Poor 50

It is amazing how abruptly the human body begins to deteriorate about 50 years old.

Great line from Riley

From "The Life of Riley" radio show. From Digger O'Dell, the undertaker:

Some of the local kids played a terrible prank on me. They took a sign from the jeweler shop and hung it in front of my parlor. "You find the girl; we'll find the stone."

OLD AGE

Aging definitely ain't all it is cracked up to be!

Management's dilemma

Which is the greater moral obligation of management: their responsibility toward stockholders or their obligation for the welfare of their employees. Interesting question.

We're in trouble

This country is suffering from a vast lack of leadership from both major political parties.

Muttering

One of the funniest aspects of the Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes combination, both in the movie series and on the radio program, were the mutterings of Nigel Bruce. Sort of like Popeye used to do on the cartoon show.

The Smiths of Hollywood

This was the name of an enjoyable radio show. One interesting fact is that the incomparable Arthur Treacher played Uncle Cecil in the show, and oddly "Cecil" was pronounced on the program with a long E, instead of as you would expect with a short "e" as the British customarily use it.

Classy names

If you want your son to have one of those really classy names, then just look in the phone book and pick out a surname, then use that as his given name. For example Mayfield, McAllister, or Showalter. That is exactly the reason that butlers’ names always sound so upperclass, because they are called by their surname alone. “That will be all, Snarkins.”

Genealogy

As measured by their great-grandparents' surnames, my children are 3/8 German (Kramer, Gehren, Adams), 3/8 Welsh (Loyd, Evans, Davis), 1/8 French (Bogue) and 1/8 English (Green).

Wodehouse had to have a sense of humor.

(This is one of his ancestors.)
Butts Bacon was the son of Sir Robert Bacon, 3rd Bt. and Ann Peyton.

Wodehouse

I think I may have mentioned that Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (creator of Jeeves and Wooster) had reason to be knowledgeable of the upper crust. His great-great-(twelve greats total)-grandfather was Sir Edward Wodehouse, and there were numerous Sis Thomases and Sir Rogers, etc., mixed in.

Music - again

Strains from Johnny Dollar popped up in an episode of The Saint I was listening to today.

Anti-oppression

I am very opposed to political oppression, and am very much in favor of our country standing against it. However, it appears that our efforts against it are very artitrary. We pick and choose the situations where we are righteously indignant. We stomp and fume about some of them and posture in the media, and totally ignore others that are even worse.

Brooksie

Claire Brooks, George Valentine's sweetheart and secretary on the "Let George Do It" radio show was played by Frances Robinson. Fans of old detective movies will recognize her in "The Lone Wolf Keeps a Date," in which she plays the female lead.

The margin

A very interesting (and very old) concept was discussed by author Jude Wanniski in this book "The Way the World Works." He calls it "the margin." We used to call it "the straw that broke the camel's back." You put a penny on a table and push it. Nothing happens. Push it again. Nothing happens. Sooner or later, however, that penny will drop off the table. Nothing notable results UNTIL you get to that point. Getting things done, where people are concerned, consists to a great deal in knowing where the margin is, that is, knowing the point at which people begin to act.

Of Beauty

One of the most brilliantly perceptive statements I have ever read regarding natural things is from Sir Francis Bacon's essay, "Of Beauty":

"There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion."

Think back through the fascinatingly beautiful faces you have seen in your life. Not just beautiful - fascinatingly beautiful. Not just beauty, but excellent beauty. Bacon was exactly right: in every beautiful face that seems to mesmerize us, there is something that grabs our attention: the eyes just a tad off center, the nose a little too large or too small, some irregularity in the shape of the mouth. Whatever it is, it is a "strangeness in the proportion." It catches the eye, engages the mind. It is the strangeness that creates the excellence.

Characters from Fibber and Molly

Gas

I bought gasoline for less than $3 today. It had been a long time since the last time.

Gallows humor

Given how hilarious Digger O'Dell was on The Life of Riley, I wonder why there was not a show that centered around an undertaker. Looks to me like it would have had lots of possibilities.