Back in the USA

The trip to Canton included a much smaller gathering of my father-in-law’s close relatives.

When we were leaving Peterborough, ON, we figured we ought to at least LOOK at the Peterborough Lift Lock. While we didn’t have time to take the cruise, we did investigate the location, including watching a 17-minute film about it. The lift lock looks like THIS.

Then we drove to the border. We had several choices, actually. We opted for the Ogdensburg crossing, based on the rumors that it was a place that was less of a hassle than, say the Thousand Islands Bridge. Of course, if we heard that, I suspect smugglers probably have, too. In any case, the crossing was problem-free.

We stayed at a B&B for a couple of nights in Canton, NY. The only full day there, we went on a tour of the campus of St. Lawrence University, my wife’s alma mater. It was an impressive place, both physically and academically. My daughter has decided she wants to go there.

Our trip to Peterborough had included seeing my mother-in-law’s extended relatives; the trip to Canton included a much smaller gathering of my father-in-law’s close relatives – his brother, with his wife, who I’d seen a couple times; and his sister, with her daughter, neither of whom I had met before. The sister, who was 84, had just bought a new car.

Then, we trekked – through some driving rain at times – to some cabin in the Adirondack Mountains of Warren County for four days, meeting up with my parents-in-law, and, eventually, one of my brothers-in-law, his wife, and their two daughters. Let’s just say I didn’t love this part of the vacation; however, the trips to town, a village called North Creek, were charming. Moreover, it had Internet access at the public library, which was available to anyone coming in. And the grandparents watched the granddaughters, while the other couples got to go out to eat one lunchtime in the village.

Finally, the Wife and I went home. Oops, did we forget the Daughter? No, she stayed with the cousins a couple of days, while her parents had some alone time. THAT was the highlight of the latter portion of the trip.

And the “Wichita Lineman” is stuck in my mind

“‘And I need you more than want you/and I want you for all time’ is simply a genius couplet, no doubt about it.”

The song Wichita Lineman, written by Jimmy Webb and performed by Glen Campbell, keeps popping up in my life.

First I was watching a segment of CBS Sunday Morning (aired on July 31, but I watched later), where Webb was interviewed. He indicated that, after he’d given Campbell “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, Campbell wanted “another ‘Phoenix'”. Webb replied that he didn’t have ANOTHER ‘Phoenix’. He wrote most of “Wichita Lineman”, but he wasn’t finished; nevertheless, Campbell recorded it, using a guitar solo where Webb thought the song was incomplete.

Then Campbell, who had announced that he had Alzheimer’s in June was interviewed by ABC News in August. He shared the fact that the favorite of his songs was Wichita Lineman, as he noted his favorite lyrics. As Johnny Bacardi noted here: “‘And I need you more than want you/and I want you for all time’ is simply a genius couplet, no doubt about it.”

Here’s the studio version and here’s a live version.

What songs are currently stuck in your mind?

Costello Calls to Buy a Computer from Abbott

ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.

COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?

Only because I was feeling a bit under the weather Sunday, I had the unusual chance to watch both football and baseball on TV, which always reminds me of the George Carlin bit on the two sports, a version of which you can watch HERE. Here are some baseball bloopers, only some of which are as funny as promised.

There’s a famous comedy routine about baseball by the classic duo of Abbott & Costello called Who’s on First? You can read it here and watch an iteration of it HERE.

My sister sent me this variation on this about computers, the humor of which is lost unless you’re familiar with A&C’s bit. So in honor of the World Series starting today – I’m rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals against the Texas Rangers – and the fact that Major League Baseball did not have a work stoppage this year (unlike NFL football and especially NBA basketball):

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks I’m setting up an office in my den and I’m thinking about buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name’s Lou.
Continue reading “Costello Calls to Buy a Computer from Abbott”

N is for Normal

My biology/homeroom teacher told me straight out that my father was “CRAZY” for leaving his job at IBM.

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, it was NORMAL for the mom to be home with the kids. My family wasn’t normal. My mother worked outside the home for as long as I can remember until she retired a decade and a half ago.

First, she was in the bookkeeping department at McLean’s department store in downtown Binghamton. Then she moved less than a block to Columbia Gas, where she was reportedly the first black person to work as a customer service rep. When she moved to Charlotte, NC, she was a bank teller for First Union bank.

No one has ever suggested that my father was anything like “normal.” In fact, my biology/homeroom teacher told me straight out that my father was “CRAZY” for leaving his job at IBM of six years (that he hated), especially for a position with Opportunities for Broome, an OEO government job (where he thought he was making a difference). Government jobs come and go, but once you’re in the IBM family, you were set for life. (IBM decided it actually DID start having to lay off people in the 1990s.)

So, normalcy isn’t always that appealing. It’s been used as a cudgel to block all sorts of individual and collective rights.

Conversely, I AM sympathetic, as I watch the trauma over the worldwide economic crisis when I hear people ask, “When will things get back to NORMAL?” Likewise, the “crazy” weather generates a similar response. People are desperately looking for a sense of stability/sanity.

I have to wonder if “normal” is coming, or, as I suspect, we’ve come to a “new normal” of stormy weather, fiscally and meteorologically.

As Bruce Cockburn sang: The trouble with normal is it always gets worseLISTEN.

Maybe Normal is just a town in Illinois.

ABC Wednesday – Round 9

Movie Review: Dolphin Tale

For the first time ever, my wife, my daughter, and I went to a movie theater together. Usually, it’s the daughter and I, or the wife and I. On Columbus Day, we all went to the neighborhood cinema, the Madison, to see Dolphin Tale.

It could have been called Dolphin Tail. From Rotten Tomatoes: “Dolphin Tale is inspired by the amazing true story of a brave dolphin and the compassionate strangers who banded together to save her life. Swimming free, a young dolphin is caught in a crab trap, severely damaging her tail.”

I was surprised to discover that it turned out to be a good movie. Not a great one, but one where I was willing to be taken in by young Sawyer Haskell (Nathan Gamble), disaffected at school but with a peculiar connection with the mammal he helped to save. He ends up being a regular at the sanctuary where the dolphin was being treated, without the knowledge of his mother (Ashley Judd). Clearwater Marine Hospital is run by marine biologist Dr. Clay Haskett (Harry Connick Jr.) with the assistance of his staff; his wise father Reed (Kris Kristofferson) tries to let his son do things his way. Morgan Freeman shows up about halfway through the film in a critical role.

Yes, it’s a message film, where Sawyer, along with Clay’s daughter Hazel (Cozi Zuehlsdorff), shows the grown-ups that they ought not to give up too easily, even after bad weather and worse finances. And at 1:52, it was about 15 minutes too long. But it was inspirational in the end, and it’s the kind of movie one can take a child 1) without being mortified by what’s on the screen and 2) without being bored to death.

I liked it, and my wife and daughter, probably more so.

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