Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 2:30 a.m. in "The City."

Let's try to keep it short and sweet, K.I.S.S. so that I can try to get another story out of my system

Yesterday it rained off and on. It rained during the morning safari with STWD. It rained @ other times. It is expected to rain today, tomorrow, and Sunday with varying degrees of intensity. The sun will rise today @ 7:41 a.m. and set @ 7:27 p.m.

The sports scene was mostly disappointing. The Cubs ended their game against the Pirates tied 1 - 1. So many delays due to rain, that the Cubs had to get on the bus to head to Cincinnati for their 7:10 p.m. game against the Reds tonight. No makeup game is planned.

The Tigers were rained out against the Indians and they will only play a makeup game if it is necessary to the Tigers Wild Card possibilities. The Tigers face the Braves tonight in Atlanta @ 7:35 p.m.

My beloved Red Sox should have been rained out as they lost to the Yankees 1 - 5. They play tonight in Fenway against the 2nd place Blue Jays @ 7:10 p.m, weather permitting.

That's all I have to say about that.

I finished reading The Bullpen Gospels, written by Dirk Hayhurst yesterday. It turned out to be a great baseball book written from the perspective of Hayhurst as he made myriad stops in cities all over the minor leagues. He made one stop in the Major Leagues in San Diego and then "retired" to go into writing about baseball. His descriptions of his teammates regarding their antics on the busses and in the clubhouses of the minor leagues made me pause to remember a story from long ago.

My brother, Randy, once told me about his early experiences as a self-described "Dentologist."

He, recently retired after a long career in the auto body repair trade. Over the years he learned a great deal about the trade from a man named Hughie Newman @ my brothers' first place of employment, Morton Pontiac in Arlington Heights, IL. At that place another man, I believe his name was Jerry, used to also ply the trade. One day, Jerry managed to set the interior of a car on fire with a welding torch and so Jerry, said in his understated way, "Fire."

My brother being unable to understand Jerry asked, "What?"

Once again, Jerry said, "Fire."

When he saw the smoke emanating from the car that was on fire and realized what Jerry was saying, my brother grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to Jerry's aid. Jerry grabbed that fire extinguisher by the hose and instead of extinguishing the fire, he managed to toss the fire extinguisher into the inferno. I don't remember all of the details but fortunately, the fire was finally extinguished. It is probably funnier to me than it should be, but I couldn't relate the story to Mary without collapsing into paroxysms of laughter, much like I did when reading Hayhurst's tales and a recent comic strip called Baby Blues, written by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott.

Let's just say that one of the children in that strip, Hammie, relates to his sister that their mom bought some soda at the store, something Hammie and his sister Zoe never get to have. Zoe says that they should try to convince mom that they should have some tonight. Hammie grabs his sister and with a hearty burst in her face says, "I already did!" If you can open the link below, you may get the idea.

https://safr.kingfeatures.com/idn/cnfeed/zone/js/content.php?file=aHR0cDovL3NhZnIua2luZ2ZlYXR1cmVzLmNvbS9CYWJ5Qmx1ZXMvMjAxNi8wOS9CYWJ5X0JsdWVzLjIwMTYwOTI2XzkwMC5naWY=

Some of Hayhurst's stories have a similar, but more adult oriented theme. Even now, I can't write this story without dissolving once again into laughter when I remember my brother's story, Hayhurst's stories, and Baby Blues and Hammie.  Maybe you had to be there.

Today after the morning safari, I'll be getting back to highlighting and Mary will be indexing and chatting. There may or may not be a train or two to spot. Ciao.