Not Sin.

(But disturbingly close for my tastes.)

Anyway, got Cat from Grandmom’s, got home, unloaded, got some stuff out for supper, and was just about to get out of my work clothes when I noticed the answering machine flashing away. My medicine was ready at the CVS at the foot of the hill, so I got on a pair of jeans and my trusty Auburn sweatshirt, told Cat I’d be right back, and headed back out.

“Hmm,” I thought, which is usually what I think, and then I thought while I was out I would also get us some meat to go in the meatless fettuccine and sauce I’d been contemplating for supper, so I went on past the drug store and parked at the Food World, and strode in with the express purpose of getting some Italian sausage.

After several minutes trying to figure out where the Italian sausage was kept (by the ground beef, silly!) I snagged a pack, decided to get a pack of ground beef since it was conveniently nearby, and headed for the checkout.

Along with everyone else in town.

Must have been a memo about going to the store.

I stood there patiently along with eleventy-dozen other shoppers in three lines, and finally another line opened up, and in a nice turn of events managed to snag the number two spot behind a twenty-something odd couple made of a hyperactive Federlinesque goober and a stunningly well-packed lass, equally devoid of motor control and notions of societal constraints.

And joy of joy! The cashier was the sour old wart of a woman I usually get when I’m in a hurry! She seems stymied by any technology invented after the rotary telephone, and is resistant to logic when it comes to fixing things. I’ve stood there patiently (for some reason) in times past while she nearly destroyed the coupon-thing that spits out coupons for things you don’t want. She’s always somewhere else mentally, and gets perturbed when you point out that you only got two boxes of something, rather than 20. She’ll sigh, and have to figure out how to work the microphone to summon a manager, then fiddle with the key to try to crank up the override, and then go back to mindlessly scanning things with not so much as a grunt of consolation for having made a mistake.

Anywho, she’s gonna be my cashier. Right before I got to the conveyor, I spied a display of hot Italian bread, so I scooted over and got a loaf and put it on the belt with my two packs of meat. She gave the perfunctory greeting “heyhowreyout’night” without even the affect of a question mark at the end, scanned my stuff, gave me my total, and started putting the items in a bag.

I swiped my card, entered my PIN, pressed “yes” for the total, looked around, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but Ye Olde Cashier holding (nay, cradling) my just-purchased loaf of hot Italian bread gently--ever so gently--to her nose, her eyes closed in rapture, deeply quaffing the aroma of the bread into her vacant cranium.

“That smells good.”

Well, yes, I’m sure it does. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I bought it. But after I’ve bought it, I would appreciate it if you’d KEEP YOUR OLFACTORY RECEPTORS OFF OF IT!

Yes, I know--in the greater scheme of things this ranks no higher on the scale of minor indignities than when you take your car in for service and the mechanic feels duty-bound to readjust the seat, the radio, and the A/C controls because he was in the driver’s seat for about five seconds--but still, is there not some level of common sense that would make a person not act that way!? I guess the answer is obvious, but it nonetheless still surprises me when it happens to me.

Sin

Or, adding insult to injury.

In any event, seems as though the media always find a way in any tragedy to compound the misery by making sure to broadcast far and wide anything that will create controversy. Of course, if some people wouldn't find death and destruction such a tempting (if I may use that word) target for their own self-righteous tongue-clucking, maybe it would be slightly harder for the newspapers and teevee reporters to spread it around, but what do I know?

I do know that every time some self-annointed spokesman for God gets on the news to talk about why he wasn't crushed in an earthquake and other people were, invariably no one ever thinks to go to the source for comment.

When people start getting smug about how their goodness has protected them from the bad things that happen to those icky sinners, I remember this particular story from Luke 13:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

Gigantic, SUPER End-of-the-Year Omnibus Catch-All Post for 2009!

Well, it was certainly interesting.

I mean, you know, if you like that kind of thing.

Well, let's see:

1. If Possumblog still existed, it would now be 8 years old, having begun broadcasting on December 20, 2001. But it doesn't, so never mind.

2. I have a job. Still! It has not been slack over the past year for more than about ten minutes at a time, so for that I'm real grateful-like. I think it's something like what they used to call "job security," although sometimes it's more like a big aneurism in my head.

3. I got some very nice shirts for Christmas, and a steam mop, and a combo fax-printer-scanner-copier-hot air popper, and some socks, and candy, and some ties, and other things. They were all very much appreciated.

4. I am a bit concerned that the air travel security system that was noted in the past few days as having worked as designed relies so heavily on hoping for the failure of PETN-laced Nigerian underpants to explode. We should be safe as long as no one other than Wile E. Coyote tries to attack us.

5. The Volvo continues to roll up the mileage. It hit 260,000 miles a couple of weeks ago and kept right on puttering along. However, if anyone would like to give me a nicer car, I would certainly be willing to take it. Thanks!

6. The children are now grown, at least for all practical purposes. A harbinger of the years to come visited itself upon us this weekend, when yesterday we sent the three who still live at home off to Huntsville for some sort of church camp thing. The house is now completely empty of them, which left time for Miss Reba and I to be on our own for a few hours yesterday. We used our new steam mop on the kitchen and bathroom floors.

7. I gained weight this year, even though I tried not to. I'm hoping that next year I will lose weight, even though I will try not to.

8. (Reserved)

9. I have a marimba in my garage. It is a fascinating instrument that I did not fully appreciate until Boy and I had to disassemble it and bring it home. I believe it marks yet another example of extraterrestrial alien contact, because quite frankly I cannot understand how any human could have ever figured out how to make a musical instrument from the remnants of a boiler explosion at a parquet-flooring factory.

10. The dog and the cat seem to have reconciled themselves to each other's presence and get along fine. Aside from the occasional random cat-induced violence.

So there you go. Hope all of you had a good year, and have a better one next year!

What’s a Thursday without a Three?

Hmm? What’s that? You don’t understand what I’m saying?!

Well, first of all, that’s because I’m not saying anything, I’m writing it.

And second, actually, I’m not even doing that, since I don’t blog anymore.

But by way of backstory, here at Possumblog back when it was fully funct (and not defunct as it is now), we (the editorial we) and our (again, editorially) vast swarm of readers would take every Thursday and engage in a bit of alliterative memery, namely, the Thursday Three. Three (or more) probing, insightful questions would be proffered by the editorial staff writers, and readers would chime in with their very own answers to said questions. By doing so, we (collectively) could all learn what made each other tick (or how we got ticks) and revel in each others virtual companionship.

Believe it or not, at one time the Thursday Three was the most widely-read and participated-in, weekly day-of-the-week meaningless Internet meme in the entire world. (You shouldn’t believe that.)

Sadly, though, as occasionally happens with such things, the fun came to a screeching halt on August 1, 2007 when I was getting ready to take on my new job and pretty much lost the free time I once had to sit around and piddle and maunder. Since that time, I have completely never blogged ever again--not even a single post. With the exception (maybe) of the last Thursday Three on August 9, 2007.

So, why am I posting something now?

I’m not. Since I don’t blog anymore, this can’t be a blog post.

However, my good friend Jim Smith (his real name) mentioned he’d like to see something like the ol’ T-3 from Possumblog again. You know, it being that his 60th birthday is coming up this Saturday. Not that there’s any pressure.

Geez--nothing like a load of GUILT to make you heave a heavy sigh and grudgingly grab your keyboard and knock together a quick simulacrum of a quiz to give all both of my remaining readers something to do for several minutes. And celebrate Jimbo's SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY! ICE CREAM AND PONIES AND CAKE!

But how to do this, since I no longer do this?

How about the Non-Thursday Non-Three!

Sounds good to me.

SO, take a moment to peruse the following non-three non-questions and either leave your answers in the comment section below, or a link to your blog (although it’s been so long since I’ve done this, the idea of people having a blog is so early-21st Century that I should probably have some accommodation for you not-quite-as-early-21st Century Twitter people. Good thing I don’t care about you like that.)

ANYwho--since we’re coming up on Thanksgiving, answer me these nonqueries:

1. What one person are you most thankful for this year?
2. What one thing are you most thankful for this year?
3. What one event are you most thankful for this year?

AND, as a big fat bonus unquestion:

4. So, how’s it going? How’ve you been lately?

Okay, go off and figure those out. As for my answers...

Veterans Day

Left to Right: Dale Crabtree; my dad, Alfred Oglesby; Herman Taylor
circa 1944, US Base 3115, Hollandia, New Guinea

FINALLY! Something worth posting about!

From down in the comments below, Chef Tony wanders by with a request:

"Hey y'all, my friend Shane is in the 'Stan. He & his troops are in the middle of nowhere and I'd like to make them a bit more comfy. If you can help by sending & asking others you work & know to help in this it's be great. I know I loved getting ANYTHING from home while I was in Viet Nam (68, 72) and I'm going to pay forward on that. Google has good info on how to pack and ship but I can help there too, 612 703 6573. Thanks much & take care."

Begin forwarded message:

Tony,

After sitting down with some of the boys and discussing "wish lists" I've nailed down a few items that would be in demand around here. Since we have no PX, toiletries are a real pain for us. That being said, the following is a cursory list of things the guys would like:

-soap
-toothpaste
-toothbrushes
-dental floss
-shampoo
-shaving cream
-razors
-foot powder
-deodorant

Some other items the boys would like:

-Christmas decorations (small fake trees, lights, ornaments, etc.)
-Snack foods (cookies are great--but anything would be good)
-books
-magazines
-coffee (the stuff in the chow hall is awful)
-drink mixes (Gatorade, lemonade, etc.)

This is only a very generic list. If there is anything else you can think of I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated. Just don't send items such as alcohol (sadly, we are not allowed to drink) or anything that might be restricted from going on an airplane such as explosives, aerosols, ammo, and other stuff like that.

Again, I thank you for thinking of us and your continued support. It means a great deal to know that the folks back home think about us.

Take care and God bless.

Shane

It just occurred to me that a mailing address might be helpful. ;-)

My address is:
MAJ Shane Gries
201st VTT
Camp Blackhorse
APO AE 09320

Thanks again!

Take just a moment and think of their sacrifice, and please find a way to let Major Gries or someone like him know of your support.

Spam

I have been having a lot of problems lately with comment spammers, and have tried to take some steps to cut down on the mischief. One of those was to default to closed comments for new posts.

However, I didn't really remember doing that, so no comments were allowed on the last post, and I thought surely there might be some interesting discussion about it. SO, for anyone who'd tried to comment on our Dear Leader's recent award in the previous post, that was the reason for not being able to comment. Well, that, I didn't want to subject him to even the remotest possibility that someone might say something unnice about it all.

I'll close them back up after a few days to forestall anymore comment spam later on. Maybe.

Debasing the Currency

I awoke to a supreme suprise this morning (along with millions of people who have seen the potential to live their lives free of tyranny begin to wither away once more in the face of American fecklessness) to see that our President has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kudos, sir.

Although there seem to be many people who cannot understand how such a thing can happen so soon in his tenure (after all, it took History's Greatest Monster 22 years after he left office to receive his), I believe this seemingly inexplicable award is the result of concept best explained in the words of Mr. Obama's predecessor in the office:

"The soft bigotry of low expectations."

Why I love the Internet

In the course of my work, I have to prepare "notices to proceed" for contractors on a regular basis. This is just a simple letter instructing them when a project is supposed to start.

That's the easy part.

The hard part is trying to tell them when to stop.

Every contract has a total calendar day duration, and so you have to add the requisite number of days to your start date, and that gives you your end date. Now, I can usually do a pretty good job of counting days up to around 31 or 32 or so, but since I don't have access on my computer to any of our construction scheduling software (don't ask me why), anything with calendar days past about a month reduces me to trying to add several months together in my head, ticking back or forth with a pen to the start date, and then finally to the end date. Or something. For those of us with severely diminished smartness capacity, a simple task like this amounts to a Saturn V launch. Especially when it's something oddball like 350 days or something. Or the phone rings. Or the guy's standing there waiting on you to add numbers. Or you hit yourself with a hammer.

Anyway, today I had one of those long ones with 350 days.

Being that I don't know anything, but I usually know where to look for the answer, I got to wondering if there was a handy tool on the Web that I could insert the start date, tell it how many days, and then let it do all the ciphering and give me a finish date.

Lo! And beHOLD! Three seconds of typing calendar date calculator into Google got me one such neat handy tool from timeanddate.com. (Very inventive URL, by the way!)

Anyway, it works very well--much better than spending agonizing minutes looking like a monkey with a seizure disorder trying to add up months in my head. Just another one of those tiny things that makes life pleasanter.

In other news--it's a very pretty day outside, and I love bunnies and kitties!

Of all the things...

...I decide to break silence for, this would have to rank right down there as the stupidest. With as much as is going on in the world, surely I should be able to come up with something better.

Then again, that’s my critique of the new Jay Leno show.

All that hype, all that talent, all that money (although we have been assured repeatedly that it’s much cheaper than doing a one hour weekly drama—as if I care), all those local television news reporters dragooned into counting down the days until the premier, and that’s all there is to it?

Now part of this is that I’ve never been a huge Leno fan—I like him best when he’s talking about cars. And that’s about it. I liked him when he was young, but his delivery grates on me, and it’s not gotten better with age. But I do sorta chuckle when he does Jaywalking, and stuff like that, and so the premise of the new show—“Jay doing the stuff people actually think is funny, and cutting out all the crap” at least sounded promising.

Hate to tell ‘em, but they’ve got a lot more to cut.

How about the opening monologue? Or, alternately, if you’re going to have one, at least make it funny.

Kevin Eubanks? I have felt, and continue to feel, very sorry for him that he has to do this job, although I’m sure lots of money makes a good salve for the ego. But he’s not Ed McMahon (late or otherwise) or even Andy Richter, and the skit with the Lenolookalike was disturbing and not funny.

Comfy chairs? They looked uncomfortable to me. Then again, that could have been my reaction to special first guest, Jerry Seinfeld. Gee, a guest about nothing! And I like Jerry Seinfeld. But he nailed it—why have him on? He’s been off the TV forever, and doesn’t have anything new to promote, and his interaction with the weird Head of Oprah was painful to watch, and I don’t care about his wife’s cookbook, and his hair is thinning in a disturbing manner, and he wasn’t funny—and not in a good way.

Kanye? Kan ye just say no? Look, I know he’s topical, but again, not in a good way. He’s an insufferable twit, but sure, go ahead and have him on to sing and all that if you really must, but please, don’t feel the need to “interview” him. Or, if you’re going to go through with that, don’t do it on the comfy chairs—put him behind a table in a hard metal chair with a hot spotlight on him and scream at him to confess or something. That’s what they’d do on CSI. And it would at least be entertaining. Sorta.

The singing comic guy was kinda funny, the ads were funny, the musical act wasn’t my kind of music, but whatever—music’s okay to have. So, you’ve got about a thirty minute show. And oddly enough—none of it really relies on Jay. The ads are funny because someone else screwed up, the segment with up and coming comics is funny because they actually have to work at it, and bands are a completely different, non-Jay sort of thing. This means they could save an even BIGGER load of money if they’d just hire someone to emcee the show in a nice, low-key, witty sort of way, and let someone else who’s actually good do the entertaining parts.

But what do I know—I’m just a viewer. I guess I’ll go back to watching the hour of “King of Queens” reruns that comes on then, or the “I Spy” reruns on Retro Television Network.

How about that for an August?!

Not that I remember much of it.

That was one of the good things about all those years of obsessive blogging--I had a way of recording all the silly and serious stuff that happened before it left my brain pan. But the now-no-longer-new job leaves not a lot of time for reflection and/or mindless drivel. Actually, the volume of work means I don't really get to do the job very well, either. At the moment, I've got about 40 various construction jobs from a few thousand to a few million dollars worth for which I'm supposed to provide varying degrees of oversight, and even the smallest nickle-and-dime jobs require constant babysitting and butt-covering. I can't get one thing done for having to go and do twelve other things that are suddenly CRITICAL. What time I have left over is devoted to trying to scoop my neurons back into a pile. I get to check in a little with folks online and read a few news feeds occasionally, but it's hard to get into the swing of trying to formulate a pithy comment about anything. You have to get into a groove for that sort of thing, y'know.

You'd think that with my current schedule (four 10 hour days with Fridays off) that I'd be able to maybe take that Friday and have a great big Possumpalooza of stupid junk to read, but alas, Friday is now just as busy as Saturday and Sunday used to be (and, in fact, still are). F'rinstance, this morning I took Cat to school, went to do the Winn-Dixie leg of the grocery bill, went to the bank to pay the mortgage, stopped beside the road briefly to weep uncontrollably for my bank account that has the integrity of a cotton candy fishnet, unloaded groceries, put up the ironing board that Rebecca left out, came upstairs to gather up the laundry, stopped to write this, and afterwards will separate the clothes, put the blue jeans in the wash, go do the Aldi leg of the grocery bill, come unload the groceries, fold jeans and prepare to do the other six loads of laundry to be done this afternoon, go pick Catherine up from school, maybe get Jonathan to take him to the stadium for the football game tonight, go to the game tonight (10,000 STRONG!), come home late and help the kids pack to go white-water rafting with the other kids from church tomorrow morning, and then collapse in the bed to try to get ready for tomorrow. I don't mind doing that stuff, but all that makes it difficult to do much of this here thing. Good thing I quit doing this here thing!

Anyway, if I were still blogging, I would have many uncomplimentary things to say about our current Administration. And for the people who seem shocked and dismayed that it's turned out this way. As Dr. Reynolds is fond of saying, "So, who are the rubes again?" But some people just refuse to pay attention.

Not that it would have been any better with the alternative. I really like Sarah Palin, but she wouldn't have been the President, it would have been Mr. Unpredictable Maverick. And unlike now, he wouldn't have had the press fawning over his every move, and actively supporting his agenda, and proclaiming how wonderful it is to have all these wonderful funemployment opportunities for urban swells, and would probably take more than a little interest had Mrs. Palin said anything about bankrupting the country in order not to bankrupt the country. Hard to tell what would have happened in an alternative universe of a Republican win, but even if the status quo of the Bush days had held on, we'd have never heard the last of how awful it was. And, again, that's assuming it would have still been good--as it is, Senator McCain's one consistent quality is his fundamental inability to be consistent. Add to that the fact that he has just about as much spendiness and government-interventionalism in his genes as a regular old Democrat, and that he would have had to work with a Democrat-dominated Congress. I'm afeared the spending and stupidity would have been just about as reckless as now. But, again, the press wouldn't have been so cautious in squealing about it.

Anyway, I guess America is just fated to occasionally have to be reminded of how awful it is to try to answer every problem by letting a Washington full of bureaucratic nannies handle it.

Just remember--if you thought FEMA's reaction to Katrina was bad, what makes you think that the same people could do any better with universal government-funded and controlled healthcare? Sheriff Joe and The Lightworker, despite their good press and the overwhelming confidence they place in their vast intellectual depth, cannot make this work.

Yeah, I know--I'm just an ignorant racist idiot who can't be compelled to vote or think the right way, even when it's just so obviously in my financial best interest to do so.

But then you all already knew that!

Anyway, I'm gonna go do my laundry.

I had lunch...

...with My Friend Jeff^tm today, and we noted one thing in particular about the young edgy urban hipster demographic of which neither of us are a part.

That being, if you bear a passing physical resemblance to a young Al Pacino as Serpico, a seersucker suit is really not the thing to wear.

Even ironically.

Even post-ironically.

Know your limits, my friend. Know your limits.

Greatest thing about no longer blogging?

I no longer feel compelled to post that I'm about to have a birthday. I mean, after a while, what else can you say about getting another year older that hasn't already been said, right?

Right.

So I'm freed from having to think up wise stuff to say, or worrying about what sort of wonderful, expensive gifts I'm going to get from everyone, and I can just go on about my day tomorrow as if it's any other day.

Thank goodness!

Oh, and I don't have to think of any clever rejoinders for people when they point out they have underwear older than me, or, for younger readers, that I'm old enough to be their grandpa's Victrola repairman. That's a relief, y'know, being that I've been out of cleverness AND rejoinders for some time now.

I'll just relax and do all that fun work-related stuff that I don't blog about, either.

Wow!

And I don't mean that lightly.

Obviously, they'll appeal, because that's what lawyers do to make more money from their client. But for those who've watched this ridiculous egocircus play out, and for those who were damaged by it, it's still refreshing to see this result.

I bet someone's kicking himself now that they didn't request a jury trial so they could parade around with pancakes and preachers and stuff.

Well, I don't quite know what to make of that.

Had to stop at Target on the way home from church last night for some stuff. I parked and let Reba and Cat out to go in while Boy and Rebecca stayed with me in the car. Rolled the windows down and sat there for a minute to quietly collect my thoughts.

Been a long week and all.

Sat there vegetating, and ever so steadily, the sound of the shopping center's piped-in music began to register in my mind. The same instrumental, quiet, pervasive, calming tones one hears in elevators and suburban strip malls.

It's...no, surely not.

Then Jonathan piped up, "Hey--you hear that!? It's that song from Guitar Hero!"

Otherwise known as "Paint It, Black" by the Rolling Stones. Shorn of every bit of rollingness or stonitude, dipped in warm goo and made background noise for people walking to and from their car.

It was just all kinds of odd.

High and Hot

I enjoy my chosen vocation, aside from two things--having to climb up on top of things, and getting all hot and stinking from performing that task.

I have always been a bit unnerved by heights anyway, and now that I wear bifocals, it's worse. You glance out the bottom of your lenses and the world goes all blurry, and that's very disconcerting when you're on the edge of a roof.

And then there's this whole thing of having to climb that ladder--wobbly aluminum extension ladders, laid up against slick metal copings or fascias, and never with enough sticking out at the top to hang onto as you make that last step onto the roof.

Finally, let's face it--I am not feathery. Even though in my youth I was blessed with the stunning athletic grace of a young Junior Samples, age has slowed my reflexes somewhat, and I must admit I now have the supple elegance of a lard-filled barrel. And once you put a lard-filled barrel atop spindly aluminum spindles, well, it's just not good.

So--going up, bad. Coming down?

An order of magnitude more bad.

You've got that whole "can't see out the bottom of your glasses" thing, and the dizzying feeling you get when you're off the ground, and the shaky slidy ladder part of the equation, and then there's the certain knowledge that the laws of physics are trying their best to kill your blobby self. Maybe if I did this all day, every day, it might be better. I might get used to it, and be like one of those crazy Mohawk ironworkers who build skyscrapers.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Anyway, you get all through, and manage to get back to earth without dying, but you smell like you have.

It's late spring here in the sunny Southland, meaning it's already like Satan's own barbecue outside, and it's even hotter on top of a building, and even sweatier when you're losing fluids due to intense fear. And then you have to come back inside the building and have afternoon meetings with polite folk who don't sweat and stink in public. To top it off, I have to go to church tonight for our vacation Bible school, and be around other people who've gotten to go home and wash off the day's funk. Me? I'll have another five more hours of accretion of stinkbits before then.

Other than that, though, it's all good. And they pay me regularly, too. So file all this under observations, not complaints.

Okay, so I admit I'm biased.

But still.

Middle Girl has been taking an art elective in school this year, and they have put on an end-of-the-year art show, and she was very excited that she had three of her pieces displayed.

Now, I do pretty well for myself when it comes to such things--I can draw and paint in a variety of media and I know some things about 3D-type artwork, and there's that whole architectural thing, and so I tend to be a little difficult to impress.

I've posted some of the kids' artwork before when it was of obvious merit, because I do like to brag on them and such. But I have to say, even after stripping away the nepotism factor and such, when she sent me this cell-phone picture of her collagraph print, I was amazed.

That's very good work, I don't care who you are.

(And no, I've not started blogging again.)

Yet another Gate

I noticed this entry from Dr. Reynolds headlined, "PROFLIGATE BORROWING AND SPENDING," and, as with all other Washington-grade scandals, the first thing that came to mind was that someone must have started labelling the wealth-spreadin'-around grift being conducted on us as "Profli-Gate."

Much as I hate the endless -Gate suffixing of everything, this one fits pretty well.

It has been brought to my attention...

...that the last time this page changed, it was an entirely different month.

What’s the old saying? “Time flies when you’re having so much garbage to shovel that after the first hour you’d already gone through the entire gross of flimsy plastic sporks they gave you and so afterwards you had to make do with both hands and a torn Ziploc bag, not that it matters, because the garbage pile grows logarithmically, and to help out, a large array of new garbage spewing machines has been set up in a pleasing pattern about you so that no matter where you look, a cascading rainbow of effluvia splatters all around with an annoying, thrumming, ‘ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa’—” oh—wait, that’s not how it goes, is it?

No matter. Anyway, it’s been busy here, which is good considering the amount of non-business going on in other parts of the economy, but the genial watercooler quip about at least having job security still doesn’t ring quite true. You never really know what could be around the corner, other than it’s probably large and hungry and full of teeth. Something about having parents who grew up during the Depression does that to you.

So, anyway, work continues.

Family? Yep, they still exist. School’s about out, which is weird, because they started in August, and that was just last week. All the kids continue to grow up—Boy’s now nearly a head higher than me. Luckily, I can still take him, since I outweigh him by another him. He just got back from a band cruise that stopped in Cozumel, so he had to go get checked for the flu because of the cough he had. Caused by staying in the pool nearly the entire trip. No flu, no strep. And he didn’t get swept overboard or have his guts liquefied by either Mexican water or a contaminated salad bar or get caught up in the crossfire of a drug cartel gun battle. All of which are things parents imagine happening until said child is back at home. He had a bad sunburn, too.

Tiny Terror got herself an iPod Touch. She’s been saving her money for months and months now, and after all that saving and a robbery of the Great Crayon Bank, she’s now part of the iGeneration. Pretty cool little tool. The iPod, that is.

Middle Girl is still rockin’ right along—just finished up soccer season, still working at the vet’s office, still making good grades (they all do, but she seems a bit more driven to do her work).

Oldest has finished her first year of college. For long-time readers, you can all pretty well imagine how it went. For first-timers, you don’t really want to know.

Miss Reba is still working too much, but it’s not as bad as it was. Or at least it doesn’t seem that way, looking at it from the outside.

As for other stuff, I just don’t have enough excess brain capacity to ponder much more than the fundamental things of remembering to wake up each morning, brushing my teeth, and making sure I have on most of my clothes. Every couple of days I see something that angries up the blood and makes me want to launch a tirade, but then I have to get back to shoveling. Like, right now, for instance.

What I did on Saturday.

Caution: Contains Volvo-related content. May not be suitable for anyone with an IQ higher than 12.

Words of Wisdom

Axis of Weevil-style! Many of you know (at least in the virtual sense) Larry Anderson of KudzuAcres--noted bass player, developer of the Free Mercedes promotion, occasional patron of Billy Joe Bob's BBQ Emporium--but many others of you still might not realize Larry is an entrepreneur, which is a French word for "smart American."

Despite the economic gloom of late, Larry's company managed to do pretty well last year, and is on track to do even better this year. His business advice is distilled down in this article from The Huntsville Times.

Oddly enough, none of his business advice involves blogging. Then again, none of it involves rebuilding Weber carburetors, either. Or gunfire. Or really attractive women in swimwear.

Hmm.

Maybe being an entrepreneur ain't what it's cracked up to be.

ANYway, congratulations to Larry, his partners, and to their employees on their success!

Mmmm!

Fourth-grade class bill passes Alabama House panel to make manatee state's marine mammal

Possumblog Kitchens reminds you nothing helps you celebrate the state's official marine mammal like a big plateful of Cornatees, the cornbread-battered, deep-fried, manatee-on-a-stick treat that EVERYone loves!

For children in the middle part of Alabama…

…there is nothing so tantalizing as snow. Just far enough north to know for a certainty that it could snow, if only it would snow. Just far enough south to make it an equal certainty that it will never snow this year, and probably won’t ever snow again EVER, and your life is ruined by the absence of powder stuff from the sky. And to make it worse, you remember the few times it DID snow, and in the deep recesses of your memory from when you were just a little kid (you know, three years ago), it was the bestest snow of all time, and you played outside for five weeks, and the snow was fifty feet high, and you made a snowman that weighed a billion tons.

And then, when you least expect it, after hardening yourself to never ever trust TV weathermen, you wake up one Sunday morning, on the first day of March (!), and the whole world went white.

And then your parents make you get up and go to church.

Because, despite the fact that the trees are white and there’s a good three inches of fat wet flakes on the ground, the roads are clear. So you have to go and sit through class and church, hoping against hope that once you come out of the building, it won’t have all melted away.

And it didn’t!

You can barely wait to get home, and you figure it won’t hurt if you get to go out to eat first, because at least now you can see the snow and you can tell it’s all still there.

BUT THEN—you come out of the restaurant, and the snow packed sidewalk you encountered when you first walked in is now dry and clear—and the snow’s dropping off the power lines! AGGGHHHH!

You get home, throw off your good clothes, get on something else you think will be warm, and run outside before it’s all gone.

Nothing like Southern kids in the snow. Clothes wet through and through, soggy cotton gloves, filthy jeans from flopping down in the melting wet snow which covers a now-sodden mush of red clay and grass, snowballs made of equal parts dirt, pine straw, grass, possibly some frozen dog poop (well, it looked like rocks, sorta), and snow, packed into ice as dense as depleted uranium, ready to make your siblings cry when it comes punching into their frozen noses. You wish it would snow forever--and then you begin to notice you can’t feel your face or fingers. You wonder if you’ve got frostbite like that guy in that TV show whose nose turned black and fell off. So you figure it might be good to go inside and eat popcorn and watch a movie and thaw out.

Maybe it’ll snow again tomorrow!

History Stuff

As an update to last month's family history roundup, my kinfolk encouraged me to submit an article to a couple of the smaller papers in the area to see if they might be interested in the family name story.

Nicely enough, both the Centreville Press and the Tannehill Trader decided to run the piece--the former running it yesterday, and the latter to run it next month. I haven't seen the actual print version yet, so just in case there is any editorial editing that got done between submittal and printing, following is the article as it was written. ALSO--an extra great big thanks to my editor, Dr. James Smith, noted professor of management at East Carolina University and a former denizen of Bessemer. Jim looked over the article and made some much-appreciated comments, so he gets full blame if anything goes horribly wrong.

NEW RESEARCH ON LOCAL SLAVE CEMETERY
Oglesby Family Members Seek to Correct Error in Cemetery Name at Tannehill

By Terry Oglesby

February 9, 2009—BIBB CO., AL—For many years, history publications have stated that Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park is the site of the Oglesby Plantation Cemetery, a supposed resting place of 400 slaves owned by one of Bibb County’s early settlers. Family members familiar with their history disputed that idea, and set about to conduct their own research to determine what the real story is.

The Hickman Cemetery between Green Pond and Tannehill is the burial site of an early Bibb County settler, Sabert Oglesby. He had arrived in the New World from his native Scotland and originally settled in South Carolina. He was a veteran of the American Revolution, having served in the 4th South Carolina Artillery Regiment, and later still fought in the War of 1812. Sometime around 1820, he and his wife brought their large family of nine children to northern Bibb County, settling in the Green Pond area.

A host of Oglesby’s descendents now live across the United States, including many in Alabama who remain in Bibb, Jefferson and Tuscaloosa counties–and an important part of the story of their history has now been corrected.

For some time, Sabert’s name has been erroneously associated with a cemetery of unmarked graves on property now belonging to Tannehill State Park. The misnamed “Oglesby Plantation Cemetery” is referenced in several publications as containing 400 unmarked graves of slaves who were workers at the Tannehill ironworks, and who were purported to have belonged to Sabert Oglesby, or to his Presbyterian minister son (also named Sabert, born in 1809).

However, recent research conducted by several Oglesby family members casts doubt on the identification of the cemetery.

They found that the actual number of graves is unknown, and could be as few as twenty-five. While there could have been 400 workers at the Tannehill Ironworks during the height of the Civil War, and slaves were part of that workforce, it is implausible to think such a large number died and were buried nearby.

Research of records from the time period up to the Civil War has not documented that Sabert (or his namesake son) owned any slaves, nor that they ever owned the land. Although the land was owned by another family member (probably Sabert I’s son, George), no information has yet been found that ties him to the gravesites, either.

How this mistaken identity came about is still unclear. It appears Sabert Oglesby II’s name and the incorrect number of gravesites was first used in a story published in 1991 when the park was being developed. The error was then picked up by other published accounts of the park’s history in the years afterward.

Three cousins, Kenneth Oglesby, Charles Adams, and the author, each descendents of the pioneering Sabert Oglesby, recently were able to gain a much-welcomed opportunity to present their research to Deb Vieau Haines, the Bibb County coordinator of the ALGenWeb Project (http://www.algenweb.us). Bibb County’s website (http://bibbcountyal.org) is a much-used genealogical tool that had originally carried the incorrect information in its listing of county cemeteries.

Ms. Haines reviewed the research information and created a new, corrected biographical entry for the cemetery. It is a hopeful first step in what promises to be a long task of undoing the error in other places and publications, but a step worth taking to ensure that the historical record is as accurate as possible.

(Additional information can be viewed online at
http://bibbcountyal.org/cemeteries/oglesbycem.htm)

The apple does not fall far from the tree.

Or the egg from the hen. Or something.

Anyway, Reba made us all a nice omelet breakfast this weekend, and Rebecca piped up and said she'd made us Momelets.

That's pretty doggone funny, unless, you're like, y'know, an egg or sumthin.

Now, get back to what you were doing.

It's SUPER FUN HAPPY JOKEY TUESDAY!

Yes, I know two posts in two days is pushing it as far as non-blogging goes, but sometimes I just crack me up. (And yes, that is an homage to Alf.)

ANYway, Reba just called a few minutes ago.

She had gone with her dad to take her mom to the doctor's office this morning for some non-jokey invasive testing and prior to leaving their house, Mominlaw got all doped up with Darvocet and Valium. Being that she doesn't usually start the morning with a narcotic toddy, she pretty much had to be scooped out of the car with a spatula when they got to the parking deck at the hospital.

They wheeled her upstairs, waited to be called back, and then wheeled her into the procedure room. Now, since she was looser than a handful of BBs, she wasn't going to be much help when it came time to get her prepared, so Reba went back to help the technician get her up on the table and disrobed.

Did I mention it's cold today?

It is.

Oh, it's not Yukon cold, or lake-effects Chitown cold, or even Kentucky ice-storm cold, but your normal 30 degree Fahrenheit Alabama February day. But Grandmom, being of always-prepared, better-safe-than-sorry, strong-minded country stock, was apparently set to accompany Admiral Byrd to the South Pole.

Reba recounted (with some mild irritation) about struggling to help the tech ladle Mom up onto the table, then the arduous task of skinning her of layers of clothing, all the while said mama was swaying to and fro in the warm embrace of Lethe.

"...so we had to hoist her on the table and then I started helping her off with her clothes and do you know she had on FIVE! layers of stuff--she had her BIG COAT, and a SWEATER!, and then her BLOUSE!, and then a CAMISOLE!! under that, and THEN her bra! And it got to where the technician had to take off her lab coat because she was getting hot and we didn't think we were EVER going to get her all unwrapped from all those layers and layers of stuff and..."

"Reba--REBA!" I simply had to interrupt.

"What?"

"It's okay, Reba--I mean, after all, she IS your mummy."

BADUMP-BUMP-TSSHHHHHH!

I'm here all week--be sure to tip your server and have a safe drive home!

Anyway, Reba thought it was funny, too.

[And for those who are concerned (as I should be, if I could stop my non-stop comic brain from working for just two seconds) about Reba's mom's condition--right now we don't really know a lot. Today's test was a biopsy, and hopefully what they were sampling will turn out to be benign. Keep her in your prayers, please. UPDATE 2-6-09 All clear!]

NOW THEN--not content to allow your funny bone to rest, ANOTHER story, this time from the wonderful world of construction!

Was at a meeting this morning and before we got started the superintendent got to talking about other jobs he'd done close by, and mentioned that he'd been the superintendent on the construction of a new columbarium for a nearby church.

The construction part apparently wasn't too difficult, but the reason it was being built in the first place was to have a place to put people whose remains had been interred in scattered places all around the church, and so part of his job was to disinter various urns and other ash repositories so they could be properly reinterred in the new place.

He was carefully watched over in his task by the architect, and he recounted that one day near lunchtime he was hand-excavating around the site of an urn, and had encountered a piece of a small concrete vault that held the earthly remains of one of the venerable ladies of the church. As usual, the architect was right at his shoulder as he got down and began delicately chipped away at the concrete to get to the contents.

As he worked, a small piece of concrete broke off and laying there inside was, of all things, a cigarette butt!

He looked over his shoulder at the architect and quietly asked her--with a certain amount of black humor--"I wonder if she smoked?"

Without missing a beat, she solemnly whispered back, "She probably did when they cremated her."




I am a bad person for laughing so hard at that one.

But still, I hope you have enjoyed SUPER FUN HAPPY JOKEY TUESDAY!

I did not...

...see my shadow, which means six more weeks of something, but I'm not sure what.

And by the way, how did it get to be February so quickly!?

Well, If It's In Print, It Must Be True

Or not.

To begin at a convenient point, namely the beginning, I'm related to a big chunk of everyone else here in central Alabama with the same last name as me through an early-19th Century immigrant to Bibb County named Sabert Oglesby, who was my great-great-great-(whew)-grandfather.

As most of you know, I've always been an avid history buff, and have a pretty decent handle on our family history, or at least I thought I did, until I heard from one of those many cousins of mine.

But more about that in a bit.

In any event, the original, proto-Sabert was born in Scotland sometime around 1740 and came to South Carolina with a couple of other brothers before the Revolutionary War, which he fought in (on the winning side). In 1790 he married a young lass named Phoebe Lindsay (who was 30 years his junior) with whom he set up housekeeping on land belonging to her father, and then went about farming and having at least nine children.

Industrious sorts, they.

Sometime around 1820, the whole family along with the family of his brother John packed up wagons with their belongings and began a trek that would end up near Green Pond in Bibb County, where they unloaded their baggage and their multitudes of children, all of whom soon enough grew up and began having children of their own, leading all the way to me.

I've been the beneficiary of many relatives who have taken the time over the past decades to compile not only this short biographical sketch, but numerous other stories and photos and newspaper clippings and lists of sons and daughters and such, all which came to me in a big loose-leaf binder that I've had now for over twenty years.

Then came the Internet, and I've had the chance to correspond with hosts of other unknown relatives, each time learning a bit more about our family. It's been quite a boon as a way of collecting and swapping genealogical information, although as I recently found out, just as easy for incorrect information to get out as it is for facts.

A couple of weeks ago one of those many relatives, Cousin Ken, ran across a blog post I’d done several years back about the aforementioned Sabert, and Ken was kind enough to drop me a note and let me know he'd read it and enjoyed it, and that he’d mentioned it to Cousin Charles, who was also kind enough to write a note.

Well, after being instantly reunited with a relatives I've never met, we all exchanged e-mails back and forth about Grampa Sabert and all the various blind alleys and wild geese that come with exploring your family history, until something was brought to my attention that was completely opposite of all that family history I'd read and heard about over the years.

In our conversations, it was brought to my attention that a local history website has cataloged in their master list of Bibb County cemeteries that a cemetery of unmarked graves on Tannehill State Park property is called Oglesby Plantation Cemetery, and that it holds the remains of 400 slaves of one Sabert Oglesby.

Talk about a surprise!

From what I knew of our history, Sabert the II, who was Original Sabert’s son born in 1809, was a Presbyterian minister in Green Pond, and later had two other sons, Sabert (that would be the third one) and Samuel, both of whom were also Presbyterian ministers, and I remember my grandfather (who was Sabert the III’s son and Sabert II’s grandson) often mentioning that the family had never been slaveholders because it was against their religious upbringing. Of all that collected information in my three-ring binder, nothing ever pointed to anything to do with slaves–none of the scrawled notes copied from ancient family Bibles, no carefully transcribed Census records–nothing. Of course, that doesn’t mean it was impossible, but only that it seemed quite implausible

Ken said he’d tried to get the web information corrected, but the site owner noted that the information was from the Historical Atlas of Alabama, and that all the information in it was the result of research done by professors from the University of Alabama. Cousins Ken and Charles were obviously frustrated by the inability to get at least some sort of explanation or changes made to the website.

And thus begins an even more convoluted tale, as I agreed to do some additional research to find out where the Atlas information had come from and see if maybe if I was going to have to add some more pages to that three-ring binder of mine.

First stop, I found a copy of the Atlas in my local library, and sure enough, plain as day, there’s an entry on the Oglesby Cemetery–except it gave the owner of the land specifically as Sabert II, and the footnote said the information came from the book Place Names of Bibb County, written by a noted Huntington College professor and printed in 1993.

Okay, so where did THAT author get her information? Cousin Charles, it turns out, had been a friend of the author when she was alive and knew the source of her information–a quarterly newsletter published by the Park in 1991. And that information in the brochure came from a local amateur historian Charles knew, also since deceased.

Seems it was going to be very difficult to get any easy correction, since the chain of information in all the published accounts was dropping link-by-link into the grave.

But I still had some cause for hope, because in all of these conversations with my cousins, I found out they in turn had had conversations with others involved in the creation and management of the park at Tannehill. Based on what they’d been told, not only the name associated with the cemetery but also the number of graves and who was buried there was less the result of actual archeological and primary source research than it was conjecture. And “conjecture” is being charitable.

From what I knew, 19th Century Oglesby land holdings among all the descendents in the county were relatively small–the idea that one of the relatives had at one time held over 400 slaves seemed to strain common sense. If these were the dead slaves, the live population necessary to support a dead population of 400 would have been enormous. Obviously, not an impossibility, but still improbable.

And how were all those graves identified as slave graves if they were unmarked? If they were unmarked, they could as easily held the remains of anyone too poor to afford a marker, not just slaves. And at least some of those graves could have been marked at one time, with the markers being moved or disturbed sometime in the intervening 140 years since the end of the Civil War.

In any event, it was time to do more research and try to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Next stop, the Linn-Henley research library in downtown Birmingham, where there is about half a yard of Bibb County related documents–Census books, histories, court records, marriage and death information, and what turned out to be the most valuable, a handy listing of early Bibb County homesteads, cross-referenced with land patents granted in the County, including the date when each was granted.

Land patents are the way the United States would sell or grant Federal land to property owners, and they are a good starting point in many cases to find out who was the initial owner of a particular piece of property. Even better, many state land patents are accessible online, but I didn't know that at the time, so I set about looking through the whole stack of books and making copies of maps and lists, and found some interesting things.

First thing, the land containing the graves, a forty acre tract on the Bibb-Jefferson county line on Roupes Creek was first patented in the year 1858, and not to Sabert the I or the II, but to a George Oglesberry.

(As an aside, the Oglesby name has several variant spellings over the years, even in the previously mentioned copies from the family Bible, and I have seen it spelled as Ogilbie, Oglesbee, Oglesberry, Ogelsbe, and Ogilvie. Sort of like the mail that comes to my house. Same thing with the name Sabert–I’ve seen Seabert, Sayburt, Sabret, Sabard–and as best as we can tell, they are generally talking about the same person. Spelling was much less precise in the past and education less formal, and people tended to rely on phonetics. Also, when I refer to Sabert II or III or any other number, that is my method of placeholding--none of Sabert's descendents troubled themselves with such things. Which tends to make for more confusion.)

But back to the story–who was George Oglesb(err)y!?

Not having much other information to go on, the most obvious George would be the four-year-older brother of Sabert II. In addition to the plot of land the cemetery is located in, he was also granted patents to an additional 80 acres across the county line, a total of 120 acres, all abutting much larger parcels of land belonging to Moses Stroup and Ninian Tannehill, partners in beginning the commercial furnace works at Tannehill. Park historians note that large-scale furnace operations did not begin until around 1859, which would agree with when most of the land was initially sold by the United States.

So the land initially belonged to George, probably the same George who was brother of Sabert II, and although it’s possible it could have been sold to Sabert sometime between 1858 and 1865, none of my digging and looking has produced any legal records that would indicate such a sale.

Next stop, the Census records for 1860, which showed Sabert II living in the Green Pond vicinity with his wife and their nine children, with a real and personal property value that was modest, and certainly not the wealth one would indicate vast slaveholdings. In addition, no slaves were listed in the household.

These pieces of information in and of themselves should be enough to at least warrant some caution in assigning ownership of the land, and they also point out some more inconsistencies in the description of the site.

Since we know that the land was not transferred from the government until 1858, that means that there was only a seven year time span–to the end of the Civil War (or at least until Wilson’s Raid) when slaves would have been buried there. If the number of 400 graves seems overly large, consider if that amount of slaves died in only a seven year span! Something didn’t add up.

That’s where Cousin Charles comes back into the conversation, and after I’d mentioned to him what all I’d found out, he recounted a recent conversation with one of the people associated with the administration of the park. It seems that when the park published that quarterly newsletter back in 1991, somehow what was accepted as the possible total number of workers at the furnaces–400–got transferred to how many gravesites there were. And no one knew how Sabert’s name became associated with it, aside from the (now dead) writer of the article.

Recent archeological research conducted by Dr. Jack Bergstresser has uncovered approximately 15 houses that were where slave workers had lived, and that the furnace’s owner, Ninian Tannehill, had brought possibly 60 of his own slaves to the furnace as part of its initial work force.

So what does all this mean?

Well, to me a few things are clear–there are some unmarked graves on the Tannehill Park property, on land that was sold to George Oglesby (Oglesberry) in 1858. In 1991, a mistake was made by the author of a newsletter article in assigning the number of graves at the site when, in fact, no one had actually counted the gravesites, and no one had excavated them to determine exactly who could be buried in them. Although archaeologists have determined that slaves were part of the work force at the furnaces, Tannehill is the only owner definitely identified by name as supplying slaves to the work. Other slave owners obviously did, but there is no primary source information that has come to light to date that indicates that Sabert Oglesby II was a slave owner, nor that the land in question was ever his, and the only known source for this misidentification was also the source of the wrongly attributed number of graves on the property.

Could I be wrong about all this? Of course!

But the way historical research works is that you have to rely upon what is known, and work toward what is unknown. Conjecture is valid only so far as when it doesn’t contradict facts, and when it is necessary to supply an educated guess, it should be noted as such.

It may very well be I am completely wrong, but the things I know right now point to a different conclusion, and one I’m not willing to set aside without better evidence than I’ve seen so far.

And what do I hope to gain from all this research? Nothing more than to ask that more research be done by those associated with the Park, and to respectfully dispute a notion that seems to have sprung up many years ago from nothing more than the imagination of one poorly informed person and has continued to be passed along as established fact.

In the interest of scholarship and truth, especially in a time when it has become so very easy for misinformation to spread quickly and perniciously around the world in seconds, it is important that we are diligent in making sure the record of our past is as accurate as possible.

UPDATE 1-10-09--Results! A few days ago, before I posted the above, I'd sent a recap of the information in an email to the Bibb County website administrator, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank her very much for taking the time to post all of the information as a separate page that will be linked back to the cemetery list. It's a welcome first step in setting the record straight!

Happy New Year!

Today's dinner menu:

Pork shoulder roast, a mess of greens and black eyed peas, cornbread. It doesn't get much better than that, folks.

Hope you all have a wonderful day and a similarly wonderful year.

Two posts in one week!?

Well, I can't help myself--I got home yesterday to an excited bunch of kids who informed me I had a package on the doorstep, all the way from Utah! (The package, not the doorstep.)

Obviously, my first thought was that it was a package of lovely collectible Marie Osmond dolls as well as a torrid love note and several naughty pictures (like I get from her every year). However, when I saw the return address, I knew it must be something even better--and it was! It was from the Axis of Weevil's own Ambassador to the Beehive State, Nate McCord!

I busted open the box and was attacked by one of these little cuties. After prying its vicious snarling teeth off of my arm, I noticed the enclosed note:

Terry, the possum's a little gift for you that I just couldn't pass up.

I hope you and your family have a blessed and spiritual Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all your Oglesby clan from the Utah chapter of the Axis of Weevil.

Nate

Also of interest was the little hangtag that came with the animal, full of intriguing facts about opossums. Did you know:

The opossum hideouts are located in a variety of areas including stumps, haystacks, vine tangles, attics, garages, road culverts, hollow trees, rock piles, crannies, under buildings, and in the abandoned burrows of other animals.

Opossums are not territorial and do not maintain separate home ranges.

They are exceptionally non-aggressive and non-destructive. They will not harm people or pets.

They are more immune to many diseases than the other animals and are far less likely to carry rabies.

Opossums are beneficial to the environment because they eat pests, snails, and slugs.

They have a remarkable resistance to poisonous snakebite such as the rattlesnake, cottonmouth, Russell's viper, and Asiatic cobra.

Opossums do not hibernate, and they are active at night.

ANYway, that's your possum fix for the year. Thanks once more to Nate for making this all possible!

Okay, so I'm probably not supposed to just let the whole world know this, but...

...some things sound so good it would be a worse transgression not to share.

Case in point, Janis Gore's Sweet Tater Bread Pudding, which came to me in an e-mail via Chef Tony, the reading of said e-mail causing me to lick the monitor.

1 1/4 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and finely chopped
2 cups raisins
1/4 cup dark rum
5 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 quart whipping cream
2 cups half-and-half
2 tablespoons cane syrup
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 (16 ounce) loaf French bread, torn into 1-inch pieces
Rum Sauce
Whipped cream

Arrange sweet potatoes in a steamer basket over boiling water. Cover and steam 10 minutes or until tender. Set aside.

Combine raisins and rum. Set aside.

Combine eggs and next 5 ingredients in a bowl; add bread pieces, sweet potato, and raisin mixture. Spoon mixture evenly into 2 lightly greased 11 x 7-inch baking dishes. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour or until set, covering with foil to prevent over browning, if necessary.

Serve warm with Rum Sauce and whipped cream. Serves 16.

Rum Sauce
1 1/2 cups butter
1/4 cup dark rum
3 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 egg yolk

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat; stir in rum. Add confectioners' sugar; stir with a whisk until smooth. Stir in egg yolk; cook, stirring constantly, 5 minutes or until mixture reaches 160 degrees F.

Makes 2 1/2 cups.

That, my friends, is some good food.

Now then, in other matters, since I've got a short week this week and won't be here next week, I want to wish all of you Hebrew folks a Happy Hanukkah, all you pagans Lo Saturnalia, all you Christians a Merry Christmas, all you Constanzans a Happy Festivus, all you African Studies majors a Joyous Kwanzaa, and you atheists a cordial end of December/beginning of January.

Best wishes to all who still come by Possumblog every so often, despite the fact that we're closed and retired and all that stuff, and may the upcoming year be a good one for you all.

Well, I'll be!

On the way in to work this morning, and decided to pull in at McDonald's for one of their nutritious McSkillet breakfast burritos, as I on occasion am prompted to do by the combined effects of hunger and hip McGen-X advertising Mciconography I see on the tee-vee.

Ordered, heard my order mumbled back to me, and drove around to the window. Watched the driver in front of me pay, wondered when he'd get through with his chat with the cashier. He drove on, I rumbled up. Stuck my hand and my money out the window, and the girl said, "He pay for it for you."

I had one of those rare, genuine, flummoxed double-takes that you have when someone says something that simply doesn't compute.

"Do what?" said me, with an accent heavy with wtf.

"That man, he pay for your order. Is free!"

Well, I'll be doggone.

I didn't know what to do, so for some odd reason I smiled and thanked the cashier (who graciously accepted it), then rolled forward and did a double-tap on the horn and waved as the fellow in the Nissan Pathfinder drove off.

He waved back.

Just one of those nice little things that make you think nice little thoughts all day long. And to think--the guy was a Georgia Bulldog fan!!

Maybe there's hope for mankind yet!

Yet another one of life's little milestones... UPDATED

...if you are a moron.

My lumpy old gray hunk of Swedish iron just turned over the quarter-million-mile mark!

A testament to the basic solidity of the thing, as well as the maniacal devotion to scheduled maintenance by the previous owner.

In any event, I believe I deserve a Federal bailout totalling $1,245,010,000.12.

UPDATE 12/9/08--OH, GREAT--now EVERYbody's getting in on the act!

You try to make a list…

…but eventually you exhaust yourself with the possibilities. So, I have decided to condense all that down to two things for which I am thankful.

Life—all of it. From the worst despairs (which, given what I see in the world around me is about the equivalent of a flea-bite on an elephant) to the greatest joys (again, in comparison to others, I have been blessed beyond what is my right and due).

Love. That I am able to give it, and that I receive it far in excess of expectation.

May your day of Thanksgiving be full and rich.

“Jeepers, Creepers…”

“...I'm sorry for absolutely ruining your life by passing along to you a genetic predisposition for myopia and astigmah-tizzzzz-um..."

Yeah, doesn’t quite trip off the tongue, does it?

But, it was bound to happen, and the warning signs have been present for a while now—squinting, confusing one letter for another on the chalkboard, difficulty reading. Tiny Terror has now joined the rest of her family in the need for ocular assistance.

And it wasn’t pleasant.

Of course.

Because when you’re a kid, you tend to say stuff like, “I want glasses like you and Mom and Rebecca and Jonathan and Ashley,” without really considering what you’re saying. And you complain about the aforementioned inability to see the board and stuff, and wonder why your parents won’t take you and get a cool set of glasses right THEN! And then you show up at the Walmart vision center and the doctor tells you you need glasses, and all of that theoretical ‘wouldn’t it be cool to have glasses’ make-believe stuff is suddenly very real, and you start trying on frames, and you think that your friends are going to make fun of you, and you’re a young girl at that age when any criticism of your appearance sends you into fits of despair, and you can’t find anything that you like, and everything you do kinda-sorta like your dad won’t buy because it costs too much, and then everyone’s trying to tell you to hurry up because the store is going to close, and you HATE EVERYONE and HATE YOUR EYES and finally decide you shouldn’t have been saying you wanted glasses, and you wish you could go back in time and say that you want perfect eyes FOREVER, and you close your eyes and wish hard and all you get are tears.

So, you know, lots of fun at the Walmart vision center last night.

She finally settled on a pair that was reasonably-priced and fit her face and looked very cute to me (but less so to her, of course). This angst was on top of the fact that we almost had to reschedule again, after having been called last Tuesday (when our appointment was) and being told the doctor was ill, so we’d have to pick another day. Couldn’t do it Wednesday (church), couldn’t do it Thursday (the other doc doesn’t take Blue Cross), couldn’t do it Friday (football game), or Saturday (youth trip to Atlanta), not Sunday (church), so yesterday was pretty much it.

And so then when Reba got there, they said none of us were on the schedule.

Seems whoever called us didn’t actually write it down on the calendar. I heard all this second hand through the cell phone:

REBA: “They say we’re not on the schedule, and we’ll have to come back another day.”

ME: “No, they’re going to see you, because they already called us and changed it once, and I don’t care how many other people they’ve got to see, they’ll have to see you, too.”

R: “But they’ve got other people already scheduled.”

M: “Not our problem—tell them to make the other people wait.”

R: “Terry.”

M: [thinking angry thoughts]

R: “They’re asking who called you.”

M: “How should I know!? They called, we rescheduled because they called, and you’re not leaving until they see you! It was some woman, and I don’t know who it was. I didn’t ask for her name, she said she was with the Walmart vision center!”

R: [relaying information] “Okay, well, they said they don’t know who it was…”

M: “It. Does. Not. MATTER. WHO. CALLED. US. Look, ask them if the doctor was sick last week on Tuesday.”

R: [asking] “Yeah, they said he was out sick.”

M: “Okay, ask if they had someone calling to reschedule people.”

R: [asking] “Yes, they said someone called to reschedule people…”

M: “THEN THAT’S WHO CALLED ME! [thinking loudly to myself 'THIS AIN’T FRIGGIN’ ROCKET SCIENCE!!'] Now, TELL THEM THEY’RE GOING TO SEE YOU RIGHT NOW…”

R: “WAIT! Hold on and calm down--she’s talking to the manager—they said something about giving us a gift card to make up for it—”

M: “It danged well better cover the whole cost of whatever the insurance doesn’t cover, because we’re not going to go through this again.”

R: [asking] “Oh, okay—the manager just came out and said she was sorry and they’d stay here later and make sure we all got seen. Now calm down.”

In my snit, I failed to figure it probably would have been worth waiting another day or two, but once I get my dander up and think I know what’s acceptable and what’s not, there’s little to talk me down off that limb that I’m sawing so hard on.

But, it still rankles, you know?

I mean, do they have a problem with their staff prank-calling patients to tell them to come another day, and then not write it down? Is their staff so huge (with its five or six people) that they can’t figure out who screwed up? Is it really good policy to interrogate customers and expect them to anticipate being screwed over by whoever it was that called, enough to know it would be good to get the person’s name so when it came time to come to the store it would be readily available? Is it good to poke people with sticks and inconvenience them instead of the silly cow who messed up in the first place? And why is it they said they had four other customers scheduled at the same times as us, yet only one of which actually showed up? And why is my Blue Cross eye coverage so awful—it only pays for a portion of the exams, and nothing for glasses.

Anyway, I got off work and drove on over there (having a fine time all the way, venting and raging and Walter Mittying as I heard the staccato pocketa-pocketa sound as I crushed every single lens in the store under my feet), and everyone was nice and solicitous, aside from Miss Prickly Pants and her quandary about choosing a set of frames.

She was made to feel better with the purchase of a pink plaid patterned case that will hold her new glasses.

I wish I were so easily unburdened.

I am not one to make predictions...

...but I feel pretty safe in making this one.

Should it happen that Americans elect a Democrat as President tomorrow, I can guarantee that when the new Administration moves in to the White House and various executive-branch offices, all of the computer keyboards will have their full complement of 'O' keys, and there won't be trash strewn all around, and things that belong to The People won't mysteriously disappear into staff briefcases as souvenirs, and in general the transition from R to D will be businesslike.

Businesslike, although not quite as efficient as the coordinated efforts made this year has been at encouraging the registration of fraudulent voters and assisting them in casting ballots, collecting fraudulent donations from all corners of the globe, and the effort by the press to bury its carcass in a steaming pile of irrelevance.

Gosh, I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the long run, right guys?

Right.

As for what will happen should the opposite situation occur, I can't quite say. Given the obstacles, it certainly would be quite a repudiation of the aforementioned influence of the ballot-box-stuffing/untraceable walking-around-money/yellow "journalism" troika, and I do certainly hope that it would come to pass. But when cheats lose, it's a bit much to expect them do so gracefully.

In any event, go and exercise your franchise tomorrow, and whether your choice wins or loses, please don't be an idjit. (And yes, I realize this is more difficult for a certain group of you.)

Huzzah!

I which I rejoice at having my nomination selected for today's Ball of the Day!

My thanks to the editorial staff of Bolus, and to Modern Mechanix, from which the item was shamelessly stolen.

Well, let's just say I require a pretty substantial level of proof.

But you know, if I was an intergalactic star traveling type dude, I know I would like nothing better than to make a layover over Alabama. But I don't recommend stopping at the rest area north of Montgomery. I'll just leave it at that.

Best response? From one Leada Gore, publisher of the Hartselle Enquirer and contributor to The Clanton Advertiser, who took some flak for her earlier story regarding our putative visitation:

[...] “It’s backwoods hillbillies like you that make the possibility of an event like this even more unbelievable.”

Ouch. Backwoods hillbilly? Me? Do you mean to tell me if I don’t believe the words of some Australian psychic who gets her advice from an Indian who just happens to share the name of a popular toilet paper brand then I’m a hillbilly?

Well, yee-haw I guess. [...]

Well, no...

...the intent is not to become All Bugs, All the Time, but what can I do!?

This weekend, Rebecca came running in the house asking in near-terror what sort of bug is huge and has wings and is ugly and is big. And huge. And HUGE. And ugly.

"Does it look like a big cigar butt?"

Not being a cigar aficionado nor a keeper of company with those of that ilk, the best she could muster was "I dunno. BUT IT'S HUGE! And PATCHES IS EATING IT!!"

I told her it sounded like he'd gotten a cicada (and no, I didn't wet my pants at the mere thought of it) and followed her outside to go look.

Sure enough, he'd found a big ugly buzzy play toy, rich in natural bug proteins and evil. According to Middle Girl, he was romping in the yard, then suddenly ran over to one of the trees and started snapping and pawing and chewing and rolling and tossing the thing up in the air.

Let me tell you--these things are apparently indestructable. Even after several minutes of abuse at his paws and jaws, the thing was still kicking. That's saying something, considering this dog could eat a wrecking ball.

Anyway, Rebecca took his toy away and hid it under something in the garden, and I was once again reminded of just how much I can't stand large ugly bugs.

I am heartened, however, that Patches will viciously protect me from them. It's almost enough to forgive him waking me up in the middle of the night last night with his infernal barking.

In other news, it's now been over a week since we had the kids from church over, and the downstairs of the house is STILL clean!

Second, Rebecca has now driven herself to work TWICE. All the way down to the foot of the hill. Without incident. That I know of.

Third, the upcoming election (or as I like to call it, "BOHICA--Carter's Revenge") got me to thinking the other day about what good things I remember from the years 1977-1981.

Eh. It was okay. Really. I know everyone likes to dump on the late 1970s, but aside from the awful clothes and awful hair and awful television shows and awful cars and general level of awfulness, it was survivable. I mean, I lived in a house, both my parents had more or less stable, moderately well-paid jobs, I went to school, ate three meals a day, had clothes to wear (and yes, I had several REALLY cool Quiana shirts, and a brown leisure suit, and a pair of patent-leather platform wingtips that were navy and burgundy, and I had many pairs of tight cutoff blue jean shorts that were entirely too short that I would cut grass in), had a car to drive around in (triple-black '72 Monte Carlo) and despite all the national and world turmoil, I don't recall being miserable and mopey and full of fear and dread and junk like that. Of course, that's filtered through 32 years of trying to forget everything bad that happened, and not having to live through it with the responsibilities of adulthood.

Things might have seemed a bit more awful in that case.

At least this time around, we've got really cool computers, and cars work darned well, and there are more than three television stations, and they all broadcast in digital, and there is some distinction in clothing worn by office workers and that worn by circus clowns.

So hey, how bad could the next four years be!?

XVI

Someone just turned Sweet 16 today, and her name's Rebecca!

I recall the late-night trip to the hospital mainly because I had an Aretha Franklin greatest hits cassette playing. The labor and delivery were generally unremarkable, aside from the obvious miracle of birth itself, which, being my first experience with the human variety of such things, struck me not quite so much as miraculous, but more like something out of the movie Alien. Except with better special effects.

In any event, she's a good girl, and I'm awfully proud of all she's done over the years, and what a fine, beautiful young lady she's turning out to be. (And I say that not just because I know she checks in here every so often.)

So Happy Birthday, my little jelly bean.

Oh, that's just crazy.

Or maybe it's just a matter of consolidation.

Anyway, as you know, I gave up blogging over a year ago.

Now some of you might snicker and point to such things as this post for evidence to the contrary, but you have to admit, compared to those times in the distant past when I might post ten or twelve multi-hundred-word, thoughtily-involved, occasionally mildly humorous posts a day, the current version is about as close to moribund as Possumblog could be, short of actually, you know, being really for real, gone-on-to-my-reward dead.

Why do I mention this?

Because I noticed something peculiar the other day--over in the sidebar at the very bottom, I was ranked as a "Marauding Marsupial" on the The Truth Laid Bear's Ecosystem. And today? A "Large Mammal."

Now friends, that's just bizarre. In its prime when I was writing thousands of words a day, with traffic on the order of a couple thousand unique hits per day, it was exceedingly rare for Possumblog to ever even get past the Slimy Mollusc stage. Oh, there were the times when it might even get Adorable Rodent status, but Large Mammal!? I don't think that ever happened.

So why now? I don't post regularly, the content of what I do wind up posting is weaker than the roots of Joe Biden's hair plugs (and not even half as funny) and yet, at least for today, I'm ranked as number 838.

Well, for one, all the junk I wrote in the past is still up and available for Googleering, so I reckon even if I did actually die, the site would still be reasonably well-trafficked by people searching for "all the "dumb guys" are running a race but the good guys will give up and come over to the concession stand where you'll be waiting with a towel and a h".

Quite a comfort, there, eh?

But I think there's probably something else happening (and I'm sure someone else has probably already noticed it and commented on it, and I just haven't seen it), but I think the huge number of Citizen Journalists-type blogs are being replaced by a fewer, larger, groupier blogs.

Let's face it, writing full-time is difficult if you actually have a full-time job. It's also difficult to keep things fresh and topical and entertaining with a one-member staff (even if you're a comedic and intellectual giant such as myself). Over the years, my guess is people have developed an affinity for a more select number of sites, ones that they trust to deliver whatever counterbalance they might seek from the traditional media sources and that do so with a certain level of expected quality or competence. With those expection also come one forced by the available technology, namely that there's going to be a LOT of content, and near constant coverage of any story, and the general result of all that means more than one person is going to have to be writing the thing.

Sorta like those things people called "newspapers."

So, anyway, I say the number of working, useful, usable blogs is shrinking (although obviously the potential readership isn't), and I suppose Possumblog happens to be the accidental beneficiary of that shakeout. It's not quite dead enough, and apparently that's good enough to get some traffic these days.

WEIRDNESS UPDATE: Maybe yesterday's spike was just a fluke--today your humble marsupial is once again nothing higher than a Marauding Marsupial, ranked in the mid-2000s. (Which is still a good bit higher than I remember it being for most of the time I was doing a lot of blogging.)

Bugs, Yet Again

Okay, I was sorta joking the other day about being freaked out by flying bugs. But only sorta. Because there really ARE some bugs that send me into fear-soaked spasms. I mentioned the last time about the giant cockroaches we have. Absolutely squeal-inducing.

But nothing beats cicadas for maximum fear.

Most of this comes from my childhood. When I was little, during the day I stayed with a babysitter who seemed ancient to me at the time, but who was probably not all that old, seeing as how she had a couple of high school-aged kids, Sharon and Don.

Don was the problem. He was the sort of vacant-eyed, lank-jawed sociopath you find in various Flannery O’Connor stories. His main joy in life seems connected primarily to tormenting small children, namely me.

One such time occurred when he found either a live or a molted skin of a cicada on a pine tree in their back yard. He plucked it off and proceeded to chase me around as I screamed in terror as he hooted and cackled and threatened to put this bug on me and watch it eat me. And obviously, to a small child, a giant bug like a cicada is entirely capable of eating you completely gone.

His mother finally made him stop. Of course, as with all bad things that have ever happened to me, I had to have another run-in with these awful insects. Sometime back in those dim fearsome days of childhood, my babysitter had loaded me up and we went to town for something. Being that this was back in the mid-1960s, no one really thought much of the fact that when she got to her destination, she left me in the car. I was sitting in the back, and it was getting really hot, and was thinking about getting in the front seat so I could get a little air, when I was suddenly transfixed by the appearance on the little center console of—yep, a giant cicada, with its big bulgy eyes and razor sharp fangs and crushing vise-like clawed forelimbs, all ready to devour me in one gulp. I shoved myself into the far corner of the backseat and froze, staring at the awful creature for what seemed like 5 or 10 hours until my keeper returned. She opened the door and flicked it out, and I just knew when she did that it was going to fly at me and suck my eyeballs out of my skull.

It didn’t, though.

Anyway, I eventually grew up, and over the course of time learned about cicadas, and was even in D.C. many years ago when they had a big swarm emerge, and for the most part wasn’t all that freaked out by it. Because I am a grown-up and all.

So anyway, last night after supper I had to go get Rebecca from work, and stopped down at the foot of the hill to get gas in the van. I stood there and began filling up, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a cicada on the pavement, the size of a Presidente cigar butt. Of course, being an adult and all, I was not the least bit scared, and saw it only as an object of curiosity. And it also looked dead, and dead bugs can’t fly into your nose and eat your tonsils. And I thought if it was deceased, maybe I could take it to Catherine, because the other day we found a small dry-fly husk on the fence, and I showed it to her and explained all about the life cycle of such critters and how they make that loud buzzing sound in the trees and she was fascinated and not the least bit afraid of such things. Which is good.

I finished up emptying my bank account into the gas tank and hung up the hose and took a closer look at the dead bug. Just to make sure, I leaned over a bit and nudged it with my shoe and BZZZZZZTTTT!!! EEEEEEEKKK!! That danged thing was still kickin’!

The sudden loud raspy joy-buzzer sound gave me a jolt (although since I’m an adult, I tried to cover and just made a little skip to the right) and brought back quite a sudden flood of childhood memories. None pleasant. Although I guess I should be glad it didn’t bring a sudden flood of pee down my leg.

Anyway, I think the world would be just fine without cicadas.

A Guide To Hockey

Given that there has been much talk in the news media of late about something called “hockey,” and given that there are probably some of you who are unfamiliar with the aspects of this activity because it’s not football or, umm, well…football, I have taken it upon myself to offer some pointers and tips and such about this sport. My qualifications include the fact that Birmingham has had many, many hockey games played here. No, I don’t know why. But that doesn’t matter, I’m still an expert on the subject.

1. Object of the game: As with all real sports, such as football, the object is to win by scoring more points than the other team through an intricate set of tactical and strategic movements on the playing field while simultaneously beating the fool out of each other.

2. Field of play: Due to the fact that the contestants wear ice skates instead of football cleats, as a matter of convenience, the field of play is a great big sheet of ice about 2/3 the size of a football field. Although it may seem odd that the players wear ice skates, one must remember that this game originated in the frozen Yankeelands, where it is common for everyone to wear ice skates all the time anyway. The sheet of ice has many pretty colored lines and circles and dots and such painted on it for decoration.

3. Equipment: Long curvy wood clubs are used to beat opposing players and chase around a frozen Moon Pie on the ice. On each end of the sheet of ice, there’s a big square crab net sort of deal and a score is recorded if you manage to get the Moon Pie in the net.

4. Rules of Play: Each team is composed of the same amount of players as in a six-man football squad, with one guy trained to guard the crab net and beat people, and the other ones trained to swat the Moon Pie fiercely toward each other and toward the other team’s crab net, and also to beat people. You cannot pick up the Moon Pie and run with it, nor heave it to one of your teammates, nor kick it through the goal, although if the Moon Pie hits you and bounces in the crab trap, that’s okay. Touchdowns only count one point, and there are no such things as field goals or safeties. Unlike football, there is no snap for each play, and all the players skate around in each others backfields and hit each other with their sticks the whole time.

5. Penalties: As with football, there are referees, and as is common in all sports the officiating squad is assembled from a seemingly endless supply of blind, mentally-deficient nincompoops who have no idea about the rules of the game nor who their real fathers are. They can, however, operate a whistle. And apparently, despite all the walloping that goes on, there are some things that are bad, and so the stripes get to blow their whistles and stop the play. Sometimes if they get really mad, they’ll send a player out to what’s called a “penalty box” although it’s not much of a penalty because they get to sit there and rest and drink alcoholic beverages the whole time. There are several other penalties that can be called, such as “icing,” which has nothing to do with the chocolate stuff on the outside of the Moon Pie, and “offsides,” which is pretty meaningless, since again, there is no snap count and no one lines up against each other and everyone’s just whooshing around beating each other. Sometimes the whole bunch will start wrestling for the Moon Pie and it gets locked up so the refs will stop things and get the Moon Pie and drop it betwixt a couple of players and let them fight for it fair and square. Although it is acceptable to beat on each other, sometimes everyone gets carried away in the moment and they forget all about whacking the Moon Pie into the crab net and all just start grappling and wrestling and beating each other to the exclusion of all else. Although this provides most of the entertainment value of the sport, the black hats look askance at it and after ten or fifteen minutes they break things up and send everyone out for a smoke and alcohol break, and then start over.

6. Hockey Mom: Each player is required to have a mother. The mother is responsible for seeing to it that the player is at the field on time, the player’s skates are tied correctly, and that he has his mouthguard, helmet, pads, wooden club, and a selection of snacks, juice boxes, and smokes and alcohol for sharing after the contest is complete. Each mother is required to be able to field strip a referee into its main components within 20 seconds. Should there be an altercation upon the field of play that continues after regulation time, players are sent to go shower and have a drink, and then each player’s mother completes the altercation in his stead in the parking lot, with points deducted for smudged makeup or broken fingernails. The losing mother in such altercations is required to host the next team hot dish supper, with the winning mother hosting the supper after that.

It really is a very exotic and interesting sport, despite the lack of marching bands or kickoff returns. We hope you have enjoyed this primer on the sport of hockey.

Lunch With Pam the Liberal

Fun as usual, and with the added spark of Politics to enliven the conversation. As one of the increasingly small cadre of old-school sane liberals, she’s actually quite entertaining to talk to about politics and despite being an Obiden supporter, was willing to actually give the governor of Alaska her due. And not the sort of grudging respect a few on the Left are willing to dispense along with a pat on the head and an ironic smirk, but actual respect for having convictions and being willing to stand there and be unapologetic about them. Not that she would agree with the Governor on everything, but she does at least see her accomplishments and see that they are more than the result of just being hot. I reckon there’s some empathy there since Pam’s had to put up with a lot of that kind of crap herself over the years.

ANYway, it was quite a nice break in the day, and if you get a chance, drop by Sol’s over on the ground floor of 2 North 20th. Pam had the chicken salad with pita wedges and something that I think was tabouli, and I had the Philly cheesesteak and it was quite good. Even had real Velveeta on there!

So there.

Politics

All I need to know in re the new GOP Veeptress:

(Image stolen from the highly prescient Beldar)

Although in my limited research, I find that she's never shot a lawyer in the face.

But she's still young, though, so she's got time to work on that.

The Strange and Icky World of Bugs

Yes, I'm still not blogging. As evidenced by this awful post.

But there was this gigantic derned moth banging its head against my window and those things (moths, not windows) just freak me out. I hate just about any of your large, airborne insects, because they don't have anything on their minds except procreating and flying into your mouth, or both. And moths try to cover by acting like fuzzy butterflies, but that's just as bad, because even butterflies freak me out, but at least they're slow enough to run away from, and they rarely get into the house, and bang their stupid heads against the window trying to get out. And don't even get me started on the giant palmetto cockroach bugs around here.

Anyway, the stupid huge moth was buzzering against the window when all of a sudden, it came down with a bad case of spider web. And so now I get to watch nature in all of her icky grotesque majesty as a giant flying insect does battle with a terrifying tiny spider that's probably a black widow or brown recluse (were I of a sufficiently fearless makeup to determine). About the only thing worse than giant flying insects are tiny creeping merchants of venom who spend their whole day trying to figure out how to build a nest in your ear. At night.

So, the moth gets further and further tangled up, and the spider waits for just the right time to tiptoes over the web to look at what she's caught, and she's as surprised as I am about how this big honking moth got caught, so she deedles around a bit and then runs back to the edge and licks her chops, and the moth just keeps on flopping around uselessly. Then it falls onto the top of the lower window sash, exhausted.

As this plays out, I have to kinda figure out who to root for. I mean, I don't like big flying bugs, but dying by spider bite is a heck of a bad way to go. Then again, I hate big flying bugs, and spiders gotta eat, right? And spiders are very industrious, even if they use their webs to entrap you and make you scream like a little girl. In the end, I figure I'll just let nature take its own solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short course.

I'm just that way, y'know.

So Mothra plays dead for a bit, and the spider gets almost to its underside, creeping along the threads of the web. You can see her playing out a few more strands to tangle up the legs of the moth some more, and then the moth starts wiggling madly again, and this time manages to actually break free of the web.

You could tell the spider was disappointed, but the moth was quite pleased with itself. It just better be glad it fell behind the books on my window sill and I'm lazy (and frightened), otherwise I'd get up and squash it.

As for the weekend past, it was okay. Grocery shopping, laundry, and I took Miss Reba a bunch of roses at work on Friday, because we had been married for 17 years on Saturday. I like her a whole lot, you know.

So that's about all there is to that.

And that was that.

Quite a long trip since that late August day in 1995 when I dropped her off in the front of the elementary school and watched her toddle in for her first day of kindergarten—that being, the trip down to Montgomery this weekend past to deliver Oldest to college.

I suppose everyone has his or her own set of emotions when you do stuff like this, but I’m not certain most folks’ emotions include a sigh of relief. Time to let others grapple with the melodrama for at least a little while, and hope that the distance and new surroundings will do her some good and maybe squeeze a little of that melodrama out of her. Or at least give it some direction and constructive purpose. Despite all that has transpired in the past few years, I suppose I’m still an optimist and think better things must surely be on the way. Just like Charlie Brown when Lucy’s holding the football.

Anyway, it’s a nice place, and not too big, and very supportive (astonishingly so to this old man who simply loaded his junk in a travel trailer and went to school with nary an advisor/minder/ mentor/hand-holder/butt-wiper in sight), and pretty strict, and the dorm is new and neat and clean (astonishingly so to this old man who remembers the concrete block rat holes run by Northcutt Realty in Auburn that were so reminiscent of a Turkish prison that he decided it would be better to live in a travel trailer for five years), and at least for the time being she’s not complaining. To us.

So, you know, hunky-dory and all.

In other news, the rest of the kids start back to school Thursday, which is going to be good for them, too. They’ve done well this summer, with Rebecca working her vet job and enjoying the benefits that come from gainful employment, and Catherine working with the little old people at Reba’s work and enjoying the benefits that come from volunteering, and Jonathan going to band camp and enjoying the benefits of being surrounded by lanky leggy young women and being in the percussion pit (no marching!), but I think they’re ready to get back to school.

As for what’s going on in the rest of the world, who in the world came up with synchronized diving? And why? I mean, the synchronized swimming stuff is odd enough, but if you’re going to do diving, too, why not have synchronized every-other-thing, like gymnastics and trampoline and fencing?

Then again, fencing would actually be pretty cool if you had a whole heap of people going at it like in a pirate movie. Wrestling would be a lot better if they had tag teams, too. And maybe a steel cage division.

But synchronized diving is just silly. Unless we give them swords or guns or something.

There’s probably other things going on in the world, too, but I don’t know if I have an opinion about those or not.

So there.

See?

Told you not to get used to it. I was off both Thursday and Friday of last week, and still managed to not find time to notblog. Just too much to do, or rather, too much to do interspersed with several minutes wherein I have to just sort of sit and stare off into space, trying to remember what I was supposed to do next.

None of which makes for anything interesting to say. Or at least anything that I can remember. I sure could use a new brain.

And a pile of cash.

Okay, don't get used to this.

9:05 a.m.

Anyway, we'll see how this works out, but if it even for a moment starts to interfere with doing laundry or watching my shows, well, that'll be it! And no, this does not constitute a return to blogging. I quit, and I meant it. Mostly. Or not.

SO, Reba was out at 6 this morning. The state inspection folks walked in yesterday, and so she's having to go in early and stay late, which is tiresome. And it meant that even if I did have a day off, I still couldn't sleep late.

Dozed back off, then got up and got Jonathan up so he could go to band camp. This week is 8-noon, next week is all day. Heh.

Next thing on the agenda for later on in the day is taking the pets to the vet--AGGGHHHHH!! Rebecca had made the appointment (so we could get the employee discount) and made it for noon, and I didn't think about it until this morning, so after I got back from delivering Boy to the high school, had to call and reschedule the visit. So, 40 minutes from now, it'll be time to wrangle the pooch and kitty into the Volvo and go see if anything ails them.

Random thoughts: 1. Has anyone else noticed that the newest trend in men's hairstyles (that being the sort of product-laden short spiky-do that is gathered up in the center of the head liken unto Ed Grimley), has now made the jump to old guys? Several of the local teevee reporters/meteorologists/anchors have taken on this silly-looking new style. Or the alternative one, that looks like when Goober decided to become a swinging bachelor on the Andy Griffith Show and got some sort of weird Julius Caesar hair-do. Sorry, but it just looks stupid. And not just stupid on old guys, either.

2. I don't really give a fat rat's patootie if Europe would overwhelmingly vote for Obama. There is a reason we declared independence, and Europe has done nothing in intervening years to convince me that we made a bad decision. I have a deep and abiding mistrust of any American politician who craves the adulation of foreigners more than that of their fellow citizens.

Okay, I'm going to the animal doctor.

10:27 a.m.

Not bad at all--both Lightning and Patches were pronounced to be in excellent health, got their shots, and thanks to Rebecca being on staff, we got a healthy 50% discount. Which is nice, seeing as how this past Monday the Focus suffered yet another broken brake line, causing it to spew brake fluid from here to yonder, and necessitating the scheduling of yet another trip to the shop for a wallet extraction. ::sigh:: I sure wish I was independently wealthy.

Now, to get the dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, then to the bank so Rebecca can deposit her paycheck (she's so danged flush that she just bought herself a new LG Dare and agreed to pay the extra part of the phone bill for it) and then we'll go get Boy from band, and then we'll start on getting the clothes downstairs and separated.

Random thoughts:

1. I cannot tolerate the Rachael Ray show unless the sound is off.

2. Bob Barker was apparently not a very nice person in real life if the Internet is to be believed, but good grief, I cannot stand The Price is Right with Drew Carey as the host. Is there any way to reanimate Bob and wheel him around on stage? Or maybe get Bill Clinton to do it. Now THAT would be a show!

3. I am very tired of the local news media promoting their websites as a place where you can "start your own blog," or "blog your thoughts on our story." Most of these sites are nothing more than message boards. And leaving a single comment on a story someone else wrote about is not writing a blog. Then again, there's probably not a better way of illustrating how inept and out of touch traditional media is than to watch them continue to grapple with the phenomenon of independent citizen-journalists. It's not like it's new now, and yet it still seems like a mystery to most of the old-style print and broadcast folks. Then again, the difference between reporting your own opinion and reporting the facts seems to have eluded them, as well.

Anyway. Time to separate the clothes. Go to the bank.

2:20 p.m.

Bank, school, home, lunch (ham and cheese quesadillas!), clothes taken to the laundry room and picked apart, first load started (unmentionables!), Judge Joe Brown on the teevee, and boy would I like to have a nap right about now.

Random thoughts:

1. I wonder why none of the judge shows on the teevee have bleeding heart liberals? Probably for the same reason that liberal talk radio has such a tiny audience.

2. Speaking of TV judge shows, The Hon. Lynn Toler is really hot.

3. Lobsters.

Annnnnd, 6:25 p.m.

Still no sign of Reba, although I did get a call saying that it's going to be a while longer still before she's home. Supper's on, clothes being washed and folded, second load of dishes being washed, the hummingbirds are hitting the feeder, and stuff such as that. And thus ends the blogging portion of my off-day. Well, that is, if I still blogged. Which I don't.

Advice for Young Ladies

Some of you might know this, but for those who don’t, my employer has switched my schedule to four-10 hour days per week, meaning I now have Fridays off. Which means I now have a day where I can go and do things, such as get my hair cut. Which is exactly what I did first thing Friday morning past, (with Boy in tow, since he needed shearing as well).

We hied ourselves to the foot of Talladega Hill, across the tracks and over the mighty Pinchgut Creek, to the HeadStart over close to Target. Being that it was 10:00 a.m., there was no one but the three staff members awaiting there.

We were ushered back immediately, and I took my place in the chair operated by an attractive young woman of decidedly Rubenesque proportions, and removed my spectacles so she could have unhindered access to my noggin.

Being thus blind, at first I could not be sure of what flashed before my eyes as she drew the drape around my neck, but after several more such preparatory tonsorial flourishes, I could no longer deny that the dewy plumpness of her upper right arm contained quite an extensive bit of tattoo ink.

Now, I am of a certain age, and I still associate such markings with convicts, sailors, and women of the camp. However, I am also quite aware that fashion has overtaken my staid blue-nosed preconceptions, and have come to know that even respectable people such as rap singers and hair care professionals now deem permanent epidermal artwork to be quite desirable. Yet, after my haircut was done and I’d retrieved my glasses and had a moment at the cash register to carefully examine her choice of embellishment, I still find myself compelled to offer some unsolicited advice, most especially for the young ladies in the reading audience who wish to delve into this sort of everlasting identification.

First, I know you all want to project the carefree, stylish, devil-may-care attitude of a certain late-1960s Dunaway-Beatty pairing, but let’s face it—Bonnie and Clyde aren’t choice role-models. So, you know, actually taking the time to etch their names into your upper arm is probably not really a good idea if you have aspirations in life for a job that has stuff like a retirement plan and health insurance.

Second, if you’re dead set on the glamorization of the lifestyle of those who wind up lead-perforated, at least try to find yourself a really, really good tattooist. Nothing ruins a perfectly good countercultural jab at The Man than to get a tat that looks as if it was done by a fourth-grader who forgot to take his Ritalin. Although I realize no one teaches good penmanship and handwriting in school anymore, it would really be a good idea to find someone who has had some classes in such things before letting him practice on you.

This admonition to seek a professional also goes for Piece of Advice #3, namely, if you believe your Bonnie and Clyde calligraphy must contain an emblem of crossed submachine guns, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE get someone who actually knows what one looks like. The use of a crudely drawn something-or-other that looks like it was traced from a Beetle Bailey comic strip simply ruins the entire effect you’re going for.

Remember, young ladies, not all of your fellow citizens will squeal with delight in your choice of body decoration and may, in fact, look askance at it. But if you simply cannot resist the lure, never ever scrimp on quality. Either that, or practice with Sharpies first.

And by the way, the haircut looks just fine.

Another Birthday

Yeah, hard to believe—two posts in two days! Not that I’ve taken up blogging again, because I haven’t, but sometimes events warrant an update of an almost bloggish sort.

Got home from church last night (through a blinding thunderstorm, I might add), got the kids unloaded, got myself dressed in work clothes (at 9:00 p.m., I might add) and set to work fixing MY STUPID TIRE.

The other day I came out of the parking deck here at work and rolled over a high curb with the side of the tire and BANG-wheeeeeessssssshhhhhhhhhh. Big gash in the sidewall. The sidewall of a tire that I’d just bought a few months back after the “old” tire had suffered similar sidewall damaged by the hand of a certain wife of mine.

And this newest tire, only about a week old?

Seems it had gotten a nail in it while Reba was driving home.

At least not in the sidewall.

So, I got my pliers and my rubber cement and my rasp and my hook and my plug strips and my spotlight and backed the van into the garage (because it was still pouring rain outside) and set to work. The nail didn’t actually seem too deep. Probably could have left it alone, but because I’m a moron, I went ahead and pulled it and set to work making the tiny hole bigger with the rasp and had a heck of a time since it’s a BRAND NEW TIRE but finally got a hole big enough for the hook to go in and managed to tear up one of the sticky strips without actually plugging the giant new leak I’d made. Second time was the charm, though. Cleaned up the tools, pulled the van back outside and got the compressor out and proceeded to replace the air I’d let out (while standing in the rain, I might add.)

Got the pressure up to normal, unplugged, pulled the van in the right way into the garage, got out and went inside the house, got my work clothes back off, noticed Reba in Rebecca’s room on her bed talking, thought everyone should be in the bed, told Boy to get in the bed, and then Catherine, got my sleeping clothes on, decided to check my e-mail, sat there and vegetated and watched the news.

Reba finally came through the bedroom, and pointed to my left arm, “You’ve got black stuff on you.” Sure enough, I’d not been nearly as fastidious as I’d thought and had a smear of black road grime all over my left arm. Well, crap.

And then, “Rebecca wants to get baptized.”

WHOA—that came outta nowhere! But explains the confab there in Middle Girl’s room. Rebecca has been thinking about this for a while now, and she’d finally gotten to the point where she felt compelled to make that decision.

SO, we asked her if she wanted anyone to be there, and she figured it would be okay if the preacher and the youth minister were there, but that was it. Those calls were made, got Jonathan and Catherine out of bed and redressed, and it was back out into the rain and back across the county to the church building.

I had the same rush of emotion and found myself thinking the same thoughts as the time (almost exactly three years ago) that I’d had when I baptized Oldest, and found myself expressing similar sentiments to Rebecca once we were both down in the water (which we’ve now gotten hooked up to a filter system, I might add).

It is still quite a powerful thing to me—the idea of the new birth; not physical, but spiritual. I remember when she came squalling into the world, and what a fine big red baby she was and thinking how there could be no greater feeling. But there is, and it is the idea that when I lifted her back up out of that water, sputtering and snorting, the parent-child relationship had been supplemented by a greater one of being brother and sister in service together to our Creator.

She got her wet clothes off and changed, and we all had a short prayer together, headed back home, and got into bed sometime after 11:30.

And slept well.

Cake and Ice Cream for ALL!

What do Fred Savage, Courtney Love, Kelly McGillis, Tom Hanks, Jimmy Smits, John Tesh, O.J. Simpson, Brian Dennehy, Donald Rumsfeld and I all have in common? (I mean, aside from our almost fanatical devotion to the Pope and nice red uniforms?) That's right, it's our birthday! YAY! So all of you are welcome to grab a big bowl of ice cream and a nice slice of cake (just be careful when O.J. is cutting his) and join us for a big celebration!

Other interesting things that happened today:

1540--England's King Henry VIII had his 6-month-old marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled. She got to keep the vacation house, the Mercedes, and her head.

1776--The Declaration of Independence was read aloud to Gen. George Washington's troops in New York. Afterwards they all went to see Mamma Mia at the Winter Garden Theater, and pronounced it "really FABULOUS!"

1816--Argentina declared independence from Spain. Spain was like, all, "yeah, whatEVer."

1850--Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, died in Washington, D.C., after serving only 16 months in office. Conspiracy theorists speculated an evil genius named Karl R. Ove who arrived from the future in a time machine was responsible for his death.

1896--William Jennings Bryan caused a sensation at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with his "cross of gold" speech denouncing supporters of the gold standard. There were reports of mass harrumphing, and no small amount of men in bowler hats clamoring in the streets.

1947--The engagement of Britain's Princess Elizabeth to Lt. Philip Mountbatten was announced. The lovesick couple exchanged a restrained, yet heartfelt handshake and thenceforth were often photographed standing not far from each other.

1962--Terry Oglesby, inventor of the Cornatee (cornbread-battered and deep fried manatee on a stick), born in Birmingham, Alabama.

1992--Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton tapped Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee to be his running mate. Make up your own quip for this one--there are so many possibilities I can't choose one.

1995--The Grateful Dead played their last concert, at Soldier Field in Chicago. There are reports of mass mellow harshage, and no small amount of dudes being all bummed out.

1997--Boxer Mike Tyson was banned from the ring and fined $3 million for biting opponent Evander Holyfield's ear. George Foreman attempts to capitalize on the phenomenon with his Tender Ear Grill, with less than satisfactory results.

2000--Pete Sampras won his seventh Wimbledon singles title, tying the record for men at the All England Club. "Who cares," right? Right.

2001--A court in Chile ruled that Gen. Augusto Pinochet could not be tried on human rights charges because of his deteriorating physical and mental health. Reached for comment, Satan said, "Awww, how pitiful. I'll make sure when he gets here to have a nice quiet room for him with pretty flowers and a comfy bed."

2007--Sen. David Vitter, R-La., whose telephone number was disclosed by the so-called "D.C. Madam," accused of running a prostitution ring, said in a statement he was sorry for a "serious sin" and that he had already made peace with his wife. Wives of every other guy in America warn their husbands they'd best not think they can get away with anything like this without winding up seriously deceased.

2008--American press continues to report everything seemingly is spinning out of control. But you know, who believes anything you read in the paper, so I decide not to worry about anything and have a happy birthday.

Ask Dr. Possum!

Although this humble blog long ago was shuttered by its proprietor and no longer offers sustenance and solace to the poor lost and weary travelers of the virtual backroads of the electronic ether, we are quite happy to report that Dr. Possum apparently never got the closure memo.

Having swung by whilst on his way to a conference on mid-16th Century bawdy Dutch poetry, Dr. Possum was obviously quite stunned by the presence of a padlock on the front door of the Axis of Weevil World Headquarters Building. However, after some investigation of the side yard (and much subsequent beating and banging upon the wall of the travel trailer which serves now as my office/domicile/caretaker’s shed) he was able to rouse me from my usual midday torpor.

Overjoyed by his unexpected visit, I quickly prepared for him a wholesome repast of crackers and potted meat, and asked if he would be willing to stay for a while to answer all of the stacks of questions that have piled up since he last graced us with his presence.

Despite the urgency of his travel needs, he did agree to sit with us for a spell and dispense some of his wisdom and knowledge. To those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Possum’s oeuvre, he is a real doctor* and has oft-times been called upon to settle disputes and interrogatories of the most profound nature, and he stands ready now to answer similar inquiries on topics medical, philosophical, political, mathematical, and otherwise.**

SO THEN, to our first inquiry!

A “Mr. Larry Anderson” of the Northern Alabama District (whom some of you know as Mr. Larry Anderson), asks the following:

I really expected a Possumblog post explaining the background on Mr. Obama’s seal. Possimus isn’t it?

Regards,

Larry

Dr. Possum Responds: Far be it from me to tread where others have already done exquisite work of explaining the details of this recent kerfuffle. My compatriots Dr. Reynolds and Dr. Weevil have both ably “put this to bed,” so to speak, and little remains left to say about it.

Other than the fact that Latin being what it is, translations are malleable things, and given the candidate in question, could possibly have multiple hidden intentions. Vero possumus could very well be intended to communicate the message “Yes, I can be George Jones,” indicating a president who is signaling his intent to embark on driving the SUV of state aimlessly around the winding backroads of international diplomacy while downing fifth after fifth of demon rum, only to wind up hammered to the gills and careening into a bridge abutment.

And then write a song about it.

Likewise, vero possumus could mean, “Truly, I can be a stupid possum.” Able to be trapped after being baited with only a few kernels of sweet corn, playing dead in the face of possible aggression by its enemies, and a lingering musky odor are but a few of the valuable things possums are known for, and similar characteristics are sure to strike fear into the minds of America’s foes. Not for nothing was President William Howard Taft—“Uncle Billy Possum”—known as The Scourge of Malignant Evildoers.

Or it could simply be akin to Cockney rhyming slang—vero possumus being the rhyming derivative of “throw ‘im under the bus,” which I’ve been told is quite a commonplace activity within the Obama camp.

[A note from the Editor, in re Mr. Anderson’s putative “expectation” of a post: We remind all readers that Possumblog has been failing to live up to expectations since its founding, and we continue to strive to uphold that standard.]

Next up, YOUR question! Please leave your submission in the comments section below, and Dr. Possum will astound you with his genius!

I promise, I had nothing to do with this. Not that I disapprove, of course.

Via Mr. Spud Buddy Marc Velazquez, this: 7 Arrested for Cheering at High School Graduations

COLUMBIA, S.C. — When school officials in Rock Hill, South Carolina, tell graduation ceremony crowds to hold their applause until the end, they mean it — Police arrested seven people after they were accused of loud cheering during the ceremonies.

Six people at Fort Mill High School's graduation were charged Saturday and a seventh at the graduation for York Comprehensive High School was charged Friday with disorderly conduct, authorities said. Police said the seven yelled after students' names were called.

"I just thought they were going to escort me out," Jonathan Orr told The Herald of Rock Hill. "I had no idea they were going to put andcuffs [sic] on me and take me to jail."

And no, I don't know what 'andcuffs' are, although I imagine they're probably something the grammar police use when someone uses conjunctions poorly.

Orr, 21, spent two hours in jail after he was arrested when he yelled for his cousin at York's commencement at the Winthrop University Coliseum.

Rock Hill police began patrolling commencements several years ago at the request of school districts who complained of increasing disruption. Those attending graduations are told they can be prosecuted for bad behavior and letters are sent home with students, said Rock Hill police spokesman Lt. Jerry Waldrop.

All the cases, except for one that includes a resisting arrest charge, will be handled in city court and are punishable by a maximum of 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Orr said he thinks people should be allowed to cheer.

"For some people, it might be the only member of their family to graduate high school, and it was like a funeral in there," Orr said.

William Massey, 19, was arrested but said he plans to fight the charge. He said he simply "clapped and gave a little whoop" when his fiancee's name was called. Massey said there were warnings before the ceremony but none that said he could be arrested.

He said not everyone who cheered was arrested.

"There's a lot more people that did it than six or seven," said Massey, who graduated from Fort Mill last year.

Fort Mill Principal Dee Christopher says school officials don't ask that offenders be arrested but that he plans to keep a police presence at future graduation ceremonies.

"We think it's important for every graduate's name to be heard and for every person in the arena to be able to see that student cross the stage. ... That's why we have disruptive guests removed," he said.

Last year in Galesburg, Illinois, five students were denied diplomas from the city's lone public high school after enthusiastic friends or family members cheered for them during commencement. Students could get their diplomas after completing eight hours of public service for the school district.

As for me, my thoughts are the same as what I posted below--I don't think it's necessary to scream and whoop, especially if what you're screaming is just stupid, but really, arresting someone is a bit much.

ANYway, Marc says hey to you all and that I need to post something once a week, just to let everyone mingle and comment and stuff. Well, it would be nice, but since this blog has been closed up and retired for nigh onto a year now, it just wouldn't do to come out and post something anymore. Nope--just have to quit cold-turkey, as I already have done, and not post anything at all. Not even a humorous news story.

Not even to talk about the mundane things such as how hot it's been here the past two days, and the fact that Rebecca went and got herself a summer job at the vet's office down at the foot of the hill from where we live (and where we take our animals, thus securing us the coveted employee discount), and how very, very busy I've been at work, and junk like that. None of that anymore, alas.

So, anyway, until the next time I don't have anything to say...

I can't help it if I get distracted.

I suppose I should be ashamed of myself, but as I sat there yesterday, I had an unexpected reaction to the surroundings. Oh, I had the normal set of bittersweet thoughts you have at graduations, but as I sat there on those hard aluminum bleachers my mind wandered a bit.

I’m not sure how to explain it. Scrunched in too-tightly together with a few thousand other sweaty parents and grandparents and siblings and friends in the old football stadium. The whiff of outdoor-grade perfume mixed in with the occasional taint of a beer sloshed down and a smoke burnt to the filter in the car on the way over. The dimming light of a May afternoon that made the surrounding trees and low hills seem close and dense, and softened the clash of the red gowns on the green field. The sound of the speakers echoing through the neighborhood. Maybe it was the combination of all of that, but after we watched them all come in, and after we’d said the Pledge, and all sat back down, and I sat there listening to the valedictory, I was overcome by a peculiar sense of how uniquely American it all seemed.

I probably should have been at least as moved by the more personal aspect of watching my daughter receive her diploma, but at that particular moment, all I could think of was how the same ceremonies were being played out at similar venues in other small towns across the United States. And it made me so very proud to be part of that type of place.

No, we still don’t quite have down the proper way to wear a mortarboard (hint—pinned vertically to the back of your big hair-do isn’t it), but we still figure it’s important to have one. History, and all.

No, even though we make the announcement to hold applause so everyone can be recognized and one kid doesn’t get the silent treatment while another gets whoops and cheers, that lasts only about twenty people in, and then there’s that first guy, the one who had hurried down the Miller Lite and the Camel on the way over, who has to unsteadily give a big Rebel yell when his niece’s name gets read. And so, from then on out, the chorus of hollers and screeching ululations starts in earnest. (Well, except for those left-out kids with shy relatives or no friends, who wish at least one of their kin would lighten up for once in their lives and give him a little yell.) (And no, I’m not speaking personally, since my mother-in-law gave a long loud whistle worthy of a hog farmer at slop time when Oldest’s name was called.) Why? Because Americans love to cheer, even if under certain circumstances it might veer toward the uncouth.

No, there might not be anyone in the class who grows up to be President, but unlike some places in this world, you can’t say for sure someone won’t.

We’ve got a good thing here. Might not quite be doing everything exactly right, or in the exact right way, but I doubt you’ll find anyone working harder at—well, I don’t know—working hard at doing something. I don’t know, maybe it’s like that everywhere else in the world kids are graduating from high school. But I don’t think so.

Anyway, Oldest did graduate, and will be going off to Montgomery in the fall, and maybe that bit of distance and responsibility will make thoughts in the future lean more to the sweet side of the bittersweet equation. Or not. Hard to tell about such things.

By Popular Demand

As warned in the previous post, if enough people asked for it, I agreed to post the tale of my recent struggle with the downstairs toilet room. In this case, "popular demand" consists of Miss Jordana asking to read it. I am nothing if not a sucker for pretty brunettes.

SO THEN, here it is.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: The following posts details events that occurred 13-14 APR 2008. This account contains graphic depictions of plumbing, excessive use of fossil fuels, deliberate concentration and inhalation of petroleum distillate vapors, and conspicuous consumption, yet is entirely devoid of entertainment value, as well as that patented Possumblog combination of mirth and despair. It is simply despair.

PLOT SETUP: I started in November of 2004 to repair the rotted floor of my downstairs powder room, the result of a small leak in the toilet flange. At the time, I could not find an appropriate selection of hardwood flooring to patch the pieces I'd torn out, and ever since then, the toilet room has been in a state of disrepair. Other stories here, and here, and here, and here.

Look, just 'cause there's a...

title, and words following it down here in this part, it DOESN'T mean that I'm blogging. Sure, most of your mainstream daily newspapers and local television stations seem to think that's what constitutes a blog entry, but not me. I know better. So don't go getting all snarky and start asking why I'm blogging again when I said I'd quit, because I really did quit, and nothing you see here changes that in any substantive way.

Not even if I tell heart-warming stories of familial enjoyment or terrifying stories of suburban horrors. Which is good, because I don't have any of either.

All I have is about five minutes of less-than-full-throttle time from my paying work, and rather than do the prudent thing and go to the restroom or get up and move my legs, I thought I would exercise my fingers some.

It's springtime in Paradise By The Pinchgut, and as has been the case in the past, I have a lovely and verdant lawn full of various flora and fauna, generally in the form of weeds and fire ants. ::shakes fist:: I will offer my endorsement of Amdro--that stuff works very effectively. And it makes a great ice cream topping!*

The weeds, though--I leave them alone. If I killed all the weeds, I wouldn't have much of a lawn left. Then again, I would have less to cut. Hmm.

Wife?

Yep, still got one of those. And she's still really hot.** And she still seems determined to see to it that I stay out of trouble. Did I tell you I finally fixed the downstairs toilet and floor? I did. Very nearly killed me. Took two days of intensive labor, including being shot at by Bosnian snipers.# I told the whole sordid tale in a long-winded email to Doc Smith, and I'll reproduce it here later if enough people cry out to read about my idiocy. (And no, that won't be considered a blog entry, either.)

Kids? Yep. Still got those, too. Oldest graduates from high school in a couple more weeks, if you can believe that. Oh, by the way--remember when I used to say, "It's only a phase...it's only a phase...it's only a phase"? Well, it's not. It does remind me a bit of a Kafka short story I read when I was younger. And that's enough about that.

Boy just got back from Atlanta this weekend. He and his bandmates went to a competition over in Marietta, and then went and did the Atlanta tourist thing with stops at Cokeworld and Six Flags and some sort of medieval dinner theater deal. Sounded like he had fun, although he spent all day yesterday trying to keep his pants up. He packed the wrong pair of pants and forgot to take a belt. Thank goodness he had the decency to at least try to keep them up and not let them bag up around his butt cheeks. Anyway, given his frenetic schedule and adolescent desire to horse around and not sleep when given the opportunity at a nice hotel, he probably slept through all of his classes today.

Middle Girl is through with soccer for the school year. Managed to do quite well, although they did mess up their overall record by losing three tournament games mid-season. Otherwise, they did respectably well. And MG managed to keep up her grades to an extraordinarily high level. She's real smart-like. Overall, freshman year was a good one for her, which bodes well for the next three years. Although she did manage to miss last week due to a terrible stomach/intestinal bug. Blech.

Tiny Terror is still her same old ball-of-energy self. She's eleven, and at the very cusp of adolescence. Whiney, mouthy, loud, boisterous, but oddly lacking in guile. I guess that's good.

Patches? Lightning? About 1 and 2 years old, respectively. Still can't quite let Lightning out unattended without Patches going all puppy-silly and wanting to simulateously eat/play with the cat, who is baffled that anyone would want to tangle with him. Animals are weird.

Job? Still got one, and it looks like the decision to give up blogging was a good one. Not one spare minute in the day.*** But that's good. I've actually remembered stuff I shouldn't have forgotten, and have managed to avoid several instances where my ample buttocks could have been put into a sling. So, you know.

The world? I have no idea about anything, other than I really have very little other than contempt for whomever will be the eventual Democratic nominee, and little hope that the Republican nominee will manage to be able to win. I sense that 2008-2012 is going to be about like 1976-1980. Thank goodness I kept my leisure suits and two-tone platform shoes!****

Anyway, what's on your mind lately?

Okay, now THIS is worth breaking silence for!

"Everywhere," indeed.

Accompanying story here, from McCalla's and The Birmingham News' own MAJ Mike Tomberlin.

Based solely upon the large number of comments from the previous post...

I have decided to start blogging all the time again!

That's odd.

And sorta frightening.

Oldest turns 18 today.

I remember when she was much younger--maybe 5 turning 6--and I went in to wake her up one morning. She opened her eyes and looked around, then sat up and started looking quizzically at her arms and legs. "What's the matter, sugar?"

"I though you said I was going to be a big girl on my birthday!"

Seems as though all of Mom and Dad's talk back then about turning the magical age of six and being a big girl was translated in her mind as meaning she'd wake up on her birthday and be full grown.

Having now lived with her through all of the less-than-pleasant turmoil of the intervening 12 or so years since that time, I have a feeling that having now reached the age of majority, she has the firm belief she is finally an actual grown up.

And, well, you know, good luck with that.

No, really.

I don't wish for any of my kids to have to endure bad times and bad things, but I know that being human, those things do come to us all. But I also know that despite my best efforts and intentions, she will meet the adult world woefully unprepared.

We've tried to show her, tell her, make her, cajole her into seeing and understanding and learning, and I know a few scraps of that made it through to her consciousness, but I also know most of what we've tried to make plain simply went into the mental shred file.

And that's a failure on my part.

But at least I can take some comfort in knowing that it wasn't failure by simple inaction. Somewhat like Wile E. Coyote (Genius), of whom it can never be said that his high rate of disaster was due to his being lazy and innattentive, I am perversely gratified in some small way that although my big box of ACME Parenting Skills blowed up real good, it was nonetheless spectacular and noticeable, and occasionally entertaining to viewers.

If only real life were like the cartoons, I'd be a bit less concerned for the fate of my own little roadrunner.

But, there she is, in the eyes of the law and in her mind's eye, an adult.

Like I said, good luck with that.

Random Fleeting Political Comment of the Day

Regarding the recent dustup and handwringing over whether one candidate or another would be where he or she is in the Presidential race were it not for various physical characteristics, one thing is exceedingly clear: the number of elected officials who have attained their positions based solely upon their own brilliance or competence is vanishingly small, almost to the point of being non-existent.

All Quiet on the Moron Front

Rear, too. I thought there might be some disturbance the other day, but it was only gas. Okay, well, not only gas, but we shan’t waste valuable daylight discussing it.

ANYWAY, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Oddly enough, people still come around every once in a while, or on Leap Day, either by accident, or in the oddly misplaced, yet still charming delusion that they’ll find that I have come out of my forced retirement and begun blogging again.

Alas, I still am quite quit of blogging.

But it’s not really about me—I am haunted by those whom we’ve had to let go from the Axis of Weevil World Headquarters, who shuffled out the door holding their last paychecks and various stolen office supplies, going off into a cruel world where imaginary employees of imaginary enterprises are a dime-a-dozen.

And then alas, there is poor Chet the E-Mail Boy. Once so full of boyish charm (approximately 90 years ago) and now—now doomed to his new life of self-employment.

“Chet,” I said to him as kindly as I could on Layoff Day, “Chet, I hate to let you go, but it’s time—“

He raised his withered and liver-spotted hand, and in his high, thin, reedy, trembling, whispy, raspy, consumptively phlegmy voice told me that he had an idea for a new business venture. “Oh, but Chet, you’re old, and dim, and stupid, and infirm, and have to be told everything to do—and what will Miss Butch say?”

He bade me no mind, being the upstart, blackguard, and rogue that he turned out to be, and walked out without so much as a tear or sniffle.

Seems he’d saved up some money (how, I’m not sure, since I never paid him) and bought one of those little ‘Hawaiian shaved ice’ vending shacks that open in the summer and then shutter up in the wintertime. I laughed at the thought of him trying to sell overpriced snowcones in the winter, but then to make it even more laughable, he repainted the building and started selling bowls of cornflakes. Called it CHET’S FLAKE-SHAK. Silly old man.

Anyway, I suppose it pays to do something you know about, and if there’s anything Chet knows, it’s cornflakes. He started out selling just your plain basic bowl of flakes with milk, then as it caught on with the morning commuter traffic, he started offering a variety of milks—whole, 2%, 1%, skim, chocolate, strawberry. Then there were the sweeteners—sugar, Splenda, NutraSweet, honey, maple syrup, molasses, Karo. Seems people liked the variety, and his weird tales of telegraphy and Linotypistry, and I guess the convenience of not having to go to the danged pantry for a stupid box of cereal and the cupboard for a bowl and the refrigerator for milk and the drawer for a spoon.

After a while, it got more than he could handle, so he put Miss Butch to work in there and people got an even more entertaining floor show with her in her exotic Hmong dress, screeching curses at him in French. The idea continued to grow in popularity, especially when she created a new taste sensation when she “accidentally” “dropped” some betel nut juice into someone’s flakes. After that, EVERYone wanted some. Got to be that the traffic was so bad in the mornings that they’d have the cops come out and direct traffic. Chet decided to buy up all the defunct Hawaiian shaved ice stands in town and open a whole chain of CHET’S FLAKE-SHAKs. I tried to urge caution on him because he’s old and senile, but he acted as though he knew what he was doing. Idiot.

He hired a bunch of other stupid old people to man the new shacks, and sure enough, you’d think customers were sprouting up out of the ground. People were all over themselves to pick up a stupid bowl of cornflakes and milk sold by his wrinkly old geezer friends from the VFW. He started coming up with cutesy names for stuff—like his CUPOFLAKS for people who wanted their cornflakes and milk in a cup instead of a bowl so they could eat it while driving and talking on their stupid cell phones about their stupid jobs.

It continued to be a local phenomenon of some mild amusement, until some weirdo made Chet a MySpace page and put up a video of Miss Butch on YouTube, and then everyone under the sun jumped in. The Daily Show came and nearly got shot (Miss Butch thought they were Viet Cong), then Chet somehow managed to get on Fox and Friends and prattled on and on about meeting Mark Twain and Buffalo Bill Cody as a boy and how he loved cornflakes and being a businessman, and not ONE word about me or my influence on his life. Ungrateful old coot.

After that, he somehow managed to swing a deal with some crazy dumb hippydippy chick from California (who is NOT that attractive, by the way, because anyone can look tall and beautiful in California with enough money and plastic surgery and a degree from Stanford) to develop a line of organic “Worldcornflakes” using his name and confused likeness, and then the lawyers got involved, which I told him was a very bad idea, and they talked him into a cross-country franchise agreement for his stupid cornflakeshaks, and I’m sure he’ll wind up losing his new big fancy McMansion and his Maybach 62 sedan (which I thought was a dumb choice for him, seeing as how he used to jibber on and on about the “Hun menace.” Apparently now that he can go out and pay cash for some lumpy Kraut rolling symbol of self-indulgence, Fritz isn’t such a big threat anymore. Hmph. Figures.)

Anyway, here I am—my blogging empire reduced to nothingness, and I’ve got to stay late tonight to close up, which I hate, because we can’t throw out any of the day’s batch of cornflakes and I have to eat them all, and although my intestines have become preternaturally regular, the last thing I really want to have to do late at night is eat ten pounds of cornflakes. That, and wash out the milk machines. And scrub the dumpster. And call Chet “sir.”

So, you know, other than that, things are just fine.

Aztec Hot Chocolate Pudding

I emerge from my warm, fur-lined hollow tree for just a moment to post this where everyone can see it, as opposed to it being in the comments in the last post. Via Chef Tony and the Chocolate Advisory Council:

This blog needs some pep, I think chocolate is the thing to cause pep. So here y'all go:

Recipe: Aztec Hot Chocolate Pudding

Time: 45 minutes

Butter for greasing pudding dish
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 cup superfine sugar
1/2 cup best-quality cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup corn oil
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup dark rum.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 8-cup pudding or soufflé dish. Set aside. In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, chili, superfine sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa powder. In small bowl, mix milk, vanilla and oil. Pour into flour mixture. Mix by hand for thick smooth batter.

2. Spoon batter into pudding dish, and smooth the top. Pour 3/8 cup water into a small pan. Set over high heat, and bring to boil. In small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup cocoa with brown sugar, making sure there are no lumps. Spread evenly across the batter. Pour boiling water over it, and top with rum.

3. Bake pudding until top is a bubbling sponge and center is wobbly and liquid, about 30 minutes. To serve, spoon out portions that include some of the top and chocolate sauce beneath. If desired, accompany with vanilla ice cream.

Yield: 4 servings

I take USD, cash and kisses on a pro-rated basis in payment for this service.

Now then, back to slee- WORK! Back to work! Yes! Workworkwork!

Pictures!

What better way to not blog than by posting pictures! (Aside from not posting pictures.)

A few shots from this year:

Happy, New Year?

Oh, and you just thought that because I'd quit blogging that I'd quit blogging. It's just that I've just been busier than a bee on a beaver attacking a one-armed paper-hanger who's watching a one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest on teevee. Yes, THAT busy.

After I got back from the holidays, all my jobs have gotten going and everyone's running around like their hair's on fire, so there's been precious little opportunity to not blog. But I had some lunch minutes, and I did feel compelled to thank you all again for the advice about computers, and to apologize for ignoring it all and helping Middle Girl purchase a Toshiba A215 from Circuit City. It's super spiffy, with several orders of magnitude more hard drive space than my only-a-few-years-old HP Pavilion desktop, and we got ourselves a wireless router so she can hide in many places in the house and surreptitiously read trashy blogs about slow-moving, semi-arboreal pouched North American marsupials. Or do her homework, without being pestered by someone. SO that's nice.

Christmas was very nice, and I got some books and some ties and some shirts and a nice yardwork coat that will go nicely with my overalls and straw hat and perpetual dark stain of tobacky juice running out the corner of my mouth. Christmas is actually STILL nice, seeing as how the tree is still in place and automatically clicking on every evening and rotating and glimmering with its little sparkly lights. Seems a certain wife of mine (I won't name names) decided to start a new scrapbook project during the off-days, and spread huge amounts of paper and books and stickers and scissors and photos right out there in the middle of the floor of the den, which makes disassembling a lovely pre-lit genuine Chinese-made Martha Stewart Christmas tree awfully difficult. It would be easier had she (the unnamed wife) simply cleaned up her leavings once finished for the afternoon, but she has a tendency to create various exclusionary zones of craftwork that MUST NOT BE DISTURBED until she's good and ready to disturb them.

So, the tree's still up. Sorta festive, I must say. As is all the confetti on the floor.

Let's see, what else? I have a cold! It's really not that bad, unless it's really tuberculosis or SARS or bird flu or something and I just don't know how bad it really is. I figure Mucinex and Sucrets and a chaser of Lysol will fix it up pretty well, no matter what it is.

I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but that leaves me something to not blog about sometime later.

It’s been an odd year in Paradise by the Pinchgut…

And not just because 2007 isn’t 2006 or 2008.

Although I think that’s still probably part of the problem. That, and monkeys.

But back to the point. Which is itself a first, seeing as how I’ve never felt constrained by the boundaries imposed by “polite society” to “make a point.” ::shakes fist at polite society:: Take that!

Anyway, it’s just been all sorts of topsy turvy—my new, bold, edgy blogging strategy at the beginning of the year—which I termed “NEW, BOLD, EDGY!!”—was quickly beaten to death by all of the usual old, timid, dull suspects. But at least there was still a vast quantity of old timid dull crap to look at, that is, until I quit blogging completely when I got my new job back in August.

That right there has itself been such an experience, one full of interesting stories and insights and catastrophes, all of which would have made such great new blog fodder if I still had time to write it all down. Which I haven’t.

And not only that, there was all the junk that’s been going on in the world that I had no way of commenting on, no matter how much I wanted to. All of the various celebrity shenanigans, the foibles of those quaint souls in the media, the vituperations of the vicious vivisectionists of the legal profession, the always bountiful stupidity of the criminal class and Congress (but I repeat myself), all the various heartwarming marsupial stories, the beauty pageants, the pie-eating contests, the World Series, the Piece of Wood That Looks Like Jesus Which Was Found In A Vacant Lot by a Poor Homeless Man Who Sold It On eBay for 5 Million Dollars But Who Had to Go To Jail When It Was Found Out He Was Really an Escaped Convict and the Wood Was Really Just a Hunk of Wood He’d Carved To Look Like Sorta Like Jesus and so He Didn’t Get Any Money Out of the Deal But Nonetheless Created an Even Bigger Stink When He Said He Found a Bar of Soap in Prison That Looked Like Muhammed And The Entire World Exploded in a Fit of Swarthy-Faced Wild-Eyed Rage By Militant Unitarians—that sort of stuff was just begging for someone like me to comment, but it was simply not to be.

But at least I am getting paid more now, and actually get to do productive-type stuff instead of acting as a bureaucratic anchor to progress, so hey, it ain’t all bad.

Back at the house, there’s been all sorts of stuff going on as well. It’s a constant blur, which was one of the nice things about having a blog, back when I had one, that being that I could write stuff down and have some way of not forgetting it all. That’s really the thing that hurts most. All those little stories and incidents with the kids or Miss Reba, none really earth-shattering or anything, just little bits of life, but they were bits of MY life, and there was some comfort in knowing that as they grew up and as I grew older and more forgetful, I’d have some way to look back and be able to relive a little of the fun. You didn’t get to hear about the dog eating the bike helmet, or Catherine walloping Jonathan with the broom handle, or the Christmas parade. Not that you really wanted to hear about them, but they had a nice touch of humor in them. Makes the day go by a bit faster, y’know?

SO, anyway, enough of all that. Here we are near to the end of the year. If I still had a blog, I’d note that yesterday was its 6th (!) birthday, and I’d tell you all that I’ll be at home all next week enjoying the holidays with my kiddos and the stuff they mooched off of Santa.

Oh, what the heck—I think, for just this once, I’ll act like this place is still in business, and wish all of you a lovely holiday (no matter which day[s] you holify) and a Happy New Year! All of you be nice to each other, and be nice to yourselves, too.

See you next year.

Laptop Bleg

Y'know, I really messed up on my timetable for getting out of the blogging biz. Because if I were still at it, it would be SO MUCH EASIER to ask the following question:

Supposing you had a kid who'd saved up a couple of hundred dollars toward a laptop, and said child was in anticipation of a few hundred grickles more from Santa in a few days, exactly what sort of laptop should said child buy? And from whom?

Despite my aura of technological sophistication and incredible knowledge about things computery, I must confess I have absolutely no idea of the best way of going about choosing what sort of equipment to buy.

Basics are this: said child (who is a highly responsible 15 year old girl, not to give anything away) needs to be able to do your basic MS Office type applications--Word, PowerPoint, Excel--as well as be able to use the Internet, run her iPod, play games, maybe watch a video or two. She's not deep into video editing or online role playing games or anything that requires heavy-duty processing power. She needs to be able to seamlessly synch back and forth to our home computer (which is an HP running XP Home) or the computer at Grandmom and grandad's house (which is some kind of Dell running a full blown version of XP), and needs something that will not be obsolete when she takes it out of the box, will serve her needs through the rest of high school and be easily (within reason) upgraded when she decides she needs more horsepower. I would really rather NOT have anything with Vista, since it seems a step backwards from XP, although this might not be as big a problem with an OE install rather than an upgrade to an existing machine. Still, the word on the screet is that it's still got way too many entomology students working overtime.

I've seen specials at Staples and such like for a whole laptop package for around five bills, including a printer and a case and sparkly moonbeam stickers and coupons for fabulous savings on things you don't need. This one in particular seems pretty spiff, although, again, I don't know nuthin' but that it seems like an awfully fine price, even if it's not one of the ones with a free printer.

ANYway, it's all very confusing and everyone has something slightly different on sale right now, and that makes it very difficult to compare apples to lobsters.

So, for all two of you who've remained loyal to Possumblog even though it's no longer in operation, what say you when it comes to the best bet?

End of Week Brain Dump

Okay, okay--I know. A huge buildup like that, and nothing to back it up.

The shame of having not even a teaspoonful of inanity to offer. And it's not like there's not plenty of fodder out there!

Oh well, let's give it a try anyway. As long as you harbor no expectations of quality, you'll not be disappointed.

Politics: Oh, please. They ("they" being the candidates) all stink, in varying degrees and levels of venality. And even the crazy people are a bunch of pikers. Lyndon LaRouche craps bigger crazy than Kucinich. Anyway, best I can tell the choices right now on the pinko/hippy side come down to purest distilled evil, some goofy kid, a smug foppish twit (with a twist of evil), weird dude, three old guys, and some chubby guy. On the unworthy-to-be-the-successors-to-Ronald Reagan side we've got another bunch of old guys, some guy I've never heard of, a couple of guys with enough baggage to keep a team of fifty bellhops busy for a year, and a former fat guy, and that guy with the hot wife and stack of residual checks. Both sides seem to have a base of vocal supporters made up of enough cranks and loose screws to assemble a fleet of Model Ts. Take THAT, rest of the world!

Weather: The high temperature was close to 80 degrees here on Tuesday. It's going to be barely above freezing on Sunday. ::shakes fist at thermometer::

Sports: Steroids? Baseball?! Eh, whatever. I say any sport where you get to wear jewelry while you play needs as much help as it can get.

Entertainment: Writer's strike? I've not been so disturbed about a labor action since the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Buggy Whip Craftsmen staged their walk-out in 1913.

Family: I have four children and a wife. Each seem to be trying to outdo the others in driving me to an early grave. I love them all dearly nonetheless.

Work: Between the previous category and this one, I have no time nor ability to form anything more than a variety of whale-like squeaks, whistle, clicks, and grunts in lieu of actual substantive conversation.

It's a darned good thing I gave up blogging.

I hate school.

Not really.

It’s good to learn things, even if it’s just for the sake of knowing something you didn’t know before.

I suppose what I object to is that schools nowadays take great pride in assigning gigantic enriching multiculturally-engaging, multimedia-focused research assignments to kids who probably don’t get all that much out of it other than a sort of glossy simulacrum of a facsimile of understanding about the topic at hand.

Seeing as how such assignments invariably wind up requiring a huge wad of parental involvement and supervision and assistance.

Because it’s important for parents to be involved.

Despite the fact that my parents never assisted me in doing silly crapwork school projects.

And despite the fact that I have not the socially-desirable overly-stimulated and pampered single child to dote upon, but the near-to-being-white-trash FOUR children, ALL of whom are also given similar gigantic enriching multiculturally-engaging multimedia-focused research assignments.

What brings on this sudden fit of pique?

Boy, and his assignment this nine weeks. Seems they’re studying Asia in social studies. Or possibly language. Or maybe math. You know how schools are nowadays with all this cross-training stuff. Anyway, I think it’s social studies. So, their teacher gives them this big laundry list of activities to choose from in categories such as Culture, Geography, Art, Inscrutability, &c., &c., with each activity worth a varying amount of points, the idea being to allow each student the freedom to pick and choose enough activities from each category to add up to a theoretical maximum total of 200 points.

I’m not sure how much time they were given, although I figure it’s probably been over a month. And you know how good 8th graders are at time management.

So it comes closer to time to start fixing and doing, and Boy had actually begun working on some of his stuff as long as a couple of weeks ago. Me, not knowing exactly how much was involved in the overall scheme of things, was kinda gratified that he hadn’t waited around until the last minute to do his colored picture of the Silk Road, and a clever origami scorpion, and a picture of a samurai.

Little did I know that this wasn’t all there was to it. And that it was all supposed to be turned in today.

It began to dawn on me last weekend, though.

“I’m gonna make paper!”

Great, yeah, whatever, Son.

“And so I need to save the Sunday paper, because I’m going to take that, and put it in the blender, and put water in it, and some glue…”

WHOA UP, THERE, BOY!

“No. Jonathan, we’re NOT going to put paper and glue in the blender.”

Hurt little puppy dog eyes. “But—but I have to make paper for my class assignment.”

“WHAT class, Son?”

“That stuff I’m working on for my Asia project—you know, like that map I was doing.”

“Oh. Well, no blender. I’ll help you out on that.”

Because, I am a moron.

SO, thus began an ever deepening hole of paternal, and ultimately, maternal interference.

Because not only did I get to make paper, in the last four days I also wound up making an Ivory soap carving of a fu dog, a large model of a segment of the Great Wall of China, a printed itinerary for a imaginary 14 day tour of Japan (including travel distances and times for each leg of the trip), and a box lunch of three separate dishes, along with the recipe for each item. Mom got involved last night, doing a poster collage of a variety of images of China and Japan gleaned from a stack of National Geographics.

Boy was ever helpful—cutting and pasting and fixing and doing and mixing and assembling and such like, but frankly, there would be no way for any kid really to do all this junk without a big hand from their parents, mainly in the all-important task of project management. Given infinite time and resources, I know the young feller could have figured it all out himself, but something of this magnitude requires a ready-to-go set of skills in production means and methods that is beyond your garden-variety middle schooler.

I don’t know—maybe it’s all this blizzard of information we live in, where there’s so much access to so much stuff, that we seem to have come to think the past got there by a combination of magic and CGI. The fact you can pull up a billion images of every square inch of the Great Wall with nothing but a click of the mouse makes it seem less of a feat of engineering. Building a cardboard model of it (or helping Dad build one) is fun, but I dare say he still has little appreciation for just how massive such an undertaking was.

Me?

I think he’d have been better served to do fewer things, but actually do them himself, and not just the simple thing like origami. How about the teacher getting some stones, and some mortar, and a corner of the schoolyard, and letting the kids work and see just how stinkin’ hard it is to lay a straight wall on crooked ground, and then maybe get an appreciation for how long and hard it would be to do the same thing all across 4,000 miles of mountaintop.

Yeah, I know. Lawyers would love that.

Anyway, I am happy to say it all got done and transported to school without incident this morning, so who am I to grouse?

I just hope I get an A.

Trying to hang on to one tired fad just a bit longer...

itz

lol iron bowl!1!

Never let it be said...

...that I'm too busy to wish all of you a very happy Thanksgiving! So, all of you have a very happy Thanksgiving, okay?

Okay!

In the Mail...

Was minding my own bidness last week when I got a nice e-mail from a young lady named Rachel Patton with Turner Publishing asking if I'd like a complimentary copy of the book Historic Photos of Birmingham, by James Baggett, the head of the Archives Department at the Birmingham Public Library.

Apparently Ms. Patton hasn't heard that I shut this place down many years ago, since she wrote that she was sending the book for possible review consideration hereon. But hey, I'm a sucker for free stuff, especially picture books. So, I got Chet to come in from rewiring the transformer and let her know I'd be happy to receive the book and to offer my opinion.

A couple of days later, a big package was sitting at my place at the kitchen table, although I do wish I'd been looking for the shipment, because it apparently arrived a day earlier and sat on the front porch and got wet in the recent rains we had. Luckily, the book wasn't ruined, although it was a bit wavy around the edges.

The promotional blurb sent by Ms. Patton said, "This 10 x 10 book tell [sic] the pictorial narrative of Birmingham through culled-from-the-archives photography and informative text and captions."

Now most of you know I have a great affection for history and Birmingham and photos and historical photos of Birmingham, so I've got to tell you I'm already predisposed to give this thing a good review.

However.

I have to say that unless you are already well-steeped in Birmingham lore, you will probably be less than satisfied, unless you just like looking at old pictures for the sake of looking at old pictures. The captions are very short, and assume that the reader appreciates the history associated with place names such as East Lake, Avondale, Woodlawn, Ensley, or Lakeview, or Highland Avenue, or 1st Avenue and 20th Street, or with the names of the people such as Tutwiler and Jemison.

Each chapter is devoted to a different time period beginning from the City's founding in 1871 (although the earliest known photo is from 1873), and begins with a short introduction by Mr. Baggett. Now, again, these names and places are already familiar to me, and I dearly loved looking at the wealth of detail in these photos. But even if a picture IS worth a thousand words, photos this old, of people or places you might not know, means that a great deal of those words could just as well be in a foreign language.

I found myself longing for more exposition, even though I realize this isn't the point of the book. But in not providing a greater amount of textual clarification, it means that this book (or one of the 60 other similar titles offered by Turner) is destined to be limited in its appeal to the hometown crowd.

Second, although I appreciated the chapter breakdown by time period, within each chapter it seems as though more thought could have been directed at obvious groups of subjects. There are several photos of old motorcycles, for instance, that really begged to be more closely associated with each other. In another example, there are more than a few photos of the old St. Vincent's hospital and its staff. It seems a shame they weren't less randomly distributed--again, reading this as if I were a complete stranger to Birmingham, I might not have immediately understood they were related.

Another possible way of breaking down the subject was geographically. What was known in the old days as "The Birmingham District" was, and still is, a big, BIG area, and the randomness of the display of the pictures makes it difficult to grasp just how large of expanse of land is covered. I know it and appreciate it, but only because I'm already very familiar with where the locations are.

Having said all that, I still thoroughly enjoyed perusing the book. It really is amazing to see how quickly this old place sprung up from farmland to a real city. Another thing that's odd to me is just how big it looked. I don't know if it was the type of equipment used or what, but it's odd to look at photos from then and companion contemporary photos. The old grainy black and whites always look like they were taken in a huge metropolis, and the modern photos always make the place seem much smaller. And again, I just love looking at the details--the way a man wears his watch fob, the signs in the background, the piles of manure in the streets, the barely visible lettering on the fourth floor window, the old Studebakers and Nashes. Good stuff.

Another caveat, though. If you like old photos of Birmingham, it's really hard to go wrong by spending an afternoon browsing through the online digital collection of the BPL Archives. Many of the photos from the book are from this resource, and they are grouped and arranged and categorized in a way that makes gleaning the history and context of the photos much easier and more rewarding. The late (and perpetually mourned) Terminal Station gets its own section, even though I only recall seeing a glimpse of it once in the book. The book does present a short peek at Birmingham's once extensive network of public streetcar lines, but the website does it much more justice. And the Archives also maintains a blog site where they post recent updates to the collection.

All that's missing is that wonderful smell and portability of a book. Although it's worth remembering that these photos also exist in actual, real, holdable form. As someone who's made several treks across the park, I can attest that the Archives are a super place to spend time. The staff is helpful and friendly, and you can look through the old photos and clippings till your heart's content, and you can even order reproductions of just about anything for a nominal fee. One of my favorites is a reprint of O.V. Hunt's "Heaviest Corner on Earth" that I keep over in my history bookcase in the bedroom.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Historic Photos of Birmingham would be a good gift for anyone with a soft spot for Birmingham's photographic past, or anyone on your list who enjoys historic architecture. Just be aware that it's far from the whole story of this place, and that there are some companion resources that make reading it much more informative.

ISBN: 1596522542 / Publisher: Turner Publishing Company (KY) / Date: June 2006 / Page Count: 197

So there you go.

Finally!

Confirmation and recognition of my overwhelming genius.

Via several people who are even MORE overwhelmingly erudite and sophisticated than I am.

Not that I'm bitter.

Chet's In Heaven!

No, not like that.

I mean he's just really happy because we got an actual e-mail today, and that meant that Chet the E-Mail Boy got to swing into a flurry of activity (as flurrisome as he gets, at least) as he got busy transcribing it from Morse code to Linotype to a printed sheet for me to edit then back to the Linotype and then back to me with the final copy.

Gosh, this better be good:

from: Marc Velazquez
10:33 am (3 hours ago)
to: Terry Oglesby
date: Nov 6, 2007 10:33 AM
subject: Sonic Snack

Hey Terry!

I hope you'll forgive my "nudgings" to get you back into some kind of posting habit. I do miss the daily fun we had.

Then again, most of it was leftovers anyway...

With that said, please feel free to use the following for posting material: Have you seen and tried the new snack, Deep Fried Macaroni and Cheese Bites, from Sonic?

When I first saw the commercial I thought, "How did they get that from Terry?" You mentioned last week about the boys in the R&D Kitchen Lab were hard at work, thus my curiosity. The article I gave the link for mentions that Sonic is not the first to come up with this snack.

The closest Sonic to me is over 20 miles away, ergo no FMCB's for me yet.

Please shed some light on this snack scenario, oh Grand Poobah of AoW and Cornaguin creator!

As you know, we believe it's important to have a sharpened stick inserted into our foods, and we believe in large quantities. Ever tried to stick a wooden stick into a big bowl of mac and cheese and pick it up? Doesn't work very well. We wound up using that wagonwheel pasta stuff that has an axle hole in the middle, which worked pretty well, but then someone pointed out that there was no meat.

We tried working on a chili mac version, and that didn't work, either. Then we went back to the drawing board and decided to take some of our tender, farm-raised manatees and feed them a strict diet of macaroni and cheese, and as a result, we now have a new product--Mac'n'Cheesatees! All the rich, blubbery goodness of genuine Florida manatee, sprinkled thru'n'thru with tasty bits of pasta and wholesome American cheese, all wrapped up in a warm, crunchy cornbread-batter coating, and then deep fried in TRANS-FAT FREE OIL, and of course, served on a genuine hardwood dowel, precisely sharpened for your eating enjoyment!

So, you know, if Sonic wants to stick (so to speak) with their puny little puffs of macaroni and cheese, eh, whatever. I'd rather that they'd invest in more fresh-faced, tightly-packed leggy blonde corn-fed carhops, and find some way to do away with all the slack-jawed pimply doofus dudes. But that could just be me.

Or not.

[PS With the writers strike in Hollywood, this could be a golden opportunity for someone like you who has a talent for comedic writing. Not to mention your vast knowledge of fine Southern living!]

These people are supposed to be the cream of the creative crop, yet all I hear on the news are these goomers walking around and chanting the EXACT SAME "Two-four-six-eight-insert your insufferably twee demand here and attempt to make it rhyme with 'eight'" commie protester chant that's been around FOREVER! Buncha crappy hacks can't come up with something better than THAT!? And they want more money for it!? Please. I say it's time for studios to start outsourcing some of that work to Mumbai or Jakarta or Singapore. If you're gonna get rusty retreaded crap anyway, why not economize a bit?

Good thing I don't blog anymore or I'd have to say something about it.

Hope things are going well for you and the rest of the Oglesby clan. I'm already starting to get sick of seeing Christmas commercials, considering I'm still eating stolen "Halloween" candy.

HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY PATRIOTISM!! I blame global warming!

There now.

But yes, we're all doing just fine, thank you for asking. And NONE of us are in jail!

Anymore.

As for Hallothanksgivchristmannukwanzyear'sday, I'm not tired of it yet. Marc, however...

I use the quote marks since the candy came from the Harvest celebration at church, or whatever euphemism they happened to label it with. I did get my own bag of candy, though, at the end of the night after manning the dinosaur bean-bag toss and picking up those *$#% stupid bags for 90 minutes. Ah well, at least the kids had fun (I hope).

I saw Auburn is creeping up the rankings, though it would take a Bear Bryant-sized miracle for them to crack the top 8 and get into the BCS.

It's called "class," you know.

Anyway, Auburn won't get any sort of BCS recognition this year.

I watched some of the LSU-Alabama game and noticed some lovely ladies wearing houndstooth hats with yellow/purple coloring. It was pretty funny, unless you're a Crimson Tide fan.

And I know moron...

Well, at least Darth Saban had his somber face on after the game. Hmmm, maybe you can whip up some Cornabogs (batter-dipped and fried Bulldog on a stick) for the weekend?

Bountiful blessings,
Marc

Wow. Makes me wish I still blogged.

It sure is...

...pretty outside today.

Although I'd rather not have to have spent the last two hours looking at rubber and rocks.

ANYway...

Nope, still not blogging.

Although in fairness, there are things I do even less of than blogging, such as logging, flogging, clogging, bogging, hogging, jogging, slogging, and playing the home version of “Jeopardy” in my birthday suit. Okay, so that last one might be higher on the list, but not by much. Really.

ANYway, I had a few spare moments, so I thought I’d wander in and tell you ALL the interesting stories I’ve gathered up!

Sure wish I could remember some of them.

If only I’d had a way to write them down in an easily accessible manner, possibly using an electronic input/output data storage device. Or even a pencil and paper.

Well, let’s try it anyway.

I have a new clock. The old one—my pushpin clock that I’d made way back while I was in school—had to be stuck into a cork square (because my office walls are plaster over depleted uranium and can’t be pushpinned into) and then the cork in turn had to be stuck to the wall. The adhesive was such in name only, however, causing both clock and cork to come adrift and fall to the floor during the times I was absent of my office. Stupid “adhesive” squares. Anyway, the new one is from one of Martha Stewart’s very own Third World sweatshops, which I’m sure is tastefully decorated with found objects arranged in clever patterns that cause the workers to have calm healing energy and be at one with their simple and obviously superior low-carbon-footprint lifestyle. Or something. Anyway, I guess it’s been discontinued since I can’t find it on the Kmart (pronounced “kmart”) website. It has a satin aluminum frame with a convex lens and a black face with silver numberations, and thankfully it DOES keep time and DOESN’T fall off the wall.

That pushpin clock sure does have some good memories attached to it, though.

Oh well.

Let’s see—well, what about politics? Yet another election cycle seems destined to be frittered away with no one stepping up and challenging his or her competitors to a Texas steel cage death match. Why is this? Back in the olden days, this is what the Constitution called for in determining who’s fit to run the country, and yet here we are, acting like it doesn’t say that at all.

Science? Look, if those clamdigging scientist guys were really all that smart, instead of just killing Old Nasty for sport and telling a bunch of reporters, they would have gotten some hot blonde to crack it open with her high heels and made people pay to see it. As it is, they’ve just got an old dead clam.

Entertainment? Emily Deschanel in a Wonder Woman costume. I have heard that Bones is loosely based upon the life of a real forensic anthropologist, but no matter how loosely, I still find it highly unlikely that said anthropologist ever dressed up in such an outfit whilst simultaneously tracking down some deranged clown guy. And frankly, I do not care.

Local interest? Rush Propst. Of all that I’ve seen and heard the past few months, I can say one of the saddest things in this whole mess is that unlike Bear Bryant’s mother, Rush’s mother never seems to have told her son, “never wear your hat inside the house.” And he calls himself a role model.

Weather? Sure is nice outside. I think I’m going to go for a walk.

See y’all later!

Where have I been?

Why, in that bastion of red in one of the reddest states around, the University of Alabama! I had an asbestos inspector/project manager class that lasted all of last week, so I was even LESS in touch than usual. Good class, though. They do a very nice job and it was as enjoyable as anything about fibrous carcinogenic rocks can be.

Everything else is a blur, including several of the times I got home after a long day of coursework and took Middle Daughter out for driving lessons. She's actually not bad at it. We took an even longer jaunt yesterday, and she seems pretty settled. She makes mistakes, but doesn't freak out and get all flustered by them. At least not outwardly...

Let's see--Pup's doing fine, Kitty needs more exercise, Oldest continues to be overly melodramatic, Boy needs to shave, and Tiny Terror is working on being co-queen of the overly melodramatic. What I get to see of Miss Reba is pleasurable, but right now it's ONLY seeing, as her whole body hurts after taking a hard sit-down stair tumble last week while I was in class. Seems she missed the top step at the house and hit the first seven steps with her bottom and back before coming to rest on the landing. She's got bruises, and does NOT take kindly to my repeated suggestions that she needs me to massage the affected area. Go figure.

Anywho, I got a week's worth of work to catch up on.

Well, bless their hearts.

I signed up a while back for e-mail updates from some of our local television stations, and for the most part these have been less than satisfying from an information point of view, but, hey, they're free and you never know when something good might show up.

Such as the one I just got, which proclaimed with much shouty-all-caps--

I replied back with thanks, and with the hope that one of the imporvements will be the use of a spell check device of some sort.

Everyone hates hearing about dreams…

But I had somehow wound up in the gymnasium, and for some reason I couldn’t find the stairs to get up to the upper level. A lady told me there was a set of steps around the corner in the locker, so I went around the corner, but the locker was empty. I asked the person next to me where the steps were, and I was shown something like a vertical drawer that had a padded front. This pulled out from underneath the upper level, and it contained a giant extendable ladder. I figured out that you raised the ladder, and then climbed up it to get to the seats. Odd, but what the heck, right? Right.

I raised the ladder and clambered up the rungs, which were also padded and upholstered like the front of the drawer had been, with a soft squishy sort of beige Naugahyde attached to polished metal bars. It didn’t add much to the feeling of security, but I went on up anyway, rickety thing swaying back and forth.

I got to the level of the seats, and toyed with the idea of going all the way up to the top of the ladder, which by now stretched all the way up into the rafters of the gymnasium. It was already so wobbly, though, that I decided I’d gone far enough and carefully edged off the step onto one of the bleacher seats, where I stretched out to watch the game and sleep.

Remind me never to eat grilled chicken ravioli before bed.

ANYway, still not much in the way of enough free time to blog, but enough to stay abreast of the events of the day.

More or less.

The little pup Patches finally decided he’d try out his barking. He’s got a nice bark. Loud enough, but not too loud. Big enough to sound like a real dog, but not so loud that it’s disturbing. Small, but not yippy or yappy. And he only barks when there’s actually something to bark at, not just when everyone else in the neighborhood barks. I hope he doesn’t grow out of that.

Nearly killed myself yesterday. Or more precisely, was nearly the victim of patricide. We (the three younger kids and I) were outside playing keepaway with Patches’ glow-in-the-dark mini football. (He wasn’t playing, just watching us.) Anyway, I’d managed to get in the middle, and in a ploy to appear disinterested, would not try much to catch the ball as the kids tossed it back and forth, and didn’t make a lunge for it when it landed on the ground. When I saw that none of the kids were going to make a run for the ball, which had landed only a yard or so in front of me, I leapt after it and scooped it up in triumph and started trotting away when I was suddenly and without warning WHALLOPED in the back by Rebecca, who’d (too late) seen me grab the ball and decided to get it back by running after me and trying to grab me. The whallop threw me off balance, and since I was already trotting down a very slight downward slope, and what with the momentum of my doughy, formerly-athletically-gracefully mass now hurtling increasingly out of control toward the ground, it was pretty apparent terra firma was going to win a round.

I tried mightily to react appropriately. Back in the old days, my feet would have caught up with my now forward-plummeting torso. Or I would have deftly dropped a hand to the ground to arrest my top-heavy bulk. As it was, my little legs tried to run, but were hampered by the combination of age, and slick-soled wingtip dress shoes on slick grass. My upper body was firmly in the grasp of the earth’s gravitational field and the laws of motion, and despite my most valiant efforts, I crashed heavily onto the yard, digging a big ditch with my right shoulder and arm, and a smaller one a few milliseconds later with my knee. The overall effect was something like what happens when you have a runaway wheelbarrow full of wet cement. It was at this time that the puppy decided this looked like a very fun game indeed, and rushed over to snuffle and cold-nose me in uncomfortable places.

At least I did retain possession of the ball.

Alas, dignity took a beating.

I was able to have a nice supper of grilled chicken ravioli afterwards, so there is that.

What a woman.

And what a son.

Our prayers go up for you and the rest of your family, Fritz.

Awwww!

Well, that's about the oddest looking Eskimo spitz I've ever seen.

But how could I refuse the little girl who was going to have to pay for it? Rebecca's been doing volunteer work for the animal shelter that sets up shop at PetSmart, and this little pup came in a couple of weeks ago with a couple of littermates. It took up with her almost immediately and she wound up spending most of last Saturday and the Saturday before that sitting around holding it while it slept in her arms. And thankfully, her association with the shelter meant that she was able to pick up a new Dogloo for it free. It had been returned to PetSmart because it was cracked, so they were going to donate it to the shelter, but they don't use them, so the shelter's volunteer coordinator said Bec could have it for free. Which was nice, because it was one of the $150 models. So that was nice. Aside from it having a crack, which Daddy will have to fix.

ANYway, as for the puppy, it's some sort of beagleterrier, and it's relatively calm as such dogs go, and last night (its first night at Casa de Possum) it was quiet and didn't whine too much. And definitely didn't bark any. About the only thing that remains is for Rebecca to give it a name. Nothing has quite struck her yet, but I suppose it will come.

So there you go.

I have five minutes.

SO--

We have a fence, but no puppy.

I have new glasses, but find it difficult to see.

Alabama is 3-0, and Auburn is 1-2, and I blame global warming.

I remember now why it was nice to blog regularly, that being that it forced me to remember stuff. As it is now, I find it difficult to remember interesting tales of suburban bliss to share with you.

My yard has a fungus infection, which is worse than weeds, because if nothing else, weeds ARE green. The fungus just makes the grass turn black and die.

My car radio has given up. It's not the original one, and I'd think about replacing it except none of the car stereo places act like they make anything that will fit in a stupid twenty-year-old lump of iron. I have been reduced to riding around with a little transistor radio sitting in the pencil tray on the dashboard.

I'm not drinking nearly enough Diet Coke these days.

I finally got the paycheck with my raise included on it, and that is a very good thing indeed.

I have run out of my five minute allotment.

Nope, nothing to see here.

No pictures or anything!

My, aren't YOU a hardy soul!

Coming in here, with the full knowledge that I've quit posting anything.

Well, anything except stuff like this--

Well, let's see.

I had myself a meeting this morning, and I've somehow wound up tethered to a two-way radio, and I still haven't managed to make any further progress on putting up all my homey photos and pictures, nor with degreasing the office furnishings. I don't really care much for other people's skin-leavings, but especially not if they're of the enduringly sticky kind. I've got to remember to bring in some 409 tomorrow.

As for what I'm doing, some differences include no more Monday staff meetings, and the wearing of a tie is optional, and not at all encouraged. I like the first one, but twenty years of tie-wearing is a bit more of a hard habit to break. I don't particularly like wearing a tie, but one of my Rules of Polite Society is that people who wear ties get to do bad things normal people wouldn't be able to get away with. Like ending a sentence with a preposition, or using "like" instead of "such as." It's unfair, yes, but it does have its advantages. Anyway, I'm wearing the tie for a while until I decide what I can and can't get away with. Or with what I can get away.

ANYway, soup of the day is Cajun 15 bean soup with bits of smoked sausage and ham.

That is all.

The NEW Secret Possum Lair!

I finally got to use the computer at home, so now you can be impressed with the new digs. Or not.

How disappointing.

Taking valuable time away from getting MORE paper thrown away that belonged to the office's previous occupant, I did manage to get some photos today of my new digs. Problem? They came and took away my old computer I brought with me on Friday, and replaced it with the one that was here. And it's acting up and won't accept file uploads of any sort without locking up. SO, you'll just have to wait a bit longer for spy photos of the new secret possum lair.

Otherwise, things are hunky-dory.

Shhhh--

Maybe some pictures later, but don't say anything about it.

GRRRRRRRRR!

I was gone for exactly ONE FRIGGIN' HOUR, and I got back and they already had someone moving her stuff in my office! I SIGNED OUT TO LUNCH, YA FREAKS! Just because I've cleaned the office out does NOT MEAN I DON'T STILL HAVE JUNK TO GET DONE!

I mean besides this.

I actually still have work work to do.

Anyway, I was all set to come back and get that out of the way and do some other junk and do this final post, and the whole mood is just RUINED.

SO, I suppose I should finish up my work and get the heck out of here.

See you all after while.

It echoes in here.

Well, all the books and files and drawings and toys and photos and everything else has been moved downstairs to the new office. The desk has only a fine layer of dust on it, and the walls are bare, and I've gotten the old crappy phone out of the file cabinet to hook up when I leave.

It's very weird in here. Every little noise echoes like a gunshot, and even though my stuff is just downstairs, I miss it. Especially that wall full of kid artwork. There is a great melancholy associated with that empty expanse of corkboard, almost as if the kids themselves have been taken away. I don't like that feeling, so I'll be glad when Monday comes and clutter up the new place with all sorts of cheerful fish and flowers and houses.

Now then, I'm gonna go take Miss Reba to lunch, and then come back and maybe even write one more post.

A Blast From the Past!

Our old friend LittleA (not his real name), late of the less-that-regularly-updated blog A Little Aardvark Never Hurt Anyone, sent along a personal missive to me yesterday afternoon, but I thought all of you would like to see it and have a chance to give him a shout-out since it's been a while since he's unburrowed.

SO, without further delay:

I tried to post this in your comments And it kept getting rejected for "Questionable content". Well, duh. I did write it, after all...

I sense a disturbance in the farce and what do I find? A possum who's hanging up his spurs (ok, that visual is just a little too bizarre, even for me) and that I have enough lasting notoriety to be used as a bad pun (LittleA train? priceless!).

Congratulations on the new gig. May you find it fulfilling and fun, and not necessarily in that order.

Since you've been accused of pulling an ALANHA, I'll give you some free advice (worth every penny, guaranteed!) - don't overpromise what you'll be able to deliver here (not that I think you have). It took me a while to get over feeling guilty for not being able to keep up a regular pace (or any at all in the end). And most, nay, ALL of that guilt was self-induced. [/end sermon]

I've been all up and down these inter-tubes and I can say with conviction that Possomblog has managed to gather the nuttiest, kindest, warped(est), funniest group of regulars that have ever been seen. (but never in the same place at the same time...hmmmm...very suspicious) And it all starts with the Big Daddy Possum being such a nutty, kind, warped, funny guy.

Sir, I salute you!

Thanks for playing Possum.

The job is going very well. I'm working on course 3 (of 8) on my certification - only 18 more months to go. ::sigh:: The EAC has been sick all week, but hopefully today's third trip to the doctor will get her back on the right track. She moves back in to the dorm on Saturday - only 21 more months to go. The YAC is doing well - she still hasn't learned to drive, which suits me just fine. Mrs. A's mom had hip replacement surgery on Monday, so between the EAC's illness and that she's been pretty wrapped up. She (Mrs. A) will have foot surgery again in October, hopefully this time will fix what's wrong and she'll get some relief from the constant pain (no, not ME, silly).

About the only other thing of interest is that when the YAC stopped taking piano lessons, I started. I'm going for my 7th lesson right after work - same teacher that taught the kids. Poor woman - I don't think she knew what she was agreeing to.

Anyway, that's the news from Aardvarkia.

BE THAT AS IT MAY, it is awfully nice to hear from him and to hear how it goes with all the rest of the Aardvark family. Good folks.

NOW, I have some moving to do.

Peekaboo!

Well, HELLO THERE!

See, I do still exist! Sorta.

Anyway, I didn't exist yesterday because I was at home all day with a recovering sick child, and I haven't existed so far today because I had to catch up with an early morning meeting and then a host of other crap that seems to happen when I'm not in the office.

But, I'm here now, and it's just about lunchtime, SO, to catch up, on Tuesday previous, Catherine got up complaining of a headache, and being the cruel, heartless ogre I am, I dosed her up with a couple of Children's Chewable Tylenol, which had the analgesic capacity of a marshmallow. She's a big kid, and could tolerate some serious dope in her system, but I figured she didn't need it.

Turns out, she did.

She went on to school, then to the office around lunchtime with a severe headache, they tried to call Mommy (who was in Tuscaloosa for the morning, unbeknownst to anyone), then Cat went back to class, got worse, went outside and threw up on the ramp to her classroom, went back to the office crying, they tried to call Mommy again (who was still in Tuscaloosa for the morning, unbeknownst to anyone), then finally decided to call me.

Me, a cruel, heartless ogre who was by then in a meeting and couldn't leave, who called Grandma to go get the sick child, and who I still didn't think could possibly be all that sick.

Went on with the rest of the day, got off from work, stopped at Head Start on the way home to get my John Edwards-quality coif adjusted, went home to meet up with Mommy, who had finally gotten back to work from Tuscaloosa sometime after lunch to find a host of phone messages about a sick child, and then called her husband who said everything had been taken care of and Grandmom had her and not to worry.

Walked in, and Catherine was crying the big round hot tears that signal something is actually wrong. Turns out after she got to Grandmom's she threw up several more times, had been feverish with chills, had an ultra severe headache (which for some reason did not prompt Grandmom to give her anything other than crackers and Sprite and a CHICKEN SANDWICH), and the kicker, it hurt when she moved her neck.

Which can be Not Good.

Called the doctor's office, got the after-hours service, described the symptoms, waited for them to call back. Dosed her up with a big cup of liquid Motrin and waited. Got a call back from the nurse, described the symptoms, asked Cat to move her head, cry. "Can she hold her head down?"

"IT HURRRRRRTS! ::sob::"

Hmm. The nurse said to bring her in right now, and NOT to the after-hours clinic over off of Alton Road, but the actual Children's Hospital emergency room. Because she might have a case of meningitis.

Nothing quite like that bracing bit of reality to turn your blood to icy goo, y'know? Mainly because you can't freak out and start running around the kitchen flailing your arms and screaming, because that sets a very bad example. You have to be calm and jocular and in charge of your bladder.

SO, off we went to the ER. I left Reba at home with the other three kids, because I'm evil and stupid, but also knew they needed to do their homework, and eat supper, and get in the bed, and we didn't need to waste time getting them packed up and taken to Grandmom's house, where they would only eat, and not do their homework, or bathe, or get ready for school the next day.

Logic is quite the two-edged sword, huh. Because every time I called to let Reba know what was going on, I got the exact same disaffected, flat, atonal, monosyllabic answers to every question, which is wifespeak for "I can't BELIEVE you couldn't wait long enough for ME to go with you because it's MY BABY who's sick and you left me HERE." Of course, since I was already full of that dank wet fear that parents get when they have a child who might have just contracted something dire and deadly, I wasn't really in the mood to press her to get her to actually come out and SAY that's why she seemed angry.

The fact is, if she was really sick, we had no time to spare, and one of us needed to get her to the hospital, right then. Deal with the matrimonial drama later. Which is the way of cruel, heartless ogres, you know.

Anyway, loaded sick crying achy-headed child in the van, made the mad dash to Children's, cursing the current "Take Back our Highways" campaign the State Troopers are running right now that caused me to have to drive exactly the speed limit lest I get detained and waste time explaining myself to a sunglasses-wearing man in a Smokey the Bear hat.

Uh-oh. She's asleep. "CAT? Are you okay!?"

""Mmhm. I'm okay, Daddy," she said, not opening her eyes. Which meant she was either okay, or delirious.

Pulled into the drive at the hospital, opened the door, left the key with the valet, and walked her inside. She seemed to be doing much better. Tired, and bleary-eyed, but not really complaining.

First stop, security. Empty pockets of everything, still made the alarm go off, and as is the case with these things, the guy let me come on through. Talked to the triage nurse at the end of the desk who looked like Robin Williams dipped in a vat of hair growth serum.

Look, I know it's wrong of me, but I prefer nurses who are round and soft and squishy and smell pretty and don't look like they've been covered with epoxy and rolled around on the floor of a barbershop. And yes, even if it's a guy.

ANYWAY, told him our tale of woe, told him with as much anxiousness as I dared exhibit that our doctor was supposed to have called ahead because they thought it might be meningitis, all of which he dutifully took down with the same level of concern as the parking valet.

"Here. Fill this out, and bring it back to me."

Went and sat down, quickly filled it out and marked the Number 4 Face of Pain on the sheet to let him know she hurt lots, and gave it back to him.

And waited.

For two hours. In this time, Catherine perked up, her fever let up, she watched TV and talked to me about everything under the sun, and said she was hungry. Methinks she's better.

9:00 p.m. I called to let Reba know we still hadn't been seen and hadn't even gotten registered yet (where they take your insurance info and give you an armband) and got the first flash of anger when she misunderstood what I meant by "registered." Yes, I came in and filled out the triage form; no, we still haven't gone into the little booth to give them our insurance card. Yes, she's better now, and ate a bag of chips and had a Diet Mountain Dew, but I don't have any idea how much longer it will be.

All of these were answered with variations of "M-hm." Time to hang up.

Waited some more.

Decided I felt somewhat naked since I was the only adult in the area without a tattoo. Patients came and went, even the big batch who came in after us. All I have to say is that I'm glad she didn't have anything severe, or she'd be dead by now.

Around 10 we finally got called to the triage desk, where they weighed her, took her temperature and blood pressure, gave her a wristband, and sent us back to sit down.

Waited.

Finally got called to the registration booth. Gave cards, filled out forms, went back out and sat down to wait.

The room was nearly empty by now. 10:45 we finally got past the door into the actual emergency department to be seen by a doctor. By this time, Catherine was back to her normal chirpy, chattery, indefatigable self, so she was quite excited by all the activity. They gave us a room and a blanket and a gown, she changed, and we set in to watch Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel.

Doctor came in, saw a happy, healthy little girl, got a low down on the symptoms, noted that her neck and head seemed as mobile as an owl's, and we finally got the explanation of the hurtiness. Seems that she had no actual trouble earlier moving her head, it's just that when she did it, it made her head hurt worse. No meningitis. In fact, nothing left to find. They took a throat swab to check for strep, but he said he was almost certain it wasn't that, and could only guess that she'd gotten a virus of some sort that has since unvirused itself.

BUT, best to wait for the strep test before we left.

Called home around 11 to let everyone know she was okay, got a slightly less confrontational version of "Mm-hm," and then waited some more.

Wait.

Wait.

Catherine got comfortable and dozed off a couple of times.

Wait.

Ask how much longer the strep test will take to read.

"Several more minutes."

Wait.

We finally left at fifteen after midnight.

I had originally planned to stop for some food, but I was tireder than I was hungry, and so was she, so we went straight home, gave her another dose of Motrin to keep her from waking up with a headache during the night, and hit the pillow at nearly 1:00 a.m.

UP EARLY WEDNESDAY, got the kids up and dressed, took the middle two to school, came back home and sent Reba on to work, and set in to watch Youngest for the day.

Breakfast, email work to let them know I would be off, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and collapsed on the bed again for an hour or two nap. Catherine plopped herself down on the bed and interrupted my beauty sleep several times to ask how to spell various words, and after she was done, I awoke to see that she'd made Reba and me an anniversary card. Today is our anniversary, you know.

I usually send flowers, but being at home put a crimp in being able to go to the florist over where I work, so I hatched the idea that we'd get Mommy some flowers and take them to her at work, along with Catherine's card. UP, get us dressed, went to the grocery store and picked up a vase of a dozen roses, a card from me, and a couple of sandwiches for us for lunch (which I was looking forward to, seeing as how I hadn't eaten since breakfast on Tuesday).

Stopped and got gas, and got a phone call. A very perturbed-sounding woman on the other end demanded to know where I was and what I was doing. I told her we were about to come see her at work. This seemed to finally undo whatever miffedness she'd had built up. We set out and got to her work and surprised her with the flowers and the card, and whatever had been bugging her finally seemed to have lifted. She showed Catherine around and introduced us to folks, who thought it quite charming that her husband would think enough of her to bring her flowers and a cute little girl.

Back home, answered work emails (explaining that I was OFF FROM WORK), got stuff ready for supper, tried to take another nap and failed, started supper, went and picked up middle two kids from Grandma's, finished cooking supper when we got home, ate, then sent Rebecca outside to play with Lightning, had to corral Lightning after he went down inside the storm drain in our neighbor's backyard which involved having to pull the iron lid off the thing, got back inside and found out Reba was going to have to work late, went to church, came home, made sure everyone had their homework done, answered ANOTHER work email around 9:30, and climbed into bed.

THIS MORNING, got up, showered, got the kids up, dressed, hopped onto bed and quietly sang "Happy Anniversary To You (and Me)" to Miss Reba to wake her up, got the kids their breakfast, got them loaded into the mighty Volvo, took them to school, got to work, turned around and drove over to the Birmingham News building for a meeting, stood outside in the early morning nasty wet heat for an hour, came back to work and attempted to swat away clouds of giant angry hornets, had another meeting on my going away stuff, and then decided to post this to let you all know that I am sorta on the sleepy side today.

Now I think I'll eat a bit and pack some things.

WHEEEEEE!

Nothing like spending three hours explaining to someone various basic word-processing tasks such as cutting and pasting and indenting and printing!

"Okay, click out of that and open..."

"WAIT--[writing on steno pad] 'Close box by clicking on X' --Am I supposed to save that first?"

"No."

"Okay. [writing on steno pad] '...do not have to save first.'"

Look, I admit to being a technological igmo, but dagnabbit, at some point in there you've got to be able to have some sort of basic functioning knowledge of such things as this just to be able to move around in a modern society.

Especially if you're one of those people who like to run around and get into meetings and act like you know all about computers.

And then I remembered that the very nature of most bureaucracies is akin to the odd society where there is little reward for being clever, and the occasional incentive for being willfully ignorant.

So, I was happy again and came to eat my lunch! Homemade ham salad on a pita! Yumcious!

After lunch?

More instruction on the Rudiments of the Magic Talking Box.

Turns out...

...the grapevine was right.

This is the last week. Next Monday, I'll be down one floor, over three offices, and a world away.

Went down just now to scope out the new digs. The office is smaller, but not in a bad way. What I have right now is a lot of wasted floor space that makes everyone jealous, but the new place has the stuff I need--a desk, a computer, file space, and a nice drafting table. And it's on a corner, so I still get a view of the park AND a view toward the parking deck.

SO, this week, gotta get my boss squared away on how to use a computer and where all the magic paper is kept and stuff like that, and I really suppose I need to start boxing things up.

Oh, sure.

Karl Rove to resign at end of August

That's what he wants you to think. Thankfully, he'll be around a lot longer, if this story is accurate.

A confession.

I figure I might as well go ahead and say this since we're winding down and about to go into some sort of limbo for a while (or longer). I realize this has been a rather closely held secret of mine, but as I said, I think I owe it to you, my loyal readership, to move aside the curtain and reveal...

Thank goodness for the morning.

It's nice to get a little relief. I got up this morning and looked at my handy bedside clock/weather station and it was only 138 degrees outside.

GOOD MORNING! Yep, still here for a few more days. Or not. Nothing like surfing along on the waves of indefiniteness. As for the weekend, it was on the warmish side, I didn't get a haircut, I did do grocery shopping, and I think I have finally managed to trick one of the children into thinking vacuuming is fun! This could be life-changing. I have long told you how I hate using the vacuum cleaner, extending back to the time I was a child. But this weekend I was upstairs and sweating away and Catherine happened by and I asked if she'd like to play.

Sucker.

She wound up doing her entire room, including using the brush attachment on the picture frames, the hallway, the stairs, and most of our room.

Best part?

Rebecca was jealous she got to use the vacuum, and wanted to know if she could do all the vacuuming next weekend.

Oh, gee, I don't know YES YOU CAN!

I have no idea how this came about, but I'll not question why.

Not much else happened. It has been a quiet, more or less relaxing weekend, and I'll take every one of those I can get.

Now then, on to staff meeting.

And another week goes rumbling down the trash chute.

Not sure what the weekend holds this time. Rebecca won't be doing the PetSmart thing since they're having it on Sunday this week (or, technically on the first day of next week), and I really don't want to disturb the lawn with any sort of mechanized agitation, seeing as how it's somehow green and not crunchy, yet not overly long. That really is unheard of, at least on my little shovelful of dirt, when the lawn's usually displaying some grassy version of feast or famine--either jungle thick, or doormat dry.

Maybe I'll get myself a haircut, instead. But not with the lawn mower.

As for other items, the kids seem to have done quite well with the first day of school yesterday, with all of them professing an undying love for all things educational. I am hoping--because I have a naive Charlie Brown-like innocence
--that Oldest will also use this final year of high school to figure out that not everyone hates her and wishes her harm, and that she'll have a good, productive year with no irrational outbursts. Of course, the school year is only two days old now. And Lucy is holding the football for me to kick.

Maybe this year...

ANYway, still haven't heard anything official on the job change that is supposedly coming in only a week now, but I assume someone's taking care of all the arrangements right now, even as we speak. Or as I type and you read.

Looks like it's gonna be a great year for kicking those footballs!

SO, all of you have a great weekend, and we'll play for a little while longer next week.

Rain.

It's just one of those pop-up thunderstorms so I doubt there'll be a whole lot of water with it. At least not a lot spread out over time. Maybe it'll drop several tons of big gobby fat drops in about five minutes, which will then dissipate in a big cloud of steam.

Whatever--I'm sure glad to get it, no matter how it falls.

BRITNEYLAND!!

From our good friend and money-making-idea-man Marc Velazquez:

Hmmm, Britneyland...

If you have some free time tomorrow, maybe you could start a post and the gang could contribute ideas for opening the Axis of Weevil's Britneyland on the Redneck Riviera. It would be a great outlet for the Cornaguin/Cornatee inventory.

You could also have a "Possum Lair" section for kiddie rides. I'll stop for now and suggest a ride for the main park: Crash Cars while holding a baby on your lap (and driving with one hand as you're using your other hand to grasp a cold drink). Cigarette clenched in your lips is optional, though the park should be non-smokefree.

Was it Stan or Nate [It was Stan. Ed.] who could work on the lyrics for the "Look Away Britneyland" theme song for the park?

The Mississippi, Alabama, and Northwest Florida Gulf Coast might have a lot of other entertainment-type things going for it, but I know this sort of venture would be a sure-fire hit! Further suggestions gladly accepted in the comments, as well as congratulations to Marc for being so forward-thinking and pop-culture savvy!

Not Sin.

(But disturbingly close for my tastes.)

Anyway, got Cat from Grandmom’s, got home, unloaded, got some stuff out for supper, and was just about to get out of my work clothes when I noticed the answering machine flashing away. My medicine was ready at the CVS at the foot of the hill, so I got on a pair of jeans and my trusty Auburn sweatshirt, told Cat I’d be right back, and headed back out.

“Hmm,” I thought, which is usually what I think, and then I thought while I was out I would also get us some meat to go in the meatless fettuccine and sauce I’d been contemplating for supper, so I went on past the drug store and parked at the Food World, and strode in with the express purpose of getting some Italian sausage.

After several minutes trying to figure out where the Italian sausage was kept (by the ground beef, silly!) I snagged a pack, decided to get a pack of ground beef since it was conveniently nearby, and headed for the checkout.

Along with everyone else in town.

Must have been a memo about going to the store.

I stood there patiently along with eleventy-dozen other shoppers in three lines, and finally another line opened up, and in a nice turn of events managed to snag the number two spot behind a twenty-something odd couple made of a hyperactive Federlinesque goober and a stunningly well-packed lass, equally devoid of motor control and notions of societal constraints.

And joy of joy! The cashier was the sour old wart of a woman I usually get when I’m in a hurry! She seems stymied by any technology invented after the rotary telephone, and is resistant to logic when it comes to fixing things. I’ve stood there patiently (for some reason) in times past while she nearly destroyed the coupon-thing that spits out coupons for things you don’t want. She’s always somewhere else mentally, and gets perturbed when you point out that you only got two boxes of something, rather than 20. She’ll sigh, and have to figure out how to work the microphone to summon a manager, then fiddle with the key to try to crank up the override, and then go back to mindlessly scanning things with not so much as a grunt of consolation for having made a mistake.

Anywho, she’s gonna be my cashier. Right before I got to the conveyor, I spied a display of hot Italian bread, so I scooted over and got a loaf and put it on the belt with my two packs of meat. She gave the perfunctory greeting “heyhowreyout’night” without even the affect of a question mark at the end, scanned my stuff, gave me my total, and started putting the items in a bag.

I swiped my card, entered my PIN, pressed “yes” for the total, looked around, and what to my wondering eyes should appear but Ye Olde Cashier holding (nay, cradling) my just-purchased loaf of hot Italian bread gently--ever so gently--to her nose, her eyes closed in rapture, deeply quaffing the aroma of the bread into her vacant cranium.

“That smells good.”

Well, yes, I’m sure it does. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I bought it. But after I’ve bought it, I would appreciate it if you’d KEEP YOUR OLFACTORY RECEPTORS OFF OF IT!

Yes, I know--in the greater scheme of things this ranks no higher on the scale of minor indignities than when you take your car in for service and the mechanic feels duty-bound to readjust the seat, the radio, and the A/C controls because he was in the driver’s seat for about five seconds--but still, is there not some level of common sense that would make a person not act that way!? I guess the answer is obvious, but it nonetheless still surprises me when it happens to me.

Sin

Or, adding insult to injury.

In any event, seems as though the media always find a way in any tragedy to compound the misery by making sure to broadcast far and wide anything that will create controversy. Of course, if some people wouldn't find death and destruction such a tempting (if I may use that word) target for their own self-righteous tongue-clucking, maybe it would be slightly harder for the newspapers and teevee reporters to spread it around, but what do I know?

I do know that every time some self-annointed spokesman for God gets on the news to talk about why he wasn't crushed in an earthquake and other people were, invariably no one ever thinks to go to the source for comment.

When people start getting smug about how their goodness has protected them from the bad things that happen to those icky sinners, I remember this particular story from Luke 13:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

Gigantic, SUPER End-of-the-Year Omnibus Catch-All Post for 2009!

Well, it was certainly interesting.

I mean, you know, if you like that kind of thing.

Well, let's see:

1. If Possumblog still existed, it would now be 8 years old, having begun broadcasting on December 20, 2001. But it doesn't, so never mind.

2. I have a job. Still! It has not been slack over the past year for more than about ten minutes at a time, so for that I'm real grateful-like. I think it's something like what they used to call "job security," although sometimes it's more like a big aneurism in my head.

3. I got some very nice shirts for Christmas, and a steam mop, and a combo fax-printer-scanner-copier-hot air popper, and some socks, and candy, and some ties, and other things. They were all very much appreciated.

4. I am a bit concerned that the air travel security system that was noted in the past few days as having worked as designed relies so heavily on hoping for the failure of PETN-laced Nigerian underpants to explode. We should be safe as long as no one other than Wile E. Coyote tries to attack us.

5. The Volvo continues to roll up the mileage. It hit 260,000 miles a couple of weeks ago and kept right on puttering along. However, if anyone would like to give me a nicer car, I would certainly be willing to take it. Thanks!

6. The children are now grown, at least for all practical purposes. A harbinger of the years to come visited itself upon us this weekend, when yesterday we sent the three who still live at home off to Huntsville for some sort of church camp thing. The house is now completely empty of them, which left time for Miss Reba and I to be on our own for a few hours yesterday. We used our new steam mop on the kitchen and bathroom floors.

7. I gained weight this year, even though I tried not to. I'm hoping that next year I will lose weight, even though I will try not to.

8. (Reserved)

9. I have a marimba in my garage. It is a fascinating instrument that I did not fully appreciate until Boy and I had to disassemble it and bring it home. I believe it marks yet another example of extraterrestrial alien contact, because quite frankly I cannot understand how any human could have ever figured out how to make a musical instrument from the remnants of a boiler explosion at a parquet-flooring factory.

10. The dog and the cat seem to have reconciled themselves to each other's presence and get along fine. Aside from the occasional random cat-induced violence.

So there you go. Hope all of you had a good year, and have a better one next year!

What’s a Thursday without a Three?

Hmm? What’s that? You don’t understand what I’m saying?!

Well, first of all, that’s because I’m not saying anything, I’m writing it.

And second, actually, I’m not even doing that, since I don’t blog anymore.

But by way of backstory, here at Possumblog back when it was fully funct (and not defunct as it is now), we (the editorial we) and our (again, editorially) vast swarm of readers would take every Thursday and engage in a bit of alliterative memery, namely, the Thursday Three. Three (or more) probing, insightful questions would be proffered by the editorial staff writers, and readers would chime in with their very own answers to said questions. By doing so, we (collectively) could all learn what made each other tick (or how we got ticks) and revel in each others virtual companionship.

Believe it or not, at one time the Thursday Three was the most widely-read and participated-in, weekly day-of-the-week meaningless Internet meme in the entire world. (You shouldn’t believe that.)

Sadly, though, as occasionally happens with such things, the fun came to a screeching halt on August 1, 2007 when I was getting ready to take on my new job and pretty much lost the free time I once had to sit around and piddle and maunder. Since that time, I have completely never blogged ever again--not even a single post. With the exception (maybe) of the last Thursday Three on August 9, 2007.

So, why am I posting something now?

I’m not. Since I don’t blog anymore, this can’t be a blog post.

However, my good friend Jim Smith (his real name) mentioned he’d like to see something like the ol’ T-3 from Possumblog again. You know, it being that his 60th birthday is coming up this Saturday. Not that there’s any pressure.

Geez--nothing like a load of GUILT to make you heave a heavy sigh and grudgingly grab your keyboard and knock together a quick simulacrum of a quiz to give all both of my remaining readers something to do for several minutes. And celebrate Jimbo's SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY! ICE CREAM AND PONIES AND CAKE!

But how to do this, since I no longer do this?

How about the Non-Thursday Non-Three!

Sounds good to me.

SO, take a moment to peruse the following non-three non-questions and either leave your answers in the comment section below, or a link to your blog (although it’s been so long since I’ve done this, the idea of people having a blog is so early-21st Century that I should probably have some accommodation for you not-quite-as-early-21st Century Twitter people. Good thing I don’t care about you like that.)

ANYwho--since we’re coming up on Thanksgiving, answer me these nonqueries:

1. What one person are you most thankful for this year?
2. What one thing are you most thankful for this year?
3. What one event are you most thankful for this year?

AND, as a big fat bonus unquestion:

4. So, how’s it going? How’ve you been lately?

Okay, go off and figure those out. As for my answers...

Veterans Day

Left to Right: Dale Crabtree; my dad, Alfred Oglesby; Herman Taylor
circa 1944, US Base 3115, Hollandia, New Guinea

FINALLY! Something worth posting about!

From down in the comments below, Chef Tony wanders by with a request:

"Hey y'all, my friend Shane is in the 'Stan. He & his troops are in the middle of nowhere and I'd like to make them a bit more comfy. If you can help by sending & asking others you work & know to help in this it's be great. I know I loved getting ANYTHING from home while I was in Viet Nam (68, 72) and I'm going to pay forward on that. Google has good info on how to pack and ship but I can help there too, 612 703 6573. Thanks much & take care."

Begin forwarded message:

Tony,

After sitting down with some of the boys and discussing "wish lists" I've nailed down a few items that would be in demand around here. Since we have no PX, toiletries are a real pain for us. That being said, the following is a cursory list of things the guys would like:

-soap
-toothpaste
-toothbrushes
-dental floss
-shampoo
-shaving cream
-razors
-foot powder
-deodorant

Some other items the boys would like:

-Christmas decorations (small fake trees, lights, ornaments, etc.)
-Snack foods (cookies are great--but anything would be good)
-books
-magazines
-coffee (the stuff in the chow hall is awful)
-drink mixes (Gatorade, lemonade, etc.)

This is only a very generic list. If there is anything else you can think of I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated. Just don't send items such as alcohol (sadly, we are not allowed to drink) or anything that might be restricted from going on an airplane such as explosives, aerosols, ammo, and other stuff like that.

Again, I thank you for thinking of us and your continued support. It means a great deal to know that the folks back home think about us.

Take care and God bless.

Shane

It just occurred to me that a mailing address might be helpful. ;-)

My address is:
MAJ Shane Gries
201st VTT
Camp Blackhorse
APO AE 09320

Thanks again!

Take just a moment and think of their sacrifice, and please find a way to let Major Gries or someone like him know of your support.

Spam

I have been having a lot of problems lately with comment spammers, and have tried to take some steps to cut down on the mischief. One of those was to default to closed comments for new posts.

However, I didn't really remember doing that, so no comments were allowed on the last post, and I thought surely there might be some interesting discussion about it. SO, for anyone who'd tried to comment on our Dear Leader's recent award in the previous post, that was the reason for not being able to comment. Well, that, I didn't want to subject him to even the remotest possibility that someone might say something unnice about it all.

I'll close them back up after a few days to forestall anymore comment spam later on. Maybe.

Debasing the Currency

I awoke to a supreme suprise this morning (along with millions of people who have seen the potential to live their lives free of tyranny begin to wither away once more in the face of American fecklessness) to see that our President has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kudos, sir.

Although there seem to be many people who cannot understand how such a thing can happen so soon in his tenure (after all, it took History's Greatest Monster 22 years after he left office to receive his), I believe this seemingly inexplicable award is the result of concept best explained in the words of Mr. Obama's predecessor in the office:

"The soft bigotry of low expectations."

Why I love the Internet

In the course of my work, I have to prepare "notices to proceed" for contractors on a regular basis. This is just a simple letter instructing them when a project is supposed to start.

That's the easy part.

The hard part is trying to tell them when to stop.

Every contract has a total calendar day duration, and so you have to add the requisite number of days to your start date, and that gives you your end date. Now, I can usually do a pretty good job of counting days up to around 31 or 32 or so, but since I don't have access on my computer to any of our construction scheduling software (don't ask me why), anything with calendar days past about a month reduces me to trying to add several months together in my head, ticking back or forth with a pen to the start date, and then finally to the end date. Or something. For those of us with severely diminished smartness capacity, a simple task like this amounts to a Saturn V launch. Especially when it's something oddball like 350 days or something. Or the phone rings. Or the guy's standing there waiting on you to add numbers. Or you hit yourself with a hammer.

Anyway, today I had one of those long ones with 350 days.

Being that I don't know anything, but I usually know where to look for the answer, I got to wondering if there was a handy tool on the Web that I could insert the start date, tell it how many days, and then let it do all the ciphering and give me a finish date.

Lo! And beHOLD! Three seconds of typing calendar date calculator into Google got me one such neat handy tool from timeanddate.com. (Very inventive URL, by the way!)

Anyway, it works very well--much better than spending agonizing minutes looking like a monkey with a seizure disorder trying to add up months in my head. Just another one of those tiny things that makes life pleasanter.

In other news--it's a very pretty day outside, and I love bunnies and kitties!

Of all the things...

...I decide to break silence for, this would have to rank right down there as the stupidest. With as much as is going on in the world, surely I should be able to come up with something better.

Then again, that’s my critique of the new Jay Leno show.

All that hype, all that talent, all that money (although we have been assured repeatedly that it’s much cheaper than doing a one hour weekly drama—as if I care), all those local television news reporters dragooned into counting down the days until the premier, and that’s all there is to it?

Now part of this is that I’ve never been a huge Leno fan—I like him best when he’s talking about cars. And that’s about it. I liked him when he was young, but his delivery grates on me, and it’s not gotten better with age. But I do sorta chuckle when he does Jaywalking, and stuff like that, and so the premise of the new show—“Jay doing the stuff people actually think is funny, and cutting out all the crap” at least sounded promising.

Hate to tell ‘em, but they’ve got a lot more to cut.

How about the opening monologue? Or, alternately, if you’re going to have one, at least make it funny.

Kevin Eubanks? I have felt, and continue to feel, very sorry for him that he has to do this job, although I’m sure lots of money makes a good salve for the ego. But he’s not Ed McMahon (late or otherwise) or even Andy Richter, and the skit with the Lenolookalike was disturbing and not funny.

Comfy chairs? They looked uncomfortable to me. Then again, that could have been my reaction to special first guest, Jerry Seinfeld. Gee, a guest about nothing! And I like Jerry Seinfeld. But he nailed it—why have him on? He’s been off the TV forever, and doesn’t have anything new to promote, and his interaction with the weird Head of Oprah was painful to watch, and I don’t care about his wife’s cookbook, and his hair is thinning in a disturbing manner, and he wasn’t funny—and not in a good way.

Kanye? Kan ye just say no? Look, I know he’s topical, but again, not in a good way. He’s an insufferable twit, but sure, go ahead and have him on to sing and all that if you really must, but please, don’t feel the need to “interview” him. Or, if you’re going to go through with that, don’t do it on the comfy chairs—put him behind a table in a hard metal chair with a hot spotlight on him and scream at him to confess or something. That’s what they’d do on CSI. And it would at least be entertaining. Sorta.

The singing comic guy was kinda funny, the ads were funny, the musical act wasn’t my kind of music, but whatever—music’s okay to have. So, you’ve got about a thirty minute show. And oddly enough—none of it really relies on Jay. The ads are funny because someone else screwed up, the segment with up and coming comics is funny because they actually have to work at it, and bands are a completely different, non-Jay sort of thing. This means they could save an even BIGGER load of money if they’d just hire someone to emcee the show in a nice, low-key, witty sort of way, and let someone else who’s actually good do the entertaining parts.

But what do I know—I’m just a viewer. I guess I’ll go back to watching the hour of “King of Queens” reruns that comes on then, or the “I Spy” reruns on Retro Television Network.

How about that for an August?!

Not that I remember much of it.

That was one of the good things about all those years of obsessive blogging--I had a way of recording all the silly and serious stuff that happened before it left my brain pan. But the now-no-longer-new job leaves not a lot of time for reflection and/or mindless drivel. Actually, the volume of work means I don't really get to do the job very well, either. At the moment, I've got about 40 various construction jobs from a few thousand to a few million dollars worth for which I'm supposed to provide varying degrees of oversight, and even the smallest nickle-and-dime jobs require constant babysitting and butt-covering. I can't get one thing done for having to go and do twelve other things that are suddenly CRITICAL. What time I have left over is devoted to trying to scoop my neurons back into a pile. I get to check in a little with folks online and read a few news feeds occasionally, but it's hard to get into the swing of trying to formulate a pithy comment about anything. You have to get into a groove for that sort of thing, y'know.

You'd think that with my current schedule (four 10 hour days with Fridays off) that I'd be able to maybe take that Friday and have a great big Possumpalooza of stupid junk to read, but alas, Friday is now just as busy as Saturday and Sunday used to be (and, in fact, still are). F'rinstance, this morning I took Cat to school, went to do the Winn-Dixie leg of the grocery bill, went to the bank to pay the mortgage, stopped beside the road briefly to weep uncontrollably for my bank account that has the integrity of a cotton candy fishnet, unloaded groceries, put up the ironing board that Rebecca left out, came upstairs to gather up the laundry, stopped to write this, and afterwards will separate the clothes, put the blue jeans in the wash, go do the Aldi leg of the grocery bill, come unload the groceries, fold jeans and prepare to do the other six loads of laundry to be done this afternoon, go pick Catherine up from school, maybe get Jonathan to take him to the stadium for the football game tonight, go to the game tonight (10,000 STRONG!), come home late and help the kids pack to go white-water rafting with the other kids from church tomorrow morning, and then collapse in the bed to try to get ready for tomorrow. I don't mind doing that stuff, but all that makes it difficult to do much of this here thing. Good thing I quit doing this here thing!

Anyway, if I were still blogging, I would have many uncomplimentary things to say about our current Administration. And for the people who seem shocked and dismayed that it's turned out this way. As Dr. Reynolds is fond of saying, "So, who are the rubes again?" But some people just refuse to pay attention.

Not that it would have been any better with the alternative. I really like Sarah Palin, but she wouldn't have been the President, it would have been Mr. Unpredictable Maverick. And unlike now, he wouldn't have had the press fawning over his every move, and actively supporting his agenda, and proclaiming how wonderful it is to have all these wonderful funemployment opportunities for urban swells, and would probably take more than a little interest had Mrs. Palin said anything about bankrupting the country in order not to bankrupt the country. Hard to tell what would have happened in an alternative universe of a Republican win, but even if the status quo of the Bush days had held on, we'd have never heard the last of how awful it was. And, again, that's assuming it would have still been good--as it is, Senator McCain's one consistent quality is his fundamental inability to be consistent. Add to that the fact that he has just about as much spendiness and government-interventionalism in his genes as a regular old Democrat, and that he would have had to work with a Democrat-dominated Congress. I'm afeared the spending and stupidity would have been just about as reckless as now. But, again, the press wouldn't have been so cautious in squealing about it.

Anyway, I guess America is just fated to occasionally have to be reminded of how awful it is to try to answer every problem by letting a Washington full of bureaucratic nannies handle it.

Just remember--if you thought FEMA's reaction to Katrina was bad, what makes you think that the same people could do any better with universal government-funded and controlled healthcare? Sheriff Joe and The Lightworker, despite their good press and the overwhelming confidence they place in their vast intellectual depth, cannot make this work.

Yeah, I know--I'm just an ignorant racist idiot who can't be compelled to vote or think the right way, even when it's just so obviously in my financial best interest to do so.

But then you all already knew that!

Anyway, I'm gonna go do my laundry.

I had lunch...

...with My Friend Jeff^tm today, and we noted one thing in particular about the young edgy urban hipster demographic of which neither of us are a part.

That being, if you bear a passing physical resemblance to a young Al Pacino as Serpico, a seersucker suit is really not the thing to wear.

Even ironically.

Even post-ironically.

Know your limits, my friend. Know your limits.

Greatest thing about no longer blogging?

I no longer feel compelled to post that I'm about to have a birthday. I mean, after a while, what else can you say about getting another year older that hasn't already been said, right?

Right.

So I'm freed from having to think up wise stuff to say, or worrying about what sort of wonderful, expensive gifts I'm going to get from everyone, and I can just go on about my day tomorrow as if it's any other day.

Thank goodness!

Oh, and I don't have to think of any clever rejoinders for people when they point out they have underwear older than me, or, for younger readers, that I'm old enough to be their grandpa's Victrola repairman. That's a relief, y'know, being that I've been out of cleverness AND rejoinders for some time now.

I'll just relax and do all that fun work-related stuff that I don't blog about, either.

Wow!

And I don't mean that lightly.

Obviously, they'll appeal, because that's what lawyers do to make more money from their client. But for those who've watched this ridiculous egocircus play out, and for those who were damaged by it, it's still refreshing to see this result.

I bet someone's kicking himself now that they didn't request a jury trial so they could parade around with pancakes and preachers and stuff.

Well, I don't quite know what to make of that.

Had to stop at Target on the way home from church last night for some stuff. I parked and let Reba and Cat out to go in while Boy and Rebecca stayed with me in the car. Rolled the windows down and sat there for a minute to quietly collect my thoughts.

Been a long week and all.

Sat there vegetating, and ever so steadily, the sound of the shopping center's piped-in music began to register in my mind. The same instrumental, quiet, pervasive, calming tones one hears in elevators and suburban strip malls.

It's...no, surely not.

Then Jonathan piped up, "Hey--you hear that!? It's that song from Guitar Hero!"

Otherwise known as "Paint It, Black" by the Rolling Stones. Shorn of every bit of rollingness or stonitude, dipped in warm goo and made background noise for people walking to and from their car.

It was just all kinds of odd.

High and Hot

I enjoy my chosen vocation, aside from two things--having to climb up on top of things, and getting all hot and stinking from performing that task.

I have always been a bit unnerved by heights anyway, and now that I wear bifocals, it's worse. You glance out the bottom of your lenses and the world goes all blurry, and that's very disconcerting when you're on the edge of a roof.

And then there's this whole thing of having to climb that ladder--wobbly aluminum extension ladders, laid up against slick metal copings or fascias, and never with enough sticking out at the top to hang onto as you make that last step onto the roof.

Finally, let's face it--I am not feathery. Even though in my youth I was blessed with the stunning athletic grace of a young Junior Samples, age has slowed my reflexes somewhat, and I must admit I now have the supple elegance of a lard-filled barrel. And once you put a lard-filled barrel atop spindly aluminum spindles, well, it's just not good.

So--going up, bad. Coming down?

An order of magnitude more bad.

You've got that whole "can't see out the bottom of your glasses" thing, and the dizzying feeling you get when you're off the ground, and the shaky slidy ladder part of the equation, and then there's the certain knowledge that the laws of physics are trying their best to kill your blobby self. Maybe if I did this all day, every day, it might be better. I might get used to it, and be like one of those crazy Mohawk ironworkers who build skyscrapers.

Somehow, I doubt it.

Anyway, you get all through, and manage to get back to earth without dying, but you smell like you have.

It's late spring here in the sunny Southland, meaning it's already like Satan's own barbecue outside, and it's even hotter on top of a building, and even sweatier when you're losing fluids due to intense fear. And then you have to come back inside the building and have afternoon meetings with polite folk who don't sweat and stink in public. To top it off, I have to go to church tonight for our vacation Bible school, and be around other people who've gotten to go home and wash off the day's funk. Me? I'll have another five more hours of accretion of stinkbits before then.

Other than that, though, it's all good. And they pay me regularly, too. So file all this under observations, not complaints.

Okay, so I admit I'm biased.

But still.

Middle Girl has been taking an art elective in school this year, and they have put on an end-of-the-year art show, and she was very excited that she had three of her pieces displayed.

Now, I do pretty well for myself when it comes to such things--I can draw and paint in a variety of media and I know some things about 3D-type artwork, and there's that whole architectural thing, and so I tend to be a little difficult to impress.

I've posted some of the kids' artwork before when it was of obvious merit, because I do like to brag on them and such. But I have to say, even after stripping away the nepotism factor and such, when she sent me this cell-phone picture of her collagraph print, I was amazed.

That's very good work, I don't care who you are.

(And no, I've not started blogging again.)

Yet another Gate

I noticed this entry from Dr. Reynolds headlined, "PROFLIGATE BORROWING AND SPENDING," and, as with all other Washington-grade scandals, the first thing that came to mind was that someone must have started labelling the wealth-spreadin'-around grift being conducted on us as "Profli-Gate."

Much as I hate the endless -Gate suffixing of everything, this one fits pretty well.

It has been brought to my attention...

...that the last time this page changed, it was an entirely different month.

What’s the old saying? “Time flies when you’re having so much garbage to shovel that after the first hour you’d already gone through the entire gross of flimsy plastic sporks they gave you and so afterwards you had to make do with both hands and a torn Ziploc bag, not that it matters, because the garbage pile grows logarithmically, and to help out, a large array of new garbage spewing machines has been set up in a pleasing pattern about you so that no matter where you look, a cascading rainbow of effluvia splatters all around with an annoying, thrumming, ‘ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa’—” oh—wait, that’s not how it goes, is it?

No matter. Anyway, it’s been busy here, which is good considering the amount of non-business going on in other parts of the economy, but the genial watercooler quip about at least having job security still doesn’t ring quite true. You never really know what could be around the corner, other than it’s probably large and hungry and full of teeth. Something about having parents who grew up during the Depression does that to you.

So, anyway, work continues.

Family? Yep, they still exist. School’s about out, which is weird, because they started in August, and that was just last week. All the kids continue to grow up—Boy’s now nearly a head higher than me. Luckily, I can still take him, since I outweigh him by another him. He just got back from a band cruise that stopped in Cozumel, so he had to go get checked for the flu because of the cough he had. Caused by staying in the pool nearly the entire trip. No flu, no strep. And he didn’t get swept overboard or have his guts liquefied by either Mexican water or a contaminated salad bar or get caught up in the crossfire of a drug cartel gun battle. All of which are things parents imagine happening until said child is back at home. He had a bad sunburn, too.

Tiny Terror got herself an iPod Touch. She’s been saving her money for months and months now, and after all that saving and a robbery of the Great Crayon Bank, she’s now part of the iGeneration. Pretty cool little tool. The iPod, that is.

Middle Girl is still rockin’ right along—just finished up soccer season, still working at the vet’s office, still making good grades (they all do, but she seems a bit more driven to do her work).

Oldest has finished her first year of college. For long-time readers, you can all pretty well imagine how it went. For first-timers, you don’t really want to know.

Miss Reba is still working too much, but it’s not as bad as it was. Or at least it doesn’t seem that way, looking at it from the outside.

As for other stuff, I just don’t have enough excess brain capacity to ponder much more than the fundamental things of remembering to wake up each morning, brushing my teeth, and making sure I have on most of my clothes. Every couple of days I see something that angries up the blood and makes me want to launch a tirade, but then I have to get back to shoveling. Like, right now, for instance.

What I did on Saturday.

Caution: Contains Volvo-related content. May not be suitable for anyone with an IQ higher than 12.

Words of Wisdom

Axis of Weevil-style! Many of you know (at least in the virtual sense) Larry Anderson of KudzuAcres--noted bass player, developer of the Free Mercedes promotion, occasional patron of Billy Joe Bob's BBQ Emporium--but many others of you still might not realize Larry is an entrepreneur, which is a French word for "smart American."

Despite the economic gloom of late, Larry's company managed to do pretty well last year, and is on track to do even better this year. His business advice is distilled down in this article from The Huntsville Times.

Oddly enough, none of his business advice involves blogging. Then again, none of it involves rebuilding Weber carburetors, either. Or gunfire. Or really attractive women in swimwear.

Hmm.

Maybe being an entrepreneur ain't what it's cracked up to be.

ANYway, congratulations to Larry, his partners, and to their employees on their success!

Mmmm!

Fourth-grade class bill passes Alabama House panel to make manatee state's marine mammal

Possumblog Kitchens reminds you nothing helps you celebrate the state's official marine mammal like a big plateful of Cornatees, the cornbread-battered, deep-fried, manatee-on-a-stick treat that EVERYone loves!

For children in the middle part of Alabama…

…there is nothing so tantalizing as snow. Just far enough north to know for a certainty that it could snow, if only it would snow. Just far enough south to make it an equal certainty that it will never snow this year, and probably won’t ever snow again EVER, and your life is ruined by the absence of powder stuff from the sky. And to make it worse, you remember the few times it DID snow, and in the deep recesses of your memory from when you were just a little kid (you know, three years ago), it was the bestest snow of all time, and you played outside for five weeks, and the snow was fifty feet high, and you made a snowman that weighed a billion tons.

And then, when you least expect it, after hardening yourself to never ever trust TV weathermen, you wake up one Sunday morning, on the first day of March (!), and the whole world went white.

And then your parents make you get up and go to church.

Because, despite the fact that the trees are white and there’s a good three inches of fat wet flakes on the ground, the roads are clear. So you have to go and sit through class and church, hoping against hope that once you come out of the building, it won’t have all melted away.

And it didn’t!

You can barely wait to get home, and you figure it won’t hurt if you get to go out to eat first, because at least now you can see the snow and you can tell it’s all still there.

BUT THEN—you come out of the restaurant, and the snow packed sidewalk you encountered when you first walked in is now dry and clear—and the snow’s dropping off the power lines! AGGGHHHH!

You get home, throw off your good clothes, get on something else you think will be warm, and run outside before it’s all gone.

Nothing like Southern kids in the snow. Clothes wet through and through, soggy cotton gloves, filthy jeans from flopping down in the melting wet snow which covers a now-sodden mush of red clay and grass, snowballs made of equal parts dirt, pine straw, grass, possibly some frozen dog poop (well, it looked like rocks, sorta), and snow, packed into ice as dense as depleted uranium, ready to make your siblings cry when it comes punching into their frozen noses. You wish it would snow forever--and then you begin to notice you can’t feel your face or fingers. You wonder if you’ve got frostbite like that guy in that TV show whose nose turned black and fell off. So you figure it might be good to go inside and eat popcorn and watch a movie and thaw out.

Maybe it’ll snow again tomorrow!

History Stuff

As an update to last month's family history roundup, my kinfolk encouraged me to submit an article to a couple of the smaller papers in the area to see if they might be interested in the family name story.

Nicely enough, both the Centreville Press and the Tannehill Trader decided to run the piece--the former running it yesterday, and the latter to run it next month. I haven't seen the actual print version yet, so just in case there is any editorial editing that got done between submittal and printing, following is the article as it was written. ALSO--an extra great big thanks to my editor, Dr. James Smith, noted professor of management at East Carolina University and a former denizen of Bessemer. Jim looked over the article and made some much-appreciated comments, so he gets full blame if anything goes horribly wrong.

NEW RESEARCH ON LOCAL SLAVE CEMETERY
Oglesby Family Members Seek to Correct Error in Cemetery Name at Tannehill

By Terry Oglesby

February 9, 2009—BIBB CO., AL—For many years, history publications have stated that Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park is the site of the Oglesby Plantation Cemetery, a supposed resting place of 400 slaves owned by one of Bibb County’s early settlers. Family members familiar with their history disputed that idea, and set about to conduct their own research to determine what the real story is.

The Hickman Cemetery between Green Pond and Tannehill is the burial site of an early Bibb County settler, Sabert Oglesby. He had arrived in the New World from his native Scotland and originally settled in South Carolina. He was a veteran of the American Revolution, having served in the 4th South Carolina Artillery Regiment, and later still fought in the War of 1812. Sometime around 1820, he and his wife brought their large family of nine children to northern Bibb County, settling in the Green Pond area.

A host of Oglesby’s descendents now live across the United States, including many in Alabama who remain in Bibb, Jefferson and Tuscaloosa counties–and an important part of the story of their history has now been corrected.

For some time, Sabert’s name has been erroneously associated with a cemetery of unmarked graves on property now belonging to Tannehill State Park. The misnamed “Oglesby Plantation Cemetery” is referenced in several publications as containing 400 unmarked graves of slaves who were workers at the Tannehill ironworks, and who were purported to have belonged to Sabert Oglesby, or to his Presbyterian minister son (also named Sabert, born in 1809).

However, recent research conducted by several Oglesby family members casts doubt on the identification of the cemetery.

They found that the actual number of graves is unknown, and could be as few as twenty-five. While there could have been 400 workers at the Tannehill Ironworks during the height of the Civil War, and slaves were part of that workforce, it is implausible to think such a large number died and were buried nearby.

Research of records from the time period up to the Civil War has not documented that Sabert (or his namesake son) owned any slaves, nor that they ever owned the land. Although the land was owned by another family member (probably Sabert I’s son, George), no information has yet been found that ties him to the gravesites, either.

How this mistaken identity came about is still unclear. It appears Sabert Oglesby II’s name and the incorrect number of gravesites was first used in a story published in 1991 when the park was being developed. The error was then picked up by other published accounts of the park’s history in the years afterward.

Three cousins, Kenneth Oglesby, Charles Adams, and the author, each descendents of the pioneering Sabert Oglesby, recently were able to gain a much-welcomed opportunity to present their research to Deb Vieau Haines, the Bibb County coordinator of the ALGenWeb Project (http://www.algenweb.us). Bibb County’s website (http://bibbcountyal.org) is a much-used genealogical tool that had originally carried the incorrect information in its listing of county cemeteries.

Ms. Haines reviewed the research information and created a new, corrected biographical entry for the cemetery. It is a hopeful first step in what promises to be a long task of undoing the error in other places and publications, but a step worth taking to ensure that the historical record is as accurate as possible.

(Additional information can be viewed online at
http://bibbcountyal.org/cemeteries/oglesbycem.htm)

The apple does not fall far from the tree.

Or the egg from the hen. Or something.

Anyway, Reba made us all a nice omelet breakfast this weekend, and Rebecca piped up and said she'd made us Momelets.

That's pretty doggone funny, unless, you're like, y'know, an egg or sumthin.

Now, get back to what you were doing.

It's SUPER FUN HAPPY JOKEY TUESDAY!

Yes, I know two posts in two days is pushing it as far as non-blogging goes, but sometimes I just crack me up. (And yes, that is an homage to Alf.)

ANYway, Reba just called a few minutes ago.

She had gone with her dad to take her mom to the doctor's office this morning for some non-jokey invasive testing and prior to leaving their house, Mominlaw got all doped up with Darvocet and Valium. Being that she doesn't usually start the morning with a narcotic toddy, she pretty much had to be scooped out of the car with a spatula when they got to the parking deck at the hospital.

They wheeled her upstairs, waited to be called back, and then wheeled her into the procedure room. Now, since she was looser than a handful of BBs, she wasn't going to be much help when it came time to get her prepared, so Reba went back to help the technician get her up on the table and disrobed.

Did I mention it's cold today?

It is.

Oh, it's not Yukon cold, or lake-effects Chitown cold, or even Kentucky ice-storm cold, but your normal 30 degree Fahrenheit Alabama February day. But Grandmom, being of always-prepared, better-safe-than-sorry, strong-minded country stock, was apparently set to accompany Admiral Byrd to the South Pole.

Reba recounted (with some mild irritation) about struggling to help the tech ladle Mom up onto the table, then the arduous task of skinning her of layers of clothing, all the while said mama was swaying to and fro in the warm embrace of Lethe.

"...so we had to hoist her on the table and then I started helping her off with her clothes and do you know she had on FIVE! layers of stuff--she had her BIG COAT, and a SWEATER!, and then her BLOUSE!, and then a CAMISOLE!! under that, and THEN her bra! And it got to where the technician had to take off her lab coat because she was getting hot and we didn't think we were EVER going to get her all unwrapped from all those layers and layers of stuff and..."

"Reba--REBA!" I simply had to interrupt.

"What?"

"It's okay, Reba--I mean, after all, she IS your mummy."

BADUMP-BUMP-TSSHHHHHH!

I'm here all week--be sure to tip your server and have a safe drive home!

Anyway, Reba thought it was funny, too.

[And for those who are concerned (as I should be, if I could stop my non-stop comic brain from working for just two seconds) about Reba's mom's condition--right now we don't really know a lot. Today's test was a biopsy, and hopefully what they were sampling will turn out to be benign. Keep her in your prayers, please. UPDATE 2-6-09 All clear!]

NOW THEN--not content to allow your funny bone to rest, ANOTHER story, this time from the wonderful world of construction!

Was at a meeting this morning and before we got started the superintendent got to talking about other jobs he'd done close by, and mentioned that he'd been the superintendent on the construction of a new columbarium for a nearby church.

The construction part apparently wasn't too difficult, but the reason it was being built in the first place was to have a place to put people whose remains had been interred in scattered places all around the church, and so part of his job was to disinter various urns and other ash repositories so they could be properly reinterred in the new place.

He was carefully watched over in his task by the architect, and he recounted that one day near lunchtime he was hand-excavating around the site of an urn, and had encountered a piece of a small concrete vault that held the earthly remains of one of the venerable ladies of the church. As usual, the architect was right at his shoulder as he got down and began delicately chipped away at the concrete to get to the contents.

As he worked, a small piece of concrete broke off and laying there inside was, of all things, a cigarette butt!

He looked over his shoulder at the architect and quietly asked her--with a certain amount of black humor--"I wonder if she smoked?"

Without missing a beat, she solemnly whispered back, "She probably did when they cremated her."




I am a bad person for laughing so hard at that one.

But still, I hope you have enjoyed SUPER FUN HAPPY JOKEY TUESDAY!

I did not...

...see my shadow, which means six more weeks of something, but I'm not sure what.

And by the way, how did it get to be February so quickly!?

Well, If It's In Print, It Must Be True

Or not.

To begin at a convenient point, namely the beginning, I'm related to a big chunk of everyone else here in central Alabama with the same last name as me through an early-19th Century immigrant to Bibb County named Sabert Oglesby, who was my great-great-great-(whew)-grandfather.

As most of you know, I've always been an avid history buff, and have a pretty decent handle on our family history, or at least I thought I did, until I heard from one of those many cousins of mine.

But more about that in a bit.

In any event, the original, proto-Sabert was born in Scotland sometime around 1740 and came to South Carolina with a couple of other brothers before the Revolutionary War, which he fought in (on the winning side). In 1790 he married a young lass named Phoebe Lindsay (who was 30 years his junior) with whom he set up housekeeping on land belonging to her father, and then went about farming and having at least nine children.

Industrious sorts, they.

Sometime around 1820, the whole family along with the family of his brother John packed up wagons with their belongings and began a trek that would end up near Green Pond in Bibb County, where they unloaded their baggage and their multitudes of children, all of whom soon enough grew up and began having children of their own, leading all the way to me.

I've been the beneficiary of many relatives who have taken the time over the past decades to compile not only this short biographical sketch, but numerous other stories and photos and newspaper clippings and lists of sons and daughters and such, all which came to me in a big loose-leaf binder that I've had now for over twenty years.

Then came the Internet, and I've had the chance to correspond with hosts of other unknown relatives, each time learning a bit more about our family. It's been quite a boon as a way of collecting and swapping genealogical information, although as I recently found out, just as easy for incorrect information to get out as it is for facts.

A couple of weeks ago one of those many relatives, Cousin Ken, ran across a blog post I’d done several years back about the aforementioned Sabert, and Ken was kind enough to drop me a note and let me know he'd read it and enjoyed it, and that he’d mentioned it to Cousin Charles, who was also kind enough to write a note.

Well, after being instantly reunited with a relatives I've never met, we all exchanged e-mails back and forth about Grampa Sabert and all the various blind alleys and wild geese that come with exploring your family history, until something was brought to my attention that was completely opposite of all that family history I'd read and heard about over the years.

In our conversations, it was brought to my attention that a local history website has cataloged in their master list of Bibb County cemeteries that a cemetery of unmarked graves on Tannehill State Park property is called Oglesby Plantation Cemetery, and that it holds the remains of 400 slaves of one Sabert Oglesby.

Talk about a surprise!

From what I knew of our history, Sabert the II, who was Original Sabert’s son born in 1809, was a Presbyterian minister in Green Pond, and later had two other sons, Sabert (that would be the third one) and Samuel, both of whom were also Presbyterian ministers, and I remember my grandfather (who was Sabert the III’s son and Sabert II’s grandson) often mentioning that the family had never been slaveholders because it was against their religious upbringing. Of all that collected information in my three-ring binder, nothing ever pointed to anything to do with slaves–none of the scrawled notes copied from ancient family Bibles, no carefully transcribed Census records–nothing. Of course, that doesn’t mean it was impossible, but only that it seemed quite implausible

Ken said he’d tried to get the web information corrected, but the site owner noted that the information was from the Historical Atlas of Alabama, and that all the information in it was the result of research done by professors from the University of Alabama. Cousins Ken and Charles were obviously frustrated by the inability to get at least some sort of explanation or changes made to the website.

And thus begins an even more convoluted tale, as I agreed to do some additional research to find out where the Atlas information had come from and see if maybe if I was going to have to add some more pages to that three-ring binder of mine.

First stop, I found a copy of the Atlas in my local library, and sure enough, plain as day, there’s an entry on the Oglesby Cemetery–except it gave the owner of the land specifically as Sabert II, and the footnote said the information came from the book Place Names of Bibb County, written by a noted Huntington College professor and printed in 1993.

Okay, so where did THAT author get her information? Cousin Charles, it turns out, had been a friend of the author when she was alive and knew the source of her information–a quarterly newsletter published by the Park in 1991. And that information in the brochure came from a local amateur historian Charles knew, also since deceased.

Seems it was going to be very difficult to get any easy correction, since the chain of information in all the published accounts was dropping link-by-link into the grave.

But I still had some cause for hope, because in all of these conversations with my cousins, I found out they in turn had had conversations with others involved in the creation and management of the park at Tannehill. Based on what they’d been told, not only the name associated with the cemetery but also the number of graves and who was buried there was less the result of actual archeological and primary source research than it was conjecture. And “conjecture” is being charitable.

From what I knew, 19th Century Oglesby land holdings among all the descendents in the county were relatively small–the idea that one of the relatives had at one time held over 400 slaves seemed to strain common sense. If these were the dead slaves, the live population necessary to support a dead population of 400 would have been enormous. Obviously, not an impossibility, but still improbable.

And how were all those graves identified as slave graves if they were unmarked? If they were unmarked, they could as easily held the remains of anyone too poor to afford a marker, not just slaves. And at least some of those graves could have been marked at one time, with the markers being moved or disturbed sometime in the intervening 140 years since the end of the Civil War.

In any event, it was time to do more research and try to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Next stop, the Linn-Henley research library in downtown Birmingham, where there is about half a yard of Bibb County related documents–Census books, histories, court records, marriage and death information, and what turned out to be the most valuable, a handy listing of early Bibb County homesteads, cross-referenced with land patents granted in the County, including the date when each was granted.

Land patents are the way the United States would sell or grant Federal land to property owners, and they are a good starting point in many cases to find out who was the initial owner of a particular piece of property. Even better, many state land patents are accessible online, but I didn't know that at the time, so I set about looking through the whole stack of books and making copies of maps and lists, and found some interesting things.

First thing, the land containing the graves, a forty acre tract on the Bibb-Jefferson county line on Roupes Creek was first patented in the year 1858, and not to Sabert the I or the II, but to a George Oglesberry.

(As an aside, the Oglesby name has several variant spellings over the years, even in the previously mentioned copies from the family Bible, and I have seen it spelled as Ogilbie, Oglesbee, Oglesberry, Ogelsbe, and Ogilvie. Sort of like the mail that comes to my house. Same thing with the name Sabert–I’ve seen Seabert, Sayburt, Sabret, Sabard–and as best as we can tell, they are generally talking about the same person. Spelling was much less precise in the past and education less formal, and people tended to rely on phonetics. Also, when I refer to Sabert II or III or any other number, that is my method of placeholding--none of Sabert's descendents troubled themselves with such things. Which tends to make for more confusion.)

But back to the story–who was George Oglesb(err)y!?

Not having much other information to go on, the most obvious George would be the four-year-older brother of Sabert II. In addition to the plot of land the cemetery is located in, he was also granted patents to an additional 80 acres across the county line, a total of 120 acres, all abutting much larger parcels of land belonging to Moses Stroup and Ninian Tannehill, partners in beginning the commercial furnace works at Tannehill. Park historians note that large-scale furnace operations did not begin until around 1859, which would agree with when most of the land was initially sold by the United States.

So the land initially belonged to George, probably the same George who was brother of Sabert II, and although it’s possible it could have been sold to Sabert sometime between 1858 and 1865, none of my digging and looking has produced any legal records that would indicate such a sale.

Next stop, the Census records for 1860, which showed Sabert II living in the Green Pond vicinity with his wife and their nine children, with a real and personal property value that was modest, and certainly not the wealth one would indicate vast slaveholdings. In addition, no slaves were listed in the household.

These pieces of information in and of themselves should be enough to at least warrant some caution in assigning ownership of the land, and they also point out some more inconsistencies in the description of the site.

Since we know that the land was not transferred from the government until 1858, that means that there was only a seven year time span–to the end of the Civil War (or at least until Wilson’s Raid) when slaves would have been buried there. If the number of 400 graves seems overly large, consider if that amount of slaves died in only a seven year span! Something didn’t add up.

That’s where Cousin Charles comes back into the conversation, and after I’d mentioned to him what all I’d found out, he recounted a recent conversation with one of the people associated with the administration of the park. It seems that when the park published that quarterly newsletter back in 1991, somehow what was accepted as the possible total number of workers at the furnaces–400–got transferred to how many gravesites there were. And no one knew how Sabert’s name became associated with it, aside from the (now dead) writer of the article.

Recent archeological research conducted by Dr. Jack Bergstresser has uncovered approximately 15 houses that were where slave workers had lived, and that the furnace’s owner, Ninian Tannehill, had brought possibly 60 of his own slaves to the furnace as part of its initial work force.

So what does all this mean?

Well, to me a few things are clear–there are some unmarked graves on the Tannehill Park property, on land that was sold to George Oglesby (Oglesberry) in 1858. In 1991, a mistake was made by the author of a newsletter article in assigning the number of graves at the site when, in fact, no one had actually counted the gravesites, and no one had excavated them to determine exactly who could be buried in them. Although archaeologists have determined that slaves were part of the work force at the furnaces, Tannehill is the only owner definitely identified by name as supplying slaves to the work. Other slave owners obviously did, but there is no primary source information that has come to light to date that indicates that Sabert Oglesby II was a slave owner, nor that the land in question was ever his, and the only known source for this misidentification was also the source of the wrongly attributed number of graves on the property.

Could I be wrong about all this? Of course!

But the way historical research works is that you have to rely upon what is known, and work toward what is unknown. Conjecture is valid only so far as when it doesn’t contradict facts, and when it is necessary to supply an educated guess, it should be noted as such.

It may very well be I am completely wrong, but the things I know right now point to a different conclusion, and one I’m not willing to set aside without better evidence than I’ve seen so far.

And what do I hope to gain from all this research? Nothing more than to ask that more research be done by those associated with the Park, and to respectfully dispute a notion that seems to have sprung up many years ago from nothing more than the imagination of one poorly informed person and has continued to be passed along as established fact.

In the interest of scholarship and truth, especially in a time when it has become so very easy for misinformation to spread quickly and perniciously around the world in seconds, it is important that we are diligent in making sure the record of our past is as accurate as possible.

UPDATE 1-10-09--Results! A few days ago, before I posted the above, I'd sent a recap of the information in an email to the Bibb County website administrator, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank her very much for taking the time to post all of the information as a separate page that will be linked back to the cemetery list. It's a welcome first step in setting the record straight!

Happy New Year!

Today's dinner menu:

Pork shoulder roast, a mess of greens and black eyed peas, cornbread. It doesn't get much better than that, folks.

Hope you all have a wonderful day and a similarly wonderful year.

Two posts in one week!?

Well, I can't help myself--I got home yesterday to an excited bunch of kids who informed me I had a package on the doorstep, all the way from Utah! (The package, not the doorstep.)

Obviously, my first thought was that it was a package of lovely collectible Marie Osmond dolls as well as a torrid love note and several naughty pictures (like I get from her every year). However, when I saw the return address, I knew it must be something even better--and it was! It was from the Axis of Weevil's own Ambassador to the Beehive State, Nate McCord!

I busted open the box and was attacked by one of these little cuties. After prying its vicious snarling teeth off of my arm, I noticed the enclosed note:

Terry, the possum's a little gift for you that I just couldn't pass up.

I hope you and your family have a blessed and spiritual Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all your Oglesby clan from the Utah chapter of the Axis of Weevil.

Nate

Also of interest was the little hangtag that came with the animal, full of intriguing facts about opossums. Did you know:

The opossum hideouts are located in a variety of areas including stumps, haystacks, vine tangles, attics, garages, road culverts, hollow trees, rock piles, crannies, under buildings, and in the abandoned burrows of other animals.

Opossums are not territorial and do not maintain separate home ranges.

They are exceptionally non-aggressive and non-destructive. They will not harm people or pets.

They are more immune to many diseases than the other animals and are far less likely to carry rabies.

Opossums are beneficial to the environment because they eat pests, snails, and slugs.

They have a remarkable resistance to poisonous snakebite such as the rattlesnake, cottonmouth, Russell's viper, and Asiatic cobra.

Opossums do not hibernate, and they are active at night.

ANYway, that's your possum fix for the year. Thanks once more to Nate for making this all possible!

Okay, so I'm probably not supposed to just let the whole world know this, but...

...some things sound so good it would be a worse transgression not to share.

Case in point, Janis Gore's Sweet Tater Bread Pudding, which came to me in an e-mail via Chef Tony, the reading of said e-mail causing me to lick the monitor.

1 1/4 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and finely chopped
2 cups raisins
1/4 cup dark rum
5 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 quart whipping cream
2 cups half-and-half
2 tablespoons cane syrup
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 (16 ounce) loaf French bread, torn into 1-inch pieces
Rum Sauce
Whipped cream

Arrange sweet potatoes in a steamer basket over boiling water. Cover and steam 10 minutes or until tender. Set aside.

Combine raisins and rum. Set aside.

Combine eggs and next 5 ingredients in a bowl; add bread pieces, sweet potato, and raisin mixture. Spoon mixture evenly into 2 lightly greased 11 x 7-inch baking dishes. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour or until set, covering with foil to prevent over browning, if necessary.

Serve warm with Rum Sauce and whipped cream. Serves 16.

Rum Sauce
1 1/2 cups butter
1/4 cup dark rum
3 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 egg yolk

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat; stir in rum. Add confectioners' sugar; stir with a whisk until smooth. Stir in egg yolk; cook, stirring constantly, 5 minutes or until mixture reaches 160 degrees F.

Makes 2 1/2 cups.

That, my friends, is some good food.

Now then, in other matters, since I've got a short week this week and won't be here next week, I want to wish all of you Hebrew folks a Happy Hanukkah, all you pagans Lo Saturnalia, all you Christians a Merry Christmas, all you Constanzans a Happy Festivus, all you African Studies majors a Joyous Kwanzaa, and you atheists a cordial end of December/beginning of January.

Best wishes to all who still come by Possumblog every so often, despite the fact that we're closed and retired and all that stuff, and may the upcoming year be a good one for you all.

Well, I'll be!

On the way in to work this morning, and decided to pull in at McDonald's for one of their nutritious McSkillet breakfast burritos, as I on occasion am prompted to do by the combined effects of hunger and hip McGen-X advertising Mciconography I see on the tee-vee.

Ordered, heard my order mumbled back to me, and drove around to the window. Watched the driver in front of me pay, wondered when he'd get through with his chat with the cashier. He drove on, I rumbled up. Stuck my hand and my money out the window, and the girl said, "He pay for it for you."

I had one of those rare, genuine, flummoxed double-takes that you have when someone says something that simply doesn't compute.

"Do what?" said me, with an accent heavy with wtf.

"That man, he pay for your order. Is free!"

Well, I'll be doggone.

I didn't know what to do, so for some odd reason I smiled and thanked the cashier (who graciously accepted it), then rolled forward and did a double-tap on the horn and waved as the fellow in the Nissan Pathfinder drove off.

He waved back.

Just one of those nice little things that make you think nice little thoughts all day long. And to think--the guy was a Georgia Bulldog fan!!

Maybe there's hope for mankind yet!

Yet another one of life's little milestones... UPDATED

...if you are a moron.

My lumpy old gray hunk of Swedish iron just turned over the quarter-million-mile mark!

A testament to the basic solidity of the thing, as well as the maniacal devotion to scheduled maintenance by the previous owner.

In any event, I believe I deserve a Federal bailout totalling $1,245,010,000.12.

UPDATE 12/9/08--OH, GREAT--now EVERYbody's getting in on the act!

You try to make a list…

…but eventually you exhaust yourself with the possibilities. So, I have decided to condense all that down to two things for which I am thankful.

Life—all of it. From the worst despairs (which, given what I see in the world around me is about the equivalent of a flea-bite on an elephant) to the greatest joys (again, in comparison to others, I have been blessed beyond what is my right and due).

Love. That I am able to give it, and that I receive it far in excess of expectation.

May your day of Thanksgiving be full and rich.

“Jeepers, Creepers…”

“...I'm sorry for absolutely ruining your life by passing along to you a genetic predisposition for myopia and astigmah-tizzzzz-um..."

Yeah, doesn’t quite trip off the tongue, does it?

But, it was bound to happen, and the warning signs have been present for a while now—squinting, confusing one letter for another on the chalkboard, difficulty reading. Tiny Terror has now joined the rest of her family in the need for ocular assistance.

And it wasn’t pleasant.

Of course.

Because when you’re a kid, you tend to say stuff like, “I want glasses like you and Mom and Rebecca and Jonathan and Ashley,” without really considering what you’re saying. And you complain about the aforementioned inability to see the board and stuff, and wonder why your parents won’t take you and get a cool set of glasses right THEN! And then you show up at the Walmart vision center and the doctor tells you you need glasses, and all of that theoretical ‘wouldn’t it be cool to have glasses’ make-believe stuff is suddenly very real, and you start trying on frames, and you think that your friends are going to make fun of you, and you’re a young girl at that age when any criticism of your appearance sends you into fits of despair, and you can’t find anything that you like, and everything you do kinda-sorta like your dad won’t buy because it costs too much, and then everyone’s trying to tell you to hurry up because the store is going to close, and you HATE EVERYONE and HATE YOUR EYES and finally decide you shouldn’t have been saying you wanted glasses, and you wish you could go back in time and say that you want perfect eyes FOREVER, and you close your eyes and wish hard and all you get are tears.

So, you know, lots of fun at the Walmart vision center last night.

She finally settled on a pair that was reasonably-priced and fit her face and looked very cute to me (but less so to her, of course). This angst was on top of the fact that we almost had to reschedule again, after having been called last Tuesday (when our appointment was) and being told the doctor was ill, so we’d have to pick another day. Couldn’t do it Wednesday (church), couldn’t do it Thursday (the other doc doesn’t take Blue Cross), couldn’t do it Friday (football game), or Saturday (youth trip to Atlanta), not Sunday (church), so yesterday was pretty much it.

And so then when Reba got there, they said none of us were on the schedule.

Seems whoever called us didn’t actually write it down on the calendar. I heard all this second hand through the cell phone:

REBA: “They say we’re not on the schedule, and we’ll have to come back another day.”

ME: “No, they’re going to see you, because they already called us and changed it once, and I don’t care how many other people they’ve got to see, they’ll have to see you, too.”

R: “But they’ve got other people already scheduled.”

M: “Not our problem—tell them to make the other people wait.”

R: “Terry.”

M: [thinking angry thoughts]

R: “They’re asking who called you.”

M: “How should I know!? They called, we rescheduled because they called, and you’re not leaving until they see you! It was some woman, and I don’t know who it was. I didn’t ask for her name, she said she was with the Walmart vision center!”

R: [relaying information] “Okay, well, they said they don’t know who it was…”

M: “It. Does. Not. MATTER. WHO. CALLED. US. Look, ask them if the doctor was sick last week on Tuesday.”

R: [asking] “Yeah, they said he was out sick.”

M: “Okay, ask if they had someone calling to reschedule people.”

R: [asking] “Yes, they said someone called to reschedule people…”

M: “THEN THAT’S WHO CALLED ME! [thinking loudly to myself 'THIS AIN’T FRIGGIN’ ROCKET SCIENCE!!'] Now, TELL THEM THEY’RE GOING TO SEE YOU RIGHT NOW…”

R: “WAIT! Hold on and calm down--she’s talking to the manager—they said something about giving us a gift card to make up for it—”

M: “It danged well better cover the whole cost of whatever the insurance doesn’t cover, because we’re not going to go through this again.”

R: [asking] “Oh, okay—the manager just came out and said she was sorry and they’d stay here later and make sure we all got seen. Now calm down.”

In my snit, I failed to figure it probably would have been worth waiting another day or two, but once I get my dander up and think I know what’s acceptable and what’s not, there’s little to talk me down off that limb that I’m sawing so hard on.

But, it still rankles, you know?

I mean, do they have a problem with their staff prank-calling patients to tell them to come another day, and then not write it down? Is their staff so huge (with its five or six people) that they can’t figure out who screwed up? Is it really good policy to interrogate customers and expect them to anticipate being screwed over by whoever it was that called, enough to know it would be good to get the person’s name so when it came time to come to the store it would be readily available? Is it good to poke people with sticks and inconvenience them instead of the silly cow who messed up in the first place? And why is it they said they had four other customers scheduled at the same times as us, yet only one of which actually showed up? And why is my Blue Cross eye coverage so awful—it only pays for a portion of the exams, and nothing for glasses.

Anyway, I got off work and drove on over there (having a fine time all the way, venting and raging and Walter Mittying as I heard the staccato pocketa-pocketa sound as I crushed every single lens in the store under my feet), and everyone was nice and solicitous, aside from Miss Prickly Pants and her quandary about choosing a set of frames.

She was made to feel better with the purchase of a pink plaid patterned case that will hold her new glasses.

I wish I were so easily unburdened.

I am not one to make predictions...

...but I feel pretty safe in making this one.

Should it happen that Americans elect a Democrat as President tomorrow, I can guarantee that when the new Administration moves in to the White House and various executive-branch offices, all of the computer keyboards will have their full complement of 'O' keys, and there won't be trash strewn all around, and things that belong to The People won't mysteriously disappear into staff briefcases as souvenirs, and in general the transition from R to D will be businesslike.

Businesslike, although not quite as efficient as the coordinated efforts made this year has been at encouraging the registration of fraudulent voters and assisting them in casting ballots, collecting fraudulent donations from all corners of the globe, and the effort by the press to bury its carcass in a steaming pile of irrelevance.

Gosh, I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the long run, right guys?

Right.

As for what will happen should the opposite situation occur, I can't quite say. Given the obstacles, it certainly would be quite a repudiation of the aforementioned influence of the ballot-box-stuffing/untraceable walking-around-money/yellow "journalism" troika, and I do certainly hope that it would come to pass. But when cheats lose, it's a bit much to expect them do so gracefully.

In any event, go and exercise your franchise tomorrow, and whether your choice wins or loses, please don't be an idjit. (And yes, I realize this is more difficult for a certain group of you.)

Huzzah!

I which I rejoice at having my nomination selected for today's Ball of the Day!

My thanks to the editorial staff of Bolus, and to Modern Mechanix, from which the item was shamelessly stolen.

Well, let's just say I require a pretty substantial level of proof.

But you know, if I was an intergalactic star traveling type dude, I know I would like nothing better than to make a layover over Alabama. But I don't recommend stopping at the rest area north of Montgomery. I'll just leave it at that.

Best response? From one Leada Gore, publisher of the Hartselle Enquirer and contributor to The Clanton Advertiser, who took some flak for her earlier story regarding our putative visitation:

[...] “It’s backwoods hillbillies like you that make the possibility of an event like this even more unbelievable.”

Ouch. Backwoods hillbilly? Me? Do you mean to tell me if I don’t believe the words of some Australian psychic who gets her advice from an Indian who just happens to share the name of a popular toilet paper brand then I’m a hillbilly?

Well, yee-haw I guess. [...]

Well, no...

...the intent is not to become All Bugs, All the Time, but what can I do!?

This weekend, Rebecca came running in the house asking in near-terror what sort of bug is huge and has wings and is ugly and is big. And huge. And HUGE. And ugly.

"Does it look like a big cigar butt?"

Not being a cigar aficionado nor a keeper of company with those of that ilk, the best she could muster was "I dunno. BUT IT'S HUGE! And PATCHES IS EATING IT!!"

I told her it sounded like he'd gotten a cicada (and no, I didn't wet my pants at the mere thought of it) and followed her outside to go look.

Sure enough, he'd found a big ugly buzzy play toy, rich in natural bug proteins and evil. According to Middle Girl, he was romping in the yard, then suddenly ran over to one of the trees and started snapping and pawing and chewing and rolling and tossing the thing up in the air.

Let me tell you--these things are apparently indestructable. Even after several minutes of abuse at his paws and jaws, the thing was still kicking. That's saying something, considering this dog could eat a wrecking ball.

Anyway, Rebecca took his toy away and hid it under something in the garden, and I was once again reminded of just how much I can't stand large ugly bugs.

I am heartened, however, that Patches will viciously protect me from them. It's almost enough to forgive him waking me up in the middle of the night last night with his infernal barking.

In other news, it's now been over a week since we had the kids from church over, and the downstairs of the house is STILL clean!

Second, Rebecca has now driven herself to work TWICE. All the way down to the foot of the hill. Without incident. That I know of.

Third, the upcoming election (or as I like to call it, "BOHICA--Carter's Revenge") got me to thinking the other day about what good things I remember from the years 1977-1981.

Eh. It was okay. Really. I know everyone likes to dump on the late 1970s, but aside from the awful clothes and awful hair and awful television shows and awful cars and general level of awfulness, it was survivable. I mean, I lived in a house, both my parents had more or less stable, moderately well-paid jobs, I went to school, ate three meals a day, had clothes to wear (and yes, I had several REALLY cool Quiana shirts, and a brown leisure suit, and a pair of patent-leather platform wingtips that were navy and burgundy, and I had many pairs of tight cutoff blue jean shorts that were entirely too short that I would cut grass in), had a car to drive around in (triple-black '72 Monte Carlo) and despite all the national and world turmoil, I don't recall being miserable and mopey and full of fear and dread and junk like that. Of course, that's filtered through 32 years of trying to forget everything bad that happened, and not having to live through it with the responsibilities of adulthood.

Things might have seemed a bit more awful in that case.

At least this time around, we've got really cool computers, and cars work darned well, and there are more than three television stations, and they all broadcast in digital, and there is some distinction in clothing worn by office workers and that worn by circus clowns.

So hey, how bad could the next four years be!?

XVI

Someone just turned Sweet 16 today, and her name's Rebecca!

I recall the late-night trip to the hospital mainly because I had an Aretha Franklin greatest hits cassette playing. The labor and delivery were generally unremarkable, aside from the obvious miracle of birth itself, which, being my first experience with the human variety of such things, struck me not quite so much as miraculous, but more like something out of the movie Alien. Except with better special effects.

In any event, she's a good girl, and I'm awfully proud of all she's done over the years, and what a fine, beautiful young lady she's turning out to be. (And I say that not just because I know she checks in here every so often.)

So Happy Birthday, my little jelly bean.

Oh, that's just crazy.

Or maybe it's just a matter of consolidation.

Anyway, as you know, I gave up blogging over a year ago.

Now some of you might snicker and point to such things as this post for evidence to the contrary, but you have to admit, compared to those times in the distant past when I might post ten or twelve multi-hundred-word, thoughtily-involved, occasionally mildly humorous posts a day, the current version is about as close to moribund as Possumblog could be, short of actually, you know, being really for real, gone-on-to-my-reward dead.

Why do I mention this?

Because I noticed something peculiar the other day--over in the sidebar at the very bottom, I was ranked as a "Marauding Marsupial" on the The Truth Laid Bear's Ecosystem. And today? A "Large Mammal."

Now friends, that's just bizarre. In its prime when I was writing thousands of words a day, with traffic on the order of a couple thousand unique hits per day, it was exceedingly rare for Possumblog to ever even get past the Slimy Mollusc stage. Oh, there were the times when it might even get Adorable Rodent status, but Large Mammal!? I don't think that ever happened.

So why now? I don't post regularly, the content of what I do wind up posting is weaker than the roots of Joe Biden's hair plugs (and not even half as funny) and yet, at least for today, I'm ranked as number 838.

Well, for one, all the junk I wrote in the past is still up and available for Googleering, so I reckon even if I did actually die, the site would still be reasonably well-trafficked by people searching for "all the "dumb guys" are running a race but the good guys will give up and come over to the concession stand where you'll be waiting with a towel and a h".

Quite a comfort, there, eh?

But I think there's probably something else happening (and I'm sure someone else has probably already noticed it and commented on it, and I just haven't seen it), but I think the huge number of Citizen Journalists-type blogs are being replaced by a fewer, larger, groupier blogs.

Let's face it, writing full-time is difficult if you actually have a full-time job. It's also difficult to keep things fresh and topical and entertaining with a one-member staff (even if you're a comedic and intellectual giant such as myself). Over the years, my guess is people have developed an affinity for a more select number of sites, ones that they trust to deliver whatever counterbalance they might seek from the traditional media sources and that do so with a certain level of expected quality or competence. With those expection also come one forced by the available technology, namely that there's going to be a LOT of content, and near constant coverage of any story, and the general result of all that means more than one person is going to have to be writing the thing.

Sorta like those things people called "newspapers."

So, anyway, I say the number of working, useful, usable blogs is shrinking (although obviously the potential readership isn't), and I suppose Possumblog happens to be the accidental beneficiary of that shakeout. It's not quite dead enough, and apparently that's good enough to get some traffic these days.

WEIRDNESS UPDATE: Maybe yesterday's spike was just a fluke--today your humble marsupial is once again nothing higher than a Marauding Marsupial, ranked in the mid-2000s. (Which is still a good bit higher than I remember it being for most of the time I was doing a lot of blogging.)

Bugs, Yet Again

Okay, I was sorta joking the other day about being freaked out by flying bugs. But only sorta. Because there really ARE some bugs that send me into fear-soaked spasms. I mentioned the last time about the giant cockroaches we have. Absolutely squeal-inducing.

But nothing beats cicadas for maximum fear.

Most of this comes from my childhood. When I was little, during the day I stayed with a babysitter who seemed ancient to me at the time, but who was probably not all that old, seeing as how she had a couple of high school-aged kids, Sharon and Don.

Don was the problem. He was the sort of vacant-eyed, lank-jawed sociopath you find in various Flannery O’Connor stories. His main joy in life seems connected primarily to tormenting small children, namely me.

One such time occurred when he found either a live or a molted skin of a cicada on a pine tree in their back yard. He plucked it off and proceeded to chase me around as I screamed in terror as he hooted and cackled and threatened to put this bug on me and watch it eat me. And obviously, to a small child, a giant bug like a cicada is entirely capable of eating you completely gone.

His mother finally made him stop. Of course, as with all bad things that have ever happened to me, I had to have another run-in with these awful insects. Sometime back in those dim fearsome days of childhood, my babysitter had loaded me up and we went to town for something. Being that this was back in the mid-1960s, no one really thought much of the fact that when she got to her destination, she left me in the car. I was sitting in the back, and it was getting really hot, and was thinking about getting in the front seat so I could get a little air, when I was suddenly transfixed by the appearance on the little center console of—yep, a giant cicada, with its big bulgy eyes and razor sharp fangs and crushing vise-like clawed forelimbs, all ready to devour me in one gulp. I shoved myself into the far corner of the backseat and froze, staring at the awful creature for what seemed like 5 or 10 hours until my keeper returned. She opened the door and flicked it out, and I just knew when she did that it was going to fly at me and suck my eyeballs out of my skull.

It didn’t, though.

Anyway, I eventually grew up, and over the course of time learned about cicadas, and was even in D.C. many years ago when they had a big swarm emerge, and for the most part wasn’t all that freaked out by it. Because I am a grown-up and all.

So anyway, last night after supper I had to go get Rebecca from work, and stopped down at the foot of the hill to get gas in the van. I stood there and began filling up, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a cicada on the pavement, the size of a Presidente cigar butt. Of course, being an adult and all, I was not the least bit scared, and saw it only as an object of curiosity. And it also looked dead, and dead bugs can’t fly into your nose and eat your tonsils. And I thought if it was deceased, maybe I could take it to Catherine, because the other day we found a small dry-fly husk on the fence, and I showed it to her and explained all about the life cycle of such critters and how they make that loud buzzing sound in the trees and she was fascinated and not the least bit afraid of such things. Which is good.

I finished up emptying my bank account into the gas tank and hung up the hose and took a closer look at the dead bug. Just to make sure, I leaned over a bit and nudged it with my shoe and BZZZZZZTTTT!!! EEEEEEEKKK!! That danged thing was still kickin’!

The sudden loud raspy joy-buzzer sound gave me a jolt (although since I’m an adult, I tried to cover and just made a little skip to the right) and brought back quite a sudden flood of childhood memories. None pleasant. Although I guess I should be glad it didn’t bring a sudden flood of pee down my leg.

Anyway, I think the world would be just fine without cicadas.

A Guide To Hockey

Given that there has been much talk in the news media of late about something called “hockey,” and given that there are probably some of you who are unfamiliar with the aspects of this activity because it’s not football or, umm, well…football, I have taken it upon myself to offer some pointers and tips and such about this sport. My qualifications include the fact that Birmingham has had many, many hockey games played here. No, I don’t know why. But that doesn’t matter, I’m still an expert on the subject.

1. Object of the game: As with all real sports, such as football, the object is to win by scoring more points than the other team through an intricate set of tactical and strategic movements on the playing field while simultaneously beating the fool out of each other.

2. Field of play: Due to the fact that the contestants wear ice skates instead of football cleats, as a matter of convenience, the field of play is a great big sheet of ice about 2/3 the size of a football field. Although it may seem odd that the players wear ice skates, one must remember that this game originated in the frozen Yankeelands, where it is common for everyone to wear ice skates all the time anyway. The sheet of ice has many pretty colored lines and circles and dots and such painted on it for decoration.

3. Equipment: Long curvy wood clubs are used to beat opposing players and chase around a frozen Moon Pie on the ice. On each end of the sheet of ice, there’s a big square crab net sort of deal and a score is recorded if you manage to get the Moon Pie in the net.

4. Rules of Play: Each team is composed of the same amount of players as in a six-man football squad, with one guy trained to guard the crab net and beat people, and the other ones trained to swat the Moon Pie fiercely toward each other and toward the other team’s crab net, and also to beat people. You cannot pick up the Moon Pie and run with it, nor heave it to one of your teammates, nor kick it through the goal, although if the Moon Pie hits you and bounces in the crab trap, that’s okay. Touchdowns only count one point, and there are no such things as field goals or safeties. Unlike football, there is no snap for each play, and all the players skate around in each others backfields and hit each other with their sticks the whole time.

5. Penalties: As with football, there are referees, and as is common in all sports the officiating squad is assembled from a seemingly endless supply of blind, mentally-deficient nincompoops who have no idea about the rules of the game nor who their real fathers are. They can, however, operate a whistle. And apparently, despite all the walloping that goes on, there are some things that are bad, and so the stripes get to blow their whistles and stop the play. Sometimes if they get really mad, they’ll send a player out to what’s called a “penalty box” although it’s not much of a penalty because they get to sit there and rest and drink alcoholic beverages the whole time. There are several other penalties that can be called, such as “icing,” which has nothing to do with the chocolate stuff on the outside of the Moon Pie, and “offsides,” which is pretty meaningless, since again, there is no snap count and no one lines up against each other and everyone’s just whooshing around beating each other. Sometimes the whole bunch will start wrestling for the Moon Pie and it gets locked up so the refs will stop things and get the Moon Pie and drop it betwixt a couple of players and let them fight for it fair and square. Although it is acceptable to beat on each other, sometimes everyone gets carried away in the moment and they forget all about whacking the Moon Pie into the crab net and all just start grappling and wrestling and beating each other to the exclusion of all else. Although this provides most of the entertainment value of the sport, the black hats look askance at it and after ten or fifteen minutes they break things up and send everyone out for a smoke and alcohol break, and then start over.

6. Hockey Mom: Each player is required to have a mother. The mother is responsible for seeing to it that the player is at the field on time, the player’s skates are tied correctly, and that he has his mouthguard, helmet, pads, wooden club, and a selection of snacks, juice boxes, and smokes and alcohol for sharing after the contest is complete. Each mother is required to be able to field strip a referee into its main components within 20 seconds. Should there be an altercation upon the field of play that continues after regulation time, players are sent to go shower and have a drink, and then each player’s mother completes the altercation in his stead in the parking lot, with points deducted for smudged makeup or broken fingernails. The losing mother in such altercations is required to host the next team hot dish supper, with the winning mother hosting the supper after that.

It really is a very exotic and interesting sport, despite the lack of marching bands or kickoff returns. We hope you have enjoyed this primer on the sport of hockey.

Lunch With Pam the Liberal

Fun as usual, and with the added spark of Politics to enliven the conversation. As one of the increasingly small cadre of old-school sane liberals, she’s actually quite entertaining to talk to about politics and despite being an Obiden supporter, was willing to actually give the governor of Alaska her due. And not the sort of grudging respect a few on the Left are willing to dispense along with a pat on the head and an ironic smirk, but actual respect for having convictions and being willing to stand there and be unapologetic about them. Not that she would agree with the Governor on everything, but she does at least see her accomplishments and see that they are more than the result of just being hot. I reckon there’s some empathy there since Pam’s had to put up with a lot of that kind of crap herself over the years.

ANYway, it was quite a nice break in the day, and if you get a chance, drop by Sol’s over on the ground floor of 2 North 20th. Pam had the chicken salad with pita wedges and something that I think was tabouli, and I had the Philly cheesesteak and it was quite good. Even had real Velveeta on there!

So there.

Politics

All I need to know in re the new GOP Veeptress:

(Image stolen from the highly prescient Beldar)

Although in my limited research, I find that she's never shot a lawyer in the face.

But she's still young, though, so she's got time to work on that.

The Strange and Icky World of Bugs

Yes, I'm still not blogging. As evidenced by this awful post.

But there was this gigantic derned moth banging its head against my window and those things (moths, not windows) just freak me out. I hate just about any of your large, airborne insects, because they don't have anything on their minds except procreating and flying into your mouth, or both. And moths try to cover by acting like fuzzy butterflies, but that's just as bad, because even butterflies freak me out, but at least they're slow enough to run away from, and they rarely get into the house, and bang their stupid heads against the window trying to get out. And don't even get me started on the giant palmetto cockroach bugs around here.

Anyway, the stupid huge moth was buzzering against the window when all of a sudden, it came down with a bad case of spider web. And so now I get to watch nature in all of her icky grotesque majesty as a giant flying insect does battle with a terrifying tiny spider that's probably a black widow or brown recluse (were I of a sufficiently fearless makeup to determine). About the only thing worse than giant flying insects are tiny creeping merchants of venom who spend their whole day trying to figure out how to build a nest in your ear. At night.

So, the moth gets further and further tangled up, and the spider waits for just the right time to tiptoes over the web to look at what she's caught, and she's as surprised as I am about how this big honking moth got caught, so she deedles around a bit and then runs back to the edge and licks her chops, and the moth just keeps on flopping around uselessly. Then it falls onto the top of the lower window sash, exhausted.

As this plays out, I have to kinda figure out who to root for. I mean, I don't like big flying bugs, but dying by spider bite is a heck of a bad way to go. Then again, I hate big flying bugs, and spiders gotta eat, right? And spiders are very industrious, even if they use their webs to entrap you and make you scream like a little girl. In the end, I figure I'll just let nature take its own solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short course.

I'm just that way, y'know.

So Mothra plays dead for a bit, and the spider gets almost to its underside, creeping along the threads of the web. You can see her playing out a few more strands to tangle up the legs of the moth some more, and then the moth starts wiggling madly again, and this time manages to actually break free of the web.

You could tell the spider was disappointed, but the moth was quite pleased with itself. It just better be glad it fell behind the books on my window sill and I'm lazy (and frightened), otherwise I'd get up and squash it.

As for the weekend past, it was okay. Grocery shopping, laundry, and I took Miss Reba a bunch of roses at work on Friday, because we had been married for 17 years on Saturday. I like her a whole lot, you know.

So that's about all there is to that.

And that was that.

Quite a long trip since that late August day in 1995 when I dropped her off in the front of the elementary school and watched her toddle in for her first day of kindergarten—that being, the trip down to Montgomery this weekend past to deliver Oldest to college.

I suppose everyone has his or her own set of emotions when you do stuff like this, but I’m not certain most folks’ emotions include a sigh of relief. Time to let others grapple with the melodrama for at least a little while, and hope that the distance and new surroundings will do her some good and maybe squeeze a little of that melodrama out of her. Or at least give it some direction and constructive purpose. Despite all that has transpired in the past few years, I suppose I’m still an optimist and think better things must surely be on the way. Just like Charlie Brown when Lucy’s holding the football.

Anyway, it’s a nice place, and not too big, and very supportive (astonishingly so to this old man who simply loaded his junk in a travel trailer and went to school with nary an advisor/minder/ mentor/hand-holder/butt-wiper in sight), and pretty strict, and the dorm is new and neat and clean (astonishingly so to this old man who remembers the concrete block rat holes run by Northcutt Realty in Auburn that were so reminiscent of a Turkish prison that he decided it would be better to live in a travel trailer for five years), and at least for the time being she’s not complaining. To us.

So, you know, hunky-dory and all.

In other news, the rest of the kids start back to school Thursday, which is going to be good for them, too. They’ve done well this summer, with Rebecca working her vet job and enjoying the benefits that come from gainful employment, and Catherine working with the little old people at Reba’s work and enjoying the benefits that come from volunteering, and Jonathan going to band camp and enjoying the benefits of being surrounded by lanky leggy young women and being in the percussion pit (no marching!), but I think they’re ready to get back to school.

As for what’s going on in the rest of the world, who in the world came up with synchronized diving? And why? I mean, the synchronized swimming stuff is odd enough, but if you’re going to do diving, too, why not have synchronized every-other-thing, like gymnastics and trampoline and fencing?

Then again, fencing would actually be pretty cool if you had a whole heap of people going at it like in a pirate movie. Wrestling would be a lot better if they had tag teams, too. And maybe a steel cage division.

But synchronized diving is just silly. Unless we give them swords or guns or something.

There’s probably other things going on in the world, too, but I don’t know if I have an opinion about those or not.

So there.

See?

Told you not to get used to it. I was off both Thursday and Friday of last week, and still managed to not find time to notblog. Just too much to do, or rather, too much to do interspersed with several minutes wherein I have to just sort of sit and stare off into space, trying to remember what I was supposed to do next.

None of which makes for anything interesting to say. Or at least anything that I can remember. I sure could use a new brain.

And a pile of cash.

Okay, don't get used to this.

9:05 a.m.

Anyway, we'll see how this works out, but if it even for a moment starts to interfere with doing laundry or watching my shows, well, that'll be it! And no, this does not constitute a return to blogging. I quit, and I meant it. Mostly. Or not.

SO, Reba was out at 6 this morning. The state inspection folks walked in yesterday, and so she's having to go in early and stay late, which is tiresome. And it meant that even if I did have a day off, I still couldn't sleep late.

Dozed back off, then got up and got Jonathan up so he could go to band camp. This week is 8-noon, next week is all day. Heh.

Next thing on the agenda for later on in the day is taking the pets to the vet--AGGGHHHHH!! Rebecca had made the appointment (so we could get the employee discount) and made it for noon, and I didn't think about it until this morning, so after I got back from delivering Boy to the high school, had to call and reschedule the visit. So, 40 minutes from now, it'll be time to wrangle the pooch and kitty into the Volvo and go see if anything ails them.

Random thoughts: 1. Has anyone else noticed that the newest trend in men's hairstyles (that being the sort of product-laden short spiky-do that is gathered up in the center of the head liken unto Ed Grimley), has now made the jump to old guys? Several of the local teevee reporters/meteorologists/anchors have taken on this silly-looking new style. Or the alternative one, that looks like when Goober decided to become a swinging bachelor on the Andy Griffith Show and got some sort of weird Julius Caesar hair-do. Sorry, but it just looks stupid. And not just stupid on old guys, either.

2. I don't really give a fat rat's patootie if Europe would overwhelmingly vote for Obama. There is a reason we declared independence, and Europe has done nothing in intervening years to convince me that we made a bad decision. I have a deep and abiding mistrust of any American politician who craves the adulation of foreigners more than that of their fellow citizens.

Okay, I'm going to the animal doctor.

10:27 a.m.

Not bad at all--both Lightning and Patches were pronounced to be in excellent health, got their shots, and thanks to Rebecca being on staff, we got a healthy 50% discount. Which is nice, seeing as how this past Monday the Focus suffered yet another broken brake line, causing it to spew brake fluid from here to yonder, and necessitating the scheduling of yet another trip to the shop for a wallet extraction. ::sigh:: I sure wish I was independently wealthy.

Now, to get the dishwasher unloaded and reloaded, then to the bank so Rebecca can deposit her paycheck (she's so danged flush that she just bought herself a new LG Dare and agreed to pay the extra part of the phone bill for it) and then we'll go get Boy from band, and then we'll start on getting the clothes downstairs and separated.

Random thoughts:

1. I cannot tolerate the Rachael Ray show unless the sound is off.

2. Bob Barker was apparently not a very nice person in real life if the Internet is to be believed, but good grief, I cannot stand The Price is Right with Drew Carey as the host. Is there any way to reanimate Bob and wheel him around on stage? Or maybe get Bill Clinton to do it. Now THAT would be a show!

3. I am very tired of the local news media promoting their websites as a place where you can "start your own blog," or "blog your thoughts on our story." Most of these sites are nothing more than message boards. And leaving a single comment on a story someone else wrote about is not writing a blog. Then again, there's probably not a better way of illustrating how inept and out of touch traditional media is than to watch them continue to grapple with the phenomenon of independent citizen-journalists. It's not like it's new now, and yet it still seems like a mystery to most of the old-style print and broadcast folks. Then again, the difference between reporting your own opinion and reporting the facts seems to have eluded them, as well.

Anyway. Time to separate the clothes. Go to the bank.

2:20 p.m.

Bank, school, home, lunch (ham and cheese quesadillas!), clothes taken to the laundry room and picked apart, first load started (unmentionables!), Judge Joe Brown on the teevee, and boy would I like to have a nap right about now.

Random thoughts:

1. I wonder why none of the judge shows on the teevee have bleeding heart liberals? Probably for the same reason that liberal talk radio has such a tiny audience.

2. Speaking of TV judge shows, The Hon. Lynn Toler is really hot.

3. Lobsters.

Annnnnd, 6:25 p.m.

Still no sign of Reba, although I did get a call saying that it's going to be a while longer still before she's home. Supper's on, clothes being washed and folded, second load of dishes being washed, the hummingbirds are hitting the feeder, and stuff such as that. And thus ends the blogging portion of my off-day. Well, that is, if I still blogged. Which I don't.

Advice for Young Ladies

Some of you might know this, but for those who don’t, my employer has switched my schedule to four-10 hour days per week, meaning I now have Fridays off. Which means I now have a day where I can go and do things, such as get my hair cut. Which is exactly what I did first thing Friday morning past, (with Boy in tow, since he needed shearing as well).

We hied ourselves to the foot of Talladega Hill, across the tracks and over the mighty Pinchgut Creek, to the HeadStart over close to Target. Being that it was 10:00 a.m., there was no one but the three staff members awaiting there.

We were ushered back immediately, and I took my place in the chair operated by an attractive young woman of decidedly Rubenesque proportions, and removed my spectacles so she could have unhindered access to my noggin.

Being thus blind, at first I could not be sure of what flashed before my eyes as she drew the drape around my neck, but after several more such preparatory tonsorial flourishes, I could no longer deny that the dewy plumpness of her upper right arm contained quite an extensive bit of tattoo ink.

Now, I am of a certain age, and I still associate such markings with convicts, sailors, and women of the camp. However, I am also quite aware that fashion has overtaken my staid blue-nosed preconceptions, and have come to know that even respectable people such as rap singers and hair care professionals now deem permanent epidermal artwork to be quite desirable. Yet, after my haircut was done and I’d retrieved my glasses and had a moment at the cash register to carefully examine her choice of embellishment, I still find myself compelled to offer some unsolicited advice, most especially for the young ladies in the reading audience who wish to delve into this sort of everlasting identification.

First, I know you all want to project the carefree, stylish, devil-may-care attitude of a certain late-1960s Dunaway-Beatty pairing, but let’s face it—Bonnie and Clyde aren’t choice role-models. So, you know, actually taking the time to etch their names into your upper arm is probably not really a good idea if you have aspirations in life for a job that has stuff like a retirement plan and health insurance.

Second, if you’re dead set on the glamorization of the lifestyle of those who wind up lead-perforated, at least try to find yourself a really, really good tattooist. Nothing ruins a perfectly good countercultural jab at The Man than to get a tat that looks as if it was done by a fourth-grader who forgot to take his Ritalin. Although I realize no one teaches good penmanship and handwriting in school anymore, it would really be a good idea to find someone who has had some classes in such things before letting him practice on you.

This admonition to seek a professional also goes for Piece of Advice #3, namely, if you believe your Bonnie and Clyde calligraphy must contain an emblem of crossed submachine guns, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE get someone who actually knows what one looks like. The use of a crudely drawn something-or-other that looks like it was traced from a Beetle Bailey comic strip simply ruins the entire effect you’re going for.

Remember, young ladies, not all of your fellow citizens will squeal with delight in your choice of body decoration and may, in fact, look askance at it. But if you simply cannot resist the lure, never ever scrimp on quality. Either that, or practice with Sharpies first.

And by the way, the haircut looks just fine.

Another Birthday

Yeah, hard to believe—two posts in two days! Not that I’ve taken up blogging again, because I haven’t, but sometimes events warrant an update of an almost bloggish sort.

Got home from church last night (through a blinding thunderstorm, I might add), got the kids unloaded, got myself dressed in work clothes (at 9:00 p.m., I might add) and set to work fixing MY STUPID TIRE.

The other day I came out of the parking deck here at work and rolled over a high curb with the side of the tire and BANG-wheeeeeessssssshhhhhhhhhh. Big gash in the sidewall. The sidewall of a tire that I’d just bought a few months back after the “old” tire had suffered similar sidewall damaged by the hand of a certain wife of mine.

And this newest tire, only about a week old?

Seems it had gotten a nail in it while Reba was driving home.

At least not in the sidewall.

So, I got my pliers and my rubber cement and my rasp and my hook and my plug strips and my spotlight and backed the van into the garage (because it was still pouring rain outside) and set to work. The nail didn’t actually seem too deep. Probably could have left it alone, but because I’m a moron, I went ahead and pulled it and set to work making the tiny hole bigger with the rasp and had a heck of a time since it’s a BRAND NEW TIRE but finally got a hole big enough for the hook to go in and managed to tear up one of the sticky strips without actually plugging the giant new leak I’d made. Second time was the charm, though. Cleaned up the tools, pulled the van back outside and got the compressor out and proceeded to replace the air I’d let out (while standing in the rain, I might add.)

Got the pressure up to normal, unplugged, pulled the van in the right way into the garage, got out and went inside the house, got my work clothes back off, noticed Reba in Rebecca’s room on her bed talking, thought everyone should be in the bed, told Boy to get in the bed, and then Catherine, got my sleeping clothes on, decided to check my e-mail, sat there and vegetated and watched the news.

Reba finally came through the bedroom, and pointed to my left arm, “You’ve got black stuff on you.” Sure enough, I’d not been nearly as fastidious as I’d thought and had a smear of black road grime all over my left arm. Well, crap.

And then, “Rebecca wants to get baptized.”

WHOA—that came outta nowhere! But explains the confab there in Middle Girl’s room. Rebecca has been thinking about this for a while now, and she’d finally gotten to the point where she felt compelled to make that decision.

SO, we asked her if she wanted anyone to be there, and she figured it would be okay if the preacher and the youth minister were there, but that was it. Those calls were made, got Jonathan and Catherine out of bed and redressed, and it was back out into the rain and back across the county to the church building.

I had the same rush of emotion and found myself thinking the same thoughts as the time (almost exactly three years ago) that I’d had when I baptized Oldest, and found myself expressing similar sentiments to Rebecca once we were both down in the water (which we’ve now gotten hooked up to a filter system, I might add).

It is still quite a powerful thing to me—the idea of the new birth; not physical, but spiritual. I remember when she came squalling into the world, and what a fine big red baby she was and thinking how there could be no greater feeling. But there is, and it is the idea that when I lifted her back up out of that water, sputtering and snorting, the parent-child relationship had been supplemented by a greater one of being brother and sister in service together to our Creator.

She got her wet clothes off and changed, and we all had a short prayer together, headed back home, and got into bed sometime after 11:30.

And slept well.

Cake and Ice Cream for ALL!

What do Fred Savage, Courtney Love, Kelly McGillis, Tom Hanks, Jimmy Smits, John Tesh, O.J. Simpson, Brian Dennehy, Donald Rumsfeld and I all have in common? (I mean, aside from our almost fanatical devotion to the Pope and nice red uniforms?) That's right, it's our birthday! YAY! So all of you are welcome to grab a big bowl of ice cream and a nice slice of cake (just be careful when O.J. is cutting his) and join us for a big celebration!

Other interesting things that happened today:

1540--England's King Henry VIII had his 6-month-old marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled. She got to keep the vacation house, the Mercedes, and her head.

1776--The Declaration of Independence was read aloud to Gen. George Washington's troops in New York. Afterwards they all went to see Mamma Mia at the Winter Garden Theater, and pronounced it "really FABULOUS!"

1816--Argentina declared independence from Spain. Spain was like, all, "yeah, whatEVer."

1850--Zachary Taylor, the 12th president of the United States, died in Washington, D.C., after serving only 16 months in office. Conspiracy theorists speculated an evil genius named Karl R. Ove who arrived from the future in a time machine was responsible for his death.

1896--William Jennings Bryan caused a sensation at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago with his "cross of gold" speech denouncing supporters of the gold standard. There were reports of mass harrumphing, and no small amount of men in bowler hats clamoring in the streets.

1947--The engagement of Britain's Princess Elizabeth to Lt. Philip Mountbatten was announced. The lovesick couple exchanged a restrained, yet heartfelt handshake and thenceforth were often photographed standing not far from each other.

1962--Terry Oglesby, inventor of the Cornatee (cornbread-battered and deep fried manatee on a stick), born in Birmingham, Alabama.

1992--Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton tapped Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee to be his running mate. Make up your own quip for this one--there are so many possibilities I can't choose one.

1995--The Grateful Dead played their last concert, at Soldier Field in Chicago. There are reports of mass mellow harshage, and no small amount of dudes being all bummed out.

1997--Boxer Mike Tyson was banned from the ring and fined $3 million for biting opponent Evander Holyfield's ear. George Foreman attempts to capitalize on the phenomenon with his Tender Ear Grill, with less than satisfactory results.

2000--Pete Sampras won his seventh Wimbledon singles title, tying the record for men at the All England Club. "Who cares," right? Right.

2001--A court in Chile ruled that Gen. Augusto Pinochet could not be tried on human rights charges because of his deteriorating physical and mental health. Reached for comment, Satan said, "Awww, how pitiful. I'll make sure when he gets here to have a nice quiet room for him with pretty flowers and a comfy bed."

2007--Sen. David Vitter, R-La., whose telephone number was disclosed by the so-called "D.C. Madam," accused of running a prostitution ring, said in a statement he was sorry for a "serious sin" and that he had already made peace with his wife. Wives of every other guy in America warn their husbands they'd best not think they can get away with anything like this without winding up seriously deceased.

2008--American press continues to report everything seemingly is spinning out of control. But you know, who believes anything you read in the paper, so I decide not to worry about anything and have a happy birthday.

Ask Dr. Possum!

Although this humble blog long ago was shuttered by its proprietor and no longer offers sustenance and solace to the poor lost and weary travelers of the virtual backroads of the electronic ether, we are quite happy to report that Dr. Possum apparently never got the closure memo.

Having swung by whilst on his way to a conference on mid-16th Century bawdy Dutch poetry, Dr. Possum was obviously quite stunned by the presence of a padlock on the front door of the Axis of Weevil World Headquarters Building. However, after some investigation of the side yard (and much subsequent beating and banging upon the wall of the travel trailer which serves now as my office/domicile/caretaker’s shed) he was able to rouse me from my usual midday torpor.

Overjoyed by his unexpected visit, I quickly prepared for him a wholesome repast of crackers and potted meat, and asked if he would be willing to stay for a while to answer all of the stacks of questions that have piled up since he last graced us with his presence.

Despite the urgency of his travel needs, he did agree to sit with us for a spell and dispense some of his wisdom and knowledge. To those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Possum’s oeuvre, he is a real doctor* and has oft-times been called upon to settle disputes and interrogatories of the most profound nature, and he stands ready now to answer similar inquiries on topics medical, philosophical, political, mathematical, and otherwise.**

SO THEN, to our first inquiry!

A “Mr. Larry Anderson” of the Northern Alabama District (whom some of you know as Mr. Larry Anderson), asks the following:

I really expected a Possumblog post explaining the background on Mr. Obama’s seal. Possimus isn’t it?

Regards,

Larry

Dr. Possum Responds: Far be it from me to tread where others have already done exquisite work of explaining the details of this recent kerfuffle. My compatriots Dr. Reynolds and Dr. Weevil have both ably “put this to bed,” so to speak, and little remains left to say about it.

Other than the fact that Latin being what it is, translations are malleable things, and given the candidate in question, could possibly have multiple hidden intentions. Vero possumus could very well be intended to communicate the message “Yes, I can be George Jones,” indicating a president who is signaling his intent to embark on driving the SUV of state aimlessly around the winding backroads of international diplomacy while downing fifth after fifth of demon rum, only to wind up hammered to the gills and careening into a bridge abutment.

And then write a song about it.

Likewise, vero possumus could mean, “Truly, I can be a stupid possum.” Able to be trapped after being baited with only a few kernels of sweet corn, playing dead in the face of possible aggression by its enemies, and a lingering musky odor are but a few of the valuable things possums are known for, and similar characteristics are sure to strike fear into the minds of America’s foes. Not for nothing was President William Howard Taft—“Uncle Billy Possum”—known as The Scourge of Malignant Evildoers.

Or it could simply be akin to Cockney rhyming slang—vero possumus being the rhyming derivative of “throw ‘im under the bus,” which I’ve been told is quite a commonplace activity within the Obama camp.

[A note from the Editor, in re Mr. Anderson’s putative “expectation” of a post: We remind all readers that Possumblog has been failing to live up to expectations since its founding, and we continue to strive to uphold that standard.]

Next up, YOUR question! Please leave your submission in the comments section below, and Dr. Possum will astound you with his genius!

I promise, I had nothing to do with this. Not that I disapprove, of course.

Via Mr. Spud Buddy Marc Velazquez, this: 7 Arrested for Cheering at High School Graduations

COLUMBIA, S.C. — When school officials in Rock Hill, South Carolina, tell graduation ceremony crowds to hold their applause until the end, they mean it — Police arrested seven people after they were accused of loud cheering during the ceremonies.

Six people at Fort Mill High School's graduation were charged Saturday and a seventh at the graduation for York Comprehensive High School was charged Friday with disorderly conduct, authorities said. Police said the seven yelled after students' names were called.

"I just thought they were going to escort me out," Jonathan Orr told The Herald of Rock Hill. "I had no idea they were going to put andcuffs [sic] on me and take me to jail."

And no, I don't know what 'andcuffs' are, although I imagine they're probably something the grammar police use when someone uses conjunctions poorly.

Orr, 21, spent two hours in jail after he was arrested when he yelled for his cousin at York's commencement at the Winthrop University Coliseum.

Rock Hill police began patrolling commencements several years ago at the request of school districts who complained of increasing disruption. Those attending graduations are told they can be prosecuted for bad behavior and letters are sent home with students, said Rock Hill police spokesman Lt. Jerry Waldrop.

All the cases, except for one that includes a resisting arrest charge, will be handled in city court and are punishable by a maximum of 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Orr said he thinks people should be allowed to cheer.

"For some people, it might be the only member of their family to graduate high school, and it was like a funeral in there," Orr said.

William Massey, 19, was arrested but said he plans to fight the charge. He said he simply "clapped and gave a little whoop" when his fiancee's name was called. Massey said there were warnings before the ceremony but none that said he could be arrested.

He said not everyone who cheered was arrested.

"There's a lot more people that did it than six or seven," said Massey, who graduated from Fort Mill last year.

Fort Mill Principal Dee Christopher says school officials don't ask that offenders be arrested but that he plans to keep a police presence at future graduation ceremonies.

"We think it's important for every graduate's name to be heard and for every person in the arena to be able to see that student cross the stage. ... That's why we have disruptive guests removed," he said.

Last year in Galesburg, Illinois, five students were denied diplomas from the city's lone public high school after enthusiastic friends or family members cheered for them during commencement. Students could get their diplomas after completing eight hours of public service for the school district.

As for me, my thoughts are the same as what I posted below--I don't think it's necessary to scream and whoop, especially if what you're screaming is just stupid, but really, arresting someone is a bit much.

ANYway, Marc says hey to you all and that I need to post something once a week, just to let everyone mingle and comment and stuff. Well, it would be nice, but since this blog has been closed up and retired for nigh onto a year now, it just wouldn't do to come out and post something anymore. Nope--just have to quit cold-turkey, as I already have done, and not post anything at all. Not even a humorous news story.

Not even to talk about the mundane things such as how hot it's been here the past two days, and the fact that Rebecca went and got herself a summer job at the vet's office down at the foot of the hill from where we live (and where we take our animals, thus securing us the coveted employee discount), and how very, very busy I've been at work, and junk like that. None of that anymore, alas.

So, anyway, until the next time I don't have anything to say...

I can't help it if I get distracted.

I suppose I should be ashamed of myself, but as I sat there yesterday, I had an unexpected reaction to the surroundings. Oh, I had the normal set of bittersweet thoughts you have at graduations, but as I sat there on those hard aluminum bleachers my mind wandered a bit.

I’m not sure how to explain it. Scrunched in too-tightly together with a few thousand other sweaty parents and grandparents and siblings and friends in the old football stadium. The whiff of outdoor-grade perfume mixed in with the occasional taint of a beer sloshed down and a smoke burnt to the filter in the car on the way over. The dimming light of a May afternoon that made the surrounding trees and low hills seem close and dense, and softened the clash of the red gowns on the green field. The sound of the speakers echoing through the neighborhood. Maybe it was the combination of all of that, but after we watched them all come in, and after we’d said the Pledge, and all sat back down, and I sat there listening to the valedictory, I was overcome by a peculiar sense of how uniquely American it all seemed.

I probably should have been at least as moved by the more personal aspect of watching my daughter receive her diploma, but at that particular moment, all I could think of was how the same ceremonies were being played out at similar venues in other small towns across the United States. And it made me so very proud to be part of that type of place.

No, we still don’t quite have down the proper way to wear a mortarboard (hint—pinned vertically to the back of your big hair-do isn’t it), but we still figure it’s important to have one. History, and all.

No, even though we make the announcement to hold applause so everyone can be recognized and one kid doesn’t get the silent treatment while another gets whoops and cheers, that lasts only about twenty people in, and then there’s that first guy, the one who had hurried down the Miller Lite and the Camel on the way over, who has to unsteadily give a big Rebel yell when his niece’s name gets read. And so, from then on out, the chorus of hollers and screeching ululations starts in earnest. (Well, except for those left-out kids with shy relatives or no friends, who wish at least one of their kin would lighten up for once in their lives and give him a little yell.) (And no, I’m not speaking personally, since my mother-in-law gave a long loud whistle worthy of a hog farmer at slop time when Oldest’s name was called.) Why? Because Americans love to cheer, even if under certain circumstances it might veer toward the uncouth.

No, there might not be anyone in the class who grows up to be President, but unlike some places in this world, you can’t say for sure someone won’t.

We’ve got a good thing here. Might not quite be doing everything exactly right, or in the exact right way, but I doubt you’ll find anyone working harder at—well, I don’t know—working hard at doing something. I don’t know, maybe it’s like that everywhere else in the world kids are graduating from high school. But I don’t think so.

Anyway, Oldest did graduate, and will be going off to Montgomery in the fall, and maybe that bit of distance and responsibility will make thoughts in the future lean more to the sweet side of the bittersweet equation. Or not. Hard to tell about such things.

By Popular Demand

As warned in the previous post, if enough people asked for it, I agreed to post the tale of my recent struggle with the downstairs toilet room. In this case, "popular demand" consists of Miss Jordana asking to read it. I am nothing if not a sucker for pretty brunettes.

SO THEN, here it is.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: The following posts details events that occurred 13-14 APR 2008. This account contains graphic depictions of plumbing, excessive use of fossil fuels, deliberate concentration and inhalation of petroleum distillate vapors, and conspicuous consumption, yet is entirely devoid of entertainment value, as well as that patented Possumblog combination of mirth and despair. It is simply despair.

PLOT SETUP: I started in November of 2004 to repair the rotted floor of my downstairs powder room, the result of a small leak in the toilet flange. At the time, I could not find an appropriate selection of hardwood flooring to patch the pieces I'd torn out, and ever since then, the toilet room has been in a state of disrepair. Other stories here, and here, and here, and here.

Look, just 'cause there's a...

title, and words following it down here in this part, it DOESN'T mean that I'm blogging. Sure, most of your mainstream daily newspapers and local television stations seem to think that's what constitutes a blog entry, but not me. I know better. So don't go getting all snarky and start asking why I'm blogging again when I said I'd quit, because I really did quit, and nothing you see here changes that in any substantive way.

Not even if I tell heart-warming stories of familial enjoyment or terrifying stories of suburban horrors. Which is good, because I don't have any of either.

All I have is about five minutes of less-than-full-throttle time from my paying work, and rather than do the prudent thing and go to the restroom or get up and move my legs, I thought I would exercise my fingers some.

It's springtime in Paradise By The Pinchgut, and as has been the case in the past, I have a lovely and verdant lawn full of various flora and fauna, generally in the form of weeds and fire ants. ::shakes fist:: I will offer my endorsement of Amdro--that stuff works very effectively. And it makes a great ice cream topping!*

The weeds, though--I leave them alone. If I killed all the weeds, I wouldn't have much of a lawn left. Then again, I would have less to cut. Hmm.

Wife?

Yep, still got one of those. And she's still really hot.** And she still seems determined to see to it that I stay out of trouble. Did I tell you I finally fixed the downstairs toilet and floor? I did. Very nearly killed me. Took two days of intensive labor, including being shot at by Bosnian snipers.# I told the whole sordid tale in a long-winded email to Doc Smith, and I'll reproduce it here later if enough people cry out to read about my idiocy. (And no, that won't be considered a blog entry, either.)

Kids? Yep. Still got those, too. Oldest graduates from high school in a couple more weeks, if you can believe that. Oh, by the way--remember when I used to say, "It's only a phase...it's only a phase...it's only a phase"? Well, it's not. It does remind me a bit of a Kafka short story I read when I was younger. And that's enough about that.

Boy just got back from Atlanta this weekend. He and his bandmates went to a competition over in Marietta, and then went and did the Atlanta tourist thing with stops at Cokeworld and Six Flags and some sort of medieval dinner theater deal. Sounded like he had fun, although he spent all day yesterday trying to keep his pants up. He packed the wrong pair of pants and forgot to take a belt. Thank goodness he had the decency to at least try to keep them up and not let them bag up around his butt cheeks. Anyway, given his frenetic schedule and adolescent desire to horse around and not sleep when given the opportunity at a nice hotel, he probably slept through all of his classes today.

Middle Girl is through with soccer for the school year. Managed to do quite well, although they did mess up their overall record by losing three tournament games mid-season. Otherwise, they did respectably well. And MG managed to keep up her grades to an extraordinarily high level. She's real smart-like. Overall, freshman year was a good one for her, which bodes well for the next three years. Although she did manage to miss last week due to a terrible stomach/intestinal bug. Blech.

Tiny Terror is still her same old ball-of-energy self. She's eleven, and at the very cusp of adolescence. Whiney, mouthy, loud, boisterous, but oddly lacking in guile. I guess that's good.

Patches? Lightning? About 1 and 2 years old, respectively. Still can't quite let Lightning out unattended without Patches going all puppy-silly and wanting to simulateously eat/play with the cat, who is baffled that anyone would want to tangle with him. Animals are weird.

Job? Still got one, and it looks like the decision to give up blogging was a good one. Not one spare minute in the day.*** But that's good. I've actually remembered stuff I shouldn't have forgotten, and have managed to avoid several instances where my ample buttocks could have been put into a sling. So, you know.

The world? I have no idea about anything, other than I really have very little other than contempt for whomever will be the eventual Democratic nominee, and little hope that the Republican nominee will manage to be able to win. I sense that 2008-2012 is going to be about like 1976-1980. Thank goodness I kept my leisure suits and two-tone platform shoes!****

Anyway, what's on your mind lately?

Okay, now THIS is worth breaking silence for!

"Everywhere," indeed.

Accompanying story here, from McCalla's and The Birmingham News' own MAJ Mike Tomberlin.

Based solely upon the large number of comments from the previous post...

I have decided to start blogging all the time again!

That's odd.

And sorta frightening.

Oldest turns 18 today.

I remember when she was much younger--maybe 5 turning 6--and I went in to wake her up one morning. She opened her eyes and looked around, then sat up and started looking quizzically at her arms and legs. "What's the matter, sugar?"

"I though you said I was going to be a big girl on my birthday!"

Seems as though all of Mom and Dad's talk back then about turning the magical age of six and being a big girl was translated in her mind as meaning she'd wake up on her birthday and be full grown.

Having now lived with her through all of the less-than-pleasant turmoil of the intervening 12 or so years since that time, I have a feeling that having now reached the age of majority, she has the firm belief she is finally an actual grown up.

And, well, you know, good luck with that.

No, really.

I don't wish for any of my kids to have to endure bad times and bad things, but I know that being human, those things do come to us all. But I also know that despite my best efforts and intentions, she will meet the adult world woefully unprepared.

We've tried to show her, tell her, make her, cajole her into seeing and understanding and learning, and I know a few scraps of that made it through to her consciousness, but I also know most of what we've tried to make plain simply went into the mental shred file.

And that's a failure on my part.

But at least I can take some comfort in knowing that it wasn't failure by simple inaction. Somewhat like Wile E. Coyote (Genius), of whom it can never be said that his high rate of disaster was due to his being lazy and innattentive, I am perversely gratified in some small way that although my big box of ACME Parenting Skills blowed up real good, it was nonetheless spectacular and noticeable, and occasionally entertaining to viewers.

If only real life were like the cartoons, I'd be a bit less concerned for the fate of my own little roadrunner.

But, there she is, in the eyes of the law and in her mind's eye, an adult.

Like I said, good luck with that.

Random Fleeting Political Comment of the Day

Regarding the recent dustup and handwringing over whether one candidate or another would be where he or she is in the Presidential race were it not for various physical characteristics, one thing is exceedingly clear: the number of elected officials who have attained their positions based solely upon their own brilliance or competence is vanishingly small, almost to the point of being non-existent.

All Quiet on the Moron Front

Rear, too. I thought there might be some disturbance the other day, but it was only gas. Okay, well, not only gas, but we shan’t waste valuable daylight discussing it.

ANYWAY, it’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Oddly enough, people still come around every once in a while, or on Leap Day, either by accident, or in the oddly misplaced, yet still charming delusion that they’ll find that I have come out of my forced retirement and begun blogging again.

Alas, I still am quite quit of blogging.

But it’s not really about me—I am haunted by those whom we’ve had to let go from the Axis of Weevil World Headquarters, who shuffled out the door holding their last paychecks and various stolen office supplies, going off into a cruel world where imaginary employees of imaginary enterprises are a dime-a-dozen.

And then alas, there is poor Chet the E-Mail Boy. Once so full of boyish charm (approximately 90 years ago) and now—now doomed to his new life of self-employment.

“Chet,” I said to him as kindly as I could on Layoff Day, “Chet, I hate to let you go, but it’s time—“

He raised his withered and liver-spotted hand, and in his high, thin, reedy, trembling, whispy, raspy, consumptively phlegmy voice told me that he had an idea for a new business venture. “Oh, but Chet, you’re old, and dim, and stupid, and infirm, and have to be told everything to do—and what will Miss Butch say?”

He bade me no mind, being the upstart, blackguard, and rogue that he turned out to be, and walked out without so much as a tear or sniffle.

Seems he’d saved up some money (how, I’m not sure, since I never paid him) and bought one of those little ‘Hawaiian shaved ice’ vending shacks that open in the summer and then shutter up in the wintertime. I laughed at the thought of him trying to sell overpriced snowcones in the winter, but then to make it even more laughable, he repainted the building and started selling bowls of cornflakes. Called it CHET’S FLAKE-SHAK. Silly old man.

Anyway, I suppose it pays to do something you know about, and if there’s anything Chet knows, it’s cornflakes. He started out selling just your plain basic bowl of flakes with milk, then as it caught on with the morning commuter traffic, he started offering a variety of milks—whole, 2%, 1%, skim, chocolate, strawberry. Then there were the sweeteners—sugar, Splenda, NutraSweet, honey, maple syrup, molasses, Karo. Seems people liked the variety, and his weird tales of telegraphy and Linotypistry, and I guess the convenience of not having to go to the danged pantry for a stupid box of cereal and the cupboard for a bowl and the refrigerator for milk and the drawer for a spoon.

After a while, it got more than he could handle, so he put Miss Butch to work in there and people got an even more entertaining floor show with her in her exotic Hmong dress, screeching curses at him in French. The idea continued to grow in popularity, especially when she created a new taste sensation when she “accidentally” “dropped” some betel nut juice into someone’s flakes. After that, EVERYone wanted some. Got to be that the traffic was so bad in the mornings that they’d have the cops come out and direct traffic. Chet decided to buy up all the defunct Hawaiian shaved ice stands in town and open a whole chain of CHET’S FLAKE-SHAKs. I tried to urge caution on him because he’s old and senile, but he acted as though he knew what he was doing. Idiot.

He hired a bunch of other stupid old people to man the new shacks, and sure enough, you’d think customers were sprouting up out of the ground. People were all over themselves to pick up a stupid bowl of cornflakes and milk sold by his wrinkly old geezer friends from the VFW. He started coming up with cutesy names for stuff—like his CUPOFLAKS for people who wanted their cornflakes and milk in a cup instead of a bowl so they could eat it while driving and talking on their stupid cell phones about their stupid jobs.

It continued to be a local phenomenon of some mild amusement, until some weirdo made Chet a MySpace page and put up a video of Miss Butch on YouTube, and then everyone under the sun jumped in. The Daily Show came and nearly got shot (Miss Butch thought they were Viet Cong), then Chet somehow managed to get on Fox and Friends and prattled on and on about meeting Mark Twain and Buffalo Bill Cody as a boy and how he loved cornflakes and being a businessman, and not ONE word about me or my influence on his life. Ungrateful old coot.

After that, he somehow managed to swing a deal with some crazy dumb hippydippy chick from California (who is NOT that attractive, by the way, because anyone can look tall and beautiful in California with enough money and plastic surgery and a degree from Stanford) to develop a line of organic “Worldcornflakes” using his name and confused likeness, and then the lawyers got involved, which I told him was a very bad idea, and they talked him into a cross-country franchise agreement for his stupid cornflakeshaks, and I’m sure he’ll wind up losing his new big fancy McMansion and his Maybach 62 sedan (which I thought was a dumb choice for him, seeing as how he used to jibber on and on about the “Hun menace.” Apparently now that he can go out and pay cash for some lumpy Kraut rolling symbol of self-indulgence, Fritz isn’t such a big threat anymore. Hmph. Figures.)

Anyway, here I am—my blogging empire reduced to nothingness, and I’ve got to stay late tonight to close up, which I hate, because we can’t throw out any of the day’s batch of cornflakes and I have to eat them all, and although my intestines have become preternaturally regular, the last thing I really want to have to do late at night is eat ten pounds of cornflakes. That, and wash out the milk machines. And scrub the dumpster. And call Chet “sir.”

So, you know, other than that, things are just fine.

Aztec Hot Chocolate Pudding

I emerge from my warm, fur-lined hollow tree for just a moment to post this where everyone can see it, as opposed to it being in the comments in the last post. Via Chef Tony and the Chocolate Advisory Council:

This blog needs some pep, I think chocolate is the thing to cause pep. So here y'all go:

Recipe: Aztec Hot Chocolate Pudding

Time: 45 minutes

Butter for greasing pudding dish
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
1 cup superfine sugar
1/2 cup best-quality cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup corn oil
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup dark rum.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 8-cup pudding or soufflé dish. Set aside. In large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, chili, superfine sugar and 1/4 cup cocoa powder. In small bowl, mix milk, vanilla and oil. Pour into flour mixture. Mix by hand for thick smooth batter.

2. Spoon batter into pudding dish, and smooth the top. Pour 3/8 cup water into a small pan. Set over high heat, and bring to boil. In small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup cocoa with brown sugar, making sure there are no lumps. Spread evenly across the batter. Pour boiling water over it, and top with rum.

3. Bake pudding until top is a bubbling sponge and center is wobbly and liquid, about 30 minutes. To serve, spoon out portions that include some of the top and chocolate sauce beneath. If desired, accompany with vanilla ice cream.

Yield: 4 servings

I take USD, cash and kisses on a pro-rated basis in payment for this service.

Now then, back to slee- WORK! Back to work! Yes! Workworkwork!

Pictures!

What better way to not blog than by posting pictures! (Aside from not posting pictures.)

A few shots from this year:

Happy, New Year?

Oh, and you just thought that because I'd quit blogging that I'd quit blogging. It's just that I've just been busier than a bee on a beaver attacking a one-armed paper-hanger who's watching a one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest on teevee. Yes, THAT busy.

After I got back from the holidays, all my jobs have gotten going and everyone's running around like their hair's on fire, so there's been precious little opportunity to not blog. But I had some lunch minutes, and I did feel compelled to thank you all again for the advice about computers, and to apologize for ignoring it all and helping Middle Girl purchase a Toshiba A215 from Circuit City. It's super spiffy, with several orders of magnitude more hard drive space than my only-a-few-years-old HP Pavilion desktop, and we got ourselves a wireless router so she can hide in many places in the house and surreptitiously read trashy blogs about slow-moving, semi-arboreal pouched North American marsupials. Or do her homework, without being pestered by someone. SO that's nice.

Christmas was very nice, and I got some books and some ties and some shirts and a nice yardwork coat that will go nicely with my overalls and straw hat and perpetual dark stain of tobacky juice running out the corner of my mouth. Christmas is actually STILL nice, seeing as how the tree is still in place and automatically clicking on every evening and rotating and glimmering with its little sparkly lights. Seems a certain wife of mine (I won't name names) decided to start a new scrapbook project during the off-days, and spread huge amounts of paper and books and stickers and scissors and photos right out there in the middle of the floor of the den, which makes disassembling a lovely pre-lit genuine Chinese-made Martha Stewart Christmas tree awfully difficult. It would be easier had she (the unnamed wife) simply cleaned up her leavings once finished for the afternoon, but she has a tendency to create various exclusionary zones of craftwork that MUST NOT BE DISTURBED until she's good and ready to disturb them.

So, the tree's still up. Sorta festive, I must say. As is all the confetti on the floor.

Let's see, what else? I have a cold! It's really not that bad, unless it's really tuberculosis or SARS or bird flu or something and I just don't know how bad it really is. I figure Mucinex and Sucrets and a chaser of Lysol will fix it up pretty well, no matter what it is.

I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but that leaves me something to not blog about sometime later.

It’s been an odd year in Paradise by the Pinchgut…

And not just because 2007 isn’t 2006 or 2008.

Although I think that’s still probably part of the problem. That, and monkeys.

But back to the point. Which is itself a first, seeing as how I’ve never felt constrained by the boundaries imposed by “polite society” to “make a point.” ::shakes fist at polite society:: Take that!

Anyway, it’s just been all sorts of topsy turvy—my new, bold, edgy blogging strategy at the beginning of the year—which I termed “NEW, BOLD, EDGY!!”—was quickly beaten to death by all of the usual old, timid, dull suspects. But at least there was still a vast quantity of old timid dull crap to look at, that is, until I quit blogging completely when I got my new job back in August.

That right there has itself been such an experience, one full of interesting stories and insights and catastrophes, all of which would have made such great new blog fodder if I still had time to write it all down. Which I haven’t.

And not only that, there was all the junk that’s been going on in the world that I had no way of commenting on, no matter how much I wanted to. All of the various celebrity shenanigans, the foibles of those quaint souls in the media, the vituperations of the vicious vivisectionists of the legal profession, the always bountiful stupidity of the criminal class and Congress (but I repeat myself), all the various heartwarming marsupial stories, the beauty pageants, the pie-eating contests, the World Series, the Piece of Wood That Looks Like Jesus Which Was Found In A Vacant Lot by a Poor Homeless Man Who Sold It On eBay for 5 Million Dollars But Who Had to Go To Jail When It Was Found Out He Was Really an Escaped Convict and the Wood Was Really Just a Hunk of Wood He’d Carved To Look Like Sorta Like Jesus and so He Didn’t Get Any Money Out of the Deal But Nonetheless Created an Even Bigger Stink When He Said He Found a Bar of Soap in Prison That Looked Like Muhammed And The Entire World Exploded in a Fit of Swarthy-Faced Wild-Eyed Rage By Militant Unitarians—that sort of stuff was just begging for someone like me to comment, but it was simply not to be.

But at least I am getting paid more now, and actually get to do productive-type stuff instead of acting as a bureaucratic anchor to progress, so hey, it ain’t all bad.

Back at the house, there’s been all sorts of stuff going on as well. It’s a constant blur, which was one of the nice things about having a blog, back when I had one, that being that I could write stuff down and have some way of not forgetting it all. That’s really the thing that hurts most. All those little stories and incidents with the kids or Miss Reba, none really earth-shattering or anything, just little bits of life, but they were bits of MY life, and there was some comfort in knowing that as they grew up and as I grew older and more forgetful, I’d have some way to look back and be able to relive a little of the fun. You didn’t get to hear about the dog eating the bike helmet, or Catherine walloping Jonathan with the broom handle, or the Christmas parade. Not that you really wanted to hear about them, but they had a nice touch of humor in them. Makes the day go by a bit faster, y’know?

SO, anyway, enough of all that. Here we are near to the end of the year. If I still had a blog, I’d note that yesterday was its 6th (!) birthday, and I’d tell you all that I’ll be at home all next week enjoying the holidays with my kiddos and the stuff they mooched off of Santa.

Oh, what the heck—I think, for just this once, I’ll act like this place is still in business, and wish all of you a lovely holiday (no matter which day[s] you holify) and a Happy New Year! All of you be nice to each other, and be nice to yourselves, too.

See you next year.

Laptop Bleg

Y'know, I really messed up on my timetable for getting out of the blogging biz. Because if I were still at it, it would be SO MUCH EASIER to ask the following question:

Supposing you had a kid who'd saved up a couple of hundred dollars toward a laptop, and said child was in anticipation of a few hundred grickles more from Santa in a few days, exactly what sort of laptop should said child buy? And from whom?

Despite my aura of technological sophistication and incredible knowledge about things computery, I must confess I have absolutely no idea of the best way of going about choosing what sort of equipment to buy.

Basics are this: said child (who is a highly responsible 15 year old girl, not to give anything away) needs to be able to do your basic MS Office type applications--Word, PowerPoint, Excel--as well as be able to use the Internet, run her iPod, play games, maybe watch a video or two. She's not deep into video editing or online role playing games or anything that requires heavy-duty processing power. She needs to be able to seamlessly synch back and forth to our home computer (which is an HP running XP Home) or the computer at Grandmom and grandad's house (which is some kind of Dell running a full blown version of XP), and needs something that will not be obsolete when she takes it out of the box, will serve her needs through the rest of high school and be easily (within reason) upgraded when she decides she needs more horsepower. I would really rather NOT have anything with Vista, since it seems a step backwards from XP, although this might not be as big a problem with an OE install rather than an upgrade to an existing machine. Still, the word on the screet is that it's still got way too many entomology students working overtime.

I've seen specials at Staples and such like for a whole laptop package for around five bills, including a printer and a case and sparkly moonbeam stickers and coupons for fabulous savings on things you don't need. This one in particular seems pretty spiff, although, again, I don't know nuthin' but that it seems like an awfully fine price, even if it's not one of the ones with a free printer.

ANYway, it's all very confusing and everyone has something slightly different on sale right now, and that makes it very difficult to compare apples to lobsters.

So, for all two of you who've remained loyal to Possumblog even though it's no longer in operation, what say you when it comes to the best bet?

End of Week Brain Dump

Okay, okay--I know. A huge buildup like that, and nothing to back it up.

The shame of having not even a teaspoonful of inanity to offer. And it's not like there's not plenty of fodder out there!

Oh well, let's give it a try anyway. As long as you harbor no expectations of quality, you'll not be disappointed.

Politics: Oh, please. They ("they" being the candidates) all stink, in varying degrees and levels of venality. And even the crazy people are a bunch of pikers. Lyndon LaRouche craps bigger crazy than Kucinich. Anyway, best I can tell the choices right now on the pinko/hippy side come down to purest distilled evil, some goofy kid, a smug foppish twit (with a twist of evil), weird dude, three old guys, and some chubby guy. On the unworthy-to-be-the-successors-to-Ronald Reagan side we've got another bunch of old guys, some guy I've never heard of, a couple of guys with enough baggage to keep a team of fifty bellhops busy for a year, and a former fat guy, and that guy with the hot wife and stack of residual checks. Both sides seem to have a base of vocal supporters made up of enough cranks and loose screws to assemble a fleet of Model Ts. Take THAT, rest of the world!

Weather: The high temperature was close to 80 degrees here on Tuesday. It's going to be barely above freezing on Sunday. ::shakes fist at thermometer::

Sports: Steroids? Baseball?! Eh, whatever. I say any sport where you get to wear jewelry while you play needs as much help as it can get.

Entertainment: Writer's strike? I've not been so disturbed about a labor action since the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Buggy Whip Craftsmen staged their walk-out in 1913.

Family: I have four children and a wife. Each seem to be trying to outdo the others in driving me to an early grave. I love them all dearly nonetheless.

Work: Between the previous category and this one, I have no time nor ability to form anything more than a variety of whale-like squeaks, whistle, clicks, and grunts in lieu of actual substantive conversation.

It's a darned good thing I gave up blogging.

I hate school.

Not really.

It’s good to learn things, even if it’s just for the sake of knowing something you didn’t know before.

I suppose what I object to is that schools nowadays take great pride in assigning gigantic enriching multiculturally-engaging, multimedia-focused research assignments to kids who probably don’t get all that much out of it other than a sort of glossy simulacrum of a facsimile of understanding about the topic at hand.

Seeing as how such assignments invariably wind up requiring a huge wad of parental involvement and supervision and assistance.

Because it’s important for parents to be involved.

Despite the fact that my parents never assisted me in doing silly crapwork school projects.

And despite the fact that I have not the socially-desirable overly-stimulated and pampered single child to dote upon, but the near-to-being-white-trash FOUR children, ALL of whom are also given similar gigantic enriching multiculturally-engaging multimedia-focused research assignments.

What brings on this sudden fit of pique?

Boy, and his assignment this nine weeks. Seems they’re studying Asia in social studies. Or possibly language. Or maybe math. You know how schools are nowadays with all this cross-training stuff. Anyway, I think it’s social studies. So, their teacher gives them this big laundry list of activities to choose from in categories such as Culture, Geography, Art, Inscrutability, &c., &c., with each activity worth a varying amount of points, the idea being to allow each student the freedom to pick and choose enough activities from each category to add up to a theoretical maximum total of 200 points.

I’m not sure how much time they were given, although I figure it’s probably been over a month. And you know how good 8th graders are at time management.

So it comes closer to time to start fixing and doing, and Boy had actually begun working on some of his stuff as long as a couple of weeks ago. Me, not knowing exactly how much was involved in the overall scheme of things, was kinda gratified that he hadn’t waited around until the last minute to do his colored picture of the Silk Road, and a clever origami scorpion, and a picture of a samurai.

Little did I know that this wasn’t all there was to it. And that it was all supposed to be turned in today.

It began to dawn on me last weekend, though.

“I’m gonna make paper!”

Great, yeah, whatever, Son.

“And so I need to save the Sunday paper, because I’m going to take that, and put it in the blender, and put water in it, and some glue…”

WHOA UP, THERE, BOY!

“No. Jonathan, we’re NOT going to put paper and glue in the blender.”

Hurt little puppy dog eyes. “But—but I have to make paper for my class assignment.”

“WHAT class, Son?”

“That stuff I’m working on for my Asia project—you know, like that map I was doing.”

“Oh. Well, no blender. I’ll help you out on that.”

Because, I am a moron.

SO, thus began an ever deepening hole of paternal, and ultimately, maternal interference.

Because not only did I get to make paper, in the last four days I also wound up making an Ivory soap carving of a fu dog, a large model of a segment of the Great Wall of China, a printed itinerary for a imaginary 14 day tour of Japan (including travel distances and times for each leg of the trip), and a box lunch of three separate dishes, along with the recipe for each item. Mom got involved last night, doing a poster collage of a variety of images of China and Japan gleaned from a stack of National Geographics.

Boy was ever helpful—cutting and pasting and fixing and doing and mixing and assembling and such like, but frankly, there would be no way for any kid really to do all this junk without a big hand from their parents, mainly in the all-important task of project management. Given infinite time and resources, I know the young feller could have figured it all out himself, but something of this magnitude requires a ready-to-go set of skills in production means and methods that is beyond your garden-variety middle schooler.

I don’t know—maybe it’s all this blizzard of information we live in, where there’s so much access to so much stuff, that we seem to have come to think the past got there by a combination of magic and CGI. The fact you can pull up a billion images of every square inch of the Great Wall with nothing but a click of the mouse makes it seem less of a feat of engineering. Building a cardboard model of it (or helping Dad build one) is fun, but I dare say he still has little appreciation for just how massive such an undertaking was.

Me?

I think he’d have been better served to do fewer things, but actually do them himself, and not just the simple thing like origami. How about the teacher getting some stones, and some mortar, and a corner of the schoolyard, and letting the kids work and see just how stinkin’ hard it is to lay a straight wall on crooked ground, and then maybe get an appreciation for how long and hard it would be to do the same thing all across 4,000 miles of mountaintop.

Yeah, I know. Lawyers would love that.

Anyway, I am happy to say it all got done and transported to school without incident this morning, so who am I to grouse?

I just hope I get an A.

Trying to hang on to one tired fad just a bit longer...

itz

lol iron bowl!1!

Never let it be said...

...that I'm too busy to wish all of you a very happy Thanksgiving! So, all of you have a very happy Thanksgiving, okay?

Okay!

In the Mail...

Was minding my own bidness last week when I got a nice e-mail from a young lady named Rachel Patton with Turner Publishing asking if I'd like a complimentary copy of the book Historic Photos of Birmingham, by James Baggett, the head of the Archives Department at the Birmingham Public Library.

Apparently Ms. Patton hasn't heard that I shut this place down many years ago, since she wrote that she was sending the book for possible review consideration hereon. But hey, I'm a sucker for free stuff, especially picture books. So, I got Chet to come in from rewiring the transformer and let her know I'd be happy to receive the book and to offer my opinion.

A couple of days later, a big package was sitting at my place at the kitchen table, although I do wish I'd been looking for the shipment, because it apparently arrived a day earlier and sat on the front porch and got wet in the recent rains we had. Luckily, the book wasn't ruined, although it was a bit wavy around the edges.

The promotional blurb sent by Ms. Patton said, "This 10 x 10 book tell [sic] the pictorial narrative of Birmingham through culled-from-the-archives photography and informative text and captions."

Now most of you know I have a great affection for history and Birmingham and photos and historical photos of Birmingham, so I've got to tell you I'm already predisposed to give this thing a good review.

However.

I have to say that unless you are already well-steeped in Birmingham lore, you will probably be less than satisfied, unless you just like looking at old pictures for the sake of looking at old pictures. The captions are very short, and assume that the reader appreciates the history associated with place names such as East Lake, Avondale, Woodlawn, Ensley, or Lakeview, or Highland Avenue, or 1st Avenue and 20th Street, or with the names of the people such as Tutwiler and Jemison.

Each chapter is devoted to a different time period beginning from the City's founding in 1871 (although the earliest known photo is from 1873), and begins with a short introduction by Mr. Baggett. Now, again, these names and places are already familiar to me, and I dearly loved looking at the wealth of detail in these photos. But even if a picture IS worth a thousand words, photos this old, of people or places you might not know, means that a great deal of those words could just as well be in a foreign language.

I found myself longing for more exposition, even though I realize this isn't the point of the book. But in not providing a greater amount of textual clarification, it means that this book (or one of the 60 other similar titles offered by Turner) is destined to be limited in its appeal to the hometown crowd.

Second, although I appreciated the chapter breakdown by time period, within each chapter it seems as though more thought could have been directed at obvious groups of subjects. There are several photos of old motorcycles, for instance, that really begged to be more closely associated with each other. In another example, there are more than a few photos of the old St. Vincent's hospital and its staff. It seems a shame they weren't less randomly distributed--again, reading this as if I were a complete stranger to Birmingham, I might not have immediately understood they were related.

Another possible way of breaking down the subject was geographically. What was known in the old days as "The Birmingham District" was, and still is, a big, BIG area, and the randomness of the display of the pictures makes it difficult to grasp just how large of expanse of land is covered. I know it and appreciate it, but only because I'm already very familiar with where the locations are.

Having said all that, I still thoroughly enjoyed perusing the book. It really is amazing to see how quickly this old place sprung up from farmland to a real city. Another thing that's odd to me is just how big it looked. I don't know if it was the type of equipment used or what, but it's odd to look at photos from then and companion contemporary photos. The old grainy black and whites always look like they were taken in a huge metropolis, and the modern photos always make the place seem much smaller. And again, I just love looking at the details--the way a man wears his watch fob, the signs in the background, the piles of manure in the streets, the barely visible lettering on the fourth floor window, the old Studebakers and Nashes. Good stuff.

Another caveat, though. If you like old photos of Birmingham, it's really hard to go wrong by spending an afternoon browsing through the online digital collection of the BPL Archives. Many of the photos from the book are from this resource, and they are grouped and arranged and categorized in a way that makes gleaning the history and context of the photos much easier and more rewarding. The late (and perpetually mourned) Terminal Station gets its own section, even though I only recall seeing a glimpse of it once in the book. The book does present a short peek at Birmingham's once extensive network of public streetcar lines, but the website does it much more justice. And the Archives also maintains a blog site where they post recent updates to the collection.

All that's missing is that wonderful smell and portability of a book. Although it's worth remembering that these photos also exist in actual, real, holdable form. As someone who's made several treks across the park, I can attest that the Archives are a super place to spend time. The staff is helpful and friendly, and you can look through the old photos and clippings till your heart's content, and you can even order reproductions of just about anything for a nominal fee. One of my favorites is a reprint of O.V. Hunt's "Heaviest Corner on Earth" that I keep over in my history bookcase in the bedroom.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Historic Photos of Birmingham would be a good gift for anyone with a soft spot for Birmingham's photographic past, or anyone on your list who enjoys historic architecture. Just be aware that it's far from the whole story of this place, and that there are some companion resources that make reading it much more informative.

ISBN: 1596522542 / Publisher: Turner Publishing Company (KY) / Date: June 2006 / Page Count: 197

So there you go.

Finally!

Confirmation and recognition of my overwhelming genius.

Via several people who are even MORE overwhelmingly erudite and sophisticated than I am.

Not that I'm bitter.

Chet's In Heaven!

No, not like that.

I mean he's just really happy because we got an actual e-mail today, and that meant that Chet the E-Mail Boy got to swing into a flurry of activity (as flurrisome as he gets, at least) as he got busy transcribing it from Morse code to Linotype to a printed sheet for me to edit then back to the Linotype and then back to me with the final copy.

Gosh, this better be good:

from: Marc Velazquez
10:33 am (3 hours ago)
to: Terry Oglesby
date: Nov 6, 2007 10:33 AM
subject: Sonic Snack

Hey Terry!

I hope you'll forgive my "nudgings" to get you back into some kind of posting habit. I do miss the daily fun we had.

Then again, most of it was leftovers anyway...

With that said, please feel free to use the following for posting material: Have you seen and tried the new snack, Deep Fried Macaroni and Cheese Bites, from Sonic?

When I first saw the commercial I thought, "How did they get that from Terry?" You mentioned last week about the boys in the R&D Kitchen Lab were hard at work, thus my curiosity. The article I gave the link for mentions that Sonic is not the first to come up with this snack.

The closest Sonic to me is over 20 miles away, ergo no FMCB's for me yet.

Please shed some light on this snack scenario, oh Grand Poobah of AoW and Cornaguin creator!

As you know, we believe it's important to have a sharpened stick inserted into our foods, and we believe in large quantities. Ever tried to stick a wooden stick into a big bowl of mac and cheese and pick it up? Doesn't work very well. We wound up using that wagonwheel pasta stuff that has an axle hole in the middle, which worked pretty well, but then someone pointed out that there was no meat.

We tried working on a chili mac version, and that didn't work, either. Then we went back to the drawing board and decided to take some of our tender, farm-raised manatees and feed them a strict diet of macaroni and cheese, and as a result, we now have a new product--Mac'n'Cheesatees! All the rich, blubbery goodness of genuine Florida manatee, sprinkled thru'n'thru with tasty bits of pasta and wholesome American cheese, all wrapped up in a warm, crunchy cornbread-batter coating, and then deep fried in TRANS-FAT FREE OIL, and of course, served on a genuine hardwood dowel, precisely sharpened for your eating enjoyment!

So, you know, if Sonic wants to stick (so to speak) with their puny little puffs of macaroni and cheese, eh, whatever. I'd rather that they'd invest in more fresh-faced, tightly-packed leggy blonde corn-fed carhops, and find some way to do away with all the slack-jawed pimply doofus dudes. But that could just be me.

Or not.

[PS With the writers strike in Hollywood, this could be a golden opportunity for someone like you who has a talent for comedic writing. Not to mention your vast knowledge of fine Southern living!]

These people are supposed to be the cream of the creative crop, yet all I hear on the news are these goomers walking around and chanting the EXACT SAME "Two-four-six-eight-insert your insufferably twee demand here and attempt to make it rhyme with 'eight'" commie protester chant that's been around FOREVER! Buncha crappy hacks can't come up with something better than THAT!? And they want more money for it!? Please. I say it's time for studios to start outsourcing some of that work to Mumbai or Jakarta or Singapore. If you're gonna get rusty retreaded crap anyway, why not economize a bit?

Good thing I don't blog anymore or I'd have to say something about it.