I didn’t attend an advertising school, so I don’t know if they teach the rule about limiting the number of billboards using the word ridiculously to one per square mile. If they don’t, maybe it’s a good time to start.

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…well, I usually eat 3 or 4. I don’t eat them for health benefits or because they are cheap or for whatever other reason – I just like the apples. I like them fresh, cooked, in a pie, in a cake, baked, in apple sauce, with caramel or honey, sliced, peeled, unpeeled and I like most of the varieties. Every year we try to make a trip to a local apple orchard to pick some fresh fruit. I was a locavore before it became trendy and people started doing it to feel good about themselves.

We are surrounded by many apple orchards. There is Vaughn’s in Weston, we were going there for years, Schreiman’s in Waverly, it’s not u-pick but is very nice and in a beautiful historic area; and for the last couple of years we are picking apples at Pome on the Range orchard in Williamsburg, KS. Besides apples and pumpkins they also sell fruit wines some Kansas-grown produce, jams, honey and other things that are good for you.

Today they had their annual fall festival but it looks like they still have plenty of apples to pick for the next weekend or three. If you are in Kansas, especially South Johnson County, you are just 25-30 miles away. Not only you will keep the doctor away, you will be able to brag about eating local and catch envious looks of your not-so-hip friends. While you are at it, mention that you only drink Shatto milk to completely crush them with you locavorness.

For the next year I am keeping an eye on the Wagon Wheel Orchard which was picked out early this year due to being very young. They seem to have a great variety – something I am always looking for.

Eat an apple!

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On a long list of things that I am lacking, somewhere between being sporty and good looks, is the ability to do the Yo-Yo thing (shut up, Chimpo). I am not sure if the Life magazine ever ran these photos taken in June of 1961, so here is your chance to see them.

I have a strange feeling when I look at these photos – these Kansas City kids are about 60 years old now, their own kids are likely to be older than they were in these shots, which captured just one second of their summer almost 50 years ago.

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When I was a kid we didn’t have Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa (the latter is due to the lack of African-Ukrainians). We had New Year, with Ded Moroz and Snegurochka, “New Year’s” Tree, presents, and obligatory toast at midnight. New Year was the only Soviet holiday that wasn’t associated with any communist or revolution bullshit.
People dressed up, even at home, the table was covered with hard-to-find delicacies and drinks. Then my Mom made me take out the trash one last time, which involved going 3 floors (81 steps) down to the cold and dark yard. Then everyone waited.
Few minutes before midnight the General Secretary of the Communist Part of the USSR would congratulate the Soviet People with another giant leap toward communism made in a previous year and wish them to make even more giant step next year.This is what it looked like in 1971. I only expect a few readers to recognize who this is, Leonid Illyich Brezhnev died before some of you were born. I know it’s in Russian but I am sure you’ll recognize every other word being “socialism” or “communism”. Brezhnev loved himself a long speech. He could go on for hours but he knew that vodka and champagne are getting warm and people restless. But there was no escape: all three channels had the speech on. Soviet people had to be congratulated whether the wanted it or not.

When the General Secretary finally shut up, the Kremlin Kuranty rung midnight, the universal signal to start the festivities. That’s when we toasted New Year, my Dad would go outside and leave a bag of presents right behind the door, I don’t think we even wrapped them. We usually didn’t stay up for too long. I am still not a night person. I still like New Year better than all the other holidays combined. Nobody is born, no miracles of burning oil, just a clock of life ticking along, all the bad things are behind you and a brand new, bright and shiny year is ahead.

This year I will be celebrating in St.Louis with a bunch of other Russians, old style. Even three months of Christmas music every year can’t make us forget who we are.
I wish you all a Happy New Year, I hope that you will prosper, win a lottery, don’t get sick and have fun.
P.S. To all the beautiful women who want to date me next year: I will be appearing here starting January 2 so you know where to find me.

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The secret of the mystery billboard was finally revealed:

Readers of this blog submitted far better captions than the underwhelming A/C advertisement from the company which is famous for annoying the radio listeners with various renditions of its jingle. I may not be an expert on puns but if you used  “hot wife-hot wife” combination, doesn’t it follow that your wife will be less hot when you fix the A/C and it’s in your best interest to keep the A/C not working or you would have to go back to seeing you plain ol’ not hot wife? By the way, the caption contest is open for another week.

I saw this sign yesterday:

I wonder who is the ad-wizard who came up with this one? At the time when “unusual banking” already helped you lose your job, your house, your savings and pension, maybe some usual banking is in order now? Like the kind the doesn’t bankrupt the country. Just an idea.
Lastly, things like this never get old (sorry for the quality, I recorded this from my TV screen):

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebqvm9Nvv90

Update: I forgot that I had this photo of a t-shirt in the window of a local religious-supply store:

Here we see the Lord doing push-ups in his own gym with the cross representing “the sin of the world” on his back. The caption “bench press this” is confusing unless the t-shirt is hanging upside-down, then the Lord would be lying on the cross and bench-pressing the rock. I am just saying: Lord would know the difference between the push-up and bench-press, that’s all.

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