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Oak, Ridge Vent
One would hope that a milestone birthday is memorable. I am unlikely to forget my big 5-0.
On Tuesday night, I was emceeing the weekly Einstein Simplified show at Side Splitters Comedy Club. The lights began to flicker and the guys in the scene made jokes about the utility bill being unpaid. When the lights went out and stayed out for a while, one of the guys pretended to be the voice of God just before the lights came back on. Club co-owner Bridgette O’Dell was happy that our improv group was on stage rather than a comic who relies on a microphone.
When we got home, the power was still out in our neighborhood. It stayed out all night, which meant I had to shower in the dark at 4:30 a.m. on my birthday. My son was home when the sun rose. He looked out the window to see that a massive oak tree had fallen between our house and our neighbor’s. My first glimpse of it was via the picture message he sent to my phone.
In the early afternoon, I texted my neighbors on both sides. They replied that the power had been restored around noon. When my wife and I got home, we could see that one end of the ridge vent on our roof was twisted into an odd shape by strong winds the night before. I put a call in to our insurance agent and took a nap.
When I woke up, my family surprised me with a great birthday gift. I am now the proud owner of an Amazon Kindle. I’ve already downloaded a few items from the Top 100 Free eBooks list. Despite all the weather-related craziness, one birthday tradition lived on. I had some delicious lobster tails for dinner.
Paleolithic
George Clooney, Michael J. Fox, Eddie Murphy. Did I mention George Clooney? These young stars of Hollywood are all older than me. IMDB has 3,182 listings of people born in 1961. Wikipedia has 6,630 listings. NMDB has a pretty good list too.
Some of my favorites like Julia Louis-Dreyfus, George Lopez, and Lea Thompson have also already hit the half-century mark. Ricky Gervais turns 50 on Saturday. Celebrities born in the second half of the year include Woody Harrelson, Bonnie Hunt, Ralph Macchio and Jodi Benson, the Little Mermaid herself.
The American Association of Retired Persons, now known only as AARP, should get some of these whippersnappers to appear in their ads. For now, they have the 89-year-old but seemingly ageless Betty White as their spokesperson.
Now that I am an AARP member, I follow them on Twitter and they follow me. Yesterday, AARP Tennessee posted the question, “What were your favorite summer games as a kid? Kick the can? Red Rover?” I replied, “Painting bison hunts on cave walls.”
The Frog Whisperer
A storm early Sunday morning resulted in twelve frogs in the skimmer. This time I was happy that nine survived. With frogs on my hands and arms, my wife thought I looked like a statue of St. Francis. My son and I wondered if these could be from the batch of tadpoles who grew to maturity on the pool cover this Spring.
A rainstorm last week washed nine frogs into the pool. Sadly most of them were deceased by the time I found them in the skimmer. After I threw the bloated dead ones over the fence, I wondered if the hawks would see them and think, “Yum! Popables!”
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Except for a rain delay, my Father’s Day played out as I had hoped. I went for a swim and enjoyed smoked chicken and grilled peaches for dinner, which I anticipated in a guest post about Father’s Day for Food City’s Power Shopper Blog. Although I have a business relationship with Food City, the blog post was done as a favor for The Tombras Group.
Earlier in the day, my daughter called to sing the Father’s Day song that I had learned from an old Groucho Marx album and passed along to to my kids. My wife and son joined in the serenade. My son started plunking out the tune on a keyboard, trying to guess what note I meant to sing.
My wife wanted to buy me a cake for my upcoming birthday but I told her I would rather defrost a slice of the banana walnut cranberry cake from Touch of Love Catering that has been in our freezer since February. My wife doesn’t like banana-flavored things, which may be why she bought a chocolate Father’s Day cake for us to share. At first glance, I thought the decoration on top said “Hi Dad!” but it actually says “#1 Dad!”
Let the Spectacle Astound You
Competitive ballroom dancing is a sport in which the participants strive to look as good when they finish as they did when they started. The dancers retain their poise and grace while trying to hide their sweat and exhaustion. Professional instructors Prageeth Hettiarachchi and Debora Zaglul of Kentucky DanceSport proved my point as they danced near my table on Saturday night. I suppose that figure skating is the only other sport that requires costumes and makeup.
Academy Ballroom owners Emily Loyless and Jeremy Norris invited my wife and me to watch the final session of the third annual Rocky Top Dance Challenge at the Knoxville Marriott Downtown. I had a good time last year and happily accepted their invitation. After the pro-am events, we saw pro couples compete in four heats.
When we arrived, Emily gave us cowbells and a plastic megaphone. The organizers want the audience to make noise after each performance and as the award winners are announced. We sat at a table that had been cleared, except for a package of GU Energy Gel. It took me a moment to realize that it is something the performers eat, not something they rub on their sore muscles.
The capper for the evening was a performance by the Atlanta Ballroom Dance Theater and featured pro teams. They performed in a dramatically lit ballroom while wearing masquerade masks. Emily introduced me to one of the dancers whose day job is on the radio. Wendy Adams is a member of The Bert Show, which is based in Atlanta. The costume for her chair dance explains why she asked her Twitter followers, “Anyone know where I can get some black hot pants?”
The Band Perry Joined
If you will be in the DC area next weekend, try to go see The Next Big Thing. They have a gig on Saturday, June 25 at Jammin’ Java in Vienna, Virginia. It’s a benefit for the American Cancer Society.
One of my extended family members, Perry Seip, plays trombone in the band. This is his first rock band. When he lived in Germany, he played in an oom-pah band called Willinger Musi.
I’ve always enjoyed rock bands with strong horn sections. Come to think of it, that’s the reason I also like old-time big band music and why I love the Brian Setzer Orchestra, which combines both.
The Next Big Thing has several home videos on their website and on YouTube. Here’s one to get you started:
Boom Goes the Dynamite
Helen Taylor from East Tennessee Cremation Company sent me a Facebook message. She wouldn’t be able to attend the “Fun with Forensics: Adventures in Chemistry” summer camp run by Dr. Al Hazari. Instead, she and her daughter recorded a video tour of the facility for the kids to see.
Helen asked if I wanted to attend Tuesday’s session, which included a slide presentation by Dr. Bill Bass. I thought I had a scheduling conflict because I would be shooting segments for Smoky Mountain Morning that day. Then it occurred to me to bring the camera crew to the forensic chemistry camp. I got there early and interviewed both doctors before the students arrived.
My son wasn’t kidding when he said last week that the adults touring the National Forensic Academy did the same DNA exercise as the middle-school kids at forensic chemistry camp. Dr. Hazari displayed one of the Twizzler and marshmallow molecule models when I asked him about it. He also showed me a piece of crime-scene tape written in Arabic.
Before Dr. Bass took the floor, there was a technical glitch with Dr. Hazari’s Power Point presentation. As he worked on the computer, he asked me to say something, anything, to fill the time. Since there were several parents in attendance, I plugged the next fundraiser for the Dr. William M. Bass Forensic Anthropology Center and then asked the kids what TV shows got them interested in forensics. They answered with the obvious choices like “NCIS,” “Bones” and the three “CSI” shows. My ulterior motive was to get them in the right frame of mind for the gruesome slides that they were about to see.
Last year Dr. Bass did a slide show on cremation. Since Helen’s video was covering that topic this year, Dr. Bass presented his slides from the explosion of an illegal fireworks factory in Benton, Tennessee.
In 2008, WTVC and WDEF in Chattanooga aired stories marking the 25th anniversary of the explosion. WDEF also posted some of their stories from the 1983 explosion on YouTube:
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