Gas prices have been steadily coming down the past year. However, they have a fluctuation factor that is difficult to understand.

Within the past week, gas prices in Key West were around $3.33 a gallon. Yesterday, $3.55 a gallon.

How does a 2o cent raise come about that swiftly? Even a 10 cent one?

Ran into a dear friend I have not seen in a few years. I was early to Publix the other morning when I heard “Louis!” It was Christine Cordone. Singer and artist. A woman of dual talents. She and husband Larry Smith have returned to their Key West home for the next several months. They have been going back and forth in recent years between Larry’s Pennsylvania family and Key West.

It was good to see Christine again. A uniquely wonderful person!

“Antique” collecting has its value! There are four pairs of Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. One went on auction sale recently. Sold for $28 million! Wow! The shoes became the most valuable piece of movie memorabilia auctioned. Marilyn Monroe’s white dress blowing upward over a subway grate was previously highest. However, its sale price a meager $5.52 million.

The other three pairs of Dorothy’s shoes are in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. and privately held. Two pair in the Smithsonian and one privately owned. I saw a pair in the Smithsonian in a Washington visit several years ago.

Man flew for the first time this day in 1903. The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville flew while Wilbur ran alongside the plane.

Baseball’s spitball pitch. Outlawed today. Not so back when.

A spitball involved the pitcher wetting the ball with a foreign substance. Generally, spit or petroleum. Such gave the pitcher certain control over the ball.

The spitball came into being in the 1800’s. It was finally banned in 1920. However, there were 17 pitchers who regularly threw a spitball back then. The ban did not apply to them. They were permitted to continue throwing it till they retired.

On this day in 1957, the last episode of “The Nat King Cole Show” was aired on NBC. The show had been cancelled. It could not get a national sponsor. Why? One of the greatest singers of all time! Was it because he was colored?

Key West’s St. Mary’ Star of the Sea formally dedicated its new high school friday. A return for the high school. St. Mary’s last one closed in 1986.

The recent school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin was by a student. A 15 year old female. She killed a teacher and student and wounded 6 before killing herself.

Confidence in U.S. courts has plummeted dramatically in recent years. Unusual. Strange and worrisome. The drop has been especially deep since the Dobbs case which eliminated a woman’s Constitutional right to an abortion.

In the past 4 years, confidence in the courts has dropped 24 percentage points from 55 percent to 35.

Only 35 percent of Americans have faith in our court system today!

Such a low number places the U.S. in line with countries like Myanmar, Venezuela and Syria.

The guy who killed the President of United Health Care, the 2 persons who tried to assassinate Trump, and the teenage girl in Madison who recently killed a teacher and fellow student were not immigrants. They were Americans!

Trump cries immigrants are criminals! Lets start listing them and their crimes. Compare them to those committed by Americans. Lets see if the “immigrants are criminal” representations are correct.

I close with…..This is tuesday! Means The Grand for Happy Hour with my friend Steve Thompson. Hope it will be a different tuesday this week!

Enjoy your day!

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