Just plain rude

Just when you think you've seen it all, you see something you never think you'd see. This one had me doing a slow burn.

As I walked into UPS yesterday to ship a small package there was one woman in front of me with six packages. Oh well, those things happen. She got in there first and that's that. But what ground my gears was that none of the packages were taped shut. The attendant was doing that. He was also attaching the preprinted address labels.

Are. You. Kidding. Me? This young woman brought in a half dozen parcels which were not addressed, which were not even taped shut (in short, not ready for shipment at all) and had the UPS employee doing all that for her, while me and the soon four people who came in after me waited. What the (insert preferred inapropriate adjective here).

As I said, I could live with the fact that she got into the shipping office ahead of me. That stuff happens. But to bring unclosed, unaddressed parcels into UPS and have the clerk secure them?

Just. Plain. Rude. The height of being inconsiderate.

Googley goo

I had a birthday last week, which was cool, because, you know, when you're still having birthdays you're still alive. I am thankful for that.

Perhaps the biggest surprise that day was that when I logged onto my computer, up popped a notice from Google Assistant telling me Happy Birthday! I didn't even know I had a Google Assistant!

Google, you think of everything.

But I meant well

This is from the file 'There's a joke in there somewhere'. I'm trying to find it. Believe me, some days you really have to force the blog into being, you know?

Saturday morning I went to McDonald's for breakfast. As my charitable giving isn't nearly good enough (and it isn't) when I saw the sign asking folks in the drive through lane to round up their bill to the nearest dollar as a donation to Ronald McDonald House charities I thought, do that, Marty. My bill was $5.32, so rounding up would give a good cause a whopping 68 cents. Not much but something, and the whole point of the effort is that little bits add up to one large, uh, might I say chunk of change.

With three cars ahead of me, I forgot to say round up as I paid. You know how that is: time, old guy, forget. Repeat pattern tomorrow. Hell, repeat pattern in an hour. As I was pulling back into traffic I remembered and sighed.

Taking me Mom out Sunday, we ended up at McDonald's for a little lunch. After I ordered the young man behind the speaker asked, "Would you like to round up your change for Ronald McDonald House?" Keenly aware that I now had the opportunity to make amends for Saturday I replied, "Yes, I would," and feeling rather proud of myself. I would not forget my fellow man this time.

"Great, thank you," the young man replied. Continuing he said, "Your food is $11.95, so that will be $12 at the first window."

Not that I should have felt overly proud at 68 cents, but that nickel sure sounded small. Way to help that family at Ronald McDonald House with five cents, Marty. I bet they can stay an extra half minute on it.

Not my fault

I blame my kids.

They debit card just about everything. Me, I carried a debit card for several years but really only began using it extensively in about the last few months. 

Now I use it more than cash. And that irritates me, because I find I'll use it when I have the cash against a relatively small amount. I have to make myself use cash.

I took me Mom out as usual yesterday and I swore I would go cash only. I did, but it was, oddly, a challenge, especially when our purchase at McDonald's was only $4.95 (more on that tomorrow as there's a funny story over it). For cryin' out loud, give the guy at the window a five dollar bill, Marty. You have two!  

I managed to do it, but it was tougher than expected.

I get it: there's safety and security in using debit. But I'm still old school in many ways. One of those ways is that you pay cash for routine purchases, particularly small ones.

I blame the kids. It's what good parents do.

61 with an asterisk

Well, I'm 61 plus one day. And as they said (wrongly) when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth's single season home run mark, that's 61*

I was actually in that movie too. I was a paid extra for two days as they filmed part of it at old Tiger Stadium here in the D. I made $170. Not bad for the experience. And I got a free haircut, as my hair that day didn't look early sixties enough.

So here I be, another day older. I took yesterday off, so I think I'll take today off too, What the hell: I'm the boss.

Spring colors

We all know about fall colors: the reds, yellows, oranges and so forth which come with the autumn of the year. But I never really experienced spring colors until yesterday. 

To be sure, spring has its colors. The various green shades as plants come back to life after winter. There's also the colors of the flowers and flowering trees, which are many and pleasant. But yesterday's late snowfall in southern Michigan and northern Ohio brought in a beauty I never before imagined.

Driving along during the mid-morning, after the sun had been out a few hours, I saw many trees which were green (as the leaves were already appearing) at the top where the sun had already hit. Yet they were the bright and sharp white of the snow lower down, in the shade which the sun hadn't vanquished. It was impressive as I made my way north on I-75 towards home.

It was all in all a pretty vista. But I still hate that we had such a late measurable snow just the same.

April in Winter

Measurable snow. In Detroit. On April 21. Where did that come from?

I've seen flurries this late. Indeed, as astute readers might recall, we had flurries into May last year. But that was 2020. We can dismiss that with the rest of the year's weirdness.

Perhaps it's only winter's way of asserting that it ain't over until it says it's over. I have a certain respect for that. 

Just be gone by my birthday tomorrow, okay, winter? It's one thing thing to assert yourself on somebody else's time.  But not on mine, understand?

No respect

I'll tell ya I don't any respect, he said. And no doubt respect was something Rodney Dangerfield lacked. But do you know who get even less? Umpires.

Sadly, I think a lot of it is deserved. If the strike zones that the TV broadcasters superimpose over home plate are any accurate indication, they miss about 1 pitch in 4.

I can remember the organist at Comiskey Park in Chicago riling the umpires during the 1970s by playing Three Blind Mice when they came onto the field.

Even Harry Truman got into the act. The former President once quipped, "As I boy I couldn't see well enough to play ball, so they gave me a special job. They made me an umpire."

Kinda sums it up, eh? The lack of respect for the profession.

The world turned upside down

On this day in 1775 the American Revolution began in earnest. The militiamen, the ordinary citizen soldiers of Lexington and Concord, turned back the more organized and more highly trained British, harassing them all the way back to Charlestown outside of Boston. The Shot Heard Round the World had been fired. April 19, 1775 had secured its place in American and World history.

The significance of this event cannot be underscored enough. To date, it is almost surely the only large scale revolution which has had any modicum of positive success. Most new nations sink into anarchy, more terrible tyranny, or simply the same old same old with a new face when a known form of government falls. We need only look to the relatively recent Arab Spring uprisings to see this is true.

To be sure, even our Revolution was subject to severe trials early on. It was no certainty that a civil government based on popular will would result from the Revolution. Yet somehow it did; I believe that it was American Exceptionalism through Divine Providence that our nation rose from those battlefields as it did.

I do not mean this as an insult towards other people and nations who have or are now seeking similar freedom and respect. I know that we aren't and never have been perfect, and that there are and have been other rightly proud and blessed peoples and countries. But the fact is that popular uprisings need more than simple change. They need enlightened leadership. They need more than mob mentality. Any dictator with charisma and organizational skills can turn crowds to their will quite easily.

The colonists had rational leadership. The colonist themselves were on the whole reasonable people. They were able to overcome the occasional rabble to form a stable, reasonably free nation. And that's exactly what makes April 19, 1775 so memorable. Our revolution is truly unique in history. It all began 246 years ago today. 

Jethro psychology

There is a Beverly Hillbillies marathon on this weekend. What better time can you have, I ask, at 3:30 on a Sunday morning than watching Jethro Bodine being psychoanalyzed?

"What is your relationship to your mother?" the Doctor asked.

Incredulous, Jethro replied, "I'm her son." The show went on, the basic story line being that the psychologist must be interested in dating Jethro's widowed mother because she was all he asked about during the session with him.

You gotta love it.

I'm not going to argue that The Beverly Hillbillies was particularly inspired. Well, maybe I am. The mockery they made of modern psychology in that episode was a hoot, under the guise of the fish out of water premise of the whole series. It left you wondering who's the real yokel.

Not to disparage worthwhile psychology (which I suppose has its merits) but people need to be able laugh at themselves, be able to poke fun at even, perhaps especially, things near and dear to them. We don't do that enough anymore. 

And it shows.

Can you hear the words coming out of my mouth?

Being in sales, one of my jobs is to help the customer. In fact, that's probably my primary job. And I want to help the customer. I especially want to help him when I can make money from that aid.

A man called me yesterday asking for a part I did not have. It was a very specific part too, one that I am truly certain I am the only person in the Detroit area from whom it can be gotten. I just plain didn't have it.

"Well, where else can I get it from, Cosgriff?" he asked.

"Nowhere, sorry. I can order it, take me about two weeks," I responded.

There was a heavy sigh on the other of the phone. "Okay, then, where was that other place you sent me before?"

Now it was my turn to let out a heavy sigh. "There is no other place in the Detroit area."

"But you told me a place before."

"No, I didn't. There is nowhere else in the area."

"It was between 9 and 10 Mile." I don't know if he thought that hint was really helpful. But it wasn't.

"I have no idea what that might be," I assured him, perhaps a bit huffily I'll admit.

He paused before adding, as if repetition makes something true, "Yeah, it was between 9 and 10."

At that point I wanted to blow up at him. I wanted to yell, "Look, bud, you can crisscross 9 and 10 mile roads their entire lengths and will not find that part. There is NO PLACE anywhere between 9 and 10 that will have it. But go ahead, waste your day looking. I've been as much help as I can be." Instead I said through clenched teeth, "Well, if you find it call me and we'll set up a time to install it."

He'll be calling back later to order the stupid thing. In the meanwhile if he elects to fritter away his time chasing windmills, he deserves whatever that entails.

Mentholiptis

Each day as I've washed my hair this past week I've noticed an odor quite like Hall's cough drops. I could even honestly feel my sinuses opening up. I couldn't figure it out where it was coming from, and it was driving me crazy.

I was checking the pipes. I was checking the water, and the filters on the taps. Yet there was no trouble with the water or any of that. I was brewing coffee and cooking and with no ill effects. Well, other than the usual ill effects of my cooking, but that's another story. 

Then yesterday as I showered I reached for the shampoo, Head and Shoulders for Men (because a man needs a manly shampoo), and saw the label. It was more than just shampoo for men. It was Refreshing Menthol. In my shopping for hair care, I hadn't fully realized exactly what I bought. 

Mystery. Solved. And I don't feel at all stupid about it.

The incident in Brooklyn Center

Okay, today I will comment on the death of Daunte Wright.

Beyond the philosophic issues involved, and there certainly are a few, there are two things which strike me as the most salient issues with regard to the death of the young man. One involves the officer who fired the fatal shot while the other focuses on the young man himself.

Knowing next to nothing about weapons I'll admit up front that I may be wrong on what I'm about to say. But mistaking a taser for a gun strikes me as profoundly negligent. Perhaps in the heat of the moment it is an easy mistake to make. Still, police officers should be intimately aware of what weapons they have and where they are. And aren't they supposed to be trained to deal with precisely these kinds of heat of the moment events? Even if drawing her gun was a complete accident, even if it were wholly a mistake, it was a deadly one. A wholly avoidable one. I have to think she should be subject to some type of criminal prosecution.

Then there's the actions of the young man himself. It's going to sound almost trite or even flippant yet I will hold that it's obviously true: if he hadn't tried to run away, if he hadn't resisted, he would almost certainly (and I say almost because you never fully know when speculating) still be alive today. With that, all the injury to persons and property would not have happened. All he had to do, I say within reason, was cooperate. It's intellectually dishonest to argue otherwise. So what happened to him and the larger community was to some degree his own fault. Would the officer have even tried to draw her taser if he would have done what he was told?

In practical terms, that's where it stands so far as I believe. Take from that what you will.

Police interactions with citizens

I am not going to comment directly on the killing of Daunte Wright in Minnesota. When such tragedies occur it is best to give justice at least a fighting chance to work itself out, for all involved. But it does offer an opportunity to point out an idea which I first heard in libertarian circles and which deserves greater thought.

Why was the young man pulled over? As I understand right now, the license plate on the car he was driving was out of date. Upon being pulled over it was noted that he had things dangling from the rear view mirror, an offense in Minnesota. Then it came out that he was wanted on a gross misdemeanor warrant. I do not know what that is or what it was for. Any way you slice it, it's three issues which the police had to consider in that particular situation.

So my question becomes, and this is an idea I've gleaned from libertarian circles as said, how could so many issues arise out of what appears to have begun as a simple traffic stop?

We have tons of laws, rules, and regulations in this country, and I certainly am not going to argue for abolishing all of them. But I have to wonder if maybe we ought to get rid of a great many, in part because every such dictate of government gives officials, in this case police officers, more power to look more intimately into what may just be singular events. They end up digging deeper searching for heinous activity. Each law, rule, and regulation grants somebody, almost always somebody with the power of government behind them, the ability to escalate a situation from something rather cut and dry, even mundane, into a situation where someone whether officer or civilian can get hurt physically or personally (in terms of ruined lives). 

Excess rules and regulations open the door for increased interaction between government and citizen. When there are more possible interactions then of course we're going to have more situations like the one in Minnesota recently. As such, I wonder if the real issue here is too much government. I do believe that at least some of the time, it is.

Athlete's rhythm

We Cosgriffs, we walk fast and with a mild waddle. That's just how we are. We're so much that way in fact that it's hard to walk slow. I mean it.

I turned my ankle one day last week. No, I did not hurt it while taking it out my mouth, yes, ha, ha, quite witty of you. I enjoy jocularity. 

Anyway, I twisted it while hiking around the neighborhood last week in my normal, Cosgriff pace. But I hit a curb wrong and had to stay off my left ankle for a while. Thursday I could hardly put weight on it, although there was no swelling.

I tried walking Saturday and Sunday yet within a few feet - a few feet, ha, ha, now I'm witty - it was obvious that a regular walk wasn't in the offing for a couple more days. Yet this morning I figured it was time to get back out there. But I would walk slower. You know, get exercise but don't put too much pressure on the ankle. Work my way back up to normal. Like an athlete. Yes, exactly like an athlete.

That's where I found out that walking slower was a chore when you're used to walking fast. Typically I walk nine blocks in around eleven minutes. Yes, I count the blocks. I always have in order to know my pace with regard to time. Today it took me fourteen plus minutes to hike nine blocks. It was agonizing. Still, I managed to walk close to an hour at that rate. 

And now back at home my ankle feels fine. So hopefully it's all for the better. 

Eighth time's a charm

I had just about given up hope. Having always been able to find Chase and Sanborn coffee at Ollie's Bargain Outlet (at least for last three or so years) the well had appeared to run dry. After stops at seven stores across southeast Michigan, it no longer appeared readily available among Ollie's venerable wares. 

Yet on my Sunday drive with me Mom we chose to shop at the Ollie's in Port Huron with renewed if diminished hopes. And lo and behold, there it was: a veritable mother lode of Chase and Sanborn coffee. What's more, they were cans which proclaimed they held 20%, that's twenty percent, mind you, more than their standard cans. So I of course bought two. That means I got forty percent more, right?

About the only negative was when the cashier for some strange reason known only to him and his devils bagged the cans upside down. Upside down? You have to admit that's heathenish. Or at least disrespectful.

All right, it was a long way to go on such a silly quest. But it gave me time with my mother. She's more than worth a drive to Port Huron and lunch at McDonald's.

Sunday fun day

What to do, what to do? 

I'll start by taking my morning walk. Yes, that will work. Then I'll sit with Mom for a bit and take her for a ride. Perhaps we'll go to Ollie's Bargain Outlet. The one in Port Huron. I haven't been to that one yet, and I need, uh, stuff. At bargain prices. Then we'll get lunch and take the long way home.

Once back home I'll check in on the Tigers and catch the last couple hours of the Masters. Hideki Matsuyama had quite a run yesterday after the rain delay and sits with a four shot lead. I'm  going to root for him and hope it's not the kiss of death.

Then I'll finish the day watching the second round of Wrestlemania 37. It won't be the same without the Undertaker. But it was cool to see Hulk Hogan again in part one.

Yes, I think this has the makings of a fine, relaxing Sunday.

I wasn't going to crack this joke.

I wasn't going to crack this joke. I had indeed vowed, in the silence of my own mind, not to make the quip. In fact, I had put it in yesterday's blog but edited it out, wanting to keep that missive reasonably happy go lucky and vaguely wistful in tone. But I like the then edited remark too much not to share it after all.

If I may pontificate, not that any potential negative reply to that not actual request for an affirmative answer would stop me, I believe it is objectively funny. IF, and I mean this, if you have a sense of humor and are not too full of yourself. I say that last part because I have found there are folks out there who can't laugh at themselves. What they find important is far too critical for wit, dammit.

So here you are: and I've offered enough of a trigger warning that it's on you if you read it and are offended.

April brings out the best in sports for me. Baseball begins, while the Masters golf tournament arrives the second week of the month. The only thing that would make it better is if they moved the Masters from Georgia to Colorado.

That is objectively witty and a bit biting. But a lot of good humor has a grain of reality within it, don't you think?

Showing my age

April is about my favorite month. Baseball begins, and the second weekend brings the Masters golf tournament.  Life is good.

Interestingly, although I hardly need another reminder of how old I am, I read earlier this week that among the major sports baseball fans average being 57 years old. The only sport with a higher average fan age is golf at 63.

Here I am at 60 smack between the two.

And then I gain another year later this month, turning 61 the 22nd. Oh well.

But why let all that get you down? Baseball, golf, and my birthday: all in April. I can't think of a reason not to love the most excellent fourth month of the year. 

Past History

One of me Grandpa Joe's favorite sayings was that things that had happened were 'past history'. While the phrase is certainly quaint, inherently repetitive, and obviously true, I believe he meant more to it than that. What he meant was that a lot of things simply need to be forgotten.

Not all things, of course. We need reminders at times in order to keep us honest and not commit the same mistakes over again. Even when our faults have been forgiven, memories should perhaps be kept in our souls that we might never forget the lessons learned from them. But on the whole, we need to let go of the past.

I don't think we do that enough in this day and age. When any affront, indeed even perceived affronts, are dredged up from our pasts solely to condemn us, we live in a dangerous time. For who of us does not have those skeletons in our closet? Who of us have not, at some point in our lives, said and done the wrong thing?  

Let's go out on a limb and say very few. So no matter how heinous the offense, maybe we ought to be forgiving of it, no matter how critical we may believe it is to our well being or the well being of the people around us. And I believe we need to start asking and answering honestly, how many such charges are valid and how many are, if you will forgive what I promise is not meant as a joke or commentary on more recent history, trumped up? 

Without a strong and pervasive reason to rekindle the flames of sin and error, why don't we just let the embers cool? Why don't we let past history stay in the past?

Post dating Cloyce

We have had a lot of interesting individuals come through our Shop door over the years. Some, you had trouble getting money out of them. Not all of those guys were out to con you, though.

One fella in particular, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, has been on open account for better than forty years now. He's slow to pay but he always, eventually, pays. He's a genuinely good guy too. I think he's just undisciplined, kinda the way a kid is undisciplined. The kid means well yet doesn't quite understand how things should work.

A habit of Cloyce's has been to bring a check to pay his bill but then post date it. "Can you hold this for a week, Bill?" he would ask me Pops on presentation of a scrap of at that point worthless paper. And Dad would hold it, knowing that it would be good sometime within the next three weeks.

He's done that to me too. I deal with it because I know Cloyce means well, and also because I genuinely like him. As I say, it's not unfair to say he's almost confusedly childlike in his approach to life. There's a part of me which finds that quaint, or even endearing.

Still, getting paid is why we work. Back in September Cloyce came in and gave me a post dated check, asking me to hold it for a few days. I said yes but added, "You know, Cloyce, paying me today with a check I can't cash today really isn't paying me today." Cloyce nodded, and I could almost see that light bulb above his head trying to brighten beyond dim.

Cloyce stopped by the old barn this past Monday to pay his current bill. He wrote out a check. "Look, Marty, I dated it today," he showed me.

"Great, Cloyce, thanks," I replied.

He then asked, "Can you hold it until Friday?"

Cue the sad trombone. Yes, I can hold it until Friday. I actually wonder whether that's his way of making himself pay me, to know in his own mind that a check is out there that he has to, some day, honor. Whatever the reason, I'll surely have my money later this week.

Too much too much

I ate too much ham.

I ate too much kielbasa.

I ate too much bread and cake and pie. In short, I ate too much of everything yesterday. And do you know what makes that different from every other day?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I also have the same bloated feeling at 6 AM that I all too often have.

There's this thing called portion savvy, where you don't take too much food to begin with. I think I really need to try it. 

Maybe tomorrow though. There's still a lot of ham and kielbasa and bread left for today.

The Bleeding Charity

“Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.”

The above quote is from The Great Divorce, an intriguing novel from Mr. C. S. Lewis. It isn't about divorce as you likely might think, but about the divorce, the gulf, between Heaven and Hell. The quote comes in response to a soul which is rejecting the offer of grace due to his own pride. The man wouldn't request God's great gift because he didn't take bleedin' charity. The scene is very fitting for this or any Easter Day.

God has offered us everything we could ever want, a happy and eternal life, if we would just take it. All we have to do is follow His commands, be sorry for our sins and try to make ourselves better. He knows He won't get perfection but He does expect the effort. He is willing to help us make the effort. All we have to do, as the priest told us at Mass today, is receive it. Receive His love and we will be given it in the form of complete and total happiness. It is, yes, charity.

And that is my Easter message to you. Ask for it. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. 

The honeymoon is over

It's probably more sentimental than anything, and I know that. Still, watching old TV shows has become a pastime for me. Further still though, I will admit I don't understand the attraction of any and all old shows.

Take The Honeymooners, for example. It's supposed to be classic. And it does have its share of memorable of memorable catchphrases. 'Baby, you're the greatest' comes to mind. But every episode I see seems to revolve around Jackie Gleason (Ralph Kramden) screaming at everybody. Nothing more.

I don't find the character likeable, quite honestly. All. He. Does. Is. Yell. How the show became popular is beyond me.

Maybe I'm missing something. But there's a lot better old shows than The Honeymooners. Sorry, Jackie. 

Opening Day 2021

Yesterday the baseball season began, and thankfully it was no cruel April Fools Day joke. 13 of the 15 scheduled games were played. Hopefully we can get an entire season in, with increasing attendance.

I got in from a road trip in time to catch most of the Tigers first game, followed by the end of the Toronto-New York Yankees match. In the best tradition of organized sports I will offer my first objection to new rules: I do not like, I do not like at all, starting extra innings with a runner already on second base. It takes away from the last at bat advantage, among other things. But more unwanted analysis on that later. This is a time to be happy and excited that baseball is back.

On that front, to use the stilted but clever and funny verbiage of cartoonist Nathan Pyle, my regional orbcatchers are 1-0 and on a pace to finish 162-0. It's a good feeling. An Opening Day kind of feeling. 

Everyone is in contention, on Opening Day, to win the World Series. And as my beloved Detroit Tigers won and have today off before playing game two of the 2021 Season tomorrow, I get to bask in that glow. Too soon the inevitable alternate reality, the alternate reality which comes, sadly, to 29 of the 30 MLB teams each year, sets in.

Let it wait until Saturday. Or, God willing, Sunday. Or maybe, just maybe, until the final out of the 2021 World Series is made. That is the ultimate hope of Opening Day.

The April Fool

Today is April Fool's day. I'm not entirely sure how the First of April became a day of jokes and pranks, but, as I trust you know, it is.

I've been told that the term April Fools comes from those who would not accept it when the Romans changed the calendar, taking the first day of the year from April and assigning it to January. Okay, it sounds like a good story. But I'm too lazy right now, even as I sit at my computer and could readily do a search to check this presumed factoid out, to verify that. 

One supposes that those supposed April Fools were the first victims of chicanery. Something perhaps like, if you're so stupid that you still think the new year is April 1, what else will you fall for? It's a thought.

As for me, I will tell no jokes nor pull any pranks today. I have a long day on the road where my time will be better spent. No pranks from me today.

I mean it. I'm spending the day seriously. Have a good one.