Three score and ten or more

Happy Valentine’s day

2012-02-14T20:53:00.001-08:00

We had a really romantic day today. We started off by going to the pool for water aerobics. (really wonderful today) . The when we got home we spent a couple of hours sealing up the appropriate things and setting out foggers because we have accumulated some obnoxious pests from somewhere. We then left the house to go to Savannah for an acupuncture treatment. (Not romantic, but very relaxing and helpful.

After acupuncture we went to Fresh Market, where we go almost every time we go to Savannah. We pick up a variety of breads and snacks. and usually a roast beef hoagie (which is about the best in the world) but they were out, and the lady who usually makes them to order was out, so we decides to go out for a romantic Valentine's meal. We drove around Savannah for a while to pick out a restaurant (Savannah has LOTS of good restaurants) and for some reason, ended up at Five Guys Burgers where we each had a cheeseburger and fries, that amounted to more food that we probably would have had at one of the more romantic restaurants. We decided when we were finished that next time we will have ONE “little burger” and split it.

We then drove home, aired out the house, put the Fresh Market loot in the Fridge and then Jan crashed. I decided, since I have resolved to write a little more in the blog, to write this missive. I am now going to crash. I promise that we did say some romantic things to each other, and I am going to try to lead us on a more romantic exercise tomorrow.

I was pleased to remember that my brother in law had a birthday this month, and, until July, he is older than I. Janet and I have celebrated fifty four Valentine’s days together. Hope for several more.

Finally

2012-02-13T13:25:00.001-08:00

I have neglected this blog a lot. I promised to note when I finished my cardio-cath in the hospital to let folks know I am still alive. I AM. Our cardiologist said that he was surprised and please that all the grafts from my 12 year old bypass are holding fine and that the “anomalies” that were noticed after my last stress test are just that, anomalies. Thanks, I think, to acupuncture and some energetic water aerobics I am feeling better than I have felt in two or three years.

I walk upright like a normal homo sapien, work more in the yard than I have in some time, am making good progress toward getting my studio/shop into usable space (I haven’t done anything creative since we moved to our present home without a studio) and about sixty percent of the junk in my office is off the floor and put away. (I can now do my taxes). Things, for the time being are good (Knock wood).

I have set down at the computer every day for a month with a lot of stuff on my brain I wanted to write about, but ever time I do so I am so full of stuff it freezes. I decided to make a small start and do baby steps to restart the blog. With the help of my youngest son, I hope to get my web page up to the stage where it is usable and viewable.

If I get something more concrete and interesting in here tomorrow I’ll know that the strategy worked.

Sort of a Christmas post (late, like everything else.

2012-01-14T16:46:00.001-08:00

Monday, December 25, 2006

My good friend Ed at Riverbend Journal has used some recall posts to fill in the time when he was on vacation. I decided to do a “recall” while my brain is on vacation. I have here the post I made the Christmas after we got home from Janet’s aortal surgery in Finland. It is followed by the brief message I put on my facebook this Christmas. I hope to post something else before the week is done (I have said that before, haven’t I?)

CHRISTMAS FOR COOTS AND COOTESSES
Actually Jan won’t officially qualify as a cootess until she reaches her own three score and ten next fall, but I figure that what she went through this fall gives her an extra year so I hereby add her officially to the list. To tell the truth, this has been a crazy Christmas. We are a family who had had a rock hard list of traditions for many years. The principal days in our traditions are/have been Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.
On Christmas Eve, as early as is convenient, sons and daughters (and if possible their sons and daughters, though only two of our six children have fulfilled their obligation to marry and provide grandchildren as objects of dotage) gather together at the house. (This gathering is sometimes limited since one of our sons (the one with children) lives in Washington State, and two of them are in the military reserve or guard and have spent recent Christmases in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, but anyway, they gather as they can.
I have to admit that the father of the clan, being a procrastinator emeritus, for many years spent the early part of Christmas Eve trudging from store to store, trying in futility to find that very special present to Janet (about which he had been meditating for months) and sometimes missed the very early Christmas Eve activities. As the children got older this halted (I am not sure why).
When we got together, at least after 1967 when we were in Finland, compliments of Mr. Fulbright and the U.S. government, the process was the same with very little variation. As the family joined together, the children first sang a couple of songs in Finnish. My choice was probably less than inspired, but they were songs the children remembered. The first, Tonttu leikki involved the children with Santa hats (and, when they were too young to protest, red tights) dancing a sort of specific dance in front of the Christmas tree and singing “Tip top tip top tippi tippi tip top, Tonttu leikki. Tip top tip top tippi tippi tip top Tonttu leikki. Tip top tip top tippi tippi tip top Tonttu leikki, TIP, TIP, TOP.” You can see why they could remember the lyrics. They translate “Tip top, tip top, tippy tippy tip top, the Elves (trolls, or which every you use to identify ‘tonttu’)are playing, etc.
The second song, goes more or less like this, “Porsaita aidin oomme kaikki, oomme kaikki, oomme kaikki. Porsaita aidin oomme kaikki, oomme kaikki, kaikki. Sina ja Mina, Sina ja Mina, porsaita aidin oomme kaikki KAIKKI..
(The a’s on sina, mina, and aidin should have two dots above them, which means that they are pronounced “A” as in Dan or Ask. I have been taught twenty five times how to convince my computer to make the keystroke that creates the two dots, but I have a blank in my mind which prevents me from remembering this anytime I am at the computer)
My liberal translation is
We are mommy’s Christmas pigs, all of us, yes all of us,
We are mommy’s Christmas pigs, all of us yes all.
You and me, yes, you and me
We are Mommy’s Christmas pigs all of us yes all.
My children have discovered that with judicious repetition of certain lines, the translation works well to the tune of London Bridge is Falling Down.
Following the group performance, the general comment was “Let’s Eat”, which is appropriate following We are Mommy’s Christmas Pigs . For this, we usually gathered around the fireplace-(for many years we heated our house with wood, a fireplace insert and a Fisher, stand alone stove, in which a sour dough loaf was often baked in a dutch oven and Pulla was baked wrapped in foil) Our Christmas Eve meal always amuses Finns when I tell them about it, because none of the foods we use are Christmas foods. We have always had Karjalan Piirakoita, or Karelian Pies, which are made of a kind of rice pudding on a rye crust or tortilla which is folded up on the edges. These are eaten hot, spread with butter into which chopped boiled eggs are stirred. They are Wonderful, but have nothing to do with Christmas. We also have Pulla, which is a Finnish, cardamom laced sweet bread that looks like a Swiss braid. We ordinarily break it rather than cut it. For beverage we have sima, which is made with lemon juice, honey or brown sugar, yeast, and raisins. It is a drink used in Finland really only on Mayday or otherwise in the spring, and which must be made with real care to be carbonated but not alcoholic. Other foods may wend their way into the meal occasionally but these are the “always’ things.
After we eat, we join around the Christmas tree and each person can open one package. (The children, as a group, consider that this was, while they were young, a means of making sure that each had a new, clean, pair of pajamas for Christmas morning. ( This was not an unfair conclusion). We then sang some Christmas Carols and concluded with each of us demonstrating some talent. Sometimes the piano was played, sometimes a solo of one of the kid’s participation in a Christmas dance recital, sometimes a flute, clarinet, trombone or other solo, sometimes a recitation (our kids have all been actors at one time or another), sometimes puppet plays, but always ending with the old man reading the Christmas story from Luke, sometimes with elements added from Matthew. The reading is almost always from a large leather covered antique family bible (which has 1873, 75, and 80 baptisms and marriages recorded in it by a family named Wilsey, which I picked up in a junk store in upstate New York -the book, not the family.) This was always followed by a family prayer where we all knelt and linked hands, (in later years, even joined in by some who had pretty much lost faith). Then it was time to go home, to bed, or some other, appropriate, where. (We have sometimes gone to a Christmas Eve Service or Midnight mass at the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, or, one of my favorites, a little community Church of Christ, which was always small, and intimate and caring – and which has since become great big)
Christmas morning had it’s own traditions, one of the most important being that the children couldn’t go into the living room until they came and woke us up. That way, the parents and the camera got into the room while it was whole. When packages were opened, one of the children would get under the tree and sequence the presents so that they were handed out in order. “Santa Claus” gifts (gifts with no donor name) were placed near each person’s identifiable stocking. At first, mother and father knew what each of these was, but over the years, unidentified additions appeared for all. Breakfast was usually leftovers from Christmas Eve, with additional glasses of milk for all, then it was dinner preparation.(some were left to rake up the paper and wrappings) The turkey was always mine, and I prepared it a variety of different ways, including one semi-disastrous episode with deep frying. For years I had a proprietary blend of dressing (stuffing) spices , then I learned that Tone’s spicy spaghetti sauce spices had everything in it that I loved, and it has been the dressing spice of choice for years. I sauté lots of chopped up celery, Vidalia onions, and occasionally granny smith apples with spices and real butter (that is crucial- diet be damned) add it to broken up bread (usually whole wheat) with fresh ground sea-salt and pepper and Tones spicy spaghetti seasoning (to taste, but usually about a couple of tablespoons ), rub the outside of the turkey with a mixture of Cajun gunpowder and Tones, then pop it into the oven for the appropriate time. I used to use a turkey bag, but the skin was never a luscious as when I heat the oven to 500 degrees, pop the turkey in for half an hour then insert the thermometer, turn it down to about 275 cover with a paper bag, and wait for the proper temp to come. (Usually about five hours). The problem with this method is that the turkey skin is so delicious that, while the turkey is resting before it is sliced, I have to stand and guard it. If I leave for any length of time I come back and the turkey is skinless. My children have stripped it immorally to the meat.
I don’t pay much attention to the rest until dinner time, but we still have pulla (We slice it sometimes at dinner, there is no fate more perfect for a slice of cooling turkey than to end up between two slices of pulla with a little butter, mayonnaise and cranberry sauce.) and we still drink sima.
Now that you have seen our traditions, it is time for the Coot and Cootess version.
We arrived home from Finland on Nov. 13, and discovered that neither Jan nor I were worth a flip physically. We briefly discussed going out for Thankgiving, but the kids resisted and volunteered to cook everything. (All four that live near us are really good cooks, if they ever decide to mate, their “mates” will get a bargain in at least one sense.) One did the sima and the pulla, another did vegetables and salads, another did desserts though I went ahead and did the turkey myself, unwilling to let go. Jan was not going to cook at all, because her hands shake so badly and she could only be up using her walker a couple of hours at a time. We hadn’t cooked since we got home from Finland. Folks from our church came by every day with a well cooked dinner and some general treats.
Of course when the day came she wandered in with her walker, propped up on a stool and helped and supervised everyone (even me, and no one has supervised my turkey cooking in a long time). We had a lovely meal and watched the appropriate football games and DVDs, and distibuted leftovers for "take home" purposes.
We had not really thought about Christmas. Since June we have had two time share lodges reserved for the week before Christmas at Lake Chelan in Manford, Washington and were were planning to spend Christmas in Washington with the Washington grandchildren where son and daughter in law would do all the work and we would "guest"
.
Just after Thanksgiving both our general Physician and the local cardiologist, evaluating the degree of recovery Janet had accomplished after her surgery in Finland, just put their collective feet down and forbid us to make that trip. “You can do that kind of thing, perhaps in March or April” said the cardiologist. The silliness of the plan hit us when our realtor called to let us know that the final meeting to change the zoning on our house would be held on January 3, and if it was approved we would have about ten days to get out and go where we need to go.
Since we had not planned to be home for Christmas anyway, our local children had decided to go have Christmas in Oxford, Mississippi where one of our sons had moved and bought a new house. (guess what he does for a living”), so, in order to get some rest, we proposed that they go ahead to Mississippi, and we would stay home and have a quiet, restful, holiday (Does that read well with Coothood?)
We roamed around a bit, did some manic Christmas shopping (to mail stuff) and made trips to the doctor. Finally, on Sunday, the week before Christmas, Jan looked at me and asked if I thought she would be messing up anyone’s plans too much if she just asked everybody to come to our house. I said I would call and ask. The comment from my daughter who lives in South Carolina was “Well, she held out longer than I thought she would”. And everyone made plans to come to our house.
Shift of traditional gears. We decided to have sea food chowder (for which Jan is famous) on Christmas eve instead of Karelian pies (which require rolling out dough,not something for weak and shaky hands,) to substitute a pre-sliced ham for a turkey with scalloped potatoes from a box for turkey and the trimmings on Christmas Day. Not knowing exactly when everyone got off work to come here, I roasted a fifteen or so pound boston butt that I had in the freezer for “in between eating”. I should mention that I love boston butt pork roasts. I rub the outside with extra virgin olive oil, Cajun gunpowder and Tones spagettu spices, put it in the oven, in the evening, at five hundred degrees for half and hour, turn the oven down to about two hundred or two hundred twenty five degrees and forget it till morning. (I do score the fat part in half inch diamond shapes in order to get better snack food (I can’t remember what “Redneck “ calls it.—Heck, I can’t really remember anything precisely).
For Friday evening I got out the roast, pulled some of the pork (southerners understand) and stuck it in a beanpot with two cans of red beans, a large can of pinto beans, and a can of Trappy’s pinto beans with Jalapeno peppers (If you haven’t tried them you should). I added a cup of drippings from the roast and another tablespoon of Cajun gunpowder. I then put the whole mess in the oven at 225 degrees for a few hours. No work at all. I pulled the pork from about half of the remainder of the roast, heated it in the oven under foil then dowsed it with “Vandy’s” southern barbeque sauce. (For you poor souls whose experience with barbeque sauce is limited to the stuff produced north of the Mason Dixon line I can’t explain, I can only sympathize, though there IS some marginal stuff available in Kansas City. Northern barbeque sauces have things like tomatoes and ketchuppy stuff in them, sigh.) Every body sat down to eat, and even with store-bought bread, it went fast and furious.
For Christmas Eve, the fish chowder was exxed because of the amount of labor involved and we had a large Stauffer’s frozen lasagna, with toasted sourdough bread from a local bakery and some whole wheat submarine rolls sliced and covered with garlic butter (with a little hand squeezed garlic to make it real.) No one complained about lack of pulla, Karelian pies, or even sima (well, I griped a bit about sima). Our usual family talent show was limited to the reading of Luke, a family prayer, and the conclusion that enough folks had brought things for stockings that one of the younger folks would dig out some of our traditional Stockings and everyone would put something in. I forgot to mention that instead of getting out the Christmas tree and all the decorations, I went to Wally World and bought a 32 inch tree with optical fiber that glows in multiple colors on the ends of the leaves. When Chistmas is over, so is it. None of Jan’s hundred plus nativity sets from all around the world appeared, no balls, no tinsel no clean up.
In the morning I arose and put on my semi-traditional T-shirt, one that I bought in Yellowstone Park about fifteen years ago, that says on the front " IF A MAN SPEAKS IN THE FOREST WHERE NO WOMAN CAN HEAR, IS HE STILL WRONG??", we had breakfast (I voted for oatmeal, but we had fried eggs.) opened presents said thank you to each other, laughed at the number of things I had brought home from Finland that Jan was totally unaware of, then watched some new DVD’s that we had given each other. ( I have not jumped in enthusiasm yet at Bubba Ho-tep, Elvis’s adventures with the mummy, but we will see.) Our Christmas dinner is the pre-sliced ham (I was not sure what to do with it, but it came out all right) scalloped potatoes, some blue cheese cake (provided by daughter, and really pretty good) and salad. We DID have sima. When one is a coot and drops traditions, who knows, maybe new ones will form.
We did do one thing that will not become a tradition, but was fun. Jan had collected a few Fitz and Floyd Santa Claus cookie jars over the years, that had fallen under our "we are going to cut back and simplify mode". WE decided to give one, filled with cookies, to each of the children who were here. Of course we had three cookie jars and four kids but my daughter has been lusting after a fifty year old Finnish Lieki cooking pot (Look it up) for a while so it became an ex-officio cookie jar. I was supposed to bake raisin oatmeal cookies for this purpose, but I just didn't get it done. Instead we used cookies that had been donated by some of the members of the church. This will not become a tradition because no family can afford a new generation of Fitz and Floyd anythings every year.

The folllowing was posted on my facebook page on Dec. 24 of this year, and a few postlets in the week previous.

Richard Johnson

I feel so blessed. I wonder always that Janet accepted my proposal of marriage and that she still tolerates me. I am a man who is subject the atonement and saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Three of my children were with us as we read aloud the story of the birth from Luke and Matthew.
We were also blessed by our benefactors of the twelve days of Christmas. The doorbell rang and I rushed to the door two see what would be there and we found the Hughes family from our church, father, mother, and all five boys standing there singing carols For the twelfth day of Christmas they presented us with a nativity that they had brought with them from Germany. Someone had told them that Janet collects Nativities (and she does, she has some seventy or so of them, most of which are on display at our house all year, supplemented by a bunch more that come out for display during the Christmas season.) so the brought her one of their family treasures.
In Finland, where we have had some of our most vivid experiences, it is a tradition, on Christmas Eve to go to the cemeteries and place candles at the graves of your families. The cemeteries are all vividly alight with candles on Christmas Eve. Eric left us last year, and has no grave at present. He was cremated and we made a decision that he will be buried with whichever of us (Janet or me) goes first, and he has no grave at present, so we went out to the great box of sand that hopefully will be a patio someday, and each of us planted a candle in the sand (It actually looks like snow by candle light.) and expressed our gratitude that he lived with us, and then we sang Silent Night.
It has been a full evening, and for much of it I was in tears (I'm a bit of a boob), but I couldn't ask for a more blessed evening.
Like · · Share · December 24, 2011 at 9:40pm

Richard Johnson

Eagerly awaiting the door bell to announce the eighth day of Christmas. Last night we receive a stocking containing two bananas, three apples and two oranges. Great fun. We had a hectic day yesterday with acupuncture trip to Savannah then my adventures with a stress test, and we came home tired and fell into bed, when Janet sat up and said "We haven't checked the porch for the next day of Christmas ." so she jumped up (three cheers for acupuncture) and dashed to the porch to find our goodies. We shared a ceremonial banana before going to sleep.
Like · · Share · December 20, 2011 at 8:14pm
Richard Johnson
We received FIVE chocolate covered pretzel sticks in a really cute little clay pot, then last night SIX bottles of rootbeer. Whoever is doing the twelve days of Christmas with us will never know how much pleasure they have brought to an old coot and Mrs.Coot unless they are among our facebook friends, or they reveal themselves on the last day.
Like · · Share · December 19, 2011 at 10:30am

- Richard Johnson

Some lovely person has been playing the twelve days of Christmas on us. Each day for the past three days a gift, or two gifts, or three gifts have been placed on our front porch with a little poem identifying the gifts as relating to the twelve days of Christmas. the first gift was a loaf of warm home made bread, the second, a pair of spools of Scotch tape for gift rapping and so on. It has been a delightful anonymous bit of joy.
Like · · Share · December 16, 2011 at 1:26am

Sorry about the long wait.

2012-01-09T20:06:00.001-08:00

I have sat down to create a post about half a dozen times in the past weeks, and I have had a lot to talk about. We had an absolutely wonderful, spiritual Christmas this years. Three of our kids were here to celebrate with us and it was great. (details on the above would have been one of the posts, and I really hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas too.)

I told you that Janet and I started acupuncture to relieve the pain in her leg and the pain in my back and the results, though expensive, were wonderful. She sleeps nights without being waked by pain, and I walk vertically, more or less like everyone else ( though I still have difficulties in my legs and to a lesser degree in my hands from the peripheral neuropathy that I have had since 1997, but I have learned to cope with these.) Last Friday I did the hardest and most efficient days work I have done in two years while cleaning out the attic and getting our Christmas stuff back up where it belongs ( but now in an organized fashion).

During the week before Christmas, our pleasure was mitigated somewhat by our Cardiologist scheduling us both for stress tests (two each, with each preceded by fasting the early part of the day), but we managed to have a good time with the rest of the days. Christmas day service at church was delightful with reverent consideration of the birth of the Christ intermingled with wonderful musical presentation by many of our teen age members. New Years day was celebrated by each of us staying awake till midnight, kissing and wishing each other a happy new year.

Last week was interrupted by a call by our Cardiologist asking us to come in for a consultation. He said that he had found an anomaly in both of our stress tests. At the consultation, he explained that he wanted me to have a cardio catherization , Janet was not to have a catheriztion because she has a dissected aorta (it is big and weak and a small problem with catherization could be fatal. I was scheduled (already for blood tests and x-rays this morning with the catheriztion to occur tomorrow morning at 9:30. I went in for the tests this morning, and in the process sneaked a look at the paperwork sent in by the doctor wherein he identified the anomaly as “Ischemic cardiac myopathy”. After the tests I went off to Savannah to have more acupuncture (when it works, do it.) and I got home about five thirty this evening and found four messages on my answering machine, all from the nurse in the Cardiologist’s office telling me not to go for my catherization in the morning. The tests this morning found a urinary infection and I am to go to the drugstore and get some antibiotics and they will reschedule the catherization when my infection is cured.

I came home and googled “ischemic cardiac myopathy” and the short definition is “heart failure” all of this going on while I am feeling better in all ways that I have in years. I have none of the symptoms listed in google for cardiac myopathy so I am pretty optimistic about the results of the thing when it comes, though it makes me a little nervous. The last time I had a cardiac catherization (about ten years ago) it resulted in a quadrupal bypass.

I will post after the thing is over to let you know I am still around, if not posting as frequently as I would like to.

Catching up??

2011-12-24T20:56:00.001-08:00

It is Christmas Eve and I haven’t posted since Thanksgiving though I have ha a lot of stuff that I wanted to post, i have just not had the energy. When I was in Columbia for Thanks giving, I bought gasoline for less than three dollars a gallon for the first time in years. I felt like I should send up a flare or something.

I came home and made a real effort to do some work in the yard, but my back wouldn’t tolerate it. I have since had some relief, not a lot but some.

Janet has been in pain from the repairs made when she broke her leg three Christmases ago. She has worked really hard to avoid repeating drugs but she has taken Tylenol 3, Vicodin, Tramosol, Tylonol and Tramolso together, etc. etc. and has toyed seriously (against the advise of her Cardiologist) with having new surgery to remove all the metal that was surgically put in place to repair her femur (you may recall it was broken in three places.)

Our son Stuart is a fencing coach and he came home awhile ago and told us that one of his fencers is an acupuncturist. He suggested that we consider it. We thought about it for several weeks,k but after one really terrible week with almost no sleep because of the pain, she called and made an appointment (the acupuncture office is in Savanneh.)

She got approval from two of our three doctors before going, we went, and after grilling the poor acupuncturist about his training, his license his certifications, etc. she finally went in for treatment (which took over an hour.) We left, came home and she said she thought she had some improvement, but she was convinced when she went to bed that night and slept the whole night without pain. (and without any kind of pain medication.

When we were in the office, the man had interviewed about possible treatment but I told him that most of my problem was my neuropathy which acturally removes pain (and all feeling in my lower legs and may hands and my back in which I have no disks between my last three lumbar verterbrae and my shoulders where I have no remaining rotator cuffs. None of those seemed to me to be in his purview.

When we went to our Cardiologist Janet hesitantly told him about the acupuncture (expecting a negative reaction) and his reply was “Oh I have acupuncture once a month because the disks in my lumbar region are gone, and I want to avoid surgery. He was very pleased that he pain was gone. Guess who decided to try it.\?

Last week we went to Savannah where she was treated and I was treated. l didn’t have the almost miraculous result that she had, but I have been able to do things this week that I haven’t been able to do for months. I still have pain in my back when I get up in the morning, but after rocking in a rocking chair for twenty minutes or so, I can get up and move almost normally, without humping over, and constantly groaning. My neuropathy is even improved. I am still waiting for some improvement in my shoulders, but I can go though my daily therapy without profanity.

Will let you know how things come out. We have another treatment scheduled for next Thursday.

Post Thanksgiving

2011-12-01T11:58:00.001-08:00

Well, We went to our daughter’s for Thanksgiving, I prepared the Turkey and it was good. I was a little disgusted with the stuffing. I got it over spiced a bit, but overall it was pretty good. We had a couple of missionaries over to eat with us, so we had a good place to put the leftover turkey. They took home a bunch for turkey sandwiches, though we still had enough to share with Beth-Anee and Stuart, and we had gravy forever (still have a bunch)

Stuart took his dog and went home in the morning while Janet and Beth-Anee and I went to some Black Friday sales. We didn’t spend a lot of money and we got a few things that we really needed so all in all it worked out.

WE came home on Saturday after a good visit. WE have avoided a lot of potential for over eating, but found that for the aging, the turkey soup was a bit better in general than the rest of the stuff. (Stuart has done a pretty good job taking care of the rest of the leftovers) I had visions of freezing the soup any finding it new homes, but we are enjoying it ourselves.

WE have been trying to get the Christmas decorations up on the exterior (and the interior) of the house, but Janet and I are both having walking problems (her legs, my back) so it is coming very slowly, but so far we have had a wonderful holiday, and hope yours is doing as well. I sit at the computer with all kinds of things in mind to write, both for the blog and on facebook, but I end up reading email and facebook and not posting in either place. I really hate it when, my excuse for lack of mobility doesn’t hold up for writing

I watched the tree lighting ceremony in New York. and it did my heart good to hear and see Tony Bennett and Neil Diamond performing. Their voices are not what they used to be, but they were both great. The younger singers, in general, reinforced my inner feeling that the glissando which was not written into the music by the composer should be outlawed. It is still embarrassing to thing that back when they used to ask me to sing the STAR SPANGLED BANNER at the beginning of the GSU baseball games, I used to insert a glissando into the line of “The land of the free-eeee and the home of the brave” line. Maybe that’s why, after a couple of years, they quit asking me.

Thanksgiving eve

2011-11-26T17:49:00.001-08:00

Came this afternoon to my daughter’s home in Columbia, SC. We came up today so that I could be here in time to cook the Turkey for tomorrow. I have most of my family brainwashed to believe that no-one does a turkey better than I. It gets me invited to famlily in such I way that I don’t have to buy all the food, I just have to prepared the turkey and dressing. I love it. Unfortunately some of my children think they can do it better than I, but fortunately it is not universal.

I used to do the turkey and then when the dinner was over and most of the turkey eaten, I would boil (actually simmer) the carcass overnight and make a stew of the left over meat etc., which we would eat for a few days after Thanksgiving. When one has six kids on an academic salary it is important that nothing go to waste.

The last few years, as the kids left for their own homes, I haven’t done this. A big soup like that was likely to go to waste (or waist, as the case may be.)

Monday, we purchased (and I prepared) a medium sized turkey (about fourteen pounds) for a local group that feeds a number of folks once or twice a month. This week, they were expecting several hundred “guests” because it is Thanksgiving week so they needed more stuff. Our church provided ten or eleven turkeys as did several other local churches. The organizers didn’t want dressing, and asked to have the turkey boned out, sliced and warm for the feed. I prepared the turkey Monday night, then Tuesday morning boned it sliced it and heated it for Tuesday dinner. After it had been prepared and delivered, I came home and looked at the carcass. It still had a lot of meat tucked in it as well as giblets and the broth the giblets were cooked in, so Tuesday evening, for the first time in years, I cooked the carcass, and all the other stuff that hadn’t been delivered and made a soup, with potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, mushrooms and a few other sundry veggies that were handy, spiced it and let the soup simmer all night long. In the morning I was a little astonished at the quantity and quality of the soup. It was really yummy, but there was about a gallon and a half (or close to two gallons) so before we could come up here we had to get the stuff in big jars and refrigerated it. By now it is jellied (cooking bones does that) bottled and refrigerated, and by the time we get home, I am going to figure out what I can do with it all. I now remember why we haven’t made left over turkey soup for a few years. If I can find some neighbors who are not tired or eating through their own leftovers, I may have a lawn party (or something).

My daughter doesn’t have internet access at home, so I won’t be able to post this till Friday or Saturday, but it is, I suppose, better than not posting at all (My practice for a couple of weeks)

Fifty three and counting

2011-11-13T19:54:00.001-08:00

Today was Janet and my fifty third wedding anniversary. You’d think that after that many it would be just another anniversary, but it isn’t. We both have cardiac and thoracic problems and a lot of physical problems that give us pain, and to be realistic, once you pass, or even reach fifty everything else in a bonus.

I did reflect upon our beginning. We were married on a Thursday morning of our Senior year in college. I was selling shoes and driving a school bus; she was working in the college library repairing old books, and we were both taking a full load of classes. Our honeymoon consisted of both of us taking Friday off. (It was easier to get time off from the shoe store than from the school bus, but I managed it. I did have to go back to the shoe store for Saturday sales.

We had rented what I have heard called a shotgun apartment. Living room in front, kitchen next and behind the kitchen a miniscule bedroom.

The living room was pale green and the kitchen was, if I remember correctly, purple. Sitting in the living room and looking into the kitchen was a bilious experience, and one of our first tasks was to paint one of the rooms (the kitchen, I believe.) We were in rehearsal for a play called RUR, for Rossoms Universal Robots. It was the only time we ever played the male and female leads in a play. We even had a love scene which I considered appropriate. Like any new people who, no matter how well they know each other, we had to work out boundaries and how our home would function. One evening about a week after we were wed, I cam home from work to find Janet ironing a pair of my slacks.. It was clear that pressing men’s pants was a new process for her so I offered to show her how men’s pants were pressed, down the length of the ironing board, to get an even crease.

Would anyone like to guess how many pairs of my pants she pressed in the ensuing fifty three years. You guessed it!!!

We often laughed about being married on the thirteen day of the week, and have both been heard to refer to it as the year Friday the thirteenth came on Thursday.

Marriage is not always an easy process, but I am so blessed. I know for a fact that I have always progressed to become a better person year by year because the angel I married has showed me how to do it.

Here we are

2011-11-10T19:48:00.001-08:00

Well, we made it to Gatlinburg and have been here since Monday Evening. It is not High Leaf season, the leaves have about fifty percent fallen, but it is still beautiful. Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge/Sevierville has been one of our favorite places for years. We haven’t taken advantage of many of the evening activities because we just don’t have the energy to keep going all day, but we are having a good time shopping through the may craft and antique stores and trying not to overeat in the many really fine restaurants in the area.

Today (Thursday) we went to a Matinee performance of the Smoky Mountain Opry Christmas Spectacular. It was vary entertaining. A lot of folks with good voices, and some dancing talent bringing back memories of past Christmases and songs that we knew (as well as a bunch that we didn’t know wrapped up in a finale that was the kind of live nativity scene set to music that was truly moving. (I will confess that the final number of Joy to the World reinforced my inner feeling that the glissando should be outlawed in most singing of popular or religious or patriotic music).

As the show progressed I couldn’t help thinking that life is, in many ways, a lot better for singers dancers and actors and musicians than it was when I was younger. Heaven only knows how many cruise ships are plying the seas, but every one of them has a band, and acting, dancing and or other performing group, resort areas like Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Branson Missouri, Hilton Head, Orlando, and even some of the smaill towns in Nevada , etc., are replete with similar performance activities. As I was coming up most of the performance opportunities existed in summer theatres, and the performance cities, except for places like Disney Land and the California/Florida areas were in business mostly in the summer. It was a joy to see dancing and singing worthy of any ordinary bunch of Broadway Gypsies in Tennessee during the approach of winter.

It was a little sad looking around both Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and seeing how many places had gone out of business. Driving home this evening I was struck by the lack of cars on the road and people on the street and it was obvious that the economic situation in the land was affecting the tourist industry a lot.

Anyway, we are having a good time and are grateful that we have enough energy to, at least, get pleasure from some of the things we love to do.

Contrast, I hope !!!

2011-11-08T17:30:00.001-08:00

We are now in Columbia SC where, on Nov. 3. driving down near Cedar Creek, the foliage is really outstandingly beautiful. It makes me think that, almost a month ago to the day, we were in the Berkshires along the Massachusetts/New York border it was just the same. The weather was almost identical to what it is here.

Now, in the area in Mass. where we were enjoying the beautiful foliage,, they have had over twenty inches of snow. Thousands of people are out of power and the atmosphere is totally changed. Of course, for the place where we stayed, if they have power, things are not totally unpleasant. Our lodge was almost at the base of a major ski area called Jiminy Peak, and generally their rates almost double when the ski area is in use (and with over twenty inches of snow, if power is on, the ski area is in use).

My personal experience with early snow hints that the skiing situation could be temporary. If the temperature rises, which is quite possible, that twenty plus inches of snow could turn into fifteen inches of slush which makes skiing a lot less fun.

Monday we leave for Gatlinburg, Tennessee where, according to the spam on my computer, it is “high leaf” and everything is beautiful. I just hope that, in two weeks or a month the northeast pattern doesn’t move to the South. Usually if we lose power around here it is a result of Hurricanes but Gatlinburg is up in the hills where snow could come and come early. Hopefully, if it does, I will be back home. (of course, in the forty plus years I have lived in Georgia, I have seen snow in November –once--)

Holidays

2011-11-02T19:55:00.001-07:00

I love holidays. I look forward to almost all of them, even those from which I get no more direct effect than knowing that most of my extended family gets a day off work. (I get off work all the time since 1997, unless I choose to do some sculpting or yard work etc.)

I have a somewhat unusual reaction to Halloween and to Easter. The holidays themselves are celebrated by our families in a most traditional way, but the day after each of these holidays is a day of great temptation.

I try to watch my weight. In the last year or so I have lost over seventy pounds. (I still weigh two hundred pounds but I have gone from a forty six inch waist to a thirty eight inch waist which has resulted in most of my wardrobe finding its way to Goodwill.)

The real problem with the holidays mentioned above is that some evil genius organized things so that on the day after the holiday (or even in the four or five days after these holidays) all the chocolate in the world goes on sale at prices that seem next to nothing. This results in a sort of love/hate relationship that I have to these holidays.

To give an example, on the day after Halloween, I went to Wal-Mart to pick up some necessaries. (mouth wash, denture adhesive, and foot medicine for my neuropathy, all very necessary to me and many folks may age.) At the entrance of Wally World thousands of pounds of candy were placed so that no entrance could be made to any department without walking past it. I was strong however. I (sort of) ignored it all and got to the pharmacy department unscathed, but on my way to the checkout I weakened and I ended up with a Wal-Mart plastic bag with ten or fifteen pounds of Reese’s peanut butter cups, Dove chocolate pumpkins, regular, peanut, and peanut butter M & M’s, Snickers bars, Milky Way bars. Three Musketeer bars, Hershey bars (all kinds) etc. for a total cost of about five bucks. If Ghirardelli, or Lindt chocolate had been on sale at those prices the gross weight of my packages would have doubled.

Now I have all this chocolate, plus the leftover cookies from trick or treat sitting around my house and I have got to figure out a way to keep from stuffing it all in my mouth in one or two days. Today I limited my self by working like a slave in my yard, doing things I have procrastinated for months. Tomorrow I am leaving to spend a long weekend with my daughter in Columbia South Carolina, and from there go to a time share in Tennessee for five days. If I am lucky, gremlins will have stolen into my house and eaten all the chocolate.

My son Stuart will be house sitting while we are gone, and if I come home and he has gained twenty pounds, I will have a guilty conscience for the rest of the year.

Of course Thanksgiving (another excuse for gluttony) will be coming up soon but at least Thanksgiving isn’t at discount rated.

I don’t know if our time share has wi-fi, so I may not get to the computer for the next ten days, but it isn’t as if I have kept my resolution to post at least once weekly anyway.

Ruminations on Coothood

2011-10-29T07:08:00.001-07:00

When we moved to Georgia in 1970 (expecting to stay for two years), as a family we observed what seemed to be a Georgia phenomenon. Wt least twice a week we would get stuck (on two lane roads) behind an older car or pick-up going just about ten miles slower than the speed limit. When we finally found a place where we could pass the car ahead, we could see that it was usually being driven by an elderly man, usually wearing a wide brimmed (frequently straw) hat.

It became a running joke, seeing a car slowly progressing to somewhere, and one of the kids would say, (loudly), “Don’t get behind the old man with a hat>”

Yesterday, as I was driving us to our daily water aerobics session, I pulled out of our subdivision making a right turn and progressing in a westerly direction when a car zoomed up behind us at what seemed to be an extreme rate of speed (the limit on Burkhalter road at that point is 45 miles an hour. ) I sped up a little bit to encourage the guy not to rear end me, and went on down the road to the four way stop. I turned right, and went on down the road about half a mile when I noticed that I had four cars lined up behind me. One of them passed me going over a solid no passing line, and I sped up just a bit to discourage those others from endangering their lives and mine, when Janet turned to me and said softly “Don’t you have a wide brimmed Panama hat that you should wear in the mornings? “

It took a minute for this to sink in, but I moved a little faster for the rest of the way to the swim pool. We both chuckled a bit, without discussing the topic at all.

Home Again

2011-10-18T23:37:00.001-07:00

WE got home yesterday from our vacation. We spent a week on a cruise and a second week in a time/share in the Berkshires on the Massachusetts-New York State line. Ate lots took pictures of the beautiful fall foliage and, to our surprise actually lost weight. It is good to be home.

Today, I watched the Israeli people celebrate the the recovery of their kidnapped soldier and watched the Palestinians celebrate the return of some five hundred Palestinian prisoners (with more yet to come) to their friends and families, and I confess that it makes me very uncomfortable. I can’t give a logical reason why, but I have an inner fear that this action may end up being a flash point that starts an all out Middle East war. I am trying to talk myself out of this feeling but as I watched all these people rejoice, I had, and still have a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

After the cruise

2011-10-12T18:35:00.001-07:00

I have got to post some of the things that happened between Boston and Halifax, and return but I will have to get to it a little later. We returned from our cruise Saturday morning and had to pick up a rental car before noon to get to our time-share in the Berkshires.

This time we got a cab driver who knew the way and zipped us to the car rental, and following the directions provided by the resort we went down the Mass turnpike to exit two and turned off onto US 20, (the scenic route. It took us nearly eight hours to make the 140 mile trip. For almost forty miles down near Sudbury (that's the name I can remember,) we were in a traffic jam going about 10 miles per hour. When we got to the source, we discovered that the highway department had a road block letting cars by one way (in turns). They were (THIS IS THE TRUTH)paving a drive way up into a group of houses. To pave that driveway they had made drivers along along US Highway 20 drive at ten mph for about three or four hours. Heaven only knows how long they kept that road tied up after we got through.

We arrived at our resort at about eight PM but we made it to check in, got unpacked and went to bed. The next day we rested all day. We needed it. WE didn’t have much food with us so we went about two miles to a tourist trap country store where we bought some butter, yoghurt, and had a couple of really wonderful turkey club sandwiches. WE did go to the pool and do water aerobics (not a usual Sunday Activity, but we couldn’t locate a nearby church). It was very good. We were both “stove up” from travel. We hadn’t been able to to any aerobics on the ship. The main pool on the ship was under repair and the smaller pool was so deep we didn’t have much success. Monday may have been the nicest day of our vacation so far. I need to explain that, to our surprise, we had seen very little in fall color in Boston, or at any of the ports on the way to Nova Scotia (or in Nova Scotia for that matter) but as we got half way to the Berkshires the color began to show, and right here around our lodge the view is absolutely breathtaking. Monday we drove to Bennington, Vermont where Janet wanted to go the Museum and work on Genealogy. On the way we stopped at an “Apple Barn” which was a very pretty place with pumpkins by the hundred’s for sale. Indoors they had an esoteric selection of cheeses, a lot of apples of all kinds and an interesting little shopping nook where everything was on sale and Janet did most of her Christmas shopping. (She Christmas shops all year). We made our way through Bennington sight seeing till we got to the museum. Janet had a lot of fun and got a lot of information at the museum. She found that three of her ancestors were named in a quit-claim deed where William Bradford had given land to some of the citizens of Rehoboth (I think!!!) and she located military records of others from some Indian skirmishes and the French and Indian war in particular. We had a wonderful, awesomely beautiful trip back and finished the day with an apple cider donut (from the apple barn again) with cider and some vanilla bean ice-cream. I know this doesn’t sound like an exciting day, but it is so beautiful here that just going outside is an experience. We also bought a book of Clement Moore’s NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS with illustrations by Grandma Moses (She was from this place, and they have a room in the museum dedicated to her art), and a book written and illustrated by Miles Moses (Grandma’s descendent) about Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman, a kinsman of Throop Chapman and Welcome Chapman, two of the persons we were researching.

This is a little disjointed, but the day was so beautiful and fun that I just had to write about it.

Travel reprise

2011-10-09T17:40:00.001-07:00

Some time ago I wrote about the confusion that came when, due to a computer foul up with Travelocity I ended up with two airline tickets to our family reunion in Idaho.

Early this month I wrote a post about how redeeming the thousand plus coupon we got after canceling one of the flights ended up with me using the entire coupon plus four hundred dollars to buy two round trip tickets on U.S Airways to Boston for our cruise (that were listed at 288 each and I roared on the keyboard about the whole thing). My big computer and its relationship with Windows Live Writer ate the whole thing so my vitriolic attack on Travelocity and US Air went into the great beyond. It probably was for the best because our trip to Boston was one of the best air trips we have had in years. We had ended up with seats that I thought we would hate, in the very back seats of both planes (one to Charlotte and one, Charlotte to Boston). Seated in the rear took away much of the pressure two handicapped folks have to get on and out of the plane, and at both Savannah and Charlotte the US Airline people were so helpful.

Of course when we got to Boston we discovered that somehow our hotel reservations (made through Hotwire) had fallen through. I called Hotwire and “calmly” expressed my dismay and the nice lady I talked to at Hotwire found us another reservation that actually was cheaper than the first one. Unfortunately it was about five miles further away than the first one and the added taxi fare made up the difference.

This leads to the real essence of my current post. We stayed the night at a lovely Fairfield Inn. We checked out early the next morning but stayed there in the lobby for a while so that we wouldn’t end up standing around the dock until it was time to load the ship. After awhile they called a cab for us, stating that this cab company was very prompt and our cab would be there in twelve minutes. About forty minutes later I insisted that the clerk check to see what was holding up the cab, or to call another company. She called, and in about twenty minutes later the cab arrived. We were waiting on the walk at the entry with the bags stacked around us when the cab arrived.

I got a sense of what was coming when this guy who looked about eighteen looked at the bags and asked, “Which ones ought to go in first?” i tried to help him load the baggage in the trunk, but that was complicated by some gardening equipment that was already there. We finally got everything in, (some in the front passenger seat) and we started off. I tried to be diplomatic in asking if it wasn’t traditional to start the meter when he started on the way. He replied that his meter was broken, but that his boss had set a flat fee of thirty dollars to the Black Falcon Dock which was our departure point. That was only a couple of dollars more than it had cost us to come from Logan airport and the dock was (according to instructions from the cruise line) about five miles the other side of Logan so I said okay.

He took off and got to Logan in about ten minutes less than our cab ride to the hotel so things looked promising, even though he apologized four or five times for driving with the window open because the air conditioning in the cab was broken. (He noted in passing that the speedometer in his cab was also broken.) He got into Boston proper and got hopelessly lost. He had a GPS in his hand and his boss yelling directions at him on the intercom (His boss said loudly at one time “Fellows, let us pray.”

We passed several buildings and were on several streets four or five times. Janet passed him the instructions that had been sent by the cruise line and he tried to follow them, but they were different than what his boss was yelling at him so he got more confused all the time. He finally stopped at a hotel and asked directions from the doorman, who went inside and got someone else to come out and give directions.

Following those directions and finally finding road signs we finally got to the dock. Our ten mile drive took us an hour and fifteen minutes (in addition to the time we had waited for his arrival at the Fairfield Inn. I told him as we got out of the car that if he had had the meter running I would have called a cop. He apologized and pointed out that this was his second week on the job. He was really very sweet and I hope he didn’t get fired, but we discovered that we were so late that we almost missed the boat. A great way to start a journey.

Home Again, Hurray

2011-09-12T20:22:00.001-07:00

Janet is back home. We had a scary couple of days but she is home. (Weak, spending a lot of time in bed, but home.) She was scheduled for an MRI yesterday afternoon, but she was still being sick to her stomach when they took her up to the machine. The Dr. running the thing was not happy, and implied that if her stomach decided to upchuck during the MRI she was just going to have to stay there and do it, so, they mutually agreed to postpone it till today. They had her on large doses of Ibuprofen and “”what else” all night. (She says that they woke her up every two hours to take her vitals, medicate her, take her to the bathroom and -- she was not wholly sure what else) but when she got up this morning, she could lift her left arm and move her left leg, which they found a little shocking.

She called me at about 7:45 this morning to tell me not to bring the stuff I was scheduled to bring, but that she was going to come home. I had a bunch of stuff I had to get done in the morning so when I go there at about 10 AM she was sitting in the chair in her room and was all checked out.

Prayers, good thoughts and her determination paid off. Thank you for your concern. I am astonished and pleased because when I left as she was going down to MRI, she was so obviously sick that I was sure she would be there for a week or more. That’s how much I know.

Everything New Seems Like The Same Old Thing

2011-09-10T22:38:00.001-07:00

When I first started this blog I wrote a little about politics, a little about how it feels to get older than dirt, even a little about other blogs, but back in “06” in the fall I began to wrtie about a trip Janet and I were taking to Finland via London. One of the things I mentioned while we were in England was that some of our adventures in London were restricted by the serious pain that Janet was suffering in her back, up under the shoulder blades..

WE arrived in Finland, saw some sights , visited a few old friends the (one of our purposes in the trip) went sight seeing in the new Mormon Temple that had just been finished in Helsinki, and which was open to view for the general public. The night after our visit to the temple we settled down in our little time-share and went to sleep. In the middle of the night, Janet woke, screaming from pain in her back and could only sat “DOCTOR”. I rushed her to the nearest emergency room, from which, after an examination, she was rushed to Helsinki’s Meilahti (Helsinki University) Hospital about fifty kilometers away.

For the ensuing several months this blog became a log of my visits to the hospital where a brilliant surgeon had replaced five centimeters of he upper aorta with a Dacron tube, gave her a bypass, and treated her for two strokes which had occurred during the surgery. I introduced you briefly to the two wonderful families from the local LDS church who took me and, by extension, us into their homes as family, tolerating and even loving several of my children who flew to Helsinki to see their mother and ultimately to take her home.

In spite of the warning from one of the neurologists at the hospital that when she woke, she might not know any of us or be able to function at all in a normal way, she suffered few easily tangible effects from all this except that recovery took quite a long time, and, as a result of the strokes, she has no peripheral vision on her right side, and we have both spent anxious moments going from doctor to doctor when it was discovered that she has, what they call, a dissected aorta, from top to bottom (for which a number of surgeries has been proposed, but none happened) we have lived the normal medicine filled lives of most sixty five to seven plus year old people. She helped found a charter school and taught there for a couple of years and we have had some wonderful travel, though she has some problem in airplanes.

Yesterday she felt dizzy for most of the day and spent most of the day in bed, but this morning she felt all right so we spent part of the morning going to yard sales, and had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. Part way through lunch se complained that she was getting a really bad head-ache on the left side. By the time we left the restaurant and started home she was having pain in her neck, left shoulder, and arm and by the time we got home, she was having pain in her side, and down the left leg. Fearing a stroke, I have her a couple of aspirin to chew up and swallow (yuck) and suggested that we had better take her to the doctor. She chose to go into her bedroom and lie down for awhile, and , my son Stuart and I had a prayer session in the living room requesting help from our Father in Heaven. We then went into the bedroom where she was lying very uncomfortably on her right side, she was so tender on the left side that she couldn’t get comfortable and rest. Stuart and I anointed her with oil, laid our hands up on her head and gave her a blessing, after which we got he up, into the car and to the emergency room.

She spent most of the afternoon and evening giving blood samples, getting shots for the pain, and having a sonogram and CT scan, They don’t think she had a stroke, but that the pain may be a result of swelling in her aorta. She has now been taken to Memorial Hospital in Savannah where the doctor who has been “watching” her aorta will compare the CT scans that were taken last winter with the ones taken to day, and recommend further treatment if necessary. I am nervous, but I felt a deep sense of peace as she was receiving the blessing so I am very optimistic. I’ll keep in touch. At least when I sing to her as she lays in bed, she can hear me and respond, and she was very cheerful as they took her away in the ambulance. Those of my blog friends who pray are invited to do so, and those who don’t, I appreciate good thoughts sent her way.

Back again (sorta)

2011-09-05T07:11:00.001-07:00

I haven’t posted since my birthday in July, so probably those who used to follow me have long since given up the space on their blogroll to some more useful purpose. It isn’t that I haven’t had things to write about. Janet and I went to a wonderful family reunion in Idaho, a number of interesting things have happened, but when I sit at the computer, I end up checking facebook, reading the blogs of others, (any of my favorites have become as casual about it as I) or just goofing around. I have been trying to finish the story of my son Eric, but it is so much harder when I try writing about a time when he was in the process of trying to withdraw from much of the integrated activity of our family.

Probably the biggest reason for not writing is that my mind is not as functional as it has been. I told Janet this morning that sometimes I am so happy, and other times I wonder if this getting old crap is really worth the effort. I have real trouble making simple decisions, I start and activity and the wonder what I started. This morning was a really silly thing. Janet and I like to go to good restaurants, but for some reason, I never am able to finish the entre and end up taking part of it home. Our refrigerator is sometime replete with white boxes. (This was not a problem while Eric was staying with us, he did a “white box scavenge almost every day). This morning I had my traditional greek Yoghurt quicky and notice a white box that I knew had a wonderful piece of steak in it. Deciding to add steak to my breakfast, I took it out, put it on a plate, sliced it thin and gave the thirty second microwave shot, and popped the first slice into my mouth.

It then occurred to me that I would enjoy this more if I went to the bathroom and inserted my upper platel (I am sure that people exist that can eat steak without teeth, but I am not one of them.

After the teeth were in place, the steak with ingested, and I wandered around the house for a moment, it occurred to me that this might be a good time to make a post. I started this thing, in part to share the experience of being three score and ten of more years old, and thiis was certainly an unfortunately frequent sample of the experience. (I say unfortunate, but to be honest, I have to say, I found it pretty funny. I guess it’s okay if you can laugh at your own stupidity for a moment.)

seventy seven

2011-07-31T22:06:00.001-07:00

Some time during the day today, I became seventy seven years old. To be honest, I never expected to reach that age. When I started blogging and titled the blog “THREE SCORE AND TEN OR MORE”, I was a little over a year more, now I find my self asking, if I make it three more years , should I change the name of the blog?

What is really strange is the fact that I have lost almost seventy pounds in the past year or so, and, I am really in the best functional health I have been in for four or five years. I can walk all the way across the yard without support, using walking poles (something like ski poles) i can walk almost a mile for exercise , I may try mowing the lawn Monday. Janet and I are flying out to Salt Lake City to get to our family reunion (it feels strange to be the oldest sibling in the family now). Janet had such a miserable flight coming home from Washington she had decided to let me go alone to the reunion, even though we had paid for the tickets several months ago. She has relented and decided to go with me, but I think this may be our last airplane ride ever. People may just have to come visit me.

I have given much of my old wardrobe to Good Will. At first it was giving away the size forty six inch waist trouser (I am a bit embarrassed I how many pairs I had). Then I gave away the forty fours, and forty twos, and now I am down to forties, with a few size thirty eights, though the thirty eights still take an effort to button. Whee, aint life fun.

Computering is getting difficult. My best computer has slowed to a walk, so I invested thirty bucks into one of these “clean your registry programs, and it went from slow to stop. I only got it running again by un-installing the program, but that took almost two hours.

I will now go back to writing about something else. I am making slow progress on NOT DADDT’S LITTLE BOY”, it takes lot more effort since much of this new material came after Eric move out or our home. I promise that I will try to write something interesting at least once a week. More than that, I can’t promise (I have trouble even thinking about something intersting, let alone writing it. I wish I could recover more of my mental strength that was I have recovered physically.

*To top off the rest of my whining, I wrote the above post on July 23, but when I tried to post it, it got all messed up because Georgia Southern University, dumped its E mail server and converted to Google, (g mail and other things) and my post to blogger now had duplicate Google accounts. I took me this long to get my account name straightened out.. Sigh!!

A verdict at last?

2011-07-05T20:25:00.001-07:00

I have become so sick of the Anthony trial on television. As an official news junkie I have been hungry to see what is going on in the rest of the world. The verdict came in with a not guilty result which has enraged many people who are cluttering the internet with their rage. My reaction is somewhat different, but to explain it, I have to tell some of my experience in Georgia.

When I moved to Portal I was called to jury duty within four months and from that moment, I was called to jury duty at least four times a year. Sometimes I was called to state court, sometimes to city court, and once to a grand jury. Usually I went to venire selection and was sent home after spending a day at the trial preliminaries, but once or twice a year I found myself on a jury.

It was a truly educational experience. Their was one defense lawyer named (if I remember correctly) Ray Classens, and after observing him at work two or three times, I determined that if I were ever accused of a crime, he would be my choice as a defense attorney. He was brilliant, cutting through the claptrap in such a reasonable humble way (he had one of the worst haircuts in history, and I came to the conclusion that it was that way on purpose.

In one trial, where I served on the jury for a couple of days, a young black man who had been doing yard work in a neighborhood was accused of slipping into his employer’s home and stealing a lot of jewelry. He was caught, according to the prosecution, when he went into a pawnshop to pawn a very valuable jeweled ring. The police has alerted to pawnshops to be aware of the ring, and when he tried to pawn it, the pawnbroker called the cops, who came immediately and arrest the boy. There was one complication. When the young man was arrested, the ring was nowhere to be found. They searched the pawnshop, searched the guy, even x rayed him to see if he had swallowed it. Nothing. In searching him, they found some piece of costume jewelry of almost no value that had also been reported in the theft so they arrested him and charged him with a felony. Mr. Classens pointed out, quite reasonably, that to be charged with a felony the value of the loot had to exceed some arbitrary amount, fifty dollars, or one hundred dollars or something like that, and they couldn’t find anything of that value. They could charge him with misdemeanor theft by taking but not with a felony. (I suspected that the pawnshop owner may have pawned it elsewhere, but he was never charged and the ring was never found).

The prosecutor blustered that the existence of the costume jewelry in the defendant's pocket was evidence enough the the defendant was guilty of the whole charge. Mr. Classens pointed out that the ring might never have been stolen, just reported stolen by the owner for insurance purposes, or that the pawnshop owner might have stolen it or “whatever”. The case went to the jury, and ten folks found him guilty and two of us (me being one) felt that the prosecutor had not proven the case. We sat in the jury room for several hours with the two of us vocally abused by the others.

One of the juror, a local landlord with a lot of student housing, profanely lost his temper and yelled “Sometimes I hate college professors, they always want every damn thing proven specifically. (then point to us) Can’t you understand that if it walks like a duck and squawks like a duck, it’s a damn duck.”

The case was halted with a hung jury, and some weeks later the young man pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge. and spent a few months in jail.

As I watched the prosecutors summation, and then his rebuttal summation I was struck by the fact that there was almost no evidence that tied Ms. Anthony to a murder. The argument was that she lied, that she wasn’t unhappy when her child was missing, and got a tattoo in that period, or paraphrasing, “She walked like a duck and quacked like a duck to she must be a duck”.

I suspect that she did the deed, but she was acquitted due to what seemed to me to be total ineptitude in the handling of evidence by law enforcement and total ineptitude on the part of the prosecutors. In my heart, I suspect her guilt and wish there were some way to punish her, but I think that any of us who might be rightly or wrongly accused of a crime should breath a sigh of relief that guilt was not proven on the basis of accusation alone.

When the ranting folks calm down, we will finally get to find out what has been going on in the rest of the world.

Going Home

2011-06-27T15:25:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow at 6:46 A.M. (and I won’t be late for the plane again) we leave Washington to go back to Georgia. I am on a little break from packing.

I just picked up a June 1957 copy of TV Guide from the detritus of a yard sale in which some of my family participated. I was interested to find a major article about media manipulation by politicians and discovered that one of the early and most successful of media-manipulators was the estimable Bill Moyers, working, at that time as press secretary for Lyndon Johnson (yes, that Bill Moyers whom we are told is so objective and fair that his fecal matter fails to stink even if it falls on the ground)

The article went on to point out media manipulation by all presidents since that time (and implies that it existed before that time as well.)

A second article in the same issues calls Jimmy Carter on the same charge and says that he had no identifiable political phylsosphy except to manage his message (or massage as it says) to match the polls of that time.

It was interesting to see the identification of these things fifty-plus years ago years ago, In politics, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

2011-06-25T20:34:00.001-07:00

A WONDERFUL RESTAURANT

This evening we invited our grandson and his parent to dinner in celebration of his high school graduation. We had planned to go to Ringside in Portland because we go some wonderful steaks there time we went. Unfortunately we couldn’t get reservations this evening so we asked my son to suggest another place. He played with his magic telephone for a minute or two and said that he had heard good things about a Brazilian Steak House called El Gaucho. We called for reservations, got them and off we went.

What a wonderful choice. We had an appetizer called Wicked Shrimp, and got great shrimp in what they called “El Diablo sauce” and followed up with a variety of dishes. My grandson and I had a sirloin steak with lobster medallions called the El Gaucho steak with asparagus etc. My daughter in law had a chicken dish with lobster medallions, my son had a rib eye steak that probably was as good as it looked (and it looked wonderful), and my wife ordered something called “Flaming Swords” with tenderloin medallions. We ordered sides to share, and Janet and I shared a baked potato that was totally decadent, and the man came with the Flaming Sword and set it ablaze at our tableside.

Everything was absolutely top notch including the fiery tenderloin. The service was out of this world with an ambiance that was also first rate with lighting that was just barely light enough to read the menu and very good Latin (I presume Brazilian) music . To top it off, because it was our first time in the restaurant and in honor of grandson’s graduation the manager provided a complementary desert of “Bananas Foster” another flaming dish prepared at tableside.

All in all, it was the best restaurant experience we have had in several years, and if any of you pass through Portland Oregon, I heartily suggest that you seek out El Gaucho. What a wonderful place.

Wonderful visit

2011-06-23T23:48:00.001-07:00

We have had a wonderful time here in Washington. We went to my grandson’s graduation, visited with family, we went to some yard sales, and ate too much. Today we took some time off for a visit to Janet’s ninety year old uncle in The Dalles, Oregon. It is a little less than two hours from Camas, where we have been staying. I borrowed a car from my son, and off we went.

When we arrived at his home I was impressed with the wonderful roses that grew against the fence. They were really outstanding. He point to some other flowers that were growing against the house. and I had to admit that I had never seen flowers like them. They had long stems and were about three feet tall with enormous round purple flowers six to eight inches in diameter. He they revealed that they were ONIONs. They bloom all summer long and turn brown after frost. I can hardly wait to see if I can get some like them to grow in Georgia.

Ken is a wonderful guy. The last time we had a chance to visit with him was about a year before his wife of 67 years passed away. He has been working on a taped oral history that we plan to type up and print for the family. About two weeks ago his family, who have been urging him to move our of his house, came over and held a yard sale and sold a lot of, what he a called, clutter. Among the things they sold were the tape recorder and tapes he has been using for the oral history, but he was quick to let us know that he had copies of most of it, and hopes to finish it very soon.

We chatted about our respective ages and Janet asked him how old Vera ( his wife) was when they were married. He smiled and said 19, going on 17. We kindly pointed out that this was the reverse of common counting, and he laughed aloud. He told us that when he was in the Army in WWII, he met her and began to date. He asked her her age and she answered “19”.

After they had dated for some time he asked her to marry him and she answered in the affirmative, and like most young ladies she rushed him over to her sister’s home where she told her sister that they were engaged. Her sister replied that she couldn’t get married without her father’s signed permission. Ken asked why and was told that she was not “of age” she was only 17. Thus, he said, “she was 19, going on 17. I asked him if they had any trouble getting the father’s signature, and he told us that he had no idea; the she and the sister handled that, and he never met her father till after the wedding.

I made some comment about saying “i do” without seeing the father and he replied “I did”.

However it happened they were married sixty seven years, had five successful children and bunch of grandchildren and now some great grandchildren

It was a lovely time. We also had a chance to have dinner with his daughter, her husband, his daughter’s children, her daughter in law, and a few of the grandchildren (or great grandchildren) It was a really good spaghetti dinner with a salad made of watermellon chunks, strawberries, apple sliced and mandarin oranges in a wonderful sauce, and it concluded with a rhubarb cobbler that was outstanding. Rhubarb is one of my favorite fruits, and my efforts to grow it in Georgia have been dismal failures.

All in all it was a wonderful day, a little spoiled when Janet got carsick on the way home.

Her sickness and the fact that we both forgot to take our cameras were the only blots on the evening.

You know you’re getting old when:

2011-06-19T14:16:00.001-07:00

You know you’re getting old when:

1. Your fingernails are so desiccated that you have to use the edge of a dime to get your pocket knife open.

2. It takes so long to get your pocket knife open that when you get it open you can’t remember what you were going to do with it.

3. The length of time between the time your body informs you that it is time to excrete fluids from your body and the time when your body begins to excrete is measured in milliseconds.

4. Deciding that you have not been adequately embarrassed by the excretion differential noted above, your doctor prescribes a diuretic (usually furosimide- the name sounds almost as wicked as the product) in order to make the flow of fluid from your body even less predictable and more forceful than it already is.

5. Walking is painful, but less painful than standing, or sitting with the knees bent. (three cheers for supine).

6. Your feet are so subject to pain that pre-medicating and inspecting the feet for damage makes the process of putting on shoes and stockings take more time than the other members of the family use to shower, get dressed and be ready for the day.

7. The bows that with which you have tied your shoes successfully for many years seem to loosen an untie constantly unless they are now double tied or otherwise “glued” in place. Even then, at least twice a day someone informs you that your shoes are untied.

8. The zipper on your pants-fly seems to have been affected by gravity, causing your children and grandchildren to whisper, often, with only a slight smirk, “Zip up your fly.”

9. When you are rushing through the Atlanta airport, get to the train that takes you from area to area, and, upon entering the train, a mature woman with grey hair gets up and offers you her seat.

We made it!

2011-06-14T16:07:00.001-07:00

Well we got to Washington in time to go to grandson Brett’s graduation. The trip out was, in some ways, almost as irritation as was the procurement of the tickets, but in this case, there was no question who was to blame for the problems, it was little me all the way.

We had tickets for a flight that was to leave from Savannah at 6:30 A.M. Savannah is about an hour away, so we made plans to leave home at 4:30, arrive in Savannah at 5:30 and fly away at 6:30. (That is pretty safe in Savannah because the early morning lines are not too long in Security) We were pushing it a little bit because we made arrangements for son Stuart to ride with us and bring the car home to avoid expensive parking, and I foolishly agreed to pick him up at his house which added fifteen minutes to the trip. I checked in for the flight in the evening and printed up our boarding passes and tried to do stuff in the organized way.

The problem came when I arose just before four and Old Phart (me) just couldn’t get his neuropathic feet functioning, the bags out to the car etc. in the half hour allotted. (I should have planned to get up an hour sooner). By the time we got Stuart picked up we were way behind schedule, and in spite of breaking numerous traffic laws we didn’t get to the baggage counter until after six. The plane was already loading (and of course I had mislaid my boarding passes). We could probably have made it if we had limited ourselves to carry on luggage, but we had bags to check and the lady at the counter pointed out that they couldn’t possibly get X rayed and on the plane in time.

We ended up paying the penalty (fifty bucks a ticket) and getting our tickets transferred to a 1:00 o’clock P.M. flight. All we had to do was to kill 12 hours waiting for departure. I will have to say that the people from Delta were very helpful and shepherded this situation in a way that gave us a lot of reassurance. They were exceptionally helpful.

Stuart had “dropped us” and departed, but I called him (cell phones are very helpful) back and we went to breakfast at a Cracker Barrel and killed time with company.

I thought our troubles were over until we got in the security line and were held up because Janet had a “snow globe” in her carry on that was a present for one of our grandchildren. The man told me I could take it down to the Post Office in the basement and mail it Priority mail, so I rushed away to do that, and at his suggestion took my baggage claims over to the lost baggage counter and they managed to get her suitcase down before it was loaded and I inserted the snow globe, so that it could travel legally to Washington.

The flight itself was Okay. We had a short jaunt to Atlanta, a transfer in Atlanta and a through flight to Portland (our destination). The planes were crowded and we didn’t get as good seats as were on my lost boarding passes, but we arrived, only about seven hours later than we had expected. With all the complaining I did about the ticket acquisition, I have to say that the flight process was made as pleasant as possible by really helpful airport personnel both in Savannah and Atlanta. The problems we had were strictly my doing. (As Janet has kindly reminded me several times.

Somebody’s doing something stupid

2011-06-05T21:17:00.001-07:00

I travel quite a lot to see my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and occasionally just go for a trip to be with Janet and away from the house. Tuesday morning, June 7, we leave for Camas, Washington to see my grandson’s High School Graduation. We procrastinated getting tickets for awhile, hoping airlines would get desperate for clientele (they didn’t). About the middle of May I decided to get our tickets.

I tend to buy tickets mostly through Travelocity, occasionally through Expedia, less occasionally through Cheap Tickets, Hotwire or directly from the airlines. I almost always shop all of these places and occasionally call a local travel agent, but I have a card that says I am a preferred Travelocity Customer, so you know where I end up a lot of the time.

This time, it was a mess. After a lot of sifting through the offerings, I decided that I would book on US Air through Travelocity. I went through the process, picked our seats and planned the trip. Just as I started to conclude the process, Travelocity gave me an encouragement to click something and get some special benefit, and like an idiot, I clicked it. This took me to another page asked me some questions and, disgusted with my self I tried to get back in and conclude my purchase. I couldn’t find any of it. I checked my itineraries, my account, everything else I could think of and none of the fruits of my computer labor seemed to be available. I had no confirmation on my email, no trip on my itineraries, NOTHING.

It was getting late, so I decided to go to bed and finish up the next day. The next morning I went back trying to find the reservations I had started and there was nothing, so I started from scratch, and voila, I found seats on Delta, leaving the following day (The first reservations were for Monday the sixth, these were for Tuesday the seventh leaving at almost the same time, but getting into Portland a couple if hours earlier) and these tickets were almost fifty bucks apiece cheaper. I ordered them struggled because I had mislaid my Delta frequent flyers card and they were giving me a poorer choice of seats, but—Oh well, I ordered the tickets.

We have a family reunion coming up the last week in July. We had toyed with going to Washington for graduation on the tenth of June and just hanging around until July, but I have so many things to do on our house (I am healthier now, and more able to do work, than I have been in about five years) that we decided to come back home in June, and make another trip at the end of July. This decision was boosted along because, for some purchase she had made, Bank of America, for a particular credit card, sent her a “Buy one get one free, two passengers for the price of one certificate, so we made reservations to go west to Utah and Idaho for the family reunion at the end of August. In honor of the offer, we put both trips on that credit card.

I printed up the confirmation letter for the flight to Portland , sent copied to my family out there and considered our fate inexpensively filled.

Three days later Janet had a call from her credit card company asking if we were sure we wanted to charge both trips at that time, and Janet answered that “Yes we have a trip in June and one in July, and put them both on the card”

I never thought another thing about it till Jan received her credit card bill at the beginning of this month. It had charges for the trip on Delta, AND for the trip on US air the day before. Obviously the man from Bank of America was talking about the two trips in June rather than one in June and one in July. Our bill was about eleven hundred bucks more than we were expecting.

I went back on the computer to Travelocity and still had no trace of the US Air trip in my itineraries.

If you have used Travelocity you may have noticed a little box on the lower right of the second or third page that says, in effect, Travelocity guarantee. If your reservations get messed up we will get together with our partners and straighten them out.

I immediately called customer service, and after twenty four minutes of music and speakers telling me how important my call is, someone answered the phone and speaking in heavily accented English began to try to straighten out the mess. I have seventy seven year old ears, so he had to repeat everything at lest three times. When he asked for my trip number, I clarified that I had never received it, nor completed the order (US AIR on Monday). He told me that he had a copy of the Email that was sent to me on May 17, (never received it) and finally said that he could cancel the tickets, but I would not receive a refund (Actually I have never had to buy refundable tickets before, and I didn't this time, but as far as I had been able to find out I had never completed the order) I would receive a credit for the eleven hundred bucks Plus, but I would have to fly on US Air wherever I used the tickets (I have one year) and will have to pay a fee of $180.00 per ticket. I shouted at the poor man a couple of times and he cancelled the flight (and told me what my trip number was- -- wasn’t that exciting?).

My brain took over for a moment and I looked at my “preferred customer card” and it had another number to call so I called it and with a very short wait time got a reply from another accented voice who promised that if , when I used the credit to travel, I would do it through that office they would lower the fee to $150.00. Because I was not sure I understood everything he said I asked him if he would email me the information and he promised that he would ( The email never came, but I did get an e mail verifying the cancellation of the one set of tickets. I still have to pay for them, but I have a cancellation number. I am not sure whether to swear at Travelocity because they couldn’t straighten out the mess, and the computer would never bive me information on the first flight, and they told me about emails that never came. Or should I swear at Richard who stupidly clicked on the possible extra reward, and ended up thinking that his first flights were cancelled or should I just (I really have no choice in this one) pay the bill and weep. (And hope that sometime in the next year US Air will have a flight to somewhere that I want to travel, and that I will have the $150.00 or $180.00 per ticket that I have to pay in addition to every thing else. I am sure I screwed up, but Travelocity did so as well. PSSTHSSIIIS#%#%.

Another Food Story

2011-05-29T16:29:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, we went out yard saling, not that we have room for anything in the house, but I like to see what is around. Strangely enough I found a place where they had a bunch of office stuff that I had a “to do” to go buy at Office Max, Janet found a couple of things she liked, so we decided to celebrate our mini victories by going to one of our favorite restaurants. It is one of those Mexican Restaurants that is trying to become a chain (they have three, very busy, places right here in Statesboro. Janet and I are both fajita lovers, and we had decided to have the lunch fajita (cheaper and a little bit smaller than the regular one) when, on a sudden urge I suggested what they call the “Special Parilla for two) It is a fajta with chicken, beef, shrimp, pork, and sausage. It is delivered with a 2 massive plates of guacamole, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cheese, rice, pico de gallo (sp) and refried beans. We decided to each forgo the rice and have a double helping of refried beans (covered with melting oaxaca cheese) They were delivered with flair, six large flour tortillas and the fajita meats proper. I am still angry that I didn’t carry a camera into the store. I tell you it was impressive. The meats, grilled with green and red peppers and tomatoes must have weighed two pounds. We had already been snacking on tortilla chips (nachos?) and salsa.

We each had two tortillas, filled to overflowing. I rarely eat my entire entre in a restaurant but I ate till I was in pain, and the observer could hardly see the dent in the pile of meat (though I did well by the refried beans and guacamole, these are common items in Mexican Restaurants, but at El Sombrero they are special). We asked for take-home boxes. and the left over meat filled one of them to overflowing. In the other we put mostly tortilla chips, the extra tortillas, and some of the cheese and salsa. It too was filled to the top.

We took this home, arriving just as Stuart had come by after work on his way to a fencing meet. He filled two tortillas to the max with “stuff” and ate with great gusto. When he was finished I put the rest in its white box into the refrigerator. That evening for a snack, I baked two potatoes, covered them with more fajita meat, What I am trying to say is that two of us had one meal, another had one meal and there was enough pure deliciousness for two more complete meals in the evening.

I have been very pleased with having lost almost seventy pounds in the last year. If we went for that same meal twice a week, I would gain it all back in a couple of months.

A coupla things

2011-05-27T06:42:00.001-07:00

I wrote a few weeks ago about my ambitions, one of which was to walk all the way across my back yard, standing up vertically without pain or hesitation. I succeeded yesterday and not only walked across the yard but carried a box of books. This is not something that would be noteworthy for most people, but I was really pleased and excited.

Second issue: Janet and I made our monthly pilgrimage to the pharmacy yesterday to pick up our prescriptions (over a hundred bucks apiece for co-payments –we have prescription drug insurance) and it was too darn hot to go home and fix a meal so we decided to have lunch at a restaurant.

After some discussion we decided to go to Longhorn Stake House. Janet had her favorite grilled chicken salad, and I went with one of my favorites, the Cowboy Pork chop (with a baked sweet potato and a house salad. Both were excellent and “on sale”, but we both required a take-home box at the end. (I haven’t finished a restaurant meal in years) We love little white boxes (or their contents) for snacks, or dinner). As the server handed our boxes to Janet she leaned over and said “There will be no check, someone else has already paid for you meals”

I don’t know how many folks out there have had this experience, but I will be 77 years old next month , and it was a first for me. I glanced around a couple of time to see if anyone I knew were in the place, but didn’t see any one familiar. We left a tip for the server, assuming that whoever paid our bill would not have also tipped the server, and fairly danced out to the car and went home. (we didn’t really dance, not with our legs,) then we went home with our little boxes and had the leftovers for supper. Some wonderful person had really bought us two meals apiece.

Plumbing alterations.

2011-05-23T20:51:00.001-07:00

I spent most of Saturday changing out a toilet in the Johnson house. The old one had been an irritation for a long time. It was one of those that needed to be flushed two or three time and occasionally needed the application of a plunger (plumber’s friend) to accomplish its purpose. In addition to those failings, it had a fourteen or fifteen inch seat, so for old coots It was hard to get onto and sometimes even harder to leave.

Fortunately I had son, Stuart, to do a lot of the heavy lifting or the task might never have been accomplished. New John = Nice John, comfortable seating up seventeen inches from the floor, and, so far, it has accomplished its task with notable efficiency. I put the old one out in the back yard till I can dispose of it properly.

I couldn’t help reflecting about an earlier episode in one of our homes (quite early in the marriage) when I placed the old John out in the front yard preparatory to disposal when I had what I thought was a creative and interesting idea. I filled the bowl with potting soil and transplanted a hydrangea bush with pretty dark blue blooms into the bowl. I had just finished filling the tank with potting soil and was about to plant something else, (petunias, I think) when Janet drove home from “wherever she had been” (I don’t always remember extraneous items). when she slammed on the brakes of her car (not even coming in the driveway) jumped out of the car, approached my creation with a call of something like “What in the world is that supposed to be?” It was then that I discovered that my beautiful wife did not share all of my opinions about what is creative, and had a manner of expressing her disagreement energetically, forcefully and with a remarkable lack of subtlety. Subsequently the hydrangea found its way into a clay pot, the potting soil went on the flour beds and John made an ignominious trip to the dump.

She told a number of friends about the occurrence, and, to my disappointment most of them agreed with her.

Ambitions

2011-05-22T11:14:00.001-07:00

Doing all that memory lane stuff for DADDY’S LITTLE BOY started me thinking about all the things I planned to do fifty or so years ago and contrasting those ambitions (quite a few of which were fulfilled) with my current ambitions. I was thinking about them in church this morning. I thought of three.

1. Walk swiftly across the yard without limping or groaning aloud. (I very nearly reached that one yesterday)

2. Stay awake through all the sermons in church

3. Don’t drool or spill food and shirt, T shirt, or tie while eating. (I’m swiftly running out of shirts since I have discovered that food stains are almost impossible to get out of shirts.)

I’m giving myself a two week window for the achievement of all three.

Will report success or failure at the termination of two weeks.

Shorter post (Thank Heavens)-pin setting for bowlers.

2011-05-20T12:31:00.001-07:00

In doing the research through journals and pictures for DADDY’S LITTLE BOY, I found a great many memories (some that preceded Eric’s existence by years. ) that seemed irrelevant to the central subject pf that post, and to the next long tome that will come out in a few months called NOT DADDY’S LITTLE BOY.

For instance, I am a fan of the TV show BONES, and this evening the episode dealt with a bowling center and the inhabitants thereof. I spent a couple of years during my junior high and high school period working in bowling alleys. I confess that the characterization of “league” bowlers in that episode didn’t relate to any of the types of bowlers I saw in the late nineteen forties in real life, nor to those whom I met more recently in bowling alleys where I went before my physical condition made bowling totally out of the question.

Other things about the episode recalled memories that, though different were very vivid. When I was a pin setter in the bowling alley in Pocatello, Idaho, the process and equipment was totally different. Back then (not in the same establishments) there were two types of bowling: duck pins, and regular bowling. Duck pins were quiet small and the bowling balls were not much bigger than a competition soft ball. There were no holes in the balls for fingers and the pins were all set by hand. A pin setter had to clear the lane (pick up all the fallen pins) by hand, and for a new frame, each pin was hand set by the pin-setter. I tried that and found myself totally unable to do the job without slowing the game down to nothing. One evening on the job was quite enough for me, and much too much for the owner of the lanes. (ignominiously fired after about two hours of incompetence)

The next episode came in a real bowling alley with full size pins and balls in lanes owned and run by a really terrific guy called “Tuff” (or “Tough”) Nelson (who in an unrelated fact had a really beautiful daughter who was one of my closer friends through Junior High School and on whom I had a crush for about three years. Having a “crush” can really make a plain friendship complicated. I am not sure whether she knew I was bonkers about her, but if she did, she was kind enough no to let it intrude on our general friendship ). I can’t remember the name of the bowling alley but it was on the west side of Pocatello, not far from the Portneuf River. My older brother started working there before me, and somehow recruited me, or got me in touch with the boss. Setting pins in a bowling alley at that time was a hot, physical, and exciting job. ( By the way, I called the owner, MR. NELSON, Tuff was for friends and equals.)

Nowadays, bowlers are accustomed to throwing the first ball, seeing the rack come down and pick up the remaining pins, sweep the fallen pins away, returning the ball and resetting the pins in their proper places all in one, sort of, mystic act. Back then, when you bowled your first ball, a pinsetter had to jump down, pick up the ball to return it and clear out the fallen pins and put then in the proper slots in the rack. . He/she (she’s were rare but those who were willing to put up with it were good) then had to jump up on a bench and try to be out of the way when your next ball came down the lane. When your second ball had been thrown, the process was repeated, the ball returned and the rack was manually dropped to put the pins in place for the next frame.

Pinsetters were paid by the line (a completed score for one bowler on a score sheet). Most games, if I remember right were good for at least two lines (at about a dime apiece, I think) If bowlers were fast, playing more and talking less, you could make pretty good money (especially with tips, which were common and expected.) Beginning bowlers were a pain, and I think that we had an uncomplimentary name for them. (Though if it were as uncomplimentary as I recall, it was nothing that I would write in a blog. )

The best job was to set pins for a league. Each game would use two lanes and, most of the time, one pinsetter worked both lanes, jumping from one lane to the other. If a guy were good enough to keep both lanes moving for an entire league series ( I don’t remember how many games on a league night but it must have been ten or more) one could rack up pretty good cash and often make a tip of five or ten bucks. The guys who were really good were often requested by teams, and that was great. I was pretty good, ( good enough to make good tips), but not good enough to often be requested.

Accidents were frequent in the pits, but not so often in leagues. Beginning bowlers would often make a second bowl while you were still in the pit clearing pins. I can think of very few things less pleasant that looking up to see a bowling ball speeding toward your head while you are still bent over picking up pins. My brother got a broken nose from a pin that was hit by a ball while he was still in the pit. Fortunately he was not hit by the ball itself.

One of the nice things about working there was that, when the lanes were slow, even if you couldn’t make much money, you could trade off with a friend, set pins for him one line and then he would set pins for you and you could have a lot of fun bowling free. I got to be a fair bowler before I quit, bowling in the high hundreds or low two hundreds pretty often. (160 to 220, I never bowled a game over 250, a perfect game is 300 and I only saw one 300 game while I was working there.

We worked pretty till pretty late, especially on league nights, but Pocatello had a pretty good bus system and most of us were able to get the bus home. I don’t remember any of the pinsetters except one guy who was in his forties or so, and had been doing it for a long time, having cars. I do remember a few folks getting picked up by their parents. If we missed the bus it meant a long walk home for most of us. Sometimes we created a little trouble. I blogged, several years ago, I think, of one occasion where six or eight of us were walking home down Center Street when we came to the Rialto Theatre, where the movies for the night were still playing . There was a little Japanese or European car the looked like a small box, sitting in front of the theatre, and as if on cue, we picked up the car, stood it on its rear bumper and slid it behind the box office, letting it down carefully so that it blocked all the exit doors. We never considered the possibility of a fire or something like that, and I suspect that if the police had ever discovered who did it, that we would have spent our lives with a police record, but it happened. That was the only time I remember when we did something really stupid on the way home.

Daddy’s Little Boy (long)

2011-05-18T15:02:00.001-07:00

I have a problem with grouping people superficially with names like Hippies, Beatniks, even with Conservatives and Liberals, as if, once you have plugged someone into that category you have identified everything important. I think one has the right to define him or herself if one desires, but for the thinking person, even self definition into categories is treacherous because one has the temptation, once one is “self-defined” to expect everyone who uses that category for self, to identify everyone using that label as fitting the same definition. As a result, self defined folks tend to expect everyone who uses that label to be exactly alike, and to judge them if they fall short. For instance, I have identified myself as a Conservative for long enough to have been seriously angry when the Republican Party picked Dwight Eisenhower over Robert Taft to be it’s Presidential Candidate, and I get very irritated at people like Rush Limbaugh who have redefined the term and judge any one who does not meet their personal redefinition as a fake Conservative (Neo-Con, RINO, or Heaven knows what). The same holds true of Liberals, Progressives, etc.) No matter how one defines oneself, it is really likely to be very different from many of those who pre-defined themselves with the same name.

I could have sped that up by asserting that every one is really unique, regardless of the label. It is true however that the tern “unique” seems to fit some people better than it does others;

My son, Eric Reid Johnson, who was born in September of 1959 and who died of lung cancer in November of this year (2010) was, in my opinion one of those. I have titled this tale “Daddy’s Little Boy”, but in order to define those elements that made him truly unique, i will have to post a second part of the story titled “Not Daddy’s Little Boy”. If you make it through this lengthy post you may be interested in the second part which will some along as I can convince my shaky old body to sit at the computer again.

At the time he was born, I had just begun my teaching career, teaching Speech and Drama at Twin Falls High School in Twin Falls, Idaho. His first year was most distinguished by the fact that he began to have serious colic at about three months, and when colic hit him, we could have rented him out as a fire siren. He screamed for sometimes four hours at a stretch and burping, rocking, or cuddling him had no effect at all. We took him to the Doctor in the midst of such an attack (He did NOT stay in the waiting room very long) We asked in some desperation what could be done, and the Doctor replied that he might give us a prescription for Phenobarbital. I looked at him and asked “Phenobarbital for a baby”? “No,” he replied, “For his parents.”

I’ve parented six children, and the most shocking moment of my life as a father came when i was home alone with Eric, the very first, and he began to scream. I massaged his abdomen, I burped him, I rocked him in the rocking chair (which sometimes helped, we bought it at the Doctor’s suggestion) but nothing helped. He seemed to get louder by the minute, and I found myself with a terrible urge to smash him against the wall. This urge shocked me so much that I was shaking all over, and I carefully walked in and laid him in his crib, then left the house and spent the ensuing fifteen minutes pacing up and down the street in front of the house, crying and shaking. When I got my self calmed down, I want back into the house, and fortunately Eric had calmed down as well. I still shudder when I think of that moment.

Doesn’t look like a screaming monster, does he.

The most interesting reaction to colic happened that next summer. I had to go to Long Beach, California to take some kind of education courses (I can’t remember what courses or why it had to be in Long Beach, but I am sure that I wouldn’t have driven all the way to Long Beach if it weren’t necessary.) I not only had to take the courses, but had to work at two jobs, and Janet had to work as well, in order to financially avoid catastrophe at the time. For that reason, we talked my oldest sister who was then in high school, into coming with us and serving as a semi-unpaid baby sitter. One evening Eric had been rocked, massaged, had warm cloths held on his abdomen, and finally just put to bed, while the rest of us went into the living room to avoid the noise. Abruptly a loud knock came at the door. When we opened the door, we were confronted with two large (probably not actually as large as they seemed at the time) uniformed policemen and a lady whom we were informed represented some city family service organization. We apparently had been reported to the police as child abusers. We invited them in just as Eric doubled his volume. We explained the situation and invited them to try to comfort him. They took turns holding him, rocking him, changing his diapers, etc., to no effect whatsoever. After about half an hour, they apologized for bothering us. One of the cops grinned and muttered something like “I had one like that”. A few minutes after they left, he fell asleep, and the house was calm for awhile, but it was quite frightening.

Not long after that, before we left Long Beach to return to Idaho, the colic just seemed to disappear, and life was better.

As we moved back to Twin Falls, we had traded our basement apartment for an old frame house, and within a short time Eric was walking, Janet found a job teaching Jr. High School (An old friend who went to our church took care of Eric while we were working—no more colic, which was good.)

Eric’s and my next memorable adventure came the next summer. I took a job as waterfront director at a Boy Scout camp that summer. Janet and I moved to a little cabin at the Scout camp where we did all the fun things we could fit in when I was not on duty. The camp had a nice little lake as well as a naturally heated pool, where we often taught strokes to the complete beginner swimmers. (And went to swim on off hours.)

At the swim pool the camp also had a washing machine where the camp staff could do laundry with the naturally heated water.

Through with colic and ready to go swimming

On one of weekend periods between troop arrivals I went up to do the family laundry and Eric who was not quite two years old came along. He was giggling at something in the nearby woods when I reached in to remove the laundry. He suddenly stopped giggling and I looked up from the washing machine and he was not in view. He had been standing right beside me and suddenly disappeared. I quickly ran to the pool side and voila, there he was, calmly swimming under water, in the middle of the pool.

I dropped the laundry and jumped into the pool to “rescue” him. I snatched him up in a cross-body carry and took him, kicking and screaming, to the pool edge. As I sat him on the bank, he quit screaming and dived (yes I wrote “dived”) back into the pool. As I re-rescued him, he made it clear with his limited vocabulary that he wanted to swim some more. I in turn made it clear that he was not to jump (or dive) into the pool again, but if he came home quietly, I would put on my swim suit, he could put on his, and we could come to the pool together and I would teach him to swim on top of the water. This I did, and he was swimming better than some of my Boy Scouts in about two weeks. I still had to make it clear that he was not to come to the pool unless his mother, or I, was with him.

A few weeks later, we moved to Ohio where I had an assistantship to go back to school at Ohio University to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre.

(I had resigned my teaching position at Twin Falls High School, which I loved, because we made a decision to buy a little 12,000 dollar tract house, the payments for which would have been less than we paid in rent, but because, with my 4700 dollar salary, the bank would not approve the loan, and it was in the day when the bank would not count Janet’s teaching salary because she was “ still of childbearing age.” The alternative was to go back to school to try to put myself in a better earnings bracket.)

Eric didn’t have a lot of noteworthy activity during this part of the Ohio period. As a matter of fact he was, kind of, the perfect kid. His Sunday School teachers adored him. We lived on the second floor of a converted army barracks, and he quickly became friends with every one in the building. He had a bit of adventure when a new baby brother was born.

Janet’s physician was a real old fashioned doctor, many of whose patients were on welfare. (Athens Ohio was a really depressed area at the time. One of my caustic colleagues was fond of saying that, in most communities, Lil Abner was read as a comic, but in Athens they read Lil
Abner for the local news.) Janet went several weeks past her expected delivery date and the doctor decided to induce labor. He took her into the hospital late in the evening, induced labor and the baby was born just after midnight. The doctor took me aside and told me that if he sent her home before she had been in the hospital twenty four hours that we would be billed as outpatients, and that he would send her home early if I would promise to not allow her to go up and down the stairs to our second story walk up for at least ten days. I promised, and she went home about nine thirty in the evening. We had been required to make a 200 dollar deposit when she checked into the hospital. When we checked out, they had to return 76 dollars of my deposit.

For awhile, Eric was the cook, end runner and general factotum in our house while I was at the university, until Janet was on her feet (he was about three years old at the time.) He had also to be good because, about a month later Janet had to help me by retyping my master’s thesis.

When my degree was finished we went to Rhode Island where I was the new scene designer (not my primary field, but my assistantship had been in the scene shop, and I had designed several plays.) I only directed two plays in my two years in Rhode Island.

One major thing that happened in Rhode Island came when we agreed to foster an six year old child with downs syndrome. We only had the little boy for four months, and we tried very hard, but he just beat up both of the children. Eric, at first was terrified of him, but gradually he found ways to hide or bribe the boy but Stuart was too young to do anything, but the boy would sneak in and hit the baby to make him cry. We finally reached the point where we had, with great sorrow, but some relief, to let the boy go back to institutional care. Eric went to pre-kindergarten at the Henry Barnard school, the Laboratory School at Rhode Island College. By the time we left Rhode Island so I could work on my PhD he knew his letters and was reading very simple picture books.

Rhode Island was a wonderful experience for our family. I will write a future post about all the things that happened to us, but, here, I will stick mostly to things related specifically to Eric . Several of the significant things had to do with our church. At that time, if a new chapel were to be built in a Mormon congregation, the local membership had to raise a significant part of the money (in small units like ours, about 20 percent, in big Utah congregations the percentage was fifty percent and could be as much as seventy percent. When the building was to be built, the church would send an experienced building supervisor, and certain elements would be subcontracted locally, but most of the building had to be done by the members. This particular building was built in two phases, the first was a relatively large room with would serve as the main meeting room, and with portable dividers as two or three classrooms with other classrooms and a baptismal font at the side. When that part of the building was complete, it served as our meeting hall while we built the larger second phase to be the chapel or sanctuary .

When the second phase began, it was spring and I was off work for the summer. I went to work full (unpaid) time on the building. Since I had been a bricklayer for a while back in Idaho, I was given the responsibility of teaching folks to lay brick, laying up the corners etc.

Eric was attending Primary on a week day and when the meeting was over he came out to watch daddy work. As he left the building he ran his hands over the hinge area of the door and his pinky finger was caught as the door closed. Most of the tip of the finger was taken right off. He let out a scream the reminded me of his colic days. I dropped whatever I was doing and rushed to him. We both got all bloody, and we rushed him to the emergency room, where they stitched up the finger, We took the remaining part of the finger with us, but the doctor said that it was so damaged that it couldn’t be used to close the wound. For the rest of his life, he had no fingerprint and just a sliver of a fingernail on that finger.

Toward the end of the summer he and I had another trauma. I was checking a plumb line that one of the young men who was working on the building was using to lay up leads on the brick veneer for the block walls that had been finished, and he accidently kicked a piece of two by ten lumber that was (for what reason I don’t know, but I now know why construction zones are now categorized as “hard hat” zones) sitting up on the block wall we were veneering. The board came down down end first and hit me on the head, knocking me out, cutting a large gash in my scalp, and causing a concussion. As fate would have it, just as it hit me, Eric came out of the same door where he had the accident (this time holding hands with his mother) just in time to see it hit my head and knock me silly.

I was in the hospital for the rest of the day, but Eric cried a lot and his mother had to convince him that I was injured and not dead. Until I got home, I don’t think he believed her. I showed him the curved four inch long stitched seam up the back of my skull, which he found interesting and, until my hair got longer he enjoyed coming up to me, sitting in my lap and feeling the “seam”. I think he was a bit disappointed when I went in and had the stitches removed.

A couple of weeks later Eric’s younger brother, Stuart (almost three) was running around a post in our basement playroom and fell, biting his tongue almost completely in half (lengthwise, I have never figured out how his tongue could be placed in his mouth in such a position to make such a bite , but…). Fortunately I was at home, partly because my head was hurting, and when Eric called upstairs with fear in his voice, I rushed downstairs and picked Stuart up. He was bleeding profusely and, as i rushed him upstairs to the car, I called to Janet asking her to take care of Eric while I rushed Stuart to the hospital. She actually beat me to the car because I was moving slowly from the head injury I had suffered.

We got to the nearest emergency room with Janet driving and me still carrying Stuart. We rushed into the ER, Stuart and I covered with blood and asked the admitting nurse to get a doctor immediately, I was afraid he would choke on his own blood. She calmly told us to sit down on the bench and wait our turn. After about fifteen minutes I walked to he desk and shouted a number of things at her that were not complementary and she said to sit down before she called security.

In response I picked up Stuart and and began to stomp down the hall screaming that we needed a doctor and asking who I had to sue in order to get medical help. ( I have often wondered what might have been the effect, as Eric, as well as others, to see a man with stitches up the back of his head, and coved with blood, carrying his little boy up the hall screaming for help).

It actually worked. No one from security came to pick me up, and someone came out of an office, guided me to an examining room, called a doctor and informed Janet and Eric where we were. The examining process was almost as traumatic as the first process. As Janet held Stuart on her lap, I had to get Stuart’s mouth open so that they could put a gizmo into it that held it open, then I had to manually hold the boy’s tongue in my rubber coated hand while the doctor stitched up the tongue. The doctor told me that it was wise for me to have “made a fuss” but that he was already on the way. I asked him why I was doing the nurses work and he replied that having his mother and father assisting was helping Stuart to relax enough for the surgery. We gathered up Eric and staggered back to the car, Janet now carrying Stuart who was frustrated because he couldn’t talk because his tongue was immobilized. By the next morning we were all back to a semblance of normal.

The fourth physical thing that happened, was an illness that came on Eric. He had a temperature that would be high for a little while then drop to normal and he was so listless that it was scary. We Mormons believe in healing by the laying on of hands, and I gave him a blessing twice, each time he seemed to get better for a few days. We were very touched when one night he came and waked me with the words “Daddy would you come put some oil on my head so I can go to sleep?” (a blessing for illness is accompanied by an anointment of oil to the head). I did so , and the next morning we took him to his pediatrician and told him how worried we were. He had him admitted to the hospital for tests, and Eric was hospitalized for three days, when the doctor took us aside and told us that they thought he had “acute stem cell leukemia. (I wrote that in my journal that night so I am pretty sure those were the right words). They were going to repeat two of the tests the following day, to be sure, but he thought we ought to know.

You have to remember that this was in the early sixties when, to most of us, leukemia was generally accepted as a death sentence and the expression on Doctor Cohen’s face led emphasis to this. When he left, I called one of the other Elders in the church (except in emergency, we commonly give blessing to heal in pairs) who came right to the hospital. Janet and I and the other Elder had a prayer session in one of the rooms of the hospital, then we went to Eric’s room where we gave him a healing blessing. It was one of the really vividly spiritual moments of my life. Eric fell immediately to sleep, and we all went home to rest planning to come back after noon the next day, because Dr.Cohen told us that Eric would be in tests for most of the next morning.

When we arrived about eleven in the morning (Janet had wanted to sleep in the hospital, but she was so tired I talked her into coming home). Dr Cohen was there with a big smile on his face. He sat us down and said “I walked into the room last night when you and your friend were praying. I don’t know what kind of an “in” you have with the man upstairs, but the next time you pray, mention my name.” He then told us that they had done three tests that morning and had received the results of another from the lab, and that Eric had no sign of leukemia or any other malignancy. He still had some symptoms, but they could be attributed to mononucleosis. He gave us some prescriptions, told us that they would prefer to keep Eric till morning, but that we could pick him up any time after nine A. M. The doctor sat with us for a while talking and when he discovered that we had a church building under construction he informed us that he owned a major part of one of the lumber yards, and he gave me a letter to the manager that any building supplies we wanted for the church could be had for cost.

As we progressed through the first year in Rhode Island the first few months were difficult because the pay was set up for faculty from June to June and during the first months the pay had not straightened out. We were living in a little apartment in Cranston (where, as a good Republican I joined the Cranston Republican Club and worked hard in the campaign to get John Chaffee elected Governor.)but we were living from hand to mouth. One of the best moments of my life came when we were shopping in some supermarket and were identified as the one hundred thousandth (or the millionth, I can’t remember for sure) customer since the store opened, and they allowed us to take a shopping cart and fill it completely with any foodstuffs in the store (they didn’t include small appliances) then, when it was full, it was given to us free of charge. Meat, real meat, and butter. Woweee.

As the pay was adjusted I received a couple of months back pay as well as my regular salary, and we moved to a rental house in North Providence. I then became aware of the nature of Rhode Island, which. at the time, was broken up into very ethnic neighborhoods. The one we moved into was Italian, and the wonderful people there had a ball teaching us to be Italian. Eric and Stuart were given Italian nicknames (which I can’t remember) and became pets of the neighborhood. People invited us to dinner, then came to our house to teach Janet to make real meatballs, alfredo sauce, marinara sauces, a general spaghetti sauce that had chicken, pork, and other meats cooked in it along with several kinds of cheese, and it had to simmer for days. (My mouth waters remembering it, she made it for some years, and I have never found it’s like in an Italian restaurant). I should note that Janet read this and denies that they taught her alfredo sauce. That is probably true, but around that time Janet started making alfredo sauce frequently, and it was wonderful. (actually still is.)

At the time we also acquired a dog, which the boys named “Uncle Brownie White” which the parents abbreviated, but which the boys used all the time. We had a fenced back yard, but over the year most of the neighbors got to know the dog and laugh at his name.

When I came home and told Janet that I was going to resign and go back to school (which was camouflage for the fact that we had a two person theatre staff, and I was really having some problems with the other member of the staff, and moving seemed better than assassinating Joe.) She flatly refused. She and the boys had come to love Rhode Island so much that I began to fear that I was going to have to make a choice between sanity at work and divorce at home.

After some prayer, a lot of negotiation and the idea that school would be our in late May, and the new school wouldn’t start till September so she so the kids could go out to Idaho and spend the summer with our families (the fact that she was now pregnant, and our new child would probably be born where she could be in her mothers care when it came also made a difference). We had purchased a new VW van which would not pull a trailer, so I had to buy and fix up a forty eight Chevy to pull a trailer with our stuff. We got loaded up with her and the boys in the VW and Uncle Brownie White in the Chevy with me.. It was late, so we went to a friends house to stay overnight and leave early in the morning. When we stopped at the friends house, I opened the car door and Uncle Brownie White decided that he liked it better at the old house and took off like a shot. Much of the rest of the evening was not spent in bed, resting, but in the van, returning to the old house, putting up lost dog posters, alerting all of our old neighbors etc.

Suffice it to say that we did not leave first thing in the morning. We first went to the former neighborhood, where our next door neighbor promised to keep a look out for Uncle Brownie. We checked the pound, left them a picture and the number of our next door neighbor (who also committed to checking the pound weekly.) When all that was finally done, we had to leave. I thought Janet was hard to convince, but for a while I thought I might have hog tie Eric and just throw him in the back seat. We did get away later in the day. I thought one of the boys would come sit with me, but they did like that VW van with the sunroof.

I can’t remember the distance between RI and Illinois, where I was going to work on my PhD, but I do know that I had figured it out that we could probably drive the whole distance in one day if we left early in the morning. That didn’t happen, and we got to spend the night in a semi- respectable motel, arriving fairly late the day after, at that. We had contacted the church there and made them aware that we were coming, so we ended up staying with the Branch President (Mormon talk for the pastor of a small congregation) and his family. We had asked folks to locate a storage unit so that I could empty my U-Haul and turn it in as soon as we arrived. Some of the church folks came over almost immediately and we ended up storing our stuff in the basement of the church building.

In the next couple of days, I met the Chairman of my new Department, sold the Chevy to one of the church members who offered me more than the combined expense I had in buying and repairing the old car. I had reason later, to wish I had just kept the thing and stored it till we returned.

After we had met all the necessary people, made arrangements for graduate student housing for the fall, and attended church where we could thank everyone in public for the wonderful things they had done to get us organized, we left for Idaho where we would spend the summer and where Janet could have our new baby.

The trip west was largely uneventful except for the discovery I made when we entered Wyoming. If you are driving a sixties model VW van, it doesn’t matter which direction you are going. If you are in Wyoming you seem to be driving uphill against a head-wind. VW van crossed the Wyoming border and dropped to a speed between 35 and forty miles an hour with the accelerator pedal pressed against the floor. It occurred to me to try traveling in reverse, just in case, but it seemed impractical. On the other hand, once into Wyoming, if you have a full length sunroof, you can open it and sunbathe to your hearts content, regardless of speed.

Once we were in Idaho we went to both sets of grandparents (not at the same time) where grandmothers thoroughly spoiled the boys. I got a summer job at the Union Pacific Railroad as a Signal assistant. I had spent some months in that job just before we were married). I spent most of the summer (riding the train home on some Saturdays, to return in time to be at work at eight AM Monday.) living in an outfit car, (this is a freight card with windows and cots and not much else) setting phone poles in the ground, then climbing them to install cross bars and Johnny balls (the insulators you see on telephone and power poles) and helping to install what was called a CTC, or Central Train Control, around Nampa, Idaho several hundred miles from my family in Pocatello. I really had no idea what Eric, his mother and brother, and for that matter any other members of my family were doing, except on the Sundays that I could make it home for church services. By all reports, Eric was an angel at the time, and he smiled smugly every time anyone told me so.

During the last week of August our new son was born, and I quit my job to come home, dote on the baby and his mother, and pack to go back to Illinois.

Illinois was full of interesting experiences, not just for Eric, but for us all. I was to do my doctoral work at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, but the graduate family housing we found was at the outskirts of the little towns of Herrin and Cartersville, Illinois at a former army base where (again) we lived in a converted barracks on the second floor.

Eric was quite thrilled to find that in one of the apartments in our barracks lived a guy named Sam Silas who was a linebacker for the the St. Louis Cardinals professional football team. He quickly became friends with Sammy, the football player’s son. Sam was a former member of the Southern Illinois football team and was in graduate housing legitimately as a full time graduate student. We learned something about what it meant to be a professional by watching Sam, who worked out year round, almost constantly running, putting on his pads and beating up on the nearby pine trees, etc. He also was a serious student, taking classes right during the football season. (St. Louis is only about an hour drive from Herrin.

The barracks was part of a larger program that had been established in what had been a military ordinance depot. The facility also included the Southern Illinois University Vocational and Technical Institute or VTI, where they had programs in Mortuary Science, Radio and Television technology, Cosmetology, Engineering Technology, Automotive Technology and some other things. The room downstairs from our apartment was the drafting room, which contained an office, and thirty some drafting tables that were busy all day. The entire facility was set up in the middle of a state fish and game preserve, so we often had deer wandering around on the yard, and in the fall and spring the skies were virtually black with migrating waterfowl. The geese honking overhead were so loud that sometimes they interfered with conversations during the day and sleep at night. In some ways it was a virtual paradise for three little boys and their friends. We had Mulberry trees, blueberry bushes, blackberries, quince bushes and crab-apple trees.

Turtles were to be found in a number of places and we had box turtles, ponds with snapping turtles, painted turtles and other small but relatively tame critters. One day Eric and Stuart brought a box turtle home. They kept it in a box on the stair landing and fed it a number of foods which were recommended by the locals. They often brought it in the house and talked to it and played gently with it.

One day they came home and the turtle was not in the box. They were sure it had been taken by one of the neighbor boys and they questioned (just short of accused) everyone around and never found it. Almost six months later, in the spring, I went out into our pantry room (the place where our deep freeze and laundry equipment resided) and the turtle came walking out nonchalantly from behind the freezer. I have no idea if it had been there the whole time or whether it wandered the apartment when no one was awake, and even less idea what it had been eating, but I brought it out for the boys to see and accompanied them down to one of the ponds where they left it in the high grass at the side of the pond. I assured them that if he could live behind the freezer he (or she, who knows) could live nicely by the pond.

There was a free bus service that delivered vocational students to the VTI and collected graduate students for delivery to the University in Carbondale so that was convenient. I took the bus back and forth to class most of the time, though as a theatre student I often had to go in the evenings for rehearsals etc, and I drove our car back and forth. The University did not have on campus parking for students. Students parked in the periphery and took the busses to class. As a teaching assistant (actually I taught classes mostly on my own) I qualified for a parking pass, and used it when it was necessary.

Eric started school in the the kindergarten in Herrin, and thought it was very cool that he had already learned to read and, without really telling the teacher, he showed off his alphabet and number skills to show what a quick study he was. When we went to a teacher parent conference just before Christmas, his teacher raved about how quickly he was learning. “He is actually reading some of the picture books to the other students. We told her that he was already reading in the Henry Barnard pre-kindergarten she was surprised, but not really. She demanded a lot more from him and he progressed very swiftly after that conference.

Graduate School provided some real problems for us as a family since I had purchased the VW Van in Rhode Island when we were expecting to stay permanently and I still owed well over a year in payments. My stipend was pretty good for the time, but not good enough to feed a family of four and make payments on an almost new car. We did have savings from our job, but still. . . .

We were faced with going to the local VW dealer and “trading down”. After some intense dickering we got enough out of him to pay off the car. We also got an old, fragile 46 or 47 Ford Station Wagon and it was at this time I wished we hadn’t been so eager to sell off the old Chevy that I used to pull the trailer that held our “stuff” from Rhode Island.

Someone from the university came to see us on some occasion about this time and pointed out that with my income and a family of four, she was pretty sure that we could qualify for government surplus commodities (what would later be changed to food stamps). Out of curiosity I went to the appropriate site filled out the appropriate papers and sure enough we qualified. Once a month for the next year (maybe oftener, I’m not sure) We went to a warehouse somewhere in the county and picked up canned goods, butter (real butter, I hadn’t eaten it very often in my life) cheese, eggs and various other things that the government was buying to keep farmers prices up. We were very grateful and a little embarrassed. (Enough so that we didn’t tell many folks about it) I actually got more embarrassed not less embarrassed when I began to notice how many of the folks collecting the commodities showed up in big new cars etc.

Eric enjoyed kindergarten during the year as I did all the things a doctoral student would. I taught classes in Public Speaking, Oral Interpretation of Literature, a few basic theatre classes including one class in play direction that included both undergraduate and graduate students. The first school year passed and that next summer I became business manager for the Lincoln Land Summer Theatre, where the University theatre was presenting a Lincoln play Prologue to Glory for in Lincoln’s home town for the summer. (starring a Doctoral student named David Selby as Lincoln, who later became the Werewolf Quentin in the TV production of Dark Shadows)

In the meantime, Janet had been looking for work and found that she could make more money as a graduate assistant in the Department of Family Living and Child Development. Teaching classes and doing research also gave her more time at home. When I went away for the summer to Springfield, life for her became more complicated as mine actually got simpler.

That next fall, Eric entered the first grade and did very well. For his birthday in Sept, we were still short of cash, but I bought him a small bicycle from a yard sale. For a party, Janet and I built a puppet stage from a refrigerator carton and, using a pattern that Jim Henson had placed in Women’s Day magazine (and a script from the same source) we did a puppet show called The Magic Onion for the party attendees. I hadn’t done puppetry for years, but it was enough of a success that we got calls to perform at other parties and thus found another source of income. Of course the income got large enough that we had to bid goodbye to Government Surplus commodities, but gradually a bit here and a bit there we found enough to survive, and even prosper a little bit. We added another puppet show to our repertoire and Eric had a chance to be an actor in it.

We had a next door neighbor couple who were delightful. I don’t remember their last name, but when we both had to be away John and Paula took over the care of Stuart and Ryan. They were wonderful and when we left that area I thought I might have to fight Paula for Ryan. Eric was in school so that Paula was not too involved with him. The other boys were her pride and joy though there was one event that made her feel that we would never let her care for the kids again. There was a program on television called “Wonderdog” or something like that, that had a hero that was a dog with a cape that could fly, and Stuart was a real fan. As a fan he decided that the cape would work for him, and one day when Paula wasn’t looking, he tied a towel around his neck and jumped off the stair landing (second story) and lit on his head, knocking him unconscious. A terrified Paula called me at the office and informed me that our period without a child in the hospital was over. (She had called emergency service and had him at the hospital and was still there since they required Janet’s or my signature before she could leave) I went to the hospital and brought both her and Stuart home. Nothing was broken, but he had a slight concussion. Once I had Paula calmed down I met Janet at the apartment. I had to calm her down as well, and life went on. By the end of the second year, I had finished my course work, passed language tests in Spanish and Finnish and submitted my topic for a dissertation which had been accepted. The proposal included my translation of Nummisuutariit, (The Heath Cobblers) a classical Finnish play by Finland’s Shakespeare, Aleksis Kivi. This translation was to be adapted to an English contemporary language style, presented in performance at the University, then compared to Finnish productions of the same play.

I didn’t want to leave the university until my dissertation was completed, and Janet had obligations involving her Master’s program. I wrote a grant proposal which would allow me to become an assistant to Mordecai Gorelik, whom I considered, by then, my mentor. I received the grant, but it worked out that I didn’t use the grant for the purpose involved, since I was offered a position working full time as an instructor teaching Public Speaking at the Vocational Education Center, with my classroom being just downstairs from our apartment.

Eric went to the Second Grade, Janet worked on her MS, and I taught classes and worked on my Dissertation. One day Eric came home from school and announced that the teacher had assigned all the students to bring their favorite book to school and report on it. Eric had been reading Tom Swift and teen age detective novels for most of the summer, but he was then in the middle of a two or three hundred page volume called Bomba the Jungle Boy so he placed it in has backpack and took it to school. He came home that afternoon crestfallen. His teacher had accused him of lying because that book was way beyond the capacity of any second grader. He tried to read it to her but she made him pack it up and take it home.

I took him to school the next day and walked over to talk to his teacher. She shouted at me that I shouldn’t encourage dishonesty in my son, and he was forbidden to take the book back to school. I took the book home, and Eric took a book to school that he had read the previous year. Because it had pictures in it, he thought the teacher would accept it. She did.

About this time, I had a very humbling experience. When Eric finished with “Bpmba” he asked me to suggest a book for him to read. I remembered a childhood fondness for Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans and got him a copy . A couple of days later he braced me in the living room with a sort of acid glare. “Dad,” he asked “did you really read The Last of the Mohicans? Did you really like it?”

“Yes”, I replied “It’s a classic.

He then proceeded to go through the first part of the book and point out grammatical errors, inconsistent shifts in narrator persona, and a whole potload of weaknesses in the book that I had never noticed. It wouldn’t have concerned me if one of my students had offered that critique on my literary taste, but Eric was a second grader. I began to feel some sympathy for his teacher.

In March, our third son Alex was born. He was a beautiful blonde little boy where our others had had long black hair. Janet was deep into her thesis in family and child development and was teased by some of her colleagues for “taking this child development thing to much to heart” when she took time off to have the baby.

We had some scary things happen: one day Alex just turned “logy”. He didn’t cry, or laugh or do much of anything but lie in his crib. He had been so active up to this point (a little less than two month old) that we called the doctor in Marion. We described his symptoms and he asked me (on the phone) to apply a little pressure to his lower abdomen, and I did, to which Alex just stiffened and whined a little. The doctor told me to drive immediately to Marion and he would meet us at the door to the hospital. He met us there and took the baby directly into surgery. A couple of hours elapsed (This was about seven P.M.). At he end of that time he came out and told us that Alex had an intussusception, which was the small intestine backing up into the upper part of the intestine and blocking it. He had removed several inches of the intestine , and, for good measure, he said with a smile, he took out Alex’s appendix. It turned out that he had just lost one of his grandchildren to an intussusception that hadn’t been diagnosed in time (He was not there) so he had done some research and knew immediately what the symptoms were. We were in the right place at the right time.

I was making good progress on my dissertation. One of the elements in the dissertation was to finish the translation in a very literal form, then to adapt it into more colloquial language , get it presented in America then do careful comparisons of the adaptations that had had to be made for an American productions with those that had been made for modern productions in Finland. The University theatre added my play (translation) to the regular schedule and one of the MFA students from Egypt, Nagy Faltas took it on for a thesis project. It was particularly interesting to have an American English version of a Finnish folk classic, directed by an Egyptian.

I filmed the performance (both as a movie record and with still pictures and got a lot of info for my dissertation. I had the dissertation completed, using photos and productions scripts lent to me by the Finnish National Theatre when my advisor suggested that I might apply for a Fulbright-Hayes fellowship to go to Finland and so my comparisons live. I checked the final dates for submission and got my application in. I wasn’t too hopeful so I continued to apply for jobs for the next year and wrote the “final” chapters for the paper. I went out for interviews and was trying to make up my mind about which of three offers I would accept, when we were notified that I had received the grant. I wrote off to the colleges that had made offers (Newberry College in South Carolina, one from a university in Eau Claire Wisconsin and one other that I can’t recall, in Ohio I think) scrapped the last two and one half chapters of my dissertation and began to plan for a trip to Finland. We had a lot of fun planning our trip. I had been spending some Saturdays at auctions and estate sales each month, working as a “picker” for a couple of antique stores. It was fun spending someone else’s money doing something I loved to do.

Eric helped me a lot. He got a list of valuable old books and read a lot at the sales to help me select things. The other boys had a great summer running hither and yon around the apartment complex.

Janet was given the assignment (for her assistantship) to set up a head start program, go through the child selection process, and run the program for about two months. It was a demonstration thing, one of the first such in the nation, set up so that people from other colleges, and school districts could come and watch through one way mirrors that surrounded the classroom. It was a great success. She was offered so many really high paying jobs by the State of Illinois, by colleges and school districts at the conclusion of the head start that we had to sit down and really think about our up coming trip to Finland. Some of the positions were at salaries well above what I could expect, even after we came home with the finished dissertation. I had signed a contract, so we decided that she better turn down the jobs, and come with me.

By then, I had a Saab (415 or 515, one or the other) small sedan that I turned over to one of the families in our church who needed it, and I bought, and overhauled an elderly step van, with a help of a guy in our church which we used to haul all of the stuff that we wanted to keep, out to Idaho where we spent some time visiting with family before our departure for Europe. The departure was a little spectacular with both sets of grandparents lined up at the Pocatello airport waving as we boarded the plane. It was the first time the grandparents had seen Alex, and they both offered to keep him while we traveled. (Paula and Johnny were so worried about Ryan going to Finland that it was hard to take him away from Illinois)

As we departed, I bought Eric a copy of Return of the King by Tolkien. (He had completed the second grade now). By the time we got to Finland he had finished the book and we had purchased (and he had read) The Hobbit and one of the other books of the Tolkien trilogy The Lord of the Rings.

Alex had recovered from his intestinal surgery and was a very active child, but had several allergies and some asthma and frequent bouts of pneumonia. When we arrived in Helsinki we didn’t instantly find a place to live, but with the help of the embassy and some folks in the church we found temporary housing in a dormitory section of Helsinki University. As luck would have it, he contracted pneumonia before we moved into our permanent apartment. He was in the hospital for almost a month.

While he was in the hospital, we found an apartment in Puotila, a development just outside the city, so we brought him home to a bed of his own.

We consulted with the embassy and with some other non-Finnish residents and discovered that Eric could go the the diplomat’s school and enter the third grade, or he could enroll in a Finnish Elementary School near our apartment. In Finland, at that time students didn’t enter Elementary school until they were seven years old. Eric was still seven years old so he would enter as a first grade student. Since he didn’t speak Finnish at all, even that would be difficult for him, but, consulting with the Administrator or Principal of the school, we decided that going to a Finnish school would be the way to go.

The fact that he could already read took some of the pressure off him, so he brought home his reading books and I would teach him the pronunciation of the words and explain the grammatical structure of the language as he was reading at the elementary school level.

Within three months, he was functioning quite nicely in the school without much help from me. By Christmas he was speaking Finnish very freely and without hesitation. Stuart and Ryan picked up enough Finnish to make themselves comfortable in most situations but they did stick together quite a lot and strengthen each other.

I found the Finnish school program fascinating. Students had individual schedules and often went to school at different times. Eric would go to class one day at 9:00 AM, on another day at 11.00 AM and studied different topics at different times, sometime with children from other classes. A fair amount of time was spent in physical education, so he would have soccer practice at one time while those with more experience would practice together at another time. They had active intramurals and he played in his first soccer game ever on about the fourth week of class. I was somewhat amazed at how well he played. Later in the year, after snow had fallen, it was not unusual to look our the window at mid-day and see his teacher leading the class in a cross-country ski hike right across our yard and out into the woods. (Yes, the purchase of skiis for the three older boys was an early priority.) Thinking back, I can remember being amazed that he was working Math problems that were way above whet he had learned in the second grade. By mid year he was doing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Finnish children of that period (mid sixties) certainly had a different “style’ of dress and behavior than those children of graduate students with whom they had interacted in the states. During the warm weather, it was not unusual at all to see children in the age group from one to three years old running around in the apartment complex courtyard in nothing but a T.Shirt (or any other shirt). Gender had nothing to do with it, naked from the waste down was rather frequent. (Sometimes wearing shoes sometimes not. In the winter it was almost totally the opposite. Children dressed to play outside in cold weather were so wrapped up in jackets, leggings, hats etc. that most of them waddled rather than walked. The only variation in that was for children who were old enough to ski or ice skate or sled on the complex. Sled tracks around the courtyard which resembled in some ways the luge track that one sees in Winter Olympics going uphill, downhill and around steep curves were used by adults as often as children. The courtyard also contained a fairly steep short hill with a couple of small jumps carved into the surface. Finally it had a skating rink about fifteen meters wide. All told, the courtyard was a delightful place for children and adults, both winter and summer, but the dress and manners both winter and summer took some getting used to.

I couldn’t find a picture of Eric on skis. This is Ryan and Janet on skis

We had a wonderful time at church as well. It was a fairly long tram ride, but the mass transport in Finland is wonderful. Enough people spoke English that all the boys had friends, though they thought sermons were a bit lengthy. Eric was baptized in September. He was presented with a rose by someone after the ceremony and he thought that was cool.

Eric on his baptism day in Finland with another boy who had been baptized at the same time

Alex contracted pneumonia again not long before Christmas and had, once more to go to the hospital. There was a little boy in the hospital who had been there the first time Alex went in. He was very cute and very intelligent and he and Alex played together when Alex wasn’t under a tent. I thought it interesting that he was here again, so I questioned the nurse who said that he wasn’t very ill, but that he had been in the hospital for several months. His father was dead, and his mother was in a mental hospital.

This triggered enough interest that we made inquires about the possibility of adopting him. The staff in the hospital became quite enthusiastically excited. As one nurse said, “He is almost more of a pet than a patient, and he could use a stable home..” Our request was rejected. It seemed that his mother, though mentally ill had some lucid periods and her doctors felt that allowing the boy to visit his mother (or vice-versa was very important for any possibility for the mother to get well. We certainly agreed though we were a little disappointed. Before Alex was well enough to come home, we were contacted by the “Save the Children” organization to see if we might be interested in adopting one of the children in their orphanage. We were interested and thus began the process where our first daughter entered our lives.

Delivery day for our new daughter, Here Janet holds Anja. Much different from previous deliveries.

“Save the Children” had a little girl that was almost the same age as Alex who was virtually unadoptable by a Finnish family because her mother was a Finn, but her birth father was a gypsy. (In Finnish, a “mustalainen,” which meant a “black one”.) The gypsies in Finland occupied a social position very much like African Americans in the USA. Many of them (including our daughter’s birth father) were famous entertainers, but most of them lived a traveling gypsy life, trading and training horses, some raising sheep, etc. Her birth father was a nationally known entertainer and her mother had been what we might call a “groupie”. Her mother gave her up because she had married a Finn who thought she was pregnant with his child. When the baby was born, it was obvious that she was not a blue eyed Finn. Ultimately her husband agreed to continue the marriage if she would give up their child (Whom we adopted and named Anja.) So the child, about nine months old had been in an orphanage since birth.

Eric, Stuart, Ryan and Alex with their new sister Anja (1965)

I spent much of my time at the Suomen Kansallis Teateri or Finnish National Theatre. I also spent many days at the Aleksis Kiven Seura, or The Aleksis Kivi Society. I had occasion to travel , spending a week at Tampere University lecturing on American Theatre, and attending the performances of The Heath Cobblers at the National Theatre, at several outdoor dramas and a couple of Professional regional theatres. (In Finland, much of the theatre is government supported through the National Lottery, so that most cities with a population over twenty five thousand had a residential professional theatre.) Although I had a fair amount of time to play with and teach the children, my traveling occupied me a week at a time so that the children were home with Janet. When I was as staying home at night, if I weren’t at the National Theatre or Kivi Society I was often at work with Helvi Temiseva, a member of our church who was a licensed Finnish to English translator. She spent many hours checking my translations of the archaic Finnish language in the play, especially to validate (or invalidate) my figures of speech and poetic imagery. Eric enjoyed coming with me when he could. He really loved to hear us argue, and sometimes to see his old man corrected.

Christmas in Finland was wonderful and much different than in the US. There was a little strip mall about a block from our apartment. When Santa came to that mall, he came on a sleigh pulled by a reindeer. The boys all got a chance to ride the sleigh with Santa (Joulu Pukki is the Finnish name for Santa, in literal translation it means Christmas Goat, and Santa is sometimes seen on a sleigh pulled by a goat.) On Christmas Eve, Santa would appear at the door, and knock loudly to announce his arrival. The children then sing a particular song which welcomes Santa into the house. He comes in the house and directly distributes the gifts to the children, whereupon he is usually offered a libation and a song is sung to send him away. When I was a missionary a decade or so earlier, American missionaries were bemused by the number of Santas often a little drunk from the libations, riding their bicycles from appearance to appearance. (Our neighbor lady from across the hall wearing a beard and a lot of fur, served the purpose for us, and I sneaked out a little later and did it for her) Live candles are used on the Christmas tree, and most families go to the cemetery and light candles at the graves of their loved ones. The cemeteries are lit up very beautifully all the country.

Christmas in Finland, 1967. Alex missed the picture and my computer ate the cemetery pictures.

Anja’s arrival on the scene changed a lot of things in our home. The first thing we had to learn to understand was that in the orphanage, all or most of the attendants were women. She drew very close to Janet almost instantly and the littlest boys were like the ones she had associated with, but she had no experience with men or big boys at all. She didn’t want anything to do with me. When i tried to pick her up, she stiffened like a board. This passed after a few weeks, but neither Eric nor I received much positive reaction at all.

A second factor that became obvious was that in the orphanage little children were not encouraged to feed themselves at all. In fact it was pretty obvious that they were punished for attempting to feed themselves. There was something both poignant and distressing about her attitude toward food. We would get out the highchairs and she would be totally eager to get up into her place, but the moment the lid came down on the chair, both of her hands went up into the air and she began to scream. She seemed almost terrified if we put any food on the tray, but if we held it and shoveled it into her quickly she would quit screaming and be excited. Any lengthy pause in the process of food entering her mouth would bring about an repeat of the screams.

Meals, at least at first, ceased to be a relaxed and pleasant experience for anyone in the family. It took several weeks to convince her that she wasn’t going to have her hand slapped if she picked up a cookie by herself, and even longer to teach her that she could use the spoon to pick up food. The only time after that learning process that she reverted to the hands in the air and scream behavior was when we held a birthday party. Her birthday was in June, and Alex’s was March second so we held a joint birthday party and with both kids in their high chairs we brought out small cakes with candles on them and put one on each child’s high chair tray. I guess that having fire that close to her nose was too much so she went back to her early behavior. We took the cake off her tray, encouraged Alex to blow out the candle after which he ate his cake with bare hands. Without the candle Anja decided that imitation was profitable so she then ate most of her cake.

Life went on with one extra child in the family (We referred to Alex and Anja as the twins, their birthdays were almost two months apart) until once, a few days later, the small ones were playing on the floor while I worked on some book work and Janet fixed dinner. Alex and Anja were just learning to walk, and did so mostly by holding themselves up on the furniture. I wasn’t watching closely as Anja took a couple of free steps through the kitchen door. Janet had set the table with a table cloth and put the main entree in a large heavy ceramic bowl in the center of the table and called us to dinner. The entree was one of our favorites, Scandinavian pea soup. (In the U.S., most pea soup is made with split peas, Sweden and Finland, it is made with whole dried peas , soaked overnight then boiled with a ham bone or pork for a long time.) I will never be able to understand how this happened, since the soup bowl was very heavy, but apparently Anja got her hands on the table cloth and pulled the whole bowl of soup over on her head. She screamed in pain and both Janet and I jumped to her aid. Her head and shoulders (and much of the rest of her) were covered in HOT pea soup . I grabbed her up and went to the bathroom to turn on the shower with Janet accompanying me, ripping off Anja’s clothing. I turned on the cold shower and stuck her in the ice cold water to rinse off all the soup, and cool the burn.

From our experience with Alex, I had the number posted on the wall, and one of us, I am not sure which, called the Finnish equivalent of EMS. (It had to be me or Eric since I don’t know if Janet’s Finnish at that time was fluent enough to make the call) The ambulance was at the door with amazing speed. They took her, told me we had done just the right thing, and were off with her to the hospital in moments. The next door neighbor had come to the door (We lived on the third floor of a large apartment building, so she had been aware of the ambulance and attendants.) I asked her to watch the children and Janet and I were on the way to the hospital.

The hospital had an excellent burn-center, and by the time we got there they were already preparing Anja for skin grafts. Most of the serious burns were on her face, shoulder and one hand.

She was in the hospital for over a month, receiving remarkable good care.

(Some folks who read this blog and know what a conservative cuss I am wondered at my comments during the early part of Obama’s term when I stated many times that I felt that some king of Medical Care Program was necessary should be aware that we were in Finland on a grant stipend, and our two little ones had almost three months in the hospital between them, and my out of pocket cost was about a dollar a day. If this same stuff had been in a stateside hospital I probably would still be paying it off.)

When we got her home from the hospital, she still needed a lot of care. Janet had to put her in the bathtub almost every day and hold her ( most often with Eric’s help, since I was working during that time) then with Anja in the water they had to gently peel off the soaked scabs from her arms, feet and shoulders. This was very painful the the little girl and it caused a real shift of allegiance in the child.
When I was home she clung to me and avoided Eric and Janet whenever possible because she had learned to associate them with pain. This was difficult for Janet, very difficult because she had come to prize the cuddling interaction with Anja (as with all our kids) and suddenly Anja was having none of it. As for Anja herself, she healed beautifully with only a small scar beneath her chin and another on her arm. She and Alex were quickly fitting into the “twins” category.

Another event that affected us all was when Janet came down with an apparent food reaction (we never found the source) with diarrhea, vomiting and all those nasty things, On the second day she became so dehydrated that she had little control of her limbs and even had some kind of convulsions. Once again I called the ambulance people who came quickly and gave her an IV before anything else and she was taken to the hospital for several days. The children were all somewhat traumatized by her illness, and had no fun at all when daddy stayed home and babysat. She recovered quickly but was very weak for several days after she came home.

I finished up the work on my dissertation (well, not quite) and thankfully we had no more sickness. We spent a lot of time enjoying Finland, going to the open marketplaces (Tori they are called) or to see several outdoor presentations of the Heath Cobblers in different parts of the country), and the boys practiced music for a trio (Alex was still a bit young for a quartet) and sang at church.

We were lucky that all the final work on Anja’s adoption was finished in May since my stipend was up in June. We had to deal with Anja’s passport still being Finnish, but we got through all the stuff and made it back to the USA.

I have to admit that for some reason, the sequence of events during the summer as we returned have just eluded my memory. Specific things that happened are clear, but even with Janet’s help, the sequence is not clear. I know that the following events happened: I got a job at the State University College at Oneonta, New York ; I turned in my rough draft for the dissertation, got a list of suggestions about the things I had yet to do; We bought a Ford Econoline van that was my first absolutely new car I had ever purchased. We drove the new car to Idaho so that the grandparents could dote on their new grandchild. We returned to Illinois where I discussed further changes with my dissertation advisor and picked up the SAAB that I had left with a friend. We drove to New York, and started a new life.

The effect on Eric, and his participation in these evens is also vague, except that he never caused us any trouble and that he was very helpful keeping the other kids in line as we traveled. The trip to Idaho had some interesting components, and I ended up being very grateful for new car warranties. We were driving across Kansas when at the request of the children I pulled off the expressway to get some fast-food dinner. Just as we left the exit lane onto a frontage road, my oil pressure plummeted to Zero. Fortunately we were right in front of a Service Station (we all remember those don’t we?) so I coasted in and cut the motor. The attendant put the car up on the rack, then came to me with a puzzled look on his face. “I’ve never seen anything like this, so you can come see if you agree, but your oil filter and the housing that holds it seem to to missing”

I went with him to look and sure enough it was just not home. He told me that it might take several days to get the part, but he would suggest that I call the Ford dealership that was only a few blocks down the street and have them come pick it up. I did as he suggested, so the Ford people came and picked up the car (and us) and carried us away. The service station man said that there would be no charge. Except for running the car up on the rack, he couldn’t think of anything to charge me for.

We all sat calmly (or not) in the waiting room of the dealership till the shop manager came out to talk with us. He explained that he had a couple of cars that we coming, but this was the first one of these models he had seen, but that not only the oil filter,but the oil filter housing was missing. It apparently had not been properly installed, and had just worked its way loose. Then he dropped the real bomb. He didn’t have a filter housing in stock that would work, but that he had called Ford motors and they were expressing a new one to him. They found us a motel nearby, and sure enough , the next morning he called and said that he had the part and it would be repaired in a couple of hours. At that moment, I didn’t have much enthusiasm for Ford Motors, but I was singularly impressed by their parts express system.

We stayed in the motel one more night (courtesy of Ford Motors) and left early the next morning. The children were quite pleased because the Motel had a nice little pool, which they used enthusiastically.

The trip went well until we entered Denver. As I made my way through town, I was pulled over by a State Patrolman, who informed me that my brake lights weren’t working. In my ignorance I argued a little with him, pointing out the the car was less than a month old, and there wasn’t time for the brake light to die. He smiled and told me to go behind the car while he pressed the brake pedal. I did so, and sure enough both brake lights were dead. We explored the front of the car and found that where the brake light switch was supposed to be, there were two bare wires hanging down. I was beginning to get quite disillusioned with Ford Motors. It was past time to get to a garage before closing so I determined to just go on and trust to luck that I didn’t have an accident or get another ticket, Two days later we were in Idaho and I took the Monday morning special to a garage to have a break light installed. This place was less accommodating than the one in Kansas. They had a switch in in stock and installed it, but instead of sending the bill to Ford, they charged me what I remember to have been a pretty substantial fee, then gave me a receipt which I could send to Ford. I did so, and was soon reimbursed and received a letter of apology signed by Lee Iacocca the CEO of Ford motor (or it was signed by his signature machine.) I don’t remember anything special of our visit except that Anja successfully entranced her new grandmothers.

This picture, in Idaho, includes a grandfather, grandmother, great grandmother, an aunt in the background and Eric holding Anja up for display.

We went to our new position in New York via Illinois where I picked up the SAAB which we had left there at the beginning of the trip to Finland. I discovered upon my arrival in Illinois that my SAAB had a spark plug that had blown loose from the head. The spark plug hole was stripped (and may have had a small crack.) I took it to a mechanic that I trusted and he thought he could fix it with a helo coil (whatever that is) but he had to wait for a proper sized helo coil to come in. I ended up driving the SAAB to New York with only three firing cylanders. I won’t describe the trip except to say that it wasn’t fun with the kids and Jan in one car and me in the other, (occasionally taking one of the kids) but we arrived on time and went to work.

Eric and Stuart (cowboy hats) and their Idaho cousins before leaving for New York.

We found a wonderful house to rent that was late Victorian, very roomy and with an attic full of stuff that the owner said we could keep or use or throw away.. While we were in New York, our sixth child was born (actually she was born in Cooperstown, which is also the mythical home of baseball.)

As far as this story goes, the most important elements were that we got Eric and Stuart into the college laboratory school, Although Eric had only finished the second grade in the US, and had returned to the first grade in Finland, we put him into the fourth grade, Stuart in the first grade and Ryan into kindergarten. Alex, Anja, and Beth-Anee (when she arrived) stayed home with Janet.

I soon became the local Cub Scout Cub master, so I had a good bit of intense interaction with Eric and a bunch of his friends. Ryan’s (pre?)kindergarten teacher was the head of the early childhood department for the college, and was absolutely brilliant, and he learned so much, it was astonishing. I remember this three or four year old child sitting beside us as we watched some nature television show about elephants when this little voice popped out beside me with the comment (roughly quoted from fifty year old memory) “Elephants are pachyderms. That means thick skin. Pachyderms that are alive now are elephants, hippopotamuses, and rhinoceroses. There used to be a bunch of others called mastodons, and mammoths, and some others that I can’t remember”. I asked him where in the world he learned that and he replied that “Ms Kritch (I’ am pretty sure that was what he called her, to me she was Dr. –Something that started with a K but was multisyllabic) taught us that a few weeks ago”. That was typical of what he was picking up including counting, alphabet, reading picture books by himself etc. I was in awe all year about what he was picking up at school at his age.

Eric checked so many books out of the library and took them to school with him that, after about six weeks I became a little concerned. About that time they had a visitation invitation for the parents and we went to the program to meet Stuart and Eric’s teachers. Stuart seemed to be struggling with reading, and he was given some flash cards to use during our family home evenings. Eric’s teacher on the other hand was so effusive in her praise. She said that Eric was so far ahead of his classmates that he got a little bored, so she basically gave him a corner in the back of the room, and allowed him to sit there and read the Encyclopedia Britannica, bringing him out only for group activities and mathematics;, where she felt that he was closer to par with the rest of the class. He finished the entire Encyclopedia Britannica that year.

I became the Cub master for one of the community cub scout programs, and Janet was his den mother, so I also got to see and participate in both soapbox and model car races (I can’t remember Cub Scoutese for the kind of model car they made and the competitions in them –I thought of it, I thought of it, it was the pinewood derby.)

Our house for that first year in New York had an attic full of nineteenth century stuff, and books, and even an artificial leg. It also had a double garage with an attic that was crammed with old glass bottles, picture frames and so many things that I thought were valuable keep-sake stuff that when I first found Eric prowling through the stuff I called the landlord to tell him that Eric had been up there and had taken a few things to his room, but that I would put them back and make sure he didn’t go there again. The landlord said that it was all just junk that he would eventually have to get rid of anyway and that he/we could have anything we wanted up there. After that, Eric and I often prowled the attic together. After about a year, he contacted me and said he was probably going to remodel the house and make office suites out of it so we should start looking for another place. A couple of weeks later a dump truck pulled up to the garage and they took everything left in that attic, tossed it in the dump truck and took it to the city dump. I wanted to throw my body across the door to protect the stuff because, as a former picker for antique shops I knew that there were several thousands of dollars worth of antiques that just went in the dump. If he had informed me a week or two sooner that he was going to do it, l would have hired a couple of college students to help me, rented a truck and hauled most of the contents (those that I didn’t lust after for myself) to the local auction house. I am a bit of a hoarder, and that is nuts, but some people don’t have any idea of the value of old stuff, and that is sad.

I was paid, in New York on a nine month’s schedule (paid the same yearly amount as in most college teaching jobs, but in nine parts with no income for three months. We had made good resolutions to save an adequate amount of money each month to make up the difference, but you know how that goes. As a result, I ended up with two summer jobs (I had no opportunity for summer teaching). I went to work for Breakstone Dairy in the milk processing plant. I was fascinated in view of the advertising competition of dairy products to find that we bottled Breakstone milk, Borden milk, other “brand name” milks, at least four or five different house brand milks for supermarkets and discount stores, and it was the same milk that went into every batch. (I quit buying name brand milks that year)

A side benefit of working at the milk plant is that they sometimes had big milk cans (I can’t remember how much they held, but it was a lot.) wherein the heavy cream or occasionally just a can of un-separated milk would begin to sour, and I would be asked to dispose of it in a big vat. I asked (about the first one) if I could have it if I returned the can. I was given permission and took it home where Eric was given the responsibility to take the heavy cream out and churn it into butter. He got a book on the subject, took all the safety precautions and churned it, sometimes with our help, but not often. It was wonderful. We had never eaten much butter as a family except for the year we were entitled to use government surplus. Now we had unsalted butter , salted butter, we put cultures in the “top milk” of the cans that were un-separated and made cultured sour cream and stuff that looked like and tasted like yogurt. The separated milk we put in bottles and let sour to their hearts content and used the sour milk to cook with. We still had dairy products left at the end of the following school year.

I took the last few weeks of summer to help one of the guys in our department. They had an old Victorian brick veneer house on which the bricks had become discolored, and the mortar was crumbling and some of the bricks were falling out. I had spent much of a summer somewhere in the transition from high school to college working for a brick contractor. I started out carrying hod, but was given exactly this assignment for awhile. We worked out a fair price, and I rented a compressor and sand blaster and spent much of the summer repairing the exterior brick work on the house. I used Eric, about two days a week to pick up bricks that were fallen, remove and mark loose bricks and to mix and carry mortar when I was up on the scaffolding (which I also had rented) Both my friend and I were very pleased with how it worked out. It still looked old, but it was solid, and all the parts looked like they were supposed to. I had build up some of the areas around the windows, and the wood in those areas needed paint, but my friend chose to do that himself.

I learned something interesting during that job. My friends wife had a little office in the house that was used for one purpose- - contests and coupons, mostly contests. She would buy magazines and clip from other sources (Nowadays with computer she would be a millionaire) and she had office hours where she used the time to enter contests, especially the kind where an entry must include a poem or saying etc. She actually cleared about six hundred dollars a month with contests.

Eric and Ryan fishing during our first New York summer

When we moved we took several things with us, (with permission), but all things considered, I was glad we moved. We moved into an old Victorian three story house with a big oval tower on one side. It created a really interesting set of, I guess you would call them bay windows, on two floors. On the main floor I put an antique barber chair that the kids and I loved for different reasons. I loved it because it was infinitely adjustable with a head rest, and it was one of the best places to sit and read that I have ever known. The kids loved it because you could lay it out flat, get a kid running on each end then they would jump on it and spin for two or three minutes. The base was so heavy that no child could tip it over. It spun sometimes for half hour at a time, and in the circular tower cupola it seemed so appropriate.

Somehow in the moving process the boys also acquired a guinea pig. It was and interesting pet. Eric discovered (from one of his books, of course) that to keep the thing healthy we also had to feed it some fresh food to go with the pellets. My reputation in my family as a champion scrounger really jumped with the retrieval of “fresh” produce for the guinea pig. I talked to the produce manager of one of the local supermarkets and found out what time and day he tossed the cut-of material (carrot tops, corn husks and corn trimmings etc.) into the dumpster and I was often there to meet him. Eric and I became skillful dumpster divers, especially when in the collection guinea pig produce we discovered that they were often tossing out newly expired packages of meat, butter and margarine, bent canned good and working quickly we would toss some of that into our produce bag, which we would take home toss out the obviously broken packages etc. and make use of the rest. Talk about a bum, and we weren’t even homeless.

About the time we moved into the “new” house, we acquired a dog. I don’t remember where we got it, but we got it as a puppy because it’s AKC registered mommy golden retriever had fraternized with a non registered English setter daddy dog. He was a really beautiful, red furred, somewhat long furred dog. The dominant look was the Golden retriever, and we were often compliment by other Golden owners on how beautiful he was. The boys named him Ali Baba and he was generally called Baba. He was an intimate and joyous part of our lives for over five years.

AS a confirmed antique furniture nut I found an auction house that was outstanding. In shopping for our house, I discovered that all the collectors in that area were shopping for fruit woods, like cherry, walnut etc. , and their cousins, mahogany, pecan, maple and other close grained woods. As a lover of oak, I was thrilled to see that, either from sales or from the auction I could get good oak items at about half, or less than half the price they had brought in Illinois, so, as quickly as the budget would allow, we had a house furnished in Victorian oak (with a mahogany breakfront, a walnut writing table and the set of cherry chairs and settee, that I had bought, over my wife’s objection in Illinois.

Eric continued to do well in school, even with a new teacher who required that he study what the rest of the class studied before he went back to the encyclopedias. Stuart, in the second grade really struggled with reading (I am not sure if it was more of a struggle or that he just like TV better as a substitute)

My teaching career went into a challenging period where i was assigned a very different group of classes than the first year, and had a limited amount of creative work. As a result, Janet and I spent much of our time rewriting (me rewriting’ and her retyping) the dissertation.) That Christmas season required me to go to conventions etc. to seek new employment, since things were not going well on the job. This was complicated by one of the worst winters in years.

To go anywhere Eric and I had to crawl out on top of the snow and probe with broom handles for our car, dig the car out, shovel out the driveway where, as soon as the driveway was cleared the snow plow would come down the street and push a three foot berm across the driveway which we must shove up without throwing any of it out into the road. We had purchased cross country skiis for everyone while in Finland and we put them to good use going to the grocery store etc.

I had a very different summer than the year before. Another professor and I set up a six or so week workshop in American English and culture for a group of Secondary School English teachers from Finland. We had a wonderful time. They toured an Iroquois Indian Reservation, did reader’s theatre productions of American literature and had a lot of English language discussions of American literature. I was pleased when one of the ladies told me that she had heard my lectures at the University of Tampere in Finland a couple of years ago. Eric enjoyed the social events we had with the Finnish teachers and the community. He had forgotten much of the Finnish he had learned while we were there, but he enjoyed talking as much Finnish as he could with the ladies. They, in turn, expressed astonishment that a boy of his age who was not Finnish could speak Finnish as well as he did. One of my real regrets about the way our family functioned after our return from from Finland is that we stopped speaking Finnish at all around the house, and by the time he reached high school he had completely forgotten all of the language. (and to tell the truth, I was very rusty as well.)

At the conclusion of the workshop, we packed our goods and had a major and profitable yard sale and prepared to move to a new position. We had one other thing to do, we had to go to Illinois where I would get final approval on my dissertation, have my dissertation defense etc.

We still had the Ford Van, and I constructed an awning tent that opened up to create a sleeping and dining area, and at the last minute I bought (at auction of course) a family tent that was really good. We drove to Illinois, where we camped for about three weeks on the bank of the Crab Orchard reservoir which was between Marion and Herrin (our old home).

The boys, fishing at the Crab Orchard reservoir while father goes to the campus and mother keeps the tent clean.

I say “we” camped but poor Janet had to take care of the kids, the dog,(we gave the guinea pig away and took the SAAB to the auction) and all our other stuff while I went into the college and had meetings in the air conditioned offices of the department. Thanks to the help of my advisor (we spent a lot on postage and telephone bills, nowadays we would use email) my dissertation was in good shape and I received more complements that questions from my committee. I wish my Master’s thesis had been as enthusiastically received.

When the summer was over we moved to Statesboro, GA where I accepted a position as Technical Director and Scene Designer at Georgia Southern College (now University). Making a decision was hard. Surprisingly the most highly paid position I was offered was at a technical high school in New York City but I was not sure that any amount of money would support raising six children anywhere near New York City. (I was also informed that at that high school students were to be in their seats on the hour at which time the doors to the classroom would automatically shut and be locked until the closing bell rang fifty minutes later. I was just not sure that sounded right to me.)

All the other offers I had were in the South where I, as a life-long Yankee who read all the popular media had some prejudices against the area. I was offered a position in Alabama, one at a community college in a large city in Florida, another in South Carolina and the one I accepted. I confess that we made a decision to stay in the South for only two or three years then to move back to the “good” part of the country. On our first Christmas eve when I went out into the yard in jeans and a T shirt to play with the dog and recalled that the previous Christmas Eve I had been crawling on my belly in the snow probing with a broom stick for my car the resolve to leave in a couple of years diminished considerably

I will also have to admit that one of the main reasons I took this position was that it was the only one that didn’t require a loyalty oath along with the contract. Surprise, when I arrived one of the first things I saw was the loyalty oath I would be required to sign. I signed it.

I quite loved the job from the beginning. The Director of Theatre was an extremely talented lady whose production the previous year had been invited to the Regional Competition of the American College Theatre Festival, which was a big thing. I won’t pretend that she was always happy with me or that there weren’t times when I was unhappy with her, but it was a very creative relationship. The theatre facilities were pretty primitive and we had almost no shop or storage space, but we made out pretty well. In my first month there, I became aware that there was an old girls gym about fifty yards from the theatre. I conned my way into the building and discovered that it was being used primarily as a warehouse for furniture and unused equipment for the college. I submitted a diagram showing how we could use about a third of the building and a small unused basement area as a scene shop with a costume shop in the basement, and before we completed the first play we were using the facility.

When we arrived, we found a rental home on the outskirts of Statesboro in a little town called Portal. It was a farm home with a pond full of bass and an acre of garden. It was a little small, but we enjoyed it, and life started out well in Portal. Once again I became the Cub master for the cub scout troop at the Portal Baptist church and Jan became a den mother. The boys went to school and liked it. Our new home was a little far out of town, but getting up in the morning and catching a couple of one or two pound bass before breakfast can make up for a lot of things.

We enjoyed the house and had only one complication. Ali Baba staked out the boundaries of our property and made himself the official warden of the yard. He killed snakes that wandered into the yard (Georgia has a lot of snakes) and brought them up and placed the carcasses on our doorstep along with the occasional possum, rat, and even an armadillo. I came home one day to find my department chairman standing with his back against the door, hands and legs place firmly against the wall. In front of him about three feet away was a crouching Baba growling in a low throaty way. I called him off immediately and got him to stop growling and even lick Clarence’s hand. Clarence had brought me some papers he thought I needed without realizing that I was still working in the shop. I found that he had been standing there for about fifteen minutes and I was happy that I had not stopped for a hamburger or something on the way home. He came to see me many times after that, and learned that if he got out of the car and stood there with his hand out, Baba would sniff his hand, then give him a tail wagging escort to the door. We informed anyone who might be interested that they should give us a call before arrival so we could bring Baba into the house.

Our first three or four months in Portal were wonderful till one time in late November Stuart came home from school with the question “Daddy, are you a Communist?” Me, who had worked very hard as a campaign worker for the Barry Goldwater campaign, a Communist?

“No,” I replied, “What would give you the idea that I am a Communist?”

“I heard Mr. Brown (the school principal) telling my teacher that you were a Communist.” The principal of the school, Jerry Brown was an idiot who wouldn’t know a Communist if one bit him, but he had deep political roots in the Community so, of course he was an authority. I worked in theatre, had moved from New York to Georgia, and had long hair and a beard, and in that period of time that was enough to identify a communist, or at least a Hippie, which to that kind of mentality they were the same thing. From that day forward life was not very pleasant in Portal.

Janet and I loaded up the car in December with things that her Cub den had made as Christmas presents for their parents and we went to the monthly Pack meeting at the church. We went to the room where the meeting was held, and they were holding a choir practice in that room. I hunted down the Minister for youth and asked him where they had moved the Cub Scout Pack Meeting. He blushed, looked at the ceiling for a moment and said “Hasn’t anyone told you? We have cancelled Cub Scouts.” We had over forty really active Cub Scouts, which is an exceptional number in a small town and they cancelled Cub Scouts because an idiot principal spread the word that I was a Communist.

Stuart suffered because when we considered that he had finished the second grade in New York and still couldn’t read worth a darn we put him in the second grade in Georgia. He was self conscious about that anyway and as the word spread about Cub Scouts he had a hard time making any friends. (Because of his reading problem, we had sold our TV at our yard sale and let the family know that we would get a new one when Stuart could read. His hypocrite father broke down and bought a TV when the Winter Olympics began. He was reading pretty well by then so I rationalized that it was time then anyway. The other real reason, in addition to the Olympics, was that we lived out in the country, sixteen miles from Statesboro and over a mile to Portal with only one car which I drove to work and Janet was going stir crazy with the two little ones and no TV). Eric was as voracious a reader as before, and he wasn’t as dependent on friends or on teacher enthusiasm so he got along a lot better.

The whole thing came to a head in the spring when the boys decided that they wanted to play little league baseball. Some of the coached decided that they shouldn’t be allowed to play, and one of the coaches actually had to duke it out with one of the other coached to get my kids the opportunity to play little league baseball. I don’t remember his name but I still, periodically give a prayer of thanks for his courage and kindness to my boys. We immediately began shopping for a new place to live.

We had planted an enormous garden with potatoes, sweet potatoes, watermelons, pumpkins, crook neck squash, lettuce tomatoes and cucumbers. Everything grew beautifully though I had a watermelon almost three feet long which disappeared in the night just before we planned to eat it. I was pleased to discover a lot ladybugs on my tomatoes and thought they would eat the aphids. The next day I looked and they had eaten a lot of the foliage. I took a couple into visit some of my biology buddies and discovered that in the south they have a critter named the Mexican Bean Beetle that looks just like the ladybug except it has no spots and it is a vicious creature that is hard to kill. I did kill enough to get some tomatoes. Leaving the garden and the bass pond was difficult even if it would get us out of Portal but we shopped anyway.

We found an elderly white frame house in a small town named Brooklet (about nine miles in the other direction from Statesboro) which we were able to buy by assuming the mortgage. The owner was the ex-police chief of Brooklet who had been discharged for some reason and was in a hurry to get away. We got into the house for quite a small down payment, assuming a mortgage for eight thousand bucks. It was comfortable and we could afford it. Brooklet was a paradise after having lived in Portal. The folks there were so friendly and caring (and in desperate need of a Cub master).

We found one early problem with moving to Brooklet. We had noted that Ali Baba had a particular irritation with motor cycles on our road in Portal. This came about when he barked at one, and for awhile a group of motor cyclists began to plague him by riding up into our yard when they saw him. In a sense they buzzed him. This went on for some time until one cyclist got careless and Baba jumped into his side as he went through the yard and knocked him off his bike. Neither Baba nor the cyclist suffered serious injury but the teasing ended, and gradually the bikers found other places to ride.

When we moved to Brooklet, Baba was happy, patrolled the yard, and even made friends with a orange striped feral cat that lived in the abandoned grain elevator near our back yard. He had great fun chasing squirrels and the rodents who wandered into the yard from the grain elevator. One of the funniest sights I have ever seen occurred as I was driving home from work. Baba was chasing a squirrel across a nearbye lot when the squirrel darted up a tree. Baba was so close behind he couldn’t stop and he collided nose first with the tree. it looked like one of those Wiley Coyote cartoons, he seemed almost to accordion pleat against the tree. He stood up shakily and began to walk home. This time the squirrel had won.

We lived only about a block from the Brooklet Elementary school and when school started, children began to ride their bikes past our house to school. Baba apparently associated those bike with the motor cyclists from Portal and he barked and chased and scared the Dickens out of some of the children. We reached the stage that we had to tie him securely in the back yard before and after school. I tried to get him to make friends with some of the children and he did, until they would get on bikes.

At the end of the first school term there in Brooklet he knocked a boy off his bike and bit him (didn’t break the skin, but still??) and I knew I would have to so something so I took him to the vet, explained the situation and told the vet to put him to sleep. “Not on your life.” said the vet. “A beautiful Golden like that who responds to your every command as I see that he does, is so valuable I can’t let that happen. Is he registered?” I told him no, and he replied “It doesn’t matter, leave him here with me and I will find him a safe home in about fifteen minutes.”

I did, and I don’t know how the timeline worked, but I saved the broken hearts of six children when I told them what he had said. A day or so later, I had a call from a man who trained bird dogs for field trials, thanking me for the dog. He told me that he was perfect, behaved himself very well and said that we could come out to visit the dog any time we wished if we would call in advance. (I think the man’s last name was Tootle, but I am not sure.) We talked it over with the kids and they decided that we wouldn’t do so because it would be too painful to come back home and leave him there.

As we moved to Brooklet, Eric left the Cub Scouts and joined a scout troupe at the Statesboro Primitive Baptist Church. His scout master was a terrific man who happened to be a mortician. (He still active today though he looks younger than Eric did when he died. I have regretted for months that I didn’t have Eric’s mortuary work done by Emery, but at the time I thought he was long retired.) He enjoyed scouting very much. The church had a separate building that was a scout hut (bigger than a hut really) and Eric enjoyed the situation there enormously. He was now in the seventh grade and decided that he wanted to play football with the Junior high or city team. It was at that time that I learned something about Eric that didn’t show up in his pictures or in any other situation, but his head was so large that they couldn’t find a football helmet that fit him. The had to borrow a helmet from the high-school varsity. In the seventh grade, he wore a men’s size eight hat.

The family (but me) our first year just before leaving for Georgia.

Eric and Stuart our Christmas in New York

The family with Eric our second year in Brooklet.

He did very well that first year in school enjoyed scouts, helped me work with the Cub Scouts, decided by the end of the season that he didn’t like to play football as much as he liked to watch it. A good swimmer, he joined the city swim team as well.

Our new house got re-arranged a bit and ended up with a very large combination family room, kitchen with eating facilities. About this time, someone advertised on the local radio station (they had a program at noon called “Swap Buy or Sell where one could place ads at no cost) and someone advertise a professional slate topped pool table, with balls and all equipment. I checked on it, bought it for one or two hundred dollars, and moved it into the family room. Eric quickly became a true pool shark. Almost no-one, youth or adult who came to the house could beat him consistently. After a few months, his request for Christmas became to get a pool cue of his own, and he got one that came apart in two pieces and had a sort-of leather holster in which carried it. He often carried it with him when he went out, and I sometime shudder at the use he must have made of it.

Eric as a seventh grader

I should take a moment to clarify some of what I have told you. Eric was not absolutely a paragon of virtue all the time. He was pretty much completely trustworthy . Another influence on his life had to be my profession, not just the teaching profession, but the theatre profession. Almost from birth he was in the theatre for something. Before he could walk he often sat in his playpen and observed my students and his mother and I building and painting scenery. He was never brought to the theatre for a performance during his first year because of his colic. No one needs a screaming child in the audience, but he came to, and enjoyed all the performances during our second year. (I also spent a major part of the second year as manager of the local drive-in movie, so he was occasionally rocked to sleep by Earnest Borgnine and Burt Lancaster. When we went to Ohio for my MFA, he only saw those plays that I directed. but by the time he finished Elementary school he had seen his father play the Duke of Cornwall in King Lear, John Brown, Biederman of Biederman and the Firebugs and a number of other roles. He also accompanied me to plays while we were in Finland. In other words he had more experience in viewing live theatre than many children ever have. I haven’t given any detail about my professional life because, other than a fairly direct contact with the culture of education and theatre, I can’t pin down any time where the theatre had any direct effect on his actions.When we came to Georgia Southern, he became a direct participant in what was going on. I came here as a designer and technical director, and my first three plays were particularly a process where I endeavored to create a milieu where the action of the play could happen in a “realistic” way.

Our first play was The Miracle Worker by William Gibson, which a telling of the story of Helen Keller’s childhood, and Hazel Hall who directed the play did a masterful job. It was an exceptional performance and was nominated to tour to the Regional Competition of the American College Theatre Festival (which was a mixed blessing because the judges suggestion some changes in the theatre which I didn’t agree with, but Hazel wanted, and it made the scenery much heavier and more difficult to transport . We took the play to Abbeville, South Carolina and, of the several plays that were performed that week, Miracle Worker was adjudged one of the two best. A musical (who remembers which) from Miami University was nominated to go to Washington DC for the National final. Miracle Worker was nominated as the “alternate” incase some play that was nominated was not able to go. Hazel’s production from the previous year had met the same fate. A great honor, but still- - - .

Our second play, Look Homeward Angel was direct by a guest director from North Carolina, and was effective but not nearly the caliber of The Miracle Worker.

Our final play of the regular school year was called Summer Tree and had a role for a young boy, (and is the real reason for my discussion of program) and Eric auditioned and was cast in the role. It was a great help to him since we were having our problems in Portal, and acting in the play was a great distraction from that. He was very successful, and he was awarded the trophy for “Best Supporting Actor” of the year at the annual banquet. The other members of the cast treated him like “one of the guys” which I thought, at the time, was wonderful. I wonder, now, if it is good for a ten year old to be “one of the guys” among a bunch of college students, but it seemed like a good thing at the time.

Eric in Summertree (best supporting actor)

Another shot of Summertree

We had a summer program of two plays (about the first time for summer theatre here, our auditorium was not air-conditioned and that doesn’t bode well for summer theatre in Georgia). For an air conditioned space, we did two plays in repertory in the band room of the Fine Arts building. I directed Antigone by Jean Anouilh, Hazel directed another William Gibson play Dinny and the Witches. They were very successful, and Eric got a small role in one of them. A new regular activity became part of his life.

We had moved from Portal to Brooklet, a new school and new activities. Our next door neighbor owned the local grocery store, and one day, that winter, I caught Eric with some candy bars in his pocket after I took him with me to the store.

I questioned him, and he admitted that he had stolen them when no one was looking. I made him return them to the store where he gave them back to our neighbor and apologized for his misbehavior. The owner had a real hissy fit, yelled at Eric and forbid him to ever enter the store again. It seemed to be the beginning of a time when Eric was not so much “Daddy’s Little Boy”, a normal and disturbing period for both parents and pubescent young men. When he was in the eighth grade (our second or third year in Georgia) one of the families from our church came to me. they lived in Brooklet near us, and were having real problems with their son who was a year older than Eric, but in the same grade. They posed a question that perhaps Eric might get closer to their son. Since Eric worked hard at school, did all the things he was supposed to do at church, etc., perhaps he would be a good influence on the other boy. Amost simultaneously Eric was sent home from school for having his hair too long. The quote to me was “It makes you look like a sissy.”

Eric, looking like a sissy in the eighth grade.

If I had it to do again, I might have just told him to get a haircut, and sent him back to school, but his hair was shorter than mine, and I was wearing a beard. I got my back up, went to the School Superintendent and generally expressed my irritation. Finally the Assistant Superintendent asking me in, and said that if Eric would get a haircut this time, allowing the principal to “save face”, no one would ever criticize his hairstyle again. i talked it over with Eric, he agreed, and it was over—sort of. The combination of defying the principal, and beginning to hang around with the guy he was supposed to help seemed to push a contrary button in Eric. He began to stay out much later than his curfew, to smell of cigarettes, and to be a lot less cooperative in a lot of ways.

I guess the end of the year could be summed up in the fact that he was asked to the high school Senior Prom (he's still in eighth grade) by two different girls. My partial surrender is illustrated that I agreed to let him go. (I wish I had a picture of him in his “tuxedo”. He created his own tux with “tight butt” velvet bell bottom pants, a black vest and ruffed shirt. He looked like Zorro. It was clear that he had slipped the bonds of Daddy’s Little Boy.

Observation and reflection

2011-05-05T21:26:00.001-07:00

I was pleased and excited when the word came out on Sunday that Osama Bin Laden had been hunted down and killed. No man ever deserved his fate more that Osama. I am somewhat disquieted by the constant celebration on air of that event. I was troubled as a watched the ceremonies at the World Trade Center. I found my self wondering where the President was during the ceremonies last Sept. in that location.

I have to admit, I really dislike President Obama. When he was elected I was unsurprised. I had predicted his election in this blog over a year earlier. I was a little uncomfortable about it, but I felt that”Okay, he’s the President, he’s also my President, I want him to succeed.” Almost everything he has done since then has worked to what I feel is the imminent decline of the U.S. A. Anyone who has read this blog for awhile knows that I have some sympathy with the idea of some sort of Government supplied medical care for everyone, but what has evolved is a distortion of everything practical. It has already driven my personal medical expenses up by about twenty percent, and I am now living (literally) on Medicare, a form of governmentally sponsored health plan. I can’t imagine it doing anything but harm to medical practice and distribution.

I don’t want to spend every word of this post on the negatives of Obama, but the prospect of him being re-elected for another term makes me fear for my country. Having said that, and having watched TV news, from as many different sources as I could organize here in my time-share condo, I am not sure but what the final undignified act that Osama Bin Laden has done in his demise,is to re-elect the current President for another term.

What troubles me almost as much is that we Republicans and other conservatives seem to be going out of our way to help him.

Georgia passed a law in the last legislative session that could be called and Arizona Law. When I left for vacation the Governor hadn’t signed it yet.

Now, being conservative (which derives from the term “conserve” which means to protect and keep those things that are good available for our use) I bow to no man in my desire to get control of the Border. Without better control we have Osama’s disciples coming across the border for killing and sabotage. We have the Mexican Drug cartels making war on Mexican citizens on their side and spreading it to war on many people on our side of the border. How are we trying to conserve and protect ourselves? By scaring the heck out of everyone with a Hispanic or specifically Mexican heritage. We spread news of how Mexicans are flooding the health care system, bleeding our towns of school space, sucking blood out of the welfare system and that is all a load of crap

Mexicans buy food, clothing, cars and all that stuff in the towns in which they live. That means they are paying sales tax. Not all of them rent expensive housing, but they all rent (or buy) houses, and either directly or indirectly pay real estate taxes. The economic value of what they do is testified to by the fact that it is difficult to keep a business in our part of the country going without giving Spanish language names to products.

Most of the Mexican’s with whom I am acquainted (of both the legal and illegal immigrant status) are by nature very socially conservative. Most save their money, go to church, believe in as high a morality as our society tolerates, and are among the hardest workers found anywhere. (good research has established that, but just being around when they are working tells you this is true). By spreading all the crap about welfare, schools etc. Republicans and conservatives have been and are doing all they can to scare people of Mexican descent away from the party that is their natural home. We complain that the Democrats are loosening restrictions, making sanctuary cities, (which does encourage the crooks among the Hispanics to make trouble) in order to build a large Mexican American vote. This is true, but it wouldn’t be as true if Hannity and the talking heads didn’t spend so much energy making sure that no sensible Mexican does anything but fear Republican and conservatives.

I am fearful that the combination of the recent glory of Obama and our constant denigration of anyone Mexican will re-elect the President.

Look around the emergency room of the hospitals around you and count the number of Caucasian, African American, and Hispanics and evaluate for yourself how many of the non-payer type are in which category. Our Georgia Law has most of the farmers in this largely rural agricultural state panicking about how the crops will be harvested, thinned and maintained. The attack on business men that hire Hispanics has already closed factories in Georgia without the Arizona bill. Most of the provisions of the law would be acceptable to Mexicans if they didn’t already fear that the Republicans are out to get them. Sure, some Mexican labor gets paid in cash under the table without paying income tax, but in the South, about fifty percent of the carpenters (white guys mostly) tree trimmers (tree surgeons? ) and day labor of many kinds get paid the same way. I know of people for whom the closest they have come to ever paying income tax to to have their employers (sometimes with out them knowing it) submit 1099s on them as individual contractor. Why single out brown faces for investigation and accusation on that account.

Well that’s enough steam let out for the night. Tomorrow I go back to vacation reporting or something like that.

Vacation

2011-05-04T22:47:00.001-07:00

Here we are and have been since Sunday evening on vacation at our time-share on beautiful Hilton Head Island. The weather is beautiful and our condo is beautiful. We have three bedrooms, big flat screen TV’s in every bedroom, two pools, one indoor and one outdoor, the indoor pool with a sauna, the outdoor pool with a hot tub (we don’t need three bedrooms, but someday we will invite people who can get vacation time in May.)

Usually we occupy ourselves by trying to find new restaurants, doing water aerobics every morning, sitting in the sun by the outdoor pool during the late afternoon, and prowling the shops during the day. There is a lovely weight room, pleasant lounge with a bunch of books left by others which one can take and read (and hopefully return).

The day before we were to come, Janet came down with a cold and it has worsened almost every day. Yesterday she went to bed a little early and took an ambien because she hadn’t slept soundly the night before. Today she slept until about four P.M. We made dinner out of the leftovers from our meal last evening at The Old Oyster Factory (delightful service and excellent food but neither of us has completely finished a meal in a restaurant in a year. I think they call us the white take home box kids) The meal, even in its second manifestation was delicious. We watched a little TV, messed with our computers (I didn’t mention that the condo has free Wi-Fi, unsecured so I wouldn’t do my banking on it) and bedded down early. I had a terrible back episode just before we left so I got a dose pack of prednisone from my neurologist and started taking it. The back pain is gone, but prednisone always makes me late to bed and early to rise, so I got out of be to write this at about one A.M. To top it off, I have picked up Jan’s cold so I have a mild sore throat as well.

The fact is we haven’t done anything we usually do except hit a couple of nice restaurants. The real vacation has been to sit in the condo and not feel a need to go out in the yard and trim bushes or vacuum the pool or anything else. Pure useless loafing, but I guess when one had passed the center post of the seventies a little useless loafing aint that bad. We have plans to go to the pool tomorrow morning. First time all week. We’ll see how that works out. At least I could watch all the Osama bin Lauden news and if Janet gets tired of it she (or I ) have a variety of TVs.

Rolling Stone

2011-04-20T08:03:00.001-07:00

I am not a fan of Rolling Stone Magazine and never have been. My basic view of Rolling Stone is that it is written from such a strong bias and off-beat point of view that most of the articles therein are full of ----I guess I will keep it clean and go back to bias. On the other hand, my oldest son was a fan of Rolling Stone. He worked as a roadie for several rock bands, was a “Dead Head” etc. so I bought him a subscription to Rolling Stone for Christmas, and as a regular reader of this blog, you would know that he died of lung cancer in Mid-November. As a result, I have an issue of Rolling Stone coming to my home on a regular basis. I am a waste not want not voracious reader so I scan the magazine regularly and have found that most of the articles are full of what I have always thought they were full of.

In the April 28 issue there is an article that everyone who is concerned with the way the government is functioning and they waste of our tax dollars (and complaining that there aren’t enough of them) should read. It is very revealing and specific and deals with the complicity of the Fed in wasting the “”bailout” money, and keeping secret what was done with it. The article is THE REAL HOUSDEWIVES OF WALL STREET, and starts out like so much in the magazine as liberal screed. But if I had the know-how to put the second paragraph of the article into this post without typing it out manually I would do it. I heartily suggest that anyone, conservative or liberal should read it. It is both frightening and infuriating.

A day of—well, sort of rest.

2011-04-11T21:49:00.001-07:00

Got the children off to the plane yesterday, snd sort of ran out of gas for the rest of the day. (Missed church to get the children to the airport).

Today we went to water aerobics, something we have missed for a while because of Janet’s broken toe., and spent the morning finishing off the monthly bills.

This afternoon we took advantage of Dish network donating some channels of STARZ for our use for awhile and watched a movie that I had not heard of (2009 release) called LAST STATION. It was a telling of the last days of Leo Tolstoy’s life, and while the writing had some early flaws, the overall effect of watching two of the best actors now working (Helen Mirren and Christopher Plumber tearing up the scenery and moving me to frequent tears, was a real joy to this old actor, director, teacher. If you get a chance to watch t , do.

I also watched a film version of an Oscar Wild play that I didn’t’ know (and can’t remember the title– RELATIVE VALUES or something like that) with Julie Anderson and a Colin Firth of about ten or fifteen years ago. It was very fun. Wasted the day, in other words. I hope to do or see something that stirs me to write something coherent tomorrow.

Alive again April 8

2011-04-11T10:03:00.001-07:00

We took yesterday off and spent the time sleeping, doctoring and eating a little. I discovered that I had broken a part off my upper plate, and it no longer fits worth a darn, so eating is a problem as well. Today we returned to Universal to use up our last tickets, and pick up our car. We rather ignored the Islands of Adventure where we had such fun Wednesday. For today, Janet insisted on renting me a wheelchair so my grandson pushed me, and Janet used her Winnie Walker (that is a brand name, but we call her Winnie all the time as well) We worked our way through Universal, going from ride to ride till I found myself a little motion sick riding the inside roller coaster through the Mummy’s Revenge. We then returned to Islands of Adventure so that the kids could make one more trip through the Harry Potter trip. They also finished off with a trip of the Hippogryph roller coaster. When they located us, Janet decided she needed another Harry Potter adventure so she and Aubrey (the grand daughter) went back for a final trip to visit Harry Potter. Even riding the wheel chair most of the time, I was exhausted and the others felt more or less the same. We had some snacks and made our way back to the lonesome Cadillac which had been sitting in the parking lot (without receiving any molestation at all). Tonight we are at the lodge where I plan to go swimming momentarily.

Such Fun

2011-04-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

I don’t know when I’ll get this posted since I don’t have easy access to the internet at this lodge. We came down here to Orlando mostly to give a gift to our Harry Potter top fan grand-daughter. We have learned certain things (or remember thing we had forgotten) one of which is that for two oldsters, with peripheral neuropathies, nagging cardio problems, and surgery “improved” legs, there is an awful lot of walking to do in a theme park. We walked more in the past few days than we have done since Janet’s cardiologist put a stop to our “power walking” routine a few years ago. Janet has “Winnie Walker” and I have my cane and we figured we could handle it, and we did—sorta. She did a lot better than I did (my lower vertebrae began to act up.)

Then grand-daughter became ill. (Orlando has a whole bunch of new pollens and substances in the air to affect her asthma). A trip to the “immediate care folks solved her problem and we were back at Universal Studios yesterday. We actually had a very nice time, got on the rides we wanted without terrible problem, found a place to eat that was pretty good, and after attending a late Harry Potter adventure, my granddaughter won a free Harry Potter magic wand. We were on our way back to the car, when, almost to the parking lot, I began to have balance problems. I found myself walking faster than I wanted to because I was falling forward, using my cane to prop me up but I couldn't stop, I spotted a railing that I could grab to support me and moved toward it more quickly than I wanted to. Two park employees were lounging against it and I shouted “Help me, or get out of the way” so they moved out of the way. I didn’t make it to the rail (actually the First Aid worker that came to help me about ten minutes later thought that I whacked my head on the rail) but I took a major header and ended up face first on the concrete walkway.

As I tried to get up a nice Italian doctor came by and rather insisted that I lie there on the pavement for a little while. As he was taking my pulse I notice a lump on the top of my left wrist the size of an egg. (Seriously the size of a whole grade A, large egg) and became aware that my nose was bleeding profusely as a passer-by gave me a whole package of nasal tissues. I didn’t hurt anywhere in particular, and felt kind of silly lying there but I followed the doctor’s advise.

A couple of company EMT’s rushed up and took over for the doctor (and chased the large crowd away who probably thought I was a drunk, we were on the “City Walk, where they have a bunch of saloons and shows, and I had noticed some probable inebriates in the area already ) I insisted that I would be fine if I could get some help standing up and getting to our car. (I was worried about the family getting home because Janet, since her strokes in Finland, doesn’t drive at night because she is totally devoid of peripheral vision on her right side.)

Finally she agreed to get a wheel chair and get me to my car if I would sign a release that says that she recommended that I go to a hospital and I refused. I then became aware of how upset Janet and the two grandkids were and decided that “okay, what could it hurt to have an emergency room doctor take another look. I told the EMT that if she could arrange for my family to get to the hospital, and for all of us to get back to the cars (assuming I wouldn’t be admitted for overnight or something). She assured me that she would arrange such and the die was cast. I then realized the my glasses had come off, I was missing a a hearing aid and an enormous blood clot was hooked on to the back of my upper plate and was choking me..

While I was wiffle-waffing about that, I discovered that Janet had, with usual efficiency arranged to have a friend (who was also time-sharing in Orlando) pick her and the kids up, and found my hearing aid and replaced the lens that has popped out of my glasses. I think, at that time, that if I had won my argument with EMT that Janet would have over-ruled my decision anyway

To make a long story a little shorter, I got taken to a near bye hospital where I had a good series of X rays, found a container for my upper plate so that I could get the blood clot that was clogging my glottis removed, and finally saw myself in the mirror. If had had seen my face when I was out on the sidewalk, I would never have argued with the EMT about the hospital. I have two black eyes, my nose looks like and enlarged version of WC Fields’ and is black from the bridge of my nose to its bulbous end. I totally bled all all over two hospital gowns, and the bed in the emergency room , as well as filling an entire 10’X 14’ plastic basin with bloody tissues, great clots of blood, and assorted other gory bits of stuff. They had a lot of trouble stopping the bleeding in my nose, threatening, as one point, to insert balloons into my nostrils to inflate and stop the blood. (That sounded REALLY fun.) I have been given instructions to sleep sitting up; not to blow my nose for two days no matter how stuffy they feel; to quit taking my 81 mg daily aspirin, vitamin E, or anything else that might thin my blood until we get home and checked out by our Personal Care physician. The goose egg on my arm turned out not to be a symptom of a broken limb but a massive hematoma that has bled out into an almost complete box of gauze pads. This morning, after a lousy night’s sleep, I have discovered painful spots that were not noticeable yesterday, including a bruised hip, a knee that didn’t hurt at all until I knelt down pick up something that rolled under a chair. I have all kinds of contusions on my head, my hands, and the surface of my enlarged nose. Gee time flies when you’re having fun.

To top it off, I have a car that is still parked in the handicapped zone of Universal studios. I now considering going downstairs to swim, just to see, if I go under water, I will start a new bleeding pattern.

Taking Grandchildren to Harry Potter Land

2011-04-03T06:48:00.001-07:00

I don’t know if I will have internet access for the remainder of the week (As infrequently as I have posted lately, who would know the difference). I am taking my Harry Potter ultimate fan 11 year old grand-daughter and her brother (she is a fan, she has ever written a sequel) to Orlando to pig out on Harry Potter.

I will leave you with another stupid kid song.

Alice where art thou goiing? Upstairs to take a bath

Alice with legs like toothpicks and and neck like a giraffe raffe, raffe raffe ,raffe , raffe raffe raffe, (I think I left out a raffe or two.)

Alice get in the bathtub. Alice pull out the plug,

Oh my goodness, Oh my soul, there goes Alice down the hole.

Glub, Glub, glub.

I dunno

2011-03-20T16:55:00.001-07:00

Since the passing of my oldest son back in November, my posting on the blog has become very sporadic. Every time I sit at the computer I end up writing on a memoir about my son. It began to get lengthy so I decided to divide it into two parts, Daddy’s Little Boy, and Not Daddy’s Little Boy, but, even as a two parter I am afraid that each part will be so long that no one will finish it except my other children who will then fill my Email box with notes explaining that I have my facts wrong..

In the meantime enough has happened that I would have liked to post about, and I didn’t. I mentioned a while ago that I am very pessimistic about the results of what is happening in the Middle East. I fear that the Egyptians have gone from one dictatorship to another, Yemen is going down the tubes, and my deep suspicion is that Khadafy is going to end up exactly where he was. For forty years he has played his enemies like a violin, and ‘No Fly Zone’ or not, except that he will have winnowed out some of his diplomats, and a lot of Libyans will have died, we are in for the same ol –same ol.

On the home front, I looked at my self the other day in a full length mirror and realized that I look like a frail old geezer. I had surrendered to the geezer/coot identification a long time ago, but “frail”/ Yuck.

Janet has had another episode where she suddenly “drops out”. She was working with her computer when suddenly she felt terrible, and called for help. I had to almost carry her (almost is the noticeable word, since I am now “frail”) to her bed. She fell immediately to sleep and slept for the rest of the day and most of the nest night. I took her to our doctor (We have changed General Practitioners, we no longer trust our former one.) and the doctor said that we did the right thing, and he couldn’t find an immediate cause. She also kicked the vacuum cleaner rushing for the phone and broke her foot, so she is reluctantly wearing a moon boot.

We just keep on keepin on. Will finish Daddy’s Little Boy in a few days and post it. Let me know if it makes you snore, and I will know whether to spend time on the next episode. (Actually, for some reason that a good psychologist would probably be able to identify, I am, sort of, driven to finish this)

Crafty Observations

2011-03-06T21:05:00.001-08:00

I just spent Saturday at a Craft Sale in Columbia South Carolina. I didn’t buy as much as I usually do on such occasions but I made some observations.

It is sometimes amazing that so many people can create so many different things out of things that others throw away. (Everything from bolts, nuts and old automobile mufflers to lonesome pieces of old silverware).

It is interesting that so many of the booths in these places (ostensibly made to show individual works) are filled with obviously factory made items that are presented as “craft” (hand made or at least created by the folks who demonstrate and show them) by clever salesmen who make these items look like their own work (ranging from some types of furniture to canned goods).

The world is filled right now with very thin women wearing “spray on” jeans, high heeled boots and tight tops. About ten percent of these look absolutely lovely and the other ninety percent look anorexic and boney like starving waifs in third world countries (even though much better dressed)

I met and chatted with doll and puppet makers who are doing good work and who make me insanely jealous because they are doing stuff that I can do and have done, but for one reason or another I haven’t sculpted a dang thing in over a year.. Every time I go out in my studio, I feel like I should apologize to all of my nice equipment that is sitting there unused.

It was a very nice day, though because there was enough real art there to make my imagination start to churn. Maybe I can start going into the studio and actually exercising some of those tools .

When you can’t trust a hospital

2011-03-02T19:22:00.001-08:00

My grand-daughter is going into a hospital tomorrow for surgery on her shoulder. A week ago Sunday she fell and broke her shoulder. Her mother took her to the hospital emergency room. (A place where she has been before. She is a diabetic as well as epileptic so she can’t drive herself. She has been in and out of this hospital often, usually with ketoacidosis which frequently keeps her in ICU. Truth to tell, she has now always been a perfect patient) They don’t like her much anymore, so they did an xray, told her there was nothing serious wrong with her and sent her home. She was actually left outside, waiting for a ride.

He mother picked her up. She was in such pain that she was taken home, her mother dug out a sling from a medical supply and tried to take care of her. She was in such pain that her mother had to bathe her (She is in her twenties) Finally they took her to a different hospital, where they looked at her shoulder which was visibly broken stabilized the sholulder and referred her to a Orthopedist, The orthopedist examined her and told her that her shoulder was broken so badly that she will have surgery tomorrow to completed rebuild (replace, one of those things) the whole ball and socket part of her shoulder.

I guess the only thing I want to say further, is that, if you are ever in Ocala Florida and you have an accident, avoid West Marion (Marian-I’m not sure of the spelling) Hospital at all costs. I think one would be better off lying in the street praying for Emergency service to come along.

pessimism and depression

2011-02-24T18:15:00.001-08:00

I have come up with about twenty things about which to write, but as I sit down at the computer I feel and think about almost nothing but the foreboding feeling that dictates much of my action right now.

Since the early days of the Egyptian episode when President Obama said in his schoolmarm voice “Change must happen NOW” I have sense that no matter what happens now the results are going to be catastrophic. My sense was then that if the Egyptian people succeeded in their effort to relieve themselves of their president for life, somewhere in the mix will be the sense that the U.S. government is dictating the internal affairs of that country, and if they failed the government would be antagonistic for the same reason.

Since their President stepped down the results have been broadly painted a sweetness and light, but I really don’t think that is true. The Military is now in charge, and when was the last time you heard of the Military taking over a country that the result had anything to do with Democracy?

Now Libya is in turmoil and Khadalfi is reacting harshlly (predictable certainly) and the results, regardless of who or what wins is going to blame everything negative on us..

I guess that what I am trying to say is that i feel that today’s actions are leading to a result that will be much more than the price of gasoline going up thirty (or forty or fifty) cents a gallon (here in Georgia) I sense that we are sliding into a world calamity that will seriously affect every one, every where.

I hope and pray that I am wrong but I just can’t cast off the overwhelming sense of foreboding.

Just reading.

2011-02-13T21:04:00.001-08:00

This column, written by one of my former students (no I didn’t teach her writing) grabbed me on Facebook today, and if I am lucky it will publish (computer freak, not geek am I)

Barbara Donnelly Lane: Time to set aside moral ambivalence on abortion issue

by Barbara Donnelly Lane
Guest Columnist The Marietta Daily Journal

February 13, 2011 12:00 AM | 232 views | 0 | | 8 | |

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When I was in college, I considered myself pro-choice. I had friends who had made the decision to have abortions: wonderful friends with good hearts, shining eyes, promising futures. I knew they were not bad human beings. I could not equate slogans like "baby murderer" with any one of them. They were real girls with real problems, hopes and dreams.
Truth be told, I still cannot fly the "baby murderer" banner over my memory of any of those young women, but I no longer find abortion morally ambivalent. Rather, it is a decision that puts the interests of one human being over another. Furthermore, it does not exist in the abstract of philosophy classes; it terminates an actually beating heart, leaves unopened eyes closed forever and brutally cuts short the unchartered future of an unwanted child.
Of course, organizations like the National Organization for Women prefer to keep some distance from the concrete realities of abortion by swaddling them in kinder words like "family planning," to which no one can possibly object, but the reality is this "choice" corrects what was "unplanned" by killing a fetus. Preserving the right to have an abortion is a major plank in the Democratic Party's national platform, so it is important to examine how mainstream Democrats frame the issue.
Hillary Clinton has long been a powerhouse in Washington. On Jan. 22, 1999, she addressed NARAL - a powerful lobby group that supports abortion - and said the goal of pro-choicers is to keep abortion "safe, legal and rare into the next century." This has remained the main talking point of the left: safe, legal and rare.
The problem with this position is a simple one. To make abortion acceptable at all, one must make it morally ambivalent. One must talk about life not beginning at conception. One must say that it's only tissue growing in a woman's womb rather than a person. One might even be more radical like bioethics professor Peter Singer of Princeton, who argues that even a newborn is not intellectually aware and thus cannot be considered a human being.
Per his logic, there is nothing immoral about making the choice to leave an undesirable baby in a dumpster. Certainly there is no problem with killing a baby that has survived a late-term abortion. (Apparently he's not all that up on the mentally-disabled either.)
If abortion is made to be/feel/exist on the same level as a medical procedure to get one's teeth cleaned, there is little societal impetus to keep it "rare." If a child is the same thing as a wart or mole or other such undesirable whatnot, there is no intellectual processing of the damage that is inflicted on the child. There is no question of moral or ethics put into practice at all but a self-centric sense of self-preservation that dismisses personal responsibility completely. While Mother Teresa insisted, "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish," the entire pro-choice mindset dismisses that any child has died at all.
Therefore it should not be shocking to learn exactly what we have reaped on the ideology the pro-choice movement has sown. After almost four decades of legalized abortion, in New York City an average of 90,000 children are aborted every year. According to the New York Times (Jan. 6), this is 40 percent of all pregnancies. The city's health department's records show close to 60 percent of all babies terminated are from minority communities. One wonders how all this "choice" has impacted the notion of family, the sanctity of human life, and the dignity of the American woman.
Ultimately, individual Americans must decide how they feel about the abortion issue. With data available from almost 40 years since Roe vs. Wade, the New York Times chose to publish the story about New York City's abortion rates in relation to how the Catholic community is reacting, but I would put forth that one doesn't need religion to consider the impact of what estimates equate to the loss of almost 10 percent of the American population in my lifetime. Those numbers are staggering. The goal to keep abortion "rare" has failed miserably, so I would call those men and women - including firm "pro-choice" leaders like Hillary Clinton - to give due diligence to the moral and ethical questions surrounding abortion that have been ignored or buried.
In light of a failing economy, social issues do not rule the political discourse of today. However, some facts and figures simply cannot go by without comment.
Barbara Donnelly Lane is a writer living in east Cobb who has contributed to the Marietta Daily Journal, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and BBC. She is working on her master's in teaching at Georgia State University.

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Still Trying—Sometimes very trying!!

2011-01-31T20:49:00.001-08:00

I have had a real problem sitting down to post recently. It isn’t that I have nothing to write about. When you are older than dirt, stuff comes up, and you fight it, surrender to it, or sometime just ignore it. The health issues are the hardest to ignore. We had a very pleasant Saturday until evening. Number two son was visiting and helping with some puttering around the house, and I was in the computer room beginning to pay some bills when his voice came loudly from the other side of the house. “Father! Come quickly, Father!!”

I detected an imperative element in his voice and yelled “I’ll be there in a second.”

To which, his reply was NOW, bring a chair from the office that has wheels.”

I dashed out into the hall way to see him holding Janet somewhat erect, but looking very shaky and tear-stained. I grabbed the chair from one of the desks, fought it through the door, and dragged it to where they stood. Stuart pulled the chair close and carefully seated his mom in the chair.

“Mom bent over to pick something up and she suddenly had a pain in her neck, and lost her balance. I heard her yell a little and found her hanging on to the sink, unable to walk.”

Janet mumbled something about how badly it hurt and we wheeled her down the hall and got her up on the bed. I was sure at the time that she had had another stroke, and started to call 911. She was speaking clearly but weakly by then and she indicated (somewhat emphatically) that she didn’t want to go to the hospital.

Somewhat foolishly I acceded to he will, got an aspirin down her (just in case the magic of aspirin was needed) and covered her up on the bed. Stuart and I gave her a blessing which seemed to calm her, and she remained quietly on the bed.

That was the beginning of a long difficult night for both of us. After a while she felt strong enough to go to the bathroom (with a lot of help) and in that process I got her clothes off and got her under the covers. We both woke up a lot (she really didn’t sleep and seemed to want to watch the TV through half closed eyes for a long time. Finally she went to sleep and slept most of the nest fifteen or twenty hours. She woke up and told me she had promised to take some books to one of the sisters at church and wanted me to take them. I refuses, telling her that I wasn’t going to leave her alone. But she persisted to the degree that I felt better to do as I was told, so I took the books to church, gave them to the appropriate lady and rushed home. Fortunately she slept all the time I was gone and in the evening got out of bed for a few minutes.

This morning her neck still gave her pain but the migraine type headaches that she had been having were still troubling her. We went down to the city swimming pool (heated therapy pool) and moved around in the water, and she felt pretty good by the time we went home.

It obviously wasn’t a stroke, (though, given the same circumstance again, we will spend the time in the hospital-just in case) and we are both a lot calmer tonight. This is the type of thing that throws old coots seriously off balance, but the older we get, the more common they are.

2011-01-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

LIFE'S LITTLE DISAPPOINTMENTS
I finished up my last post with a lot of talk about food, but I have to confess that over the years our favorite breakfast place has been our local SHONEY’S. I suspect that over the past fifteen years, we have breakfasted at SHONEY’S close to forty Saturdays a year . It is nice to go into a place where most of the servers recognize you, and our favorite server Linda (don’t have a clue about her last name.)meets you at the table with your beverages already poured and has your order in her mind already. Our kids, over the years have been fans of SHONEY’S breakfast buffet (When they were little, they were broken hearted when we discovered that the last SHONEY’S was on the east side of the Mississippi, and when we made a trip as they were in their teens and we found one on the west side, they were absolutely thrilled and cheered as they went in for breakfast. Strawberry pies from SHONEY’S have been the “birthday cake” of choice for many of our family for years. The biscuits and white gravy at SHONEY’S are the best in the south. The biscuits are “melt in your mouth” and the gravy is wonderful (once in a while supplemented by the sausage gravy.) Our kids have always gone to the buffet, but Janet and I were menu eaters, and the foot was always economical. For almost five years we had the Sunrise Special and two diet Cokes for 8.01 (pre-tip). The prices have gone up a little since then but were still the best breakfast for the money anywhere. One could sense that their business was falling off as they began to sell the breakfast bar for 4.95 on weekdays once or twice a month, and the evening crowd of cars really dwindled, but we were shocked to arrive home, looking forward to a quick comparison between the Big Bad Breakfast in Oxford and our traditional meal at SHONEYS, and we were terribly let down to find that our SHONEY’S had gone out of business. We talked about feeling a little guilty at not having stayed home in Statesboro for the Holidays and patronized them to the last minute.
A second disappointment came when we arrived home to a snookerfest. While we were up in South Carolina for Thanksgiving, we did a lot of Christmas Shopping in electronics. Several items were purchased (I believe at BEST BUY or Office Max, but I’m not sure) on “black Friday and featured really significant rebates. One of the things I bought was an updated edition of my preferred Photo program Photo Impact. I have used PI 6, PI 11 and now this was Photo Impact 13. PI has been through a couple of manufacturers but the results were very good. It is now made by Corel, and marketed by Nova Development. After the purchase, I very carefully filled out the rebate package and mailed in everything they gave me at the purchase (after making copies, of course) My wife bought some stuff from Logitech whose equipment has always been satisfactory and it too featured a rebate, thought not quite as large. There were a couple of other things with smaller rebates from others. We arrived home to find almost identical postcards from all identifying some miniscule item that had not been returned in the rebate package so the rebate couldn’t be sent. It was so obviously a fraud on all their parts since the cards were obviously pre-printed and, checking with a friend (from him I discovered that is was Office Max for PI 13.) his card was identical. They saved themselves some rebate bucks but I have my last version of Photo Impact no matter what number they put after it, I am through with both Nova Development and Corel and now, reluctantly with Logitech because I am convinced that the whole thing was a fraud. I couldn’t prove it, but I can avoid the merchants now forever. Btthhhhtht

Medical Care

2011-01-18T20:56:00.001-08:00

I ran out of most of my prescriptions while we were traveling, so I made haste to the pharmacy to get renewals today (yesterday being a holiday). My co-payment was 193.98 dollars. My co payment for exactly the same drugs a month an a half ago was 142.00 (which was quite frightening at the time. Looking at my receipt, all the drugs which had a 25.00 co payment last time had a 30.00 co payment today. This, in addition to a more than 300.00 increase of the amount they took from my social security pension last month for Medicare. I received my yearly accounting of what is taken from my university pension for insurance etc. and discovered that I am also paying some from that pension for Medicare accounting. I still have one presciption to go for the month, one that has to be compounded and comes from a different pharmacy. Last month the co-payment was 45.00. I shudder to think what it will be this month (The insurance people make that decision.) I am sure glad that government health care is making health care so much less expensive.

Eating Eastward

2011-01-15T13:25:00.001-08:00

When I confirmed our flight from Washington with American Airlines , I clicked the spot on the computer that asked for notice of the flight status four hours before the flight the following day, Tuesday. Our flight was due to leave at !2:20 P.M. At about eight o’clock in the morning, my cell phone rang and announced that our flight was on schedule, which was a relief because according to the TV, on Monday, everything was jammed up from New York to Dallas because of ice and snow. We finished packing and had a pleasant breakfast of Brown Cow Yogurt (we are fans) and cereal, loaded the car and set off from Camas (near Vancouver, WA) to Portland International with enough time to check in by ten-thirty. (When you have to deal with a walker and a cane, as well as passing through security with Janet having a metal knee, metal thumb joints, one metal wrist, and a bunch of hardware on her right femur, you take the two hour in advance advice pretty seriously.) Just as we arrived at the entrance to the air-port, my cell phone rang to let me know that our flight would be delayed till !:50.

Counseling with my daughter-in-law and grand-daughter we decided to take the extra time to have a little more substantial breakfast, so we u-turned on airport drive and stopped into a Shari’s, a chain restaurant with a pretty good breakfast menu. We all had eggs, biscuits, hash browns, and several cups of hot chocolate then set off for the airport.

The check in was amazingly swift, and though they gave Janet the full body search the security pass was pretty good. ( When we came this way from Memphis, we passed through the x-ray machines, and though I have reservations at my naked body being seen by ANYONE, we really zipped though security, I vote for x-rays). When asked about the lack of X-rays at PDX the agents said, with some bitterness, that they were scheduled to get them some time ago, but that they were sent to Memphis instead. Because our gate was quite close, we didn’t wait for the ordered wheelchair for Jan and walked to the gate. Even with the stop for breakfast, we ended up with almost an hour to wait for boarding. We might have eaten more, just to kill time, but there were no “snack booths” near our gate. Incidentally my cell phone rang twice more as we were citing at the gate to let us know that our flight would be delayed till 1:50. The very nice people at the gate allowed us to board early so that we could get down the ramp with the walker, and the first leg of the flight began really well, though we were very worried because we were scheduled to arrive (now) at Dallas/Fort Worth at 7:30 and our flight to Memphis was scheduled to depart for Memphis at 8:10, and DFW is probably the only airport in the country where it is harder to make a short time connection than Chicago.

I had prepared a couple of turkey sandwiches to eat during that flight, and it is a good thing because, though there were ample soft drinks and juice available for the flight (a mixed blessing when one is seventy six years old with a seventy six year old prostate) there seemed to be very little that was edible. The greatest difficulty at this point was that Janet’s leg was in great pain during the flight and the flight was so crowded that there was no chance to access her pain pills. She was in real agony when we deplaned and this time the wheel chair was fortunately ready for her as we exited. She was wheeled quickly up the ramp where we were picked up by a cart.

With very little time to make our connection, we found to our dismay that another handicapped couple was in the cart, also with an almost immediate connection, but at a different gate. Our driver rushed them to their gate then off to ours, where we arrived at 8:05 for an 8:10 flight. As he pulled up to the gate he was yelling “Two more! Two more!”.

The gate clerk calmly pointed up to a sign that said that the plane had been delayed till 9:00, and the driver turned to us and said, “It looks like you have time for a snack if you can find some food”

We didn’t find food, and I discovered that I had left my can hanging from the back of Janet’s wheel chair back at the other gate, but you win some and you lose some. I did score a couple of cokes, made it to the bathroom, and though I couldn’t get to her pain pills, I did find her a couple of Tylenols. We began to board in a very short time and we were off to Memphis. While we were at the gate, I turned on the cell phone (which, of course had been turned off during the flight) and found three voice mails informing me that our flight from Portland would be delayed till 1:50. I am not complaining, I would rather get an overkill of information than none. Thanks, American Airlines.

The flight to Memphis seemed rather short though Janet spent much of it leaning back on her seat with eyes closed and teeth clamped tight, obviously not sleeping but in pain. We deplaned, and again went off before Janet’s wheelchair arrived, but we had heard that the baggage area was close by, and, even in pain she moves pretty well with her little walker. (It is a little three wheeled walker called a Winnie Walker which was given to her by our youngest son, and it was one of the best purchases ever.) Of course we took the elevator to the wrong floor and lengthened our trip a little, but we got our baggage off the belt just about the time our third son (the one who sang in the Memphis Christmas Concert) arrived to pick us up. It was late, and we stopped at a McDonalds to have a McRib on the way to Oxford where we arrived sometime after midnight and where we went in his house, undressed, collapsed on the bed and didn’t move till Noon the next day.

So far, as far as eating our way eastward, it doesn’t seem like this was the best food of the year, but when our son arrived home from his job at Old Miss Library he took us out to dinner (actually, we asked him to find a really nice restaurant and we would take him out to dinner). He drove us to a place that, at first glance, looked like a hole in the wall restaurant that was called “208” for its address on 208 Lamar in Oxford. It turned out to be one of the nicest restaurants we have ever patronized. It had a part that was sports-barish, but we were taken to a nice center table where we had fantastic food. I wish I had taken my cameral. We had a flank steak appetizer that was delicious, (though a little spicier than Jan would like) the three entrees that appeared and tasted like they had come from a famous gourmet kitchen. I had a chicken dish that was melt in the mouth, on a bed of mashed (but not candied, thank heaven)yams. Janet had a six ounce tenderloin about which she raved with every bite, that was on a bed of mashed potatoes (again a rave, and mashed potatoes are common in our house.) Ryan had a rib eye with some magic sauce. I am not sure what else, because he was on the other side of the table, and he didn’t offer to share, but our meals were plated beautifully tasted magnificent, and we marked “208” as a place to which we would return often.

Yesterday we had Ryan’s chili which has won Chili cook-offs three times, and then this morning, we returned to another “hole in the wall” which we have patronized before and loved. Oxford has a breakfast restaurant called “B B B” for Big Bad Breakfast which is a little bitty place, always crowded with more running waiters (servers, to be politically correct) and more pleased patrons per square inch than any other place anywhere. This morning we had a wonderful breakfast with omelets (they call it with justice, the awesome omelet) eggs, biscuits, eggs, sausage, andouille, home fries, and heaven only knows what else. Janet also bought two quarts of granola to take home because they make some of the best in the world. Now, this afternoon we are going to have a Ryan-cooked turkey, and i am going to go to bed this evening feeling well fed, gournetised, and pleased. Tomorrow we leave for home, a ten hour drive, which may be interrupted by a motel stay (depending on Janet’s endurance. I don’t look forward to tomorrow’s meals (wherever they may be eaten) but I will have the memory of the past few days to carry me back to Georgia.

Well at last.

2011-01-13T19:22:00.001-08:00

We are beginning to be normal people on vacation. It has been an eventful couple of months. We went to Coumbia S.C. for Thanksgiving, (fortunately before the snow arrived), from there to Mississippi and Memphis for the wonderful Christmas Concert of the Memphis Symphony and visiting our son in Mississippi for a bit, then a not quite miserable flight from Memphis to Washington where grandchildren worked their magic as we tripped up to Northern Washington for a stay till Christmas at Lake Chelan where we went into the snow on purpose. The children went sledding (where the grandparents declined an invitation to join in) then we explored interesting restaurants and shops in the tourist filled Leavenworth (with more sledding by the children). As we went back to Lake Chelan I discovered that living in Georgia for forty years has seriously affected my long-trusted ability to drive on snow slick roads, even in a four wheel with studded tires (none of which were available when I lived in Idaho as a youth-sort of).

An additional two weeks back in Vancouver where our son received an Army call to spend two months in Baltimore and Washington D.C. and our granddaughters explored the equestrian arts, and enjoyed (I’m serious) a return to school. Our eleven year old grand-daughter is exploring her choice of Universities for creative writing (she is finishing her version of a new edition of Harry Potter) her oldest brother, a senior in High School is applying for scholarships to study bio-engineering ( he hopes to study at Georgia Tech where he was accepted some time ago.) and her second oldest brother is satisfied with playing in the band and finishing his Junior year in High School.

The whole thing has been very healing. After a hellish flight into Memphis from Portland we are now chilling out (literally, it is colder here than it was at Lake Chelan though there is a bit less snow) in Oxford Miss where again we are visiting our third son and preparing to return home in Georgia this weekend. Life is better now, not perfect (no life is) but better.

I hate to say it, but the horrific events in Tucson reminded us that others have greater problems than we do and even that has been healing for us.

We appreciated the contacts from so many both in E-mail and blog comments, as well as Facebook that have shown us we we have caring friends that we have not yet even met in person.

political grumble

2011-01-04T19:15:00.001-08:00

I have been trying not to use my blog for political commentary, partly because I got carried away a year or so ago, but, I was paying bills on line and noted that my Social Security ( which has not yet reached a total that matches what I paid into it) dropped 300 + dollars this month from last month. I presume that this is the new increase in payments for Medicare. Janet checked hers (which is much less than mine even though over the years she paid much more into SS than I) and hers dropped a little over 100 dollars which now makes our payment into Medicare well over what I had to pay for Non government medical insurance. (almost double, in fact). Thank you President Obama. I would feel better about it if your Medical Insurance doubled as well.

Godspell

2011-01-03T22:33:00.001-08:00

I was listening to a PBS fundraiser the other day, where the main thrust of the program was “Hallelujah Broadway. In the process, three of the singers on the program performed a medley of tunes from the musical “Godspell” and (not for the first time) I was moved to tears. I have mentioned some of things I did in the theatre earlier. I am not sure I can be absolutely accurate, but, as either a Director, Scene Designer or actor, I averaged three to four shows a year from about 1959 to 1988. From 1988 to 1997 I focused on puppetry and averaged (again) three to four puppet performances a year.

I prided myself that no critic ever said something negative about one of my shows that I didn’t know about, and hadn’t tried to fix already.

One of my favorite shows was Godspell.l It was part of our summer theatre program where we did two shows in repertory (on alternate nights) using the same actors in both shows. For our summer company at that time we gave four high school scholarships for the summer so that the students could get both high school and college credit. We also opened up the casting to members of the community (pretty common now, but a rare thing in that time.) The shows were done in arena (theatre in the round) in a temporary theatre that we set up in one of the university dining halls that was not used in the summer.

The two plays selected that year were Godspell, directed by me, and Happy Birthday Wanda June, directed by a guest director brought in for the summer. Two more different plays would be hard to find. Godspell is a rock version of the story told in Matthew, in the Bible. It is, in spite of the Rock background, a very reverent piece, reframing the language and concept, but retaining the meaning of the scripture. Happy Birthday Wand June deals with two “explorers’ returning to civilization after some years in a South American jungle. It is told in very strong language and imagery, illustrated best by one of the characters who says “S**t, f**k, Sh*t, F**k, that’s all I hear now. I used to be scared sh*tless that I would say sh*t in public.” It deals with sex, violence and has a very cynical view of society.

The actors had some problems shifting back and forth in the two styles at first. This was further complicated by the fact that Godspell is a musical and –Wanda June is not. One of the recent graduates from the Music program (who was also a theatre type) rounded up a combo to play for the show, and it was excellent.

In past summer shows the Music Department had adopted our summer musicals as a cooperative project, but had decided not to do so this summer for some reason that I have now forgotten. I was philosophical, I had direct choirs and had even conducted the orchestra for one of my past musical shows, so I decided to just go it alone. I was sitting in my office reading the score, and realizing that the varieties of keys and tempos in this “Rock Opera” were well beyond my capacity to do and still direct the show when there was a knock on my office door. David Matthews, one of the professors in the music department stood there and said something like “I hear that the department isn’t officially supporting you this summer. Could you use some help?”

He will never know how close he came to having his feet kissed by a theatre professor. His presence opened up many opportunities for innovation that would not otherwise have existed. He taught the entire score to the entire cast, and while he was doing it, i told the cast if there were any parts which they wanted to try to do as solos or special numbers they could attempt them in the vocal rehearsals. In this way I picked all the soloists. Many of them did not follow the characters in the original improvised script, but I had a feel that this was the way it was originally done. The actors for Jesus and John the Baptist were terribly obvious (though I had some real thinking about which would be which). Each of the others just fit in like puzzle parts, and the performance was, in essence, improvised, then polished by David and myself.

My theme came from the scriptures in the Book of Matthew which were the basis of all the action. I chose “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, for of such are the Kingdom of Heaven ” (excuse any mistquotation, I don’t happen to have a King James Version at this writing) as I set the play in a playground with a swing set, climbing bars, a couple of big wire spools to serve as platforms and tables. All of the actors except Jesus and John came to the play as audience members, some with dates. The theatre was built as an arena with four sides and openings at the corners, and all seats were reserved so that I could place my actors where I wanted them.

The play begins with the offstage sound of a shofar (we were fortunate enough to find a real one, to avoid recorded sound, and an actor who could play it) followed by the wonderful tenor voice of John singing “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” The theme is repeated as he walks around the audience challenging individuals to come to baptism *(For this he carries a large pail of water and a sponge, hardly the river Jordan but it is a musical) The actors, some reluctantly came out of the audience to have a sponge-full of water splashed over their heads then go to the large trunk at the edge of the stage and select costume items. There was always some inter action with dates or those sitting near bye. One of the actors was a tall handsome black man dressed always in a white suit and with a lovely date (selected by him, not by me) and when he stood to come forward she grabbed his hand and protested vocally, but he focused directly on “John”, walked down front ripping off the white suit as he came till he tossed it beside the costume trunk and stood there in boxer shorts selecting his costume. Her reaction varied. Some days she sat with arms folded shooting daggers with her eyes through the opening parts of the show, but one night, stomping out through the exit door. He (and she) almost always got some kind of ovation in the act. Several nights there were members of the audience who spontaneously joined the show (getting wet at the time) and each night they were steered to items of costume that were not used by the cast, and were drawn gently into some scenes, though most must sat at the edge of the stage and watched.

I was constantly surprised during rehearsals at the segments that were created by the cast, and by unknown skills the just erupted. I needed someone to play the recorder, expecting to have it done by the band and faked by cast members by I had two actors who played the recorder very well, and one of them had two really beautiful wooden recorders, one with a high pitch and other low that looked perfect for the show. They played the music wonderfully. I had one cast member who was a summer graduate student in education (and I am sure who went to class and got her credits, but I don’t know how or when) who played the guitar very well to accompany one of her own solos and one of the small group numbers.

Part of the play is to invite the audience to come out on stage to break bread and have wine (in our case, a sparkling grape juice) with the cast, and most days much of the audience took the “blessed” items and chatted softly in fellowship with the cast. (Who did a lot of hugging as folks came down)

An unexpected result of this came well after the show when the local radio station called me to ask if I wanted “equal time”. Non-plused , I asked “Equal time for what?” The radio representative explained that the pastor of one of the Baptist churches in town who had a weekly radio broadcast on their station had brought his youth group to see the play. He was most disapproving of the Book of Matthew set to rock music and had tried to get his youth gathered together to leave at intermission, but most of them had come down to have “communion” with the cast. On his radio broadcast he had described Georgia Southern College, it’s theatre program and me specifically as satanically influenced and as the manage of the station described it (He offered me a tape, which I declined) as “The Anti-Christ”. I declined the offer of equal time since I thought that it would not be useful to emphasize the good pastor’s opinions.

I have to say that though most of my cast was not “religious", as rehearsals commenced, they asked for a moment of silence at the beginning of rehearsal and, as a group, treated the material and the performance with great reverence. I had thought of this, but since I was at the time, what could be called the lay pastor of the local Mormon church, I carefully avoided anything that might be interpreted as proselytizing or bringing my religion to the group, so I was actually thrilled and pleased, and think it added much to the performance when the cast as a group determined to treat the text and spirit of the play with reverence. I will always consider this production and particularly the beginning and the “crucifixion” scenes high points of my life, in and out of the theatre.

From the anticipatory to the realization

2010-12-13T20:33:00.001-08:00

The last few days have been very rich. Besides doing some good Christmas shopping and stuff like that, we went; first, to the Camas High School Band Christmas Concert.

The small group section was very good. They have two Jazz ensembles, and, for high school bands, in fact for bands playing locally in clubs or restaurants the quality was right up there. The first ensemble had a baritone sax player who could do union work tomorrow, and the second has a trumpet soloist who was a little guy who looked about twelve years old who just blew the heck right out of his horn. He did an intricate solo that went from low register to high register and was very polished. When the whole band started playing, I was impressed that they had an enthusiastic band with over one hundred thirty players. With the advent of “No child left behind” and a general budget crunch in secondary education, it was a thrill just to see that the school hadn’t given up on music altogether.

Having said that, the final concert section of the evening got off to a slow start. Anderson’s Sleigh ride was a bit disturbing. The percussion was the best part of the number but the low brass, in particular was muddy. I began to wish them well and just hope it improved. I had heard this band last year, and they were very impressive, but I was concerned after that first number. The third number on the program was The Nightmare Before Christmas and it was wonderful and the rest of the program got better each number that was played The band set up as a marching band with the percussion in front of the stage and the members of the band marching up the aisles to positions alll through the audience for the next to last number. Even if it had been marginally played it would have been entertaining, but it was played very impressively, and the finale was a complete and pleasant surprise when the band members put their instruments aside and sang, very well in at least four parts, in acapella, Silent Night in German. It was a wonderful finale.

Then, last evening, we went to the Grotto, a very nice and spiritual site, where the Catholic Church has a beautiful shrine in the woods, almost in downtown Portland. I had been there before, and loved it, but this was their annual festival of lights. The scenes and designs covered many acres and were very impressive, but we had come to hear a choir in which my daughter in law was a participant. As we entered the area, the cars parked by the hundreds, It was impossible to judge without a ticket count how many thousand people were in attendance but I am sure it was in the multiples, As I picked up the program, I realized that the choir we went to see was just a small part of the overall program. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, every night at least five choirs do a one hour program each. The evenings start at about five P.M. most days and go to ten P.M. or so with a new choir each hour singing in the Chapel of Mary, a wonderful place seating bout four hundred with the acoustic sound of a Cathedral. It is a wonderful place to listen, and to sing. I’m afraid that if I had known sooner what was going on, or if I lived in the area and had the finances for a new admission each night, I might spend (or have spent) many nights listening to choir after choir.

At the same time there is a live nativity, nativities of patterned program lights, and two or three other program venues where they have at least two quartets, called the grotto carolers, who wander around singing, drop in at the beginning of each choir concert, to warm up the audience (which changes with each performance) We heard the last part of a Youth Choir which was excellent, then listened to the one we came for (callled the Metro Arts Ensemble) which was also very good.

We also stopped to watch the carolers, a puppet show, (which the children loved, but, as a long time puppeteer, I found a little disappointing), and part of a living nativity as well as stopping to chat with a Santa dressed as a Medieval Bishop.

From there went to another church to walk through an exhibition of nativities brought by the church members. It was well set up and lighted and had nativity scenes from almost every nation and culture that recognized the nativity. I appreciated it very much, in part because my wife, and one of my sons collect nativities. We have so many at our house that we have to sort through them to decide which ones to display in hour house each year. (Janet talks occasionally about how nice it would be to ad a room to the house just to hold the nativities.

All things considered, I seem to have ventured from the Sublime almost to another form of the Sublime. If we had the opportunity to go sing at a community Messiah concert (one of my favorite Christmas activities, even though I have given up most choir singing)

From the sublime to the anticipatory

2010-12-08T20:27:00.001-08:00

I went to the wonderful Christmas concert of the Memphis Symphony and Chorus the other day, and this evening I went to watch the Christmas Concert at the Middle School in Camas Washington where my granddaughter plays in the sixth grade band. Some might have seen the contrast as unpleasant, but, having spent my entire life as teacher in the arts, I found the sincere struggles of beginning artists wonderfully enriching. Most of the tunes were truncated, only a few bars of each tune, but the Good King Wenceslaus was played three times and transposed each time which is always a challenge for beginners. I congratulate the sixth grade band. Each of the grades showed improvement though my interest was mostly in the band in which my granddaughter played. Tomorrow we go to the high school band concert in which one of my grandsons plays both the trumpet and the baritone horn, and this will be interesting as well. We always enjoy our trips to Washington to visit the children and grandchildren. My son and his family are civil war re-enactors and they have a civil war Christmas party Saturday which we will attend but hopefully not re-enact. Getting away from home at this time was very important for us and the time in both Mississippi, Tennessee and now in Washington has been very healing. The flight in from Memphis was a physical strain for Janet, but was reasonably care free thanks to some folks in Dallas who got us from one plane to another within the hour allotted, but it was one time I was a little grateful that we both fall into the handicapped category because if we had tried to make our connections afoot and healthy I fear that we might still be in Dallas.

On the other hand, when I tried to connect her laptop this morning bent over to plug in the power supply and just continued to bend till I hit the floor with a bang and took her computer with me to the floor, and I fear that I caused terminal damage to the computer. Of course everyone in the family was more concerned about my fate than the computers. I came up without even a bruise, just a red face from embarrassment. “Handicapped” has results less sanguine than making your airline connection on time.

At any rate from the Memphis Symphony to the Sky ridge Middle School band to the Camas High School band to the Civil War Christmas Party my soul is richer for the trip.

good morning

2010-12-05T00:43:00.001-08:00

It is almost two o’clock in the morning, and I am exhausted, but it is a good morning.

I went to Columbia, S.C. for Thanksgiving with my daughter and two sons, then Janet and I went up to Memphis to stay with another son and go to a concert where he sings with the Memphis Symphony Choir. They sang a Christmas Concert with the Memphis Symphony this evening and it was one of the best evenings of my life.

I shave had the pleasure of listening to some of the best symphonies in the world, but I have to say that the Memphis Symphony Orchestra is one of the best orchestras in the medium sized cities of this country. The choir was also wondrful. I have directed two choirs, and counting church choirs, I have sung in forty or fifty different choirs. Having said that, I was so jealous of my son being able to sing in this group with this choir. It was an exceptional musical experience. I can only think of one choir, of all those in which I have sung that was anywhere near the quality of this one.

Their first accapella number had a blend and precision that was about perfect.

The symphony was wonderful and it was what I, for one, needed desperately right now. My own choral work has become sloppy in old age, so much so that I have given up choir singing. I can’t hear the parts well in the accompaniment, and my sight reading is no longer precise, but as long as I can hear a choir like this one from time to time, I will be satisfied to sit in the audience.

Thank you

2010-11-22T19:54:00.001-08:00

I’d like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all those who sent messages of sympathy and solace to Janet and myself during the past two weeks. This was a difficult time for us, because, though we knew Eric was ill, we had no inkling of the malignancy in his lung, and were shocked when he went from a functioning rather vibrant human being to collapse and death in less than a week.

The memorial was very healing. The section where his closest friend told us about his life was both sincere and a little funny, When his friends were invited to come up and talk about him was moving and informative. We knew he was brilliant, but really had little idea that he so significantly affected many people. As I said, it was very healing.

We are beginning to relax get into our rhythm of hypochondria with a bit less tension and a realistic outlook.

I have been trying to write a story of his life, but I am still at the stage where my mind is so flooded with memories that I end up playing spider solitaire at the computer. We are going to Columbia, S.C. to celebrate Thanksgiving with our daughter. Our son who lives here and our son who came from Washington state for the Memorial are coming with us. We will then go to Memphis where another son is singing in the choir with the Memphis Symphony, and then out to Washington to see some of our grandchildren> I will try to get it together and report on our condition and activities, but won’t promise to be very regular. Thanks again.

Mostly for my extended family who follow this more closely than others

2010-11-12T17:00:00.001-08:00

My oldest son has had a liver problem for several years, and we have been hoping for things to be arranged so that he could have a transplant. For the past two weeks he has been failing rapidly. We got him into a hospital Wednesday, and in his initial exam they took a chest x-ray. The nurse came in a couple of hours later (He was still in the Emergency room) to say that he seemed to have a mass behind his left lung. They went in an gave him a CT scan.

The next morning, after he was admitted, they told us that the mass was IN the lung, and they were testing for a malignancy, He had a terrible night and when the oncologist told us, this morning, that it was malignant, and the largest such that he had ever seen, my son was beyond paying much attention.. He went from clear lungs four months ago to a malignancy so large that it is crowding the heart out of place, and that is inoperable. Today he was admitted to hospice. Good thoughts, prayers, or whatever works for you would be appreciated.

One a those days.

2010-11-11T05:12:00.001-08:00

WE finally got my oldest son into the hospital yesterday. It took from about ten A.M. till late in the evening. (Getting an uninsured fifty-plus uninsured person into the hospital is not an easy thing.) He had been failing rapidly for about a week. Besides the liver problem (which we knew about) they found one lung full of fluid, his abdominal cavity full of fluid, gall stones, a yeast infection in his mouth (which is one reason he has almost completely lost his voice) and as we left late last night they were taking him in for another CT scan of his chest to try to identify some kind of mass which the x-rays showed behind his bad lung.

WE are going back this morning, but for the first time in a couple of weeks I feel pretty good about his care and condition.

They really think we are stupid

2010-11-06T14:50:00.001-07:00

Just small observations. Did we all not notice that the 24 can pack of Coke products has just become a 20 pack (for the same price.)?

Not to pick on Coke particularly, but yesterday I happened into Wal-Mart and noticed a big display of two liter bottles of Coke products on sale for ninety nine cents apiece. I picked up a couple of bottles of Coke Zero and smiled at saving a quarter or two. Today, while shopping for some dairy products, I noted the same display and thought I would buy a couple more. As I picked up the bottle, it seemed a bit lighter and smaller so I looked closely at the label. The same display that yesterday had two liter bottles for 99 cents was now full of one and one half liter bottles for the same price. I wandered down to the carbonated beverage general display and found that two liters now cost $1.49.

It is a little like the ongoing shift of dairy product labels. One half gallon has now, for most brands become one point five gallons. But wait, one national brand has advertised “two extra scoops” . A real gallon” Not on your bippy. The new package has 1.7 gallons. It seems that the ice cream is selling well in spite of rapidly shifting sizes of cartons. One national brand has made it a hall mark to draw our attention to shifting sizes by trumpet “One full half gallon”. But it is just a matter of time.

Almost every product we buy has a bottle or container that looks just like the one we bought last year but is short and ounce or two or four.

We still keep buying but in no time at all the whole dang shrinking business will start again.

Home again, jiggety--------

2010-10-31T21:45:00.001-07:00

I spent three or four days in Florida last week. It was an interesting experience.

Getting there was about a five and one half hour trip, and we discovered that Janet still hasn’t healed enough( especially her shattered femur) to have a comfortable travel even un the Cadillac I bought especially for here travel. We are scheduled to go out and see the family in Washington State right after Christmas, and I expect a miserable trip for her.

We went to a time share in Orlando for three days and two nights, in return for which we had to sit through a session promoting an upgrade of some stuff we own. We have been to Orlando many times and have some favorite places to go, and didn’t get to any of them. We sat in our unit a fairly long time, had dinner out a couple of times and spent some profitable time doing aerobics in one of the pools there. The lodge had unsecured wireless internet but when one tried to use it an ATT logo popped up asking for subscription time. I didn’t use it, but I played a couple of computer games.

I was really impressed that many of the grocery items in the store were almost double the price of the same items in Georgia. I had thought that with almost twenty percent unemployment in Florida the prices would be lower. (That’s what I get for thinking with seventy plus year old brains)

On the way home we stopped for most of a day and visited with my daughter and her family (which includes three grandchildren and four of our great grandchildren) and we had quite a lovely visit. We would like to have spent more time but Janet was in such pain that we determined to come home that evening.

I have been wearing a heart monitor for the last three weeks. My cardiologist worried about all the weight I lost a while ago, and wanted things checked out. The heart monitor is connected with a “smart” cell phone and blue tooth stuff, and having carried it witih me for three weeks I am beginning to feel cell phone envy. (My phone is primarily just a phone.) I think I get to take the monitor off (gizmo hanging around neck with wire contacts to my chest) and send it back tomorrow. It hasn’t really been much trouble, but I am tired of it.

Anyway, we are home and trying to deal with our mutual physical unpleasantness's, as well as trying to help our oldest son who is in pretty dire straights. He needs a liver transplant but by the time it is available he may be too rundown to qualify for it. There are things about growing old that are really quite wonderful, and other things that just suck.

We celebrated Halloween last evening, though this is the real day. It was wonderful to greet the kids, give out the calories, and watch them smile. We are far enough from the University that we didn’t have any college age trick or treaters, but we had some really interestingly costumed parents and chaperones coming with the young kids. I was expecting a lot more vampires this year but the dominating costume trends were animal costumes and fairies with wings of all different kinds.

More stupid verse

2010-10-23T13:08:00.001-07:00

Cub Scout version:

Oooey gooey was a worm.

A mighty worm was he,

He got onto the railroad track

The train he did not see,

OOOEY GOOEY

Literary version

Oooey Gooey was a worm,

A mighty worm was he.
He sat upon a railway track,
A train he did not see.
The train came roaring round the bend,
The driver gave a squeal,
The guard got out his pocket knife,
And scraped him off the wheel.
Oooey Gooey!

2010-10-18T23:22:00.001-07:00

I'm Halloweeny

I have great fun getting ready for Halloween. I love to prepare lawn displays, well in advance. I make all kinds of junk for Halloween. (One thing I have planned to make for years is a squashed up witch with broom smashed against my chimney where she obviously wasn't looking where she was going. I didn't get it made this year either) I have a two wheeled cart filled with straw and a bunch of the silliest hay-riders you ever saw (pulled by a couple of mini-scare-crows and guided by a traditional lawn jockey wearing a mask and carrying a lighted jack o lantern.)

There is one problem about Halloween that is almost the same as the problem about Easter. On the day after the holiday there are vast amounts of chocolate for sale in the stores for almost nothing. The day following the holiday always gives me such a sugar rush. I promise myself I am not going to buy this stuff and eat it this years. I lie a lot when talking to myself.

I was wandering through the Wal-Mart Halloween section and found another thing that was a bit disturbing. As a walked through the costume section there was about a ten foot segment of costumes for pre-teen girls that looked that a catalog or wish book for pedophiles. Many of the costumes seemed totally appropriate for college women but totally inappropriate for pre-teen girls.

I walked on quickly and admired the full length talking witch and tuxedo clad skeleton with lighted eyes that had a movement sensor so that anyone passing by would be chatted with in Monster tones. (At just under a hundred bucks a piece, I was not tempted, but I thought they were fun)

All the Halloween stuff is getting crowded out by Christmas, which gives me the HO HO's because I like Christmas too, and the Halloween stuff should be half price by the end of the week. I can buy more spooky stuff, and maybe a really elaborate make to wear when greeting the trick or treaters.

As a an early teen-ager I was a pretty evil trick or treater myself. We were often (I was not, of course, alone) serious about the trick deal for those who were not generous. We sometimes--- I am going to change this and not admit a thing-- I heard of kids that sometimes moved outhouses (not available any more) a few feet backward so that the unwary might stumble in, others would take a paper bag, insert a shovel full of outhouse contents into it, place it in front of a door set it on fire and ring the doorbell, running off into the distance to watch the householder come to the door, see the paper bag on fire, and stomp on it. (truly yucky, I am ashamed of those who did such a thing).

One of the milder "tricks" involved taking an old wooden thread spool, cutting notches in the edges, the putting a pencil through the center hole and wrapping the spool with string, placing the thing against a window and pulling the string. If I haven't described it well enough, it would make a really ugly noise, without damaging the window.

Of course for the timid delinquent, just soaping a window or two would satisfy. (the truly naughty would sometime use paraffin wax which was really hard to remove)

Of course, all of these who did such things eventually became gangsters and spent their lives in and out of jail, but not those who just heard of such things happening and reported them on blogs.

So Maybe I Don’t Hate Dish Network

2010-10-16T21:26:00.001-07:00

I have had three separate rants on here about how much I hate and hated Dish Network. I had called them several times both locally and at the national number and found nothing but frustration, missed programming, forty percent of the channels on Lost Satellite status.

I called them again the other day, to ask if there was any possibility that I could take part in their promotion advertising High Def free for life and all kinds of less expensive things.

They told me NO. My response was to ask them if they could do anything to make me change my mind about moving to Direct Cable.

Finally they decided, at their expense to send out a service rep and I agreed, if he could make it work, to keep the Dish.

He showed up from out of town, the same day I called. He worked in the house from forenoon till about 7:00 PM. Everthing in the house must have been miswired, but when he left, IT WORKS. All the channels come in, the reception is so good I don’t feel that romantic about Hi Def. I wish I had screamed louder earlier, but this guy was terrific. Hey DISH, I don’t take it all back, because it was true and I was enraged, but I don’t hate Dish Network anymore. I hope it lasts.

Second Verse. a Little Bit Worse

2010-10-11T22:16:00.001-07:00

This is a lead in to something else, but: (another song or two.)

I came to a river and I couldn’t get across,

So I paid five dollars for an old blind hoss.

Oh he wouldn’t go ahead and he wouldn’t stand still,

So He went up and down like an old saw mill.

Turkey in the straw, Turkey in the hay,

Tune up the fiddles doodle ee ay

With a hi tukka hay and a hi tukka haw,

Tune up the fiddles for the Turkey in the Straw.

Most everybody my age knew those lyrics and that tune. and some of us knew other lyrics as well. Any one who was a Cub Scout in that time knew

Do your ears hang low? Do they waggle to and fro

Can you tie ‘em in a knot? Can you tie ‘em in a bow?

Can you thow em oer your shoulder like a continental soldier?

Do your ears hang low?

I probably taught that song to three hundred boys over the years. Being a cubmaster for cub-scouts was one of the most pleasant and rewarding experiences I ever had.

In Oneonta New York, for two years I was the cubmaster for a Cub Scout unit sponsored by a Methodist church but really it was a community Pack. You have never seen more excitement and competition when you have a pretty eclectic group set up for a Pine Wood Derby. (To the uninitiated, a Pine Wood Derby is a race with home-made model cars down a slanted track set up under pretty stiff regulations. Some of you may have seen the commercial currently on the air when this boy brings in a really rough looking little model and beats all the boys with their slick sophisticated cars built by their fathers.)

The boys get the materials, basically four wheels, two axles and a block of wood and they build their cars to a standard length ( I don’t remember the specs, but about ten inches long) and width and they race with time trials. A whole lot of screaming and shouting and they love it.

When we moved to Georgia we fpumd a little farm house in Portal, GA. about fifteen miles from the college. I became the Cubmaster for a Pack sponsored by the Baptist church, and Janet worked as a den mother. As before, it was really fun, and we had five dens, with about five or six boys for each den. It was spoiled when, in December, with our van literally stuffed with craft items that the boys had made for their parents Christmas we went to the meeting. When we got to the room where we usually met, their was a youth choir practicing Christmas Carols. I hunted down the Minister for youth and asked where the Cub meeting had been moved to. He looked a little confused, then muttered, “Didn’t any one tell you? We’ve cancelled Cub Scouts.”

I asked the reason, if something had happened in a meeting, or what was wrong, and he just clammed up and walked away.

We went on home, then spent the next two evenings driving around Portal and environs giving mothers the gifts their children had made. I asked a couple of the mothers if they knew why the church had cancelled Cub Scouts, and most of them replied in some puzzlement that they were told that WE, (Janet and I) had suddenly quit and that Cub Scouts had been stopped until they could recruit a new Cub Master. Finally, the last lady we talked to said that she had heard that Mr. Brown had told the Pastor that we were Communists.

For a moment, I was stunned, I had spent a lot of time and energy just a while ago campaigning for Barry Goldwater for President. I just couldn’t understand until it hit me that we had just moved from New York to Georgia, I was getting quite a lot of newspaper space for the work I was doing in Theatre, and one of the newspaper articles had a blurb in it that we had recently spent a year in Finland where I was working at the National Theatre. Finally, I had a beard and a 1970’s New York haircut. I felt bad about it but had no idea who “Mr. Brown” was so I couldn’t make contact with him. We determined just to let it be.

About a week later, Stuart, our second son, came home from school and asked “Daddy, are you a communist?” My ears pricked up and I asked him what in the world would give him that idea? “I heard Our Principal, Mr. Brown, tell my teacher that you are a communist.”

Now I knew who Mr. Brown was, and I blew a cork. I was about to go to the school to confront the guy, when my wife suggested that I bring up our problem with some of the faculty (actually my boss) at the school. I was advised to not make an issue because Jerry Brown, the principal had enough political influence that he could make our lives hell.

For the remainder of the year, our children had no friends at school, and they were miserable there, but we lived out in the country, had a wonderful bass pond on the property, and the kids had friends at church so we did pretty well.

Things came to a climax when as school got out, my two oldest boys, aged eight and ten decided to play little league baseball. As the story goes (I was not present at the time) after they were picked for a team, one of the fathers in charge of the teams made an issue that they could not play. The boys told me that their coach actually had a fist fight with the other guy to make him agree that they could play.

We immediately started looking for a new place to live, and soon we found a house to buy (very inexpensively) in the small town of Brooklet, about ten miles from the school in the opposite direction and our lives improved enormously. It was a wonderful experience. The town desperately needed a new Cub-master (their boys had not yet learned “Do your ears hang low”) our children were adopted informally into the Young Ambassadors and (I can’t remember what the girls organization was called) in the Baptist church across the street. (We continued to attend our own church, but this was during the week.) I have never had a more welcoming experience so we learned that not all of Georgia was like Portal.

Their boys learned “Do your ears hang low” (with actions) and a lot of other songs, and I still run across some of my cub scouts around town. They all still greet me with pleasure. We moved into Statesboro after about five years, because we got into the Carter years and gas became difficult to find and expensive (about fifty cents a gallon, I think) for the commute into school and a lot of the Statesboro Activities (Our kids all became competitive swimmers and the swim team practiced several times a week in Statesboro). We still go back and periodically shop for a house there. Who knows if there are still some boys who need to learn that their ears hang low?

Sing ! Sing a Song.

2010-10-01T20:20:00.001-07:00

Does everybody walk around with a tune stuck in the mind, so that no matter what's going on, it's going on to your private mental music, or am I the only one with that problem? It is weird. When I was teenager working at the radio station I walked around to Sinatra, or Tony Bennet, or sometimes "The Little White Cloud that Cried". Now I got through life with the songs our family sang as we traveled in the car, or with those that the football team sang on the bus on overnighters.

The one that has been running (or maybe sauntering) through my mind lately is :

Mister Mister Johnny Gobeck,

How could you be so mean?

I told you'd be sorry for inventing that machine.

Now all the neighbor's cats and dogs will never more be seen.

They'll all be ground to sausages in Johnny Gobeck's machine.

When that is finished, I struggle to remember (in tune) the verses to the song.. In my mind the first verse talks about a Dutchman (obviously Johnny Gobeck) who invented a machine that would make sausages out of the plentiful supply of dogs and cats. I remember about half of the next verse which tells of a little boy who, buying a pound or so of sausage at the store and after sitting the sausage package on the floor began to whistle "And all the little sausages began to dance around." and the final verse , something like "One day the machine was broken, the dang thing wouldn't go, and Johnny climbed inside it to see what made it so. His good wife had a nightmare, and walking in her sleep, she gave the crank a hell of a yank and Johnny Gobeck was meat. the final chorus explains why "I told you you'd be sorry for inventing that machine.

That's the tune that is plaguing me now, but I shift from tune to tune. My dad worked for the railroad, and sang bass in a chorus called, no less, the Railroad Chorus, that toured around and did a lot of singing. Of course one of the tunes that we sang in the car was

"I been workin on the railroad,

All the live long day

I been workin' on the railraod

Just to pass the time away.

I suspect most folks have at least heard the song, but have you ever thought about the verses?

Can't you hear the whistle blowing

Rise up so early in the morn

Can't you hear the whistle blowing

Dinah blow your horn.

There is a certain logic in this, though you don't know much about Dinah, and the third verse

Dinah won't you blow, Dinah won't you blow? Dinah won't you blow your ho o orn .

That is a logical follow up but finally

Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, Someone' s in the kitchen I kno-o-oow, Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah, Strummin in the ol banjo

(What does that have to do with working on the railroad?) Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah , Strummin on the ol banjo,

An singin' Fee Fi Fiddly eye o., Fee Fi fiddly eye o, Fee fi fiddly eye o. Strummin on the ol banjo.

Makes ya wonder about the relationship between Dinah, the Fiddler, and the Railroad, Doesn't it."?

There are so many, that take turns running around my brain.

The deacon went down in the cellar to pray. And he got drunk and he stayed all day,

I ainta gonna grieve my Lord no More,

Then the song has verses on why you can't get to heaven on roller skate, and in a variety of other means (presumingly including praying all night while drunk)

On bus trips the obvious song was always Ninety Nine bottles of beer on the wall, If one of these bottle should happen to fall, Ninety eight bottles of beer on the wall.

In our personal car, we sang almost constantly while traveling and sange everything from The Spanish Cavalier ( Oh say darling say, while I'm far away, the sometimes you may think of me dear) to Spirituals, to The Old Apple Tree in the Orchard (which I wrote about two or three years ago.

Shucks, anyway,

I got sixpence, jolly jolly sixpence, I got sixpence to last me all my life. I got tuppence to spend and tuppence to lend and tuppense to send home to my wife, poor wife.

Interesting song.

2010-09-27T09:12:00.001-07:00

I received the link for this song this morning. The guy who wrote and performed it was a High School Assistant Football coach who (I understand) was fired because of the song. Conservative readers will think it is fun, Liberal readers (as many of them as I have) probably will be advised to skip the whole post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfH46DTAkxo

ANNIVERSARY

2010-09-24T14:40:00.001-07:00

The writer of one of my favorite blogs http://riverbendjournal.blogspot.com/ Ed Abbey wrote, a couple of days ago about his six anniversary as a blogger, and kindly went back to each of those years and left a typical blog of the period.

This aroused my curiosity so I went back to the archives to see when I started blogging. It happened to be in August just five years ago. I then plowed through my old blogs to see if there were samples I should leave, but I seem to have no sequential sense to what I wrote. I cited my memoirs a lot, had a brief period of revealing some of the stupid teen age tricks in which I was involved and apologized often about not blogging more often (if the blogspot tracker is correct I go in almost 500 posts in five years, so I averaged over one a week) I have enough “organ recitals” that it is a wonder that Janet and I are still around. I let my native conservative politics bleed through more often than I thought I had and picked up some fairly consistent readers for the first four years. I have lost a lot of those since I got really spastic about posting.

I had wonderful time learning from others and almost went into mourning when bloggers like Saurkraut and Gayle went into hiding.

Anyway I don’t intend to copy samples of old posts in this post. My semi-computer-literacy would keep me here for a day or two. My sincere thanks to those who have taken the time to read what I have written and even more to those who have written what I have read.

Mormon Missionary Story

2010-09-16T12:58:00.001-07:00

I haven't done this for awhile, but I decided it was time. For those of you who hate Mormon Missionaries this is the time to move on. If you have curiosity about how they function (nothing theological here) read on.

If you have seen missionaries around in your neighborhood some things become apparent: They travel in pairs that pretty much stick together; They will usually be found with a white shirt and tie, or in cooler weather in a suit. They have other behavioral rules: for the most part they are not allowed to go to the movies, read popular novels and magazines and are generally expected to live a pretty staid life. They are not allowed to meet with girls their age with out a local member as chaperone. In my mission we constantly assumed that their was an "arms length" rule relating to those of the opposite sex. They are discouraged from going swimming or skiing or indulging in sports that have high percentages of injuries. On the other hand, on free days (they have one a week, called "p" days or Preparation days, usually on Monday) they will often be found playing pick up basked ball, usually in the gymnasium portions of the church building, but not always. The rules generally include early rising (6:00 AM or thereabouts. Scripture study in the morning and a day of missionary work (attending meetings, or door to door canvassing or something of that order) following. In many missions they are discouraged from spending a lot of time visiting members (except members who are not very active participants at church.) In all these activities the rule is to stick with your partner (the regular term is "Missionary Companion" all the time. Many missionaries are still teenager and it is hoped that one member of a companionship will be a good influence on the other. (to keep each other from doing something stupid was one description I have heard)

When I was a missionary in Finland fifty or so years ago, many of the restrictions were not there, but there were other rules that took their place. We were expected to wear a suit all the time (except on P days) and in Finland at least, we were expected to wear a hat. In July sometimes we were given permission to leave the hat home-- You can't imaging how little fun it is to ride a bicycle wearing a suit and a fedora in July, even in Finland. We were allowed to swim, but not in mixed company, and, in Finland in the fifties, cross country skiing was necessary to do some of the things you had to do. (not many).

Finland was a new land, where the church was young, and local leadership was scarce, so, in addition to proselyting nineteen or twenty year old guys also had to conduct meetings, lead the congregational singing, play the piano (if that was one's skill) and perform all the ordinances.

Proselyting is hard work but if you want to be a useful missionary it is one of the things you do. Always in pairs, of course. At the time of this experience, I had been in Finland about nine or ten months. I was beginning to get the hang of the language, had a good companion, and was really beginning to enjoy the work. (As a point of fact, I arrived in Finland with a grammar book written by on to the missionaries and had heard two words spoken in Finnish, so a lot of my time, to this point had been spent in language study.) My companion spoke good Finnish and was a good teacher and I was rolling with the flow. We were holding an average of about thirty meetings a week, which we thought was pretty good. when one day we received a notice from Mission Headquarters that my companion was being transferred to another city (Lahti, I think). In the next two days arrangements for travel were made and I suddenly realized that I was going to be on my own for almost two whole days before my new companion arrived. This was complicated by the fact that we had about six or seven appointments to meet with people in their homes at that time, and according to mission rules I couldn't do that without a companion.

You can't imagine how lost a feeling you have being alone when, for several months you and your companion have been in each other's company twenty four hours a day. I took my list and called the people for whom I had phone numbers and arranged to postpone the appointment till my new companion arrived. I trudged around and talked to the people in person, several of whom thought it was pretty silly that I couldn't just come in and teach them by myself but most of them understood that "rules were rules". One of the places where I had to go rearrange things was an apartment where five very attractive young ladies lived together. When I went to their place, they thought it was hilarious that I couldn't teach them by myself.

They said things like (roughly translated) "What in the world to you think we are going to do? Drag you into the back room and have our ways with you?" And reassured me that my departed companion was much more attractive than I, and that he might have problem, but I was perfectly safe. When all came down to brass tacks they decided that they didn't want to re-schedule the appointment, and that I could safely ride my bike home. All this time, I was mostly standing there dumb and blushing,. I tried futilely to give them some literature and finally slunk off home, muttering and grumbling.

It wouldn't have been so bad if Joensuu had been a bigger city, but it is pretty small, and my new companion and I kept running into the girls on the street. When we did, they all pointed at me and giggled and made "kiss kiss" gestures at me.

I explained all this to my new companion, but I think it was awhile before he completely believed my story.

Who Needs Excitement?

2010-09-12T21:26:00.001-07:00

I was just about to close up my computer for the night when my oldest son, who has been living with us most of the year because he is too ill to really stay in his trailer, came to the office door with the exclamation "My car is on fire". He was sitting on the couch watching one of the last football games of the day when he heard a "whoosh" and went to the door too see what was the matter, His car was completely enveloped in flame. There were a number of explosions just as I came to the door (not the gas tank, thank goodness) and I ran to get the fire extinguisher as he called 911.

Of course I had put the extinguisher where I would be sure to find it, and I couldn't find it anywhere. The fire department came almost immediately and began to work on the fire. There were two or three other explosions, one of which shot silver sparks out the side of the car. ( reminded me of a mercury fire). He had a 100 foot extension cord, a chain saw, a saws-all, and a couple of gallons of paint (surrounded by about a hundred paper back books.) in the back of the car. The firemen said that the silver sparks that shot out the window were probably from aerosol cans of paint, but they didn't have enough scraps to identify. The car was a twenty some year old Toyota with 235000 miles on the odometer, so, except for the replacement cost there wasn't much financial loss. but the tools will never be the same.

What had worried me most was the the front of the car was only about ten feet from the wall of our house, and it was parked next to an enormous crepe myrtle and I was worried about fire damage to the house or the bush. There was none, thank heaven, though I am going to have to do some judicious trimming on the crepe myrtle to make it look right.

Right now I am still shaking, but it is all over except for calling a wrecker to dispose of the carcass in the morning. I am so grateful that it didn't damage the house, or even the hedge in front of the house (holly, mostly)/ I'll try to take some pictures of the old bus before they take it away. No one from the fire department could come up with a reason for the fire, though they guessed that it was probably an electrical short.

It is now midnight, and I am going to give a major thank you prayer and go to bed and try to sleep.

No more whining

2010-09-11T16:22:00.001-07:00

I just had to try to post this. (I did succeed on getting it to my facebook page)

I have directed more than a hundred plays of all kinds, in addition to which, since 1962, when I began puppetry to supplement my stipend and feed my (then) four kids. I started with the occasional birthday party using a script and puppets from an article by Jim Henson in a popular magazine. I shifted gears and continued to so puppetry at a variety of levels while my main focus was theatre. In 1987 it became the focus of most of my creative activity. I taught classes, gave workshops, and my students produced (under my direction) three to four puppet performances every year. After all this activity, much of which I think very proudly, occasionally I see a puppet performance that makes me think of my seventy five plus years as “still” an aspiring puppeteer. I think this is wonderful. I hope the link works again.http://video.mail.ru/mail/wad58/video.mail.rumailwad58/1181.html

SLIPPING AND SLIDING

2010-09-10T20:12:00.001-07:00

It is a little hard to develop this subject because it is absolutely and perhaps abjectly personal. I am wondering about myself, my braiin, my energy, what is wrong with me, what is right with me, and all that stuff.

I have reached a relatively happy status right now. The income tax return that I was fussing about a few weeks ago resulted in a refund (state and national) that, along with an annuity payment has made me feel more financially stable than I have for awhile. I don’t know if my health is improving in reality, but I find that I can walk upright like a homo-sapiens for a lot longer each day, than has sometimes been usual in the recent past. Janet’s health is improving enough that she stated yesterday that if it weren’t for the incessant pain in the leg that was shattered a couple of years ago, she would think she was completely healthy

On the other hand, my attention span has become so short that I irritate my self, and probably everyone around me. I seem not to be able to finish anything. The house is getting deeper and deeper in projects that I have started without finishing. I have two lengthy posts for this blog that I started, wrote energetically for about half an hour (One about a production of Godspell that was a particularly wonderful experience in my life and another that I titled The partial resurrection of the dead red van ). Both of these are a bit historical and experiential but subjects that I think my children and family with find illuminating and a bit humorous. I got a good start on each of these and just couldn’t keep on to the conclusion, in spite of the fact that I have probably spent more clock time at the computer this week than is common. I don’t have an explanation except that on each of these I just hit a block that I couldn’t, or can’t seem to pass. I got most of the work done to organize my studio, and I find myself going out there to sit an look at sculpts,, gizmos, and the wall without the energy to make any use of them. Jan walked into our bedroom an asked me if i had finsihed my laundry (we share that little task) and I had to admit that I didn’t know. I remember packing it into the laundry room but had to go and look to see if I had put it in the washing machine (about half of it, but not finished.)

I find this whole thing fascinating. I wonder, analytically, if this is the way Alzheimer's, or other forms of dementia start. I find it kind of funny to be thinking about it when what I am thinking about is why I can’t seem to think. Whatever the result, I find myself slipping and sliding like a car with slick tires on ice (or wet red clay).

I will try to finish the posts I mentioned, and keep track of whether this slipping and sliding ends up with my brain crashed on the side of the wall, or if I am just cutting donuts (those who drive on icy roads know what that is) that I will finally come out of them. (I just discovered that Live Writer –which I love- had posted half of this post among the 2008 posts in the blog. Well, that’s par for the course.

Neuropathy

2010-09-04T20:28:00.001-07:00

No I am not going to whine about my neuropathy. I think I have written, at least briefly, about neuropathy before, but if I haven’t, sot that you will know what I am talking about, I will briefly define neuropathy. It is the elimination or at least diminution of nerve function. In someone like me who has a peripheral neuropathy, it means that you have lost a lot of nerve function in you arms and hands, and legs and feet.

When they told me I had such a thing, I realized that I had something I had never heard about before. Since getting it, I found that most neuropathies belong to diabetics, and that If one suffers from diabetes there is almost a fifty percent chance that sometime in you life neuropathy will affect you. Over eighty or so percent of folks who have a neuropathy are diabetics, the rest of us have what the doctors refer to as idiopathic neuropathy. (idiopathic is the word doctors use do say that they don’t have the vaguest idea what caused it. In my case, the general assumption was that I had spent much of my early professional life with my hands in acetone, toluene, dies and other substances while building and painting scenery and making puppets.

Since that time some doctors who treat me think I probably had a light stroke or two, and that caused it. Janet had two strokes when she was in Finland and she certainly has a neuropathy (quite different from mine) so I tend to agree. For most folks the affects are similar but vary in intensity, but the most common effects are that you can’t feel much below the knees, except for the bottoms of you feet which burn and hurt like heck most of the time. I always feel like the skin from the ankles to the bottom of my feet is about two sizes too small. I spend about fifteen minutes per foot applying a prescription med that has neurontin and lidocaine in it. I also use capsaicin cream (the stuff that burns- only my feet are reversed to the effect on my feet is cooling) etc. I also check my feet carefully for sores etc, because these and create serious problems. (I also take a whole bunch of different kinds of pills.)

I am writing this because, this morning I had one of the most irritating effects. When you can’t feel your legs, you can bump into almost anything with out feeling it. This morning I tripped over an extension cord and fell on the sidewalk. It didn’t hurt much and, as usual, I didn’t pay much attention. I was busy getting ready for the delivery of our new freezer. The delivery guys from Lowes showed up and I was helping them move stuff around for the installation when one of them looked down and said “What in the heck happened to your leg?” I looked down at my left leg and my pants were soaked in blood from the knee to the ankle.

I can’t tell you how often this happens and how many pairs of chinos and even dress slacks I have ruined this way. i have salvaged the last two or three of these because I have become an artist with pre-spot, cold water and a brush, but if it happens to something that requires dry cleaning, none of the cleaners around here seem able to handle fifteen inches of blood soaked pants I swear I am going to invent some kind of blood alarm. I still haven’t convinced Jan that just soaking the leg of one’s pants in blood does not necessarily require a 911 call or a trip to the emergency room. Oh well, the pants are de-blooded and the gauze patch on my knee has only required one replacement today.

(My neurologist said that free bleeding like that is a good thing. If I were a diabetic neuropath, diabetics have vascular problems which inhibit healing, and that’s why many of them lose limbs from foot and leg injuries. Maybe I should not look a gift horse in the mouth.)

Graduation gifts

2010-08-30T18:48:00.001-07:00

Almost everyone who graduates from high school gets some kind of graduation gift. When I graduated, my parents gave me a Croton Aquamedico wrist watch which I loved dearly for about six years. (I don’t think I have had any subsequent watch that lasted so long. I have know student who received cars, watches, stereos, and a variety of sums of money.

One of the guys in my high school class received a gift that is probably unique, at least I have never heard its duplicate. His father was a trucker, or contractor, or something like that. He gave his son a great big, brand new, six wheel, diesel dump truck, with a belly dump. He told his son that he should go to college if he wished, or go full time into the trucking business, but if he wished to sell the truck he had to wait at least six years. By then the truck would either have become a permanent part of his life, or it would have financed four or five years of college.

At that time, the government was building a giant, earth filled dam across the Snake river called the Hell’s Canyon Dam, and, one way or another, my friend (I’ll call him Jack) was hired, or contracted to put the truck into use on the dam. He asked around the class for guys who were licensed and knew how to drive his truck, gave each of them a “driving'’ test and took three guys, besides himself, up to Hell’s canyon.

I passed the test, thanks to my work at the concrete products plant a few years before, and filled with the romance of trucking and the thought of big money, packed my sleeping bag and some clothing and was off to Hell’s Canyon.

This was one of the most difficult, exhausting jobs I had ever had, and I have to confess that I went to him after the second week and told him that as soon as he could find a replacement, I wanted to quit.

It was exciting, and he was a good business man. We went up there to work on shares, over and above expenses, and I made ten or twelve bucks an hour for the time I drove. We basically kept the truck in motion all the time, with each of us driving an eight hour shift. The only times the truck stopped running was when it stopped for fuel, lubrication, and to hose out the front seat. We slept in a tent, and it seems like there was some kind of mess hall for food, though we might have just eaten in cafes (three score and ten or more affects the memory a lot). It was a filthy grinding job. The basic process (as I remember it) was to drive the truck to a loading location, where an enormous earth mover that looked like a giant monster would scoop up a mouth full of dirt and usually in one dump drop that dirt into the bed of that truck (and it was one of the biggest dump trucks I have ever seen). The driver would then drive as fast as the law allows to the dump site which was a sort of a ramp thing that had two tracks and an opening between them. Occasionally there was a line of trucks at the dump site (out over the dam,) but most often you hardly had to stop at all until you got out over the dam. You then dumped your load and went right back to the loading site.

The loading site changed frequently but, as close as I could tell, we basically took off a whole mountain to and dropped in in the river.

It didn’t matter how often you got to a shower, or changed your clothes, you always felt dusty and could taste the grit of dust in your mouth, and in your eyes. I was glad when they got me a replacement, though, at the pay we were getting,( I was better paid than anyone I knew, even my father) they didn’t have trouble replacing me. My replacement was a big guy about forty, who (If I remember correctly) brought his own camping trailer and lives in comparative luxury compared to me. I spent the rest of the summer working for the railroad and really appreciated going home to a bed each night.

Whata Mess?

2010-08-15T19:47:00.001-07:00

I had intended to post a couple of things this week, but I got (almost literally) tied up with an earlier stupid action. Back in April, I got most of my tax return finished. but foolishly I got a little tired so I asked for an automatic exemption. (Old coots become, for the most part, master procrastinators)

Monday I sat down to the return figuring that I had about three hours work. BIG MISTAKE. I had never counted on the fact that I had refinanced both of my houses and rented one of them and that this would make things really crazy.

Even then, I Xed a box somewhere that made me subject to the standard deduction and wouldn’t “flow” the supplementary materials.

YAAAAAAAAGH. for three days, no matter what I did, i had a tax burden (federal) of about 3700 dollars and was beginning to look around for things or people to sell.

It was a fluke and whenever I finally unchecked the box, everytihing went swimmingly and the return floated off in a Turbo Tax E file. I am slowly becoming sane again and my family will quit hiding when I come our of the office.

I apologize

2010-08-07T12:27:00.001-07:00

I really apologize for stinking up the blogosphere with my whining in my last post. Yesterday I spent most of the day walking upright like a homo-sapiens, did some work, some water aerobics and generally acted like a normal human being.

As I did, I reflected that many people don’t get though the mid-poiint of their seventies and many of those who do (some of my acquaintances) wish they hadn’t. Neither Janet nor I are confined to either assisted living (at least not formally, it would be tough without the assistance of my children who live nearby) or a nursing home. We sometimes have a functional day of only four or five hours, but I spend those hour in the company of the most wonderful woman I have ever known, who has health problems much more debilitating than mine and never (well, hardly ever) complains.

In short, as I read what I said last post, I am a little—well really a lot= embarrassed. I won’t promise never to go off on a whining tear again, but if I do, chalk it up to an unpleasant or painful day or week, and know that I will be back to normal (that is, normal for an old coot) soon.

I don’t have a picture yet, but I will post one of one of the things that cheered me up. I was walking across the newly mowed lawn in my back yard a few weeks ago, and noticed a spot of red at my feet. I thought for a moment it was a spot of blood, but when I got my bifocals focused I realized that it was a very tiny wild strawberry. I was in the midst of planting tomatoes in five gallon buckets (fairly successful) and in upside down planters (good bushes, no tomatoes) so I put some potting soiil in a large pot, and asked my son to shovel up that little bunch of plants. We plopped them at the top of four or five gallon flower pot and let nature take its course.

When I was a Missionary in Finland in the fifties, one of our favorite sports during our free time was to wander the woods looking for wild strawberries. They were amazingly sweet and delicious though small.

These new wild strawberries are not the same. They are a little like red crunchy cheerios, with very little flavor, but their enthusiasm for their new home is amazing. The have over grown their pot, and are reaching out for new places. I was interested yesterday how much pleasure I have had from these yellow flowered (I know, domestic strawberries have white blooms) semi edible little creatures. I hope God looks down on me and my minor accomplishments with half as much pleasure in just watching the growing.

Back to being old

2010-08-05T19:41:00.001-07:00

It is hard to really comprehend some things. In the past month, I have seen all of my doctors and they all seemed to be excited about how well I am doing but this week has been hellish. I am so weak that I have trouble doing almost anything. Just standing up after having sat in a soft chair for awhile becomes a real project, complete with occasional profanity.

Using a cane helps, but I have so much trouble just walking across the yard. My back aches quite exquisitely, and I am so weak in my legs that I worry about getting where I’m going.

It doesn’t help that this week is the week my renters move into my other house. I had a lady and her friend come in and really clean the place (The previous renters hadn’t left it really dirty, but still- - - -)and I felt the need to inspect the progress, which I did, in company with the new renters (I have a check in sheet in which we, together, identify all the problems, so that I won’t be tempted to bring any of the current problems up when they check out next year) Again, just walking through the house was exhausiing. I needed to fix the flapper on one of the toilets and a ten minute job took almost two hours. I confess that I would sell the house pretty cheaply if a buyer came along.

Janet fell this morning and scared the heck out of both of us. She was just picking up some things off the bedroom floor when she slipped down on one knee and couldn’t get up. I don’t know how long she was there before I heard her calling, but it was awhile. When I got her up (which in my weakened condition was easier said than done) She was totally exhausted. I took her blood pressure and it was 190 over 114. He cardiologist would have gone nuts. Because of her aortal dissection, he tries to keep her blood pressure low, about 105 or 10 over about forty (which makes her tired, but keeps her alive.)

Getting old is probably better than not getting old, but it is easy to get tired of it. Hopefully things will return to normal coot complaints in the next week or so, and I will go back to writing about my youth or complaining about politicians. (This has been the kind of political week that would make and healthy person ill.)

New Post?

2010-07-30T19:46:00.001-07:00

One of the problems with being older than dirt and having a shaky memory is that it is difficult to be sure you haven’t “told this story” before. I tried to go back to my archives to see , but I have too many darn archives to plow through.

I own a house which I am renting to students. So far it has been a good experience. I med with my renters the other day to have a “everybody sign the lease” party. As I listened to the boys talk, my memories went back to my undergraduate period and some of the perils that lie within For instance, I took the first course in Biology as part of my core curriculum and got an A. On one of the last days of class, my professor took me aside and said something like:”You did so well in this course, I’m afraid you would be wasting your time in Biology II. I have a course in Ornithology that you would really enjoy. We have a lot of real ‘hands on’ science, and I think I can get you into it”

Now that I have forty odd years teaching on university faculties, I know that what he really said was”I am teaching a course in Ornithology which I really love to teach and I am afraid that not enough students are going to register so that it will ’make’. I will get down on my hands and knees and kiss your feet if you will take it, and it really ‘makes’ “.

I was young, innocent, naive, and all those things, and I was really impressed that a well known and published scholar/professor thought that I would fit in the course, so of course I took it.

He was right about “hands on” science, and though our class was officially taught at 10:00 AM, the real work went on in a widely varied time frame. We were forever getting on busses at 5 or 6:00 AM and bussing out to the desert or up to a swamp to count the number of bird calls from specific birds with a specific time frame, or to identify nesting site, or examine bird corpses to see how they died or something else. It was interesting as heck, but put a lot of pressure on me because I was working full time as a boilermaker helper on the 4:30 PM till 12:30 AM shift at the Union Pacific Railroad. During that semester I took naps at lunch, occasionally in classes and wherever.

I felt like I was doing well in the class, but it was hard to tell. There were very few activities that could be specifically graded. The real challenge of the class was that we were each to do a scientific paper involving original research in Ornithology. First we had to learn how to write up a proposal. (This was the one part of the course that has had real valuable usage in my life. He was good at teaching this and good at evaluating it and I have been grateful to him every time I have written a grant proposal, a thesis proposal, a dissertation proposal etc.).

At that time, in Idaho, most fishermen felt like pelicans were competition for the fish population, and it was common for fishermen, especially those who fished in lakes to take a shotgun along and attempt to depopulate the pelican population as much as possible.

I don’t remember exactly how my final proposal went (after many false starts) but basically what I proposed was to do a food analysis of pelicans in a variety of sites. I had no trouble acquiring pelicans I just passed the word around that I would appreciate it if anyone who shot a pelican would bring it home where I could pick it up. I needed the time of day, the location of the shoot and some other details that have slipped my mind.

Once I received the dead bird I had to dissect it, examine it’s stomach contents, measure the fat of the bird, examine the craw, then, after my own analysis I packaged up the items in question and sent them off to the state fish and game department where they did a second lab analysis. It was fascinating. Every fish scale in the stomach identified the genus, the size and the sex of the fish (How, I don’t know) so when I got the report back I knew everything about this pelican’s diet for a couple of days.

One thing I hadn’t anticipated was the smell. The first pelican I dissected, I dissected in the zoology lab at about two o’clock in the afternoon. When I opened it up it gave off the rankest odor of fish, death and corruption you could imagine. It made my stomach turn and my eyes water. I tied a handkerchief around my face and went about my business. I heard sirens outside, but paid them no mind, I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. I heard a lot of noise of people moving around and wondered because it was the middle of the hour, not at class changing time. Suddenly the door crashed open and guys with gas masks holding guns came rushing into the lab.

I learned that the smell had permeated the entire Liberal Arts Building (Home of Biology, History, Chemistry, English, and most of the other “Liberal Arts” courses. The odor had appeared to be some kind of gas, poisonous or explosive, so the building had been evacuated and some several hundreds of people were standing around outside waiting for a solution by the Emergency People that were now in the lab. They laid hand on me somewhat roughly and asked what in the name of Hell I was doing.

I explained, and after some consultation with the powers that be my pelican specimen was place in a sealed cooler to be handled later and perhaps somewhere else. The ruling was finally made that I could dissect specimens in the lab between 11:00 PM and 5:00 AM in the morning. (More sleep deprivation). Fortunately my days off at the railroad were Wednesday and Thursday so I managed to dissect about sixteen or seventeen pelicans. (I managed a sort of breathing apparatus for my personal use and I called Plant Operations every day when I was through working so that they could air out the place before daily classes began. I got my paper done, handed it in, and to my disgust received a C. I got a B minus for the class into which I had been recruited.

To add insult to injury, four years later, after I had completed a Mission to Finland for the LDS church, and returned to school, when I was "clearing for graduation” a process that began at the end of one’s Junior year, I discovered that the Biology class I had taken was a four credit course, and the Ornithology class was only a three credit course so I was short one hour in Laboratory Science. Do you know how many Lab Science course are one hour courses? Finally after agony and begging, and vaguely muttering about law suits, I was allowed to take a course in Scientific Terminology for one credit and was cleared for graduation.

To add further insult to injury, after graduation, marriage and all that stuff I was sitting in a doctor’s office and picked up an old edition of Scientific American (I think that was the title,) and browsing through it I found my paper, for which I had received a C. (and with more polished writing) under the name of my former professor and one other name (probably the guy at State Fish and Game who did the lab analysis of the stomach contents). I wouldn’t have minded if he had given me an A.

By the way, the results of the research showed that most of the fish that the Pelicans ate were trash fish, of fish that were injured or sick. Very few were good game fish. (Since I am three score and ten or more years old, and my professor was probably in his early forties when I took the course and has probably passed to the other side, I see no sense in identifying him).

It aint goin so hot (except the weather)

2010-07-27T18:20:00.001-07:00

For those few people who might still log in, I am going to try to repent and post things. I have so many things I want to say about the past, but now I’ll talk about the present.

I am a little worried about loss of my cognitive powers. I sit at the computer and, except for reading Facebook and my favorite blogs, (and a lot of them have given up on it dang it) I really have trouble focusing on what I am doing. As I type, my fingers slip off the pilot keys and I end up with whole lines of stiff tjat ,els mp semcs at a;;/ then I have to delete and retype and by the time I get there I can’t remember what I was writing about

I guess when I started this thing I said that I would write about what it feels like to be three score and ten or more years old. I celebrated my seventy sixth birthday last weekend, and had a good time. I made a low country boil with about a pound of giant shrimp per person so we ate, refrigerated and ate again.

I worked really hard to get my studio into a working shape again, and have spent time out there. (I will try, when I get the exterior trimmed a bit to post pictures.) When we moved, I thought it would take about six months to get the studio into operation and it took three years. Part of that came from the fact that I personally cannot safely work from a ladder any more, and can’t anything above my head, so I have had to depend on others.

I bought this house partly because of the pool, and I have loved it part of the time, but it is a fickle mistress and doesn’t love me back. I have to work like heck, or hire someone to work like heck to keep the algae down.

Anyway the more years you get past three score and ten, the harder things get. I have a draft of a useful, or at least I think it is funny, post almost done that won’t whine a bit. I just home that I am still writing in English when I get to it.

Ruminations on stuff.

2010-07-08T20:11:00.001-07:00

I’ve never had a Cadillac, and last fall we bought a used smallish Cadillac with about 40,000 miles on her. We needed a car, and Jan had found that flying was very difficult for her so we bought a car that had a front seat that reclined and soft upholster and all that stuff, with the idea that when we travelled to family out west or in Florida or Mississippi we would take our time, drive out un comfortable stages and have a good time. Of course it didn’t work. She quickly discerned that she couldn’t ride much better in a car than a plane, even though she had more room. I found that the Cadillac gets even more lousy mileage that I thought it would (I drove a Lincoln Continental about the same size as the Cadillac for a few years that averaged in the high twenties in mileage, and the Caddy averages in the high seventeens—or less). We are having some warranty work done next week that may help.

The most irritating thing is that I can’t seem to get into the front seat of the car without bumping my head. I am just not flexible enough to avoid the the top of the car door opening. I have a constant cast of Dagwood Bumstead hair on my right side.

On the other hand, whoever designed the seatbelts should get some kind of honor. For arthritics and old folks fastening the seat belt often requires acrobatics beyond our skills, but in this Cadillac, when the driver sits, he/she drops the left hand to the corner of the seat and there is the seat belt. One pull across the chest and it is fastened. Every time I do it, it tickles me plum to death. (Right side works just as well, though one drops the right hand to the seat belt gizmo.

On another track: I mentioned in my last post that we have both been physically a mess for the last few weeks. Last spring I was having pain in my left shoulder to the stage that I couldn’t put on my shirt by myself. I went to Janet’s orthopedist (to keep her company) and while we were there mentioned my pain (which I though arthritic). He said “Let’s xray it"!” he did and came back to tell me that I essentially have no rotator cuff (I mentioned the possibility of reverse shoulder replacement in another post). He gave me a cortisone shot and all the pain went away, till I fell down in my bedroom and caught myself with my right arm. It was instantly very painful, I saw the doc and he gave me another shot and set me up for therapy (It was much less successful than the previous shot, and that’s life.

Soon thereafter my lumbar vertebrae (the doctors give them numbers, I can’t) attacked me and I was in excruciating pain in my lower back with sharp pains in my hips and down to my knees. I soon reached that stage where I was almost crawling most of the time.

This vertebrae thing has happened before and my local doc referred me to a neurosurgeon at the Medical College of Georgia, expecting me to have momentary surgery. Instead the neurosurgeon made a deal with me that when the pain gets so bad I can’t stand it, I call him and he sends a prescription for a dose pack of prednisone. (six tablets for two days, five the next two days and so on untill they are all gone. He tells me I can’t do this very often because prednisone gives men boobs and aggressive attitudes and women facial hair . At least it doesn’t make my facial hair fall out.) At any rate, I had been in pain somewhere in my body almost twenty four hours a day since March. I took my first dose and felt almost instant relief . After the second day it was even better. On the third day I had a kind of epiphany. I was driving down the road with Janet and suddenly became aware that I didn’t hurt anywhere; not in my shoulders, not in my back, not in my hips, nowhere.

I don’t think I can adequately describe what a wonderful feeling for an old coot, that, now for five days, I am pain free. I feel like I want to go out in the street and shout, “I am pain free”, but with my luck I would get hit be a car and be full of pain again. I know that this is a transient thing, that my pills will run out in four or five days and all of these pains will potentially return, but I am so grateful that I am sitting here at the computer, past bed time, (that is another side effect of prednisone, I think, to make one alert longer during the day) with actual tears running down my face it is so wonderful, even if transient, to not hurt anywhere in my body.

I am getting sleepy, but tomorrow I write about wild strawberries, real wild strawberries that I found growing my lawn. Sometimes life is real good.

Sorry bout that

2010-07-02T20:14:00.001-07:00

It never would have occurred to me when I did the last four posts in a week that it would be over a month before I would post again, but it has been one of those months.

I while ago Patrick the Redneck and I spent a few posts each on what he called “organ recitals” that is, explication of the various physical problems we were having. If I were to explain what has been going on for the last month, it would start a new series and I think organ recitals have run their course. But, Janet and I have therapied (she says that the real word is terrorized), doctored, shot and pilled and we have lived through it.

When one owns time-share properties in a variety of places it is really miserable to have to try to schedule vacations between doctor appointments. It gets still more confusing when we have children and grand children both in Florida and Washington State (and great grand children in Florida) whom we would like to see. As it is, the only real victory was that we finally got the algae out of our swimming pool, but that is in contrast with the fact that the hot-tub (which has been one of the things that kept me walking for the past two weeks) quit working the day after the swimming pool came to life. (When we bought our house we had always wanted a pool, now I’m not so sure.)

I have a number of semi-historical (hysterical?) posts in my mind (iincluding a final high school teacher episode, and I will try to get al least one out each week. Sigh!!!

Three score and ten or more

Happy Valentine’s day

Finally

Sort of a Christmas post (late, like everything else.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Richard Johnson

Richard Johnson

Sorry about the long wait.

Catching up??

Post Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving eve

Fifty three and counting

Here we are

Contrast, I hope !!!

Holidays

Ruminations on Coothood

Home Again

After the cruise

Travel reprise

Home Again, Hurray

Everything New Seems Like The Same Old Thing

Back again (sorta)

seventy seven

A verdict at last?

Going Home

Wonderful visit

You know you’re getting old when:

We made it!

Somebody’s doing something stupid

Another Food Story

A coupla things

Plumbing alterations.

Ambitions

Shorter post (Thank Heavens)-pin setting for bowlers.

Daddy’s Little Boy (long)

Observation and reflection

Vacation

Rolling Stone

A day of—well, sort of rest.

Alive again April 8

Such Fun

Taking Grandchildren to Harry Potter Land

I dunno

Crafty Observations

When you can’t trust a hospital

pessimism and depression

Just reading.

Still Trying—Sometimes very trying!!

Medical Care

Eating Eastward

Well at last.

political grumble

Godspell

From the anticipatory to the realization

From the sublime to the anticipatory

good morning

Thank you

Mostly for my extended family who follow this more closely than others

One a those days.

They really think we are stupid

Home again, jiggety--------

More stupid verse

So Maybe I Don’t Hate Dish Network

Second Verse. a Little Bit Worse

Sing ! Sing a Song.

Interesting song.

ANNIVERSARY

Mormon Missionary Story

Who Needs Excitement?

No more whining

SLIPPING AND SLIDING

Neuropathy

Graduation gifts

Whata Mess?

I apologize

Back to being old

New Post?

It aint goin so hot (except the weather)

Ruminations on stuff.

Sorry bout that