There’s an article in the latest SU alumni rag about the new, permanent president’s residence, a former trustee’s house atop Shades Mountain with the requisite, glorious view of the Sacred Bubble. Did they have to paint the dump Baptist white during the renovation?
Brings to mind the old sayin’, “There’s a place in hell for people who paint brick!” :)
There’s nothing like the approach of one holiday to have me thinking of another. So, in honor of Labor Day, here’s a Halloween story (that’s Scottish, to boot).
Once, right after the Peanuts Halloween special had run on TV, a bunch of us in a local pipe band were standing around talking, when one of the group, Kathleen, started noticing everybody’s different clan crest badges. (The crest from each clan chief’s coat of arms, encircled by a strap and buckle inscribed with his motto, done-up in “silver” [meaning chrome-plated pewter], is worn as a badge or emblem pinned to the Scottish caps of his, sometimes her, clanspersons.)
Kathleen exclaimed, “How come you guys got a heart with a crown, or a lion holding a sword, or a stag’s head, or a kitty cat, and I GOT A ROCK!” (That being a mountain owned by the MacNeil of Bara, but rendered as a crest badge, it does come across like a pet rock.)
To which the the bearer of the kitty cat, the Pipe Major, flatly responded, “It’s a MOUNTAIN LION, Kathleen!” Then I added, “And it’s not even a flaming rock.” (That would be the MacKenzie crest.)
What I was thinking, but didn’t say, was that the fearsome Mackintosh cat-a-mountain is really more of a dwarf polecat . . . an overgrown, ferile version of Mrs. Slocombe’s pussy!
In the odd, spare moment, I’m doing some Scottish research. It’s gonna take lots of odd, spare moments **sigh**.
I think every British book has title and copyright pages like this (exaggerated, but not much so):
__________________________________________________
THE PANOPLY OF BRITAIN
Hugh Hume Fforbes-Hamilton, Series Editor
THE HIGHLAND CLANS and Lowland Families of SCOTLAND
Being an Account of their Dynastic Origins founded on Henry Sibbald’s Edition of Sir Archibald Wood’s Celebrated Historicum Familia Scoticum as translated from the Original Latin by Mary Jane Smith, Oxford University
by
Sir Iain Edward Philip Arthur George Scrymgoeure of that Ilk, Bart., Ph. D., Q. C., Falkirk Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary
Foreword by Craig Connolly and Billy Ferguson
Photographs by L. Nimoy
National Caledonian Trust in association with The Royal Scottish Historic Families Commission Press
London & Dublin
__________________________________________________
© 1970 Annette Valois Scrymgoeure
Second Revised Edition, 1983
8th Reprinting, 1997
Expanded and Slightly Corrected, 2005
Lucky Dragon Books, Ltd.
Bruceton Mills, West Virginia
Printed in Hong Kong
Bound in Bulgaria
Dust Jacket Designed by Dicky Battenberg
Genuine Bonded Leather Edition
__________________________________________________
I shutter to think of references and bibliography. My old, high-school MLA Handbook ain’t worthy!
. . . ( a locally bottled gingerale) COMES IN DIET. There’s that sort of demand? Amazing.
Also learned at the grocery store: U2 is now considered Muzak, along with Cher. All the Muzak and “easy listening” radio in my youth was more sedate stuff; in fact, the local dentists would pre-anesthetize people by playing it in the waiting room. Barely needed novacaine.
Learning all the time . . . 
(We interrupt this blog for an unscheduled rant.)
Although the pen is mightier than the sword, why doesn’t anyone acknowledge that the weapon runs out of ammunition–that would be ink–sooner rather than later in these days of “downsized” products? The plethora of “comfort grip” disposable ball-points available seems to be designed to run out of ink in a couple of months. GGGGGRRRRR (and various other Incredible Hulk sounds).
That does it: I’m about to suffer purple-stained fingers filling my Pelikan fountain pen (which I always think is “too nice to use”) from a bottle of ink! I prefer fountain pens, anyway!
About twenty years ago, around the time that Michael Jackson was first turning from very eccentric to just plain weird, I underwent an operation to correct malocclusion. The surgeon casually mentioned during the last consultation (the day before the big event) that, in addition to doing medically necessary oral surgery, he also did cosmetic work, gently pitching that I might consider a chin implant. I politely refused, thinking to myself, “You’re crazy to first bring this up NOW–besides, Carol Burnett’s chin job doesn’t look quite right!” (Miss Burnett, at the time, was a famous malocclusion case, and she’d had a procedure to fix her “weak chin” thereby improving her bite.)
The day after the surgery, pausing while unwrapping my head, the doctor murmured to a nurse, “I didn’t do the nose–he’s got a good nose; but, I still had to pack it.” Then he reached forceps into my left nostril and pulled out several yards of coiled-up, narrow gauze. Nose job or not, since the oral work involved the floor of the nasal cavity, I had to follow the post operative nose job admonishment not to sneeze for six weeks. (!!!)
I share this story to point out that it is not so hard to imagine how Michael Jackson got snookered into nose, chin, and cheekbone jobs, as well as tattoed eyeliner and lips, etc., with multiple procedures probably done at the time of nose “revisions.” (**DISCLAIMER** Not that it has ever been confirmed that he had anything done except one nose job.) Letting himself be so snookered and not knowing when to stop (if that did, indeed, occur) was a great tragedy, a heartbreaking waste.
I have nothing against the occasional nip, tuck, or tightening here and there for those in the public eye to look “camera worthy.” However, one of the most offensive things in the world to me was the show Extreme Makeover–not the home renovation version, the one where people got the all-at-once renovation, then were “revealed” to their families and friends, who always reacted with hyperbolic disbelief and rude, backhanded compliments as if to say, “We’re so relieved that we can be seen in public with you without embarrassing ourselves, now.”
The problem with makeovers is that you don’t get to walk around with the “before” picture plastered on your forehead, and strangers are . . . well, strangers: they’ve never met you before. “After” is only an improvement relative to “before,” and it becomes how you look in the here and now. So, it’s much better to appreciate the rich, flawed diversity of how people naturally look, here and now.
But, Barbra Streisand really should’ve gotten that honker fixed long ago.
The Little Kingdom, the towne in which I reside, paid dearly for a new slogan to promote its quaint shopping villages.
And what should this wondrous phrase turn out to be? **Parchment-headed, rope-tensioned drum roll, please!**
Welcome to Your Happy Place
Rather presumptuous and inaccurate, is it not? Besides, I wouldn’t think anybody’s real happy place needed an introduction!
I have fallen behind in providing my monthly “stinkers”–inspirational sayings (that don’t quite “add up”) in the style of Norman Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie, Tony Robbins, Dr. Phil, the other Phil (a barfly on Cheers who gave everybody advice), and Burma Shave road signs. I’m sorry.
When that which is ’round you begins to stink, enthusiasm smells better than you’d think!
–DR. WHOOK
(I got an honorary doctorate from a diploma mill for giving the on-line commencement address.)
I was done-in last weekend from stepping into a gopher hole (or, more accurately, a groundhog hole). I knew where it probably was, but in the midst of battling Wisteria vines, I had a momentary lapse of caution, an errant step, and a hip-pulling spill. All this was witnessed by a neighbor and about a thousand people zipping up and down the busy road in front of my house, which helped insure that nothing really serious was wrong with me (had I managed to break something, nobody’d be around, of course). At least the fetchy straw hat I wear for yard work gave me an air of “Greg Norman” dignity. ‘Cept mine has a tropical print for the hat band, instead of a shark (which happened to match the underpants I had on at the time, which would have amused the emergency room staff, had I needed treatment–too much information).
Anyhoo–now I have an very important task: naming my adversary. One must have a name for that which one is up against. From music school daz, I remember my music history teacher proclaiming that he’d no longer give partial credit (to give an example) for misspelling Buxtehüde’s name as Buckstahootie on tests. And since this sounds a little like Punxsutawney Phil (the official groundhog), how about calling my groundhog Buckstahootie Phil? Or, given the name of my town, Brookstahootie Phil? Or, given my pseudonym, Whookstahootie Phil?
Of course, a plainer name may be better. I’m considering: Hovis, Castro, Wohlfahrt (like the violin composer), Wetherell (like the FSU president), and Finebaum. Decisions . . . decisions!
about those haystacks. I bet Phillip Fulmer could learn to yodel like Franzl Lang! And what would Adam Lambert do with “Einen Jodler hör i gern”?
