Cold Comfort

     What's your favorite dessert? What a wonderful question to consider!

     I don't mean to offend anyone, but I'm not a chocolate fan. (I know to some chocoholics, them there's fightin' words.) I love pie -- blueberry, peach, coconut custard. I also like cake. The cake you get in a restaurant usually looks better than it tastes, and often disappoints, but homemade cake, even cake made with a mix . . . ah, a beautiful thing.

     But it's summer. How can we seriously turn our attention to anything but ice cream? I hate to seem boring, but my favorite flavor is vanilla. And I'm not alone. Vanilla outsells chocolate, the second-most-popular flavor, by more than two-to-one. I'm sure the words a la mode have something to do with that.

     But, to me, vanilla is not bland, as some people charge. It has a subtle taste. It's evocative. It hints at the tropics where the vanilla beans grow, but doesn't overwhelm your senses like chocolate does.

     I don't mean to denigrate chocolate. It's not my favorite. But chocolate is supposed to be good for you. (That explains why I don't like it as much -- I never like anything that's good for me!) And . . . chocolate is an aphrodisiac, isn't it?

     There are plenty of other more exotic flavors of ice cream -- which is one of its charms. You can make it taste like anything you want. My mother's favorite was coffee. And she liked pistachio. My dad didn't like ice cream, didn't eat dessert at all, which explains why he was thin. But he was also kind of a stuffed shirt.

     As for me, I'm a modern man. I like cookie dough ice cream.

     The Dairy Reporter says your flavor preference reveals a lot about your personality. Vanilla lovers are supposed to be "impulsive, easily suggestible and idealistic" (which doesn't describe me at all). People who like cookie dough are ambitious, competitive and visionary. I'm not sure I agree. I'm afraid people who like cookie dough ice cream are just fat.

     Regardless, ice cream is a deep and ever-swirling topic for discussion. Remember the ice-cream truck that came around the neighborhood when we were kids? The Good Humor man rang his bell up and down the streets of my youth. You can still find an ice-cream truck here and there. But they're not part of the culture as they were when we were kids.

     Then there's soft ice cream. For the most part, I prefer regular ice cream. But there's an ice-cream stand in my town, called King Kone, that serves a particularly tasty kind of soft ice cream. I don't know how they do it. But it's flavorful and creamy -- and the place is the hottest spot in town every night from June through September.

     King Kone offers a panoply of toppings -- which is a whole other subject. Some people are purests and would never pollute their ice cream with nuts or sprinkles or dips. In general, I support their fundamentalist spirit. But King Kone has the best rainbow sprinkles, which turn a beautiful ice cream cone into a sparkling tower of perfection. Although . . . B prefers the chocolate dip.

      What about ice-cream cake? I say it's a poor use of both cake and ice cream. But there's an exception to every rule. And the exception to this rule is: birthday cake.

     Speaking of bastardizations, what about frozen yogurt? I went through a period some years ago of substituting frozen yogurt -- now known as froyo -- for ice cream. I thought it was healthier. But now I realize that froyo is to ice cream what artificial flowers are to real flowers. So I stick with the real thing.

     Finally, I must warn you, when you go to the store to buy ice cream, be careful not to pick up a carton of "frozen dairy dessert" by mistake. Yes, some companies try to pass off this mysterious mix as real ice cream. Doesn't make the grade in my book.

     So stick with Haagen Dazs or Ben & Jerry's. They're not my favorites, but they are the real thing. Or Dreyer's or Edy's. But my go-to brand is Turkey Hill. I'm not sure if it's even available outside the Northeast, but it's really good.

     And since I'm always open to suggestions, on the lookout for new ice-cream experiences, what's your favorite?

Augustus Blogus Optimus

     This is the August edition of the Best of Boomer Blogs. That's what the title means -- at least to me. My Latin is pretty rusty, and last I checked there was no Latin word for Baby Boomer. I took Latin in 7th, 8th and 9th grades, and poor Mrs. Coates is probably rolling over in her sepulchrum right about now.

     Anyway, August was named after the Roman Emperor Augustus in 8 BC to commemorate several triumphs which took place in August, including the conquest of Egypt.

     And we Boomers, the classics of our time, commemorate the month of August by offering some consilium bonus on these following important topics.

     Finance:  John Agno at So Baby Boomer says that market trends, space programs and rogue waves are not linear. But he's not the first person to point out the nonlinear path of financial trends. In The Sun Also Rises Hemingway's character Bill Gorton asks the once-affluent Mike Campbell, "How did you go bankrupt?" Mike replies: "Two ways, gradually and then suddenly."

     But now in a new post Agno, a certified executive and business coach, shows how linear projections will often take us down the wrong path, and he warns us that nonlinear events can occur when you least expect them.

     Personal Power:  Meanwhile, Laura Lee Carter over at the Midlife Crisis Queen blog has lately been thinking about something else:  personal liberation. It is never too late, she says, to free yourself through the power of your own mind.

     Health and Aging:  Karen from The Generation Above Me laments that aging means experiencing odd physical changes. Read more in her recent post Weird Things on My Skin. One note of caution (or is it a teaser?): the post involves the word decolletage, which is not Latin, of course, but French for . . . well, you go read her blog post.

     History:  On The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, writes about how to organize your photos. After a four-day marathon organizing photos that she found in her garage from the 1960s, '70s and '80s, she has a method using archival plastic pages with pockets of different sizes. Robison also has some advice for organizing more recent digital photos, including this:  Make sure to have a system to back them up!

What Would You Do?

     I played golf the other day (don't ask how I did), and because of road construction I drove home a different way than usual. I exited the highway and came into the town of Carmel, a couple of towns over from where I live, on a back road that was unfamiliar to me. I needed gas and saw a station with medium grade at $3.99 a gallon (which, believe it or not, is cheap around here). So I decided to stop and fill up.

     I got out of my car, opened the gas cap, swiped my credit card and pulled out the hose. Just as I was inserting the nozzle into my car, I heard a voice.

     ". . . you give me . . . services . . . "

     It was a woman. I didn't catch what she was saying. I looked up and saw a middle-age woman in obviously old clothes -- a tattered jacket and a skirt that looked like it came from the Salvation Army. She had long, unruly brown hair, and blotched reddish skin.

     I stared at her for a moment. My guard was up. Who approaches you at a self-service gas station?

    "I'm sorry to bother you, sir," she said apologetically. "Could you please give me a ride to Social Services?"

     I didn't say anything. What was going on? Finally it registered. She was asking me for a ride. My immediate reaction -- as a former city dweller who got accosted on the street on a regular basis -- was to brush her off and give her a curt no, saying I'm sorry but I'm in a hurry, or late for an appointment, or something like that.

     Then I noticed her eyes. They looked genuine; they looked pleading; they looked sad.

     "Um . . . er . . ." I looked around. Was this a scam? Is she setting me up for something? Is she accompanied by some big guy with tattoos who's going to jump in the car with her, making some vaguely threatening excuse?

     I didn't see anybody.

     "I just need a ride to Social Services, here in town," she said, now with some urgency in her voice. "It's not far away."

     I looked at her again. I wasn't in a hurry. I had no appointment. I was just minding my own business -- filling up my gas tank, then going home. "Okay," I finally said. "But I don't know where it is. Can you give me directions?"

     "Yes, I can show you the way," she replied. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

     I looked back down and started pumping the gas. The woman stood quietly on the other side of my car. I looked around again. I didn't see anyone except a well-dressed woman filling up on the next island, with a young child in her car.

     I looked at the woman standing there. "So what's your name?" She mumbled something. I didn't hear her. "Sorry," I said. "What is it again?"

     "Nancy," she repeated, a little louder.

      "Hi. My name is Tom," I said with a friendly shrug of the shoulders. "My sister's name is Nancy."

     The woman gave me a nod, but didn't smile or react.

     I continued to fill up my tank. Finally the gas shut off. I put the nozzle back and tore off my receipt. I looked across my car again. The woman was still standing there. "So . . .  hop in," I said as I opened my door.

     The woman opened the door, crouched down and slowly slid onto the front passenger seat. She put a large canvas bag on the floor and said thank you again.

     "Just turn right here and go down through town?" I asked as I pulled away from the gas island.

     "Yes," she said. Then she explained she had a blister on her foot, and reassured me that Social Services wasn't far away, and she said thank you once more.

     She led me through town, then instructed me to turn left at a light. No, not that light. The next one, at the main road. We started heading out of town again. Where were we going? I wondered. I thought she said Social Services was in town. I noticed an odor coming from the woman -- a kind of musty smell you'd find in an attic or a basement. "So it's here in town?" I asked, looking for confirmation. "Not someplace else?"

     "Yes," she said.

     I drove through two more lights, past a strip mall on the left. Finally, she said, "Turn right up at that next light."

     I saw a sign for a county office, in back of a muffler shop. I realized I'd driven by this intersection a hundred times and never noticed the county sign. Why would I? I don't use Social Services.

     I turned into the driveway and pulled up to the front door. The woman thanked me yet again. She opened the car door, picked up her bag and slowly hauled herself out of the car. She closed the door, didn't look back, and stood there for a moment in front of the building, getting her bearings.

     I put my car in gear and drove off, opening my windows to air out the car. I exhaled a small sigh of relief. The woman hadn't attacked me, hadn't had any kind of emotional outburst, didn't bleed or throw up in my car. Was I stupid to worry about these things? I guess I was; but you never know when you pick up a total stranger.

     For a moment, I felt good about myself. I'd done my good deed for the day. Then as I drove home I began to feel sorry for the woman, and began to feel guilty. How could I have even hesitated to help this poor women? I should have slipped her a $20 bill.

     Then I wondered, what if the person who'd asked me for a ride at the gas station was a man. I almost said no to this poor woman. Would I have said no if it was an equally desperate man? What if the person asking me for a ride was a black man. What would I have said then?

     I don't know. I just hope the woman is okay, and that her blister is better.

   

Maps of the World

     You probably wouldn't be surprised to find out (maybe you already know) that the geographic center of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, is figured to be at 44.58 degrees N, 103.46 degrees W, which is in the tiny city of Belle Fourche in far western South Dakota.

     But do you know where the geographic center of Europe is? I would have guessed somewhere in France or Switzerland. But the fact is . . . well, these are Europeans, remember, so they argue about it. Various calculations have put it in Poland, in Slovakia, in the Ukraine. But the latest, most authoritative estimate places it in a little town called Purnuskes, a few miles north of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania (the red dot farthest to the northeast).

     Go figure. I guess there's more Russia in Europe than first meets the eye. (Please excuse the map bleeding into the right column, but I thought you'd want the map large enough so you could see it.)

    
     There are a few other interesting maps I found on website called Twisted Sifter, through a friend on Facebook. For example, here is a map showing, in white, the countries that have never been invaded by England.

    
     How about a map that shows, in red, the countries where bribery is most common, where it is an expected way to do business and deal with the government. Nigeria, the reddest country, is riddled with the most bribery. But I'm surprised at Canada. I thought they were clean, honest people. Apparently, not quite so much.

    
     Then there's a map of countries in the world with the most researchers. The deeper the purple, the more researchers. So if researchers earn their keep, the U. S. and Canada should be able to compete with Europe and Japan for the medical, scientific and technological advances of the future.

    
     But that doesn't mean we Americans necessarily have our priorities straight. Here's a map of the U. S. showing the highest paid public employees in each state. For the most part, they are not researchers.

  
     I hope this gives you a little different perspective on the world. If you want to see more maps check out 40 Maps that Will Help You Make Sense of the World at Twisted Sifter.

Maybe You're Smarter Than You Think

     I recently came across a quotation attributed to Elbert Hubbard (1856-1925), an American writer who also founded the Roycroft arts-and-crafts community near Buffalo, NY:

     "One machine," he said, "can do the work of fifty ordinary men. But no machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.” 

     And then a friend of mine posted this on Facebook, and it made me wonder if this is an example of the flexibility and adaptability of the human mind.

     Try it out and see what you think.