An Overdue Payment

“In its heyday in the 1970s, the Vince Lombardi Golf Classic rivaled the PGA Tour stop in Milwaukee as the summer’s must-see golf event.”

That was the opening line in a Milwaukee (WI) Journal Sentinel feature story this week.  The writer told how the professional tour event, The Greater Milwaukee Open, lost corporate and community support and finally folded in 2009.  The Lombardi Classic also went into decline, but rallied under new leadership and once again is a premier links event.  Coincidentally, both tournaments have 42-year histories.

The Classic is one of five events sponsored by the Lombardi Cancer Foundation.  The foundation has raised more than $15 million to fight the disease that prematurely took the life of Vince Lombardi, the iconic Green Bay Packers coach.

In 1979 I was in my 32^nd year as a Packers fan.  I’d heard very little about the golf tournament, but thought I’d have a look at it because a local news story said several Packers would be playing.  The event was held, as it will be June 8-9 this year, at North Hills Country Club, which was a mile from our home in Menomonee Falls.

I walked to the country club about mid-afternoon, some four hours after the advertised start of the tournament.  My mostly cross-country journey was designed to get me there as directly, not as precisely, as possible.  I wound up nowhere near the club entrance.  I encountered a roped-off parking lot.  Entry was easy and inexpensive.  I just lifted the rope, ducked, and walked in.

A large tent to my left looked like a central point of some sort.  My arrival there was greeted with shouts of “Stand back!”  I and dozens of others did as former president Gerald R. Ford passed within six feet of me on the way to the scorer’s table. The smiling ex-president was escorted by several very serious young men, assumed to be Secret Service agents.  I joined the crowd in applauding Mr. Ford.

Spectators seemed to be moving around randomly.  I heard several talking about going to the sixth tee, because “you can see a lot of action from there.”  I went to the sixth tee.  From the elevated vantage point I saw:

1.  Bart Starr, legendary Packers quarterback, do on the golf course what “Mr. Perfect” had done for years on the football field.  He hit a beautiful long drive right down the middle of the sixth fairway.

2.  On another fairway observable from my position on the hill, a very big man wearing Chicago Bears colors hit the longest fairway wood shot I’ve ever seen.  The accuracy wasn’t great, but the distance was awesome.  Memory dims, but that golfer was either Dick Butkus or Mike Ditka.

One of the heart-warming things about the tournament over the years has been participation by former Bears players in an event honoring their supposedly all-time “hated rival” Green Bay coach. The gridiron enemies proved they could be on the same team for good causes.

The tournament has a celebrity-guest format.  The celebrities donate their time.  This year the guests will pay $995 each to play with the famous folks, and the slots are sold out.  The 2012 field includes 14 current Packers among the 40 celebs.  And, yes, Bart Starr will be there playing once again.

Spectators get in for a paltry $10 donation, with all proceeds benefiting the Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation.  The entry fee probably wasn’t even that small amount in 1979 when I avoided it, but there ought to be some penalty for those who sneaked in back then and are feeling a little guilty now recalling the intrusion.

The geezer just redeemed himself in a small way by sending a $10 donation via www.lombardifoundation.org  Checks may be mailed to: Lombardi Cancer Foundation, P.O. Box 341217, Milwaukee, WI, 53234-1217.

Everybody who gets involved in this tournament wins.       

Here Come De Judge

Yeah, I know. Don’t cast the first stone.  But I couldn’t resist commenting on this CNN News report:

“After spending eight weeks in jail, Orange County Court Judge Robert Freehill ordered Vega to return the $13,368.48 she gained in gifts and donations while posing as terminally ill.”

What would the judge have ordered if he had spent 12 weeks in jail?

Facing Up To It

A lengthy analysis carried by Bloomberg Businessweek purported to give reasons why General Motors dropped its $10 million Facebook advertising package.  Among them was GM simply is cutting back on ads in its new “lean-mean” business mode (GM cancelled future Super Bowl advertising at about the same time). Another was that the auto maker doesn’t know how to utilize Facebook advertising properly.

The thoughts were advanced to counter the idea that perhaps Facebook advertising simply doesn’t work. The analysis dismissed that possibility by saying it works for some products, but not for others. But the author didn’t name a single product in either category.

Most web advertising is sold on the basis of clicks on the ad, which supposedly translates into a percentage of sales. All of that is theory. No one has proved the theory has merit, and probably no one ever will. People can click to be amused by a dancing cartoon snake, and have no interest whatever in buying the snake oil being promoted.

Although I’m not a big Facebook player, I look at my page fairly regularly. I have never even read an ad on Facebook, much less acted under the influence of one.  We buy lots of things online, but we almost always do that after searching for the item, not because an ad attracted us to it.

Is it possible that many big-time advertisers have not figured out how to effectively “talk to” the millions of potential buyers the Internet has the ability to deliver?

Is it possible the huge Facebook empire is built on a faulty business model?  Is it possible some shrewd stock market players knew that when the stock price dropped instead of roaring upward shortly after the company went public last week?

What do you think?

  

All Together Now

The headline on my news summary page was clear enough: “After the JPMorgan Chase mess, we must bust up the big financial houses.”

My first impression was the source had to be The Progressive, Democratic Underground, Michael Moore.com, or some other ultra-liberal web page interested in fomenting an ill-defined revolution against Wall Street capitalists. Not so.

When I looked at the byline, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  The article was by ultra-conservative economist Peter Morici, and the publisher was none other than Fox News.com, a conservative medium accused by some of being slightly right of Benito Mussolini.

Morici was commenting on a bad bet by investment bankers at JPMorgan that resulted in a $2 billion dollar loss.  Yes, this is the same outfit we taxpayers bailed out after similar shady and risky business by it and other big banks nearly caused the collapse of the world financial system.

Morici details recent history of the deregulation of U.S. banking and the reasons why a strict return to the separation of commercial and investment institutions once dictated by the Glass Steagall Act would not be good policy in today’s banking environment.  “Ho, hum,” I thought.  “The headline was a come on; this story really is just another justification for letting the self-proclaimed wizards of finance operate any way they want.”

Then came the shocker.  Here are Morici’s concluding paragraphs:

“The simplest solution is to once again separate commercial and investment banking, as was required by the Glass Steagall Act, with some modest exceptions.

“Let banks take deposits and make loans, and sell those to investors through investment banks who would do the bundling of loans into securities. Even let commercial banks own securities backed by loans in other regions to balance default risk, but leave the business of making markets and trading to separate investment banks.

 

“Commercial banks would continue to be regulated and government insured by the FDIC, and investment banks would be free to trade and take risks with their stockholders capital. If the latter failed from foolish trades their investors would lose their capital, but the taxpayer would not be on the hook.”

What a remarkable dose of common sense.  Hurry up, Republicans, and introduce legislation to make this conservative position become reality.  It probably would be approved by record majorities in both houses, and President Obama would sign it into law in about 30 seconds. 

Of course, this medicine would leave the investment banks with no regulation at all, an undesirable situation, but that could be analyzed and adjusted if needed later. The major problem would be removed--financial institutions “too big to fail” gambling with other people’s money and depending on taxpayers to save them when they lose the bets.

It’s high time to quit fiddling around with halfway controls like the 2010 Dodd Frank law, which contained too many compromises to be fully effective.  It’s time to get to the heart of the problem and solve it for the common good. 

Gro Carting

Conventional wisdom says the melting pot is working--we’re becoming homogenized Americans. 

We’ve gone through a half-century of population mobility, regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion.  Few stayed were they were born.  The young went off to pursue advanced education, promising jobs, or both. The old sold the family home and moved to enjoy final years in kinder climates and with other oldsters in communities built just for them. 

In the process, we’ve been losing those charming regional accents along with differences in manners and traditions.  We increasingly find the same big-box stores in every state.  The Golden Arches loom everywhere, and their proprietors go to great lengths to fry the stuff the same way at every location.

Knowing all this, we were surprised to spot a cultural difference the first time we made an extended visit to southwestern Michigan in 2006.  It was no fluke.  We’ve verified it hundreds of times since we moved here from Utah three years ago.

People in southwestern Michigan put shopping carts in the racks after they unload the groceries. Empty carts are rarely seen scattered about in parking lots.

In Utah, carts are left all over the place, and some abandoned ones are spotted blocks and even miles away from the store. 

Place in rack, please.

The signs imploring customers to put the empty carts in the racks are the same. Literacy rates are equal. The weather is similar, and thus not a factor.  We’d even give Utah an edge in that department.  The stores and lots are virtually identical.  So why do almost all the people here pay attention to the cart-return signs, while so many in Utah do not?

We’ve pondered the cart corral question at length without developing a glimmer of a theory for the cause.  Any ideas out there?

We do know that if you’re a parking lot neatnik, southwestern Michigan is the place for you.  You may get the bonus of seeing a gray haired geezer wearing a Packers shirt launch his empty cart at the rack and raise his hands to signify three points whenever his cart splits the uprights. It causes a lot of laughs in Michigan parking lots.  Bet you won’t see that elsewhere in the U.S.A.

Northwoods Wants

The geezer doesn’t spend much time reading a weekly electronic edition of my hometown newspaper.  Members of my immediate family are long gone.  Even my interest in the obituaries is declining as fewer and fewer familiar names show up. 

A visit to the want ad section is extremely rare. Yet something drew my eye there in the April 17 edition of the Tomahawk Leader. I found this entry:

WANTED:  Double-barrel shotgun. Also: A girlfriend. Each need not be real pretty but proper functioning is important (Need not be a single transaction). 715-612-1680.

At least one north woods denizen hasn’t lost the somewhat quirky sense of humor long associated with the area.  If you’ve got the goods and  want to make a deal with him, call the number.

Musical Hits and Misses

Complete records for the 1940 census were released this month, touching off a wave of interest among those bent on studying their family roots. 

The geezer invested a couple of hours searching the census documents.  I found my grandmother, Ottila Klade. She was 75 years old in 1940.  A few pages later, up popped mom and dad, my sister, and me.  It was fun using the search tool to travel down our street and others in the old hometown, revisiting families we knew well while I was growing up.

The census entries reveal many things about the “greatest generation.”  What were their occupations? What did they earn? How many years of education did each person have? Were they citizens? Were they born in the U.S., or elsewhere?

It appears that many people interested in various facets of American history have seen the release of the 1940 census data as a good time to develop and issue pronouncements about their areas of interest.  Zipping around the Internet, it’s easy to learn who the top sports stars were in the 40s, what models of autos were in vogue, what clothing designs were popular, and many other things, great and not so. 

Of course, we simply must know what music was favored by the greatest generation.  Several Internet sites fulfill that need.

One source says these were the top five popular songs in the 1940s:

1. In The Mood

2. When You Wish Upon a Star

3. I'll Never Smile Again

4. Only Forever

5. Body & Soul

For comparison, an unscientific survey shows these titles seemed to be the top pop songs of 2010:

1. Baby, Baby

2. Oooooh, Baby

3. Baby, Oh  Baby

4. Baby, Baby, Baby

5. Yeah, Baby, Yeah

That’s progress?

Half an Education

Last month,  Encyclopaedia Britannica ended a 244-year tradition with the announcement it would no longer print its books.  Like a growing number of publishers, it will now make its product available only electronically. 

The company said for some years the data base has been too big to fit in a printed version.  That is big as in huge; the last print edition fills 32 volumes. 

The Britannica books once were considered the repository of most human knowledge.  World Book was its only real competitor in the U.S. Although World Book still has a print edition, computers have pretty much made printed encyclopedias obsolete, first with CD versions and now with Wikipedia plus a variety of search engines.

Both Britannica and World Book were sold by an army of door-to-door salespeople for many years.   A set of encyclopedias was displayed in most middle-class homes in the U.S., even in those where reading clearly was not a top priority.  Having a set of encyclopedias was a status symbol.  The very successful had Britannicas; lesser beings owned World Books.

Reading was the dominant activity in our home, but we had only one moderately sized bookcase.  All of us had public library cards, and we used them often.  Financial investments in reading material went to subscriptions for magazines (Colliers, Good Housekeeping, and the Saturday Evening Post) and newspapers (one weekly and three dailies). The subscriptions took a big chunk of the disposable income around our place, but my parents considered the magazines and newspapers indispensable.

Dad tried to equip our home with World Books, even though a set cost a lot of scarce dollars back in the 1930s. Dad made a deal with one of the salesmen.  He started buying one volume at a time on a budget plan. Unfortunately, conditions took a turn for the worse in the family business, and only half a set of encyclopedias was in our bookcase when Dad was forced to end his buying program.

I loved to read the World Book volumes we had.  But if a quiz show ever issues an invitation to me, I’ll need to decline on grounds I'd be fairly good on items from A through M, but not nearly so wise beyond that.

“M” was as far as “human knowledge” went in our home when I was growing up and eager to absorb it all. 

Twice as many World Books as we owned.

Those Kirtland's Warbler Calls

I’ve not been privileged to see a Kirtland’s warbler or even to listen to one’s song, except on recordings.  Yet the little bird inspired calls that figured in my life on two occasions.

It’s not unusual for people interested in the warbler to never have encountered one.  As humans gradually eliminated the Kirtland’s nesting habitat, the bird’s summer range diminished until it became a rare bird. 

A little bird with a lot of friends (USFS Photo: Joel Trick)

My first Kirtland’s warbler call came on May 5, 1980.  I was serving as the Public Information Officer in the Milwaukee headquarters of the Eastern Region of the U.S. Forest Service.  My boss phoned me at home and told me to get ready for an early morning trip to Michigan.  He said a planned fire had gotten away and I was needed to help answer media and congressional inquiries.  I got the details on an auto trip to Mio after a Forest Service plane dropped me off in Cadillac.

Ranger District personnel had started a fire to burn debris in a logged area south of Mio.  The plan was to create good conditions for planting jack pine seedlings that would become prime nesting habitat for the warbler.  The fire escaped.  It burned 20,000 acres and destroyed or damaged 44 dwellings in the Village of Mack Lake.  A Forest Service wildlife biologist was killed while he was trying to stop the blaze in its early stages.

I was almost immediately deluged with phone calls.  Among other things, I had no place to sleep, so I bedded down for a few hours on the floor of the county assessor’s office where I’d been given some work space.  I don’t remember having time to eat anything until mid-morning of my second day on the job.

The Forest Service launched investigations of the circumstances of the Mack Lake Fire’s start, and of the employee death. I was involved in a small way in the main investigation after the fire was over, and wrote a news release announcing the results that got major play in the media. The approach was to be painfully honest about everything concerning the fire. The Forest Service investigation report said the fire should not have been started that day. The report stuck to the facts, as did my news release.  

I transferred to the Intermountain West a few months after the Mack Lake Fire and heard almost nothing about the Kirtland’s warbler until about five years ago.  The phone call was from a Bill Rapai, who said he was writing a book about the warbler, and I was one of the few people still living who played a key role in the Mack Lake Fire. He thought the fire would be an emphasis item in his story.  Would I answer a few questions?

The few questions became quite a few, and my memory was being taxed to the limit almost 30 years after the incident, so I requested written questions.  Rapai’s e-mailed questions and my answers totaled about 3,000 words in seven pages.  From all that verbiage, the author described my part in the story in about 400 words included in two long paragraphs.  That probably is one paragraph more than the importance of my work deserved.

I just finished reading “The Kirtland’s Warbler: The Story of a Bird’s Fight against Extinction and the People Who Saved It,” by William Rapai. It was published recently by The University of Michigan Press, and is available at all the usual book sales places. 

One thing needs clarification.  I am not one of the warbler saviors.  Over the years, several individuals did devote much energy and time to help prevent the extinction of the little bird, and their work is described in detail in the book.  There may be more heroes in the future. Experts believe that the bird cannot survive without continuing human manipulation of its habitat, and there is opposition to the types of work required.

Rapai is the president of the Grosse Pointe (Michigan) Chapter of the Audubon Society. He has been a successful newspaper writer and editor, and it shows. He presents historic material that could be dry reading in a compelling way, and adds interest throughout the book with many anecdotes.  His book is an easy-to-read guide to what’s known about the warbler plus descriptions of current preservation work and research aimed at gaining more knowledge.

What’s the bottom line?  Kirtland’s warbler numbers are up dramatically, and nests recently have been found in several areas outside Michigan. The warbler soon may be removed from the federal endangered species list.

How did that happy turn of events come about? Was the otherwise tragic Mack Lake Fire a positive force in helping the little bird with the big voice survive and thrive? Get a copy of “The Kirtland’s Warbler,” enjoy a good read, and find out.

A Ford in Our Future?

We’re hoping a family chariot replacement is still down the road a bit, but beautiful wife Sandy and I have been checking out new cars in a preliminary way.  We love our aging Pontiac, but it won’t last forever.

I’ve been leaning toward a Ford as a replacement for several reasons: (1) Ford has been producing high-quality vehicles in recent years; (2) Ford has several models that fit most of our needs; (3) Ford deserves a little edge for having good management in troubled times (it didn’t need government loans to survive the Great Recession); and (4) Ford is an American company.  Even if some parts and models are produced elsewhere, a good share of the corporate profits comes back to Michigan, and right where cash is most needed within the state.

I quit leaning Ford’s way Saturday.  The news from Detroit was that Ford CEO Alan Mulally’s compensation last year totaled a breathtaking $29.5 million.  That was up 11 percent from the year before.  That amounted to $5 for every vehicle Ford sold.

I believe that people who do exceptional work should be rewarded for it.  Mulally has done exceptional work.  Ford registered good profits for three consecutive years after he took over.  Stock prices soared.  It appears that Ford’s strategies under Mulally will carry the corporation forward for some time to come.

BUT, who on this earth is worth nearly $30 million for one year’s work?  Mulally is correct in saying much of his pay depends on performance bonuses.  He does earn his pay.  The problem is that his base pay is outrageously high and the bonuses ridiculously generous.  This is the kind of stuff that the “99 percent” is up in arms about.  This sort of tremendous gulf between the ultra rich and everyone else is not good for our society.

I have some issues with the “99 percent,” including that they represent a much lower percentage of Americans than their slogan implies.  BUT, if a lot of them think Mulally and other corporate execs are grossly overpaid, we are in agreement on that point.

Now I’m leaning toward a Prius.  If Mulally is in serious financial straits when we are ready to buy one, I’ll send him $5.

A Lot More to It

If you want to delve further into geezer viewpoints about “Obamacare” and the present Supreme Court consideration of it, see the comments after the previous post. Indeed, much more can be said about health care in the U.S.

Trashing "Obamacare"

As it deliberates constitutional issues posed by “Obamacare,” the U.S. Supreme Court probably is using the proper name for the health insurance reform act, but no one else is. I'm not even sure what it is.

As children, we taunted verbal attackers with the chant: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”  The sentiment was laudable, but the truth was questionable.  Words can hurt a lot.  Words intended to hurt a lot also can backfire.

Consider the “Cheesehead” label hung as an insult on Wisconsin football fans some years ago by rival team backers.  Rather than hunkering down and trying to ignore the name hoping it would go away, Wisconsinites enthusiastically adopted it. Now strange cheesy hats and slogans abound. Residents of the Dairy State are proud to proclaim themselves Cheeseheads.

“Obamacare,” coined by right-wing media, was embraced by Republican strategists as a derisive term they thought surely would help them gain followers as they try to overturn the administration’s health care reforms.  It’s not working quite that way.

Michele Bachmann (R-Minn) attacks Obamacare. Was that a mistake? (Wilson/Getty Images)

One of the Democratic Party’s chief strategists, David Axelrod, recently said, “Hell yeah, I’m for Obamacare.” He said that when stating his belief that millions of people will become strong supporters of the new health care provisions once they all go into effect and are fully understood.

Like Axelrod, many rank-and-file Democrats are starting to use the Republican term, proclaiming at every opportunity they are proud Obamacare fans.

Anti-Obamacare T-shirts have been around for a while. Pro-Obamacare T-shirts are on the horizon. Obamacare headgear?  That may be a difficult design problem.

The elevation of Obamacare to the Supreme Court caused many Americans who previously were uninformed about the provisions of the law to become aware of the benefits. We’ll have to wait until June or July to learn whether the court approves or strikes down the law or its key parts.  Some Democrats smell a political win no matter how the decision goes.

The court consists of five members who usually lean in Republican directions and four who tend to favor Democratic Party positions.  If the court scraps Obamacare, Democrats believe they will be handed a winner in the presidential election campaign as they blame Republicans for stripping away health benefits for millions who need a guaranteed way to get insurance.  If the court allows Obamacare to stand, the Demos will claim that the GOP’s most erudite adherents backed the Democrat’s health care plan when it was thoroughly examined at the highest level.

Which T-shirt will you be wearing?

Purely a Bailout

A happy group of owners and managers of resorts, hotels, sporting goods stores, and various tourist attractions has gathered this weekend to try to convince our governor to permanently cement their hands into our taxpaying pockets.

It is safe to say many of these entrepreneurs strongly opposed on ideological grounds federal taxpayer support for financial institutions that saved our, and probably the world, financial system just a couple of years ago.  Never mind that the banking loans have largely been repaid.  And don’t bother to mention that the federal government turned a profit by collecting interest on large chunks of the emergency money.  Bailouts are bad, say conservative business owners.

Apparently,  taxpayer financing is only “creeping socialism” outside “the proper role of government” when it goes to someone else.

The tourism conferees have gathered in Grand Rapids to consider “Delivering on the Pure Michigan Promise.”  Pure Michigan is a promotional campaign designed to lure vacationers to come to the state to experience Michigan’s wonders.  We do have many attractions, including great natural beauty in the coastal and northern areas. It seems only good and right that resources should be allocated to telling the Pure Michigan story. The question is: “Whose resources?”

State support for tourism is nothing new here or elsewhere.  However, with Michigan’s economy reeling from one job loss after another in 2008, Governor Jennifer Granholm took it big time.  She transferred $45 million from a job trust fund to finance the Pure Michigan ad campaign for three years.   The campaign went national. Now there’s talk about wooing international visitors.

Current Governor Rick Snyder, who is an avowed budget cutter in some areas, has proposed a $25 million budget item to continue the Pure Michigan campaign next year. The program is run by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s Travel Michigan Division.  It claims to have created $2 billion in new tourism spending since 2006.

This year there’s a new wrinkle to the ad campaign.  Two cities, Mackinac Island, and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn are chipping in several million dollars in total to assure they will be featured in some Pure Michigan ads. Aha, that’s a good thing.  Some of those who stand to benefit are willing to pick up a share of the tab.

The tourist industry has conducted a spirited public relations campaign trying to demonstrate that Michigan benefits from about $3 in tax revenue for every $1 invested in the tourism campaign. Wonderful.  Of course there is no mention that the owners of  tourism-related businesses are the chief beneficiaries of the taxpayer investments.  Other statistics show the Michigan tourism sector recovering at a rapid pace from the Great Recession.

Pure Michigan is such a good deal that the industry people now are pushing for a mechanism to ensure long-term state funding.  “Anything the legislature creates, they can uncreate,” the vice president of the Michigan Travel Council is reported to have said.  He said he thought the currently proposed $25 million budget item was “adequate.”

I say if the program is so wonderful those business owners, communities, and tourist attraction operators who benefit should be willing to pay for all of it.  This could be arranged over time with some simple legislation.  How about this:

Approve the $25 million budget item for next year only.  Mandate that it then will be reduced by $1 million each year for the next 25 years.  If those who benefit  want to maintain the program indefinitely, they could make contributions to replace the million dollar annual withdrawal of taxpayer money.

The tourism industry people would continue to enjoy their bailout for a long time, but their hands gradually would be withdrawn from our pockets.

A Benefit of Age

We often dwell on the negatives of advancing years.  Prime topics are loses of strength, agility, keen eyesight, and memory.  The more-frequent aches and pains, unfortunately, not only hurt us but aggravate others when we feel compelled to complain about them.

Better to lie and respond with the traditional, “Fine,” when someone inquires about the status of our health.

My office--back when it was reasonably tidy.

And maybe we mature adults are just fine if we stop to think deeply about our situations.  For some weeks, I’ve been flogging myself mentally for not cleaning up the mess that has become my previously neat and tidy office.  Yesterday, I decided I should just forgive myself for the sloppiness and live with the litter.

We’ve recently moved away from most of our close friends.  Our only consistent visitors now are considerably younger family members.  They seldom have the temerity to criticize my actions, or lack thereof, at least to my face.

It’s a lot more fun to check out the latest computer game or crossword puzzle or take a walk in the woods than to spend any valuable time dusting, vacuuming, and putting things in order. Manana probably will be a better day for a cleanup project, anyway.

It’s a good thing to be a fully mature adult.

Brits Have a Word for It

For some time, I’ve been entertained by posts at www.oldgit.wordpress.com created by “Big John.”  John liberally sprinkles British slang into his observations, which makes his wit even more delightful.

If, like me, you need a little help with meanings of some expressions tossed around in the UK, just as people who really speak English need help understanding “American,” here are a few tips to aid you with the article below.  The post is reproduced here with John’s permission.  “Nick” is a prison. “Old lag” refers to a convict.  “Banged up” means locked up in a cell.  John has defined one of my favorites, “starkers,” for us, and context explains “naughty bits” adequately.

John once described himself as a “born again atheist.” Knowing that helps in appreciating his post. Enjoy.

Should they go nude in the ‘nick’ ?

Posted by Big John on March 13, 2012

As one who thinks that the world would be a much better place without religion, I must admit to having a soft spot for the poor old pagans, as I can’t help but feel that history gave them a raw deal and a bad press with all that stuff about human sacrifice and dirty old druids chasing naked virgins by moonlight.

Even today they are discriminated against, as I found out when I learned a wonderful new word .. “skyclad” .. It means .. ’starkers’ .. and refers to the pagan practice of performing religious rituals while ‘au natural’.

Now I’m not sure why they need to display their naughty bits when dancing around their pentagrams, or whatever it is that they do, but it seems that some bloke in the ‘nick’ is a bit pissed off that he can’t; and another pagan ’old lag’ is upset because he is not allowed to wear a hooded robe.

I can’t see what harm would be done by granting these cons’ requests, for I’m sure that the members of other faiths are allowed to wear and use religious items, such as yarmulkes in the case of Jews and prayer mats in the case of Muslims. So why not banged-up ‘Ancient British believers’ ? .. Blimey ! .. It’s not as if they are asking for a megalithic monument to be erected in the exercise yard.

I bet the lawyers are queuing up outside the gates at this moment and booking flights to Strasbourg to appear before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of these ‘persecuted’ pagans, and, for once, I support them. In fact I’m thinking of organising a ‘skyclad’ protest march … When ? … Well, perhaps …

… when the weather gets a bit warmer.

Ancient stonework might not work well in a prison yard.

Kalamazoo, Of Course

A couple of TV stars showed up in Kalamazoo last week, and of course there had to be some questions about the uniquely named city.

Jonathan and Drew Scott, the “Property Brothers” on HGTV’s home remodeling show, came to town for weekend appearances at the Home Expo, an annual event featuring local builders and various products offered to homemakers.  In a newspaper interview, Jonathan said one of the most frequent questions posed by their fans lately was, “Is Kalamazoo a real place?”

A view of downtown Kazoo. It's real.

How could anyone question the existence of Kalamazoo?  Didn’t Glenn Miller immortalize the place by writing and playing that big-band musical hit, “I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo?” Weren’t those famous Checker taxi cabs manufactured in Kalamazoo?  What expert angler never cast for the big fish with a Kalamazoo-made Shakespeare reel? And, thousands of  music lovers strummed or listened to notes from Gibson "Banner" guitars, fine instruments made for years in Kalamazoo.

Oh, yeah.  Only fully mature adults are likely to remember those things.  So we can forgive a few youngsters in the 13 countries where “Property Brothers” is broadcast if they aren’t convinced of the reality of Kalamazoo.

The question caused the Geezer to reflect on advice in the old Associated Press Style Manual on how to present names of cities in news stories.  The manual said use both the city and state names in the first mention of the community in a story. After that, drop the state name.  But for a major metropolis, omit the state identifier altogether.  Write or say only “Los Angeles” or “Chicago,” not “Los Angeles, CA” or “Chicago, IL.”

Kalamazoo is no major metropolis, but its one-of-a-kind status ought to qualify it for the metropolis rule. Anybody who knows about it knows it’s in Michigan. When you've said Kalamazoo, you've said it all.

A precise location is a bit more difficult.  But, if you lay a ruler on a map on a line between Chicago and Detroit, measure the distance, and divide by two, you will hit pretty close to Kalamazoo.

Kalamazoo also is about 15 miles south of our home, but we’re not a landmark.  We welcome visitors, however.  Just turn on your GPS, set it on Plainwell, Michigan (yes, Plainwell needs a little extra identification) and let one of the marvels of the electronic age guide you to within five miles of us. We then can direct you here for a rest stop and a little visit and then precisely tell you the way to Kalamazoo. It is a real place, and a rather nice one at that.

Phil's Phorecast

Phil and friend (AP Photo)

Today’s date: March 14. Today’s temperature in the shade of my backyard: 79 degrees F.  Puxatawny Phil’s shadow: seen on Feb. 2. Forecast: six more weeks of winter. Days since forecast: 41.  Forty-one divided by seven-day weeks: 5.86 weeks.

Not bad, Phil 

Now please don't dump a foot of snow on us next week.

Gas Pulls Ahead

A few days ago, when I filled the family flivver up in beautiful downtown Plainwell, MI, a gallon of regular cost $3.99.  Here comes $4 gas. Can $5 gas be far away?

My latest gas tab was $52.51.  I bought my first car, a 1929 Model A Ford, back in the early 1950s for $50. Even in its old age, the Ford was a dependable vehicle.  I drove it for about a year and sold it for $55. Nothing approaching a fifty dollar bill was needed to fill it up.  Gas sold for 26 cents a gallon back then.

There were no self-service gas stations, at least where I lived.  Attendants pumped your gas to order.  They also cleaned your car’s windshield and checked the air pressure in the tires.  Those services were free.  I don’t recall seeing anyone giving a tip to an attendant, so it’s fair to assume tipping was nonexistent or at least infrequent.

We young bucks often collected nickels, dimes, and quarters from our buddies, bought a “dollar’s worth’” of gas, and spent a long evening “cruising the drag.”  That was another way to say we were trying to pick up girls who might be walking down the town’s main street. We weren’t very successful, but we were persistent.  We logged a lot of miles.

Some Model A's Still Cruise

Transportation costs certainly have escalated, but they’ve not risen equally.  At the time I bought my well-used Ford for $50, you could get a nice, new family sedan for $2,000.  We bought our nice, new family sedan a few years ago for $21,000.  Do the math.  The modern machine cost 10.5 times what one went for 60 years ago.

Doing the math for gasoline, we find the price has increased more than 15 times over the same six decades. 

Those Canadians, Mexicans, and Nigerians who pump most of the “liquid gold” we use and those Arabs who set the world prices are doing a good job of picking our pockets.  Maybe they finally caught on after observing the machinations of wealthy Texas families on television.

Unfortunately, it’s more likely that oil supplies have started a downward spiral throughout the world. We probably are going to see huge price increases as populations continue to explode and industrialization advances to serve the new hordes of people.   

Put on your hiking shoes, and get that old bicycle out of the garage.  The heyday of the automobile as the centerpiece in American life soon will start fading away.  It may be a great time for innovation.  Would “cruising the drag” on a bicycle built for two (or even a low-powered motor scooter) prove attractive?

Don’t despair, though.  The U.S. has huge coal reserves and recently found ways to extract a whole lot of natural gas. We also are finally fully engaged in developing vehicles powered entirely or mostly by electricity.  The future may be brighter than it appears right now.

He Said, She Said

Describing a not-so-proud moment in the history of a football star (Feb. 2 post, “Look Out, Here Comes Tony!”) reminded me of a similar exploit of my very own. It was not among my finest achievements, but at least I got a mild compliment when it was all over.

Years ago, son Lee and I made an evening trip to the hardware store to gather supplies for a home lighting improvement project.  Among other things, we bought a six-foot length of conduit, and Lee hung onto it through the open passenger side window of our Honda during the short trip to our house.

When we arrived in our garage, and Lee was getting out, somehow my feet got tangled up and I hit the accelerator instead of the brake.  I drove right through the back of the garage.  When the little car came to rest, it sported a flat tire and was hung up teetering back and forth on the concrete wall base. 

Sandy raced out to ask, "Did something explode?"  The next question was,  "How in the world did you do that?"

A wrecker was needed to extricate the car from the battered wall.  When the tow truck operator arrived, he chuckled a bit after inspecting the damage and asked who had been driving.  I confessed.

"Well, at least you're honest, " the towing man said, "The last six guys who did this told me their wives were driving."

In Grateful Memory

Staff Sgt. Ahmed Kousay Altaie (U.S. Army), Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Captured in Bagdad, Iraq, October 2006, and later killed. This month, his were the last remains recovered of those missing from Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn mission.