Now & Then . . . Or: Vive la difference!

BIG EEK writes: “As a former Canuck, I take great pride in the fact that it was a fellow Canadian, Dr. Naismith, who invented the game of basketball at a YMCA gym in one of the Springfields down here. (Bulletin Board interjects: Springfield, Massachusetts.)

“Now that the time for March Madness has arrived, I am squirreled away here at the nursing home trying to catch as many women’s games as I can.

“What about the men, you might ask? ‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘That’s a different game. I call it “Dunkers and Junkers.”’

“If I have a chance, I want to watch Caitlin Clark and Iowa against Nebraska or LSU. It is wonderful to watch the skill and courage of these women playing ‘Basketball’ the way Dr. Naismith envisioned it.

“Say, eh!”

Keeping your eyes open

ORGANIZATIONALLY CHALLENGED of Highland Park writes, most economically: “Subject: No caption needed.”

Fun facts to know and tell

AUNTIE PJ writes: “For those of the BB readers who remember Howard Hughes, Bemidji native Jane Russell, and the old commercials for bras that lift and separate, here is a fun bit of trivia:

“Howard Hughes was a man of many talents, including aerospace engineering and being a film producer and director. Jane Russell was a talented singer and actress. Hughes hired Russell for her film debut in ‘The Outlaw,’ a 1943 Western. Russell was quite a buxom lady, with 38-D’s, and Hughes saw there were problems with properly costuming her because of her ‘uniboob.’ Being an engineer, Hughes was able to design a bra that lifted and separated Russell’s bosoms. Per the official description, the bra had structural steel rods sewn into each cup, allowing the bosoms to be separated and pushed upward. Though Russell never wore the specially made bra in the film, it was later exhibited in a Hollywood museum.

“The design led Playtex to manufacture and sell a similar bra, with the tag line ‘lifts and separates.’”

Lost . . . and found!

Here’s LIZA THE LIBRARIAN (via Tia2d): “Oh, the adventures of a new library. When I started, they gave me a bag of labeled keys to everything in the building. Some of the keys were labeled ‘Mystery Key.’ What did they do? I don’t know! It seemed magical, so I kept them.

“A few weeks later, I found an old Ziploc bag with more keys. The bag had an aged note that read: ‘Keys, Important.’ None of the keys went to any of the doors or fixtures in the building that I could find. I told the staff that I would reward them with chocolate if they could determine where these keys came from. No one could figure it out.

“Last week, when I crashed the library computers, I decided that I needed to move the refrigerator to a different outlet. Wanna guess what I found behind the fridge? More keys! And again, we had no idea where they came from.

“It was truly mind-boggling, but also magical. There is nothing better than a good library mystery!

“Today, while searching for the missing weather radio, I opened an obscure cabinet and found a box of door knobs! Most of the mystery keys went to these knobs. Now the keys and door knobs have been reunited, and once again everything is right in libraryland.”

Hmmmmmmmm

RUSTY of St. Paul: “Subject: Time flies.

“A refrain I hear often from fellow retired people is: ‘How did we ever have time to get stuff done when we were working?’

“I get it — as, in my older age, I eat breakfast, read the papers, check my email, do some chores or work on a home project, eat two more meals, and next thing you know it’s bedtime.

“When I was younger and worked 45 hours a week and co-raised two of my wife’s kids (I think they are mine, too, but whenever she speaks of our children, she says ‘my kids’) and still had to fit in all the stuff needed to keep a house running, I got it done. I was tired, but not wiped out.

“I have read that time speeds up as we age. When we are very young, our brains are bombarded with images that we have to process and store, and this slows time down. As we age, we receive fewer images (or don’t need to process so many, as we already have received them), so time goes by more quickly.

“An illustration of this is: I just took my evening pills out of my weekly pill organizer and have only two days left out of my organized seven-day supply. But WAIT! I just filled my organizer for the week two days ago!”

Immutable Laws of the Universe

From BOB WOOLLEY: “In any sort of public forum, when a member of the audience begins a comment or question with ‘I’ll try to make this brief,’ they will not make it brief.”

Joy of Juxtaposition

CHERIE D: “Subject: A heartwarming coincidence.

“A few days ago, I spoke with a woman, Janelle, who was interested upon hearing I was born and raised in St. Paul. Her reason? She was curious if I knew about a murder in 1937, that of a young woman named Ruth Munson. I didn’t.

“Later I emailed my friend Fred, a retired St. Paul police officer who now works as historian for the police department. Not only did he know well about the Ruth Munson murder, he had just finished helping local author Roger Barr research the murder for his book about the incident, ‘Murder on the Hill.’ Via the research, Barr was able to reach a solution. The book is being published by the Minnesota Historical Society and will be available in April.

“I told Janelle right away, and she, as I did, pre-ordered a copy of the book. It was then that Janelle told me she was friends with an elderly member of Ruth Munson’s family and the book would be a godsend and offer closure for the family, who have never forgotten Ruth.

“What a heartwarming coincidence.”

Our living (and/or dying) language

Twitty of Como: “Subject: Our evolving language.

“I need to go back to school and relearn the English language.

“I’ve noticed the word ‘binary’ popping up in conversations more and more recently — in media, on social networks, and in general conversations — in a usage I’m not familiar with.

“When I worked in computer design many years ago, ‘binary’ meant, for numerical purposes, ‘base 2’ (as opposed to base 10 or base 8) as in ‘one and zero.’ It was the language of computers, so to speak. It didn’t represent a choice, as I recall — except, perhaps, between which of those two digits is going to trigger a particular computer command as designed by the programmer.

“But lately it’s being used in ways seemingly odd to me. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, general manager of the local football team, in talking about the loss of Kirk Cousins to Atlanta, was quoted in the Pioneer Press: ‘This sport isn’t such that we can just say, on a binary basis, “I want that player.”‘

“Help me out here, please. What did he say? What purpose in that sentence does the word ‘binary’ have? Binary? I’m supposing he meant something along the lines of a ‘choice’ between Kirk or no Kirk. But I don’t know.”

BULLETIN BOARD SAYS: We don’t know, either — but your guess seems as good as any. Let’s just hope that, as a binary matter, Sam Darnold is better than any alternative — or will constitute half of a fine binary “quarterback room” with a first-round draft choice as yet unchosen.

The Permanent Motherly/Sonly Record

The Doryman of Prescott, Wisconsin: “Subject: Walk-off home run.

“Don’t get me wrong. I loved my mother. (You can almost taste the ‘but’ coming, can’tcha?)

“Her word was final. Her advice was narrow. She wanted her almost-only child to live a perfect, comfortable life. Go to college, she said; go to college, I did. It was her way of keeping me both out of Vietnam in the 1960s and away from working with my hands — ‘like your father always has had to do.’

“As it turns out, I would have made a much better (and happier) plumber, welder, or furniture maker than being a craftsman trapped in a salesman’s body.

“Her plan for me didn’t stop at career choices. It extended to life partners as well. Her prodding choice for that marriage, although loving, was premature, and eventually outgrown in six years. However, it did produce two of the best children and, thus, two of the best grandchildren imaginable. (Thanks, Mom.)

“I never realized until much later that mothers have batting averages.”

Live and learn

From Al B of Hartland: “Subject: I’ve learned . . .

“You’ve been married for a good spell of time if you can finish your spouse’s sentences before they’re started.

“There is no education in the second kick of a cow.

“You’re never too old to say ‘Horse’ or ‘Cows’ when you drive past them.

“Never keep a sledgehammer and a computer in the same room.

“The Chinese have an entire language made up of tattoo designs.”

The sign on the road to the cemetery said “Dead End”@@

Email from DONALD: “Subject: An optimistic outlook.

“This is another sign in our laundry room:

“‘I Intend

“‘To Live Forever.

“‘So far so good . . . ‘”

BAND NAME OF THE DAY: The Binaries

Your stories are welcome. The address is BB.onward@gmail.com.

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