Odds and ends, 12/31/07

Here it is, the last day of 2007. Things are a little livelier downtown than they were a week ago on Christmas Eve, but it still seems awfully quiet.

I had a thought earlier today. State and city employees usually get Election Day off, right? Well, those days always fall on a Tuesday, so using the precedent established for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, will public employees get the Monday before Election Day off, too?

And what happens in 2008, when Christmas falls on Thursday? People get Thursday off, and they get the preceding Wednesday off, too. There's no reason to make people take a vacation day or a personal day to work the one Friday after Christmas, so they can have it off, too. That leaves us with a two-day work week -- Monday and Tuesday. We all know you don't get as much work done on Monday and Tuesday as you do in five days, and we all know these people will want to travel, so let's give them those two days off, too.

The same goes for the following week for New Year's 2009.

So let's go ahead and plan to give public employees two weeks off at the end of next year, paid and without their having to take any vacation or personal time.

Am I jealous? You bet I am.

###

For those who find this sort of thing interesting (and I doubt that very many people do, but I do), here is the most recent West Virginia hog inventory, courtest the U.S. Department of Agriculture:

Inventory of all hogs and pigs on December 1, 2007, was 9,000 head, down 18 percent from December 1, 2006. Of the 9,000 head, 2,000 were for breeding; unchanged from 2006. The breakdown of the remaining 7,000 market hogs and pigs was as follows: 1,000 head were under 60 pounds; 2,000 were from 60-119 pounds; 2,000 were froim 120-179 pounds; and 2,000 were 180 pounds and over.

Annual pig crop totaled 14,400 head, 6 percent below the 2006 pig crop. Sows farrowing from December 2006 through November 2007 totaled 1,900 head, down 14 percent from the previous year. Pigs per litter averaged 7.58 pigs, up 8 percent from the 2006 average which was 7.00 pigs per litter.

I remember an old album song from Tom T. Hall called "Four Hundred Hogs." The story line was that an old farmer was in the hospital, but he was worried about his hogs. The chorus went something like:

Four hundred hogs, they just standing out there.
My wife can't feed 'em, and my neighbors, they don't care.
They can't get our and roam around like my old huntin' dogs.
Here I am in this dang bed, and who's gonna feed them hogs?

I got to ask Hall about that song when I interviewed him on his tour bus at Camden Park in the 1980s. He said he receives several requests to sing that song in concert, but he didn't.

I have no idea if Tom T. Hall is alive and well in Branson, Mo., or what he might be doing nowadays. I only know that the state hog inventory brought that song to mind.

Anyway, Hall's gifts as a storytelling singer are forgotten today. And that's a dirty shame.

###

At this time of year, deep thinkers and newspaper people are supposed to come up with Top 10 lists of news events and pop culture. Here are my Top 5 pop culture events of 2007:

2. Jamie Lynn Spears' mother says she still plans to release her book on Christian parenting. Many people think this is an incredibly stupid idea, considering Jamie Lynn and Britney. But anyone can be a good parent to a perfect child. Being a good parent to a spawn of Satan, now that's hard. Maybe Ms. Spears can enlighten us where her daughters fall on this scale and what lessons she has learned. But I still won't buy the silly thing.

3. Lindsay Lohan makes me feel so good that none of my kids want to be child stars for Disney or Nickelodeon.

4. Disney child (if 21 is a child) star what's-her-name puts out a news release saying she's having nasal surgery to correct a deviated septum when everyone knows she's going in for a nose job. She comes up with her big, cute nose that fit her face being whittled down to something smaller than a cub reporter's first paycheck. Another reasonably attractive Hollywood person succumbs to mutilation in the quest for perfect looks to keep an acting career going. (I just remembered. Her name is Ashley Tisdale.).

5. "Spider-Man 3" comes out, and I wonder why some of the classic comic book characters (Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Batman) are not taught in college literature classes for the amazing pieces of fiction they are.

Oh, did I forget Number 1? That would be . . .

1. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" comes out and actually gets my 13-year-old son to read a book. The kid even stayed up late at night reading it. Now he's reading "The Hobbitt," although I don't know if he's doing it on his own or for school. I don't care. At least he's reading.

###

See you Wednesday. I have to take my eight-year-old to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks" tomorrow, so I can't vouch for how good I will feel at the end of the day. My kids are amazed when I tell them I remember the original Alvin show on TV in the late 1950s or early 1960s.