The Duke

It's opening day for most of MLB baseball today. The Chicago Cubs will open in Pittsburgh. Every time that I attended opening day at Wrigley Field there were snow flurries and I froze my butt off. Give me a July game anytime.

I walked to Glorioso's Italian Grocery to pick up a chunk of red meat and some giant Red Stripes. It's 54 degrees in Brew City but it's a cold 54. Still a lot of snow piles on the ground. Last year it took till April 7th for the last of them to melt. Don't ask me why I keep track of weird stuff. I just do.

The stock market opened with strong confidence this morning. Everything seems different than last week and much more positive. Enrollment for Obamacare is way up after this weekend. Indeed, we are a nation of procrastinators. Maybe the world isn't ending after all.

The Final Four is all set. Good luck to all the teams but especially to Florida as I have them winning in my bracket.

I've been reading some excerpts from "John Wayne: The Life and Legend" and I never knew that he never legally changed his name. Legal actions were made under Marion Morrison. He was nicknamed "Duke" when he was 4 years old by a local fireman who saw him walking his dog Duke. My Uncle Wayne met him in the 1960's while working at an Alaskan border crossing for the Coast Guard. Apparently he was returning from a hunting trip.

My favorite John Wayne movies are "The Alamo," "The Shootist,"
and "True Grit" for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. They hardly even make western movies anymore. The Duke has been gone for almost 35 years and he just set the bar way too high.

Later