Give me a granite wall, and I can tell it all.

Today's Tids Issue 3,367

Opening Stuff:

I have always wondered why people are so fixated on overhead power and telephone lines. I can’t remember the last time I noticed them. My wallet would notice, however, the high cost of burying them in a city. My car would feel the ragged streets for the many years after burial, until that date sometime in the future when they would get to repaving. Bedsides, where would birds sit.

I have many occasions to be among liberals and they seem for the most part to live in a world of preconceived notions. They stereotype everybody except themselves, who as it turns out are the most stereotypical of them all.

One of the advantages of a Volvo is that it politely suggests buckling up and then lets you make up your own mind without the incessant nagging found in most cars.

The Question:

Double “Q” Day! 1. What happened 139 years ago today at a place that could also be called tiny large tuba? 2. What were considered the Ten most popular Sit-Coms of the 1970’s?

The Headlines:

--Futures Indicate Stock Rebound After Yesterday’s 178 Point Loss.

--Greece Still Balking At Deal; Heavy Debt In Portugal Looks like Next Test For EuroFinancial World; Italy debt To GDP Ration Higher Than Portugal, But Foreign Holdings Smaller.

--IS Resurges After Setbacks; Islamic Group Launches Attack In Northern Syria, Reentering Kobane and Taking Hasakeh; In South Syria al-Qaida Affiliate al-Nusra Attacked Daraa.

--NY Escaped Convicts Still At Large.

--Reports Say White House Concealed Extent Of Massive Hack Job.

--Bobby Jindal Enters Repub Race; Nobody Knows Why.

I see where the Repubs gave The 0-Man a big victory yesterday. That’s good. He’ll probably stop calling them racists for a day or two. Then its back to giving them the finger similar to his mentor Teddy Kennedy,  who as you may remember used give regularly to George W. during that time the Chappaquiddick kid was feigning friendship and cooperation.

I have always been an incessant doodler. Instead of writing names on file folders, I draw indentifying pictures. I would have been a great caveman.

Some readers may wonder why have dubbed Wall Street as Clueless Lane. In a recent report that follows the averages for Hedge Fund managers, it was found that it lost out to a portfolio consisting of a savings account at your local bank…and…a random collection of stocks picked by a blindfolded monkey! Yikes! Hey, Hedge Fund manager are generally pretty good at making money for themselves – but it is me I really worried about.

Some of the Bigs on Wall Street like Jim Rogers and Carl Icahn are exhibiting a little nervousness about the current stock market.

The last voice I’m going to listen to when planning what I eat is the Big Government Dietary guidelines Committee.

If there is one thing I want the next President to do it is to start reduce the size and influence of the Federal Government. And, I don’t believe that Hillary and Meryl Streep have any intention of doing that.

If you happen to be passing by Newport RI, one of the tastiest dishes I’ve had is the Blue Fish béarnaise at the Black Pearl. It’s been great for years, and it is always super fresh. It’s like eating candy…to me.

I was thinking of giving up Cheetos, but then I realized that I would need the extra salt to get me through the hot summer.

BTW, did you see that among USA states, RI, Mass and Vermont residents had the least tolerance for heat, saying that 85 degrees was about as hot as they liked. I experienced that on Monday when the heat churned up and all I could think of was those days 3- 4 months from now of plaid shirts and fleece.

Most of the big concerns and erroneous conclusions getting all of the headlines and political finger pointing is based mainly anecdotal incidents. Maybe someday a journalist will be energetic enough to dig out the facts. As it has been lately, the polling numbers come nowhere near the hysteria.

The Parking Lot. The Prologue.

The woman looked traumatized, and she dressed for the occasion, with a gray oversized blouse and flimsy shawl draped over her shoulders which fell in bunches of material upon the black surface. She drew me in. I have one of those hearts that opens up too widely too often. I was so intense with her that I almost missed hearing the rumble, an aggressive rumble, from a car speeding down our cobbled=stone drive way.

 I didn’t miss the car as it swerved into the parking and lot and headed directly at the woman, at an increasing rate. I screamed through the window and storm windows two stories above her. She didn’t hear me. She didn’t turn towards the car. The only motion was her shoulders, heaving, heaving. I turned and ran, hobbled, down a flight of stairs to my door and down another longer flight to the garage and an exit door. stopped and looked to the right where I remembered I had stacked a couple of 3 foot two by fours. I reached in and grabbed one and put my shoulder to the door. God, tid that hurt.  I stumbled out, rubbing my shoulder, see a stopped car, inches from the woman who was now beginning to react. The fear I saw  in her eyes went up my spine and grabbed my throat. A guy was rising out of the front eat, and he got bigger and bigger as he hauled a large body out of the car.

The girl now on her hands and knees facing him started crawling backwards towards her car, her feet flicking away cans, bottles, wallets and small bags that had tumbled from her purse earlier. The man took two giant steps and was upon her. He didn’t say, “Mother may I”, so I ran and shouted, “Hey, hey, hey.” That was a mistake. He twisted around, facing me. “Get out of here old man.  This ain’t your business. You don’t want it to be your business”

“Leave her alone.” I shouted back, trying to sound tough, which for me, rarely worked. I held up my weapon. He smiled. “try it,” the smile seemed to say.

FaceBook may be a good buy. Check it out. Look at Google too.

The Answer:

1. Of Course, the Tiny Large Tuba is the Little Big Horn and that was where General Custer and his troops were massacred. 2. Starting at number one the favoriete sitcoms were All in the familt=y, Happy days, M*A*S*H, Laverneand Shirley, Brady Bunch, Three’s Company, Bob Newhart Shpw, Mary Tyler Moore Show,Sanford and Son and #10, Mork and Mindy. (Check out the Top 100 sitcoms here http://www.tvofyourlife.com/top100sitcomsofthe70s.htm )  Another list (Top ten of “All” Shows that appeared at sometime between 1970 and 1979)  has as #1 is Sesame Street. Saturday Night Live laughed it’s way to #two. #3 was The Andy Griffith Show followed by The Brady Bunch, Bonanza, Happy Days, M*A*S*H, I Dream of Jeannie, Gilligans Island and Three’s Company. The next ten are  Looney Tunes, All in the Family, Ed Sullivan Show, Dukes of Hazzard, The Flintstones, Family Affair, Tom and Jerry, Scooby Doo, One Day at a Time and Hogan’s Heroes.

Now that you’ve all been yucking it up remembering old scenes from sit-coms, I thought I’d end today’s mess with one of my favorites songs of the era. Political folk singer Ewan MacColl wrote it for his bride to be, Peggy Seeger, but it was made famous by Roberta Flack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9jmusgMgro