Your Hit Parade

Several posts back (Inner Sanctum), I rattled off the names of a few vintage TV shows our family used to watch.  I forgot one of our favorites:Your Hit Parade.  It ran 1950-59, preceded by 15 years of radio broadcasts, hosted by Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, and others.  My brothers and I speculated on which song would be numero uno, got it right most of the time.

Allegedly, the TV show featured the 7 most popular songs of the week, based on record sales and play frequency on radio, jukebox, and so on.  I use the term allegedly because the much-touted selection procedure (Authentic Tabulation!) was never divulged, and perhaps wasn't all that authentic.  But that's beside the point.

The show aired on Saturday nights, the songs arranged in countdown mode, and usually sung by one of the 4 regulars pictured above: Dorothy Collins, Gisele MacKenzie, Snooky Lanson, Russell Arms.  Guest vocalists appeared sporadically.    

Rock and roll was the show's demise.  The above-named artists were great with show tunes and big band songs but weren't able to make the transition.  Poor old Snooky botched Elvis' Hound Dog hit so badly- several times - that he was credited with bringing the show to its knees.

Bookworms

BOOKWORMS

12" x 24"

Acrylic on Hardboard

I get a kick out of doing semi-abstract paintings that viewers can study a bit and maybe figure out the name.  Trish nailed it in 2 minutes, then was grossed out because she'd seen the real thing.  I didn't know there was a real thing, thought it was just a person who reads a lot.  Like me.

So, I had to google bookworms and find out what they looked like.  Here's a picture of one. Ugly little sumbitch!  My worms are colorful, slim, graceful; dare I say, elegant? 

Are You A Turtle?

When I was in college, there was this funny turtle thing making the rounds.  I had no idea how or when it started and didn't much care, too much on my plate.  Recently, the turtle thing popped into my mind for reasons unknown, and I became curious about it.  Here's the story.

To become a member of the Turtle Club, you had to answer 3 questions which had obvious lewd answers and alternative answers that weren't lewd.  One of the standards was:
Q: What does a woman do sitting down, a man do standing up, and a dog do on 3 legs?
A:  Shake hands

If you answered the questions correctly, you became an 'official' member of the Turtle Club. Members would ask other members, "Are you a turtle?" and the only acceptable response was, "You bet your sweet ass I am."  Typically, the question was asked in a public or social gathering where it would have been embarrassing to make the required 'sweet ass' response.  The catch was, if you didn't answer correctly, you had to buy the other guy a drink.

Nowadays, saying 'sweet ass' in a social gathering wouldn't even raise an eyebrow but that wasn't the case in the 40s - or even in the 60s, when I became a member.  Back then, the usage such words was restricted to men's locker rooms and similar venues.  JFK was allegedly once asked if he was a turtle, which of course, he was.  This occurred at a press conference.  He responded with, "I'll buy you your drink later."  NASA got into the act, too.  On several occasions, while on world wide radio broadcast, the ground control people asked astronauts in orbit, "Are you a turtle?"

It all started in WW II with a group of bomber pilots stationed in England seeking diversions from their dangerous duties.  One of the pilots came up with the turtle club idea, a sham society inspired by the likes of 'friendly societies' like the Ancient Order of Foresters.  Thus was born the Ancient and Honorable Order of Turtles, the official name of the Club.

Are you a turtle?

Totally Nuts VII

Here's yet another episode in the Nuts series, passing along the weird dreams of a sick, twisted mind.

It wasn't a large gathering, couple dozen people or so.  Didn't know the whys, whats or wheres of the event, don't even recall seeing anyone there I was acquainted with.  Maybe that's why I was leaving early.  Party pooper.  When I left the building I noticed my car was blocked in by another car, couldn't drive out of the yard the way I'd come in. 

I decided to go around to the other side of the car, see if I could get out that way.  In order to do that, I had to go through a large, 1-story building.  I went in the front door, hung a left, then a right, and entered a long, grassy hallway.  Huh?  Grass growing in an inside hallway?  Whatever.  I continued down the hallway, finally arriving at a door that opened unto a large pasture.   

Standing just outside the door was a 4-legged creature that resembled a horse, but was much slimmer. I was compelled to grab the thing's halter in my left hand, no idea why, just seemed it was what I was supposed to do.  Together, we walked back up toward where I thought my car was parked until we came upon a long picket fence of weathered wood that blocked our way.  I let go of the harness and stood arms akimbo, surveying the situation.

When I turned to look back at the critter, it had morphed into a 2-legged thing wearing a polo shirt and jeans.  Still had the same head though - minus the halter.  It nodded over to the left end of the fence, and said, "Gate."  I was flabbergasted!  "Gee, I'm sorry," I said.  "I didn't know you could talk."

That's it.  Never got to my car.  Never knew what what kind of critter it was or why I thought I needed to take it to wherever it was I was taking it.

Wood

Once upon a time, most rural Midwestern homes were heated with wood.  It was plentiful and readily available, a byproduct of clearing land for crop production and pastures.  The farmhouse where I grew up was no exception.  It had a large wood stove in the living room, augmented by a wood-fueled cooking stove in the kitchen.  The latter was replaced by an electric range in 1950*.

Trees were felled by axes and 2-man crosscut saws, then cut into manageable lengths that the horses, and later on, tractors, could drag to the log pile in the back yard.  Cutting wood was an annual event that required several strong men.  The guy that owned the saw rig - a 3' diameter circular saw mounted on a stand, belt-driven by a tractor PTO (power take off) - would make the rounds to area farms each autumn.

It took 2 long days to cut enough wood to get through the northern MN winter.  The men would squat down and lift the log, placing one end on the wooden apron in front of the saw blade. Then, one man would go around to the other side of the apron; his job was to catch the portion that was sawed off, and toss it onto the pile.  Dirty, noisy, back-breaking work it was; I didn't regret being too young to join the crew.

I didn't miss out on all the fun, though.  Hauling wood into the house every day was a task left to the younger kids.  And, when I got a little older, I inherited the job of splitting wood, too.  By that time we had acquired a chain saw, so I never joined the cutting crew.  What a bummer, huh?

Wouldn't you know it, my folks got an oil furnace right after I left home so I was the last in a long line of splitter-haulers.  As an adult, I actually enjoyed splitting wood - in moderate quantities, in moderate weather and at my convenience.  Good exercise and immediate job satisfaction.  All my Pacific NW homes had fireplaces or wood stoves.

*Well I remember the day the electric range was delivered.  I was 6 at the time, very curious and excited about this shiny new appliance.  The installer hooked it up, turned on a burner which quickly became red hot.  He turned it off, and it quickly became black again.  I was amazed: the thing got hot in seconds, didn't have to wait a half hour for the wood fire to heat the cooking surface.  I remember thinking it got hot in seconds so it must get cool in seconds, too.  I put my hand on the burner right after it turned black.  Ouch!  "Well, he had to learn sooner or later," said the installer to my mother.  Real sympathetic fella.

USS Midway

The USS Midway was launched in 1945 and decommissioned in 1990.  It is now a museum, berthed in San Diego.  My 2 sons (Tod and Adam) and I toured it last weekend.  It was mind boggling.  The sheer size of the thing and its crew, the complex coordination and timing required to operate an airbase on a ship, the awesome power - it's hard to get your mind around it.

Top speed was 35 knots (40 MPH) but fuel economy was lousy: 20 feet per gallon.  You could water ski behind it but carriers can't turn on a dime, so if you did a face plant into the water, you were gonna be there a few hours.  Pack a lunch and take shark repellent.

Speaking of lunch, 225 cooks prepared 10 tons of food per day for the 4500 personnel on board.  Everyone says the Navy eats well.  Reminds me yet again that I chose the wrong branch of the service.  Nobody ever said C-rations were 'eating well.'  Where's my Tobasco sauce?

Berths for enlisted men measured about 30" W x 66" L x 36" H.  All clothing and personal items were stored in the trays below the bunks.  Cozy.

Anchor chain links weigh 156 pounds each.  Dropping anchors produced one hell of a racket.

Boiler room gauges and controls.

This picture was taken from one of the huge elevators that move planes from hanger deck to flight deck.  Note the giant-sized sculpture of a sailor planting a lip lock on his girlfriend, lower left.

The flight deck had about 20 planes on display, each with it's own 2-minute audio story.

The Phantom F-4.  When I called in air strikes in Vietnam, a pair of these usually delivered the goodies (napalm, rockets, cannons).  I'd pop smoke, give the flight leader the distance and direction to the target, sit back and enjoy the fireworks - provided my unit wasn't taking fire at the time.

This shot shows the catapult connected to the front landing gear.  The 2 steam-powered catapults took a plane from 0 to 170 MPH in 3 seconds or less.  Whoopee!  Launch timing had to be perfectly coordinated with the rise and fall of the ship on the ocean swells.  Mess up the timing and launch the plane when the ship's bow is down in a trough, the plane and flight crew would be propelled straight into the water - and on down to Davy Jones' locker.

Communications center.  Urgent messages were printed out and sent to appropriate areas on the ship using the brass vacuum tubes on the right.  Just like department stores back in the day.

Flight deck personnel wore different colored tops to designate their crew and duties.  Adam (L) and Tod (R) opted to pose with the cute little female sailor on the far left.  They're out of uniform but that wasn't always the case: both served in the military.

Today's US carriers (Nimitz Class) are nuclear-powered and are the largest military ships in the world.  The first of the next-gen carriers (Ford Class) is scheduled to launch this year with highly automated systems that will reduce crew size by 1000+.  They'll cost about 10.5 billion $ to build and 1 million $ a day to operate.  A billion here, a billion there.......

Kitchen Sink

Since buying our LHC home in late 2009, we've replaced or painted everything in the kitchen, everything but the kitchen sink, that is.  A few days back, while consuming my morning banana, I checked my email and read a new one from Mama, aka Trish.  What do you think it said?  Yep, you guessed it: she wants a new kitchen sink, and a new faucet as well.

And I thought the kitchen remodel was all done.  Silly me!  You'd think I'd know better by now.  But wait: Mama said she'd spring for it.  Okay, I'm all over it!  And, while we're at it, I'll replace the garbage disposal.  It's 11 years old, which is about 90 in people-years.  So, we ordered all the stuff, Amazon and Home Depot.

Mama asked me if I would do the installation.  No way, Jose'!   For starters, cast iron kitchen sinks weigh upwards of 130 pounds. Yeah, I've installed numerous sinks, faucets, whatnot, but I hate plumbing with a passion.  Seems like every other time I do a plumbing job, I get everything connected, turn on the water, check for leaks, and finding none, put away my tools.  Next morning, sure as hell, there's water on the floor.  I swear, some nasty gremlin or gnome or leprechaun sneaks in when I'm asleep, loosens up a supply line and sneaks off again.  I'd dearly love to catch the little sumbitch in the act, stick his head in the toilet and flush it several times.

Looked at faucets lately?  The latest thing is a touch-on/off feature.  For only $100 more, you get a faucet that turns on every time you accidentally touch the darn thing whilst reaching for the sponge, dishrag, soap dispenser, RO - or just cleaning the sink.  Whoop de friggin' do!  This fine invention is nearly as asinine as a couple other plumbing-related 'innovations', the merits of which I liberally berated in earlier posts.  Copy and paste the links below, might make you chuckle.

https://draft.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4575053743717058165#editor/target=post;postID=984565507632208558;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=7;src=postname

http://edgem21.blogspot.com/2011/06/man-in-motion-part-two.html