Sunday Sundries, 6

1. Sometimes there's not a movie that you really want to see, but you want to see a movie. (Popcorn, holding hands in the dark ... you know?) And so it was last week when Joyce and I headed off to see A Million Ways to Die in the West, Seth McFarlane's latest. I'm not a huge McFarlane fan (I thought his Ted was mostly gross rather than funny), but I love Westerns (Oklahoma boy that I was), I love Monument Valley (the trailer had revealed that some of the action would occur there--link to trailer) ... so off we went. And ... we both liked a lot more than we thought we would. Some good performances--and a surprise  appearance [SPOILER ALERT] by Django among the final credits.

2. Last week the Tribe honored its former All-Star shortstop Omar Vizquel (link to story). He really was amazing to watch and made some of the greatest plays I've ever seen (including, of course, my own). But I remember this: Back in the early and mid-1990s when the Tribe was emerging from its fifty-year swoon, when Vizquel was making impossible plays every night, middle school kids where I taught were once again wearing Tribe gear. One day, I overheard a couple of 8th grade girls out in the lunchroom. It went something like this:

Girl 1: Do you like Vizquel?

Girl 2: He has a great butt.

3. Stoddard's is open! That great frozen-custard place in Kent, the place where we've fattened up since the late 1960s and early 1970s when we were living in Kent. (I used to ride my bike there, tiny Steve in the infant seat on the back.) There were years when we somehow found the money to go every night. (Not good for the cholesterol or the waistline--but wonderful for the palate.) In recent years we've been firm: one night per season. And last Saturday was the night. Joyce and I sat in the car and moaned like teens on Lovers' Lane while we ate that spectacular custard. Of course, we can't go back ... that would be, you know, wrong!

4. And last week ... another tradition: Our first visit this season to Szalay's down in the Valley, a place where we go just about every week in the summer for fresh corn and other goodies. They don't have any of their own sweet corn yet (a bit early), but they had some from Georgia (I asked), so we bought a half-dozen ears, took them home, steamed a couple for supper, and moaned like teens on Lovers' Lane while we were eating.

5. Finally ... thanks to blog follower "Brett," who sent me some other Elmer the Worm stories he'd found using this newfangled thing called "Google." I'd written a couple of Elmer-posts on Feb. 15 and 16 this year. Elmer was a talking worm that appeared in a number of stories in Boys' Life back in the mid-1950s, and I remembered loving those tales when I was a bored lad in junior high study hall. Here are links to those earlier Elmer-posts (post 1 and post 2), and here is the list "Brett" found:

"Elmer the Worm," Sept. 1953
"Elmer's Return," Sept. 1954
"Elmer Goes Fishing," July 1955
"Elmer the Quarterback," September 1955
"Elmer Joins the Band," August 1956