The long and winding (wrong) road

I suppose this post should go under they don't listen or pay attention. I will try not to be long winded about it.

Yesterday (we're open because we're in the supply chain for water and wastewater businesses) I had a customer call me and ask about sectional cables. I said that 8 ft. cables were $52 and 10 ft. were $60 and that we had both in stock. I told him those numbers explicitly, and I emphasize that because you, dear reader, will need to know it. Then he asked where we were, a quite logical question as he had never been to our Shop before. I told him 4850 Rosa Parks, between Hancock and Warren. "If you get to Warren you've gone too far," I advised him. Rosa Parks is a one way heading north where we are, so you come to Hancock before Warren unless you're going the wrong way. He repeated, "So you're between Hancock and Rosa Parks?"

You got all that?

So an hour later as I'm headed to the bank he calls. "I'm at Warren and Rosa Parks but I can't see you," he explains.

"You should from there. Look over your right shoulder for a big gray building." Our Shop is clearly visible from the corner of Warren and Rosa Parks.

"All I see is big plastic house like where they grow plants."

This didn't help me know where he was other than that I knew he was not where he said he was. There is no greenhouse at Warren and Rosa Parks. I'm sorry, there is no big plastic house like where they grow plants at Warren and Rosa Parks. "I'm driving but I'll swing around to Rosa Parks and look for you. What are you driving?"

"A maroon van."

So I swung around to where I would turn onto Rosa Parks well below my Shop. And I see a maroon van sitting at Forest and Rosa Parks, south of Hancock, right next to a greenhouse. I had forgotten one was there, but the key thing is he was not at Warren and Rosa Parks as he claimed. "You're at Forest and Rosa Parks," I said, trying not to sound like I was talking down to him. I had kept our conversation open as the phone lay on the seat next to me.

"Yeah, Forest and Rosa Parks, right." Whaddaya mean right? You quite definitely told me you were at Warren and Rosa Parks.

"I'm in a black van. I'll come around you and lead you in." This I did.

So now that he's finally at my Shop I ask, "So which do you prefer: 8 or 10 foot cables?"

"Uh, I need the 15 foot cables," he stammered.

15 foot cables are made by a competitor. "I don't have those. Our cables are not compatible; I'm sorry," I replied.

"Oh, okay. I'll go somewhere else. Sorry to bother you,"

"No problem," I responded. It didn't bother so much as it left me stupefied. I told him expressly what we had and exactly where we were and neither point registered with him. It wasted his efforts more than mine. But what are you gonna do?

Take Joe out to the ball game

Me Grandpa Joe didn't care much about sports. I've written before about that. One of his most famous lines, one that I essentially agree with (although I struggle with its full implementation) was, "Drop the ball for all it matters." He's right, quite frankly. Sports and games really aren't particularly important. What's important are matters of real right and real wrong. When he could do something to affect such matters directly (and his own frail humanity didn't get in the way), he did.

Once me Pops, his oldest son and a big baseball fan early on, was promised by a neighbor that he'd take Dad to the Tiger game the coming Sunday. Pops was excited, as a kid and baseball fan would be. He was maybe 10 at the time. He looked forward to Sunday, to see Tiger Stadium and watch his beloved Bengals play in person. We've all been there, all felt that rush of excitement when as kids nirvana was promised. Dad was really looking forward to that game.

Sunday came, and the neighbor backed out. He had decided that he just didn't want to go after all. Pops had approached the guy on the street that morning, who told him, basically, some other time kid. Pops was crushed. So ya know what Joe did?

He took his son to the Tiger game that day. You know why he did that? Because you don't promise something like that to a kid and then back out for no good reason. You. Do. Not.

To my knowledge, that was the only baseball game, and likely the only sporting event ever outside of a rodeo (he took my older brother and I to one of those one once), Grandpa Joe attended. He did that because he was a bigger man that day than that jerk neighbor. You don't promise a kid something important to him and renig. You just don't. Joe knew that. And I don't doubt his son's respect for him grew from such things.

Missing baseball

If the corona virus has taught us anything it's that we can live without sports. So they say.

I don't know about you but I really miss baseball. Today should have been day two of the 2020 season. Yet we have no baseball and likely will have none for at least several weeks. And while at one time I thought it absurd to begin the season in March, now I pine for it.

Watching old games doesn't do it for me. I know the outcomes. Funny thing is, that didn't bother me before. When you have (or think you have) the option of live games the old known ones lose luster.

Oh well. This can't last forever. Can it?

Against the fall of Pringles

Funny how some things stick in your mind, isn't it?

I remember me Pops bringing home Pringles when they first came out (yes, the potato chip) and loving them from the get go. I was perhaps 11 or 12, pre-teen, and we had root beer on hand that day as well. I poured a cup of the soda and grabbed a handful of chips. I remember thinking, I still think, that Pringles and root beer are a great combination.

But what goes along with that memory, or discovery as you may like, was that I also remember the book which I read along with that snack: Against the Fall of Night, by the sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. It took me a few days to finish that book, and every time I read I made it a point to have a snack of Pringles and root beer along with it.

I need to find that book, and reread it while drinking a bottle of root beer and noshing on Pringles. Maybe it will help me recall why the memory lives so fully in my mind.

Or maybe it simply sticks in my head for no real reason. Yet I can't help wonder why it would. I know this: I don't want to look up the book on Wikipedia or anywhere. I want to see if I can recreate the original feel of the experience. Please forward me no spoilers.

Too close for comfort

An old friend of the old man's, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, was from Tennessee. One day when he wanted to visit home, he asked if Pops would like to tag along for the ride and maybe help with the driving, so Pops did.

Cloyce took the first shift driving, so Dad settled into the passenger's seat and promptly feel asleep.

He was eventually woken up by an odd sound. It was kind of between a rhythmic slap and thwap, slap-thwap, slap-thwap, slap-thwap, all in pretty quick succession. He raised his eyes to see that the noise was caused by the mud flaps of the truck in front of them. Cloyce was cruising along at 60 miles per hour about eighteen inches behind an eighteen wheeler.

Pops was self aware enough to not shout out and maybe cause an accident. He raised himself, yawned, and asked pointedly while trying to seem calm, "Hadn't you better back off a bit, Cloyce?"

"I'm fine."

"I'm. Not." Pops had responded just like that, two one word sentences. He then continued similarly.
"Back. Off."

Cloyce backed off about two feet.

A restaurant soon loomed in the distance, and Pops said to pull over, he was hungry. When they parked, he demanded the car keys. "Why?" Cloyce demanded.

"Because I never want to see a speeding truck that close again on purpose!" Dad drove the rest of the way to Tennessee, and home too. I'm not sure he was ever again a passenger of ol' Cloyce.

The trouble with magic and time travel

I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone over the weekend not because I was encamped at home with nothing better to do but because my son had the Rifftrax of it and we figured it would be fun. Quite bluntly, I cannot imagine myself watching it without the riffs. Nothing personal, Potter fans.

Anyway, it reminded me of why I can't take stories about magic (or time travel) seriously if they're supposed to be serious movies. They're both impossible (time travel and magic) and invite all sorts of inconsistency.

During one scene in the aforementioned movie a kid clearly breaks his arm. The instructing wizard stops the lesson to take the unfortunate boy to the infirmary. That's all well and good, and of course necessary and proper in the real world. But in that world of magic all I could think was, why are you making this kid endure all that misery? Why don't you just wave your wand and heal his injury?

Ditto time travel. If taken at face value, either everything will always be in flux as folks gallivant about changing everything, or you should just be able to go fix the problem and be done with it. It's okay with comedy such as Back to the Future as you're not expected to take it seriously. But as a plot device in a drama it's really rather stupid.

Yes, yes, yes, suspend disbelief and enjoy the films on their own merit I will be told. I will even concede such movies might make passable entertainment. Still, the inconsistencies inherent in them will always bug me.

Rant (if this qualifies as one) over.

The candy man

This past Saturday I spoke of a man paying me Pops for a $1900 drain snake with 1890 singles and a ten. That man was Lockie Blocker, and he was a truly nice man.

I'm not sure whether Lockie was his legal name or a nickname, but his cards said Lockie Blocker however it was. As I explained the other day he owned several laundry mats and acquired a lot of singles day to day. Further, he had candy and pop machines in his laundries for added income streams. As such, he bought candy in bulk to stock his stores.

About once a year, maybe twice, when he would come by for snake cutters or whatever he, knowing Dad had 7 kids, would give me Pops a box of candy bars to take home to us. I'm talking full sized candy bars as you'd expect in a vending machine, 32 or 36 count per box.

Do you know what kind of treat that was for young kids? Full size Milky Ways or Three Musketeers or Snickers or what have you, and several each! Counting Mom of course (although I don't think she or Pops took any) that was at least four bars each. We were in little kiddie piggy heaven.

That alone wasn't what made him nice, though it helped with kids. He came into our Shop until I was in my twenties, and without fail he was always kind and courteous. Just a genuinely nice guy.

Who says we only remember the folks who done us wrong?

Small world item

Yesterday I drove down to Delaware, Ohio to check out a couple drain shakes. My customers are always in the market for used snakes; consequently, so am I.

I met this plumber at a trade show last month. In truth, I had known him from earlier shows, but this year he mentioned he had two machines for sale. We arranged to meet at his shop so I could check them out.

They looked good and what he wanted was reasonable so I bought them. But the real kicker was that as we talked, it turned out that I've been selling to his brother in the Detroit area for years. They have the same company name even, although that in itself isn't unusual over a country the size of ours.

Nick simply mentioned that his brother Brent owned Emergency Drain in Detroit, and I replied hey, I know him! We even got out our phones to check the numbers we had and yep, I knew his brother.

It can indeed be a small world sometimes.

On the road yet again

I know that I'm probably playing this sort of joke out. But when you see something and it's there, what's a guy supposed to do?

Driving back from an early morning delivery in Lansing today, I hit a point where I needed gas. So as I approached the next nearest exit I could not help but notice the Marathon sign. It was placed high up on supports because, of course, it's intended to catch the attention of drivers like me that want gas.

What made me laugh was what was below the Marathon logo. A sign proclaimed that they had Diesel Beer.

Yeah, yeah, I know. But as I've said before, it's no fun taking the such signs at face value is it?

A question about health care

Yeah, I'm tired of all the coronavirus talk too. And yeah further, I probably shouldn't even go where I'm about to go. But hell, why should those concerns stop me?

There is a question which has occurred to me which I think needs to be asked and answered honestly but doubt very much that it actually will be on either count. And it is: exactly why were the health care systems of Italy and France and Spain overwhelmed by the virus?

There are two plausible answers that I can see. One is, yes, that the virus was so novel and spread so quickly that no health care system could have anticipated it. It makes a certain sense and is well within the realm of possibility. The other is that their state run health care systems, being notoriously inefficient and uncaring (as government systems tend to be; notice our VA system here in the States), could not have possibly handled the situation anyway. Their bureaucratic nature won't allow it.

I don't know the answer. I'm only asking the question. But it won't get seriously asked or answered anyway because it doesn't fit the narrative. The narrative is that the media in the West and the powers that be in those nations (and too many people in ours) want the government to control health care. And the idea that it can't or shouldn't is simply off the table, not subject to discussion. The idea that private systems might be better suited to respond to crises more quickly and ably is simply seen as nonsense.

The truth is that I don't believe our progressive friends want that question asked. I believe that's because they're afraid of the answer.

Heart attack by suggestion

Ah, Biology 10, the science course I took during my sophomore year at old St. Hedwig. I don't remember much about the course except that it was taught by Sr. Christine, a sweetheart of a nun, one of the most pleasant people I've ever known. Subject matter-wise though, I really only remember the day when she spoke about how heart disease develops and affects the body.

Sister went over all the usual things which typically precipitate a heart attack: chest pain or pressure, numbness in the arms (particularly the left), sweating, difficulty breathing and so on. Then she lectured on something which none of us kids had ever imagined. She spoke about silent heart attacks, those where there are no obvious symptoms.

As Sister went on with her lecture several of us, myself included, began putting our hands to our chests and monitoring our bodies. If the other students' thought processes were anything like mine, they were something like: 'No sweats, no trouble breathing, no crushing chest pain. Oh my God, I'm having a silent heart attack!'

The power of suggestion however unintended (Sr. Christine of course meant nothing, as she was merely teaching a section of a class) can be very strong, and rather childish, in adolescents.

The Irish

Ah, the Irish. There's so much of them in every one of us. That's not really surprising seeing as there are so many more Irish outside of Ireland than still living on the old sod.

Why is that? Might it be that the soul of the average Irish personality resides in most all of humanity?

An easy examination of Irish culture gives many examples of Irish fortitude, courage, allegiance, patriotism, and an appreciation of simple yet profound human relationships. Who does not, if they have any sentiment at all in their bones, shed a tear when hearing O Danny Boy? Whoever will not feel their chests swell with nationalistic pride when hearing God save Ireland are indeed cold towards patriotism and their homelands and their brethren. Even sublime romanticism exists, heard through tunes like Black Velvet Band.

The more rambunctious bar songs of Irish lore appeal to the common thread of humanity. Have you heard The Wild Rover? A loser comes into his fortune and wins respect; redemption and respect indeed, as dreamed of by so many. Do not we all dream of that, to show everyone else that we've triumphed after all despite our flaws? How can we not believe in ourselves when listening to those happy tunes?

Acceptable extremes appear quite obvious in Irish lore. But do they not appear prominently in all human thoughts? The drunkard who believes God will forgive him if he makes Mass and does the occasional earthly good deed as did Darby O'Gill; will he not be forgiven by his faith in the simple acts which are the primary hope of redemption within the means of the most persons? The music was his, after all, wasn't it? Why? Because he did what he was asked to do within a legitimate frame.

The Irish are fightin', the Irish are sad and humbled; the Irish have been under the boots of their oppressors for centuries. Yet they hold true to what is true about who and what they are and about what defines them: their God. They recognize it even in their shortcomings. Their Irish guilt won't let them admit it, and rightly so.

Yet humanity requires that sort of odd pride, doesn't it? Something found in that profound and nearly humble comment of the rebel Irish soldier to the union Irish soldier near him at Appomattox, when Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant in April 1865. The Confederate leaned into the Unionist and remarked, "You only won because you had more Irish than we did".

Ah, the Irish. They can teach us something, can't they?

You call it maize

I'm sorry people, I'll apologize right up front, because I was trying, I had intended, to keep my mouth shut about the coronavirus panic. And I mean exactly that: this is panic, not pandemic. Or perhaps better, and I do so love alliteration, a panic pandemic of powerful proportions. There: pop all those Ps.

Of the best advice out there I have not heard a thing - not one thing - which is not common sense anyway. I've avoided my elderly mother in recent years when I've had any type of illness. I wash my hands regularly. This is no different.

Or what makes it different (such as it is) is the panic. I would never, ever downplay the effects death has on the person who dies or their family. But as of this morning we are only at 3,200 cases in the US with only 68 deaths. Other things will kill more people this year. This does not merit the panic.

And it is panic. Last week at this time there were few thoughts if any about shutting down sports. Now everything's shut down. That's not sensible. That's not a measured response. It is panic.

I think what's most worrisome in this is that we'll never really know if the shutdowns actually ended the problem. Corona, or Covid-19 or whatever you want to call it, may have died quickly on its own without all the closings. But now that we've had the closings, if they seem to have worked, well, we better expect a major closing of everything once every year or two now, because the precedent has been set.

Calm down. Sit back and take a breath. Do the common sense things. In the meantime, I'm going to work. Ain't no media driven, government enhanced, stock market dragon gonna get my work done but me. Might as well do it.

You call it sensible. I call it fear mongering. Now that's a dragon which feeds itself all too well and easily, and recent events show. It's not getting fat on my time or dime.

How I spent the weekend (so far)

This weekend has been weird. Perhaps it has been for many of us I suppose. I think maybe what's felt oddest is that my weekend has been actually rather normal. It's the other stuff, the coronavirus crap, which makes it feel unusual.

Myself, I have done little differently. I spent close to six hours at my Shop playing catch up yesterday. I washed a load of towels because it seemed there were an overabundance of towels in the laundry basket. I took my morning walk and will take another by 8 or 9 this morning. I ate Chinese.

Whatever the reason for the general panic it didn't hit downtown Detroit. Our local supermarket, indeed all nearby stores, stayed stocked and operating. They even had plenty of toilet paper. Oh, Lysol and hand sanitizer and the like were gone. But nothing else was different at all.

It was very strange not to go to Church. I take my mother to Saturday Mass and of course that didn't happen. Detroit and many Catholic dioceses have closed the Churches to large (or, sadly, large-ish) gatherings such as Church services. I'll watch Mass on TV sometime this morning (I've already checked my options and I have several) yet I know that just won't seem right. I'm not a shut in. At least, not by choice, though I suppose most shut-ins rarely are.

I read, but I've been doing a lot of that anyway the last several years. I watched a quite charming movie yesterday, Yesterday, on On Demand. It was about a man who, after a bizarre event, was the only one to remember The Beatles and their songs. It was one of those movies 'they don't make anymore', charming and engaging and, at the risk of sounding puritan, clean. After watching and liking Gran Torino a few weeks back I am beginning to rethink my attitude on recent cinema.

Though I don't watch sports all that much it was very weird to find no live sports on TV. Very weird. I watched a bit of bowling but it had been taped.

I'm going to stop here because I don't really want to get preachy. I only want to reflect on things. And I've just ended up simply shaking my head.

Day one

It's 4:12 AM in the Cosgriff bunker, and all is quiet. Perhaps too quiet.

Cue melodramatic piano chord...now.

The toilet paper bandits were chased off a few hours ago by a deranged old man with a rake. That may or may not have been me. But it got the miscreants off the lawn.

Fear is in the air. It's palpable. You can feel it, hear it.

Wait, that's just the television. Barnaby Jones; haven't seen it in years. I believe he manages to catch the culprit in the end. You can count on Buddy Ebsen.

There's a noise, irregular thumping and bumping. It's coming from the basement; I must investigate, and I must use caution.

Oh, sorry, it's the dryer. I had put a load of laundry in as I was wide awake in the wee hours before the dawn and decided to do something useful.

The wee hours. Who thought of that turn of phrase?

Well, I guess that's all for now. I'll turn a couple more phrases tomorrow. Hopefully better ones. Hopefully the tension will break by then. But I'm almost out of hand sanitizer.

A normal day

I'm going about my day today as though nothing were out of the ordinary. Why? Because it's the responsible, adult thing to do.

All the stuff they tell us about preventing the coronavirus, well, we should be doing that anyway to counter everyday health risks. If folks haven't been doing that before now how much difference can it really make?

So I'm off to work. On drain snakes. And I have toilet paper for $3,478.13 a roll of you're stuck.

Just stop the panic

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door."

Bilbo Baggins offered that advice to his nephew in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And it's good advice, so far as it goes. You never know where leaving your home might take you. You should be aware of where you're going and what you're doing. And of serious threats to your person.

Still, we have to leave our homes. We have to go out and live our lives; it's senseless and probably unhealthy to never leave home. Yet that seems to be the corner we're slowly backing ourselves into with the Corona virus scare.

Of course, you should do all the common sense things the situation requires. Stay home if you're sick, see to your personal cleanliness and hygiene, check on elderly relatives, friends, and neighbors. But all the other stuff? Just stop worrying.

If you are not otherwise in jeopardy, go shopping, eat out, have a pint at the pub. Live your life. Because quite bluntly, all this fear about an infinitesimal chance of contracting let alone dying from the disease is absurd, and borderline insanity. Walking out that door is fraught with all kinds of peril of anyway. You might get shot or hit by a bus, right? But you don't, you can't, let that keep you from life. Reacting to this small threat with paralysis is absolutely not the thing never to do.

How Marty will vote today

I am going to vote for Bernie Sanders today.

Yes, you read that right. I will vote for the Vermont communist in the Michigan Democrat Primary, and for one simple reason. He's the easiest guy for President Trump to beat in November.

I'm cautiously optimistic Trump will win anyway. But I have no problem stacking the deck so far as I can.

I also will vote no on any and all tax questions, even renewals. The government gets too much of our money and there is little will at any level to reign that in. So I will support none of the ballot issues which even only extend monies already being paid. It's our only direct recourse as taxpayers to trim public spending.

I am not impressed by assertions that such an attitude may not be fair. The Winston Churchill approach to budget cuts suits me fine: use a meat cleaver to chop spending and make people live with it. You want the DIA, the Detroit Institute of Arts, funded? Find the cash somewhere besides my pocket. Or the pockets of thousands of folk who don't care about it and should not be made to care by the cultural elite.

There. I'm voting for Bernie and against taxes today. Wrap your head around that.

Taking a dare

I'm not always sure what to think about advertising or promotions. They can be timid and they can be strong. Often I'm not sure exactly what they are, or are supposed to mean.

I used to buy a beer at the duty free store when coming home from Canada which enticed its patrons on the cigar band that it was 'remarkably drinkable'. I don't know about you, but I simply cannot imagine why anyone would believe that was a good advertising slogan. Imagine a buddy taking a sip and then remarking, "I say old boy, have you tried this? It is remarkably drinkable." Um, okay.

Today I'm having a spot of tea which commanded that I *dare* to drink it. What, is the next step a double dog dare? Or might we skip the protocols and jump right to the triple dog dare? It isn't like we're sticking our tongue on a cold flagpole.

I'm drinking the tea anyways. I never back down from a dare.

Cotton fish

The things you see on the road (this is getting to be as regular a feature as our dear friend Cloyce).

While driving along yesterday I saw a Dairy Queen. It had a sign advertising new and amazing things which that store offered. But what they offered, well, I'm not sure it's something I want to try.

The sign proclaimed: "We now how have cotton candy dip fish sandwiches!"

Okay, the fish sandwich part was on the second line, the cotton candy dip on the first. I'm simply running the two items together. And I know what they meant: you could have your ice cream cone dipped in cotton candy flavoring, and you could get fish sandwiches there.

But where's the fun leaving it like that?

Marty alarm

We need alarm clocks. Or at least I need one. A Marty proof one.

I did my usual asleep at 6:30 up at 2:30 thing last night. But I also, as I sometimes do when a road trip does not beckon, decided to take a nap around 5:00. You can't beat that second sleep let me tell you. Anyway, I also wanted to start my morning walks again, so I set an alarm for 6:45, sunrise being 7-ish this morning. I need to get my boots back to walkin'.

The alarm goes off and I think I hit snooze.

I hit off. Consequently I woke up about ten minutes ago.

This sure puts the walk late, cause, you know, I gotta check e-mail and play games first. And get that first coffee. Can't forget that. 

So I'll walk later. Probably like tomorrow later but hey, I got a plan. And how much difference can one day make, am I right?

A quick joke

I ripped this joke from my brother Ed. I don't think he'll mind.

My brother Patrick said they needed to buy more trash bags. Ed asked, "Why? You're just going to throw them away."

Not bad, eh?