The Permanent Parental Record
The Gram With a Thousand Rules writes: “With the Fishing Opener and Mother’s Day coming up, this seems like the perfect time to share this 72-year-old snapshot of my Mom & Dad showing off the day’s catch.
“No, Jake didn’t catch any of those fish. Bessie did. She rowed the boat, too, and took time to pick the flowers on the way back to the car.”
Our times
KH of White Bear Lake: “Subject: Here to Serve.
“Our daughter texted us this photo. . .
“. . . followed by another text that said (I’m paraphrasing): I was taking our 6-year-old to the doctor when I got pulled over by a state trooper. She sized up the situation and asked me to please slow down. Then she sold me her swing set.
“I wonder if this was captured on a body cam. I’d like to know how that conversation played out.”
Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?
Or: Joy of Juxtaposition?
John in Highland: “Subject: B-M, or J of J?
“Yesterday evening I was listening to one of my old records from the ’60s, ‘Wheatstraw Suite’ by the Dillards, a folk/bluegrass group. The song ‘Hey Boys’ starts with: ‘When I was young and lived along the Meramec, / Washed in the river when the water ran clean, / Dreamed of the day when I could buy me a Cadillac, / And see a lot of things that I never have seen.’ But what and where was the Meramec?
“In this morning’s PP, there is a photo of geese swimming on the flooding Meramec River in Missouri. It turns out that the Dillards wrote the song themselves, and they are from Missouri. I wonder if they are still living on the Meramec.”
BULLETIN BOARD SAYS: Nice coincidence, John, but not a Baader-Meinhof. After all, you testified that “Wheatstraw Suite” is one of your “old records” — which, presumably, you listened to previously. You might never have NOTED the Meramec in the lyrics, but you surely were exposed to it.
Today’s helpful hint
Stylishly reported by Elvis: “Elvis just got a big hug when he put another notch in his belt for unjamming yet another garbage disposal.
“The key to being able to perform this routine miracle is an amazing collaborative engineering effort by the major disposal manufacturers.
“1. They always have a reset button on the bottom.
“2. They all accept the same 1/4-inch Allen wrench to manually turn the grinder.
“Since they are the same, in Elvis‘s experience, the solution is always the same. Usually something that shouldn’t have, went down and stuck. Resetting it and leveraging the wrench works most times. Occasionally if one is really old or if a snowbird has been away for the winter, they have rusted beyond hope, but these things are pretty durable. Sometimes you have to pull out the offending material from the top so it doesn’t jam again, but sometimes things just flush through like today.
“Being able to use the same tool (and if you have lost your offset wrenchette, you can get one from any hardware store or Amazon, or just use a 1/4-inch Allen wrench) is a blessing, since it seems like most other things in life today all require their own special nut, bolt, screw, tool or part, and simple fixes quickly get complicated.
“Elvis never figured out exactly what jammed up this one, but it looked like someone watered a plant in the sink, as the disposal was full of leaves and soil. In the past year, he’s also removed chicken bones, gravel from an aquarium, and most of what was left of a lemon. Please be careful putting your hands down inside one of these; use a pair of pliers or big tweezers!”
See world
Another close encounter of the natural kind, reported by Twitty of Como: “Subject: The world around us.
“I’ve got this spider. It’s taken up residence in the bottom of a wastebasket, in a quiet lower-level bathroom in our house. I don’t know what kind he/she is, but I think he/she might belong to a class sometimes referred to as ‘hunters’ — meaning they go out at night and hunt their prey. The reason I think that is: He’s down there at the bottom of the bin . . . alone. There isn’t even any sign of uneaten debris.
“We have no flying insects in the house, creatures that might lose their way and accidentally fly down into the wastebasket. Likewise, it seems unlikely any crawling things might climb up the side of the basket and then crawl down inside. Nothing ever goes in there . . . but there he is.
“He/she looks healthy. I can’t see any identifying marks. He’s about (his body) half an inch long — or maybe slightly less.
“One of these days, I’m going to have to turn him out (sigh). I doubt he’ll find a friendlier abode, but then, that’s life.”
Life as we know it
Al B of Hartland reports: “It was a beautiful January day. Unfortunately, it was nearly May.
“I walked in the falling snow, my steps sustained by the singing of house finches.
“It is a beautiful world, and beautiful bird song as background music helps it be so.”
Band Name of the Day: Turn the Grinder
Website of the Day, recommended by Walt of Wayzata:
Bulletin Board 