Well, here it is again.  The 11th day of the month of May.  And we all know what that means…..In 1937, “SPAM” was registered as a trademark by Hormel Foods, producer of the canned meat product…. on this very date.

So pull up a Twinkie, or some Cheese Doodles….

To commemorate the Anniversary of SPAM… another Kronytown Trivia Night.  So without further ado, let’s get to it.  Alex… I’ll take Trivia for $800 please….

In the Peanuts comic strip, Peppermint Patty’s real name is Patricia Reichardt.  Who the heck knew….  Yes.  Little Patty was the daughter of the Mr. & Mrs. Reichardt’s.  I’m not sure how she picked up the Peppermint moniker, though.

As a rule, European carousels rotate clockwise, while American merry-go-rounds spin counterclockwise.  Now why in the world do you think this is?  I understand why water rotates in different directions south vs. north of the equator.  But why, oh, why… would the Carousel boogie backwards here?

Mitt Romney’s first name is Willard. When he ran for Governor of Massachusetts in 2002, one of his campaign slogans was “Mitt Happens.”  We’ve never had a Willard president before.  There once was a movie called Willard.

And we DID have a Millard president.  Millard Fillmore. (He was 13th and quite possibly one of the most unsuccessful U.S. Presidents in history.)

How’s this for giving peace a chance?  Despite being nominated five times, Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize.  They don’t award it posthumously.

Just as some people talk in their sleep, sign language speakers have been known to sign in their sleep.  My question is this.  When people “talk” in their sleep… the speech is often slurred and difficult to understand.  So do “signers” use sloppy sign language in their sleep?

I trust people.  Like crazy.  So imagine my dismay when I learned this next one.  Barry Manilow’s hit “I Write the Songs” was not written by Barry Manilow.  It’s all a lie.

Each worker bee, in it’s entire lifetime, produces only one twelfth (1/12) of one teaspoon (4.167 ml) of honey.  This made me sad.

Alfred Hitchcock had a fear of eggs; Anne Rice has stated that she is afraid of the dark ; Country star, Lyle Lovett, is reportedly afraid of cows.  Boo.  Or Moo.

SOS is not an acronym for anything.  It doesn’t mean Save Our Ship…. or Save Our Souls.  SOS (· · · — — — · · ·) is simply a Morse code.  It only serves as a distress code.  They picked it because it was catchy… that is… “SOS” became an easy way to remember the correct order of the dits and dahs in Morse.

So… before I sink the entire ship tonight…

I’m going to go grab a spoon and a can of SPAM… and watch Willard on Netflix…. before I drift off to sleep… and talk about all of this in my sleep.

Gumby and I have a few things in common.  His nemeses are the Blockheads.  They are a pair of humanoid, red-colored figures with block-shaped heads, who cause loads of trouble at all times.

My archrivals are  blockheads, I’ll tell you.  A bunch are colored Red.

Old Gumby  has a horse named Pokey.  I once knew a horse named Pokey.

But there is more.  Gumby and I were born on the same “day”…..

You see….   something made me think of that old children’s poem we used to say while we were growing up.  I think it is called “Monday’s Child”.  It names the seven days of the week and says some sort of “quippy” postulation about a child born on each of those days.

It is sort of a fortune telling thing.  It is supposed to tell a kid’s character or future based on the day they were born.  It is also meant to help little brains remember the days of the week.

I thought it was pretty cool really.   As the universe would have it…. I was born into a family of seven children.  I am the youngest, and fairest, of them all….  Well.  Okay.  Just the youngest.

Anyway, I imagined that each of the seven kids in our pack, were born on each of the seven different days.  But this is not to be.

Here’s the count.  There are 3 Wednesdays, 2 Thursdays, 1 Friday, and a Sunday.

And the poem goes like this:

Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Now, when I think about my siblings… I would have pitched us in different holes than we are in.

The 2 that are born on Thursday…. really do have far to go.  I’ll leave it there.

The Friday.. well… she is very loving and giving.  Good fit.

The Sunday.  One thing’s for sure, she is good and gay.

And the Wednesdays.  That’s me. I am a Wednesday.  Yep.  Me and my two brothers.  Appears we are full of woe.

It doesn’t fit my brothers.  Not at all.  But me… I can be full of woe at times.  Especially, the part of me that is Klutzy as all get out.  I’m constantly saying “WHOA.  Look out!”  Or “Whoa. Who put that wall there?”  Or just “Whhhhooooooaaaaaaaa.”

Of course.. when someone fills my coffee cup, and when I ride a horse.. I am really full of whoa.

Speaking of horses,  Pokey was born on a Wednesday too.  And of course… Gumby.   So here we are back at the ranch.  Between Gumby, Pokey,  and my brothers, I guess I am in good company.  Woe are us.

But don’t feel bad about this in any way.  Be Happy.  Remember what the great Elmer Fudd once said…

“Woe, Woe, Woe your boat.  Gentwy up da stweam.  Merwwilwy, Merwwilwy Merwwilwy, life is but a dweam.”

Yes.  Life is but a dream…..  Indeed.

When I was in college, I had an English Literature Professor, who I really loved.  His name was Dr. Shaughnessey.  He smoked like crazy.  You weren’t allowed to smoke inside the Education Buildings on campus.  He did it anyway.  He’d stand right outside our classroom door and hit a cigarette really hard from time to time.

This guy oozed character though.  I’ll tell you that.  He always wore a white wrinkled shirt with some sort of tie.  He rolled his sleeves up above his elbows.  He looked about a hundred years old… but he probably wasn’t very old at all.  He rarely smiled… but when he did… you knew he meant it.

I learned a lot in College Lit.  In high school, we had to read all sorts of novels, and poems and such.  And then we would write reports about them, and answer a question or two on a test.  But Shaughnessey….. he made us think critically about literature.  He would bring those pages alive.

He was famous for the good old “Compare and Contrast Essays.”  “Bring plenty of blue books to the exam,” he’d say. On midterms and finals he would smack us with some doozies.

Compare and Contrast the two following works.  Moby Dick and The Great Gatsby.  I’d always start my essay with some wise-cracker intro… like….

The Great Gatsby and Moby Dick are very much alike, and at the same time, very different.  Both happen in or around water.  Both stories contain some real Dicks.

Shaughnessey didn’t think this was very funny.  Ever.  He would red line me… and write… please stick to the topic at hand Miss Kronenberger.

Yep.  My first real exposure to Compare and Contrast.

But it runs through all facets of our lives.  When ever you line up  two items, side by side, you can find likes and difference.

Cats and Dogs.  Both mammals.  Four-legged.  Covered in fur.  Teeth.  Whiskers.  And on, and on.  Yet, with all the similarities, they can be very different.  Canine.  Feline.  Happy.  Mad at the world.  It goes on for days.

Venus and Mars.  Both Planets.  Very different in their composition,  orbits, temperature.  You get it.
Oreos.  Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies.

But with all of these examples, while each one is alike, and each one is unique…. neither one is particularly better than the other.  Oh sure, we may have opinions about which one we like more.  But side by side, the comparisons do not impede, nor supersede the dissimilarities.

Second verse, same as the first… only this time… apply it to humans.

We are all very much the same.  And all very unique.  Thank goodness.   Not one is better than the next.  We are simply…. different from one another.  Otherwise, we would be nothing more than robots, moving down the conveyor belt.

I, for one, am glad for this diversity.  I’m glad there is you.  And equally glad there is me.  Thanks Dr. S.

(If you read nothing else today… please read this quote….)

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are?  We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.  And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.” – Pablo Picasso

Oh.  I am segued before I even begin tonight.  The first thing on my mind, is…… the times, they are are a changing.

It is true, the times… they are a changing.  Which is kind of the point to this whole reflection this evening.  This phrase… of course… was the title of Bob Dylan’s third album, and also his lead single from that album.

But….. lyrics aren’t what they used to be, I will tell you that much right now.  Dylan.  Beatles.  Doors.  The Mamas and the Papas.  Jefferson Airplane.  Three Dog Night.  Creedence Clearwater Revival.

Ahhh.  There’s a good one.  CCR.  How about Jeremiah was a Bullfrog?  He was a good friend of mine.  I never understood a single word he said….   Yeah.  Joy to the world.  Joy to you and me.

That is… if I were the King of the World.

See?  I told you I was hitting segues before I typed one word.

Back to lyrics.  Now it seems, so many of the Pop Stars of late…. have an extraordinary and prodigious command of the English Language.  How about little Justin Beeber?  It appears he can do no more than take a head count at the hospital nursery.  Oh, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby…..

And so it goes.  Back to Dylan.

The times they are a changing.  Now this is very true… in our world.  Things are constantly moving and shifting.  I just read an article in the Journal of Current Biology which states that the Dinosaurs probably farted themselves to death.  Seriously.  (Sort of… but seriously).

Yes.  The big behemoths “might have contributed to their own demise by passing large amounts of heat-trapping methane gas into the Earth’s atmosphere, triggering a lethal warming of the planet some 150 million years ago.”

Now that’s a lot of flatulence.  No amount of Bean-o could have helped them, I’m afraid.  But think of this…. what about the poor cavemen?  I hope their sense of smell wasn’t yet fully developed.   But again, I digress.  So the dinosaurs tooted themselves right into extinction.  T-Rex.  Gone but not forgotten.

I can only hope our times keep changing for the good.  I hope we don’t pollute ourselves into extinction, for one.

For another, this is a critical time for human rights.  A for instance from the not-so-distant past.  There was a time, when bi-racial marriages were illegal in this country.  Isn’t that something?  Yes.   It was not legalized in the U.S. until 1967.  Seriously.  It was more than cultural difference.  On race thought it was superior over the other.

It seems we still have misguided thoughts about equality.   At least, that is my opinion.   OK.  Another for instance.  Some couples…  let’s say… …..  ones who have been together for 25 years… who have raised children and grandchildren together … have contributed largely to society… are unable to EVEN get acknowledgement of a Civil Union.  Illegal as can be.  It kind of has to do with the color of their skin… but on the inside.

Yes, the times they are a changing.  I just hope we aren’t hitting a wall.  Or worse yet … moving in the wrong direction.

And if I were the King of the World…  I’ll tell you what I’d do….

….. I’d be singing Joy to Me and You.

Well.  I sing that now, as it is…

Let’s see…. I would….

… ban Dinosaur Farts.

“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself” – Andy Warhol

Things to learn, from places you may…. or may not… have visited…

Catholic Grade School Lesson:
If you don’t pay your exorcist you get repossessed.

From the Slammer, the Deep Freeze, the Lock-Up:
A prisoner’s favorite punctuation mark is the period. It marks the end of his sentence.

From the Corporate Office:
The shareholders of a compass manufacturer were concerned that the company wasn’t heading in the right direction.

And finally, from the Circus:
The magician can get so mad…… he might just pull his hare out.

“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” – Plato

“I Like this quote I dislike this quote“Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.” – Sidonie Gabrielle

Well I am no Sigmund Freud, that is for sure.  But I do know we all have fears.  It is my assertion, that these fears start at a very early age, during our formative years.  And this is largely due to the influence of Nursery Rhymes and Children’s Songs.

Take spiders for example.  A lot of people are deathly afraid of them.  Well…. who wouldn’t be, really?  Let’s start with “Little Miss Muffet.”  That poor girl’s first mistake was the whole curds and whey thing.  But that is another story.  Back to the spider.  Yes, she had the Holy-Cottage-Cheese scared right out of her.  Knocked her the crap right off her Tuffet.

And then, there is the Itsy Bitsy Spider Song.  It is just like a Horror Movie, I’ll tell you that much right now.  Here’s the spider.  It dies a horrible death by drowning.  And then, in the final scene… when the sun comes out and everything looks okay… that stinking “itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.”  With a little white hockey mask on.

Now me.  I am a Homebody. And I am not that crazy about “Adventures in Nature” either.  For as long as I can remember, I have felt in my heart that “There’s No Place Like Home.”  Yep.  Truth be told, I would rather be home then anywhere else on earth.  (I am lucky this way…… I think.)  But nonetheless.

This ENTIRE DEAL is also deeply rooted in Nursery Rhymes, and Children’s Stories.  Take three of the BIG ones.  The horrible trouble starts when the characters leave home.

Hansel and Gretel go for a walk in the woods.  They end up in some witch’s oven.  Goldilocks goes for a walk in the woods.  She nearly is mauled by a family of Grizzly Bears upon returning home.  Little Red Riding… AGAIN…. goes for a walk in the woods.  Wolf attack.  Are we seeing a pattern here?

No WONDER I am the way I AM.

Here’s how I would have written them.
Hansel and Gretel stayed home.  They were happy.  The End.
Goldilocks stayed home one day.  And she lived happily ever after.  The End.
Little Red Riding Hood stayed home.  Everything was fine.  Happy Red Riding Hood. The End.

So the next time one of your fears has you at bay… just remember two things.

1. You are not alone.
2. You can blame it on Humpty Dumpty.

“Fee. Fi. Fo. Fum.  I smell the blood of an Englishman.”   – The Giant of Jack & the Beanstalk

“The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.”  – Gandhi 

When I wake up each morning, I never know what the day will bring.  This was true of today.  When I roll out of bed, the first thing I have to do every morning…. is pee like crazy.  After that, I am open to most any idea from there.

But this day… well… it was peculiar somehow.  The first thing…..  two complete strangers scratched my butt.  Seriously.   It is one thing if someone touches your face… but your BUTT???   That’s getting a little personal, wouldn’t you say?   Right there on the street.   I thought to myself… “Holy Dog Biscuits.  DO I KNOW YOU?”

Ah, but such is a day in the life of a mongrel like me.  The second thing that was a bit different… now get THIS…. I ALMOST caught my tail.  I’m not kidding you.  I came THIS close.

But this morning brought big adventure.  Skippy was back in our yard again.  I can’t stand that cocky little snot.  Most humans think the rivalry between dogs and squirrels is a joke.  But this is serious business.  It goes back for centuries, I’ll bark you.

You see, they throw their little nuts at us.  Most humans think they eat the acorns and such.  But that is not the case.  They are merely pretending to eat the nuts.  In reality, they are sharpening them with their little razor teeth.  And when we least expect it…. they hit us with the dagger bombs.   Hurts worse than stubbing your paw.

At any rate.  We had a two-hour standoff.  It ended in a draw, because my human eventually caught me… and drug me back inside the walls.

And now.  I’m heading off to bed again.  But here’s the thing about me an my quest for squirrels.  It is bittersweet, really.  While they drive me absolutely zany….  I sort of like the whole thing.  Yep.  It sort of makes me happy.  It gives me purpose.

“A joyful life needs to have purpose” – D. Koontz

“You can’t be friends with a squirrel! A squirrel is just a rat with a cuter outfit.” – Frances the Good Dog

And much to my surprise, as I walked down Church Street….  very late last night ….  I heard it.  Ever so faintly.  Tiny little voices.

No you Silly-Willikins.  Not the voices in my head.  Small, diminutive, faint, little voices.  They were coming from that pipe there.  Or so I thought.

And then, upon closer inspection, I figured it out.  They were coming from the Speck.  Yes.  The tiny Speck on the twig near the leaf.  From that little fleck of fuzziness were coming voices.

“Whhhoooooooo Rah, Whhooooo Rah.  Whhhoooooooo Rah. Whhhoooooo Rah.”

Whoville.  Who knew?  Right there.  On a little speck, stuck to a little twig, near a gas pipe, on Church Street.

As it turns out, there is quite a commotion going on in Whoville right now.  The 96 daughters of Mayor Ned McDodd, and his wife Sally…. well..  … .. they are pissed.

Seems the one and only son of the family …  the stick in the mud…  JoJo…. always gets all the attention of the Mayor.  In fact, Mayor McDodd wants JoJo to succeed him as Mayor, giving no consideration to the talent of his daughters.

According to the daughters, in a statement released to the press just yesterday, “We are sick and tired of this Dr. Suess character, and all the other Who-ites… WHO continually discriminate against us based on sex.  We have witnesses who actually saw four of the daughters blowing the horns to save Whoville.  We also feel, that many of us, are better equipped to be successors to the Mayor’s seat.”

Surprisingly, the mother of the brood, Sally McDodd, has joined in the movement.  She has also asked for a recount.  She believes there are actually 97 daughters, and she would like credit where credit is due.

Mayor McDodd could not be reached for comment.

The tension  of the situation rose to critical levels yesterday evening when protesting broke out in the streets of Whoville.  The 96 daughters staged a sit-in on the courthouse steps, which successfully blocked all government proceedings for the day.  Mean while, the Speck took flight, and landed in Charleston.

Which is about the time I walked by.   I’ll tell you….   so much to be discovered … on this tiny dab of dab.  Had I not been listening carefully… I surely would have missed it.

Once again, this proves to me that life’s greatest treasures are often found in the things which are right in front us.   The very small might go unnoticed.  Undetected.

But don’t let it pass you by.  For that is often…… where the entire universe resides.

“Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
– C. S. Lewis

I want my awareness to expand.  And I would like my vision to widen.  Yes.  To be more receptive to things… and perceptive of things.

With all of that…  I want to be open to new ideas, and sights, sounds, tastes, thoughts… feelings and emotions.  Wouldn’t you know?  This can be difficult…   because it means I often have to step away from what is comfortable and “known” to me.  But it is good, I think.

This awareness means growth and learning.

Yet.  Dang it.  I can still be judgmental.

The Daily News is good for this.  Here’s the thing.  In the U.S.A., we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty.  Oh how easy it is for me to convict someone without knowing much of anything.

Let’s take recent news story of “The Tanning Mom.”
Patricia Krentcil, 44, pleaded not guilty earlier this week to child endangerment charges for allegedly putting her daughter in a Nutley, N.J., tanning bed. (Some reports say the girl is 5, others say she’s 6.) Tanning Patty told news sources that she’s become the victim of a witch hunt.

A  Tan Witch Hunt in Nutley.

Now….  once I heard the story… I thought… “Oh certainly not.”  Then I saw the news clip on the morning news.  Patty is beyond tan.  She makes John Boehner look like a Bratwurst Wiener.  She is leather, beef jerky, tan.  Well done.  Throw the Original Recipe out the window.  Patty is Extra Crispy.

Immediately, my little judgmental-self has pounded the gavel on the bench.  Guilty as charged.

I am not proud of the times when I do this… but I do.

It not only happens when I watch the news.  Sometimes… I do this when I am in public places with a lot of people.  I make judgements.  I don’t mean to… but Holy Smackerels… the creep up on me.  Creep is a good word for it.

The thing of it is… I get so upset when people are judgmental of me.  Without knowing anything about me, they may make conclusions about who I am.

So I try to jerk myself by the left earlobe when I find myself doing it.

Widen my awareness.  Broaden my vision.  Open my mind……

Tomorrow I am going to work on putting my little gavel away.  Maybe I’ll stow it in my tool box.  That little mallet might be good for fixing things.

“Learning is like rowing upstream; not to advance is to drop back” –  Chinese Proverb

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” – Carl Gustav

Okay.

I swear I didn’t do this.  I promise.

You all remember a month or so ago?  We tried to stop at this Antique Shop on Meeting Street…. and the owner was… well….  not quite interested in our business.

Since the time of that post, I have received several comments, and emails. Many of those have contained suggestions.  Yes.  Fine readers, acquaintances, and friends have given us recommendations for possible actions we might take.

Recently, my brother visited here from Seattle, Washington.  He thought it might be a good idea to make several signs which we could easily attach to the front door.  The signs would be the exact size of the current note … which says…. (sort of) … “ONLY RING THIS BELL YOU HORRIBLE PEOPLE ON THE OUTSIDE OF THIS DOOR.  AND ONLY RING IT IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT BUYING SOMETHING.”

At any rate, my brother thought some possibilities for the new sign might read… “50% OFF EVERYTHING IN STORE. RING BELL FOR SERVICE.”  Or another one might read…“PLEASE RING BELL REPEATEDLY UNTIL SOMEONE COMES TO DOOR.”  Or something like….“KNOCK LOUDLY. RING BELL.  TOURIST APPRECIATION DAY.  BUY ONE ITEM, GET TWO FREE.”

And then every day we would tape a new sign to the door.

Boy oh boy. Did we ever get a laugh out of this postulation.

So then…  this morning….

I ate breakfast at TOAST.   On my way home… THIS is what I spy.  Someone has affixed CAUTION TAPE across the front of the doorway with duct tape.  I almost peed my pants laughing.

Again, I swear on the Holy Monkey Tree that this is NOT my handiwork.  I wish I would  could take the credit for this one.  But someone else thought this up.

So to the Caution Tape Bandit….   I love you.  You, your roll of caution tape, and duct tape.

And here is the thing.  It is so very nice to know there are  Super Heroes in our very midst….

Although Mother Teresa may not agree with our shenanigans….  she did have this to say…. at one time or another:

“What I do you cannot do; but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.”

Do something wonderful today.  It may be small… but even still… it will still be of Super Hero Proportions.