TGIF

Conversation often starts with the weather, doesn't it. And in England that insertion in an awkward moment, "Do you think we'll have rain?" or "More tea, Vicar?" In Harry Golden's world it was, "So, what else is new?" and he even published a book of his essays with that title. I loved Harry Golden, and his writing, and his views on life, and at one Time I owned a collection of every book he printed. Harry Golden, born in Eastern Europe, moved to Canada when very young, then to NYC and raised in the Jewish garment district, later moved South and, publishing a newspaper, styled himself "the Carolina Israelite." "Only In America." "For Two Cents, Plain." "So, What Else Is New?"

Ingenuously, "The Golden White Baby Plan" to help start overcoming segregation. In movie theaters, for example: during segregation, it was acceptable for a Black maid to take her White baby charge to the movies and sit in the White section, in fact, you wouldn't have considered, nor would it even have been allowed, taking a White baby into the Black section (you had to have been there to understand our incomprehensibly absurd racist folkways and mores). So, with the Golden White Baby Plan, every Black person could check out a white baby doll at the ticket booth, and this entitled you to sit peaceably in the White section.

Out on the porch here at 7H on W 10th Street it's warm and humid but not bad, good in fact, 81° and the waning moon is high. Lightning in low clouds off to the east even though my weather app doesn't show clouds that close. Whatever, I'll take it.

Linda's birthday is looming this coming Monday, and, opening a classic cars website online, what pops up for auction is a pickup truck she doesn't want, a 1985 Chevrolet with 148 miles on it.

Me, I can't imagine not wanting that Bowtie. Jiminy Jeepers, I'd have driven the wheels off that truck if it were mine. In my Time I've had two pickups, both Fords, one an older F-100 that I bought from a parishioner in Apalachicola and enjoyed with Nicholas while he was a little boy, the second an F-150 that, some years later, I ordered new to my specs from my friend the Ford dealer. In our fourteen years there, I bought lots of cars from him, both new and used. Neither Apalachicola nor Port St Joe has a Ford dealership any longer; in the case of Apalach, the Ford regional representative showed up one day, did a quick walk-around, then told the dealer that his dealership was cancelled as of that moment.

The only other pickup I remember driving was a loaner from Cramer GM while my car was in their shop: a Chevrolet Silverado. Driving it on the road, that truck was so quiet inside that I could hardly believe it, quieter even than the Tahoe we bought from them in 2001, and much quieter than the Cadillac SRX that I had in their service shop at the Time. I love cars and trucks, but I've aged out of buying them all the Time (my average used to be that in any two year period, I bought three new/used cars, a rate of buying one new car every eight months), so therefore avoiding my old hobby of cruising dealers' new car lots while the dealerships are closed on Sunday afternoons.

Actually, visiting dealership car lots was more than a hobby, and when I quit - - at first, because dealers started having a salesman there even on Sunday, and I liked being left alone when I was car shopping, not somebody coming out to annoy me; and second because I took myself permanently out of the market for reasons of sheer common economics - - it was sort of like stopping smoking must be for lifelong smokers. There needs to be an Autos Anonymous for us dyed in the wool car buffs.

This isn't what I set out to write about, and now I've lost track of whatever it was. See what you made me do?

A busy day ahead. Stuff to print, a bit of shopping to do before TJCC arrive tomorrow morning for Linda's birthday weekend, a mess to clear away around my sty here in the living room, and my table desk in my office/study/den - - IDK how all this stuff accumulates anyway. I hope you have a nice Friday, I certainly intend to!

RSF&PTL