Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Reptile Rescue

            Easter has come and gone and in a matter of weeks, if not days, that “cute” bunny rabbit or baby chick you got the kids will begin to be a burden.  There are no returns at pet shops so where will you turn for help in getting your “pet” a new home? You can turn to Reptile Rescue, a service operated out of the Narberth Animal Hospital,
815 Montgomery Avenue
, in Narberth by Kennel Manager and Technician Della Crockett. I know the animal hospital is in Montgomery County and I’m writing for the Delaware County Daily Times but Reptile Rescue serves the entire Region. Back in the day Town Criers served a useful function of disseminating news about the community.  These days flyers posted on bank and supermarket bulletin boards and taped to store windows serve a similar purpose.  This is how I learned about Reptile Rescue. 
Ms. Crockett says too many families acquire pets that they should not, like ferrets and iguanas and pythons and boas and alligators and even bunny rabbits and baby chicks. After the exotic allure of these “pets” wears off, it’s Reptile Rescue to the rescue.  You can reach Ms. Crockett at 267-252-3266.  She’s worked at the animal hospital for 18 years and came up with the idea of finding new homes for exotic pets about two years ago after getting many requests for assistance.  She either keeps a donated animal at the hospital for a time to check its health out or takes it home after determining that it is fit for adoption.  She screens potential adopters to make sure they are serious about acquiring a different sort of pet. She does not handle venomous snakes telling owners to contact the SPCA or the zoo.
Some owners grow tired of their “pets” after the pets start to grow larger than originally expected. “Red-eared sliders are popular turtles,” Ms. Crockett says, “that start out as big as a dime or a quarter but can over time grow to be eight or nine pounds.”  There have been cases where Ms. Crockett has been unable to find a new home for an exotic animal and that’s where he son Eric comes in.  He attends Philadelphia’s W.B. Saul Agricultural School in East Falls and that’s where some of the “pets” have found a new home.
            Most importantly Ms. Crockett advises that you do your homework before acquiring exotic animals. She recalled an owner of a docile bearded iguana who put it in a tank with a larger, more aggressive Savannah Monitor, a cousin of a Komodo Dragon, only to discover the next morning that the bearded iguana was gone.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

It's a Crapshoot

            This is an old story that I find fascinating every time new statistics are released.  Although the economy is down in the toilet, gambling receipts at casinos, racetracks, lotteries and probably illegal sports books are up.
           As reported in the pages of our very own Delaware County Daily Times was a story that told the tale, “Big month for pa. table games.  Table games at Pennsylvania’s 10 operating casinos brought in $54.6 million in revenues in March, the highest total by far since they were introduced last July.  The previous high month was December 2010 when gross revenue totaled $44 million.”
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board doesn’t attribute “hard times” to the increase in gambling. PGCB Executive Director Kevin O’Toole believes a prime reason for more gambling is due to casinos enhancing and refining the mix of games that patrons seek. “Certainly as we move into the warmer months where patron visits increase, it would be likely that we will see a continued upward trend of these revenue numbers," O’Toole said.  BAH HUMBUG!
I am reminded of a wonderful, succinct exchange some years ago between two African-American friends who pass on the street. To me the comments embody a wonderful condensation of our language. “Who are you working for these days?” asked the first friend.  “Williams,” replied the second. Now short for the name “William” is “Bill.”  So the man concisely summed up his situation. He was working to merely pay the bills. All anyone is looking for these days to pay the bills is a little extra scratch.  The PA Lottery groundhog telling us to “keep on scratching” is poor advice when what many of us are doing is clawing to survive.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Where Did I Go Wrong?

Here is another potpourri selection of what I call periodically offer as Random Observations.
Why do commercials for virtually every company, every product, with the exception perhaps of banks and medical trials, have to have a zippy musical jingle?  And to my aging ears, listening as I do on a small clock radio with small speakers, they’re increasingly hard to understand. My current “best one yet” is a radio commercial for Ace Casualty Insurance.  It talks about leaky roofs, overflowing toilets, storm damage and the like and then comes a very upbeat, rock-and-roll jingle exhorting listeners to call Ace Casualty. Stop it, just stop it!
I do not use the self-checkout lane at the supermarket.  First off the machines have put cashiers out of work.  Secondly, it’s very embarrassing.  I just don’t like machines that reprimand me in front of other shoppers. I once scanned an item and bagged it only to have the checkout machine intone, LOUDLY, “Put the Item in the Bag.”  It prompted other shoppers to turn and look at the idiot who could not figure out that a grocery item had to be placed in a bag on the carousel. I like personal interaction which is why I prefer going through a check-out manned (or womaned) by a live cashier. It gives me such opportunities as standing behind a woman on line in the 15 items or less lane who is carrying a case of 24 bottles of waster.  “Excuse me Miss, this is the 15 items or less line and you have 24 items…” There’s nothing like a small diversion as you wait to pay for groceries.
If I hadn’t seen the TV commercial with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears I’d have thought it was a Saturday Night Live gag.  Sadly it was for real.  The commercial showed a distinguished looking man dressed in a suit seated in an easy chair. “Hello, I’m Lee Majors.  Many of you remember me as The Six Million Dollar Man powered by bionic technology.  I’m here to introduce the Lee Majors Bionic Hearing Aid…”  Six Million Bucks just don’t get you what it used to.
Geography pop quiz, left-to-right, right-to-left.  Imagine a world map.  Where is Iran? Where is Afghanistan? Where is Iraq? Where is Yemen? How about the other ‘Stans? Where is Turkmenistan? Tajikistan? Kazakhstan? And where the heck is Kyrgyzstan? Where have all of our billions of dollars in American foreign aid gone?   Where did I go wrong?