New Japanese fad not exactly eye-licking good

No licking zone -- please

Charlotte Bronte once said, “The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.”




If the sober author of Jane Eyre is right, that faithful interpreter unconscious in the eyes of Japanese school children must be snapping awake in alarming numbers to say – “what the hell was that?”

It seems the young people of Japan are the undisputed international champion practitioners of an ugly activity that has health officials cringing at every corner of the globe.  It is called "worming."  It is when one person expresses his or her affection for another person with a warm, passionate lick of the eyeball! 




That’s right, somebody started the fad of laying a big wet slurp across the cornea belonging the object of his or her affection.

It is an exploding trend on the schoolyards, under the bleachers and in other discrete and not-so-discrete locations through Japan.

Americans who suffer auditory attacks from another fad imported from Japan – Karaoke – are now terrified that the trend will find its way onto US soil and threaten one more of the human body’s senses. Here is a particularly hideous example of Karaoke's reach.

The possibility of an inebriated Karaoke singer being congratulated for slurring through a rendition of “Me and Bobby McGee” with a heart-felt lick of the eyeball from his or her equally tipsy date is almost more than civilization should be expected to endure.

Health officials are trying to stamp out the eye-licking phenomenon by noting an alarming increase in cases of pink eye among Japanese young people.  They are also frantically predicting that the practice can introduce sexually transmitted diseases where they haven’t traditionally been a problem – in the eyeballs of worming practitioners. Of course, there is also the possibility of blindness.

If we absolutely must import another fad from our friends from Japan, I nominate two other options instead of the dreaded worming trend.

Japanese innovators have come up with LED Teeth – LED inserts that can be placed over teeth like a mouth guard.  These bolts of light then light up whenever the wearer smiles. They can even blink or change color from blue to red. On a dark street, a parade of LED teeth wearers can inspire fear and panic like nobody’s business.


Then there is "Dekotora" - an abbreviation for "docoration truck." Take one tractor trailer vehicle, festoon it with a rainbow of color flashing lights and you have what looks like an evil carnival on wheels rolling down the highway. Imagine the potential for startling left lane huggers on the Interstate into submission when you pull up on their bumper late at night with a Dekorora in full glory.

Let’s just hope discriminating tastes will make the right decision on which Japanese fad is destined to invade.

Hubcaps, Psychology, and Basketball - the Odd World of Bob McCoid

Ex-psych prof, hubcap master and basketball shot genius
 Bob McCoid from the Wetzel, (WV) Chronicle

Don't let the Yankee Rub it In

The small white structure at the end of a scruffy I-70 exit ramp in Western Pennsylvania was obviously an old service station: its pumps long ago removed and all oil company signage unceremoniously ripped down when the site was abandoned as unlucrative for the selling of gasoline.

A one-word sign in red lettering is the only indicator of what now occupies the interior of the property where grass is slowly overtaking the once busy asphalt parking lot – “HUBCAPS.”

Oh there are hubcaps inside all right. At one time there were more than 200,000 of them. They are piled high on shelves in an order that only the master of the premises can navigate. 

The humble little hubcap shop has stood for decades alongside I-70, first at one abandoned gas station at another exit and now at its present location. It has offered motorists an affordable alternative to costly visits to their car dealer when forced to seek replacements for wheel covers lost along the highways and byways of the West Virginia/Pennsylvania region. 

Need something snazzy to jazz up that 1984 Dodge?  It’s likely in the back next to those fancy 1968 Cadillac hubcaps or under those wheel covers for a 1988 Nisson.

But it isn’t the vast array of hubcaps that wows the visitor to the little shop. 

It isn’t the magnificent disarray of the tiny office where the most modern piece of office equipment you are likely to find amidst the rubble of paper is probably a 1970s era electronic calculator.

The main attraction is the 76-year-old proprietor – Bob McCoid, what he has done with his remarkable life, and what he can do with a basketball.  A quick visit with McCoid is likely to knock your socks off just like a sharp curve on the highway will pop off a right front hubcap.

McCoid is a retired college psychology professor and researcher who molded young minds at the University of Kentucky and at his alma mater, Marshall University. He has been operating the hubcap shop since retiring from the Community College of Allegheny County and lives on a rural Pennsylvania farm.

The first time I stopped in to the shop in search of a hubcap for a 1991 Plymouth Reliant, McCoid was all business and came up with just what I needed. He didn’t mention his odd hobby and particularly incredible skill until I noticed an array of press clippings that festooned his office wall that said something about basketball shooting.

“What’s all this then?” I asked, sounding like John Cleese in a Python sketch while gesturing to the articles.

Turns out, McCoid is a multiple world champion basketball shooter from the free-throw line and the three-point arc.  That sentence is heavy on current tense because McCoid is a dead eye that still travels America to compete against rivals who are often his junior by decades.

McCoid lights up when offered the chance to talk about his skill and he picked up a basketball from his hubcap-selling counter when he began to answer my questions.

“I’m headed to the World Senior Games in Utah and the Senior Olympics in Los Vegas in October,” he explained, spinning the ball in the upturned palm of his hand. “I just got back from South Dakota.  I did a competition in Tennessee not long ago. They stopped me after I put 20 out of 20 in and won the competition.  They said, “hey, don’t let the Yankee rub it in.’”

The question of how he got involved in such an exacting activity sparked a surprising answer.

“I was on the (1955) Wheeling (WV) High Basketball team and I was always a pretty good shot,” he said. “We once scored 140 points against Weir High. Of course, they scored 110 points. It was a record that stood for years.”

McCoid practices at Wheeling WV's Howard Long
Wellness Center

McCoid said he put down the basketball when he left high school to go to college and never picked up another one until he was 60 years old and he found that his knack for knocking them in with a swish had not diminished even after a 37-year hiatus.

He believes in frequent and long practice sessions. On my first visit, McCoid pulled out a well-worn small notebook in which he keeps meticulous records of his practices and its results.  Page after page of dates and numbers indicating shots taken and shots made appear in his careful unique handwriting.

Over a ten-year period, his record shows that he averages about 14,000 three-point shots per year and 20,000 free throws per year.

One day, not long ago, he shot for 3.5 hours and was successful on 985 free throws out of 1,000. His personal record is 990 out of 1,000.  His record in 2012 for consecutive free throws was 304.  He has an all time best of 354. Since 1998, he has hit on 100 or more consecutive free throws more than 700 times.

He is just as prolific from the three-point arc. 

He has been written about by local sports writers from Pittsburgh to Martins Ferry, OH and appeared on television shows when they “miked-me-up” so the unique sound of the ball leaving his fingers can be clearly heard. He has given demonstrations all over the nation and is quick to criticize the way young people have been taught to shoot the basketball at the free throw line. You can get a quick lesson from him on free throws on YouTube. 

 “They teach kids to stand with their weight balanced with one foot ahead of the other,” he said. “That’s wrong.  That makes their orientation to the left or right. You need to stand with both toes on the foul line.”

He also believes in shooting the ball with the center finger of the shooting hand centered firmly over the little air hole in the ball to ensure proper balance. He said the ball should rest on the fingertips with a clear pocket of air between the ball and the shooting hand palm.

He has a wall full of trophies and medals from his many competitions and he has no intention of slowing down, just like the double knee replacements he had a few years ago did little to dent his skill or enthusiasm.

McCoid has another skill that today’s ball players would do well to emulate: he is confident without being an egomaniac.  If not specifically asked about his success, he would never have mentioned it to me. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a firm belief in himself.

“I expect to make them all,” he told John Howell of the Martins Ferry Times Leader last January.

Howell wrote that during one competition recently his closest competitor missed a free throw and Bob told the person next to him “he just lost” and then stepped in and made all of his shots to win.

As impressed as I was with McCoid’s obvious skill and competitive spirit; the uniqueness of his little hubcap shop; and his respected career in higher education, I walked away from my conversations with a keen appreciation for the temperament of the man and his willingness to share his experience and skill in a genuine fashion that doesn’t say “look at me and how great I am” but rather “look at what I’ve done and think about what you can do.”

That’s what knocked the caps right off my hubs and made me appreciate the uniqueness of Bob McCoid.  Long may he shoot and swish.

Solo Drive to the Great Smokey Mountains

After being foiled by an unpleasant encounter with the commercialism of Pigeon Forge, TN last month, I took a long drive down US Route 321 this week in a second attempt to penetrate the Smokey Mountains – the second most visited National Park in the US – to see just what all the fuss was about.

Nearing the foothills of the famed mountains, I encountered Maryville, TN. In Maryville, Sam Houston of Texas fame once built a schoolhouse and taught children before fleeing the experience to live among the Cherokees instead. More than 150 years later, Shaquille O’Neil grew up learning how to miss foul shots but otherwise dominate opponents on Maryville’s basketball courts.  With a tip o my hat to the unlikely pair of Houston and O’Neil, I drove through the picturesque town on my way to a pleasant encounter with the history and nature of the Smokey Mountains.

In June, I blogged about passing through another gateway to the Smokies called Pigeon Forge that was so loud, tacky and off-putting that I turned around and never entered the National Park that was just down the road.  This time, I found a more peaceful pathway through a little town called Townsend, TN.

Townsend calls itself the peaceful side of the Smokies and earns up to the nickname when compared to the bustle of its Pigeon Forge neighbor to the north.  The town has a number of low profile 1960s-era motels here and there, a few modern chain establishments and a healthy peppering of unique non-franchise barbeque, country cooking and trout-serving restaurants as well as interesting antique shops.  It also has a colorful collection of campgrounds and businesses enticing tourists to rent bright yellow inner tubes for a leisurely float down the nearby scenic Little River or bicycles to explore the pathways paralleling Rt. 321.

Townsend, founded in the early 20^th Century as a hub for the logging industry that almost destroyed the Smokey Mountain region, has transformed itself in the 79 years since the National Park was established into a friendly welcome mat for the millions of visitors that journey through each year.

A particularly bright Townsend spot is the Great Smokey Mountain Heritage Center – a rustic appearing yet modern facility dedicated to explaining to its visitors the history and culture of the region. A quick movie in a comfortable auditorium explains the origin of the mountains, the culture of the original Native Americans, the way early settlers carved out a living in coves high in the mountains, the conflicts that persisted during the turbulence of the Civil War, and the temporary prosperity and nearly permanent damage wrought by the logging industry.

A separate museum gallery houses Native American artifacts and displays showing how the early settlers lived in the mountains.  Outside, great care has been taken to preserve and restore cabins, blacksmith and wheelwright’s shops, a church, barns and other architectural artifacts from the early days of Smokey Mountain settlements.  

A restored logging saw mill at the Heritage Center

And, of course, there’s a gift shop featuring crafts, books and other souvenirs.  There’s also a bright new outdoor theater in the back that hosts summer concerts.

Armed with my new Smokey Mountain background information, I ventured into the National Park via a shaded windy road and quickly witnessed the origins of the name “Smokey Mountains.” The high green mountains are topped with a natural fog that hangs over the range and looks much like smoke.  The fog is the result of all the vegetation exhaling organic compounds that form vapors at normal temperature and pressure – thus Smokey Mountains.

I headed for something called Cade’s Cove where, at one time, sturdy and spirited people scratched out happily productive lives growing corn; raising, slaughtering and eating pork; and sometimes making “liquid corn” for special consumption.

In the central and southern Appalachian Mountains, a cove is a small valley between two ridgelines that is closed at one or both ends. Cades Cove is not only the most frequently visited part of the National Park, it was also where generations of Cherokees hunted and small populations of settlers made homes. After the park was established, the people moved out but several of their rustic homesteads scattered throughout the cove as well as a few old frame church buildings, were preserved for visitors to stop and visit. Well, of course, some of them are said to be haunted.

I didn't see a bear like this in Cade's Cove but you might.

The homesteads and buildings can be visited on an 11-mile loop drive that is famous for spectacular views and a chance to glimpse wildlife including the Black Bear.  Unfortunately, all I got to see was a lone wild turkey and a couple of deer like I see in my backyard all the time. While there were plenty of spectacular views and the mountain air was truly impressive to breathe, the pace of the drive can tax patience. Caravans of vehicles motor through at a snail’s pace.  There are plenty of pull-offs for folks to use if they see something they wish to photograph.  It took well over a 90 minutes to finish the 11-mile drive.

On the outskirts of the Cades Cove loop are campgrounds and picnic sites.  It is a trip for nature lovers with plenty of time.  Spotting a bear would probably thrill the kids but otherwise, it probably isn’t a trip today’s kids would appreciate unless they have their IPods or tablets for alternative entertainment.