A DAY TO REMEMBER

September 11, 2001.  Can you believe that it's been 25 years?  Almost 3,000 Americans lost their lives that day to a terrorist attack.  Many more lives were changed forever.

June 6, 1944.  Can you believe it's been 82 years?  About 2,500 Americans lost their lives that day on the beach in Normandy, France in an effort to end the 2nd World War.   Thousands more lost their lives in that conflict.

December 7, 1941  Can you believe it's been 85 years?  About 2,400 Americans lost their lives that one day during an attack on our Pearl Harbor naval and military bases.  It brought us into  World War II.

July 1-3, 1863.  Can you believe it's been 163 years?  About 8,000 Americans lost their lives during those three days in the Battle of Gettysburg during our Civil War.  Americans killing Americans. So sad.

BENGALS BRIEF

Are you excited about the NFL season getting started?  I am.  This will get us started.

Here is a list of Bengals' coaches who won more games than they lost.  

Not Paul Brown

Not Sam Wyche

Not Bruce Coslet

Not Zac Taylor

Bill Johnson  1976 - 1978

Forrest Gregg  1980 - 1983

Marvin Lewis  2003 - 2018

SURPRISED?

Now, a list of Bengals' coaches who won more playoff games than they lost.

Sam Wyche  3 - 2

Zac Taylor  5 - 2

The following is a list of Bengals' coaches who won a Super Bowl while coaching here.  

MIDWEEK PRAYER

I've been doing these midweek prayers for a long time now.  My followers should have learned a few things about prayer.  Here is a quiz to see how far you've come.  The quiz is not hard at all but, maybe, it will be an eye opening moment for you.  Which of the following is the good prayer and which is not so good?

1.  Dear God, I have these plans for my life and for my family, I pray you would make it all work out the way I want it.  Amen

2.  Dear God, whatever you have planned for my life and for my family, I pray for your help so that I can  accept both the gifts and trials with which you have blessed me.  Amen

Do you recognize that your prayers are like one of these - albeit with more specifics?  Keep in mind just who is in charge here.  

I love you.  

TACO TUESDAY

Not so much about tacos as about the foibles of my reckless cooking career.  

I've still got the "loaf" of goetta in the freeezer from the big batch I cooked up a few weeks ago.  It'll take a little while longer for me to go back to eating it.  I gave the half bag of pinoats to a golfing buddy so he could make his own goetta.  Good luck.  Last week I bought a cylinder of instant oatmeal because I like the cereal - I got home with it and found I had a whole can unopened.  More oats! Ugh!

I still have the "close to the bone ham" in the freezer from the ham I cooked for last Christmas.  Well, I finally bought a bag of pinto beans and two big boxes of vegetable broth to make a large cask of bean soup.  Hopefully, I'll have the courage to start soon.  You know, you've got to soak the beans for a day before you make it.

I did buy some frozen dinners for a change.  They're in the freezer.  Mostly, they're too small to satisfy me but it seemed like a good idea.  My freezer is full so now I need to do something about it.  I think I'll eat out.  

MOODY MONDAY

We Irishmen are allowed to have moods.  I like to think that mine is continually UP!  BUT, I have some secondary moods that are not so great.  I fall into a mood of not totally agreeing with anything people say.  I turn into a contrarian.  It might seem as if  I just like to argue - and sometimes I do.  I think I'm hard to be around when this mood overtakes me. Just smile and don't try to argue with me - I'll never give up even if I know I'm wrong.

Here is some good advise related to moods; a real truism if you ask me:  

Life will be easier and better if you learn to control the four Ms:  

Your Mouth, Your Mind, Your Mood, Your Money.  

Think about it and do your best.  Being Irish, my mouth is seldom in control.

SMILE

FUN AND GAMES ANSWERS FOR 8/28/26

1.  It's a lie.  Lobsters have 10 legs not eight.  I don't have personal knowledge of this although I did see one boiled alive in a bucket while I was in the Army.  I wouldn't eat it then but now I do like them.

2.  It's probably a lie.  There is no reason to think that our Moon will someday crash into the Earth.  The Earth's mass and attraction, the Sun's mass and attraction and it's speed in orbit pretty much prevent it from getting closer or further away from Earth.  I know, everything we put into outer space falls into a decaying orbit and wants to fall back to Earth.  But, no.

3.  It's a lie.  Umber, Ochre and Sienna are earth pigments used in paint and they were named after cities  - BUT cities in Italy not France.

4.  It's a weak lie.  Of course, the exclamation "Pshah" or even Pshaw had nothing at all to do with the Shah of Iran.   

5.  This is totally true.  Can you believe it?  All that work for a ball.  Oh, Pshaw, how disgusting.  

COLLEGE ATHLETICS

College football is now in full swing.  It's a great time of the year.  I think it would be good to see how the dollars and cents of college athletics falls out.  Penn State University has a pretty typical big time college sports program.  Here is their profit and loss statement for all sports programs for fiscal year 2025.  Yes, + means profit and - means loss.

1.   Football   +$57,593,000.00

2.   Mens basketball    +$172,000.00

3.   Mens fencing    -$498,000.00

4.   Womens fencing   -$543,000.00

5.   Womens golf    -$562,000.00

6.   Mens golf   -$569,000.00

7.   Mens tennis   -$760,000.00

8.   Womens tennis   -$813,000.00

9.   Mens gymnastics   -$934,000.00

10. Field hockey   -$1,118,000.00

11. Mens volleyball   -$1,143,000.00

12. Womens swimming/diving   -$1,171,000.00

13. Mens swimming/diving   -$1,184,000.00

14. Womens gymnastcs   -$1,471,000.00

15. Mens lacrosse   -$1,548,000.00

16. Womens lacrosse   -$1,565,000.00

17. Mens soccer   -$1,565,000.00

18. Wrestling   -$1,673,000.00

19. Mens track/XC   -$1,687,000.00

20. Womens track/XC   -$1,788,000.00

21. Softball   -$1,864,000.00

22. Womens soccer   -$2,184,000.00

23. Womens ice hockey   -$2,243,000.00

24. Mens ice hockey   -$2,386,000.00

25. Womens volleyball   -$2,610,000.00

26. Baseball   -$3,015,000.00

27. Womens basketball   -$4,739,000.00

Athletic department total   +$223,679.00

LISTS

I never expected to make a list out of this.  Here are the places President Donald Trump, at his egotistical best, has attempted to effect a name change on the world and it's cartographers.  

1.  Most recently, he attempted to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.  He's in a spat with our best neighbors in the world over tariffs; tariffs that both countries are using as weapons for imagined inequities in cross-border pricing.  I don't think this has much hope of sticking.  I remember the lakes by saying HOMES.  I'd have to remember SHAME!  Brilliant!

2.  We all know that he has pushed the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the Gulf of America.  Maybe! 

3.  He wants Alaska to call Mount Denali by a new name:  Mount McKinley.  The natives always called it Denali.  It is the highest mountain in North America.  It had been known by both of those names until President Obama officially named it Denali. (McKinley was a Republican) Trump officially changed it to McKinley.    It's still tall.

4.  In February of this year, the President and Congress reverted to calling the Army base in North Carolina, by it's original name:  Fort Bragg.  In 2023, it had been changed to Fort Liberty.  

5.  The Trump administration changed the name of the National Renewable Energy, Solar Energy Research Institute to the National Laboratory of the Rockies.  It is located in Golden, Colorado and I'm all for this change.  The original name was way too long.

6.   President Trump attempted to cajole the local professional football team to change it's name from the Washington Commanders back to Redskins.  No luck.

 7.  No!  I'm not going to list all the items, places, buildings etc. the President has or has  attempted to have his name placed upon.  Yikes!

MIDWEEK PRAYER

This is a prayer I borrowed from the 12-step program used by those attempting to overcome the control of addiction.  They call it the Step 3 Prayer.  I have adjusted it slightly.  We all have some addiction or challenge we need to overcome.

Dear God, I offer myself to you . . . to build with me and do with me as you choose.  Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do your will.  Take away my difficulties that my victory over them may bear witness to you . . .  and that those I would help would see your Power and your Love and the value of my new way of life.   May I do your will always. Amen

TACO TUESDAY

Note:  Taco Tuesdays will be dedicated to food for the time being.

Did I tell you that I've turned into a chef?  Well. that may be hyperbole.  I do cook meals for myself almost every day  Some better than others. 

Last Friday, I was beset by a bulious attack.  I ate so much goetta my body went into rejection mode.  I had to refrain from eating anything for half a day. (for me, that's an accomplishment).  Of course, you ask "Why, Patrick, did you eat so much goetta?"  Here's why.  I like goetta.  A golfing buddy tauted me on how easy and effective it was to make your own.  I went for it.

Dorsel's pinhead oatmeat was just the right thing to use and the recipe was on the package.  Ground pork, groung beef, bay leaves, a diced onion, salt & pepper and water was all that is needed.  I put it together in the crock pot slow cooker.  Lots of stirring, lots of cooking and that's about it.  (Of course, I blew the recipe quantities a little but it shouldn't have mattered.)  Five or six hours and I had so much goetta I didn't know what to do with it all.  I froze a third and put the rest in the fridge for immediate consumption.  

Holy Smoke,  I ate goetta every morning for aight days.  I had goetta sandwiches for lunch several days.  And still, the goetta was still in the fridge looking at me every time I opened the door.  Now you know.  I just had to finish it off.    

Oh yeah.  The goetta I made wasn't terrible but . . . never agian.

MOODY MONDAY

 I may be a little late with this public service announcement but better late than never.  This year, we in SW Ohio have heard very little about and from our yearly friends; the cicadas.  I never heard from them until a week ago.  

Each year one brood or another pops up out of the ground (literally) and annoys us for a time.  Some broods are larger than others.  One large group lives for 17 years underground planning their attack on the human population.  This year the brood was a very small one.  

But, I had an incident.  Last Monday, playing golf in Mason I was brutally attacked.  Just me!  Not my friends or any of the 11 guys in our group.  They ran into me numerous times.  They'd land on me when I was swinging, dive bomb me while I rode in the cart, one crashed directly into my forhead and sunglasses as I prepared to hit.  

We all came to the conclusion that it was the bright yellow-gold golf shirt I was wearing.  I don't know if they thought I was a flower or a female cicada but certainly they liked me.  I hope it never happens again.  

I write this as a warning to you to be careful of the color of your clothing this time of year.  

SUNDAY

Today is the Lord's day.  Keep that in mind.

It is also the finals of the PGA tour - the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup.  The winner of the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup winner will be determined today.  It's a little complicated.  It wasn't always this way but now one person wins both.  

The FedEx Cup goes along with the Tour Championship.  FedEx has chipped in $100 million for the golfers to cover the last three events of the season including today.  Players gained FedEx Cup points all year long with how they finished in Tour events.  That total determined who would get into these last events - the top seventy for the first, the top fifty for the second and the top 30 for the event ending today - The Tour Championship. 

The Tour Championship pays out $40 million dollars to the players who participate in the event today.  The winner gets a check for a cool $10 million; #2 gets $5 million; #3 gets $3.705 million. You get the picture; every spot a little less.  There are just 30 participants and the top eight get more than a million dollars.  The guy who finishes last today gets a measley $355,000.00.  

Mothers, don't let your boys grow up to be cowboys - teach them golf.

FUN AND GAMES ANSWERS FOR 8/21/26

HERE'S THE REAL TRUTH.  

1.  Afghan's and other related nations in the reagon do play a game called Buzkashi but it's nothing like American baseball.  Two teams of players on horseback try to hit, knock, pull a carcass of a goat or calf in a goal.  Sounds exciting. False is the answer.

2.  You know, I can't believe it either but it's supposedly true.  I understand it pops so loud you can hear it if you happen to have your head in the hive at the time.  True is the answer.

3.  This one is possibly true.  Pope Gregory IX issued a Papal Bull stating that cats, especially black cats were dangerous or wicked or plain bad luck for everyone.  This led to a worldwide scourge against cats.  People started killing them or at least neglecting them.  The Black Death was a disease-filled period in the middle ages spurred by the overpopulation of rats.  I say True.

4.  Shakespeare was a wonderful author and crafter of the English language but he did not invent the name Michelle.  He IS credited with inventing the names Jessica, Miranda, Perdita and Viola.  There are no records of women having any of these names before he penned them.  The statemant was false.

5.  Adolph Hitler's nephew did fight with the Allies during WWII.  He joined the U.S. Navy and changed his name to William Stuart-Houston.  He was a Pharmacist's Mate and received a purple heart while serving in the Pacific Theater.  This one was true. 

Any comments to the answers?

FUN AND GAMES

By now you know the way the game is played.  Just pick out which statements are true and which are false.  It's easy.  

1.  A lobster has eight legs.

2.  Our Moon will someday come down and crash into the Earth.  

3.  Umber, Ochre, and Sienna are earth pigments used to make paints and are named after places/cities in France.

4.  The exclamation "Pshah" comes from the spiritual leader of Iran.

5.  Major League baseballs are made by Rawlings and stitched in Costa Rica by hand.  There are 216 double stitches on every ball.  Each club must have 156 new balls available for each home game.  The balls must be stored at precisely 70° F and 57% relative humidity.

Comment your guesses at which are right and which are lies.