You will never know how shocked I was, as a lad, to learn that bananas grow with their stems down and their tips up. I mean, that’s just crazy. Imagine apples growing upward instead of hanging from their stems. It defies logic. Maybe this is why people who have one wheel in the sand are sometimes said to have gone “bananas.” Continue “Going bananas”

A couple of weeks ago I posted an article about cowboys and cowgirls and “the cowboy way.” If you are old enough to remember those characters you probably also remember that each of them had a sidekick: Wild Bill Hickock had Jingles; Gene Autry had a sidekick played by Pat Buttram; Cisco had Pancho; and the Lone Ranger had Tonto. And then there was Don Quixote, who had a sidekick in Sancho. Achilles had Petroclus in the Iliad; Moses had Aaron; Martin had Lewis; Batman had Robin; Holmes had Watson and Thelma had Louise (or was it the other way around–don’t recall). The list goes on.

So, what’s up with all the sidekicks?

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As a youngster, there was never any doubt in my mind that I was supposed to grow up to be a cowboy. I watched Spin and Marty on TV along with the Cisco Kid and Pancho, Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Roy was my favorite of all because, among other things, he had an incredibly cool cowboy hat. Roy and Dale even had a German Shepherd in the family just as we did. Roy’s dog was named Bullet and, from watching various episodes, one would be led to believe that that dog could run just as fast as Trigger, Roy’s trusty palomino. Ours was a female named Queenie. The only time I remember Queenie running much was when I called her for dinner.

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My 89 year-old widowed mother, my sister Carol and her husband along with many other members of my extended family all reside in Buchanan, Michigan, my home town, and the surrounding area. It was 7:02 AM this past Wednesday, March 27th, when I received the call from Carol that our mom had passed after a long and difficult eight months. In short order I was packed and on my way north out of Florida, arriving in Buchanan two days later.

Continue “Saying goodbye”

Okay, I know this is premature, as the baseball season will not start for a few more weeks, but, anyway, what is it with baseball players? To my knowledge, no other athlete considers it necessary to spew projectile saliva to the ground before each and every activity. Well, those of us who know our history will be aware that back at the turn of the century just about all baseball players chewed tobacco while playing the game. This, no doubt, got the ball rolling for the spitting tradition, so to speak. In fact, Seth Livingston of USA Today tells us that the term “bullpen” was derived from Bull Durham tobacco. This product was first produced in 1860 by the Blackwell Tobacco Company and was a favorite among baseball players who, reportedly, chewed tobacco in order to produce saliva while on dusty infields. Saliva generated from “chew” also provided the lubricant of choice for the infamous spitball. There must have been a lot of brown baseballs back in those days, at least in comparison to today, when an umpire will summarily eject any baseball that has ever come into contact with anything other than a little sweat and leather.

Continue “C’mon, spit it out!”