The Yarn Spinner

  The Christian Folk Healers of Poland   Help Wanted Szeptucha Will Train (Pronounced: Shep-too-hah)   Jan’s friend waited in the cold outside   with no idea what was going on inside. He had helped Jan to the door, step by step. Jan could barely walk. The two men had driven through the long winter darkness to a woman’s hut   in Podlasie near the Belarussian border. One was a driver, the other – Jan - a man suffering from debilitating sciatica, and desperate for relief. No doctors   nor pain killers could help Jan. The szeptucha was his last hope. Forty-five minutes later, Jan came out, pale   - almost ghost white -but walking effortlessly. All he said upon getting back into the car was, “Expletive, let’s go.” Riding back, Jan tried to process what had occurred and to explain the inexplicable. Inside the house was a woman who was blind, and bed bound. She told him to sit in a chair next to her   bed. She did not ask any questions but suddenly   he felt as if an invisib

  Ride One and You Will Buy One   A Whizzer -  I recall seeing  them  advertised in Popular Mechanics  and Boy’s   magazine and maybe  one or two  actually on the street, but that was more than fifty years ago. Most of the ads I saw would show a teenage boy cruising along on a bike with Whizzer motor attached. But there was one that featured  a young teenage girl in shorts enjoying a ride on a Schwinn bike equipped with a Whizzer. It stuck in my head – and apparently stayed there.  The  caption read : “Ride One and You’ll buy one.“ Now, someone  - a customer – a man about my age, is riding what looks to be a Whizzer into the parking lot where I work. More about him later, but let us talk about the magazine ad. Why was there a girl in the Whizzer ad? Could it be a way to attract the attention of teenaged boys ladened with sex hormones who might hopefully  buy a Whizzer one day? Maybe, but then again, perhaps it was just a harbinger of a slowly evolving cultural change. To attra

                                                         A Man with An X-Ray Vision                                                                                                   Several streets in my neighborhood are named after former astronauts. I live on Cooper Drive; Grissom Drive is nearby. I often think about these brave men who explored the cosmos. Virgil (Gus) Grissom gave up his life as a modern-day pioneer. Men have a compelling urge to explore and to discover. The thrust of their curiosity leads them to try to go where no one has gone before. Most of the surface of the earth has now been explored so men now look to outer space as their next objective, sometimes at their own peril. But before men journeyed into space, there were those who also went where none had ventured previously, to satisfy their own curiosity, yes, but for the benefit of mankind and the cost was often high. Streets may not be labeled in their honor nor are they often the subject of dinnerti

                   When the Shoe Fits, You’re Happy                                                                              You know this story: The soldiers ask Cinderella to try on the shoe. Much to the resistance of her stepmother, Cinderella puts it on her foot; it fits her perfectly. She shows the soldiers the other shoe. It is a matching pair. The Prince is so happy to find Cinderella, he marries her and the two live happily ever after .   We all know how happy we are when we have a good-fitting pair of shoes, but what is our size? How do we know?                                              King Edward II of England declared the barleycorn as the basis for shoe measurement. He ruled that the length of three barleycorns were equivalent to one inch, making this the standard for sizing. Got that? I know. What is a barleycorn? Someone came up with a better way to measure feet. It is simply known as The Brannock Device, the standard foot measuring tool for the

  Two Ton Baker “ Has Anyone Here Seen Bubbles? B-u-b-b-l-e-s”                                                         Well, have you, ever?   Here’s a radio and TV entertainment personality seniors might remember.                           Dick "Two Ton" Baker (May 2, 1916 – May 4, 1975) Richard (Dick) Baker was a talented singer and entertainer who was a prominent Chicago radio and television personality in the 40s and into the 1960s. Born and “fed” in the Windy City, he started playing the piano at age three. By age four he was playing piano at musical engagements. After high school, Dick joined a local 12-piece band, and played the piano at various gigs in the Chicago area and where he sometimes sang and served as master of ceremonies. Baker's full-time professional entertaining career began in 1938, playing for night clubs. In 1939 he also took a job in Chicago radio as a disc jockey and subsequently acquired the entertainment name “Two Ton” from

  So That’s Why They Wanted Those Dollar Bills   When I accepted an offer for a new job as an executive in a small but growing suburban community bank, the bank president commented on the suit I was wearing. It was summer and I chose to wear a medium grey three-piece suit for the interview. (I knew the president well; we worked together previously at another institution.) “I like your suit,” he told me, “But we are very conservative here. The men wear dark colored suits.” “Not a problem.  I said. "The suit I am wearing is in keeping with the dress code for the First National Bank (a global institution) where I work now, but I will abide by your standards for attire.” This was in 1991. Well, I got the job, and about a year later, I noticed that the president, a brilliant man, and savvy lender, who was also quite eccentric, began wearing Looney Tunes Daffy Duck cartoon ties. My grey suit came out of the closet and nothing more was ever said about it. Bankers in general have ea

  Jeep There’s Only One                                                         Eugene the Jeep is a character from E. C. Segar's Thimble Theater comic strip that spawned the likes of the famous Popeye the Sailor Man, Wimpy and Olive Oyl. He was Popeye’s pet but what kind of pet is unknown. The mysterious jeep had some cat-like features, a huge nose, and possessed magical abilities that drew those around him into fantastic journeys. Eugene was sometimes used as a mascot for schools and other child-related organizations and events. The World War II MB vehicle we have all come to know as the Jeep was unofficially named after this character, possibly because it could go just about everywhere. The name obviously caught on. Unlike other auto manufacturers who present a much broader array of brands, all Jeep models share a common heritage and remain popular in part because of it. The Jeep is authentic. It is the “car” that helped us win World War II.   It has been on every battle

                                                        Lost Trains of Thought More Christmas Stories              Many people have a Christmas story, maybe several but perhaps one stands out, mentally buried for a time in an avalanche of calendar pages of years gone by. It is a particular story or, like one of my own, it is just a simple recollection like walking in the early evening to my grandmother’s house to shovel her snow and watching as the Christmas wreath with the red light slowly became visible in the second-floor window. Ducking inside afterwards for a cup of hot chocolate (she insisted) and conversation was time well spent, and I miss her very much . This is typical of Christmas stories because they often have elements of both happiness and melancholy.  So does my friend Sue’s. Happiness and disappointment are core parts of life. You cannot always be happy. You must feel melancholy at times. It is knowing how to deal with grief, reality, and hard times that helps u