From Pillar to the Leonard Post VFW
Sep. 18th, 2010 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogNot much "off" in this "off day." The usual runs to office, post office, bank, gym, store, but with a trip to the classy side of town thrown in.
I just finished Stones into Schools, Greg Mortenson's book about empowering women in Central Asia through education, and another he recommended in the Epilogue was Half the Sky, the book behind the movement of that name to empower women around the world through stopping some of the most primitive yet accepted practices among developing nations. (Proving once again that the Internet consists of six people, five of whom I know: the co-authors of the book, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, were the first married couple ever to win a joint Pulitzer; I graduated from Cornell the same year Sheryl did, and worked with her on the news staff of the Cornell Sun.)
The only surefire source for that book in our library system was one of the two branches in Cheektovegas named for a Reinstein, so I headed there via Beach, Union and Losson. When I arrived, at the front door of the building was a living breathing stereotype of life in the Southtowns: a late-model Camaro, plastered on the back with bumper stickers for various sports teams and police unions, taking up the handicapped space closest to the door, with no license plate or permit in sight to suggest any entitlement to park there other than the driver's own sense of it. For some reason, it reminded me of my favorite Chikkawagga joke, which I can't find on the Internet and thus will need to paraphrase from memory:
Stanley the [insert central European ethnic group indigenous to Cheektowaga] was fed up with all the [ethnic group] stereotypes, and so decided to try out a new ethnicity. He practiced his Italian-American speech patterns, slicked back his hair, bought a late-model Camaro, and finally, one day, set out to see how the act would work. He pulled up at the first drive-thru he could find, and when the squawk box spoke to him, he said, "Yo! Gimme a double cheeseburger, onion rings and a large orange drink, willya babe?"
The box squawked back derisively, "You're not fooling anyone, you dumb [name of Stanley's actual ethnic group known in comic tradition for being a little dim]."
Stanley was taken aback. "What gave me away, dere?"
"This is a bank."
Badum ching.
From the library, I looped back to my own haunts by way of Transit Road. Transit, in those parts, is the bisecting line of Depew- a village straddling Cheektowaga and neighboring Lancaster. On the pink flamingo side of the road, I noticed, for the first time, a cigar store in one of the ubiquituous strip malls. Its name? "Nice Ash."
I think I need to get out and see all of these tributes to tackiness more often.
----
Continuing the Cute Animal photoset- Eleanor had been taking shots of the gang for Emily, and Ebony had been the most resistive of photography. She'd turn her head, lunge at the food on Mommy's plate right before the shutter clicked, generally was not ready for her closeup.
Then dumb old me just wandered in, cell phone in hand, right before bed last night and got this of her without even trying:
I'd say she's giving us our seal of approval.
----
Last minute edit. Stanley wasn't the only one who was a little dim. More about that sometime tomorrow.
I just finished Stones into Schools, Greg Mortenson's book about empowering women in Central Asia through education, and another he recommended in the Epilogue was Half the Sky, the book behind the movement of that name to empower women around the world through stopping some of the most primitive yet accepted practices among developing nations. (Proving once again that the Internet consists of six people, five of whom I know: the co-authors of the book, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, were the first married couple ever to win a joint Pulitzer; I graduated from Cornell the same year Sheryl did, and worked with her on the news staff of the Cornell Sun.)
The only surefire source for that book in our library system was one of the two branches in Cheektovegas named for a Reinstein, so I headed there via Beach, Union and Losson. When I arrived, at the front door of the building was a living breathing stereotype of life in the Southtowns: a late-model Camaro, plastered on the back with bumper stickers for various sports teams and police unions, taking up the handicapped space closest to the door, with no license plate or permit in sight to suggest any entitlement to park there other than the driver's own sense of it. For some reason, it reminded me of my favorite Chikkawagga joke, which I can't find on the Internet and thus will need to paraphrase from memory:
Stanley the [insert central European ethnic group indigenous to Cheektowaga] was fed up with all the [ethnic group] stereotypes, and so decided to try out a new ethnicity. He practiced his Italian-American speech patterns, slicked back his hair, bought a late-model Camaro, and finally, one day, set out to see how the act would work. He pulled up at the first drive-thru he could find, and when the squawk box spoke to him, he said, "Yo! Gimme a double cheeseburger, onion rings and a large orange drink, willya babe?"
The box squawked back derisively, "You're not fooling anyone, you dumb [name of Stanley's actual ethnic group known in comic tradition for being a little dim]."
Stanley was taken aback. "What gave me away, dere?"
"This is a bank."
Badum ching.
From the library, I looped back to my own haunts by way of Transit Road. Transit, in those parts, is the bisecting line of Depew- a village straddling Cheektowaga and neighboring Lancaster. On the pink flamingo side of the road, I noticed, for the first time, a cigar store in one of the ubiquituous strip malls. Its name? "Nice Ash."
I think I need to get out and see all of these tributes to tackiness more often.
----
Continuing the Cute Animal photoset- Eleanor had been taking shots of the gang for Emily, and Ebony had been the most resistive of photography. She'd turn her head, lunge at the food on Mommy's plate right before the shutter clicked, generally was not ready for her closeup.
Then dumb old me just wandered in, cell phone in hand, right before bed last night and got this of her without even trying:
I'd say she's giving us our seal of approval.
----
Last minute edit. Stanley wasn't the only one who was a little dim. More about that sometime tomorrow.