Fun with technology

Color television (it sounds exotic to type out the entire word rather than just say TV) was relatively rare in the late 1960s. At a time when $100 a week was a decent income while color sets cost better than $300, they were something of a luxury. Still, parents then as now liked to treat themselves and their families to the newest technologies, and fads tended to spread quickly. In the Bill Cosgriff household circa 1969, as the color fad rolled on unstoppably, this meant that Pops had decided to buy a color TV for the family room.

I don't remember all the details of that old console. But it was big to a 9 year old, huge indeed, and took two hulking delivery men to carry it into the house and put it in place. Dad plugged it in and put on a channel, which happened to be showing an episode of Gilligan's Island. And the picture was black and white.

Pops began playing with the dials, the contrast button and what have you, and still no color. His frustration mounting and with nothing making a difference, as a last resort he went to the instruction manual, a thing real men don't do unless a last resort. No color, despite trying everything the manual said to try. He was ready to call the appliance store, the manufacturer, and perhaps even the President himself to rant about this travesty to a working man and his family. I don't blame him; I would have been upset. Anyone would have.

Then someone, I don't know who, produced the then current issue of TV Guide. It showed Pops clearly that yes, Gilligan's Island was on that channel at that time. It also showed that the particular episode was in black and white. The first season of Gilligan's Island had been filmed in black and white. The TV was fine.

As Dad slowly calmed down, laughing about it within a few minutes (I never thought to try another channel, he would soon joke about himself) we settled into a family night watching our new color television. And our new TV brought us many wonderful nights of entertainment for several years. Even, or perhaps especially, as we would knowingly tune into a black and white program.

As we know it

News flash: the world is going to Hell. Do what you will, think what you will, hope what you will, the world's heading straight into the fireball. It's going to happen.
But that doesn't mean today. In fact, it likely will not be today, nor anytime soon.
If I've learned anything after 57 years on God's green Earth, beyond the right to speak like an old guy (things was differnt when I was a boy I tell ya), is that we ain't perfect. Some of us is less perfect than others, all the way to being downright evil. I mean that. Because of that (outside of Divine intervention, but that's not the point here) the world will destroy itself one day. It will happen. You cannot stop it. You are not and will not be in a position to affect it. Period.
I'm not saying not to work for a better world just the same. You certainly should act within your sphere to do what you can to forestall the day of reckoning. But never mind the peripherals: fake news, President Trump, North Korean nukes, Brexit, any ism you can imagine, Obamacare, Fox News over MSNBC. You cannot affect them on a broad scale. Stop fretting.
Be nice to your neighbor. Help directly someone who needs help. Do your job well. Discuss the issues even, among friends and charitably. I personally believe giving the Almighty His due wouldn't hurt either. But stop feeding the beast. You're not then delaying the end of the world. But you just might be helping to bring it if you stoke the coals for the people actually driving the train. You might then be helping the end come before it must.

Uncle John's driving test

Okay, I'll admit up front that the title is a hook. A quite misleading one at that. But this post does involve me Uncle John, and it is about driving tests.
Back in the day many of us Cosgriffs lived and worked near Wayne State University in downtown Detroit. Now I can't speak for how they are recently but as I hear few complaints I think they're much better. But in the seventies and eighties WSU students were notorious walkers and drivers. Notorious that is for weaving in and out of traffic in their vehicles and vaulting across the street on foot trying to make their classes. Warren Avenue between Interstate 75 and Trumbull Avenue, a course about a mile and a half long, was the major roadway where all the action took place. It could be a harrowing drive if you didn't pay attention.
Uncle John noticed this as well as the rest of us. He used to quip that the road test for new drivers ought to be making it from I-75 to Trumbull along Warren without killing two people.
You caught that, didn't you? He was willing to spot you the first fatality because in that stretch of road you were going to kill somebody. And it would not be your fault.
Personally I think old Zeke had the right idea.

Silver Linings

Yesterday morning just before five o'clock I left da UP of Michigan figuring to get home in time enough to do a few hours work and make my golf league. Just after 6:30 I was sitting on the shoulder of southbound Interstate 75, north of Grayling. The pulley had decided to dislodge itself from the power steering on my van. What to do, what to do?

You look for silver linings. And In fact yesterday I saw several.

First and foremost was that we live in an advanced internet age. I took out my phone and searched for 'Grayling road service'. A tow truck was picking van and Marty up within 35 minutes. Not knowing where to take the old girl, the tow driver suggested a good local mechanic. We were there by 7:45 and, happily, they could have my van fixed in a few hours. Cool.

Of course, I hadn't planned on taking my morning walk yesterday, but by then I had the time. I hiked the almost two miles into Grayling proper to a nice little restaurant and had an Irish omelette: Corned Beef and onions. Then of all things I was able to meet up with a good friend I hadn't seen in about ten years. He happened to be in town for work, saw on facebook where I had lamented my predicament, and said he had a few minutes, let's meet and catch up. And soon enough the van was finished. I was home by five in the afternoon.

Yeah, it's a little bit flippant, but when bad things happen we do need to look for those silver linings. If we do, we'll find that sometimes they're very bright too.

The sentimentality bug

Hessel, Day Two, July 2017

This morning I put on my ‘Green Monster’ T-shirt which I bought at Fenway Park, to realize it has been almost a year since I bought it. It will be a year next Tuesday that my son and I were there. Wow.

I saw too that my other son had tied together and labelled four small US flags, ‘2017’. These are the flags which he, my daughter-in-law, my granddaughter and myself had been given which watching the Fourth of July parade in Cedarville barely 18 days ago. And I thought something more like, double wow.

I thought I had sentimentality licked. I was afraid for years that I’d be too sentimental as I got older. For the longest time I was okay with things moving on. Life happens. You move on. You handle it.

But in the last three or four years I find it ain’t so easy. Oh, I’m not living in permanent melancholy. So long as I’m occupied, so long as I’m not face to face with some stark reminder, things are okay. Yet when those reminders jump out at you, well, they remind you.

Still, I’m happy at that. Fenway Park and that recent parade do indeed tell me that all is well. Sure, the moments are past. But they were great moments, and sentiment reminds me of that. It reminds me too that the day will come when we will remember, and sentiment won’t tinge our memories at all.

What's a bike rack for?

The things you see that you never expect to see. I suppose, that you’d never possibly imagine you would see.

While sitting in the pleasant hamlet of Hessel, Michigan, reading a Father Brown mystery – I knew I’d like Father Brown after I’d read his first story, where he identified a fraudulent priest because the man had questioned reason – I looked up to see a Jeep Cherokee drive past. It had a bicycle attached to the bike rack on the rear bumper.

Are you with me so far?

Nothing unusual about that of course. What struck me as odd was the walker, fully open, strapped to the car along with the bike. You couldn’t fold it and put it in the back seat? Even if it couldn’t fold, you still couldn’t simply open a door and put there? Surely it was more trouble to attach it to the bike rack than do that.

It doesn’t really matter I suppose. But I do wonder.

Potted meat and liver mush

I do not have what I consider unusual tastes in food. Yet that does not mean that there aren't odd foods which I like.

My wife returned from shopping today with a couple cans of potted meat. I should not like it: meat which spreads like butter doesn't sound appealing on that ground alone. Yet it's good: way too salty, perhaps, but I like salty things. There is one rule to follow, though, with stuff like potted meat. Do not, under any circumstances, read the ingredients. Just eat and enjoy. Nothing that tastes good could actually be bad for you, right?

Now you really, truly do not want to read the ingredients in liver mush. Yes, liver mush. It comes in little grayish one pound cakes and is available all over my other home state, North Carolina. I think it's called scrapple on the east coast. Either way, it's mondo good with onion and mayo on plain old white bread. You simply slice a bit of it off the cake and hey presto, instant culinary delight. Just always remember the rule.

Vienna Sausages are worthwhile too, though I suppose they aren't really all that odd. I think of them as baby food for grown ups, just like the Gerber custard pudding that rocks so well on the palate. But once more, don't read the label on the can. I am eternally curious about what exactly constitutes mechanically separated chicken though.

So anyway, at least every now and then take a chance, set aside health issues, and eat something that's probably not good for you. You'll thank for me it, and I promise to visit you in the ER if there's any unfortunate aftereffects.