T. Buckingham Thomas

JUNE 4, 2026 FEELING BLUE AS EGGS

Hi! I'm Robin. I suppose you could say I'm a friend of Mr. Thomas, who runs this website. We met last year. We exchanged cheeps.

That May, my wife at the time had discovered a nest that had been conveniently left for us atop my friend's porch light. It's indicated below by the yellow arrow, next to the door to his apartment, where it had been for several years.

We decided we could remodel this nest and use it to start a family. Technically it would have been illegal to remove it, because the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 protects more than a thousand species and their nests.

Then this year, I returned with my new wife Turdys. (No, she's not a “turd.” Our scientific name is Turdus migratorius.) The nest was still there, and she was excited to see it. She immediately began to spruce it up with some new dry grass.

It was only April and we had only just returned to the North, so I told her it was too early to lay eggs. Mr. Thomas says the temperature was often below freezing: 26° on the morning of April 8, and 29° on April 20. But Turdys couldn't wait. She laid three beautiful blue eggs and began incubating them so they would hatch.

This picture from Facebook shows a different robin mother.

Our nest is seven feet above the floor of the porch. To actually look down into it and admire the eggs, Mr. Thomas would have to be as tall as Victor Wembanyama. He is not.

However, some of our robin relatives southwest of Kansas City weren't very smart. This spring they built a nest in a similar sheltered area at a height of only three feet — on top of a tire in the spacious wheel well of a big Ford pickup. They chose a 2026 F-250 King Ranch model that was being sold for $93,000 by Olathe Ford Lincoln.

Until the youngers hatch and leave the nest, the customer will have to wait to take delivery.

If I saw Mr. Thomas on the porch, my instincts perceived him as a threat. I immediately flew toward him, screaming as loud as I could. If I had been hunting worms under the nearby tree, I came running across the lawn. A couple of times, Turdys also left the nest to join me in flapping and yelling. But Mr. Thomas didn't seem frightened. He just went about his business, getting in his car that was parked nearby and driving away.

But then on April 27, we learned that the cold weather had prevented a blessed event.

This is not unusual. On average, only 40 percent of robin nests successfully produce young.

April 27 was also the morning that a man fired up a riding lawn mower for the first pass of the season. I've never heard an engine roar so loud, and it passed right next to the porch.

Turdys gave up. She flew off to find another mate, perhaps in a quieter wooded area near Little Bull Creek a thousand feet to the north.

I hung around for a while. One day Mr. Thomas noticed a tiny chick skeleton on the sidewalk. Another time I saw him sitting in his car. We recognized each other, and I trotted over to get a closer look and say hello. But there was no screaming. There was no longer a need to scare him away.

JUNE 1, 2026 PERFECT PITCH

I still stubbornly use cash to pay my bill at most sit-down restaurants, including Elderton's Thee Log Cabin.

Returning home from lunch the other day, I retrieved my change from my pocket and accidentally dropped one of the coins onto the kitchen floor. “Ting.” Without looking, I identified the sound as a dime. I was correct. Should I be proud of this ability?

On the other hand, to keep track of transactions I no longer use a paper check register and a pen, the way I was taught in school. Many years ago I switched to an Excel spreadsheet.

Today is the first of June in the year 2026. There are various formats in which today's date can be entered into a single spreadsheet cell, including 1/6/2026, 1/6/26, 2026-06-01, and many others. I've decided to use 26.06.01 because it can be sorted into chronological order and it's easy to read and type. Tthe unobtrusive period is right there on the keypad. Should I be proud of my choice?

When actors in a play are having a one-on-one conversation, audience members tend to watch whichever character is speaking. However, we in the audience do have a choice. I can shift my gaze to see the other character's reactions.

The earliest motion pictures simply filmed whatever was happening on stage. But then the closeup was invented. By alternately showing us only one actor speaking and then the other, the director could make the choice for us.

When a group is singing or dancing on stage or on television, I like to pick out one attractive performer to follow while mostly ignoring the others who are making the same moves.

Early on, I had trouble when I saw a Spice Girls video. Only rarely were all five on camera at the same time. I'd see a closeup of my favorite and my eyes would widen, but then seconds later they were showing another of the Girls and I'd lean back.

Much more recently, I ran across this video featuring a lead singer from Siberia, the former Miss World 2008.

I'm sure Leonid Vorobyev was proud of being able to put together a “video montage" squeezing many many shots into little more than three minutes. Sometimes there are multiple angles in a single frame. I counted 196 shots —on average, a new one every second!

This impressive editing achievement left me frustrated. I had just barely begun to appreciate some detail of Ksenia Buzina's appearance, maybe her necklace, when the video cut to the horn section. I wanted to continue admiring Miss World!

Here's a contrasting example featuring, as mentioned in my previous article, another attractive redhead.

I clearly recall watching the movie Oliver! in a theater when I was in college. The film went on to win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Directing, and Best Musical. It included a memorable solo, “As Long As He Needs Me,” by Shani Wallis.

And there were no distracting camera cuts.

Among the ladies I find attractive are many redheads, including actress Galadriel Stineman from Newport, Kentucky.

I first noticed Galadriel (not an Irish name as I had guessed but a Tolkien name, accent on the LAD) in the 2011-2017 sitcom The Middle, set in central Indiana. Now she has the lead role in an eight-episode TV series called Sugarcreek Amish Mysteries, set in the Amish country of eastern Ohio.

Galadriel's character Cheryl is one of the outsiders, known as the “English.” She needs to get to know her Amish neighbors. They do observe Christmas, but they inform her that they don't put up decorations. I noticed that although snowflakes were added to one scene, most of the December exteriors seemed to have been filmed in August. At one point she assumes that the nearby town of Berlin is pronounced like the German capital, not “BURR-lin” as it is in Ohio, but no one corrects her.

I haven't known any actual Amish people, although the plain-dressing folk did inspire the name of Plain City, a town in the central Ohio county where I grew up. My parents and I were known to dine family style at various Der Dutchman restaurants. And for a time in the 1970s, the cable TV company for which I worked in Pennsylvania was owned by a company in Sugarcreek.

That Ohio village is a tourist destination claiming to be “Little Switzerland.” Susan L. Trollinger theorizes that the Swiss theme inspires a nostalgia for something that is forever gone, a period when the United States was a white-majority country of European Christian immigrants. The authors of a Guideposts book series are thus inspired, as are the executives of the UPtv cable network, focused on family-friendly and uplifting programming.

Unlike most TV series that investigate mysteries, the “Amish mysteries” don't involve murder. For example, in one episode a missing brooch is discovered in the possession of a young man. It turns out that a cat knocked the brooch off a shelf and it fell into the man's empty coat pocket. There was no theft. Mystery solved!

MAY 23, 2016
ON THIS DATE

That is I on the right, 51 years ago today, all suited up for high school graduation. My golden National Honor Society pin is in my lapel. I didn’t know this photo existed until a few weeks ago, when I was in need of Terry Rockhold’s senior portrait for this item.

In 1965, Cubberly Studios pasted all our portraits on a poster. It’s displayed at class reunions, as you can see here.

They also printed smaller 11” by 14” photos of the poster, one of which I have. I removed it from its frame to scan Terry’s portrait.

Apparently — and the following is all conjecture — the frame also contained an odd-shaped piece of a color print, hidden behind the main photo. It must have fallen out unnoticed and landed on a nearby magazine. I didn’t discover it until four days later.

It appears to have been taken by my father in our back yard after church on Sunday, May 23, 1965. That evening the high school baccalaureate service would be held in the Baptist church, and the actual commencement ceremony would take place the following evening in the high school auditorium.

Later he trimmed the print to fit in the bottom half of an elliptical frame. (No clue as to what was in the top half of the frame. A baby picture?) Now I’ve enhanced the photo, as you've seen above.

That same weekend, I also donned my black cap and gown for some black-and-white Polaroids. I later colorized this one.

Something else that I’d forgotten came back to me while watching a “Peanuts” special on TV last fall.

During the Apollo 10 mission to the moon, “Charlie Brown” was NASA’s communications handle for the Command Module, and “Snoopy” was the name of the Lunar Excursion Module.

In that spring of 1969, “Snoopy” (or his Sopwith Camel?) swooped down to an altitude of 44,000 feet above the lunar surface, in a dress rehearsal for that summer’s actual landing of Apollo 11 on the moon. I’ve since looked up the exact dates and times.

I remember the morning when “Charlie Brown” left lunar orbit to carry the astronauts home. Around 7:30 A.M. on Saturday, May 24 — that would be 47 years ago tomorrow morning, and nine days before my college graduation — I was hosting the semiannual Classical Music Marathon on Oberlin’s student radio station, WOBC. I was finishing up an all-night shift. I stepped outside the studios briefly to visit the restroom at the other end of the third floor of Wilder Hall. Somewhere in the building I caught sight of a TV set with live pictures from the spacecraft.

When I returned to the microphone, I mentioned this to my listeners (assuming I had a few of them, up at dawn after studying all night for finals).

I reported that the astronauts were showing us a large part of the face of the Moon, gradually growing smaller as they sped away from it on their return to Earth. They were only the second group of humans who had traveled that far from our home planet.

It was quite a view, for those of us who were awake to see it.

Each spring, National Football League executives take turns choosing young athletes (usually college players) whom they want to sign for their teams. This used to be accomplished by the equivalent of a conference phone call. But when the execs noticed the public interest in their choices, they realized there was money to be made. So they put on a show. One month ago, 320,000 fans turned out in Pittsburgh to witness 32 players being drafted.

One wonders why. No actual football was played. The number-one pick remained in Florida with his parents. Nevertheless, fans returned the next two days to witness more rounds of announcements, bringing the aggregate total to a record-breaking 805,000.

Pittsburgh had been sprucing up the city for this extravaganza since 2024. “While many vendors were happy their city was in the national spotlight,” noted the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “many were disappointed that their sales were lower than they had anticipated.”

When life was slower, people planned activities for certain hours. Then appointment books began including slots for half-hour or even quarter-hour intervals.

Now my favorite local restaurant schedules orders on the basis of tenth-hours. I suppose that prevents a five o'clock traffic jam at the pickup window.

Desired Pickup Time
4:39 PM
4:45 PM
4:51 PM
4:57 PM
5:03 PM
5:09 PM

Movie critics Jeff Bayer and Eric D. Snider, who once both lived in Portland, Oregon, had a podcast for a number of years called “Movie BS with Bayer and Snider.” Although I almost never went to a theater, I listened each week to hear their humorous banter.

To keep up interest during the months when there would be fewer prestigious releases, they played a game with each other called “Summer Box Office Challenge.” Basically, they looked up the movies that were going to be released during the summer months. The challenge was to guess how popular each film would prove to be on first release. How many dollars would each movie make at the box office on its opening weekend? The two podcasters each sorted their lists in order of predicted revenue.

Then it was Draft Day. Maybe Eric would announce his favorite, then Jeff would get his turn, and so on until they had each drafted ten films.

It would have been easy for each podcaster to type his top 20 into a spreadsheet and let the computer make the assignments. If Eric had listed Movie A as his most likely, the computer would assign that to him and assign to Jeff his most likely that was not Movie A. Then Eric would be assigned his next preference which had not yet been assigned, and the spreadsheet would fill in all the blanks instantly.

Eric announced a choice, and Jeff would sigh and groan. Had he planned to pick that film himself? With great hesitation, Jeff would reluctantly name his choice, leading to opinions. Doing it this way, the Draft filled more than 15 minutes of a podcast hour. Then each week for the rest of the summer, they'd announce the interim results.

Eric May 4, 2016

Captain America: Civil War

$179,139,142

Eric May 20

The Angry Birds Movie

$ 38,155,177

running total

$217,294,319

Jeff May 27

X-Men: Apocolypse

$ 65,769,562

Jeff May 27

Alice Through the Looking Glass

$ 26,858,726

running total

$ 92,628,288

The numbers may have been in the millions, but no actual dollars were exchanged. Stakes were set so the eventual winner would get to embarrass the loser. This season-long drama was fairly entertaining — once we got past Draft Day.

“State law. You can’t use a restroom if it doesn’t match your original God-given gender.”

“Well, I don’t carry my birth certificate with me. But I’m obviously a woman. Can’t you see that?”

“You look like a woman, but they’re doing evil things with hormones and surgery these days. You could be like Caitlyn Jenner. You could really be a man wearing a dress so you can go into the ladies’ room and molest those little girls.”

“Sorry, it’s the law here. I’m just doing my job. You can try the gas station on the corner. Next?”

Ken Jennings tweets: Now is the time to invest in TransSit, my chain of all-gender pay toilets located just across the state line from North Carolina.

MAY 16, 2026 PROGRESS!

Seventy years ago, I heard recorded music in stereo for the first time. You see, my father sold General Motors vehicles, and GM had deployed a fleet of these giant eight-wheeled buses to bring demonstrations of the latest technology to America.

Not long afterwards, Walt Disney's television show taught us how nuclear chain reactions work.

JULY 24, 2006

Ten years ago I flew into Milwaukee to televise baseball, Pirates vs Brewers. But the top of my left foot was puffy and swollen, from the middle toes all the way back to the ankle.

After the game I returned to the Pfister Hotel and painfully removed my left shoe, which had been pinching the top of my foot. In case I needed to explain the problem to my doctor after I returned home, I took the photo at the left.

The swelling was even worse later that week, as shown below. Eventually a different doctor determined the cause to be gout.

JULY 27, 2006

I’m now on medication to control my uric acid, and there have been no further flare-ups.

However, when I recently turned 69 years old, a new problem developed. I became reluctant to walk very far because my toes were complaining again.

This time there was no visible swelling, but I did develop a corn on the outside of my left little toe, as though my shoes had become too small. I hoped maybe the difficulty would go away. Then last Saturday I read the following on Mark Rothman’s blog. (He’s a retired sitcom writer about my age, co-creator and producer of Laverne & Shirley.)

JULY 24, 2006

MAY 12, 2016

I Googled around and discovered it’s not unusual for senior citizens’ feet to spread out. In my case, my smaller toes (especially on the left foot) are now pointing outward, leaving a huge gap between themselves and the big toe.

Yesterday, therefore, I paid a visit to the shoe store. The kindly clerk helped me replace my 9½ narrows with 10½ mediums.

My feet are much happier now, and I’m walking everywhere again!

MAY 11, 2026 ASK YOUR DOCTOR

Pharmaceutical sales representatives promote and sell products to healthcare professionals. Doctors and pharmacists are told all about the benefits of new medications and treatment options.

Television commercials promote and sell to the general public. However, the rules for commercials have changed over time.

X After 1970, cigarettes could no longer be advertised on TV. (Andrew Kinsey posted recently: “We seriously should treat sports betting ads like cigarette ads: ban them.”)

+ And in 1985, the FDA began permitting commercials for prescription medications.

Now we see prescription ads all the time. A pharmaceutical company will use television to tout the benefits of their amazing miracle drug.

It's been “clinically tested.” (That's better than simply relying on the testimony of a couple of random individuals who claim to feel better now. But about that clinical testing: What organization conducted it? And were the results favorable?)

You're filled with hope. Maybe this drug will cure your problem! And then, because the lawyers know that medical advice from a TV commercial may not be appropriate for everyone, you're urged to “ask your doctor if Potch is right for you.”

In effect, the Potch-pushers are trying to hire you as yet another pharmaceutical sales representative. Unpaid, of course.

Naw, it belongs to a customer. I've just parked it out here so I could fill it up with gas.

That goes to Washington, plus another tenth. Federal gas tax. A few years ago Congress passed a Revenue Act. I think that was in 1932.

Right. For every gallon our supplier Crown Gasoline brings us, they have to charge us an extra cent for Uncle Sam. The proceeds go to pave highways and such.

Now, paying those pennies hurt our profit margin, but we didn't want to pass all of it on to our customers. So somebody got the bright idea of increasing our price only nine-tenths of a cent. Then we could sell our 10-cent gas at 10.9 cents including tax. That sounds much cheaper than 11 cents, right?

It looks better on advertising signs, anyhow. It's a sneaky illusion, but it works.

But Vern, we all know about the government. They'll keep raising that federal tax until it's almost a quarter per gallon, and the states will enact their own levies. The fuel itself will get more expensive, too. If all of that happens, surely you guys won't stay with this nine-tenths business forever, will you?

On the HBO comedy series Veep, the self-important young politico smirks to the undistinguished stranger at the bar, “Remind me again what it is that you do that’s so interesting.”

“There’s always openings.”

“Do you seriously think that you could get me something?”

“Maybe late night.”

“Late Night’s perfect!” And off they go together.

I always did think CVS and CBS sounded alike.

I noticed one actor who looked familiar, so I consulted imdb.com to find his name, which turned out to be John Slattery. It wasn’t that easy. Veep has aired 40 half-hour episodes, and how many actors do you suppose have appeared? I counted 713 names. On average, a new face shows up every 101 seconds.

That's not really how we talk. Although English is officially America's language, somehow most of us have learned how to pronounce Spanish words like tortillas and gracias and señor and Baja. Amazing.

However, I still haven't fully internalized Oaxaca. It's too far south from the border wall. I'm told it's pronounced Wahocka.

Speaking of pronunciations, while scanning through the cable TV listings I sometimes spot reruns of an HGTV series called No Demo Reno. I mentally say that to myself as
No Demmo Reeno
because demmonstrations are apparently not allowed in the city of Reeno, Nevada.

But I've got it backwards. It should be
No Deemo Renno
because partial deemolition is not always required to rennovate a house. (Not every homeowner wants to knock down interior walls.)