Wanting Nothing

The other day I walked into a party store because I had thought I wanted a snack. But then the strangest thing happened.

The potato chips in all their myriad flavors did not appeal to me. The candy bars in all their grandeur, well, there were no such come hithers that day. There were no appeals from the hard candies or the gummies or even the chewing gums. I began to look over the beef jerky and other meat and cheese snacks and lo, I didn't really have a taste for any of them either. And that's when I remembered one of me Grandpa Joe's standards.

"If you don't know what you want, you don't want nuthin'." I actually heard his voice saying it as I thought it.

It struck me that is a great truth in that. So I made exit from the store and was quickly back on the road.

 

Gilligan Aggravates Me Pops

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. Indeed the entire 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.

Observant Joe

Me Grandpa Joe had a way with words. In fact, Joe's ability to make the word hell declarative of many and varied emotions would find its modern equivalent in I am Groot, if that means anything to you. Trust me, the analogy fits.

Be that as it may, his use of language could actually be rather profound even in areas where mild expletives were not at all involved. I doubt that most of my cousins or other family members knew the pleasure of hearing Joe remark, when leading into a happy explanation or in demonstrating a welcome development, "Please observe."

Grandpa Joe said that whenever he had found a solution to a vexing problem at the Shop. We had our share of vexing problems at the old barn, believe me. But to cut through to the point here, if a particular issue had been tormenting us for many hours (or sometimes days) it sounded delightful to have Joe stop you and say those two simple words, please observe. It meant a problem was solved.

I thought of that a few minutes ago as I solved what had been a recent vexing problem involving a snake repair. Try as we might, neither me brother Phil nor I could get a piece of threaded pipe, the leg of a machine which sits as a tripod, out of the body of the unit. The leg had broken off flush so that there was nothing to grip it.

At a hardware Phil had discovered a tool to extract the broke piece yet we could not get it work. In desperation, as I didn't want to heat the body of the snake for fear of making things worse, worried that if I made it worse the ornery thing would need a body as well as a leg (and who knows how long that would take, our supply lines being disrupted by COVID) I heated it anyway, carefully. Within a few minutes, lo and behold, I used that tool that Phil found and walked that broken pipe right out of the body of that machine.

And now I cannot wait to tell Phil "Please observe," as soon as he gets back to the Shop. I'll have to channel my inner Joe Cosgriff for full effect.

I Don't Know

Hell, I don't know.

That was Joe's response. 'Hell, I don't know', he would exclaim. And I knew what he meant.

Every time.

At Risk

A few hours ago, in the wee hours of the day, I pulled up an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It turned out to be a classic, the one with Torgo the White appearing to take TV's Frank to second banana Heaven. Torgo promised Frank they would meet Joe Besser there. You know, Joe Besser, who was briefly a Stooge after Shemp died? No, not Curly Joe DeRita. He came after that.

Anyway, and naturally enough, commercials interrupted my viewing. One which did catch my eye concerned a medical condition which, if it developed in you, would increase your risk of death fourfold. And I thought, don't we all have the same risk of death though?

Just sayin'.

Grant Me Patience

I have found in the last year or so that I'm having trouble keeping my temper. Consequently, I have begun to pray for greater patience. In the two weeks since I began doing that, I find my patience tried almost every day, several times a day.

What is that, irony or something? Or is it that, if a fella truly wants to learn patience, he must have his patience tested? 

That second part makes sense. But it's really getting under my skin just the same.

Not So Bad

I've heard of painless dentistry but I didn't really believe in it. But now I think I do. 

I had a tooth extracted yesterday, and boy, was I dreading it. That my appointment was at five o'clock in the afternoon likely did not help. It gives you all day to think about it; anticipation is not a friend when getting a tooth pulled. The closer the time came the less fun Wednesday became.

However, it wasn't bad at all. Believe it or not, the numbing shot wasn't painful in the least. I didn't even feel it. Then he had the tooth out in maybe a half minute. I didn't believe him, didn't believe he was actually done that fast. But he was. The wound remaining hardly bled too.

All that worry and dread for nothing. Typical, isn't it?