Random notes

*Looking over old blog posts checking for comments, I found a commenter had taken me to task for saying MAD Magazine was "often risque but never vulgar."

Said commenter cited chapter and verse, showing a deep and impressive familiarity with MAD. I was taken aback a bit. I'll just have to plead that perhaps my standards have been coarsened over years of watching contemporary entertainment, see for example my recent review of "Ted."

Heavy sigh. I try to keep my kids (boy 10, girl 6) away from "Family Guy," and "American Dad," but once they've seen them they of course love them. I'm afraid to ask how much of them they understand.

*Today the article about the Laura Ingalls Wilder festival in Walnut Grove appeared. I wish all articles were this easy. I just stood to one side while the audience conducted the interview with actress Charlotte Steward, a.k.a. "Miss Beadle" in the "Little House on the Prairie" series.

At one point she pointed to me and said, "Are you taking notes?"

She really is a delightful lady and I'm only sorry I didn't have more space for more of the questions and answers.

By the way, perhaps I should have mentioned her favorite episode was "Here Come the Brides."

Now here's what I get a kick out of every time I cover a Laura Ingalls Wilder themed event. When I lived in Poland I assisted in the translation of all the "Little House" books.

They had a translator who spoke perfect English, but she had to call on me for questions like, "What's a patch box? What's a wagon tongue?" and how the heck are you going to translate the endearment, "little-half-pint-of-cider-half-drunk-up"?

*Last week I went to the Southwest Regional Development Association annual meeting in Lamberton to see a presentation by sociologist Ben Winchester on the "rural renaissance." I've written about Ben's findings at length before, but it was worthwhile to cover that ground again.

Funny thing was, the meeting began with a slide show about the associations accomplishments over the past year, and there I was twice as big as life, in an old photo of me all harnessed up and on top of the wind tower simulator at the MERIT Center.

I couldn't resist calling out, "Hey, let's see that handsome guy on top of the tower again!"

As we say in Oklahoma, "I know it's wrong - but I'm weak."