Friday, July 31, 2015

The Five Boons of Life III

CHAPTER THREE


Word of the day: calumny

Thursday, July 30, 2015

The Five Boons of Life II

CHAPTER TWO

The fairy appeared, and said:
"Four of the gifts remain.  Choose once more;
and oh, remember--time is flying, and only one of
them is precious."
The man considered long, then chose Love; and
did not mark the tears that rose in the fairy's eyes.
After many, many years the man sat by a coffin,
in an empty home.  And he communed with him-
self, saying:  "One by one they have gone away and
left me; and now she lies here, the dearest and the
last.  Desolation after desolation has swept over
me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous
trader, Love, has sold me I have paid a thousand
hours of grief.  Out of my heart of hearts I curse.
him."

Word of the day: desolation

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

The Five Boons of Life I

Presenting Mark Twain's Five Boons of Life.  The story will be posted one chapter per day, all five chapters.

CHAPTER ONE

In the morning of life came the good fairy with her
basket, and said:
"Here are gifts.  Take one, leave the others.
And be wary, choose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for
only one of them is valuable."
The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure,
Death.  The youth said eagerly:
"There is no need to consider," and he chose
Pleasure.
He went out into the world and sought out the
pleasures that youth delights in.  But each in its
turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain and
empty; and each, departing, mocked him.  In the
end he said: "These years have I wasted.  If I
could but choose again, I would choose wisely."

Word of the day: boon





Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Remembered

It was six years ago today that my life-long best friend Wes concluded his mortality and put on immortality.
Wes is still remembered and missed in this Earth.

Wes and I were about the age of Bryan, on left above, when we first bonded as best buds.




Monday, July 27, 2015

Watermelon Man

Early in May BBBH came wagging a watermelon home.  At that time, I told you about her love for this delicious cucurbit.  In all fairness, I should mention that she is not the only one in this household who likes this treat.

Let us say it is the summer of 1944.  I am ten years old, Sister is seven.  The entire family, Mom, Dad, and the two kids are in the car.  We are going to the Safeway on a hot summer day.  Weird, you are thinking.  No, it is not.  Mother doesn't drive and the grocery shopping is a family excursion.

I spare you the detail and place us all back in the old Ford for the trip home with the groceries.  (It should be understood that the purchases at the grocery store tended to be staples: flour, sugar, baking soda, raisins perhaps, in general, stuff Dad could not grow or kill.)  Anyway, at the corner of Spruce and Colorado Avenue we will turn north.  And on that very corner is the Watermelon Man!  A pickup truck load of the beautiful things up from The Valley.  "Oh, Daddy! Can we have a watermelon? Can we, hunh?" I'm not sure which of us said it first, Sister or Me, but the other immediately chimed in with "Yeah, Daddy, can we, please?"

Then the devastating response.  "Four and a half cents a pound.  Way too much.  We'll have to wait until is down to two cents."

So we waited.  And watched the prices as the days passed.  Now the salivary glands flood our mouths as we pass the watermelon stands.  And then "Melons 21/¢."

"Please, Daddy. Please, please!"

And he caves.  "Well, it's still a little high, but I think I have fifty cents, so if we can find one under twenty pounds, we'll get it!"

Watermelon Man plugs the chosen melon, it is every bit as good as we had hoped, and a happy family heads home with the treasure!



Painting by A. F. King


Word of the day:  plug, in the given context.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

It is Sunday. . .

We know someone who tends the flower of life with the diligence that the gardener bestows on his prized plants. The life unfolds to reveal the beauty of living.

We all have that acquaintance who picks the flower of life to pieces.
.

Whether there be productivity and loveliness, or whether there be desiccation and devastation is a matter of the choices one makes as he lives his life.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.  --Proverbs 1:7

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Friday, July 24, 2015

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Referral

Today's tale, should you choose to open it, is over on Retrotechnocracy, an old but entertaining piece.  Perhaps.  The story will appear in a new window.  800 words, just so you know.

Monday, July 20, 2015

The Little Things in Life

 How often in the hustle and bustle, the hurry-up lifestyle most of us live do we miss the truly lovely because we don't take the time to look around us, to stoop to look if the treasure is below the level of our straight-ahead focus on our immediate objective?

 Much like noting the gaudy floral presentations of the larger cousins of these little wonders, do we not tend to notice the rich and the famous, the noted and the notorious, while we overlook the "little people" who make their lifestyles possible?

Do you tend to focus so intently on your goal to join the ranks of the noted or noteworthy that you overlook the less fortunate, the downtrodden, the beaten-by-life?  Were you to take the time to notice, to stoop if necessary, you would find that beauty and love and kindness live there too, that nourishment and sunlight are as essential to them as they are to the great and the mighty. 

I placed my battered little President Roosevelt alongside the flowers for scale.  And did you notice that with the dime-sized beauties there is a background of even tinier blossoms so wee that an entire cluster of them may be smaller than a dime?

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Be Still

A message revisited

Mobile.  On the go.  Grab your mobile phone.  Do your mobile banking.  Don't stop for anything; you might get run over from behind.  Haven't time to...

What a frenzied lifestyle people have chosen.  I almost wrote "chosen to live."  Just in time to stop the silly fingers, I realized that this is not living.  It is frenetic, frantic, and all too often pointless activity.

The scriptures tell us to "be still."  I am not making this up.  I am cherry-picking my texts, but it is in there.

The verse that comes most readily to mind is Psalm 46:10 in which the Lord tells us, "Be still and know that I am God."  Reflect on that a bit.  Does it not suggest that we cannot get to know God if we are consumed with frenetic activity?  So to "be still" gives us an opportunity to make the most important connection we can or will ever make.

Psalm 4:4 says, "Stand in awe, and sin not; commune with you own heart upon your bed, and be still."  Perhaps it is the case that we fail to grasp the awesome nature of our God because we do not take the time to commune with our own heart.  We are not still long enough to even consider the possibilities.  We certainly can't "be still" while motoring down the road at a good clip, mobile device in hand, staying connected with everyone else, but making no connection with the Creator.

First Samuel 9:27 says, "Stand still a while, that I may show you the word of God."  Short of being still, we may get the word of all our friends but totally miss the Word of God.

Second Chronicles 20:17: "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."

Indeed.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Dee Thomas


Deletha Thomas, loving wife of Earl Thomas, had four beautiful children to whom she was a faithful guide and guardian.  For twelve years, Dee was our school secretary and my administrative assistant.

Dee's acumen, intelligence, and helpfulness were key to my job performance.  There is no doubt that she saved me from much grief and unnecessary work or back-tracking.  I probably do not know the extent to which she enabled me to perform my tasks.

More to the point, Mrs. Thomas could be described as an enthusiastic woman who grasped life fully, who was involved in and cared about her community and enjoyed it all immensely.

I am attending her funeral this morning.

Deletha "Dee" Thomas  1938 - 2015   RIP

Friday, July 17, 2015

Weather Whether or Not

Three years ago today I posted an article entitled "Hot Enough For Ya?" in which, I am sorry to say, I came close to carping about the weather.*  Today's post may approach that level of thinking as well.

I have lost track though I am sure the weather bureau could tell me, of the number of days in which we have had significant rainfall.  I stopped counting a couple of weeks ago at 41 consecutive.  I am quite certain that we have had in excess of 16 inches of rainfall since the first of June.  We have now had two glorious days without precip!  But it is scheduled to be back soon, along with temps that will rival those of the summer of  '12 about which I came close to carping.

A walk in the meadow in the evening or a bicycle ride along the streets in the morning, the pleasure of either is diminished somewhat by the foetid aroma of the decaying vegetation which has lain too long under water.

A week ago Purdue agronomists had estimated crop losses in the state at over 430 million dollars.  I did not get this week's report.  Like it or hate it, the weather is a big deal, and we do not control it.

*Complaining about summer heat is a violation of my policy whereby I try to confine my gripes to the winter weather, which I hate

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Day Lily Time








And a fiery crimson coneflower

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Fair Time 2015: Not Animals

There is more to the Fair than the animals, even if they are mostly my favorite part.  Sunday evening we went to a presentation by a local church youth group called "Liberated."  They presented the gospel through singing and dancing, and with their personal testimonies.


They were bustin' some moves, for sure.  I told one of the young ladies after the performance that I understood that in addition to the hour they just gave us, they had practiced for three hours that afternoon.  "Yes."  

"Ah, youth!" I said.  "I may have enough energy left to walk to my car, and all I did was watch."

Well, I could have told her, "You don't know what you got 'til its gone."  But that's not very original.

Monday afternoon we did the Exhibition Hall.  Lots of work represented in the displays of crafts and arts.  Very much worth the time spent there.


Well, yeah.  That's why I went to point-and-shoot long before digital made the scene.  This display fascinated me, though, and it clearly had taken the eye of the judge.


The title says, "White horses do not exist."  The "not" in bold, clear blue letters, looking just like all the other letters.  But when I snapped the picture, the "not" disappeared.  I took a second picture. Same result.  Weird.

Anyway, the presentation was well-done and very interesting.

A day in which one doesn't learn something is a wasted day.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Fair Time 2015: Animals

I have often told some kid who is whining about something being "not fair" that "fair" is where the 4-H kids go to show their pigs.  And so it is.


Personally, though, I don't find pigs to be terribly photogenic, so mostly we concentrated on cuteness. I mean, how cute is this?

Not to mention this.

Stylin'.

Really styling.

We passed a cage of black-on-white rabbits.  BBBH exclaimed, "Oh, aren't the bunnies cute?"
"Looks like supper to me," says I.  So much for harmony and togetherness at the fair.  There are no horse pictures because although I walked through the stable area, occasionally saying, "Nice horse!" to the horse, I stayed a good four feet from the stall.  I don't much do horses.  This year's kine crop didn't impress me much, either.


Monday, July 13, 2015

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Who Penned Hebrews?

My friend Louie and I had a conversation via the internet this past week, as we do from time to time..

The part of the discussion which is germane to this Sunday morning post was a statement I made to him that when I sought encouragement or believed I was undergoing chastening I turn to the twelfth chapter of the Book of Hebrews.
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. (Emphases added.)
 What greater encouragement might we hope for than to look to the example of our Christ who laid down His very life for our sins!  The chapter continues
And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
While I may endure chastening, I am a son of God!

End lesson.

Now Louie and I know that we both agree on the essentials of the Scriptures, but we also know that we disagree on a couple of points that are not critical to salvation.  To wit, and in this instance, Louie is a firm believer that Paul was the writer of The Hebrews.  I am just as firmly convinced that Paul did not write the book.

He wrote back to me, "I Love  Hebrews. Dave, I cannot  believe how these nut cases  cannot see that Paul is the writer.  That is if they read his other books,  Also He knew more about The Hebrew  law than any other  person that was in The Church of God that The Lord Jesus started. Blessings on you this weekend!"

To which I replied (remember, we each knew the position of the other before this conversation):   "Thank you for your (repeated) position on the authorship.   May the blessings of the Lord be yours, and may there be peace between you and
Your Fellow Nutcase in Christ. 
(Who can’t see how you can read the Letters and still believe Paul penned Hebrews. Oh, well.  We both believe God is the Author of His Word, the Author and Finisher of our faith.)"

Quickly, my case, in a nutshell, if you are interested.

In my opinion, Paul could not have written:

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;" (KJV  Heb 2:3)

for Paul was certainly one of “them that heard him.”  Acts 9 
"And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?  And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"
To me, this is the most compelling reason to believe Paul was not the writer.  There are others, e.g., the missing “salutation” which we see in Paul’s letters.

Romans 1:1  Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle
I Cor 1:1 Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ
Ii Cor 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God
Ephesians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
Galatians 1:1 Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead;)
Colossians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
I Thess 1:1  Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus
II Thess 1:1 Paul, and Silvanus, and Timotheus
I Tim 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
II Tim 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ
Titus 1:1  Paul, a servant of God
Philemon 1:1  Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ
Compare these with
Hebrews 1:1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets
Yet Louie may have as good a chance of being right as I have.  But you have probably perceived that I doubt that is the case.




Saturday, July 11, 2015

Resurrected and Reposted

Pulled out of the archives from six years back. Minor editing.

Genealogy led me to this bit of family lore, which I have combined with a bit of historic information I have gleaned from various sources. My maternal grandmother's grandfather served in the USArmy under Winfield Scott during the Mexican campaign. It is said that Grandfather, Spencer Lawson, was with Scott during the incursion into Mexico. It is historic fact that Scott took Mexico City. What role Private Lawson played in this is unknown, other than the fact that he survived and returned to his native Hawkins County, Tennessee.

Prior to this war and on a visit to New Orleans in 1846, General Scott was defeated at chess by nine-year-old Paul Morphy. He lost two games to the boy.. Scott was not amused. Though Scott was a Virginian, he maintained his loyalty to the United States when the Civil War rent the nation. He is credited with the "Anaconda" plan by which the South was eventually strangled into submission.

Meantime, when the War Between the States started, Grandpa Lawson said, as did his general of the Mexican campaign, "I will not take up arms against the flag I fought under." It is said that he joined the Union forces; but while home on leave, he was betrayed by a relative, captured by the South and imprisoned at Andersonville. I visited Andersonville a few years ago and sought to verify this. While I found Lawsons from Hawkins County, there was no record of Spencer Lawson having been there. It is a known fact, however, that wherever he was held he was paroled due to illness, records of which I have obtained. He died in military hospital in Annapolis in 1864. His widow was eventually able to draw a pension for his service in the Mexican War amounting to twenty dollars a month.

Scott was the Whig Party nominee for President in 1852. He was defeated by Democrat Franklin Pierce. He died in 1866.

[Sources: Morrell-Palmer Family Records, National Archives, Wikipedia]

Word of the day: loyalty

Friday, July 10, 2015

Like a Hog on




Typical February morning, workday.  I am shaved and groomed, tie knotted and the topcoat snugged over my ensemble (I am laughing out loud, hope you are too).

Stepping off the back porch I carefully set one foot before the other, for a slick of solid ice covers the ground, a thin slick, to be sure, but slippery as, well, you know.  I arrive at the garage and throw up the overhead door.  That's right.  It had no "garage door opener" other than the driver of the vehicle.

Now I call your attention to the drawing above.  The street is quite narrow but does accommodate parking along the curb and a lane for moving traffic.  I must back my car down the drive, and "down" has some meaning here, crank the wheel as the rear of the vehicle enters the street, then

But "then" did not occur this morning as planned.  The neighbor across the street has a penchant for parking his wheels directly in front of his house, which as you see is also directly opposite the debouchment of my driveway.  Remember the ice.  I did, and I was ever, oh so careful. And yet although I turned the steering wheel, the wheels of the two-and-one-quarter ton behemoth did naught but slide on backward.  I hit the brake, and the car continued to ski.  Into the neighbor's vehicle.

My car sustained damage to the extent that there was a smudge of red paint on the bumper which was easily scoured off with rubbing compound.  Jon's car did not fare so well.

After arriving at work and getting the day started, I had to call my insurance agent to report this incident.  Now here is the fun part of the story.  The crunched vehicle belongs to my insurance agent's son.  You may smile now; after all, this all happened nearly forty years ago.

Word of the day: debouchment

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Digital Life, Real Disaster

FAA grounds all United flights

NYSE suspends trading.  Unprecedented move.

These occurrences due, of course to computer glitches or malfunctions.  Accept that at face value. Nothing to see here, move along now.
 
End sarcasm.

Then back to the lunchtime conversation with BBBH.  (Actually, it was less "conversation" than soliloquy.)

vanilla:  I think T. S. Eliot had it right when he said the world would end not with a bang but a whimper.  Whether it proceeds from intention or accident is beside the point.  The world will come to a grinding halt when all our activities are computer-driven, and we are nearly there now, and the great "glitch" or "hack" or irreparable breakdown occurs.  And it will occur.

BBBH: You could be right.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Gordie #T

Gordie, our pet cucurbit, is doing its thing once again.

Fifteen years ago we were traveling along the road near Bent's Fort, Colorado when BBBH asked, "What is the green stuff growing along the road and into the road?"

"That," I answered, "is a wild gourd that grows in this sere country.  It produces little gourds about the size of a baseball that look like little watermelons."

"No!"

So when I spotted another patch ahead, I slowed, stopped the car, crawled into the vines (aren't there rattlesnakes in this country?) and soon filled the floorboard near her feet with the little globes.

She was amazed.

Back home again in Indiana (wouldn't that make a great song title?) we stored several of the gourds in a box and promptly forgot them.  A year later we discovered them again, dried out and hard. Brilliant me. I broke one open, removed some seeds and dropped a couple of them in the ground near the west side of the house.  And thus Gordie was hatched.

The plant's roots are rhizomes and it spreads by "fingering" throughout any real estate it can capture.  It is a constant battle to keep the rascal confined to its corner.  And it won't die.  I think this is its thirteenth summer with us now.


Gordie is a cucurbita foetidissima, or as it is commonly called, a Missouri gourd, or buffalo gourd.  As the Latin name implies, it is a stinking gourd.  It is a very useful plant, though, and you may learn about its many applications if you do a web search.

(I should explain, too, that it is not the habit  of c.f. to climb.  We installed sticks and strings for its use.)

Son Carl, aka Neil, has a birthday today, not yet raising the number to stratospheric levels. Happy birthday, Carl.

Word of the day:  cucurbit

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

The Preacher and Silly Matt

My father was a preacher who practiced his calling for seventy years.  It goes without saying that he prepared hundreds of sermons.  I have written about this a bit in the past but where I want to go here has to do with the papers he left behind.

I have file cabinets filled with notebooks in which he had stored his sermon outlines, clippings, anything germane to his interests, and that encompasses much of life's quirks, oddities, and yes, triumphs.

Several years ago I started to transcribe Dad's sermon outlines.  After a good number had been done I realized at some point that I was never going to complete the task.  I drifted on to other things and now I am hard pressed to recall even where the digital copies are stored.  Do I even still have the drive on which I stored them?  I am not as well-organized as some people are.

A few days ago I opened the bottom drawer of a four-drawer file cabinet and pulled out one of the notebooks it contained, one I had not gone through before. Yes, it contains sermon outlines, but also some odds and ends of this and that, including this little verse entitled "Silly Matt" which I remember having heard my father recite:

I feel so exceedingly silly,
I say what I shouldn't to ought.
My mind is as frail as a lily
'Twould break with the weight of a thought.

I am so exceedingly lazy
I neglect what I oughtn't to should.
My notion of work is so hazy
That I couldn't to toil if I would.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Fizzle*

“You are old, Father William,” the young man said,
“And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head –
Do you think, at your age, it is right?”
"When I was young," replied the Sage
"And hadn't the wisdom that comes with age
I thought indeed that I stood on my head
But now I know the world's inverted instead."




This is a snapshot of the house where I was born.  I took the picture about thirteen years ago. (West side and south side, or back of house.)


I recently found this much earlier picture of the house.  This was taken closer to the time I was born.  (North side or front of the house.)  This was the home of my Grandparents Morrell until they moved to California about 1939.

I thought it interesting that I remember Chinese elms on the property when I was a child and I found there were still Chinese elms there in 2002.

*Through absolutely no fault of my own, but rather via a fluke of unbidden circumstances, this moniker was applied to me.  Fortunately, it did not stick as a permanent nickname though I was reminded about once a year, usually on July 5.

And then
BBBH did this

 And this which I suspect suggests that I am a prickly old thing.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Long live the USA!




Happy Birthday to our Nation!

She seems to be getting a bit old and somewhat arthritic, somewhat forgetful of her roots; and "what she is here for;" a bit dyspeptic, cranky and cantankerous; and generally heir to the ailments of old age.

I can relate to that.  Still, long may she live; and so may I!


Friday, July 3, 2015

Homogeneity

Homogeneity.  Sociologists abound and their studies are legion.  This is no scientific analysis of human behavior.  It is simply some observations regarding humankind's proclivity to flock with like birds.

What portion of homogeneous divisions among us are natural and what percentage of them are artificial would be an interesting study.  Also, who believes what regarding these divisions would be of interest.

I recall an incident that occurred during my tenure as a public school administrator in which we were proposing a cross-graded continuous progress segment, a school-within-a-school, so to speak, in which students from ages six through eleven would be grouped together.  Ignoring the obvious fact that this is a homogeneous group in some broader definition, we found that when we opened the proposal for public discussion  some on either end of the liberal/conservative spectrum wanted to ignite a firebomb and throw it into the mix;

The ultra-conservative members of the community were armed and ready with charts and arguments all the way back to Adam and Eve to demonstrate that the "natural order" of things required that children should be grouped in  much narrower homogeneity, namely traditional graded age groups, else society would ultimately topple.

On the other hand there were those who adamantly pursued their own agenda, that is pipe-dream, that no order should be imposed at all, that the natural developmental processes of the human social and intellectual growth would take care of themselves, should we simply let children "decide" in their own time when they are ready for any given stage.

Our proposal was ultimately approved and a large number of students over a period of years functioned quite well in the broader "family" setting, but that is not the point of my rambling.

Last evening I attended a meeting of a group of people of "a certain age."  These people could correctly be identified as older people, but we are given to euphemisms, e.g., "Seasoned Citizens," "Keen Agers," "the Golden Years," and so forth.  Our group is called "Best Years Fellowship."

I have lived long enough now that I have been lumped in with the very students I taught when they were children in the public schools, for a number of the members of the group did indeed sit in my elementary classroom, lo those many years ago.

Where is the homogeneity?  Well, the groups would ultimately get pretty small.  There were but two people in the room besides me who were my age or older.  And the ninety-six-year-old guy could comprise a group all by himself.  I mean within our social reach, he has no peers.

The whole "age" thing is pretty dumb, anyway.  We are born, we live, some longer than others, and we die.  What our group has in common more than "age" is like-mindedness with regard to the way the world works and the ways in which we should work within it.  Instead of developing insular social groups in which people of like age "relate" to one another, why not a broad spectrum which includes everyone relating to each other?

I do not need interaction with other old poops so much as I need the stimulation of new ideas, new ways of viewing things.  And where will I find that?  Younger people, of course.  And trust me, the younger people would be well -advised to get close enough to their elders to allow some of the wisdom to rub off onto them.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Doing Laundry

We have a little washer,
Load the clothes at top
Then swishy, swishy, swashy,
Makes the colors pop!

But this washer is an inside-outer
Now hear my tale, don't be a doubter
We load the T-shirts, wash and spin
Open the door and reach within.

The shirts are outside in!

Simple solution you might think
Turn shirts inside out and drop in drink
Voila! the shirts will be turned
Not a chance, your theory's burned.

This appliance is an outside-inner
Won't turn shirts inside in
So nevermind, your chore is set
On this certainty you can bet.

Before you fold that shirt to fit in drawer
You'll turn that sucker
Sleeve, sleeve, bottom through the neck
Or you could wear the seams outside, look like heck

Thursday is washday.  BZZZZZ!  Dryer's done; gotta go fold clothes.

Another laundry story here.

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Better Buy a Buick

I am amused at advertising that casts one's own product in a negative light. This goes on all the time with the "new and improved" approach, but the current one that tickles my gizzard is the old lady uttering the line "That's what I told him!" in response to the statement "That's not a Buick!"

Of course, I have the line down pat and can mimic quite well the inflection that the lady uses in her delivery of the line.  But that is not the point.  The point in point of fact is that Buick is attempting to sell you a car by denigrating the product they sold to your parents, or to your grandparents, or even to you two, three, or five years ago.

Image result for that's what i told him

Such a response from an elderly lady who for the past several decades was too busy to much notice automotive styling would be natural.  Consider that when her daddy finally agreed to allow Leroy to pick her up Saturday afternoon and take her to the county fair, Leroy, having wheedled the loan of the family car from his parent, showed up in this:

To which today's whippersnapper might well say, "That's not a Buick!"

1937 Buick Special