Category: Interesting Stuff

Happy Birthday (?) George Jetson

Happy Birthday (?) George Jetson

Earlier this week, I encountered two references relating to the impending birth of George J. Jetson, future employee of Spacely Sprokets – an enterprise which should be in full operation in 40 years. You know George, his boy, Elroy, Daughter Judy, and Jane, his wife. Sure you do. Well, George is 40 in the year 2062, meaning that he will be born sometime this year. To be specific, he will be born sometime between July 31st and August 27th.

I’ve seen both dates posted this past week, on the same data card presumably from Hanna Barbara productions. I’ll presume that both were somehow photoshopped by some enthusiastic fans.

Writers create backstories for their creations – assisted by enthusiastic fans who will somehow embellish the writer’s backstory to the Nth degree. For instance, Jane, his wife’s birthday has been pegged by fans to be on the 23rd of September, 2024. Judy and Elroy’s birthdays are still a bit hazy – Judy will be born in 2043 – Elroy in 2053.

I’m sure that Judy and Elroy’s exact dates of birth will be forthcoming before too much longer. Fans will tell us.

While musing about the impending birth of George Jetson, I recall a line I heard on an episode of The Simpsons, where Bart pointed out that a couple of Hanna Barbara cartoons were based on sitcoms: Specifically mentioned were The Flintstones, based loosely on Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners, and Top Cat, with characters cribbed from Phil Silvers’ Sergeant Bilko.

Allow me to add The Jetsons to that list.

I’m thinking of a comic strip family who made it to theatric shorts and at least a couple of attempts at a television series.

Blondie.

The elements are there, if you look for them.

George Jetson and Dagwood Bumstead both work for bombastic bosses (Mr. Spacely and Mr. Dithers) in ordinary jobs despite having a pedigreed background. (George’s grandfather was named Montague, a sure sign of family wealth – The original premise of Blondie was that she was a gold-digger, prompting Dagwood’s father to disinherit him.)

Jetson and Bumstead each have two children, an older girl and a younger boy, and both have non-descript dogs (Ast – er – Rastro and Daisy) who figure into the story lines.

The clincher is with the wife. Jane Jetson is voiced by actor Penny Singleton – the actor who portrayed Blondie Bumstead in the theatrical shorts and in one of the attempts to bring Blondie to television!

How’s that for detective work!

Regardless, we have a window for George Jetson’s birthday. The question now is, will our technology catch up with what we’ve been told to expect for 2062?

Time will tell.

Till then, Happy Birthday, George!

Be Seeing You!

Shave and a Haircut…

Shave and a Haircut…

Most of us know what two words come after “Shave and a haircut.” The words are a piece of Americana, etched into most of our memories. Like the part played by actor Howard McNear for a bunch of years as “Floyd the Barber.” Andy and Barney and everyone else in Mayberry went to see Floyd on a regular basis so that they could look good for Helen and Thelma-Lou.

Someone got smart and is cashing in on Floyd, these days. I have seen at least two places recently where one can go in and visit “Floyd’s Barber Shop.” That’s not counting the “Floyd’s” seen at a Missouri rest stop shown here at the top of the page. (It was one of several “storefronts” serving as shelters for picnic tables along a walkway marked as “Route 66”) I would be happy to say that actor McNear would feel quite good about the proliferation of his character’s name, but he’s been gone for over 50 years. Maybe his heirs are getting royalties.

No matter.

I was reminded of Floyd and several other barbers a couple of days after my last post when I decided that it was too darn hot to continue to keep the mop on top of my head. I took out the clippers, spread newspapers over the bathroom sink and proceeded to give myself a buzz cut. I did that despite having deep discount coupons from a place called “Sports Clips,” and some other competing hair styling salon within spitting distance of “Sports Clips.” I’ve taken advantage of both places, but the last time I was in either was years ago. Not that I disliked either. It’s just more convenient for me to pull out the clippers every three to five months.

I grew up on haircuts done in a barber shop. Actually, I have frequented several shops over the years and have fond memories of some of the barbers.

My first haircuts were done at a small shop in Fairview West Virginia – my mother’s home town. Mom told a story about one of my early haircuts where I stood in the barber’s chair and announced my name, her name and a few other details which weren’t really appropriate (like her age).

When I was ten, or so, Dad took me to “Midpark Barbers” on Pearl Road in Middleburg Heights Ohio. It was a busy shop – not too personal, but friendly enough. The shop sponsored the little league baseball team I played on, with the promise that if we won a game, they would give my team-mates and me a free sucker. We won exactly once.

When we moved to Chillicothe Ohio, Dad took me and my brothers to Gall’s Barber Shop downtown. Four chairs, two aging barbers and lots of stories. According to one of the barbers, there was a time when, on Saturday afternoons, the shop was busy – not only cutting and shaving, but for another quarter, a customer could go into the back room to take a bath. (See Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter)

The shops in that era didn’t do too bad for themselves, either. The person from Gall’s who normally did my hair owned a house across the street and up the block from us – a grand Victorian with an ample yard, kept ever so neat and tidy. One of my high school classmate’s father had a shop a few blocks away from Gall’s – she posted that the family house had recently been offered for sale. Again, another large, well-appointed house built to last the ages.

Bets that Floyd’s home would have been just as grand.

After Gall’s went away, I went to several places, finally settling on a shop run by a fellow who painted Civil War scenes as a hobby. Nearly thirty years later, I doubt he’s still in the business.

I never really settled on a place here in Texas. I visited a shop in Allen, finding out later that one of the barbers there was named Roy Rogers. The shop is frequented by a friend named Gene Autrey. Think about it for a moment.

There came a time when I decided that the best thing for me to do was to buy a set of clippers to cut my and my son’s hair. A $25 investment which has paid for itself many times over. Of course, that means I am stuck with a buzz cut every three to five months.

Maybe next time, I’ll try Floyd’s, for the nostalgia if nothing else.

Be Seeing You!

Sporting Propositions

Sporting Propositions

GONE FISHIN’

Farmersville fishing team send two teams to state

Actual headline and sub-headline from the local newspaper a couple of weeks ago. Farmersville High School has “Fishing” as a school sport.

At first it seems weird, but come to think of it, there’s a pretty fair-sized lake between my little corner of the DFW Metromess and Farmersville. On any good fishing day, at least a good half dozen cars are parked in the median of the causeway going over the lake, their owners out with poles and tackle boxes in pursuit of what I will assume to be some really good fishing.

I never really took to fishing, myself. When I was a kid, we were in bicycling distance of a small lake in suburban Cleveland Ohio where we would go fishing in the summer. We never caught anything we couldn’t throw back. The only “catch” we had was when Mickey T. somehow got a fishhook stuck in his nose.

But a school fishing team. Not that I’m knocking it, but, who’d a thunk?

For that matter, who’d a thunk of some of the other sports being offered at the high school level these days? Time was when there was a cycle of sports throughout the school year. Football in the fall, basketball in the winter, tennis, softball and baseball in the spring. Regular as clockwork. Then there was wrestling. Not WWE style, but Greco/Roman style. Cross Country, track, all of them.

In the later seventies, onward, a few other sports started to creep into prominence. Volleyball, for instance. We played it as one of the winter sports when I was in high school. Somehow or another, it became a big thing, likely because it was another sport which women could play and go on to college on a volleyball scholarship. A niece of mine went to college on a volleyball scholarship.

Times change.

I mentioned golf in my last little tirade. Yeah, we had a golf team, I think, when I went to high school. Then there’s bowling. One of the first impressions I had of high school sports after moving to Texas was the brag that the Allen High School BOWLING team had won the state tournament! Most of the bowling I’ve done was as an adult. We included a “beer frame”. I don’t imagine that high school bowlers would have a “beer frame” – probably why they tended to have higher average scores than I’ve ever rolled.

Another school sport I’ve come to find out is lacrosse (the Native American game, not a Buick or the nickname Canadians give to “self-satisfaction”). I had no idea the game was even being played until one morning when checking out of a hotel, my then almost three-year-old son was flirting with a girl’s lacross team in the hotel lobby. One of the residences I’ve lived in here in the Dallas area was just around the corner from a field where people were out practicing their lacrosse skills.

Oh, and ice hockey. But that was a club sport when I was in college. No scholarships, just two groups of people skating around and beating at each other with sticks. One of the club members was part of a group I hung with… there would be tales of some of the guys going to Byrd Arena to watch Harvey A. play, or to get drunk. Take yer pick!

But fishing! Good luck to ’em. I may not understand or I may get a chuckle from it, but… it’s whatever floats your boat, I reckon!

Be Seeing You!

Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden

Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden

The other day was writing, I heard an unfamiliar sound, as if something had hit the house. I really didn’t think about it until the kid from across the street was out on the front sidewalk looking a little confused. After a minute or so, I went out and asked him if he was looking for something.

“Yes. A golf ball,” he told me.

Well, we looked for his golf ball, finding it on a corner of the property. He took it back to his place and all was well.

If we didn’t find it, I was willing to give up one of the golf balls I have in my garage. I have a small collection of the things, gathered years ago when I was living with the first wife and the kids in Allen. The high school student living across the street from us would go into his back yard which overlooked a former cotton field and smack golf balls into the field as practice for his high school golf team. After he hit a bunch of balls, he would go out into the field to gather as many of the balls as he could find so he could hit them out again.

He didn’t find all of them. I would regularly go into the same field with my son and/or our dog at the time and gather what the person hitting the balls couldn’t find. I told my son (who was four at the time) that the golf balls grew there naturally, calling it the “Golf Ball Field.”

I took the notion that since I was collecting the neighbor’s left-over golf balls, I wouldn’t mind having a club and smacking a few of them out into the field myself. I requested a club for Christmas. The wife complied, bought a club and showed it to our son.

Fast forward a week or two. It’s a Saturday morning, less than a week before Christmas, and there was a man at our door asking if I would be interested in joining the local Country Club as a Christmas gift to myself. I politely declined, saying that I wasn’t interested in joining as I did not golf.

As I was explaining my position to the gentleman, my son was right behind me, tugging at my trousers: “But Dad… But Dad…”

Now, I didn’t tell him directly that I knew about the club his mother bought for me as a Christmas present, but he did get the idea that one should not spoil a Christmas surprise.

For a few years after that, we would occasionally go out to the “Golf Ball Field,” hit a few balls, and usually find more balls than we hit.

I still have the club and a few of the balls I’ve collected.

Funny thing is, I had a physical education requirement in college – so, I took golf lessons at the college golf course. We learned technique, smacked balls around for a bit, and had loads of fun. Since I was never well funded, most of my golfing experience after college was at one of several local putting greens. A couple of my college classmates are still regular golfers to this day. They love the game. Me, well, I would likely be the guy who would get frustrated at every turn, eventually tossing my bag and all the clubs in it in some water hazard (after mangling a club or two on the way there).

I still have my club. I use it every once in a while to fish out the dog Filbrix’s tennis balls out from under the furniture. As for the golf balls in my collection, the kid across the street is welcome to them if and when he discovers I have them.

Be Seeing You!

Lidsville

Lidsville

I woke up this morning with a post from a friend in Ohio, featuring her latest child. The child is cute as a button (although not quite as cute as my stepdaughter’s slightly older child (sorry, but it’s all relative if you catch my meaning)). The text accompanying the photo had to do with the child having a big head – in the 98th percentile. I have suffered from having a physically big head – big enough so that I cannot wear one of those “One Size Fits All” baseball caps which almost everyone around me is able to wear.

This morning’s post from my friend in Ohio ties in with a couple of discussions both at home and on the internet about hats, and heads, and the place they hold in our hearts.

Not to say that I cannot wear hats. I have one hanging on the small rack by my front door. It’s one I got as a gift from my daughter a few years back when she worked at “The Mad Hatter,” a hat store in Savannah Georgia. It was the second hat I’ve gotten as a gift from the same store. A few years prior to the current hat, I was on a visit to Savannah with the first wife when we wandered into The Mad Hatter. She was aware of the size of my head – and took it upon herself to kid me about it almost incessantly. I told her when we walked into the shop that if she could find a hat which would fit me, I would wear it.

I walked out of the Mad Hatter wearing a Tilley Hat. My size.

The Tilley Hat is distinctive. Made in Canada, it’s probably the only hat I know of which comes with an owner’s manual. The hat itself is seriously overbuilt – the owner’s manual is seriously tongue-in-cheek. One of the instructions with the hat is if one encounters someone else wearing a Tilley Hat, they are to compliment the other person as being someone with good taste and distinction.

When I ran across a photo of a naturist wearing nothing but a Tilley Hat (and nothing else) over the weekend, I naturally complimented him on his good taste and distinction.

The other tie-in to hats came on discussions on Saturday and Sunday. A friend in Rhode Island was telling me about what her daughter did on Saturday mornings. Naturally, for a child that age, she loved watching what cartoons are still running on network television. On Sunday, my better half, for no discernable reason, started singing the theme song from H.R. Puffenstuff, Sid and Marty Croft’s ‘Live Action’ puppet show from the early to mid-seventies.

A bit of background – Back in the sixties, Saturday mornings were a cartoon ghetto, mostly geared as attention getters so Kellogg’s and General Mills could sell their sugary cereals. There was protest about the glut of cartoons, so networks wound up going to the Croft brothers and other producers to come up with whimsical live action shows to appeal to kids.

One of those shows was “Lidsville” – a magical place where everyone other than the three main characters was a hat of some sort. And what a cast for the main characters. The chief protagonist was an overly curious teenager who was sucked into Lidsville, played by Butch Patrick. Yeah. THAT Butch Patrick, better known as “Eddie” from The Munsters! He was assisted by “Witchie-Poo,” played to perfection by Billie Burke. Ms. Burke also appeared in H.R. Puffenstuff. She did a good job as a witch. The chief antagonist was played by Charles Nelson Reilly. No, it should be that the chief antagonist was “Camped Up” by Charles Nelson Reilly (is there anyone from that era that didn’t catch on that CNR was Gay as a Maypole?).

I recall watching Lidsville and immensely enjoying the few episodes I managed to catch. Given the size of my head, Lidsville is, perhaps, the only other place where I could find a hat which fits me!

Be Seeing You!

Bait Sandwiches and RV Parks

Bait Sandwiches and RV Parks

I finally took the time to stop at the Lucas Foods to take a photograph of the large sign on top of the building. Local legend is that the juxtaposition of the words “Bait” and “Sandwiches” was not noticed by the owner until after the sign was completed. Instead of insisting that the sign be changed, the owner decided to keep it as-is for the novelty value. In a story I have been working on, the owner of a similar store in another Texas town took the same attitude – even offering Shrimp Po Boys to anyone who came in and remarked in a negative way on the sign.

Don’t know if the fellow owning the Lucas Foods has done the same thing. Maybe he should. Might make him a small fortune.

Lucas is another of the numerous well-to-do little towns here in this little corner of the DFW Metromess. Less than a mile south of this sign is a neighborhood called Seis Lagos. It’s gated. You can’t go there unless you have business there and can prove it. To the east about two miles away, is Brockdale Estates – a collection of McMansions costing well north of half a million dollars when it was being built a few years back. Going east, there are more than a few homes with plenty of acreage, most of them with a horse barn with real horses in them.

And then there are the RV parks.

We’re not talking about nice little resorts where people will go and temporarily park their Winnebagos for a month or two. We’re talking about a place where people live. Full time. All year round.

When on my way from Lucas to my little corner of the DFW Metromess, a distance of around 5 miles, I counted at least a half-dozen of these little camps tucked away off the main road. And that’s just in a five-mile drive. While driving by myself and with the other half, I have noted that there is an explosion of these little RV encampments within, say, a twenty-mile radius of where we live. Not trailer parks. A trailer park would be a step up from these RV encampments.

On the other hand, the other half pointed out that at least the people living in the RV parks aren’t living out in the street somewhere. Lord knows that we have enough people living in the streets already.

Someone on one of my social media feeds pointed out that for less than half the money being spent to help arm Ukraine, the homeless problem could be solved. Chump change for the likes of Jeff Bezos. Maybe he could help out just a little bit.

Elon Musk reportedly once challenged the UN – Give him a budget and he would be willing to end world hunger. A budget of $5billion was submitted, but he didn’t pony up. Instead, he made headlines in the past few weeks by buying Twitter for an outrageous sum of money. Somewhere in the vicinity of $150billion. But he didn’t have the money to invest in ending world hunger. (Wasn’t he manning a soup kitchen in an episode of The Big Bang Theory?)

I can’t help but to think that if these high-falutin’ billionaires would put their heads together and work on real problems instead of seeing how much money they can stuff into their bank accounts, the world would be a much better place for everyone.

The solutions are out there. We just need to change a few attitudes.

Be Seeing You!

Shadetree Mechanics

Shadetree Mechanics

I’ve been sitting at my desk for about an hour or so, watching the man across the street attempt to fix a minor boo-boo on his front bumper. Hammers, paint, perhaps a screwdriver or two. I was beginning to think that do-it-yourself was completely done in as far as fixing your own car. There are still shade tree mechanics out there – they’re just fewer and further between.

Back in the day, doing an oil change, changing out a battery, or doing a tune-up was something almost everyone I knew was doing. Did it myself, don’t cha know. Almost had to because of the “Little Yellow Monster.”

The LYM was a 1969 Austin America I purchased for $350 from a private party in The Plains, Ohio (not a misprint – the name of the town was The Plains). A good portion of the reason I purchased the LYM was that I had a job out of high school working for the local Austin/MG dealer. It was a learning experience. Didn’t take me long to figure out that British Leyland was having problems building a decent automobile. I mean, the Austin America started out as a decent idea, what with the front wheel drive and the hydrolastic suspension, but at the same time, it was hampered by Lucas electrics. For those of you who do not know, Lucas was nicknamed “Prince of Darkness” because of the spotty reliability of the parts they built.

My employer was sympathetic to my ills with the LYM, allowing me to work on it on the weekends when the shop in the back was idle. I had to use my own tools, but still, I had shop manuals and a parts bin to work from, so, I was able to learn auto mechanics more or less on my own. There was at least one job I couldn’t do – and that was to replace the Constant Velocity Joints when they crapped out on me.

One of the dealer’s mechanics helped me out on that one.

There was one job which became a major frustration to me. The starter drive kept going out on me. After replacing the drive a couple of times, I went ahead and purchased a new starter motor at the same time as I purchased a new drive. Pulled out the old starter, installed the new one (I had the process down to 15 minutes from the time I started) and then put the new drive on the old starter, ready for the next time the starter drive decided not to work.

The LYM was not the only car I’ve worked on. Had a Renault LeCar which had its own little glitch (several bad batches of distributor condensers) and a few other adventures, including replacing the exhaust system in a parking lot while it was snowing.

These days, I’m sort of limited to what I can do as a shade tree mechanic. Nothing to do with my getting older – everything to do with the computerization. I have been having a fight with the cooling system on my better half’s Chevy Cruz, and that’s about it. Well, I have replaced the battery and the spark plugs, but that’s about all I’ve done.

So, watching the guy across the street work on the bumper of his newer Dodge, I’ve started to have the notion that maybe I’d like to have a project car to work on from time to time. Something relatively simple, and maybe a convertible.

We’ll just have to see what comes next. The wife has been warned, the garage is almost empty, and the local AutoZone is just a hop, skip, and a jump from my own little corner of the DFW Metromess.

Be Seeing You!

Texas Sweet Taxes

Texas Sweet Taxes

Everyone in my corner of the DFW Metromess has their bowels in an uproar this week, with the arrival of the estimated property tax bill sent out by the local tax collector.

Happens every year. The estimated tax bill is sent out and everyone has their bowels in an uproar about it. For the next month or so, there will be a rush to the tax office to protest whatever value the tax people put on their property in hopes of reducing the bill when it comes due next January.

The better half and I are lucky on two fronts. For one, we are both over sixty-five and for us, one of the taxes is frozen. I believe it will be the school tax. For the other, we have what’s called a “Homestead Exemption,” which limits the increase of the taxable value of our house to 10%. Considering a Real Estate listing I saw for a house identical to ours in our subdivision, 10% is quite reasonable.

The listing I saw (and showed to the better half) priced that identical house at $400,000 – more than double what we paid for ours. Given the way home prices are soaring in this general area, it would not surprise me if the seller gets every penny he’s asking for.

What’s nuts is that we are getting people calling/texting/emailing us on a regular basis, offering to buy our house for way more than we paid. The latest offer was between $300 and $350k in cash. What’s even nuttier is that if we accepted that offer, we would have to scramble to find similar accommodations and deal with the higher prices I’d have to pay for something similar – not to mention having to go to the trouble of moving. Again. I mean, since moving to north Texas, I have moved five times. By myself. Even with what help I got; I’m not getting any younger.

Besides, I like where I am. We have what we need. We can accommodate guests. When we don’t have guests, we have enough room for more stuff than we need, along with a separate room I use as a study. The other half has a study, too – when she’s not sharing mine.

As far as the house itself, well, it’s modest. Non-pretentious. The lot is a fair size, it presents somewhat well, and it fits in with the rest of the neighborhood. It is by no means a $400,000 house. Or even a $300,000 house. Even with the solar panels, it would be a stretch to say that the house is worth a quarter of a million dollars. To me, a quarter million is one hell of a lot of money. As a “Person of Lesser Means,” anything more than, say, $100,000 is a hell of a lot of money. So, where do I get off living in a house “worth” $400k?

Still trying to figure it out. In the meantime, I am happy, the better half is happy, and the dog Filbrix is happy with where we are. We can afford the payments and that’s all that counts for the time being.

Be Seeing You!

… and Chips

… and Chips

I had a memory bubble up in my head earlier today, one which would be a continuation of the previous blog, Fish.

The fish shown at the top of that blog (as well as the top of this continuation) were quite delicious “Beer Battered Cod” obtained in a recent trip to Costco. They were served with “Chips,” what the British call “French Fried Potatoes.” I consider myself as much a connoisseur of Fish and Chips as the people on the Aleutian Key were connoisseurs of catfish.

The memory released was one of a trip I made with my children to visit the first wife while she was working in London (England, not Kentucky, Ohio, or Ontario). On our first night there, we decided to go to a nearby fish and chips chop just down the street (or up the street) from the hotel.

The place was best described as a “Hole in the Wall.” It was small, crowded, and not at all like one would find at a restaurant here in the States. There were no pretenses. We sat down at a table with some of the locals and had a choice of what type of fish we could have with our home-made chips.

Our server was a small woman – at most, four-foot-five and maybe ninety pounds soaking wet – who took our order and our money, returning with what I recall was the best (or at least the most authentic) fish and chips I had ever had. Period. Bar none. I was also introduced to “Shandy” and recall seeing a British Television game show called “The Weakest Link.” (Has possibilities, I thought. Sure enough, the show was transplanted here to the U.S. within just a few months)

Up to that point, my favorite fish and chips came from a small chain called “Alfie’s.” One of the few Alfie’s was in Chillicothe Ohio – not too far from where my parents lived. One of the people working for that Alfie’s was a woman I knew from high school. I still keep up with her and occasionally bring up the fact that there’s still an Alfie’s in Lompoc California. The rest of the chain went by the wayside long before the start of the millennium.

Since the trip to London, the best fish and chips I’ve had in the Metromess was in a place named “The Londoner.” They seemed to understand how to properly do cod and chips – and when the local branch changed hands (It’s now named “The Celt”) the recipe transferred to the new owners.

Here in my little corner of the DFW Metromess, we have “Big Spray,” a brew pub with a decent cod and chips. The owner is an avid water skier and transplant from Indiana, hence the name. (I’d mention that he also offers Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches, but since this blog is about fish and chips, I won’t bother to mention it.)

And regarding Long John Silver’s, on occasion, usually when I’m on the road and there’s not a Whataburger nearby. For the record, there is, or at least was, a Long John Silver’s in London. Kentucky.

Be Seeing You!

(Products and/or services mentioned on this blog are not mentioned in exchange for goods, services, or hard, cold cash.)