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Learning to be Kinder to Myself

By Bruce Shawkey As kids, we carried our pockets full of treasures adults called junk — marbles, rocks, rubber bands, change and -- maybe if were lucky -- a dollar bill to buy a Coke or some Fritos if we got hungry. Most of it worthless to anyone else, but valuable to us. I remember a boy once emptying one pair of pants into another before leaving for the day. Curious, I asked why he carried so much stuff around. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Maybe we’ll play one thing, maybe another. I’m going to be ready to have a good time whatever happens.” That simple answer stayed with me for years. Be ready to have a good time whatever happens. The older I get, the more I believe that happiness depends less on circumstances and more on what we carry in the pockets of our minds. For years, mine were stuffed with fear, doubt, wondering whether I would turn out OK and amount to anything. Eventually, I emptied those pockets. I replaced fear with courage, and adopted a belief that ...
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Interesting Objects From the Smithsonian's Collection

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 By Bruce Shawkey The Smithsonian Institution holds approximately 154 million objects, spread across 19 museums and galleries. Here are just a few, with notations about why I find them particularly interesting. Teleprinters were used in a variety of applications, from wartime communications to monitoring the stock market. But my primary interest was their use by newspapers to monitor national and international news. When I worked for the Wisconsin State Journal in the 1980s, Teleprinters were already obsolete. News and photos came to the copy desk via "dumb terminals" where we had to "code" the headline size, column width of the story, and so forth. We would then "send" the story to a large photographic printer. Pasteup personnel would then wax the printouts, cut them with X-Acto knives and place them into page mock-ups. Here is a sample image of the type of dumb terminal I used:  I'm sure the whole procedure is very different from the way we did it ba...
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Advice For Men to Live By

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 By Bruce Shawkey Ran across this interesting booklet, authored by Walter Lamond, and published by Hallmark Cards in 2009. Great morsels of wisdom, some of which were passed on to me by my dad, others I'd wished he  had before he passed away at age 58. Here they are, with occasional commentary. When in doubt, wear a tie. Dad was a blue-collar worker, and seldom wore a tie, except his once-a-year appearance trip in church on Easter Sunday. Ride in the front car of a roller coaster. Never rode a roller coaster with Dad, but rode plenty after his passing, and always tried to get the front car. See movies on the big screen. Amen. The bigger the screen, the better. The price of the movie ticket and the popcorn are worth it. Men with facial hair have something to hide. No comment. Be a vigorous dancer. Dad was a decent dancer and was often told he was light on his feet despite weighing nearly 300 pounds. Be a strong swimmer, especially in the ocean. And if you can't swim, at least f...
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The Invention of Paper

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In the book of the 100 most influential persons in history, author Michael Hart ranks Chinese inventor Ts'ai Lun at number seven for his invention of paper. Paper is so commonplace today, we scarcely give a thought to it or what the world would be like without it. Before its invention around 105 A.D., books were written on parchment (made from animal skin) or bulky papyrus (made into sheets from the pith of the papyrus plant and rolled into scrolls) and were objects only the wealthy and/or the church could afford. And of course, books/documents were hand-written, one at a time. Historians credit Johannes Gutenberg with advancing world literacy with the invention of movable type, but he couldn't have done it without paper. Today, you can buy paper so cheaply (e.g. 500 sheets for $7.49 at Staples, or about 1.5 cents per sheet), we give it little thought.  Here, then, is  Hart's account of  Ts'ai Lun's invention: Ts'ai Lun, the inventor of paper, is a man whose nam...
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Chicken Parmesan

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 By Bruce Shawkey Chicken parmesan, properly prepared, should look something like this: On a recent trip to Las Vegas, Dawn and I went to a supposedly upscale Italian restaurant inside the Venetian Hotel and ordered chicken parmesan and got something that looked like this: Dawn sent hers back; I choked mine down. The waitress looked at her funny as if to say, "What's wrong with it? That's the way we prepare it." They brought her a replacement, and it was just as overcooked. It was basically the consistency of shoe leather. And it wasn't cheap. If I recall, it was around $30. Apparently, this happens quite a bit. I found an article on the Internet titled "You Should Probably Skip These Menu Items At A Restaurant," and one of the items highlighted was chicken parmesan. Said one chef: "I would never, ever order chicken parmesan, It's always frozen before cooked and tastes like a gross version of chicken nuggets." Don't get me wrong. Some r...
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Poorly Designed Cars ... and I Have Owned Several of Them

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 By Bruce Shawkey No one wants to drive a lemon. You know, the car you buy, then as soon as you take it off the lot something fails. The engine goes kaput, or the brakes don't work. The worst thing that could happen goes wrong, and you're left with a huge repair bill, in many instances more the car is worth.  What is there to say about the Peel Trident? It was launched in 1964 at the British Motorcycle Show and was intended to be used as an "occasional two-seater." By 1966, the Peel Engineering Company ended production on the strange little car. The Trident might be gone, but the legend lives on. On Monster Garage, Jesse James got his hands on one and tried to fit it with a motorcycle engine and new frame. The experiment failed and James destroyed the car for his television audience to see. As soon as the Pontiac Aztek was announced, it was universally hated by car lovers. Critics claimed the design of the car itself made no sense, especially its oddly-shaped front en...
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42 Tropical Fruits ... Many I've Never Heard Of

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 From a 1947 report titled Tropical and Subtropical Fruits The larger cultivated fruits of the northern temperate zone, apples, pears, quinces, plums, peaches and their varieties are not included in this listing. Instead, you will find the principal edible fruits of the tropics. Many have been cultivated since early historic time or before, such are the fig, the date, the pomegranate, spiny jujube, and lime. Scarcely known in northern Europe and not capable of being cultivated there, these did not reach our North American shores with the notable exceptions of oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit which can be cultivate in the South. Of other exotic fruits brought from Mediterranean countries, the principal ones were figs and dates. Though introduced repeatedly in various places in the United States, it is only recently that they can be said to have been well established. The first figs grown in California were black mission figs brought by Franciscans from Spain or Portugal. Banana...
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