Life Lessons

I got a head start at work this morning, leaving the house just before 6:30. My first stop was to buy some nuts, bolts, and washers from a nearby nut and bolt place, American Integrated Supply LLC. They used to be called Perry Bolt. I liked them better then. Perry Bolt is easier to say.

Anyway, I told the counter guy what I wanted and he turned to get the parts. I ended my request with, "Please. Because you should always say please." Counter Man gave the right light snicker which any old man should merit.

As he returned I told him, "You know, teaching my kids to say please was the hardest thing to teach them. The second was that please didn't mean they'd get it."

"Pleeeeease?" they would beg.

"No."

"But I said please!" they would protest.

Show of hands: how many parents heard that in their lives?

FYI American Integrated Supply are good people. 

The Best Medicine

At curling last night I was told that I have a very distinct laugh. "We can tell you're in the room just by hearing it," Curling Friend explained.

"And that's a good thing, right?" Marty responded.

He answered, "Well, it's a thing."

Guess what? I laughed at that.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

You can have fun with tools. You can have a lot of fun with heavy tools, such as a sledgehammer and an ax. Me and me Grandpa Joe proved that one day in dismantling a stove.

Joe had bought this house to fix up and either sell or use as a rental property. It had this monstrous iron stove in the kitchen; I believe the place used to be a social club of some sort which offered meals. Whatever the reason it was there, it was the biggest stove I'd ever seen outside of a restaurant. 

What was pretty clear was that it wasn't carried into that kitchen but assembled there. We had no idea how to dismantle it, so we approached the problem the Cosgriff way. We got a twenty pound sledge and a large ax and began hammering and hacking away at the behemoth.

It wasn't long before chunks and slivers of iron were flying all over the place. I was a teenager, a kid who didn't even consider basic safety equipment such as goggles, and God knows the thought never entered Joe's mind. We just had at it, striking at the dragon's maw until there were small enough bits and pieces to carry out of the house and to the scrap yard. Within about a half hour of attacking the thing it was vanquished. It was no more.

Damn, that was fun. One of me best times with me Grandpa Joe.

Die By The Sword

Perhaps it's too early. But as I don't doubt there are pundits saying it anyway, I might as well. Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell didn't adjust his thinking, and it cost the team a trip to the Super Bowl.

He says he doesn't regret either fourth down call (he twice made the choice in the second half of the NFC Championship game to run fourth down plays rather than attempt field goals), and that's his prerogative. But he was wrong both times.

What do we constantly hear from football analysts? You have to make adjustments. This means more than anything to change your thought pattern as need be. When you get the chance to restore a three score lead, you take it. Campbell didn't.

And now the Detroit Lions fairy tale story isn't on anyone's lips anymore. The sports world moved on almost immediately, as it will. Detroit is yesterday's news. We can only wait to see how badly this season's end affects next season. This type of loss can have such long range effects.

They did so much this year to shed the Same Old Lions moniker. And yet the end feels the same.

What the Future Brings

Too many people don't want to have a God around. The main reason for that so far as I can tell is that they don't want to be told what to do with their lives. But what's the only other option? Getting ordered about by other people.

Granted, on Earth that's how things are done because there's little way around it. We need a boss on a job, parents in a home, presidents and congresses in government. 

Such is life. My issue is, you're willing to be sent hither and yon by other folks just like you, who are no better than you and will make tremendous mistakes, who you trust as experts merely because they assure you they are, who will make you do things which you do not and of right should not have to do, yet this is seen as a better system than a belief in and reliance on God.

I don't know about you, but if the future depends on humanity doing the right thing, calling our prospects bleak is the most optimistic I can be.

Pay and Save

Yesterday as I went about my chores I stopped into two places where I buy parts for snake repair as needed. Due to sheer forgetfulness, I didn't bring my copies of the invoices. But, I figured, they would know what I owed.

Debit card in hand I walked into my first vendor expecting that my bill was around $400. Lo and behold, it was $354 and some change. Sweet.

A few hours and a couple other stops later, I approached my second vendor. In my mind I owed them two hundred bucks. Yet it was $102 and few extra pennies.

Nice. Very nice. I fully realize that this is a stupid way to think of it, but I felt as though I had made $150 dollars by paying my bills. Pay your bills: make money. If it only actually worked that way.

D for the Show

There was this kid when I was in high school - I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name - who wasn't a bad guy at all that I could tell. Not the best student, maybe, but not terrible. Yet for whatever reason this one nun seemed to have it in for him. I really have no idea why, except that Cloyce could be a little too much of a joker sometimes.

One day in passing back exams, Sister With An Attitude Towards Cloyce was reading our grades out loud as she handed the papers to us. She was also opining as she went along. "Marty Cosgriff, an A plus, your usual outstanding work. Ron Boehmer a C, you need to try harder, Mr. Boehmer. Cloyce, 68 percent which is a D!" SWAATC finished with such emphasis that it startled all of us, especially as she downright slapped Cloyce's exam onto his desk.

It's probably not as funny as I think it is, but I will always hear 'Which is a D!' whenever I think of Cloyce.

Mistaken Identity

I sat at my computer the other day, uh, working very hard, when my sweet tooth began acting up. As it was very insistent that I pay attention to its urges I went into the kitchen, where there was a bowl of sugary treats.

I took a small hard candy in a yellow wrapper, removed the cover, and popped it into my mouth. Immediately I thought, 'this is the strangest tasting banana candy I've ever had'. Studying the wrapper in my hand I saw that it was in fact pineapple flavor.

There ought be a law against that. Yellow means banana in the candy world, right? Did I miss the memo?

Double Meanings

We all know that there are things we say which have double meanings. No, not those meanings. Quiet, Ron.

Yesterday at the old barn I told my brother that so-and-so could have his order because he's paid for. "He's paid for?" Phil demanded. No, the stuff is paid for; my bad grammar is just bad grammar.

Last week as we were driving to Electric Eel to pick up some stuff I told that same brother of mine that "We'll get loaded, then we'll go into the office and sign our paperwork."

"You want to get loaded before we get to the plant?" he asked, shock on his face.

See what I have to put up with? 

Be Ready

Me Pops didn't drink or carouse. Indeed he was pretty straight laced his entire life. Even in high school he was well regarded, seen by his classmates as a good, dependable guy.

He didn't play formal school sports but would often give rides to football games and the like to friends who wanted to go. There was only one hard and fast rule: if Bill Cosgriff  told you to be ready at 1 you better be ready at 1, because he would not wait.

This rule was made by necessity. Dad often picked up several friends at a time for an event and the event began at a set time. It was a fairness issue for everyone involved to be ready when it was agreed that you'd be ready.

One of my Aunts reminded a girlfriend of hers of this. "When Bill gets to your house you better be ready or he will leave." The girl didn't think much of it. Her boyfriend was the star of the football team and Bill wouldn't risk offending him.

So Dad got to her house with a couple other people in tow and the young lady wasn't ready. Her mother had stuck her head out the door to indicate she'd be ready in a few minutes. Me Pops threw the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. A girl already with the teens in the car asked incredulously, "You're not actually going to leave her are you Bill?" Dad just kept driving.

The truant managed to get the game a few minutes late. Afterwards she complained to her boyfriend, "I'm sorry I was late; Bill left without me."

I don't know what she expected but it wasn't what she got. "Were you ready when he told you to be ready?"

"No," she answered sheepishly.

"Then I don't blame Bill for leaving you." It was the sort of respect the old man commanded.

Some of you may not agree with such an attitude. Me Pops would leave you behind just as quick too. If you ask somebody for a favor you have to do your part, simple as that.

Joe's Etiquette

I would never, nor do I think anyone else would, accuse Joe Cosgriff of possessing tremendous social grace. He was on the whole a good man, simply rough around the edges. Maybe too rough, perhaps, but that didn't mean you couldn't learn a thing or two from him.

One thing he taught me which I believe is a very good protocol is that if someone invites over, say yes or no and be done with it. But if you accept the invitation, you afterward accept whatever kindnesses your host offers unless it would make you physically ill. If you've staying for dinner for example, eat whatever you're given unless it's liver. The bottom line, me Grandpa Joe thought, was to be a good guest.

I have to agree with that sentiment. You should never make demands on your host: he's your host after all. I will add as a corollary that a good host should be considerate of his guests: if he knows they can't stomach liver he should not make it the entree.

Me Grandpa Joe would never be able to write a column on etiquette. Miss Manners would rip it to shreds. Yet that doesn't mean he had no ideas on how to live rightly day to day.

What's in the Past

A customer complained to me that things aren't what they were twenty years ago. I responded, "Hell, I'm not what I was twenty years ago."

Well, I'm not. I'm only trying to give things a sense of perspective.

Prove It

Science is, as I've said, good, but it's much more limited than often thought. Not all truth is scientific.

Stealing, for example, is wrong. I think we can all agree on that. But does science demonstrate to us that it is? 

Well, show me the experiments which science has set up which proves it and we'll talk. Tell me about the hypothesis that theft is wrong and how you've tested for that, trying to both prove and disprove that hypothesis, and I might concede that all knowledge is scientific. Otherwise, you've got nothing. You're in out of your depth.

Science can't prove abstractions, yet abstractions are very often good and true. Indeed, they're really what we live off of. We prove abstractions through reason and logic, not science. That's really all there is to it.

God and Government

One of the typical criticisms of a belief in God is that, what, you just have to do what you're told because He's God? That's a great oversimplification of course, but I won't address that just now. What I will instead address though is what that attitude means within the purely human world.

When the government of the United States dictates something, what do we generally hear? This: you have to do what you're told because, well, democracy. And an awful lot of people won't think beyond that. You opposition folks just have to do it, on the raw authority of those in power.

There's a certain hypocrisy involved there, don't you think? And also a rather profound error.

At least a kind and loving God merits a following. Government, indeed any human construction, being obviously flawed by virtue of their very humanity, doesn't rise to that level. It is subject to make a great many wrong decisions, and it does. Yet we're to treat it as a god. Go figure.

Air Tight Argument

I had a flat in Indianapolis yesterday. C'est la vie. Life can be worse. After a bit of hassle I was safely home by around 6.

After attaching the spare I happened to spot a Discount Tire within two blocks. Might as well give them a shot at repairing the old tire, which appeared undamaged other than a very obvious nail. I suspect that may have been the culprit.

A fellow came out to inspect it. "I can't fix that. It's too flat to take air." he claimed.

What? A tire too flat to take air? But aren't all tires too flat to take air at some point then? When you put a new tire on the rim, it's flat. Completely flat. Yet they can put air in it.

Am I missing something?

I drove off, and found a mom and pop tire place which repaired the old tire. And having committed it to memory, I won't ever patronize that other place.

Patrick's Winter

We had our first significant snowfall of the winter this past weekend. As I was talking about it with me brother Patrick, he remarked on the one time we went the entire winter without shoveling snow. "It was the winter of 1982-1983," he explained. "We didn't get enough snow to shovel until the very first day of Spring."

Now, I have no reason at all to doubt him, and you shouldn't either. Patrick has the calendar down, uh, pat. He remembers things we wouldn't have the foggiest idea about. Over the years he's told me, not when my children were x years old (even I could do that) but when they hit milestones such as what I'll term millennial days. I recall him telling me when each of my kids were 1,000, 2,000, and even 3,000 days old. "Hey Marty," he'd call to me, "Charlie's 1,000 days old today."

You give him your birth date and he'll tell you without a pause the day of the week it was. Let's say you were born February 23, 1965. He would immediately say, "That was a Tuesday." Just like that.

So when Patrick says we didn't shovel snow at all during the Winter of 82-83, I believe him. For my money, we could use more winters like that.

Cloyce Pays My Price

A plumber whom I deal with, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, isn't a bad guy, but he can be a bit pushy, especially about price. In the old barn yesterday as he was purchasing a few items the usual question came up. "Can you do a little better, Marty?"

I deftly yet purposely changed the subject. "I saw your selfie on Facebook where you were at the Lions playoff game this past Sunday."

"Yeah! Great game. Glad I could be there."

I agreed. "No doubt. Great seats too?" 

Beginning to suspect an ulterior motive, Cloyce answered warily, "Yeessss."

"Cool beans," I replied before continuing, "Did you ask the Lions for a better price, or did you just buy the tickets?"

"Okay, Cosgriff, what do I owe you?" he asked, kind of embarrassed.

I call that point made.

Weather and Lions

It's cold. Not Antarctica cold, but it's cold. I'm so glad we have pipelines and coal plants though. Otherwise it would be colder.

It was too much to expect to get through the entire winter without a serious cold snap. Hopefully this is it for us in Detroit. It could be, you know. We're only about seven weeks until March, and less than 30 days to Spring Training. 

Congrats to the Lions too. I said I'd be more impressed once they won a second playoff game in my lifetime, and they have. It's a surprise that they get to host a second home game too. 

The Detroit Lions playing a second playoff game in one season? I honestly never expected to see it. It's not a sign of the Armageddon, is it?

Good Sunday Joke

The other night I caught an episode of the old Carol Burnett show. There was a skit where Carol was a death row inmate. Tim Conway, playing a priest, was visiting her cell just before the scheduled execution.

Towards the end of it a guard arrived. "It's time," he announced, opening the cell.

As Carol rose to meet her fate, Conway got up to accompany her. "One last thing," 'Father' Tim said. Reaching into his suit he asked Carol, "Would you like to purchase tickets for our Parish raffle?"

"Father! I can't believe you'd bring something like that up at a time like this!" Carol exclaimed.

Tim answered, "Well, you need not be present to win."

Have a great day folks!

The Science Thing

I like science. Science is good. We could not heat our homes, drive our cars, or cure diseases without it. So, yay science.

Yet science is also very rote, very basic. It's a shallow type of knowing. Science tells me that it is cold and windy in Detroit this morning. Well, duh. 

What's my point? Simply that while science can be useful all it really does is give facts which are by themselves rather banal. It does not and cannot make any value judgments. It merely is. Why or whether we should heat our homes, drive our cars, and cure diseases, what we should do with our scientific knowledge, are questions behind science. 

This is where issues of good and bad come in. Those issues are not scientific. Even the judgments that science is useful and good are non scientific. They're not empirical but rational. They are above and beyond science.

Basically, don't tell me that science is the end all be all. It isn't, even on its own terms.

Top Dead Center

Me Pops had an old friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who had a car which wasn't running right. He asked Dad to help install 'points' which older engines needed and are inside a distributor and, when set properly, allow the car to run correctly. Are you with me so far?

Normally, points were set 'top dead center'. Don't fret if you don't understand what that means. Just accept that it's important.

Cloyce, a stickler for detail, set them top dead center. The car engine ran rough. Pops took a turn at it. He adjusted the points where they weren't top dead center. The engine ran smooth.

Cloyce wasn't having it. The points had to be TDC according to the paperwork which came with them. Dad explained that the instructions didn't account for the natural wear and tear on car parts as cars were driven. It would be all right to set the points accordingly.

Cloyce drove the car running rough, because you had to follow directions. Dad shrugged it off. You can't make a guy make sense.

Zeke's Nightmare

Me Uncle John who we sometimes call Zeke worked with me Grandpa Joe in Grandpa's welding machine rental business. At times the pressure of the job got to him.

Zeke came into work one morning looking frazzled. "You okay, John?" my Dad asked him.

"I didn't sleep well," he answered. "In fact I feel like I worked all night."

"How can that be?"

Uncle John explained, "I dreamed I was ill, so I called in sick. But we were so busy that Joe knocked out a wall to my second floor bedroom and had a ramp built up to it, so you guys could bring me welders to work on anyway."

Me Pops just shook his head. "You really need to separate your work and private life better, Zeke."

What the Future Brings

A week ago we weren't expecting any snow for this coming Friday in Detroit. This morning the local weather scientists are saying we should get 4 to 8 inches. Yesterday it was supposed to be 2 to 4. Who knows what tomorrow might bring.

I get it, I get it, I get it. Weather prediction isn't quite an exact science. Chuck Gaidica, a renowned weather reporter around these parts, once remarked that after 5 to 7 days all bets are off on forecasting. 

Makes sense to me. What is so irritating on the matter is that so many prognosticators (I don't think Gaidica is among them, to be fair) tell us that because of ever increasing global warming, a phenomena surely closely reliant on weather, we'll have a catastastroke in ten or twelve years. Never mind that the ten or twelve year countdown to doomsday seems to start over, oh, every 10 or 12 years.

If you can't tell me last Friday how much snow we'll have this Friday, I ain't got much confidence in what you assert for a decade from now. Period. End of report.

Hail to the Victors

The University of Michigan has won the NCAA football National Championship. Hail to the Victors. I barely watched the game. Oh, I caught a few minutes at the curling club after our league game last night, but that was about it.

On the way home I went through Wendy's for something eat, and watched a couple of Hogan's Heroes reruns as I downed the bacon cheeseburger. Then I went to sleep. I found out the result when I woke up at three this morning to, well, what do you think a 63 year old man would wake up at 3 AM to do?  On my return I saw by  channel surfing the still on TV that the Wolverines had won. 

I like such results. I was happy they won and not merely relieved that it was over as I would have been had I invested in the game. I feel better about the result without the emotional investment. And I knew they would win anyway.

I likely won't watch the Detroit Lions playoff game this Sunday night for much the same reason. You know how a lot of guys feel that their watching a game affects the outcome? If they miss it their team will lose? I might be the anti whatever that guy is. You're welcome.

Bad Sandwich

Yesterday I saw about the most disgusting commercial ever. It was so sickening, we ought to censor such garbage. Totally outrageous.

The lone character was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. A good old PBJ. How do you mess that up? 

Well, they did. They put peanut butter on one slice of bread, and then jelly on top of the peanut butter. 

Heathens. Everyone knows that you put the peanut butter on one piece of bread and the jelly on the other and then you smush them together. Yes, smush. You never apply the jelly on the same slice as the peanut butter. I mean, how's the jelly supposed to smush (yes, smush) over the crust of the sandwich?

It was just wrong. There oughta be a law.

The 13% Solution

I don't believe that I'm alone in worrying about my health as I get older. Paranoia increases with the calendar. Yet my doctor has thrown at me some interesting calculus in trying to assure me that my overall health is really very good.

My blood pressure is, to my mind anyway, high, or higher than I would like it to be anyway, although my physician does not share my view. He's all right with it. 

When I voiced my concerns during my last checkup, he pulled my charts up on the computer in the examination room and began calculating. My blood pressure history times my age divided by great cholesterol numbers interpreted by the cosine of my vitamin D levels divided by the iron in my blood weighed against my ideal amount of potassium subtracted from the sodium seen in my white cell count compared to kidney function in ratio to my being about 25 pounds overweight contrasted to the zenith of the rising Sun on the Tenth of October in 2019 means that I have about a 13% chance of a serious cardiac or stroke event in the next ten years. "And we don't even worry at all under ten percent, because that's just about anyone's risk at your age," he assured me. "So you're in good health Mr. Cosgriff."

Well. That's it then. I'm healthy. Even if I didn't understand a word he said.

My Kind of Winter

We have had virtually no snow in Detroit so far this winter. Some flurries have come to earth in their sing song, lightly swaying fashion, and that's been about it, at least in my area.

They're calling for one to three inches Tuesday morning. That would be our most significant amount to date. If it comes. And if it does it'll melt off quickly. Detroit is expecting highs in the low 40s the rest if the week.

I can live with that the rest of the winter. Apologies, skiers and snowmobilers, but I'd be okay with record low snowfalls this season. I suspect I'm not alone in that thought either.

Hank

You know, it don't serve no purpose to forgive anyone's sins simply because you like him. But there may just be a lesson in understanding his background and seeing things in context.

One of my Christmas gifts was a biography of Hank Williams, Sr. He's the patriarch of a branch of country music royalty, followed his son Hank Jr., grandson Hank Williams III (a ringer for his grandfather in voice and appearance) and Coleman Williams, a great grandson whose stage name is IV, noting his place in the hierarchy. 

Hank's songs are often poetry and also often angst ridden (though not always), and I love them. Yet at the risk of severe understatement, his life was difficult. I won't bore you here with the details, but he went through a lot of tough stuff. Some was of his own making, perhaps. But when you become familiar with his background, maybe he can be cut slack. Indeed, I would argue he ought to be.

One lesson which is so simple that it shouldn't have taken me more than 60 years to learn is that being considerate of people is the essence of charity. Their indiscretions in and of themselves may well be indefensible. But what led to the errors of their ways, well, it's a factor.

Hate the sin, love the sinner. Hank weren't perfect. But he understood the world despite that. His songs show it. I think we're better off for them, and that gift mitigates a good many things.

Normalcy

Today is the 4th of January. We're back to normal. Oh, there's still some decorations up. There's a fair amount of Christmas food and snacks hanging around the larder. I bought another fruitcake, so I'll have fruitcake until, oh, next Christmas, the way it lasts. It's the Spam of the holiday table, right?

All that said, I think that we may have the Christmas season backwards. The Polish observe Christmas through February 2nd, which is in the Church calendar Candlemas, the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Take that, Groundhog Day.

The Polish are onto something. Before Christmas is just that: before Christmas. It hasn't come yet. We're singing carols and getting gifts wrapped and having parties and family get togethers before the actual reason for the season has occurred. We really ought to be doing those things after December 25, ought we?

Ah well. Things feel like normal now, and that's okay. It's high time I tried normal anyway.

He'll Be Back

Since I'm thinking about it, seeing as I spoke about Opie from the Andy Griffith Show frequently, I am reminded of one of me Pops' favorite pictures.

Me son Frank is redheaded. When he was still quite young, 6 or 7 or thereabouts, he had a faux leather jacket we'd put on him when it was chilly. He also had a pair of sunglasses he liked. 

One day as we arrived at me Mom and me Pops for a visit, Frank was wearing both. "It's Opie the Terminator!" Pops remarked with a hearty laugh. 

We have a picture of him that day. I need to find it.

In The Zone

New Year's Day has taken on a special meaning for me in the last decade or so. At least two channels, SyFy and H & I, run Twilight Zone marathons. I catch up on as much as I can.

I almost hate to talk about specifics, though. If you've seen the great episodes you already get them. But if you haven't, I'll spoil them for you. That just wouldn't be right. So I'll drop names and offer show titles, and you'll either shake your head knowingly or, maybe, look for that episode. I'll just keep things vague.

Billy Mumy could act as a kid, couldn't he? He was in three great episodes. He and Jack Klugman starred in In Praise of Pip. That one tugged at the heartstrings.

Donald Pleasance, something of a hero among ham actors, is solid in The Changing of the Guard. It has A Christmas Carol vibe working for it.

Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery absolutely nail their roles in Two.

You gotta see The Hunt. It's a lesser known episode, but man, it leaves a lump in your throat. Trust your dog, friends. They know.

I could go on and on, and I know I'm excluding a lot, but you get the point. New Years Day is Twilight Zone time anymore. That's what makes the day for me.

But I do hear that some football was played this past weekend. Did I miss anything?

Happy New Year 2024

Happy New Year all! May 2024 be blessed and kind to everyone, and may you make the most of the opportunity it offers.