Saint Burt Day

Today we remember Saint Burt who once said,

"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That's the only thing that there's just too little of."

It was also Saint Burt who said,

"What do you get when you kiss a guy?
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia.
After you do they never phone ya' "

So there is no confusion and although he is special,
it is not Saint Burt Rue de Sesame that we celebrate today.

May you have a Blessed Saint Burt Day.

She Opened Up a 55 Gallon Drum of Whup-Ass

This story and picture were in today's online version of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

It made me smile and want to say, "You go girl." This ol' boy got his butt royally kicked.

Story by Jennifer Baker - Picture by Sharon Coolridge

SOUTH FAIRMOUNT – A 30-year-old man was arrested and charged with burglary Thursday after the female homeowner chased him out of her house and then held him down until police arrived.

Lonnie Lane, who has no home according to court records, had visible head injuries during his arraignment in Hamilton County Municipal Court. He had white bandages wrapped around his head.

Lane's lawyer, Dan Reif, said his client thought the home in the 1600 block of Waverly Avenue was vacant.

"He's already been punished,'' said Reif, referring to the injuries. (Oh yeah? I think not!)

Hamilton County Municipal Judge Richard Bernat set bond for Lane at $25,000.

Some information that did not get included in the Enquirers story was that the lady that owned the home had been a victim recently of a home robbery.

She was not taking this crap again. After beating this guy senseless she held him down until police arrived and she stayed until he got medical attention.

This lady deserves a commendation.

A Poem

by JFPO

The little bear sleeps
in his little bear skin so sweet in winters repose.

I slept last night in my little bare skin.
By golly, I nearly froze.

Potpourrei Of Random Thoughts

I really like President Obama's economic stimulus plan. Give Banks money. Yep, makes sense to me.

I believe the Earth is flat. Approximately 10% of the Earth's population can sing on key. Very few people people sing sharp. So it makes perfect sense, the Earth is flat.

What is the deal with vampires? In the late 1990's there was a TV series about a teenage vampire slayer and in this decade there is a popular series of books called The Twilight Saga. Why the fascination?

Corn addiction has taken over the world. Think about it. Corn syrup replaced sugar back in the 1960's due to the Cuba missle crisis when the United States stopped all imports of Cuban sugar. Corn syrup and milled corn are additives in all kinds of food products. Food is fried in corn oil. Most of the gasoline in the United States has ethanol as an additive. Our pets eat food enriched with corn meal. It's fed to cattle. Oh yeah, the make whiskey out of it too. So while we don't exactly have to get our daily fix of corn on the cob or Green Giant Niblets, we none the less have a bad corn jones. Think about that the next time you drink a Diet Pepsi.

Womens shoe fashion is just plain silly. A few years ago the ladies were sporting these rediculous clunkie shoes with big high heels and big soles. Thank goodness that has changed. But now they all wear high heels with these incredibly long sharp pointy toes. They look goofy and must be terribly uncomfortable. Men that hate women must design them.




President Obama promised change in government. That is all we heard about for months and months last year. I know it has only been two months since he has taken office, but I am seeing very little change in government. I guess he wouldn't have won with the phrase, "Same ol', same ol'", but that appears to be his current course of action.


The drive-up ATM at my bank has the keypad coded in Braille. That is a puzzler.

Fats Domino - His Own Words

I would hate for someone to construe this as racist. That is not my intent. I am fascinated by the way people talk.



I used to think it hilarious when the McKenzie Brothers were on SCTV doing their Great White North show. When I met some Canadians, eh!, I figured ooouut that's how some of them talk.

Folks in my part of the world often say, y'all instead of everyone. And sometimes they use the word youse instead of y'all or everyone.


The TV series Happy Days would occasionally have the characters sing the song "Blueberry Hill" when Richie alluded to the girl he took out on a date.

This song is an old one, but the most popular version was done by bandleader and singer Fats Domino. I was never quite certain what language he was using for the lyrics. I suppose it was sort of Creole Pidgin English. See if you agree with the lyrics that I hear Fats singing.

Ah foun mah trill,
oin blueburry hill.
oin blueburry hill
wain ah metchoo.

Dah moon was sill
oin blueburry hills
it lingered until
mah dreams came true

Dah win in dah willis play
lubs swee mah-lodee
butt all ub dah bowels shu made
war nebba tubby.

Doe we a pah-hat
I buttah you sill.
Fah you wah mah trill
oin blueburry hill.

Next time you have the oldies station on the radio and they play Blueberry Hill listen and see if you don't agree, these are the words that Fats is singing.

The Watchmen

My wife and I haven't been to a movie in a long time at a theater. So this past week seemed to be a good occasion to visit the local Cinema 20 plus complex. The Watchmen was there, which I assumed was a movie about crime-fighting super-heroes that evaporated the bad guys with their other-worldly super powers. Boy was I wrong.


To tell you the truth, I'm not at all sure what the movie was about. It was sort of a bleak film noir. The story was narrated by a guy named Rorschach that wears a white sack over his noggin that has Rorschach images fade and change shapes.

The story line is about some super-heroes from the 1940's that got old and quit to have kids, get jobs or become alcoholics and worse.

The new group of Super guys and girls that took over includes some of their offspring, except for Rorschach and the Blue Guy.

It is sort of a what-if film.

As, what if America won the Viet Nam war because they had a secret weapon that was a giant Blue Guy with super powers and Nixon was elected over and over again as president.

Now I can handle over-gratuitous violence in a movie. Most war, space, super-hero etc. movies are full of computer aided graphically enhanced violence which we are conditioned to and come to expect.

What I can't handle is two-hours of watching some well proportioned Blue naked guy with his schwanstuker exposed throughout most of the movie. This has burned a vision in my brain. Mommy please make it go away! The character called Dr. Manahattan would be more aptly named Dr. Johnson.

He wore a posing pouch while defeating the Vietnamese. He wore a suit at other public events. So where is the blurry thing or the black sensor box? I demand a blurry thingie or a sensor box.

The film had some excellent music from the 1960-1970's. It also had some news footage of the Watts race riots and a re-enactment of the Kent State massacre.

In my opinion this is a very long, extremely long, lengthy, did I say long, preachy movie which would have been much better if they spent a few more dollars on costumes.

This is definitely not a movie for children.

Lincoln's Watch

My Grandmother once bought a Life Magazine for me that had the story of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and also a picture of the President when his body was exhumed to be moved to the Memorial.

Because there had been one attempt to steal his body and hold it for ransom, the law enforcement of the day decided they ought to be sure the 16th President was still there. He was.

Since Abraham Lincoln was the best President this country has ever seen, it is fascinating when some new oddity or trivia is discovered. In a scene right out of National Treasure, the movie that claims secrets exist in documents and artifacts within our National Museum, Smithsonian and other historic places, it was discovered that Lincoln's pocket watch contained secret writing.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A gold watch owned by Abraham Lincoln bears a message marking the start of the U.S. Civil War, but the president never knew of the "secret" inscription uncovered on Tuesday at the National Museum of American History.

The engraving, by watchmaker Jonathan Dillon, is dated April 13, 1861, and reads in part: "Fort Sumter was attacked by the rebels" and "thank God we have a government."
The museum said it agreed to open the watch to find out if the message really was there after it was contacted by the watchmaker's great-great-grandson, Doug Stiles of Waukegan, Illinois.

The American Civil War began when Confederate troops opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861.

Forty-five years later, Dillon the watchmaker told The New York Times that he was repairing Lincoln's watch when he heard that the first shots of the Civil War had been fired.

Dillon said he unscrewed the dial of the watch and used a sharp instrument to mark the historic day on the president's watch. He told the newspaper that, as far as he knew, no one had ever seen the inscription.

"Lincoln never knew of the message he carried in his pocket," Brent Glass, director of the National Museum of American History said in a statement. "It's a personal side of history about an ordinary watchman being inspired to record something for posterity."

Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States in November 1860. In the lead up to the Civil War, South Carolina and six other states seceded from the Union before Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861.

I'LL MISS UNCLE AL

Uncle Al died on Saturday February 28.

Boy am I sad.

For a kid born in the 1950's in the Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky area the typical weekday morning ritual began with getting a bowl of cornflakes and sitting in front of the 24" Sylvania console TV at 8:30 am watching Uncle Al and Captain Windy.


Uncle Al was just plain fascinating to a three year old.

This guy could do anything.

He could draw pictures. He could play accordion. He could sing. He could play guitar. He could play banjo. He flew an airplane. (He was a licensed pilot) Was there anything he couldn't do?

Plus his wife was Captain Windy. She could fly! Honest! And she wore a cape. (see my treatise on capes). My parents were great, but didn't play musical instruments, fly airplanes and my Mom couldn't even fly.

Not only that Uncle Al sold stuff. And he sang about the stuff he sold.

B-A-R-Q apostrophe S
That spells Barq's and it's the best.
Are you thirsty, well I guess,
it's B-A-R-Q-S root beer.

and

My good friends are Pat and Joe
Pat and Joe, Pat and Joe
My good friends are Pat and Joe
They'll save your Mommy dough.

and the best was the second verse:

Then we'll get some lollipops too
Lollipops too, lollipops too.
Then we'll get some lollipops too
They'll save your Mommy dough.

And of course,

Mommas little baby loves
Mommas Cookies
Mommas little baby loves
Mommas best.

Mommas little baby loves
Mommas Cookies
Mommas little baby loves
Mommas best.

Uncle Al and Captain Windy were joined by various folks. There was Uncle Al's dog, Pal the Dog and Lucky the Clown. The Merry Mailman brought mail every day. Yes, back in the day, mailmen used to be merry.

Patches was a clown of sorts that appeared on the show. Also Ringo-Rango was the token cowboy, his name from a song of the era.

The weather report was done by children after singing, "What is the weather today, today? What is the weather today? Will it rain, will it snow, will it sunshine tell us so?" after which a child would appear dressed up as a cloud or the sun or a snowflake.

There were some very real folks that appeared or worked behind the scenes, Mike Tangi, Bob Shreve, Tom McGreavy, Larry Smith and his magical puppets, Janet Greene and Jack Williams. Even Seymour Duncan, a fellow that has become world renown for his excellent guitar pickups had a brief tenure on the show.














The show ran from 1950 to 1985. There were aproximately 15,000 episodes and over 440,000 children were guests on the show.

We all learned how to dance the Hokey Pokey. The show opened each morning with a song from Walt Disney's Pinnochio called "Following The Leader" and in later years it closed with another Disney tune, "It's A Small World" with the children marching off the set.


Uncle Al's favorite story was of a lady that came up to him and confessed to being the little girl that tinkled in his accordian. Yep. Uncle Al had to send his beloved accordian back to Milwaukee to be repaired due to wee-wee in the bellows. He had a tough time explaining that to the manufacturer.


Uncle Al closed each show with a prayer. Try doing that on television today and you'd not only get letters, you'd have the ACLU on your back.

But Uncle Al was a Christian and every morning we all folded our little hands and said:

"Help me, God, to love you more,
Than I ever did before,
In my work and in my play,
Please be with me through the day,
Thank you for the friends we meet,
Thank you for the food we eat,
Thank you for the birds that sing,
Thank you, God, for everything!"

Uncle Al and Captain Windy retired to their farm in Hillsboro Ohio to retire and entertain their children and grandchildren. We baby boomers in this area grew up with him and will miss him very much. Those were special times and Al and Wanda Lewis were special people.

The funeral mass was said today for Uncle Al, but I am told there were some wonderful additions to his service.

The Channel 9 Logo from the 1950's was displayed. Commercial jingles were played for those in attendance and everyone danced the Hokey Poky. The service concluded with the voice of Uncle Al reciting his shows closing prayer.

Uncle Al and Captain Windy made a difference. May God bless his soul and give his family comfort.

Uncle Al also has a message to pass along to Colton, Hope, Benjamin and Trevan. He used to sing this song:

"Put your toys away,
don't delay.
Then when you want them,
you can find them right away.
Put your toys away,
don't delay.
Help your Mommy have a
happy day."