I don’t know about you but I am a big fan of the English language. I have been speaking English most of my life and even decided to write this article in English, but I am worried that our language is vanishing before our eyes.

One of the foundations of the English language is the written form. After you know how to speak it, you should learn how to read and write it, but alas, that is the first part of the disappearing act. Let me ask you this, how were the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Emancipation Proclamation presented? They were hand written in cursive writing so that everybody could read them but now, cursive is disappearing.

Cursive writing is no longer being taught in school. Gone forever are the giant cursive letters displayed above the blackboard. Heck, no longer is there a blackboard.

Cursive writing is how we learned our ABCs, but imagine this sentence written in cursive. The kids would have to take the sentence and scan it into the Google translator just to know what it means.

Cursive has been replaced by the keyboard, which can present you with a variety of fonts but it is impersonal and does not convey the same sentiment of pen put to paper. Plus, if kids don’t know cursive, what is their signature going to look like? Will it be a mark or in all block letters? And how do the kids pass notes to each other? Oh, that’s right, they don’t. They text. Things like this bother me.

Point number two: All of our good words are disappearing. When was the last time you used words like rapscallion, alliterative, or conjunctivitis? My point exactly. The more words we don’t use, the more we lose. Soon, we will become a nation of monosyllabic misfits.

And the more words we lose, the more they add, and by “they” I mean the fine folks at Oxford Dictionary. The Oxford folks, who make fine footwear, decided this year to add an emoji to the dictionary. An emoji is not a word, it is a picture, and there are hundreds of them out there. Just google “Emoji” and you can see them all.

The chosen emoji this year is a yellow smiley face with tears coming from its eyes. It is meant to depict “tears of joy.” Really? We need a picture to denote tears of joy? Apparently we do, just like we need one to denote sadness, anger, or happiness.

A smily face wearing sunglasses is the emoji for “cool.” A smiley face with its tongue out to the side means either silly or horny, which are two things you do not want to get confused. And a smily face with Xs for eyes means that you are dead. Well, let me put an X over the I in English because emojis are out to ruin us.

Eventually we will become a language of only pictures as English is replaced by the new hieroglyphics. Our only hope is that in a few thousand years somebody will uncover the Rosetta Thumb Drive which will translate the emojis back into cursive.

We have to fight this takeover my friends, so I call for a ban on all emojis and renewed support for the English language. It’s all we can do to keep the mother tongue alive. (winking smiley face)

Follow

Share on Tumblr

I was sitting in the park today, enjoying the birds at the bird feeder as they sang and had fun evacuating wherever they darn well pleased. What a life this must be. Eating free food and pooping in the park, and that’s when I started to wonder where the word “park” came from. 

I immediately consulted the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, and lo and behold they said there was no known origin for the word. Well, hearing that, I knew it was up to me to come up with one.

When I was a boy, parks were called “vacant lots” and now, vacant lots are becoming parks. The name “park” was first coined by St. Francis who was leading his donkey through a dusty town when he came upon a green space where he said, “This looks like a good place to park my ass.” source: Donald Trump.

Thankfully today, we can drive to the park where we can park the car before parking it on a park bench, and that’s the kind of park I like. And I like the fact that we have all kinds of parks.  We have state parks, county parks, city parks, and big national parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Branson.

My concern is that we are adulterating the word “park” with adjectives like ball park, water park, theme park, amusement park, wild animal park, memorial park, and trailer park. Think about it. How would you feel if you were a nine-year-old and your folks told you that you were going to a park and it was really your Aunt Mongo’s trailer park. That experience could keep a kid out of parks for a long time. It’s as bad as going to a memorial park for a quiet picnic with grandpa.

My point is that we have to revive the sanctity of the word PARK so that folks know what to expect. I have developed a tentative list of things I think should be required to qualify for the title of park.

1) There must be greenery, and lots of it. Grass, trees, shrubbery, and lots of weeds must be the dominant feature of a park. If you live in Arizona or someplace else in the desert, your park must feature brownery.

2) Wildlife must be present, be it in the form of birds, fish, squirrels, yak, et al.

3) Parks should have washrooms or porta-potties. You still can qualify as a park if you don’t have toilets, but people are going to pee in your park which could ruin the ambiance.

4) A park is a quiet place. No loud music please, just the sounds of nature, punctuated by the occasional dip-wad talking very loudly on his cell phone.

5) A park should be free, because if you spell park backwards you get krap and nobody pays for krap.

In a salute to parks everywhere, I have composed the following ode to parks. Actually, it’s more of a limerick and the title is A Park In Nantucket.

A man from Nantucket named Mark

Took a casual stroll through the park.

He was wearing a suit

And a bow tie to boot,

So the kids all thought he was a narc.

I hope this clears up any questions you might have had regarding the origin of the word park. Next time I’m going to examine the word “vestibule”.

Follow

Share on Tumblr

As the seasons go, I am a fan of all four of them, although if it were up to me, I’d shorten winter to about six weeks and make it up with the other three. That would give us a longer spring when there’s resurgence and renewal in the air, a longer summer when there’s humidity in the air, and a longer fall, which is where I sense a problem.

Fall, nee Autumn, is a time of drastic changes. First off, the leaves change color from green to oranges, reds, and yellows. Then the time changes from Daylight Savings Time to Daylight is Gone By The Time You Get Off Work Time. This can be a shock to many biorhythms and when you throw in the changing tides, all hell breaks loose.

We can’t even depend on our holidays to keep us sane. Christmas is over two months away yet Christmas trees and decorations are already popping up everywhere, right next to the Halloween supplies. I decided to combine my decorations this year so I bought three skeletons for Halloween. The next day I will convert them to Christmas decorations with bathrobes, scarves, and long sticks and, voila, three shepherds. Add some bling and swap the sticks for little boxes and I have the Magi.

Last year I carved my pumpkin in the shape of a turkey, hoping it would last until Thanksgiving, and it did. There was a little fuzz growing on the turkey and he was starting to shrink but dammit, the pumpkin lasted.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I never know what day it is on. I know it’s the fourth Thursday in November but that could be anywhere from November 20th to the 26th and that makes it hard to plan for America’s favorite holiday…Black Friday.

We will stay up all night to be the first in line for big deals on stuff we don’t really need. Many stores even open on Thanksgiving Day which means the family dinner is limited to turkey subs from Subway.

Between Halloween and Thanksgiving Day is the scariest holiday of the year, Election Day. This year, election day won’t mean much to most people, but in just one year, we will be selecting the new leader of our country from all of the available bozos on the bus.

Veterans Day is also celebrated in the fall, specifically November 11th. Veterans Day used to be called Armistice Day but Congress decided that it was easier for them to spell Veterans in all official documents.

If you think that fall is a confusing time of the year, use it to your advantage. In the spring, slothful people explain their inactivity with the excuse of Spring Fever. Well if you should find yourself confused, perplexed, and puzzled this season, blame it all on the Autumn Ailment, also known as Fall Fibrosis.

Follow

Share on Tumblr

When last seen, I was in a Mexican restaurant in Clarksville, Tennessee, drinking margaritas and enjoying Chorizo and Queso, an excellent jazz duo. But today is a new day and time to head north.

The first part of the trip took me on the Land Between The Lakes Parkway, 45 miles of the finest riding you will find. For most of it, I was the only vehicle on the road and it felt very surreal. Plus, I saw buffalo, and none of them had wings. Go figure.

The next stop was Metropolis, Illinois, the home of Superman. Well, truth be told, this is a different Metropolis than the one in the comics. There are no tall buildings to leap from, and The Daily Planet only comes out every couple of weeks. But they do have a giant statue of Superman that draws visitors from all over.

This town has been named Metropolis since 1839 but in 1972 they decided to cash in on their name by tying in to Superman. Conveniently close to the statue is the official Superman museum and gift shop. They’re making money from a fictional character. Too bad my next stop didn’t have the same idea.

Springfield is the capitol of Illinois. It is also the legendary home of Homer Simpson. Do you think they’d put up a giant statue of Homer to attract tourists? No, all the attention is on Abraham Lincoln. This is where Lincoln lived and where he is buried and where everything is named Lincoln. I stayed at the Lincoln Inn on Lincoln Street and every time I bought something, I got my change in five dollar bills and pennies, the money with Lincoln’s picture. I have to tell you, getting $4.99 in change can really weigh you down.

From Springfield, I took legendary Route 66 back to Chicago and passed at least five prisons en route. We must have a lot of bad guys in Illinois. One prison even has a “governor’s wing.”

Route 66 was one of the first designated U.S. Highway and ran from Chicago to Santa Monica. It was memorialized by the Bobby Troupe song and the 1960’s TV series. I have to admit that I definitely got my kicks on Route 66. When I stopped for gas, three kids ran up and kicked me. It must be a local custom.

Much of the original route has been replaced, but many of the original segments still exist in Illinois. The problem is they are not marked as well as they should be, especially the sign that sent me 5 miles down the road to a dead end. But I loved riding this segment of the Mother Road.

After 2,117 miles and twice as many memories, my adventure has come to an end. I hope you enjoyed riding along me and that you’ll tune in for my next adventure, wherever that happens to be.

Follow

Share on Tumblr

After a lovely weekend in the North Carolina mountains with my friends Greg and Jane, it was time to hit the road again. I headed for Tennessee and this time there was no rain. There was fog! As I went through Goober’s Gap (actually I don’t remember the name of the gap but this sounded funny), I encountered fog that was thicker than pea soup, it was more like bisque. Fortunately it didn’t last too long and I was finally able to go faster than a lame mule.

As I entered Tennessee, I was surprised to see so many fireworks stores. Every half mile there was the world’s largest fireworks store and in between were smaller fireworks shops. I don’t know what the big attraction to fireworks is but I guess it’s something the locals use to kill time between NASCAR races.

The first town I came to in Tennessee was Cleveland. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and I can safely say that Cleveland, Tennessee is very different. They don’t have a baseball team.

I also went through Chattanooga, home of the famous Chattanooga Choo Choo. The choo choo was made famous in a song popularized by Glen Miller and today it is a hotel. Personally I think they should have made the train into a restaurant and called it the Chattanooga Chew Chew but what do I know?

When I got to Tracy City, Tennessee, I stopped for lunch and had one of the best hamburgers I’ve ever eaten. I don’t remember the name of the restaurant but it shouldn’t be hard to find if you ever find yourself in Tracy City because it’s the only one in town. Don’t expect a fancy place because in addition to mighty fine burgers, the joint also sold live bait, fishing tackle, baby food, and hunting knives. It gave a new meaning to the word eclectic.

As I cruised further on the Tennessee back roads, I came across towns with very interesting names. There was Seddy-Daisy, Dowelltown, and a place named Smartt, which seemed extremely ironic.

I was heading for Clarksville, another town popularized by a train song. The Monkeys recorded The Last Train To Clarksville although they might have been talking about a different Clarksville because the one in Tennessee doesn’t have a train station.

I also had the pleasure of driving through Nashville during rush hour which was about as much fun as getting a facial with sandpaper. This experience should be immortalized in song. I think a country western song with the lyrics, “It’s five o’clock in Nashville and the traffic really sucks. I’d stay overnight here but the hotels charge big bucks.”

Tomorrow I will be traveling through part of Kentucky and then on to Illinois where I’m pretty sure the taxes have increased since I left. Stay tuned.

Follow

Share on Tumblr