Thursday, September 30, 2021
Losing temper like Joe
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
The parallels of city parking
Monday, September 27, 2021
Teasing Mom
As we sat together on her front porch yesterday morning, Mom asked if there was anywhere to go. I said I wanted to go to Adrian. "Can I go?" she asked excitedly.
Of course I had every intention of taking her; it's what we do on Sundays. So I answered, "Sure. But it's 90 miles away and we'll have to hitchhike."
"Ok, but I'll get there faster than you!" she cackled.
I simply laughed too. I am glad she can still joke.
Anyway, we leave for Adrian, driving through southeast Michigan farm country getting there. At one point she remarked, "A lot of farms around here. I grew up on a farm."
Now it was my turn to needle her. "Oh yeah. That was in South Carolina, right?"
She could not bark, "North Carolina!" quickly enough. And the look of utter contempt she gave me was priceless.
Saturday, September 25, 2021
Mr. Mechanically Inclined
They think they're helping but they're hurting. If you can't fix something you should at least leave well enough alone.
A recent customer (I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name) brought me a drain snake for repair. In so doing he handed me the long screws which held the motor together. "I'm kind of mechanically inclined, Cosgriff, so I thought I'd try to fix it myself," he explained.
Why Mr. Mechanically Inclined didn't have it fixed was beyond me, if he is so well versed in objects mechanical. And why Mr. Mechanically Inclined didn't mark the motor before he took out the long, thin screws which hold it together is beyond me too. See, these particular screws aren't applied with nuts but rather thread into holes tapped out behind the facing of the motor. They run the inside length of the motor and you apply them blind, so to speak, by feel. When I take one such motor apart I put marks at each end of the unit as guides for putting the thing back together when I complete a repair.
Mr. Mechanically Inclined didn't see fit to do that. It took me forever to realign that motor, but, by gum, I got it. And Cloyce will pay for it. Especially since the fix was indeed easy, other than not being able to readily align the motor.
Do you what Mr. Mechanically Inclined missed?
Do you know what he missed?
A broken wire going into the on/off switch up on the handle of the unit. Mr. Mechanically Inclined missed a bloodly stupid wire broken in plain sight. It had broken right off the switch and was hanging out into mid-air.
Mr. Mechanically Inclined is paying through the nose for a repair which should have taken me 15 minutes yet pressed two hours, I'll tell you what.
Friday, September 24, 2021
Mom would never say that.
Thursday, September 23, 2021
The Negative Man
I have been regularly watching on You Tube one Father Mark Goring, a remarkable young priest in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. A recurring theme of his is to look for the positive good and to do positive good: it will make you good.
In college, and I really should find it to reread, a class assignment was to read Dr. Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Dr. Frankl was a Holocaust survivor. As I recall, a story from his book was how one prisoner gave a hidden potato to another prisoner who was (if this can be imagined in such atrocity) in more dire shape. I still marvel at such a moral good coming from any given man under the unimaginably horrible circumstances of a Nazi death camp. Dr. Frankl believed that part of survival was finding something to be positive about and to do positive good.
My overriding point here is that we should strive to find, act, and be positively good. This can be done without denying the horrors of what is negative and working all along to fight them. Fr. Mark for example when he feels angry prays to find a moral good to focus on and to do, because they're out there even in trying times. Indeed, it may be all the more important to seek the good when evil, yes, evil, seems so prevalent. But the thing is, if you seek the positive you find it.
The corollary is that if you search for the negative you will find that. If you find it you likely will wallow in it. When you wallow in it you become the Negative Man. When you then look in the mirror, will it be a vision worth seeing?
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
The Brick Flag - Or - Being Up North
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Farewell Hessel 2021
Monday, September 20, 2021
Hotel snob
I joke from time to time about wanting to become a curmudgeon. There are days however when I actually believe I'm becoming one.
With my job I sometimes have overnight trips. When this happens I do not stay in dives but I don't stay in five star places either. I'm not going to name the places I'm talking about because I know how internet algorithms work and do not want to be inundated with pleas and queries about how to make things better. I don't want the bother and I recognize that it could all be just me.
Anyway, on one such overnighter this year I found the coffeemaker not quite right, and the shower water not quite hot enough, and the cable selection not quite what I would have liked, and the pillows not quite fluffy enough, and the this and the that and the other thing. But intellectually, I know there really wasn't anything wrong with anything. It was all good. Then at my next stay at a similar inn I found myself thinking the same things all over again.
So am I in fact becoming a curmudgeon or simply a hotel snob? Not that either are truly admirable qualities I suppose. I simply feel I can justify curmudgeonly behavior a bit more readily.
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Doctor Marty
Saturday, September 18, 2021
Square back
Friday, September 17, 2021
Joe's Mulberry Tree
I wrote yesterday of the high winds and storms which caused a power outage in Woodbridge, my neighborhood in Detroit. I was going for the joke then, but today I feel more serious. You see, one of the casualties of the storm was me Grandpa Joe's mulberry tree.
I've written here:
https://thesublimetotheridiculous.blogspot.com/2017/06/mulberry-season-2017.html
of Joe and the mulberries. One of my fondest memories was watching him stop as he walked along the alley near the Shop and picked at the mulberries when they were in season. He was like a kid, he really was, in taking a minute and eating a few of those berries as he went by. I wonder what youthful memories it brought back to him...
That particular tree was little more than a bush in those days, and you could readily pick hundreds of mulberries as they were in easy reach. I still picked them until a year or two ago, when the growing process took the last of the easy pickings out of reach.
It was blown over by the wind sometime Tuesday night, and now will have to be cut into pieces and dispensed with.
Joe was an ornery, cantankerous old coot in many ways. And the mulberry bush-then-tree simply a common sight in the alley. Yet the two together formed a lasting image which shall always live in my mind. It is a great insight into all which is good in the world.
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Marty the Ghost Hunter
A storm with high winds knocked out the power in my neighborhood late on Tuesday. That was frustrating on several counts, not the least of which was that it reminded one of how much he relies on electricity.
No power? Well, let me check on the status of repairs on the Internet...except with the power out, there's no Internet.
Well, then, I'll watch T...V...
All right, I'll nuke a quick bite of something. Oh, yeah. No electric, no microwave. And you want to leave the fridge and freezer closed anyway.
Okay, I'll read then. Click, click, click on the light switch before remembering, stupidly, no power, no lights.
So you just lay in bed. Of course, you might as well silver lining the outage, right? So I became a ghost hunter.
Whenever I did venture through the house, I used my cell phone to illuminate where I walked. Not the flashlight setting, because that would use too much battery power. I simply flipped on the screen light, which gave just enough glow to light my way.
It also gave the hallways, stairs, and rooms that soft gray green light which ghost hunting shows seem to have patented. Then my mind saw all the movement which managed to escape into the shadows right before I could really see it. I could the feel the cold air presence of the poor souls trapped, doomed to eternal, earthly dwelling. Near whispers emanated from all around me.
Of course I never actually found ghosts. And a good thing, because I'd have given them what for if I had.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
No blog today
No new blog today. Power is out and I'm doing this from my phone and don't want to use a ton of battery life. That is all.
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Meck-an-ick
Words. We all use them. Some of us actually use them well. Some of us give them their own special tweak.
I don't know why he said it this way. Maybe it was disdain for having to resort to one rather than fix a problem himself. Or maybe it was an ongoing little joke. Perhaps he didn't even realize he was doing it. I'm open to suggestion.
Me Grandpa Joe didn't say 'mechanic'. He said, meck-an-ick. "We better send it to a meckanick," he might opine when surrendering a car to a higher power.
I think it was only that concessions to reality rattled him enough that Joe had to alter that reality just a bit. So he said meckanick. It eased his pain.
Monday, September 13, 2021
Dude, Where's My Car?
It's happened before and it will happen again, I guarantee it. Today, in fact, it's likely to happen. At least, that wouldn't surprise me.
Yesterday while out with Mom my van started running hot. We got home okay; so long as we were moving the temperature gauge stayed where it should, so once I saw that it was creeping up whenever I idled I just got moving as quickly as I could, taking more freeways than Mom would have liked. She likes to see both country and small towns and we simply couldn't do that. I truly felt bad for her. I hate like hell to disappoint Mom in any way these days. I mean, I never in any way, shape, or form liked disappointing her of course. But it's a more acute feeling now.
Be all that as it may we got home safely. But of course this morning I need to get my new old van to the mechanic. I know what will happen after that.
Once me brother Phil gets me home (he'll pick me up from Downtown Mobil, my most excellent mechanics) and I check my email before heading to the Shop, I will walk back out the door and look, as I always do, for my van. And not immediately seeing it my first thought will be one of panic and anger. I will gut wrenchingly lament, if only to myself, "Are you kidding me? Someone stole my van?"
Then I'll remember what happened Sunday and where my van in fact is this morning. I know that will happen because it has happened before.
Isn't it amazing how quickly our minds leap to the negative? Or, worse, forget what just happened? Human nature I suppose.
Saturday, September 11, 2021
Vaxing question redux
Friday, September 10, 2021
Sales Glitch
I remember on June 1, 2015, I had 105 lengths of main drain cables in stock. That's a decent amount, an amount I typically direct sell (sell out of the Shop) in a month.
I didn't that time around. I didn't sell a single cable section in June. But July would be better, right?
Right. Didn't sell any of those cables then either. I was beginning to wonder if I was doing something wrong, if I had lost my touch.
August 4 was the first Tuesday of the month that year. Out of nowhere that day, spread over 7 or 8 customers, I sold all 105 of those cables in 90 minutes.
In sales, you just never know.
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Vaxing question
Tuesday, September 7, 2021
Churchillianisms
Ah, Winston. You could turn a phrase. In his more serious hours the great British Prime Minister could wax eloquent in inspiring ways. His Their Finest Hour speech is well remembered.
Yet he was also known for his wit. A famous example was when Lady Astor told him condescendingly, "Mr. Churchill, if you were my husband I should poison your tea."
He replied, "Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it."
I came across a line yesterday said (supposedly) by Churchill, "The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list."
Ah, Winston.
Monday, September 6, 2021
Labor Day
I would like to take a moment to offer a shout out to all Mothers on this Labor Day 2021. Without their sacrifices none of us would be here today. Without their willingness to deal with the pains of childbirth, we could not be around to celebrate the holiday.
So, Happy Labor Day Moms!
Sunday, September 5, 2021
Just rambling Sunday morning
Saturday, September 4, 2021
An irreverent take on a valid PSA
So driving home yesterday I saw a billboard with a public service announcement. It said, be sure to talk to your kids about the dangers of prescription drug abuse. Fair enough.
I found myself imagining a father explaining to his son all the bad things about prescription drug abuse. Dad told his boy a lot of things, talking about horrible side effects and the like, ending by giving his son a pat on the shoulder and saying, "Do you understand son?"
"Yeah, Dad, thanks," the kid replies.
The two share a moment of deep felt appreciation. Then the dad continues, "But the high is incredible! Absolutely indescribable!" I mean, that is part of the danger, right?
Am I a bad man?
Friday, September 3, 2021
Love is not 'just' love
I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've been told that Love is Love. If there is a more senseless defense of a concept I cannot imagine what it might be.
We may as well assert, Table is Table or House is House. While such statements may be technically true, they in fact tell us nothing about the table or the house. Perhaps the table has a broken leg and cannot stand on its own. The house may be in dire need of repair. If either of these situations exist, we work to fix the problems. Yet if house was just house or table, table, we would we leave them alone. We would have to if they are simply what they are and nothing more.
I believe the trouble is that to fix the table or repair the house we must have some idea of what a good table or a good house are. But for some odd reason we don't appear to have the same sense about something so important and critical to our well being as love. The only conclusion I can draw is that, under certain circumstances anyway, people don't want to have a judgment made about love. They simply want the kind of love which they happen to want, whatever that is, and without question.
Well, what's the value of love if we cannot question it and have a sound, robust defense of what it might be? What indeed is the inherent value of love at all if all it is is whatever the speaker wants it to be? Short of that, the Love is Love argument really isn't telling us anything at all. Or, perhaps, it's telling us something worse. It's telling us that selfishness and narcissism are the rule of the day.