This isn't about George Floyd

Okay, I know this is going to grate on many friends and relatives before I say it. But these protests are no longer organic. They are no longer about police brutality. They are no longer about George Floyd. They are about violence for the sake of violence, or worse. Violence for the sake of tearing us apart.

I'm surely not the only one who's noticed that the anti-government protests against the corona virus panic never turned violent. They did not turn violent even when gun toting protesters 'stormed' the Michigan Capitol in Lansing. Yet the anti-government protests supposedly about the death of George Floyd routinely do. It is fair to ask, why is that?

At this minute, I'm just asking the question. I firmly believe that most protesters mean no ill. Indeed, that the overwhelming majority mean quite well. Yet it must be remarked that an organized minority can incite a lot of mayhem. There is simply too much violence to not at least consider that such may be the case.

Racism is wrong. The murder of George Floyd was wrong. Yet as there has been nearly universal condemnation of his murder, how is violence drawing better attention to the evil of that act? And considering that things are moving very swiftly towards a serious prosecution of the perpetrators, what actual purpose is the violence serving?

Not justice for George Floyd. Something, I fear, more sinister. Something which might lead to more unjust death for many more innocent people of all persuasions. And it would only take a few people to hijack justice for more nefarious aims.

The protests

I have no problem with peaceful protests. There was actually a march in my neighborhood last night. But nothing happened here, so it's all good.

That's the way it should be of course. Once you start throwing rocks at the police, once you start burning things, once you start denying other innocent people their rights, you've crossed a line. That must not be tolerated. Especially if there's outside interests involved, as Detroit Police Chief James Craig reported: there were agitators from outside the city brought in and causing trouble downtown. That has nothing to do with George Floyd. It is an agenda unto itself.

The murder of George Floyd was reprehensible. Yet it does not justify violence. If you start killing people yourself, you're as bad as every other murderer. Period.

Hey there, you're an all star

What do you do when wide awake at one o'clock in the morning? You watch a replay of the 1971 All Star game from Detroit's Tiger Stadium.

It was a great ballpark. And it's really cool watching the players I grew up with young and playing well. Norm Cash, Bill Freehan, and Al Kaline were all there. The Willies, Mays and McCovey, are representing the Giants. Hank Aaron and Reggie Jackson hit monster homers.

Perhaps best of all, the stadium was still green. The old girl looked a lot better in green.

I never imagined, watching the game in the den with me Pops in 1971, that the next time I'd see it would be in the middle of a chilly September night 53 years later. Of course, at 11 you never imagine yourself at 64.

Hey look, there's Bill Freehan and Johnny Bench, two old catchers, at the plate at the same time. Too cool.

It comes with age

I have gotten into the habit of eating lunch for breakfast. By that I mean I eat after my morning walk and typically skip actual lunch. It gives me longer to burn the daily fat, I figure, and I am typically not hungry at Noon either. Still, it qualifies as lunch for breakfast. I usually eat a sandwich.

So I walked, went by the Shop for a bit to refresh myself on what items I needed to order today, and came home. Going into the kitchen, I gathered all the sandwich stuff I had decided I wanted this morning, made lunch for breakfast, and went before the computer to see what was up. You know, to write this blog and stuff.

As the computer booted up I took a bite of my sandwich. All I tasted was bread and mayo.

I set the food back down on the napkin which I was purposefully using as a plate and traced my steps back to the kitchen table. There sat open lunch meat and an open package of cheese as well as the condiments I had meant to yet did not use. I had absentmindedly made myself a mayonnaise sandwich for lunch.

No, I wasn't going to write about this today. It's simply that I'm curious: does this sort of forgetfulness come with age?

I'm asking for a friend, because I forgot where I was going with this.

Fool you once

I really got nothing today. I hate writer's block.

I'll take my usual daily constitutional in a few minutes. I'll end up at the Shop and make a cup of coffee on my Newark Keurig. I'll repair some cables and do a few other things I couldn't get to during the regular week.

Then I'll go home, clean up, watch a bit of TV, and read. My current book is The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, a Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Dorothy Sayers. Wimsey is kind of Dorothy's Sherlock Holmes. I've read a couple others of that series. They're not bad, especially if you like murder mysteries.

Then sleep, waking up early to watch Korean baseball. That's it.

Perhaps I had something to write after all, even if it is rather mundane. And I've either fooled myself into writing a blog, or fooled you into reading it.

Their eyes howled in sorrow

I wonder if anything is more disappointed that a disappointed dog?

Typically, when my son and his family are in for the weekend, they bring their two dogs. They're good dogs. They aren't any trouble at all. But boy, do they miss their masters when they're gone.

On the last visit, I was alone downstairs with them for a bit. Charlie and his family were momentarily out, but the dogs clearly wanted them. If I went upstairs for a second then returned, I would find them sitting at the dining room entry, staring as it opened, craning their necks to look around the slowly opening door. They clearly were hopeful of someone better, and then I appeared. They let me give them treats, which I did because I felt bad for them, then slink off to their pillows or the couch to pine for the folks they actually want in their lives.

What can you say? "Sorry," I sheepishly offered. But the ones they wanted would be back soon, and then, oh joy, oh rapture. Before that, they nonetheless graciously accepted my pity treats.

Kick starters

I'm surely guilty of it too, but I do wonder how often people actually hear what they're saying.

A customer brought a machine into the Shop this morning; it would not turn as soon as you hit the on button, as it should. "What's wrong with it Cosgriff?"

I answered that until I got into the repair I would not know, but it could be as bad a blown motor. "They're can't be nothing wrong with the motor, Cosgriff, because I can kick start it."

"You what?"

"I can kick start it. I can turn the clutch with a flip of my foot and the motor starts running."

He didn't hear what he said.

Of course something is wrong with the motor because you should not have to kick start it. Besides, if nothing's wrong with the motor why are you in my Shop talking to me?

He didn't hear that in his head either I bet.

Zeke and Patrick

Me Uncle John (often here called Zeke) and me brother Patrick are two of a kind. I honestly think Zeke sort of took Patrick under his wing at the old barn. I've wondered if he saw how me Grandpa Joe, God bless his soul, would grate on Pat a bit and thus sought to help him cope. Oh, he'd tease him and get a kick out of Pat's answers. But I really believe there was something of a fatherly spark toward him in Uncle John, who never had kids of his own. They made many deliveries together, which surely helped build their relationship.

Patrick has his eccentricities; Zeke like to jibe at them. When he asked Pat what his favorite food was Patrick answered, "Cheetos."

"What, Oreos not filling enough for you?" Uncle John responded.

In 1979 he asked Pat, if he could live in any other time or any other year, which would it be? Patrick thought a second and answered, "1978."

Zeke laughed and said incredulously, "You'd go back to last year?" and shook his head. "A chance to go anywhere and any time or place and you'd go back one year?"

There's more, and these exchanges aren't the best. I'm saving the best one though. Keep reading and you might catch it someday.

Clomping and shuffling

As I took a drive yesterday I happened to pass by a building which was erected in the late 1970s. I know that because I remember being there as it was built, me Grandpa Joe having rented welders to a contractor who was working on it.

I still remember quite clearly my last day there, when I was picking up the last welder Joe had on site. We were cautioned that no one would be on premise for whatever reason but that it would be okay to get the machine. Joe sent me and another fella, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, to fetch it.

The building at the time was complete yet there was still apparently interior work to be done. It was empty of furniture and furnishings, and Cloyce and I were left to wander the halls and rooms looking for me Grandpa's welder. That's when I first realized that Cloyce didn't pick up his feet as he trudged along. He literally shuffled.

This echoed throughout the place. Shhh, shhh, shhh, shhh, Cloyce shuffled along behind me. It was driving me nuts: shhh, shhh, shhh constantly. But as I was 17 and he was an adult, I was slow to ask him to pick up his feet. I was yet intimidated by adults and didn't feel I ought to complain, even vaguely, about what they did.

Yet after endless shhh, shhh, shhh bouncing off the walls I was ready to bounce off them too. Finally screwing up my courage I asked politely, timidly, "Uh, Cloyce, could you pick up your feet as you walk please?"

"Oh, sure, Marty, I'm sorry." I'm certain he didn't realize what he was doing and was genuinely concerned. So he started to pick up his feet as we searched for yon Hobart welder.

That may have been worse, because as it turned Cloyce was a clomper. Clomp, clomp, clomp now echoed around the empty building, fraying my already tense nerves. By then I really didn't want to say more. I didn't know what I could say anyway.

We eventually found the machine, at the far end of the building from where we entered. Cloyce volunteered to get the pickup and bring it around, for which I was eternally grateful. Nothing sounded better than his clomping dying out as he went to get the truck. It gave me a chance to calm myself.

Not quite Spring

Today is Sunday, May 17. That means we're coming up on being two-thirds through Spring. But it hasn't really felt like Spring so far, has it?

I'm not talking merely about the corona panic and wrongly induced inactivity, although that's certainly a factor. There's not much green on the trees, and the temperatures haven't really tempted us of Summer yet. It's been gray and cloudy and rainy a lot. Things just aren't very spring like at all.

Oh well. I'll take my walk this morning and go from there, because I have been and will continue to keep things as normal as possible. That I do believe is the best which can be done by each of us as individuals. The old normal can come back only if we insist upon it. For me, that starts will tapping out a blog on my kindle and taking that walk.

Have a good one, friends.

Korean cheerleaders

For the second straight Saturday, I find myself watching live baseball from the Korean professional league. I love hearing again descriptions such as "It's bad when you see the center fielder's number" as the player vainly chased what became a home run over dead center. It's fun just to watch and listen.

The cheerleaders take a little getting used to though. Yes, Korean baseball has cheerleaders; I understand Japanese pro ball has them too. While that's okay so far as it goes, it can be a bit weird. It can even be a bit annoying.

First, there's whistle blowing. All. The. Time. Apparently the cheer leader uses it to call attention to the cheerleading antics. Okay, whatever. Yet it happens too much, methinks. You hear a stupid whistle constantly during telecasts. Stop it already. Just, stop.

Then, there are no fans in the stadiums. The Koreans are playing in empty ballparks due to the corona panic. The obvious question then is, who are they encouraging to cheer?

Still, it's good baseball. It's live and a great diversion. And if you want to get a real taste of Korean baseball but only have a minute, call me and I'll blow a whistle your ear.

Update from 5/14

As I said yesterday, sentiment can go overboard. So can a great many other things too.

In yesterday's blog I vowed to toss out my old, ragged work coat. You can read about that here:

https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-old-carhartt.html

Today I carried out that vow.

After I had gathered a few items and set them by the curb, I duly and somberly trudged back upstairs to grab the old Carhartt. I double checked the leaky pockets just be sure I hadn't left anything worthwhile in them. I mean, we've all occasionally stuck our hands in an old pocket and pulled out an unexpected ten or a twenty, have we not? Then, admittedly with a wistful sigh, I elected to drape the coat around me one last time.

Now's where the fun began.

I consciously decided that the occasion demanded ritual. Holding my head high and regally, I opened the bedroom door and marched aloof to the stairs, defying the idea of rejecting an old friend casually. Treading every step with exactly the right amount of purpose and pomposity, I made my way to the front door.

Opening it, I continued my procession to the waste receptacle. Yes, waste receptacle, because trash can is below the dignity of the moment. Arriving at the receptacle, I methodically removed the old Carhartt, then held it in the air for a few solemn seconds above the gaping maw of the hungry waste retainer. I then let the coat slip gently from my grasp, to fall delicately upon the bags of refuse in anticipation of the arrival of the trash morticians. Closing the lid slowly, I walked away.

May as well have fun with this, eh?

The old Carhartt

Sentiment is all well and good, and Carhartts are great work coats. Still, they each have their limits.

Every bit of twenty five years ago me Pops gave me a great Carhartt winter work coat. It was given to him but didn't fit, so he re-gifted it to me.

I've worn that thing every winter for, well, twenty five years. And the fact is that the coat itself is worn, as in out. It's quite ratty and the pockets have holes large enough that you can't keep stuff in them. I almost lost my keys one day over the winter because they fell through such a hole. Luckily it was at the old barn so I heard them hit the cement floor. But if I were anywhere else, who knows?

I should have tossed the coat several years ago really. But psychologically for me it had become Dad's coat, so I just kept on wearing it.

Tomorrow however it goes into the trash. I've resolved to that; enough is enough, and it's had its day. And if it stays in my closet until November I know I'll talk myself into using it for just one more winter.

So, out with the old. Even if it's Dad's coat. I'm sure he'll understand.

Butter and bologna

Me Pops was a simple eater with a simple diet. Burgers, hot dogs, and pizza were high on his list. He was big on fish, which is not a surprise seeing as he was a Catholic raised in the days when all Fridays were, for Churchgoers, meatless.

He loved Mom's spaghetti the most. I'm not saying this to get maudlin, but his last meal at home was her spaghetti. I believe that was good and proper, an alignment of the planets if you will. He loved her fried chicken, regularly lamenting that she didn't make it often enough. I'm with Dad on that, Mom. I wish you'd have made it more.

I don't think he had any unusual food choices. Perhaps the closest if it counts at all was butter and bologna sandwiches. He loved buttered bread, and I remember him having butter and bologna sandwiches quite often. And you know what? It ain't a bad sandwich combo.

Until recently it had been years since I thought of it. But in the last week it's made up my lunch three times. Bologna was on sale at the nearby supermarket so I bought some. When I got home, I saw that we had butter. The light went on above my head. I wonder if Dad's old sandwich recipe was all that? I wondered aloud in my kitchen.

It was.

Video blog

Hey, try something different today and watch my vlog instead of reading this blog any further:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk4RurkiHM4&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1E6bHCjOO3BesoSg1-UQwv0-uq3-Q9wz14Krf9jhc5lrWrcszgVTWCb8E

Thank you!

Their brains, your cash

When someone tells you that with their brains and your money they'll change the world, hold on tight to your wallet.

You can attribute that quote or something similar to many people. I heard it first from me Grandpa Joe, repeated years later by me Pops. And it's basically why I distrust government and am a political conservative.

It is essentially how the progressives, the government planners, think. With their brains and your cash they'll save the world. This isn't to say that every idea they have is a bad one. Nor is it to say that we don't need government and that governments don't need money. But it is to say that, no matter how good of an idea you think something is, when you intend to spend someone else's money on it you ought to be very certain that your idea is a legitimate public good requiring a public commitment. Otherwise, you're simply a petty tyrant forcing others to fund something merely to suit your whims.

To be sure, conservatives have their pet government schemes. We should treat those with the same skepticism. Yet by and large it is our friends on the left who promote government interference in our lives and demand our - your - cash for it. And they just don't seem to care what your selfish little self thinks about their hands dipping into your wallet.

Live Tiger baseball. Really.

It isn't quite normal, but it feels close to.normal. I'm watching baseball on a Saturday. Sure, it's Korean league baseball. But it's new, it's baseball, and the quality is pretty good.

The stadium is empty of spectators. That's something which feels weird even watching on TV, when the camera offers a wide angle and you see nothing but seats. Yet we saw a lot of that from Comerica Park last season as it was anyway, eh, Tiger fans?

Oh, be quiet. I'm just seeking a bit of levity here, and we should be able to laugh at ourselves, right?

Interestingly, from another Detroit standpoint the teams playing this morning are the Tigers and the Lions. The Tigers vs. the Lions. Even I won't touch that one.

Yes I will. The Tigers over the Lions all day long.

Tough loss

I've established that me Pops liked to play poker and that he held regular Saturday night games way back when. I asked him once whether he ever held a royal flush, the AKQJ10 all of the same suit. It's the highest poker hand possible. He held royal flushes twice. Yet he lost one time with one anyway.

The games were almost always at his house, and his house rule was that the dealer called the game they were to play while he dealt. Typically it was a standard round of poker and only varied by whether it was draw or stud (don't worry about what those are as it's not important to the story). But he had this one friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who liked to do things differently. Cloyce invariably introduced wild cards into the game.

He might call the well known deuces wild, where twos could be any card you needed them to be. Or it might be one-eyed jacks and suicide kings were wild. He would sometimes call baseball, where threes and nines were wilds. Dad hated such variations. But he felt that in fairness he had to allow them.

Once when Cloyce called for wild cards, me Pops ended up with a true royal flush: 10 through ace, all hearts. No wild cards. Yet he lost to someone holding five sevens: three actual sevens with two wild cards.

That grated him, and I understand why. I think you ought to play the cards true myself. But fair is fair, and at least it wasn't Cloyce who held the seven of a kind.

The cost of not paying attention

It pays to pay attention, doesn't it? The inverse, it costs to not pay attention, is, sadly, equally true.

I stopped for gas this morning at a place where regular was $1.47 a gallon. That's the best price I was seeing, so it seemed a good time to gas up. I pulled up to a pump and prepayed twenty bucks.

Returning to my van, I began to dispense the gas into the tank. Then I stood there daydreaming. That is, if you can daydream at 4 o'clock in the morning in Kenton, Ohio.

Anyway, after a minute I looked up and saw that I was nearing fourteen dollars yet only had a little more than five gallons of gas. Math was never my strong suit, but I knew immediately that I should have had close to twice that amount by then.

And that's when I noticed that I, apparently, had hit the premium button. I was consequently paying $2.66 a gallon.

What could I do? I finished getting my twenty bucks of premium gas and went on my way. On the flip flop I discovered gas at a buck thirty five, so I fully gassed up then. And I was sure to hit the regular button that time.

Oh the snow again

I heard that we might get measurable snow this Friday in Detroit. If we do, it will only be the ninth time that's happened here since they began keeping records.

How about that? I don't believe I've ever seen snow around these parts in May. But my brother Patrick assures me that we have had flurries. If he says so, it's true. His memory is good for things like that. And I would almost - almost - like to get a half inch of snow simply for the sake of it.

Speaking of cold, I know it's none of my business yet I can't help being curious, there's a home nearby where they have the air conditioning going virtually year round. It was on this morning as I passed, and I notice the low humming of the window AC unit almost every time I walk by. I suppose some folks just like it cold.

Actually, I remember my buddy in Saskatchewan getting hit with a foot of snow on May 20 a few years back. Oh, it wasn't just him. It was the whole area where he lived.

Go on, you're at least smiling at that. Until next time...

Martin Sheen's lawyer

Mom's had a few brushes with celebrity. She met George Clooney once when he was filming a movie (Out of Sight) in her neighborhood. She met Jennifer Lopez then too, but said that Clooney was much nicer.

Once she met Martin Sheen. He had come to Mass at her Church and somehow they were introduced. When told she was Ella Cosgriff, he asked, as so many people seem to about our surname, "Cosgrove?"

"No, Cosgriff," she replied. Then she repeated the family tale that we were once Cosgroves, but as an ancestor was reputedly a horse thief back in Ireland we had changed our name so as not to be associated with villainy. "Cosgrove was a horse thief," she finished.

The actor laughed out loud. "Really? I'll have to tell my lawyer that story. His name is Cosgrove," Martin Sheen explained to Mom.

The legend continues...

On the road today

The things you see on the road...

I passed a billboard this morning, paid for by a hospital in Ohio. It proclaimed, "Voted a best hospital in Ohio, Again!" Just like that, with an exclamation point.

How do we take that? To me, it sounds as though they were surprised: "Hey! We've been named a best hospital again!" like they can't believe it themselves. Or maybe it's meant as if they pulled the rug over someone's eyes.

Then there was the gas station which proclaimed that it had a beer ATM. I'll let you sophomores out there dole out the punch lines for that one.

On the road again...

Is it just me?

Is it just me, or are TV shows set up so that they all go to commercial at the same time?

I had a bout of insomnia last night. I couldn't get to sleep until about midnight and then I only slept sporadically until, half in disgust, I dressed and left the house at 6:30 for Marty walkies. So I ended up scrolling through a lot of channels for about a twelve hour period overnight.

As I was increasingly restless as time went on - you know how it is when you can't sleep as you toss and turn and the whole thing feeds on itself - I began checking out the ol' telly. Of course being restless I would start channel surfing at commercials. Yet almost invariably no matter what new channel I hit would also be on commercial.

Do you think the television powers that be actually do, actually can, do that? It sure seemed so to me last night.