It is Sunday, October 4 and there are only 400 days until the presidential election.  Maybe by that time Gov. Christie will have figured out that he is not getting the Republican nomination.  Today we remember the birthdays of Richard Cromwell, Dick Tracy and Patti LaBelle.  On this day in 1648 Peter Stuyvesant established America’s first volunteer firemen, in 1883 the Orient Express made its first run, linking Turkey to Europe by rail and in 1969 the UN started issuing postage stamps at its Geneva headquarters.  In Bangladesh it is Shab I Barat, in Lesotho it is Independence Day and in Massachusetts it is Grandparents Day.

Today being the birthday of Dick Tracy, I thought I would provide you with yet another entry into the useless information file.  Dick Tracy was a tough and intelligent police detective (originally called Plainclothes Tracy) created by Chester Gould.  He made his debut in the comics in 1931 in the Detroit Mirror.

Tracy used forensic science, advanced gadgetry and wits in an early example of the police procedural mystery story.  However, the stories often ended in gunfights jut the same.  On January 13, 1946 the two-way radio became one of the strip’s most recognizable icons, worn as a wristwatch by Tracy (I wonder if it had an apple symbol on it).

Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977.  Since that time, various artists and writers have continued the strip, which still runs in newspapers today.  That should help you fill the Dick Tracy section of your file.

You might recall that I mentioned being able to view myself in the mirror while taking a shower.  While I try not to make a habit of doing so, I recently took a couple of minutes to look critically and discovered something interesting.  I realized that my navel is not centered on my body and is, in fact off to the right.  I have also known for some time that my left ear is lower than my right ear.  One also has to wonder why I should care and what, if anything, does it prove.   However, this would explain a problem I continue to have when dressing.

When I was in the service, we were trained to be sure that we were “squared away” when we dressed.  That meant that we had to be sure that the line of our shirt was even with the fly on our pants and that the outside edge of our belt buckle lined up, too.  I try to do that even now because it just looks neater.  The problem I have is that I always tried to line things up using my navel as a guide.  I was never completely satisfied and always felt that my clothes were askew. Now I know why.  Next time you work up the nerve, check to see if your navel is centered.

The good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, it looks like we will be shed of our old house in the next couple days.  There is still an issue that needs to be corrected, but that is being dealt with.  The contractor who is taking care of it confided in me that the people in town who deal with this stuff are more ridiculous than he remembered.  All I could do was nod my head and say, “You don’t know the half of it.”  My adventures with these people are rife with ridiculous and soon I will be able to share some of that with you all.

By the way, I just used the word rife.  Whatever happened to using words like that?  You never hear about plethoras or dearths any more.  People do not use the many words available to them in our language.  Imagine the looks you would get if you told someone that you were going to take a postprandial nap.  Very few people know that postprandial refers to the period after lunch or dinner.  There are a number of words that people do not understand.

“I just had dental work done and now it is difficult to masticate.”

“Dude!  I was always told that would affect your eyes.”

While I realize that English is tough to master and not all the rules make sense, there is no reason for dude, bro and awesome to be some of the most commonly used words.  We can’t even speak in complete sentences anymore.  “I am going to run to the grocery store.”  “Cool, bro.  Want me to come with?”  Is it really that difficult to add the word “you”?  Do people realize that when they are talking they are not limited to 140 characters? … but I digress.

I have been running in circles for months dealing with the town on various matters.  I don’t want to spoil the story, but speaking of language, officials there do not understand logic or how to respond to logical questions.  Like I said, I don’t want to spoil the whole story, but let me just give you a teaser.  One of the issues I had to deal with was a railing I had installed on my front steps.  I was told that the railing failed inspection because the space at the bottom was large enough for a 6 inch sphere to fit through.  I asked why that was a problem and I was told that it meant that a small child could put its head in there.  I didn’t even want to get into why a small child was running around putting its head under stair railings.  My question was, “But if a child could put their head in, couldn’t they also take it back out?”  This was met by a stare that told me I had just started speaking a foreign language.  Oh well, the end is in sight!

This week our fact tells us that bird droppings are the chief export of Nauru, an island nation in the Western Pacific.  So many questions!  Who are they exporting the droppings to and for what purpose?  How many birds do they have that it makes exporting them worthwhile?  What does being a dropping collector pay?  What kind of money do they make on the exports?  I could go on, but why bother?  I do not know anyone on Nauru, so I have no way of getting answers.  I was hoping to end this with an amusing bird dropping wrap up, but I’ve got nothing.  See you next week!