Detroit has a cruise in and the ugly urban line-of-blight billboards are loaded up with freebies to make the old guys and Detroit in general feel good about themselves.
These are very cool billboards.
Archive for the 'Empty Nesters' Category
Page 3 of 21
Boomers and raised the trophy generation. And the Xer’s are making it worse.
If you have kids, and they attended public school or participated in any activity, then somewhere you have a “Hooray for Me” wall, or if you are empty-nesters, you have (or had) a couple boxes full of plaques and trophies.
Do you recall how much they all looked alike?
Yep, the only thing that changed was the plastic figure and the plastic plaque on the plastic base.
“Good at sports, huh?” “Waddaya mean?” “I mean, look at all these trophies.” “I don’t understand, every kid has this many trophies.” “Huh?” “You get a trophy for completing the season; you don’t have to win.” “You cannot be serious?” “Yup. Every kid has this many.”
The “Hooray for Me” wall would be covered with 7 inch high trophies for “participating” in a sport. Twelve inch high trophies were awarded for third place, championship trophies could be a couple feet tall. All plastic, all just variations on the same theme.
When my neighbor leaves his garage door open, I can see the trophies they have stored. There a half-dozen that are six feet tall. The kid rides dirt bikes. He may be good, but he’s not that good.
Ribbons with gold plastic circles are hot. The whole Olympic ceremony deal, except there would be eighteen dozen seven year olds, each getting a ribbon around their little necks.
God forbid if the applause died down before every one had their ribbon.
Also on the “Hooray for Me” wall would be a bevy of plaques and certificates. Everybody gives out plaques and certificates. To anybody for anything. Especially in schools, or at least they did. I bet it’s worse now because every teacher has access to clip art and a color printer. OMG, this boggles the mind.
Instead of meaningful mementos, the plaques and trophies have become meaningless crap.
A blogger referred to the current state of organized youth baseball as “self-esteem ball.”
This is a trophy.
A loving cup. Maybe having a cup that has it’s heritage based on chugging booze isn’t quite appropriate for youngsters, but what they don’t know, won’t hurt them.
And this is the response it evoked when a kid lugged it home…
When I walked in the house with it, my shocked mother accused me of stealing it.
You’re darned right. A real trophy is something your mother thinks you stole because it is so beautiful, so unusual, that you had to prove you earned it: your name was engraved into the silver.
While industrial designers (and design students) spend their days thinking up more beautiful and efficient ways of making almost everything, I have yet to meet a single one who cares about the state of the common trophy.
Isn’t that a shame?
Our oldest played golf. She had a lot of little plastic golfer girl trophies (they had little plastic boobs) , in their little fists would be a hole where the little plastic golf club would fit. The club would be about the size of a swizzle stick, but not nearly as durable. They were often broken or lost before they got home to the “Hooray for Me” wall.
At the NASCAR race in Nashville, the winner knew how to celebrate. He smashed the “trophy” into pieces.
In the weirdest victory celebration in the nine-year history of Nashville Superspeedway, Kyle Busch dashed to pieces the $2,000 hand-painted Gibson guitar that is the track’s trademark trophy following Saturday night’s win.
Busch afterwards explained that he wanted to celebrate “rock-star style,” and had told his team beforehand that if he won he planned to smash the guitar. Busch said everybody breaks guitars “except race car drivers. Those sorry saps take it home in one piece. I’ll break it up and share it with the team.”
Sam Bass, the designer of the guitar stood quietly by, almost moved to tears, as his “art” was smashed. Guess what, Sam, this is how the “trophy generation” treats trophies. They are meaningless pieces of junk. Get over it.
The Stanley Cup, the trophy for the champions for the National Hokey League (are they still playing?), gets to spend time with each player. Let your mind wander a little about the possibilities.
Maybe if I had a “Hooray for Me” wall, I would feel different.
I believe from research, that this loving cup, trophy was given to volleyball team/player from the African American Arkansas Baptist College ( Ministers Institute ) founded in 1884.
Nobody would know the difference.
Pick the one answer a man would give in answer to this question:
Do you want me to go get dog food?
- I’ll be going out later.
- I can get it.
- There is enough until tomorrow.
- It’s OK.
- Are you going by there?
- Do you have money?
- Yes.
Here’s a great midweek, it’s-gonna-thunderstorm, but-I-got-the-yard-mowed-and-now-I’m-starved dinner.
Six Johnsonville Beer Brats and a handful of Bourbon and a nifty Johnsonville Sausage apron.
Oh, what? You don’t have a Johnsonville Sausage apron do you. OK, it will still work, but you will have to be very neat. (Loser.)
Matt Rivera, my new best friend who does PR for Johnsonville Sausage, sent me the spiffy (codger talk for “totes”) apron. You know about my other blog, right? BBQandBourbon.com? I wrote something nice about brand X beer brats, and Matt found out and bribed me sent me this nice apron.
I bought the Johnsonville Brats.
Just in case you go looking for them at your local grocery store, here’s what the package looks like.
Here is the offical BBQandBourbon recipe using Johnsonville Beer Brats.
- Start with a glass of your favorite bourbon. Consume.
- Fire up your gas or charcoal grill.
- Preheat gas grill to medium-low heat. (If charcoal, allow it to burn until white ash has formed on the coals.)
- Pour another glass of bourbon. Consume.
- Place links on grill 7-9 inches above heat source. Use tongs to turn links often, every 4-6 minutes. (Closing the grill lid while cooking helps minimize flare-ups.)
- Consume bourbon until everything looks a nice golden brown. About the same color as your bourbon.
Put on plate, pour another glass of bourbon and consume.
Now if the thunderstorm isn’t looming and your local weather radio isn’t advising you to take cover immediately, and you want to serve some friends, here is another great recipe from Johnsonville Sausage:
- One 11 x 9 x 2 3/8 inch aluminum foil baking pan
- 2 – 3 beers
- 2 Tbsp. butter
- 1 medium yellow or white onion, sliced
Johnsonville® Brat Hot Tub Directions
Put a foil pan right on the grill, careful not to singe your knuckle hair, pour in the beers and add the butter and onions. Then grill your Johnsonville Brats to a juicy, golden-brown perfection. Serve immediately to your hungry guests and place any remaining brats into the steaming hot tub. When folks are ready for seconds or thirds–or when stragglers show up late – grab a Johnsonville Brat out of the hot tub and enjoy!
And keep the Bourbon for yourself.
Mid-June will are flying to Boston by the seat of my pants.
Docker’s had a deal if you buy a bunch of pants they would give you an airline ticket. I bought enough pairs of pants to get two free tix.
We had a choice of about eight cities and we decided on Boston because 1. we wouldn’t have to fly on a plane all day, and 2. neither one of us had been there since childhood.
We will be flying from BNA to BOS on American Airlines.
Since we haven’t flown anything but Southwest for ages, it just occured to me we would have to pay all the new fees involved. (Southwest isn’t on the fee bandwagon yet.)
We would like our bags to fly with us so I guess we will be paying the $40 fee for a couple bags. I’m such a bargain hound, I think I could buy a wardrobe for four days on $40, Nancy OTOH, (and she is a bargain hound too), would spend that much on underwear. She says she won’t go commando like I would.
We usually don’t eat on the airplane, so we won’t be spending $10 for a sandwich.
Another “feature” we had forgotten about is having an assigned seat!
Then again, the plane we will be on only has 40 seats, so it’s not that big a deal.
We have the Southwest thang down pretty good. We don’t freak out over not getting an A group (first 30 to board) because on Southwest there are at least a dozen family members or travelers needing assistance anyway. And we don’t stand in line for 45 minutes before boarding, because we don’t freak out if we can’t sit beside each other for a three hour flight.
The adventure has begun.
BTW: Rhea is helping out with BOS tips, if you have any, we welcome any advice on things to do, eat, see, buy. Priceline put us up in the Intercontinental Hotel on the Waterfront.
