Not Just For Pizza Anymore

Ah, pepperoni. Who doesn't love you? Along with bacon, you go with anything.

Everyone is familiar with the classic cheese and pepperoni pizza. But I keep pepperoni around for my sandwiches. A few on a simple ham and cheese or even a plain old bologna sandwich give lunch a neat little kick. And now that I'm exclusively using whole wheat bread, it's healthy too.

Whenever I'm in Hessel in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, I like to eat at an Italian restaurant called Ang-Gio's in nearby Cedarville. They have among other menu offerings one great cheese and pepperoni pizza themselves. But I love their all you can eat soup and salad bar, because it has more than vegetables. Along with black olives, and it's hard to go wrong with black olives, friends, their salad bar always has pepperoni, with which you can pile onto, er, top off your salad. Plus it's salad, so it's healthy, right?

Bacon? Absolutely. Give some thought to pepperoni too. 

Temporary Crowns

Today is the day after, so to speak, and I'm wearing temporary crowns. On my teeth, because, you know, the crown on my head just won't come off. 

They're plastic, these temporaries, and they feel weird. They feel like those lead weights that you put on car wheels to balance them. You know what I mean? The ones that taste like metal?

Oh, for Heaven's sake. These things: Lead weight

It feels exactly like one those things are sitting inside my mouth. I know you know what I mean, that odd taste and feeling.

What's that? How do I know about the taste and feel?

Oh, would you lookit the time? I gotta get to work.

What Today Brings

Yesterday I had dental work done. It was supposed to be this Thursday, tomorrow as it is now, but my dentist had a spot come open at 5:30 Tuesday so I took it. May as well get things over with, right?

Almost immediately upon accepting the change of plans, the dread set in. No one really looks forward to major dental work, do they? Certainly not I. Now instead of living through the mental agony of the wait on Thursday I got to live through it Tuesday. Oh joy, oh rapture.

But that has its advantages. Tomorrow it'll be all behind me, and I'll get to watch baseball Opening Day live. My beloved Detroit Tigers first pitch of the season is set for 3:10 Thursday. I'd likely miss it if bound to the dentist's chair in the dental lair. Believe it or not, I nearly rescheduled my original appointment simply to catch the opener. Honest. Things, then, may be working out well after all.

As to the tooth work done and how I feel, well, that's Thursday's blog now, isn't it? Hopefully I won't be like Dr. Smith. You know, Dr. Smith: "Oh the pain, the pain." The accidental stowaway from Lost in Space? Remember he and the Robot and Will Robinson used to hang out. Do I have to explain everything?

Grandma Negotiates With Joe

I'm not sure exactly when it was, so I'll say 1970 because it fits the time frame. But me Grandma Cosgriff was in the market for a car. Her 1956 Dodge had conked out, and she needed wheels. 

Man, that old Dodge of hers was a car. It loomed huge in the parking spot in front of her and Joe's house. I remember many rides in that pale blue over white battleship, hard plastic coverings on the seats so as not to ruin the upholstery.

Anyway, all good things, and Grams was looking for a replacement. About that same time me Grandpa Joe, her husband if I haven't established that by now, had gotten a beautiful maroon 1967 Chevy Impala off his sister Ruth. It was a very nice car; I remember it well too. Joe bragged on that car constantly, how well it drove, how smooth the engine ran, how good it looked. He was really pleased with that vehicle.

Joe had went out one evening, and when he got back home he found Grandma sitting at their dining room table. "Sit down, Joe, we have to talk," she instructed her husband.

He took a chair. "What do we have to talk about?" he asked.

"Ruth's car."

"Ruth's car?" Joe demanded. "What about it?"

Grandma Cosgriff held out her right hand, palm up, and said simply, "Just give me the keys."

"I bragged on that car a bit too much," Joe ruefully lamented to me Pops the next day at the Shop. But that was how me Grams solved her car problem.

The Other Traffic Extreme

Everyone, well, every one of you leadfoots out there anyway, hate it when people drive less than 120 miles an hour in the fast lane. I get that. The fast lane is for the passers, so you ought to let them pass. But there's an opposite side of that coin too: don't race in the curb, slow, lane.

As I drive a lot for my job I do try to stay out of the fast lane unless passing, and these days I will stomp onto the accelerator when so doing, getting back to the right once beyond the obstructing vehicle. Yet there are those numbskulls who want to ride my tailgate in the right lane.

Look, dude, if I'm already five miles over the posted speeds in the slow lane and you can get around me, and you almost always can, then get the Hell around me. You shouldn't tailgate me anyways, but if you do it in the slow lane my foot is coming off the gas, buddy. I've slowed down as far as 35 in those cases. Even if I'm impeding you, because of course you have somewhere critical to get to I'm sure, then you're going to rear end me at as slow a pace as I can force upon the situation.

So, drivers, you wanna speed? Be in the left lane. If you're in the right lane speeding you're the dangerous driver, not me.

Rant. Over.

In Review

It's nice to be garnering the amount of reviews which my books have been getting lately. It helps that the bulk of them are positive; three tales are averaging above four on Amazon's five star ranking system while the one book below that is still 3.9, so I'm happy. And as with so many other things in life, with the results I'm getting I wish I'd taken more interest in direct promotion much earlier than this. But so it goes, and there's always a degree to which self promotion should be uncomfortable, I think.

Even some of the less stellar reviews are helpful. One person remarked that I use adverbs too often. I don't use them as frequently as she claims (adverbs are nowhere near in every paragraph I write, despite her assertion) but I do overuse them. I'll be careful about that in the future. I will readily, unceasingly, routinely avoid them.

That's an adverb joke. Seriously, though, if you want to have fun with adverbs, look up Tom Swifties. Some of them are hilarious.

The compliments I'm receiving are nice ego builders but are fraught with peril for exactly that reason. They can go to your head. I know me well enough to know that that's dangerous. I suppose the best idea is to take the positives with a grain of salt and the negatives with a reasonably thick skin.

Anyway, I'll stick to the plan and see where it leads. It's been a fun ride so far.

I Just Watch Sportsball

There's a Monty Python skit - bear with me, Ron - where John Cleese plays an oaf a soccer player who can hardly put a sentence together while Eric Idle is an interviewer trying to get into the intricacies of the game. Cleese answers a question, "I kicked the ball, then there it was, in the back of the net." That was in response to Idle asking about the positioning of the opposing players and blah, blah about what deep strategies led to the goal. It's clear that even Cleese doesn't get it. He's just a guy who scored a goal, a deer in the headlights of a self important reporter.

I feel like the Cleese character these days, when watching sports. When did they become so complicated?

Watching golf early this morning, a replay of an earlier event, the broadcasters were describing a shot where so-and-so was taking advantage of such-and-such by using a club with a 52 degree head angle rather than 51.5, which was surprising considering tons of various other factors including that the club shaft was a rare Uruguayan titanium alloy and it had rained six hours ago in northeast Ohio while a local woman delivered twins in the back of a taxi with the help of a well I won't go into that. All the while I'm thinking, about the golfer, "He hitted da ball good."

I see it in other games too. A shortstop throws a batter out at first base and the announcers describe the play as though they're writing War and Peace. Meanwhile I'm slapping my son on the shoulder, shouting, "Did you see that throw?"

All right, players are looking for every possible advantage and reporters want to sound like they know what they're taking about. But it doesn't add a thing to the game for me, and I doubt most others. And I can't help wonder if any of it really makes a difference anyway.

Irish Folk Songs, or, A Long Way To Go For A Very Poor Attempt At Humor

Perhaps my favorite Irish folk song is Whiskey on a Sunday. You can listen to The Irish Rovers take on the tune here if you like.

Believe it or not, there's a lot more to Irish folk music than The Unicorn.  Whiskey on a Sunday is one example of that. Still, irreverent Marty can't help but take a swat at the tune. Maybe that's the Irish in him acting up.

Seth Davy is the main figure in the song. The third verse begins, 'And sad to relate that old Seth Davy died, in Nineteen Hundred and Four,'. Yes, we're supposed to feel pathos then, and I generally do. Indeed I have had a tear come to me eye at that point in the song. Yet does that keep me from mockery? No. I sometimes find myself asking, So it would not have been so sad to relate had he died in 1903 or 1905?

I still love the song. Despite me, some days. 

Jury Service Service

Here comes another reason that I don't like nor trust government. I believe even the more liberal among my friends will agree with me on this one, though.

How difficult is it to remove a person's name from a list? In this computer age, how hard a task can it possibly be? So far as I can tell, all you need to do is highlight an area on a form, hit Control X, and Bob's Yer Uncle, information has been deleted. Gone in well less than 60 seconds.

Me eldest son has lived in Ohio, which, you may note, is not Detroit, Michigan by any stretch of reason or the imagination, for nearly ten years now. We're at the high end of a full decade of his becoming an, ugh, Buckeye (apologies, true friend Ohioans). Yet does that prevent the City of Detroit from sending him regular jury summons, uh, summonses? Summonsi? Whatever the plural is.

To answer that question straight, no. He routinely gets called for jury service, sends them the pertinent information clearly demonstrating his Ohio citizenship, and is granted an excuse from serving. Then, typically within two years, he is summoned anew, and the whole thing plays out once more. It recently happened again and he was excused again, but reminded that he may be randomly selected - again - in the future. 

These are the people who are going to save us from every tragedy known to man, friends. They can't delete a name from a file, but boy howdy, they know how to fix all the trouble in the world. Government, right? They can do it all...except for basic IT functions.

Hero Worship

Most of us, many of us anyway, have heroes. My dad is my hero, I say with pride. But some people forget that even terms like hero can be used hyperbolically. And uncomfortably.

For example there's this plumber, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who, no matter what he's getting at the Shop, tells me and me brother Phil, "You're my heroes." 

Um, thanks, but we're not. We simply sold you a cutting tool, dude.

It might not bother me so much in a more desperate situation. If Cloyce had burst into the old barn in a panic because his machine quit while he had a hundred and twenty feet of cable lodged in a drain and needed a repair fast and we were able to do that, I'd get the sudden exclamation, "You're my heroes!" But when he says 'you're my hero' for run of the mill stuff, well, it's borderline creepy to me. At least how he says it, that is.

Maybe that just Cloyce's way. Still, I actually shuddered while typing this blog out this morning.

Joe Marchand

Yesterday I learned that a dear old curling friend, Joe Marchand, had passed away on March 14. Joe was active with the Windsor Granite Curling Club at Roseland in Ontario. He was treasurer of the Granite and I was fortunate enough to work with him for many years in the Club. I'd call him or he'd call me late August every year for about a decade to begin setting up League play for each season as it approached.

Joe was a quiet and unassuming man yet we all felt his presence and appreciated his friendship. His dedication to family, friends, and curling is something I'll never forget. Here's his obit, if you're interested: Joe Marchand

God Bless you and Godspeed, Joe. The curling world is much less complete today.

Canadian Gangster

In the sport of curling, we have tournaments called bonspiels. Often, for the fun of it, the bonspiel will have a theme. Players can dress to fit that theme. One such popular spiel at the Roseland Curling Club in Windsor, Ontario is called the Rum Runners. Back during Prohibition here in the States, rum was 'run' across the river from Canada into Detroit. Make sense?

As you can imagine, gangland figures were heavy into that illegal booze traffic. One of my good Canadian friends played a gangster at the 2023 Rum Runners. He had a skit of sorts where he had to play rough with the curlers, as though a mobster trying to keep them in line. 

He had a difficult time with it. "Do you know how hard it is to sound tough when saying 'eh' at the end of every line?" the man who explained. "It's hard for Canadians to be mean."

Agree?

Feeling Bad For Cloyce

I'm in sales, and I like sales. I particularly like to make big sales. Well, most of time, anyways. Sometimes a good sale does make me feel bad though. Believe it or not.

There's this drain cleaner who comes into the old barn, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who's a genuine, purely nice guy. Indeed you can't help but like him, he's so nice. But he's had a run of awful luck lately.

A couple of weeks ago Cloyce lost nine cables in a bad sewer; the homeowner didn't have the money to dig the line up for repair. The cables Cloyce uses are $65 each. We can all say ouch at that, can't we?

A week ago, in a flood, his power unit was covered in water for several hours. There's another two grand to replace that.

Last Friday morning Cloyce needed another eight cables, again, remember, at sixty five bucks a pop.

Suffice it say that I've made a few dollars off Cloyce recently. Yet I honestly feel bad about it. All right, yes, I took his money. Still, I do hope his fortune improves soon.

Subtle God

A Subtle Armageddon is a well-written and highly imaginative page-turner that provides readers with an interesting and insightful examination of a dystopian future. The book's main character, despite his emotions being neutralized, learns from the natural world around him the real meaning of existence. The book is tense and emotional, thought-provoking, and has well-developed characters that readers will enjoy. It is also a spiritual and optimistic book that offers unexpected twists and learning moments.

Above is another review of my first book, A Subtle Armageddon. I've mentioned before that I worry the book is obscure, that the point may be difficult to grasp. Indeed, I have had at least two reviews from readers who, in their own words, gave up on the book because, again by their own admittance, they couldn't figure it out.

Then I read commentaries like this one and feel, hope, anyway, that just maybe I've gotten the point across well.

God is everywhere. We cannot hide from Him. He is woven all through nature; this should not surprise as nature is His creation after all. But one of the ideas I was trying to put forth in ASA is that no matter what humanity tries, they can't replace Him. We cannot hide Him; we cannot obscure Him, we cannot relegate Him to past history, as me Grandpa Joe might say. Try as we might, He will be there. Right in front of us.

That's the essential point of A Subtle Armageddon.

St. Patrick's Day 2023

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

Why do we all have a bit o' that Irish spirit inside us? Might it be that the soul of the average Irish personality resides in most all of humanity?

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

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

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

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

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

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

91 Cents

The definition of a First World Problem is a 'difficulty' which really means nothing in the grand scheme of things, or some issue which is genuinely trivial. Like wanting a pizza at 3 AM when your favorite pizza joint is closed.

I collect change. Not for keeps, that is, but to let it pile up until I have several hundred dollars in coins, which I can then use to pay for something indulgent without affecting my regular budget. So when I was at the grocery store the other day I was rather pleased that my total was $37.09. It meant I would get 91 cents change to add to what I have in the bank under my bed.

Then the cashier gives me thirteen whole dollars back from the fifty dollar bill I had given him.

I really wanted the 91 cents, but what do you say? If it's easier for him to round up, how can you protest? It's less than a pittance these days, and it did leave me nine pennies ahead. Still, I wanted the change.

First World Problem though, right?

A United Kingdom Review

I must admit that, overall, I'm pleased with the reviews which my books are garnering. Further, I feel that a particularly good review ought to be recognized.

A fellow from England who purchased my book David Gideon had this to say:

I feel like whenever I see a book about politics I feel that it will be really boring as I'm not into that world at all.

But this book and the author surprised me with this story it is really good content and a properly written story with a shocking twist and upside downs.

Definitely recommended political fiction!

Thank you! I can't tell you how much such kind words mean to me. That's exactly the sentiment that I hoped to instill in the minds of readers when I wrote the story. David Gideon isn't really about politics. It's just the story of a good man and the good people behind him. His political career is there simply to drive the story. 

I feel good today. It's nice to be able to reach someone an ocean away  who gets my point.

The Less Fortunate

As I had a yen for Chinese food this past Sunday, I dropped into the local Chinese carry out for a taste of General Tso's Chicken. I have no idea how the General might have been at war but he was good with chicken recipes.

With Chinese dinners, you have to have an egg roll. And, this is important, Won Ton soup. Only then may you lash into the main course. Your reward for being a good boy and eating all your din-din in the proper order, exciting the taste buds as you should? A fortune cookie!

I know of course that they hold nothing but vague sayings intended for fun, but I always enjoyed seeing what Dame Fortune might have in my future just the same. At one time I had actually collected all the fortunes from such treats, though who knows where they are now. Anyway, it was in the right mindset that I broke open my fortune cookie.

And there was no fortune. The paper must have burned up during the baking process.

Not Enough Input

I was today years old yesterday (that makes sense when you think about it because I wrote this yesterday) when I learned something which was, is, and ever shall be a great help to me with my passive study of new and exciting trends. By that I mean it will help me watch TV. 

Did you know, as I do now, that pushing the 'input' button on your remote control will not turn the television on? Even pressing the input button harder is no help at all. Holding the remote at various and odd angles produce no result either. 

I know, right?

You have to push the power button for the TV to come on. The power button! Technology is just so literal, isn't it?

Sunlight Shenanigans

Spring has sprung forward. We now have that extra hour of daylight to enjoy before we give it back in November.

Huh?

Although I've accepted the practice for years I've never actually understood the purpose of daylight savings time. One explanation is that it gives us more natural light at the end of the day when demand for electricity would ordinarily by higher. Then it occurred to me: isn't there a great demand for power as we wake up to start the day? Are we really saving anything? Admittedly, I don't know the answer. But I think it's a good question.

I'm reminded of the tale that there's an absurdity in cutting an inch or two off a blanket, sewing it to the the other side, and thinking we somehow have more blanket. Does it truly matter with which end of the blanket we start our day? As neat as fall back is, I say let's just stop the shenanigans with our sunlight. There are much more fun shenanigans to be had.

Make Baseball History

The other day I spoke about how baseball in the Orient has cheers and cheerleaders. You can read it here.

Early yesterday morning I was watching the World Baseball Classic. It was Korea against Japan from the Tokyo Dome in, uh, Tokyo. It's quite the treat to watch live baseball at five in the morning, I tell you what.

The cheers from the Japanese crowd were being translated in the television booth for the play by play guys, and they were very creative and distinctly Japanese. I liked them. One was: "Make history! Engrave your name on the Field of Dreams." It's no exaggeration to say that gave me chills.

I am going to have to look up more baseball cheers.

Friday Snow Special

Last Friday in the D, we got snow, around 5 inches depending on exactly where you were in the region. Today for the second straight Friday, the forecast calls for snow again, anywhere from 4 to 8 inches.

The winter has been mild so far. I suppose it only figures that we couldn't get away with too little snow. Maybe winter is saying, "Michigan, hold my Vernors."

But another thought hit me: are our winters becoming back loaded, so to speak? Growing up, I seem to recall that by about mid November we would see our first significant snow. By March, we'd be happily sliding into spring. Yet the last several years it feels as though Novembers and even Decembers have been relatively warm. Cold and snow have been holding on well into March and April. A couple of years ago, not once but twice, I had snow flurries dancing around me on my morning walks. In May.

Is that just me? Or is there something to that theory? Are winters skewed from what they once were?

Cheers For Baseball

While watching Chinese Taipei, Taiwan, playing in the World Baseball Classic, I think it would be difficult to overestimate the locals' excitement about their team and the game. Taiwan is a host country (take that, Xi!) and the stadium was sold out for the game against Panama.

The Chinese have cheerleaders, complete with music and chants. I had first seen this watching games in the Korean professional league during the Scamdemic. It adds to the experience of baseball in a great, positive manner, driving the crowd in support of their squad. I find myself getting into the thrill of the game that much more.

Taiwan may have the coolest uniform symbol adorning their caps and uniforms too. Let's see if this works: Taipei baseball cap I like the C gripping a baseball. It's a cool twist.

They apparently have one of the best teams in the world. Should I hope that they rise to play mainland China later in the tournament? I know who I'd root for.

O'Rourke and Dentistry

P. J. O'Rourke was one of my favorite pundits. His missive All the Trouble in the World still leaves me roaring with laughter, even on the fifth read. 

He remarked once that for all the people who wished they had lived at earlier times in our history, he had one word: dentistry. Before modern dental practices, dentistry was painful.

I don't doubt it. But I am going to put the theory to the test. This afternoon I have my first dental checkup in, oh, 17, 18 years. I dread what they're going to tell me or what they will propose to do with my coffee stained enamels.

I only hope that it's somehow humorous, because that would make an easy blog entry for Thursday and I may not feel much like writing.

The Odds Are Against Me

I like The Twilight Zone, and noticed a few minutes ago on the scroll of TV listings an upcoming episode. It turned out to be one I had seen recently, the one where Roddy McDowell plays an astronaut who becomes the Earth specimen in a Martian zoo. It's not bad but I had just seen it, relatively speaking.

Next I saw that King of the Hill was coming up. Yet that too was one I have seen not once, but twice in the last little while.

Similar things happened with the next several programs I stumbled upon; Alfred Hitchcock was benignly staring at me exactly as he had just this past January. How could that be?

All right, I could pull up Netflix or what have you and actually pick something new, or at least old enough that I haven't watched it recently. Yet that begs the question of how readily all those coincidences had happened.

Hey! Would you believe I haven't seen this episode of Get Smart in ages? I am saved the mathematical gymnastics. 

2:20

Two hours and twenty minutes. That's how long it took for the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins to play their baseball game yesterday. I like it.

I'm a traditionalist. As a rule I prefer things to stay as they are. I'm stubborn. It generally will take you a long time to change my mind if you can change it at all. I love baseball in part because it's timeless. But the time had come to speed up play, and it seems that pitch clocks have done that.

The man on the hill has 15 seconds to deliver a pitch, 20 if there are men on base. The batter must be set to accept a pitch by the 8 second mark. From what I can tell, this sets the pace of game at about where it was forty years ago.

Good. Although one of the draws with baseball has been the game within the game, pitcher versus hitter, attempts at intimidation and control of the one over the other had gotten absurd. All the silliness, staring each other down, adjusting uniforms, stepping off the pitching rubber or out of the batter's box and so on, had reached annoying proportions. I can't tell you how many times that I, a baseball purist, have yelled at my TV, "Throw the ball already!" I had even reached the point of changing the channel, coming back shortly to see if something had actually happened.

It's high time baseball got a move on. I'm glad to see it.

Another Yogi-ism

I've read my share of baseball books and articles and consider myself a fairly articulate follower of the sport and its characters. But I learn with every new baseball missive I read, you can't get more articulate that Yogi Berra.

My current read is When You Come To A Fork In The Road, Take It! The title is one of Berra's more well-known malaprops. Still, the book early on gave me another gem of Yogi's.

He was talking about how bad of a student he was in school. "Don't you know anything?" a teacher demanded of him in Eighth grade.

"I don't even suspect anything!" Yogi answered. 

I laughed out loud. 

Blinded By The Light

Wet, heavy snow fell on Detroit yesterday. Fun times. And in making my first pass clearing the walks around my house I had one of the the worst scares in recent memory. 

When I began shovelling it was still light out. Well, light enough on a cloudy, winter day that the street lamps hadn't come on anyway.  Forest Avenue alongside my house is a four lane one-way. It's not a terribly busy street but it is active. When I was just past a streetlight on that side of the house, the light came on.

That first instant of sudden brightness over my shoulder startled me something awful. Why? Because I immediately thought it was a car coming straight at me from behind. I actually cringed and tensed up, expecting a sudden and rather unpleasant crash with me at the epicenter.

Then the angel on my shoulder assured me it was just the street lamp. After she opened her eyes from the scare herself, of course.

Zeke's First Driving Rule

Me brother Phil and I had a road trip day yesterday. Six hundred plus miles through Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, delivering drain snakes and parts orders. You can imagine that we saw quote a few cars and trucks. Drivers, I tell ya, some of them are bad, perhaps even in ways you don't consider.

Several times we saw vehicles just barely creeping by others. I remarked that it irritated me when some crawled by like that.  Phil responded, "Uncle John (the one we sometimes call Zeke) used to say that he hated slow passers more than tailgaters. If either of you had to swerve you were bound to hit the other guy."

That hadn't occurred to me before. But it makes sense.

Never a Bad Time

I curled yesterday at the Bowling Green Curling Club in Ohio. It was an old guys bonspiel, curling tournament, what they call Tier 55 because you have to be over 55 to play in one. The Metamucil shots were the highlight of the day.

It was fun. We placed third, so we did all right for ourselves. We won pork chops; for reasons I've never known curling loves 'meat spiels' where the common prizes are, well, meats, something which makes the Metamucil shots all the more necessary I suppose. 

The friendships are the best thing about curling though. There's never a bad time in a curling club. And that's why.

Daily Stretches

I've become quite comfortable banking at drive up ATMs. But it strikes me that many of you are not.

I cannot tell you how often I'll be sitting in my new old van behind someone who can't seem to grasp the concept of proximity. For myself, I creep close enough to the machine that I can work it without difficulty. Indeed, I typically don't even need to anywhere near fully extend my arm to insert my card, checks, or retrieve cash. I situate myself where I can work comfortably. But others apparently have this strong, strange desire to get in a workout at the ATM.

They certainly get their stretching in. They have to stretch because they've parked in the next county trying to use the machine. And stretch they do. I wonder if it's a game, a hip new fad that I'm missing, to be exactly far enough from the ATM that you must extend your arm fully, and possibly even dislocate your shoulder, to use the very tips of your fingers to put your debit card in the slot. Then they actually - I am not making this up - bounce in their car seat at the last instant to give their fingers that last little jolt necessary to slide the card all the way in so that the unit can read it. Their PIN numbers must be combinations of 1, 2, and 3 because I don't think they can reach the higher numbers on the keypad.

Sometimes drivers give up on that and climb half out of their cars, their waistline supported by the bottom of the window frame as they reach towards the ATM, just so that they can transact their banking. It's silly. It's stupid. You may as well as have walked up to it.

But what do I know? And it can be kind of funny.