Dear Ron & Gina, I'd like to share a tale with you, re; Mailing Lists & Junk Mail. A friend of mine is/was a performer at the annual "Dicken's Fair" in San Francisco. This event allows him (...and several score others) to dress in period costume and harass the natives and tourists who come to gawk at everyone that the fertile writing fingers of Dicken's created. It's a combination of "Living Period History" and Handcrafts Fair with a dash of theater mixed in. Colorful, it is. His 'troupe' is "The Miracle Sweeps of London" (...if it's a clean sweep, it's a miracle!), and along with his fellow chimney sweeps, he's a part of the festivities. They roam about the site searching for 'climbing-boys' to clear narrow flues, as their 'old' boy "Plug" has grown to large to do the job. While searching, they consume gin, shed clouds of soot, and freely offer the opinion "It's good-luck to kiss a sweep!" to any takers. Point being; His name with the sweeps is "J. Phlegmgrizzle", and as a sort of joke... I neatly labeled his mailbox with this name while he was on vacation last year. His house is 6 miles from town near the end of a dead-end, narrow winding road. This name CANNOT possibly appear in any published list of any kind... it flat doesn't exist outside of Dick-Fair. So... isn't it remarkable he's now recieving junk-mail addressed to; "Mr. Phlegmgrizzle"? Firms assemble mailing lists from EVERY imaginable source. From phonebooks to lists assembled by workers who must be roaming the back-country for names off of MAILBOXES, for Pete's sake!!! His Fair name first appeared on a letter from an insurance company addressed to; "Tom Phlegmgrizzle"...his correct first name mixed with the fictitious character name. I will never be surprised that my name has made it to a 'shared mailing list' after his experience! Amazing huh? Jeffrey T. Hickey RPT Oregon Coast Piano Services TunerJeff @ aol.com ps- There is firm at Dicken's Fair that provides nearly warm bodies to the medical field. In Dicken's time it was illegal to study bodies/corpses... but the vivisectionists needed those bodies to advance the field of human medicine, right? Thus the grave-robbers who haunted the local 'Potter's Field" where the poor were (...barely) buried. A steady income from the desperate medical students, but a dangerous business if one was caught in the act by the police! I joined (...for one weekend) the prestigious firm of; "Digg & Hyde, Procurers for the Vivisectionists". What was my name? "Runn". (Thus the name became slightly longer and a bit more descriptive; "Digg, Runn, & Hyde!".) :>) jef
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC