Category Archives: Items of interest

Fifteen Titles

Posted on by The Old Wolf

This started out as a Facebook thing; I participated, and – having a lot of erudite and eclectic friends – I got a lot of commentary.

Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you, for whatever reasons. This isn’t your top 15 canon or even books you’d necessarily recommend, just books that have made their mark on you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

I gathered all the responses, edited out the duplicates, and came up with this list – which would keep me busy for quite a while if I ever found myself locked in a bookstore after the zombie apocalypse…

Or even wander into one on a normal day…

I have chosen to share the list for your gratuitous pleasure. Enjoy.

Edit: two years later, I published A Reading List of Great Books, itself compiled from a couple of different lists I came across on the Internet. There are many duplicates here, but because this was not a list of necessarily great books but rather of tomes that friends of mine found impactful, I will let this one stand on its own.

1984 – George Orwell
A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller, Jr.
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
A is for Alibi – Sue Grafton
A Mote in God’s Eye – Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
A Separate Peace – John Knowles
A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith.
A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula LeGuin
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
Alice Munro (anything)
All The Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
An American Bible – Elbert Hubbard
Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
Animal Dreams – Barbara Kingsolver
Animorphs series – Katherine Applegate
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
Anne Of Green Gables – L. M. Montgomery
Babel Tower – A. S. Byatt
Babel-17 – Samuel R. Delaney
Baby Island – Carol Ryrie Brink
Barbara Pym (anything)
Becoming – Michelle Obama
Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me – by Richard Fariña
Beloved – Toni Morrison
Beyond the Beautiful Forevers – Katherine Boo
Black Beauty – Anna Sewell
Black Boy – Richard Wright
Black Like Me – John Howard Griffin
Bonds that make us Free – C. Terry Warner
Born A Crime – Trevor Noah
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger
Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke
Come to Grief – Dick Francis
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Cry the Beloved County – Alan Paton
Dans l’or du temps – Claudie Gallay
Death at an Early Age – Jonathan Kozol
Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant – Anne Tyler
Double Negative – David Carkeet
Down all the Days – Christy Brown
Dreamsnake – Vonda N. McIntyre
Dune – Frank Herbert
Educated – Tara Westover
Ender series – Orson Scott Card
Enemy Mine – Barry B. Longyear
Everything Is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Expecting Adam – Martha Beck
Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
Finnegan’s Wake – James Joyce
Foundation Trilog – Isaac Asimov
Gaudy Night – Dorothy L. Sayers
Girl in Translation – Jean Kwok
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid – Douglas Hofstadter
Grant – Ron Chernow
Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Green Eggs And Ham – Dr. Seuss
Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond
Hamilton – Ron Chernow
Handbook of Designs and Devices – the Dover Pictorial Archive
Harry Potter Saga – J.K. Rowling
Have Space Suit, Will Travel – Robert A. Heinlein
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Horton Hatches the Egg – Dr Seuss
How I Live Now – Meg Rosoff
Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins
I Am A Strange Loop – Douglas Hofstadter
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
In Calabria – Peter Beagle
I Will Always Love You – Cecily von Ziegesar
If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! – Sheldon Kopp
In the Garden of Beasts – Eric Larson
Into Thin Air – Jon Krakauer
It’s the Heart That Goes Last – Margaret Atwood
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
Joan Aiken (anything)
John le Carré (anything)
John Scalzi (anything)
Kate Atkinson (anything)
Kon Tiki – Thor Heyerdahl
Leaders eat Last – Simon Sinek
L’écume des jours – Boris Vian
Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
Les gens de Mogador – Élisabeth Barbier
Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Life As We Knew It and The Dead and the Gone – Susan Beth Pfeffer
Light in August – William Faulker
Little Men – Louisa May Alcott
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Love, Again – Doris Lessing
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
Me & Emma – Elizabeth Flock
Michel Folco – Everything
Middlemarch – George Eliot
Mistress Masham’s Repose – T. H. White
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
My Antonia – Willa Cather
My Brilliant Friend – Elena Ferrante
My Name is Asher Lev – Chaim Potok
No Country for Old Men – Cormac McCarthy
O, Pioneer – Willa Cather
Of Human Bondage – W. Somerset Maugham
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
On Becoming a Person – Carl Rogers
On Writing – Stephen King
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit – Jeanette Winterson
Pappan och havet – Tove Jansson
Past Sins – Pen Stroke
Peeps – Scott Westerfeld
People of the Book – Gwendolyn Brooks
PG Wodehouse (anything)
Philip K. Dick (anything)
Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follett
Possession – A.S. Byatt
Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
Puckoon – Spike Milligan
Reading in the Dark – Seamus Deane
Resurrection – Leo Tolstoy
Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis
Seven Days In May – Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II
Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
Silent Spring – Rachel Carson
Spiritual Roots of Human Relations – Stephen R. Covey
Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert A. Heinlein
Strumpet City – Joseph Plunkett
Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives – David Eagleman
Tess of the d’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
The “Tomorrow” series – John Marsden
The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell
The Anatomy of Peace – The Arbinger Institute
The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein
The Audacity of Hope – Barack Obama
The Black Stallion – Walter Farley
The Book of Mormon
The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Call Of The Wild – Jack London
The Canopy of Time – Brian Aldiss
The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer
The Carpet Makers – Andreas Eschbach
The Chosen – Chaim Potok
The Company of Wolves – Angela Carter
The Compassionate Samurai – Brian Klemmer
The Crystal Cave – Mary Stewart
The Dark – John McGahern
The Dean’s December – Saul Bellow
The Devil Tree – Jerzy Kosiński
The Diary of a bookseller – Shaun Bythell
The Disposessed – Ursula LeGuin
The Education of Little Tree – Asa Earl Carter
The Ellie Chronicles – John Marsden
the Emily trilogy – L. M. Montgomery
The Family of Man, Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Catalogue
The Fire Next Time – James Baldwin
The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
The Giver – Lois Lowry
The God Delusion – Richard Dawkins
The Golden Apples of the Sun – Ray Bradbury
The Grand Sophy – Georgette Heyer
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
The Great Divorce – C. S. Lewis
The Green Hills of Earth – Robert A. Heinlein
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Hiding Place – Cory Ten Boom
The Holy Bible
The Horse’s Mouth – Joyce Cary
The Human Comedy – William Saroyan
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
The Jewel in the Crown Quartet and Staying On – – Paul Scott
The Last Question – Isaac Asimov
The Last Unicorn – Peter Beagle
The Lazarus Long series – Robert Heinlein
The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula le Guin
The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
The Magus – John Fowles
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
The Odyssey – Homer
The Rape of Nanking – Iris Chang
The Red Tent – Anita Diamant
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich – William L. Shirer
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
The Shining – Stephen King
The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner
The Source – James A. Michener
The Sparrow – Mary Doria Russell
The Spinning Heart – Donal Ryan
The Sword of Shannara – Terry Brooks
The Thirteen Clocks – James Thurber
The Thrawn Trilogy – – Timothy Zahn
The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
The Turn of the Screw – – Henry James
The Twilight Saga – – Stephanie Meyer
The Whiteoaks of Jalna – Mazo de la Roche
The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics (various)
Time and Again – Jack Finney
To Be a Slave – Julius Lester
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
To Say Nothing of the Dog – Connie Willis
Tolkien (anything)
Tomorrow When the War Began – John Marsden
Tortilla Flats – John Steinbeck
Touching Spirit Bear – Ben Mikaelsen
U.S.A. Trilogy – John Dos Passos
Ulysses – James Joyce
Up the Down Staircase – Bel Kaufman
Ursula LeGuin – Everything
Vida – Marge Piercy
Waiting for the Barbarians – JM Coetzee
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Warmth of Other Suns -Isabel Wilkerson
White Fang – by Jack London
Wicked – Gregory Maguire
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
Young Jedi Knights series – Kevin J. Anderson)
Zookeeper’s Wife – Diane Ackerman

The Old Wolf assumes no liability for death by starvation in libraries, dens, or bookstores.

Gently, Gently Go.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

For the longest time, this little plaque has hung by my door, much in the same way as a mezuzah graces the home of the Jewish faithful.

Mahn Mahn Hong

For a number of reasons, it is among my most treasured possessions, those things that have transient value during our sojourn on this pale blue dot, and which often end up in a thrift store or the landfill when they are passed to family who have no connection to them.

The back side looks like this:

This came to me from the effects of my father, who – despite the fact that it was a gift celebrating a marriage that would end 9 years later – obviously treasured it and the sentiment included.

I have already written of Ladson Butler, a man of keen intellect and the heart of a Compassionate Samurai, whom I regret not having known in life. This was a present from him to my parents on the occasion of their wedding.

The hanzi (慢慢行) on the front read “mahn mahn hong” in Cantonese, or “Màn man xíng” in Mandarin. Butler’s translation, “gently, gently go” is accurate – 慢 is “slowly,” and 行 means “go” or “travel.” Other translations have been rendered as “take it easy” or “take care.” The sentiment extended to a visitor who is leaving your home is the same, regardless of how you read it, and brings to mind the gentleness of the well-known “Irish blessing:”

Go n-éirí an bóthar leat
Go raibh an ghaoth go brách ag do chúl
Go lonraí an ghrian go te ar d’aghaidh
Go dtite an bháisteach go mín ar do pháirceanna
Agus go mbuailimid le chéile arís,
Go gcoinní Dia i mbos A láimhe thú.

May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Decades ago, Chase Manhattan ran an investment campaign featuring the “nest egg” as the primary hook:

Charles Addams, the famous cartoonist whose work appeared so frequently in the New Yorker, had a different take on this:

Despite intense effort, it’s still true – you can’t take it with you. Elbert Hubbard, an author and humanist of previous generations, once expressed the same sentiment more poignantly:

“The dead carry in their clenched hands only that which they have given away.”

So this little jewel of mine will remain behind when the bus comes for me, and whether or not someone treasures it after I am gone remains to be seen – I can only hope. But for me it has had immense value.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The fads I’ve known

Posted on by The Old Wolf

You know, those things that everyone is doing or everyone has to have.
My wife and I were talking about this the other day, and it got me thinking about those fads or trends that had touched my life since the 1950s. I can’t think of anything that I ever went crazy for in terms of “gotta catch em’ all,” but I know there were many that I crossed paths with over time. There are far more than these listed in various places, but these are some of the ones that crossed my path in some way or other.

The Coonskin Cap

Had to have one of these when I was around three. Davy Crockett was my hero

Silly Putty

Lifting the ink off comics was fun. Getting yelled at when it melted into my clothes or the carpet was not.

Slinky

1950’s slinky

We lived in a 5-floor walkup in New York City. I loved sending one of these down the stairs. The problem was, when I was 7, I foolishly attended a double-feature horror show with my cousins, and for longer than I’m proud to admit I was terrified that this lady lurked in the shadows under the stairwells. It sort of dampened the enthusiasm for spending more time than I had to on the stairs.

Hula Hoop

Well, he finally got one. Why does Alvin look so conflicted?

In 1959, I learned the Chipmunks’ Christmas song by heart, and of course I had to have a hula hoop. It was fun for a day or two. But they’re still a thing, apparently.

Super Ball

I got one of the early ones, and the Super Ball really did bounce, but mine started flaking apart after a while. I guess they got the kinks worked out eventually. These were very hot when they came out; peak production reached over 170,000 Super Balls per day, but the maker knew it was a passing fad. “Each Super Ball bounce is 92% as high as the last,” said Wham-O VP Richard P. Knerr. “If our sales don’t come down any faster than that, we’ve got it made.”

The Duncan Imperial Yo-Yo

I was mad for these in 5th grade

Yoyos are a very old toy, but Duncan really hit the nail on the head when they came up with these shiny, premium units with a metal spindle that allowed the toy to spin freely. I remember mine was red, and I had one of the butterfly versions as well. These are still pretty hot in some sectors; watch the absolute masters go at it.

Clack Balls

Noisy and dangerous, but fun when you got the hang of it.

These were probably the bane of parents and K-12 teachers when they came out. When you really got them going, they made a racket that sounded like a machine gun. Apparently they were prone to shattering, which I never experienced, but they should have come with wrist guards because when you did it wrong, you’d get whacked and it hurt. These were taken off the market in the 1970s. Wikipedia has some interesting history behind these.

POW-MIA bracelets

Many of these are still to be found on people’s wrists

These were created in 1970, during the Vietnam War. Those who wore one pledged to continue doing so until the person they represented came home. They were very popular on the campus of the University of Utah; I wore mine for years until it was almost devoid of chrome plating, and it ultimately fell apart from metal fatigue. There are still many military personnel missing, and they deserve to be remembered.

Bell-bottoms

In the 1970s I had a couple of these (in the most hideous polyester faux-tartan imaginable) just because they were cheap, if I recall correctly.

This cartoon appeared in 1994, by which time bell-bottoms had become an icon for ridiculous fashion.

Cabbage Patch Kids

These toys, still available, are the first ones that really became a nationwide madness, as far as I can recollect. They were so hot they spawned the Cabbage Patch Riots, a precursor of later Black Friday rampages. I only know of them because I had a young daughter at the time, and of course she wanted one. Fortunately, the madness had subsided (mostly) by the time she was old enough to appreciate one.

Pogs

These once had a practical use

Pogs, or milk caps, used to be found sealing returnable glass bottles of milk, often delivered from the dairy. When the paper or foil cap was removed, the “pog” was taken out to unseal the bottle.

In the 1990s, the game of Pogs was commercialized, but it had become an entertainment for the young before that. Not unlike marbles, pogs were placed face down and the player would toss a heavy disk at the stack, causing them to scatter. Any pogs that landed face up belonged to the player.

My oldest son was very good at the game and had quite a collection.

There were as many designs for pogs and slammers as one could imagine.

Tamagotchi

The Tamagotchi, or “little egg” from Japan

I had one. The object was to feed and care for your little blob until it grew into an adult. You’d give it food, clean up its poop, and basically take care of it with needs and attention. It would beep at you when it wanted something. Mine “died.” Enough said.

Lawn Darts

Imagine playing horseshoes with deadly weapons. That’s what lawn darts were.

“You’ll shoot your eye out!”

These things were lethal. In 1987, a young girl was killed, and between 1980 and 1988, 6,100 people had been sent to the emergency room. They were banned in 1988.

Beanie Babies

“Peace”, currently selling at around $30K

Ty made a lot of money on these little understuffed animals, but almost nobody else did. People collected them like crazy, hoping that the “discontinued” ones would increase in value and make them rich. Only a very few actually became worth anything, and only to die-hard collectors (although during the height of the craze, people were flipping Beanies for ten times their purchase price, and at one point almost 10% of sales on eBay were linked to Beanie Babies. Like anything else, an item is worth only what some s̶u̶c̶k̶e̶r̶ collector will pay for it. Like most others, the fad crashed, and today, surviving Beanie Babies are worth about 50 cents apiece. A few of these ended up in our kid’s stockings at Christmas time because they were cute.

Nehru Jackets, Beatle Boots, and Madras clothing.

These were items that were popular when I was at a prep school in New England in the ’60s. A lot of kids had them.

The Nehru Jacket

The original Beatle boot. The Fab Four spawned a number of fashion fads in their day. I almost got thrown out of school because I tried to grow my hair in the “mop” style popularized by the early Beatles look.
Madras jackets are aparently still available in some places. I thought they were cool then, they look pretty garish now.

Furbies

Furby-24
Dah-boo!

The interactive toy that scared the pee out of the NSA. These little critters came with an infrared port that allowed them to recognize the presence of another Furby; they would, at that point, hold conversations in “Furbish,” a language of agglomerated nonsense syllables. As time went on, however, Furbies began to start speaking English, and as time went on, the amount of English increased. Authorities in certain government agencies decided that these little critters could act as spies, but Tiger Electronics, the maker, said,

Furbies didn’t have recording devices at all. Rather, the manufacturer had pre-programmed some English into the toy’s memory, and as the Furby “aged,” it began to use those words more and more — but there was no way for it to add new, “heard” words to its vocabulary. A Tiger executive told the media that “the NSA did not do their homework” and exclaimed that “Furby is not a spy!” (Now I Know)

We had a few of these scattered around the house. They could be quite startling if they began to talk without provocation.

I could go on. Invisible dogs, pet rocks, psychedelic posters, lava lamps, you name it. If you’re interested in a long walk down memory lane, here is a pretty comprehensive list of fads and trends from the 1830s to present. And it’s a given that in the very near future, there will be another “hot new thing.”

Edit: How could I have forgotten Care Bears? Here’s my little buddy with his Weighted Companion Cube (don’t talk to me about mixed metaphors), wishing all my friends and family a wonderful 2019. We had a lot of Care Bears over time, and most of them came back to me as my children grew up. (Fortunately, I never did.) The vast majority were sold to collectors on eBay, but Tenderheart, a 1986 original, is mine forever.

Postscript

This was not a fad, really, but it was a fairly intriguing item for propellerheads in the mid ’60s. I wanted one, but at the time $25.00 seemed a bit too much for something that would die in a year.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The many faces of Dr Pepper

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Updates: (January 6, 2025) Time marches on, and since this post was originally written and then updated, many more clones of Dr Pepper have come and gone. The photo below is by no means comprehensive, although it does represent a good chunk of the local brands that have been seen across time.

I touched upon brand imitation in a previous post, but a recent image posted on Facebook by an acquaintance of mine made me want to revisit one such example in detail.

72 Dr Pepper clones

While Wikipedia relates many details about the brand and its history, apparently the original owners failed to trademark the “Dr.” part of its name, and as a result there are almost more doctors in grocery stores than you can find at an AMA convention.

Hannaford’s version of Dr Pepper. Not bad, actually, and half as expensive as the real thing. Sadly, the diet version has recently disappeared from shelves in the 12-pack form, and can only be found in 2-liter bottles. Hannaford was both obscure and uninformative when I pressed local management and national customer service as to reasons why.

Update: As a result of this jiggery-pokery, this Sam’s Club brand has become our household go-to, less than half the price of the real thing at our local WalMart. Ironically, Sam’s Club doesn’t carry this in bulk.

When we had a home in Florida for two years in 2023 and 2024, the Publix across the street jacked prices up during that time to the point where a 12-pack was within pennies of $10.00.

If WalMart ever decides to discontinue their brand, I shall sit in the middle of the floor and cry.

I have found two fairly complete lists of Dr Pepper clones out there.

I never dreamed that there could be so many.

The origins of Dr Pepper are fraught with rumors; what is known is that the formula was originated by pharmacist Charles Alderton of Brooklyn, NY in Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store in Waco, Texas. The Dr Pepper FAQ reports that “Dr Pepper is a unique blend of 23 flavors.” Prune juice, despite popular opinion, is not one of them. There is a suggestion that Alderton wanted to come up with a soda that had the smell of walking into an old soda shop. Its formula is as closely guarded as that of CocaCola™.

Whether these alignments are based on the names or on one person’s assessment of the relative accuracy of the flavor, I have not been able to determine, but I thought it was funny at any rate.

As for who owns Dr Pepper, that is also a tale of the ages. It’s now marketed by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group, a business unit of the conglomerate Keurig Dr Pepper. (You can see Dr Pepper on the far left in the image at this post – it was at that time still a part of Cadbury Schweppes.)

But regardless of who owns it, or who distributes it (sometimes it’s the local Coke distributor, sometimes it’s the Pepsi people), as long as it continues to be available in some form or other I’ll be happy. (And I will buy the real thing if I can find it on sale.)

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Always Ask the Locals

Posted on by The Old Wolf

This exchange was shared with me on Facebook as a screen capture. I went digging and found the original post at the Tumblr of Iowa Rambler (systlin), followed up by a repost with a couple of comments at the Tumblr of assasue.

I present it here in slightly bowdlerized form for a family-friendly audience (my apologies to the original writers); if you don’t mind language you can follow the links above for the original text. Other than one small spelling correction for clarity, nothing has been changed.

systlin

Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them. 

Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.” 

“Wait you’re still using the exact same thing 50,000 years later???”

“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”

It’s just. 

50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job. 


saxifraga-x-urbium

i also like that this is a “ask craftspeople” thing, it reminds me of when art historians were all “what?” about someone’s ear “deformity” in a portrait and couldn’t work out what the symbolism was until someone who’d also worked as a piercer was like “uhm, he’s messed up a piercing there”. interdisciplinary stuff also needs to include non-academic approaches because crafts & trades people know things ok

assasue

One of my professors often tells us about a time he, as and Egyptian Archaeologist, came down upon a ring of bricks one brick high. In the middle of a house. He and his fellow researchers could not for the life of them figure out what it could possibly have been for. Until he decided to ask a laborer, who doesnt even speak English, what it was. The guy gestures for my prof to follow him, and shows him the same ring of bricks in a nearby modern house. Said ring is filled with baby chicks, while momma hen is out in the yard having a snack. The chicks can’t get over the single brick, but mom can step right over. Over 2000 years and their still corraling chicks with brick circles. If it aint broke, dont fix it and always ask the locals.

If you’ve lost a dog.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Last time it was cats. Really, though, any of these items are appropriate sentiments for the loss of a furry companion, who worm their way into our lives and our hearts with love, devotion, and affection, and who leave huge voids when they leave (always, always, far too soon.)

The House Dog’s Grave
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you,
If you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no,
All the nights through I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read‚
And I fear often grieving for me‚
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying.
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope that when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.

No, dears, that’s too much hope:
You are not so well cared for as I have been.
And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided…
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.

Robinson Jeffers and his English Bulldog, Haig.

This one is especially relevant to those who have had to make the most difficult decision.

The Last Battle

If it should be that I grow frail and weak
and pain should keep me from my sleep,
Then you must do what must be done,
For this–the last battle–can’t be won.

You will be sad I understand,
Don’t let grief then stay your hand,
For on this day, more than the rest,
Your love and friendship must stand the test.

We have had so many happy years,
What is to come can hold no fears
You’d not want me to suffer, so.
When the time comes, please let me go.

Take me to where to my needs they’ll tend,
Only, stay with me till the end
And hold me firm and speak to me
Until my eyes no longer see.

I know in time you will agree
it is a kindness you do to me.
Although my tail its last has waved,
From pain and suffering I have been saved.

Don’t grieve that it must be you
Who has to decide this thing to do;
We’ve been so close–we two–these years,
Don’t let your heart hold any tears.

Author Unknown

Dog - I had a wonderful time.jpg

Link to original

Lastly a few words about the quality of these very good bois and girls:

Quality

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook it when something goes wrong through no fault of yours and those you love take it out on you,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ignore a friend’s limited education and never correct him,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can say honestly that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics…

Then my friends, you are almost as good as your dog.

The Old Wolf cannot see or speak any more because someone is chopping lots of onions nearby.

If you’ve lost a cat

Posted on by The Old Wolf
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No one who has never been owned by a cat will ever truly understand.


To my dearest friend.

I stood by your bed last night; I came to have a peep.
I could see that you were crying you found it hard to sleep.
I spoke to you softly as you brushed away a tear,
“It’s me, I haven’t left you, I’m well, I’m fine, I’m here.”

I was close to you at breakfast, I watched you pour the tea,
You were thinking of the many times, your hands reached down to me.
I was with you at the shops today; your arms were getting sore.
I longed to take your parcels, I wish I could do more.

I was with you at my grave today; you tend it with such care.
I want to re-assure you, that I’m not lying there.
I walked with you towards the house, as you fumbled for your key.
I gently put my paw on you; I smiled and said, “it’s me.”

You looked so very tired, and sank into a chair.
I tried so hard to let you know, that I was standing there.
It’s possible for me, to be so near you everyday.
To say to you with certainty, “I never went away.”

You sat there very quietly, then smiled, I think you knew…
in the stillness of that evening, I was very close to you.
The day is over… I smile and watch you yawning
and say “good-night, God bless, I’ll see you in the morning.”

And when the time is right for you to cross the brief divide,
I’ll rush across to greet you and we’ll stand, side by side.
I have so many things to show you, there is so much for you to see.
Be patient, live your journey out…then come home to me.

Author Unknown

I learned early in life that the only solace for the loss of a cat is to get another cat. Despite the incredible hole these little furry creatures leave in our hearts when they go away, as they must invariably do, those holes can be filled by others, as has happened many times in my life. The following poem addresses that reality.

Stray Cat

Oh, what unhappy twist of fate
Has brought you homeless to my gate?
The gate where once another stood
To beg for shelter, warmth and food.

For from that day I ceased to be
The master of my destiny.
While he, with purr and velvet paw
Became within my house the law.

He scratched the furniture and shed
And claimed the middle of my bed.
He ruled in arrogance and pride
And broke my heart the day he died.

So if you really think, oh Cat,
I’d willingly relive all that
Because you come forlorn and thin,
Well….don’t just stand there…
Come on in!

– Francis Witham

cat hole

The Old Wolf, who has loved many small creatures, has spoken (and shed many a tear.)

Bally Bazaar: a memory of my favorite pinball machine

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Before computer games, there were pinball machines. If I had a nickel for every time I played one of those beasts in the 60s… well, I’d have all my nickels back. And it would be a significant pile.

We’re not going to talk about my addictive personality at the moment – that’s a given, something the Goodwoman of the House never tires of reminding me. But of all the pinball machines I ever played – and there was a pile of them – this one was indisputably my favorite. It showed up at the Jigger Shop (Cheshire Academy’s hole-in-the-wall luncheonette and post office) and was an instant favorite.

The full specs of this game are here at the The Internet Pinball Database – I’ve culled one or two photos to give you a feel for what it looked like.

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Full view, photo by Tim Brady

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The playing field, photo by Tim Brady

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The back glass, photo by Alan Tate.

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Bazaar flyer from Bally.

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Closeup of the reward schema.

This one was the first machine to have the feature of closing the flipper gap when you hit a certain bumper (in this case, the “U”), which allowed you to keep a single ball in play much longer. If you lighted all the L-U-C-K letters, you would light up one of the crescents at the top of the back glass. In addition to replays for certain score levels, you were granted a free game for lighting crescent 5, and another for lighting crescent 9. Those replays were accompanied not by bells or whistles but by a loud mechanical “snap” which was unique to any machine I had ever played.

Nowadays, modern pinball machines are totally electronic, with amazing graphic displays and what seems like THX-quality sound, and frightfully complex playing fields. If you’re not from the generation that was addicted to these machines, the old ones operated with magnets and solenoids and mechanical relays, long before printed circuits became ubiquitous. Despite being simple by comparison to today’s machines, many of them were frightfully clever, and all of them were designed to be maddeningly captivating.

I imagine that being a pinball repairman was a full-time career back then. Lots of moving parts to break, lots of resistors to fry.

I haven’t played a pinball machine in decades, and I was no “pinball wizard,” but I keenly recall the blood-pumping hours I spent in front of these machines, and this one example in particular.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Extracting a Light from a Christmas House

Posted on by The Old Wolf

So, like my wife and me, you love Christmas (or Hallowe’en houses) and you love to set up your Christmas village, and now – it happens more often than you’d like – you’ve pushed one of those never-sufficiently-to-be-accursed clips all the way into the house and you can’t get it out.

You’ve worked at it with tweezers and hemostats, and you’ve got one side out, but that other one is just unreachable. Yarg snarl yarg.

Here’s what I do, and I hope someone finds it useful.

1) The first thing to do is get one side out all the way. With a long tweezers or a hemostat, this is usually pretty easy.

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2) With a thin piece of duct tape, pinch the metal clip to the body of the lightbulb.

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3) Now you can push the lightbulb all the way back into the house and have enough room to grab the second clip.

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4) Out it comes. Take off the duct tape, re-seat the bulb, and you’re good to go.

Happy Holidays!

The Old Wolf has spoken.

WOT: (Web of Trust) – A valuable extension

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I’ve mentioned WOT in a number of my previous posts, but I thought I’d give it a bit more exposure, given the amount of scams, fake news websites, and general internet douchebaggery that is so prevalent right now.

Web of Trust is a FREE extension that adds a small circle after any clickable link on your computer to let you know how trustworthy that site is. Here’s an example – recently I was trying to remove a hijacker that redirected me to Spectrum’s search service when an unknown URL was encountered:

WOT

Notice that the circles can be green, yellow, and red – just like  stoplight. That’s your first clue – but it pays to drill down for more information as I mention below. Green is generally trustworthy, yellow is questionable, and red is downright dangerous. A gray circle with a question mark means there is no information (yet) about the site in question.

Some dangerous websites will be flagged by Google directly (Click image to enlarge)

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If you have a paid version of Malwarebytes, known malware websites will be automatically blocked:
Malwarebytes

But if neither one of these help, WOT will give you a warning for red-circle links that looks like this (Click image to enlarge):

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You’ll notice that you get a summary of ratings and reasons why the website is not trusted.

In addition, search engine results can be previewed simply by hovering your mouse over the colored circle:

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and then you can follow the “click to view details” link to get a full page of information about the website.

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As with anything that is crowdsourced, one needs to be cautious. A tool like this could be used to give bad ratings to a website by an unethical competitor, so look at the dates of the reviews and get an overall feel for the page in question. In general, though, I’ve found that this tool tends to be self-correcting, so if one person rates a site untrustworthy for malware, and five other more recent users give reasons why it’s safe, I feel pretty confident that the first review is either spurious or outdated.

If you want to rate websites yourself, you can create a free account, log in, and provide details of your experience.

In addition to protecting you from viruses or other malware, WOT can be very useful for verifying whether news sites are reliable or not.

An example: Today on Facebook I saw a link to a story that there was a second shooter in Las Vegas:

Facebook

That yellow circle told me right off that this story is questionable. Hovering over the warning gave me this:

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And a subsequent search on Google for yournewswire.com confirmed that this is a notorious clickbait, inflammatory, fake-news website:

Founded by Sean Adl-Tabatabai and Sinclair Treadway in 2014. It has published fake stories, such as “claims that the Queen had threatened to abdicate if the UK voted against Brexit” (Wikipedia)

It pays to be safe, and it pays to be careful. This little extension works well with Window 10 and earlier versions (I’ve tried it on XP and 7 both), it’s free, and it provides a wealth of information about internet dangers. I highly recommend it.

The Old Wolf has spoken.