The last day of the decade - not

Today is the last day of the decade: December 31, 2019. But it's not. the twenty-teens don't end until the end of 2020.

Count things out yourself on your fingers. The tenth year ends a decant: there is no number zero. It's like when we turned over the millennium. The year 2000 ended the 1900s rather than beginning the 2000s. The year 2001 actually began the new millennium.

So sorry folks, the new roaring twenties don't actually start tomorrow. It's like when I turn 60 in April 2020 I will still in fact be in my fifties. Hey, you grab onto whatever branch you can.

Crispy crisps posing as chips

Okay, back to the sublimely ridiculous Marty who tells tall tales or opines about the unimportant.

Among my Christmas gifts was a can of Pringles, intended to be shared with my granddogs as they and I love salty snacks. For the record, I dutifully shared them with the pups, doling them out over a few days in fact to spread the joy. I don't believe the dogs cared for such distribution. But they still gratefully took them when offered.

Pringles used to be called Pringles newfangled potato chips until the government, in its desire to protect us from all enemies foreign, domestic, and within the snack food industry, made them call their product potato crisps (as they were not slices of deep fried potato but potatoes which were pulverized into a mash then deep fried into a chip quality) lest the America consumer fail to see the importance of government protection. After all, who wants to be victimized by potato crisps posing as chips?

Anyway, the size of the can was 4.41 ounces. The can also proudly proclaimed that it was a limited time size. And that affects the quality and flavor...how? That bothers me almost as much as my over protective government ordering the folks at Pringles to relabel their snack food in a protective move which I quite frankly did not need. Nor see the point of. I mean, chips, crisps; is THAT what I pay my taxes for?

But at least Pringles offered the new can size on their own. I think.

That wasn't a catch?

All right, it's been awhile since I've allowed myself an anti-football rant. So brace yourself, I have one today.

While I did not watch any games live yesterday (I rarely do anymore, yet that goes for most any sport beyond baseball and golf) I could not help but hear of the non-fumble which went against Ohio State on review during the Fiesta Bowl. So I pulled it up on the computer and, you know what?

That was a catch. How can you play a game, how can you have a sport, how can you claim any integrity for your championships, when you don't know yourself the basic objects of your game?

The guy caught the ball. He had it stripped and the Buckeyes should have had a touchdown. Period. End of report. And please spare me about how it doesn't really matter because OSU missed other opportunities.  A glaring, I don't know that you can call it a mistake when something's so egregious, injustice such as that simply begs all other questions. Yes, they missed other chances. But those do not matter when an appalling lack of judgment and fair play is at hand. Yet even with instant replay and official reviews, these idiocies seem to happen in football far more often than other sports. This isn't the first time this year alone in the NFL or NCAA where stupidity reigned.

And if you think it's all okay because it was OSU who had it stuck to them, you're part of the problem with American football and the rabid, unchecked, relentless egotism the game allows, even encourages. Football needs to take an honest look at itself.

Rant over. Have a pleasant Sunday waiting for the NFL to make its stupid calls.

Rant really over now.

The rather strange interrogation

A few years ago I met an old curling friend for golf. After a short discussion we decided to play in Canada. I crossed over the border one Sunday, we played 18 holes, went to a pub and grub for a couple pints and some, well, grub, decided to hit the links again soon, and parted ways.
It was next, in my return to these United States, that the story became in my mind kinda weird.
I stopped at the guard booth and dutifully handed the attendant my enhanced license. "Citizenship?" he asked brusquely.
You just swiped my license, so you know the answer to that, I thought brusquely myself. But I obediently answered, "U.S."
"Purpose of your trip?"
"I was golfing with a Canadian curling friend."
The man turned to look at me and asked, I thought rather harshly, "What have you got against golf in the United States?"
"N, nothing," I heard myself stammer. "We just decided to golf in Canada."
He began staring me down, and I have to admit I was starting to feel intimidated, "Why would you decide that?"
"Well, no big reason. It seemed cheaper for me cross the border and pay in Canadian dollars, that's all."
"So what's your problem with US dollars?" continued the interrogation.
I wasn't sure how to answer that, as I truly love US dollars as much as any red blooded American. I responded meekly, "It just seemed cheaper."
The guard harrumphed, and turned to look at his monitor. "And how did you meet this 'curling friend'?" I swear you could see the quote marks hanging in the air.
I really wasn't sure how to answer that; from his tone it didn't appear as though there was a right answer. "Uh, well, curling?" It sounded even to me like I responded with the lilt of a question. That's not gonna help here, I thought with no small fear.
He asked, "Do you have your clubs with you?"
"Yes. In the back of my van." I stupidly indicated where the back of my van was with a twist of my head.
"What kind are they?" he demanded.
I answered incredulously, "Clevelands." Where's he going with this?
The guard turned again to me, handed me back my license, smiled broadly and said in the happiest tone, "Good choice. Have a nice day!"
I don't know about you, but it struck me a rather bizarre return interview.

The review

Christmas was, so far as I can tell, good. People seemed happy, visits were fun and visitors had fun, and all appears right with the world. I'm okay with that. I hope too that your Christmas was one to be okay with.

Now it's time to make the donuts again...

Christmas 2019

Ripping off a meme making its rounds of the Internet, let me say today:

If the house isn't spotless, it's still Christmas.

If the meal isn't perfect, it's still Christmas.

If the gifts aren't ideal, it's still Christmas.

But if there's no Christ, it isn't Christmas.

Take a breath and remember that it is most emphatically not about the whistles and bows. It's about Christ.

Merry Christmas everyone.

One Christmas

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

Saturday rumbling

When 6-6 teams can make college football bowl games, there are too many bowl games.

The House impeached because it's imperative to remove President Trump as soon as possible, then might not advance the charge to the Senate? If anyone cannot now see this as purely political, you are not an impartial observer.

Other than the heavy snowfall in November (which is long gone around here anyway) this winter hasn't really been bad so far in the D.

And Christmas week is expected to be unusually warm. I don't really trust weather prognosticators I do hope they're right on that.

I went, I saw, I curled. And I'm still sore, even though I didn't do much. And this from Wednesday.

That's it, I quit. Have a good Saturday.

Going by the numbers

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, the Shop number painted on the top with the prefix JC. 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 10. 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 number and letter combinations like 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.

Save dish washing time

"I don't wash dishes. I wash dish," me Uncle John used to say. You see, he had a habit of eating his food right out of the can. It saved time and effort, and he only needed either a spoon or a fork. And let's face it, an awful lot of our food can be eaten that way.

Tuna, Vienna sausages, mechanically separated chicken, most vegetables; even things such as Spam can be eaten raw (or at least unheated). But Uncle did crease the envelope a bit. He would eat soup from the can for example. I was never sure enough about that to try it. One of the more unusual things he did sell me on though was corned beef hash. I tried it myself that way, straight from the can, and it was really okay. Roast beef hash not so much, but still good.

We hit a point where we would debate what else might be good enough thus consumed. Most things are just fine eaten out of the can it turns out. About the only thing we each agreed upon heartily was beef stew. Beef stew had to be heated. It was simply too chunky and the gravy too much in globules to be enjoyed on the cheap.

So, use less water and soap my friends. Eat from the can!

I'm curling

I'm curling today at the Detroit Curling Club. It's a Tier 55 bonspiel. That means you have to be old to play in it. I qualify.

We play two games and have lunch in between. It should be fun. After all, there's never a bad time in a curling club. Trust me on that.

I love the game but I love the people more, and I suppose that's what I'm looking forward to the most: seeing old friends. That is not meant as a joke, though they are old.

Anyway, I'm off. Wish me luck. And hope that I am not too sore afterwards.

Can't be that busy

I remember me Pops would frequently ask, to no one in particular and everyone in general, "You ever notice that the guys who claim they're the busiest always have the time to tell you how busy they are?" It sure seems that way.

I had a customer at the Shop yesterday who came in (without his machine for some reason) and wanted to know how much and how long to put a chuck on his Eel. I told the man twenty five bucks and we could do it while he waits. "Cool. Let me go get my machine Cosgriff and I'll be right back. I got a lotta jobs waiting."

He left to get his machine an hour later. Several times in the interim as he was supposedly about to leave he would stop before reaching the door and ask about a cutter, or the turnaround time on rewiring his unit, or simply to tell me about how much he loves his Model C Eel. Still, I ended up fibbing to him and said I had to close at three just to expedite things. "Okay, Cosgriff. Let me go get it 'cause I'm really busy. Got a lotta jobs lined up."

I hope he was very busy, because he was really selling me on the point. Yet he did not return by three. Or by my actual closing for that matter.

My brother's wisdom

My brother had said some things which are worth hearing. Of course, he's said a lot things which aren't worth a tinker's dam either, but I'll leave that go. For now.

When someone does something so asinine as to defy even the most rudimentary logic he asks, "In what universe did he imagine that would be right?" Yet perhaps his best lament is when a customer brings an off the wall, second or even third rate drain snake into our shop and expects us to make it top of the line. "He wants us to make a Cadillac out of a Yugo," Phil will opine.

I can't think of another example just now. But you get the point: some times my brother is wise. Or a wise guy, take your pick.

Faith and Reason

I sell for a company located in Springfield, Ohio: Electric Eel Manufacturing, which is where to go for all your drain cleaning needs. They make the best products on the market, and I say that not simply because I sell them but because it's true. But this is about more than that. It is about the people who make up the company, but also, I hope, about a little bit more.

One fine day in 2015 as I drove to Springfield from Detroit, sometime around 3 AM, I was nearing a little town called North Baltimore. There is a truck stop at the exit for the town, and I often stop in for a respite, a coffee, or a snack. I was planning to do that that day but as I approached a little voice said, "Why don't you just go on?", and I thought, yeah, why not, might as well make some time. So I drove by.

Urbana, Ohio is about 30 miles from Springfield. I thought I might get a coffee, and hit my left turn signal to run into a Tim Horton's. But that same calm voice said, "You're so close. Just get to the factory." So I thought again, I might ought to, and I am quite close. I went on.

I parked at the plant, took a few things into the front offices, and went back out to drive my van to the loading dock to pick up my order. I turned the key, and was greeted by a simple little click which I recognized immediately. My starter had went out. But rather than being upset, even though I knew the repair would be costly and that my day would be seriously delayed, I right away thought that I was glad I was there and not in North Baltimore or Urbana.

In part I knew this was fortunate because the people at Eel, good folks all, would help me, and they did. We tried a jump start and a few other things which unfortunately didn't work, and then the shop foreman called their mechanic, who took me in right away. He had me fixed up and I was back at the plant by 11 O'clock, loading and getting ready to get back to Detroit much earlier than I had feared would be the case a few hours before.

I had told several friends earlier in the day about my almost stopping but not. I related this story to another fellow right before I left. He said simply, "It was the Holy Spirit." The instant he said that I agreed, "You're right. It was."

Now we might look at this in different ways. It could be objected that if it was God trying to help me, "You still needed an expensive van repair. Why would you be thankful to Him for that?" But we all know the obvious response, don't we? My situation would have been much worse in the wee hours of the morning in more isolated places. I might also add, against the objection that why didn't God just keep the breakdown from happening at all, that the world is not perfect. All things made by human hands are subject to failure, and indeed (to really go off on a tangent) that without those failures human freedom itself would be impossible as the consequences of acts would be meaningless. Perhaps I'll expound on that more at another time, but trust me. The point is rational.

Still, this doesn't prove that it was the Holy Spirit. It is a matter of faith, mine and surely several other folks at Electric Eel and among readers, that it was. And this leads to the key trouble which people not of faith have with such an insistence. They will themselves insist that such faith is irrational.

But is it rational, irrational, or in fact above and beyond reason? Being beyond reason doesn't mean that faith is wrong; it doesn't actually mean that faith is irrational either. I rather believe that faith, so long as it is not genuinely irrational, is actually quite reasonable. Saying that you believe by faith that aardvarks speak English is obviously irrational, as any absurd assertion must be. As such, we can dismiss such a belief as not an example of real faith. But the idea that an omnipotent, caring being might help us along the way is certainly not irrational. A faith in that sort of being most definitely cannot be called unreasonable.

Oh, you might argue that such a being doesn't exist. Yet we're already past that if we presume He does: if A, then B. It still fulfills any demand for rationality and is not blind faith which many of the faithful are accused of having. If you don't care to presume that such a being exists then our disagreement is with first principles, self evidence, and not any given logical progression.

I have faith that the Holy Spirit kept me going so that I could get easier help at my ultimate destination. I find the thought indeed eminently rational. You may not agree that that was the case. But I do think you're being unfair to say that my faith is therefore irrational. Even if you don't believe me, at least don't think I childishly believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which is truly a straw man argument against God and faith.

If something of faith can pass (or at least not fail) the test of rationality then there is little reason to disregard it as merely a figment of the imagination. Don't dismiss it merely because it cannot be proven empirically. Faith simply is not belief without proof. It is belief beyond proof.

Grandpaw Hutchins' dogs

Me Grandpa Hutchins had a couple of pets over the years which, for whatever reason, stand out in my mind. I guess they simply impressed me somehow.

One he called Watch. Watch was the largest collie I have ever seen. He looked like Lassie on steroids. Lots of steroids. He weighed, the vet told Grandpa, 135 pounds. That's a lot of collie.

Watch was a playful animal though. That's not bad until you take his weight into account. He'd knock you down without any evil intent. He was just being man's best friend.

Grandpa had another little beagle named Tommy. I liked old Tommy; maybe that's why I gravitate towards beagles, so much as I might gravitate towards any particular breed of dog.

What I remember most about Tommy was that he lost his voice when he was about 14 (84 in people years). He would start to bay as beagles do but only the first 'wrope' would come out. Yet his mouth kept silently opening and closing for several seconds, as though he had to complete the rest of the barking anyway.

Watch and Tommy. Two pretty good old dogs.

Nativity scene askew

As I drove to Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs; it's my blog, I can shamelessly plug whatever I want) in the wee hours of the morning one day last week, I saw a Nativity scene in a yard next to a house. There's nothing surprising about that of course. It's that time of year.

It was one of those sets that was made up of plastic statues which could be lit up from the inside. And so they were, every statue. Hmm...is it right to describe a Nativity as lit up?

Anyway, the household already had the three wise men around, which arguably is being ahead of times as they didn't arrive until several days after Jesus' birth. But who am I to argue over minor details?

Anyway again, one of the wise men was laying on his side, presumably because of the wind or whatever. It faced away from the road and also blocked the view of the crib so that you could not see the Christ Child. But as the other statues were duly kneeling with their hands in the prayer position, facing the road and thus the tipped over wise man, it looked to me as though they were all praying over a recently fallen comrade. I burst into laughter at this nativity scene askew.

Am I a bad person?

Late in Adrian

Adrian is a nice small town in Lenawee County Michigan, about 90 minutes southwest of Detroit. It's the kind of place I wouldn't mind making a home: small town living close enough to the big city for big city conveniences. I was just there yesterday.

The profusion of cell phones means that cities such as Adrian are very close. Close enough that customers can easily reach you there, as one did me late yesterday afternoon. He wanted to drop off his machine for repair. "I'm sorry, but I'm in Adrian and I'll be late today. Bring it to my shop tomorrow," I explained.

"Oh. Well, could I bring it now and you check it tomorrow?"

Oh-kay. What I did not ask (although I wanted to) was, what part of  'I'm in Adrian and I'll be late bring it tomorrow" was not clear?

I'm asking for a friend.

I pay my bills

On Thursday, a customer brought back a machine which he felt I should repair under warranty. Now, I won't bore you with the details, and I am man enough to admit a mistake and do warranty work when it's legitimate. But somebody had clearly messed with the machine. My work wasn't the issue. I told him as much.

He insisted that no one had touched it, and added, "Marty, I pay my bills."

What does paying your bills have to do with it? I thought. I pointed that out to him. "Well, I mean I wouldn't do anything wrong to you man."

Whatever. Somebody messed with that machine, simple as that. Despite that you pay your bills man.

Zeke's driving test

Okay, I'll admit up front that the title is a hook. A quite misleading one at that. But this post does involve me Uncle John (sometimes called Zeke) and it is about driving tests.

Back in the day many of us Cosgriffs lived and worked near Wayne State University in downtown Detroit. Now I can't speak for how they are recently but as I hear few complaints I think they're much better. But in the seventies and eighties WSU students were notorious walkers and drivers. Notorious that is for weaving in and out of traffic in their vehicles and vaulting across the street on foot trying to make their classes. Warren Avenue between Interstate 75 and Trumbull Avenue, a course about a mile and a half long, was the major roadway where all the action took place. It could be a harrowing drive if you didn't pay attention.

Uncle John noticed this as well as the rest of us. He used to quip that the road test for new drivers ought to be making it from I-75 to Trumbull along Warren without killing two people.

You caught that, didn't you? He was willing to spot you the first fatality because in that stretch of road you were going to kill somebody. And it would not be your fault, it would not be held against you.

Personally I think old Zeke had the right idea.

End all be all

News flash: the world is going to Hell. Do what you will, think what you will, hope what you will, but no matter what we human beings think and do, the world's heading straight into the fireball. Outside of the Will of God, it's going to happen. No action inspired by mere human plans and actions can stop it.

But that doesn't mean today. In fact, it likely will not be today, nor anytime soon.

If I've learned anything after 59 years on God's green Earth, beyond the right to speak like an old guy (things was diff'rent when I was a boy I tell ya), is that we ain't perfect. Some of us is less perfect than others, all the way to acting downright evil. I mean that. Because of that (again, outside of Divine intervention, but that's not the point here) the world will destroy itself one day. It will happen. You cannot stop it. You are not and will not be in a position to affect it. Period.

I'm not saying not to work for a better world just the same. You certainly should act within your sphere to do what you can to forestall the day of reckoning. But never mind the peripherals: fake news, President Trump, North Korean nukes, Brexit, any ism you can imagine, impeachment, Fox News over CNN. You cannot affect them on a broad scale. Stop fretting.

Be nice to your neighbor. Help directly someone who needs help. Do your job well. Discuss the issues even, among friends and charitably. I personally believe giving the Almighty His due wouldn't hurt either. But stop feeding the beast.

You're not delaying the end of the world. But you just might be helping to bring it if you stoke the coals for the people actually driving the train. You might then be helping the end come before it must.

Wither Faygo?

I don't normally fall for clickbait, the ads which entice you about trivial things yet take pages and pages to navigate. But every now and then I succumb to the temptation. This morning was one such time. It involved what are purported to be the most unusual foods from each state.

I can't find it now but trust me. From North Dakota was offered lutefisk, a seemingly awful fish, uh, treat. It sounded awful, both overcooked and overly pungeant. Yet that other North in our Union, Carolina, offers livermush, which I love. I'm not sure if it's one word or two, livermush or liver mush, but I love it. Indeed I've written about it here:

https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2017/07/potted-meat-and-liver-mush.html

Yet what this particular article claimed was the most unusual food from right here in Michigan, right here in the D in fact, was, I am not making this up, Faygo.

To be fair, the writers conceded that Faygo isn't actually a food (really), explaining that it's a cornucopia of flavored pops. But my question is, what's so odd about flavored pop? Isn't that everywhere?

And now you know why I avoid clickbait. It's stupid.

Don't tell if asked

Ninety five percent of the time, if not ninety eight, I'm fine. Really. I can nearly always function at work and at home, lifting and moving things as required. But the affects of ageing are still there.

Yesterday for example I spent most of the day with my hip bothering me enough that I was indeed having trouble functioning. I sat a lot, stretched out on the couch or the bed a lot. No amount of ibuprofen seemed to help. I simply had to resign myself to hip pain until it decided to alleviate itself.

Yet that's not the worst part of it. The worst part is knowing that in about nine years I'll need to have that hip replaced. I wouldn't know that if I hadn't been stupid enough to mention to my doctor about a year ago that my hip hurt.

You know how that goes. You're just in for a regular, routine checkup and he asks how you are. "Well, my hip bugs me a bit doc," you answer. So after about five minutes of stretching and manipulation he says, "I'm thinking you're about ten years from a hip replacement."

Thanks Doc. That means that every time that my hip hurts like yesterday I think things along the lines of, well, one year of that ten years is past. It's something to look forward to I suppose. But the next time I see him, at my regular scheduled exam in April 2020, and he asks 'How are you Mr. Cosgriff?' unless I am experiencing crushing chest pain or the like, I will simply answer, fine.

The perks

One of the things I learned early on in this life as a Cosgriff was: keep the coffee on. There oughta be a pot on the stove at all times.

In this age of everything instantly that isn't so much of a concern. What with Keurigs and timed drip coffeemakers and all, do we really need to keep the coffee on? It's always right at our fingertips, eh?

True dat. Still, to a perculatin' coffee meister such as meself, it ain't the same. There needs to be a pot on the stove with coffee ready right now. A thirty second wait for your Keurig simply won't do. I must be able to pour a cup right now, this instant. That's how it's supposed to work.

I remember well taking my turn making a pot of coffee at me Grandpa Joe's by the time I was about 12. There were two pots on his stove and when the first one was empty there had to be a second got going right now. It's how things were supposed to be. It's what made the world right.

To this day, or more properly since the day I began keeping only one pot of coffee at a time on my stove, part of me has felt as though I were violating a commandment. Only one? What about the cup needed ten cups from now?

I'm learning to live with it though. But it does go against my grain.

Defending the Shop

For protection, me Grandpa Joe kept a shotgun just inside the office door of the Shop. It never was used in self defense, though it almost was once.

A friend of me Pops, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, had stopped by the old barn for a visit. While he was there a group of rather unsavory looking fellows came down the alley which ran alongside the building. They looked dangerous, as if they might have had ill intent. Cloyce went into the office and grabbed the shotgun, reaching inside a desk drawer for the shells he knew were there. He didn't confront the thugs. He simply had the gun and shells at the ready. Pops just kept working.

When the group had cleared the area Cloyce said, "Red (at one time people called me Pops Red because of his hair then), you only got three shotgun shells."

"Yeah?" Dad asked in reply.

"There were four guys."

Pops put a hand on Cloyce's shoulder. "My friend, if you drop the first three and the fourth one keeps coming, give him the keys to the place."

There's something to be said for that.

Black Friday 2019

No, I'm not going to write about shopping excess or the irony of people wanting more after a day of supposing to be thankful for what they already have. I mean, it's been done by others. And by me. A lot. Or at least enough. In fact I have three other ideas for today, so I'll throw them all at the wall and see what sticks.

I appreciate my son carving the turkey yesterday. I always detested that job. It's nasty, indeed just plain yucky, and is one of two things which could make me vegan if I had to do it regularly. The other is a trip to rendering plant, which I spoke about here:

https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2018/10/render-under-somebody-else.html

So thanks Chuck!

Today we put up the Christmas tree and other holiday decor. It's good to have same said son and his family here to help, because it's just more fun with the kids (even if they are all in their thirties). We've long hit the remember-this-ornament-remember-that-one stage. It's more fun with more folks involved.

Number three, number three, paging idea number three...oh yeah. It was to be a remembrance of me Grandpa Joe's old friend Amos and his overabundance of Thanksgiving good luck at a Church festival years ago. But it turns I wrote about that last year. You can read about it here:

https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2018/11/amoss-turkey-day.html

And now you have it: the three ideas I had to blog about today. It's kinda the written equivalent of a clip show I suppose. But people like clip shows, don't they? I know lazy writers do...

My dream car

We all daydream don't we? Dream home, dream vacation, dream trip; we all think those things eh? For some it's a dream car. My dream car is a 1967 Cadillac. A lilac one.

Me Grandpa Joe had one like that. The last car with tail fins, modest though they were. I have no idea where he got that Caddy, but I know he had it painted lilac because there was a sale at the car paint place.

I remember well the day we discovered Joe had it. We got back home from visiting Mom's folks in North Carolina and me Pops pulled up to park right behind that Caddy as we got home. "I wonder who's purple Cadillac that is?" He wondered aloud.

 He should have known.

That car became my delivery car. Joe being Joe, he had a hitch put on that thing for delivering Hobart welders. He put it in the fleet. And  ol' Marty got to deliver them welders with it. Proudly, if in retrospect.

That was the car I drove through four feet of water in Milan. I'd link you to that blog but I'm feeling lazy just now.

A friend of Joe's joked that he once saw a line of welders a mile long bein'  pulled by a big purple Caddy. It was that Caddy.

And that's my dream car. A lilac '67 Caddy with modest tail fins. And maybe an old Hobart welder to tow behind it.

Meandering Saturday

Last night I was channel surfing. It caused me to rethink a few things.

I watched two episodes of The Flintstones. That's a small survey sample admittedly, but it wasn't so cheesy as I expected to remember. I actually remember watching them in prime time when I was 5 or 6. They aged well. Me, I ain't so sure.

Then I watched MASH. My apologies but I can't find the asterisk key to spell it out correctly. Anyway, what struck me the most was Hawkeye. He was really kind of a jerk. But it was also only two episodes.

Of course, what I wanted to see was a baseball game. But I suppose it's the wrong time of year for that, eh?

Next I watched a couple episodes of the reboot of Duck Tales. I'm sure I've said it before, but that reminded me that cartoons can be entertaining. More so than a lot of presumed mature programs.

I followed that with starting into my latest reading, Theodore the Great. It's about Teddy Roosevelt. I'll let you know what I think, because I'm sure you all want to know.

Bye for now.

Gas cap odometer

Just when I figure I can't have anything more unusual happen to one of my famed Cosgriff cars, something more unusual happens. On my new old van rather than the mileage appearing on the odometer, the odometer says gascap.

The van's been running fine. Indeed I ignored it for a few weeks (I first noticed it before Halloween). The cap seemed to be on snugly, so as is my normal approach to all things mechanical if ain't broke I don't fix it.

Still, as it was so highly unusual even for me I did eventually stop by my mechanic for his opinion. Do you know what he told me? "Don't worry about it. The seal probably isn't perfect and the sensor is picking that up. Sand around the end of the neck where the cap goes if you like, but it won't hurt anything."

I have long believed that far too many of our warnings are overwrought. This incident, if it qualifies as an incident, ahem, seals the deal for me. All these warning lights just cause us to panic unnecessarily. If there's a real problem you'll know without much of a hint.

It was Saturday when I saw my mechanic. I still haven't sanded the thing and I'm not sure I ever will.

On the fence

Lord knows I'm not on the fence about anything. Maybe I should have titled this about the fence.

As I took my morning walk today (I still go out weather permitting I only dress warmer) I noticed not one, not two, but three new fences. Okay Marty, what's your point? My point is they were all built with the slats going sideways, right to left, rather than up and down. Nothing wrong with that of course. But it looked on, not one , not two, but on all three, supremely odd.

I think part of it was that it was honestly scrambling my vertigo. I still have trouble with quick movements, and there were gaps enough in all three fences (perhaps three quarters of an inch between boards) so that if a car passed by its headlights would ripple along all those horizontal boards. I honestly felt dizziness coming on, so much so that I had to avert my eyes on passing each barricade. It's been several months since I've had a serious attack, but I became afraid I'd bring one on.

And these fences do look weird. I suppose there's a reason for them; artistic licence among fence constructors maybe. But you're messing with my reality man. Stop it.

Simple economics in school

When I taught high school level economics I kept it very simple. I hoped to instill in students a sense of exactly what they might deal with in real life. One such lesson involved what sales meant.

One idea was that when an item was on sale for, say, 10% off, that they did not save ten percent but only spent ten percent less on it. That doesn't make a purchase bad of course. But unless they actually put that ten off in the bank, they hadn't saved anything. I in fact had gotten that idea from me Pops years earlier, when I was maybe, heh, heh, ten. A friend of his was showing the old man something and bragging about the ten off he saved. Dad merely asked, "So's where's the money you saved?"

Another concept was the old buy one get one free come on. You aren't getting either one free: you're spending half as much on each. Again, that doesn't mean it's a bad deal. But you are not getting a freebie. Free means all yours at no cost and with no strings attached, no demands on you as a consumer.

I don't know if these helped but it was what I taught.

Graphic Canadian pizza

The things you see on the road...

As I drove down into Ohio this morning I saw a sign which said: Jet's Pizza/Canada RX. Now what that meant (and I know it) was that in that particular plaza there was a Jet's Pizza and a store selling prescription drugs from Canada. Still, I couldn't help thinking, well, pharmaceuticals, okay. But do we really need to import pizza from Canada?

Farther down the line in Kenton, Ohio is a company called Graphic Packaging. Every time I pass it I wonder, exactly how graphic is it? I mean, is it stuff like, ooh, no, dude, get that outta here kind of graphic?

I do entertain myself quite well when driving. I fit my sense of humor.

A joke

Yesterday I took my mother to breakfast and afterwards we did a bit of shopping. With her mind failing she frequently asks the same questions over and over. But we can still joke.

Yesterday it was, "Today's Sunday, isn't it?' She must have asked me a dozen times, and each time I just answered yes it was, just as you're supposed to. But after one time she said, "I have trouble telling Saturdays and Sundays apart."

"Yeah," I replied, "I have that trouble with Mondays and Thursdays." She laughed at that.

Okay, maybe it was a he's my son I have to laugh kind of laugh. But we take what we can get, eh, and she seemed to like it.

Sports and politics

After a day of overhyped college football, with the upcoming overhype for Sunday's NFL games, after a week of heavy breathing about impeachment, I've come to an analogy and a conclusion.

Sports and politics share one thing: they're both too often just noise. And both too often too self important.

I take Ron's advice quite a bit anymore when I come across either on TV. I change the channel. They ain't worth my time.

The hell with you

Is it ever acceptable to tell a customer to go to Hell?

Yesterday a man left a machine with me for repair. That's cool. That's what I do. He even bought the part he needed. That's cool too. I only have to charge labor. He wanted a receipt (I needed him to leave it overnight). That as well is cool. I would have given him one anyway; it's a standard business practice. At that point he left.

He returned within about 90 seconds and started taking pictures of his broken machine. While I stared at him he explained, "I just did some upgrades and want to be sure I get my machine back."

That's when I thought I should tell him to go to Hell and take his machine with him.  I didn't, but if I had, would have I been wrong?

A CFL Odyssey

While channel surfing this past Sunday I stumbled across a CFL, Canadian Football League, game. It was on ESPN2, so there must not have been much else to air.

Hey, my many Canadian friends, I joke!

Anyway, it reminded me of all the relatively minor differences between the two games, the NFL here with the CFL there. Let's see how many I can list:

Three downs instead of four.

A one yard neutral zone between the offensive and defensive lines.

12 men on the field per side rather than 11.

Numerous men in motion on the offensive side of the ball, and towards the line of scrimmage. That takes getting used to. I was constantly looking for the motion flag.

Red penalty flags instead of yellow.

The 'rouge', the single point a defensive team gets if the offense can't get the ball out of the end zone on a punt or kickoff return.

A longer field (110 yards) with deeper end zones (20 yards). They don't have a 50 yard line but a centre line at the 55 yard mark.

A wider field (not sure by how much).

No fair catches on punts, but a five yard halo to allow the catch.

A three minute warning at the end of the half or game. Apparently it takes longer for Canadians to see to their needs (Hey, I joke again!).

Is there more? Maybe. This is what I remembered, and without the help of Wikipedia I might add. I have watched a few CFL games in the past.

My buddy Ron and Mr. Don Cherry

Don Cherry tells it like it is. If you don't like it, change the channel.

This is a comment from my friend Ron in response to my blog yesterday. I was talking about the firing of hockey legend Don Cherry by Sportsnet in Canada. You can read about it here:

https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2019/11/buckley-had-it-right.html

What I like about my buddy's comment is that it reminds me of, well, me in the past. Years ago when I would rant about the content of television shows or music on the radio, virtually all of my liberal friends would say, "Marty, if you don't like it, change the channel." Things as they are, it's about the best advice I could get.

Well now, liberal friends, I will second Ron's advice: If you don't like what Don Cherry says, change the channel.

Man, I love throwing people's words in their faces. Thanks, Ron!

Buckley had it right

I have read in many places that liberals want tolerance, diversity, and inclusiveness. I do not believe them. The treatment of two Dons, Cherry and Trump, illustrate to me that they do not mean these things when they say them.

Don Trump is of course President of the United States. Don Cherry is a Canadian hockey icon who supposedly attacked immigrants by saying they ought to wear a poppy, a symbol in honor of Canadian war dead, to show their support of the fallen. He meant everyone ought to wear a poppy, but the hyper-sensitive among us won't consider that. You can read about it here if you like:

https://globalnews.ca/news/6155243/don-cherry-out-as-host-of-coachs-corner-following-poppy-controversy/

I honestly don't see where his comments were all that outrageous. Nor do I find all of President Trump's rants so outrageous as we are supposed to think. I think each of them could use better filters, yes. Yet I also think the left condescending and arbitrary about much of what Don and Don say.

The progressive left says it wants tolerance and an end to hype and hyperbole. Well, okay. But you might notice that they are unwilling to include the two Dons in their ever so inclusive and tolerant world. And it's quite convenient yet typical of the left to exempt non right wingers from the standards they hold against the President and Mr. Cherry. We can conclude from this that they are not really so tolerant, not really so inclusive, as they claim. Why else do they rarely offer examples of leftist intolerance (try speaking at a US university if a you're a conservative commentator) to substantiate their claim that we all need to be considerate, tolerant, of others?

The irony for me is that, as a conservative, I'm willing, indeed I admit, that I'm not interested in open ended diversity, inclusiveness, or tolerance. I believe there are lines in the sand which cannot be crossed if we hope to maintain a civil society. It's my progressive, leftist friends who proclaim that diversity and so forth are the cat's meow yet quite routinely act exclusive; witness the hubbub over Cherry while the Canadian PM is still in office despite appearing in blackface years ago. The direct and obvious inference is that liberals can't be racist because, well, liberal. It's hypocrisy, plain and simple.

The fact is the left does not want diversity: they want everyone to agree with them. The exact sin they regularly and disdainfully accuse the right of committing.

I'm sorry, but I have little, ahem, tolerance for that type of intellectual dishonesty. Bill Buckley had it right: the left says it wants diversity yet is shocked when it finds it. How quaint.

Miami Atlantis

We had six inches of snow yesterday here in Detroit, Michigan. If you can believe the weatherman. And I quite frankly have trouble believing him.

Last week at this time we weren't expecting any snow for November 11. Then it became about an inch, then one to three, then three to five, and four to six before finally, supposedly, getting six. This pattern seems to me to occur routinely. In the summer it involves rain and higher temperatures, but you get the point.

These are the things I think of when I hear all the fear and loathing about climate change. Miami is going to be under water in the year 2100, but you can't tell me Detroit will have a half foot of snow a week in advance. All of this with no consideration of whether we might be better off with Miami underwater, either.

Poor jokes aside, if you want me to believe what you say about climate change in the long run you'll need to improve on your ability to predict climate change in the short. Until then, call me skeptical - highly skeptical - that I can rely on your opinion that Miami will be the next Atlantis.

Veteran's Day

Why is it that we often only appreciate the American Soldier when he is fighting Nazis?

That is the fault of the Hollywood Left, quite frankly. For whatever bizarre reason, and knowing them it must be somewhat bizarre or selfish, it seems that the soldiers most fondly recalled are those from the WWII generation. Without a doubt, they deserve that praise of course. This isn't to doubt their service or their bravery. We should recall them. The American Soldier, and his compatriots from Canada and Great Britain and France and China and dozens of other nations from around the world fell while fighting that menace. The Nazis were awful, to be sure. They may have been at least to that time the worst threat the entire world had faced, and a threat to the United States as well, to be sure. But were they only reason the American Soldier fought and died?

Did not the American Soldier fight and fall at Lexington and Concord? Citizen soldiers, yes, they were. And they stood their ground, refusing to allow the Redcoats to secure a garrison of patriotic supplies at Concord, pestering the British all the way back to their garrison at Boston. Did the American Soldier not fall at Fort Ticonderoga, or Bunker Hill, or at Saratoga? Did he not fall at the retreat from Manhattan, or while fighting the Hessians at Princeton or Trenton, or was their blood not shed as they attacked redoubts numbered 9 and 10 at Yorktown, the attacks which were key to victory at that famous battle? Why do we not remember that American Soldier?

During the Wars which we do not remember so fondly, at sea against the French in 1798, at the Raisin River right here in Michigan in 1813 during the War of 1812, did he not fall? Was he not injured, did he not serve? At Tripoli during the Wars in 1804 and 1815? Why do we not remember the American Soldier from then?

Do we remember Fort Sumter? Do we remember Antietam? Do we remember Bull Run, battles One and Two, or the siege of Vicksburg? Do Chambersburg and Gettysburg, Gettysburg, the battle which many historians argue is one of the ten most critical battles of World History, World History, mind you, mean anything these days? Do we appreciate what that means to our nation even today?
The doughboys in World War I; do we know them these days? Yes, they are universally gone now. They should not be forgotten.

World War II and Korea live in our memories. Yet we forget Korea. That is, other than with the greatest cynicism, as presented by M*A*S*H. Why do we recall only with disdain the great victories of the American Soldier in Vietnam? Why do we not acknowledge the tremendous victory of the American Soldier of the TET Offensive during the New Year of 1968? The Viet Cong were blown off the field of battle as an effective fighting force for a year, an entire year, and the media which hates conservative America called it a military loss. Why do we forget you? Why do we forget the American Soldier of Operation Iraqi Freedom? Why do we forget the American Soldier who toils each day in Afghanistan? Why do we forget the American Soldier who toils each day holding the Al Qaeda militants at bay at Guantanamo, safe from attacking their fellow citizens?

We should not. We should not forget you any more than we should forget the veteran of Granada or Operation Desert Storm, of Panama or Haiti or the 200 or more military operations in our history. Has every action of the US been right? No; we are human. We have made mistakes. Where we have, nature and nature's God rightly demand we regret them and make amends where we can. Yet even then we must not forget that our sons and daughters have not died in vain. There were part of the greater cause, willing to serve their nation whenever or wherever it called. We must give them their due too.

The Nazis have not been the only evil in the world. They may not have been the worst evil, either. Other evils have arisen; evils whose blood soils the hand of the American Soldier. He was always and everywhere concerned with rightness and justice no matter what. And that, dear friends, is how we ought remember him.

Silent Sitting

Me Grandmaw Hutchins, we lost her in 1979. I believe it was June 18. It was something like that anyways.

I took the call from me Pops. He and Mom happened to be in North Carolina when it happened. For what it's worth, I'm happy for Mom that she at least had a few more days with her mother at the end rather than being 700 miles away and getting a call herself.

Dad told me Grandmaw had passed away suddenly. I remember the days right after that were profoundly different. I remember feeling weird, lost, after that call. At the risk of hyperbole, even the sunshine felt dimmer though it was a clear summer day. It was a bit after noon, as I was getting lunch.

Apparently he had called his folks, me Grandpa Joe and me Grandma Cosgriff, either right afore or after he had called home, where I and me older brother and just younger sister stayed while everyone else had went down south that year. It still seems surreal.

I had little initial reaction: I believe I was simply shocked. Her passing was genuinely out of the blue: she turned to say something to my mother and her head just hit her chest. The doctor said she was gone before her head hit, it was that quick and severe of a stroke.

I told me sibs. Then, not knowing what else to do, I just went back to work at the Shop, dazed though I was.

When I got there me Grandpa Joe waited, alone for whatever reason, pulling on a cigarette, a Carlton, as he sat by the coffee table. I went back to work, just like that, like normal.

A moment later, seeing as Joe had a coffee, I made me one, I dunno, just because. And we sat.

Joe pulled again on the cigarette. "I'm sorry about your grandmother," he said, unusually quietly, after a minute.

"Thanks," I said. I sipped at my coffee.

After a bit I said, "Well, not many kids get to have four grandparents until they're 19. I guess I'm lucky."

"Yeah," Joe said. He pulled again at his Carlton.

And we sat there. We just sat.

Memories. I actually cherish this one, not of course because of me Grandmaw's death. Heavens no. But that silent sitting with Joe just seemed to fit the bill right then.

Lucky Thirteenth?

I'm not sure the reasons behind it, but there was an old family friend named Amos who once went through a spell where he needed many surgeries. For whatever other reasons of which I am also unsure, me Pops ended up the contact person for him. Amos had no children and what family he had were all living in Kentucky.
I should mention here that Amos was extremely, indeed fervently, superstitious.
One day during the course of all Amos' health issues he had to have a surgery fast. It was a we need to know this instant, don't dwell on the answer, we'll lose him if don't operate immediately situations. Yet Amos himself was in a coma and could offer no instructions. Pops happened to be in the hospital and was approached about what to do. Operate, he of course told the doctors.
The surgery was done, and Amos came out in flying colors.
Well past any danger a couple of weeks later, Amos still lay in the hospital recuperating. Me Pops went to pay a visit. As they talked, Pops could see that Amos was calculating. Eventually he asked, in a fit of pique, "That was my thirteenth operation. Why'd you let them do it?" he demanded of Pops.
"What was I supposed to do?" Dad responded incredulously.
"When was the surgery?" Amos then demanded.
"I dunno. Two Fridays ago I guess."
"That was the Thirteenth!" Amos exclaimed. "You let them operate on me for the thirteenth time on Friday the 13th?"
"You made it, didn't you?" Dad said with a wave of his hands. But I suppose when superstition gets a hold on you, it grabs tight.

Guns and America

I will begin by saying that this is a political blog. I will follow up by saying that I fully and completely support the Second Amendment. I say that unequivocally because many of my friends and relatives who support gun rights will now think I don't believe in them. And all because I think that individual rights in America do not revolve around gun ownership.

Do you think our guns won the Revolution? They did not. French guns and Dutch money won the Revolution. Without that our guns meant little: it's that simple. We would be more British than American today without outside help which, I must add, didn't really care about our gun ownership anyway.

But to the point: our rights do not revolve around gun ownership. Our rights are about the ideas which support them, namely life, liberty, and property (I wish Jefferson had said property and not pursuit of happiness, but that's an idea for another time). Quite bluntly then, there are more, and I will argue more important, issues than gun rights. What's more important is encouraging the belief that rights are based on our overall obligation to do our part to create and manage a just society.

We need to convince people that our rights, all of them, come from God. We need to emphasize that if our rights, all of them, are not protected as a whole then each individual one means less. If we don't believe in free speech or freedom of religion, our insistence on gun rights is superfluous, and even shallow and unworthy of us, because guns can protect even evil, as history clearly shows. Gun ownership and gun use by themselves are moral neutrals.

So then, as a practical matter it is not our guns which keep us free. It is our attitude towards freedom, our patriotism and more importantly our belief in a just God which keep us free. Lose that attitude, or worse, allow the nation as a whole to lose that attitude, and your right to have a gun means zilch. That right will be squashed alongside every other right.

Crowbar tales

Among the various tools we used when working on the old Hobart welders of me Grandpa Joe's were crowbars. We might use them to inch a heavy part into place or lift one momentarily out of the way to access another part. We might even use them to check gas levels in their tanks as few of our machines had gas gauges. But you get the idea: we used crowbars, at times for genuinely productive purposes.

A couple of days ago I spoke about Big Jim. He was a huge, mountain of a man, but also a helpful and nice guy who liked to joke around a bit. You can read about him here:

https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2019/10/big-jim-and-heavy-cables.html

One day me Pops was out servicing a welder on a job that Big Jim was running. Dad finished the repair and went to let Jim know he was all set. He happened to have used his crowbar last, so he slung it across his shoulder as he made his way to the field office to speak to Jim.

He opened the door of the trailer and as it was winter closed it immediately to keep the heat in. Jim was sitting behind a desk looking over whatever, and he stopped when he saw Dad. Then a look of true terror spread across his face. Jim harshly pushed back from the desk and, holding his hands in front of his face and turning away, cried, "Hey, Bill, can't we just talk about this?"

Me Pops, temporarily forgetting he held a crowbar on his shoulder, puzzled about what Jim meant. Then he remembered the tool, and laughed along with Jim.

The fact is, me Pops would say later, he wouldn't go after Jim anyways. But if he were, it would be with something more substantial than a crowbar.

A variation on an old Marx Brothers routine

I wasn't really sure what to title this post. Free Ice? didn't seem right. The thousand percent profit margin is a bit wordy. What I chose is a bit too cryptic. Oh well.

The things you see on the road. A party store I drove past in a small town the other day had a sign out front advertising its current sales. That's common enough. Some of the prices in fact looked pretty good. But perhaps the best sale on display was: 0 lb. ice for $1. For a buck you could get no ice.

Yes, I know that's not what it meant. I'm sure that the number 1 which was surely in front of the 0 had fallen off. But that's simply not funny, is it? And obvious, rational explanations make Jack a dull boy. Further, they avoid the next natural question.

Could you afford to actually get ice?

Being silly on Saturday

One of my favorite cartoons as a kid was Scooby Doo, Where are You! According to Wikipedia, that pseudo-trustworthy source of information, the series began in 1969. Why an exclamation point rather than a question mark was used in the title I'll leave to the professional grammarians for debate. They seem to love such argumentation.

Anyway, it was the first TV show that I remember making it a point to watch. True, nine year old kids in that day lived for Saturday mornings as at that time Saturday mornings were devoted to kids programming. But I woke up early in those days specifically to make sure I didn't miss an episode, even though I don't think it was on until mid-morning, 9:30 or 10, something like that. I liked the show that much.

Everyone knows that Scooby along with Shaggy are the comic relief in the series. But I think Scooby was in fact, in some secret life, and emergency room doctor. Just listen to the lyrics: the second verse starts with, "Come on Scooby Doo, ICU." As in, to the ICU, stat, doctor.

As though he was needed, immediately, for his medical expertise.

Like he had to rush straight away to help some poor soul in physical distress.

You know, doctors, ICU, puns, plays on words and so on?

I, I'll stop now. I know I'm forcing it.

Halloween Night

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 many 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. And hell, it's just cheap candy.

I don't like that trunk or treats are on the rise, and I despise anyone who suggests we move Halloween to the last Saturday of October. I mean, I understand the arguments for these things. I simply disagree with them. Deeply and fanatically, to the core of my being. Can we leave some traditions alone, pleeeeeease?

My family will take turns passing out goodies and walking around the hood. I'll wander a bit through my mother's yard, where my brother Patrick goes to town with the outdoor decor, and just be happy to be around it. Then when we're done we'll go inside and order the Charlie Brown Halloween special to cap off the night.

Happy Halloween all!

Could the vegans be onto something?

I got a mini-lecture from my doctor after my checkup Monday. My blood pressure was up after having been good for about three years now, but I have not watched my diet at all in the last six months. Not even in passing, although I did gain a mere two pounds in the last half year. On top of that, my coffee drinking has spiked up to (honestly) five or so cups a day where he wants me to stop at two. Caffeine apparently contributes to high blood pressure if only in the short term, dash it all. That one really strikes at my Cosgriff psyche, let me tell you. My Hutchins side too gets its dander up at the thought of limiting my coffee intake. Both sides of my family tree are/were heavy imbibers of the bean.

But, of course, the medicos these days try not to dish out pills willy nilly. So I got my talk about eating better and putting the pedal to the coffee brake (yes, I meant that; I'm so punny). Lose weight, watch the carbs, easy on the salt, slow down on the coffee, cut down on red meat and processed foods, blah, blah, freakin' blah. One meal a day should be salad or vegetables only, Marty. Yet to be fair, when I paid at least some attention to my diet and ate somewhat better my BP did go down, from 158/94 to 107/74 my last checkup before this one. It was 146/86 Monday if you care to know.

Anyway, as I morosely walked along the fruit and vegetable aisles at the local supermarket looking for, ahem, good things to eat, I spied a package of broccoli and cauliflower and carrots which you could steam in the bag. All right, methinks, me gotta try something. I bought a bag, and I microwave steamed it when I got home. And It. Was. Good. Very good, in fact. Without butter, mind you!

So maybe the vegans are onto something. If I can find more easy fixes like that (I did also buy some dry salad that I will, I swear, make myself eat for lunch the next two days) I might actually get into the vegan thing.

Not that I expect to actually do that full bore, mind you. I cannot imagine taking that big of a step. It goes against my quite admittedly carnivorous tastes. Still, I never imagined even considering the question a scant few hours ago.

Big Jim and the heavy cables

Me Pops had a lot of great stories about his time in the welder rental and drain snake business. I hope to one day tell them all. One that just popped back into the front of my mind today involved the biggest man Dad ever dealt with. He was a good guy just the same, genuinely helpful and gregarious, and he was big. And strong. I'll leave exactly how big and strong to your imagination. But think bigger than you think big is.

To give an example of his size and strength, there was a job where me Pops was delivering welders along with the heavy cables necessary to weld with. These cables weighed a touch over a pound a foot. That particular day Dad had several 200 ft. lengths to deliver.

Guys were coming up to the back of Dad's truck and doubling up, two to a cable, to carry them over to the tool crib. Big Jim walked up and offered Pops a shoulder. "Put one there, Bill," he instructed.

"They're two hundred footers, Jim."

"Put one there," he replied simply, rotating his shoulder. So Dad did, setting it on his shoulder as gently as he could. Then Jim turned about and said, "Give me another," indicating his empty shoulder.

"They're all two hundreds," Dad reminded him. Jim replied, "Give me another."

So me Pops set another cable on that shoulder. Big Jim walked away with more than 400 pounds of welding cable on his shoulders as though taking a stroll in the park.

That's strong.

Cloyce-blocking technology

Part of me feels bad for doing it. But it's kind of in self defense really.

I have a certain customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who is honestly a nice guy. He never argues price; indeed he always thanks us for our good service and gives us a decent amount of business. Yet he has one flaw: he's a worrywart. When he leaves a piece of equipment with me he calls constantly, in the range of every couple of hours, checking on its status until the job is done. If he drops off something Monday morning and I tell him it'll be ready Wednesday, he begins calling Monday afternoon.

I've asked him to not do that. He's always been very apologetic when I have, assuring me that he trusts me and likes my work and knows I'll call the minute I have him good to go. And then he promptly calls two hours later.

This is where I feel a bit bad. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, whenever he leaves something for repair I pull out my cell phone, go to my contacts list, scroll down to Cloyce's number, and block it. When his job is ready I reverse course, unblock it, and call him.

I suppose I should not do that. But a fella gets tired of running to his phone or struggling to get it out of his pocket only to see Cloyce's name there when it rings. It interrupts the flow of work and simply irks me.

No doubt there are worse problems in the world. But still...

Using a cheater

You're about to learn something about drain snake repair, but I'm sure it's a lesson which can be equitably applied to any and all repairs, whether at work or in the household.

The SC-10-A drive shaft on an Electric Eel Model C is held in place with (2) 5/16 allen screws. Most of the time they come loose fairly easily. Yet as all things made by human hands, things don't always go according to plan. In the case of these screws, they sometimes seize. They insolently will not come out. When that happens you either heat them with a torch in an attempt to coax them out, or do what I do. Put a length of pipe over the top of the allen wrench, a 'cheater' as me Pops taught me, to give you greater leverage turning the wrench.

Now, I know there is a school of thought that you should never ever, ever use a cheater bar. Well, me Grandpa Joe and me Pops both believed in them, so I believe in them. So there.

Anyways, you turn the wrench with the cheater, increasing pressure as you go, and one of three things will happen. You will either (A) break the allen wrench, (B) strip the allen head on the screw, or (C) you will hear a tiny but sharp little 'ting' exactly as the wrench turns suddenly. That ting is either good or bad. But usually its good. Usually it means that screw has broken loose and you are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Your job will soon be over.

The good bad ting. Listen for it when you do your own repairs. And don't be afraid to use a cheater.

The Scotch ad

Although I do not consider myself overly influenced by ads, there was one for Dewar's Scotch from the Seventies I remember very well. It pictured a Scotsman in full kilt and asked the question, 'Do I look like I'm influenced by passing fads?'

I like that. It's not only a clever ad but it makes a fair overall point: don't be too taken in by passing fancies. By and large there's nothing wrong with them of course. But the traditional has its place, a staying power which makes it, well, tradition.

While there are for example flavored coffees which I do like and look forward to (and I certainly like to try new ones), by and large just give me straight black coffee, preferably Chase and Sanborn. Pizzas have myriad toppings anymore but as a rule I'm quite happy with pepperoni and cheese. Even where there's been genuine, significant improvement I wonder if it's all that big a deal. Cars and televisions are much better now than 40 years ago. But at the end of the day they're only cars and televisions. A good book is better than nearly anything on TV these days anyway.

So go ahead and try new things if you want. Just keep in mind that new doesn't always mean better, and that you can't beat the classics.

Angry about a meme

I'm not one to get angry easily. Well, all right, I am, if I'm not careful. So I try to be careful and control my temper. But sometimes I really want to just let it loose.

One such time involves a meme which I've seen a lot of lately. It pictures a woman with items in a shopping cart next to a man who is obviously a store employee. He is telling her, "The self checkout is available. She replies, "No thanks, I don't work here." The point, of course, being that we should not use self checkout lanes.

What I want to know is, how did those items get in her cart? They did because she was walking around the store choosing them. In short, she worked. At the store.

Unless you're willing to go to Sam Drucker's in Hooterville and tell a grocer what you want and have them collect all the items you ask for (then bag and total them up), don't get all high and mighty about not using self checkouts. They're just another option for folks to use.

Go stand in line if you want to; I don't care. But don't be so high and mighty about self checkout just to assuage your conscience. Because when you self shop, you're working at the store anyway.

Hypocritical nimrod.

The art of the sale

Joe Cosgriff is not for sale. Or he doesn't sell things. Or something like that.

When my kids were young we traipsed down the street and visited Grandma Cosgriff and Grandpa Joe quite often, usually once a week. Grandma would often begin such visits with a small list of things available to us: cookies, coffee, candy and the like. Grandpa Joe would quickly stop her with an abrupt, "Don't sell them on it! They know they can have what they want and all they want." Grandma would purse her lips in mild anger, and that would be that. We'd get cups of coffee or cookies and go on about a conversation.

But interestingly, if by some chance Grandma was not nearby, Grandpa Joe would launch into a litany: there's coffee on the stove, and cookies in the jar, and cake on the table (plates on the shelf, forks in the drawer) and so on. Then he would realize what he was doing and add, "But I'm NOT selling you on it. I'm only telling you where everything's at."

It was merely a variation on a theme. But it may have been my first experience with what the politicians would call 'spin'. Grandpa Joe could certainly put his spin on things.

Last night's Lions game

I've said that I don't follow sports as closely as I used to, and I don't. But I do still pay some attention. Yet last night's Lions-Packers game has reaffirmed my decision to pay less attention, particularly, quite frankly, to football.

It's for more reasons than the sheer brutality of the game (and it is too brutal; there are far too many lifelong, debilitating injuries suffered as a result of it). Football officiating, I believe in both the NFL and the college ranks, is simply too much of an influence on the outcome of the games.

I think it's because the rules are too loose. Football officials have far too much leeway in interpreting them, and this leads to far too much individual opinion on what is and is not called. Yes, I know this happens elsewhere: too many baseball umpires have their own strike zones. Yet the strike zone itself is quite clearly defined, and simply needs to be called more exactly across the board. In football, I've been told by a former official that's there's holding on virtually every down. As such, they should only call the egregious examples or ones which directly affect the outcome of a particular play. It leaves too much to interpretation, especially when the action is fast and furious.

I am not one of those who argue that referees and such should not call penalties. I do not accept the argument that they should 'let the players play'. If you're going to have meaningful games you have to have rules. If you have rules they have to be enforced. It's only fair: it's only right. Yet the rules and the people calling them must themselves be fair, must themselves have integrity. Without that I wouldn't want to play. If sports were only about chance, you may as well play roulette or poker rather than a more physical game of any type.

As such, I'm happy that my bedtime now precludes staying up late to watch debacles such as last night's Lions-Packers contest. I'm a happier, healthier man for it, and no thanks to the officials.

The Clubhouse

Well, they've gone and done it. The current owners of the property have torn the Clubhouse down. Undoubtedly that's because they did not know its history.

Me Grandpa Joe had dubbed it 'The Clubhouse' because that's where the neighborhood drunks (and I call them that affectionately I assure you; I thought well of each one of them) hung out in it. It was an old brick garage behind the house Joe then owned, and he didn't care if they used it as a hangout. Pop Turner, Tall Glass (he drank from a long tall glass, Joe would say), L.B., Chuck the mechanic (he was a crackin' good  mechanic when sober), Grandpa (not Joe, but another guy everyone called Grandpa, Heaven knows why anymore), a guy named Watson and a few others. They just sat within its confines on old makeshift benches and passed out whiskey to each other in plastic cups, talking in low mumbles once the juice had been flowing a while.

But then a craps game might break out. Then the whole neighborhood heard the ruckus. Yells and screams and ooos and aaahhs; sure, they shouldn't have been wasting their money like that, but they weren't hurtin' nobody and only vaguely disturbing the peace. They never fought over a result either. They just shot craps and drank.

I did see them pretty down one day though. They had invited Mr. Moss to play with them. Mr. Moss was a dignified old gent who lived on the block. He had a small electric company and generally kept to himself. But for whatever reason, maybe he was bored or had no work, he joined the boys in the Clubhouse that one afternoon. They wanted him to play because he had money. Simple as that.

He proceeded to clean them out. What they hoped would be an easy road to a large payout for somebody became a payout for Mr. Moss. He dominated the game so completely that everyone else was out of money in about 45 minutes. I never seen such a dejected group in my life. Easy Street had become Hard Luck Highway.

I think Mr. Moss felt a bit sorry for them, because he left quickly to return with a couple bottles for the boys. He didn't drink himself but I imagine he felt obliged. And the guys themselves were thankful for a small victory.

I don't believe Mr. Moss was ever again invited to shoot craps with them, though.

Disconcerting discounting

Why? Why do new guys, guys I've never seen before, think they can work me down on price?

Can you do that at Meijer? Can you do it at Home Depot or Kroger, or your neighborhood hardware store? Would you expect that, when told your tab was $220 at any of those places, they'd just round it down to $200 for you? You wouldn't even ask, would you?

Then why do you feel like you can ask me?

Yes, I'm in sales. Yes, I've admitted here that I don't mind a bit of negotiation, if there's volume. But for anybody to believe that a $220 dollar sale calls for me just giving you 11% or thereabouts off, what planet are you from?

Okay, I have a chip on my shoulder right this minute. Can you imagine why?

Raising down

While listening to the radio this morning I heard a song, one of many which employ the same sentiment, where the singer laments someone he 'used to know'. But doesn't that mean he stills knows her? I mean, who's he talking about if he doesn't still know who they are?

It's a little like when I was explaining to a small group of family about a new (to me, anyway) way to fill a cup of beer. There was a cap at the bottom of the cup, and the bartender held the cup over a post, pushing up the cap and filling the cup from the bottom. My aunt looked at me, confused, and asked, "But don't all cups fill from the bottom?" I guess they actually do, right?

I'm not one of those who argue that language is vague and confusing. I think the poor use of language and/or honest error either on the part of the speaker or the listener can make it appear confused. Still, the little incongruities can be fun to notice.

Sort of like, when we were loading trucks back in the days working with my grandfather, Grandpa Joe would bark, "Raise 'er down!" when ready to place a load on the truck bed.

I hate my brother

I hate my brother Phil. Okay, maybe I don't hate him. But he can be annoying.

Phil loves ketchup and he hates waste. As to ketchup, I use it sparingly when I use it at all. And I get it about waste: we shouldn't. But now it seems he's become my conscience about both waste and ketchup.

My mother I were out yesterday and we stopped for lunch at McDonald's. We had to use the self serve kiosk to order and our food was brought out to where we sat. When we were served, there was along with our burgers and fries two small opened and uncovered cups of ketchup, maybe a couple ounces worth max.

I wasn't going to use it. But if I didn't use it it would go to waste. McDonald's I knew couldn't take it back or would simply throw it away. We could have asked for covers and the ketchup would get put in my van, where it would very likely get lost somehow. I would not use it the several months later when I would surely find it, probably gushed all over a seat after something having been heaved upon it. That would be the same as waste and doubly irritating. So I did something I rarely do: I dipped my fries in it to use.

I wasn't using enough, so I ended up dipping my hamburger in it. Just to use it. Just to not waste. Mom wanted none of it, and there was no way I could make her use any even if I should have tried.

I used virtually all of that ketchup. Phil will be happy about that. I on the other hand hate him.

Car warning lights

I fully admit that I tend to ignore the idiot lights on my dashboard. Check engine? Why? It's running fine but a mechanic will surely find something wrong which be a harbinger of an impending nuclear explosion in your engine if you don't get it fixed now! Oil pressure light on? Check the oil; if it's okay  and again, the car is running fine, ignore the warning. The dashboard warnings are there at best as clues to the vague chance that something is wrong, not omens of dire consequences.

Yet I must concede that I was, well, not exactly taken aback this morning as intrigued. My eyes saw the warning, and I'm sure my head went to side to side as a dog's might when contemplating an unknown. Where my odometer, mileage reading, should have been was instead the word gascap.

My first thought was that I have one of those, yes. It fits over the end of the gas tank tube. But still, when I got to the Shop I checked it. It was secured tightly.

The warning came back on when I restarted the car awhile later. Hell, I thought. Another thing I gotta learn to ignore. About the worst thing is I won't know when to get my oil changed now.

Joshua and Greta

Joshua Chamberlain was a somewhat unheralded Civil War hero. In command of the 20th Maine at Little Round Top, the hill at the southern end of the Union line on the second day of battle at Gettysburg, he was told that he must hold his ground at all costs.

Then he ran out of ammunition right as the Confederates were mounting an attack.

He ordered his men to fix bayonets: it was all he had. The thought of  a downhill bayonet charge was unheard of at that point in the hostilities, if not in all of military tactics. Yet it shocked and surprised the Rebels so completely that the assault failed. The Union line held, saving Gettysburg and arguably the entire War for the Federals.

We might look no farther than his upbringing to see why a man would do such a thing. At age 16 while working sunup til sundown on the family farm, an oxcart loaded with about 400 pounds of hay got stuck between trees. "Get it unstuck!" his father commanded him.

"How?" the incredulous teenager demanded.

"Do it, that's how!" his father barked back. The young man put his shoulder into first one wheel then the other, the spent oxen little help. Back and forth he went until, by the power of his own will, the cart was freed.

Contrast this with sixteen year old Greta. She's from Sweden. Raised without any real cares, especially the care of subsistence farming or actually saving a country let alone an entire world, egged on by adults with a political agenda rather than the personal one of raising a child, her every need attended to, brought across an ocean in relative luxury upon a boat, all to yell at adults that they'd ruined her life. Imagine; how many teenagers would have done that without prompting, let alone without guidance and encouragement. Many of us have dealt with it I'm sure. But Greta, well, she's going to save the world. She's been told so.

I don't know about you, but if had to put my hopes for the future in a young Joshua or young Greta, well, my faith is with Josh.

The stubborn carrot cake

I found myself waiting for my brother at the mechanic this morning, and the mechanic had a snack machine, and the snack machine had carrot cake. And I wanted carrot cake.

I pull a dollar out of my wallet and the machine feeds it back to me. I folded the dollar and reinserted it. The machine resent it. I folded the dollar another way...the machine did not like that way either.

I tried another dollar. The machine tried my patience.

After the third dollar wouldn't work, I gave up. I didn't want the stupid, moist carrot cake with the lovely cream cheese incing anyway. Nope. Didn't want it. Not at all.

I wonder if the party store has carrot cake. I'll have to check when it opens.

Squirrelly customers

When you've dealt with drain cleaning and drain cleaners for as long as I have, you hear many stories. It's amazing what can find its way into your sewer. Potatoes, toys; once at my Church a candle holder, a flat brass circle about three inches in diameter, was somehow flushed through a toilet and was acting like a butterfly valve, allowing the commode to work only at its whim. Sometimes even animals can get into a line and die. Their bodies swell up and block the drain. It's yucky, to be sure.

Once an old plumber, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, had to deal with a dead squirrel which had plugged a sewer. I won't go into details (remember, there's yucky) but Cloyce worked and worked until he removed unfortunate rodent by then a member of the choir invisible. Yet his heroics did not satisfy the old woman who owned the house where the chore took place.

"She got mad at me. She was yelling at me!" Cloyce exclaimed to me Pops one day, shock still in his voice. "She didn't want to pay. I said, lady, I didn't put it down there!"

"Well how else did it get in?" she demanded.

"How should I know?" Cloyce barked back at her. "I mighta come in from the city main. It maybe slipped through your downspout and got caught. But I didn't put it there and you owe me for opening your sewer!"

He got paid, but it was an effort. More effort, he told Pops, than the actual work.

It cannot be, until it is

I love it when people come to me for my expertise (I assure you that there are indeed subjects however few and far between which I am expert in) yet will not accept my report. You had a problem, you brought it to me, I resolved it, yet you will not accept my explanation? It is even especially exasperating when it's something which is indeed particularly straightforward. It gets my alliteration going.

A gentleman recently brought in a machine which was not running. To save me time (he thought) he had already checked that electricity was getting to the motor. Okay, fine, thanks. He left, and I diagnosed that the power cord was bad. I installed a new cord and hey presto, his machine was fully and completely operational. I called and told him it was ready. "What was wrong?" he asked.

"The power cord was bad."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Eventually he said, "That cannot be, man. There was power to the motor."

That set me off. Channeling the spirit of me easily agitated Grandpa Joe I wanted to yell, "Yes, that can be, man! It wasn't running, the cord was bad, I replaced it, the machine runs. It. Can. Be." Instead I calmly, rationally explained, "Electricity is a circuit. There's more at work than power getting to the motor. It has to go through the motor and return to its source or an electric motor won't work." I am no genius on this issue. This is Electric Power 101, folks.

"But power was getting to the motor," he replied incredulously.

Did you not hear the words that were coming from my mouth? Still, I replied simply, "The cord was bad, my friend. I replaced it, and your snake works."

He came by, watched it run, toyed with the unit for a few minutes and paid me, all the while looking at me as though I were an alchemist or a charlatan. Dude, I believe you that power was getting to the motor. But it's gotta get back out for the motor to work. It's that simple.

I may be, in fact I am, incompetent on many levels. Spectacularly incompetent on several, I admit. But don't question me on my rightness when I actually am right please.

Baseball, me, me Pops, and September 27

Today it has been twenty years since Detroit's Tiger Stadium saw its last major league baseball action. I still remember the first game me Pops took me to. He wore a suit because in those days you wore a suit even to sporting events, and I held his hand as that wonderful green cathedral opened up before me as we entered the stadium through a runway. We played Kansas City that day and won 9-7.

The Tigers beat Kansas City on September 27, 1999 by an 8-2 score. Me Pops wasn't at that game (though he went the day before with a bunch of us) but I was, along with my family. It was a great if bittersweet time, capped by a Robert Fick grand slam in the 8th inning and a Todd Jones strikeout to end the Ninth and thus the ball yard's history.

Then the Tigers played Kansas City on this date in 2012. In that game, Doug Fister (on the mound for Detroit) struck out nine straight Kansas City batters to set the American League record for most consecutive strikeouts in a game. We listened to that game at the Shop, the old barn, me Pops and I hanging on every pitch as Fister struck out batter after batter. The old man laughed happily at every strikeout after about the sixth one. It was one of the best times I had listening to games with him. And though I did not know it that day, it was the last Tiger game I ever listened to on the radio with me Pops.

It's funny, isn't it, the symmetry we so often find in life. The last game at Tiger Stadium was against Kansas City. The first game me Pops took me to was against Kansas City. The last game we shared was against Kansas City. I don't about you, but, I like it.

Semi serious

The prefix semi, often used with a dash, is very common in English usage. I understand it; it indicates partial. Notice for example I just employed a partial, semi-colon. A half colon. Marty gots good English skills.

So why doesn't this rule apply on the highways and bi-ways of our once proudly English speaking nation? I often pass trucks with trailers and the license plate on the back says semi trailer. But they're always full, complete, entire trailers! There's nothing half way about them.

Then there's what I believe the state of Maine has on their trailer licenses: semi permanent. So is the plate not permanent, not there all the time? Or is the entire truck subject to the whiles of some errant space time continuum thing, going in and out of existence? Because, I tell you what, they've never blipped out of our universe when driving past me, especially when it's raining heavily so that my van gets thoroughly drenched and my wipers can't keep up.

I mean, if we want the children of our country to learn English, we really need the consistent use of terms.

The tell-tale heart

So I was sitting in an examination room at my Doctor's office as he listened to my heart. He held the stethoscope in one spot on my chest and listened. He moved it across my sternum and listened more closely. He asked me to breathe deeply, and listened more. He told me to hold my breath, and listened intently. He then put the stethoscope down, and went to the door. I heard him say, "Nurse, please bring the EKG cart".

On his return I asked with no small concern, "Why do you want the EKG cart?"

"Well, your pulse is slow. Not dangerously slow, but enough that I'd like to do an EKG," he explained.

"Okay, fine," I replied, relieved. "But could I ask you something?

"Of course."

"Maybe next time you do that, tell me what's up before asking for the EKG machine?"

He smiled sheepishly and said, "Yes, sorry. I should have done that."

No real worries on my part. He's a great doctor and I'm very glad to have him. It was simply a bit of a shock to hear the order for the EKG without knowing why, that's all. But I think we both saw it as the humorous inadvertence that it was, and nothing more.

The EKG was good by the way. I do have a functioning heart.

Off by a mile

People don't think. They have to realize sometimes that they don't. Don't they?

Whatever. What does, yet should not astound me, is how I can still be amazed when it happens.

The latest examples come from my sales job. In directing a potential new customer to my store, I cautioned him not to go beyond Warren Avenue here in Detroit; he would have gone too far if he had. An hour later I get a call from the guy's cell. He was more than a mile beyond our place of business. "I saw Warren and never saw you so I kept on going," he explained to me. You saw the street which I told you was too far and KEPT GOING? It never occurred to you to circle around?

Another fella called to asked if he could have his snake (slang for the drain cleaning equipment we sell) repaired by us. "Probably, but tell me what you have so that I can tell you if I have access to the parts you might need," I asked.

"A snake," he responds.

"Okay," I said, trying to be patient, "But what type of machine exactly?"

"Uhh, the kind that opens sewers."

I asked, with no little exasperation, "I need a make and model number."

"Uhhhhhh, y'all worked on it 'bout five years ago..." he began.

Click.

Dang. I hung up on my only customer from 2014. That was such a good year too.