What Would Jimmy Do?

Well, here it is again — that most romantic of all days. The day when all the retailers convince you that your level of romance is directly proportional to amount of money spent…. and the day it’s impossible to go to dinner, of if you do you have to sit with strangers because the restaurant has added fifty more tables and if you drop your fork, your plate will be gone and the next romantic couple will be sliding into your chairs.

Like everything else, Valentine’s Day has been commercialized to death, but it’s still a pretty neat day. We probably all remember that in grade school we all got and gave valentines to everyone in our class. We probably didn’t want to give everyone in our class a valentine, but our mothers made us.
But here we are at Valentine’s Day, 2015 and according to something I read, long-stemmed roses cost about 30% more around Valentine’s Day than any other time of the year. More than nine million pet owners will buy their pets valentine gifts. Teachers receive the most valentines, followed by kids, mothers, wives and sweethearts. One billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making it the second largest card-sending holiday of the year — exceeded only by Christmas.
According to legend, in the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. This probably led to the current phrase “to wear your heart on your sleeve,” which means being transparent with your affections. The Catholic Church struck St. Valentine’s Dy from its official calendar in 1969.

So I hope everyone has a nice Valentine’s Day, and you do something special with that special someone. There’s an old saying that, “Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” By the way, during my extensive research for this article, I discovered that penicillin, a popular treatment for venereal diseases such as syphilis, was introduced to the world on February 14, 1929. Make of that what you will….
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Last night we had a guest for dinner and when Claire was planning what to serve, she mentioned that maybe she’d make a Harvey Wallbanger cake. Those of you old enough to have been drinking in the late 1960s and early 70s will remember a once popular drink known as a Harvey Wallbanger. The ingredient that made the concoction a Harvey Wallbanger, and not just a Screwdriver, was an Italian liqueur known as Galliano. If you have a bottle of Galliano sitting around from the 70s or you want to make the liquor store clerks look at you funny, go buy a bottle; here’s how to make a Harvey Wallbanger:
1.25 oz vodka
3 oz orange juice
0.5 oz Galliano
Add the vodka and the orange juice to a tall glass filled with ice. Stir, and then float the Galliano on top. The Galliano is heavier and will drift down through the mixture. If you ordered this in a fancy restaurant, it was usually garnished with an orange slice.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, lets get back to that big towering yellow bottle that wouldn’t fit on any bar shelf and really wasn’t particularly good in any drink — the exception being the Harvey Wallbanger.
At the turn of the century, thousands and thousands of Southern Italians were immigrating to California to seek their fortune in the gold fields. Arturo Vaccari, a young Italian distiller, created a new spirit for his countrymen to take with them on their journey as a souvenir of Italy. The original blend was made from local Italian ingredients (anise, lavender and mint) and some foreign spices (vanilla, cinnamon, and coriander.) Vaccari named the liqueur after Major Giuseppe Galliano, a supposedly handsome Italian hero of the First Italo-Ethiopian War. His final touch was to color the beverage gold, as a symbol of the gold rush that had inspired its creation.

As I said, I remember it being most popular in the early 70s — after being around since the late 1800s, it rose to prominence in the 70s primarily due to clever marketing by a Galliano sales manager based in California. The drink was supposedly named after a California surfer who liked it and one day after losing a surfing contest, walked into his usual watering hole, ordered his drink and banged his head against the wall, displaying the agony of defeat. His name was Harvey — there you have it. Anyhow, the drink became popular almost strictly due to some crafty marketing. An advertising man named Bill Yound came up with a goofy cartoon character to represent Harvey. Harvey had a famous phrase, “My name is Harvey, and I can be made.” The Harvey Wallbanger was even a featured cocktail on TWA flights. Some of the flights had a plastic blow-up doll of Harvey on board as a promotional gimmick.

Now you’re probably wondering why I’m providing you all this information… to provide you with adequate background information and allow you plenty of time to prepare for the big day. November 8 — National Harvey Wallbanger Day. Mark your calendars.
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… to my old friend, Abraham.

Abraham Lincoln would have been 206 years old today.
Happy Birthday, Abe!!
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One of the activities that I’ve been able to participate in more since we moved to West Virginia is golf. The courses aren’t crowded and the cost is reasonable. Four or five of us play on a pretty regular basis when the weather cooperates. The nice thing about our group is that for the most part, we’ve all decided that it’s okay to play golf just for fun!

Someone once said that golf was called golf because all the other four letter words were taken. I guess our group leans more toward defining golf as, Getting Old & Living Fine…

With the exception of our group, most golfers I know seem to take the game too seriously. Golf is the hardest sport to consistently play at the highest level. It can also be the easiest sport to play if your goal is to enjoy yourself and have fun.
First of all, like anything else, you need to have realistic expectations about your abilities. We usually use the scorecard as a map to the next hole — we rarely keep score. When we hit a ball out of bounds or in the woods, we generally don’t bother looking for it, we just amble down the fairway and drop another ball where we figure a good shot would have landed.
I even made up a score card that we use sometimes — it gives everyone a few “freebies” along the way, like having a few mulligans… Of course my score card is much more imaginative. One of the rules we play by and rigorously enforce is to meet any serious or competitive behavior with the ridicule it deserves.

Since the weather is really too cold for golf, we’re currently playing Winter Golf. During good weather, after our round of golf, we always stop for a beer or two and solve a few world issues. Since it’s so cold now, every week we play Winter Golf — we just skip the hitting the ball part and get right to the beer and world issues. So golf can truly be played year round, even here is West Virginia.
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We’ve owned Lexus vehicles since the 1990s… We’ve been pleased with them, but that’s not the point of this blog. I saw something on the Internet a few days ago that reminded me of an old Lexus commercial. The guy on the Internet was stacking champaign glasses and dishes for some reason. But it reminded me of the first time I remember seeing a Lexus commercial. The TV spot showed a man stacking champaign glasses in a pyramid shape on the hood of a car. The camera then paned around to show that the car was running — with the rear wheels on a treadmill. Apparently the car was running at full speed, near 150 miles per hour. Needless to say, the glasses didn’t fall, or even appear to rattle. I remember thinking it was a pretty cool commercial. I did a little extensive research and found out that the glass commercial was Lexus’s first TV ad. It was promoting the LS 400 — Lexus’s first vehicle. The LS 400 was introduced at the Detroit Auto Show in 1989 — not sure when the vehicles actually went on sale, so Lexus seems to be about 25 years old, more or less….
Happy Birthday.
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I just read an article that Radio Shack stores are closing. The company has been in financial trouble for a long time, but it looks like this is the end…
This announcement shouldn’t surprise anyone that’s been in a Radio Shack store in the past few years, but for people my age that used to buy resistors, capacitors, wire, solder, printed circuit material — and — vacuum tubes from the nearby Radio Shack this is a sad development — almost like losing an old friend.

Radio Shack opened their first store in Boston in 1921 and basically catered to the nerds of the time — ham radio operators, and other electronics “hobbyists.” They sold individual parts, electronic kits, batteries, hi-fi stuff, etc. After a number of years, they were bought by, or merged with, a Texas company — Tandy, and the company became known as Tandy Radio Shack. Tandy was a company that produced leather products and lots of leather kits, like purses and belts. I never got the connection with the leather and never saw any leather products in any of their stores. Radio Shack had their own in-house brands and if you’re old enough, you probably remember Archer, Realistic, Optimus and a few others that I can’t think of right now. Their “brands” always had a reputation for being cheap and a bit cheesy, but most worked pretty much as advertised.

One Radio Shack Product that became popular at the time and was particularly memorable for me (and I think my daughter, Kelly) was something known as a TRS-80. If that doesn’t ring a bell, it was one of the first home computers and was put on the market about the same time as the Commodore PET — remember that one?
The TRS-80 first hit the market in 1977 and was priced at $599.95. The only other “computers” available were build it yourself machines that only appealed to super technical hobbyists. By today’s standards, it wasn’t much of a computer, but it was revolutionary in that it was an all-in-one package and the price was reasonable for the time. The TRS-80 was a big hit — backordered for months.
One could make an argument that the TRS-80 was the most important personal computer of the 1970s and early 1980s.

I bought a TRS-80 in, I think, 1979. The whole concept of personal computers fascinated me and Kelly, who was a little over three years old at the time, seemed just as fascinated as I was. The TRS stood for “Tandy Radio Shack” and the 80 referred to the machine’s microprocessor, the Z-80. I indicated earlier that the price was $599.95. Actually, you could buy a TRS-80 for $399.95, but then you had to supply your own monitor — I don’t think many of those were sold. The $599.95 got you a complete system with Radio Shack’s 12-inch black and white display (made by RCA) 4KB of memory and a cassette tape deck that let you save and load programs — very slowly and somewhat unreliably, but it did work. Even early on, there were a lot of games available for the TRS-80, but probably the most significant pice of software was the Electric Pencil — the first microcomputer word processor.

Kelly picked up computer skills almost immediately — she used the TRS-80 in a lot of ways I never even thought of back then and If I remember correctly she used the machine for at least one science fair project. Before long, she inherited the machine and was the only person her age that I knew that had her own computer in her room.

The TRS-80 was very popular — it was fun and even useful and played a major role in consumer-izing computers that had mostly been utilized by propeller-heads.  But for some reason, it just never took off after it’s initial success. Apple and IBM and even Commodore came along and just left the Radio Shack machine behind. Not sure why, but the machine came to be known as the Trash-80. It wasn’t perfect, but it was probably one of the better PCs of its time. Why it became the Rodney Dangerfield of computers isn’t clear — maybe it was its looks — it looked more like a TV, with a keyboard — which it was. But I don’t regret buying the TRS-80. We never owned another Radio Shack computer, but since the TRS-80 came in our door, we’ve never been without a computer.
And as for Radio Shack, even though I haven’t been in one of their stores for a long, long time, I still have fond memories of the place(s) — a lot of what I learned about electronics came from experiments made with parts from “The Shack.”

Radio Shack, like a lot of us, just got old and left in the dust of the technology revolution. Seems we just don’t need a place anymore where you can still buy vacuum tubes.
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After we moved to West Virginia, we realized a lot of people, our families included, had a somewhat distorted idea of the state. The first visitors we had after we moved were mostly amazed that we didn’t live in a trailer park, or at the very least a “double-wide” somewhere out in the sticks. Most of them, at first, didn’t believe us when we told them we were almost a suburb of Washington, D.C. and lived closer to New York City than our own state capital.

One thing that most were aware of was moonshine — moonshine is almost synonymous with West Virginia. Tennessee is known for their whiskey and Kentucky is known for Bourbon, but when a lot of people think of moonshine, they think West Virginia.
Usually when people think of moonshine, they think about rednecks tramping through the Appalachian backwoods, making white lightning in illegal stills. During the years of prohibition, millions of gallons of moonshine were sold — often the supply couldn’t keep up with the demand. After prohibition ended in 1933, the moonshine trade plummeted. Recently, the beverage seems to be making a comeback. Almost all liquor stores today sell some sort of moonshine, a lot of it “packaged” in mason jars.

After the Revolutionary War, the nation found itself fairly deep in debt. To help pay off the country’s obligations, a federal tax on liquor was established. Now since one of the main reasons the war was fought in the first place was to escape taxes instituted by the British, American citizens were furious over the tax and most people continued to distill their own whiskey without giving the government its cut. Of course the government sent tax collectors out and that didn’t go over big either and eventually led to the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania. The militia supposedly stamped out the rebel movement, but in actuality only served to drive whiskey distillers further underground. The liquor tax was repealed by Thomas Jefferson, but 60 years or so later, the expenses incurred by the Civil War brought back the liquor taxes.

Today “XXX” usually means an adult movie. In some of the western movies I saw growing up, the saloons often had big jug sitting around with “XXX” on it. Turns out that “XXX” stood for moonshine, and more specifically, moonshine that had been triple-distilled. In the days portrayed in the western movies, the equipment for producing moonshine was rather crude, but after the third run, the jug contained some serious stuff — so it was labeled with three X’s.
Today we read about all the schemes used by narcotics traders to smuggle their product. People that smuggle alcohol have been using most of those schemes for years. A lot of the earliest NASCAR drivers were former (or current) moonshiners. Possibly due to driving skills acquired while outrunning the revenuers. The term “bootlegging,” sometimes used in conjunction with the moonshine business is derived from smuggling — transporting alcohol in a boot.

Bootlegging was a term I heard often growing up in Oklahoma. Oklahoma was one of the last holdouts in terms of allowing (legal) sales of alcoholic beverages. What is now the state of Oklahoma was Indian Territory and it was against federal law to sell or give alcohol to American Indians. In 1889 Indian Territory became Oklahoma Territory and was opened to non-Indian settlement. Saloons began operating adjacent to Indian lands. The liquor traffic was so heavy over the next twenty years, that when Oklahoma became a state in 1907, framers of the state constitution included the prohibition of all alcoholic beverages. Of course that didn’t stop the distilling, selling, and consuming of moonshine. After national prohibition was repealed in 1933, the state legislature, influenced by religious conservatism, passed a law declaring that nothing stronger than 3.2 beer, in alcohol percentage level, could be sold in Oklahoma. That law was not repealed until 1959.

Because of Oklahoma laws moonshine and, especially, the bootlegger who sold illegal whiskey to his customers have played a unique part in the history of the state. Because the law prohibited the selling of 3.2 beer where dancing was allowed, the bootlegger became a major fixture at dance halls. A lot of Oklahoma folk legends are of bootleggers (like many West Virginia folk legends are moonshiners.)
Bootleggers in Oklahoma, since 1933, usually didn’t peddle moonshine though — most sold liquor that had been legally distilled and bottled and “imported” from other states.

So it turns out that both my native and adopted states have a deep-rooted history in the illegal alcohol business.
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Back on January 26 (I think) a small recreational drone crashed on the White House grounds. It was an accident — an employee of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency had been drinking at a nearby apartment and was “demonstrating” the drone to friend(s).

According to the President, this crash on the White House grounds shows that the U.S. must take steps to ensure commercial and consumer drones are used safely. Obama indicated that the drone that crashed was one much like those that could be bought at Radio Shack, that sell for $50 to $500. So, it’s a toy.
Congress wants rules in place to regulate these drones. If past experience is any indication, even after such rules are proposed, it’ll probably take years before the regulations become final — and worse yet, knowing our government, we’ll probably wind up with a Federal Drone Assessment Agency that will probably fall under Homeland Security or one of the Intelligence Agencies that will argue over interpretation and enforcement of the rules/regulations. I think I said this before — some of the things to be regulated are toys.
Rules already exist for Radio Controlled (RC) model aircraft and that essentially is what these devices are. Leave it to Congress to come up with an entirely new set of rules. I agree that the current rules might need to be modified to address the use of cameras and microphones, but a whole new set? If that happens, the odds are they’ll be messed up and we’ll spend millions rewriting, correcting, revising and updating to make them useable. Of course if Congress does make new rules to protect us, criminals and terrorists will be out of luck not being able to use these things.

When I was younger, junior high into high school, one of my hobbies was building model airplanes. I knew enough about electronics to build a radio system to control the model. It didn’t do much, but I could control the altitude and direction and bring it back to land without wires. Who would have thought that I had stumbled on one of the hottest technical and controversial areas today — drones. One definition of a drone is any unmanned aircraft or ship that is guided remotely. So I was building drones — who knew?
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Well, here it is Groundhog Day again (yep, that’s one of the holidays I celebrate.) Most years, I write something here about the celebration — the problem is that every year it gets harder to come up with something new. Groundhog Day is really a pretty boring holiday — same thing happens over and over. Sort of like the movie, I guess. But anyhow….

Every February 2nd, at a number of places across the United States (the most famous being Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, the home of Punxsutawney Phil) people get together to wait for a groundhog’s predictions of our upcoming weather — of course there’s only two choices: six more weeks of winter or an “early” spring. So how come we celebrate this routine?
The first U.S. celebration of Groundhog Day was in 1887 (in Punxsutawney, Pa.) but Groundhog Day has its roots in the ancient Christian tradition of Candlemas Day. You faithful readers will remember that Candlemas Day is also on my list of holidays and was explained in this blog a few years back.
On Candlemas Day, the clergy would bless and distribute candles needed for winter. The candles represented how long and cold the winter would be. The Germans expanded on this concept by selecting an animal, the hedgehog, as a means of predicting weather. When the Germans came to America, German settlers in Pennsylvania continued the tradition, but because of the lack of hedgehogs, they switched to groundhogs — they had plenty of those in Pennsylvania. Even though Groundhog Day has been celebrated since 1887, the movie “Groundhog Day” seems to have increased the day’s popularity.
As I mentioned earlier, February 2nd is also Candlemas Day. While considered a religious holiday, it has always had some ties to the weather — an old Scottish song contains the words, “If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there’ll be two winters in the year.”

But it appears that even sacred days like Groundhog Day can’t be left alone with their traditions. Punxsutawney Phil will now text you his weather prediction. If you’re really into texting, just text “Groundhog” to 247365 on February 2nd. And of course some states don’t want to follow Pennsylvania’s lead in using the groundhog for their weather predictor. Texas uses an armadillo and celebrates Armadillo Day. Who knows, armadillos may be better weather prognosticators than groundhogs.

The dean of all the groundhogs, Punxsutawney Phil has been at it for over 125 years and has achieved a 39 percent accuracy over that time. If you’re wondering about how long groundhogs live, the answer is typically six to eight years. So what’s Phil’s secret? It seems that every summer, Phil drinks a unique “elixir of life” concoction that keeps him alive for seven more years. Now I’m thinking if we could get that recipe, we’d really be on to something…..
Update: Big surprise — Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning and predicted six more weeks of winter. We’re not that far from Phil’s place and looking out the window, it’s hard to believe he saw his shadow. I’m thinking it has to do with that “elixir of life” juice he drinks — maybe it affects his judgement. I think we should hide that stuff. Maybe we need a new Phil….
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February 1, 2015. Super Bowl Sunday. Today is the start of my least favorite month. There’s tons of reasons I don’t like February, but one of them is that it brings an end to football season — the Super Bowl is played on the first Sunday of February.

We all know that February is the shortest month and because of the fewer days, some things happen, or don’t, that sets it apart. Some years the entire month of February can pass without a single full moon. The next time that will happen is in 2018. February ends on the same day of the week that October ends on — every year. And it’s the only time a month begins and ends on the same day of the week (on a leap year.)
February gets is name from the Latin februa, that is a means of cleansing. It referred to the pre-spring purification rituals.
Even though February is short, there’s lots of events and festivals during the month, and of course like other months, almost every day has a festival of some sort, even if they’re “made-up.”

Everyone knows that February has been designated Black History Month, but did you know that it is also Canned Food Month? But it doesn’t stop there, how about Great American Pies Month, National Fiber Focus Month, National Fondue Month, Sweet Potato Month, National Hot Breakfast Month and National Heart Healthy Month. I didn’t make these up.

The month is also chock full of daily “festivals” — we know about Valentines Day and Martin Luther King Day and Presidents Day, but you can celebrate all month long. Here’s a list, far from complete. If you’d like to celebrate one of them, you can google it to find the day….
National Baked Alaska Day, Homemade Soup Day, National Chocolate Fondue Day, National Chopsticks Day, Pizza Pie Day, National Gumdrop Day, National Cherry Pie Day, National Pistachio Day, National Strawberry Day, National Chili Day and Surf and Turf Day. No wonder people tend to gain weight during the winter.

So like it or not, February has been kicked off — Super Bowl today, Groundhog Day tomorrow and National Carrot Cake Day on the 3rd. We’re off to a fast start here on this shortest, and my least favorite, month.
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