National Honor Society – Part 1

During the first few years at EHHS, National Honor Society induction ceremonies were conducted during the second week in May, just before final exams and the end of the school year. For those who achieved high academic marks it was a time of some anxiety because not all those who had achieved the basic 3.5 GPA were invited to join NHS.
If you note the 4 letters in the pin, you see a C, S, L, and another S. The letters stood for the 4 characteristics upon which the NHS was founded; Character, Service, Leadership, and Scholarship.
A review of 1961 and 1962 NHS induction programs reveals what wasn’t obvious almost 50-years ago. Membership was limited to about 40 Seniors and 20 Juniors each year. About 20 Juniors and 20 Sophomores were inducted each Spring to replace the 40 graduating Seniors, leaving a standing membership of about 60 for the following year, 40 Seniors and 20 Juniors (prox).
The 1960-61 NHS membership consisted of only 23 Seniors—the school was very new then. This 1961 class was relatively small, about 224, compared to subsequent classes of about 289 (1962), 315 (1963), 350 in 1964 (the first official year of the baby boomers) and about 410 in 1965. (Note--the first EHHS Class of 1960 numbered about 145).
On May 10, 1961, the Highlander NHS chapter inducted 6 graduating Seniors, 41 Juniors, and 18 Sophomores.

The next year, on May 11, 1962, following the practice first established in 1961, the Highlander NHS chapter inducted 6 graduating Seniors, 21 Juniors, and 19 Sophomores.The lists accompanying this posting are taken from the original NHS induction programs. Another thing that was not obvious at the time was that the girls out numbered the boys by huge margins: 1960/61 – 67% girls; 1961/62 – 75% girls; 1962/63 - 56% girls.
Maybe the selection method was flawed but it did seem that the faculty committee was trying to even the numbers by 1963. On the other hand in the accompanying lists are a couple of lawyers, a judge, a former Ft. Worth mayor, a United States Congresswoman, and the subject of a Life Magazine cover, each of them former EHHS girls. There are also several doctors, professors, teachers, engineers, an artist, several very successful business people, and the author of the EHHS alma mater in these lists.

Adios

George Mitcham - James Willingham - Dub Graves - Susan Begley - Shelia Ward

These biographies were published in the 1962 Booster Club sports brochure. As I recall each of these men, the biographies were accurate...they were good guys, each of them. Dub Graves was the character of the bunch as is shown in the bio from the previous year brochure. I guess he or someone decided to straighten up the wording a bit for the subsequent year, 1962...the 1961 bio is an amusing read. It would appear that Graves and Mitcham may have played football together at Poly, but I don't recall them as being particularly close. Personality wise, Mitcham was a straight arrow; Willingham was all business with an upbeat manner; and Graves was a character.

The back cover lists all the 1962 4A-5 football games on the back and a couple of our lovely Highlanders on the front. Susan Begley would later that year become the 3rd winner of the Big E Beauty Pageant and the 1962 Homecoming Queen, while Shelia Ward, a 1964 Highlander, was one of the favorites of that class.

April 13, 2011 update: I guess I had a crush on one of these young ladies or maybe it was due to our not getting too many opportunities to effectively appraise figures back in those days...whatever the reason, I kept this clipping from the S-T that shows a Miss Mermaid publicity picture in which 3 of our contemporary Highlanders appeared. Sheila Ward ('64), Dianne Hardin ('63), and Pam Shear ('64) were contestants in the contest that Shelia won (hence, her picture on the Booster Club brochure above. As anyone can see, they were cuties. Excuse me, is that too un-PC?

Adios

Darla Houlihan & Roy C. Johnson

This is a good picture of Darla Houlihan, a 1962 Highlander and the very first winner of the Big E Beauty Pagent. Her mom was the school secretary during the first years of EHHS. The picture was printed on a letter size booklet put together by the Booster Club as a fund raiser at the beginning of each year. The back cover shows the composite 4A-5 (Ft. Worth ISD) football schedules for the 1961 football season.

Inside the booklet is this fairly comprehensive bio of Principal Roy C. Johnson. It's interesting in that it provides a glimpse of one man's growing to maturity in Texas during the Depression and WWII, including his work assignments in the FWISD from 1940-1963.
Adios

Fukushima - Day 21

The picture above was taken from a drone aircraft within the past day or two. Damage to the lightweight outer lagging is evident. This was the result of the hydrogen explosions we saw from a long distance on TV. Extent of damage to the much heavier containment building (shell) or even the reactor vessel is not obvious in these pictures.

The picture above shows all 4 of the reactor buildings and to the right, the turbine buildings. Below is the No. 2 executive of Tokyo Electric Power Co. The stress is evident in his expression and those of his assistants.

1963 Prophesies

One of the end of the school year papers contained these interesting articles. They are the end of high school prophesies...some of them are pretty snarky.

WANTED - 1950-1958 CLASS PICTURES (Meadowbrook & Handley Elementary)

I need your help...I would like to gather a small collection of HQ scans of 6th grade class pictures that were taken in 1957 of the Meadowbrook elementary school. They were perhaps a third of the population of our 1963 Highlander class before they started taking on the appearances we knew as their classmates. Preferably, your picture would be named, but if not, we could work on getting that done here.

Observation: There were 3, 6th grade classes at Meadowbrook Elementary in 1956-57. The teachers were Mrs. Few, Mr. Blackstone, and Mrs. Blackwell (Mrs. Ward left this class at mid-year).

Adios

Linda Hartman & Bob Dillard

Here was a late year interview of 2 of our classmates. If you've seen them lately, how did their 18-year old ambitions work out? Bob was a friend who I've written about elsewhere in the blog; Linda was an attractive acquaintance who I didn't know too well. She was reserved and one of our top students. Bob wasn't too quiet, but he was another of our top students.

Adios

WIN WIN - American Airlines

I'm so pleased to discover I'm not the only one who has had it up to "here" with buzzword babbling buffoons. Bravo American Airlines.

Adios

LINK

Conservatives ONLY
  LINK

Gas

Yes Dear - 2

I get a kick out of observing quirks in others…me, I don’t have any…

Wife has a few things in her quirk repertoire that should probably be recognized with a nickname, but I haven’t done it. She already has enough nicknames.

For years, I was too busy working to pay much attention to my wife’s domestic quirks. I probably knew of some of them, but with so little available time, I didn’t ask. Besides, as she has always been quick to inform me, the kitchen was her domain and I was only a guest.

Her dad said that as a child she had a propensity to create chaos with her things, yet still be able to immediately pick out even minor items from the pile. She never missed, he said.

For years I noticed that our refrigerator became cluttered with various things and old containers weren’t thrown out. Three jars of mayo, a couple of bottles of catsup, and 4 partly empty jars of sweet pickles (I don’t like sweet pickles). I started combining the pickles into one jar and tossing the empties. Bad move…in wife’s mind I had contaminated the new pickles with the old pickles. Hmmm. And so, too, it was with the multiple catsup bottles and mayonnaise jars…don’t get me started on the 9 partly empty boxes of spaghetti noodles.

Then there are the salad dressings and spices. These things multiply as a result of shopping lists being made out upstairs without consulting the existing stock downstairs. Also, when wife is hungry for a taste of something, it is just the taste for which she hungers…not the rest of the bottle or jar.

So, we live in a home of selective excess…lots of salad dressings and McCormick’s Vanilla extract, most of them open and only partly full.

Recently she has wanted me to clean out my tool closet located down the hall a bit from the kitchen.  This is serious business because it is in that closet that I keep ALL the tools, parts, supplies, bulbs, spare bits from old projects--you know, those impossible to find bits that have been sitting in that closet for 20-years waiting for the things they were left over from to break again, but haven't.

She wants to use all that wonderful and convenient space for storage of some of her specialized, oversize kitchen appliances which have filled every available space in every cabinet of a roomy kitchen.  I ask if it might help her space situation to dispose of some of those 9 partly empty spaghetti boxes.   My suggestion is not well received.

Truth is, that tool closet ought to be cleaned out and I don't like fixing things much any more.  It takes longer to find that long ago stored away repair bit amongst the clutter than it does to go over to the hardware store and buy what I need.

Adios

Tsunami

I've ridden a 6.6 quake that knocked down buildings and highway bridges. That one was strong enough to satisfy my personal curiosity.

The Japan quake last night is being reported at 8.9! That's almost inconceivable! The Richter scale is logarithmic, meaning that each whole number higher than the last is 10X the strength of the previous number. If my exponential calculation is accurate, then the Japan quake last night released about 2800X the energy of the one I felt many years ago. That's frightening.

The picture is one of the most striking I've found and is probably a unique shot in all recorded history.  It looks like a second or third wave coming ashore.  We tend to think that our species has significant influence over our environment, but I tend to think differently.  I think that even collectively, we are insignificant compared to the powers locked up within this earth we inhabit.  We are more like some dust particles sprinkled over small portions of its surface.

March 13, Sunday update: The United States Navy pulled on station with 8 ships off the Japanese coast today.  Included among them are the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76).  That's only 2-days after the event and that's remarkable. 

March 14, Monday update: This video came to light today. It's the clearest I've seen that shows the flood wave. Remember too, that a hurricane surge operates about the same way.

March 19, Saturday update: This video came to light today. It was taken at sea from the 970-Ton Japan Coast Guard Cutter, Matsushima. It shows the wave approaching the ship's bow and the ship riding up and over. Some fun, eh kid?

And then they went over a second wave a short time later...

Adios

Mr. President

One line in the oath any new soldier accepts as a condition of his or her enlistment pledges their allegiance to the President of the United States and states that he or she will obey the orders of all officers appointed over them. It didn’t take me too long to question the practical application of that contract term and I took it up with an officer appointed over me.

The problem, I related, was with the word, “all.” I went on to explain that in my short time in the service I had seen a few officers of higher rank that were clearly idiots, or to be more charitable, inept.

What would you suggest I do, I asked, should one of these inept officers order me to charge a machine gun nest and I deem both he and his order insane? The man I chose to ask the question was fairly high up in that particular military organization and I had established a reasonably good relationship with him...he seemed to have a good practical head.

He replied, you have to first take care of yourself. Your duty is to respect the rank and uniform, not the man wearing it. Respect for the man was something he had to earn.

It was sage advice and meant that one was doing no good for anyone, including himself, by sacrificing for no good reason. That kind of judgment was for each individual to make. His advice implied that it would be best to ignore idiots, regardless of their rank.

Military service was a short, yet influential part of my life. For years after I had left the service I could readily tell who had served and who had not…it was something in the way a person carried himself, a sense of humor, and a kind of character they wore easily.

Until Vietnam, essentially all young men having high political ambitions were counseled by their fathers and mentors to volunteer for military service and if possible, seek assignment to a war zone. Some medals for heroism could translate into thousands of votes later. The older advisors also knew that a young person had only a few years within a long life to be a part of a military service and the opportunity, once gone, could not be repeated.

I think there is something more to military service than simply medals and the future show value. For a young person, it provides a very real opportunity to test and prove his mettle. Once done, it can never be taken away. Once missed, it can never again be accomplished. It’s a difficult proposition for a young person to comprehend.

Since Vietnam, we have seen a couple of examples of Presidents who did not serve in the military. It became fashionable during the Vietnam period for young men, especially the smart and well-connected ones, to seek ways to avoid serving. It was certainly a safer route to take and joining the political opposition to the Vietnam War provided a kind of assumed moral superiority cover for those who chose it.

However, as the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military force in the world, I think it’s a plus for that commander to have some practical knowledge of that which he commands. It’s probably also a plus in the forming of his or her character.

The accompanying pictures show our post-WWII presidents both in office and in their youth. Draw your own conclusions about them.

Adios

SPAM

I use several email addresses, each for different online communities, and very rarely post them anywhere online; the theory being, by protecting the addresses, I won’t be pestered by spam. However, I do order some things online which do require leaving an address.

Where possible, I use one of the disposable address services that allow me to retrieve mail and verify links. Where the disposable addresses are filtered, I use an address I consider a throw-away should the spam volume become intolerable. I’ve been doing this for about 15-years or so, and have never found the volume of spam to be much of an irritant, nor have I had to abandon an address due to spam overload.

All that said, I do get some spam in one of my more active Yahoo addresses. It seems that there are spammers who work something like the old robo-dialers on the telephone…they just go down the list and spam them all. Of course, Yahoo tends to set some filters and I set others, such that most of that stuff is automatically shunted off into a spam folder.

Now and then it’s interesting to take a look at some of the spam mail. It’s a wonder that anyone sending that kind of stuff out would expect to get responses, but maybe they do.

Mujahideen wants me to call him urgently; my old pal Ibrahim Bhaki writes me—Dear Friend; several folks, including Mr. Karim Ahmed, are wanting to send me money from various funds I don’t know about but they will help, I’m sure; julian justin yak’s subject is “Dearest one” – wonder what jjy wants; Microsoft Office is writing about something…sometimes it comes in as Microsofts Office…they’re in a hurry, I suppose. And so on, and so on.

I used to stand by the waste basket and throw away everything marked “bulk rate” without bothering to open it. Many days, that took care of 90% of a day’s mail in just a few seconds. Then the junk mailers got into cahoots with the post office and started marking junk mail “presorted first class” and printing my name and address all over everything inside. Then I had to start shredding.

Some of the Asian subcontinent societies may have it right…just take people that irritate you out behind the barn and flog them with a stick. For now, spam filters and that delete button works pretty well.

Adios

NINE WORDS WOMEN USE

(1) Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.

(2) Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this means a half an hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given five more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.

(3) Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means something, and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with nothing, usually end in fine.

(4) Go Ahead: This is a dare, not permission. Don't Do It!

(5) Loud Sigh: This is actually a word, but is a non-verbal statement often misunderstood by men A loud sigh means she thinks you are an idiot and wonders why she is wasting her time standing here and arguing with you about nothing. (Refer back to # 3 for the meaning of nothing.)

(6) That's Okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements a women can make to a man. That's okay means she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.

(7) Thanks: A woman is thanking you, do not question, or faint. Just say you're welcome. (I want to add in a clause here - This is true, unless she says 'Thanks a lot' - that is PURE sarcasm and she is not thanking you at all. DO NOT say 'you're welcome'. That will bring on a 'whatever').

(8) Whatever: Is a woman's way of saying...Go to blue blazes.

(9) Don't worry about it, I got it: Another dangerous statement, meaning this is something that a woman has told a man to do several times, but is now doing it herself. This will later result in a man asking 'What's wrong?' For the woman's response refer to # 3.

1963 EHHS Highlander Track Team

Members of the 1963 EHHS track team shown in the accompanying picture are: Bill Wilson, Randy Blake, Chuck Wellington, Roby Morris, David Bane, Jimmy Anderson, James Gilmartin, Robert McGown, Mike Penny, Bill Winkler, Ed McDonald, Jimmy Brown, Guy Perkins, Jimmy Smart, Lloyd Grimm, Roy Vandiver, Jim Young, Steve Morris, Mike Flowers, Sam Bartholomew, Charles Jones, Buzz Gardner, LeRoy Gast, Mike Moore, Wayne Hardy, Jim Aitken, and Steve Helmricks.  Bold names were 1963 seniors.

The article appeared in a Spring 1963 sports summary section of the school newspaper, The Tartan.


Adios

1962 1963 1964 EHHS Highlander Basketball

Our 1963 basketball team consisted of about half seniors and half juniors. I think this was Coach Howerton’s first year at EH, replacing Ronnie McBee who had been the team coach for a number of years.

The team members in this picture and article were: Dwayne Williams, Jim Newell, David Williams, Guy Perkins, Ted Harris, Steve Rose, Roby Morris, Kendall McCook, Melvin Starks, Wayne Templeton, Bobby Dillard, J.W. Southard, David Tracy, David Richardson, Bob Larmer, Roy Burklow, and Coach Johnny Howerton.

The article was cut from a year-end sports summary section of the school newspaper, The Tartan.


CJ64--For the EHHS classes of 1962, 1963, and 1964, basketball was an other sport – not nearly as important as football and somewhat under-appreciated, but not an unexpected situation in football-crazy Texas. It’s probably still the same way today.
Coaches


Ronnie McBee was the coach in 1961-62. He had been a star at North Side High and TCU. He was fun-loving, irreverent, and sort of a playboy type, but he was a good coach, and the players liked to play for him. He gave out nicknames to most, but not all the players. Gary Granger, a guard, was “Baby Ears” because of, well, his small ears. Fred Culberson, another guard, had dark, bushy eyebrows, and eyelashes all the girls envied, so he was tagged as “Hairy Eyes” .


Johnny Howerton came in the fall of 1962 to replace McBee. They could not have been more opposite. McBee was tall, easy-going, and fun; Howerton was short, intense, and scary. Howerton had played on the 1952-53 state champion Poly High team, and at Abilene Christian. Howerton was outstanding at teaching, particularly winning fundamentals. His teams were always well-conditioned and poised, because they had been taught what to do. They were also overachievers, like the coach.


Memorable Moments


1961-1962. We had gone down to Waco to play the now-defunct Richfield Rams. Late in the 1st half, Fred Culberson sprained his ankle, but not too badly. At the half in the locker room, Coach McBee taped up the ankle, and Fred played the 2nd half, and we won. Now, Fred not only had hairy eyes, he also had hairy legs. 


Normally you would have shaved his ankle prior to taping, but there had been no time. So, 3 days later, when it was time to remove the tape, Fred was not looking forward to it. Ray Coleman, our manager, took the scissors and cut along the bottom of the foot, then through one side. The only thing left to do was rip it off. Fred said he was ready, and Ray yanked. The result: Fred’s ankle was beautifully shaved, and the inside of the tape was solid leg hair. Ray kept it around for a couple of weeks for show, then tossed it.


Tuf-Skin was an all-purpose product we used mainly on our feet. It came in a can, and you spread it on blisters with a brush, and it would toughen the skin almost immediately. It also burned like hell. We discovered it made an excellent cure for jock itch. Jock itch was caused by perspiration-soaked jock straps, and resulted in a reddened, inflamed, and itchy area around the genitalia. You could treat it with lotion, or powder, but that took time. Bruce Schnitzer had it really bad, so after consultation, he agreed to the Tuf-Skin cure. He lay down on the bench, shorts down, and Ray swabbed him down with the brush. Bruce broke out in a sweat, and clenched his teeth, but he was cured.


1962-63. Bobby Larmer led the district in scoring through the first half of district play. It was a surprise, and got him some press in the papers. It was a surprise, but no accident. He played the way his coach taught – aggressive, smart, and with discipline. He faded to second or third by season’s end, but made the all-district team. The team was developing the style that led to our district championship in in 1963-64; we played an opportunistic, over achieving game, waited for the other team to make mistakes, and took advantage of them.


We played against the Pampa Harvesters in a tournament. Today, Pampa is a town that has fallen on hard times, but not in 1963. Their key player was Randy Matson, later a Texas A&M and Olympic gold medal shot-putter. He was a full-grown 6’7”, stayed at the foul line, and directed traffic. They waxed us.


Ted Harris was an all-around good athlete who was good at every sport, but particularly football. He played more on heart than on skill. If every person on the team could work as hard, and play as hard, as Ted Harris, there is no way you could be beaten. We had a wind-sprint drill to end every practice. We would line up at the end line, run to the foul line, then run backwards back to the end line, then forward to the half-court line, then backwards to the end line, and repeat to the far foul line and far end line. Ted and Roby Morris were racing back from the far foul line, running backwards, when Ted stumbled at the finish. His head struck the concrete wall. He went down to the floor on his back, unconscious, his legs and arms jerking. Bobby Dillard ran over to check to see if he had swallowed his tongue. He suggested to Coach Howerton that we call Ted’s father, Marvin Harris (there was no 911), and Coach did. Mr. Harris got him to the hospital. Ted had fractured his skull, but he recovered with no after effects. It was memorable only in that it was so scary.


1963-1964. We played in an open tournament in Graham early in the season, meaning that different classifications were invited from class B to class 4A. When we arrived at our motel, Coach was told there had been a mix-up, and our rooms were taken. So, he called the Graham coach. No problem. The Graham coach arranged for our players to be parceled out the Graham players’ homes, 2 to 3 at a time. That’s how David Tracy and I ended up in the home of John Matzinger, a starting guard. Mr. and Mrs. Matzinger couldn’t have been more gracious, and Mrs. Matzinger stuffed us with a huge platter of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas.


The next morning we went to the gym. We were slated to play Megargel, town population 408, a class B school. We were 4A, at that time the top classification. Megargel had a team of about 7. Their tallest player was about 6’, but he had a letter jacket which practically disappeared underneath the awards and letters. Their guards were twin brothers who were laughably short, at about 5’6”. We thought it was so funny that it took us 2 overtimes to beat them by 1 point. Let that be a lesson to you.


That afternoon we played Graham. They were a 3A school, but they were loaded. In addition to Matzinger, Graham had 6’6” Tiny Lochner (they both played at Texas), and P. D. Shabay and E. A. Gresham (who both played football at TCU, and led the team in initials). They beat us and won their own tournament, but that was offset by the goodwill they had shown us in putting us up at their homes.


We won district. Poly won the first half, we won the second half, and we beat them in the championship. The key players were Roby Morris, Wayne Templeton, David Richardson, Roy Burklow, Ward Ericson, and Duane Williams. Roby and Wayne made all-district. We went over to Dallas to play Adamson in bi-district. They were taller, and could shoot. They featured a tall center who had a club foot, but he could still move and played well. They beat us and the season was over, but it was a great season. We owed it to some gutsy, intelligent players, and to Coach Howerton, who earned our complete respect.

1961-1962

Adios

Things Change

This article caught my eye yesterday. It's a good read if you want to look it up. I recall Gallagher, one of my favorite comedians from the early 1980s, doing a take-off from Chevy Chase's old news update bit on the first SNL. Almost 30-years ago his joke news item was to announce that the president of Mexico had decided to move his offices to Los Angeles so that he could be closer to his people.

A few years later I stopped over in Los Angeles, spending an extra couple of days to walk-through a visa application in order to visit Australia while on a project assignment. My hotel was just off Hollywood Blvd, around the corner from Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The area was still clean and safe enough, but I could not find a single place to eat where the wait staff could understand English! Not one, in 2-days! Every single waitress was Mexican and not a single one spoke even a smattering of English, or if they did, they wouldn't speak it for me.

More recently, I spent some time in Dallas. It has gotten to be much the same there. Things change, don't they?

Adios

Stones, Peas, and a Kiss

I was thinking about the Super Bowl half-time show and had heard the criticism it got from today’s crop of critics. To tell you the truth, I haven’t paid much attention to pop music at any time in my life and stopped listening to the radio music stations sometime in the 1970s.

Now and then a really good song would make its way through my personal fog and register in my mind as one to remember…but I’ve generally forgotten those, too. Until the Super Bowl performance I had never heard of the Black-eyed Peas, or of Will-i-am, although I had heard of Fergie…that’s randy Andy’s ex-princess isn’t it?

The Peas’ appearance struck me as rather bizarre and their music struck me as unremarkable. However, Fergie wasn’t hard to look at. Their bizarre appearance is really what got me thinking. Bizarre music acts aren’t anything new.

A generation ago there was Kiss, another bizarre looking group whose music I don’t recall.

In our youth about the most bizarre looking group I can recall would be the Stones, which doesn’t look too bizarre to me now. However, a lot of their songs are a part of me. How many guys of our generation don’t remember most of the lyrics of Under my Thumb and how many times did you wish your own situation with a girl would resolve itself in accordance with the lyrics? But they never did.

Under my thumb
The girl who once had me down
Under my thumb
The girl who once pushed me around
It's down to me
The difference in the clothes she wears
Down to me, the change has come,
She's under my thumb

Yeah, right

Yankee Station

As we’ve aged, retired, and started reflecting on some of the things we’ve experienced over the past, nearly 50-years since EH, the net has come along at a propitious time. As no other generation has ever had available to them, we have the tools to ask long, unanswered questions and have a reasonable expectation of finding answers. It amazes me nearly every day.

Someone mentioned the F4 Phantom recently and that started my mind going. This was the plane most young pilots wanted to fly, but few got the opportunity. It had a reputation for being powerful, somewhat unwieldy, and dirty with respect to throwing out a lot of black smoke. We used to joke that a Phantom didn’t land as much as it arrived as it came aboard a carrier. They hit hard and emitted a lot of smoke from burning rubber as their heavy frames arrived on deck.

As so many others are going through their old picture files, a lot of old Vietnam material is beginning to appear in online venues such as Flikr and other sites. If you have a specific memory of something you saw, but never photographed, there is now an opportunity to find some of those pictures you never took.

This story is illustrated with a couple of shots I frequently saw but never photographed. Unlike the WWII veterans, we have a marvelous communication tool available to us in the net. For those with an interest in the subject, all you need to know is how to ask the question. I recalled the boiling smoke from the Phantoms coming aboard (arriving) and the close calls they often had with a pitching deck as they made their final approach.

If you were Navy, this is the kind of stuff you saw on Yankee Station, if you were Army or Marines, you saw something different, and if you were Air Force, you saw something different still. I think Navy had the most exciting jobs but since they were done in locations remote to news media, there wasn’t much of a record created of their duties. Only pictures like these, taken by some of the sailors themselves can do a good job of telling their story.

The last picture is an aeronautical chart marked by a carrier pilot for his use in flying a mission into North Vietnam. This is the kind of thing that is essentially unique and rarely seen by others. However, as we clean out some of the old boxes and trunks, this is the kind of thing we are finding.

Garbage Collection

My father left a number of impressions with me. One of them being a strong recollection of his running dissatisfaction with garbage collection services of the 1950s and 1960s; the years I lived in his house. As a kid, I had a lot of house chores to do, but taking the garbage out was one Dad kept for himself and consistently complained about the service. I think it became a matter of wills over who was going to call the shots. Trouble was that garbage collectors tend to occupy a similar spot as does the anus in the old joke about who is the boss of the human body. Perhaps you’ve heard the joke.

Dad was a 20-year old Lt. in the WWII Air Force and at an early age had grown accustomed to having people jump when he barked a command. Of course, civilian life was different in that respect, and the garbage collectors tended to be different still. They generally set the rules of garbage collection, not the customers. I think Dad hated that. After a running battle with one garbage collection service, he even started wrapping his garbage in red ribbon, complete with bows just like a gift. True story.

Of course, we are all accustomed to having our garbage collected on a certain day of the week, maybe even twice a week. I’ve found that during my run at life, garbage collection has tended to be rather inconspicuous and of only minor irritation. But now and then, a new driver can change things and introduce irritation for a few collection cycles.

Our local rules are to place garbage in bags and then bags into cans. I tried doing it that way years ago, but with women in the house, we have always been significant bottom-line contributors to all the major paper companies and have produced far more garbage than can be conveniently fit into a can or even two of them; so, I prefer to use just the bags without the cans. My rationale is that one trip out with the bags is less work than two trips required by using the cans—one to leave it out and another to retrieve the cans.

Our local lady garbage Nazi clucks at me at times about my bags…but she’s been doing that for 20-years without result. We understand each other. One thing about garbage Nazis is that they are good at clucking, but weak at conflict.

Yes, yes, I know the animal problem argument and have suffered some irritation with aggressive squirrels, crows, a fox now and then, and a herd of raccoons at one house; however, overall I’ve experienced very little animal problems over the span of about 40-years of fussing with the garbage.

Most irritating is when a regular driver establishes a predictable schedule, then suddenly changes it, as happened again this week. The week before last, after months of picking up about mid-morning, he shows up in the late afternoon. Last week, he skipped a day and showed up the next. This week, as I’m enjoying my morning coffee, expecting him to come about mid-morning, he shows up at the crack of dawn. I’ve got to get it out before I planned…now my schedule is being jerked around by this joker who has suddenly gone erratic. Maybe I should use some of Dad’s red ribbon?

Adios

Super Bowl Flyover

There’s a snit in the air today as information about the Super Bowl flyover of 4 Navy F-18 fighters become public knowledge.  There are a few troublesome facts emerging.  Apparently the Navy acknowledges a fuel cost of about $110,000 for flying the jets from Virginia to Texas and back.  The other costs being tacked on would be for maintenance and other operating expenses.

One wonders why jets from Pensacola or Corpus or even locally from nearby Naval Air Stations in the DFW area couldn’t have been used.  Maybe they didn’t have any available state of the art planes or maybe not enough available pilots, who knows.

Of course, one obvious question would be to ask why do it at all when the stadium roof was closed due to snow and icy weather.  Some defenders are already responding to that one with statements that the flyover wasn’t done for the folks in the stadium, it was done for the 100+ million TV audience.

Well, be that as it may, there are some legitimate questions that need to be answered about this decision.

Adios

Truppenführung

-->
While chatting with a colleague many years ago, I remarked I was frustrated that so many people were not driven to do their work promptly and competently.  Some even seemed content to let things drop altogether, even though they were capable people.  Management tolerated it.

For those like me, those driven to get something done, life in a working environment that included many others with differing motivations was annoying.  Thankfully, I spent most of my working years in small, entrepreneurial endeavors.  There, we associated only with motivated people having useful skills.

My colleague, an ex-pat Brit who was content for many years to be Dilbert-like within a large corporation, got out a pad of paper and drew a quadrant diagram, numbering the quadrants 1-4.  He then marked 4 personality types, one in each quadrant and showed that each group was useful, except one…that one should be taken out and shot (his words).


His drawing and explanation amused me and I found later that the theory is well known in some areas of organization philosophy. 

1.     smart & sluggish

2.     smart & hard-working

3.     stupid & sluggish

4.     stupid & hard-working

Apparently the first known proponent to publish his version of the theory was a German Army general who rose to prominence during the period between WWI and WWII.  As Chief of the Army High Command, Kurt Hammerstein-Equord oversaw the composition of the German manual on military unit command (Truppenführung), dated 17 October 1933.  He originated a special classification scheme for his men:

I divide my officers into four classes;

1.     the clever,

2.     the lazy,

3.     the industrious,

4.     stupid.

Most often two of these qualities come together.  

•       The officers who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments.  

•       Those who are stupid and lazy make up around 90% of every army in the world, and they can be used for routine work.  

•       The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations.  

•       But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!

Super Bowl – Take the Ball, Dummy!

I suppose one indication that you’ve gotten old is that things, that for a lifetime you’ve taken as fact, are rejected by that huge group of younger people that have been building behind you while you were distracted with raising your family.

For instance, once again this evening at the opening flip of the coin, I’ve seen a team win the toss and give the ball to the other club!!! Good God, man…what in the hell are you doing? My offspring patiently explain to me that that is how these things are done now. The winner of the coin flip gives the ball to the other team in order “to see what they have” they say.

Who gives a shit, I retort. My offspring return those patient with the old man glances, and I know that further discussion is useless…that is the way it is done today, Dad.

Look kid, I say. In my day I learned that having the ball was a distinct advantage over not having the ball. Most importantly, YOU CANNOT SCORE IF YOU DON"T HAVE THE BALL. Explain to me kid, how is it different to win the coin flip and give the ball away than it is to fumble or throw an interception? No answer, just that patient look.

Further, in the old days our thinking went like this…take the ball any time you have the opportunity. You will find out what they have soon enough.

The only time we might have considered choosing which end of the field to start instead of taking the ball, might be an instance of there being a strong wind. In that case, we might choose the end of the field to start the game that would give us the wind behind our backs in the 4th quarter. Of course, we didn’t have indoor stadiums when we played, so today wind is usually not a factor. Take the f***ing ball.

If you play chess, do you ever take black when you have the first choice? No, of course not, you take white...white always has the first move. Having that first move advantage all the way through a game between evenly matched players is very important.

….blank stares….

President Ronald Regan would have been 100 today. There was an extraordinary service held in California this afternoon to mark the milestone. Be sure to watch a rebroadcast if you get the chance. Rather than post a video of yet another young singer trying too hard to stylize our National Anthem and muffing the words, I thought it would more substantive to post a couple of other visuals. Mr. Reagan’s picture speaks for itself. The video is only 1 minute long…stay with it to see the last few seconds of the young marine holding his/her salute. Tell me what you think.

Adios

DFW Power Shortages - Winter Storm

I don't understand several things about the power shortages reported in Texas yesterday and today.  Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't summer air conditioning load much larger than winter heating load?  Is 20-deg. really that cold?

Why did ERCOT lose 50 generators totaling about 7,000MW?  I heard one radio report that the west Texas wind mills failed to provide power during this storm, but have been unable to find anything written about it.

Next day...Oncor, the transmission company admitted making a mistake by cutting off critical care hospitals while implementing ERCOT's "rolling blackout" order.  Oops, my bad!  Going forward, the Oncor spokesperson said they need to work on their "processes".   This new wave management gibberish drives me nuts.  It seems to me that the current approach to ducking responsibility is to fog the issue with meaningless lingo.

When our utility was TXU or even the TESCO, DP&L, TP&L companies before that, I don't recall them having the same problems doing what they were charged to do; generate and deliver electricity.  Sure, there were upsets due to tornado or hurricane damage, but losing 7,000 MW to a cold snap, come on now.

About 3-years ago TXU was purchased by 3 large investment fund managers and broken in to several subsidiaries--a generating co. and a transmission co. among them.  I'm not a fan of bankers, accountants, and lawyers trying to "run" technical enterprises.  Invariably, they focus on the short-term balance sheets and resist making long-term reliability investments.

If the technical group were out ranked and out classed by the financial gurus, then I would expect expensive things like preventative maintenance work to be a hard sell within the organization.  Ultimately, as the old adage goes, you can pay now or you can pay later...but with regard to keeping equipment running, you are going to pay sometime.

A technical guy will recommend doing the routine maintenance so you can better control the reliability, but a financial guy will want to wait until it breaks and he is forced to spend the money.  Unfortunately, waiting leads to unscheduled outages at the least convenient times.  But luckily for the geniuses making the "wait" decisions, retribution is rarely forthcoming because few outsiders understand the real problem they induce.

I think this is a sort of replay of the foolishness in the BP blowout this past summer. 

Adios