WIXY's Gone Bananas

Last night was the final game of the season for the Rittman Fighting Indians, losing 56-14 to the Hillsdale Falcons. Due to tending to an emergency yesterday, I didn't have time to get the WIXYcam. Too bad, as the band was in costumes for their performance. The band opened with Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music". The second Song was Abba's "Mama Mia" The band closed with "And All That Jazz" from the musical "Chicago." After I made my final announcement-"The Rittman Indians Maarrrching Band!" The band replied by shouting in unison "Happy birthday Cliff!" And speaking of birthday greetings, I want to thank everybody who wished me a happy birthday, both on this blog and on Facebook. Many of you know that I've been having a very trying week and the greetings helped make it better. I will be playing catch-up in posting band photos from this all too short season.

I was born! Happy birthday to me! And one of my best friends, personal as well blogging, Brenda of Snicker*Snicker*Snort fame , has posted a happy birthday greeting to me as well as a photo of her daughter from the homecomecoming game from a few weeks ago. check it out.

This past Friday night, the Rittman Indians faced the Smithville Smithies at a very waterlogged Rittman Stadium. This is the last home game for the varsity this year and the field has had more than it's share of use this season. Couple that with the very rainy October we've had and it gives the traditionalists high school football at it's finest. This was also the 4th straight halftime of no marching for the marching bands, though both bands brought their share of entertainment. The Smithville Band included in their show a tribute to Michael Jackson and their rendition of "Thriller". Being senior night, the Rittman band featured their seniors in their show, with a trumpet solo on "Espana C ani,". Senior feature twirler, Aimee was next on Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock N Roll." all senior band members stepped out front as the cheerleaders and majorettes performed a dance routine to Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk." The show closed with the ...

If someone is hopelessly optimistic, or a pollyanna type, they are described as looking at the world through "rose colored glasses." Nowadays we don't have an overabundance of these people. Now there are no shortage of another type. They see nothing right with the world and it's always someone else' fault. They can never see much good in most people, and if they do acknowledge any good, "there's always an ulterior motive." These people are the type who brighten up a room by leaving it. These are the type of folks, whom I describe as those "looking at the world through crap colored glasses." I like to think I wear glasses with a small tint of rose coloring, otherwise clear. Realistically, I've been wearing glasses since I was 11 years old, so they are a little dirty most of the time. What color glasses do you view the world through?

I had some running around to do this afternoon and I stopped at Evil Big Box Store(tm)1812 to pick up a few items. After picking up a few items, I went to the register to pay for them. The cashier asked me how I was and I told her that I was fantastic and improving. She rung me up. I paid her and after she gave me my change, I gave her my now customary "thank you for working at Walmart." As I was leaving the store, I realized I was thirsty and went to the pop machine to get a can of Coke Zero. I put a dollar in, made my selection, took my quarter change, and reached down for my product. There were two cans there. On my way to the WIXYmobile, I was thinking about how I was going to blog about getting this deal from, of all places, the Evil Big Box Store(tm). Then in the back of my mind, I was reading the comments that I would potentially get:"Why didn't you return the other can, WIXY?" "Do you think this was the honest thing to do WIXY?" "Cliff, y...

Watching the latest Rittman football game, led me to wonder if the players on the sidline were told it was respectful to be quiet. How come when I was on the Highland football team in the early seventies(I won't say I played, as I spent most of my time on the sidelines) if we weren't supporting our teammates we would be getting our helmets slapped by an upperclassman and the headache my be gone before we caught the bus...on Monday morning. How come the coaches cannot instruct the upperclassmen to be leaders. Okay, the Rittman team is now 1-7 after the 47-6 drubbing from Dalton. The one good thing was that they treat visiting announcers well in the pressbox. They also treated the visiting announcer's grandson well. Ben and I both got pizza. For the third week in a row there wasn't marching, but I would put Rittman's band not marching against other bands marching anyday. Hopefully the Rittman field will be in good enough shape next Saturday for the band show.

On Fridays I work at a different location. The QA lab at that plant doesn't have a radio, so I usually take my MP3 player and have an amplified speaker. I also have my earbuds, as I sometimes listen to things I want to pay extra attention to, or if another radio is playing. Problem is my MP3 player doesn't have an FM tuner. Yesterday I had my Sony Walkman AM-FM cassette player with me. My supervisor walked into the lab and told me that I needed to upgrade. I asked him why, as my Walkman still works fine. I'm also assembling myself a neat collection of cassettes from thrift shops. I also found a new reason as I looked around the Salvation Army thrift shop in Barberton today. I was looking for something else when I came across this 20 cassette set called "The Pros Speak About Success." The collection of tapes was $1.99. I looked at the speakers in the collection and there were a few I recognized. One of note to long time readers of this blog is Mark Sanborn . Mark...

One of my oldest online friends is Tim Lones. Tim and I first got acquainted with each other through the media message boards. He is one who can be really called a media geek, which in his case is a compliment. Tim writes a blog called Cleveland Classic Media . In it he relives the old days of television. You see, we were both in our infancy during the inancy of television. He also posts a bit about radio. As I have wrote before, Tim puts a lot of effort in his blogs. He lives with his wife, Linda, in Canton, Ohio and due to physical problems doesn't drive. But he will take the bus to Cleveland and Youngstown in order to do research for his blog, which for him is a labor of love. He has an extensive collection of TV guide magazines and also goes into microfilm files at the library to get material for his blog. In fact the newspaper article in my last post was gleaned from his blog. Another thing Tim keeps up on, is events happening around the area pertaining to television history. ...

Seeing that this is post 1100, I thought I would do something fun with this post and write about an 1100 that has had a presence in most of my life. At night it can be heard in 38 states and half of Canada(in the right conditions). Now currently doing business as Newsradio WTAM/1100. It started out in 1923 as WTAM. It was said that the call letters meant "Where The Artists Meet" and the original owner was the Willard Battery Storage Company. NBC eventually became owner of the station and shortly after I was born, NBC coerced Westinghouse to trade with them their Philadelphia AM, FM, and television stations. WTAM-AM& FM became KYW AM & FM(105.7) and WNBK-TV3 became KYW-3. This was in 1956. As I was getting ready for elementary school in the morning, we would listen to the morning show on KYW, hosted by Harry Martin and Specs Howard. I remember some of the skits played during my wait for the school bus, such as Congo Kirk(takeoff on Tarzan) and Sponsor Place. In 1964,...

Normally at this time, I'm brushing my teeth and getting ready for my almost hour on the road to work. This morning I've been given permission to arrive an hour later as I was doing computer work for the plant manager on my laptop at home last night and then emailed it to several people at the shop. Sometimes having a five year old "Linux box" at work can be a blessing, but those are rare occasions. A small progress report: I got home from work last night and checked my blood glucose and it was 99. That's the first time in quite awhile that it's been below 100. We were also able to treat ourselves last night and went out for supper. I got the soup and salad bar and behaved myself as I didn't make myself a "lettuce sundae." I also stayed away from some of the other goodies, such as rice pudding. Sue Wilson's latest post on her Voiceover blog is called " Can't We all Just TRY to Get Along? " In this post, Sue muses about Presid...

Scott Wynn of Wynn and Wilson Morning Show and Scott Wynn's Window fame is celebrating his birthday today. Go on over and wish him the best on his special day.

I hope she has a good time! My blogging friend from the Keystone State, Michelle of House of Lime fame, is celebrating her birthday and her bloggerversary today. Go on over, wish her a happy birthday and drool over the photo of the red velvet cake her mother made for her.

I was reading Terry Pluto's latest Faith and You column . It was concerning online friends. As usual, Terry's column was designed to hit home, as he writes with the person on the street in mind. I have found in the 38 months since I have had an online presence that I have made many friends. A few who live in Northeast Ohio, I have met. A couple, I have had dinner with. There are several who exchanged Christmas cards with me last year. I receive emails from many of you on a regular basis and many of you I forward a devotional I receive, sometimes I add a Cliff Note to them. I find in most cases, these are well received. I think we all like hearing from each other. We are from diverse backgrounds, but we all have one thing in common; we like to communicate with each other. I communicate with some online who are very popular while others keep to themselves. Those who keep to themselves are sometimes comfortable in that. I don't hold that against anybody, but I have been descr...

A rainy Friday in October is a real bummer for me. It stinks worse when it's the night of the homecoming game. There probably won't be much marching tonight, but the game will be against rival Chippewa, so maybe the Rittman Fighting Indians will be able to turn it up a notch. Going through Wadsworth this afternoon, I noticed that I need to fuel up the WIXYmobile. I also decided to get Kathy a peanut buster parfait from the Dairy Queen inside the store. And of course, I stopped at the BellStores Marathon station on High Street. The world's greatest convenience store manager(tm), aka Beth, runs the store. We had a conversation, like we usually do, talking about life in the seventies, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Also about school days. Although most of our conversations in school occurred during the seventh and eighth grades, I had a respect for her all during our school years. She was one who had followed the golden rule, not the one that stated "those that had the...

Bob Dyer wrote in his Akron Beacon Journal column about this man who bought his daughter a souvenir of a cross country meet that she had just run. It had a saying on the back:"How's my running? Call 1-800-EAT-DUST ." This is sort of a takeoff on a somewhat popular bumper sticker. It seems that this number is already in use as a transvestite porn line. Brings to mind the movie "The Santa Clause," when Tim Allen quipped that his ex-wife's husband, a psychologist, could be reached at " 1-800 SPANK ME ." That number was also actually in use as a porn line. You have to be careful about seemingly innocent jokes with today's technology. Cliff Note: If you click on the link, the story will be halfway down in the column, but read the whole column as Bob Dyer is one of the more talented writers in this area.

Jeremy Requests Help: Jeremy, of Personal Thoughts/Observations from N Ky fame, has requested help regarding placing photos on his header. Anybody who can assist, please go on over and give him a hand. Brenda Laments Middle Age: Check out Snicker*Snicker*Snort for Brends's latest post. She tells about her observations entering middle age and not looking forward to having an empty nest. Oh, and her daughter is in the homecoming court. There may be photos about that in two blogs this coming week. One thousand Limes: Michelle, of House of Lime fame is commerating 1000 posts on her blog. Go on over and check her musings out. Michelle has a very unique view of things and always manages to put a smile on my face when I go over there.

And also a bit of "From the Pressbox." Friday evening I took my 6 year old grandson, Ben, to the Rittman-Norwayne football game. Ben likes watching the band, but also cheers the Rittman team. Ben is becoming very observant as he sits in the stands. He also feels that he could go in and do the job, but then again, Ben is six. He feels that he can do everything including most fix it jobs. Oh to have that kind of confidence in yourself. More on that in a later post. The game was played in Norwayne's stadium, in Creston, Ohio. It had been raining all day and some of the benches in t he stands had puddles in them. One of the band parents had to take care of a nail sticking up through one of the seats. A better use for these bleachers would be firewood. The game itself was close during the first half, Norwayne leading 7-6 going into halftime. Instead of marching during the halftime show, both bands performed on the track in fr ont of the home crowd. Rittman performed the "...

And it couldn't have ended fast enough. The Cleveland Indians limped to a 65-97 record this year after being projected to be a playoff contender. All of a sudden we have been whisked back into the seventies with this team. Those years, my favorite part of the season was the off season, or hot stove time. This is when trades are being made and other personnel is being hired. And hope will spring eternal. Wait until next year? I'll be 54 the end of the month. How many more next years do I have to wait? This area has also been waiting for this poor excuse for a football franchise to start producing. Lost in overtime yesterday. I can't get excited about that. Rittman lost again Friday night. The coaches need to teach more of the fundamentals, especially since a pair of penalties, one for unsportsmanlike conduct, changed the complexion of the game. The JV game on Saturday was a 12-12 tie. There was also an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty called on Rittman. At least this year, Ri...

The past few days I have worn long sleeves. Won't be long before the jacket is on. Days are getting shorter, and the leaves are starting to fall. Fall in Ohio. Nice thing about October will be to see the grandchildren in their halloween costumes. Don't worry, I will not be sampling trick or treat candy. Three birthdays in the immediate family, including mine. Hopefully we can get through these without my blood glucose taking a beating. My attitude should be that I WILL get through these fine. And I will finally be taking time off from work the last week of the month. I haven't got any plans for the week yet, but I'm planning for it to be Cliff and Kathy time. Kathy's birthday is the 25th and mine is the 30th, so we will be treating each other to a very nice, relaxing, week. Oh, and the Rittman Marching Band Show will be on the 24th.