Alleluia! Alleluia! Blessed Jesus make us rise,
From the life of this corruption
to the life that never dies.
May we share with Thee Thy Glory
When the days of life are past.
And the dead shall be awakened
By the trumpet's mighty blast!
Happy Easter!
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."
On Good Friday, it might be instructive to remember the last words of Christ as he hung from the cross. They are:
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This is our wonderful hope, that God's mercy is greater than His judgment.
"Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." He says this to Saint Dismas, the good thief. I pray he says it to me one day.
"Woman, behold your son; Behold, your mother!" Christ signals that Mary, his mother, is our mother.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Some take this as Christ despairing, yet he was actually praying the 22nd Psalm, a lament which ends in triumph, and proceeds the more famous 23rd: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."
"I thirst." He thirsts for God's redemption upon us.
"It is finished." Christ signals his work is completed.
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Christ gives himself up to his God and Father, as we should.
Am I stupid? Don't answer the question: it's rhetorical, no matter what witty repartee that invites. But to the point: Am I stupid or is that other guy?
That other guy - I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name - called me yesterday about dropping his machine off for repair. If you haven't already heard, it's been extremely busy at the old barn lately. 11 repairs came in on Friday alone, followed by 3 on Monday as well as some cables to fix. I'm back to where I can't walk around the Shop again. I decided I would take no new work for a few weeks until I could catch up.
Cloyce then calls about his unit. "I'm sorry, Cloyce, I'm too blocked up. I'm not taking any new work until May 1st."
"Okay, Marty, I understand," Cloyce answers.
Two hours later he arrives at the old barn, with his machine. "I know it'll be awhile, Marty, but I figured I'd drop it off to you."
Could I have explained it any better than I did? How could anyone interpret I'm not taking any new work until May 1st as I'd better drop my machine off to Marty today? By my calendar yesterday was March 31st, a few days ahead of May 1st. Hell, a few weeks ahead of it.
No, this is not an April Fools joke. It simply feels like one.
I've read that the United States Postal Service may run out of money and go out of business by the end of the year. No doubt that's hyperbole, but it wouldn't bother me.
I stood in line for more than an hour yesterday at the main Post Office in Detroit, and I've come to a conclusion. Every kid who thinks they might like socialism ought to be made to wait in line at the Post Office every day for a week. If that doesn't affect their minds properly, there's always exorcism.
It wouldn't be so bad if this weren't typical. Yet most of the time when I go to the USPS, I wait. And wait. And wait. But when I take my packages to the United Parcel Service, I'm out of there before my grandchildren graduate high school. Kidding aside, at the UPS center I use when I can I've been done in ten or fifteen minutes when there's been a line out the door. Say what you want about big business, and like all human endeavors it has its flaws, response time generally isn't one of them.
One cashier was at the desk yesterday while the line was nearly twenty at its highest. To be sure, several employees wandered in and out. And I mean wander: you'd think they were on a walk in the park. But no extra help was forthcoming.
This is why I pay nearly all my bills online. Although that, to be fair, merits a rant at another time.
Americans have a tendency to look at all things government and wonder, "How can I circumvent that?" For me a good example lies in a mere traffic signal.
One afternoon I sat in the left turn lane of an avenue which held me still because of a steady red arrow. That arrow meant that I couldn't turn. I found myself asking impertinent questions. Can I turn now? Will I get away with it? How much would the ticket be if not? Would there be points on my driver's license? There was absolutely no other traffic. I could have done it, I could have turned. In the end I waited for a green arrow. Curse your timidly in the face of tyranny, Marty.
Contrast this to the Canadian ideal of simply being nice. As it happened, I was soon after the above related incident driving along a route in Canada with a Canadian friend as a passenger. Caught by a solid red arrow at an intersection where I needed to go left, I asked my buddy if I might ignore the signal. "Oh, bad form," he advised me.
Yanks care about getting away with something. Canadians? Well, you decide.
Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that JESUS CHRIST IS LORD, to the glory of God the Father.
This is perhaps my favorite passage in all the Epistles. There are few greater explanations of the glory and triumph of Christ than these words of St. Paul. I hope that you may find the same inspiration in them as I do.
I'm mad at Words With Friends, the puzzle game you can play with, uh, friends. It will not allow me to use the words Kaos.
That's an injustice. I've watched Get Smart for years and the two agencies at each other's throats are Maxwell Smart's Control, and Siegfried's Kaos. So far as I'm concerned, that makes it legit.
So. There.
I'm going to indulge myself (like I've never done that before!) and give a shout out to my curling teammates from the Thursday night league at the Detroit Curling Club. They may not, and indeed probably will not, see this blog. But I already told them personally how happy I was with their play, so they know.
We began last night's game playing unusually sloppy. We were down 4-0 after an awful first end (ends are more or less equivalent to baseball innings) in which yours truly hurt the team by overthrowing a takeout (trying to remove an opponent's stone from play) and missing completely, given them an easy four. We scored once in the second when my sweepers kept my last rock going to barely win a point, then forced the other team to take a point (I'll just stop explaining now because it'll get too complicated, but that was a good thing under the circumstances) in the third end and were forced ourselves to one in the fourth. So we're down 5-2 halfway through the game.
Then the boys turned it on. We stole the last four ends to win.
Okay, one more explanation: last rock of an end is called the hammer, because if you play it right you use it to score multiple points. The team with last rock is presumed to have the advantage. You 'steal' an end when you score without hammer. Hammer is sorta akin to batting last, if I may use another baseball comparison. So to steal four straight ends is a significant accomplishment.
I'll admit I wasn't thrilled with our chances after that 4 set us back early, but things snowballed for us. When Jeff, our Vice (throwing third rocks on the team; okay, so maybe I'll squeeze in another aside) drew the top of the button in the sixth end which could not be outdrawn and led us to two for a tie at that point, I knew we'd turned the corner. We stole two in the 7th and 1 in the 8th to win.
Great game, guys. It's why we play, eh?
I had a follow up appointment with my hematologist yesterday. Everything's good, and no serious issues. Yet I did have an issue of nonmedical import.
Last Thursday I received a text asking me to pre-register for yesterday's visit. So I clicked the link embedded within and filled out all the questions asked. It's no big deal. I do it every time I have to see a doctor.
A text came Tuesday reminding me of my Noon appointment. Okay, fine. That's not unusual either, and probably good for a guy like me who's admittedly becoming terrible about out of sight, out of mind.
I arrived 30 minutes beforehand and checked in. Told that all was copasetic, I was sent on to the hematologist's office. I signed in. Everything was normal that far.
The nurse called me to the desk. "Oh, Mr. Cosgriff, you didn't have to come in. Today was supposed to be a telemedicine call, since it's only a follow up on the tests you had. But since you're here the Doctor will see you."
Well, nuts. Yet the real exasperation is that for all the organization involved, all the automatic prompts and encouragements, no one caught that it was supposed to be a telephone appointment (the hematologist was simply going to call me with the results) until I was all the way to the receptionist's desk at hematology. I wasn't even required, technically, to register for it. The Doc was just going to call me and that was all.
No one caught it. That doesn't exactly give me confidence in the system.
I resist click bait, if for no other reason than that it wastes time. But occasionally I go for it, and then immediately remember why I avoid it. Clickbait wastes time and is often plain wrong.
This morning I clicked on The Most Beautiful Unknown Small Towns in Michigan which Michiganders don't know. The first was Saugatuck. Well, perhaps it fits. I only know it marginally, as somewhere near Lake Michigan. Second was Frankenmuth.
Oh, come on. If you're from Michigan and don't know Frankenmuth, well, you're not really from Michigan.
I didn't even bother checking the rest of the list. Just avoid clickbait folks.
We. as individuals and within our various groups, need to self police. We need to examine what we say and do and to explain, expand upon, and apologize as necessary for our words and deeds. And we cannot be afraid to censure our friends when they cross a line. Perhaps especially so then. President Trump merits censure by tweeting he was glad Robert Mueller had died.
We should never, ever, under any circumstances revel in a person's death. What they need at that time are prayers, charity, consideration for their souls, and concern for the suffering of their families left behind. Stating we're glad they're dead is never justifiable.
I don't care that our opponents have acted similarly. The defense that it's just Trump being Trump is a dodge. It does not matter that our adversaries will, and they will, use our necessary self reflection against us. We are called to love everyone. That means wanting the good for them. That means prayers and charity upon death. Even before that, quite frankly, but particularly then. Full stop.
The President saying that he's happy a fellow human being has died is disgusting, reprehensible, and indefensible. We must say it. Out loud. And no matter what.
In today's Gospel in the Catholic lectionary, we hear the story of Lazarus raised from the dead. Lazarus was the brother of Martha and Mary, and Christ was personally close to them.
While two days away preaching Christ was informed that Lazarus was very ill. By the time he reached Bethany where the three friends lived, Lazarus had been dead four days. As Christ approached the tomb, He wept.
That's rather peculiar, isn't it? In the moments before Our Lord was to pray to His Father for help, He wept. He was soon to command, "Lazarus, come out!" surely knowing he would, yet Jesus cried. But why should He?
Because he understood the evil of death better than we can. Christ understood it on a deeper, more profound level. He became man precisely to do that, to take on fully what it means to be human and to atone for evils such as death. He would eventually die for that, hung from a tree as the Apostles would say, to make a better life possible for you and me.
That's love. That's why we need to accept as our Savior, Christ Jesus.
I get it. You get it. We all get it. The Internet follows us around.
You order one thing - one thing - and the Internet thinks you need hundreds of it. Thousands.
Yesterday I ordered a 23557 Clutch Casting for a Ridgid K-1500 mainline drain cleaning machine. I haven't needed one in years. The one I'm getting may be the only one I need for the next four or five. Yet the first thing which came up this morning on not one but two websites I frequent were ads for that part.
What particularly annoys me is not only the general uselessness of the ads, but that they didn't encourage me to buy another for purely economic reasons. Each happily informed me that I could get AN AUTHENTIC RIDGID 23557 CLUTCH CASTING FOR ONLY $173.99! But hell, the one I actually ordered was forty bucks less. If I need another anytime soon I'm going back to those guys.
But to give you, yes, YOU, the chance to satisfy your curiosity as to what I'm talking about and be smothered in ads for such a part, click here. Yes, it's for the more expensive one. I'm not telling you all my secrets. You'll buy the cheaper one and then overcharge me.
I have too much of a lazy streak, and I'm perfectly aware of it. Still, there are times where the cleaning bug hits. Or, more truthfully, forces my hand.
It's been incredibly busy at the old barn these last few weeks. For that I am truly thankful; it means the bills get paid and there's some left over to save and squander. I'm better at the latter than the former, although I am improving at putting money back, and even at avoiding impulse buys. At Meijer the other day I actually returned a baseball magazine to the shelf. Why read projections for the upcoming season which will almost certainly be wrong when I can read tons of baseball articles online, if not for free at least already paid for through internet and cell phone fees.
But I digress.
As a consequence of the flush of work (heh, heh, flush, from a guy who sells drain snakes) the Shop has gotten very crowded. It reached the point where I was cautiously stepping over and around machines to get to my work spaces. I often had to move two to four units to get to the one I wanted to fix, then doing it again an hour later on the next repair. That won't do for the long haul. So I spent Saturday and Sunday organizing.
I did a good job of it too, if I may say so myself. I created easy access to my tools and my main work areas. I could by the end of Sunday afternoon actually walk into what goes for my office and readily get to the shelves at the back of it, where I stock small parts and cutters. There were - try to wrap your head around this - aisles I could walk through from the front to the back of the old barn. It was still crowded. But getting from A to B was doable without risking accidental death or disfigurement.
Monday morning when I opened, around six AM to hit the work week running, the Shop was dark. I kill the lights at night, you see. As I reached into my pocket for my cell to use its flashlight function to illuminate my way to the fuse box (yes, the Shop still has fuses) I thought, "Marty, you don't need to do that. You created a path!" So I boldly went forth with no fear, not a care in the world...and knocked the wind out of me, striding smack into the handle of a drain machine which stuck out into the aisle. I sucker punched myself in the gut. Pride goeth before the fall indeed.
I typically avoid politics. Honestly ... I haven't watched the news in three years. I don't even know why I chose this book. But I'm glad I did. The characters were believable, and the discussions thought-provoking, pensive and entertaining. I could see a TV series in the future. Write-on Charles.
Well, thank you Rick on Amazon. I am very pleased with your review of my book David Gideon. It isn't really supposed to be about politics but, rather, David becoming President is merely the hook. On that basis, it does offer a forum for raising questions and having discussions about this issue or that, whether within the circle of family and friends or in the larger society. I don't want readers to get hung up on his Presidency. I want them to see the man, and the woman behind him. David may not be the actual hero, you know.
Write-on Charles. I like that turn of phrase. And a TV show? Well, I hadn't given it that much thought. But man, what a compliment!
A fella is naturally apprehensive in putting his writing out for public consumption. I mean, this blog, The Sublime to the Ridiculous, is exactly that. Just froth by and large. To put the kind of effort I've put into my books and have folks rave about them like Rick, wow. A guy feels as though he can write well enough, but it's the readers who actually can tell him whether he in fact does. I feel good reading such reviews. It really does make one feel humble too, if it isn't too bizarre to be humble and ecstatic at the same time.
The characters are believable and the story is entertaining. Thought provoking and pensive. To hear that from a man I'll never know, wow. Just wow.
And after all that attempt at humility, now I've got to be a shill for the book: David Gideon
Thanks for reading this, and thank you for all the support and encouragement you've given me.
Fenway Park features a 37 foot wall in left field. It is painted green. As such, for years Red Sox fans have affectionately referred to it as the Green Monster. Are you with me so far? Good.
Anyway, sports teams tend to have mascots, and Boston is no different. Traipsing around the stands and on the field during the pre-game and between innings and what not was a costumed, human sized figure in a Red Sox uniform. He looked like a full sized Elmo or Cookie Monster, the Sesame Street characters. But rather than red or blue, he was made of up green shag carpet. And I could not figure out who or what he was supposed to be.
Until about the fourth inning, when it finally dawned on me. He was the Green Monster.
At times I really need things explained to me. At least it gave me green to wear on St. Patrick's Day though.
When me Grandpa Joe was young a trip into town was still an event. It was horse and buggy days in west central Illinois where he was raised, so hitching up the wagon was enough of a chore that you only did it for serious shopping excursions for serious business.
One such seriousness involved candy. Great Grandma Mary would, among her other and arguably more important purchases, buy candy for her kids as a treat. Her youngest, me Grandpa Joe, remembered those gifts fondly. Yet one aspect of it confused the then young boy.
Once home, his mother would offer the candy to everyone. The six children would take their share with delight. Great Grandpa James would, however, always decline the chance to delve into the sugary treats. Grandpa Joe recalled that he would think, "What's the matter with that old man, not taking candy?"
I think most of us thought that way as kids under such circumstances.
When me Pops was trying to get his drain snake repair business off the ground he was willing to go above and beyond the call of duty, to show customers he was serious and, hopefully, have good word spread around fishing for more. But you better not have taken advantage of that.
One former customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, called around 8:30 on a Saturday night asking if Dad could meet him at 8 Sunday morning for a machine repair. Pops reluctantly said yes. As I said, he was trying to get set up and wanted to show goodwill and effort.
Dad was at the old barn at 7:45. Cloyce wasn't there at 8.
Or 8:15.
Or 8:30.
When he still wasn't there by 8:45 Dad went home. At the time he liked to go to 9:30 Sunday Mass at old St. Dominic and needed time to get ready.
At 9 there was a loud knocking at the front door of the house. It was Cloyce, demanding, "Where you been Bill? I been waiting at your Shop for an hour!"
Now, me Pops was generally mild mannered. But Cloyce went and said the wrong thing to the wrong man at the wrong time. The old man let him have it.
And now you know why I said former customer a few lines back.
A fella appreciates honesty. It can renew faith in humanity.
It was a zoo yesterday at the old barn. It was particularly hectic between around 10 until Noon, where literally one customer after another (and three at a time twice) waited, all of them patiently to their credit, for service. I haven't had a run of business like that in quite a long while.
One customer returned 15 minutes or so after I had done a quick fix on his snake. My first thought was a lament: "What's wrong? Did I not do the job right? Rats. I don't need this right now."
But that wasn't it. "Hey Cosgriff! I forgot to pay you," he said upon opening the Shop door.
I didn't realize he hadn't. It completely slipped my mind. Things were so hectic that as soon as I finished his job I had simply thanked him, and he me, and left without either of us thinking about the money aspect. All was totally incidental on both of us.
I would likely had never given it a second thought. I'd have assumed he paid. He's a long time customer and completely trustworthy, as he proved by returning.
Work was a mess yesterday. Yet that one bright spot made it all worthwhile.
Yesterday I did something I've never done before. I let rain stop me from driving. Well, more specifically, I allowed a little voice to convince me that I should stop.
I was on my way home from a short road trip and could see the ominous clouds grow on the horizon. They meant business. Between they and I was a travel center. Pull into that truck stop, the voice said. Wait out the rain.
So I did as told. There was an IHOP, so breakfast called as well. Right as a country omelet was placed before me it commenced to pour outside, the proverbial sheets. Most likely flannel, the rain was so heavy. I ate, and knew that I had also avoided a terrible fate, or at least bad trouble.
How could I know that? How do you prove a negative? Nothing bad happened, really by definition. I was safe, fat, and happy watching the rain from my booth.
I knew because the cautionary voice told me. It pays to listen.
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.
March 8, 1987, was an unusually warm late winter Sunday here in Detroit. It hit 75 that day, and that may still be the record. I was with my son Frank, who was about 14 months old then. I don't remember at all where my wife and oldest son were, only that Frank and I were home alone most of the day.
My son and I ate hot dogs for lunch and went to a school park a block away. I held him in my lap and we swung gently on a swing; a couple times I put him snugly in the kids' size swing and pushed him a little less gently but never too hard. We climbed atop the small slide and slid down several times. Often Frank simply toddled around as I followed, picking up this or that for intense study before dropping it when interest waned.
The sun shone bright and, as I said, it was warm. And I've always remembered it as a nice day yet on a very deep level. If there's such a thing as sublimity, I learned it on March 8, 1987.
Last week I had to rent a van for a trip to Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs) because of the amount of product I was getting. My new old van is good and reliable but would have surely buckled under the weight of what I was picking up. So it was to U-Haul I did go.
For whatever reason, the clock in the rental van was one hour and twenty eight minutes behind. Yep, 1:28 behind. Why that odd number, I don't know. But it bugged me enough that I had to try to set it straight.
At my stop for coffee around 3 AM, before returning to the highway, I proceeded to punch various buttons in various orders trying to find where to reset the clock. Lo and behold, the method paid off: I was able to set the clock to the right time. Thank you, thank you very much.
Yet the key thing is I didn't do any damage. I don't believe so anyway. Well, there was an explosion somewhere after I hit one of the buttons. But it was faint and far away - you could barely see the flash - so I don't think that was me.
So I figured out how to reset the van clock. Just don't ask me to do it again.
I don't think you need to know a lot about drain snake cables to understand this tale.
Back in the 60s and 70s there was this one plumber, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who was as the parlance says, so tight he squeeked. He had the first dollar he ever made. He'd squeeze a penny so hard Lincoln would yell. You get the picture.
One day old Cloyce came into the Shop to have me Pops repair his cable, which had broken. Again. When a snake cable breaks you can use a threaded metal piece called a splice to fix the break. In this particular case the cable was broken less than 18 inches from the end. Typically in such instances Pops would put on an end fitting rather than a splice, as splices too close to a cable end can cause problems. Trust me on that.
So the old man says to Cloyce, "I'll just put an end fitting on."
Cloyce was aghast. He was almost panic stricken at the thought. "Oh, no, Bill, splice it. I can't lose any length; that's my good cable.
Me Pops looked over the snake. He counted 18 splices in Cloyce's 'good' cable. The thing needed to be replaced, but Cloyce was too tight for that. So Dad spliced it and charged accordingly.
The fact was that with what he had paid for over 18 splices (well, 19) he could have more than paid for a new cable. Probably two, honestly. Yet that's simply not how old Cloyce thought. He was a forest for the trees sort of guy.
It happened again last night at curling. I had an old friend come up to say, "I heard that laugh, and I immediately thought, Marty's here!" Yes, with the exclamation point.
Remember last week? I had virtually the same thing happen, as I wrote here . While it's good to be known for something, I have to admit stuff like this makes a guy just a bit self conscious and vaguely paranoid. 'Someone told a joke, and I laughed. Was it that laugh?'
"And you do have a distinct voice," my buddy Nick tells me. Yeah, distinct. I've been told I have a future with the Cartoon Network. Seriously. Right on TV, on a baseball pregame show: Tiger Pregame
Oh, I'm not going to stop. If it's that much a part of my personality, that ingrained after all these years, I probably couldn't if I wanted to. And it is good to be remembered. It leaves me interested for what may happen next Thursday..
Let's not have a sniffle, Let's have a bloody good cry, And always remember the longer you live, the sooner you'll bloody well die.
As I listen to Irish music while St. Patrick's Day approaches I'm struck by its piety, its spark, its sentimentality, and its vague fist raised at solemn things like, oh, death.
The above chorus is from Isn't It Grand, Boys, a traditional Irish ditty. Its most famous version is courtesy of The Clancy Brothers, and sort of either mocks, dares, or is matter of fact about death and dying. I love it. It's very, well, Irish. Here it is, folks, the song says. It is what it is.
And it makes me proud of me Irish heritage. I love this time of year.
I remembered I was running low on coffee pods at the old barn when I happened to be at a Dollar General, which was fortuitous as they can be difficult to find. I happened to discover they sold coffee pods, so I happened to buy some. As they happened to be on sale, I happened to buy several boxes.
As it happened, one flavor I chose was 'donut shop blend'. But they didn't happen to say which donut shop. Yet as there happens to be this thing called the Internet where all of human knowledge appears to be kept in storage, most of it in very deep storage unless you happen to like cat videos or morally questionable entertainment, I decided to find out which donut shop blend Dollar General's happened to be.
It happens to be from Fred and Mary's donut shop and troll doll emporium in South Witchita, Kansas. Closed Mondays. You're welcome.
While grading a short essay for an Economics course, the student was asked the difference between stocks and bonds. In an obvious yet hilarious cut and paste off the Internet (a practice we frowned upon of course and graded accordingly), the answer began: "Stocks were medieval devices of public humiliation and torture." It went on to explain, in some, ah, fascinating detail, the exact nature of certain forms of torture. Reading this challenged my attempts to stay calm and professional, to not laugh out loud at my desk in a room full of students. I had no trouble keeping control until the last sentence: "Bonds are government issued interest bearing securities."
Well, the student was half right in his answer, and I was able to keep my professional wits. Barely.
On another occasion, I had an English assignment to grade. With that one, I did go on to completely lose my composure in peals of laughter which I tried valiantly to hide but to no avail. I had to leave the room for ten minutes initially, hiding in an empty teacher's lounge while leaving the other instructor (there were two of us at all times in our teaching arrangement) to lament my having abandoned him. Luckily it was a slow night.
The assignment was to make comparisons in the form of analogies. The first prompt read: "Tom's car was old." Expected responses were along the lines of, 'Tom's car was older than baseball.' Instead I was treated to, "Tom's car was older than a dead frog."
I was okay at first; I stifled my giggles, although it took it a few seconds of tongue biting to maintain myself. But I was good.
The next prompt was, 'Abby was hungry.' Harmless enough. Until I read the student's offering.
"Abby was very hungry, like a sad clown who had fell off his bike."
I immediately roared uncontrollably. Shawn, the other teacher, asked what was up. Giving him the paper I replied between guffaws, "Read the first two sentences and I'll be back in a few minutes."
On my return, finally beyond any wild laughter, the first thing Shawn said was, "I can see why you didn't give credit for the first analogy. The frog may not have been dead that long."
I returned after another twenty minutes. Good times.
I was able to start this week as so many people wish they could: an early Monday dentist appointment. Don't harbor any ill will towards me. Jealousy is so ugly.
It was simply to have my teeth cleaned, though. No needles or extractions or anything uncomfortable. Indeed the dental hygienist complimented me when the procedure was about halfway finished. "Are you doing okay, Mr. Cosgriff?"
"Mphh uhhh hmm uh huh," I answered. I mean, she had a small mirror, a pick of some sort, a water jet and a water vacuum in my mouth.
"Good, good," she responded. And then, as if to reassure me, "And you're not bleeding at all."
That was good news, considering that I had no expectations of bloodshed from a mere cleaning. But I made it a point to be a particularly cooperative patient after that.
Most of us are familiar with the parable of the Prodigal Son. I was introduced to it in a new way through the book Death on a Friday Afternoon. It struck me deep, and that at the risk of understatement quite frankly.
We know that the father saw the returning, humbled, repentant son and ran out to greet him while he was still far off. But did the father just happen to see the young man returning that day? Did he notice him as he passed an open window or while he toiled in his fields? No; he didn't stumble upon his son's return. He spent day after day standing on the portico of his home, scanning the horizon for the lad's return, hoping, wishing, pining for his son's safe and soon coming back home. It wasn't an accident. The father actively sought his progeny.
Then he ran - ran - out to greet him. Dad didn't sit on a throne and demand the son slink all the way back to him, prostrate and ashamed (although the boy was surely properly ashamed) and beg for forgiveness (although the young man, properly as well, expected he should do that). The father saw his son, perhaps as a spot on the horizon which gradually took human, family form, and, recognizing him after all that time, ran out to him.
So God the Father will do for us. He won't demand you inch forward and beg. When he sees your repentance, He will run to you in welcome. Such is His love for us. He will look past all the terrible things we've done and throw His arms around us. We will have been found by the One who constantly scans the horizon for all of His lost sheep.
Technology. It allows us to do many things quickly and efficiently. Still, I have trust issues with it. Or, rather, technology has given me trust issues with, uh, me.
At one time I would add up a list of numbers all on my own. No help from a calculator was necessary. Years ago a customer might come into the Shop and want 6, 7, 10 items, and I'd write out an invoice, add it all up, multiply the total for the sales tax, and Bob's yer uncle, land on a figure which I completely trusted. I completely trusted it because I could do basic math.
In my defense, I still can. Yet now that we have calculators everywhere, even on our cell phones, I have to pull the program up and do the math, well, I suppose mechanically. Hell, if it's one cutting tool I still get out the calculator to multiply the price by .06 for the tax.
I can still do the math. I'm still pretty good at it too. But I no longer trust me. I fear the mistake which might cost me or the customer money. Thanks, technology.
Those familiar with the Big Bang Theory television show know that Sheldon has his place to sit in the apartment he shares with a roommate. If someone is in it he glares and says, "That's my spot," expecting them to vacate.
I always park my new old van on Forest Avenue alongside my house. It's directly under a streetlamp and right in line with the window on the staircase landing between the foyer and the second floor hall. I can walk out of the bedroom and look directly down the steps and see my van parked safely under the glow of the LED lights installed awhile back.
Then came last night. Or, more correctly, very early this morning. As I returned from a curling match (a 7-6 win on something of a gift, an errant shot from the opposing skip, but I take what I can get) just after midnight, ready to leave the new old van safely under the window, I was shocked to see a white sport ute parked there. "That's my spot!" I actually exclaimed aloud.
Of course it's not 'my' spot. It's a public thoroughfare. Anyone can park there and I know it. But they don't. In fact, this guy could have parked anywhere twenty or thirty feet beyond where I do, as no one else was on the street. Yet there it was, smack dab where I typically park. Right where few if any others have before.
It caused a moment of panic when I was leaving for work today. As is my habit, I looked right down the stairs and my dear new old van was not there. It was a blank space as sport ute had moved overnight. "Why isn't my van in my spot?" I immediately worried. With a curse. New old van was actually in front on Avery, in unfamiliar territory.
So it goes. But some days I really get Sheldon.
Wow. Just, wow. We live in a world which increasingly believes that there's nothing worth living for.
An otherwise healthy Dutch woman will die by assisted suicide because of the depression she suffers. Here's a New York Post article on the issue.
One in five Dutch now die by assisted suicide. Giving up seems to be the new form of honor in Holland. Their medical community is more than willing to help. In fact, they want euthanasia readily available for everyone over 75. It saves money on government health care. Yes, that's a snarky comment. But it's becoming the bottom line. Ask Canadians about MAID, Medical Assistance In Dying.
I am in no way, shape, or form saying that we shouldn't empathize with anyone suffering from any mental or physical illness. Of course we should. Yet part of that also surely means trying to help people see the inherent value of their lives no matter what their exact condition may be.
Instead, we stroke their hand and gently affirm: well, sure, if that's what you want. It began as saying that to the seriously, physically ill. Now we say it to otherwise healthy young women. It's easier on the doctors and the bill payers that way. We can't help her (a questionable thought on its own) so let's kill her. It gets a case off the books.
And, slowly but certainly, the right to die becomes an obligation to die. It's best for you. It's best for all of us.
Wow. Just, wow.
Northwestern Highway is a road which runs at a northwesterly angle away from Detroit. How urban planners determine road names is amazing.
Several years ago me Uncle John who me Pops called Zeke had a bad day on that road.
He was bringing one of me Grandpa Joe's welding machines back from a job, towing it behind a car. As he pulled away from a traffic light, he felt the sudden jump of his vehicle losing weight. It had indeed lost weight: the machine he was towing had slid off its trailer and was sitting serenely blocking the right lane on Northwestern. All 2,000 pounds of it just sat there, quietly unconcerned with the world around it, just not caring one blip about the trouble it had caused.
Unbeknownst to anyone, the bolts which held the welder to its trailer had weakened and broke. Yet all was well...several hours later, after involving a crane, many police officers, an uncountable number of irate commuters, and an Uncle John happy to actually get home before dark. It could have been worse, I suppose, but it was not a good day.
One day my Uncle John was towing one of them back to grandpa's shop. He had just noticed a vibration when his pickup ground to a halt. A wheel bearing had gone bad and a tire came off the axle of the welder. This made the machine drop to one side and act as an anchor, which stopped the truck quickly and suddenly. Uncle John looked in the rear view mirror, helplessly watching the disconnected tire bounce across 4 lanes of traffic until it slammed against a parked car, severely damaging it. He knew he would have to go find the owner and do what he could to get the guy's car fixed.
About then the owner ran from his house waving his arms and vigorously exercising his vocal cords, obviously and understandably upset at the incident. But all Zeke could think was, "You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel."
Good, huh?
It's a disappointing thing to talk about.
Charges of cheating were all over the curling world during the recent Winter Olympics. And, I will say, it began to sound a lot like a political discussion. He cheated! I didn't! Followed by a litany of yes he did and here's why along with no he didn't and here's why. At the end of the day I don't know whether he did or not. I could not find a definite answer, quite honestly, because every he did-he didn't seemed to have at least some justification.
Now there's talk about hiring and training curling umpires. All over a sport which has always taken pride in self policing.
I don't like it. It mars a game I've always loved. Yet it's not the game it was thirty years ago, at least at the highest levels. It's more than the honor system of calling your own violations by the way. At one point anyone could put a team into world and Olympic playdowns to potentially represent your country on those large stages. Now you have to be pretty much a professional curler to qualify. They've even changed the rules to support that. What's the difference between now and then?
Money. Curling is a money game now. Money changes things.
That isn't necessarily bad. Nor is it necessarily good. Yet it's happened, and curling will never be the same. The Milan Olympics have pretty much set that in concrete.
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.
I've long held to the standard that you aren't the best judge of your self, your motives, or your actions. You're either too harsh - especially if you're Catholic, ha, ha - or too lenient. Indeed I will editorialize for a moment and say that unfettered leniency is the hallmark of the secular world, and look where that's gotten us. Still, know thyself, the unexamined life is not worth living, and all that. You should examine the things you've said and done, and probably more the things you've said as they might be the best window into your soul. And when you're trying to establish yourself as a writer, you discover very quickly that you've put a lot on the public record.
On the whole I like what I've written. Yet that doesn't mean I don't appreciate reasonable criticism. With five books available on various platforms and with each having garnered anywhere from 40 to 180 reviews, some brief, some extensive, I almost - almost - find the critical ones the most fair.
A more routine negative comment is that my writing is at times a slog. I could get angry, except that it's true. Sometimes I'm just bridging a gap because I couldn't figure out how else to jump from A to B and it shows.
I've been advised that it can be hard to stay interested in my stories, and I know that to be true. My personal favorite book of mine is A Subtle Armageddon. Yet even I must concede that it drags at points. I think that story has to drag a bit, given the parameters inherent within the tale, but so it goes.
Ah well. Before I go on too long (quiet, Ron) here's what I'm about today: links to my books. Buy them. If you are into examining your motives, you'll find that you've occasionally spent your time less wisely than in helping an aspiring author rise among the greats. Yes, that's cheeky. We writers can do that.
The Interim Generation (Kindle only)
The Sublime to the Ridiculous - Family Lore (Kindle only)
I spoke yesterday about picking up drain snakes from Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs) this past Tuesday. As it were, me Grandpa Joe picked up parts for Dad a time or two. Once in particular led to a bit of honest concern.
You think I drive rattletraps? Those who know Joe know I don't hold a candle to him on that count. That old man drove a few vehicles which should never have been on the streets. He took one one day, towing a trailer behind it, to Electric Eel to get some stuff. I don't remember which one it was. But it made an impression, a decidedly negative one, on Dick Hale, the owner of Eel at the time.
Mr. Hale was no stranger to risk and no coward, being a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. But when he saw what Joe was piloting, Mr. Hale was sincerely worried about Grandpa's safety. So much so that he called me Pops later in the day to be sure Joe made it home all right.
Dad thought it was funny. Joe just said, "Aw hell."
We, me brother Phil and I, had a huge amount of drain snakes and accessories to pick up at Electric Eel (Electric Eel: for all your drain cleaning needs) yesterday. It was so big that about halfway through the loading process I began to think about what I could afford to leave behind for a later, return trip. I wasn't sure we could pack it all in the cargo van we had rented for the purpose. Then I thought, "Dad could do it. Dad would be able to figure out had to load everything."
From that point forward, that van was getting every single part of my order on board. It was going to happen. No doubt about it.
We began studying the problems involved in what had become the jigsaw puzzle within the cargo space of the van. A rearrangement here, a couple of small boxes slotted into tiny spots, a reminder that what had to come out first had to be left by the back doors, slide a few things behind seats, and plain old stubbornness led to - ta da! - getting that entire order on board for the remainder of the trip, to Indianapolis and Detroit respectively.
Dad could do it. In fact, Dad did.
I don't whether I'm going for incredulity or curmudgeonly with this one. We'll all see as I hammer onto my keyboard.
Yesterday I sold some cables to a perfectly nice young man. I'd say he was 25 or so. He's been to the Shop before, and always calls me sir or Mr. Cosgriff. He never argues price, simply buying what he needs. The guy never gives me grief about cost or service.
Yet he plays his music loud from his work van and leaves it on all the time he's in the old barn. The lyrics are always vile and disgusting and blasting right in front of my place of business. Interestingly too his dog is aways with him, a tiny lap dog of some kind, smaller than a chihuahua. He lets it run all around the Shop barking and yapping. It's never really in the way; indeed it's nice enough to me. Yet it's highly incongruent to the music. That, and the fact that the customer is himself huge, hulking over the toy dog.
That's admittedly unimportant. To the other stuff, I doubt I ever will but part of me wants to say to this young man, "You're so nice and considerate. Why do you listen to that terrible music and blast it out for the whole neighborhood to hear? You're better than that."
I genuinely like him. He was buying cables because he'd lost all of his in a broken sewer. I honestly felt bad for him when he told me that. I mean, yes, I make money selling drain snake cables. Yet that doesn't mean I revel in someone's ill fortune.
Still, the loud, terrible music. I simply have trouble understanding how the two things fit together: nice and considerate all around except for that. It's just beyond me.
Did you know that Mr. Magoo is a graduate of Rutgers University? Indeed he is. Class of 1928.
Bugs Bunny is an American Grey Rabbit by species.
Similarly, Daffy Duck is an American Black Duck.
But Porky Pig is simply a domestic pig.
Woody Woodpecker is a pileated woodpecker. I don't know what that means either.
Tom from Tom and Jerry is a domestic shorthair cat. Jerry is simply a pest. But man, he can dance. Ask Gene Kelly.
Would you like to know more? Well, not today from me. This is as far as I got in my research.
I, as so many elderly, am a weather wonk. I look up whether it's going to be raining, snowing, or sunny on March 10 even as I know there's no way that, when March 10 actually arrives, the current forecast will hold. But I check it anyway.
This morning for Detroit I was informed we'd have freezing fog, whatever that is. And I mean whatever that is, because I never heard the term before. So I looked it up.
It's fog which freezes when it touches cold surfaces.
You know, I kinda imagined something more dramatic.
I found myself in line yesterday at a Dollar General behind a woman with a full shopping cart, and there was only one cash register open. I knew this would delay me, but so it goes. She got there first and that's that.
That didn't annoy me so much, really. What annoyed me was when she began placing her items before the cashier for scanning. "I want to stop at $30," the shopper told the young woman.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You filled your shopping cart as you browsed about the store, obviously speeding past the amount you could afford. You couldn't have kept a basic running count as you put things into the basket? You couldn't decide before you were at the checkout what items you wanted?
It was rude and inconsiderate. The thing is, though, I ended up feeling kind of sorry for the woman. Judging by her speech and actions, I'm not sure how responsible for herself she really was. I was left with the impression that she honestly didn't understand the totality of what she was doing.
It left me unsure what to think. I believe we make a mistake to completely absolve folks of such behavior lest personal responsibility be thrown overboard. Yet I don't know hiw accountable such people can be. Demanding too much when they perhaps can't help themselves may be too strident. Yet expecting nothing at all of them seems to me an affront to their dignity on another level. It amounts to pandering, to treating them as beyond hope of becoming better people.
I'm just thinking out loud here. But they're thoughts I do think we do need to think.
Whenever me Grandpa Joe would scrap out a fried arc welder he would toss the stripped copper into a 55 gallon drum. When the drum was filled, it was me Pops' job from early on to take it to the scrap yard.
The scrap yard they frequented was owned by an old gentleman. When Dad would go to put the drum on the scale the old man would ask him, "Young man, is that copper from the top all the way to the bottom?" He would motion with an upward pointer at the beginning, turning it down until he was pointing at the floor when he finished his question.
"Yes, sir," me Pops would always answer. He would add, "I can dump it onto the floor to show you."
Holding the palm of his right hand up as though to stop Dad in his tracks the man would reply, "Your word is enough."
This happened every time, me Pops often related, that he took copper out to scrap. "Young man, is that copper from the top all the way to the bottom?" "Your word is enough."
Dad wondered if perhaps it was some form of ritual, simple habit, or the owner's way of letting you know that he trusted you while being sure of what he was getting. Or maybe he simply believed in believing in people.
Well, a man's word should be his bond, right?
I visited my doctor yesterday for a routine checkup. All right, visited may not be quite the right word. It's isn't like we threw steaks on the grill and hoisted a few, you know.
"You haven't had a tetanus shot in awhile. Let's get a tetanus shot," the Doc told me.
He talks like that when he thinks I need something, but he never joins me. 'Let's see a cardiologist' or 'Let's go get four quarts of blood drawn' or 'Let's get bonked on the head with a mallet' he'll say. Yet it's always only me.
I didn't mind so much until the mallet thing.
We've had odd ways of being paid at the Shop. One invoice was settled in all ten dollar bills. Another involved $1890 in singles. One fella paid me Pops in two dollar bills all the time, every time. But we were never paid in quarters until yesterday.
This particular client, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, has been a royal pest, a total nuisance, for as long as I can remember. He became so bad we threw him out about thirty years ago with a vow to never do business with him again. We eventually relented. No good deed...
Anyhow, he owed me a hundred fifty bucks for a cable installation. "I only got quarters, Marty. Can I pay you in quarters?" Sure, fine, anything to get Cloyce out of my hair, at least for the moment.
He came in an hour later with the change in a bag. Unrolled. "There's only a hundred, Marty, I'm sorry, but I need my machine. Can I bring you back fifty?" Yes, all right, fine. Just get out of here.
When I got home last night I decided to go ahead and roll the quarters. There was $89.80. Not only was Cloyce short, one of his 'quarters' was a nickel.
So you know what? I'm retiring, effective immediately. For Cloyce only. I even edited my phone so that his number will come up Cloyce I'm retired. He better enjoy that machine, because from where I sit this morning I will never work on his stuff again.
Doesn't he owe you $60.20, Marty? Indeed he does. But I'm certain he'll forget about it and will argue he paid in full when he tries to come back again, and to be rid of him for sixty bucks in this day and age is a bargain, a price I'll pay without thinking twice. I shouldn't have ever allowed him back in the door in the first place.
Please tell me this has happened to you. Please tell me I'm not the only one.
I needed a distributor tube to finish a snake repair. Don't worry about what it is, just trust me it's essential and that I had to have it. When I began fixing the drain machine it came from I had set the thing aside for when I could reassemble said snake.
Saturday I was all ready to finish that repair. I could not find that tube anywhere. Ninety minutes of searching came up with zilch, zero, nada. Finally surrendering to the omnipotent forces of drain snake repair I decided to leave it to Monday. Well, after I tripped over some junk which should not have been there to trip over and skinned up my left knee pretty bad. But that story is for another day. You've done that too I'm sure.
I opened the old barn at 6:30 this morning to put out an APB on that distributor tube. May as well start early, I figured, because if I don't find it by 8 I'll just have to go to the parts house and get a replacement on my dime. Right is right, eh?
The first place I looked was the top drawer on my work bench. But it's not there. It cannot possibly be there. That's the first place I looked on Saturday.
It was there.
How in the name of all that is good and holy could I have overlooked it? It wasn't hidden, wasn't buried under the flotsam and jetsam which hides so much in the Shop. It. Was. Right. There.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who's done that. Please.
I get a ton of email. Of course, I have four active accounts. That undoubtedly uh, accounts for much of it. But if I were to guess, I'd say between them all there's around 100 or so new emails each day.
They're nearly all junk. I get messages from websites that I likely had a vague interest in yet they pester me as though their business depends on mine. Many of them are book promotion entrepreneurs, all of whom assure me I'll have the next Amazon best seller with a blockbuster movie deal if I simply give them mucho dinero. A lot are for senior products, unsurprising given my age. Many are from companies I dealt with once yet can't let go of the hope I'll buy from them again one day. The sales firm where I bought one heater for the old barn in 2017 comes to mind.
About the only email box which rarely explodes of a morning is my business one, which I guard closely exactly because of that. I don't want to neglect a client or prospect merely because they get buried in numbers.
But there is a point to which I'm happy it's all emails. I'd be swimming in paper if it were all traditional snail mail. The vast majority of email solicitations I can simply delete. I could build a funeral pyre if it were all print copies of nonsense. All that would make is a great send off one day.
I had a doctor's appointment yesterday. Well, at least I thought I did.
I received a text Wednesday reminding me to be at the doctor's office at 8 AM Friday. Try as I may, I couldn't find the paperwork for it; I typically get a sheet telling me who I'm seeing, what's to happen, what to bring, and so on. So, okay, I must have lost it. I resolved to be at the Detroit Medical Center Friday morning.
Having been informed through the text to arrive twenty minutes early, I walked into the lobby at about 7:35. I was told by security, "You can't go up to registration (which was on the second floor) until 7:45." That makes it kind of hard to be 20 minutes early for an 8 o'clock appointment, but so it goes.
Allowed upstairs promptly at 7:45, I was called by a clerk to her workstation. I presented my driver's license as I.D. Typing into her computer the woman remarked, "Um, you just had a sonogram of your heart January 9, Mr. Cosgriff."
"Yeah, I know that," I replied.
"This says you have one scheduled today. I can't imagine why." She paused. "Maybe I should check before processing your appointment."
A few minutes later she returned. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Cosgriff. We scheduled this appointment inadvertently. Your sonogram was great and you don't need another." She paused again. "The med tech said she called and left you a message about it."
"Oh, I must have missed it, I suppose." I took my cell from my coat pocket, where I had left it on silent to not disturb anyone during registration or while seeing the doctor. Pulling up the call log I noted that the med tech had indeed left a voicemail. At 7:46 that very morning.
Why even bother by that, uh, time? You're calling me at that late point to tell me I don't have to show? Where do you think I'd be fourteen minutes before an appointment that I was expected to arrive twenty minutes ahead of (even though I couldn't register until fifteen minutes before)? Just tell me when I get there. It's what happened anyway.
So while I had no necessary appointment, my heart had a workout just the same.
A reviewer was kind enough to say the following about my book Michael's Story:
I liked it. A lot of original thinking in here. The color coding -- although that doesn't begin to explain it -- was a unique touch. And reading the prose I didn't get the impression that it was written by a machine. Recommended.
A lot of original thinking? I'm really not sure that's the case, but thank you. It doesn't seem to be written by a machine; I must say I'm very glad to hear that! Charlie Gehringer was Detroit's true Mechanical Man, not I. Recommended; thanks again! Yet perhaps the most interesting observation this reviewer had, and I cut it from the actual review so as to hold it back for effect, "The book is like Al Pacino: short but intense." An interesting quip, I must say.
Is Michael's Story actually like Pacino? Find out here for Kindle or here for print copies.
I had to be out early the other morning (you know, the other morning), so I went the drive through route for a quick breakfast. My change was to be $7.30 after I gave the attendant a twenty. "I don't have any pennies. Is that okay?"
"Fine," I replied. I don't why she felt she had to tell me that, though, seeing as the quarter and nickel she handed me for the thirty cents literally, uh, foot the bill for my change.
She probably has gotten used to telling that to most everyone I'm sure. Perhaps management insists upon it. Still, the instant she apologized about the lack of cents (a pun!) I did find myself thinking, what's that to me, given the circumstances? Oh well.
My apologies, friends, but I have some kind of bug and am having trouble making myself blog. Yet I don't want you to worry, so here's my modest effort today. Hopefully there'll be more, and better, tomorrow!
I went to the Senate Theater in Detroit last night. It's an older neighborhood theater on Michigan Avenue in the southwest side, and is being rehabbed by a group of volunteers. I was simply curious to check it out, it having been around since 1926. Old architecture is always interesting.
The evening began with an organ recital on the massive instrument which originally was to accompany silent films as they ran. The music was indeed spectacular, in a carnival sort of way. That's not an insult; it was fun. But the music was a bit over the top.
Then came the feature: Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Stanley Kubrick directed. It has its moments, but, like the organ recital, was decidedly over the top.
I suppose that was part of the point. Yet I can't escape the feeling that it's the sort of movie we're supposed to like because we're supposed to like it. A 1960s bit of Hollywood telling us what to think, it seemed. I walked away thinking that Strangelove was a film with a reputation which is beyond its real value. Think Psycho. Not Hitchcock's best, but a showy piece of cinema.
Still, I think I'll go back again. They're offering Buster Keaton's silent Our Hospitality on April 11, with organ accompaniment. I've never been to a silent with the full treatment, so I figure it's worth a look.
Who knows why, really, rather obscure memories sometimes just pop into our heads?
Yesterday and without any obvious prompting I remembered buying $100,000 candy bars, now called 100 Grand, at the bookstore at the University of Detroit as a freshman 47 years ago. They were a quarter each at the time. I would buy four and savor them over the course of a day.
The memory came out of nowhere and was so strong I could damn near taste the chocolate and crisped rice. A happiness flowed over and through me which was virtually indescribable. I truly felt like I was back in the Student Union building on campus enjoying a quiet moment between classes. It was that powerful and sublime.
I wasn't in a party store and I wasn't hungry. Indeed I had no desire for a snack at all. There were no ads in the paper I had just read and the radio was not on to perhaps have set things in motion. I was sitting at my desk at the Shop waiting for a customer to arrive, sipping on a coffee. Then suddenly I was at old U of D and feeling very good about it.
It's a feeling I cannot recreate with any satisfaction even as I try to this morning. I can't come near it. But man, it was profound and powerful and I simply have no clue what triggered it.
Our furnace went to heating system Heaven last Wednesday. Oh joy oh rapture. Yet by the grace of God we could readily afford a new one, which was installed Friday.
The replaced unit had been put in by one Richard Stark back in 1991. He was a friend of me Pops and over the years had done quite a bit of heating work for us Detroit Cosgriffs. He worked on me Pops' furnace, me Grandpa Joe's boiler, and the oil burner at the old barn. Whenever I saw him he was dirty with oil and grime. I'm not sure I could recognize him clean. I guess that goes with heating work.
Mr. Stark had a very serious laugh, if that makes sense, with a genuine twinkle in his eye which indicated that he really was enjoying the joke or the moment. He would actually slap his knee when laughing. Honest. That old saying came to life with him, a real knee slapper.
I remember him slapping a knee once or twice as we talked in my basement while he installed that 1991 furnace. He charged me $1400, a far cry from the four grand the new one cost. But, inflation, yadda, yadda.
Anyway, Mr. Stark was a very nice guy, a truly friendly sort. I would also say that with 35 years behind it, his work lasted too.
I don't mind asserting that I'm old school on many things; in fact, I revel in it. Still, it can be annoying. Quiet Ron.
Although I pay most things online I do write a couple checks a month. And because I watch my banking online I don't really pay attention to check numbers anymore, nor do I keep a check register. When I write a check, I do my dead level best to keep in mind that a check for such-and-such is out there, and to allow for it when looking in on my account.
Right now there's one check from November which has still not cleared, and it's driving me insane. Again, quiet Ron.
I contacted the people two weeks ago and they assure me they have it and will be cashing it. I have no fear of anything bad happening as they are, I am certain, reputable. But doggone it, they as yet haven't actually put it in their bank.
It's little enough that it won't cause an overdraft unless I badly lose track of things. Yet it's driving me crazy waiting. Will you please, please take my money? is not something I ever thought I'd hear myself say, to anyone under any circumstances. But I will feel much better when the check clears.
I ran into an old customer at a plumbing supply yesterday. "I could tell it was you, Marty, by your distinctive laugh," he explained. I hear that often, enough to make a guy feel rather self conscious. But I guess better to be known than not.
Why was I in that plumbing store? I needed a vent for my kitchen sink drain. "Let me see if I have that exact one, Marty," the counter man was telling me when I showed him the old one. "If not, there is another that'll work, but you'll need to reconfigure the line a bit." On hearing that, I fervently, fearfully hoped he had the original type.
He did. For $5.60 I had the part required for the easy fix. I paid, and that's when Old Customer called to me from the other end of the counter.
We chit chatted a few minutes before I excused myself. "Gotta go put this aerator on my kitchen stack," I said.
Old Customer yanked both the old and new parts from my hand. "Do you know how to tell one of these is bad?" he asked.
Well, I already knew the one was bad. That's why I was there for him to hear my laugh. Yet he was bound and determined to show me just the same. "Hear that rattle?" he asked as he shook the old aerator. "That's how you know it's bad." Old Customer then shook the new part quite emphatically to demonstrate the lack of rattle.
But all I could think, in the moment of panic as he was delightfully showing me what I already knew, was, "Could you please not violently shake the one thing, the only one conveniently available, which will make my job easy?"
Fortunately, no damage was done. I simply didn't need the demonstration, as much as it pleased him to offer the service.
As I finished my can of Vernors yesterday I noticed for about the umpteenth time in my life an outline of the state of West Virginia on top of it. The symbol was next to the pull tab and after the litany of how many states have deposit laws along with what the deposit is in each. I've seen this for years and always wondered what it meant.
Fear not, dear readers! I shall not leave you hanging as I have figuratively swayed in the breeze for decades. There's a very simple explanation: it shows that the manufacturer of the beverage has paid the tax on soda pop levied by that state.
It's true! It must be, for I found it on the Internet here: West Virginia Tax
Until next time in the search for knowledge you didn't know you needed, farewell!
I voted for President Trump not once, but three times. I firmly believe it was the best thing I could do, and, indeed, would do it again under similar circumstances. But I will not go to bat for everything he says and does. That, simply, is intellectually dishonest. People make mistakes or sometimes say and do things which are perplexing if not downright indefensible. We need to be upfront and honest about that, particularly about ourselves and those we support.
Everyone needs to do it. Full stop. I'm not trying to be particularly political here, honest, but President Biden and his supporters needed to do this in recent years. They weren't very willing to speak and act honestly about COVID and were loath to allow the expression of opposing views. The folks attempting to track every move ICE makes, as does ICE itself, need to consider how they act and what they say. So does the religious, the atheist, the sports fan, the everybody. It's okay to defend someone doing something when it is in fact good. We must also be critical of the one doing ill even if we otherwise agree with him.
If this world teaches us anything it teaches us that it is far from perfect. Yet we human beings seem to want everything or nothing. Quite a few of us litmus test. We're seeking gotcha moments rather than truth when we do that.
I can support Donald Trump in securing the border while questioning just what the hell that speech at Davos was about. Democrats can call for open borders while asking themselves seriously whether Biden had mental troubles which affected his ability to be President. We ought, generally speaking anyway, to treat individual issues and actions as exactly that, and analyze them accordingly. None of that but you're guy is just as bad really helps. It is almost certainly hyperbole to assert a President is the Devil incarnate, even if it's Donald Trump. Or Joe Biden.
You can't have everything, and you must regularly question your own actions and motives. Above all you cannot demonize. That only hardens the heart of the other guy.
A friend of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, decided for whatever reason several years ago to tour Russia. He and his wife began making plans for the trip.
The travel agent suggested that it would be easier to move around even within that country if they obtained Russian passports. Cloyce never imagined that such things were available to non citizens, but on that advice he and Mrs. Cloyce applied for and were issued Russian passports.
You know how so many pictures of old Soviet leaders look as though they had just been force fed three servings of pickled herring? That's what Cloyce looked like in his Russian passport photo. Comrade Cloyce, I've called him ever since. He truly looked mean and unsavory although he's actually one of the most gregarious men I know.
Why the grim look? "Because you better not smile especially for a Russian passport picture," Cloyce explained.
There was once this good ol' boy, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who considered himself the neighborhood innovator. Some of his ideas, to be fair, were kind of clever. But most of the time all he did was jury rig. That's okay too so far as I'm concerned, if it's a decent enough adaptation.
Cloyce had an old Chevy Bel Air, I believe it was a '65, and it needed a wheel alignment. The old rattletrap drifted sharply to the left (this is not leading to a political joke I assure you) and really needed front end work. But ol' Cloyce didn't want to put that kind of money into the car. So he looked around in his garage for what was handy and found an old snow tire. He put it on the car on the left front.
That stopped the drift. His theory was that the snow tire, having deeper tread, made up for the amount of space which had been created by vehicular wear which led to the drift. Based on the results, I'm inclined to say he was right, as he drove with that winter tire for about six months before he got rid of the car.
It was a jury rig. But hey, it worked for him, and considering the types of cars I drive, who am I to argue?
The things which find their way onto my Facebook page can be interesting if sometimes trivial.
Did you that croquet was an Olympic sport? It's true. It was only once, and that was in the 1900 Paris games. All of the participants were French. And the kicker?
The event sold one ticket.
I have a feeling croquet will not find its way into any future Games. I bet they don't let Jarts in either.
Carlos Beltran has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Congrats to him. He actually has a spot of sorts in my heart, although probably for something he doesn't care to recall.
On September 27, 1999, the Detroit Tigers played their last game at old Tiger Stadium, a long gone baseball cathedral. I loved the place, and was fortunate enough to be at that final contest.
The visitors were the Kansas City Royals. The Tigers won 8-2. None other than rookie Carlos Beltran struck out in the top of the Ninth Inning for the last out ever at what Detroiters called The Corner, for the intersection of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues where the ballpark stood.
I'm happy you made the Hall, Carlos. I'm happy that you struck out that long ago day too.
Several days later I happened to be visiting in my neighbor's house; I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. Excusing myself to use his washroom, I saw a nicely refinished mahogany toilet seat. "Where did you get this, Cloyce?" I asked.
"Out of the dumpster. Isn't it cool? Someone was just throwing it out; can you believe that?" He had taken the thing, scrubbed it clean, reglued and refinished it, and put it on his commode.
I answered, "Yes I can, because it was mine. I can't believe you took something like from a dumpster!"
"It's perfectly good," he protested. But that didn't keep Cloyce from chastising me several days later when the seat had rebroken and left a blood blister on the back of his thigh. "You toilet seat did it to me," he whined.
"Serves you right dumpster diving stuff like that," was all I said.
I occasionally sing, generally softly, when I'm driving. A song will pop into my head and I'll sing along with it.
With me brother Patrick in tow as I went to Mass Saturday I half sang, half hummed King of the Road.
A minute later and it was Flowers on the Wall.
After that, as I was just starting Hank Williams Jr.'s Family Tradition, Patrick blurted out, "Keep your day job."
All right, maybe my voice gets old. And at least I know where I stand with him.
Gilligan's Island; such hilarity. Every time the castaways have a shot at getting off the island, he fouls it up. He's naive but inept.
Late last night, well, early this morning, I was watching an episode of Lost In Space. Dr. Smith had stumbled upon a contraption which might have gotten the Jupiter Two safely back to Earth. Yet his own nefarious scheme interfered, and the plan couldn't work. Smith is conniving but inept.
That's when it hit me: Gilligan and Dr. Smith are the same person, just at different ends of the spectrum. One is evil and inept while the other is good hearted but inept. That's my conspiracy theory for you to contemplate this Sunday.
One of my New Year's Resolutions, and likely the only one which I will seriously attempt to fulfill, is to put more effort into promoting my scribbles. Of my books available, three in all formats (hardcover, paperback, and Kindle) and two currently only available in Kindle (I do mean to make them available in the more traditional forms this year, I swear!) my first, A Subtle Armageddon, seems to be getting the most traction, so I will concentrate on it while not forgetting the rest.
That's one hell of a complex sentence for a writer, isn't it? Five commas and two bracketed asides before even getting to word count. I need to work on that.
But so, Brian O'Callaghan says this about ASA:
"A Subtle Armageddon: Book 1 of the Infinity Series" invites readers on a breathtaking journey into a richly imagined world that delves deep into themes of solitude, identity, and the search for purpose. This profound narrative follows 'the man' as he navigates the haunting remnants of a once-thriving civilization, each desolate landscape echoing the whispers of its past. Through his solitary quest for self-discovery and existential truth, the story artfully intertwines allegory and reflection, challenging readers to ponder the complexities of their own existence amidst the ruins of a world transformed.
Thank you Brian! Remember that A Subtle Armageddon is available here.
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