Come again?
Including: The Permanent Maternal Record
Another episode of creative hearing, reported by Fevered Rabbit: “Subject: Bowling in the Bible?
“When we were kids, my mom didn’t like when my older sister would go bowling with her best friend and best friend’s mom.
“On Sunday, I thought I heard a Biblical reason for this.
“Our pastor based his sermon on Exodus 24:12-18, pointing out how Moses and the Israelites were told to come closer to God, though it caused fear in the Israelites. He then compared this to our invitation to come closer to God, calling attention to the fact that we might be afraid to do so under certain circumstances.
“Pastor said: ‘Had we murdered someone this week or any of the great sins, we may be afraid to come to church, for we see those things as sins a holy God hates. But he hates just as much our dislike for our teachers, leaders and anyone else, our deceitfulness, lying, cheating, bowling or lack of self-control when we gossip about one another.’
“He spoke again about bowling and other sins. He preached for a few more minutes before it finally came to me: He had been speaking of bullying. It had nothing to do with rolling a ball at a bunch of pins.
“My mom’s disagreement with bowling also did not have anything to do with the actual act of bowling. Her concern was that beer was served at the bowling alley, and Mom, as a life-long teetotaler, felt her young daughter should not be exposed to such things. Neither would we eat out at any establishment that had ‘lounge,’ ‘bar’ or any other drinking-related word associated with it. As the years went by and there were more ‘bar and grill’-type places, she eventually would eat at them — though to her dying day, she never had alcohol pass her lips, beyond the sip of wine served at communion.”
Hmmmmmmmm
The Doryman of Prescott, Wisconsin: “I know I’m not the only one . . . so when I think back about all the jackknives I’ve lost, I wonder why I have never found anyone else’s.”
Now & Then
Baseball Division (cont.)
The REF in White Bear Lake: “The 1961 Twins yearbook includes information on the broadcasters for the upcoming, inaugural Minnesota season. Games were broadcast on radio’s ‘Good Neighbor to the Northwest’ by Bob Wolff, Ray Scott and Halsey Hall.
“I suspect many folks think Herb Carneal was the team’s inaugural play-by-play man (since he was with the club for 45 years), but he didn’t arrive until the 1962 season. He previously broadcast Baltimore Orioles games on radio, and in 1961 became known locally calling games for the other new team, the Minnesota Vikings, on CBS television.
“Bob Wolff had broadcast Washington Senators games for 14 years and moved west with the team. After just one season, Wolff gave way to Carneal when he joined NBC to announce plays for NBC’s ‘Game of the Week.’ Wolff was also known as the ‘play-by-play’ voice of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show for 33 years.
“Ray Scott was already established in the Upper Midwest and was the CBS-TV voice of the Green Bay Packers for a dozen years, including calling Super Bowls I and II, and the ‘Ice Bowl’ playoff in 1967. He broadcast for the Twins through 1966, then a few more years in the ’70s. In the late ’70s, he was the radio man for the Vikings, and worked for the Gophers in the ’80s.
“Halsey Hall was a longtime Twin Cities newspaper sportswriter and raconteur, and soon established himself as a favorite ‘color man’ with his entertaining on-air stories.
“Wolff and Scott ended in the National Sportscasters/Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame; Hall is in the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame.
“Other sportscasters recognized in the yearbook include Frank Beutel and Jack Horner of WTCN-TV and Ray Christensen of WLOL-Radio.”
See world
Photography Division
Mounds View Swede reports: “This first photo is from the early 1980s and was taken on Park Point in Duluth as part of my work for the class taught by Craig and Nadine Blacklock — a class about using Ansel Adams’s zone system for exposing the film very precisely to get the effects desired. I often make a card with this picture and sometimes title it ‘A New Day, a New Path to Follow’ or ‘Sea of Light.’ Instructors Craig and Nadine really liked this slide.
“One of the Boundary Waters fall photos from the 1990s was this one. We were camped on Loon Lake and saw a storm approaching over the water, so we got into our tents and sleeping bags and woke to fresh snow the next morning. That was the only time it snowed all the years we were there in early October. Along the river’s edge were some young maple trees, and this one with the dark water as a background provided the opportunity to get a photo of snow on the isolated fall-red leaves before the sun melted it away. I remember we were looking around and photographing as quickly as we could to take advantage of this rare opportunity.”
Everyone’s a copy editor!
The Retired Pedagogue of Arden Hills: “Subject: Where the f?
“Headline on the front page of Saturday’s edition of the Minneapolis paper: ‘OFF-PRICE STORES / ARE TAKING OF IN TWIN CITIES.’”
The Permanent Grandchildrenly Record
Vertically Challenged: “We had three of the grandkids overnight this past weekend. It was their uncle’s birthday, and they were all drawing and decided to make him some birthday cards, which I found after they left. This is 6-year-old Cole’s.
“Apparently he has a bone to pick with his cousin.”
The Permanent Cousinly Record
Eos: “Subject: Grandma’s Attic.
“About 15 years ago, my cousin Mary came up to me at a family gathering, looking very upset, and said: ‘I have to apologize for something I did a LONG time ago.’ She told me the story of a time when she, her sister Sharon, her brother Jack, and I were up at Grandma’s house (way up in the woods of Northern Minnesota). My cousins took me up the steep, narrow stairs to Grandma’s attic, then left me up there and went back downstairs, pulling on the long string that turned out the light on their way down. Of course, I don’t remember that at all; I was 4 at the time. But Mom saved a drawing I did back then, from Thanksgiving 1950. It was a picture of me, my brother, my three cousins, and scary stairs with a face at the top.
“I always wondered what the scary-stairs picture meant, until Mary told me the story. Traumatic for a 4-year-old, hilarious now. Poor Mary . . . she felt so guilty about that all those years. I forgave her, hugged her, and showed her the picture. We had a good laugh.”
Keeping your eyes open
Kathy S. of St. Paul: “While shopping for a bedspread recently, I saw a woman of another culture wheeling a little boy through the department. She used a tassel on a pillow to tickle her son under his chin to make him giggle. I have a feeling that a loved one had done the same with her when she was young.
“It never before occurred to me — to tickle toddlers with tassels. Now, I think tassels will always remind me of her and her giggling son.”
Band Name of the Day: The Halsey Halls
Website of the Day, recommended by Double Bogey Mike: “LE SAUT DE 7,6 KM DE LUKE AIKINS SANS PARACHUTE EN ENTIER.”
Bulletin Board 