loved her fried chicken, regularly lamenting that she didn't make it often enough. I'm with Dad on that, Mom. I wish you'd have made it more.
I don't think he had any unusual food choices. Perhaps the closest if it counts at all was butter and bologna sandwiches. He loved buttered bread, and I remember him having butter and bologna sandwiches quite often. And you know what? It ain't a bad sandwich combo.
Until recently it had been years since I thought of it. But in the last week it's made up my lunch three times. Bologna was on sale at the nearby supermarket so I bought some. When I got home, I saw that we had butter. The light went on above my head. I wonder if Dad's old sandwich recipe was all that? I wondered aloud in my kitchen.
It was. In fact, it will likely be my lunch again today.

I've been good

I've been good, I've been real good, I've been extraordinarily good. I've held my tongue now for three, maybe four years. Ever since a good friend of mine advised me, quite properly so I will readily admit, that I needed to back off my criticism of the Detroit Lions. I had gone on facebook one day and harangued against every play they ran during one long forgotten game, a steady stream of invective which admittedly served no purpose but to feed my ego. She was right; I needed to back off for the sake of mutual friends who were, like me, long suffering Lions fans. So I backed off. And where do I find myself today?

Watching the Detroit Lions recover a fumble to stall a Minnesota Vikings drive, only to fumble away a, a, fumble six?

The Detroit Pistons have won three National Basketball Association titles in my lifetime, and basketball so far as I am concerned is a play one minute game and assign the win sort of thing. The Detroit Red Wings, a premier original six club in the NHL, have four, count 'em, four Stanley Cups since 1997. My beloved Detroit Tigers, my favorite team of any sport, professional or collegiate, have four American League titles and two World Series wins to their credit as I have lived and breathed. The Lions?

They are as they have been. Same. Old. Lions.

Oh well. It's American football. The least important game on Earth. Especially in Detroit.

The Amish store

A few miles north of Bellefontaine, Ohio, is a small store run by the Amish community. It sells Amish made goods as well as candies and herbs and a few other things. They have the best chocolate covered raisins I've ever had.

A few weeks ago I stopped in on my way back to Detroit from Electric Eel. I grabbed a couple things and went to the counter to pay. I could see many young women behind the counter, working hard at whatever they needed to get done. Although there was a ringer by the cash register and a sign to ring it for service, I didn't do that. I was in no hurry, and the staff was busy. They'd get to me soon enough.

A young Amish girl, maybe four years old and standing right behind the counter, had other ideas. She looked up at me and smiled. She clearly had an impish idea percolating in her mind. Then she boldly stepped up to the counter, smiled a bigger smile, and reached up for the ringer. Ding ding ding ding ding ding! She rang the bell several times in quick succession and with great glee.

A young woman turned around, obviously a bit irritated, and rushed to the register to take care of me. I looked at the child and winked. I know the cashier presumed it was me who had rung the bell so emphatically. But I wasn't about to throw an Amish toddler under the bus. Especially since she had so much fun ringing that bell.

This curling thing

Well, I've gone and done it. I'm curling in a league again this year after having sat out last season. Oh, I did play a grand total of 7 games last year. But now I'm back in with both feet, at least for this season.

I wasn't going to play but I got an an offer I couldn't refuse. A good curling friend of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, asked if I would throw vice rocks for him this year. As we curl well together and as he's an ok guy, I was happy to oblige.

Our first game Tuesday wasn't my best, but at least I didn't fall on my keister. I wasn't sore Wednesday morning either. And old Cloyce made three very good shots for points. I'm sure our sweepers and my highly intelligent and accurate sweep calls helped.

I'm looking forward to more curling now. I am still worried about my vertigo or whatever it is I have which at times gives me balance problems. But as my balance has always been in question I think I'll be okay.

It is nice to be playing again. This curling thing, it gets in your blood.

Halloween 2018

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

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

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

And now I wish a curmudgeonly Happy Halloween all!

Dealing with the devil

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

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

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

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

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

Bee deaths

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

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

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

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

Late night World Series

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

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

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

That part I wouldn't change if I could.

The real Frito Bandito

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

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

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

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

Super hot coffee

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

Double or nothing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easy negotiations

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

Monday update of the weekend, or, life is good

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

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

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

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

Bipolar weather

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

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

Good line.

Why don't they expect sales tax?

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

"$40".

"Okay, I'll take it."

"Thanks. That'll be $42.40".

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

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

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

Fun facts

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

Joe's cars

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

The staring contest

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

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

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

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

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

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

Child labor

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

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

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

But I do wonder if Pops felt the same way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You know where this is going, right?

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

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

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

Amos and Alice

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

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

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

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

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

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

Render under somebody else

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

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

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

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

Fifty years ago

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

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

Now I can. Wow. Time does fly.

Picking up the pieces

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

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

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

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

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

Rainy day Cloyce

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

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

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

Intimidating the locals

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

Not a bum

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

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

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

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

Fake threats

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

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

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

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

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

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

The last shot

He always bought every shot. Every beer.

Uncle Frank. My Uncle Frank. To his family, to my children, he was Oggie, or Oggs, for whatever reason. To me, Uncle Frank.

He retired to da UP, to Hessel, in the Les Cheneaux Islands. We visited there often. We still do.

We drank a few beers together, mostly Old Milwaukee. We had a few shots, mostly the house whiskey.

He always bought.

One day, back in 1996, in July as we visited, he asked me to help him take the trash to the dump. I did so. He asked me afterwards if I might like a shot and a beer. I said yes, I might like that.

We made a side trip to his haunt. We had a shot and a beer. Those drinks seemed to last a long while that day. We talked a lot, as though we had known each other a lifetime.

Eventually our drinks were almost spent. He asked if I might like another, and I said yes, I would. He ordered. I said, Oggs, you always pay. Let me pay for these.

He stared at me for a very long moment. Then he just said, okay. I paid. We clinked glasses and downed our shots. We sipped at our beers. For another hour we talked just like old friends. I drove him home.

He passed away that night. I had bought him his last shot and beer. I am proud to have done so.

Vote now on Kavanaugh

Anymore, I truly hate to venture into politics here. It isn't very much fun, it can alienate a large segment of my audience, and I simply like writing lighter fare. But this Kavanaugh thing has gone too far and needs to stop.

With all due respect to all involved, I have the right to doubt 30 and 35 year old accusations. There's been too much history between then and now and the farther we are from any given incident the harder it is to prove anything particular about it. Unless you can come up with credible evidence, this will devolve into 'he-said she-said' and nothing will come of it. We won't know anything with any more certainty than we do this minute.

This is a hatchet job, obvious character assassination. The preponderance of the evidence heavily favors Kavanaugh. And more is at stake than innocence or guilt over one or maybe two alleged sexual assaults. Everybody's due process rights are out the window when the pointed finger is enough to condemn any one of us of any thing. I fear for every mother's son when allegations become evidence and accusation becomes proof.

The Gordian Knot of welding cable

Me Grandpa Joe rented welding machines, as many of you by now know. He really wasn't fussy about much, but one of those things was his welding cable.

Each machine typically had to have 150-200 feet of cable while in operation. These cables were copper coated rubber and were about an inch thick. He always made sure that they were rolled in loops which were easy for a man to carry on his shoulder. On this point he was very particular; it could take forever to unknot even one cable. That was just time wasted, he rightly believed. Coil the cables, tie them off, and stack them nicely when the job was through, that was his mantra.

Once Acme Steel Processors (not the company's real name) rented ten welders from Joe and had them for a couple of months. When the job was over, Joe himself happened to be the man who went to pick them up. He was greeted at the Acme plant with a pallet of unrolled welding cable. All his beautiful welding cable, more than 2,000 feet, was piled in a jumbled, knotted mess. His fuse, short anyway, was set.

About then the foreman came up to Joe and said, "There was trouble with one of your welders. The plant manager wants to talk to you."

Joe barked, "That's just dandy, because I want to talk to him too."

Grandpa stormed into the plant manager's office. The manager, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, never had a chance to open his mouth about whatever issue he had. Joe lit right into him, a blast of emphatic, rough English, yet with no expletives more than Joe's liberal use of the mild one 'hell', explaining exactly how little he cared for discovering his cable in one God-awful mess. That was not how he delivered it, Joe vigorously orated. It was gonna take hours to sort out he, um, explained. I've been told it was quite a harangue. Those who did not know Joe must understand that when his dander was up, whole neighborhoods knew it. Hell, to use his favorite word, small towns were made aware.

As Joe was just beginning to wind down Cloyce did manage to say, "You don't have to be so loud, Joe."

"Hell yeah I do!" Joe bellowed. "I want everyone in here to know what I think and I don't want to have to tell each one individually!" And he was off again.

I don't believe Cloyce ever got to make his point. He was probably quite happy to get back to the mundane tasks of plant managing once me Grandpa left.

Not quite a cab ride

I've told you before about Grandpa Joe. He could be cantankerous, sublime, sympathetic, and even religious. He could also be clever.

When he was about 80 (I don't remember exactly when this happened) he drove with Pops down to Nashville, Tennessee where Dad was working a trade show. They got to the hotel; Dad got his luggage from the trunk and Joe drove on. He was going to visit some friends in Alabama while Pops did the show.

Returning to Nashville a few days later, Joe got completely turned around and had no idea how to get to Opryland, where his son was staying. Now bear in mind that this was before any sort of GPS or cell phones. He could not simply plug an address into a small computer. He couldn't just call Dad (who would probably not have known how to help him anyway) while asking for directions is always an iffy proposition. It could become rather confusing no matter how well meant. But Joe had an inspiration that day. He hailed a cab.

Not that he was going to ride it of course; he still had his car to consider. But he explained his predicament to the cabbie, told him where he wanted to go, and asked if he could follow the cab there, whence Joe would pay him as though a regular fare.

So that's how Joe got to the hotel to pick up Pops. I for one think it a work of minor genius.

We welcome all denominations

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 his income was in dollar bills, entered into the change machines for the necessary quarters to run the washers and dryers and 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.

Insulated jokes

Sam Smith was a colleague of me Grandpa Joe. He was what Grandpa would describe as fractious. If anyone knew fractious, Joe did, God love him.
Sam owned a company which required welding equipment at times, and at such times he rented them from Joe. Once me Grandpa sent me Pops out to pick up an electric welder after Sam's company was through with it. Pops got there and the machine was still hooked up. Now, these things were powered by 440 three phrase current. I'm not sure how much that is but I know it's way more potent than house current. So Pops went to find the electrician to disconnect it.
Who he found was Sam, and Sam was already, well, feeling fractious. Apparently somebody or something had set him off for the day. Vowing to take care of it himself, he marched to the tool crib, me Pops in tow, to get a screwdriver.
"Gimme a screwdriver!" he demanded of the man, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who oversaw the crib. Cloyce, seeing Sam was mad, smiled and handed him a screwdriver. It had a metal handle rather than an insulated one, the kind he knew Sam would actually want. With the kind of power involved, you needed the insulation.
Pops, smiling himself as he had spied what Cloyce had done, and Sam walked a few steps before Sam noticed what he had been given. "They're trying to fry me like a piece of bacon!" he screamed loudly. He marched with great stomping steps back to the crib, where Cloyce was standing and waiting with the right tool. And still grinning too, but he had the sense to say nothing.

The other time I didn't win the lottery

Memories beget memories, don't they? And so yesterday's blog reminded me of another father/son lottery tale. This time however I was the father and my son was in tow. It isn't quite so hilarious either. But it's still a good story.

About a month after Charlie mustered out of the Army, as we sat anticipating some waste of time on TV one night, we decided we wanted pizza. As we drove to the pizza parlor we came across dozens, maybe a hundred, small pieces of paper strewn across the street. "What are they?" Charlie wondered allowed.

"They look like lottery slips," I responded. While Michigan like many other states still has scratch offs, many lottery tickets by then were printed by computer and had bar code identification.

My son asked, "Want to pick them up?" I knew what he thinking, because I was curious about the same thing. But I said, "They've gotta be losers or they wouldn't be all over the street." Still, an overlooked small winner might pay for our food, and lottery tickets are bearer items. Maybe we might luck up...

I pulled over the van and we began collecting what were indeed lottery slips. And there were several dozen. Once gathered, we went to a nearby party store to check them out.

Fortunately, with the bar codes, we were able to check the tickets at a scanner rather than be pests to the clerk. With each scanned paper I think Charlie and I both held our breaths slightly, hoping for some bit of good news, our anticipation oddly building with every loser. Perhaps the next one would be the one! Sadly, there were no major or minor winners. Our effort was for nil.

Still, the thought that maybe we had passed up on some small windfall would have haunted me, and maybe my son, until this day. I'm glad we at least tried. And we did get all that litter off the street.

Like winning the lottery

It's just like it says: once I felt almost like I won the lottery. It was way back when the Michigan lottery began, I think in 1972.

There were only scratch off tickets then, the kind that you instantly win (or generally lose) with, and few retailers initially offered the state lottery. One Saturday night early on, Mom and Dad and us kids started playing the lottery oh, at about 6 in the evening. We'd pony up our bucks as the tickets were a dollar each at the time and me Pops drove down to a store on Dix Road in Lincoln Park. It was eight or nine miles from home but the nearest place we knew that had lottery. He'd bring the tickets back to the house and we'd each scratch ours off. There were always enough small winners to merit going back out.

Which we did, several times. If I had to guess I'd say we made ten trips from downtown Detroit to Lincoln Park, me Pops and I, never having won more than a few dollars at a time yet enough to fuel our lottery fever. It reached the point where Dad and I had the only winners. And of course, we each won another few bucks. It got to where we never left the parking lot of that party store until our winnings and a little bit more were spent. I think we sat in that lot a half an hour, scratching tickets, winning a bit, going back in, then scratching those in the car. And all the while cackling like idiots at the absurdity of it.

Who started it I don't know. But you know how it is: laughter, especially uproarious laughter, often feeds itself. It stokes its own coals. I mean, we were both laughing harder than hell. We'd say were done after these tickets, and then win three dollars and start again. We laughed until we hurt; laughed until we cried. It was just bizarre. Anyone walking by and noticing the two morons in the old Polara wagon had to have thought we were nuts. But for me and the old man, it was a fun time.

So I haven't won the lottery. But it kinda felt like I did that night.

Me Pops good advice

I delivered a good used Electric Eel to a fine gentleman yesterday. He only needed it for his own property, and it was a good deal for us both: I made a sale and he got a quality drain cleaner at a good price. "I'm not even telling my friends that I have one, or they'll want to borrow it," he explained to me.
I actually slapped my knee and said, "I'm glad you said that. It allows me to tell you me Pops advice on drain snake ownership."
You see, Dad always said there were three rules to owning a drain cleaner.
Don't loan your snake.
Don't loan your snake.
Don't loan your snake.
He would always point out three fingers in quick succession as he recited those rules: pointer, middle finger, ring finger, holding them all up together at the end to emphasize the idea. Folks think drain cleaning is easy. And while it's not brain surgery it does require experience. They'd borrow the snake, damage it somehow through lack of knowledge or ability, and then never get it repaired for you (or promise to pay and not reimburse the owner). It's a fact of life.
So the lesson for today is: don't loan your snake, don't loan your snake, don't loan your snake.

Infinite monkeys

I will go on the record as saying that I don't believe that there is other intelligent life, indeed that there is any life at all, elsewhere in the galaxy. That is not etched in stone, for if the universe is huge and expanding as we're told then other life is not of necessity out of the question. Still, that old saw, what with the sprawling and expanding nature of the universe there must be intelligent life besides our own, isn't really a convincing argument. Space and time do not automatically mean that other life forms can or will develop. I do not believe that infinite monkeys hammering on infinite typewriters must produce Shakespeare.

Honesty about our experience is that nothing else is there. We've found no hard and fast evidence of life in the local planets and solar systems, nor have we discovered anything notable in what other worlds have been identified elsewhere. It would be more logical at this point to assume that the more worlds without life, the less likely that there are in fact worlds with it. Further, why is it so outlandish to think that maybe, just maybe, we were touched by the Divine for a very singular purpose? Perhaps the rest of creation is here simply to help us appreciate the depth and power of the Supreme Being. Personally I find that a comfortable thought. I don't gaze upon the night sky and think how small I am. I look at it and think what a marvel creation is, and how wonderful that we have been a part of it.

Yet if there is alien life, it isn't as though such a find would alter what should be our proper view of things. If there are intelligent aliens, they would have been created by the same God. They would face the same issues which we do: seeing to their needs, their daily bread, and considering their responsibilities to their fellow creatures and to whomever else exists. In short, postulating alien life is interesting as an academic device. But would any such discoveries be, dare I say (I do so love puns), Earth shattering?

Of course not. So keep looking, if that's you life's work, and I will readily concede my error if proved wrong. But don't make it too much of a mission. There's an awful lot of work on our world which could be as rewarding. Indeed, if you want to get to know others and make lives better, there's plenty for you to do around here.