I saw the following health alert on the local news recently:  Drinkers of Mexican beer must be careful with limes especially if they are drinking out in the sunlight.  It seems that UV rays can interact with limejuice causing a long term darkening of the skin.  I am relieved to know that Cancun vacationers can no longer be identified by three darkened fingers on their right hand.  If only science could do something about the horrible burns drinkers get when they pass out from too many beers on the beach.

In fact, vacationing in general has gotten too dangerous.  Entire cruise ships come down with MRSA, an annoying little bug that keeps you hovering near a commode for a couple days.  Airline air is so dry that it sucks the moisture out of you.  It almost makes you yearn for the old days when planes flew through the storms at ten thousand feet while everyone in the cabin chain-smoked.

Air travel in general has become a hassle surrounded by discomfort inside delays.  You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a family of seven try to stuff fourteen pieces of roll on luggage into the overhead rack of an airplane.  It’s almost as much fun as having the cretin in the seat in front of you lean back the chair almost snapping your laptop in half.

When you get to your location, you have to check for bedbugs, strip the cover off the bed to avoid germs, never touch the phone in the room, and carefully rewash the glasses before using them.

It hardly seems worth the work.  Heading south can really get you in trouble.  There are hurricanes to contend with from June to November if you travel to the Caribbean.  Mexico has turned into a gamble now that the entire country is trying to decide with guns who runs the place, the super wealthy or the drug lords.

What’s the solution?  Vacation in Michigan.  This time of year I would recommend the bi-coastal weekend.  Drive to Harrisville on Friday night, stay overnight and watch the sunrise over Lake Huron.  Spend Saturday driving across the state taking in the autumn colors stopping for lunch in Grayling at a restaurant overlooking the Au Sable, and spend the evening in Frankfort where you can watch the sunset over Lake Michigan.  Drive home Sunday refreshed and ready for the week.

              I just read an article wherein the Detroit area is listed in ten of the least smart places in the nation.  What is their yardstick?  The number of college degrees awarded.  Two things bother me about that claim.  The first is that I have met far too many intelligent people who have no college degree at all, and conversely, I have met some amazingly dumb people with multiple degrees.

            The second thing that bothers me is that the Washington DC suburbs are listed as the smartest place in America by the same yardstick.  This irks me a little because every time I interact with the Federal government, I come away wondering what genius put that system together.

            At the airport, I hear it announced every thirty seconds that the current threat level is orange.  I still have no idea what that means.  Am I safe to fly that day or aren’t I?  When I go to the strip search area, I see that two of five lanes are open for x-raying bags despite a line stretching back into the terminal.

            The Federal government also has declared war on my little pocketknife.  It still amazes me that some brain somewhere in Washington thinks that a would-be hijacker with a two and a half inch blade could threaten a planeload of people.  Any man who tried that would be stomped into submission by his fellow passengers.  It happened with the shoe bomber, it happened with the underwear bomber, and I guarantee you it would happen with anyone waving a pocketknife.  Pocketknives are a tool once you get away from Washington.

            I recently read that medical flexible spending accounts can no longer be used for over the counter medications.  Basically what a Washingtonian has done is boost our income tax.  We all will have to reduce the money we put into our medical spending accounts or we will lose it at the end of the year.  That will raise everyone’s taxable income, and the federal government gets a tax dollar boost.  Wouldn’t you love to know whose idea that was?  I suspect he or she lives in the Washington DC area.

            The same thing happened a few years ago.  Everyone figured out that there was money to be saved on the Federal Income tax by donating your old car rather than getting paid next to nothing for it as a trade in.  What did the government do?  It took that deduction away.

            Finally, the highly degreed people over at the Supreme Court told campaigners and their various organizations that the sky was the limit when it came to campaign ads on TV.  Yes, you can thank Washington for those snarky ads full of half-truths and innuendo.  I recommend that we all boycott television until after the November elections.  I suspect loss of viewers is the only way to drive attack ads off television.

            Now that I think of it, perhaps it’s best that those smart people are kept as far away from here as possible.  There’s no telling what trouble they could raise for us if they actually knew what we were doing.

            Autumn is my favorite time of the year.  The air is cool at night, and warm during the day.  The mosquitoes are gone, and fat apples hang from the trees ready for picking.  More importantly, the lawn mowing is almost done for the year.  I cannot think of a more labor-intensive waste of time.

            There has to be a twelve-step program out there somewhere for men who obsessively maintain the perfect lawn.  You know the ones, they’re out there all weekend long and for three hours a day during the week moving, raking, weeding and feeding.  They start when the snow melts in March and finish up when the last leaf is raked and bagged in November.  Is there nirvana in their pursuit of perfection?  There must be.  Why else would they be laying on the lawn with a level making sure that the lawn slope is a quarter bubble off plumb to assure proper drainage for bent grass?

            I’m not even sure how this all started.  Who declared that a house should have a lawn?  Couldn’t we just as easily have a woodlot out front or a vegetable garden?  I imagine two fellows by the name of Briggs and Stratton got together with a guy named John Deere, and another fellow named Scott at a hotel in Peoria around the turn of the century.  I can see them now sitting at a table in the bar, sipping beer and complaining about business after a long day dealing with farmers.

            “I’m tired of selling wheat fertilizer,” Scott says lifting his mug.  “The farmers are all about price and there are too many seed and fertilizer salesmen.”

            John Deere nods his head gravely.  “Farmers are tough.  I sell them one tractor, and that’s it.  I get no repeat business; the tractors last too long.  What I need is a new market.”

            Stratton looks at Briggs who shells a peanut and throws the shell on the floor.  “We’re having trouble too.  The small engines we manufacture work fine for pumps, but there has to be a bigger market.”

            “You think you have problems,” Briggs says chewing the peanut.  “When I go home, I have to listen to my wife complain about how the house looks.  When I ask her what she wants it to look like, she shows me a picture of an English manor with a rolling lawn.  How am I going to do something like that?  When I step off my porch, I reach the street in four paces.”

            “Why don’t you plant a patch of grass out front,” Scott says draining his mug.  “I’ve got some rye grass and fescues that will grow anywhere if you fertilize them.”

            “It would never work,” Briggs replies.  “I’d need a sheep or a goat to keep the grass short.”

            John Deere stares at the bubbles in his beer.  “I could make a smaller tractor, something that could turn on a dime.  The only problem is that I’d need a smaller engine than the one I currently use.”

            “Not a problem,” Stratton says.  “We’ve got the smaller engine, what we need is a way of making people think that grass growing in front of their homes is a good idea.”

            “You know, if we got people to believe through advertising that every home needed a lawn out front, we could sell a lot of stuff.”

            “How about a lawn and a shade tree?” Scott adds.  “That way you could get more mower sales when the tiny tractors break from driving over tree roots, and I get more fertilizer and seed sales when the tree’s shade kills the lawn.”

            “We can make this work.”  Briggs slaps the table.  “Gentlemen, a toast to our new business venture.”

            The rest is history.        

Half the fun of looking things up is getting distracted.  Here’s a sampling of facts I’ve come across while looking for different stuff:

            Michigan was the site of one disaster after another during the War of 1812.  The British took Detroit without firing a shot; Fort Mackinac met the same fate.  You will not find a single Michigan hero from that time period.  There were none.  The Raisin River Massacre happened because retreating Americans left their wounded behind.

            The original big wheel was not a toy.  It was a 10 foot in diameter set of wheels used for hauling trees out of the woods during Michigan’s heyday as a logging state.

            The sweet and sour taste we associate with Chinese food was quite popular in Europe during the Middle Ages.  They often used a mixture of vinegar and honey to achieve the savory flavor for meat.

            Spices were far too expensive to use to cover the taste of spoiled meat during that time. 

            Cigar makers in Tampa became one of the first groups to unionize because they were better educated than most other groups.  They employed a reader who entertained them while they rolled cigars in the factories.  The readers read classics as well as newspapers and political tracts.  The result was a highly educated work force even though most of them could not read or write.

            The USS Constitution, Old Ironsides, despite its famous duel with the British frigate Guerriere actually spent most of the War of 1812 bottled up in harbor by the British Navy.

            The fork had a slow introduction into Europe.  While it was brought to Europe during the Crusades, the fork did not gain wide acceptance until the time of Columbus.  Prior to that, diners generally made do with the knife they brought with them to the meal.  One bishop in Venice in the 1200’s called a Byzantine princess who used one ‘prideful’ and hinted that her death was God’s judgment upon her.

            The bombardment of Fort McHenry on Baltimore’s harbor that inspired the Star Spangled Banner was strictly a one-way affair.  The British spent the night pummeling the fort out of range of the fort’s cannons.  The only victory was that the fort took all the British could throw at it and survived.

            I figure that at least seventy five percent of my memory is tied up with stuff that I no longer need to know.  The first things I would purge from my mind if I could are jingles.  I have retained them far beyond their usefulness.

The stagecoach was a headin’ through the mountain,

The stage they called the Wells Faygo Express

The cargo so I hear,

A case of Faygo Root Beer.

            It extends to all sorts of weird stuff like stores that no longer exist.

The values are up, up, up,

And the prices are down, down, down

Robert Hall this season will show you the reason

Low overhead, low overhead.

            It extends to food products.

Who put those eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can?

Who put those eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can?

Contadina, Contadina

            Automotive products

Cars are rollin', trucks are rollin'

All across America they keep on a rollin’

    With Timpken steel and Timpken roller bearings,

They keep on a rollin’ a rollin’ ‘long the way.

            Cigarettes

To a surfer, it’s a wave, wave, wave,

To a goalie, it’s a save, save, save,

To a painter, it’s a complement,

To a smoker, it’s a Kent.

            Soda pop

Pepsi Cola hits the spot,

Eight full ounces, that’s a lot.

            Local car dealerships

Stay on the right track,

To Nine Mile and Mack.

Roy O’Brien trucks and cars.

Make your money back.

            Long gone discount stores

Take a little time out today,

And shop the easy way,

Get exactly what you want,

For the price you want to pay,

It’s the biggest discount center you’ll find anywhere.

Shopper’s Fair, Shopper’s Fair, Shopper’s Fair for discounts

I figure there are perfectly good brain cells clogged with this stuff, brain cells that could probably have been used for more important stuff like how many teabags you need to make a pitcher of iced tea, or where I put the keys to the shed.  Instead I find myself trying to remember the second line to the Good and Plenty jingle.

Choo-choo Charlie was an engineer,

Something something we hear,

He had a little engine and he sure had fun,