Observations and Comments 

By Eldon Spady

A recent headline said, “How Is Jay Leno Handling His Retirement.” Okay, nothing wrong with that as I’m sure there are some people who would like to know. They have answers that Leno gave to their questions about his retirement. The thing that got me was the picture they put with this headline. The look on Leno’s face shouts, “Why would you think that dead rat is mine?”

     Now this is just conjecture, but I bet it’s correct. This picture of Leno had no relationship to the interview about his retirement. (Which, by the way, is going fine and he seems to be enjoying himself.)

     Now if this were an isolated case I’d not be spouting off about it. But I see this all the time. It works like this--there is something an editor feels is newsworthy concerning an individual and he tasks a flunky to go into the files and pick out a picture to go with the article. The disturbing thing (to me at least) is that most of the time the picture tends to make a very unflattering association between the person and the subject of the article. Example:  The headline may say, “Clinton In Trouble Again”, and the picture shows him with a sly grin on his face like he couldn’t care less about another indiscretion. Or a headline may say, “Bush Answers Questions About New Grandson.” And in the accompanying picture he has an expression like he just bit into a sour pickle that passed its sell-by date some time ago. Now people who just read headlines and look at pictures (and I’m guessing there are more than any of us would like to admit), will come away with a totally wrong impression of how either Clinton or Bush is reacting to the aforementioned subject.

     But who said that the News was anything other than entertainment?

Wine IS Good For What?

Some wives are just natural caregivers. Take this wife in Houston, Texas. Her husband had a throat ailment of some kind, which kept him from drinking his wine. So Tammy gave him a wine enema. That’s right. She shot two large bottles of sherry right up his bum. Not little airline bottles, but 1.5 liter bottles. This action cured his desire for any more alcohol, it also cured his throat ailment, and it also killed him. It seems the body can die of alcohol poisoning regardless of which end the fluid uses as an entrance point. I wonder what's the best year for an enema wine?

But Did They Ask The Foxes

A new era has dawned in England. The powers that be have passed a law making it illegal for people to hunt animals using dogs to do the pursuing. Now the foxhunt has been a cultural standby of the upper classes for the past three hundred years. You know, fox hunting, riding-to-hounds, pink jackets, funny little hats and all that. Now they can’t do that any more, at least when using dogs. Whether that’s all good or bad, is up to the English.

My main concern is, did anybody ask the foxes how they felt about this? For two thousand generations foxes have lived with the foxhunt as a way of life and entertainment. In the whole history of the foxhunt I’ve never heard of one fox ever being caught or molested more than just a good workout. Of course I might not be the last word on the history of fox hunting.

Foxes thought it great sport to lead a pack of hounds across the countryside at break neck speeds, slipping under low rail fences, and then watching the first dozen hounds scramble their brains by smacking into that same bottom rail. (Foxes used to sell tickets to the local fox community just to watch this happen.) There was a whole segment of the fox educational system based on the foxhunt: ‘Getting them on the scent’, ‘Keeping them on the scent’, ‘How to use natural terrain for your amusement: briar patches, fences, ditches, trees, rocks, and our special friend, the split rail fence’, and ‘How to use human made obstacles to our advantage: Highways, freeways, trains, bridges, and canals. Like I said, no one ever thinks of the foxes.

Science Strikes Again

From a report coming out of the UK, it seems that one quarter of Britain’s dogs are stressed out. How do they know this? It seems they took a survey of 1,100 dog owners and one-quarter of these owners believe their furry friends are suffering from stress. Fifty-three percent of those surveyed thought themselves to be stressed out also. This highly scientific study reminds me of a comment by Mark Twain, “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”

Last and Least

One late evening when on our way home in Lexington, Lorraine noticed that a family was going into local Tex-Mex fast food place, which shall remain nameless. I guessed that maybe they were looking for their cat.

 

 

My Old Kentucky Home - - Blog 1 

Excerpts From My Journal

Lorraine and I spent a number of years in Kentucky, Lexington to be exact. There were many things about the state that we liked or came to enjoy. There were also some things that we found especially Kentuckian and amusing. A few of these things follow.

Kentucky Fine Dinning 

July 2008

     Last evening Lorraine and I went to a five-star restaurant that has been in Lexington for many years and is known as one of the places to go for fine dining. I should say it was a five-star place, but now it is a four-star place, and they are trying hard to get back that other star. The Christmas before last Shauna and Kevin gave us a gift card for the place so we could go out and enjoy a nice dinner. Keep in mind that we’re not holding them responsible for what happened.

     We were shown to our table and when asked about drinks I asked for a couple strawberry daiquiris, non-alcoholic of course. The waitress said they couldn’t do that, as they didn’t have a blender. Well, that explained the absence of the fifth star. We settled for tap water, so right off they knew what kind of discriminating diners they had on their hands. The next thing the waitress explained to us was that the restaurant had a new chef and that he specialized in only a few dishes, but that he did these exceedingly well. We had noticed that the menu was short, six salads, and seven entrees. It sounded like a guy who got only part way through the Shawano School of Culinary Arts, because of his predilection for adding cheese toast to each of his dishes. (We could only hope.)  

We each ordered a salad and an entree. I ordered the Salmon and Lorraine went for the Sea Bass. Except for the Kobe Beef those were the only two items that did not include pork in some form or another. Well, there was one whole poulet (chicken to us lowlanders), a person could get, but the table next to us had one and it looked like a person would have to be well trained in doing a post-mortem necropsy to dissect and eat the thing.  

So we were all aflutter to see what this new chef would do with what we ordered. 

Our salads came on large rectangular plates. This gave said chef the opportunity to make this salad layout a work of art. And it was. Mine was tomatoes, onions, horseradish, and some other stuff to help decorate the space. The flavors were very good together, and other than rounding up the salad from the four corners of this large plate it was enjoyed to the maximum. Lorraine’s salad was beets and some other stuff. It looked like it should have been in the Louvre. The main claim to fame for this salad was that the beets were of several different colors. Whoopee! But then again how much can you expect from beets.

Just about the time we were about to plunge into our salads, the guy sitting at the next table, about four feet away, blew his nose. (There was plenty of room to spread us out.) Not some little stopping a drip with a tissue thing, but a major juicy, warbling blow out, that went on and on. I didn’t want to even think about where all that mucus was coming from, or where it all ended up, but there was certainly an overabundance of it.

Between the salad and the entrée we got a small glass of lemon sorbet. I guess this was to cleanse our palettes, so we could fully appreciate what was to come. Maybe if we had used it on our palates it would have worked better. Just kidding. 

Before the entrée arrived so did four people to occupy the table on the other side of us. I’m not sure how long they had been waiting in the bar, but they were in a fine mood. Their talk and laughter was about 40 decibels above what was necessary. To talk to Lorraine I had to put my mouth up to her ear. The waitress soon moved us into the next room where we were by ourselves. Speaking of being by ourselves – as we were leaving about 8:15, the place, or what I could see of it was maybe 1/10^th full, or 90% empty. 

The entrees came. Again they looked very pretty. However my Salmon was soft and sort of mushy. I’m guessing it had been caught on its spawning grounds just before it rolled over on its back, knowing it had fulfilled its main mission in life. Lorraine’s Sea Bass was not much better. The taste was not too bad, but the texture took most all the pleasure out of it. Now if I had gotten this from some cook at Denny’s, and was paying $9.95 for it, I would have sent it back, if not gone back and hit the guy over the head with the large rectangular plate, being sure that he was having some kind of joke at my expense. But at this place, where we were paying $35.00 for just this entrée, I accepted it without murmur, at least not much, and just assumed that the fault was with me and not this wanabe five-star chef. Funny how that works. Well, $66.00 dollars and our sizeable gift card lighter, we went home.

I’m not sure I could ever talk Lorraine into going back to the place. And I don’t know why I would try.

Vellanoff’s Journal

An Arm and a Leg?

Our show played in Hoboken for nearly six months. About the third night I noticed this very beautiful lady sitting in the second row center. She was there again the next night and the following night. The show was good, but not quite that good. The fourth night I had the feeling that she was smiling directly at me during most of the show so was not surprised when she came backstage and introduced herself to me. Up close she was even more beautiful and by her clothes and jewelry I guessed her to be rather wealthy. I suggested that we go out for some dinner and she agreed. She insisted on paying for dinner and for everything we did from then on. We saw each other nearly every evening. She was pleasant and as I said very beautiful, but sort of strange in a way I could not explain.

Her name was Lilly. It was sometime during about our fifth week of acquaintance that someone found the dismembered remains of a body buried in Lilly’s back yard. It was identified as her first husband. It was during my trying to be supportive that she told me that her third husband, Johan, had left on a trip two days before for which she was thankful as he was a cur and would not be nearly as understanding as she felt I was being. Lilly was free on bail so could come and go as she desired. On the first day of her trial the judge mentioned to her that it would cost her an arm and a leg to defend herself. This did not seem to bother Lilly in the least.

The next day she came into court with a rather large shopping bag, and after the judge was seated took out of the bag an arm and a leg, placed them on his desk, and asked if that would suffice. The arm was identified as Johan’s by the ring on his finger with the inscription that said, “To Johan from Lilly, I love every bit of you.” The leg was identified as belonging to her second husband, as he was well known for having six toes on each foot. Like I said, she was sort of strange. Well as you can imagine, my ardor cooled somewhat and I stopped seeing Lilly after that. 

One Mule to Go 

One of my first engagements after coming to America was in a small town called Little Rock, in Arkansas. There being a lack of good hotels I ended up staying with a nice farm family outside of town. Not only did they have a nice farm, but they were rather friendly and interesting to be around. Since we were going to be in Little Rock for several weeks, I bought a mule on which to travel back and forth to town.

In time I became acquainted with several of the farm families in my host’s neighborhood. Most of them were nice folks if rather taciturn. That word I learned from another farmer named Zeke, who was reported to be efficient at the healing, or at least the treating, of sick animals. When my mule came down with some kind of malady, I asked Zeke how he had treated a mule of his that had been sick only a few days before. Zeke said that he had given the mule turpentine. I tried the same with my mule and he died. When I next saw Zeke I told him that after giving my mule the turpentine he had died. “So did mine,” said Zeke.  

Give Me a Hallelujah!

We lost one of our troupe, a guy by the name of Joe, in the most extraordinary way. He bought a donkey from a preacher. Not that he really needed one, but he liked to hike and ride in the mountains and thought this donkey would work just fine for that. The preacher explained that to get the donkey to go he had to say “Hallelujah” and get the donkey to stop he had to say “Amen.” So he took the donkey out on a mountain trail and was having a great time. After about two hours he was coming out on a ridge that ended in a cliff. Joe was really enjoying himself until he realized he couldn’t remember what to say to get this donkey to stop. He was coming up to the cliff and was getting desperate so he prayed “Dear Lord, I’m in a pickle here, I can’t remember how to get this donkey to stop so please help me out. Amen.” The donkey stopped, right on the edge of the cliff. Joe was amazed and very thankful. He shouted “Thank you Jesus! Hallelujah!”

 

Things To Consider

From My Journal

December 2004

            The other day Dorothy (sister), or maybe Ted (brother-in-law), asked if we had seen the story about the guy who was trying to sell his grandfather’s ghost on E-Bay. This should be interesting to watch. If this guy is successful everybody will be trying to sell the family’s ghosts. Pretty soon ghosts will be so cheap they will have to be packaged by the dozen to hit an economic break even point. One of the obvious problems will be quality control. How do I really know I’m getting the ghost or ghosts I’m paying for? If the ghost doesn’t appear or haunt according to specifications do I get my money back? (Maybe I bought a friendly ghost only to find that the ghost turns out to be sullen and troublesome. Of course, if I got sold, I might turn sullen and unfriendly also.)

     I can see two new industries springing up from this. First is the Ghost Quality Professional,(GQP). This is the person who will check out a ghost before the sale is consummated. And only with their guarantee will a ghost bring the highest price. Then there will be the used ghost market. When I get tired of my acquired ghost I could trade in the ghost or just sell it to a used ghost dealer.

     But let’s not overlook the ethical part of this possible new trend. Isn’t selling a ghost much the same as slavery? And what do you do with runaway ghosts. First of all, just finding them has got to be a challenge. I think bloodhounds might be too bright to cooperate in such an endeavor as tracking a ghost. Once you track the ghost down, how do you get it back to the rightful owner? Do you buy two seats on the plane or can you get by with just one? Do you need handcuffs or can you just make the ghost promise to behave?

     This whole thing will take a lot more thought. Preferably from someone who cares.

Marketing or Coercion?

January, 2005

 A week ago yesterday the sermon in church was about stewardship. You know, financially supporting the organization. Of course they mentioned that the church expenses included such mundane things as heating and air conditioning. To make this point, they had the heat turned down rather low. At least it seemed like it. I’m not sure whether that’s marketing or coercion.

Here’s Mine, Take It - - Please! 

February, 2005

I think we’ve stumbled onto a solution to a major problem. Everyone complains about getting junk mail, well, not quite everyone. The 9^th circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling saying that inmates of prisons have a right to get junk mail. It seems that a prison in Washington State withheld junk mail from its prisoners on the basis that junk mail made the prisoners harder to manage and was also a fire hazard. The prisoners sued and the court said--well, I’ve already told you that. So I, as a party of one, and I’m unanimous in this, am donating my junk mail to these poor abused prisoners. They are welcome to the catalogs, ads, offers, and other trash that clogs up my mailbox.

Is That Cow Mad or Just Upset

From My Journal

December, 2003

Now with everything else we have to worry about we have a case of Mad Cow disease showing up in the state of Washington. They seemed to be a little vague about the location of this poor bovine. My question is, “How do you tell if a cow is “mad”? Now when they use the word “mad” in referring to this sickness I’m guessing they don’t mean angry, but insane. So back to the question, can you tell that a cow is mad by the vacant look on its face? No, it’s already about as blank looking as an animal can get. Can you tell that a cow is mad because it acts stupider then usual? Not really, it already acts about as stupid as any beast on earth. Can you tell by its increased lack of personal hygiene? No, it never had any regard for personal hygiene to begin with. So evidently there is some other way to tell if your cow has a problem. What that is the article didn’t say.

Another interesting thing was the immediate downturn in business at McDonalds after this announcement. Like they have enough beef in their burgers to make a person sick. Well, maybe sick is not the right word. At least not enough beef to make a person mad, maybe a little silly, but not mad.

Nicht gut genug

A study, done evidently by some Australians, has come to the conclusion that I don’t have to be embarrassed anymore if I need to use the reader board at the opera to understand what is going on. Well, to start with I never was embarrassed to use it in the first place. I mean you’re sitting there in the dark and nobody cares where you’re looking. Anyway, it’s not like you were relieving yourself behind a tree in the park or something. The singers are hard to understand, even when using my native language, to say nothing of when they’re singing in some foreign tongue. The article goes on with a bunch of scientific evidence to explain why a bellowing soprano’s articulation suffers to the point where no one can understand her--or him, as the case may be. (Now days a person can’t be too careful.)

The thing that always bothers me about the reader board is that I’ve always felt I was missing out because of the laziness of the reader board writer. Example:  The singer sings, “Ich habe meinen Ehemann getotet.”(“I killed my husband.”) [Repeats twice] “Ich machte es soeben.” (“I did it just now.”) [Repeats three times] “Mit eniem grossen Messer.”(“With a big knife.”) [Only has to sing this once as she’s waving a bloody knife around.] “Ich habe den schmutzigen Bastard verstorbene getotet und Ich machte froh ich bin.” (“I killed the dirty bastard dead and I’m glad I did.”) [Repeats twice] “Er wird auf mir wieder nicht betrugen aber ich liebe noch ihn.” (“He will not cheat on me again, but I still love him.”) [Repeats three times]

there is always a pause for the flute player to get in some one-on-one time with the audience. Probably because she needs the solo pay to take care of her bookie for the bet she lost on the last Cowboys game. The singer continues, “Ich werde mit ihm in Himmel wiedervereinight werden.” (“I will be reunited with him in heaven.”) [Repeats four times, obviously anxious that God doesn’t miss these directions.] (This whole passage takes about fifteen minutes.) Whereupon she faints, but continues to sing for ten minutes before dying. But what do I get from all this on the reader board--“I killed him.” I’m going to miss the Dallas Opera.  

“Divers Probed for Giving Fish Champagne.”

Last week this headline caught my attention. I just recently had a prostate exam, so probing was still on my mind, so to speak. It seems these divers found a sluggish Pike, so tried to revive it by pouring cheap Russian champagne down its throat. I’m guessing the bottle was mostly used up before the fish incident. Also it seems these divers are Polish. Putting all these facts together, I guess the whole thing is not so strange after all. But it seems that Poland does have specific laws about mistreating fish.

Birdwatcher to The Rescue

     A British birdwatcher reported the sighting of a rare Norwegian Robin, which had just finished a grueling 15-hour, 400-mile flight from Norway. As far as we know it was only one of about 30 such robins that have successfully made the flight since 1919. The birdwatcher was sure of the identification. She had gotten a good look at the bird as her cat was eating the tired thing.

 

The Ringing of The Bells

 

From Uncle Vellanoff's Journal 

Speaking of people with a problem - - I had a cousin by the name of Demitri who had two friends, who were sort of acquaintances of mine also, by the name of Valeri and Smirnoff. None of these three were the one with the problem, well except for Smirnoff who always smelled of rotting potatoes and kept trying to get everyone to taste his home brew, - - but getting back to the real problem.

 One time when cousin Demitri, Valeri, and Smirnoff were in Paris, (they were members of this auto racing team so traveled around Europe some), they witnessed a display of the passion to persevere that has gone unexcelled in the annals of history to this very day. It happened when they were standing in the square, admiring that famous Cathedral of Notre Dame, where the ringing of the bells by the original hunchback had been one of the attractions. It seems it was as much his grotesque appearance as the ringing of the bells that created the attraction.

After the original bill-ringer's death the Monsignor noticed a marked drop in attendance and especially in the take from the poor box. In a panic he sent messengers throughout the land for an equally grotesque person to ring the bells as well as had the legendary Quasimodo. (For that was his name, later appropriated by Walt Disney.) There had been many government budget cuts in those years, like aid to the handicapped, etc, so on the appointed day the square was packed with cripples, misfits, drunkards, and a variety of assorted goons. This is the day that Demitri, Valeri, and Smirnoff happened along. As the Monsignor came out onto the steps of the cathedral, a person who was the spitting image of Quasimodo, but without arms, pushed his way through the crowd and came to a stop in front of the Monsignor.

The Monsignor asked, “My brother, why art thou here?”

“To ring the bells.”

“Thou hast great spirit, but thou hast no arms.”

“That is no impediment, I may be handicapped but I’m not crippled. I’ll show you.”

And with that the man ran into the cathedral, dashed up the circuitous stairs to the belfry, and threw himself, smashing the bells with his head. The reverberations of the bells could be heard for miles around while he tumbled from roof top, to roof top, to roof top, finally landing in the cathedral square.

The Monsignor ran over to him and said, “Art thou okay?”

“Yes, Father. Can I have the job now?”

“No-man, thou must ring the bells like that every fifteen minutes!”

“But I can do it, I’ll show you!”

“No, my brother, don’t do it again!”

The man ignored the pleading of the Monsignor, ran into the cathedral, dashed up the circuitous stairs to the belfry, and again threw himself, smashing the bells with his head. The reverberations of the bells could be heard for miles around while he tumbled from roof top to roof top, to roof top, finally landing in the cathedral square.

It was obvious that the grotesque little man was in a bad way. A priest went over to give him the last rites. The crowd pressed around and there was not a dry eye among them.

The Monsignor asked, “Hey guys, does anyone know this poor soul?” For some strange reason the Monsignor had stopped talking funny. Why? Our three witnesses didn’t know.

A man stepped forward and said, “His face rings a bell.”

Another man removed his cap and said between sobs, “Too bad, he was a dead ringer for Quasimodo.”

The Monsignor added, “I had a hunch you were going to say that.”

Valeri, Demitri, and Smirnoff told me that it was the most moving thing they had ever witnessed.