And Did He Ever Return?

I see our old family friend Dick Wertheimer perched on a couch in my parents living room. There's a glass of scotch on the table in front of him and a 5-string banjo perched at a jaunty angle in his lap.

And he is singing:

Did he ever return?
No he never returned.
And his fate is still unlearned (poor old Charlie)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned.

Charlie on the MTA was (and is) a standard at family and friends get-together dinners. When we were small, we all listened to Mr. Wertheimer sing and play the 1950's folks standards of his youth. As we grew, we joined in on the chorus. In recent years, we've hauled out guitars and hand-drums and played along.

The song dates from the middle of the last century. It was written for a political campaign in Boston to criticize an opponent for a subway fare increase.

Now, thanks to Governing's 13th Floor blog, I find that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority -- the MTBA -- has, in a rare instance of a municipal sense of humor, named its fare-card after the fictional Charlie.

The CharlieCard will prompt a smile of recognition from Bostonians who know their history and from fans of mid-fifties folk-music.

Would That all Village Weblogs Were as Fulfilling

With thanks to Miriam, I point with a chuckle to Little Frigging in the Wold, the official Little Frigging in the Wold village weblog.

This is not a site for the faint hunor, but does offer some delightfully silly writing, such as this, from a post entitled All-Nude Chicken-Intriguing:

Nasturtium Cheeseincident (1945 - 2006) began as a Chicken-Intriguer of the old school. She first learnt the ancient and noble art of Chicken-Intriguing at the knee, ankle and - on one memorable occasion - elbow, of the semi-legendary Great High Trilobite of Chicken-Intriguing - Gerrymander Ankletrouser, an adept at the once lost art of Turkey-Perplexing, as well as being the greatest Chicken-Intriguer this world has ever known.

Sometimes, I find that a stiff dose of absolute absurdity is just the thing.

Literalists' Litany of Complaint: #367 -- At the End of the Day

I keep hearing various spokesfolks use the phrase "at the end of the day" to wrap-up a thought. As in, "of course the Iraqi army needs more training and support and yes, we shouldn't have disbanded that army, but at the end of the day the Iraqis will have to govern themselves."

At the end of the day? Why not at the start of the day? And what about over lunch?

In Which We Find Our Christmas Tree up on a Small Hill Way at the Back of the Christmas Tree Farm

We went out to Sposato's Tree Farm last Saturday to look for our Christmas Tree. It took a while. We all have a slightly different vision of what our tree should be.

We found trees with Grasshoppers living in them. We found trees with crooked trunks. Some were to small. some were too big. Some had bald spots. Some were uneven.One was host to a Praying Mantis.

Eventually, we made our way out to the back of the tree farm, up a slight hill. From there, we could see the whole place.

And there we found our tree.

Does Delaware Need a Better PR Firm?

There's another Washingtonian who is annoyed by traffic on I-95 in Delaware. Well, another who has blogged about it. I'm sure there are more who haven't.

The unnamed author of a blog named "Time I'll Never Get Back" has written two posts about the holiday and Delaware's section of I-95.

In the first, a Travel Advisory last Monday, she noted that "Delaware is acting like the bratty child we always knew it was." She was annoyed by the lane closures related to bridge construction.

She first warned fellow-travelers to avoid Delaware during the holidays, then posted an update, based on reporting in the Washington Post, that the lane closures may be out of the way by the heavy travel part of the holiday. She still objected to having to pay the toll, though.

After a pleasant family interlude somewhere north of Delaware, Miss Time returned to DC yesterday and avoided the nasty back-ups of I-95 in Delaware by taking some other road than I-95. She complains about her brother not having told her this secret to painless travel before her drive north, but was pleased to have worked out out for her return trip.

Do people not realize that there are other roads than I-95 in Delaware? Are there no maps? Or is hating Delaware just too popular a pass-time?

UPDATE: Of course, back-roading it is not always the best idea.

Literary Parallels. Again.

I've been reading a new book called Winkie this week. It's a story about a teddy bear of that name who has somehow become sentient and wandered off into the woods to live. When the book opens, Winkie has been arrested by Homeland Security and is on trial as a terrorist.

The meat of the story (so far, anyway) is the bear's recollection of life as a toy to several generations of one family. He's remembering and reflecting as he sits in a cell awaiting trial.

I was struck by the similarities to the Patrick O'Brian novel Richard Temple, which I finished a week or so back.

In that book, the title character is in prison in southern France where he's been captured by the Gestapo as an English spy during world War II. As he recovers from torture, he remembers his pre-war life as a hungry artist in London.

I suppose prison-recollection is a fairly common literary device. Still, I find it interesting to see it applied in two very different character studies.

Before. And After.

The restaurant 33 West, at 33 West Loockerman Street, in Dover, has a picture hanging up of what the building it lives in looked like way back when.

I don't know exactly when, but before my time, the building held a drugstore, the Sun Ray Drug Company. There was a Singer store next door. Loockerman Street lacked trees. It looks freshly paved and has those new-fangled parking meters.

Many years later, the Singer store is gone. Street trees planted since those two young women posed on the corner above have prospered and now tower above the buildings. Concrete sidewalks have been replaced with brick. There are no more parking meters, but parking time is limited. The drugstore has been replaced by a popular Dover eatery.

I recommend the Turkey Burger.

Book Signing

I got to have an author sign his book for me this past week-end. Tom Starnes, a retired Methodist minister I know through Karen's church, has published a memoir, Through Fear to Faith. He held a book-signing down at Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach on Saturday morning and I stopped by.

Tom filled-in at Epworth United Methodist in Rehoboth some years ago when they were between ministers. Karen enjoyed his sermons and I liked him the few times I attended. Since then, we've seen him around a fair amount; he's retired here. And I get to play golf with him every once in a while when the Methodists have a fellowship golf outing.

I've mentioned Tom here before. He writes occasional Community View columns for the News Journal that I always enjoy. I look forward to reading his memoir.

Life-Changing Moment #381

This morning, I had the Tivo machine grab a showing of the 1933 Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup.

I'm indulging in a little Marxian madness this evening; I haven't time to watch the whole thing just now, but a few moments of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico are refreshing after a full week.

I find myself thinking back to the early 1970s, when I was a kid. A friend up the street invited me to the church his family attended one evening for a showing of Duck Soup. I had no idea what the movie was, but at that age, no longer a child but not yet a teen, any opportunity to get out with friends is worth taking.

Now, decades later, as the movie begins with its ornate 1930's crowd scene, musical number, and fancy costumes, I wonder what my initial reaction was. What was I thinking as he movie started? How did I react at the first entrance the wise-ass Groucho and the clowny Chico and Harpo?

I can say that that experience -- watching this insanity on a screen set up in River Road Unitarian Church -- changed my life. I became, and have stayed, a Marx Brothers fan.

It helped lead me to vintage movies, to vaudeville, to absurdist theater, to wider reading, and to an acceptance of silliness in all its wonderful forms.

I'd hate to think what my life would have been without it.

What a Law Looks Like

Congress took an action this week. It voted to name Delaware's SR1 bridge over the C and D Canal for the late Senator Bill Roth.

This caught my eye for several reasons. I take a professional interest in the names of geographic things (even man-made ones). Bill Roth was the first sitting US Senator I ever met. And I liked Bill Roth. I didn't necessarily agree with him politically, but he seemed like a nice fellow and he gathered around him a staff that did a great job. My Dad always pointed to Senator Roth's staff as a great example of how to do legislative staffing the right way.

So I was interested to hear that Senator Carper's bill to name the bridge for Senator Roth had passed. I was also interested when the Bill's text cropped up in my GovTrackUS.com "Delaware" monitor.

And I was interested to see the simple language of the bill:

109TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
S. 1140

AN ACT
To designate the State Route 1 Bridge in the State of
Delaware as the "Senator William V. Roth, Jr. Bridge".

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. DESIGNATION OF SENATOR WILLIAM V. ROTH, JR. BRIDGE.

The State Route 1 Bridge over the Chesapeake and
Delaware Canal in the State of Delaware is designated
as the "Senator William V. Roth, Jr. Bridge".

SEC. 2. REFERENCES.

Any reference in a law (including regulations), map,
document, paper, or other record of the United States to
the bridge described in section 1 shall be considered to
be a reference to the Senator William V. Roth, Jr. Bridge.

I'm now picturing that little scrolled-up Bill featured on the old Schoolhouse Rock series dancing and singing its way across the Senator William V. Roth, Jr. Bridge.

I'm just a bill
Yes, I'm only a bill
And if they vote for me on Capitol Hill
Well, then I'm off to the White House
Where I'll wait in a line
With a lot of other bills
For the president to sign
And if he signs me, then I'll be a law.
How I hope and pray that he will,
But today I am still just a bill.

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