Weekend Playlist February 17

Happy Sunday! My weeks are so busy right now that I feel like I’m working full time again, only instead of getting a paychecks, I’m writing checks. -sigh- There are two things I miss the most. I don't get to scrapbook anywhere near as much as I'd like and I don't get to blog as much as I want to either, especially during the week.

But a scrapbook page may take to a week to do a simple one, and I may only post one or two blogs a week, but at least I do get a little bit the fun part of my life. Because of the MS and several other things that I have going on in my world , I talk to nurses and psychologists from the insurance company and a couple of other providers pretty much every week or so. One of the questions that they always ask, I think it's pretty much a boilerplate question to check for depression because it's also one of the questions that they ask at Cleveland Clinic when I go in to see my MS doctors too, is "do you find that you have little interest in the things you enjoy doing?" Last week when I spoke to my case manager from the insurance company I answered honestly, "oh it's not that I don't have interest I just don't have time for the things that I really want to do."

So as it is on Sunday, here are the last five songs from my music library on shuffle: (As usual, please don't judge!)

No Such Thing As A Broken Heart, Old Dominion

We Found Love, Rhianna

Blurred Lines, Robin Thicke

This Is Your Day, 112

Video Killed The Radio Star, The Buggles

I love irony. Video Killed The Radio Star was recorded in 1979, but is remembered eternally as the first video shown on MTV at 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981. Do you remember when music videos were new? Do you remember when MTV actually played music videos?

Things move, things change. The Walkman, which actually came into existence before MTV, gained popularity. Remember putting a cassette in a little contraption with earphones? You could walk around, ignoring everything around you, listening to your music getting hit by a car crossing the street because you were ignoring the don't walk sign. Then it grew into a CD player that you could carry around with you. I had one of the CD players that I hooked up to the cassette player in my car so I could listen to CDs in my car. When those first came out the biggest problem was every time I hit a bump in the car the CD skipped. Eventually they made CD players that were a little more stable but by then MP3 players were coming out and cars had CD players instead of cassette players in them anyway.

In the history of the car it didn't have a radio at all and then there were AM radios, and FM radios, and then eight track players… for there is always been something to kill the last kind of star, hasn't there?

My great-grandmother and I were always very close and from the time that I turned 16 and got my license we would get together every Tuesday for coffee and sit and just talk for a few hours. I absolutely loved those nights because we just loved sharing stories. When I was on the high school radio station in 12th grade, she was just close enough to get the station in and listened to us every morning. She was tickled when every now and then my partner would dedicate a song to “Opal, one of our favorite listeners.” I did the news and had to be very careful to make sure it was accurate because I think I was her most regular source for national and local information. There were a lot of times during the 7:30am slot, I think she may have been our only listener too.

She shared stories with a smile about how the world had changed in her lifetime. When she was born they didn't even have electricity or indoor plumbing. and now her great grand daughter can drive a car to come visit her and even bring ice cream. She was in our cable area and sometimes watched my sports programming, I think mostly the end to see my name on TV. My boss, the Executive Producer, and me, the Producer on the fist page of the credits. She was alive when women won the right to vote, the 19th Amendment ratified the year she turned 14. She was a line inspector at Ford Motor Company and boasted a photo of the truck I drove for productions work for everyone to see. She saw the first Mustang come off the assembly line and wanted one of the "Pony Cars" since you first saw them. Her last car ended up being a Mustang (a cute, four-cylinder muscle car) with my mother my grandmother telling my father and grandfather “don't you dare even think about talking her out of it. No man is selling the WRONG car this time.” One of the things she bragged about with that was in the last 70 years, at the time, the women in our family had gotten stronger because we don't give up and we don't let ourselves get old.

She always smiled and reveled in the changes in the world and how most of them made life better. She is without question how I learned to appreciate changes in the world and changes in our personal lives in general. She probably has a lot to do with my interest in domestic history over learning details about wars. And don’t get old - My great-grandmother loved the old gospel and country music she grew up with. She was also a fan of REO Speedwagon.

She is definitely the source of my eclectic musical taste and I will always love her for that. My mother’s tastes were the same kind of defying the demographic. I'm the one who introduced HER to Dmitri Shostakovich and SHE played Toad The Wet Sprocket for me. My great-great-grandmother had an Elvis scrapbook because she loved his music from the first time she heard it and the family remembered quote was “That boy is definitely going to change things!” That love of current music seemed to skip a generation with my grandmother but she learned how to use a computer in her 70s, so we'll give her a pass on the music.

As I said before I love irony and then love domestic history. Video Killed The Radio Star is an important part of our culture’s musical history. Yeah now when you think about how many videos you don't see on MTV and how we put earbuds in our phones and listen to either our personal playlist or whatever RADIO station is on our music service and that kind of makes you think maybe TECHNOLOGY killed the video star.


Now of course it's very hard to find someplace that will allow you to embed a video to share it anymore. It's a silly song and not an impressive video but it's a piece of history. So if you would like to experience a little bit of history here's a link to the video:

https://youtu.be/9ffoTMBlAOA

Wednesday Hodge Podge: A Penny For Your Heart?

1. What makes love last?

The sake of argument I’ll assume we’re talking romantic love between life partners. I think making love last requires communication, a shared sense of humor, mutual respect and the ability to feel comfortable and enjoy your time away from each other.


2. The Beatles made their US debut fifty years ago this week. Are you a fan? If so, what's your favorite Beatles tune?

I think I'd say I’m not a fan but I don’t dislike them. I don’t really have a favorite but I sometimes enjoy when I get an ear worm of Eleanor Rigby or Norwegian Wood.


3. Valentine's Day-your thoughts? Do you celebrate in any way? Do anything special for the people you love? Expect anything special from the people who love you?

Some years I enjoy sending kid-Valentines to my friends in the mail but I really haven’t done that since 2002 when most of my Valentines were returned because I put single dark chocolate Dove hearts with a recipe card for “Antioxidant Hot Chocolate” with them and the US Post Office returned them because they were too thick.

Valentine’s Day was a wonderful holiday but not a romantic holiday until I met David. Now since our wedding anniversary is so close to Valentine’s Day he takes me out for our anniversary dinner and I take him out for Valentine’s Day.


4. Steak or burger...you have to choose. Now that that's settled, how do you like it?

Oh the steak or burger part is easy; I hate steak. With that out of the way, if I have to eat beef I prefer ground beef in sauce or chili but since I had to pick one or the other and the other choice burger as in a patty we'll go with the hamburger. If I’m eating a hamburger it must be cooked beyond well done. I usually call the way I like hamburgers “hockey puck.” Really, I like the little bits that fall onto the griddle and are crunchy without anything on them. Since it would take forever to cook a whole hamburger to crunchy I settle for well done and drowned in condiments; end to end coated with about a quarter inch of ketchup and an even layer of mustard. If we havr relish a half inch of that under the ketchup is nperfect. The milder the taste of beef the better.


5. The Hodgepodge lands on the birthdate (February 12th) of Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America. Lincoln is quoted as saying, 'Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test his character give him power.' Do you agree? Why or why not?

Oh, the Hodgepodge lands on my friend Tracy’s birthday too, which she happens to share with President Lincoln.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRACY!

I have to say that I totally agree with the quote. We have too much evidence of it being true. Think of all the wonderful stories that you hear of men and women faced with incredible challenges that are doing well in spite of them. Heck even me with my occasional breakdowns behind closed doors can still remain smiling and optimistic. Now think of how corrupt most of our politicians and many CEOs are with all of their power.


6. Honest Abe's image is featured on the US penny (1 cent coin) so I'm wondering...what do you do with your pennies (or your country's equivalent)? It's been suggested the US stop making the penny, and two bills have been introduced proposing just that, but neither were approved. What say you?

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Don’t stop making the penny! I collect pennies! I have books of both American and Canadian pennies. Those include pennies minted in San Francisco, pennies with wheat or maple leaf clusters and I even have a handful of Indian head pennies. They changed the penny again and I have a few new ones too; the 2009 Lincoln series and the current shield.

When I was little the wheat pennies were already rare in change, but I remember always thinking it was special when I got one and spent it last. It’s a small enough denomination that children have them and there are pennies on the dollar sales tax and prices that end .99 for the marketing value of not rounding up to the next dollar; we need them.

Think of the travels of a penny. I don’t collect mint sets or anything like that; I want the pennies that have history, even if I don’t know the history. I look at the well-circulated penny that was shiny and new the year WW2 ended and I can romanticize where it was on V-J Day. The Indian Heads are over 100 years old and when they were new they bought a lot. Looking at one of those makes me wonder what my great grandmother might have bought with one of them when she was a child. And the old Canadian pennies with the maple leaf sprays, well, how much Canadian Chocolate would they have bought when they were new?

We can’t get rid of the penny because of those cents at the end of prices, which are valuable marketing tools, but the penny is also an inexpensive introduction to the magic and wonder of history.


7. Do you think pop deserves serious study?

If you mean historic pop culture, absolutely! Understanding daily life, popular recreation and fads in the past help us better understand and appreciate our life now. It also helps us improve upon where we are by knowing what worked in the past. Should we study ur own pop culture now? Definitely. It’s the history of everyday life we’re sending forward.

8. Insert your own random thought here.

After 2 years of no snow removal needed, the guys from Rapid LLC have been here SIX times this winter! I was chatting with the driver on my way home from my monthly MS meeting last night and we agreed with a chuckle that this year has not only made it okay, but fashionable to “talk about the weather.” That’s good as I’ve just finished week 6 of Random 2014 and gee I’ve talked about snow and cold a lot! In a few weeks I’ll be talking about Florida and the fun I’m having reading Edna’s posts about the vacation I’m enjoying vicariously through her blog! But for now, I’ll continue to enjoy fashionable Toledo conversation\; BRRRRRR!!!!!!

My Hamburger Bun Runeth Over

Mmmmm….

I feel like I’ve talked about Gevalia before but I looked over my last few blog entries and don’t see it. Maybe I told David or wrote it in my personal journal. Hmmm… My brain has been taxed lately. Anyway, I used to drink Gevalia coffee all the time! I got the beans and used it in my coffee maker that grinds the beans right into the filter. Good coffee and a great way to make it. At that time I was living at home, no car payment, immortal; as the average 20-something, so no medical bills and I was enjoying the benefits of my first job that paid more than minimum wage. I was making $5 an hour full time!

Please remember that a Mr. Goodbar was 15 cents when I was a child too.

Anyway, car payments and a travel bug a little later and I terminated my Gevalia deliveries when I had to start cutting costs. Well, Gevalia started making K-Cups and they offered a fee sample on their Facebook page. I’d forgotten just how wonderful that coffee is and the K-Cups, are comparable in price where at that time so long ago the beans and ground coffee was considerably more expensive than even Coffee Beanery coffee by the pound. So I’m blissfully back on the Gevalia!

Let’s see what Joyce at From This Side of The Pond is asking in today’s Hodge Podge, shall we?

1. This week's Hodgepodge is Volume 123. What's something you've done recently that was as easy as 1-2-3?

Using a scrapbook template. I usually do my pages from scratch or alter the heck out of a template when I use one, but this year the end of the month has meant that I’ve used some templates pretty much as is. Remember that in catching up since 2008, my rule for this year is I can only scrap the current month from any year. At the end of the month I do a few folders with templates. They still look good, but I don’t claim the layout as my original design for the page. I can do three or four pages in a day to close out the month that way, though!


2. The Wednesday Hodgepodge also happens to fall on the first day of May ...what is something you may do this month? 

I may be going for another MRI. Since I blew my out-of-pocket out of the water in January, the MRIs are essentially free (to me) for the rest of the year. Since my bills won’t be paid off until late next year, I want to get all of my testing done this year!


3. The Englishman Horace Walpole is credited as saying, "The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think" How do you see it?

A little of both, but mostly a comedy. It’s the thinker in me that remembers the serenity prayer; I change what I can, accept what I cannot and I don’t beat my head against a wall trying to change things I can’t.


4. May is National Hamburger Month...how often do you eat a burger? What are your must-haves when it comes to burgers? I assume you vegetarians won't be celebrating so tell us what you'd like instead? 

I eat burgers once or twice a week. Burgers are usually the next day dinner after spaghetti, which David and I both enjoy. I also now and then get a hamburger when we eat at McDonald’s while railfanning and I feel like a hot lunch rather than salad.

Must-haves are ketchup, mustard and relish or pickle and I require enough of them that the burger is more of a condiment flavor than actually something I can taste. Seriously, I like hamburger as a condiment, but I really don’t want to taste the meat.

Last time we were railfanning we stopped for lunch and I got a Quarter Pounder, no cheese and extra everything else. THAT was a Nani burger! The condiments we just dripping out of the bun and the pickles were stacked as thick as the burger. YUM! Okay, truth is I could probably have just had pickles, but then it wouldn’t be warm. :D


5. Pansies, petunias, geraniums, impatiens...of the four mentioned, which is your favorite in a patio pot? Will there be pots on your patio this spring? (Or whenever spring comes to your part of the globe?) Who does the gardening at your house?

I like them all, but I think pansies best. The gardening at our house gets done when someone who gardens visits.


6. When did you last (literally or figuratively) shout "Mayday, Mayday!"

I think last night. I woke up to :nature’s call” and I couldn’t prop myself up to sit up on the bed so I could stand. David got up to be my grab bar. That’s just one of my normal challenges, maybe it’s more one of David’s challenges.


7. Say farewell to your April in ten words or less.

I will always love you April, you bring baseball back!


8. Insert your own random thought here.

I’m going to see a movie today! Sheri’s on vacation this week and we’re going to go see 42. I’ve been hearing so much about the movie and seeing the ads during games, I’m kind of excited. Jackie Robison’s story is one of the most important things in the history of the sport I love so much. It was baseball, and given baseball’s place in America at that time, the country’s moment to wake up and grow closer to the rich society we can be if we shed backwards notions that any kind of unsubstantiated hate is okay. It makes me smile to think of all that we’ve gained every time we’ve become more equal and it makes me hungrier for all that we still have to gain.

And lunch at Friendly’s – They have ice cream!

Will The REAL Monday Please Blog-Up?

As common everyday goes, last week was just weird! The Fourth of July midweek throws everything off. Once I got over the fact that Friday was indeed Friday and not Monday, it was suddenly the weekend! The fact that in order to get the train-time off and to help out with vacation times, David worked straight through the weekend and is working odd hours all week this week just adds to my confusion.

Yesterday I met Heather and Tracy for lunch in Monroe. It’s always a great day when we get together! After a leisurely lunch at Cracker Barrel, we went to the porch and continued our conversations. It was sunny, mid 80s and a mild occasional breeze; a gorgeous day! It ended up being a 5-hour lunch.

Monday Mug Shot

Wright Brothers National Memorial

Kill Devil Hills, NC

I guess I’m a little warped. I got my photo of the Kill Devil Hills water tower and with a wicked giggle and a raspy voice said “Kill Devil; Kill! Kill!” It just struck me as a horror movie name and it brought out my inner-imp!

The Wright Brothers museum and monument are pretty cool. We invited anyone else in the house that wanted to go to join us, but it ended up being just David and me. I know a lot of people like to just go to the beach or sit in their rented house and look out the windows when they’re on vacation, but I just couldn’t do that in an area with so much to see and do!

It was gray, rainy and muggy when we went to the museum, so it was busier because all of the beach bums settled for history to hide from the rain. That’s more of an observation than anything because there were a lot of people there and many left when the rain stopped!

It was fascinating watching the step-by-step of how the first airplane was tested and eventually constructed. Orville Wright was the brother who piloted the actual first flight. Wilbur piloted the second of the four fights they did on December 17, 1903. It was the fourth flight, by Wilbur, when they actually had established full control of the Wright Flyer. There was no “seating” in the Wright Flyer. The one-person airplane was piloted lying on your belly with your legs back while controlling the plane with your hands. Can you imagine flying like that today? But if the Wrights had never flown that way, the advancements that put seats in planes never would have come about!

After our time in the museum, David went up to the top of the hill, where the monument to that first flight that took off from that hill was. I stayed at the base of the hill with the car. It’s not at all that the monument wasn’t accessible, just steeper than I wanted to climb or make my husband push!

Wright Brothers Memorial

Our original plan after the Wright Brothers museum was to find a nice seafood restaurant and have our lavish meal of the trip for lunch. But the sun came out and there were lighthouses calling. No really, “David…Nani…have a late lunch. We’re waiting…” If there’s sunlight, they will come and all, we passed on immediate lunch and headed south!


Stay tuned for more Carolina mugs!

Read more about the Wright Brothers and the first flight!





Monday Quiz About Me

This is how I knew Friday wasn’t Monday; no quiz at Acting Balanced! Even while on vacation and enjoying the summer, Heather has been keeping this fun meme up. It’s a great way to wake up your brain for the new week! It’s not question-overload and the last question that you present readers adds just a bit of entertainment for them and it also makes commenting easy! (More fun to read than “yeah, what you said” too!) Won’t you think about joining in?

1. What are two must haves when you go on a road trip?

My camera and a notebook. We often keep track of license plates when we travel and I write down the ones we see. We saw Alaska three times on our vacation this year! I also take scrapbook notes to go with the photos I take.


2. What is your favorite amusement park ride?

I don’t do amusement parks so much anymore. I did them and carnivals often when I was a teenager/early 20s, but got bored with them. I’m not a huge thrill seeker, but when I seek thrills, I actually prefer a little more real risk. I thought the areas of the Blue Ridge Parkway that didn’t have guard rails when I drove on that were more fun than any amusement park ride I’d been on.

When I did go to amusement park/carnivals, I liked the Tilt-A-Whirl because, with my friends there with me, we could make it spin faster ourselves.


3. Post favorite picture from the last six months?

Well, my favorite, most meaningful, photo of the past 6 months I already put in my blog. That would be the one of me with Tori and Rina grasping their honors cords on their graduation night, so I’m representing that photo with the shots of them individually with me.

Nana and Tori

Rina and Nana

And here is another big favorite of mine, the group shot from Scotty’s BIG 25 Party:

4. What do you (did you) call your grandparents? If you are a grandparent what do your grandchildren call you?

My grandparents were Grandma and Papa on Mom’s side and Noni and Nono on Pop’s side. I don’t have kids, but Tori and Rina call me Nana, formed from the attempts at “Aunt Nani” when they were little. I suppose if they have kids I might be “Grandnana” or I may just stay Nana. The oldest kids are always the ones who ultimately decide what grandparents (or grand-aunts) will be called.

And don't forget to add a 5th Question on your own blog so we can answer as we hop around!

5. Do you have a cup or glass that is you favorite for your morning beverage?

I have a couple hundred mugs in my collection, but I still drink my morning coffee in my “good morning mug.”

Filling Up My Dance Card

I mentioned finding a couple of dance cards in Grandma’s keepsakes and David gave me a puzzled look.

“You’ve never heard the expression ‘My dance card is full’ or ‘I think I have room on my dance card' or any of the other dance card expressions?”

“Yeah, but I thought dance card was just an expression not a thing.”

I showed him this one and he was…well, he was less than impressed. I guess I get that. I have to agree with him that in today’s world, for a woman to carry around a card at a dance and schedule dance partners seems like it would get in the way of fun at a school dance. But in 1944 dancing was just dancing. It was ballroom type that had definite steps that some did better than others. Maybe it was a way for a popular girl to mean it when she said she’d dance with a guy before the dance is over?” No “dirty dancing” either!” The other dance card I found, which is put away upstairs and I’ll share photos at another time; had the types of dances listed so a girl could write in the boys who fit the style best. It had waltzes and the Charleston but NO TANGO!

This was the Junior/Senior prom for CHS. I’m not sure what high school that was, but Papa graduated from California High School in California, PA, so it makes sense that Grandma would know some people there. The Lee Barrett Orchestra performed. Can you imagine and orchestra at a high school dance? Don’t think for a minute that my romantic brain isn’t picturing and Astaire and Rogers prom!

 Senior  class officers and Prom sponsors were listed on the last page of the book, but other than the orchestra and date, no other credits are in the dance card.  More clues may surface as I go through some of the other things I have.

This prom was the year after Grandma graduated and a month before she and Papa married. The only name on her dance card, for just 2 dances, is Allen Russell, not family or anyone I ever met. I wonder if it’s a friend who was going into the service after graduation? I am quite sure it’s Grandma’s dance card because I recognize her handwriting. The answer to that question, I’ll never know!

So, anyone else who didn’t realize where the references to dance cards came from, they really were part of our American culture!

See and share more wonderful bits of history at The Coloradolady's Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Vintage Thingie Thursday – Ration Coupons

I’ve said before that I love vintage paper things! These ration books belonged to my great-grandparents.

sponsored coupon book cover

I’m going to dome more research and find out how the ration coupons were used. I just can’t imagine…

See more antique finds at The Coloradolady’s Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Happy Leap Day!

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates Gioachino Rossini, great Italian composer born on leap day 1792. Rossini died in 1868, which made him 18 at the time of his death. Question my math?

I just found out in a discussion with my trivia man husband that the leap day is skipped in 3 of every four century years. There was a leap day in 2000, but not in 1700, 1800 or 1900. Which means Rossini’s second birthday was skipped. Since there was no leap day in 1900 either, he’d be 53 today.

I read in Canada’s National Post, “It takes the Earth about 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds to orbit the sun, so (almost) every four years, a day is added to keep the calendar in sync with the seasons. Occasionally, the calendar will leap the leap day to adjust for the fact that the extra time isn’t exactly six hours per year. ” The link will take you to the page. It has some interesting facts and a couple points of giggles. I think it’s pretty cool!

I still have a little bit of a froggy throat…but my silly punny self is feeling a little better today! After a good night’s rest I woke up a little better, but I’m still a tad congested and a dull pain in my throat. And it’s been raining, like crazy! Gotta love this insane winter!

I have a White Tornado board on Pinterest. I pin everything I want to purchase or make as part of the White Tornado project. It’s more productive than adding more bracelets to the “My Style” board…although I still do a lot of that too. Club Pandora re-obsesses me every month. I want wallpaper for my desktop that’s a mound of decadent chocolate with a green, gold and silver Pandora bracelet draped over it. Ahhh….

But I digress; this isn’t about chocolate or Pandora. I was talking about White Tornado, organizing and accessiblizing! My mission last night was locating salad plates that go with my Corelle set. I love my dishes! They are plain smooth beige Corelle.

I have the salt and pepper shaker, gravy boat and cream pitcher and sugar bowl that match the beige. The accents are in the Forever Yours pattern

I have the tea kettle, crock pot, oven bowls and a few other accent pieces in that pattern. The description says the hearts are pink, but it’s a very peachy pink that matches my peach and light sage green kitchen theme well! So I thought maybe if I can’t find the plain beige salad plates, I’d get the beige-based plates in the Forever Yours pattern, which I did find...for $10 each. I kinda wish I’d kept Grandma’s salad plates. They were plain white and matched her brown-trimmed white Corelle.  I could have lived with plain white to have the right size plates. I just never got the salad plates 20-some years ago when I bought the dishes and the plain beige was readily available. I have a search out for the plain beige ones with a replacement/search company online, but I might do some inspecting to see if I can culminate the money for the Forever Yours salad plates and be done with it.

When the dream kitchen becomes a real kitchen, the salad plates will match great, and in the meantime, they’re in the cupboard when not in use anyway.


I have several things on my undecorated plate today, so before I go, let’s check out the Wednesday Hodge Podge hosted by Joyce at From This Side of the Pond.

1. The Hodgepodge falls on the last day of February this year, a leap year. How will you spend that extra day?

I don’t know that it’s any different. I’m going to scrap a few pages, get through at least two more boxes in the future woman-cave and drink lots of tea to try to get my throat back to normal!




2. What has recently required a leap of faith on your part?

Starting my MS meds. The one I take has a reduced heart rate, kidney infections and optical damage as possible side effects. I was thoroughly tested before I was prescribed the drug, but it was still scary. I’m glad I did it. I feel a lot better now and no side effects that I can feel.



3. We're one week into the season of Lent...are you marking these 40 days in some way? Giving something up or adding something extra to normal life? How's it going so far?

Lent is supposed to be a time of sacrifice and I kinda lost my desire to really discuss it when I realized how much was spent on fish dinners on Fridays in the name of religious observation. The idea of Lent was created to encourage the wealthier to sacrifice their expensive meat habits and eat fish and support the poorer fishermen. In the true spirit of lent, give or volunteer to the less fortunate and pass on the lobster. Have a hamburger on Friday and support the minimum wage workers at McDonald’s.



4. When was the last time you sat beside a fire?

Assuming that my Christmas Video Fireplace doesn’t count, probably the fireplace at home in Michigan before I moved. That’s been over 5 years ago now.




5. Surf and Turf is on the menu. Do you order as is or do you ask for just the surf (lobster), just the turf (steak), or a menu so you can select another option?

Lobster is fine, just anything that doesn't taste like steak!



6. If you could have any television program back, not in reruns but in new episodes, what program would you choose?


Cold Squad, Canadian cold case program I watched on Sleuth.


7. They say an elephant never forgets. These days would you say your memory is more like an elephant or a gnat?

Oh, I have a decent memory, more like an elephant for sure.



8. Insert your own random thought here.

I think today the next White Tornado boxes are mine! Progress!!

Groundhog Day – Come Vacation in Ohio!

Happy Groundhog Day! I was reading some dejected Tweets about the impending doom of Punxsutawney Phil seeing his shadow this morning, but on a blissfully overcast day in Ohio, Buckeye Chuck did not, I repeat NOT, see his shadow. So while the rest of the country is burdened by 6 more weeks of winter, my crocuses will be budding by mid-March! On behalf of the Ohio Department of Tourism, I’d like to invite everyone to our fair state to enjoy the early spring!

I did well in all levels of my education with math…and sarcasm! As a lifetime Midwesterner, I never understood what all the fuss about the groundhog was. How mean is it to wake up a furry critter on an early February morning to see if it casts a shadow so you can determine if it’s going to be a torturing 6 weeks until spring or blissfully only 6 more weeks until spring. If you’re banking your state of mind on a groundhog, that’s pretty sad. Still, come to Ohio, the happy state!

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I’ve been diligently working on the White Tornado Project upstairs this week. Today I am achy and I’ve decided to take it as an easy day. One thing I need to do is plug lights back in. I was moving some things around, cat toys and socks, under the bed. I pulled on an extension cord and unplugged the light on David’s side of the bed. Then when I turned on the light on my side, it blew out. So right now we have no bedside lighting. Not so good in the winter when the sun is gone at bedtime and not back yet when you wake up! So, while I’m otherwise taking a break today from the White Tornado, I will still wiggle onto the floor to plug things back in and replace the bulb in my reading light.


Then, the rest of the day is for scrapping, blogging and making some mini quiches for the freezer. I joined my Dad for the first phase of the South Beach diet back in the late 90s. Word of eternal caution here – even if a doctor suggests a diet to someone else, it may not be right for you! Pop’s doctor suggested South Beach for my dad to shed a few “off season” pounds. He always gained over the winter when it was not construction season. I decided that I’d join him because the support would help him stick with it and it certainly wouldn’t hurt me to shed a little. Well I was wrong on the “wouldn’t hurt me” part! I followed the recipes with the exception of adding all the oil they called for. That much oil was a gross thought and I had elevated cholesterol. Upping my fat intake would drive me to the “high” level in no time. After I got sick and actually gained weight, MY doctor chewed me out for trying a diet that is geared towards people with weight gain from carbohydrates with high or headed that way blood sugar. It’s actually dangerous for high cholesterol because if followed to the letter, it will reduce blood sugar and raise cholesterol. By cutting out the fat in the recipes, I reduced my blood sugar, which wasn’t good for me and because I wasn’t eating enough calories, I gained weight.  This is why they say to consult your doctor before changing your diet!

But the one thing that I did get from the 2 week on the South Beach diet is a taste for the little breakfast quiches made in cupcake pans. Boy those were good! All the talk last week on the Wednesday Hodge Podge about brunch and the many people who’d make a breakfast casserole or a quiche made me crave casserole or quiche. I remembered those wonderful South Beach breakfasts, which I’ll definitely have with whole wheat toast now. I looked up a few recipes last night and I’ll analyze them and create one that works for me this afternoon. I’ll get back with you all on how that turns out!

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It’s Thursday and time to share a vintage treasure. This is from one of the boxes from Grandma’s garage. The garage is where the boxes from Detroit went in 1982 that weren’t opened again until Dave and I with our spouses were sorting through everything. It’s where we found the tax return copies from 1958. and in one box I found these!

I had to do some searching to get a little bit of background. The Labor Non-Partisan League pin is supporting Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1944 Presidential election. Winning that election saw FDR’s fourth term in office. He died of a stroke just a few months after the beginning of that term.

I haven’t come across any other presidential election pins, but I find it interesting to note that the presidential election pins I’ve had, the candidates have won too. Maybe there’s some family mojo at work there. Maybe I should seek out a pin for the candidate I choose this year.

The other pin is a Douglas MacArthur War Hero pin. It was in the same box and I’d guess probably from the same time.

I admit that I totally enjoyed the research I did for these pins. At the site where I found both of them, the FDR pin sells for $45 and the MacArthur pin for $20. I also did some reading at various sites, brushing up on some American history and imagining my just-married grandparents at that time.  Grandma was living in Boston, and at the time of the election, Grandma was pregnant but probably didn’t know it yet. Papa was stationed in the Pacific. World War 2 wasn’t over.


Enjoy some more nostalgia and vintage finds at Suzanne’s bog, The Coloradolady for Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Links

Cleveland Leader – Buckeye Chuck blurb

Roosevelt 1944 Election Pins.

MacArthur War Hero Pins

After a Good Night’s Sleep

Oh, it’s not another post about decaffeinated coffee, it’s what I had last night: A good night’s sleep! I haven’t really had one of those in about a week. I’ve had a couple of new MS symptoms. I can’t get started on my disease modifying drugs soon enough! That, by the way, will be on November 14. The medication I’ll hopefully be taking requires a 6-hour observation for the first dose to make sure there aren’t super adverse side effects, primarily that the drug can, often does, cause the heart rate to slow down. The heart rate is usually back to normal within a month of starting it, but the main concern is that it doesn’t start slowed too much, so they want the patient, in this case me, to be in a facility with doctors available “stat.” The other drugs included ones that were injected, which I could learn to do to myself, but I’d prefer a pill, and ones with way worse known possible side effects, including brain disease. I’ve been through a ton of tests to be sure I’m strong enough to give the medication a try. Since the beginning of the year I have been tested for just everything! Other than the MS, “I am strong like ox!”


Occupying My Mind

I’ve been reading a lot about the “Occupy” protests going on, not just on Wall Street, or even all over the country, but all over the world. The whole Occupy movement doesn’t seem really organized or even in harmony with itself, but it’s young, so it might evolve into more. Right now, it’s definitely loud. I can imagine the 60s protests must have started something like this, only without the Internet to put them more in everyone’s living rooms, dining rooms, libraries, coffee shops and back pockets on a Smart Phone! I was a baby during the protest movement in the late 60's, no, serious, when the pot started to heat up for those protests I was probably a zygote! The anti-war movement peaked in 1968, but it really started to bubble in 1965. The reading I’ve been doing suggests that the unrest started before that, somewhere as the unification of World War 2 began to fade in the post war years and became unrest about racial equality, unemployment and poverty.

This time the civil unrest had its unification on 9-11-01 and for the comparatively brief period after the terrorist attacks. I recall the comparison to Pearl Harbor at that time. The end of WW2 brought out a similar celebration to Bin Laden’s death, albeit without the dramatic sailor kissing a woman in Times Square photograph, but this age is different too. We did not have the economic boom that my Mother grew up in and our Vietnam happened before the end of our WW2. Iraq was the war that divided our country into those who supported it no matter what and those who said, “what the…?” Our president’s enemy was in Iraq, but our country’s enemy was in Afghanistan. On the world political scale, we had the unrest and economy of the late 60s and never got the boom and celebration of post WW2 and we had it all at once. It’s no wonder the whole movement is mad and seeking someplace to aim their anger. The direction is unclear because the "enemy" is still unclear.

I’m not totally sure where I stand on the Occupy movement. Right now I’m trying to understand it from a psychological and historical point. It’s an interesting opportunity to understand why we study history. Society runs circularly, but it does seem that our historical model has been sucked into the middle of a metaphorical funnel, with groups like Occupy and the Tea Party trying to anchor themselves on the outside with ideas to pull us out, to “save us.”

I read the “demands” of Occupy Wall Street, or one could call them ideals, my preference to call something if you want to get people on board with you. "Demands" is confrontational and sounds dangerous. Their ideas are mostly decent. Some things will take a lot of work to change, some things need to be undone, some things never should have happened. There are other ideals that will never be allowed to happen or shouldn’t because of the strong possibility they’ll do more harm than good.

Yes, the details are purposefully vague there. That's mostly because I don’t have set opinions on a lot of it yet, but also because an entire blog could be devoted to opinions about the Occupy Movement. There are a lot of blogs already devoted to opinions about the Occupy Movement. This little section was just a look at the historical comparison and as fodder for thought and discussion. If you have any insight or opinions, grab a cup of coffee and post away!

It’s definitely NOT a decaf morning!

What Do Groundhogs Know, Anyway?

Groundhog Doodle by Artgal Style

This was scheduled to be a much longer blog. I started writing and got on a roll. Then in rereading, I realized that there was a lot of tongue-in-cheek talk about religion, religion and groundhogs, but religion just the same. I didn’t want to publish it in case it might be offensive to someone stopping at my cyber coffee shop for the first time. I think that first half may just be in the personal archives. If you want to read the copy that didn’t get published, drop me a line at chronicelofnani@gmail.com and I’ll send a copy.

After the religious stuff the post kinda changed direction...

So, the Germans who settled in Pennsylvania are the ones who brought the tradition of rousting a hibernating mammal on Candlemas for predicting Spring to break up the mid-winter doldrums. The two used to be intertwined, but Groundhog Day was like the spin-off that grew to become more popular than the original show! The original mammal was a badger, but they settled on the Groundhog and that’s why Punxsutawney Phil is the head honcho Groundhog, the home of the original Groundhog Day.

Yes, I know I’ve been going on and on about the Groundhog this month. It’s just that, like the German settlers in Pennsylvania that brought the silly part of their Candlemas holiday with them, I’M TIRED OF WINTER! This year’s been especially cold and especially snowy.

So here’s my problem with the Groundhog – Politics. The Groundhog is too much of a politician. Tells us what he thinks we want to hear and then leaves us to just live with it until by some miracle it happens or we discover he lied again. And it’s not just us humans. It’s everyone alive! This morning I was having my muffin and coffee at around 5:30 before I started my test questions for the day and as the sky started getting light, Kaline joined me on the table and had that, “did you hear something? I heard something!” look. I listened close to see what she was hearing. I heard some dripping from the back window where there were some moving sounds from the icicles and some early commuters n the main street, but wait! Then I heard what her eyes were following to the window behind me. She jumped onto the buffet and seemed to ask me to pull the shade. I obliged her. What we were both listening to now was a Cardinal’s song, just outside the window.

Cardinals sing the end of winter and beginning of spring, their song is the first to fill the air when the end of winter is near. With a big storm coming that prompted my doctor’s office to call and suggest that I cancel my appointment tomorrow, I’m sure the Cardinal was either duped by the Groundhog too or is part of his plan.

Then I remembered that spring means Spring Training and the Cardinal’s song reminded me that Lance Berkman is a Cardinal now. How did we let that happen? If the Cardinal is on the Groundhog’s payroll, then the Groundhog is not a Pirates fan, like I would have guessed, but he’s a Cardinals fan! The groundhog seeing his shadow in the fall made Lance Berkman a Cardinal! Talk about power-drunk! GRRR!

Just one more reason to put groundhog on the menu!

Lance Berkman and his pet groundhog can go play in the snow. I’M going to go hibernate!

Monday Mug Shot

R.M.S. Titanic
London, England
April 10, 1912

We boarded the great ship Titanic, the pride of White Star Line April 10. We sailed second class. My cousin and my daughter were going to America with me to Chicago, Illinois to start a series of revival meetings at the Moody Church in West Chicago. -Reverend John Harper

Actually, Those are my words, not John Harper's. I was John Harper for a little while on a Saturday in May of 2003.

I went to the Titanic exhibit at The Detroit Science Center with Mom, Tori, Rina, John and Scotty. The exhibit was traveling the country that year and it was something Mom really wanted to see. She didn’t have a hard time getting takers for the ride with her!

As we waited in line a our scheduled entry time, we read the information panels outside with facts and details of the ill-fated ship. When the people going into the exhibit entered, they were given a boarding pass. The boarding pass was your identity. At the end of the tour, you could look at the lists of survivors and dead to find out if you made it.

I was flattered when Mom and they guys told me they figured I’d be Molly Brown, or anyway, that I would make a good Molly Brown. I do take charge in times of trouble and have found myself with abilities I didn’t know I had rather than panic, but I didn’t want to be someone I knew survived, I wanted that element of not knowing! But, when I received my boarding pass and flipped it over, I told everyone I knew I didn’t make it. My title was mot Miss, Mr., or Mrs.. My title was “Reverend.”

The exhibit was so neat. There were actual artifacts that were recovered and informative panels. There were diagrams of icebergs showing that really, only the smallest part of an iceberg shows above water. Then there was the area where you could touch a wall that simulated the temperature of iceberg-infested water. I don’t think I’d have WANTED to survive floating in that kind of cold!

The boarding passes were so cool, because all six of us, even the two 8-year-olds, talked the whole way thorough about what our passenger might have been doing or what they might have been thinking through the voyage and then at the time that the ship started sinking.

In the end, Tori was the only one of us on the survivors list! Everyone else perished.

Some stats from the trip from my scrapbook:

I was Reverend John Harper, 39 years old, traveling 2nd class with my 10-year-old daughter, Nina, and my cousin, Miss Jessie Leiton. Nina and Jessie survived, my body was never recovered.

Rina was Mr. William Henry Nancarrow. He was 33 years old and sailed 3rd class with his aunt and uncle, Alexander and Charity Robbins. They all died in the sinking. The MacKay Bennett recovered the Robins’ bodies but, if Rina’s body was recovered, it was never identified.

Scotty was Mr. Benjamin Hart, age 47, who sailed 2nd class with his wife, Esther and his daughter, Eva. Esther and Eva survived the sinking and in fact, Eva was interviewed in the IMAX movie we saw afterwards. As an older adult by the time she was interviewed, she had a remorseful memory of crying as her father put her on the life boat because he wouldn’t go back to their room to get her teddy bear. Scotty never joined hs wife and daughter again. His body was not recovered.

John was Mr. William Harbeck, a 44-year-old filmmaker in the early days of that industry. It was believed he had been hired by the White Star Line to film Titanic’s maiden voyage. A tug was scheduled to take him to the dock to film her arrival. Harbeck was sailing with his 24-year-old mistress, Henriette Yrois. Don’t think John didn’t LOVE that! When the MacKay Bennett recovered his body, he was clutching Henriette’s purse. When his wife, Catherine, came from Toledo to claim his body, she was informed that she had died in the sinking with her husband. That’s how she found out about the affair! Johns’ body was put in an unmarked cemetery plot at Woodland Cemetery, in Toledo, Ohio. A private group has since put a headstone on the grave,

Mom was Mr. Frederick Giles, age 20, sailing 2nd class with his brother Edgar. They had been been scheduled to travel on the Oceanic, but the coal strike had altered that plan and they changed to the Titanic. Both brothers died. If Mom’s body was recovered, it wasn’t identified.

Our sole survivor, Tori, was Mr. Karl Albert Midtsjo, a 21 year-old from Norway. He was traveling alone, 3rd class. His roommate was Johan Tyrsee. Johan died in the sinking, but Karl Albert survived. Tori was picked up by the Carpathia, getting to New York City on April 18, 1912. After getting out of the hospital, Karl traveled to North Dakota to return his roommate’s watch to his family and he told them about Johan’s last days as a passenger on the Titanic.

I put our names into the recounts when reporting on the recovery process because that’s what we did on that day, the people whose boarding passes we had were who we were for the exhibit. Everyone at the exhibit was speaking about their passenger in the first person. It just made the experience somewhat haunting, but very real, very memorable.

Moments

Shh! Just wake me up before "it" happens!
(whatever "it" is!)

Boy was that a long day yesterday! Inevitably it was a long today too after so brief a nap between bedtime and the morning alarm. No one ever fixed me when I was a kid and I am just a 42-year-old kid now.

I remember not wanting to go to sleep when I was little. Normal, you say? Kids always want to stay up even though they are tired. But I remember WHY I didn’t want to go to sleep. When Tori and Rina were little, that was invaluable information!

You see, I remember that I was worried that something big would happen. I thought something really important would happen and I’d miss it. I didn’t want to miss something important. I would get sent to bed when company was over, or worse, put in the spare bedroom to sleep when we were at Noni’s house! I would lie there, fighting sleep, trying to listen, to know what was going on. I didn’t want to miss any of it.

Remembering that was important. Not that I did it, but remembering why. When Tori and Rina didn’t want to go to sleep, when they said “but I’m not tired yet. I don’t want to go to bed.” (with baggy, watery eyes and a yawn) I said “You guys are afraid you’ll miss something, aren’t you?” They were amazed that I knew, that I understood. I told them, “I promise that if there is anything important, anything too fun to miss, I’ll wake you up so you can see it, okay?”

They were okay with that. I think they trusted me because I understood. They trusted me even more, when I came in one night and woke them both up because there was a west coast premier of a cartoon they liked on the Cartoon Network. Can you believe that at 11:00, when they’d already had 2 hours sleep, they did NOT want to wake up to see a PREMIER cartoon?

When we talked about it the next morning at breakfast, they vaguely remembered me waking them up for the cartoon. Even though they didn’t want to get up for it, they really thanked me quite sincerely for waking them. I’d kept my promise and they knew that when it was bedtime, Nana would make sure they didn’t miss anything. They had nothing to worry about. I never got the “but I’m not tired” at bedtime again! And, no, I never woke them up from a sound sleep to see a cartoon again, either. Didn’t have to!

But no one ever applied that psychology to me when I was a kid. I would fight sleep for no good reason. I slept in late and then when I started school, I was cranky when I woke up. Sometimes I was even tired in school. I went to bed on time, I just fought sleep like it was trying to steal chocolate from me! So I never learned to trust that the world would still be there in the morning. I never learned to trust that someone would tell me right away when I woke up what I missed while I was sleeping.

So now I’m an adult. On election night, I KNOW what the other adults are talking about on TV. Whether I was working in the media or not, they have always been late nights. There have always been candidates I supported, issues and proposals whose outcomes were important and I didn’t want to wake up not knowing yet. I wanted to be there for the moment. When the new mayor or governor, senator or the president was announced. I didn’t want to read it in the morning paper and I didn’t want to hear it after the fact on the news, I wanted to be there in the moment. I wanted to hear the acceptance and concession speeches, I wanted to see the challenger shake the victorious incumbent's hand. I wanted to see the representative who’d be stepping down make that call to her opponent. I wanted to see the red or blue number the moment it passed 270.

I am always tired the day after Election Day, every year. Living in the moment, being part of that moment, has always been more important than sleep to me. Tuesday, David and I opened the polls at 6:30AM. It was a full day to say the very least! Then he was at work. I was already tired, but there was a moment to be savored. Regardless of the outcome, the turnout was in record numbers for the election. The process that makes our great country simply the best one for me, was happening again and this time, as if sprinkled with dust from the anti-apathy fairy, people cared about what was happening. I gave me extra pride goose bumps.

I always get goose bumps on election night. When our work is done and the people whose job it is to do the administration work find out what our decision is. It’s just knowing that I am an important part of something so huge it takes hours and hours to account for it. Yeah, I don’t want to miss that!

This year, the moment was even more special, something historic to savor. We elected the first African American, the first minority President to lead the Untied States of America. I was there, glued to the screen, feeling my heart leap a little when they broke from everything they were spinning on TV to make the announcement. Yes, I shed a few tears. Hey, I’m a woman, I’m a minority too. We have arrived.

It was a moment. This one was a monumental moment and there was no way I was going to miss it sleeping. My inner child understands. She’s not cranky about not sleeping. She figures she’ll be president some day too. Thanks to that moment, that’s now something more than "cute" to hear from EVERY child in this country.


And now my inner child and I are going to sleep!

Monday Mug Shot

Busy, busy, busy... Just the way I like my Mondays! Oh, it’s not a job offer Monday or anything, but lots of little nice things Monday. I’ll blog about some of those things later tonight or tomorrow. Today is a kinda creepy Mug Shot!

Philadelphia. Pennsylvania

The 2008 World Series will be the Philadelphia Phillies vs The Tampa Bay Devil Rays. YAWN um, excuse me, sorry about that. Yawning at the announcement of the pinnacle series of your favorite sport is seldom polite, is it now? It’s just with a marketing and television sports background, it’s hard to do anything but feel sorry for FOX Sports. Going into the post season, the Red Sox and Cubs were what the advertisers wanted to see! Then in the LCS tier, just bring on the Red Sox and Dodgers, so many stories! The Red Sox back-to-back possibility , the Red Sox-Manny Ramirez controversy, Joe Torre back in the Series the year after the Yankees gave him the snub when they were home all October. There were just so many vignettes waiting to be produced for that World Series! Even if it couldn’t be both, either team would add so much to entice advertisers with for top dollar. But the Dodgers aren’t in the World Series. The Red Sox aren't in it either. It’s the no skeletons in the current closet Phillies and the Devil Rays that didn’t even have fans until half way through the season.

:::crickets chirping::::

FBR this week will be about my decision of for whom I’m rooting, but if you read this post and know baseball a little, I bet ya already know! ;)


But on to the mug shot story!

My mug rack covers a substantial portion of one of our breakfast nook walls, so I can only look at the ones on the top. I can’t drink out of them, because I can’t reach them! Dad placed the top rows of mugs when he put the racks up for me and when I want a mug from up there down, I need help. Today’s mug was David’s assistance for choosing it, as well as getting a few Mondays worth mugs down to photograph.

One of the first Mug Shots I ever did was The Old Bookbinder’s Restaurant in Philadelphia. Now, I’ve only been to Philly once, so the mug brings up memories about the same trip. David picked this mug today because of baseball. But the rest of the story from that trip is SO October in another creepy, Halloweenish way!

Mom, Tracy, Heather H and I left from Detroit on Spirit Airlines, a value airline that flew into Philly. As I recall, our flight was delayed about an hour leaving Detroit because of fog in Philadelphia. Starbucks wasn’t open yet when we originally got there, but the delay gave us an opportunity to have a latte before takeoff. That delay was almost half the length of our flight! We joked about the plane being a small plane and there were a couple hits of turbulence on the flight. I know I joked about hoping it wasn’t going to drop us out of the sky, but we landed safely and were on our way around Philadelphia.

We’d visited the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall and had lunch before we checked into the hotel. When we got to our room we wanted to see what the weather was scheduled to be like for the game. It had started to rain and we hoped we wouldn’t get rained out! After all, the history was a bonus - it was a baseball trip, a rain check would NOT be a cool souvenir when we were all there to see a new park! (It turned out that there was a couple hours rain delay, so we REALLY got to see the park! Then the home team lost 11-3!)

When we turned on the hotel room TV, we didn’t see quite what we were prepared for. That morning when we’d left Detroit, was May 11, 1996. When we had checked into the hotel early, just after 3 PM, all of the network channels and many of the cable channels, including CNN, were reporting a plane crash. It was the day Valujet flight 592 crashed just after takeoff from Miami headed for Atlanta, killing all 110 people on board. The flight is about the same amount of time as Detroit to Philadelphia and that flight too, a discount airline, took off about an hour after scheduled due to weather conditions in it’s destination.

We all stood in front of the TV, a bit shocked, a bit nervous. Had we really just been on a similar plane and joking about turbulence and the plane nose-diving? It was a little bit chilling, a creepy sensation, like there were two so similar flights and fate flipped a coin. The odd parallel, the same length of flight, the same delay, a discount airline - But that flight was going to Atlanta. We landed safely in Philadelphia - to see the Phillies... and the Atlanta Braves.

Monday Mug Shot

Tiger Stadium 1999
Detroit, Michigan

This week’s mug shot is about change, evolution and loss of innocence.

Okay, maybe that’s a bit dramatic, but I have been a baseball fan for 40 of my 42 years. I cut my baseball teeth on the Detroit Tigers and fell in love with the Cincinnati Reds In the early seasons of The Big Red Machine. My main men were Al Kaline and Pete Rose. It was a time when great players stayed with the same team for all or at least most of their careers. As a kid, I fell in love with Al Kaline, because I loved the Tigers and I became a Reds fan because I was dazzled with the clips I saw on TV of Pete Rose. They were pairs. Al Kaline was a Tiger, Pete Rose was a Red. That’s how it was then. I didn’t have to worry about either team trading my heroes because they didn’t think they’d be back because they’d be free agents.

But things change, time marches on...

Sunday veteran Cincinnati catcher, David Ross, was designated for assignment. Monday, Adam Dunn was traded to Arizona for three prospects. It appears the Reds have given up. If they’d held on to Griffey and Dunn and acquired Lance Berkman, as I suggested, we wouldn’t be looking at the Cubs from almost 20 games below.

What it is those first place Cubs ALWAYS said? “Wait ‘til NEXT year??”

But really, Lance Berkman should be in Houston and Adam Dunn should be in Cincinnati. Cincinnati, home, should be the only place that’s not Seattle where Ken Griffey Junior should be playing and Mike Piazza should have retired a Dodger.

I miss that innocence of my childhood days. When there wasn’t a flurry of trading as the ominous deadline approached and players on waivers to be dealt off before the team gets “nothing” as the free agent market looms in the off season. I came up in my baseball-blossoming in a day when most players still stayed with their teams for all or most of their careers. The good players didn’t have more than one other team and there wasn’t that oh so prevalent question that there is now, “Which hat will his likeness wear at The Hall?” That question was preposterous! If a player had a Hall of Fame career, he did it with one team! Players of that high a caliber were a wonderful commodity that you didn’t let go. They were a draw, win or lose, and they were loyal to their team and their fans.

Not that big names were never traded. Look at the long suffering Red Sox. That “curse” was a myth believed because of selling Babe Ruth's contract! There were those seasons Phillies fans enjoyed watching Pete Rose mow down catchers, but it was much more common to review a Hall of Fame career and see the same team name. Look at Harmon Killebrew. The Killer played one season in Kansas City, but the rest of his career was split between only two teams, the Washington Senators and the Minnesota Twins. Oh, did I mention that the Senators BECAME the Twins in 1961? 20 years on a 21-year career was for the same team. From those wonderful days of old, the more common career was like that of Al Kaline, who signed with the Detroit Tigers in 1955 and retired a Tiger in 1974.

This mug is about that innocence of my childhood days. It’s about Al Kaline, Mark Fidrych, John Hiller. It’s a mug that captures some of my secrets. It knows why I find a man in white pants to be so sexy, how I turn into a little kid again on Opening Day and how a game that can have a come from behind victory when the home team is down by ten with two outs in the ninth created the base for my optimistic view of life.

I was at the Saturday night game of the last weekend at “The Corner” in 1999. Tiger Stadium had been there at Michigan and Trumbull since 1912 when it was built and christened Navin Field for the Tigers owner that built the concrete and steel structure for his team replacing Bennett Park, a wooden structure at the same site. The Tigers, one of the original American League teams, had played at that corner in Detroit for over 100 years.

In 1999, I had been a Metro Detroiter for 33 years. I had seen my first game at Tiger Stadium, eaten my first baseball hot-dog there and threw peanut shells on the ground without getting yelled at for the first time there! When I was 9 years old, I had front row seats by the bull pen and John Hiller gave me a ball. I saw a World Series game there in 1984 when a Kirk Gibson home run landed just a section over from the seats Mom and I had. In 1996, I saw the dark field covered with snow as I started my internship with the Tigers scoreboard production crew. I was living the dream, working for the Tigers at Tiger Stadium for two seasons, walking the concourse with my scoreboard coworkers, Tiger players and visiting stars too. There was always a warm smile from Brian Hunter and a friendly “hello” from Phil Nevin if you passed them in the hall on the way upstairs and I remember a pregame field assignment after which I was jokingly accused of fraternizing with the enemy - Chuck Knoblauch was trying to get my attention because Kirby Puckett was waving at me from inside the Twins dugout! (And all I can say there is I’m sure he mistook me for someone else, but it ended up being a point for ribbing for a while for one of the only two women on the scoreboard crew!)

But that Saturday in September of ‘99 was so bittersweet. The whole weekend was sold out and had been for some time. It was a festive night with nearly the electricity I remembered when I was 18 at the World Series. But there was an underlying heaviness too. After that weekend, there would never be another professional baseball game at The Corner. The celebration with heaviness of hearts was like an Irish wake.

The Tigers won that game, but after the fan celebration of the victory was the slow walk out of the stadium. People lingered long after the game. My friend and I walked the entire way around the concourse before we left. There were cameras flashing all around, everyone wanting to grab one more shot to remember. It wasn’t until over half hour after the end of the game that ushers began to gently urge people out of the park. It was the hardest “leaving the park” I’d ever done. Even leaving Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati after the last game was easier than leaving my first of so many things baseball for the last time. After leaving the stadium, it was one final slow walk around the outside of the park. We were definitely not alone walking in the streetlight-lit dark of Detroit’s Corktown area that night. All the Tiger fans in attendance stayed to say their final farewell. I spoke with people who’d been to the other final weekend games and it was a repeated scene leaving the ballpark. I know grown men who cried as they left.

Demolition on Tiger Stadium started in June of this year. I haven’t driven by that area in Detroit since then. I can imagine that I’ll feel it in the pit of my stomach when I see it, or when I DON’T see it. I’ll likely even shed a tear or two for that piece of my childhood that’s gone the way of doubleheaders, heroes that retire with the team they became heroes with, 25 cent packs of baseball cards with gum in them and affordable family afternoons where there was always hope right until the very end.