A Dream, Or A Dud? #socs

I talk about dreams a lot here, specifically the weird ones I have, but I thought I should stay away from those and find something else to write about.

Remember Dreamsicles? They were made by the same folks that brought us Popsicles and Fudgsicles, which now is a division of Unilever (as are so many other things these days). They were ice milk covered with orange sherbet and served on a stick, like all the other -sicle products (“look for the red -sicle ball!”). Later, they came up with the Creamsicle, which is ice cream covered with orange sherbet and served on a stick. I guess that made the old Dreamsicle looked pretty weak by comparison and they don’t sell them anymore, which is kind of a shame. The Urban Dictionary has a number of definitions for both “Dreamsicle” and “Creamsicle,” all of which are rather disgusting. It looks like Dairy Queen now has a Dreamsicle cone, an ice cream cone dipped in orange, that’s supposed to be really good, or in Dairy Queen terms, scrumpdillyishus. That was back in the days when Dennis The Menace was their spokescartoon and the cups used to have pictures of Dennis, Ruff, Joey and Margaret on them.

Am I dating myself by talking about Dennis the Menace? Dennis is still running in the newspapers around the country and is a frequent target of The Comics Curmudgeon, who takes daily comic strips and makes cruel sport of them. He gets them online, because the daily newspaper is all but dead, thanks to the Internet. A lot of newspapers have online editions, which they’ll give you full access to if you’ll also take the physical newspaper. My question is “why?” Seriously…

None of the last paragraph has anything to do with dreams, of course, but hey, it’s stream of consciousness, isn’t it?

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about Mystery Date, from Milton Bradley, who makes the best games in the world. Will he be a dream, or a dud?

Let Your Lite Shine Brite! #socs

I pit “ght” into a Pixabay search and this is the only thing that came up. Don’t ask me why. Image by jose luis martinez from Pixabay

Something that just gave me a fright: I clicked the button for “new post” and the damn Gutenberg editor came up. I ain’t messing with that. Have to remember that when I click the new post button to select the classic editor.

On to today’s festivities. Why do we write “light” and “bright” when we could write “lite” and “brite”? Why didn’t I write “frite” above when I wrote “fright”? Really, “-ght” is pretty useless. There are easier ways to write, why don’t we use them?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it’s not “standard English.” Don’t everybody jump on the cripple at once.

You know something else? The letter C is useless. It either sounds like an S or like a K. Why not just use S or K? Of course, if we got rid of it, I’d have to change my middle initial to K. I don’t want to do that.

Someone at WordPress told me how to get the classic editor back. The world is a happy place once again.

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is ~~brought~~ brot to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about M&M’s. The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand!

Yeah, I know, Christmas commercials…

N-V-T-S! #socs

Seeing that the prompt for this week was “nuts” reminded me of this scene from Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part 1.

The woman, of course, is Bea Arthur, before her gig in The Golden Girls, while the agent is Ron Carey, after his gig in Barney Miller. And you all recognize Mel.

Bob Newhart once said that his first job out of college was working for the Illinois Unemployment Department, where he made $75 a week processing claims for guys who were getting $100 a week in benefits. He decided that was nuts. (If the numbers seem low, it was 60 years ago, when $75 a week was good money. It’s the equivalent of $657.23 today, which is $34,176 a year or $16.43 an hour. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Did you know peanuts are not nuts? They’re legumes. Nuts grow on trees, peanuts grow in the ground.

I spent some time in Monroe, Louisiana back when I was working. There are a lot of pecan trees there, and the way you harvest them is to wait for them to fall on the ground then pick them up with a device that looks like a pooper-scooper. The place I worked had lots of pecan trees on the property, and during the harvest season you would see people out on the lawn picking up pecans. Most pecans come from Georgia, Texas, and New Mexico, but their technical name is Carya illinoinensis, so they grow a few in Illinois.

There’s a guy named Charlie who lives in Palmetto, Georgia, who takes pecans and coats them with things like brown sugar, cinnamon, and orange flavoring, or if you prefer Worcestershire sauce, seasoned salt, and hot sauce. He then sells them at craft fairs during the Christmas season as “Charlie Makes U Nuts!” He does good business, too, because the nuts are really tasty. I thought he had a website, but I guess not. All the high schools and a few churches in the area have craft fairs, so he spends a lot of time around here around the holidays. They’re really good!

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word from Hardee’s. Best eatin’ all around!

Bobo Waro Fero Satodeh #socs

Ties: nope, don’t wear ’em anymore. Image by FULVIO_TOGNON from Pixabay

I’m at the stage of my life where people are lucky I get dressed at all. Golf/polo shirt, jeans, underwear (of course), socks and my compression sleeve, and shoes. A jacket or hoodie if it’s cool out or in the house. I have the requisite one suit, which I don’t wear because there’s no reason to. About the only place I’d wear it is in my casket, and I’m going to be cremated, so there’s really no need.

Boy, that got morbid all of a sudden, didn’t it?

We’ve always been casual. The older we get, the more casual we become. Mom, on the other hand, was always dressed nicely. She and Dad went out a lot on Saturday nights, and this was back in the ’60’s, so Dad was in a suit and Mom was in a dress. I’m sure I’d be the same if it were the ’60’s, but it’s a different world. We don’t go out on Saturday nights, anyway. When Mom was getting ready to go out, the house smelled like Joy perfume and Aqua Net hair spray, which is a combo you wouldn’t think would smell that good, but somehow it worked when Mom did it.

Saturday nights in the old neighborhood, when I was in grammar school, weren’t all that exciting. Jackie Gleason and Get Smart were on, then some sort of Movie of the Week. A lot of them were Westerns. We’d have to go to bed after the movie, although that rarely meant I was going to sleep: I’d usually stay up until midnight listening to Art Roberts on WLS. When the weather was nice enough that I could have my window open, I would listen to the band playing a couple of blocks away at the almost-weekly dance that the Teen Club at church would have on Saturday nights. I couldn’t hear much more than the bass and drums. Dad had a cousin that played bass in the band, so I could hear him really clearly.

Now we spend Saturday nights watching Columbo reruns. We’ve seen all of them so many times, all we have to know is who the villain is to know the entire plot and cast is. It’s nowhere near as boring as it sounds.

Okay, sometimes it is…

Congratulations to Shelley Krupa at Quaint Revival for winning this year’s SoCS Badge contest!

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word from Schmidt’s Beer. Be sure to vote for Miss Schmidt’s Phillies before July 15. Get a ballot at Veterans Stadium or wherever Schmidt’s beer is sold!

Of course, this is a very old commercial. Veterans Stadium doesn’t even exist anymore.

By the way, the title of this post is the name of an African folk song that means “Everybody Loves Saturday Night.”

Sadaharu Oh, Oh, Oh It’s Magic #socs

Oh Sadaharu, or Sadaharu Oh if you prefer, hit more home runs than anyone else in professional baseball, 868 over a 22-year career with the Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants in the Nippon Professional Baseball League. He never hit more than 55 in a season, but enjoyed good health for most of his career and never hit fewer than 30 starting in his fourth professional season (1962).

“OH” is important to me, because otherwise I’d be JN.

From 1975, Pilot with their big hit “Magic,” where they say “oh” a lot…

Guess this badge gets retired after this week. Thanks again to Pamela, who seems to have pulled a Mandrake shortly after winning last year’s badge contest. Be sure and check Linda’s blog on Thursday to vote on next year’s badge. I won’t be doing one, since I ended up dead last last year, and the badges I’ve seen so far are amazing…

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about 7up, The Uncola!

Whatever happened to 7up? They still sell it, but I never see ads for it and haven’t seen it in a machine in I don’t know how long…