I love the smell of Play-Doh in the morning

Few smells are as evocative of my childhood as the unmistakable smell of Play-Doh.

In the latter stages of the 1950s Play-Doh became available, and my parents - no one's idea of early adopters - glommed on to it, and Play-Doh quickly became a staple in our house, showing up in everyone's Christmas stocking.  (Interesting, I just found out - thanks, Wikipedia - that Play-Doh began life as a putty used to remove coal soot stains from wallpaper. Demand dropped off when folks switched from coal to natural gas or oil for heating.)

Ah, the smell of Play-Doh. 

And I'm apparently not the only one that finds an olfactory Rosebud moment in Play-Doh. In fact, in 2018, Play-Doh maker Hasbro trademarked the smell, which the company:

...formally describes as a unique scent formed through the combination of a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, and the natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough. (Source: Hasbro)

I couldn't have come up with anything quite so wine-loverly. All I know is that my appreciation of the perfume that Play-Doh emits is the nose version of what a judge once said about smut. He couldn't quite describe it, but Potter Stewart said "I know it when I see it." Well, Play-Doh-wise: I know it when I breathe in that delectable aroma, an aroma that:

...makes the PLAY-DOH brand one of the few active and certainly most famous scent trademarks in the country.

On beyond the wonderful Play-Doh smell, I loved the fact that, when modeling clay came in dull, muted colors, Play-Doh was vibrant. Back in the day, it came in three colors: red, yellow, and blue. But as anyone who held a color wheel in kindergarten knew, with those colors you could make orange, green, and purple. Alas, you couldn't unmake the colors, so once you'd committed to those extra colors, you had less of the basics. 

Another advantage of Play-Doh over modeling clay was that it was more flexible, more pliable than clay. 

The only downside of Play-Doh was that if you didn't get it back into its cardboard container pdq - and if the jar wasn't hermetically sealed - it hardened up and got all crusty. You could quasi-restore it with a bit of water, but Play-Doh got stale fast. 

Play-Doh has, of course, morphed over the years with all sorts of brand extensions. For one thing, there are a lot more colors to work with, including pastels and sparkly ones. You can get all sorts of accessories, like cookie cutter molds, and there are kits along a lot of different themes: cooking, playing vet, etc. Inevitably, there are tie-ins to other kiddo brands, e.g., Peppa Pig Play-Doh kits. 

The company has also been climbing up the age ladder, with themed kits - Star Wars, Mandalorian - aimed at older kids and "kidults", 13 on up. 

And now "Hasbro is unveiling its most grown-up brand to date."

The new line comprises a series of modeling compound kits that guide users through the process of turning putty into floral arrangements designed to be displayed. (Source: Wall Street Journal)

Unlike the Star Wars and Mandalorian, Blooms - the new product line - is aimed at crafters. Female crafters. 

Hasbro's CMO, Jason Bunge, has this to say about the market:

“We’re not manufacturing a new need state...We feel Blooms is meeting something that consumers are looking for.”

I'm only putting this bit in because of the term "new need state," which I guess is what we used to call a manufactured need. Anyway, Hasbro's marketing plans include:

...enlisting more than 200 creators, from professional influencers to niche fans of pottery, crafts or flower arranging. It’s also planning a full-day creator event in Brooklyn and hosting a hands-on crafting experience at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York to stoke media buzz.

With Blooms, Hasbro may well be on to something. A lot of folks I know - including adults young and old - have taken up crafting with a vengance. It's engaging, stress-reducing, and entertaining, and, if the makers don't feel compelled to Insta everything they make, gets people away from their screens. (A while back, Legos launched a line of bouquet-crafting kits that are pretty pricey and have been pretty popular.)

Although I won't be buying a Blooms kit, I hope that Hasbro succeeds. As long as they don't try to tamper with the wonderfully evocative smell of Play-Doh. Reminds me of victory childhood, and I absolutely love it.

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Image Source: Smithsonian Mag

Yo, Yo-Yos!

When I was a kid, I loved playing with my yo-yo.

Not that I was all that good. Sure, I mastered the basics: walk the dog; around the world; getting the yo-yo to sleep; that pendulum thingy. But I wasn't a trick-meister, by any means. Nor was anyone I knew - other than, maybe, my brother Tom. I seem to remember him being pretty adept.  

We all had yo-yos. We used them in the schoolyard during recess. We used them solo, when there was no one around to play with and you didn't feel like reading the latest Nancy Drew.

Everyone had a basic wooden Duncan Yo-Yo, with string-string. I don't remember there being any other options. Those snappy translucent yo-yos in fluorescent green, and the aluminum ones, came later. I don't remember there being any nylon string either.

Other than Duncans, the only yo-yos I remember from my childhood were those ridiculous flimsy little plastic ones that came as the prize in cereal or a box of Cracker Jack. They were in size somewhere between a nickel and a quarter, and the string was thread.

Unlike the swell Navy frogmen that came in Kellogg cereals - the ones where you put baking soda/powder in a little compartment in an outsized flipper and got to watch the frogman buzz around the tub on a very important mission - the cheapo plastic button-sized yo-yos did not work. 

You could yo down, but the yo-yo itself was too light, the thread too flimsy, to be able to yo back up. Let alone do a trick.

In my world, y0-yos were popular in the mid-to-late 1950s, and then had a resurgence when I was in high school in the mid-1960's.

In high school, I owned a red wooden Duncan with a white cloud-like striped design.

As I said, I wasn't all that good at it, but I wasn't out-and-out terrible, either. I just didn't excel in yo-yo as I had in playing jacks, the one "sport" I was ever any good at. (A few years ago, I tried to see if I still had my mojo working, but my hands were too big. And it was too damned uncomfortable sitting on a hard floor, let alone getting up from it.)

Back in the day, if there were any yo-yo contests around, I wasn't aware of them.

I do recall a hula hoop contest in the parking lot of the Stop 'n Shop when I was in fourth or fifth grade or so - whenever the hula hoop craze was at its peak. I went with my sister Kath and our friends, but we didn't arrive in time to contest. There were hundreds of kids there, and we just milled around the perimeter, hoops in hand, before getting bored and heading home.

But as I learned recently, competitive yo-yo is a thing, and in late June the nationals, run by the good folks at the National Yo-Yo Contest, were held in Las Vegas.

Lots of divisions and sub-divisions. So lots of contestants, and lots of winners. It's a sport dominated by males -  young males -  and, let me tell you, what these kids can do with a yo-yo is pretty phenomenal. 

Ryan Connolly, a local from North Easton, Mass., was crowned champion of the 4A Division. 4A is described as yo-yo-ing off the string. I couldn't quite picture what stringless yo-yo-ing is, but seeing is understanding. The string is not attached to the yo-yo. You toss the yo-yo and catch it on the string, in the air, and do tricks with it. 

Connolly is what I would call a quasi-professional. There doesn't appear to be any prize money in these contests. You win your medal and a bag o' yo-yo-related prizes. But Connolly - who graduated from UMass Amherst a couple of years ago and who works as a financial analyst - has a side gig coming up with product ideas for a Korean yo-yo maker. Mostly, I'm guessing he's in it for love of the game. And as side-hustles go, this is a pretty fun and interesting.  (And quirky enough to make it to Connolly's LinkedIn profile.) Beats being an influencer!

Connolly is also the World 4A Champion, and will be defending his title in Japan later this month. Good luck, Ryan!

Me? I think I may have a yo-yo around here somewhere. I don't think I have my trusty high-school Duncan, but I seem to remember a more yup-scale yo-yo I got at Sharper Image (oh, those were the days). Anyway, I'm going to scout around and see if I've still got it. (The yo-yo, and my former mad "skills.")

I don't think I'll be trying any 4A tricks, but I'd like to see if I can still walk the dog.

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Image Source:  National YoYo Hall of Fame

Should've stuck to bubble gum...

When the story was first reported, it looked as if Ipswich school administrators were way over-reacting by suspending from play six members of the lacrosse team for posting pics of themselves, on graduation day, in their gowns and with big (unlit) stogies in their mouths.

The Ipswich Six weren't being allowed to play in the state boys lacrosse semi-finals in their division because they were in violation of state sports regulations that prohibit high school athletes from using alcohol, drugs, or tobacco. In order to participate in sports, the young athletes have to sign this agreement.

But if the cigars were unlit, as douche-y and bro as the pictures of these young men depict them to be, what's the BFD? They may have been cocking a snook at school administration, but what else is new.

And supposedly, the a stogie-pic on graduation day is some grand high school tradition in some quarters. So what if this tradition is obnoxious and noxious? If the 'gars weren't lit, no harm, no foul, right? (If the 'gars weren't lit, you must acquit.)

Well, the admin was quick to point out, there was another picture showing the boys puffing away, wreathed in cigar smoke. Thus, a violation.

Meanwhile, when the notice went out that the six students would not be allowed to play, three other team members said that, out of loyalty to their supposedly wrongly accused teammates, they wouldn't play. The team at that point didn't have enough players to arm with cudgels, so the remaining members voted to forfeit the game to Cohasset. (Coincidentally, Cohasset and Ipswich are both picturesque, affluent, ocean-front communities: Cohasset on Boston's South Shore, Ipswich on the North.)

Some parents went haywire.

So what if their boys posted a picture of themselves with cigars in their mouths? So what, even, if they were found to have smoked them. The cigars, one father claimed, were fake. He, in fact, had taken the real cigars, removed the tobacco, and had stuffed them with a combo of chamomile and English breakfast tea leaves. So there!

Forget for a moment that even an emptied out cigar is still tobacco, as the wrapper is a tobacco leaf. (This is unlike a cigarette, which is tobacco rolled in paper.) So if the cigars were mostly fake, that shows that the kids just wanted to appear to be smoking and weren't deliberately flouting the just-say-no regulation.

The fake cigar-making dad went so far as to submit a store receipt showing that he'd purchased the tea at Shaw's Market. Sure, the time and date stamp were smudged, but proof is proof, no?

Well, not if it's fake proof, as the Ipswich crack administators found out when they went into full Law & Order, CSI, Columbo mode and brought the receipt to Shaw's to check out whether it was legit. Well, Shaw's had a duplicate, and the receipt was legit. But when the time and date weren't smudged out, the time and date showed that the purchase had been made a few minutes after the email went out informing the lacrosse players that there had likely been a rules violation. 

As the Boston Globe put it, "the fake cigar defense appears to be going up in smoke."

The whole sitch turned into a kertuffle, with parents screaming at admins and lawyering up, the father who fakely claimed to have made the fake cigars sticking to his story - “It’s a fake cigar, it’s been proven,” - and the cops being called in. 

“We fully understand the disappointment, frustration, and emotions that have accompanied this outcome,” administrators said. “As educators and school leaders, we are always disappointed when we must make difficult decisions such as this." (Source: Boston Globe)

Yes, it is disappointing to many that the team wasn't allowed to play in the state playoffs. (For the record, Cohasset, the team Ipswich forfeited to in the semi-finals, went on to beat Nantucket for and win the state's Division 4 boys lacrosse championship.)

And the underclassmen on the team, the kids who didn't smoke the cigars, have every right to be disappointed. What the kids who smoked the cigars - violating an agreement that they had signed, and then letting a parent lie about the cigars being fake - shouldn't be disappointed. They should be embarrased. And, if not ashamed of themselves for letting the lie proceed - and, yes, it is hard to stand up to your or someone else's father, even if they're in the wrong - they should be ashamed that they're part of this entirely shameful situation.

If they wanted to have the "traditional" cigar smoking pic, they could have waited until after their playoff game(s). Or they could have poked a bit of fun at the traditional and gone with bubble gum cigars.

Ipswich admin released this statement:

... “One of the most important lessons we teach young people is that choices have consequences, even when those consequences are difficult or painful,” [Principal Jonathan] Mitchell and [School Superintendent Brian] Blake said in their statement. “While this outcome was heartbreaking for the student-athletes, their families, their coaches, and our school community, we remain committed to applying our policies consistently and acting in what we believe to be the best interests of the integrity of our educational and athletic programs.”

Good for standing up for integrity in their "educational and athletic programs." But heartbreak, shmeartbreak. This is high school. I'm guessing that most kids from Ipswich (and all pf the lacrosse players) go on to college. My wish for all of them is that high school, as much as they may have enjoyed it, is not the be all and end all of their existence.  Glory Days, indeed.

As for those conniving, lying, idiotic parents who came up with the fake cigar scheme. Grow the f up!

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Image Source: Etsy

Duck and cover

I remember plenty of school fire drills. Back in the day, kids were actually killed in school fires - as happened to 92 kiddos (and 3 nuns) at Our Lady of the Angels (same name as my school!) in Chicago in 1958. This was before there was such a thing as a mass school shootings, so there was no such thing as active shooter drills. Just fire drills.

If there were any Civil Defense "Duck and Cover" drills at my OLA, I don't recall any. But this was the 1950's-1960's, so there must have been a time or two when the fire alarm went off and the nuns told us to stick our heads under our desks and make a perfect Act of Contrition. I just don't remember any. 

I think there was a black and yellow Fallout Shelter sign somewhere in the vestibule of our church, indicating that we could hide from an A-bomb in the church's basement. The nuns may have walked us down the hill, in a patrol line, to the church to point it out to us, but I don't think they went so far as to take us into the basement. 

Not that we weren't being constantly warned about an impending attack by Russian or Chinese Communists. This was the Cold War we're talking. But mostly the nuns were preparing us for a ground war, not bombs dropping from the heavens skies. What would we do, we were asked, if Commies stormed into our classroom, pointed Kalishnikovs at us, and asked us to deny our faith? Who among us would stand and declare "I am a Catholic" and join the ranks of martydom? 

It didn't occur to us to wonder why they'd bother asking, given that they had marauded their way into a classroom to find 50 or so parochial school uniformed kiddos jammed in. A classroom presided over by a nun with giant rosary beads swinging from her waist. A classroom with a prominently displayed crucifix and other religious paraphernalia all over the walls. Even the dullest Commie soldier could probably figure out we were all Catholics. 

This was also the era of backyard bomb shelters, but I didn't know anyone who had one. Bomb shelters were middle-class suburban, not blue-collar urban I guess. Maybe it was an economic thing, maybe it was philosophical, with us working stiff types deciding that if A-bombs and, later, nukes were being rained down on our heads, the world just might not be worth surviving.

At least that's how I like to think of it, because that's my philosophical stance on surviving a nuclear apolcalypse. Maybe it's because I don't have kids or grandkids, but when it comes to creating a survival shelter - and, in truth, where would I put one in my 1240 square foot downtown condo - I'm Team What, Me Worry? If the end of the world as we know it is upon us, I want to be at Ground Zero wearing a propeller beanie that says "me first."

Anyway, despite the threats heading our way from Iran, I haven't given a ton of thought to just how much terror we're in for, and whether Trump and/or the Ayatollah are actually capable of unleashing nukes. 

Apparently not so for those closer to the know.  As I saw in the news a couple of weeks back: 

...at least two top Trump administration officials have raced to purchase their own survival shelters designed to withstand an apocalyptic nuclear war scenario, The Telegraph reported on Sunday.

The revelation comes from Texas resident Ron Hubbard, who owns Atlas, a company that manufactures survival bunkers designed to withstand "biological [or] nuclear fallout, EMP attacks” and other catastrophic scenarios. Hubbard spoke with The Telegraph and revealed that since the U.S. attack on Iran, inquiries had gone up “tenfold,” including inquiries from two senior Trump administration Cabinet members.

“One of them texted me yesterday, asking me: ‘When will my bunker be ready?’” Hubbard told The Telegraph, referring to one of the officials. (Source: Raw Story)

Maybe they know something we don't know. After all, plenty of politicos and politico-adjacent swells have been making bank on insider info through both "savvy" stock market trading and making moves in betting-on-anything markets. Didn't I read that a couple of White House-ers made bank by betting on when the old Ayatollah was going to be taken out?

It's not just administration officials, of course. Hubbard has stated "that his recent clients were almost all “Christian, conservative CEOs,” which included “several of the wealthiest men on the planet,” though he declined to identify them."

Hmmmm. Thought these folks were looking forward to The Rapture.

Me? If the doomsday scenarios play out, I hope to rapturously (or not) enter the Big Sleep and call it a day.  

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Image Source: New Hope Free Press

Triple deckers

I always tell people that I grew up in a triple decker, which is kinda-sorta true. I only lived there until I was six-and-a-half, when we moved to a modest one-family ranch on a street full of VA-loan new-builds on the street behind Winchester Avenue in Worcester. And that triple decker, with the gabled, pitched roof third floor, may technically be a two-and-a-half decker. 

In any case, it was definitely a three flat.

When I was a baby, we lived on the top floor, with the slanted ceilings in pretty much every thus-crampy room. Then the tenants on the second floor moved out, and we moved down. (Those tenants, the Deignans, now occupy a gravesite kitty-corner to where my parents, my grandmother, and my Uncle Charlie are buried.)

The third floor was never again occupied, but when I was a kid, it was a fun place to explore. As was the second floor flat, which remained empty after we moved out.

This was my grandmother's house, and although she could have used the rental income, once we decamped, Nanny and her boon companion, my feckless Uncle Charlie, stayed put on the first floor, the big old house otherwise empty. The story told was that Nanny didn't want the noise of tenants clomping around over her head, but I suspect it had more to do with the fact that my father did 100% of the maintenance, yardwork, snow shoveling, and everything else that needed to get done at 5 Winchester Avenue, including shoveling coal into the furnaces. Now he had a home and yard of his own to maintain, and could now do only 75% of the work at Nanny's that needed to get done and may not have been satisfied with whatever level attention Charlie was paying to keeping the place in shape.

Not that he had to do all that much. The heating was converted to oil, sparing Charlie for having to stir his lazy stumps and shovel coal. I believe that the only work around the house he did was mow the strip of grass that flanked the left side of the house, and scythe the clumps of grass on the steep front lawn. He must have shoveled, too. But my father dropped by to visit Nanny pretty much every day and took care of a lot of things for her.

The house I grew up in - at least until I was six-and-a-half (technically six-years-seven-months) - looked a lot different from the one in the Google Maps picture. 

For one thing, it was a dark chocolately brown with creamy yellow trim. The iron pipe railing going down the front steps looks the same, but that wrought iron design on the front porch is "new." As is the pachysandra or myrtle or whatever it is on the front lawn. We had grass tuffets, like the one that Little Miss Muffet sat on.

Whoever bought the house when my grandmother moved in with my aunt in 1974 made some "improvements" over the years. (The house, by then falling down around their ears - no surprise given that my father was dead and had been ill for many years before he died - was sold after Charlie died and Nanny no longer had his stellar companionship. Other than doing Nanny's grocery shopping - with her money - Charlie was pretty much useless. A freeloader. A low-end con man. A handsome, charming, sweet-talking rogue. But Nanny's golden boy to the end.)

For one thing, they painted the house white and pretty much dumped the trim. They replaced the retaining wall - which, in my memory was at least three feet high - with what looks like a one-footer. They closed in the two side porches (first and second floor), which were wondrous places to sit and watch the world go by. (These porches were known in Worcester parlance as "piazzas." As if.)

Somewhere along the line, we learned that, rather than do upkeep on plaster, the new owners dropped the ceilings. I suppose they replaced the toilets with new-fangled ones that didn't have the raised tank and the pull-chain flusher. I suppose they replaced that iron stove/oven, the size of a VW Beetle.

I hope they kept the pantries, the pocket doors, the hardwood floors. I hope they didn't paint over the magnificent mahogany banister in the front hallway - a hallway used once a year, on Christmas Day, when we walked down to Nanny's for dinner. Other than that, we were back entry/back stairs folks. 

I loved that house, and it holds pride of place in my Worcester memories.

But was it a true triple decker? Like this one? There were, in fact, plenty of triple deckers in my neighborhood. If you jigger with the Google Map, you can see a few of them just across Main Street from Nanny's. (As a side note: some claim that the triple decker was "invented" in Worcester by one Francis Gallagher. The claim has been disputed, but it certainly could be that some enterprising Irishman came up with the idea as a way to house his fellow Irishmen and women who were coming to Worcester in droves.)

I had friends who lived in triple deckers. I had more friends who, like me, had started out in triple deckers before their families graduated to single-family homes. I had a lot more friends whose parents had grown up in triple deckers, and whose grandparents still lived there.

My closest high school friend, Marie, live in a very nice but very small house, not all that far from the decker where her mother had grown up and where her grandfather still lived. Her mother's sister and her family lived above him. When she finished school, Marie's sister lived in a flat there.

This post on triple deckers was prompted by a recent article I saw in The Harvard Crimson. 

I don't regularly read The Crimson, although it's an excellent college paper and I do stumble across articles there every once in a while. This was one of those once in a whiles. 

The article focuses a bit on the iconic status of three deckers. Seriously, is there a movie made about working class, often criminal, Irish boyos that doesn't have triple deckers as a co-star. (C.f., as the Crimson story notes, “The Departed,” “Good Will Hunting,” and “Gone Baby Gone.”

And a bit on the history of deckers:

Historically, triple-deckers were built to house factory workers. Over time, they became a crucial form of upward mobility for working class families, especially immigrants who came to call Massachusetts home. But, as nativist sentiment in Boston grew between 1910 and 1930, the triple-decker became maligned for its association with these groups and it was slowly banned from zoning codes. (Source: The Crimson)

One of the issues wasn't just "nativist sentiment." A lot of those deckers were built quite flimsily and were fire traps. Anyway:

Today, many areas of Boston...are zoned for no more than two and a half stories. Building higher than that requires the same expensive special permission as an apartment building, making apartments a better investment for developers. 

Most of the Crimson story is about the role deckers can/will play in helping alleviate the housing crisis. They are, in fact, "poised for a comeback in many municipalities."

In 2024, the ex-urb city of Somerville okayed construction of three-unit buildings. Last year, Cambridge made four-story housing legal. Boston is debating whether to start permitting triple-deckers "— or even taller buildings —."

Will triple deckers solve the housing crisis? No, but sentimental old me welcomes their revival. There's just something about them...

But I'll end with this, the Crimson writer is named Jack Reardon. On a hunch, I gave him a google and found out that he grew up in the Boston area, and graduated from a well-known local boys Catholic high school. Now, for all I know, Jack Reardon's antecedents were lace-curtain grandees from the moment they arrived. But I'm a pretty good guesser, and I'm guessing that there's a triple decker or two in his background. 

Just sayin'.

By the way, good, well-written article, Jack.

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Image 1 Source: Google Maps
Image 2 Source: Wikipedia 

Word nerd

My mother was anti-swearing. The strongest language I ever heard her use was "Jesus, Mary, Joseph," which she only deployed on the occasion of one of her children showed up on the doorstep with blood gushing from their head or a limb dangling. She always claimed that resorting to language she considered vulgar or coarse was the hallmark of someone with a limited vocabulary.

Well, au-fucking-contraire to that. Thanks to all my reading, and a long-standing interest in words, I have a fairly extensive vocabulary. Which I use in collaboration with words that would have made my mother's eyeballs bulge and head explode.

Growing up, I was always trying to expand my vocabulary. I avidly read through the "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power" feature in the monthly Reader's Digest and was always on the lookout for ways to insert new words into my conversation. (Which I'm sure my 10 year old friends really appreciated.)

Every once in a while, I'd curl up in an armchair and read through my mother's battered, blue-covered 1940's era Webster's Dictionary looking for new words. I pretty much stopped that practice once I came upon the word "prepuce," which 12 year old me didn't understand particularly well and which, for the life of me, I couldn't come up with any way to introduce it into conversation. ("Hey, was your baby brother circumcised? That means his prepuce was clipped." Not that I would have known what circumcision was - other than observing the holy day that was the Feast of the Circumsion, about which the nuns didn't get into the details - let alone that prepuce was another word for foreskin, which I wouldn't have known either.)

As a word lover, I was probably one of the only students in my freshman high school class who was delighted that one of the required texts was a book called Word Wealth.

Yes, I was definitely a word nerd. I still am.  While I no longer curl up with dictionary hoping to find me another "prepuce," I love acquiring new words, even if I seldom end up using them.

Still, there are some words that I have a complete and utter problem with.

Although I finally know what it means - rudimentary, not fully formed - I can't tell you how many times I've looked up the word inchoate over the years. My inability to understand this word's meaning may stem from the trauma of having pronounced it in-CHOAT the first time I attempted to use it. Even though I was likely using the word correctly with respect to its meaning, stumbling only over the pronunciation, my mistake may have triggered some type of verbal PTSD that I only recently recovered from.

Although perhaps not as extensive or varied as mine - he read science, not literature - my husband had a decent vocabulary, and one of his frequently used words was labile. Whether Jim meant it in the scientific sense - unstable, continually undergoing breakdown - or in the everyday sense - open to change - it's a word that I get when I hear it in context. But presented with the word labile? Get me to a dictionary! I never remember what it means.

Opaque tights were popular when I was in high school. And here I am, 60 years on, having to stop and think for a moment whether it means clear and see-through or obscure and hard to understand.

I so want to be able to use the word jejune - not in conversation, but in the written word - but for the life of me, its meaning eludes me.

Sigh...

And not that there'll be any pay off, I must away to a book that may increase my word power, my word wealth.

Any takers for antidisestablishmentarianism?

The Hills Are Alive, with the sound of nuns escaping

Throughout my Catholic childhood, we were regularly encouraged by the nuns and priests to pray for a vocation (where vocation, of course, meant becoming a nun or a priest). When I was in high school, my friends and I put a spin on it and joked about praying that we not have a vocation. 

For my friends and I, the strategy apparently worked, and no one ended up going in the convent. 

At one point, I was quasi wooed in. Along with girls from throughout our order's province, I was invited my senior year to attend a gathering of student council officers. It was a conference, with a couple of overnights thrown in, at the motherhouse. There we were housed in a rather drab and dreary dorm setting to discuss weighty Catholic school student council issues, like how to punish those who smoked in uniform. We were adjacent to the area where the postulants - these were the girls fresh out of high school who were in formation to decide whether to become professed sisters - and, while we weren't exactly encouraged to mingle with them, we were encouraged to watch them. Look! They're normal girls! They play basketball! They eat ice cream! They sing songs from Sound of Music and the more wholesome numbers from West Side Story, which was pretty much "Maria." They're just like you!

One of my closest friends was also in attendance, and neither of us was all that charmed by our peek at nunnish life. And we knew a failed recruitment effort when we saw one.

That same year I was more personally, albeit lightly, targeted, as often when I was in earshot of a nun at our school, she would smile and say "it's the ones you least expect." 

I can't remember her name, but she was new to my school that year and obviously hadn't heard that one of her colleagues had been telling her classes that I was "preaching dangerous heresy" because in religion class I questioned why taking the birth control pill was the mortal sin equivalent of murder. (One of my friends always said they lost a generation when, morally and mortally-sinnishly speaking, they equated French kissing with mass murder.) According to Sister CP, who was certifiable, I was also a known communist because I'd suggested that the senior class project be raising money to help fund a school in Nicaragua. (This never happened. Our big fundraising project was buying a sign for the school's main gate.)

I suppose this nun thought I'd be a good nun because I was a good student and personable. Oh, and I wasn't boy crazy. (I.e., I didn't have a boy friend.) 

Anyway, the girls in my class who did enter the convent were not in the "least expected" category. Both were in the Sodality, a religious organization that the more pious girls joined. Sodality was one of the few clubs at my school that I didn't participate in.

One of these girls lasted about a year. She married, had a family, and became an artist. (Actually, she always was an artist, and a very talented one.) The other girl - a sweet and gentle soul if ever - is still "in." We were never particularly friendly, but we briefly reconnected a few years ago and had lunch a couple times. After teaching for a while, she has devoted her life to social justice, working with refugees, battered women, poor kids, and any other group in need that came her way. Sweet and gentle she may have been, but plenty tough. 

Anyway, after so many years in Catholic school, I have always looked on nuns with some degree of fascination and interest. 

I find their "career choice" to be quite weird. Who would chose this life? But then, of course, I had successfully prayed away any putative vocation - perhaps the last thing I actually prayed for before I realized that, while I may have been baptized a Catholic, I was pretty much born an atheist.

So, nuns...

In any case, the latest nunny-bunny object of my fascination and interest is the story about the trio of ancient nuns Sisters Rita (82), Regina (86), and Bernadette (88) in Salzburg, Austria, who recently made the headlines. 

People are calling us the rebellious sisters!" Rita says with a giggle and a glint in her eye.

The three Augustinian sisters — who use only their religious names — recently ran away from a nursing home and, with the help of a local locksmith, broke back into the convent that used to be their home. Rita jokes that they are octogenarian squatters.

Giggles aside, Rita says they were taken to a nursing home against their will two years ago when church authorities shuttered the cloisters as nun numbers diminished. "When the opportunity arose to return to our beloved convent, we didn't wait for his permission" (Source: NPR)

Instead of waiting to (holy) see the priest who was their overlord, the nuns enlisted parishioners who hired a UHaul and move them back into the place they'd called home for decades. Since their move back home, the trio has been supported by a growing cadre of friends, including former students. 

Needless to say, the prelate, Markus Grasl - who stuck them in the nursing home when the convent's numbers dwindled to just the three and it was no longer viable to keep them there - is not happy with the nuns' great escape. Nor with their media-savvy decision to go public. Christina Wirtenberger, a former student, is an adviser and key supporter of "'operation get thee to a nunnery.'"

"We invited the press along to prevent the provost [Grasl] from turfing the sisters out of the convent," Wirtenberger says. "I was told that he would not be so bold in front of the press."

With the nuns growing public exposure and support - and their 70,000 Insta followers - the hierarchy felt they had to fight back. So Grasl "brought in a PR firm specializing in damage control."

Spokesman (PR flak) Harald Schiffl has been pecksniffing the pushback. The nuns were consulted before the move. The move was in their best interest. These nuns on the run are breaking their vows. And in fine pecksniff fettle:

Schiffl says the nuns' social media presence is unbecoming of their order and that their superiors take a dim view of it.

"Without all the media interest, a viable and sustainable solution would have been found long ago, causing far less damage to the church," Schiffl asserts.

Make that Shiffl pecks and sniffs.  

Sister Bernadette - remember that she's 88 - counters that their use of social media is not god-awful. It's god-given:  

"So heaven uses tech to spread the word? God arranged this, not us!"

Then there's this from a priest supporter:

"The church authorities fear the media like the devil fears holy water because they'd rather keep hidden what is going on behind closed doors," [Father Wolfgang] Rothe says.

And of course, what would a story about nuns in Salzburg be without a mention of the Von Trapp family.

As it turns out, Maria's granddaughter Elisabeth, who is singer - runs in the family, I guess - became a friend of Sister Bernadette a while back, and has sung in the convent:

"I believe Sister Bernadette has a message," von Trapp says. "It has a lot to do with how she has taken care of the community and who is now surrounding her."

There's no denying that as you age, you do tend to need more care, and a nursing home may in fact be a reasonable setting for aging nuns from a shrinking-into-oblivion community, from both a health and financial standpoint.  

But the outside-the-convent community VonTrapp mentioned is rising to the occasion. 

Among them is Karin Seidl, another former convent student. She says the sisters have devoted their lives to the community and now it's time to give back.

"This is their home! And although we've organized for 24-hour care starting next week, I live just three minutes away so I'm also on hand," Seidl says. The church is surely about practicing 'love thy neighbor,' not just preaching it."

She says the sisters are as devout as they are defiant and that they deserve agency and dignity in old age.

As do we all. 

Can't help but rooting for them, no?

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Image Source: MSNBC

And a shoutout to my brother Tom who sent me this article.

Betcha can't eat just one

Seriously, who doesn't like potato chips?

There are plenty of food items you can't eat just one of: Oreos, M&Ms, and peanuts, for starters. But right up there on my list you'll find potato chips. And you don't need to take my word for it. During my youth, Lay's ran a famous ad saying "betcha can't eat just one."

Not that I ate Lay's. In my house, if and when we had chips - which was mostly when we were having a holiday cookout, so Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or Labor Day, or when we were going on a picnic or having a day at the beach - we had State Lines, a local brand that has almost but not quite disappeared. (State Line got its name from its location: Enfield, Connecticut, on the Massachusetts-Connecticut boarder.) In school, when I had an extra nickel to buy a bag of chips, the brand was even more local: Wachusett, a product of Worcester County. 

These days, if and when I buy chips, it's almost always going to be Cape Cod, which are delish. (Not exactly a unique opinion.  Earlier this year, Cape Cod Originals with Sea Salt were chosen the best potato chip by Food and Wine.)

If and when I buy a sub, which I try to limit to once every couple of months, I'll usually throw in a bag of Lay's, which seems to have a monopoly on local sub shops. 

Lay's are fine, just not my faves. But they are the market share leader, and they're doing a big brand makeover. 

Some of the makeover involves removing synthetic colors and flavors from the ingredients that go into the making of a chip. Which is a good thing, but I'm wondering how all the flavored brands are going do without fake whatevers. We'll see. Actually, "we" won't see, as I do not like flavored potato chips - even the most innocuous sour cream and onion flavor. Although I'm down with Cape Cod Russets, the original, the plain, the "vanilla of potato chips" is still the greatest 

Anyway, as part of the Lay's rebranding, Pepsico - the snack empire that Lay's is a major part of - is putting the potato on the bag as well. 

• The redesign will also incorporate a new logo that looks like the sun, photos of potatoes on the bag, and the phrase “Made with real potatoes.”
• A 2021 survey found that 42% of consumers didn’t know Lay’s were made out of the spuds. (Source: Fortune)

42% of consumers didn't know Lay's were made out of spuds? Come on now!

I can see not thinking that Cheese Doodles aren't really made with cheese. (And you'd be right. It's "cheese flavoring.") I can see not knowing what the hell Pringles are made out of. (If you're wondering, it's dehydrated processed potato.)

But what did people think potato chips were made out of? It's pretty simple. Unless they're those weird flavored chips - barbeque, vinegar, dill pickle - potato chips are made out of potatoes, some type of oil, and salt. 

And even if you don't realize and appreciate what the ingredients are, I betcha can't eat just one.

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Image Source: Pepsico

Short answer: not really

Well, yesterday, my post was dedicated to pudding. Today, we take on an adjacent foodstuff: Jell-o salad.

One of my mother's festive specialties was the Jell-o mold.

Early on in my childhood, for Thanksgiving, she regularly made a Waldorf Salad that contained apples, celery, and walnuts suspended in a lovely golden apple-flavored Jell-o. Even though the walnuts got a little soggy, I loved it. Then Jell-o went and stopped producing apple Jell-o. Hiss, boo. My mother experimented and landed on lime, but it was never the same.

But she had another Jell-o mold up her sleeve: a strawberry Jell-o delight that had strawberries, bananas, and walnuts in it, and was slathered with sour cream. 

For Easter, she made orange Jell-o with shredded carrots and pineapple. 

Sometimes she'd whip up a lime Jell-o with canned pears special, other times she doctored up whatever-flavor-of-Jell-o was on the shelf with canned fruit cocktail or grapes.

True confession: my palate ain't all that sophisticated that I didn't absolutely love these Jell-o molds. Don't knock that orange-pineapple-carrot mold unless you've tried it. (And, yes, I have made plenty of fun of Jell-o molds over the years.)

Maybe it's because I'm half Midwest, but whie I may not ever actually make a Jell-o mold, I'm fine with eating one. 

Years ago, on a biz trip to State Farm HQ in Bloomington, Illionis, we went with our client to the campus cafeteria and there we found not one, not two, but three options for fruity Jell-os. I abstained. I knew they would not be as good as my mother's. 

Although my mother's molds sometimes used a veggie - carrots, celery - Liz never, ever, ever made a savory Jell-o Salad. 

But they're apparently a thing. A gourmet thing.

A recent NY Times article asked a compelling question that drew me right in. Can the Jell-o Salad Be Redeemed! 

Talk about click-bait!

Aspics and other savory gelatins are popular again, this time with top-notch ingredients and a refined, ultramodern look. (Source: NY Times)

What's pictured here is not, of course, an ultra-modern, top notch anything. It's a totally vile 1950's recipe using unflavored gelatin, tomato soup, spaghetti-o's and hot dogs. 

Revolting dosen't begin to describe this desecration. We didn't have a lot of say over what my mother put on the table. She occasionally served something that my father liked, but the kiddos mostly found disgusting. Looking at you, creamed chip beef. Looking at you, liver and onions. But once a year, we were all capable of gagging down a meal we hated. Early on, I mastered the act of sluicing down a bite of something disagreeable by floating it down the hatch in a mouthful of milk. But if my mother ever tried to serve this, there would have been a riot in our kitchen. And rightly so.

But The Times isn't talking about hot dogs and spaghetti-o's. They're talking about high-end top-chef creations. 

They're talking about chefs who make "aspics [which] resemble Lucite sulptures." Like one that features soft-boiled egg, herbs and cubed sausage and ox tongue. Ox tongue? That's right up there in the Top (Bottom?) Five when it comes to disgusting foods. Personally, I'd rather sup on Lucite.

A chef at a Berlin restaurant came up with a dish that 

...used a dashi-flavored gelatin to suspend crisp endive leaves and jewel-like kumquats, making the broth with fermented smoked bonito and umami-rich aged rausu kombu from the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Oh, FFS. 

Anyway, I was not surprised to learn that this Berlin restaurant went out of business last year.  

I don't care how fancy-schmancy these "salads" are, the short answer to Can the Jell-o Salad Be Redeemed! is not really. A shorter version is NFW. A still shorter version is NO. 

A Jell-o mold with fruit, on the other hand... There is a gelatin brand that makes apple. I'm hosting Thanksgiving. Maybe, just maybe.  

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Image Source: Cookbook Community

One more proof that baseball is the greatest sport...

I can watch most sporting events with some degree of interest, and in the case of the American Big Four: football, basketball, hockey, and baseball, with a reasonably high degree of understanding and knowledge. I know the plot, I know (mostly) the rules, I know that stories, I know the histories. And for the sports I neither understand nor know anything about - as so often come before me during the Olympics - I am perfectly capable of developing instant expertise. ("How could they have given her a 5? That performance was clearly an 8.")

But the one sport that I hold in my heart, the one sport that I truly love, is baseball.

This has a lot to do with my history. Although he never developed much of an interest in basketball, my father was a sports fan, and his greatest love was baseball. He'd played football, baseball, and hockey through high school, but he'd played baseball beyond, playing for a pass-the-hat, semi-pro team through his twenties. He probably made less than a buck a game. A lot less. But although he never made the claim - and would have laughed at it - I guess it could be said that my father had been a professional athlete. Anyway, he really loved baseball.

And I really loved my father, and I fell in love with baseball sitting with him in the living room, listening - on the combo record player-radio console cabinet - to broadcasts of weekday night games, and sitting with him in the family room watching televised weekend games.

One of my first memories - I was 2 and change - is toddling over to the small-screen black and white Philco and trying to pick a player off the screen. I remember my attempt to grab that tiny little black and white ballplayer, which I now suspect was at the urging of my father, who probably wanted some opposing player picked off base.

As a kid, I read about baseball in the newspaper, in The Sporting News, in Sports Illustrated. And in books about baseball history, biographies of baseball players of yore. Thus, I could talk to my father about Nap Lajoie, Walter "Big Train" Johnson, and Chick Gagnon - a local fellow who made it to the big leagues and whom my father, as a kid, had watched playing for Holy Cross. 

Ah, baseball. 

Last week, the baseball season ended. (On November 2nd. Remember when we used to call the World Series the October Classic?)

This makes me sad, as I will miss it, and am already looking forward to Truck Day, when the Red Sox equipment truck leaves for spring training. 

During the regular baseball season, I watch (or listen to: baseball is a great radio sport) at least a few innings of almost every Red Sox game - and keep a smartphone eye on the games I'm not watching or listening to. Come October, I'm watching a lot of playoff games, whoever's playing.

This year, for the first time in a while, the October gamers included the Red Sox. Which surprised me, as after a very poor start last spring I figured they could well lose 100 games. Instead, they ended up with an 89-73 record, and grabbed a Wild Card spot.

Alas, the Olde Towne Team didn't make it past the dreaded Yankees in the Wild Card Playoffs. But they did win one game out of the best-of-three. And they were playing in October.

And, blessedly, the Toronto Blue Jays dispatched the loathsome Yankees. Start spreading the news: O, Canada! 

I watched an awful lot of those October games, including the insane 15 inning game between Seattle and Detroit. And although I could have gone either way, I was happy to see Seattle make it to the American League Championship Series. 

I could have gone either way - Blue Jays or Mariners - to win the ALCS, which went seven exciting games. (Even the blow outs were exciting in their own ways.) I would have been delighted to see the Mariners make it to their first World Series - bonus point that they're in Seattle, and Trump is on the verge of declaring war on the state of Washington. I would have been equally delighted to see the Canadian team win. They are, after all, something of the 51st state. 

So I was happy to see Toronto move on and win the ALCS in a nail-biter. 

On the National League front, I was hoping for anybody but the Dodgers to take the NLCS. Yes, I love Mookie Betts and will never forgive the Red Sox for letting him go. I liked Kiké Hernandez during his brief stint with my boys of summer. And I will remain forever grateful to Coach Dave Roberts for the key role he played in bringing the 2004 Red Sox to their first World Series championship in 86 years. 

I was especially sad that Milwaukee Brewers - a small market, blue collar, lunch pail, scrappy kind of team - got swept by the Dodgers. 

But I will say here and now that the Baseball Hall of Fame might as well induct Dodger Shohei Ohtani next July and forget about waiting for five years after he retires. If Shohei ain't the GOAT, I'll eat my cap. 

On to the World Series, and Go, Toronto! Even though Trump has considerable enmity towards both California and Canada, which meant that either a Dodgers or a Blue Jays win was likely to trigger him, I felt very strongly that I needed to root against the Evil Empire West - the LA Dodgers.

(As an aside - but a relevant one - the teams that went the farthest, the Dodgers, with a payroll of $321M (second in the MLB to the hapless Mets) and the Blue Jays with a $240M (fifth in payroll) were both big spenders. The teams on the losing side were below the Mendoza line with respect to spending. Seattle's payroll was $148M (16th in the majors), while Milwaukee's was $115M (23rd). Both of these teams punched above their weight, and it would be good for the sport and the soul if at some point soon a lower spending team went all the way.)

I watched the few games, and lasted 16 innings - up until 2 a.m. - in Game 3, which went 18 innings and ended in an LA win. But when it got down to Games 5 and beyond, I was mostly keeping an eye on what was happening, and jumped in when the outcome seemed determined, or - in the case of the sixth game - when I honestly thought (or at least honestly hoped) that the Jays would pull off a ninth inning miracle. Which they kinda-sorta almost did. But didn't.

So on to Game 7.

Sports purists, and I count many family members and friends among them, love when championship series - baseball, basketball, hockey - go seven gmes. I don't.

I date my seventh game oogs to the Red Sox losing their first World Series appearance in my lifetime - that would be 1967 - in the final game. I decided there and then that I would never watch a seventh game of a World Series the home town honeys were playing in. So I didn't watch the last game in 1975 against the Reds. Nor the last game against the Mets. 

Blessedly, in 2004, the Red Sox swept the Cards in four. In 2007, they swept the Rockies. In 2013, it took them six games to dispatch the Cards, and in 2018, they beat the Dodgers in five. So I haven't had to endure a seven game Red Sox World Series since 1986. Lucky me.

Last Saturday night, I decided to stop being a big baby and, halfway through the game, I turned it on. This was the last of baseball for the season. Winter is long and dark, with no baseball to relieve the long and dark. I had to watch.

The game was a nail biter, and by the 8th inning, I had no more nails to bite. 

When it got to the top of the 9th inning with the Jays hanging on by their fingernails, with a one run lead, my heart was racing. Not quite as nerve wracking as watching election results roll in, but heart-racingly nerve wracking.

Extra innings. Boo! I HATE extra innings.

(Amazing to me that I get so swept up in watching a bunch of well-paid men play a kids' game that in the grand scheme of things matters not...)

Well, someone had to win, and someone had to lose, and sadly - to me anyway - the Jays lost. 

So the really big spenders won, and the not quite so spendy big spenders came up short. But, hey, when the Red Sox were winning World Series, they were pretty big spenders. Mostly you do get what you pay for. (Unless you're the Mets, who had the highest MLB payroll - and the highest paid player in baseball - and fell flat.)

Money talk aside, there are so many reasons why baseball is such a great sport. 

There's the history. I've only been to the Baseball Hall of Fame twice, but I'd like to see it once more - one of the few things on my bucket list. The stories. The legends. The greatness. The rivalries. The sordid past. (No Black players until 1946????) The heartbreaking losses. (Red Sox, too ofen to count.) The redemptions. (Red Sox beating the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS after they were down 0-3.) The eccentrics. The a-holes. The heroes. The bums. I love it all. 

There's the long season, with all its intricate arcs and subarcs. 

There's the crazy, convoluted rules. Sure, all sports have them. But the infield fly rule? I rest my case!

There's the pace of the game. Sure, like a lot of folks, I was happy to see the pitch clock introduced, as games could really drag on. But there's a wonderful rhythm to watching baseball that's lacking in the other Big Four sports.

Let's face it, most team sports are running or skating up and down a field, court, or rink, trying to get the ball (or puck) across their opponent's goal (or into the basket). Not much of a plot. 

Baseball, well, it's different. For one thing, players aren't all running (or skating) back and forth all together. For another thing, well, there are a lot of other things...

I'm sure there's great writing about other sports. But writing about baseball is in a whole other league. Can anything beat Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times (which I gave my father for Christmas in 1966)? Or John Updike's New Yorker paean to Ted Williams last plate appearance, when he hit a homer? (Earlier that season, in July 1960, sitting in the bleachers with my father, I saw Ted William hit a homerun. My first game at Fenway.) Bang the Drum Slowly, Field of Dreams, The Boys of Summer, The Natural, Ball Four, Moneyball. And one of my all time favorites: Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Steward O'Nan. (Good and great writers write about baseball.)

Other sports? Not so much.

Ditto for movies. Bull Durham. Say no more. 

And then there's this:

Mike Trout is a future Hall of Famer. In September, he hit his 400th home run. A moonshot: 485 feet!

Like so much else in our society, MLB home run balls have become a thing to fight over.

Last season, Shohei Ohtani’s 50th home run ball, which made him the first ever member of the 50/50 club, sparked multiple lawsuits over ownership between fans who had fought for it in the stands before it ended up selling for a record $4.392 million. This season, even an otherwise forgettable home run ball from a random Phillies-Marlins game sparked a heated exchange that resulted in an adult taking it from a child. So when Mike Trout hit his 400th career home run on Saturday night, the latest milestone in what is already a hall-of-fame career, it could have gotten ugly once the valuable ball reached the Coors Field stands.

Instead, it landed in the hands of a man who wanted a memory more than a payday. (Source: NY Times)

The fan who caught the ball, a fellow named Alberto, was watching the game with his wife and kids. Alberto had his glove with him, but he nabbed the Trout homer barehanded. Although he could have held Trout, the Angels, or the Hall of Fame  up for some pretty big bucks for that ball (even if it wasn't going for Shohei money), Alberto was fine with giving the ball back to Trout. After the game, Alberto met Trout in the dugout, gave him the ball, and in return was given a couple of autographed bats and balls. 

Getting the autographed stuff was nice, but Alberto had one little ask in mind:

“You mind if we can, like, (have a catch) on the field?” he asked.

Trout readily obliged and the two men then tossed a ball back and forth near the third base line.

I was never an athlete. Just a fan. But in the spring, when it started to get a little light out in the evenings, my father and I would sometimes go out in the backyard, sink a bit into the grass still squishy from snow melt, and play catch.

Baseball. There is just nothing like it. 

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Image Source for ball and bat: Psychological Science

Image Source for Alberto and Mike Trout: Instagram

Just put your lips together and blow

One of the many pleasures of my pre-school days was meandering around the neighborhood with a small covey of my fellow three- and four-year olds. Unsupervised. (Those were the days!) We didn't stray far, but there was plenty to do on Winchester Ave, that's for sure.

Every few months, the sewer cleaners came by remove the dead leaves and whatever other gutter leavings had washed into the sewer. It was fascinating to watch the sewer guy maneuvering the claw thingy, and bringing up wads of dead, sodden leaves, and sometimes even a red ball that had fallen in. He would toss the ball over to us, and even though it did kinda-sorta smell of dead leaves and whatever else had ended up in the sewer, we were delighted to have it.

If someone in the hood had gotten a recent large appliance delivery, we would commandeer the box, stuff a couple of kids in it, and hurtle down the steep banks in front of the houses on our side of Winchester Ave.

If a delivery truck of some sort was parked on the street, we liked to scamper underneath it, always on the alert for someone turning the engine on. Whee!

We liked to go scrounging door to door, ringing doorbells to see if someone would give us something to eat.

Gladys "Chubby" Smith was a favorite port of call, because she always had candy and always welcome us into her living room, where she sat in a stuffed armchair chain smoking and eating candy, and where her obese cat Sylvester occupied the stuffed armchair opposite Chubby's.

And then there was the Anderson-Johnson house, where two of the three flats were taken by members of the Anderson-Johnson family.

The Johnsons were super kind. Super kind Bobby Johnson was in college, but when he was around, he'd always spend a few minutes tossing a ball - maybe even the little red sewer ball - with us. (Bobby went on to a career as a teacher and school principal. In 1984, his mother - the super kind Lillian Johnson was murdered. She was no longer living on Winchester when she was killed, but down nearer to Clark University. The cold case was solved in 2007 thanks to DNA evidence.)

Miss Anderson, the super kind aunt(I think) of Lillian Johnson lived on the first floor, and when Miss Anderson was at home, we struck it rich. She always gave us each a nickel or a Milky Way. And if she wasn't home, or if we'd already exhausted our weekly nickel or Milky Way allotment, we could always pick up the conch shell outside the front door, which had her spare housekey hidden in the shell's fold, and listen to the ocean.

There aren't many sounds that to me are lovelier or more evocative.

And now, it seems, there may be another use for the noble conch shell.

Blowing into a conch shell could help tackle the symptoms of a sleep disorder that affects millions of people across the UK, according to a study. Conch blowing, also known as shankh blowing, is an ancient ritual that involves breathing in deeply and exhaling into the spiral-shaped shell. The practice could improve sleep for patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), which usually needs to be treated with uncomfortable machinery, according to the research. (Source: The Guardian)

I don't know whether he was ever officially diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, but my late husband was a snorer. Wish this had been known back in the day, as we would definitely have invested in a conch shell. Or two. One for Jim to blow into, and one for me to listen to the ocean with. 

“Shankh blowing is a simple low-cost breathing technique that could help improve sleep and reduce symptoms without the need for machines or medication,” said Dr Krishna K Sharma, who led the research.

“The way the shankh is blown is quite distinctive. This action creates strong vibrations and airflow resistance, which likely strengthens the muscles of the upper airway, including the throat and soft palate, areas that often collapse during sleep in people with OSA.”

The most common form of treatment for sleep apnoea is a continuous positive airway pressure (Cpap) machine, which involves patients wearing a mask that blows pressurised air into the nose and throat while asleep. Previous research has also found that playing a woodwind instrument could help with the condition.

Although the machines are effective, they can be uncomfortable, leading the researchers to suggest that shankh blowing could be a promising alternative.

Sounds quite promising. And picking up a conch shell on eBay (or in a beach-side gift shop) is cheaper than a breathing machine or investing in a woodwind instrument. Plus easier to operate. Playing a bassoon or saxophone is hard. But we all know how to use a conch shell. It's just like whistling. Just put your lips together and blow.

Image Source: Wikipedia