B is For Blogger

My A to Z Challenge Theme this year is the ABC's of me.  Each day in the month of April with the exception of Sundays I will be posting about one aspect of my life that begins with the letter of the day.  Today's letter is B so let's get right to it shall we?

A was for Amateur Parodist

B is for Blogger

When I was your age, television was called books. William Goldman - The Princess Bride

When I was in my twenties, blogs were called newsletters.  I wrote one, a semi-whenever publication called Those Living On The Cutting Edge  printed on a dot matrix printer and mailed out when postage stamps cost 22 cents.  

It was written to like minded friends and contained interviews, reviews, rants and even a feature called "If I Could Draw This Would Be A Cartoon, in which I described a scene and then said what the caption would be.  

Another early pre-blog was when I would write prayer letters when I was a short term missionary in Russia.  It's title was The Siberian Sentinel.  Each month I would write a few snippets of what was going on and send it back home to be distributed.

One summer my brother visited me there and I tasked him to write that months letter.  So, I guess he was the first guest blogger.  I  don't remember everything he wrote, but I remember when he said that he could make a lot of money by selling the Russians the recipe for ice.

Geo-Cities was a dream come true for me.  It was my pre-blog blog.  My family had multiple pages including my ultimate Comic Strip Page where I put my 30 favorite comic strips as if I published a newspaper.  I had another page where I listed the last 5 sporting events we attended.  At Geo Cities I also posted editorials/ essays some like An Open Letter to the Car Behind Me eventually made their way to this blog.  

An Open Letter to the Car Behinf Me

Dear Car Behind me 7:30 p.m September 1st 2001 exiting Elk Grove Bowl Parking lot onto Southbound Arlington Heights Road, 

 Yesterday as my wife, daughter and I were heading home from dinner at the Rose Garden restaurant in Elk Grove we were making a left out of the parking lot of The Grove Shopping Center on the corner of Arlington Heights Road and Higgins. We were joined by you on our tail. My wife, who is probably the worlds best and safest driver, was waiting for traffic on both sides to subside before making our turn. 

 This is when you, in your 2nd row mentality, decided that you could see the traffic better behind our minivan than we could ahead of you. So you blared on your horn, indicating that we really should be turning at that exact moment and make you wait no longer. Well, Superman, (A reference to your x-ray vision; being able to see past our car to the ongoing traffic) not 3 seconds after you honked, a northbound car barreled past us. 

 This means that if we took your horn blowing advice, and stuck our cars nose out in traffic, that most likely my wife, myself, and my daughter and our unborn child would be dead right now. My daughter would not have turned two today. The house in Carpentersville we moved into yesterday would have never been lived in by us, nor paid off by us, saddling our parents with grief and debt. 

 Fortunately, as disconcerting as your second row salute was, my wife did not go until the coast was actually clear. You, then had the audacity to catch up with us and give my wife a glare! Don't you realize, that if we did take your advice and got smashed up, you would have most likely been even further delayed than you were. When we both stopped at the light at Landmeier it was all I could do to not roll my window down and give you an earful. 

 This has happened to me so many times before. We live in an area of congested traffic, driving in front of people who honk the horn at us before the light turns green. If you guys are so quick on the draw, how come you generally are behind me ? 

 So car behind me, next time you are second in line behind somebody else: try to remember that it's not just a car you are behind, it is people!

 Love, 

 Dave

At some point I started reading blogs, at first I didn't know they were blog.  One time I was reading an excellent review  of a movie I never heard of called Once, . I got the movie from our library and it is now one of my top 100 films of all time.  My wife and I have also seen the musical version of the film.  That blog was one of the first blogs I put on my first blog roll. Because of that blog and many others over the years, I have read things, experiences things, and even written things like a progressive poem that I wouldn't have without blogging.  My wife's siblings and other relatives started a family blog in 2006 or so,  A lot of seminal pictures of our growing family made their way  to that blog.

 

This blog was originally started in 2009 with the title Home School Dad.  To many the moniker Home School Dad connotates a Dad whose family home schools.  The picture you get in your mind is of a Dad who works outside the home with a wife who teaches the children.  In that scenario I was a Home School Dad since 2002 or so when my wife started doing school at the kitchen table with our 3 year old daughter as our 1 year old son toddled by. 

What I meant by Home School Dad was a Dad who was the stay at home primary educator of the children.  Starting in the Fall of 2008, I was that Dad.  After an introductory semester of teaching the kids, taking them to the library, and putting my toe in the water of Home School co-operatives, I was ready to dive in to full home schooling mode.  At that time this usually included, a home school blog.  So I made the transition from blog reader to blog doer and became Home School Dad.   I participated in lots of blog hops, carnivals,  and memes (which I pronounced  as me mes) . I built  a pretty good following in the home schooling community.

The mid to late 2000's are generally considered the height of blogging.  I think the late 2000's early 2010's were the height of home school blogging.  By 2010 I had 3 active blogs.  Home School Dad started in January 2009, Crazy Uncle Dave's Sports Page began in December of that year.  These were both on blogger.  I started a vlog called Dave Out Loud on Word Press and like Arthur Dent, who could never get the Hang of Thursdays, I could never get the hang of Word Press.  So in January 2012, I brought Dave Out Loud to Word Press.  2012 was also the first year I participated in the A to Z challenge at HSD.  

 I was the main home educator in our family for 5 school years between 2008 and 2013.  When I went back to working full time, I was still able to teach once a week at our home school co-op.  I also was able to continue to blog. In 2015 I came back to the A to Z challenge at this blog and also on my sports blog.  In 2016 I actually did the challenge on 3 different blogs.  That was the only year I didn't complete the challenge.

2017 and 2018 were dry years for me as far as blogging we concerned.  I participated in the 2019 A to Z challenge on a Word Press blog, dropped out for about a year and then resurfaced again in 2020 during Co-vid.  I have been back ever since.  From 2019 until now I have participated in the A to Z challenge each year.  In that time, I have consolidated my 3 blogs into one and changed the name of Home School Dad to Leap of Dave.

I still read quite a few blogs and use my blog rolls to keep up with them,  I know this is a bit of a rambling history of my life in the blogoverse. There are probably more things I could have said and some things I could have left out.  There used to be a Weekly Blog Meme called Works for Me Wednesday at the blog We Are That Family.  It was one of those mr. linky blogs and the basic idea is you would give some sort of tip that was helping you and your family.   What I'm trying to say amid the rambling, is that blogging works for me.

A to Z challenge wise, you can get back to the blog by clicking here and get to the spreadsheet by standing up, spinning around 3 times while chanting spreadsheet.  I'll wait.  Actually, it's April Fool's day as I'm writing this, so that may not work,  but still try it.  Clicking here  won't be as entertaining to those around you as my method, but it will get you to the spreadsheet.

Coming Up: C is for Christian.

  

A is for Amateur Parodist

 

My A to Z Challenge Theme this year is the ABC's of me.  Each day in the month of April with the exception of Sundays I will be posting about one aspect of my life that begins with the letter of the day.  Today's letter is A so let's get right to it shall we?

A is for Amateur Parodist

I love parodies and I came by it honestly.  My family listened to a lot of Allan Sherman  records when we were growing up.  Allan's most famous song A Letter From Camp (Hello Madda Hello Fadda) but I grew up hearing so many more of them.  Here is one I just discovered today to the tune of Moon River it's called Chopped Liver. 

In addition to being exposed to one of the worlds greatest parodists at an early age.  My folks also wrote and published their own song parodies.  Each year they would write their annual Christmas letter to the tune of a different Christmas song.

They produces such classic lines as

Good old Wenceslaus looked out from his Window Sill (Ledge)

Then he looked all about and saw Elk Grove Village

The parodies would tell the story of my parents year and what happened to all of us during the course of it.  These parodies went on for at least 40 years and began including grandkids and Christmas songs that no one ever hear of.

My sister Kathy was the first of two girls born to my parents over the course pf 11 years. I was the first of 3 boys born to my parents over the course of 6 years.  The boys of course came in between the girls setting up this parody of Hark The Hearald Angels Sing in 1974.

Then we were not six but seven

January 27th 

On that day in early morn

Bonnie Eileen at last was born

She is Kathy's pride and joy

Specially because she's not a boy.

These influences and being exposed to Weird Al Yankovic singing gems like He's still Billy Joel to me on Dr, Demento put me on the  prestigious path to parody.  (Not the annoying, alley of alliteration.  That's all me.)

  

 

The first parody I remember writing down was a parody to the Steve Miller Band 1982 song Abra Cadabra about a guy who worked at  a morgue called average cadaver .  I kept the lyrics for awhile but soon lost them.  A few years later I saw Svengoolie singing a parody of  Abra Cadabra also about a cadaver,  That's the problem with parodies, if you can put new lyrics on somebody else's song you can't complain when someone else does.  While looking for the Svengoolie parody on you tube I found an obligatory co-vid parody of Abracadbra that has to do with pasta rather than cadavers.

.

Over the years I have had occasion to write multiple parodies.  Some I've written for people moving away.  Some just for fun.  The 3 that follow all were written for ir previously published in this blog.

When I returned to the A to Z  challenge in 2019 my first theme was the music of the Sherman Brothers.  Their music has a special place in my heart.  It's no surprise that I've tweaked their lyrics from time to time.  Like when I wrote this paean to t-shirts.  

 The most wonderful thing about t-shirts 

 Is t-shirts are quite fun to wear 

They're great to roll up your sleeves in 

They help you let down your hair 

They're cool, they're stylish, some think they're childish and while I will not bicker 

the most wonderful thing about t-shirts is they're frontwards bumper stickers! 

 

There are a few go-to songs  that I like to parody.  Hakuna Matata from Lion King and Desperado by the Eagles top that list.  If the syllables of your name scan with Hakuna Matata there is a reasonable 

I just made one up now:

Olympia Dukakis

What a wonderful dame

Olympia Dukakis

Has a star on the  Walk of Fame

She was all the rage

From her great work on stage

Olympia Dukakis

For scanning purposes O-limp-eee-ah is shortened to O-limp-ya

 2 years ago in the A to Z challenge when I spent a Month at the Movies, I wrote about my my favorite western in S is for Silverado

While posting it on my FB page I did a quick Desperado parody:

Silverado, you are in my top eleven. 

You star two great Kevin’s 

Plus one Glenn, and one Glover 

You’re a western 

But so much more than your genre 

Which is why I’m so fond a 

This joy I’ve discovered. 

In 2011 when celebrating my 500th post on this blog.  I wrote a parody to the tune of the Proclaimers I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles).  

I Just Blogged (500 Times) 

 When I wake up, yeah, you know I'm gonna blog 

I'm gonna blog about playin' puppy on the floor. 

When I go out, well you know I'm gonna blog 

I'm gonna blog about a field trip to the store. 

 If it's Christmas, yes you know I'm gonna blog

 I'm gonna blog about how much we like to bowl. 

And if it's Easter, yes you know I'm gonna blog. 

That it's not a little rabbit that makes us whole. 

 I just blogged 500 times 

And I might blog 500 more 

To blog and ask what you guys do 

With children screaming on your floor. 

 When I'm teaching, yes you know I'm gonna blog 

About something good that Bunny or Spider did. 

And when puppysims come 

I'm gonna post 'em here. She's really quite a kid. 

 When we travel. yeah, you know I'm gonna blog 

Whether close to home or Washington D.C. 

And when we get back you know 

I'm gonna blog with words, pics and videos for all to see. 

 I just blogged 500 times 

And I might post 500 more 

Just to be the guy whose 1000 posts 

Will make you laugh but never snore. 

 When I'm fed up, yeah you know 

I'm gonna blog I'm gonna blog 'bout how my family drives me mad

 But when I think straight yeah you know I'm gonna blog

 I'm gonna blog about the super times  we've had. 

 I just blogged 500 times 

And I might tweet 500 more 

Just to be the guy whose posts and tweets 

reveal the passion at his core.

That about does it for my adventures as an amateur parodist.  

I just have one more thing to add.   Allan Sherman and Al Yankovic were both at one point my favorite parodists and I was a distant third.  My daughter Lucy FKA Puppy FKA Wolfina has not only surpassed me as a parodist but I believe she could surpass  Sherman and Yankovic   in a tussle for the the top spot.  My favorite of hers is when she does the preamble to the constitution to the tune of Momma Mia. 

We do a lot of collaborating and were having fun last week when she was home on Spring Break just making parodies of songs based on my maintenance medications.  They were just a line here, a line there like singing Triamtene to hail to the Chief.  

When we were done, I kept on reimagining one until I was telling the story of a man who was singing the praises of his blood pressure medicine but kept on obsessing instead about the Trump Presidency.

Ladies and gentlemen I present to you

Amlodipine 

sung to the tune of Yesterday

Amlodipine, My BP's as low as it's ever been

Trump's not nice, He's kind of mean

Oh I digress Amlodipine

My BP fluctuates by White House residency

And Now a new Trump Presidency 

Amlodipine I'm needing thee

Why'd he run again

That is not what felons do

Then he won again

I cannot believe it's true ooh ooh ooh

Amlodipine

There's more pressure than I've ever seen

So until he gets impeached again

I will need Amlodipine

Amlodipine

I don't want to start a scene

I'm as blue as Elon's cars are green

I'm going to need amlodipine

Can't even read a MAGAzine

I will need amlodipine. 

 

To get back tot he A to Z challenge click here.

Comping Up: B is for Blogger

Team Saturdazzle: The One Where We Talk About Bruno

Team Saturdazzle time again and the last Team Saturdazzle post that won't be a A to Z Challenge post in disguise until the beginning of May. More about that later ...

I had a great week at work .  I was at 3 schools in advance of Spring Break and then a 6 week Long Term Assignment that will end out the school year fs or me.  Then the weekend began and I started having some 21st century problems that could have put a wrench on the beginning of Spring Break.  

Spent more time trying to resolve these issues  than I would want to and while they are no where near resolved they are in a nice holding pattern that will let me move on with my Spring Break with only a modicum of inconvenience.  

If that seems a  tad vague it is because the aforementioned problems are a tad Brunoesque in the we don't talk about Bruno sense of the word.  But as you can see by today's title we will talk about Bruno, so let's get to it shall we .  

As mentioned in my last post, I subbed the past 2 days in an elementary music classroom.  19 classess in 2 days!  It was amazing!  The students had choices as to what to watch on the smart board.  The most popular selection was Baby Yoda, but videos from Encanto were a close 2nd.  Pressure got played 3 or 4 times,  and we don't talk about Bruno at least twice that.  

     

I kept on meaning to ask the students what the hidden joke in We Don't Talk About Bruno is, but each time the video ended, between my ADHD and their eagerness to pick the next song, I never got to it. I'll have to settle for telling you now.  We don't talk about Bruno is a song dedicated to talking about Bruno!!  That joke may be a little too sophisticated for  the average audience of Encanto, but I love it!

***********************************************************************************

My 3 Anniversaries Part I

My wife and I were married on April 11th 1998.  In order to go on a honeymoon we scheduled the wedding for the Saturday after her school took off for Spring Break.  This was also the Saturday before Easter that year.  So since 27 years later she still works at a school, and Easter is still a thing, we actually have as many as 3 days a year that we can celebrate our wedding anniversary. Today was the first of those this year.

We went out for breakfast at a place we hadn't gone too before and had a really nice conversation.  We spent some of the day doing the Brunoesque things I didn't talk about earlier and then we went to a matinee of a play that a friend's daughter was directing.  We found out when we got there that a former home school co-op student of mine was also in the play.  This was the 2nd time in less than 4 years that we went to see someone else in a play and this young man was in it as well.

The name of the play is  Radium Girls and is very similar in nature to a play that my daughter acted in as a radio play during her Freshman year in high-school because of Co-vid restrictions and directed part of in her Senior One Act presentation last year.

Both plays tell the true stories of women from Orange , New Jersey and Ottawa Illinois who painted watch dials and died  of the exposure to the radium in the paint.  

***********************************************************************************

Well there's more I could say but it's 11:45 p.m. and I'm running out of Satur to dazzle you with so I'll call it a night!

Baby Yoda and The Music Sub

 Midweek Music Break

I said that I would try to get in one more midweek music break before the A - Z challenge starts next month.  This is not what I thought I'd be writing about but I'll have to get to those after the challenge.

Today I started my last regular sub-assignment for the school year.  The reason why is that I begin a long term assignment the Monday I get back from Spring Break that goes through the end of the year.  I popped into Amy's first school in the district today for a 2 day music teacher position.  Music classes on our elementary level are part of specials and the student gets 2 30 minute music classes each week.  Today I am teach 10 1/2 hour classes and tomorrow I teach 9.  At leaast 1/2 of each class the students were given a choice board.  which means that on the class smart board are 10-12 choices of short music videos.  Each class so far that has had a choice board has chosen this song as one of their selections:

All the grades K-5 love this song. I absolutely love this song but had forgotten all about it.  Once I heard it I knew what the Mid Week Music Break would  be. I have more students coming in in ten minutes so I should probably go.  

Equal Groups Multiplication Song | Repeated Addition Using Arrays

Not counting the charter school there are 27 schools in the district where I substitute teach. I have subbed in 26 of them. However in the past 11 quarters I have only subbed at 2 of them This is because In the last 9 quarters I have been a building sub, meaning I go to the same school each day and sub at whatever opening is available.

Prior to that I did long term subbing for a semester at one of the schools where I would eventually become a building sub.  This quarter is going to be different.  I am taking a long term position at the first school I ever did long term from when school starts  after Spring Break until the end of the year.

For the next few weeks I'm just going from school to school in the district and working in whatever building needs a sub that day.  My last building  was a middle school and I am going to be in elementary schools for the rest of the year.  In the few days I've been back in elementary I've been getting used to short educational videos that are so prevalent in elementary classrooms especially in the special ed classes that I prefer to work at. 

On Monday we showed this video to our students at the beginning of math.  I decided to share it here. 

 

It's not exactly School House Rock but I liked it.  

Team Saturdazzle: The One Where I pull something from my draft status and then go from there

I have been trying to clean out my draft staus which is where posts I start but don't finish end up or where I put you tube videos just in case I may want to put them on the blog someday. So today when my first Idea for Team Saturdazzle seemed a little too cumbersome to finish on time. I decided to look through some of the videos that I had in draft status. When my son was in F.L.L. FIRST Lego League he participted in a scrimmage table where different robotics teams would get together to practice together at the same facility. One of the tenets of FIRST Robotics is gracious professionalism, so even though these teams would soon compete against each other in competition. This was an opportunity for them to practice and learn from each other. I took some footage of the event and put some of it on my vlog probably 10 years ago or more. I don't think this particular video made the cut but I'm glad to show it today.

 

One thing I specifically remember from the event that it was in a building that my Orthodontist had been in years before and that the building had one of those old fashioned elevators complete with an elevator operator. Watching that video reminded me of a movie that is currently playing at the theatre I work at. It is called rule breakers based on a true story of Afghanistan girls competing in a FIRST Robotics competition.  

 I like to consider myself the king of the segue but even I wasn't sure how to go from two segments on robotics to talking about Bob Bennet Weekly Live but I'm going to try:

From FIRST to First Things First

The 5 years anniversary of Co-Vid 19 shutting down life as we knew it at least for a time kind of came and went, in my opinion, without much to do.  5 years ago on  Friday, March 13th was my last day working as a substitute teacher until September of 2022, and Saturday March 14th 2020 was my last day working at the movie theatre until a year later.  Two weeks later I was stocking shelves overnight at a grocery store, which I did for a year.  People in many lines of work had to be flexible at this time.

Bob Bennett, one of my favorite singers began on his 65th birthday March 21st of 2020  a series of weekly on-line interactive concerts called originally enough Bob Bennett Weekly Live.  Tonight he finished his 5th year of such concerts.  He streams these concerts replete with a virtual tip jar each week and on both You-Tube and Facebook.  

My wife and I listened in while we were playing cribbage, and gin rummy and Bob even gave Amy a shout out during the concert.  Tonight's concert featured many songs mostly made by request from Bennett's first album First Things First (1979) I also made a Spotify playlist that features the songs Bennett played tonight including multiple renditions of a few of the songs.  

 Finally tonight I'd like to end with a clip from Saturday Night Live from 1979 with Jimmy Fallon and Jerry Seinfelld both performing as Jerry Seinfeld

 

Capping Off Poetry Friday

 I am an old school blogger and as such I still list many blogs on multiple blogrolls at my site.  There are many different types of blogs, sports blogs, music blogs, poetry blogs just to name a few.  tonight as I was looking over some of the recent posts on my blog roll I noticed one that said 30 poems.  So I assumed it was a poetry blog this being just a few hours from Poetry Friday.  Boy was I wrong it was a blog called Fan Graphs which is a very insightful baseball blog that I understand only about a third of.  

Well I clicked and there were 30 poems all right, but they were poems about baseball caps and not just any baseball caps but 30 poems dedicated to a new line of caps called overlap caps by the company New Era. 

Davy Andrews wrote a poem for each of the 30 MLB teams caps.  They are called overlap caps because each cap overlaps two of the baseball teams names or designs.  Since I am a Chicago baseball fan I am including a picture of both Chicago teams caps  and the first few lines of the poem to demonstrate the effect.

 

                    Chicago White Sox

Pay close attention, kids. 

This is the danger of the limited color palette. 

Life’s not black and white. 

Or rather, it’s not all black and white. 

 

There’s still right and wrong. 

There’s right, and then there’s wrong. 

So much wrong we’re drowning in it,

                        Chicago Cubs 

 “Nothing to see here,” said the huge, rotund C 

 That swallowed its skinny sibling whole. 

 “Nothing to see. Hop aboard the El.” 

 It looks like it’s about to throw the skinny C back up.

To see the pictures of the rest of the caps and read these poems in their entirety along with other teams of your choosing click here. 

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Janet at Salt City Verse.  You can click here to see what she has going on. I have not been writing much poetry lately which is one of the reasons why I have not been participating in Poetry Fridays for a while, but as my old school blog role indicates I am still actively pursuing poetry in my blog reading.

F O G .... E L Berg

 My Daughter Lucy formerly known on this blog as both Puppy and Wolfina  is now a  19 year old adult in her first year at college at the University of Illinois.  She is a double major in Creative Writing and English.  She continues to sing in a choir and is rehearsing for her 3rd and 4th plays of the school year.  Same old busy dynamo.  Lucy is one of those students who seem to excel in everything she does.  When she was applying at colleges this made it difficult for her to choose a major on her applications.  I think she had a different major chosen for each  school got applied at.   At  heart though she's a theatre/music/writer/artist type of person.  

I'm sorry, this post is not supposed to be about Lucy, but about Dan Fogelberg.  Earlier this week a new  Fogelberg song was released posthumously.  Fogelberg died at the age of 56 in 1997.  The song, I know a Thief, was released on streaming services like Spotify as part of the celebration surrounding the 50th anniversary reissuing of Souvenirs.

   

So, what does that have to do with Lucy you ask, Is she a thief?  Well she did steal my heart, but that's not quite what the connection is.  Fogelberg matriculaed at the University of Illinois and while there studied Theatre and Art as well as writing, performing and beginning to record  his future hits.  

I visited Lucy quite a bit during her first semester at school.  I went so often mainly to watch football games but we hung out as well.  (Mostly kidding I hope.). Speaking of football games, If you didn't understand the title of this  post, (and let's face it who did?),  it is an allusion to the cheer they make at home football games for every first down, touch down , field goal and extra point U of I makes. The announcer says ILL and The crowd responds INI.  Still don't get it? Now you know how my family feels.

On my way around campus especially on game days I've passed by a place called the Red Herring Cafe.  I've always been interested to know a little of it's history.  Well that turns out to be precisely where Dan Fogelberg performed and recorded many of his early works. 

Dan Fogelberg  at The Red Herring 2003
From Dan Fogelberg Facebook page

Red Herring Coffee House Poster 1972

Folk Festival @ Red Herring 1969
Both Posters from Smile Politely Article

My two favorite all time songs frim Fogelberg are Same Auld Lang Syne and Leader of the Band. The latter was also my only attempt at solo karaoke.  I found out today through an article in the Champaign Urbana News Gazette written shortly after Fogelberg's death that both songs have U of I roots, The meeting of the old girlfriend on New Years Eve in Same Old Lang Syne was a Champaign girl friend, the grocery store was on the corner of Green and Neil in Champaign, and at the end of the song when he talks about  feeling like he was back at school he was referring to being on campus.  

Fogelberg did not graduate from the U of I, he ended up dropping out to pursue his music. His Dad reluctantly agreed saying "to take a year of and see how it went".  That is where the line "Thank you for the freedom  when it came my time to go" in Leader of the Band comes from,  which precede the lines I bawled at during my karaoke rendition -

"I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough 

And papa, I don't think I said I love you near enough"

That about it does it for my midweek music break talking about Peoria Native Dan Fogelberg, his posthumous release, and his time at the University of Illinois at the Red Herring.

Speaking of red herrings, people stopping by from my link at Weekly Writer's Workshop must feel like I attached the wrong link.  The truth is, I have had such fun researching and writing this post I absolutely wanted to force it into the workshop and so I have. 

 This weeks prompt's were

1. Write a post based on the word positivity. 
2. Write a post in exactly 9 lines (sentences). 
3. Got any big plans for spring (Easter) vacation? Tell us about them! 
4. Tell us about the most disastrous date you’ve ever been on.
5.  List some (1-5) podcasts you listen to.
6.  Daylight Saving Time — love it or hate it?

There are several  I could do and I may come back and do a few more but today, I will focus on #4 as their is a Champaign/Urbana U of I connection.

Tell us about the most disastrous date you've ever been on?

It was November 1st 1985.   I was in a long distance relationship with a girl who lived near Springfield IL.  We at met at a college conference in 1984 when I was in a long term relationship with my high school sweet heart,  The girl from the conference and I maintained a correspondence and talked on the phone occasionally.  After a mutual break up with my high school girlfriend that lasted 2 years after graduation, we went on a few dates together,  This girl was way out of my league but she did not know it.  We bonded over our love for CCM Contemporary Christian Music and humor.  I was working my first full time job and taking some time off college that year, I was still living at home so the full time job gave me funds for travelling back and forth between Chicago and Springfield.  

As I recall, I was kind of playing the field for the first and only time in my life that summer  and had gone out on dates with 2 or three other girls since the spring.  Those dates  were mainly platonic and similar to what we would have done as friends.  Somewhere along the line things were getting more serious with the girl from Springfield, at least for me, and I stopped going on other dates. 

She and I were both huge Amy Grant fans and we decided to go to Champaign and see Amy play at what was then called Alumni Hall on the U of I Campus. The concert was on a Friday and I think I spent Halloween visiting  with friends at Eastern Illinois University. 

 I think we spent most of Friday together and at some point she told me she just wanted to be friends again.  Most of our relationship  before and during our dating period was via correspondence.  She had decided that I was not the guy for her.  I was at the point where I was thinking maybe I was.  She seemed to think that we could just enjoy the concert as friends because of course I had 4-8 hours to process it.  When I was a young man going to a concert with a girlfriend was all about holding hands during the love songs, and Amy Grant  is all about the love songs. 

 The opening act was Bob Bennett who did a great set.  He wasn't then but he now is one of my five favorite musical artists.  His brand of   adult contemporary  kind of Fogelbergesque  CCM does not give you too much to worry about on the love song angle.  Amy Grant was her Unguarded self. She brought the dancing, the cuteness, and the love songs.  We supplied the awkward. What was supposed to be a night to remember was quickly becoming one to forget.  

  

This is a ticket from the concert I went to but not my ticket.

This is what big named Christian Concerts cost back in the 80's.

   After the concert, we went our separate ways  (although later we did resume our friendship by correspondence).  I drove back to EIU and some of the awkward continued, because one of the girls I had gone on a few dates with earlier that year was the ex-girlfriend of the friend I was staying with. He seemed to think that I did it behind his back, which I don't know which way his back was pointed when we went out, but I never told him about it.  He had found out that summer, and this was the first time we had spent any time together since.  So it was kind of a bad night all around.  

For a short time Champaign and Assembly Hall and even Amy Grant were all reminders of that horrible date.  Long before Lucy got accepted there the place  came to mean much more than failed romance.

I went to two mission conferences  at U of I  in 1987 and 1990.  Both of these conferences were pivotal on the road God was leading me to missions work in my first few years after college.  At the 2nd of those mission conferences I went with a group form my college and in that group was a young woman who was quickly becoming my best friend and rather slowly (7 1/2) years becoming my wife.  Her name is Amy and I try to take her for Granted.  (Sorry had to work it in, I'm contractually obligated to make a certain number of groaner puns). Also at that 2nd conference Amy and I and the other 20,000 delegates were treated to a conference ending year ending concert at Assembly Hall by another one of my top 5 performers of all time Randy Stonehill.  (Yes, it would be a better ending to my post  if it was Dan Fogelberg singing Same  Auld Lang syne at the Assembly hall as he did twice in his career, especially singing it on New Years Eve.) Even the date of the Amy Grant concert, if it ever lived in infamy, has been redeemed as one of our 3 precious children was born on Nov 1st.

Thus ends my story about the influences of Champaign. I'll try to do one more midweek music break before the A to Z challenge begins next month, To at long last get back to The Weekly Writer's Workshop hosted by John Holton at the Sound of One Hand Clapping click here.  

Breakfast Serials Marty Television Program (1953) Part II

Dr. Miriam Grossman Destroys Gender Ideology in 5 Minutes

Team Saturdazzle: The One With The Return of Bisquick Man

Welcome to Saturdazzle. Today we have Some Superheroes that begin with B, baseball for the blind, and The best selling movies of February.

   

This video has been sitting in my draft status for some time now.  I thought with baseball being in spring training, this would be a great time to show it.

Team Saturdazzle At The Movie

Powered by Box Office Mojo

Top 10 Films  

 top 10 Films of 2025 as of 2/28/2005

10. Den of Thieves: Pantera Down 3 from January

9.  Wicked Down 4 from January

8.  A Complete Unknown  Down 2 from January

7  One of These Days Up1 from January

6. Nosferatu down 2 from January

5  Moana 2 Down 3 from January

4. Dog Man up 8 from January

3. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 down 1 from January

2. Mufasa The Lion King Down 1 from January

1. Captain America: Brave New World 

Top 10 Films of February 2025

10. Love Hurts

9.   Companion up 9 from January

8.   Ne Zha 2

7.   One of Them Days up 1 from January

6.   The Monkey

5.   Mufasa: The Lion King down 4 from January

4.   Paddington In Peru

3.   Heart Eyes

2.   Dogman up 10 from January

1.   Captain America: Brave New World

A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal: The ABC's of ME

April Blogging from A to Z Challenge 2025 SIGN-UP March 24-April 5 a-to-zchallenge.com

Leap of Dave 

2025 A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal

Sponsored By No-One

No-One is a proud sponsor of the Leap of Dave 2025 A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal.  No one has  practically been reading this blog for many years and was glad to answer the call when I asked no one to sponsor it.  Now back to the theme reveal.

The Theme for my 2025 A to Z challenge is The ABC's of Me. 

I had many different ideas for the challenge theme this year and I chose this one because at the beginning of the year I placed an alphabetical list of things that described me on my home page.

As of March 7th 2025 this list reads as follows:

Amateur Parodist, 

Blogger, 

Christian, 

Daring do-gooder, 

Evangelical sans Trump Kool-Aid, 

Father of 3 adult children, 

Giraffe lover, 

Husband of one amazing wife, 

Illinois resident, 

Jester, 

Kindred spirit, 

Library lover 

Middle School teacher 

Nincompoop 

Original Poet

Quintessential worker 

RITA (Republican in theory, anyways.) 

Sixty something 

Teller of jokes 

U of I Parent - ILL

Voracious reader, 

Willy Wonka Wannabe, 

Xenophile 

Yankovic enthusiast 

Zoo attender

Each day of the challenge I will write a post about the alphabetical aspect of me that matches that day's letter.  It is very possible that I may change some of the topics before the challenge.  If I do that, they will also be changed on my blog's sidebar.  As I am not a fan of revisionist history, I will not change them on this post.  

This is now usually the time in a Theme Reveal where the blogger lists his previous A to Z Challenge theme's.  So let's get to it shall we. The first time I participated in the A to Z Challenge was 2012 it was here at this blog back when it was still called Home School Dad. and it was the only year I had no theme. In 2015 I returned to the Challenge and actually participated in the challenge on2 of my blogs.  The complete list is below. 

 

                                                   

Year    Blog      Theme                                   Sample Post                              

2012  HSD      No Theme                              B is for Boring

2015  HSD      Nouns                                    A is for Allen

2015   CUSP   White Sox Home Runs         F is for Frank

2016  YBD      Comic Book Characters      B is for Beast 

2016   DOL     Y is for You Tube                  Theme Reveal

2016   CUSP   Cubs Home Runs                 R is for Ronny

2019   RAN     Sherman Brothers Songs    Z is for Zuckerman 

2020   RAN     State Capitals                       W is for Washington 

2021   HSD     Alive in 1921                         W is for Waltons

2022   LOD     Multiple *                             Quit Quentin Quest

2023   LOD     A Month at the Movies         Ordinary People

2024    LOD    Holidays                                J is for Just Married

                                                                                          

* The themes for 2022 were Wordles, Limericks and Home Runs

Key to BLOGS: 

HSD Home School Dad *

CUSP Crazy Uncle Dave's Sports Page

YBD Your Basic Dave

DOL Dave Out Loud 

RAN Random Acts of  Dave 

LOD Leap of Dave*

* Leap of Dave is the same blog as Home School Dad.  

I am very excited about participating this year.  Since I am kind of the theme I'm looking forward to putting myself out there.  

Here is a quote from the movie that inspired the title of my theme.

The Theme Reveal Sponsor, No One is offering a prize for anyone who can answer these questions from the above referenced quote:

1. The Name of the film

2. The name of the character speaking.

3. The name of the actor portraying the character.  

Leave your answer in the comments and No One will  be very happy that you participated. 

To  see the theme reveal post as the A-Z challenge website click here.  To  submit your theme reveal post click here. To see the Theme Reveal Spreadsheet click here.

 

Coming April First: Amateur Parodist at your Service. 

<

Lech Walesa stands in solidarity with Ukraine

Lech Walesa has been a hero of mine for a while. His work as a political dissident led him to prison and eventually to become Presdient of Poland. This week he wrote a letter to President Trump after the meeting last Friday between President Trump and Ukranian President Voldymyr Zelensky.

Here is the letter in it's entirety.

Your Excellency, Mr. President, 

We watched the report of your conversation with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, with fear and distaste. We find it insulting that you expect Ukraine to show respect and gratitude for the material assistance provided by the United States in its fight against russia. Gratitude is owed to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They have been dying on the front lines for more than 11 years in the name of these values and the independence of their homeland, which was attacked by Putin’s russia. 

We do not understand how the leader of a country that symbolizes the free world cannot recognize this.

 Our alarm was also heightened by the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation, which reminded us of the interrogations we endured at the hands of the Security Services and the debates in Communist courts. Prosecutors and judges, acting on behalf of the all-powerful communist political police, would explain to us that they held all the power while we held none. They demanded that we cease our activities, arguing that thousands of innocent people suffered because of us. They stripped us of our freedoms and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the government or express gratitude for our oppression. We are shocked that President Volodymyr Zelensky was treated in the same manner. 

The history of the 20th century shows that whenever the United States sought to distance itself from democratic values and its European allies, it ultimately became a threat to itself. President Woodrow Wilson understood this when he decided in 1917 that the United States must join World War I. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this when, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he resolved that the war to defend America must be fought not only in the Pacific but also in Europe, in alliance with the nations under attack by the Third Reich. 

We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and America’s financial commitment, the collapse of the Soviet empire would not have been possible. President Reagan recognized that millions of enslaved people suffered in Soviet Russia and the countries it had subjugated, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their defense of democratic values with their freedom. His greatness lay, among other things, in his unwavering decision to call the USSR an “Empire of Evil” and to fight it decisively. We won, and today, the statue of President Ronald Reagan stands in Warsaw, facing the U.S. Embassy. 

Mr. President, material aid—military and financial—can never be equated with the blood shed in the name of Ukraine’s independence and the freedom of Europe and the entire free world. Human life is priceless; its value cannot be measured in money. Gratitude is due to those who sacrifice their blood and their freedom. This is self-evident to us, the people of Solidarity, former political prisoners of the communist regime under Soviet Russia. We call on the United States to uphold the guarantees made alongside Great Britain in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which established a direct obligation to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for its relinquishment of nuclear weapons. These guarantees are unconditional—there is no mention of treating such assistance as an economic transaction. 

Signed, 

Lech Wałęsa, former political prisoner, President of Poland

Bob Ayala: Joy By Surprise - A Heard It For The FIrst Time Review

I know a lot about contemporary Christian music (CCM)  and a pretty good amount about the history of CCM/ Jesus Music.  Bob Ayala was a CCM Pioneer. While these first two sentences are correct, I just heard about Ayala today.

 I am in a number of FB CCM groups and someone mentioned his 1976 debut album Joy By Surprise.  Spotify is my go to for finding music like this but they only had one Bob Ayala album  or Bob Ayalbum if you will, and it wasn't Joy By Surprise.  I was able to find it on You Tube and have shared it below.  My plan is to listen to it now and give you a quick as I'm hearing it review.  

The album is about 33 minutes long and has 10 songs. Joy By Surprise begins with Stephanie, With Love which is a nice consoling song about a girl who loved and lost.

 The next song  Do You Know Him? starts with a description of God "He is a poet in the wind a sculptor  of the sky line. " 

Nice guitar work and some good front ground la la las which are very typical of this  time frame.  

 Try And Keep The Pace 

Opening lyrics: You were always haunted by the girl you hated standing in your mirror.  The little I read about Ayala stated a  couple Keith Greenesque qualities. These qualities are on full display in this song.    This song also reminds me of more positive less satire look at the issues Randy Stonehill explored in cosmetic fixation and Barbie nation. 

 To The Ancient of Days seems to be the most famous song from this album according to notes on the FB page and the You Tube comments.  One commenter stated he could not listen to it with out thinking of Narnia, this is not too difficult for an album whose cover art is the singer encountering Aslan.  These songs are quick but they have good production value and I can imagine listening to them again and again,

Peace  is the next song and starts with the sounds of the outdoors at night.  The lyrics continue that theme with a nice guitar accompaniment. The person who shared this album on You Tube stated "that the music drifts further to the middle of the road than one would like".  Speaking for myself, this one likes the middle of  the road just fine.

1/2 way through the album as we pause to turn the record over I'll say that so far I like it.  The songs are quick but they have good production value and I can imagine listening to them again and again.  

I enjoyed Silent Witness,  which seems to be a love song from an unbelieving husband  to his  believing wife. There was a really good lyric in the beginning that I couldn't write down quick enough.  I look forward to hearing it again on a subsequent listen.  

 Joy By Surprise, the title track has a Don Francisco country twang to it which I quite enjoyed.  The lyrics also reminded me of C.S. Lewis a) because Lewis's autobiography is called Surprised by Joy and b) since some of the lyrics talk about scales being removed which is so very Eustace Clarence Scrubb. 

 The Song of Joseph is next and while there are many Joseph's in the Bible,  This one is definitely about Mary's husband.  I found it the most uneven of the songs I've heard so far.  Of course this is just one listen in, and often songs have a way of surprising me after multiple hearings.

 Lord is the penultimate song on this collection.  Where Joseph's song is an Advent song, Lord, is a Good Friday song.  The music is slow and sad and helps you imagine Jesus carrying his cross on the way to  Calvary. If it wasn't obvious before that this was a1970's album this song brings that idea home with an sledge hammer masquerading as an exclamation point.   

 

To end an album with  a song called New Beginnings is kind of different.  It's a good song and is very Michael Cardish with the vocals and the orchestration.  

A couple of final vinyl thoughts that I'd like to spin.  I recognized the names of a couple musicians on the album.  First there is  Billy Batstone   who wears lots of hats,  singer, songwriter, worship leader, bassist, guitarist and of course becomes Captain Marvel when he say Shazam.   Then I read about the drummer Al McDougal and I was thinking that name sounds very familiar.  Then I realized it was probably Alex MacDougal who used to drum for Daniel Amos.  Sure enough he has is credited in Discogs for his work on this album.  

I like this album and kind of want to finish this review quickly so I can listen to it again.  One of the blogs I read mentioned him in early 2020 as still being alive. Apparently in the Fall of that year he passed away while visiting his sister perhaps due to some vertigo issues he had been experiencing.  It was kind of strangely sad discovering he died nearly 5 years prior to my discovery of him.  In a sense I wish I discovered his music earlier, but in another way it's kind of nice to discover old music that's new to you.  

Wordless Wednesday: Memories from our 2023 trip to Greece. First Night In Athens

Wordless Wednesday is brought to you each week by Comedy Plus.  Click here for more Wordless Wednesday.  

Cold Topics: President Obama's Message for America's Students

A lot of times when you do a blog you find yourself commenting on whatever the hot topic of the day is. If you are not a posting daily, it is very possible that by the time you get to the topic, it is no longer hot.

I always thought it might be interesting to go back and look at a formerly hot topic and review it after it had long gone cold.  

If we go into the way back machine to September of 2009, back when this blog was less than a year old and still called Home School Dad, we can discover a topic that was very hot at the time  that has since gone cold, but still has some relevance today.  

On September 8, 2009 President Obama spoke to  students in Virginia and the speech was telecast to students all over the country.  For some reason this created quite a stir.  

I remember not  understanding what the hubbub was all about and watching the speech with my students (children) at the Izola Becker Home School.  Some time has passed and now the  K-12 students who may have watched the event at school are all at least 2 years out of high school by now.  Students who were seniors in high school will be having their 15th hisg school reunion, and my youngest daughter who was 3 at the time of the speech is now a Freshman in college.  

Here is the then "controversial" address:

 

Click here for a transcript of his speech.

Click here for an Albert Mohler post decrying the controversy

Click here for politico's take on the controversy

Click here for a blog post stating why it was a conservative speech.

I was interested to see if I could find out more about Tim Spicer, the student who introduced Obama.  It turns out that in addition to being involved helping students and school districts in low income communities, Spicer was a contestant on Season 46 of Survivor.

There we are, our first edition of cold topics.  I was either going to call it that, or perhaps hot topics for procrastinators.  Once today's  news becomes yesterday's olds we may have another edition.  

Team Saturdazzle: The one where I meet a FB friend for the first time and then unfriend them

 Hello and welcome once again to Team Saturdazzle.  I have 3 or 4 random things to share this Saturday.  Let's get started shall we.  

Last Saturday there was a Men's breakfast at my church. As I was waiting in line I saw a friend from a church we had both previously attended.  I went and sat with him and remembered that my friend was active in the same prison visitation ministry that the speaker was from.  At a table of 8 people most were friends of the speaker through the prison ministry.  My friend was asking me if I knew another man at our table who had also attended our previous church and was now pastoring a different church.  When I heard the name, I recognized it right away and realized that this guy was a Facebook friend of mine.

The interesting thing was I don't remember ever meeting this guy before.  He has been a FB friend for awhile, but I'm not sure I've ever seen him post about anything.  I introduced myself to him and told him we were FB friends but he gave me no impression that we had ever known each other.  Here is what I think happened, The church I used to attend had at one point 7 men at the church all named Dave,  There were 4 of us whose last name ended with er. Back in the day when FB was popular it was fairly common to get beleaguered with friend request and friend recommendations.  I wouldn't be surprised if this guy got a "You might also know ... " message and mixed me up with one of the other er Dave's from church. Then when I got the friend request  I accepted thinking we would become better acquainted.  For the past few years when I've been cleaning up my FB contacts, I have considered removing this person  but hesitated thinking maybe we had a backstory I ad forgotten and we would meet someday and he would clue me in.

Well when we met there was  he seemed as clueless as me in regards to our backstory.  So today when I was cleaning up my FB contacts I unfriended him.  Since we were basically oblivious of each other in the non digital world until last week, I think we will get over the loss rather quickly.  

Earlier this week I participated in the Weekly Writer's Workshop at The Sound of One Hand Typing.  Each week John Holton gives multiple prompts to choose from.  This weeks were: 

1. Write a post based on the word grudges. 
2. Write a post in exactly 13 lines. 
3. Write about something you learned in the month of February. 
4. List your five favorite snack foods. 
5. Tell us about the worst haircut you ever had. 
6. What are the five things you enjoyed doing the most when you were in sixth grade? Do you still enjoy doing them?

I chose to combine prompt two and six.  After which I used paragraphy at byrdseed.com to put the sentences in random order.  

Here is my original.  The number reinforces the original order.  The letter shows what order paragraphy put them in.  To see how it appeared originally in my blog click here,

1.  The prompt I chose for today is to write a post using exactly 13 lines. (L)
2.  I have adjusted that to be exactly 13 sentences.  (A)
3. I will also try to remember back almost 50 years ago when I was in the 6th grade to think about the 5 things I enjoyed most back then and evaluate if I still like them today. (K)
4.  I have been wanting for some years to put in a post using Paragraphy and will try to do that today.  (E)
5. How Paragraphy works is you write a paragraph and then the sentences are randomly reordered.  (I)
6. See if you can figure out the original order. (M)
7.  In 1975 when I started 6th grade, I was a huge White Sox fan.  (B)
8. Fifty years later I still am. (H)
9. Back then I was quite the television watcher and had the network schedule memorized. (G)
10. Even now when I hear about an old show, the first thing I think of is what network it was on and what day it aired.  (J)
11. In 6th grade I was still in the school band and I played the saxophone, I liked playing but was never very good at it, so that was my last year.  (C)
12. The other two were baseball and bicycling.  (F)
13. They are still two passions of mine. (D)

The number reinforces the original order.  The letter shows what order paragraphy put them in.  To see how it appeared originally in my blog click here

The A to Z challenge is coming up next month and I am still working on my theme reveal.  While I'm not quite ready to tell you what theme I am doing, I can tell you about one that I thought about doing and may do in the future. 

On The February 1 Team Saturdazzle post, I wrote a little about Sesame Street and shared 3 clips  from the show.  Two of the clips featured guest appearances.  This got me to toying with thee idea of an  A-Z theme with Sesame Street  guest appearances.   While it didn't make the cut for this year, I may revisit it in future challenges.  I am happy, though to share this gem of Andrew Garfield and Elmo talking about grief.

March Madness is not just for Basketball!

This is the third year that I am participating in a Wordle March Madness event.  If you reading this post because you are a FB friend of mine look you may have seen an invitation to play along thus year.  What were doing is playing wordle as usual at the NYT site each day this month and sharing our results. Like golf we are trying for low scores.  I will share  the top 10 each competitors each week here at Team Saturdazzle.  

We've had quite the Saturdazzle!  Unfrienships, mixed up memories,  grief on the street,  and a March to Wordle Madness. Thanks for visiting.  

Writers Workshop: 13 Lines about five things I enjoyed in 6th grade. (Paragraphy Edition)

Writer's Workshop is taking place again at The Sound of One Hand Typing.

Here are this week’s prompts: (The ones I chose are in bold.)

1.  Write a post based on the word grudges. 
2. Write a post in exactly 13 lines. 
3. Write about something you learned in the month of February. 
4. List your five favorite snack foods. 
5. Tell us about the worst haircut you ever had. 
6. What are the five things you enjoyed doing the most when you were in sixth grade? Do you still enjoy doing them?

 

1. I have adjusted that to be exactly 13 sentences.
2. In 1975 when I started 6th grade, I was a huge White Sox fan.
3. In 6th grade I was still in the school band and I played the saxophone, I liked playing but was never very good at it, so that was my last year.
4. They are still two passions of mine.
5. I have been wanting for some years to write a  post using Paragraphy and will try to do that today.
6. The other two were baseball and bicycling.
7. Back then I was quite the television watcher and had the network schedule memorized.
8. Fifty years later I still am.
9. How Paragraphy works is you write a paragraph and then the sentences are randomly reordered.
10. Even now when I hear about an old show, the first thing I think of is what network it was on and what day it aired.
11. I will also try to remember back almost 50 years ago when I was in the 6th grade to think about the 5 things I enjoyed most back then and evaluate if I still lie them today.
12. The prompt I chose for today is to write a post using exactly 13 lines.
13. See if you can figure out the original order.

Click here for more Writer's Workshop.  In your comments to my post just order the letters to see if you can guess how my paragraph was supposed to turn out,