MiLB

The Ohio Cosgriffs and I went to the Columbus Clippers game last night. The Clippers play in the highest baseball minor league, the Triple-A level. It's pretty good ball.

Huntington Park is their home field. It's cozy; seats around 10,000 I'll hazard to guess. It's a nice stadium, pretty much downtown in Ohio's capital.

Baseball brings out the kid in you. Just setting foot in a new arena brings back all those memories of going to games with me Pops and me family. Looking over the old baseball uniforms and equipment on display; the smell of the food; the deep, lush green grass, the bright white bases against the well raked brown soil on the diamond; there's not much better places on Earth than a ballpark. 

I think I'll go again sometime.

82 years

D-Day: June 6, 1944. More than eighty years ago today began the largest amphibious landing of an armed force in world history. As Allied troops hit the beaches at Normandy in the wee hours of the morning, at points code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword, the liberation of Europe was begun. The high point of the Greatest Generation was underway.

The Greatest Generation stands now at its wane. Its members are all in their 90s now. The celebrations of their accomplishments are becoming fewer, smaller, and less intense. Even with improvements in medicine and diet, only a mere handful will still be around in a decade. Most of their number are gone already.

It is no small compliment to call them the greatest. Has there been any other challenge successfully met by anyone else in any other time? True, we are dealing in immeasurables when we say such things. Yet it's still pretty clear that nothing anywhere close to the magnitude of World War II has occurred in all of human history. Might a greater threat and a greater harm rise? Yes, of course. Indeed, I would expect it at some point. But to date, this is it.

What can we learn from these people? We can learn perseverance, we can learn faith; we can learn to believe that, when a serious threat to home and hearth nears, humanity can rise to meet and defeat it. We can learn the humility which so many of the Greatest have displayed when speaking of their efforts in later years. We can learn that all of history teaches us to respect and remember what those who have gone before us have done for us. We can remember that our lives are here today only because of what they did with their lives, and against terrible odds under unspeakable conditions.

We can learn to respect heroism. We can learn to revere the heroes.

Never forget.

Own It

I recently read an article which claimed that the two sports with the oldest average fan base are baseball and golf. The average baseball fan is 58; for golf, it's 62.

What are two sports I watch far and away more than any others? Baseball and golf.

Old age. I am owning it.

Just Trying for a Picture

As I was enjoying my daily constitutional this morning, I reflected on how pretty nature can be even in the big city. The wispy red clouds which greeted me as I left my house were sublime; a thin mist held sway just above the grounds of nearby Wayne State University. A few minutes later I noticed the morning Sun shining straight down Warren Avenue, wonderfully illuminating even the asphalt pavement in a yellow glow. I decided to try to get a picture of that.

Taking out my phone, I tapped on the camera icon. I sought the best angle for the shot without the bright Sun obliterating the scene. Too much Sun and you wouldn't see anything; it would overpower the lens. Once or twice I tried but things weren't quite right. A third attempt seemed to offer the best picture. 

As I began to take it, other sweet morning sounds came to my ears. There was the blaring of a bugle which may have been a car horn; there was an earnest voice which offered, "Hey old man! Get out of the street you're gonna get killed!"

So maybe morning rush hour traffic isn't the right time to catch nature's beauty. At least not in the middle of Warren in the city of Detroit.

Perchance to Answer

Me Grandpa Joe had a welder rental business which me Pops by and large ran. Dad frequently spoke about two calls. One he refused on principle, the other he nearly refused on a different principle, but took. 

One large company would only call Joe Cosgriff Welding Machine Rentals on weekends, and I mean late on weekends. They'd call at, oh, 11 PM on a Saturday night, all in a dither over some presumed emergency. Joe would grumble, but dutifully take the order and fill it, delivering whatever in the wee hours of a Sunday.

He happened to be out of town one weekend. That company called, and me Pops answered. He refused the rental. "You call somebody else during regular hours but us at off hours. We're not doing business that way," Dad blithely explained to the company rep.

Pops worried a bit what Joe would think, but grandfather sided with his son. Say what you want about Joe, and much can and has been said, when he delegated authority to Pops he never questioned what Dad did. Joe figured, "I told him to run it, so I gotta let him run it."

Another time we were in a recession, and business was bad. That wouldn't stop Joe from taking his trips, so he decided one day to go off on an adventure. Dad, of course, took the reins of the Shop.

He took a call from a very large company (you would recognize it but I won't tell you, just for safety's sake, discretion being the better part of valor) who were notorious for being slow to pay. Me Pops did not like dealing with them. Yet they wanted ten machines asap and there wasn't much other work. Dad opted to take the chance and fill the order, which ballooned into almost every one of the welders Joe owned at the time. At the height of the job, they had 210 units rented.

And, they paid promptly. "I'm glad I took that call!" Dad would say in telling the story. I know Joe did not question his decision on that one.

Poison Girls

I will venture out and say that we have all occasionally heard song lyrics wrong. At times it's simply an honest mistake of the ear. Me brother Phil for example heard the lyric at the start of The Beatles' track Savoy Truffle, which is 'Cream Tangerine, and Montelemar (a French sweet BTW) as, 'Cream Tangerine, go tell your mom'. You get the point.

One of the funniest of such instances came from a friend of mine, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a  name, over the Three Dog Night hit Joy to the World. You know, the song which famously begins, Jeremiah was a bullfrog! The chorus starts, Joy to the world, all the boys and girls. Yet Cloyce heard it as, 'Joy to the world, all the poison girls'.

So there's my gift to you today. An earworm with the wrong words. You're welcome. 

And The Fight Was On

As I take my morning walks these days, I always pass Sam's house. When I do I always think of his relationship with me Grandpa Joe. It was, ah, an interesting friendship.

Sam would come by the old barn regularly. His mission seemed to be to needle Joe. It must be admitted, he was very good at that.

Once Joe had me younger brother painting a car of his with a sponge brush and a can of off the shelf paint. Now, I know that's not the best way to paint a car, but it was Grandpa's car and Patrick didn't mind to get paid to paint it however he was told. Sam happened by and exclaimed emphatically, "You can't paint a car like that!"

"The hell I can't!" Joe replied with an incredibly equal incredulity. And the fight was on.

Another time Sam was paying a visit and Joe was going on about something or other which concerned him. When he finished his rant Sam remarked sullenly, "Ah, I don't care, Joe".

Joe barked in response, an incredibly accurate and proper response, "Yeah, but I do!"

"I just said I don't care!" Sam yelled in reply. And the fight was on.

Similar events occurred countless times over the years. Sam would show up, a conversation would start, sometimes slowly, sometimes explosively, and those two old coots would end up arguing, howling at each other over some kind of nonsense.

The darn thing is, I think they both looked forward to it. I am inclined to think that the more modern term 'frenemies' would describe the situation well.

Evaporating Cloyce

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

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

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

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

We're Cosgriffs, Ma'am

This past February me brother Phil and I faced a dilemma: could we load an entire cargo van with what appeared to be far too much stuff? But we did it, because we knew Dad could. We couldn't let him down. We got that van loaded.

Yesterday I helped my son pick up a sofa from IKEA. Even I was shocked at how much stuff went with it. The stock clerk as she brought everything out advised, "You can take part today and come back tomorrow for the rest," clearly believing our task insurmountable. The trouble was the IKEA was in Canton, Michigan and the sofa was going to Tawas, Michigan, around 200 miles north. A second trip wasn't very practical.

Me son Frank immediately said, "We can take everything out of the boxes and make it work." That's my boy. His grandfather, me Pops, was surely smiling on him too. In Frank's lead (It was his stuff, so I properly deferred to him) we commenced work. In twenty minutes, my new old van was loaded and we were off.

When we arrived in Tawas my daughter-in-law remarked, with proper awe, "Wow. You got all that into your van?"

"We're Cosgriffs, Ma'am. It's what we do," I responded. And that was that.

The Curmudgeon Speaks

The things which irritate an old man...

As I took my morning walk today I noticed a car with a bumper sticker that said, 'I'd rather be riding transit'. And my first thought was, then why aren't you? Why don't you sell that thing, give the cash to the government to put towards transit, and then take the damn bus where you want to go. They're all over the place. I see them every day. Stop signaling whatever virtue you mean to shame me over and put your money where your mouth is.

Then it hit me. You don't want your money to go to transit without a pile of mine to keep it company.

Well, guess what? I don't want to take transit. I want to take my money (which I earned and you did not, by the way), buy me a car, and go wherever the hell I want to go whenever the hell I want to do it. And I do not want nor expect any of your cash for that right.

In other words, blow that empty posturing out your nose, and keep your hand out of my pocket.

The Near Detention

Possibly the closest I came close to detention in high school was during my freshman year. But doggone it, I was in the right. I was.

It was May and we were in Gym class. It was warm, so the instructor took us outside to play softball. I'll call the gym teacher Miss Cloyce just to give her a name, and because, yes, I'm still upset about the injustice 51 years later. I suppose I can hold a grudge.

Be all that as it may, in my first at bat that day I singled. The next batter hit a ground ball to the kid playing first. Now, in baseball and softball, when you're on first and there's a ground ball you have to run for second base. It's called being 'forced': because it's a grounder the batter has the primary right to first base. This means a runner already occupying that base is forced to vacate. Make sense? If not, take my word for it. But you can look it up if you like.

Now in this case, the first baseman fielded the ball, took three steps, and touched first base with her foot. That meant the batter was out. But since the batter was out, I no longer had to surrender first. I could have returned to it as there was no longer a legal runner behind me. I was not 'forced'. That means that in order for me to be put out I had to be tagged with the ball, because I had two safe spots I could choose between. 

After the opposing player touched first, which I obviously saw, I continued towards second anyway. She threw to second. The second baseman caught the ball and touched the base. I slid; he did not tag me. So I was safe, under the rules of the game.

Miss Cloyce called me out because the throw from first beat me (which it did) and the kid playing second touched the bag ahead of me with control of the ball (which is true). But neither address the rules of baserunning.

I took exception. I pleaded my case, arguing to a degree which likely shocked my peers (believe it or not, I was a quiet kid, at least in ninth grade) that no, I was safe because a tag was required because the force was off. Miss Cloyce said I was wrong. I was not. I insisted upon this point quite vehemently.

I kept it up until she barked, "Say one more thing and you get detention." I sputtered and stammered, but went to the bench, muttering. The students nearby gave me a wide berth, shocked at my angry display.

To be fair, I know you shouldn't harshly argue with a teacher (even gym teachers count as teachers, I suppose) so I do admit that Miss Cloyce had to play the detention card, for the sake of discipline and respect. But dammit, I was safe.

Ushered Out Twice

My brother Phil had a good friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who spent about twenty years as a reservist with the Detroit Police. He never did much more than cover at baseball and hockey games but hey, it helped the regular cops out. 

Once Cloyce was working at a baseball game at old Tiger Stadium when, as part of his rounds, he stopped by the DPD office under the stands. The sergeant, indicating a sad looking fellow sitting over to the side, told Cloyce to escort the guy from the premises for public drunkenness. So Cloyce did. 

About three innings later Cloyce was back by the patrol room, and the sergeant told him to show another guy the door. The same guy, in fact. "Isn't he the one I took out before?" Cloyce asked. 

"He bought another ticket and came back in," the sergeant answered with a shrug. Warning the drunk not to return a third time or he'd face a night in jail, the sergeant gave him over to Cloyce. 

Cloyce spent the rest of the game keeping a sharp eye out for the miscreant. He didn't want his own reputation soiled if the guy actually did get back in the ballpark.

Being Mercenary

One old and tired criticism of Christians is that we are 'only' mercenary. It asserts we only strive to do good so that we can sort of buy our way into Heaven while avoiding the punishment of Hell.

Setting aside the point that there's nothing terribly wrong with such an idea - do we actually want to teach that it's better to do evil if you're so inclined rather than do good from less than perfect convictions? - the criticism avoids the generally accepted fact that people are encouraged to be mercenary in other ways, for much less important goals.

Aren't we mercenary in pursuing a job or career path? To seek a nice house in a nice neighborhood? When on the athletic field? In finding a soul mate? While shopping for cool new things or deciding what to have for dinner? In all these areas and countless others aren't we seeking what is good for us, however mundane? Yet in looking for eternal joy we aren't supposed to consider what's good for us, what will make us truly happy?

Absurd. As a practical matter, I'm fine with someone not breaking into my house simply because he fears jail time. It would be better if he weren't to become a thief for the sake of higher ideals: respect for others and personal discipline for a start. Yet whether out of fear or a clear understanding and acceptance of moral good, he would have acted rightly either way.

Being merely mercenary can never condemn a man. It is less than perfect, yes. But if it slips us through the Pearly Gates and keeps the old homestead secure, I should think it worth the trade.

Memorial Day Reflection

Today is the day where we remember those who gave their lives for our country defending our nation in war. I think this year I want to especially remember those who died because of the wars and battles they fought while not having actually been killed facing the enemy.

I'm thinking specifically about me Pops youngest brother, me Uncle John. While he didn't die until 2005, I don't think he ever completely left Vietnam. I believe there were others in similar trials who even after they came home were still fighting. They deserve our thoughts and prayers too. Give them a minute this Memorial Day.

The Voice in the Casino

Discipline. That's what it's all about. Discipline.

I get the urge to go to the casino a couple of times a year. Typically I indulge it once. Yesterday was that day, I hope, anyway, for 2026.

There's a small casino in Hessel, in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, just up the road a piece from our second home there. It isn't a very big gambling den. I've seen Seven Elevens that are larger in fact. But it's close by when we're in da U.P. and the small size has its charm. 

Typically I play video poker. I know the odds are in the house's favor with any type of gambling (me Pops always said that the winners didn't build the casinos), and perhaps I'm playing a stupid psychological trick on myself, but with poker I feel I have at least a modest amount more control over the game. I can choose what to hold and play hunches, for whatever tiny advantages those strategies may offer. With straight out slot machines, you just pull a lever (push a button these days) and hope.

My budget is twenty bucks. Once that's gone, I'm gone. You can play for as long as an hour on that if you're judicious, and have a bit of luck. Usually I quit when I'm 10-15 dollars behind. That's when I tell myself that this is stupid and cash out what's left.

Yesterday my $20 was gone in about five minutes. Sighing heavily, I thought, heck, I'm on vacation. I'll play another twenty. That's pretty much how the casinos want you to think I'm sure, and for whatever reason gullibility took over. I fed the machine another Jackson.

It was gone relatively soon, although I managed about 20 minutes of play that time around. Mildly upset at myself for losing forty bucks, I started to leave. "Put in another $20," the voice in my head told me.

"Why? I'm already down $40."

"Just put in another twenty," I was assured.

Half disgusted that I was allowing me to talk myself into something stupid, I gave the poker machine another greenback. I hit the draw button and was dealt four kings, a thirty dollar win at the level I was playing. That gave me a $49 credit. "Now cash out," that same voice told me.

I did. That left me 11 dollars down, within my usual loss range. 

You can play games at a casino, and you can listen to the voice in your head. But they each require discipline. That's the key.

Not Exactly Spring Weather

It's still rather cool in Hessel, cooler than normal even though it's late May in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula. There are no buds on the trees, and a few piles of dirty snow are evident from road and driveway clearing due to the unusual snowfall in the area last winter. Today's high is only supposed to be 52, along with clouds, drizzle and windy conditions. I may just order a pizza rather than try to grill outside, and my reading may be inside by a window instead of out in the garage or on the front porch. Oh, I'll layer my clothes and read in the garage for a while, to be sure, because you can't beat the sound of soft rain on a tin roof. But you know what?

It's still Hessel, and a bad day in Hessel is better than a good day at work. Especially if you have a boss like mine. What an ogre.

News Coverage

Well, I've done a thing. I contracted with a PR firm to promote my book A Subtle Armageddon. For $345 they developed a press release which they promised would be sent to nearly 500 news outlets, book retailers, book clubs, influencers, reviewers and various other entities. 

Full disclosure: I expected nothing, and in fact was afraid I was throwing money away. But I did find that the release was sent out through the AP, Associated Press, here, reported verbatim but with a legal disclaimer that all they were doing was forwarding an item sent to them. Whatever. I've been on the AP wire, and not for anything criminal, isolated ASA reviews notwithstanding.

Further, I am being inundated with emails from several people about what they might be willing to offer. Most, quite honesty, involved paying for a new service (though I read them I have so far ignored their offers) and some free (those I took). The firm I contracted also developed a media guide (mine to use as I please, as is the original press release) and have given me advice on what I could do myself with the materials for greater promotion. I don't have to depend on them; I can be proactive with the things they've produced.

I'm going to be coy and not mention the firm's name until I see what happens in the long run. But the early returns are encouraging. I mean, not many of us are on the AP wire, am I right?

My Inner Joe Cosgriff

Me Grandpa Joe, I loved that man. Hoo boy, though, did his temper have a short fuse. I'm sure I've spoken of that. But you know, the older I grow the more I get his temper. And I'll you something further: the older I get, the harder it is to hold that genetic disposition in check. There are times where it's all I can do to keep my temper down. Even then, I still lose it, but that's for another blog.

I can't begin to tell you exactly how much I wanted to throw down on a customer call just yesterday. I didn't, but I sure wanted to.

He had an issue with a drain snake, and I of course work on such animals. He told me what it was doing and I told him what it likely needed. He asked me to ship the part. "Well, why don't you try this test first," I started to explain, because there's a simple way to test this particular item and it could save everyone time and effort if the guy would take a few minutes to try it.

I was cut off, quite rudely I will add, which will not help his case. "We've done all the testing. Send me the part." FYI by his own admission they had not looked inside the motor, and the test I had in mind requires opening the motor.

That's where I nearly lost it, because I know absolutely, beyond any doubt, he had not tried the test I intended to suggest. I know that because it's not something anyone without my knowledge of the problem would know. Not that I'm all that, but merely that it's a very specialized type of knowledge which only someone with experience could have. And you must open the motor to do it. 

I my mind I could actually hear myself yelling at the man (and in Joe's voice no less!) "No! You have not done all the testing; you don't know what the test is! You called me because you don't know what's wrong but now you don't wanna listen to my advice!" I wanted to hang up on him, I was so mad. I haven't missed a rotary phone in ages, but I wished we were on one simply for the grand finale slam of the earpiece onto the cradle.

Instead I'm going to send him the part, and it had best work, for his sake. Because I will go off on him if he calls later with a complaint. I guarantee that.

Customer Base

While on the road early yesterday me brother Phil and I decided to stop for breakfast. We arrived at the front doors of a restaurant exactly as the manager was unlocking them for business. "Just the two of you today?" she asked pleasantly.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll have more customers than us," Phil quipped.

"It's really too early for jokes, sir," she responded. But I thought it was good.

Danse Craze

Several years ago I happened to be at a wedding reception with a friend who happened to be French. I'll call him Monsieur Cloyce just to give him a name.

At one point as Monsieur Cloyce and I were chatting the DJ called for anyone interested to come out onto the dance floor for a group dance. When all were assembled he began playing began The Chicken Dance. Hilarity ensued.

Monsieur Cloyce and I had elected not to participate. But he did turn to me and remark, "At home in France, we have a similar event at weddings. We call it, Le Danse Du Coq."

"Really?" I asked. "What does that translate to?"

"The Chicken Dance," Monsieur Cloyce answered solemnly.

I suppose I might have guessed that.

To Begin With

There are times where all you can do is scratch your head. 

A customer brought a large drain machine into the old barn for repair. "I think I burned it out, Cosgriff. Do have an idea what it will cost me?"

This particular machine had all the cords cut off at the reverse switch box attached to the motor. "Not really, without going over it. But where are the cords?" I asked.

"I was trying to fix it myself," he replied sheepishly, "and threw them away."

You threw them away? I thought in silence. "Well, a complete rewire is $175, so you'll need at least that if I can get it running. So whatever getting the problem fixed costs, $175 will be added on if you approve the repair."

"So we're starting at $175?" he demanded in shock. Yes, but you tossed the cords, I again thought quietly.

I sighed. "No charge at all if you don't approve the fix. I'm simply explaining that whatever the trouble is it'll be an additional $175."

The guy's shoulders dropped. "I guess I shouldn't have thrown them out."

I guess not. Why did you even think that was a good idea?

With You Always

In the Catholic Lectionary, today is the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord. Forty days after Easter Christ was taken up to Heaven before the eyes of His Apostles, who still expected the earthly Kingdom of Israel restored. If you ever think you don't 'get' it, remember that neither did His closest followers at first. To add to their confusion the famous men in white appeared, asking, "Men of Galilee, why do you stare into the sky? This Jesus...will return." Yet in the Gospel of Mark read during today's Mass, we are left with Christ's promise, "I am with you always, until the end of the age."

It's a wonderful, consoling, hopeful, thrilling consolation. He is with us always. 

When we are dealing with death, He is there.

Illness? He holds our hand.

That aggravating coworker? Christ is by your side, ready to help you deal with that rascal with all the Christian Charity you can muster.

He is even there when we face too much. I am not one to believe that God never gives us more than we can handle. Neither do I believe in Jesus, take the wheel. We are here to do whatever job the Lord wants us to do. It's our task, not His. That might mean we are allowed to become overwhelmed precisely so that we get it in gear, to get our house in order, to be in a sense told to stop. You can't handle all that. Prioritize. Learn to focus. Do what you can and let go of what you can't. And Christ will still be there through it all for support.

His physical self left us. But Christ the Son of God remains with us as God. Until the end of the age. 

Easy Negotiations

Me Grandpa Joe, he didn't negotiate price. Oh, he'd 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 was invested in back in the day, and I know they were big because we had to take his manual shift stake truck with the ten foot bed to carry 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 learned 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 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 someone 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.

Religious Hockey

It's supposed to be true. But if not, truth should never get in the way of a good story, right?

Years ago, when I believe Gump Worsley was the goaltender of the Minnesota North Stars, a Minneapolis bar ran a contest where first prize was dinner for two with Worsley. A local guy won, and he took his teenage son with him for the supper.

The day after, a sportswriter claimed he had had a religious experience. He said that he walked into a restaurant the evening before and saw the Father, the Son, and the Goalie Host.

Not bad. Some people do treat hockey like a religion too.

Rising Pressure

The first thing they do when I walk into my doctor's office is take my pulse and my blood pressure. They put the machine on me yesterday and it read my BP at 182/88. "That's kind of high, isn't it?" I asked the nurse, the fear in my voice well within reason.

"These machines are always high," she assured me, clearly lacking the concern I felt she should experience. Well, okay, but 182 over 88? "The doctor will check it again when you see him." And he did, at a much better 138/74. Not terrific, but not particularly dangerous either.

The nurse is right though: their machines do always seem to be high. I've noticed that for years at my doctor's, and my BP is always better when they measure it old school during my exams. So my question is, Why do you use such inaccurate equipment? Why bother, if you don't like the results which are spit out?

The blood pressure machine I have at home (I take my own BP most mornings on my PCP's suggestion) typically has me in the 130-140 over 75 or 76 range, so I trust when he checks it the old fashioned way. But if the unit I bought at a drugstore in Cedarville, MI (my old one conked out when I was up north last year, not that that's important for you to know yet it does help pad my blog) for all of forty bucks is reasonably accurate, why can't the Detroit Medical Center find one more reliable than what it's got?

Maybe there are some questions which simply aren't answerable. Like, why can't the Cocoa Puffs bird eat his cereal in a calm, rational manner? 

Grandpaw Hutchins' dogs

Me Grandpa Hutchins had a couple of pets over the years which, for whatever reason, stand out in my mind. I guess they simply impressed me somehow.

One he called Watch. Watch was the largest collie I have ever seen. He looked like Lassie on steroids. Lots of steroids. He weighed, the vet told Grandpa, 135 pounds. That's a lot of collie.

Watch was a playful animal though. That's not bad until you take his weight into account. He'd knock you down without any evil intent. He was just being man's best friend.

Grandpa had another little beagle named Tommy. I liked old Tommy; maybe that's why I gravitate towards beagles, so much as I might gravitate towards any particular breed of dog.

What I remember most about Tommy was that he lost his voice when he was about 14 (84 in people years). He would start to bay as beagles do but only the first 'wrope' would come out. Yet his mouth kept silently opening and closing for several seconds, as though he had to complete the rest of the barking anyway.

Watch and Tommy. Two pretty good old dogs.

Rooney, Mickey Not Andy

As regular readers of this blog know, I've been told that my voice is unique. One wag remarked that I had a future on The Cartoon Network. A waitress insisted that I sounded like Jiminy Cricket. Several folks have told me that I sound like a local newscaster who's name escapes me this minute. My laugh is apparently quite distinct. And then on the phone yesterday a customer told me that I sound exactly like Mickey Rooney. Yes, the old actor who started out as Andy Hardy.

I suppose it's better to be known for something. But Jiminy Cricket? Andy Hardy? 

Well, here's a a clip of Andy Hardy. You tell me. And maybe it's the power of suggestion, but while watching that clip I do seem to hear me. I wonder if I would have stood a chance with Judy Garland...

Balky Marty

A few years ago I was at a Tigers game with an old friend. I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name. 

Cloyce and I are both fairly avid baseball fans. We know the rules and what to watch for, although if I may say I'm better at it than he is.

We were sitting along the first base side of the diamond, just about right in line with the pitcher. In this case it was a left hander, so we had a really good look at him. 

Before I go on you need to know what a balk is in baseball. Among other illegal actions, if the pitcher is ruled to have started his throwing motion he must either throw a pitch to the batter or throw to an occupied base, one with a runner on it. If he fails to do either, runners move up. It keeps the pitcher from faking his intentions.

At one point the Tigers had a runner on first; we were playing Baltimore. The Orioles pitcher barely lifted his right foot, then put it back down again without doing anything else. You had to watch very close to see it, but I caught it. "He balked!" I said out loud. The next instant the home plate umpire called time, indicated balk, and motioned the runner on first base to advance to second.

"How did you see that?" Cloyce asked, awed and amazed at my baseball prowess. 

"I came here to watch a game. Didn't you?" I asked in all haughtiness. I mean, you're supposed to see things like that if you're really paying attention, right? 

To this day Cloyce will occasionally look at me and ask, "Balk?," as though he still can't believe it. But hey. I call 'em as I see 'em.

Mom on Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there. Happy Mother's Day too to all of you whose Mothers had you. They deserve the credit, and you owe them everything. Don't waste the chance they gave you. Start by thanking them.

I know she won't see this, but I feel bad that I don't talk about my own mother here anywhere near the degree to which I talk about Pops or even Grandpa Joe. She was - is - a great Mom, a bit headstrong, maybe, but with her moments. One of those wasn't that long ago.

When she had a pacemaker at 80 the doctor was explaining after the surgery that it had a ten year battery. "But I need twenty," she immediately told him, as though obvious.

It is a good attitude, right?

Happy Mother's Day Mom, and to all Moms.

Memories of the State Fair Coliseum

The Shrine Circus is here at the Coliseum! The Shrine Circus is here!

If you're singing that jingle in your head as you read it, then you're old enough to remember the Michigan State Fair Coliseum in Detroit. I happened by it yesterday, catching the progress of its deconstruction. The picture above is of the now open north end of the stadium.

A lot of great memories came into my mind. We took the kids to the Shrine Circus there two or three times as I recall. During the Michigan State Fair, we would watch the equestrian competitions in it. My son Charlie and I saw ZZ Top at that old barn in 2005; it was great to see and hear them live in a small venue. When I was 10 me Grandpa Joe took me to a rodeo there. Great seats too; we were right by the gate where the cowboys were released riding the bucking broncos. 

Ah well. Time marches on. They are saving the front facing to use as a picnic area, which is cool. I'll put a picture of that at the end here.

Inside Out

I often leave for sales trips in the wee hours of the morning. One day I rose at 2 AM, dressed in the dark, and was on my way to Indianapolis to make a couple deliveries and call on a few customers.

A little after Noon, having finished my work and on the way home, I pulled into a truck plaza for a pit stop, bite to eat, and a cup of joe, because road trips require coffee. It's science.

Drying my hands in the men's room after washing I saw in the mirror, and to my horror, that my pullover shirt was on inside out. It was plain as day. Not one of my customers mentioned it either. Although it does explain the regular, inexplicable snickering.

The lesson is, don't dress in the dark. Also, don't trust anyone to prevent embarrassment for you.

McCartney, Cash, and Starr

I doubt than an iconic English musician needs a push from me. But here it is anyway.

Paul McCartney's latest single, Days We Left Behind, may be his best song in decades. Sentimental without being cloying, it's an intimate reflection on his personal history yet with feelings with which we can all relate. His weak, tired voice adds depth, giving the song a bit of an ethereal, other worldly sound. It's not unlike Johnny Cash's voice fatigue in Ain't No Grave. Wistful, yet powerful.

He and fellow Beatle Ringo Starr release a duet this Friday, Home to Us. Although they've sung and performed together frequently since the Fab Four split, it's their first full on duet. I'm looking forward to it.

Ringo by the way has had some good stuff lately too. Here's Look Up from 2025 if you're interested.

The dog did it

I woke up laughing this morning. I believe that's because I was laughing in a dream.

I have no idea where we were in this dream, but my buddy Nick and I were out and about somewhere. Probably curling in a weekend bonspiel, as we needed a room for the night. So we find a hotel.

As we begin to fall asleep in this double bed, I look over my shoulder to see Nick lying on his side facing away from me, but so close to the edge of the bed that I though he would fall out. Then I turn away from him, and here's my son's dog Gaspode, a black and white Australian Shepherd. So I start petting him.

All of a sudden Gaspode leaps over me and, taking one big hop on the middle of the bed, he comes down with all four paws against Nick's back, knocking him onto the floor with a loud thud. Then 'Spode just sits in the center of the bed, studying his conquest.

I raise up and start laughing out loud. Then I was petting Gaspode and saying, "Who's a good boy? He's a good boy!" and laughing like all get out. All the while Nick is laying on the hotel room floor stunned.

Then I woke up laughing and, honestly, looking for Gaspode, wondering where he was. I laughed for about ten minutes before I settled down.

You can't make this up. But I sure hope Nick's all right.

Humor In Uniform

This past weekend, as I established yesterday, I played in a curling bonspiel. One of our opponents was skipped by a very nice man named Greg Major.

Seeking to break the ice with him I made a small, indeed very small, joke. "So I take it you've been promoted from captain?"

He was kind enough to laugh at the quip, then responded, "I was never in the military myself. But my father was. He was a Sergeant Major in the British Army. So my family has a Sergeant Major Major in its history!"

Well, touche. 

An Economics Lesson, or, What Comes Around

I played in a curling tournament this past weekend. It was kind of cool: I never curled in May before, as the curling season typical ends by the middle of April. Since I paid the fee when I registered the team, each other guy owed me $110 bucks.

Dallas showed up and paid me, part of which were two five dollar bills. Jeff, another team member, then approached me. "There's a team 50/50 raffle, and I put us in. So it's ten bucks if you want in too, Marty." I said sure, and gave him the two fives Dallas had just given me.

Jeff caught Dallas a minute later while I still happened to be standing nearby.  Dallas said, "I'm in if you can change a twenty." Handing it to Jeff, Jeff gave Dallas the two fives which I had given him, which I had just gotten from Dallas a few minutes before.

There's an economics lessen there, eh? The money's gotta keep on movin'. And somehow it manages to do just that, even in close quarters.

Emergency Stepson

One day when me Pops was about 35 years old he noticed an older woman, he guessed she was 80 or so, standing nervously in the foyer of the bank where he had just made a business deposit. Just waiting for someone, he thought. And she was. She was waiting for him.

As Dad was opening the outer door he felt her arm slip under his elbow. "So nice to run into you here!" she told him pleasantly. "We can talk as we go to my car."

Pops sensed something, not bad, but enough that he went along with it. She talked about her day and how wonderful the weather had been. Dad nodded and affirmed a thought or two as the older woman spoke. He allowed her to lead, not knowing which car in the bank lot was hers.

She released his arm as they approached the vehicle, drawing the keys from her purse. "Thank you, young man," she explained, "Maybe I'm worrying too much, but I simply didn't like the looks of the two men hanging around near the bank door." 

At that, Dad did recall a couple of shady characters on the street corner as they left. "You're welcome," he replied. He didn't mind at all being an emergency stepson.

Enough is Enough

Me Pops had this old friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who apparently did not have the best marriage.

A couple of years after Cloyce lost his wife, the woman's sister's husband passed away. Awhile after the funeral, Cloyce got a call from his former in-law. She suggested that, with their respected spouses gone, perhaps they could get together.

"What did you say?" Pops asked on being told the story.

"I told her no," Cloyce responded. "I said I spent 40 years with your sister, and that was enough."

"Ouch," Dad said. "That even hurt me."

A Thought for Today

A post on Facebook yesterday caught my eye. Yeah, I know, earth shattering. It's never happened before.

Mild and poor humor aside, the post claimed that diversity breeds tolerance; diversity is our strength. I immediately thought, it does? Followed by, it is?

We've had diversity for all of human existence and I see little evidence of tolerance bred by it. I actually see a great deal of intolerance from folks who preach diversity. Now I hear that diversity is our strength? I'm not sold.

On the other hand, when people on all sides are reasonably open minded (in short, reasonable) we've had a decent amount of peace and solidarity. But it isn't because we're diverse. It's because on those far too few occasions, we've been unified. We don't emphasize our differences. We rejoice in our similarities.

Guns and America

I will begin by saying that this is a political blog. I will follow up by saying that I fully and completely support the Second Amendment. I say that unequivocally because many of my friends and relatives who support gun rights will now think I don't believe in them. And all because I do not think that individual rights in America revolve around gun ownership.

Do you think our guns won the Revolution? They did not. French guns, Dutch money and, perhaps more importantly, the grace of God won the Revolution. Without that our guns meant little: it's that simple. We would be more British than American today without the outside help which, I must add at least with regard to the French and Dutch, didn't really care about our gun ownership anyway.

But to the point: our rights do not revolve around gun ownership. Our rights are about the ideas which support them, namely life, liberty, and property (I wish Jefferson had said property and not pursuit of happiness, but that's an idea for another time). Quite bluntly then, there are more, and I will argue more important, issues than gun rights. What's more important is encouraging the belief that rights are based on our overall obligation to do our part to create and manage a just society.

We need to convince people that our rights, all of them, come from God. We need to emphasize that if our rights, all of them, are not protected as a whole then each individual one means less. If we don't believe in free speech or freedom of religion, our insistence on gun rights is superfluous, and even shallow and unworthy of us, because guns can protect and promote even evil, as history clearly shows. Gun ownership and gun use by themselves are moral neutrals.

So then, as a practical matter it is not our guns which keep us free. It is our attitude towards freedom, our patriotism and more importantly our belief in a just God which keep us free. Lose that attitude, or worse, allow the nation as a whole to lose that attitude, and your right to have a gun means zilch. That right will be squashed alongside every other right.

Right Up My Alley

I almost always still get a Sunday paper, and when I do I always try my hand at the New York Times crossword, which is in the Detroit Free Press every week for some reason. Go figure.

While I only completely finish the thing about three times a year (hey, it's a challenging crossword) last week's offering was right in my wheelhouse, a great big fat pitch down the middle of the plate. The main clues were about logical fallacies. Logic is a subset of philosophy.

I nailed each answer without more prompts than the clues themselves. I even got, on the first pass, the Latin one: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Roughly translated for those of you not familiar with the language of ancient Rome, it means, after, therefore because of. It's the argument that since A occurred before B, A caused B. Here's a solid example: Marty was born in 1960, and civil war broke out in Angola in 1961. Therefore, Marty caused the Angolan Civil War. That's obviously untrue. I think. I mean, I was a year old in 1961. I don't remember doing much of anything.

Anyway, I got them all correct, each and every error of logic, even the No True Scotsman. I knew one day that that minor in philosophy from the University of Detroit would pay off.

Amos's broom, or, a gift for Ella

I've spoken to you before about how superstitious me Grandpa Joe's friend Amos was, and that he was tight with a buck too. Well, if I recall correctly he had a girlfriend who was equally superstitious and equally Scottish. In fact, such qualities got my mother a nearly new broom.

Amos was moving one time and he enlisted me Pops and me Mom to help. As they had loaded just about everything into one of me Grandpa Joe's old welding delivery trucks, Amos's girlfriend (I believe her name was Eula) quietly took my mother over to the side.

"Here Ella," she said to Mom, "Take this broom home with you. I know it's wrong to move your broom when you move, but as this is a gift from me to you, it don't count."

You see, it's superstitious to move your broom when you move because it has within its fibers all the dust and bad things from your old home. All that you want to leave there, right? But as it was, Amos had only just bought the broom, and Eula couldn't stand the thought of leaving a perfectly good and virtually new item behind. Yet she knew Amos wouldn't stand hitch for having it moved. So she gifted it to Mom.

Who says superstition doesn't pay, at least for someone?

Simple economics in school

When I taught high school level economics I kept it very simple. I hoped to instill in students a sense of exactly what they might deal with in real life. One such lesson involved what sales meant.

One idea was that when an item was on sale for, say, 10% off, that they did not save ten percent but only spent ten percent less on it. That doesn't make a purchase bad of course. But unless they actually put that ten off in the bank, they hadn't saved anything. I in fact had gotten that idea from me Pops years earlier, when I was maybe, heh, heh, ten. A friend of his was showing the old man something and bragging about the ten off he saved. Dad merely asked, "So's where's the money you saved?"

Another concept was the old buy one get one free come on. You aren't getting either one free: you're spending half as much on each. Again, that doesn't mean it's a bad deal. But you are not getting a freebie. Free means all yours at no cost and with no strings attached, no demands on you as a consumer.

I don't know if these helped but it was what I taught.

That Time of Year

Is it spring or is it not? That's my question for April.

Friday I worked in a T-shirt and short pants and was perfectly comfortable. Saturday working at the Shop I was in my winter coat all over again. Today has the look and feel of being a gorgeous day. 

It wouldn't be so bad except that I was actively looking for a reason not to do yardwork, but still.

Kudos to A Subtle Armageddon

Dave Smith on Amazon offers one of the most impressive interpretations of my book A Subtle Armageddon: 

A Subtle Armageddon: Book 1 of the Infinity Series by Charles Martin Cosgriff was an interesting story about a man's discovery of personal freedom. Using the character "Man," he lays out an allegory of self-discovery in an atmosphere of strict control in a world where all is premeditated, prescribed, and predetermined to be the best path to follow.

While the storyline is compelling, following Man as he travels through his life, waging an internal battle with a "voice" that continues to make attempts to bring him back into line with the prescribed path, I found something even better.

In the beginning, Man had no concept of anything, not of his surroundings, not his purpose, and not of himself. So Cosgriff has the task of describing the most mundane things as Man, who is not even Man at this point, discovers them, takes note of them, and makes some kind of sense of them. I marveled at his skill in the writing craft when he applied language and writing mastery to do this, while keeping sophisticated readers interested, without losing them. Yes, it was a slow starter for sure. But I remained interested because of how Cosgriff did this. He was not able to use a common term like library or shadow, for example. He had to find a way to describe a shadow as it is discovered anew by Man. And he does it well, time after time. Taking the well-known and writing it as if it were unknown is an incredibly difficult undertaking.

There is certainly a political commentary within A Subtle Armageddon, hearkening to A Brave New World for sure, maybe a little bit of Atlas Shrugged. Based on the preview at the end of the story, that is what is in store for at least book 2 of the series.

I give A Subtle Armageddon: Book 1 of the Infinity Series by Charles Martin Cosgriff four stars because of his ability to describe familiar, well-known, mundane items in our world as if they had never been seen before. The book breaks into a brighter, more adventurous arc by the end of this Book. There is certainly hope that Book 2 will be as good.

I really like this analysis. See for yourself here to find out if Mr. Smith's thoughts are accurate.

Me? Yes, I think he says it well. I think he gets my self imposed starting point: the man in the story begins as a completely blank slate and grows from there. Nature is a great teacher.

Happy Anniversary?

Large companies, and I suppose small ones too, like to brag about any lack of accidents at their establishments. That's all right of course, and long term safety is a good thing. Yet how we frame things affects perspective.

Most of us have seen or worked at places with signs that announce, 'Accident free for 107 days' or the like. Of course, good for them. Then I saw a sign which proclaimed 'Accident free for 365 days' and my first thought was, are you celebrating the first year anniversary of an adverse incident?

Have a laugh, and have a great Friday, although you may obviously need to look somewhere other than here for the former.

The Real Meaning of April 22

My birthday, April 22, is also Earth day. As a philosophical conservative I get a bit of teasing over that fact. But hey, I'm for good stewardship of the Earth. I'm just not for vaguely pagan claptrap.

Political swipes aside, I have discovered a better meaning to my date of birth. April 22 is In God We Trust Day. By act of Congress on April 22, 1864, it was declared that these United States could add the words In God We Trust to our currency. No, I do not remember its passage. I'm not that old.

In God We Trust Day. I like that better. And you will be reminded of it every April 22 from here on out.

Reminiscing

This old boy turned 66 today. I suppose technically I'm not there until 4:30 this afternoon, the time I came into this world in 1960. A few more hours of 65 won't hurt.

I can't say that I've always been happy with my life choices. If in looking back you can't find at least some regrets you're probably not looking hard enough. Yet on the whole I'm all right with what I've done. 

Staying in the family business may have been the most critical decision in my life. Financially, I could have done better for myself and my family, and that does prick at my conscience a bit. But it's one of those choices which, overall, I think has been good.

Standing just inside the door of the old barn this morning, I could see Joe holding court, cigarette in hand, from his seat by the coffee table. There was Uncle John whom we call Zeke atop his perch of steel parts boxes, reading the morning Free Press. Me Pops was on the phone handling a customer while me brother Phil toiled at a bench vise, hitting a cable fitting a few too many times in showing it who was boss. Both my sons were there doing whatever as Uncle Patrick pushed a broom. And I haven't even gotten to all the other characters, welders and sewer cleaners and various employees who came and went. They all made the Shop memorable.

Not only did I get a lot of time with family, but so did my brothers and my sons. Would my boys have known Paw Paw as well if I had not stayed? Would I know Joe and Zeke and Craig and Price and old Arthur Williams and Stanley, Willie Deal and his boys and Chuck Bias, as well? I can't say enough about late Fridays at the Shop when Dad would decide to call it a day at 3 PM and we'd nurse coffees and simply talk to each other until the more formal quitting time arrived. I wouldn't get that in an office or classroom.

You can't prove a negative, so who knows what friendships and opportunities I may have missed. But you know what? Life was just fine as it was. I wouldn't do it different.

Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

This or something similar has probably happened to other parents. Hopefully it was with equally uneventful results.

When our oldest was in second grade, he stopped his mother and I one morning and proudly told us that he had made his own lunch for school that day. We did all the proper oohing and ahhing which parents should, praising him for his effort. Still, when he turned his back my wife thought it best to have a look at what he had packed.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, okay.

A napkin, good.

Apple, very good.

A bottle of beer. Okay, that of course had to be switched out for a juice box. We then explained to our son, kindly because we didn't want to ruin his pride at being otherwise considerate, that he was too young for beer and that the school wouldn't allow it. He was okay with the explanation.

Can you imagine how quickly we would have been called to social services though, if she hadn't checked his lunch box?

Jethro Psychology

There was a Beverly Hillbillies marathon on this weekend. What better time can you have, I ask, at 3:30 on a Sunday morning than watching Jethro Bodine being psychoanalyzed?

"What is your relationship to your mother?" the Doctor asked.

Incredulous, Jethro replied, "I'm her son." The show went on, the basic story line being that the psychologist must be interested in dating Jethro's widowed mother because she was all he asked about during the session with him.

You gotta love it.

I'm not going to argue that The Beverly Hillbillies was particularly inspired. Well, maybe I am. The mockery they made of modern psychology in that episode was a hoot, under the guise of the fish out of water premise of the whole series. It left you wondering who's the real yokel.

Not to disparage worthwhile psychology (which I suppose has its merits) but people need to be able laugh at themselves, be able to poke fun at even, perhaps especially, things near and dear to them. We don't do that enough anymore. 

And it shows.

April 19, 1775

On this day in 1775 the American Revolution began in earnest. The militiamen, the ordinary citizen soldiers of Lexington and Concord, turned back the more organized and more highly trained British, harassing them all the way back to Charlestown outside of Boston. The Shot Heard Round the World had been fired. April 19, 1775 had secured its place in American and World history.

The significance of this event cannot be underscored enough. To date, it lit the lamp of almost surely the only large scale revolution which has had any modicum of positive success. Most new nations sink into anarchy, more terrible tyranny, or simply the same old same old with a new face after a known form of government falls.

To be sure, even our Revolution was subject to severe trials early on. It was no certainty that a civil government based on popular will would result from the breaking of age old ties. Yet somehow it did; I believe that it was American Exceptionalism through Divine Providence that our nation rose from those battles as it did.

I do not mean this as an insult towards other people and nations who have or are now seeking similar freedom and respect. I know that we aren't and never have been perfect, and that there are and have been other rightly proud and blessed peoples and countries. But the fact is that popular uprisings need more than simple change. They need enlightened leadership. They need more than mob mentality. Any dictator with charisma and organizational skills can turn crowds to their will quite readily.

The colonists had rational leadership. The colonist themselves were on the whole reasonable people. They were able to overcome the occasional rabble to form a stable, reasonably free nation. And that's exactly what makes April 19, 1775 so memorable. Our revolution is truly unique in history. It was essentially founded 251 years ago today.

Cloyce Wars

A friend of me Pops, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, related once that he had married well. "We never, never came close to divorce but once, Bill, and that was over a dime."

"A dime?" Dad asked, his curiosity peaked.

"Yes, sir," Cloyce responded. "We was grocery shopping, and after all the stuff was rung up and bagged, Mrs. Cloyce says that we'd been overcharged ten cents and she wanted it all re-rung."

Cloyce paused for a breath. "Don't worry about a dime - this was years ago, Bill, and it was a cart full of groceries - the store's busy and people's waiting in line and let's just go," I told her.

Mrs. Cloyce tells me, "Maybe you don't care about money but I do!"

"I care about money! Just not ten cents over $108.62!" I responded.

"I want her (the cashier) to re-ring everything!" my wife demands. 

"Well I don't, I told her, and I started putting the bags in the cart to go to the car," finished Cloyce.

"She didn't talk to me for a month. That was okay with me cause I didn't wanna talk anyway."

"But we got over it. Ain't that the important thing, Bill?" Cloyce asked. 

Pops agreed.

The Pope and the President

I am really, truly loathe to address all the ballyhoo surrounding Pope Leo and President Trump. It's simply a morass, and neither one is quite right about matters that I can see.

The President's recent bombast is over the top the point of insult and blasphemy. Someone needs to tell the man to SHUT UP. He owes the Pope an apology for his condescension towards the head of the Catholic Church. Trump isn't helping anyone and is increasingly hard to defend. That he was a better choice than the alternatives (and he was, I say emphatically) is becoming a lame mantra.

At the same time, the Holy Father isn't exactly presenting himself favorably. It's one thing to preach the Gospel and remind us of our moral obligations. It's another to be rather one sided about it. Criticism of the current Iran War is fair and ought to be expected. But to say whose and what types of prayers God will and will not answer is presumption, even from a Pope, and flies in the face of the Church's Just War dogma. Sometimes we must fight. Violence can be a rational moral alternative. Indeed, even an imperative. When that's the case, it's perfectly all right to pray for a successful war.

In light of its criticisms of Trump (and of Catholic Vice President Vance's occasional comments on Church teaching) the Vatican's reticence to be as critical of American liberal politicians is rather galling. To very nearly say Trump is wrong on Iran while not ordering that Catholic politicians who vote for abortion be withheld Communion is, as such, a travesty. Like it or not, the rightness of this War is where minds may in good faith disagree. But direct abortion is murder, every time and with no exceptions. It is settled doctrine and Catholic politicians who support abortion must be censured. I worry that Leo, like Francis before him quite honesty, fails to lead but instead foments confusion among the faithful when spiritual direction goes only one way.

To the President, just knock it off. You have and are going too far and it's time to put a sock in it. To the Holy Father, if you really wish to be bold, preach the entire Catholic creed. Not simply the politically expedient parts.

Insult to Injury

Tony's Restaurant in Birch Run, Michigan is known for the pound of bacon which comes with it's breakfast entrees. Me brother Phil is known to eat ravenously. Indeed, he takes a certain pride in that.

The two of us were in the northern part of the state making an early delivery yesterday. On the way home I said, let's stop at Tony's. We have time. Full disclosure: maybe we didn't really have time, we've been so busy. But dammit, you're only near Tony's every now and then, so, priorities.

We ordered a platter each of scrambled eggs, a heap of them, a ton of hash browns, and toast with Tony's strawberry preserves. I'm not huge on strawberry but their homemade preserves are fan-bloody-tastic. Of course, the pound of bacon came with it all.

About halfway through our meal the waitress came by to check on us. She left us, of her own volition, take home trays. We didn't request any.

"I am personally insulted by that," Phil said indignantly.

"Huh?"

"Like I can't eat this whole platter at one sitting. But maybe she doesn't know me."

Your reputation doesn't proceed you everywhere, bro.

The staring contest

Old Amos was tight. He was a good man yet he was very careful with his money. Consequently, me Grandpa Joe would often send Amos out to buy this or that for the welding business. He knew Amos would get him the best deal. One story me Pops liked to tell involved such an event.

I can't remember now what it was Joe wanted, but he sent Dad and Amos after it because it would take two people to handle whatever contraption he wanted to buy. Dad drove, and then simply stood back to watch Amos at work.

Amos tried every way in the world to get the seller to back down on price. He begged, he pleaded, he pointed out flaws in the machine. The guy wouldn't budge. It reached the point where Amos stopped talking and began pacing. He would pace a few steps beyond the man and then return. On his return, Dad said, Amos would stop abruptly right in front of the guy and spend a few seconds just glaring at him. Then he'd walk on, return, and do the same thing. He must have been trying to intimidate him, was all Pops could think.

After as few minutes of this, during which the seller did exchange a quizzical look at the old man, the guy finally said, "Look, just give me my price. But I'll put a lower one on the bill of sale to help you out on the sales tax."

Amos would have none of that. "Now, listen here. I want to get the best price I can out of you," he explained to the seller. "But what goes on paper is going to be right no matter what we agree to." Amos then resumed his pacing tactic.

As I recall (I wish I'd have listened more closely to Pops' stories) they eventually agreed on a price and Dad and Amos took the thing to the Shop because Joe had to have it. But I sure would have liked to have seen that battle of wills, that staring contest.

Tax Day

There are points which I will admit that I love to belabor. One of them is quite appropriate for this moment, as today is April 15, when we're supposed to have paid our income taxes for the previous year. And as I always will assert, I will always shout to the high heavens, income taxes are immoral. Period.

I'm not so libertarian as to argue that all taxation is theft. But the income tax is (the property tax too, and for similar reasons). Basically, the majority of Americans are saying that because person y made x amount of money he must hand some of it to said majority to spend however they want. If that's not theft I don't know what is.

Don't argue, but democracy! If democracy voted that you had to hand over your house or car would you have to? Of course not. Why so with your money?

The government can get cash from sales taxes and user fees, bond sales, and even import taxes. But how could it pay for all it's paying for now? It couldn't, I readily admit. Government would have to get farther out of our lives, which would be a great moral good. Or have you not noticed the wonderful job it has done on inflation, gas prices, poverty, education, or dozens of other things?

I will only allow this: pay your income taxes, but only because the alternative - fines and jail - are worse for you. In short, your payment of income taxes is predicated on a threat to life if not limb. That's exactly how more honest thieves act.

Beatles Dental Care

Two minutes. That, I've long understood, is how long you ought to brush your teeth. Yet how can you know you've accomplished that?

It was suggested to me that an easy way to do it was to listen to a song in your head which was about two minutes long while brushing. So I 'play' the Beatles' Can't Buy Me Love in my mind as I take care of my twice daily dental chores. That's not a terrible earworm either.

I wonder if Sir Paul ever imagined that his rock standard would be used for the health of an old Detroiter in 2026? Hmm...I bet he doesn't give it a second thought. Or first for that matter.

He's Just Joe

The term Grandpa Joe for my paternal grandfather came about as a compromise familiar. You can read about that here: Mom and Joe. Basically, Joe wanted his grandkids to call him Joe exactly as he taught his own children to call him by his name. When he confronted me Mom about it, seeing as me older brother and I are his oldest grandchildren, she'd have none of it. Grandpas were grandpa or pawpaw or poppop or grandpappy or something like that. The compromise became Grandpa Joe.

I get me Mom's point. I do believe that elder family members should be addressed by a traditional family moniker of some sort. Grandpa, Nana, Aunt, Uncle, as the case may be. Even people we just met ought to be called by some title, Mister, Missus, Ms, Sir, Ma'am, something, until we are familiar enough with them to call them by first names (or instructed to by the person in question). It's a respect we take too lightly in today's world.

However, I kind of understand Joe's wishes too. If he's okay with Joe, even from his progeny and their offspring, I don't see anything wrong with it. It's one of the reasons I consciously call him Joe many times in my blogs. It's what he wanted. As no real evil is involved, what's to debate?

So why did he want to be Joe rather than dad or pop or what have you? I really don't know. He simply preferred it that way, I guess, for whatever psychological reason. I never really questioned it. And the older I get, the less he's Grandpa Joe to me and more just Joe. That's simply who he was.

The Masters and John Cosgriff

I don't watch golf very often. But I always watch the Masters. Although I do find that I like the game more and more as I grow older, there's a part of me which still doesn't really see the allure. Hitting a small ball hundreds of yards into a cup maybe twice the size of that ball just doesn't seem a very entertaining way to spend an afternoon. Still, I find that golf and I have a history. Lately that's been played out through 'swing and sweeps', combined golf and curling tournaments. They're great fun, especially if, as a curler (as I am) it gets you two more curling games per season. I do look forward to them.

But more than that. My father's youngest brother, my Uncle John, liked to golf. He always bet something or other with a coworker on the outcome of the Masters. He and his boss would pick five guys alternately, and who had the winner won a sleeve of balls. I'm not sure who won most often. But I know my uncle was always proud of his picks.

I golfed with him many times years ago, when he was young and I was younger. We'd go out for nine holes after work many a summer's day. Those evenings were always good fun. If I could relive just one...we would joke and laugh, and simply enjoy the quiet and the game.

He was a lefty. That was fairly rare in golf at the time. His swing seemed unusual even to me, but for a duffer he was okay. I scored my only birdie to this date while golfing with him. The Eighth hole at Dearborn Hills, a 170 yard par 3, a Thursday night in an August which escapes my memory. I made the green off the tee with a four iron, and hit a 25 foot putt which ran hard left to right right into the cup. I made him sign the scorecard to attest that I had birdied. He remarked, "No one will believe us, because I'm family". It was lightly drizzling as he signed the card under the glare of my car's headlight after that round. I still see him doing it. Why do such things stay in our memories? But when he died, the first thing I did was dig up the scorecard and the ball that I birdied with.

When he had decided he was through with golf he gave me his left handed clubs. Several times I played rounds with them. If you have any idea how poorly I golf, you would know that it hardly mattered from which side of the tee I would address the ball. Might as well play lefty.

I kept those clubs for years. Then I bought a better-than-mine set of used right handed clubs (used better than I ever will), and decided to sell Uncle John's clubs at a yard sale. Who needs two sets of clubs, especially opposite sided ones, right? A young left handed guy practiced swung a few of them, decided that he wanted to golf enough so that it mattered that he ought to have his own clubs, and bought them.

I watched him walk away, dragging Uncle John's clubs behind on the cart which went with the deal. I felt a pang of remorse as the man disappeared with his new found treasure.

I sincerely hope that he has golfed well with them. And I wish I still had those clubs.

Saturday Night Stoogery

It's said that you can't beat the classics. I find that true.

Whatever you might say about the Three Stooges, while they are repetitive and childish, they are also timeless. Their shtick just never gets old. I know this because I'm old but they're still fresh.

Every Saturday night they're on MEtv from 6 to 8, and I rarely miss them. They aren't exactly high comedy. In fact, they don't even sniff at that. Yet there's something about their lowbrow slapstick which just appeals to the masses. 

Bread and Circuses? How about Stooges and Saturday? What say ye?

Bookended

My curling season ended with a loss last night. The wheels came off and we were set down 9-3. That's too bad, because we had a good, solid year. The boys played well in front of me from October through April and made it easy.

Interestingly, we lost yesterday to the team who beat us in the very first game of the season of Thursday league play. We got bookended. In between we were 12-5. On the year, I finished 16-5 as a skip and 20-7-1 overall. Not bad for a guy who didn't think he'd have a curling season last September. But that's the benefit you get when the guys you play with are good curlers, and simply good fellas to curl with.

Here's to the 26-27 season. It's looking good already.

Two By Two

I've mentioned before about the unusual cash payments we've sometimes taken at the old barn. We are truly nondenominational when it comes to currency. We've been paid in all fives, all tens, and even all singles (almost $1900 of them). Religiously, I believe that all roads lead to Rome. But business is business.

Still, I thought I had saw it all with methods of payment. I was wrong. Yesterday, for a small, fifty dollar repair, I was given 25 two dollar bills. They were crisp, new Jeffersons at that.

Maybe twos are the more out there of the denominations, perhaps like Charismatics or Presbyterians, but they do spend. Indeed, I'm keeping a few on me just to see where they're accepted. It's a silly thing, but I'm kind of looking forward to trying them in a vending machine, or self-service checkout at Wal-Mart. I'll let you know how that goes.

Distracted

As per my usual routine these days, I was up early. The old barn with its passel of drain snakes awaiting repair harkened. Time to make the donuts.

But as I sat on the edge of my bed tying my shoes, I was distracted. The TV was on, tuned to an early morning cartoon show. Up next, the host announced, was the classic Warner Brothers short What's Opera, Doc? 

Opening the Shop would have to wait seven minutes. A man's got to have his priorities in order. Kill da Wabbit! 

In Droves

I think many if not most of us have remarked at times how things seem to happen in bunches. The old saw death comes in threes comes to mind. The truth is I find that idea generally accurate.

I haven't needed a certain particular reversing switch in about eight or ten weeks. Today I need three. There's a part called a gear shaft which comes out of the motor of an Electric Eel Model C. We will literally go months, maybe as long as a half a year, without needing any and then bam - we need four.

Why is that? An friend of mine who is a math teacher once explained to me that statistics actually prove (or at least strongly indicate) that a given thing or things will as a matter of course happen in bunches. The trouble is we tend to think, or want to believe anyway, that even what would be considered random events (those shafts wearing out for example) happen in a nice, linear timeline. A, then B, then C and D and so forth, all nicely spaced. As we typically replace 12 in a year's time we should replace one of them a month, we expect, rather than two in January, none in February or March, four in April and so on.

Yet things don't happen that way. Or I suppose more accurately things over which we have no control happen over an evenly spaced time. They will happen as they happen, and statistically that means in droves. Usually: there will be singular events of course. Yet that too is covered by statistical theory. Sometimes things just happen and that's that.

Another teacher friend of mine is fond of saying math is life. I think she's right. And I think that even more each time I need three reverse switches all at once.

More Can I Do

I was quite happy this morning to find this review of my first collection of blogs, The Sublime to the Ridiculous: Family Lore:

The Sublime to the Ridiculous is a delightful collection of short stories that captures the ups and downs of family life. The tales are fun, relatable, and often quite touching, making it a great pick for light reading. While I enjoyed the mix of humor and heartfelt moments, some stories felt a little too brief, leaving me wanting more detail or depth. That said, the writing style is inviting, and it’s easy to pick up and enjoy a few pages at a time. A lovely book for anyone who appreciates family anecdotes with a mix of laughter and nostalgia.

Well, a little too brief, eh? That can be easily remedied. I can become more elaborate, more verbose; I can inject a great deal more detail into my stories. I can talk a lot. Quiet, Ron.

Seriously, isn't it good to leave them wanting more? And if you want more Sublime to the Ridiculous, here's the link Thank you!

Easter 2026

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!

Zeke's Nightmare

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

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

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

"How can that be?"

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

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

The Last Words

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.

Wild Cards

I've established that me Pops liked to play poker and that he held regular Saturday night games way back when. I asked him once whether he ever held a royal flush, the AKQJ10 all of the same suit. It's the highest poker hand possible, typically. He held royal flushes twice. Yet he lost one time with one anyway.

The games were almost always at his house, and his house rule was that the dealer called the game they were to play while he dealt. Typically it was a standard round of poker and only varied by whether it was draw or stud (don't worry about what those are as it's not important to the story). But he had this one friend, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who liked to do things differently. Cloyce invariably introduced wild cards into the game.

He might call the well known deuces wild, where twos could be any card you needed them to be. Or it might be one-eyed jacks and suicide kings were wild. He would sometimes call baseball, where threes and nines were wilds. Dad hated such variations. But he felt that in fairness he had to allow them.

Once when Cloyce called for wild cards, me Pops ended up with a true royal flush: 10 through ace, all hearts. No wild cards. Yet he lost to someone holding five sevens: three actual sevens with two wild cards.

That grated him, and I understand why. I think you ought to play the cards true myself. But fair is fair, and at least it wasn't Cloyce who held the five of a kind.

Counting the Days

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.

Socialism and Exorcism

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.

Canadian Form

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.

Palm Sunday 2026

Philippians 2:6-11

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.

Kaos or Control

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.

Shout Out to Curlers

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?

Telemedicine

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.

Must Be AI

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.

The trouble with magic and time travel

I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone over the weekend not because I was encamped at home with nothing better to do but because my son had the Rifftrax of it and we figured it would be fun. Quite bluntly, I cannot imagine myself watching it without the riffs. Nothing personal, Potter fans.

Anyway, it reminded me of why I can't take stories about magic (or time travel) seriously if they're supposed to be serious movies. They're both impossible (time travel and magic) and invite all sorts of inconsistency.

During one scene in the aforementioned movie a kid clearly breaks his arm. The instructing wizard stops the lesson to take the unfortunate boy to the infirmary. That's all well and good, and of course necessary and proper in the real world. But in that world of magic all I could think was, why are you making this kid endure all that misery? Why don't you just wave your wand and heal his injury?

Ditto time travel. If taken at face value, either everything will always be in flux as folks gallivant about changing everything, or you should just be able to go fix the problem and be done with it. It's okay with comedy such as Back to the Future as you're not expected to take it seriously. But as a plot device in a drama it's really rather stupid.

Yes, yes, yes, suspend disbelief and enjoy the films on their own merit I will be told. I will even concede such movies might make passable entertainment. Still, the inconsistencies inherent in them will always bug me.

Rant (if this qualifies as one) over.

Trump Went Too Far This Time

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.