Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
When I was single in Miami. I was in a place that was great to be solo. I had friends to do stuff with. The beach was minutes away. Life was just starting for me, so everything was an adventure. We went deep-sea fishing, clubbing, and I came home to a house that occasionally had roommates. Mostly, I was able to come and go as I wished.
When it was time to move on in a relationship, that was easy too. They would just become after W in the alphabet.
Health was easy. I was in shape for free by just being young. We were fearless and what felt like immortal. We could do anything and there would always be tomorrow.
My friends and I had season tickets to the Dan Marino Air Force show. Every game was 5 touchdowns, and I even partied in the stands with Don Shula’s daughter.
Then, I grew up. In the words of Toby Keith, I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.
Now, it’s you ain’t much fun since I quit drinkin’.
Bugs is my favorite. I liked Jonny Quest also, but they didn’t make enough episodes and it kind of was the same episode every week. Every Jeopardy answer I get on Opera is from Bugs. He was the most anti-PC character before Beavis and Butthead
Not Bugs.
(LMPC via Getty Images)
Hans von Spakovsky is the manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
I know, I know. We have been in the midst of a blizzard of important domestic and world events this summer, from the final week of the Supreme Court’s term with a slew of important decisions to the fight over the “Big, Beautiful Bill” to the war in the Middle East and the Russian/Ukrainian conflict. We also just celebrated the 249th birthday of the United States.
But in the midst of all this, we should not forget the 85th birthday of that beloved all-American trickster and practical joker, Bugs Bunny. A look back at the original cartoon series shows just how much that rabbit reflected the culture, the politics, and the patriotism of the times and how some of his antics wouldn’t play well for the woke generation of today.
On July 27, 1940, the wisecracking, mouthy bunny with a Brooklyn accent got his official start in the Looney Tunes classic “A Wild Hare,” in which he bamboozles and confuses the most unsuccessful and hapless hunter in American history, Elmer Fudd, for the first of many times.
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
For the past 85 years, in addition to Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny has been trouncing, defeating, and outtalking a host of surly but memorable characters, including Yosemite Sam, the roughest, toughest hombre east of the Pecos; Porky “Th-Th-Th-That’s all, folks” Pig; and Daffy Duck. Elmer Fudd never managed to catch that wascally wabbit, and the same goes for Daffy Duck, who was never able to outsmart Bugs or get the better of him.
Trouncing, defeating, and outtalking a host of surly characters? Gosh, who does that remind you of in today’s political world?
There are even two cartoons, “Operation: Rabbit” (1952) and “To Hare is Human” (1956), in which Wile E. Coyote is up against Bugs Bunny instead of his usual opponent, the Road Runner, who is on vacation, with the same disastrous results. Wile E. Coyote actually speaks in that second cartoon, something he does not do in any other appearance, except by holding up a sign, usually about something stupid that he just did.
Don’t you wish there really was a company like ACME, Wile E. Coyote’s go-to company for equipment? I know Amazon comes close, but it just doesn’t have the same expansive inventory as ACME of bombs, cannons, TNT, anvils, missiles, rocket sleds, and every other kind of fiendish device our fevered imaginations can imagine.
While kids have always liked these cartoons, they were really designed by adults for adults, since they were shown in movie theaters before the feature films. The original cartoons contain many politically incorrect scenes that these days would get them instantly criticized by the “woke police,” another reason they remain so timeless.
While Bugs Bunny was the main star, he had a host of other colleagues who appeared in other cartoons, including Pepe le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn, and Sylvester the cat, to name just a few. Besides Bugs Bunny, I have to admit that Foghorn Leghorn, the loud, blustering, overbearing rooster, is one of my other favorites characters, in large part because he resembles so many of the politicians one encounters here in the nation’s capital.
Speaking of politicians, you shouldn’t miss “Ballot Box Bunny” (1951), where Bugs runs against Yosemite Sam for mayor of a small town. They play every trick you can imagine on each other to try to win—not too different from the tricks we see in real campaigns today—and Yosemite Sam’s campaign promises alone are worth watching. Bugs and Sam spend so much time attacking each other that, in the end, they are both beaten by a dark horse—in this case, literally a dark horse. Fortunately, neither of them is prosecuted by an overzealous U.S. Justice Department.
While Daffy Duck may have never gotten the better of Bugs Bunny, he was the first American duck to go into space to battle aliens in 1953, long before Harrison Ford in “Star Wars,” when he fought Marvin the Martian in “Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century,” a takeoff on the “Buck Rogers” serial that premiered in movie houses in 1939. One of the cleverest of the Daffy Duck/Bugs Bunny confrontations also premiered in 1953. In “Duck Amuck,” an unidentified animator keeps changing Daffy’s shape, location, and even his voice. Of course, it turns out in the end that the animator is Bugs Bunny.
But getting back to the woke police, there was actually criticism of Pepe le Pew as supposedly glorifying a sexual harasser and of Elmer Fudd for carrying a gun. In fact, the idiots at HBO Max decreed that Fudd had to be gun-free in their reboot of Looney Tunes in 2020. Just more proof that liberals really have no sense of humor, something the Babylon Bee proves every day.
Bugs Bunny was a star for Warner Bros., the Hollywood studio started in 1923 by the four Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack. The animators at Warner Bros. created 167 brilliant and memorable Bugs Bunny cartoons during the golden age of American animation. I don’t count more recently produced Bugs Bunny cartoons, all of which lack the comedy, wit, and cleverness of the originals. These were cartoons created by adults for adults with a mischievous sense of humor.
While Bugs Bunny always came out on top, he was not infallible. There were actually three cartoons that were takeoffs on the Aesop fairy tale about the race between the tortoise and the hare: “Tortoise Beats Hare” (1941), “Tortoise Wins by a Hare” (1943), and “Rabbit Transit” (1947). In each one, the tortoise gets the better of Bugs Bunny, including “Rabbit Transit,” in which Bugs Bunny actually wins the race but then is arrested by the police for speeding.
Whenever he went on vacation, Bugs Bunny always took a wrong turn in Albuquerque. Having been to “Albukoykee,” as Bugs Bunny pronounces it, I can understand why. Those wrong turns led him to some dangerous places, including the middle of a bull ring in Mexico in “Bully for Bugs” (1953) or Nazi Germany in “Herr Meets Hare” (1945), where he confronted Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göering, and Bugs imitates Joseph Stalin.
Speaking of Nazi Germany, Bugs did go to war like a lot of Hollywood during World War II. He became an honorary master sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps after he appeared in a Marine Corps dress blue uniform in “Super-Rabbit” (1943). Some of these wartime cartoons like “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips” (1944) have been “banned” by oversensitive cartoon channels because of the racial or ethnic stereotypes used at the time. Bugs Bunny even got drafted during the Korean War in “Forward March Hare” (1952) when he got his neighbor’s draft notice by mistake. And no, he did not abscond to Canada to avoid service.
If you love opera, you can’t beat the Bugs Bunny versions. Turns out that the directors and animators were all big opera fans. So, we have “The Rabbit of Seville” (1950) and “What’s Opera, Doc?” (1957), where Bugs and Elmer Fudd give us their versions of great Rossini and Wagner operas. You have to be an opera fan to get the joke at the end of “The Rabbit of Seville,” which was a takeoff of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” At the end, Bugs drops Elmer Fudd into a huge cake that is labeled “The Marriage of Figaro,” which was Mozart’s version of “The Barber of Seville.”
And what better way is there to learn about English or American history than watching the story of Robin Hood in “Rabbit Hood” (1945) or the American Revolution in “Bunker Hill Bunny” (1950). Or if you love the great American pastime, don’t miss “Baseball Bugs” (1946). Bugs Bunny takes on the Gas-House Gorillas in the Polo Grounds in New York City, the original home of both the Mets and the Yankees, playing all of the positions. He wins the game when he makes the ultimate play—catching a flyball at the top of the “Umpire” State Building, which he reaches by taking a cab from the baseball field to the skyscraper.
There are many well-known lines from famous movies that have entered our culture, including from great classics like “Casablanca”: “I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here,” or “Round up the usual suspects,” and the Bugs Bunny cartoons have those, too.
All of the voices in the original cartoons were voiced by the brilliant Mel Blanc, probably the most talented and versatile voice that ever came out of Hollywood. One of his most repeated lines as Bugs Bunny besides “What’s up, Doc?” is “Of course, you realize, this means war.” Or “He don’t know me very well.”
And one of Bugs Bunny’s commonly uttered derisions, “What a maroon,” comes to mind fairly often as I watch a slew of liberal politicians and left-wing activists at work in Washington each day.
So, happy birthday, Bugs Bunny. You may be 85 years old, but you will always remain young in our hearts and a hare-raiser on the screen.
My truck is automatic, but I learned to double clutch on an old car with a crashbox. My son’s sports car has a 6 speed that I drive for fun when I can.
Here they are….
Remember when nearly every car had a stick? Sadly, manual transmissions aren’t as popular as they used to be. Automakers have phased out their six-speeds over the years as fewer customers crave the ol’ do-it-yourself shifter.
But don’t worry, it’s not all doom and gloom.
There are nearly 30 cars you can still buy with a manual transmission in 2025. The options range from sports cars and sports sedans to SUVs—and even a truck. With many iconic models ditching their manuals for the new year, we’re happy to see that there are still survivors out there. Stay strong.
There’s something heartwarming about two fellas fishing togetherfor black crappie, breaking a state record, and then doing it again not 2 hours later. That’s exactly what Lindell Marker and Dwight Priestley did.
On August 8 at 7:30 a.m., Marker caught a 17.36-inch black crappie at Woodrum Lake, breaking Craig Webb’s 17.32-inch state record. Marker’s fish tied the existing weight of 2.85 pounds.
Just 75 minutes later, Priestly landed a 17.76-inch, 3.15-pound black crappie, breaking the very newly set state record. Both of the fish were caught using live minnows, and both records were confirmed and certified by WVDNR Fisheries Biologist Cory Hartman.
One West Virginia dad etched his name in fishing history by making an impressive catch on the most unassuming gear imaginable.
On July 21, Tyler Rutherford and his relatives spontaneously decided to fish a family farm pond.
They took worms and a few poles, and Rutherford soon cast a line from his 3-year-old daughter’s pink fishing pole out into the 1.5-acre pond.
The young girl is only able to reel the line in, so Rutherford casts it for her.
“We all just grabbed a thing of nightcrawlers,” Rutherford told the West Virginia Outdoors podcast. “I’d got my daughter a little pink $9.99 Zebco from Academy Sports and I’d got my little boy one for Easter.
If you had to change your name, what would your new name be?
Since I’m in the real world, I’m happy with who I am.
But since the question was asked when I could be the guy that saves the world or the universe, there you go. If you can be a superhero at it, that’s just icing on the cake.
I knew this was the answer 25 years before it happened. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the work that I did, but it was only a couple of stairs in Life and there were more stairs before and after.
At the end work was getting in the way of my life. I had so much going on at the time and still have so much to do.
I mixed it up. I switch between lifting weights, swimming, golf, biking, long distance, and do them all by myself. I never needed a class or a group of people to be motivated exercise.
Let’s see, over the years it’s been fishing, hunting, karate, racing, tennis, Biking, and then there was kids and Life, and other stuff, and the next thing I knew I’ve lived in seven decades. I mostly do introvert stuff now so I get lost in my mind a lot.
Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Pi Day is an annual opportunity for math enthusiasts to recite the infinite digits of Pi, talk to their friends about math, and eat pie.
Pi has been calculated to over 50 trillion digits beyond its decimal point. As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. While only a handful of digits are needed for typical calculations, pi’s infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits.
Why would you want to ride in a Ferrari when you can command such a beast around the roads? It would be like having the most beautiful girl in the world and not sleep with her.
At least the company headquartered in Maranello announced they won’t pollute the sanctity of their driving machines with this feature.
They caved to e-fuels, but the essence of the prancing horse will stay intact.
Self-driving Ferraris are not for us, Ferrari chief executive Ferrari Benedetto Vigna said Monday. “Lifestyle business is immportant for us,” Vigna said. “It allows us to expand links with our community.”
Vigna also welcomed plans to exempt cars that run on e-fuels from the European Union’s planned 2035 phase-out of new combustion engine vehicles as they will give the luxury carmaker “greater freedom” on its power systems.
COMBUSTION ENGINE EXCEPTION
The European Union and Germany have reached a deal allowing new cars powered by combustion engines (ICE) to be sold beyond the 2035 deadline, or 2036 for so-called small volume manufacturers like Ferrari, if they run on carbon-neutral e-fuels.
“The good news for us as a company is that on top of electric cars, we’ll also be able to go on with our internal combustion engines ones,” Vigna told a Reuters Newsmaker event.
“This decision is very interesting for us because it allows ICEs to go beyond 2036,” he added.
Ferrari, which is renowned for its powerful petrol engines, is already producing plug-in hybrid cars and has promised its first full-electric vehicle for 2025.
However, Ferrari, which sold over 13,200 cars in 2022, has never provided a roadmap for going all electric.
Presenting its new business plan last year, Ferrari said fully electric and hybrid models would make up 80% of those in its range by 2030, while 20% would still be powered by internal combustion engines.
“This does not change,” Vigna said. “We don’t want to tell clients which car to use. We want to make three kinds of propulsion available for them – hybrid, electric and ICE – and they will chose.”
SPENDING UNCHANGED
Vigna reassured investors that the company’s investment plans would not be affected by combustion engines getting an extended life, as Ferrari had already “embedded” this scenario in its business plan.
“The figure I gave (last year) – 4.4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) for capex in the 2022-2026 period – it’s enough for us to go ahead with electrification and also with ICEs which are compatible with e-fuels,” he said.
Vigna said Ferrari’s upcoming electric model would be “a unique car” but would not be drawn on details, adding that “keeping secret is part of the recipe.”
He added it was wrong to assume that specific forms of propulsion would match specific models in the future. Fuels are a mean to provide the performance expected from a Ferrari car, he said.
He said that the price of e-fuels, or synthetic fuels, was likely to come down as they are developed in coming years.
“They’re a new technology, and like for all new technologies they have time to become cheaper,” he said. ($1 = 0.9279 euros)
I had a lot of these growing up and made them more dangerous if possible. Instructions? If I read them, it didn’t mean I followed them.
Where were our parents? They bought us these killers and told us to go outside and play. I never had supervision other than don’t hurt the other kids, which was the point of all our games anyway.
I never had a Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab with real radiation.
In 1951, A.C. Gilbert introduced his U-238 Atomic Energy Lab, a radioactive learning set we can only assume was fun for the whole math club. Gilbert, who Americanmemorabilia claims was “often compared to Walt Disney for his creative genius,” had a dream that nuclear power could capture the imaginations of children everywhere. For a mere $49.50, the kit came complete with three “very low-level” radioactive sources, a Geiger-Mueller radiation counter, a Wilson Cloud Chamber (to see paths of alpha particles), a Spinthariscope (to see “live” radioactive disintegration), four samples of Uranium-bearing ores, and an Electroscope to measure radioactivity.
Here are the rest of the 10. If you don’t have the time, lawn darts IS on the list and I threw them at other kids and had them thrown at me.
Now, the Karen’s of the world have ruined the fun, or tried to make it woke.
I loved lawn darts. It’s like eating a tootsie roll pop. You always bite it. With lawn darts, you take maybe 2 throws at the circle and then you are aiming at the other kids. Now, micro aggression’s need safe spaces in case I hurt you with an incorrect pronoun or say a forbidden word. How sad it is that you can become so shallow that words thrown childishly and generally out of context hurt you.
Now for dodgeball. They don’t let kids play it because the unwritten rules are kill the fat kids and girls first as they are the slowest and easiest to hit. It’s why lions kill the slowest in the heard. They are the ones that got a good game banned because they couldn’t win. Note: This game is a good lesson in life, survival, awareness and loyalty.
Loyalty in dodgeball? Yes. When it’s down to a couple of kids, you don’t throw at your friends first. It spilled over into class and life.
Did we aim for the body? If it was available, otherwise a head shot was good for stories 2 days later that everyone enjoyed until Karen’s came along.
If they would stop banning the good games (also red rover), maybe kids would go outside more.
The snow is finally gone (it did snow last week) and the local course opened, so I made my way out to the course. I had no one to make up a four or even a twosome, so I picked at time and figured I’d get stuck with someone.
Well, the tourists aren’t hear yet. The snow has melted and the skiers are gone. It turns out that it was supposed to rain that day so when I got to the course, the parking lot was empty. I knew my luck couldn’t hold so I went to the range and hit a bucket to warm up and then went to putt on the practice green. It is next to the first tee, so I knew that I could keep an eye on the traffic to get out with as few people in my group as possible.
As it turns out, no one showed up. Even the starter wasn’t there. I took the opportunity to jump on the tee and try for a solo round. Life was on my side and there weren’t golfers for many holes either side of me.
I played 18 hassle free and small talk free golf. I would have paid extra money for this freebie in life.
I’ll be out again this week and I’ll get paired up with someone the rest of the year, but it was a good start.
Looks like I’m starting out the year with a double digit handicap. Playing golf is my other handicap.
The cart is mine. There is no one on any hole in sight, damn near a perfect day for me.
I was at the App State v Coastal Carolina game, probably the game of the week. There were over 31,000 super spreaders that Fauci warned us about.
I’ll report back if there is an outbreak here, but I doubt it. There have been games everywhere since August with little to no outbreaks or breakthroughs.
I guarantee you that there were both vaxxed and un-vaxxed at the game last night. Both have an equal chance at getting it like every other game we were told not to go to.
The game was won on the last play and the 14th ranked team went down in flames. The crowd spilled onto the field, certainly spreading Covid everywhere. Ha!
A good time was had by all, except Fauci, the CDC, NIH, WHO, Congress and Washington DC.
I rarely want to go out where there are people other than for exercise, groceries or to walk the dog.
I wanted to see Venom – Let There Be Carnage, but had the dilemma of not wanting to go. I clearly remember thinking that I’d rather stream it at home and considered bailing, but it wasn’t an option for me to view. I had another errand to do (Auto Zone, an approved Introverted place to shop) so I forced myself.
When I got to the theater, I saw that there was only one other car in the parking lot. It was a good sign. I picked the earliest showing in the day to avoid people. I was going to a geek movie so I expected the worst and that they would be at my theater of course, one of 8 at the complex.
To my delight, I was in a room that held 100 people and for the entirety of my stay, I was alone, damn near perfect.
I of course brought Clorox wipes to disinfect everything and actually enjoyed being there. One other person would have ruined it for me.
I originally saw Venom on TV because I had some time to kill and wound up loving the story. I really wanted to see the sequel and the cards lined up for me today.
I got to see Captain Kirk finally get to space and got to experience being the only one in a huge theater to see one of the few movies I’d actually pay for. It is a good movie to see. I wouldn’t bring a date though. It’s definitely not a Rom-Com.
I know it sounds weird to most, but if you are introverted this will resonate and you’ll wish you were me.
I loved all the Bugs Bunny cartoons. Marvin the Martian was his foil in a couple. That was when we didn’t have a cancel culture and weren’t afraid of making fun of things without being castrated on Social Media.
I saw every one of them as a kid. I saw every one of them as an adult and appreciated them even more. My kids know every time I reference an episode. It’s even better when they reference one to me.
Here is the illudiam Q-36 explosive space modulator, to blow up the Earth.
I had a bunch of these as a kid. When I didn’t have a gun, we used to hit the caps with a hammer. We got brave and hit the whole roll at once for a bigger bang.
I am not sorry they didn’t have video games when I was a kid. I can smell the gunpowder as I type this. I discovered a lot of things because of boredom and curiosity in life.
This is Jo Siffert at Daytona in 1970 in a Gulf Porsche 917. Out of all of the versions of this dominating car, this was both my favorite and my first encounter with it. He was my favorite driver and died too young.
It was the first time I’d seen a car go over 200 MPH in person. I was young, so it was impressive.
I was already a Porschefile by this point, but that day cemented it home.
I’ve seen them race many times, but I was with my Dad that day and it still is memorable for me.
Later, the car was the star of the movie Le Mans. Steve McQueen was in the movie, the king of cool, but the car outshone him.
Some call it the greatest sports car ever, and for those of us who have seen it race, we understand why.
After all…..this is the greatest line ever in a car movie.
Owning one of these is the only time I’d want to live in Oregon, Washington (either one), California or New York. Let’s not forget that the same people have invaded Florida.
Actually, I should be banned from having one. I’d be in jail within minutes of buying it.
I have been a huge Star Trek fan since TOS. I’ve met some of the actors at conferences for work.
I went to the Star Trek Experience at the Vegas Hilton. It had all the props from all the series in timeline order. There were 3 ships hung above. One was the NCC-1701, there was either the Voyager or Excelsior and I think a Klingon Bird of Prey. No matter, the props were good enough.
I lived each episode as I went down the display case. The actual phasers, tri-corders, costumes and ample descriptions. It took me hours to get through.
Later, they added a Borg exhibit and you get to experience 4D assimilation.
I still have a Tribble at home.
If they would only give me a replicator I’d be in heaven. They probably shouldn’t give me a phaser because I couldn’t promise to keep it on stun for some people.
I’m not sure if we should blame the parents or the kids. These are time out kids, not fear of God ass whooping that kept us in line and for most of us kept us on the straight and narrow later in life.
I’m not for spanking kids here so save the hate. I am for proper discipline and letting kids grow up as kids without mind numbing drugs they give the boys.
There are a lot of comparisons and finger pointing that anyone can make here so I’ll delete the comments by jerks.
I rode in the back of a pickup in a lawn chair on the way to the beach because it was a 2 person truck with 3 people going. At 9 in the morning, someone ran up and handed me a beer to which all the nearby cars were honking in approval.
I made it to the beach safely and returned with a lot fewer IQ points due to the alcohol.
This is a story about my young son trying to catch the biggest fish in the pond.
Fathers do things for their children. They take them places and (try to) teach them things.
I like to fish and wanted my son to also like it so we could fish together. I made sure that we went catching instead of fishing. For those who have gone a entire day fishing without catching anything, you know what I mean.
I took him to the fishing show one year to show him around. It is a place where they sell things mostly to catch fishermen’s wallets.
We started the show by dropping quarters into a large fish tank. If the quarter glided through the water and into the shot glass at the bottom, you were a winner with the prize being your choice of worms. He won on the first try and was very excited about it.
I knew his attention span was limited so we went to the trout pond to fish. When I say pond, I mean a temporary pool filled with fish. They were mostly small trout with maybe 3 big boys in the pond (actually the big ones are female). It came complete with plastic palm trees in the middle for décor. You paid your $2 and could keep anything you caught in 5 minutes. The poles were a 4-foot stick with a short line and small hook baited with a mostly inedible piece of plastic half the size of a fingernail.
The odds are with the fish on this one. Especially when they have seen the same bait for 3 days and got fed every night.
My goal was for him to catch anything while I wanted to get enough of the small guys for dinner. I told him that any fish was a good fish.
HUNTING MOBY DICK
Never the small dreamer, he spotted the biggest fish in the pool and said he was going after it. I feared he would be disappointed as everyone threw a line at it, but I knew I could just take him through the line again and tell him to go for something catchable.
I had landed about 3 of the small fish and was well on the way to having dinner by half the time allotted. He kept trying for the big fish (nicknamed Moby Dick).
As time was counting down and I had caught enough for dinner, I heard a huge splash beside me. I looked over and sure enough, my son had hooked Moby.
My new fear was that he would be crushed if the fish spit the hook. The hooks they provided were tiny and easy for the fish get off the line. I saw it happen to every kid before us. If you didn’t get one to the side in less than 15 seconds, it was pretty much over.
This fish was almost too strong for the small stick and line we were given. Over a minute into the fight, it was still on and I knew the odds were against us.
THE FIRST CHANCE TO LOSE THE FISH
Things took a turn for the worse as his fish got wrapped around one of the plastic palm trees. In my mind, I was already preparing to console him for his loss.
I knew I had to try something. After all, I was his Dad so I reached into the tank and grabbed the palm tree. The pond monitors weren’t happy with me but it was my son.
Anyone who ever had a fish on knows that if you get slack in the line, the fish is as good as gone once the line goes taut and the sudden tension pulls the hook out of the fish’s mouth.
To my surprise, Moby stayed on despite the tree incident and he was well past 2 minutes into the fight. Time was now over for that fishing session, but since he had one on we were allowed to finish. We had an audience as everyone waiting to fish and those who just finished could see that he had a good one on.
I decided that if by chance I could get my hands on this fish that I was willing to do anything to get it for my son. I didn’t want him to be disappointed after overcoming virtually everything that could go wrong, just to lose it at the last second. This wasn’t going to be easy, as anyone who has handled a trout knows they have a coating of slime. They are as slippery as greased ice. Landing them is usually done with a net, which we weren’t allowed to use.
PANIC AT THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
I thought nothing more could go wrong, but to my horror I could see that it was foul hooked (hooked on the body rather than the mouth). My sense of the odds of landing Moby were next to nothing now.
After what seemed like a million circles in the pond, Moby came within my reach and I stuck my hand under the fish and threw it out of the pond in one swoop.
On that day, he had landed the biggest fish in the pond, a Dad was proud and a small boy became a fisherman.
Here is a picture later in life of fishing together. He learned well
With all the crap that is in the news today, I’m taking a break of levity with some interesting facts. Since I got this from someone else, some of it could be disputed, like peas on pizza, but it’s a hell of a lot closer to the truth than you’ll read in the news.
1. A strawberry isn’t a berry but a banana is.
2. Avocados andwatermelonare berries, too.
3. Cashews grow on trees like this:
4. And Brussels sprouts grow in long stalks like this:
8. McDonald’s sells 75 hamburgersevery secondof every day.
9. Yams and sweet potatoesare notthe same thing
10. Ripe cranberries willbouncelike rubber balls.
11. An average ear of corn has aneven number of rows, usually 16.
12. Betty White is actually older than sliced bread.
Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for TV Land
13. Humans share 50% of their DNA withbananas.
14. Honey neverspoils. You can eat 32,000-year-old honey.
15. Peanuts are not nuts. They grow in the ground like this, so they are legumes.
16.Vending machinesare twice as likely to kill you than a shark is.
17. Coconuts kill morepeoplethan sharks every year. So do cows.
18. Pound cake got itsnamefrom its original recipe, which called for a pound each of butter, eggs, sugar, and flour.
19. The probability of you drinking a glass of water that contains a molecule of water that also passed through a dinosaur isalmost 100%.
20. Honey is made from nectar andbee vomit.
26. And artichokes are flowers that are eaten as buds. This is what they look like when flowered:
Flickr / Creative Commons / Wayne Marshall
27. “Spam” is short forspiced ham.
28. Popsicles were invented by an11-year-oldin 1905.
29. Apples, like pears and plums, belong to therose family.
30. The official state vegetable ofOklahomais the watermelon.
31.Peasare one the most popular pizza toppings in Brazil:
32. There are over7,500 varieties of applesthroughout the world, and it would take you 20 years to try them all if you had one each day.
33. The twists in pretzels are made to look likearms crossedin prayer.
34. Canola oil wasoriginally calledrapeseed oil, but renamed by the Canadian oil industry in 1978 to avoid negative connotations. “Canola” is short for “Canadian oil.”
35. And no matter what color Froot Loop you eat, they alltaste the same.
Delusions of Adequacy 