WLKM Radio 95.9 FM
Back in the day when gasoline sold for twenty-six cents a gallon and self-serve gasoline stations hadn’t been invented yet, one could reach inside the pop cooler and buy a Pepsi or Coke for ten cents. If you took the bottle with you, it would cost an additional two cents. The bottles were glass and cans of pop and diet drinks didn’t exist. I mention this because I regularly take bags of empty pop cans to the store and insert them into a machine. I then receive ten cents back for every can I deposit into the machine. These machines have an electronic eye which prevents you from taking a can from Indiana and trying to get ten cents back per can. When placing the empty can in the machine, make sure you’ve eliminated any small dents, or the electronic eye will cause the machine to reject the can. This is just another example of things happening that make me long for the days when technology didn’t tell us how to run our lives.
You can even go to the grocery store, put your items in a cart and check yourself out by going through the self-checkout lane. You don’t need to deal with a human cashier. Consider me odd if you wish, but I enjoy talking with people. To me, it’s part of what makes going to the grocery store fun. Please think about this. The more everyone uses a self-checkout lane, the less the store will need employees to serve as cashiers. As a result, jobs are easy to eliminate. Eventually, they will have an electronic eye that will trigger an audio welcome to the store. You pass by the eye and you’ll hear, “Welcome to your friendly market. Your visit here will be short, because you don’t have to deal with friendly employees who are happy that you’re here.” I guess my dream of being a store greeter will have to be placed on the back burner.
I’m not much into the study of space, but there are some things I wonder about. As an example, it’s been said that one planet is so many light-years away from another planet. I don’t understand anything about light-years. This might shed some light on the subject, should you be curious about this also. One light-year is the distance traveled in one year by a pulse of light, which is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles. It would take an airplane flying 500 miles per hour, 1.34 million years to travel one light-year. Now, consider the fact that the closest star to the earth, excluding our sun, is 4.3 light-years away. This is why I have the highest respect for astronomers. Facts like this make my brain tired.
Some fun facts you might consider taking seriously:
Your shoes are the first thing people subconsciously notice about you. Wear nice shoes.
If you sit for more than eleven hours a day, there’s a 50% chance you’ll die within the next three years.
There are at least six people in the world who look exactly like you. There’s a 9% chance you’ll meet one of them in your lifetime.
Sleeping without a pillow reduces back pain and keeps your spine stronger.
A person’s height is determined by their father and their weight is determined by their mother.
I’ll share five more of these next week.
Please remember that next Sunday, May 13, is Mother’s Day. If your mother is living, please do something special for her. If she has passed, take a few moments and reflect on a few of those special times with her.
Is it true that the only difference between a yard sale and a trash pick-up is how close to the road the stuff is placed?
See you Out and About!
Submitted by Norm Stutesman
