Down on Main Street

If you're like me, and let's hope you're not, then you're a sucker for a small town with a great main street. In my case, I think it is because I grew up in a big city. More and more of us are from suburban or exurban outposts, and have never known the sound of church bells and train whistles - what my grandpa called the sounds of a real town. Whatever it is, there is something about a small town with a vibrant main street that feels so familiar, even if we have never lived in one.

Now being in the timeshare game, you might think that I don't get to small towns that often, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that most most timeshare resorts are built in or around metro areas, the beach, or major theme-park attractions. But a good number are located very nearby some great main street towns, making for a perfect day trip. Or longer. Take the America's Greatest Main Streets list just put out by Travel + Leisure magazine. Of the first four mentioned, I have been to all of them by way of a timeshare rental - in town or nearby.

Galena, IL, is not only home to the WorldMark Galena resort, it was also the hometown of Ulysses S. Grant just before the American Civil War. That's right, the guy who is not buried in Grant's tomb (they don't bury you in a tomb so much as just toss you in there) lived in this 19th century boomtown along the Galena River. Now when I say boomtown, I am not talking about gold, silver, or even the railroad. No, Galena's claim to fame was the mineral of the same name and its proximity to the Mississippi River. Galena is the natural form of lead sulfide and at one point in the 1800s, this area produce almost 80% of the lead in the U.S., shipping it by way of Old Man River. Its lead mining days are long gone now, which is probably a good thing, since tourism is now the number one source of income for this quaint community of 3,400. Toxic heavy metals and hand-in-hand window shopping don't usually mix.

Paso Robles, CA, is more or less half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and timeshare rentals can be found at the WorldMark Pismo Beach Resort, about 45 minutes away. The town's name is Spanish for "The Pass of the Oaks" and has been known for its mineral hot springs for thousands of years: first by the native Salinan Indians, and then by waves of European immigrants. In the late 1890s, construction began on many of the buildings that make up the main street highlighted in the T+L piece. Today it is known for not only hot springs, but nearby wineries, championship golf, and being the home of the California Mid-State Fair. It was severely shaken by a magnitude 6.5 earthquake in 2003 and has recently been growing in population at a rapid pace. You might want catch this one while you still can, if you know what I mean.

Port Townsend is a bit more difficult to get to from a timeshare in either Seattle or the San Juan Islands. You're looking at a ferry ride either way, but that is part of its charm and its history. In the late 1800s, Port Townsend was perfectly situated to be the major port of the U.S. west coast. With easy access to timber and overseas markets, the City of Dreams boomed and many of the buildings that are now part of the U.S. National Historic Landmark District were erected. But the railroad that was to have connected it to inland markets to the east, like Seattle and Tacoma, never materialized. Port Townsend found itself on the "wrong side" of Puget Sound. Population dwindled and many buildings fell into disrepair. But as often is the case, artists and other creative types swooped in looking for cheap housing. Slowly but surely the area became home to a thriving and artistic community, as well as a popular getaway for city slickers. And in a bit of movie trivia: the motel scenes (hubba-hubba) from "An Officer and a Gentleman" were shot at the Tides Motel in Port Townsend. I am sure the cleaning staff wasn't crazy about that decision.

Finally there's Staunton, VA. You pronounce it stan-tun, unless you want to tip yourself off as being from out of town. You can rent a timeshare in nearby McGaheysville, which is unfortunately pronounced mick-GACK-ees-vill, and find yourself right in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. Staunton is home to the birthplace and presidential library of Woodrow Wilson, country music giants the Statler Brothers, five nationally recognized historic districts, and the American Shakespeare Center. The latter features first-rate productions in an exact replica of the Bard's Blackfriar's Playhouse. Just don't go looking for Main Street in this town. Instead, set your feet down on Beverly Street, and take in the Queen City of the Valley on foot or via the free downtown trolley.

Well, I am off to check out the Oasis Bordello Museum in historic Wallace, ID. That's right, this place was an active brothel from the mining heyday of the Old West. But rather than close down when the boom ended, it stayed open (and eluded police detection) until 1988! On that night the occupants scattered in a hurry, leaving everything behind. This museum presents the cathouse just as it was on that evening, right down to the video store rental list taped to the kitchen wall. I bet you ten bucks "An Officer and a Gentleman" is on that list.

Appalachian Spring

If I told you that right now I can see a Hairy Cat's Ear, a Gray Beardtongue, and an American Bladdernut, could you guess where I am? No not an insane asylum - I haven't completely lost my mind (yet). I am touring Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the above are all common names of wildflowers indigenous to this area. Now they say that most of these common names were derived from physical characteristics that reminded folks of something else in nature. Judged in that light, I think everyone knows what a hairy cat's ear looks like (is there any other kind?), and I am pretty sure I've had a beardtongue the morning after a particularly late night or two. But what the heck is a bladdernut? Or how about a Toothwort? Jeez, I'd hate to get either of those.

Of course not all of these plants have such mysterious names. Some of them provide vital information in the name alone, like Touch-me-nots, Sneezeweed, Heal-All, and Stagger Grass. Others sound like they could be the names of folks songs, if they are not already, like the Highland Dog Hobble, Hearts-a-bustin', and Little Sweet Betsy. Of course a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, and so many of these flowers are just so beautiful, that it doesn't matter what you call them. Except for maybe the Naked Broomrape. I am sure that doesn't mean what it sounds like, but they just need to change it.

Regardless, there is nothing like springtime in Appalachia. Most of the trees have not yet fully put on their leaves, allowing hundreds of species of wildflowers to soak up the sunshine of these increasingly warm days. In many places in Virginia and North Carolina the mercury has already topped 80 degrees a few times and, as a result, this annual show is off to an early start. But once the dense canopy of leaves covers over, that will be the end of the display for this year. So if you haven't planned a spring road trip, what are you waiting for?

Skyline Drive is a 105.5 mile roadway that runs more or less along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia from Front Royal to Rockfish Gap. The entire roadway is part of Shenandoah National Park and an entrance fee is required. But with 300 square miles of forest, hundreds of species of wildflowers, and tens of thousands of living creatures making their homes here, it is well worth the admission. All this just 75 miles from D.C. Of course, you want to get away from the rat race, so I suggest heading to the western side of the park and the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

If the America Civil War is your thing, you're in luck there too. There are fourteen battlefields in this region alone, where Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson waged the Valley Campaign. It was also known as the "Breadbasket of the Confederacy" as this is where most of the crops were grown to keep the rebel effort alive. A timeshare rental at The Summit at Massanutten in McGaheysville will put you right in the heart of it all. It features indoor and outdoor swimming pools, gymnasium, racquetball and tennis courts, exercise equipment, steam room, sauna, massage services, children's programs, and a PGA-rated 18-hole golf course, all on site. Plus it is minutes from an entrance to the park and who knows how many Black Bugbanes, Widow's Frills, and Dutchman's Breeches. And here's a little local tip for you: the town is pronounced mick-gack-ees-vill, with the emphasis on GACK. Which is unfortunate, but it will tip you off as a tourist if you say it how it looks.

The Blue Ridge Parkway starts where Skyline Drive ends, and runs 469 miles from central Virginia to the entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina. It's free of charge, and features stunning views, hiking trails, picnic areas, campsites, interpretative exhibits, and the most diverse collection of flora and fauna to be found anywhere on earth. On the Virginia end, be sure to check out the homes of no less than four U.S. presidents. James Madison and James Monroe were more or less neighbors to Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, which is located in Charlottesville, VA. On the other side of the Blue Ridge is the birthplace and presidential library of Woodrow Wilson, in the lovingly restored 19th-century town of Staunton, VA. Another local alert: you say it Stan-tun.

As you ramble south towards North Carolina, keep your eye out for flowering dogwood and redbud trees all along the roadside. The dogwood is the state tree of Virginia, and the state flower of both Virginia and North Carolina. It has unmistakable white, four-petaled flower that many Christians believe looks like a cross. The redbud, on the other hand, is a dark magenta, almost purple flower that comes into bloom before just about any other tree in the area. Why they call it a redbud is beyond me, but you can hardly drive twenty feet along the parkway without spotting one of these beautiful specimens.

Once in North Carolina, I highly recommend a trip to Asheville. It's very near to the Smokys and is a vibrant college town. And if you haven't seen enough big houses or flowers, it is also home to The Biltmore Estate. The Biltmore was the summer residence of the Vanderbilt family, and is the largest single-family home in the U.S. The gardens alone are worth the trip, but at $60 a ticket, you are going to want to tour the house as well. There are no timeshare resorts in Asheville, so I suggest finishing up your excursion to the west in Gatlinburg, TN, or to the south in Cashiers, NC. The former is a quiet hillside community nestled in the Great Smokey Mountains and a short drive to Dollywood in Pidgeon Forge. So if you get a hankerin' for some good old country music, spandex, and rhinestones, head on over. You won't be disappointed. The latter is a quaint and picturesque village tucked away on a plateau in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, known as the "land of waterfalls" (there are 19 of them). And as a final local tip for you: it's pronounced cash-ers.

Well, I am off to see if I can forage myself a meal in the surrounding countryside. I am told that ramps (wild scallions), fiddlehead ferns, and prickly leaf lettuce are all in-season right now. There's even a choice of coffee substitutes in the form of both the Kentucky coffee tree and chicory. Just the same, I am pretty sure I passed a Starbucks on the way in here.

Leaving Las Vegas

So here I am again in Sin City. Unlike Nicholas Cage's character in the film Leaving Las Vegas, I am not here to befriend a kind-hearted prostitute whilst drinking myself to death, although that's always an option in this town. No, I am here for the largest annual event in the timeshare industry: ARDA World 2012, being held at the Venetian on The Strip in Las Vegas, NV.

ARDA stands for American Resort Development Association, and as a foot soldier in the battle to educate the traveling public about the benefits of timeshare travel, it is the one industry event I attend (albeit begrudgingly). I mean, which would you rather do: spend some time at a great timeshare rental in Las Vegas, or attend a seminar called "Is Fractional Development in Critical Condition"? But hey, every industry needs its big events, and timeshare is no different. And any good convention town is going to have great timeshare resorts nearby. Las Vegas delivers on that and so much more.

Why just last night I saw Steve Wynn at The Wynn casino and hotel after a great performance of Le Rêve (the dream), which is a visual and musical extravaganza set in a one million gallon tank of water. The show was created by Franco Dragone of Cirque du Soleil fame, but is not actually a Cirque show. It features acrobatics, diving, state-of-the-art special effects, and about fifty of the most physically fit people you'll ever see in one place, outside of an olympic gymnastics event. It's rumored to have cost $40 million dollars to produce, which is about how much damage Wynn claims to have inadvertently done to one of his treasured Picasso masterpieces. Did you hear about this?

Wynn collects hundreds of millions of dollars worth of artwork, and one of his favorites is a painting called, not coincidentally, Le Rêve, by Pablo Picasso. He was so fond of the painting that the hotel and casino now bearing his surname, was originally slated to be called Le Rêve. Nonetheless, he was persuaded to sell the painting a few years back for the unheard of price of $139 million dollars, to a NYC hedge fund mogul, whose probably worth about half that amount now. But seriously, this would have been the most expensive artwork deal of all time. But before he shipped it off to the fellow and received his money, Wynn had some friends by to see it one last time. Sort of a farewell. Now to be fair, Wynn has an eye disorder called retinitis pigmentosa which destroys peripheral vision, and he occasionally bumps into things on either side of him. So he was showing the painting off to his friends, with it on an easel behind him, while gesticulating with his hands and backing up. Do you see where this is going? That's right, he put his elbow right through the darn thing! Now most of us would have immediately jumped out of a window or in some other way ended our own misery at that point. But he is reported to have said "I can't believe I just did that," and later refered to it as a "$40 million dollar elbow". I guess when you are worth $2.3 billion (with a "b"), you can let stuff like that roll right off of you. The deal fell through, obviously, and he had the painting repaired and returned to his own wall. They say you cannot see the tear at all, but only a fool would buy it now.

While my room is not adorned with millions of dollars in artwork, I have some really nice digs for the week at The Villas at Polo Towers, right on Las Vegas Boulevard. My one-bedroom unit features a king bed, kitchen with granite counter-tops, living room, and a private balcony. Plus there is a state-of-the-art fitness center, roof-top pool and spa, family water park, men's and women's steam rooms, and massage therapists on-site. All this for less than $100/night by renting from an owner. No wonder RedWeek members rate this place a perfect 5-stars.

Well, I am heading back to the convention for a forum on social media and timeshare, which actually looks pretty interesting. Considering that I have my own blog and Facebook page, I need to stay sharp on this stuff. Speaking of Facebook, did you see where their planned IPO is being estimated to make Mark Zuckerberg worth $20 billion dollars? I wonder if likes Picasso?

The Hunger Games

So I heard the other day that dystopia is the new vampire, at least in terms of what is coming down the pike in Hollywood movie releases. If the reaction to The Hunger Games is any indication, then I guess teens will be trading in their fangs and face powder for spears and arrows. I am not sure that's such a good thing.

And where do they get off calling it The Hunger Games, anyway? I thought it was going to be about competitive eating or a battle of celebrity chefs; not a bunch of teenagers killing each other in gladiatorial contests. If that's the route they are going to go down, why not make it food critics battling it out to the death? Everyone wants to see that, don't they?

Speaking of food critics, did you see where former the New York Times restaurant columnist admitted to having gout last week? I guess that is an occupational hazard when you eat at fancy restaurants for a living. If you are not familiar with it, gout is a build up of uric acid crystals in your blood stream that settles in your joints, usually your big toe. It's really, really, painful, and has been described by the Mayo Clinic as feeling like your "toe is on fire". Clinical descriptions usually refrain from colloquialisms like "on fire," so you know it really hurts. Foods typically associated with causing gout are things like booze, anchovies, brains and other organ meat, broth and bouillon, goose, gravy, mincemeat, mussels, fish roe (caviar), scallops, sardines, sweetbreads and all types of yeasts. In other words, all the stuff you eat at fancy restaurants. Hmm, I might want to watch it myself, considering how much dining out I do.

Of course that is another advantage to renting a timeshare: you almost always get a kitchen. Now I know you don't want to spend your whole vacation cooking and cleaning dishes, but preparing at least some of your meals can really save you some coin, and perhaps help you avoid a case of gout. Think about how much you spend on breakfast, lunch, and dinner during a typical seven night vacation stay. If you ate breakfast in your unit each morning, and packed a lunch each day, I bet you could save half of what you usually spend on meals, and still eat dinner out each night. Plus, you can take your doggie bag with you and stick it in your unit's refrigerator as a lunch or snack for the next day. Who knows, you might manage to return home the same weight as when you left, or less.

All timeshare kitchens are not created equal, of course, so you are going to want to do some research. A large villa at Harborside Resort at Atlantis, for example, has a kitchen and dining area large enough to do Thanksgiving dinner. The Manhattan Club, on the other hand, has what is known as a kitchenette. So it is more than what you get with a typical hotel room, but it's not intended for any serious dining-in. In other words, it's like owning an apartment in New York City.

Well, I am off to make my annual pilgrimage to Augusta, GA. There's nothing like the sights and smells of springtime in Georgia, as the world's best descend upon this corner of the Peach State. I am of course referring to the Hooters World Wing-Eating Championship Qualifier. Ten minutes and all the Hooters wings you can eat, with $500 and a trip to the championship round later in the year on the line. Now that's what I call a hunger game. I hear there is a golf tournament going on as well. I'll have to check it out.

Against All Odds

So have you ever heard of a guy named Don Johnson? No, not the overly-tan, frosted-hair, pretty boy from Miami Vice fame. I'm talking about Don Johnson, the blackjack player. I didn't think so. And neither had Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino. Ditto for the Borgata and Caesars. But they all know who he is now. In fact, Mr. Johnson is now reportedly banned from all Caesers's locations worldwide, and only the Tropicana is (tepidly) welcoming his patronage. So what did he do to draw such ire from Atlantic City casinos? Well, he won. A lot.

Over the course of about six months last year, Johnson took The Tropicana for $6 million, the Borgata for $5 million, and Caesars for $4 million. Each jackpot was won exclusively at the blackjack table, and in a single sitting. So if you are keeping score at home, that's $15 million dollars in three nights. Are you kidding me?! Most households don't make that in a year. So how did he do it?

Whenever somebody takes a casino for a large jackpot, which is rare, they are typically cheating, or improbably lucky. Cheating, at least that's what the casinos call it, takes the form of card counting. As impossible as it may seem, there are people who can keep track of every card that has been dealt out of the eight decks usually in play at a blackjack table. Once there are only a few cards left, the counter knows which cards remain. A partner who can really play then uses this knowledge to step in and win the big hand. Just like Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in Rain Man. But Johnson plays solo, and unlike Tom Cruise who is like two feet tall, he is a big burly guy, usually attired in an Oregon State hoodie. And while you might get lucky once in a while, they don't build those big casinos and hotels by handing people money. No, Johnson came up with a third way.

He's what you call a "high roller". In addition to being an excellent - some say perfect - blackjack player, he loves to gamble and had a lot of money before his big wins. Casinos rely on these high stakes players to come and wager huge amounts of money at their establishments. They buy them drinks, give them complimentary rooms, and even flights on private jets. They still very much lose their shirts, but they feel like royalty while doing so, and come back often. Johnson doesn't do any of that. Instead, he took his perks in the form of the loosening of the rules afforded to only the highest of high rollers. That's right, he convinced the casinos to move the odds a little less in their favor, in exchange for him betting sums of up to $100,000 per hand.

If you were unaware, each casino sets its own subtle rules on each game to determine the advantage the house enjoys. So while they vary from place to place, blackjack hands usually break out with the house winning 48%, the player 44%, and a tie 8% of the time. So you might win here and there, but over enough time, the casino is going to take you for 4% of everything you spend, in exchange for some cheap booze and a ride in a plane they've paid for with your money. But subtle changes in the rules, like using only six decks or letting the player split their hand multiple times, create tiny reductions in this advantage. Over the course of a few weeks, Johnson negotiated an arrangement that greatly improved the chances of a truly great player - with a ton of money to risk - to possibly win a bundle. And word has it that he's since been seen partying with the likes of Bon Jovi, the cast of Entourage, Charlie Sheen (remember him?), and even hosted a birthday party for Pamela Anderson. Well, I guess you can't buy class, but he's got enough money now to buy just about anything else.

Of course you don't have to win $15 million to enjoy yourself in Atlantic City. A timeshare rental at Atlantic Palace puts you right in the heart of the casino district, as well as steps away from the famous boardwalk and the Atlantic Ocean. When the weather is warm, there is so much to see and do outside in the greater Atlantic City area that you may never see the inside of a casino. Plus there are great shows and fabulous restaurants to choose from. RedWeek members rate this resort 4-stars and in-season rentals are available for as little as $125/night.

Speaking of gambling, I've gotta run and check on my bracket. No not the NCCA basketball tourney (that's so played). I'm talking Beard Madness. I've got the abolitionist John Brown in a very tough seating against Abraham Lincoln. Of course Karl Marx looks strong, and Confucius is always a force to be reckoned with.

Saving Daylight

So have you managed to shake the effects of Daylight Savings Time yet? I totally missed an appointment yesterday, because the clock in my timeshare rental hadn't been set forward. Thinking I had an hour to spare, I went to one of these aqua massage booths to blow off some stress. Have you seen these things out at the mall or airport? They look like a cross between a tanning bed and an George Forman grill. It opens like a clam shell so that they can close the thing down around you, and you pay by the minute for an invigorating, pulsating, full-body massage. Now I know what you are thinking, whose going to take off all of their clothes and get a public water massage? Lot of people, unfortunately. But an aqua massage does not require that you take off anything but your shoes, and you don't get at all wet. In fact, the industry term for it is "dry water massage". I know that is bit like "light beer" or "meatless bacon," but the water jets are behind a thin membrane. So you get all of the benefits of a water massage, without the moisture. Perhaps they should have called it something else, but believe me when I tell you that your worries will just melt away. What was I talking about anyway? Oh yeah, DST.

So you've probably heard that DST was started by Ben Franklin, and that it has something to do with farmers. But that's all nonsense. If you think about it, why would a farmer care what time it is? They are about the last task-oriented group of workers left in the world. They are getting up when the sun (and the rooster) gets up, regardless of what it says on the clock. And as far as Franklin goes, he did write a satirical piece while in France, suggesting that they could save money on candles if they'd get up earlier when the daylight hours start to lengthen. In the same piece, he also suggested taxing window shutters, and waking the public at sunrise by ringing bells and firing cannons. He certainly never suggested changing the clocks by an hour.

No, the blame for that seems to fall squarely upon George Vernon Hudson, an entomologist from New Zealand who proposed the idea in the 1890s. That's right, a Kiwi bug collector wanted more time to search for creepy crawlies after his shift ended, and had the bright idea to move the clock to more closely align the increasing amount of sunlight with his availability. An English builder named William Willett made a similar proposal in 1905, because he was tired of seeing his after work golf game cut short by darkness. Are you seeing a pattern here? These are folks whose jobs required that they work against a clock, unlike a farmer. And if you are above or below the equator, the hours of sunlight shift as the seasons progress, but the time-clock doesn't. So where you used to have an hour or two to go look for bugs or that 7-iron shot that you hooked into the tree-line, you now found yourself in the dark. Literally.

But in the end, it would seem to be energy conservation that led to widespread adoption of DST. Perhaps this is why Franklin is often cited. He was, albeit humorously, suggesting that Parisians could simply get up a little earlier and do what they needed to do during daylight, and save a ton of money lighting the city with candles later on in the day. But it was not until the German WWI war machine instituted it as a way to save coal that the idea really caught on. Adjusting the clocks to maximum sunlight hours greatly reduced coal consumption for home heating, so that it could be used for a massive war effort. Russia, the UK, France, and the United States followed within the next year or two. In fact, European countries and their various colonial interests around the world are pretty much the only places that observe this practice.

On the face of it, it certainly makes sense in terms of saving on both lighting and heating costs, and anything that promotes more outdoor activity can't be all bad. But folks who already make their living outdoors (farmers, landscapers, etc.), and those that benefit from indoor activities (movie houses, theaters, etc.) don't really see it this way. And if you live near the equator, or very far from it, changing the clocks by an hour has little or no effect on the amount of daylight you experience.

So why do we still do it? Who can say. Some places don't. Several provinces in Canada do not participate, and neither does the state of Hawaii, most of Arizona, and parts of Indiana. That can create some real travel headaches. If you are going to Hawaii, it probably doesn't matter too much. You'll be spanning several time zones no matter where you are coming from, and will likely have spent all day in airports and on planes. There's almost no chance you are going to know, or care, what time it is when you finally touch down. But imagine if you are like a friend of mine, and you live in Illinois - 50 minutes from your job in Indiana. During DST, he gets to his job 10 minutes before he left home. Are you kidding me?! And I thought I had it bad with all of the traveling I do.

Well, I have to get to the deli and lay in about 20 lbs. of corned beef if I want to be ready for Sunday's big event. No, I'm not having a St. Patrick's Day party. I am competing in the 3rd Annual TooJay's World Class Corned Beef Eating Championship in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, and I've gotta work out if I want to be on the podium this year. I know, I know, I need to get a new hobby. Maybe I'll look into bug collecting after I recuperate.

Super Tuesday

I don't know about you, but I had been looking forward to yesterday since the first of the year, and it truly did not disappoint. No, I don't mean the Republican presidential primary. I'm talking 100 years of Oreo cookies. That's right, that famous sandwich of two chocolate wafers with creme in the center was born on March 6, 1912, at a Nabisco factory in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. And life has been that much sweeter ever since.

Hey did you know that the first Oreo ever sold was in a grocery store in Hoboken, NJ? Yep, the city directly across the Hudson River from the Nabisco factory knew a good thing when they saw it, and made that famous sale. Hoboken was also the site of the first baseball game ever played (the whole Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown story is a myth), was the backdrop for the famous Brando movie "On The Waterfront", and the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, Eli Manning, and indie filmmaker John Sayles. Of course it was also the birthplace of Jon Corzine and Pia Zadora, so I guess it has had it's share of duds as well. I heard one time that Pia Zadora was in a production of The Anne Frank Story that was so bad, that during the final scene - when the Nazis burst into the house - the audience screamed out "She's in the attic!" Gosh I love that joke. What was I talking about?

Oh yeah, Oreo cookies... how could I forget? Do you know what the word Oreo means, other than delicious goodness? Neither does anyone else. Seriously. There are lots of theories and speculation, but even the folks at Nabisco are not really sure. Best anyone can figure is that it just sounded good. Of course it has gone through some rebranding over the years. To date, it has been known as the Oreo Biscuit (the original name), the Oreo Sandwich, the Oreo Creme Sandwich, and the Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookie. Its ingredients have changed as well. The original recipe had lard in the filling, which was then switched to partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats), and finally just non-hydrogenated vegetable oil. Boy, I wish I was alive 100 years ago (I wasn't) to have one of those lard Oreos. The design on top of the cookie itself has been tweaked and refined over the years, as well, but by and large it's the same cookie that debuted 100 years ago.

Over the years, additional products have been added to the Oreo line. Fore example, the Double Stuff Oreo - introduced in 1975 - has twice as much filling as a regular Oreo. Too sweet for my tastes. I think the ratio of filling to cookie is just right in the original. It would be like doubling up on the McCartney and not the Lennon, if you know what I mean. The Triple Double, introduced in 2011, is a whole other kettle of fish. That's three wafers with both chocolate and original creme between. Those babies are 100 calories each folks. Keep that in mind the next time you knock back a sleeve of them while watching Jersey Shore. You can't have a 100th anniversary without a commemorative edition, and Nabisco recently began sales of the limited edition, sprinkle-filled birthday Oreo. A bit of a disappointment if you ask me, but heck, it's still an Oreo, and they go down.

Of course nothing lasts forever. The Hydrox reigned supreme as the creme-filled chocolate cookie of record prior to the Oreo. They finally went out of business in 1996. Should Americans ever lose their taste for the Oreo (not likely), sales of them have begun to take off in China. They tweaked the recipe to be not so sweet, and they've become the best-selling cookie in China. There are 1.4 billion people in China, in case you had forgotten.

Well, I am heading back (with some Oreos) to my timeshare rental on beautiful Tybee Island, GA. There is another 100th birthday going on in Savannah, GA, just about 20 miles from here. On March 12, 1912, Juliette Gordon Low began the Girl Scouts of the United States America from her home, which is now the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace and museum. I plan on touring it, and the site of the first-ever headquarters of the GSUSA. I'm told the scouts have also branched out into the cookie business. Sounds like some field research is in order. Man, I love my job.