People Being People

Wednesday, I received a text asking whether I had four-foot-long drain snake cable sections. Responding yes, I was asked if they could be picked up Friday (yesterday) and at what time? I answered that Friday was fine and added that I was available from 10-3. I'm open longer than that, but have learned you have to corral folks. Availability can always be 'expanded' if and as necessary.

You will notice that I told the man 10 until 3. That information in the text I sent is time stamped 11:14 AM this past Wednesday.

Would you believe the guy texted me at 2:59 Friday afternoon asking when he could pick up those cables? I am not kidding, and I am not adding such detail to sensationalize the story. The text is time stamped 2:59 PM, Friday October 30. "Can you be here in one minute?" I wanted ask. Because, correct me if I'm wrong, being available from 10 till 3 means I am not available before 10 AM nor after 3 PM on a specifically given day.

Instead, I gritted my teeth and replied I could meet at 4. He answered in turn good, that his GPS said he was 42 minutes away. I said fine. He immediately returned, 'I'm not sure when I can be there though'. Then why in the hell were asking me to begin with?

Honestly, starting a text thread sixty seconds ahead of a deadline which I had given you two days before, being offered another time as you requested, then adding you really did not know when you could make it anyway? What. The. Hell. If it were me, I wouldn't have even bothered texting that late myself to begin with, knowing what he theoretically knew, and I'm not that much smarter than a trousered ape. But he still figured it was okay to ask, and at that not actually knowing his own availability.

In what universe can that possibly make sense? Or did Trick or Treat come early, and I'm being pranked?

The Cosgriff Dock

Wednesday, October 28, marked the end of a personal era. After 55 years, Cosgriff Sales made its last pickup at Electric Eel Manufacturing in Springfield, Ohio. The company is moving production to Niles, Michigan. 

No offense to Niles. I'm sure my upcoming journeys there will bring their own enjoyment. There's even a truck stop restaurant in that direction which Dad liked and to which I will surely make routine visits. But I'm going to miss those Springfield trips. I've been making them myself or with me brother Phil, and occasionally with me son Charlie or me son Frank, at least once a month for 13 and a half years. Before that I was there regularly with me Pops, and even a few times with me Grandpa Joe way back (way, way back) when I was a teen. It was almost like old home, seeing the workers there who became friends.

Time marches on. I did allow myself to be a bit sentimental, taking about a dozen pictures in and around the Springfield facility and which I intend to make into an album. Here's one of the last pick up being made in my new old van. 

I've often thought of that as the Cosgriff Dock, though I know others have resupplied at that door as well. 

I'll miss the place. I'll miss the people. I'll miss the stops along the way. It was a good run.

Who Pays the Tab

It's always great to deal with folks who have a sense of humor.

Yesterday I paid a bill over the phone. I had my invoice and customer number right in front of me. After I rattled the numbers off to the woman who answered the call, she pulled everything up on her computer. "So, let's see. We're paying $738.19 today?"

"We are?" I replied with purposely too much enthusiasm. "Thanks!"

 The agent burst into laughter. "It is right we get things straight, isn't it? You're paying $738.19 today."

"If you insist," I answered with a chuckle. But she thanked me for giving her a laugh.

I figure the money's due no matter what. Have fun with it.

Cloyce Destroys My Model C

I remember a time when I was 16 or 17 that Pops handed over to me a used Electric Eel Model C drain cleaning machine which he had taken in on trade, and told me to clean it up for sale. With that, for honestly the first time in my life, I went all out on a work project. I really put my heart into the job.

I took the motor off the frame, and washed all the grime off both. I painted the motor gray and the frame royal blue, just as they painted them at the Eel factory. I rewired it and installed new wheels. All the bolts everywhere on that unit were new. When I was finished with it that baby looked sharp. She was dressed to the nines. I was truly proud of my work. Pops was too. That made me feel very good.

A few days later a regular customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, came by. I was busied at some project at a work bench in the middle of the Shop, the old barn where I still work. "Bill,' I heard Cloyce say to my father, "Have you got any used Models Cs?"

My heart sank right to floor. It seeped right through my boots.

You see, Cloyce was a great guy and a good customer. He never debated cost nor asked for better prices. He just bought what he wanted and said thank you. But man oh man, he was one lousy drain cleaner. He lost more cables in more sewers than you might think it possible for any one man to lose. I think he lost more snake cable in a given year than entire companies would in two. He abused his equipment in ways and manners unimaginable, incomprehensible to the rational human mind. In the museum of incompetent plumbers, yes, I mean this, is a solid gold, life size statue of Cloyce. He was simply not good at what he did. It remains a wonder to me how he ever got any jobs. Who, once they had seen his work, would refer him?

And Pops was going to sell him my Model C.

He couldn't not not sell the man the machine. I get that. We were, are still, in the business of selling new and used drain snakes, and Cloyce's money was as good as anyone else's. Plus, his poor skills weren't our fault. The old man had to sell the unit. As he took Cloyce's money me Pops, for likely the only time in his life, looked over at me with a sheepish, embarrassed, pained look which plainly said, 'I'm sorry, son'.

Cloyce wheeled that Eel out the door with a bright smile, while I was truly morose. You know those classic theater masks, the grinning one which represents comedy and the crying one which spoke tragedy? I learned that moment how tragedy felt. My youthful innocence was broken, its tatters strewn across the Shop floor.

Within a month Cloyce brought that Model C into the Shop for a switch or something. The front swivel caster was gone and the frame broken off so that the drive shaft had no support. The paint was scratched and grime covered my first child. I swear it looked up at me in despair and whispered pathetically, "Shoot me."

Bernie's Benign Deflect

Bernie Sanders was in Michigan yesterday, campaigning for someone or another. He gave a speech from behind a podium. The podium had a sign. The sign urged voters to Fight Oligarchy.

Oh. That's. Rich. He does know what an oligarchy is, I would think. But let's spell it out for him anyway: it's rule by a few.

I know what he means by it. He means we shouldn't be ruled by a handful of wealthy businessmen. Now, rule by a handful of wealthy government officials, well, that's a different thing entirely. But why?

Because he's one of those few, that's why. He's made his living in Washington. He's established who he is there. Yet it's those other bad, rich guys we should worry about. Not the ones like him, who hold a power more dangerous than Elon Musk: the arbitrary and unilateral hand of government. The hand which can give thumbs up to what it likes and thumbs down to what it condemns. The hand which can, will, and has broken people.

Not that the private rich aren't without power and pull we plebes don't enjoy. At the risk of understatement, that can be bad. Evil is endemic to the human condition, and we simply cannot eradicate it everywhere and for all times. But I'm with C. S. Lewis on government power over private power:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

To wit: we can, at least to a degree, avoid dealing with private entities. I don't have to buy a Tesla. But I have to deal with government, and its hunger never stops, precisely because it knows best. It has assured itself of that.

What Uncle Bernie has done is classic: accuse the other guy of the evil you're doing. It makes you seem pure while all along, you're the true oligarch. It's so obvious it astounds me that voters, at least some of them, can't see it.

I Just Watch Sportsball

There's a Monty Python skit - bear with me, Ron - where John Cleese plays an oaf a soccer player who can hardly put a sentence together while Eric Idle is an interviewer trying to get into the intricacies of the game. Cleese answers a question, "I kicked the ball, then there it was, in the back of the net." That was in response to Idle asking about the positioning of the opposing players and blah, blah about what deep strategies led to the goal. It's clear that even Cleese doesn't get it. He's just a guy who scored a goal, a deer in the headlights of a self important reporter.

I feel like the Cleese character these days, when watching sports. When did they become so complicated?

Watching golf early this morning, a replay of an earlier event, the broadcasters were describing a shot where so-and-so was taking advantage of such-and-such by using a club with a 52 degree head angle rather than 51.5, which was surprising considering tons of various other factors including that the club shaft was a rare Uruguayan titanium alloy and it had rained six hours ago in northeast Ohio while a local woman delivered twins in the back of a taxi with the help of a well I won't go into that. All the while I'm thinking, about the golfer, "He hit the ball well."

I see it in other games too. A shortstop throws a batter out at first base and the announcers describe the play as though they're writing War and Peace. Meanwhile I'm slapping my son on the shoulder, shouting, "Did you see that throw?"

All right, players are looking for every possible advantage and reporters want to sound like they know what they're taking about. But it doesn't add a thing to the game for me, and I doubt most others. And I can't help wonder if any of it really makes a difference anyway.

Another Dumb Term

I went online this morning and ordered a book. I selected the book, I entered my card information, I received a confirmation number as well as a confirmation e-mail. The book itself won't be available until November, but it's been ordered. I will get a copy.

I will stress it's been ordered. I will get it.

So why, pray tell, does everything and everyone involved in this situation (except me) insist that I've pre-ordered it?

Please tell me what I'm missing. I ordered it. It is paid for. I have a receipt. It is coming. What the hell is pre about that?

Should I be stressing over this? I think so. It is not what they're saying it is. It. Is. An. Order. For. A. Book. How hard is that to understand?

Or maybe I should have given them a pre-debit card and have the thing pre-shipped to my pre-address? It makes as much sense to me.

Curmudgeon rant over. But he will seethe about this for a few hours.

But Still

I have this one customer, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who is annoying in small ways. Many small ways. He never does anything so bad as to allow me a reason to throw him out of the Shop bodily. That's an aggravation by itself; you almost want the guy to become outlandish and obnoxious enough that you can tell him to go hell. I'm sure you have such a friend too. Quiet Ron.

Cloyce likes to do things such as inspect my work every time I do it. Every. Single. Time. On the one hand, I get it. A fella wants assurance that the thing he's about to pay for is done well and proper. On the other, he's watched me do stuff for 45 years (cue old guy stating emphatically, and perhaps angrily offended, 'I been doin' this for well on 45 years now') and I feel he ought to trust my abilities at this point.

The other day as I finished welding a fitting onto his drain snake cable he asked upon inspection, "You sure that's enough weld on there, Marty?"

What to do, what to say? "Here's the welding lead, Cloyce. How 'bout, rather than me doing it and charging you $40, you show me how it's done and I'll pay you forty bucks?" Or, "It's just like I've done it for the 45 years you've known me Cloyce. What's yer problem?" 

But still, why get mad? He's going to act the same damn way next time, ain't he?

Sit Down and Shut Up

I remarked a few weeks ago on re-reading Less Than Words Can Say, a wonderful book on how stupid we've become about language in particular and education in general. One of the main points which the books makes is that we know how to teach, and we know how to learn. Stripped down to the very core, we teach by making folks Sit Down, Shut Up, and Pay Attention. 

Why is this so? Because it really isn't that hard to master subject-predicate agreement. Essential scientific principles are pretty straightforward. Axioms of philosophy are readily comprehensible. Theorems in geometry are not difficult to understand. IF you sit down, shut up, and actually pay attention to the subject matter. 

Yes, yes, yes, there may be individual, legitimate exceptions which require compassion, charity, and greater consideration. But by and large if you want to learn something you need to sit down, shut up, and pay attention to those who know the subject. 

Richard Mitchell, the author of the aforementioned book, argues that we are willfully being stupid about how to teach and learn. I think there's something to that. I think we want (well, some of us, and typically folks who get prestige and money from the rest of us, not incidentally through the force of government) to make what we call education into a grand scheme of virtually religious proportions, understandable only to an elite class of specially deep minded and concerned people. Yet our modern schooling is really mere training, taking on the skills we need to get along in the world. We are not educated into subject-predicate agreement. We are trained to recognize and employ the principles within it so that we may usefully communicate. It is no cosmic ideal.

Education itself? That is something much greater and vastly more profound. It is also something beyond my point today. But I'll get back to it soon. You've been warned. 

Child Abuse (serious)

I had a customer come into my Shop one day for a chuck on the front of his machine. He had a thirteen or fourteen year old kid with him as a helper.

As I gathered my tools and the new chuck I noticed that the cord which should have had a push button on/off switch on the end had nothing but two exposed wires. I said, "I have on/off switches on hand. I could pop one on for you." This was more than a mere upsell, Marty sticking his hand in a guy's pocket. To start the machine you had to have that push button switch.

"Naw, I don't need it Cosgriff. That's what the kid is for," explained the customer, pointing at the young teen.

Incredulous, I asked, "What do you mean?"

The guy explained, "I have the kid hold the wires and I tell him to touch them together when I want it on. Then I tell him to pull them apart when I want it off."

"You're gonna kill this kid," I quite emphatically replied. "Oh, he'll be all right," I was told.

I went into my office, brought out a switch, and began installing it on the cord of his machine. "I ain't payin' for that, Cosgriff," the idiot tightwad said.

"I ain't asking you to," I barked back at him. And I barked it too. "But I can't let this thing go outta here knowing how you're using it. You're gonna hurt that boy."

I haven't seen him since, and good riddance to bad rubbish. I mean, really: having anyone let alone a kid touch bare wires together to run a machine? Some things you just have to do simply because they're the right thing to do.

Irish Folk Songs, or, A Long Way To Go For A Very Poor Attempt At Humor

Perhaps my favorite Irish folk song is Whiskey on a Sunday. You can listen to The Irish Rovers take on the tune here if you like.

Believe it or not, there's a lot more to Irish folk music than The Unicorn.  Whiskey on a Sunday is one example of that. Still, irreverent Marty can't help but take a swat at the tune. Maybe that's the Irish in him acting up.

Seth Davy is the main figure in the song. The third verse begins, 'And sad to relate that old Seth Davy died, in Nineteen Hundred and Four,'. Yes, we're supposed to feel pathos then, and I generally do. Indeed I have had a tear come to me eye at that point in the song as it's sung. Yet does that keep me from mockery? No. I sometimes find myself asking, So it would not have been so sad to relate had he died in 1903 or 1905?

I still love the song. Despite me, some days. 

The Impossible Dream

I was going to write about Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed this morning. But I'm not, or, at least, I'm only going to use his candidacy as a jumping off point towards something else. 

My original intent was to use quotes of his from his past (where else might they be found?) as fodder for why he doesn't deserve my vote. But we all know what would happen next. I would either be ignored, which is nearly the preferred response (though my comments would serve no purpose then), or countered vehemently. "He's retracted that statement!" "He's distanced himself from that!" Yadda yadda. Exactly like every other politician not named Donald Trump would try to do if he/she/they/it felt threatened. Har-umph.

As an aside, one of the things I actually like about Trump is that he bulls forward no matter what, almost as though saying, "Yeah? So what? It's out there, deal with it." I prefer that to dancing around legitimate issues and legitimate questions. 

But I digress.

I'm appalled at the idea of again falling into wormholes. It's tiresome. I shouldn't even bother to point out the self-serving and shallow hypocrisy inherent in such things, but I will. What my guy says goes for all times and all places and he's forever an infidel, yet your guy gets a pass. Both sides do it, at least to a degree. It cheapens each.

And it does not help anyone's identification, understanding, or appreciation of the real problems we face. We're all quite adept at seeing the splinter in the other guy's eye yet looking beyond the plank in ours.

Heavy sigh. We need better, but that's the impossible dream, isn't it?

Figuratively Hanging Iron

As the great majority of you know, me Grandpa Joe rented welding equipment for many a year. For a lot of them years me Pops was one of his main delivery drivers. Dad used to love sitting in the office shanty on job sites before the day's work began, listening to the war stories and likely offering a few himself.

One day as he was early with a delivery most all of the weldors on hand were in the shanty drinking coffee and talking, having not yet set out to earn their daily bread. The guys were bragging about how much iron they were going to hang once they got started. It was going to be a big, productive day.

The job foreman, whom I'll call Cloyce just to give him a name, sat by silently taking in the revelry. Finally he had heard enough. Turning to Pops he said, overly loud but wanting everyone to hear, "You know, Red (they called me Pops Red when he was younger because his hair was red back then), if these fellas hung as much iron on the job as they did in the shed, we'd be a high-ballin' outfit."

Cloyce was ribbing them but to a point. They were put on notice to live up to their bragging when the work started. Pride can drive a man to a lot of things. One of them is to put up or shut up.

A Love Hate Relationship

The annual Detroit Free Press Marathon runs (ha, ha, runs) down Avery Street for the sixth straight year today. I have to admit that I'm looking forward to it. Mom really enjoyed it in her day. We weren't sure we should wake her (it began fairly early) but she really got a kick out of watching the street parade of runners and joggers from her own front porch. 

It will pass by a little later this morning. We're just before mile 13 this time around, or about half way through the 26 mile plus route. Any way you slice it, I am truly in great anticipation of the event. The irony is, left up to me I probably would not have it go through my Woodbridge neighborhood.

Yes, yes, yes, I know. It's a blinding contradiction. I like the marathon, I look forward to it, I would change it if I could. Maybe still allow it through Woodbridge but one street over, on Commonwealth rather than Avery, just so I wouldn't be stuck at home. It's only six hours that the street will be closed to vehicular traffic. But doggone it, that includes my vehicle, my ability to come and go as I please, for that six hours. Sure, I'm not going anywhere. Yet I want to be able to go somewhere just the same.

I'm not trying to justify it. I'm only saying that's how I feel.

Swagger is Shallow

You don't brag on yourself. You don't. I'm not saying that it's a moral wrong. But it is crude.

Everyone in Detroit remembers Kirk Gibson punching his fists in the air when his three run shot off Goose Gossage sealed the 1984 World Series for our hometown Detroit Tigers. Some would call it an iconic moment. But what did it actually accomplish? The Tigers were already leading the game 5-4 in the bottom of the eighth and the series 3 games to one. A smarter manager than Dick Williams would have walked Gibson. But who drove in the actual Series winning run? Who was the MVP of that World Series?

You had to look that up didn't you? But aren't those accomplishments really more important than a moment caught on camera when the series was at least arguably already over? Gibson may have been the icing. But he was not the cake.

We're too much for show in the U.S. and in many other parts of the world today. Yet show rarely accomplishes anything. It's the grunts what do that. It's the little things which add up to great things which ultimately matter the most.

Rusty Kuntz and Alan Trammell BTW. You had forgotten that until now I'm sure.

Newness

It has been said, and justifiably I readily admit, that I will not try new things. Indeed, it is not unfair to say that I am downright obstinate in refusing to do or try things I have not before tried or did. I like what I like and have never seen the sense of doing different simply to do so. 

Yet that doesn't mean I absolutely will not try the new. Why, just a few weeks ago I went to a Banana Ball game and found it very entertaining, enough so that I have already entered the ticket lottery for when they play in Detroit again next season. And this morning I am drinking a coffee called White Heather. It has the flavor of toffee and brown sugar with a hint of butter and salt. And it's good. I would buy it again.

So there, all you Marty naysayers. I will try something new. 

But after experiencing two new things in the last few weeks I say, whew! That anything new stuff is off my calendar for a year or better now. 

What Doesn't Kill You

Me Mom and me Pops were out on a road trip one day. They found a nice little diner in a tiny little town and decided to have breakfast. Mom for some reason asked for decaf coffee. Pops wanted the full strength stuff.

About half way through their meal the waitress came around with a coffee pot, as waitresses often will. But all she had with her was a pot of decaf. "You had decaf, right, honey?" she asked Mom. When mom nodded yes, she got her mug filled.

Turning to look at me Pops the waitress said, "But you had regular coffee?"

"That's right," Dad confirmed.

The waitress stared at him for a moment, then responded, "Well, it won't kill ya," and filled his cup with decaf. 

Small town diners. Even Pops got a laugh at that. 

A Buck Ten

Remember when I said that I no longer pay my work electric bill online? Well, if not, look here. Electric Company wanted a $9-dollar monthly fee to pay that way. I decided, forget that stuff (me Grandpa Joe used to say stuff rather than the obvious, cruder word), I'll send a check and make you process it. I further would kill every electric appliance or light whenever not absolutely needed, in order to deprive Electric Company of more than my nine bucks.

I suppose you don't actually have to click that link, now that I've summarized the tale after all.

Be that as it may, I decided to see how much my electric bill has dropped since my hissy fit. Lo and behold, in looking over the bills of the last three months, I've saved about two dollars each month since getting out the checkbook. As payments by mail cost me about 90 cents per month, I'm around a buck-ten ahead every time I pay by mail. I figured it would be a wash, but how about that, as my old friend Mel Allen would say.

Yeah, I know Electric Company doesn't care. Yet I'll still call it a win.

It's in the Air

Really wasn't sure what to expect going in, but this turned out to be one of the most unique and atmospheric sci-fi stories I've read in a while. The plot unfolds with impressive precision. The author takes time to develop complex, relatable characters whose personal struggles feel deeply grounded even as larger, more menacing forces begin to shift around them. I enjoyed following the main character’s journey as he begins to discover more about himself and his purpose.

So says Nicole about my book A Subtle Armageddon. I was striving, I really had no choice, but to build a world from the ground up, one where learning was possible without overt guidance. I'm quite happy she found it 'unique and atmospheric' with a plot of 'impressive precision'.

Might you feel the same? Look here and see.

Right At Home

Those who know me know that the check engine light means nothing to me. It simply doesn't tell us anything worth worry. When it comes on in one of my vehicles, I look on it as little more than the aging process. The car is getting old.

Imagine my delight, then, with the cargo van I rented last week. As I was about an hour into my trip, I noticed that the check engine light in the dashboard was on. 

I chuckled. Do they know me that well? "Hey boss, the check engine light is on on unit 1234," a tech might have said.

"We're stuck for vehicles today. Give it to Marty. He won't care, and we can deal with it later," the boss would have replied.

And I indeed had no problem. No problem at all.

A sledgehammer and an ax

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

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

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

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

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

Better Than Nothing

Getting old means Medicare. Medicare A is what we've paid for all our working lives. Medicare B covers things A doesn't. Then there's, well in my case, anyway, Medicare G, which covers stuff A and B blow off. It costs me $173 a month.

But it's $173 dollars well spent. Yes, it is. Why, I just received a letter from the Medicare G agents informing me that they happily covered my 52-cent co-pay on a recent medical test. Yessir, 52 Lincolns which ain't coming out of my pocket. And all the privilege set me back was $173. A month. That's $2,076 a year.

All right, full disclosure, they've paid for more than that in the year and a half I've been on Medicare, although still far under the yearly sticker price. I just got a kick out of them taking the time to send me a note for their generosity in covering that particular 52 cents for me.  They have my back.

Dragnet Hockey

I was just watching the intro to a Dragnet episode. You know, the one where Jack Webb tells us all about how great Los Angeles is. He liked to give short tours of the city as he lead into that day's program. 

This morning he was talking about the sports scene. There was a shot of the sports arena where the Los Angeles Kings played at the time. Webb explained that they played ice hockey. My question: is that a dated reference? Does anyone say 'ice hockey' anymore?

That's what I got for you today. Enjoy your Friday.

Bounce Cars

You all know what bounce houses are I'm sure. They're the large, inflated play pens often seen at children's parties. Kids jump up and down in them, caroming off the floor and walls and each other. They're meant to burn all that excess energy out of the young 'uns so they'll fall asleep as soon as they get home.

I happened to catch an episode of the old police procedural Highway Patrol the other morning. If you think Sgt. Joe Friday has a machine gun delivery, Broderick Crawford, the lead in Highway Patrol, puts him to shame. Crawford's delivery is so rapid fire you almost need captions. No one talks that rat-a-tat in real life. 

Anyway, Highway Patrol aired in the late 1950s, when vehicles were monstrous land battleships. Not only were they huge, the bounced around as though shock absorbers and springs were an afterthought. It appeared as if the front and rear fenders were bouncing up off the ground whenever a car would stop or turn or even wink at a pothole. Those cars rocked back and forth like a teeter-totter even when slowing to a stop.

"Should we put something on our vehicles to make the ride smoother?" I could imagine an automotive engineer back then ask during R&D.

"Nah," his supervisor might reply. "They're land battleships. Let 'em bounce along the road as though they're really on the high seas."

Watch an episode of that old show. You'll see what I mean.

The Sigh Moment

I made a trip to Electric Eel in Springfield, Ohio yesterday, just one of dozens (maybe a couple hundred) I've made in the last dozen or so years. It was uneventful, which is good. You don't really want eventful road trips as a rule because that nearly always means trouble. About the worst that happened was the sigh moment. Typically, there's one of those per road trip.

Yesterday it happened as I passed a Wendy's in Bellefountaine, Ohio. For whatever reason it popped into my head that one Friday years ago, me and me Pops stopped there for fish sandwiches for lunch. And a Frosty; you gotta have a frosty at Wendy's. Anyway, we actually had stopped at that particular fast food joint several times over the years. And I looked over at it, merely sighing as I drove past.

At this point in my life I figured that me and Pops would be making these trips together regularly. I had in fact resolved that on his next birthday, when he would have turned 78 (that would have been 2014), I was going to screw up my courage and insist that either me or my brother Phil go with him on all road trips. He was going to get the Son Speech, similar to the Doctor Speech we all get after a certain age. You don't need to be traipsing alone all over the country at your age, Pops. You don't need to be trying to lift hundred-pound boxes at all, let alone by yourself, Pops. Me or Phil need to go with you on sales runs.

Obviously enough by now, I never got to make that speech. Maybe it's just as well. I know the old man would have gotten his dander up to hear it. We'd have likely went around and around about it, reasonably politely to be fair and honest, before coming to tepid agreement. But it would have been uncomfortable for all involved.

Instead, I take road trips and see things which remind of old times. Places and haunts which he liked to stop at whether anyone was with him or not. Places I often stop at solely because he would have stopped there.

And I have the sigh moment. Then it's just on to my next destination.

Cloyce the Engineer

There was this drain snake customer of ours, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who might have been the penultimate re-inventor of the wheel. There wasn't a drain snake which was safe from his passion to do things different under the guise of making them better, which to my knowledge he never actually managed. His improvements tended to make things harder rather than easier.

Ol' Cloyce had a large plate installed atop a snake to turn the motor a hundred and eighty degrees around because it would then magically give the machine more power. It didn't, but it sure made working on the motor a greater chore. 

He welded the power feed onto a machine, backwards too by the way, because that made it easier (he argued) to access the actuator handle. Not in the least, I tell you, but replacing bearings was then a true challenge because you had to take the entire feed apart to do it. Normally you take the unit off and set it on a work bench where, trust me, putting in new bearings was much more readily done. 

Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was retrofitting a thirteen horsepower gasoline engine to his electric drain machine because he was absolutely going to destroy any root bed in any sewer which came his way. Those roots would never know what hit them. 

There wasn't simply one thing wrong with that approach. There were many.

A typical electric snake has a 3/4 horsepower motor. Cloyce increased the power nearly twenty times the necessary strength. Overkill much, Cloyce?

Then the unit was too heavy and bulky to get into a standard basement in a private home. But that was probably just as well because, you know, toxic fumes from the exhaust just might be a problem in a small enclosed area. Maybe.

Professor Cloyce took care of that with an intricate series of detachable piping which could be run from an open basement window to the drain access. Of course, that put you as much as forty or fifty feet away from the job and left you blind to the work. I guess progress doesn't absolutely require that you see what you're doing, but still.

I'm sure he did rip those roots to shreds. I'm sure he destroyed a good many lengths of sewer pipe too. Ah well. Here's to Cloyce, the Thomas Edison of the snake world.

Or more honestly, the Rube Goldberg. But I'm sure the old boy had fun tinkering in his laboratory. Uh, garage.

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

I know it's early. I'll concede that I'm even being, well, just a bit snarky this morning. I even readily admit I am conservative by nature, and while I don't mind calculated aggressiveness, on the whole you should be cautious. You should take what you're given. 

After watching the Detroit Lions lose last night to the Carolina Panthers, a team which lost to the Cleveland Browns of all things, I am wondering: are these the same old Lions, shooting themselves in the foot when a golden opportunity knocks? So, I'm going to say something I've held my tongue on for two years now.

Shoulda kicked the field goal.

Lions fans know what I mean.

Seeing Things

While channel surfing Friday night, I watched a few minutes of a college football game. On one play, a running back made a pretty good move. Pressed up against a stack of bodies, blockers and tackles frantically trying to shove each other aside, the ball carrier bounced to his left, into an opening. He gained 17 yards before he was brought down. 

A nice run, yes. One described by the color commentator as, "He was bottled up, then saw a hole with his vision and hit it for a good gain."

Ah. The football player 'saw' with his 'vision' and had a good run.

An incisive remark, to be sure. I heard it with my hearing, after seeing with my own vision. Then I smelled potato chips with my nose and tasted them with my tongue before chewing them with my mouth. And now I'm thinking (with my brain) that you, too, could be a football commentator.

Ooh boy.

A Little Too Quiet

Call me crazy - I'm sure most of you have by now - but some days I do worry that I am losing my mind.

The house is very quiet when I'm home alone during the day, working at my computer and absolutely not playing video poker (why would you think that?). It becomes, as the old trepidation goes, too quiet.

While I was working on my current writing project (and not, I stress, playing poker) I heard what I thought was a noise from the pantry. Great, I think, a critter has gotten into something. Do I have mousetraps? But checking the pantry found no evidence of a tiny rodent invasion.

A few minutes later I heard it again. Further investigation discovered no suspects, no scurrying activity. That's two strikes. At strike three, I'm going to tear the place apart, find that little miscreant, and settle our score.

Of course within a few minutes I hear more squeaking and creaking noises. I rose to storm the pantry, leaving pocket Aces at the table - I mean an incredibly important email unfinished - when I realize that it's the chair at my computer desk. When I shift my weight ever so slightly as I sit, I'm causing the noises myself.

I think I need to keep the radio or TV on as I work from home.

In a Pickle Loaf

Sometimes it's the little things in life which make a guy happy. Sometimes, in my case, it's very little things.

While out shopping yesterday I came across pickle loaf. It's really just bologna with slivers of pickle and slivers of, oh, what's that stuff, it looks like slivers of red pickle...pimento! That's it. Bologna with pickle and pimento slivers.

Anyway, I hadn't seen it in a long time. That's likely as not because I simply hadn't been looking for it. But yesterday it found me. Of course I had to buy some. And of course I had to have a pickle loaf sandwich as soon as I got home. 

And you know what? It did not disappoint. For a few lone minutes in this hectic world, I was a kid again eating the pickle loaf sandwich during school lunch which my mother had packed for me that day. It is sometimes the little things which make your day.

Check, Mate

The use of checks has become a very Boomer thing in recent years, as electronic payments have come to the fore. Still, this Boomer, genuflecting to The Future, has been paying most things electronically. Yet typically, I still averaged writing a check a month, for various reasons. Now I write two.

A couple of months ago I went to pay the household bills online. While I was at it I decided to pay the electric bill for the Shop. To my surprise and dismay, though I had paid that bill online for years now, Electric Company would only allow me to do so with a $9 surcharge, apparently because I am a business. By all appearances it isn't something innocuous like a one time set up fee. It's every month I try to pay electronically.

Well, forget that. I wrote them a check and mailed it, and will continue to do so so long as that added charge is demanded. What's more, and although we have turned the power off at the old barn at closing time for as long as I can recall, I now turn it off every time I leave. For example, if running to the hardware, a chore which typically takes about a half hour, I kill the lights. All of them. Even when I'm working I only keep on the ones necessary, such as above my workbench. The far end of the Shop? I turn on those lights only for as long as I need them. The side room we have? Ditto. I've turned back into a Dad about the lights.

The Shop bill is usually around $24, so I know I'm not depriving Electric Company much with my actions. But there's a principle at stake. I ain't paying nine bucks a month, adding around thirty five percent to my bill, for the privilege of giving you my cash, and if I only save a buck turning lights on and off frequently, well, it covers the postage on a check you must now process. 

So. There.