Early 1950s
Gun safety conscious father wanted to let loose with a couple of shotgun rounds, but knew better than to shoot into the air. He let loose into a snowbank behind the house that hid one of mother's flower beds.
Came the spring and most of her tulips didn't come up. She, of course, had to find out why so dug up the bed. Yep. His shotgun blasts blew the bulbs to smithereens.
And people wonder why I'm warped.
This is from Christmas 2011, but I wanted to share it with my MacGroup friends.
When St. Patrick's Day rolls around, one event always comes to mind. I was driving down I-75 listening to the late Jimmy Launce (when WJR radio was still great and not ultra rightwing).
It must have been 1984 or 1985. Launce was doing one of his prank phone calls and was talking to a lingerie clerk at the Northland Hudson's store. The story was that he needed a gift for his wife and was trying to find a Freudian slip. The poor clerk swore that was a brand she'd never heard of, and tried talking him into one of the different brands they did carry. He kept her going for almost 5 minutes before saying "Well, if you don't have any Freudian slips, do you have any Erin Go Braughs?"
I was laughing so hard, I almost had to pull off the road. I miss the days when talk radio was fun.
In regard to these mass shootings — It's not a gun problem, it's a mental health problem! It's easy to say we need better gun control, but we have more controls now than ever, and those determined to get a firearm for bad purposes are always going to be able to find one.
What we no longer have is even minimal mental health care. Mental hospitals no longer exist. Drug rehab facilities? Yep, but there are big bucks to be made there. No big bucks to be made from psych problems other than the weekly couch sessions. Let the families, who are untrained and not equipped, handle the problems. How's that working out?Have any studies been done to see how the Big Pharma profits have been during the Covid scare? How much more in profits has been generated by all of the government mandated vaccines and all of the "test" kits? How much money has been funneled through the hands of the Washington lobbyists? Follow the money trail.
I've come to the conclusion that common sense and reasoning no longer exist. I remember so many of my grade school teachers telling us to "think about" whatever it was being discussed. Does it sound logical? If it doesn't sound logical, it probably isn't.
Politicians "must" follow party lines and thinking. Voters blindly follow the talking heads representing their party. Independent thought? Independent thinking is discouraged. Big Brother knows what's best. Politicians no longer answer to the voters. They answer to the lobbyists with the deepest pockets, petroleum, big pharma, international banking.
The medical community drives me insane. I firmly believe that "preventive medicine" is destroying our immune systems. It seems like the more vaccines are being pushed on us, the more potential problems we have. Side effect from a drug? Here's another drug to counteract the side effect. NO! Find a remedy that doesn't produce that side effect. If a new (read "expensive") drug is no more effective than one developed 50 years ago, and it has ten times the side effects, why prescribe it? Go with the cheaper old drug. Nah. That would mean less profits for the big pharma stockholders and less "gifts" for the prescribers.
More later.
The big issue this year is the return to the pre Roe v Wade days. I call them the "bad old days". The majority of voters either weren't around for them or don't really remember them. Me? I remember them only too well.
The first birth control pills weren't approved by the FDA until I was 16. Even then, most doctors would not prescribe them unless you were married or engaged. Up until then, you had your choice of condoms, the rhythm method (AKA Catholic Roulette) and abstinence. Two years later, my parents were going through a rough patch and during one of their "on again" moments, my mother became pregnant at the age of 40.
Abortion? No can do. The result was my sister Anita who had a severe form of Downs Syndrome and lived only 10 months. She had lung problems from day one, almost dying when she was a month old. At 10 months she developed pneumonia and died within a matter of hours. The Wayne County coroner accused my mother of letting her die. Some fun, eh?
Two years after Roe v Wade became the law of the land, I decided that it was time for a permanent birth control solution. The pill was causing severe migraine attacks. Vasectomies were not a popular thing at the time, so I opted to get my tubes tied. It was simple outpatient surgery with immediate results.
It almost didn't happen as scheduled. The admitting clerk insisted that I had to have 'written permission' from my husband. Seriously? Yep. Before Roe v Wade, that was the law of the land. I informed said clerk that my doctor said it was my body, my choice and no 'permission' needed. She looked up who was scheduled to do my surgery and sneered "Oh, you're one of HIS patients." And people wonder why we needed a change in the laws?
When I got married, I had only one credit card, and it was from the company I worked for. When I went to change my last name on the account, they cut my credit limit in half because my husband's credit record was not as good as mine. Shopping for a mortgage on a house? My earnings didn't count. I might get pregnant. This is what those good old days were like.
When you vote next month, think carefully about who you want to support. Many of them would like nothing better than to take us back to those "good old days" when women were less than equal citizens. Your vote is important.
Sitting watching the Chauvin trial from Minneapolis. Listening to the medical examiner testimony and whether prior conditions contributed to the death. I'm seeing a double standard here.
Standard rule is usually that if someone dies from the stress of being held up (for example), the charge is no longer larceny, but homicide. In this case, it looks like the defense team is trying to prove that, if not for prior heart disease and drug use, the 9.5 minutes of neck compression would not have killed Floyd.
Sorry, but a bad cop is a bad cop. Don't try to justify his actions. We have a few rotten apples that make honest, hard-working cops all look bad. Once upon a time, people like Chauvin would never have met the police hiring standards. I had one friend who was turned down by the Detroit Police Department (in the old days!) for a lousy speeding ticket. Standard have fallen.
Back in the mid-'50s, I fell in love with a gold Sheaffer Touchdown Snorkel pen and pencil set that my grandfather owned. The pencil used ultra fine lead and the pen sported an extra fine accountant's nib. I drooled over that set and finally talked him out of them when I was in high school. I've kept them all these years.
A few years ago, I sent the pen out to be restored, but I'm almost afraid to use it. The set never leaves the house, so I can't lose them. In fact, they sit in a lined wooden box next to the TV in my office.
Recently, I spotted a gold Sheaffer Sagaris on Facebook that is a near replica of the old Sheaffer Touchdown. Yep. Had to buy it. Fortunately, it didn't cost an arm and a leg. The only problem? I could only find it with a medium nib. For once, I really wanted a fine nib. What can I say, I'm a sucker for memories of my grandfather.
The solution? I found one in black and chrome with gold trim. It was easy to swap the nib sections. Now, every time I pick up that gold Sagaris, I think of my grandfather. Salut', Don Cicino. I miss you.
I'm amazed at the gullibility of people today. It seems like too many take negative things at face value and never stop to question the source or probability of the truth of it. When I was in school, I was fortunate enough to have a few teachers who would force us to think. Does it sound logical? Think about it. Newspaper editors never ran hot topic stories without having the facts backed up by 3 independent sources.
In our current "instant access" internet days, the race seems to be who can get a story out first, facts be damned. It's on the internet, so there must be some truth to it. And anyone with enough cash can start their own web news site, biased though it may be. It's either extreme right or extreme left. I sometimes wonder if there are any old time news reporters left.
And then, there are the news spoof sites. How many of their spoofed stories are quoted on platforms like Facebook, and taken as the gospel truth by the gullibles of the world. No matter how outlandish the story, somebody out there is going to believe it.
When I was growing up, we always had two newspapers. The Detroit News (right leanings) and the Detroit Free Press (more to the left). When it came time for political endorsements by the Editorial team, you knew that the News would back the Republicans and the Freep would back the Democrats. The thing was, if you read both and did some reasoning, you could probably pick out the best candidate for the office.
Today, the newspapers are pretty much a joke, and TV news is not much better. I used to love talk radio, but thanks to the Limbaughs of the world, I've given it up. Middle of the road has pretty much disappeared. Too many drank the orange kool aid. I just want to go back to a society that wasn't wrapped up in name calling and bigotry.
Later.
