A Passing

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

“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

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

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

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

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

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?