Reminder: have a seat. I say "reminder" because it's at the end of the Bleat as well, and this alerts you to its existence.

I hope Father's Day went well for all concerned. I tweeted this little ad from the 50s, showing how things have changed. Rather modest gift idea:

"Mello-Crumb."

This might be the only time I've seen a Celebrated Father wear a crown and sport a pair of wings. Well, the pair is implied, unless we're supposed to think he flies in hapless circles hitting his head on tree limbs and ceiling beans. Why does he have to have wings? He's an angel! So he's dead? No, he's a celestial being! He's a good man! And does the missus cut holes in the back of his suit jacket?

I'm wondering if the boss of Clipo-Art, Inc. stopped by the drawing table, nodded, said "add a wing" and moved off, or if the artist came up with that on his own. I'm wondering if this was much more common than I think. I am now on the lookout for more winged / kinged dads.

I went to Home Depot to get gas. Later, I went it the gas station for a hammer. No, kidding. Home Depot has the fuel I need for the lawn mower, a special blend untainted by the Devil’s Plasma, ethanol.

I had my earbuds in, because I am a modern person who has to be entertained at all times. In this case I was listening to a podcast about Custer’s Last Stand, which probably wasn’t a stand at all, and the subsequent careers of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. It made me think of the great carving underway in South Dakota, the enormous Crazy Horse mountain that consisted of a hand and a nose when I was first there as a child, and now has a hand, a nose, and an eye. I think it’s slated for completion in 2257. Once a day they blow up some dynamite to make the people in the gift shop think they were there when work was being done. The hosts of the podcast have great empathy for Misters Bull and Horse, and - ah, an open register.

I went over and picked up the beeping wand. The attendant came over and said something, so I removed my earbuds.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you?”

“Do you need assistance?”

“I do not, thank you.” I beeped my two items and bagged them. The attendant appeared again in my peripheral vision, and said something.

I removed my earbuds.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you?”

“I said you could save $25 today if you apply for a Home Depot credit card.”

“No thank you,” I said, and proceeded. I returned to listening about what Sitting Bull went through in the Buffalo Bill days. I did feel a bit bad, as though I had been antisocial, what with the earbuds and all. Did I really need to be listening to a podcast? Could I not have lived in the moment and taken in the ambient noise of the great hardware store, with its distant whine of blades cutting fresh wood, the chatter of kids who want some candy from the checkout, the beeping wands, the . . . the distant whine of blades?

No, I’m good, there’s nothing here I really need to hear. I would rather learn about Sitting Bull.

It was raining when I returned to my car. It would rain all day, which had given me a pass on the onerous - sorry the glorious, magnificent, industrious exercise I get when I cut the lawn. It meant I could work on stuff. Wife was playing tennis, and I could work on stuff. So I went home and stuff was worked upon.

Later that evening Wife returned from her third tennis engagement of the day - six hours, the woman is a machine - and announced she wanted to take a hot bath to loosen up.

"Do we have any Epsom Salts?" she asked.

What is this, 1927? Do you want me to fetch a mustard plaster as well? Epsom Salts? is what I wanted to say. What I said was:

"Yes, of course."

A few years ago I had a horrible problem with a particular toe. I'm not sure I mentioned it because who cares and no one wants to hear about your bothersome toe. The pain was electric, and required me to wear an immobilizing boot. It happened over Christmas. Wife went to Arizona to see her relatives, and I stayed with the dog, which meant hobbling around like a golem on icy sidewalks with an immobilizing boot, shouting PUTTIN ON THE RITZ if I met anyone. The nurse practitioner had advised soaking the pedal extremity in the aforementioned Salts, subset Epsom, and this I did. Accomplished nothing, but the pain of the hot water took my mind off the pain of the toe.

We still had a big bag of the stuff, which I was able to produce in a trice, thus continuing my reputation for having an OTC nostrum to fit every household need. In Mexico a while back Wife scraped her knee on the courts, and hey presto, antiseptic and big Band-Aids! I'm still waiting for the day we're in Tuscany and she abrades her gums on a crust of bread and I can produce a tube of Orajel.

Gums! Dang, forgot, I have a dentist's appointment in the morning. Well, better start flossing.

Are any of these brands still around? As we go on, week by week, the balance shifts to "no."

This filing has no claim to the representation of a label per se. Probably boilerplate legalese to keep someone from patenting the idea of a bottle label.

Mm-mmm - Mexican whiskey!

Tijuana whiskey! And it's bottled in bond. In Tijuana. Suuuuuure it is.

Wait a minute.

Why are they patenting this in the US in 1924?

It says "aguardiente" under the horse, but that's not his name. It's Spanish for "strong liquor."

- a Twilight Zone without a twist. A cop working nights gets an order to go a certain place, where there’s a truck, and more people show up, and the radio says nuclear war is imminent. HOW WILL EVERYONE REACT?

I know - it's been a while, hasn't it? What the hell is going on?

That’s rather generic, but it keeps us in suspense.

This makes The Ghost sound less than effective. If you remember what happened, the fuzz showed up, the spy got suspicious, pulled a gat, and the Ghost’s henchman plugged him. It wasn’t wise.

You know, the old wooden schooners you find down at the docks in LA.

Tracy gets knocked out. The Ghost, invisible for some reason, picks up an axe, and instead of hacking Tracy to death, decides to drop a box on him. We all know Tracy will wake up and roll away in time, but that’s the fun!

WAIT A MINUTE

You mean he survived that?

The Ghost escapes, of course, because it’s only episode 6. He goes in a motorboat and Tracy’s assistant chases him in a rowboat. He actually catches up with him as he’s about to escape, and gets plugged for his trouble.

Tracy tells the League of Industrialists that he’s at a private hospital for treatment, an unessential bit of loose-lippery necessary for the plot, since of the members of the League is, in fact, the Ghost, and wants to kill the assistant. I don’t know why. Maybe because he saw the Ghost turning solid, and knows he has the power of invisibility? Anyway, the Ghost’s men have Jim, Tracy’s friend - which pretty much establishes that one of the League is the Ghost.

No one seems to realize this.

Tracy pursues, day-for-night gun battle. It’s absolutely interminable and ends with Tracy in a shack that’s being bombed by a biplane. Hence the besieging, I guess.

All action, and not very interesting. I suppose for some people these were just something you sat through without paying particular attention, and that’s what I did here. Let us hope for something a bit better next time.

That will do for today, Bleat wise; Matchbooks and a Diner await. See you around.

Annnd, once again, the Diner.