Before I ever again make fun of an old photo of my brother John wearing a permed mullet, I am going to make Dang sure there ain't anymore pictures like the one below floating around for the lady who lives next door in our old house to find and email to me.
Kristin sent me this fine picture, reminding me that while I "may not have had a full mullet," I "rocked the Steven Keaton Family Ties mullet."
My little brother John has a blog. Not only does he have a blog, he, like Charlie Murphy, weaves a fine tale.
John's blog is called By The Numbers. Like so many of us, John started out blogging on a specific topic, in his case, automobiles, but this internet thing is a powerful tool for those who have something to say. It is even more powerful for those who have nothing to say, just ask the mayor.
John just moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, from Ocala, Florida. He lives close to the ocean, and wears khakis and polo or polo style shirts.
My brother Tom asked me if I would be willing to undertake the task of going through our Mother's photo albums and sorting out the pictures according to family members families. There are a lot of photos here. My question is, if a family member has a thick album of wedding pictures and the marriage ended in bitter divorce, do I send the album or keep it until the pain has lessened?
(60% of the children of the Bob and Mary Lou Lee have been divorced, 10% married a divorced person, and the remaining 30% are still with their original spouses. I am in the 30% bracket. 35 years with the private nurse. My secret to staying married? It's easy when you love your wife.)
So that picture problem: what to do with wedding photos of spouses who are no longer spoken of with kindest remarks. There are a lot of photos at family gatherings and holiday dinners that show spouses who are no longer spouses. Or, even more ticklish, pictures of unmarried siblings with the current girl/boy friend of the day. Do I send these photos? I think I will just put them in each child's pile and let them decide whether to keep them or not.
The lady across the street, who had gone blind later in life, had an auction or her house and contents last year. I asked her son why they were auctioning off family photo albums. He told me since Dad died and Mom went blind, and they were the last of their generation, there was no one who knew who the people in the photos were. 
Likewise, it is sad to find family photos for sale in flea markets. I found these at one of those sales at the fairgrounds. I bought the page for a buck. I have the last picture taken of Wm. Fred Baker, the boy's Dad, taken in October of 1953. Dang, I want to find him and give him back these photos. I also have photos of Buster, his white dog and Tops, his white pony.
And then, I got photos like these two examples: Ed, Regina and John at the house on South Jefferson (I need to blog about that house. It had secret stairways, hidden doors in walls, hidden rooms, a leaky basement and mildew stucco, but it was a neat house!) Judging from Ed's outfit---no wait, can't date it on Ed's clothes, he still wears the same stuff, jeans and shirts. So does John, jeans and polos. Regina looks just as pretty as the day we married. Anyhow, I guess this is from the mid 1980s. 
And this one of John, well, it's my submission for What I Saw Today
One of my most popular posts for overseas visitors, is this one.
I don't know why, let me sleep on it, I'll give you an answer in the morning.
Meanwhile, if you got a half hour to spend listening to a finally crafted tale disguised as a rock and roll song, watch this two part version recorded in Melbourne, Australia with a full orchestra a couple of years ago.
Then watch the original video.
Here is
one guy's take on the song:
Is there any reason to ever hear this song again?
Played chiefly at bars by giggling women as they begin their 3rd drink, “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” tells the sad story of a man trapped in a relationship at a young age. A cautionary tale of a 17 year-old who is failed by American society’s puritan refusal to address sexuality in an informed way, “Paradise” sees its protagonist forced to mortgage his future in exchange for what can only be called “a little moogombo” from a seemingly hot, yet otherwise nondescript chick he goes to high school with.
Thusly, in the end, he openly wishes for the slow, inevitable arrival of death to escape the consequences of the young hormone driven promise he made to his date. Why this dirge must constantly be played at bars where good people are only trying to get in a decent after-work drink, I don’t know.
It is not a happy song- there is no need spend your hard earned money putting it on, nor is there any need to yell “Whoo” when you hear its dreadful opening notes.
For the 3 of you unfamiliar with it, I’ll break the 8 ½ minute song down here:
- A guy is trying to have sex with some girl in his car.
- Together they begin the very natural act of “fooling around”.
- Clearly affected by a patriarchal and vaguely religious belief that a woman is not worthy of exploring her sexuality with anyone other than her husband, the girl solicits the guy for a promise to marry.
- Somehow, former Yankee announcer and Hall of Fame Shortstop, Phil Rizzuto begins to describe, in detail, the action on a radio broadcast, employing a crude, thinly layered, baseball metaphor.
- The guy pleads for the right to thoroughly consider any long-term proposal. He is refused by the woman, who at this point begins to unravel, showing herself as an frantic, emotional, and needy person, who insists the guy make this pivotal decision now.
- Guilted, and driven by the desire not to have blue balls, and possibly by the pressure of an omni-present Rizzuto, the guy relents and promises his life to her.
- They have sex.
- Years later, lamenting his decision the guy and girl pray for the rapture.
Here it is again, simplified even further.
- A guy is trying to have sex with a girl.
- She guilts him into proposing.
- Phil Rizzuto gets involved.
- The guy caves and they have sex.
- Guy keeps his promise, they both pray for the sweet release of death.
What life had to offer this couple, we’ll never know. Together they spend a lifetime thinking of what could have been- a sad sentence to face and one I face for 8:29 every time I hear some a-hole play this thing in a bar, or sing it in karaoke.
It’s time to throw this song onto history’s trash heap, so we can all move on with our lives. Celebrate love, freedom and hope- things not celebrated in this song. Please, don’t play it ever again, and if you’re in doubt at a CD jukebox, get the Led out, everyone will appreciate it.
The thurd largest city in the Great State of Missouri is run by volunteers: a volunteer mayor and a volunteer city council. Thanks to Jackehammer for these excerpts from the Mayor's State of "The City" talk.
"The challenges that this community is facing in trying to get the community to support things have increased many fold.How do you get a message out to the public if you don't have a medium to do it with? I think I am going to grab a cold one, pour it in a styrofoam cup and sit on the back porch and watch my grandson skateboard while I mull over that question. Vance Randolph probably had a pretty good start towards answering the Mayor's question when he quoted the Ozark oldtimer who lived down by Pineville: "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining."
I (will) probably not make any friends right here, but I'll tell you that our friends in the media don't support the community like they used to. I think I am qualified to say that, not only as a person that's worked as a journalist and as an editor, but also as a person that's worked in public life.
It's not like it used to be, there's not the depth, there's not the scope, there's not the understanding on the part of the media, on the topics that they're covering. On top of that, we have this internet thing that's going on now, with this blogging stuff, where people used to, if you wanted to say something, you had to put your name to it, now, there's this anonymous character assassination that is encouraged in order to sell newspapers or other media outlets. It makes it very difficult to get your message out.
People in this room can tell you questions that a person from the media will ask you about some person in this town that everybody here has known of for years and the person who's charged with covering that has never heard of them.
How do you get a message out to the public, to the people that you're elected to represent if you no longer have a medium to do it with? It's a big challenge, and how do you get, with the amount of time and effort that it takes these days to deal with these issues, to get qualified people to step up to serve? You know, the only thing I'm banking on, and I'm betting on Springfield because this town has always been a town that when you presented a challenge, rose to it...." - Mayor Carlson, from his state of the city report, June 5, 2008.
Madame Marie was a fortune teller. Many, many years ago, up in Iowa, Madame Marie, while telling a woman her fortune, got to laughing uncontrollably. The woman's husband burst into Madame Marie's trailer and proceeded to strike Madame Marie repeatedly in the nose. "Why are you striking me?", screamed Madame Marie! The husband said his father always told him to strike a happy medium. 
Backyard Skate Ramps
Rock To Fakie
Trey, Austin, Blake and I built a quarter pipe in the backyard today. We started yesterday evening with the measurements and preliminary cuts.
Austin and Trey went with me to the "board store", Meek's on Mount Vernon and bought five treated 2x4s ten feet long. We needed a piece of pipe 42" long by 2" diameter. The good folks at Seeburg Muffler on West Sunshine next to the McDonald's gave Trey the piece of pipe he needed after Trey explained what he was going to build.
We spent most of the afternoon cutting and drilling boards. Austin drilled the holes, and Trey screwed in the screws. Blake fetched tools and Ice Tea. I ran the saws.
The Quarter Pipe turned out pretty good. Trey did "drop in's" and "rock to fakies". I have no idea what those are but I did get the pictures.
Good Times and it only cost me $27.00 for five 2x4 x 10 feet long at the board store. The rest of the lumber I had in the barn. Oh yes, of course the coping pipe from Seeburg! I think we spent the afternoon making memories!
Blake just came in from Lost and Found, he is ready to Sk8! So is Trey. Austin, after drilling all the pilot holes this afternoon, went home early to take a shower and was last seen in his living room playing his new video game, "Pirates of the Caribbean". He fell earlier and scraped his leg but his Aunt Karen doctored him up pretty good.
This is Trey getting ready to do a "drop in".
Oh yeah. The Hotel Suburban, cheap rates, uncomfortable beds.
Mickey D's Steak House late at night somewhere in extreme western Kansas.
My neighbor Jack and I are heading out west to Denver to pick up a jeep. We are bringing the camera, a change of clothes, a flatbed trailer and lots of cash.
1947 Flatfender Jeep with snowplow, as pictured below. I made a good buy, even when you count in the cost of going to go get it.
CUL8R
In a previous post I posted some pictures of our back porches and how they were decorated up for both functionality and festivity.
My Grandmother was born on May 30, 1898. Her birthdays were always a reason for gathering outside and cooking, eating and celebrating, as the photo indicates. That's Granny on the far right sitting next to Grandpa "Man".
In recognition of her 110th birthday and for other considerations, last night, we had another one in a series of impromptu backporch gatherings. The menu was thrown together really quick, sort of 'sweep the kitchen' type of meal: grilled and smoked chicken legs and thighs, steak, salmon, bratwursts, baked beans, garden salad with the ingredients from the garden, pasta salad, deviled eggs with sliced pimento olives on top, and chips and dip.
The Misters Cook, Miller and Coors were in attendance also.
Below are two photos of the two oldest men in attendance. One photo is with their mouths open and the other is with their mouths shut. Notice the styrofoam cup containing liquid silk and the koozy with the can of Cook's.
The following photos are of the young people who were there. We live in a nice neighborhood.
