A Not So Subtle Message

So, you think that Marty drives old cars? Well, he does, yes. But something happened to me brother Phil which has never happened to me. It's entirely true. He'll back me up.

Several years ago Phil was driving an old Pontiac Sunfire. I don't recall exactly how old, but it had some years (and rough driving) on it. I mean, people had begun to notice.

One day he stepped out onto his front porch and noticed that there was a flyer under the windshield wiper of the Sunfire. That wasn't unusual; we routinely have flyers placed on cars around the neighborhood for this or that reason. Yet me brother saw that no other car had a flyer. He stepped out to the street to see what the it might advertise.

The flyer proclaimed - I am not making this up (and it happened to him, not me) - that 'We buy junk cars!' and had a prominent phone number across the bottom. 

Apparently my new old cars aren't as new/old as his. Did I mention, BTW, that he had a second flyer put on that same vehicle a few months later?

Still On Our Own

Charles III has been formally installed as King Of England. We're still independent of the Crown.

Some things never change. I'm perfectly okay with that.

Canine Hold 'Em

The Ohio Cosgriffs were up yesterday. The family, other than yours truly (who isn't a huge garage sale guy) went on a shopping spree. There's an annual garage sale which runs the length of Michigan State Route 15 and they're participating. Happy trails.

I stayed home. I had some writing I wanted to do, and also felt it wouldn't hurt to keep their dogs company as they get a bit antsy when home alone. "What are you going to do with them while we're shopping?" me granddaughter asked.

"I think we'll recreate that famous velvet painting of dogs playing poker," I quipped.

That isn't as easy as it sounds. While searching for a template to determine how to pose the dogs I found that there are not one, nor two, nor three, velvet paintings of dogs playing poker. There are dozens.

I didn't expect that. It's as though it's it's own genre, it's own school of art. Future classes of art historians will speak of the impressionists, the cubists, the expressionists, the modernists, the minimalists, the realists, Art Nouveau...and the dogs playing pokerists. 

I have a flair for art after all.

Willup or Philliam

Phil is Phil. Really. Yet me brother Phil seems to be a man without a name.

There's a guy Phil and I have known for years who always, without fail, in individual conversation with me brother, addresses Phil as Marty. Phil has quit trying to correct him as it simply has not worked and there appears no hope that it ever will. I realize that, as the most exalted older brother, my light shines before him. It surely obliterates his presence. Phil simply must learn to live in the glare of my notoriety; we all have our crosses. Yet he nevertheless deserves his own name.

He laments that when in high school having a class with our brother Ed, Sister Teacher when reading the roll always said, "Cosgriff, Edward and William," at their names.

"Phillip, Sister," he would correct.

"Yes, William," Sister would respond.

Phil thinks that, for the good Nun, it was only a cutesy running joke. At least, he's trying to believe that.

Grandpa Joe and Great Grandpa James

I've spoken often about Grandpa Joe, and occasionally about his father, Great Grandpa James. Readers should well understand by now that Joe seemed to always make his presence felt, quite emphatically and quite often. Only his own dad was able to influence that.

A tale me Pops told me may illustrate the fact. Great Grandpa James lived on the same farm in west central Illinois his whole 92 years. Grandpa Joe was born there. Naturally enough, every summer Joe would load the family into some old wreck of a car and they would head out to see the extended family. The trip made further sense because Grandma Cosgriff, me grams, was from the same area too, so they could visit both sets of relatives.

One year when Pops was still in high school, him and a brood of his cousins were out in a large field shagging flies. Grandpa James, 85 at the time, noticed them, and went out in the field to watch. Eventually he asked if he might try hitting the baseball a bit. Now, he had a hernia at the time, and the grandkids knew it. But they also didn't know how they could tell their grandfather no, so they dutifully let him hit.

He was hitting well by Pops' account, just another guy tossing a ball in the air and thwacking it with a bat as it came down towards earth. Indeed all them grandsons were impressed by the old man. But Pops noticed Joe watching from a ways off, by the house he was born in, as if deciding something but not sure how to proceed. Joe Cosgriff being uncertain about anything was very unusual.

Grandpa Joe finally muscled up his courage and strode out into the field where his father had yet to relinquish the bat. He walked up to Grandpa James and said timidly (Joe Cosgriff speaking timidly?), "Dad, do you think you should be doing that, with your hernia and all?"

His father paused a moment to reply plainly, "Joe, I believe I'm about old enough to do as I please." He then proceeded to hit another 15 minutes. Joe put up no argument. He simply drew on a cigarette and walked back to the house.

It was surprising, yes. But every man has his parameters. Joe's was what Great Grandpa James declared..

Mannix Alarm

Early yesterday morning something happened to me which, honestly, never did before. I was woken up by Joe Mannix, the old TV private detective played by Mike Connors.

I needed to leave on a sales trip at 2:30 in the wee hours of Tuesday. Also - you'll need to know this - I leave the television on overnight. My channel of choice lately has been METV, which offers a variety of older shows, most of which date to the early 1970s. I've become pretty aware of what's on when.

So I crawl into bed early Monday evening with the boob tube on and set an alarm for 1:30. Soon enough I've drifted off. Within in what felt like a few minutes I found myself in that half awake twilight I believe most of us experience from time to time. But I could hear the TV, and vaguely thought, 'That sounds like Mike Connors; Mannix must be on.' I fell back into a deeper sleep.

Then I woke with a shock. Mannix doesn't start until 2. I'd missed my alarm! Looking at my phone screen, it was 2:38. When I set the 1:30 alarm I neglected to save it. Consequently, of course, it didn't ring.

Fortunately I had no set appointments, so precise timing on my trip wasn't paramount. Still, uh, it pays to know your TV schedule?

Coming Or Going

This past Saturday the Detroit Tigers and Baltimore Orioles played a split doubleheader at Comerica Park, the Tigers' home stadium. Game One was at 12:15 in the afternoon. Afterwards the stadium was cleared for the next crowd, who were expected for Game Two around 5:15.

I watched the first contest from home. It ended just before three, which allowed me to make it to Four O'clock Mass and be home for the second game. Serendipity.

Among those at Church was a man wearing a Brooks Robinson baseball jersey. Robinson is the great Baltimore third baseman from the 1960s and 1970s. When I noticed the fella standing a few pews in front of me I immediately thought, well, I either know where you're going or I know where you've been.