Buncha Details

When I was six years old my class participated in a track and field day at a neighboring school. It was a bus trip away and the spring day was hot and sunny [a rare weather condition in that Northern area]. Being frugal, my Mom had packed me a lunch, which I devoured between running events [I was a fast sprinter in those days, with two good ankles working smoothly beneath my shins].

As I walked around the school yard I saw two girls from my class eating Popsicles. “Where did you get those?” I asked eagerly. “Over there,” one of them pointed with her yellow, banana Popsicle. I hurried over and stood in line. But when I arrived at the cooler the man said the Popsicle was 5 cents, which I didn’t have. I had to walk away without a treat.

5 cents! It was not a lot even in the 1960s, but it was more than I had with me. As I stood in the sun far away from home [for a six year old] I decided that I would never again leave home without money. I would never be the one who couldn’t buy a Popsicle.

3 million Popsicles are sold every year. They were invented in 1905 by 11 year old Frank Epperson, who waited 18 years before releasing it as a product to other kids. Wikipedia		Every Popsicle is two treats in one. My favorite is still orange, which still almost rhymes with porridge.

From that day on I have had a progression of coins in my maturing pocket. As a boy it was a nickel (for candy). As I learned the fun of comic books I had to carry more: 15 cents (for reading). For many years [before cell phones] I carried a quarter for the pay phone (for safety). Today, despite being armed with my wallet, twenty dollar bills and credit cards I still carry a one or two dollar coin [Canada's loonie and toonie] (for coffee, parking, or any of the preceding).

When I buy Popsicles now I am usually buying a box of 24 chocolate ones for my wife. Because there is the second lesson I learned from that schoolyard: that sharing is a joy. And sharing food with others is a particularly wonderful joy.

My Mom, who packed my bag lunch for that track meet long ago, has created meals and a caring environment for our family and friends all of our lives. She understands how hospitality and sharing are a vital part of human community and joy.

Had those two girls with their Popsicles known what my Mom knew, or if the man presiding over the cooler full of Popsicles had thought about more than money, then all sorts of ways could have been found to share in the cool and delicious fun that day.

As anyone who’s had a Popsicle will tell you, they are made to be split in two. Like all great food they are made for sharing.

When I was a boy there was no Internet [though wires had already been invented]. It was not just that we were especially poor [just regularly poor] or technically ignorant [just generally ignorant - we lived in a very small town], it’s just that those bytes [which ate enough of our time to grow up to become megabytes] just weren’t flying around yet. But kids will always seek out fun activities and in the 60s one of the best forms of entertainment was reading comic books.

Just a few minutes walk from our home was a variety store called The Smoke Shop. Back then we didn’t know [for sure, for sure] that smoking was bad for us [though it did make us cough and smell bad] so the name of the store was never called into question. It was our source for penny candy, pop that came in glass bottles (which we slid out of a shallow maze filled with cold water), and [oh, ya!] comic books.

While the comic book industry today has split into comic books [fun and action] and graphic novels [angst and sex], in the old days [when color TV was still a "neat" thing your uncle owned] comic books had two categories: general reading (such as Richie Rich, Daffy Duck and Archie) and super hero comics (which I could never get enough of) [perhaps due to the uplifting power I felt from Earth's yellow sun, in bare feet and shorts, having fun all summer, except when getting stung by bees while cutting the grass, because we never, ever seemed to wear shoes, except never].

Boxes of Archie comic books, giggling with teenage naiveté and hope, remind me of childhood fun, and the dream that one day, I too would have a jalopy and at least one girlfriend.		This cover from 1998 shows Archie’s eternal conundrum (his inability to commit) and his delight (in having multiple women interested in him).

In those early days [dinosaurs were rarely seen but we were cautioned not to pet the Saber-tooth tigers] we could buy a comic for 12 cents and a Popsicle for a nickel. I remember camping out in my backyard, excited in my pup tent with a snack, a flashlight (that drained fresh batteries in 15 minutes), and 2 [count 'em] new comics. What a joyous childhood moment!

When I had my own children I wanted to pass along the fun, so I started buying comics [for them, I told myself]. Always the over-achiever, I traveled far and wide, scouring used book stores for treasure boxes full of the digest sized comics [which some less committed and less teenaged person had parted with]. Friends insisted that I had enough but it wasn’t until I hit 500 that I felt fairly secure in my [I mean my kids'] supply of old fashioned reading, adventures and romance.

After reading Scrooge McDuck comics when they were younger, the kids graduated to Archie comics around age 10, where they learned many important lessons, including:

- Teenagers never grow old
- Successful (but meaner) men have better jalopies

and most importantly:
- Even pretty, reserved girls like Betty wear bikinis at the beach.

Now if my jalopy could just get us to the beach.

Our evolving but persistent interest in comic book heroes continues with the success of the Dark Knight variation of Batman’s world. Updated from the get-things-done, behind the scenes do-gooder of his younger days, Batman is now a fully-fledged reflection of the spirit-draining angst of today’s excitement-seeking but worried society. He has also gone full media, leaping from the quiet, hard working isolation of the printed page to the ubiquitous ever-presence of all things consumable. Or at least, the Joker has.

When I was a boy [not that long ago, and to borrow the classic storyteller's intro] I got my comic book fix in 12 cent monthly increments [I still remember when they jacked the price of comic books up to 15 cents - now that was evil]. They were delivered via the local variety store called [in all its early innocence and lung-stomping dastardliness] the Smoke Shop. There, amidst my options of Donald Duck, Richie Rich and Archie comic books I would seek out the stories of how a rich guy, helped by the small [but vital] team of his butler and young protege [remember Robin?], would use his wealth and techno-talents for good.

Unlike talking ducks, gold-plated helicopter owners and red-haired perennial teenagers, Batman was focused on righting wrongs, and so was his audience. He was fully energized, serving where needed, and plenty able to get [the right] things done. The crooks and causes were pivotal but secondary, troublesome but not undefeatable. We knew good would triumph, even if it did get tied up from time to time, because Batman kept on trying.

There was a fellow comic-loving lad named Larry in my home town. The first time he and I got together at his place we each read a comic book. I was ready to read another but Larry said: “Let’s play together instead, and when you head home you can borrow some of these…” and he opened a cupboard door, to reveal hundreds of comic books, including dozens of Batman issues I had never seen. I felt like I had discovered the Lost City of Gold, but Larry already knew that life isn’t about being entertained but doing things together.

In addition to whatever value those many Batman original pressings would have right now [somewhere between 12 cents and priceless], I wish our society would realize that we have almost everything Batman had back then. We have cool technology, greedy bad guys galore, and a lot of people shining bat-signals into the sky, asking for help. What we need to do now is not don a costume or slip into another bad guy-focused media event, but to start doing what Batman did best: serving where needed.

Research shows that helping others relieves stress and depression, and actually brings us joy.

It’s time to stop feeling the bad guys are getting too tough, and get energized. It’s time to get off the couch and start getting off on helping others. You can see Bat-signals. Go help someone!

From my first taste of milk as a baby I knew there was something missing: cereal! [And cold milk - not that body temperature stuff.] So like a lot of people [gauged by the size of the cereal aisle - not by spying on you] I’ve been eating cereal a long time. [That's like the joke about how I just flew into town so my arms must be very tired.] Okay, I have been doing other things - but mostly for breakfast I have cereal and milk [2%, not the water-flavored skim variety].

I got started early on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes [that is a quality-focused company], and when I was being a particularly good boy [as opposed to a peculiarly goofy boy - which is hard to say but a surprisingly fun thing to be] I was treated to Rice Krispies. My Dad has always enjoyed a rather large sugar spoon [actually bigger than you are imagining] so I learned right away that putting sugar on my cereal was both tongue-pleasing and a way to get around the fact that Mom never bought sweetened cereal. [Corn Pops, where fort art thou?] A childhood success! [If you're counting, that's one.] Just remember to put the sugar on after the milk, otherwise it disappears into the milky pond beneath the cereal. [It just washes away, like a frog hit by lightning in a thunderstorm. Fortunately, frogs are very small targets and rarely hit by lightning. So you can stop worrying about them.]

A lot of my life’s energy and eating pleasure comes from cereal. Opening the box the same way will save you hours over your cereal-centered life.		Opened the Timehawk way, the liner bag opens to the left, so right-handers are ready to pour [Also, try using a bowl instead of the kitchen counter - that way the milk stays closer to the cereal].

When I estimate the number of cereal boxes I have consumed [contents mainly, excluding the bag] I come up with 1222 [that's with a box lasting 2 weeks, and me being an avid cereal eater by the age of 3].

So I’ve learned a thing or two [I'm still counting... Okay, it's two] about opening cereal boxes, including it’s better to open a new box carefully than rip the cardboard and have its fuzzy gray scar aching for some Scotch tape.

As for my second tip [about the box - the third tip including the sugar]: How much time am I saving by opening the box the same way each time? That is, with the tab away from me (see the first photo), and the bag opened on the left side (see the second photo). If you guessed 24 minutes a year you are eerily right! [and should probably comment on this blog entry]. That’s 4 seconds every day to turn the box around and reposition it for pouring. [Note: If you have a croissant or muffin sometimes then the calculation (at least) goes completely to (your) waist.]

Think of the things you could do with those 24 minutes! If you know what’s good for you then you use them right: by eating another 6 bowls of cereal! Pour, pour, boy.

As many travelers will tell you, Europeans have different eyeballs (or at least optic nerves) than North Americans. How do we know? Because they love the color orange.

Everywhere you go [ok, that I went] there were displays and clothes prominently displaying a color that is still illegal in the far Western world. ["Officer, arrest AT&T for inappropriate color behavior!"] Here, having an orange shirt or shoes is the fashion equivalent of Running with Scissors [really sharp orange scissors, made by Fiskars - my favorite. They also have an orange website].

I have a wonderful European “sister” who emigrated from Yugoslavia and brought both her love of life and her love of orange. “Darling,” she says to me with exuberance and a gorgeous smile, “you are super! But I am more super.” Ah, European women!

According to SensationalColor, orange stimulates appetite, activity and socialization. Now does that describe Europeans, or what ?! You take 700 million people, jam them into a space not much bigger than France (plus those other countries) and you are going to get a lot of eating, talking and “couchay-ing” [with Lady Marmalade and the princes]. And you are going to get the color orange.

Rhymes with porridge!

Getting a 10 year dose of orange in a Barcelona store.

Life’s gotta buncha details. And I like thinking about them! We’re going to explore all sorts of things about life, people and stuff. [What? You like stuff too ?!]

We’ll have fun, learn a few things [there will NOT be a test], and if we really pay attention [cue escalating violins] see how everything (excluding frogs and satellite radio) is connected. [Dramatic orchestra finale, with the violin section glaring at the grinning percussion guy still clanging on the cymbals. Go, man, go!]

Okay, I was kidding about frogs and satellite radio being excluded. They are actually the glue that holds our very existence together. Well, actually the frogs are - specifically the goo on the really slimy ones, but only the ones who listen to satellite radio. [If you can find one of those frogs take a picture and upload it immediately!]

The frogs are listening so let’s get started !