Modern Andy

 

 

One of my principles in life:  Never watch an "Andy Griffith Show" that is in color.

The reason for this is simple. Don Knotts wasn't in it and he made the show. Plus, and this is important, it wasn't funny and sometimes it was dishwater dull.

But as I was flipping the channels the other morning, I ran across an "Andy Griffith Show" of color, and watched as Helen Crump (Andy's Squeeze) was being accosted by some old biddy (this was back when you could tell an old biddy just by looking at them) about her "past" (Helen's-not the old biddy).

It turns out that Helen was arrested in Kansas City when she was younger because she was part of the Mob or something. 

This presented us with a question:  Helen Crump was from Kansas City? It leads to another question:  How did she make it from the swinging town of Kansas City to Mayberry?

Spoiler Alert (is this necessary for a 58-year-old program?): When Helen was getting her master's degree in journalism, her thesis was on organized crime, and she somehow infiltrated the Kansas City mob with the help of her great gams. 

More questions: Helen's got a master's degree?

In journalism?

Why is she a school teacher in a small North Carolina town?

This episode was aired back when television was fairly tame. Three years later, "All In The Family" came out, and it was Katy-Bar-The -Door. Things started to get nasty. 

Couldn't you see "The Andy Griffith Show" in the '70s?  There would be episodes like "Opie's Trip" and "The Fun Girls Are Really Fun Now!"

You could just see this description in The TV Guide:  

Andy Griffith:  Barney sees Thelma Lou topless and can't stop talking about it!*

 Barney:  Ah, Ange, you should have seen 'em

Andy:   Now, Barney, I've seen 'em when I was dating her.

Barney:  Andy!  I didn't know you dated Thelma Lou!

Andy:  Barney, there are two single women in this town, and I'm the only single guy with a great job.

 <Barney runs out the door and drives to Mt. Pilot.>

Yes, I know it was a simpler time back then. Television was made for a general audience then, and that meant Grandma, Mom, Dad, and the kids would be watching. 

Now, TV doesn't care. If made today, Helen would have been in the witness protection plan because she was a mobster's girlfriend. I'm not even going to mention what they would have done with Gomer Pyle. 

 

* I've discovered some more modern TV Guide listings:

 I Love Lucy:  Women make only 79% of what men earn, and Fred thinks they're overpaid.

The Honeymooners:  The police serve a bench warrant on Ralph.

60 Minutes:  People from the South talk funny. The automobile industry wants you dead.  The myth behind Joey Bishop.  Andy Rooney tells you what has been grinding his gears lately.  Morely Safer, Mike Wallace.

Dick Van Dyke:  Laura tells a national television audience that Alan Brady is bald, but doesn't tell the reason: Alopecia.

 

The Past Year In College Football

 

 

 Well, we are finishing another season of our favorite professional sport, college football.

I've been using "our favorite professional sport, college football," for a while now because college football was the last rung until a football player made it to the NFL. It is part of my funny-ha-ha man persona to use it as a template because while college football always claimed to be "amatuer" (students), it was actually, "professional" in every sense of the word. 

 I know a guy who went to a local land-grant university ("Glory, Glory") and saw the star quarterback ("Glory, Glory") driving a new convertible Cadillac down the main drag.  This star quarterback was a young man from a modest household, so it was pretty obvious that a "booster" presented this student athlete with this vehicle. 

Those days are gone.

The old argument for paying college athletes so that these young, hard-working men could have "pizza money." 

Those days are gone, too.  

 Now, the big-time players make big-time money playing at big-time schools. I'm not sure if they have to go to class.

What this has done is level the playing field. No longer is the Championship Game the domain of the SEC.  Nope. The Big Ten is now the Big Conference in college football. 

Indiana University will play for the national championship next week.  That's like saying I will be selected as People Magazine's Sexiest Man of the Year. 

Let's review the College Football Season.

The season started by saying goodbye to one of the legends, Lee Corso.

Corso was part of the ESPN Game Day crew that would analyse the upcoming games. At the end of the broadcast, Corso would put on the "headgear" of the team he picked to win.  It was a grand time. 

Over the years, Game Day would expand. It would feature special interest stories, sometimes tied to a student-athlete who showed the human condition and how the player overcame the obstacles in his life.

A lot of these stories were about someone in the family was sick with an awful condition. Or a player whose dad was in jail for armed robbery and never saw his son play a down, but this week, he got out early for good behavior, and a booster got him tickets on the 50-yard line. 

 Corso retired after the first game of the season this year. Game Day continued. They have Pat McAfee now doing the lighter stuff. He has a 30-yard field goal contest, which is fun.  He can be a little much.

Nick Saban is on the program, too. Nick knows a lot about football. Not sure how much he knows about being a human being.

Ohio State was number one until they actually played somebody. Peyton Manning's nephew was supposed to be a lock for the Heisman Trophy. But then they played a game. 

More proof there is a God: Alabama lost to Florida State in the first game of the season. 

At the end of the season, Lane Kiffin was the coach of Ole Miss and LSU, or something like that. ESPN was on Lane Kiffin watch for 1000 hours. "Lane Kiffin still hasn't decided if he is going to coach at LSU. Wait...breaking news...we still don't know if Lane Kiffin is going to coach at LSU. If you hear anything, let us know."

Notre Dame wasn't selected to play in the college playoff, so they pouted and didn't go to a bowl game. Some of the bowl games seem like fun, like The Pop-Tarts Bowl, which wasn't fun for Georgia Tech because they lost it.

Speaking of bowl games, my beloved Kennesaw State Owls won the Conference USA championship after winning only two games the previous season. 

The Owls played in the Myrtle Beach Bowl against Western Michigan and lost Twenty Billion to Ten or something like that.  No matter. We wanted to play in a bowl game, and now we have!

I was able to go to the Kennesaw State homecoming, and I met Miss Georgia, Audrey Kittila. As you can tell by the picture below, she is a tall drink of water. 

I know that's not really football related, but anytime I can get my picture taken with Miss Georgia I am obligated by the Laws of Social Media to tell you about it. 

 

2025: Deja Vu All Over Again

 

 

Here we are at the end of another year, and I think we can say:  

 "Haven't we had a year like this before?"

Donald Trump began his second term by focusing his laser beam attention on an issue that concerns all Americans. That is: statehood for Greenland and/or Canada.

He also changed the name of "The Gulf of Mexico" to "The Gulf of America" because, well, just because.

The second term started with a lecture from a female Priest at the National Cathedral because it had been a whole twelve minutes since someone criticized Donald Trump.

The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl, defeating the Taylor Swift Chiefs. By the way, in case you haven't heard, Taylor came out with a new album this year called "Death Of A Showgirl", which came out around the time she got engaged. Imagine that.

One of the songs on the album is called "Wood." The following is an example of the lyrics: 

Redwood tree, it ain't hard to see
His love was the key that opened my thighs

I'm sure this will be played at weddings everywhere.

Speaking of open thighs, the absolute highlight of the year on the social media site formerly known as Twitter (X) was when Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot were caught in a "kiss cam" at a Coldplay concert, and they immediately went into some sort of spaz attack because who wants to be seen at a Coldplay concert. 

Democracy has suffered a huge blow when CBS canceled "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." 

But, don't worry, Democracy! Jimmy Kimmel still has a job, and he is still doing his daily lecture to America! He finished the year giving a lecture in England, of all places, about the state of fascism in the United States.  Just imagine Merv Griffin doing this. 

One of the most horrible incidents was the assassination of Charlie Kirk. It was gross.

Also gross was some people's reaction on the various social media platforms. People were posting their daily editorials exclaiming great joy that a "phobe", who caused such division because he held such controversial opinions as people should get married and have kids, got what he deserved. 

A memorial service was held a short time later. It was a very long memorial with everyone in the Trump administration saying a few words. His widow was the next to the last speaker. She gave a very poignant eulogy saying that she had forgiven his killer. The last speaker was President Trump, who decided that people needed to know that he would never forgive anybody. 

President Trump decided to build a ball room at the White House and to do so they had to demolish the East Wing of The White House.  You would be surprised the affection Democrats have for the East Wing of The White House. I went on a tour of the White House before the demolish began. They basically tore down a hallway.

New York elected a new mayor, a man whose platform included doing things he couldn't do and making things worse for New York.

"Saturday Night Live" celebrated its fiftieth year of existence and its forty-ninth year of people saying "it is not as good as it used to be."  

In travel news, while attempting to land at the Toronto airport, a Delta flight flipped over and came to a rest upside down. I spoke with a Delta employee who said, "Gee, one plane flips upside down and everybody forgets about all the planes that land right side up."

Better late than never: In "Original Sin" by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, it is revealed that President Biden was an "elderly man" that wasn't "all there sometimes."  They also revealed that the sun "rises in the East and sets in the West."

Oh Really?  Former Vice President Kamala Harris wrote a book called "It Wasn't My Fault".

That didn't look good:  President Trump and Vice President Vance yelled at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for having a "hard name to spell".  

In personal health news, I spent a good part of the spring and summer going to the dermatologists, having various skin cancers removed.  The most interesting one was the one I had on the cartilage of my ear, and I had to have "Moh's Surgery" on it. The nicest thing I can say about "Moh's Surgery" is that it is not a day at the beach.  But my doctor did a good job and gave me some nice painkillers.

 

 

 

   

Things You Need To Know About Marietta

 

Like a dummy, I asked Google a question. 

It was "Are people moving out of blue states to red states?"  A better way of asking it is "Are people moving from Northern states with fat governors to Southern states?"

Google says "Yes", so don't get on me about documenting my sources. 

The AI Overview says (and who are you to question the great and powerful "AI Overview"?): 

"Yes, there's a significant, long-term trend of people moving from traditionally "blue" (Democratic-leaning) states like California, New York, and Illinois to "red" (Republican-leaning) states in the South and Sun Belt, like Florida, Texas, and Arizona, driven largely by lower costs of living, high housing prices in blue states, lower taxes, and different cultural/political environments

. This "blue state exodus" has been tracked for decades by data like IRS migration patterns, with millions moving to red states, although some also move to other blue states."

I can speak with some confidence regarding this because I was born, raised, and live in Marietta, Georgia, which is the epicenter of people moving to Georgia from "blue" states.  It has been going on as long as I can remember. Except we called the people moving from blue states "Yankees". 

My parents were a part of the first migration to Marietta in the early 50s because of the Lockheed plant. 

My dad moved here from East Tennessee to work at Lockheed because "they were hiring" (Dad never went into great biographical details), and my mom moved from Mississippi to help her sister who had twins. Having twins was a big deal back then. 

Soon, other people were moving to Marietta to work at Lockheed, but they were mostly from around the South, too.  Occasionally, you would run into a kid who was from an exotic place like Missouri, but that was about it. 

Well, progress marches on and the Interstate Highway system linked Marietta to Atlanta where you theoretically could live in Marietta, and shoot down to Atlanta in a "couple of minutes".  Of course, a couple of minutes soon became a couple of hours, but you could still enjoy the city of Atlanta, and the bucolic life in Marietta. 

It was in 1972 when the dam burst and all of the Yankees started moving to Marietta.  Kids from Illinois, Indiana, and Massachusetts began filling up the classes of East Cobb Junior High School.

I remember when I first saw a kid from Massachusetts. The office administrator brought her to my class and said, "This is Lynn and she's from Massachusetts."  I must admit I stared at her because I had never seen a real live person from Massachusetts, except for the four hundred Kennedys that were always on TV.  

The kids of my class basically got along with our Northern compatriots, except they all were a little bit smarter, a little bit better looking,  and dare I say it, a little more sophisticated than we Southerners. 

There were some hiccups. I've heard stories of Southerners stomping on other kids' feet for no reason except meanness.  Baptist kids walking up to Catholic kids and telling them they were going to Hell. Even with that, I think I can share with people thinking of moving to Marietta about the do's and don'ts

DO:  Learn to eat Southern food.  You don't have to have hawg jowls and all of that, but you do need to eat barbecue pork. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

DON'T:  Quit talking about not being able to get a good slice of pizza anywhere at 2:00 in the morning. First of all, you should be in bed, resting up for church because Brother Harold is finishing up his six- sermon series on "Great Greek Words Of The Bible".  Secondly, what are you doing up at 2:00 in the morning? Visiting a honky-tonk?

DO:  Learn to appreciate air conditioning. Blessed be the name of Willis Carrier.

DON'T:  Share "how much better we did it in ________".  We don't care how they did it up there.  We have a local politician who somehow got elected to office even though she has said on occasion,  "In Detroit, it was done this way."  Really. We are looking to Detroit as an example of how to do something?

DO:  Wear a t-shirt with sleeves. You look tacky if you don't.

DON'T: Cuss.  Look, I know everybody thinks they are a Soprano, but you don't have to cuss so much, unless your team's star halfback fumbles the ball.

DO:  Say "Please" and "Thank you", basic polite society stuff. You won't die, it's not poison.

DON'T: Teach us to drive in the snow.  For one thing, we get ice down here, and even y'all can drive on it. For another, it gives us a free day off.  

 

* For the record, we do not have anything like the two images in the above picture. 
 

 

 

This Week's Picks- Week Fourteen

 

 

Jawja vs Bumbles:  Good Clean Old Fashion Hate is what the old timers call the annual Georgia-Georgia Tech game.  Georgia is number 4 in the country, while Tech has fallen to #23 due to its loss to Pittsburgh. There is nothing, I mean, nothing Tech would rather do than beat Georgia in this game. At the beginning of the month, I thought that was a real possibility. I don't anymore. Georgia wins. 

 

 

Missasloppy vs Upright Walking Bulldogs: Ole Miss is going through a little "will he or won't he" regarding Lane Kiffin and LSU. Pros:  LSU has a boatload of money, and they don't mind paying somebody. Con:  You have to live in Baton Rouge. If Lane stays, there's a good chance that one day they'll build a statue to Lane in Oxford. Either way, Ole Miss wins.

 

 

Ags vs Cows: This may be the kiss of death, and if so, I apologize to Texas A&M. I think when all is said and done, the Aggies will win the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision championship.  Everyone got sucked into the Texas hype, but you know, you have to win the games. The Aggies are just superior to Texas. Aggies win. 

 

 

Ahia State vs Meechigan: Despite all of the hype this game gets, it won't really matter. Ohio State is just better than Michigan this year.  Ohio State wins. 

 

 

Commode Doors vs Tennysee: Vandy has become one of my favorite side teams this year. Maybe they can get me tickets to a Nate Bargatze concert. Vandy is ranked higher than Tennessee, but it is being played in Knoxville, so Tennessee is the favorite. Tennessee wins. 

 

 

 

 

My Beloved Owls vs Liberty: One of the oddities of Kennesaw State's ascension in Division One sports is that they have become a rival of .....Liberty.  Liberty University was founded by Jerry Falwell and is the largest Christian university in the world. However, some of their fans lack certain fruits of the spirit, like not being a jerk (look, I know that is not in the Bible, but stick with me).  They haven't had a good season, while this season for Kennesaw State has been a revelation. Amen! Hallelujah! Owls win.

This Week's Picks Week Thirteen

 

 

Jawja vs Other 49ers: Georgia's dominance over Texas last week earned them this breather against the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. The 49ers (not sure how they picked up that nickname) are 1-9 this year. This shouldn't be a difficult game for the Bulldogs.  Georgia wins. 

 

 

The Bees vs The Pitts: Tech had a tough game against Boston College last week, almost losing the game. Although they have a better record than Miami, Tech is puttering around at 16. College Football is not pretty. Speaking of not pretty, Pitt looked real ugly against Notre Dame last week. Supposedly, they are going to be fired up for this game. Tech needs to win this game. Tech wins.

 

 

Ahia State vs The University of New Jersey. I still don't like The Big Ten in the Northeast like New Jersey. Ohio State really hasn't played anybody yet. They should have no problem with Rutgers. Ohio State wins. 

 

 

Trojan Men vs Quacks. I also don't like The Big Ten on the West Coast.  I think Oregon is better than its ranking, and USC is not as good as theirs.  Oregon wins.

 

 

Tennysee vs Lizards:  Back in the 90s, Tennessee and Florida was "Must See TV.  Now it is kind of  "Will watch it if I can't find anything good on Netflix TV." Needless to say, Tennessee is better than Florida this year. Tennessee wins.

 

 

Mormons vs Cincy: I'm not a fan of either of these teams. Cincinnati wins, I guess.  

 

 

My Beloved Owls vs Missouri State:  After winning seven straight games in a row, Kennesaw State lost to Jacksonville State. As they said when Kennesaw State handed me my diploma, all good things must come to an end. Missouri State is 7-3, like Kennesaw State, so this should be a pretty even game.  Kennesaw State wins. 

 

 

Like It Or Lump It: "Death By Lightning"

 

 

Welcome to another "Like It Or Lump It," where I review series from one of the several thousand streaming services and advise you if it is good or bad.

This "Like It Or Lump It" topic is the Netflix series, "Death By Lightning".

"Death By Lightning" is about the assassination of President James Garfield in 1881.

It concerns that period of time after the Civil War, which your high school history class skips over because, let's face it, it is not the most interesting time in American History and it is tough enough keeping the Zoomers awake for anything other than a TikTok video. 

As you know, I majored in history in college, and I can tell you my knowledge of the assassination of President Garfield in one sentence.  Garfield was killed by a "disappointed office seeker". 

There's more to it than that. Garfield was killed by a man named Charles Guiteau (pronounced "Get Toe").  Actually, Garfield was killed by his physicians, who poked around his body to remove the bullet but forgot to wash their hands and sterilize their equipment. Other than that, they did a bang-up job. 

Charles Guiteau was as crazy as a Betsy Bug. He was a guy with no talent, no common sense, no money, but a tremendous amount of narcissism.  If he had just the insight to be born 100 years later, he would have made a great social media influencer. He was a man way ahead of his time.

James Garfield was an Ohio congressman who happened to know how to read Greek and Latin (Footnote: Garfield was a member of The Independent Disciples Of Church of Christ Christian Church, the faith tradition I'm from, and he is a BIG DEAL to them.)

Garfield arrives at the 1880 Republican Convention and gives a speech. People loved it. Somehow, after 14,000 ballots, he is nominated as a compromise candidate for President with Pawnee, Indiana's parks and recreation supervisor, Ron Swanson, who conveniently changed his name to Chester Alan Arthur, man of massive sideburns, as his running mate. (Footnote:  There is some historical controversy as to how Swanson Arthur pronounced "Alan".  Some historians say he pronounced it as "A-Lon" instead of "Al-an". Those historians are turds.)

It just so happens that Guiteau was at the same convention and spent a good deal of time trying to convince Garfield to hire him. The only problem is that Guiteau is such a massive dink that he could not get hired into politics.

We then see a flashback to ten years earlier, where Guiteau was a member of a proto-hippie group called The Oneida Free Love Boogie Bunch, which said you could live with them on their farm land and have sex with whoever would consent to have sex with you. Today, we call this "college". 

Warning: you are shown women's bosoms as if it were a 1970s movie. Despite all of this nakedness, Guiteau could not get lucky.

Garfield wins the White House by defeating somebody else. Back then, you could walk up to the President and ask for a job. Guiteau meets with Garfield, but the First Lady comes down with malaria, and the job interview is cut short. 

Garfield goes to the train station without guards but with Robert Lincoln, the President's son.(Footnote: Robert Lincoln was at President McKinley's assassination, too. Really.) Guiteau shoots Garfield, and Garfield lingers until he finally dies, making Swanson  Arthur President who immediately hires Lesley Knope to be his annoying subordinate. Guiteau is hanged after he recites an awful poem.

The acting in "Death By Lightning" is good. Michael Shannon sort of looks like Garfield. The actor who plays Guiteau is awesome and probably should win an Emmy unless they nominate something dreary like "The Bear" to run against it.

Several things.

One: A couple of indoor restrooms are shown. I was under the impression that indoor facilities were not common in 1880, but then again, we didn't talk much about toilets in history class.

Two: There are a bunch of f-bombs dropped in the show along with some M-fers. Again, in history class, we didn't talk a lot about F-bombs and if the senator from Maine casually used M-fers.  There was one scene in which First Lady Garfield drops an F-bomb on Vice President Swanson Arthur. Even given the high historical tension of the scene, I just don't think First Ladies dropped the F-bomb until Betty Ford.

Three: Garfield sure says "Hmm" a lot.

Four:  A smart pants teenage girl comes in to lecture everybody about something, which she had no idea about. Something for the kids.

Five:   I never thought any movie about James Garfield would have naked bosoms. A Netflix series about Bill Clinton will be crazy.

Verdict:  Like it. Sure, it has its problems, but it is well done, and you feel like you've learned something. Especially about indoor toilets in the 1880s.