Beautiful, Beautiful

As long as I can remember, one of the manifestations of my OCD has been to softly speak a phrase that is not related to anything going on at that moment. Someone ten feet away would probably not be able to hear it, although I never do this in the presence of other people.

For most of my life the phrase has been something benign like “The 1958 Baltimore Colts.” After the career apocalypse of October, 2010 the phrase became less benign and less detached, often an expression of anger and frustration. However, it was/is the same two phrases; you don’t want to know what they are.

On the other hand, on those rare occasions when something goes well I often cannot help but mutter, “Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful.” The four words, and it’s always four, are said in rapid-fire fashion. The last time I remember saying them was after successfully completing the second normal workout after the scare of the last Friday in August. (I had no problems with my workout yesterday, either. Well, except giving myself a case of brain freeze from drinking some very cold G Zero.)

Someone who doesn’t know me well would not know I have OCD. I don’t think my case is extreme; anyone looking at my messy desk would conclude I don’t have it at all. However, even amidst the mess there is a strange order of sorts. Once again, that is probably too much information to share, but this is my blog.

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Something that is definitely not beautiful is what is going on at Oberlin College. This institution has become the most woke, most head up its ass place in the entire country. Here are two links from Why Evolution Is True on the topic.

 

Gibson’s Bakery wins for good; Supreme Court of Ohio upholds verdict against Oberlin College

Despite the civil verdict for $36 million, Oberlin College hasn’t paid Gibson’s Bakery

 

I will not share any excerpts as I don’t want my blood pressure to spike. (Oh, it was measured at 114-over-70 at my visit to the doctor the last Thursday in August.) I will reveal that this case had been going on for six years. There is something very rotten in the US.

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This recent piece from Hemmings should be of interest to the large contingent of Disaffected Musings readers from Canada. Its title is, “If Studebaker were still building cars, would Canada still be able to enjoy its beloved Tim Hortons coffee and donuts?” Actually, I think the piece should be interesting to most gearheads, period. Here is the picture from the article:

 

 

In case you don’t know, or even if you do, Tim Horton was a Hall-of-Fame defenseman who played most of his career for the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 2017, he was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history by the National Hockey League. The Leafs won four Stanley Cups while Horton played for them, including their most recent win in 1967.

However, like virtually all athletes who played before big money entered professional sports, Horton worked at other jobs during the offseason. He eventually began buying, fixing and flipping cars. From Hemmings:

 

“By 1961, Horton was ready to go into new car sales, so he added a Studebaker franchise to his Toronto location. Exactly how involved he was with the Studebaker operation, it’s difficult to say: He lent his face and a couple of quotes about the 1962 Studebaker lineup to a couple of well-circulated newspaper ads for the dealership, but references to Tim Horton Motors and to its Studebaker sales tend not to delve much deeper. Horton himself said in a later interview that he didn’t care to discuss his pre-donut ventures. ‘They flopped,’ he told a reporter. ‘Let’s just leave it at that.'”

 

Oh yeah, donuts. Tim Horton and Jim Charade established Tim Hortons in 1964. It has now become the largest quick-service restaurant chain in Canada, but began as–basically–a coffee and donuts shop, not unlike Dunkin’ Donuts. Here is the last paragraph from the Hemmings article:

 

“But had Studebaker been in a less-precarious financial situation in 1962 thanks to different products or financial saviors, would we now know of Tim Horton not as the namesake for a donut chain but as one of multiple hockey stars who parlayed their success on the ice to success on the showroom floor? A strange question to ask, indeed.”

 

Sadly, Horton died in 1974 at the age of 44; he was still playing in the NHL. He was killed in a one-car crash while driving his DeTomaso Pantera and, apparently, was under the influence of alcohol.

Although I can’t remember exactly where, I have eaten at a Tim Hortons. I am 99% sure it was in a Canadian airport. The chain has locations in the US and have begun expanding farther away from the US-Canada border.

As every regular reader knows, I don’t believe that one’s life is pre-ordained; I don’t believe in destiny. I think life is a Monte Carlo simulation with every possible outcome, except one, having a probability of less than 100%.

 

#BeautifulBeautiful

#OCD

#BoycottOberlin!

#TimHorton

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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