Chairs for baby derrieres.

Some years ago when I was working for a family publication, I attended a police training session. The attendees were me and a bunch of traffic cops. As my magazine dealt with topics germane to young families, I was there to learn about the proper installation of child car seats -- and my fellow students were there to learn what to look for when examining the same. 

If you've had a kid in the last thirty years, you know that car seats for children, especially babies, are of grave importance. They always were, I guess, but if they were even around when I was a baby it was not something most people bothered to have. My earliest memory of being in the car was sitting on my mother's lap in the front seat as Dad drove us across a bridge -- possibly the GWB from New Jersey, but I'm not sure. All I remember was that my mom held me tight and that bridge was the BIGGEST THING I had seen in MY WHOLE LIFE -- all three years of it or thereabouts.

The reason I am thinking of my Crazy Car Seat Class is that, while cleaning out the office in preparation for moving, I found the notebook I used that day! Why I still had it I don't know; it got put in a trunk and forgotten after I filed my report. But it brought back memories of the day -- and the doodles I made during the more boring parts.

"Why is this kid upside down?"

We started with a busy classroom discussion on the types of baby seats, why parents shouldn't get a used seat (may have been in an accident), seats for kids with special needs, and basic physics (weight x speed = restraining force, so a 10-pound kid at 60 mph needs 650 pounds of restraining force) (which is more force than an adult holding the kid can generally muster). 

We also saw a video entitled "Don't Risk Your Child's Life" (an ongoing series) that, while not on the level of the cinematic classic "Red Asphalt," was an eyeopener nonetheless.

The next day we went outside to practice fitting seats in cars and discover how easy it is to do it wrong. My car was one of the ones used -- appropriately, a car that would perish five years later in a hydroplaning incident (no children were with me at the time). 

On our final day, the police, with us students in tow, held an actual session with the public. The police had arranged to have a free child seat check in the parking lot of a shopping center nearby. While I had not qualified as a Certified Car Seat Safety Technician, I was allowed to help and observe. Using my secret code (that is, my illegible handwriting) I took notes on each of the checks I watched:

Child 1: 11 months, 22 lbs.

Should have been in a rear-facing seat

The seat he was in was loose (straps holding the seat are too loose if you can pinch the webbing together)

The retainer clip was too high

The harness was also too loose 

Child 2: 6 months, 20 lbs.

Convertible seat should have been rear-facing but was forward-facing

Belt not used properly

Child 3: 2 years, 30 lbs.

Funny-lookin' kid

Harness too loose

Locking clip used incorrectly

Child 4: 1 year, weight not recorded

Seat and harness too loose

Clip too low

Latch used without the top tether

Child 5: 4 years, 45 lbs.

Booster seat but in the front; should have been in the back seat; kids that age cannot handle airbag deployment

Shoulder belt improperly threaded

And on like that. Every vehicle I saw had something wrong, and it's not like these seats don't come with instructions. Confusing instructions, I imagine. Mostly the problem was that the straps holding the seats were too loose. The LATCH system (Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children) was coming into use then but was not universal. 

Ultimately I was not asked to write the story for the magazine of My Adventures in Child Seat Safety, but I did become the Child Seat Answer Man for a while when the topic came up. And I learned to warn people to follow the installation directions carefully, and if they're concerned, to talk to a local police department to see if anyone there is a certified car seat technician. 

No matter what anyone reading this thinks of the police, know that cops never want to see people grievously wounded or killed in traffic accidents, and they NEVER EVER EVER want to see children get hurt or worse. 

Even if you have great confidence in your driving skill and your situational awareness, we all know that the roads are full of morons, dope fiends, drunks, the befuddled, the overtired, and the thrill-seekers, and we all need to protect ourselves and our loved ones with good safety practices. 

Thanks for reading, and happy and incident-free motoring to you! 

Live white man's clothes.

Over the weekend I completed a chore I've been dreading for years. 

When preparing to move, it's important to identify the things that should not move with you, to cut down on the waste of lugging things that you didn't use and won't use. That meant, among other things, trying on every single article of my clothing, discarding the worn-out ones, and donating the ones that don't fit anymore.  

It's time.

I've done some weeding before, but this is the first wholesale clearance I've done in twenty-plus years. So you know a LOT of things have been hanging around, waiting for me to lose those excess pounds I put on over Christmas/New Year's/Easter/the Giants winning Super Bowl XLII. And it's time to say, well, if I ever accomplish the weight loss, I can buy some new duds. 

Meanwhile, I had to try on everything. 

The upshot: two lawn bags full of trash, for starters. Old painting clothes, beloved tees with holes, socks and sweatpants with weak elastic, suspect underwear. Out out out. Then: FOUR lawn bags with clothes in good shape that either don't fit at all or just make me look like a potato. That's a pretty good load that won't make the moving truck. 

For the first time in decades I can wear every article of clothing that I own.

The trash men got the garbage and the good stuff was broken down into smaller bags and dropped off at the church clothing collection box. 

Now, about that: I understand that so-called "fast fashion" is polluting the Third World:

Dead White Man's Clothes: It’s the dirty secret behind the world’s fashion addiction. Many of the clothes we donate to charity end up dumped in landfill, creating an environmental catastrophe on the other side of the world.

In short, 15 million garments show up in Ghana a week; no one will wear most of them again, and it's all turned into a tremendous landfill. And that's just one African country. Our donations are also said to have collapsed the local clothing industry.

It's depressing, and I have plenty of reason to accept the Australian Broadcasting Company's report. However, I have to ask: If the clothing collection boxes we see everywhere are just essentially collecting garbage, why is there money in it? Who's paying for them? Most of them are not for local thrift stores or charity drives. When you see them in a parking lot, that means someone is paying rent for those boxes to be there. Who's spending money to collect clothing no one wants?

There's more to all this than I know. 

But in my personal defense, I am not a buyer of fast fashion. I have very little fashion sense of any kind. If I have a shirt that is not obviously stained or ripped and is comfortable, I will wear it until it becomes embarrassing. 

Unless I get too fat for it. 

What I'm saying is that I get quality clothing, not stuff meant to be worn once and discarded. So I have reason to hope that the things I've donated will find a better user along the line. There's still a lot of life in that suit I had to give up. 

Or maybe that suit will be picked up by a funeral home. The jacket will be split up the back for ease of use and put on suitless corpse so he looks nice at the wake. And then my good suit will be interned, not in a landfill, but a human landfill -- the cemetery. 

And who knows? When the final trump is blown and the dead emerge from their tombs, there will be one guy who looks at himself in his resurrected body and say, "Hey, this suit isn't mine! But -- it looks fabulous!"

And: "Why'd they have to slice up the back?"

A new lend-lease act.

A few surprising things came out of the US being the primary host for the World Cup this year. One is that a lot of my friends were following the games closely -- some, having coached soccer for their kids, have learned to like the game somehow. Another is that the American squad made us proud, proving that they were not in the tournament just because we're hosting (the old "it's my party and you have to let me play" rule). And the third?

Ranch dressing. 

Ranch dressing, the little dressing born in Hidden Valley, California, has conquered the nation -- and now the world. It's my wife's favorite salad dressing, and she's not alone in that. In fact, The Takeout noted that in a Kraft survey of favorite dressings by state, Ranch dominated, winning 13 states including the Eastern Seaboard from Maryland down. And our visitors from overseas apparently could not get enough of the stuff. 

I was honestly surprised that they had not tried it before. Many people visit America, and you can't escape Ranch dressing, as a dip or on a salad. I would have thought that you could get it in Western Europe, at least. After all, you can find Japanese curry mix in Walmart, Irish sausage in my local supermarket, and I've even seen Marmite occasionally. Vegemite might take some looking, but you can certainly get it online. I would have thought the buttermilk goodness that is Ranch would have wandered farther afield before now. 

But I am glad that visitors to our mighty nation have found a culinary treat to love. I think what is needed is a new lend-lease act to help our overseas brethren enjoy the wonders of Ranch at home. We can start by filling up some oil tankers that are at loose ends; we'll send them to Europe first. Two or three would be good for starters.

You've seen houseboats, but never ranchboats!

Interest-free loans will be given to finance these exports. And no tariffs! We want them to enjoy the dressing and not try to steal our secret salad technology. There's a reason that Valley is Hidden. 

Enjoy the taste of freedom, friends! 

[P.S.: For the record, I prefer French or Italian or even creamy Caesar to Ranch . . .  but keep it under your Uncle Sam hat.]

Don't hit the dog!

I didn't! I didn't hit the dog! 

Okay, I swatted his behind, but does that count? 

Like most dogs, my fuzzy friend Izzy loves to be outside. He'd be outside all day if he could -- if he didn't get too cold, hot, or wet, which conditions generally lead to his desire to call it quits and seek shelter eventually. 

Yesterday was almost just right. Warm but not too hot or humid, sunny, generally T-shirt weather for us human types. As I was settling in to get to work, he made the noise indicating that he wanted to go out. The I-gotta-wee noise is indistinguishable from his I-wanna-loaf-on-the-grass noise, but generally as a work from home freelancer I can accommodate him, just in case. But this turned out to be a loaf situation, not a wee situation, and I could not hang around with him all morning. (Note that we have no fence of any kind, so he can't just be left out there.) 

I tried ordering, cajoling, wheedling, and barking, not in that order, all to no effect. He remained a lump on the lawn. I tossed dandelions at him. I gave him gentle shoves with my foot.

Finally, I went for my secret weapon. 

Yes, the broom I keep on the porch to sweep off leaves and such. Pushing the bristles under his side I applied gentle pressure until it annoyed him enough to make him get up. And as he stalked off to find someplace to P, I gave him a little swat with the broom in the A. 

How can you hit a harmless dog?

With all the fuzz on his behindular area, I doubt he even felt it. And even you Zaprudered a film of the incident, you'd see such a slow-mo swing that not only could not hurt a fly, it would barely brush it away. 

Anyway, that was my Animal Abuse action for the day. Mind you, if Izzy ever finds out I swatted his behind, he'll complain quite a bit. So don't say anything, okay?

American as fried apple pie!

I don't know if you heard the big news over the Fourth of July celebrations, but for a limited time McDonald's (yeah, the place with the twerp CEO) brought back its apple pies.

"But," you who haven't heard ask, "they always have apple pies."

"Yes," I respond, "but not deep-fried apple pies, the way God and Man intended."

Monolith Pie

You obviously have not heard that, for a limited time around America's 250th celebration of Independence Day, McDonald's would be bringing back it's fried version of its pies, rather than the baked type they have been selling for years. I personally suspect that this was at the urging of its most famous french fry cook, one Donald Trump, who as we know loves McDonald's food even more than does its rather peculiar CEO -- who seems to have never eaten it. I think Trump put the word in -- to make this holiday REALLY special we need McDonald's pies deep fried in grease, which is how we won the Cold War. (It just stands to reason.)

Well, last week we had house-selling stuff going on one night that precluded cooking, so dinner came from the Golden Arches -- and so did dessert. 

So, how did it match up to the pies of my youth? Was it crispy? Was it tasty? Was the filling as hot as magma, roughly 2600 degrees Fahrenheit, as people recall? 

Yes, unlike the modern McPie, this had a nice crispy exterior with a sugary top. It was pretty tasty, although as the celebrated Mrs. K notes, the pies were never all that awesome; if they were, the famous failures of the McDonald's ice cream machines wouldn't be such a big deal. As for the heat of the filling, it was no big deal -- I think if you eat the pie as soon as they hand it out it's much hotter than if you save it for dessert, as we did. 

But make sure you eat it ASAP: the label warns you that the clock is ticking!

You don't want your pay frito to turn soggy and oily. 

On the whole the pie was a nice but not needed treat and a pleasant schlep down memory lane. Now, if they start frying the potatoes in lard again, that will be much bigger news that will require a new investigation to be opened. Stay tuned! 

Happy 250, America!

I don't even know how to say what I want to say, so I'm just going to say this: 

Happy birthday, United States of America!

Happy birthday to the liveliest, craziest, happiest, most fun, most determined, most resilient, most inventive, wild, stupid, brilliant, funny, most independent, most smartass, most incredible, most prosperous people on Earth. 

That's not a coincidence. All those good things didn't come from crime, or slavery, or imperialism. That comes from overcoming bad things and making good things; from having a national philosophy rooted in our Declaration, and also in our constitutional government, the oldest such in world history. 

In our hearts we must always reject the con artists and liars who know nothing of Americanism and twist words and mutilate history to try to make us what we aren't. We aren't collectivists. We aren't cowards. We aren't wicked to the core. We are people of hope, people of fellowship, people who want to rise above tribalism. So many actual tribes' names in their own languages mean nothing more than "the humans," relegating others to lesser beings. We don't think other people are worse than Americans. But we think their countries aren't as good as America.

God bless us all; God bless every city and town, every farm and family, every highway and dirt road, every forest and desert, every mountain, river, and stream. God bless us because we are always under attack but never down and out. God bless us because we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 

God bless the United States of America. Happy birthday on this glorious Fourth. .

A great American.

[Note: I know I said I would have a product review today, but we have not sampled the product yet. Hold tight for future developments!]

A while back I was talking about commercial jingles with some friends, and the woeful lack of good jingles in the modern era. I asked, What classic jingle do you think really works both as a means of selling and as a pleasure on its own? It's difficult to say now; there are few commercial jingles anymore. I think you'd have to look back to the 1980s or further to find commercial music that was enjoyable and successful as a product mover. 

But I did think of one that fulfilled both goals powerfully. 

For about twenty years, from the seventies into the eighties, Hershey billed itself as "the Great American Chocolate Bar." And they meant it. Hershey Community Archives shares the thoughts of the amazingly named Billings Fuess Jr., the ad man who came up with the campaign: 

I had the idea for “The Great American Chocolate Bar” because I knew there was a lot of wonderful history behind Hershey. I also liked Hershey bars and they were a heck of a lot better than their competition from Switzerland. And I wanted to give them a dig and say the great AMERICAN chocolate bar.

I think that the fact that Fuess really believed in the product is what made it so inspired. Milton Hershey certainly deserved to have his chocolate bar known as the great American one, after selling his caramel business and going into milk chocolate -- even though the Swiss refused to show him how to make it, so he had to invent it all over again himself (as I have blogged before). 

One of the jingles that went with the ad campaign is a song for the ages -- catchy, upbeat, patriotic, even bombastic, but delivering the message that America is a sweet place, and this is its chocolate. 

You can go anywhere, anywhere on Earth, and they will know Hershey, and you can find it, and you are never alone, because Hershey is there, and all of America is with you in spirit with your Hershey bar. God bless the USA!

Okay, maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it really does sell without selling. Sure, it tells you the product is delicious, but if the main goal of the advertiser is to make you happy about the product, this one can do it. 

I'm glad to see that there is a film out this year about Milton, because I do think he was an interesting man and one of the more benevolent American millionaires. He didn't win over the country by using his wealth to crush small competitors, like John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates. He made a product people liked, available at a good price. In 2025 the Hershey Company made $11.69 billion in consolidated net sales, so clearly people still like it. 

My advice, if you can: In addition to whatever other Independence Day celebrations you may have, get some Hershey bars, make some s'mores, and lift them high to toast America, and Americans like Milton Hershey who helped make it awesome. Awesomeness does not just happen; like milk chocolate, it has to be made.