I FORGOT MY CHEESE?

From My Journal

July, 2014

This past weekend we drove up to Horsethief Lake State Park, across the river from The Dalles. That drive up and down 197 is rather neat. We met Sonia and Shauna along with their spouses and kids--a neat bunch. Bruce had their canoe along and Stinsons had Hannah’s kayak plus two other newly acquired kayaks and their raft. This park sits on Horsethief Lake, which is a part of the Columbia River that is cut off by the railroad. It was a nice place. We ate plenty, and had a birthday cake for Lorraine. Everybody except Haley, Lorraine, and myself spent time on the water in one or more of the aforementioned conveyances.
 

  

Bruce and Coda head out onto the lake. Coda is taking one final look at terra ferma.
 

Kevin, Sam, Shauna, and Hannah getting ready to take the kayaks out for a spin.
 

Bruce and Coda in canoe, Sam and Adam in raft, Shauna and Hannah in their kayaks. The two-man kayak in the background was photobombing my shot.
 

Another thing happened during the afternoon that just highlighted the detrimental effect age has on the human brain. To explain:  Lorraine and I brought some cheese for the picnic lunch--two pounds of cheddar, two pounds of pepper-jack, and three wedges of blue cheese. The other two families brought some other kinds. This group likes their cheese.

We ate some slices off both the two-pound blocks, and two of the blue cheese wedges. Shauna had put the two two-pound loaves in her cooler and left the last wedge of blue cheese sitting out on the table.

When it was time for us to leave I gathered up the only cheese that was observable (the blue cheese wedge) and put it into our cooler and was about to leave when Shauna asked if I had my cheese. I emphatically told her I had. She questioned that response by asking about the two loaves in her cooler. I of course had forgotten those two. That’s what I mean by losing ones faculties. This happened either because of advanced age or some serious head trauma. I HAD FORGOTTEN MY CHEESE!! Can you believe that? It was the first time that had happened to me and it was a shock, let me tell you.

So obviously, the cheese torch has passed to the next generation. A momentous event that I alone recognize in retrospect. Or maybe the others were just too polite to point it out to me.

Bank Robbers Beware - - and Other Stuff 

From My Journal

April 2009

In New Jersey the police responded to an alarm from a local bank, signifying that the bank was being robbed, or hosting some other sort of disturbance. The police surrounded the bank and using megaphones demanded that the perpetrators come out with their hands in plain sight and preferably not holding anything that might cause damage to the police. Through a front window they could see an individual in the bank, although the person didn’t seem to be very mobile. Finally, getting no response to their requests, threats, and admonitions, the SWAT team stormed the bank and subdued the perpetrators, which turned out to be a cardboard cutout made to look like a person, which is what they had been seeing through the window. They never did say what set off the alarm in the first place, although there was a consensus that it was not the cardboard cutout.

Nothing Like Family Time

April 2009

You know the expression “the family that prays together stays together“? Well the following has nothing to do with prayer, but does demonstrate a certain amount of family togetherness. In Indiana the police arrested a mother for drunk driving. She had her one-year old son along, so the police called a relative to come and get the young boy. The person who showed up was also drunk so was also booked for drunk driving. They called another relative and that one turned out to be drunk also and was booked. They then called the grandparents. The grandfather was drunk, but grandma had been driving and although she was tipsy she was not quite up to the legal limit of inebriation, so the police escorted her, grandpa, and the grandchild home.

Where’s a Cop When You Need One

April 2009

     There’s something to be said for doing your homework. In Harrisburg, PA, as John Comparetto was coming out of a stall in the hotel men’s room a man pointed a gun at his face and demanded his money. Now John is a retired policeman and was at the hotel attending a convention of 300 narcotics officers from Pennsylvania and Ohio. John gave up his money and cell phone, then alerted his fellow officers who gave chase and grabbed the guy as he was hailing a cab in front of the hotel. The perp had been out on bond awaiting trial on four other robbery charges.

     He’s not anymore.

If At First You Don’t Succeed _ _ _ _ _ 

April 2009

     In New York the police were canvassing the neighborhood looking for a guy who attempted a bank robbery earlier in the day. Guess where they found him? You got it--in another bank, trying the same thing. He was using a pellet gun and gave up without a struggle.

Science, and Then There Is Science

From My Jouranal

Big Results from Small Samples

October 2011

     The other evening we were watching a three-hour science program about threats to the earth, specifically meteorites crashing into our planet or the sun burning it up. Not global warming, but the sun actually expanding and being nearer the earth, therefore making it too warm for us to survive.

The meteorites, which they can sometime spot and track, I have no problem with, but the earth warming up gets me. They claim that the sun is warming up, and when it gets five percent hotter, will burn up the earth. They state with all the certainty of someone talking to a TV camera, where no one can ask them questions, that this would not happen for another billion years.

They have been measuring the sun’s temperature for what, maybe a hundred years now? And based on that miniscule sample they think that they can prognosticate what will happen after another billion years? This is like standing on the side of the road with your eyes closed. You blink them open for one-hundredth of a second then close them again and build a theory on what you’ve seen. Your conclusion is that there are only two cars in the world, one red, and one white. And because it has taken four billion years for these two cars to evolve, in another four billion years there will be sixteen cars in the world. (Do the math.)

During these programs they should pause every fifteen minutes and define the word “theory”. Many times they don’t even explain that what they’re talking about is a theory or a hypothesis.

I enjoy watching these science programs, but some of the ideas are put forward with such certainty that it is more entertainment for us than it obviously is to the scientists making the observations and predictions.

There is a new series out called “Through the Wormhole”, hosted by Morgan Freeman. He often explains that what he, or his scientists, are talking about are theories, and often only one of many about any one subject. I appreciate that approach.

Surprise, Surprise!

February 2012

     Today one of the headlines was “Three Members of Congress Receive Threatening Letters.” This was a surprise? Much more newsworthy would be a headline, “Today No Members of Congress Received Threatening Letters.”

Is This It, or Isn’t This It

December 2012

     The Mayans had a calendar that ran for 5,125 years ending on December 21, 2012. That’s a few days from now. Many people and groups are in a panic about what they assume to be the end of the world. Some groups are building arks and planning other survival schemes. There is a rumor that there is a space ship hiding in a mountain in the French Pyrenees. The French have thrown a military cordon around the mountain to keep out the people who are already seeking passage on this space ship that is purported to be leaving just before the deadline. My question is this: “Did anyone think to turn over the slab of rock this calendar is carved on to make sure that the next 5,125 years isn’t written on the back?”

Journalism at Its Best?

December, 2012

     A couple days ago some felons robbed Quebec of a good portion of their maple syrup supply, which amounted to about 10 million pounds of the sweet stuff. At least that is what the media reports. That sounds straight forward, right? Right. But let’s think about this for a minute. Ten million pounds is a lot to haul around. Considering that a tanker truck might carry about 80,000 pounds it would take 125 tanker trucks to carry the stuff away. Now how do you pull off a heist like this? A very sticky question to say the least. Am I missing something here?

 

 

 

Captain Schlepnickof Spady 

CCCP – The True Story

This might be a good place to include a very short biography of my, some might say, possibly imaginary, great Uncle Schlepnickof – or Schlepy for short. I got into this because I had just finished Bruce’s book by Solzhenitsyn titled “Cancer Ward.” I was complaining because it seems that every Russian has about four different names, maybe only one of which his folks gave him at birth, or shortly thereafter. And even with my great facility for languages, none of these names can I pronounce, so I never know who I’m reading about.

My relatives in Russia could only afford two names, and one of those could be only two syllables, which makes it a lot easier to write about them. One exception was a great-uncle (not Schlepy) who because of some trouble with certain of the Czar’s officials had several aliases. Well, now that you mention it, aliases just don’t count at all. (At least I never yet heard one yet that could count past three or four.)

This uncle, Schlepy, served in the Czar’s army. His unit was in charge of transporting the Czar’s cigars from a port on the Black Sea up to wherever the Czar happened to want his cigars. The unit was known as the Czar’s Cigars Cavalry Patrol, or CCCP for short. You might remember seeing those letters on some Russian stamps and space capsules. It was a very famous unit. Anyway, Schlepy was the Captain in charge of this unit and was a favorite of the Czar until he started stealing stogies out of the shipments and replacing them with a cheap kind of weed that some of the happier serfs were using. The Czar got so mellowed out after smoking some of these bogus stogies, that the serfs thought they could make their move, which they did and no more Czar.

That was when Schlepy started using aliases. However, after several years, when the serfs realized what a great service Schlepy had performed for the revolution, he became a great folk hero. He never did get over his entrepreneurial activities, so was always in warm water with the authorities from then on. If it had not been for his great service to the serfs he would not have survived. He used to refer to it as serfvival, when he had had too much vodka. So much for Schlepy.

Kids, Don’t Drop Out Of School 

A Public Service Announcement

From My Journal

Kids, Don’t Drop Out Of School

March 2008

     Education is a wonderful thing, and the lack of knowledge can be quite detrimental to a person’s well being. Such as what happened to this guy:  An 18-year old went into a muffler shop wearing a mask and waving a gun. He said he was there to rob the place. The employees told him they had no cash and didn’t know how to open the safe. This genius told the guys that he would leave two phone numbers that they should call when the owner got there with the combination to the safe.

The owner arrived and the employees called the number. They also called the police. The 18-year old returned, still wearing the mask and waving the gun around. The police collared this perp, after shooting him in the leg, and he is now awaiting the disposition of the Chicago judicial system. Now when this kid gets through with his course work at Graybar University he may have learned how to stick up a muffler shop with a better chance of success.

Russia Has Changed

March 2008

     Things have sure changed in Russia. Currently a shepherd is suing the government because a 10-foot long chunk of metal from a space rocket landed in his yard. Then to add insult to near injury it landed right next to his outhouse. Now every time he uses that facility he is probably thinking about where the next one is going to land. In the old days this shepherd would have been shot for not trying to cushion the impact of this expensive piece of the Motherland’s scientific equipment.

This Activity Should Be A Major In College

April 2008

     This morning, while waiting for Lorraine to awaken, I cast around for something quiet to do and hit upon the project of sorting through the medical file. This is a file of pending medical bills. It contains the EOB’s (explanation of benefits) from the luckless insurance company who inadvertently stumbled onto our business. It also contains any receipts of co-payments. Both of these categories are waiting for actual billings from medical providers, when all pieces of paperwork pertaining to a specific medical occasion can be matched up, the bill paid, and another batch of paperwork put to rest. Now with any other industry, this would be a simple function, except where lunatics were involved as either the service provider, insurer, or the recipients of the service--mainly Lorraine and me. Taking me and Lorraine out of the equation as one of the abnormal parties, and as much as I would rather not like to think of my medical providers as lacking in sound reasoning and/or highly developed mental agility, leads me to the only possible conclusion. One or both of the two major parties, providers or insurers, have to be either incompetent or lacking in the most primitive skills needed to keep track of their businesses.

Each medical provider will have the enclosed doctor’s name or names on their office door, which is usually not the name of their business. When you make your co-payment, the receipt, if it has any name on it at all, will not usually show the business name nor the name of the specific provider. When the EOB comes from the insurer it, in most cases, has the name of a provider you have never heard of. It’s like the provider has no idea of what the patient is going through to get him some money. And no thought is given on a way to make it easy for the patient/customer to deal with the system. My experience is that if the provider did recognize the problem he has no training or the skills to make him or her of any help to smooth out the system. To be fair, this plague is not necessarily unique to the medical industry.

Becoming a Psycopath 101  

From My Journal

The IRS Strikes Again

December 2004

     At last another piece of history has been explained. It seems that Adolf Hitler was being harassed by the German IRS prior to his being elected Chancellor in 1933. He was arguing with their rulings like some other citizens we might mention. Records show that in 1933 he had an income of 1.232 million Reichsmark, mostly from the sale of “Mein Kampf”. (Teachers were then making about 4,800 Reichsmark per year.) He was claiming deductions the IRS didn’t agree with (hard to imagine), and other marginally acceptable tax dodges. By 1933 he owed 405,000 Reichsmark in back taxes. So the short of this is that Hitler wasn’t such a bad sort (at this time), he was only ticked off at the tax system. That certainly makes his behavior a lot easier to understand. Then and later.

In dealing with our IRS, I’ve become frustrated enough to invade Poland myself, if it were closer.

Shortly after becoming dictator, the Munich office of their IRS asked Hitler’s permission to forgive him his tax debt. Hitler agreed that this would be okay. One other thing he could have done was just stall them a couple years, when his fiddling with the economy generated enough inflation that it would take 1.232 million Reichsmark just to buy a loaf of bread. He could have paid off his tax debt rather easily. As Hitler was reported saying, “Ich bin herauf wieder vorbei die Steuerleute verwirrt worden. Aber Ich habe das letzte Lachen, nachdem ich Auschwitz sende.” He wasn’t that articulate when haranguing extemporaneously, was he?

Because of this experience with the IRS he became a right snarly psychopath. 

 

Pizza to Go

January, 2005

You can tell something about a country by observing the corruption of its officials. Do they think big or do they settle for penny-ante bribes? A case in point (as reported by the BBC on Sunday, January 16, 2005), was that the Canadian Immigration Minister, Jody Sgro, had to resign because she was excepting pizza in return for help in an immigration matter. That’s right, pizza. It seems the owner of a pizza parlor was in danger of being deported and this immigration officer accepted pizza to make his problem go away. Now either this lady has a low opinion of her services, or this guy makes really good pizza. So if you have a hankering to bribe a government official, head toward Canada, where you can really get your money’s worth. As they would say in East Montreal, “Un bon dessous de table merite des autres.”

Now Jody looks to be a fine upstanding Canadian politician so there might be something about this situation that the news media is not telling us.

I know You’ll Feel Better After Reading This

February 2005

     The Transportation Secretary has issued some guidelines for commercial space travelers. Now I’m guessing, from reading between the lines, that the Department spent a lot of time and effort on these guidelines. Here they are:

1.  Get a physical checkup before going.

2.  Accept the risks involved by signing a form.

And that’s it--I’m not kidding. That’s all they could come up with.

But not to be outdone by this Herculean effort, the Federal Aviation Administration has established guidelines for the operation of reusable space ships:

1.  Operators must inform passengers about the vehicle’s safety record.

2.  Operators must provide safety training before the flight. (That’s what airlines do now with that 30-second spiel before takeoff.)

Now The FAA has also taken the time to develop guidelines for the crews of space vehicles:

1.  Pilots must have a valid pilot’s license.

2.  Pilots must be able to meet medical standards.

3.  Pilots must be trained to operate these reusable space vehicles.

As you can see our tax dollars are hard at work. I know that ya’ll feel better now about space travel.

 

Tell Me It Isn’t True

February 2005

     It seems there is a strip club that has found an artful way to prance around the city’s law that prohibits full nudity. They have what they call Art Club Nights, where for $15 they sell each customer a sketchpad and pencil. Now you have to admire the innovative marketing. Well I guess you don’t, but I found it interesting. But back to the nude women/dancers/models. You’ve already figured this out. The nude dancers become models, and the patrons, with their drawing materials, become art students.

Where would you guess this innovative strip club to be, New York, New Orleans, or the south side of Dallas? Try Boise, Idaho. That’s right boys and girls, Boise, the last bastion of the moral majority where family values are still talked about, at least in the churches, or probably at least some of them. But to find this type of thing going on in little old Boise just boggles the mind and almost ruins one’s concept of what’s right and good. You think my reaction is a little over the top? Okay, I guess you’re right.

 

Got Unwanted Bugs – You Might Want To Call This Guy

 

And Other Odd And Ends

 

From My Journal

 

Pest Control At It’s Finest

July 2008             

A man in New Jersey has discovered a new way to eliminate unwanted bugs from his apartment. He was spraying the apartment with some kind of insecticide when the insecticide ignited and exploded. It blew out the front of his apartment and caught the rest of it on fire. The good news--his apartment is now free of bugs, much of the owner’s personnel property, including his furniture along with other odds and ends.

 

Welcome Too Maine

The headline says, “Man finds second long Python in Maine in a week.” From that I would understand that a number of short ones have also been found. Now, if a person went looking for pythons, Maine would not immediately leap to mind as a logical destination. But, if the media alludes to an outbreak of pythons in Maine, who are we to doubt.  

 

 

Never To Late

     Well it looks like Lonesome George may be a daddy. This news is not necessarily startling because George is somewhere between 60 and 90 years old. The news is startling because in the 36 years that George has been incarcerated he has shown little interest in reproducing, even though he has been given many opportunities. When we saw him, he looked like just any of the other Galapagos Tortoises. George is the last of the Pinta Island Tortoises. Now they think that old George may have fathered some descendents. We’ll know for sure in about four months.

 

Run Rats Run

November 2008

It’s nice when people can come up with a win-win solution that will solve several problems. A state in eastern India has several problems:  1. The people are very poor. 2. The price of groceries has gotten very high. 3. The state is overrun with rats. 4. Rats eat 50% of the grain that the people need. 5. The shortage of grain is one of the reasons groceries are so expensive. So the government is asking the people in this state to eat the rats, thereby solving a number of problems.

 

What’s Happened to the North Carolina Educational System

     In North Carolina a guy robbed a gas station then ran across the street to a grocery store parking lot to steal a getaway car. Thinking ahead was not a subject he excelled at in high school. He tried to carjack a car from a lady who was loading her groceries into the back seat. Some neighboring car owners came to her rescue and started beating up on the guy. One concerned citizen was pummeling him with her frozen turkey. And if you’ve been hit by a turkey, frozen or not, you know it can smart. Why, I remember one time - -  back to our story. The perpetrator finally wrested the key from the car owner, climbed in and left the scene. But not before hitting several parked cars. The cops caught up with the guy in short order and took him to the hospital, where he was treated for frozen turkey wounds.

 

When and Where to Whack a Cow

A Public Service Announcement

From My Journal

When to Whack a Cow

 

August 2006

The Swiss Hiking Federation has come up with some guidelines for being around Swiss cattle. Never hug a Swiss cow. Never caress a calf. Don’t look a Swiss cow directly in the eye. Never wave sticks at a cow. And the one I really like. In the event of absolute need, give the cow a precise blow to the muzzle. Have you ever tried to give a cow a precise blow on the snout when it’s chasing you through a patch of nettles and you’re quickly approaching a barbwire fence? Well, I remember when - - - but that’s a whole different story.

I Have A Gun Like That

October 2005

Rudolf Stadler, an Australian, tried to shoot his friends cow. For some reason, not spelled out, this cow had gotten on the bad side of Rudy. So after luring the cow into a shed, Rudy took aim and fired. The shot missed the cow. (I had a gun like that once, in fact, I still do, it’s sitting in the corner of my office, just in case a cow ever attacks me.)

Rudy aimed and fired again. This time the bullet again missed the cow (surprise, surprise), went through the back wall of the shed, through a wooden fence, then through the door of a passing car and into the leg of the driver. The authorities took a dim view of his marksmanship, fined him $1,000 Australian, and took away his gun license for five years. Before the authorities got involved, Rudy did finally manage to shoot the cow.

Bitten Where?

October 2005

On a South African beach, a woman noticed that a seal had been sunning herself in the same place for most of the day, and fearful that there was something amiss, organized a rescue party to help the poor seal back into the water. The seal took exception to this, and as the article said “The lady was bitten on the beach,” which as you all know can be very painful. If you’ve not been bitten there, then you wouldn’t know. How do I know? Well, one time when I - - but I digress.

What the article writer meant to say was that while on the beach, helping a seal back into the water, the lady sustained a bite to her nose, by said seal. They did find her nose but couldn’t attach it to her face, so she’s undergoing some kind of surgery to minimize the fact that her face has no nose.

The seal seems to be doing fine and is back sunning itself on the beach, without being further bothered by well-meaning people.

“Python Attacks, Swallows Woman”

From My Journal

December 2003 

The above headline opened the following news item: It seems that a 38 year-old, and obviously very small, woman in Bangladesh, was out picking fruit with a friend, when she was attacked and swallowed up to the waist by a python that was “believed to be more than 10 feet long.”

Now if they knew this much why wouldn’t they know exactly how long the snake was. This must have been one aggressive and probably terribly near-sighted, or actually dysfunctionally-tongued snake. We’ve all seen pythons catching small animals, squeezing the life out of them, and then swallowing the victim. On the Nature Channel I mean. This isn’t like chugging down a shot glass of Diet Mountain Dew. It’s rather a slow and laborious process. One of my questions was, “What was the friend doing during all this?” While doing the squeezing/swallowing thing the snake is rather vulnerable and not that fast. The least you’d think the friend could manage would be to whack the reptile with a stick, poke it in the eye, or, at least, maybe offer it some fruit as a side dish. (Although I understand snakes have never been keen on fruit after that Eve-and-the-apple thing.) Anyway, I don’t mind reporters making up stories, but they could at least keep them believable.

Another news item recently came to my attention was that the Germans, who we all know to be mechanical innovators, have come up with the “big one.” They have invented garbage cans that can talk. At first I thought it was so the homeless would have something to keep them company, but no, there was no compassion involved. These talking cans have as their objective the cleaning up of the streets of Berlin. It seems that Berlin has a problem with garbage-strewn streets and by having garbage cans that say “thank you” whenever anyone drops something into them, these engineers think they can solve the problem. Not only do the cans talk, but will say thank you in several different languages. How the cans know what language to use is a state secret. I wonder what they say when a vehicle backs over them, or when a dog takes a whiz on their side? Now that could be entertaining!

     “Australian Sells Bottled Water for Dogs.”

Another headline: Well that’s something new, and I wish the guy all the success in the world. It goes on to say that “dogs get bored with plain water--they deserve variety just as much as people.” The article didn’t footnote any scientific studies supporting this assertion, but I couldn’t help but think that this dog he’s talking about is one that just licked his backside, underside, and any other disgusting parts he could reach, then went to wash that taste out of his mouth with some toilet water. If a toilet isn’t handy he will drink from a water-filled depression made by a passing garbage truck tire, or a water-filled depression made by a cow slogging through a barnyard. The dogs I’ve known didn’t have what you’d call “discriminating” taste. That probably says something about me and my taste in dogs, but that’s getting deeper into my psyche than I’m willing to do at this time.

I’ve been forced to use different flavors of local water myself and can tell you they’re not all as advertised. In Los Angeles – “Dusty Chlorine,” in New Orleans – “Bayou Moss,” in Atlanta – “Okeefenokee With a Twist,” anywhere in Florida – “Everglades Effervescence.” Now that I think about it, the bottled water industry makes a lot more sense. But for dogs?

Italian Marketing? 

Another news article explains that the German Anti-racism Department has banned an Italian wine. The reason is because the labels sport pictures of Adolph Hitler and other leading Nazis along with such tricky slogans as “One People, One Empire, One Leader.” Now I ask, what’s not to love here. The wine is supposedly a big hit in Italy, but of course there they don’t have the same labels. I’ve tried to get into the mind of the marketing genius who came up with this one. The thinking must have gone something like this  -  -  “Now we have this great wine that we would like to sell to the poor folks in Germany, what could we use to help entice them to pick up a bottle of this stuff, maybe something that would remind them of one of the most horrible times in their country’s history, including the slaughter of a whole generation of their young men and their deep humiliation in front of the whole world; oh yeah, that should turn them on big time. I wonder what that marketing genius is doing now for a living?

Give Me Mayo or I’ll Give You This

We’ve known for a long time that Texas people can be rather militant about things. A good example is a Houston woman who wanted mayo on her Big Mac, but it seems that the amount of mayo the manager gave her for her burger was not sufficient, so the mayo lover ran over said manager when she came out to take down the Houston woman’s license number. It would seem an anger management class would be in order and maybe a driving--well no--her aim is good enough already.

Don, Can You Please Repeat That

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield came up with a profundity the other day worthy of honorable mention. “Reports that say something hasn’t happened are interesting to me, because as we know, there are known unknowns: there (are) things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns: that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

The problem is that I knew what he meant.

Who Said The Airlines Don’t Have Problems

The airlines today announced that they will be hand inspecting fruitcakes that people are trying to carry on planes. It seems that the x-ray machines don’t do very good at penetrating fruitcake. Now this should tell us something. Although, a piece of fruitcake slathered with enough butter is not at all that bad. Of course, the same could be said of a shingle.

At the Miami airport, a man was arrested for trying to get on a plane with a hacksaw blade and a razor blade in his shoe. I guess the police were made suspicious by the limp and the bloody footprints. Nobody was quite sure what he planned to do with the hacksaw blade. Maybe after hijacking the plane he was going to saw off parts and mail them to Boeing until all the political prisoners from his hometown of Westchester, Pennsylvania, had been released.    

A headline in a Madrid paper said, “Loose Screw Halts Nuclear Power Station.” Turned out his name was Emilio Sanchez.

    

 

Thoughts and Commentary Part 1

From My Journal

One Way to Get in The News

May 2014

Every day, around the world, there are hundreds or earthquakes and tremors according to the Science Channel and other such authorities. There are many places where geophysicists, geologists, seismologists, and whoever else is interested in such things, expect disturbances to occur.

If you asked these people for a list of all the places where they would expect any earthquakes at all, on the very bottom of that list would be Idaho. And that’s what has them befuddled, because hundreds of low-level and medium-sized earthquakes have struck central Idaho in the last few months. These poor scientists are wondering whether the small quakes portend a much larger earthquake to come or are merely the rumblings of a seismic fault previously thought to be dormant. Some states will do anything to get in the news.

Wow! A Toilet Tank!

     According to a Reuters article, written by Jonathan Kaminsky and reported in Yahoo News a gentleman took his family to a Seattle Subway Sandwich Shop for a meal. While there he excused himself and went to the men’s room. When the order was ready his wife tried to get him out of the restroom, and when that didn’t work she left without him.

     After a time, he exited the restroom carrying a large plastic bag. Later employees of the Subway found that the toilet tank was missing, the bathroom sink was stuffed with paper towels, the water was still running, and the bathroom key had gone missing.

     Now this is bizarre, but straightforward. Let’s skip over the sink and towels part. My question is, “What in the world was going through this guy’s mind?” Actually, maybe nothing. However, did this guy need a toilet tank and stealing one from Subway was the first thing that came into his mind? Or was it a crime of opportunity? Maybe this guy saw a toilet tank and thought, “I’m just going to nick this thing and maybe do something with it.” Is there a market for hot toilet tanks? Or did this guy think that Subway was charging too much for his meal and this was his way of evening the score? Maybe this guy is a little unbalanced and has a toilet tank fetish. He may have a whole collection of these things in his basement.

     I hope that Mr. Kaminsky will do a follow-up story on this incident when the Seattle police collar this toilet tank perp.

Crickets, Crickets, Who Got The Crickets

Yahoo News reports that in Bridgeville, PA, six, or so, senior students released hundreds of crickets in the high school. School administrators say that some kind of discipline is defiantly in the culprits future. They know who they were because the school surveillance system caught them in the act. Now, I’m sure the administrators don’t need any suggestions from me about how to discipline students, but guess what, I’m going to put forward a suggestion anyway. And that is, make them recover the poor crickets--all of them. I know a little about catching crickets and this task shouldn’t take six kids more than three or four years.

     And then there is the question, “Where did they get hundreds of crickets?” That’s no small accomplishment. Maybe they have a future catching and supplying crickets to other students who would like to pull the same goofy stunt, or for bait shops, or for all those cricket research labs across the country.

Who Knows - - A Little Urine in Our Water May Be Good For Us

Reuters recently reported that “Portland, Oregon is flushing 38 million gallons of drinking water down the drain because a 19-year-old man urinated in an open reservoir.” Now face it, the only reason they’re doing this is because they know about it. (Duh) All the other people and animals that have peed in that reservoir they are willing to overlook because they don’t know about it. You’re asking, “How do you (me) know about it.” Well if one guy was able to urinate in the water I’m guessing that numerous other guys have done the same thing. And if this is an open reservoir as reported, how about all the stuff that falls out of the air like pesticides, insects, dead birds, and other dead stuff dropped by birds of prey that couldn’t keep a grip on the dead rodents they had recently snatched up. A little urine is the least of their problems. I thought that’s why they had water treatment plants.

Journalist Slips Up Again

     Yahoo news had a report about a 19-year-old man causing a three-car crash when he fainted because he was holding his breath. This happened in a tunnel near the community of Manning, OR, on Highway 26, northwest of Portland.

     The article goes on to tell about the injuries sustained and a few other pertinent facts. However, evidently no one thought to ask this genius the question, “Why in the world were you holding your breath?”

Uncle Vellanoff’s Journal 

(Editor’s Note: Once again I must caution the reader that I cannot vouch for the veracity of Uncle Vellanoff’s stories--in other words were these original stories or is Vellanoff passing on stories he had heard. Who knows? Who cares?)

Then You’re Hungry Again 

For a while, we had in our troupe a Sumatran couple who did a knife-throwing act. One evening they told us the following story about their travels in Sumatra. At one point they had to travel for two days to get to their next engagement, therefore necessitating their staying overnight in a small village at midpoint of the journey.

When they got up in the morning and moved outside the small lodge they found the whole town in an uproar. (The people that is.)It seems that during the night a tiger had crept into town, killed the Chinese watchman, dragged him to the edge of town, and eaten him. By the tracks and what remained of the body they assumed that it had happened only about an hour before the village came to life, or at least the part of the population the tiger hadn’t eaten.

The natives were very nervous about the whole thing and started scurrying around to get whatever they had in the way of guns, spears, and clubs, to defend themselves against the tiger coming back, and by their actions, it was evident that they expected this to happen at any moment.

One of our group, who seemed to know something about everything asked one of the policemen why they thought the tiger after having just eaten would want to come back for another meal. The answer he gave was, “Well, you know how it is, you eat Chinese and an hour later you’re hungry again!”

Anyone Need a Tire

Another time, when we were in Fort Worth, we went for a afternoon drive out in the country, just to kill some time. We saw this house with the front yard covered in old automobile tires. It was an amazing sight so we pulled in to talk to the old gent sitting on the front porch. We walked up and commented on the tires.

He said “That’s nothing, you should see the ones out back.” He proceeded to take us out back, and sure enough there must have been five acres all covered with tires. He added, “And I know just how many tires I have around here.” We of course asked him how many that was and he said, “Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine.”

I ask him, “Why not get one more and then you’d have an even ten thousand?” He looked at me as if I had two heads both equally dumb and responded, “Now what in the world would I do with ten thousand tires anyway?” Like I’ve said before, there are some strange people in Texas. Maybe it’s all that sun.

And For a Rib?

For several weeks we played in a small town in Northern Wisconsin. There had been a very good turnout every evening with many of the town folks coming more than once. We felt so kindly toward these people that we decided to join them at their Sunday worship service. We got there just in time to hear the deacon reading the Bible lesson for the day. He gave some text, which I wish I could remember, and then proceeded to read.

“And God said unto Adam, surely I have made you good, better in fact than any other thing on the earth. There is just one thing lacking, and that is a companion for you. I will make this companion so that she will fulfill your every need, she will listen to what you have to say, she will have only one desire and that will be to please you, she will constantly praise Me for your perfectness, she will be your constant companion and the light of your life.”

And Adam thought on this and pronounced the idea very good.

And God said, “But Adam, there is a price you must pay so as to be forever reminded of this moment.”

And Adam thought on this then answered, “What will it cost me God?

And God replied, “An arm and a leg.”

After Adam thought on this he asked, “God, what can I get for a rib?”

We all thought this a particular meaningful scripture, (except for the ladies in our group), and had in mind to discuss it with the deacon, but after the service we found that he had to leave suddenly during the closing hymn, followed hotly by his wife.

A Pig Like That - - -!!

It was also in Wisconsin that we yet again received an invitation to dine with one of our admirers. We looked on these occasions with mixed emotions. On one hand, there was a free meal. On the other hand, we never knew what the quality of the meal might be, or the company we might have to endure. Usually the free food won the day, unless we had been specifically warned by some kind soul.

On this one occasion several of us agreed to the invitation and were hauled out to this very comfortable farmhouse. While we waited for the meal to arrive on the table the farmer was walking us around the grounds and telling us about his operation. We noticed a large pig that was just wandering around like he had no other responsibilities than to be seen. We also noticed that the pig had only three legs. We asked the farmer about the pig and got this reply.

“Folks, that pig is the smartest pig in this whole state. A couple years ago little Mabel fell out of the boat into the lake and was in the process of drowning when Elmer (the pig) swam out, grabbed her by the back of her swim suit, pulled her to shore, then sat on her chest, forcing the water from her lungs reviving her. Mabel owes her life to that pig!

On another occasion, I had cut my foot on the mower so bad that I couldn’t walk or even crawl. I called Elmer and told him to fetch the doc. Elmer ran into town and not finding the doctor in his office, started checking the bars until he found his man and got him out to the farm to treat my foot. Another time he woke up the family and saved us all from burning to death when the house caught on fire. And just several months ago I took him to the track with me where he picked three winners in a row. I won enough to pay off the mortgage. Yes sir, Elmer is a great pig!”

Our next question seemed natural enough, “How did Elmer lose his leg?” The farmer replied with some heat, “A pig like that you don’t just eat all at once!” We couldn’t argue with that.