The Perfect Age

Jimio at age 12

Jimio at age 30

Jimio at age 56 with nephew Mark

What is the perfect age if you could stay there? I think it depends on who you ask and what age they would enjoy being for however long they wanted to. For some people I suspect they would like to be age 12 forever. Having a golden childhood might enhance their selection. I had a decent childhood but I would never want to be eternally set at age 12. Can't drive or go anywhere you want, when you want. I feel the perfect age is 36. You are not too immature to know the finer things in life and still young enough to participate in rigorous endeavors. Young enough to play a few pranks on friends yet old enough to take on adult responsibilities. At age 56 I think was not the perfect age for me. For   many it is a time of a higher living standard and a better position [hopefully] in one's career, but who wants to live with the aches and pains, the root canals, the pharmacy visits and screaming grandkids forever. I guess on the plus side your own children are grown and have their own jobs and the grandchildren are not over every day. So I can see some trade-offs, and blurring of the decades along the edges.

Can you Walk like a Zombie?

Fresh is always better than frozen or canned

The Jackson Michigan Zombie walk was October 13, a nice unlucky number and a dreary rainy day for a Zombie Walk. The rain added that nice gruesome touch. We can't have Zombies walking around on a gloriously sunny day now can we? I'm sure real Zombies didn't use umbrellas either but who wants all their bloody makeup washed off? This years walk was a mind curdling success. At least 350 zombies signed up at  the Coffee Shop while a band played Death Metal [ Quite good I might add. Very crisp clear chords and sharp drumming ] There was a Cadillac Hearse to lead the walk. A skeleton looked out the back window and it eerily reminded me of the Grateful Dead. Well I beat the walkers to the Michigan Theater due to riding a bicycle. I could have beat them walking since many were dragging a damaged leg or stopping to try to eat human flesh. In West Africa a Zombie's Soul was captured in a bottle and sold to clients for luck,healing or business success. In Southern Africa a dead person can be turned into a Zombie by a small child. Also some Witches [Witchcraft VooDoo types I suppose] could turn persons into Zombies and possess them and force them into slave labor. After rail lines were built to transport migrant workers, stories came about  of "Witch Trains" which looked normal but were stuffed by Zombie workers controlled by a Witch. The trains would abduct a person boarding at night and be turned into a Zombie or beaten and thrown from the train. I guess they weren't good Zombie material. Also there was some drug or potion one could ingest that gave the appearance that one looked dead, only to wake up hours later. This had to have helped the Zombie craze not to mention some Schizophrenics thinking themselves to be dead while still walking around. One of the earliest Zombie books was "Magic Island" by William Seabrook in 1929. That spawned the movie "White Zombie" starring Bela Lugosi in 1932. The modern Zombies as we know them seem to have been born by the book "I Am Legend" written by Richard Matheson. Soon after that the movie "The Night of the Living Dead" by George Romero in 1968 crawled from the Grave. Songs about Zombies have been done by Fela Kuti in 1976 and by The Cranberries in 1994. Who cant remember the rock band "The Zombies"!

Zombie Priest

A Zombie Family that stays Together

A Grandfather's Letter to his Grandson

Howell - Charles - James - Geraldine

John - Howell - Charles - James and Geraldine in front who got kicked by a playful Colt

My Grandfather James

Letter from my Grandfather at age 80 written to me at age 11 in 1966: " The Gilded age I was born in was 1886. My Father had a Stock Farm with 120 head of race horses - blooded stock they said and a big family coach, painted in black and gold. Four horses - High Steppers they were, and my Father built a big brown stone four story house with family initials on the doors. Electric lighting had just come out and all the electric switches for the whole house were in one little room, like a pantry. They were knife blade switches - copper brass exposed. The door was kept locked. We had door bells, big bells one could hear all over the house. We had a big coal furnace in the cellar. I tried to run away and become a drummer boy in the Spanish American War but our boys died like flies with yellow fever. Guess it was a good thing my father and his colored work hands caught me and took me back. I remember we had a special kind of dog with lots of spots. He ran under our carriage where ever we went. I wore kilties and had long curls down my back like a girl and got in so many fights that Papa took me to Philadelphia and had my hair cut short and bought me a boys brown suit. Many bicycles had a real high wheel and a short wheel. The street lights were manufactured gas and a man came along every evening to light the lights. He had a step ladder and a long tapir. Then they invented the incandescent lamp. They were set high in the corners and a man came along every so often and put a stick of carbon in them. They arranged the lamps so they could be let down to the street level and raised in place again by ropes. Drug stores sold two kinds of ice cream. Vanilla and Chocolate. A nickle would buy a loaf of bread and it was 5 cents for a cigar - or a pocket full of candy. Tutti Fruity ice cream was sold by street peddlers for 1 penny a scoop. Bananas were sold by street peddlers as were vegetables and fruits. My Papa would spit on the apples and rub them hard with an old rag to make them shine. In Philly us boys used to go around in gangs of 25 to 50 teenagers and the gangs all had names like the "Boone Rippers" or the "Cannery House Gang". The "Stone Yard Gang" which I belonged to had a fort with a big fence around it and full of chipped stones. The telephone came out when I was a baby. My Mothers Father was called "King of the Commission Merchants" in Philadelphia. Philly had cable cars that ran all the time. When they started to move, they let down a grip which grabbed the cable through a slot in the middle of the car tracks. Every once in a while the cable broke and everything stopped. There were many big wagons in the streets all the time and there were quite a few traffic jams with so many horses and wagons and carriages. In New York, the street cars were pulled by horses and they charged 3 cents for children and 5 cents for elders. The seats ran lengthwise of the cars. Many men wore high silk hats and hard derby hats. I didn't see any felt hats until after I went West in 1907. The street sidewalks were all brick and the roads were all cobble stones. There was always a rumble and it was noisy. Men came along with street brooms and shovels, sweeping up the horse manure. There were many mules also. Mules were animals with a mare for a mother and a little jackass for a father. They are man made animals, not put here by God like other animals. They cannot breed and have young mules - only a horse can have a male baby. The horse manure was sold to farmers to use in their gardens as a fertilizer. Some fertilizers were ground up with dead fish and animal bones. My father, your Great Grandfather was a big strong man 6' 2" in his bare feet and his arms were as big around as my legs at the hips. He had black curly hair, blue eyes and red cheeks from his Irish mother. He was a great swimmer and a dead shot and seemed to fear nothing. He liked to shoot wild ducks and wild geese. He gave me a Martin-Henry 16 shot repeating rifle when I got old enough to hold it up and shoot it. When I went west, my sister and my brother Charlie hogged all the old things when the old residence was sold and I got nothing. Your Grandmother Eva did not want any of the old stuff. "

Why do certain things happen at the same time?

Woman taking her 2 Dogs for a stroll

Have you ever noticed when you see 1 kid flying a kite, the chances are good you will see another kid flying a kite? Sure, it probably because its a nice windy day outside. But what about things not so obvious? When I see a woman walking her dogs, I will see others walking their dogs and the more I look around, the more I will find walking their dogs. I have seen a car pulled over by an officer then maybe 2 miles away I see the same thing. It cant be the weather. It was not a holiday or weekend. If I see a plane in the sky, you betcha, I'll see a few more that day. I see a car with a flat tire, I'll see another one, or 2 or 3 with a loud exhaust. Even famous people seem to die in groups of 3's, well that maybe stretching it a bit, but it does seem that when a celebrity dies, its not long after another one dies. Something to wonder about. -Jimio

Most Fame Starts Locally

Contestant at Jackson MI Teen Idol

Before many get famous they hone their skills at churches singing gospel or at high school musicals singing and acting for a possible shot at double fame. Actually I'd have to say it even starts much earlier than this. At age 3 or 4 very enthusiastic parents steer their children towards promising careers. Some with good intentions and some with ideas of living vicariously through their offspring. While many children can benefit from this others probably are disillusioned and crushed by all the constant pressure. A good parent is one who will know when to back off if the pressure is changing their child negatively. Let the kid do his thing in his own time. If they are ready to fly then strap the wings on them :-] Even after finding fame they can still fall to corrupt managers and bad drugs. I have heard that drugs helped some musicians to be more creative. With the untimely deaths of many music stars , I would have to disagree with this approach. The risk is greater than the reward and when you are high or drunk, you only think you are being more creative. The American Teen Idol competition has grown along with the American Idol one. It seems odd to need a Teen Idol competition since American Idol contestants age can range from 15 to 28. Then again the Teen Idol might be born out of a desire for a more local contest. It brings in money to the community and had an even greater chance to find talent. After all the Olympic Gymnasts win gold medals at 13 or 14 years of age, why cant singers win a contest also? The Teen Idol I attended went off rather nicely, though a 5 minute downpour
interrupted a singer in the middle of his song. When the rain stopped, the judges, bowing to the strength of Mother Nature, allowed him to start his song over again. The Judges were all local people as were the teen singers. I suspect most of the audience was local as was I for sure. They even had cheering sections for their favorite singers. All in all a good time for a free event.

Graffiti Rocks

Graffiti Rock at Michigan Center High School

Graffiti Rock at Vandercook Lake High School

Graffiti Rock at Concord High School

Graffiti Rock at Jackson High School

When I was in High School we never had a Graffiti Rock and now I see them at almost every high school. I started "Googling" around and found that the Graffiti Rock tradition seems to have started at University of the Pacific in the 1960s two engineering students brought a large boulder and put in on the front yard of the Engineering and CS Building. A few years later a second boulder was put near that one. Students started sneeking out at night and painted graffiti on these rocks. I guess over time this custom spread to other Universities and then to High Schools. Just Google: University of the Pacific Graffiti Rock - a set on Flickr  , and you will see quite a few of their graffiti rocks over the last few years. oberlinrocks.com is another nice site showing the graffiti rocks for birthdays, anniversaries, proposals,just about anything.

Do Ice Cream Stands really make money in a Heat wave?

Jimio cooling down on a 100F Day

On these 100F plus days I have always wondered how busy an Ice Cream Stand can be. I suppose if you have to get out in this heat, an ice cream cone can cool you off for a bit. But that's the rub: "A Bit". Unless you order a 3-scoop cone it wont last very long [If you try to make it last, a lot of it ends up on the ground]. So its a balance of melting versus licking fast. I'd guess the smart people just purchase super-sized drinks because the ice lasts longer than any old ice cream cone will. I like eating ice cream cones because it reminds me when I was 5 years old and my first cone landed in the dirt. I take extra special care these days so I don't repeat that horrifying incident 55 years ago and every completely finished ice cream cone feels like an incredible victory. I think the reality is, most of the smart people are staying indoors in the AC so no wonder I'm the only one here. Probably being outdoors in a 100 degree plus day is no different than riding a bicycle in a foot of snow on a 20 below zero day. Either way I'm just as crazy! =B-]