Whether it's gridders or cagers, ink me up for old-time headlines

When I landed my first sports writer job at age 21, I was thrilled.

Not to get my name in the paper. Not to go to games for free. Not to tell people's stories.

I was thrilled about the chance to write headlines. More specifically, to write headline words.

"Nix" for cancel. "Tilt" for game. "Ink" for sign. "Bucs" for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Newspapers were a sandbox. This was going to be great! The kid who loved newspapers now got to mimic what he'd read growing up.

I loved headline words from a young age, reading news headlines about the "prexy" (president) and "the GOP" (Republican Party). I cherished headlines like "Tribe Thump Chisox" (Cleveland Indians beat Chicago White Sox). 

Imagine my excitement when I got to write headlines for the Eureka Times-Standard sports section.  It was an afternoon paper on weekdays, so I'd roll in before 6 a.m. a few days a week and lay out the sports section before heading to my college classes. What better way to start off a day than writing a headline that said "Bosox, Friars swap hurlers" (Boston Red Sox, San Diego Padres trade pitchers)?

And it wasn't just headlines.

I also could use sports phrases that had been a part of my newspaper experienc. I could call the track team "thinclads." I could write "harriers" while discussing the cross-country team. The football team was "gridders," the basketball team was "cagers" and the wrestling team was the "grapplers."

Of course, there was even more. A student of how metropolitan newspapers reported, the 1984 version of Brad sought ways to breathlessly write breaking news. I particularly enjoyed using the BIG STORY writing style: "Joe Blow will not return in 1985 as the Arcata High junior varsity wrestling coach, the Times-Standard learned late Tuesday." It was breathless! It was a scoop!

Of course, "the Times-Standard learned" about it when Coach Blow called in the results of his team's match and casually mentioned that he was not going to coach the following year.

But the "Times-Standard learned!" "late Tuesday!" It was fun!

Even as I became a veteran (I was a sports writer for two years in Eureka and 18 years in Fairfield before moving to the news side), I loved headline cliches and breathless reporting. As sports editor, I discouraged my staff from using them, but I enjoyed seeing them in a small-town newspaper (or even occasionally a bigger newspaper) while traveling.

We live in a world that's politically splintered. The polar ice caps are melting. We're vulnerable to pandemics. We don't know how to control artificial intelligence. The Dodgers are in contention every year. Gas prices aren't coming down. It's bad news after bad news after bad news.

If newspapers used the old-timey headline words, perhaps the world would seem like a better place.

Wouldn't you like to see headlines about a "gridiron clash" or the "prexy nixing" some legislation or a big free agent "inking a pact" with the Giants?

Well, the Daily Republic learned late Saturday that I would, too.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

What's the Michael Jordan of junk drawer items? Counting them down

You have a junk drawer and so did your parents. Your grandparents did, too (although it probably included World War II ration coupons, a mercury thermometer and castor oil).

The junk drawer is the place where you put items that you rarely use, but you might someday need. Scissors. Maybe a tape measure. Maybe an old stapler. Thumb tacks. The junk drawer is filled with things we rarely need, but when we need them, we need them.

Yours may be in the kitchen. It may be somewhere else. It may serve another purpose, too – perhaps a holding cell for bills or other mail.

The big question: What's the most critical item in your junk drawer? What is the Abraham Lincoln or Michael Jordan or Meryl Streep of junk drawer items?

Good thing you asked, because I have answers.

Like when I ranked kitchen appliances, pizzas, fictional holiday characters, fruits, office supplies and much more, I'm here to set the power rankings for junk drawer items. Counting down the top 10.

10. Paper clips. Best to have a variety. Big ones. Little ones. Maybe one of those oversized clips that can really pinch your fingers.

9. Flashlight. We have one on our mobile phones, but we still keep a flashlight in the junk drawer. Because  . . . maybe our phone won't work someday? Who knows, but we keep flashlights.

8. Rubber bands. Rarely needed, but crucial. The recommended practice is to have at least four or five scattered in the drawer.

7. Post-it notes/scratch paper. At some point, you need to write a note. Even for yourself. How else do you remind yourself to not forget something? Putting a note in your phone isn't as effective as a Post-it note on the front door.

6. Pens/pencils. When it's time for that note, you need a working pen or pencil. You actually need several, because most pens in your junk drawer have gone dry.

5. Scissors. Maybe these are too important for the junk drawer, but that's where most of us keep them. If you need scissors, what else are you going to use, a knife? Not unless you're Davy Crockett (although box cutters fit this category).

4. Tools, fasteners. A small screwdriver. A hex key or two. Some screws. A nail or two. This is the JV team for your toolbox, filled with things that don't quite make it to the big leagues.

3. Matches/lighters. Needed for birthday cakes candles, regular candles or to start a barbecue. Because it takes too long to start a fire another way.

2. Scotch tape. There's no replacement for this. If you run out of scotch tape, what are you going to do? Use duct tape to wrap a package? Glue it? Come on, man.

1. Batteries. The kings of the junk drawer because when we need them, it's urgent. For remote controls. Fire and/or smoke alarms. Or insulin pumps. And good luck getting that flashlight in the drawer to work without some batteries.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Your dinner time shows whether you are a true American

You probably eat dinner around the same time each night and there's probably a reason for it.

It might start during the first commercial break of the 5:30 p.m. episode of "Shark Tank." It might be 30 minutes after you arrive home from work. It might be 12 hours after you got out of bed to start your day. It might be when the microwave finally finishes cooking those Hot Pockets you put in a 6 p.m.

It's probably not that exact, but most of us have a general dinner time. Now have data that determines whether we are normal or some sort of freak who should close our curtains so we don't scare the neighbors with our peculiar dinner time. 

A guy named Nathan Yau has a fascinating blog called FlowingData, where he charts various statistics in interesting ways (home run distance in different ballparks, what Americans drink, how smoke from Canadian wildfires travels across the U.S.). Recently, he used data from the American Time Use Survey (who knew there was such a thing?) to track when we eat dinner.

Broadly, data showed that most American households eat dinner between 5:07 p.m. and 8:19 p.m. Oh, sure, that's pretty general. But want specifics?

According to Yau, the peak time – the period at which the highest number of households are eating dinner – is 6:19 p.m.

That's right. If you're eating dinner at 6:19 p.m., you're a normal American. And by "normal American," I mean a Californian since that's the peak time in the Golden State. We're the only state whose peak time coincides with the national peak, again proving that we're the most American of Americans, something made clear by the fact that we have Hollywood and Disneyland and Bakersfield.

Californians are normal, eating at a reasonable time (presuming dinner time is around 20 minutes, that means our start time is from 5:59 to 6:19 p.m.). Other states are pretty close to the median: Of the 50 states, 41 hit peak dinner time within 20 minutes of the golden (state) time of 6:19 p.m. The other nine, plus the District of Columbia? Early and late-eating freaks – but I think I know why, although I'm too lazy to do the research.

First, the two states that are really early. 

In Pennsylvania, peak dinner time is 5:37 p.m., which is presumably attributable to the large Amish population not using electricity and having to feed their oxen at 6 p.m. (those are guesses. I don't know how many Amish actually live in Pennsylvania, I'm not sure whether they own oxen nor whether they use electricity).

The other early state is Maine, where people have peak dinner time at 5:40 p.m. That's attributable to the sun going down at 12:30 p.m. every day from Halloween until April 1 (that may not be accurate either).

People in four states, plus the District of Columbia, eat at 7 p.m. or later. Again, there are reasons that they're such freaks.

The latest-eating residents are those in D.C. because they all work for the federal government and presumably have to meet lobbyists for dinner. Lobbyists are allegedly late eaters.

The four states where peak dinner time is 7 p.m. or later are Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas – states that are connected.

You may not find this in "history" books, but I've heard that when the South surrendered after the Civil War, they agreed to wait until Northerners were done eating dinner before they started.

It seems weird now, but in 1865, it made sense. Trust me: I eat dinner at 6:19 p.m. every night. All Americans who eat at dramatically different times have excuses, albeit strange ones.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

The semi-definitive list of the columns of lists I've written

Over the years, I've ranked many things. Many dumb things.

So many things, that it makes sense to keep them in one place, so if you, dear reader, ever have a question about (for instance) how to rank household furniture, you can look here.

A non-exhaustive list of my power rankings over the years:

Most forgettable teams in major sports

Junk drawer items

Types of pizzas

Fictional holiday figures

Thanksgiving foods

Current Bay Area sports figures (2022)

Pieces of household furniture

Bay Area sports dynasties

Fruits

Office supplies

Bay Area sports figures (2020)

Kitchen appliances

Bay Area sports decades

Christmas songs

Days of the week

Minor U.S. holidays

Most hated Bay Area athletes

Solano County's seasons

Punctuation marks

Decades since 1960s

Generations

Modern inventions

Holidays

Best Bay Area sports figures (2014)

Biggest Bay Area sports star (2013)

Months

Greatest Warriors (2012)

Best Bay Area sports figures (2011)

Life lesson comes from Antwerp's tough nest-building birds

The nest built by the tough birds of Antwerp (Photo by Alexander Schippers).

Everyone knows birds are creative when building nests. They'll use almost anything – paper, twigs, dog hair, human hair, Bigfoot hair, leaves, garbage, a copy of TV Guide from Dec. 17, 1977, with the cast of "One Day at a Time" on the cover – to get the structure they want. And birds will be persistent once they find a good place.

At our house, Mrs. Brad resorted to stuffing balls of aluminum foil in the eaves where our neighborhood birds consistently kept trying to build a nest. A few times, I found the foil balls on the ground and wondered (assumed?) that the birds had hired a subcontractor to pull them out so they could build there.

Birds are tough: Anyone who has had a seagull swipe their food or come face-to-face with a turkey or tried to fool a roadrunner with an explosive device purchased from the Acme Co. knows this.

But birds in Antwerp recently took it to another level. They didn't just pull out foil balls. They did the equivalent of what your older sibling did (grabbing your arm and making you hit yourself, then asking you why you were hitting yourself. Although that may just be a flashback that would be better told in a counseling session.)

Anyway, those Antwerp birds. Those tough, rough, fearless Antwerp birds, specifically Eurasian magpies. They're the toughest birds in the world now. They are the Mike Tyson of birds.

Because they built the toughest nest in the history of nests.

Researchers from two natural history museums in Belgium – which all museum experts know are the Naturalis Biodiversity Center and the Natural History Museum Rotterdam – discovered the remarkable nests, according to a press release issued by Naturalis.

First some background: Think about anti-nesting spikes that people and municipalities use to keep birds from building nests. I'm talking about the spikes that make it impossible for birds to get comfortable and build a home. That's the only purpose of the nests. They're like aluminum foil balls, but meaner and more durable.

Now the twist: A couple of Antwerp magpies took those spikes – about 1,500 of them – and built a nest with them.

Yes!

They took the thing designed to prevent them from building a nest and used it to build the baddest, coolest, toughest nest in Antwerp. These birds have a metal nests!

The nest isn't solely made out of the spikes: The birds also used regular nest stuff (twigs, Bigfoot hair, leaves, that TV guide from 1977, marble kitchen counters), too. But experts estimate that the birds pulled about 150 feet of the pins to get enough for their punk nest. Even better, the magpies – who always build a "roof" on their nests to keep predators away – used spikes for that reason: To keep other birds away. Remarkable.

Apparently, this is extreme, but not unprecedented.

An article in the scientific journal Deinsea describes other magpie nests made with anti-bird spikes, as well as barbed wire and knitting needles.

Previous articles reported on the use of face masks and plastic plants in bird nests. Also used: condoms, fireworks, cocaine wraps, sunglasses and windshield wipers.

Cool and tough. The sunglasses nests would be pretty tough looking.

But nobody beats those Antwerp birds, making nests out of anti-nesting spikes.

It's time to update the old lemons-lemonade saying to this: When life gives you anti-nesting spikes, make a nest out of them.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.