WIXY's Gone Bananas

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I was 13 years old at the time. I remember my sister showing my mom the Medina County Gazette this particular day exclaiming that Pat Duffy had died. During the Vietnam War, whenever someone from Medina County had died in combat, that would be the main headline of the day, complete with a large photo of this now deceased hero. I recall that one family in my town had been notified that their son had died in Vietnam, the story and photo had been run in the Gazette, only to have the story retraced the next day. It was, thankfully, a case of mistaken identity. Sgt. James P. Duffy Jr was a friend of my cousin Billy. I knew him casually but since he was 7 years older than I, we had nothing in common. Pat was one of those young men who was drafted into the service, so he had no choice of joining the army or where he was to be deployed. I got this computer printout when I went to the information center(you can click on it to enlarge) and one thing I noticed was that had Pat Duffy not been kil...

This morning I went over to the mobile display of the Vietnam War Memorial in nearby Wadsworth, Ohio. I will take the next few days to get together some rather serious posts. So take the next few days when you come here to reflect on a time in United States history that tore the country apart. Just the thoughts of this were somber for me as I looked at the wall, the tributes and talked to one of the veterans. I also got information on one whom I knew via one of my older cousins. I will put in some of my editorial comments, but I will shoot from the heart. No flippant comments and my usual characteristics will be on hold for the next few days. I figure there will be some google searches that will bring people here and out of respect I want to treat this with the same tone as I experienced this morning as I visited this display.

I went to visit Bella's blog, "It is What It is" this morning. Imagine my surprise when I saw it had been removed. I sent her an email. It was sent back. Where are you Bella? Cliff Note: Bella now has a new blog up. It's called "Ciao Bella." There is an explanation for the momentary disappearance from the blogosphere .

Yesterday I forwarded an email I received from John G. Miller . He wrote the book QBQ!- the Question Behind the Question . It's a book that deals with personal responsibility, something people try to shirk nowadays. The email is called QBQ! QuickNote . The topic at hand was the price of gasoline , economy and what we could to try to control it. Long and short, it dealt with supply and demand, and cycles. If we don't like the prices in a certain restaurant, we usually eat somewhere else. The same goes for other commodities. Now if we would start limiting our use of crude oil, as far as our driving habits are concerned, we might force the hand of the big bad oil companies. We have seen the price of gasoline more than double in the past three years, but we still practice the same habits. If we don't stop that, we won't have any other choice but to pay increased prices. While we wait(just don't hold your breath) for alternative fuels, we should start practicing alterna...

One of my favorite hangouts lately has been Cathouse Teri's blog, The Road Lester Traveled . I've been visiting her there and she's been visiting me here. When she posts, she always gets many, very interesting, comments. Some of the comments centered around the "My child is an honor student at...." bumper stickers. I always figured if I placed one of those on one of my vehicles, people would read that and say"if that was such a big deal, you'd be driving something better." I also have heard if someone would put one of those on their BMW or Lexus, it would be sort of like painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa. One of my favorites always was "My kid beat up your honor student." But I had one better in mind based on one of my family. Our daughter, Martha(of Welcome to My Crazy Life fame) was suspended a few times in middle school and high school for fighting. The last time, in my opinion, was not fair . But anyway she graduated high school wi...

Happy Memorial Day everybody. We had a cookout today here at the WIXYranch. Instead of the usual fare of hot dogs and burgers(we did have ribs at the inlaws Saturday) our daughter, Martha brought fixings for kabobs. We had some beef, pork and shrimp kabobs. So if you're reading this David McMahon , we did have shrimp on the barbie. Above pictured are daughters Martha and Sylva clowning for the camera. As you can see, someone else was operating the WIXYcam. And no, I still haven't gotten my hair cut. This picture is of my college educated daughter, Sylva, spraying non stick coating onto the gas grill(it is lit.) Her degree is in education and you know what they say, those who can do and those who can't, teach . And of course, no blog post about a family cookout is complete without a few photos of the grand children, as I can't let Cathouse Teri have all the grandparent fun. Above, Silas is patiently waiting for the food to be ready. Right, Makenna is enjoying an e...

Da vid McMahon, in his authorblog, has a weekly feature called "The Sunday Roast." Th is week he is interviewing Michelle , aka Lime concerning her blog, called "The House of Lime." It's a very interesting read, especially the part about when she had severely broken her arm, and was gone from blogging for awhile. She was amazed at the outpouring of love among her group. I think that most bloggers have good hearts, at least from my viewpoint and my blogging group. More love shown to me: A blogger I'm developing respect for is Cathouse Teri. She can show a tough side while, at the same side showing a loving side. It started with me commenting on one of her posts(more about that later) and her writing me an email asking me to explain a joke I typed in her comment section. Yesterday I wrote my post about people always taking advantage of me, a result of me dealing with some depression. Teri commented on the post, then today wrote one of her own, titled ...

Cliff Note: This was originally posted on July 4, 2007. I am reposting this along with some of the comments that were made on the original post. This was going to be a you know you might be from Cleveland post, but seeing that some of my readers are from the region and not Cleveland proper, I would expand it to Northeast Ohio. You might be from Northeast Ohio if... You think the regional motto is "Wait till next year." You think the first sign of spring is the first orange barrel. You think the orange barrel is the state flower. A good portion of your wardrobe either has Chief Wahoo in front, or "James 23" on the back. You don't look at a buzzard as a scavenger bird, but as a radio station mascot-WMMS or a town festival-Hinckley. You find yourself singing the "Garfield 1-2323" jingle. You know the correct pronunciation of Cuyahoga, Medina, and Trivisonno. The words "A waaaaay back" are music to your ears. Ditto with "WHAM with the right...

I am always considered by my friends as one of the nicest guys around. There have been times in my life I considered this a curse. But this has always been one of my greatest assets. As I was growing up, I was aware of the fact that my family wasn't part of the upper crust and even though I had a love for sports, I wasn't athletic at all. I had a weight problem also. I had two things to turn to, a good sense of humor and a big heart. Quite often as I was growing up, I would suffer because of my good nature. This would follow me into my adult years. Would always ending up have me wondering why. I guess it was the only way I could gain acceptance. I met this member of the fair sex at work. I was 21. She was um, older and more uh.. experienced. Love is blind, but infatuation is completely senseless. And an young man who was an adult in the eyes of the law only, who thought with his nether regions is definitely a danger to himself. I lived at home and only had a car payment at the ...

Michele, of Crow's Feet fame , has awarded me with the coveted "E for Excellent" award. I'd like to thank her for this honor. I would also like to pass this award to the following bloggers. Of course you will get the reason for the passage from me. Struke : The school year is winding down and Struke has used his blog, Media Matters , in a very creative way, allowing his students to give peroidic posts. That, in my mind, is award worthy. Go over and let him know what an excellent blog he has . Five Pines : Devoted wife, mother, dog lover, and photographer of nature makes for an excellent blog. If you haven't checked it out lately, go over and give Jessica a shout . Monday Through Sunday : An excellent devotional blog, Melanie does a great job letting us know what life is like in her ever changing world. Check out her musings . Pat J(at least in my mind) knows it all : As this political season gains steam, Pat lets us know what's happening with his own pers...

Right now it is early in Ohio. It's day's end in Australia and David McMahon has announced his Post of the Day . The post below was one of the contenders. I feel that it is a great honor to even be considered for such an honor. Thank you David for the mention. Once again check out authorblog and sample some of this gentleman's talent. I see that the honor is starting to pay off. Sandy Carlson of Writing in Faith fame has paid me a visit. Check out her fine work as well.

It was fun being a baby boomer until now. Some of the artists of the 60's and 70's are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate aging Baby Boomers. They include: Stevie Wonder - I Just Called to Say "I've Fallen and I can't Get up!" The Who - Magic Senior Citizens Bus Bob Dylan - Like a Kidney Stone Herman's Hermits - Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Walker. Ringo Starr - I Get By With a Little Help From Depends. The Bee Gees - How Can You Mend a Broken Hip. Bobby Darin - Splish, Splash, I Was Havin' a Flash. Roberta Flack - The First Time Ever I Forgot Your Face. Johnny Nash - I Can't See Clearly Now. Paul Simon - Fifty Ways to Lose Your Liver. The Commodores - Once, Twice, Three Times to the Bathroom. Procol Harem - A Whiter Shade of Hair. Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Napping. The Temptations - Papa's Got a Kidney...

I got this in my email today. I'm sure that everybody reading this gets similar notices. Subject: Contact the courier company immediately I have been waiting for you since to come down here and pick your Bank Draft but did not heard from you since that time ,then I went and deposited the Draft with Trans Link Couriers Service Company here in Benin Republic,because I want to traveled to India to see my boss and will not come back till next month end. You have to contact the Trans Link Courier Service Company to know when they will deliver yourpackage .I have paid for the deliveringcharges and insurance fee. The only money you have to send to them is there security keeping fee which is $125.00 usd Dollars to receive your package. Contact Mr.Mollida Y. Martins Director Trans Link Couriers Service Benin Republic. Cliff Note:email address deleted by me. Try to contact them as soon as possible to avoid increasing the security keeping fee. I gave them your...

My friend from down under, David McMahon , in his authorblog , wants his readers to post about their dreams. I've done this recently, but I will further dwell on them. I wanted to be on the radio and I know I would have had at least two listeners, my mother and Ricky. However being what Zig Ziglar calls a "sniop"-Subject to Negative Influences of Other People , I was very easily discouraged in my younger days. I kept opening my front door to let the dreams out. They kept coming back. I would try different variations of it. First it was retail sales and making announcements over the public address in the store. Then it became band announcements, which is now combined with blogging. I have been told that I'm a people person and my demeanor is very pleasant and folks like having me around. I have seen those who like to be around people, but their only problem is that they can brighten a room- by leaving it. It still is my dream to make a living from my ability to com...

Mrs74 has been down this weekend with bronchitis, so I've been tending to her needs. I didn't take too much time to watch sports this weekend and I'm glad I didn't. This would have been a weekend when Ricky would have been calling me several times. He could have been the world's greatest general manager. Sports are meant as a diversion. Pro sports even more so. As a Cleveland pro sports fan-and as I get older less and less a fanatic, it was obvious we didn't have such a good weekend. Our beloved Cleveland Indians were swept by the Cincinnati Redlegs. I can't call them the Reds, because I know my down state friend Pat J is a fan and he wouldn't be a fan of anything that anyone could remotely accuse of being communist. Anyway it's time for these overpaid hitters to do their jobs. C'mon Wedge, do some inspiring. Meanwhile in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Cavaliers, of Lebron James have been eliminated by the Boston Celtics in the NBA playo...

Sometimes you don't know what direction this blogging thing takes you. I am going to further dwell on my last post. I'm glad for the comments I got on it. They come from people whom I respect greatly. Bella tells a lot about her life when she's blogging but her identity is something she keeps secret. When her husband checks in on the comment page, he checks in as "Clark Kent," further bringing light to the secret identity. She was also one who commented frequently on the now retired "Life of a Valley Girl." Bella and I have a good relationship on blogger, even though until today we have never contacted each other, even by email. Melanie(Monday Through Sunday) and I have recently exchanged emails. I mainly send her devotionals. Here on blogger we communicate through comment sections. She puts out mainly a Christian blog, but I'm glad she rung in on this issue. I don't envision her as a reader of "Valley Girl." Melanie is pretty much abo...

From my first post, I made it plain who I am. In the comment section here people address me as Cliff, 74, WIXY, WIXYgrad, and Dad. Anybody can address me by the first four. Only my children-Martha, Sylva, or Adam(WIXYjr) can call me "Dad." To me, 74WIXYgrad is a branding. To most of the readers here, it has no significance. I keep it because that's what most know me as. There are others who post by one name and allow others to refer to their given name. There are others who use only their "blog name" when they are posting, but have trusted me with their given name. I respect that and will not use their given name when addressing them on blogger. The reason I write this post is I got, along with many other folks, an email from Valley Girl. Because of the very personal nature of her blog, she guarded her identity and revealed it to nobody. That's okay by me. I had removed the link to her blog from my side bar awhile ago, due to some of the content, but still ...

As spoken by Maj. Sidney Freedman, played by Alan Arbus, in two separate episodes of MASH: "Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice. Pull down your pants, and slide on the ice."

Shameless plugs never hurt: My good friend Tim Lones , of Cleveland Classic Media fame, has been posting links to his excellent blog on the television forum at Cleveland.com . He had wondered if the posts there were too much and started a thread, asking the folks on the forum thought that. Well, as expected, the answer was that he put a great product out and he should post links often. And of course, I never miss a chance to promote my friend there, as he has done the same for me. I also put a shameless plug in for myself, which vastly increased my number of hits yesterday. You can never accuse me of being the missing link . And by the way, if you haven't lately, check out Cleveland Classic Media . Tim has been doing some sprucing up of the site. Dinner with 2 more bloggers: I have to mention this, as they paid for it. My daughter, Martha , of Welcome to my Crazy Life , among others, fame, and her husband, Kevin, took us out to dinner last night. Included in the party was my gra...

Some blogs of note, one halfway around the world, one in the upper midwest, and two in my own hometown, by people close to me. First, I want to mention authorblog once again. David McMahon , has a heart to promote others, as do I, only this is an everyday occurrence with him, as he always features a post of the day and will post a link to it, as well as others which were nominated. That's right, the readers get some input in the decision. David is also a very talented photographer, and displays his work on his blog. Also once everyday he has a post called Verse and Worse where he posts a thought provoking four line poem. There's something for everyone there. If you go to Post of the day, you will see I've nominated one of our group. Next up, Elizabeth'sChristianBlog . Elizabeth left a comment over at Seek Him First a couple of weeks ago. I looked at her fairly new blog and thought that my Christian readers would like to make her online acquaintance. She is currentl...

Michelle is one of my European friends. She currently resides in Scotland. She is a very frequent visitor here and always leaves very kind comments. We met each other through Amel's Realm . Shortly after Michelle starting posting on my blogs, we were sort of IMing through the comment section here. A result of those messages that morning was she and Amias became friends. Michelle has been a real encouragement to my efforts here, especially when it comes to re posting one of my earlier works. Michelle lets us know how life is for one who currently lives away from her homeland, Zimbabwe. Her blog, Crows Feet , is a mix of her experiences, issues of interest, and creative writing. She also has a poetry blog, called Reflections . She likes to share her talents with the world and is very good at her craft. Michelle is also very considerate of her readers. Last month she was moving to another home and was off the Internet for a few weeks. She sent many of us an email to let us know s...

I had some time to waste this past Saturday, and ended up in a thrift shop. When I am thrift shopping, I usually hit the book section first, and Saturday's trip was no exception. But first a little something about the store I was at. It is called the New Destinations Thrift Store, located in the College Hills shopping center in Wooster, Ohio. Most of the help there is volunteer, and the shop is run by a ministry that helps those in treatment centers among other things. I have bought several books from the original New Destination shop in Barberton. Click here for information about the New Destiny Treatment center. This trip I found two books that I thought was an exceptional value at $1.00 apiece. First one is called "I Dare You," written over 60 years ago by William H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina . The others is much more recent, "Tuesdays With Morrie" by Mitch Albom . Albom is a Detroit sports writer, and has an afternoon talk show on WJR/760 in Detr...

As I write this post, I am in the process of reading "Private Parts," Howard Stern's first book. I bought the book at Goodwill for a buck. Why are you reading this, you may ask. Well, I like stories about how people made it in media. I also want to know why Howard Stern has come to be regarded as the King of Media. I expected to see some filth in the book, and I wasn't disappointed in that regard as the book is vulgar in many places. I do find that in all his irreverance, Howard has some ideas that are common with mine. He blasts republicans and democrats equally. Still not a reason for me to be a regular listener, especially at 12.95 a month. I find myself laughing at some of the things he has said he's done. I could never do them, but then again, neither could more than 99% of the population. Howard Stern either has had a veeerry interesting life or he's very creative when it has come to chronicaling his life. I think he has embellished quite a bit. One th...

In the 1980's, I was one of a large group of people-someone who became an Amway distributor with hopes of becoming a millionaire in record time but never did. I was told by my sponsor that you don't sell soap, you sell hope. Uh huh. In my lifetime, I have had trouble selling water to people in the desert, but that's not the point to this post. Anyone who has had the pleasure(?) of being "presented the business" will remember the dream session. this is where you were encouraged to imagined the house you wanted to live in, the car you wanted to drive, and all the vacations you wanted to take. and you were encouraged to dream big. Well even though I never did much as a hope salesman, I continue to dream nowadays. I continue to dream of being to make a living at mass communication. I dream about writing a book. I dream of the day when my house is paid off. A common thread through the blogs I read is depression. I'm certain in these days, with rising gas and groc...

The company I work has random drug testing, which occurs about once every three months. A couple of weeks ago I was called in to be tested. Fine with me, as I have nothing to hide and I feel that the company has every right to call me in for three reasons. One, it's a known fact that I'm on antidepressants. Two, I have had knee surgery three times, and who's to say I'm not hooked on pain killers(which I'm not.) And lastly, I have admitted to have used recreational drugs when I was in my twenties. The reason we have this mandatory testing is that we work on jobs for the government. Is it fair? I think so as what they are looking for are illegal drugs and others that aren't prescribed to the person using them. It just strongly advocates personal responsibility. Where I work we make maintenance parts for the railroad. It's not unreasonable to expect employees to work unimpaired. After all, we have people's lives in our hands.

.....because with the price of gas nowadays, we can't afford to drive it. I heard a novelty song on the radio this morning. My mind then went to 1980. No I wasn't tripping. I had thought of a song of that time, called " Cheaper crude or no More Food ," which is the song you are currently listening to on my music player. I went to You Tube to see if someone made a video of it, but alas, none was there. I then put the title into my search engine and come up with this blog, WFMU's Beware of the Blog . This blog had in their archives from 2 years ago some novelty songs from the gas crisis's of 1973 and 1979 . Check them out. Your funny bone may get some needed exercise. This has been a public service of WIXY's Gone Bananas.

G'day Mate: I had a visitor here this past weekend, a result of my surfing the blogosphere. David McMahon comes here from Australia, but he found me through one of Liquid's friends, named Lime . David's site is called authorblog . I went there this past weekend and did some exploring. One of the posts he wrote over the weekend asked the question about how we choose our friends. David challenged us to answer this during the week and link back to him . So I have linked back to him twice in the same paragraph. I'm not going to tell him how I do it in Ohio or the United States, but rather the way I do it at WIXY's Gone Bananas. Everybody who comes here on a regular basis knows that I am all about promoting those blogs I read. I do it for several reasons. If they come and leave comments, then they get a plug. If you promote me, I promote you. If I sense one of my blogging friends is going through a rough time, I will post something leading others to their blogs. My I l...

Yesterday it was raining here in northeast Ohio, sometimes hard. I walked inside a building a, slipped and fell on the floor, landing on my left knee. I am at an age where any fall will scare those close to me, but a fall on that knee is even more frightening. I had that knee replaced 7 years ago February 22. As I type these words, all I feel is a little pain and some stiffness. I walk fine, and there is some bruising. I was fortunate. Another time I was fortunate was about 24 years ago. I was doing some work in the garage, and added some transmission fluid to my car. I set the can and funnel aside, intending to put things up and I put the funnel inside a plastic cup. The cup had a picture of the Pink Panther on it. Our daughter, Martha, who was 2 at the time picked up the cup and drank some of the transmission fluid. We are very fortunate that there is a hospital within 10 minutes of our house. We went to the emergency room where they took care of the situation. One of the reasons we ...

I want to thank everybody who went from here to give support to Stacy. From what she has posted , the matter was taken care of by the school. But I think that all of us as adults have seen our share of hurtful things done to others. My brother took a lot of crap when he was going through school. I can identify. I am glad that I have many mature readers here at WIXY's Gone Bananas, and all my readers have big hearts.

Yesterday at lunch time, I did what I usually do. I ate my sandwich, apple and then propped my feet up, put my newspaper over my face and started relaxing. I started dozing off when my cell phone woke me up. Mrs74 was at the other end and she sounded like she was crying. I thought she said that there was a big fire in the kitchen. I then stood up at attention and asked her if she had called the fire department. Mrs74 then asked "for a SPIDER? " I said "I thought you said a big FIRE!" She then started laughing uncontrollingly, which continued after I got home. I was glad, however, that I didn't have a full bladder.