Tailwind Thursday

World's tallest man saves China dolphins
(Probably because his arms were long enough to reach the bottom of the ocean.)















RIP, Peter Boyle.

I didn't watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" that much - an episode here and there. But I always appreciated Boyle as an actor. Apparently, so did his co-workers. However, I loved these two factoids so much, I had to include them.

1. He also was close friends with John Lennon, who was best man at Boyle's wedding.

2. He traveled to New York to study with legendary actress Uta Hagen, supporting himself for five years with various jobs, including postal worker, waiter, maitre d' and office temp.

Anyone who gets famous and moves on from the post office rocks the house in my book! I bet he would have been an awesome mailman - coming to the house everyday, sayin' hi...yeah. Rockin' good mailman, I'll bet.

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I got an e-mail from Hoss yesterday, wanting to know where my cookie recipe was at. I didn't know about the whole blog cookie recipe thingie until today, and to be honest, I'm not a baker. (I've been advised by the local health board and fire departments to never pursue this hobby also.)

So my cookie recipe is this:

Go to the grocery store.
Buy Oreos.
Take home.
Eat. (Good with milk, diet Coke, or Bailey's Irish Creme. Not good with beer.)

I hope you're happy, Hoss. Merry Christmas to you!


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Also, keep Jules in your prayers...she's been going through rough stuff lately. You can go to her blog to read all about it, but she needs some Christmas cheer.

She's been a blog friend of mine for quite a while, and when things level out, she and I are going to get together and moon the White House. This I vow.

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Also, no matter how you beg and plead, I am NOT going to take the bait and give my opinion on Rosie O'Donnell's latest faux pas.

Nope. Not me. No matter how fervent the plea, I'm not bitin'.

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New Arrival at Rancho Sudiegirl..."And Then I Stabbed Him In the Head With a Fork". FUNNY STUFF, folks. Please visit this blog, and tell her Sudiegirl sent you!



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I normally don't visit the "Hot Zone" blog on Yahoo, but this topic intrigued me.

The topic? Two documentary film-makers focusing on "Mom and Pop" businesses. Basically, if you're not familiar with the concept, it refers to independent business owners (usually grocery stores, but other ones too).

I'm from a small town, so "mom and pops" aren't very foreign to me. We had a good mix of "mom and pops" and chains in Washington when I was growing up there.

Let's see...when I lived there, we had two grocery stores on opposite ends of town. That seemed to work OK, I guess.

We also had at least one discount store at a time. The store that's been around the longest first started out as Gibson's, then changed to Pamida. For a time, we also had Alco right next door to it, but Alco died a slow death. Can you say "saturated market"?

Washington also has a town square, and I saw businesses come and go.

At one time (I'm going to pick the time period of when I was in high school), we had:

(1) three shoe stores
(2) two Hallmark stores
(3) three or four clothing stores (mens/womens/childrens),
(4) two restaurants
(5) a video rental place
(6) a hardware store
(7) a bank
(8) two flower shops
(9) a gift shop (bridal registries were done there, usually)
(10) two jewelers
(11) a music store
(12) an insurance agency.

We had businesses off the square as well, my parents' shoe repair shop being one of them.

It's hard to see a business go, and of course, rumors would spread about what would be put in that business' place. For example?

McDonald's.

For YEARS, there were rumors flying about when we would get a McDonald's. Washington, Iowa finally got one in 1996; it was like Washington had finally "arrived".

Sadly, the service was not all it was cracked up to be. Managers came and went, and while Mickey D's is not closed, complaints about the service there really hurt the image.

The last time I was home, I didn't recognize some parts of town.

The old Hy-Vee, which was a furniture store for a while, is now a Pizza Ranch. The new Hy-Vee wasn't actually "new" to me, but they've got a lot more to offer than they used to. Plus, they moved everything around, which confused the hell out of me.

There's only one shoe store, and the music store has changed names a couple of times.

One of the restaurants closed after being in business for over 70 years.

So, the times they are a-changing. And really, why shouldn't they? That's how it's supposed to work in this world.

So with that, I say bye bye for now.

Sudiegirl the reminiscent