BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A NICKEL? Raise your hand if the new Salt Lake parking meters make you nuts.
These latest incarnations are maddening. You have to put too much money in them before you know if you've put in enough. And none are nickel-and-dime affairs. Downtown, meters won't take nickels - which is what I always seem to be carrying. They take dimes and quarters.So last week, when photographer Gary McKeller and I headed for the University of Utah on assignment, he loaded his car up with dimes. Mac had 30 in his pocket.
But the U. meters don't take dimes, they only take quarters and nickels.
I'm sure there's a logical explanation for this. I simply don't want to hear about it.
I deserve some time here to be annoyed.
MISPLACED FAITH: I was listening to someone sing the old chestnut "I Believe" the other day - the song that begins "I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows" - when it occurred to me that believing such a thing was flat out dumb.
Nobody really believes that.
If a flower grew for every drop of rain, the world would look like Kensington Palace after the death of Princess Diana. The rain couldn't water the flowers without growing new flowers to water.
Merlin Olsen would be out of work.
And flowers would become the plague of the world - like an exotic virus.
Fortunately, the person who penned those words was a poet, not a gardner. The message he was sending was "I believe for everything sad that happens, something good happens."
That doesn't mean faith in justice in this world. It's more a belief in the ultimate goodness of the universe.
And, flowers aside, I believe most people believe that, too.
MY LIFE AND WELCOME TO IT: In a new edition of Life Magazine, the editors list the most significant events of the past 1,000 years.
The millennium's biggest moment according to Life?
Guttenberg's invention of the printing press and the Guttenberg Bible in 1455. The magazine puts it ahead of Columbus discovering America, Luther's Reformation and the first walk on the moon.
I'd have to agree. After all, I work for a newspaper. Without Guttenberg I'd be shoveling coal for a living.
I also think Life was likely biased. Without Guttenberg there'd be no Life Magazine to tell us how vital the invention of the printing press was for the world.