Very interesting video for those of us – like me – who know zero about the Reuben sandwich.
Also interesting (which you can see on the YouTube site of the video) are the numerous comments about the video and “the” Reuben . The comments about the Irish and Jewish origins of the sandwich are very interesting; you can actually learn some history while stuffing your face.
New biography of Earl Weaver reviewed in today’s WSJ.
I made Rubens the other day from the leftover Corned Beef. Here’s mine
Dark Rye (could not find Marbled Rye)
Baby Swiss
Sauerkraut
Thousand Island Dressing, that I made
Mustard
Dressing is easy. Ketchup, Mayo, Pickle Relish. Not too much Mayo. Mix it up. When I was growing up, my Mom made this all the time. Really weren’t store bought dressings then, not that we could afford them if there was.
Heat the Sauerkraut. Heat the CB (not as thin as store bought)
Put some Mustard on one piece of bread.
Cheese, Dressing, CB, Kraut.
Lightly heat up in skillet (I put in a pat of butter so the bread “toasts”.
Cut the sandwich diagonally.
Enjoy
I see that stupid, loudmouth, ratchet congresswoman Jasmin Crockett, at a “Tesla Takedown conference,” was very coyly asking people to go out and–as a birthday present to her–“take down” i.e. attack Tesla dealerships nationwide.
But, no, no, no she said, she wasn’t calling for violence.*
If there are any attacks–and given all of the prone to violence leftist nutjobs out there, I’m sure there will be–can she be charged with not only “incitement,” but if there is major property damage, if anyone is physically injured, or even killed, can she be charged with those crimes too?
And what about the leftist organizations which will, very likely, fund, organize, and coordinate these nation-wide level “protests,” I wonder if they, too, can they be hit with “domestic terrorism” charges?
Ted (from Bill and Ted) turned out to be quite a freak, Cusack was mildly amusing in Grosse Pointe Blank, Jasmine seems to be auditioning for Maxine Waters niece,
from skydragon to Hamas worshiper, it’s a short trip
Well, that made me very hungry! The Rueben is my favorite sandwich ever. Need to go find a good deli……
The fed judiciary is turning out to be so corrupt, I can’t imagine path out of this. The commentary over at Legalinsurrection is even if you dissolve a district court, this trash still gets paid and has seniority for new judge slots. I don’t know how true any of that is.
@Chases Eagles:The fed judiciary is turning out to be so corrupt, I can’t imagine path out of this.
It didn’t get this bad in a day, and it won’t get fixed in a day.
The corruption in the legal system begins in law school. Until we reform our education system, we will continue to get corruption everywhere. Seriously, we need to start policing who is teaching our kids all the way from pre-school to post-graduate.
RE: Speaking about the Leftist outfits funding, and organizing “Takedown Tesla” and other protests/disruptions at various congressman’s town halls.
One such Soros funded outfit is “Indivisible” which, once it was identified as being behind these “AstroTurf” protests, has taken down the list of its founders, officers/ organizers–pictures included–which was up on the Internet. *
I think you’re confusing Keanu Reeves with John Cusack. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about Reeves, personal life wise.
physicsguy,
It’s a bit of a drive from Jacksonville, but my wife is a reuben fan and the Kaiser Deli on Anastasia Boulevard in Saint Augustine makes a good one.
P.S. It seems that all roads lead back to Soros, whose money, baleful influence, and hundreds of destabilizing front organizations have penetrated and/or acted in opposition to seemingly every element of the power structures of our country (and many others).
The advent of Trump’s second term has well and truly exposed/ripped the cover off our entire government and legal system, and what has been exposed/revealed has not been in any way pretty or reassuring.
It appears that the incompetence, fraud, and rot runs really wide and really deep.
Does even half of the money collected in taxes arrive intact at its supposed destination?
Presuming it arrived intact, were any of the programs it was intended to fund actually workable, and of benefit to the United States, or to our citizens at large?
How many of our lower court judges just ignore the Constitution and Bill of Rights, legal precedent, case law, and Supreme Court decisions, and just rule however they wish, based on their own personal biases and political ideologies?
It appears quite a few.
Forbes
“ Jane Roberts, the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, made more than $10 million in commissions over an eight-year stretch where she matched top lawyers with elite law firms—including some that had cases before the Supreme Court—according to documents obtained by Insider, as concerns grow about justices possibly having unreported conflicts of interest.”
Interesting history lesson from Daniel Pipes, if you’re interested in the Middle East.
Good excuse to go to St Aug. It’s only about 40miles
If, by some miracle of coincidence, you find yourself at the Union League Club in Chicago, you will hopefully remember this – the Corned Beef sandwich there will change your life.
No alex winter the other guy who basically dissapeared until that terrible reunion film
Given the things revealed in just the last few months about Chief Justice Roberts and his wife, and all of their connections, I’m having less and less faith that–when push comes to shove–the Supreme Court will strongly reaffirm, as it should–or even reaffirm at all–that, as the Chief Executive, (and Commander in Chief) President Trump has virtually unlimited, plenary power over the Executive branch and our military and, moreover, that judges in lower courts have no legitimate ability to challenge, modify, or to negate his actions in his capacity as the United State’s Chief Executive.
Elsewhere, Powerline’s Scott Johnson discovers the late jazz singer Carol Sloane:
Sloane died in January 2023. I sent her a fan letter a few months before she died, care of the assisted living facility in Massachusetts where (I think) she ended her days. I hope she got it.
The Indivisible Project is the one that Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was on a meeting where they discussed Tesla Takedowns.
When you click on their “donate” page, it takes you to Act Blue. They take Venmo, PayPal, GPay, and all major credit cards.
They are violating the terms of service of all these payment processors, and it is no secret where they are getting their money.
If Trump and his team are serious, then this is very easy to shut down.
Niketas Choniates on March 24, 2025 at 1:48 pm said:
@Chases Eagles:The fed judiciary is turning out to be so corrupt, I can’t imagine path out of this.
“It didn’t get this bad in a day, and it won’t get fixed in a day.”
If the impeachment process for justices and judges is nominally limited to not exhibiting “good Behavior”, maybe some criteria related to a definition of adherence to “constitutional interpretation” should be added, such that Congress should put in place another criteria based on number of cases overruled on appeal. For example, after 7 overrules you are also subject to impeachment and possible conviction/ removal from office (or maybe it should happen automatically??). I don’t think this requires a constitutional amendment to implement when Congress provides jurisdictional criteria for “Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” The same criteria could apply for SCOTUS overrules of the Circuit Courts, although these might end up being less frequent and never reach that threshold; plus it involves more than one judge so might get sticky on that count.
Others here or elsewhere have also suggested spreading the venues around for those cases normally assigned to the DC Circuit to send them away from the overly political DC Circuit.
Also, some legislative guidance on what constitutes “good behavior” might include avoiding nepotism, etc., but maybe this is already covered (and ignored?) in the existing “corruption guidance” docs.
They are violating the terms of service of all these payment processors, and it is no secret where they are getting their money.
==
Yeah, but they’re not doing anything truly nefarious, like setting up bouncy castles in Ottawa.
@R2L:If the impeachment process for justices and judges is nominally limited to “good behavior”
At least according to The Federalist, impeachment can be used to remove judges who usurp the powers of the other branches, so clearly rulings that overstep are an instance of “bad behavior”.
He considers this so obvious that he discounts the possibility it would ever realistically happen, but if it did, he’s got your impeachment right here:
Federalist 81: …It may in the last place be observed that the supposed danger of judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority, which has been upon many occasions reiterated, is in reality a phantom. Particular misconstructions and contraventions of the will of the legislature may now and then happen; but they can never be so extensive as to amount to an inconvenience, or in any sensible degree to affect the order of the political system. This may be inferred with certainty, from the general nature of the judicial power, from the objects to which it relates, from the manner in which it is exercised, from its comparative weakness, and from its total incapacity to support its usurpations by force. And the inference is greatly fortified by the consideration of the important constitutional check which the power of instituting impeachments in one part of the legislative body, and of determining upon them in the other, would give to that body upon the members of the judicial department. This is alone a complete security. There never can be danger that the judges, by a series of deliberate usurpations on the authority of the legislature, would hazard the united resentment of the body intrusted with it, while this body was possessed of the means of punishing their presumption, by degrading them from their stations. While this ought to remove all apprehensions on the subject, it affords, at the same time, a cogent argument for constituting the Senate a court for the trial of impeachments.
The whole article reads a little ironically after the last 100 years of Federal jurisprudence and the failure of Congress to protect any of its powers except that of appropriation.
miguel,
Alex was Bill.
Ted was Keanu.
@Art Deco:Yeah, but they’re not doing anything truly nefarious, like setting up bouncy castles in Ottawa.
I just checked Extinction Rebellion and major credit banks and PayPal are still handing their donations too despite the violation of terms of service. There’s people in government who want these things to continue, and people embedded in the private companies that handle their finances.
Extinction Rebellion in the US uses Twilio for marketing and communicating with activists. Coordinating violence and lawbreaking is a TOS violation for Twilio too. Simple to shut that down too, but someone doesn’t want it done.
Re: Israel / Gaza War / Iran / Middle East / TBN – Boots on the Ground podcast
The Houthis are launching ballistic missiles at Israel and US ships. Trump has said unequivocally that Iran will not get nuclear weapons. He has sent a letter to Khameni demanding negotiations with a deadline or face military options.
This strikes me as one of the most serious geopolitical situations since the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m rather nervous. Yet I notice that most of the world doesn’t seem to notice.
So I look for news to understand the situation. Here’s “Boots on the Ground” an Israeli news and analysis podcast which I find useful. I particularly like Yair Pinto, A sample show:
Interesting that Israel has found another lever on Hamas. The longer they hold the hostages, the more Gaza territory they lose.
TBN is the Trinity Broadcasting Network, a large Christian network with something of an End Times orientation, which is a bit of a red flag for me. Nonetheless “Boots on the Ground” seems to have good stuff.
How are others informing themselves in this area?
@ Rufus – “my wife is a reuben fan and the Kaiser Deli on Anastasia Boulevard in Saint Augustine makes a good one.”
Our family had a delightful time in St. Augustine in the late 1990s.
AesopSpouse was working in a legal firm in Houston at the time the wife of one of the partners was an astronaut going up in some flight, and every crew member had a certain number of “tickets” that could be used to get a spot in the restricted parking near the rocket port. I don’t remember the details now, but have a box full of memorabilia. Most of the firm were invited to be her guests, and we pulled 4 of the 5 kids out of school (one was on his mission), even though it was going to be finals week (we had a great principal!), then enlisted AS’s parents, and my widowed mother. We all flew to Florida and met up down there.
Watching a rocket lift-off was on my mother’s all-time bucket list, and we were within a couple of days of her birthday, so after the command module was safely on its way, we unloaded the picnic hampers and birthday cake and had a tailgate party. At some point the security guards came to check on us and we explained the situation and they just laughed.
My FiL, the retired AF general, also had never seen a flight, and he loved it.
After the launch, we gave the kids a choice of Disney World and historic St. Augustine, and their choice of St. A. caused me to think we must have done something to bring them up right!
We all loved Castillo de San Marcos and the other Spanish venues, and wandering through the old town. My mother had a thing about lighthouses, as well as rockets, and the one there was the first she had been able to climb “in person” — I thought it was an amazing view!
We might have eaten at the Kaiser Deli, which is close by according to Google Maps, but I don’t remember everything else we did, although we all had a really good time.
Looking on-line just now, the city does a lot more touristy stuff than it did them, but I don’t think we missed it.
I’m still not sure how we pulled off this trip with minimal confusion and contention, but it was the best one we ever made.
Thanks for igniting those fond memories!
Huxley, I don’t believe there’s any way that Israel will be “allowed” to occupy Gaza long term.”
Hamas knows this.
Hamas also knows that there is no way that any external (non-Arab) entity will agree (or be permitted) to move the Gaza population, unless individual Gazans decide on their own they have to get out of there, e.g., significant swaths of Gaza’s Christian community (never that large to begin with) but not only that community.
The only way to get Hamas out of there is by force; or perhaps via a massive uprising by Gazan citizens (though how probable is that?) and/or extreme pressure from Arab states (ditto).
Since the goal of Hamas (as well as the “more moderate” Palestinian Authority) is to eliminate Israel, there are no real “good” solutions.
I wonder whether the “Son of Hamas” might be able to step up and fill any ensuing vacuum, but this may not be at all feasible since he may have no desire to do so, he may be unacceptable (as a convert to Christianity or too pro-Israel) or he may believe that Gaza is simply ungovernable.
FYI, Culver’s makes a pretty good Reuben.
AesopFan,
Thanks for sharing those memories!
The closest I got to a launch was about 15 miles, but I saw quite a few from about 40 miles away. Even on a bright, sunny day the light from the engines was incredible!
St. Augustine is a special place. Your trip sounds magical.
At a sports bar recently. My Reuben arrived. I thought, “Hmm, it’s rather small. I guess every place is downsizing their portions.”
Am speaking with family member and absorbing tidbits of the action on the TV above me. “Hmm, this Reuben is kinda lame.”
After about four bites, half is gone and I open the other half and see no sauerkraut. Waitress arrives, I politely explain they made my sandwich wrong and I’d like a new one.
She returns with sauerkraut on a plate and relays the cook’s message: “You ate half, so no new one.”
Me: “I’ve been here many times and expect to come here many more times. How hard can it be to make me a new sandwich?”
Two regulars. Two beers, two entrees, two sides. One simple entree made incorrectly. Seemed like a fair request.
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Very interesting video for those of us – like me – who know zero about the Reuben sandwich.
Also interesting (which you can see on the YouTube site of the video) are the numerous comments about the video and “the” Reuben . The comments about the Irish and Jewish origins of the sandwich are very interesting; you can actually learn some history while stuffing your face.
Made me think of sdferr:
https://archive.md/DnbTu
New biography of Earl Weaver reviewed in today’s WSJ.
I made Rubens the other day from the leftover Corned Beef. Here’s mine
Dark Rye (could not find Marbled Rye)
Baby Swiss
Sauerkraut
Thousand Island Dressing, that I made
Mustard
Dressing is easy. Ketchup, Mayo, Pickle Relish. Not too much Mayo. Mix it up. When I was growing up, my Mom made this all the time. Really weren’t store bought dressings then, not that we could afford them if there was.
Heat the Sauerkraut. Heat the CB (not as thin as store bought)
Put some Mustard on one piece of bread.
Cheese, Dressing, CB, Kraut.
Lightly heat up in skillet (I put in a pat of butter so the bread “toasts”.
Cut the sandwich diagonally.
Enjoy
I see that stupid, loudmouth, ratchet congresswoman Jasmin Crockett, at a “Tesla Takedown conference,” was very coyly asking people to go out and–as a birthday present to her–“take down” i.e. attack Tesla dealerships nationwide.
But, no, no, no she said, she wasn’t calling for violence.*
If there are any attacks–and given all of the prone to violence leftist nutjobs out there, I’m sure there will be–can she be charged with not only “incitement,” but if there is major property damage, if anyone is physically injured, or even killed, can she be charged with those crimes too?
And what about the leftist organizations which will, very likely, fund, organize, and coordinate these nation-wide level “protests,” I wonder if they, too, can they be hit with “domestic terrorism” charges?
* See https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/crockett-joins-actors-alex-winter-and-john-cusack-endorsing-tesla-takedown/ar-AA1Bkmp2
See also https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/mar/23/pam-bondi-tells-jasmine-crockett-tread-carefully-regarding-criticisms/
Ted (from Bill and Ted) turned out to be quite a freak, Cusack was mildly amusing in Grosse Pointe Blank, Jasmine seems to be auditioning for Maxine Waters niece,
remember this cloying fellow,
https://x.com/TonySeruga/status/1904168391893795167
no one seems to spell out that Commisar Sanders and the ditzy bartender, are the ones who drove us into the ditch with the Green Nude Eel
Jim (22) posts an early pic of Earl (4) and Cal Sr. (7): https://x.com/Jim22Palmer/status/1896026330090647590
she’s on minute 15’05
https://x.com/DogRightGirl/status/1903896542395933128
from skydragon to Hamas worshiper, it’s a short trip
Well, that made me very hungry! The Rueben is my favorite sandwich ever. Need to go find a good deli……
The fed judiciary is turning out to be so corrupt, I can’t imagine path out of this. The commentary over at Legalinsurrection is even if you dissolve a district court, this trash still gets paid and has seniority for new judge slots. I don’t know how true any of that is.
@Chases Eagles:The fed judiciary is turning out to be so corrupt, I can’t imagine path out of this.
It didn’t get this bad in a day, and it won’t get fixed in a day.
The corruption in the legal system begins in law school. Until we reform our education system, we will continue to get corruption everywhere. Seriously, we need to start policing who is teaching our kids all the way from pre-school to post-graduate.
RE: Speaking about the Leftist outfits funding, and organizing “Takedown Tesla” and other protests/disruptions at various congressman’s town halls.
One such Soros funded outfit is “Indivisible” which, once it was identified as being behind these “AstroTurf” protests, has taken down the list of its founders, officers/ organizers–pictures included–which was up on the Internet. *
* https://www.newsmax.com/us/tesla-indivisible-action-george-soros/2025/03/18/id/1203393/
* And see a more in depth article on “Indivisible” here at https://capitalresearch.org/article/indivisibly-divided-faux-insurgents-for-the-professional-left/
miguel,
I think you’re confusing Keanu Reeves with John Cusack. I’ve heard nothing but positive things about Reeves, personal life wise.
physicsguy,
It’s a bit of a drive from Jacksonville, but my wife is a reuben fan and the Kaiser Deli on Anastasia Boulevard in Saint Augustine makes a good one.
P.S. It seems that all roads lead back to Soros, whose money, baleful influence, and hundreds of destabilizing front organizations have penetrated and/or acted in opposition to seemingly every element of the power structures of our country (and many others).
The advent of Trump’s second term has well and truly exposed/ripped the cover off our entire government and legal system, and what has been exposed/revealed has not been in any way pretty or reassuring.
It appears that the incompetence, fraud, and rot runs really wide and really deep.
Does even half of the money collected in taxes arrive intact at its supposed destination?
Presuming it arrived intact, were any of the programs it was intended to fund actually workable, and of benefit to the United States, or to our citizens at large?
How many of our lower court judges just ignore the Constitution and Bill of Rights, legal precedent, case law, and Supreme Court decisions, and just rule however they wish, based on their own personal biases and political ideologies?
It appears quite a few.
Forbes
“ Jane Roberts, the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, made more than $10 million in commissions over an eight-year stretch where she matched top lawyers with elite law firms—including some that had cases before the Supreme Court—according to documents obtained by Insider, as concerns grow about justices possibly having unreported conflicts of interest.”
Interesting history lesson from Daniel Pipes, if you’re interested in the Middle East.
https://www.danielpipes.org/22536/sunnis-vs-alawites-in-syria
Good piece on massacres of Alawites in Syria, Mike Plaiss.
“Eagles of Antioch” volunteers are attempting to protect Christian neighborhoods in Damascus. The situation is very tense.
https://www.christiantoday.com/news/eagles-of-antioch-formed-to-protect-syrian-christians
RTF,
Good excuse to go to St Aug. It’s only about 40miles
If, by some miracle of coincidence, you find yourself at the Union League Club in Chicago, you will hopefully remember this – the Corned Beef sandwich there will change your life.
No alex winter the other guy who basically dissapeared until that terrible reunion film
Given the things revealed in just the last few months about Chief Justice Roberts and his wife, and all of their connections, I’m having less and less faith that–when push comes to shove–the Supreme Court will strongly reaffirm, as it should–or even reaffirm at all–that, as the Chief Executive, (and Commander in Chief) President Trump has virtually unlimited, plenary power over the Executive branch and our military and, moreover, that judges in lower courts have no legitimate ability to challenge, modify, or to negate his actions in his capacity as the United State’s Chief Executive.
Elsewhere, Powerline’s Scott Johnson discovers the late jazz singer Carol Sloane:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/03/you-must-believe-in-spring-2.php
I posted about Sloane on this forum back in January 2022, in connection with Terry Teachout’s untimely death:
https://thenewneo.com/2022/01/14/open-thread-1-14-22/#comment-2601428
The thread included some exchanges with Zaphod:
https://thenewneo.com/2022/01/14/open-thread-1-14-22/#comment-2601848
Sloane died in January 2023. I sent her a fan letter a few months before she died, care of the assisted living facility in Massachusetts where (I think) she ended her days. I hope she got it.
The Indivisible Project is the one that Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was on a meeting where they discussed Tesla Takedowns.
When you click on their “donate” page, it takes you to Act Blue. They take Venmo, PayPal, GPay, and all major credit cards.
They are violating the terms of service of all these payment processors, and it is no secret where they are getting their money.
If Trump and his team are serious, then this is very easy to shut down.
Niketas Choniates on March 24, 2025 at 1:48 pm said:
@Chases Eagles:The fed judiciary is turning out to be so corrupt, I can’t imagine path out of this.
“It didn’t get this bad in a day, and it won’t get fixed in a day.”
If the impeachment process for justices and judges is nominally limited to not exhibiting “good Behavior”, maybe some criteria related to a definition of adherence to “constitutional interpretation” should be added, such that Congress should put in place another criteria based on number of cases overruled on appeal. For example, after 7 overrules you are also subject to impeachment and possible conviction/ removal from office (or maybe it should happen automatically??). I don’t think this requires a constitutional amendment to implement when Congress provides jurisdictional criteria for “Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” The same criteria could apply for SCOTUS overrules of the Circuit Courts, although these might end up being less frequent and never reach that threshold; plus it involves more than one judge so might get sticky on that count.
Others here or elsewhere have also suggested spreading the venues around for those cases normally assigned to the DC Circuit to send them away from the overly political DC Circuit.
Also, some legislative guidance on what constitutes “good behavior” might include avoiding nepotism, etc., but maybe this is already covered (and ignored?) in the existing “corruption guidance” docs.
They are violating the terms of service of all these payment processors, and it is no secret where they are getting their money.
==
Yeah, but they’re not doing anything truly nefarious, like setting up bouncy castles in Ottawa.
@R2L:If the impeachment process for justices and judges is nominally limited to “good behavior”
At least according to The Federalist, impeachment can be used to remove judges who usurp the powers of the other branches, so clearly rulings that overstep are an instance of “bad behavior”.
He considers this so obvious that he discounts the possibility it would ever realistically happen, but if it did, he’s got your impeachment right here:
The whole article reads a little ironically after the last 100 years of Federal jurisprudence and the failure of Congress to protect any of its powers except that of appropriation.
miguel,
Alex was Bill.
Ted was Keanu.
@Art Deco:Yeah, but they’re not doing anything truly nefarious, like setting up bouncy castles in Ottawa.
I just checked Extinction Rebellion and major credit banks and PayPal are still handing their donations too despite the violation of terms of service. There’s people in government who want these things to continue, and people embedded in the private companies that handle their finances.
Extinction Rebellion in the US uses Twilio for marketing and communicating with activists. Coordinating violence and lawbreaking is a TOS violation for Twilio too. Simple to shut that down too, but someone doesn’t want it done.
Re: Israel / Gaza War / Iran / Middle East / TBN – Boots on the Ground podcast
The Houthis are launching ballistic missiles at Israel and US ships. Trump has said unequivocally that Iran will not get nuclear weapons. He has sent a letter to Khameni demanding negotiations with a deadline or face military options.
This strikes me as one of the most serious geopolitical situations since the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m rather nervous. Yet I notice that most of the world doesn’t seem to notice.
So I look for news to understand the situation. Here’s “Boots on the Ground” an Israeli news and analysis podcast which I find useful. I particularly like Yair Pinto, A sample show:
–“BREAKING: IDF’s Next Move: Ground INVASION Expands; Iran’s NUCLEAR Deadline?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2-F9WVSOTI
Interesting that Israel has found another lever on Hamas. The longer they hold the hostages, the more Gaza territory they lose.
TBN is the Trinity Broadcasting Network, a large Christian network with something of an End Times orientation, which is a bit of a red flag for me. Nonetheless “Boots on the Ground” seems to have good stuff.
How are others informing themselves in this area?
@ Rufus – “my wife is a reuben fan and the Kaiser Deli on Anastasia Boulevard in Saint Augustine makes a good one.”
Our family had a delightful time in St. Augustine in the late 1990s.
AesopSpouse was working in a legal firm in Houston at the time the wife of one of the partners was an astronaut going up in some flight, and every crew member had a certain number of “tickets” that could be used to get a spot in the restricted parking near the rocket port. I don’t remember the details now, but have a box full of memorabilia. Most of the firm were invited to be her guests, and we pulled 4 of the 5 kids out of school (one was on his mission), even though it was going to be finals week (we had a great principal!), then enlisted AS’s parents, and my widowed mother. We all flew to Florida and met up down there.
Watching a rocket lift-off was on my mother’s all-time bucket list, and we were within a couple of days of her birthday, so after the command module was safely on its way, we unloaded the picnic hampers and birthday cake and had a tailgate party. At some point the security guards came to check on us and we explained the situation and they just laughed.
My FiL, the retired AF general, also had never seen a flight, and he loved it.
After the launch, we gave the kids a choice of Disney World and historic St. Augustine, and their choice of St. A. caused me to think we must have done something to bring them up right!
We all loved Castillo de San Marcos and the other Spanish venues, and wandering through the old town. My mother had a thing about lighthouses, as well as rockets, and the one there was the first she had been able to climb “in person” — I thought it was an amazing view!
We might have eaten at the Kaiser Deli, which is close by according to Google Maps, but I don’t remember everything else we did, although we all had a really good time.
Looking on-line just now, the city does a lot more touristy stuff than it did them, but I don’t think we missed it.
I’m still not sure how we pulled off this trip with minimal confusion and contention, but it was the best one we ever made.
Thanks for igniting those fond memories!
Huxley, I don’t believe there’s any way that Israel will be “allowed” to occupy Gaza long term.”
Hamas knows this.
Hamas also knows that there is no way that any external (non-Arab) entity will agree (or be permitted) to move the Gaza population, unless individual Gazans decide on their own they have to get out of there, e.g., significant swaths of Gaza’s Christian community (never that large to begin with) but not only that community.
The only way to get Hamas out of there is by force; or perhaps via a massive uprising by Gazan citizens (though how probable is that?) and/or extreme pressure from Arab states (ditto).
Since the goal of Hamas (as well as the “more moderate” Palestinian Authority) is to eliminate Israel, there are no real “good” solutions.
I wonder whether the “Son of Hamas” might be able to step up and fill any ensuing vacuum, but this may not be at all feasible since he may have no desire to do so, he may be unacceptable (as a convert to Christianity or too pro-Israel) or he may believe that Gaza is simply ungovernable.
FYI, Culver’s makes a pretty good Reuben.
AesopFan,
Thanks for sharing those memories!
The closest I got to a launch was about 15 miles, but I saw quite a few from about 40 miles away. Even on a bright, sunny day the light from the engines was incredible!
St. Augustine is a special place. Your trip sounds magical.
At a sports bar recently. My Reuben arrived. I thought, “Hmm, it’s rather small. I guess every place is downsizing their portions.”
Am speaking with family member and absorbing tidbits of the action on the TV above me. “Hmm, this Reuben is kinda lame.”
After about four bites, half is gone and I open the other half and see no sauerkraut. Waitress arrives, I politely explain they made my sandwich wrong and I’d like a new one.
She returns with sauerkraut on a plate and relays the cook’s message: “You ate half, so no new one.”
Me: “I’ve been here many times and expect to come here many more times. How hard can it be to make me a new sandwich?”
Two regulars. Two beers, two entrees, two sides. One simple entree made incorrectly. Seemed like a fair request.