I last updated this site in 2020 just before the Ohio Presidential Primary Election. My post at that time dealt with how to register to vote and to ensure your ability to vote, hopefully against the dude that wasn’t re-elected.
Since then, most of my posts have been on Facebook since that’s where most of my followers are. Over the years the popularity of such social media outlets has greatly lessened the interest and support for private websites.
However, as politics have become more volatile and posting controversial statements on sites like Twitter and Facebook more policed, there is growing censorship that I don’t approve of or want to be subjected to. On several occasions now I have been notified by the Facebook Keystone Kops and put in Facebook Prison for a short period of time. The reason is never specified other than a general statement that I have violated community standards. The first time it was for simply identifying the source of a quotation as being Hitler’s book Mein Kampf. Apparently, someone took that to mean I supported Hitler and was some sort of neo-fascist.
One way to regain my independence and not worry about Facebook’s rules is to reactivate Chapman’s General Store and post my political views here with a link posted on Facebook.
I don’t know how old one has to be to recall the original Dragnet television show starring Jack Webb and Ben Alexander. It was a cop show that cut to the no-nonsense quick of the case at hand. As the duo of Joe Friday and partner Frank Smith pursued the case they cautioned every potential witness that they were interested in the facts, nothing but the facts. It was straight police work and at the end of the show, they always had their man in cuffs.
Janet and I watch lots of police dramas, especially from the British Commonwealth. What most have in common is a required amount of police drama coupled with way too much relationship drama. There’s the distraught wife who’s pissed because the hubby loves the job more than her. There’s the angst-ridden teenager whose life is ruined because dad the cop wasn’t there when his first pimple ripened.
I had bariatric surgery in 2008 and afterward, I came across a small book, Food Rules, that contained a list of very simple, easy to follow, tips for managing one’s weight. A couple of examples is, never order French fries. If you want fries, go to the trouble to do the work, make the mess, and clean it all up. Another is, nothing good for you comes through a drive-thru window.
Anyway, I love books like that. You learn valuable things and you don’t have to tie yourself to reading thousand-page textbooks.
A week or so ago a new feathered creature showed up at our suet feeders. My wife first noticed it by its song, one we had not heard before. Finally, she tracked it down and we identified it at the feeder. Our conclusion was that it was a red-headed house finch but we’ve since decided that may not be correct.
We didn’t have a good photo of the bird so on two occasions this week I sat on the deck with my best lens and found a very different creature than what we first thought was paying us a visit. This one has far more colors and is truly a bird we’ve never seen before. After lots of digging in our library of bird books, the closest thing we can find is labeled an immature summer tanager, which is a migratory species and more commonly found in South Florida and the tropics.
As we age we keep amassing dates we’re supposed to remember and events were not supposed to forget where we were.
May 4, 1970, is one such date. Fifty years ago today was the day Ohio’s Kent State University forever became a permanent chapter in the nation’s anti-Vietnam War history book.
It was the day when Ohio governor James Rhoades unleashed the Ohio National Guard and permitted it to use lethal military force to quell student anti-war activities on the campus of Kent State
This caught my attention on the nightly news a few days ago but I wasn’t sure I got the facts correct. The news item had to do with fast-food restaurants and how they are doing with no dine-in business.
If you’ve ever tried to get down Jefferson Street in Greenfield at any rush hour you know that McDonald’s drive-thru window may be the
My granddaughter posed the emerging garter snake video on her Facebook page. I don’t know when or where it was filmed but it reminded me of something I and my students observed in the spring at the South Salem Cemetery. The emergence of hundreds of Gartner snakes from hibernation and the formation of a breeding ball. The smaller males surround a single, larger, female, each trying
The thing today, especially with the virus threatening our ever move, is home delivery of groceries and the pick and click services offered by chains like Walmart and Kroger’s.
We’ve successfully completed a click and pick at Kroger’s and just submitted another. We had to wait several days for our turn and didn’t get all we ordered. But the pickup was clean, safe, and quick. I pulled into the appropriate parking space, an attendant asked through the window for my name, and in a few minutes, they returned from the building with our order, which they quickly and neatly placed in the back of the mini-van.
The following was sent to me by a friend with a background in science and was presented by an Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University. It explains the nature of the Coronavirus and how to help prevent the chances of acquiring it. It also explains the need to frequently wash one’s hands and other important pieces of the puzzle.
If you were around in the 1980s you probably heard something about the Yugoslavian made car, the Yugo. It was a typical European hatchback, reminding me of the VW Rabbit I owned in the mid-1970s. A big difference being, the Rabbit is still manufactured, under the name Golf, and is considered one of the world’s great compact cars. On the other hand, the Yugo was and remains, the car with arguably the world’s worst reputation. It was reputed to be so bad, the saying went, that friends didn’t let friends drive Yugos.
First Friday of March is National Day of Unplugging.
Well, we won’t have to concern ourselves with it since it’s over. But, Friday was the National Day of Unplugging and participants were asked to totally unplug. To not use anything that included the use of any kind of screen. No cell phone, no tablet, no laptop, no desktop, no TV, no backup camera, no GPS, no camera with a digital viewfinder, absolutely nothing that uses a screen. Could you do such for a period of 24-hours without cheating? Discuss.
I’ve never eaten in an In-N-Out burger joint but frequently hear others raving about how good their food is. Anthony Bourdain once said that he never left Los Angeles without stopping for at an In-N-Out on the way to the airport.
While surfing around YouTube I came across the video below and in watching it a lot of my last two years of college were brought to mind. During most of that time, I was a swing manager at a McDonald’s in Whittier, CA. The restaurant was a corporate-owned store and that’s where I learned that the real name of McDonald’s was Franchise Realty Corporation with offices in downtown LA.
We’ve fed the birds in our woods for decades. But, this winder we decided to put out some corn in hopes of drawing the squirrels in. We have a large heard this season and they are great fun to watch.
So, I stopped at Tractor #and brought home a corn feeder, a 50# bag of shelled corn, and a bag of eared corn. Long story short, so far the squirrels have totally ignored it. I see them run down the tree and a few minutes run back up; showing no interest in the goodies offered. My only theory is that the corn feeder is hanging on a hickory tree and there’s got to be lots of hickory nuts on the ground that the squirrels prefer over corn.
I had bariatric surgery in 2008 and afterward, I came across a small book, Food Rules, that contained a list of very simple, easy to follow, tips for managing one’s weight. A couple of examples is, never order French fries. If you want fries, go to the trouble to do the work, make the mess, and clean it all up. Another is, nothing good for you comes through a drive-thru window.
