A Less Gracious God

Walking about Woodbridge yesterday morning a tad before six, I found myself marveling at the rising dawn. The sky was somewhat deep blue still, the yellow-orange of the creeping Sun yet just below the eastern horizon. Smiling, I felt graced by its beauty. I feel similarly impressed by the array of stars in the darkest night.

There's an old idea that we human beings are flukes, accidents of nature in an ever expanding universe. I don't believe that. Sure, we are comparatively tiny in that context. But we shouldn't read much into it.

For me, the expanse of creation is simply awe inspiring. What's even more inspiring is that we were created to not only experience it but to actively participate, to work with our Creator in bringing more out of His work. That's not meaningless or insignificant. It's dignity itself.

A less gracious God would not have given us such opportunities. He would not have given us glorious mornings or sublime starry nights. He would not have allowed us the power to reflect on them. He would not have given us the ability to be one with Him as we interact with creation. 

I am glad for my physical smallness that I may more greatly appreciate the spectacular universe around me. We are not specks of nothingness in an enormous universe. By the grace of God, we are so much more. Our smallness offers us that unique and powerful perspective.

Woodbridge Wide

The area which I live in, Woodbridge in Detroit, is having a neighborhood wide yard sale. So if you're looking for a Woodbridge wide yard, here's your chance.

Yeah, I know. I get writer's block and you suffer. Life is so unfair.

Spider Thoughts

One day me brother Patrick sat on the front porch. He noticed a spider up at the corner of the porch roof and the support post begin to work on a web. The spider worked steadily this way and that, spitting out web strand lengthwise and then along the height, adding crossing hairs as he prodded along. The arachnid moved delicately about the web, taking its time until it was done. 

Patrick watched the whole while, up to when the spider moved to the middle of it's brand new insect trap and set up shop. Then my brother stepped inside the door to the front hall, came back with a broom, and with a mighty omnipotent swing swept the spider web out of existence.

Imagine what that little spider must have been thinking. "Aw, come on, man! You watch me spend all that time working and destroy my home as soon as it's done? You're kidding, right? A more considerate god would have stopped me right away. What kind of sick fiend are you?"

Of course, spiders can't think. But I don't believe we would have to imagine too hard what it would have been thinking if it could.

Canada Geese are Arrogant

Twice this week I've been stopped while driving by Canada Geese. They just march into the road like they own it and all us drivers wait, uh, patiently. 

This past Sunday me Mom and I were caught by a traffic signal on Ford Road in Canton, Michigan. Three geese, biding their time at the corner, began sauntering across the highway. Never mind the heavy Sunday afternoon traffic which had to sit as the light cycled through a couple of times. The birds had the green light at the start and were taking it. Mom did get a kick out of seeing them though.

Early yesterday as I made my way along Rotunda Drive in Dearborn I came into stalled cars. As I was at the start of a long, leftward curve I could see the reason: about six cars in front of me a line of geese were crossing the road. Maybe they were trying to figure out why the chicken did it. Any way you slice it, they were as bad as Detroiters crossing the street. My street! Not yours! They even stared at drivers as Detroiters would: yeah, I'm crossing? What'cha gonna do?

You gonna wait. But that don't mean you gotta like it.

Indignant For Dad

Hey Pops, how are you today?

I haven't written in a while; sorry about that. But an event has sprung up which, I find, infuriates me on your behalf, and reminds me to write.

You remember the Choco Taco ice cream treat from Klondike? The one you loved so much? Well, they've gone and discontinued it. You can't get them anymore. It's all here: Choco Taco gone

Can you believe that? I always thought they were quite popular. Now: poof, no longer available.

I know you're not indignant about it from where you are. You can't be, and that's how it is. How it should be. So I'll be indignant for you here on Earth. That won't hurt my chances in Eternity too much, will it?

Until next time,

Marty 

Too Cheap to Charge

It's a good thing that, in this Internet age, we can check things quickly. It helps a guy to hold his temper.

While checking my bank account online I was informed in a side column that there was all of a 99 cent charge on my credit card. The news flustered me: I would never charge 99 cents. I would pay it on the spot. What's going on here? Did someone hack my account?

Calm down, Marty. I'm sure, myself assured myself, that if you were hacked they're be far more brazen than a hair under a dollar purchase. If some heathen was planning on ruining your credit, they'd surely ding you for well more than that. 

All right, I argued back at myself indignantly, what numbskull would charge such a small amount? Not knocking those who I'm sure would, but it's not my style. It upset me. Let's just find out what knucklehead put 99 cents on my card.

Of course it was me. I had bought a Kindle book for that amount and promptly disremembered it. Apparently I had tied my card into Amazon and long forgotten that factoid. 

I went ahead and paid the card off while I was on the banking site. But I still grumbled over it.

Sundae Sermon

My next blog will be a diatribe about how to make ice cream treats. It will be a sundae sermon.

Come on, I warned you with the title...  

Fear This

I'm going to run the risk this morning of being the cranky old guy that everyone avoids. Quiet Ron.

Anyway, my blog, my rules. I'll write what I want, and you can avoid it if you want.

I'm sick of the fearmongering in this world. I shouldn't be; it's nothing new under the sun. It's always been here and likely always will. Still, there are times it frazzles a guy.

When I was 14 and a freshman in high school (to save you the time figuring out when, it was 1974) I remember our science teacher giving us a handout which said we would be out of oil by 1985. Period, end of report, no doubt about it. Yet here we are today with a couple hundred years of known reserves. Right about the same time we were pummeled with tales of a nuclear winter which would freeze us all out. Now we're apparently too hot. I think I'm within my rights to ask, what the hell? Why do you want to scare kids like that? And why are we still doing it today?

Ronald Reagan was leading us into nuclear holocaust. When AIDS first came out I read an article which claimed that the United States Army alone would have a million cases by 1995 or so. Neither concern hit anywhere near the heights that were predicted. Reagan, I will be partisan and say, put the entire world on much better footing in unison with Margaret Thatcher and St. John Paul the Great. And need I even mention COVID as an example of what hysterical fear causes?

Just to show that this rant isn't driven only by my personal philosophy, the right does it too. Barack Obama was not a particularly good President so far as I'm concerned, but he wasn't His Satanic Majesty either. Trying to remove President Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal was a sideshow that wasted our time and energy. Few people out to gut the Second Amendment are fire breathing commies. Many of them are otherwise good people who simply disagree with you. We don't need to insult anyone, especially those we may actually convert to our line of reasoning if we're patient and civil.

It all becomes one big game of the boy who cried wolf. One of these days a true crisis may arise which actually threatens life, the universe, and everything and a lot of folks (like me) are going to say humbug simply because we've heard it all before. We need to be better about seeing things as they are and acting from that rather than trying to play people, especially the young, like puppets. We need to begin speaking to others, or at least not merely speaking at them as though they're great stupid fools too ignorant to believe the 'obvious'. It's beneath our dignity as human beings, and I'm sick of the whole thing.

700 Curling Clubs

Camille Villaneuve, and I hope I've spelled his name correctly, was a French Canadian from Chicoutimi, Quebec. I only met him once and that over twenty years ago now. But he was a cool guy.

He was kind, soft spoken, and earnest. In manners and appearance he made me think of me Grandpaw Hutchins. His claim to fame was that he was trying to set a record for having curled in the most curling clubs in the United States and Canada.

One Sunday he arrived at the Roseland Curling Club in Windsor, Ontario right before our regular league play and asked to get into a game. Of course we accommodated him. We would have done it regardless, but after hearing his story there was no way we could have said no.

He was if memory serves me at 274 curling clubs then, so his game with us made 275. He carried a neat display case which contained pins from everywhere he had been (curlers are great for having their emblems emblazoned on pins). Needless to say, we gave him one from Roseland. 

It was sublime to kind of, sort of curl with me Grandpaw Hutchins, even though he himself likely never heard of curling. Camille curled very well too, winning his game as a skip. Upon hearing he intended to sleep in his van in the club parking lot that cold winter night I tried every way in the world to convince him to cross the border and spend the night with my family in Detroit. I would have loved that. Yet he insisted he'd be fine, and you reach a point where you just stop pressing simply not offend his honor. He'd clearly done it before and was quite happy with the arrangements.

Mr. Villaneuve's ultimate goal was to play in 700 clubs. I found an article online which said he hit 701 in 2018. I was glad to see that. He was still throwing them stones at 92 years old, God bless him. I hope he's still curling.

Morning Vittles

There were two things in particular which I loved to hear me Grandpa Joe say and they were both associated with working for him. They were, "Let's get that coffee," and, "Let's get them vittles," whenever he decided it was time for a break.

It struck me even back then that his words sounded almost as though we had to hunt them, had to track them down, as if the coffee pot didn't just sit there on a table by the office or that the snacks weren't right alongside it. The vittles were the snacks which he always had me or me Pops or me Uncle John buy for the morning coffee break. Joe paid for them; I think he genuinely liked treating us, but I don't doubt at all he looked forward to them too.

Vittles were the height of the workday for a young boy like me. There were always single serve and two for everyone, an assortment of cupcakes, pies, donuts, and cinnamon rolls. I hoped every morning for a Hostess French Apple pie, which was really only their apple pie with raisins added, but it seemed significantly different. Joe and Pops and me and whomever else was there would lay into them vittles like we hadn't ate in days.

Uncle John rarely did, and I don't know why. He would buy a paper and sit nearby reading it as the rest of us fell into sugar induced stupors. At times I wondered if something was wrong with him, but that was surely the kid in me thinking such stuff.

It was 15, maybe 20 minutes of the day. But man, I miss gettin' them vittles.

Nearly Angry with Phil

Yesterday me brother Phil wanted to borrow me new old van. I lent it without much thought, seeing as he's loaned me vehicles quite often in the past. And he is me brother after all. But especially as he was taking our mother to lunch well, the thought of her wrath would have enticed me to loan the car regardless.

As I gave him the keys I handed him a well known portrait of Andrew Jackson to exchange for gas. "It's only at 3/8ths of a tank, so put a bit of gas in when you can," I said.

This morning as I started the new old van I noticed the gas gauge creep up to merely half a tank. I was just a tad miffed. "Geez, bro," I thought, "Didn't you put the whole twenty in?"

Of course he did. Marty was thinking about gas at two bucks a gallon, not the current $4.75 or so. Once I remembered current gas pricing I chuckled. 

I'm still going to give him grief though. 

Two Score and Three Years Ago

As I continue (and hope to continue even further) into dotage I must admit wondering just what aging means. At times I feel it's nothing more than forever pointing at something and exclaiming; "I remember that!"

A few minutes ago I watched the trailer for Weird, the completely faked documentary of Weird Al Yankovic. It stars Daniel Radcliffe as Al. 

Harry Potter, I'm sorry, Mister Potter as Professor Snape would say, as the embodiment of a singer who I grew up admiring (my triune forces in comedy are the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, and Weird Al Yankovic) is either a triumph of casting or, well, just plain weird. And as Weird Al himself is all in with the project, I'm leaning towards weird. Heavily. 

But to the point: as I watched the minute long advert all I could think was, I remember Weird Al's arrival. I remember clearly (well, clearly in that vague, dream like sense) Al's arrival on the stage in 1979 or so. Hence my title: two score (forty years) and three years back I was listening to Weird Al on the syndicated Doctor Demento radio show (Rainn Wilson is Dr. Demento in the movie by the way) and thinking that that guy's funny. Truly hilarious in fact. 

And now I'm anticipating a fake story about him, about which I literally pointed at my computer screen and exclaimed, "I remember that!" about Weird Al's arrival. 

Dotage, perhaps, is more immanent than I might care to admit.

Cut to the Chase

One year, I don't remember exactly when, I bought me Grandpa Joe a carpet knife for Father's day or his birthday or something. He called it a hawkbill knife, because it looked like the beak of a hawk. He loved it, but my aunt living with him and me Grandma Cosgriff, hated it. "He opens everything with that knife," she lamented.

Fast forward to yesterday. I bought myself a little snack at a truck stop, and dagnabbit, I could not get that thing open. It was some sort of vacuum sealed plastic and it would not tear open despite having a notch of sorts which was intended to allow easy access. I surely looked like an idiot, sitting in my van and pulling and yanking on that package, trying to get it open by biting it with my teeth or piercing it with an old key. And I recalled Joe and that hawkbill and thought, I want to get me one of those and keep it on me at all times.

You see, Joe had tired of trying to open things with brute force. Especially when formed plastic packaging came about, it became tough to simply rip things apart. So he used a knife to get around that. And by gosh, that's my plan for the future. Get a knife and absolutely destroy the protective packaging.

I think my aunt hated it because of the debris trail Joe's package-opening typically left, and I get that. But after yesterday, I'd rather have more to clean up than fight simply getting something into the open air.  

On the plus side, I may have burned all the calories I consumed in getting to my snack. 

Cooling Agent

Sometimes at the Shop we have to heat things. Maybe two parts won't come apart, maybe a bolt won't loosen; you get the idea. Consequently we keep a large bucket of water near our work bench in case we need to cool hot metal. You know, for safety's sake. Because we Cosgriffs are all about safety.

So one day Pops was heating something or other while fixing a machine for a customer; I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. When Dad finished he dropped the red hot whatever into the bucket of water. Cloyce asked, "Is that water, Cosgriff?"

With a twinkle in his eye Pops answered, "No. It's a special chemical compound called H2O".

"Oh," Cloyce responded with about half a laugh.

A few months later Cloyce was back, this time with a friend. Pops was heating something up again, and dropped the part in the water as he finished. Cloyce said to his buddy, "I bet you think that's water, don't you?"

"Uhh, yeah," the guy answered uncertainly.

"Nope. That's a special chemical compound called H2O," Cloyce responded. Dad said you tell that Cloyce was proud of that faux scientific factoid because he clearly did not realize that H2O was water.

"Really?" the man in turn responded, giving a curious eye towards Pops, who simply but mildly shrugged his shoulders. The man himself clearly knew H2O was water, but left it at that.

I believe Dad was happy that he did. After all, he was only cracking a joke however many months ago. He was not out to embarrass old Cloyce. 

Observant Joe

Me Grandpa Joe had a way with words. In fact, Joe's ability to make the word hell declarative of many and varied emotions would find its modern equivalent in I am Groot, if that means anything to you. Trust me, the analogy fits.

Be that as it may, his use of language could actually be rather profound even in areas where mild expletives were not at all involved. I doubt that most of my cousins or other family members knew the pleasure of hearing Joe remark, when leading into a happy explanation or in demonstrating a welcome development, "Please observe."

Grandpa Joe said that whenever he had found a solution to a vexing problem at the Shop. We had our share of vexing problems at the old barn, believe me. But to cut through to the point here, if a particular issue had been tormenting us for many hours (or sometimes days) it sounded delightful to have Joe stop you and say those two simple words, please observe. It meant a problem was solved.

I thought of that a few days ago as I solved what had been a recent vexing problem involving a snake repair. Try as we might, neither me brother Phil nor I could get a piece of threaded pipe, the leg of a machine which sits as a tripod, out of the body of the unit. The leg had broken off flush so that there was nothing to grip it.

At a hardware Phil had discovered a tool to extract the broke piece yet we could not get it work. In desperation, as I didn't want to heat the body of the snake for fear of making things worse, worried that if I made it worse the ornery thing would need a body as well as a leg (and who knows how long that would take, our supply lines being disrupted by COVID) I heated it anyway, carefully. Within a few minutes, lo and behold, I used that tool that Phil found and walked that broken pipe right out of the body of that machine.

I could hardly wait to tell Phil "Please observe," as soon as he got back to the Shop. I had to channel my inner Joe Cosgriff for full effect.

The Voices in my Phone

"You have one unheard message."

I want to reach into my cell and smack the voice which says that every time it says that. I know I have one unheard message, or perhaps two. That's why I'm calling my voicemail.

You're wasting my time to tell me what I already know quite well. It's all the worse when the voices tell me I have more than one message: "First unheard message..." Fine. Yes. Thank you. I have messages. Multiple messages. Messages which I am certain, maybe in my own arrogance, greatly desire my particular attention. I'm trying to get to them, if only you'd just shut up and give them to me.

I surely am making too much of this, but it is rather condescending for a mechanical voice to tell me what is obvious beyond any doubt. Perhaps it's merely a reflection of my own impatience, impatience I find growing as I get older. I simply want to get to the point. In the case of checking my voicemail, it's to get my doggone messages. Just give them to me, will ya, Siri or Alexa or whoever you are, disembodied voice. That's all I want.

Sheesh.

By the Number

Math, a dear friend of mine who interestingly happens to be a math teacher, says, is life. I don't doubt it. When the numbers in the checkbook (does anyone use one of those anymore?) don't add up, it's a problem. But this is more about numbers than full on mathematics (does anyone use the full word anymore?). 

A twice recurrent number in my life is 1104. When you pronounce it eleven-oh-four it rolls nicely off the tongue. It was the address of the house me Pops grew up in and the number of me son's scout troop. That is at least kind of serendipitous, isn't it?

Me Uncle John whom I call Zeke loved the old house. So did me Pops, as I'm quite sure did the rest of their siblings. Zeke used to say if he had the money he'd rebuilt it precisely to spec. 

Me Grandparents moved out of it in 1965. I remember being there as a small boy. As the second oldest grandchild there likely aren't many of us on my tier of the family that also remember it. It was huge. I recall being in the back yard playing with the dog they had at the time, and being in the basement with me Pops and his brothers as they shot pool. 

Then me son Frank ends up making Eagle Scout through Boy Scout Troop 1104. I don't know if Pops realized that, but I have to imagine he did. Some numbers just stick with us and I have the distinct impression 1104 did with him. 

There's other numbers which mean a lot to me but that's the only one which appears prominently in my life two times. I may play the lottery with it today. Third time's a charm?

 

Whither Springfield?

I find myself in Springfield, Ohio quite a lot. Regular readers (you know who you are) understand that's because the company I sell for (Electric Eel: for all you drain and sewer cleaning needs) is based there. But it's struck me lately that dear old Springfield just doesn't get enough love.

It occurred to me while driving there awhile back that you rarely see the mileage to Springfield when tooling along the Interstate. Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati, they all receive their due. At intervals you will see signs letting you know that Dayton is in 57 miles or Cinci 131. In fact just south of Toledo in Ohio on Interstate 75 there is a sign which proclaims that Tampa, Florida is a mere 1100 miles down the road. But how far to Springfield?

Even coming back from Indiana on Interstate 70, which goes directly to Springfield, you will get no help about the distance there. Yet you will be told how far it is to Dayton, despite the fact that it is not on 70. Indeed I-70 runs about twenty miles above it. Why can't we know about Springfield? 

Or am I asking the wrong question? Is there some dark secret to which I am not privy? Perhaps the question isn't, Whither Springfield? Maybe it's, okay, Springfield, what did you do?

Baby Don't Hurt Me

As I walk around the neighborhood nearly every morning I see the identical sign on several lawns. It is a litany of brief slogans, such as 'Science is real' and 'Love is Love'. How quaint.

Certainly, science is real. But I have a hard time believing that the sign folks accept that a unique human being comes into existence immediately at conception or that male is male and female, female. Ah well. Man proposes.

Certainly, too, love is love. All right, but what is love? The first person who sings baby don't hurt me is going to get Gibbs slapped.

Mindless humor aside, let's return to the point. What is love? If it is merely whatever the, I'll say modern, individual claims it is (and there's little doubt that's the point of the signage) then we're talking nonsense. We would be staring at potentially billions of definitions of love and each with their own their own self serving justification. The sign may as well say carrot is carrot, except that that assertion has real value: we all know what a carrot is. As such, the statement reflects the neatly obvious truth about a vegetable which is independently, and dare I say scientifically, verifiable. Yet your own opinion on what love is, left entirely to itself with merely your own expertise as foundation, quite frankly lacks value and verifiability.

I, for one, am unwilling to offer blanket support for such an indeterminate phrase. The world would benefit if more people would express a like skepticism.

Just Jivin'

It is truly nice, very neat indeed, when you can joke with customers. It's one of the best job perks which sales can offer.

One guy, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, began giving me playful grief a few years back over my trips to da UP. "So that's how it works, Marty? You make enough money to go up north and leave the rest of us working class grunts slaving away?"

"Pretty much, yeah, Cloyce," I answered.

So now when be calls me with an order he starts with, "Hey Marty, I hear through the grapevine that you want to go up north, so I'll help you." Similarly, I might contact him and say, "Cloyce, I want to go to the Upper Peninsula and I need a few bucks." 

"Okay, Marty, bring me blah, blah, blah, because I don't want you to miss any days off while we're at the grindstone down here."

We have fun. And it makes work fun too.

Gentle Reminder

Three Sundays ago as me boys and I returned to our hotel after seeing the Red Sox at Fenway Park and then making a literal walk of several historic sights in downtown Boston, we were a bit tired. Well, they were: the old man was ready for another several hours of sightseeing. The night was young! 

Be that as it may, we elected to eat a late dinner at the restaurant in the hotel rather than taking a chance on finding a place somewhere else on a Sunday evening. 

As the pub and grub was open until 10 and we walked in around 8:45, we figured we wouldn't be inconveniencing the staff. Still, we sat at a table for better than ten minutes without attention. We began to whisper between ourselves about perhaps simply grabbing a pizza from the carry out joint we saw a block away. At that point the waiter walked around the bar to approach us.

Or so we thought. He came near but breezed on by, and actually on out the front door. Okay.

A few more minutes of our lives burned off and I finally suggested, maybe a tad louder than necessary, that we ought to just trudge across to Domino's when me son Frank ever-so-gently gave me about the softest elbow to the ribs a guy might get. He saw where I hadn't that the waiter was finally coming up with menus. "Can I get you fellows anything to drink?" he asked, very pleasantly.

So we ordered our dinners and ate, and he was reasonable attentive after that. Yet what I will always remember about the night was the most subtle possible poke in the the ribs a man could ever imaging getting.

Oversize

This morning I donned for the first time my new Fenway Park t-shirt. It fit just right.

My other such shirt, a souvenir from my first trip to Beantown for a ball game, is a size too large. While I'm happy that there are still clothes to big for me, it simply doesn't feel right. I'm swimming in it, and I can't swim.

I'm thinking that I might mail order replace it. Yet a new shirt wouldn't be the same as the souvenir. It wouldn't be related to a special trip. 

Ah, the hell with it. I'll just wear the one I've got as it is. Are you happy you tuned in today just for that earth shaking news?

How Hard Can It Be?

The voicemail I leave on my phone is very specific: leave a message or I won't call you back. I get far too much spam to return unsolicited calls from numbers I don't know. Granted, that concern is alleviated somewhat via caller ID. Still, spam calls get through, and waste my time as well as anger me.

How hard is it to leave a message anyway? Has it occurred to you that perhaps in leaving a message it might allow me to better answer your questions before I get back to you? It generally does, you know. If I have an idea of what you need I can call back with options readily available. Or do you believe that Marty will be so curious as to who is trying to reach him that he'll return your call because he simply must know who you are and what you want?

You are far too confident in my opinion of you if you feel that way. Leave. A. Message. I will get back to you. Otherwise, No. I. Won't.

Some Bozo

Yesterday morning as I sat at my computer doing, uh, important things, my phone rang. But it was on the charger in the kitchen, and as it was well before eight I let it go to voicemail. Probably some bozo who doesn't know what he wants anyway, thought I.

Okay, I didn't exactly think 'some bozo', but this is a family blog.

After a minute I decided I should check the phone as it might be someone I actually did care to talk to. Turns out it was me brother Phil. Just some bozo after all, see?

Too Much

Two large universities, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, UCLA and USC respectively, have joined the Big Ten athletic conference. The move illustrates why I find big sports tedious.

I don't intend upon singling out college football here, or college sports in general. The phenomenon is all over the place: add more teams, which supposedly adds more excitement. Major League Baseball has 30 teams and is talking about two more. The National Football League has 32; hockey and basketball have similar numbers. Now college sports are moving into high gear on the bigger is better train, and you just know professional soccer is lathering for the day it can have franchises on every corner. 

It's already absurdly difficult to win a championship of any kind, and now we're making it even harder. And I wonder: are we truly improving things or merely diluting the talent pool and in fact depriving ourselves of better sports and games? 

Why is it done? The answer is found by following the money. It's not about the integrity of the sport. The powers that be want the cold hard cash. Bigger gets that. Earning the big bucks is better than winning championships anyway, for them. USC and UCLA don't care about winning the Big Ten in anything. They care about getting $56 million each, each year as opposed to the mere $20 million they get out of their current conference.

It has me tuning out sports of all kinds at all levels. Why bother? From a practical standpoint, nothing matters except the Big Championship Game (or series). No use investing the emotional capital before then. It's contrived for no other reason than creating a larger pie for already fat cats.

I don't need it. I'm better entertained, better informed, and I'll even add more likely to become a better person, reading a good book or engaging in good conversation. I'll venture that you might be too.

Whither Ginger Ale

I was in a restaurant and bar with the Ohio Cosgriffs in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan on Monday. They did not have ginger ale in the bar, although the Ohio Cosgriffs themselves did considerately bring some up north with them. But I don't understand why so many pub and grubs don't offer it.

That wasn't the first time that's happened to me. I have taken to ginger ale in recent years and had always thought it a staple among soft drinks. Perhaps you will not find it in every single eatery, true, but the number which do not have it surprises me. Even more surprising are the establishments with full bars which don't carry it. Isn't ginger ale a common mixer? Wouldn't you expect that in bars?

Monday, I drank Coke instead and was happy enough to have it with my dinner. Still, I just don't get why ginger ale has become so hard to find. C'est la vie (such is life) I suppose, but I might have to try my hand at C'est la guerre (such is war) if it doesn't start turning up.

Forsesight

Two weeks ago in Boston, it was cold. I did not take a coat or jacket of any type with me, so I was just cold.

This morning in Hessel, MI in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, it's cold. But I brought long sleeves and a hoodie with me, so I was warm enough on my morning walk. 

Foresight is important. Plan on any reasonable contingencies. I can be taught.

A Diamond that was Rough

Me Grandpa Joe smoked. A lot. He paid for it in more ways than one.

On a road trip years ago, he flicked a cigarette butt out of his window as he drove. Unfortunately the window behind the driver's seat was rolled down. The smoldering butt flew through the opening and set the back seat on fire. Before Joe could do anything about that except pull over and, I think, retrieve his luggage, the car was in flames. A total loss.

Yet he still needed to get home. As luck would have it he wasn't very far away from a junk yard. Joe ambled in to see if they might anything, anything at all, which was drivable.

The proprietor offered him an old vehicle of some sort (If you're a Ford guy call it a Chevy, if a Chevy guy a Ford, if a Chrysler man just keep your mouth shut) which was absolutely deplorable even by Joe standards. It barely ran, and the body was held together by willpower and the grace of God. The tires were well blanched and balding rubber. As me Grandpa listened to it run he asked, "What do you want for it?"

"Fifty bucks," came the reply. "And it goes up every time you open your mouth."

Joe paid him fifty dollars and got home with his newfound, uh, treasure.

Dream Car

Dream home, dream vacation, dream car, dreams. They all have a certain air of unreality. Sometimes they are indeed very unreal.

I dreamt the other night that a salesman was offering me a new car. I remember nothing about it except it was metallic blue and kind of small, for $35. He insisted it had only six actual miles. 

Six actual miles? Even dreaming Marty knew that was absurd. Any vehicle would get more than six miles on it driving it off the assembly line and being loaded onto a car hauler. 

Still, such low mileage merited serious consideration. I made a counter offer of thirty-two bucks, and not merely because that's all I had on me. You simply never pay list on a new car, right?

The salesman made a counter counter offer of $33.50, presumably to meet me half way. Yet I woke up before the next step of the negotiations. I never even got a test drive.