The Power of Charlie Brown

Everyone loves Charlie Brown, the central character of the Peanuts world. Well, perhaps after Snoopy. 

There have been many Peanuts TV specials, in the area of 50 if memory serves. The best loved one is surely A Charlie Brown Christmas. I get chills at both Linus retelling the Nativity story, and especially when the gang leaps into Hark the Herald Angels Sing at the end. The show is rightly viewed (heh, heh, I just had to get the pun in) as a classic.

Did you know it single handedly destroyed the aluminum Christmas tree industry? Those of us old enough to remember recall the metal Christmas trees of the 1960s. 

As Linus and Charlie Brown are walking through a Christmas tree stand (right before discovering the sad little real tree) they lamented all the artificial trees available. One of them, I think it was Charlie but no matter, tapped an obvious metal one. It sounded like an empty oil drum. And on that scene alone, people virtually quit buying aluminum trees. 

Charlie Brown. He has the power of life and death over entire businesses.

Grandma's kitschy tree

Of all the family Christmas trees I remember I think I remember me Grandma Cosgriffs as the most interesting. She didn't seem, if my memory serves me much (quiet Ron) to have this particular one for very long. It makes an appearance in the Charlie Brown Christmas special though, in the tree lot where he gets what turned out to be the beautiful little real tree.

Be that as it may, I think we've all seen ones like me Grandma's. It was silver (or maybe white; Ron may be right to chide me about my memory) and sitting in front facing it was a slow turning, fan like thing. But it had a flat, circular pan rather than blades on it. The pan had three colors, red, blue, and green I believe, with a light behind them. As the pan spun, it lit the tree the different colors, and even mixings of the colors, as it turned.

These days we might, might, call it kitschy. The odd tree was a source of bemusement for me. It never seemed like Christmas. And even then, it struck me as unlike me Grandma to care for anything so, well, so modern. It felt really out of place in her living room.

As I say, I don't think she had it for very long, perhaps a couple or three years. And I suppose, seeing it impressed me enough that I remember it somehow,  even vaguely fondly, it qualifies as a good Christmas memory. Gotta admit, I am smiling over it right now.

The Fruits of Their Labor

When I was taking Education classes in college two recurring themes among my professors were that nothing was truly right or wrong for its own sake, and that you could be anything you wanted to be. As you might imagine, I argued with them constantly.

It's no wonder teachers can't teach. There's no true subject matter. The kind of subjectivity found in no-right-or-wrong lessons is profound in its lack of depth, and simply begs for poor thinking (if it actually invites any thinking at all). Add on be anything you want you be and do you know what you get? Students who don't have to care about reality.

Is it a wonder today that we have little respect for others, and feel entitled to act however we please? Can we expect kids raised that nothing is right or wrong be civil to others? Can we expect them to think things through when they don't have to, nothing being right on its own? 

Hell no, as me Grandpa Joe would say.

There is right and there is wrong. Until you accept that truism there's no reason for respect. You can't even presume to command it precisely because it does not exist, if there is no right and no wrong.

You cannot be absolutely anything you want to be. You cannot be the impossible: men are men and women are women for example, and that's it. End of discussion. Next question.

Charlie Kirk was trying to point out such obvious truths. We should be too.

VW

I won't say that I drive old cars. I don't have to: everyone who knows me knows that. But some are quirky in a way which is actually kind of cool.

For awhile back in 2005 or so I had an old Volkwagen, not a beetle, but a boxy brown car which was sort of a compact type. A Golf, in fact. That's what it was. A Volkswagen Golf. A 1987 Volkswagen Golf.

It ran very well and the gas mileage was outstanding. But coolest of all was that it had stamped into the wheel well under the hood, "Made in West Germany". I was driving a car in 2005 made in a country that no longer existed.

I take pride in things like that.

 

The Day After Christmas

Today is December 26, the day after Christmas. Boxing Day in Canada and many of the old British Dominion countries; a day of extra sales in these United States.

I can't speak for Boxing Day but I can speak a bit about the consumerism of my own nation. As if five weeks of bacchanalia wasn't enough, immediately after the Holiday to end all Holidays (so far as the merchants seem to think) we are told that that isn't all. Stores were opening this morning as early as 6 AM because there's still bargains available to slake your lust for ever more and ever newer baubles and bells. We lament the tax and spend tendency of government; we encourage an earn and spend mentality on our selves. I'm not sure the one's any better than the other.

Take a breath, America. You surely have everything you need and a great many things you simply want, and a great many of those unnecessary. Why not sit back on the 26th and enjoy all that? Revel in the wonderful times and even, yes, the nice things you got for Christmas. Be happy in your family and friends. Don't go after the Next Best Thing. There will always be another once you settle into that shallow mentality. It really only becomes a kind of Hell, keeping up with the Joneses.

Take a breath. Enjoy the leftovers and seek more conversation, more interaction with your family and friends. WalMart and Best Buy won't go out of business if you don't taste of their wares today. Your family and friends will of necessity go off on their own. Be with them now. Your computer simply can't be made made that much faster and the picture on your new TV can't be made that much clearer. But the rest will go all to quickly and all too certainly.

Christmas 2025

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.

Christmas Stamp Confusion

I don't use snail mail very often these days, but there are still things I do which require the aid of the United States Postal Service. Whenever I need stamps during the Christmas Season, I make it a point to buy the ones with Mary and the baby Jesus on them. He is the reason for the season, right?

While at the counter of the local post office the other day, I asked for this year's Madonna stamps. You know, Madonna and Child, Jesus and Mary. 

The clerk looked at me quizzically. "I don't think we have Madonna stamps. She's not dead yet."

Looking back at her quizzically myself I'm sure, she responded to my unspoken question, "Madonna. The singer."

"No, no," I answered. "Madonna and child. Mary and the baby Jesus."

A look of absolute horror jumped onto the young woman's face. "Oh, no! I've said something really bad!" she responded, covering her mouth in sheer terror.

"Oh, I don't think so. It's an honest mistake," I assured her.

I was able to buy the right stamps. And I'm not sure you have to have passed on to be on a postage stamp either. Still, I hope she doesn't feel too bad about it, because I don't doubt her confusion was honest enough.

Eve of the Eve Greetings

All right, folks, I'm afraid I have to call you out. Each and every one of you. Yes, you too, that one of you who thinks I can't be talking about him. It's Christmas Eve Eve, and I'm hearing crickets.

You ought to remember that I created the Holiday I put a lot - a lot - of thought into it. As second after second passed that day so long ago I was beginning to fear that the creative juices had escaped me, that I would not be able to come up with this new day to celebrate. Yet I did find the inspiration, and offered you the fruit of my genius free of charge and for your own benefit. And what have you done with it?

Nothing. Zip, zilch, nada.

So we're going to try it again. Get with the program, slackers. Yes, even you. You know who you are.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve, everybody!

Was that so hard?

It Wouldn't Stop Joe

God has a special Providence for fools, children, and the United States of America.

- attributed to Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of unified Germany

Should you pray for God's help when you're about to do something really, really stupid? I don't mean stupid accidentally or incidentally. I mean when you're actively and willfully planning to do something dumb. Very dumb, fantastically ill advised in fact. I'm talking about planning to do exactly the kind of thing every ounce of reason says you should not do.

I needed a cable fitting for a repair the other day and did not have a new one. So I either had to order one and wait a few days to finish the repair, or use the lone one I actually already had. The trouble was, the one I had was welded onto the end of an old cable. That meant that for me to use it I had to cut through the weld with a high speed saw. I won't bore you with the details. But trust me, the very idea was far from smart. I had visions of lopping off a finger. The pointer on my left hand was even experiencing pre-injury phantom pains.

'Joe would do it', I said to myself, referring to me Grandpa Joe, who frequently took silly chances in life. Obviously that didn't really help my argument, as those of you who knew Joe would agree. Still, I thought, if I don't cut the weld and use the fitting the machine will be in the way for several more days and we don't have much room to work lately, it being so busy. I decided to do it. 

Rounding up whatever protective equipment I had on hand at the Shop, I prepared for the task. There wasn't much; Joe wasn't big on trifles such as preventing grievous bodily harm and I never actually followed up with the institution of better safety protocols. Still, I put on what I had and said a prayer (I honestly and sincerely did) to God for my safety. You know, like to not sever my jugular vein.

I managed the job safely, being very slow and deliberate. I then finished the repair. I did also take a minute to thank God afterwards for having steadied my hand and keeping me safe. I suspect, however, that my Guardian Angel was on his third pint.

Universally Nonuniversal

I'm pretty good at holding my temper. But damn, that can be a challenge some days.

I spoke to a customer yesterday, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who wanted to come by and have one of those 'universal' foot pedals installed on his machine. A foot pedal is a common way to activate your drain snake.

"There is no universal foot pedal, Cloyce," I informed him. "There is no one style of foot pedal which works on every drain snake out there. But you can bring your machine down and I'll see what I can do."

"Oh no, Cosgriff, I'm holding one of those universal foot pedals in my hand right now. I just need you to install it."

This is a prime example of where I have trouble holding my temper. Truth be told, I want to lose it in situations like that. Still, you know, maturity and crap. "You can bring it with you Cloyce, and there is some interchangeability among foot pedals. But until I see it I can't promise you I can install it, at least not right away," I replied.

"You'll figure out something Cosgriff." Well, I ought not have to figure something out if it's universal, Cloyce.

His pedal didn't work on his machine without my having to change the air diaphragm switch which it was supposed to engage with. But that's universal parts for ya, Cloyce.

Did You Know?

Did you know that if you don't put a coffee mug in your Keurig that coffee will spill onto the machine and the surrounding countertop? It can also drip all over the floor too. Or that it might take several kitchen towels to clean everything up? There's that as well.

Yep. You need to put a coffee mug on the tray of your Keurig, or you'll get a mess. Yep. It's true.

The Other Professional Football League

Today marks the start of the NCAA college football playoffs. NCAA football or, if we're honest about it, the other professional football league. 

It's true, you know, at least at the higher levels. With literally billions of dollars at, ahem, play, and athletes themselves getting NIL, Name, Image, and Likeness, money, we are far beyond amateurs playing for school bragging rights or poor kids getting an education through sports which they wouldn't otherwise get. It's all about the money. Again, at least at the highest levels anyway.

It's not about getting an education. Most of these players are in sports management or some such nonsense. It's not about the school or school pride, it's about the personal brand. You can now leave for a better deal. Hell, it's not even about selfless sportsmanship. When you treat the other guy like an enemy when all you're doing is playing a game, if you have to 'fire up' to participate, you've gone a step too far. Several, in fact, but that may be for another day.

The intellectually honest thing to do would be to disassociate the games from the schools. Cut them off and let them go their own way. It's not like the money isn't there. Yet intellectual honesty is something college sports, like politics, can't, or won't, see. 

Hey, enjoy it, if that's your entertainment. But say what it is. And it's professional football.

A Serious Request

The title is serious: I'm making a serious request here. But seriously, and I will stop making this sound unserious after this, I really could use your help.

If you have an Amazon account, would you be willing to 'follow' me please? Just go to any page with one of my books on it, find my pen name (Charles Martin Cosgriff) and click follow. This will help me manage my books more closely, and will help the algorithm, the famous algorithm, to find and suggest me to other Amazon shoppers.

Full disclosure: this will open you up to receive emails or other solicitations from Amazon about updates to my books or author page, and perhaps other Amazon entreaties as well. If you don't want to be subject to such, I understand. I'm throwing myself at your goodwill and tolerance, and no hard feelings if you don't want to deal with it.

I will happily reciprocate if you're on Amazon yourself, and follow you. I will put my proverbial money where my mouth is. 

Thank you in advance!

What Would Heinrich Do?

Heinrich Himmler was the head of the Gestapo during World War II. Most of you know that I'm sure, but I needed to establish the fact just the same.

I peruse many message boards on subjects of interest to me, where questions are asked and experts answer. As a student of history many of the places I frequent address people and events from the past. A favorite is a site about the Second World War.

Most of the questions are rather broad ranged. What were the German aims in the War? Why did they attack Russia? Things like that. Some are speculative. If Hitler hadn't declared war on the United States, how would that have affected the outcome? If the US only fought Japan, how would things have turned out? Some queries are technical: How close were the Nazis to an atomic bomb? What were the fiercest weapons used? Others ask about the specifics in battles. You get the point. There's a wide array of inquiries.

Yet one unusual question the other day stopped me in my mental tracks. It was, What was Heinrich Himmler's management style?

It took me a few minutes to process the query, all of it broken with stilted laughter as I stared at my computer screen. His management style? He was the head of the bloody Gestapo. I suppose it was something along the lines of, you do this or it's the firing squad! 

Was this an honest question or some kind of trolling? I hope it was trolling, high schools seniors just being stupid.

There was an attempt at a serious answer by the way. It basically said Himmler's management style was top down and detail oriented. I label that understatement.

Indexing

Our furnace went out overnight Sunday to Monday. Happy days. At least it didn't pick the very coldest time to fail us. But it seems to have tried.

Yet this provided an instance where Marty, yes, even Marty, was able to take advantage of an inspiration he had years ago. I began saving phone numbers with clues to the owner. One customer might be 'Cloyce, owns C', for example. This meant his name was Cloyce and he owned a Model C Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs). As such, I had an solid idea of who was calling when the phone summoned me.

Likewise, this habit helps in other ways. If I want to call someone it gives me a clue who to look up. In this week's case, I couldn't remember my furnace guy's name. So I literally search my contacts for 'Furnace Guy' and up pops 'Steve Furnace Guy'. Hey presto, I'm on my way to renewed home heating.

Of course, I don't save Ron as anything but Ron. Because, Ron. Those who know, know.

Satisfying and Meaningful

This is a very well written and and imaginative book offering hope in a world devoid of human sentiment. The main character is able to learn from the natural world around him the real meaning of existence. Sometimes even good intentions can go terribly wrong but with determination the wrong can be righted. The ending of this book is also satisfying and meaningful.

It's quite sublime to have reviewers offer such kind words. This writer liked my book A Subtle Armageddon, a book I was almost afraid to make available because I feared it was obscure in meaning and intent. Yet at least some of its readers see the point.

A Subtle Armageddon is available here. My other books, Michael's Story, The Interim Generation, David Gideon, and Family Lore you might also find worthwhile.

Baseball Theology

I exchanged several text messages with a good friend of mine yesterday. We're both huge baseball fans and both Catholic, so I knew he would get the joke. But I believe most anyone will appreciate the following quip as well.

At one point Nick texted that it seemed most people's baseball memories begin at about 8 years old. I agreed, citing theology. 

You see, the Catholic Church teaches that the age of reason is 7. Typically it's at seven years old we are able to differentiate and appreciate the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the well from the ill. So I responded it makes perfect sense that we would learn to love baseball by 8. We've reached the age of reason.

I can't think of a better explanation.

 

Near Reunions

One day back in 2003, me Pops, me self, and me son Charlie sat at the office in the Shop, drinking coffee. Hey, it was a well deserved break. We'd been working hard that day.

Anyway, for whatever reason me Pops was staring up at the calendar on the wall. He observed, "Man, time flies. I have my fiftieth high school reunion coming up."

Curious myself about mine at that remark I did some quick math and said, "Yeah, really. Looks like my twenty-fifth is next year." 

As a little smarmy smile grew on his face, me son Charlie remarked, "I'm coming up on my second."

Touche, boy. Touche.

I Forget

Whelp, I was supposed to blog about something particular this morning, but I can't remember what it was. The only thing I definitely recall is a promise not to say, Quiet Ron. So I guess the floor is yours Ron old buddy, because I got nuthin'.

Rand Paul's Tax Plan

I just read where Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has proposed eliminating the income tax and replacing it with a national sales tax. I could live with that.

He would exempt necessary items from the tax, things such as food and clothing. Very nice. The tax would be 23% on all else. Yes, that sounds like a lot. At almost one dollar in four it should sound huge. But what percentage of your paycheck is held back each week anyway?

A sales tax is automatically graduated, meaning the rich will naturally pay more. They're not going to hide money in a hole in the ground like misers, after all. Not the vast majority of them anyways. And it rids us of the income tax which, and I will insist on this point, is immoral anyway. It's none of the government's business how much money you make. With an income tax it becomes their business. That's. Just. Wrong.

So there's my mini-rant for today. Oh, Paul's plan will fail, because the government doesn't really care about the people after all. But that's another mini-rant for another mini-day.

Teen Cloyce

A few years back (okay, quite a few years back; quiet Ron) when my children were in middle school, I spent some time as a baseball coach on their various teams. It was generally fun, and made for easy Dad points. I got credit for doing stuff with the kids all the while doing something I liked, namely messing around on a ball diamond hitting and catching and throwing with relatively like minded young individuals.

One day before a practice a fellow dad of a young boy on the team, I'll call the kid Teen Cloyce just to give him a name, asked if I could possibly give his son a ride home. "Sure," I told him. It was no trouble at all, and it wasn't. Mostly.

After practice I waited for all the other kids to get picked up, as I was head coach at the time and that was part of the job. When the last left I told me son Frank and Teen Cloyce, "I'm a bit hungry. You guys feel like McDonald's?"

It was surprisingly easy to convince a couple of 13 year olds that that was a fine idea. So we headed for the nearest Mickey D's.

We went inside and ordered at the counter. That's when Teen Cloyce out of the blue asked the young woman cashier, "Do you guys have one of those hidden warning buttons that you push to call the cops when someone's trying to rob the place?"

I'd have rather he had been brazen enough to ask her for her phone number. Instead she stopped suddenly and, mouth agape and eyes becoming pied, stared at Teen Cloyce. Then she looked fearfully at me, who was standing aside stupidly, my hands in my hoodie pockets exactly as though I might be carrying a hidden weapon. Her eyes began darting around for the manager.

That was when it hit me what Teen Cloyce had asked. "Cloyce! You don't ask things like that!"

"I was just curious!" he replied, slightly panicked by then himself.

Turning to the cashier I said, overly and overtly calmly, "We're just here for a late lunch." 

With a nervous smile she gave me my change. But I insisted to the boys that we would take our meals to a nearby park to eat.

Columbo: Master Plumber

You remember how Peter Falk as the TV detective Columbo would always set up the guilty party? He'd pester them with visits and queries all through the show. He'd eventually go back to them towards the end of an episode and ask a few more questions before appearing satisfied. Typically he would turn to leave, only to reverse course and say to the perp, "But one more thing..." You knew he was going to ask the crowing question, the one that would seal the deal and show the guy did in fact commit the murder. It became Columbo's catchphrase. I always looked forward to it.

I no longer do. We have our own version of Columbo who comes into the Shop, a plumber who never seems quite finished with us. We dread his arrival, me brother Phil and I, because he'll always start with a couple things for us to do. Then he thinks another, and afterwards typically a third or fourth. Finally he will always actually leave the old barn, to reappear at the door a minute or two later to say, "But one more thing..."

Yeesh. Especially when both my brother and I are there, if he would tell us everything at once we could both attack his repairs (or fill his orders as the case may be) and expedite things. We've even told him that. He will comply on the next trip, maybe, and then go right back to being Columbo the Master Plumber.

The other day was no different. He didn't pull out of the driveway for 90 minutes. After the first 60 he left only to come back in about that one more thing. Then he sat in his van for 15 minutes longer before finally leaving. It was an eternity for me and Phil; we kept expecting one more one more thing.

I would have confessed to murdering the Queen Mother by that point.

Danger, Will Robinson

Dashboard warning lights. They're there to help. But hell, if one of my vehicles didn't have the check engine light on it wouldn't feel right.

Oil lights are another thing entirely. Mine came on my new old van this morning. I turned off the car to check the oil level. It was full and clean.

I turned the new old van back on. No oil pressure light. I've driven several miles now and everything appears fine.

I call that problem solved, and am going about my day.

Bread and Circuses

I normally don't swim in these waters anymore. But at times the atmosphere gets to me just the same.

I don't like playoffs. They're one of the reasons, and perhaps the main reason, which turn me off from sports. If you'll excuse the admittedly vague pun of a dad joke, I don't like being played by playoffs. And that's what playoffs do. They try to manufacture excitement solely for the sake of cash and prestige. And that, I will argue, diminishes sports and wastes time.

Take Indiana's win over Ohio State yesterday. A great win? Not in this day and age. Sure, they beat OSU for the first time in 31 games. It's Indiana's first Big Ten Championship since 1967, when even I was but a child. And what's their reward for it? Basically, a pat on the head followed by, 'win two more games to prove yourself'.

If they don't win a national championship the conference title is no more than a footnote. If they should meet Ohio State again and lose, it will be thought of as a fluke. Indiana will have effectively won the wrong game.

Yes, it may not happen that way. Maybe the Hoosiers will win a Natty. That still accomplishes the same purpose: a meaningless and forgotten win over the Buckeyes on a cold December Saturday. Win it all or you're in the dustbin. Losers rarely get more than apologetic afterthoughts.

The championship is all that matters. And that has to be made even more difficult by adding more hoops to leap through, all so that more money can be made. There's talk of expanding college football playoffs to 16 for no other purpose than that. Don't try to argue integrity. All adding four more teams to a playoff field means are four more teams without a realistic chance to win. 

Now, if watching and rooting are your hobby, by all means enjoy. We aren't talking about any evil. At least, I don't think so anyway. But I am open to the question, quite frankly. Bread and circuses don't strike me as the best expressions of humanity or human effort.

Lack of Negotiation

Me Grandpa Joe, he didn't negotiate price. Oh, he'd occasionally allow his friend Amos to do so in his stead, so I'm probably playing a bit loose with this assertion. Still, Joe to my knowledge never himself negotiated a price.

I found this out on a trip through western Michigan with him, looking for a pump jack as I recall. I'm still not sure what a pump jack is but I know it had to do with the oil wells he once invested in, and I know they were big because we had to take his manual shift stake truck with the ten foot bed to get one.

Anyhow, after driving for two days, two days of me learning to drive a stick I might add (so there were a lot of fits and spurts and stalled engines as I was learning through trial by error) we ended up at his friend Ford's. Ford was his actual first name; I don't remember his last. Ford took us out into a field of various and large machinery, about in the middle of which was an old pump jack. It looked like an oversized grasshopper to me. Joe asked Ford what he wanted, and Ford told him. Joe took a drag on a cigarette, then just said kinda quietly, "I think I'll pass." We began the trip home.

Grandpa explained to me that a fella knows what his stuff is worth, and who was he to argue with that? I get what he means. I rarely negotiate myself, usually giving a simply yea or nay when dealing with a seller one on one. And it ain't like we can typically negotiate anyway: at Kroger you pay what Kroger asks for groceries or you walk on by. I suppose I was just a bit miffed that, after lurching across the state and staying one long night in a tired old hotel, the journey was for naught. In the end though, I respect his point. And it is hard to beat time with your Grandpa.

 

Oil Hoarder

We hear a lot about hoarders. Most of them seem to keep everything. Yet there are perhaps what I'll call limited hoarders. An old friend of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, might fit that bill.

Cloyce would change the oil in his cars himself. Fair enough; lots of folks do that. In his case, it was two vehicles; his and Mrs. Cloyce. That was it. And they didn't drive much. They might make 5,000 miles a year on each car, but that was about it.

One evening Cloyce asked me over to help with something, and we trounced down into his basement. You would have thought I was in the motor fluids section of an auto parts store, judging by the amount of oil and filters and anti-freeze, brake and power steering and transmission fluid which lined the shelves in a back room. If I had to guess I'd say there were about 50 cases of motor oil alone. "Why do you have so much oil and stuff, Cloyce?" I asked, actually somewhat in awe.

"I maintain our cars," he answered.

"Yes, but all these fluids for two vehicles?"

Cloyce responded, "I buy it on sale. Then it's there when I need it."

I protested, "Okay, but this much?"

"I never want to run out."

Trust me, folks. He wasn't going to run out in his lifetime. Nor were his kids. Maybe not even his great-grandkids. Cloyce had stored up a lot of oil.

How to Curl

So, you wanna know how to draw to the top of the four foot in curling? Allow the master to demonstrate:

Marty's Draw

Or how about an education on how to call the line on a hit and roll, to remove an opponent's stone and slip yours under cover?

Hit and roll

There's your curling lessons for the day. Come out to the rink and I'll test you.

Levanrd

About 20 miles out of Detroit on I-96 is Levan Road. The sign for the exit says Levan Rd. There's nothing unusual about that, is there?

Years ago me Grandpa Joe had a delivery driver, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who was a little slow on the uptake. Me Pops one day sent him out with a load of welding equipment intended for a place off Levan in western Wayne County.

About three hours after the scheduled delivery time, the company called asking where it was. This was the time before cell phones, so there was no easy way to track Cloyce. Dad had to wait to hear from him for an explanation.

Cloyce happened to walk into the old barn about ten minutes later anyway. "I couldn't make that delivery, Bill," he said.

"Why not? Pops demanded. "I wrote out exact directions." Surely the old man did, knowing Cloyce.

"Well, Bill, I drove all the way out past Ann Arbor (easily 40 miles beyond target) and I could not find Levanrd." Apparently Dad wrote the abbreviation for road too close to Levan.

With a heavy sigh Dad more precisely explained himself and sent Cloyce back out.

Emphatic Priest

I went to Mass the other day at St. Hedwig in Detroit. It was funny.

Oh, everything went all right until the very end. But I think the priest had an appointment and was running late. Yet the choir was singing a hymn and apparently intended to see it through all six or eight verses.

From the altar, Father waved at the choir loft, clearly an indication he was ready to wrap things up. The singing continued. He waved more emphatically, as if trying to catch the attention of a far off friend or a New York City cab. The song went on, and very well, I'll concede.

Father next made the cut sign. He ran his pointer finger across his neck, slowly and deliberately. He really did. And the song finally stopped. I think it just ended, but I'm sure Father took it as a victory.

I've seen more unusual endings to a Church service.

Nah, I haven't.

Lightning Fast

Me brother once bragged facetiously, "When I have a hammer I'm like lightning. I never hit the same place twice!"

A buddy of his, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, responded, "Well I'm not lightning then. When I'm hammering a nail I can hit the same place two, three times."

"That so?" Phil asked.

"Yep. It's usually my left thumb," explained Cloyce.

Oh, that Cloyce.