My adventure yesterday was different from any I’ve had in recent times. I encountered a gremlin in the Death Star. I went to get something from the trunk and it wouldn’t open. Pushing the little black button on the tail light didn’t make anything happen, so I went to the dash board to push another button, nothing happened. Oh well, I’ll sleep on this one. I didn’t sleep, I went to Youtube and asked how to open a trunk without the key. Amazingly, a page full of video’s appeared. Many from Toyota experts. I had enough information to try the next day when it would be warmer and drier.
By mid-morning I was ready to open my trunk. I tried all the tricks I learned in the videos, but none of them worked. What next? I went on the prowl for tools that might help. I found a windshield ice scraper in the garage. That’s it, I thought to my self. I went outside and pushed the little black button on the tail light at the same time I had the scraper wedged into the trunkline space by the latch. I pushed the button and heard the latch cycle, at the same time I pried the trunk with the scrapper and wallah! the lid popped open. Nothing like a simple pry bar to break the ice seal that made the lid stick. I then found a dry rag to wipe down the seal around the trunk opening to help keep the lid from freezing shut again. I was happy again.
Great Trivia ‘A SHOT OF WHISKEY’ – In the old west a .45 cartridge for a six-gun cost 12 cents, so did a glass of whiskey. If a cowhand was low on cash, he would often give the bartender a cartridge in exchange for a drink. This became known as a “shot” of whiskey.
BUYING THE FARM – This is synonymous with dying. During WW1 soldiers were given life insurance policies worth $5,000. This was about the price of an average farm so if you died you “bought the farm” for your survivors.
SHIP STATE ROOMS – Traveling by steamboat was considered the height of comfort. Passenger cabins on the boats were not numbered. Instead they were named after states. To this day cabins on ships are called staterooms.
SLEEP TIGHT- Early beds were made with a wooden frame. Ropes were tied across the frame in a crisscross pattern. A straw mattress was then put on top of the ropes. Over time the ropes stretched, causing the bed to sag. The owner would then tighten the ropes to get a better night’s sleep.
SHOWBOAT – These were floating theaters built on a barge that was pushed by a steamboat. These played small towns along the Mississippi River. Unlike the boat shown in the movie “Showboat”, these did not have an engine. They were gaudy and attention grabbing which is why we say someone who is being the life of the party is “showboating”.
OVER A BARREL – In the days before CPR, a drowning victim would be placed face down over a barrel and the barrel would be rolled back and forth in an effort to empty the lungs of water. It was rarely effective. If you are over a barrel, you are in deep trouble.
BARGE IN – Heavy freight was moved along the Mississippi in large barges pushed by steamboats. These were hard to control and would sometimes swing into piers or other boats. People would say they “barged in”.
HOGWASH – Steamboats carried both people and animals. Since pigs smelled so bad they would be washed before being put on board. The mud and other filth that was washed off were considered useless “hog wash”.
CURFEW – The word “curfew” comes from the French phrase “couvre-feu”, which means “cover the fire”. It was used to describe the time of blowing out all lamps and candles. It was later adopted into Middle English as “curfeu” which later became the modern “curfew”. In the early American colonies homes had no real fireplaces so a fire was built in the center of the room. In order to make sure a fire did not get out of control during the night it was required that, by an agreed upon time, all fires would be covered with a clay pot called-a “curfew”.
BARRELS OF OIL – When the first oil wells were drilled, there was no provision for storing the liquid so they used water barrels. That is why, to this day, we speak of barrels of oil rather than gallons.
HOT OFF THE PRESS – As the paper goes through the rotary printing press friction causes it to heat up Therefore, if you grab the paper right off the press, it’s hot. The expression means to get immediate information. There, don’t you feel smarter now?
Even more useless stuff
Betcha Didn’t Know … The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for Blood plasma. No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven (7) times.Oh, go ahead.. I’ll wait… Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes or shark attacks. (So, watch your Ass) You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty (50) years of age, or older The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley’s gum The King of Hearts is the only king WITHOUT A MUSTACHE American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one (1) olive from each salad served in first-class. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.(Since Venus is normally associated with women, what does this tell you?)(Those women are going in the ‘right’ direction…?) Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer. So did the first ‘Marlboro Man’. Walt Disney was afraid OF MICE! PEARLS DISSOLVE IN VINEGAR! The ten most valuable brand names on earth: Apple, Coca Cola, Google, IBM, Microsoft, GE, McDonalds, Samsung, Intel, and Toyota, in that order. A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least six (6) feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.(I keep my toothbrush in the living room now!) Turtles can breathe through their butts(I know some people like that; don’t YOU?) Remember, knowledge is everything, so pass it on….. Now go move your toothbrush!
Yesterday I came close to losing it. The day was a typical dark, dreary, and rainy December late fall day. After so many years experiencing the same symptoms in the same months I have self diagnosed myself with Light Affective Disorder or LAD. It affects my mood, and causes me to become lethargic, energy-less, and sad. All I want to do is eat, sleep, and cry too. Fortunately, for me I can overcome most of the symptoms and make a day of it. Yesterday was a losing one. Finally, after finishing reading a Tom Clancy book my mood began to pick up. I called a restaurant and made reservations for two for supper(note the emphasis on food). We left in the dark at 4:45 to make a five o’clock reserve at a restaurant we have never been to. Upon arriving, the police had Main Street blocked off. Change plans, go around the block and come in from another direction. The other end of Main was also closed. The restaurant was in between the two blockades. I envisioned a gas leak or some other disaster pending, not knowing why all the emergency vehicles were there I decided to change plans again and go to a place that we know very well. There was to be no adventure on this evening.
At Docks restaurant, I asked the owner what was going on down at Main. His answer surprised me because the day was so rotten. It seems they block that section of Main to cater to a Village festival every Sunday from 1 – 5 and allow crowds to walk freely from business to business without traffic concerns.
After dinner we explored a neighborhood to see some Christmas lights. A couple of days ago I was touring on Google maps and came across a house that was marked as Czyz Family Light Show. It was worth the effort to find it in the dark, and I’ll go to see it again.
I read some more before retiring and then made a huge mistake at 11:00 p.m. Normally, I turn off and go to bed, but this time, instead of turning out the light and closing my eyes to sleep I turned on Amazon Prime Video and found a movie. For whatever reason I watched a Mark Wahlberg movie called Joe Bell. Mark’s performance as the father of a gay boy got to me and held my attention till the end which I hated, but ends are ends, and that is all I can say. I finally turned off the lights and closed my eyes at 12:40 a.m.
Erica Lee has made me a believer that America is a racist nation. I see her point from two different view points: 1. Americans still tend to dislike people they don’t identify with, and 2. There are a whole lot of different people in our country than we know about. We are a catch basin for all races.
When people associate racism in a hateful way I believe it is because the people we pick on don’t fit into our metric of people we admire and relate to. Another reason might be that we can’t relate to people who look radically different from us, namely blacks and Asians. They are so easy to pick out of a crowd and so easy to pick on that we tend to do it, i.e. pick on them. Ms Lee presented some interesting facts in her book “The Making of Asian America” that we should all become aware of. For instance the segregation of Japanese during WW II. I, for one, feel that the government made a wise decision to separate people who look so different from the general population during time of war with their country. I believe we saved these Japanese from a severe backlash of hatred by our white population. Ms Lee points out that the Japanese kept in the camps felt very different about their treatment. They felt that we should have treated them as loyal citizens which most of them were. What we didn’t learn from our history lessons was that the government deliberately treated them harshly. Never the less that period of history is over now and we must move forward. She wrote that after 9/11 a similar backlash against Pakistanis occurred against Sikh followers who could be easily picked out of a crowd. What surprised me about her timeline is how the United States created racial problems with our wars and then willingly took in refugees from those countries. I have not seen huge numbers of these ethnic groups in and around Chicago, but the numbers she gives are very large. Her description of the fall of Saigon at the end of the war cites hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese coming into the country, most of them undocumented. It didn’t end with Vietnamese because thousands of people from surrounding countries helped. Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmongs came as well. Recently, we experienced the need to do the same with Afghanis. With all of these people coming in from so many different places the cultural mix of the country is changing. The assimilation of so many different cultures, and languages will be difficult at best, perhaps impossible. Now, we also see an influx from South and Central America with additional cultures, customs, and languages. We also need a way to give these people work so they can feed and house themselves. There are just so many cleaners, dish washers, and grass cutters that we can occupy. One problem Ms Lee points out is that many of the people coming in are educated, but because of language differences they cannot find work that they are trained for. The result is that Phd level teachers, doctors, and nurses are finding work as truck drivers to provide for their families. It is sad, and the result is we have taken in too many people without any plan for providing meaningful work.
The assimilation of the millions of immigrants we’ve taken in since the seventies will take several generations to happen. As these new people change so will we. Together we will learn to love and help and integrate our new neighbors into a melting pot society. Perhaps by 2121 we will no longer be writing books about systemic racism. Or maybe the opposite, we will be writing more books about how bad it has become since the great influx of the twenty-first century.
