Jack the SMLaker

A Passing

2008-04-08T21:38:00.004-05:00

Jack Rupert, aka Jack the SMLaker, passed away on Monday April 7, 2008 at about 3:50 in the afternoon.

He passed peacefully at Springtree Rehabilitation in Vinton, VA with family and wonderful caregivers beside him. A memorial service at Trinity Ecumenical Church (near Hales Ford Bridge at SML) will be held Friday April 11 at 11am.

Jack succumbed after a tough struggle to recover from heart surgery back in September of last year. He fought long and hard.

Thom, Jack's son-in-law.

Former Senator Zell Miller

2007-08-24T21:18:00.000-05:00

“How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years? Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed. Over 45 million since Roe v. Wade in 1973. If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security. Still, we watch as 3,700 babies are killed every single day in America. It is unbelievable that a nation under God would allow this.” —former Senator Zell Miller

THE CAKE

2007-08-17T10:14:00.000-05:00

THE CAKE
OR
RITA’S OVERSIZED TONGUE TWISTING CHOCOLATE CAKE
PILED HIGH WITH CHOCOLATE FUDGE ICING SWIRLED
HIGH ALL AROUND

I’m a pie lover by profession, and not much of a cake eater. BUT a cake built with chocolate inside, outside and all around, with a glass of milk on the side, is ranked on the top of my list. This story about The Chocolate Cake of a lifetime is on going, I hope.

It started in the early Fall of 2000 at a picnic given by and for the Ridge Runners, a local club of senior hikers here at Smith Mountain Lake, sponsored by The Newcomers Club. I was volunteered chef that year by My Honey, to grill the burgers and hotdogs. The picnic was a little like a church potluck with each member bringing an interesting dish. The hikers hiked while the cookers cooked. After the meal was over, the watermelons were cut, and the desserts were uncovered, I saw my first Rita miracle.

There it was open for public view in its oversized glass covered cake dish fresh out of its own cooler. Rita’s chocolate cake was the biggest, tallest and the most beautiful chocolate cake I have ever seen. I was one of the first to taste it and it tasted even better than it looked. That was the beginning of a love affair in my elder years with Rita’s Chocolate Cake.

I realized what my Honey says about me was correct. I will scheme, lie, cheat, and steal when it comes to excellent chocolate cake. When the cleanup started and there were unclaimed cut pieces of that chocolate cake left on desert plates, I asked Rita to put them on a paper dinner plate and I would take them home. Dear Rita said, “Why don’t you take the rest of the cake home too?” Saying, “Oh Rita I couldn’t do that, your family would want some of this wonderful cake,” never entered my mind. I thanked her profusely as the excitement welled up. To think I could have more than half that huge cake as my own was mouth watering good. Thank goodness many of the hikers were either allergic, diabetic, or on diets meant more for me. Add selfish, heartless and grateful for the ills of my neighbors to the above list.

But My Honey has none of my above characteristics. She thinks of others and feels deeply about friends and neighbors. My Honey is a sharer of all I have. By the time she gave away large chunks of my coveted chocolate cake there wasn’t much left. Add, “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s cake,” to my above list of character evaluation.

February 2001 I had an operation for an aneurysm. Rita baked me a Chocolate get well, oh so moist, cake with the fudge icing piled high, and swirled all around. It was beautiful in its oversized glass cake holder and tasted so good. The kind you eat all the ice cream before starting on the cake so the flavor lasts as long as possible. Then you wish away time so you can have another slice. About two days later I popped the icebox door to fine a perfect ¼ cake standing tall. A call to 911 determined that My Honey did it again. She gave away my cake again. Second cake, second time the big give away. It would be eight months before the next Ridge Runners picnic and a chance for another cake for Shirl to give away.

The 2001 picnic was a huge success. Rita brought her cake. I don’t remember where the picnic was that year or what the weather was like only that Rita brought her cake. That was the beginning of going from one hiker to another commenting how much sugar, butter and other cholesterol fattening additives were built into Rita’s cake to make it taste so tong twisting good. It seemed to work. There was well over half a cake left that year. Kind and generous Rita just handed it to me. It was becoming a most wonderful habit. Now the next stage was to prevent My Honey from doing her thing. Thought about freezing individually wrapped slices to hide in the freezer but My Honey had most of it given away by dinnertime that same day. I only had one neighbor telling ME how much they enjoyed MY cake?? It’s no wonder My Honey is so popular here at the Lake giving away my acquired deserts no matter what dastardly conniving I may use to amass them.

The 2002 picnic was a change for the better. Rita and husband George offered to DO the whole picnic and the Ridge Runners accepted the offer. What a spread that was for us all. We had what seemed to be a dozen coolers loaded with Rita prepared food. Baked beans, salads, hotdogs and hamburgers and another finger licking piled high with chocolate fudge icing cake in that huge glass container I love so much. One look at My Honey told me she was planning for the big giveaway even before I could get that cake in the car. The size of the cake I bring home is of no importance any longer. I know I will only get three or four slices no matter the size of my prize. I am now in waiting until the next Picnic. I know I’m a liar, cheat, thief, selfish, heartless, grateful for the ills of my neighbors, and I covet thy neighbors tongue twisting oversized chocolate cake piled high with chocolate fudge icing with swirls all around on that oversized glass cake dish covered by that huge domed glass lid, and I don’t care. Add guilty as charged to the above list. Come on picnic, I can’t wait!!!

Moving to the lake was best thing I ever did in my whole life.

A GOOD RIDE OR BAD RIDE

2007-08-10T21:25:00.000-05:00

This was the assignment given in 1996 by Walter Quinn at our meeting in Vienna, Virginia of “The Old People’s Writing Class of Memories of our Youth,” or “The Youthful Memories of a Bygone Time by Old Geezers and Pretty Ladies.” I am not sure of the official name of our class.

I only know I have had both types of rides. There are some rides of joy, like leaving college after sixteen years of school agony and on my way to Kane, PA to marry the most beautiful girl I have ever seen and loved with all my heart for 56 years. Bringing the babies home from the hospital. Driving a new car. Airplane rides to visit children only to be superseded by the ride home. In fact the best ride of all is going home. Rides to the hospital, dentist, shopping, funeral homes, school, draft board, troop ship and such, are bad rides.

I have ridden in a uterus, over and under a shoulder, on a hip and in arms. I have ridden tricycles, bicycles, roller skates, ice skates, red wagons, sleds, streetcars on tracks, and an electric bus in Baltimore, horse drawn carts, horses, tractors, Ford model T, A, and B cars, Hupmobile, Army jeeps, trucks, tanks, bulldozers, road graders, busses, trains, airplanes from Pipers Cubs to jumbo jets, boats, ships, rafts, sail boats, row boats, canoes, golf carts, Ferris wheels, merry-go-rounds, bump cars, a three wheel Cushman motor scooter, a Vesper motor scooter, and probably a lot more wheeled conveyances I don’t remember.

I have been taken for a ride. I have been ridden roughshod over and under. I have waited for a ride. I have ridden for a fall, rode shotgun, and ridden herd on the family. I have ridden out hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning storms, and blizzards. I have ridden on waves and at anchor. I have been a real rider and driver all my life. Did I forget a Volkswagen Beetle? I have not been ridden out of town on a rail, rode to jail in a paddy wagon, ridden in a stage coach, or ridden a dog sled.

BUT I have never, nor will I ever ride on a roller coaster. There is not enough money in this world to get me on one time. You may say, “You have missed out on the meaning of life.” I know I have missed out of the meaning of life. “Everyone else is going.” I don’t care what everyone else is doing. “If you won’t ride, you are chicken.” I know I am chicken. “You are a scare-de-cat.” Yes I am. “You are afraid aren’t you?” Yes. I have always had an answer to everyone and not ashamed either. I will not ride, thank you very much!

BUT Brother BUD would have been a very good roller coaster inspector and probably a designer of experimental rides had he not decided to go into a safer job as a Navy fighter pilot. There was never a ride he wouldn’t ride. The family would go to Glen Echo Amusement Park, out in the country, to cool off on a hot summer night. As soon as we parked, Bud was off running to get in line for the roller coaster. He was too young to go alone and by the time we got there he had tickets for dad and himself. Dad would ride with him one time in the beginning and once before we left. Bud would run so much and get so excited that Dad had to make him take time out to keep his heart inside his chest. As soon as Dad could not see his heart beating through his shirt, Bud was off. I got so angry with him taking so many times outs since his time outs were my outs too.

The House of Fun was great. They had revolving drums to walk through, moving walks, funny mirrors, and bucking broncos. There was a ride Bud liked in there that consisted of tricycles ridden down a ramp starting at the ceiling and circling the outside wall to the floor. The idea was to get on the tricycle without peddles and brakes to free fall down the ramp picking up speeds to 100 miles an hour without crashing. I didn’t ride that one either. I saw all those broken, bleeding kids and said NO! BUT BUD might be broken and bleeding but it did not stop him from going back again and again to be broken and bleeding once more. As I look back on our childhood, I am convinced that without more than one guardian angel looking out for Bud, I would have been an only child by the age of five.

I am sure there are roller coasters in Heaven just for him that would make King’s Dominion look like a flat road. Bud is probably the roller coaster designer and test rider of Heaven and has a designed and is operating a coaster just for me, and when I die he will have a car at my side with a coaster built all the way to Heaven and say with his smile of an accomplished rider, “ Come on Chicken. Now that you are dead, lets’ ride my new design built just for you!” I will say, “Cluck, cluck brother Bud, You may be my brother and I am dead, but I will not ever, no never ride a roller coaster through out all eternity and that goes for tricycles down ramps too.” Dad will probably arrive at that time, since Bud would have run on ahead, and make him have a time out and I will have to wait since his time outs are mine too.

PS. I hope the popcorn will be as good in Heaven as it was at Glen Echo those hot summer nights so long ago.

DR. WILLIE, OUR CHIROPRACTER

2007-07-20T21:46:00.000-05:00

Around 1945 to 47, Dr. Willie made house calls once a week on the same day and time to keep spines aligned in the home. He had no fixed address that I knew. Chiropractors were a new fad at the time and I don’t remember ever seeing an office for one in Arlington. Not so today. I pass two or three on the way to the library here in rural Virginia.

Mother had a bad back and needed a lot of aligning to keep her going off to work every morning without her body corset. All rubber went into the war effort so women did without a corset that kept their spines straight and put the fat in the most desirable places. Mother was never fat, just out of condition, as we would say today.

Dr. Willie looked and talked like a modern claim-it-to-get-it preacher on TV. Willie preached the values of his profession better that our Presbyterian minister, Dr. Steenson preached his sermons. Willie had a full head of long white hair with never a hair out of place. He was 50 to 60 years old, short, stocky, and wore white suits with two-tone black and white shoes. His skin color was that of a wineo with nose to match. A real character, and according to Dad, not to be trusted alone with a wallet in your pocket.

I hate to use the expression, but Willie serviced several of Mother’s friends. He was liked by the women, but not the husbands and this son. No one knew much about him, but Dad said the police didn’t want him. Dad did check that part.

A few years into our family association, Willie married a much younger woman, and that kept him young in his thinking, stepping, and spending.

I had a few adjustments on my teenage back. I thought my back was practically brand-new. Willie said some mumbo-jumbo with his aligning good things would happen for a growing back. All I could think when the snapping and popping started in my perfectly good back and neck, was I putting my life in the hands of wacko with black and white shoes. Willie always said to relax and just go limp as he twisted my neck with a jerk and made it pop. How could anyone relax when your head was about to be detached from your body? I soon learned to be out of the house and gone before the preacher arrived.

Dad loaned Willie money during one of his financial needs with the understanding that he could work it off through treatments and small monthly payments. Willie must have borrowed from some of the other patients too because he moved without leaving a forwarding address. Dad felt the money loss was worth the ending of Willie in our lives. I have to give Willie credit for curing Mother’s back from pain since to my knowledge she never went to a chiropractor again.

One summer during my thirties I developed numbness in my right hip and leg. It got so bad I could hardly walk. I decided to go to a chiropractor in Falls Church, Virginia for relief. He was the best of the best with his diagnosis of my problem and fixed my ailment by suggesting I switch my wallet from my right rear pocket to my left and to reduce it’s size. I did and haven’t had that hip problem since. I now know that when I feel pressure it’s time to throw out old excess accumulated stuff from my wallet. We men have a habit of using our wallets as a portable filing system for our “important” papers, business cards, doctor and dentist appointment cards, grandchildren pictures (I have 13 of those), fishing license, hunting license, driver license, lifetime membership cards for BassMasters and NRA, boat registration, safe boating certificate, 2007 calendar, ATM card, Kroger, Foodlion, and CVS store cards and seven one dollar bills, one five dollar bill and a blank check just incase.

The practice of the Chiropractor has gone into holistic medicine in a big way in recent years. They sell and prescribe herbal drugs and composted food as a big part of their modern mumbo-jumbo to keep you coming back. Now they take your wallet out of your pocket and reduce its size quickly, like our old friend Dr. Willie.

Someone should write a story about men’s wallets.

JAY 1942

2007-07-06T20:10:00.000-05:00

During the late spring of my 13th year, two of the local little kids found two Blue Jays with just enough feathers to tell they were Jays. One was hurt and did not live but Jay, as we named him, was one strong little guy and hungry. I took him home, much to my parents delight, and started my education about Blue Jays. They eat bugs, worms, flies, nuts, seeds, and anything that wiggles, crawls, or squirms. Jay was to little to eat on his own so I had to push the cut up stuff down his throat with a small wooden dowel. Birds need gravel in their craws to grind up their food, but how much only a bird knows.

I kept him in the house, warmed by a night-light in a can wrapped in a towel. He stayed up against that warm towel until he heard me and thought food. Once his eyes opened, he would squawk for food at any movement. A baby bird can eat all day long seven days a week and still want more. I had to give him hamburger part of the time since I could not collect enough bugs in early spring. I ground up nuts, corn, apples and seeds. I think dad would feed him during the day while I was in school. Jay grew and sprouted feathers and soon could eat on his own. Jay really got to be fun and he had a personality of his own.

Jays are peckers and thumpers by nature and his favorite place was to perch on a shoulder and peck ears, hair and a face if you turned to look at him. It hurt if he got your ear lobe and started to shake it. Once he was able to move quickly by hopping and half flying we had to put him out side at night in a large dog cage due to the noise he made. Blue Jays are just noisy and do not have a musical call.

Summer was in full force; school was out when Jay seemed to have enough feathers to fly. I would take him out of his cage and let him run around the garden and lawn looking for his own food. When finished he would come running as fast as he could and jump up in my lap and head for the top of my head.

One evening I pitched him up in the air about three feet off the ground and he tried the wings. He kept coming back for more and almost flew that first evening. When he had enough play he went onto his cage jumped up on the perch, stuck his head under a wing, and went to sleep.

Jay took to wing when he was a little over half size. There is no way a wild bird can be given enough of the proper food to keep him on growth schedule. I probably over loaded him on gravel. Know I think the heavy weight of the gravel probably delayed his flight plan. Jay would fly all over the area but never out of sight. He would come on command and fly into the house when invited. His favorite perch was dad’s pipe. We have pictures on a movie film of Jay pounding a sunflower seed against dad’s pipe stem.

One day a flock of Blue Jays landed with much noise in the top of the very tall oak trees behind our house a block away. Jay took off after them and went out of sight. I thought he was gone forever. When they all flew away I knew it.

Dad said all the right things fathers say to brokenhearted sons but it did not help. I went into the house to cook dinner and since it was a hot evening we went out side to eat. As we started to eat, here came Jay calling from way off all the way home to set down in the middle of the table looking for something to eat. By this time he was full-grown and was a beautiful bird. He stopped going into his cage to sleep but went off to the tall trees. He would be back with the first person awake in the morning. I knew he would fly away soon and I was ready in my hart for him to go. He would check in, in the morning, take his bath in the birdbath, and go for the day. If I were not home when he came looking, he would fly all over the area till he found me. I remember one afternoon I had gone to the bank in Clarendon for dad. Jay squalled from on high, landed on my shoulder shouting disgust in my ear. The look on the faces of people on the sidewalk was real neat. I picked him off on my finger looked him in the eye and said, “ I am not deaf you can speak softer. You know I don’t like to be yelled at by a child”. Whenever he found me we would walk home together.

Jay was not afraid of anything and that was a big concern. Jay would hop along side the lawn mower and catch bugs as they flew out of the way. All the neighbors were warned to look out for him when they cut grass. He developed into a neighborhood pet of a different kind. Jay spent more and more time on his own and several days would pass before he would check in to see us. I guess he found a group of Jays and left the area and lived happily ever after. It was a fun around our house that summer.

WARNING WARNING WARNING

This is the place to stop reading to the little ones. The rest is “R” rated and for some “X.”

We only had one cat in resident and that cat lived because he belonged to a childhood friend who lived near by. I felt at that time a good cat was a dead cat and did my best to make them all good. One morning Jay was a pile of feathers in the driveway and a trail of feathers led to the friends’ house. I found the uneaten parts of Jays’ body on the top step. I buried Jay with the cat in the garden next to the sunflowers, which was one of Jay’s favorite stops. Now all of Jay was buried in one place.

INCREASING GLOBAL GRAVITY HAS TO BE STOPPED

2007-06-23T21:35:00.000-05:00

WARNING-WARNING-WARNING

Increasing Global Gravity (IGG) is getting stronger each year I live. I remember when gravity wasn’t nearly as strong as it is now. We need a Goreish type person to step up and DO SOMETHNG ABOUT IT NOW.
When I was a child I hardly noticed IGG. I could run and jump with the best. Falling out of a tree was expected and not overly painful after my head stopped swelling. We fell off swings, tricycles, bicycles, rocks, hills, sliding boards, garage roofs, and our own feet. Some got broken bones, but I only had scrapes and sprains.

I noticed IGG increasing when I was 58. I found it harder to run across streets to avoid traffic. I thought it was due to my brain not able to calculate trajectory like it used too. But it was due to IGG and not my thought processes. I thought I was just as fast as before, but a stronger gravity was slowing me down.

20 years later gravity has done me no favors. IGG is pulling my body into a more compact package. I was a 6’1” hunk and now I’m a 5’11” hunk. Where did the 2” go? I know gravity has sucked away 2” of me into the bottomless pit, or wherever IGG is. It’s a relentless sucking power that IGG has on mankind-or womankind, if you prefer.

My skin is drooping. I have noticed the skin on my arms just hanging down. IGG has sucked away muscle tone and left behind wrinkles. This has got to stop. We need a government program at The National Institute of Health (NIH) to get involved. We need the Federal Government (FG) to make large sums of money available for research at every level.

IGG will attack every living person at sometime in his or her life. It happened to my father. I remember coming home from collage at Christmas and finding that my father had gotten smaller and the skin was hanging down from under his arms. And he had a lot more wrinkles. Dad would have been 59 that year. Our oldest child is 53 this year and is due for a visit in July or August. I wonder if IGG has started sucking away muscle from under her arms leaving hang-me-downs?

Upon stooping down to retrieve a found penny in the gutter, I noticed that it took me longer to get back up. Yes, I still pick up pennies. An old habit it hard to break. But I’ve noticed that I plan ahead now as to where the penny is and how best to retrieve it, and is there something close to hold on to, to aid in my getting back up, before I start the quick decent down. The going down has sped up which is proof of a stronger gravity. Soon I will have to get a small child or a pretty girl passing by to aid me. That’s the only positive about this situation.

IGG has caused all types of foot problems. I’ve had three operations on my right foot to straighten toes. The big toe developed a bunion that needed fixing. Then many years later I had to have it redone and the next toe pinned in place. Finally years later I had the big toe, the next-door toe, and finally the ring finger toe pinned frozen in place. I push off on my right foot like all Army veterans do. The push-off foot generates the power for the first step of a walk, and is under much greater stress than the left. That’s just fact. I haven’t the slightest idea how IGG caused my toe problems, but it has caused all my other problems, and a sore toe causes a sore body, mind and sprit.

If I had ever-or will ever-become a field goal kicker, it would be my right foot that makes contact with the ball for that game winning 3 points in the last second of a game, but due to IGG that may never happen.

Today I filled two six-gallon cans, four five-gallons cans with gasoline at the cost of $89.49. All of it will go for the boat and SeaDoo for when the grandchildren visit one day next week. Lifting those cans into the SUV Blazer was a day’s work. I never had a problem lifting a can of gas years ago? Because of IGG those cans were heavier than I remembered last week. Now I have to get them to the dock. I have to put them on a hand-truck to get them down the hill to the dock, and then pull the hand truck back up the hill for another trip.

After one trip, IGG sucked my feet to the ground so firmly that I had to take a two-hour nap. I’ll do the rest tomorrow or the next day, maybe? Better yet! I’ll wait until next week when our granddaughter comes with two boy friends, and have the boys’ showoff their strength.

I was one once, remember?

NOW I’M ANGRY

2007-06-15T22:37:00.000-05:00

I shouldn’t be so angry about the stupidity of my fellow man. I can’t help it and I need to vent it on, as we say here in rural SW Virginia all’ya all. Which includes all of you all.

This Global Warming religion has got to stop. What a crock of ----. Pastor Gore and his ilk have decided that I’m responsible for it driving my, yes I have the cursed SUV. In fact we have two. Both are 1997 models. The Expedition has 58,000 original miles and the Blazer has well over 100,000 miles. The boat has 40 hours and the 1998 secondhand Sea Doo has half a lifetime on it. That Sea Doo is fun, and is like riding a motorcycle on water. How dare we have fun going into our big eight O years? The lawnmower has been retired for a lawn service. The Skill leaf blower is used regularly to clean off the driveway, two decks, the dock and OH YES leaves when they fall in the fall of the year, which I mulch into dirt. I’m sure the decomposing of leaves into dirt is another cause for Global Warming, but I don’t care.

I also exhale on a regular basis, as does my Honey. We don’t have a dog, but my neighbor does and he exhales too. We have an infestation of squirrels that exhale and a load of birds, bugs, a black snake, two turtledoves and a partridge in our dogwood tree. Every one of them turns oxygen into CO2. I have killed off all the termites in the woods by using Chlordane. (I bought a large amount of it and DDT when they talked of banding them years ago.) Note: If you pore Chlordane in the Lake the fish will float to the surface for easy capture, and that saves gas by not going out fishing as often in the boat. I think that is the credit Gore speaks about using for his high electric bill.

I’m so glad we have killed many millions of babies in the womb. Just think how many less humans there are not exhaling? According to Gore, that’s a good thing. After all babies in the womb are just globs of cells at any stage of development. What a crock of ----, Al.

Gore is an expert on Global warming. Expert as defined as, “A stranger from out of town.” He is a shovel of ---- short of a full load. I hope the liberals draft him to run in 08. Think I read somewhere that some want that to happen. I love to look at his eyes when he smiles. They show his inner self as being what it is.

Please don’t take into consideration the temperature of the Sun or the huge, more than normal, volcanoes in the Pacific Rim and Atlantic Oceans warming the oceans up from the bottom, like teakettle on a gas range. Nor the fact that the earth is covered more in clouds than normal due to water vapor from the hotter oceans. Or that the citizens of Mars have warmed up their planet enough to evaporate both their polar caps. Those pesky Martians are at it again in their SUV’s. Could it really be due to a hotter sun? We need to cool down the sun. Gore can figure a way I’m responsible for a hot sun.

In today’s news the G8 is even snookered into the new religion of Global Warming. God less people will believe anything that sounds like science, even a science that has not been proved in the approved scientific manner.

You can tell I’m ticked. I figure my God is in charge of His world and His cosmos.
We were so concerned about the Ozone hole over the North and South poles a few years ago that were caused by freon according to the environmental experts. We had to stop using underarm deodorant, air conditioners, and many other everyday products. Now we know by proven science that the Ozone holes open and close by some strange force unknown by science. I will tell you the force is God who designed the system of life on planet earth. We now know that plankton; the building block of life is regulated by UV light. More UV kills plankton and less makes it thrive. Whenever we have red tide we have a bigger hole in the ozone. Red tide is masses of dead plankton so thick that it starves oxygen from the ocean and causes fish kills. There is a God reason for it all. Ask Him.

Now we are using corn for fuel to save oil. What a smart thing for scientific man to do. Resulting in corn shortages worldwide. The cost of corn for food has skyrocketed throughout the poor economies. The Mexican poor are complaining about the high cost of corn for tortillas. The Mexican farmers are burning their agave fields to plant corn because they will get a better price yearly. Agave is the plant used to make Tequila. (http://www.itequila.org/made.htm) “The process of tequila begins when a blue agave plant is ripe, usually 8 to 12 years after it is planted.” Better stock up on Tequila now for a great investment for the future. Now the Mexicans will have to come here for booze.

The cost of all types of meat and diary products is going up. Corn for animal feed is in short supply and a high price. Cornflakes will have to be kept behind the cash register and canned corn will be $3.98.9 each. How stupid does it get? There’s more.

China will or is drilling a Cuban oil well in the Gulf of Mexico 60 miles from Florida. There are big oil deposits in the Gulf but the same people pushing the global warming fraud won’t allow us to drill for our own oil. Maybe we can buy gas from Cuba in a few years? Oh I forgot, China will take all the oil for their own use. We have become a sorry sort as a nation. Our Founding Fathers would not approve of what we have become.

I am happy to be an American that lived during a time when patriotism was supreme for us all. I don’t think I could cope in the raising of a family in these times of selfishness. Once the Supreme Court put up a fence between our government and God, He took his hand of protection off the nation. We no longer can say, “God Bless America” and believe He will or should bless us.

I remember a TV program about Shirley McLean finding the evil spirit world as her helper in life. At the end of the program, she was standing on a beach looking out on the ocean’s horizon, and in a squeaky voice said, “I am god, I am god,” as the program faded into credits.

I heard Frank Perelli interviewed on the radio about the event. He was a gifted author and lecturer on Christian topics. Frank said, “Picture God standing on the balcony of Heaven looking down on the Earth when McLean was standing on the beach making her proclamation, ‘I am god, I am god.’ God called out to St. Peter, ‘Pete come see this.’ They had to lean over the balcony to hear the faint, squeaky little voice proclaim, ‘I am god, I am god.’ They both got a good laugh at that tiny little ant of a person proclaiming to be God standing beside His great ocean.”

I see God and St. Peter standing on that same balcony looking down at Gore planning to change the CO2 in the world’s atmosphere. They have a lot to laugh about on this one. God will just pull the plug on one or more volcanoes and pump more dust and obnoxious gas into the atmosphere in two minutes than all the SUV’s in the world pump in a year.

I’m for recycling and will gladly save our cooking grease, tin cans, aluminum cans, bottles, jars, tinfoil off chewing gum and candy bars, metal clothes hangers, newspapers, and anything else that can be recycled for reuse. Just like we did for the World War 2 effort.

Been there and done that! One thing I no longer can do is pull my little red wagon down the street collecting newspapers from the neighbors. I’m just too old, and the neighbors are few and far apart.

Note: Dad had to get our little red wagon re treaded several times during the war. Brother Bud and I collected tons of papers for the effort.

I’ll leave you with a proverb. Many are the plans of mans heart, BUT God’s will, will prevail.

I feel better now knowing WHO is really in control of His creation.

US Army Chapter 6

2007-05-29T20:49:00.000-05:00

Hans Sachs (1494-1576) was the most famous of the Meistersingers, a group of master lyricists charged with maintaining the song forms of the Middle Ages in Germany. As such, this art represents something of a continuation of that of the troubadours, although here the themes tend to be moral in nature. Of course, Sachs was later immortalized by Richard Wagner in Die Meistersinger. http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/svs33361.htm

Nuremberg destroyed around the untouched Sachs’ statue.

Prince Rupert of Bavaria Age 90.
Looks like my Grandfather at the same age.

FURTH and NUREMBERG

Chapter 6

Furth was not bombed into oblivion. Only the areas along the railroad tracks were flattened. Most of the old town was intact. I didn’t know what old was until I went to Europe. Furth was built before time started. Some of the housing dated back to 1500. You just can’t beat building with stone so closely stacked that you don’t need mortar. Every stone was placed and trimmed to fit its place. Streets were narrow cobblestone with sidewalks like our curb and gutters. Roofs were tile or slate shingled. Buildings were narrow on the street, three stories tall, and some had shops on the street level.

The markets, butcher shop, shoe repair, and all the other stores were mixed in with housing. No shopping centers in 1500. It was interesting trying to find a shop and not able to read the street signs. Most of my dealing with the German civilians was pleasant and easy. With the Marshall Plan showing results, the economy on a fast rebound, money flowing, and jobs abundant, the Germans were happy to be occupied. Even the black market was working. We provided them with cheap cigarettes, coffee, nylons, and even special orders. I had a coffee ration card and cigarettes were less than a dollar a carton. I paid for my laundry with coffee and cigarettes.

The laundry ladies would stand on the sidewalk under our window just before dinner hour on Mondays to collect our laundry. We would identify our personal laundress and toss out the dirty laundry for her to take home and wash. On Wednesday she would return at the gate to deliver washed and pressed clothing. My personal lady spoke no English, but we understood each other after a while. I gave her a new 220-volt electric iron from the PX for Christmas, and she insisted on doing my laundry for the month as my gift. She liked payment in cigarettes. She sold them for ten times the cash cost of my laundry. She was a widow with kids, like so many women in Germany after the war. We killed a lot of German soldiers from North Africa to Berlin.

I heard all my life how the Germans were such great mechanics, engineers, and craftsmen. That may be true, but I didn’t see any evidence of it while there. No one beats the average American GI. I needed a bolt cut shorter on my issue tripod. I asked our fine projector repairman to take a ¼ inch off the length. He didn’t understand what I was asking. I got MSG Trost to tell him in German. Trost just shook his head in disbelief. They got into a long discussion and finally Trost said that he didn’t know how to cut a bolt. He always used one the proper size. Here was a man gifted in knowledge to fix the mechanical and sound problems of a projector and had never cut a bolt. No one had ever shown him how. Our repairman got out his hacksaw, and Trost explained how to do it. Once done, he left the sharp ragged edge that would wreck havoc on my camera. He never thought to use a file to polish the end of the bolt. I thanked him, went outside and used the concrete sidewalk step to smooth the bolt. I just didn’t want to deal with that German mechanic any longer.

Trost asked me if I had ever taken a clock or radio apart? I said of course I had, and I fixed them too. He said that the German kid had never had a clock or radio to take apart, much less an old car. He said they were overrated as mechanics. That became evident with every car stalled on the curb. Large groups of men would gather around an open hood and look in, shake heads, talk, make suggestions, shake heads, and hands before leaving. No one could fix them.

Nuremberg was a medieval city, and at the same time a new city, and modern in all the new construction. The streetcars were running and transportation by bus was excellent. They had wonderful restaurants and beer gardens throughout town. We always went into Nuremberg Sunday evening for dinner. The Army mess on Sunday night was always cold cuts and cheese. We got rump roast or Wiener schnitzel, or Sauerkraut and Bratwurst, with hot potato salad on the side. Drink it down with Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbrau, Lowenbrau, Paulaner or Spaten beer. The dollar was worth 4.25 Marks, so dinner cost between 2 to 4 dollars including beer.

Nuremberg is listed as the town of children’s toys and gingerbread. It is also the birthplace of painter Albrecht Dürer 1471-1528 and poet and Meistersinger Hans Sachs 1494-1576.
The old town of Nuremberg was mostly intact. The old castle was in ruins but it was that way before the war. There was a effort to rebuild the wall and fort. The housing around the castle were as old as Furth. Nurenberg was leveled along the railroad tracks, but not much damage was done elseware.

OUR UNWANTED VISITORS

2007-05-22T22:17:00.000-05:00

One night in the recent past, I was sitting in the lower level reading my Bassmaster magazine, when over my head I heard the pitter-patter of tiny feet racing to and fro across the ceiling. Mice between the floors were my preferred choice of critters. I went to the garage to get traps, baited them with peanut butter, and put them in the open rear area of the ceiling from the unfinished part of the lower level. Next morning the traps were not sprung. I bought new traps of a different design. No luck. The usual late night chase across the ceiling continued.

When I went to the toilet paper storage area under the Jacuzzi in the master bathroom to get a new roll, I found all the opened rolls shredded with three half rolls left. Not even lint remained. The mice had discovered all the nesting materials they needed for a king size bed. I had a picture in my mind of them smiling, winking, and pinching each other as they passed with great anticipation of a perfect bedroom.

The real excitement started with a scream of sheer terror from my honey. I was sitting at the computer trying to get on line when the frantic call came from above along with, “You’ve got mail.” In my 50 plus years married, husbandly voice I yelled, “What’s wrong?” To which my bride screamed, “Get this animal out of the bedroom!”
When I entered the bedroom my honey was sitting in the middle of the king size bed with legs folded close to her body, pointing to the cutest little animal calmly sitting between us. I wondered which way it might run? If it headed for the bed all three of us would be in big trouble. Thankfully he/she dashed into the bathroom. I closed the door.

My bride said a lot of things at that time but I only remember a few. “Where did it come from? What kind of animal is it? How did it get into the house? What are you going to do to get it out? Is there more than one?” All the questions I could answer with a simple, “I don’t know.”

I had a choice to make about retrieval of our uninvited guest: the shotgun or a large minnow net. A 12 gage might do equal damage to shoes, clothing, and the closet along with the critter, so I resorted to the net. The critter was the color of a dark gray 1992 or 1993 Mercedes “S” series sedan, it had a round head and big black eyes placed in front of its face, not like the eyes of a rat or squirrel. He was a size larger than a chipmunk but had a similar size tail and design. One thing for sure, it was a night animal with those big eyes.

I went into the bathroom armed with the net from the boathouse, only to find him behind a trunk in a corner of the closet off the bathroom. It was reluctant to leave but once he/she raced out into the open bathroom, it was a simple matter to capture it in the net. I should have dispatched him into the critter afterlife instead of freeing him off the deck, but it was so cute my honey wouldn’t allow it. There was one more to go.

I went back to the computer to find I had been disconnected. Took an hour to get back on line. Once connected and “You’ve got mail,” I heard the pitter-patter of one little critter’s feet overhead heading for the open area in the unfinished storage area under the Jacuzzi. I thought he might be taking the TP back. Opening the door and quickly turning on the light produced another cute slightly larger, lighter gray little critter with a orange-yellow stripe above a dark Mercedes gray stripe on its lower side. We looked at each other for some time. Finally I said, “Wait here a minute while I get my BB gun.” I got the gun and went back, but he didn’t wait. Back to the garage to get rat traps loaded and primed to replace the mousetraps. The computer had disconnected, so I went to bed.

To answer the question “How did it get into the house?” took some investigation. Next morning I found a vent flapper missing from a four-inch vent under the deck. Capps’ Hardware had a vent cover in a plastic matching in color the area around the vent-my first mistake. I was finished with the project after much trouble removing the aluminum pipe from the cap and cutting a notch so it would fit. Figure he could get out but not back-my second mistake.

About 11:00 PM I hard that pitter-patter again heading to the back open area. Light on and an upward look found him looking down smiling at me from a hook holding the sleds and Honey’s 60-year-old ice skates. He was eating the leather laces. I clapped my hands and he dashed out of the house with vent flapping. I went out and taped the vent flapper shut with duct tape. Next morning the tape was chewed away. I taped the door shut with him inside. I had to know where he was. If he was inside, I figured I’d hear him scratching on the vent to get out and I’d go take the tape off and wait outside for him to leave and tape the flap tight with metal furnace tape. Third mistake.

The next night, my bride thought we should catch him in the net as he came out. My picture of that wasn’t the same as hers. Looked like an old Boy Scout snipe hunt setup to me.

It was about 9:30 the next night, he was scratching to get out. I called my new hunting partner and had her hold the net while I pulled the tape. About 30 minutes later, we saw paws and a nose pushing out the flapper. I told my Honey to get ready with the net. No movement from either him or us for a long time. He came out half his body length and a l o n g time later he eased out except for one foot still inside. Honey lunged at him, and before she got to her second step he went back inside. She turned, handed me the net, and went to bed. My honey has never been and is not now a hunter. A gatherer yes, but hunter no. She just hasn’t the patience. I got that “Him or Me at any price” attitude. No little critter is going to live in my house without paying rent. I saw no way he could support himself sleeping all day and going out at night.

I pulled up a chair at the end of the patio and sat for the long wait. Once he cleared the area I got the metal duct tape and really taped all traces of a flapper out of view. Then put duct tape over that. My fourth mistake.

Next morning while checking the traps I noticed our freeloader had shredded the black insulation on the air-condition coolant pipe that ran across the ceiling. He chewed through the $75 dollar neoprene pool (lake) float mat in many places. He had chewed through all the tape and the plastic flapper too. He was once more our unwanted resident rodent. Back to Capps’ this time to get an aluminum vent hood and flap. Allan, a clerk in Capps got what I needed. He told me I was hunting a male ground squirrel. They have stripes. He also told me to bait the traps with cotton. Rodents are always looking for nesting materials.

I glued a ½ inch square hardware cloth to the back of the aluminum hood since he knew how to lift flappers. Now back on with the old plastic with repaired flapper. I had to wait for his scratching to get out one last time. This hopeful last wait for him to leave was the most interesting. I went out on the dock, pulled a chair up about two feet from a piling and got comfortable. Within minutes a big spider started to build a web from my chair to the piling. It only took 20 minutes for the web builder to complete a beautiful web and get into his wait mode with me. At least I had company and it was entertaining. It took two hours for the final eviction notice to be served. Once the rodent had cleared the premises, I quickly removed the plastic vent hood and replaced it with the aluminum screened vent hood. It was 2:23 AM when I turned the alarm clock switch too off and went to bed.

My bride is an early riser, like 4:30 to 5:00 AM most mornings. She came charging into the bedroom at first light saying, “Quick, get up and get the net. The ground squirrel is scratching on the vent. You can catch him.” I asked her which side was he on? She said, “Outside.” I said, “GOOD, that’s where I want him. You catch him in the net if you want too.” I don’t do anything quick any longer. I rolled over and slept very well until 9AM.

First thing I did right. Not bad: one out of five, for three days and nights work.

Note to the wise: Bait mouse and rat traps with one half of a cotton ball, or a peace of cotton from a pill bottle. (Now you know what to do with all that cotton.) It works like a charm. I wire one to the trigger to keep it in place. It can be used over and over even with blood on it from a previous execution.

Bruce, one of my friends and fellow member of Lake Writers, is an artist, poet, sculptor, carver of wooden Indian masks and comical fish wall hangings, chef, recipe book author, book illustrator, Actor, director, house builder, stonemason, Gardner, and that’s just this month, told me they were flying squirrels. Ground squirrels are prairie dogs. All I know is that it would take several per person to make a meal.

DENTISTS I HAVE KNOWN--Chapter 2

2007-05-17T21:28:00.000-05:00

This year I had to get new dentures and a new partial due to wear and tear of advanced age and global warming. The exam by my regular dentist and referral to the periodontists dentist cost me $235, and left me with a choice to have a lose tooth reinforced by bone grafting from a cadaver donor and a new cap for a cost of several thousand dollars for one tooth, OR pull the tooth.

Christmas 1975 we went to Florida to visit my Mom and Dad in Venice, Florida. We planned to take all five kids to Disneyland on the way home. My cousin Bobby invited us to stay with them for a few days in their home in Orlando. Bobbie was a jewel and husband Don was more like a lump of sandstone. A real jerk but was good to Bobbie and that was all that counted. She had discount admission tickets and would take us to the park. We visited them shortly after Don had returned from Bedford, Virginia, to have his teeth pulled and new dentures made in one day from a denture factory. The trip from Orlando to Bedford and return saved him thousands of dollars. Don was in great pain and miserable. When Don was miserable, all around him were miserable.

I needed to find that factory. They had advertised on Channel 10 in Roanoke with a 1-800-Denture number. My honey called and they sent a brochure with the local “Affordable Dentures” address and phone number. http://www.affordabledentures.com/

The drill (pun intended) for while-you-wait dentures is first come first serve. Get there at 7 AM and eat a steak with new teeth at night. They have three quality choices and prices for full set of dentures: $375, Economy (one day); $615 Custom, (two day); and $890, Premium (two days). They make impressions at 7 AM and make dentures in the morning, pull your teeth, (at $65 per tooth) in the afternoon, install the dentures over your bloody gums, and send you off to eat dinner.

Bedford, Virginia, is 20 miles from our home and is the new home of The National D Day Memorial, and Affordable Dentures (another National Monument). I made an appointment for an exam.

The building is on VA Route 460 next to a Virginia State Police barracks. It’s a real rundown dump of a building, much like a WW1 temporary Army medical unit. BUT the two dentists are female as are the technicians, so the heat was up in the comfort zone. Not like the cold I find in male dentists offices. The waiting room had lots of folding chairs organized in theater arrangement. Every one filled with toothless men and women. We only waited an hour for my name to be called.

They had six dental chairs in the impression area, and four dental chairs in the extraction area, separated by barroom doors. I removed my old teeth and put them on a paper towel. The technician brought all kind of paperwork to be filled out and checked for tooth color preference. That’s when I asked for My Honey to make the choice. She decided on color and quality for our home, yard, and me. She picked the best quality. One of the dentists arrived at my mouth to see which tooth needed pulling. She wiggled it and ordered impressions. They took impressions and made another appointment at 11:30AM, two days later to approve wax mockup of my teeth. We paid in full on the way out the door.

At the next appointment they had my full uppers and the lower partial dentures in a wax mockup for me to try. Couldn’t try the lower due to still having the un-pulled lose tooth. They looked fine. Two days later I had the tooth pulled and my new dentures installed in time for lunch.

I had to go back this week for a few pressure areas to be ground down. I arriver about 10 AM and waited my turn. During the long wait, we were entertained by an irate gentleman (word used loosely) not satisfied with how they repaired a lose tooth on his bridge. He kept getting louder and louder in the waiting room. The receptionist tried to help him, but he just wanted all to know how dishonest the place was and shoddy they did the repair. She offered to redo the tooth or give him his money back. He went through the audience giving out his phone number offering to go on a class action law suit with anyone interested in suing this @X#^&* place. The office manager and receptionist decided to refund his money with an apology. He just wanted to rave on and on. He got his money back as two Virginia State Troopers walked in the front door. He started in on them when one took him by the arm and hustled him outside. The other filled out paper work. The second officer returned, and almost immediately the man returned. Only to be put outside with force.

When my turn came to go into the impression, six-chair room, I thanked the dentist and several technicians present for providing such a good entertaining show in the waiting room earlier and asked if they had another show planned for the afternoon?

No, they didn’t have planned shows in the future either. I did get smiles and winks.

Have you ever noticed when your mouth is numbed to the point your whole face seems like someone else when you touch it, that you are asked by the dentist, “How does that feel?” or “Is that a good bite?” How would you know?

And then you go to lunch and eat half of your numbed lip and tongue with your ham sandwich, and you leak your ice tea down your chin on your shirt.

US Army Chapter 5

2007-04-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

NURENBERG
Chapter 5

I reported to the motor pool to qualify for an Army driving license and qualified in ½ ton Jeep, ¾ ton cargo truck, 2 ½ ton bus, 2-½ ton truck, and Volkswagen. I liked the truck best. That was one big dude and much fun to drive on those old narrow brick roads through old rural towns and out on the Autobahn. I had a great insurance company behind me too. The Jeep was a Jeep, Army style. It had nothing in it that could have been considered comfortable and it wasn’t. Ah, the Volkswagen was a hip hugger in ever respect for one at 6’1” and 200 pounds. Put another 200 pounder and equipment in, and it got smaller still. When the Volkswagen craze hit this country during the 60s, I had all the Volkswagen driving I ever wanted behind me.

We always had a German civilian driver for our assignments, unless we were going to an Army unit in the field on maneuvers or an overnight.

As Official US Army Photographer, I photographed everything for the official Army records. We did some accidents, German-American PR, retirements, medal awards, mortuary shipments, and anything that needed recording for those Army records. Not a ribbon was cut nor a spade dug in a new construction sight was missed. I did ID photographs for the German civilians and guards that worked on Government property, and military ID cards. When I left for Germany from Dix, the Army decided to take our newly acquired ID card from us because Europe had their own cards. We marched past a box to drop our card in and for some reason my card stuck to my hand and wouldn’t let go, so I had mine in Germany. I was able to go off post and explore Furth and Nuremberg.

There was no special European Card. All those who didn’t have a card couldn’t leave the post. The Army way.

(With this pass I could go off post anytime I wanted.)
The Army sent special teams from the States for the purpose of photographing every man, woman, and child who had their cards collected. In Europe whole Divisions of replacement soldiers had turned in their new official cards for non-existing cards. It was a mess and got messier. We heard the teams had forgot to take the dark slide out of the cameras. All there film was blank. Back they came for a redo. The second time through must have been successful? The Army way.

Once my camera arrived from home, I was able to go on assignments alone. Sgt One was as happy as me. My first few assignments were ribbon cuttings. We were returning some local government back to the German authority, so that was big news. The date for the end of occupation was waiting for the elections to finish and Conrad Adenauer had been elected chancellor. He was a good man and a very fine fellow to start up the new Germany. I don’t remember the date or the timing but, you can do a Google search if you want. I don’t.

My first experience at the mortuary was a shock that turned good. Dead bodies were not high on my list to photograph. I had no idea that the Army had embalmers as a branch of service. How naïve of me. We photographed faces of each corpse in the coffin before shipping it back to the states. One copy went into the coffin with the body, a second went with the paper work outside the coffin, a third copy was kept in the file at the mortuary, and a fourth copy was sent to Dover Mortuary. Every one of the morticians was my age, and one told me to just sit down quickly and put my face between my knees if I felt faint. He also suggested I take a tour of the mortuary and see how the bodies were processed and prepared for shipment. By doing that, I would not have a problem in the future.

I did take a tour when they had a body being prepared for me to see. It was the most interesting tour of an unknown I have ever taken. I was struck the most by how much respect was given the corpse. The bodies were handled with gentleness and care every step of the way. I won’t go into fine detail here, but I never have had a problem attending funerals since. To see a dead body stretched out in a stainless steel sink with the internal organs removed and the skull opened, gave me a mental picture of dead as being as dead as it gets. All the bodies had autopsies at the hospital before going to the mortuary. The body was reunited with internal organs from the hospital, embalmed, and placed nude into the coffin. The corpse’s military unit had the expense of a full new uniform with rank and ribbons attached. The uniform was folded and placed at the foot of the coffin, and shipped to the states. The mortuary in Dover, Delaware, would clothe the body, including underwear, shoes and socks, and do makeup for burial. A soldier would accompany the body from the mortuary in Europe to the grave. At the time, it seemed to me that the Army had more respect for the dead than the living. As I look back after 50 years, (It’s taken that many for me), I have to admit I got more than fair treatment from those in command all through my two years of active service. GO ARMY!

The commanding General of the related branch fostering the German takeover of an Army operation or opening a new building performed most all the ribbon-cutting ceremonies. The German city leaders would accept the keys and offer thanks for the aid given the people of Germany. The Marshall Plan at work, and work it did. Many times I met all the Generals with scissors in hand.

The General in command of our Army Hospital was the most photographed of them all. He cut every ribbon in front of every hospital, and clinic in the district. His name has left my memory but not his kindness to me, and all those Germans he shook hands with at every gathering. Germans love to shake hands. They shook hands coming in and going out. In a group gathering, everyone shook everyone else’s hand. I think the right hand of Germans must be larger than their left through evolution over the centuries.

US Army Chapter 4

2007-03-30T20:36:00.000-05:00

NUREMBERG GERMANY
CHAPTER 4
(Be sure to start at Chapters 1-2-3)

Junior and I arrived by train in Nuremberg’s huge train terminal. It was an open steel framed dome structure without any glass. I realized that the bombing had removed all the glass from the terminal. Some of the steel beams were bent and construction was going full speed. We noticed piles of reclaimed brick on vacant lots on our way by Army Mercedes bus to Furth, a suburb town about five miles away, and the Headquarters of the US Army, Nuremberg Military District. Germany was divided into American, English, French, and Russian Military Districts. Germany was an occupied country and we were occupiers. I had never been an occupier. It was one of many firsts for me.

Furth was another German SS Army post. Our billet was a first class three-story building with high ceilings and two large, long windows in each room. My room was on the second floor and overlooked the old town of Furth. Old, meaning built about 1700 something. One has to go to Europe to see old housing still in use.

German MPs in OD uniforms with white helmets, and a carbine over a shoulder guarded the gates. German civilians were our guards, custodians, janitors, cooks, and gardeners. Germans were everywhere working. The American government was the biggest employer of German citizens. It was the best way to get the economy up and growing. We even bought their manufactured products and produce when possible. It was a shock to see OD painted Volkswagens all over the roads. Jeeps were hard to find in our Army motor pools. The Army bought all the first run autos the Germans produced.

We had two sets of commands. One was our Post Command of the US Army, Nuremberg Military District Headquarters; they were responsible for our room and board, sick call, role call, mail call, supply, and armory. The second and most supreme was the Signal Corps Headquarters Command; they were responsible for my time and duty. They determined my going and coming and assignments.

The first time I went to the evening chow hall, I saw Junior in line. We had our dinner together and exchanged room numbers. His room was one floor above mine. It was good to have someone I knew close by. Just before we finished our first German cooked meal, which was very good, I got a tap on my shoulder and a familiar voice asking if he could join us? It was SFC Frances Neary. He was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps, Nuremberg Military District. He was getting an apartment for his French wife to come on Post in a few weeks. He had arranged for his automobile to be delivered in France, and he would pick up his car and wife in two weeks.

LIKE YOUR DADDY TOLD YOU, “NEVER EVER BURN YOUR BRIDGES BEHIND YOU FOR YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT EVIL MAY LURK IN YOUR FUTURE!!!!”

I reported to the Photographic Lab on the first Monday morning after arriving in Furth. The Lab was across the parade ground from my billet. It was a two-story small brick building from the street. I noticed several old Chevrolets and an old Mercedes four-door convertible parked in front. The Mercedes looked like the one Hitler rode into the large Nuremberg stadium to have his troops salute him. Hitler never saluted anyone. The stadium is the one shown in the movies of the thousands of uniformed troops standing in rows as Hitler drove through and all hailed Hitler. It had a huge swastika on the rooftop, which the invading Americans blew up on their way to Nuremberg.

I walked through the front door, and the first person I saw was MSGT. Oscar Trost. It took awhile for me to get my chin off the floor before I could talk. (I would now love to have a picture of the expression on my face at that moment.) Trost never said he was leaving Monmouth when he bid me goodbye two-weeks before. I now had one and a half years of Trost before me. He was a different man in Germany, and it turned out well in the end. He needed me as much as I needed him to make the lab a success. He greeted me with, what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm to have me in his little domain. Trost introduced me to everyone and gave me a tour of the lab and equipment. I was issued an old 4X5 Speed Graflex camera, signed all the paperwork and told to go try it out. I knew the camera wouldn’t work when I saw the holes in the bellows. Trost thought I could patch it. I did get most of the holes covered with black tape but there was one or two small holes I couldn’t find. I always had fogged film. So I wrote my Honey to pack up my camera and send it to me ASAP. Every time Trost requested a new camera, the MP’s got it.

During the war, Trost had been in the Special Services branch of the Army. Special Services (SpS) produced training films and shows for the Army. They setup the USO tours during the war, and toured the country with mock battle shows for the War Bond drives in stadiums, armories, and coliseums across the country. As a little kid I saw one in the old ice-skating rink in DC. They had German uniforms on the losing side because we always won the battles. The shows were just like the ones we played in the vacant lots on our street as kids-except we didn’t have uniforms and blanks. Trost was part of the cast and never went overseas until this assignment. Trost always amazed me by what he knew at the right time. He spoke fluent German and was an excellent capable administrator.

Our Photographic Lab consisted of: three Sergeants, one SFC, one MSGT and me a PFC. The two German civilians were:
one female lab technician, and one male repairman for the 16mm Bell and Howell projectors used in our Military District.

Sgt One was a short fat man who fought with the First Army from North Africa, to Italy, to France into Germany. With all the battles he participated in, and only be a Sergeant showed his smarts and character. He was a real professional goof-off. But he did good photographic work. He had a Fräulein and lived off Post with her. She was ugly and twice his age, but he was happy. I accompanied him on his assignments until my camera arrived from the States.

Sgt Two was soon to go home. He was short and good-looking with a Fräulein living off Post. He was very allusive and didn’t want to be known. He would check in each morning and get lost most days. When he went on assignment he’d be gone all day. I remember asking about him after not seeing him for a few months and was told he had returned to he States for discharge. He owned the Hitler Mercedes.

Sgt Three is totally not in my memory. Guess he made no impression on me at all?

SFC Four had an interesting assignment. He was second in command of the Photo Lab, but with our small operation, he had nothing much to do. Four was a hunter with a passion. He helped organize the Nuremberg Rod and Gun Club. The club organized deer, stag, and boar hunts for German-American relations. An unarmed German accompanied every American hunter armed. German citizens were not allowed to have weapons while under occupation. I went on two hunts for boar while in Germany. One was under occupation and the second was after Germany was given back to the Germans. That will be another story. The day Germany went from occupied enemy to ally.

Elvis Presley, Steve Lawrence, and I were drafted at the same time. The Army tried to get Elvis to serve in the Special Service, but Elvis wasn’t going to sing for free for the Army and went into the 32nd Heavy Armored Division and spent his time in tanks at Hohenfeld on the Russian border. Steve Lawrence served at the Armed Forces Radio in Frankfort. Steve’s wife, Edie Gorme joined him there during his tour. Of the three of us, Elvis did the toughest duty in a tank on alert maneuvers ten months out of a year. They were armed and loaded at all times. The Cold War was real on the Russian border in 1952.

http://www.steveandeydie.com/

http://history1900s.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fgirlsguidetoelvis.com%2Farelphot.html

US Army Chapter 3

2007-03-21T21:40:00.000-05:00

LIBERTY SHIP
SS Woodrow Wilson-0893
Chapter 3

My orders were to report to Fort Dix New Jersey for ship assignment to Bremmerhaven, Germany. Ft. Dix is a lost memory, but we didn’t stay more than two days. We left Dix early on a train to the super fast ferry, to the ship staging center in New York City. I remember the SS Wilson as being Navy Grey and not as large as I’d like for a cruise across the North Atlantic the first week in April 1952.

My bunk was down three deck levels between the deckhouse and the second cargo hole. We went to mess by invitation over the loudspeaker. We did everything by invitation over the loudspeaker.

I met SFC Francis (Frank) Neary in the next bunk from mine. He was going back to Germany for his second tour since serving in France during the war. Frank was assigned to the Quartermaster Corps on the beaches of France after the invasion. He was part of moving the supplies from the ships to shore. Frank liked the Liberty Ships. He said the Liberty was the workhorse for supplies. They could self unload three cargo holes at the same time. While he was in France he married a pretty young French lass, who wanted to go to America. She didn’t like America and went home to France and her momma. Frank had asked to return to France but could only get assigned to Germany. He hoped she would join him there.

We docked in Liverpool, England to unload autos. That was as close as I got to England.
The cars and trucks at the dock looked like England. There was construction as far as the eye could see. Liverpool was bombed severely so all the unloading cranes were the most modern. Our Liberty ship no longer had self-loading and unloading cranes aboard. It was slick to see how the cars were unloaded.

We set sail early in the morning for Germany up the English Channel. Frank came to get me from below to see the White Cliffs of Dover. He said it was a sight to see and not to be missed. The Cliffs were beautiful. I thought came to me, the next time I see them I’ll be on my way home.

We arrived in Bremmerhaven in two days. The North Sea was rough water most of the way and those seasick were really sick. Some hadn’t eaten anything since we left New York.

Bremmerhaven was being rebuilt and their docks were the most modern I had ever seen. Made the New York docks look like antique dark ages. But then Bremmerhaven had been totally removed from the earth during the war, so anything higher than six inches above the ground was new. We had one last meal on board the SS Wilson and were moved out on a train directly from the dock.

German trains were beautiful and a real pleasure. Compartments heated for six soldiers each. We didn’t hear the clickedy-clack or anything outside. Smooth and quiet all the way to Southern Germany in the Bavarian Mountains. I don’t remember where we went for staging for assignment, but it was beautiful in the snowy mountains. It was another of Hitler’s SS troop recreation areas.

The German SS had some of the best facilities ever for their troops. The food and beds were really good. That was the first time I saw German civilians working as kitchen staff and custodial service. German civilians were everywhere doing the chores privates usually had to do. I liked that part.

Frank and I were separated during assignment and I thanked him for his friendship and hoped he would have a happy reunion with his wife.

I re-met Junior who had been in my class in Monmouth. He was a nice kid from Chicago area. Junior looked like a 22 year old named Junior. He was company. Junior got his assignment changed from Photographer to US Army Post Office (APO) in Nuremberg. My assignment came to report to the Signal Corp Photo Lab in Nuremberg. We would be going together to the city where the Nuremberg Military Trials had taken place.

The next day we were on our way by first class train to Nuremberg. Every city we went through on the train from Bremmerhaven, to the SS resort, to Nuremberg were destroyed. We had never seen such destruction nor could we have imagined it so. But the war hadn’t been over long, and we felt the Germans deserved it, considering how they destroyed England, North Africa, and the rest of Europe.

Liberty ships were mass-produced for the Merchant Marine from 1941 to 1945 to replace all the ships sunk by German submarines. It took 42 days to make a Liberty from start to finish. The Liberties had five cargo holes, two forward of the deckhouse and three aft. The Liberty and the Victory Ship were made from the same hull design. Liberty was designed for troop and cargo while the Victory was designed for cargo only. Both were armed with deck guns during the war. One even sunk a German submarine on the surface.
The Woodrow Wilson was the 893rd Liberty built. North Carolina Shipbuilding Company, Wilmington, North Carolina was the builder.

Liberty Ships built by the United States Maritime Commission in World War II
"Liberty ship" was the name given to the EC2 type ship designed for "Emergency" construction by the United States Maritime Commission in World War II. Liberty ships were nicknamed "ugly ducklings" by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
The first of the 2,751 Liberty ships was the SS Patrick Henry, launched on Sept. 27, 1941, and built to a standardized, mass produced design. The 250,000 parts were pre-fabricated throughout the country in 250-ton sections and welded together in about 70 days. One Liberty ship, the SS Robert E. Peary (http://www.usmm.org/peary.html) was built in four and a half days. A Liberty cost under $2,000,000.
The Liberty was 441 feet long and 56 feet wide. Her three-cylinder, reciprocating steam engine, fed by two oil-burning boilers produced 2,500 hp and a speed of 11 knots. Her 5 holds could carry over 9,000 tons of cargo, plus airplanes, tanks, and locomotives lashed to its deck. A Liberty could carry 2,840 jeeps, 440 tanks, or 230 million rounds of rifle ammunition.
http://www.usmm.net/l/southe.html#1222

US Army Chapter 2

2007-03-12T23:03:00.000-05:00

CAMP GORDON, GEORGIA
Chapter 2

My Honey and I went through Georgia in June 1951 on our way to Florida on our honeymoon. We melted. It was so hot driving in our old blue 1946 Dodge four-door sedan with Fluid Drive. US Route 1 was torn up with hot dust and hot detours for the building of Interstate 95. We decided there and then we would never go to Florida again if we had to drive through Georgia. Never make a "never go to Georgia" statement, for you may do your basic training there.

I arrived at Camp Gordon on the first Friday in September-and we were taken to our Company and assigned bunks. Across the company street from our barracks was the most prize-winning mess hall at Camp Gordon. The Mess Sergeant was a winner in keeping the best-run, cleanest-looking inside, and out mess hall, and the best food in the Army. I was grateful for that food too. (It wasn't home cooking though.) He had all the walks lined with flowers and white painted stones, all the same size. He kept white paint on hand and someone was painting all the time. He had few demands for KP from us since he had a full staff of cooks and didn't want us messing around HIS kingdom or messing with HIS rocks and flowers. The Mess Sergeant even had little curtains on the windows. That’s class.

I got caught for KP duty one day, and it was hard work. I had to ride in the back of a pastry delivery truck handing out pies and cakes to the mess halls. It was cool in the truck and shaded from that hot, humid Georgia sun. It smelled good all day long. Not bad KP duty. I even considered it good duty for the next 23 and ½ months.

Our drill instructors were all sergeants and Korean veterans with an urgency about our paying attention to all instruction since it might save our lives. They were great instructors for the Signal Corps short course in self-defense, but it was not enough training for an offensive soldier fighting in Korea. Our Company DI was a winner and looked the part of a tough S.O.B., but in fact he was a very caring, hard working soldier? I got to know him quite well, along with our barracks instructor. We were told not to ask questions of our barracks instructor about Korea. He was working out mental problems as best as he could.

I volunteered to clean the company machine guns and rifles after they were fired on the range, in the supply room after dinner. That duty got me off everything else and I got to BS with the cadre. They tried to keep me for duty in the supply room when my training was finished, but my priority assignment (MOS) kept that from happening. Thank you, God. My three years in high school cadets and the Virginia State Guard paid off in basic training.

We had a 50-minute lesson with a 10-minute "Smoke If You Got’m" schedule. I loved anything dealing with small to big guns, hand grenades, and my real favorite, land mines. My close ties with the DI gave me the opportunity to help with the setting up of booby traps for our company to get safely through the next day. That was fun. I had a perfect grade in basic training and I worked hard to learn all I could about killing Koreans and living through the next 23 months. I was counting down the days from the first day, and they were moving much to slow.

I must admit I was shocked by some of the inductees’ inability to do the simplest personal care. Some had never seen a toothbrush or a razor, and some didn't know how to shine shoes or wash socks. A shower a day was unknown by those from the mountain hollers. Polished brass, clean floors, and wash windows were a mystery. What an education that was for me to see such a cross-section of men.

I have forgotten all names except for Schroder. He had the lower bunk next to mine and was a muleskinner from Wyoming. He was about 5 foot 7 inches and weighed 225 pounds without an ounce of fat. Built like a barrel. His neck was so large and arms so thick and short that the Army had to tailor all his clothing. His legs were short and thick, about the size of the smaller men’s waist. He was a walking muscle. He was a simple young man who never talked unless he was asked a question, and was so homesick for his Wyoming Mountains and mules that he cried. That made him a scapegoat for jokesters. We had to walk everywhere, since in basic training the Army didn’t provide us with transportation. My boots were not a good fit for my flat feet, so my feet would swell up to the point that I had to keep loosening the laces. Some mornings I could hardly get those boots on and had to walk in the back a little slower than the company. Schroder would keep me company along with some of the smaller men who didn't have the strength to carry their packs and rifles. Schroder would carry their packs and rifles. One day he had four extra rifles and packs for our 10-mile walk to the training ground. He arrived at the meeting site and wasn't even winded. He said it was easier than carrying a mule over a mountain. After we finished that day, Schroder just picked up those rifles and packs, and walked back to the barracks. No one ever said one thing against Schroder again, but all were in awe of him. He was my most unforgettable character.

The Army Mountain Mule Rescue Team stationed in Wyoming checked through the Pentagon to find Schroder. They knew he was drafted and had given him a letter for the induction center to send him directly back to Wyoming. Schroder owned a team of mules that the Army leased along with Schroder for their missions. They found him in Camp Gordon. Orders were cut from the Pentagon to ship him back by the Air Force. Seems he was the only one who could get the mules to move. Guess the mules missed him as much as he missed them? He had worked with the Army, Air Force, and the Forest Service on rescue and fire fighting. Schroder was one happy soldier to be going home to his mules. He left that night for the airport. I missed his mountain humor and good company.

I went on sick call for my flat feet the day we were scheduled for the obstacle course. My feet were bigger than my boots and no way to get them on. It took all day to get arch supports but no new better-fitting boots. I got to ride out to the training areas until I could get the boots back on my swollen feet. Just try to put arch supports into boots too small for flat feet. I was really sorry to miss the obstacle course. I had to buy boots to fit my feet.

I had a terrible toothache and chills the night we were to camp out in tents for three days and have night maneuvers in the Georgia pinewoods. At midnight I talked to the DI and the Company Captain. The Captain looked at me and felt my head and called an ambulance for a quick trip to the hospital.

The dentist was not happy to be gotten out of bed, but when he saw me he got out the x-ray equipment and could find nothing wrong with my teeth. I hurt so bad I just wanted him to pull them all. My head was exploding. He rushed me to the hospital and several doctors examined me, I was given a shot, and put in an unoccupied eight-bed ward. In the morning a nurse came to the door with fresh pajamas, robe, and slippers, and said for me to strip the sheets and blankets and put on fresh hospital garb, and put all laundry in the doorway. Breakfast was delivered to the room and I was told I had an appointment with an E.N.T. at 10:00 AM and I was not to leave the room. An orderly arrived and took me to the E.N.T. in a wheelchair and right into the examining room. The doctor was a German with a very thick accent, one I couldn't understand. He examined me and said I had a severe case of sinus. I never had sinus problems. How could that be possible? He gave me another shot and said to come back after lunch and he would "Thick it, yes?" I never trust a doctor that gives me a question for an answer.

In the afternoon my German doctor stuck a couple of steel rods up my nose to seal off the brain and ran solvents in one nostril and out the other. After a few minutes my teeth stopped aching and my fever went to normal. I felt good and ready to go. My German doctor was in no hurry for me to leave the hospital, and I had to go everywhere in an orderly-pushed wheel chair. All my meals were delivered and sheets and clothing picked up at the door. I was in QUARANTINE until I left the hospital four days later. Can you believe the hospital never got any updates on my condition in four days? I did get rides by wheelchair, and meals delivered to my private eight-bed ward all four days.

On my return to the Company, the troops had gone through the camp out and bayonet course. I had missed all the fun parts of basic training.

The weather was changing to freezing cold mornings. Without trees with leaves around, it was hard to tell seasons from the pine trees. One day we went on a march into the wood, and at the first break we found the water frozen in our hip canteens. By noon it was in the lower 80s. Georgia hadn't let me down. It stayed too hot or too cold or both in the same day and miserable the whole time, but it was better than the brutal winters in Korea. We didn't get weather forecasts or dress options in the real Army.

During the last few weeks of basic, some were beginning to get their next assignments. The goof-offs, and those who gave Schroder a hard time at the first part of basic training got early assignment to the pole lineman's school next door to our company. They were not happy about climbing telephone poles for the next 21 months. Pole linemen made the best targets of all for the Korean snipers. The DI said with a smile that the Captain knew how to make the best assignments. Others were going to radio operator school, and most were happy about that. My assignment to Ft. Monmouth Photographic School outside Redbank, NJ, came, and I was as happy as a person could be in an unwanted situation. Some of the smaller men were going to cook school. They would be cooks on those damn troop trains in Chapter 1, or-if lucky-would be sent to Korea within the year.

US ARMY Chapter 1

2007-02-27T23:55:00.000-05:00

“GREETINGS”

“This is to inform you that you have been selected to report August 23, 1951” letter arrived in July 1951 and I was not happy. I had just finished RIT on June 9th with a degree in Photo Finish Management, Color Chemistry, and Retail Management. I married the first and only love of my life and the smartest, most beautiful girl in the whole world on June 16, 1951 and had a new job in Richmond, Virginia. I didn’t want to shoot Koreans and have them shoot back at me. This was inconvenient in timing, and I really can’t say how I really felt due to obscenity laws. Let’s just jump right into the worst two years of my life. I did learn a lot from the experience and the benefits are on going. I am always invited to stand up at the 4th of July concerts when they play the Army battle song-“Over the river and through the woods.”

At the end of August, I reported to the Alexandria, Virginia, recruiting center for the physical, and induction ceremonies. I was surprised to have two boys from The University (UVA) in line with me. The Marines were taking a percentage of us for their needs, and-when we had to do pull-ups and pushups-I decided then not too do any well enough to pass the Marine requirements. Phew! I raised my right hand and solemnly swore to defend us all in the Army. In short order we were leaving on a train from the Alexander station where we had the opportunity to buy donuts and coffee for a nickel each from the Red Cross.

Our train was a troop train, nearly full with sad wide-eyed young men from the south. Our wood train coach, built about 1862, had wood bench seats and a pot-bellied stove at one end. Just like the ones I had seen on the movie screen during the war moving prisoners to the gas chambers. I was living a war movie. Comfort was not the Army’s way, and the train was full of new draftees and a few enlistees. We got no food or water until we stopped at a station in New Jersey where the Salvation Army had free toilet kits for each man: coffee, sandwich, donuts, and two apples as a gift met us. I have never forgotten that Army of Salvation, and it still is the best run Army in the world. I wondered if I could have served in the Salvation Army.

Fort Dix, our first stop, was a very large staging area for new inductees. We were marched to the mess hall for our only meal that day about 9:30 PM. That mess was huge and operated 24 hours a day due to the continuous arrival of inductees. The Korean War was in full swing, and the need was great for that war and the occupation Army in Europe and Japan. After food we were hustled off to our barracks and a bunk. I was too tired to think, but we had a nearly vacant barracks.

In the morning when I opened my eyes, in the next bunk was a face that belonged to William (Bill) Williams my first roommate at UVA. The barracks had filled to the brim during the night with bodies. Bill said when he saw me in that bunk, he felt more at home. He was called out shortly after breakfast and I never saw him again. We got our issue of uniforms: two wool dress uniforms, two sets fatigues, one wool shirt, two sets of summer weight uniforms, two pair boots, one pair dress shoes, two wool and two cotton caps, and summer and winter socks. We mailed our “civvies” back in a box, an act that really told me I was where I didn’t want to be.

I had night KP in the kitchen and quickly learned how to be a professional goof-off. We reported to the Mess Sgt. for assignments and-as he went down the line giving out one bad job after the other-I saw a broom, grabbed it before he got to me, and went outside to sweep the loading dock which was the coolest place to be before air conditioning. A mess hall in operation 24 hours a day never cools off so it was too hot to eat inside, much less work. I pretended to sweep that dock all night long without ever touching the broom to the deck. Night work was cooler than day work, and it was easy to get lost in the dark. A clipboard and pencil was a very good prop and could keep me out of service for days. Just keep walking and writing. It was better than washing pots and pans or mopping floors inside that hot mess hall.

The next morning after three hours sleep, we reported to our next big event. We went for testing and interviews to see where we were best suited to be placed as an active duty soldier. I went to sleep during the testing and got a special exemption for retesting due to being on duty the night before. That gave me an opportunity to be tested and interviewed with a few others. We all did well since the personnel were not busy and had more time to spend on each of us. My interviewer was a new young Lieutenant shrink just starting his tour and was not happy with his assignment. He was an amateur photographer wanting to photograph antique furniture he collected but didn’t want stains to show. (This was before color photography was invented.) I told him which color filter to use with black and white film to not show the blemishes but would bring out the grain of the wood. He was thrilled and we talked for a long time about everything under the sun. Finally he said he would give me a priority assignment in photography and no one would be able to change it. He did, and they didn’t. I was priority assigned as a Signal Corps Photographer.

I didn’t know it at the time, but God was in charge of my life even then. I thought it was luck-a toss of the dice, and fate at the time-but now I know there is no such thing as luck.

Camp Gordon, Georgia was the Signal Corp basic training post for everything Signal.

The train going south was hot and crowded. Many were sick from the motion. The train stopped somewhere in North Carolina for two hours while the mess car was attached. It didn’t help the sickness when we went back to eat from the mess car. The food was terrible and all I could think about was that some draftees would spend two years cooking on this troop train. Korea or being run over by a pastry truck would be better than a cook on a troop train. Our train stopped some three hours later to detach the mess car. Those poor cooks had to travel back and forth on that hot stinking kitchen and eat their own food. Yuck!

It took us 20 hours to get to Augusta, Georgia, and Camp Gordon. I realize now that the Army method is to indoctrinate the troops to the worst experience first; so all the rest of the bad would be better than the first few days. It worked too.

DENTISTS I HAVE KNOWN

2007-02-11T21:42:00.000-05:00

Chapter 1

My first dental experience was most memorable. I had a cavity in a baby tooth molar that hurt when I chewed bubblegum or ate ice cream. Dad took me to the dentist within walking distance in Clarendon,
VA. The dentist office was on the second floor above the drugstore. It was a hot summer day, and the office was steaming hot. This was in the day without air-condition and insulation in attics. So hot was hotter then than now. A little like going up in the attic at 2:30 PM on a hot sunny day in August to work on the automatic attic ventilator.

The dentist was an old man with gray hair and glasses. The chair was a wood barber chair with a headrest, and I sat on a box. The drill was a series of belts and pulleys and, how fast the dentist peddled determined the speed of the drill. That day I learned old men couldn’t peddle fast. Try to peddle with a foot and keep your hand steady at the same time. Rinsing out the mouth consisting of a glass of water and a pan. I wonder if he ever washed the glass or pan? Novocain hadn’t been invented, so I endured the pain like a small child in total fear.

After the first trip with Dad, I went by myself without support up those hot steps to see Dr. Pain. I could cry going and coming but not in the office. That was where I learned going is a longer distance than coming home.

I think Mother must have gone one time to Dr. Pain and decided she would find another dentist with an electric drill, and running water. Thank God for moms of little boys.

The next dentist was in DC on Vermont Ave one block North of K Street. We would take the Arnold Line Bus downtown on Saturday. The new dentist had electric drills, plush adjustable chairs, and a spit bowl beside the chair with water swirling around to wash out the blood and bone into the DC sewer. I’m sure Novocain was invented about this time so the dentist appointments were a piece of cake. Being stuck with a needle was nothing compared to Dr. Pain. They even had dental assistants and reception ladies. Something new?

Brother Bud had braces with the rubber bands. His teeth were harder than mine, so he never had the fillings I had.

I had the honor of being drafted into the US Army and served in Nuremberg, Germany in the occupation Army. My dental experience was not good. I had a filling fall out and the dentist was not happy about his day. He was probably drafted too. The dental clinic was part of US Army Nuremberg Military District Hospital. The dentist turned on his drill and bore down on my tooth without stopping until the drill went through my tooth. I yell at him, “What have you done?” He said, “Come back tomorrow and I’ll have to pull it.” I said, “I don’t think you will ever touch me again. I’m going to see General Hughes right now about this.”

General Hughes was one of my customers. I was an Official Army Photographer and photographed General Hughes handing over the keys and cutting red ribbons to every small to large hospital to the Germans in his district that the Army built and supplied. (Part of the Marshall Plan.) I went back the next day for the tooth pulling of the botched tooth, and heard that the mad dentist was transferred out of Germany. He must
have had lots of complaints beside mine.

Our next dentist was Dr. Starbuck in Arlington. Dr Starbuck was a Kiwanis Club friend of Dad. He was a real character with a beautiful wife and beautiful kids. I guess he was a good dentist, but he had a hand problem with female patients according to My Honey. We then went to Dr. Blevins in Arlington and a Kiwanis member. We later heard Starbuck wondered from his own bed, and ended in a messy divorce. He lost his Chesapeake Bay vacation home, boat and kids. Couldn’t happen to a better guy.

When we had three kids in collage at the same time, we went to Georgetown Dental Clinic. That was a great experience for us. We only paid for supplies used. The student dentists were of every type. They were very good but slow since they had to get approval from a faculty dentist after each step of drilling. The faculty dentist had to sign off on the tooth before it could be filled, and then a final last signoff and grade after completion.

My first student told me he was the top in his class gradewise, but he was not the best with his hands. He was being paid to attend dental school and had all equipment and supplies covered by the Army for a tour as a dentist at some future Army Dental Clinic. He said he was very popular because he loaned his government tools to other students to use. He even had the new Hi Speed Air Drill furnished by the government. Georgetown Dental School didn’t even have one at the time. I wondered which was best, to have a dentist good at the books or good with his hands?

Good with hands:
1. Doesn’t lean an arm, hand, or finger on your body, face, or teeth.
2. Gentle pressure with tools.
3. Quick and deliberate while in your mouth.
4. Doesn’t have tool slippage and is aware where your fat, numb lip is in relation to your teeth.

I had another student dentist who was very good with his hands. He had a big filling to replace that was close to the nerve. He worked slow and deliberate and I was tired and fell asleep. He thought I had died on him and went for an instructor. I felt sorry for his shock and didn’t laugh until I got outside.

Some of the instructors were retired dentists. Others were graduate dentists studying for advanced degrees.

I remember one elderly retiree instructor that would take a yellow #2 pencil out of his shirt pocket and tap on my tooth under repair with the rubber eraser end each time he checked me. Then put it back in his pocket and go to the next patient. I asked my student dentist if I really saw what I saw with the pencil? He said yes. The students had discussed the problem but they had a problem turning in a report on faculty. I told him I would take care of it. The head of the Dental School was a customer of ours at the studio. We took his family photographs every Christmas. He was instrumental in getting me into the outpatient program. I visited his office on my way home and the problem was cleared that hour. The students were delighted.

The student dentist that I will remember to my last day was a beautiful, inside and out, girl type person from the Philippines. She was the age of my oldest daughter and I loved her as such. She was an excellent dental student and practitioner. The best touch of them all. She asked me questions that she would ask her father in the Philippines. She even introduced me to her fiancée to get my approval. He was a delight and a bright young man with an MBA in banking. I was blessed to take their wedding pictures and meet her whole family. She opened a practice in Annapolis, Maryland, while he was an investment banker. A year after the wedding, a drunk driver killed them both in an auto accident.

My Honey and I were sorry that Georgetown University closed the Dental School, due to not being able to find quality students in numbers enough to keep the school productive.

Shame on public education!

LETTER TO AN OLD FRIEND

2007-01-28T22:45:00.000-05:00

Dear Glenn,
I thought you would be interested that this letter to the editor published in the Arlington Sun yesterday, 1/23/96. It was in response to an article, "Squirrels Go Nuts," by Stephen Henn. He was interviewing Alonso Abugattas, naturalist at the wildlife park on Military Road, Arlington, VA, near Glebe Road. The gist of the article was the problem with too many squirrels in Arlington. Alonso Abugattas stated, "There was not enough meat and that what was there was to tough to eat." (School lunch ladies take note.) "There is no solution for the squirrel over population. They are out of the woodwork county wide," Alonso said.

I wrote in response to the article:

Dear Editor:
I was a student at Washington and Lee High School (W&L) from 1945 to 1947. I used to hunt squirrels in the woods behind Art Brown's house on Military Road near Glebe Road or the woods along the Potomac at Lee Highway and Kirkwood Road before school during hunting season. I would ride my single speed, Speed King bicycle with big tires from my home at 1519 N. Garfield Street to the woods. I often arrived at W&L with squirrels and a rifle over my shoulder. Stephen and others may ask, What did a high school student do with a rifle in school? Simple, put it in your locker until you carried it out after school on your shoulder.

I would take the squirrels, gutted, skinned, and cleaned to the school cafeteria. Most times the school lunch ladies would take them home to cook, but if there were no takers, I would pick them up after school out of the refrigerator.

Our naturalist, Alonso Abugattas does not seem to realize that Virginia's squirrel stew can have more than one squirrel. My recipe calls for one per person. If every one in Arlington and Fairfax would eat their fair share, we would not have squirrels "Out of the woodwork." Maryland fried squirrel "is finger licking good" and tender too. (Squirrles taste nothing like chicken!)

Those days we had the Ten Commandments posted on the schoolroom walls, prayer in school and the pledge of allegiance to our flag. The biggest problems were gum chewing, spitballs, note passing, and talking out of turn.

We seem to have lost innocence.

End of letter.

Yesterday afternoon I was awakened from my daily nap by a sweet little older person (female type) who asked if I were Mr. Jack? I said I was Jack Rupert. She lit into me with both feet incased in Army Boots With Steel Toes and Hobnails. She said, "You must be retired with nothing to do but write stupid letters to newspapers?" I said, "It was my first ever letter to a paper." That was the last time I got a chance to talk. How dare I suggest that everyone in Arlington and Fairfax should eat her furry friends? What did I mean by fair share out of the woodwork? "I SPEND LOTS OF MONEY ON SQUIRREL FOOD AND THEY ARE MY FRIENDS!" About that time I was wide-awake and said, "Thank you very much for calling" and hung up the phone. She was a really smoking, a hot to trot old lady, and by not giving her the fight she was looking for, I'm sure I inflicted the most damage. She must have been a retired old lady with nothing to do but feed stupid squirrels.
Tonight after dinner I got another call. Ran Winter in Arlington invited me to go squirrel hunting in his woods of 1,500 acres, just outside Fredericksburg, VA. Mrs. Winter read my letter to the editor and told him to call me and go hunting for squirrels. It had been too long since they had squirrel stew. She would not let Ran go hunting alone.

What a life we live?

Call me when you return.

Jack
(Art Brown was a famous radio personality and lived four or five houses due north of the Wildlife Park on Military Road. The park displaced my hunting woods of long ago.)

Ten years later.

We did go hunting for squirrels a few days later. What a trip that turned out to be! It was the next to last day of the season in Virginia. Ran was a deer hunter and Mrs. Winter was tired of deer meat and wanted squirrel stew. He was 64 years old and worked as a bus and truck mechanic but could take a day off for hunting whenever he wished. He had gotten to be one of those indispensable people, and the bosses were afraid he might retire. They gave him complete freedom to come and go whenever he wished.

Ran's Dodge truck was a hunting truck, first class. It was the model tuck with the big rams head on the hood. I felt secure behind those big horns once we hit I 95. The body was held together with wire, duct tape and Bondo. What was left of the paint was dark blue with a white top. It was in perfect mechanical condition. For that I was grateful.

Ran was a chain smoker of cork tipped filtered cigarettes. Every ashtray was filled to overflowing with the overflow on the carpet-less floor. He had several open packs on the dashboard in easy reach. Ran was a 5'7", 135 pounds of wire and muscle of a man. (No Bondo or duct tape on Ran.)

We arrived at a gate off an old logger road. The combination was, 30.06. I liked that combination for a hunting club. Old hunters need an easily remembered combination and the caliber of rifles most of them used to hunt deer was perfect. The woods were cutover about 8 to 10 years earlier and not replanted. What grew was scrub growth. I didn't see a tree tall enough for a squirrel to build a nest. Ran said we would have to walk over a hill to get to unlogged woods.

We loaded our rifles and packed our lunches and drinks. He packed a few packs of cigarettes. Whenever I go into the woods, I always take a compass. I took a bearing with the compass on the road and our leadoff direction. Noted which side the sun was on my body and we were off for the big squirrel hunt going southwest. Ran said he knew exactly where we had to go because he hunted these woods for years. Squirrels were always barking at him while deer hunting. We meandered but mostly kept going southwest during our trek to the woods.

We didn't find the woods nor did we hear a squirrel bark. I was beginning to think Ran was lost or the uncut wood didn't exist? He decided we should go back to the truck and call the day not successful. I agreed.

Off we went back to the truck? I didn't think so. We had been going mostly southwest for three hours and to continue with the sun in our face at that time of day, meant he was lost. After a few minutes on the return, I stopped him for a conference call. I got out the compass and we took a bearing. After much conversation he had to admit I was right. I said, "Keep the sun on our backs and go." Each time we crossed back through a patch of easily remembered unusual landscape, I'd say, "I remember this going the other way do you?" He'd answer, "Yeah."

When we got to the road, we could see the truck to our left. That was when we heard a squirrel barking at us from way down hill in one of the only trees still standing from the clear cut of years past. I wondered if that might be the uncut woods he referred too? Those one or two trees?

Now I knew for sure why Mrs. Winter wouldn't let Ran go hunting alone.

TALK ABOUT FAITH?

2007-01-20T22:55:00.000-05:00

Evolution is a belief about the past based on the words of men who did not know everything. Who weren’t there, who try to explain how all the evidence got there.
Ken Hamm.

THE THING I HATE MOST

2007-01-19T21:47:00.000-05:00

I hate blister packs the most. They cannot be opened without a sharp tool. They never have the correct number of anything inside. It seems to me it is a way to sell more or less of something than is needed. D cell batteries come two to a blister or ten in the economy size. My radio takes six and my three-cell flashlight takes three, that is nine batteries needed and one leftover. To me that is not economy.
A hinge takes six screws each; times two hinges per door, that totals twelve screws. Try to get a blister pack with twelve screws. A walkman comes in a blister pack that is heat sealed, and so hard that it takes a sharp knife to open and that is not safe and should have a warning; “Do not open this blister pack at home,” or “Keep all blister packs out of the reach of children,” or “Open this blister pack at your own risk,” or “The Surgeon General Warns; Blister Packs Cause Cancer.”

Yeatman’s Hardware Store was located on the corner of Wilson Boulevard and Highland Street in Clarendon, the capitol of Arlington, Virginia. The store was only a half block from my house. Yeatman’s was housed in a wood framed building with three entrances. In the summer they had screened doors that banged when you went in and out. The windows opened to attract any breeze, and those sticky fly strips hung from the ceiling.

In winter there was a wood or coal potbellied stove, red-hot most of the time. There were three wooden steps up off the dirt and gravel or mud and gravel Wilson Boulevard to a porch then into the most exciting store in the world. There were shined brass spittoons on squares of linoleum strategically located around the store. The place smelled like smoke since everyone smoked, as did the stove. I cannot remember the walls, since merchandise hung all around and even from the ceiling. It was beautiful.

They sold every thing but food. The ground floor had two wheeled bikes by Speed King, Flexible Flier sleds, Lionel Trains, red wagons, Dazy air guns, all of which we got as Christmas gifts over the years. Remington rifles, Colt pistols, Ithaca, Savage, and Remington shot guns from .410 to 10 gauge. Yeatman’s had Case hunting knives and all kinds of pocketknives, even one to fit the little pocket on your lace-up boots. Dollar pocket watches that kept perfect time unless you forgot to wind or it got busted in a game or fight. There was no repair cost with a one-dollar watch. I had a small brass anchor over which I wired a pot metal arrowhead with an Indian face in relief on a leather thong as a watch bob. Really neat. They had pots and pans, dishes, tableware, kitchen supplies, all sizes of canning jars, everything from gadgets to toasters. The toasters were the type you put over the burner on the stove and toasted one side at a time. I see them today for campers.

The basement was a wonder in itself. There was an outdoor tool supply section with every size of the latest two man crosscut saws to cut down any size tree. They even had brush axes, two edged axes, hammer axes, all types of hatchets, sledge hammers from one to nine lbs., malls, picks axes, wedges, and I could go on about the tools but I would not have space to mention the nuts, bolts, screws, nails from half inch wire brads to 12 inch spikes. Every one of the above sold each or by the pound in a bag or keg.

Plumbing supplies: all sizes of iron pipes, fittings, faucets, washers, pipe cutters and thread cutters. Dad made an adjustable light for his drafting table from 3/8-inch pipe that preceded goose necked desk lamps. I still have some of pipes and fittings in Dad's old steel workbench in my basement. Can’t throw them away. Who knows, I may need to make an adjustable light someday?

If you needed a thing or a whats-a-may-jigger, they had those too. A person only had to take the thing in, describe it with hand jesters, draw a picture, or my favorite way was to rummage through the store until it was found. One sure thing was that Yeatman’s had it?

In 1946 the old store was ripped down and a new brick and block building was built on the sight. The new building had glass doors; show windows, central heat and the new thing called air conditioning. It may not have a potbellied stove, spittoons, and light bulbs with shades hanging down, and stuff hanging off the ceiling or walls, and they may have lost those wonderful smells, but they still had the stuff only neater.

The only thing Yeatman’s did not have was blister packs, the very thing I hate most.

COMPUTERS ARE HELL

2007-01-05T23:27:00.000-05:00

My computer quit and had to be striped down to it's bare bones and refleshed with all the internal organs. Now I can't find all kinds of missing files. Much like my own memory.

BROTHERS

2007-01-05T13:09:00.000-05:00

Brother Bud loved school, and did very well in math and science. He liked the whole experience. I cannot remember him having any problems from start to finish. He loved junior and senior high school with a passion. The cadet band and school orchestra kept him busy as a bee and happy as a skunk. There were two years between us in school, so having him in the 9th grade when I started 7th grade and again (he in the 12th and I in the 10th) protected me. For some strange reason, all my best friends were in his class. By the 9th grade, I was full grown, 6' 1" with big blue eyes, a widow’s peak and a trace of a wave in my beautiful brunet hair. A 180 lbs of hunk, with a ruddy complexion with few zits. I was beautiful even then.

Poor Bud was 17 years old, a senior in high school and would tip the scale at 115 lbs and stood 5' 10" if he were wet and stood on his toes. He was blonde headed and fair skinned and had acne problems that left scars. He was so skinny that to pass the physical for the Navy he had to stoop and shrink as short as he could to pass the weight to height requirements. His heart always raced and the doctor had Bud sit and rest to the point of going to sleep so that the heart could slow down enough to pass the physical. His waist was not more than 22" if that. Clothing was passed from younger to older.

I was fearful of Bud going into the Navy at 17 1/2 years of age. How well I remember that time in our lives with Bud fast talking for all the reasons he had to go and Mom and Dad making sure he was not being their flighty 17 year old. Bud was so single minded about flying that there was no other choice for Dad but to sign his enlistment papers for the Navy V-5 training program. WW II was almost over, and I am sure Dad thought that would be the safest place for his namesake and eldest son.

V-5 Program was a Navel Reserve program that gave Bud a two year Georgia Tech college program, then on to flight school and chance to get his wings and a commission in the Navy Reserves. He remained on active duty in the Reserve for the next 27 plus or minus years. That must be a record for a reservist to remain that many years on active duty. He had to give up his active flying and go into the active Navy in order to be promoted to CAPTAIN his final years to the big 30. He was Commanding officer of the Naval Air Reserve Unit at the Naval Air Station, Alameda, California. 1976 was his retirement year, and the beginning of a new life as a retired gentleman on the sometimes slippery hill side of one of California’s slippery hills in LaFayette CA.

I remember going to school and crying for the next 16 years. I did not like school and school did not like me. I was always the big kid in class and got the B’s and D’s mixed. Then they called it dumb, so I was the big dumb kid in class. The teachers were not helpful until 6th grade when I had Miss Dolly Smith. She let me ring the bell and help the janitor. For that I had to work and try harder. She also told me that I could at least be on time and not miss any days. From that day on I had perfect attendance and was on time for the next ten years. And somehow got through it. I still remember as I packed the car to leave Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) for the last time how happy it was to be free at last.

The best description that I can give of our difference is our approach to the edge. When we were Boy Scouts, (he was 14 and I was 12), we went on a hike along the Potomac River. When we had climbed to the top of the gorge Bud would walk out on the edge of the ledge and hang his toes off into space to get the best view. I was so afraid he would fall to the rocks below and end up hamburger that I never went on another hike with him. I was not afraid of heights but only got six foot close to the edge, so that if I tripped my head would not hang over into space. Besides I did not know if that solid rock ledge would not fall due to my weight. All the rocks below came from above sometime in the past. How many reasons do you want? I thought of those too. But BUD never had a thought like that in his life. He knew that solid rock ledge had always been there and would always be there, and those rocks at the bottom were created at the bottom. I believe he could have flown without an airplane.

For years, I had a running dialog with Bud. Whenever we got together, I’d always say, “You have always been luckier than me our whole lives.” I don’t remember how many years, but it was many, it took for him to ask why I always said he was luckier than me? I said, “Because you have me for a brother and all I have is you.” Talk about devious little brother--I was it.

Bud kept growing long after his enlistment. Eventually he reached 6 foot and the waist never stopped growing until it reached about 36 to 38 inch. But he never was as handsome as I. But then he was luckier than me.

He died at 63 from Colon cancer. It was a long battle, and he fought his best in good spirits. It would have been so much fun to become old together. We had a lot of fun and good times as kids and would have had more fun as old kids.

I miss him more each year.

CHRISTMAS

2006-12-11T23:36:00.000-05:00

I don’t know if this recalled Christmas is one or many compiled memories over a few years. My fragile memory of those times may have jammed them together as one, but in my early years they were much the same and they were wonderful. I only had part of the day that was a disaster for me and changed my adult life. (See below.)

My Honey and I were sitting in the living room last night, and the thought came to me that comes to us when both parents have died and would be classified as a question we forgot to ask in time. “Where did you hide the presents?”

Brother Bud and I hunted the house for presents weeks before Christmas. We were sure that Santa would come, but the wrapped presents from Dad and Mother were nowhere to be found. We got toys from Santa and clothes and stuff from Mom and Dad. Santa always put our gifts in a pile on opposite sides of the Christmas tree in the living room.

The day after Thanksgiving was the start of the Christmas season. Christmas decorations went up in the stores and the radio stations played hymns and carols. We got excited to see Santa and the store decorations at Woodward and Lothrop. The first Saturday, Mother took us on the Arnold Bus Line downtown to see Santa. The store was beautifully decorated and they had animated window displays. I don’t remember much about sitting on Santa’s lap, but I did. How else would he know what I wanted? One year I needed a pearl handled cap pistol with caps to fight off the bad cowboys at the Ashton Theater on Saturday afternoons. We always went one night to F Street in DC to see the department store window displays. What joyful excitement that month before Christmas was to Bud and me?

Christmas Eve we went next door to see Uncle Bill, Aunt Gay and Aunt Pearl, Dad’s sisters, who were renting that house until their new home was built. Aunt Gay couldn’t wait until Christmas morning to open presents so she did it the night before. She ripped open her presents with great abandonment and left only the dust of the wrappings behind. Then she would ooh and ahh over the present and go on for, too me a long time with thank you and hugs and kisses for the giver. MUSH stuff! I know now that Aunt Gay really couldn’t wait to see Bud and me open our presents. She got just as excited over our gifts as her own. Gay always had those big hot dog shaped suckers from Woodward and Lothrop. I liked the black ones best. Gay was such a love and my most unforgettable person. Our dear Aunt Gay blessed our whole family. When our oldest girls went of to collage, we would get the latest information from Gay-Pearl. They got the letters. Our eldest referred to them as, “The Ant Hill.”

When we went to bed Christmas eve, the house was totally devoid of any Christmas decorations with the exception of the dining room table with its centerpiece, which consisted of an oval mirror in the center decorated with a little snow covered village and holly. A single little wreath with an electric candle in the middle hung in the front window. We hung our biggest stockings on the mantle with great anticipation. Those were the days when boys wore stupid knickers, so we had stupid knickers socks that came to our knees which was the only time I was happy to have stupid knickers socks. Our bedroom was behind Mother and Dad’s, so when they shut the doors we were in bed and could not get up until they did. Bernadine Bollen, our live-in housekeeper, slept in the other bedroom but always went home to Toledo, Ohio for the holidays.

In the morning when we saw the house, it had been changed by a miracle beyond human belief. Santa had to have done it in his spare time. The “O” gauge train set was up and running. Our old P.R.R. - RR. (Paul Raymond Rupert – Rail Road) was beautiful on its big painted platform with tunnel, bridge over a lake, road crossings, side track with REA platform, and train barn, miniature figures and town along the tracks. Dad made it all before my memory began. The bridge was my favorite piece and was beautifully made and designed like a real railroad bridge. The tree was in place lit and decorated. Those stupid knickers socks were filled with fruit, nuts and small toys. Our presents from Santa were in our pile, and he brought most of our asked for desires. We showed each Santa gift to Mom and Dad who were as surprised as we were.

After we played with our toys, we ate breakfast. Bacon, eggs, pancakes, maple syrup, milk and hot scones was our favorite holiday and Sunday breakfast. After breakfast we opened our wrapped presents and we always got new stupid knickers, stupid knicker socks, and stupid knocker jacket. That was the only thing hard to be happy about. I always asked when would I be old enough to be able to wear long pants but I don’t remember any answers. The hard part was putting on the new clothes to see how they fit and lots of turning around to be admired by mother who thought we were above average and perfect. What a drag clothes were! Bud was above average but not perfect to me. I knew I was neither above average or perfect.

The erector set with its million parts was wonderful, but today not one piece would pass the child safety standards of today’s requirements. I am so glad we didn’t have all that nonsense when we were kids. We didn’t put things in our mouth or up our nose or in our ears. Maybe mother was right: we were above average and perfect. I loved anything with nuts and bolts. Snap together plastic stuff hadn’t been invented as yet, so all our toys were steel or wood. Bud and I had to “get along” with joint toys or lose them for a week. I must admit we weren’t perfect. The erector set was well used for many years. I loved the chemistry set but Bud didn’t, so I gave it a lot of use. I made great stink bombs. My most wonderful gift of all times was my BB gun. I still love that gun, and it shoots just as good 66 years later as it did then.

About noon we dressed in our new stupid knickers and jackets, always-brown corduroy (jackets included) for the long trip in our Huppmobile to the farm of Aunt Floyd and Uncle Leonard in Olney, Maryland to see “Ma” Lillie Ward Burns, Mother’s Ma. We arrived after they had the noon meal and left before the evening meal. Mother’s two brothers and seven sisters never once invited us to eat with them, but all would eat with us during the depression. Aunt Floyd would get Bud and me in the kitchen and give us ham and turkey sandwiches with milk without Uncle Leonard knowing. She was an angel in a hellhole to me. We just hated that trip because we had to leave our new toys and presents and go visit a grandmother who didn’t like us. I now give mother credit for her honoring her mother when my mother wasn’t liked or well received by her own mother and siblings. Mother always took a present for her that was always something Ma needed or wanted. Ma Burns had to say thank you but I don’t ever remember her doing so. She only liked her two boys but no others as I remember. She was my Christmas bah humbug. I don’t think Dad was very happy to go into that hostile environment either. That was when I promised myself that when I grew up I would never take my kids any place on Christmas day, and I don’t think I ever did. I still like to stay home and play with my toys and travel any other day is fine. Our kids wanted to travel, but they did it without me.

The question will go unanswered: where did they hide the tree, toys, and gifts before Christmas? They did the entire house decorating inside and out on Christmas Eve after we went to bed. I’m sure Dad didn’t get much sleep that night. Just setting up the train set took hours. Mother and Dad pushed Santa for all it was worth, and we really were surprised by it all. I guess that is why I still believe in Santa but not Rudolph. Rudolph is only a song by Gene Autry. He was the first singing cowboy and kissed girls, not his horse. He was not tough like Tom Mix or Tex Ritter who only kissed their horses.

PUSHERS AND BANGERS

2006-11-15T23:50:00.000-05:00

Brother Bud THE PUSHER! (Wonder what I'm about to eat?)

My brother Bud was a pusher with sound effects. He remained that way his entire life. I was and still am a banger. Everyone knows that God only makes two kinds of boys. Pushers and bangers. A pusher is a boy that plays with any thing with wheels, wings, runs on a track, or has spokes, and moves up or down and may have a motor to imitate with verooms of cars and trucks, and roars like an airplane. Bud spent hours pushing toy cars around the house or flying airplanes by holding them in his hand and running through out the house and yard diving the plane down low and up as high as he could reach. Every now and then he had two planes, one in each hand. Then he had two motors to make. He was gifted. Everyone knew he was gifted. I tried to keep up but being younger and no talents as a pusher I was a total failure. I had no talent being a motor. Bud talked and slept cars, airplanes, trucks, busses, and wagons, even roller-skates and bicycles.

Christmas Eve Dad would set up the train platform that he made. It was about 4 by 7 foot with two track loops with painted roads and a lake. We had a mountain tunnel on a curve on the back right corner then onto the bridge over a lake on the back center. Then left turn to the left side over a switch to the round house in the middle center of the board. The outer loop had a Depot for passengers and a ramp for loading and unloading milk cans from an automatic milk boxcar. Dad made the buildings, tunnel, bridge and the roundhouse. He decorated the whole board with little houses that lit up to look like a village. It was beautiful and Bud spent hours running the train. He was the sound and could choo-choo and whistle with the best. I only wanted to operate the train when he was doing it. That sounds like a normal younger brother. When it was my turn I would take it apart to see how it worked and put it back together. Bud was a pusher to the end. He went into the Navy V-5 program at 17 and one half years with parent's signature. Learned to fly Navy fighters on and off Aircraft Carriers day and at night. When he would explain a maneuver with his hand as the airplane here came the noise of the motor. He was a very gifted pusher the best I have ever known.

I was a banger with sound effects. Bangers bang and shoot Indians, or robbers, and during the war the Germans, known as Krauts, and the Japanese were Japs. I am sure we bangers on our block shortened the war by years. Bud was a pusher and never got involved with bangers. We bangers had forts, trenches, foxholes and all types of defenses in the vacant lots on our street.

I had a white handled six-shooter cap pistol with a leather holster; a real bent barreled .22cal. lever action rifle without a bolt. If it could have been shot, the shooter would have been shot in the ear due to the bend of the barrel. But it was a REAL rifle. The other bangers had homemade rifles made from a wooden board.

There were more bangers than pushers in those day and it was a good thing if you look back and check the statistics you will see how safe the streets were, all because we bangers had our six shooters strapped on and were not afraid to protect girls, women, small children, and any old person over 20.

Theirs no wonder in todayÂs America, that half of the boys are in danger of becoming extinct. We have stifled a generations of bangers. If a boy banger is not allowed to develop his natural gifts, then this country will become even more lawless than it is now. Today's boys are forced to be politically correct PCc). The removal of cap pistols from the hands of little boys have made our streets unsafe for all of us over 20, not to mention the girls, women, and small children. Its no wonder so many boys are on Ritalin. The PCers have turned the bangers from defenders into druggies.

Bud could tell you how the motor in a car worked. How the gears worked. How the drive train worked. But I could take them apart and repair what he talked about. I was very valuable when Bud's bicycle needed repair. Little brothers are worth a lot sometimes.

A WONDERFUL HONOR

2006-11-07T00:05:00.000-05:00

I received a wonderful honor on Sunday afternoon. I was extremely busy cheering on the Washington Redskins as they beat the Cowboys rather soundly, 3 points. I have live in Redskin territory for 76 years and have weathered the ups and downs of MY Skins all those years. Our son usually phones us at that time on Sunday to keep us up-to-date on his familie’s life. With three boys active in all events, he has a lot to inform the elders. I am always out of breath and need a nap after all the action reports.

You could not guess who was on the phone. He just called me personally to check in and to ask me do him a personal favor. I was thrilled to think that he would call me, of all the people in Southwest Virginia I was on his mind during a Redskin game against the Cowboys. (The skins won by 3 points.)

thrill (thr¹l) v. thrilled, thrill·ing, thrills. --tr. 1. To cause to feel a sudden intense sensation; excite greatly. 2. To give great pleasure to; delight. 3. To cause to quiver, tremble, or vibrate. --intr. 1. To feel a sudden quiver of excitement or emotion. 2. To quiver, tremble, or vibrate. --thrill n. 1. A quivering or trembling caused by sudden excitement or emotion. 2. A source or cause of excitement or emotion. 3. Pathology. A slight palpable vibration that often accompanies certain cardiac and circulatory abnormalities. --thrill“ing·ly adv.

It took me several seconds to find my voice, after I went through all the above feelings of the above definition. When he asked me to vote on Tuesday because it was important for the welfare of the country. I said to John, “I have never missed a vote as yet.” But John never stopped talking.

I tried to interrupt him several times but to no avail. John McCain is not my favorite Republicans and I wanted to ask him about why he would ever go in with Feingold to write anything, especially a very bad law. I guess he was not taking any questions due to his busy schedule and it being Sunday afternoon during the Redskin game with the Cowboys, which the Skins won by 3 points?

Excuse me a moment; the phone is ringing.

Sorry about the delay. I had to answer a call from Rudy.

Rudy Giuliani just called me to be sure and vote on Tuesday. I tried to tell him the same thing I told John, but he didn’t stop talking either? Rudy went through a list of Democrats that would take control of the congress if the Republicans lost power. He gave me a sense of FEAR. (Disregard both number 3’s below, they don’t apply to Democrats. See note below definition)

fear (fîr) n. 1.a. A feeling of agitation and anxiety caused by the presence or imminence of danger. b. A state or condition marked by this feeling. 2. A feeling of disquiet or apprehension. 3. (See note below) Extreme reverence or awe, as toward a supreme power. 4. A reason for dread or apprehension. --fear v. feared, fear·ing, fears. --tr. 1. To be afraid or frightened of. 2. To be uneasy or apprehensive about. 3. (See note below) To be in awe of; revere. 4. To consider probable; expect. 5. Archaic. To feel fear within (oneself). --intr. 1. To be afraid. 2. To be uneasy or apprehensive. --fear“er n.

Note on the two 3’s above. The Bible often refers to “Fear the Lord” as in divine reverence, awe, great wonder, and personal humbleness. None of which apply to Nancy and her ilk.

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, are you trying to keep me awake tonight?

I’m just happy knowing that God is in control of the world, this country, and my life. All is well.

He has not ever relinquished the destiny of the world to mankind, and that includes global warming, the ozone hole, and all the other stuff the LEFT is promoting.

I fall back on Walter Martin’s interpretation of Romans 8:28. “God takes all the evil in this world and turns it to good according to his purpose.” Martin was the founder of “The Bible Answer Man,” a radio program of yesteryear.

If the Democrats get control of the government Tuesday night, I will be interested in seeing how God will turn that into good according to His purpose.

But, I will keep a close eye on the 4.4% unemployment. What will an increase on minimum wage do to that 4.4%? (See note below on minimum wage.) One-half of the National Dept has been paid by taxes collected at a reduced tax rate in an extremely high economy. We will see day by day. Keep an eye on the stock market. Will it keep going up?

I don’t think so-

Note on minimum wage: I heard that Union wages are based on minimum wage. Seems that the union contracts increase automatically the wages of union workers a goodly amount with each minimum wage increase. Due you think this is a payoff time by the Democrats for the unions? Or are the Democrats really interested in the minimum wage workers?

I don’t think so-

Be sure to read articles by two Democrats:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110601121_pf.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/11/the_only_issue_this_election_d.html

MY SQUIRREL, DAVE OR DORIS WHICHEVER?

2006-10-30T14:10:00.000-05:00

MY SQUIRREL, DAVE OR DORIS WHICHEVER?

I wrote this story in March 1998, while living in McLean, VA. I like to refer to the time as “My previous life.” With the return of El Nino predicted (maybe) this year, I’ll check the squirrel nests out in the woods across the street to see if it’s true.

March 25, 1998
We have a squirrel I named Dave or Doris depending? Last September Dave decided to build a nest for the coming winter in the biggest of the wild cherry trees that line the backside neighbor’s fence. He (a generic “he” for those of you that would be offended by this old male writer who thinks he remembers a calmer world) spent an entire day building the nest. He picked a section where two limbs met the trunk on the northwest side of the tree not very high off the ground. I tried to tell him that his choice wasn’t the best location and that he should consider picking the southeast side to be sheltered by the cold northwest winds due during the cold months to come. How was I to know that El Nino would blow warm wind and very wet rain from the south and southeast all winter long? Dave must have known best after all. The early farmers forecasted weather use the wooly worm, time bears hibernate, time the first goose flies south and how high the squirrels built their nests off the ground.

Dave cut branches longer than his body with green leaves attached from the trees around his tree and scurried down that tree, across the top rail of the fence back to the cedar tree. Up the cedar with his branches and that was a struggle. Then he jumped from the top of the cedar into his tree with fewer branches than when he started up. He laced them together with teeth and front paws. He then took the easy way down his tree to the fence. Dave always kept the same scurried routine that seemed to me to require a lot of wasted energy. I should rename him Scurry. I tried to explain to Dave that it would be easier to climb up his big open tree with the branch than to try and get a branch up inside a cedar and jump across with a branch. Would he listen? No, he would not. He could have done the job in one-quarter time by cutting branches close to the nest out of his own tree. The other squirrels building nests in trees down the fence used Dave’s tree for their branches. Dumb squirrels.

Once Dave finished I went up to the back bedroom to check out his construction and found it lacking in depth, height, and volume. He had built a lousy nest and I could not give my approval. I thought he was a typical city dweller with a nest like that and he would have been in bad shape in the woods this winter. The ground never froze solid once that winter and we had a very mild season. Dave did fine with his prediction last September. How do squirrels do that?

I always put out the empty peanut butter jars to watch the squirrels trying to get the last out of the bottom of the jars. The first jar was a big plastic Skippy with a little peanut butter on the sides and bottom. It took no time at all for the first varmint to show and circle closer until he licked the end and clean out all he could before getting the nerve to dive into the jar. About that time along came three others and the fittest won the rest of the offering. It was really humorous when the winners made it to the bottom of the jar too see a squirrel stretched out full length into a jar licking the bottom. Most times there is a fight for supremacy or just for fun. Who knows what is going on in a rodents mind? Dave being smaller never wins. But don’t feel sorry for Dave; after all he is a varmint, a rodent and a kin to a rat.

One morning in March, I noticed Dave sunning himself on the fence sound asleep. This was the first day with a promise of 68 to 70 degrees in several weeks. It had been 28 degrees last night. He looked like he would make a good Squirrel pie too me. Then at noon, while I was making my peanut butter sandwich, I noticed a squirrel with a mouth full of brown wet leaves running along the fence. As soon as he got to the cedar tree, up he went and then I noticed that Dave’s nest was missing. Not a twig or leaf remained. Dave was relocating the nest from the Wild Cherry to the cedar and needed old wet leaves to finish the job. Dave is probably Doris and she needs a new nest for the expected youngins. Only a guess, you understand. This is the first time I have ever seen a squirrel build a nest in an evergreen and use the old nest material. It just isn’t a squirrel thing to do. I could not give advice this time due to the density of the cedar, but I am sure she will goof it again.

CANNONS CAN BE DEADLY

2006-10-30T14:07:00.000-05:00

Hot nights were a fact of life in the 1930s and I remember we had to find ways to cool off or suffer a sleepless night. Air conditioning consisted of opening windows, doors and blowing the hot air around with electric fans. If the mosquitoes were not out, we could sleep outdoors on the grass and hope for dew, chew ice and prey for rain. We did not have a screened porch. Most of the time we all got into our car and drove around with the windows open and hands out the windows. Bud would stand with his upper body sticking out and sometimes sit on the window opening with his hands on the roof. He just did that to make me think I was going to be an only son. Sometimes Dad used those long evenings of daylight to drive by property that he was going to bid on for his services as a land surveyor. Bud and I had our favorite places to go.

We liked to go to Hoover Field (Airport) just off old Boundary Road near US Route 1 past Arlington Cemetery where the Pentagon is now. It was on the right side going south. The airport was built on the swampy ground along the Potomac River and was the hometown of Washington DC’s mosquitoes. It would be safe to say the mosquitoes were measured by the ton per acre. If we were lucky we got to see the old Tri-Motor Fords and the new Douglas DC-3’s come and go. Eastern, American and Capital were the airlines of the day at Hoover. There were not many flights in the evenings and only the mail planes flew at night. If the breeze was off the Potomac, the mosquitoes were out we could not stop but, if the wind was out of the west, we could walk around and look at the airplanes. Since honesty is the best policy, we really liked to go there because across US 1 there was “The A&W Soda and Milk Bar Drive-ins.” The owner of the A&W was a little known man by the name of J. Willard Marriott, the inventor of the Drive In Hot Shoppe. Drive-ins were roadside fast food restaurants that used carhops (waiters and waitresses) to serve food and drinks to car occupants by foot and some by roller-skates. Wind permitting, we could sit in the car and have a carhop take orders and deliver to our car. They had a tray that attached to the door for the food and drinks. A&W was world known for its root beer floats made with their own brand of root beer and ice cream. We are talking about cream ice cream, the very fattest of fat cream ice cream and real true root beer made from real roots of the finest beer. They also made whole milk milkshakes with that same fat enriched ice cream so thick it came with a spoon. They would put three scoops of ice cream in a mixer with a splash of whole milk, which is milk direct from a cow, cream in, and flavoring. When the mixer got up to speed, it was done
with-lumps of ice cream left in. They had grilled fried hamburgers and hot dogs that would really fat soak the buns. We are talking about the finest American food money could buy. Root beer float, 15 cents; milkshakes, 20 cents; hamburgers, 10 cents; and hot dogs, 5 cents. I always had a chocolate flavored milkshake with vanilla fat in cream ice cream shake with a spoon and Bud had a vanilla milkshake. Bud always finished last and would say, “I still have some left” and I would have to listen to him slurp the last of his. Bud knew how to push my button. In those days Dad may not have had enough money for snacks and when he didn’t, we went to number two spot.

Our second favorite cool off place was Arlington Cemetery. The cemetery was filled with cannons and The Battle Ship Main Memorial had them in a ring around the mast. Cannons could be found on both side of every front door to every Federal and State Building, County Courthouse, Moose Lodge, VFW Hall, Town Circle and some post offices. Never trust an unloaded Civil War cannon that is just sitting with its wheels anchored in cement pointing out in defense of its possession.

Bud would play on top of the cannons by walking the barrel and balancing on the wheels, jumping off and climbing back on top. He never seemed to tire. I liked to play around the cannons on the ground. I would load and shoot the enemy coming up the hill in their endless attacks on my position. I fought the enemies of our country past and present and never was I wounded or even nicked one time. I have to admit the cannon I picked to load and shoot to defend my country was the same one Bud picked to run and jump off. To him the barrel was a runway to fly from. With a lot of cannons to choose, he had to have mine. If I moved, he did too; older brothers will never change.

One very hot Sunday found us at our stations-I defending, Bud jumping into flight. Bud had gotten so good at cannon walking forward he started going backward to add spice to his life and misery to mine. Bud decided to invent a new aerial maneuver by jumping from the barrel to a wheel, balance as long as possible before jumping to the ground. He felt he could turn around on the wheel and jump back to the barrel, maybe. Had he been able to do it, I am sure it would have been a first and a record to add to his long list of firsts for defying death. I was preparing to fire our cannon at the charging enemy as Bud was jumping to a wheel, slipped and fell between the wheel and the barrel, and was skewered in the right leg between knee and thigh by a very sharp hook on the cradle of the cannon used to put a chain on to pull the cannon into position or to correct its aim. I ran to Bud as I screamed for Dad. There Bud was, hanging helpless like a pig about to be slaughtered on Uncle Web’s farm. That was my big brother wounded, hanging and dangling off a civil war cannon unable to reach the ground. I got under him and supported his weight on my back. I cried and blubbered and screamed for Dad and Bud tried to comfort me telling me not to cry and worry he was OK. OK? He was hanging and dangling off a cannon on my back with blood all around. Dad was there in an instant I am sure and unhooked Bud. He told me to run for the car. All during the mad dash to the hospital in DC, Bud was thanking me for thinking of lifting him and calling Dad. I was the one who cried all the way to the hospital, and Bud was comforting me. Many stitches later and a tetanus shot for both of us, we went home. Why I got a tetanus shot, I will never know. Maybe there was a hospital special that night?

Bud carried two deep parallel scars an inch apart and about two and a half inches long in that leg for the rest of his life to remind us of the time many years ago when he was shot down and wounded in battle by a cannon. I saved my brother’s life under fire, and now I can’t remember if it was hot that night or not.

THE WOOL SWIM SUITS

2006-10-27T23:12:00.000-05:00

I don’t like to swim in a pool, here at Smith Mountain Lake, or any beach no matter how wonderful it may be. It all goes back to my earliest childhood memories when I was totally brutalized by my parents. If that brutality were committed today to a child, the parents would have to serve a very long time in prison and deservedly so. The crime was The Wool Bathing Suit. There is no way to describe the pain of swimming in a wool suit in the surf or any place else. The wool suit was a major cause of death along with whooping cough, measles, and streptococcus of any thing, pneumonia, scarlet fever, infantile paralysis, TB, and all the other diseases of the day. Sunscreen had not been invented; we had Unguentine, a thick petroleum jelly to apply after burning.

Beaches were segregated in 1930s. Mayo Beach was a White beach next to Sparrow Beach for Coloreds. Blacks were called Colored in that part of Maryland in 1930.

My first remembered beach experience was when we went to Mayo Beach in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. We had a cabin on the beach that consisted of a wood frame shack with holes in the screen to let in mosquitoes and flies. We had an outhouse out back, too. We used a hand sprayer to wet down the cabin with Flit insecticide. (I wonder what was in Flit?)

I sat down in my wool suit on the sand as the tide was coming in and made holes in the sand to catch the waves in order to dry up the Bay. I would have done it, but the waves piled up so much sand into my seat that I could not move. I had to call for help to stand up. The pounds of sand stretched out the suit to the point Dad had to tie knots in the shoulder straps to raise the seat to its proper place. By the time I took it off for lunch, it had stretched twice its size. The sunburn prevented me from going out for three days.

One well remembered beach trip was when the family spent a week in a beachfront, three-story, bright yellow wood frame Hotel. Beach life had a routine as follows: Breakfast was at 5 AM for fishermen who could wear their fishing clothing. Breakfast at 7AM and noon lunch, men wore shirts, ties, and long pants, coat optional. Women and girls in dresses. Boys in starched shirts and pants. No one wore shorts to dine. Dinner was coats and ties regardless of the heat and we sat down at 6 PM. A black waiter would go through every floor of the hotel ringing the bell calling all to meals. There would be some kind of lard-fried fish at every meal along with potatoes. Vegetables were cooked in ham stock. Eggs were fried in bacon fat and were delicious. Maryland fried chicken and some kind of beef and ham served for dinner. This was in the days before cholesterol had been invented, so we were spared all the miseries of processed foods. The food was the best part of the shore.

After meals we had to wait two hours before we could go in the water. Everyone thought if a person ate and went into the water, he would get cramps and drown, die and be carried out to sea to be eaten by crabs and toothy fish. That would have been easier and a lot less painful than the next step of the day: To put on a very damp, cold, sandy, and larger wool suit. There was no good or safe way to put it on. By the second or third day, the skin was burned and raw from knees to shoulders, and the sand-clogged wool suit weighed a ton and had knots on knots. You had to pull the bottoms up and tighten the belt another notch over a raw skinless middle. That was when I knew I hated the beach.

You could swim or play till 11 AM, then off to your room-to change into lunch clothing. After lunch the old two-hour wait till you had to put on that suit which was wetter, bigger, colder, and sandier than before. Then back to the room to change for dinner by 4:30 since there was one bathroom per floor for all the guests. I do not remember how that worked. At this stage in life, I cannot even visualize how it could.

After dinner if the wind was off the ocean, it would be very pleasant and all would sit out on the large porch and smoke cigars. If the wind was off the land, all would have to stay inside or be carried away by the mosquitoes into their swamp where we would have our blood sucked out and then the sand crabs would pick our bones clean. At least that was how Bud and I had it figured.

By the time the week was over, that suit was so heavy with sand and water and stretched so big that I could not lift it off the floor by the shoulder strap and have the bottom clear the floor. I must have cried a lot that week. I am crying now as I remember the pain.

The year 1941 was and the last time we went to the shore as a family due to the coming war on December 7.

We started early in the morning on the first leg of our trip to the ferry at Annapolis, MD. There were no freeways or even three-lane highways in those days. We would have to drive through every city and town on a two lane road and stop for every left turn vehicle, stop signs, hay wagons, slow drivers and any other road hazards too numerous to mention. The ferry dock was where Sandy Hook State Park is now and close to the Bay Bridge at Annapolis. We always expected to drive right on the ferry without a wait, but usually that did not happen.

During the summer weekends, six ferry ships ran on a 15-minute schedule. Once on the ferry Bud and I would head for the bridge area and soak up the cool breeze. When the notice was given for all to go to their cars, I went. Bud would wait for the last minute, and I was sure he would be left behind and spend the rest of his life going aimlessly back and forth on the bay. He seemed to know how to pull my trigger, and I was always afraid for his life. He gave good reason for fear. Back in the car a new line was drawn on the seat for me not to cross less we touch.

I do not remember the beach or the water that time, but I remember the sunburn very well. I was a crispy fried untouchable. I could not sit or touch the car seat without pain. I remember the trip back on the ferry because the cool air felt good. What I did not know was how much the cool air dried out even more of my skin. I was very ill for a week and was a massive blister. Finally the pain left along with all my skin and any desire to go to the beach.

Ever since that trip, I NEVER went to the beach without a long sleeve shirt, long pants, hat and shoes and socks. Sunburn on the top of my feet was the last to heal.

I was grateful for the war years and gas ration, for that ended the beach trips.

I HATE BOOTIES

2006-10-20T20:16:00.000-05:00

I HATE BOOTIES

At Smith Mountain Lake the gala of the year is called “The Home Tour.” The total volunteer event raises large sums of money for nine different local charities. It takes a year to put together and is funded by local businesses, organizations and ticket sales. Volunteers recruit the businesses and other volunteers recruit 8 to 10 homeowners to open their homes for the public to tour over a three-day weekend in October. All the proceeds go to the charities.

The homeowners are the true heroes of the gala. At their own expense they get their homes in top condition both inside and out. The homes get fresh paint if needed, carpets cleaned, and decorated by interior decorator businesses sponsors. The lawn is clipped, the leaves are vacuumed and gardens pruned. The homes and grounds are picture perfect for the tour.

The tour homes are mostly on the lake. We ticket holders can tour by car or boat. Touring by boat is quicker but some have as many as ninety steps from dock to house. I usually volunteer for dock duty while Shirl works the home. Dock duty can be very interesting but mostly a lot of fun if it’s not to cold with wind like last year.

One funny event a few years ago pushed my humor button. We had a very large, very expensive cabin cruiser come into the dock to tie up. The Captain was a demanding jerk so we had him tie off his monster himself. His knots were his knots and his placement on the dock was his responsibility. The dock was too small for his boat; we pointed that out to him on his arrival. While he was on the home tour, his boat’s antenna got knocked off or fell off on a piling. I think it hit the roof edge of the dock roof.

On the dock that day we had all retired volunteers consisting of a Navy Admiral, an Army General, two lawyers, a labor union organizer from New Jersey, and me. We all awaited the Captain’s return! He was livid and threatened a lawsuit for damages. That jackass wanted to sue an all-volunteer charity for an antenna. The Admiral and lawyer read him his rights both land and sea. The labor union organizer, in his thick New Jersey dialect, informed him that the antenna was taped in black electrician’s tape when he arrived and suggested he place it sidewise up his secret place as he leave as quickly as possible without further conversation. I was too busy laughing to say anything. There was no further conversation from him, unless it was well out at sea.

The home tour is a wonderful event for all involved. However I have no desire to see the stuff accumulated by someone else over a thirty to sixty year span. All the stuffed pillows, accent colors, wall schemes, kitchen appliances, bathroom tubs, fireplaces, beds with pillows, chairs with pillows, and pillows with pillows. All the homes are worth between $700,000.00 and several millions. A nice lake lot will cost over a million now. A $20,000.00 doublewide would be worth $1,200,000.00 on home tour.

The Home Tour at Smith Mountain Lake is a woman’s event. I am willing to buy a ticket and work a turn on a dock or parking cars but to go through homes is a real drag. My Honey can remember what every home she ever visited looked like by level, colors, stuff, stuffed on and in oversized furniture, walls, doodads, collections and names. My memory is of one home that had maybe a dozen exercise machines, bar bell weights and other torture machines bolted on the walls in a very large room. I am still curious what the owners or the kids must look like.

My biggest frustration is the paper booties we have to wear to go through the display homes. My feet are big, and the selection is poor in big sizes. Trying to put booties on over my rubber soled walking shoes is such a struggle as to make the whole thing torture. The drill is to approach the entrance where there is a box of paper booties awaiting for us sheep to try and find a pair to fit. My Honey is helpful finding me big booties but only because my blood pressure is probably showing. She keeps me from turning back or causing a scene. Then we enter the home and follow the persons ahead one way through the home. The ladies are talking, the men are glassy eyed, and if it’s Saturday or Sunday afternoon they are missing a good football game. All are in booties!

When finished, we are in front of the exit door and must turn in the booties in front of a witness. On to the next home and go through the booties again. I have learned over the years to be most obnoxious at the exit door to keep my first found booties. I take them with me from home to home and keep them at home in the safe until next year. Next year I’ll have three booties not worn out. Talk about a feeling of wealth!

I’m always happy to go home to my doublewide, put the three well-used booties in the safe, and have freedom for the next 51 weeks.

PS

This year, 2006 we were blessed beyond belief! I worked a dock on a cold, windy and rainy Friday morning. We had six boats all morning to dock. The boats all had their winter curtains up and heaters going so the passengers and crew were toasty warm and dry. There were eight of us on the dock. I was the oldest and slowest so I was able to pull the old trick I learned in the Army. Sat in the dock house and look busy with a pencil and paper pad.

I am proud to say I didn’t go though ONE house. No booties this year for me. I did drive My Honey to all the houses she wanted to tour and sat in the car anticipating her return. After 55 ½ years, waiting for My Honey is my best-learned skill.

The last house we visited, they parked us directly in front of the door in a large parking area paved with brick. Like those English mansions you see on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater. I got out and walked over to a group of men standing on the front porch to see if they were Honey waiting? They were and we had a laugh or two. The bootie box was behind me. I noticed that this year they were black and not blue. The first pair I picked up was big enough for my shoes. I asked why the change to black? I was told that this year all the booties are large since a small shoe would fit in a big bootie and they could never get enough big booties in years past.

I went home, opened the safe, took out the three well-used blue booties and put them in the trashcan.

Amen

2006-10-20T20:13:00.000-05:00

“The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noiseless foot, and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step, and holding what it gains, is ingulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.” —Thomas Jefferson

A CHESAPEAKE BAY FISHING TRIP

2006-10-13T21:06:00.000-05:00

Dad loved to take Mother, Bud and me fishing on the Bay and we always went at sun down and we always caught lots of croakers and spots. Dad would get some other family to go for fun and share the expense of a charter fishing boat out of Deal Maryland. They would always divide the cost and fish by the heads of families so that it was not too expensive during the depression.

We liked to go with Dad’s friends from the Kiwanis Club the best. Mr. And Mrs. Frank Miller, the baker was our favorite family with Mr. and Mrs. Earl Kirby of Kirby Dodge and Plymouth Dealership a close second. They were nice to Bud and me and would include us in their conversation and fun. Mr. Kirby would treat us to a five-cent soda before we left the dock and that was enough to endear us to him. Years later Mr. Kirby met a red haired young beauty, divorced the Mother of his children and his first love, to live a life of loud plaid jackets and bright slacks at the Country Club with the young red head. Mrs. Kirby got all she could but it wasn’t enough. I remember the discussion between Mom and Dad about how to handle the situation and they decided to give up Mr. Kirby as a social friend. I wasn’t sure what divorced meant but I knew it was bad.

The most memorable trip was with the Hohein’s our next-door neighbor. We only went once with them. Mrs. Hohein was a delightful outgoing person as I remember but Mr. Hohein was selfish and had no observable show of affection to daughter Barbara, two years my junior or Mrs. Hohein. He was a bank teller at Clarendon Bank just up the street. He must have been the one blamed for the expression, “He has the cold heart of a banker.”

We arrived at the dock near sundown on a very hot evening without a single breeze. We were sure once we got out on the water it would be cooler but that didn’t happen. It stayed hot and without a breeze we had mosquitoes too.

Dad was the only one to have a fishing rod and reel and it was a beauty. Split bamboo bay rod with German silver line guides and reel seat, and a free spool reel. He had bought it at a pawnshop in Baltimore for five dollars before he knew Mother. The rest of us used hand lines with two hooks attached and a lead sinker. I still have my hand line tucked away in my fishing supplies along with Dad’s rod.

Mother caught the first double set of croakers. That was because Dad always set her up first and she was the first in with her rig. We cought fish two at a time all evening long until Bud and I had to stop and rest. Our arms and hands were like lead from hauling up five pounds of fish so fast. Those hand lines are rough and combined with wet hands, we were loseing skin off our fingers. The way you fish with a hand line is to drop the line over the side of the boat and when the lead weight hits the bottom you pinch the line between your thumb and finger, jiggle the weight off and on the bottom and wait for the nibble but those fish hit even before it reached the bottom. Barbara didn’t fish, she just went to sleep in the cabin.Girls!

When we returned to the dock we got into the car quick to get away from the mosquitoes while Dad and Mr. Hohein paid for the trip and collected the fish. Once we were underway for home, Dad was cussing and laughing at the same time. He said to Mother, thinking we were asleep, “We will never go with them again anyplace. I have never seen such a cheap skate like Hohein. He thought the way to divide up the cost would be for them to pay by the head and since Barbara didn’t fish and wouldn’t count, he would pay one third for the trip and I pay two thirds. He wanted to divided the fish in half by families. He wanted me to load my tub by counting each fish. I told him to dump those damn fish into the tubs and take the the heaviest or just fill his to the top and we would take what was left.” That was when I went to sleep. Dad may have forgiven him over the years but he didn’t forget, and neither did I. Bud and I slept all the way home as was our custom.

The next morning I found Dad had cleaned a wash tub full of fish and had bundles of clean fish on ice ready to deliver to friends and relatives. He had stayed up most of the night cleaning fish and now was going to deliver the bundles. Mr. Hohein’s tub of fish was in his backyard with a chunk of ice covered by newspaper. He got started about ten o’clock and cleaned the few he wanted and some he gave away uncleaned to those who came to get them and the rest spoiled according to Dad. Dad said no one wants uncleaned fish. I loved my Dad and went with him to deliver fish to all the aunts, uncles, and fishing friends. He could have given away all those fish Mr. Hohein coveted and let spoil during depression times.

I was very happy to be a Rupert and not a Hohein. I was glad my stork was not a house off when he dropped me down the chimney.

THE MESSENGER OF WORLD WAR II

2006-09-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

I am proud to have been in the service of my country during World War II as a MESSENGER in the Civil Defense Corp. (CDC). Dad was the Warden Captain in our area of Arlington, VA. That may be why I got the job, but I like to think it was because of my bravery at night on my bike. I must admit I was armed with my big slingshot, the one that propelled large rocks, bolts, aggie size marbles, and five-eighth inch nuts, and my white pearl handled cap pistol. In 1941, I was 12 years old. I was large for my age. Under Dad there were block wardens for several blocks around. My job was to ride my bike from one to the other when needed and to take the official report to Arlington County Courthouse where the CDC office was located.

The CDC members were issued of a WW1 steel helmet painted white. It had a CDC insignia with the job description lettered under it: Captain Warden, Warden, and Messenger. We also had a white armband with the same insignia and title as the helmet. I thought that if my head got blown off, they could tell who I was by the armband. We also got a flashlight with a yellow lens only used if we encountered a car driving toward us without lights.

I remember the first trip to the courthouse as being exciting. There I was, riding down Wilson Boulevard all by myself alone in the dark in the middle of the road with that humongous and stupid steel helmet on my head going to the central command of CDC at the Courthouse to give the report. I did find the office easily and then the trip back up the middle of the road all the way I never saw another person, car or light a very eerie feeling. I was glad I was armed.

When the air raid horns went off, you were to go inside and turn off the lights if you did not have blackout curtains. If you were caught out in a car you had to pull over turn off the engine and lights and wait for the all clear. Our job was to go throughout the neighborhood during the air raid drills to see if we saw any lights. If one were found the offender was told and it was fixed. Everyone took the blackout very seriously, and the sky over the US mainland was dark. With the reduction of civilian use of electricity, more was diverted to the war industry.

We civilian Americans were on constant alert for the enemy, and there was a mandatory blackout all along the coasts both Atlantic and Pacific. All major cities throughout the nation had to turn off their lights on all stores and buildings. All streetlights had to have reflectors to keep the light down. Houses had to have shades down or curtains drawn on all windows. No outside lights could be on unless they were reflected down. Even the cars had to drive with lights off in lighted areas and never put on hi-beams. There was a good reason for the national blackout. The Germans put their subs along the coasts and with the land glowing in light any dark ships could easily be seen against the light. They sank a lot of ships before Chicago went dark. We also expected the Germans to shell the coast and there was a possibility of bombing. Germany did land spies and saboteurs by submarines along the coast in North Carolina, but local townspeople and shore patrols caught them immediately. A lone Japanese sub once did fire a few shells at California’s West Coast and, if I remember correctly, they shelled uninhabited land. This incident went unknown until years after the war had ended.

The blackouts continued till the war was ended. They changed the sending of messengers after a few kids got into accidents on the way to the Courthouse. I guess the steel helmets tipped them off their bikes, or their armbands were too tight and the blood stopped flowing and they got gangrene in their fingers and died. More likely their mothers complained and said their kid was to young too go into battle.

Air raid alerts were few after we sank most of the Krout and Jap subs and the war turned in our favor. The emergency horns used for the alerts were retired to the junk heap of history in 1994. From 1941 until 1994 those horns sounded everyday at noon.

Checkout http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=11 and notice how the news media has changed since WW2. Not reporting news saved lives.

PRICE OF BEAUTY

2006-09-22T21:02:00.000-05:00

Really TORTURE before World War 2

Once upon a time in a country far away in a time without air conditioning, pantyhose and mass transit, women wore body corsets. I had no idea why they did but they did. As a small boy I remember a woman, known as a corsetiere, coming to my house to measure mother for a new corset. I also remember corsets hanging on the line drying after being washed and they were ugly to see and they were even worse to wear, I was sure. Mother wasn’t fat; she was mother. Boys don’t compare mothers, only fathers.

Corsets were made out of a very tight woven skin-color material that was held together by thousands of little hook and eyes in the back. About every three inches a stave, called whalebone, was sewn in from top to bottom to make it even stiffer. It probably was real whalebone in those days. Around the bottom of the garment were elastic ribbons hang-me-downs with stocking hooks attached to hold up silk stockings. A full bra was included in this instrument of torture.

All the mommas I knew wore corsets. A body hug by those mommas could break a small boy’s bones and take the skin off your cheeks if you were squashed into a bone stave. It was a little like hugging a knight in armor without the iron gloves. Some of the mommas had rolls of chub pushed out the top that made it impossible to get their arms down by their sides so they always had their arms in front with hands held to push the chub roll to the back. A little like a basketball under each arm.

I never saw anyone getting into one of those monsters and even now I can’t picture how it was accomplished. Surely it required a very strong person to hook it all up under such extreme tension caused by applying a small garment to a larger person.

Summer heat waves were the test for survival of the fittest. Those were the days when women fainted with regularity, and smelling salts were in everyone’s medicine chest and purses. On those hot days, Mother would come home from work on a hot bus after a hot days work in a hot temporary building located on Independence Avenue in DC. Mother was exhausted to the point of being sick. The first thing she did was to go directly to the bedroom and take off that girdle. She would have a full body rash that itched and she was miserable. She took a cool bath and then put powder on the rash to prepare for a repeat the next hot day. All summer long women put on that body armor and ventured out into the heat of the day to suffer just to look thinner than they were. Even Englishmen and dogs didn’t go out in the noonday sun on a hot day.

One of the benefits of World War 2 was the end of girdles.
“Rosie the Riveter” couldn’t wear a girdle on the assembly line. When those mommas would lean over or stretch, the chub would be pulled out from under the girdle and never go back on its own. (You think your life is hard?)

The rubber used in making girdles went to the war effort. I have given it a lot of thought, and my conclusion is that the corset garment industry made parachutes out of that tightly woven material. I do remember mother was happy not to wear a corset again. The silk stockings went to war also. No stockings and no girdles equaled bigger size dresses all around.

The next garment of torture, with the advent of nylons after World War 2, was the garter belt and panty girdle to hold them up. The belt was very simple. It consisted of a thin waist belt with the elastic hang-me-downs and clips at the ten, two and six o’clock possessions on each leg to hold the stockings in place. The panty girdle was a wide band made from a rubberized parachute material with the hang-me-downs (no staves or hook and loops) that they stepped into and pulled up to cover the hips to the waist. A friendly pat on the bottom could fracture your fingers or even a whole hand! For those too young to remember, panty hose are a new invention and they did away with the need for hang-me-downs.

I check out all the newest Victoria's Secret catalogs to see if any of the above-described garments have made a comeback. To my delight, they haven’t (as of the last catalog). They do advertise a skimpy corset-type thing in black lace, but I am sure it's not intended for street wear.

I will keep checking with Victoria and keep you posted. No reason for you to bother.

YMCA’S CAMP LETTS

2006-09-13T11:35:00.000-05:00

When Bud and I were little shavers, we were sent to a basic training camp for city kids for two weeks in August. It was the thing to do to little boy kids in the 1930s. I guess it was a rite of passage or something like that to pry us away from our comfortable homes with flushing toilets and friends just to stick us out in wood cabins with small windows and no door in a dirty, hot and stuffy mosquito and tick-infested woods and open fields on the Chesapeake Bay.

I remember taking Bud to the YMCA building on I Street near 17th Street in Washington, DC, to meet the bus for Camp Letts. Mother cried as he got on that big bus for his two weeks at camp. I was sure I would never see him again, but he was happy going. He had to write one letter home a week (camp rules) and Mother wrote him every day. In those days mail only took one day to deliver. Two weeks later we met him at the same spot. Bud loved Camp Letts with a passion. He just glowed with anticipation for the next year. Canoes, swimming, camp fires, spooky stories at night, Guitar sing-a-longs, water fights, crafts, hiking in the woods, lots of new friends-but most of all he had no one to tell him to slow down, take a break, stay out of the sun, and the like. He could just run all day long and collapse at night. Then get up early the next morning and do it again. Brother Bud talked all year about his two weeks of fun and had a lot of real neat projects to show. I liked the woven neck lanyard with the hook on the end and the Indian bead bookmark with his initials, P.R.R. in red in the center.

The next summer I would be going with Bud to Camp Letts. There was an age limit of some kind, probably two or three years old at the minimum. I wasn’t sure if Bud could be trusted with his enthusiasm or had he given me a line of dribble. He was very good at getting me into trouble and well over my head on many occasions by his enthusiasm. I didn’t trust him.

Next summer soon arrived like an arrow shot from a bow. I was always shocked how slow school months passed but summer was a blink. We were loaded into the car for the trip to the bus pickup on a Saturday morning that was going to be hot and humid. That bus was the biggest bus I had ever seen and Bud was really excited, but I was apprehensive or maybe better described as fearful about this whole deal. I had never been away from home alone before. Being older Bud didn’t even sit with me on the bus but found a friend from last year right away and forgot little brother then and there.

We arrived at camp before noon since the busses would take back those campers whose time was up. I thought I might just get back on the bus and go home, but they scooted us off to the mess tent for the dividing into pre-selected cabins by age. That was the last time I remembered seeing Bud except every now and then I got a glimpse of a white headed flash going through camp.

We met our cabin counselor and I liked him immediately and he liked us. We unloaded our suitcases and went to lunch. I don’t remember how the food tasted but it must have been OK or I would have remembered. We were kept in groups by cabin mates for all activities and we were busy doing all kinds of wonderful things. I started my lanyard with a hook in the craft tent, and we swam with the crabs and nettles every afternoon. As usual I got sunburned the first day and spent the next few days in the shade of the craft tent making my lanyard.

The campfire at night was just as Bud had said and the stories and songs were fun too. Each night we had to cold-water shower with soap and stripped for our counselor to search us for ticks with a flashlight. That took a little getting used to but our counselor was quick and thorough and didn’t laugh. We found so many ticks in bed with us, so we would check our beds before getting in. No one needed to be rocked to sleep at night.

I wanted to go in a canoe, but we were too young. The older boys talked about going to the YWCA camp across the river by canoe at night. Our counselor and some of the others had girl friends in that camp, so they crossed over every night after visiting hours. I had no idea why they would want to do that. The older boys had more things to do than us little kids. They even had horses to ride and could go fishing in the Bay.

All of a sudden, it was Sunday and we had to dress in clean shorts and shirt for the sunrise Church service at the Chapel. The Chapel consisted of a clearing in the pinewoods with a tall wood cross. I don’t remember any more about that service. Sunday lunch was the last meal for the day in the mess tent. Sunday night we would cook our hot dogs on sticks at the campfire. I was having fun and was sorry the first week was finished.

The next event that I remember was waking up in the medical cabin with big screen windows that looked out into a pinewoods. I felt terrible and wanted to go home. I remember Bud coming to see me and I was really glad to see him, but he wasn’t Mom and Dad. I think I had a case of food poisoning. All I knew was I had chills that wouldn’t quit and I really didn’t care where I was, who I was or if I was. I was very confused about the whole thing but wanted them to close the windows so I could get warm. My fun camp stopped in that medical cabin. I soon was so sick I didn’t care if Mom and Dad came or not.

The third day I awoke with Bud by my bed and he said Mother and Dad were on their way to take us home. He had gotten all our stuff together and we were ready to go. I should just hang on a little longer. I really didn’t care one way or the other at that stage. Dad arrived and he was hot to trot to think they had not called sooner. I had seen Dad mad to the point of outrage only a very few times and that was one of his best. That speech of Dad’s while he carried me to the car got my attention as sick as I was and I remember thinking that I was glad it wasn’t me he was talking too. The whole camp knew my Dad that day.

I have no idea what caused my illness or even what it was, but I do know I was one sick pup. I was glad to be in my own bed and out of those piney woods. When I started to get better I couldn’t find my neck lanyard with the hook. I had not finished it at camp but brother Bud had finished it while I was recuperating. It was beautiful but I didn’t have time to make my Indian bead bookmark with my initials. Dad found a Boy Scout Indian bead kit with a frame and millions of beads as a present for us. Bud and I made bookmarks for everyone in the family for Christmas presents.

Bud said he had tried to call home the first day, but they told him I would be fine in a day or two. There was a rule at camp: no phone calls home. He checked on me four times a day but I was never awake. He got so worried about me that he threatened the Director with walking out of camp to phone home.

The next summer nothing was said about going to Camp Letts and that was fine with Bud and me.

ps.
www.campletts.org

I may apply next year. I see they are coed 8-16. No need to cross over in canoes late at night after TAPS. Hummmm? The world has changed since my pup days.
Is this progress??

THE UGLIEST OF THINGS

2006-09-13T11:04:00.000-05:00

"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." —John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

HOME CURES

2006-09-02T21:44:00.000-05:00

Phenol Sodique was a patent medicine that cured everything from cuts, infections, fungus, sunburn, dandruff, earaches, acne, and any other problem with the exterior of the human body. It came in liquid or powder and was sold in every local drug store. A drug company in Pennsylvania manufactured it and had gold medals printed right on the label from the Royal Court of England and the 1900 Worlds Fair in Paris. We knew it had to be good with medals on the label. Dad said it was a miracle cure, as did the Pennsylvania Aunts and Uncles. We mixed it 50/50 with water for a mild demand like small cuts and scrapes but full strength when there was an infection like gangrene.

We used it by the gallon and the powder by the pound in our house while growing toward adulthood. I preferred the powder for knife cuts while I learned to use a pocketknife. I got quite good at fixing my fingers in those growing years. Gauze and adhesive tape were all there was before Band-Aids were invented. It was a lot more difficult than peeling of today’s Band-Aid. One had to cut the adhesive tape, cut and fold gauze, put on the powder and then put it all on a cut finger without bleeding to death or getting blood all over the bathroom. Phenol Sodique power was so good at healing a wound without pain that I use to put it on a cut, sit down and watch the cut heal before my eyes. Dad had an ax slip off a frozen log and hit himself in his right shin. The ax cut though his boot to the bone. I never saw so much blood. He drove himself home for the Phenol Sodique and did his own repairs. It was deep and long for my young eyes. Mother wanted him to get stitches but he said it would do just fine with a wet bandage of Phenol Sodique. The deep cuts took a little longer to heal.

I had an ingrown toenail removed in the sixties and the doctor could not get it to heal with exotic salves and drugs. He said he would have to open it up to get the infection if it didn’t heal by the next week. He gave me a prescription of a new salve to try. I went home to use Phenol Sodique and in two days it was well. I never told him about our four gold medal cure-all.

The FDA decided to wipe out the patent medicines from drug stores by requiring the manufacturers to provide documentation of test results to ship across state lines. Phenol was proven to cause cancer in rats if they swam more than ten laps in the stuff. I have been sorry I didn’t get a 55-gallon drum of it before the deadline. We now have to use BFI powder, which cures cuts without pain almost as fast. BFI doesn’t have four GOLD MEDLES from The Royal Court of England and the 1900 Worlds Fair.

Brother Bud and I never had whooping cough, which was a killer of small children until a vaccine was discovered. We were put through an old Pennsylvania Dutch preventative ritual. On a night of a full moon you stand a kid with his or her back against a maple tree, bore a hole in at the height of the kid, cut a lock of hair, stuff it in the hole, plug up the hole, and when the kid grows above the hole he or she will not get whooping cough. It works because not one in our Pennsylvania Dutch family got whooping cough did we?

To remove warts on my hand and my leg, Dad put the sap of milkweed on them and gave instructions not to wash for 24 hours. I got out of a bath and washing dishes that night. In two days the warts had gone to wart heaven.

Dad had the best cures. Mother’s cures consisted of castor oil, rubbing alcohol, witch hazel, and her two favorites were Milk-of-Magnesia and Vicks VaporRub. When brother Bud and I got flu or colds, we were rubbed raw on the back and chest with Vicks. An old sheet was placed over the raw skin and Vicks which stuck to the body like glue, then came the pajamas, then in under the covers with the nose under to inhale the fumes. After we were in bed the windows were opened to freeze us as we slept so we wouldn’t get TB. All night long we were stuck to the sheets and even the bed. One didn't take baths until one was well so we could be Vicksed for days with the flu. It’s a wonder we lived through childhood.

Our two oldest girls got the treatment while my mom was keeper of the flock during the funeral of Shirl’s Dad. We found them all stuck by Vicks to a ripped bed sheet under their pajamas. Their long hair matted and smeared sticky to their faces. They looked like they had been sick a long time and near death. We thanked mom for taking good care of them. Took them home to scrape off the Vicks and put them in a hot bath to soak and a shampoo. The girls were happy to get rid the Vicks. The next morning, after a nights sleep in a clean bed, they were well and feeling great. I am sure the girls, as we never used Vicks in our houses for flu and colds for kids. I'd rather be sick than go the Vicks rout. BUT Vicks will cure toenail fungus. It's better than losing a kidney using the prescription drug Lamisil being advertised on TV every night during dinner hour showing the ugly little critter lifting a toenail before your eyes. Just keep rubbing Vicks on the affected toe until the new toenail grows in. May take months or years depending on how fast your toenails grow. But you will have your kidneys.

Hot tea bags placed on the eyes cure sinus and allergy problems in a matter of minutes. In our previous life before retirement, our next-door neighbor, John was sitting on his front step looking like a lost man with a stuffy nose undergoing a sinus attack. He had been on prescription drugs for a few days with no relief. Shirl told him to put hot tea bags on his eyes, and within an hour he was back looking his finest with clear sinuses and thought Shirl was a miracle worker. He was right Shirl is just that?

Vicks will cure that fungus under toenails. Just rub some on the affected nail and keep at it until a new nail grows out. May take a few months but you don’t have to take Lamisil that has a tendency to destroy your kidneys.

Think you have gone through a poison ivy or oak patch or have athlete’s foot? Then we get to use the Clorox. Wipe the skin with Clorox and soak the feet in a strong solution and violá all is well. It will sting open scratches but will definitely remove the itch and the area will be clean for the Phenol Sodique.

There were many more cures in those days, and I haven’t ever mentioned WD-40.

So where have you been?

2006-08-02T21:23:00.000-05:00

OK-OK, an update on the SMLaker. Have you ever done something that your dear old dad told you some 70 years ago not to EVER do? Dad’s advice was baked into my mind so hard that I heard his voice and it was as clear as the day he told me. “NEVER STICK YOUR ARM OUT OF A MOVING VEHICLE.” But on Fathers Day I forgot. While docking the boat on a beautiful day, a gust of wind hit us unexpectedly and I tried to push off but my arm acted as a bumper, and a very poor one at that.

38 stitches later I returned home from ER with a realization that I had to explain to all who asked, “What happened to your bandaged arm” or “we heard you had a accident?” At first I blamed it on a freshwater shark bite, but then I had to admit the truth. I call it a stupid mistake by a slow-thinking senior. Truth is best after all. Now that the arm is clear of all stitches and bandages, I have to explain the 4” down and 2.5” across the arm scar. Will it never end?
The medication I have been on for almost a month has taken the little ambition I once had away. Two days left on it and I can go out into the sunshine again. The doctors’ appointment tomorrow will determine the next step. I find that recovering from stupidity is time consuming. The brain doesn’t work as well. You read something and forget before you get to the next page. Typing is a problem and trying to put down a thought on paper is a challenge. chal·lenge (ch²l“…nj) n. 1.a. A call to engage in a contest, fight, or competition. b. An act or statement of defiance; a call to confrontation. 2. A demand for explanation or justification; a calling into question. 3. A sentry's call to an unknown party for proper identification. 4. A test of one's abilities or resources in a demanding but stimulating undertaking.

AMEN

I did have a son-in-law suggest that I get a tattoo to make it look like a local mountain-The Peaks of Otter. He tried? Humm-it does look like the Peaks. With just a lot of little green trees along the scar to outline (hide) and a bunch more to fill in-between and I’d have The Peaks of Otter on my arm. There is even enough room to put in the Blue Ridge Parkway. And I wouldn’t have to explain STUPID ever again.

My First Remembered Auto Trip (Hupp)

2006-06-25T21:22:00.000-05:00

(Hupp)

He was a 1926 Huppmobile we called Hupp. Hupp had a 4-cylinder engine in a big engine compartment. You could drop a full sized cinder block (1) to the ground between engine and fenders without hitting anything. Dad could do all the repairs with an adjustable wrench, adjustable pliers and a wood handle screwdriver that came with the car.

Hupp had 4 doors, tall skinny wood spoked wheels, a fixed fabric top with isinglass curtain windows that were fogged yellow with age, a swing-out windshield with hand operated wipers, running boards with a spare tire in a well just behind the front wheel on each side, a big radiator, two large headlights that were high off the road and not very bright. A steamer trunk strapped onto the back between the body and the bumper. Hupp was black.

The workweek was a full 6 days and every business and shop was closed on Sunday with the exception of a few drug stores and gas stations. Sunday was for church and the Sunday drive. The Sunday drive was an institution not to be missed. About once a month we went to the farm of Mother's Uncle Webb and Aunt Polly Burns in Woodfield, Maryland to get food. The depression was going strong, so we joined them for Sunday 2:00 P.M. dinner. Dad always paid them for the food we took home. Years later Dad said that they could use the cash money and we got good quality meat and vegetables in return.

The first trip that I remember was a cold winter Sunday some time in the 1930's. Brother Bud and I were stuffed in Hupp with blankets and hot bricks. Only our noses and eyes showed. I am sure we had on our Lindbergh aviator helmets with goggles. The isinglass curtain windows iced over in a short time from our condensing breath. At this time heaters for cars hadn’t been invented. Snow started falling when we got near Rockville, Maryland.

We arrived in time for dinner. It was snowing harder. I remember Aunt Polly putting the cold bricks in the oven, warming the blankets, and packing the food-chickens, eggs, beef, pork, ham, and some home canned vegetables. We got back into Hupp in a blinding snowstorm. Aunt Polly thought we should stay the night. Bud and I were covered and bricked. Off we went.

Dad had to stop and scrape off the windshield several times every mile, or so it seemed. Mother was sure we would die. The further we went it snowed harder and harder. Dad said he would stop at the first gas station open in Rockville and check on the road ahead. We found none open. We saw no other cars on the road until we got close to Bethesda, Md. near Washington DC. Some travelers were stuck. Dad would always stop and help. I was so cold I could not sleep.

Somehow we got home and Dad carried us in the house and sat us at the table, and Mother stopped crying long enough to make hot milk and soup. It took a hot bath to get feeling back in our toes and fingers. I remember Bud asked if we could keep the windows closed that night. They said sure. In the morning when we awakened, the windows were open and our bed was covered with snow. Open windows kept us from getting TB. A kid could have frozen to death, but he would not have TB.

Shortly after that trip, Hupp threw a rod and it put a hole in the side of the engine. Dad called the junk people to take him away. The day they arrived with a team of horses to hitch Hupp up and take him away, I cried with a broken heart never to see him again. The next car was a secondhand 1932 or 34 Dodge 4 door sedan, black with very skinny running boards that you had to open the doors to see, a split two-window windshield, roll down windows, vacuum wipers, and a heater which worked when it wasn't cold. I hated that car even if it did have a very nice ram on the hood.

I loved Hupp. We had always greeted Hupp and dad when they arrived home by riding down the driveway on the running boards. Our lives were changed forever.

1 Cinder blocks were made from coal cinder ash before the invention of cement block. God bless Hupp in Huppmobile heaven.

View from the nest

2006-06-07T21:41:00.000-05:00

The view from my computer desk while writing my stories, blogs and just playing on this time consumeing machine. Think I'll go fishing.

MY ONE AND ONLY BB GUN

2006-05-26T21:43:00.000-05:00

I was nine years old when I got my BB Gun, a Daisy short-barreled carbine with a wooden stock. That gift will always be remembered as a highlight in my life. I sometimes get a tear in my eye when I pick it up and shoot it. It is the most accurate shooting BB gun ever made. You have to see me shoot it to believe how great a shot I still am and I am not bent to exaggerate a truth, or am I? It was hard to cock and took all my strength. I practiced and practiced; day-by-day it got easy. God gave me the ability to see the BB, leave the gun, and hit the target. I got so good I could hit a BB on the sidewalk at 10'. I could hit flies, bees, ants, locust, (they were best), mice, and any thing that moved or stood still. I could-and still can-shoot a leaf out of a tree. You pick the leaf and I cut the stem right at the leaf. Brother Bud never wanted a BB gun. I cannot remember him ever shooting mine, but then he was a pusher (see note) and the best I ever met. During the war BB's were not steel copper-coated but lead shot. When the lead BB hit concrete or a rock it would whine like a real bullet one heard in the Western movies on Friday nights at the Ashton Theater in Clarendon.

I remember one time I turned on the kitchen light and all the rest off while I sat in the dark dining room and waited for the mice to show under the refrigerator. I never missed a mouse. I did not keep score, but when you are around ten what better hunting was there? I did get into trouble in the beginning, but, as I got better at evasion and repair, my problems were few.

We had a telephone pole behind our garage and our neighbor, Mr. Hohein, had his radio antenna from his house attached to the pole. There was a glass insulator attached to the wire to keep lightning strikes on the pole from running the wire to his radio. Sparrows liked to sit on that insulator. I got very good at replacing that insulator. I even put a quick disconnect on the pole to shorten the time needed. The problem with lead shot was that some were not perfect and would cause a very strange trajectory, which usually resulted in trouble. The reason that the glass insulators met their demise was due to those lead BB’s. (I still have two of those insulators in my tool drawer. One must be prepared.)

It was fun to be a boy in the 1930's and 40’s. No one expected a boy to be anything but a boy. There were no organized sports. No Little League baseball or football. Soccer had not been invented, no swim teams. We kids had our own games without interference from adults. If someone had a baseball, we played baseball. We made up the rules to all the games we played as we went along. Kick-the-can was one we spent hours playing. Most of our games required a good imagination and what was available.

Ken Simmons made a slingshot out of a heavy-duty coat hanger with a wood inlayed handle, and the leather pouch was made from the tongue of an old shoe. I was hooked. The problem was rubber bands. During the war they were hard to find, but we had Woolworth's 5 and 10 Cents store in Clarendon and every now and then they got a shipment, and we bought as many as we could. It is important to remember to match the bands so that both sides have the same power. New bands have to be stretched gradually to full draw in order for them to have longer life. I hate to brag, but I was and still am a really fine marksman. BB lead shot were the best in a slingshot due to the heavier weight. The slingshot was something a kid could stick in his pocket and go anywhere-picnics, vacations, visit relatives, or any other place where it might be dull. I cannot recall dull times unless it was school.

Note: Boys come in two kinds, pushers and bangers. Wheels or guns. Brother Bud was a pusher and I am a banger to the end.

Uncle Webb

2006-05-24T22:21:00.000-05:00

A faimly event

I received an email about a featured speaker arriving at a banquet without his false teeth. The speaker turned to the man next to him to tell of his error. The man said not to worry and reached into his pocket handed the speaker three pair of teeth to try. One pair fit well enough to eat his dinner and give his speech. After his speech concluded, the speaker found out the man and thanked him for the use of his teeth and asked for the address of his dental office? The man then told him that he wasn’t a dentist but was a funeral director. That story reminded me of a family event.

My great Uncle Webb was toothless but managed to chew meat without missing a beat. His son Bob tried to get him to get some teeth from the dentist and even offered to pay for them. But Uncle Webb refused. Said they would just bother him having all that stuff in his mouth.

I still think Bob was the smartest kid of the bunch. He was the seventh child of nine kids. Bob was his mother’s helper on the farm. He worked in the kitchen and house and was a good cook, canner, garden helper, and house cleaner. Later in life, he told me housework was a lot better work than the plowing and milking on the farm. He said it was cooler in summer and warmer in the winter than being out in the fields walking behind a team of horses. Most of the older boys enlisted in the military during World War 2 to get off the farm. Eventually Bob did too.

After his service, Bob returned and got a job with Chambers Funeral Service to learn to be a Funeral Director. He was a kind, sensitive type man and would have been a good Director had he continued in that field. During his years at Chambers he pickup the dead bodies from their homes, hospitals and or side of the road. Learned to embalm and decorate the dead for viewing and to console family members.

They always removed false teeth from the corps, filled the mouth cavity with cotton, and sewed the mouth shut to make a better presentation. The false teeth went into a cardboard box.

Bob got the idea of filling a box with teeth and Christmas wrap the box for his gift to Uncle Web. That Christmas was monumental. The family still talks about the year Webb got all the teeth he would need for the rest of his life.

WHY I LIKE GIRLS BETTER THAN BOYS

2006-05-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

Girls weren’t made from dirt like boys. Girls were made from a bloody bone from a dirt-made boy’s rib over his heart, not his foot or arm. Girls are God’s greatest creation, saved for last. Their plumbing is internal, a real improvement when running unashamed, naked through the garden in Eden.

1951 was a good year, mostly. I graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology on June 2 and married Miss Shirley Ann on June 16 at 2 PM at the Kane Baptist Church in Kane, Pennsylvania, with reception in the basement. It was a first class location because the exposed plumbing and cinder block walls had been painted white.

My wedding was the real beginning of my love for girls and their dedication and devotion toward us dirt men in their lives. God had to create that love for us dirt men as an instinct much like birds fly south and monarch butterflies go to Mexico. I do know for a fact that baby girls while still in the delivery room, take one look at their fathers through blurred vision eyes and as soon as they fix those film covered eyes on his face think, “I’ve got you figured out Daddy O. I won’t have any trouble guiding you through life with me my way.”

I started my profession as a baby photographer in Washington DC and vicinity during the baby boom of the 50’s. We gave a free 5X7 black and white portrait of baby to customers of diaper services. We figured the customers would buy babies first pictures. For 35 years I specialized in child and family photography in studio and homes. The free give away lasted until the invention of paper diapers put the diaper service home delivery out of business.

A photographer has to quickly determine how to gain trust enough in each person to break down the natural façade they arrive with. I know when they say, “I never take a good picture,” that I will have great success getting a good result. (Unless they are ugly as sin inside and out.) What the photographer is trying to capture is the beautiful person inside each of us. We tend to hide that person from public view for reasons unknown to me.

Babies come into this world a person different from anyone ever born. They grow up into people who just age and don’t change very much to the end. Like finger prints. Girl and boy babies are as different as a new BMW is from an old garbage truck. At three months of age babies have clear vision. Boys hold stuff in their hands and examine it closely. Girls look you in the eye and talk the talk. This is where the difference is first noticed. Girls like push over men. Boys like mother and stuff, in that order.

It takes a lot of sweet talk to get little girls to respond and do what you want. So what else is new? Coos, small talk and smiles bring smiles. Girls will keep their eyes on your eyes at all times. They are not interested in the camera or lights as long as you keep your face in their face and give your undivided attention to them. They are not interested in my things, only me. Light touch on the hands, pat on the back and a tickle under the chin is all that is needed to bring out those smiles. Everything gentle and quiet.
Girls are built neat. They have great proportions. Their head size fit their frame. Hands and feet are just the right size. Small noses and ears. Girls have round corners; nothing is ever square. Little girls are Gods greatest creation, no doubt.

Boys are totally opposite. They could care less about me. Boys like to watch the equipment being assembled and anything that makes a noise is favored. They fix their eyes on the pen in a shirt pocket. I learned early to remove all pens, watches and ties. And if that doesn’t work, get a soft stuffed animal. I found a Raggedy Ann doll works best because it has a big painted grin smile for a face and a skirt. (Remember, we boys like girls better than boys.) To get the little rug hugger to pay attention, I pop him in the nose and say, “Boo.” Bang on his hands and be loud and physical. Sweet talk a boy and he’d look away to the lights and camera.

Boys are not neat. They are oversized with big heads; noses, ears, hands, feet and stomach. Lets face it they are square and lumpy. Some boys can’t hold their heads up at four months. It takes four to six months for some to develop enough strength to lift the weight of their heads. When I photographed boys, I often had mothers ask me if I thought that their child might be retarded? They probably were comparing their kid to the girl next door. Almost always they had one of those bigheaded boys. I told them no and followed with a first-hand true story from my distant past.

We had a neighbor who gave birth to a big boy about a week before we had our first perfect girl child. We went to visit them and saw a head in the crib with arms and legs flat out on his back. After our perfect girl was born we had an occasion to visit them and laid our perfect girl in the crib with the head with arms and legs. When the four of us saw them together foot to foot we had to laugh at the difference. His head was the size of a dinner plate and Miss Prefect’s the size of a fine porcelain saucer. It took a full year for him to begin standing while Miss Perfect was running into trouble at nine months. By the time he walked at 15 months, he had so much strength and size you had better not get in his way for fear of being harmed. Our very best wishes --Pam and

Dirt-boys are physical; girls are emotional.

Take that Woman Libber. Boys and girls are born different. The only thing similar is that they are both human beings. I think some of the boys and men I have met didn’t live up to even that similarity. Science has recently shown that the male child’s brain goes through a massive shot of testosterone that separates the dirt-boy’s brains left side from the right side. We men tend to be a little brain dead from then on.

(The bad part of 1951 started when I got drafted into the Army in September. I didn't like it one bit. Must be a story there?)

This is Memorial Day. Remember to keep this wonderful Nation in your payers every day. Even if some have asked Him to get out of our government and take His commandments with Him!

The Birthday of Jack the SMLaker

2006-05-16T21:40:00.000-05:00

Jack the SMLaker caused the Great Depression. Blame me for it all. I can take it and come out with a smile. I’m proud to be the cause and not many can have such and accomplishment by just being born on February 25, 1929, in Washington DC.

My memory is poor on the events of that day. My aunts told some of the traumatic experience. I must admit the story differs depending on which side of the family the aunts resided. Dad’s sisters were probably more correct because they always said I was a beautiful, alert, and a very fine fellow. Mother’s sisters said I was ugly as sin and had a cry like a pig, no chin and a total throw back. I always thought mother was the black sheep of the family and got no respect from her siblings. Now I know they were jealous of her since brother Bud and I were the best kids from both sides and unmatched by the cousins to this very day. But then, there aren’t many of us left above ground.

Mother’s talk about their children’s birth, but boys don’t listen to anything so disgusting as childbirth-especially their own. Two things I am sure: One, I was a mistake and not a planned child. Two, I came anyway.

There was fourteen months between Bud and me, so for sure I was not planned. I give my parents credit for how they dealt with their mistake. I never knew about child mistakes until we had a few of our own and I could do the math, and had knowledge of the facts of life. At the age of forty or forty-five, one thinks about such things.

Headline: Garfield Woman’s Hospital. Washington DC. On Monday, February 25, 1929 at 2:15 AM. The vital signs were: “7#-14 and 1’-8 9/16” according to Dad’s measurements. (He was Arlington Counties first Land Surveyor.) Let me stop here and say my birth did not cause the stock market crash and the Great Depression, which started that month and year. History has shown that the crash was longer in coming than me, we just happened to arrive together. I could say that there was a great blizzard and the temperature four below zero, Dad driving the old Huppmobile just made it in time, but I really do not have the slightest idea of the weather or the trip to the hospital and do not remember the trip home one week later to “106 Maple Street, Lyon Village, VA., Clarendon.” That is the address on a “hope to see you soon” letter sent by my Uncle Bill Leemaster from Ft. Sam Houston, Texas. Arlington had not been invented as yet as a post office.

In those years they kept new mothers and babies for one week in the hospital. Dr. DeWitt C. Cradwick was the first to get his hands on me and then Nurse Miss E. Ridgdy was the one to clean me up. I wish someone would tell me why all the nurses who help deliver babies are women, unmarried and never had a pregnancy. They always are the ones to say, “It doesn’t hurt that much mother” and then give advice on how to care for babies.

My name Jack was not a name but a nickname for John, everyone said. Mother was asked three times by the doctor if she was sure about Jack for a legal name. Dad’s sister Aunt Maude was married to Jack Weidlich and my parents both liked him very much, so my name was Jack. Dad’s note on my name read, “Uncle Jack was all worried. Grandmother (Burns) does not like it, but boy I hope you do!.” I have liked it just fine. Thanks, Mom and Dad. That name helped make me a fighter and a “Radical Right Winged Conservative.”

The aunts on both family sides, when visiting mother in the hospital, told her about a baby in the nursery who squealed like a pig at dinner time and joked with mother about that poor mother who took that kid home. Little did they know, I was it. Mother discovered the truth soon after our triumphant entry home. It was reported that mother cried tears and said, “We got him. We got the pig.” I was one ugly baby according to mother’s sister, Aunt Margaret, who was fond of telling the story year upon year. Dad was not pleased with Margaret when she first heard me cry and said to mother, “You got him. You got the pig.” Mother cried one more time.

As an expectant father I remember wishing each of our babies would be ugly as me since I developed into a very handsome young man and seem to be getting better each year.

“Ugly can only get better with time, whereas beautiful babies peak at birth.” (Wisdom from Jack the SMLaker.

I have a quirk, I like to be kissed on the back of the neck to this day and I could not explain until I read my “Infant Chart and Health Guide Compliments of The Evening Star--The Sunday Star Washington, D.C.” sent home with babies. I found it under “General Instructions” with one entry in the “DO” column. “Let there be regularity in all things.” What ever that means?

In the “Don’ts” column. “Don’t rock, jiggle, or walk the floor with the baby. Don’t lift by the arms. Don’t use a pacifier. Don’t fatten your baby--a fat baby is as sickly as an undernourished one. Don’t give drugs or medicine (except milk of magnesia) unless ordered to do so by your physician. Don’t expose baby’s eyes to bright lights. Don’t permit loud or harsh noises. Don’t give castor oil. Don’t allow anyone to kiss the baby except on the back of the neck.”

Now I know I must have been ugly but I did and still do have a beautiful back of the neck that likes to be girl kissed.

My first shoes cost two dollars. They cost us $25.00 to bronze in 1968. Wonder how much bronzing baby shoes would cost today?