Roseanne Roseannadanna

Now and then I encounter something that reminds me that much of the world around me no longer understands the same things I understand as common knowledge. Today, my regular lunch server’s pride in bringing my order together so quickly only to find at the last moment something was missing, quickly turned to frustration.

Gilda Radner’s character, Roseanne Roseannadanna immediately came to my mind…. "Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it's always something--if it ain't one thing, it's another."

My server is about 40, bright, and enthusiastic, but before quoting Roseanne’s maxim to her, I first asked, “do you know Roseanne Roseannadanna?” Her expressionless smile gave me my answer. Never mind, I said….just remember, it’s always something.

Adios

Meadowbrook Coach Bill Blocker

Anyone who attended Meadowbrook Jr. Hi. in the 1950s and later would recall Coach Blocker, a fixture in the PE department. His cousin was Dan Blocker, Hoss Cartwright in the TV series, Bonanza. Blocker was an expansive figure who had played baseball and/or managed with the 1950 UT National Baseball Championship team. I knew him as the assistant coach of the Meadowbrook football teams where he tagged me with a nickname I was never quite able to shake off. Some of you were still calling me that nickname when we graduated, 5-years after my first encounter with Blocker. Not sure what that says about our relative influences. 

Memories of Blocker from a ('64): CJ64-The assistant coach for everything was Bill Blocker, an emotional, outgoing sort of guy who tended to fat, had squinty eyes, a very upturned nose, and was naturally nicknamed “Piggy” (but never to his face!). Coach Blocker was a UT graduate and had been the manager and part-time player for the UT baseball national champions of 1950. He became the head coach in our 9th grade when Mr. Morrow took over as principal.

He was famous for giving out nicknames to his players. For example, Al Lewis became Alkali, Ted Moberg was Titty-rump, Roby Morris was Robo, I was “Johnny” (but I think because he couldn’t remember my name and probably thought it was Johnny), and so forth. When we were seniors at Eastern Hills, Al and Ted came out as co-captains for the coin toss against Poly High. The referee was none other than Coach Blocker, and he greeted them with “Alkali, Titty-rump, how you boys doin’?” -- much to the consternation of the Poly captains.

I played third-string center for him. In 9th grade I weighed about 120 pounds and was about 5’4”, and I wasn’t very fast or very good. Years later my wife and I went down to Austin to see Texas Tech play Texas. We checked into the old Alamo Hotel before the game and there in the lobby was Coach Blocker. By this time I was 6’2” and weighed about 185. I introduced myself, and very much to my surprise, he beamed and said “Johnny, you played center for me!” I was stunned that he could remember a very non-memorable player, but that is the kind of guy he was. Unfortunately, he died young not too many years after that from a heart attack.

The Target back to school ad below is a pretty good illustration of how I recall Coach Blocker...a kind of drill sergeant in PE whites. He was a conspicuous figure and yes, we climbed that damned rope to the top of the gym ceiling, maybe 30-ft up, a lot. Little, strong guys like Glen Brandon were best at it...for bigger guys it was tougher--more to haul up there..


     

Adios

Team Team Team

You can trust Scott Adams to call 'em as he sees 'em. I'm delighted to agree with him most of the time.

Anyone recall when doctors became "medical service providers" or engineers became "technicians or superintendents" or any number of other examples of bastardizing our language?

I saw this stuff begin creeping into contract language during the 1990s and figured it was being driven by legal concerns attempting to minimize potential overreach in the event of a dispute.

How about hiring a legal service provider...anyone have a clue what that may be? A lawyer, or a para-legal, or a legal secretary?

And have you noticed that it's getting more difficult to see a doctor? Now it seems that we are seeing a Physician's Assistant (PA) or maybe just a nurse more and more often. Is that going on where you are? One thing is certain...the bill is going to be for the premium level service regardless of who you see.

Adios

Sixties Rock

Neat cup, isn't it? We've all had favorite cups over the years and used them until we either dropped them or the inside got so vile looking that we found a replacement. This one came out of one of those mail order catalogs and never fails to evoke a knowing smile as some of the group names come into focus. Some fun, eh kid?

By the way, a black cup is great...you never see how vile its inside has become!

Adios

1959–1964 Highlander Sports Queens and Princesses

1961 & 1962 Football Princesses
Long before it occurred to free-spirited kids to consider electing some kid named Mike for their Homecoming Queen, young people of our time took the selection of our beauties seriously. The pictures show 48 young ladies elected by the various sports teams to serve as their Queens and Princesses…beauties, all. And very nice young people, too.
A separate posting about the football queens, Carol Reeder and Susan Begley, can be found here.

1962 BASKETBALL - TRACK - BASEBALL

1963 BASKETBALL - TRACK - BASEBALL

1964  BASKETBALL - TRACK - BASEBALL

1965  BASKETBALL - TRACK - BASEBALL

 1961 Football Princesses: Darla Houlihan, Carol Warkentin Miller, Rebecca Willis, Marsha Routt, Jackie Rogers, and Judy Oxford.
1962 Football Princesses: Marsha Myers, Mollie Howell, Linda Dunham, and Candy Hamilton.
Basketball Court: 1962 Queen - Judy Oxford; Princesses - Paula McClung & Becky Welch. 1963 Queen - Barbara Isham; Princesses - Judy Hill & Gail Morrison.  1964 Queen - Brenda Haire.  1965 Queen - Becky Wright.
Track Court: 1962 Queen - Karen Ruble; Princesses - Diane Hardin & Linda Dunham. 1963 Queen - Judy Hill; Princesses - Linda Dunham & Alice Bretz.  1964 Queen - Barbara Isham.  1965 Queen - Vicki Herring.
Baseball Court: 1962 Queen - Trisha Blocker; Princesses - Zoe Ann Hunter & Sally Tarpley. 1963 Queen - Gail DeVore; Princesses - Suzanne Woodall & Jackie Howell.  1964 Queen - Donna Johnson.  1965 Queen - Sandra Marks.

Sometimes it's a little difficult to recall or tell someone when THE Sixties really began...I place it about 1965-66 with ramp up of soldiers sent to Vietnam and Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" and the start of protest music. Other things changed very quickly during those few years after we left EHHS...mini-skirts and long hair, for example. Below are the 1968 & 1972 EHHS Homecoming Queen and Princesses.

And the 1960 (Class of 1961) Homecoming Queen and her court:

Left to Right: Joann Parker, Jackie Nantz, Talana Hadsell, Lynda Lynch, and Ann Day.

The 1964 (Class of 1965) Homecoming Queen and her court:

The 1959 (Class of 1960) Homecoming Queen and her court:

Left to Right: Georgia Mills, Nan Logan, Nancy Armstrong, Barbara Bruton, Susan Moody, Linda Denny, and Rita Patterson.  QUEEN:  Diann Jordon.

remerciez le ciel de jolies filles

Will You Sign My Book?

Each summer the yearbooks came in and were distributed during a warm summer evening. Everyone not working out of town or vacationing came in for a couple of hours to pick up their yearbooks and have their friends sign them. It was a nice thing in those days...no worries about some characters writing profanity or off-color remarks in your book, nor defacing pictures as happens sometimes these days.
Are you in my book? Bet you never had any notion that your words would one day be posted for others to see...all over the world. That's a good object lesson for your grandchildren in the matter of being careful what they commit to writing. Nothing to worry about here. I have no idea what I might have written in your books...if it was dumb, please forgive me....I was only 16-18 at the time, as were you.
I see some of my notable friends missing from this collection. Maybe they signed inside the book, on their pictures as some did. Otherwise, it's a neat collection of a lot of good kids.

Adios

EHHS Cheerleaders

Speaking as a former lad with good recall of what it was like to come of age and start noticing girls, I can report that cheerleaders caught my attention first. You couldn’t miss them, of course…what with those swinging pony tails, bright colored skirts, and familiar cheerleader arm moves. Since raising my own cheerleader prospects, I had the opportunity to observe that a cheerleading gene must reside in most young girls…they start practicing the moves sometime about 5th or 6th grade...all through the house, In the garage, the yard, out shopping, in and out of restaurants, just about anywhere and everywhere.

Almost from the first day in 7th grade, the pep rallies started and continued unabated every fall until we graduated. For each successful cheerleader there must have been several dozen others that would have loved to have the spot. Since our cheerleaders were so visible and generally cute, an ambitious lad would normally focus his attention on one or more of them. Dating them was possible in Junior Hi, but without a car, what was there to do?

Our Meadowbrook cheerleaders, Gay Burton, Celia Beall, and Julie Hudson gave way to Handley's Dianah Barton & Suzanne Hoffman during our Sophomore year who held onto the spots all through EHHS while we were there. Unfortunately for those of us unattached lads, both Dianah and Suzanne were locked up with steady boyfriends all through high school so, we never got a chance to date them. What a shame.

I didn't mention the guys because I was always focused on the girls. If a boy had some athletic ability or even some pretense, he played the sports. We didn't see boy cheerleaders in Jr. Hi., so their addition at EHHS was actually viewed as a negative...they took the spots we could have used for more girls, and thus a better show at the pep rallies. Back then, cheerleading wasn't as athletic, nor as dangerous as it has become with the addition of gymnastics to the mix.

Our boy cheerleaders (Charlie Rigby, Danny Tekstar, Felton Havins, Ward Ruscoe, David Thurman, and George Branum) were generally personable and energetic, yet not among our top scholars. However, they surely had something on the ball, since they must have been the first among us to learn something about the girls, we in the stands had mostly not learned. First, 110-lbs of dead weight is heavy, no matter how attractive its packaging; and second, I don't think there was a lad in the stands or on the field who wouldn't have liked to give that chair lift deal a try.

  1963-1964 Highlander Cheerleaders  

 1964-1965 Highlander Cheerleaders  

1959-1960 Highlander Cheerleaders (EHHS' first squad)

 1960-1961 Highlander Cheerleaders (EHHS' second squad)

 1957-1958 Poly Parrot Cheerleaders (One of the last 2 squads before EHHS opened)

(Ed. note:  Before EHHS opened fall 1959, the large majority of Meadowbrook Junior High graduates went on to Poly High School.  For the first few years that EH was open, there was a strong influence in its halls from both Poly and Handley High Schools.  These influences were mostly due to familial ties through older siblings and parents, who themselves were Poly graduates.  A number of the original teaching staff had transferred to EH from both Poly and Handley...Coaches Mitcham and Graves were both Poly grads and were football stars there in the late 1940s.  Principal Roy C. Johnson had also been a Poly coach and Meadowbrook's Principal Charles M. Berry had been both a Poly teacher and coach in the mid-1930s)


I crack myself up....

Career Path

If you stayed with a large company long enough, you may have either heard this discussion or figured it out for yourself. Sound familiar?

Adios

Smartphones

Ever since having to use a phone to call one of you EHHS girls for a date, my relationship with phones has been, at best, a mixed bag. I've never been one to curl up with a phone and talk mindlessly for hours.

Until I settled on a steady girl at EH, or rather she settled on me, I would pace, dry sweaty palms, and fight dry throat before calling my intended date. Then, within a few moments, everything was O.K. As is often said, "this, too, shall pass" and it did.

However, not much later, about the time I left the house to take on the world by myself, the telephone took on another status...an extreme irritant. Siding salesmen, newspaper subscriptions, and hundreds of other dopey propositions started coming in on my phone...and those were the days before you could switch off the ringer, dump to voice mail, or screen with caller ID. Working with a large corporation with far-flung divisions, wide-spread internal interests, and an array of customers introduced yet another level of telephone irritation. In pretty short order, I came to view the telephone more as nuisance than anything else and sought to live life as free from them as possible.

You may have noticed that I put a link to DILBERT along the upper, right side panel. Scott Adams, Dilbert's creator, has been amazingly locked in on modern-day corporate nuttiness since the mid-1990s, demonstrating daily that neither clarity nor truth need many words to convey their message. Recently, he did a couple of panels on the current telephone fad, "smart phones." I look to DILBERT ( & Adams) to render an accurate portrait of many things we see being breathlessly touted in TV ads these days. I think he may have done it yet again, this time on the underlying truth of smart phones.

Wireless internet access has always been a beguiling prospect unfortunately, plagued by a number of technical limitations. Maybe it still is.

Adios

Charlotte Ballard – Polly Lovett – Ruth Priddy—English

Bruce McDonald shared with me that he recalled his EHHS English teachers as being remarkably good; they were, Mrs. Dyer, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Priddy.

That got me to thinking about my own lineup of English teachers, only one of whom I shared with Bruce—Mrs. Ruth Priddy. I must admit that English classes and English teachers were not my favorites. Although I did pretty well in the classes, I always seemed to struggle a bit more in them than in other subjects. Not until much later in life did the art of sentence and thought construction begin to interest me. And while banging out some words isn’t much of a chore these days, I still tend to get things out of order sometimes.

My first English teacher was a fearsome vision, Lillie B. Stokes, at Richland Jr. Mrs. Stokes was also my homeroom teacher so, I got a double dose of her daily, for a year. I don’t recall much about her class, but I clearly recall her admonition on opening day of 7th grade: “If you cannot behave yourselves, we will try to reason with you at this end (pointing to her head), and if that doesn’t work, we will go to work on the other end.”

Now, while I’m pleased to report that she never found a reason, to “reason” with my other end, I just don’t recall much about her class. Mrs. Stokes was of my grandparents’ generation, born about 1894, and was a stark example of how that earlier generation viewed dealing with miscreant children. I don’t know how it was in other 7th grades around the area, but I do recall no fewer than 4 other teachers in my school threatening to bust my butt or the butts of others during that first year in Jr. Hi. I think I’ll deal with that topic in a separate posting.

At Meadowbrook, English for me, meant Mrs. Jane Sheets. I don’t have a picture of her, but clearly recall her as a slight woman with a constantly dour expression on her face. I don’t recall feeling particularly threatened by her, but there were a number of other teachers at Meadowbrook who did represent an potentially painful threat to many young East Side butts; coaches Bill Blocker, Twain Morrow, and shop teachers, Creel Phillips, and a Wayne? Hampton, all stood ready to dispense summary retribution. As for Mrs. Sheets’ classes, about all I recall of them was a seemingly endless struggle to correctly diagram sentences which didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time.

At EHHS, English for me meant Mrs. Ballard, Mrs. Lovett, and Mrs. Priddy. By that time I had learned that negotiating for higher grades was possible…except for Mrs. Ballard and Mrs. Priddy, both of whom were quite rigid. Mrs. Ballard was a little gruff, where Mrs. Priddy was one of those seemingly nice ladies who would butcher my work with a smile on her face. Had a couple of those in college also and never did really understand their game. Math and science was more my thing.

My favorite of the 3 EHHS teachers was Mrs. Polly Lovett who was not only a very nice lady, she was also negotiable. Bless her heart. I do wish I had been a better student, or at least had gained a better appreciation of the effective use of the English language at an earlier age.

My 1st grade Ohio teacher, Miss Matilda Saunders is shown at right…doesn’t she look like one of the Our Gang teachers, except Miss Crabtree, of course. Miss Saunders was at least as old as Mrs. Stokes, a circa 1894 woman, maybe even older. She was as stern as she looks in this picture, but she was also very patient and good enough as a 1st grade teacher to get me off to a good start. When I came to Texas for 2nd grade, the Dallas school suggested to my parents that I skip 2nd and go directly into the 3rd grade. My parents wisely declined, thinking that I would do better over the long haul by sticking with my own age group through school. They were right.

Adios, seriously!

1974 Texas Instruments SR-10

As I recall this SR-10 was the first affordable electronic calculator with some "advanced" functions. There was that HP model, but it was about 3-times more. This "advanced" model cost $150 in 1974 ($655 in 2010 dollars); the HP at $400 in 1974 was just too much ($1750 in 2010 dollars).

Well, it was a step up from those old coffee grinder adding machines we used to add up the expense accounts.

Adios

I Pledge

Ditched

Twenty years ago Roy wrote a few words in a letter to my father describing his WWII experience of escaping from a ditched B-17. Dad didn’t use Roy’s piece in an Air Force newsletter he edited for many years. I found it in Dad’s things a few years ago, read it and found Roy’s story was very sketchy—no wonder Dad hadn’t used it.

However, Roy’s story contained enough intriguing details that I decided to dig into it to see what I could learn. Dad never had benefit of the Internet…it came on strong just after he passed away. Details catching my attention involved two dead crewmen, burials at sea, enemy fire from the shore, British rescue planes landing and taking off under fire, and one crewman taken prisoner. This was much more dramatic than most downed aircraft stories I’ve encountered.

After a few days I had learned quite a bit about the plane crash so I posted a brief inquiry to a forum to see if I could locate a family member. Four years passed without result, until a couple of weeks ago when I got my first inquiry, then a second. After exchanging several emails, both the family members and I have been able to share our information…each of us have learned quite a bit from one another. For them, I have been able to clarify some of the facts that were never clearly told by their fathers, something that was quite common with those WWII veterans. Most of them were so affected by their experience over Europe, they rarely told their stories, especially to their families.

This Highlander blog is in no way as substantial as some other blogs I write. However, it too, holds out the promise of learning some things about our shared experiences that could help settle some of those old curiosities about our time at EHHS. If nothing else, it is serving as something of an historical document for those who follow behind us who might be curious about how it once was there.

Adios

Meadowbrook Elementary - Richland Elementary

Located right across Meadowbrook Drive from Meadowbrook Junior High, Meadowbrook Elementary was housed in a gracious old c.1936 building. Before the Junior High was built about 1953 the older building had previously served as the Junior High.

I didn’t attend elementary classes in the old building. My first years were at Richland Elementary just off Baker Blvd. (old 183). Richland Elementary was built in 1953 to support the rapid post-WWII population growth occurring NE along 183. Hurst, Euless, and Bedford were just stoplights along the highway out in the country in those days. A short bike ride east of the school would put you into undeveloped land that was mostly flat and treeless.

One of the things I’ve been trying to better understand is who of our EH classmates attended Meadowbrook Elementary throughout their primary school years, 1951-1957. Mrs. Few’s class picture shows about half of them, I suspect. Some members of the other half were likely Gay Burton, Celia Beall, Julie Hudson, Glen Brandon, Sam Scott, Steve Means, Sharron Ballem, Candy Woodward, Paula Acuff, Mike Grizzard, Phil Nixon, Mike Cooper, Larry Guthrie, Linda Barr, Bill Winkler, Joe Dickerson, Bob Ladd, Carole Stallcup, Tee Mathews, Danny McCoy, Kendall McCook, Carolyn Marcotte. Others. I suspect there was one other class in addition to Mrs. Few’s.

Richland was in the Birdville ISD which after WWII was developing at a similar rate as Ft. Worth’s East Side. Large residential tracts of mostly modest sized homes were being built to house large numbers of WWII veterans just starting their families. However, the Birdville ISD schools put small yearbooks together for even the elementary grades where, for us in the Ft. Worth ISD, the yearbooks didn’t appear until our 10th grade year.

Paging through my 3 yearbooks for grades 4, 5, and 6 from Richland (1955, 1956, and 1957) provides a stark visualization of the beginnings of the Baby Boom as it started progressing through the schools. Our grade consisted of 2-classes. Those older than us consisted of either 2 or less classes; but those behind us were each 3-classes—a step increase of 50% more kids in each of the grades behind us. Remember the schools adding those “temporary” class buildings shortly after we started at each new school?

I’m actively looking for a scan copy of a Meadowbrook Elementary 6th grade class showing one or more of those listed above.

Adios

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – 25th Anniversary

If you’ve been following some of my FBG rants, today is a threepeat…Weiner, Sarah’s emails, and the FBGs are waxing nostalgic all over the net today. One of the better articles is at The Atlantic; another is in the Washington Post. Google for more, if you’re interested.

Adios

Subscriptions - 2 - Teams

6:00 A.M. The paper is sitting on the front path, just as it should be. Bypassing Doris and Misty and pointing a management Kleig light on them yesterday apparently solved their dithering problem. Experienced old farts usually prevail in these kinds of matters, just as long as they are willing to fight. It’s a matter of “been there, done that” or to borrow from an earlier generation, “giving them enough rope to hang themselves.”

O’Reilly, in commenting on the recent Delta Airlines fiasco relating to high extra baggage charges being levied on returning servicemen, suggested that such stupidity is a result of putting low paid people in customer service positions. He further suggested that such people were not capable of thinking clearly and making valid judgments. I think it is clearly a management failure in both of these instances.

But such is the world we live in today, where most large businesses are run by financial people. In their world, employees are “headcount” and customers are “revenue.”

I was fortunate to be a part of some fine “teams” before the word was corrupted into a contemporary and meaningless buzzword. There were the championship teams at Meadowbrook and Eastern Hills, the United States military team, a large multi-national before the finance people took top management slots, and a remarkable entrepreneurial start-up.

Hap Arnold’s letter recognizes another remarkable TEAM. Take your time to assimilate the strength and humility in his words. This was from a time when adults were in charge. The recipient of this certificate was part of a generation that went on to establish an all-jet air transport system, land a man on the moon, build an Interstate Highway system, and eradicate Polio.

Today’s “teams” and their CSMs and/or Team Leaders simply don’t measure up.


Adios

1962 & 1963 Highland Fling

The Highland Fling was a Spring variety show similar to the Meadowbrook "Stars" program and consisted of a series of skits. The main event was the beauty pageant. It was a lot of fun for a lot of kids. The names listed in the program were a number of our more prominent classmates and I think most of them went on to live useful lives.

1962

 

1963

Adios

Subscriptions

I stopped subscribing to newspapers and magazines many years ago. No time to read the stuff…accumulated as garbage much too quickly…always, always, always a problem with reliable delivery.Wife recently wanted to subscribe to the local paper. I said no. She said yes. I said, then you handle all the problems…I refuse to spend any of my time dealing with it. Things went alright for nearly a year…reliable delivery…no other issues…a single, simple transaction.

Have you noticed in your area, the move to charge separately for the TV guide? Wife wanted to subscribe. I said no, look online if you must know what’s coming up. I watch DVDs and at most 2-3 different channels. The rest of the channels appear to me to be little more than for-pay delivery media for endless dumb commercials hawking stuff I don’t want.

Wife wrote one check for a year’s renewal of both the TV guide and the paper. She also included a tip for the carrier in her one check. Big mistake...now the problems begin. Bank clerk receiving payment knows nothing about separating the payment into 3 different accounts. She gets credit for a 1.18933 year subscription to the paper…no TV guide…and screw the carrier...he gets nothing!

Wife gets no TV guide first week, paper comes O.K. Wife tries to dump her problem on me. I remind her of our agreement and of my original admonition about the goddam subscriptions. She is pissed…..at me. She calls the paper’s “circulation dept.” which I imagine consists of maybe a pair of disinterested ex-Big Mac flippers named Doris and Misty.

Of course you know the torture involved in calling anyone for service these days. Wife endures it, getting angrier by the moment. After 20-30 minutes, she reports that Doris assured her that all is “taken care of” and we will see the correct delivery starting the next day. Next day…no paper. Next weekend…no paper & no TV guide. Wife is distraught. I can’t resist reminding her …. wife goes ballistic—I’m grinning—wife really explodes then. Rage brings on the waterworks, etc.

This morning I decide to betray my resolve to let her suffer with her decision to ignore my advice not to subscribe. I submit an online “circulation problem” form. Within minutes I get an email response from Doris saying that our account has been credited for the missing paper and an email notice has been sent to the carrier. However, I see nothing in Doris’ cryptic 10-word note that gives me any confidence that we will see a paper tomorrow (forget about today, folks), so I call Doris. I get her sidekick, Misty…Doris doesn’t want to talk to me, but I can hear her nattering in the background.

Misty’s obvious indifference to my missing paper and raging wife quickly tells me that there will be nothing forthcoming from this conversation except a couple of emails and maybe a paper tomorrow, maybe not. Wife just wants to scrap the whole thing and cancel the paper. I tell her that getting your money back from these kinds of enterprises is much more difficult than getting them to do what they agreed to do in the first place…best to keep at them until they finally get things right even if that means a personal stop into their office to speak with the “big boss”. Visits with "big bosses" of a screwed up dis-organization can be amusing, especially when they try to explain and defend the indefensible. A very few really pointed questions usually have these hapless creatures cowering in a corner.

To hell with the money, wife says. No, says I. That’s really what they want you to do—give up and go away. That way it’s all WIN for them…you can’t convince me that there isn’t some beady-eyed manager behind all this incompetence who designed things this way! Well, tomorrow’s another day…we shall see.

The last straw for me came many years ago when I let a newspaper subscription lapse after an extended period of shoddy delivery issues. The fart kept throwing the paper after the subscription ran out and the paper billed me for the additional papers I hadn't ordered that they threw anyway. I called only once to straighten that one up. They sent me a late notice for the papers they threw that I had not ordered. Then they threatened to send it to collection. That was the last time I ever subscribed to a daily newspaper…until now. Some things never change and many people simply aren’t worth dealing with.

Day 2: No paper. Sent another e-form complaint...Doris will send a paper right over...guess what? Still no paper.

Day 3: No Paper. Sent copies of useless email string to Publisher, Assistant Publisher, and one other honcho--Paper delivered to front door step within 10-minutes. 15 emails generated on this subject in past 3-days...wife had nothing to do with any of them. It's in Dilbert's lap again!.

Day4: A PAPER! Alert the media!

Day 5: A PAPER & A TV GUIDE! We may be on track now.

Any wonder that I stopped subscribing to these things decades ago? Life is just too short to spend on stuff like this and the fun of reducing dolts to jelly lost its appeal long ago--it's become too easy and it's repetitive, hence predictable and boring.

P.S. If Doris were clean in this I would have expected an unsolicited email from her either checking on delivery or apologizing for their lapse and causing us inconvenience. However, no word from Doris tells the story well enough.


Adios

Life's Race to Run

It's been an interesting ride, hasn't it?

Adios