Modern conveniences

As regular readers know, and irregular readers will know in a minute, I bought a new old car recently. I've been liking it too; it was certainly a good move on my part.

And get this: it has a feature where you can cool down the interior as you drive! Yes it does! I believe that the scientists call it 'air' conditioning. You push a button and nice cool air comes out of the slots where heat comes from in the winter (when you push a different button of course).

I am duly impressed. I drove all around northeast Indiana and northwest Ohio this past Thursday, and while it was hot and muggy outside I was perfectly comfortable driving. Indeed I could not wait to get back in my van after stops simply to be comfortable while all the walkers moved about in hot sweat. I even saw a couple cars go by with their windows open, clearly lacking this modern marvel, this 'air' conditioning, and I truly felt bad for them.

I should have bought a twelve year old van a lot sooner than I did.

Army logic

A old gentleman who lives in the neighborhood, Mr. Harrison, was born named Billy. That's what his parents named him because that's what they were going to call him. It's pretty simple logic, right?

Apparently not to the US Army. When Mr. Harrison was drafted during World War II, he was asked his name upon arrival at the processing station just prior to basic training. He told them it was Billy (which they should have known as they had found him to draft him). The officer in charge asserted that nobody was named Billy. It was a nickname based on William. His name must be William.

"It's Billy," Mr. Harrison insisted. Of course, at that point he was fully initiated into the Army of the United States via his first full-on, complete and total dressing down. He got the screaming and the berating and the in-your-face from this major or captain or whoever he was, the whole nine yards, after which the officer barked at the guy processing the appropriate paperwork, "Put down William for first name."

That was that. From that day forth Mr. Harrison was William. But his friends still call him Billy.

Snorting Coke?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grandpaw Hutchins' coffee

Grandpaw Hutchins liked his coffee strong. So strong in fact that he thought instant coffee one of the greatest innovations ever, because he could brew a strong pot of Maxwell House and then add a teaspoon of instant granules to his cup to give it that much more horsepower. He must have drank two, three pots of coffee a day: no lie. He also was a quiet man who rarely if ever raised his voice. He let his actions speak for him. One day coffee, his manner, and Grandmaw Hutchins' will all came together in a profound, sublime way.

It was one of those typically hot, sticky North Carolina summer days which are well known in the south. At the time, though, all they had for cooking was a wood stove. Keeping that stove going on such days made the kitchen, indeed the whole house, tremendously uncomfortable and nearly unbearable. Finally Grandmaw had had enough of it. When breakfast was over, she announced that from that day forward until the weather began to cool, the stove also would be allowed to cool during the day. When the breakfast embers died, the stove would not be fired up again until it was time to make supper.

Grandpaw didn't say a thing. He simply slid back from the table, grabbed his hat, and walked out the front door. About an hour later he returned with an electric hot plate. He had walked the mile to the nearest general store (he didn't drive), bought that hot plate, and came home.

You see, a cool stove meant no hot coffee. He couldn't have that. Yet demanding the stove be kept burning against Grandmaw's orders, well, that wouldn't work either. So he improvised a conclusion which was satisfactory for all.

I think he handled the situation just right. Don't you?

I render why

For the last several weeks one of my blogs has trended every day, and I don't know why. I wrote it last October, after an experience in a rendering plant. You can read it here if you like: https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2018/10/render-under-somebody-else.html

My apologies if you have to cut and paste; I can't seem to embed a link today.

Anyway, even I will concede that it's a rather mundane and not particularly interesting post. I was simply lamenting the conditions at a typical rendering plant. Yet it continues to show up in my numbers every day as the most read blog I've written. Today, this very moment as I write, it is the number one read post of mine for the current period, the day, week, month, and all time. And I can't figure out why.

There's nothing in my analytics to explain it. Nothing that I can see anyway. Yet it has been in my top three in all statistical categories, and has usually been number one, for more than a month now. And not that I'm not grateful for the hits, I'm simply confounded as to why.

If any of you have reread it and spot some reason, please let me know.

Why I like Jimmy King

I first met Jimmy about 30 years ago, a grand old Scotsman with many a fine tale, after a bonspiel (curling tournament) at the Detroit Curling Club. We were talking after a game. He noticed my name tag and he comments, "Cosgriff? Is Welsh is it?"

I replied, "I don't think so. My cousin Beth has traced our family to north Tipperary in Ireland."

Jimmy replies, "Ah, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. All Gaelic. We all have the one thing in common."

"What's that, Jimmy?" I asked in curious reply.

"We hate the English."

We have been good friends ever since.

Walking after midnight in Hessel, Michigan

In a few hours I will be heading up to Hessel in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula. So naturally, I'm thinking about old times there. In particular I remember how me and my kids used to get up in the middle of the night, two or three AM, and take a walk around town in the quiet and the darkness.

Along the way we would get a pop from the soda machine which stood outside the marina. Do you have any idea how loud a pop can sounds dropping out of a machine when it is almost totally silent in the world? It's. Loud. Trust me. And we would do that three of four times in a row depending on how many of us were out and about. Each can got louder in our anticipation. You honestly believed you might wake someone up.

We would walk around and talk in low voices for fear of waking the locals. The last time we took such a walk was in 2003. It was only me and my sons; for reasons I can't recall it was just the three of us up there. We were actually still up a little after 1 and decided to take that walk.

We strolled to the marina and bought our pops. We then made our way down Hessel Point Road, stopping to chat in the middle of the road a good ways back into the woods. It was pitch black, the trees forming a bit of a canopy which made the moonless night that much darker. We were all alone on the Earth, my boys and I, chatting softly. I have no idea anymore about what.

Eventually we made our way back to the house for a couple hours sleep before heading back to Detroit. That walk remains one of my fondest memories.

Dad's jokes

On Father's day I talked about Dad Jokes, corny or dumb little jibes which dads seem to gravitate towards, repeating them regularly. Today I will offer you two of my Dad's favorite jokes.

He liked to ask young kids, "If you had twenty sick sheep and one them died, how many would you have left?" If the kid answered 19 he would insist the correct answer was 26 because what he had actually said was twenty five. Of course, if the kid said 26 me Pops would insist the answer was 19 because he had asked about twenty sick sheep. The kid was doomed either way and Pops loved it.

Then there's this one: "Did you know that the first batch of Spam was made in 1937?" he would ask.

Wait for it...

Then he would respond to his own question, "They're making the second batch next week."

Dad's jokes. I love 'em and use 'em myself.

Dad jokes

Happy Father's Day.

Fathers tend to be the subject of jokes, and that's okay. They joke too, and most that I know can also take them. There's a lesson there, one of many which our dads have taught us. It might be their most important lesson: have a sense of humor.

Many things in this world are important and need to be taken seriously. Yet we aren't going to save the world. Indeed, we often must simply take a step back and regroup. Humor helps us do that.

So have joke with old man today. If he's gone, think about his jokes and laugh along anyway. Yes, even the ones he told dozens of times. If he liked them, why shouldn't you?

Summer summer summer

I'm going to Hessel, I'm going to Arizona, I'm going to Chicago. Not all at once of course. We all know you can't be in two places at the same time, let alone three. No, I'm going to one at a time.

Hessel Wednesday, Arizona in July, Chicago in September. One to go up north, one to visit my daughter and son-in-law, one to see Wrigley Field. I'm looking forward to them all.

It has all the makings of a good, memorable summer, don't you think?

Flag Day 2019

Today is Flag Day. We don't seem to hear much about it anymore.

The day traces its roots to June 14, 1777, when the Continental Congress adopted the original 13 star, 13 stripe design for our national banner. Still, Flag Day hasn't become as important as other holidays. It isn't even formally recognized (except in Pennsylvania) on a state level.

Perhaps that is just as well. It would just be shoved to the nearest Monday if it were made a full holiday. So let it stay on June 14 year in and year out. That might help it stand out a little more, maybe.

I miss watching that large old flag which would be unfurled down the face of the old downtown Hudson's store. I think it covered 11 of the 14 floors of building. It was pretty impressive. I saw it happen live twice as a teen, with my mother after dentist's appointments. That to me was Flag Day.

Anthropomorphism makes me sad

Now there's a nice, big, college type word for you. A true ten dollar word: anthropomorphism. It means giving human traits to animals or inanimate objects. Yogi Bear for example is anthropomorphic: a bear that walks and talks like a human.

I think we all do that to one degree or another. I find myself doing it with the van I just replaced. I snapped a picture of her yesterday, for old times's sake, for my memory, because I thought she looked sad. As anyone who has ever read The Family Circus comic growing up knows, our old cars feel sad when we give up on them.

As I arrived at the Shop this morning, driving up in my new old van (which I described yesterday) I looked over at my old old one. It's temporarily parked to the side of the old barn as I decide exactly what to do with it. Anyway, I looked over at it and I sighed. Heavily. I'm gonna miss it, that old Chevy Venture. For $1500 four years ago, I got 68,000 miles out of her. We had a lot of good times together, making pickups and deliveries and going on product demos. We must have went to Hessel in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula six or eight times. I helped my son get his new stove home with it. She took me to curling many times, to golf and to see friends and family, to Church and to baseball games. How do you not grow an attachment?

She still runs okay. But the transmission ain't right and there's a few other relatively unimportant, minor issues. She could still go on indefinitely. But the time to buy a car, as me Grandpa Joe's old friend Sam said once, is before you need it, before you have to have it. Then you can take the time to look around a bit, and maybe stumble into a good deal like the one I did. It was too good to pass up.

Still, that maroon Venture sits by the old barn today looking tired and worn. And kinda sad. I understand her because, in that odd sort of a very human way, a very anthropomorphic way, I feel kinda sad too.

A diamond in the rust.

Well, I've gone and done it. I've went and bought a new car.

Okay, it's not a new car. Marty don't buy new cars. There ain't no style points for how you get places, and I ain't hell on pretty as me Grandpa Joe used to say. So it's a used car. But it's new to me.

2007 Chrysler Town and Country minivan. 125,497 actual miles. Yes, actual. Seventeen hundred bucks. Drives great all the way around, and the front end feels solid. The AC is strong. Poor AC wouldn't have been a deal breaker but AC is a nice perk. I do have some taste for frivolities.

There's some rust under the sliding doors on each side and a little around the driver's side rear taillight. That don't bother me none; refer to me Grandpa's quote up above. If I really become inspired I might sand it and spray a spot of paint on it. Might. It is intended solely as a work van.

It's at the alarm place having an alarm installed as we speak. Why? Because quite honestly I'll often have equipment in it worth more than the vehicle.

I won't really know for several weeks if what I have is all that good, of course. But I'm confident that I have a diamond in the, uh, rust.

You never know

In sales, you just never know what will happen. Chicken one day, feathers the next, me Pops used to say. There's a lot of truth to that.

I remember on June 1, 2015, I had 75 lengths of main drain cables in stock. That's a decent amount, an amount I typically direct sell (sell out of the Shop) in a month.

I didn't that time around. I didn't sell a single cable section in June. But July would be better, right?

Right. Didn't sell any of those cables then either. I was beginning to wonder if I was doing something wrong, if I had lost my touch.

August 4 was the first Tuesday of the month that year. Out of nowhere that day, spread over 7 or 8 customers, I sold all 75 of those cables in 90 minutes.

In sales, you just never know.

Eat your dinner

I would never, nor do I think anyone else would, accuse Joe Cosgriff of possessing tremendous social grace. He was on the whole a good man, simply rough around the edges. Maybe too rough, perhaps, but that didn't mean you couldn't learn a thing or two from him.

One thing he taught me which I believe is a very good protocol is that if someone invites over, say yes or no and be done with it. But if you accept the invitation, you afterward accept whatever kindnesses your host offers unless it would make you physically ill. If you've staying for dinner for example, eat whatever you're given unless it's liver. The bottom line, me Grandpa Joe thought, was to be a good guest.

I have to agree with that sentiment. You should never make demands on your host: he's your host after all. I will add as a corollary that a good host should be considerate of his guests: if he knows they can't stomach liver he should not make it the entree.

Me Grandpa Joe would never be able to write a column on etiquette. Miss Manners would rip it to shreds. Yet that doesn't mean he had no ideas on how to live rightly day to day.

Am I a bad man?

It's not unusual for a plumber to come over to my Shop from Windsor, Ontario to buy snake parts. It's also normally not an issue in any way, shape, or form. They either bring US dollars or use a credit or debit card. No problem.

Yet there's always that one guy who simply will not cooperate, isn't there? He typically brings nothing but Canadian currency and then I have the trouble of having to either exchange it or sit on it until my next trip across the border. It's kind of a nuisance. So I finally laid down the law and told him he must bring me US money or use a card. I didn't care which; I was just tired at the inconvenience. The imposition, really.

He came over about two months ago. As he had called first I reminded him to bring me the right currency. He did, but added on a bunch of things when he got to the old barn which put him $275 US beyond the amount of US currency he exchanged at the border. "If I have to take Canadian to make up the difference, I want $400," I demanded.

"It's only about $350 Canadian for that!" he protested. He added, "And I don't want to use my credit card."

I responded, "I don't care. I told you to bring US, and now I'll have the trouble of exchanging it."

As he didn't want to forgo anything he wanted, the man relented and gave me the difference with $400 Canadian dollars.

The most convenient way for me to exchange money, I've found, is at one of the Detroit casinos. I even suggested he might do that, but he didn't want to take the time. Uh-huh, but it's okay with him if I have to. So that evening I went to a casino.

They assume you're a Canadian there to play and give a decent rate. They gave me $325 United States dollars. I was $50 ahead. But my conscience bothered me a little, so I stopped and slipped a twenty into a video poker machine. I'm already ahead, I thought, even if I lose the whole twenty.

After two modest winning hands, I had won ten bucks. I cashed out; I had done my due diligence. And I was ahead on the whole deal $60.

Am I a bad man?

A review of an adventuresome but otherwise dull Friday

Yesterday, Friday, June 7, 2019, was a routine day in the life of Charles Martin Cosgriff. I know because I am he who lived it.

It began earnestly if early enough at a little after 1 o'clock in the morning. I woke before my alarm, ran through the shower, and was on my way to Electric Eel Manufacturing as is my wont once or twice per week. I drove about thirty miles and stopped for a coffee at a Love's Truck Stop simply because I had never had Love's coffee before. I was bitterly disappointed. I should have went to the next exit for the 24 hour Tim Horton's I knew very well was there.

Fog shrouded my journey, particularly after I had reached US Route 68 just south of Findlay, Ohio. One feels isolated and alone in the wee hours of the morning when it is pitch black and you are moving through a ground cloud. I sipped my coffee because I will not throw out even bad coffee paid for. It was still bitter.

Breakfast at Cracker Barrel was enjoyable as I sat with a good friend. Biscuits and gravy. Them's hard to beat. The coffee was hot, smooth. No bitterness. I was thankful for that.

I loaded my order at Eel with the help of the shipping clerk. On my way home I made without event deliveries at both Lima and Toledo, Ohio. Not one but two cars with Alaska plates shared the road with me. Though unusual, it was not earth shattering. I've seen Alaska plates before.

Back at the Shop I unloaded, and dealt with three customers, garnering a total of $235 from them. I've done better, much better, yet it still put me $235 ahead of where I have found myself on many a day. It helped dissipate the bitterness I still felt over Love's coffee.

I went home, and it occurred to me that a review of my day might make a mildly interesting if only time killing and space filling blog post. So I did so. Sometimes it is the best one can do. I excised the dull parts just the same.

75 years

D-Day: June 6, 1944. Seventy-five years ago today began the largest amphibious landing of an armed force in world history. As Allied troops hit the beaches at Normandy in the wee hours of the morning, at points code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword, the liberation of Europe was begun. The high point of the Greatest Generation was underway.

The Greatest Generation stands now at its wane. Its members are all in their late 80s and early 90s now. The celebrations of their accomplishments are becoming fewer, smaller, and less intense. Even with improvements in medicine and diet, only a mere handful will still be around in fifteen or twenty years. Many if not most of their numbers are gone already.

It is no small compliment to call them the greatest. Has there been any other challenge successfully met by anyone else in any other time? True, we are dealing in immeasurables when we say such things. Yet it's still pretty clear that nothing anywhere close to the magnitude of World War II has occurred in all of human history. Might a greater threat and a greater harm possibly rise? Yes, of course. But to date this is it.

What can we learn from these people? We can learn perseverance, we can learn faith; we can learn to believe that, when a serious threat to home and hearth nears, humanity can rise to meet and defeat it. We can learn the humility which so many of the Greatest have displayed when speaking of their efforts in later years. We can learn that all of history teaches us to respect and remember what those who have gone before us have done for us. We can remember that our lives are here today only because of what they did with their lives, and against terrible odds under unspeakable conditions.

We can learn to respect heroism. We can learn to revere the heroes.

Never forget.

Tarred and tarred again

The old barn, the shop I now have, was once me Grandpa Joe's. Like so many commercial buildings, it has a flat roof.

Years ago this young boy, I believe he was 8 or 9, decided that that roof was the ideal playground. He was climbing up onto it constantly, and no matter what Joe did the kid would always find his way back up there. He finally resorted to something he did not like to do, as for all his faults he hated ratting anyone out, even a brat. He went to speak to the kid's folks.

"He's going to get hurt running around on my roof," Joe explained. But the dad blew him off. "Boys will be boys," was all he said. Mom said, "I can't watch him all the time." Grandpa left them, unsure what to do.

Well, as the old barn had sprung a few leaks, him and me Pops went up one morning before work and spread a layer of thin tar across the roof. Then they opened for the day.

It wasn't long until Joe could hear the boy playing on the roof again. But this time he just went about his business.

A couple of hours later the boy's mother came around with a complaint. She was dragging along her kid, who covered head to toe in roofing tar. It was on his clothes, his skin; it was even in his hair. "And he's gotten tar all over the house. It's going to take forever to clean everything up," she emphatically explained.

"Sorry, lady, boys will be boys, I can't watch him all the time," was all Joe said. Then he went back to work.

The boy however never climbed back on the roof.

In search of

All I wanted today was a bologna sandwich. That's all. It's not such a big thing, is it? Not a bucket list sort of want anyway.

I like bologna. Maybe that puts me in a decided minority, but so what? It's just a humble sandwich meat. A slice of cheese and a spot of mayo and boom, easy lunch.

Yet my local supermarket had none this morning. I mean exactly that, too: zilch, zero, nada. No bologna.

How can a big neighborhood store not have bologna? I am totally mystified by that.

I could have run around to another store. But my time is worth something, and being self employed I have to really discipline myself not to abuse my lunch hour in search of what should be readily available, and what I do not have to have anyway. So I went home and had the ramen noodles which were already in the larder.

But still: no bologna? If it wasn't real I say it was unreal.

The Bird game

I don't know how many Tiger fans remember this date, although I'm sure many do: June 28, 1976. I call it the Bird game: it was the game which shot Mark Fidrych to national fame. I watched it as a sixteen year old, and it is (outside of World Series wins, and then only arguably) my favorite Tigers' game.

Rookie Mark Fidrych, nicknamed the Bird, threw a complete game 5-1 victory over the New York Yankees in a nationally televised Monday night contest. My son found a copy of the event on a VHS tape at a rummage sale and picked it up. The tape was labeled simply, The Fidrych Game. We watched it the day before Memorial Day. Yes, I still have a tape player hooked up to my TV.

Fidrych was a character. He groomed the pitchers's mound, he talked to himself, he thanked the players behind him after good plays. He was certainly unique.

I was struck by how quickly the game was played: I counted typically only 8 - 9 seconds between pitches. That's how you're supposed to play: keep it moving. But far more than that was watching the simple, childlike excitement of the Bird as he pitched. He put on no airs, there was no bravado. He was not grandstanding. He was just playing baseball. And having fun at it.

Then the cheers after the last out were amazing. Tiger Stadium rocked with the chant, "We want Bird! We want Bird!" until he came out for the curtain call. The broad smile, the happiness on his face; he was just so sincere. You don't see that on athletes, and that's a shame. Because games should be fun more than anything else, even, perhaps especially, at that level.

The chills still ran down down my spine, 43 years later, watching that game with my son. Detroit Tigers fans who never saw the Bird missed something that was missing even from the World Series championship teams. They missed the most deserving player ever to don the Old English D. Perhaps the most deserving player ever to take the field in a Major League Baseball game.

Did you not hear me?

Over the years of repairing drain snakes, I've had to replace a few motors. Having a bit of a lazy streak, I have allowed most of the bad motors to accumulate in a pile at the back the old barn. Eventually I'll take them to the junk yard, but for for now, they just sit there.

About a week ago a customer was looking them over and asked about one in particular. It was a fresh addition to my collection, one I had replaced only a day or so before. It looked fairly new in fact, although it was about ten years old. "What's wrong with this one?" he inquired.

"The windings are bad. It heats up and blows fuses," I explained.

He asked, "Can I have it? I'm good at fixing things."

I let him have it. "Sure. Knock yourself out." He wasn't going to be able to fix it, but whatever. It would be out of my hair.

Yesterday he returned to the Shop for a couple of things. At one point he proudly said, "You know that motor I got from you? I got it running."

Admittedly if only vaguely impressed, I responded, "Cool."

"But one thing: it heats up in about two minutes and cuts out my breaker. Why do you suppose is that?"

My response was an exasperated and obvious, "The windings are bad."

"Oh, okay. I'll play with is some more," he said.

Play with it all you want, buddy. But you won't be able fix it; the windings are bad. Just like I told you.