Mr. John Franklin Ross & Bataan

For those of us who took physics in 1962-63, Mr. Ross (1915-2004) was our physics teacher. He had a reputation for being difficult to understand and for a 17-year old the notion of taking a physics course presented by a man who was difficult to understand was a bit daunting.

I recall him as a medium-sized, quiet spoken man, not given to making small talk, and owing to either a speech impediment or a regional accent…difficult to understand. In those days there were some things we didn’t ask our elders and questions about their war service was one of those things.

There was a persistent rumor circulating that he had been in the Army during WWII and had been on the infamous Bataan Death March. I don’t recall anyone asking him that question nor do I recall him ever mentioning a word about the subject. The truth is that most of us wouldn’t have known how to frame the questions even if we were so inclined.

In 2004, the Proviso East High School of Maywood, Illinois, produced the Bataan Commemorative Research Project telling the story of the men of Company B, 192nd Tank Battalion. Their project won the top prize for excellence from the Illinois State Board of Education. For us, their project revealed the remarkable story of one of our former teachers and answers the questions we didn’t ask.

As you read it, imagine what Mr. Ross must have been thinking as some of us worked our adolescent magic in his presence. Everything that follows is copyrighted material.

Pvt. John Franklin Ross (submitted by son Steve)

Pvt. John Franklin Ross was the son of Casper & Katie Ross. He was born on June 10, 1915 in Wills Point, Texas. He attended local schools in Wills Point.

On March 19, 1941, John was inducted into the U. S. Army at Dallas, Texas. He was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training. There, he became a member of the 753rd Tank Battalion.

During his training, it was found that he could operate the radio, so he was trained to be a radio operator. He was later assigned to a command tank of one of the platoons of C Company.

In the late summer of 1941, John and the rest of the 753rd were sent to Camp Polk, Louisiana. Although at Camp Polk, the 753rd did not take part in the maneuvers. The one thing that John remembered about the maneuvers is that he and the other draftees put up verbal abuse from the "lifers" who resented them.

After the maneuvers ended, the 192nd Tank Battalion received orders that it was being sent overseas. According to John, replacements for members of the 192nd who were considered "too old" to go overseas were being sought. John took the place of a man who did not want to go to the Philippine Islands. The man was afraid that if he was sent to the Philippines, he would be killed by the Japanese. John not having any family obligations volunteered to take his place.

John, with the rest of his new tank battalion, was sent west by train to San Francisco. After being inoculated, they boarded ships and sailed for Hawaii. He recalled that both ships were crowded and men got into fights over who would sleep in the bottom bunks. During the trip, John liked to go topside all the way to the bow of the ship to watch the ship go up and down in the water. Being topside also helped him get over his seasickness.

After a stop at Guam, the ship arrived at Manila. John and the other soldiers were taken to Ft. Stotsenburg. They spent the next two weeks readying their tanks for use in maneuvers.

The morning of December 8, 1941, the Japanese attacked Clark Field. John found himself in a war with Japan. For the next four months, John fought to slow the Japanese conquest of the Philippines.

In John's opinion, the tanks were well armed with machine guns. Japanese troops on foot were no match for the tanks, but every one of the Japanese would shoot at the tanks when they saw them.

In the first engagements with the Japanese, John believed that the tanks did a lot of damage to the Japanese troops. The Japanese liked to dig foxholes to hide in and fight from. To clear out the Japanese, the tankers would stop with one of their tank's tracks over the foxhole. The driver would then pivot the tank on that track to make it borrow into the ground. Eventually, the Japanese soldier inside the foxhole was crushed.

After some of the heaviest engagements, John stated that the tankers slept upwind of their tanks. The reason the tankers did this was they didn't want to smell the stench from the flesh and hair caught in the tracks of the tanks.

John recalled that during some of the engagements with the Japanese that the Japanese sent soldiers against the tanks carrying cans of gasoline. The Japanese would attempt to jump onto the tanks, pour gasoline into the vents on the back of the tanks, and attempt to set them on fire. If the tankers could not machinegun them before they got to the tanks, they would shoot them as they stood on the tanks. The tankers did not like to do this because of what it did to the crews inside the tanks.

Since the tanks were riveted, when the turrets were hit by machinegun fire, the rivets would pop and ricochet inside the tanks. The rivets sparked when when they hit the sides of the crew compartment. This situation was made worse by the loud sound of bullets from machine guns hitting the tank. The biggest danger from the rivets was the possibility that one could hit one of the tankers in the eye.

On one occasion John remembered that his tank platoon was moving through a Filipino barrio. The town square had a statue in the middle of it. Suddenly, a Japanese tank appeared in the other side of the town square. His tank got off the first shot, but the gunner rushed the shot and hit the statue. The Japanese tank fired but also missed. The shot came so close to his tank that the crew saw the fireball go by the turret of their tank. By this time, they had reloaded and the gunner had time to place his second shot. This time he made a direct hit on the Japanese tank.

Fighting in the jungle created many problems. John stated that the Japanese liked to use the large roots of the trees for cover. Attempting to clear the Japanese out was a problem. If the tree was hit by an artillery shell, it would cut down the tree but not hurt the Japanese soldier and he would survive.

In one such incident, John told how a Japanese soldier was hiding in foxhole between the roots of a tree. The Americans fired at the soldier hitting the tree. Woodchips from the bullets fell into the foxhole slowly filling it up leaving less room for the soldier. After awhile, John and the other tankers could see his backpack. When he had been pushed up high enough, he was killed by the American soldiers.

During the retreat into Bataan, the tanks were moved at night to prevent them from being strafed by Japanese planes. In the jungle it was very dark. John was in the command tank as the tank was crossing a narrow bridge when one of the tank's tracks slipped off the side. The tank fell off the bridge and landed upside down in the bed of a stream. When the tank hit the ground, John fell against the side of the tank. A bolt sticking through the armor hit him in the temple and went deep into his head.  

Afterwards, John bled a lot from the wound and suffered from headaches. After he became a Prisoner of War, John crossed the same bridge repeatedly. Each time, he would look down and see the tank still sitting upside down in the stream.

After the Filipinos and Americans had withdrawn into the Bataan Peninsula, the tankers found themselves under attack from Japanese planes. To protect themselves from the planes, the tanks were hidden, during the day, in the jungle where the canopy from the trees was so thick that no direct sunlight came through. As a result, he and the other soldiers were very pale. To get a tan, when no planes were around, the soldiers sunned themselves in what little direct sunlight they found.

It was at this time that John had an incident with a Japanese rifle. The tanks were bivouacked, and he was walking along the far edge of their position. As he walked, he spotted a Japanese rifle on the ground. John wondered if he could hit anything with the gun, so he tied a string to the gun and moved it with the string to see if it was booby-trapped. After determining that it wasn't, John picked the gun up, racked a round into the chamber and fired at a tree. This was a big mistake! Everyone knew the sound that a Japanese rifle made. The entire camp came alive with the shot being so close. John received a royal chewing out for firing the gun.

During this time, everyone was expected to volunteer for dangerous (suicide) missions to gather intelligence on the Japanese or to destroy something. In his own words, "It was a thing you had to do." Being from the country, John believed that he had an advantage over the Japanese soldiers who most likely had grownup in the city. John had grownup shooting guns at game. He thought that most of the Japanese had never touched a gun before joining the military. So after a few shots, John would settle down and feel that his odds were better than theirs.

One of the greatest dangers facing the tankers at this time were snipers. The snipers would tie themselves onto trees and sit in them among the branches for days. One sniper had been taking shots at the tankers for days, so John crawled forward with a M-1 while using a log as cover. After the sniper took a shot and racked the rifle bolt, John determined that the sniper was in a particular tree. John began firing on the lower branches of the tree where they were attached to the trunk and worked his way up.

John believed that he must have been getting closer because while he was firing, the sniper took a shot at him. Finally, the sniper got so close to hitting John in the head that John backed off. The Americans brought a machinegun forward and raked the tree with fire where John thought the sniper was. They hit him and he fell from the branches. He jerked to a stop and hung from his belt which he had used to tie himself to a branch. An officer wanted the Japanese brought down, so John shot the belt until it snapped and the soldier fell to the ground.

John and the other members of his tank crew were assigned guard duty. Their job was to prevent Japanese infiltrators. The tankers set up a road block along a gravel road and stopped and searched everyone coming down the road. John recalled that a Filipino man with his head down who was peddling fast approached them on a bicycle. John ordered the man to stop, but he kept on coming. John stood in the middle of the road and hollered for him to halt, but the man kept on coming and rode past John. John's orders were not to let anyone through without being searched. As the man road off, John pulled his .45 pistol and aimed it right at the man's butt. When he fired, the bullet hit the back tire near the road and threw gravel everywhere. The Filipino threw his feet straight into the air and tumbled off the bicycle. John and the other soldiers ran over to the man and inspected what he was carrying but found nothing that was of danger to the soldiers. The Filipino was skinned up pretty badly, but he took off the back tire from the rim and road off. John never knew why the man never stopped.

The morning of April 9, 1942, John and the other members of C Company received the word of the surrender from one of the battalion's officers. They were instructed to destroy their equipment and then meet the Japanese at Mariveles on the southern tip of Bataan. John recalled that they drained the oil out of some of the jeeps and trucks and ran them to burn up the engines. For others, they poured sand into the motors and ran them. They also took their guns apart and scattered the pieces so that they would not be found.

At first, the soldiers had been ordered to travel without arms, but John wanted to keep his tommy gun to protect the soldiers from bandits or Japanese soldiers. The commanding officer of C Company, William Gentry, spoke to Headquarters over the radio and after some debate, got permission for John to keep his gun. Before they left to meet the Japanese, John and the other men removed all tanker insignia from their uniforms since the tanks had done a lot of damage to the Japanese. All during the time that he was a POW in the Philippines, Japanese guards would ask, "You tanker?" Anyone found with a tanker insignia or admitting to be a member of a tank battalion disappeared or were killed.

On the way to the meeting place, John and the other soldiers saw a bus full a Filipinos with men riding on the roof. They stopped the bus and the driver told them to get on the roof. The first man up the ladder had his hand stomped on by a Filipino soldier who also pushed him off the ladder. John climbed up the ladder and when the Filipino went to stomp on his hand, he stuck the tommy gun in the man's face and made him back away. John made the other Filipinos make room for the tankers and they rode until they were closer to Mariveles.

When the Americans met up with the Japanese, they took John's tommy-gun and searched everyone. The Japanese took what they wanted and looked for unit identification or insignia. Seeing what the Japanese were doing, John dug a hole with the heal of his boot and slipped the photo he had of his aunt into it without being observed.

From Mariveles, John, with the other members of C Company, started what became known as the death march. On the march, John went without food and had little water. He also witnessed atrocities committed by the Japanese. The worst thing that he saw happened when a Japanese soldier started yelling at an officer for moving too slow.  Without warning, the guard shot the officer in the stomach. The man fell to the ground in agony to the ground. As he lay there, he kicked, rolled and screamed. The guard did not allow any of the other Americans help the officer. So, he slowly died.

At San Fernando, John and the other POWs were packed into small steel freight cars. They were packed in so tightly that the men who died remained standing. When the survivors climbed off the cars at Capas, the bodies of the dead fell out of the cars. From there, John walked the last few miles to Camp O'Donnell.

During John's time at Camp O'Donnell, he went out on work details. He did this regardless of how sick or starved he was. On these details he cut down trees, drove supply trucks, built roads and did farm work.

Of all the details that John worked, the worst was the burial detail. He first worked this detail at Camp O'Donnell and continued working it at Cabanatuan after the new camp opened. He recalled that at Camp O'Donnell the bodies were put into a metal shed until they could be buried. The bodies stacked up faster than they could bury them. The POWs on the detail worked in teams. They would carry the body in a sling on a pole. The pole rested on their shoulders.

When selecting a body, John would climb the pile and select the smallest and least ripe body that he could find. Some of the dead had had wet beriberi and were swollen and very heavy, so he did not chose those. If the body had been dead for awhile, the skin would come off in the hands of the two men while they picked it up. To get the skin off their hands, the POWs would rub their hands together and roll the skin into balls. They would then put the body into the sling and attempt to standup at the same time.

John stated that if he had a good partner, they would stand up at the same time. The two men then would walk in a rhythm with the bounce of the sling. Some men couldn't or wouldn't do this right. So when working with these men, John would get up quicker and put the weight of the lift on the other man. The one lasting effect from working this detail on John was that he never liked to handle peaches because their peals felt too much like the skin of a corpse.

On December 12, 1942, John was selected to go on a work detail to build runways at Camp Murphy. This detail was known as the Las Pinas Detail. John was only on this detail a short time when he was returned to Cabanatuan. Not that long after returning to Cabanatuan, John was selected for shipment to Japan.

On September 18, 1943, John with other POWs left Cabanatuan for the Port Area of Manila. On Pier #7, they were boarded onto the Taga Maru. The ship sailed on September 20, 1943. What John remembers about the ship was that it was too small for the ocean. The Japanese also would not allow the POWs out of the hold even though many of the POWs were seasick. Those who had to vomit vomited into a steel trough in the hold. This same trough was used as the POWs' toilet. As the ship was tossed around, all that was in the trough sloshed back and forth and sprayed those POWs standing near the trough.

The Taga Maru arrived at Moji, Japan on October 2, 1943. John was taken to Sendai #5-B in the northern part of Japan. The POWs in the camp worked at a steel mill owned by Nippon Steel. Conditions for the POWs were not very good. Although the climate was cold, the POWs' barracks had little or no heat. He recalled that one day the Japanese announced that the POWs were to take a bath. The POWs removed their clothes and bathed in groups in a large vat filled with hot water. John recalled that it was the only time he had been warm while in Japan. When they got out, the Japanese sprayed the POWs with cold water. Some men refused to let the Japanese do this. Within a few weeks, they had died of pneumonia.

During his time at Sendai #5, John worked as a stevedore unloading and loading ships. He also did other jobs at the steel mill. He and the other POWs had no idea of how the war was going. All they had to go on were rumors. In John's opinion, those men who placed their hope on the belief that they would be rescued by a certain date often gave up hope and died after the date came and went without anything happening.

On September 15, 1945, John was liberated by American forces. He returned to Texas and married Edna Lewis Mickey. Together, they raised four children. John went to college on the GI Bill and became a high school science teacher at Eastern Hills High School in Fort Worth, Texas. He taught physics, biology and chemistry.

John F. Ross passed away on January 16, 2004.

For more see 

Adios

Miss Arabella Odell

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During our time at EHHS Miss Odell, as she was known to us, was effectively the Dean of Girls even though her title was Senior Counselor. I don’t know how you might have seen Miss Odell, but since I had little reason to interact with her, my impressions were limited to a few brief exchanges. From those exchanges I’ve believed her all these years to have been something of a crusty old woman.

In 1963, Miss Odell was only 2-years older than we are now in 2010...somehow she doesn't seem quite so old from today's perspective. She passed away in 1985 at the age of 89.

Recently, I ran across a good site being run by a member of the 1959 Handley HS class. Many of our teachers were transfers from the old HHS and one of those HHS ’59 graduates recalled Miss Odell in a way that I never saw her.

“One of the things that impressed me the most about our HHS education was the professionalism of our senior English teacher, Miss Odell. Thanks to her I was able to write well enough to pass college classes. Thank You, Miss Odell, for teaching us to write a term paper properly. Do you remember memorizing a hundred lines of poetry? What I remember the most about her was how she taught us Shakespeare. I think it was MACBETH or something like that, and she would quote a passage from memory, turn around, walk to her desk, and about 30 seconds later the bell would ring to end class. She was some teacher; really, more like a college professor. She inspired me toward a teaching career.” (Richard Clark HHS ’59)

I stand corrected. (Gus).  Below is the dedication page for the 1942 Handley High School yearbook.

Adios

Tulips

For years, try as I may, I cannot get my tulips to fully bloom before the damned squirrels eat them. Now, I’ve never been much of a gardener…plant it, if it grows—good, if not—try something else. Actually, I subscribe to Gallagher’s philosophy: If you water it and it dies, it’s a plant; if you pull it and it grows back, it’s a weed!

I have a copy of Stanley Marcus’ second book, “Quest for the Best” standing by in my reading room for occasional reference. Written about 1979, Mr. Marcus’ words seem now like a nostalgic window on a much more genteel past. He discusses a variety of finer things and laments the degradation of our circa 1979 society.

In one of the paragraphs I read the other day, Mr. Marcus extolled his patrician enchantment with the tulip fields of Holland when seen from the air. He waxed on and on about the astounding colors. Now, I’ve never seen much of an early Spring riot of color from my own tulips; however, from the few I’ve seen survive the damned squirrels, I could grasp what he was relating with his words.

At an earlier time in my life I might have planned a special excursion tacked onto a European trip to see something like those tulip fields blooming in Holland. However, these days with travel a PITA, I’m content to look it up on Google. And so I did, and the picture above is what Stanley Marcus so enchantingly described over 30-years ago.

The picture below is more representative of my own experience with tulips.

Adios

Memorial Day - 2010

For too many years I’ve been just like everyone else…Memorial Day was simply an opportunity to add a few vacation days and extend my time off from work. In doing some recent reading about the Army Air Corps of WWII, I’ve encountered many poignant stories of young men who flew the bombers from England against Hitler’s fortress Europe. If you have ever heard a WWII veteran say that the real heroes are the ones who didn’t come home, these were some of the young men to whom those veterans were referring.

Charles was a high potential young man from Casper, Wyoming. Shortly after he graduated from high school his father passed away leaving Charles’ kid sister and mother alone. Charles had won an appointment to West Point and despite the trauma of losing his father, accepted his appointment. He went on to become a member of the USMA Class of 1939.

In keeping with tradition, his roommate wrote a short description of Charles for the West Point yearbook, noting that Charles had the patience of Job, a subtle sense of humor, and was a good dancer. After graduation and his commissioning as a second lieutenant, Charles volunteered for the Air Corps and undertook pilot training as the United States began its build up prior to WWII. Just after Pearl Harbor Charles served for several months in Australia and Java against the Japanese.

West Point graduates formed the professional core of many of the bomb groups based in England and pilots like Charles who had a few years of service before WWII were well on their way to achieving higher rank than most of the cadet airmen that followed them. By 1943 Charles was a 28-year old lieutenant colonel, the deputy group commander, and a B-17 command pilot.

In January 1944, the target was the machine and munitions works at Brunswick and Charles was scheduled to lead the group of 35-planes. However, his plane developed engine trouble and he returned to the base for a replacement. Unable to catch up with his own group he joined another group that was trailing behind his own.

Near Rehburg a Luftwaffe JU-88 flown by Bruno Rupp slipped in behind Charles’ B-17 and launched a rocket. Reports told of seeing his stricken plane dive 5000’ in flames before 4 parachutes were seen, then the plane exploded. However, only 2 men survived to become prisoners, and Charles was not one of them.

At the time his plane went down, Charles had been in training for his position nearly 9-years. That fateful January 1944 mission was his second and last in the ETO. For the past 66-years Charles has rested beside 5,328 others in the Ardennes American Cemetery, Neupre, Belgium. His mother died in 1948 and what became of his kid sister isn’t known. There was no one left to bring him home.

A recipient of 2 Silver Stars, a DFC, and a Purple Heart, Charles is but one of the young men we honor on Memorial Day.

Note: Within 1-week of my inquiry for assistance in getting an actual picture of Charles' grave in the Ardennes American Cemetery, a fine gentleman living near the cemetery sent this photograph to me. Thank you, André.

Treasure peace, fight tyranny, never forget those who fought.

a paix au trésor, de la tyrannie se battre, ne jamais oublier ceux qui ont combattu.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off - Part 4

To finish my little FBG (those born 1955-65) rant…I think these mutts were like our younger brothers and sisters…old enough to see and understand some of the things we were experiencing, but not old enough to participate in them. And when their time came, what was left for them? By my recollection, not much. Leisure suits…18% interest rates, jobs were scarce…if you recall, those were the beginning years of the great Southwest S&L debacle. By the way, we had to deal with that stuff ourselves.

There’s no doubt in my mind that we drew a good hand, just as there is little doubt that the FBG’s drew one that was not as good. However, any generation must deal with the hand they're dealt; the FBG group shouldn’t expect anything different. So, why do they continue to whine and blame their troubles on others, especially us? Who knows? One thing is true…it’s their’s now…business, government, education. How are they doing?
Of course, not all of them are reprobates…Santorum (b.1958); J.C. Watts (b.1958) are good guys. There are more, I’m sure. But then there is Osama (b.1957) and Emanuel (b.1959). What do you think of them?

What am I bitching about? When you identify a particularly vile bastard, take time to look up his or her birth year. Chances are it will fall within the range 1955 - 1965. Today they are 45 – 55 years old and they are taking leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. How are they doing? Both sectors are in shambles and this group of cry babies are either whining that they inherited their problems, or going to the basement to hang themselves, setting the autopilot south to the Gulf of Mexico, bailing out and trying to fake their demise. I didn’t say they aren’t creative.

The FBG’s have grown up in some kind of delusional world of their making that I really don’t understand. They have bastardized our language to form a code of their own: functionality; send a message; teachable moment; take a deep breath; enhance; online experience; solutions, solutions, solutions—pizza solution, toilet paper solution, global, scalable…a lot of it came from the Silicon Valley techies.

In the early 1990’s I noticed what seemed to be a gathering surge of something odd in the atmosphere around us. As it considered the obvious lack of professionalism in the adolescent Clinton administration, a 1993 WSJ editorial asked, “Are There Any Adults in Charge”? The decade wrapped up with America’s second Impeachment of a president and the rupture of the “dot com” bubble taking a lot of our retirement money with it. Nearly a decade of Executive Branch negligence almost certainly contributed to the successful 911 attack.

Wasn’t it bizzare when they lavishly celebrated themselves as returning Desert Storm warriors with that 1991 NYC ticker-tape parade? The so-called war was a 100-hour event that left more to be done—that, of course, wasn’t their doing. Losses: 493 KIA – 467 WIA, or about one week’s Vietnam losses in 1968.

In the ensuing 20-years I’ve noticed that everything these prima-donnas touch has to be promoted as some kind of superlative…the greatest, worst, biggest, best ever, etc. Yet, in their hands entire airlines shut down in clear weather, power grids fail their customers by the millions, gas mains explode entire neighborhoods, and Interstate Highway bridges collapse as a result of neglected upkeep.

Well, as some of us have been known to say, "F**k 'em, if they can't take a joke."


Adios

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off - Part 3

The Ferris Bueller generation (FBG’s = those born 1955-65) are actually the second half of the baby-boomers where we were in the leading edge of the bulge. We were fortunate to have lived in an interesting era during our youth, but I would say that it wasn’t quite the euphoric experience the FBG’s seem to think it was. The music was great and we’ve been blessed that it was good enough to stand the test of time…maybe that’s what has Begala and his pals ticked off. But then again, take a look at the picture above…who would you have rather have had as your friends? Otter, Bluto, and the gang or some gaunt little preppies?

I recall observing the FBG’s emerge from college in the late 70’s to early 80’s and thinking at the time that they were in a huge hurry to acquire big houses, fast cars, and whatever else they thought would enhance their personal sense of worth. You and I likely followed our parents’ examples and started out modestly, then built ourselves up when we could. But they, the FBG’s, seemed to be remarkably detached from the reality that it usually takes time and work to build a substantial life that may or may not include some of the trappings they so much wanted.

The FBG’s also came across as lacking integrity and willing to screw others to have their way. In observing them operate, it was clear they considered a lie as useful as the truth if it furthered their ambitions...and more troubling they seemed utterly devoid of conscience. During a circa 1980 casual conversation with a VP of a large regional employer, I asked it he was seeing anything like this in his interviews of potential new recruits from the ranks of late 70’s to early 80’s college graduates. He emphatically replied, YES—they expect to be managers and VP’s in a couple of years!

I know it’s both risky and unfair to generalize about an entire group…so, bear with me as I continue to generalize. I think people develop their life-long sensibilities by the time they reach adulthood. And I think that by reviewing the history of their times, their popular music, and their taste in movies an amateur psychologist might form a fairly illuminating opinion of what kind of people populated a group when they became adults.

Think about that for a moment…our parents went to war and saved the world; we went to war and (for better or worse) changed the authoritarian order of things; and courtesy of our parents and ourselves, the FBG’s weren’t burdened with war and have worked on perfecting the art of the scam during their entire adult lives.

The last part of this series of thoughts will sum things up. As you have probably surmised, I don’t like the FBG any more than they like me. I think they are whiners without soul, without good judgment, and when their lives are summed up there will be absolutely nothing memorable about them or their times. Think about it for a moment: Do $50,000 4-wheel drive SUV’s make any sense whatsoever on smooth roads where they’re most frequently used?

And will anyone really recall the music of their generation…Boy George and Cyndi Lauper?

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off - Part 2

If you haven’t read Paul Begala’s harangue about our generation yet, please take a moment to do so here. Begala’s rant provides a fundamental statement of what I believe is a seething hatred so many in his generation believe about you and I. Couple that thought with the drama playing out now on the national stage noting that what passes for leadership consists largely of people of his generation.

Carrying on with my Part 1 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off introduction of the thought (See Part 1 first), the film starts with Ferris working a scam on his parents—he fakes being too sick to go to school. Next, Ferris scams his friend, Cameron, to induce him to take his father’s very expensive Ferrari out on the day’s lark, then he scams the school to get his girl friend out early, next he scams the exclusive restaurant for preferential seating, scams a Chicago downtown parade for a place miming the lead singer on one of the floats, and closes with a series of quick dodges to preserve his full day of scams.

The stars of the film are a trio of neatly dressed preppies of that day, shown barging around Chicago in a stolen Ferrari and conducting a series of scams. As interesting as the film, are the reminisces of the cast, producers, director, and others that are contained in the “special features” section of the DVD. One after another, they wax fondly about the film, its execution, and the premise—everyone involved in the film are the from Begala’s “generation” born roughly 1955 – 1965; among them Matthew Broderick (b.1962), Barak Obama (b.1961), and Paul Begala (b.1961). And they hate us—Begala terms us that “garbage barge of a generation.” What a thoughtful little fellow.

Wrapping this Part 2 up, it’s very interesting to note that in the crowd rousing scene the song that got everyone up and partying was “Twist and Shout”—one of the anthems of our generation…and few, if any of us even knew what a Ferrari was. But an Eat Me Float? Chances are we knew various versions of those:

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off - Part 1

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, a cute 1986 film but not one or our generation’s classics was a good buy recently on the $5 DVD shelf. It was interesting to view the “special features” section which included a number of both vintage and contemporary commentaries by those involved with making the film. I’ve always enjoyed this movie if only for its impertinence which somewhat mimicked that of our time; but I have never considered it the icon in the same way some others consider it.

It struck me that there may be a deeper story in Ferris Bueller. Remember when, during the recent health care debates, Obama made the quip that it might be time to “give granny a pill” when she got too expensive to care for? That comment reminded me of a notorious 3000+ word piece written by Paul Begala for Esquire magazine in 2000 entitled, “The Worst Generation.” Begala’s contemptible rant railed against our generation. If you want to read his ugly harangue, you can easily find it using a Google search using key words: Esquire Begala Worst Generation.

I mention these thoughts only to introduce a notion that I think there is a real hatred for us and our times that rests in today’s 50-somethings—those born roughly from 1955 to 1965. Something seems to have affected this generation of 50-somethings that has yielded a thoroughly loathsome group of people—and they hate us. As for me…I’ve never given them much thought. Maybe that’s what has them stirred up...few of us gave them much thought.

Did you notice about 25-30 years ago when these 50-somethings started coming on line as new adults in the late seventies to mid eighties and were staffing the local fast food drive through windows? It was about then that you had to start checking your bag because if you didn’t, you invariably got home only to find that you had been shorted—you could no longer trust them to get things right.

The problem was wide spread enough that the national press even coined a name for it…”scamming,” and wrote a number of articles about the growing problem. Some of the stories I recall reading involved interviews with the youngsters of the time telling of their various scams, and they were proud of their cleverness.

See Part 2. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – a film about scamming!

Drag Racing Memories

I remember that we used to race some pretty cool cars back in the day BEFORE the Musclecars of the late 60's. Probably the quickest of them all was Dickey Anderton's Factory super stock Plymouth (62 or 63, I believe) 426 Ram Inducted Wedge Head (before the Hemi's). When he pulled in at the Chuck Wagon or the 28th street Clover Drive-in with the headers uncapped the entire metal awning system would rattle. No one would take him on.

Doug Moore might have been the closest competitor with his ‘32 Coupe or his later ‘55 Chevy 2-door post. I believe his ‘55 had a full race 377-inch Chevy small block. Then came Roger Enderbrock in a Black ‘64 Impala, 409-425 Horse. These three guys were two or three years older than most of us.

Big (literally) Joe Kennedy always had a fast car, too. His full size ‘64 Ford Galaxy convertible was supposed to have a 390, but I'm almost sure it was a 427 side oiler. It was VERY quick for a full size heavy convertible and a real girl getter also. Joe was a Great guy.

Wendell Jordan ran around with Joe and had a nice yellow Corvette. I'm not sure of the engine as he did not race it with us too often. I bought my ‘63 Dodge 440 2-door from Doug Moore. It was a 383 four-speed. It was one of the top two drag cars from our class of 63. I won many races out on loop 820 before and after school or on a convoy from the Chuck Wagon.

Terry Fricks had a nice, fairly quick ‘60 Impala convertible. It was silver and probably had a 409. Terry never told me. I remember also a close race I had with Jimmy Bilderback in his ‘62 Corvette 327-365 horse. Close by about 6 feet. I jumped him 5 or 6 car lengths off the line but he came on like rocket sled on the big end and almost won.

Benny Thompson, a good friend of mine, had a quick MOPAR, a ‘63 Plymouth 383. We sort of teamed up and used his car to tow mine to Kennedale a few times. I eventually modified my Dodge to B/modified production class and was able to post an 11:20 E.T. at 112 M.P.H. at Green Valley Raceway. Benny went on to work as a Police Officer in Ft.. Worth where he eventually retired I believe.

Johnny Gearhart had a VERY NICE Black ‘57 Chevy Bel-air. It was quick for what it was, and a real collector car too. As I recall some of these guys were Juniors but were still good friends and racers. Most all of the guys went to (the yet unopened) loop 820 and Randol Mill road. We used the North bound access road to race.

Races were either before school, at lunch period or right after school. The important top dog races were later on in the evening after a quick meet up at the Chuck Wagon, very seldom for money, as we spent it all on our cars. The notoriety for having the winning car was enough. Strangely enough I NEVER received a contest of speed ticket....thank goodness, because my father was the Ft. Worth Corporation Court Judge.

I hope this brings back some memories for some........James G.

Loop 820 - 1963

It’s often difficult to relate to someone much younger how things in our childhood seemed so clean and new relative to what we see today. The picture was taken in October 1963, the month our eastside portion of Loop 820 opened for traffic. It shows the intersection of the Toll Road (I-30), opened in 1958, and Loop 820 when both of these sections were new—47-years ago now.

I recall the opening of the Toll Road and learning to drive on it roughly coincided with attaining my license at age 16 in 1961. Actually, I had been driving for several years before that, since about age 13, with my father riding shotgun. The traffic was so light then, even on the highways, that it was relatively safe to break in a youngster well in advance of his or her sixteenth. I would log some time behind the wheel driving my family out to the Howard Johnson’s on the Toll Road to get my mother her weekly fried clams fix…HoJo’s Wednesday special, if I recall correctly. I had a hamburger, couldn’t stand the fish.

Loop 820 was under construction during our high school years and opened just after we graduated and launched elsewhere to take on a larger world. So, I don’t have any recollections of using it except as a parts supply venue while it was under construction. About 1961, someone, Dillard I think, procured a 1934 Ford Flatbed truck in a trade with one of those local car traders who operated from the yard of an old house. I think he traded a broken Hupmobile and a 10ga. shotgun for it, if I recall correctly.

Getting that old truck in shape for licensing proved to be a challenge for some 15-16 year olds with neither money nor knowledge, and I think a light fixture or two was sourced from parked equipment up on Loop 820; that is, until the local roving guard rolled up. Anyway, no one ended up in jail and legal or not that old truck saw some limited service hauling a bunch of us around the neighborhoods on weekends. The old flatbed disappeared suddenly and I don’t recall the story of where it went. However, I don’t think anyone ever solved the problem of the missing muffler and the noise always summoned the local gendarme. Some of the likely perpetrators in this adventure were Means, Dillard, Tate, Cooper, Shields, Koebernick, McCoy, McCook, Scott, Larmer, Lange, and maybe a few others.

The 1963 picture of Loop 820 and I-30 clearly shows an overpass and an underpass. Brentwood Stair went under (1) and John T. White Rd. went over (2). The picture below is a current (2010) satellite view that shows the massive build up in the area over the past 47-years and marks the under/over passes. Note that the old picture shows little or no traffic on I-30, even though it was about 5-years old when the picture was taken. That is an example of what I have trouble relating to younger people about how things were…I think that route has been heavily congested for decades now.

Adios

1958 Meadowbrook Buffaloes

Found this interesting team photo showing both the 8th and 9th grade boys on the Meadowbrook football team in 1958. Some of these kids went on to play football as a Highlander...they are marked with a green dot.

Time Passes - Part 2

Thinking about my last post a bit more, I thought something was missing. Rather than look at air transport development in a couple of 50-year increments, why not take a look in 25-year increments? That reveals a somewhat different story.

Where we were on an unmistakable, nearly century-long upward slope until the early 1980's, culminating in the SST entering service, it seems that we have really entered a plateau in the past 25-years--about the time our children were heavily involved in school. Suddenly, it seems that we no longer wanted to go to the moon any more; no more bigger, better, faster cars or planes; just bigger houses and SUV's. Fooey.



Adios

Time Passes - Part 1

Someone once wrote, “Seasons change, young man,” meaning, I suppose, that things will not stay the same, no matter how much we would like them to do so.
While writing this blog has been an interesting exercise in introspection and has been visited by a number of my old classmates, I’ve been a bit surprised to observe that not many wanted to chime in. It seems to have been more of a venue for some of their offspring to drop by to try and learn something of their parents, or uncles, or aunts, or something like that. And that’s O.K., too.

Today, I was thinking about the advances our society has made during the past 40-50 years and I was a little perplexed to think of much that has changed to any great degree. Computers arrived to our desks, of course…but it seems to me to be a dubious claim that life is better for everyone since the wide application of the computer.

Think of it…now entire airlines that once ran on schedule are shut down not only when their own computers fail, but also when the FAA computers fail. I cannot recall a time 50-years ago when much of the air traffic control system shut down on a clear day.

One way of looking at it is to consider the accompanying pictures. The jets are rotating approximately 50-years apart, yet they look very similar to each other. On the other hand, look how far we had come during the 50-years before our 63 Highlander year.

And we have the recent event where a commercial flight crew overshot their intended destination by about 100-miles or so. This, while the 2-man crew was either asleep or monkeying around with their computers, depending on what story you believe. Also note that where we formerly had 4-engines, we now have but 2; and where we once had a 3-man crew up front, we now have but 2.


Adios

Robert Franklin Ladd, Jr.

I just discovered that Bob Ladd passed away in April 2008 after a brief illness. Bob was a 2-year football lettermen and a member of our 1962 Ft. Worth City championship team. He was also a 3-year contestant in the Golden Gloves. I always liked that picture of him delivering a shot on the chin of that other boxer.

Bob was a quiet, energetic, and good humored kid. He would have been a starter at cornerback had we not already had a couple of stellar performers at that position—Tom Koebernick and Ted Harris, both of them All-District honorable mentions. Bobby wasn’t a big kid, nor particularly fast, but you could rely on him to do the best he could and he rarely screwed up. All things considered, that's not a bad attribute. I think he became a Ft. Worth policeman.

Vaya con Dios, Roberto

Hanlon's Razor

Politics, 2009 style. I miss the good old days...U-2's shot down, Ruskie pounds his UN desk, Cuban missile crisis, Hanoi Jane, duck & cover, sonic booms, big nuclear proliferation, nightly body counts, long legs, blonde surfer hair, fast cars, etc.

Now what do we have? Barak, Moammar, and Mahmoud...also, Harry, Nancy, and Chuckie. Star Wars bar scenes at the UN and in our own halls of power. Did you hear Barak suggest to just give grannie a pill when she gets too old--bingo, no further medical problems? How does that make you feel?


Adios

Quintessentially Texan - 1

If you have had the opportunity to travel about and live in other places you may have noticed that there is something unique about being a Texan, no matter where life has taken you. It doesn’t matter if you left the place after graduation and never went back, or if you left & returned, or if you never left at all…there is just something special about being a native Texan.

When people elsewhere discover that you’re a Texan, they’re nearly always intrigued. If you are back east, they think your Texas accent indicates that you are not too intelligent; however, if you take stock of those who would render such a judgment, you generally observe that they haven’t got anything more substantial going in that department themselves.

On the other hand, if you are “out” west, depending on whether northern or southern “out” west, you might have observed that those folks tend to be oblivious to much of anything—drugs explained it pretty well a few decades ago and maybe that’s still a valid explanation.

It seems that in the fly-over middle, folks either stay put or want to go east or west…mostly west, I think. Better weather there.

Of course collectively we’re a country of mutts…but once our early people reached Texas, we magically became Texans and thereby, mutts no more. As a distinct society, we Texans are quite young. Those of us who are able to trace their heritage to the first Texans of the 1820-1830’s are usually no more than 4 or 5 generations removed from the pre-statehood period—my great grandfather was born a couple of years before Texas won its Independence—that’s just 4-generations back, including myself. Great grandpa wouldn’t have been old enough to join General Sam, but his daddy would have.

And what other state will supply you with an heirloom birth certificate to help you proclaim your heritage? No wonder the others are intrigued.

H-m-m, Farrah was a Texan...did you know that?



Adios

Lost Angel

Look, I know that Michael Jackson died yesterday. And that is a shame. But lost in the resulting media blather was the fact that an even more memorable entertainer also died yesterday—Farrah.

While I’m sure the artist responsible for Beat It was important to a lot of folks, what red-blooded American male alive during the second half of the seventies could ever forget Jill Munroe? And if he was a newly wed at the time and is still married to the same woman, which of those ladies has ever let him forget that he never forgot Jill Monroe? Rest in peace, Farrah--I don't know where the time went.


Adios

WWII United States Army Air Force

One of the many good things about present day computer technology is the ability it provides to explore an infinite number of subjects in which you might have an interest. One of those many things I have explored is my father’s service during WWII. He was a member of an aircrew based in England and although I had seen his mementoes over the span of our half-century life together, I had little notion of the true nature of his service. He rarely talked about it.

Dad didn’t really measure up to the war heroes portrayed by Gregory Peck or Clark Gable in their post war films…you remember them, don’t you? They were the films broadcast on early 1950’s late night TV, unmercifully cut up and smothered with commercials. As the years went on, those films were cut even more until their storylines became unrecognizable. But even then, Dad still didn’t really look like the same kind of warrior portrayed by those actors.

Of course, it was unfair to compare our fathers with the actors in those films, who themselves had not served, or who like Gable had served in token roles. After my father’s passing and his mementoes coming to me which coincided with the arrival of the Internet and much more capable computers, I began to develop his story in a fashion he never could…and what a story it was!

I mention this as a suggestion and example for you to consider with regard to potential uses of the Internet as you venture into geezerhood with me. To date, through use of the Internet as a communication tool, I have made contact with offspring of about half the men who flew with my father. I never knew these offspring nor did I know anything about their fathers beyond their names on a list my father kept. Their fathers’ images are forever captured in my memory from a crew picture showing them standing with my Dad.

The crew picture used to illustrate this piece is typical of tens of thousands of others that were taken of the Army Air Force bomber crews as they were assembled during WWII. Dad was pictured in two of them. In researching the details of his service, I discovered that a lot of these pictures didn’t represent quite the same story told by Dad’s pictures…a story of 9 or 10 very lucky young men.

The picture accompanying this piece is of a crew taken just before they left for service in the ETO. Their plane was lost at sea during the Atlantic crossing and no trace was ever found of them. So, in this picture you are looking at a group of young men, age 18-26, who never got the opportunity to live a full life

As people with a common interest in our fathers’ service, we have been able to share some pictures and stories some of us had never before seen or heard. Our class was born in the years 1944-45, meaning that we were conceived during the war. By fact of our birth, we know what Dad and Mom were doing at one point during the war…a natural follow-up question might be, how is it that Dad was home at the time?

For me, the answer was kind of amusing…Dad was home on leave between tours. He had volunteered for a second tour of duty, which in itself is a fairly extraordinary story, since the average bomber crew flew only 15-missions before being shot down, against a 30-35 mission obligation. Dad had made his 30 and earned the right to be assigned to safer duty, but he volunteered for a second combat tour. While he was home, he and mom made me and while he was doing that, the crew he was destined to join when he returned was shot down and ditched in the North Sea. All of the crew survived and by the time Dad got back into it, he joined what was by then, a very experienced crew.

It’s said that the good die young and considering the losses already suffered by our class, it would seem that there is some truth in the saying. It is also said that another description for an old man or woman is lucky. And by the way, Dad now holds a place of distinction in my mind that dwarfs Clark and Gregory.


Adios

More Damn Technology

Today’s computer & Internet technology is both amazing and troublesome. I think our class was about the oldest in society to have taken some interest in learning something about personal computing when the first PC’s came to our desks in the early 1980’s. I dealt with this subject in March 2006., so I won’t repeat it in this posting.

Bob Dillard’s comment in the previous post about his measured move to the Internet and the arrival of indoor plumbing in his corner of the planet got me to thinking about the subject of technology once again.

If you value your privacy as I do, there are some things you are going to want to know about this technology and its capability to intrude on your life. First, you should understand that when you ask someone how much they know about computers and the Internet, everyone lies. The subject is so vast and constantly changing that not even experts who work with the stuff every day knows more than a fraction of what is available. In order to save face, people tend to either lie or be evasive when the subject of comparative tech savvy arises. That leaves a sense in all of us that something else is going on “out there” and much of it could be nefarious. And much of it can.

A lot of people know how to blog, set up and run a website, use facebook, myspace, twitter, tweets and others yet to come, take and post digital pictures, fire off emails, utilize web-based collaborative software, operate within a CRM or ERP environment, and any number of other activities requiring use of both the net and a computer. A lot fewer people have acquired the good sense to judge what to post and what not to post. And it is in this area where you are likely to experience some problems.

The net seems to have developed as a “bottom up” environment, meaning that things are being driven by the youngest and least experienced among us…those who haven’t lived long enough to develop good judgment and caution. One thing that I find most troubling is that once data is digitized, be it documents or pictures, it is quite possible that the damned thing will never go away. Young people today have no idea how long those naughty pictures they have been posting to the net will bedevil them during the next decades of their lives, but it is entirely likely that they will never disappear, much as an old picture could come back to haunt any one of us.

What does it all mean? Well for starters, someone like me can go online and write about people I knew over 50-years ago and haven’t seen since; the person in charge of your church newsletter can post pictures of you from the Sunday social; your local Chamber of Commerce can post your name in conjunction with their neighborhood activities; any club imaginable can post pictures and other information about you; your local property appraisal districts are already posting a lot of information about your home; published obituaries give family details; someone at a family gathering can post pictures they take—flattering and otherwise; and on and on.

“I have nothing to hide,” you say. It doesn’t matter. There are people cruising the net constantly looking for something to exploit, and it could be you, whether you have something to hide or not. And don’t forget that this is a worldwide phenomenon as the recent strife in Iran has clearly demonstrated. Bob, I found you on a whim while surfing the net one morning, even though we live far apart. As you assimilate your newly arrived indoor plumbing, think carefully about how you want to manage your online profile. If you want yourself “out there” then there is no better place to do it; however, if you want to maintain a low cyber-profile, it will take some forethought.

On the other hand, the net has been a wonderful place to share information with others about things in which we share a common interest. Knowledge of narrow interests can be furthered with some ease where there might not be more than a few others on the face of the planet who share your interest.


Adios

Bobby Dillard

I use Google to see if I can find anything about some of the people from this class that I recall as former friends and classmates. I’ve generally tried to keep the topics in this blog that mention living people to a minimum in the interest of trying not to embarrass anyone with my memories of them in their formative years.

I think most of us would agree that the years we spent together so long ago were the years we spent forming our characters, for better or for worse. It was on each other that we experimented with a wide array of things—many of them better left to lay silent in the past.

Bobby, (he goes by Bob, these days), popped up on a recent Google search. As it was with Steve Means, a mutual friend, I do recall some things about Dillard I am sure that today’s Bob Dillard would rather not revisit—things of a juvenile nature. “Dillard” as he was known to most of us, was the gregarious kid, the one we elected to a lot of class popularity offices. If you still have one of our 1963 yearbooks, you will see Dillard pictured in nearly every club picture in that book…and he was even a member of some of those clubs! I think he saw picture day as a good opportunity to take the day off from classes, giving the excuse that he had to have his club picture taken...and taken...and taken again. One of the things we learned early in life was that the “authorities” often lacked the resources or the will to check the validity of every claim we might make. So we learned that a little BS went a long way...and in the art of BS, Bobby was very gifted.

Bob’s returns on my recent Google search included a 300-word email he had written to an online writer, who in turn posted it to the net. Dillard made a few Dillard-like statements in his message that indicate to me that he is not much different than the kid I recall, which on balance was a pretty good kid. His message started with, “my name is Bob Dillard and I’m in Fort Davis– just happened on your well done website and wanted to make a suggestion, one you might file in the big-damn-deal category.”

There followed something over 250-words registering Bob's understanding of the proper application of “Fort” or “Ft.” when referring to a place or an active military installation. In closing, Dillard wrote, “As for being on the web, we have just now gotten indoor plumbing so it may be a while before I can figure out how to do some of the things you are doing so capably.

That’s the “Dillard” I recall. Bob, if you stumble across this piece someday, be sure to read the next post, “More Damn Technology.”
Adios

Cars – Part 3

SUV’s – Part 2. Since my last posting General Motors joined Chrysler in declaring bankruptcy. Dad always drove GM cars and wouldn’t have anything else most of his life and I bought a couple of used ones when I was still a kid. Neither of them were any damned good and I never bought another. Based on my observations while driving rented or company-supplied Chrysler cars many years ago, I never had any desire for one of their products either. So, as members of the class of the earliest Baby Boomers, I suspect that many of us made similar discoveries and reached similar decisions.

Here is a thought—GM made one of the more outrageous examples of an obnoxious “street machine” and called it a Hummer. Even though I’m approaching geezerhood in the eyes of younger people, I do recognize certain symbols of ostentatious lifestyle and a “Hummer” would be near the top of my list of such symbols. My thought: If, in the preceding posting, you accept that A is to B as C is to D is indeed true, then it must follow that E is to F as A is to B and C is to D, does it not?


Adios