Hot Dog

Summertime, and the living is easy, mostly because the Rhubarbs are working, and not blogging. And here it is, the end of July, and we've only consumed about half of a 40-pack of Ballpark Franks, "they plump when you cook 'em." We buy the 40-pack at Sam's, but usually they're gone right away - a big picnic, a cookout, camping with friends - along with a case of those ready-made quarter-pound hamburger patties. Hell, this summer I haven't even reloaded the propane in the gas grill or been to the lake. I don't really know the difference between a Frank (Frankfurter for you Krauts out there, like my lovely wife) and a Hot Dog, except maybe the quantity of unacceptable bovine body parts and organs contained within each. Hebrew National, "no ifs, ands, or butts," probably make the best hot dogs: beef, Kosher, bovine anus-free, but you can't beat the price of Ballpark (all-beef, but probably chock-full of anus tissue and other organ meats) at the Sam's; chunk some of those bad boys on the grill, toast up some buns, break out the Guldens Spicy Brown! Light on the Heinz, some diced onions, good all-American food, named after Germans or canines, go figure. I love the summertime.

Naivete

The wet-behind-the-ears Obama administration and their left-wing congressional counterparts are either stupid or evil, as indicated by the recent declassification of photographs and documents about "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on enemy combatants captured in Iraq and elsewhere. These politicians - mostly well-off, mostly Democrat, mostly urban-dwelling, elite, effete, pseudo-intellectuals, who have never served in the military, never held a job outside of government, never done an honest day's labor in their life - refer to these interrogation methods as "torture", but clearly have no real-world frame of reference to what "torture" really is, or what really goes on over there in enemy territory.

Here's what the enemy does to people they capture: They wire their testicles to car batteries, they blow off their kneecaps with handguns, and eventually cut their heads off with a saw.

Here's what we do: we have dogs bark at them, we play loud music, we pour water up their nose, and make them wear underpants on their head. Sounds like a frat party, only without the beer.

Historically, Enemy Combatants are treated by the Geneva Convention as spies, and therefore, aren't entitled to the same protections as prisoners of war. In World Wars I and II, and even Korea and Vietnam, enemy combatants were simply taken out and shot. Let's bring back that policy; it will save us all from the pointless debate about what to do with Guantanamo inmates or what constitutes "torture."

Ambulance

I've never been in an ambulance, but have always been curious. Anything with a siren going by was fair game for us kids; if we were lucky, we could follow on our bikes and witness real-life adventures performed by real-life superheroes - firefighters, police, emergency medical technicians. Maybe there would be carnage - a car accident, or perhaps a house on fire - but sometimes it was just the cops pulling someone over, never a shootout or hostage situation. You generally didn't get a look inside the ambulance, it was a lot different than a fire truck, with all the controls on the outside, the dials and valves and hoses and ladders. Back in the day, the firemen would ride on the back of the truck, ready to jump off and pull out ladders and hoses and start fighting fire at the drop of a hat. The ambulance was always secretive, curtained, or doors with very small windows, now big cubic vans, but formerly low slung custom Cadillac station wagons, with a big gumball machine on top. My dad had the chance to ride in a number of ambulances before he died, including several rides on an Air Ambulance, probably CareFlight, a big Sikorsky or Bell or Huey helicopter, multi-million dollar equipment and personnel, and a pretty expensive ride, but I think most people would think it was worth it.

Test Tube

The test tubes that came with the chemistry set were lame; tiny little things, fragile, not heat resistant. My dad, a biochemist at the time, fixed that right away, delivering large, thick Pyrex tubes, built for real industrial-strength chemistry. My experiments were confined to the garage, smelling of toluene and kitchen matches. The chemistry sets of 30 years ago were certainly better than today's: I don't think you can even make a decent stink bomb with one now, and they probably don't contain anything dangerous, like mercuric oxide, which, when heated up over a burner rendered a little silver blob of mercury. I bet today's chemistry set doesn't even have a burner, and I'm sure any kind of fire (or even heat), or flammable chemicals, is regulated out and forbidden in today's nanny state. Back in '60s, it was caveat emptor, you're on your own, don't fuck up. That kind of freedom is ruined by Stupid People. My dad's famous college chemistry story, probably apocryphal, is that he blew up a chem lab while making nitro glycerin. That kind of initiative would probably be unappreciated today.

Buckle

They seemed impossibly large; how could you sit down wearing something like that? Like WWF trophies, but won for riding or roping or staying on a bull for more than eight seconds. I guess that last part is kind of like the WWF, hanging on to a multi-ton gyrating bovine, who's every intent is to shake the would-be passenger to the ground and stomp him to jelly. Risking your life for a damn belt buckle, although usually quite large and made out of (mostly) precious metals, like gold and silver. Even the FFA kids raising calves or pigs could get one, highly engraved and filigreed. And they would sport them around their freshly laundered and pressed jeans, Wranglers or Levi's over ostrich skin polished boots, a crisp starched shirt with pearl buttons tucked in, and the giant WWF trophy girding their loins like a shield, protecting their abdomens from a Mexican shiv or a rearward hoof. I always wondered how they stayed so clean and pressed and shiny around all those animals and their dust and waste, those polished boots that never seemed to step in steer manure.

Fashion

Just what the hell were we thinking in 1976? I distinctly remember: bell-bottom jeans (Levi's), polyester shirts, ruffles, puffy sleeves, Dacron, acrylic, garish geometric prints in avocado and rust, and the hair! Oh, the hair, my God in heaven, the hair! Long, but it only looked good on folks with straight hair. If your hair was wavy, or heaven forbid, downright curly, it became not only long, but Big with a capital "B", a tremendous structure cantilevered out from your skull, gravity-defying, possibly even a pseudo-afro, as large horizontally as vertically, a living, breathing, talking Chia pet. And now, it has all come back around, that clothing, those hairstyles, because Fashion has run out of ideas, again. This too, happened early in the 1970's: leather jackets, t-shirts sporting a deck of Marlboro's rolled up in the sleeve, peg-leg jeans, boots, a greasy DA combed-back, the Fonz, Grease, Happy Days, Brillcream, an embracing of 1950's hoodlum style. I'm actually hoping for the day when fashion promulgates the look seen in post-war film noir, the men wearing grey flannel business suits and fedoras, and the women in tailored A-line skirts and fancy hats and high-heels. A cigarette in every hand (lit with a naphtha-fired Zippo), scotch whiskey and martinis all around.

Pastry

The white icing comes first, sticky, slightly gooey if it's warm, drizzled in a matrix, a latticework or swirl or whorl of sweet atop yeasty dough painstakingly rolled flat again and again, flour and lard forming paper-thin layers that compress and ooze when bitten, sugar seeping out onto taste buds and into cavities, pain and pleasure emitting forth from this invention of the Danes; manna, not from Heaven, not nourishing but hellish, clogging the arteries and slowing the heart, eventually killing the overweight host by starving it of oxygen, diabetes destroying its internal organs and blinding its eyes, dead at breakfastide, oatmeal and fresh fruit untouched.

But the humorless Norsemen have nothing on Greeks bearing gifts; how about some baklava?