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MAY
23,
2016 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. |
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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.
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Something else that I’d forgotten came back to me while watching a “Peanuts” special on TV last fall.
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.
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MAY
21, 2026 
CHOICES
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.”
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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 |
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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.
But that's no fun! So they dragged out the process.
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.
The numbers have actually been archived online. Ten years ago, for example:
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Eric May 4, 2016 |
Captain America: Civil War |
$179,139,142 |
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Eric May 20 |
The Angry Birds Movie |
$ 38,155,177 |
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running total |
$217,294,319 |
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Jeff May 27 |
X-Men: Apocolypse |
$ 65,769,562 |
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Jeff May 27 |
Alice Through the Looking Glass |
$ 26,858,726 |
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running total |
$ 92,628,288 |
Eric led by $124,666,031 at the end of the month. Ha, ha.
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.
MAY
19,
2016 
DOORMAN
AT THE LADIES’ ROOM
“Pardon me, ma’am, may I see your birth certificate?”
“What?”
“State law. You can’t use a restroom if it doesn’t match your original God-given gender.”
“But you let that other woman go in with her two little girls.”
“All their papers were in order.”
“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.”
“That’s ridiculous! I need to go to the bathroom!”
“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.
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MAY
16, 2026 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. |
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The stories are in this month's 100 Moons article. |
APRIL
MAY
13,
2016
BROADENING
MY BASE
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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.
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JULY
27, 2006However, 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.)
Everything was going along swimmingly until a few months ago. I was starting to develop trouble with my feet. They had both gotten bigger! I used to wear an 11 triple-width, but now my right foot required a 13 triple-width and my left foot required a 12 triple-width. With two different sized feet, I had to get a pair of size 13 and a pair of size 12.
I mentioned all of this to my sister, to see if this seemed unusual to her, and she regaled me with tales of her own growing feet. Not too long ago she was a size 8. But recently, within a very short amount of time, her feet expanded to a size 9, then size 10, then size 10½ wide. She says she now wears “clown shoes.”
Unlike her, I don't consider my shoes to be disproportionate to my overall leg. I'm just glad they make them that big.
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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! |
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MAY
11,
2026 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. |
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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.”)
+ On the other hand, starting in 1971 attorneys could advertise their services.
+ And in 1985, the FDA began permitting commercials for prescription medications.
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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.
MAY
8,
2026 HOW
NINE TENTHS CAME TO BE
Hey, Vern! That's a sharp-looking Chevy you've got there. Yours?
Naw, it belongs to a customer. I've just parked it out here so I could fill it up with gas.
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How much does gasoline cost here in Falmouth, Kentucky? It's pretty cheap, I imagine. Just a dime a gallon. Well, ten and nine-tenths cents, actually. |
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What's the “nine-tenths”?
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.
Even before the New Deal.
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.
Well, we're in a Depression, so they've got to raise money somehow.
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?
Drivers think so.
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?
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We might. You never can tell. |
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MAY
5,
2016
CAST
OF HUNDREDS
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.”
She replies, “I work at CVS.”
He perks up. “Really? CBS? I would love to work at CBS.”
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“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. |
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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.
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MAY
2,
2026 “Pass me a couple of them there Tore Till Laze. Grack eye us, Sinner. “So where is Bay Jay, California?” |
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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. |
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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.)
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