Screw Loose

I ought to be far past the point where it would surprise me, but I'm not. You just think that maybe, just maybe, there might be hope for humanity, that things might change. Of course, they don't.

A customer at the Shop yesterday came in to have me put a chuck on his machine. The bolts which attach a handle to the unit were loose. Way loose. So loose in fact that the handles were nearly falling off. "Could you tighten those for me, Cosgriff?" the customer asked.

I don't mind doing that per se. What astonished me is how he could have let them get so loose to begin with. That kind of thing doesn't happen overnight. You never noticed it before now? And you're a professional. You have tools. Why didn't you tighten them up eons ago? 

I've seen this with gear cases on certain drain snakes. The case is fastened to the machine with six bolts. All six would be loose by several threads, actually leaving a visible gap between the gear case and the motor. Yet the customer would cry and pout to me about the cost of replacement gears because the old gears had ground down to nothing because the gear oil had all leaked out of the gear case because the bolts were clearly loose. It never occurred to you that bolts set in place to attach something should actually be made to attach that something?

I'm not the best myself at certain chores but I know enough about screws and bolts to know they should be properly tightened and to see when they are not. Yet after 50 years in the old barn folks still come in with absurdly loose connections and then ask, almost as an afterthought, "Oh, could you tighten those?"

Yes I can. Can I charge you for the labor and the stupidity too?

Twenty One Buck Cloyce

There's an old customer who frequents the Shop, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who is dense. He's not all there. A few straws shy of a bale. A bubble off plumb.

Yesterday he called about the price of a switch, and I told him $21. He came by and brought his machine into the old barn. "Can you put it on Cosgriff?" he asked.

"Sure, but's that's $40, including the switch." It's a simple enough installation, but you have to charge something for labor, even a modest amount like nineteen bucks.

Cloyce protested, "I only brought $21. That's what you said on the phone."

Silly me, thinking that anyone ought to presume there might be a charge for labor above and beyond the cost of a part. I'll remember that next time, at least with Cloyce.

I sighed heavily and attached the switch, contenting myself to work for a Jackson and a Washington (which turned out to be two Hamiltons and a Washington, but potato po-tah-to). As I went about the task, Cloyce spotted a handle he wanted which happened to be on another customer's machine. "Can you put this on mine, Marty?" he asked.

Well, Cloyce, you already confessed to only having twenty one bucks, so how are you going to pay for that?, I thought to myself. Besides, it's on somebody else's machine. So I went for smarm. "Yeah, Cloyce, I'll take it off for you and nicely explain to the owner that you needed it. He'll understand."

"Okay, thanks, Cosgriff." Thanks for what, Cloyce? Do you actually believe I'm going to do that?

He did. After he paid me for the switch, Cloyce stood staring at me. "Ain't you gonna put that handle on my machine?"

No, Cloyce, I'm not, I told him, and explained why. I would have to order him one. And I told him the full, installed price up front.

Tickets From Scratch

I can be a curmudgeon. I can be impatient. I can be astounded, outraged, and incredulous all at once too. Would you like to know, as my old friend Cloyce might say, "How could that be?"

It could be like this: I walked into a gas station the other day to pre-pay for my gas. I am increasingly using a debit card at the pump to avoid precisely the type of situations which I then encountered.

The woman in front of me was buying $100 worth of scratch off lottery tickets. That's frustrating when waiting in line for something simple - give me thirty bucks on pump four please - but it's how things are. I can accept that. And at least the woman asked for five $20 tickets; she could have wanted 100 one dollar scratch-offs, right? So it should still have been a quick transaction. 

Note the operative term, should have been. The attendant slid the tickets through the slot below the glass, and was given a debit or charge card for the purchase. But then - I still can't really believe it, and perhaps you can't fathom it - she slides them back along with a quarter and tells the man, "Scratch them off for me." She doesn't ask; she orders it. 

I think all three of us in line behind her openly groaned. The look she gave us in return in was, basically, um, ah, blank you. I was here first.

The attendant, equally astounded, took a moment to react, and I don't blame him. How exactly do you react when faced with an inherently bizarre demand? He finally shoved them back out at the purchaser and said, "You scratch them."

She grabbed her tickets and stormed out, all the time muttering about how rude people are. One guy behind me clapped as she left.

I should have joined him. But what was in it's turn funny was the attendant, as I paid him, held up the woman's coin and remarked with a grin, "And she forgot her quarter!"

Buffaloed

Yesterday I returned home from a quick run to the local supermarket. As I sorted out my change, I found that I had been given, not an ordinary nickel, but a Buffalo nickel.

Buffalo nickels were minted between 1913 and 1938. This means that mine is between 85 and 110 years old. I can't say for sure, because it's so worn from use that the date has rubbed off. There's a lot of wear around the edge of the coin too.

I'm debating whether to find a coin shop to have it appraised. I'm not fooling myself into believing it might actually be worth something, but I did find a similarly worn one being listed on eBay for $2500.  No joke; the date is rubbed away on that one too, so there must be some way to determine when such things were issued no matter what.

Anyway, I've been buffaloed. It's far from earth shattering, yet still a rather neat thing to happen.

Christmas Favorites

I mentioned my favorite Christmas novelty songs awhile back. I think I got into trouble over Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. I would have thought Christmas at Ground Zero might have been the one to draw ire. Oh well.

But as to my favorite straight out Christmas song, one which takes Christmas seriously, that's a tough call. Schubert's Ave Maria always brings tears to my eyes; what a glorious, glorious tribute to the Mother of Christ. It's beautiful in Latin, and the thing is you don't have to understand the language to comprehend the profound beauty of the song. 

Midnight Mass at old St. Dominic here in Detroit always ended with Joy to the World, and as such meant Christmas, to me, had begun. That would have to be near the top of my list. I've always had a soft spot for O Little Town of Bethlehem, and I love Adeste Fideles too.

Yet I would have to say my favorite is likely (I say likely because our feelings for songs do tend to ebb and flow a bit) Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. And I mean precisely how the Peanuts gang sings it at the end of the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Maybe that's too sentimental of a choice. But when the kids all yell, "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!" then launch into that hymn, well, I still get chills no matter how often I've seen the show.

So, it's Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. But I may be open to suggestion.

Rudolph's New Year

We're in that special time of year where there are specials. Many, many specials. Most of them are Christmas shows, repeated in many cases for eons. Some of them probably should never again see the light of day. But the television schedule must be filled, so the good is repeated with the bad.

Rankin-Bass (purveyors of many holiday programs, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer likely the most well known and loved) in an obvious attempt to take advantage of sentimentality, in 1975 created a New Year's special featuring our nasally powerful friend.

It isn't good. I caught it on Christmas Eve and could have spent my time better. But one thing about it left me laughing. It was surely unintentionally funny, and maybe only my warped mind thinks so. 

To cut to the chase, when a new year rings in 'old' year retires to an individually chosen island where it stays his year forever. The island of 1889, for example, stays locked in 1889 for all times. It serves the plot, I suppose. You don't want to kill off a character, in this case an old man who represents the passing year, in a kid's show.

My question is this. If each island stays a given year, does that mean that the island of 1352 repeats the Black Plague forever? In 1883, must Krakatoa constantly erupt? Does 1943 live the Battle of Stalingrad over and over again? How about Rome getting sacked day in and day out by barbarians on island 476? Must Bill Buckner constantly have that ground ball hop through his legs from the 1986 World Series for all times, for crying out loud? None of that sounds like retirement. It sounds like Hell.

I'm just asking.

Christmas 2023

Born to raise the sons of earth!

Born to give them second birth!

Hark! The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

Merry Christmas everybody.

Old Knowledge

You're never too old to learn, right? And you're never too old to learn from someone older than you either. Whether you actually want to learn some of their wisdom is another question.

When talking to a friend who is about 20 years older than me, he was explaining why older folks have more trouble with bronchial issues. "The older you get, the weaker your chest muscles become. It becomes harder and harder to expel mucus."

Well, that's another thing to look forward to I suppose. The anticipation is killing me.

The Eve of the Eve

I hope everybody remembers the holiday I created. They don't? Well, here's a refresher: Christmas Eve Eve

And here's here: 2021

So happy Christmas Eve Eve! Just remember I own the copyright. The rampant consumerism begins and ends with me. Get going!

Wither Wisconsin?

I love maps. I always have. I like seeing what's where, even though I'll never get to most of the places that I now know where they are.

Some of it is, likely enough, sentiment. Me Grandpa Joe and I would look over maps at his kitchen table as I grew up, doing what I just said: seeing what's where. But he would also tell me about the places he'd been and how he got to them. He liked to travel by road, driving himself as much as he could. His son, me Pops, did too (they didn't call him The Road Warrior at Electric Eel for no reason), and I do as well. So it's nice to know what's where.

It was honestly like buying a new novel when I treated myself to a new road atlas a couple years ago. I got to pore over maps and see how places had changed and what new routes there were since I last studied them. I tell you, I can get to the immediate vicinity of any part of the United States just off the top of my head until yet. It's trivial knowledge, but fun for me.

And then there's the shapes and figures a map offers. I was always fascinated with how states and nations looked on a map. I still think, as I first concluded years ago, that Wisconsin appears to have been spewed from the mouth of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Really. Vomited right out, a supreme act of regurgitation. Pull up a map these United States today and study it. You'll agree with me.

No offense, Wisconsin. Okay, maybe a little. 

Clean Slate

Bush's Drug Store was pretty much right across the street from the house me Pops grew up in at 1104 Putnam in Detroit. The Cosgriff family frequented it for their medicines and whatever other sundries the store might have offered.

One day when in his teens me Pops and a friend were drifting around the old neighborhood, killing time on a winter afternoon. As the pair neared the store his buddy said to Dad, "Bet you can't hit Bush's sign with a snowball." Above the doorway, adorned with the Coca-Cola moniker, was sign which said 'Bush's Drugs', a typical way of advertising in the day. Actually, until yet I suppose.

"Sure I can," a supremely confident Teenage Pops replied. He scooped up a handful of snow, packed it tightly, and let it fly, striking the sign dead center.

It shattered into dozens of pieces. Pops assumed the sign was metal or wood, but it was slate. On that cold day, a well pitched snowball was bound to do irreparable harm.

'This is going to take weeks for me to pay for,' Teenage Pops thought woefully. But right was right, and the Cosgriffs and Mr. Bush were friends as well as patrons and druggists, so Dad went in to confess what he had done.

"I threw a snowball at your Coke sign and it shattered, Mr. Bush," he explained when the pharmacist came from a back room.

Mr. Bush offered a wry smile. "Well, young man, you picked a good day. They're coming out tomorrow with a new sign to replace it. Clean up the debris and we'll be fine."

The fog lifted, the angels sang, and Teenage Pops' Shop salary wouldn't be dunned. Life was good.

Evaporating Cloyce

Awhile back I was out to dinner with an old friend; I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. As a start, I ordered a Diet Coke and he asked for milk, then he excused himself for a moment.

The waitress came back shortly with a my glass of pop. For Cloyce, she left an empty glass but set two 4 ounce cartons of milk to the side. Cloyce returned and sat down in front of the empty glass. We began chatting.

Not having noticed the two small cartons, Cloyce eventually picked up the empty glass and remarked, "What? Did I order evaporated milk?" 

When I had finished laughing, I pointed to the milk cartons.

On Blessings

Can anyone - this isn't simply or merely a gay rights issue - receive a blessing when it's requested, no questions asked? This seems to me the core trouble with the recent document which the Vatican has released, which is being interpreted by many as allowing the blessing of illicit marriage. 

I don't pretend to be the best person to answer that question. Yet that doesn't mean that I, as a lay Catholic, cannot or should not mull over the implications. Indeed I should, and have the right.

Is the blessing of human beings without regard to their personal disposition analogous to priests blessing objects and animals? It strikes me that animals are innocents, so I don't think this applies to them. But I don't see that you can include objects in the same way. Objects often have intent behind them. Should a statue of Baal, or a Nazi flag, or a burning cross upon a lawn, be blessed? I should think not.

This raises an issue with offering a person a blessing no matter what. I don't see how their disposition cannot be a factor. If they ask for a blessing for themselves as they are, with no true intent of changing into a better person through the blessing, what's the point? 'Bless me as I am' appears arrogant in that light. Demanding that blessing seems to me effrontery and insolence. As such, I don't see how the person of whom the blessing is asked cannot consider the overt, and, indeed, the covert, disposition of the asker. 

That's just my two cents. And remember, I think this applies to anyone asking for a particular favor of anyone else, not solely towards the alphabet soup crowd and their loyalists. If you aren't trying to change for the better, there's no point to asking for a blessing. There's no obligation to grant it either.

Inspired, Maybe

Start your week right. It's a good idea to set the pace straight from the beginning, so that you can be a great success in the days which follow. 

This morning, my inspiration came to me immediately and unexpectedly. Upon waking, I grabbed my Kindle and logged on to the Internet. What appeared was a simple poster which read: Motivation. Every dead body on Mt. Everest was once a highly motivated individual. 

I think I have indeed set the right tone for the coming week.

E And I

I tend to leave the TV on overnight. It probably isn't the best habit, but, there it is.

As I lay half awake this morning, trying to wipe the sleep from my eyes, I heard a voice say that the next thing in the viewing lineup was 'educational and informative'. Rousing myself up on my elbows, I was greeted by the theme song for Saved By The Bell, a rather silly high school comedy from the 1990s.

Well, all right, I suppose. But I expected something such as a PBS science offering or a World War II retrospective, not one with mild teen angst.

I turned to a Christmas episode of The Ozzie and Harriet Show. Who wants education and information this early on a Sunday morning anyway?

Beverly Hills Saturday

Oh, those Clampetts. They're just fish out of water. But their hearts are in the right place.

Their rustic charm is endearing. But how they misunderstood so much is beyond belief. I'm wondering if maybe they're in a situation comedy and not a reality show like I was thinking. I mean, nobody could be that dense, right?

Battery Light

The battery light, the warning light on a car dashboard that look like a small rectangle with a positive and a negative sign within it, came on yesterday just as I was leaving Indianapolis. So what did I do?

I drove home with it on. I thought, well, the new old van is running well, and if I turn it off, what? Will it restart? Obviously I had no way of knowing. But my choice seemed to be to find a mechanic in Indy, a very random random process, or see if I could get back to the D to take it to my long time car guy. I elected the latter, and got all the way home just fine.

In fact, the first time I shut it off, the engine restarted readily and and easily. A couple hours later when I tried firing up the old van once more, it again started with no trouble.

Do I take it to my mechanic anyway, or was this just a fluke?

Never a Bad Time

Well, we were 2-0 in our curling bonspiel and finished second in our draw. The number of old friends I saw was heartening. It's great to walk into a place where everybody knows your name. 

There's never a bad time in a curling club. I firmly believe that; yesterday attests to it. I'm looking forward to the next time.

Tier 55

Today I take a day off work (I'm the boss; I can do that) to curl in a bonspiel. A bonspiel is an odd way to say tournament, but that's okay. I think you have to be slightly odd to want to curl. Remember before your ire is raised that I'm a curler along with you. Unless, that is, your issue is in fact being associated with Marty in any way, shape, or form, at which point you can...

Okay, what was my original point? Ah, yes. This bonspiel is a Tier 55 tournament, which means you have to be over 55 in order to play. My fake birth certificate attests that I am. Those truly old enough to qualify won't know what hit them.

All right, what was I going for here really? Right: these tournaments are called Tier 55 because they can't be called Senior Bonspiels as they once were because the PC crowd has invaded even curling. We can't upset older curlers with the insult senior, so we alter the title.

The fact is, none of us old duffers care. We just want to curl. We don't care what you think about our age. We pay the fee, we throw stones, we have a few pops afterwards. What harm are you protecting us from? What evil threatens our supposedly fragile psyches?

I'm going curling today with a bunch of old guys who want to curl. If that's good enough for us, the details ain't none of your business. Go save some other frail mind who has no understanding of the real world. We're all right with ourselves. And that's the truth.

Stupid Mistakes

There are mistakes, me Uncle John who we call Zeke used to say, and there are stupid mistakes. While you want to avoid either the former are more forgivable than the latter.

Yesterday I almost made a stupid mistake. I noticed that a tire was low on my newer older van. Then, since I hadn't checked it in awhile, I saw that my spare was low too. "Ah, I'll take care of them tomorrow," I thought to myself.

No, take care of them today, another voice told me. You're going curling tonight in Canada. You really want to take a chance of having a flat at 10 PM, in the cold, in another country, with an almost flat spare too?

I aired up the tires yesterday, and all went well. I've made enough stupid mistakes before. I'm old enough I should stop that.

Not a Treat

The other day I spoke about candy corn and fruitcake. I don't understand why folks don't like them. But it just so happens there is a holiday treat which I don't care about. They arrive annually at Christmas and I avoid them. Candy canes simply have no appeal for me.

They have too much peppermint. They're too sticky when you eat them. They take too long to eat. About the best thing I can say for candy canes are they're all right to melt into your hot chocolate. But only if you can keep the drink hot enough long enough to manage that.

I've read that candy canes were first made to mollify youngsters during Church services. You know, to keep them quiet during pious observances. If you want an explanation of why Church attendance is down among the last few generations, I vote candy canes. Who would actually want to continuing going some place associated with those awful sugar sticks? It's nothing doctrinal, it's repressed memories of having candy canes forced down your gullet.

Candy canes hang around because we've been played. It's Christmas! You have to get your candy canes! Humbug.

Well, I suppose something has to take up the space at the bottom of the candy jar though.

Lutherans at Christmas

My friend Dave is a good man. He's as serious of a Lutheran as I am a Catholic, and we've had a few interesting discussions on religion over the years. But we've always been cool about it, which you should be. Oh, maybe the talks became pointed once or twice, but we were always all right with each other in the end. Which you should be.

Anyway, his visit reminded me of a little fun I had at his expense years ago. His son was in the old barn, and it was December. I told him, "Hey, when you see your Dad, ask him if Lutherans celebrate Christmas."

About an hour later the Shop phone rang. As this was before cell phones, I didn't know who was calling. I simply answered, "Cosgriff, this is Marty."

There was initially dead silence. Then Dave's voice asked, "Do Lutherans celebrate Christmas?" in exactly the put-on incredulous voice I would have expected.

AND NOW, THE PUNCH LINE. Let's see how many readers get it.

I asked Dave awhile back if I could use the Lutheran Christmas joke in my blog. He said, "Only if you don't call me Cloyce."

You got it old pal.

Air Head

There was once an employee at the the old barn, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who sometimes couldn't grasp simple ideas. One such concept was the difference between weight and pressure.

We had a lot of trailer mounted welding machines which had pneumatic, that is, air filled, tires. The typical pressure in a properly inflated tire was 32 psi, or 32 pounds of air pressure per square inch. 

One day I had my bicycle at the Shop. The tires were low, so I turned on the air compressor to fill them. "What do they take?" Cloyce asked me.

"50 psi," I answered.

"What?" a stunned Cloyce demanded. "How can those small tires take more air than a welder tire?"

"They don't take more air," I responded. "They have a higher air pressure."

"But we put 32 pounds of air in the welder tires. You just said you put 50 pounds of air in the ones on your bike."

"There's a difference between the volume of the air in something and the pressure the air creates within it, Cloyce."

He pondered that a moment, but it was obvious he didn't get it. Cloyce walked away shaking his head. "How can you put 50 pounds of air in a small tire but only 32 in one a lot bigger?" he was asking himself.

We would talk about it from time to time, and he even asked me Pops to explain it, but Dad couldn't get through to him either. I guess science just wasn't Cloyce's strong suit.

Lingering Aroma

Just to be straight with you, dear readers, I don't care one whit whether you smoke dope or not. Your choice. The truth is I've come to the point that I think even drugs beyond marijuana should be legalized, the whole kit and kaboodle. We spend too much money fighting them and our prisons are too crowded with drug offenders. Legalize the whole lot of them and then treat them like alcohol abusers, busting those who drive high and so forth. Yet none of that means I don't cast a scornful eye on outrageous drug use.

Monday morning at 10 o'clock I had two young plumbers (or guys who pass themselves off as plumbers) pull up to the Shop, needing a chuck on their drain cleaning machine. Fine. I put on the part and took their money. But they were not only higher than kites, their van emitted enough smoke that you may have thought it on fire. When they opened the sliding door to bring their machine in, literal clouds of smoke poured out of the vehicle. If you've seen, I believe it's the comedy Scary Movie, you would have an idea what I mean. In that film, at one point a group of teens were smoking so much weed that their car looked like a cloud had been contained inside.

The van these fellows drove was very nearly like that. It was as though they'd picked up a cloud and were showing it the sights.

I can't believe that anyone would let them into their house to snake a drain. Further, I can't imagine the kind of house which would allow them in, although apparently they exist. 

And all this at 10 AM on a Monday. I couldn't wait for them to go away. The next three customers, spread out over about an hour, remarked on the smell of weed in my Shop afterwards. It was that bad. Bad enough that my conscience wonders if maybe I should have gotten their license plate and called the cops.

Yeesh.

Struck Gold, uh, Fruit

I don't care about the low opinion which many people seem to hold about it, I like it. The holidays simply aren't here without it gracing the larder. I'm talking about fruitcake, one of my favorite holiday traditions. I put it right up there with the Bathroom from Hell. More on that later.

I love fruitcake, yet for whatever reason it was hard to find this year. Until yesterday. Our local supermarket finally had some in stock so I bought two. I didn't want to risk being left wanting.

Many folks see fruitcake the way they see candy corn during Halloween. I don't understand it on either count. Sure, candy corn is awfully sweet. It is pretty much just little triangles of sugar. But why is that a problem, a very non-diabetic Marty asks. It ain't like ya ain't gonna get too much sugar towards the end of each October. Or enough sugar. Or, uh, you know what I mean.

Wither fruitcake? It isn't particularly sweet and it isn't, as I've heard complained, rock hard. With a cup of hot coffee or cold milk it's not much different than lots of cakes and pastries. Where's the love?

But, whatever. I like it and I've got it. Let the Christmas season commence!

A Moment of Inspiration

An old buddy of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, once took a few courses at the local university. He wanted to see if college might offer anything to him.

One night he was stuck in a political science class and the discussion became tedious. What would you expect when the subject is politics? 

The group was talking about capitalists and socialists and all kinds of ists. Somewhere along the line someone asked, "What is a socialist really?" A voice at the back of the room responded, "A socialist is someone who likes to spend someone else's money."

Cloyce leaped up and yelled, "My wife is a socialist!"

Cloyce drives a truck because he flunked out of college.

Cord Accords

I understand that sometimes, when working with corded power tools, you need more power cord. I also understand that there are these things called extension cords. They come in several lengths, from 15 feet to 100. You can carry them with you to use as needed. What a concept.

Still, I have drain cleaning customers who want to keep 100 and 150 feet of power cord always attached to their drain snake. I do not understand that. At all. The extra line permanently attached actually throws the unit off balance, so that it leans backward from the added weight, sometimes threating to fall over. Yet you're rarely more than 25 feet from a 110 outlet in any home, office, or business. You don't need all that permanent length. "I just want to make sure I enough cord, Cosgriff." Oh, all right, whatevs.

Even more beyond my comprehension are the guys who want the power cords on their machines wrapped as tightly as humanly possible around the pegs on the units which serve to contain the wiring. You can almost see a guy holding his foot against a machine to keep it steady while he pulls the power cord so taut that a bullet couldn't penetrate the wall it effectively makes. They do this without considering that they may actually damage the cord. Why must it be see so tight anyway? There are no style points for how a cord is wrapped around a drain machine.

But, again, whatevs. I make more money replacing power cords that way.

Emotional Investment

I am an advertiser's nightmare, a destroyer of the hype machine, anathema to television networks. The older I get, the more I ignore both adverts and hyperbole.

I'm not trying to hit on anyone's favorites or foes, but only using Michigan football as an example. I watched most of last Saturday's game against Ohio State and did not enjoy a minute. I was more relieved than happy when the Wolverines won. I simply didn't have any fun despite, for me, a positive outcome.

Last night U of M won the Big Ten title game over Iowa. I did not watch a second. Indeed, I crawled into bed and was asleep before 7. I woke up around 1 to find they had won, and I was happy. I didn't stress the outcome at all in ignoring the game and felt better afterwards.

Perhaps, to be fair, it's only me, yet I increasingly find that high powered sports just aren't worth the emotional investment. I'm inclined to exempt baseball, for various reasons I won't get into here. I can't imagine myself not watching and listening to baseball. But football, well, too much hype, too much hyperbole, and a certain unsportsmanlike arrogance. It's not good for the soul.

Evil in Wheelchairs

I really, really don't care for inserting myself into the whole woke business. It's simply a morass which can only muddy everyone. Then something happens which makes me ask, who would even, ever think that? 

Doctor Who is a long running and generally entertaining British sci-fi franchise. The most recent version reintroduced a character called Davros. Davros has been around since 1975 and is evil. Very, disgustingly, despicably evil. He has also always been wheelchair bound.

They changed that. The new Davros can walk because, in the words of Russell Davies, the BBC executive currently in charge of Doctor Who, "We didn't like the imagery of the bad guy being in a wheelchair." 

He's on to something, you know. When I first saw Davros way back when my initial thought was, "Huh. Dave down the street must be evil because he's in a wheelchair..."

Of course that wasn't my first thought. I can't imagine that it was anybody's first thought. Nor their second, third, or eighty ninth. How twisted could a mind be to even draw that conclusion, that outrageous thought, from such a benign fact?

Do they, the woke crowd, actually mean this stuff? Are they that stupid, or do they in fact have an agenda? Sometimes I wonder.

History on the Road

You learn, or at at least you can learn, on the road. What did I learn yesterday?

Indiana State Route 9 is the highway of the Vice Presidents. All you folks in all our history who were one heartbeat away? Indiana 9 has your back.

U. S. Route 6 is the route of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union Army of the Civil War. It specifically refers to an association of Union Civil War veterans formed after the conflict. Kinda cool.

I also learned that you can get small tubs of cookie dough bits in the refrigerated snack aisles at truck stops. All right, maybe that isn't as important as remembering history. But they're sweeter than any candy bar I know.