Eight Feet Deep

more about “Ray Stevens-The Streak“, posted with vodpod

Ed note: If you have no idea what the headline is paraphrasing, play the above video. Or “Don’t look Ethel” if you are offended by (the idea of) people taking off their clothes and running around places nekkid as a jaybird.

Actually, this post has nothing to do with streaking. I wish it did because it’s a much more interesting subject in my mind than squeaking shoes, of which I’m about to speak, write, say. Whatever. You will probably like the video more than my post. Or not. Or you might hate both.

I have noted here before that I received two pairs of diabetic shoes from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Let me clarify: The shoes aren’t diabetic. I am. They are shoes made for diabetic people. I really didn’t know how big a deal feet were in the diabetic world until being diagnosed with Type II diabetes. But they are a big deal. That is because your feet regulate your sugar and if you get too much sugar you are supposed to suck your big toe. There is a whole big explanation here. But diabetics and medical people who give them care tend to obsess over feet and with pretty good reason.

My diabetic shoes squeak. I figured they would eventually stop squeaking with some wear. They didn’t. The shoes don’t squeak all the time, just  walking on certain surfaces such as highly waxed floors. The floors in my office building are like that.

The shoes didn’t come with any instructions so I searched the ‘net. I found a lot of different suggestions, everything from waxing the bottom of your shoes to using WD-40. I tried the WD-40, and while it works on just about everything else on Earth, it didn’t stop my squeaky shoes.

I finally found a phone number for the company — Aetrex, in Teaneck, N.J. —  and while waiting awhile on the phone to talk with someone, I was told of “Foot.com.“ It looks quite extensive for those who have various foot conditions. As for foot fetishes, I don’t think they can help you.

Eventually I talked with a nice lady who apologized for my squeaking shoes and made some suggestions.

“”One is if you take out the insoles and put baby powder in the footbed and then put the insoles back in,” she said. “Also, you can get a candle and take the insoles out and put wax from the candle inside the footbed.”

I will try the powder suggestion and see if it works. The candle, I don’t know. I am too worried that since I likewise have the shakes (benign essential tremors in my hands is what they call it — yeah, I’m a mess)  I might end up torching my shoes. Hopefully, these suggestions will work.

A man shouldn’t squeak when he walks. Or he shouldn’t squeak,  period. I look forward to being squeakless, squeak-free, asqueak, squeaky clean.

Charlie Rich said it best: ” … no one knows what goes on behind closed doors.” Now Al and Tipper are splitting up after 40 years. See, I just said “Al and Tipper” and you know who I’m talking about. It’s not like Madonna and her latest squeeze breaking up. These are allegedly the pair whom the best-seller “Love Story” was based upon. Yeah, I know, I know, and Al invented the Internet. The pair was married 40 years. That is a long time. Think about it. Think about the divorce statistics. It’s certainly not unheard of, huh my brothers? But the fact that more marriagse don’t last is, in the abstract at least,  sad. Tipper might have been living hell to live with, or vice versa. Why did I mention Tipper first? You make the call.

It is beyond me why people are not more interested in social history. Of course, history in general is not popular among all sectors of the population and I guess I understand why.

History was taught in school for eons with students having to memorize dates and what is seemingly obscure legislation such as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

Normal folks, those who don’t spend their childhood with their noses jammed into the World Almanac, probably give little thought to social history. Those who do, look at it in its more specialized form these days such as “African-American studies,” “rural studies,” “women’s studies” and so forth. As for me, I would just like to know how Memorial Day got saddled in society as the traditional beginning of summer? After all, summer doesn’t officially begin until another 20 some-odd days. I guess the same would go for Labor Day marking the end of summer.

In a good many places in, especially the southern part of North America, the weather normally feels like it is summer on Memorial Day than spring. So that answers my question, right? No. It doesn’t.

But I suppose I tend to favor hanging on to spring as long as I can. That is because I’m a “spring person.” People have their favorite seasons, deer hunters in these parts, for instance, tend to favor fall, during which the beginning and much of deer season takes place.

There is a lot to like about spring, in my book. My part of world is covered in majestic tones of green. Flowers and trees bloom. The temperature is mild. You tend to turn lazy, or in my case, lazier. A young man’s fancy turns to love, or what might pass for it.

I tend to think the best times of my life were in the spring, certain springs which seemed like they flew by way too fast and all of a sudden you were in the real wold with summer facing you down. But I’ve had hot fun in the summertime. Great falls and even enjoyable winters. The winter I spent on a ship overseas in the western and southern Pacific, the coolest temperatures I saw were a only a few days in the 40-degree (F) range, in New Zealand — during the early morning hours and where it was actually summer, — and once off the coast of Okinawa. Coincidentally, it was pretty cold that winter back home in southeast Texas in winter 1977-78, from where I hailed.

It seems only in recent years, after 9/11, that Memorial Day made a comeback in its intended form. That is, certainly, to pay homage to our war dead. There have been way too many since that bleak, though clear blue, day in 2001.

BP fails to stop “the damn leak”

BP has admitted their attempt has failed to pump mud and concrete, then later a bunch of, literally, junk, into their runaway oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil company intends to try a type of cap on it next that would channel it to the surface where it can be captured and put onto a vessel.

Many people are getting pretty fed up with the continued failed attempts to “stop the damn leak.” It seems as if BP and the government are doing all that can be done until a relief well is drilled, which probably won’t be finished until August. Whether the former is true, I have no earthly idea. I certainly have no means of going out into the Gulf and swim down 5,000 feet to plug the leak. So there is no need to get mad at me for it.

But I understand the frustration. It’s one hell of a mess out there and if it can’t be contained anytime soon, we should make sure the chances of something like this happening again are made very slim.

It’s been a long week. Should you be in the mood to reflect upon the true meaning of Memorial Day — meaning if you aren’t out drunk water skiing — here is something interesting to read. It is the U.S. Army page on the Medal of Honor. It has the citations for all, not just Army, military personnel who have received the nation’s highest honor since the medal was first awarded for Civil War recipients.

What is interesting to me is that these citations are presented, conflict-by-conflict, telling a history of our country that is surprising. I mean, I never heard of the U.S. punitive expedition to Korea in 1871, also known as Shinmiyangyo, much less that 15 Marines and sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions in that conflict.

Looking at, especially, so-called “interim” periods between wars which produced a number of MOH recipients it seems as if the award didn’t have quite as stringent standards as today. That isn’t to downplay those awarded for saving drowning victims and the like. There are also some whose awards may have been politically-inspired, such as Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt for leading his volunteer Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War. Perhaps also some awards were righting past wrongs such as awarding black and Japanese Americans from World War II.

I still say Dorie Miller, the black messman from Waco, Texas, on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, deserves the Medal of Honor for his action on Dec. 7, 1941. Perhaps Congress will one day do the right thing about this award.

This is disturbing on several levels. Tens of thousands of combat helmets sent to our troops are being recalled because they are substandard. They are made locally at the Beaumont (Texas) federal prison through UNICOR, a.k.a. Federal Prison Industries. The Newark Advocate reports that they failed tests during a rare but “worst-case scenario” test when hit by multiple gunshots at a specific angle. There are so many things I would like to know about this story, some of them have to do with our local media.