The apple doesn't fall

Me Pops and me Grandpa Joe were anxious men when it came to road trips. I find that I am increasingly so too.

Yesterday I wanted to leave at about 2 AM for a trip to Electric Eel, Indianapolis, and Coldwater Michigan before returning home. My first appointment was in Indy for 9, so there was no point in leaving too early. I took a melatonin tablet and was asleep by 5:30.

Now, going to bed early is fine if you can stay asleep for eight hours. I woke up at 9:45. And you know how it is when you try to force yourself to go back to sleep. You can't. The anxiety wells that you'll miss the alarm and such.

Yet I laid in bed for hours trying to cajole myself into a snooze anyway. Not. Gonna. Happen. I finally showered and left about 1, figuring I could kill time on the road. And I may as well be moving anyway by then.

I found an all night restaurant around 2:30 in Perrysburg, Ohio. I had hoped for the breakfast menu, maybe have an omelette. Alas, the breakfast menu wasn't up and would not be until 4. I ordered the breakfast of champions: chicken fingers with tater tots and Arizona Ranch dipping sauce. Who says you can't get sophisticated dipping sauces at roadside diners in northern Ohio in the middle of the night? Not me. After that, I had killed enough time to make my schedule with ease.

Anyway, the whole thing began because I was too excited about my trip to get back to sleep.  I guess that's all I got this morning.

The Tickle Bridge

The approach is still there but the thing itself is long gone. I am reminded of it every time I drive north of, yes, Bellefontaine, Ohio on US 68. The hills roll a bit there and a couple of them cause the bottom of your stomach to drop out as you hit them at 55 miles per hour. You know that feeling I bet? When the road falls downwards suddenly and it feels like your stomach goes with it, as though your breath were momentarily taken away. Well, it used to be you could get that feeling on a bridge on 14th street in southwest Detroit, just south of Michigan Avenue. We called it the Tickle Bridge.

Me Pops would pack all of us in the car some evenings and we would take a ride down 14th just to feel that sensation. And let me tell you the bottom of your stomach dropped way down. It honestly felt as though your breath was taken away. It dropped off so suddenly it really felt, for just that instant, as though the car were falling over a cliff. And then car would be full of the laughter of us kids for several seconds as the false danger was averted and we got our breath back.

I've often wondered how the bridge was ever made, or how it managed to stay up. The fall off was dramatic, more harsh than on any other roadway I've happened across. But it was cheap entertainment for a family of nine. Somedays Pops would circle around and we'd do it all again. It was Cedar Point without standing in line for ninety minutes.

It's gone now, but funny thing. When I imagine hard enough, I still feel my stomach drop.

Bill Cosgriff's temper

Me Pops had a reputation for not losing his temper. That wasn't quite accurate; as a son who many  times (and quite deservedly) felt it, he had a temper. But what he did was control it. That's the important thing. It's not only good manners, it gives your temper greater impact when you do let it loose.

One day as we were visiting my parents my oldest son, he was maybe seven at the time, came up to me clearly stunned. He looked up and said, as incredulously as a seven year old might, "Paw Paw yelled at me."

"Well, you shouldn't have done what you did," I responded simply. To this day I don't know what it was that brought it on, but it made an indelible impression on my son.

Pops himself insisted that he had a bad temper. One day I asked him, given that his dad, me Grandpa Joe, had a very bad temper, how the two of them got along so well, how Dad was able to check his anger when dealing with him. "I figured he was here first. I was the one who had to stand down," Dad explained. Now, Dad would still get mad at his Dad. I worked with and around both and saw it a time or two. The interesting thing was Joe would back off when he saw Pops was that upset.

Seeing as Joe, who did not take care of himself at all, made it to 86 I always assumed Dad would make it farther. But so it goes.

Happy 84th birthday Pops.

Attourney at law?

Did you look at the title of this little missive closely? Perhaps you better look at it again.

See it now? The misspelling of the word attorney? You notice that it has the letter 'u' where no u should be?

I saw that while taking my mother to breakfast yesterday. An attorney somewhere - I will not say where because attorneys sue for the most innocuous of reasons - had a sign installed which proudly proclaimed that he (or she; as I said, they sue for myriad reasons) was an attourney.

I would not advise that you contract his services.

Death Rat

The book I am currently reading is a work of nonfiction called Death Rat. It's a comedy.

I really like it. It's by Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame, if that helps. I don't want to say too much in case you should want to read it yourself, but here's one spoiler. As a history wonk I found it quite humorous.

He makes a joke of sorts about the Webster-Ashburton Treaty and I laughed out loud at it. Now I'm sure many of you, okay, perhaps one or two of you, are now frantically doing a web search on the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. You'll end up concerned that Marty might find anything funny about an obscure international agreement which may have staved off a major war between Great Britain and these United States. And you might be right. But I thought it was well played.

Or maybe I just need to get out more often.

Trump on abortion

President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to speak at the March for Life, the annual pro-life march in Washington.  And you know what?

That's a great reason why I believe my growing confidence in him is justified.

I hear tons of things about how bad his attitude towards people supposedly is. But you know what else?

If we don't stand up for life at its most innocent and defenseless, I have to question whether we care about human life at all.

So all you people who claim to care about immigrants, and the poor and the marginalized and everyone else, where are you on the abortion issue?

I know where my President stands. And I stand with him.

The highest point in Ohio

As I approached Bellfontaine, Ohio yesterday I, for whatever reason, studied the Welcome to Bellefontaine sign with interest. Why? I don't know. It's not like I haven'd been through the town dozens of times, maybe hundreds, as it's right on the way to Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs). So I've driven through it a lot. I even know some of it's history.

Bellefontaine has the shortest street in America, McKinley Street, which is only twenty feet long. It also has first stretch of concrete street in America. It was put in in 1891. Me Pops was always enamored of that fact, mentioning it quite often over the years. But something caught my eye yesterday: Bellefontaine is the highest point in Ohio. And I thought to myself, I wonder if weed is legal there?

I know, I know. You deserve better than that. Sorry.

Partisanship?

"The president's misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won," Schiff remarked (in defending impeachment).

Well. I simply don't know how to respond to this.

The hell I don't.

Trump is acting like a king (supposedly) yet Adam Schiff is asserting that we can't trust our elections. So what do we do, Adam? Just let the progressive Democrats have their way in Washington? And dammit, just who the hell is acting like a king in making such statements anyway?

Schiff and his cronies are, that's who. They say Trump acts like a king? Well, you guys are acting like oligarchs: a king like group who doesn't want to let go of power.

But Republicans are partisan! Yeah? So are you. You can take your partisanship charge and go to hell and back with it.

Talk about hypocrisy. Yes, let's. Because it's all on the Democrats folks. It's all they've got.

Strawberrylicious

I really am trying to eat better. I mean, I want to live as long as I can and in as good enough health as I can in order to be as annoying as I can. A man needs a goal, a raison d'etre, right?

Was I annoyingly high brow enough with raison d'etre?

Anyway, in my search for better, well, more healthy, eating I went to the local supermarket a few minutes ago. Apples I like, but I've them enough lately. The same with bananas. Then I noticed that strawberries were on sale. All right then, strawberries it is. Was. Whatever; insert your own idea of proper grammar there.

I tell you what, them strawberries were good. Are good: it's not like I ate them all, although I did eat most of the first quart (I bought two quarts as that's how they were on sale). In fact, it reminded me of eating fresh strawberries as a kid at me Grandpaw Hutchins' farm in North Carolina. That was, I say sincerely yet with punniness intended, a sweet memory.

So I suppose that eating right can bring on sentimentality. Who'da  thunk?

Thinking out loud Tuesday

Do you get the impression that the left were disappointed that there were no fireworks at yesterday's pro Second Amendment rally in Virginia? Sometimes I think they want to goad gun rights activists into a scrum.

Will you watch any of the debate circus? I'll watch a bit, if only to hear Alan Dershowitz tear into the Democrats' arguments. Come on, folks, when a renowned Constitutional scholar (and left leaning Democrat) sees the proceedings as a sham, you gotta believe it's a sham.

In a way though, I do like the impeachment sideshow. So long as Washington is tied up with it the politicos can't do much other harm.

I'm going to do a video blog today. Yes, I'm going to do a video blog today. But in a few hours. Let's let this wonderful written one gather steam first.

If you don't know what you want

The other day I walked into a party store because I had thought I wanted a snack. But then the strangest thing happened.

The potato chips in all their myriad flavors did not appeal to me. The candy bars in all their grandeur, well, they did not appeal to me that day. Nor did the hard candies or the gummies or even the chewing gums. I began to look over the beef jerky and other meat and cheese snacks and lo, I didn't really have a taste for any of them either. And that's when I remembered one of me Grandpa Joe's standards.

"If you don't know what you want, you don't want nuthin'." I actually heard his voice saying it as I thought it.

It struck me that is a great truth in that. So I made exit from the store and was quickly back on the road.

Saturday plans

You know what? Wet snow is heavy. Six inches of wet snow is even heavier.

But as with so many others, I had to get out this morning to clear the heavy snow because rain is coming. It will be followed by cold, which will freeze the rain on top of the snow. That would be heavier, and perhaps impossible to clear.

So I'll make another pass soon and then toss down salt before turning in for the night. Yep. That'll work.

Old guy planning his day signing out.

Climate change doesn't worry me

I've been a bit of a weather wonk for years: I like to know what's coming. But I have no idea what's coming tomorrow (Saturday, in this case). And that's because the weather forecasters don't seem to know.

One day before a winter storm is supposed to hit Detroit I find two different weather sites with two different projections. One says 3-5 inches of snow, the other says only about an inch. Further one says a high of 25 on Sunday while the other insists it will be 40. One has it cools through the first part of next week, the other warm. But one thing all weather prognosticators agree on: Miami will be underwater in the year 2100.

I do not believe them. If they can't be in agreement about how much snow Detroit will get tomorrow I have no trust in them over conditions 80 years from now. I get it that's its' not an exact science, and that conditions change. But if conditions can change dramatically over a few days (and thus alter forecasts) how much can things change over several decades?

Too much to know, ahem, whether Miami will be part of the ocean in a few years.

The Cloyce serenade

I'm not against music. Honest, I'm not. But my tastes are limited (give me Johnny Cash over Lady Yada or Masta Rappa Thugface any day) and I think there's a time and a place for it. After maybe having the radio on, our old Shop is not ever the time or place. Especially for live music.

One day as I was working alone in the old barn an old family friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, appeared. He helped himself to a cup of coffee and we chatted as I fixed cables.

A little while later a plumber came in. I'll call her Anne, which is not her real name, because she may not care for this memory. Anne was one of the few women plumbers at the time, which was around 35 years ago. Anyway, I stopped what I was doing to do a quick repair on the drain machine she had  brought in. She and I and Cloyce chit chatted.

Cloyce asked if Anne liked music. She warily answered yes. "Well, I play a little bit," Cloyce responded. He went to car and brought back his guitar. And he began, there's no other way to say it, serenading Anne.

Anne was clearly embarrassed by the attention. I was embarrassed for her. She looked at me with an awkward smile, the kind of smile which asks, 'what's all this then?' very emphatically. I sheepishly half smiled in return and kind of shrugged my shoulders. Making it a point by then to hurry up the repair, I soon had Anne's machine done. Cloyce strummed his guitar, staring longingly at Anne the whole while.

I don't think she was more glad to leave the old barn that day than ever. I know I was never, no offense to you of course Anne, more glad to see her leave. And I doubt to this day Cloyce even realizes how weird the whole thing was.

We thankfully did not lose Anne as a customer. Though I would not have held it against her.

Master of fake chips

I have never thought of myself as a 'gamer' as the kids say, but I play my share of video games. Sure they're the slow ones: video poker, a dice game called Farkle, a bit of solitaire. But hey, they're video style so they count as video games, right?

Now at the risk of bragging I've gotten pretty good at them. I'm a 'pro' at solitaire (on several different versions of the game), I have more than 14 and a half million chips earned in Farkle, and my stack in video poker is over 1.3 billion (yes, billion) chips. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Yes, they're worth nothing. They aren't real money; they do not spend anywhere except online. They are completely and entirely fake, indeed worthless. But you know what? I can live with that. I am the king of artificial wins, the master of the fake chips.

It is a title I revel in.

Picking up women at Church

As I slid out of my van yesterday at a Dearborn McDonald's I was startled by a hearty 'Hello!' and the sight of a man who had approached within about five feet of me. Then he stopped, himself startled. "Oh, I'm sorry," he quickly explained. "I thought you my friend I was waiting for. He drives the same kind of car you do."

"No problem," I assured him. He went on his way and I on mine. But it reminded me of a similar incident years ago.

After Church one day I made my exit and hopped into my van to, of course, head home. Right after I started the engine the passenger door swung open suddenly. That concerned me, as I had went to Mass alone.

I turned my head sharply to find myself staring at the woman who had opened my door. We glared at one another, each surely asking the same question: what are you doing in my car?  

The tension in the air was palpable.

Then she laughed out. Roared in laughter in fact. "I'm very sorry!" she said. "I thought this was my husband's car!" Sure enough, right in front of me was a van identical to mine.

"No worries!" I responded. I think we were both relieved at that point.

Telemarketers aren't the only ones

You think the only irritating phone calls are telemarketers? Well, they are not.

I have people who are worse. I know folks who refuse to leave a voicemail but will instead try to call me four and five times in a row. I don't know if they're panicking, rude or what. But it's downright maddening.

I'm sorry to have to inform you of this, but I ain't at your beck and, ahem, call. I might have a torch in my hand working on a repair. I may be on another call. I may be doing a product demo. There are myriad and very good reasons why I may not answer.  Leave a voicemail and I will get back to you promptly. Or at least give me a decent interval, let's say 15 or 20 minutes if you're really stuck, before attempting to re-call. Hanging up and redialing will not help your cause, I guarantee you.

Rant over.

The morning fright

You know what will make your heart stop? A door opening unexpectedly when you're sure you're alone at home, that's what will make your heart stop.

Our kids all live out of state and have been home after the Holidays for a couple of weeks now. My wife was gone to work. So when an unused bedroom door opened as I walked down the upstairs hall this morning it, ah, bestilled my beating heart.

Cr-ee-ee-eek, it said as it slowly slid open before me. Yes, I was startled. Because no one was home.

I stood perfectly still for a moment. Then I needed to reassure myself that no one was in fact there. So I stupidly reached inside the open door to turn on the light I knew was on the wall just inside that door. I did it so slowly that if the boogieman had been inside my arm would have been ripped from my shoulder as he impatiently waited to attack. Then I even more slowly opened the door fully to step into, as I expected (intellectually at least), an empty but now well lit room.

But I was no longer afraid. Nope. Not a bit. And I did not check every room in the house after that before finally relaxing and getting my morning coffee. I. Did. Not.

Really.

Amos's broom, or, a gift for Ella

I've spoken to you before about how superstitious me Grandpa Joe's friend Amos was, and that he was tight with a buck too. Well, if I recall correctly he had a girlfriend who was equally superstitious and equally Scottish. In fact, such qualities got my mother a nearly new broom.

Amos was moving one time and he enlisted me Pops and me Mom to help. As they had loaded just about everything into one of me Grandpa Joe's old welding delivery trucks, Amos's girlfriend (I believe her name was Eula) quietly took my mother over to the side.

"Here Ella," she said to Mom, "Take this broom home with you. I know it's wrong to move your broom when you move, but as this is a gift from me to you, it don't count."

You see, it's superstitious to move your broom when you move because it has within its fibers all the dust and bad things from your old home. All that you want to leave there, right? But as it was, Amos had only just bought the broom, and Eula couldn't stand the thought of leaving a perfectly good and virtually new item behind. Yet she knew Amos wouldn't stand hitch for having it moved. So she gifted it to Mom.

Who says superstition doesn't pay, at least for someone?

Shaving soap and motor oil

Now I certainly don't mind a bargain, and the Internet can be a wonderful thing. I just recently found via the web two items I struggle to find in brick and mortar stores: shaving soap and wrap around coffee filters. I discovered very good prices and free shipping for reasonably large quantities of each. The deals were so good that I almost doubled them. But it occurred to me that it gets a bit silly to plan too far into the future on items which will surely be available later and under similar deals. Put simply, I don't need to buy five years ahead on shaving soap.

Me Pops had a friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who changed the oil in both his and his wife's (I'll call her Mrs. Cloyce just to give her a name) cars on his own. No issue there of course. It's his right. So he was constantly on the lookout for good oil prices. No issue there either. It makes good sense. Only he went, I believe anyways, more than a bit overboard on that last point.

He reached the point where he had accumulated 48 cases of motor oil, stacked all around his basement. That's 24 quarts per case for, let me get my calculator out...1,152 quarts of oil. And almost two dozen filters, twelve each for each one of their cars. Especially considering he and Mrs. Cloyce were retired and only drove around town (they flew to major destinations) Cloyce had far more motor oil than he would ever need. By his own admittance he only had to change the oil once or twice a year per car. Yet when he stumbled upon a sale, he'd buy another case. Or two.

That's going just a little beyond the call of duty I think. But hey, his money, right?

Caramel corn lunch

I am eating caramel corn for lunch. And it's okay, because my doctor told me I could. Really.

At my last checkup, he said so. I didn't even bring it up: he did. "You know Marty, you can have caramel corn for lunch," he told me.

"No way!" I responded incredulously.

"Yes way!" he assured me emphatically. "All you want in fact."

Now, I know there are those among you who are skeptical. So you know what? Call him. Go ahead, ask him if he told me I could eat caramel corn for lunch.

But he's at a conference this week, so wait until later.

Coming into money

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

I hate yard work. Despise it really. I like a well manicured lawn and brightly flowered gardens and great green trees. But I hate the chores that go into creating and maintaining them. In spring and summer, I hate mowing the lawn and planting foliage and mulching gardens. In the winter, I hate clearing snow. In the fall, I hate raking leaves. That last one I despise perhaps most of all.

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

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

The Second of January, 2020

Today is January 2nd, the day after New Year's. Yeah, I know. Brilliant deduction Marty! How ever did you figure that out?

Self deprecating humor aside, it doesn't feel like the day after anything to me anymore. It even feels like a plain old Thursday in fact. You know how the day after a holiday usually feels like Monday? Nope, not for me. It honestly feels like Thursday, as it should.

I don't even feel the disappointment of the Holidays being over as I once did. Sure, they're over. The kids are gone and all that. But visits and the ends of visits happen all year long now, what with all my kids living out of state. It isn't any worse this one time now that that's become the new normal.

My most pressing feeling right this minute is that as I'm curling in a three day bonspiel starting tomorrow (Friday as it were: another helpful note courtesy of yours truly) I need to get a lot of work done at the Shop today. Even if I get a lot done as planned, I've hit the point where my conscience is going to bother me tomorrow about not working tomorrow. Stupid conscience.

So all right, get to work and stop pounding away on the keyboard, doofus.

I'm going, I'm going, Mr. Marty's conscience.

Sheesh. Some guys don't shut up.

Happy 2020

I suppose I should say Happy New Year. So, okay, Happy New Year.

Kidding aside, I mean that quite sincerely. May 2020, and I intend that in the sense of the entire year and not simply the one month, be a great one for all who read this. As they once said on Hee Haw (yes, the corny country TV show) 'May your pleasures by many, your troubles be few'.

And that I do most emphatically mean. Have a great 2020 everyone.