Our times
Plus: Then & Now
Both from Rusty of St. Paul: (1) “For about the last 10 years, I have had on my ‘To Do’ list putting up a ‘No Solicitors’ sign on my front door, though clearly that is not a Minnesota Nice thing to do. Which might be why it hasn’t happened.
“Even when I don’t answer the doorbell, it is uncomfortable knowing there is a stranger on my steps, and I can’t carry on until that person has vacated — especially uncomfortable if they knock on the door after the doorbell didn’t summon me. And when the knock didn’t work, either, then maybe a final ring of the doorbell will. (We have one of those old tubular-bells doorbells, and when it rings, the house reverberates.)
“Last month, my wife, my visiting son and I all came down with COVID. I was over mine, but isolating from my positive son, so I wore an N95 mask indoors.
“I spied one of those healthy, vibrant, genuinely ‘I’m gonna save the Earth’ young persons with her clipboard working the homes across the street. (Nothing wrong with that; I’m all for the Earth — but how about don’t knock on my door during the supper hour?)
“What I didn’t observe was the hardy, earnest male donor-asker working my side, who now was coming up to my stoop and could see me through the front-door window. Busted! But I had my trusty N95 on.
“I opened the door and watched his smiling face fall when I told him this was an active COVID household. I might also have coughed a fake cough. In fact, as his smile was falling, he was backpedaling on the walk as fast as he could while saying ‘No problem. Hope you feel better soon!’ Minnesota Nice all the way.
“I had an ‘Aha!’ moment. Instead of a not-so-kind ‘No Solicitors’ sign on my door, I might keep my N95 handy in the front entry to don right before opening the door. And maybe give a fake cough or two as I open it.”
(2) “Subject: Time flies.
“A refrain I hear often from fellow retired people is: ‘How did we ever have time to get stuff done when we were working?’
“I get it — as, in my older age, I eat breakfast, read the papers, check my email, do some chores or work on a home project, eat two more meals, and next thing you know it’s bedtime.
“When I was younger and worked 45 hours a week and co-raised two of my wife’s kids (I think they are mine, too, but whenever she speaks of our children, she says ‘my kids’) and still had to fit in all the stuff needed to keep a house running, I got it done. I was tired, but not wiped out.
“I have read that time speeds up as we age. When we are very young, our brains are bombarded with images that we have to process and store, and this slows time down. As we age, we receive fewer images (or don’t need to process so many, as we already have received them), so time goes by more quickly.
“An illustration of this is: I just took my evening pills out of my weekly pill organizer and have only two days left out of my organized seven-day supply. But WAIT! I just filled my organizer for the week two days ago!”
Immutable Laws of the Universe
From Bob Woolley: “In any sort of public forum, when a member of the audience begins a comment or question with ‘I’ll try to make this brief,’ they will not make it brief.”
When Irish eyes are smiling . . .
Dennis from Eagan: “Subject: St. Pat’s Day with Rosemount’s Irish crowd.
“The football stadium has ‘IRISH’ painted in the end zone, but the fun today is at The Clover’s MARQUEE bar for a LIGHT meal washed down with green beer. The men’s room even had a URINAL ETIQUETTE FOR KILTS mural.
“Thanks to my sister and wife for joining me there. I hope everybody had a great, green holiday!”
Joy of Juxtaposition
Cherie D: “Subject: A heartwarming coincidence.
“A few days ago, I spoke with a woman, Janelle, who was interested upon hearing I was born and raised in St. Paul. Her reason? She was curious if I knew about a murder in 1937, that of a young woman named Ruth Munson. I didn’t.
“Later I emailed my friend Fred, a retired St. Paul police officer who now works as historian for the police department. Not only did he know well about the Ruth Munson murder, he had just finished helping local author Roger Barr research the murder for his book about the incident, ‘Murder on the Hill.’ Via the research, Barr was able to reach a solution. The book is being published by the Minnesota Historical Society and will be available in April.
“I told Janelle right away, and she, as I did, pre-ordered a copy of the book. It was then that Janelle told me she was friends with an elderly member of Ruth Munson’s family and the book would be a godsend and offer closure for the family, who have never forgotten Ruth.
“What a heartwarming coincidence.”
Gaining everything in translation
Leading to: CAUTION! Words at Play!
Semi-Legend writes: “I realize the Pioneer Press is short-staffed these days, especially for the print-edition production of the crossword/comics pages.
“But I was verbijsterd when I opened up the comics for Monday, March 11, and read ‘Garfield.’
“I had already seen it in the Minneapolis paper. A typical ‘Garfield’ Monday strip:
“In the PIPress, he’s still horizontal. But he’s thinking, in the last panel: ‘IK BEN DE ZWAARTEKRACHT DANKBAAR VOOR DEZE MANDAAG.’
“Apparently, If I trust Google Translate, ZWAARTEKRACHT, subbing for ‘gravity,’ also can mean ‘attraction’ in Dutch.
“Hope the page designer didn’t get in Dutch with the readers.”
The highfalutin amusements
Kathy S. of St. Paul: “I now have subtitles visible on my TV, to help me multitask. My current favorite? The word umami showed up as ‘good mommy.'”
Our living (and/or dying) language
Twitty of Como: “Subject: Our evolving language.
“I need to go back to school and relearn the English language.
“I’ve noticed the word ‘binary’ popping up in conversations more and more recently — in media, on social networks, and in general conversations — in a usage I’m not familiar with.
“When I worked in computer design many years ago, ‘binary’ meant, for numerical purposes, ‘base 2’ (as opposed to base 10 or base 8) as in ‘one and zero.’ It was the language of computers, so to speak. It didn’t represent a choice, as I recall — except, perhaps, between which of those two digits is going to trigger a particular computer command as designed by the programmer.
“But lately it’s being used in ways seemingly odd to me. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, general manager of the local football team, in talking about the loss of Kirk Cousins to Atlanta, was quoted in the Pioneer Press: ‘This sport isn’t such that we can just say, on a binary basis, “I want that player.”‘
“Help me out here, please. What did he say? What purpose in that sentence does the word ‘binary’ have? Binary? I’m supposing he meant something along the lines of a ‘choice’ between Kirk or no Kirk. But I don’t know.”
BULLETIN BOARD SAYS: We don’t know, either — but your guess seems as good as any. Let’s just hope that, as a binary matter, Sam Darnold is better than any alternative — or will constitute half of a fine binary “quarterback room” with a first-round draft choice as yet unchosen.
Our living language
Plus: Not exactly what he had in mind
A pair from the paper, courtesy of Bill of the river lake: (1) “Subject: A new adjective and a noun?
“Monday’s Pioneer Press Sports section had an interesting article about a Twins pitching prospect, 24-year-old David Festa.
“He’s working on a new breaking ball. He says: ‘I really don’t have anything that’s slow and depthy to change the hitters’ timing, so I’ve been kind of working on that.’
“He also said: ‘I think lifting the volume will help me out in the future.”’
“A couple of newish uses of words.”
(2) “Subject: A surprise.
“Tuesday’s ‘Word Sleuth’ in the Pioneer Press was titled ‘Things With Holes.’
“Most of the wide variety of words were expected and obvious — like buttons,
sieve, donuts and bundt cake.
“But the last word kind of caught me off guard.
“It was Titanic!
“Guess there was a hole large enough to sink that historic luxury liner over 100 years ago.”
Keeping your eyes open
Grandma Paula reports: “Subject: Sunrise.”6:46 a.m., March 4th. If you were not awake, looking out a window that faces east, you missed it!”
Where we live
Plus: Keeping your eyes open
A pair from Organizationally Challenged of Highland Park: (1) “The smelt should be running soon. This time of year was a pretty big deal up on the Iron Range where I grew up (maybe it still is), and a lot of people went smelting. If I remember correctly, they would go at night. My guess is that a lot of beer was involved.
“There was a story of how my grandma received a bucket of smelt from someone. She generously gifted it to the neighbor, who generously gifted it to their neighbor, and it went all the way around the block before it ended back up with my grandma. Normally she would beer-batter and fry them, but this time, apparently, they became fertilizer for the garden.”
(2) “Subject: No caption needed.”
Regrets only
Anonymous: “Subject: True confessions.
“There was a recent post on social media from an elderly woman mocked by a passing teenaged boy. There were several suggestions about what should be done about it, from sympathetic ‘Boys will be boys’ to ‘Call the cops.’
‘The truth is: There is no comfort here, now or ever, for perpetrator or victim. The solutions offered all paled in comparison to what I foresee as ‘eventual’ Justice for this rude indiscretion. I know about this: It will be the memories — the remembering of doing and saying stupid things as a young person.
“Now, when something I see or hear reminds me of earlier insensitivities, it comes flashing back. It overwhelms with guilt that visits for a while. This punishment is punishment enough, and it does persist.
“If I ever detail this confessional of my earlier boorish behavior, it will be titled: ‘Suffer the Accumulation of Regrets.'”
The Permanent Motherly/Sonly Record
The Doryman of Prescott, Wisconsin: “Subject: Walk-off home run.
“Don’t get me wrong. I loved my mother. (You can almost taste the ‘but’ coming, can’tcha?)
“Her word was final. Her advice was narrow. She wanted her almost-only child to live a perfect, comfortable life. Go to college, she said; go to college, I did. It was her way of keeping me both out of Vietnam in the 1960s and away from working with my hands — ‘like your father always has had to do.’
“As it turns out, I would have made a much better (and happier) plumber, welder, or furniture maker than being a craftsman trapped in a salesman’s body.
“Her plan for me didn’t stop at career choices. It extended to life partners as well. Her prodding choice for that marriage, although loving, was premature, and eventually outgrown in six years. However, it did produce two of the best children and, thus, two of the best grandchildren imaginable. (Thanks, Mom.)
“I never realized until much later that mothers have batting averages.”
Live and learn
From Al B of Hartland: “Subject: I’ve learned . . .
“You’ve been married for a good spell of time if you can finish your spouse’s sentences before they’re started.
“There is no education in the second kick of a cow.
“You’re never too old to say ‘Horse’ or ‘Cows’ when you drive past them.
“Never keep a sledgehammer and a computer in the same room.
“The Chinese have an entire language made up of tattoo designs.”
The sign on the road to the cemetery said “Dead End”
Email from Donald: “Subject: An optimistic outlook.
“This is another sign in our laundry room:
“‘I Intend
“‘To Live Forever.
“‘So far so good . . . ‘”
Band Name of the Day: Depthy and the Binaries
Website of the Day: North Shore Community Radio
Bulletin Board 