Hucking Eggs in Kent, Washington

For a couple of years, one of our favorite pastimes was hucking eggs at cars. Not that we were particularly destructive, but we were boys, and destruction was part of our makeup...whether it was instilled by nature, or nurture. Eggs were the perfect vehicle--a dozen cost fifty-three cents, they wouldn't kill anyone, didn't dent sheet metal, and did no real damage to the finish of those 50's and 60's behemoths with leaded, toxic, permanent paint.

 

Eggs were peripheral to the fun; they were the catalyst. Eggs triggered behaviors in drivers that tapped into our fight or flight response. The egged driver had one of three responses:

 

• They drove on obliviously, or tapped their brakes and kept moving.
• They stopped and maybe got out, checked the egged fender, and drove off.
• They went completely ballistic; crazy as a s**those rat; or went for their shotgun.

We aimed for Response Number 3. It was about the adrenaline. Ours and theirs.

 

Those most likely to respond were also the most likely to inflict serious damage if they actually caught you. They were big and they were dumb. The men who gave chase were brain-damaged palookas who fly off the handle, berating clerks and starting fights in taverns; the dolts who bullied anyone that bisected their arc. These knuckleheads were chronically pissed-off guys with quarter-inch fuses and were always ready for-- and, indeed, welcomed--a fight. After all, we weren't exactly innocent bystanders. This would be a righteous stomping of The Guilty.

 

We could have saved a lot of eggs if we had figured out a way to profile these guys. Any of the victims could be turned, or converted into a Number 3 if they departed the relative safety of their car. As they walked around the car, inspecting the egg on the windshield or fender, a second fusillade of eggs flew from the bushes. If you hucked five or six eggs at a stationary target at least a few would make the target...perhaps splattering on their coat, or hitting the car and doing peripheral damage when they splattered. If they actually stopped or slowed down, we always launched a second volley. A driver who was willing to turn the other cheek was suddenly pushed to the brink.

 

It was all about the chase, and the resultant adrenaline rush. When you hit the the right guy's car, he came after you. The best ones slammed on their brakes and immediately began driving around in circles, revving their V8s, screeching around corners, trying to find the perpetrators. It added an aural element to the rush.

 

We always had proximate hiding spots and a loose escape plan. There was always a vacant garage, a boxcar, an abandoned car, or a hedge to hide behind. Once in a while, 'though, we'd be walking along the street, and someone--usually Lonnie Edwards--would attack a house or car as we were walking around. With no plan, and no cover, there was chaos as we scrambled for shelter anywhere. It was almost more scary to hit a house, because you were out in the open, and you never knew when someone would open the door, jacking shells into a ten gauge shotgun. Back in the 60's, not a lot of people were packing heat in their cars. These days egg hucking could very well be fatal.

 

Some victims would comb the neighborhood relentlessly for half an hour, racing up and down the streets. Sometimes we would would end up exposed. As the car rushed up and slammed on its brakes, we played innocent. They hadn't actually seen us, after all. "We did see four, five guys were running right over there..."

 

The Police would frequently be called of course, and we'd give them a blast of eggs too. Answering a complaint, or after having an egg tossed at their prowl car, they would drive around the neighborood too, sometimes cruising with their lights off, hoping we would show our faces. If they'd pursued us on foot, they might have found us, but on foot just wasn't real big in 1965. After the police showed, we would, naturally, switch locations.

 

One night, we stumbled on a fresh delivery of eggs, sitting on the loading dock of Westland Hatchery [1]. Each case contained a gross (a dozen dozen), or 144 eggs. We spirited away several boxes, and suddenly had 600 eggs to toss. Our first attack came as we hid to the side of the hatchery in overgrown bushes. The first hundred eggs were fired as cars passed the hatchery, as if the hatchery itself were waging war on the berr-fogged drivers. Central Avenue was littered with hundreds of eggshells before the night was over.

 

We lobbed all 600 eggs that night and the beast was sated. We took the sport as far as it could go. We never hucked eggs again, and retired at the top of our game, just barely unbeaten and unarrested.

 

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Mark Twain On Politics

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

Go Leftward, Our Republican Brothers And Sisters!

"BERLIN (AP) 12-20-2004— California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested in a German newspaper interview published Saturday that the Republican Party should move 'a little to the left,' a shift that he said would allow it to pick up new voters. "

Bad move, Republicans. Leave the left to the Democrats. You got where you are today by chucking the "liberal" policies of Richard Nixon and making the rabid right seem almost centrist. You will bring nothing to the party by going liberal. In fact, I doubt if Arnold could have been elected in any other state as a Republican. He is far too centrist, tending to slightly left-of-center to be wholly embraced by the GOP in general. Most Republicans seem slightly uncomfortable with him.

Click on the title for a link to the article. /jack
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Three By Ronald Reagan

Three great quotes from Ronald "Dutch" Reagan, POTUS 40. My friend Dan has noted that I like Republican Presidents once they are out of office for a while. That is true, certainly, of Richard Nixon, and less of Pres. Reagan. I'm not sure I'll ever be similarly so favorably disposed to the current president or his father (who I never really disliked, other than his policies and politics). Unlike Presidents Bush (POTUS Numbers 41 and 43), Ronald Reagan had a real sense of humor. And, as you'll note below, great writers. President Reagan died earlier this year.


It's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp.
Ronald Reagan February 10, 1982

The government's view of the economy can be summed up in a few short phrases. It if moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Ronald Reagan,White House Conference on Small Business, August 15, 1986

Government is like a baby. It is an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and a no sense of responsibility at the other.
Remarks before Joint Session of the Canadian Parliament, Ottawa, March11, 1981

Poem: The Clock

The fast hand sloughs seconds
Onto the clock dial, tugging
The hours and minutes along
As time burnishes the mask of our faces.

A paring of grey moonshell
Hovers over our shoulders,
Waltzing the sea surge
Over the ocean floor.

Under a red sun, night retracts its stars
And starfish lounge on rocks.
The sun in Japan sinks
In water at sight's end.

Domed flares of light appear
On the opposing hemisphere
And earth surrenders its heat,
Trading degrees with the shifting winds.
---o0o---
(c) 2004 Jack Brummet

Larry Bird

"There is a thin line between genius and insanity, and in Larry's (Bird) case it was sometimes so thin you could see him drifting back and forth."

- Leo Durocher

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Darth Vader And The Thief On The Cross

I heard an interesting semi-theological discussion about going to heaven on the radio this morning. I grew up as a baptized-in-the-river-Baptist, and was taught that if you believed, you were saved. No matter what came before.

The people on the talk show were discussing whether one guy's uncle would go to heaven, after accepting Jesus on his deathbed. He lived a pretty sordid life that left a lot of scorched earth behind him. Someone called in and said that, absolutely, if you accepted Jesus as your savior, it was a ticket to heaven. Someone mentioned Hitler. Would he get into heaven if he had accepted Jesus at the last minute in the bunker?

I know the Bible talks about good works and living a good life. So what about The Thief On The Cross next to Jesus? He was saved. Sure, he has an edge on the rest of us, being two feet away from The Savior. But whether or not you agree that baptism is essential to salvation, we know the thief on the cross was saved. Of course, he may have already been baptized. But I digress...he was saved at the last minute, despite living a wicked life.

How do the various Christian religions deal with this? Having recently seen Star Wars (Episodes 4,5, and 6 now), I think about Darth Vader's redemption. He overthrows the emperor and he is saved (we see him later happily hanging out with Spirit Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi). After a life of senseless killing, he is redeemed by one act. Is it the same with the mainstream Christian belief system? Can you be saved at the bell, or must you live a life of good works? /jack
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Rudy Backs Off

When The NY Daily News broke the stories about Kerik, Giuliani told reporters he "had confidence in Bernie." [1] That confidence has led to some very strained relations between Rudy and The White House.

What a difference a few new revelations make. Now the former mayor says Bernard Kerik has a "fair amount of explaining to do." "I told him directly, 'There are are some significant mistakes you made here, even granted that only some of this is true,'" Giuliani said.

Even if only some of this is true!

Click on the headline of this entry for a link to the Daily News Article titled "Giuliani Spanks Bernie. "

[1] Remember when George McGovern backed his VP Candidate Thomas Eagleton "1001%"? Eagleton resigned a couple days later...

/jack
---o0o---

A Poem: Love Song

Take the worst that could happen
And add two zeros.

Our replicas of people and things
Disintegrate in the firestorms.

High fidelity clouds gather overhead.
Their verisimilitude overwhelms the cheap sets.

We are cleared to lift off,
And sort our way between the shrapnel.

The ground rolls away behind us.
You and I.
---o0o---

jack brummet

Some 2004 Patents - List No. 11

Some of the more interesting patents granted during 2004:


6,749,862 Woodpecker Disruption System
6,749,433 Newborn-size Crash Test Dummy
6,764,363 Water Walking Device
6,749,106 Lockable Pizza Box
6,749,919 Nonstaining Ink Fingerprinting Method
6,749,541 Foot Straightener For Pigeon- or Penguin-Toed Feet
6,749,349 Motorized Picnic Table
6,749,199 Diceless Craps Game
6,749,052 Slot Machine Ant-cheating Device
6,749,536 Network That Allows Exercise-Machine Users To Compete Via Video Screen
6,749,882 Nicotine Tablet That Dissolves In Coffee
6,708, 443 Mosquito-Killing Birdbath
6,748,852 Rice Polisher
6,748,955 Cigarette Burn-rate Reducer
6,749,992 Pet-Barring Furniture Protector
6,748,854 Melon Scooper And Basket
6,748,955 Cigarette Burn-rate Reducer
6,749,859 Anti-radiation Hand Protection
6,748,941 Foam Fireplace
6,810,350 Expiration Date Detector
6,749,239 Chopstick Manipulator
6,749,522 Golf-ball Retriever
6,749,474 Inflatable Pool Raft With Removable Canopy
6,497,431 Baby Bottle With Built-in Thermometer
6,749,323 Falling Snowflake Simulator
6,749, 918 Shoe-disinfecting Doormat
6,748,764 Ring Size Reducer
6,749,568 Glaucoma-sensing Contact Lens
6,640,379 Attachable Eyeglass Wipers
6,749,136 Paint Bucket In An Apron
6,749,163 Windowsill Extension Kit
6,749,039 Modular Go-kart Assembly
6,749,841 Firecracker Bang Sound Producer
6,749,557 Self-lubricating Sex Toys
6,704,116 Simplified Arabic Alphabet
6,752,146 Gas-mask Baseball Cap Hybrid
6,748,991 Foam Fireplace
6,749,316 Self Defense Baton With Flashlight And Camera
6,810,206 Drain-plug Heater
6,702,193 Wine-tasting Straw
6,786,221 Tobacco-toxin Removal System
6,749,082 Cupholder With Built-in Napkin

The Dogfight In Washington

I love procedural dogfights. Election 2000 was a mainline hit for political junkies. Election 1972, and particularly the Democratic Convention, was a textbook in procedural manipulation. The McGovern forces masterfully challenged delegations, and defended other factions. They had to lose some critical votes, and betray trusted allies in order to mount the challenges that would push them over the top. In the end, they won, and we (The Dems) were slaughtered: we won Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. , and Richard Nixon went on to finish part of his term before resigning.

Cloture and filibusters in the Senate give power to the minority party. The Senate's rules are an endlessly fascinating and Byzantine procedural thicket of brambles. But I digress.

We have a real procedural and legal battle in Washington State right now, focused on King County (Seattle and environs). Following two previous machine recounts, we are now in hand recount mode. Yesterday, King County election officials admitted a major error tallying votes in the governor's race. Counting these votes may reverse the results and allow Christine Gregoire to "triumph" over Dino Rossi. the winner in the hand recount now under way. 561 votes were improperly disqualified. This looks totally legit.

There are court challenges coming from both sides, as well as the Secretary of State (the only Republican I voted for in 2004. The Supreme Court just struck down one Demo challenge. Court challenges aside, it looks like the election may hinge on these uncounted, and legitimate ballots that were discovered when an elected official (Larry Phillips, Metro Council Chairman) found his vote had been disqualified.

It will be fascinating to see where this all leads. The Republicans claim if the shoe was on the other foot, they would concede. Right. They say this with a straight face as they themselves prepare to file more lawsuits.

In one of the Seattle papers recently, an editorial mentioned that in any race as close as this (or, say, Gore v. Bush), you might as well do a coin flip. In every election, there are thousands of errors, undercounts, disqualified ballots, and clerical errrors. The plurality in most elections negate these problems. The Dems and GOP are slugging it out for every vote.

Whoever wins will have a taint, no question. POTUS was able to overcome that and still govern (alebeit not well).

Maybe this will all be settled before the swearing in, scheduled for Jan. 12, 2005. In the meantime, political junkies watch in endless fascination.

/jack

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Bernard Kerik--The Rest Of The Story.

When the White House announced last Friday that the Homeland Security cabinet nominee Bernard Kerik was withdrawing, they said it was due to the old familiar "nanny problems," ala Lani Guinier and Linda Chavez. As it turns out there was a little more--he has accepted thousands of dollars in gifts, for one, and had been running a hot sheet apartment on the East Side, where he conducted simultaneous affairs with an NYC correction officer, and with the lovely Judith Regan--a publisher, among other things.

Boo hoo! So now, his mentor, Rudy Giuliani has egg on his face, and the POTUS staff got caught with their pants down. If Kerik lied to get the gig, he is dumb as a board, and not the guy we want running Homeland Security. If he really thought he could sweep all this under the rug, he is not even bright enough to run the cotton candy concession in the travelling circus. . . /jack