A Georgia Gem

We have a little piece of history about 10 miles from where I live.  In the little town of Harlem, Georgia there is a small brick building that houses the Laurel and Hardy Museum. It's a kitschy place and very dated, but it recalls a simpler time when we were amused by the film antics of a couple of funny-looking men who could make us laugh with nothing more than a facial expression and a few words.

I know that some of you are too young to remember Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Their career in Hollywood faded in 1955 after Hardy was diagnosed with lung cancer and Laurel suffered a stroke within a few months of that.  Oliver Hardy died within two years, while Stan laurel lived until 1965, but never acted again. Laurel and Hardy were the precursors to other famous pairs like Bud Abbot and Lou Costello and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, but in many ways they were even more famous than these later comedians.

If you've never seen a Laurel and Hardy movie, you can find several on YouTube or by entering their names in your Internet search engine.  Or you can visit the museum in a refurbished post office building in Harlem, the town where Oliver Norvell Hardy was born. They have most of the films and will show you one of your choice in the theater on premises.

Of course, the most famous Oliver and Hardy line,  uttered by the hapless screw-up and overweight clown, Oliver Hardy while the meek and diminutive Laurel looks contrite is often misquoted as, "Well, here's another fine mess you've gotten me into."  The actual quote didn't include the word fine, but instead always used the word nice.  The confusion might come from the fact that the quote was first used in a 1930 movie short titled, Another Fine Mess.

Another trademark of the duo was that Laurel always addressed Hardy by his nickname, Ollie, and he warbled it is such a way that it sounded even funnier, and elicited a sour expression from Hardy. 

Most visitors come to Augusta for the golf tournament that made this community world famous, The Masters.  However, if you're here anyway, and you have some time to see the sights, be sure to include the Oliver and Hardy Museum during your stay.  It's only a short drive up I-20 toward Atlanta, and I know you'll love it.  

While you're in Harlem, take the time to visit Lucky Lady Pecans and pick up some of the best flavored pecans in Georgia.  The museum and the pecan store will be almost as memorable as the golf tournament.

There is a museum for Stan Laurel, too, but it is over in England in the town where he was born, Ulverston, Cumbria.  Needless to say, it is a little harder to visit.

Pay It Forward

This week I'm borrowing the title for my column from the book by Catherine Ryan Hyde and the 2000 movie of the same name based in her book.  The theme of that book and the movie was, "When someone does you a big favor, don't pay it back ... pay it forward."  Well, last week I was afforded the opportunity to do just that. 

A few weeks ago I related the story of the trip my son and I took to New Zealand back in the 1970s.  On that occasion we stayed with a man and his family at their ranch on the outskirts of Auckland.  They were so friendly and hospitable that Brad and I were able to see and do several things that we would otherwise have missed.  Even more helpful was the fact that my host wouldn't allow me to pay for gas or admission to the sights and activities.

Last year a good friend in Kansas City told me that her grandson is a good golfer and that her daughter-in-law was proposing a high school graduation gift for him—a trip to Augusta to go to The Masters.  She had a pretty good line on the admission badge and was ready with airfare, but even at that early a date she was unable to find lodging for him.

Hotels in Augusta are sold out well in advance of the golf tournament.  However, since the city is overrun by tourists during Masters Week, and the roads and restaurants and such are congested with the visitors, many Augustans take their vacations during that week and rent their houses for a tidy sum to either pay for the vacation or, in some cases, to pay the mortgage for the whole year.  Even the schools here participate by taking their Spring Break during Masters Week.

When my friend told me that lodging was the big problem, I volunteered that maybe we could put the boy up in our spare bedroom if that was the only thing preventing him from coming for the golf.  She thanked me for the offer and said she would relay it to her daughter-in-law.  We left it at that.

In January of this year I received another message regarding the trip.  Some things had changed.  Now it wasn't only the grandson who was slated to come, but his father as well.  Was the offer still good?

I don't believe that I had discussed any of this with my dear wife until that time, but I broke the news to her and asked how she felt about it.  I'm not going to repeat her initial reaction for several reasons, the best of which is it wasn't very ladylike.  (She doesn't read my columns so, unless my daughter tells on me, she won't know I wrote that)  However, she did come around and said that the 2-bedroom town home we live in isn't large enough to accommodate three adults and a teenager.  Therefore, the best solution would be for the two of us to stay with my daughter and her family, since they live about 10 minutes away, and give the two boys our place to themselves for the two nights they would be here.

I relayed the word and the plan moved forward.  Everything else fell into place, and a week ago last night the two flew into Atlanta and drove over to Augusta.  All went well and even the weather cooperated on Saturday.  Sunday would have been a different story.

We met for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel on Sunday morning and got our key back and the two of them headed back to Atlanta, where they were going to watch the last round somewhere and then catch the flight back to KC. 

When we arrived home we found a few surprises, a gift card for our favorite steak house and two crystal wine glasses with the Masters imprint on them.  The gift card will be used very soon, but we decided that the wine glasses will only be used during Masters Week.  They are special and large enough that each holds almost a full bottle of wine. I will treasure them.

You must have noticed that I didn't use any names in the writing of this column.  That's because I don't want to jinx the kid, who is going to college on a golf scholarship.  And who knows?  He might someday be in the Masters himself.  If so, you'll hear it from me then.

So there's my column, and I've fulfilled my pledge to "Pay it forward."  I cannot describe how good that makes me feel. 

If you ever have someone do that something special for you—and we all do have some incident of that nature during our lives—I hope that you too have the opportunity to do something to "pay it forward," because paying it back somehow demeans the act and makes it less memorable.

Intended Consequences

No, I didn't mislabel my column for this week.  I truly believe that what I am about to reveal was fully intended as the federal method of dealing with healthcare reform to limit government cost while fully controlling the populace.

My wife and I each received a disturbing letter this week from our long term insurer, State Farm Insurance.  It concerned a premium increase that will take effect on the policy anniversary date in June.

We purchased long-term care policies in June of  2000.  Of course we hope never to use them, but we took the precautions all the same.  The coverage is very basic and did not include any inflation factor, so it pays $100-per-day after a 90-day waiting period. I think you'll agree that $3,000-per month is not sufficient to cover the full cost of care, but it is a supplement to our own out-of-pocket expenses, should we need long-term care.

Our premiums over the past 13 years have never before increased.  They have remained constant at $834 and $558 respectively, for a total of $1392.  It is a payment that I don't regret making.

The letters we received this week informed us of the increase in premium to $1000 for me, and $670 for Judy.  That is a 20% increase, and benefits will remain the same as they are. We have options that we can exercise to lower the premiums, but that will also lower the benefits and we do not want to do that, so we will pay the increase.

I have to ask myself why this increase came about.  The insurance company says that the costs of long-term  care and the frequency of LTCI claims are increasing, and I can accept that as a partial reason.  But the increase also coincides with the implementation of the new "Affordable Health Care Act" commonly referred to as Obamacare.  I must conclude that at least some of that premium increase is tied to that event even though State Farm does not specifically say so.

It is becoming increasingly clear to me that a lot of health care premiums are going up while health care is being curtailed.  This trend will likely continue and be even more pronounced in the coming months and years as Obamacare comes into being.

It remains to be seen whether the number of doctors who have threatened to retire, leave their practice, or refuse to accept any new Medicare patients will actually do so.  If only a fraction of them take action, it will further limit our choices of doctors and treatments while increasing premiums still further.

In short, the new healthcare is shaping up to be a total disaster for everyone.  It doesn't appear that congress will be able to alter or repeal it, so be prepared for a huge change. That is what we were promised and what we voted for, after all, wasn't it?

Blue Tooth Forsooth

There is a new and disturbing phenomenon taking place in this country... It is actually two phenomena. I’m certain that you’ve experienced both of them.

We always tell our kids--well, now it's the grandkids--to turn the volume down on their radios, usually when they are playing music.  Then, when they don’t listen to us and keep the volume cranked up, we tell them that they’ll lose their hearing if they continue to listen to loud music.

We already have a lot of people who have lost their hearing, and they aren’t all kids.  Have you noticed, as I have, that there are a lot of people walking around with hearing aids?

I thought modern technology was miniaturizing everything except TVs, which seem to keep getting larger and larger.  But the hearing aids I see are pretty visible, with strange pointers sticking out of them.  Some even have little blue lights on them.

 

 Not only do people have those hearing aids, but they also have apparently gone crazy, too, because many of them walk around talking to themselves.  I hear these one-sided conversations all the time.

I've come to the conclusion that the loud noises must cause both hearing loss and mental disorders. Maybe it's the stuff those people listen to that also makes them crazy.

I sure am blessed with good fortune, because my hearing is almost perfect.  Of course, I do a little of the talking-to-myself stuff, but there is a difference... I usually have the answers to the questions I ask!

           

I know, it's meaningless in this context, but I like the picture.

What A Way To Go

Now that I'm a septuagenarian, I am bombarded by health advocates who want to practice "preventive medicine" on me.  Not a week goes by that I don't get mailers advertising hearing aids and other devices and aids for the elderly.

But the real kick came last week, when I received a health alert from University Hospital here in Augusta in my email Inbox.  In it was a list of preventive care screenings that I am eligible for through Medicare and that are overdue.  They included colonoscopy, td/tdap, hemmocult, prostate cancer screening, digital rectal exam and flu shot.

The first action I had to take was a search of the Internet to learn what some of those ominous-sounding screenings were.  (Isn't the Internet grand, that we can learn just about anything in short order on it?)  Then I had to think about whether or not I really wanted to subject myself to some of those procedures.

I won't bore you with my medical history here, other than to state that some of those tests and shots are already accomplished.  However, I have a real aversion to volunteering for some of them.  I also have a theory that some things are better left undone.

I am convinced that some health problems--cancer, for one--are aggravated and/or initiated by the very tests to detect them.   I don't have any factual proof to back that up, but I do believe that when cancer cells are exposed to air, they seem to take off and start multiplying.

There are a lot of people who have had cancer that went into remission, but there are many more whom, once the disease was detected and treatment was started, died in a very short time.  One has to question the timing from onset to terminal.

Here's another reason I don't care to undergo uncomfortable screenings and procedures: Since I am already on the cusp of the hereafter, do I really care how I go?  Everybody's got to die of something, and, for me, I suspect my "something" is well established as coronary artery disease.  To learn that I also have another deadly disease would just be adding insult to injury.

With such a morbid topic, I can't leave you in a funk over it, so here is a little "kicker."

My barbershop quartet has a song we sing called, "Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven" that has a great ending.  The last line is, "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die!"  Isn't that the truth? 

If I have to go anyway, I’d just as soon go out quickly and painlessly.  But if that is not to be, and I have to linger on awhile, I prefer to go out like this guy-note what’s in the IV bag.

The Whole Nine Yards

Note: I originally published this column in January of 2007,but it still has relevance today, so I'm going to edit it only slightly and repeat it.

While I was watching one of the bowl games, I heard an announcer use the term “the whole nine yards.”  That phrase has always held a certain mystique for me.  It sounded incongruous in the context of a football game, since ten yards is the distance required to gain a first down.  “The whole nine yards”’ is a yard short of the marker. 

Since I first heard that discordant expression, I have heard and seen it used several more times, including in the title of a movie starring Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry.  I even ran across it in a book I was reading.  I’m fascinated by etymology anyway, so I decided to do a search for the term online to see where it originated.  Boy, was I surprised!

I’m convinced that everybody thinks they know what “the whole nine yards” means, but there are a whole host of differing opinions as to where the term originated.  To save you the time and effort, I’m going to summarize them for you.

                       

1. It refers to the amount of cloth needed to tailor a three-piece suit of the finest quality.  A gentleman who wanted to get “dressed to the nines” would order “the whole nine yards” from the tailor.
2. Nine cubic yards is the capacity of a ready-mix cement truck.  A big job would require “the whole nine yards.”
3. Coal trucks in England supposedly had three sections, each containing three cubic yards of coal.  If an especially cold winter were forecast, the customer would order “the whole nine yards.”
4. Three-masted sailing ships had nine yardarms, the horizontal poles that held up the sails.  When the captain wanted to get full advantage of the wind, he would call for “the whole nine yards.”
5. The amount of material in a bride’s wedding train could be any amount, but if she were to have the finest wedding she would require “the whole nine yards” in a bolt of material.
6. The amount of dirt removed to dig a proper grave is said to be nine cubic yards. If a person goes “the whole nine yards” he has expired.  (Interesting, that one)
7. As long as we’re on the subject, a funeral shroud is also supposed to be “a whole nine yards” of material. (Hmmm!)
8. Material used to come in bolts of nine yards at the general store.  Embedded in the counter were brass nails spaced three feet apart to measure the material.  When someone needed only a few yards, then they “got down to brass tacks,” but otherwise they requested “the whole nine yards.”
9. The term supposedly refers to a football team that didn’t play their best game.  They went “the whole nine yards” and lost.
10. It refers to the length of a belt of bullets used in fighter planes (or bombers turrets, depending on who’s version you read) during the Second World War.  If the enemy plane was really hard to shoot down, the gunner was said to have used “the whole nine yards.”  Alternately, if the mission was going to be a long and difficult one, the gunners requested “the whole nine yards.”

Of all these definitions, the first and the last seem to be the most popular, although none of them, including those two, is entirely accurate.  And surprisingly, the term, “the whole nine yards” only came into being sometime in the late 1960’s; the first printed reference was in 1967.  Surely there would have been some reference to it in all the films, books and articles written during and after WW II if it had been a common term used by aviators.

I’m afraid the term, “the whole nine yards” will remain shrouded—Oh Gosh, another pun—in mystery.  In short, there is no definitive answer as to where the term came from or who originated it.  It’s no wonder it covers a multitude of situations, and usually means “went the distance.”

If anyone out there knows the true origination of the term, please feel free to write back to me and clear it up.  I’ll be happy to publish an addendum.

Fisherman's Paradise

I read a column earlier this week about the childhood joys of fishing.  That column brought back a memory of the best, if most unproductive, fishing adventure I ever took.  You see, I am not a fisherman and never was very good at the sport, though I did spend many a day casting and waiting. I guess I just didn't have the patience for it.

So, how, you ask, did an uninspired angler have an unforgettable experience on the water?  Well, it wasn't your average fishing spot for one thing. It was a fisherman's paradise.

Let me set the scene for you, because this story has world-wide roots...

In 1968, on my first overseas trip to Europe, I visited Athens.  While there, I met a man from New Zealand.  We were both in the lobby of our hotel and both asking the concierge about good places to have dinner.  The concierge pointed us toward a nice restaurant near the Plaka and we decided that we would share a table and a meal.

What started as a chance encounter turned into an interesting evening of swapping travel stories.  At the end of it we exchanged business cards and Bob invited me to visit him at his ranch near Auckland if I ever got to New Zed, as the natives call it.

Fast forward ten years, and a drawing at our company Christmas party yielded me a trip on Air New Zealand.  (I worked for American Airlines, and back in those days all the airlines had very cordial relations and reciprocal pass privileges.)  Still having Bob's card in my wallet, I decided then and there that I would take him up on his offer of free lodging and a motor tour of the North Island.

The trip pass was for two, and since my wife wasn't amenable to international flying, I determined to take my 10-year-old son with me on a trip to both New Zealand and Australia.

Brad and I made the trip in April of 1977.  The day we arrived in Auckland, Bob met us at the airport and we visited his favorite pub.  While there, Bob talked me into playing the trifecta for the horse races that afternoon, and we each chipped in $2.50.  You know the rest was preordained... we won about $500 on 100-1 odds. 

With all that bounty, we set off early the next morning for the town of Whangarei near the northern tip of the North Island and its fishing port, Tutukaka.  We chartered a boat for the day and left at daybreak for the Poor Knights Islands and a day of deep sea fishing. 

I'm not going to make excuses, because the weather was picture perfect, and the seas were relatively calm, but the fish, mainly blue marlin, tuna and mako sharks just weren't biting.  We spent the entire day out on the water and never caught anything but bait fish.

Was I disappointed?  Yes, and no.  We might not have caught any big ones, but the scenery was absolutely gorgeous.  Add to that the fact that Mrs. Jones-Parry, Bob's wife, had packed a full picnic basket of food to be devoured on the trip, and we were in heaven.

The captain of the boat wove in and out of the islands and even took us into a grotto, or sea cave.  The water was crystal clear with thousands of fish swimming beneath us.

I took lots of pictures, but this was long before the digital age, so they were either 35mm slides or Kodak instamatic shots, and they have long since disappeared into boxes in the attic.  Rather than spend hours digging them out and trying to scan them, I invite you to view Images of the Poor Knights Islands, a compilation of photos from many fortunate visitors to the area.

Not too long after we visited the Poor Knights, the entire area was turned into a restricted marine preserve, so fishing of any kind is forbidden now. However, it is a scuba divers paradise as well, and probably one of the best in the world. 

Needless to add, my son and I have never forgotten our free trip Down Under.  And I often wonder if we really did win that horse race bet, or did Bob Jones-Parry have the whole thing planned out in advance to deflect any thought I might have had of sharing the cost.