harmless novelties
innocence, before death march
of progress gathered

What else could we be talking about but self-checkout at the store.

As Adrian Chiles wrote in his article, Want a glimpse of dystopia? Visit the self-service checkouts:

Back then there were about two dozen staffed checkouts, in those days of innocence before the death march of progress gathered pace.

A handful of self-checkouts appeared; a handful of human ones vanished. At first we saw them as harmless novelties.

They were never all in operation, and those that were rarely worked properly.

I used to bet my kids that I could get any one or two items from Walmart in under 5 minutes.

The secret was moving fast and the little used self check out lanes.

My wife would say she needed milk or one of the kids needed a poster board or a glue stick for a school project and the game was afoot.

I would drive to the Walmart and park near the garden section and enter a back door and sweep round inside in a wide circle to the correct department, grab my item, hit that self checkout with debit card in hand and be out the door, always under 5 minutes.

The kids got into it as well and would run along with me.

Once my daughter D’asia said she would get the check out all set for me and ran on ahead and pressed the touch screen to start the process.

I got there to scan the item in question and the machine, in computer voice said, “presione completar compra”.

I looked down to see a screen I didn’t recognize.

D’asia had pressed the button to continue the transaction in Spanish.

I was lost.

I looked at Daddles and she just shrugged.

I took a chance and pressed a few more buttons.

Whatever the buttons said, they set off a beeping that got the attention of a human being.

The human being in the form of a Walmart Sales person who wanted to turn the beeping off but all the prompts were in Spanish.

We were both hopelessly helpless or helplessly hopeless in the face of bilingual computer voiced madness.

Together we got the machine to cooperate but the sales person looked at my daughter with one finger pointing at her and said, “DON’T DO THAT AGAIN.”

Took us about 15 minutes.

As Mr. Chiles writes:

“… the remainder invariably had a glitch in store for you.

Only the other day I had a torrid time with some pitiful, dried-out geraniums on a three-for-£5 offer.

They just wouldn’t scan.

I got them for nothing in the end, but they all died anyway.

Why does that last line make me think of a coming epitaph for us all in so many ways.

I got them for nothing in the end.

But they all died anyway.

Dystopian indeed.

.

three featured words on
the back but they are enough.
Vincit Amor Patriae

Okay I cheated on the last line being in latin and not really fitting but its my blog my rules.

Fascinating story on the capture of Major John Andre and the treason of Benedict Arnold is presented in the article, He Foiled Benedict Arnold. His Medal Is Now Out From Under the Bed By Christopher Kuo on July 21, 2023.

As Mr. Kuo writes, the story is “… it’s a story of three regular guys that happen to be major players in national and international events,” said Jennifer Lemak, chief curator for the New York State Museum.”

All three of these regular guys received medals that are considered to be the first medals ever awarded by the United States of America.

Mr. Kuo writes: Van Wart ultimately sold his land to buy a farm and became a respected chorister in a local Presbyterian church. He died on May 23, 1828. Today, in Elmsford, a marble obelisk marks his grave and is inscribed with a lengthy phrase:

“Nearly half a century before this monument was built, the conscript fathers of America had in the Senate chamber voted that Isaac Van Wart was a faithful patriot, one in whom the love of country was invincible, and this tomb bears testimony that the record is true.”

His medal has only one prominent word on the front — Fidelity — and three featured words on the back. But they are enough.

Vincit Amor Patriae.

(Love of Country Conquers.)

The story was written on the occasion of the family who kept the medal donating it the New York Historical Society.

Sad to say it is the only medal of the three that are out there.

Seems that the other two were stolen from museums.

universal truth
kindest person in the room
often the smartest

Maybe this is that moment.

Maybe this is the first brick in the wall.

Maybe the little kid has FINALLY pointed out that the Emperor has no clothes and the scales are going fall off of eyes and see.

In a graduation speech at Northwestern, the Governor of Illinois said a lot of wonderful things.

As I use this blog to look for unique use of words and grammar, this speech of Gov. J.B. Pritzker has so many blocks of words and phrasing that it might fuel my blog for weeks,

The phrase that is taking hold on Media is this, “Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true – the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”

The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.

How ’bout that?

The kindest person in the room is often the smartest.

Anyone remember the movie Lost Horizons where the leader of the Shangri La says, “For here, we shall be with their books and their music, and a way of life based on one simple rule: Be Kind! 

Anyone remember the verse in the Bible where Paul writes, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:32 NIV)

We have always known we should be kind but whoever thought that, as the Governor said, “… the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”

I have long been considered to be smart though really I just have an odd memory and quick recall, but I am not sure I have ever been considered kind.

Actually I can be pretty sure that me being kind is the not first thing that might come to mind in peoples memories.

No one has ever said, “Boy that Mike, he sure is kind.”

Between the two, I would choose kind.

Maybe I can be smart enough to show that.

Not wanting to point fingers but if I think about a certain someone who claims to be the smartest person in the room, I can say with some certainty, this same feller has never claimed nor would he ever be accused of, being the kindest person in the room.

I have to feel that anyone … ANYONE … using kindness as a scale would measure this feller and come up on the short end of the stick.

Maybe the measure will be so plain, that people will see the fruits of this fellers spirit.

Ask not is this person smart enough.

Ask is this person kind enough.

Hate to say but when I thought about the kindest thing I have done lately, I had to change it to the last kind thing I have done and I am still coming up with … wellllll, does this count?

I guess if I have to ask, it most likely isn’t is it?

I can’t change the world but I can change me and I am going with being kind.

It’s the smart choice.

I think of my Mom.

Now there is someone who I can bet most folks would start out a remembrance saying ‘She sure was kind.”

Boy Howdy!, but was my Mom smart!

PS – look for more from this speech as time allows – here is the full text as a pdf.

was a little world
like any world, points of pride,
its stubborn habits

At the Popular in Dundee, Graham Forbes and his family cooked using beef dripping as well.

Sit-in diners at the Popular huddled into wooden booths, sometimes packing so close, Forbes told me, that if those at table #1 were talking politics, those at tables #2 and #3 were inevitably talking politics as well.

He tended not to think of the Popular as a business.

It was a little world.

And like any world, it had its points of pride, its stubborn habits.

As you have guessed, the article in reference is about fish and chips.

A funeral for fish and chips: why are Britain’s chippies disappearing? by Tom Lamont is listed as a ‘long read’ on the Guardian Website but its worth the 15 minutes and then the time to ponder, why are these old ways changing?

Horse and Buggy days are called horse and buggy days because people traveled in a horse and buggy.

Sounds romantic but spend some time next to the Charleston Buggy Tour stables on a 90 degree summer afternoon and you find some aspects of the romance with horses and buggy’s are best kept to memory.

But Fish and Chips?

What could be driving them out of the picture?

People for one.

Finding those people who want to work long hours over hot boiling vats of fat is not as easy as it used to be.

Thinking of fish and chips, my dad loved them.

I think he picked up a taste for them during WW2 when he was in England for a couple of months.

I am not sure how widely they were available in America but whenever a new fish and chips place opened up, he had try it.

When a place named, H Salt fish and chips, opened it, it quickly became his favorite.

I remember one time, on a trip back from Chicago, we drove through the freeway interchange near Benton Harbor, Michigan and he spotted an HSALT sign and decided we were hungry.

It was just me and my Dad and I said I didn’t like fish.

He pulled into an Arby’s and got me a sandwich and then drove over to HSALT.

This was when the owner was making a real effort to reproduce a British chip shop and there were no chairs in the place.

A counter ran along the window and there were a few stand up round tables but guests were expected to stand while they ate.

My Dad got an order of fish and chips and we moved over to the counter.

They wrapped the food in a waxy paper fake newsprint which my Dad said would have been newspaper if we were in England.

It was one of the many touches the company went to in recreating the British chip shop.

Sad to read Wikipedia about HSALT as it was successful to the point of being taken over by KFC.

The article Wikipedia states: Salt understood he was dealing with potential American customers who had little experience with fish and chips. He knew he had to offer the highest quality product and experience to convert the public. He said he “must be frank in stating that there might be a wait for an order simply because we fry on request to assure the product is piping hot which is the only way to enjoy fish and chips”. Customer service was important to Salt as well. “We impress upon our proprietors the importance of genuinely caring for the interests of our customers”

Mr. Salt, that really was his name, is quoted as saying, “I’ll do for English fish and chips what the colonel did for chicken.”

Instead, KFC did to fish what they did to chicken and americanized fast food production and marketing was able to remove HSalt fish & chips, except for a few still on the west coast, from the roadside map of America in 10 years.

As I remember, I was about 11 years old and my chin was at counter level which made it was to got my food into my mouth.

My Dad stood sideways to the counter with his left elbow on the counter top and ate with his right hand.

He sprinkle the fish and chips with the HSalt brand vinegar and enjoyed every bite.

He looked around the room.

The stand up counters.

The staff in red and white striped aprons.

The food.

“This” he said, “is just about right to what those chip shops looked like an England.”

“Ever want to go back?” I asked, hoping to turn this into a trip.

“Sure would,” he said, “If we can get the government to pay for it … like last time.“

The world of fish and chips.

A little world.

And like any world, it had its points of pride, its stubborn habits.

quo vadis? must be
going the right way if you
end up in right place

Quo vadis?

So might I have been asked 63 years ago today, July 17, 1960, the day I was born.

Quo vadis or ‘where are you going?’

63 years is 22995 days to make decisions every day about where I was going.

Each day filled with crossroads and door ways to paths not taken.

Which way to turn?

Which path to take?

Which path to not take?

Quo vadis INDEED.

In the essay Quo vadimus? by E. B. White published in the May 16, 1930 of the New Yorker Magazine where Mr. White writes about a man who stops people and asks, ‘“Where the hell are you going?”

And one man answers, “And all you want is a decent meal when it comes mealtime, isn’t it?’ asked my friend. “And a warm place to sleep when it comes night,”’ he added quickly, almost eagerly.”

Mr. White ends with this line, And we continued on our lonely and imponderable ways.

For the past 63 years I have blundered and mis-stepped as I continued on my lonely and imponderable way.

Last 4th of July, I got to spend the day with my wife and my kids and my grandchildren.

(Have I told you about my Grandchildren lately?)

I guess that on my lonely and imponderable way through these last 63 years, I must have made a lot of the right choices at my crossroads and doors to the paths not taken as I sure seem to have ended up in the right place.