If They Could Bottle That

Hello World, Happy Fathers Day weekend! Sunday is the time for all of those special men in our lives, all too often unsung, to get their due - or in the immortal words of famous dad Fred Flintstone, "Yabba dabba doo!" It may be true that every dad is not perfect, and Time magazine may not come along and crown him as their "Man of the Year," but the troubadours of yore were not just whistling Dixie when they crooned, "For he's a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny," and that's good enough for me. Of course, June has much more to offer than just The World's Best Dad, that's for sure, some of it behind us already, and others still to come. And it goes without saying that you know it's June, not only when stores everywhere are awash with back-to-school displays on every side, but it seems that you can't get away from promotional messages from every Tom, Dick, and Harry peddling their 2018 calendars, like there's going to be some kind of run on them, and procrastinators who wait too long might miss out. On the other hand, normally when a person says, "You know it's June when," it would follow that the weather would be one distinctive indicator, with glorious sunshine and balmy breezes that put us all in mind of sand castles and suntan lotion, and make life worth living, thank you very much. Not so fast! The ongoing weather conditions in the region have been so absurdly ridiculous that a colleague waggishly observed, "We have been calling it Juneuary." (Thanks, Jim!) We also have June to thank (such as it is) for Flag Day, which waved in on the 14th as per usual, and you can be sure that The Flag Brigade was all over that like a bad suit. The early morning started out somewhat inauspicious, but it soon cleared up into a beautiful day, and you can believe me when I say that the patriotic hues upstairs and downstairs lent a welcome note of flying colors to the neighborhood that had been sorely lacking up to that point, by George. And once again, in spite of the local conditions, the flowering extravaganza continues unabated, with our spectacular tiger lilies putting on a multi-color show that would be hard to beat. Around town, you can spot hardy corn flowers sprouting up through the cracks in curbs and sidewalks, while endless ranks of Asiatic lilies brighten up the flower beds of parking lots and commercial properties on all sides. Also immune to the weather conditions, you know it's late enough in June when even the basketball and hockey playoffs have finally wrapped up, this time with the Golden State Warriors spoiling the Cleveland Cavaliers attempt at a repeat, and winning their second championship in 3 years. Speaking of repeats, it was the mighty Pittsburgh Penguins hoisting Lord Stanley's Cup for the second year in a row, derailing the Nashville Predators thrilling but unlikely run through the playoffs, after besting such heavyweights as the Blackhawks, Blues, and Ducks along the way. So now June, which used to be known as a "one sport" month, can settle into a steady diet of baseball, as well as football mini-camps - where all of the drama takes place off the field, in a noxious atmosphere of tantrums, name-calling, lawsuits, and scandals that would put Peyton Place to shame. (Now there's another of those vintage references lost on young people nowadays, I dare say.) Right now it seems that controversy is the name of the game, and football is just tagging along for the ride, alas. Obviously we can't let June slip past without mentioning the U.S. Open, spotlighting the world's best golfers from the lovely Erin Hills course in scenic Hartford, Wisconsin - where presumably they have no alligators to threaten the players or bystanders from their watery hideaways. No, this time the danger came from above, as an advertising blimp crashed and burned nearby in a colossal explosion of flames and thick black smoke that sent spectators scurrying, and even the most laid-back players looking around for safe shelter. As I keep pointing out, this is certainly not your grandfather's boring sport of yesteryear, in so many ways, although whether the dangerous modern version of golf could be considered an improvement by any means, is clearly open to interpretation, I must say. In other June sports news, it was a foregone conclusion that there would be no Triple Crown this year, when two different horses won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, and the only mystery would be if one or the other would trot away with the 149th Belmont Stakes, and salvage at least two out of the three. Not so fast! It turns out that both Always Dreaming and Cloud Computing were no-shows at Belmont, leaving the field open for the unheralded Tapwrit to claim the prize instead, in another one of those racing seasons where three different horses win the three races. Frankly, it didn't seem like it was going to be much of a contest, with 3-1 favorite Irish War Cry leading from the start against very little competition, but toward the very end of this very long race, somehow Tapwrit miraculously appeared as if out of nowhere, and blew past the front-runner like he was standing still, and crossing the finish line with 2 lengths to spare. Irish War Cry galloped in second, while the scrappy Patch, the one-eyed fan favorite from the Kentucky Derby, finished a strong third out of twelve. In the end, it was only the stalwart Lookin at Lee who ran in all three races, finishing 2nd at the Derby, 4th at the Preakness, and 7th at the Belmont. In fact, out of 29 total horses, there were 10 who ran only in the Derby, 3 who ran only in the Preakness, and 4 who ran only in the Belmont - while 3 horses ran in the Derby and Preakness but skipped the Belmont, 4 horses (including Tapwrit) ran in the Derby and Belmont but skipped the Preakness, and 2 horses who ran in the Preakness and Belmont but not the Derby to start with. Just like the alligator-infested, blimp-crashing golf of today, horse racing has certainly changed from the elitist Sport of Kings in a bygone era, and that's not just the evil spirit of Affirmed talking, believe me. Meanwhile, alert readers on social media lately may have noticed this Twitter post from our environmentally-responsible friends at The Plastic Bank: ========================= Our partner Be-O is crowdfunding a reusable bottle line Every white bottle sold, Be-O donates $1 to Plastic Bank ========================= Excuse me??? Your friends at Be-O needed to seriously reconsider their name before they started a crowdfunding campaign for a food product, while their regrettable name makes those of us "of a certain age" think of nothing except body odor instead, thanks not. I realize that not everybody thinks like me and our old friends the dinosaurs in The Peanut Gallery (whose raucous laughter and ill-mannered knee-slapping can be heard from anywhere, heaven knows) but surely there must have been someone, somewhere along the process, who heard that name, rather than seeing it spelled out, and must have known better than to let that slip through the inter-generational divide until it was already a done deal, for pity's sake. Heck, you may as well call yourself "Cooties" or "Pinkos" if you want to just blithely go ahead and re-purpose old slang expressions from the past, and expect people to just ignore all of their unfortunate connotations from olden times. (Some of which were not so very old, I don't mind saying.) But for forward-thinking fans of revisionist history, and defenders of the environment everywhere, I invite you to go right ahead and support these earnest (if odoriferous) ecologically-correct merchants, in spite of the dinosaurs' derisive guffaws and elaborate eye-rolling. You can tell them I sent you, because after all, I am - Chief Cook & Bottle Washer