The Pleasures Of The Farm

“I Would rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world.”---George Washington

“I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.”---Thomas Jefferson

There are all kinds of artists in the world.  Some people paint, others play the bassoon, create giant quilts or tape bananas to a canvas.  Some mow.  I am a mower.

I know painters who crave a new brush, others who work with the same one for years, and there’s something to be said for both.  Same with tractors.  Noone likes to part with the trusty old tractors which have served them well for years, even decades.  The driver knows their habits, their assets and shortcomings, their moody behavior over certain terrain, their hatred of hidden rocks poking up at their unwary blades.  If you have to hook your water cup on the accelerator handle, so be it.  If your tractor develops a few small rust holes, no problem.  But then one day your best friend peters out in the middle of the paddock and a reckoning must be made.

Your first thought is that there must be a carburetor problem or a blocked gas line, but nope, they’re just fine.  You revive your pal, get it back going, wheeze over to the barn on wobbly wheels and gloomily consider the possibility of a burgeoning heart condition.  The tractor repair man comes by and confirms your worst fears…it’s an engine problem.  “Almost as expensive to fix this mess as to get a new tractor,” he exaggerates.  But there are other minor problems with this 20-year-old Kubota and hard choices have to be made.  The salesman comes out from the Kubota dealer and offers a very reasonable trade-in price, and you accept.  You cheerlessly drive your old friend down the long driveway to the rear of the tractor hauler and wave goodbye.  Now the hard work of learning all the confusing ins and outs of a newborn tractor is at hand.  Harumph, the bucket adjuster is a little flighty and it’s slow as molasses backing up…but ooh, look at that nifty drink cup holder!

Olden Times

In days of yore, I had a fine John Deere tractor with a bush hog to mow my 40 acres in Orange Lake.  A bush hog is a rotary cutter towed behind the tractor to cut dense grass and clear vegetation.  It does not generally deliver as finished-looking a cut as the Kubota’s belly mower but neither is it as temperamental as its orange alternative, which whines at the hint of hidden tree roots and unsuspected holes in the ground.  You could go to war with the bush hog, you go to church with the belly mower.

Originally, we had a young neighbor boy come to mow the fields in Orange Lake, but those weekly bills pile up.  “We need a tractor,” advised my wife, Harolyn, who was always eager for new farm equipment.  “Who’s going to drive it?” I asked naively.  “I will,” she said, boldly.  That lasted for about four slow spins around the farm, after which she found more pressing work to do.  Guess who inherited the mowing job?

Fortunately for me, the experienced Mr. Carl Johnson lived right down the road and he was the ultimate tractor expert.  He had even built his own from scratch with a Volkswagen engine, assorted truck parts and a living room chair.  Mr. Johnson told me he would teach me all the tractor arts he knew plus keep my John Deere in fine fettle if I leased him an acre of land to grow his melons. You don’t get an offer like this every day, so of course I accepted.  At the time, I didn’t realize this meant the old codger would hide in the underbrush for nights on end firing his shotgun at small critters invading his garden, but a deal’s a deal.

Thanks to the handy Mr. Johnson, I learned everything I needed to know about tractors, including how to clean out the carburetor and occasionally suck gunk out of the gas lines.  When I got tired of mowing in boring straight lines one afternoon and started going in ever-expanding circles, he flew over in a dither and told me what I was doing was a breach of tractor etiquette and bad for the bush hog.  “You boys who grew up in the city don’t have proper respect for equipment,” he told me.  To Mr. Johnson, everyplace north of the Mason-Dixon line was New York.  Mr. J. also had an eye for Harolyn, making suggestive comments every now and then.  “He’s an old man,” she said.  “He’s harmless.”  Since becoming an old man myself, I now realize that Mr. Johnson was probably not as harmless as she thought.

The Art Of The Wheel

There are many jobs which offer little visual satisfaction, even when you know you are doing them well.  The idea man puts the germ of a brilliant plan into action and knows that somewhere in the clouds his idea is churning away.  The traveling salesman takes orders, reports them to headquarters and moves on to the next town, satisfied his commission is forthcoming.  But there is nothing standing at the side of their roads exclaiming “Joe Schmoe accomplished this!”

A painter creates a lasting monument to his labors.  A kazoo player leaves parade-watchers with brilliant smiles all along the route.  A chicken farmer ambles through the henhouse every morning collecting eggs.  A pasture mower of some proficiency leaves row after row of perfectly cut lanes, none dissimilar from the others, creating a pastoral scene the equal of any landscape painter.  What was once a shaggy, disheveled heap of acreage is now a field of dreams.  The mower smiles, clears his charge of the remnants of his work and goes home whistling a happy tune.  This almost never happens to stockbrokers or psychiatrists or those odd people who work in coin laundries.

In addition to mowing, of course, there are other important things you can do with your tractor.  You can dig big holes to bury sizeable critters.  You can pull clumsy people out of ditches.  You can tow various farm equipment hither and yon…things like seeders and fertilizer dispensers and manure spreaders.  Wait, you ask--manure spreaders?  Where is this manure coming from?

It’s coming from your horse stalls.  You can’t just leave it there and get the Good Horsekeeping Seal of Approval, you have to move it--thus, the manure spreader, which tucks up to the stall and waits for you to shovel the subject matter into its waiting maw.  Once loaded, the spreader is connected to your tractor and driven across the fields.  As the tractor moves, its PTO powers the spreader’s components.  A conveyor belt moves the manure to the beaters or nozzles, which then spread it evenly across the field.  Horse manure, you’ll be pleased to know, is a natural source of valuable nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, which can be used as a substitute for expensive commercial fertilizers.  Manure also contributes to soil structure, aeration and water-holding capacity.  It also has unexpected side benefits.  According to the original Hank Williams, you have to smell a lot of horse manure before you can sing like a hillbilly.

Horse Country

The best way to get horse manure, of course, is to buy a few horses and feed them.  Pretty soon, your inventory will pile up.  In the meantime, you have to tend to them and avoid killing them or yourself in the process, which is not as easy as you think.  Equines, especially thoroughbreds, have devised endless imaginative ways of offing themselves and a few clever tricks to nail you, as well.  They run through fences.  They contract laminitis.  But mostly they resort to colic, which can spell doom in no time flat.

Horses develop colic in a variety of ways, including gas buildup, impaction (often from hay) or displacement of the intestines.  When you see those cute red buckets all in a row along a fenceline, you’re looking at a playground for colic.  First, without individual pens, there is no way to insure how much feed a horse is getting, be it too much or too little,  Either way, you’ve got colic potential.  Second, horses will spill feed on the ground under those buckets and scarf it up along with plenty of dirt.  Grass doesn’t last long under fenceline buckets.  Every day, there’s a veterinarian somewhere checking a horse’s poop in a long plastic glove full of water, watching the fingers fill up with sand.  Horses should be fed in individual stalls or at least in separate pens from which they’re released shortly after they finish eating.

An injection of Banamine will usually give horses quick relief from colic, but without further attention to the problem it’s like putting a bandaid on a serious wound.  One practice that relieves many colics is feeding alfalfa year-round, an expensive proposition.  When I met Siobhan Ellison, like the preponderance of horse owners, I fed alfalfa only in the winter when there was little grass.  It was her feeling that making alfalfa a permanent part of their regular diet would prevent colic in most horses.  After fifty years in the horse business, I have no doubt this is true.  We have almost never had a colic on Siobhan’s farm and there were years when we housed a dozen horses on ten acres.  If money is tight, it’s a good idea not to have horses.

A Country Boy Can Survive

Keeping your horse alive and happy is one thing, keeping yourself vertical is another.  We have seen people get off their motorcycles, stash their helmets and jump on a horse.  Here’s a news flash--you likely have far more control over your bike than you do your horse, which can be spooked by any number of things.  Wear your damn helmet and pay attention.  If you’re around horses long enough, it’s inevitable you’ll be hurt, just try to minimize the catastrophe.

They tell you to stay away from the back end of a horse but that’s hard to do when you’re foaling a mare.  Even your trustiest sweetheart can kick you across a stall when in labor, as I unfortunately found out one night.  Joining hands with another horseman to load a yearling into a van might seem like jolly fun until one kicks a dent in your thigh and sends you rolling down a loading ramp, another fun moment.  Even on the front end, there’s danger.   A normally sensible young horse can rear up at the sound of a backfire and come down with a hoof on your forehead, leaving you looking like Jesus that day he was crowned with thorns.  They say there’s no accounting for some people’s tastes and there’s little accounting for the predilections of folks who keep horses; we’re victims of a certain kind of lunacy usually reserved for skydivers and bank robbers.  But hey, what’s a farm without a couple of horses?

We’re down to a stolid pair, Zip, a happy stallion and Dot, a curmudgeonly mare, both in their twenties and looking like they’ll live forever.  They spend their days in different fields, just in case Zip gets any latter-day ideas.  Zip greets me each morning with a paragraph of neighing and snorting as he charges into his stall for breakfast.  He politely tips his cap when I bring his carrots at night.  Dot, on the other hand, often arrives for breakfast late and wouldn’t give me the time of day if I brought her a carrot souffle.  She generally waits for me to leave so she won’t have to give a smile or answer any of my foolish questions.

Everyone has his own idea of the ideal place to spend his days.  Younger people often choose the bustle of the city.  Pirates inevitably choose the coast.  Grandmothers feel an irresistible pull from the vicinity of their grandchildren.  Poets like Walden Pond.  Siobhan, Roxy the Rottweiler and I walk down our quiet laneway at night, look at the starry skies and survey the many pleasures of the simple farm.  Speaking for myself, however, unlike George Washington, I would rather be the emperor of the world than a mere horse farmer.  But not by much.

Older farmers seek to pass their secrets down to younger generations, like this guy.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com       

 

Vacationing With The Nuclear Family

When we were kids, summer vacation meant Road Trips.  My sister Alice and I would pile into the car with our parents and usually our grandmother, Celia, who was originally cursed with the moniker “Alphonsine” (which she promptly chucked into the bushes as soon as she was able).  We often motored east to Gloucester to see relatives or west to the Berkshires so see relatives or south to Connecticut to see…well, you get the idea.  Motels were not a thing at the time so you overnighted at the visitees’ manse, ate their food, drank their liquor and played with their kids even if they were rotten little brats who threw things.

The ruler of the roost in Gloucester was big Joe Tettoni, who was loud and funny and the bane of my tiny but tough grandmother.  Joe knew he wasn’t her favorite guy but every time she walked through the door he gave her a mighty clap on the back and roared, “How ya doin’, Celia?”  His victim would pick herself up off the floor and deliver a magnificent zinger which would have the crowd in stitches.  And so, the visit was on.

Joe’s quiet wife Mary, who my grandmother referred to as a German war bride, invariably made spaghetti in a gigantic pot, and whether it was complemented with sausage or chicken or the brains of monkeys, it was always the best spaghetti in the world.  “Mary was made an honorary Italian for her spaghetti at the last Sons of Italy banquet,” boasted Joe.  “She beat out all the real Wops.”

Her abilities in the kitchen were a source of great pride to the demure Mary and she was careful to pass her prized recipes down to her two daughters, who were, alas, never able to duplicate their mother’s unique magic.  This seems to happen in kitchens worldwide, whether the long lost creator is Mary Tettoni or Chef Elmo---is it accidental, perhaps just one forgotten critical ingredient or do these prideful cooks intentionally carry their secrets with them to their graves?  Despite searching the finest trattorias in 49 states over a lifetime, I have yet to find the equal of that brilliant concoction of the German war bride.

Beachin’

Sometimes, we’d drive to the beach.  It was only 25 miles away, but the traffic was ample and the two-lane roads of the era made for slow going, and that didn’t include stopping at every farm stand we saw for home-grown produce. Sooner or later, our hearts would lift at first sight of the Salisbury Beach roller coaster in the distance, and Alice would always shout “I’m going on THAT!” as if we didn’t know it.  If Alice knew the roller coaster would go off the rails and fly down into the street, she would get on anyway, she was an addict.  I preferred the Dodgems, where you could jump in and look for kids to smash into even though the sign said head-on crashes were illegal.  The manager would let you slide unless you had the bad manners to pulverize some four-year-old riding with his mother, at which time your car would be disabled and you would be yelled at and expelled for assault and battery, sometimes for a week.

There was only one place to go for lunch and that was the Tripoli pizza stand, the mecca of thin-crust magnificence.  As with Mary’s spaghetti, the Tripoli pizza was impossible to duplicate and their little streetside booth was always overwhelmed while cheaper emporiums nearby were empty.  No visit to Salisbury Beach was complete without a sitdown lunch outside the Tripoli shrine listening to the carousel music of the merry-go-round across the street.

Most of the time, we’d even go into the ocean, freezing-ass cold as it was.  On a good day, you might get 64-degree water, which my fiftyish father wanted nothing to do with.  He was fine with his beach towel, straw hat and transistor radio, purchased only to listen to Red Sox games and thus commiserate with other concerned males on the beach.  The Red Sox were omnipresent---strewn out down the strand on everyone’s  radio, on the black and white television of every saloon---and a hollered request for a score anywhere in Salisbury would get an instant reply and often a dash or sarcasm.

I particularly liked the penny arcades, where experienced experts showed their mettle at exotic games like Skee-Ball or those claw machines where players used a joystick, attempting to grab prizes like stuffed bears, which amateurs like me never could wrangle.  If you had a quarter, you could ask an exotic dummy in a glassed-in booth named Madame Zelda for a brief reading of your future, which was always unduly optimistic.   Better to spend your change at a glistening pinball machine where you could pile up the points if you were good and play for an hour.  I knew a kid named Jimmie Hennessey who could beat the hell out of those machines without getting a tilt and once won his mother a big stuffed octopus.  I hate to admit it but I was jealous of his talents and aspired to be a pinball wrestler when I grew up.  Later, I professed as much on my college application forms just in case there were any closet arcade lovers in the Dean of Admissions office.  Guess what?  I was accepted everywhere I applied.  You never know.

While we pursued our plebeian pleasures, of course, we had no idea that Las Vegas, Nevada was waking from its sleep, wrestling with the sheets, putting on the coffeepot and sitting down at the table to plan big doin’s.  Danged if we didn’t miss all the fun.

The Big Boom; Nuclear Tourism Arrives

Las Vegas has long been the home of the bizarre and the land of the outrageous.  Things happen there that don’t dare occur anywhere else, sometimes even to you, and when they do you’re encouraged never to tell about it.  An anonymous gambler took that advice to heart in 2003 when he hit the jackpot at the Excalibur Hotel & Casino, winning $39.7 million on his first spin at a progressive jackpot slot machine.  The win got the man a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records  and has yet to be topped.  There are endless stories in Sin City of unlikely candidates making a fortune overnight at the Vegas gambling tables and as many of luckless characters losing tens of thousands.  Not surprisingly, Las Vegas is the suicide capital of the United States and perhaps the home of the nation’s only Suicide Cleanup Service; “Our compassionate and trained staff are available 24/7 to provide a safe and discreet cleanup service.  Call us anytime for support.”

People get married in Vegas, lots of them, over 70,000 a year.  You can get married at a wedding chapel, at the Mob Museum, inside the Pinball Hall of Fame, on a gondola at the Venetian Hotel or at the Taco Bell Cantina by Elvis, Frank Sinatra, the Fonz, a Vegas showgirl, Darth Vader or a bonafide local minister.  There’s even an underwater ceremony at the Shark Reef Aquarium for mermaids and their catches.

Many people flock to Las Vegas for the entertainment, which is unrivaled anywhere.  From the Rat Pack to Liberace to Elvis to Cirque du Soleil to the Blue Man Group and now, ultimately, to the Puppetry of the Penis, which features two naked men who contort their bodies into impossible shapes, including one mimicking a sailboat.  There’s the Zombie Dance Burlesque, Popovich’s Comedy Pet Theater and the Atomic Saloon at the Palazzo, but nothing nowadays can equal the Pride of the 1950s---the nuclear detonations in the nearby Nevada desert clearly visible from Las Vegas.  Or as one New York Times writer put it, “The non-ancient but nonetheless honorable pastime of atom bomb watching.”  Soon after the fireworks began, Vegas was transformed from a town of 25,000 people to a world-renowned playground of hundreds of thousands.

People went gaga for Yucca Flats, epicenter of the Nevada wasteland and Target Zero.  Vegas tourist hotspots held Dawn Bomb Parties, where guests would drink and sing until the flash of the bomb lit up the night sky.  One fellow writing for the State Department Bulletin described the fun: “You put on your dark goggles, turn your head and wait for the signal.  BANG!---the bomb is dropped.  You wait for the prescribed time, then turn your head and look.  A fantastically bright cloud is climbing upward like a huge umbrella.  You brace yourself against the shock wave that follows an atomic explosion.  A heat wave comes first, then the shock, strong enough to knock an unprepared man down.  Then, after what seems like hours, the manmade sunburst fades away.  Time to hit the bar for a stiff one.” 

For twelve years, an average of one bomb every three weeks was detonated…a total of 235 bombs.  Flashes from the explosions were so powerful they could be seen from as far away as Montana, so you can imagine what it was like up close and personal.  Scientists claimed that the radiation’s harmful effects dissipated and were harmless once the shock waves reached Vegas but they nonetheless scheduled tests to coincide with weather patterns that blew fallout away from the city.  As the tests continued, however, people in northeastern Nevada and southern Utah began complaining that their pets and livestock were suffering from beta particle burns and other ailments.  Beginning in 1963, the Limited Test Ban was in effect, barring above-ground nuclear testing at the site.  “Turn out the lights,” said the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, mournfully, “the party’s over.”  But they were wrong.  It was just getting started.  Wayne Newton showed up.

  

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com. 

    

 

Belonging

From the cradle to the grave, belonging to something is important.  Neighborhood kids form gangs or sandlot sports teams, teenagers don the colors of Pflugerville High School, college kids fill up the stadium for Old Siwash.  Alums return for homecoming, donate vast sums to the old lacrosse team, travel hundreds of miles and spend thousands of dollars to watch the alma mater in The Frozen Four.  Why?  Because, by God, they belong to something, they are card-carrying members of a club, be it the Shriners, the Trap Door Spiders or the Owlhoots Motorcycle Gang.  They might miss Aunt Susie’s funeral but they’re all in for the annual Sturgis, South Dakota bike rally.  Loud and proud, with God on their side.  I was walking down the South Kabob Trail in the Grand Canyon one fine July day several years back and up the steep footpath came a trekker in a University of Florida cap.  “Go, Gators!” I said in passing and he smiled, straightened up and hastened his pace to the top, cheered on by this unknown brother from the same club.  It’s you and I against the world, bro!  In all kinds of weather we’ll all stick together because otherwise…well… it’s a little lonely.

Belonging is a fundamental part of being human.  We need people and this need is hardwired into our brains.  A recent MIT study found we crave interactions in the same region of our brains where we crave food.  Another study showed we experience social exclusion in the same region of the brain where we experience physical pain.  A study at the University of Michigan found when people lack a sense of belonging it is a strong predictor of depression…an even stronger predictor than feelings of loneliness or a lack of social support.

It’s also telling to look at animal examples.   According to Jeanine Stewart of the Neuroleadership Institute, “When something is conserved across species, it’s an indication that some elements of our behavior are driven by things that are more basic and which we can witness.”  Research from Florida Atlantic University provides a telling example in beluga whales.  The FAU study found these whales form complex social relationships with close kin, but also with distantly related and unrelated whales…a behavior mirrored in humans as well in their connections with close friends, family and others more distant.

As Barbra Streisand sang:

We’re children needing other children
And yet letting our grown-up pride
Hide all the need inside
Acting more like children than children.
People who need people
Are the luckiest people in the world.

That’s you, pal. 

One Nation Under God.  And One Is Enough.

In 1978, National Football League film narrator John Facenda, who sounds a lot like God, used the term “Steeler Nation” to describe Pittsburgh’s avid fanbase, thus drawing a distinction between the Steelers’ ardent supporters and those of other teams.  Ever since, passionate fans of teams in all sports have adopted the term, even if the average observer might wonder how many citizens it takes to constitute a decent nation.  Red Sox Nation is acceptable, of course, as is Gator Nation, but what about lowly Muhlenberg?  Must we have a Mule Nation?  It sounds so awkward and unoriginal.  How about resorting to the phrase “a pack of mules” and calling Muhlenberg the Mule Pack?  Florida fans could be the Alligator Congregation, Ohio State fans the Buckeye Nuts, while FSU would have its Seminole Reservation.  Much better.  Just think of it; the Tulane Wave Surfers, the Army Brats, the Texas Horn Dogs…there’s no end to the possibilities.  Hold on a second---someone just asked about Syracuse, an obvious problem.  The Orange Juliuses just won’t do and the Orange Aid seems wimpy.  Okay, got it---we’re going with the Orange CRUSH.  What else ya got?  Iowa State?  The Storm Trackers.  Baylor?  The Bear Necessities.  We’ll be here all week, folks…don’t forget to tip your waitress.

Jesus Loves You, Despite Everything

Siobhan and I were walking through the neighborhood one recent morning when we passed Cathy, a familiar face on the morning jaunt.  She carried with her a smile and her imposing stick, intended for balancing and to ward off errant coyotes.  Somedays we pass with a couple of words, this time we stopped to talk, and Cathy brought up the subject of church, asked us which one we belonged to.  Not nosy or preachy, just curious.  We told her we were members of the Church of the Golden Rule, which was very forgiving about Sunday service lapses.  Cathy said she was a believer but the main attraction of her facility was its ambiance, fellowship, the opportunity to make friends.  She was fairly new in the ‘hood and wanted to belong to something and when that something is church, nobody asks any questions.  You are immediately assumed to be an okay guy or girl, maybe even a future dinner invitee or quilting bee companion, or, if you get particularly close, co-mourner.  People at these places often speak very little of God, himself, but more about weddings and swap meets and health issues and vacations.  If some unfortunate member of the congregation becomes ill, everyone knows what to do, where to go, what to say.  Of course, the inverse is also true.  If someone is exiled from their religious community for, say, their politics, their sexuality or other unacceptable taboos, they often lose their entire little world.

Fortunately, there are other options for community, sometimes an entire town.  In the nineteen-sixties and seventies, places like San Francisco and Austin and Boulder and Gainesville drew endless young pilgrims looking for a new shrine at which to worship, new companions, a life in common with people who were discovering an alternate way to think and live.  The Peace/Love crowd gravitated to the Subterranean Circus, the Florida Theater, any back porch where a hometown rock band was playing free music, forming their own society within the greater one.  Today, they're still at it---only the venues have changed…to Heartwood Soundstage, the One Love Cafe, Friday Nights on the Downtown Plaza, Chiappini’s sanctuary in Melrose.  On a good night, you might even spot a quiet Jesus floating through these landscapes (though it might also be Chuck LeMasters in a fright wig).

The hippies, of course, had their own religions, often Eastern, sometimes pagan, occasionally Wiccan.  Then---and perhaps now--- there was also the inclusive live-and-let-live Universal Life Church, with its outdoor chapels in the forest.  If you were so inclined, you could send in a cereal boxtop and five dollars and become a licensed minister of the ULC, allowing you to preside over weddings, speak in solemn tones at funerals and give fatherly advice to your flock, as our old pal Danny Levine did.  One day, an old acquaintance from Temple Beth Sholom in Miami came up and asked, “Danny, what’s a nice Jewish boy like you doing in a place like this?”

D. Levine looked up and offered his usual genuine smile.  “Fostering harmony,” he said.  Where do we sign up for that church?

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood…a beautiful day for a neighbor.  Would you be mine?  Could you be mine?”---Fred Rogers

The Facebook neighborhood is a little rougher these days…filled with varlets pushing crotchy reels, posting silly questionaires and trying to convince you you’re smarter than Einstein if you can just answer these ten questions.  Where are all the stickball players, the hopscotch boxes, those guys who come around in fifty-year old trucks to sharpen your scissors?  Facebook, of course, sends out its Sanitation Department periodically to clean up the place but its difficult to maintain a neighborhood which lets just anybody in.  Maybe they need a few gated communities.

Nobody has to live in a Facebook village, of course, but there are obvious benefits.  If you’re Nancy Kay, you might catch a ride to the ophthalmologist.  If you’re Will Thacker, you can set off stinkbombs.  If you’re Georgie Ghetagrip, you can reveal your flirtations with suicide to see if anyone cares.  Having Facebook friends offers several psychological advantages, including an increased sense of belonging, reduced feelings of isolation and emotional support.  It can also help individuals maintain close contact with loved ones, particularly those who live far away, like in Bronson.  Then too, FB residency provides a platform for sharing experiences and receiving validation, not to mention  the opportunity to post funny cartoons of Donald Trump on the toilet.

Positive social relations are known to have a beneficial impact on health, physical and mental.  Dawn Stevenson of South Florida, a modern day Perils of Pauline heroine, rises from the dead monthly after yet another scrape with the archvillain Cancer, who carries bullying to new heights.  Just when you think she’ll be run over by that railroad engine steaming around the curve, she unties herself from the tracks and leaps to safety, giving Cancer the finger one more time.  Having a FB audience to cheer her on is like being the home team at an SEC football game and Dawn is boosted in mind and body by her cheerleaders.  Simultaneously, the cheer squad is boosted by realizing they are not Dawn.  Studies reveal that just thinking about friends activates specific areas of the brain---including the ventral striatum, amygdala, hippocampus and ventromedial prefrontal cortex---more significantly than other types of relationships.  At least that’s what our pal Big Ted of Newark tells us.

The hitch in our getalong is that after age 70, our friends start disappearing faster than Arkansas Democrats.  In your seventies, you pull up to the toll plaza and the Grim Reaper is manning three-quarters of the kiosks.  Other friends move away to Bhumfuk Junction, like Judi Cain did.  And anybody who’s left can’t leave the house, crippled by some septuagenarian plague like shingles, the vapors, narcolepsy, the rockin’ pneumonia or the boogie-woogie flu.  This is obviously a job for the new Pope, Bobby Prevost of Chi-town, a known healer and righter of wrongs.  We called him and made a deal.

On the weekend of May 2, 2026, a protective aura will be placed over the Heartwood Soundstage facility.  No one will be nauseous, lame or otherwise incapacitated by some grim disease.  For seven hours, everyone will be allowed to dance without fear of heart attack, stroke or angry bunions.  If it’s critical that we see our friends as much as possible, how valuable is it to see all of them at the same time in the same place?  Where have you gone, Michael Hatcherson, Gregory Barriere, Debbie Adelman, David Matthews, Thomas Sutton, the Nation lifts its lonely eyes to you? 

Write it down on your wrist with indelible ink: The Grand Finale, May 2, 2026, 1-8 p.m. at Heartwood.  Free admission to people of good cheer.  All your friends will be there, even Judi Cain, who promises to parachute in naked.  If you liked the original, you’ll love the sequel.

See the pyramids along the Nile,
Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle,
Just remember darlin’ all the while,
You belong in Gainesville.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail

     

A Mammoth Undertaking

Act I---Louisville Slogging

“All things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.”---Bill Killeen

Most large organizations similar to the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine like to have their annual conferences in places like Tahoe, Las Vegas and Orlando so there will be plenty to do in the off hours, spouses will come along and attendance will be boosted.  So Lucy, you have some ‘splainin’ to do.  Why in the wide, wide world of sports are we slugging it out in pedestrian Louisville?  Sure, there’s the celebrated Bourbon Trail Tour, but then what?  When, oh when, is the fabulous Korea Fiber Art Festival returning to town?

Siobhan P. Ellison, microbiologist, veterinarian, researcher and the world’s greatest authority on Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis was invited to lecture on her subject by the EPM Society of the ACVIM at its June bash in Derby City.  “It would be rude not to go,” she said.  Reasonable enough.  On close inspection, however, a friend pointed out that the awesome and exciting Mammoth Cave was just a skosh over a one-hour drive south.  “Throw in that big boy and you’ve got yourself a deal,” he said.  And the trip was on.

The meeting was held at the Louisville Convention Center and the Marriott Hotel across the street.  We stayed next door at the pricey Hyatt Regency, a two-minute walk to the ballroom where Siobhan would speak.  All I can say about the Hyatt is contained in my review, which they pleaded for and I sent:

“First, the room was freezing-ass cold no matter what you did to the thermostat.  Second, the language-challenged folks at the front desk took a lot of convincing that Bill and William were the same person.  Third, the overnight parking rates would be excessive even for the Hotel California.  Fourth, the in-house Sway restaurant must have had prayer hour immediately after I gave the waiter my order since the food didn’t come back til decades later.  But hey---the location is to die for.  Is that enough?”

I got a nice note back from the management telling me my review would be published in their little online collection.  Just for fun, I checked the first twelve pages and it wasn’t there.  What ever happened to comic relief?  At least they could have sent me some thin mints.

Suffice to say the talk went well for the ten percent of observers who could follow Dr. Ellison’s thoughtful remarks.  This is typical.  When we went to the campuses of Bayer and Schering-Plough, they brought a dozen people into the room and perhaps two of them could follow her reckoning.  They hired her anyway, on faith.  “Just give me the reins and step aside,” she says.  It usually works out pretty well.  We didn’t send out any postcards saying Having a Wonderful Time---Wish You Were Here!

Just Passing Through

After the meeting, we hopped into our Volkswagen compact, which Enterprise insisted was an upgrade, and moseyed down the road to Keeneland and The Kentucky Castle near lovely Lexington, which is all the things Louisville is not.  The Keeneland grounds were in the midst of a revamping upheaval but we managed to visit the iconic jockey statues near the saddling paddock before the security patrol recognized our offense and threw us out.

The Kentucky Castle started its sketchy career back in 1969 when Rex Martin and his wife Caroline, inspired by their recent trip to Germany, decided a castle was just the thing Kentucky needed.  The finished product was intended to have seven bedrooms, fifteen bathrooms, a fountain and a tennis court.  Alas, their marriage foundered in 1975 and the castle was left unfinished, an odd configuration of blocks staring out at passers-by on Route 60 between Lexington and Versailles…another roadside attraction, subject to all kinds of scary rumors.  In 1988, Rex finally got around to putting it on the market, but died before it was sold to one Thomas R. Post, a wealthy Miami property tax lawyer, in 2003.

The new owner thought it would be a cute touch to name the place “Castle Post” and keep it as a personal trinket, a terrible disappointment to the locals who aspired to its eventual reincarnation as a medieval-themed restaurant or museum where they could marry off their progeny.  Then, in May of 2004, after months of renovations, disaster struck the castle.  Newly-installed woodwork and wiring caught fire in the main building, causing significant damage.  Poor old Tommy Post---fortunately still living in Miami and not his beloved castle---vowed to rebuild, a testimony to the assets of property tax lawyers.  Approximately twice the castle’s original cost went toward the renovation project, which was completed in 2008.  New additions included twelve luxury suites, a library, game room, music parlor, dining hall, ballroom, swimming pool, formal garden, basketball court, bar, tennis court and eight maids a-milking.  The castle became a tourist inn, perhaps the only place in the country where you can get a bedroom in a turret.  Rapunzel, where are you---all is forgiven.

Currently, The Kentucky Castle is owned by the THC Hospitality Group, led by Wes Henderson, which purchased the place in 2023.  It operates as a luxury hotel with spa services and, to the great delight of Kentuckians, hosts various other events like weddings, corporate dinners and goat yoga seminars (you think we’re kidding).  There is even a holiday brunch with the Lexington Ballet.  If you’re going, bring your crown and scepter, there’s an Adirondack chair by the front gate for picture-taking.  Forgot your tiara?   No problem, there’s a wide selection at bargain prices in the castle bookshop.

Would you like to swing on a star…carry moonbeams home in a jar…and be better off than you are…or would you rather be a KING?  Step right up, we’ve got your robe and slippers!

Cave City, U.S.A.

“Yeah, we’re goin’ to Cave City, ‘cause it’s two to one.
You know we’re goin’ to Cave City, gonna have some fun…
Two caves for every boy!”---Jan & Dean

An hour’s ride and one time zone southwest of Louisville lies the quiet hamlet of Cave City, population 2,300.  The part you’ll notice is at the intersection of Interstate 65 and Mammoth Cave Road, where all the hotels are, where the Cracker Barrel is and where the billboards tempt a kid to demand a stop at Dinosaur World just around the corner.  “Wander among hundreds of life-sized dinos in a natural setting!” screams the advertising for what amounts to be a glorified rock shop.  But there’s more to Cave City than a hasty observer might notice.

Visit with Eric, the young and gentle soul who presides over the local Hampton Inn and you’ll find a friendly, unassuming Cave City native typical of the area.  “I like it here,” smiles Eric, leaning forward on his desk.  “I left, but soon came back.  The people are friendly here, good honest people who love this place, know each other, quick to help one another out.  No crime, no petty foolishness.  It’s the same in the surrounding area…a nice part of the world to spend your time, however much of it you have.”

He’s right.  The setting is verdant, an exceptional green, with gentle hills, well-cared-for homes and yards and absolutely pristine roadsides.  In three days there and plenty of back-and-forth driving, we didn’t see one piece of litter, not so much as a Snickers bar wrapper or an errant cigarette butt.  A short drive to nearby Horse Cave, almost a twin city, bore the same fruit.  The people who live there mostly stay or leave and return, like Eric, and they take care of their tiny bit of the Earth.

A fortyish fellow named Red Bull (“four cans a day”) who works at all three major hotels at the main intersection expounds on appreciating hard work.  “I guess I go overboard working but it’s something I like to do, like the rest of my family.  It’s no picnic putting in all the hours, but I’ve been able to save to buy a house and help out the family.  I like meeting the travelers who come in here for breakfast, listening to their stories.  I might try out some of those vacation places they talk about but I’ll never leave home.  Most of the people in these little towns around here were born here and see no need to leave.  It’s beautiful here and there’s plenty of agriculture to make a living.”

You get it…you pick up the vibe even if you barely pay attention.  There is a sense of community, which we see less and less these days, a harmony, little anger or intolerance, not much appetite to argue, a live-and-let-live disposition.  You travel to some places and ask the locals about their town and get a blank stare.  In Cave City, they know everything and are happy to talk about it.  The antithesis of judgmental, the exact ideal of human.  Cave City, U.S.A.  A person could do much worse than stake his claim there.

Spelunking/by cave goddess Siobhan P. Ellison

“I must go down in the ground again, to the lonely hole in the limestone.”---W.T. “Burrowing Bill” Killeen    

Our first cave exploration was in one of the two Ape Caves near Mt. St Helens, Washington in August of 2017. The Ape Caves are lava tubes, the second most common type of cave. The most common type of cave is the solution or karst cave. Karst is distinctive terrain that is shaped by dissolving soluble bedrock, usually limestone, by slightly acid water. This natural process creates distinctive landforms on the surface and underground. The underground formations include sinkholes, caves, springs, and disappearing streams.

Kentucky’s geology lends itself to caves because it has large areas of soluble limestone and other carbonate rocks. It is part of a region called the Central Kentucky Karst. Acidic rainwater percolates through the rock and as it dissolves, cracks and fissures form. Eventually passages and caverns are hollowed out, sinkholes form and underground rivers continue the process. Caves are not static, they are dynamic and even though some formed over millions of years they are still changing today. Cavern shapes can be long and tortuous or they can be tall towers.

The Mammoth Cave self-guided tour, a good warmup, enters through the Historic Entrance where you are greeted with startlingly cool air; that is the cave breathing out. The cave exchanges air every 24 to 48 hours; the cool air is pulled out by the ambient and warmer air at the mouth of the cave. In winter the opposite is true, cooler air outside sinks into the cave displacing the warm air. The warmth of humans and the moisture from breathing affects the cave and there are monitors to warn Rangers if the delicate ecosystem will be damaged. The cave tolerates thousands of visitors a year but it is delicately balanced, holding a steady temperature of 55 degrees. Before you can enter you are warned about white nose syndrome, a deadly fungal disease affecting hibernating bats. It is caused by Pseudogymnoascus destructans and can decimate 90% of a colony. To enter another cave that doesn’t have the fungus requires a change of clothes and a disinfected backpack. The Rangers seemed a bit cavalier about this disease that has killed millions of insect-eating bats in 40 states and some provinces in Canada. We were entering the cave in the summer, so no bats were present.

The walls of Mammoth Cave are limestone slabs, rough from ground water erosion and fracturing that started 10-15 million years ago, the resulting debris littering the sides of the tube. Most of the passages were formed by 2 million years ago and continue today in the lower levels. The Green River provides a base level for the water to drain and contributes to the continued formation of the lower passages. Sandstone and shale form the caves caprock and comprise the arch-shaped ceiling, best for preventing spontaneous collapses. The caverns are 50 feet high and in some rooms are closer to 200 feet; the width could comfortably accommodate a 4 stall barn.

The winding passages of the cave were carved by flowing waters that often formed blind alleys or narrow shafts to the levels below. Mammoth Cave is dark, punctuated with artificial lighting highlighting artifacts of human encroachment. Native Americans used the caves as long as 4,000 years ago, mining minerals (gypsum) by cane reed torchlight and as a burial ground. There are no remnants of the early occupants except a few mummified remains that have been moved several times and ultimately transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, taking the last trace of the indigenous people. We saw evidence of the saltpeter mining (for gun powder in 1812) and the last stone mini-house for an experimental tuberculosis hospital. There are numerous names written in candle smoke in the cave. We know Luther Ewing left his mark in 1874. There is also graffiti from years ago when it wasn’t a felony to mark one’s travels.

The Extended Historic Modified Tour, everybody’s favorite, is a moderately difficult 2 mile loop hike with 540 stairs. This hike takes two and a quarter hours and goes down to 340 feet underground. The hike is along well maintained wide pathways and mostly has non-slick stairs but at one point the trail descends into cramped quarters called Fat Man’s Misery. This is a winding, keyhole shaped passage about 100 feet long. The lower part of the keyhole is as wide as a sylph’s hips and widens to about 5 feet overhead with intermittent, head- scalping walls. At the end, there is a 20 foot section where the floor rises, requiring one to stoop. An additional challenge is a very slick pseudo-step up at one point. Of course, the light is very dim.

The cave is quiet but doesn’t echo. Occasionally, one can hear a moderate flow of water as it makes its way from the surface to the outside through the rocks and voids. Other points along the path are bottomless pits covered with grates you can traverse and rooms with 200 foot towers carved smooth by slow moving subterranean waters. Sometimes there is a green hue caused by algae, moss, and bacteria that is called lampenflora which grows near the artificial lights. After descending five levels of the cave tunnel, there are stairs marked with water levels. The cave rarely floods but in 1975 the water reached to the fifth step in the ascending staircase. However, in April of 2025 there was historic flooding with the water rising to ten feet above the floor, marked on the staircase with a pink ribbon. The flood represents the level of the water table to which the entering water from above flows. It might be a good idea to visit this historic national park soon since global warming is going to negatively impact the cave by increased flooding, changes in cave temperature, and disruption of the ecosystem. The delicate formations will be forever changed by ignoring global warming, leaving future generations to observe our impact in the 2020’s.

Another visit was to the privately owned Crystal Onyx Cave several miles east of Mammoth Cave. This is a proper cave sporting speleothems. Speleothems are stalactites or stalagmites formed in solution caves by the deposition of minerals in the water that drips from the terrain above. We arrived just in time for the half mile tour that takes about an hour. This cave is a constant 58 degrees and starts with descent into a sinkhole newly outfitted with crushed limestone paths, metal steps and handrails. Looking up at the ceiling, you could see the track of the river that had contributed to this cave. Each formation in Crystal Onyx Cave has a name: there is the obligatory Alien Room with Norman, the stalagmite you can touch. This is a dead formation, created by an unknown tectonic plate that shifted and moved Norman a few feet from under his sustaining drip from the ceiling. Without continued input from above, Norman died after existing and growing for thousands of years. There is also a Cat Room, the Potato Patch and the Great Room. Our guide was Ian and his monologue was terrific and informative, with mannerisms oddly similar to all the other cave guides. We were told that there was a period of cave wars when competing interests would enter the caves damaging and destroying speleothems. Some of the larger damaged forms near the path were cut horizontally, polished and the rings made visible, reminiscent of tree rings. Another formation called “cave bacon” was formed by lateral movement of minerals containing water, making the curtain-like stalactites. To qualify as bacon, light has to pass through the formation. These formations are facilitated by the slope of the tunnel. When our guide backlit the bacon, the vertical striations were visible. The size of some of these formations was spectacular. Although we didn’t see them, the cave hosts cave salamanders, cave crickets and cave beetles. The cave crickets eat plant material, fungi, mold, cave beetles and other crickets. Cave beetles eat cave cricket eggs exacting revenge on the cave crickets. We were treated to a light show when Ian demonstrated the effects of different light sources. The first was flame, used by early spelunkers. Lamps were dimmer but more reliable. Black light was unique and revealed the fluorescence of some of the rock’s minerals. The fluorescence decayed slowly by seconds so images could be “written” on the floor.

Our third cave experience was Diamond Caverns located inside Mammoth Cave National Park. Despite huge billboards claiming the Cavern was just a mile up on the left it was difficult to find. MapQuest got us there but it is spotty in the area. Diamond Cave has paved pathways, handrails, and 350 steps with the difficulty tagged as strenuous… however it is so beautiful you hardly notice the effort.

In 1811, saltpeter mining was going on in Mammoth Cave. Along a long narrow sink hole valley nearby, mining was also active in Long Cave and Short Cave. An unknown wonder lay beneath. Near the road to Mammoth Cave, in 1859 a slave of landowner Jessie Coats discovered a pit. He tied a rope around his son’s waist and lowered him into the hole. When pulled up, the child said all he saw was diamonds, many diamonds. What he really saw was sparkling calcite formations but his name stuck. A survey team arrived, built steps, and constructed a building around the entrance. These efforts led to the pristine condition of the cave. The cave became an immediate tourist attraction, the slave leading many tours over 40 years.

After changing hands multiple times due to the Civil War and dwindling tourism, Diamond Cave received few visitors but it became a destination in 1904 when automobiles braved the bad roads to the site. In 1921, an oil driller made a new entrance into Mammoth Cave and with 17 active cave attractions in the area the cave wars and destruction of speleothems resulted. Lights were added in 1917 and seven years later concrete steps were added. Over the next 50 years, Diamond Cave tours prospered due to marketing by an influential fellow named Dr. Edward A. Rowsey. More caverns were discovered and explored in 1936 and became part of the tour. After being bought and sold many more times, five cavers and their wives bought the property in 1999. When two of the purchasers began removing surface rocks from a crevice in the back yard, the bottom fell out revealing a shaft that led to 250 feet of undiscovered passages. The crawlway was enlarged and led to the largest room in Diamond Caverns. This area remains undeveloped and pristine with restricted access. There are legal implications if Diamond Caverns is part of the Mammoth Cave system. Kaden, our guide, was evasive when asked if it wasn’t logical that these tunnels were really part of the longest mapped cave system in the world.

It is here we learned of three time periods that formed Diamond Caverns. First, limestone was laid down, the cave passages were carved by underground streams in the second period, and in the third period, calcite formed. The prevalence of limestone means that Kentucky was once under a warm, shallow sea south of the equator. The sea creatures used calcium carbonate for their shells and the shells accumulated as the creatures died. Over a long time, the shells’ fossils became ooze and the ooze compressed into limestone. It is a slow process; each foot of limestone represents 40,000 years. When you descend the steps into Diamond Caverns, each step takes you back 23,000 years. The walls of Diamond Caverns took 4 million years to form. About 10 million years ago, Kentucky was in the northern hemisphere and above sea level. When it rained, the rain made its way to the oceans. In areas with a limestone bedrock, the water took a shorter route to the ocean by seeping through tiny cracks in the stone ending up near a river. It continues this seeping today.

The water dissolves the rock because raindrops collect carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and collect even more carbon dioxide from the soil. The water and carbon dioxide form carbonic acid that dissolves limestone. As the limestone dissolves, the cracks enlarge, more water enters and the cracks get even larger. It takes 50,000 years to dissolve enough limestone to make a crawlway for a human to fit. Ten million years ago, a trickle of water became a major underground river and by about 2 million years ago continental glaciers impacted the flow of the rivers and the cave filled with sediment. The clue to this event is the presence of gravel stuck high up in the ceiling of Diamond Caverns. The glaciers cycled between advancing and retreating, letting the cave stream wash out the sediment. As more carbonic acid dripped into the caverns, the acid lost some carbon dioxide to the air and the less potent solvent couldn’t keep the dissolved limestone in solution. The minerals crystallized forming calcite and calcite was deposited on the ceiling, floor, and walls of the cave.

A drip from the ceiling may form a stalactite. Water dripping from the ceiling may form a stalagmite on the floor, and if the drip is from an overhanging wall then a thin ribbon or calcite drapery is formed. These very thin drapery formations are called bacon formations if light can shine through them. If water seeps into the cave and evaporation is at the same rate, the formation is called popcorn for obvious reasons. Geologists have dated a stalagmite that is about 9 inches tall. The youngest part at the top is 170,000 years old and the bottom 306,000 years old.

We observed bacon, drapery, and popcorn formations in vast caverns. We went down and up the stairs and walked the gently winding pathways. We saw areas vandalized by the cave wars and scarred by signatures dating back to the 1850s. In one “room” weddings were held and a stone with a cross commemorates the area. In some areas the walls looked green due to the light-loving algae and molds. There were pools and great columns and bottomless pits. Kaden told us it doesn’t flood in Diamond Caverns but if there is a good sized rainstorm it will trickle down to the low level of the cave through the porous rock and get the tour wet. The closest underground stream is Hawkins River that runs 150 feet underground. The cave is continuing to form and change but the changes are microscopic and won’t be apparent for many thousands of years.

On our final day, we were tired and muscle-sore from our adventures, but surprisingly alert with a sense of wellbeing as we climbed the steps out of the cave to beat all caves.  Some think the caves have restorative powers and maybe this is a tiny bit true. In this region of Kentucky, it is easy to believe (as the guides hint) that the caves are all ultimately connected to one another. After days in their fascinating bellies, perhaps we, ourselves, become in some arcane way connected to the caves.  Hopefully, human sanity will ultimately prevail and these wondrous places, singular in their magnificence, will be spared for the rest of Time.  If not, well…we had our day in the shade.

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com

Theater Of The Absurd

The Possum Lady

Remarkably, Georgette Spelvin, also known as The Opossum Lady, has been around for years without us knowing about it.  This is very disappointing because Flying Pie headquarters is tricked out with the most powerful radio telescope arrays known to man and its refined Nitwit Meter is the envy of nutcake hunters everywhere.  Where did she come from, Cotton Eyed Joe?

For many years, The Possum Lady was mild-mannered housewife Georgette Spelvin of Southern California.  But then one day while vacationing in Western Kentucky, she stumbled into a strange cave in the middle of a dense forest.  As she went further and further into the tunnel, the cave opened up significantly and became brighter.  When Georgette hesitated to proceed, a booming voice rang out in the distance.  “WELCOME!” it echoed.  “Welcome to the lair of The Great Possum.”   And at the end of the tunnel, there he was on the Possum Throne.

“I will give you these two stone tablets,” said TGP.  “On them are the many truths possumhood has collected over generations, secrets unknown to mankind.  You will take these revelations and make them known to the world.”  Gotcha, said Georgette Spelvin.  And thus, her adventure began.

Georgette started showing up (perfectly coiffed, ala Jackie O.) on YouTube with important messages for the world, like how to take proper care of your own opossum.  Possums are apparently style conscious, so we mustn’t neglect their wardrobes, where simplicity rules.  It’s also a critical matter to schedule those monthly pedicures.  Spelvin, if you ask nicely, will be glad to teach you how to properly massage your opossum, assuming you’re interested.

Now, some folks might be a smidge concerned that Georgette’s partner in crime is one Pearl de Wisdom, a dead squirrel who knows everything.  But not us.  The Flying Pie feels if there is a deceased squirrel out there willing to share her psychic wisdom with us via an earthly mouthpiece, have at it.  Many fans have benefited from Pearl’s thoughtful commentaries on love, money, work, health and etiquette, particularly as it applies to impatient automobile drivers who can’t wait a few seconds for a street-crossing squirrel to make up her mind.

People who scoff at the possibility of psychic wisdom from rodents should take a few moments to remember the vast contributions of Mighty Mouse. And by the way, how much have you really learned from Dear Abby anyway?

Bizarro World

An enterprising Michigan woman who prefers to remain unidentified is looking for a new home today after police discovered she was living inside a rooftop sign above a grocery store.  Nicknamed “the rooftop ninja” by police, the lady took up residence above the Family Fare store in Midland about a year prior to her discovery.  Police said the 34-year-old woman, who has a job and a vehicle, had furnished her digs with a mini-desk, flooring and a food pantry.  She was released without charges and was last seen heading for Times Square.

Some people just love those thrill rides at amusement parks to death.  Literally.  Recent visitors to Disneyland were bummed to find their seats on the Rise of the Resistance ride smeared with bone chips and ashes, the cremains of someone who must have liked the ride a lot.  Dusting the landscape at The Happiest Place on Earth seems to have become a thing in Anaheim, where remains have also been discovered on attractions like It’s a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion.  The park would like to remind everyone that grandma won’t necessarily stay where you drop her off.  Sooner or later, she will be swept up and dumped.  Maybe you should try Sea World next time.

It was so hot in Death Valley last July that Belgian tourist Noah Goossens, 42, melted the skin off his feet after losing his flip-flops on the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes.  The air temperature was a mere 123 degrees but the sand has been known to get as hot as 200 Fahrenheit.  The scalding temperatures made it impossible for a helicopter to land in the dunes so Noah was hauled off by park visitors to a safer elevation, then flown to a hospital in Las Vegas.  Rangers advise summer visitors to Death Valley to stay within a ten-minute walk of air-conditioning, not hike after ten a.m., drink lots of water and carry a salt shaker with them at all times.  Goossens says next year he’s going to see the glaciers in Alaska.  Keep your shoes on, Noah.

Bet you can’t tell us who’s eaten the most Big Macs ever.  That would be Don Gorske, 70, who first sunk his teeth into McDonald’s signature sandwich more than 50 years ago and hasn’t missed a day since.  He’s up to a Guinness World Record 34,000 Big Macs lifetime, though he’s cut down to only two a day lately (his max for a day is nine).  When he started his marathon, his mother made him promise to eat at least one Macless meal a day and he’s kept his vow.  Gorske walks about six miles a day, gets regular checkups and appears healthy.  “No one will ever break my record,” Don beams, proudly.  Still, there is occasionally a price to pay.  “My wife and I were planning a vacation to Russia,  then someone told me there were no McDonald’s stores there.  Can you believe it?  Well, we cancelled immediately, of course.  I thought Trump and Putin were friends, for crying out loud.”

Kathygrams

Our alert reporter Kathleen Knight is the Queen of Miscellany, often coming up with significant tidbits unreported elsewhere.  These anecdotes are usually brief, bizarre and of great interest to someone, although we are not sure who.  With that in mind, The Flying Pie has decided to occasionally publish a gaggle of them for public consumption in hopes that they will somehow reach the odd people who should know about them.  Thus, we enter the Era of Kathygrams.

1---Surgeons are conducting rare ‘Tooth-In-Eye’ Operations to restore vision to blind patients in Canada.  The complex procedure involves extracting a patient’s canine tooth, adding a plastic optical lens to it and surgically embedding it in the eye.  Who wants to go first?

Known more formally as osteo-odonto keratoprosthesis, the surgery has supposedly been performed successfully in a handful of countries like Transylvania, but never before in Canada where people keep track of these things.  In late February, three patients Up North underwent the first part of the complex procedure.  If all goes according to Hoyle, they could have their eyesight back by summer.  And yes, they’re all using those toothbrushes with the very light bristles.

2---Swiss scientists played music to cheese as it aged.  The cheese seemed to like Hip-Hop  best.  Swiss cheesemaker Beat Wampfler and a team of crazed researchers from the Bern University of Arts placed nine 22-pound wheels of Emmental cheese in individual wooden crates in Wampfler’s cellar and for the next six months, each cheese was exposed to an endless 24-hour loop of one song using a mini-transducer.  The transducer directed the sound waves directly into the cheese wheels, a practice called ‘hitting the vein’ by Zurich drug addicts.

The Classical cheese got Mozart’s Magic Flute, the Rock cheese listened to Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, the Ambient cheese got Yello’s Monolith and the Hip-Hop cheese was exposed to A Tribe Called Quest’s Jazz (We’ve Got).  The unfortunate control cheese aged in silence.  The cheese was then examined by alleged food technologists from the ZHAW Food Perception Research Group, which concluded that the cheese exposed to music had a milder flavor than the control cheese.  The also found that the Hip-Hop cheese had a stronger aroma and stronger flavor.  The cheeses were then sampled by a jury of culinary experts during two rounds of a blind taste test who came to the same conclusion.  All of which goes to prove what we’ve long suspected---that the people of Switzerland have too much time on their hands.  Asked for his opinion on the matter, American cheese expert J. Ray Cash said, “Don’t take your cheese to town, boys, leave your cheese at home.” 

3---The first person in the United States to get a speeding ticket was a New York City taxi driver.  Who wouldn’t have guessed that one?  In 1899, cabbie Jacob German, a driver for the Electric Vehicle Company, was cited for jetting an astonishing 12 miles an hour by a bicycle officer, of all things.  At the time, NYC had a speed limit of 8 mph when going straight and 4 mph when cornering.  Horses, of course, had the same speed limit.  German was actually hauled in and temporarily imprisoned.  The first known speeding ticket in the world was issued in England to Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent in 1896.  Walter was traveling at breakneck speeds of 8 mph in a 2mph zone and fined one shilling.  Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do…whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

4---The Moon has its own Catholic Bishop.  No kidding.  According to an obscure Church edict called the 1917 Code of Canon Law, when an expedition sets out to discover new territory, that new land then becomes part of the diocese that was home to the expedition. Since Cape Canaveral was under the purview of the diocese of Orlando when Americans landed on the Moon, Bishop William Borders got the honors.  Following the success of Apollo 11, Bishop Borders had occasion to make an ad limina visit to the Vatican to visit Pope Paul VI, during which he casually advised the unaware Pope, “You realize, of course, that I am Bishop of the Moon.”  Paul VI nervously looked left and right at his advisors.  The current Bishop of Orlando is John Noonan, who is much less of a showoff.

5.---The town of Karawa, Japan has released a line of collectible trading cards  featuring the town’s male elders.  Is this a great idea or what?  Instead of a bunch of rich, honky ballplayers, the characters on the cards are the town’s ojisan---middle-aged or older citizens who have benefitted the community.  “I thought it was a shame that nobody knew about them,” said Ms. Eri Miyahara, Secretary General of Saidosho center, who created the idea.  “The cards went viral and now many kids look up to these men as heroic figures.”  The 47 card characters include local ‘Soba Master’ Mr. Takeshita, an 81-year-old noodlemaker and Mr. Fuji, a 67-year-old prison guard turned community volunteer whose card is so popular that local children will often approach him asking Fuji to autograph his card.

Obviously, this is an idea whose time has come.  We can see it now…”I’ll trade you two Mayor Wards for one Chuck LeMasters”…or “how about I take that Michael Davis off your hands for six Randall Roffes?”  There are all kinds of possibilities.  When we were kids, we’d get down on one knee and scale our trading cards at a wall several feet away…the card closest to the wall wins and gets to keep the other cards.  Or kids would get together in small groups like baseball general managers and arrange three and four-way trades trying to accumulate an entire set.  The old cards came in packages of incredibly bad chewing gum but these new ones could be distributed by hip local institutions like Heartwood or the Hippodrome to supportive customers.  “Anybody out there got a Nancy Luca, I just need her and Mark Chiappini for my set?”  “Yeah, I got Nancy, but it will take two Jeff Meldons and a Bill Killeen to get her”  “There’s a Bill Killeen card?  I thought he was dead.”

That’s all, folks….

bill.killeen094@gmail.com