We live a block off Speedway Blvd., famously described by Life Magazine, as the ugliest street in America. According to Life, Speedway is 23 miles of strip malls and billboards. But that was 1966. Today, Speedway is 23 miles of strip malls. The billboards are largely gone, victims of city ordinance. Why, you might wonder, would Life be concerned with an obscure street in Hooterville, a dusty place in the corner of the country? It had to do with a guy named Charles Schmid, the 23-year-old adopted slacker son of a wealthy Hooterville family. Schmid's parents lavished him with money and stuff, probably in the hope that he would leave them alone. He lived in a guest house on their property. Schmid had a penchant for picking up and as it turns out killing, high school girls. Three young women fell victim to the sociopath Schmid. Life and Time Magazine both made Schmid into a cult figure. They dubbed him "The Pied Piper of Hooterville", giving him the stature he so desperately craved, but that his 5-foot-4-inch frame denied him. Schmid famously wore custom made boots that allowed him to add three inches to his height. Schmid developed a bad boy personae, that adolescent girls found irresistible. While many older women never really get over the bad boy thing, one mature lady that wasn't buying it was his birth mom. When Schmid located her, she is reported to have told him, "I didn't want you then, I don't want you now. Go away". Schmid was a psychologists dream subject. Schmid was convicted and sentenced to death. His sentence was later commuted to 50 years in prison, when the US Supreme Court halted the death penalty in the 1970s. In a blast of karmic payback, Schmidt was stabbed to death while incarcerated. Here is a link to Schmid's Wikipedia page if you want to read about the little creep. Anyway the decades have not improved Speedway much. Sometimes it seems that Hooterville is one giant strip mall. This is my barbershop, located on Speedway, a few blocks west of our house. It is a dump. don't be fooled by the exterior, it is worse inside. I like Bob, the owner. He is always trying to give someone a hand up, so on any visit you might find a barber in residence that no one else will hire, or a homeless guy sleeping in the backroom. My little pal Noah has been staying with us even more than usual because his mom has been sick for sometime now. After my haircut yesterday, we went to play miniature golf and hit balls in the batting cages. Astute readers might wonder why there was no golf yesterday? I've had a cold and the Seafood King was out of town, so I begged off. Then it was off to lunch at the usual spot. Where else but in a bar in a strip mall? Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and crankyn