Today is Sunday, June 28.  There are only 150 days left until Christmas, so go buy your Peeps and let them start hardening.  It is the birthday of Thomas Heyward, Beatrix Potter and Bill Bradley.  On this day in 1586 Sir Thomas Harriot introduced potatoes to Europe.  In 1866 the Metric System became a legal measurement system in the US.  In 1962 Mariner I was launched to Mars and fell into the Atlantic Ocean (oops).  In Bermuda it is Admiral George Somers Day, in Peru it is Independence Day and in the US it is Joseph Lee Day, the day that honors playgrounds.

Let me start out by apologizing for not posting last week.  I had a technical problem – my computer was not working.  I had to purchase a new tower and my IT person (my son) was not able to get me set up until Sunday afternoon.  By then I did not have the opportunity to put anything together so you were left with a repeat of the week before.  Sorry, Sean, I hope this did not spoil your omelette.

One thing I want to discuss is the new fad of wearing shorts, black socks and flip flops.  The lovely Elaine asked what that was all about.  We noted that in the past, these people would have been shunned for looking that way.  Now all the young guys seem to think they look great.  When Elaine asked me, I told her I thought they did it so they could see what they will look like when they are 70.

Speaking of which, I saw a family out shopping the other day and I was bothered by the gentleman’s attire.  He appeared to be in his 70’s or 80’s, he was wearing a striped shirt, plaid shorts, mid-calf black dress socks and dress shoes.  The woman who appeared to be his wife was dressed nicely  with slacks and a blouse that seemed to match.  The daughter (I knew she was the daughter because she called him Dad) was also dressed nicely.  My question is why would they let him go out looking like that?  Obviously they had some sense of style and what goes well together.

Did they really think he looked okay?  Did they think that by letting him go out that way it draw attention away from the fact that they could stand to drop about 15 pounds?  Was this some kind of revenge thing for some mistreatment in the past by him?  Or did they just not care how he looked as long as they looked okay?  Maybe they thought he made them look better in their somewhat mundane outfits because he looked so bad.

The lovely Elaine and I were lucky enough to get away for a couple of days to go down the shore to visit our friend Pat.  We always have a good time with her and this most recent foray was no exception.  Elaine and Pat were able to solve most of the thorny issues confronting the field of education without ever having to leave the confines of the dining room.  They did not listen to most of my suggestions, believing that shooting people was not a satisfactory solution to any of the problems they were discussing.

We worked hard to support the wine industry and were quite proud of our accomplishments.  We had breakfast one morning – Taylor pork roll sandwiches – sitting out on the deck watching a crew build a modular home.  If you have never had the opportunity to do that, you should try it.  It was fascinating!  I meant watching them build the home, not eating on Pat’s deck.

Then, all too soon, it was time for the drive home.  In case you did not know, summer is one of the busiest times for the parkway, so it makes sense that this would be when all the construction is being done.  There are several things that bother me about this.  One I have mentioned before is why they feel it necessary to do road work in patches all along the highway.  We passed at least 5 different sections where work was being done (a phrase I use loosely) and traffic was slowed as a result.

What gets me is that you see the cones telling you that you are in a work zone.  You drive for several miles without seeing anything or anybody other than the cones blocking two of the four lanes and restricting traffic to 45MPH, not that anyone slows down at all.  I always wondered why they had to put the cones out so far in advance of the actual work site.  My father used to say that it was because they did not have room to store the cones anywhere, so they just put them out on the road.

After three or four miles, you come upon two guys standing around smoking and one guy going off to the bushes, probably to pee.  A couple miles further, you come to a huge amount of equipment and bright lights.  In the ultra daylight of these lights you see one or two guys working and seven or eight people “supervising” the job.  After a few more miles, the cones stop and the road opens up, again.  But don’t get too excited, there will be another construction site soon.

My dilemma is that I am unable to figure out what they are trying to do at some of these sites.  In some cases it looks like they are just redoing something that was already there.  What is worse is that it looks like they are making it exactly the same as it was!  But ours not to reason why, ours just to keep paying taxes and tolls so we can support these projects.

This week’s fact tells us that 1/3 of Taiwanese funeral processions include a stripper.  And people think I am weird because I want a New Orleans style band at my funeral.