"Sometimes you're the bug...

and sometimes you're the windshield!"

I heard Neil Bonnett say that once years ago and it's one of those perfect metaphors for life.

My wife not being a fan of Steve Martin or Alec Baldwin, we spent Oscar night watching a nominee from 1950 that she thought she'd seen but hadn't. A newly mastered DVD version with some extras, I was delighted to revisit it with company for once.

"Twelve o'Clock High" I read in my teens, before I ever saw the movie, though I grew up watching the series when I was a "tween" and it was in repeats. It's one of the influences that led to my love of airplanes and mechanical things. The authors, Sy Bartlett and Beirne Lay, Jr. were there in different capacities in the 8th Air Force and the story is a compilation of characters and groups they served with.

When I finally saw the movie I was impressed with all of the portrayals, none more than Dean Jagger who won his Oscar for it. Knowing the "flying history" behind it made it all the more personal for me.

Going back now and watching it brought all of those early emotions back, plus those of thinking of all the lives affected by the war and fighting it; the lives of people I know today, here and on the "other side of the pond".

Shocking was getting to the documentary part and hearing someone say that the U.S. Marine Corps lost 20,000 men in the Pacific in their campaign across the islands.

The 8th alone had over 26,000 killed out of 47,000 casualties; these were half of the Army Air Corps casualties for the entire war.

After watching the movie I dug in one of my bookcases to come up with some books I bought through Powell's a few years ago. One was Beirne Lay, Jr.'s account "Presumed Dead" of being shot down over Europe after he assumed command of his own air group mid-war. The 2nd I found was a biography of Paul Mantz, who flew the B-17 that "bellies in" early in the movie, sliding into tents etc. The movie company tried to get the then re-named Air Force to do it and were told "no way"; Mantz agreed to do it, flying solo. As he set her down, he figured out he could still steer her with the "toe brakes" although the landing gear was up and that was how he managed to snag the tent without doing any other damage downfield.

The 3rd I still haven't found, a paperback copy of the original book "Twelve o'Clock High".

"Presumed Dead" I consumed in my spare time in 3 days, unable to put it down when I could get a chance to read. Concise, but beautifully written, it's added to my love of the French countryside.

It also shocked me at one point. As they are transitioning from training to England, they flew a southern route considered safer because of the weather at that time of year over Greenland. On landing in Marrakesh, Lay writes about the last crewman leaving the plane, tossing the DDT bomb through the hatch and closing it...

No wonder so many of those of our "Greatest Generation" are fighting cancer! DDT was still in use by the Navy in '73 when I was on shipboard; the olive drab cans that I sprayed around my bunk to stop the roach invasions (which didn't even slow them down) had it painted on the cans. But tossing a "DDT bomb" into the aircraft who's oxygen system I'd be breathing from, where I'd be living and fighting and dying takes on a whole new meaning all these years later (as does lying in a bunk I'd sprayed entire cans around and in the locker of).

(BTW, the way we finally stopped the invasions on shipboard was to line the edges of our racks with 400mph tape, sticky side out, after taping every seam and joint closed, then waking up in the morning and roasting our catch with butane lighters!)

Beyond all that I spent one day last weekend watching my son and grandson outwork me as we helped my sister's mother-in-law move. The next I spent recuperating as my knee was not happy with me at all; it's still grumbling a bit 5 days later. I've also been fighting what is either the last cold of winter or the first cold of spring...whichever it is, I'm tired of it!

Monday I helped my son pick up more subfloor and underlayment along with trim for his house. Dottie was off yesterday and I was coughing too badly to go see a movie she wanted to, so we ran errands instead, getting the last of the fishing licenses and boat permits for the new year; finding some corned beefs she can fix for a belated St. Patrick's Day dinner this weekend, and since she felt sorry for me being sick, she bought me a slab of ribs for dinner that I'll also be eating for lunch and dinner today. We also went by the apartment that Mary Ruth moved to last weekend so Dottie could see it and helped her sort some of the things that went into her storage unit. A beautiful apartment with a brook and waterfalls outside her patio doors, I envy her a bit!

So it's now Wednesday afternoon and I'm still waiting for WalMart or Sam's Club or someone to call say that I'm worthy of their employment. After I eat something, I guess I'll try filling out an app for Home Depot, though I've put that one off because I somehow feel disloyal to GM if I go to work for someone that campaigns a Toyota in NASCAR...silly guilt button, I wish at times I could disconnect it!

May the week be kind to each of you!

Riding the range...

As I drive around my "home turf" I often feel the ghosts of those who were here before me...I've thought of writing about some of them and hope perhaps they intrigue you.

When I make my shopping run to Wal-Mart, I head west on I-70 then pick up I-435 south and cross the Kansas River. Visible from the bridge as I cross the river Mill creek flows into the river from the southwest. Somewhere through the years I've read that was the site of one of the Chouteau brothers original trading posts back in the days when beaver hats were "king".

As the road climbs from the river and I get to Shawnee Mission Parkway, I'm traveling beautiful rolling hills that once held a township named Monticello. It was there that a young man first wore a constable's badge and first tried his hand at law enforcement. He voted in the 1856 presidential election there. To know I'm sharing the same country that James Butler Hickok once rode always induces awe in me. You might have heard him called by another name; "Wild Bill".

It wasn't long after those experiences he met up with a kid muleskinner from a few miles to the north of here; one who would probably become one of the most famous "Westerners" of all time; William Frederick Cody. At 11 Cody lost his father to the "Border Wars" that consumed Kansas through her territorial days and continued through the Civil War, culminating in the 2nd burning of Lawrence, KS by William Quantrill. Cody and Hickok rode together in the Kansas Militia, leading both of them into scouting for the military and their other pursuits.

A few blocks north of me is the old Fort Leavenworth Military Road from what was then Westport to the Federal outpost that still exists. As he traveled to Leavenworth not long before the Civil War, William Tecumseh Sherman in his memoir wrote of spending the night at the Shawnee Indian School (now called the Shawnee Indian Mission), then rode west and crossed the Kansas River at a ferry owned by a white man and his Indian wife. That would be Moses Grinter; I've written of "The Grinter House" before, the first permanent house in my county. The house still standing replaced the cabin he and his wife had lived in for the 20 plus years before it was built. During the battle of Westport someone aboard the afternoon steamboat headed for Lawrence cut the cable on Grinter's Ferry, killing one of his hired hands; it was thought to be the work of one of the James boys trying to slow the troops from Fort Leavenworth reinforcing the Union troops. Later, after the railroad tracks that still parallel the river there were built, they were also said to have stopped a train or two.

The family of one of Hickok and Cody's friends from the militia days owned a tavern/rooming house called the "Six-Mile House" given its being six miles from the river on the Fort Leavenworth road. In a local history written by a school teacher she wrote of the shooting demonstrations that Hickok and his friend Theodore Bartels would put on after the war. Usually won by Hickok, she wrote of seeing him trot his horse down the lane, his revolvers pointing across his body, knocking bricks off the rail fence on either side...never actually taking aim.

Next to the downtown public library is the Huron Indian Cemetery; when the Wyandotte Indians were forced to relocate to Oklahoma Territory, they deeded over their land and buildings on the condition that the graves there would never be disturbed. In that same history I spoke of above, there is the story of what happened when the City Council decided they could take that land as there weren't any Indians left here to object. The aunt of Zane Grey, the writer, moved into the cemetery, with a shotgun and held off the sheriff while the City Council tried to evict her and legal proceedings were brought against them to enforce the original agreements. I've been told that my great-grandmother has a relative buried there...

A few blocks past the library, though the building is long gone, is where the "Free State" constitution for the state of Kansas was written (as opposed to the "slave state" constitution written earlier and never adopted). A couple of miles to the north lie the ruins of Quindaro, a settlement that had much to do with the transport of slaves to freedom via the Underground Railway. The high bluff they sit on was conducive for marksman to sit with their rifles, waiting to drive away the bounty-hunters trying to cross the river to recover those lives someone else considered their property.

The guerrilla Quantrill I mentioned earlier was a schoolteacher before the war, in a little town south of here named Maryville. What was left of Maryville was flooded by Hillsdale Lake as it filled, one of the lakes we fish.

My sister and her family live in Lawrence; burnt twice through the "Border Wars", the last time with much loss of life. When Quantrill and his raiders arrived they sent lookouts up Mount Oread to watch for dust clouds in case the military from Fort Leavenworth should come to the town's aid. 183 men and boys were executed; anyone old enough to carry a rifle up to the age of 90 lost their lives. The logos on the doors of the Lawrence police cruisers show burning buildings.

Mount Oread was where the University of Kansas was founded two years later, in 1865. It's where my oldest son and his wife both graduated from...

Those are only the ghosts from "my" side of the river...many more walk the Missouri side in the echoes of the music of the 20's and 30's...the echoes of the Pendergast political machine...the Union Station massacre...

I often wonder as all these ghosts gather 'round how many of those in the cars about me even know they existed? People always think "history" is somewhere else...that you have to "go somewhere" to find it...

But the ghosts wait everywhere, only waiting a chance to speak!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

The treadmill to oblivion...

Besides the name of a book I've been meaning to acquire for ages (Fred Allen's autobiography, if that name rings a bell for anyone), it means that finally after almost 2 months I've found my way back downstairs.

I survived 1/3 of the monthly shopping run yesterday (only casualty was my pride, as I drove further to a different wholesale club to get the Hershey's Dark Chocolate bars my wife loves as mine quit keeping them; got out of the truck and put my bifocals on so I could read the list and realized I didn' t have the checkbook). I was waiting for Costco to mail their coupon book to do the rest...it seems to come later each month. I'll be going there on the way home from the osteopath's tomorrow.

The knee ached a bit last night, but it wasn't "pain". So today after I'd been up a bit, eaten and taken the anti-inflammatory and let it have a bit to "kick in" I went downstairs and donned the "new" shoes I keep next to the treadmill and started walking...slowly...

I wasn't trying to set any records, only ease back into things. I made it 11 minutes pain free, at 12 it twinged once (possibly I took too long a step) and at about 14 it started to hurt with each step. I stopped, shut things down and after a few minutes to make sure it was OK I came back upstairs.

It's the first time in almost two months the steps haven't hurt coming up. I'm still wary going down; Saturday I went to do laundry and wasn't quite "awake" yet, led with my left and "jammed" it, feeling the bone bruise that's slowly been healing these last few months.

At the Supercenter on Monday (the first 1/3 of the payday trip) I had stopped at the magazine rack; I can't afford them anymore, though every other month I can't help myself and buy one ("Hot Rod Deluxe", with photos and cars I remember from the issues I saw 40 years ago). It wasn't there, but I picked up a copy of something else that caught my eye and stood there while I skimmed their article on men's knees. It spoke of ACL's and the other usual injuries, then had a section on arthritis. It told people about the "partial knee replacement" that Dottie had a few years ago; said to be wary of "scope" surgeries (?) and then ended with a piece that said no matter what, even if it hurts a bit, you have to keep moving because that is what "lubricates" the joint.

So, tomorrow, after the doctors and Costco, we'll see if I can make it to 15 before the "twinge" kicks in.

I haven't really gained since I hurt myself, but I hadn't really lost in over a year, since I hurt my back the last time...my best intentions got caught up in summer and other things and also, I think one of those laws of physics came into play...

Something about objects at rest tending to remain at rest!

It's time for some defiance...

A friend wrote this a while back and it has been weighing on my mind as well; having fought my way from 300 to 200 several years ago and yo-yo'd back to 340, I know well the demon he writes of! I made it down to 270 the 2nd time before I hurt myself a year ago December and have been rather stuck since within 10 pounds of 300...

Where's Excalibur when I need her?

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Watching train wrecks...

was the phrase used a bit ago to describe watching the news. Normally, I can keep my perspective, but today was not such a day!

Hearing an executive try to tell Congress that his is an American company and that the cars in question were American cars was the beginning...I am grateful that they are assembling some here and sourcing some of their parts here, but the design and engineering came from "home" and that is where the profits go...back to his country...the one that our military defends. My old ship was homeported there for her last 11 years as deterrent to China and North Korea; now one of her newer sisters is, along with crew and families and a helluva a lot of our tax dollars.

As the man realized he was upsetting the Congress people he tried to explain; it started to sound like he was blaming the workers when another Congressperson went after him.

Got in the truck to run errands and heard someone from Wellpoint explaining that they had to raise their rates 39% to cover their costs. When she was asked about her salary she said she got $1.3 million a year in salary, $8.5 million in stock options and another $73,000 for something else.

Geez, we didn't make $73,000 last year...both of us together!

Then I get back home and turn on CNN to find out that a "killer whale", held in captivity despite having killed twice already, had just killed it's 3rd trainer. While I'm not "anti-zoo" and I realize that there are some creatures we wouldn't have in this world anymore were it not for captivity and breeding programs, etc., I don't think Shamu is on that list!

I'm sure tomorrow I'll get up and start my day with the Weather Channel and MSNBC and CNN again, along with my news page and Facebook and Twitter and a half dozen other places I go looking for things.

But right now I'd like to climb in a barrel and pull the lid on after me!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Sharing the wealth...

My oldest grandson spent the weekend plus his Monday holiday. After playing video games and watching movies and parts of Daytona and the WinterNationals, by yesterday he was ready for something different. I lit the furnace in the garage and after a couple of hours we went out and I started clearing more of my workbench; him putting things in the tool cabinets or the trash; me sorting other ones into the "20 year drawers" beneath.

As we got to the back there was an old Rochester 2 barrel carb, in pieces, that I had robbed pieces from a few years ago for something else. Being able to see all of its "innards" led to explanations of "idle circuits" and "pullover enrichment" and then finally "being on the mainjets" with him able to see how they all interconnected, along with the cautionary stories about needles and seats and what happens when they "stick" (a deluge of gasoline spewing out of the carb top usually followed by an engine fire).

From under the bench I pulled out an old Rochester "Quadrajet", the 4-barrel "performance" carb from that same era; when he saw the 2 1/4" back barrels in comparison to the little pair in that 2-barrel he suddenly understood a lot more about "hot rods" and horsepower and gasoline comsumption!

I promised him a few months ago that if one of Dottie's "Powerball" tickets hits, we can build a "deuce coupe" using some of the other things I have stashed away in various corners and some of the multitude of parts you can buy now. I'm kind of hoping that in the next year or two things work out and we build something anyway...he's a lot more intrigued by mechanical things than his Dad or his Uncle ever were and it would be nice to pass some of the knowledge along instead of taking it with me!

(Not that this has anything to do with my last post or anything!)

For now though, he's more concerned about getting the boat cleared off before spring comes!

Me too!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

February 13...

keeps coming back around, much as I wish at times it wouldn't!

Dad would have turned 83 tomorrow, and for all the baggage there was between us before I left for the Navy, we made up for it after I was out and moved home and his grandkids were born. That one son has no memory of him and the other only has the slightest ones is one of the sadder things I ponder altogether too often. 26 years disappear for me each time I touch his tools, or his old Ambassadeur 5000 (baitcasting reel)...it's yesterday again and he's chiding me about his "educated thumb" being the reason he can cast 15 feet further than I, with the same reel, rod and line.

Little did I know 'til I took his apart for the first time after he died how educated that thumb truly was; he had taken the brake cylinders completely out of it!

Know you were and are still loved Dad...and missed terribly!

May the weekend be kind to each of you who find your way here!

alan

Across the years...

"The Berlin Stories" have illuminated much. How anyone could have claimed "they didn't know", or "they weren't sure" in the late 30's is beyond me; people were telling Isherwood in '30 and '31 "just wait until they get them in the concentration camps".

With his words evoking the people and their times, I dug out a disc I bought a few years ago of Ute Lemper's called "Berlin Cabaret Songs". English translations of the original tunes playing in the clubs there when Marlene Dietrich was headlining...when Louise Brooks was lighting up the screen...

From the first track on the disc, 3rd verse:

"Politicians

are magicians

who make swindles disappear

The bribes they are taking

the deals they are making

never reach the public's ear

The left betrays, the right dismays

the country's broke and guess who pays

But tax each swindle in the making

profits will be record breaking

Everyone swindles some

so vote for who will steal for you

Life's a swindle..."

from "It's All a Swindle" written by Mischa Spoliansky and Marcellus Schiffer.

I'm guessing I shouldn't read anything into the fact that the composers, born in 1898 and 1892, died in 1931 and 1932...

Each day I hear people proclaim they aren't trying to take away my rights, only those of someone else. That I'm entitled, but someone else isn't. They step behind their masks of religion; they hide behind a flag and don't realize; I've seen it all before, if only in the history books, in literature, in poetry.

If the revolution is lost, now (and I fear it is) then it's only a matter of time before the knocks on the door start coming...

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Old loves...

While in Vermont this last summer, we visited the Shelburne Museum. Among the standard displays there (well worth a visit in themselves) they had two special attractions going on as well. There was a Tiffany exhibition (more later) and a motorcycle show, with not only some Arlen Ness "dream" bikes, but some of the loves of my youth.



I was lucky enough 36 years ago to meet an old gentleman in San Diego who was supplementing his retirement by selling basket case motorcycles he had spent his lifetime acquiring. He had been a machinist, a tool and die man in the aircraft industry; he used to say he never married because his job was so critical he wasn't allowed to enlist during WW2. He was the lead inspector at Rohr Aircraft; they were building engine nacelles and other things related to the war effort. He said that during the war all the girls wanted a hero; right after the war they wanted a returning one and then, suddenly, he was too old for anyone to want.

He was the first "Anglophile" I ever knew; his mechanical loves in this world were Triumph and Ariel motorcycles & British motorcars. Born in 1910, he had attended machinist school at Ryan in San Diego the year after they built the "Spirit of St. Louis".



In 1936 he bought his first motorcycle, a Royal Enfield. It had it's share of mechanical deficiencies and in '37 he sold it and bought a new Triumph Speed Twin. He was still riding that Speed Twin when I knew him, though he had pulled the original girder front end ("two sheets of paper with an axle bolted between them" was his description) in favor of a later set of hydraulic forks, and bolted a sidecar on it. He used it as his parts chaser and it was ridden almost daily, up until the day he died.

During the war he acquired an Ariel "one-lunger", a 500cc single cylinder bike for the economy during rationing. They became his second love and he had 3 different models of the singles while I knew him, along with two of the "Square Fours" that have gone by in the photos thus far. I was lucky enough, having worked for him a bit to earn parts, to have him let me ride his '56 Square Four to a show for him one day when he was taking the Speed Twin. It was a treat I've not forgotten!

After the war as everyone traded their "rigid" Triumphs for swingarm ones, he bought them; as the "non-unit" bikes were traded for "unit" construction ones, he bought them as well. He did machine work "on the side" and did some race tuning along with a lot of riding, including some with a group of "desert rats" that included Keenan Wynn and Steve McQueen back when you rode the same bikes off road you rode on the street. I have an accessory "oil bath" he made that was intended to keep sand from getting into the motors; apparently he made a good little fortune selling them. Later, after he retired he also was doing Smiths speedo and tach work and rebuilding magnetos and generators, as well as assembling engines and transmissions.





Though he really didn't approve, a lot of the knowledge I acquired from him was applied to BSA's and a few Norton's I ran across through the years. He had no use for Harleys at all- "tractor engine in a cultivator frame" was his description of them.

I bought three basket case Triumphs from him. Mine was a stocker, a 1958 TR-6 4-speed. The one I bought to put together for my wife was also a '58 and looked stock, but had later model 750 internals and a 5-speed (some of that machine work he was so good at was involved in relieving the engine and transmission cases). The 3rd was a '47 500 rigid. To this day I regret parting with them during a long lay-off from GM when my boys were small...

So with all the fond memories the Ariel above brought me, for me the Crown Jewels of that display were:



(a World War Two flathead Triumph messenger bike)

and



(a 1952 Trophy model racer)

We had always talked of buying a bike again once the kids were grown and gone (and every now and then I can't help but go price a new Triumph) but the reality is that with her hip and knee replacements she'll never dare get on one again and so I can't really bring myself to be selfish enough to ride when she can't...

After we had moved here, in the early 80's I got a phone call from someone I had introduced to my friend as they were looking for Triumph parts. During one of those awful Santa Ana days his emphysema had finally gotten the better of him and someone found him in his shop.

I was told his nephew was going to sell the parts off along with the machinery and keep the technical stuff for those he knew to use as an open library. I hope he did; there was far too much knowledge there for it to end up in a landfill somewhere!

Dwight Dean, it was an honor to know you and to call you friend!

I hope you and Lou Kaiser and Jimmy Phillips and Wynn and McQueen are all out somewhere having a helluva good time!

May the week be kind to each of you (especially if you made it all the way down here)!

alan

(a click on each photo will enlarge it. They have pretty good detail for handheld 1/8th and 1/15th exposures at 200 ASA setting...wanted to go back the next day with a tripod, but there wasn't time!)

The Doctor says...

keep doing what you're doing; if it hurts, stop doing it, at least for a bit!

He showed me the MRI slices; the bone bruise on the upper legbone that is still healing, the partially healed extent it started out at; the swelling around the partially damaged MCL ligament that "gave" and started this all; the fluid around the rest of the joint.

He also told me there is arthritis under the kneecap that was aggravated by all of this, but it's not something that needs surgery until much further down the road.

He told me not to start the therapy his assistant had written me the scrip for 12 days ago (was kind of avoiding that 'til I had the MRI results). He said I can go downstairs and start walking on my treadmill when I feel like; if it aches to get off it and let it rest.

They faxed me in a 90 day prescription for the anti-inflammatory, Meloxicam, they started me on the other week.

So that's the health update...time for some late lunch and maybe a nap!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Awareness...

Not so many years ago, in reading Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" I was astounded by her calling out of the treatment doled out by "Americans" to the native populations that were here when they arrived with their "manifest destiny". After all, an 18 year old, writing in 1816...her awareness of what was going on in another "world" far removed from hers was quite amazing to me.

Last night, partway into "The Berlin Stories" I've had another such moment. Christopher Isherwood bringing up the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria with the ensuing murder, rape and pillage as he was writing in Germany during the Weimar Republic just before Hitler's rise to power. (In doing a bit of reading this morning, I just ran across a Time Magazine article from 1932 about a small part of that invasion and the "accidental" beating of an American ambassador by Japanese troops.)

I realize that nothing on Earth ever occurs in a vacuum; that there is always some news "out there" for those willing to look for it.

I also realize, having lived through the time of the Balkans and Rwanda and Darfur, that seldom are things like this ever halted before the wreckage of lifetimes is scattered. The toothless "League of Nations" of that day; the inadequately funded and under-empowered United Nations of this one aren't so very far apart in their abilities.

That so many generations have passed since Mary Shelley called attention to the plight of the Native American and yet 200 years later they are not given their due, or given apology, but have to fight in court against the government that has robbed them at every turn...

That so many years after our "War Between the States" to have a Senator stand up and say that had the "Dixiecrats" elected Strom Thurmond president in 1948 we'd all be so much better off now...

That so many years after "The War to End All Wars" the bullets and shells still fly...

That at this point that should be the pinnacle of human existence there are those who feel that they can vote away the rights of anyone they disagree with; they may imprison them in law as surely unjust as any prison camp...

That they may be executed or imprisoned for life if some of the "new laws" under consideration in some places aren't stopped!

Will we ever realize that every life is just as precious as our own?

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

"No use permitting those prophets of doom...

to wipe every smile away..."

Lines from old songs haunt me; like the headers on a page, they set the tone or summarize; they cajole or commiserate.

I was playing music from "Cabaret" 40 years ago, in band at school and along with Armstrong albums; I knew a bit of the mythology of the story. It was many years before I would see the movie; even more before I read of "The Berlin Stories" that first the stage play "I Am a Camera" then the musical "Cabaret" were sourced from. On my "bucket list" of reading material ever since, I finally caught up with Mr. Isherwood last night and am delighted.

So now I'm having a hard time convincing me to go out and chip the icicles off the facias and such and do some of the other things I'd been putting off while gimping around this last month. T'would be so much easier to escape to the Berlin of Sally Bowles and Lulu, Peter Lorre and Marlene Dietrich...

"Life is a cabaret, old chum..."

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Beginnings...

It's been hard to come here and write of late; I've been "living" on hydrocodone a lot of this last month as I blew something up in my left knee four weeks ago. In the beginning I thought I could give it a week and it would be better, but that has not turned out to be the case and I have an appointment tomorrow morning so someone can figure out whether it was one of the cruciate ligaments I blew out, or something worse. It's not much good like it is, or me along with it!

I hobbled through the holidays; everyone else's were great! The grandkids, the boys and their wives; my sister and her family. Bill and Laura made it home to D.C. yesterday after a detour through North Carolina for a rockslide the wiped out the Interstate highway they were on as they trekked east. After an afternoon's rest in Charlotte, they got home about 1:30 Tuesday morning.

I've not been sleeping well, so falling asleep sitting in my chair reading, trying to watch TV, sitting here at the keyboard, playing a video game; they've all become new experiences for me. Part of my excuse for not blogging...waking up as you rock forward in the chair because your knee is saying "don't do that, dummy"! isn't fun!

May the rest of the week and may this month and this New Year be especially kind to each of you!

alan

Postscript: Thursday afternoon...

X-rays inconclusive; they don't show anything wrong, only the things that should be there...MRI tomorrow.

At least I know now it's not cancer! Not everyone's first thought, but my favorite jazz saxophone player went in 15 years ago for some knee pain, found out he had bone cancer and was gone in 6 weeks...as much as my family has been decimated by so many different kinds of it, it wouldn't have surprised me!

alan

New Year's Eve...

strains of Guy Lombardo's "Auld Lang Syne" remembered from my childhood playing in my mind...

Off to my sister's in a bit for the family birthday/New Year's Eve parties. My nephew (Christmas Eve), myself (the 29th) and Bill's wife Laura (Jan. 30th, but, hey; while she's here)!

I've often spent this last week of the year in a funk of reviewing and lamenting (see my last post) but not this year. I refused to wallow in it and have actually succeeded, though I'm not sure how much is due to my own free will and how much is due to how busy things have been.

Last year I said I was going to try to keep things here on a more positive note; that ended up with my not saying things at times because there just wasn't anything positive to say and my feeling guilty when I wrote things that weren't; neither was much good for me. So this year, I'm just going to write and let it fall where it falls.

I've made many wonderful friends here; each of you has touched me in ways that have helped me, guided me, healed me...I owe you all so very much!

So I'll hope that tonight finds you somewhere you'd like to be; that tomorrow you are still somewhere you'd like to be and that both of these days, the weekend and the New Year that begins tomorrow are all very kind to each of you!

alan

The day before...

always abounds in 2nd guessing and other musings; rather like reliving your life in short order...

What if?

Should I have?

Would it have been better?

The voices all whisper and this time I'm going to fight them off, because I know, deep down, that none of what is past can be changed by any amount of giving in to them!

This time, I will look forward not behind!

Ahead lies the time that is left me; the only things I can change are "now" and "the future".

So bring on 54 and we'll see how it plays!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Christmas Eve...

and after a madcap week of shopping, cleaning, rearranging the house for guests, wrapping and more shopping it's all come down to these last few hours.

Bill and Laura and Obie just got here after a 19 hour drive straight-through from Maryland. Obie apparently did well on his first road trip, especially for a shelter dog who was so very sick when they adopted him. He's made friends with Angel and peace with Frankie, so that bodes well for the human's holidays!

What the poor dog doesn't know is that the rain they drove through for about half their trip is starting to freeze right now and we're in for some of that good old Kansas ice before 8 inches or so of snow comes down over it. Apparently he wasn't very happy with the blizzard they had last weekend in D.C. and here they've driven him into another one for Christmas!



Dottie works today and then since she just had her annual review, a slight pay increase and a warning that it's very hard to use up 4 weeks of vacation so she should spread it out, she turned around and said "OK, what about next week while my son is here?". Her boss said that would be great and (so far) none of the higher-ups have rescinded it so we're hoping she's off until New Year's Day!

So that will be a treat for the whole family...

I hadn't planned on her being off on my birthday (the 29th) and had planned to bake my own cake, along with maybe sneaking off to an arthouse movie that I know she wouldn't have liked; instead I'll be trading my movie for her making her Mom's chocolate cake, the "Miracle Whip" one that has been my favorite chocolate one since the first one I ever tasted...I remember observing that if they buried the Pharoah's with things for their next life, she needed to bury me with one of those cakes! That was before I settled on cremation; there's no way I could waste one of those cakes that way!

I am adding all that because with extra houseguests and my antiblogging spouse at home, the chances of me getting here are slim to none!

May Christmas find you near to those you hold dear, in your hearts if not in person. I hold each of you that way; you have all come to mean so very much to me!

And may 2010 be the Happiest of New Years for you all! We are all due for some bluer skies and maybe that silver lining I keep hearing of...

Though in truth, the silver lining is here...with each of you!

May your days be Merry and Bright!

alan

Another day, another letter...

I wrote my Senators last week (that word "my" is kind of sticking in my craw at this point; they sure as hell don't represent me) asking them to support the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell". I even started my letter with "I know that next week I will receive a letter from you saying how much my thoughts on this matter mean to you, and then you both will proceed to tell me you support the status quo"!

Which is exactly what showed up a bit ago...

Mr. Brownback wrote to tell me how much my thoughts matter, then how wonderfully the current policy has worked and how "he'll listen to the military" when it comes to making policy...

Had Harry Truman listened to the military 60 years ago it would still be segregated!

The laws of inertia are that a mass in motion will continue in the direction it's going unless it's acted on by some outside force.

That "change from within" is impossible would be evidenced by the fact that during the Revolutionary War the army WAS integrated, as it was during the War of 1812, yet by the time of the Civil War it became segregated...outside forces had their influence and it stood for over 100 years!

I remember the rants in the 70's that there would never be women on carriers or their escorts; that there was just no way that could ever work. There was no way you could put women on ships that were going out for 8 or 9 months and have it not cause a problem.

Yet today women fill every billet in the Navy, just as they should.

'Tis truly sad that good lives are being ruined by those who reap political hay!

Didn't mean to start the week with a rant...

May the week be kind to you each!

alan

"Silver Bells..."

a bit of Christmas time from the city...



I was doing dishes at my sister's the other night as my wife packed up and my camera was on top of her pie safe. They found it yesterday afternoon and brought it when we did the traditional day-after-Thanksgiving "family movie". Walking back from where they were parked to where we were parked I shot a few frames, handheld, 1/15th wide open aperture 100 ASA setting.

I hope each of you who celebrated had a lovely Thanksgiving; may the weekend be kind to each of you!

alan

Oh to be a mouse...

inthe corner of this wonderful room...

or a trumpet player growing up in love with music...

New on my Christmas list:

"The Jazz Loft" by Sam Stephenson; photos by W. Eugene Smith! Like the author of the Vanity Fair article, I can only hope someone starts editing down these tapes for release!

W. Eugene Smith had already been a leading light at "Life" magazine; during WW2 he island-hopped across the Pacific with our troops. He is attributed by many to be the originator the "photo essay" which he used to help bring world attention to Minamata disease, a horrific form of mercury poisoning named for the city in Japan where the chemical was dumped into the bay, poisoning the food chain. Smith and his wife moved there in 1971 to help document the ravages of the disease; for his trouble he was beaten in 1972 by those who wished to suppress his work. He lost part of his vision in one eye and never fully recovered.

I'd like to think that perhaps these memories of an earlier happier time finding their way into print would please him!

May the rest of the week be kind to each of you! May those who gather 'round tables the day after tomorrow be blessed by those you care for most; may those who will be other places in the world know that each of you will be counted among my blessings!

alan

"Slip slidin' away..."

Another week rapidly disappearing "over the hill"...

but while scanning and Photoshopping things for that project I mentioned my sister working on, I took some time to go through some of what I shot while we were in Vermont in August.

Each trip we try and work in sightseeing as well as spending time with family; this time we managed a family trip to "The Shelburne Museum". I'll put some other photos up soon, but when I saw these I was as awed now as I was then.

I read this exhibit card and think of all the hours I've spent sitting in front of the TV or surfing online...

(Click to enlarge and please forgive my handheld 1/8th and 1/15th exposures, and the lack of a polarizing filter to kill the glare on the glass case? Next time I'm going back with a tripod!)












High wire acts, bicycles...the Wild West show...an amazing creation for the hands of one man!

Coming later...motorcycles...Tiffany lampshades...a paddlewheeler transported overland from Lake Champlain...

Well worth a visit if you ever get a chance to!

May the weekend be kind to each of you; may it be warm and dry (especially for those of you floating away in the UK) and for those who get to celebrate next Thursday, may your preparations for Thanksgiving be filled with love and knowledge that I'll be saying thanks for each of you next Thursday!

alan

One of the best photos I ever shot...

I've been scanning some old things for another project and though I couldn't get this one out of the "sticky" album it's been in for almost 40 years (it started to tear) I scanned it anyway...



Old Rolleiflex, Plus-X Pan developed in Edwal FG-7 and printed on #3 contrast Kodak paper.

I've tried to get this effect a dozen times in the 38 or 39 years since I shot this and never ever managed to...yet!

May the weekend be kind to each of you!

alan

Happier things...

Dorothy and Toto; an aerialist wanna-be; and the Man from Brown...

Somewhere there's a photo of a little boy on his way to kindergarten next to that tree; I need to find that!

Hoping that no matter what's going on in your world, somewhere there's some kindness in it!

alan

How the other half lives...

Not what I had planned to put here today...had planned on putting up a Halloween pic of some grandkids...

It really saddens me to see how much delight some of our electorate takes in disenfranchising others. Elsewhere this morning a wag pointed out that had abolition been subjected to popular vote in 1866 it would have lost as well...

I think it's time for me to start collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to ban ice storms!

No doubt I can get the necessary signatures; I am sure it would pass with a number that would stagger the pundits, pollsters and politicos! It would become the law of the land and every major winter storm could be touted as illegal from then on!

That it wouldn't change a damn thing doesn't matter, I'd still get to gloat over my victory!

May the rest of this sad day and the rest of the week be kind to each of you...

alan

Excuse the dust...

as I settle back in here, please?

The time away from here was interesting and not just the "net withdrawals" though they were in abundance, along with the worrying and wondering about each of you. Between a very sore wife sleeping on the couch in the living room and a very sick dog not understanding why her body was letting her down, the first two weeks were especially rough. Having to scoop the dog up with a sheet and carry her outside once she could sit up again after what I still think was a stroke was awkward for both of us, though she was grateful not to be "messing" herself and having me trying to clean up her and our (thankfully bare) floor.

She has gradually regained about 85% of her use of her hindquarters, is very stiff turning one direction and her head still lists as she gets tired; I'm very much hoping we don't get much ice this winter as her hips roll one way or the other without warning and I fear her "going down" on the ice like the German Shepard we had that had belonged to Dottie's Mom.

Dottie finally moved back into our bed last week, fearing if she slept on her side before she was mostly healed the "mesh" they sewed into her would not heal evenly. She was very grateful to be off the couch when she finally did and with the arthritis that has settled into her back, very grateful to be off of it! She returned to work yesterday and came home very sore, but OK.

There was a lot of quiet time that first few weeks when she would "nod off" for a while and so I started a book I'd had put away for many years, having spent more time reading shorter and lighter things. I stayed up on "current events" by leaving the TV in our bedroom on as I cooked and cleaned and such, with it set on "closed captions". Some of what I was reading intersected with those current events in ways I never dreamt of!

"The Reconstruction Finance Corporation is made up of fine men, honest, and mean well and if it was water they were distributing it would help the people it was meant to help. For water goes down hill and moistens everything on its way, but gold or money goes uphill. The Reconstruction loaned the railroads money, medium and small banks money, and all they did with it was pay off what they owed to the New York banks. So the money went uphill instead of down. You can drop a bag of gold in Death Valley, which is below sea level, and before Saturday it will be home to papa J.P. [Morgan]."

Will Rogers, 1933

Whether you look at the money that was supposed to take care of refinancing the homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure; the auto industry bailouts; the credit card companies raising our rates and such; the billions of dollars profit that the health care industry is making while they fight any change to the status quo; the Wall Street companies paying bonuses to their execs...old Will seems to be pretty spot on!

I was thinking last night that the last time we saw real "for the people" changes come from Congress it was what L.B.J. called the "Great Society" legislation. Perhaps if we called healthcare reform "The Healthy Society Act" or something similar the it might be more palatable to that "upper crust" who think they're the only ones entitled to society...it's so funny to hear them screaming that healthcare reform might change Medicare when they fought tooth and nail to keep Medicare from passing all those years ago!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

A house full!

Dottie's feeling enough better she asked for all 3 grandkids this weekend. Giving up the couch for the first time since her surgery meant she's actually sleeping in bed again...not comfortably, as she's still on her back, but at least in bed.

So it's 8am on Sunday morning and I'm sitting here with 2 of them watching "Snorks" on Boomer while she's gone to the store with one of them to get some "Children's Tylenol" for the one that woke us up crying with a fever. Glad I got my flu shot last week!

Hope all is well with all of you! Miss bloghopping and keeping up with you all!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Quick note...

4 weeks out now, Dottie is healing slowly. She still can't sleep on her side, so she's still on the couch, but the outside parts of things are healing and we're hoping everything inside is as well. That she can "feel" the mesh at times is worrisome...

Angel is back to about 80%, maybe 85% of where she was before her stroke/ear infection/brain tumor struck. She's finished all her meds, still wobbles and falls sometimes as she walks and her head lists more the tireder she is through the day. Bill made it home last week to spend 4 days with her and really brightened her days! He always considered her "his" dog anyway, though she lived here with us...

Winter is setting in, I've had to vacuum and light furnaces the last few days, along with patching another limb-punch in my roof. Had I worked this last summer I'd have replaced it as it's 25, but next summer will have to do...

Sorry for my lack of time here of late; rather closely supervised right now!

:o)

May the days be kind to each of you!

alan

14 days...

and Dottie's checkup today was fine; she hadn't "coughed" anything loose and the surgeon said that everything seemed to be right where he left it, despite the cold that lingered into a 2nd round of antibiotics.

Angel is stronger and walking further each day; though her head is still at a 30 degree list and her balance is very "off", she walks to the front door now and only wants a finger on her collar to steady her as she goes down the two steps to the yard; yesterday she walked the 100 feet to the backyard for the first time and wandered around her favorite haunts, then back to the front door.

Of course, eating canned dog food for the first time in her life seems to be her favorite part of the whole thing! (That and dinner rolls with her meds in them...)

Dottie is on the phone now talking to her sisters and updating them; thus my chance to do the same thing here...

May the week be kind to each of you! Thank you for all the well wishes and warm thoughts!

alan

Walking the dog...

though I still have to carry her outside, she's walking/staggering about now; walked at least 60' today and other functions have started again as well! I'd have never thought an ear infection could strike so suddenly or lay someone so low!

Fingers crossed, things are looking much brighter today!

May the weekend be kind to each of you!

alan

Strange days...

Dottie's surgery went well and she finally got her drain out yesterday. Sadly, the day before our dog of 14 years collapsed, showing all the signs of a stroke. We got her to the vet yesterday, who came out to my son's van and spent a 1/2 hour checking her over and then drawing blood, etc. and he said he hopes it's just an ear infection throwing off her balance and with her already weakened back legs (arthritis) that that's the reason she can't stand or walk. He started her on antibiotics and steroids...he also said if it's a brain tumor the steroids would help with it for a while then things will start slipping again.

Meanwhile, she's eating, drinking and loving all the extra attention.

Gotta go because if I walk away she'll crawl to try and follow me and Dottie's gone right now (the minute the drain came out she was ready to be "out and about") to pay the vet and pick up some canned food for her since she can't seem to deal with the dry she's always eaten and we've been cooking burgers for her on the George Foreman.

May life be kind to each of you!

alan

She's home...

very grumpy, very sore, but happy to be "out"!

alan

Krzysztof Kieslowski...missed so very much!

Those of you who "know" me know I love film; you also know how easily I fall under the spell of people and things.

When I used to read the "New Yorker" at work I would read the film listings and saw rave reviews for a retrospective of Kieslowski films ahead of the release of his "new" one at the time, "The Double Life of Veronique". There was only one "art house" here at the time and with the hours I worked, getting there was pretty much impossible. Luckily, it wasn't all that long after I noticed on Cinemax that "Veronique" was playing. I recorded it, caught up with it not so long after and was completely spellbound. The film; the story; the music; the cinematography...a perfect magical package!

When I discovered a local video rental that handled foreign and early cinema, I was in heaven. I started exploring some of Krzysztof's earlier works. The brothers that ran it told me that had just ordered "The Decalog" and that I really needed to watch it. When it came in, 5 volumes of two pieces each, they were constantly out and I only got one tape watched before they lost their lease on the theatre they were running. Thankfully, they've moved up and onwards and now run the best "arthouses" in Kansas City, but the video club never began again.

In the meantime I acquired DVD's of the film trilogy he did; "Three Colors: Blue", "Three Colors: White" and "Three Colors: Red"

So when my younger son gave us a Netflix subscription a year ago last Christmas I was delighted to find a lot of the old silent cinema I'd been unable to find locally, along with Kieslowski's ouevre and so many others. (My queue is 384 movies at this point.)

These last few weeks I've been going through "The Decalog", in order 1-10 and find myself captivated and replaying them in my mind while doing other things. Loosely fit to the "10 Commandments", I got to "Decalog 8" last night and have no doubt that I will be haunted by Kieslowski's poignant "ethical hell" for the rest of my life...

Knowing Dottie would be wanting to come to bed soon (I was watching in our bedroom), I watched some of the extra features on the disc. One was "100 Questions", a group of film writers in an interview with him.

Several times the great man insists that he doesn't believe in the power of cinema to change people or society; that if people see a film and "choose to reflect" on it and then change, that is their choice.

I'd like to think he left them no choice but to reflect...

If you don't mind subtitles, these are all wonderful; both the movies I mentioned and "The Decalog" as well!

As an aside; I've never heard film music more wonderful than the scores by Zbigniew Preisner! I first fell in love with the score he wrote for "Veronique"; it has echoed in my soul since the first time I heard it...

Dottie goes in for surgery in the morning then she's on sick leave for at least 6 weeks, during which I'll be going back to work to keep us "afloat". I don't know how much time I'll have here, given her "anti-blogging" stance, but will post an occasional update while she's in the shower or something.

May the week and the ensuing weeks be kind to each of you!

alan

Slip-sliding away...

The year...life...my leisure...

I've finally shaken "the cold", grateful to have it "gone" but worried as Dottie is starting to cough and she has surgery next week. Hopefully her constant exposure to things at work will protect her a bit.

In the moments I had where I felt good last week I managed to drill the garage floor and bolt down the new air compressor; wired it; spent some time drawing a manifold system for it (air distribution) and made trips to Lowe's and Harbor Freight to accumulate the pieces for it. I assembled most of it yesterday and discovered I was one $1.08 piece short of finishing it; I've already been out today to get it and am waiting for the rain to subside so I can move the boat out enough to move my roll-away and assemble the last bits and leak check it. Having watched pipefitters do this kind of thing for 30 years at GM paid off handsomely. Having always worked at the long end of too much air hose at home, perhaps my "lug gun" will actually break the ones on my truck now instead of me doing it by hand!

Not much else going on at the moment...

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Wheezy...

Having caught a cold from the guy I slept with while "on the road" for the funeral (my son) I've been more than a bit under the weather these past few days. Not the usual, perhaps because it's a late summer bug, or early winter given our temps, the mucus isn't the problem, it's just the cough from hell that won't stop until you get halfway through the bottle of syrup...I've been sleeping on the couch (much to my cat's dismay) so I don't disturb Dottie; by the time she gets up I'm "liquored up" enough on Tussin DM to sleep about 2 hours straight in our bed before I wake up and start coughing again. Annoying is the little "squeaky toy" wheeze that wakes me at the end of each breath 'til I get there...

My air compressor blew a hole through the tank 2 days before I left for Vermont; inherited from Dad, it was a 28 year old "Sears Best" that they no longer stocked parts for (the regulator had been leaking for about 5 years and I couldn't get them anywhere else either). Before he died Dad had been assembling a collection of air tools to do bodywork, jitterbugs and air files, etc., that even that 2 horse 220/volt wouldn't quite "pull". If it didn't have other problems I'd have tried to weld the tank up (couldn't make it any worse, lol).

So in a last binge of deficit spending before I return to the workforce, I caught a Craftsman Club sale and bought a 2.5 horse, 150 psi vertical (stands up like your hot water tank) with a 60 gallon tank. I brought it home last week, getting John and Dillon to help me unload it as it weighs more than I do (and that's getting up there). Yesterday, while slipping out for cough syrup, I bought a cord and new outlet to wire it with because I couldn't match the old plug.

I also have to build a manifold system for the "out" side of things; rigid pipe still being cheaper than the fancy plastic systems they sell, I'll pick that up this afternoon after I eat something and down some "non-drowsy" cough syrup. I picked up a filter/water separator and a regulator, as I don't think I have a bit of hose newer than 30 years old and one regulator is cheaper than replacing 150 feet of air hoses right now should I blow them up at 150psi.

Later I'll add a 2nd "drop" and a dryer for spray guns; I painted a few cars "back in the day" and grew up watching Dad do about one a year, if not for himself for someone else, on top of his own touch up work.

He got his first compressor when I was 4. My Mom was pregnant with my sister and had decided she had to learn how to drive (she was 29). While he was at work, she took me and his pride and joy '55 Ford Fairlane to the courthouse for her exam. Somehow she passed it, then on the way home turned a corner "short" and raked it from front wheel to rear on a set of concrete steps...he couldn't afford to pay someone to "do it right" so like so many other things, did it himself. According to her the only reason she came home was because she was pregnant and knew he wouldn't kill her...

Through the years I watched him paint the '47 Studebaker truck he put together from the wrecking yard ($25 with a blown engine) and used to dig the basement under this house I'm sitting in; watched him 2-tone a '55 Chevy for a neighbor's son because he liked the kid and liked the car. I watched him rebuild and paint a '59 Rambler for a nephew he felt was being deprived. He put the front of that same '55 Fairlane back together after he sold it to Mom's Mom after she learned to drive and got hit by someone running a red light. Having promised it to me when I got old enough to drive, I think he felt guilty about having to sell it and had hoped she'd keep it 'til I could drive; it didn't work out that way.

After he moved to that bigger compressor and a bigger spray gun, I used his old ones and painted several myself, my own and others. Though my knowledge is passe at this point (you can still buy lacquer and enamel, but not many people use them because the newer finishes survive abuse so much better), there is still a place inside me that wants to learn how to spray a set of flames...I've got a nephew that can and if I can't learn on my own I may have to twist his arm a bit...

Which is rather funny actually, because not long ago I was cursing because I couldn't lay a straight line of masking tape on a window I was painting!

:o)

Enough prattling from me...

May each of your Sundays be amazing and the coming week be kind!

alan

Reflections

It's been a few days now since I returned from the funeral. Seeing Uncle Bill was great and my cousins as well. I never knew the rest of my Dad's side of the family as well as I did my Mom's or my Dad's Mom.

The service was in the "small" chapel of a "mega-church". Though beautiful, I couldn't help but wonder how many of the little churches my Grandfather had pastored would have fit inside and what he or Uncle Walter would have thought of it. Grandpa's last church, the one he wasn't supposed to take after he retired, had 13 regular members on the Sunday we attended...

Thinking of the 62 years Uncle Bill and Aunt Frances had together is cause for much reflection. Him at 85 and her at 84, Dottie and I will be almost the same ages should be "make it" that long. Right now at 33 years together, that number seems impossible if only from the viewpoint of longevity!

My parent's 60th would have been next year had cancer not claimed Dad in '83. I'm not sure what he'd have done when Mom's MS progressed to the point it is now...at least Uncle Bill got to keep Aunt Frances at home despite the Alzheimer's she had developed.

Uncle Bill lost a kidney a few years ago to kidney cancer; now it seems his remaining one is shutting down and he has to decide whether he wants to spend 4 hours a day at the hospital 3 days a week for dialysis as he isn't a candidate for doing it at home. Though healthy in every other way and seemingly in good spirits, I fear learning what his decision will be.

The trip to Oklahoma and back was interesting; they are replacing the old 2 lane state highway with 4 lane. Much of it lies parallel to a railroad right-of-way still in use. In places the old telegraph poles still run alongside the rails, wires drooping or on the ground in places, poles listing like drunken sailors after a long voyage as they rot away, some lying all the way down, others held in mid-air by the wires they were supposed to be holding, the glass insulators so prized a few years ago still atop them. The tracks are 2-4 feet above the old highway surface; standard practice to save a railbed in case of flooding.

The new highway is 2 to 15 feet above the railbed!

If that southeast corner of Kansas ever floods high enough to need that elevation, there will be a new Great Lake in the Midwest! As flat as it is (the rolling hills don't start 'til north of Chanute) 3 or 4 feet of water will spread for miles...

The juxtaposition of old against new was much in evidence these last few days...old windmills long forgotten along with barns, fences and silos against the newer rural water towers and newer homes in places.

Old row motels abandoned along with service stations...

Santa Fe #1079 sitting at Coffeyville for all the world like she's just waiting for someone to wake up and quit burning oil...

I wonder what my grandkids will see if they retrace these steps in 40 years?

May the week be kind to each of you...

alan

Settling and unsettling...

With the errands close to caught up, the laundry almost done and put away and the dinner menu figured out, I'm catching my breath for a minute...

My "little" sister turned 50 while I was on the road; at first determined to delay her party for a while as "she wasn't in a rush" she's now decided that "she'll always be older than me" and therefore we started trying to work things out for this weekend.

Yesterday as I got back in my truck at Sears I found a text from her saying "call me"...

"Uncle Bill called a little bit ago; Aunt Frances died this morning."

My Dad's only surviving brother, I never saw that much of him until a few years before my Dad got sick; when my Dad was dying of cancer, Uncle Bill was a rock. Always there, always the right words or the right story...his wit and smile were a great comfort.

We're still having Cindy's birthday party but it's been moved up to tomorrow; Sunday I'm driving to her house and we'll be driving to Oklahoma to spend the night. The funeral is on Monday and we'll return after. My younger son is planning to join us...

Dottie and I had been talking all summer about trying to put together a 3 day weekend to go down and see them...Aunt Frances had apparently been fine 'til the last two weeks when pneumonia "got ahold of her" and refused to "let go".

Instead of putting off the "local" relatives for the "long distance" ones, now I get to regret not doing things the other way 'round!

If you have a chance to make a phone call, write a card, or visit someone; do it while they're in your thoughts...you just never know!

May the weekend be kind to each of you!

alan

Road Warrior...

After 14 days "on the road", for the first time ever I felt "jet lag" when we got home last night. Actually, before we got home; yesterday we spent trading drivers every couple of hours and napping when we weren't driving.

I-70 to Maryland was a run...until Dayton, one we're used to; from there it was unfamiliar territory. Tunnels in West Virginia, some short and some much longer; construction back-ups that went on for 10 miles in one instance, thankfully for the westbound lanes instead of ours. It's the first time I ever saw people actually out of their cars talking to each other, they were backed up for so long! We decided then we were going home a different route!

We unloaded Mr. Penske's truck on Friday and returned it, very grateful to him for it's use, it's V-8, it's CD player along with the AAA discount he gave us. Bill actually paid for the truck, giving us cash in return for renting it which funded the rest of our trip.

Originally we had hoped he and Laura would get to ride to Vermont with us, but he had a meeting to attend on Tuesday and Laura wasn't sure she could get away from work. We drove up on Saturday, about a 12 hour run at the pace we do things, about 20% over the MapQuest time, with our bellies full and our legs stretched. We got into Shelburne about when we had figured and found things just as our brother-in-law said they'd be, grateful to be there and for the loan of his house while he and Dottie's sister Jane were at their cabin on Lake Champlain.

Sunday we arrived at the lake at the designated time; Ed had wanted us to come and surprise Jane and we pulled it off. It was supposed to be "family day" and he hollered into the cabin that one of her sisters was here and was even on time and she was saying something about which one she thought it would be when she came through the door and saw us...

Jane has always been very active, sports, skiing, etc.. Several years ago she had to have an ACL reconstructed; now the cartilage in one knee is gone and she's in a brace part of the time. The surgeons keep telling her to fix it; she keeps stalling until it's worse...it's starting to "get to her" and that's part of why Ed wanted to arrange something to cheer her up.

Dottie's other sisters, Verne and Deb arrived a bit later with families in tow and a great afternoon was had by all.

Monday we spent at the lake as well, though it was a bit of a dreary day; much like most of the year has been in the Northeast from what I gathered.

Tuesday started that way, but cleared by noon; the temps rose and Ed wanted to take his Sea Ray out for the 2nd day all year (he and Jane love the water and boating). We got out for about an hour and a half that afternoon, stopping part way through so I could tighten a pump bracket that was "buzzing" that his mechanic hadn't found in a year of looking.

Ed's daughter took the boat out for a bit after that and came back with it sounding like an unmuffled stock car; what we thought was a blown exhaust manifold gasket turned out to be a head gasket when he took it to the shop the next morning. The boat was "done" for the week...

Bill and Laura flew up on Wednesday; we picked them up at Burlington and though Laura had to do a couple of teleconferences while we were there we still found time to get she and Bill together with all the families and do some of the "touristy" things as well. (More about those later, along with pictures...)Shelburne Museum, Smuggler's Notch...lots of fun for all!

Saturday we made the rounds on our way out of Vermont, saying goodbye to Jane and Ed when they got home from the lake at 9AM, then Verne and her family; driving to Northfield to say goodbye to Deb and so Laura could see where Dottie grew up. From there, out through the "gulf" where I've asked for my ashes to be spread when my time comes, then back onto the interstate to Springfield to meet up with Dottie's sister-in-law Irene and her family. We left there at 4 heading over the mountains through Bennington to Albany then retraced the route we took going up, going back through Scranton and Harrisburg to avoid Philadelphia and New York City. We were back to Bill's at 3AM on Sunday so they could get up and get their pets out of the kennels early. We spent that day a bit lazy, sorting circuit breakers in his house (labelling them) and wiring a doorbell, then went to bed "early" so we could start our journey home on Monday.

Deb had called to remind us we should take the Blue Ridge Parkway south as we left; taking it then coming across on I-64 only added 70 some miles to the route and actually knocked several hours off because there was so little construction. I never thought I'd hear my wife say the mountains were making her claustrophobic, but the passes in West Virginia did...

We spent the night in Kentucky, then drove the rest of the way in yesterday. Our cat spent the hour we used unpacking the car to tell us exactly what he thought of us; we went and picked up Angel at John's and though a bit gimpy, she seems OK. Today neither of them particularly wants me out of sight.

Off to move laundry and figure out what's for dinner...glad to be home!

I missed each of you...

May the week be kind!

alan

Slick trick!

I was looking for some W. C. Handy blues for a friend, because (for me anyway) one of the best cures for the blues is a dose of them! I ran across this, though and have watched it a half dozen times now.

I've seen "modern" drummers with 97 drums and 35 cymbals and assistants that can't do what this man does with a standard trap-set with one extra floor tom and one added cymbal. (Of course, he or Krupa could do it without those additions I'm sure, along with a short list of others like Louis Bellson!)

So while I get things ready to hit the road for a couple of weeks on Wednesday, I'll leave this for your enjoyment:



May your weekend be as fantastic as Mr. Rich's solo!

alan

Inspired...

by Ange's comment below:

"Education is in need of an overhaul. It's scary, the budget cuts, but on the other hand, the human mind will not be held back. Lincoln read by firelight. We have Lincolns among us. Tomorrow's great minds will crave and appreciate the knowledge they've gained BECAUSE it was more difficult to come by."

I recalled a similar thought by another great mind:

"Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth." Will Rogers



Thank you both for the smile!

May the weekend be wonderful for each of you!

alan

Sorting out a lifetime!

Since my oldest son moved east last fall, he's bought a house and asked for some of the things he left behind here when he left. Textbooks, notebooks, furniture and the treadmill he left at his in-laws. We've been sorting things for weeks now on Dottie's days off to find them all, as they had taken residence in different closets and corners of the basement.

This weekend in the midst of yet another tote-full of notes and notebooks she called to figure out if he wanted all of them, or only the physics and astronomy texts, she called him. He decided he only wants the college physics and astronomy ones for now because "a lot of the physics I learned in high school was wrong"!

He went to one of the best science and academics schools in the state...

That sentence has given me pause in the two days since it was relayed when my wife hung up from talking to him. Pause because he's had to unlearn things that were wrong; erase the data and replace it; much harder than the initial learning, or it always has been for me. I usually remember, for now, the things that have been that way for me; it's another reason I always go back to "the book" for a torque on things even if I'm sure I remember it. The Navy taught me well there!

I'm also given pause knowing that he and his brother attended that school at a time of economic plenty; new books, smaller classes, new computers...the world was their oyster. Given that the State is slashing money right and left and the easiest target is always education, I fear for the things the kids there now will have to unlearn!

My grandmother, having spent much time on the reservations through her and Grandpa's 40 years "in the ministry" said she always thought the Cherokee had it right when they said that the result of every decision should be pondered not for it's immediate result but how it would affect those 7 generations from now.

Wisdom lost or wasted, I fear!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Annual inspection...

I had hoped to put off my physical until after Dottie's vacation, but my prescription for my blood pressure med was exhausted and I'm not down to a weight where I'm comfortable going without it. My little excursion into the front yard last winter and the resultant back injury not only cost me what progress I'd made since retirement, but the ensuing depression over it all and watching the demise of all I'd poured my heart and soul into for 30 years along with worrying at every step about it's result on me had me seeking sunshine and other things and I haven't made any real progress towards dealing with it since!

That said, all the "numbers" were good except for the one from the weight scale; after they drew my blood last week they faxed in a prescription for my bp med. I got him to write two extra scrips, one for the cream the dermatologist prescribed for my eczema and one for the eye drops the ophthalmologist had prescribed last year as they had both expired and I couldn't afford the office visit to the dermatologist right now and have lost my vision care along with my dental.

The prescriptions that last month would have cost me $11/5/11 now cost $25/10/25; I'm grateful the bp med is a generic or it would have cost me $50.

2 years ago we had gotten 5 office visits a year paid for; when I retired last year they took those away from the retirees but told us that "your max annual out-of-pocket is $328" and that when we met that they would be paid for. My wife heard from the wife of another retiree the other day, one who has been trying to get things that were supposed to be paid taken care of, that they have changed that as well but haven't bothered to mail us the fine print. I guess that $300 bill we got for Dottie's office visit to the surgeon last month may be mine in it's entirety! I can't imagine what I'll owe by the time she's "put back together"!

Yet the Republicant's in D.C. think "stopping Obama" is much more important than stopping my financial bloodloss!

I keep getting letters back from my Senators telling me how much they value my opinion and that they will keep it in mind as they vote, then they proceed to tell me that they have concerns about "this" or "that" and that they are going to go right ahead and vote the way they intended to all along. My choices for representation in the Senate seem to be to move or move...

I know many of you are tired of the vitriol; tired of the words; tired of the pleas. But if you stop listening, stop writing, stop calling then nothing is going to change!

Please, keep an ear to the ground...if you live somewhere where an e-mail or a letter or a 2 minute phone call can change some Senator's mind, please; I'm begging; take the time!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Bandage free, at last!

Though not healed completely, my leg finally is closing and as long as I avoid shoes most of the time I'm getting by. Never thought I'd be working in the garage wearing flip-flops!

Yesterday I put the lattice work over the last window on the garage, the hubcaps back on my truck after re-torquing the lugnuts for the 3rd time, then John came by and changed the oil in both his vehicles as the hazardous waste drop off is this next Saturday and I didn't want 4 gallon jugs of engine oil hanging around for the next month (I already had one from Jordan's Galaxie and will catch Dottie's Malibu one night this week when she comes home to change it before our trip).

One of the benefits I "lost in the shuffle" was the 5 free office visits we had won in the last contract; they actually took those away last year about a month after I retired. With our slowly sinking financial status I've been avoiding the clinic ($55) or the doctors office ($65 and up) except under the direst circumstances. Tomorrow will begin a round of that as I need to refill my blood pressure medicine so have to go in for my "annual". The one "they" don't like to pay for...

Timing being everything, at least the bill won't come in 'til after Dottie's vacation! When I bought the manual for my truck last week the guys at the parts house made sure I left with a job app and though it's further than I'd like to drive, I won't be quite as worried about leaving at closing time as I would be in my own neighborhood.

We're still in the "rain cycle" here and since it's been dry for about 36 hours and the next batch is about 2 hours west of me, I'm heading out to mow...

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Regeneration...

of hide is coming along nicely, thank you all who were concerned. It was itching so badly yesterday that after Dottie re-wrapped it I took a couple of Benedryl, slept 6 hours, woke up and took 2 more along with a melatonin and slept 'til 9 this morning. Something like 18 of the last 24 hours...I needed to as I was pretty burnt out anyway!

I had some JP-5 burns (jet kerosene) back in my late teens as I was the smallest jet mech in my squadron and when we had a bunch of fuel cells leaking (coffin-sized rubber bladders under the deck of the helos I worked on) I ended up being assigned to change them as I did a couple that didn't leak afterwards (should have known better) and didn't mind the "buzz" that came from breathing the fumes for hours on end. They assigned a metalsmith to pull the deck, an electrician to pull the wiring and me to pull the lines, the pumps and the bladder itself. The Maintenance Chief also offered up a case of beer for each one we changed that didn't leak...the two guys assigned decided that they'd rather work than do their 15 minutes and sit and listen to me rattling around underneath the deck for a couple of hours, so we started pulling them 3 at a time.

The helos had been defueled, but that doesn't get all of it and the "sump" in the bottom of the bladder always had a bit in it. The first time I came out with a silver dollar sized spot on my dungarees the Chief told me to spray "Right Guard" on it as the aluminum chorhydrate would keep if from blistering and therefore peeling.

Had I only thought of that last week before I went to bed!

It was so hot last week (heat index in the 110's) that when I felt my ankle start to burn, I knew I was 2 hours from done for the night and just ignored it. I should have gone and washed my leg off, but in that heat I wasn't thinking clearly...that was the culmination of too many days in a row in that kind of heat and I really wonder if one's brain doesn't start to cook after a while!

Instead my 2 hours turned to 3; I finished and showered, figuring out it was blistered, but the burn stopped. I went to bed while my nephew and wife sat up watching movies, got up and dressed the next morning without thinking about it and two hours later felt the burn even worse as the top of my sock had taken all the hide off the blister, the skin under it now raw and being ground up by the elastic and the sock rubbing away each time I moved.

I still managed to mow and get things ready for the family 4th celebrations; yesterday was the first day I've managed to avoid socks since this began and plan another for today.

I hope all is well with each of you and none of you are ever so foolish as to not go wash something off when you feel it start to sting!

May the week be kind!

alan

DEET and me...

Things continue at their usual pace here, even if I'm only at half warp...

I had mentioned elsewhere I had a bad reaction to some bug spray last Saturday while working on my nephew's car; the fuzzy photo is from 5 days later...



Since then even more hide has come off and the bandages grow bigger. I finally got my wife to relent yesterday and let me use Neosporin on it instead of zinc oxide (her favorite) and am hoping it heals a bit faster now.

The Galaxie went home on Sunday afternoon, running pretty well. Think it needs a set of plugs and I still have an oil leak to hunt down once it's been degreased. Sorry I didn't get any pictures of it; the heat index was over 100 and I was lucky to be thinking at all...

Off now to help John cut up some brush and haul it before the 4th; I just wanted to apologize for my absence and wish each of you who gets to celebrate tomorrow a very Happy 4th of July!

alan