college educated.

Katherine nursed Orville back to health after a test flight crashed and a co-pilot was killed. She accompanied the brothers on their tour of France and charmed the press and public. The brothers, being shy,  were not well received. But she was charming, spoke French and otherwise was the best PR "man" the brothers could have asked for. Many in France thought she was the real brains behind the brothers.

And while the brothers were shy, she wasn't. She met with the kings and leaders of France, Italy, Spain and England when they toured Europe promoting the plane and the company. Her brothers and her were awarded the French Legion of Honor. She negotiated the contracts for building the planes.

She was likely the first woman to fly in a plane, accompanying Orville on at least three test flights in 1909.

Wilbur and Orville were confirmed bachelors, and apparently Orville resented the sister for marrying and raising a family. He eventually ceased talking to her. 

But while they were on good terms, Orville said of his sister: "When the world speaks of the Wrights it should include my sister. Much of our efforts have been inspired by her."

Katherine has ticked all the boxes for "'Overlooked No More" consideration. And while I doubt the U.S. Postal Service will issue a commemorative stamp in her honor at this point, she should make the short list for the next round of NYT "Overlooked No More" obits.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Talk About Overlooked

There are many ways to learn something you didn't know. And Jeopardy clues are one of them.

Being of a septuagenarian age I of course have heard of the Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville who from their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio tinkered around enough that they became the first to develop and fly a motorized aircraft, becoming airborne on a flight from the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903. Thus, North Carolina's license plates that brag: First in Flight.

It is hard to imagine that a Jeopardy clue on December 26, 2023 under the category Destiny's Other Children: $400: Last name of Katherine seen here; [image appears] an educator & suffragist, she became a celebrity like her two brothers that no one would answer Wright when seeing the image. To me, the mind boggles, but then again, my history lessons started sometime in the 1950s. The $400 value of the clue was itself a clue that the answer should be obvious. I guess not.

Okay, I never heard about the sister, but that's because woman of the early 20th-century were not much paid attention to, unless they accompany their brothers to France and speak French, charming the press and citizens of France. I would have at least gotten the answer by looking the photo. And now I have gained some great knowledge about Katherine that she should surely be added to the NYT list of people to get an overdue obituary in the Overlooked No More feature.

ChatGPT tells us: 

The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, had a younger sister named Katharine Wright. She was born on August 19, 1874, in Dayton, Ohio, and was an important figure in her brothers' lives and their work.

Katharine was supportive of her brothers' aeronautical endeavors, and although she did not participate directly in the mechanical or engineering aspects of their work, she was crucial in other ways. She helped with administrative tasks, correspondence, and even occasionally acted as a secretary or assistant. After their father's death in 1917, Katharine played a significant role in managing the family’s affairs and their business interests, including working as a spokeswoman for the Wright brothers' achievements.

Katharine Wright was also well-educated, having attended Oberlin College, and was highly regarded for her intelligence and independence. She lived a long life, passing away on March 3, 1929

Typical of the female in the family that when the mother dies she become the domestic. And this was certainly true for Katherine. Despite her college education at Oberlin and her teaching position she acted as the chief cook, bottle washer, road and business manager for the brothers.

Katherine was the youngest of the seven children of Milton and Susan Wright. Her father was a Baptist preacher, and her mother was 

A Lifetime Supply

I need to buy staples for my two staplers at home. I suspect it's going to be a supply that will last a lifetime.

This week I will cross the mid-point of being a septuagenarian. So anything I buy that might come in a quantity that's not likely to be fully consumed before I pass on will likely be part of my estate. Can you bequeath staples when you pass?

Retiring from office work over a decade ago means not having access to the supply cabinet and helping myself to a five-finger employee benefit. I have to go out and buy the stuff myself. Who knew what those filing folders cost until you had to use your own money?

Swingline Staples was a factory in Long Island City that was always passed by when riding the LIRR or taking the No.7 Flushing subway train.  The building is still there, but it's not a Swingline factory any more

When the factory was viewed at night there was an animated neon sign that was great to look at as the train passed by. The stapler top was cocked back and the neon flashing sign depicted staples being loaded. I loved that sign.

When riding the No. 7 train it swings at a sharp angle when passing the factory. The train tilts, slows down, and you almost feel you can touch the factory windows as you pass through the 33rd/Rawson Street station.

Long Island city used to have lots of factories. Sunshine Biscuits, Black Jack gum, Breyers ice cream, Eagle Electric and  Silvercup bread. The Silvercup sign is still there for what is now Silvercup Studios,  producing TV shows, but the pleasant aroma of fresh baked bread is long gone.

A box of staples has 5000 staples; 210 per metal strip. That's a lot of staples for a pair of people in their 70s to go through. We're going to leave a lot behind.

I have no problem with needing to buy a box of staples. I can still buy a single box. This is not always true when you need something.

We've heard of "deflation" in the sense that quantities have been downsized with prices reaming the same, or even being increased. Paying the same but getting less for your money. Two liters is 1½ liters, 16 oz, a pound, is not a pound. When shopping my wife always says: "Thanks Joe." She's not been a fan of the outgoing president.

I needed a new toothbrush. It is very hard to buy a single toothbrush. They come in two packs, or even more. I settled on the two pack because it didn't really make me spend a lot of money, plus I had one of those great money off CVS coupons.

I've also needed toothpaste to go with the toothbrushes. Here I've conceded the 3-pack is worth it because of the unit pricing and the fact that I'm likely to work my way through all three tubes with a decent regimen of brushing, especially since I'm not now suffering from any life-threatening ailments.

Shipping tape refills for the constantly needed shipping tape for my wife to attach return, postage paid labels to all the things she buys online, but then returns, come in pairs, or even 5 packs. You can get the single rolls already in a dispenser, but the refill rolls for the desktop dispenser are preferably for us. We are an industrial return center. When I had to buy Teflon tape for the propane tank hookup (no longer needed) I had to buy 5 rolls.

And so it goes. I call this "quantification."

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Greenland

Can Donald Trump as president of the United States acquire Greenland and add it to the U.S. as a possession, even making it a state? If so, he will again be demonstrating that old real estate refrain: location, location, location.

The King of Denmark has just changed the Danish coat of arms to more prominently show that Greenland is a possession of Denmark.

Greenland seems like an odd choice to add to a Trump real estate holding, even if he does it in the name of expanding the United States. I don't think you can play golf there year round. But, think of the chance for professional sports to expand, even if the land mass now only has perhaps 56,000 people and untold reindeer. 56,000 people is not even the size of a tortured crowd at a Jets home game.

Would the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB look to build stadiums so that they can flood the market with more home team merchandise? Who cares if no one can get to a game?. Wearing a piece of apparel might be enough.

Strategically Greenland offers a place to install more defenses to keep track of Russia. A good friend of mine was in the Air Force in the 1960s and spent a tour of duty in Thule, Greenland at a radar station, basically sleeping and drinking. He told me those who sleep and drink also serve.

As a kid I always wondered about that land mass stuck up there in the Artic Circle, straddling the 60th and 70th parallels when I would look at my bedroom globe. It looked so large with no markings of a population that was occupying it.

How The Donald would acquire Greenland is one for the strategists. Invading it would be taking action against a NATO nation—namely Denmark. This would mean other NATO nations would be obligated to come to Denmark's defense against the United States. Talk about pissing off your Allies. 

This is not a Saturday Night Live skit, although I think there will be one. Putting Greenland under the flag of the U.S. is getting front page NYT news. There are serious people writing about this.

I don't remember any campaign promises to acquire Greenland. Maybe the Donald means to open the southern border and ship the migrants to a U.S. version of Siberia. That  might quell any desire of a warm weather populace taking the chance of being sent somewhere to freeze their tacos off. No one wants to freeze heir tacos off. Is there method in prince Hamlet's madness?

After all, Australia was once a penal colony. It is possible that a few generations from now surnames in Greenland will have a distinct Hispanic sound. The Great Migration.

Face it. Trump was missed. There is no one better at creating a headline than The Donald. Ratings for the moribund woke, left-leaning media, CNN and MSNBC and other outlets should enjoy a resurgence in ratings as they rail against President Trump. Trump news/opinions is good for ratings.

Years ago Regis Philbin was considered the man who saved a network when his hosting of the prime time game show 'Who Wants to be A Millionaire' took off in the ratings. The show's ratings soared so much I think they went to three shows a week. Regis was hot.

Note:

I always wondered about that show if some sort of scandal was going to bring it down. Not because anyone was fed answers ahead of time, like what did the quiz show 'Twenty-One' in years ago, but because it seemed to me that an inordinate number of people were getting called for the qualifying opening "Lightning Round" who all hailed from Great Neck, New York. The contestant pool struck me as New York biased, and was likely due to irregularities in who was chosen to appear in the "Fast Finger" exercise that if passed qualified the contestant to move on to what might be a $1 million payday. No such scandal ever emerged however.

President Trump is who is going to save several networks and print publications. Consider a teaser headline in a recent online edition of the NYT:

Dripping Faucets and Seizing Greenland: Trump is Back and Chaos Ensues. They love it!

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/us/politics/panama-greenland-trump-media.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap

One of my favorite newspapers, the New York Post creates headlines that are priceless. I never subscribed to the Post, but started when the NYT basically eliminated local sports coverage and outsourced their writing to The Athletic. Interesting that now The Athletic writers want to join the Times union. Whatever happens, I don't think local sports coverage will resume. the Post is No 1 for reporting local sports. All sports, actually

A Post headline is a work of art and words. Consider the recent one that shows an image of an impish, smirking Trump pointing to a map of North America like Alfred E. Neuman on a Mad magazine cover, and renaming Canada as the 51st STATE; Greenland as OUR LAND; the Gulf of Mexico as the GULF OF AMERICA, and the Panama Canal as PANA-MAGA canal. It is inspired.

The headline says it all, but might be over the heads of those whose history education fell short of mentioning The Monroe Doctrine (Look it up if you don't know).

Who knew when Trump was running for office that he was going to go Green?

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

I Checked. Not Found in Our CVS

It was either the Thursday or Friday after Christmas that an unmistakable Christmas card landed in the mailbox. The card was addressed in what looked like familiar print, but I couldn't immediately place it. There was no return address. The postage however was from Australia, and could only mean one thing: Jen from Australia got my Christmas card and mailed me one.

What created a little excitement was that Jen's Twitter account disappeared and she wasn't heard from. Turns out I didn't have a reliable email address, nor did she have mine, so what we were experiencing was a "failure to communicate."

The Twitter account disappeared in early December. I theorized she might have migrated to Bluesky, but either I didn't know how to search that platform, or they have a slightly different way of connecting with subjects. Either way, I was in the dark until Jen's cheery card showed up and announced her Bluesky handle and a reliable email address.

Jen's a retired OR nurse, freelance obituary writer, marriage celebrant, and I've been communicating with her for several years now. I met her and her husband once in Penn Station when she came to the States while changing trains to go to the White House and and tour the press facilities.

Jen will post photos now and then of what Australia is famous for: snakes and spiders. Snakes in her yard, snakes behind the refrigerator, snakes where you don't want to run into snakes. Frogs, reptiles, and even some kangaroos coming down the block have made an appearance in her past Twitter feeds. It would have been a shame to see that kind of entertainment disappear.

But now we are reunited through Bluesky, taking her advice and registering myself. It's summer Down Under, and it didn't take Jen long to post the above photo from a story in the Guardian that reminded her to check her medicine cabinet for a fresh supply of snake bandages. Yep, something they don't advertise on New York television.

Snakes and funnel-web spiders. Make sure you're protected. Here it's mosquito bites. Itchy, but not potentially deadly.

After laying eyes on the Guardian's story for the Down Under summer health tips, Jen's Bluesky narrative went:

Ummmm, we live surrounded by snakes of various kinds in our garden, some which I've seen close up, others from afar. Will be reading this very carefully and checking that I know where my snake bandages are.

It's good to know there's something I do not have to worry about in New York.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

January 1, 2025

As reliable as a sunrise or a sunset, William McDonald, the New York Times obituary editor, has presented us with his year-end summary of those who passed away in 2024 and got a tribute obit in the NYT.

I must say, I first thought those who rely on reading the print edition were going to be shortchanged by advance parts of the two-page spread appearing online. I thought that maybe the weaning off of print was going to include the year-end summary. But Mr. McDonald came through. Thanks Bill.

For those who may not know what the "two-page spread" looks like because they only read the paper online, I'll describe it to you.

Two full pages...90 black and white head shots, generally 1½ square inches, arranged in categories of the field in which they gained their fame, e.g. Sports,  Stage and Screen...

Text by Mr. McDonald that in a few words adds grace to the chosen of the already outstanding to their  achievements, such as:

Rickey Henderson...whose lightning speed on the basepaths had him practically sliding into the Hall of Fame on his belly.

Aleksei Navalny...a man of courage who championed democracy in his country, his native Russia, that does all it can to suppress it.

Joyce Randolph, the last of "The Honeymooners," harked back to the broad, zany TV humor of the 1950s.

Ruth Westheimer, that chirpy sex and romance counselor, devoted decades to schooling her fans in, well, other kinds of exertion.

I've sure I read every one of the obituaries of the 90 people pictured, and then some. I will admit that looking at the photos I was surprised that I was reminded that the subject passed away.

I had forgotten Ruth Westheimer went in 2024, as did Phil Donahue, Joseph Lieberman, Joyce Randolph, Bill Walton, and probably some others.

As I listen to the music I've downloaded on my iPods I always think of how many recording artists I'm listening to who are no longer alive. Frank Sinatra went decades ago, Melanie this year. Harry Belafonte and Tony Bennett in 2023. It's a bit of a long list.

I can write this on the first day of 2025 because I have so far survived being born, headed past the mid-point of being a septuagenarian in a few weeks.

The world will always present highs and lows. These are always interesting times. With the political saber rattling of nations I do start to wonder if I'll live to see nuclear weapons used on a population again? I think about that one a lot. 

Around this point in a New Year I ask myself two questions: How high do the numbers go? How bad can the year have been if you're alive at the end of it?

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Val, Lootenant

After reading about the safecracker G.B. "Sadie' Cohen in Book and Dagger, and even writing about him in one of my postings, I still felt the need to explore the character more fully. From Abe Books I was able—and not all that cheaply—to get a copy of Donald Downes's memoir, The Scarlet Thread: Adventures in Wartime Espionage, (1953, Derek Verschoyle), used by Elyse Graham to tell how "Sadie" contributed to the effort to defeat the Axis powers in the 1940s. In a Yiddish expression, "Sadie" was just too deelicious a person not to explore further. 

Donald Downes was a writer recruited to do work for the OSS in the early 1940s. He was part of a group of such people, pulled from academia, science, writers, artists, civilians who were trained by the OSS to put to use their civilian talents to creating intelligence to help in the WW II fight against the Axis powers. The book, Book and Dagger by Elyse Graham tells their many stories.

Spain, Portugal, Sweden were among several neutral countries during the war. That didn't mean they didn't at different times favor the Axis powers, particularly Spain. Breaking codes was a part of each side's efforts. The cracking of the Enigma's machine code is perhaps the moat famous, based on the work done at Bletchley Park and Alan Turing's efforts.

But there were other encryptions that needed decoding. Mr. Downes tells us of being assigned the job of getting the encryption codes from the neutral countries of Alphonia, Betonia, Gammonia, and the Vichy embassies in Washington, D.C. so that their cables could be read.

The first three of those embassy countries I never heard of, and have had trouble finding anything about them. My guess is they were autonomous parts of Spain during WW II because Ms. Graham explains a caper through Mr. Downes of safe cracking the Spanish embassy in Washington, D.C.

Note:

ChapGPT is worth something. Asking about where these countries might be I got the following response:

The countries Alphonia, Betonia, and Gammonia are not actual nations in history. These names are fictional and were used in a historical context, specifically during World War II as part of a diplomatic strategy.

During the 1940s, these names were used in a fake diplomatic scenario to obscure the identities of real nations in documents related to espionage and intelligence. They were featured in a famous example from the history of World War II and espionage involving British intelligence.

One notable instance is the use of these names in a fake diplomatic map created by British Intelligence during WWII. The map was used to confuse German spies and to test the abilities of enemy agents in recognizing false country names. These fictional nations were not real, and the whole exercise was meant to throw off potential spies.

Thus, Alphonia, Betonia, and Gammonia were simply created for intelligence purposes and did not exist as real places.

Mr. Downes tells us there was a coding machine in the Alphonia's safe. From the planted secretary who was working for the OSS, it was known that it was impossible to read the numbers on the safe's dial as the attaché twisted the dial. He twisted the dial too fast and the numbers were too small.

How to get in? Mr. Downes knew a guy, a retired NYC bomb squad detective who was now a doing counterintelligence work for the Army. Major "Fuse" knew a guy too, G.B. "Sadie" Cohen, a fellow who ran locksmith shop on West Broadway in lower Manhattan who was more than adept at getting into safes he wasn't supposed to. When "Sadie" wasn't in Sing Sing prison he helped the NYC police do things in exchange for forgiving some of Sadie's criminal activities that might change his address back to Sing Sing. 

Sadie didn't crack safes himself anymore, (at least not in NYC) but he acted as a safe cracking consultant, much like Sherlock Holmes was a Consulting Detective. Major "Fuse's" recommendation to Mr. Downes was to get "Sadie," He had already opened safes at the Japanese Consulate and got into the German Secret Service, the Bund's safe. He was the guy. "There's nothing Sadie can't open."

Mr. Downes writes that on the way down to Sadie's shop on West Broadway, under the "el", Major "Fuse" explained the qualities of using "Sadie' and the special arrangement that kept him out of Sing 

When I read this part I was intrigued as to which "el" [NYC elevated subway line] might the shop be near. The 6th Avenue El was already demolished in 1938. The shop had to be near the 9th Avenue El just as that El was being dismantled.   

Mr. Downes tells us: 

"Sadie Cohen's long narrow shop looked more like a junk head. Half-way back was a little office partitioned off  from the rest by glass, broken, patched and rebroken.

Sadie sat at his ancient roll-top desk filing a key. He was a little pot-bellied Jew with curly hair on which his battered derby sat like a chicken on its nest."

The Major made the introductions.

"Val, lootenant, how's bombs? Vat can I do for you." (Mr. Downes perfectly captures English with a strong Yiddish accent.)

The Major let Mr. Downes describe the job. Sadie took notes on the back of an envelope. Sadie gives his assessment.

"Two dials, key door inside, Vilton [Wilton] Safe Company—dat is a model of 1925. Vell, you go to Vashington and buy a hard rubber leather hammer like dey use to beat gold leaf. Tell your sakretary girl to go early to vork one day vit dat hammer in her voman's national bank, her bosom. Tell her to hit dat little dial a smash-banger vit all her might. It von't make no noise.

"Ven de boss comes dat gaddamit safe von't open. De boss vill telephone the Vashington agency of Vilton Safe Company and de Vilton Safe Company vill send me, G.B. Cohen, to repair it—dat if you ask 'em to. Having repaired it I vill know the combinations and vile I am doing it I vill also break de lock on the inside key door and repairing it. I vill see vat dat key is like and ve vill also have key.

"Dat night ven you vant to borrow from dat safe, I vill also come to Vahington to be handy if something don't go so vell."

That break-in is a complete success, and is repeated two more times over the next months when the codes change.

All of which goes to show you, if the Watergate burglars had used Sadie, President Richard Nixon would have not had to resign in his second term.

http://www.onoffframp.blogspot.com