Underneath it all

Not to generalize, but there are two types of people in our nation today. Those who think that underwear should be either brand-new or just about brand-new, and men.

Any time I want to stir up a lively debate, I can just mention Peggy's oft-repeated lamentation that I really shouldn't wear those boxers any longer. Women are only too glad to tell the tales on their men, how they insist on wearing briefs, boxers and t-shirts that more than anything else resemble swiss cheese or Frank Gusenberg. The old caution about being sure to wear nice undies in case one is hit by a car or, as in the case of Frank Gusenberg, shot 14 times by the Capone gang, and being taken to a hospital just doesn't fly with most guys. We reason that, if we're going to be in the emergency room with hoses, tubes, IV lines, EKGs, EEGs and medical personnel all over us, our underwear is going to be way, way down on our list of things to fret over.

But, today as I write this, let it be known that I have broken out a new pair of Jockeys, and I don't mean Eddie Arcaro and Willie Shoemaker. I didn't go crazy. I bought these in a two-pack some time ago at an outlet mall; the original price said 26 semolians, but the day I spend 13 clams on a banana hammock is the day I stand in line to meet Sarah Palin. The little orange sticker that reads "CLEARANCE $6" is my assurance that I invested wisely. This is, what, 2009? This pair of boxers won't even be broken in til 2012!

They often call me Speedo, but my real name is Mister Earl

As Bart Simpson once said, "Far be it from me to tell Springfield's top cop how to do his job." But I do have this advice for my local gendarmerie:

You know that speed enforcement zone over on Joppa Rd near Spring Ave? There is such an interesting dynamic there. Actually, make it two interesting dynamics (they're small.) First, now that the radar zone has been in place for so often for so long, everyone who lives in the area knows very well to slow down when approaching that stretch of road from either direction. The problem is that it's a very wide stretch of road in that area, and it tends to make some motorists feel as if they are on the highway, so they hit the gas, scattering pedestrians and Smart Cars in their wake.

Wisely, the police slow them down by setting up enforcement. It's almost Pavlovian now; people get to where the police are usually perching in wait, and they slow down, and then, once they get past that point, it's back to trompin' the pedal. That's dynamic #2...people think the law is back there in the last block, so here we zoom! So, why not have another zone in the next block? Once would-be speeders think it's safe to speed again, then nail 'em a block away.

This could also work for a variety of other crimes. I haven't worked out all the details yet, but I am available for consultation.

Slaughter Rule

I read a lot, and it's often surprising how I can be reading from two wholly different sources (e.g. the internet, and an old book, or the 1946 Farmer's Almanac...) and notice a thread of thought, a continuity between the two sources. It's like when you're reading an old book that gives you a way to make ice cream and then, later that day, you see an interesting recipe somewhere else for ice cream topping.

So, it was interesting to me to read in the Sun paper that erstwhile Raven, and current Cleveland Brown, Jamal Lewis is stomping his expensively-shod feet rather mightily because the coach of the Browns, Eric Mangini, is working the team way too hard in practice. Pressed for details about the horrid conditions of his employment, Jamal said that the team is often forced to practice three to three and one half hours per day.

Oh, the humanity.

It would be far too easy to point out here that the Browns are paying old #31 to the tune of 2.4 million semolians to play football this year, on top of shelling out 3.5 million clams to him as a bonus this past March. That comes to 5,900,000 greenbacks this year- that's a lot of smackeroos!

Jamal said the entire Browns team was all up in arms over being forced to work so hard, but he decided to speak up because he plans to retire after this season, anyway. I should imagine so! There's just so much a man can take!

And you know what I thought of at first? Those people that you always see on the TV news in August, up on the roof of some building slopping hot tar with a mop, or paving a road with hot asphalt, or working at the blast furnace, or fighting fires, or whatever. You can bet that they have to put in more than 3 1/2 hours a day at their chosen field.

No, that's not even the point here. Here's where I came across something else. There was an article about the old baseball player known as Enos "Country" Slaughter in a book of essays, and this story told of how, in the 1946 World Series, Slaughter scored from first base on a single, scoring the winning run after a delayed relay throw by the Red Sox's Johnny Pesky. This play was named #10 on the Sporting News list of Baseball's 25 Greatest Moments. The story went on to say that as a minor leaguer in Columbus, Georgia, Slaughter was dogging it running back to the dugout one day. Dogging it so much, in fact, that he was walking. His manager, Eddie Dyer, told him, "Son, if you're tired, we'll try to get you some help." Thereafter, Slaughter ran everywhere he went on a baseball field, and so goes the legend.

I just thought I'd write this to ask if there could possibly be a cooler name for a ball player than Enos "Country" Slaughter.

Kenny wasn't like the other kids

I was very sad to hear that former MTV game show host and comedian Ken Ober passed away the other day. He was only 52. He was the host of "Remote Control," which was a postmodernist phenomenon in the late 80's. It was sort of like Jeopardy or Split Second or any one of those game shows hosted by slick unctuous hosts in the early TV days, but with a witty twist.

The show's setting, and its entire setup, was that it took place in the fictitious Ober basement, at young Ken's house (address: 72 Whooping Cough Lane) The set had easy chairs for the contestants, and whoa! watch out! If you were the first player to get eliminated, you and your recliner went flying out into the ozone void, off stage literally and figuratively.

I say it was postmodern, because while the premise had everything to do with mocking, gently, the cheesy game shows of the past, the overall sum of its parts was a tribute to the cheesy game shows of the past. Ober's dais was overlooked by framed 8 x 10s of legendary show hosts Bob Barker, Bill Cullen, Bert Convy, Monty Hall, and Tom Kennedy. And who can forget the episode in which Bob "The Newlywed Game" Eubanks sat right at Kenny's side, coaching him in the finer points of quiz- mastery? Well, I can't, is all I know!

But all this wittiness took place on MTV - it was the first non-musical show they had - from 1987 to 1990. That was a long time ago. People who were conceived while their parents were watching that show are now driving cars, stuffing iPods full of Lady GaGa, and becoming parents themselves. Perhaps someone should start a new game show that somehow gently mocks and honors Ken Ober at the same time.

Think about this: Happy Days was a big hit in the 70's, sending up the 50's. That was a 20-year gap. It's now been over 30 years since the heyday of Happy Days, so it's high time for a show in the 2010's about people in the 70's watching people in the 50's.

Or maybe not. But if someone told you there was a show in which Martha Stewart's daughter and her daughter's friend watch Martha's show and try to duplicate Martha's recipes and crafts, all the while goofing on Martha on camera, and you thought they were goofing you, I'd tell you to watch "Whatever, Martha" on the Fine Living Network, Tuesdays at 9.

There are a lot of networks and they need a lot of shows to fill the time!

That's a real estate you got there, son!

We love to go leaf-peeping in autumn. We drive along the country roads that loop around our town like fettucine around a meatball, and for a week or two in late October / early November it's glorious to see the color spectrum spread across the sky...especially the red/orange/gold/brown part of the spectrum. Even the air is awash with the fragrance of falling leaves and withering mountain greenery, "where God paints the scenery."

But I'll be doggoned if we don't see some other things that just make me want to scratch the cranium. The choices some families have made about houses can boggle the average already-boggled mind. And I'm not talking about who can afford what, or whose idea of elegance it is to make a brick-and-mortar mini-Taj Mahal to house their mailbox, or whose collection of wooden yard doodads, bendovers and metallic reflecting balls atop former birdbaths merits another look.

First, I see houses with very steep front yards sometimes. It's like, the house is way up in the clouds from the street, and the practical side of me wonders about how to get in and out of the driveway on a snowy icy morning. Then you wonder, if you're out there tossing the old baseball or football around, you'd better make sure to catch the ball, or it's going to roll to North Carolina once it gets going down that hill. And cutting the grass! I've seen guys who stand at the top of the hill and let the mower down gradually on a rope to mow their lawns. I wouldn't find that enjoyable, but maybe some do. It's their choice.

And then there is always the question, asked for generations now, "Would you live next door to a McDonald's?" And I mean, literally, your side yard and deck adjoin Mickey D's parking lot, meaning that as you sit out on the deck on a mild evening, your conversation is punctuated with raspy intercom caws of "WelcometoMcDonald'sMayItakeyourorderplease?" You can go a little farther down the block in this neighborhood - and these are all nice houses, all built AFTER the Golden Arches bloomed there - and you wouldn't even know that Big Macs® were sold mere yards away. A real estate agent told me that the house that butts up against the burgertorium parking lot sold for just as much as the houses way down the block.

I don't know. You hear about people who buy houses down by the airport and don't mind going outside to get the paper as the gleaming underbelly of a 747 glides earthward twenty feet overhead too. There's a toll bridge a few miles up route 40, and southbound traffic zooming by has an unencumbered view directly into the upper floors of a newly-built house that is so close, if the traffic stops, people in the cars can catch a couple of plays of a ball game on TV inside.

I know it's everyone's choice. I know a guy who loved the way his house was right behind the beltway; he said the traffic helped him sleep at night.

So there you go!

East is East, Vest is Vest

Another thing that happens every year at this time is seeing people, mostly young people with highly developed senses of style and fashion, rushing the season a bit by wearing their winter coats long before it's time to do so.

But it's not all kids. I saw a man with his his own kids on Saturday, all dressed up as if he were ready to go on an arctic expedition. The weather? Well it was cloudy, but the temperature was in the upper 50s, maybe even 60-something. It was all finished, the rain was. The outfit? One of those wool, red-and-black checked baseball-style caps that we normally associate with Darryl or Darryl from "Newhart." The boots were fawn-colored NuBuck Timberlands, left open at the ankle so that the jean cuffs could flop around foppishly. But the topper was the heavy Norwegian-style fisherman's sweater worn UNDER one of those hefty, chunky, burly, husky down-filled vests. I'm telling you, he had to be roasting underneath all that, but I guess the kids would have ragged on him mercilessly if he had starting divesting himself of, well, the vest.

So when I got home, I got out the Oslo, Norway, telephone directory, and called the following people: Arvid, Asbjørn, Canute, Didrik, Edvard,and Ludvik, and none of them could see the sense in wearing a Norwegian fisherman's sweater when no real Norwegian fisherman is wearing one yet. It's about 39°F in Oslo these days, and if they can handle that, we can handle a trip to Shoppers Food Warehouse and Home Depot without bundling up.

Right?

To Everything There is a Season (Turn, Turn, Turn)

Oh, how I wish that Chuck Berry still wrote songs nowadays, especially those car songs he used to write so well. "Maybellene" and "No Particular Place To Go" were great songs, and we could use some more along those lines.

If someone could write "Hey It's A Turn Lane, Not Your Personal Lane," that would be marvelous. First, they could write a new title, but we are seeing more and more people pulling out of side streets into packed traffic and just bopping along in that center lane as if it were paved and striped off just for them and their little jitney.

The other morning, I'm schlepping off to work, and here comes a blue car doing that number on the main road. Both westbound lanes were occupied steadily with cars going to work or school or wherever, and The Impatient One just had to get somewhere, so zoom! here came that blue streak, right in front of me.

When we got to Harford Rd and the stop signal, I looked over into the car with my practiced baleful look, designed to help the miscreant remember, the next time they have an urge to cut someone off in traffic, the last time they cut someone off, and that guy in the pickup with the Stewie stickers looked at them with daggers shooting out of his eyes like Sarge looks at Beetle Bailey. The driver was a slightly-abashed looking mom, but her son, backpacked and ready for another day in the grove of academe, looked at me like, "Yeah, I know, mister, she drives like holy hell."

Then it dawned on me. We learn our driving habits from our family, because it is their fenders which we dent first. And worst. But chances are, this woman had a mother or a father who drove as if they were in a demolition derby, too, and that's where she learned that devil-may-care way to drive.

Since she lives right around the corner from us, I guess I'll be running into her again, as it were. Do we really suspect that the devil may, in fact, care?