Here we go again. The American Robin in the spring feels territorial and the need to nest. It comes to our windows, flies up to the glass, taps several times with their beak, before sitting on a nearby branch. After a few minutes, the bird does it again, and again, and again, etc. This goes on for several days.
Why do they do this repetitive window bashing? Some claim they see their reflection and try to ward off another bird from their territory. Some claim they see the reflection of the surroundings in the glass and fly toward it. Maybe they see a dark interior under a protective roofline that would make a dry safe nest site. Those are each plausible. Whatever the reason, turdus migratorius is a slow learner.
We’ve tried different strategies to discourage their behavior. Most don’t work. We shake the curtains. The robin flies away and returns later or goes to a different window. We hang teddy bears or animal figures with big eyes. The robins don’t seem to care. This year I tried drawing a big face on a sheet of paper. That didn’t work. Notice how well the trees and sky are reflected. This window is more problematic than most.
Another window has a Vendetta mask hanging in it. Robins don’t seem to appreciate the finer points of literature and history. It looks kind of weird. I wonder what the neighbors think.
It was always a treat for a kid to find a toy in a box of cereal. This prize was offered in the 1980s by Kellogg’s in their Frosted Flakes cereal. At that time we lived in the western suburbs of Chicago. I was active in a physics teacher group that met monthly in order to share teaching ideas and demonstrations. There were two other groups for the northwest and the southwest suburban areas, as well as a group active in Chicago itself.
Once a year all of the groups met at a central college campus for an evening of sharing and give-aways. Melanie suggested that I should write to Kellogg’s and request some Diving Tony toys to give away to the teachers at the next meeting. That I did. Kellogg’s sent me a free boxful of perhaps 100 of the toy. Needless to say, Tony was a big hit with the physics teachers. Everyone got to take Diving Tony the Tiger home to show their students.
Recently, we were watching NCIS, one of Melanie’s favorite shows. There was a scene in which a small diving toy-like device was used to show how some criminals accessed their underwater drug stash. We both looked at each other, laughed, and said ‘Diving Tony!’ That prompted me to write to Kellogg’s again.
Dear Kellogg’s
In the mid-80s, I wrote to Kellogg’s and requested a large number of Diving Tony the Tiger toys to give away to my fellow physics teachers at a large meeting. The company graciously obliged and sent me a box of them. There might have been 100 in that box.
Do you have some background information about that promotion that I can read? History, popularity, how many the company gave away in cereal boxes, etc. I am not able to find much on your site or anywhere else.
Thank you … Jim
Jim,
Thank you for taking the time to contact us. To better assist you with this, we ask if at all possible. If you could can send or email us an image of the item that was provided (tony the tiger toys) ?
Thanks again, Jim, for contacting us.
This video should be helpful. It was posted by Doug McCoy on YouTube.
Jim,
We appreciate you following up with the link to the YouTube video showing the diving Tony premium offered in 1987.
While details are limited on this item, I was able to find out that this was an extremely popular item that we offered in the 1980s. Over 27 million were packaged in boxes of Frosted Flakes in 1987 between October and December. Additionally, there was a “Tony’s Treasure Hunt” on the side of the box that could be placed behind a water source and used as a game. With 4 different depths, it was your objective to be able to get Tony to each depth and back to the surface.
Please know that your comments regarding our past premiums are valued and will be shared with the team.
Thank you again, Jim, for contacting us. We wish you all the best.
I found this comment posted 2 years ago on the YouTube channel below the video.
Nostalgia Factor…
I had a friend who dove Tony in a bottle then capped and sealed it with tape. He hid that sealed bottle in a closet for years. I told this story to another one of my friends & his eyes lit up, regaling me with his love for that lost toy. we rescued Diver Tony from the closest & took that thing everywhere. I once visited a rest stop on I-23 near Battle Creek, MI where Kellogs were having a demo. Met Tony the Tiger and showed him my Diver Tony. He did a little dance and took a picture with me.
We had our first Nutmobile sighting in January while driving from Iowa to Maryland. It was a brief glimpse since we were going opposite directions on I-70. We’ve seen the Wienermobile more than once.
The Nutmobile is decked out with the latest in high-tech gear. It has solar panels on top, a wind turbine, burns bio-fuels, and more. The font is quite small. Click to embiggen for the specifics.
A friend celebrates her birthday today. (Happy birthday, mj!) When I looked at the calendar and noticed that, I remembered another birthday today, as well. One of America’s favorite poets, Frederic Ogden Nash, was born on August 19, 1902. His free-form style allowed made-up words and rhyming lines of varying lengths. The off-kilter style endeared him to readers delighted by the inherent humor.
His first book, The Cricket of Garador, was a children’s book published in 1925. His first poetry was published in the New Yorker magazine in 1930. He continued writing well into the 1960s, publishing more than 500 pieces of verse, as well as three screenplays and a Broadway hit play.
A prolific writer, he’s often remembered for humorous poems on animals. Here are three you might recognize:
The Cow
The cow is of bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other is milk.
The Fly
The Lord in His wisdom made the fly,
And then forgot to tell us why.
The Dog
The truth I do not stretch or shove
When I state that the dog is full of love.
I’ve also found, by actual test,
A wet dog is the lovingest.
These child-friendly verses, for many of us, were one of our first introductions to poetry. However, he also wrote for an adult audience, as evidenced by this reading of A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor.
Nash had a writing voice all his own, with uneven rhythm and unconventional rhyme. The sophistication of his verse was revealed in his observations on his own life as well as society around him. Marriage and children, aging and illness, wealth and work, were all topics he took on. The poem “I Never Even Suggested It” considers the negotiations within a marriage to keep the peace.
A more humorous take on the relationship between men and women can be found in this:
Reflexions on Ice-Breaking
Candy
is dandy
But liquor
is quicker
His Take on Wealth in American Society Rings True Today
His views on wealth in society resonate within our current environment of increasing economic disparity. These pieces give you a taste of his observations:
Lines Indited with all the Depravity of Poverty
One way to be very happy is to be very rich
For then you can buy orchids by the quire and bacon by the flitch.
And yet at the same time People don’t mind if you only tip them a dime,
Because it’s very funny
But somehow if you’re rich enough you can get away with spending water like money
While if you’re not rich you can spend in one evening your salary for the year
And everybody will just stand around and jeer.
If you are rich you don’t have to think twice about buying a judge or a horse,
Or a lower instead of an upper, or a new suit, or a divorce,
And you never have to say When,
And you can sleep every morning until nine or ten,
All of which
Explains why I should like very, very much to be very, very rich.
Reflection on the Fallibility of Nemesis
He who is ridden by a conscience
Worries about a lot of nonscience;
He without benefit of scruples
His fun and income soon quadruples.
This excerpt from “Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else Except Richer” may sound prescient:
This is a song to celebrate banks,
Because they are full of money and you go into them and all
you hear is clinks and clanks,
Or maybe a sound like the wind in the trees on the hills,
Which is the rustling of the thousand dollar bills.
Most bankers dwell in marble halls,
Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits
and discourage withdrawals,
And particularly because they all observe one rule which woe
betides the banker who fails to heed it,
Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless
they don’t need it.
And even more pointed:
The Terrible People
People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it,
And I wish I could afford to gather all such people into a gloomy castle on the Danube and hire half a dozen capable Draculas to haunt it.
I don’t mind their having a lot of money, and I don’t care how they employ it,
But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.
But no, they insist on being stealthy
About the pleasures of being wealthy,
And the possession of a handsome annuity
Makes them think that to say how hard it is to make both ends meet is their bounden duity.
You cannot conceive of an occasion
Which will find them without some suitable evasion.
Yes indeed, with arguments they are very fecund;
Their first point is that money isn’t everything, and that they have no money anyhow is their second.
Some people’s money is merited,
And other people’s is inherited,
But wherever it comes from,
They talk about it as if it were something you got pink gums from.
Perhaps indeed the possession of wealth is constantly distressing,
But I should be quite willing to assume every curse of wealth if I could at the same time assume every blessing.
The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can’t cure,
Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor.
Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won’t buy, but it’s very funny —
Have you ever tried to buy them without money?
Other Notes on Nash
Nash made the city of Baltimore his home, and he was a tremendous fan of the Baltimore Colts. In 1968 he wrote a feature for Life Magazine on his beloved team. One of the poems in the feature memorialized a game forcing a play-off against the Green Bay Packers.
Is there a Baltimore fan alive
who’s forgotten Tom Matte in ’65?
The Colts by crippling injuries vexed,
Unitas first and Cuozzo next–
What would become of the pass attack?
Then Matte stepped in at quarterback.
He beat the Rams in a great display,
He did – and he damn near beat Green Bay.
Ask him today to plunge or block,
Tom’s the man who can roll or rock.
In Tokyo, they say karate
In Baltimore, they call it Matte.
When the first class stamp honoring the poet’s centennial was presented in 2002, the ceremony at his Baltimore home included members of the Colts team.
Ironically, I was reminded of him a while back when remarking in a comment about pelicans. Two different people responded with slightly different versions of this poem, which they attributed to Nash:
A wonderful bird is a pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week;
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.
However, the attribution has been muddied over time. According to this article, Nash was not the author. In fact, it states that the poem was written around 1910 by Dixon Lanire Merritt, editor of Nashville’s paper The Tennessean.
Regardless, Ogden Nash is an American poet to celebrate. His views and writings on the twentieth century still resonate today, and his humor and style stand the test of time.
Do you have favorite poems or memories of Ogden Nash to share?
Being a mother is like trying to juggle 15 balls at once. Flaming balls. While someone throws marbles at you. And you are on a unicycle blindfolded in a rainstorm. And there are 5 people talking to you all at once then getting mad because you didn’t answer and clearly didn’t listen. And they want to know if you were a superhero and could fly over hot lava would your cape catch on fire and who built the first yurt and how long would you live if you had no eyeballs. And the math. Sweet Jesus. The math. It all sounds like: if Tom has 7 oranges and Paul has 13 triangles, how long would it take Susie to travel West 3.5 miles if she is wearing a green shirt? Explain how you got your answer. And then when you get mad at them for a sassy comment they say “God wants you to calm down.” And how can you argue with that?!?! Then 5 minutes later they tell you you are the best mommy ever and they love you more than the whole wide universe to infinity and beyond. And your heart melts and you think…can I remember this moment forever? The way they smile at you like you have all the answers and how their sweet faces look when they sleep. And even though you have fallen asleep in every movie you have tried to watch for the last 10 years you realize how blessed and thankful you are to wake up and do it all over again. This crazy, loud, amazing life. I can’t get enough.
And this on other daughter’s wall another day…
I love when God decides to show off a little. When He subtly nudges me and reminds me that He is way ahead of me – and he has totally GOT this. I especially like it when this occurs at a time when I am not so self-absorbed that I miss it. Today was what I call a “Hindenburg Day”. It was a day when nothing went as expected – and there were casualties. It started off with me turning the dryer on WITH THE CAT IN IT, and ended with my son telling me I should try to be nicer tomorrow. I began counting down the hours ’till bedtime right after lunch, and I limped across the finish line tonight and fell into my bed feeling pretty much like an epic failure who is systematically destroying my children’s lives and futures – just by breathing. I spent a few minutes fantasizing about flying off alone to an unpopulated tropical island with a suitcase of books and a carry-on full of chocolate. Then I opened a book I’ve been reading and the VERY FIRST words I read were these
You are stronger than you know.
You are loved more than you realize.
You are part of a greater plan, and nothing can stop God’s purposes for you.
You’re going to be okay.
I promise. But more importantly: God promises.
Take heart, friend. Good things are ahead.
So, I guess…as my dear friend, Lemuel would say…”‘Nuff said.”
We have a small opossum that hangs around under our feeders. It shows up most days in the mid-afternoon, to graze on seeds and bits left by the birds and squirrels. Cute with its fur sticking out wildly all over, it’s not very big. Based on the one-pound grey squirrel on the left of the photo, I guesstimate it’s only three or four pounds. A “typical” opossum is about the size of a large house cat, and weighs in at 10 to 13 pounds.
The title calls it a “possum,” but that is actually a different animal native to Australia and New Guinea. In North America, the animal is an “opossum.” Both are marsupials. With its prehensile tail and opposable thumbs, the opossum is an excellent climber.
Besides the seeds my opossum enjoys, they are foragers and will eat carrion, rodents, insects, frogs, and plants including fruits and grains. As they are nocturnal, usually they are out at night. However, in the winter sometimes they change their patterns to take advantage of warmer temperatures during the day.
If you’re hungry, you could try this recipe for roast opossum. “The opossum is a very fat animal with a peculiarly flavored meat.” The linked recipe also includes stuffing.
3. It is dressed much as one would dress a suckling pig, removing the entrails, and if desired, the head and tail.
4. After it is dressed, wash thoroughly inside and out with hot water.
5. Cover with cold water to which has been added 1 cup of salt.
6. Allow to stand overnight. In morning, drain off the salted water and rinse well with clear water.
7. Stuff opossum with opossum stuffing … ; sew opening or fasten with skewers.
8. Place in roaster, add 2 tablespoons water and roast in moderate oven (350°F) until tender and richly browned, about one and one half hours.
9. Baste every 15 minutes with drippings.
10. Remove skewers or stitches, and place on heated platter.
11. Skim fat from gravy remaining in pan.
Okay, and this was too funny and too weird to leave out. Listen to Cy Scarborough and the Bar D Wranglers at the Bar D Chuckwagon in Durango, CO.
It was always a treat for a kid to find a toy in a box of cereal. This prize was offered in the 1980s by Kellogg’s in their Frosted Flakes cereal. At that time we lived in the western suburbs of Chicago. I was active in a physics teacher group that met monthly in order to share teaching ideas and demonstrations. There were two other groups for the northwest and the southwest suburban areas, as well as a group active in Chicago itself.
Our View From Iowa 