PHOTO INDEX: OUR 1968 LOGO AND ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST CLASS VICE PRESIDENT PAUL KOMENSKY'S TREE IN 2008, FORTY YEARS AFTER GETTING IT FOR ARBOR DAY. THOSE THINGS GREW!
GAS HOBOS
So the other day I’m biting the bullet and getting gas. Mrs. LuLac is out of town, my mom is in the hospital and my mother in law is in severe pain due to a back procedure that didn’t pan out. Things are a tad rough but life is still good. I don’t part with any cash for my gas, I’m using a gift card from Christmas. As I’m filling up, an attractive young lady approaches me and says, “Can you help me? I need some money to get home and buy some gas because I left my purse at school”. Now as a rule I never carry any cash. Kind of perverse on my part, I figure if I ever get mugged or murdered and the assailant goes through my stuff, all he’ll get is a buck earmarked for a Coke and a Price Chopper, SureSave and Wegmans grocery card. I imagine how stupid the robber would feel, notwithstanding the fact at how dumb I’d feel being dead. So I say to the young girl, (who was by the way hot), “I don’t have any cash but I have 10 bucks left on this gift card, if you’d like to pull up to the pump, I’ll fill your tank”. Now I have this religious thing that someday Jesus is going to appear to me as a person in need and if I turn that person down, then when Judgment Day comes he’ll say “Gotcha” and I wind up with all my former gentlemen club friends in hell. So I offer to help. I go to my car and to get my cane to steady myself and I hear a car screaming out of the lot. As I sit there waiting, a clerk from the store comes out and says “did that girl ask you for money?” And I said, “yes” and proceeded to tell her the young lady’s sob story. The woman then tells me that this girl has been in their parking lot four times in one day and has been constantly panhandling the people at the pumps. “Don’t give her any money, understand?” she says. I nod yes and get in my car and drive off. So now we are at a new level, this great country of ours has now been reduced to having its young people panhandle for cash. The next thing might be people selling apples on the street corner. Another reason why this nation has become more pathetic than usual. So beware of sob stories and the new breed of gas hobos, at a self service station in your town.
NADA-KID-HETS
Corbett was talking about same sex marriage on his show the other day and he had a caller who talked about procreation and that gays and lesbians would not do that. Corbett said that there are plenty of hetero couples out there who have no kids, don’t procreate but live good lives and contribute to society. The caller said, “That was okay because they aren’t lying with people of the same sex”. Typical bible thumping logic which Corbett deflected. But the more I thought about it, maybe childless couples should have a designation. I mean we have “Metro Sexuals” for those fancy guys who carry man purses and a few other names. How about a name for hetero couples who choose not to have kids. I’ve come up with NADA-KID-HETS. If anyone has anything better, please post.
AD CAMPAIGN
How about that ad campaign Wilkes College is running featuring kids not even in college yet and making them semi famous by putting them on billboards, pizza boxes and everything else. These kids are high school seniors and you’re promoting them as reasons to attend your university? I mean what a slap in the face to the kids at the school now manning the Key Clubs, running the Student Media, participating in student athletics? It gives new meaning to the term “Freshman Rule”. My heavens, they haven’t even cracked a book yet. Talk about a sense of entitlement! But I guess when you get birthday parties thrown for you at the age of 8 at the Woods, my heavens you must be an important little urchin. I love advertising but this is totally out of proportion and is keeping with the way our society views things, new and untried, cool, dedicated and steady, not billboard ready. What a joke. I think if I were a current Wilkes student, I’d leave as a matter of principle.
HIL AND BARACK
Coming up Tuesday is the Indiana primary and Senator Clinton has a lead. Folks this thing is going down to the wire and will be the best political theatre to come down the pike. What an exciting year in politics.
VINCE!
How about Vince Fumo’s comments at a State Senate hearing this week that there are members of the Legislature who would vote to reinstate slavery if they had the chance. Classic Fumo outrage. But the man is correct. Most of our State Legislators are greedy, money grubbing individuals who would have no problem voting for that if they got enough money to do it. This is after all the Pennsylvania State Legislature that has shown no regard for the common man since maybe 1966. Our guys in LuLac land would be the exception to Fumo’s rule because most of them actually have interacted with black people. But some of the guys I’ve met in my time from the center and upper western part of the state, yeah, Fumo is on the right track.
1968
Forty years ago this week, Vice President Hubert Humphrey entered the race for the Democratic nomination for President. Humphrey’s entrance was criticized by both Senators Kennedy and McCarthy who said HHH’s late entrance was designed for the Veep to avoid the primaries. They were correct…..in Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer predicted that the State Legislature would pass a state income tax in 1969….in Luzerne County the Democratic Commissioners issued a proclamation declaring it “Cherry Blossom Week”, in Wilkes Barre Democratic leader Clarence Toole dies suddenly and in Pittston at St. John the Baptist Grade School, children in grades 3 through 8th are given trees for “Arbor Day”. They were a week late. (See the photo index for Paul Komensky’s tree) and forty years ago this week the number one song in America and LuLac land was “Tighten Up” by Archie Bell and the Drells, from YOU TUBE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjVQOYdHcgo.
Click here for LuLac YOU TUBE video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lEXSEQnDk
Hey Dave, that's one impressive tree. Those things grew like wildfire. And they were indistructable. I remember hitting each other over the heads with them on the bus and they still stayed in the peat moss until you planted them.
ReplyDeleteOn Barack and Hillary, it seems like she's on the upswing with just enough ooomph to tie this thing up again. Not long before we might need Vince McMahon to referee.
Those high school students in the Wilkes ads may actually have been taking some classes at Wilkes. Exceptional h.s. students have been doing this for some time. The state subsidizes this, I believe. They call it "dual enrollment." Also, the competition among small colleges and universities for students is pretty fierce. They all want and need the best and the brightest to choose them so they can boost admission and show the world the caliber of their students. So I don't think this is as bad or silly a campaign as it might seem at first glance. It actually makes sense.
ReplyDeleteAs for childless couples, I've heard them called everything from selfish to DINKS - double income, no kids. Sometimes it's a choice, sometimes not. And did Corbett and his caller forget that there are gay couples who have children? Some of them were in hetero relationships before they came out. Others adopted or got pregnant through artificial insemination or the use of a surrogate. Lots of variety in the human condition.
I think that this same sex marriage thing is a shadow to cover up the real stuff we need to get done. I'm not thinking of who's doin' who when I'm paying 4 bucks for gas and paying through the nnose for health care. The Legislators should try to deal with real issues for a change.
ReplyDeleteI have enjoyed and supported public radio and tv in three markets over the years. Scranton is the smallest, but the need for money seems greatest! Is there ever a time when WVIA is not conducting a fund drive of some sort? I seldom watch tv, but
ReplyDeletethe radio programing offers little in the way of varied information. I currently support WSKG FM out of NY State where I hear shows like Democracy in America and other educational and informative programs. I thought that was what PBS was about. Maybe its time for WVIA to take a serious look at programming and some possibly top heavy salaries. Do we need all the technical advances? Must we be state of the art all the time? The people in this area are tappped out and the professional begging is way over the top and constant. Annual or semi annual appeals should suffice. WVIA is welcome to some of our money, I agree. The question is "Do they need that much!"
The story about the gas pan handler is all too common. Young people here have no chance unless they know a Judge. By the way, did you hear on the radio today that no one has heard of that Pysch doctor in the County? They should blow it up and start all over at least in Luzerne County!
ReplyDeleteJUst a quick comment about Fumo's remarks. I don't think the State Legislature is racist but they are class oriented. They have done nothing to help the middle class in terms of econmic help but they've certiainly helped themselves with our money. Fumo was trying to make a point in the extreme. We're talking about it aren't we and isn't it interesting how we are calling comment outrageous but no one seems to be defending the Legislature either. Wonder why!?
ReplyDeleteDave, Love seeing that YOU TUBE video. The LuLac as a pop classic. I have to say though Dave, the last few days you've been a bit cranky and very opinionated. Siding with Fumo, dissing photogenic teeners (you have to tell me if you were in high school you wouldn't be all over that) and railing about gas prices, same sex marriage and slavery. Are we off our meds?
ReplyDeleteRock on, Yonks. Kickin ass and taken names. When do we start the gas boycott? Name the day in May!
ReplyDeleteLets put LuLac on the map!
Once again you touch a nerve with your personal observations on stories that are news today. Beggers at gas stations, how ironic, the most priced gaugeed place and people want your money.
ReplyDeleteThe saga of Obama and Clinton. Historic no matter how you look at it. And as always, 1968, it was true, Humphrey avoided the primaries because he was scared to death of losing to another Kennedy. Forgot who Archie Bell and the Drells were until I heard the song. "Make it level.........."
On your nada-kid-hets, I wonder if there were any successful politicians, local or national who had success sans children? I can't think of any. Anybody? And if we can't, does that mean you have to produce kids to prove you are worthy of election?
ReplyDeleteJames Buchanan comes to mind, the only bachelor President. Nationally, Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, locally Jim McNulty of Scranton, married, no kids. Wasn't Jim Walsh, now Judge a bachelor when he won the Mayor's seat in Scranton?
ReplyDeleteOne of the most successful politicos was Jerry Brown, two term Governor of California, three time U.S. President candidate, and the guy in 1992 that carried Luzerne County against Bill Clinton.
ReplyDeleteEd Koch, three term Mayor of New York.
ReplyDeleteHow about George Washington, the guy they named that bridge in New York after? Didn't he run for something?
ReplyDeleteIs Billary heading to Arkansas to help out her "old friends" in the
ReplyDeleteaftermath of a deadly tornado? Hell no! Scranton, expect the same.
You've been had again by the Clinton Machine. Mayor Doherty, your Ambassadorship to Ireland has been cancelled and promised to some other fool in Indiana or N.Carolina You will be forced to continue living in your elitist Washington Ave neighborhood.
IN RESPONSE
ReplyDeleteNationally, Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, locally Jim McNulty of Scranton, married, no kids. Wasn't Jim Walsh, now Judge a bachelor when he won the Mayor's seat in Scranton?
McCARTHY GOT MARRIED SHORTLY BEFORE LEAVING THE SENATE, McNULTY GOT MARRIED AFTER HIS TERM AS MAYOR AND I THINK WALSH TIED THE KNOT IN 1968 OR THEREABOUTS WHEN HE WAS THREE YEARS INTO HIS TERM AS SCRANTON MAYOR.
How about George Washington,
HE WAS THE STEPDAD TO MARTHA'S KIDS.