Newsdump ~ Humdingers

Patience is putting your motor in idle
when you want to strip your gears.
Unknown

Humdingers...

      This is a place in Newsdump, where true stories are humorous, perhaps interesting, even pithy. But they will definitely stretch the mind.

Can you believe it?...

      For many years my northern friend liked the older style Mercury Cougars. Had three of them in fact, 89, 90, 95. When they moved to the south, their 95 Cougar went in the shop for warranty transmission work. Afterwards, it drove worse than before. They took their Cougar back to the dealer's service department to tell them that the car was not driving as well as before the transmission work. In fact, it made noises that it did not make before. They were told, "The new parts have to get used to the old parts."
      NOT.

Something to remember...

Election trivia. Whenever there is an election campaign, and the media persona of the candidates seems to be the only substance of their appearance, one has to think back to before current times. In the 50s, when Adelai Stevenson ran against Dwight D. Eisenhower the candidates met the public without a thought of being camera ready. There is a well-known picture of Stevenson who had been on the non-stop campaign trail sitting on a stage making notes before a speech with a hole in the sole of his shoe.

More than could be imagined...

Rice, rice rice. A newlywed was learning to cook. Her mother was a thousand miles away and she was in Cajun country. Every local dish either had rice in it or as a side dish. The meal she planned called for rice as a side dish. She went to her Cajun landlady and asked how to cook rice for her Cajun dinner guests. The landlady, who was very "mothering" to her, gave her specific instructions on how to boil the rice until it was half cooked. Then drain and rinse it and put it in a colander over a pan of water, cover and steam it. When it came time to decide how much rice to cook, she neglected to read the box, and measured out a cup of rice for each of the four that would be there for dinner. As the rice boiled, she had to get a larger pan. By the time it was steamed, it was working its way over the edges of the colander. When it was fully cooked she had to put it in the largest mixing bowl in her kitchen!

Life's little ironies...

Music on the wall. In the late 1960s, a friend's son wanted to take violin lessons. His parents were leery. Violin rentals were expensive and he was not know for his stick-to-it-ness. His uncle had an old violin and offered it to them, but it needed new strings, His parents thought this was a cost efficient way to get the violin for the lessons. The strings back then were $10 each. As it turned out he quit taking the lessons half way through the school year.

After that the violin sat in its case for several months collecting dust. Finally, they returned it to the uncle who in turn gave it to his daughter. The daughter was good at home decorating. She put it on the wall of their family room, and put artificial flowers around it. Whereupon, every time his mother and father saw it, they would grump to anyone who would listen how they had spent $50 so the violin could be a wall decoration.

The chances we take...

Speed, speed, speed. In the mid-70s, a gal we know was out driving her 71 T-Bird on a flat mid-west country road. The driver of a Javelin with dealer plates kept buzzing her. He would come up almost to her bumper stay there for a few minutes and then pass her. Then he would slow down and drive ten miles under the 55mph speed limit. She decided to pass him. Once again, he would come up

behind her and hovered near her bumper. Then suddenly he passed her only to slow down. She passed him a second time. As before, he rode her bumper and then started to pass her. The third time this happened, she realized the road was familiar to her and she could see for miles ahead. And she was alone, no children with her, and her seat belt was on. As the Javelin passed her a third time, she wanted to see what her well maintained V-8 T-Bird could do. With the pedal to the floor, she dragged him until her car got to 110 mph. It was then she realized this was not what a mother of two should be doing. Suddenly, she let up on the accelerator. The Javelin not expecting this shot past her. She had challenged him and let him know she was not someone to reckon with. He decided to just keep on going.

Ahhhhhhhh youth and hot cars. That story reminded me of a time when I was 21, seven months pregnant and living in the Republic of Panama. We had a new Volkswagen and I was proficient with a stick shift. To and from our border town in the interior of Panama there was a long stretch of hairpin curves on the side of a small mountain in the Canal Zone. The local Cheva busses were old and they would lumber up the side of the mountain at a crawl. On occasion, at the base of the mountain we Americans who had hot cars would get a good look to see that nothing was coming down the other side of the mountain. Then we would put our foot to the floor and pass the slower traffic. For me, it became routine. On one occasion I went to the air base to pick up a friend who was spending the day at our house. As we returned to our town, I did my usual scan of the road ahead, down shifted, accelerated and my car shot passed the traffic. Smug in my feat, I looked at my passenger. He was white faced and pressed into his bucket seat. When he relaxed, he turned to me and said, "Have you ever thought of trying out for the Indianapolis 500!"

Does the law really work?...

A C-H-O-B* interview. In the 1990s and even into the 2000s, we have talked to many people about their job search, most especially the job interview. Regardless of the laws that certain questions are not to be asked, many men and women tell us that they are asked about their religious participation, their children, where their spouse works. So much for the law. We have even learned that a state agency would have the job interviewer

collect the form their applicants filled out for government statistics that among other things told their age. But the applicants were told that the interviewers did not look at the form in their hand. Yeah, right. One job seeker we know is over 50 and a full figured gal, who has a good work background, several degrees, interview training and no criminal record. In the past five years, she has been interviewed excessively with no job offers. When this gal discussed this with her job coach, he suggested that she may be the "token" interviewee. The businesses and organizations can check a lot of boxes to satisfy government requirements. They can check over 40, gender, minority and graduate degree. And, since she is a local resident where she applies for work, it does not cost them any resources to have her go to their location. **

A head scratcher...

Why, why, why? Its 2002, and fatal, debilitating and chronic diseases like ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), Muscular Dystrophy, Cystic Fibrosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Diabetes and Alzheimer's disease to name some, still have no cure and few even have controls. In fact, ALS is no more controlled or treatable than it was in the 1950s when it was first publicly recognized. Alzheimer's patients not only have no cure, they do not even have the modest controls that diabetics have. And yet, the busy work and

the charades go on unchecked. There is no real accountability in fundraising, big and small, with walks and runs for the cures. Could these all be hoaxes played on the public? And when will someone blow the whistle on these sacred cows...the American medical research doctors, research establishments, pharmaceutical companies...for taking the money and running?
Why are we not surprised?

*CHOB is our family's word for job.
**Misc. job info...Green Thumb, Inc., is a government-backed program that helps place job seekers over 50 in full and part-time jobs.