Horse Pucky Award of the Week #5

The Horse Pucky Award of the week goes to anyone in power who uses people as ways of extricating money from them...such as the U.S. government.

Anyone else would go to jail, but our elected officials seem to have no problem collecting money, in the form of taxes, to pad their own pockets. Call it taxes, call it what you want, I call it extortion. Actually, I'm really tired of the whole thing.

It's very disillusioning to see people who once had good jobs, a home, and food on the table, standing in line at soup kitchens. What went wrong? What's even scarier is...where is it all going?

I need to get off this doom and gloom kick. If I'm going to be homeless, it'll have to be in Tahiti. Upstate New York winters will be tough on my tepee.

Kissing is Fun

My cousin, Patty, sent this picture to me this morning. I love it!

Kids are great. They have no hang ups whatsoever.

The message here: Kiss a lot...no matter what!

Have a super day!

Burma Shave Nostalgia

Remeber those Burma Shave signs? I do. They originated in 1925 and went out of vogue in 1963. Now they're an American icon, with some in the Smithsonian Institute.

The familiar white on red signs, grouped by four, fives and sixes, were as much a part of a family trip as irritating your kid brother in the back seat of the family Studebaker.

At the height of their popularity there were 7,000 signs along America's highways. First you'd read one sign, then another, anticpating the punch line on number five and the familiar Burma-Shave on the sixth.

Those Burma-Shave signs allowed my brother to reach puberty. He used to drive me nuts on trips; poking and punching when my parents weren't looking. Then tattled when I punched back. Of course, I never did anything to him. All I wanted to do was read the Burma-Shave signs.

I used to love reading them along the highway. It was a great way to advertise shaving cream and lotion...and keep me from deep-sixing my brother. Now that I think about it, that's probably why I like advertising so much...and copywriting...and now my brother.

Here's another series of Burma-Shave signs on I-90. I think it was I-90. My long term memory is full of horse pucky fumes.

His cheek

Was rough

His chick vamoosed

And now she won't

Come home to roost

Burma-Shave

For more Burma-Shave slogans, go to www.fiftiesweb.com/burma.htm

Horse Pucky Award of the Week #4

Bernie Madoff won the Horse Pucky Award of the week. There were others considered such as AIG, but Bernie is, by far, the worst offender of humanity that ever came down the pike. Why? He scammed Elie Wiesel. How can anyone scam Elie Wiesel?!!!!!

Elie Wiesel was fifteen years old when he and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. His jaw dropping book Night, is a depiction of his survival and the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald where he watched his mother and younger sister die a horrible death. His two older sisters survived. Elie and his father were later transported to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before the camp was liberated in April 1945.

Elie Wiesel won the Nobel Prize for Peace soon after he and his wife, Marion, established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Enter Bernie Madoff.

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity had $15.2 million under management with Bernard Madoff Investment Securities. This represented substantially all of the Foundation's assets. Now it's gone; probably in some off shore account for the rest of Bernie's family to enjoy.

The goal of the Foundation's programs is to provide immigrants with desperately needed academic tutoring, pre-vocational training, and social and emotional support. I could go on about the importance of the Foundation, but I'll let you check out the website instead. http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/

Mr. Madoff, you really screwed up big time. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits, and the accumulation of a years worth of horse pucky find their way into your sorry life.

Spring Nostalgia

I'm feeling nostalgic. It's a gorgeous first day of spring in Rochester, NY. Bright sunshine warms the ground even though Mother Earth was dusted with snow early this morning. It's the day my spring rituals begin...covering the gray, and painting my toenails red, but only after cleaning the horse pucky out of Silver's and Sadie's stalls this morning.

It's also the time I think about my childhood years and remember tunes my grandparents used to listen to; tunes that were brought back in my generation, which I still enjoy. You know, happy memory time tunes.

I started to reminisce about a fave group called The Ink Spots, and one of my all time favorite songs they recorded, I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire. I discovered it on YouTube and want to share it with you.

It made my first day of spring all mellow and cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P86RwFijGY