The False Ducks Blahg

     I’m going to break my own record in this blahg.  I posted the 2026 False Ducks New Year’s Day Video Ramble on January 1st of this year and I’m going to start unpacking it today.  Last year, I posted the 2025 Ramble on January 2nd and then didn’t get around to breaking it down until March 13th.  Well, I’m two months ahead of the game, being only January 11th today.  It might take me a few days to get this finished and published but it should still be up officially in the same month as the 2026 ramble.  Well, that’s enough of that ramble for now.  Let’s get to it. 

   In case you didn’t view the 2026 False Ducks New Year’s Day Video Ramble, here it is: 

Again, I should stress that it’s chocolate on my upper lip in the video and not a scab or some sort of post holidays sore.  I watched the video again and made note of some things I mentioned in the Ramble and added some things I wanted to discuss but forgot about.  Here’s my list of things I want to unpack:

1. Polar dip didn’t happen

2. Keys of hiram crenshaw

3. Pocket pal’s guide to murder

4. the soda machine

5. The private investigator of earth

6. The two and ten Christmas gift exchange

7. Delbert Robertson

8. William Morrison short stories sf

9. 100 1939 films

10. Daryl Brock

11. Barbara Villy Cormack – Local Rag

12. Hans Conreid Book

13. Christmas tree launch

14. Fell out of the bathtub

15. Politics: Trump, Ford, Polievre, Carney

16. See the kids

17. Write more stories.

18. Mention Paul McCartney Concert

19. Renovations and photo of Zoey on new flooring

20. Expand my funkos

21. New funko sodas

22. Digging out inflatables

 

   Let’s start with the Polar Dip that didn’t happen.  We had 7 inches of snow New Year’s Eve.  In the past when I’ve done the Dip, I’ve driven out to North Beach here in beautiful Prince Edward County.  Unfortunately, North Beach is a day use only Provincial Park that is closed in the winter.  We have to park on the road that leads to the entrance of the park, walk around the gate (low security because everyone does it) and then walk about half a kilometre out to the beach area.  My wife didn’t want to walk through that half kilometre of snow so she suggested we go to the beach in Wellington, Ontario as we can drive right up to the beach front.  I went swimming a few times there this year.  Here’s a photo of me in the water on October 4th of last year:

Unfortunately that’s not how the beach and water looked on January 1st of this year.  Here’s the video that show’s why the 2026 Polar Dip didn’t happen: 

Oh well, I’ll try again in 2027. 

 

   I wrote 21 blahgs in 2025.  It’s probably not a record for me but it was one more than 2024 when I wrote 20 blahgs.  Sometimes the blahgs were a means to an end.  If I had written a new short story, I would debut it in a blahg with the title of story and a little write-up.  THE KEYS OF HIRAM CRENSHAW was one of those short story and short blahgs.  Click on the link to read both.

   I wrote another story in June of 2025.  I thought it was an interesting premise and certainly something different for me.  The story and the blahg had  the title THE POCKET PAL’S GUIDE TO MURDER.  Again, click the link to read it. 

   In April, before I wrote and posted “The Pocket Pal’s Guide To Murder,” I finally got around to finishing a short story I had started in July of 2023.  It’s a full on science fiction story called, THE SODA MACHINE.  I had set it aside for a year and a half and when I got back to it, I wasn’t sure where to start again.  I threw this funny line in as a placeholder:  “what Elvis would do” and then the words came and I kept the line.  It also came around and helped me complete the end of the story.

   “The Pocket Pal’s Guide To Murder” and “The Soda Machine” had science fiction tones to them.  So did two stories, I wrote in 2024, HOW GRANDPA PUT DOWN THE ROBOT UPRISING and THE HOHNER COMET.  We had been doing some renovations at home and I was downsizing my desk and the contents.  I came across the first short science fiction story that I ever wrote, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR OF EARTH.  It’s not great but in the blahg, I post the story and how I let Chat GPT write a sequel to it.  That’s all I’ll probably do with that story.

   Every year, well at least since 2013, I have written a Christmas themed story.  Most have been works of fiction but I think there was a Christmas observational piece in there somewhere.  This past Christmas, I decided to write a fictional story based on our Christmas traditions at my home.  It turned out well, THE TWO AND TEN…A CHRISTMAS GIFT EXCHANGE is a moving story and became my second last blahg of 2025. 

   The one blahg I didn’t get around to writing in 2025 was “How About You, Delbert Robinson.”  It’s a short story that I have struggled to finish for the past few months.  I know the ending but getting from the middle to there has been challenging.  I hope to finish it this year and post a blahg with the completed story.  I also discovered today that I started writing a short observational piece back in April of last year.  I didn’t finish it either but I think I will try and get back to it.  Here’s what I have written so far: 

MY GREEK HISTORY

By

Scott Henderson

            This is a history that I have left for myself.  It’s all true or most of what I have remembered.  Every now and then I pull out the memories and shake them up like a snow globe and watch this beautiful scene I’ve kept wrapped in a protective bubble.  It’s nothing embarrassing but until now I have never felt it necessary to put this to paper.

            Even now, this history is a like an archaeological site where you have to carefully peal back the layers to get at the true story underneath.  My Greek history is almost forty years old and parts of it, the underlying layers, are even older than that.

            I could begin with my first year of University but that part of the history will remain concealed.  Let me summarize by saying I made some mistakes and had to move out of my University residence and drop down to part-time studies.  That’s the only fossil that pieces together with the almost forty years story but it’s not the only part that has been buried in this account.

            In my last year of University I moved back into residence and parts of this story begin to reveal themselves.  When you’re a third year student and you move into a dormitory of sorts with people younger than you then you can draw on those previous experiences to guide you as a mature adult among the newbies.  The problem was, I had no experience.  I had, like this history, buried myself away and had no friends and no experiences.  Academia had been my focus and the socialization aspect of higher education had eluded me.  I felt something was missing and advocated to return to residence life.  I had to really convince myself as much as I did the University.  For two years, I had kept a low profile and that in itself was enough to convince the administration that I deserved a second chance.

            This is where I take liberties and sift through minutiae and only gather the important bits.  My studies get sorted and set aside.  They are not important in this other than to say I did well in my courses and they were not a burden to the rest of this history.  That socialization I spoke of, and specifically the lack of it, came more into play than the studies.  I made friends.  It’s as simple as that but a core piece of that is brought to the front.  I made a girl friend.

            The fact that I was an English studies major should challenge me to correct that statement that I made a girl friend.  Indeed, she wasn’t manufactured.  She wasn’t made up or fictionalized.  She was a girl who became a friend and later…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

            I’d like to jump forward in time and say that the non-constructed girl friend and I have been married for almost thirty-eight years.  I don’t know why I say “almost thirty-eight years” as if there’s some doubt that we’ll achieve that goal but it’s easier to round up than down and it’s important to highlight the fact that we’re still together despite the summer of my Greek history.  That, too, is getting ahead of myself.

            Let’s summarize in an effort to get the important fragments into the light where they will have significance.  I had dropped down to part-time studies in my first year, moved into residence again in my third year, made friends, and made a girl friend.  That’s what falls out when you sieve through the totality.

            The building I lived in during that third year had a first and second floor as well as an east side and a west side. I think in total, there were 25 students living throughout the building.  Despite taking numerous English studies courses, I never got around to studying Rudyard Kipling or I might have been disheartened by his poem “The Ballad of East and West” containing the iconic phrase “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”  In my narrative East and West did meet however and the rest is history.  Well, at least the rest is pre-history because I have yet to get the Greek history portion.

            There were only two females on the first floor of the east building and five males.  Of those, only one of the females ranks in this chronicle and four of the males, including myself, have any significance.  Although I’d like to think I ranked more than enough significance.

 

   Speaking of short stories, with a reference to ones that were not written by me, I made a concerted effort to read all 79 short science fiction stories written by the forgotten author, William Morrison.  This was inspired by re-reading one of my all time favourite short science fiction stories, “The Sly Bungerhop.”  I manged to pen four blahgs about my effort, THE SLY BUNGERHOP ET AL, WILLIAM MORRISON…HALF-WAY THERE, WILLIAM MORRISON AGAIN…NOT DONE YET, and WILLIAM MORRISON, THE FINAL 10…LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN!  I still have some non-science fiction stories of his to read, mystery, detective, and western themed and a few others I haven’t tracked down.  I highly recommend reading some of Morrison’s science fiction stories.  Here’s a reprint of a biography of Morrison published in “Startling Stories” September 1942: 

   Another lofty goal I had set for myself last year was to watch 100 films from 1939.  That year is considered one of the greatest in film history.  Just look at a short list of films from that year: 

Gone with the Wind
Stagecoach
The Wizard of Oz
Wuthering Heights
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Ninotchka
Destry Rides Again
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Dark Victory
Young Mr. Lincoln
Of Mice and Men
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Babes in Arms
Beau Geste

I didn’t watch all of those films but here’s the list I did get through, managing to get to 101: 

1. A Child Is Born
2. Disputed Passage
3. We Are Not Alone
4. Dust Be My Destiny
5. The Girl From Mexico
6. Frontier Marshall
7. Good Girls Go To Paris
8. Honolulu
9. The Three Musketeers
10. Cheer Boys Cheer
11. The Amazing Mr. Williams
12. Off The Record
13. The Frozen Limits (fell asleep)
14. Where’s That Fire
15. The Kid from Kokomo
16. The Ice Follies of 1939
17. All Women Have Secrets (1939)
18. A Girl Must Live (1939)
19. $1000 a Touchdown (1939)
20. …One Third of a Nation… (1939)
21. Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever (1939)
22. Arizona Legion (1939)
23. Persons in Hiding
24. Allegheny Uprising
25. Ask A Policeman (Will Hayes)
26. Gone With The Wind
27. Society Lawyer
28. Code of the Secret Service (1939)
29. Secret Service of the Air (1939)
30. Young Abe Lincoln
31. The Little Princess
32. East Side of Heaven
33. Destry Rides Again
34. Dodge City
35. Smashing The Money Ring
36. The Wizard Of Oz
37. Midnight
38. Stagecoach
39. Made For Each Other
40. Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
41. 20,000 Men a Year (1939)
42. Flying Deuces
43. Only Angels Have Wings
44. Judge Hardy and Son
45. Charlie McCarthy Detective
46. Discoveries
47. Across the Plains
48. Back Door to Heaven
49. Hitler – Beast of Berlin
50. Barricade
51. In Name Only
52. King of the Underworld
53. At The Circus
54. The Real Glory
55. Women On The Wind
56. Gunga Din
57. Rulers of the Sea
58. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
59. The Hound Of The Baskervilles
60. Beau Geste
61. After The Thin Man
62. The Mysterious Miss X
63. The Hardys Ride High
64. Three Smart Girls Grow Up
65. First Love
66. Ambush
67. Bad Boy
68. Bad Lands
69. Bad Little Angel
70. I Met A Murderer
71. Boy Friend
72. Coast Guard
73. Boy Trouble
74. Disbarred
75. She Married a Cop
76. The Light That Failed
77. Night Work
78. Million Dollar Legs
79. Island Of Lost Men
80. Slightly Honorable
81. The Man In The Iron Mask
82. Shipyard Sally
83. My Son Is A Criminal
84. Smuggled Cargo
85. Wife, Husband and Friend
86. 6,000 Enemies
87. Homicide Bureau
88. S.O.S. Tidal Wave
89. News Is Made at Night
90. Sergeant Madden
91. Panama Patrol
92. Rio
93. When Tomorrow Comes
94. Invitation to Happiness
95. Taming of the West
96. They Made Me A Criminal
97. The Spy in Black
98. Espionage Agent
99. The Housekeeper’s Daughter
100. Undercover Agent
101.  Love Affair

Here are the three blahgs where I reviewed what I watched:  MY 1939 FILMS WATCH LIST…PART ONE, MY 1939 FILMS WATCH LIST…PART TWO, MY 1939 FILMS WATCH LIST…TO 100 AND BEYOND!

   Now, for books I read last year.  I discovered that there was sequel to Darryl Brock’s 1990 novel, “If I Never Get Back”

The Wikipedia entry for this book is “in the novel, a modern-day San Francisco journalist named Sam Fowler steps off an Amtrak train and finds himself in 1869. He joins the Cincinnati Red Stockings baseball team, meets Mark Twain, and falls in love with a woman of the times.”  It’s one of my favourite books and I reread it so I could read the sequel, “Two in the Field.“

It was a great read but the original is the best.  I also discovered that Brock wrote another baseball themed story, “Havana Heat”

This book takes place in the early 1900s and is told from the viewpoint of a hearing impaired baseball player with connections to the New York Yankees.  Great book.  All three are definitely worth reading. 

   In the 2026 Ramble video I also mention two books on my list to read this year.  I couldn’t remember the full author’s name and stumble trying to say Barbara Villy Cormack.  The novel she wrote is called “Local Rag”  and was published in 1951.  It’s set in a small town in Alberta, Canada and is about a local newspaper and the comings and goings in the small town.

The other book I want to read this year is about the comic actor Hans Conreid. 

I hope to get to them in the next few months. 

   Yesterday, January 10th, I got around to my annual Christmas Tree launch.  I drag our annual tree down to the creek at the bottom of my yard and launch it and watch it float away.  This year was a success:

   

   I fell out of the bathtub.  True story!  Here’s what I wrote about it:

Here’s my memento photo of the event:

As I said in the Ramble, my wife still gets up when I get up so she can listen and hear if I’ve fallen again.  That’s love for you.

   I’ve decided to skip over the Politics section.  The world’s crazy enough without adding my opinion, except I’ll re-post here something I posted on Facebook last April

As time went by, that changed. See, the Meisterburgers kinda died off and fell out of power. By and by the good people realized how silly the Meisterburger laws were. Well, everyone had a wonderful laugh and then forgot all about ’em.

   

   All of our children, Emily, Noah, and Abbie as well as Emily’s husband Charlie and Noah’s girlfriend, Robin, were all down for Christmas.  My goal is to see more of them.  The issue is that they all live in Toronto so we only get together a handful of times during the year and video chat when we can.  The other issue is that I didn’t take any photos of everybody when they were here over the holidays.  I decided to scan our group chats and Facebook feeds to see if I could find various photos last year of the children either together or with me.  Here’s what I found: 

Emily and I when we attended one of her roller derby games on April 26, 2025:

Noah and I at the Nathaniel Rateliff concert in Toronto on March 21, 2025

Abbie and I at the Transformers TFCon on July 12, 2025:

On the same day that Abbie and I were at TFCon, Emily and Charlie went to see Superman:

Four days later, on July 16, 2025, Jeanette and I went to see Superman:

On September 26th, Emily and Abbie came in first at the pairs speed puzzle event they went to:

Separate photos of Noah and Robin opening their Christmas presents early in Toronto:

 

Hopefully, we’ll get some group family photos taken this year. 

   Write more stories.  Haven’t I written enough?  I know, I need to finish “HOW ABOUT YOU, DELBERT ROBINSON?” and there’s that “Odd Ducks” story from 25 years ago to finish.  Give me time.  I’ve got to finish this blahg first. 

  Mention Paul McCartney Concert.  Oh year, I might have forgotten to mention that.  On November 21, 2025 I drove down to Hamilton to the newly refurbished TD Coliseum to see Paul McCartney with Jeanette, Noah, and Robin.  It was a fantastic concert.  Here’s what I posted on my Facebook at the time: 

Jeanette and I went to Hamilton last night and saw the greatest concert we’ve ever seen. Paul McCartney performed for two hours and fifty minutes and didn’t miss a beat. At one point a small stage rose in the air and he sang “Blackbird.” He came out for an encore waving a Canadian flag while members of the band waved the Union Jack and the pride flag. One of his encores was Mull of Kintyre with a Port Dover Scottish marching band joining him on stage. The guy is class and still has the chops. We went with our son Noah and his girlfriend Robin. We had an amazing time. The pyrotechnics on “Live and Let Die” were mind blowing!

Here’s the photo I posted at the time: 

Noah had purchased the tickets but he couldn’t get 4 seats together so Jeanette and I had seats on the other side of the Coliseum.  Here’s a photo I posted to our Family group chat asking “Where’s Waldo?  In this case Robin and Noah.

Abbie posted back the reply, “Found Them.”

Here’s a photo of Jeanette and I at the concert:

On the way out of the concert, they were giving out the following poster:

Jeanette gave ours away to someone who didn’t get one but Noah and Robin got two so we ended up with one for ourselves.  We had Noah and Robin’s poster framed for Christmas. 

Someone has posted the entire concert on YouTube.  It’s well worth watching:

 

   In the Ramble, I also mentioned the renovations Jeanette and I did last year.  I want to post two photos.  The first shows what our 20 plus year old flooring in our living room looked like:

Here’s what it looked like after, and that’s our cat Zoey enjoying the sunshine.

We have no major renovations planned for this year but I do want to restain my deck and possibly change out our garage doors.  That sounds like another blahg.

   I’m going to combine two topics.  This is all about my Funko collection.  Here are some photos of some of my Funkos (certainly not all):

Again, that’s certainly not all of them.  I have posted about my Funko Pops and Sodas in two previous blahgs, DARKWING DUCK AND THE NFT CASH GRAB and ANOTHER ROUND OF HOLIDAYS!  Oh, and there was the unboxing blahg and video:  DARKWING DUCK AND THE NFT CASH GRAB…UNBOXING!  According to the Funko app, I have 269 items.  That includes Pops, Vynl figures, and Sodas.  Here are my Sodas: 

There’s also the Plastic Man soda that I posted above with the photo of the Plastic Man Funko Pop.  I’ll try and post a more detailed blahg later this year showing off everything.  269 is quite a number.

   Digging out my inflatables.  I think there’s a shot of them in the Ramble video.  They’re all out now.  Here’s what they looked like before Christmas: 

I might have to do some repairs on some but I’ve put them away until a warmer month.  We hope to inflate them all again in June and July.  I’ll post those pictures when we get around to it.  Christmas in July! 

   That’s it, I think, for this Ramble Unpacking.  I covered a great deal but I closed with the wish for World Peace.  Maybe if everyone else decides to wish for it, we’ll finally get closer to making it happen. 

   Peace and Love, Peace and Love.  Scott Out.