micah holmquist's irregular thoughts and links |
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Welcome to the musings and notes of a Cadillac, Michigan based writer named Micah Holmquist, who is bothered by his own sarcasm. Please send him email at micahth@chartermi.net. Holmquist's full archives are listed here.
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Sites Holmquist trys, and often fails, to go no more than a couple of days without visiting (some of which Holmquist regularly swipes links from without attribution) Aljazeera.Net English Blogs that for one reason or another Holmquist would like to read on at least something of a regular basis (always in development) Thivai Abhor |
Sunday, August 25, 2002
Well it was a weekend Yesterday evening I attended my maternal grandfather’s 91st birthday party and that was o.k. He is a man with many stories and experiences. Sometimes it takes lots or pointed questions to get him started but once you do, the anecdotes don’t stop coming. Of course this event also meant hanging out with the same people I spent last Christmas with. They were relatively tame, however, and all I have to say is that I’m not sure if it was ever funny to hear somebody complain about people speaking Mexican but it certainly isn’t anymore. Today I went with my parents and Fred to the Allegan County Antique Market. On the way there we were listening to oldies radio station WODJ and I kept making jokes about how Elvis Aaron Presley was the King and his music was all an oldies station should play. Then at 8 a.m. a program came on the played devoted to Elvis and I realized that the joke was no longer funny. By the way the greatest Elvis songs ever are Jessi Colter and Waylon Jennings’ “Suspicious Minds” and the Dead Kennedys' “Viva Las Vegas.” The antique show was fairly cool, although the usual assortment of black face and Nazi “memorabilia” was on hand for the virtually all white crowd that number in the thousands to purchase. I wonder if Islamic Fundamentalist paraphernalia will be a staple of antique shows in 50 or 60 years. I haven’t been to this show since 1994 but I had gone many times previously and have picked up a slew of treasures. This year I picked up a Planet of the Apes mug copyrighted 1967, a Marge Simpson figure that was a Burger King freebie in 1990 and a couple of Pez containers including a 1980s light blue Batman. The very first Pez container I ever got was an identical light blue Batman that my dad gave me in 1989. I don’t collect very all that vigorously but my collection does number at around 170 different figure designs and about a third as many duplicates. My favorite containers have to be Homer J., Droopy Dog and my feetless elephant with an orange base. The collection was displayed at the McBain Community Library in McBain, Michigan earlier this year. Then on the way home, my parent’s van had some trouble, which made it impossible to drive for long distances. We ended up having to take it to a dealer and get a rental car. That delayed us getting back to Cadillac by five and a half hours or so but it happened. |