This 'n That

In the Eyes of the Beholder

2012-01-30T11:35:00.000-05:00

I recognize that I have a problem with hearing - an affliction that impacts a lot of us as we age. That may be a subject for another blog down the road.

I thought, when I had cataracts removed from my eyes a few years ago, that all would be well with my sight. For the most part, that is true - for someone who had terrible vision for years it was a near miracle after that surgery - close to 20/20 sight without glasses now. I can even see well enough on a clear, sunny day, to drive without glasses.

But I have a hunch we all have vision problems in other ways.

Like the time in Michigan when we were having a wild thunderstorm. I looked out the condo window to watch the storm and across the way I saw something strange. We had experienced a near lightning strike and as the rain poured down I saw what seemed to be a power line on fire. The red or yellow light flickered and flared just like a flame and, as a committed 'good citizen', I called the fire department. It wasn't long before the fire engines arrived and we got a call from the firemen asking if we could pinpoint where the fire was. In the meantime someone from the fire department came to the condo office and asked about the reliability of the person who made the call. The manager assured them that we were reasonably sane, but about the same time I came to the realization that what it actually was was power lines moving past a yellowish street light. I rushed down stairs, feeling like a fool, and told the firemen there that I was mistaken and that it wasn't a cable on fire after all. I think they laughed and left shaking their heads about that crazy old guy who was seeing things. I won't say who it was that insisted I call the fire department but I will say that it was a cooperative effort.

Then we moved to Indianapolis and found we had a nice view out our window toward the west.
Perfect for watching sunsets. But for months I have been mystified by the appearance of some kind of a building in the distance. I thought at first it was a part of the Raytheon factory some distance west.
However, in the many times we drive past that plant I could not find anything looking like the "building" off in the distance from our window. Then last week it finally dawned on me: It wasn't a building after all. It was a large sign (or signs) on I -465 just past the rehab center to our west. Like the title above, I was fooled by what seemed to be something altogether different.

I apologize for the picture - it's not a problem with my eyes. Instead, the camera must have focused on the spots on the window. That's another story in itself but for now I'm trying to focus more clearly on the real stuff - not mirages.

Huh?

2012-01-27T12:04:00.001-05:00

Strange things happen around our house. Not ghosts as such - but mysterious noises and stuff hung on door handles.

Last night we heard a rattling at the door - perhaps like someone trying to slip a key in the lock and trying to open the door. At first I thought it was something on TV but we were watching a debate and who would be rattling during a debate. Maybe someone trying to get at anyone who would watch CNN for something political. Then I got up and looked out the little view window in the door to see if anyone was there. No one in sight -- maybe it WAS a ghost.

This morning I opened the door to get the morning paper and there it (or was it they?) was hanging on the door. The picture of the door above is what I found - a lovely string of pearls for Joyce and beads with an Air Force medallion for me.

We haven't figure out where they came from - nor have we figured out who the donor might be.. Maybe someone was giving a gift to give me some positive thoughts after my facial chemo was at it's worst. Or maybe someone has decided to celebrate an early Mardi Gras.

Well, guess I'll go check the mail and see if anyone has beads to flaunt. Meanwhile, thanks to our mystery visitor - we appreciate the gift.

Politics oops, I said that word!

2012-01-22T13:40:00.002-05:00

Usually, around our house, and even on the Internet, discussions about politics are a no-no -- and I respect other thoughts than mine. But I have a problem with today's politics in general.

My problem lies in what our leaders and candidates really are thinking of in their beliefs. I'm old-fashioned in a lot of ways -
and I am reminded of this more often than I like, but I don't want to apologize for how I think about our country. For instance, I look back at Harry Truman and realize that, though he may have made mistakes, he held fast in his beliefs and never 'passed the buck', instead he was decisive and history reminds us that he was right more often than wrong. I look back in history to Theodore Roosevelt, a president I have admired for a long time. With Theodore Roosevelt, the needs of the nation and the morality and accountability of leadership was paramount in his leadership.

I know there are a lot of people who do not like and maybe detest Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck, but the two books above (by them) have motivated and excited my thoughts about 'old-time-politics - something somewhat lacking in today's political world. I know, there are those in my family who are apt to say to me, 'the world is different,' and I must agree. But I think that we need to reconsider who we are as Americans, and what we expect as Americans. Just like the question of what to believe in the church: should the church change to conform with society or should the church hold fast to its traditional beliefs and try to lead society to a strong and consistent belief in the presence and power of God.

Both Washington and Lincoln lived in dreadful times but each of them, in many ways, stood fast in their priorities. Neither of them deviated from their belief in God's power, and belief in the United States Constitution. Each of them sacrificed much for the sake of our freedom and national potential. In many ways today's focus is on self aggrandizement, and secular and personal things. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt did not prioritize a give-away government - he came up with programs like the CCC and WPA that put people on a payroll. Yes, their salaries came from the government - but people did not live on handouts - there was dignity in earning what they got. Look at the legacies those programs offered us, and those results continue to this day.

I am sure that the books above may not appeal to everyone. But the fact of the matter is, we all need to deeply and sensitively consider what made our country great and what our national priorities are today. What sacrifices do we make that might parallel the sacrifices of Washington and Lincoln and the people of their times? Washington was not perfect (he admitted that) and surely I'm not - but Washington and Lincoln, in terrible times,
placed trust in God and did the best they could to mold a strong nation. And I've tried to do what I could in my lifetime.

Finally, the books must be good - they have been on the New York Times non-fiction best-seller list for quite some time. Beck and O'Reilly must have done something right - and I appreciate
their efforts. The big question is: 'Who among our leadership today offers the same commitment to what America stands for'?

Procrastination 2012

2012-01-15T16:57:00.000-05:00

Did you ever have a time when you knew you had something to do but just didn't have the initiative to do anything about it? You know, the old proverb, 'Don't do today what you can put off to next week?'

Like saying, I'll make make my New Year's resolutions someday.
Someday may be tomorrow, but then, again, it might not be until next December -- after all the political campaigning is over.

I guess I've been guilty of the doldrums since Christmas - a post-holiday letdown. Not quite depression but a lack of motivation for much of anything. I've done a lot of reading - Christmas brought a lot of new books and a really great DVD about religion in America - one of those six-episode specials from PBS. And the everpresent no-no -- candy, candy, and nuts surrounded by chocolate. Like I said, maybe it's just letdown after the busy times at Thanksgiving to Christmas.

Or maybe it's that we're beginning to experience a bit of winter for the first time this year. Or is it the first time since the end of summer? The skies are grey, there's been a lot of rain, and now a bit of snow and frigid weather.

Or, maybe it's just that I miss all the family - our children and grandchildren (and a great grandchild or three or four). I see other families coming together in family reunions and our family is scattered from coast to coast. The only way to experience family is through picture albums or videos, and memories. And those go way back in some cases, To my brother and his wife, or to my mom and dad who are long gone now. And to Joyce's family - and to a flock of friends we have known over the years.

But I also can walk into the bedroom and see the picture I have included above. Then I can look at each picture and say, 'Thanks for each and every memory' and wonder what memories we'll collect in the next 12 months.

Have great year yourself and keep in mind that every day that goes by it's a day closer to spring - and one day less of political campaigning.

We wish you a messy Christmas

2011-12-23T09:30:00.000-05:00

This is not the peak picture - it really topped off a couple of weeks later. But then it got cleaned up (somewhat) and now it's a problem again. Residuals from incoming packages - packing materials and more.

The story of my life, so the wife says. She has accused me of being a packrat, and maybe I am - but my redeeming explanation is that it is all important stuff - much too important to get rid of. Well, the picture does not include Christmas presents (that I can see) but it does include a lot of my life.

The red case in the foreground is a fishing tackle box that I use for artist supplies. Behind it is a stack of slide reels - one or two of the family - one or two of England - and a couple of the Holy Land and Egypt. On top of the box are several blank VHS tapes that I'll use 'someday' - except that now I'm using my computer to made DVD's and CD's

Behind that is a box with shoes on it - and in the box is 'stuff', literally translated to electronic cables and unidentified material that I may use someday. Maybe. Maybe not but I just don't want to get rid of because as sure as I do, I'll need it. Someday. Maybe.

Then there are shoes (a few of which may have memories of Florida ten years ago - there's a lot of sentiment there. In the foreground center and right are shoes - my bright white tennies from the VA that are worn to formal events. In the bookcase are a couple of sets of WEB Griffin books (Marine and Army, family history, an autographed Methodist hymnal from 1he 1986 General Conference in Baltimore, and Bibles and religious books that I will need when a Bishop decides I'm much too important to leave wilting on the vine. Oh, and I can't forget the mini-camcorder on the floor (an older one is hidden behind the foot of the bed)

On the right, almost hidden behind the door frame is more 'important stuff' - I'm not sure just what but I'll check one of these days to be sure it's okay.

Hanging up is clothes - some bordering on ancient - and I must admit that I finally disposed of a pair of blue jeans that go back to 1977 - or is that 1799?

And on the top shelf (nort in the picture is hats, Navy and cruise books, a miniature wood working tool kit, several old copies of 1940's Popular Mechanics, and every McDonnell Aircraft Product Support Digest magazine from the late 1960's to the late 1970's. Oh, and hidden in back are two boxes of correspondence that goes back into the 1950's and 1960'. Precious stuff I have to save for what ever I might need it for.

And that do;es not include the precious stuff in the storagne bin upstairs. Maybe someday I'll check that out too.

With all that said, I just want to say, 'Have a blessed and messy Christmas' Ho, Ho, Ho!!!

Thank you..........

2011-12-16T11:08:00.001-05:00

.....for all the years you've shared with me.

......for the times you graciously contended with my grumpiness when I came home from work after a bad day.

.....for contending with move after move when it might have been nicer to stay in one place for a while.

.....for going through birth pains five times - a situation no man can ever understand or experience.

.....for being both mother and father when I was off on overseas tours. And lots of other times as well.

.....for being patient when patience probably was hard to come by.

.....for thinking the same thing I was thinking of - maybe two minds working as one. So often in tune.

.....for being the perfect pastor's wife when it was me that got the call.

.....for the time I got a four hour notice to go aboard ship and you packed me up for whatever the duty meant. And not complaining.

.....for enduring one trailer after another.

.....for contending with my specialized kind of clutter when you so loved neatness.

.....for keeping me on the health track when I might have preferred to nutritionally cheat.

.....and for a zillion other things - large and small - you have done and been over all of these 58 years. Thank you from the bottom if my heart.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! With love - the old guy in the blue suit

Santas Boots

2011-12-09T12:56:00.001-05:00

Somebody said 'a boot is a boot'. I disagree - boots have personality.I know that mine have over the years.

For instance, when I was in elementary school I lived a mile out of town and it was quite a walk back and forth to school. No school bus for that school. Our usual winter apparel was blue jeans and plaid shirts and heavy coats, scarves\, gloves (or mittens) and stocking caps. On my feet were high-top boots with a pocket on the side of one to hold a knife. These were heavy, not well lined, so we would wear one or two hesvy socks. The knife in the boot pocket almost needed to be a Barlow unless wanted to be out of the Junior Macho group.I re member rubbing neatsfoot oil into my hightops so that they would (supposedly) be waterproof. It didn't always work. And the hightops almost always had leather-strip laces that almost never broke.

I used to hate galoshes - they kept the snow off your feet unless you had to go through big drifts or deep puddles of water. They were floppy and closed with clasps. Galoshes went on over shoes or boots and were clumsy and awkward. I'm not talking about British Wellingtons - could have waded in a creek with them. They were more practical as far as I was concerned - I hated galoshes when snow or water would come over the top and go down the boot insides and soak my feet and socks.

Then there were boon-dockers. Correction: there have been, are, and will always be boondockers When I was in the Air Force these were the issue work shoe and they were heavy and would make a sound when you walked. In basic training the Drill Sergeant would be after us continually to put a glossy shine not only on our black low quarter shoes but on the boondockers as well. Problem was, with the boondockers the rough side of the leather was on the outside and that made it almost impossible to get a really good shine on the boondockers. The Drill Sergeant took sadistic pleasure in reminding us that our boots were almost never as shiny as they should be.

I also had to wear steel-toed boots or work shoes when I worked in a machine shop. I was glad for these boots - the protective covers over my toes worked a number of times to save toes when I dropped steel bars on my feet. I put steel toed boots and safety glasses as two of the most important things I had to wear.

Then there are the red boots in the photo. I call them my 'Santa Boots' because they look like the kind of footwear that might have been appropriate at the north pole. They are Hush Puppies and I love them dearly. They became mine when Joyce and I left Florids after 17 years of warm weather living to move the the north land of Michigan. My church friends decided to provide us a roast before we left and in the process gave us all kinds of things they had hung onto when they migrated to sunny Florida. Most of these gifts were gag gifts and there was a lot of laughter during the presentation. One of the men gave me a beat-up pair of boondockers that looked as thought they had come from the Spanish-American War. But the tops and soles were great and all it took was a few licks of Boondocker Polish and new laces and they felt almost new. They lasted a good ten years before going to Goodwill industries, Not to be junked, but to go a few more years on someone elses redneck feet. The boots in the picture were a gift from a retired New York judge who thought he'd never need them in Florida. I polished them up - wore them a while - put new zippers and new soles on them - and they are among my favorites even today. I don't think that Judge Lee ever thought that they would last like they have but there are doing just fine - thank you - and I may be buried with my Santa boots on when the time comes for me to take my final journey way up north..

Like Nancy Sinatra sang, 'These boots were made for walking' and they bring back good memories..

I was surprised

2011-11-30T18:05:00.001-05:00

Back in the old days we didn't have mcrowave ovens. In fact, at one point we had an ancient wood-burner that worked just fine so long as I brought in enough firewood to keep it going. I know, it makes me sound old but not so old that we had to cook all our meals over an open fire in the fireplace. Maybe that makes me middle-aged. Anything to keep me from feeling ancient.

But we DID use the fireplace for one special thing - we popped corn over the open fire. Not Orville Redenbachers pop corn - but Jolly Time - which I think is still in the stores. We put the kernals in a good-size basket with steel screen, and the basket was mounted on the end of a long handle. The basket had a mesh lid which served to keep the pop corn from going all over the place when it popped. Then we held the popper over the coals or fire and watched the kernals expand and explode
in the basket. For a little guy like I was it was a handful to hold the popper long enough for all the corn to pop but when it was done it was wonderful served up in a big bowl saturated in real butter and a measure of salt. It seemed as though popcorn was always better in those days than it is now with convenient ready to pop packages right out o the microwave. Could it be that the open fire added something special?

Apart from great eating, we would use pop corn for making garlands for the Christmas tree. We'd get strong thread and needles and then string the corn on the thread. It took a lot of time to do this but, hey, there wasn't much to do what with television ten or twelve years away. Sometimes we came up with a different twist - we would use easter egg coloring to color the kernals different colors. It provided a bit of color and added a bit of variety. But the best thing of all with these garlands was when we interpersed the popcorn with firm ripe red cranberries. You had to sort them to be sure they lasted through the Christmas season. When the tree finally came down after Christmas we would remove the garlands and hang them on trees in the yard for the birds to eat.

I was surprised the other day when I found suggestions about popcorn and cranberry Christmas tree garlands on the internet. I thought things like that were long gone and it was nice to come up with a good memory of things I enjoyed as a little boy. Maybe there are a few people out there who share good memories of family projects that are fun to do and provide some essential family togetherness in a world where togetherness is often forgotten.

84

2011-11-12T09:41:00.001-05:00

Who would have thought the monkey in hand would last 84 years?

But then, again, who would have thought that I would have lasted so long? It looks a bit grotesque and I can't figure out the pose, but maybe it had something to do with the rickets I was supposed to have had at very early age.

I was thinking this morning - thinking about all the birthdays that have passed since November 12, 1927. I don't remember this picture ever being taken but it is one of those that seems to emerge when you least expect it. Like the one where I was proudly looking into the camera lens with diapers at half mast. I hated that picture because it always seemed to come out of the archives just in time to be shown to some person I least wanted to see it. And our children - at least certain of them - seemed to gloat that they had put one over on the old man. By the way, I haven't seen THAT picture in quite some time - maybe it has found some blessed file thirteen along the way.

But when I look back over the past 84 years, I realize that lot of history hasa been made in my lifetime. People like FDR, and Harry Truman, and Ike, and JFK and Nixon and Clinton and the Bush's. Events like the great Depression, World War Two,radio and television, the Korean conflict, Vietnam, the protests of the sixties, the Space Race, atomic energy, Iraq and Afghanistan along with a whole flock of good or tormenting events throughout the world.

Then I think of all the jobs - large and small - that I've had. A Tydol/Veedol grease monkey - helping build a freezer locker plant - pitching hay - shoveling manure - newspapers - radio - machinist and draftsman - Air Force - aerospace engineer - preacher - teacher - travel agent and more. It reminds me of an interview where an interviewer, who had read my resume, asked if I thought I had found my niche in life. Maybe, maybe not - who knows?

I think of all the valleys I've gone through - and the mountains I've climbed. I think of love lost and love gained - of a wonderful wife who has traveled through life with me for all these years - and our children who no longer are kids but grown adults with lives and families of their own. I have memories of times not so good - and times of great joy. A lot of it is wrapped in in photos and videos and blogs and newspaper columns most of which are buried in boxes that probably will be unloaded after I'm gone. But memories can be treasures. Like when our middle daughter Amy and friends dressed up for Hallowe'en as a string quartet. Or when our eldest daughter Linda was the cause of a public relations situation in Colorado. Or when we took Linda to college and I realized the at-home family was shrinking for the first time.Or when Jeff left for the Navy. Or Greg went west or when Lisa won her nursing pin.

Memories - we've all got them - and we treasure them more and more as the years pile. They help us grow and for most of us, they help us mellow.

As for me, the best birthday is the 84th - today. It opens the door to tomorrow, and it gives cause to remembering special times - like when I turned 18 and got my first notice about being drafted for the Army. I wasn't drafted but I remember the induction center with its marble benches and the inductees were pretty much bare naked. So, like I say, treasure your memories and thrive for tomorrow. Remember: the best birthday of all is when you wake up in the morning, put your feet on the floor, look in the mirror, and thank the Lord for another day and another opportunity at life.

Friends Forever

2011-11-06T17:15:00.001-05:00

Have you ever stopped to think of people you knew when you were young? Special friends? Classmates, perhaps?

Back in 1980 my high school class celebrated 35 years since graduation. Though we were living in Indiana, we decided to go back to New York for the occasion. My first experience when I walked in the door of the restaurant where the reunion was being held was seeing a couple of "classmates" sitting at the bar and one of them commented that the celebration was in a back room and she pointed to the door. She made some comment about my being the photographer from the local paper - after all, I was laden down with camera gear. Obviously, she didn't put my 1980 grey hair within the class and, certainly, had no idea who the good-looking lady with me was.

Inside the dining room it was not unexpected that people had changed - some I could recognize despite changes in weight, hair color, and so forth, but like so many reunions, those of us from out of town had little in common with those who still livd in the home town.. After all, we hadn't seen each other for 35 years. People I remember as 'best friends' were just interesting people exchanging stories about what they had done, and pictures of children and even a few grandchildren. So often it works like that - the ones we described as 'best friends for life' may not be anymore. Oh, on occasion I might have run into a classmate in later years - one of my classmates retired near us in Florid and we still e-mail back and forth at times.

But this weekend Joyce and I drove up to Detroit from Indianapolis to attend a memorial service

for the wife of one of her brothers. It struck me that our friendship with Jim and Sandra has lasted over many years. When Joyce and I were talking about getting married we got together with Jim and Sandy to get their advice on marriage. After all, he had been in the Air Force, and they had been married a year or so, and they were experts on married life in the service. Right? Then, when it came time for the wedding,we had a problem finding a church and minister and so Sandy interceded and steered us to her church and pastor. I don't know what we would have done without them.

The years passed - we went our way, they went theirs but somehow, one way or another our lives seemed to intertwine. In 2002 we went back to Michigan for a family reunion with Joyce's sisters and brothers and she suddenly realized it had been 50 years apart, for the most part, from her family.This led to our move back to Michigan and Jim and Sandy were right in the middle of that. They had bought a home on a former Air Force base, and we ended up buying one close to them. And so 'best friends' were reunited. The years In Oscoda were rich ones - we had great times together.

Then Sandra came down sick. She struggled with poor health for quite some time and eventually she and Jim moved to Bay City to be with their daughter and closer to their doctors and medical centers. In the meantime, Joyce and I moved to Indianapolis to be close to our youngest daughter, Lisa, who is a nurse. My health problems cleared up - Sandra's got worse. Her problem turned out to be cancer and she eventually passed away not long ago.

And that was why we went to Detroit - to go to her memorial service. It was a time of great reflection of how her life impacted in good ways upon our lives. She was a really good person -

a very special person who contended with some tough things in life with grace and love. Especially relating to her family.

Most of all, Joyce, especially, can look back even to her teen years like the photo above (Joyce on the left, Sandra on the right) and testify that there, indeed CAN be friends forever - one's you can remember with love for all the years that friendship lasted.

My Dad Never Knew....

2011-10-31T20:03:00.000-04:00

.....at least he never said anything to me about it. It was Hallowe'en, 1944. I was sixteeen - a classic teenager - andI had gotten my driver's license a few months before. To make matters worse, I had the night off from my movie projectionist job, which in aftertought would have been better for me to have been involved with.

Hallowe'en was big time stuff in our town. Art students from high school entered a contest involving art work on store windows. A requirement was a parade. Our town loved parades and of course parades involve the high school band. After all, the little ones in their costumes needed music to prance to. And
I was in the band. A dozen or so musicians and I played the cymbols. Holmes Hutchinson played the bass drum and Corky Hover played the snare drums. I mention these participants because they went far beyond the call of duty.

One the parade was over we headed back to where the band had formed. There, nosed in to the curb, was my father's trusty 1940 Studebaker Champion four door sedan. Suddenly "we" (I'm really not sure whose idea it was) decided that we would load the car with as many as we could - with as many band members included - AND INSTRUMENTS - and drive down Main Street to provide a second parade concert. Ready to go, with people in and outside the car, we made our way back to Main Street which meanwhile had been blocked off. Nothing ventured nothing gained, I always have said and so we drove around the sawhorses that blocked the street and created the most awful sounds you ever heard as we drove down the street a little faster the normal. Once past downtown we all had a big laugh as we parked the car and went about the normal trick or treat activities with a major focuc on upending outhouses (yes, even in town there were some outhouses waiting to be tipped over - hopefully with one more more occupants in them. All told, we felt like it had been a great evening of ghosts, goblins, and devious teenagers. We all went home tired but elated at the evenings activities.

But wait just a moment - it's not over yet. At scholl the next morning the public address system sounded of asking that certain members of the band needed to check in with the principal - and the sooner bthe better. Once gathered in the office, we were told that our presence was requested at the railroad station immediately if not sooner. This was not a good sign - the mayor of the town was one of the honchos at the station. With a certsin sense of forboding, we drove cautiously, legally to the station where we were greeted by the mayor ---- and the chief of police. The lecture seemed more directly aimed at me than at the others but we all stood there shaking in our boots. It appeard we had accomlished not just one or two infractions - but a bucketful - disturbing the peace, speeding, driving through a barricade the wrong way on a one way street and a few other charges I can't remember. Or don't want to.

With his wrath winding down, and with our apprehension growing, the mayor tuned to me and said that my father was a good man. I nodded in agreement. My dad was in the army and it was wartime and the mayor finally said he could throw the book at me. It was serious enough that I (or we) could get acquainted with a jail cell down at Tracy Hall. The chief of police nodded as though he or one of his deputies would be happy to provide us accommodations for the rest of our lives.

But then the mayor said, "I'm not going to tell your fathers - but do something like this again and it will not go easy on you." Chastened, we went back to school thinking that every classmate knew what we faced and we did not mess around on the streets - or even in school for some thime therafter. Interestingly, thr mayor dsaid nothing about the outhouses.

Ad as I said, I don;t think my dad ver heard the story - but now, with him heaven, I suspect he is shaking his head and saying, "What else was that boy up to that I wasn't aware of?"

By the way, in later years I got to be great friends with both the chief of police and the mayor.
Until they looked at each other, grinned, and asked, "Remember that Hallowe'en night in '44?
And I would cringe..

Mercy, Mercy, Nursey, Nursey

2011-10-24T19:15:00.000-04:00

What does a nurse do when she gets sick? More specifically, what does a nurse who contends with asthma do when the autumn season brings on allergies beyond belief. Enough that she calls her parents to announce that the people in Urgent Care believe she should go to the hospital emergency room to see what can be done about a horrible headache, sweating, and the shakes - all of which apparently turned out to be a reaction to prescribed medication.

She's not the only one in the family who reacts to medications. Most of our children - now grown adults - have tough times when having to contend with medication. Not only them, but Joyce has unbelievable difficulty with anesthesia. I seem to be the only one who doesn't seem to react to medication (for the most part) although I had a bad scene with Percoset one time - terrible itching and it challenged me one time so that I got dizzy and fell out a bus door right square on my face.

So last night was one of the really bad times for our nurse daughter. Ordinarily she's the one who is always there with good advice and a caring nature. But this time we have discovered that she needs care, attention, and love at times herself. Independent as she is about a lot of things, this time she has felt bad enough that she has accepted parental support and encouragement willingly. And she has accepted the fact that some medicine does not settle well. To make matters worse, she is a lot happier when she can work with her job of home care for homebound patients. She needs to work, and wants to work, but where is that dividing line where she is well enough to attend to other people.

I have a special spot in my heart for nurses - especially those in places like emergency rooms.They never really know what they will face next - nor what kind patients they will work with. Having seen some of the best of medical situations - and some of the worst, I want to award my heroine of the week award to nurses - especially those who might end up caring for other nurses or doctors who sometimes know enough about symptoms that they may contest their care provider's diagnosis. I was particular proud of Lisa last night in the emergency room because she had a "yes, ma'am' attitude through the whole thing. But when one feels as badly as she did last night there's not much option.

She went home last night after some corrective medication, and she has done a bit better today -
but isn't past it completely. She may be right - it may take the first covering snowfall to get rid of allergens and pollen and all that nasty stuff. I can't say I'm eager to see snow but if it makes her feel well again, it winter can't come soon enough.
'

Some Things Never Change

2011-10-17T14:53:00.001-04:00

Sometimes it takes a grandchild to make me think.

Not about campus parties, or academic achievements, or scholarship funds. Sometimes it is no morw than a book that Granddaughter Jill shared with me. A really thought provoking book entitled "Riding the Rails."

Shortly after I graduated from high school I got a job on a weekly newspaper. Early on my primatry task was editing gossip columns from small communities surrounding the home town of the newspaper.
As time passed I graduated to photographer, and sports editor, and eventually to writing feature articles.
One of my assignments had to do; with a hobo from the 1920's and '30's. Because the town I worked in was a major raailroad center at the time, it was an ideal location for hobos to congregate or switch trains. We had the Rutland Railroad to the north, Boston and Albany east and west, and the Harlem Division of the new York Central System south to New York City. Along with the migration of hobos were souvenirs they left behind. For instance, my news paper assignment was to photograph the unique initils on one particular hobo that had left his 'mark' on a grade crossing shack of the Rutland down the street from the paper. It turned out that his mark had been found in thirty-some states.

But there were other marks left by hobos. We've included a picture of some of these which indicated conditions other hobos might find in a town they stopped at. Some of the signs offered hope fo the wanderer - other reflected warnings. It all went together to remind us that hoboism was not an individual life - it was very much a community efoort where, in many cases, they helped one another in whatever ways they could.

The book I'm reading looks at transient life in a different way. I remember seeing adult hobos hirtching rides on trains when I was young. I remember my mother and grandmother warning me of "tramps" that might come to the back door. There was a fear that hobos would take off with young people, much like fear of gypsies.

However, I never syopped to think that young kids - even pre-teens - left homes to go on their own. Sometimes it was because families "couldn't afford' the children. Other times children and gteens escaped abusive home environments.It wasn't just a few - It was estimted, in 1935, that there were as many as 250,000 so-called 'wild boys' either hitch-hiking on the highways, or riding the rails, in, on, and on top, of railway boxcars. Some just followed wanderlust - other sought any kind of work in the desperate Great Depression years. It was estimated by the Interstate Commerce Commission that, in the single year of 1932, almost six thousand so-called trespassers were killed when riding, or trying to ride, on railroads. Of these well over 1,500 were youth under 21.

Things have changed a lot since he Great Depression. But the tragedy of the homesless continues ever today.Their modes of transporation may have changed, but the tragedy of poverty or homelessness continues. Our to picture reflects the concerns of an organization in Florida. The fact of the matter is, homelessness and 21st Century hoboism, if I can call it that, continues and probably always will be there, perhaps amplified by the challenges of today's economy. It's tragic to say the least..

Where's Flo?

2011-10-14T09:02:00.000-04:00

Maybe you've seen it - an advertisement by Flo's favorite insurance company. I found this one in Popular Mechanics and I saw a couple of different ads like it in a doctor's waiting room. The thought was the same: in every ad you were asked to see if you could pick out Flo from a picture of a large crowd. Try as best I could, I never found her and I venture you might have a problem yourself.

It's something like a 'Where's Waldo' event within our family circle this past week. Our grandson Keith is in the Army and he was granted a leave to come home for a while from a deployment in Afghanistan. Nobody seemed to know when he was to leave and when he DID leave where he was. So, we watched a bunch of exchanges on Facebook asking 'where's Waldo?', or more accurately, 'Where's Bubba?'

Well, Keith finally showed up in Dallas, Texas and eventually got home to the Seattle area a few hours later. It took him three days to make it back from Afghanistan. I hope those three days were not chargeable to leave - and I hope the time going back is not chargeable either - that would make for a short visit home.

More personally, it's like my closet. The closet that Joyce would like to empty out. Or even more, the workshop I used to have. She'd ask when I was going to get rid of some of that 'stuff' and I'd say, 'One never knows when you might need that piece of wire, or when that old battered knob would fit on a door.' Now that I think of it, why did I keep the old hard drive from a computer that died years ago? It's just the old idea that someday that may have a use - but keeping a hard drive that doesn't work - or whatever?

Or the 'man thing' when I come into the living room and ask if Joyce knows where an object is. 'It's probably in the storeroom,' she suggests. But where? What box is it in? Or could it have been left somewhere we used to live? Or could it have been thrown out? Or sold in a yard sale? (Our children are still talking about a yard sale over thirty years ago where they say I was willing to sell anything or everything for a price - maybe including pets or kids.)

So, a year after our last move I still play 'Where's Flo', or 'Where's Waldo" from time to time. And like the picture above, where I couldn't find Flo, there are still things around the house that I can't find.

And is it even important anymore?

Well, as far as Bubba is concerned, it was worth the wait to know he was back in civilization and that he was no longer lost in the crowd. Some treasures pop up eventually and the make the finding a special event.

Last Rites

2011-10-08T15:43:00.001-04:00

I'm going through a loss in the family. A death if you want to call it that. Or maybe a partial death.

My trusty computer began to exhibit some strange quirks a few weeks ago and it proceeded to get worse.
To begin with, it began to feel a bit warm to the left of the touch pad. Then it would sign itself off of its own accord right in the middle of some procedure. Finally, the screen would come on and then go blank and eventually (finally finally) the screen wouldn't come on at all. My favorite computer guru pronounced that the computer had an incurable malady and there fore it was time for last rites on that one and off to the computer store for a new one with all the upgraded goodies. Not only am I trying to get used to the new programs and operating system, I have been struggling to transfer what I can of material from the old computer to the new one. I'm not done in that department and I expect to hav it all done by 2014. if the wind is in my favor. And to top all of that, the new confuser has a different keyboard which is an interesting experience for someone who types with two or three fingers and two thumbs.

I got to thinking about my experience with computers. I started with a Radio Shack TRS-something or other
back in 1983. I can't remember whether its capacity was in kb's or mb's but I'm sure in was kilo's - not much memory but enough that I could learn programming in Basic. Plus, it used a small cassette recorder.
A year or so later I was transferred and that church had early Apple computers - not Macintosh but enough that I could write stuff with it.(I looked at Macs, but they were too much for my wallet)

When we moved to Winter Park, Florida, the Chairman of the Trustees (through the church) gave me an early PC computer with twenty megs of memory. He claimed that it would simplify my writing and I found that it shortened to time to edit stuff I wrote and I went through a true computer conversion experience. As the years passed I climbed the computer ladder - my first Windows unit, to Windows 95 and 98, eventually to Windows XP an now Windows seven. With each upgrade the computer memory capacity made quantum leaps and so in thirty years my memory capacity has gone from 30 or so KB through a couple hundred of so Megabytes on up to 150 gigabytes and now its almost 500 gigabytes (whatever gigabytes are) Too bad my brain memory system has been downgraded every time the computer memory went up - it isn't fun to get old.

They say that one can always learn something new - and I'm working at that. Meanwhile, you can notice in the picture that my touch pad was well-worn. But there are enough good parts (I think) in the oldtimer to keep Joyce's identical computer going for a while. At least I hope so.

Fall Again

2011-10-01T14:16:00.006-04:00

We just got back from a quick trip up north to Michigan and we discovered that it is fall up there where it is ALMOST fall here in Indy. Not quite peak color where we were, but enough to remind us that summer has pretty well given up for this year.

We left Indianapolis at around 11 am last Monday and got to Tawas City on the shores of Lake Huron around five in the afternoon. In the process we checked our gas mileage and found that it took 342 miles to Bay City and it took 10 1/2 gallons of gas to top the car off. Figured out to almost 33 miles to the gallon. Love that Dodge Caliber. They can say what the want about all the other cars but that Caliber (bought in 2008) was great before all the rest of the economy cars started tooting their horns.

Had a nice visit with one of Joyce's sisters and her husband - they were in the process of packing up for a move back down to the Detroit area. Thay.like us, have a lot of mixed emotions about leaving the northland. It's a really beautiful area and very peaceful. Living in Oscoda was life ath its best. However, as the years piled up, I guess we all found it to be more condusive to good health to be closer much closer to civilization, and in my case, closer to medical care. Not that it wasn't adequate 'upnorth', but a lot of times we had to drive 75 miles or more for significant and specialized care. So, I love the convenience of the city, but I also loved country living and country folk when we were up there. As you can see from some of the photos, it's beautiful country, a great place to enjoy the best things nature has to offer.

One thing we did was to walk down well over 300 steps to see the shoreline of Foote Pond and Iargo Springs. It's a beautiful spot - I had been down there a few years ago. But this time Joyce could go down with me (her knee replacements made this possible)). She loved it as much as I did except that both of us came to the conclusion that it may have been 300 or so steps down but it felt like 700 or more coming back up. If anybody ever wants a natural stress test, that's the way to do it. And at our ages we were amazed not to have any aches and pains when we got done.

I hope you enjoy these pictures. They don't do justice to what they call "Pure Michigan". Try a trip 'up north'sometime - you'll like it there.

Meanwhile, I don't want to sell Indiana short either. We went to Brown County State Park yesterday and it is beautiful as well. And before I get a reminder from our Seattle area son,

I want to remind the world that the State of Washington is fantastic as well. So is Oregon - and Nevada - and Colorado. Yep - I guess there is beauty all over - if you only take the time to look around you.

Bobby Took Us to the Pour House!

2011-09-18T15:17:00.003-04:00

And you thought we had gone to the poor house? Not quite yet, but life is more and more challenging for us as anyone else. I think of the Poor House and am reminded of the old folks home in Ghent, New York. It was where aged without families or resources would go years ago. There probably a lot of those years ago and I felt sad about the one in Ghent on one hand, but felt comforted that those people had somewhere they could call home. But getting back to the subject of this blog, note that we went, not to the poor house - but the POUR house. As in Cambridge City, Indiana. A nice place for a good cup of coffee, a great sandwich, and super fudge.

As a diabetic, I should avoid the word fudge but, hey, fudge is good no matter how you spell it or say it,like, "Ohhhhh,........fudge!"

Bobby is our worthy tour leader at church and she is driver, navigator and whatever else she does to keep her passengers happy. A few weeks I talked about our trip to Delphi, Indiana, and this trip took us east, almost to Richmond along the old National Road, otherewise known as US-40. Cambridge City is known for its antique shops and it has a great history. The picture of a sign above talks about the Overbeck family of artists and sculptors who were famed in the artworld. Near Cambridge City is the Huddleston House, built in 1839 ( now a museum) and in great shape. In Greenfield are great memories of poet James Whitcomb Riley.

And sharp-eyed Joyce saw a Studebaker sign between Greenfield and Indianapolis. One of the great cars though Joyce did not like my 1950 Studebaker Commander because it was black, but the sign piqued my interest to the point that later we drove back and found it was an outlet for parts and memorabilia of this famous auto and truck manufacturer long gone but not forgotten. You may even find a Studebaker sticker on my Dodge Caliber, not that I don't love my Caliber but memories reign supreme in the hearts of some of us old guys.

At any rate, it was a fun trip and I'm grateful for Bobby's efforts to put trips like this together, and for the 'Ancient Mariners' group that fill the bus each trip. Now, we look forward to a Brown County trip later this week and we'll report on that later.

The March of Time

2011-09-13T14:18:00.003-04:00

The two pictures are of the same spot. The bottom one is the 'before' picture; the top one is the 'after' view of the same location. They were taken 25 years apart.

Maybe the same think has happened in your neighborhood. Joyce has reflected on the same kind of thing where she grew up. Before World War Two her street was out in the country. After the war the whole area blossomed with homes and today Detroit's suburbs have moved quite some distance west.

It so happens that the pictures I've used are of Elmont, Long Island New York. In the 1930's it was a quiet rural suburb of New York City. Some 120 families live on and worked the farms. I remember going with my father out to Long Island and seeing all the farms. Once in a while we would stop and watch the airplanes flying in and out of Roosevelt Field, from which Lindbergh departed on his historic flight to Europe. To get to Long Island we would ride a ferry from New Rochelle, New York across Long Island Sound to Port Washington.

Twenty five years after the 'before' picture, parkways and Interstates were built as well as some beautiful bridges. The door had been opened to new 'settlers' and Elmont had changed from a farming community to a 24,000 community. In fact, it became wall-to-wall residential communities close to New Yorks major airport, first known as Idlewilde Airport and what is now know as JFK airport.

The world just marches on - growing and populations increase as well. So, if we have any thought that things will never change, they are never true around cities. There are a lot of rural areas - scenic areas - that continue to exist. But as I said, time just marches on and you never know what tomorrow and the tomorrows years from now will look like. But it is fun to look back in history and think of what used to be.

"So Round So Firm So Fully Packed.....

2011-09-04T10:32:00.004-04:00

.....That's my Girl" was the name of a country music top seller a lot of years ago.

However, So Round So Firm So Fully packed also describes an object in our refrigerator. Well. half of it anyway. It has to be the biggest cantaloupe I have ever seen. Fact is, when I weighed the remaining half this morning it weighed five and a half pounds so when it was new and fully intact I presume it weighed at least ten pounds, maybe more. About like a bowling ball.

A few weeks ago I mentioned how much I love watermelon. Believe it or not, this critter was as big as a small watermelon - I don't mean one of those puny little watermelons - I mean a small full-size watermelon. I never knew cantaloupes (or whatever is the one in the picture) could be so big - but it is/was good. There was some concern by my beloved that it might not be good because it was so big but it was the sweetest melon this side of Chicago. Well, maybe even this side of Tucson, Arizona. After having been accused of taking the biggest melon on the shelf, I was very much relieved that it was perfect eating.

A long time ago -back in the mid-1950's - we had another experience with melons. It was either in Sacramento, California or Tucson, Arizona (we moved so often in those days that some events tend to congeal) that we saw a fruit stand along the highway. They had cantaloupes as well - priced at ten for a dollar. But they were small and nowhere near as tasty as our Indiana prize. And yes, this came from a roadside fruit stand as well. It cost a bit more (three dollars) but it may well have weighed as much as the gross weight of the ten we got in the '50's. So, all you folks who live in crowded cities, or areas that don't have cantaloupe ranches or farms or whatever, eat your hearts out while we eat some of the best cantaloupe this side of heaven.

Hot as it may have been (or is) in Indiana, I'll accept the heat along with the great fruit and veggies we enjoyed this year.

Upper Room Thought for the Day

2011-08-29T11:08:00.001-04:00

One of my Favorite Pictures....

2011-08-24T10:06:00.002-04:00

....but it's not one of our children. It was a little girl at company Christmas party for Salvation Army children. And yes, it's me in the background hoping she won't damage the flight control simulator.

I really enjoyed working for McDonnell Aircraft un the days before mergers. Although my clock number was 95702, it didn't seem as if I was working for a large company. The head of the company, J.S. McDonnell, would come over the public address system with pep talks preceded with raps on the microphone and his call, "This is Mac, this is Mac, calling all the teammates." And that was how we felt - part of a team - part of a 'family' of workers, proud of our products and proud of our company. They even had annual company picnics at Blanchette Park in St. Charles, across the Missouri River from the St. Louis airport where the factory was located.

McDonnell Aircraft had all kinds of outreach prograns in the St. Louis area. It was a company that cared for the city it grew up in. The planetarium in Forest Park

was named after J.S. McDonnell. All over the city of St. Louis are things reflecting the generosity of the company. It was a day when there was a personal touch to a Company image - a caring touch that impacted many people.

So it was at Christmas when children were invited to share the Christmas spirit.

Our department hosted a number of children from a less-priviledged life style. The little girl above was one of our guests andit is evident that she is getting a thrill from 'flying' a flight control trainer in the departmental training department. I love the expression on her face. And I was glad to be a part of bringing joy into a young persons life.

I don't think the company atmosphere was ever the same after the merger with Douglas Aircraft. It was more like becoming a corporate number instead of part of a company family. Like so many things, the 'family' atmosphere in industry seems to have disappeared. Maybe it has never been there and it seemed that way just to me. Maybe automation, robots, and labor unrest has replaced old-time industrial pride, but I like to remember a time when a company seemed to care about its community and its employees, and employees were proud of who they worked for. Some of the old time things were not so bad.

Clip Joint - circa 1962

2011-08-17T15:38:00.002-04:00

I've had a lot of jobs but the one I've not talked about much was as a barber. I know, the barber's Union may come down hard on me for being a non-union scab, and the Commonweath of Virginia may act retroactively on my non-licensed activities. Or maybe the statute of limitations may have run out since it was a long time ago.

However, the more likely reaction may be a protest from the subject getting the haircut. But maybe he'll appreciate the generous crop of hair being displaced to the ground at the time.

For myself, I'd be pretty well off if I had charged today's going rate for haircuts. But those were days when a penny or three counted and any old way we could save was the way to go. I only had one style of haircut and that was a buzz cut or crew cut. Just whack it off with different cutter heads and say, "well, that's another few dollars saved."

I was in a big department the other day with my good half and mentioned that maybe we might buy a clipper with a variety of heads and she could cut my hair. She gave me one of those looks a wife sometimes gives a husband when he comes up with a far-out idea, and said, "I don't think so." I neglected to say I might pay her to do it - maybe the reaction would have been different.

I think she likes my silver locks the way they are and the way Carolyn does the haircut. Yes, I use a lady barber - a no-no in the old days. After all, the barber shop was a man's stronghold years ago - one of those places a lady never set foot in. Now I may be getting along in years, but I am young enough that I never saw a Police Gazette there and it was too soon for Playboy. But times have changed, and so have some barber shops, and so have the two figures in the picture above. But I won't complain if he won't.

Old Navy

2011-08-10T09:24:00.003-04:00

"Old Navy" is a correct description of the vessels above - they go back some 70 years - back, in fact, to World War Two or before. They are models of actual U.S. Navy ships, like the cruiser Portland and destroyers Sampson, Jouett, and Davis.

Before the war started I got the idea of making a scale model of every ship in the active Navy. Using an ancient copy of Janes Fighting Ships (the authoritive book listing all Navy ships of the world) I began to make small models of active ships.
Using small pieces of balsa, at a scale of 100 feet to the inch, I crudely shaped the hulls and super structures. Guns were formed with magnet wire, and the vessels were, for the most part, painted with water soluble poster colors. A scale model of the battleship North Carolina is in the set but it is battered with it's superstructure pretty well gone because it was too high for the box it was in.

I don't know what got me off on this project - I think I saw some models made by a neighbor's son who was a student at Annapolis. Also, I often got caught up in the enthusiam a lot of teen agers had about the Navy in the late thirties and early forties. I even tried to join the Navy during the war but was rejected because I was too young (my father was not happy at all about this ill-fated attempt which involved playing hookie from school).

Anyway, this little box of models has somehow survived all our moves and is a reminder of an early-age passion. So has a copy of the 1942 edition of "Janes all the world Fighting Ships" that provided dimensions and outlines of the ship models.
Not all the ship models survived - among the missing is a very complex model of the first aircraft carrier "Langley". However, I'm happy the small number that HAVE survived are still around - they remain a memory of creative times and of a teen-agers love of the Navy. Now that I think of it, my life has involved the Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy at one time or another. Not many people can claim that and no one has this many ships that are long gone but not forgotten by the men who sailed aboard them

On a slow boat....

2011-08-02T09:45:00.003-04:00

Six miles an hour in fact. 48 miles in 8 hours. Compare that with an average of about 520 miles in eight hours on an Interstate highway. To be sure, we've come a long way since the days of canal boats.

We took a short journey (an hour and a half or so) north from Indianapolis the other day to the lovely town of Delphi. An hour and half, that is, by church bus which would have, by my calculation, have taken almost 14 hours by canal boat if there had been a canal directly from Indianapolis to Delphi.

In the mid-1800's the Wabash and Erie Canal was an example of the highest technology of the time. it went from Toledo, Ohio on Lake Erie to the Wabash River and Evansville, Indiana on the Ohio River and involved 468 miles. Until the advent of railroads, the canal, second longest in the western hemisphere, was a major contributor to the growth of the midwest. Delphi has made the canal a focus for tourism in Indiana and they have done a magnificent job in doing it. There are museums, restored buildings from the 19th century, and artisans plying trades of the time. We rode the 'Delphi', a replica canal boat and it was a peaceful experience. But we wondered what it would have been like with a full passenger list for an extended time. And we didn't see any restrooms - and neglected to ask what one did at a 'necessary moment' on the cruise.

In the center of Delphi we found a typical traditional Indiana town - the kind we love to visit. We ate at a hometown restaurant in a building which had once been a thriving bar with a brothel upstairs. And there were a number of folks going up and down stairs - hopefully to a second-floor dining room.

All in all, a really nice day in a nice town. I'd like to think we all would find joy and peace in visiting local communities and learning about their unique contributions to the history of our country. All to often we're in a rush to get from here to there on the Interstates and ignore the treasures we pass by in the process. Take a little time to slow down - and enjoy the moment.

I Can See Clearly....

2011-07-26T19:29:00.005-04:00

....but I couldn't see very clearly in March of 1954. At least in North Texas. We experienced a dust storm similar to the one in Phoenix a week or so ago as recorded in the photos above. It was not a pleasant experience.

We were on our way from Chanute AFB in central Illinois to McClellan AFB in Sacramento, California. The first couple or three days before had been clear and pleasant but then as we left Oklahoma in to the Panhandle of Texas the skies got dark and the wind picked up significantly. Just east of Shamrock, Texas visibility got extremely limited - we could hardly see the road ahead - and we decided to get into a motel in Shamrock. It was virtually a miracle that we saw a motel sign through the dust and we pulled in and was able to get a room with a carport. The folks in the motel said there was a good steakhouse across the road (we couldn't see it through the dust) but we dared to cross the road and found the restaurant.

After dinner we went out to find visibility much worse but somehow we found the motel and a night's reast.

The next morning we found dust had seeped through windows and doors and when we checked out the car in the carport we found that dust had gotten through every crevisse and was piled up in the car and engine compartment. But the storm had passed and the sun was out and the day was beautiful.

A day or so later we had a few problems with the car engine and the carbureter air cleaner was choked with dust and sand. With a good cleaning of the engine area and a new air filter the engine ran as good as new. We now knew what people in the midwest and plains states had experienced during the dustbowl days of the 1930's.

Later we teamed up with some other people who had been assigned in that area and they talked about how dust storms took the paint right off their cars. Nasty things, dust storms - so we can relate to the folks in Phoenix a little while ago.

I've experienced similar things like fog banks and smog. Fog was a big problem in Canada when I would drive back and forth between Niagara Falls and Detrot.

All I could do was use the center line on the road to guide the way. And there was smog in Los Angeles - I remember walking down Firestone Boulevard in Downey and having people call from cars on the street I couldn't see to ask what the cross street was (For instance, Paramount). Fog - smog - dust storms - all nasty things that make highway travel treacherous. And so my sympathy to the folks in Arizona in their latest attack by dust. And sympathy to our troops in the middle east who contend with it more often that we do.

Just a dream or two away.....

2011-07-20T14:04:00.002-04:00

In some ways I've always been a dreamer. I've dreamed of far away places. In the third grade I dreamed that I would marry my teacher and was sorely disappointed when she upped and married someone else nearer her age. I had dreams at one point of becoming a forest ranger or a geologist. I guess the dreams go on as I sometimes have vivid dreams at night even now. Could it be pills I take?

The other day I looked back at my Class of 1945 graduation yearbook and found that my hope for the future was in motion picture work. Not as a performer - I was too introverted for that, thus there was no specific goal. But I do remember that I was enthralled with the possibility of working at Radio City Music Hall in New York - as a projectionist.

In my sophomore year of high school I landed an unpaying job as a rewind boy in the post theater at West Point, New York. I had done a bit of projection work in school using 16mm Bell and Howell classroom projectors. But when I went into the projection room at the post theater I could not believe the size of the Super Simplex E-7 machines they used. They answered a question I had carried for years - 'How did the Wizard of Oz movie change from sepia tone to color when Dorothy landed in Oz?' Simply a reel change from one projector to another. I hadn't realized it took two projectors to run a continuous movie. In time the assigned sergeants who ran the movies began to teach me how to operate the machines - how to thread the film - how to make 'changeovers' from projector to projector - how to maintain a brilliant arc light - how to cue up reels for smooth changeovers.

Eventually we moved back home and, while in high school, I filled in for the normal projectionist who was off fighting a war. These projectors were a smaller version of the big E-7's but they worked the same way and for the better part of two years I enjoyed filling the big screen with some of the best movies of the mid-forties. I loved the job and the money was good for that time in history - 75 cents an hour. But eventually all things come to end and when 'Diddy" came back from the war, he got his old job back and I was on the streets hunting new work. But I had been so deep into theater work when I graduated it was my dream to project movies for the rest of my life - hopefully ending up in the theater of all theaters, Radio City Music Hall (see picture above).

Well, it never happened - I did, however work a couple of weeks for RKO Radio Pictures in their Albany film exchange. It was extremely hard work and I was just a little feller, and was not eager to throw heavy cans of film around every day. So, I ended up going in different directions.

But, you know, what goes around comes around. Thus in later years I got deeply involved in home video. Eventually I even produced video programs for cable TV systems and a number of promotional travel videos for a Christian travel company I worked for. I loved motion picture and video work, and still enjoy making and editing movies. Nothing worth Radio City Hall, yet fulfilling a graduation prophecy of motion picture work. I guess some dreams do come true. And that is good.

It's a rough life....

2011-07-13T10:34:00.003-04:00

.....but somebody has to live it. Senior Apartment living, that is.

When I was in grade and high school there was a County old folks home a few miles from where I lived. A lot of elderly lived there during the Depression years (1930's, that is) And I would go by and see a bunch of them sittin' 'n rockin' on the front porch. I think the buildings are long gone, but senior living still marches on. I know - I live in a senior apartment today - but it's fur piece up the road from what it was back when.

We have a bright apartment with two bedrooms (one is used as the computer room, not just as a 'man-cave') and two baths (no waiting in line here) and a nice size kitchen. The living room has a view of trees (remember, we live in the city).

We have elevators if we want help up and down, though we usually use the stairs. We have an exercise room, a place to do jig-saw puzzles, a library and a really nice laundry room. The halls are bright and cheerful and in miserable weather they provide a great place to walk. There's coffee and newsapers in the morning when one waits for the mail. There are free trips to the store and occasional outings. And there's an on-the-spot maintainance supervisor and a manager who really cares about people. What more could a senior person ask for?

For instance, the picture above is of 'Steve' - an entertainer who comes to the complex from time to time. Like last night. He shared Caribbean music, country music, rock and roll, and a bushel and peck's worth of good humor. There was senior dancing and I could not believe some of the folks who got up and did the twist. One man, Lee, age 96, got up and danced and even the manager was up there doing the hula.

I can't remember when I've laughed so hard but that's the kind of life we live. For those who fear moving out of traditional life to senior living, don't fear - it is better than I ever dreamed it might be. Thanks to all of those who make life so pleasant - Helen, Tom, Steve, all the other folks who contribute to what I want to call, the good life.

House on Houston

2011-07-08T11:38:00.003-04:00

It was August of 1969. With five active children and harried parents, our St. Charles Missouri home was too small. One official bedroom, one bath, and an attic converted into two bedrooms just wasn't enough living space. We must have thought small in those days - we even had a tw0-door Dodge Dart to carry our seven member family (a particularly challenging experience if we took a long trip). So, we began to house shop and in fairly short order we found the above house near the high school on Houston Street. But it didn't look like this when we bought it for 11 thousand dollars and got an additional 11 thousand dollars to rehabilitate it.

The trouble started Labor Day weekend when we moved in. It had been converted to three apartments. It had two furnaces, knob-and-spool wiring with sixty amp fuses, and plumbing from the dark ages. We discovered the first of the plumbing problems the first weekend we were there when the sewer in the basement backed up and no sewer service was available on a holiday weekend.

That was the beginning. As time passed an outside stair was torn off - a closet and bathroom was added to the master bedroom - the kitchen was completely redone - plumbing and fixtures in the main bathroom were replaced (Joyce's dad somehow got the old clawfoot bathtub down the stairs and a new one up to replace it). The bathroom was tiled and re-plumbed. The entire house was carpeted and painted inside and out. The job lasted nine months to get finished and we jokingly called it our sixth pregnancy. But it became a lovely place with a lot of good memories of exchange students and fun in a sprawling old house which, reputedly had been built in the 1880's using lumber from a project involving the construction of a bridge across the Missouri River. Oh, by the way, we also converted the main furnace from oil to gas. (The other furnace was already gas.) In the process, I learned to do plumbing, carpentry, roofing, plumbing work, tiling, electrical and decorating. I found I have little talent when it comes to painting but fortunately my wife and daughters were good at that and installing wallpaper. We learned, in no uncertain terms, what it was like when Mr. Blandings built his dream house.

It's nice to go back to some place where we have lived and see our old house in nice condition and still being lived in. When we last saw the Houston Street house we met the current owner who said it was back to being apartments. But he did not invite us in but if the outside is any clue, the place is still cared for and that is good.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

2011-06-28T10:17:00.002-04:00

It was 70 years ago this month. New York schools always seemed to take a summer recess later than many others and so it was in our two-room school. The picture reflects our three person eighth grade 1941 graduating class.

Marilyn Williams, on the right, was our class valedictorian. The scrawny kid on the left, with an ill-fitting outfit, was the salutatorian. Virginia Race filled out the trio. Marilyn went on to marry a local boy (one I considered as one of the 'good guys' in town) and she became the hostess of the Spencertown Academy once the school closed down. Virginia married one of my best friends and continued to live in our small village.

The picture brings back a lot of memories of two room school life. Walking a mile each way in every kind of weather. Living with respect, if not fear, of Mr. Crounce's alleged rubber hose in the top left-hand drawer of his desk. The excitement of moving back a row every year - assuming, of course, that we were eligible to be promoted. Memories of his and her outhouses out behind the school. And memories of picnics down at the creek behind the IGA store, and once-in-a-while trips to the State museum in Albany.

Who would have known what it would be like to move in the fall to a 'big' school seven miles away where we would change rooms every forty-five minutes or so. At least for me, the change to high school was challenging and having to get used to a number of teachers was not easy. Making matters worse was taking a month off from school in December to visit grandparents in California where we experienced West Coast panic when Pearl Harbor was bombed. When I got back from the trip I was hopelessly behind in Algebra which involved a couple more years before I could pass the elementary level. My majors in high school were fun and games and it is amazing I made it to graduation. I did much better in college during much more mature years.

At the time the picture was taken, who would have ventured a guess as to what life experiences were ahead? I suppose that we really had a hard time seeing beyond 'tomorrow'. I guess memories are great - but I still enjoy wondering what tomorrow holds. Just like it was in June of 1941.

Heights of Derringdo

2011-06-22T15:54:00.002-04:00

The picture reminds me of a mountain in Glacier Bay, Alaska. However, it is somewhat closer to home. At least the home country I grew up in as a teenager. Anybody recognize where it is? And the name of the mountain?

It's Storm King Mountain, looming above the Hudson River in New York State, about half way between the US Military Academy at West Point and Newburgh.

If you look closely at the base of the mountain you'll see the roadbed of the old WestShore Railroad, and at a higher level, Highway 218 climbing along the side of the mountain. When we were living at West Point in the early 1940's we would ride a rickety 1930's bus over the mountain and it was always a scary experience with sheer drop-off's alongside the narrow road.

Even more thrilling was a camping experience some of us boys had in 1943. Several of us decided to camp out along the river - no adults allowed. Early the morning after the sleep out we decided we would climb Storm King from the river to the road at one of its higher points. For a moment go back to the picture - take a close look at the picture. See if you can find a way upto the road. Frankly, I can't see how we did it. We had no mountaineering equipment. Wait a minute - yes, we did. We had a few lengths of clothesline - and that was all. At first it seemed fairly easy. However, the higher we went the rougher the climb became. We began to use the clothesline. We dug our tennis shoes into small cracks in the granite. And we made the mistake of looking down. Not good - several of us got a bit dizzy and began to wonder if we should go back down. It looked worse down than it did up.

Needless to say, we became survivers of sorts. After we surmounted the wall along the road we faced oncoming traffic from both ways on a narrow road where we would not have picked up a hitchhike ride even if we had tried. By the time we got to the lowest level of the road we quickly retreated into the forest close by the railroad tracks and patted ourselves on the back for accomplishing a seemingly impossible mountain climb.

At the same time, we agreed that none of use would tell our parents what we had done, and agreed, without any question, that we would not do something like that again. And, as the title suggests, it was a ridiculous moment of derring do by a few teenagers who had more daring than common sense. And survived.

Busy Hands

2011-06-14T09:13:00.003-04:00

What? Where? Who? Why? When?

That was the first lesson I learned about newspaper reporting. It also can be applied to writing a radio or TV commercial. I know from experience because it was my introduction to working continuity in the first radio station I ever worked at.

On my job interview these words were my guide to writing my first commercial. What? saving money. Where? Berkshire County Savings Bank. Who? The friendly staff of the biggest bank in town, Why? Someday you'll have a real nest egg. When? Start saving today. A similar thing happened at one of my announcer interviews -ad lib (talk off the cuff) for five minutes about a spot on the ceiling of the studio. This was more valuable than you might realize when I was doing a newscast and a friend (?) set fire to my script half way through the program and I had to ad lib my way out of the newscast.

So, what about the picture above? It was a picture of several young women. Where? In a Cairo, Egypt mosque. Who? The carpet repair crew. Why? The prayer carpet in the mosque was getting frayed. When? Probably in January of 1988.

Notice that there are smiles. They don't appear to dislike their job. They probably are highly skilled at what they do. It looks like it might be a menial job by our standards but they are earning a living rather than drawing welfare. I don't know if Egypt had (or has) a welfare system but to me it seems evident that the ladies enjoy the opportunity to do something constructive. I like to think of this as busy fingers at work and that is good. But would people of our society be happy with work like this? Possibly not if it paid minimum wage. In the end the real story is (1) that the Egyptian women are working busily and (2) they seem happy to be doing whaat they are doing.

Is there a lesson in a picture of busy hands?

It's Watermelon Time

2011-06-08T13:37:00.003-04:00

I love watermelon. I always have. From the time I was a little boy I've loved to smear my face in it especially when I had been working in the hayfields when the weather was hottest. That's not to say I don't like cantaloupe or honeydew melons - It's just that I grew up with watermelon and besides, I get bigger servings with watermelon.

Besides, there are relatively new reports out telling us that it is a healthy fruit - that it has some sort of disease-fighting compound in it that makes it not only good to eat but healthy as well.

Let me tell a true story about a watermelon.

I was working for an NBC radio station back a few decades. I had the morning shift, putting the station on the air at five a.m. with three hours of country music.

The name of the show was "Sunrise Jamboree" and it was a lot of fun for me getting to play records by the top country music stars of the time. I talked about "ole Jim down at the three flagpoles" (literally translated to engineer Jim at the remote transmitting facility several miles west of town - which had three tall transmitter towers behind the building. As a matter of dubious interest, those three towers were still there fifty years later.

Anyway, I also invited people to stop by the say hello, or to phone in requests.

Needless to say, this was well before the days of automation, or top forty programming. One morning an ultra-fundamentalist preacher who recorded his Sunday program at our station stopped by one June morning just to say 'howdy'. We chit-chatted a bit and suddenly he said he would be back in a minute - he had a gift for me in his car. A little later he returning struggling under the weight of the biggest watermelon I have ever see. IT WAS HUMONGOUS! He set it on a big table outside the control room and as we talked (on the air, no less) I asked him where he had gotten it. He replied that he had been to a big religious camp meeting up north in Georgia. On the way back, at dusk, he saw a big watermelon patch alongside the road and as he put it, "Ole Satan just got a holt of me and I couldn't resist the temptation of grabbing one (was it really only one?) to bring home. And so this ultra-fundamentalist preacher shared a pilfered watermelon with me. Maybe it took a little of the guilt away from him, but I invited all my local listeners to stop by for a bit of watermelon on the way to work. (I'd like to think it took a bit of the burden of being an accessory to the crime off of me.)

At any rate, it was a wonderful watermelon and a good time was had by all since it only lasted half an hour or less - our parking lot filled to overflowing in no time.

Yes, indeed - I DO love watermelon. How about you?

With Tongue in Cheek.....

2011-05-21T14:02:00.003-04:00

Somebody sent me an e-mail forward the other day - Nine Words Women Use. In the interest of maintaining domestic tranquility in our happy hacienda, I'm not going
to share it verbatim, but I thought I would come up with something like it that does not center only on women but deals with the same theme. I'll call it For Better Or Worse, Words We Use. Including what men say, and what is meant by what is said.

For instance, IT'S SIMPLE -ANYBODY SHOULD UNDERSTAND. Often shared by men, especially when talking about electronic equipment or maps. I've heard it from women as well; for instance, when a man leaves a key ingredient out of something he's cooking, like eggs from egg rolls. Or a man's response when A woman has a problem with a cell phone or TV remote control.

WHY DON'T YOU STOP AND ASK? A woman's reaction to man who is lost while driving.
Man never gets lost while driving a car; confused perhaps, but never lost. Classic example: the time in Florida I passed the same church three times while going in circles trying to get back on the main highway.

LOUD SIGH. It doesn't take a word to express frustration; a sigh will do it and the sigh comes in different forms, loudness, length of sigh, and tonal quality.

WHAT? Either the question was lost by hearing aid failure, or by distraction. Often followed by a LOUD SIGH or the words, NEVER MIND.

I'LL DO IT MYSELF! A common female statement when the stud of the house has been asked to do something four times and won't leave a TV football game until half time.
And by that time he may have forgotten what she asked for in the first place.

THANKS! A nice expression by either the male or female of the house. Be careful, though if it comes out, THANKS A LOT! that may indicate sarcasm.

SILENCE. I don't mean the word, it is the unspoken word that is a concern. This often is accompanied by a glare or sneer and it says more than any word or phrase can convey. This element of non-verbal statement has been known to last for several days and eventually the cause may be forgotten. "I know I'm mad at () but I can't remember why." Then comes the challenge of trying to forgive and forget.

I DON'T CARE! Chances are somebody does and it is worth trying to understand whether this is just a casual pass of the torch regarding a restaurant selection or whether there is a deeper meaning. Usually somebody DOES care but it is hard to determine the extent of the statement. A degree in psychology will help solve the dilemma.

I don't want to forget THE LOOK which often speaks much more loudly that any spoken word. Valid for men and women alike. And yes, there are different looks = consider Nancy adoring look at Ronnie or Maria's more recent look at Arnold,

You can probably think of a dozen or so more words or expressions. I'm sure you have phrases or expressions of your own. My hope is that you are aware of these situations and are prepared to respond in a constructive. I don't always understand, and I don't always say the right thing at the right time. But I'm a survivor and I'm glad for that.

Memorial Days Remembered

2011-05-20T10:17:00.006-04:00

It was Memorial Day 1947. Solemn observance of the day was taking place in every village and town around the region I lived in. As part of my job writing and editing for a weekly newspaper I was located several hundred feet over the largest cemetery in our area. In a sputtering World War Two surplus T-13 Vultee "Vomiter" aircraft using Blue Sunoco Regular gasoline at an octane far below 100 octane aviation fuel.

My editor was looking for a special way to develop a story recognizing the sacrifice of military and naval persons who died in World War Two. Thus it was arranged that I would be placed in the backseat of a well-worn aircraft, with the cockpit canopy open, so I could drop flowers over the cemetery. during the ceremony below. I was equipped with a grocery store paper bag filled with lilac blossoms. Over the cemetery I was to empty the sack of flowers into the slip stream of the aircraft.

I did what I was told. I haven't the vaguest idea whether anyone below saw any flowers. After all, I had no bombsight or other way the estimate the trajectory (or trajectories) of probably fifty or more small clumps of flowers. I just tossed them over the side never realizing that any one of them could have been caught in a tail control surface perhaps affecting flight of the aircraft. The crux of the story was that it was the first and only time that town was bombed. Fortunately no damage was done.

I was severely reprimanded by my father for flying in a decrepit airplace, out of a primitive airstrip and, in the process, scaring my mother half out of her wits when we buzzed my house. To say the least, it was an adventure.

Sixty years later, In Oscoda, Michigan, we recognized Memorial Day in a much more significant way. A few miles north of Oscoda you'll find a simple, small white church in the midst of a forest. It's been there a long time and is a Chippewa Indian Mission church. Years ago it claimed a good-size congregation; today attendance is much smaller because the Native American population in the area has dwindled. However, there is still a core of people with Indian ancestry who still attend. I really appreciated the times we went out there for Sunday services; it was one of the most accepting congregations I have ever known.

So, on Memorial Day recognition of veterans became a very special experience for me.
The picture shows one the the ceremonies at the Indian Mission cemetery. It's the "smudge" ceremony and every one in attendance becomes involved. The photo above shows this special observance. You can see many of the grave markers behind the celebrant, as well as a tall marker listing Indian veterans who had died in conflicts over the years serving their country. You can't see it in the picture but the cemetery has a multitude of small crosses with the simple word "unknown" painted on them.

Without a doubt, this was one of the most meaningful Memorial Day recognitions I've ever attended. If the crosses with "unknown" on them could only have told their stories. I hope each person who reads this takes time to reflect on those who have passed before us. They are the history of our lives.

You Never Know About Some People

2011-05-13T13:19:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I just take life for granted - roll with the punch when something goes wrong and celebrate the good things when they happen. Some people have wild swings when stuff happens good or bad. But sometimes we tend to take people who write religious things for granted - because we sometimes perceive them as having a deeper faith than we do - therefore I, for example, tend to experience a gap between me and them. After all, God has given them a special gift.

I always perceived people who write for Guideposts (and other faith-based literature) as having a deeper,more personal relationship with God and I envied them.
For instance, I visualized the Editor of Guideposts Magazine as having led a solid spiritual life and thus was preordained to go into the ministry. The above book tells an altogether different story. Edward Grinnon went through terrible times in his life - times that hardly equated with a Christian ministry of sharing hope with the millions of people who read Guideposts. His new book is a frank exposition of a life way down in the pits - one that might have killed him. Yet, he was led to a new and productive - and inspiring - life. I'd like to compare it to Paul's Damascus Road experience. It was a book so intense I virtually read it in one sitting. Likewise, I commend it to everyone I meet.

Beyond that, he also was the author of a small book titled "101 Moments of Hope" which came as a gift with the purchase of the other book. When he was asked to write a devotional thought the first time he protested saying it wasn't his thing to do.
But his boss said write about life - write about your own life - and though he protested at first, he came up with something about a disagreement he and his wife were experiencing. Somehow the solution involved making guacamole. Turns out he left something out and he believed it a failure. His wife pointed out he had the materials at hand and together they resolved the guacamole problem, and together solved the personal tension they had contended with. Thus it became evident that personal things in life can become the basis of short thoughts about contending with - and perhaps celebrating - life. So, To me, the message is that everyone has a story to tell. Something that might bless someone else who might be struggling with a tension in their own lives.

One of our sons has said, a number of times over the years, that he would like to do some writing but complains that it never seems to come out right no matter how much editing he might do. I had an uncle the same way. They felt what they wrote had to be perfect. However, I've discovered the joy of writing is not perfection. The joy is in just letting feelings and experiences pour out and not dwelling on structure or gramatical perfection. Thus, writing has become enjoyable. I'll never make a million but I'll have a million dollars worth of fun as I write.

Let me offer a word of encouragement -check out these books - they will open your eyes and inner being to a new and simple sense of wonder and marvel in another person's life.

Thank you Edward Grinnan, for reinforcing my belief that writing can be fun - and life can be fun - so long as I don't try to be something I'm not.

You've Heard of the Headless Horseman....

2011-05-07T14:28:00.004-04:00

....you, know, the old traditional Hallowe'en story by Washington Irving.

Well, now, in honor of Mothers Day, I want to introduce you to the headless mother. the one second from the left in the old, old picture. I can say old now,because if she were still alive I would be in a serious heap of trouble.

I'm sure she is watching down from heaven now and is already in forthright discussion with Saint Peter and his boss about what kind of a son I was since I didn't always live up to her expectations.

I have no idea what year the picture was taken but I would venture to say it was before 1910, but Mom was never one to discuss age. My mentioning age could be another thing she might be discussing with St. Peter. So to redeem myself a bit, I need to focus on some other sides of her life.

She was a wonderfully creative person. A prolific poet and short story author. I recall seeing poems shw wrote in very old issues of St. Nicholas Magazine. Like in the early 1900's. She wrote articles for the Villager Magazine of the Bronxville (New York) Women's Club, at the time - a group of very sophisticated and prominent ladies of the time. I believe the club still exists and perhaps the magazine as well. She also served as a staff member of a major magazine (I like to think it was McCalls) back before she was married. And I like to think it was her joy in writing that I inherited and still treasure. (Thanks, Mom!) I remember her prancing around the kitchen with ballet steps in our old house on the hill (when it was still primitive) and I remember her working for two days straight to get her recipe for spaghetti sauce just right. I remember her genius at putting together hilarious shows for Grange. And she had a real gift for restoring old dolls and doll clothing.

Apart from that, she kept wonderful flower gardens, and a lovely house (complete with a "French" room that was off limits except on special occasions. I remember one time that we could not leave her house to head home until she had finished watching her soap opera, and I remember her coming downstairs one time complaining that I had my bumpty bump bump music up too loud (she did not care for the boosted bass on my stereo). Most of all, I remember her love and support when I was a child and most surprising of all, when I was a teenager.

So, Mom, I send my love, and thanks. I hope I haven't turned out too bad and I offer thanks for all the encouragement she gave me 'back when'. She had real class and I'm still proud of her. And I hope the smaller picture will give you an idea of the beauty of a real lady - my Mom.

Like Father...

2011-04-29T09:40:00.003-04:00

...Like son, or so the saying goes.

The picture goes back quite a way - to the mid-1970's in fact. I was serving my first church appointment and dad came to Missouri to attend my ordination as a minister. Up to that point he thought my calling to the ministry was a whim and just a passing fancy. I think the reality of my decision hit him when he saw me ordained. Dad was not an openly spiritual person - often he was working on Sundays and did not attend worship services. Fact is, there was a point in which I asked him why I had to go to church when he didn't. I don't recall his answer but his relationship with God became more evident in his last months of his life.

Today I continue to wonder why dad seemed so down on life. He wrote a form of autobiography and in it he seemed to dwell on the failures in his life. I think he always strived to make a million and that seemed almost a passion with him. When he did not achieve the financial success he craved, he felt that life had cheated him and in his estimation he was a failure time after time. In the book he wrote he kept blaming the negative things of life on his "overpowering" ego.

The sad part is that in a great number of ways he was an amazing person. Creative in many ways. A visionary in some ways. And though he would never admit it, he was a person who saw opportunities and did something about them. He struggled with the state of Army leadership early in his career after graduation from West Point. In a sense he shared the concerns for the future like General Billy Mitchell who ended up court-marshalled for his beliefs, but later proved to be valid during World War Two. In many ways dad underwrote progress and was disappointed time and again because many people did not share his dreams which were stalled or opposed. He was a great artist - had gifts in photography, drawing and painting, and business acumen. He was head statistician for the World Champion Army football teams in the mid-1940's. To this day I keep wondering why he felt so disappointed with life when in actuality he accomplished a great many things far beyond what most men do. If I sound proud of my dad, I am.

I guess the differences we shared are that, like him, I have never gloated about the things that have happened in my life. However, I've rejoiced at different things that happened and just kept moving through doors in life to the next opportunity that came along. I don't dwell on negatives, and have celebrated life where I have been and look forward to the next exciting chapter.

But when dad was laying in his hospital bed, life slowly ebbing toward death from esophageal cancer, he told me something that has stuck with me for years. He said, the last time I saw him, "I guess this is the last time we'll see each other this way". I had no glib answer or ministerial response. I just nodded my head and then he grinned and said, "But we will meet again". And I believed it and know it will happen.

My dad was a disciplined person all his life - wrapped up in projects. Sometimes he was not an easy person to understand or respond to. Especially when I was a teenager. But I will always say that he never was the failure he thought he was - He was caring and an example of creativity and sponsor of things that were beyond most people's understanding, and in doing so, he made his and our world a better place.

An Easter Mountain-top Experience....

2011-04-23T10:23:00.004-04:00

Imagine a camping trip with three teen-age young ladies who had never camped out before. Never pitched a tent. Never cooked over a campfire. Never tried to sleep through a night filled with creature noises.

To make things more challenging for all, I was trying to get past some really bad times in my life. Prescribed drug dependency. Depression. Withdrawal. Terrible downers.

We had made it from Misouri to the high country in Colorado near the summit of Monarch Pass. It was a peaceful place, a lovely stream rippled behind our campsite.
The weather was perfect and we relished life together.

But late that night a storm swept down the mountain. High winds. A deluge of rain, hail and ferocious lightning and thunder. There we were, in tents that threatened to blow away. In tents that did not protect us from rain which soaked the inside of our tent and our sleeping bags. The girls, my wife, and I were terrified.

But as quickly as the storm attacked our campsite, it was gone, moving slowly into the valley, rumbling east and away from our campsite.

I found it impossible to sleep and left the tent to go to the edge of the campground where I sat on a rock to watch the storm slowly make its way toward Canyon City. I looked over my left shoulder and saw a brilliant white light in the inky blackness of a starless night. I could not understand what the light was and was captivated by its slow emergence. Suddenly I realized that it was a snow-capped mountain reflecting the rising sun to the east. It was an amazing birth of a new day and I was captivated by the scene.

As dawn grew into daylight I noticed something else: all the footprints from the day before had been washed away. It was as though yesterday had never happened and the bright new day was starting out completely without blemish.

Then I realized that life is like that. God, in a marvelous way, can do away with the ugliness of life - our worst times - and start us off anew into a bright new day of opportunity and optimism. That's what happened to me. I felt a new sense of peace
and joy - a new sense of hope and a resolve for the days ahead. Depression, frustration, dependency on artificial crutches were gone, and life became a joy. To say the least, a wonderful door opened to new and exciting things.

I like to think of that mountaintop as my Easter Experience. A form of resurrection, if I can put it that way. It's something that was a life changing experience in which life since has become rich snd positive. So, if I may say this, I think that God can provide marvelous and beautiful personal experiences comparable to the Biblical story of Christ's persecution, death, and resurrection. Have a blessed Easter and allow God and Jesus to get the credit they deserve.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame.....

2011-04-19T18:43:00.005-04:00

The picture is of Seth, one of our Indianapolis grandchildren. It was taken a few years ago when he was involved with community baseball and he was good, Today, he is a tall, gangly, good natured high schooler with an almost 3.9 grade level and too much school work to be involved with a lot of sports, and besides, he is getting to be a really big computer addict. But we remember his baseball days with a cheer or three.

When I was in grade school, we'd play a form of baseball during lunch hour. It was a steep uphill run from home base to first, and equally steep run downhill from third to home plate. I guess one evened the other out but it WAS a challenge for a slow person to make it to first. If the ball was hit over the fence it was an out (not a home run), but if the ball was hit into the outhouse enclosures it was an automatic double.

I was manager of my high school baseball team - at least for a while. As manager I kept scoring records - that is, until I made a mistake on the score sheets which made the other team the winner. I was angry but nowhere near as angry as some of the players and our coach who suggested I'd better go to a refresher math class before I would keep score again.

My first major league experience was a game at Yankee Stadium where the Yanks were playing the Cleveland Indians. The only things I remember was the size of the stadium and that Cleveland's ace Bob Feller was pitching. I think the unthinkable
happened - the Yankees lost. Beyond that, I remember little about who composed the teams other than Feller.

But one of my best baseball memories was of the community games in the flatlands downhill from where we lived. Several teams came together in a league of sorts and the games had almost more thrills than in major league baseball. Unlike high paid major leage players, our community league players did it for the fun of the game. There was no backstop so occasionally baseballs missed by the catcher would end up in the creek behind home plate. Since it was a cow pasture, There were moments when players would slide into what they presumed were base pads only to discover that it was, instead, a prominent slimy, smelly, souvenir of a cow. We watched the game from outfield since there was no viewing area behind the plate and occasionally a spectator would catch a long fly ball which always caused a major league discussion as to whether the catch was legal, and the person who caught the ball like as not was recruited to be on the team.

There are lot of good memories in baseball but it doesn't seem the same. Todays bases are clearly marked, the basepaths nicely raked, there are backstops and there are some girl teams that play a really good ball game. And so the game goes on but in some ways it not quite the same as cow pasture baseball. Some things may be gone but they are not forgotten.

It happened in April..............

2011-04-13T13:49:00.010-04:00

........1938 - 73 years ago. We were living in Ramsey, New Jersey and I was in the fifth grade. Typically, in our lives at that time, my dad was looking for another job. Every year, during the 1930's, my father's job was ending. So combining thoughts of new work and a dream of a place to live, we took a Sunday drive up the Hudson River, crossed the river near Hudson, New York, and ended up 15 miles northeast in the remote village of Spencertown. It was the one I wrote about a couple of weeks ago when I talked about the Presbyterian church.

A mile or so south of town, atop a hill, we found a lovely but cold picnic spot. Nearby my parents found a decrepit old house that seemed to fit their idea of a dream home. Junky old pigpens, a leaning garage, and a swayback barn surrounded the house. The house could rented for ten dollars a month or could be purchased for 2300 dollars and would include 43 acres of land and a year-round trout stream out back. It was too much to resist and so that became our home for a number of years.

We lit the house with kerosene lamps since there was no electricity. We pumped water from a deep well outside and under a porch. We cooked on an ancient black wood range and took baths in a washtub - but more often used a waterfall in the creek. The pigpens were torn down and the wood either burned or used for a dam to make a swimming pool behind the house. The bathroom facilities were "outback" or in bedroom chamber pots or "thunder jugs".

Despite all the improvements, the house was not practical for winter life so we spent the cold weather at my grandmothers house a hundred miles south, where we experienced the 1938 New England hurricane. Our Spencertown house survived the storm and we moved back there for good in late Spring 1939. Eventually the place became a real showplace and I have never forgotten it. And I have never forgotten that it all began with an cold, miserable April picnic in 1938.

Ready for the Masters

2011-04-09T17:43:00.005-04:00

I have been watching the Masters Golf Tournament the past couple of days - probably to see what Tiger Woods might do, and also Phil Mickelson who I admire a great deal as a family man and as a professional golfer. I gave up active golf when we left Florida but there are times I really miss the game.

The picture shows my wife's brother Don and me on our way out to play on one of the courses in Florida. I miss Don, especially when golf is on television because there are times I can envision him out there with the best of them. He was a skilled golfer and he shed a lot of sympathetic tears for me. My dad was a very good golfer when he was a cadet at West Point and I ended up taking the game up when I was in the Air Force. At one base we were required to have physical training twice and week and during the warm weather I chose golf, and in the winter I was in bowling leagues.

At one stage I averaged 85 or so without handicap and I thought that was great. I accomplished some unique things in my game: one time I drove a ball into a tree where it remained lodged in the crotch of a branch. Another time I lost a couple of golf balls down gopher holes on a course in Arizona. My greatest accomplishment was that I lost 13 balls into water hazards with Don on a course in Florida. That is, thirteen balls lost on an 18 hole course. Don said there ought to have been a trophy of some sort for that caper. We had a lot of laughs together when we golfed together. Occasionally Don would have a problem with a drive or a putt and he'd grin at me and say, "I didn't see that happen and I hope you didn't see it either."

Our golfing times together went way back - maybe even to the 1960's. I always enjoyed my time with him - it helped my game and I amused him. As I said, I miss him because he passed away a few years ago shortly after his wife died. There were so many times we got together and at night Joyce would play cards with Don and Mary. Those were always roudy games and yet they were the makings of great memories. They were good people and I have a hunch that Don might be looking down right now from one of the windows of heaven, watching the champs of today and the champs of tomorrow as they go for the traditional green jacket to the winner of the Masters.
As far as I'm concerned, Don was always a winner to me. Thanks for the memory!

Memories

2011-03-31T11:28:00.006-04:00

In the 1930's our nation suffered a horrible depression. If we think things are challenging now, it was worse then. Our family was lucky - Dad always had a job, although it may have changed most every year. One year here - another year there and it meant moves to every job location. The scene above reflects the village we settled in. At first a mile out of town - and then into the village itself. and what a village it was! A little more than a mile each way to a two-room school - come sun or rain, warm or cold...it was quite a hike for little kids. And a village divided to some degree by church denominations. It was a really nice way to grow up. One could go to the Methodist store for candy and goodies (and nails for the little-kid cabin I built upstream from the house). Or one could go to the Presbyterian store for hunting and fishing gear and (believe it or not) roll-your-own cigarette materials. Of course we used corn silk for our pre-teen cigarettes - yes we did - and got sick when we did it. But the focal point of the village was the Presbyterian church. It had more children, it had great church suppers, and it was the place to go for traditional Christmas eve services. And it had the village cemetery. Everything about St. Peter's Church was a drawing card. But for us young people the main attraction was dusk and nightime hide-and-go-seek games in the cemetery. There were a number of really old and big gravestones that were great hiding places. Great fun. The church is still there - at least the last I heard. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. That was because the congregation was formed in the mid-1700's and the church was built (less the steeple) in 1771 - several years before the national Declaration of Independence. Early on the building was moved across the street and it has, for the most part, flourished ever since. It still is the signature building of the village. But what about the Methodist Church? The last time I was in town it was still there but not as a church. The congregation disbanded early in the 1940's - not enough Methodists in town, I guess, but that is the church we attended as long as it lasted. My memories include the pastor's wife (Mrs. Montrose) teaching Sunday school and giving awards to children who completed reading the entire Bible from cover to cover. They had a long shed in back of the church for horses and carriages. Mrs. Nielsen played the pump organ and we could not understand how she know anyone was fooling around in the childrens choir, but when she sensed something was going on she could reach back and swat the misbehavor and never missed. I had a running problem with one of the other boys over who would carry the Christian flag and who would carry the American flag. After the congregation was disbanded the building stood idle for a while and then became the Grange Hall and later a dance hall. The last time I was back it town it had become an antique shop. So there you have it, a tale of two churches - and a focus on the churches in what I like to call, My Home Town.

Make a Joyful Noise....!

2011-03-23T10:45:00.005-04:00

I've always loved music. It ranges from Gospel to county to folk to big band to classic - you name it. I have a problem with hard rock and rap but I suppose my age plays a role in that.

We used to have a radio at my mother and dad's house that had a great tone - especially bass. My mom used to make screechy noises supposedly imitating women vocalists of the forties and she would come stomping in and complain about the 'bumpety-bump-bump' sound of music at that time. But things change and so does music. I remember disagreeing with our eldest daughter about John Denver - she loved him and I hated him. Today I love his music. Figure that out of you can.

When I was in Holland in the Air Force I got to enjoy the 'straacht orgals' around the Hague. Later, I loved the ones they had on merry-go rounds - I remember sitting for long periods of time just listening to the one on a merry-go-round at a Denver amusement park. Doesn't take much to entertainment.

But my favorite of all was the huge pipe organ at the Paramount Music Palace in Indianapolis. It combined the organ from the San Francisco Paramount Theater with an organ that had been a part of Disney's empire. I'd sit watching for the console to rise out of the main floor and suddenly, and very loudly, the concert would begin. I loved it - I was captivated with the music and the versatility of the instrument. The had a couple of others across Indiana - one in Kokomo and another in Fort Wayne we would listen to -but we would end up going back to the Paramount for good music and delicious pizza.

Later these places fell on hard times and closed their doors. But the instrument
in the Paramount ended up in Florida ay a restaurant not far from where we lived.
We continued to enjoy the music there up to when we moved back north. Meanwhile, our church has a hybrid organ - part pipe and part electronic and I love it. too.

The other day I heard that the place in Florida had closed and that there was talk, and some hope, that the Paramount Music Palace here in Indy might reopen. If it does, watch for me - I may be the first one in line for the reopening. I still love music and the techician in me loves the complex technology of the giant Wurlitzer - and I never cease to be amazed at how much sound and beautiful music comes out of one machine played by one extremely talented performer. Making a joyful noise.

Hope - Oh,Yes, I HOPE!

2011-03-18T13:35:00.004-04:00

I think..... I hope...
that we are getting past winter. Last fall we went over to Lisa's house and planted
a whole bunch of Spring bulbs. Having had a pretty heavy winter for Indiana we all wondered how they would survive. The picture shows that at least some have flourished but more than that, there are lots of others in various stages of growing.
Daffodils are up and in flower, and tulips are making their way up. And so...there is hope for the future.

But if we listen to our local weather prognosticators, there is perhaps a possibility of some snow in the next ten days. Not much - but some. All this goes to say that maybe we're really seeing spring. However, we have been fooled before.

When we moved from Florida to Michigan in March 2003, March 27th to be precise, it was 72 degrees and a beautiful day. A few days later - on April 1st -
we got a gift of enough snow we weren't able to get out of our house for three days.
After all, who brings a snow shovel when they move from Florida? Fortunately, brother-in-law Jim took pity on us and sent a fellow with a snowplow to open up our driveway. That was our welcome back to Michigan.

Meanwhile, here we are in the wonderful world of Indianapolis. Our claim to fame this time is potholes in the streets. I am reminded of the person who was driving down the street and was warned, "Look out for the pothole!" The person driving retorted, "What hoooooooooooolllllleeee?" as the car sinks to oblivion.

But it is nice to see the first crocus - and to see buds on trees. There's hope for the future - and that is good. We even went out to the state Park at the former Fort Harrison and took a long walk on the trails the other day. I love Spring when it finally locks in and stays.

What do we know?

2011-03-14T15:57:00.002-04:00

I don't need to use a picture this time - the television world is filled with them.
Raging tidal floods - explosions in nuclear power plants - pictures of people not sure what the next day might bring. But they are pictures - what do we know about the agony that these people actual are enduring?

I remember seeing the pictures of New Orleans during the horror of Hurricane Katrina. I could sense - from the pictures and videos - a superficial idea of how bad it had been - but I could not grasp the enormity of that event. I got at least a feel for how bad it was when I drove through Gulfport and Biloxi, Mississippi a year or so after Katrina. I could see, with my own eyes, gutted churches and businesses.
I could see the slabs where homes had stood along the beach - I saw a restaurant sign that was all that remained of one of our favorite places to eat. I could remember what it had been like from when I was in the Air Force in Biloxi and when our daughter Amy and family had lived in Gulfport. But, in truth, I could not really grasp the horror that the Gulf Coast had contended with. I saw the church I was baptized in still saturated with water and close to being relocated because it was too damaged to repair.

I remember seeing the World Trade Center from New York Harbor a few short months before thousands died in a horrible attack on our country. But I could not - despite video and photographs - even begin to grasp the horror of September 11th, 2001. It was impossible - IS impossible - for anyone to really feel the depths of horror - unless one is physically present when a disaster occurs.

Years ago, when we lived in Rantoul, Illinois, I could not understand why Joyce, one day, did not pick me up from work. I waited, and waited for her to show up and I became more and more frustrated by her non-arrival. Finally, angry, I hitchhiked out of town a few miles to where we lived in a trailer park. Once there I began to understand - a tornado had gone through the area while I was at work. Joyce saw it coming across a corn field and, not having a storm cellar, she took the children into a room in the middle of the trailer and cringed, with the children, till the storm had passed. Amazingly, the tornado lifted off the ground just before the park and dropped down on the other side of the road. The only damage to our home was a fuel tank lifted and dropped some distance away. Others in the park had limbs from trees forced into their homes.

Meanwhile, I was fuming and fussing a few miles away because she hadn't come to pick me up. I didn't realize then, nor can I fully realize now, what a frightful experience they had endured. Which just goes to show - we often miss the real intensity and horror of things that happen if we aren't actually there ourselves.
My moment of frustration and pique was simply because I hadn't actually endured
what happened - and that's what happens with a lot of us.

So, this week we are thinking about a Japanese exchange student who was part of our family for a year. We pray the best for her and all the other people in Japan.
Though most might not be directly impacted by the catastrophe, a whole nation is impacted. And it has become more personal.

Kitten on the Keys

2011-03-08T09:55:00.003-05:00

Meet our phormer phantastic pheline. She/he (I can't remember which he/she was) but I remember that he/she was a gift on my 80th birthday. And she loved to play computer solitaire on my laptop. But that's not what I wanted to share this time. My subject phor the day is my phantastically phrustrating computer.

Many years ago, when I was working phor McDonnell Aircraft, our phocus was on the Phantom two aircrapht. We had phlyers and pherrets, and phixers and it was an exciting time. It's when I learned that phore letter words could be spelled like phun and phrolic and phoolishness. (Do I have a problem counting letters?) However, alternative spelling became a recent necessity when my trusty computer keyboard rephused to produce a certain letter - no matter how many times it was pressed - or, phor that matter, how hard it was pressed.

It phinally got to the point where laying on of hands was not the solution - it took serious prayer and a blowing of dust phrom the crevices oph the keyboard. Voila,

two or three days later the key began to work again.

I don't know what solved the problem but the F key is working again. I managed to survive the problem and I didn't have to take a ball-peen hammer to the keyboard.

I'd like to think it was an answer to prayer. And I'm thankful that it was not a vowel that was acting up.

If nothing else came out of the event, I learned that occasional cleaning of a laptop keyboard is helpful if not a necessity. Then there is the old saying, 'clean computer, clean mind - take your choice'.

My closing comment: Don't ever take your computer phor granted - it can phight back when it wants to, so talk nicely to your treasured phreind, the phamily computer. I can tell you phirst hand what can happen.

If youThink this is about Austria......

2011-03-04T17:55:00.003-05:00

.....you are right - in a way. But not altogether.

Back in 1990 I was - rather, WE were - afforded an opportunity to go to Europe for ten days. It was an offer that came at the last minute and was too good to turn down. It was a basic ten days to Austria, with an optional side trip to the Oberammergau passion play. However, the Passion Play was sold out and we were going to end up with a free day midway in the Austria basic tour.

We had never spent time in the Tyrol region of Europe and it was an exciting experience. We went to castles and beautiful churches - visited Innsbruck and its golden roof - and Crystal stores. We went to Lichtenstein and admired chalets
and even endured something like 27 hairpin turns climbing a mountain to a ski resort (there was snow even in July!). And we loved the small village of Ischgl where our alpine hotel was located and the Tyrolean music and dance programs.

However, when the side trip to Oberammergau came up, and we didn't have tickets, we began to wonder what to do that day. There's only so much sightseeing in a small town like Ischgl, and even less shopping opportunities. So those of us who were not headed for the Passion Play got together to see what we might do. Someone said, "Let's rent a car and go to Italy for spaghetti." At first glance, that seems odd, but we were very close to the Italian border and we said, "Why not?" So we hired a car and driver for the next day.

We did not stop to think that it might not settle well with the travel company, and when the company representative heard about it he came to the conclusion that he better go with us so that we did not become an international problem.

To make a long story short, we DID go to Italy, we Did have spaghetti, we had a wonderful time, and we got back to our Austrian hotel before the group got back
from Germany and the Passion Play. What fun - and we all survived - including the company representative who breathed a sigh of relief when it was all done and said it was worth every minute of our time together.

But it didn't end there - we added another ten day tour onto the Austria event. We took an extension that included France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. By the time it was over we knew, without doubt, that the old travel saying that 'If it's Tuesday, it must be Paris' has some truth to it.

So the title is true -- if you thought this was going to be about Austria - that was true, but was only a part of the whole story.

Is Anybody There?

2011-02-23T17:21:00.003-05:00

I have had a problem for years of discomfort in front of large groups of people. That will come as a surprise to people who knew me as a pastor, or who thought all pastors are born extroverts.

One year in high school I was encouraged to sing a song in the annual minstel show. I really didn't want to do it - but the two prettiest girls in my class smiled and said I would be great and, needless to say, I melted at the attention. The evening of the performance rolled around, I took my place on the stage, and my mind went blank. I got through the first verse but everything else went blank. The song was a Disney song of the time, 'The Reluctant Dragon', and people reminded me of that awful experience for years afterward. Making the performance worse was that my voice was changing.

Another experience was in a Grange program - my mother wanted me to play a slide flute and dress up in a sheet to look like snake charmer. Nothing about the performance went well, especially when the costume started falling apart and it was either play the flute or try to save my dignity.

So, you ask, what about working in radio? That wasn't so bad - after all, I was alone in a studio with no one looking at me. I could do what I wanted and say what I wanted and not worry about any eyes staring at me when things went awry.
The only way I knew anyone was there was the letters and cards I got with requests for songs, and in later years, voices on the phone when I was involved with telephone request shows.

So what do I end up doing? Writing and sharing sermons every Sunday morning. In front of people. Sometimes LARGE GROUPS of people. I think the problem of earlier days was still there; however, I must have mellowed because I wasn't eaten up with panic attacks. But now a new aspect came into focus: 'What are people thinking about the message?' 'Am I making my point?' 'What are they hearing; do they understand?' 'Are they just waiting to get the hour over with?'

I remember looking out at the faces in the congregation and trying to read the individual expressions on faces. My wife helped -she'd smile - she'd frown - she'd suggest - by expression that I was on shaky ground or that I was running a little bit long. But with the church congregation, was there a smile? Was there boredom? Was there disagreement? Or were there eyes that were closed like the Marvin strip above? And was there something to the fact that cartoonist Tom Armstrong had been in my congregation the Sunday before the strip was created?

Nowadays, it's not easy to figure out about reactions to blogs I come up with. I seldom hear anything about the blogs - I just crank them out hoping that someone may get a laugh or two - or be motivated to think about some issue I've written about. I think sometimes that writing is just one of those things one enjoys doing, and if a particular blog means something to someone out there in the invisible world, then I'm content that the effort has been worth while.

So, with all that said, I wonder what to write about next week?

Memories of a Warmer Day

2011-02-17T18:32:00.003-05:00

We're having a heat wave - it got all the way up to 61 today. Most of the snow and ice has gone away - at least around our apartment complex. We got daring yesterday and drove up to Harrison State Park and discovered that there is still a lot of 'stuff' on the ground and in the woods of the park. It's going to be a while before we can comfortably walk the trails at our nearest park.

All this is simply to admit that my mind wandered back to the Caribbean and the wintertime cruises we took a few years ago. I think we ended up taking forty or more over fifteen years on half a dozen cruise lines. It helped that I was an active
travel agent on official business on most cruises. A good way to mix business and pleasure, agreed? You know - take the cruise free and get paid for doing it is a pretty good way to live life.

We got to see a lot of places - ports on the East Coast and Canada, in the Mediterranean Sea, Hawaii, the Panama Canal, Alaska, and a lot of time sailing around the warm seas of the Caribbean. It was a rough life but someone had to do it.

The picture above is of a Dutch hat which was a souvenir of one of the East Caribbean cruises. It was created on the former Westerdam which had sailed earlier as the 'Homeric' (of the now defunct Home Lines) Bought byHolland America Line in the early 1980's, the ship was cut in half and another couple hundred more feet were added in the middle. If one looked closely they could see the difference in windows and portholes in the new section. We loved the Westerdam and she still sails the Mediterranean Sea under a different company flag.

But the Dutch hat brings back more memories than the ship - it's a reminder of an Indonesian young man who worked as a sreward on the Verandah Deck. He was very friendly and kind and one night near the end of a Fall 1997 cruise he came up to us and gave us the hat as a gift. It came totally out of the blue and we still treasure it. Yes, if you are wondering, we DID provide him a significant tip - not just for the hat but for wonderful service as well. Most of all, we were amazed at his artistic talent. So, hanging on the hall wall of our apartment is not only a memory of a wonderful cruise but of a very special member of the cruise ship team. I sometimes wonder what ever happened to Loderick - and I certainly hope he has enjoyed a good life since then.

Most of all, I'm reminded by this gift that it is also easy to take people for granted.
People like waiters, and stewards, not only on cruise ships but in our own neighborhood services. You may not get something as personal as a Dutch cap -
but hopefully those service employees will try to do their best to make your life better for their efforts. Give them a smile when you can - and share a good tip. They're trying to make your life more pleasant.

I Miss Marvin

2011-02-11T10:03:00.004-05:00

It goes back a few years, but I remember times when (like a few other dads) I used to wait up for one or another of our daughters to come home from a date. Most of the time they were pretty good about getting home on time - but there also were times when they got home a bit late. I remember one time in particular - our eldest was quite late and I was sitting on the stairs so there was no way she could sneak upstairs to bed without getting caught. She was not a happy camper.

But neither was my mother when I would come back in from a square dance that ended at 1 a.m. at four a.m. or later. Or there was the prom on graduation night when it was close to dawn or after. In fact, that episode was made even more exciting when Mom looked down the stairs to the bedroom and saw two curly heads in bed and she screamed "He's got a girl with him!" (My friends' hair was long enough to have been a girls) I remember abruptly waking up to her scream and I shouted back, "It's not a girl mom - it's Richard!" I sometimes brought Richard home to reduce the parental screaming when I came home and even then the screaming ('Where have you been all this time?') came after I took him home where he went through his own parental chastisement.

In addition, she never accepted the fact that it took hours to drop off my friends whose homes were all over the northern half of our county. That just went with being one of the few in my class with a car - which was more an incentive than my sparkling (?) personality.

Which goes to say that 'what goes around comes around'. We've had times when our children wonder why we are not home when they call. In the old days our parents worried about us when we were out late - and now our children worry about us when we don't answer the phone after nine-thirty at night. But kids, don't fret -we probably were in bed by nine. For sure, we weren't out running around or out at a lovers lane on some back road. But it sounds like an interesting idea.

By the way, the cartoon strip is by one of my favorite cartoonists, Tom Armstrong.
He and his family were members of our church in Bradenton, Florida and I really enjoyed knowing them. He really saw life in a wonderful way and this strip was a gift to us when I retired in Florida. I miss them and I miss his character Marvin.
We always could see a little of our own lives in Tom's humor.

signs of the time

2011-02-02T18:18:00.005-05:00

If anyone wonders, we don't live in Florida anymore. Reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

Likewise, I can assure you that it is not Daytona Beach either. But I can say with assurance that we did see a dusting of snow on our car windshield in December of 1988 in Bradenton. Yes, I can remember that far back so I guess that dimensia has not caught up with me (so far).

Forget the top photo for a moment (though all three of the pictures are out of windows of our Indianapolis hibernation cave # 227 in Wyndom Hall). The other pictures reflect the last few days. Snow and ice and sleet ("oh,my" - to borrow from the Wizard of Oz again). They say the thing that saved us for the most part was that we had sleet last night rather than freezing rain. In this area most of the power comes from underground cables which has helped. However, for 48 hours we haven't been able to get out of our end of the building because every time the sidewalks would be cleared, they'd ice up again. Therefore we haven't been able to deice the car and unseal the doors. The few people who did get out were, for the most part, unable to get their cars open either. Maybe in a couple of days I can make it to the pharmacy for a prescription or two. Meanwhile, I rumble about the apartment and keep asking Joyce, "Please, may I go out and play?" She glares at me and replies, "Don't act stupid", or something to that effect.

Meanwhile, the top picture offers a pretty hope for the future. It's not a typical

Gulf of Mexico sunset off Bradenton Beach, but it's not just black and while and cold, and icy. And yes, if you're wondering, it is Indianapolis.

When I think of it, I guess we're luckier than some who are struggling with two, three or more feet of drifting snow. I guess I'll sit back and enjoy my hibernation cave and look out the windows for the first sign of spring.

Memories of Egypt

2011-02-01T10:37:00.006-05:00

It's been a few years since we were in Egypt. But we have seen familiar scenes on TV news the last few days,

Our visit provided us a lot of contrasts. We stayed in a luxury hotel not far from the pyramids. We rode in comfortable motor coaches or aboard modern railroad trains composed of German sleeper coaches. We saw the pyramids, mosques, ancient ruins, a riverboat from which we could see farming along the Nile and a whole lot more.

The bottom picture shows Cairo - a busy modern city. Some of the buildings and highway viaducts in the background are the same as we've seen on television this past week. But Cairo is a city of contrasts - not much different in many ways from other middle eastern cities. Busy streets - modern stores - large office buildings - signs of prosperity.

But the picture at the top left was also in Cairo. Call it a subdivision if you wish.

Only thing is, this housing was at the city dump. Yes, it IS housing - look at the doors open to living quarters. And the picture at the top right was near Cairo - another small housing development at the side of the road.

Sadly, we take a lot of our lifestyle in American for granted. We live in comfortable homes, apartments, and condos - at least for the most part. But we can see scenes like these in we look for them. I recall an assignment I had when I was going to pastoral school in Kansas City, Mo. back in the late 1970's. We were to told to go into the inner city and visit people where they lived. Apartments without running water - plaster peeling from walls and ceilings - abodes filled with debris and crawling insects. Mildew. Mold. A smell that stayed with us long after we left.

Scenes not limited to one city but duplicated in many other areas of our country.

Yet not one of those scenes compared to the poverty and privation we've seen in Egypt.

So, as I watch the news, I'm not surprised at people protesting and demonstrating.

To be sure, some demonstrators live a lot better - or have in the past. But once in a while we need to recognize that the treasured life styles we enjoy are too often simply taken for granted. I pray for God's forgiveness when we take privation for granted. And don't do anything to correct it.

About the cruise...

2011-01-22T18:32:00.002-05:00

We recently returned from a cruise. Thirty minutes out - thirty minutes home. A unique accomplishment in view of the fact that Indianapolis is several hundred miles from the nearest cruise port.

Actually, we went aboard the SS Titanic, complete with boarding passes. And survived although our boarding passes reflected individuals who may or may not have survived the April 1912 sinking of the 'unsinkable' White Star Line vessel

The visit to the Indiana State Museum afforded us a unique opportunity to see over two hundred relics from the ship. I remain amazed that so many seemed in good shape after decades in the deep sea bed. I was particularly surprised that things like letters and documents and suitcases survived. It was an awesome reminder that even the best designed, most luxurious ship of the time had it's weaknesses and perhaps faults. But the most amazing part of all was that for almost 100 years the legend of the Titanic remains as vivid today as it was in 1912.

Back in 1956, when I was in the Air Force supporting elements of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, I received orders to head home. After a stormy North Sea crossing to England, I caught the boat train from London to Southampton to board the amazing flagship of the United States
Lines, the United States. I had never sailed aboard a ship before so my inaugural voyage was an amazing experience. Especially so since I was sent back First Class. As a Staff Sergeant I was completely out of my domain, sailing with the Lord Mayor of London and movie star Robert Taylor. It was formal dress in the dining room - and luxury beyond my understanding.

This was also unique in the sense that my sailing dates coincided with the schedule of the Titanic. We were at sea off Canada at the same time the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank with thousands of lives lost. There was time to reflect on the tragedy and I have never forgotten the coldness of the seas and weather, and thought of the horror of the 1912 sinking.

Since my first sailing in 1956, We have sailed a lot of waters aboard a lot of ships. A few were old and decrepit - most were luxury liners. Every sailing has reminded me of the vastness and loneliness of the open seas. Especially around Alaska where we have sailed amidst icebergs and occasional rough seas (I remember 30 foot seas off Sitka one time - high enough that we had sea water coming through our latched porthole. And I became enthralled with cruising.

I'm sure glad to have see the Titanic display. It was a vivid reminder that sometimes the best laid plans of man are doomed to failure. But we grow from the reminders over the years.

Small towns - big heros

2011-01-18T14:30:00.004-05:00

As one drives across this great land of ours, we can see big cities - smaller cities - and those little villages that are represented by a small dot on our Rand McNally Road Atlas. It happens in every state - there's a little dot for a town that the Interstate has bypassed and may not seem like much to the average person driving cross country.

Indiana has a lot of these small dots on its state map. For most people the names may not seem significant. But each of those dots represents the home town of somebody. Maybe a farmer - maybe the owner of the only gas station in town - maybe the operator of a small store struggling to compete with the major chain store ten of fifteen miles away. That little dot on the map may even have a sign or monument to celebrate a veteran of past or present wars.

Dana, Indiana is one of these dots. Chances are you've never heard of it before. It's located in west-central Indiana, almost in Illinois. It's closer to Danville, Illinois than it is to Indianapolis. In the 2000 census it had about 650 residents. Just a little dot on the big map, you might say.

But like a lot of small towns, Dana has a claim to fame. If I understand part of its claim, it has a museum. Not about an event or some major contributor to the growth of our nation. A museum dedicated to the life of Ernie Pyle.

Ernie Pyle? Who was he? What was his claim to fame?

Ask most any veteran of World War Two and his face is apt to light up with recognition. No, Ernie wasn't a military hero - at least in the sense of soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines.
He was just a newspaper correspondent. He wrote about events that happened in World War Two. Not from some relatively safe and comfortable office well behind the lines - but from the front lines. From where the action was. He might well be called the GI's newsman. He endured artillery bombardments. He endured the foxholes the same as front-line fighters. He ate the same rations (when they were available) as the rest of the troops. He saw friends die. He experienced first-hand the worst of war and painted pictures in words of what our armed forces endured. He became the personal tie between America's fighting men and the folks who waited at home praying that their loved ones would safely return.

Ernie did not survive the war. He died in the Pacific in a major battle for one of the major islands. He became a casualty as real as any of our service losses in World War Two. But he died as a hero serving as honorably as any person wearing the uniform of a service man. He may not have worked for the War Department, but he worked for his brother soldiers and for their families. There are a more than a few people in history who were not eligible for medals. But some of them, like Ernie Pyle, went far beyond basic job assignments to become heros in their own way.

By the time the war had lasted a few years, Ernie and his wife moved to New Mexico. That doesn't negate his tie to Dana, Indiana. He was just another great person who grew up in one of those small towns that seem no more than a dot on a map. I tend to wonder, as I drive through small villages, well off the beaten track, who in that town made the world a better place. Maybe as a farmer, or a store keeper, or a retired gas station owner. Maybe as as a service veteran. But someone important around that little dot on the map. And they and their town get a big salute from me - their road atlas dot has just become larger and more significant.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People....

2011-01-11T14:22:00.003-05:00

It's been a bad weekend. Not the first nor will it be the last. But we always wish senseless killings would end and that all of us could live lives or watch television without fear of another bad blot on humanity. At least that's the direction I like to come from.

As I tried to come to grips with things like the Arizona shooting I try to seek answers. I'm not sure I always find them but this morning's RBC Ministries devotional thought in their monthly booklet Our Daily Bread really seemed to hit the mark (you can find them at www.rbc.org on the internet).

I wonder so often why good people so often struggle with life physically, financially, emotionally, and so on. Why was a representative in government service gunned down the way

Gabrielle Giffords was? And what is her future? Why do innocent people die - is it simply that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time? Why are quadriplegics like Joni Earickson Tada terribly crippled doing things as innocent as swimming and diving? For that matter, why do servicemen and their families have to endure death and horrible injuries when servicemen have been doing the best they could to bring peace into a world where peace of all kinds is elusive?

Even closer to home are people like our eldest son who has endured disabling work-related injuries for over two years that don't seen to be cured? Where is encouragment for a friend whose husband has Parkinson's Disease and a son who has needed a kidney transplant (a second one) for months?How about the person who has life challenges that never seem to end and goes through life asking, "Why me Lord?"

I like to think that little publications like this mornings RBC devotional offer great elements of encouragment or perhaps reminders that there is still encouragment in tough, challenging times. Though we may contend with afflictions, we're never alone in them. I like to think that the last line in the above devotion thought is a powerful reminder: Our greatest comfort is to know that God is in control - not simply to prevent bad things but to give us strength to handle things that DO happen.

Have faith. You're never alone.

As I was About to Say...

2010-12-31T15:53:00.005-05:00

When it comes to New Year's Eve I tend to reflect back through the past year for special events in the past year. I thought this New Year's Eve I'd go almost 40 or so years back. I was led to this decision by a book by a former pastor - a Baptist - who had a knack of seeing humor in what some see as a profession with few things funny. But things happen - even in the most serious professions.

For instance, my first appointment in my first church. Within a day or so someone in the church passed away and I had never conducted a funeral. I told the funeral director I didn't have any experience in funerals and he replied, "Don't worry, we've trained a lot of pastors and haven't lost one yet." With the Pastor's handy dandy funeral guide - and smiles from the funeral director - it worked out fine - the first of many. Another funeral went well until the interment at a small country cemetery. It was on a hillside and there had been rain. As the casket was moved into place a voice came out of the grave, "Don't worry, I'm fine." One of the attendants
had slipped on mud and had fallen into the hole. We retrieved him just before the family and friends arrived.

There was another surprising event early on in the pastorate.I was deep into an early part of a sermon when a cat came in through an open window behind the choir, and scooted over choir member shoulders, across the chancel, and down a flight of stairs. The choir was unnerved, and the congregation was amused. And there was a time when I offered a spirited altar call hoping for some seeking soul to come forward to accept Christ. I knew I was in trouble when I saw a tail wagging in back of a pew and our collie came down the center aisle, sat down at the communion rail,
and smiled. Yes, I can assure you, dogs do smile! And there was the day I offered a profound prayer aand asked the congregation to join in the Lord's Prayer (the Our Father in a Catholic Church). Just as we concluded this prayer, the public address system sounded out: "That's a big 10-4, good buddy!" A neigbor of the church was a hardline CB'er and his strong signal somehow was received through the PA system.

Then there was the time one of the matriarchs of the church grabbed my arm after service and said, "Come with me, Preacher!" She may have been little but she was strong and she dragged me out to a courtyard, where she pointed up. There, on the ridgepole of the church, was our youngest son who grinned and shouted down,"Hey Dad, c'mon up - I can even see barges going through the river lock." I just looked at the leading church lady and she looked at me, and she said "You need to talk to that boy." I did - after I crawled up the ladder and had a look for myself - on Monday.

One time, in a large Florida church, it was my birthday and we were in a staff meeting. Suddenly one of the secretaries came in with a gift for me. A live, wriggling, squealing piglet. The meeting broke up into hysterical laughter and I quickly relinquished the baby pig to the secretary who had rented the animal for the day. Buty the story didn't end there - after the piglet was shown at preschool show-and-tell, it wriggled loose and ran all over the church yard. The sight was beyond belief with a large church staff running around calling, "Here piggy-piggy; Here piggy-piggy!" The event ended up happily ever after and the piglet ended up back home on the farm with no injuries. Oh, there was another pig-related event - a children's sermon about the three little pigs. Everything when according to plan until I asked the children what happened when the big,bad wolf tried to blow down the brick house. Out of the congregation a tiny voice came saying the "the wolf blew down the whole thing." I quickly found an object lesson about houses built of rotten bricks.

In almost 40 years in the pastorate there were more funny or poignant events that I can remember. But as we approach a new year I wonder what new and funny things will happen in 2011. I suppose the old saying, "Seek and ye shall find" applies. We just need to expect and rejoice in the happy things of life.

You better be good...

2010-12-22T09:15:00.004-05:00

To me, the main focus of Christmas is the spiritual one - celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. We need to be reminded - forcefully - despite the efforts of unbelievers - that Christmas is not just a holiday but a holy day. In this day and age that holy day has become more a secular day off and less focused on a relationship with God. I am too much a traditionalist to see things that way and so I recognize Christmas as a most gift of God - a day all too easy to relegate to just another day off - and by the way, a day to spend money on gifts. Money we sometimes can't really afford. But I treasure Jesus as the amazing gift of God.

Not to say I haven't appreciated other gifts I've gotten in the past. From the third grade I remember a model airplane kit at a church Christmas party - a model too complex for a third grader. I remember a small printing press a few years later that opened the door to my love of publications and printing. Once there was a gift from FAO Schwartz (the fantastic toy store in mid-town New York City) of a kit to build a brick structure using tiny clay bricks glued together with strips of cardboard simulating mortar. There was a Christmas in the Depression years in which my father made a flock of buildings and bridges to go with a second-hand electric train set. There was the time I got a Meccano kit to build machines (we couldn't afford the Erector sets). There was a time when I got a chemistry set - a forerunner of my unappreciated experiments in the high school chemistry lab. Following almost a year of cruising on the USS Enterprise, I received another model -a very large kit to make a scale replica of the ship I had worked on as a technical advisor.

But the most wonderful gift I ever received was a small golden band - a wedding ring - since we had not had money enough to buy one for our wedding ceremony a few days earlier (it was 57 years ago on December 19th). Maybe I should correct myself -the greatest gift was the one who gave me the ring. I have always said that the Air Force was very important in helping me to set good priorities in life, but Joyce was a wonderful gift of God who has celebrated and struggled with life at my side for all these years.

So, I say, 'Thank you, Lord, for Jesus and all He represents within our lives'.
And 'Thank you, Lord for Joyce and the children'. Thank you more than any Nieman Marcus or Nordstrom or Macy's gift, of any amount, could equal.

Have a wonderful, blessed Christmas and treasure God's gifts this season.

Let Your Light So Shine....

2010-12-15T09:47:00.003-05:00

When I was little I would count the number of houses that had outside Christmas lighting in December. We, at one point, lived about 30 miles away from my maternal grandparent's house and it became a ritual to check out Christmas lights on the way.In the 1930's outside Christmas lighting was just simple strings of colored lights but they were pretty just then same, and there were lots of homes decorated that way.

It seems different nowadays. It doesn't seem as though there are that many homes with outside lighting. Maybe it's just me, but somehow a little of the spirit of Christmas has faded away. Maybe it's the economy. Maybe it's because I'm old and am tradition bound but in some ways it doesn't seem quite the same.

Then there are those "small cells" in places like Winter Park and Port Orange Florida that are masterpieces of creative lighting art. Whole neighborhoods lit
up by animated lighting systems complete with computer generated music. It's amazing where technology has taken us.

But still the focus remains in many homes and hearts of scenes of stables with a family with a newborn baby and shepherds in a stable. Even wise men - some of the wisest of the time - making a long trip to worship a newborn child, the Son of God. So the light continues to shine forth at Christmas - the light of God's love and hope for humanity.

When you live in an apartment there isn't a lot one can do in a reflection of God's love. We try a little with lights in our apartment window. Hopefully, and more importantly, we hope our lives reflect some of God's love. We try, the best we can to share care and concern for our neighbors upstairs, downstairs, and down the hall. And we hope the lights of our apartment window reflect a bit of the goodness of the season - not simply of decorations and secular gifts, but of the love God has shared with us in Christ.

Christmas in the City

2010-12-11T11:18:00.004-05:00

On second thought, The Christmas Spirit is alive and well in the city. At least in Indianapolis. Last night daughter Lisa took us to a Christmas concert at Butler University and it was great. Great to be with a daughter who has just recovered from a bad bout of bronchitis, and great in the performance of Christmas music. Some secular, but most traditional. At the end of the concert we heard the Messiah - marvelous. But then they auctioned off directing rights to a second rendition of the Messiah and bids came from all over the audience in Clowes Hall. The final bid -the WINNING bid - came after spirited bidding and the money pledged was to go to a fund to help Butler University choral groups present music programs in Europe in the year ahead.

Not only music by college groups - some very large - but the Indianapolis Childrens Choir as well. Our granddaughter Jill sang in that choir some time ago before she went to college. What a wonderful collection of young people and even more when they sang jointly with with the Butler University Choir. It was a night to rfemember and I am grateful to Lisa for taking us.

On another side of town - close to where we live - there is Old Bethel United Methodist Church. It is where we have been attending worship and it is an amazingly warm, friendly, and caring congregation. The other picture above is of the fellowship hall yesterday afternoon. The entire hall was filled with food boxes and christmas packages for the needy at Christmas. Over 300 families are being given gifts of Christmas. I thought to myself, Christmas is a gift of God, and what better way to share the love of Christ with people in need, especially in times like now with so many people suffering unemployment. I'm sure there are many other churches and benevolent organizations that share love at Christmas with care packages and gifts for children, but in all my years I have never seen such an expression of what Christmas is all about without expection of some kind of return.

But there IS a return - it's the knowledge that people who might not have much will be able to eat turkey, and fruit and basic foods. It is the knowledge of smiles from children who might not have anything to celebrate. So, if my last blog focused too much on a secular season, we should be reminded that the true spirit of Christmas is more alive than we might think. Not just in little country churches - but in the city as well. Thank you, Indianapolis, for reminding me.

Clear the Way!

2010-12-09T13:57:00.003-05:00

Winter is not what it used to be. Especially winter life in the city.

I think back to days in my life like the picture above. I'm reminded of the small 300 population village I lived in for years. As I wrote a year ago, we would go out in the woods - not a tree farm - to find our tree. We'd haul it back to the car on a hand-pulled sled and once in the house we would trim it with hand-me-down old ornaments or ornaments we made ourselves. Some were made out of colored paper; others were strings of popcorn and cranberries. No lights - after all, the wonderful world of REA electricity had not reached our house. We had pot-belly stoves and a wood-burning cooking range and it was still cold. We had lots of snow and we would use snowshoes to get to town at times.

I had a pair of skis with primitive bindings. I could ski on a hill across the creek from the house (it was before I planted hundreds of evergreen trees) (Norway Spruce and Scotch Pine)on that same slope. Or I would go behind a neighbor's house. It was always easier to go down than ski herringbone style back up the hill to home. Even more fun was using a home-made six-person bobsled that we steered with ropes. No steering wheel - no brakes - we just hoped that the clothesline ropes would not break before we got to the bottom of the hill. It was a winding road that almost never got cleared before spring and we frequently ended up going off the road into the snow-filled ditch. It was miraculous that no one ever got really hurt because that primitive bobsled sure did move down the hill.

I remember Christmas eve in that village. The Presbyterian church was like the ones you see in Vermont calendars. We'd make it to town and the stars were beautifully bright. Then we'd approach the church which was lit with candles. I marvel at times that it did not burn down from all the candles but it still exists to this day. I like to think of that church and houses as the perfect Christmas village and I miss that scene every Christmas. Sparkling snow on the ground - the sound of Christmas carols filtering through the darkness of night - and candles in the windows of the church.

Like many others, I am sad at Christmas in some ways. I resent the efforts of the entertainment world and media as they try to downplay the word "Christmas" and simply relate a holy time to a mere holiday. I'm getting along in years and I miss some of the old days. To be sure, there were a lot of hard times in the decades of yesteryear - but times were simpler, less strident, and faith was strong. Miracles still undergirded Christmas and the love of God was central to every-day life.

John Denver once sang...."Take me home, country roads..." and I wish I could. But like our eldest son has said to me, "Dad, you're old fashioned - times have changed - you don't understand.." But I do - and still I cling to memories that centered on faith and simplicity. I'm not ready to send the Spirit of Christmas to the landfill.
MERRY CHRISTMAS - and a very happy new year!

The Beginning or the End?

2010-11-30T10:46:00.003-05:00

I've always loved this picture. It causes me to reflect on the negatives and positives of life. When was it taken? Where was it taken? Is it sunrise? Or is it sunset? Is there a message in it?

It could be sunset. It could be the downer side of life. It could be the darkness that is in the future - the darkness of tough decisions or of discouragement and maybe even fear of what tomorrow might bring. That's common in life today - questions of security, or health, or simply the unknown. Or maybe the possible ending of a lifestyle or of life itself. I've had my moments when I was bogged down with depression and maybe most of us have moments like that.

It could be sunrise - the dawn of a new day filled with new choices and new opportunities. The darkness is behind and we have the brilliance of the new day ahead. It brings light to the decisions we have to make, or opens doors to new opportunities - new hope from the darkness of indecision, hurt, fear, or frustration.

There have been so many times we've faced those moments. I prefer to look at life as a series of doors opening. Not closing. In all the church appointments I've ever served, I have never focused on what has been left behind. I'd rather look at changes like these as opportunities to do new things, meet new people, experience something exciting ahead, Yes, I have always regretted leaving people behind. Some people are always hard to leave. Some ministries were just beginning to be productive when we had to move somewhere else. And I've never forgotten those people or ministries. But like the person looking out from the beach at the sun low on the horizon I like to look to the possibilities ahead and the brightness of the new day.
If it's a sunset, let it be the opportunity to reflect on what is behind - and to
let the frustrations, fears and hurts of the past be absorbed in darkness. If it's a sunrise it is the dawn of fresh new life, new possibilities, and hope for the future.

This may all sound naive - simplistic. But I can say from experience that being bogged down in anger and fear and frustration isn't the solution. Like the lady looking out over the Gulf of Mexico from Bradenton Beach - there's something good out there just waiting to be found. Maybe a door opening to something new and positive just waiting to lift up your heart with hope and inner peace.

Thanksgiving? Not quite!

2010-11-21T19:15:00.004-05:00

Yes, it is a seafood dinner. But the picture was taken in Florida in January. Or was it February? It is a perfect example of gluttony - and I'm the guilty one. But how I love seafood - and yes, I ate the whole assortment of crab, and oysters, and clams, and who knows what else.

But I think back to some thanksgivings as well. Like the time we were stationed briefly at Niagara Falls AFB. We lived in a motel - one room with a kitchenette.
No oven - just a cooktop. So what do you do when a friend brings you a pheasant for Thanksgiving? You pluck it and clean it - and then fry the pheasant. Sacrilege, you say? I can think of people who didn't even have that kind of opportunity.

Like us a couple or three years later. We were at a base in Illinois and it was the end of the month. We'd run out of money and I took my precious bowling ball to the local pawn shop. If memory serves correctly, I got five dollars, enough for franks and beans --- our thanksgiving feast for the year.

Then there was the time I drove to Detroit Thanksgiving weekend not long before we were married. I knew that Joyce's fmily was large but I never thought they would have to eat in shifts. First shift was the younger children (and me); second shift was mainly for people when they got home from work. It was wonderful and even more amazing that a family that large could truly celebrate Thanksgiving - so many people then could not - and do not even today.

Another thanksgiving was when I was overseas in Italy. The food in Italy was truly wonderful but we had to teach the cooks in our hotel how to cook American style. What a wonderful sharing experience we had with laughter, and fellowship, and joy
together, even with our differences in language and customs.

There was another time of separation - a time of great tension - over Thanksgiving.
Joyce and the children were at home feeling a sense of fear and I was on an aircraft carrier patrolling the seas south of Cuba during the Cuban Blockade. We are well fed aboard ship - Navy food is good, especially at Thanksgiving. But it was also a time when our hearts turned homeward, thinking of family, and wondering how they were faring with such separation and concern about the days ahead.

I think of Thanksgiving for our service personnel overseas - so many in harms way.
I think of our Army grandson who is looking toward shipment overseas sometime in the future. A second overseas assignment for him; he spent some time in Iraq and gained a purple heart award in the process. And I think of other families whose sons or daughters serve our country - especially families who have lost loved ones in their service. And I look back at the picture above and think how lucky I am - how thankful I am that we have soldiers, and Marines, and sailors, and airmen who care enough about their country that they give of themselves for you and me.

Let this be not just a time to eat - but a time to reflect on the blessings we have
and to share our wealth and health with others.

Just like the friend who brought a pheasant to our motel room so we would have a Thanksgiving meal - even when it ended up being fried.

A week of celebrating

2010-11-12T12:49:00.006-05:00

I should have called this Veterans Day -Part Two.

It seems as if I've been involved in something special most every day. And it hasn't stopped yet.

A while back our youngest - Lisa - said she had called to set up a free bed and breakfast stay on Veteran's Day Eve. It was to be at a Bed and Breakfast in Muncie, some fifty miles north of here. I thought at first that she was kidding but then I looked the B & B up on the internet and sure enough, it was listed and looked really nice. So, we called them and confirmed that we did, indeed, have a welcome opportunity and the offer to Veterans was real. The inkeeper, Jane McDowell, assured me that it was and I said we really appreciated the offer and we would welcome the opportunity.

It's been a long time since we were in Muncie (we went to a Gaither concert at Ball State University in the '70's) and it was great to get back. But the B & B was the best part of all. We found that B and B's all over the country were offering this to veterans as a recognition of their service. Arriving in Muncie, we had a great seafood dinner, and found a Books a Million - which we love and haven't been to in a long time. Lisa said to us - "Have a good honeymoon" It was a few years late for that but hey, it could have been.

Anyway, Jane's Bed and Breakfast is shown in the picture above. It was the house she had grown up in and has been upgraded into a beautiful place to stay. There were two other couples that stayed that night and they were a joy to meet. And breakfast -
I'm ready to come up with a grin like Rachel Rae in her TV show about Jane's breakfast. Nothing commercial about it - it was wonderful. I have a hunch we might go back there someday and I can't say enough about how enjoyable the stay was.

But the day wasn't over. When we left the B & B, we went to a museum of model aircraft. I didn't know how it would settle with Joyce since I overdo airplane museums - but this was something she really enjoyed. While there we saw a good friends name on a plaque there, a long-time friend from Florida who we knew in Florida and was a model aircraft enthusiast.

But the day wasn't over. We took back roads back home and managed to get lost a couple of times in areas we thought we knew about. Then it was to the supermarket
to get a good-size turkey for thanksgiving. And, because Some of the major restaurants were offering free meals to veterans, we went out to dinner. I don't think Joyce was real happy about that since she was still full from breakfast (it had been a long time since breakfast - but men get hungry sooner than the ladies - at least I think it's that way.).

But it's not over - tonight Lisa and Dan want to take us out to dinner. Diet is not a word I have been able to focus on this week. But if I go, I'm going to go happy.
And look at a few more free meals for veterans.

Meanwhile, our deep appreciation to all those who made this year's Veteran's Day and my birthday very special. Thanks - and God bless!

A Time Long Ago

2010-11-09T14:46:00.003-05:00

I have an unusual service background.

Two years of National Guard service Company I (Infantry, 104th Battalion, 26th (Yankee) Division. I was in the National Guard when the Korean Conflict began and almost immediately we were alerted that we stood likelihood of being sent to Korea in June or July 1950. It didn't happen that way and when I moved to Florida I became
vulnerable to the draft. Rather than that, I chose to enlist in the Air Force where I served from October 1951 to May of 1961. The picture with this blog reflect some events during that time.

I went to work for McDonnell Aircraft in 1961 and in August was assigned to the Navy
at NAS Oceana Virgina as an advisor to Squadron VF-102 as they received their brand new F-4 Phantoms. While at Oceana I rode both the USS Independence and brand new CVAN-65 USS Enterprise. We deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to the Mediteranean
Sea. The biggest surprise was a deployment off Cuba during the Cuban Blockade. As a civilian.

Again as a civilian advisor, I was transferred in January 1963 to the Marines at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. I deployed with a Marine Squadron a couple of times to Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico and was on orders in 1967 to go with the squadron to DaNang, South Vietnam. At the last minute I was sent back to St. Louis
instead, and that ended my military/naval active duty.

That makes me a veteran of duty with the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines. The reason I never went to the Coast Guard was that they never bought any McDonnell fighter aircraft. I presume I can be listed accurately as a veteran.

So, I think back over the years with a sense of pride. I hope my contributions to military and naval/Marines contributed to our United States well being. I am proud of all those years of service, whether active military or as a technical advisor

However, I cannot reflect those years without deep love and appreciation to my wife for the months she spent raising the children and keeping things going. We can recognize our veterans - but at the same time, we should recognize the commitment and concessions made by wives and children who serve in their own ways behind the scenes. In many ways they are heros/heroine in their own ways. Thank YOU on Veterans Day - your contributions are more than we ever give adequate recognition.

Election Daze

2010-10-31T16:11:00.004-04:00

It was 1950 and I was working in radio. In fact, I had the hallowed responsibility of News Director - Copy Writer - Disc Jockey -and a few other less significant tasks. But for the moment, let's address the night I was doing a remote election broadcast away from the studios and was based in the newsroom of a major weekly newspaper.

So far so good. No problems. On occasion the folks in the studio would switch from location to location. One moment it would be from the south part of the county. The next it would be from the County Seat. Another time it would be somewhere up north.
And I would get my turn to provide interviews and tabulations from the most important R.........n newspaper in our whole area of the state. (Understand, the newspaper owner and his editor son were leading political figures at the time and thus earned a major media focus.

The polls closed and the round-robin reporting went off without a hitch. From north, south, east and west the numbers came in. The newsroom was filled with smiling faces
and cheers. Obviously the results were good in terms of the folks in the newsroom.

Finally, as the evening broadcast began to wind down, the broadcast was switched to me for the final summary and closing interviews. Interviews completed I began to do a county-wide wrap-up of statistics. I checked my watch for this was to be a ten-minute segment. However, it began to get tiresome but the time on my watch was within limits. I kept on summarizing fearing that I would run out of material. But the time was still within limits.

Then came the phone call from the studio. The transmitter had been closed down half an hour before the call. The station was closing its doors. My segment, supposedly
to have been ten minutes in length had become an over 45 minute marathon.

My watch had stopped.

Now you know why most churches had two clocks running when I did my ministry sermons. Somebody must have been in the newsroom the night I did the longest election summary in the history of that county. By the way, I don't remember ever being asked to do another election program. Oh, well...nobody is perfect!

I'm Confused

2010-10-26T13:05:00.003-04:00

Indeed, yes, I AM confused. I thought caterpillars were a way to forecast how bad a winter is going to be. Now I'm beginning to wonder.

Turns out the caterpillars that are suppposed to reveal a forecast are brown and you foresee the winter ahead by the size of the dark rings. It was that way in Missouri 30 years ago.I'd drive across the countryside north of Mexico in October and there were zillions of brown critters to be seen around and on the highways. As a matter of fact Iprobably slaughtered a significantnumber crossing the main roads going north out of Mexico. Which causes me to wonder, Why does a brown caterpillar cross the road in October? Perhaps to see if the forecast is better on the other side?

What prompted this dilemma was a hike in Harrison State Park couple of weeks ago. I saw a WHITE caterpillar crossing a trail and wondered if the size of its black stripe down its back had any bearing on the winter forecast. I thought the internet might answer my question or at least clarify my question.I saw pictures of white caterpillars just like the one above but could not find reference to weather forecasting. Only about brown caterpillars. So, my questiom remains unanswered.

I guess I better go out and get my copy of the Farmers Almanac. Or just take the weather as it comes. Which has not been nice in Indy today. Oh, well, such is life - you take the bad with the good and remember - it's been a long and pretty autumn in Indiana and every day is a day closer to Spring.

Meanwhile, The Rest of the Story

2010-10-18T12:44:00.002-04:00

Back in September - the 24th of September to be more specific, I wrote about a challenge we had with a squirrel taking up residence in a large bird feeder at our house. It consumed large quantities of birdseed - especially sunflower seeds that were direct from the field of a dear friend of ours. I said that there was a continuation of the story that I would pass on later. So, here is the rest of the story.

Our bird feeders at another location attracted squirrels as well. They had a challenging time getting at the bird feed as well because of the design of the feeder. About the only way they could get the feed was to hang by their back feet and even then they weren't always successful. Occasionally their grasp would slip
and they would end up doing a backflip before they hit the ground. But that never seemed to discourage them - given a few minutes recovery time, they'd climb the tree,run out on the limb from which the feeder hung, and get back to the meal in the feeder. Sometimes they were successful - sometimes they'd fall and go through the exercise again. And again. We really didn't need television for entertainment - there was more action in the front yard and more laughs as well.

But it didn't end with the squirrels - we'd have deer visit with the same quest in mind. The picture above shows that and it happened right outside our front picture window. We'd watch them congregate on the far side of a corn field across the road.
They'd slowly make their way closer and closer to the three houses at our end of the street. Then they would have an appetizer in the apple orchard next door to our place. They then would cross a driveway and work on our bird feeders. Talk about spectator sport - we had it - and the deer seemed to have little if any fear.

I can't say that we have that sort of thing close by here,after all, now we are living in the city. But we may have deer yet - deer that have lost their way. We keep watching - stranger things have happened - maybe it will be a bear at the complex dumpster. You just never know. And, as I said, we'll be watching.

You Remind Me of Someone I Knew

2010-10-12T12:31:00.013-04:00

When you look in a mirror, who do you see? Probably what you expect to see and sometimes what you would prefer NOT to see. And there are the times you see something you'd rather not see. Me, for instance. The mirror today shows me as I am - warts and all when I sometimes wish I looked like I did thirty or forty years ago. Then I figure the mirror picture is not too bad for my age - and that's okay.

But sometimes it's interesting to see ourselves through other peoples eyes. The picture this time was done by a midway cartoonist on Chicago's Navy Pier. I'm not sure what he really saw but when all was said and done, I had to laugh - but at myself. There's a lot of things reflected in that picture, not the least being the look of suspicion on Joyce's face and a look of 'oops' on mine. At first I couldn't figure out what the cartoonist was seeing in us - that is, until I caught the bit of lipstick on my forehead. That wasn't there when I went into the Navy Pier; moreover Joyce and I are not exhibitionists. Not much smooching in public, that is.

We tried that just once at our fiftieth anniversary bash and it didn't work - she said "Let's do a dip" and kiss, our legs didn't want to bend, and I just about dropped her in the process. But that's another story.

How are we seen by others? Are we seen as we really are, or do we wear a mask covering our inner being? How about the times when there is a husband/wife disagreement just before going to a party or other function where we don't want to let about problems back at the ranch? You see a lot of put-on with Hollywood personalities who are there because they have to be - but who have battles royal backstate. Maybe that happens more that we like to think.

I think back to when I was in high school. My nickname was 'Rana' which is Spanish
for (green)'Frog(ggie)' Why did they call me that? Because I had goggle-like glasses at the time? Because my voice was changing and sometimes croaked? I'll never know what my school friends really saw me as -- and maybe I should be just as glad.

So then, the picture makes me laugh because the artist may have seen me as more of a Lothario, and Joyce as a good gal who had some justified suspicians. Who will ever know? And how do we see our neighbor - as if through an artists eyes?

In the meantime, the lipstick stays and I'll never tell where it came from.

Cool It, Buddy!

2010-10-09T17:56:00.003-04:00

What does one do if they don't have air conditioning - or central heating for that matter?

What does one do if they don't have electricity or plumbing in a house?

I guess you do the best you can. That's what we did in our family - and others close by did as well back in the thirties. No radio. No television (not many people even thought of that back then). Heat with a coal-craving pot-belly stove or two. And food cooked on a big wood-burning black cast iron stove. No running water - There was a hand-operated water pump outside under the porch winter or summer. Toilets? You gotta be kidding - there was a pot under the bed - or you can make a run for the outhouse at the perimeter of the yard.

Want a bath or a shower? Either a big tin tub in the kitchen/family/dining room
with hot water coming off the wood stove in kettles. Or, if the weather was smiling on us, we could go swimming in the back yard. Better yet, we could take showers at the waterfall a little bit down the road. I loved - and still love - that waterfall. Sadly, it doesn't seem as big or high it was when I was in grade school but it remains today looking just as it did 75 or more years ago. Moreover, it was not just for us - we just took our turn with the others who lived the same and came to the same falls as did for the same reasons we did.

There came a day that REA ran electricity up the hill to our house. We built a new kitchen with new appliances. We threw away the chamber pots and burned down the outhouse. And took our showers in the bathroom of the house.

The memory lingers - I've never been in a shower since to compare with the water pressure of the waterfall - nor has there ever been a shower with such cold water. I loved it and it is one of God's special beautiful places even today.

I can't help thinking that there are those who live that way today. Humbles one to think how much we take for granted - there are still the 'haves' and 'have-nots' in the world today. They'll probably be around forever. For instance, the slums of the city or the real backwoods in our own country. Sometimes we need to think of how blessed we are and thank God for our blessings. Agree?

We're Not in Kansas Any More

2010-10-04T10:38:00.004-04:00

Well, actually, we're not in Michigan anymore. But if memory serves correctly, Indiana has it's pretty moments in the fall as well. It's just that it's not quite time for the colors here; well, there's a little here and there but not like it was in Oscoda. Yet.

I rememember how, in Florida, I used to look forward to the two or three weeks after Christmas when we had some fall colors there. The colors came out on Highway 50 between Orlando and Titusville for a little while and then as soon as they were there they were gone. Not like 'up north' where they linger a while. Autumn and winter lasted only a month or so between summer and summer.

When I was little - maybe even into high school years - the northeast flaunted fall colors as early as the end of September. The air was crisp - the sunshine had a fall look to it - and we would go into the woods to gather hickory nuts for wintertime cooking. Not pecans or exotic ones like cashews for us - but there were butternuts and hazel nuts as well and we didn't know any difference. Nuts are nuts, we used to say and they all seemed to be good in pumpkin bread. Unless you found a nut with a worm in it.

So it just seemed right to use some fall color pictures this week. Esp'ecially when we will be facing the black and whites all to soon. But, you know, there is a beauty to winter. I've got some pictures of snow on trees that are classics. And spring has a beauty of its own when the first tiny flowers creep up through the dead leaves in a forest.

I love summer but when you think about it, summer can get pretty drab when you have a summer like we've had this year when the rains didn't come and grass died out. So, I hope this blog has lightened up the scene for the moment. Autumn is a special time and I love its beauty. Treasure it now since it won't last forever.

A lot of plywood

2010-10-02T09:37:00.003-04:00

Back in the last century - 1946 to be precise - back before the days of Interstate highways - I had a real treat: a cross-country trip from New York State to California with friends. It was a chance to visit with grandparents in Long Beach, and one of the things they took me to see was a huge seaplane that was tied up at Terminal Island. Reportedly, it was the biggest plane ever built and was the brainchild of Howard Hughes. Officially it was called the Hercules, had six huge engines and flew only once - but not in my sight. Over the years it has gained another name - the Spruce Goose - and it still exists although it never flew again after Howard Hughes proved that it could and would get off the ground. Or water if you look at it realistically.

Last year, on our trip out West, we got to see this humongous aircraft up close. Not only close up, we got inside it and yes, it is huge.

It spent a lot of years on display in a special domed building in Long Beach. Fact is, the famed ocean liner Queen Mary (the first) ended up being tied up adjacent to the liner. Over the years the plane fell on hard times and eventually it ended up being bought by Oregon's Evergreen Air Museum, between Portland and Lincoln City on the Pacific coast. If I thought it looked big in 1946 I had no idea just how big it actually was. Most amazing of all, the plane was built out of plywood. With aluminum being in short supply during World War Two, Howard Hughes believed that plywood offered a positive alternative. Even more amazing was the fact that the structure has endured for almost 60 years with several moves and is in remarkably good condition.

Howard Hughes was a remarkable man. Eccentric to say the least, but a genius in other ways. I never had the faintest idea in 1946 that in ten years I would be teaching electronics systems - the ultimate weapon system of the day - that were produced by Hughes Aircraft Company. Over the years I've been blessed in seeing a lot of unique things - not the least being a Spruce Goose that most people never thought would get off the water. But it did!

We've been invaded!

2010-09-24T14:29:00.003-04:00

Well, actually it happened a couple of years ago. However, we've never forgotten the event, and maybe, just maybe, you may have been exposed to a similar situation.

When we left our last church appointment a little over two years ago the folks in Whittemore gave us a really nice farewell/retirement party. Among the gifts were a beautiful eagle plaque which rests on the top of my desk at this moment. Another gift had to be left behind when we moved to Indianapolis -- a beautiful, very large, bird feeder. We put it in the yard outside one of the back windows of our house and loaded it up with really good bird seed. For a while we had what seemed like every bird in twenty counties at the feeder. It was a sight to behold - just what the lady of the house had dreamed about for months. Until.........

The squirrel moved in. Not just to munch on the bird seed but to take up occupancy.
It no longer was an exotic bird feeder - now it became a luxury squirrel condo. Fully
equipped with tender vittles enough to last through a winter. Well not really - that squirrel made short order of the birdseed - and had the audacity to sit on the feeder porch and glare at us for not filling the feeder back up. (See picture for a glare stare you have to look closely)

I don't think the feeder has seen a full load of feed for quite a while. No sense in tempting the squirrel to come back. The feeder looks great behind the house but now it's not a squirrel glare to contend with - it's stares from hungry birds who can't understand why the cupboard is bare. Well part of the situation is that there's no feed in the shed - moreover, we don't live there any more.

Well, there's another chapter in the bird saga - the story of a deer and bird feeders. I'll have to hold off on that tale until I can find the CD with those pictures. Meanwhile, old photos leave good memories of pleasant days. And yes, we are both for the birds. If you know what I mean.

On a Wanted List?

2010-09-18T10:07:00.003-04:00

Joyce and I just got our Indiana driver's licenses - but it wasn't easy. If I remember correctly, it was a much easier task in Michigan, and much more challenging in Florida and I'm really glad the process is over with. But it isn't altogether over - I have to live with this photo for at least the next three years hoping that the actual license picture is better than this.

In fact, I think the camera person came from a police department job taking photos of out and out criminals. Can't you see the evil in my eyes? And she has missed the top of my head and shows more of my shirt. Yes, there is a definite criminal aspect to the photo.

As I remember, a person didn't have to take a written test or driving test in Michigan if you already had a license from another state. In Florida I needed both even if one had thirty or more accident/violation free years behind them. I got the impression Florida didn't want any more drivers than was necessary. Michigan seemed to welcome drivers from other states. Indiana splits the difference -- they have a fifty question written test you have to pass before you can even apply for a license. Of those questions, at least 20 were recognizing highway signs.

The first day at the Beech Grove BMV office Joyce had everything she needed relative to identity. I didn't - somehow I had misplaced my Social Security card and even if I had a letter from Social Security with my name, old address, and new address, I was rejected from even applying. Joyce at least got to take the test which she failed relative to street signs.

The next day she passed the test and got her temporary license. Having found my Social Security card, I was allowed to apply and managed to fail the written test.
I missed by one sign and the reason I failed was that, although I knew the answer, I put the mark in the wrong box. My fault? Yep, but I still fussed and fumed all day about the injustice of it all. Joyce was much better than I about it.

Day three to Beech Grove: I passed the test -- aced the signboard portion and missed only a couple of the questions. Thus, I could proceed to get my temporary license and have the dubious privilege of living with this picture for months on end. Maybe I'll be blessed and not have to show the picture to any other person. Meanwhile, I'll be checking every post office bulletin board to see if it shows up there Meanwhile, I no longer have my wonderful 45 dollar enhanced Michigan drivers license but will enjoy my 11 dollar Indiana Secure license.

Am I on a wanted list? I hope so, as long as it is limited to family and friends.

From the Memory Bank

2010-09-11T12:22:00.003-04:00

We have had the privilege of sailing in and out of New York City's harbor several times and it has always been an impressive experience. My first was when I was in the Air Force returning from a tour of duty in Europe. That particular time I was sailing First Class on the famed liner United States. In First Class I was like a fish out of water - I was not comfortable sailing with notables like movie star Robert Taylor and the Lord Mayor of London. But as we entered New York harbor, like so many GI's from the past, I got goose bumps when I saw the Statue of Liberty. I knew I was home and proud to be an American.

In the mid-nineties I sailed out of and back into New York harbor again, this time on a seven day cruise to Canada and back. I felt the same way about Lady Liberty, but I was also impressed with the New York Skyline near Battery Park. As we left the view was very similar to the picture with this blog with the sun setting in the west and the World Trade Center reflecting a rosy glow. A beautiful and impressive sight and, on our return a week later,had an equally beautiful view as morning dawned over the city that never sleeps.

In May of 2001 we sailed through lifting fog into New York Harbor, this time halfway through a cruise from Port Canaveral, Florida to Montreal, Canada. The Trade Center towers loomed high over the city, and again it was a sight to behold. This time we were in New York long enough to take a tour through the city and in the process we passed by the Woolworth Building where my father had worked at one time, and right under the soaring towers of the Trade Center. Later, well into the evening, we sailed back out of the harbor passing by the same towers lit brilliantly with lights on all floors. Who could have known - who would have imagined - that in just a few short months those towers would be gone, replaced by ugly clouds of smoke and piles of debris and the remains of thousands of people.

I hope the nation never forgets what happened September 11, 2001. In many ways we will never think or live quite the same as before that date. I know it is a very special memory for me and worthy of a lot of special prayers for lives lost and lives that have to go on with that loss. I pray we never forget what happened that morning nine years ago.

A Good Guy

2010-09-05T10:38:00.006-04:00

The picture shows some of Joyce's family a couple of years ago. From left to right you can see Wilbur Welsh (brother-in-law), Jim Lakin (Joyce's brother), Jim's wife Sandra, my wife Joyce, and Willie's wife, Joan, one of my wife's sisters.

Willie passed away last week after a horrible bout with cancer. I thought to myself, why is it that good guys sometimes suffer the worst. Of course, Joan went through it right along with Willie and it had to be terrible for her to see Willie suffer and have his life slowly ebb away. Unless one has been through something like that it is hard for others to really understand the struggle people go through. The Bible talks about 'fighting the good fight' and Willie did just that.

I have a lot of good memories of Willie. Sometimes I remember him working on cars in his back yard. He was a wizard shade-tree mechanic. His real job was at Ford's Mercury Division in the Detroit area. He worked hard, studied hard, and eventually became highly skilled in machine set-up processes. At one time he and Joan came and stayed with us when he thought about changing jobs. Eventually he retired and Willie and Joan settled in a lovely home in north-central Michigan. When we moved to Michigan from Florida we got help from Willie and for that I was extremely grateful. They lived about two hours west of us when we lived in Michigan, and we always enjoyed going to their house.

He and Joan also had a remote bit of land (40 acres) that they called Willieland. He loved it there. It was peaceful - away from the pressures of life and I think the happiest I ever saw him was when he would hike around his land, do target shooting, and just feel a part of nature.

Willie was a very private person. Very quiet spoken. But he had a strong sense of values that I agreed with and I felt at peace with life when I was with him. We talked about his service with Army artillery during the Korean conflict. He had a lot of stories about his army days and would grin when he said his Army specialty was 'polishing big guns.'

Last Friday the family celebrated his life. I would like to think that Willie would have been happy with the way it was done. No big hoorahs. No big speeches. Nothing false - just a recognition that the world had lost a really good guy. I appreciated our daughter Lisa driving up andback from Michigan -- it meant a lot to us to be there. And, yes, Willie will be missed -- a lot. He was a special friend.

What a Week it has Been

2010-08-27T20:23:00.002-04:00

In 1961, after ten busy and happy years, I left the Air Force as a Tech Sergeant to become a Field Engineer with McDonnell Aircraft Company. I really didn't want to leave the Air Force but service pay was not very good when you had a family of seven. Ironically, not long after I left the Air Force the government came up with a lot of improvements in the support of enlisted personnel and a month after I got out I heard that I had been on the promotion list to Master Sergeant. However, all of this was too late for me to go back.

I loved my years and work at McDonnell and the people I worked with were some of the greatest co-workers a person could work with. I'm not going to say our work was easy because it was long hours, hard, work and there were a lot of painful family separations, like cruises with the Navy and deployments with the Marines. I went on a carrier qualification cruise off the Virginia coast with a hectic flight and maintenance schedule. That was on the USS Independence and our accomodations were far enough forward that we had a catapult right over our head. I can assure you that there was no sleep from 5:30 in the morning until well into the night.

Then there was the shakedown cruise of the brand new (then) nuclear carrier Enterprise in the Caribbean working out of Guantanamo, Cuba. Two weeks after Lisa was born we were off on a cruise (several months) to the Mediterranean Sea. Three or four days after we got back to Norfolk in October we were off again for a couple of months on the Cuban Blockade with no days in port. It was nerve-wracking with long hours and hard work and by the time I got back home I probably looked a lot like the picture (a classic sketch from the old days of what a Field Service Engineer looked like - I have no idea who drew it but it IS a classic.

Meanwhile, my wife was holding down the homefront and I will never be able to repay her for all she did. She watched over five very young children. She endured all kinds of trials in the process and I cannot express my deep love for her enough for all she put up with.

Likewise, it taught me a lesson on the the trials and tribulations service families go through and fills me with pride in our Armed Forces families. I learned what they go through and I salute them.

Well, I looked in the mirror over the weekend, at the height of our moving experience and suddenly I saw a figure that really reminded me of this ancient picture.I can assure you,
I was no budding beauty when we were at the most challenging time of the move. At the moment I'm looking less like the cartoon - but a lot older and I hope a bit wiser.

Remember When?

2010-08-18T14:52:00.003-04:00

Remember these people?

They make up the cast of one of my favorite TV shows from yesterday - and I've never seen rerun CD's advertised. The program: "WKRP in Cincinnati"

I think most people would remember the show as one of those clever comedy shows from way back. For me, it became personal because it reminded me of radio stations I worked for WAY WAY WAY back. Every station I worked for had at least one of the WKRP cast members and some of them had several. One station had a remarkable receptionists - but definitely NOT a Loni Anderson. She wore huge glasses, was crosseyed, and stumbled over her own feet. I can't describe her telephone voice - but Ma Kettle had a mellow voice compared to this girl. However, she was a very nice person and was the General Manager's daughter. What more could one ask for?

I think Herb was the salesman for WKRP and he had a counterpart at a station I worked for. Wore loud jackets and was a local swinger - always after the ladies. And one of the announcers was a bitter old man who was known to tear up a commercial script on the air if there was one typographical error on it. I had to retype a lot of scripts -- I was lousy typist - and it was a challenge because we used carbon copies - we had no copy machines in those days.

At another station the announcing staff played tricks on other announcers while they were on the air doing news. Things like balancing a large recording on the announcers head while he's got his hands full of scripts. Or setting scripts on fire five minutes before the end of a show so that the last few minutes were ad libbed. Or tying shoe laces locking shoes together in the middle of a newscast so he has to fight terrible knots when the show was over.

The picture above, one way or another represents real people I have known and worked with in my radio years. And who was I?

Probably Les Nesman - The WKRP news/weatherman who was so often the victim of staff shenanigans. And had so many off the wall failures of special events. Naive? Yep.Fall guy? Yep. But as a memory I wouldn't have it any other way.

MOVING........Again?

2010-08-14T15:17:00.007-04:00

I asked her, "Do you know where the (fill in the blank) is?" Her answer: "It's in one of the boxes." "What box?" I asked, "and is it in the condo or the house?" The response: "Can't say for sure but it's around here somewhere"

Sort of reminds me of Joyce's sister who made a move a few miles down the road a bit a couple of months ago. It went pretty well except that one or two things couldn't be found.
Finally only one thing was still missing - a package of cheese. Maybe it will get ripe enough a few months from now that they'll find it. But isn't that normal for a move -- even with the best laid plans something is always missing when the move is over. Wonder what ours will be.

Seems like that is a question every person asks one time or another when they are going through a move. We have had more than our share -- and here we go again. We're heading for 'true' retirement in Indianapolis and I would say that it's the last move we'll ever make but that's been a cliche with us for decades. If my calculations are correct, we've made 46 moves in almost 57 years of married life, most of which we had no real control over. In our first 9 years of marriage there were 23 moves because of Air force transfers. A few of these were moves from one trailer to another but a move is a move and challenging any way you do it. The moves kept up through the ministry years as well. And as I said, after 1997
I swore up and down that each move was the last one we'd make.

So here we are, surrounded by boxes, things we can't find because they are packed, and moving day is still a week off. Fortunately, we are agreeable with each other - when you've made as many moves as we have we've learned how to shrug our shoulders and say, "It'll be over in a week or two". We believe. We hope. We pray.

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. And this is the last move. (Sure!)

Life Is Short

2010-08-11T09:36:00.007-04:00

One of my very special friends is a retired pastor who still serves a church in Montgomery, Alabama. Let me correct myself - a pastor AND HIS WIFE, for both of them have influenced my life in many ways for forty years. They will never know how grateful I am for their friendship.

They both are prolific writers and he has written a new book, "Life is Short.....So Laugh Often, Live Fully, and Love Deeply." Likewise, his wife has written a new book, "The Yellow Butterfly....and other Nuggets of Faith in Prose and Poetry." I heartily recommend both of these.

I've had a number of opportunities to visit and work with Walter over the years. However, I don't think I've realized how much our lives have paralleled. I grew up in a farming community in New York and he grew up in a farming community in Alabama (and I believe he still lives where he grew up). He and Dean have lived through a lot of the joys, frustrations, victories and losses, hurts and healings, that Joyce and I have gone through. And survived. Even flourished.

I started reading his book one afternoon and only set it down for supper - and then I was back to reading again. I nodded my head in agreement time and time again, and I will treasure the books - they're the kind I will go back and read again - and again. His admonition that life is short is true - when you think about it there are a lot of memories in ages seventy and eighty. But if one is optimistic, there are still dreams to dream and paths to follow. Walter helps one to find the way - even when there are stumbling blocks down the road. His wife Dean has a gift of poetry - a lot of it comes across as prayers and maybe confessions on the reality of life.

So, I want to commend both of these books to everyone I can. They will make your life richer, bring peace into a troubled soul, and encouragement for your future life. If you'd like their address, let me know by comment or on Facebook. Better yet, you can get them through Amazon.com.

As a last thought - Walter has written several other books. One of my favorites over the years is one titled, "If You Want To Walk on Water, "You Have to Get Out of Your Boat" Think about that when you have doubts of what to do in life.

A Friend Reminded Me....

2010-08-07T14:57:00.003-04:00

I just took a walk down memory lane with a dear friend of mine. It was by way of a book he wrote which will be the subject of one of my blogs in a week or so.

I was reminded in one his chapters of the days before huge round bales of hay we see all over the fields in the summer. To be true, these round bales are practical - probably much easier to reap and much easier to store. However, that being said, some of the joy I remember in farming is gone.

When I was growing up we got hay just like the picture above. I'd go down the hill to our valley neighbors and hop on the wagon along with three or four others to ride out to a nearby hayfield. Someone had already mowed the grass (for the lack of a better word) and after it had been cured and dried for a bit it would be raked into rows using a big horsedrawn hay rake which took a strong leg to kick the release when we dumped the hay.

Then came the wagon. No balers - no machine to load the hay. It took strong arms to pitch the hay onto the wagon - and it was especially hard for some of us young'uns when the hay got high in the wagon. I guess I was lucky because I usually rode on the wagon to balance the hay load. When the hay was all aboard, everybody climbed on top and we rode to pitch the hay into the haymow (no fancy hooks or devices to mechanically transfer the hay into the barn).

The reward was a few small coins from the farmer but more importantly was the opportunity to play hide and go seek or slide down a chute from the haymow to the main floor. We'd go home saturated with hay and seeds and so I guess we really lived up to the old nickname of "just another country hick hayseed".

So, as we drove north to Alpena yesterday we went through modern hayfields replete with huge round bales ready to be hauled back to a storage area - but not to a hayloft. And I thought,
times have changed - and farming with it. But I'm glad for my memories.

It Was a Challenging Time

2010-07-31T17:46:00.004-04:00

Nothing in my memory compares with life during the early 1940's during World War Two. We think we have a handle on war now - and how it was during the Vietnam conflict but the fact is, neither of those conflicts compared in intensity AT HOME with WWII.

Point taken: We lived with rationing - shoes - meat - butter - tires - and lot's more. Most people had an allowance of 3 gallons of gasoline a week. Tires were scarce as hen's teeth. We'd put patches on patches - use retreads until there was nothing for a retread to hold on to. And as children we would buy 10 or twenty-five cent savings stamps that eventually could be converted for savings bonds. In 1947 and '48 I was working at General Electric earning $18.75 a week and the reason I remember that is $18.75 was the price of a savings bond I bought each month by withholding enough pay each week to get a bond at the end of the month. It was a time where everyone was sensitive and reactive to the needs of the time.

Then there were the scrap drives - iron - aluminum (even tinfoil from chewing gun wrappers) -remains of cooking oil - silk stockings from the ladies --- and paper. That's what the picture above is all about. Apparently a school worth of children built up a huge collection of scrap paper for the war effort.

Which reminds me of a paper drive in our school in the fall of 1944. A few of us had cars - a few had access to parents cars - or farm trucks. We made a covenant to exceed every other classes contributions and we did it. As I recall, we brought in 7 tons of paper in one week
and dumped it all on the school gymnasium floor. What a mess - and even worse, The school had to postpone basketball games for a couple of weeks until the gym floor could be cleared.One neds to be aware that we lived in a small town in the country which meant we had to cover a lot of ground.)I think our class record still stands. My father wondered for quite some time why the ceiling lining in our car got torn, and one of the rear springs got broken. We were serious about supporting our country in a time of dire need.

I wonder if we could approach national security today as we did back in WWII. I think the whole idea of patriotism and national pride has changed. Radically. And continues to change.
Will we ever recover our pride in America and our spiritual faith? I hope so - and I wish it could be in my lifetime - but for me, life grows short.

Personally, I am thankful for our American heritage. Are you?

Additions to the Family

2010-07-28T09:25:00.002-04:00

Back in the 70's we had a huge house which looked like something right out of the Adams Family TV show. With two of us adults and five children, we still rumbled around in the huge house. So what does one do? Open the family up to an exchange student. Well, actually, several exchange students each one from a different country. Not all at the same time, mind you, but there was a time when we had a few at the same time.

Our first student came for almost a year from Finland. He was a very interesting individual - very reserved but he fit in well. He spent much of his time with other students from other countries - Germany and Yugoslavia as I recall. It was more challenging for our boys. When his visit ended and he went back to Finland he let us know that he wished he had not spent so much time with Europeans and had spent more time experiencing our culture. But it was a good year and we have tried to keep in touch with him. It's thirty years now and the last we heard he was involved with the national office of communications in Finland. He sent us a picture of him, his son, and his boat and he looked well and happy.

Not long after he went home we got a boy from Mexico (he had grown up in Cuba but his family moved to Mexico). He was temporary - a lot of fun - and went to another family in our town. In the meantime we got a boy from Ecuador and he was a sketch. Never a bad word - but a lot of mischief. He would slip bottles of wine onto our shopping cart and when Joyce would tell him to put them back on the shelf he would cuddle up to her and say (with a sly grin), "but Mom......." And he'd put the wine back and bring back several bottles of hot sauce like Tabasco. He was irrepressable and full of fun. We've lost touch with him be we watch television news to see if his name might come up in some unlikely event in Ecuador.

Then there was the boy from Belgium who was dropped off at out front door one day. (the family he was assigned to said he was unsociable) He was anything but - he fit into the family circle perfectly - he and Amy played violin together. It was very hard to see Leonardo and Paul go home - they were a delight and became a close part of our family. By the way, Leonardo volunteered our home to a boy from Iran and that did not work out well at all. The picture above is of Paul a year ago. He has come to see us a couple of times over the years and today he is a doctor serving in Afghanistan. He;s been there off and on for many years and in some other countries as well. A number of years ago we visited his family in Antwerp, Belgium and they were a delight.

Our last student (they stayed for a year) was from Japan. She was a lot of fun as well. She played the piano along with Amy and fit in very well. One time she gave us Japanese clothes and we created quite a scene when we went into a nearby restaurant dressed in our outfits. Again, it was very hard to see her go home.

IN short, these were some of the really rich moments in our lives. We learned about other cultures - and they experienced a reasonably normal American family for a year.
We can truthfully say, 'thanks for the memories.'

Hot Hot Hot

2010-07-21T16:11:00.005-04:00

This month brings back a lot of memories from last July when we made our humonguss trip to the west coast and back. Last year it seemed cold the entire three weeks (except in the southwest desert areas). This year, in Oscoda, it has been much more normal -- hot amd humid. Cloudy and muggy. So I went back to the trip last year and found a photo from Snoqualmie, Washington -- a picture that shows winter in July. Or at least reminds us that there WILL be a winter again.

Our area of Michigan is sometimes a little strange weatherwise. We miss a lot of the really bad weather. The bad stuff is mostly to the south of us, a swath from Kalamazoo, Battle Creek to Flint and Saginaw and across the Thumb. Makes no difference the season - the worst stuff almost always goes that route and seems almost consistently bad across the Thumb. Maybe it's because the Thumb has Saginaw Bay to the West and Lake Huron to the North and East.

Anyway, it's been a challenging summer and it will be nice to see the weather cool down as we approach autumn. At least the photo is reminder of cooler weather. And yes, we WILL watch out for the yellow snow.

The Good Old Days

2010-07-01T19:41:00.003-04:00

It's July and for a lot of people in this area, it's head north fromb Detroit, or Flint or Saginaw to the cabin "up north". Back in the 1930's we did the same thing = we were eager to get out of the heat and humidity of New York City suburbs and so we headed for "Stone House". Well, actually the village name (and I'm not sure it was big enough to be called a village) was West Pauling in Dutchess County of New York. The picture above is of our house. In the lower right hand corner you can clearly see my brother and I am almost out of sight in the bright area. I think I was four or so at the time.

There was no electricity - no TV - no radio - no refrigerator - though there was an old-fashioned ice box that used real honest to goodness ice from an an old fashioned
ice house down the road a piece. We used the rain barrel for water to wash with - and had a hand pump for drinking water. No bathrooms - an outhouse in the woods
which were scary for a little kid. (You know, 'lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my")
Each of the bedrooms had a pitcher of water (from the rain barrel) and a washbowl.
After use, the water was tossed over the second story railing. Under the washstand in each bedroom was a chamber pot which saved a trip out back into the woods at night. (No, the chamber pot was not dumped over the porch railing - the residue in the pot was discretely and carefully disposed of in the proper place the next day.) Oh, I forgot to mention that the outhouse was the home of bees, wasps, and hornets
just to make things a bit more interesting. And yes, as the story goes, we had a few Sears ROEBUCK and Company catalogs in the outhouse. Not just for reading, of course.

Our kitchen was extremely primitive - just the bare essentials - and cooking was on a huge cast iron wood-burning stove. It was a wonderful way to spend a summer - even if my father severely cut my leg with a scythe and I ended up with a scar I bear to this day. By the way, I think the picture may have been taken around 1935. Anyesy, time and lifestyle's have changed a lot since then. Believe it or not, the old house was refurbished and upgraded - in the seventies we drove by it and the house was beautiful. The man of the house actually was out in the yard using a power mower on the yard. And the house even had a TV antenna on the roof.

For some reason, I like the old house better the way it used to be. Yep, it was a primitive way of life - but it was simple and happy - and it makes for a great memory. And I guess that we were really fortunate in those terrible depression years to have a place like it with all the pain and suffering that many others endured during those years.

All in the Family

2010-06-29T13:15:00.004-04:00

I thought this picture was/is a classic. Like the title says (all in the family) it represents four generations of our family. It represent four generations as we share a lighter and very special moment.

On the right is Great Grandma Joyce. On the left is Grandma Amy. Next to Amy is
Amy's daughter Rebecca and between Rebecca and Joyce is Amy's daughter Elizabeth's Madison who is holding Rebecca's daughter Ella.

Times like this don't happen often -- our family is scattered all over the country and that is a real challenge. Once in a long while we see our children and their offspring's. When Iwas growing up the world seemed smaller - We remained close to grandparents on my mothers side but we were on oppositesides of the country from paternal grandparents. Welived on the East Coast - they lived in California and visits were few.so it is today with Daughter Linda in upper Minnesota, son Jeff and his children (and grand children)in Arlington, Washington (except Keith in the Armyin Hawaii). Amy has lived in Chicago for a while and will be living near Washington, DC within a month. Son Greg and family live in South Lake Tahoe, and youngest daughter Lisa lives in Indianapolis.

I have always envied some of the farm families we have known who continued to live close to each other. But the world is different nowadays. Families are fragmented and often disconnected. That's why moments like those shown in the photo above are moments we treasure. Maybe it's the aging process - the older we get the more we
cling to familiy memories and wish we had all been able to stay together. But life as it is means going our own ways - living our own lives - doing our own things.

At any rate, we treasure family and all the memories we have of times and things we have shared over the years.

In the Eyes of the Beholder

2010-06-26T12:09:00.007-04:00

Sometimes we seem only to focus on the obvious. On the things that stand out. Sometimes good things -- sometimes not so good.

Someone does something stupid and people remember that stupid move forever. For instance, I can think of some people who told me they would never go back to a specific church because an individual had hurt their feelings. It makes no difference that the insult or slight happened twenty years ago and the perpetrator
died fifteen years ago. To the person who suffered the hurt, it was the fault of the church or the pastor who is currently there and never had an inkling of what transpired twenty years ago. Call it the eternal grudge if you wish. Ot even may involve a person going across the street to avoid having to meet someone on the street. It involves people who have no intent or desire to forgive and forget.

Maybe we get so busy in life that we don't see things that are beautiful. Or we miss warning signs and walk into a challenging situation. Or we say we can handle a difficult situation on our own - "Don't bug me - I can handle the situation on my own". A little like the Sinatra song that says "I Did It My Way" when "my" way might not be the best way.

I often am reminded of the character in the "Little Abner" comic strip "Joe Brzdltec" or something like that. Wherever he went a dark cloud followed him and bad stuff happened. Nothing good happened around old Joe - but maybe that was because be built a reputation and people never looked for any good arould him. However, I venture to say there was SOMETHING good - It's just that no one looked for the good.

I think way back to days when someone in school was called the dumbest or ugliest student in town. Every person has a gift but you have to look for it and build on it. Every person has a beauty - not necessarily in appearance but they may have an inner beauty or kindness that is not obvious but is there just the same.

That's why I used the picture above. It looks like a pretty sunset. But if you
look to the right of the power pole and a little up you may see a face. At least I did, and I would like to think it represented God looking down at us and saying, "Love thy neighbor and forget about the negatives in life". There is a lot of beauty and goodness in life if you simply take the time to look for it.

I'm not always successful, but I try. How about you?

Real Men Don't Sew

2010-06-21T17:00:00.002-04:00

That's what my Oscoda brother-in-law says. But I beg to differ. I enjoy doing crewel. It's not cross-stitch - I am incapable of clean x's - but I can sew a
reasonably straight line.

I start out with a photo. The attached illustration is of Yellowstone falls taken last July. The I transfered the picture to Aida cloth and then start doing the sewing. It took a while - four or five days, I guess - but it is fun to do. I have a zillion skeins of emroidery floss and I try to match colors with the picture.
As I say, it's challenging but a lot of fun.

Just goes to show that there are still a few things I can do and I like to think there is nothing wrong with men doing crewel or cross-stitch. If it was good enough for a football great like Rosie Greer it's good enough for me.

So, there Jim -- take that and chew on it for a while.

I Remember

2010-05-30T10:00:00.004-04:00

Back in 1962 I was assigned as a Field Engineer to a Navy fighter squadron aboard the then brand new USS Enterprise. In that role I spent several months at sea in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. When we got back we almot immediately went to sea again to participate in the Cuban blockade.

Carrier life is unique and you find yourself becoming part of a family. Navy flyers are a great group and I can remember a number of pilots and Radar Intercept Officers. People like Ensign Brian Homer who got all kinds of odd jobs - like being movie officer. (One time he forget to connect the film to the take-up reel and ended up with a hundred or more feet of film coiled around his feet before he caught the error of his ways. Bruce McCandless who later became an astronaught. Gerry O'Roarke (commanding officer) who wrote at least one good book on F-4 Phantom aircraft history. And there was Tom Sitek, pictured above. Tom was from North Tonawanda, New York and he played all kinds of music on the accordian. He always had a smile for people around him and was one of God's good guys/

Tom was shot down over Viet-Nam - probably never knew the missile was coming. He spent many years as Missing in Action (MIA) but finally around the year 2001 they found his remains in the wreckage of his plane. His name is on the Viet-Nam wall and I got the chance to make a rubbing of his name on the Moving Wall (pictured above)which was in Oscoda in 2005. I sent the rubbing and a bunch of pictures to his daughter who worked so hard to get information about Tom.

Then there is a grave in Holland - one of Joyce's brothers who was killed during World War Two. A few years ago we visited William's grave and if you have never been in one of our National Cemeteries make a point to spend some time there. Even
of you haven't lost ssomeone close, keep in mind that these people died for you and me - and for the freedom of our country and in the service of our nation. Memorial Day is for memories of ultimate sacrifice. We should care.

At the Side of the Road

2010-05-27T09:03:00.002-04:00

A couple of years ago I thought seriously of doing a photo spread for a magazine published by the Bay City news paper. I really enjoyed the magazine because it reflected the area of Michigan in which we live. Unfortunately, the economics of the time laid the magazine to rest but my interest in the potential of a photo spread has not disappeared.

I saw a lot of roadside residence signs in Florida and I see it a lot here in Michigan. When we drive along the shores of Lake Huron many of the homes have signs out front indicating who lives there. But not all signs have names - many of them are symbolic and I've been left wondering about what kind of a family lives there. One sign says 'Changing Latitude' and I've asked myself, 'Where did they live before they changed latitude?'. (We live at an interesting latitude here - almost exactly half way between the Equator and the North Pole And there is sign specifying that alongside the road between here and Alpena to the north.)

There's another sign a little south of town. It's a very large letter 'C'. I know about that house - it's the home of a former pastor in Oscoda (his wife is a local school teacher) and the C represents the first letter of their last name. Another aign along highway 23 says "Fishbones." I know about that one too - the sign is in front of my friendly car salesman's house. Sadly, it used to have a fish skeleton under it but twice the skelton has disappeared. Why would someone rip off a fish skeleton?

Yet another sign is half way south between Oscoda and East Tawas. Heading north it reads 'HA HA'. If you are heading south it reads 'Ah Ah. I don't know why but I always seem to look for that sign on the way home. And I wonder what the sign is really saying.

Then there are signs for resorts all the way along highway 23. This is one of Michigan's treasures - lakeshore fun and frolic and is a great place to be especially if you come from downstate - Bay City, Saginaw, Flint and Detroit. Somes times even Lansing or Midland. And it is a great place to be year round even in winter when there are lot of activities like cross-country skiing and snowmobiling. My wife does not share my feelings about winter - she does not like cold and wind even when our lakeshore temperatures are not as bad as cen parts of Mchigan.

Finally, look closely at the illustration. It's a work of art which adds to the scenic value of our highway traveling. It opens up questions of who lives there, where they came from, what the family is like, and things like that. Maybe I'm just nosy, but nevertheless, the signs along the road make the trip more pleasant. Now that I think of it, I miss the Burma Shave signs from the thirties
and forties. Anybody remember them?

Use It Or Lose It

2010-05-13T08:45:00.008-04:00

Every so often I'll see someone on television or in the paper who has been able to use their gifts far longer than one would expect. I've never stopped marveling at people who, despite old age, continue to run in marathon races, or take to the ski slopes in their seventies and even eighties (and maybe beyond). Former President George H.W. Bush (the elder one who flew a Navy plane in World War Two) was in the news a while back because he took a parachute jump on his birthday and he has a lot of years behind him. If I were to take a parachute jump at my age I would probably not do well -- admittedly I'm well past my physical prime. However, I don't want to dwell on that - but at 82 and a half years of age, there are things I can't do any more. For instance, I don't hit the stairs at two or three steps at a time. I hung up my skis quite a while ago - but that wasn't to be accused of mental instability there are a lot of older people who don't want to be considered over the hill. At the same time, I must admit that in my case it is not a lack of interest but a lack of hills to ski on and the physical stamina and training to use them. I don't run much any more - but I DO like to walk. There's an old fitness trail not far from our condo and Joyce and I walk that when the weather allows (which has not been as much as I'd like this spring). We use the stairs most of the time even if there is a nice elevator at the end of the hall. And I use exercise equipment in the condo fitness room fairly often. I guess I can say I use my physical abilities as best I can.

But I also have tried to use my mind as best I can. I read a lot. I enjoy creating arts and crafts especially embroidery and crewel. Before some one says that sewing is girly stuff, I want to remind you that 'Rosie' Grier, a big hulking football player turned personal guard for President Kennedy was known to do embroidry I also really enjoy crossword puzzles. I/m not a champ at that but I hold my own - probably falling in the intermediate category. I'm not one to do the New York Times hard puzzles - but I don't enjoy the easy easy ones either.

I think that there is something to the old saying, 'use it or lose it'. If you don't continue to use a physical gift, chances are you'll lose it. Same thing with your brain - use it or lose it. That's why I enjoy artsy-craftsy stuff and why I enjoy writing. It keeps me mentally alert and keeps things like demensia and alzheimers disease at bay for as long as possible. I'd like to think that keeping the brain alive and well is one of the most important tasks we have in life. I've seen a lot of people who suffered physical limitations and still had a productive and enjoyable life because they continued to nurture and use their brain. So let me leave this blog with a reminder - that in life one needs to "use it - the brain - or lose it" Life is too short not to.

well, I don't want to be considered over the hill

Something Amazing

2010-05-02T16:25:00.009-04:00

One of the things I like most about the condo we live in is all the opportunities we have to do things we like to do. There's an exercise/fitness room where I go to use machines like a treadmill or a stationary bicycle, or a machine to toughen up my abs. I go there while I wait for the mail to be delivered each morning. There's a wonderful kitchen where one of the ladies bakes cookies. There's no way to hide the smell of fresh cookies so I provide an element of assistance to the residents by following my nose to perform quality control of the cookies. (I was pastoral "quality control manager" at a church one time when they made peanut brittle and would not sell any until I had put my stanp of approval on the latest batch.) (Is that what opened my life door to diabetes?) This week I have to go to the computer room to edit and make a dvd or cd of a video I took last week. There is a theater - complete with surround sound - where we show movies from time to time. There is a library where I help with sorting and stacking a good size variety of reading material. And there's a arts and crafts room as well. (The ladies are making a quilt.)

One of my favorite places is the men's workshop complete with all kinds of power tools and workspace. The picture above came out of the workshop and I never cease to marvel at some of the things Howard Hatch comes up with. It's really hard to sense the size of the cross - probably not more than two feet tall. In it is cut
an abbreviated life of Christ from birth to ascension. He uses tiny drills and saw blades that hardly seem larger than a medium embroidery needle. I'm sure you'll agree with me that Howard has a profound gift. I asked him if he'd make one for me but he said I'd have to wait in line until he does a couple more for their children. At the moment he's not working on crosses - he just finished a combination lock - made out of wood - even to the tumblers in the lock.

One of the tragedies of life is when people retire and then have no idea or interest in creating something. Maybe creating a hole-in-one or breaking a hundred on the golf course would be great. But what I like about Howard's projects is that when he finishes one it's a tangible thing to look at and treasure for a long time to come.
For me it may be video, or art, or writing, or crewel. And the best part is that when one thing is done there's another project down the road. For instance, Howard showed me a whole series of wooden locks he'll be making in the immediate future. People like Howard give the inspiration to do more than just sit around - and that's a good thing.

Earth Day

2010-04-26T10:19:00.004-04:00

As this is written I'm looking out over a sunlit skyline of Chicago. But it was rainy (or cloudy at best) in Indianapolis over the weekend. As I have mentioned earlier, we rode a train from Michigan to Chicago, and Friday we drove to Indianapolis for a semi-family reunion and to visit the annual Earth Day celebration in downtown Indy. In past years there were thousands who attended and it was in a major downtown park area. We walked around and enjoyed the beautiful downtown Indianapolis area and then joined the crowd for displays and music.

A high point of the celebration (at least for us) took place in an immense children and youth tent. All kinds of displays but for us the high point was a presentation by the Earth Drummers which includes Seth Utter, one of our grandchildren (middle left in the below picture). He's been in the group for about five years and really enjoys playing percussion instruments.

Our first contact with percussion groups was on the beach in Venice, Florida several years ago and we really enjoyed it. We were in a motel and heard drums and we walked out on the beach and there was a large group performing on the beach. Every kind o drum or percussion instrument you could think of and it was great. So when Seth got involved in his group we were really enthusiastic. It's not a big group but they love what they are doing and they have a lot of variety in instruments. They enter into a performance with a lot of enjoyment and their sense of rhythm and technique is great. I can see Seth continuing with this in years to come because it is not simply some kids having a nice time - it is a music outreach that is really popular with a lot of adults today - adults from all walks of life. And it really takes commitment, talent, and a gift for music.

So if I may aim this at a particular person, I want to say to Seth that the performance was great and I hope you/he will keep performing for years to come. It was worth every second of our trip. And if a person asks, "What's so great about a bunch of drums?," don't knock it until you've heard one of these groups. It'll really get your toes tapping and there's nothing boring about it.

Life: a bunch of ups and downs

2010-04-22T12:29:00.005-04:00

As this written we're sitting in the 37th story condo of our middle daughter Amy. It's in Chicago and there are a lot of ups and downs here in the windy (and at the moment - cold) city. At least the sun is out and flowers are beginning to bloom along Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive. I haven't seen that much on State Street where she lives - but then, I don't think State Street is noted for its flower beds.

We rode the train from Michigan yesterday - it took five hours but it's a really pleasant way to go - even if you end up in the darkness of Union Station's dungeon platforms. And there are subways even darker - but you end up in the sunlight on an elevated railroad towering over the streets.

Then there are places like Amy and Vic's condo. It's a long way up. But there's more - you can ride an elevator up to the roof - the sixtieth floor. We went up on the roof a year or so ago to watch an air show - it was outstanding. Exhilarating. And a great opportunity to experience vertigo - which I get anywhere over three stories up. You can imagine what it is like for me to go out on the balcony and look down from 37 stories on the Chicago Theater (near Macy's across the river) and on tour boats cruising up and down the Chicago River. Then look up at skyscrapers like the Sears Tower to the south of Amy and Vic's building. By the way, her building is one of two condo towers that make up the Marina City complex (which also has the House of Blues music facility) It also is called by some "the corncob condos" because they look like ears of corn. So for a short time we are living high on the hog, so to speak. A real change from our second floor senior condo where you don't hear sirens and fire engines 24 hours a day.

I got to reflecting this morning: it's just like life. Sometimes we live in the depths of darkness when it seems as if everything is wrapped up in darkness. Sometimes we find ourselves emerging into the brightness of an encouraging day. Sometimes we find ourselves down low
in the pits of discouragement and darkness and frustration. Then there are the highs of life - the days when we ride high on the sixtieth floor of life - or like the Sears Tower, or Hancock building and the world is spread our before us revealing the best things of life. Or maybe hiding the dismal side of life. I have a hunch we all have moments when we fall into ruts and we find a need to break away to get a different view of life. I know I do. At any rate, even if I don't like heights it's great to get a new and expanded view of life. So, I'm glad for this moment of life - for family - for a great view on life - and for tomorrow when we drive to Indianapolis to see another segment of our family. The sun is shining and I like to think it's God smiling on us this morning.

Blame it on the Trailers

2010-04-19T10:54:00.007-04:00

We frequently dig out old pictures - especially those of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. And then the numbers start to add up and I think to myself, "we sure have a lot of family. After all we only started with one - and another, and another, and another, and then, finally, a fifth. How come? Well, I guess we all know about the laws of nature but beyond that,
I blame it on the trailer(s).

When we were first married we lived in a one room apartment with a fridge in the corner and a hotplate in the closet and a bed that tended to collapse. Cost: $25 a month. Oh, and we shared a bath with five other couples. Then we graduated to a big one-room apartment with a shared kitchen. $30 a month. Next it was a remodeled railroad refrigerator car where I worked out my rent by refurbishing and painting other units. Finally we graduated into the trailer world.

First it was a 27 foot one-bedroom rental and then we bought a 33 foot one bedroom New Moon trailer just like Luci and Desi had in the movie "The Long Long Trailer." Our family grew and with two children we went to the pictured one, a brand new 38-foot Elcar than we hauled eight thousand miles behind a 1954 Olds 88 (one way) and a 55 Buick Special (the other way).

Another child and we upped to a 5o foot Buddy with two bedrooms (one with bunkbeds on one side and a small bed on top of a dresser. Another child came along (our Hallowe'en son - trick or treat) and we moved into a three bedroom Contempori fifty-five foot ten wide. Wouldn't you know - another child came along. This set us to thinking and we finally decided to buy a house in North Carolina. What do you know --- no more children. Thus it becomes obvious -- the reason for five children was trailer life. Blame it on the trailers!

We've lived in a lot of houses since then. Most were smaller homes - one or two were mansions that were provided as parsonages.

The point I want to make today is that condo living didn't become all that difficult. After all, we spent a lot of years in trailers. And now we're too old for children. Except for grandchildren and great grandchildren/ And that's a different story.

Some gifts are special

2010-04-14T09:32:00.008-04:00

Some gifts last forever - some last a little while. Then there are the gifts that make no sense at all, won't go together according to the plans, or last less than a day.

The above book was a gift from a son-in-law last Christmas that makes sense, and lasts forever. At least it has taken four months of daily reading to finish. In the bathroom, of course. And now I just let it fall open on occasion and see what wealth of information it contains.
I may have read it before but at my age I've probably forgotten what it says anyway.

It has all kinds of information we can't get along without - or maybe with for that matter. For instance, did you know that Kevin Shelley cracked a world record by getting hit over the head with forty six wooden toilet seats in one minute. Bet that made an impression.
Did you know that there are at least 230 million vehicles in the United States but only about 105 million parking spaces. Where do clunkers fit into this? Oh, and think about this: about once a year a house in the United States is hit by sewage falling from an aircraft. Then there is a page-long story with a natural gas report (consider that any way you wish.)

But wait - the book is not strictly focused on distastful subjects. There's a history of digital cameras - high tech subjects - movie stories - sports topics - history -- arts and crafts -- all wrapped up in a 538 page volume that has made the last four months much more enjoyable and a lot of essential (and non-essential) information I could/could not have lived without. Maybe.
Then I looked at the cover and realized that this was the 22nd edition. Guess I'll have to brouse around some second hand book stores to find back issues. Then, again, This volume will probably keep its place by the throne for some time to come. Or until next Christmas when I hope the next edition shows up gift wrapped under the tree.

Let me conclude with a couple of essential thoughts. Did you know that there are about 1,200 peanuts in a regular-size jar of peanut butter? Said Katherine Hepburn, "If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun." Think about that for a while.

Till next time..........................

A four month Marriage No-No

2010-03-27T15:17:00.006-04:00

In the early 1950's General Dynamics produced the intercontinental bomber, the B-36.
It had six pusher-type propellers and four jet engines and was big - certainly in aircraft dimensions of the day. A lot of people have seen the movie "Strategic Air Command" starring James Stewart and June Allyson and the B-36 was one of the planes featured in the movie.

What a lot of people don't know is that General Dynamics also produced a cargo version of the B-36 and it was known as the C-99. Even by today's standards it was big - almost the same dimensions as a Boeing 747 in use on many airlines with intercontinental routes. In 1954 it was huge.

In 1954 the C-99 was flying cargo between several Air Force depots - Kelly Field, Texas; Spokane and Tacoma, Washington; and McClellan AFB, California, outside Sacramento. The XC-99 was big and heavy and was limited in the fields it could operate from. Because of this, relatively few people ever got to see this huge airplane in operation.

In 1954 Joyce and I were assigned to McClellan AFB on a temporary assignment. Housing was hard to come by for for TDY (temporary duty) personnel and we were fortunate to find an apartment made out of a retired railroad refrigerator car. Our bedroom window looked out at the end of a major runway and thus we heard (and could see) every aircraft landing or taking off. That included World War Two propeller-driven fighters, Military versions of the Lockheed Constellation, and -- the XC-99.

The B-36 and XC-99 both had unusual sounds - nothing sounded like them. One time I heard that special sound - a kind of a hmmm - hmmm --- hmmm or vroom-room-room grumble. It was early in the morning and I jumped out of bed. The sound got louder; then I decided this was a momentous sight and I called to Joyce, "Wake up - wake-up. Come to the window." Thinking there was a disaster, Joyce jumped out of bed and came to the window and asked, a little breathless,"What's going on?" I pointed out the window just as the XC-99 came into sight and said, : "Look, the XC-99!!!" Very quietly, and with deep emotion, she said, "You mean you woke me out of sound sleep to see an AIRPLANE?"

As indicated in the title of this blog, there are some things you wake a wife up for. A fire in the kitchen. A tornado coming across the field to your house. But never, never, wake a wife up to see an airplane pass by the back window. No matter how big. No matter how rare a bird.
Especially when you have only been married three or four months.

Today we live on a former Air Force base in which a major industrial portion of the facility has been converted to repair and maintain 747 cargo aircraft. They have a unique engine sound as well. And my love of airplanes has never waned. If we hear one of the 747's taking off I still run to a window or into the back yard to see it take off into the wild blue yonder. Only thing is, she does the same thing. Maybe time mellows a person - or maybe she has figured over these almost six generations that it's not worth fighting some things - it's easier to join in. Just so long as a husband does not run to the bed, shake her, wake her out of a sound sleep, and say, "Come to the window; you gotta see this."

Yes, dear, I've learned my lesson!

What Would Today's Teachers Do?

2010-03-20T11:37:00.005-04:00

The picture goes a long way back - to when my brother and I went to a two-room school. As I looked at the picture I thought to myself: "With all the upsets in our 21st Century school system, how would our teachers in today's society handle what teachers in 1940 contended with.

I know that one of our daughters is a teacher and we are very proud of her. But she may be a bit concerned and maybe upset by what I am going to say in this blog.

If you look closely at the picture you will see two teachers - Mrs. Hall at the lower left and Mr.Crounce in the top row. Mrs. Hall taught grades one through four. Mr. Crounce, in a room next door, taught grades five through eight. And if you look closely, neither of them looked young - especially Mr. Crounce, who was well along in years, was an amazing person who taught all kinds of classes - reading, writing, 'rithmatic, geography, history, --- you name it - he taught it. Well, I need to back up a bit - he did not teach music - they had a traveling music teacher who came for an hour or so every week or so. And what I want to emphasize is that unless a student had a significant mental problem (and there were one or two that did) he or she eventually graduated from the two room school to the "big" high school seven miles away able to read, write, and handle a reasonable level of mathematics.

It could not have been an easy job working with four classes at the same time. The teacher would work for a while with one class then move back a row to the next class (a grade higher)

and then back a row to another class until he or she reached the eighth grade when they would go back to the fifth grade at the front of the classroom. It meant that teachers had to work with all levels - and it also meant that students had to spend a lot of time on their own. And when the year was done each class moved back a row and the eighth grade moved out the door.

I am very proud of the fact that I went to a two room school. I have great memories of Mr. Crounce and Mrs. Hall - and I credit a lot of my talents and abilities to the educational foundations they built in my life. I think to myself that a lot of the great people of the past 65 or 70 years - people who brought us into the electronic - atomic - scientific - intellectual world of today were people who might have come out of a one or two room school beginning.

The nearest thing I can see today is home teaching and at least two of our daughters did just that - and did it successfully. I think some Charter Schools deserve a lot credit as well.

I read recently that the city of Detroit will be closing over forty schools in June. To make matters worse, the knowledge level of students is often deplorable. Why? We've seen a change of educational priorities. Sometimes students who aren't able to read graduate from high school

perhaps because they have skills in sports. Sports and other peripheral activities often are given priority over basic educational subjects that are essential to being able to cope with the workplace. I have a problem with the priorities of education within the teaching profession. Granted, teachers deserve and need a fair and equitable support package. But in many cases teachers don't seem to exhibit the same outlook on teaching that Mr. Crounce and Mrs. Hall had - and I venture to say that they worked for peanuts because they truly loved working with young people - after all, this picture reflects the era of the Great Depression. Please notice that both of them are smiling. In short, I deeply appreciate the gifts and sacrifices my teachers made for me.

I don't want to blame school administrators and teachers for all the shortcomings of where we are today -- a lot of the fault lies with parents as well. And with distractions like television, video games, and entertainment as well. We didn't have those back in the 1930's and early '40's. All we had was personal social life and a different quality of life.

Guess I'll just close with a hat's off to those parents who home teach, and to those people who seem to have some old-fashioned priorities in life. Maybe I'll keep my prayers aimed at the hope that traditional values will be brought back because they are the basis of good ethical, moral values on which our country was built.

What's In a Name?

2010-03-09T12:28:00.005-05:00

Have you ever traced your family history? I mean, gone back as far as you can to find out what your family roots are? I've never gotten deep in genealogy but I've always had an interest.

My grandfather on my Dad's side, in his later years, wrote a couple of family history books that were/are excellent sources of family history. For instance, for many years I did not realize that the battle of Guilford Courthouse in the Revolutionary War was fought on Mitchell land - one of my direct ancestors. There also was a story about a little girl that was captured by the Indians and was saved - another direct ancestor. One time, at a church meeting in Mattoon, Illinois I met an aunt (distant but direct just the same) that I never had heard of. And here in Oscoda a member of a local church came up to me one time and asked me if the Harry E. Mitchell who wrote genealogy books was a relative. I told him that Harry E. Mitchell was my grandfather and it turned out that the Oscoda man was another cousin.

Oh, another thing - my grandfather's book also revealed that there were a number of Presbyterian pastors in my family background. My father commented that in view of this, it didn't seem quite right that I was a METHODIST pastor. All I c an say is that God, in His wisdom, is in control and mayj not have read my grandfather's book.

A few years ago our youngest daughter, Lisa, started working on the family history of my wife's father. We drove into Canada, found a bunch of family graves and history and checked out family information. Later we traced a lot of family history and graves in Detroit and other parts of Michigan. By the time Lisa was done she had compiled a excellent family history that went back to when Joyce's ancestors had come to Canada from County Mayo in the 1800's.

On my mother's side, her family goes back to Lincolnshire in England (around Epworth where Methodist founder John Wesley grew up)( I hope I'm right there) and eventually became one of the original Pilgrims who settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. You'll find the name of Isaac Allerton on the Mayflower Compact and my middle name is Allerton. One of my ancesters was involved in developing rubber products like boots or raincoats. Not tires. But the company was Goodyear India Rubber Company or was it Goodrich India Rubber Company? But I DO know that it was not a forerunner of one of today's tire companies. Or maybe it was.

It's interesting to go back in family history. I've never gotten deeply involved in genealogy but family history is interesting just the same.

Oh, about the picture. One of the neckties is the "Bruce" Tartan. I guess I was named after the

great king of Scotland. The other tie is the "Mitchell" tartan - my direct family clan. It is also related to the Innes clan, and the Galbreath clan (which is the one my Oscoda friend is descended from.

It's a small world and I thank a friend for setting me to reflecting on family ties. Maybe I ought to do this more often.

First TV in Town

2010-03-04T15:59:00.005-05:00

"Come on up to my place and I'll show you my etchings." That's the invitation every girl feared way back when.

In the late 1930's the invitation might have been "Let's go over to watch Bea Mesick's front-load Bendix washing machine." That was the first washing machine with a window on the front where someone could watch unmentionables going around and round as they were laundered.

But then there was the mid to late 1940's - and I was guilty of another invitation. "If you come over to my house I'll show you my test pattern."

Up to 1947 home television sets were few and far between. Home entertainment was mostly games, reading, socializing, and listening to the radio. Radio was something you could become enveloped in; your imagination was filled with mental images of Tom Mix or Jack Armstrong as they tried to right all the wrongs of the world. I was desolate when the actor who played the Lone Ranger died in an automobile accident -- I was convinced that the Lone Ranger was dead and gone - and then I realized that someone else could play the role. Radio was a time and era when people found their imaginations being honed and mental visions became 'real'.

Early television left a lot to the imagination - for instance what was behind a tiny screen full if snow with a flickering images or a test pattern (see picture above) or people like Uncle Miltie (Milton Berle) who did a weekly variety show. If I was lucky (and I mean LUCKY) I could get one station and that was a snowy picture even with a high and complex antenna.

We had the first TV set in town - a seven-inch Teletone portable which was about the size of a medium-size suitcase. It weighed 30 or 40 pounds and cost around 150 dollars (nearly a thousand in today's dollars) and I was being paid 35 dollars a week. (everything came out of that - rent, food, taxes, entertainment, train fare home most every weekend -- AND -- the television payment).

My mother and dad inherited the TV set when I moved to a new job in a town that did not have TV reception. It was a momentous occasion when we invested in a 'fresnel' lens that boosted the picture size from 7 to 10 inches. Instead of watchingfrom 5feet away all the way up to 7 or 8 feet away which meant a larger crowd could come in and watch whatever was on (and that might be the afternoon test pattern).

Today we take television for granted. Where, with radio, everything was left to the imagination, television today leaves little to the imagination. Today we take for granted 150 or more channels
or more high definition crystal-clear channels via satellite or cable.

What a difference 60 years makes, and what an impact has been made on society by television. Love it or hate it - we can hardly live without it.

She's All Ears

2010-02-26T09:10:00.003-05:00

The above picture is pretty old - it goes back to 1957, not long after the opening of Disneyland - the original Disneyland, well before Orlando fit into the picture. But some things never change - Mickey Mouse ears are still in vogue even fifty years (plus) later. And that is not to imply that any of our children are catching up with us age-wise. Fact is, I venture to say our eldest daughter Linda may have forgotten this picture was ever taken.

It's always fun to go back through old pictures because most of them tell a story beyond the basic theme. So it is with this picture. The focus is on the ears.

The picture was taken in early 1957 at a time when I was attending a school at Hughes Aircraft in Culver City, California. It is a reminder of a wonderful day with all the wonder of Disney and we all carried memories of it for a very long time.

Move, now, to November. School completed, we've returned to Rantoul, Illinois. Summer is gone and an early chill of winter has fallen on central Illinois. We're living in a 38 foot Elcar mobile home that we pulled to California and back and the one toilet has stopped working. Pull the handle and the residue in the toilet starts to go down the drain. Suddenly, like a geyser, it burps back, and almost as quickly, the toilet contents begin to go down the drain - very slowly. Pull the handle - the water starts to go but stand back - the geyser happens again and again. Obviously, there is a problem and with four of us in the trailer a backed up toilet will not do.

So, I turn off the water, disconnect supply tubing, remove the bolts from the floor, and the entire toilet ends up in the yard. Nothing is evident in the hole in the trailer floor - no blockage there. But when I checked out the toilet, voila! The problem is obvious - there is a Mickey Mouse hat in the toilet drain.

Needless to say, the Mickey Mouse hat and ears ended up in the trash. The picture remained - memories of a fun day remained with the faded picture. But the real memory was not so much of the day at Disney as it was of the Ears in the toilet. I venture to say Linda doesn't even remember that event (or THOSE EVENTS) but for some of us we are always reminded of a couple of special memories every time we see a Mickey Mouse hat. And we are reminded that with little kids, one never knows what will end up in the toilet.

Oh, there was another time - this time it was a little girl's toy teacup saucer that did the same thing - but it acted like a flapper valve. The bowl would start to flush - then, with a vengeance, it became a geyser - just for a moment or so - and then would drain as if nothing had happened.
The force of water, to begin with, rotated the saucer blocking the drain. Then, when the water pressure ended up, the saucer would rotate back to an open position. Removal of the saucer solved this problem as well.

Events like this make one wonder if maybe the old outhouse concept might have some value - one didn't have to depend upon the force of flushing water. But December in at outhuse leaves a lot to be desired. Especially when the snow is a foot and half deep between the house and the facility and the temperature is down around zero with a 20 mph wind blowing out of the north. Kids toys in the toilet become less stressful when you think about that.