Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

I’m only here for the duck photos.

How do you get liars to care about the truth?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.

Shock troops for the Unitarian Jihad.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Too inconsequential to be sued

This is a big f—–g deal.

I’m going back to the respite thread.

This is all too absurd to be reality, right?

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

This blog is Obama’s Katrina.

Screw the Judean People’s Front. Splitters.

This is how realignments happen…

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Historically it is a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

Dinky Hocker shoots smack!

Reality always wins in the end.

We survived Breitbartpocalypse!

Just a few bad apples.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Cat on a Hot Tar Roof (Open Thread)

Cat on a Hot Tar Roof (Open Thread)

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Cat on a Hot Tar Roof (Open Thread)
A ceramic cat has survived on the roof of the Adams and Jennings funeral home in Tampa, for 70 years. They knocked down the old building, and put the cat on the new structure. [ SCOTT KEELER | Times ]

I’ve lived in or within a hundred miles of the City of Tampa for decades, but there’s a ceramic cat on the roof of a funeral home that has been around a lot longer than I have. I remember noticing it as a child, and yesterday, the Tampa Bay Times finally unraveled the mystery of that cat in a delightful story.

A ceramic cat on a funeral home? Why? Turns out the cat was originally attached to an antique store and tea house that became a funeral home in 1962. And there were originally TWO cats, one black and one white. The black cat went with the antique store owners when they retired and sold the building, and that cat met a sad fate in a harsh Maryland winter.

The funeral home owners tried to get rid of the white ceramic cat in 2007 when the building was demolished and rebuilt, but no dice:

At that point, Stacy Adams, who had followed her father Mike Adams into the funeral business, planned to retire the cat, placing it in a nice shadow box to display indoors. The cat’s fans would not allow that.

“Too many people came by asking about it,” Adams said.

“People were stopping by in the middle of funerals while I’m parking cars going, ‘hey man, where’s the cat?’”

Just thought I’d share this local oddity. Go read the whole thing if you need a fun diversion.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  2. 2.

    Immanentize

    I love this story. People notice and become attracted to and possessive of their neighborhood oddities. It’s a good side of the human condition.

  4. 4.

    Jeffery

    People have their traditions.

  6. 6.

    dexwood

    A house in my neighborhood has a large, realistic, plastic iquana on its roof. It’s been there for years, but it still fools a lot of people

  11. 11.

    David 🎅🎄Merry Christmas🎄🎅 Koch

    I’ve seen “WANTED” posters, but this new “NOT WANTED” poster is clever (photo)

  12. 12.

    David 🎅🎄Merry Christmas🎄🎅 Koch

    Newt Gingrich calls Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood ‘totally destructive’ after the two pro-Trump attorneys encouraged Georgians not to vote in the Senate runoff election until state officials address unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud

    blowback is a bitch

  14. 14.

    raven

    I’ll have to go around the corner and get a shot of the cat stairway folks put on the exterior of their house.

  15. 15.

    Gin & Tonic

    Here in RI, there’s been a huge blue termite on the roof of a pest control company, that is a local landmark if you’re driving on I-95. So much so that the company on whose building it sits changed its name from New England Pest Control to Big Blue Bug Solutions.

  16. 16.

    catclub

    @Immanentize: we ride our bikes around the neighborhood.  One house has a little metal sculpture/ welding school project figure.  They laid it down when the hurricane came through, but I had to ask them to stand it back up.  Now it has Christmas clothes on.

  17. 17.

    CaseyL

    Seattle is losing so many of its interesting old landmarks – the Pink Elephant Car Wash being the latest to fall victim to rising land prices, RE taxes, and rent – but one that really sticks in my mind is the horse statue atop a tack shop down in Pioneer Square.

    It seemed out of place to me, even when I first moved here back in the 1970s:  a saddle shop in the middle of a coastal city?  But the shop persisted far longer than one would have thought, and even when it changed into something else, they kept the horse up there: a local oddity-landmark ,much beloved.

    I think it’s gone now, as huge tech and research campuses go on consuming Seattle’s core, but I used to love seeing it.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    Went to an exhibition of Duane Hanson’s sculptures at the Whitney some years back. One of the installations was a museum guard (this one, I think) placed perfectly – slightly in front of a wall, just inside the entrance to one of the galleries. So lifelike that one couldn’t help but do a double-take. Even saw some people go up to ask something (directions to the nearest rest room, I suppose) and freeze mid-sentence when they realized they were talking to a statue.

  19. 19.

    TaMara (HFG)

    A block from my my house is a house that has huge (two-story) metal sunflowers.  They are well sculpted not garish and I always use it as a guidepost for new folks coming to my house.

    And I’m with @jeffreyw: I want a cat for my roof now.

    Sidenote: Somehow one of the local neighborhood cats ended up on my roof. I pulled my car out of the garage and went back in the house (so she could use it as a landing spot). Was happy a few hours later to see paw prints over my hood and car roof.

  23. 23.

    Redshift

    Reminds me of childhood trips to Hagerstown, MD for family holiday dinners. The landmarks for when we were getting into town were two restaurants named for people with the same names as me and my brother, and the Red Horse Steakhouse, with a life-size red horse statue out front. All gone now, though the Red Horse was still there until recently.

  26. 26.

    Redshift

    @TaMara (HFG):

    Sidenote: Somehow one of the local neighborhood cats ended up on my roof. I pulled my car out of the garage and went back in the house (so she could use it as a landing spot). Was happy a few hours later to see paw prints over my hood and car roof.

    When we first moved into our house, the neighbors next door had a very stupid cat. (Stupid enough to lay down in the street in front of our car as we approached, for example.)

    We have skylights, and the birds liked to land on the roof and get seeds from the screens over them. The cat would climb a tree next to the house, go out on the branch overhanging the roof, and eventually leap at the birds. The birds would all fly away, and the branch was too high to jump back up to, so the cat would have to be rescued.

    The third time this happened, we gave the neighbors blanket permission to come into our back yard with a ladder, because the cat was just incapable of learning.

  27. 27.

    NotMax

    Landlady has a decorative life-size cement cat outdoor tchotchke, which she periodically moves to different spots in the yard or garden.

    While intended to be a sleeping cat, in reality it looks more like a dead one. Even though I’ve seen it hundreds of times, still taken aback when I spy it.

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    @CaseyL:

    The most Seattle thing for me was back when Ivar owned Smith Tower and flew a Japanese koi flag from the top. In grade school we made those and also celebrated girls day and boys day.

    I didn’t appreciate at the time how beneficial it was to grow up in an international city.

    Sorry to hear about the Pink Elephant Car Wash. Truly an institution but I suppose Amazon City is too damn close.

  29. 29.

    Scuffletuffle

    I want one, too. I once had a live cat who spent hours on the roof of one house across the street. Neighbors were always reporting it.

  31. 31.

    trollhattan

    @Scuffletuffle:

    Seems like you’d have to paint the thing green to keep people from calling the fire department. Or would they just call ASPCA reporting cat abuse? “Yes, I couldn’t believe it, they painted their cat!“

  33. 33.

    Yarrow

    @raven:  OMG, someone in my neighborhood put up one of those. Went from the ground to the second floor balcony. Really narrow. They moved and I guess the next people took it down since I don’t see it there anymore.

  34. 34.

    cain

    @trollhattan:

    On highway 8. (TV highway) stands a gigantic standing rabbit attached to a boat shop. There are no boats, and I frankly can’t really figure out what they sell other than lending the space for a coffee truck. Yet, the rabbit stands and is a local landmark.

    Sometimes it is holding different things depending on a holiday, season or what not.

  35. 35.

    scav

    One of our neighbors has a large wooden yeti (he’s even waving) up a stump down the way — and there are long-time walkers on the street who don’t recognize it when I use it as a landmark.

  37. 37.

    NeenerNeener

    There were 2 landmarks in the town where I grew up…an enormous steer on the flat roof of the restaurant where my dad worked, and a huge wooden chair on the roof of an unfinished wood store called Pa’s Woodshed. When the restaurant went out of business the steer was moved to the local zoo, but I never did hear what happened to the chair when the furniture store went toes up.

  38. 38.

    trollhattan

    Worlds collide. So you thought you knew who California’s next senator is?

    It seems Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s chances of ending up in the U.S. Senate get better every day.

    On Wednesday, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein endorsed Padilla to take the seat Kamala Harris will leave behind. If appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Padilla would be the first Latino to represent California in the U.S. Senate.
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article247555010.html#storylink=cpy

    Not so fast.

    Fair elections. Transparency in government. Taxpayer money spent for the public good.

    We expect these fundamentals from our government.

    Yet California’s top elections official, Secretary of State Alex Padilla, does not seem to abide by these standards. Bypassing the state’s regulations that ensure fair contracting, Padilla gave a $35 million “voter outreach” contract to a partisan Washington D.C. based political consulting firm.
    https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article247558205.html#storylink=cpy

    Clearly, the seat needs to go to Devin Nunes.

  41. 41.

    sab

    @NeenerNeener: We had a sign as we drove into town proudly announcing home of the new Ormond Beach Water Treatment Plant. Scary to think what went on before the plant was built.

  42. 42.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Wish I had known about this cat on the roof during my years in Tampa. Never heard a thing about it until now.

  45. 45.

    Mike in NC

    So let’s start a betting pool. Will AG Bill ‘Fatso’ Barr be fired tomorrow or will he have to first twist slowly in the wind until Monday? (I recall that expression from the Nixon era.) Since Trump loves to humiliate his disloyal henchmen, I call Monday.

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    @CaseyL: There’s a tack store in Tampa that used to be on the edge of town near where people actually kept horses, then the store location got swallowed by suburban sprawl. It also has a life-sized horse out front, and people used to cart horse poop in from pastures to leave under the statue’s rear. AFAIK, it’s still there (the store, not the poop).

  48. 48.

    Martin

    Fire #2 here in SoCal. Not a threat personally, but smoke and ash will be keeping me inside on an otherwise lovely day. Trying to keep up with friends evacuating.

    Kind of Trump to file a lawsuit saying that vote by mail discriminates against able-bodied people. Not sure how that’s possible, and that’s a quite novel definition of ‘discriminate’ but griefers gotta grief, I guess.

  49. 49.

    Villago Delenda Est

    OK, after a retabulation of Balloon Juice, I can see current posts again.  Never can tell how Windows will fuck with any browser not from Microsoft.

  50. 50.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Martin: This is bizarre.  In the extreme.  But, it’s Donald the crybaby throwing yet another conniption fit.

    Some judge needs to get medieval on his ass and impose crushing sanctions and seek disbarment of his waaaambulance chasers.

  54. 54.

    Martin

    We don’t have many such statues here, but a real gem are the sea lions on an offshore rock down at Corona Del Mar State Beach.

    The rock is close enough to the shore that you can see them, but too far for it to be obvious they aren’t real sea lions. It’s a bit of an out of the way bit of beach, so only the locals are usually aware of it (more local than I) but it’s also a great beach for tide pool hunting – finding various sea critters that got stranded in rocky pools when the tide went out. First place I saw an octopus in the wild.

  57. 57.

    Martin

    @NotMax: Yeah, apparently it’s discriminatory because people with disabilities are supposed to have trouble voting. See also: black people, latinos but not cubans, gays, Californians, atheists, jews, muslims, anyone related to Hillary Clinton, and people who think golf courses should all be turned into public green spaces.

  58. 58.

    Mary G

    Just had a scare – went to Quest Labs, which is on the third floor. Just as we were coming out, someone announced that the sole elevator was broken again. The building manager said they would call someone to fix it, but if I wanted to get down the stairs I’d have to call 911. My poor housemate was in a panic when I told her to leave me there – I was in a little alcove with my phone and there was wifi. Luckily just then the elevator opened and we got in, praying all the way. I’ve bitched about this to Suzanne, who agrees with me. They did a big remodel with new carpet, paint, fancy wallpaper, but left the massive door that opens by hand and the crappy elevator alone.

  59. 59.

    JoyceH

    Okay, so the White House is going to have about twenty holiday parties and Pompeo is going to have a bunch over at State. Is it ill-natured of me to hope that Senate Republicans attend as many of these parties as they can squeeze into their schedules?

  60. 60.

    Amir Khalid

    I was reminded of the Elephant of the Bastille, a 24 metre tall plaster elephant that stood at the site of the Bastille in the first half of the 19th century. Victor Hugo features it in Les Misérables, and it’s also in the movie musical.

  63. 63.

    Yarrow

    @Mary G:  Oh, that is the worst. I go to a couple of doctors’ offices with my dad that have bad elevators. I’m always terrified they won’t work or we’ll get stuck. Glad you got out. Is there a Quest lab that’s on the ground floor somewhere that you could go to instead?

  67. 67.

    geg6

    There is a tack store on the way to my niece’s house with two big horse statues marking the long driveway to the tack store. And there used to be an ice cream stand out near the Ohio border that had a big cow in the roof. People kept trying to steal it and would only be able to take the head. After many years of replacing the head, they got sick of it and kept it a headless cow until the property was bought and it was torn down completely. They had very good ice cream.

  68. 68.

    Bill Arnold

    @David 🎅🎄Merry Christmas🎄🎅 Koch:
    The twitter feed on the poster ( https://twitter.com/TGLNYC ) hasn’t been active since March.
    Ivanka will quickly learn that she and Jared are loathed by many millions of Americans, who will take great delight in helping to keep her(them) on a path towards misery. She may even come to understand why she’s loathed, but probably not.
    Goya Bean Spokesmodel Ivanka Trump Pondering A Career In Politics (Stephen Robinson, December 02, 2020)
    A Trump-family pardon will just change the tactics. :-)

  73. 73.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @JoyceH: 

    Is it ill-natured of me to hope that Senate Republicans attend as many of these parties as they can squeeze into their schedules?

    No. It is the right thing to do.

  75. 75.

    Kent

    @CaseyL:

    Seattle is losing so many of its interesting old landmarks – the Pink Elephant Car Wash being the latest to fall victim to rising land prices, RE taxes, and rent – but one that really sticks in my mind is the horse statue atop a tack shop down in Pioneer Square.

    It seemed out of place to me, even when I first moved here back in the 1970s:  a saddle shop in the middle of a coastal city?  But the shop persisted far longer than one would have thought, and even when it changed into something else, they kept the horse up there: a local oddity-landmark ,much beloved.

    I think it’s gone now, as huge tech and research campuses go on consuming Seattle’s core, but I used to love seeing it.

    The Toe Truck was my favorite.  I used to pass it every day on the way to work when I worked at the Seattle Times.

    Downtown Portland still has the Portland Outdoor Store, which is a saddle and western gear shop with a big historic sign out front.  I think it’s been there for at least 100 years:  https://www.theportlandoutdoorstore.com/

  80. 80.

    catclub

    @TaMara (HFG): Sidenote: Somehow one of the local neighborhood cats ended up on my roof.

     

    Our cat loved getting into attics. Attic doors here are in the garage. She got into the NEIGBOR’S attic.  Luckily we heard her meowing out the

    attic window.

  81. 81.

    burnspbesq

    @CaseyL:

    Folks in Austin are up in arms over the removal of the city’s last “cowboy hat” Arby’s sign, but apparently it never occurred to them that the best way to preserve the sign was to patronize the now-closed Arby’s.

  82. 82.

    LuciaMia

    the White House is going to have about twenty holiday parties

    Just who the heck are going to these parties? Hard to think of anything grimmer. Between virus exposure and getting buttonholed by Trumpie and having to listen to “I was robbed!” for the hundredth time. Not enough booze to get thru one of those joyous get togethers.

  85. 85.

    burnspbesq

    @CaseyL:

    The dorm that my kid lived in during his two years at Cornish is/was slated for removal to make room for an Amazon office complex. Hard to imagine that anyone will miss that dump (the Hurricane Cafe is another story).

  87. 87.

    rikyrah

    Did I miss the post where we discussed Lucretia being called in about the Inauguration Funds.

     

    The only people in the media who really followed this story were USA Today and Maddow.

    Nobody else could be bothered with the almost $100 million unaccounted for from the Inauguration.

     

    I am quite tickled that she was subpoenaed post-Election…

    BWA HA AH HA HA HA HA HA

  93. 93.

    Steve in the ATL

    When I was a kid in Memphis in the 1970’s (yes, I am an old), there was a small pet supply store in Midtown with a sign out front with those changeable letters, the kind you now see only in rural red areas.  The owner must have misplaced his ladder, because for well over a decade the sign read “DOG STAIN REMOVER”.  Saw it every day on my way to and from school.

    Sometime in the 2000’s, the little strip mall was rebuilt and a new, electronic sign was installed.  Now using a computer rather than a ladder, the owner changed the sign every week to to reflect actual current specials at the store.

    Needless to say, there was a huge public outcry. The owner relented and now when I visit Mom I see a scrolling red LED promise of “DOG STAIN REMOVER”.

    TL; DR: People are weird.

  94. 94.

    Bill Arnold

    Accurate:

    "Nation's top health expert predicts 450,000 dead by February in pandemic as president's pardoned former national security advisor calls for coup to reverse election" is a real, bare-bones, factual description of where we are.— Zach Dorfman (@zachsdorfman) December 3, 2020

  96. 96.

    Kent

    @LuciaMia:the White House is going to have about twenty holiday parties

    Honestly folks. Better to have them all obsessing about all their black tie holiday parties and galas on the way out the door, than the other fuckery that they might otherwise be up to.

    At this point I really don’t fucking care if they all kill themselves.  But every day they are out renting tuxes and buying gowns and shit like that is one less day they have to subvert the missions of various agencies and vandalize the federal government.

  99. 99.

    Kent

    @LuciaMia:Just who the heck are going to these parties? Hard to think of anything grimmer. Between virus exposure and getting buttonholed by Trumpie and having to listen to “I was robbed!” for the hundredth time. Not enough booze to get thru one of those joyous get togethers.

    It will be all the MAGA Trumpers in the White House and in top agency positions around DC, plus all the top private sector MAGA lobbyist types having their last big bashes before they are all evicted.  In a pre-Covid world this would all be completely routine and you’d see holiday galas all over DC at all the big embassies and such as well as the White House.  Since they are all Covid-deniers, it makes sense that they would still be doing it.  Honestly at this point we have probably achieved herd immunity within the White House anyway.

  100. 100.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Wisconsin Supreme Court declines to hear Trump campaign challenge to election results (WaPo)

    The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday declined to take up a challenge to the presidential election filed by President Trump’s campaign, a new blow to his floundering efforts to overturn the election.

    Trump declined Thursday to say whether he retains confidence in Attorney General William P. Barr, who this week undercut the president by saying he had not seen any evidence of fraud on a scale that would alter the election results.

    Meanwhile, Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris named Tina Flournoy as her chief of staff and selected other key aides Thursday as the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden forged ahead with its transition to power.

  101. 101.

    Redshift

    Oh, I forgot about the former landmark in my county, Fairfax, VA. When things were less developed, someone had on their roof a giant statue of the Nipper, the RCA “his master’s voice” dog/logo, like fifteen feet tall. I never knew where it came from. After the guy died, the land was sold for a housing development, and the street is named Nipper Way.

    Ah, here’s the story.

  102. 102.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Steeplejack (phone): for non-Atlanta residents, the Big Chicken is just a KFC whose building is shaped to look like a big chicken.  It happens to be at a five-point intersection of major roads, so lots of stores advertise their location by its relation to the Big Chicken.  It was quite shameful to my college roommate from Buckhead.

    @SiubhanDuinne: the thing to know about the Big Peach in Gaffney, SC is that it actually looks like a giant ass.  I love that there is a government sign on the highway noting “Big Peach Viewing Area, Next Exit”.

    @Martin:

     

    and people who think golf courses should all be turned into public green spaces

    I was with you until that statement! You’ll have to pry my Honma irons from my cold, dead hands….

  104. 104.

    Martin

    @Steve in the ATL: I’m not among those people, but I take a compromise position where irrigation should be banned at golf courses. If mother nature provides, then have at it, if not, then fuck off.

  105. 105.

    LuciaMia

    declined to take up a challenge to the presidential election

    Translation: We’re trying not to laugh our asses off.

  106. 106.

    mrmoshpotato

    I never get tired of the Soviet shitpile mobster conman losing.

    Such a loser.

    MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Supreme Court won't hear Trump election lawsuit, likely dooming state court case seeking to overturn loss.— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 3, 2020

    1-41. pic.twitter.com/bHQWMvtu50— Hillary Warned Us: Stay Home. Mask up. Love. Live. (@HillaryWarnedUs) December 3, 2020

  108. 108.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Martin:  so I can’t play golf when I’m in Scottsdale?  How dare you infringe upon my freedom to shoot in the 90’s!

    Ok, your position is actually mostly reasonable.  For that matter, why do Phoenix and Las Vegas even exist?

  109. 109.

    opiejeanne

    @scav: There used to be a town there called Santa Claus. It lost its incorporation in the early 70s, IIRC. Total tourist trap but a welcome landmark for bored kids riding in the back seat in the 50s and 60s.

  110. 110.

    Gravenstone

    @dexwood: One evening in college several of us were in the TV room. One of the guys had a large iguana on his shoulder. Girl walks up and compliments him on his stuffed toy.

    Then it flicked its tongue at her.

    I think the scream could have been heard across the entire campus.

  111. 111.

    Punchy

    @LuciaMia: Notice however:  the ruling went 4-3.  Despite clear law and precedent that these suits must go thru the lower courts first, 3 SCOW GOP justys said “law?  we dont need no stinkin’ law”.

    So WisCantWin got their win, but just barely…..that state’s SC is so full of extra-legal fuckdummery…..

  112. 112.

    J R in WV

    If I were the Washington Post, I don’t think I would brag about asking Republican members of Congress those questions.

    1. Who won the 2020 Presidential Election?
    2. Do you support or oppose Donald Trump’s continuing efforts to claim victory?
    3. If Joe Biden wins a majority in the electoral college, will you accept him as the legitimately elected President of the United States?

    I think a legitimate idiot composed those questions… Who won? Really!!

    IF Joe Biden wins…?? Surely, you jest~!!~

    I guess #2 isn’t as terrible as #1 and #3, which are idiot level for sure.

    Wife says “Marketing!” as opposed to journalism… maybe so.

  113. 113.

    Ken

    @germy: Any guess as to how many will dodge, and how?  “Oh, sorry, I haven’t really studied the issue of the 2020 elections”?  “Sorry, I have to get to a floor vote / lunch / haircut”?

  115. 115.

    Punchy

    @Steve in the ATL:How dare you infringe upon my freedom to shoot in the 90’s!

    Holy crap, this guy can pull out his wood, grab its shaft, and move those balls….Also, a decent golfer!

    I pray for the days I score in the double digits.   Not enough beer consumed, I always tell myself.

  117. 117.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steve in the ATL:

    the thing to know about the Big Peach in Gaffney, SC is that it actually looks like a giant ass. I love that there is a government sign on the highway noting “Big Peach Viewing Area, Next Exit”.

    Oh, I’m well aware. I’ve driven that stretch of highway scores of times. Never have taken the time to pull off at “Next Exit” and actually view the giant ass, though.

    Have also noticed that it used to seem much bigger, and loom up over the horizon in a threatening, yet mystical, way. In the last six or eight years, it seems far less impressive than it once did.

  119. 119.

    J R in WV

    @Punchy:

    December 3, 2020 at 2:52 pm

    @Steve in the ATL:How dare you infringe upon my freedom to shoot in the 90’s!

    Holy crap, this guy can pull out his wood, grab its shaft, and move those balls….Also, a decent golfer!

    I pray for the days I score in the double digits.   Not enough beer consumed, I always tell myself.

    Wait — I thot Steve was talking about the Temperature in the 90s, not his golf score!!!!   ;~)

  125. 125.

    Kent

    One of my favorite Portland area vanished landmarks was the Bomber Gas Station on 99E in Milwaukie OR.  Someone took an old WW2 B17 Bomber and turned it into a gas station and restaurant.  It was there up until the 1990s.  Coolest thing ever to a 10 year old kid in the 70s.  Made my dad drive out of the way to get overpriced gas there!

    http://www.thebomber.com/history/

  126. 126.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Martin: Long time ago I was at a conference in Palm Desert, and had a chance encounter over a beer with an engineer from the Coachella Valley Water District. I asked about all the obvious greenery – golf courses, hotel entrances, on and on. He told me that was all gray water. Piping waste water over the mountains to get rid of it would have been v expensive, so they partially treated it and then sent it to the golf courses (which paid for it.)

  127. 127.

    cwmoss

    @Kent: Yeah, still a lot of weird shit still standing here in Stumptown. Some people (not naming names!) have been known back in the day to browse around Portland Outdoor Store just to irritate the workers there, with their extreme vigilance about putative shoplifters, i.e. anyone who entered the store.

  129. 129.

    Miss Bianca

    @scav: Hell, that reminds me of *my* favorite, which I never saw in person but only a photo of – from a scholarly book on, of all things, strippers – YEAH, it was for a performance studies class, don’t judge! – which was up in Canada, where I guess girlie clubs are a little more downhome than down here. This was a rural one, and the sign out front read:

    GIRLS

    GIRLS

    GIRLS

    GREAT PIZZA

  130. 130.

    Kent

    @cwmoss:@Kent: Yeah, still a lot of weird shit still standing here in Stumptown. Some people (not naming names!) have been known back in the day to browse around Portland Outdoor Store just to irritate the workers there, with their extreme vigilance about putative shoplifters, i.e. anyone who entered the store.

    Remember the Church of Elvis?  That was by far my favorite attraction back when I was in college in the 1980s.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Hour_Church_of_Elvis  The artist who ran it, Stevie, was a Portland institution

    And we would always have to go to “Hung Far Low” Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, just for the name which always thrilled our young male senses of humor.  They had a very cool Chop Suey neon sign:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hung_Far_Low_(restaurant)

  132. 132.

    There go two miscreants

    @SiubhanDuinne: …it used to seem much bigger…

    Well for the past 4 years we’ve been dealing with a much bigger ass in the White House, so it shrank by comparison!

  134. 134.

    mrmoshpotato

    Oh these piles of shit.

    This had to come directly from Trump, but I’m sure it was done the gangster way so he didn’t tell her directly.This is pure animal desperation now. A rat backed into a corner. https://t.co/CimHMmlwoZ— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) December 3, 2020

  139. 139.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Yeah, I was going to mention that the golf course near my mom’s house in Las Vegas uses graywater for irrigation (and prominently announces it). It’s in a Del Webb development.

  140. 140.

    The Lodger

    @Steve in the ATL: A nice touch in the TV House of Cards series was the picture of the Big Peach in House Whip Frank Underwood’s office. I saw the Peach once on a trip through South Carolina and recognized the landmark immediately.

  141. 141.

    Brachiator

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA:

    Oh yeah. I remember Chicken Boy. I loved all the various kitschy statues and logos in California. Driving along Wilshire Blvd, on the way home after the late shift, I would nod at the Bob’s Big Boy statue outside the restaurant.

    ETA. I am not a New Yorker, but I just finished watching Governor Cuomo’s briefing. Really appreciated the directness. The staffers he had with him provided great support.

    We are really going to need more of this at the state and federal level to get us through the holidays.

    California Governor Newsom is talking about the distribution of vaccines. Man, it feels good to be able to have hope that we may be winning against the pandemic.

  143. 143.

    Kent

    @Gravenstone: Give them credit for recognizing an established money laundering operation when they see one.

    It has a very Ozark (Netflix show) flavor to it doesn’t it?  Where the smaller time money laundering outfits get squeezed out by the big guys.

  145. 145.

    Bill Arnold

    @Yarrow:
    From that piece:
    Jared Kushner has been discussing the idea of a Trump-themed news outlet amid reports that he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, may move to a house on the president’s New Jersey golf course.
    Imagine Jared playing golf.
    (I lived next to a Par 5 for close to 20 years. House was about 150 from the golf course, but still got hit occasionally. Collected a lot of balls from nearer the course. Gave them away because it’s a silly game. :-)

  148. 148.

    Dan B

    @CaseyL: My partner has his mug* on display in several places at the Museum of History and Industry.  He and his partner at the time founded the Tacky Tourist Clubs of America.  This group put on parties to fund raise for local LGBT organizations establishing one of the most robust LGBT political and support infrastructures in a city of Seattle’s size.  They put on The Prom, you never went to, Things That Go Bump in the Night, Halloween, and others.  They were a part of kitschy Seattle.

    *He has big hair in most of the photos.  Pictures of me in equally embarrassing moments are in the archives – phew!

  149. 149.

    dww44

    @David 🎅🎄Merry Christmas🎄🎅 Koch: As a Georgian, I will be especially gratified if the Repubs are hoisted on their own petards on January 6 or 7th.

    Apparently, though, it seems that the GOP pressure is getting to ou rotherwise democratic supporting SOS Raffensperger who’s being asked to make all those (like me) produce photo id’s with their absentee ballots.  Don’t know how that’s gonna work.  You reckon that issue might make it to the Supremes to decide how one makes an absentee ballot voter produce his or photo id?

  150. 150.

    opiejeanne

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: When Dave worked for Torrance, we attended a party at the water treatment facility in El Segundo and were given a tour. They were very proud of how clean the treated water was  but were forbidden by law to use it as potable water, even though it was. They talked about how much of the civic and other landscaping that used it and golf courses were mentioned. One of the managers was forbidden from ever drinking a glass of it to demonstrate how clean the water was, after he did that in front of the board of directors.

    They used that plant to pump water into the aquifer to keep salt water out of the ground water.

  152. 152.

    J R in WV

    @dww44:

    You reckon that issue might make it to the Supremes to decide how one makes an absentee ballot voter produce his or photo id?

    Easy, just require a photocopy of the photo ID be provided in the envelope with the ballot. Don’t tell anyone I told you… in fact forget this whole msg immediatey  !!!

  154. 154.

    Dan B

    @Steve in the ATL: Shooting in the 90’s?  The golf course will be 90% sand traps, boulder fields, and Cholla “rough”.  Scoring in the high hundreds with equal numbers of screams and shrieks (fun in the rough) per round.

    S&M golf?  Maybe just Masochist golf, no S outside the club owners.

  157. 157.

    Brachiator

    @Bill Arnold:

    Jared Kushner has been discussing the idea of a Trump-themed news outlet amid reports that he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, may move to a house on the president’s New Jersey golf course.
    Imagine Jared playing golf.

    I like to imagine golfers aiming at Jared’s house.

  159. 159.

    Martin

    @Brachiator: I would totally aim at his house.

    My grandmother lived across from a golf course, and could get at least one ball per day out of her rose bushes. They replaced a fair number of my families car windows, but my dad could always swing by and pick up a few dozen free golf balls.

  160. 160.

    Dan B

    @CaseyL: One kitschy Seattle bit that’s been saved is the Hat and Boots in Georgetown, a mixed industrial / residential neighborhood at the north end of busy Boeing Field.  It’s a giant concrete Cowboy hat that was the gas station with two cowboy boots that were the guys and gals facilities.  It’s in a tiny park in a residential area – but across from an industrial / maintenance storage area.

  161. 161.

    dww44

    @J R in WV:  Tnx, I will. I had thought of that, but figure that the GOP would raise objections to that maybe by saying that including one’s photo Id doesn’t necessarily prove the right person is voting. Sadly, this is all they’ve got.

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