Toilet Paper

October 6. 2008 by Dick.

The University of Vermont announced recently that it will “go green,” at least in the toilet paper department. The college has eschewed the oncw-beloved super puffy Charmin in favor of an unbleached, 100% recycled fiber product approved by the Forest Crimes Unit, a student group.

I have a long, personal history with toilet paper but not as long as my dad did. He went to work for Scott Paper Company right out of college, exactly one week before I was born. He toiled in Export Sales for Scott until 1968.

He was a company man through and through. We used ScotTissue and Scotties and even ScotTowels which are pretty bad paper towels. He once tore up a box of [Kleenex] he found in the home of a manufacturer’s rep who sold Scott products in Africa. Now, of course, Kimberly Clark owns Scott. Despite that, I still use ScotTissue because it is the most benign product for septic tanks. I like the price, too, although the size of the “squares” (they are actually rectangles now) gets smaller and smaller.

Scott Paper brought the first rolls of toilet paper to market. The company was founded in 1879 by brothers E. Irvin and Clarence Scott who specialized in producing paper for privies and later for toilets. At first they purchased paper and tissue from outside suppliers, then cut, rolled and packaged the paper.

Early Scott advertisements suggested that “over 65% of middle-aged men and women suffered from some sort of rectal disease.” Inferior toilet paper, the ads proclaimed, was responsible because “harsh toilet tissue may cause serious injury.”

Kids have no sense of history.

You, dear reader, may wonder why I wrote about toilet paper instead of the “bailout” this week. Simple. I thought I could avoid weighing in again on this (latest)(greatest) Congressional financial scam. After all, I’m not an economist. I’m not a national expert. I don’t even have a mortgage.

OK, that last is not entirely true but it is a small, fixed rate note with a good bank that is not in trouble. It has about 5 years left on its term.

One of the pundits said the Congress critters don’t want to “reward bad business behavior.”

Horse puckey. Congress critters do that all the time, for themselves and for anyone whose sphere of influence they inhabit. The bankers and other financial peeps lied, cheated, and stole. Period. Their actions–and this latest bailout–has put three generations of Harper magic in the crapper while said financiers walk off with the perfume. Writing about toilet paper makes more sense than anything else you see on teevee.

These kids have no sense of history, but I repeat myself.

Posted in Business, Banking, Politics, Big Thoughts, Dick's Dumps, Random Access | 2 Comments »

Do the Math

September 29. 2008 by Dick.

Lordy Lordy™. Do the math, people.

Oh.

Wait.

It isn’t math. It’s simple arithmetic.

Under the subject line, A Bail Out Plan That Works, I’ve been subjected to about 14 repeats today alone of the following bright idea:

I’m against the $85,000,000,000 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I’m in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in “We Deserve It Dividend.”

To make the math simple, let’s assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide U.S. Citizens 18+.

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals $425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a “We Deserve It Dividend” …

It goes on from there.

I’m all for giving $700,000,000,000 to individual Americans in “We Deserve It” dividends (as long as it’s your money) but do the math, people.

85 billion dollare:	$85,ØØØ,ØØØ,ØØØ
divided by 200 million peeps	2ØØ,ØØØ,ØØØ
=	$425 per person

Maybe we should put the $85 million into our elementary schools instead of Wall Street.

---

And speaking of Wall Street, the yahoos in Congress blocked the bailout today (September 29, 2008).The DOW is down about 777 points, the largest one day point drop ever. Anybody want to guess how many Congress Critters are buying stock right now because they know, absolutely know, the market will soar when the package passes.Wouldn’t you? After all, we’re talking more than 10% right now for a few days “work.”

I love politics. It is so enriching.

Congress wants to make sure nobody on Wall Street gets rewarded for this mess. Do you suppose we could take away Congress’ parachutes and severance?

Lordy Lordy™.

Posted in Stupidity, Banking, Society, Politics, Dick's Dumps, Random Access | No Comments »

RIP, PL

September 29. 2008 by Dick.

I don’t care what “they” say at funerals. Losing a family member or a close friend is not a cause for celebration; it’s a time to fill up the hole left in our lives when all we have are memories.

Paul Newman wanted to be remembered as a racer who supported his habit by acting. He died last Friday at 83 after a battle with cancer.

Darn it, that’s like losing a friend who really made it.

We feel that way when a popular actor dies. We invite great actors and writers into our homes and our thoughts and our lives in a way we would never do with an acquaintance down the street. We often spend more time with them and they stay in our memory longer than people we work with or even our real life friends.

“No, it IS losing a friend who really made it,” my real friend “Lido” said. “You just hadn’t seen him in the last 32 years.”

Well, sort of. We had more of a relationship with PLN than he did with us. See I started driving race cars a year or so after he did. We drove the same tracks at the same times but rarely in the same class. We rubbed elbows and he even helped push my car in the pits. We shared a favorite track (Lime Rock) where he ran some hot laps just this past August. He was always a better driver than almost anyone else I know.

But he would have known me in Nomex, not in street clothes. I would have known him anywhere.

The Oscar-winning actor was intensely private in public but he never played the part of a celebrity at the racetrack. He didn’t play any part there. He was not just there for his good looks. He was a driver

P. L. Newman drove Bob Sharp’s Datsuns in SCCA and in the under 2-liter Trans Am but he won his first race at Thompson Speedway in Connecticut in a Lotus. I may have driven that race in what was then my E-Production TR-4. I went on to muddle about in Camaros in A-Sedan and GT-1 although I came back to the Triumph a couple of times and even drove a Lotus Formula C. He went on to drive B-Sedan, C- and D-Production, and GT-1, a Porsche 935 at LeMans, an assortment of Corvettes, and a Mustang in GTS at the 24 Hours of Daytona.

“If he had started younger,” Bob Sharp said, “he would have been World Champion.” He was simply that good a driver.

It has been a bad year for racing. Phil Hill, our only American-born Formula One champion, died in August. Watkins Glen founder Cam Argetsinger died in April. Jimmy Stewart, who carried the Scottish flag against Stirling Moss, Mike Hawthorne and Juan Manuel Fangio and who inspired his little brother Jackie to go racing, died in January.

I don’t feel the same sense of personal loss about them. See, I didn’t know them.

Paul Newman was one of the good guys. My c.1974 race at Bryar (now New Hampshire Motor Speedway) was red flagged and the entire pack was diverted to sit in the pit lane. The pack inched forward but pit lane was pretty flat where I sat and I couldn’t get the Camaro to roll without starting the engine. Race cars don’t have fans and don’t idle well so no one wants to start one without reason. He was walking through the pits at the time. He grabbed a couple of other guys to push me along. It’s what everybody did.

“Can you send me that picture of you guys at Pocono?” Lido asked me.

Lido would like that photo because I was driving his car while he babysat millwrights rebuilding a chemical plant in Houston in 1976. I’m not sure anyone took any pictures although perhaps my dad did. He took a lot of photos over the years. I’ll send it if I can find it. I don’t think the car would have been in the background, though.

My whole family had come to the race. PLN was also there, driving. He won that race as well as an SCCA national D-production title that year. I introduced him to Anne and to my mom in the paddock. He stood and talked to these drooling women for quite a while, easily. That was my parents’ 30th wedding anniversary which put my dad in that “how do I top this” kind of spot.

Those are some of my memories of a genuine nice guy.

Posted in Death, Big Thoughts, Arts, Random Access | 1 Comment »