Well, it’s 2023 and time for another Father’s Day. I’m not about to write a lot of sloppy and maudlin feelings about this day but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have special meaning for me. My father and I had an up-and-down relationship for decades but once he accepted my independence and I accepted his role in my life, we became friends. It took 40 years and a triple bypass surgery for him and a whole lot of growing up by me. We had our difficulties and arguments and I miss not having them with him every day, not just on Father’s Day. I’m also a father and a stepfather and a grandfather with relationships with all of these people. The fact that I’m not much of a people-person makes its hard work for me but the end result is rewarding whether I want to admit it or not. With all of that in mind I thought I’d do what I always do and find opinions and thoughts of other people on the same subject and here they are.
“It is much easier to become a father than to be one.” Kent Nerburn (1946)
“What a father kept silent the son speaks out.” Frederick Nietzsche (1844-1900)
“There must always be a struggle between father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.” Samuel Johnson 1790-1784
“I learned as a youth that when I defended my rights by open rebellion my father relented, but when I remained meek and submissive, he only cursed and beat me the more.” Mao Tse-tung (1893-1976)
“As long as I have been in the White House, I can’t help waking up at 5 AM and hearing the old man at the foot of the stairs calling and telling me to get out and milk the cows.” Harry S Truman (1884 to 1972)
As you can plainly see, everyone has a different approach to describing their relationship with their father. It’s always complicated and sometimes difficult but everybody seems to work out the problems eventually. It’s after those problems are resolved that a true and deep friendship can blossom. Here’s one of my favorite quotes on the subject by one of my favorite writers, Mark Twain (1835-1910).
“Always obey your parents, when they are present.”
In keeping with the name of this blog, here are a few tidbits and quotes of totally useless information to help kickstart your Summer.
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Keen on disproving a key point made on an episode of CSI, a 55-year-old South Dakota man was killed in 2007 after shooting himself in the stomach, despite a script that showed otherwise. Sadly, he was absolutely correct
I think more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty. Nancy Reagan
An accident on the north end of Boston on January 15, 1919, flooded the area with 2 1/2 million gallons of molasses in a wave as much as 15 feet high. 21 people were killed, and 150 more were injured.
If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it. Jonathan Winters
Theodore Roosevelt was shot as he campaigned for the presidency in 1912. The bullet hit him in the chest but not before passing through his glasses case and the speech he had folded in his pocket. Roosevelt received a superficial wound and finished his speech before going to the hospital for treatment 90 min. later.
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. Timothy Leary
FYI – Egyptian artwork from 3000 years ago reveals Bes, the God of birth and carnal pleasures, wearing a condom type device. The Chinese were said to have worn a silk sheath as a prophylactic 2000 years ago.
Women should be obscene and not heard. Groucho Marx
In the National Basketball Association’s first season, 1946-47, the top paid player was Detroit’s Tom King, who made $16,500. He also acted as the team’s publicity manager and business director. Just like today LOL.
There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you’re busy interrupting. Mark Twain
I thought today I’d touch on sports again since it’s that time of the year when so many sport finals are being played. I thought I’d start off with a little tidbit on basketball, a sport that I’m not all that crazy about. I have a grandson who is absolutely nuts for basketball, so this is in his honor and anyone else that loves the sport as much he does.
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How far does a basketball player run during a game? The distance can vary greatly, but some years ago Ben Peck, a coach at Middlebury, Vermont, decided to find out. He put pedometers on the feet of all of his players. Here are the results:Overall, his team traveled a total of 24.01 miles, 11.97 in the first half and 12.04 in the second half. Forward Fred Lapham ran the farthest, 5.31 miles. The other forward, Tom Neidhart, covered 5.14 miles. Center Bob Adsit ran 4.25 miles. The guards averaged 2.66 miles each.
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Now Back to Baseball.
In 1876 a pitcher named Joe Borden of Boston Hurled the first no-hitter in the history of the National League. But Borden couldn’t leave well enough alone. Soon after the game he changed his style of pitching and began to lose his stuff. Borden went steadily downhill, and by the end of the season he was no longer a pitcher – he was the club’s groundskeeper.
Many pitchers have gone into the ninth inning working on a no-hitter, only to see it spoiled. On April 7, 1918, Odis “Doc” Crandall of the Los Angeles Angels had a perfect game going against Salt Lake City. With two out in the ninth inning, not a man had reached base. Then Doc’s brother, Karl Crandall, came to bat. He dumped a dinky base hit just over the infielders’ heads. This is the only case on record where a pitcher’s no-hitter was broken up by his own brother.
One of the most famous of all poems is “Casey at the Bat”, which was written by Ernest Thayer. It has been read by millions and recited by dozens of actors. In the poem, Casey, a great slugger, comes to bat with his team behind in the ninth inning. There are two outs and runners on base. Casey can win the game with a home run but unfortunately strikes out. A great deal is known about Casey’s team from Mudville. The poem names and describes the four batters ahead of Casey – Cooney, Barrows, Flynn and Jimmy Blake. The poet didn’t pay much attention to the other team, however. The pitcher who faced down “the Mighty Casey” and struck him out was never given a name.
To date, I’ve posted 165 questions in 11 installments. Those questions were relatively simple questions to deal with but the deeper into this list we go the more difficult they become. So, let’s get started with installment number 12 and see how you fare.
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If you wanted to look very sexy, how would you dress?
For $2000 would you be willing to stand up in a crowded restaurant and, for at least a minute, loudly berate a waitress for some trivial imperfection in the service? If not, consider how grateful the waitress would be if you did so and later split the money with her.
If there were a public execution on television, would you watch it?
If someone offered you a large amount of money for some information about one of your company’s products, would you except it? Assume you know you wouldn’t be discovered.
Do you consider yourself well organized? How often do you have to look for your keys?
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If you could increase your IQ by 40 points by having an ugly scar stretching from your mouth to your eye, would you do so?
Would you be willing to do something very unsatisfying i.e. cleaning toilets, for five years if you were certain that the experience would afterwards bring you a deep sense of personal fulfillment for the rest of your life?
What things are too personal to discuss with others?
Walking along an empty street, you notice a wallet. It contains $5000 in cash but no name or address. What would you do? Would it alter your decision if inside you found the name, address, and picture of either a wealthy looking young man or a frail looking old woman?
Would you prefer to be blind or deaf?
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Would you be content with the marriage of the highest quality in all respects but one – it completely lacked sex?
When was the last time you stole something? Why haven’t you stolen anything since then?
How many of your friendships lasted more than 10 years? Which of your current friends do you feel will still be important to you 10 years from now?
If you could mold to your liking your memories of any past experience, would you do so?
Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you’re going to say?
Well, it’s June! What better way to start a new month than with a Limerick Alert. I understand that many of the readers of this blog wait patiently for me to post limericks that are a bit more interesting and suggestive, but once again I’ll post this selection of limericks that are cute and funny and written primarily for and by children. For those of you who like your limericks with a bit more spice, I’m compiling a collection more to your liking that will be posted in a few weeks. These six will have to carry you through until then, so let’s get started. I also hope you’ll appreciate this first limerick because it’s the only limerick ever to use the word Nantucket without offending anyone.
It’s been said too many times that everyone is constantly looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. It probably explains the popularity of much of social media and especially Tik Tok. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing or a bad thing because who really cares what I think. True fame is achieved in other ways after you’ve proven yourself over a number of years or decades and the then almost certainly after your death. Here are a number of examples of delayed fame, for what it’s worth.
Jonas Bronck, a Swedish settler, lends his name to a section of New York City called the Bronx.
The dance called the Lindy Hop was named after famous American aviator Charles Lindbergh.
One of Florida’s most populous cities, Jacksonville, was named for its former territorial governor, Andrew Jackson.
Block Island in the state of Rhode Island was named for Dutch explorer Adrien Block.
The Metrodome in Minneapolis is named for Hubert Humphrey, a famous Minnesota senator and presidential candidate.
The city of Chicago has a natural history museum and a department store chain named for Marshall Field. It is the Field Museum of Natural History and the retail chain, Marshalls.
Kentucky’s favorite son, Davy Crockett, has a national forest appropriately named for the legendary frontiersman.
The city of Santa Anna, California, named their airport to honor the “Duke”, John Wayne.
Cleveland Ohio’s best-known city park was named for one of the city’s best-known and richest residents, John D. Rockefeller.
The Harvard School of Government in Boston was named for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a Massachusetts-born president.
I’ve already established my fame hundreds and thousands of times all across this country and the world. Every time you say the words, “I’m going to the john”, you’ll be carrying on my legacy and fame forever.
It seems that sports are on everyone’s mind currently between basketball finals, the NFL draft, and the newly published NFL season schedules for 2024. I thought I’d participate a little myself. I like some sports but not all, but I like humorous and odd stories regardless of the sport even more. Today I’m going to touch on golf and baseball for some interesting trivia and a few smiles and laughs.
Harpo Marx
George Burns
Hillcrest Country Club in California has long been a favorite of Hollywood entertainers. One August day comedians George Burns and Harpo Marx came to the club to play a round of golf. The thermometer registered over 100° and the two decided to play without their shirts. But then the course officials heard about the shirtless golfers and rushed out to find them. “Rules are rules, you can’t play without a shirt and there are no exceptions.” they exclaimed. The comedians put their shirts back on and started to play. The officials made their way back to the clubhouse. A few minutes later, someone came rushing in with the news, “Burns and Marx are playing without their pants!” Again, the committee raced out to the course and sure enough Burns and Marx had their shirts on, but they had removed her pants were playing in their undershorts. Harpo Marx reminded the committee of the rulebook. It says we can’t play without shirts. But show me the rule that says we can’t play without pants. The officials were licked, and they knew it. There and then a new rule was made: All-male players could take off their shirts, but they had to wear pants at all times. I love it when a plan comes together.
Henry Heitman
If there is a record for the shortest major league career by a pitcher, it belongs to a right-handed pitcher named Henry Heitman. On July 27, 1918, Heitmann started a game for the Brooklyn Dodgers against the St. Louis Cardinals. The first four batters all hit safely and Heitmann was sent to the showers immediately. A few days later he enlisted in the United States Navy and never played major-league baseball again. That’s what I call a short career.
Bobby Jones
Bobby Jones was one of the greatest golfers ever, winning dozens of tournaments before he retired in 1930. One day in 1920, playing in the Southern Amateur Tournament at New Orleans, Jones found himself with an unexpected problem. One of his drives landed inside an old shoe that was resting on top of a workman’s wheelbarrow. After deciding not to take a penalty for dropping the ball out of the shoe, he found a novel solution to his problem. He played the shoe. The immortal Bobby smacked the shoe which flew off the wheelbarrow and the ball flew out of the shoe and kept rolling, finally stopping only a few feet from the green. Jones chipped onto the green and holed out for a par. Professionals always find a way.
As a former police officer, private investigator and interrogator, I do not believe in coincidences. But after years of collecting odd and strange stories from just about everywhere on the planet it’s hard for me not to change my opinion. There are many weird and strange things that occur, and some people call them serendipitous, and others call them coincidences, I just don’t know what the hell to call them. With that thought in mind you be the judge.
On December 5, 1664, the first event in the greatest series of coincidences in history occurred. On this date, a ship in the Menai Straight, off North Wales, sank with 81 passengers on board. There was one survivor, a man named Hugh Williams. On the same date in 1785, a ship sank in the Menai Straight with 60 passengers aboard. There was one survivor, a man named Hugh Williams. On the very same date in 1860 in exactly the same area, a ship sank with 25 passengers on board. There was one lone survivor, a man named Hugh Williams.
In Louisville, Kentucky, three family members died in the same spot, on different dates. A woman was hit by a car, an accident that she survived, but that killed her six-week-old daughter. A few years later, the same woman was killed approximately two blocks away as she jumped from a moving vehicle for an undisclosed reason. But cruel coincidence continued when 20 years later the woman’s 19-year-old son died on the same street when his motorcycle hit a car full of college students.
The wife of Ulysses S Grant awakened on April 14, 1865, with the intense sense that she and her husband should get out of Washington, DC, as soon as possible. They left that day, even though it meant standing up President Abraham Lincoln’s invitation to the theater. That’s why Grant was not killed by John Wilkes Booth that evening when the actor assassinated the president. Booth’s papers later revealed that Grant was on his hit list.
I know it’s been a while but here is installment number eleven to further assist you in the examination of your life. I hope these fifteen questions will prompt some interesting conversations between you and the person you share them with. As the famous Greek scholar Socrates once stated: “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
If you knew a thermonuclear holocaust would occur in precisely twenty years and no one would survive it, how would you change your present life?
When did you last cry in front of another person? by yourself?
If, by getting a 2″ x 2″ tattoo, you could save five lives and prevent a terrorist attack, would you do so? If you were allowed to select the location and design, where would you have it placed and what would the design be?
Someone you love deeply is brutally murdered and you know the identity of the murderer, who unfortunately is acquitted of the crime. Would you seek revenge?
Would you be willing to give up all television for the next five years if it would induce someone to provide for 1000 starving children in Indonesia?
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While arguing with a close friend on the telephone, she gets angry and hangs up. Assuming she is at fault and makes no attempt to contact you, how long would you wait to get in touch with her?
What do you value most in a relationship?
If you learned you would die in a few days, what regrets would you have? Were you given five extra years of life, could you avoid the same regrets five years hence?
Do you judge others by higher or lower standards than you use to judge yourself?
Would you be willing to make a substantial sacrifice to have any of the following: your picture on a postage stamp, your statue in a park, a college named after you, a Nobel prize, a national holiday in your honor?
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On an airplane you are talking pleasantly to a stranger of average appearance. Unexpectedly, the person offers you $10,000 for one night of sex. Knowing that there is no danger and that the payment is certain, would you accept the offer?
If you had to spend the next two years inside a small but fully provisioned Antarctic shelter with one other person, whom would you like to have with you?
You notice a self-destructive behavior pattern in a friend who is clearly unaware of it. Would you point it out?
If you had the choice of one intimate soulmate and no other close friends, or of no such soulmate and many friends and acquaintances, which would you choose?
You become involved romantically but after six months realize you need to end the relationship. If you were certain the person would commit suicide if you were to leave and were also certain you could not be happy with the person, what would you do?
If you’ve read this blog at all you already know I’m a bit of a hoarder of adages, phrases, idioms, and anything else that interests me. Today I’ll supply you with a list of twenty-five of my favorite sayings. Some are quotes from well-known people, but most are ones that I picked up along the way from whoever was lucky enough to speak them to me. Maybe you’ll find a few that tickle your fancy or your funny bone or both. Enjoy.
Everyone Lies About Sex
Religious men are fools! Fools should be taken lightly.
A parent is a little kid pretending to be a big kid so his little kid won’t be afraid.
Being involved with two women is like playing pool on two tables. You may have enough balls for it but you’ll wear out your stick.
The ten best years of a woman’s life are between the ages of twenty-nine and thirty.
When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.
A yawn is a silent shout.
The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom respectable.
They are no premature babies, only delayed weddings.
There’s always free cheese in a mousetrap.
Chastity is curable if detected early.
If Christian nations were nations of Christians, there would be no wars.
Colleges don’t make fools, they only develop them.
Common sense could prevent most divorces and all marriages.
It is not death that alarms me but dying.
A diplomat is a person who always remembers a women’s birthday, but never her age.
In wine there is truth.
He who hesitates is last.
It’s not the men in my life I worry about, it’s the life in my men.
A pessimist thinks all women are bad. An optimist hopes they are.
The ultimate rejection is when your hand falls asleep while masturbating.
Sex is only dirty, if its done right.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
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