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A column by Gary Webster |
I wonder how Art would've handled this one.
When I was growing up, before I spent all day in school, part of my day involved watching House Party every weekday afternoon. It was something of a variety program. All I remember about the show is that it concluded with a ten minute segment featuring the host, Art Linkletter, interviewing a half dozen or so elementary school children. In other words, kids just a few years older than me. I would've been a natural for that segment, called "Kids Say the Darndest Things." If only I'd lived in southern California. It's hard to be discovered in Cleveland!
The answers Linkletter got to the questions he asked the kids provided him with enough material for several books, also titled "Kids Say the Darndest Things." I don't remember any of the specific questions since almost half a century has passed since I saw the show, but one of them turned up on a TV blooper tape I found in a discount bookstore's bargain bin a while ago.
Linkletter asked the seemingly innocent question of his panel, "which of your parents do you look like, your mother or your father?" To which a little girl responded, "neither one. People say I look like the milkman." The audience lapsed into hysterics and Linkletter's face turned several shades of red. At least I assume it did. I don't know if the show was broadcast in color, and it wouldn't have mattered since we had a black and white TV until 1972. Can you imagine how Jerry Springer would've handled that situation? He would've had the kid's parents and the milkman waiting off stage, and a free-for-all undoubtedly would've ensued. Television has come a long way since the early 1960's, hasn't it?
I also wonder how Linkletter. . .or Bill Cosby, another celebrity known for his rapport with rugrats who hosted an updated version of "Kids Say the Darndest Things" a few years ago. . .would've dealt with the precocious nine year old author who made the rounds of the network morning news programs last week. NBC's Today show beat its competitors to the punch, putting Alec Greven on the air first. He lives in Colorado and I'm jealous of him because he's a published author and sex symbol.
Yes, I'm a published author, too, but Alec is getting paid for his work. It started as a school creative writing project in Miss Dupree's class. Alec chose to watch his classmates interact at recess and noted the problems nine year old boys had approaching nine year old girls. Miss Dupree was so impressed with Alec's work that she urged him to make it into a booklet, which he did. It sold for five dollars a copy at a school function and earned him a contract with the prestigious Harper-Collins publishing house.
I'd give my right arm to have one of my manuscripts. . .of which I have several. . .published by Harper-Collins. Or Joan Collins. Or Tom Collins. Or anybody! Alec's forty-six page manual, entitled How to Talk to Girls, is on bookshelves from coast to coast. I don't know how I missed it, because I check out the relationship books every time I enter a book emporium. I have dozens of 'em. I could open my own bookstore and sell nothing but relationship books. Not one of them has delivered what the author promised. . .namely, a RELATIONSHIP!
I didn't hear Alec's interview with Meredith Vieira on Today, because the TV I have in the air studio where I'm hosting my radio program at that hour isn't hooked up to cable and only picks up the local CBS affiliate. Alec was quizzed by Harry Smith on CBS's morning news program the next day, but I can't have the sound on while I'm working, so I don't know what he said. According to internet accounts of the interviews, Alec did what any smart author does while plugging a book. . .tell the audience just enough to whet its appetite, so it'll make tracks to the nearest bookstore and plunk down some hard earned cash to buy a copy. Alec noted that some of the relationships he observed on the playground failed to survive even a single recess period. When this happened, it was always the girl telling the boy the budding romance was all over. Alec also said girls don't like messy boys and prefer smart boys to those who act like clowns. No wonder I never get anywhere with women! He also advises boys looking for amore to set their sights on plain-looking girls rather than pretty ones, because pretty girls are, in his words, "like cars that need a lot of oil." I guess that's a nine year old's way of saying "high maintenance." Last but not least, he reportedly told Vieira that, since his book was published, girls have been "kind of all over me."
I'll have to buy the kid's book. I'm not too proud to take advice from a nine year old boy who has girls "kind of all over me." That's a problem I've never had.
Did I miss it?
Does anyone know how long an "age" is? An "age" is sort of like an "era," although an "era" can be short. It can be a day. Or a week. Or thousands of years, like the Paleolithic Era or the Mesozoic Era or the Cretaceous Era.
An "age" is similar to a generation. I think a generation lasts roughly two decades. I sure hope "ages" are longer than generations. If not, I missed out on something that could've been really good.
A few days ago, driving along the interstate, I had my car radio tuned to a program called Inside the Sixties. The show features music from that decade, stories about the songs, and interviews with the performers who made the music. It fascinates me because I was introduced to music during the sixties. I first became aware of rock 'n roll as the British invasion, led by four guys with funny haircuts who called themselves the Beatles, was beginning. The music of the sixties was the stuff I grew up with.
While the host rambled on about something of no particular significance, the mystical opening strains of a familiar tune began wafting through my empty car. Well, it wasn't completely empty. I was in it. Cars don't drive themselves. The passenger seat wasn't occupied, and I wasn't pleased about that. If I'd had a passenger with me, however, I probably wouldn't have been listening to the radio and heard the voice of Marilyn McCoo fill the car. The song was Aquarius, from the famous. . .or infamous. . .musical Hair, a symbol of the turbulent sixties if ever there was one.
I began to wonder how long an "age" is. According to the song, the Age of Aquarius dawned in 1969. April 12, 1969, to be exact. That was the day the song hit number one on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart. It stayed there for six weeks. I sure hope the end of Aquarius's reign as the most popular song in America didn't signal the end of the age of Aquarius itself. What a bummer!
Because I was born on January 31st. . .in 1956, if you must know. . .and thus under the zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the water bearer, which is an air sign and not a water sign as many people mistakenly assume, the idea of an "age of Aquarius" has always had a special meaning for me. Being an Aquarian, this should be my time, shouldn't it?
In the words of Aquarius, the age began with the moon in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars. During the age, peace would guide the planets and love would rule the stars. That certainly wasn't happening in 1969, nor is it happening now. The age of Aquarius would be highlighted by harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding. Not to mention mystic crystal revelation and the mind's true liberation. It all sounds too ethereal for me. That stuff is all well and good. I'm all for harmony, understanding, sympathy, trust, mystic crystal revelation and the true liberation of the mind. But I'd like some more tangible benefits from being born an Aquarian during the age of Aquarius. Such as cash!
It seems fair to me that the universe should bestow lots of neat things on an Aquarian during the age of Aquarius. When it's the age of Sagittarius or the age of Pisces or the age of Libra, I'll be glad to take a seat and let the people born under those signs reap their just rewards. If I'm still around, that is. But as long as this is the age of Aquarius, since I'm an Aquarian, I want the universe to heap upon me all the neat-o things that I, as an Aquarian, am entitled to. Like gobs of money and success at everything I attempt. And being irresistible to women. At least the women I want to be irresistible to.
That brings me back to my original question. Is this still the age of Aquarius? I'm assuming it must be. No one has written a song called Scorpio or Capricorn, or some other astrological sign. The last Ice Age lasted ten thousand years! The age of Aquarius is only thirty-nine years old. It's barely started.
If this is still the age of Aquarius, as an Aquarian myself, I demand my rights. And my stuff!
That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
When you've been around as long as I have, you hear a lot of ridiculous things. The most ludicrous. . .except for the thought of Jessica Simpson. . .or Jessica Beil. . .falling madly, and, more importantly, eternally in love with me, was a suggestion posed by the author of a book the instructor of our child psychology class at dear old Kent State University required us to read some thirty years ago.
Among the progressive. . .or moronic. . .ideas the author put forth was the suggestion that children should be given the right to vote. The voting age had only recently been lowered to 18, but the author believed it should be dropped still further. I don't recall if he had a specific age in mind, but five years old keeps popping into my head.The guy. . .and all I remember about the author was that he was a man. . .may have suggested that newborns be given the franchise the moment they emerged from the womb, but I know for sure he believed five year olds should be allowed to vote. The author's contention was that since children are affected by the decisions made by our elected officials, they should have a say in who those elected officials are.
Another thing I learned in child psychology was that children should be treated with respect, and I've tried to remember that. Three of my best pals right now are my fellow writer friend Chris's three kids, ages six, four, and two. They're great kids. The six year old is a budding astronomer. He knows more about the planets than I do. When I was six, I thought the earth was a floating balloon. However, with all due respect to Danny, I don't think he's ready to cast an informed ballot in next month's presidential election. Of course, it can be argued that the vast majority of the adults who cast ballots in the election won't make an informed choice. I was going to interject a snide comment here about Jesse Ventura being elected governor of Minnesota (although it should be pointed out that 63% of the populace voted against him) but I won't because he may be able to track down the source of this essay and punch me out.
I thought the idea of five year olds voting was ridiculous in 1978, and I still do. But it would be interesting to know what the small fry are thinking. So, in the absence of a Constitutional amendment reducing the voting age to single digits, the folks at the Nickelodeon cable TV network are doing the next best thing. They're giving their viewers. . .children, if you don't have any and thus don't watch Nickelodeon, although I don't have any and Nickelodeon is just about the only network I watch. . .the chance to cast their ballots for our next president via the internet. I don't think they've set an age limit. If a kid can get on the internet, he or she can vote. That's democracy in action. After all, the kids who are watching SpongeBob SquarePants today are the leaders of tomorrow. That's a frightening thought.
Nickelodeon's junior election brings back memories of a presidential election campaign of my youth, when I was much too young to cast a ballot. . .legally, at least. . .but desperately wanted to. It was the spring of 1968. The Vietnam War raged across the Pacific and the United States was in turmoil. President Lyndon Baines Johnson had decided not to seek another term. Our sixth grade teacher at Upson elementary school, Miss Sullivan, decided that allowing her students to choose two candidates from among those who remained in the race and holding an election of our own would make for a good lesson in social studies, which was what educators had come to call civics by the late 1960's. Miss Sullivan was quite a progressive teacher. In the fall of 1967, she'd come across an abridged version of Shakespeare's classic tragedy Macbeth and decided to produce it as a class project. Yours truly won the title role. I still don't know how to this day. I'm not sure I would've auditioned had I known I'd have to wear leotards. What did I know about how men dressed in Shakespeare's day? All I knew was, Jeannie, the girl I had a crush on, was going to audition for the role of Lady Macbeth, and if she got it, we'd have to work together, and who knew where that might've led? Jeannie didn't get the part.
I don't remember many of the details of our faux election. Unlike our parents, who nominated Richard Nixon, making the greatest comeback since Lazarus, on the Republican side and Hubert H. Humphrey on the Democratic side, we chose New York governor Nelson Rockefeller as our Republican candidate. I can't recall if we selected Sen. Bobby Kennedy or Sen. Eugene McCarthy as our Democrat. I think we chose McCarthy. We also chose a fellow student to represent each candidate. Steve Michael represented Rockefeller. I don't remember who played the part of the Democratic candidate. The candidates made speeches and participated in a debate, and then we elected Rockefeller. I voted for Rockefeller. I wasn't a Democrat then. In truth, I think we voted more for Steve, who was one of the popular kids, than we did for the candidate he represented, but what do you expect? We were 11 years old!
I wonder occasionally how the world might've been different if our parents had made the same choices we did. Would McCarthy have defeated Rockefeller? Would Rockefeller have been paranoid and sabotaged his own presidency by authorizing, and then covering up, the Watergate break-in? If McCarthy had won, would he have authorized a break-in of Republican campaign headquarters to try to ensure his re-election? Where would the writers be if "Watergate" hadn't become a part of the American lexicon?
As the announcer says on that classic Tootsie Roll pop commercial, "the world will never know."
Talk about an offer I can't refuse.
I plan to be cruising the streets of northeastern Ohio in a new set of wheels soon. Although I once vowed never to own a foreign car, I'll soon be the proud owner of a 2009 candy apple red Nissan. Preferably a convertible, impractical as they may be in this neck of the woods. Before condemning me for violating my core beliefs, allow me to explain why, for the first time in thirty-four years of driving, I'm going to buy a foreign car.
It's because, in the immortal words of Don Corleone, or whatever Marlon Brando's character's name was in The Godfather, someone has made me an offer I can't refuse. I'm loyal to my country, but I'm not stupid!
For several months now, I've been listening to radio advertisements for a Nissan dealership in a western suburb of Cleveland. At first, I was disdainful of the ads because the owner of the dealership reads his own commercials. I hate people who do that, because it means less work for people like me, who want to get rich reading commercials for businesses like car dealerships. I can understand why the guy does his own commercials. He doesn't have the money to hire a professional announcer. . .like me. . .because he isn't making any money selling cars. He can't be.
I won't identify this gentlemen. I'll simply call him "the Nissan guy." He's a typical brash car dealership owner. He screams his advertisements at the top of his lungs at a decibel level only dogs can hear. But he gets your attention. He certainly gets mine when, at the end of each advertisement, he tells his listeners, and this is a direct quote, "I can't say no to ANY deal!" That's how I know I'll soon be driving a brand new Nissan.
Many years ago, when Ford's advertising slogan was "have you driven a Ford lately," my Uncle Rollie told me he planned to visit the nearest dealership and ask to test drive one. When the confused salesperson asked what the heck he was talking about, Rollie was going to tell him or her that he'd heard the advertisements asking if he'd driven a Ford lately, so he wanted to test drive a Lately and find out if he liked it. I don't think my uncle ever pulled that prank. He was kidding. I'm serious.
The reason I'm going to abandon my vow never to own a foreign car is because my new Nissan will cost me just one dollar. After all, "the Nissan guy" said, and again I quote directly, "I can't say no to ANY deal," so I'm going to take him up on that claim. I've heard many commercials in which the dealer says "no reasonable offer refused," or "all reasonable offers considered," but that's not what "the Nissan guy" says. In every commercial he says, and I quote again, "I can't say no to ANY deal!" So, I'm going to find out if he means it. If not, there's something called a truth in advertising law I'll remind him of.
I know what you're thinking. There's a difference between a "deal" and an "offer." The Nissan guy doesn't say he can't say no to any offer, he says he can't say no to any deal. I beg to differ. All I have to do is walk into the man's office and say "here's the deal. I'll give you a dollar and you'll sell me a 2009 candy apple red convertible red Nissan. Your radio ads say you can't say no to any deal, and I just made one. Hand over the keys, the title and the registration. And it better have a full tank of gas." If he doesn't see things my way, I'll take my case to the Better Business Bureau.
I'm surprised more people haven't taken advantage of "the Nissan guy's" generosity. Once I open the floodgates, I'll bet there'll be lots of Nissans on the road.
Everybody has an Uncle Bob.
I had an Uncle Bob. His name was Uncle Bob, which explains why I called him that. So did my sister. My mother usually called him "Bobby." Mom didn't call him "Uncle Bobby," of course, since Uncle Bob wasn't her uncle. He was my uncle. He was my mom's brother-in-law. My dad usually called him "Robert." Not "Uncle Robert" since he wasn't dad's uncle, he was dad's brother. Aunt Donna, who was Uncle Bob's second wife, called him Robert more often than she called him Bob.
Uncle Bob wasn't my favorite uncle. Uncle Rollie was my favorite uncle. Maybe because he was married to Aunt Pearl, who was my favorite aunt. Maybe because Uncle Rollie was a sports fan like me. Uncle Rollie used to tell me I had a natural golf swing. Since he had several trophies he won in amateur golf competition proudly displayed on his mantle, I assumed he knew what he was talking about. Until I started playing golf twenty years ago. It didn't take me long. . .about halfway through my first round. . .to realize that Uncle Rollie was wrong about my natural golf swing. I gave up golf shortly afterward, but not before depositing dozens of expensive balls all over northeastern Ohio. If I'd known e-bay was going to come along, I wouldn't have given away my golf clubs.
I noticed recently that I laugh like Uncle Bob. I noticed even more recently that I have something else in common with him.
When I was a kid, I wondered why Uncle Bob had so many different jobs. My dad worked at General Electric. He always worked at General Electric. He worked at General Electric for thirty-eight years. Thirty-eight miserable years. He retired the very first day he was eligible to collect a pension. He had no idea what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, he just knew he didn't want to spend one more miserable day at General Electric. Uncle Bob was one of the few relatives on my dad's side of the family who didn't work at General Electric. I don't want to give you the impression Uncle Bob couldn't hold a job. He didn't get fired from the jobs he left. He quit. All of them.
My earliest recollection of Uncle Bob was when he drove a milk truck for a company called Euclid Race dairy. I don't think the word "race" in the company's name had anything to do with the color of the employees' skin. I also don't think it meant the delivery drivers raced through their routes. We had a man deliver milk to our door in those days. Our milkman worked for Meyer dairy. I don't know if Uncle Bob was upset that we got our milk from a competing dairy. I was ten years old at the time and I thought driving a milk truck sounded like a cool job. I assumed Uncle Bob got all the free ice cream he wanted. Uncle Bob didn't think delivering milk was a cool job, and he quit. But not before he got me a baseball signed by Cleveland Indians Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, who was one of my uncle's customers. I still have the ball. It's displayed on top of the bookcase in my living room. Feller misspelled my name. I wonder if that makes the ball a collector's item?
Let me cut to the chase. I finally figured out why Uncle Bob jumped from job to job to job. My father told my mother before they were my father and mother that he'd never be anything more than a stock clerk at General Electric. Uncle Bob would never have said that. He was looking for the perfect job. The job that made him happy and paid a lot of money. I don't know that he ever found it. If he had, he would eventually have stopped job-hopping, so I guess he never did. But he never stopped trying. He wanted something better. Although I don't know what could've been better than delivering milk at five o'clock in the morning. On second thought, I do. Just about anything would've been better than that, even if a ten year old kid didn't think so.
Huey Lewis and the News once sang that "we'll keep on dreamin' of livin' in a perfect world," while adding that "there ain't no perfect world anyway." I think that perfect world was what Uncle Bob was looking for. So am I. I don't think he ever found his. I plan to have better luck.
We're on in three...two...one...
I'm accustomed to doing this on the job, but not with my writing. All of the essays on this website were written previously, then transcribed via e-mail, with alterations that improved them significantly as opposed to the original. At least, I hope so. That's why a writer alters his writing. This one is going straight into the computer. That's because I have a limited amount of recent essays to choose from, and, frankly, none of them were good enough to fill this month's space.
There was an essay about a dream I had about a woman I dated more than a decade ago and with whom I worked for several years before that. I promised myself not to bog this website down with any more essays about my love life or lack of same. There was an essay I wrote back in March, when the NCAA basketball tournament took place, about a TV commercial I saw during one of the games that really got on my nerves. The commercial got on my nerves, not the game. Unless I saw it during the game my beloved alma mater, Kent State, played. We got our butts kicked by the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. We tied the all-time tournament record for fewest points scored in one half, and they've been playing that tournament since 1939. As Popeye used to say, "how embarrasking!" No, that's not a typo! That's what Popeye used to say. He used to add the letter "K" to a lot of words where it didn't belong.
Maybe I should've passed along the essay I wrote about the poor guy who was jilted by the runaway bride back in 2005. You probably remember the story. A man named John Mason was supposed to marry a woman named Jennifer Wilbanks in Duluth, Georgia, in April of that year. A few days before the nuptials, Wilbanks went out for a jog, which, I guess, was how she maintained her girlish figure, and vanished! The story was headline news on. . .well, on CNN's Headline News, among other places. The whole country was in an uproar, to say nothing of Duluth, where the wedding was to have been the social event of the year. What had happened to Jennifer? The day before the wedding, she called her fiancee from someplace out west and spun a wild yarn about having been kidnapped and forced to board a bus to Las Vegas, where she managed to escape from her captors and phone Mason to assure him she was all right. Of course, there was no way she could get back to Duluth in time for the wedding, but everyone breathed a sigh of relief that she was safe. Within hours, the cops had blown holes big enough to drive an eighteen wheeler through in Jennifer's story, and she admitted she had hopped on the bus to Vegas quite willingly and quite alone because she just didn't want to get married. Although Mason stood by his beleaguered fiancee publicly, they broke up. Jennifer wound up being publicly humiliated and ridiculed, in addition to getting a hefty dose of community service as punishment for leading the police on a wild goose chase. That's the part you probably know.
What you may not know is in March of this year, Mason, without much publicity, married a woman named Shelley Martin. Can you imagine what must've gone through the guy's mind when Shelley went jogging three days before the wedding? Okay, I made that up. I have no idea what she did three days before the wedding. All I know is she showed up at the church, or at Mason's house, or at her house, or wherever they held the ceremony, at the appointed hour and said "I will" when asked to do so and everything went off without a hitch. I have no idea if Wilbanks was on the guest list, but my guess would be no. And the media, at least nationally, mercifully left the couple alone. Mason had certainly been through enough. I wrote an essay about that which I could've transcribed here since I thought you should know that Mason bounced back nicely from his national humiliation. But I decided not to. And now I'm out of space.
I guess I'm not going to write an essay this month. Sorry about that.
I think I'm getting closer.
Some people dedicate their lives to healing the sick. Others dedicate themselves to educating our youth. I've dedicated my life to solving one of the world's great mysteries: where the heck is Hooterville? Please don't confuse Hooterville with the restaurant chain I've given free publicity to in previous essays. We're talking about two completely different places.
If you didn't waste your youth sitting in front of a TV as I did, and you haven't studied broadcasting history as I have, you may never have heard of Hooterville. It's the creation of Paul Henning, one of the greatest comedy writers of all time. After spending decades writing funny stuff for George Burns and Gracie Allen and Bob Cummings, among others, Henning sold an idea for a TV series to CBS in 1961. The characters were based on the people Henning and his wife Ruth grew up with in the hills of the midwest during the depths of the Great Depression. The show was about a hillbilly family that accidentally discovers oil on its property (black gold, Texas tea as the theme song says) and sells it to an oil company for $25 million. The family then loads up their old relic of a truck and moves to Beverly. . .Hills that is, the home of swimming pools and movie stars. Of course, I'm talking about Gilligan's Island.
It took Henning's brainstorm all of a month to become the most popular show on TV. Soon, CBS executives were banging on Henning's office door, begging him for more rural comedies. Henning's fertile brain hatched two more shows set in the boondocks, Petticoat Junction and Green Acres. That brings us to the big mystery.
The Clampett family of Beverly Hills originally came from Bug Tussle. Actually, they lived in a shack on the outskirts of Bug Tussle. Okay, they really lived in a shack in the middle of nowhere. Bug Tussle was the nearest "municipality," for lack of a better word. A friend of mine, a huge fan of The Beverly Hillbillies, thinks Bug Tussle was in Tennessee. I think it was in Arkansas. The characters mention the Ozark Mountains occasionally, which are in Arkansas. The Smoky Mountains are in Tennessee. As soon as I figure out where Hooterville is, I'm going to get to work on locating Bug Tussle.
Petticoat Junction was about the goings on at the Shady Rest Hotel, which was located in Hooterville, just a stone's throw from Pixley. The two communities were connected by the Hooterville Cannonball, which was similar to the Wabash Cannonball of country music fame. Because Henning's wife grew up in Missouri, I assumed Hooterville was in either Missouri or Iowa. The characters on Petticoat Junction occasionally spoke of going to Chicago, when they couldn't find something they needed at Sam Drucker's store or in the general store in Pixley. There was one major flaw in this theory: I can't recall a single episode of Petticoat Junction or Green Acres, which was also set in Hooterville, in which a flake of snow fell.
I recently watched the entire second season of Green Acres on DVD. In one episode, the characters visited the state capitol, which was referred to only as the "state capitol." No clues there. But in the Christmas episode, the radio in Oliver Wendell Douglas's barn revealed that the temperature in Hooterville was 81 degrees, while the temperature in Chicago was a frosty two degrees below zero. That eliminated Missouri and Iowa as possibilities, unless there was one heck of a strong cold front coming from the north. The only places 81 degrees on Christmas Eve wouldn't be unusual. . .and, based on the behavior of the characters, there was nothing unusual about the weather. . .would be southern Florida, southern Texas, Arizona or southern California. There's no way Hooterville is in California. Take my word for it. It just can't be. It also can't be in Hawaii since no one on either program ever wore a grass skirt. It's also impossible to take a train from Hawaii to Chicago.
This is a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, my deductive reasoning skills aren't Holmesian. Nonetheless, I shall never abandon my quest to find out where Hooterville is. Everyone has a mission in life. That's mine!
Mark Twain was wrong!
I believe it was Samuel Clements, using his pen name of Mark Twain (no relation to Shania), who uttered the immortal words "everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it." While that observation was true when Twain made it and has remained true ever since, it is about to become as obsolete as the eight track tape player and the VCR . . . particularly the Beta Max VCR, although the VHS is on its way out as well. And I'm pleased to report that the cataclysmic conference at which climate change will become a reality will be held in my home state.
Through the years, one of my favorite topics in these commentaries has been complaining about northeastern Ohio's crummy climate. Although the clouds are parting and the late day sun is shining as I put this essay in the computer, the forecast calls for the possibility of SNOW SHOWERS both tonight and tomorrow morning. Suffice it to say if I awake tomorrow, look out my bedroom window, and see flakes of white swirling around, I won't be a happy camper, particularly since I was frolicking in a T-shirt and shorts in 80 degree weather just 72 hours ago. I've moaned and groaned relentlessly about the dreaded "lake effect," a phenomenon that occurs only three places in the world. Wouldn't you know one of those would be the place I was born? If you're curious, the only places that experience "lake effect" are the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario, the southern shore of Great Salt Lake in Utah, and the Japanese island of Hokkaido. As far as I'm concerned, they can have it, because, and I think I speak for the vast majority of my fellow northeast Ohioans when I say this, I sure don't want it. Fortunately, it looks as if I won't have to put up with "lake effect" much longer, and I won't have to relocate to Florida to escape it as some of my winter weary friends have done.
When I arrived at work a few days ago, I found in the fax basket an announcement from an organization calling itself the Ohio Climate Change Dialogue Group. The document said the group would be meeting in early May in Columbus, and might I say it's high time? The word "dialogue" in the organization's name makes me a bit nervous, but I'm confident they plan to do more than just talk about the climate. I have no doubt the topic of conversation will be how they're going to change it. Although the fax didn't invite me to the meeting, nor did it ask for suggestions, I'm going to offer a few anyway. If there's any topic I have opinions about, it's our crappy climate and what should be done about it now that, apparently, the technology capable of doing so exists.
Having minored in history at dear old Kent State University, in addition to taking a course in meteorology during the winter quarter of my senior year, I've done a lot of reading about Ohio's past. I've learned that, millions of years ago, the climate was tropical . . . similar to that of present-day Florida. Then that nasty aberration known as the Ice Age came along and changed everything. Now that we can, apparently, change things back, I think we should, and the sooner the better. Granted, had it not been for the Ice Age, one of my favorite vacation spots, Kelley's Island in western Lake Erie, would lack its most famous tourist attraction, the glacial grooves. It also wouldn't be an island since Lake Erie and all the Great Lakes were carved out of the ground by the retreating glaciers. As tourist attractions go, I prefer the Perry Monument at nearby Put-In-Bay on South Bass Island . . . which also wouldn't exist had it not been for the Ice Age since it commemorates Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. This battle wouldn't have been fought had there not been a Lake Erie, which there wouldn't have been were it not for the glaciers, in which case Perry would probably have whiled away the hostilities at a desk job in Washington. This would've been a waste of a perfectly good Naval education.
If the Ohio Climate Change Dialogue Group wants to know what I think . . . and why would they have faxed me if they didn't . . . I vote for turning Ohio into a year-round tropical paradise as soon as possible. Let's make "lake effect" a distant memory.
Who knows? Cleveland could be the next Orlando.
A funny thing happened to me sitting in the barber's chair. The barber said he hadn't had a bite in three days. So I bit him.
No, really. I bit him.
Okay, so the barber hadn't said anything about how long it had been since he'd last had a bite. But I bit him anyway.
No, really. I did.
I was reminded of this dramatic, life-altering incident while taping an episode of one of my favorite Nickelodeon cartoons, The Fairly Odd Parents, recently. After a long hiatus, the series has returned with fresh episodes featuring a new character: baby Poof, a bundle of joy born to fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda. Like most babies, human or otherwise, Poof is full of mischief, falling under the guise of not knowing any better. Unlike most babies - make that all babies - Poof is also full of magic, making his mischief far more dangerous than that of human babies.
The episode that brought back the memory I'm about to relate dealt with Poof's first haircut. Literally. Poof had only one hair on his tiny head, but mother Wanda took him to the fairy barber to have it snipped so she could place it in her "Baby's First" scrapbook, under the "first haircut" heading. Why Wanda couldn't just snip Poof's one and only hair wasn't explained. After ten minutes of failure on the barber's part, Wanda wound up snipping the hair anyway.
The episode reminded me of my first professional haircut. Actually, I don't remember my first visit to a barber. But I'm told the following is what transpired: my dad made an appointment for me with his barber, a fellow named Ardito. I'm guessing the guy wasn't Irish. Ardito had been cutting my dad's hair for years (this was long before the era of hair stylists) and by the time I reached the age of four or five, Dad decided that I'd sprouted enough foliage atop my head to require the services of a professional to trim it properly. If only I could still sprout hair atop my dome. Anyway, I was deposited in the barber's chair and the giant bib fastened securely around my neck. I saw a hand holding a pair of scissors approaching my head and panicked. I didn't then and don't now trust anyone holding a sharp object in the same area code as my head. Not even me. Why do you think I shave with an electric razor? I sure didn't trust a total stranger with a pair of scissors, even with my father standing next to me. As soon as Ardito got his hand close enough to allow me to take some sort of action in the interest of self-preservation, I did. I bit him.
I don't recall if Ardito bravely finished the task or immediately removed the giant bib and handed me over to my dad, telling him that unruly kids taking chunks out of his hand with their teeth wasn't part of the job description. After all, he needed that hand intact in order to earn a living. That was my first, and last, visit to Ardito's barbershop, although he kept my father's business for many years thereafter. Dad didn't bite.
Reluctantly, my father resumed the chore of cutting my hair until . . . well, I don't remember when I got my first professional haircut. It may not have been until I went away to college. I got a permanent during my senior year at Kent State - one of the dumbest decisions I ever made. I figured that since my hair was naturally wavy, I may as well not fight it and go all the way. Bad move. I was totally incapable of giving a perm the kind of maintenance it required and wound up looking as if I'd just stuck my finger in an electrical outlet. Straightening it required the services of a professional, so I know I've been cured of my phobia at least since age 23.
If Ardito, or anyone related to him, reads this essay, I'd like to apologize for my gross misconduct. It wasn't personal. I was just spooked by the scissors. For the past 25 years a lovely lady named Donna has been styling my hair - what's left of it. I told her about my misadventure with Ardito, but it doesn't seem to bother her. I guess I'm a good tipper.
Let's have some closure here!
Recently - I think it was last week - I was involved in a deep philosophical discussion with a friend and fellow writer whose work is posted elsewhere on this website for your amazement and amusement. Feel free to check it out after you finish this composition. We were discussing the current TV trend of wrapping up long-running series with "farewell" episodes. My friend doesn't care for the idea. He was pleased, for example, that Hogan's Heroes never filmed a finale in which the heroes were liberated from Stalag 13 and Colonel Klink and the rest of the rotten Nazis got their just deserts for being, well, rotten Nazis. As they say in the British Parliament, I beg to differ. So much so, in fact, that many years ago, I wrote a final episode of Hogan's Heroes in which the good guys were liberated from the prison camp. In the final scene, Hogan, Kinchloe, Carter, Newkirk and LeBeau slung their duffel bags over their shoulders and marched out of Stalag 13, happily whistling the show's theme song and looking forward to returning home to a future filled with women, women, and more women. Okay, so it may not have been among my more inspired efforts. Why do you think I haven't posted it on this website?
I don't recall which program started the trend my friend and I vigorously debated. It may have been The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which shocked the audience when the new owner of WJM-TV fired everyone in the newsroom except the monumentally inept Ted Baxter in the final episode. That was a classic. Even more so was the finale of Newhart, when it was revealed that everything which transpired during the series' eight year run was Dr. Bob Hartley's dream. Whoever came up with that idea should've been given a bonus. A bonus? Whoever came up with that gem should've been put in charge of the whole doggoned network!
The deep philosophical discussion that inspired this essay came about as my friend and I discussed the final episode of M*A*S*H, which remains to this day the highest rated broadcast in TV history - unless tonight's installment of American Idol tops it. Neither my friend nor I care much for the last episode of that classic program, but that doesn't change my opinion about long-running series filming a farewell episode to tie up loose ends and allow the audience to say goodbye to characters they've welcomed into their homes for years. That's why I want answers to the following questions: who won the election and is Alf still standing in that vacant field in Los Angeles?
Fans of Benson will recall the series' cliffhanger ending. After years of serving the dimwitted Governor Gene Gatling, first as chief of staff and then as state budget director, Benson DuBois ran for the office himself - opposed by Gatling. In the final scene of what turned out to be the final episode, the TV newsperson was about to announce the winner of the election when the credits came up on the screen. The plan was to reveal the winner in the first episode of the new season, but the show's ratings were in the toilet and there was no new season, so fans of the show still don't know who won the darn election. That's totally unacceptable!
I just finished watching the last episode of Alf, the show about the furry, wise-cracking alien from the planet Melmac who escaped just before it blew up and whose conveyance crashed into the garage of an average family in suburban Los Angeles whose lives Alf disrupted for the next four years and 102 episodes. In the final scene of episode 102, the space craft carrying two fellow Melmackians coming to Earth to pick up Alf and colonize a new, uninhabited planet somewhere out there in space, veers off when it notices Alf is surrounded by members of the government's Alien Task Force. The ship could make only one pass, and Alf is left with bright lights shining in his eyes and in a heap of trouble. This, too, is totally unsatisfactory! The producers may have made a TV movie to resolve the situation, as Sherwood Schwartz did to finally get the castaways off Gilligan's island, but if they did, I'm not aware of it. I wanna know what the heck happened to Alf, okay?
Maybe the last episode of Seinfeld was universally panned. It was still the right thing to do.
And that's why I did it!
Or, more accurately, why I didn't do it.
There's no truth to the rumor that the films Never Been Kissed and The 40 Year Old Virgin were based on my life. And there is such a rumor. I know. I've heard it. They could be, however. My lack of success in the field of romance has been well chronicled in past essays. Rehashing it here would be redundant.
As far as kissing is concerned, I've been kissed on the lips exactly twice - that I'm able to remember, which means if there have been other instances, they didn't amount to much and certainly didn't get my blood boiling. As a certified wimp, I'm proud to say that in both instances, I was the kisser and not the kissee.
The first took place on the steps of Upson elementary school in either 1961 or '62. It was a Friday afternoon, and as I was leaving for the weekend with my then-best friend Curtis, I spied the raven-haired Patty sitting on the front steps with some friends of the female persuasion. I had a major crush on Patty - as major as a kindergartner's crush can be. Curtis, being a worldly and mature third grader, dared me to kiss her full on the lips. I accepted the dare and startled Curtis, Patty, her friends, and myself by marching up the steps, planting a big, wet smooch on Patty's feathery soft lips, and then running all the way home. Was that what's meant by "love 'em and leave 'em?"
I experienced my second full on the lips kiss in the spring of 1980, when I said farewell to Shirley on the day before she departed for flight attendant training school. Being the romantic devil that I am, I immediately apologized for my impulsive act. Nothing turns a woman on like a man apologizing for kissing her. Only Chapstick has touched my lips since that fateful Saturday afternoon in Shirley's backyard in Washington, Pennsylvania. I may be the only man in America who made it through three years of high school (four if you count ninth grade as the first year of high school, which, technically, it is) without so much as a single kiss. The time has come to explain why.
I feel compelled to make this confession after reading a story provided by the computerized news service from which I compile my daily radio show. Somewhere in South Carolina, two teenagers have been expelled from high school for engaging in a passionate smooch. It must've been passionate, because the story said it lasted two minutes. I didn't know humans could hold their breath that long. They must've been on the swim team. The kiss was caught on tape by a video camera affixed to a school bus. If there was more to it than a kiss, the story didn't say so. The district school superintendent called the kiss a blatant display of "sexual misconduct" and expelled both students. They're really strict down there in the Bible belt.
And that explains why I did what I did. I mean, what I didn't.
What I didn't do was allow myself to kiss any of the female classmates to whom I found myself attracted while I was a student at dear old Euclid High - or allow any of the female classmates who were attracted to me to kiss me. I valued the education I was receiving and didn't want to risk throwing it all away by surrendering to the type of temporary hormone rush that teenagers are prone to and pressing my lips against those of a desirable female. I'd been hauled into the principal's office for a rules violation in the fourth grade, and I never wished to endure such humiliation again. Especially since the punishment wouldn't be a mere detention or one thousand word essay detailing the health hazards inherent in the grossly unsanitary act of kissing. Nay! If expulsion was the price I'd have to pay for being caught in a clinch with the captain of the cheerleading squad, it just wasn't worth it.
Many, many were the female classmates who literally begged to experience the bliss of feeling their lips pressed tightly against mine, but I stood firm. I wasn't about to risk my beloved education for a momentary thrill. Preparing for college meant too much to me to throw it away by acting like a normal teenager. A man has to have his priorities!
Now you know why I did what I did. I mean, what I didn't.
Let's have some creativity here.
I'm going to ring in the new year - or the New Year, whichever you prefer - with a combination history/geography lesson. I may have mentioned in previous essays that I minored in history at Kent State University, and while attending Cuyahoga Community College, I took a course in geography. The instructor wasn't a real professor but instead a farmer who lived in Geauga County. His name was Dick, which I remember because he asked us to call him by that name. Dick was one of several informal instructors under whom I studied at CCC. The quarter was ten weeks long, the class met on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Dick gave us a ten question quiz every Thursday, with each question worth one point. Thus, at the end of the quarter, Dick had asked us exactly 100 questions about geography. I answered 98 of them correctly. I wish I could remember the two questions that tripped me up.
Now that you understand - or, at least, have been made aware of - my interest in history and geography, you shouldn't find it curious that I've spent time recently studying the origin of Ohio's neighbor to the southeast, the much-maligned (and undeservedly so) West Virginia. I traveled through West Virginia on my way to Florida in the summer of 2003 and found it to be a beautiful state. I was reading the history of West Virginia on Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, less than half an hour ago. This guarantees that the information I'm about to pass along to you, and for which you're undoubtedly waiting with breathless anticipation, is fresh in my mind. All of my essays should be so thoroughly reseached.
West Virginia was created during the Civil War, as a response by the Union government (I hesitate to say "the good guys" since I don't want to anger my readers south of the Mason-Dixon line) to a movement by the residents of Virginia's northwestern counties to maintain their allegiance to the United States and not become part of the Confederacy. Anything that would undermine Jeff Davis was welcomed by Abe Lincoln, and he signed the necessary paperwork to admit West Virginia to the Union in 1863. This didn't sit well with the rest of Virginia which, following the burying of the hatchet between the North and the South, sued to try to force those wayward counties back into the fold in 1870. The Supreme Court sided with West Virginia. Did you know that Kentucky was also carved out of counties that were once part of Virginia? Virginia was once a heck of a big state!
Anyway, although the Wikipedia article says the Supreme Court decision effectively ended the dispute between the two Virginias, it also notes that some minor territorial disagreements still haven't been ironed out. According to the on-line encyclopedia, the legislatures of both states appointed commissions to study a difference of opinion regarding the borders of Virginia's Loudon County and West Virginia's Jefferson County as recently as 1991. The story didn't say whether those commissions decided where one county started and the other ended, or if that disagreement is still simmering.
Jefferson County is in West Virginia's eastern panhandle, not to be confused with the northern panhandle that stretches all the way to East Liverpool, Ohio, which is not to be confused with Liverpool, England, where the Beatles came from. West Virginia's eastern panhandle slithers, snake-like, almost to Washington, D.C. I've always found it fascinating that, due to West Virginia's odd configuration, residents of Frederick County, Virginia, can enter Jefferson County, West Virginia, by traveling EAST! Man-made boundaries have always amused the heck out of me.
The Wikipedia story also noted that West Virginia was supposed to have been named Kanawha, after the river that empties into the mighty Ohio just south of Point Pleasant (that's Point Pleasant, West Virginia, not Point Pleasant, Ohio, once the home of General/President Ulysses S. Grant). Didn't I tell you this would be a history/geography lesson? The story doesn't say why the state's name was changed from Kanawha to West Virginia, but it certainly shows a lack of creativity on the part of the state's founders. Suppose all of the states that followed the original 13 took the easy way out when choosing their names? Ohio, for example, would've been named West Pennsylvania or North Kentucky. Except that Kentucky wouldn't have been the name of our neighbor to the south since it would've been called West Virginia, meaning that name would already have been taken in 1863. This would've left the founders of the new state with no alternative but to call it South Pennsylvania - unless they wanted to name it East Ohio, which they couldn't have done since Ohio was named West Pennsylvania, as I've already noted.
Taking this line of reasoning a step further, Tennessee would've become West North Carolina or South West Virginia. Florida would've been named South Georgia and Alabama would've been christened West Georgia. Indiana, when it was welcomed into the Union in 1819, would've been admitted as the state of West West Pennsylvania, which would've been pretty doggone confusing. But when Michigan was admitted in 1837 as North West Pennsylvania, Indiana . . . I mean, West West Pennsylvania . . . could've ended that confusion by changing its name to South North West Pennsylvania, to reflect its proximity to its new neighbor.
It's fortunate the legislatures of most incoming states possessed a modicum of creativity, or we'd have a lot of stressed out postal workers.
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