It is Sunday, October 27.  If the weathermen are correct (and I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in that) we will actually have Halloween this year, so get out the candy and get ready for all those greedy little children in their costumes.  There are only 59 days until Christmas so start remembering what comes with each of the 12 days of Christmas.  It is the birthday of Niccolo Paganini, Enid Bagnold and John Cleese.  Today, in 1775, the US Navy was established; in 1871 “Boss” Tweed, Democratic leader of Tammany Hall, was arrested after the NY Times exposed his corruption and in 1982 China announced its population at one billion plus people.  It is Statehood Day in St. Vincent Islands, Mother-in-Law’s Day in the US and Navy Day in the US.

Let’s take some time today to talk about Halloween.  Halloween is a day of fun and excitement for kids.  It is a day when they get to dress up in costumes as their favorite super heroes, cartoon characters, princesses, ninjas, pirates, etc.  They go to school, have parties, parade in their costumes, get goodie bags and then go home.  Their parents then take them out to trick or treat and the kids get bags full of candy which they then consume within days of the holiday and run on a sugar high for the next month or so.

Here is a question for you - what is the deal with costumes these days?  The cost has become ridiculous.  My two grandsons got costumes that they are quite pleased with, but it cost well over $70 for two costumes and that was with a coupon.  Just two costumes!  Are you kidding me?  These costumes are so cheaply made that they will barely last through one day.  What could possibly make them worth that kind of money.  When my son was young, the lovely Elaine made some great costumes for him.  One year she took the liner from a trench coat, cut off some of the pile lining, glued it to gloves and used it to turn him into a werewolf.  It did not cost much and he was happy with it.  I guess parents are too busy to create costumes and retailers know they can charge whatever they want and people will pay it.

When I was a kid, all we did was wear a pair of pants that had the knees ripped out from playing in them, put on a grungy shirt (which most of us could find under our bed), put some dirt on our faces and go as bums.  We used to wait to go out until around 8.  By then most people were getting tired of the whole trick or treat thing and just wanted to get rid of the candy.  We would go and end up getting two or three bars of candy at each house. It was a great deal.  We would fill several bags with goodies.  We usually scored enough candy to keep us going until Christmas.  But I digress …

I understand that kids want to have special costumes that allow them to live out their super hero or ninja or whatever fantasy.  I get that.  What I do not get is why retailers feel that they should get rich from it.  They start selling decorations in August and encourage you to buy the fake pumpkins, spider webs, scare crows, etc.  They want you to adorn your house with orange lights, ghosts, witches that have flown into trees and all manner of other stuff.  They sell the decorations that we refer to as holiday lawn condoms.  You know the ones I mean.  You turn them on at night, they fill up with air and they are lighted.  At the end of the evening, you turn them off and they are just a pile of plastic on the lawn that look like …

Here are some things that I would like to see: some retailer selling costumes at a reasonable price so that families do not have to get loans to dress their kids up; a smart retailer giving a small portion of the profit from all Halloween items to a charity that benefits children in the US; parents that try to be creative and come up with costumes made from things they have in their house.  If we could see some of this going on, it would be a better holiday.

Anyway, let’s hope that Halloween is not affected by a hurricane or a snow storm or a plague of locusts or some other catastrophe.  There are a lot of kids looking forward to this Thursday and we do not want them to be disappointed again.  Besides, if there is another weather problem, we will be stuck with the bags of candy we bought for the kids.  You know, maybe if it just started raining around 6 … I do love chocolate.

This week’s fact tells us that 100% of lottery winners do gain weight.  So, there you go.  I am all set to win the lottery.  I have already gained some weight recently, I have a dollar and I have a dream.  All I need now is for the state to keep their part of the bargain and make me rich.

Today is Sunday, October 20.  There are only 22 days left until my birthday, which means there are only 66 days until Christmas.  Feel free to contact me for suggestions.  Today is the birthday of Andrea Della Robbia, Charles Edward Ives and Tom Petty.  On this day in 1803 the US Senate ratified the Louisianna Purchase, Roald Amundsen set out on the race to the South Pole in 1911 and in 1960 the first fully mechanized post office opened in Providence Rhode Island.  It is Revolution Day in Guatemala, Jomo Kenyatta Day in Kenya and Alaska Day in Alaska (I know you probably figured that last one out, but I did not want to break the flow).

Let me start by thanking you for coming back this week.  I am sorry I had nothing for you last week.  I will try to be annoyed more so I have topics to discuss in the future.

Now that I am retired (grudgingly), I have the opportunity to get all those wonderful phone calls that come throughout the day.  You know the ones I mean.  They start with statements like, “the FBI reports … “ or “Senior citizens should know … “  or “This is an important call regarding your credit card account … “ or some other exciting issue.  We got one the other evening from some doctor.  I am not sure what he was selling, I hung up when I realized he was not one of our doctors.  A minute later the lovely Elaine went to make a phone call and the message was still going.  Come on!  Take the hint!  If the person you called hangs up they are not interested and your call should hang up, too.

I am tempted to disconnect my regular home phone and just go with our cell phones.  There are several issues that keep me from doing so.  One is that I would have to contact all the places that I have given my home number to and let them know the new number.  The problem is that I cannot remember all the different people that I have given the number to.  Another question would be which cell number to give them.  If we use the lovely Elaine’s number, we have the problem that she is a teacher and cannot use her phone during school hours.  We could use my cell number, but that brings up a couple other issues.  I recently purchased a new cell phone – one that would sync through my car so that I would be able to be hands free on the outside chance that the two or three people who have my cell phone number would call me while I was driving.

The problem with this is that it does not offer me a regular telephone ring tone.  I have selected one that I thought would be good, but so far I am not too sure.  One of the problems is that I do not always hear it.  Another problem is that if I hear it I do not always connect the sound to my phone ringing.  The next problem is that, because it is a new phone, I am still unsure as to which button to push to answer the call.  My brother tried calling me the other day.  It took me several rings before I realized that my phone was ringing.  Then I quickly fumbled the phone out of my pocket.  I pressed the button that I thought would answer the phone and it did, but I also managed to hit the mute button (which I did not know I had) so he could not hear me when I answered.  He left a voice mail which took some time for me to retrieve, too.  I finally connected with him, but it was an adventure. 

He and my wife both have smart phones and are always going on about apps and “did you know you could do this?” all the time.  I have a dumb phone.  All I can do with my phone plan is make calls and send texts, much to my grandson Nick’s chagrin.  His phone needed charging and he wanted to use mine.  I told him that it didn’t do anything and he was appalled.  “You mean you don’t have internet access or games or anything?”  I explained that all I could do was make calls and send texts.  If he wanted to call someone or text them, my phone was his to use.  If he wanted more than that, he was beat. 

Speaking of texting, my son finds watching me text painful.  I have tried using both thumbs like most people do and I am not very good at it.  I spend more time correcting what I typed than it takes to send the actual message.  I find that I do best with one finger.  I only use two fingers – one on each hand – to type on a keyboard.  I can only use one finger to text because the other hand is holding the phone.

To get back to my archaic land line, I was thinking of changing the answering message.  My cell phone message is, “You have reached me, but not really.  Leave a message.”  For the land line I was thinking of using, “You have reached (my number).  If you are calling for a donation, I am retired and on a low fixed income.  I do not have any money to spare.  Please hang up and do not call back.  If you are calling to sell me something, forget it.  If I don’t already have it, I probably don’t want it or need it.  Please hang up and do not call back.  Otherwise, leave a message.”  The lovely Elaine gave me the look when I told her.  We are still using the old message.

This week’s fact tells us that 3.9% of all women do not wear underwear.  I would love to have been one of the people taking that survey.  Just another reason to go back to mini-skirts like I talked about a few weeks ago.

It is Sunday, October 13.  There are only 73 days until Christmas.  The beef logs will be in the malls in just a few days so make plans to get them before they sell out.  Birthday greetings go to Cornel Wilde, Sammy Hagar and Marie Osmond.  Today, in 1792, George Washington laid the cornerstone of the White House, “Kukla, Fran & Ollie” premiered in 1947 and in 1987 the US Navy made the first military use of trained dolphins in the Persian Gulf.  In Burundi it is Hero of the Nation Day.  Tomorrow is Columbus Day in the US and Farmer’s Day in Florida.

I know I have said this in the past and then gone on and talked about something.  However, this week I really am at a loss.  I have nothing to say.  I mean there are a number of commercials that drive me crazy, but nothing that I haven’t complained about before.  So rather than become tiresome with my rants I will just let things go for this week.

I am sorry and I hope you will tune in next week.  I am sure that I will have a topic to run on about.  I thank you for looking in and promise to have more in the future.  In the meantime, have a good week.

This week’s fact tells us that 166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the US.  Based on my mail delivery, most of it is advertisements and charity begging letters.  Some of it is too late to take advantage of the sales and a few pieces do not even belong to me.

Today is Sunday, October 6 and there are only 80 days until Christmas.  If you listen closely, you can almost hear the people swearing in the parking lots as they fight for a space … never mind, that happens all the time.  Today is the birthday of Richard Dedekind, Sir Basil Zaharoff and Helen Moody.  On this day in 1683, 13 German families arrived in present day Philadelphia, in 1884 the Naval War College was established in Newport, RI and in 1967 Haight-Ashbury hippies threw a funeral to mark the end of hippies.  In Massachusetts it is Grandparents Day. Tomorrow it will be Missouri Day in Missouri (thank you Captain Obvious) and world-wide it will be Child Health Day and Universal Children’s Day.  One time I asked my mother why there was a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day, but no children’s day.  She said that every day was children’s day.

Is it me or have we become a civilization that beats everything to death and then some.  We take something and just use it until it becomes tiresome.  Take for example vampires.  Some years ago, 1992 to be precise, the movie “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” was released.  It was an erotic tale about Dracula based on the novel written in 1897.  It made a fortune, was received positively by critics and revived, for a time, the vampire image.

That image simmered for a number of years, out there, but not quite mainstream until 2011 when the first of the “Twilight Saga” series came out.  Over the next couple years we had three more movies in that series and a number of other TV shows and movies involving vampires.  What I hope is the death knell for vampires is the TV commercial where vampires are selling breakfast bars and saying how much they like the morning now.  I think that stupid commercial has taken that subject farther than it needed to go.  Please let vampires rest!

Another subject that has reached ridiculous proportions is zombies.  There have always been zombies and zombie movies.  There was the movie “Bowery At Midnight” in 1942, “Castle of the Living Dead” in 1964, “Prince of Darkness” in 1987 and “The Crypt” in 2009 just to name a few.  There were many, many more.  I think the one thing that made zombies mainstream was the Michael Jackson music video “Thriller” released in 1983.  That was when zombies came into their own.  Since then we have had a plethora of zombie movies, a video game was developed  – Plants Vs Zombies – and we had a big time movie starring Brad Pitt about World War Z.  I do think; however, that the zombie issue will be coming to a close soon.  Zombies are now selling cell phones.  When zombies start making “amusing” commercials, they are on the downhill run to being passé, one can only hope.

This idea that if something is good let’s use it all the time for everything, is not unusual.  Look at the fashion industry.  A long time ago, the big clothing fad was the Nehru jacket. This jacket was popular in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.  Its popularity was spurred when the Monkees and the Beatles wore them, along with several villains in the James Bond series.  All the big names in show business wore them.  You saw them on famous people all the time.  Then, they became available to the masses.  People everywhere began wearing them.   I bought one after getting out of the service and got to wear it one time before the jacket fell out of favor.

Another big fashion hit of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s that got overdone was the leisure suit.  This was a popular outfit and was a hit with young men all over.  This polyester pants and jacket ensemble was big during the disco era.  The outfit became the thing to wear for some time, but ultimately became a cause for ridicule when 70 year old men began to wear them with white belts and shiny white shoes.  At one point some restaurants and businesses banned them from their establishments.  Here is another time when I got out of the service just in time to be on the tail end of a fad. 

Maybe it’s me.  Maybe people are enjoying a clothing fad and then someone notices that I have started wearing the style.  “Well, that does it for that outfit.  Bill’s wearing it now.  I guess I can send mine to Vietnam Veterans.”  Or not.

I managed to miss a lot of great things while in the Air Force.  I completely missed the sexual revolution, getting out just in time for a few minor skirmishes before a complete cease fire was declared.  By the time I was out to witness the phenomenon, women had gone back to wearing bras.  I got to enjoy the mini-skirt thing but only for a short while before women started wearing pants.  But I digress …

We saw Cavaricci pants and parachute pants in the 1980’s.  All the young people were wearing them.  Add to that look the mullet haircut and you have a look that  … well, let’s just say that it was a look that lasted too long and then mercifully went away, at least for the most part.  I have seen guys who still sport a sort of modified mullet, they still roll up the short sleeves on their shirts and wear high top sneakers untied.  Oh well, some fashion things never completely die.  Now if we could just get more women back into that braless thing … (big sigh here).

This week’s fact tells us that 62 degrees F is the minimum temperature required for a grasshopper to hop.  I guess if its colder, the grasshopper will just work on his karate.  Wax on, wax off.