Out With the Old....

HAPPY NEW YEAR !

Christmas at the Diner

Tastee Diner, Bethesda, MD
Christmas 2000

'Twas a dreary Saturday before Christmas, and at 5:45 AM the morning shift began slowly cranking up – the wait staff, as usual, a little sluggish at this hour. Kay arrived with a big batch of her Christmas cookies although she had yet to feel the slightest hint of Christmas spirit. Beth arrived feeling cranky and unwilling to put up with even a little hassle on her shift. It looked like a bad day brewing.

But, the Christmas cookies would change everything. Slowly throughout the morning, as the waitresses munched on those cookies, the day and mood brightened. By early afternoon, the atmosphere turned downright festive with Beth and Mary joining in a rousing rendition of Jingle Bell Rock.

The diner now buzzed with the holiday spirit! Suzi, Marisol, and Weenie had it now, and they spread it like a benevolent virus to all their customers. Pat and John and the Kugelmeister got it. The fella with the umbrella got it. Astonishingly, Father Bennett, the parish priest, who had not had the true Christmas spirit in years, got it.

Coincidently, and bordering on the miraculous, three nuns in a pickup truck delivered a magnificent Christmas tree to the diner. Ginny, the manager of the day, nearly fainted on the spot. Not in all her years had she been part of anything like this.

This was so unbelievably wondrous! Everyone who came into the diner that day walked out giddy with Christmas cheer!

Word spread quickly. The Washington Post carried the story, and Brokaw ran it on the NBC Nightly News. At day’s end, the whole world knew the story.

The next day an enormous and boisterous crowd surrounded the diner. Everyone wanted to come in for a little touch of that Christmas spirit. And the diner, as usual, did not disappoint.

Written on the menu board outside:

Serving up huge helpings of the spirit of the season!

Merry Christmas
and, as always,
may the best in you
bring the best for you
in the new year!

Sunset in the Country

Two Half Swans A Swimming

The Boys

Sky and Buddy

I occasionally do some dog-sitting for a friend of mine. He’s got two dogs - Buddy, a Silky Terrier and Sky, a Sheltie.

Buddy’s the smaller and older of the two. He’s also the cuter and the more ferocious. I do mean ferocious. Sky’s friskier but less secure in the world.

The dogs live for two things – food (other than the prepared dried food) and the outdoors. For the dogs, the outdoors is about three acres with an electric fence perimeter, a great area to run and frolic.

Buddy has an inside personality and an outside personality. Inside, he’s a lap dog and generally responds to commands. Outside, he turns surly and commands don’t mean much to him. If you’re trying to get him to come in, for instance, he stares at you with a look that says, “you’re kidding, right. You actually think I’m going to listen to you. Let’s have an understanding; I will come in when I damned well feel like coming in. You butt out. Case closed.”

While Buddy can be very independent, Sky needs to be close to you. He doesn’t like to have you out of his sight. So, when I go to the kitchen, he goes to the kitchen, when I go outside, he goes outside, when I go to the bathroom, he goes to the bathroom, that is he follows me into the bathroom where he appears to be fascinated with what I do there, maybe wondering why I get to go inside while he has to hold it until he’s outside.

***

Buddy and Sky live in the present. Even if they’ve been outside for hours, they’ll come inside, eat something, and they’ll want to go outside again.

They give me the anxious stare combined with some whimpering when they want to go out. I know they don’t have to go out, and I want to watch the news.

So we’re sitting in the great room, I’m watching the news. The dogs are restless at my feet, and they pass some of that noxious dog gas which is strong enough to stop an ox in its tracks. As my eyes water and I gasp for air, the dogs look up at me as if to say, “now will let us out, Bozo!”

***

Someone I know kisses her dog on the lips. I like dogs a lot, but that’s going a little too far for me. I’ve seen where the mouths of dogs go – in grub holes, in piles of shit, on other dog’s genitals. And that God-awful breath! No matter how many Dentabones you give them, it still smells like a mixture of garbage and turd out of a pizza oven.

Covered Bridge

Stoner Bridge on the campus of Messiah College, Grantham, PA

Holiday Season

Barnes & Noble, Bethesda, MD

Neighborhood Model

Jenny

Leadership

"Leaders are best when people scarcely know they exist, not so good when people obey and acclaim them, worst when people despise them. Fail to honor people, they fail to honor you. But of good leaders who talk little, when their work is done, their aim fulfilled, the people will all say: 'We did this ourselves.'”

~ Anonymous

Goodfellow Chevrolet in Hanover, PA

Newt 'n' Candy

"We both have an affinity for women and Guinness."

~ Candace Gingrich, gay activist and half-sister of Newt Gingrich, about their common interests.

Old Mill

Lancaster County, PA

Corner Pocket

Buddy Revisited

Sky Revisited

Cat in a Cupboard

Pass the gravy, please...

Public Library

Intercourse, PA

Raiders 16 - Redskins 13

It was a nice afternoon for a football game, a sunny, crisp fall day; it was so nice , in fact, that the Redskins offense decided not to show up. It attacked with the potency of an elderly sailor.

Norv Turner, the Raiders coach and former Redskins coach, was hospitalized after the game; they just couldn't seem to get that huge grin off his face after defeating his old boss, Mr. Snyder.

The fat-assed Raiders fan who sat beside me at the game let out a crazed scream when the game was decided not unlike the crazed but anguished scream of mine as the Redskins slip into mediocrity.

Prohibition- Era Euphemisms for Alcohol

Devil’s tears
Sleepy syrup
Zip sauce
Hop tallow
Trance juice
Grain guzzle
Mystery nip
Irish vinegar
Brain shellac
Jazz chowder
Fairy pee
Corn cologne
That slippery serum
Near beer
Stutter milk
Juniper jizz
and
Stun gravy

from My Areas of Expertise
by John Hodgman

Barn at Sunset

7:00 AM along the Skyline Drive

Meg & Colby

Veterans Day

The Story of Taps

The 24-note melancholy bugle call known as “taps” is thought to be a revision of a French bugle signal, called “tattoo,” that notified soldiers to cease an evening’s drinking and return to their garrisons. It was sounded an hour before the final bugle call to end the day by extinguishing fires and lights.

The revision that gave us present-day taps was made during America’s Civil War by Union Gen. Daniel Adams Butterfield, heading a brigade camped at Harrison Landing, Va., near Richmond. Up to that time, the U.S. Army’s infantry call to end the day was the French final call, “L’Extinction des feux.” Gen. Butterfield decided the “lights out” music was too formal to signal the day’s end. One day in July 1862 he recalled the tattoo music and hummed a version of it to an aide, who wrote it down in music. Butterfield then asked the brigade bugler, Oliver W. Norton, to play the notes and, after listening, lengthened and shortened them while keeping his original melody.

He ordered Norton to play this new call at the end of each day thereafter, instead of the regulation call. The music was heard and appreciated by other brigades, who asked for copies and adopted this bugle call. It was even adopted by Confederate buglers.

This music was made the official Army bugle call after the war, but not given the name “taps” until 1874

Lake in Autumn

Bicycle

Photograph by Robert Doisneau, sent along by my friend, T.

"When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle."

~Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills

For Sale

Near Bird-in-Hand, PA

The Top Ten

The National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry of America listed these as the top 10 songs of the 20th century:

Over the Rainbow – Judy Garland
White Christmas – Bing Crosby
This Land Is Your Land – Woody Guthrie
Respect – Aretha Franklin
American Pie – Don McLean
Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy – The Andrews Sisters
West Side Story (album) – the original cast
Take Me Out to the Ball Game – Billy Murray
You’re Lost that Lovin’ Feelin – The Righteous Brothers
The Entertainer – Scott Joplin

Marbles

Old Stone Bridge

Limericks

There once was a woman named Dee
Who hadn't yet learned how to pee
Like her brother Stan
She stood like a man
And the pee dribbled down on her knee



A buxom young farm girl named Claire
At eighteen has golden blond hair.
She grows apples and peaches,
And you know when she reaches,
That she also has grown a nice pear!

Share-cropper's Cabin

Photograph taken in 1936 by Walter Evans for the Farm Security Administration to alleviate rural poverty in the United States.

John Barth

"In unnaturally clear March twilight when the air is chill, one reflects upon passionate hearts now in their graves and wishes that the swiftly running hours were more intense."

~John Barth

From the Arkansas Democrat Gazette

TWO LOCAL MEN INJURED IN FREAK TRUCK ACCIDENT

Two local men were seriously injured when their pick-up truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch on Stater Highway 38 early Monday morning. Woodruff County deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday.

Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock are listed in serious condition at Baptist Medical Center.

The accident occurred as the two men were returning to Des Arc after a frog gigging trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole’s pick-up truck headlights malfunctioned. The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly and the two men proceeded on the east-bound toward White River bridge.

After traveling approximately twenty miles and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged and struck Poole in the right testicle. The vehicle swerved sharply to the right exiting the pavement and striking a tree.

Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident, but will require surgery to repair the other wound. Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released.

“Thank God we weren’t on the bridge when Thurston shot his nuts off or we might both be dead,” stated Wallis.

“I’ve been a trooper for ten years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can’t believe that those two would admit how this accident happened,” said Snyder.

Upon being notified of the wreck, Lavina, Poole’s wife asked how many frogs the boys had caught and did anyone get them from the truck.

Friends

"The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


"Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends."

~Czech Proverb


"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."

~Dale Carnegie


"When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends."

~Japanese Proverb


"I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones."

~Oscar Wilde

Old and Older

Got Moxie

The White House

Therein:

Over one hundred rooms
Forty corridors and halls
Nineteen bathrooms
147 windows
412 doors
29 fireplaces
12 chimneys
3 elevators

Single Pigeon

The Last Rose of Summer

Sweet Smoke

From the 60 Minutes Interview with Miami Dolphin running back, Ricky Williams:

Mike Wallace: So, you still smoke marijuana?
Williams: Yes.
Wallace: Anything worse than that?
Williams: Worse? What do you mean by worse?
Wallace: More addictive, dangerous, conceivably?
Williams: Sometimes I have sweets. Sugar.
Wallace: Oh, yes I see.

The Yellow Breeches

Boiling Springs, PA

John & Harriet

John: I have no opinions at all.
Harriet: Nor do I.

Hmmm...

"You can't play hide the salami, or whatever it's called. He's got to go out there and say something about this woman."

~ Howard Dean, talking about President Bush and his Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers

Face from Yesteryear

Glen Echo Trolley

Funkytown

Currently

Reading: Truman by David McCullough ( Harry: a president you could sit down with and have a beer)

Watching: House, Boston Legal (Spader and Shatner are terrific)

Listening to: Chaos and Creation in the Backyard – Paul McCartney (not a bad album by Sir Paul)

Following: The Washington Redskins and the Penn State Nittany Lions (both undefeated at this point; there is a God)

Have had enough of: The Supreme Court confirmation process (I don't need to hear Joe Biden pontificating for three hours about how the nominee should behave. Let’s have an afternoon of questions, then cast the damned vote and move on)

Hankering for: the first Nittany apple of the season

Acquaintance

Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.

~Ambrose Bierce

Essentials

WD-40
Duct Tape
Bounce

Patch radiator hoses

Patch pipes

Put strips in the bottom for a non-slip bathtub

Hold up that window that fell off the track or tape the piece of clear plastic over it

Patch the seat covers

Patch mufflers and tailpipes (needs frequent replacing)

If you're working on a car and cut yourself, use as a band-aid to keep the grease out

Tape computer cables out of the way

Tape an annoying person's mouth shut

Hang pictures and posters

Patch the kids wading pool

Repair split paperback book bindings

Repair eyeglass frames

Repair broken sandals

Weatherstrip windows and doors

Add to a regular book cover to make it indestructible

When doing yard work (shoveling, raking, etc.) put it on the areas likely to blister

Make a billfold

Max Revisited

Silver Lake, Rehoboth Beach, DE

Butterfly

Max

The Canteen

Eisenhower in the White House
Black & White TV
Coke in 7-oz, Emerald-green Bottles

Back in the fifties, the Canteen, sponsored by the YWCA and managed by a sweet lady named Sadie, became our after school hang-out. During our days in Junior High, September 1954 through May 1957, we heard the first chords of rock & roll. The music was a unique blend of old and new era music: The Four Lads’ No Not Much and Elvis’ Don’t Be Cruel played back-to-back on the Canteen jukebox.

And there we were – girls in ponytails, guys in DA’s – young, innocent, and ready to rock and roll!

The Playlist:

Shake Rattle and Roll
Mr. Sandman
Hearts of Stone
Maybellene
Sincerely
Dance With me Henry
Ain’t That a Shame
It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie
Rock Around the Clock
Seventeen
See You Later, Alligator
The Great Pretender
Heartbreak Hotel
No Not Much
Don’t Be Cruel
Blue Suede Shoes
Singin’ the Blues
I Want You I Need You I Love You
Love Me
Blueberry Hill
Young Love
Round and Round

Oh, really!

"Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke."

~ F, Scott Fitzgerald

Neighborhood Model

OG

Too Many Bohs to Count....

Can't You Just Hold It Like Everyone Else...

"I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?"

~ President Bush, in a note while at the United Nations

This Old House

Lanterns

Sudoku

Sudoku means "single number in an alloted place" in Japanese and doesn’t require general knowledge, linguistic ability or even mathematical skill. It's fun and mildly addicting.

The aim of the puzzle is to fill in the blank spaces in the grid so that every column , every row and every 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9, without repeating any.

History:
In 1783, Leonhard Euler, a Swiss mathematician, devised 'Latin Squares', which he described as 'a new kind of magic squares'. Euler had come up with a grid in which every number or symbol appears once in each row or column. More than two centuries later, the difference for Sudoku players is that the grid is subdivided into blocks of nine.

A man from Matamata, New Zealand, was to become responsible for a global outbreak. Wayne Gould, a judge who had moved to Hong Kong, was shopping in Tokyo in March 1997. While he waited for one shop to open, he browsed in a bookstore. 'As soon as I saw the grid with the empty squares, I felt very tempted to fill them in. Over the next six years I developed a computer program that makes up Sudoku puzzles on the spot.'

For a daily Sudoku:
http://www.su-doku.net/daily_sudoku_printable.php

On TV, Sunday at Eight...1955

The Awakening

Hains Point

Washington, D.C.

Along the C&O Canal, Lock #6

The canal company provided a small, four-room house for the tender of the lock. Along with the house came a one-acre garden plot and a salary of $75 a month. This particular house is one of the few still occupied.

Glen Echo Amusement Park

Anguish in the Supermarket Line...

Just standing in the supermarket line is torture enough for me. If I weren’t able to read the tabloid headlines I’d probably snap. But certain types of people conspire to make the experience even worse.

Today two people are ahead of me in line, and a peppy old guy is behind me. The old guy is pressing all of his items smack up against mine and then pressing himself within a centimeter of me. This guy’s hope is that his constant pressing will make the line go faster. Back off, Pep Boy!

At the head of the line is the gabby soccer mom with 45 items. Soccer mom explains nonstop everything that’s happening to her and her family to the cashier. As the 45th item is rung up, soccer mom decides she’s paying by check and THEN begins looking for her checkbook. Of course, she could have had the check completed except for the amount, but no, that would have been too considerate of the other customers.

Finally, in between the soccer mom and me is a teenaged girl (a streak of pink in her hair) and our hope for the future. Ms. Pink has a pint of chocolate milk and a medium sized bag of Doritos, and she’s drinking the milk and eating the Doritos. By the time she gets to the cashier she’s devoured both. She pays for the empty carton and bag. The multi-tasking generation – eat as you purchase. Sooo annoying!

JEN WARNS ANGELINA ABOUT BRAD’S TOILET HABITS

BRITNEY THE SIZE OF A CIRCUS TENT

PARIS MARRIES TINKERBELL

Neighborhood Models

Floating Stones