Sweet Caroline Ban! YES!!!
I heard some great news today! Finally something good is coming out of 2020 Covid-19… Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline sing-a-longs are being banned at bars and sporting events around the world! YES!!!
I heard several weeks ago that Neil himself was trying to save the song by updating the lyrics. All that radical, pre-Corona B.S. about hands touching hands and reaching out touching me and touching you… NO TOUCHING!!! Stop it!!!
But now it’s been acknowledged that all the drunk yelling of the song into other drunk faces is not safe. To be honest, it was always just the chorus. No one actually knows the words to the song. Though groupthink has added “Bump-bump-bums” and repetitive “So Goods” sprinkled throughout the parts they do know. As stated in the article about the Irish Pub in Spain banning it, “Play it late into the night at any venue in either country and you are likely to get a vocal response from the intoxicated customers present. “
A quick Google search confirmed that I’m not the only Sweet Caroline Hater. Former Yankees Pitcher Joba Chamberlain Says “Sweet Caroline” Was Worst Part of Fenway. Way to go Joba! Thanks for having the courage to speak out against this atrocity. Catchy does not equal good…
I also found where it has been banned at Penn State football stadium, though that’s more about the touchy-feeling part of the song and the connotations revolving around Jerry Sandusky scandal. Though is “reaching out, touching me, touching you” really appropriate at Beaver Stadium anyway?
It’s just become annoying and part of that is because it’s so ubiquitous at bars and sporting events. To paraphrase what Mr. Chamberlain said in his interview on the Balk Talk podcast, “Is it catchy? Yes. I won’t deny that. But at the same time… I don’t want to hear it.”
The last time I enjoyed hearing it even a little, was when Pete & Wayne butchered it on stage at Sloppy Joes in Key West. They professed their hate for it when a paid request came to them to play it, claiming they didn’t even know the words. A bidding war ensued in the bar upping the ante on both the play side and the no play side with Pete & Wayne raking in several hundred dollars in tips though the good-natured melee. Their version was funny and proved the sing-a-long idiots only cared about bump, bump, bumping through the chorus.
Much like Covid-19, I don’t think Sweet Caroline will die out anytime soon. Both seem to be way too infectious and often spread by drunk crowds. But one can always hope that this could be one of the few good things to come out of 2020… That would be Sweet! Maybe even worth a So Good! But please, no Caroline…
Editing My Writing
I went back through the ECC blog the other day, looking for a post that I wanted to reference to someone. Of course I reread it to be sure it said what I remembered. Yeah… it did… but I also found two grammatical errors. Ugh! That’s SO frustrating! When I post one of these, I generally read it a couple of times and if possible, read it out loud to myself before I post it. Unfortunately, both errors appear to be the result of previous editing where I apparently changed part of a sentence, but not the rest.
I struggle proofreading my own work. I know what I wanted to say and often gloss over my mistakes, apparently self-correcting them in my head. This is just the opposite of what I do reading other people’s writing. When reading someone else’s article, blog, etc., once I run across an error, I reset to proofreading mode and find myself looking for additional errors in lieu of absorbing content.
That said, let me throw this out there to my lurkers. While I don’t like it when I or others find errors in my writing, please don’t hesitate to tell me about them. Yes, I will be embarrassed, because I try my best to avoid them, but better that I’m told and correct them than let them continue to stand for others to stumble over. This blog celebrated its 12th Birthday in May. There are 178 pages of posts! No Kim & Ginny, I’m not going back and removing all the double spaces after periods! Ha! I’ve corrected that from when I learned I was in error, but those are going to stay in the older posts.
I’ve also chosen to write like I talk, so proper English often loses out to colloquialisms. While it is technically Easterday Construction Co., Inc.’s business blog, I often use it as a personal forum to vent about things that aren’t worth arguing in public. Some examples of that are here, here and here if you’re interested. Judging by the limited comments, I’m probably talking to myself most of the time here… which may be for the best! If you made it this far, thanks for “listening”.
Graphic in the top paragraph was borrowed from The Princeton Tutoring Blog
Remembering Ron Liechty on his Birthday. A Good Friend of Easterday Construction for many years.
Ron Liechty was a great friend to Easterday Construction Co., Inc. We worked through 7 new Garden Court projects and multiple renovation and remodel projects. His leadership at Garden Court is missed. His leadership throughout the community is missed as well. His friendship is missed by all of us at Easterday Construction to this day.
Update on The Paddocks 5-20-20
Progress has continued on The Paddocks Apartments and Townhouses over the past month. The first building erected was a townhouse building. The exterior is not complete with the exception of the garage doors which are scheduled to be installed within the next week. We upgraded the initially specified faux stone facade accents to actual fieldstone. It looks great! This also follows Culver’s Charrette recommendations for continuing a fieldstone theme on new construction in Culver wherever possible. The driveway base is in place and we are working on scheduling asphalt. Paving may have to wait until the second drive is complete, but Phend & Brown is looking at ways to expedite this for us.
Inside the townhouse building, the walls have been insulated, drywall has been hung & finished and painting is underway. We are expecting delivery of cabinets in the next day or two. Things will be changing rapidly there as we move through finishes.
The three apartment buildings are all under roof and are at various stages of completion for infrastructure. We are currently waiting on siding to arrive for installation to begin on those exteriors. All interior infrastructure is in place on the west apartment building and insulation is underway this week. Drywall installation should follow shortly.
The second townhouse building at the far end of the site has footings, frostwalls and underslab infrastructure in place. All of the wall panels are on site and framing should begin as soon as the slab has been poured. We expect that to happen yet this week.
The other exciting news here is the finalization of a landscape plan. This project is going for NGBS Silver status and part of that point system requires a Sustainable Landscape. We have contracted with Cardno to provide this for us. We asked them to include a presentation to the Culver Town Council, since some elements differ from current ordinance requirements. That presentation was made on the 12th. You can find more on that, including a short video of that presentation in a previous post here. The plan will go through some additional tweaking, but we have a great start here. We hope to have plantings completed by the end of this year.
We’re pleased with how things are coming together and the kind comments we’re receiving about the project. We continue to feel that this will be a great addition to the Culver community and our proud that this is our contribution to Culver’s Stellar designation.
A Sustainable Landscape for The Paddocks
One of the things that IHCDA wanted to see in our RHTC application for The Paddocks Apartments was a Sustainable Landscape Plan. We chose to meet NGBS Silver status for this project.
To help us with this, we contacted Chris Kline, Sustainability Manager, at Cardno. I have personally worked with Chris and Cardno in the past on various projects through my association with the Lake Maxinkuckee Environmental Fund. Chris brought in Christine Dittmar as the project manager. We had several conversations regarding our goals and preferences including a couple of site visits and several plan reiterations. The current version is what you see below.
The key is a bit hard to read at this scale, so briefly: Green is standard lawn turf. Dark green is a low-mow fescue similar to what you would find in the rough of a golf course. The orange area is a prairie buffer between The Paddocks and the adjacent property. The pink is a detention pond planted as a pollinator garden with native wild flower plants that will have rotating blooms. The dark purple at the top is another detention pond which will have a variety of native plantings that can tolerate the fluctuation of water associated with the pond.
The goal was to have the best of both worlds here. Because this complex is geared towards families, we wanted adequate areas of turf where children would have the opportunity to play. These areas of turf are also used to border the native, naturalized areas, thus giving them definition. In some of the transition areas, we have included fruit trees for interest. Signage will be included to explain to residents and passersby what they are seeing.
Along with the turf recreation areas, Cardno has included a natural playground area, a fire pit and a community garden. An area for a second community garden has been set aside if a second is warranted; otherwise it will remain another area of turf.
We asked Chris to include a presentation to the Culver Town Council which was made at the May 12th meeting via Microsoft Teams. Since this was an online presentation, We also requested that it be recorded to be shared. The presentation to the Council was abbreviated in order to be cognizant of their time, but the long version was recorded here:
It will be interesting to see this come to fruition. We expect the majority of this landscape to be in place yet this year as the site work wraps up. The first units should be available for rent sometime late this summer.
