Of Men and Twinkies

The last two days have been both restful and hectic. As I mentioned in my last posting me and my family were off to see the grandparents and the rest of the kindred relations of aunts, uncles and cousins. Sad to say  on the long drive back that night we past two Wal-Marts and from the road we could see the parking lots were packed. The shoppers had a choice and could leave any time they wished but employees reminded me of how sailors were once "pressed" into service a couple of centuries ago.

You never think of how peculiar American culture is until you try and explain to somebody who has no idea of what you're talking about. Black Friday is the day when many business ledgers go for red to black. Can you imagine that -going eleven months with an operating loss and finally making the entire years profits in about 35 days? No matter how big the discounts are, I have no desire to even be near a store on Black Friday.

Which gets to another American iconoclastic image - the Twinkie. All of Friday morning I had several errands to run and met up with a few of my neighbors that I refer to as my "circle of Bubbas" When you hear Bubba you might think of the red neck variety in bib overalls with John Deere tractor cap shooting motorcyclists with his shot gun out the window of battered pick up truck (like at the end of Easy Rider). No my local Bubbas are more or less the suburban kind. They're still pretty bummed out and bit volatile over Obama's victory.

Instead of talking about the newest threats to gun ownership, the subject of the day was Twinkies. You may not have been following the news story but just after the CEO of Hostess Bakeries gets a 300% pay raise and the next nine top executives get 60% - 100% bump up in their paychecks, they turn around and ask the hourly workers to take an 8% cut in pay and 32% cut in benefits. The hourly workers didn't want to seem ungrateful for their jobs but felt this was more than unfair and called a strike. The executives of the company were shocked by the worker's resolve, so they declared bankruptcy.

"Labor unions, the only parasite stupid enough to kill off its host", that was the big catch phrase amongst the Bubbas. I'm kind of at a loss to understand their thought process on this. First what is a Twinkie? - a cream filled snack cake with no dairy products in it. The "cream" is made of chemicals that are use in explosives and fire retardants whipped into high fructose corn sugar and bunch of other stuff not found in nature. It might be one of the only foods where the nutritional value goes up when it's battered and deep fried at a county fair. America and the world might be better off without Twinkies but my Bubbas are reacting to the end of Twinkies as though France was demanding the Statue Of Liberty back (and they don't like being reminded that it was France who gave the Unites States the statue in the first place).

Next you would think their would be nothing more American than working to provide for yourself and your family. That forming a union with your fellow workers to protect your common interest would just be good common sense. But not in the world of a Bubba, all these guys are incredibly anti-union. They claim all these organizations are filled with gangsters, labor racketeers and socialists  None of my Bubbas belong to a union and tell me they would turn down a union job if one was offered to them. Even if it was double the money with a health care package and a pension included they would turn it on principal -or at least so they say.

Looking at these guys I can't imagine a group of people that would benefit more from being in a union than them. None of them have a union job but I know the majority of them (10 out of 13) had fathers who worked their whole adult lives in jobs with union representation. Also only 2 out of the 13 are financially better off than their parents. Still they don't see the connection between a strong labor movement and their own well being. They would rather save the Twinkie from the lazy Bolsheviks that refuse make an honest living and accept what they're offered. 

I don't know about the future of the American worker but I'm sure that the Twinkie name will be sold for lots of money any somewhere in the world Twinkies will be made again. Maybe there will be a big product tie in with the movie Zombieland 2 when that gets the green light.

Yes Twinkies were found in the tombs of the Pharaoh, 3,000 years old but still fresh. Forty years ago we were so much more innocent. We never imagined that a snack cake could hurt you and what could be so bad about those cupcakes with the plastic like frosting that could be peeled off in one piece and eaten separately.

After I finished my errands and said goodbye to the Bubbas I spent the rest of the day with my wife.  To avoid the orgy of consumerism known as Black Friday we took a trip to Conowing Damn. The damn is on the Susquehanna River in Maryland. The top of the damn is also the bridge for Route 1. It's only a few miles south of the Pennsylvania / Maryland border or less than 30 miles (50 km) due south of Lancaster PA.

At foot of the damn on the west bank going south is the northern end of the Susquehanna State Park. For bird watchers and sports fishermen this is the place to be. Now I could not care less about bird watching but my wife loves it and have no problem with doing some little gesture to make her happy. Actually she was ecstatic. Though the course of the year over 170 different species can be seen with large groups eagles and great blue herons (up to 100 at a time) feeding on the fish.

I'm a bit of an architectural junkie so the damn and the hydro electric generating station were pretty cool. It would be easy to see them used in some retro sci-fi horror film.

 Even the trees were filled with large birds. Unfortunately I only had my dinky pocket camera. There are several perches along the river bank for the avid birder with the kind of cameras that could get a mug shot of a bird from over 300 yards away.

At the water's edge the fishermen mingled with the birders. It was a nice mix of families with children and people who took their outdoor activities very seriously. One person has his Harley decked out in his favorite football team, the Philadelphia Eagles.

These images where taken off the internet but it gives you an idea of a what kind of pictures you can take with a real good camera.    

After coming home from Conowing Damn we had dinner and watched the movie The Big Year (2011) with Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black. A mildly funny comedy that centered around three birders and their year of competitive bird watching. As a piece of advice to any guys reading this, it's always good to have several DVDs or movies that you can access when you want to make your significant other happy or you're entertaining at home somebody you want to be romantically involved with. We can talk more about that later.