Rules For Guys

At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down. Finally, the guys' side of the story. (I must admit, it's pretty good.) We always hear "the rules" from the female side. Now here are the rules from the male side.
 
These are our rules!
 
Please note ... these are all numbered "1" ON PURPOSE!
 
1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.
 
1. Sunday sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.
 
1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.
 
1. Crying is blackmail.
 
1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! Just say it!
 
1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
 
1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.
 
1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.
 
1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.
 
1. If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.
 
1. If you think you're fat, you probably are. Don't ask us.
 
1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.
 
1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.
 
1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
 
1. Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.
 
1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.
 
1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.
 
1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.
 
1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.
 
1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine...Really.
 
1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as football, other women or cars.
 
1. You have enough clothes.
 
1. You have too many shoes.
 
1. I am in shape. Round is a shape.
 
1. Thank you for reading this. Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight; but did you know men really don't mind that? It's like camping.

Author unknown

First Steps

Here's ol' Gus either about to take his first solo steps, or pretty close to them.  In carefully looking at this picture just now, for the first time in nearly 67-years, I saw something new to me...my father's WWII AAF wings are pinned to my chest !  

Little more than a year before this picture, Dad was in the nose of a B-17 bound for Germany, hoping like hell they wouldn't blow him out of the sky.  That's Mom, the bobby soxer, helping out with a steady hand; she's 24 and had already soled sometime before this.  Pretty amazing to contemplate what has transpired between those first steps and this morning's. 

Send one of yourself in with a short description !

  Betty Jane DeVoe - a charmer

Alice Bretz - born with that winning smile

Kendall McCook - Always a cowboy?

Susan Begley - First Missing Tooth

Paul Shields - Confident

Tom Koebernick - Table Dancer !
I still have that table...it belonged to my great grandmother.

 Sam Scott III - Always a serious kid

Sam's Dad (Sam II) flew Navy transports around the Pacific during WWII and afterward joined Panagra as a pilot.  This picture was most likely taken in South America where his Dad was based about this time.  Sam was a quiet kid, smart, and our finest '63 CLAN football player; a 3-year letterman in that sport and an All-District pick our 1962 championship season.  To me, he always seemed a little detached from our daily scrum, in a world of his own design.  Perhaps his younger years spent in other parts of the world settled on him a degree of sophistication that others of us had not yet attained, or ever would.  I was fortunate to count him as one of my closer friends--Gus.  

 Larry Guthrie & Danny McCoy - Humor's Genisis 

These two played off one another all the way through school.  I never knew they went this far back together.

Phil Vinson - Lawn Boy 

Phil’s in here by invitation and nominated as an honorary ’63 Highlander.  Although a Poly ’59, Phil’s contributions as an author, former S-T writer, UTA professor, photographer, to this blog, and as a noted East Side historian are impeccable.  If you don’t know of him, you should.  He was roaming around our neighborhoods and suffered through Meadowbrook Junior High (Creel Phillips, Jane Sheets, and probably that library lady that hated me) from its first year in 1953….a few years before us.

Judy - Age 2 - A beauty from the beginning.


Send one of yourself in with a short description !

Best & Worst Dates

Now and then someone on Facebook will pose an interesting question such as today.  It was, What was the single best date you had in high school, and what was the single worst date you had?

My worst didn't take much thought, but my best escaped me for a few minutes, then returned.

Gus:  Hard to recall the best...guess I was lucky, they were all mostly very good. However, I did have a 90-second date that might qualify for the worst, if it had lasted any longer. In the days of bench front seats, it was kind of standard for your date to slide over right next to you. No seat belts in those days....horrors ! But it was nice to have her close and served as an early indicator of her mood. One sorority girl, a blind date I think, got in and pasted herself hard against the passenger side door as far away as she could get. I swear she must have had red imprints from the window and door knobs digging into her side ! By the first stop sign, she had not uttered a word. I made a right turn, followed by three more and delivered her back to the front door of the sorority house where I had picked her up....90-seconds earlier! "Let's not waste any more of each other's time," I say, and that was that.

Gus later:  Hold on, I do recall the best. A blind date lined up by a girl I had been dating, but she found me too "practical" for her taste; she, being someone who liked to party, sometimes with her drawers on her head...we were a little older by then. So, I go to the new girl's apartment to pick her up, the door cracks open just a bit, and I see two of the largest, brightest eyes I've ever seen peeking around from behind the door. Then, a blue furry hand puppet peers around the door, its large eyes joining hers. It was Grover. We were married a month later...you see, I had a Cookie Monster puppet on my hand behind my back. That date has lasted 36-years now.

Adios

For John

John, since I'm about a decade older than you, I recognize that our individual experiences are different...we've shared time as specks in space for perhaps 55-years, or thereabouts; however, different experiences inevitably yield slightly different points of view.  And from our own experience banks, we form our opinions...if we tend to be thinkers. 

When I was about 21 or 22 in the mid-sixties, you were about 11 or 12, doing what 11 or 12 year olds do.  Your universe was most likely substantially bounded by Meadowbrook Dr, East Lancaster, and the Toll Road providing easy access for occasional forays into Big-D.  My boundaries by then had grown wider:  Sunset Blvd., Malibu, Laguna, Redondo, Hermosa, Santa Monica, etc.  The years were 1965-1970.

Politics didn’t interest me much, but those 6 or 7 flight attendant training schools down PCH at LAX did !  Working, flying, trying to avoid the draft, and chasing what social comfort I could find occupied most of my time.  My closest male friends were a TRW engineer and a recently released nuclear submariner who was working as a flight instructor…both of them a few years older.  That time was both trying and magical.

Our immature conversations were always lively, witty, and often attended by a contingent from one or more of those schools down the street.  Topical conversations were what you might expect…the news of the day and what we had been seeing.  Opinions may or may not have been carefully thought out, but they were freely exchanged and always couched in humor.  What was going on in the rest of the world those years in other social subdivisions, I have little clue.  But this one was memorable.

The years, 1965-70 on the West Coast provided a ring-side seat to pre-Vietnam culture, the build up, the involvement, the protests, and the wind down.  A socially active young adult there during those years could actually live most of the Vietnam War life-cycle experience close to the action.  Elements of the Navy’s Seventh Fleet was home-ported in Long Beach, just a few miles from my apartment; the neighborhoods were substantially populated with sailors going and returning from service in the Western Pacific…WESTPAC.  They told stories.

A number of the films of that period fairly accurately depict the every weekend party scene, as did some of the old “Laugh-in” sketches.  Much of the LA basin was filled with people employed in the WWII legacy aircraft/aerospace manufacturing plants: North American, Hughes, Lockheed, Douglas, Northrop, and their vendors.

Essentially all the airlines were training new aircrews for their new jet fleets.  It was the epicenter of space program and jet aircraft manufacturing, probably due to its mostly congenial weather.  There was a huge contingent of young adults living and working there, mostly from other places in the country and the UK.  Conversation was varied and stimulating.

University populations at UCLA and USC were some distance away, perhaps 25-miles, or so.  So, we weren’t influenced much by those points of view.  State and community colleges were closer, but by my observation, those students were not particularly involved in the more aggressive and vocal protest activities.  Perhaps they were more “working class” lacking the wherewithal of daddy’s money with which to squander their time frivolously as seems to have been the case at the larger universities, particularly Berkeley.

Anyway, the atmosphere I matured in was very interesting, varied, and stimulating with respect to free flowing conversation and expressions of opinion.  I recall neither animosity nor rudeness resulting from simple differences of opinion.     

  
Fu**in' hippies...

Driver’s License Renewal – The Examiner

Over the span of your first few license renewals you learn that as long as you don’t allow your current license to expire, the renewal is fairly painless and does not involve a driving test…and another go at the dreaded “parallel park” maneuver.  Even when renewing in a new state, you find that most states observe reciprocity with one another.  Usually, there’s no written test either…as long as your current license has not expired.

However, let your license expire and it’s a do it all over again situation…written and driving.  About 14-years after getting my first license as an EH sophomore, for whatever reasons involving a move to a new state, I let mine expire.  So, here we go again, the whole enchilada. 

We grew up in a segregated South where, when we first got our license, all highway troopers were Caucasian-Americans.  Fourteen-years later, that was no longer so.  Entering the written test area I notice a dude, similar to the one pictured, sitting on a stool, acting as the test proctor. 

Since I’ve got to take a driving test after the written, I had to write the description of the car I would be using for the test on their test form.  At that time I was driving one of those fast little foreign sports jobs that was the dream of every adolescent boy and unattached young man.  Its color and accessories screamed, “up yours” even when sitting still.

While I’m taking the written test, I notice the trooper casually scanning the papers, including the test car description.  The trooper gets up from his stool and steps over to one of his side-kicks for a short conference, referencing my papers.  Shortly, my trooper disappears, replaced by his side-kick, who takes over the proctor perch on the stool.

Grading the written test was quick, and within a few moments I’m outside for the driving test, wheeling my “up yours” car around to the starting line, a long CB antenna whipping in the air.  There’s my missing trooper dude, standing on the starting line, waiting for me, clipboard in hand.  A cool, pretty day…the top is off.

Somewhere I had read that the only limits required to be met during the driving test was to not drive recklessly and stay within the speed limit, and of course, meet all the other rules regarding stopping, yielding, and whatever else.  Reckless was defined as chirping the tires loose.  I reason that accelerating to the speed limit is at my discretion and turning corners can be done as quickly as I can turn them, as long as the tires don’t break loose—what’s to be concerned about?  I’ve been driving for 14-years, after all. 

Making sure my trooper is buckled up, off we go, going fast, turning fast, and stopping fast...but never chirping the tires.  Slamming around the surrounding neighborhoods, the loud, distinctive exhaust blasts its notes, and double clutching the gears up and down fills the air with a fairly consistent, tightly-wound, loud engine noise.  There are 5-gears on the floor, but only 2 are used for this test...we aren't going very fast, even though it sounds like we are.  Although my trooper is armed with a clipboard and test check list, he doesn’t mark on it…he’s engaged for most of the test in hanging onto his hat with one hand, and holding onto the chicken handle with the other.  He’s grinning, ear-to-ear and I think he waived the dreaded “parallel park.”

Back at the DPS shop, still grinning, he dismounts and says, “you handle it very well.”  Thanks, I say…it’s the third one and I’ve had plenty of practice.  Don’t recall another driving test since, but this one was a kick.

Zoom 

Driver’s License Renewal – The Gatekeeper

Got my license renewed yesterday.  It’s been 51-years since I passed that first fearful “parallel park” maneuver.  Although technology has changed radically over the past half-century, the periodic trip to DMV remains remarkably static…it’s often been a miserable event. Miserable clerks to blame, I think.

I’ve had licenses in about a half-dozen different states and all of them are similar…guess that’s not surprising since driving is similar in those various places, too.  Four wheels, a steering wheel, some signs, some lights, all about the same.  Except Colorado…there they want to be sure you know that it doesn’t take as much beer to make you dizzy, so they focus on a few tricky altitude-related questions. 

Years ago, in large cities, the lines and resulting wait could drag on for hours and sometimes result in finding that due to having overlooked some obscure sign in a huge room, you had been standing in the wrong line.  And seeking any sympathy from the mind-numbed clerks is fruitless anywhere.

Yesterday, I accompanied my eldest to get our renewals done.  Living in a small town helps avoid long lines, but nothing whatsoever improves the encounter with the ill-tempered, scowling Gatekeeper.  She looked very similar to the lady pictured above and she was absolutely impervious to my sexagenarian’s wit and charm.  Nothing worked…not quips, not winks, nothing.  Don’t recall her name…I’m sure it wasn’t Kristin or Misty.

Got my license, though…an 8-year deal, no restrictions.  If I’m still alive for the next renewal, I’ll be 75.  Eldest steps up to the unsmiling Broom-Hilda, smiles at her, compliments her Grinch pen, and the hag smiles back!  And she keeps smiling throughout Eldest’s gymnastics with the forms and pictures, even letting her check the picture result.  For goodness sake! 

Beep-beep

Nabisco Round Saltine Crackers

It’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?  Noticed about a week ago that my life-long saltine cracker maker, NABISCO, had changed its package…nothing new there—see my earlier rants in the blog about the toilet paper makers jerking around with their packaging.  This ongoing jiggering with packaging, flavors, and weights irritates me on other levels, but this one is a direct attack on one of our fundamental, life-long preferences.

Of course, one of the principal reasons for the change is to confuse consumers so they will pay more for less product…a quasi-clever way to raise prices—significantly.  That’s going on across the board with all manufacturers and is made ever simpler since the advent of EXCEL spreadsheet programs.  The problem with those programs is that they are only good at if-then-else calculations, and utterly clueless with regard to whether a considered change will enrage their customers, or not.  I suppose it's the marketing department’s job to make that calculus, and you know what I generally think about unbridled marketing.  But then, I’m just a Dilbert-type technical guy.  I suspect there are a few of my kind muttering quietly to themselves somewhere back in the dark, hot, and greasy parts of some NABISCO plants.

In a world where airlines that once ran their operations without much drama, we now observe those operations run by today’s current crop of managers having serious problems figuring out how to get passengers off a stranded airplane at the gate…for 7-hours!  And now we have the Giant Kraft Foods, owner of NABISCO since about 2000, under the leadership of the ladies shown above, apparently seeing no problem trashing an American standard we have known all our lives.

Time will tell how this works out for them, but for now the house brand saltines at half the price are just fine by me.  One thing those spreadsheet programs cannot calculate is the effect of my dropping OREOs, Maxwell House, and pretty much anything “NABISCO” from my shopping rotation.  With the problems today’s “enlightened” management teams" seem to be having running their “core” businesses, I doubt they will ever figure out what went wrong and why.  But then again, few of them stick around long enough to care much about that anyway.

I may address flavored salt next.

Dec. 2012 Update:  Apparently our dissatisfaction with this ham-fisted maneuver has had some effect.  I've got a much larger selection of my old standards back on the shelf.  But take notice my NABISCO friends, those "house" brand saltines are just as good as yours and at half the price.  Now you've got to get to work and re-sell your product to me.  And I've generally dropped most of your products from my shopping list.  This particular move on your part was disgusting in my mind....or, maybe just dumb !

BTW, this article is one of the most heavily visited pages in this blog.

Adios 

Yes, Dear - 2012

Today is the first day of a new year, 2012. Were it not for my wife saving my life spring before last, I wouldn’t be here to write this little piece today. We’ve been married for decades…each of us just once, and just to each other.

She’s no longer the person I married. She’s much better. Oh, yes I still get frustrated with her. Sometimes it’s because she interrupts one of my too-lengthy stories or changes the subject in mid-sentence. I’m talking weighty topics, she’s thinking about what we’re having for dinner.

Sometimes she comes in while I’m writing and starts to babble like a parakeet drowsing on its perch. She’s working things out in her mind. I neither understand it nor make the effort. Once she’s got it worked out, we will converse.

All I recall is a sudden and extreme nausea…she recalls much more. While I lay slumped on the floor, she saw my body doing the ugly things a dying person does. As she calls 911, she keeps me from slipping away.

In ICU a few hours later I feel fine and ready to go home. Eight days later, three of them in ICU, I go home…I’m unsteady. She’s there, steady as a rock. She will fall apart later. I no longer get too frustrated with her.  

Happy New Year.

MERRY CHRISTMAS - 2011

And a Happy New Year

Haircuts

For me, taking time to get a haircut ranks down there along with buying socks and underwear as among my least favorite uses of time. The arrival of long hair styles for men during the sixties was a tremendous relief from the every 2-weeks, “high and close” military cut of my boyhood. My father, being among the millions of WWII veterans, specified the “high and close” style he learned from the service.

The advent of long haired men’s styles spelled the end of the traditional barber shops where guys with names like Charlie and Bill made their livings at $1.25 per head. For those of us who embraced the longer styles, Charlie and Bill no longer knew what to do and we had to find other haircutters. Early on this meant a trip to a ladies hair salon and varying experiences with a wide variety of girls and ladies who always wanted to “do different things” with our hair. They made their livings at $10-$15 per head; but that was O.K. since you weren’t getting your hair cut as often…usually once per quarter—3 or 4 times per year, instead of the 26 times per year of the “high and close” days.

Now, getting your hair cut was usually no more enjoyable at the ladies salons. Their patter was never the spirited “man cave” gossip it was at Charlie and Bill’s place, but now and then you got a pretty young thing as your hair cutter. Sometimes the cut was good, sometimes not; but, the ever-present proximity of their…well, sometimes the cut was kind of fun and always worth cleaning yourself up for the visit.

This August, for the first time I can recall, I failed to clean myself for the visit. In fact, it was an unplanned stop. I was hot and sweaty from the morning’s fix ‘em up project and returning from the home repair emporium with the necessary parts to finish the job. On my way by the haircutter joint, I saw there were no cars parked in front. Ah-ha, a chance for a walk-in, sit down, get it done kind of quick stopover. And so it was.

I realize that I’m no longer a threat to sweet young things due to advanced age and decades of a happy marriage, but I still want to make myself presentable when in the company of the ladies. Usually, the haircutters aren’t too striking, but last August…there, standing ready to serve me was Kristin, one of those pretty ones that always invite a second look, even at the risk of a punch from the wife or an “eww” from young bystanders. She was breathtaking and looked just like the picture above…just-like-the-picture-above…in ALL respects. And I’m sweaty and dirty from the home improvement job, sonofabitch.

Well, my skuzzy appearance notwithstanding, it was a very nice haircut. And no waiting, either. Charlie and Bill never stood a chance, did they?

Next?

Protest !!

Went to town to pick up mail this morning. It’s a little town…quiet this time of year. Old gal walking down the sidewalk with a protest sign under her arm. On her way to protest something. End the war, probably.
We have a gaggle of about a half-dozen scraggly old farts in town that gather some weekends on the corner outside the post office to protest the war. It’s not much of a war, but then they aren’t much of a protest mob either. They were a lot more active when GW was in office but seem more comfortable with Barak as CIC. Funny how that works with these folks, isn’t it?
Her sign read, “WWJB? – Who Would Jesus Bomb?” First thought that came to my mind was that Jesus didn’t have any bombs back then…not that he couldn’t have had some if he had wanted them. However, I’ve heard that the last time God got irked with us, he just flooded the earth, drowned everyone, and started over again. Maybe she hadn’t thought her question through thoroughly enough.
Anyway, it got me to thinking about protests. Those back in the late sixties were pretty numerous and large. I didn’t participate in any of them myself, although they were going on in the neighborhood. Had a war to deal with and after that, I had to work to eat, pay the rent, buy food, gas the car, and romance some ladies. There was a lot of protesting going on in my old neighborhood, but since I was done with the war by then, I turned more toward my own account and let the others deal with their own problems.
However, it did seem to me that those old protests had a certain character to them that latter day protestors can’t quite replicate. Where is their Abby Hoffman and Wavy Gravy? They tried a Woodstock redux in 1994, but it fell short, didn’t it? The old one was filled with some real grime where the redux had a kind of tofu feel to it. Maybe it’s just me, but if you’re going to get caked in mud and really get f**ked up, shouldn’t the folks in the background and all around you be caked in mud also? The weather was nice in 1994 and the folks in the background appear to have been nicely dressed for an afternoon outing. I think the 1969 mud resulted from a downpour where the 1994 redux mud resulted from a fire hose.

One of the iconic sixties pictures is shown below…there is no doubt they are f**ked up…heck, I would reckon that they may have been in another dimension. One thing is certain, they were authentic to their time.

Adios

Geaux Tigers !

You look at him and think...beautiful.

He looks at you and thinks...food!

Thanksgiving 2011

Happy Thanksgiving, folks.

Sunshine Letters

A 1962 Highlander and friend of mine from those EH days wrote me a very nice note in response to my last posting. I asked if there would be any objection to my posting his note here. It has been edited a bit to remove personal identification in order to protect his privacy. His kind words touched me and I wanted to share them with you here, since together with my response to him, both notes pretty well clarify what that last post was about.

Subject: Why the Blog

Hey there. I just read your most recent.

I don't want to speak out of turn here since I am not sure of your identity (although you do leave clues) but I want to share a couple of thoughts.

First of all, there are many of us who were not in your class but really enjoy your comments. You are a fine, thought provoking writer and you touch on many normal topics that we all think about, especially when looking back. I know your thoughts cause me to remember a lot of stuff. Fortunately my time at EHHS was great, and fun to recall. Like my recent email to you about transferring from another school and early days learning a new place. So you have a broader and more appreciative audience than you realize.

Mixing thoughts from the past with current events is cool and takes talent. Makes it all current. So I don't know what caused your recent comments, but you should feel proud of your accomplishment with the blog. I look forward to reading it as others do. And since it is your site it allows you to express your thoughts, free and clear, which is always healthy.

Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Take care,
’62 Highlander









Hi ’62,

Good to hear from you and I appreciate your comments. Never concern yourself with speaking out of turn or how your thoughts might sit with me…they are welcome anytime.

Your observations prompted me to revisit my words and edit the piece. It’s one of those letters one should set aside to see if it still conveys the message you wish, a day or so later. I’ve always been impatient with people I know can do better than they do, and I think that was what was agitating me Friday.

I don’t know if you have taken a close look at the elementary school class pictures I’ve been putting up the past few days. They are predominantly from Meadowbrook Elementary which probably supplied the largest percentage of EH graduates during those early years. Those pictures predate by several years the time you and I spent with our EH classes.

I was curious how long some of our classmates had been together and interested to see if any determinations could be made about how some of the associations I recall, might have formed. Take a close look at the 2nd grade picture and you will see Tom Koebernick and Steve Means sitting next to one another as 7-year olds, showing a very close affinity. I’ve written a separate piece in the blog about them, together with Sam Scott, who joined them about 4th or 5th grade. By the time I joined them in the 8th grade, they were very close friends. In fact, several of the class pictures are from Tom and others are from one of nicest ladies in our class, Susie Wadlington.

The most recent activity I’ve undertaken is to try and name all the individuals in those old pictures. As you know, the net provides the communications tool to bring a number of others in to get a job like this done, if I can push them off their tails. Therein lies the problem…and the irritation. However, there are only a few people on the face of this earth who can make something like this come together and as I see it, the time to get it done is now, while we are still pretty spry.

I appreciate and value your thoughtful comments about the blog. As you can see, I have some fun with it, and as you rightly noted, the ability to put forth a free and clear expression of thought is liberating. Getting cranky now and then helps shake some of this stuff loose...in fact, Tom didn't want to fuss with his scanner until I reminded him that with 132-years of age between us, it might be worth taking time to do some of this stuff while we can. He got it done within a couple of hours! One helluva guy…still.

Happy Thanksgiving to you.
Best regards,
Gus

Why the Blog?

Well, to tell the truth, it’s not because I have a deep, life-long affinity for any of my old classmates or the school….I don’t. I left EH somewhat unsettled and a little irritated although I had a pretty good trip through the place. You know, I’m finding from the way a number of you have expressed yourselves or dodged me, that a number of us left dear old EH in that condition…a little unsettled.

Nevertheless, many of us seem to have a lingering warm spot in our hearts for the place and for some of those there during our matriculation. We spent an awful lot of time together and had the opportunity to make both some good and bad decisions while there. I envy the Class of 1960 who seem to have maintained close associations with one another over the span of 50-years; some of us did that, but it appears that there were not many.

This blog started in 2006 more as a curiosity about the technology. Blogging was relatively new then and it had the, “buzz” within the techie community. Now, the “buzz” has moved to Twitter and Facebook, but I think neither of them provide the solid foundation for something like this like a blog does. I do participate in the Facebook community, but I don’t tweet.

The focus on EH was chosen because it seemed to be an old topic that might find some interest, but not so much as to be overwhelming. It also seemed to be a topic where some meaningful information sharing could take place and perhaps a better understanding of how or why a lot of us left…a little unsettled.

I’ll poke at some people either here or through Facebook to encourage their participation. They tend to be people I knew fairly well, thought well of, and who I know can probably answer questions I pose to them. Their responses, or lack thereof, tell me something about them as they are today.

It’s pretty clear that a lot of us are techie neophytes and exceedingly wary about interacting with someone we don’t “know” online. My anonymous approach is somewhat off-putting to them and I understand that…we’ve been conditioned by the scare stories.

It has never been my intention to settle any old scores here, although it is troublingly easy to do those kinds of things in this space. Frankly, I don’t have any unsettled old scores. However, I do have one unrequited love and a couple of administration piss-offs I would enjoy understanding better as a means to clear out some old occupied space in an otherwise uncluttered mind. And the amazing thing about this technology is that such things are possible.

Adios

Headlight - A Real "Game Changer"

Regular readers may recall that I don’t like to use clichés and that their overuse in popular media tends to make my skin crawl. This or that thing being proclaimed a “game changer” by some breathless, young TV talking head…well, you get the point. However, let me take a moment to share something I really do view as a “game changer.”

Had the heating tech out yesterday and ushered him into the bowels of the house where the heating beast resides…not much light in there. I was ready with a long power cord and bright work light, but the guy never asked for it!

When I checked in on him, I saw he was wearing the most amazing “game changer” I had seen in a long time. It was a small headband with a very bright LED light array attached to the center of his forehead. He was quietly and effectively working away with BOTH of his hands, a bright light shining wherever he looked, and absolutely oblivious to the fact that he was in our black hole of Calcutta.

This topic doesn’t need many words…if you work with your hands doing anything, you will immediately see the benefit. Cost: about $12 to $20 at your local home repair warehouse, uses 3 triple A batteries, life is about 15-hours or more, mine weighs just under 3 oz with batteries—hardly noticeable, light element section rotates downward so you can see what you are doing while sitting.

Caution: The added benefit of it throwing light where you are looking will also blind an innocent bystander, should you turn to look at them. On the other hand, most “innocent bystanders” are usually offering unsolicited advice about the job YOU are doing, so maybe the retina boiling beam will discourage those irritations, too.

Maybe these lights have been around for a long time and the rest of the world has long known of them, but then again, I haven’t spent much time browsing the fix ‘em up emporiums in recent years. Go get yourself one of these, or maybe 2 or 3….you will be pleased.

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

Door Day 5,6+

  

It's a solid, heavy door.  The latch engages about 1/4" with an audible click--a vigorous pull won't open it.  Rubbing along a thick carpet presents significant resistance to opening--a light breeze won't open it. 

As I mentioned in the previous post, I found the door open, slightly ajar on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings this past week.  It opened a second time in the late evening Friday, breaking the pattern for the first time.  

Saturday morning...(October 2, 2010), it was not open.

Sunday morning it is not open.

Nor on Monday...

Update:  (October 25,2010), it has not been open since Oct. 1, when the pattern was first broken!

Update:  (January 12, 2011), it has not been open since Oct. 1.

Update: (July 20, 2011), the door was found open on only 2 separate occasions since the last update in January.

Update:   (January 28, 2012), No further activity.

Spirits

Consensus in our house is that we have spirits with us more or less constantly. I’m the skeptic in the house because I haven’t seen or heard them, but other family members are true believers. Over the past 20-years in this house, my youngest became so accustomed to hearing their voices, footsteps, fleeting glimpses, and other unexplained evidences, that their presence simply became an accepted fact of life.

We bought the house from a classmate’s parents and throughout the years, school friends who had been guests in the house before our moving in, told of hearing the same voices…most often a little girl’s, but many others as well. Same for the footsteps.

Although I remained skeptical, I do believe there is enough in this world that simply cannot be objectively explained and I retain an open mind on the subject. The last 3 mornings I’ve found a heavy door leading to the front entry vestibule slightly ajar. It latches securely and will not open of its own accord, even when I pull on it. Yet, for the past 3 mornings there it is, slightly ajar. I’ve satisfied myself that no family member is leaving it that way the night before and that no other force I can replicate will open it. Whatever is going on there will continue until it stops and that will be that.

Over the years I’ve been rousted awake in the middle of the night to patrol the house after my family has heard “something strange” downstairs. I’ve made the patrol numerous times and thankfully, I’ve never discovered any bogeymen and suffered only brief sleep interruptions. My family always knew not to recklessly disturb Dad’s sleep.

During July 2009, I was awakened by my youngest who had seen something in my room. It was about 3:30 A.M. and where I usually awaken slowly with some displeasure, that time I instantly bolted awake. While I was still groggy, Youngest started energetically describing a full-figure apparition she had just seen standing at the foot of my bed, looking down at me. What she described perfectly was a circa 1910-1930 aviator, complete with his leather helmet w/chin straps hanging loose, goggles, a heavy leather coat, riding pants, and tall leather boots, looking much like Max Miller shown above.

Her description was so vivid and accurate in small detail that the clarity of it alone jolted me instantly awake. You see, one of my recent projects has been to research and write the story of the first military pilots that flew the old Wright kites during the years before WWI. My computer is full of text and photographic files and I have a number of old aviation artifacts dating to the period laying out on the nearby desk.

The thing that shocked me awake was that my Youngest had had absolutely no direct contact with my work nor had shown any particular interest in it., yet her description of the man was perfect to the period. He was tall, had angular features and he was just looking down at me sleeping. When he became aware of my Youngest standing out in the hallway about 25’ away, looking at him, he slowly turned his head to the left, looked at her, smiled slightly, took a half-step backward, and vanished. His image was substantial enough to block the view of a large clock hanging on the wall behind him and thus enable my Youngest to make a fair estimate of his height compared to mine when I stood in the same place. He was about 6-feet tall.

We haven’t seen the pilot since last year…and we’ll see if tomorrow brings Day 4 of the open door.  By the way, my youngest has both an undergraduate technical degree and a post-graduate professional degree from two of the country's first tier universities.  She is a competent observer in my book.



Boo!

Jamestown Murmurs

“We are what we have been.” Shelby Foote attributed those words to Jane Austen in an interview, maybe more than once. To me, the words simply say that how we act, think, do, and a myriad of our other personal traits can be traced to our direct ancestors. My eldest offspring reacts intensely to a light huff on the back of the neck…my mother reacted in exactly the same way. Now, I’ve huffed on the back of a few necks over the years, but I’ve seldom seen such a reaction from others.

Family lore had it that one of our ancestral lines went back a long way in this country, all the way back to its founding. However, whatever proof of that claim might have existed was either packed away in a relative’s closet or lost or forgotten over the generations. Only when my own focus and the power of the Internet was brought to bear on the matter was I able to ferret out the truth…and the truth is, the old family lore was correct. I qualify for membership in the Jamestowne Society.

Many years ago I toured Jamestown and walked amongst the recreated ruins of the ancient village along the James River. The picture above pretty much tells the story of today’s Jamestown. For a young man lacking certain specific knowledge of his connection to the place, the stopover was somewhat disappointing; yet, there was something about the place that seemed to murmur…this is where it all began.

Many years later, after learning of my connection to the place, we visited Jamestown again. This time the place came alive, the spirits were jumping, but only in my head…it was palpable. One of my 10th great grandfathers (each of us have about 2,048 of those!) jumped off a small sailing ship onto the banks of the James in 1621 when the tiny village was in its 14th year. He was an indentured servant who, after working off his indenture, became a substantial citizen of the early settlement.

Sometimes I wonder what traits of mine were also his…I wonder if he or his wife reacted as intensely as my mother or my offspring to a light huff on the back of the neck.

A 2005 film, The New World, told the story of the earliest days at Jamestown. However, I found the picture a bit artsy for my taste…but, the photography and scenes are very well done, giving an accurate visual portrayal of the life and conditions of the place and time.

Adios