Necco Wafers and Rice Krispies

Monthly I visit a local pharmacy and upon entry you are hit with the “theme of the month” display.

Of course September means "back-to-school" items are prominent.

Does this sound unusual to you?

This is a little small town drug-store, somewhat dated décor, with the feel of a former era of prescription fillers.
   

No longer available is the old time lunch counter and lacking are large well-lit aisles bursting with groceries, hardware, automotive supplies and “as-seen-on-TV” gift items found at larger chain competitors.

The super pharmacies have long ago packed away their back-to-school goods and have moved on to selling Thanksgiving turkey deep fryers, cans of pumpkin and cranberry sauce along with the get ready for winter snow salt and shovels. 

Christmas displays are currently under construction.

By the time Halloween arrives next month you’ll be able to begin purchasing your Valentine’s Day cards.

If you plan to hand out Halloween candy you would have had to purchase your Snickers and Reese’s in June.

When Halloween arrived I was not one of those kids that planned their costume for weeks in advance. I was simply one of the candy opportunists who, at the last minute, cut two holes in a Flintstones bed sheet, grabbed a grocery bag and began hopping porch to porch; one of the few benefits of living in a city row house.

You could start early, clean up quickly and be home before all those “creative costumer's” could navigate their first set of steps wearing their bulky handcrafted Rice Krispies cereal refrigerator box.

Those kids had to waddle the neighborhood at such a slow pace they would be left with the unwanted scraps; Necco Wafers, Granny Smith apples and maybe a handful of pennies as the residents ran out of handouts quickly with all those neighborhood candy glutton porch-jumpers.

The real greedy ones would turn the bed sheets inside out and begin again.

You eventually learned that returning home too quickly was also avoided. Parents always wanted to inspect your booty for what they called “your own good”.

One could always tell they feigned searching for needles, razor blades and narcotics that somehow were always discovered in the Snicker’s, Reese’s and Three Musketeers bars, confiscated, leaving you with Necco Wafers, suspicious Granny Smith apples and a handful of pennies.

Somehow a portion of the confiscated goods were saved for a late arriving cousin wearing a Rice Krispy refrigerator box.

Mom and Dad somehow always had a suspicious ring of milk chocolate around their mouths.

You learned to find a place to bury your fortune away from neighborhood treasure hunters, squirrels and siblings.

These days we don’t do Halloween, and haven’t for many years. 

By 4PM every all hollows eve we scamper outta Dodge to an early dinner and Christmas shopping, sans the crowds.

We do find gifts even though we navigate around Valentine’s Day cards and Whitman’s heart shaped chocolates.

I learn from neighborhood gossip just how active the night became. The city porch jumpers of a bygone era have become better organized and now transport busloads of candy gluttons to the suburbs in mini-vans and double decker tour buses similar to those found in London and Philly Tours.

Mrs. Jaygerardtoday and I usually lie in wait until we are certain the last vestiges of weeners have gone off in search of greater fortunes in other hoods.

We slink into our Lay-Z-Boys and relax, usually satisfied we beat both crowds that evening.

It is, however, inevitable that at some point a knock on the door is heard only to find some kid in a Rice Krispies box standing there with his booty bag opened for a handout.

It’s a good thing we picked up a pack of Necco wafers while we were out.

Some of my childhood memories of Ghosts and monsters were blogged here in 2013.

If you have time read this oldie.

http://www.jaygerardtoday.com/2013/06/from-january-19-2013-when-i-was-child.html

Third Time's the Video

If at first you don’t succeed, try 2 more times.

We have all heard the old adage” third time’s the charm”.

The reasoning is that after 2 tries you are most likely to be successful on the third attempt.

Someone should have told that to Thomas Edison, who it is said made 1000 attempts to invent the light bulb.

Recently I had switched Cable/Phone/Internet providers as I often do every few years when my agreement has run its course and the competitor dangles a carrot too hard to resist.

I had heard all about the marvels of “fiber-optics”, its speed and efficiency, so the switch from that old dinosaur Comcast to Verizon’s FIOS would eventually be inevitable as new technology is often hard for me to resist

I had given Comcast 3 tries to maintain the current arrangement and when they refused Verizon was more than happy to not only match the price; they included TV, 3 complimentary months of 43 HBO channels, 33 Cinemax stations, free installation and a $300 gift card.

I asked for a large Sicilian pizza but they told me I was pushing it too far.

Installation went smoothly, holes drilled into the home without striking something or someone unknown, and quickly I was handed a remote with about 30 more buttons than I would ever use.

The hard part is trying to find the 6 or 7 buttons that are my must-haves.

No sooner had the technician vamoosed that I discovered I was beginning to have a problem changing channels.

My first instinct had me check to see if the batteries were installed correctly. 

I assumed they were defective so I put on some pants and drove to BJ’s for a crate-load of double A’s

Upon my return, and the remote newly reloaded, I settled in to do some serious channel surfing only to find another surprise; the channels still would not change.

In a little over 1 hour since my new system was installed I was about to embark on my 1^st service call.

Too late to have the tech return with another remote, I was assured the replacement would be on my doorstep the following day, and it was.

Some people like the engineering and designing of automobiles, others restoring and repairing.  I am one who just enjoys driving them, some interest in the former but I can handle anything that can be driven.

The same is true with most technology. I can usually find my way around the tech maze, and I am smart enough to carry on conversation with the bestest of geek-gods without appearing totally lost in the woods, but operating the controls is what I find most favorable.

I KNOW HOW TO REPLACE BATTERIES AND CHANGE CHANNELS, THANK YOU VERIZON!

After I have convinced customer service that the new remote is probably not the issue, and that fresh batteries had been installed correctly, and possibly the set top box may be the culprit, I was assured the replacement would be on my doorstep the following day, and it was.

Box numero dos started flawlessly, and without incident for about 4 weeks, then it happened again.

Requesting a personal technician without charge was not happening so replacement box 3 was assured to be on my doorstep the following day, and it was.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

                                                                                                                      Albert Einstein

The third time is actually the charm.  No, the channels still did not change but I was assured a free of charge technician would be on my doorstep the following day, and he was.

Eventually the technician, his supervisor and I were able to determine the issue was not with Verizon technology, it was a picture setting on my Vizio TV interfering with the infrared signal, and not the central air conditioning flow, spider webs and the granddaughters’ remote control Stuart Little Car all insisted upon by Mrs. Jaygerardtoday.

I tell this little story because I wait for another “third-time charm” event to unfold.

A few weeks ago Mrs. Jaygerardtoday had ordered pants for me from the online Freakishly Tall and Big & Husky Boy Men’s store.

I have worn these in the past, they are quite comfortable, but hemming is needed from the factory as our sewing machine had rusted shut decades ago.

Thus far the original shipment arrived hemless, as well as the replacement.

Shipment number 3 is due to arrive in a few days, and I am certain it will too, as promised.

I can only trust that the third time charm principle will apply here, or they will need to send along a seamstress.

I have to go back to BJ’s for some more batteries and I need the pants.

Say Cheese...but cut the cards!

Finley Peter Dunne, the humorist, created a column and character Martin. J Dooley saloon-keeper/philosopher who dispersed wisdom from behind a mythical Chicago bar.

His musings were carried in the Chicago newspapers in the late 1800's.

One of his quotes, and my favorite was "Trust everyone but still cut the cards.

My little town, like many across America, has been reaching out to business owners and entrepreneurs to help resurrect an old, (and former pre-mall) bustling downtown business district.

Modeling after some successful small towns (located not too far from us) we have attracted some of the stereotypical favorites; restaurant/coffee houses frequented by deadbeats for the free Wi-Fi, consignment shops, Art studios, Farmer's Markets, renovated Railways Stations and of course the obligatory Tattoo Parlor.

I am "tat-free" and have no desire for a colorful Dragon or Grateful Dead dancing bear to grace my less than taut fleshy parts, but if I ever were to sloganize my skin, this Martin Dooley quote would surely be one to consider.

It took years for me to realize the truthfulness behind bartender Dooley's statement, usually after much pain and loss during my youth, when carelessness and invincibility partnered with naïveté; trusting those I once considered close.

Life's learning curves can be both painful and embarrassing, especially when your foibles and indiscretions are exposed for all to witness, mock and leer.

As a father of a daughter, and grandfather to 5 little girls (with a 6th grand-baby on the way), it would pain me if in the future I would have to witness the embarrassment and humiliation now experienced this week by a number of young, beautiful "celebrity" women who trusted friends and I-clouds with very personal moments in their lives.

By all accounts it appears that this dissemination of photographs were unauthorized for public view.

They trusted friends, lovers and security but were betrayed by technology and social media hacker-profiteers lacking conscience for the sake of twisted conquest.

For those who want a sneak peak at feminine anatomy the Internet is never lacking. There has and always will be those whose decision it is to display their wares.

For the young women affected by this current scandal, you have my sympathy and support of the capture and prosecution of the scoundrels involved.

Live, Learn, Move-On and next time "cut the cards".

I Now Pronounce You...

I now pronounce you Dyson and wife.

Mrs. Jaygerardtoday insisted that the vacuum she needed would provide many years of cleaning nirvana, a little pricey for me, the cheapskate, who could easily overlook a few hundred yards of dust-bunnies in favor of the cheapest price at Big Lots.

True to her word, she loves the machine, we are dust-bunny free and she has jokingly remarked she would “marry it”.

Strange how we casually use the “M” word, marry, especially in this age when communities, states and whole countries are wrestling with its definition that for thousands of years had been clearly understood.

Over the past few decades a tiny fraction of society has successfully been able to maneuver media and judiciaries towards far-left leaning liberal thoughts on the matter.

More traditional beliefs, still in a majority, continue to hold onto a man-woman insistence as definitions continue in flux in courtrooms and legislatures across the country.

The future is still being written but in some way I can now see how the traditionalist’s metaphor of the Pandora’s Box has slowly opened, with creatures escaping and encircling us.

Just this week a judge in Utah has suggested that the ban on plural marriage, polygamy, may be in part unconstitutional and has made an effort to reverse it. Somehow I suspect the average woman would not find this arrangement the most acceptable, but women have put up with worse throughout history.

Just ask my spouse.

The most bizarre related story I have read, to date, has been the “marriage” of a woman in England, Amanda Rodgers, who wedded her beloved Jack Russell terrier, Sheba, in a ceremony held in Croatia.

As Amanda has told the British press she proposed to Sheba and the pooch accepted by wagging her tail.

According to news reports, the ceremony was attended by 200 guests.

Eddie (Moose) from the TV Show “Frazier” couldn’t make it. He died.

So now do we not only have cross-species marriages, we have same-sex, cross species couplings.

Will the fun ever end?

This brings us to the next level, human and machine.

Spousy has not only expressed her “love” for the Dyson, she has utter the “M” word for everything from coffee makers to snow shovels.

She has become a hardware-technology hussy.

Her latest flirtation is the beloved Asus tablet.

As quickly as possible she relaxes in her Laz-Y-Girl each evening cuddling and hugging her newest love until so exhausted she enters slumberland.

I have finally accepted this new arrangement.

Last week, while she snoozed, I snuck a member of the clergy into our home and had him pronounce her and the flatscreen officially united.

Awaking later she was curious as to how she became covered with rice.

Mr. Dyson took care of the mess.

Now we have a nifty 3 way arrangement, Man-Woman and Machine.

Pandora, open the box a little wider please.

The Contrarian Falls Head-First into Social Media

I was never much on following the herd, not because I found others disdainful, I just had a curiosity to see if there was anything else of interest that was being overlooked by the masses.

This contrarian view could lead to indecision and immobility, but I have never feared new thought, rather I embraced changes, innovations, improvements and technologies but always with a firm belief that mankind was inherently flawed but with constant tweaking goals could be achieved.

I don't view Contrarian Thought a disorder, rather I consider it a vehicle that enables us to maneuver through life a little quicker than those whose impetuousness and lack of forethought cause unnecessary hurdles.

What's the rush? We'll get there and hopefully without all of any undue stress and hurdle jumping.

I sometimes look in frustration at the jackrabbits whose well-intentioned enthusiasm prove the age-old adage that "there is never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over".

My ideal contrarian would be the tortoise who finishes while enjoying the surroundings along the race path. 

Eventually every artist must put down the brush and declare their masterpiece "finished".  There is the danger that the contrarian artist could continue on the touch up, even after the painting is sold and they feel it necessary to show up at the owners' residence, oils in hand, requesting permission to do "just one more thing".

How does a Contrarian find a fit in Social Media?  Speaking for myself I can only say its like jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge and praying the bungee cord holds. No time for forethought, you're pushed into the pool and it becomes "swim kid or sink".

I envisioned the pace of SM (social media for brevity, thank you) to be similar to feeding a three-year-old a breakfast of Captain Crunch, Hershey bars, Marshmallows and hot dogs then taking him to an amusement park and having him ride a Tilt-A-Whirl placed on top of a 10 story Roller-Coaster.

I don't believe this is too far from the truth.

Nerve-wracking, frightening, nauseating but also curious, exciting and, yes fun!

As I venture in to this foreign soil I will certainly log my discoveries, of course with my own somewhat acerbic viewpoint.


Hopefully the bungee is secured.

 

 

It's your Thing.

Everyone has “a thing”, something in their interest, work, hobby, physical characteristic that identifies them to everyone?

We often pigeon-hole people in our life based on their interests and hobbies, appearances and past experiences, and everything in-between.

 My boss, Joseph A. Carter, I compartmentalize as a rabid politicophile as his interest in politics and activism is something I have not witnessed since the 1970’s (and I work for a newspaper). He also has a love for baseball, music, designer beer and grilling (although his fascination with beer can chicken seems to have wavered).

We can discuss a movie, television program or a particular singer and I await the inevitable “do you know he/she is a liberal (or conservative) etc. He too compartmentalizes in an abbreviated way, right and left, conservative or liberal.  It does seem to streamline and simplify things a bit.

Back in 1986 there were a series of commercials promoting California Raisins. Hip, anthropomorphized (wonder how long I waited to use that big word) musical raisins sang “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” all to promote the benefits of dried up grape eating for the California Raisin Advisory Board.

My mother made the fatal error of announcing to the family that she thought the raisins were cute. The next few birthdays, Mother’s day, Christmas and assorted holidays found her overwhelmed with all the advertising nick-knacks one could find at Spencer’s gifts in the mall.

Given the choices available at that store, Dancing Raisin clocks and figurines were the only PG rated item available.

My mother would never throw any gift away, no matter how hideous, and she could never understand how my brothers and I would swap Christmas presents if what the other had suited our needs. She kept every gift, not as a hoarder, but out of cherishing the thoughtfulness and love behind the present.

She passed a few years ago and my brother, Johhny Fangs, lives in the family homestead.  Just today he tweeted me a pix of some figurines he found at the house.

Mrs. Jaygerardtoday for years had been identified by her interest in cats. This was a love for the creatures, not a strange addiction found in inter-city row homes where neighbors report unusual smells only to discover a few hundred felines running rampant with a decomposing octogenarian on the kitchen floor.  
She too was a recipient of numerous figurines, coffee mugs, salt and pepper shaker sets until one day she calmly announced “enough is enough, there is no more room in this house and it’s just too weird”. The collection slowly disappeared onto the basement IKEA shelves, collecting dust and awaiting an eventual yard sale.

I have decided to formally announce my decision to make something “my thing”. 

My family never knows what to give me as a gift, not that I have a Warren Buffett bank account and can purchase anything I so desire, I just never express an interest that can tie in to gift giving.
 
I will now make Christmas, Birthdays and Father’s Day easy on family and friends with my new interest: collecting gold and silver.

Feel free to gift wrap as much as you wish.  I promise that like my mother I too will never throw it away and unlike my spouse I will never grow weary and retire it to the basement IKEA shelves.

K?

A few years ago I had taken a college course in Criminal Justice. 

I had no interest in becoming an officer of the law, it was an elective that I believed would benefit me greatly.  I thought it would be the only college course I had ever taken where knowledge gained could be retained and applied for many years; translation, how I could learn to beat a traffic citation. 

Well worth the price per credit hour.

Well my plan backfired.  I dropped the course, as I found the textbook to be very boring for these reasons:

·         The author learned a new word, “paradigm” and somehow found a way to insert it into every sentence. I am still uncertain if I actually know the true meaning.

·         I was convinced that Cop-Speak was only in acronyms.  I know this sounds as if I am exaggerating but the text was so overloaded with 3 and 4 letter words that the course credits should also be applied to foreign language studies.

These days, especially with “texting & tweeting-mania” running a muck, our every thought, deed or misdeed needs to be shared in writing, (or vine and youtube videos) and instantaneous, so I guess brevity and speed becomes paramount.

I have studied Latin (well I sat in a classroom for a year), as well as 4 years of Spanish and I am still unable to determine if the contractors installing my new roof are actually plotting against me.

Now I must resign myself to learning a new language, namely acronyms. 

Does everyone over the age of 40 realize that there are currently almost 1000 acronyms used in texting?

Truth be told 1000 is probably larger than my total vocabulary (including my Latin & Spanish words) but current medical science suggests that as we age, mind-expanding activities, like learning to play an instrument, a new language and doing crossword puzzles may help keep us from forgetting where we left the car keys (or the car, or the spouse) so I guess I need to check Amazon for the "Acronyms for Dummies" book and start cracking the code.

I understand that there are character restrictions when tweeting, so choosing the right words to express oneself can be challenging, acronyms abound.

Texting, however, provides plenty of opportunity (while seated in your office cubicle) for one to ridicule and detail how their co-workers and boss are so clueless and inferior that acronyms are really not needed unless others are relentlessly spying on you while you are screwing off.

As is every other thing in life, once something new is introduced into the society, and before you have an understanding of what it is all about, there will always be someone at the ready to quickly alter the existing and create a new paradigm (did I get it right?).

This is now occurring with acro-speak.

Just when I am finally getting to learn how to hit the correct keys on my Galaxy 4 without having spell check insert words making me sound even dumber, a co-worker acknowledged one of my tweets with the letter “K”.  I thought it was due to his lack of sobriety but over the course of the next few days he repeated the acknowledgement using just the letter “K” in additional texts.

He was too lazy to preface with the letter “O”, thus he was acronyming the acronym.

I was pondering just how lazy this lunkhead was until I started to receive similar responses from others, including my own daughter.

Wow, I guess my life isn’t as busy as others. I actually have excessive time on my hands to include the “O” in OK. 

I am beginning to feel slothful.

I will conform, get in line and understand the new-speak and all of its variations. 
I know my mind will also benefit from the mental exercises and one day I will remember where I left my car keys and my spouse.