In a state full of bootwearers, I don’t recall ever having seen anyone get his shoes shined, perhaps because people have no pride in personal appearance anymore, or they have no disposable income. It must be a more urban venture. I guess it’s honest work. It seems less degrading than offering your body to a stranger for money, and some places allow that. There are better ways to earn a dollar on your knees, and bootblacking is one. In fact, ICS Learning Systems should get on this asap. It’s got to be more lucrative than TV/VCR repair.
In any event, bootblacking is alive and well. Okay, alive and ailing. But like a person free to choose his own health insurance, a few of them still exist.
Jim Walker, 72, works on the shoes of Idaho Stampede Assistant Coach Barry Rohrssen, Thursday Jan. 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Idaho Statesman, Darin Oswald)
Whoever owned this razor thin 1953 yearbook from a podunk town clearly had issues.
Well, we all know how 4th Grade can really take it out of you. All the hormones raging in your 9-yr-old body and whatnot. I will assume a girl owned this book, as men are not prone to having emotions, much less sharing them or recording them. And clearly, there was some love felt for one of these siblings.
Again with the mustaches? Or are these kitten whiskers? Even the poor bus driver (singular, as in one bus in a one-horse town) could not escape her wrath.
Perhaps the mustaches were not meant to be insulting; perhaps she had a thing for facial hair on friend and foe alike. However, there is no misunderstanding this:
My new WordPress buddy, Mark, at markbialczak.com has graciously nominated me for The Seven Awards. He is a Yankee, living in a frosty, shivery land right now, but I like him anyway. Congrats to him as a recipient of The Seven Awards. But Seven Awards is like the Chili’s Appetizer Platter; that’s too much to digest in one sitting.
I perused the Sampler Platter, and chose the one consistent with my blog theme of Cheer, because on my blog, Christmas is every day! So I’ll just slip this onion ring off the plate and accept it in all its red and gold glory. Plus, I found a nice, crisp image to go with it. Don’t low-res pics on WordPress drive you NUTS?? They make my eyes squirm.
I do hope that constantly sharing black and white images of the past brings joy and hope and love, but surely not peace, as there will never be World Peace, so don’t even bother putting that on your wish list. Have you seen Russia lately? See, this is why I don’t do Awards Posts; I get off track.
This is the last award I will ever need. Just now, the lyrics portion of my brain has overridden my thought process and can only play Don Henley singing, “This is the last worth evening that you’ll ever spend…” Right, Don. That’s an empty promise if I ever heard one. Oh, that reminds me of The Eagles’ “Seven Bridges Road.” More sevens!
Think of things that come in sevens:
Days of the week
Deadly sins
Wonders of the world
Can you think of more? Where was I again? Oh, yes, the Cracking Chrispmouse Bloggywog Award. I like to say that repeatedly because it’s crazy. Not whackjob crazy like anything at Cirque de Soleil, but still. Oh, that reminds me of funny names! So I’ll nominate:
because I like to mock, and we have all have something silly about ourselves. I had a funny name growing up, so I can enjoy funny names. Okay, one down. Usually, I am quite the rule-abider, but these things are so complicated, and it’s Tuesday, and school was delayed two hours due to icicles, icicles everywhere. You think anyone is going to brave that to head to the polls and vote today? Not.
Okay, seven things about me: Oh, get this, you guys. I bought a stack of used Saveur magazines last week because I like pretty pictures of food and foreign people holding baskets of colorful produce (that is not racist) and so I noticed that the prior keeper of the magazines dogeared some recipes. Fine, perfectly normal. Except he/she dogeared at the bottom. At the bottom. What? Was she dropped on her head? Who does that? So that’s one fact about me: I don’t like people who dogear at the bottom because they weren’t raised right.
Dangit! I had to get up because the stupid wandering fat orange neighborhood cat who should not be free to roam about (because subdivisions have rules, and owners should control their beasts) has once again come to tease my dogs by walking the fenceline, which makes them howl, and there is little I like less than a vocal dog, except perhaps owners who DO NOT CONTROL THEM. So I’m going to go discipline my dogs and pray that a sharp icicle lances through the blubbery torso of said feline, at which point I may write a very joyful post about that.
Scarves and stripes always trumps Juicy sweatpants.
Gettin’ their prim and propers on during homeroom.
What I love most here: Marjorie’s accessorizing with a double belt. What I like least? Juan in his pre-restraining order days, displaying some protective aggressive tendencies toward a girl in a transparent sweater.
This is my favorite casual shot. I want to know what happened to that girl in the middle. She looks like she could get stuff done without being asked twice. I bet she knows how to delegate.
Whatever outrages you the most in this shot determines your character.
For me, it’s clearly Ottoman Head in the middle bottom row. I could plant my rump on that hair and sit a spell.
For others, it may be the fact that these members of the Sachem Literary Society (and there were two pages of them) were all dressed in minks. Maybe you don’t like the top of the food chain to wear coats made of the animals at the bottom. I will say I wouldn’t mind wrapping myself in one right now during this frosty season, especially since those minks died around 1964. I’m just saying Nature provides for a bi-polar vortex, that’s all.
If you were my cousin, your jaw would be dropping in a WTH response at poor Mary and Martha Russell being shoved into one frame to share it. And it’s not as though there wasn’t space on the page. There is an entire 3″x7″ blank spot right next to this–plenty of room for any sets of twins to have their own unshared portrait and own unique identity. What was the thinking on the part of the editorial staff here? Well, they look the same, so why bother taking two pictures? Who needs to see that face twice?
Perhaps I’m being presumptive; perhaps it was their own idea. Maybe they feel a connection as twins and wanted a “group” shot. Or perhaps they are really Siamese conjoined twins, unable to separate, much less turn around and face each other. Like the two women below. But even if that were the case, I don’t understand why they couldn’t take a picture of each woman and crop the other out. They shouldn’t have to share a square. Or a rectangle, as it were.
I should end the post right here. But dangit, I can’t. Conjoined twins are fascinating. So I’m going to go off on a tangent. Close this out if you are in a hurry.
Don’t you have questions about their hygiene, marriage, clothing, sleeping conditions–things all the unconjoined of us take for granted? I do. Imagine sitting right where you are, typing on your laptop with a person attached to you. And he has to use the restroom. Or he’s hungry. Or he has a fever, which you may well soon get.
Quick history lesson on the Carolina Twins above: Millie McCoy and Christine McCoy (July 11, 1851 – October 8, 1912) were born to slaves, and sold by their owner, Jabez McKay, at TEN MONTHS of age to a South Carolina man, who agreed to pay McKay a percentage of the earnings he made, exhibiting them at state fairs. The “two-headed nightingale” was sold twice more until 1863, when it/they earned their freedom. But don’t be sad; a wealthy merchant named Joseph Smith reunited the girls with their mother, Monemia. Mr. Smith and his wife then provided the twins with an education and taught them to speak five languages, dance, play music, and sing (thanks,wikipedia).
Eventually, they bought the plantation where their parents had originally worked as slaves. They still exhibited themselves, but on their own terms.
What still bothers me on this license is the fact that they are referred to as a “two-headed woman” named Millie Christine, instead of two separate people. They are actually two women, not one woman. Two brains, two hearts, two souls with separate thoughts and emotions. Now you see where Full House got the idea to bill “Mary Kate Ashley Olson” as one person, instead of giving credit to both actresses.
Perhaps that billing contributed to the mystique of the commodity they were selling. Perhaps they were only counted as one person on the census. Whatever the reason, I’m certain that Hayley Mills would not have approved.
My son’s elementary school calendar this month includes a president’s favorite food for each day of the month. Today the president named is Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enjoyed oxtail soup. Though I have heard of it, I have never seen hide nor hair of such a soup, not in a person’s home or in a restaurant. Have you ever tried it?
I visited the Food Network’s site to investigate. Apparently, “the oxtail was once really from an ox but nowadays the term generally refers to beef or veal tail. Though it’s quite bony, this cut of meat is very flavorful. Because it can be extremely tough (depending on the age of the animal), oxtail requires long, slow braising.”
Based on this information, I’m going to have to pass. I don’t eat tail, however flavorful. It’s hard enough for me to stomach dark meat chicken or the fatty part of a brisket; I doubt I would have the patience to gnaw away at a tough tail. I do admit the vegetables look delicious.
In any event, it is a common dish in the U.K., and there is even a fellow WordPresser who has provided a recipe for oxtail stew. He goes so far as to say, “All those odd bits, wobbly bits and squidgy bits have such an amazing range of textures and flavours.” A shiver just ran down my spine. I think he would do quite well to travel with the adventurous Andrew Zimmern, who forced poor Adam Richman into eating lutefisk on yesterday’s episode of Man vs. Food. Andrew loves squidgy bits.
A fellow blogger at Funny Sweet Chocolate: Essays by Mark Coakley proved it: Canadians do have a sense of humor. HUMOR, not humour. Just teasing. He posted this glorious work of art today, and I almost feel compelled to compose an ode to it. How have I never seen this before?
I Don't Get It 