Bouffants, Beehives And The Five Finger Discount

Just the other night, Dave, Arnie, Carlos and I were reminiscing over some of the stores in town that are no longer. And about the old-lady clerks who patrolled the aisles, who all coincidentally sported big bouffant or beehive (if there is a distinction, I don't know what it is) hair-dos ( actually, hornet's nest would be more accurate) and black cat's eye framed glasses.

I didn't frequent the Home Town Super Market much because the gas stations really had the corner on candy, though the lady who ran the cash register, she was tall anyway but she had this swirling, Marge Simpson like, vertical mound of red hair and black horned rim glasses. She really pulled off the tall, scary, Sunday school teacher look quite successfully. And I think Mr. Dykman, who ran the store, kinda dug it.



But now the Ben Franklin store was a treasure trove of both candy AND toys. Everything from the latest plastic army guys (Germans if you were lucky) to the latest Ed"Big Daddy" Roth series of Rat Fink models. But this store's particular ol' lady clerk, who had to be a direct relative of the scary Sunday school, grocery store lady next door only this lady's bee's nest was blond (sorry Mike Fre-holy, hope she isn't your mom) was ALWAYS on me like stink on poo.
I don't remember ever lifting anything from this store, how could you. Not with this Nazi storm-trooper on patrol. They also had this elevated office area at the back of the store where they could look out over the aisles like a machine gun post in a guard tower. You actually felt guilty without ever taking anything. But I loved that store too much to ever want to be banned from it.

Now, about that old lady at the Oz Theatre...

Summer Breeze (Not For The Squeamish)

For all the proper direction from denim purveyors aimed at keeping rigid, anti-fit, feels and looks like aluminum siding, Levi's 501s in their original just-store-bought state, it might be wise to also impose a caveat as to the length of time the wearer takes before finally drowning them in soap and water.
Or in my case, before my wife liberally douses them in kerosene and strikes a match after practically being brought to tears by the fermented, smells like ass fumes burning through her nostrils from opening a drawer full of jeans that hadn't been opened after one of the warmest, muggiest summers on record. And all I could come back with was,"But Honey, They Said"...

Lesson learned: Think about wearing your crispy 501s through-out fall, winter and spring. And if you have a specific drawer you store your jeans in, make good friends with a box of those Fabreze, dryer cloths. That, or maybe its finally time to change the aluminum siding?

Photo: Nicked from levis501rigid.blogspot.com

Shut Thine Piehole

Stone Temple Pilots, nope. Shirt Tail Press, not even. Scientifically Treated Petroleum, yes sir!
Back in '54, Charles Dwight (Doc) Liggett, Jim Hill and Robert DeHart from St. Joseph, Missouri, cooked up and packaged this automotive stew in a garage at night, then sold it out of their car trunks by day.
Studebaker-Packard , with Andy Granatelli at the helm, bought STP in '61 and soon signed a sponsorship deal with Mario Andretti's Indy-Car race team. Nine years later, STP jumped the fence to NASCAR, which began their long time association with stock car legend, Richard Petty.

History from: racelinecentral.com

Trans(parent)

I honestly had no intention of recruiting my own kids into a life of crime, but since I was fired from the sales floor at Danny's. I fell into bankruptcy, moral bankruptcy.
It began innocently enough over a few laughs and beer at how I'd make ends meet. Then one afternoon, we were no longer laughing, we were planning.
And then we did it.
We started out small and unassuming by knocking off a pet grooming place a couple of towns over.
Then we laid low for a few weeks, after the shock of how easy it was. Then we hit a small insurance agency only to find out they don't carry any real cash. But we did take something away from that little hiccup...we developed a taste for "it."
The adrenaline rush I once felt playing Streets Of San Francisco as a kid, returned.

This is a 3-D photo is of us at a secluded boot camp. Probably very similar to what you go through in a covert-ops, security contractor's training exercise, like that one that's in the news all the time, Blackhole Sun, or whatever.
The reason I describe it as a 3-D photo is because of the way my gut just kind of comes right at you. You know how in those movies where you want to flinch or duck. Kind of like that.

That's one proud Poppa right there!

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Photo:sperrytopsider.com