Existing In BFE

It's Tuesday Tidbits, so unless you are stout of heart, best be on your way. ++++++++++ As best I can tell, this is the Met's front office flow chart.  Two  stupid owners, three GM's.  ++++++++++ I have discovered these wonderful little devils.   No vice is without its cost, however. ++++++++++ ++++++++++ ++++++++++ ++++++++++ Seaton, Illinois ++++++++++ Update on Whizzbang aka Dumbstruck the Wonder Pup I made a sound. We both have stitches on the same day and we both have... ++++++++++ Oops. ++++++++++ I literally get physiologically charged when I'm this close to heading up to Northlandia again.  That and pictures of my bike being cleaned up and run after a long storage.   Thanks, Neighbor. ++++++++++ Went strolling on Central Avenue in St. Pete on Saturday.  Central is the center of West ...

Gather around, kids, and I'll tell you a true story you'd never believe in a hundred years.  It's a story about two unlikely competitors.  One, a classy icon of a car that is just as pretty today as it was when it was made 56 years ago.  The other, a year newer is frumpy, dated, easily forgotten and hardly anyone's idea of a cool ride.  The first one, let's call it "Eddie's Chevy", is 2-door, sporty racy wheels, dual exhaust, and is a stick shift.  The second one, lets call it "Mike's Dodge" has four doors, stock wheels and single exhaust. I had given up hope of attending the Alpha car show.  Richard and I had made plans to go but it was a cold, rainy day with a forecast that called for showers all day.  Old car guys don't like getting their cars wet.  It's a rust thing.  I texted Richard about 8:30 am and we both decided to find something else to do.   A little later I got a text from my friend Eddie from Peoria.  He told me ...

I wish I could tell you all about this picture's setting.  The people, the occasion, the place.  All I do know is that my parents are the third and second from the right.  There is no information on the back.  I think I can come close to finding out what it is, but it will be pure speculation. Both were students at Monmouth College.  She was a sorority sister with Pi Beta Phi.  I believe he was in a fraternity but whose affiliation I have forgotten.  If I had to make a guess I think this would be his fraternity and fellow brothers.  I believe that is Marj's best friend over on the left, Kathleen McCrery.  Darned if I know why they are all dressed up, though.   Herb joined the Navy during World War II, and he was a student at the time.  After the war he returned to finish his studies.  He graduated in '46 and married Marj that year, too.  They then headed to Seaton where his father had an elevator.  He taught a y...

Women feel, men act.  That statement or mis-statement best exemplifies the latest books I've read.  I'm not sure if that's a sexist remark or not, both are necessary for a balanced life.  I have mentioned before that writers of the female persuasion do, on occasion, belabor the heart's yearnings; men writers tend to belabor action.  Naturally there are exceptions, perhaps most notably Shakespeare himself.  The Bard tended to write of love and its travails.  So please don't send out #MeToo hitmen/hitwomen to straighten me out. Elizabeth Strout's The Burgess Boys was on the far side of the "feeling" spectrum.  I found it ponderous, glacially slow and given to interminable pages describing the depths of feeling for the characters, none of whom I liked.  I couldn't wait for it to end, and I slogged on to the end thinking there may be some kind of payoff that would make the journey worth it.  That and since I bought it for my Kind...

Turn Back!  This may open close minds, unpucker puckered asses, and widen horizons.  You have been warned. ++++++++++ Reasons for involuntary incarceration at the Trans-Alleghany Lunatic Asylum between 1864 and 1889.  After checking the boxes for most of the first 13 reasons I stopped in order to keep my sanity. ++++++++++ It's hard for us to imagine the kind of poverty that existed in the Depression.  We are too young.  This cardboard covered room infested with flies, many on the face of the lad on the right.  Apparently it has reached the point where swatting them aside is no longer effective, so like dumb cows, they simply put up with it.  Thank your blessings, guys.   ++++++++++   Shortly after this speech, the Congress succumbed to the Military-Industrial Complex.  And we have been at that trough ever since. ++++++++++  Our latest family tradition is meeting at Twiste...

It's Monday and the start of another work week.  Except for me.  I have the week off because the parents of my daycare charges are taking the week off, too. This is one of those wordless posts I love on Mondays so I can put my laziness in full view of loyal readers.  These pics need no words.  Why muddy the waters?   They were taken at the pool at Sinkhole Estates aka Death Valley.  The nice thing about this pool is it is heated in winter.  If one must find positives in one's situation, I suppose that is one.  But, please, no more.   

I'm sure I've posted this before, but it struck me, as I was flipping through the album pages, how much this is really me.  The place is unknown to me, but I was in college.  And drinking.  But what is it?  Its certainly not apple juice or water.  There was about three decades I never touched either beverage. So, drink in hand.  Check.  Back to wall, all the better to watch my flank.  Check.  Playing audience to someone.  Check.  Watching,  shrinking, thinking.  Check. Check. Check. When do we become ourselves?  Is it an event or a process?  Is it on-going or static?  Evolving or set-in-stone?  Are we what we are at birth and strive to find that ultimate, or are we a blank slate (tabula rasa) and events write themselves on that slate?   As usual the questions are easier to formulate than the answers, although I think I know.  I'll get to that in just a second, but more on the pic...