Paul Simons

Before anyone spends any money there's a problem of definition of terms. And the conviction and incarceration haven't occurred. The definition problem is even more acute than that. "Current situation" means far more than anything that could be contained in a vat of boiling oyster stew. It couldn't be contained in the cooling pond of a nuclear power plant or the caldera of a volcano. And the conviction and incarceration of more than one individual will be required to fully rectify the current situation, although one would go a long way if it was the right one. But alas, as Chuck Berry, in the song "Memphis Tennessee" told the long-distance operator, "More than that I cannot add."

Paul Simons

With apologies to those classmates who are once again having to gnash their teeth in outrage at having to read yet another blanket accusation, another 12 theses nailed to the lunchroom door by Martin Luther Simons, or a free sample from the Encyclopedia Brittanica salesman standing on your porch who in return for the refreshing glass of lemonade you offered will provide you with everything known by man about the subject you want to know about  - with apologies to them it appears that certain elements need to be elucidated.

Now I could just refuse to comply with the law - that's in style these days. Or I could just insist that the law be changed because I don't like it - that's also very popular in the (supposed) best circles these days. Or I could just say sure, ask away, and then plead the 5th, another useful ploy. But no  I plead absolutely guilty. I neglected to address the subject which in the interest of brevity I will call the centrality theorem. In a previous post the Central Oyster House was mentioned. It was probably easy to get to from Central Parkway. Probably so was Central High School. Cincinnati is in the ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic center, if not the geographical and political, center of the country. What does this mean? Nothing. Good day.

And just to further prove the point let me quote from the great songwriter Shel Silverstein as sung by Bobby Bare:

"This broken back is the dyin' act of Handsome Harry Clay

That sticky Cincinnati night I stole his wife away

But that woman she gets uglier and she gets meaner every day

But I got her, boy, and that makes me The Winner!"

I'm

Paul Simons

https://pearl-star.com/

Cincinnati has a NEW OYSTER BAR!!

Paul Simons

It's mighty quiet here, maybe a bit too quiet. True, certain topics are off limits like whether laws apply to everybody or not or whether elections should be decided by voters or by somebody else or do vaccines work but there are other interesting topics like UFOs or in current lingo UAPs - unidentified aerial phenomena. I'm sure Mr. Spiess knows a thing or two about them and they are the only possible way certain class members who shall remain nameless got here. Personally every time I apply math to the issue, the answer to the problem "If Dave Buchholz left a hypothetical planet orbiting our nearest astral neighbor Alpha Centauri which is 25 trillion miles away going 40 times the speed of our fastest manned vehicle or 1,000,000 miles per hour - that's about 278 miles per second - how long would it take him to get to a red brick schoolhouse on Victory Parkway?" is "Wait, what?" But thanks to Google it's about 2,854 years. At a million miles an hour. He doesn't look that old. I might look that old but Dave doesn't look a day over 500 years old. If anyone managed to go that fast they wind up like peanut butter, extra creamy, not chunky at all. Or worse. And yet some are sure they've encountered aliens either in their spacecraft doing entertaining stunt flying or in line at the 7-11 by the trailer park trying not to look like the being pictured on the National Enquirer in the rack next to the checkout lane. It's an impulse buy item like a certain  "news"  network -  something meant to be consumed by those with empty lives who crave the sensational, and whether it's true or not is irrelevant. It sells.

Bruce Fette

Paul, 

So if we arrange to travel at 1 billion miles per hour its only 2.85 years. Just enough time to read "War and Peace"?

Paul Simons

Bruce - sure, why not? Your profile photo shows you with a rocket, and although I did say that those who in fact got here from another planet would remain nameless, I have to ask how it feels to travel at a billion miles an hour, and how did you like "War And Peace"? I never read it, never got beyond "The Transistor Circuit Handbook" and of course the book where all scientific facts are to be found, the bible. But not that King James, or King Donald, or King Charles version. The King Bubba version with pictures by R. Crumb.

Dale Gieringer

I hate to be a wet blanket, Bruce, but 1 billion miles per hour is faster than the speed of light.  

Steven Levinson

Dale, isnt the speed of light, in miles per hour, 186,000 X 60 X 60 = 669, 600,000, which is less that a billion miles per hour?  Or am I still math challenged? 

Bruce Fette

Yes, 1 billion miles per hour is 447,040,000 m/s which  is slightly faster than light at 300,000,000 m/s. Thats warp 1.5. 

William Shatner, Patrick Stewart and Harrison Ford each traveled faster than that  :)  :)

As far as current understanding of physics goes, mass increases as you approach the speed of light. 

However, Einstein didnt tell us what happens beyond the speed of light. And no tech has published how to achieve that. However, just like a black hole where the physics involved a non-linearity, perhaps a non-linearity may enable propulsion beyond the speed of light. I think the propulsers in star trek used dilithium crystals, but I think I would try anti-matter which is already in some non-linear domain, which a few physicists do have some comrehension about.

As for transistor circuitry, I remember reading about how to use transistors while in highschool. I read an article in a ham radio magazine. I started building circuits soon after. The magazine made it clearly easy. While a sophmore I got to work at TI, and diigital transistor circuits are even easier.  I was frequently amused how my college professors made it much harder than it needs to be.

So, Paul, Happy to help with circuits any time - relays, tubes or transistors.

I will say that I have nver seen the book you are showing, but it looks like a good place to start.

Paul Simons

To go in reverse order "The Transistor Circuit Handbook" is both practical and good reading. It made it possible for me to make a 1-transistor variable frequency oscillator which was intended to impress my acquaintances  - it didn't - but it did impress me. The early transistors were the RCA 2N109 and Raytheon CK722 (AF) and CK768 (RF) so a working 2-transistor regenerative radio was possible. I got a Philmore kit for one at Steinberg's downtown which of course doesn't exist anymore. I did a really lousy soldering job and had to take it to a TV repair shop, also now an extinct species, where the kindly proprietor took time off from the job and taught me how it's done so I finally got it working and could get "Everybody's Farm" on WLW and even music on WSAI.

About the fast velocities isn't the problem not so much going at them, but accelerating up to them? Isn't that where the G-forces come into play resulting in transformation to peanut butter or perhaps a salad dressing for cannibals? Unless you want to take many years just going from zero to say 1 million miles an hour or about 290 miles a second if my math is right it looks to me like it would be an insurmountable problem.

This is an entry point to a serious discussion of salad dressing names. 1,000 Islands? Where? Indonesia? What ocean? French? Every time I see a plate of French food there's no orange goop on it and it's mostly plate anyway. Russian? Remember when the king was constantly palling around with Vladimir Putin, did you see decanters of red slop on the elaborately set table? Caesar? We all read Julius Caesar In the original Latin. Does anyone remember one word about his salad dressing? I didn't think so. Ranch? What kind of ranch? This brings up a serious concern about who is in charge and what is happening to school lunch programs, and for that matter to the conduct of certain American business executives in general:

Paul Simons

It’s Sunday of the week before Christmas which is a United States Federal holiday. No matter what faith tradition you follow, or none, December 25 is an extraordinary day. I propose recognizing that there is something wonderful about humanity, along with all the horrific things we have done and continue to do to one another, to the plants and animals we share the planet with, and to the planet itself. There is no clearer evidence of this than the marshaling of resources and intelligence that has resulted in the existence of White Castle hamburgers.
 

Stephen (Steve) Dixon

I just want to say that this recent experience in remote learning has been intriguing and rich in memory triggers.

Many thanks to those of you who have done work>

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Heri za Kwanzaa! And blessing s on people of all faiths, and of little or none.
 

Dale Gieringer

Phil - Many thanks for posting the recipe for Osgood pie.  I made one yesterday, substituting dried cranberries for raisins, and it turned out scrumptious.  Perfect holiday dessert, like mince meat or pecan pie.  And quite simple to make, provided you do as I do and buy your pie shell ready-made from the store.  As the Greeks say, easy as pi !   .  DG

    (come to think of it, isn't that the next Covid variant after omicron?)   

Gail Weintraub (Stern)

What is Phil's Post # for Osgood Pie?

Bruce Fette

Paul,

I built that same 2 transistor radio in 7th grade.I remember showing it to the shop teacher.

And I am pretty sure I ruined a lot of CK722 transistors in my early years. :)

My kids gifted me a book on the inventors. It includes a chapter on Shockley Brattain, and Bardeen.

The book describes in detail how Brattain and Bardeen fiddled with the point contact transistor until it worked. It was interesting how they finally got it to work.It was very much an experimental approach.

But now I want a sackful of White Castles! Can FedX deliver them while they are still warm?

Philip Spiess

Gail:  My post for Osgood Pie (the Golden Lamb Inn's recipe) is Post #5781, 11-10-21.  And yes, Dale, cranberries would work great in it (and, yes, I tend to use store-bought pie shells for simplicity's sake, although I have some good recipes for homemade pie crust as well).

(Uh, Dale, Pi came at Thanksgiving, just after Omicron hit.  Now Rho will be coming, via the Supreme Court!)

Philip Spiess

Since Paul Simons has inquired about several matters, and has full confidence in my ability to respond to them, I suppose I might as well:

First up:  UFOs and other extra-terrestrial matters (Paul's Post #5851, 12-16-21).  Judy Holtzer originally made inquiries relating to such things, and I believe I answered this sort of inquiry at my Post #5411, 1-16-21, citing the very dubious works of George Adamski and Donald Keyhoe.  I later followed up (Post #5420, 1-18-21) with a reference to the possibility of UFOs being mentioned in the Bible's Old Testament.

Now on to more important matters, namely food.  Paul inquires (Post #5857, 12-18-21) about the well-known but questionable names of various popular salad dressings.  Let us take them in order:

French Dressing:  The original "French dressing," as everyone will agree, is a simple "vinaigrette," invented by the French, namely, an oil and vinegar (usually red wine vinegar) mixture, seasoned with salt, pepper, and various herbs, most often thyme or maybe tarragon.  It often includes a dollop of Dijon mustard (my favorite), well shaken together or otherwise mixed.  But wait!  Paul refers to French dressing as an "orange goop"; this is a commercial American dressing that is creamy, tartly sweet, and (I quote The New Food Lover's Companion, 4th edition, here) "red-orange in color."

Russian Dressing:  This salad dressing, containing mayonnaise, pimiento, chili sauce or catsup (giving it its distinctive red color), chives, and various herbs, is actually American in origin.  There are two schools of thought as to its name:  (1) earlier versions of the dressing apparently contained Caviar, for which Russia is famous; (2) so-called because of its red color, the color inevitably associated with Russia, particularly in its Communist days (this is the theory I adhere to as a cultural historian). 

1,000 Island Dressing:  A mayonnaise-based salad dressing made with chili sauce and finely chopped ingredients, including stuffed green olives, green peppers, pickles, onions, and hard-boiled eggs.  The dressing is named after the Thousand Islands area of upstate New York, which includes 1,864 islands in the St. Lawrence River between the United States and Canada, which extend downstream from the eastern end of Lake Ontario.  All of those little chopped-up bits referred to above, floating in the chili sauce-enriched mayonnaise, constitute the "1,000 Islands."

Caesar Salad Dressing:  Though many make the mistake of assuming that this salad and its signature dressing are named after Julius Caesar or one of his descendants, it is actually named after its creator, Italian chef Caesar Cardini, who created it in 1924 at his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico (it quickly caught on with visiting Californians).  It consists of Romaine lettuce tossed with a garlic vinaigrette dressing (made with Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice), grated Parmesan cheese, croutons, a coddled egg, and topped with anchovies.  A bottled Caesar salad dressing (not necessarily the complete recipe as indicated above) is still available in stores under the Caesar Cardini label. 

Ranch Dressing:  Reputed to be the most popular salad dressing in America, ranch dressing is named after Hidden Valley Ranch, a 120-acre dude ranch near Santa Barbara, California.  In 1949 Steve Henson, a plumbing contractor, went to work in Alaska; his job included being cook, and he developed a recipe for a buttermilk-based salad dressing.  When he and his wife moved to California, they opened the dude ranch, and their salad dressing became the house specialty.  Patrons of the ranch so loved the dressing that the Hensons eventually sold the dressing commercially under the name "Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing."  Other food producers, seeing the dressing's success, began to create "ranch style" dressings and other products in the mid-1970s and 1980s.  [Note:  Ranch dressing beat out Italian dressing in 1992 as the best-selling salad dressing in America.]

(And what about) Green Goddess Dressing:  This classic salad dressing was created in the 1920s by the chef at San Francisco's Palace Hotel in honor of actor George Arliss, who was appearing in the play Green Goddess (silent movie starring Arliss, 1923; sound movie starring Arliss, 1930).  George Arliss was a movie superstar of the 1920s and 1930s; his most famous role was as Disraeli in "Disraeli" (silent movie, 1921; sound movie, 1929; you can still find this movie, which is good).  The dressing is a blend of mayonnaise, tarragon vinegar, anchovies, parsley, chives, tarragon, scallions, and garlic.  Besides salads, it is often used as a sauce for fish and shellfish.

Paul Simons

Phil Spiess I knew you could do it!! To me there are two types of mysteries. First the type that requires the Hubble and now the Webb space telescope to solve - are we alone in the universe or can we assemble some evidence that we're probably  not? And second this thing that we take for granted, this mystery hiding in plain sight - what is it, really? What events has this lowly bottle of salad dressing witnessed? Was it or its kin on the table when Al Capone took control of the bootlegging operation? Or when the FBI agents made arrangements to take him down? Does one like it sit on the dining room table of that West Virginia mansion where slave traders, coal barons, and corrupt politicians regularly meet? In any case, job well done! (Note - historical accuracy not guaranteed. Truth, justice, American way reinstatement still pending.)

Philip Spiess

Speaking of Al Capone, Prohibition, and bootleggers (as we approach another New Year's Eve), let me take you back to December 30, 2018 (Post # 3780), when I introduced to this Forum the true story of George Remus, Cincinnati's "King of the Bootleggers."  (Somewhat later I announced on this Forum that, to my astonishment, not one, but two full-length books on the life and times of George Remus had just come out.)

Well, now a new wrinkle has appeared on the sleeve of the bent-elbow of Time:  a fully-fledged "George Remus, King of the Bootleggers" Straight Bourbon Whiskey has made its appearance on the shelves of our local Virginia ABC (Alcoholic Beverages Commission) store!  You could have knocked me down with an ice cube!  Delving into the matter a little further, I learned that it is a product of Cincinnati's downstream neighbor, Lawrenceburg, Indiana.

Lawrenceburg, Indiana, has been home to the distilling industry for over 169 years (yes, including during Prohibition -- see my George Remus post).  Through much of the 20th century, the largest distillery there was owned by Seagram's, and, as I passed through Lawrenceburg, Indiana, on my way to Hanover College (further down river in Indiana) in my undergraduate days before Interstate 71 was completed, we would open the car windows to savor the pungent smells of the brewing whiskey which permeated the town.

But Seagram's parent company (a Canadian firm) expanded too far into other areas, and it was bought out by a giant European concern in 2000 and several chunks of it were sold off.  The huge distillery at Lawrenceburg was bought and sold a number of times throughout the ensuing years until it is now owned by a giant distilling conglomerate (I won't go through all of the compsny changes).  The end result is that "George Remus, King of the Bootleggers" Straight Bourbon Whiskey is now produced there by the George Remus Distilling Company.

When I've had a chance to try it, I'll let you know my opinion.

Becky Payne (Shockley)

Phil: How can you be so well-informed and continuously entertaining on every subject? I learned more than I ever expected to know about the history of salad dressing and boot legging just readingyour last 2 pieces! I do recall that in the 70s when my brother taught at Morehad State (in KY - not to be confused with Moorhead State in MN) the county was still dry, largely through a coalition of preachers and bootleggers! But those days are gone forever. I was teaching in Richmond KY till 1986, which was half dry, but the wet half was VERY wet! The country club was in the dry half, so you couldn't buy booze with dinner, but members could have lockers to store their goods, and the servers would provide glasses and a bottle opener with dinner. But I don't know if there are any dry spots left there...

Dale Gieringer

   My parents used to take me to a swimming pool in Western Hills known as Gehrum's.   It was in an undeveloped country area off Queen City Avenue,  invisible from the main road,  with a long access drive and gravel parking lot, next to a stately country house.  Only years later, upon reading Edward Behr's Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America, did I learn that it was the former site of George Remus'  "Death Valley Farm," the center of his bootlegging distribution operation.   Its owner, George Dater, had failed at making homemade wine, but the caretaker, George Gehrum, "a little, rat-faced, shifty-eyed individual who lived in perpetual fear of his wife, a young woman of vigorous propensities and a taste for strong drink,"  accepted payment from Remus' operation to store liquor there.  Eventually, Remus remodeled the entire farm, installing several large storage cellars and an undergound bottling plant.  He subsequently fortified it with a sentry box, armed guards, floodlights and a buzzer to alert the house when anyone approached.  Death Valley Farm became the center of Remus' smuggling operation, serviced by twenty armor-plated trucks specially designed so as not to break their bottled freight.  Bootleggers came from as far away as Florida, California, and Texas to shop for goods. The Farm was impregnable at first,  as Remus paid off Cincinnati Prohibition Bureau agents to stay clear.  Eventually though, two out-of-state "untouchables" from the Bureau tricked them into busting the Farm, leading to Remus'  arrest and eventual conviction.  I believe Phil has elsewhere expatiated on the rest of Remus' saga, his arrest and successful insanity defense for murdering his wife, and his extravagant mansion in Price Hill, now long gone.  So, I believe,  is Gehrum's pool, whose history I was blissfully unaware of when swimming there sixty years ago.

Philip Spiess

Becky:  For many years, Bourbon County, Kentucky, where Bourbon whiskey was invented (made out of the available corn), was a "dry" county (it is no longer).  But there are still "dry" counties in Kentucky; in 1985, when my wife Kathy and I decided to take an "all-Kentucky" vacation (she is from New England, remember, and had never been there), we were traveling from eastern Kentucky along the southern highways that parallel the Tennessee border going to Mammoth Cave.  As we tend to do our summer travel around our anniversary, we were looking for a place to buy some champagne.  Every exit off the highway led into another "dry" county.  Finally, we were in a grocery chain store that sold mixers -- but no alcohol.  In exasperation, Kathy asked a teenaged store clerk stocking goods on the shelves if there was somewhere around there where one could buy alcohol.  The youth paused, looked at the floor, and then said, under his breath, "That . . . can be arranged."  Kathy got the picture, and, not wanting, let us say, to meet his uncle the judge (who probably could have provided the said alcohol), she gracefully thanked him and we left.

Later in the afternoon, in rural western Kentucky, we crossed a stream on the far side of which was a barn with this message painted in big letters on its sloping roof:  "FIRST CHANCE."  Yes, it housed a liquor store and the roof slope on the other side, facing the other direction, said:  "LAST CHANCE."  When we finally celebrated our anniversary, we were in Bardstown, the geographic center of Kentucky's Whiskey Trail (and home to the Oscar P. Getz Museum of Whiskey History, located in a former Catholic seminary), staying in the 1779 Old Talbot Tavern (believed to be the oldest continuously operating tavern in the United States) -- and we finally got our bottle of champagne.

[On another trip, on stopping in Morgantown, West Virginia, for supper, we learned that we were in a "dry" county and, in order to get wine with our dinner (yes, they had a wine menu available), we had to "join the club," i.e., pay a nominal fee of $1 per person to join the establishment's "dinner club" in order to purchase wine.  In Sapphire Valley, North Carolina, at the Red Door restaurant (the only really decent meal around), we had to cart in our own wine or liquor, paying a "corking fee" for the waiter to open our bottle on the premises.  Mind you, all of these "dry" counties are "ultra-Christian," their "dryness" promoted by the Anti-Saloon League in the latter half of the 19th century.  And yet they all espouse the central Christian ritual of Communion, which requires wine as well as bread.  (Of course, most of us Protestants are forced to sip grape juice instead of wine; I think the Episcopalians are the exception.  Go figure.)]

Philip Spiess

Dale:  Thanks for your very interesting memories of the Gehrum property.  I first learned about George Remus from my grandfather, who mentioned him to me when I was young (perhaps 10?) while passing the entrance to the property on Queen City Avenue (the name, "Death Valley Farm," stuck with me).  Although I have a vivid memory (I think) of that entrance, I have never found it since; I assume it must be long gone, probably turned into subdivisions.

My references to George Remus's story on this Forum were on 12-30-2018 (Post #3780), the main story; on 1-16-2019 (Post #3822), giving some additional information (including addresses of his homes); and on 9-13-2019 (Post #4297), noting that two new histories of George Remus and his career had come out, specifically:  (1) Karen Abbott:  The Ghosts of Eden Park:  The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America (New York:  Crown, 2019); and (2) Bob Batchelor:  The Bourbon King:  The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition's Evil Genius (New York:  Diversion Books, 2019).  I found the former book more interesting reading, but the latter book has more pictures.

Paul Simons

American bluesman, Russian kids. There's hope!

Becky Payne (Shockley)

An updated version of a favorite Christmas poem

‘Twas the night before Christmas, but Covid was here,
So we all had to stay extra cautious this year.
Our masks were all hung by the chimney with care
In case Santa forgot his and needed a spare.
With Covid, we couldn't leave cookies or cake
So we left Santa hand sanitizer to take.

The children were sleeping, the brave little tots
The ones over 5 had just had their first shots,
And mom in her kerchief and me in my cap
Had just settled in for a long winter's nap.
But we tossed and we turned all night in our beds
As visions of variants danced in our heads.

Gamma and Delta and now Omicron
These Covid mutations that go on and on
I thought to myself, "If this doesn't get better,
I'll soon be familiar with every Greek letter".

Then just as I started to drift off and doze
A clatter of noise from the front lawn arose.
I leapt from my bed and ran straight down the stair
I opened the door, and an old gent stood there.

His N 95 made him look pretty weird
But I knew who he was by his red suit and beard.
I kept six feet away but blurted out quick
" What are you doing here, jolly Saint Nick?"

Then I said, "Where's your presents, your reindeer and sleigh?
Don't you know that tomorrow will be Christmas Day?".
And Santa stood there looking sad in the snow
As he started to tell me a long tale of woe.

He said he'd been stuck at the North Pole alone
All  his white collar elves had been working from home,
And most of the others said "Santa, don't hire us!
We can live off the CERB now, thanks to the virus".

Those left in the toyshop had little to do.
With supply chain disruptions, they could make nothing new.
And as for the reindeer, they'd all gone away.
None of them left to pull on his sleigh.

He said Dasher and Dancer were in quarantine,
Prancer and Vixen refused the vaccine,
Comet and Cupid were in ICU,
So were Donner and Blitzen, they may not pull through.
 

And Rudolph's career can't be resurrected.
With his shiny red nose, they all think he's infected.
Even with his old sleigh, Santa couldn't go far.
Every border to cross needs a new PCR.

Santa sighed as he told me how nice it would be
If children could once again sit on his knee.
He couldn't care less if they're naughty or nice
But they'd have to show proof that they'd had their shot twice.

But then the old twinkle returned to his eyes.
And he said that he'd brought me a Christmas surprise.
When I unwrapped the box and opened it wide,
Starlight and rainbows streamed out from inside.

Some letters whirled round and flew up to the sky
And they spelled out a word that was 40 feet high.
There first was an H, then an O, then a P,
Then I saw it spelled HOPE when it added the E.

"Christmas magic" said Santa as he smiled through his beard.
Then suddenly all of the reindeer appeared.
He jumped into his sleigh and he waved me good-bye,
Then he soared o'er the rooftops and into the sky.

I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight
"Get your vaccines my friends, Merry Christmas, good-night".
Then I went back to bed and a sweet Christmas dream
Of a world when we'd finished with Covid 19.