She's All Ears

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.

Spring Has Sprung - Almost

My first radio job, at WBRK - Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was writing commercials. I applied at the station and the General Manager had some some strong reservations - pronounced DOUBTS - about my potential since I had never worked in a radio station other than as a CBS page years before. As a test he gave me five bits of information to use in a couple of commercials - he wanted a 30-second spot announcement, and another that would last one minute. And he gave me about five or ten minutes to do it. When I was done he looked at what I had done and said something like "not bad for a beginner" and he hired me on the spot.

One of the most memorable of my products over the next year was for a grocery store on the east side of town. It produced a catch phrase that lasted for years: Spring has sprung, the grass is riz; smart shoppers shop at Sias's.

Well, Spring hasn't really sprung in Michigan - there's a smattering of snow on the ground - but I thought I'd bring a little spring into our living room. I was shopping at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago and I noticed, in the produce department, some pots that contained spring bulbs. No plants - just a pot, some soil and little green thingies poking through the dirt. Well, those little thingies have grown like Topsy (so to speak) and the picture above is a result == daffodil's in Michigan in February and who knows what else? And in the background outside the window, a light coating of snow

This has been a really mild winter in Oscoda. Temperatures above normal - not much snow - so maybe there'll be an early spring. But then again, Michigan weather can be capricious. When we moved to Michigan on March 27th of 2003 our move-in day had temps in the 70s and no snow on the ground. But on April 1st (April Fools Day) we had close to a foot of snow - and I didn't even have a snow shovel.

So, I guess I'll have to come up with some other kind of a jingle - something that relates to a February Spring in Michigan. Like - Pots will come - and plants will grow -- In February == so what do you know! Or, The sun shines bright in Oscoda town -- but wait a while -- snow will come down -- In February - In Michigan. Just wait and see.

It's Olympic Time

Just another wild and crazy guy - dressed for the occasion.

It was February 1953 on the slopes of Colorado, and I was a bit leaner and a lot younger. It was fun times as several of us spent our weekends west of Denver as we escaped work at Lowry Air Force Base.

My skiing days began in the very late thirties and very early forties in New York. I had fourth-hand skiis and leather strap ski bindings that were not the greatest in the world. We skiied on a neighbors hill (had I done it behind our house I would have ended up in the creek) There were no tows or lifts and so for every one minute slide down the hill there was a 15 or twenty minute herring-bone climb up the hill.

A few years later (with a car available) I graduated to commercial slopes like Catamount, almost on the New York/Massachusetts state line and now there were rope tows and longer more challenging trails. I got infected with the ski bug in those days.

The real conversion came in Colorado. Rocky Mountain powder snow was wonderful and the slopes far more challenging. The mountains were higher and every weekend was filled with adventure.

I guess it's the same way nowadays -- ski all day and party all night. I remember snake dances down the main street of Idaho Springs, Colorado and celebrations atop Lookout Mountain, overlooking the city of Golden. As I said, it was a wonderful time for a young, wild and crazy guy.

My last real involvement with snow skiing was in Italy in November and December of 1955. I was assigned to the Italian Air Force at a base in the foothills of the Dolomites not far from Venice. In the process I gained some Italian ski troop friends who would take me to Cortina on weekends to prepare the slopes for the 1956 winter Olympic games. So, I can claim to have skiied Olympic trails but never got to see the actual Olympics because of a transfer to Holland a week or two before the competion began.

Today my competion Northland hickory skiis, my wonderful magnesium skiis, and my very early Head laminate skiis are long gone. What we have in the immediate area here are some of the best cross-country trails in Michigan; however, I don't have the stamina or the urge to ski anymore. If I lived in Colorado I'd have serious vertigo problems. Guess that's part of the aging process. Still, it's nice to dig out old pictures, and watch the Vancouver Winter games, and reflect on what it was like when I was young and carefree.

Twisted (or Warped) Love

I've just given up. Admitted that my computer has a mind of its own which prevented me from rotating the picture so just turn your computer screen on its side and I presume you'll get the message. It's Valentine's Day weekend 2010.



Can you remember the first Valentine card you ever got? For me I think it was in the 1st or second grade where we all threw anonymous cards into a small box and pulled them out at random. The handwriting on the card I drew wasn't mine - but then, it didn't look like a girls either. Looked more like one from the fat boy two rows over from where I was.


In the third grade I discovered girls and I addressed one to "Jane" who was the most beautiful creature on earth - or at least in the third grade.



Because we moved almost every year there was a new Valentines crush each year and there was little or no response from the love offerings I made each year. The crowning blow came from a high school girl who I wooed on a unique way. There was a song way back titled"You'll Never Know" (I think Frank Sinatra sang it) and it really carried a message. It grabbed my heart so strongly that I called up a girl I admired and played the song to her on the phone. Her response: "I'm sorry, you have the wrong number!"

Then there was "Secret Love" by Doris Day which sometime later was superceded by Rosemary Clooney's rendition of "Half As Much." I think it was about this period of life that I began to think that perhaps I was cut out for monastic life - and then I was transferred to the Detroit area. For fifty six years my love letters and valentines wishes have gone to the girl from Michigan.

Well, neither of us are kids anymore but the valentines messages carry the same thought -
a reminder that love is what you make of it and for those who are blessed, it get's deeper and more precious every year. So to my wife: Thanks for the memories - thanks for the love you've shared - and thanks for being you. Let the candy above give you a warped view of how I feel this Valentine's Day.

Dream On

Well, the forecast is for snow - starting at mid afternoon. But it's dismal and cloudy and spitting something already. And to make matters worse, our down-the-hall neighbor said she leaves Thursday for a week in Florida.

It brings back memories of when we lived there. Seventeen years worth. And people said, when we headed back north that we were crazy. But them we remembered what Florida is like in the summer. humid. hot. hurricanes. Bugs. and tourists. And you could only take so many clothes off to keep cool. In the north if you are cold just pile on another set of long-johns and a few more sweaters. And stay indoors if you don't have to go to work.

This winter has been a weird one. Chilly but not much in the way of bitter cold and very little snow. Our friends in Washington would probably say it's part of global warming - but then, they'd have a tough time saying it about their own surroundings. And it would have been hard for us to endorse that thought last summer when it was chilly for two weeks out of our three-week vacation out west.

So Punxarwany Phil predicts another five or six weeks of winter. Hey, the way it's been going

we're halfway through winter or more already. Maybe any yen to go to Florida this winter can be put on the back burner - it's been too chilly down there.

But the picture in today's blog is one of my favorites. I took it in 2004 and had to fight snowstorms down and back. It was taken at a beach in Venice, Florida in January. It's a sunset picture of my beloved watching the sun go down. There's not much that will beat a Florida beach sunset unless, perhaps it might be a Lake Huron sunrise in mid-summer Michigan.

So, I'll just dream on of the good days in Florida and the good days in Michigan. And be thankful for this one day of my life. And for the memories of days gone by.

We've Come a Long Way, Baby.....or Have We?

For this I have to go back 62 years plus - to the November 1947 edition of Popular Mechanics Magazine. The above illustration is an advertisement for a remarkable post-WW2 product - the Crosley car which the ad claims produced a 2,800 mile trip for 16 dollars.

I broke out my trusty (sometimes) calculator and figured out what it cost me for a 2,800 mile segment of last summer's trip to the west coast. Hmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmmm. Something isn't working out right here. Twenty-eight hundred miles divided by 30 (miles to the gallon on our trusty Dodge Caliber) comes out to around 93 gallons of gas which (at $2.75 a gallon) computes out to about $267 dollars for 2800 miles. And we talk about progress?

Well, if I came up with a miracle on the Caliber and got 50 miles to the gallon (like the Crosley) I'd have used 56 gallons of gas and paid $154 dollars for the trip.

But wait a minute - we didn't pay $2.75 a gallon for gas in November of 1947 - we were much more apt to get five gallons for a dollar. So there you have it -- fifty miles to the gallon and 20 cents a gallon probably computes to a figure pretty close to the Crosley advertisement claim. And I know that five gallons for a dollar is a valid figure - I used to pay that when I was much younger.

Then I took a look at the price for a Crosley - note the ad: $888 at the factory (plus tax). Hey, I forgot that there was a time when you could go to the factory and get your new car as it rolled off the assembly line. Then I thought about the prices on cars today and I wonder how we came about the difference. What a difference a few years make!

The Crosley could hold four people (granted, they may have to have been pretty small, but the Crosley I rode it wasn't tight). Keep in mind the fact that I was not a big feller but the car was not that small. There may not have been bucket seats and a fancy console between the seats - but hey, there was togetherness and we've lost sight of old fashioned togetherness in a car. In the early 70's Joyce and I double-dated once with our eldest daughter and her boy friend and we went in a Volkswagen 'Bug'. It was cozy and we had a blast. Now that I think of it, how often do parents double date with a daughter and her boy friend today. I suspect daughters today would say something like, "But mom (or dad) -- what would my friends think if they saw us out together on a date like that?" They survived it (though they ended up with different mates) and it went down as a treasured memory.

I remember in my Air Force days that one of my friends in Italy rented a Fiat Topolina. Translated that would read 'little mouse'. It was little but it provided good transportation and didn't cost a bundle. And we fuss today because car size is shrinking.

So, I guess there's something to the saying that we've come a long way - but it sure costs a heap more today than what it did in 1947. And it may not be as much fun.

Some people think I'm weird....

That applies particularly to my taste in music, I guess. When I was I was in high school - like in 1942 or 3 - I would time my dash for the school bus to the playing of Der Fuhrer's Face on the radio. It seemed to be broadcast at precisely the same time every morning and I never missed my bus. The song was performed by Spike Jones and the City Slickers - a group that performed with every kind of kitchen or workshop implement possible - including tumed Smith and Wesson pistols. My mother (especially) thought I had a warped mind when it came to music - but even today I get a laugh out of Spike Jones arrangements. He and his band, by the way, were some of the greatest individual musicians of the time --- it took highly skilled musicians to do their songs - which were described by some as exercises in musical depreciation.

There were others - Mrs. Miller, for instance. She had a touch of opera singer in her records and was particularly noted for her off-key rendition of Downtown. Then there was Stan Freeburg who did some great parodys of top tunes and TV shows of the day. In the country field, there were - and are - singers - or at least performers - who came up with off-beat music selections.
For instance, Ray Stevens of The Streak fame (By the way, around the time that song got popular we had a streaker run through our apartment complex one night.)

I was generally successful at convincing people to leave the room at times. Likewise, I continue to enjoy some success at convincing people to leave when one of "my" music programs come on the air. For instance, of late it is Big Joes Polka Show which is on RFD TV every Wenesday evening. It's just what the name implies - a program featuring down to earth polka bands from all over the country. Minnesota. Wisconsin. Michigan. Texas. Alaska. Connecticut. And all points in between.

To understand where this interest came from one needs to realize the environment I grew up in. We had a very small group that played for square dancing after our monthly Grange meeting. A piano, a saxaphone, drums, and maybe a fiddle. Nothing fancy but they made a joyful noise and we had a great time dancing. (By the way, I learned to square dance before I knew there was any other kind - all you had to do was keep time to the music and follow the caller who told you what step to take.)

Later, when I moved to Pittsfield, Massachusetts I would go down the street from the YMCA where I lived to go to the weekly dances at the Eagles Club. Then it was regular dancing but especially a lot of Polish music - polkas, waltzes, obereks, and so forth. I got pretty skilled at
Polish/German/Czech dances and sometimes we would even look up Polish weddings to crash.
Lots and lots ofdancing and as I remember, all it took was pinning a dollar or two on the bride's dress.

So, Big Joe takes me back to the old days. Some of the bands are good. Some leave a bit to be desired. Bands from Round Top Texas often have a Tex-Mex sound with a bit of mariachi thrown in for good measure. A band from Alaska has 20 or more members and for the most part it is limited to 'button-box" accordians as compared to piano accordians which may be more evident in mid-west bands. One of my favorite bands is Jim Busta's band from Minnesota featuring his daughter Molly B who sings and plays the accordian, trumpet, trombone, and saxaphone. (Jim Busta, by the way, is a superintendent of schools when he's not on the bandstand.) And there are family bands with children singing or playing instruments. Big Joe's slogan is "Happy Music for Happy People".

That's part of watching the Big Joe Show. It also involves watching a lot of people - young and old - having a lot of fun. When I say old - I wonder at times how some of them even get out to the dance floor much less dance a polka. But they do it and they flaunt smiles on their faces and seem to relish life when they do. There are lot of young people and children on the show as well and some people are on most every week as well. I think some others might not see much sense in the program - but hey, it presents a positive outlook on life - something we sometimes miss in today's world..

So, I guess my wife will go play cards Wednesday night - while I sit back for an hour reflecting on some great times in years past as I spend an hour with Big Joe and lot of people just like I used to know when I was much, much younger.

One last thing. One time when I was working in radio I had an unusual Sunday morning series of music programs. An hour each starting with the Greek program at 8 a.m., thence to French at 9, Italian at 10, and a full hour of Polish music at 11. Do you wonder that I have an unusual outlook about music? But maybe that's a story for another time.