Greetings, Blogging Cronies, Bloghoppers and Blogophiles!

 

Okay, I’m back, I think.  Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers.  It really makes a difference, let me tell you.

 

While I was off I did a lot of reading and one of the things I read about was tipping.  No, not the dangerous and highly controversial sport of cow-tipping, but rather, waitress-tipping, where groups of young people will go out to eat and when they are done, they pick up the waitress bodily and turn her completely over.  This insanity is not a sport but a real danger, both to the dignity of the wait staff and to the customer once the poor unfortunate is released.  Sometimes they will demand compensation for this abuse by requiring 20 – 30 percent of your available checking account balance in lieu of lawsuit.  This practice has…

 

Oh.  Wait a minute, this just in.  Apparently I misunderstood the article I read.  I was under the influence of Codeine cough syrup or Nyquil.  The article was, in fact, referring to the gratuity you leave for the waitperson.  That’s very different.  Never mind.

 

I would like to address the issue of how much of a tip you are supposed to leave at a regular sit-down restaurant.  I ignore tip jars, especially at fast-food and coffee places where you don’t even have a clue about what sort of service you are about to receive or how your drink will turn out.  I am also not talking about all-you-can-eat buffets, where you are now (apparently) expected to tip the person who comes by and clears your dishes and asks how you are doing.  Apparently a buck or two is now considered necessary.

 

No, what I am referring to is the traditional meal that is brought to you by a friendly, cheerful, underpaid waitress or waiter.  I feel I am qualified to tackle this topic because, even though I have never been a waiter, I have been a patron of restaurants since the days when Carter and I used to go barnstorming the quaint little town of Shawano, WI.  We would get off work, the whistle would blow and Carter would slide down his dino crane and I would leave the loincloth sales shop and we would go out to eat somewhere to talk about the important issues of the day, like whose boss was the worst, which customers were the growliest and whether the town drunk, Wally, would do something disgusting on himself.

 

We were a couple of wild and crazy, single, young guys with cash in our pockets.  One of the things we enjoyed was making the rounds of the local eateries.  We could go anywhere in town and not just be welcome, but waitresses would drop other customers and want to wait on us.  Sure we were loud and managers didn’t really like us too much, but we had the one advantage that managers couldn’t argue with.  We were good tippers.  Not just good tippers, but great tippers.  Oh, we were friendly and nice to them, but the bottom line was the bottom line.  And we knew that these poor gals worked HARD for a lot less money than we even got!  Their bosses could (and can) get away with paying a small fraction of minimum wage and telling them to give their customers great service so they would earn tips.  We also knew the nature of customers.  Some were easy to please and some were stingy old tightwads that would just as soon pinch a penny until Honest Abe cried than to part with it.  Now, the employer doesn’t have to make up the shortfall if your tips do not total minimum wage, but you are expected to report all the tips you receive as taxable income.

 

So, even though we knew that the proper amount to tip was, at the time, ten percent, we also knew that there were many times customers would figure out to the nth decimal place exactly ten percent, no matter how spectacular the service was and that there were many who would probably not tip at all, especially if there was some problem, perceived or real.  Not us.  We respected the hard work that was being done and we enjoyed being treated like kings wherever we went (even though Carter is always treated like a King and so are his family).  The reason was that we were nice to the people that took care of us and we were generous tippers.  At a time when the standard, proper tip was considered 10%, in a community where it was likely figured to the nearest thousandth and rounded down by most people, we would regularly tip 15 – 20 percent and sometimes even 25.  Sometimes we would BOTH leave a tip on the same bill, often totaling anywhere from 30% upwards.  Like I said, wait staff loved us everywhere.  There was only one exception in the last almost thirty years when we were treated so poorly and disrespectfully and just plain rottenly, that we left a penny tip.  That was one very extreme time, as I said, in thirty years.

 

I had learned and have always browbeaten into my children, that you should NEVER go out unless you have enough money to include a decent tip as well as pay your bill.  My habit has been, all these years, to tip a minimum of 15% and I generally like to leave 20.

 

I was shocked and dismayed reading this article over the weekend, to learn that the new expectation is now 15 – 20 percent!  I couldn’t believe it.  This is getting a little crazy, now, I think.  As you can see, I already do that, so I feel free to talk.  Where is this going to stop?  What will be the new plateau?  50 %?  75?  100?  Go to the restaurant and find a waitress and seat her and go in back and fix her something to eat???  Well, yeah, I can hear you saying, “Well, times are tough now and inflation has hurt them and they still get paid so much less than minimum wage, etc.” and my reply to your comment is, “When do the restaurateurs have to take a little responsibility for paying their employees a living wage?”  They already charge a dollar and a half for a twenty-five cent cup of coffee and two dollars for a ten cent soda pop.  I’m sorry, but I don’t think the restaurants are hurting that much for markup that they can’t invest a little in their employees also.  And where do you get off, Mr. big-shot restaurant owner, adding 18% to my bill because we have 6 people in our party?  How dare you.  You have insulted my dignity and impugned upon my good name.  While it is true that some groups, (even church groups, which I would like to see more pastors and youth leaders address because you are a poor witness and a bad example if you do not treat the staff that are taking care of you right) do not tip appropriately, who do you think you are, insinuating that we are like that? 

 

This is kind of out of hand, if you ask me and by coming here and reading this you have asked me.  20%.  If I have a party of 4, I may as well just have the waitress pull up a chair and join us and buy her lunch, too.  That would make up 20% of our bill and then we all could pitch in, even her, an additional 5% and leave her a 25% tip, too.  You will walk into a diner and the waitress will say, “Hi, welcome to the Patio Restaurant, how can you help me?”

 

Oh, anyone that knows me at all will know that I don’t plan to stop tipping at restaurants.  It is embarrassing to me to go somewhere with someone that doesn’t tip, or worse yet, is a stingy tipper, especially if they claim to be from my church.  I don’t want that poor overworked, harassed waitress to think the church I go to is full of cheapskates who don’t know how to act in public.  It only takes once and I will never go again, that’s for sure.  Even when we send Grandma out with her group of elders we always make sure to remind her that no matter what sister so-and-so says, even though she is older than Moses, it is never appropriate to just leave a dollar on the table and think that’s enough.  And if I ever found out that one of my children went out with a group and didn’t act polite and leave a nice, generous tip, it would be a while before they went with that group again.  But, what IS a nice generous tip anymore?

 

Remember, the good book says, “Always show respect to people that handle your food when you can’t see them.”  Or something like that…

My Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends and foes,

Thank you all for your prayers and support.  I apologize for not giving you updates sooner but it has been a little hectic around here.  Margaret cam out of the hospital Tuesday, and had to go back to the E.R. on Wednesday for shortness of breath.  In the meantime my cold got nastier and I took some medicine that knocked me on my can for twelve hours at a pop, so I wasn't much company either.  The good news is that we are up and around, Margaret was even after the kids to do their Saturday cleaning, so all is well, except that Tabitha is coming down with something.  Her good news is that it is a couple of weeks before she takes her trip to California for the West Coast Conference.

Margaret has been sick this past week and working overtime. She started being really sick Saturday night.  She was so nauseous that she couldn’t eat or drink anything and by Sunday afternoon we thought she might be getting dehydrated, so off to the E.R. we went.  Well, after the I.V. was started and the anti-nausea medicine got in her, she started being able to cough, except that when she did she had this strong pain on the right side of her chest.  Listen to breathing and take chest x-ray – pneumonia!  So they start antibiotics as well.  When they put the pulse-ox (pulsox?, pull socks?) on her, the O² level was borderline, between 88 – 92, avg about 89.  Might keep her, might not.  If her oxygen stays at that range and she can keep the pills down, she can go home.  Well, her oxygen went down and down, all the way down to 69 at one point, but in the low 70’s otherwise, so they wound up giving her oxygen and decided to keep her overnight.  So you guys pray for her, (or think nice thoughts about her or whatever it is you do…We pray) okay?  Thanks.

 

We got there at around 2 in the afternoon and she was in a room by 9.  Actually that time does not reflect the fact that she was seen relatively quickly by a doctor.  In fact, I had an idea it was serious because they DID take her back right away and, in my opinion, for an E.R. they were pretty speedy, it just took that long to diagnose because her symptoms were flu-like as well, then they had to empty a bed in pulmonology.

 

They are going to make her take a week off from work, which is a good thing for her, if she will just stay in bed.  She is the kind that has to be up and around doing, doing, doing all the time.  Oh well.  I will do my best to keep her behaving herself and I will try to keep you updated on Margaret’s condition and no, family members, nobody called you because it was up to me and I was too busy.  I will try to have somebody call you today if I get a chance, so don’t call me up after you read this and chew me out.  You know who you are.

 

The television was on, but muted, so every once in a while I would take a gander at what I was “missing out on” and “depriving my poor children of”(An exact quote).  It helped me make a decision.  Folks, I am not going to buy a TV any time soon.  I also am going to have to expand my list of foes, Hollyweird (which includes the TV, movie and other media, even that sacred cow, the “news,” which some people claim is the only reason they want a TV.) and Mad Ave (in which I include the fashion industry as well the advertising game), to include the sports world as well.  It used to be that professional sports figures were people you could point out to your children and say, “When you grow up, you could be the next *****, if you *****” but not so any more.  I was shocked at the aggressive behavior, (well, no duh, of course I realize that aggression is a part of sports, but this behavior was much more intense and not in the line of playing the game) which was just hateful, spiteful things that 25 years ago would have been unsportsmanlike conduct!  And throwing gang signs!  Not to mention the advertising and of course the depiction of how glamorous alcohol is.  Why don’t the booze companies have to do like the tobacco industry and advertise the truth?  I saw ads all afternoon from tobacco companies telling people how to get help for quitting smoking!

 

Remember, the Good Book says, “Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.”

I have had a cold for the past several days and while it has been taking its time progressing through the various stages of ickiness I have been sleeping in until 4 and sometimes even 4:30.  Even when I am sitting around waiting and have my laptop I have been resting instead of writing.  I still don’t have a clear idea of what today’s entry will be about yet, but I am thinking maybe a hodge-podge of different things.  Frankly I feel a little burned out, which might be the cough medicine talking.

 

I have been reading all of your blogs though.  I may not comment every single time I stop by because I have about 25 that I look at regularly, but I try to comment if I can think of something to say.  I do this because I like it when people comment here.  I try to respond to comments that seem to need or want response, and enjoy occasionally bantering and bandying about.  I know, I know, it’s only funny till somebody loses an eye.

 

Daveman and Ashley have been nagging me to update the humor blog, too.  Nicole was supposed to be helping me with that, but now she has a real job and her time is limited between that and church and going to Kansas via Oklahoma.  I wouldn’t tease her about that one since it wasn’t really her fault, but she wrote about it in her blog.  The reason I can get through 25 blogs is that not everyone updates all the time.  Nicole works and Ashley can’t always get access to a computer, but I go back and check their blogs all the time.  Same with Jinny’s blog.  You’d think a research scientist and full-time student wouldn’t have anything better to do, although Sam is also a research scientist and a full-time student and he blogs every day.  I think he should be on Blogdrive’s favorites with Abby Normal.

 

Now I have started talking about blogs and don’t know where to go next.  Anyway, everyone updates at a different rate and so I don’t actually have to read 25 blogs every day.  How did I get on that, anyway?  Oh, I remember (he said, re-reading the previous paragraph), the humor blog.  I had invited Nicole to contribute because she has access to her father’s archives of clean jokes.  He was a great guy with a wonderful sense of humor that was always ready to laugh.  He had put out a humor newsletter that was nothing but clean jokes, which, in the words of my friend, Ken D., are “so squeaky clean you can even tell your pastor.”  His birthday was just last month and I know his wife and kids had to be feeling it.  You know, you don’t ever “get over” it when someone dies.  Well, I know you all are anxious for me to go down that cheerful road, but I have other fish to fry.

 

Aaarrrggghhh!  I keep going off on a tangent.  I guess cough medicine is not the best muse, huh?  Anyway, I do have plans to update the humor blog.  I have a big fat book from the turn of the last century that is full of jokes.  It is dated because it does have sections of jokes based racial stereotypes, such as “colored people,” the Irish, Germans, Italians, etc.  Many of the jokes are about groups like businessmen, bankers, lawyers, doctors and preachers, though.  Personally I love puns.  I have several books of puns and many that I made up or heard from my dad.

 

Okay, I’m getting tired now, so I will write more in a couple of days when I am more coherent, or less incoherent than now at any rate.

 

Remember, as the good book says, “She was only a necktie salesgirl, but she knew how to collar a man.”

 

That’s it.

 

I’m done.

 

Buh-bye.

"Oh we'll smash the saloon when we're men,

We'll hit it again and again,

We shall tear it down,

Down unto the ground,

Oh, we'll smash the saloon when we're men…"

 

"We'll Smash the Saloon"…From a Sunday School songbook ca. 1900 called "Songs for Little Singers."

 

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise."  Proverbs 20:1

 

I hate alcohol.  Read the rest  here.

Sorry I haven’t been updating lately.  A couple of things have come up.  One is, I think I am fighting something off.  I have been sleeping in every morning until 4:30 or quarter to five.  I barely have time to read blogs and answer e-mail.  Of course that isn’t real hard, as the bulk of e-mail I get is from Carter or my brother.  Second is that I have rediscovered how much I like playing Civilization III!  On my old computer it locked up all the time and the screen wasn’t real clear and it was more frustrating than anything.  Now I remember how much fun it is to rule the world, but in so doing I have been neglecting my writing somewhat.

 

Christmas Shopping Hint:  Civilization IV is coming out!

 

Not very subtle?  Oh, I gave up on subtle a long time ago.  Civilization is one of the greatest strategy games ever.

 

Yesterday we went to look at apartments with Elizabeth.  They have been staying with Troy’s grandparents, but now it is time to move on.  The third place we looked was within easy walking distance (less than 1/2 mile) of Troy’s job and 3 or 4 city bus routes.  They have been warned by some well-meaning souls that they will never make it and will fall flat on their faces.  I don’t think that will happen.  Troy works very hard at his job 40+ hours a week and is a full-time college student as well and has been doing this for a while.  I think they will do just fine.

 

The apartment is a nice one bedroom and relatively inexpensive.  They have been saving money and carefully budgeting and will do well if they keep on as they have been.  I have to say that I am very proud of what Troy has accomplished in a short time and I am not worried about them failing as much as them being so successful that it will go to their head.

 

Why do people make such dire predictions?  Is it sort of an anti-motivation thing like “Staircase365” mentioned?  That’s the only thing I can think.  Some people take it as a personal challenge when you say you don’t think they can do a thing.  They said Margaret and I wouldn’t last 2 weeks and it has been 25 years (This is where Margaret can do the old joke,

 

“Margaret:  We’ve been happily married for 20 years.

 

Herb:  Um, dear, we’ve been married for 25 years.

 

Margaret:  Well, some of them years weren’t all that great.”

 

And rightly so, because that’s the kind of guy I am and she knows it.  Borrowing that ten bucks for our marriage license was the smartest thing I ever did.  And I’ll pay her back someday, too.

 

Remember, The Good Book says, Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.

Oh, I’m a baaaaaad boy!

 

I did it.  I took the last homemade chocolate chip cookie.  Carter will remember Margaret making them, and every time she would, my uncle would magically appear out of nowhere.  He could be on a deer stand in the middle of the Wisconsin north woods at -50 F and somehow realize cookies were baking.

 

Well, now my daughter Tabitha does it.  We buy the big bag of the name brand chips and she just uses the recipe off the side of the bag except that I do NOT like nuts in my chocolate chip cookies, especially walnuts, but any nuts really.  I like them soft and warm and chewy, right out of the oven with a glass of whole milk…Yeah buddy!  And How!

 

Sounds like the makings of a new poll.

 

Results of the old poll

 

13 total votes

 

46% Creamy

 

8% Crunchy

 

46% Extra Cruchy

 

0% Can’t stomach the stuff

 

0% Allergic

 

0% Deathly allergic

 

So now I will start a new poll.  The field marked “Chipless” is to honor my friend James who is over in Iraq and a little too busy to read blogs.  When he used to come over and Tabitha would be baking cookies, she would bake a special batch just for him without any chips.

 

The pictures from Elizabeth’s wedding are up in the gallery along with pictures of “The Tooth.”  Actually it is the “teeth.”  She is sprouting them jokers all over the place.  Well, okay, two on the bottom and two are coming in on top.  She was over last night.  She is crawling now and can pull herself up on things.  She had fun with grandma’s big (giant) Tupperware mixing bowl and some measuring spoons and cups.  I will try to put descriptions by some of the pics to help you keep track.  She is a real cutie.  Most of the really good pictures were taken by my daughter-in-law, Isabel.

 

Savannah eating her first bowl of spaghetti is really great.  Well, there are plenty to browse through this time.  She is a 16+ pounder, we have kind of stopped keeping track, you know.

 

She is 10 months old, now!  It will be a year ago November 28^th that the little 1 ½ pound, 27 week preemie came out with her fist clenched, fighting for life.

The Good Book Says, “Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers."

Well, my new poll is up and with 7 votes already cast for an overwhelming 71% for extra-crunchy, I really have to ask for comments, “Why?”  Why would you want to take something so smooth and creamy and already peanut-ty and put things in it?

 

Deciding to take the, er, scientific approach, I asked my Margaret, who is crunchy.  She said it is for texture and that is why she doesn’t like plain store-bought white bread, either.

 

I say, phooey.  If you want texture, toast a piece of white bread and then spread delicious, creamy peanut butter on that.  The only other thing that may come close is if you take some saltines and spread peanut butter on them instead of butter.  (Y’know, I think I must like saltines or something.)  Why, oh why would you want to add little pieces of peanuts to it?

 

Okay, so please, please, please answer the poll question and leave comments.

 

Are you a crunchy or a creamy?

 

Remember, the good book says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, he must have peanut butter.”

Before I read Soosan's and Daveman's comments I had not thought about the racist possibility of crackers.  I am really naïve when it comes to that stuff.  I don't use racial slurs and I don't know very many.  You guys' comments did remind me about a story about growing up in the '60s and how racism affects people, though.

 

The school where I went to 4^th grade in 1968 was Garden Homes Elementary School, in Milwaukee, WI.  Read the rest Here

Some people who read my entry about the crackers that came in the 4-per-sheet packages also recalled them, so I looked it up.  I finally wound up having the following correspondence with Nabisco.  If they pioneered this then it seems logical that when I was a little boy some brands would still come the old way as they tried to catch up.

ME to http://www.nabiscoworld.com:  ”…Premium Saltines used to come in big squares that had 4 crackers that were perforated.  The box was the same size as the standard 1 lb. box, but now the crackers come in sleeves.  When did this change and why?…”

 

“Kraft - Nabisco Email Team <@nabisco.com> Fri, Aug 26, 2005 at 1:09 PM To: "herbthiel@" <herbthiel@>

 

Thank you for visiting http://www.nabiscoworld.com.

 

In 1959, Nabisco Brands pioneered what has become an industry standard:  the stack pack.  Four columns of crackers, each enveloped in a reclosable wax paper sleeve, rest within a sealed cardboard container.  Later those waxed paper sleeves gave way to the more modern and effective plastic.  Today's stack packs make it possible for consumers to open one sleeve at a time, resealing the remainder and keeping in freshness.

 

Also, I'm glad to hear your nice comments about our products and company and will share them with our staff. We're proud of our reputation for excellence and work hard to maintain it.  We're continually exploring new food developments and are very optimistic about the future of food production.  Our pledge is to continue to successfully build on our past achievements far into the future.

 

It was great hearing from you, and remember we're always updating our site so visit us again soon!

 

Kim McMiller

Associate Director, Consumer Relations”

 

So there we have it.  If they pioneered it in 1959 and it is now an industry standard, it could take several years or even more than a decade for it to have become SOP for other companies.

 

Right now I am writing this on my handy dandy laptop.  I am so tickled.  I’m listening to the “Abbott & Costello” radio show right now.  Did you know that you can go to the site that the boys’ family started http://www.abbottandcostello.net/ and download a different show every month?  This is different from the Old Time Radio shows link I recently added.  (Click on the “Listen Now” button and enjoy some good old-fashioned entertainment.)  This does not mean that I think every show is good for everyone or acceptable to everyone.  Just like any other media, you have to take the time to find out for yourself what’s up.  Toward the end of the “Golden Age of Radio” many of the stars were pushing their shows on a new, modern medium called television and broke ground and paved the way for what we have today from Hollyweird.  That doesn’t mean these shows are not good, wholesome fun, but good and wholesome do not automatically equate innocent and there are even some of these that I will turn off.

 

I do have to say that they were more intellectually honest back then, though and I think that fighting for Truth, Justice and the American way and Law and Order in the Old West are superior to what we have now.

 

I read an interview with Bud Abbott where he explained how he and Costello rose to fame while burlesque failed.  He said, “Keep it clean.  You can embarrass people into laughing and they won’t come back to see you, but if you are truly funny and people are not embarrassed, they will bring their friends to see you.”

 

Remember, THE Good Book says, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine…”