This ad from the forties predated any attempt at truth in advertising. The text is a little hard to read, it says: HOW SOON IS TOO SOON?
Not soon enough. Laboratory tests over the last few years have proven that babies who start drinking soda during the early formative period have a much higher chance of gaining acceptance and 'fitting in' during those awkward pre-teen and teen years. So do yourself a favor, Do your child a favor. Start them on a strict regimen of soda and other sugary carbonated beverages right now for a lifetime of guaranteed happiness. THE SODA POP BOARD OF AMERICA

Next to the bottle of cola, it says: Promotes active lifestyle, Boosts personality, Gives body essential sugars.

Holy mackarel, Besides rotting all the childs teeth before he's old enough to drive, he's a caffeine junkie before he's in school. Luckily our mother's were too smart for stupid ads like this.

A Moment In Miss Eula's Magical Garden
a trip of fancy and made-up words.



The bright sun glinted off the bronze bird feeder that gently swayed in a corner of Miss Eula's magical garden. It was Spring sun, the foolin' kind she was apt to say when goaded, but nonetheless it was. The birds that flew over the high fence to graze at the trough were unaware of the metaphorsis that occurred when they passed through the invisible border of plain ordinary black and white mundane everyday sort of you know plainness. The brown, gray, dirty white, tan sorta conglomerated mix and match coverings of their little bodies would when passing over into Miss Eula's world feel more alive, like they had absorbed some magical elixir of contentment, mega doses of Dr. Peppers pepper. Their visage transformed into an inexact sight of sparkling gems, bright, beautiful, but beautiful and pleasing to the eye. The sometimes frenetic chirping transformed into a cohesive choir of such beauty that God's own would be in awe and inspired.

No ordinary tree existed in this garden, although when they were brought to this place they were trees of green and red plumage, undistinguished and well just ordinary. But soon as the spell passed over their ordinariness each green and red leaf transformed from its everydayness to a ready for inspection sparklingly neat recruit standing before his sergeant, shampooed, buffed, spit shinned and eager to be looked at and approved of. It's leaves became a more lustrous, shiny green and/or red perfect in size and shape, each as if individually selected and applied by hand to the strong branches proud of it's leaves like a doting parent loves each of his children.

The trees grew to an exactness in height and girth as if to show off a little, but were in fact shielding or allowing the warm rays of the sun to reach the surface of the garden in just the perfect exposure, not too much so it would dry out the earth or shade too much to inhibit the growth of the seedlings just emerging from beds of soft dark earth, turned and turned again, nourished and nourished again, natures womb as it were readying itself to reproduce replicas of God's moments of showoffiness, a game of oneupmanship, each trying to outdo the other in beauty and grandeur.

Don't expect flowers of red, blue or yellow, but try and visualize red splashes of color from Van Gogh's palette after spending an afternoon mixing and remixing, agonizing over this tone and that addition to create the perfect red, or Turner creating the blue the color of the ocean or the sky at that certain time of day when the contrast is most beautiful, or shades of yellow from Gauguin's brush that most exactly replicates the beaches at high noon in brilliant sunlight.

Miss Eula's garden for all who visit behind the demarcation line of reality and fantasy is comparable to a drug induced trip into colors, smells, sounds, feelings; a place where colors become all encompassing and forever changing, colors becoming solid and feel-able, where the eyes believe you can grab a handful of red or yellow, blue and green and cast it out before you as if you were sowing seed, seed for the soul. It is a place for imagine-ings and imagine-ers, a place to contemplate a moment passed or imagine moments to come, a refuge or a starting place, a place of peaceful thoughts or wanderings, forever changing, forever incomplete, forever beckoning.

How then do we find Miss Eula's garden you ask, and of course the answer is we all have Miss Eula's Magical Garden residing in ourselves. We all have the ability to imagine or fantasize. To think good thoughts, if circumstances are against you, to fictionalize for effect, to just think silly thoughts occasionally to lighten the internal load we sometimes pile upon ourselves, to just find that inner beauty we hopefully all have, whatever the motivation, maybe just for fun. Come visit, Miss Eula's waiting.

(C) copyright 2008 Jim Kittelberger

A clip from one of the best films made about the WWII experience, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.

Was it?

Some of the things that they saw during those times were certainly unforgettable. Unforgettable enough to make the rest of their lives an anticlimax. Could be.

My son was in the Iraq war twice, maybe someday when he is further removed from that time I'll ask him.

Wake up this morning old timers and read this, it will make your day, maybe your whole month. From today's New York Times

While I'm working (playing) on the computer, my mind cannot completely forget that my feet are intermingling with what seems like a potentially lethal amount of electricity.

I've tried to clean it up as much as I can, see picture, but even though I've never read of someone receiving any kind of nasty shockers, I hope I'm not the first.

Every man should go to a barber. It's a man thing and finding a good one is hard to do, but when you do you never want him to grow old and retire. To be included, if you have found a good dentist who blows away any fears you had about dentistry. I am in a good position with both and I think I'm o.k. that the dentist will keep practicing until I die, but the barber is my age so it's dicey. this article reminds us of days gone by in the barber shop

THIS IS NOT FUNNY. Huckabee talking before the NRA. At about 52 seconds into the video he attempts a joke that he obviously thought the NRA would appreciate. At least they did not laugh and cheer, good for them.

DOGFIGHTS, P38 LIGHTNING VS ME 109 - The most amazing bloopers are here

The people that produce the series DOGFIGHTS on the HISTORY channel do a great job of weaving animation with real footage and narration to make an exciting recreation of the real thing. I was going to make a sexist comment about it being a boy thing, but I now know that women fly fighter jets off carriers, so the vicarious thrill of watching these films is enjoyed by both sexes.

(DISCLAIMER) The extraneous off color offerings that came with the Dogfight video are not of my choosing, but as all experienced internet users know, you sometimes have to take the bad to get the good. Sorry.

Photographers seem to take in much more of whats going on around them than us other guys who seem to look straight ahead and miss much of the passing parade. Whew what a long sentence. But the picture above is of a 1932 Hudson Terriplane grille.

To Serve Them All My Days (Book Review)

Quick, reauthorize the use of DDT (funny I think)

my choice for vp (opinion)

He's tougher than Mcain, arguably smarter, talks straight, in short a democratic version of McCain before he took on all the baggage necessary to appease the republican party movers and shakers. An in house asset that would be invaluable in assisting in those decision where a military mindset would be indeed helpful.

Smooth or chunky?

Thomas Friedman is a hell of a writer.
I just finished reading his latest column http://urltea.com/35dg

and I feel if I was fifty years younger I would go to the nearest recruiting office and enlist my services in the cause. Friedman can write, well that's no news, but he can make you think as he did in his bestselling THE WORLD IS FLAT, and in this column
about what we used to be and could be again if only...

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

Friedman is eloquent and probably could sell that proverbial refrigerator to an eskimo, but he is right. We are not what we once were. Starting with our infrastructure which we neglect, to ideas which seem to be nonexistent, and our leadership which is uninspired and lacking in vison or even eyesight good enough to see that America is less than it used to be in our eyes and the rest of the world.

Before I leave this mortal coil I would like to see America revive some of that can do attitude it had after the second world war when we fought off enemies all around the world and came out of that inspired to lead the world, and solve problems. Well we have a ton of those again and God willing someone will step up and flick the switch that will again inspire us to return America to the land it once was, and most certainly can be again.

I think you could say, your life made a difference, if when you died your obit appeared in the New York Times. If the life was not exactly memeorable, at least it must have been sufficiently important enought to qualify for the fifteen seconds of fame that someone said some of us strive for.

I'm not a regular reader of the obit columns, but today for some reason I clicked in to see who left us, and the diversity of people who did some really memorable things or at least were well known for one reason or another caught my attention. For example:

PHILIPP VON BOESELAGER died. He was the last surviving member of the group of people who shoved an exploding briefcase under a table where Hitler was standing. It blew up but didn't do the job. Good try anyway Mr. Von Boeselager. Rest in Peace.

JIM HAGER died. He was the brother of Jon Hager who together appeared on the country celebrating show Hee Haw. The show that celebrated rural one liners and a little guitar plucking music. I liked the show it was fun. Jim and his brother added to the enjoyment. Rest in Peace Jim.

BUZZIE BAVASI died. One of those names from baseballs past. A general manager for the old Brooklyn Dodgers and for a while the Los Angeles Dodgers when they made the move. He made a lot of people angry and a lot of people happy.

WILLIAM H. STEWART died. So who was William H. Stewart you say? William was a surgeon general of the United States. Still doesn't ring a bell? How about the guy who got that warning put on the side of all cigarette packages that said, just in case you hadn't heard, this smoke that you are about to suck into your lungs is not so good for your health. Good show Mr. Stewart, you probably started millions of people thinking seriously about what that smoke is doing to their lungs. A lot of people are living longer because of you. Rest in Peace.

One of the facets of NAFTA that I dislike is it seems to encourage the tenet that anything is for sale. It doesn't matter who we deal with, or who manufactures the product.

It assumes that we have all decided that Nationalism does not exist anymore. That we in the United States recieve no more consideration than any other country in the world when it comes to selling products.

Well then we can all say good-bye to the good ole USA because how can we compete standing side by side with a citizen of China when he gets a dime an hour and the American gets many dollars an hour. We can't. The framers of NAFTA must have known that when they signed us up to this deal that only brings more money into already bulging coffers.