THE LAST OF THE BADGES AND PINS

I think I've beaten this subject into the ground but I'm going to bore you with two final pins from my collection.

Now I am a fan of the Rolling Stones but I have never seen them perform in a live concert, not the least of which was in England.

So I have no idea how I came by this pin but there it is.

And finally here is a button that commemorates my moment of fame when I appeared on the front page of USA Today.

At least it appears that way.

Gannett came to Phoenix and threw a big party when USA Today made it's debut in Arizona.

They had a photographer with a set where the attendees could pose, he would photograph them with the mock newspaper page set and later on would hand them buttons like the one above.

I wasn't invited to the party but I crashed it and had my photo taken.

So I wasn't as much of a big shot as the button would seem to portray.

I used to have quite a collection of political buttons, including funny ones from the 70's that said "Nixon's The One" around the time of his impeachment inquiry.

I had one from the 1964 campaign that had a small container with some yellow liquid in it and the caption "Goldwater".

I even had an old one from the 30's or 40's for Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

I sent them all to an historical museum in North Dakota.

I may find some more badges around the house some day but I think this is about it.

Thanks for viewing.

We now resume our normal programming.

BACK TO BADGES

I spent three years covering the news for a radio station (WIBC) in Indianapolis, Indiana.

I used to say "we don't press our news", but never mind that.

The biggest event in Indianapolis is the annual 500 mile auto race and I covered stories at and around the track, which got me these bits of memorabilia.

The entire month of May is devoted to the race so we Running Dogs of the Media got to know and hang around (drink) with people like Mario Andretti, Al and Bobby Unser, A.J. Foyt and many others.

But my favorite story of the Indy 500 was the year I stayed up all night before race day, interviewing people outside the track.

I was interviewing a ticket scalper at one point and another guy came by and tried to sell his tickets to the scalper at an inflated price.

A scalper trying to scalp a scalper!

And that's Indy.

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Can you believe it's the last day of January?

Can you believe it's Friday?

If you can, you know it's time for some titillation, some tintinnabulation, some tee-heeing.

It's time for The Friday Funnies!

Oh, stop, she said.

And he did!

That's it for this week.

Now trot out there and have a terrific, tempetuous, troublesomeless, therapeutic, tantalizing weekend!

And always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

MEMORIES

When we got ready to open a bookstore in Prescott Valley in 1996, Judy's son Scott came out from Indiana and built bookshelves for it.

He also built our front counter, which was quite fancy for a used bookstore.

When we closed the store in 2003 one of our good customers, Betty Comfort, bought the counter for the Dewey-Humboldt Public Library she was helping put together in the next community.

Judy told Scott about this and said she wanted to take him down there to see his handiwork.

He professed ignorance, or at least a faulty memory, about the counter but yesterday they made the journey about 15 miles down the road.

And Scott posed for his mother's camera in front of something he had built 24 years ago that is still in good use.

Betty Comfort is gone now but her charitable work is remembered in the library where one corner of it is designated "the Comfort Corner".

SIBLING RIVALRY

. . . or, "I told you not to touch my horse!"

SUNDAY BRUNCH

We joined the BRD and her visiting older brother Scott, as well as Beau Jack, for a mid-day meal and drinks at a Mexican restaurant.

Gayle and Scott, two artists in conversation

Beau Jack, aka Wild Bill Hickock

Keep it interesante

UH . . .

WHAT A HAM!

Before I got into commercial radio and television for a career I was a ham radio operator.

I got my first license with the call sign KØCND when I was 15 in North Dakota and held it for about 15 years before life events caused me to let it expire.  

Then years later I took the test and got another license with a different call sign.

I held that license for about another 15 years, making contact with other hams in over 100 countries around the world.

I operated with a provisional license and a call sign of XE1HFB when we lived in Mexico.

(I used phonetics of Half Full Bottle with that call sign.)

Back in Arizona again, I went with a local ham to the national convention of the American Radio Relay League in San Diego.

And then Judy and I opened our bookstore ten years later and before I knew it that license had expired.

I've never gotten back into the hobby as the Internet has taken over my life.

But you know me . .  I've still got the badges!

THE FRIDAY FUNNIES

Hiya folks the button man is back and . . . oh, wait a minute, he's taking a break today because it's time for THE FRIDAY FUNNIES!

All right, ladies and gents, that's about enough, perhaps more than enough, for this week.

Now have yourselves a wonderfully wild weekend and always remember to keep laughing!

Here, kitty-kitty . . .

(oh, dear . . )

TO THE CONTINENT

I'll bet this is just fascinating the hell out of you.

But I can't stop now.

In 1985, SWMBO and I decided the time was right for a long-desired trip to Europe.

I took a month's vacation from work and away we went.

First stop, London.

Whew, they speak English there.  

Differently, but understandable.

As is my wont, I immediately began collecting buttons.

They didn't even lock me up.

After an amazing airboat road across the English Channel, we found ourselves in Brugge, Belgium.

We actually disembarked at Oostende, on the coast, and then began using our handy-dandy Eurail railroad pass.

We liked Brugges, which is named the Venice of the North for its canals, so much that we stayed an extra day.

Then it was on to Germany.

In Cologne, you can still see bullet holes in the walls of the magnificent cathedral.

We missed the riverboat so continued down the Rhine by rail to visit Wiesbaden on Easter Sunday.

We listened to chiming bells from two churches perhaps a mile apart.

In my irreligious way I said it reminded me of Dueling Banjos.

After a brief mixup in changing trains we next got to the medieval walled city of Rothenberg.

Full name: Rothenberg ob der Tauber, which means it is on the banks of the Tauber River.

Another wonderful couple of days and a visit to the fabulous Käthe Wohlfahrt Christmas shops.

Another trip took us to Munich.

Great (huge) steins of beer and German music at the Hofbrauhaus and a fantastic street market selling meats, cheeses and produce from all over the world.

We bought enough for a picnic in our room that night.

Next stop: Mozart Town.

Touring a museum dedicated to the great composer I disobeyed a sign and reached out to touch Mozart's piano.

Fleeing the museum police and those wonderfully rich pastries, we trained through beautiful vistas of the Alps before arriving at Innsbruck.

Wandering into a pub we encountered a group of happy, singing Austrians and joined them for way too much of the local suds.

Heading for Italy we had a marvelous meal with wine in a dining car on a train headed for Florence.

You will notice the local spellings of these cities' names.

The museums in Florence (Firenze) are to die for . . . Michelangelo's David and one of his Pietas . . . but it was rainy, very windy and raw.

We bought an International edition of USA Today, looked at the weather map and headed for the Ligurian coast and San Remo.

Shame on me note here: while waiting for a change of trains in Pisa, we skipped the Leaning Tower.

What can I say?

San Remo was warm.

We were warm for the first time on this trip.

The food was good, the young ladies sunbathing topless on the beach were stunning, and I think we stayed four days.

Oh, we had some laundry done at our hotel and my underwear came back ironed and folded!

Judy said that's the first and last time that will happen!

Acting on advice from an expatriate Texas lady at a cafe we took a bus to Monaco because, she said, the train goes through tunnels most of the way and we would have missed the views.

Just a quick stop for lunch (wonderful Escargot for the first and only time on our tour) and a stroll around the beautiful blue water marina there.

They were setting up monumental grandstands for the Monaco Grand Prix race.

We spent that night in Nice.

Wandered into what appeared to be a gay leather bar in the afternoon for a very quick beer.

The next day we took a TGV (high speed) train through yellow mustard fields of Dijon to our ultimate destination.

The first two days were irritating, the final two marvelous.

I had planned on spending my birthday dining in Paris (April in Paris, la-di-dah) but it was disappointing.

The next day, however, we had a great lunch on a riverboat restaurant on the Seine.

And we had mastered the Metro.

And we had shopped at several markets for yet another hotel room dinner that evening.

The next day we went to Orly Airport and before we knew it we were able to eavesdrop on other people once again at a bar in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport.

One more flight and home at last.

My button-collecting may seem silly but looking at them again has brought back wonderful memories of a trip 35 years ago.