Requiscat in Pace, Kaffee Haus

Requiscat in Pace, Kaffee Haus

Back in the very early '70's, after I'd fulfilled my military obligation and had gone back to the factory I'd worked at before enlisting, I realized that being a factory worker wasn't something that I'd be satisfied with for the rest of my life. I began to search around for something else to get into and realized that I had the G.I. Bill available to me and that I could use it for money if I wanted to go to school.

But what did I want to study?

My training in the Air Force was in meteorology and I'd pretty much burned myself out at that in four years, so it would have to be something else. I thought that computers looked interesting and looked at a computer school in Akron. After touring the facility I'd decided to go there and had even gone to that school to start classes on the day I was supposed to. But when I arrived for my first class, the storefront that had housed the school was empty, totally deserted. The school was obviously closed. It had apparently happened sometime between the time I'd put down a deposit and the time I'd tried to start attending class. A few weeks, tops. Luckily I hadn't put much money down for the classes – perhaps less than $50, so I wasn't out much cash, but it was disheartening and humiliating to realize I'd been fleeced. I like to believe in my heart that the closing of the school was something that wasn't foreseen when I'd given the place my deposit, that it had gone belly-up abruptly, but that was probably just wishful thinking. I'd been hoodwinked, film-flammed and taken. I contacted the Better Business Bureau and found out that I was only one of a rather large number of erstwhile students who had been relieved of various amounts of money and not given any classes at all. They said my chances of recompense were virtually nil. They said I was lucky my loss was so small.

So I was again looking for a place to get some sort of education.

After some more research I realized that there was a quite respectable business college in my home town. For some reason I'd never considered going there. It had been in business for many, many years, had lots of respectable graduates who were all over the place in business and government, and it was a place which accepted and appreciated former G.I.'s. Plus they had classes in computer stuff!

I applied and was accepted.

I started my classes and attended there for about a year and a half, after which I graduated with a diploma in Computer Programming and Higher Accounting. I ended up with a sheepskin diploma and a job opportunity upon graduation.

All was well.

But this story isn't about my education after being in the military. It's actually about a place to eat.

So how do we get from a school to a restaurant? Let's continue on a bit further.

I ended up attending the business college two times, all told. The first time was an approximate 18 month period in the early '70's after which I earned a diploma. The second time was in the later '70's after the college had received accreditation and was allowed to award Associate Degrees in certain fields. I went back the second time around and ended up earning two Associate Degrees, one in Accounting and one in Business Administration. That time I attended evening classes. The first go-around was day classes.

But that still doesn't lead us to the place to eat does it? So let's carry on, shall we?

Since the first year-and-a-half's classes were all day affairs and conducted during the daytime, we were dismissed over the lunch hour and had to find places to eat. There were several choices close by, one a little place on the ground floor of the building the school was in, which we frequented often. Another we hit once in a while was at the local Newberry's five and dime store which had a lunch counter and pretty good lunches for low, low prices.

And the other place that we liked to go to was on the north end of town. We had to drive there, eat pretty fast, and get back to classes quickly, but we really liked the place. Sometimes we were a little late returning to classes on the days we ate there, but we weren't usually chastised for lateness by the school. We were paying our fees and tuition and that was the important fact at our school.

This restaurant in the north end was a Perkins Pancake House.

For those of you not familiar with the name, it is a chain of restaurants that originated in Cincinnati in 1958, franchised itself over the next 11 years and ended up having over 480 restaurants in 34 states and 5 Canadian provinces. The corporation is still doing business today albeit with fewer restaurants due to restructuring and the economy. Our Perkins did business as Perkins from 1969 until 1978 when it was sold and renamed “The Kaffee Haus”. It remained in business until just recently.

Back in my college days, when we would visit the restaurant for our quick lunches, we liked the fact that the breakfast menu was available all day. One of our particular treats up there was the blueberry waffle. It was a huge hot waffle with a big dollop of blueberry compote on top and finished off with a couple mounds of homemade whipped cream. It was a lot of calories, of course, but in those days we were young and could burn one off pretty quickly. A blueberry waffle and coffee was our good-to-go meal then. Our breakfast of champions, so to speak.

I can still smell the grainy waffle smell and the sweet, sweet odor of the blueberry and whipped cream.

The place was also interesting because of the artwork that was displayed there. From as far back as I could remember there were huge paintings on the walls of the restaurant, probably 7 or 8 as I recall. All were large paintings on canvas, some probably 3 foot by 3 foot, others up to 4 foot by 6 foot. All of them depicting scenes of my hometown's founding and pivotal events in its history. One showed a gentleman named August Imgard who was purportedly the first man to have a Christmas tree in America and was a citizen of our hometown. Another showed a wagon train heading across the Appalachians heading there. Still another showed the arrival of the first train and the festivities which welcomed it. Another one had a portrait of the Revolutionary War general who our town is named after and another had the portrait of the famous local Indian chief whose name is still commemorated in a stream that flows through town. They were surprising well done works, all obviously by the same amateur hand, all colorful and interesting in their own ways. I always enjoyed studying them as I'd wait for my food to arrive.

After college I rarely visited the establishment. My wife and I would go there occasionally, but not with any frequency.

About a dozen years or so ago, my wife and I began to make it a habit to eat breakfast out on Saturday mornings. It wasn't really a conscious decision. We just got into the habit of starting our weekend with someone else cooking our breakfasts. We'd eat at different restaurants around town, but more and more began gravitating to the Kaffee Haus. We became regulars after a while, and soon had a free and easy acquaintance with the wait staff. We liked the menu and were quite happy to spend an hour or so a week with the nice ladies who waited tables there. We had our favorites and enjoyed the chit-chat with them as they went about their duties.

But time doesn't stand still and the lady who owned the restaurant had gotten on in years and had grown tired of running it. She'd been in the restaurant business for 42 years and was ready to pull the plug.

So in late August of this year, the restaurant went on the auction block. The lady owner had tried to sell the business privately to someone who was interested in keeping it as a restaurant, and we'd all been rooting for that particular resolution, but she had been unable to do so.

The restaurant sold quickly I've heard.

And of course it didn't go to anyone interested in keeping it as a restaurant. In fact, it sold to the veterinary clinic next door. He wanted the property to expand his business.

The wrecking ball and backhoes took down the building a week or two ago. All that's left is a small patch of dirt with yellow construction tape around it. The footprint of the restaurant can still be seen in the dirt.

It's surprisingly small.

So, in the end, the life of this building can be counted as 42 years, give or take a month or two. Uncounted meals had been served and enjoyed there and many lives touched by the family that owned it and the loyal workers who spent some or most of their working lives there.

My wife and I are sad that it's gone. We miss the special recipe pancakes, the blueberry waffles. We miss the smiles of the waitresses and their small talk as they hustled to serve the meals. We miss the comfort of being a “regular” at a place that welcomed you.

We miss the Kaffee Haus.

We've since moved our Saturday breakfast business to a restaurant only a short distance from the old property. It's picked up a lot of the trade from the old place and is quite busy but it's not really the same. One of our favorite waitresses from the old place is even working there. We're glad she found a position so quickly. But it's still not the same.

I have no idea where the other ladies are today. I hope they found jobs and I wish all the staff well.

So another chapter in my hometown's history has come to an end. It also ends a chapter in my own history, one that stretches from my college days through my adult years and up to the present.

I drove by the site again today on my way to work. I looked to my left and saw the small sad patch of dirt sitting there like an accusation, like a sad commentary, like the socket of a tooth that had weakened in old age and had to be extracted.

I turned my face away, my eyes misting a bit with nostalgia, and drove on to work.

Arizona On My Mind

Arizona On My Mind

The early afternoon sun shone buttery yellow in a cornflower blue sky this past Sunday. The day was unusually warm and pleasant for a mid-autumn day in my little part of northeast Ohioland. I walked up the rising ground from the clubhouse toward the first tee at a local golf course then stood on the tee. I raised a hand to shade my eyes from the sun and gazed toward the first hole.

“What's the distance?” I asked my companion Ray.

“165 yards”, he replied glancing down at the scorecard in his hand as he wrote down our names with the stubby yellow pencil.

I fixed my steady brown eyes at the pin on the first hole and noted the fluttering of the flag. Wind a bit from left to right, I thought. I'll hit a full-swing five-iron a smidgen to the right and draw it slightly around. Piece of cake.

I placed the white Titlest golf ball on the tee and took my stance. I gazed to my left again at the hole to affix the sight-picture into my mind, looked back at the ball, waggled the Tommy Armor magnesium iron twice and took a smooth stroke. The ball leaped at the contact with the swinging iron and rose like a fighter jet boosting off the catapult of a carrier, rising sweetly into the bright blue sky and curving ever so slowly to the left before gently settling on the emerald putting surface. I smiled, stepped away from the tee box and said to Ray, “Your turn, partner.”

Of course that's the way I'd have liked to have it happen. That was the way I wished and hoped and tried to have it happen. And, of course, that's definitely not the way it did happen.

What actually happened was this: I was huffing and puffing like an aged steam engine and sweating bullets after climbing the rise to the first tee. I hadn't even touched a golf club for years so when I pulled the iron out of the bag it felt like it was the first time I'd ever done so. I'd even forgotten what brand the club was. I'd looked at the first hole and remembered the dozens if not hundreds of botched shots I'd made there over the years. So, with a thousand conflicting thoughts rumbling around in my head about swing, stance, head placement, ball placement, hand position, grip, backswing, power stroke and followthrough, I deftly pulled my first shot 30-degrees left and directly into the line of residences that sat over there.

Oh crap... out of bounds, I thought. But at least I didn't break any windows!

I could feel my cheeks burning redly with embarrasment as I quickly teed up a second ball and proceeded to top it about a hundred yards more-or-less toward the hole. I was laying three with still a wedge to the green. On this crappy little par 3. Lord... Lord... Lord.

Ray did much better, of course, and continued to do so the rest of the round.

Ray is my newest friend. He's also the husband of a dear, dear lady friend of my wife and myself. He's her second husband, her soul-mate and a guy I wish I'd known as long as I've known his wife Pam. He's also a much better golfer than I. I figured my only salvation on that Sunday was that he had not played for a number of years also.

I like Ray. He's a man of few pretenses. He is what he projects he is. He's not a braggart, but is a man who has done many interesting things. I enjoy listening to his stories, I enjoy being in his company and I enjoy his view on life itself. I'm even beginning to understand his political viewpoint on some issues.

A little.

I've spent the last couple of our meetings trying to place his face. He has one of those mugs that sorta remind you of someone else. Maybe president Truman on a good day? Perhaps John Lithgow in one of his earlier works? Or that actor that played that cop on that TV show... what's it called? The one where...? Hell, maybe he even reminds me of my 8^th grade science teacher.

In any event, he had a face that reflected a life well-lived and a joie de vivre about the years that lay ahead of him.

Did I mention yet that I liked him?

His wife was college buddy of mine, a bridesmaid at my wife's and my wedding, one of our best friends during young adulthood during her first marriage and someone I'd trust with the keys to my castle and the combination to my vault.

They were, in all respets, a great couple and I loved being able to call them both friends.

I have no doubts, dear reader, that you'd like them too.

They've called Arizona their home for the past decade-and-a-half or so, in a small desert town not far from the spiritual Mecca and global power-spot of the crystal gazers and new-agers, the mystical Sedona. They're both retired now, Ray from a computer admin position with a well-known tourism company, Pam from a psychological therapist position at a nearby hospital. Since Ray's retirement was recent, they decided to grab their cat, bid adieu to their Arizona friends, fire up the GPS and drive their motorhome east to take the vacation they'd promised themselves for a long, long time. And to take care of some business in their old hometowns.

So early in September my phone rings and I hear Pam's voice saying, “We're here! We're here!” And so they were – parked in the driveway of her mom's house sat a beautiful large motorhome with colorful Arizona license plates.

My wife and I were just about to leave on our own vacation, so, as much as we hated it, we weren't able to get together with Pam and Ray for a couple of weeks. During that time period they accomplished a lot of the business they had to take care of and had visited with many relatives and friends. They'd even taken a short break and had driven to a campground “down the road” and had spent some quality time together alone, too.

Not long after my wife and I had returned from our vacation we finally had a chance to get together with our Arizona buddies. It was a simple movie and dinner outing, but the movie was quite good, the dinner was even better and the company was outstanding! We ended up back at their motor-home where we fiddled around on their laptop for a bit and yakked back and forth for a couple hours, catching up on what we'd been doing over the years and reminiscing a bit about the old days. During the conversation I said something about how Ray and I had never had the chance to “hit the links” like we'd said we'd like to and Pam had said, “How about you guys going tomorrow?”

I replied, “ Tomorrow is Monday and we have to work.”

My lovely wife interjected by saying, “No it isn't. Tomorrow is Sunday.” I'd seemed to have lost a day somewhere.

Dammit!

I paused a moment, realizing that my previous talk about my “vast” experience playing the game was about to bite me in the ass!

I gulped, accepted the fact that I'd been called in this particular poker game and said, “Sure. Sounds like fun.”

Not long after the date was made to play golf we retired to our house and left Ray and Pam alone with their kitty.

At home that night I went to our basement, gathered together my clubs and shoes and pondered on the upcoming match. I thought about the fact that Ray had went through surgery on an arm not too long ago. I thought about the fact that he had a pacemaker inserted not that long ago also. I added to that the fact that he hadn't played for a number of years.

And concluded, after all that calculation, that my ass was still probably toast.

As my luck would have it, the day was picture perfect, in fact it was one of a string of abnormally gorgeous days for that time of year. My hopes of a gully-washer that would cancel our outing and save my face were dashed.

Ray jumped into my car after I arrived at their motor-home the next morning with 3 golf clubs in his hand.

Three. Golf. Clubs.

I asked him if he might perhaps be a bit overburdened with the number of his golfing implements and he smiled.

“Ya only need three if ya know what yer doing,” he replied with a grin.

I recalled reading about how the golf pro Lee Trevino used to sucker opponents by playing with a Dr. Pepper bottle tied to a rope and using that instead of a club. And beating them soundly.

And Ray had THREE WHOLE CLUBS!

I was doomed.

You know from the beginning of this blog how the first hole started. I struggled with the first hole, took a snowman (an eight for the unenlightened) and walked doggedly to the second tee.

I suppose I could go on, hole to hole, and describe how we played. But that'd be really boring, wouldn't it? Suffice it to say that we had a great time and, miracle of miracles, my play even got a smidgen better. I wasn't even terribly disappointed with it overall after my gargantuan layoff. Ray even figured out his game a bit and played even better too. Granted that he had to make some adjustments to his game due to the constraints of his healing arm, but by the time a few holes had been played he was hitting them well. My short game was unsurprisingly abysmal and all our putts were short due to the slowness of the greens.

In the final accounting he beat my by a good margin, but I didn't care. We had a great time playing a game we both loved and had relished over the years and we seemed to find each other's company fairly enjoyable.

We shared a beer after the round and some pleasant conversation.

For the last gathering the four of us would have this trip around we ate a lunch at one of our favorite restaurants the following Tuesday. We were comfortable together and spent a nice hour-and-a-half eating, chatting and comparing notes on what we were planning over the next year or so. But all too soon it was time to say goodbye again. We walked to our cars and did our customary hugging and shaking hands, watching each other's eyes, imprinting our faces in each other's minds, holding on to the moment, remembering.

And then we walked away from each other and back into our lives.

So our friends are once again on the road, heading south, south, south and west, chasing the summer, keeping to the warmer climes, forsaking the cold and snow to follow the sun back to their snug harbor in the desert.

I wish you well, my friends. I wish you happy miles on the road, fascinating visits to new locales, good eats, new friends and a warm welcome when you return home.

And, to our friends Ray and Pam, until the next time we meet, all our very, very best.

Jealousy

Jealousy

OK, I admit it. Despite trying not to be, I've become incredibly jealous.

“And what might you be jealous about?” the reader might ask. “What has initiated this green funk of jealousy and to who might it be directed?”

Before answering, I'd like to describe for you things that I'm envious of but which don't arouse actual jealousy in me.

For instance, I'm fascinated and envious of the masters of almost any craft or trade. To watch an expert in his field plying his craft is always a delight. My father and my brother are master electricians. They perform their trade with deft hands and consummate skill. The gene for this skill, which you might think is innate in our family, isn't – it skipped me. I've tried performing some of the activities I've seen them do so effortlessly and find my awkwardness around their tools of the trade disconcerting. I know that this is not my forte. Even the effortless way they cut wire, bend it and attach it to terminals is a thing of beauty. I find craftsmen in other trades also marvelous to observe. Carpenters bringing structure and utility out of simple boards, nails and screws; bakers creating masterful breads and pastries and other foodstuffs out of ingredients that in your hands might result in less-than-stellar creations; plumbers who can attach pipes and connectors together quickly, securely and make them function properly the first time and every time.

I am envious of their skills and dexterity.

Other things that pique my interest and envy are the artists who create beauty and majesty out of simple materials. Painters and sculptures and musicians come to mind immediately as the quintessential artists. Who among us hasn't gazed in awe at works created or performed by them?

But the avenue that's drawn my more-than-envy and that's caused me to slip into outright jealousy is writing and those that excel in it.

I fool around with putting words on paper from time to time. I'm definitely not a master in doing so. Perhaps a “beginner who has a smattering of raw talent and who derives pleasure out of the workmanlike placing of words in front of other words and trying to make them say something” might be more descriptive of what I do. And by spending the hours and hours pounding on a keyboard and struggling with making the end result not TOO embarrassing, I begin to appreciate more and more the masters of the game. There are authors that I enjoy so much that I literally have tears in my eyes reading some of their passages. There are others that amaze me with their imagination and their prodigiousness. And still others whose vocabulary and virtuosity with the language are incredible. I salute them as I read them, as a tyro in their world salutes the master.

And with that in mind, I'd like to salute another master at a subset of the writing craft.

Is this writer one who draws me to tears with his virtuosity in language? Is this author one whom I envy for the number of his tomes in the marketplace with his name on the covers? Is he one of the few whose name is a household icon? A King? A Koontz? A Twain or a Huxley or a Poe?

No.

This author plies his trade in what appears, to me at least, to be a venue where a lot of other folks are in evidence but in which few are notable. It's a field of writing that's become widespread recently and in which many people have tried their hands with only middling results. And in this particular niche I think his work is extraordinary. Even on one of his off days his quality remains excellent.

Who is this writer?

Well, I'd like to introduce you to, if you do not know of him otherwise, a gentleman named John Heald. The last name is pronounce as heeled, not held.

Mr. Heald is the Senior Cruise Director for Carnival Cruise Lines and he has become, in the past couple of years, one of its more public spokesman. He has accomplished this by writing a blog. And I think it's a craft he's been born to perform.

And why do I think this?

I subscribe to the school of thought that believes good writing is smooth, polished and clean. It reads easily and effortlessly. Good writing is as easy to read as a chocolate malt is easy to swallow. Good writing goes from the printed page into your brain almost unconsciously, the words as apt and precise as a surgeon's deftness with a scalpel.

But enough with the similies. John's blog conveys the man behind the keyboard to you as simply as his smiling picture conveys his visage. To read his blog is to know the man.

I've read certain blogs of his that would double me over in laughter at one moment and, in the next paragraph, make me as emotional as a child mourning a lost lollypop. He could raise my ire with one sentence and calm me with his next. He could describe a scene in almost grand poetic terms and in his next paragraph lapse into an almost Monty Pythonesque depiction of an event in hilarious British colloquialisms.

As you may have gathered, I just dote on reading John's blog.

I suppose some of my fascination with John Heald's blogging is that he's British. He takes pride in his Britishness and much of his writing reflects that heritage even as he attempts to keep his multicultural audience “in the know” by explaining most of his more oblique English references.

I've always been a bit of an Anglophile. British terms and phrases have always interested me. The Royal Family of Great Britain has always been fascinating and I am not ashamed to say I watched almost all of the recent Royal Wedding on television. I enjoyed seeing the pomp and circumstance of the ceremonies, the almost Gilbert-and-Sullivan-like uniforms of the military officers, the extravagance of the dress of the ladies and their ornate, ever-present hats, the rituals of the clergy and the almost palpable aura of royalty around the Queen and the Royal family. If I wasn't a proud and happy American, which I certainly am, I do sincerely believe I could easily be an equally happy subject of the Queen.

Some of Heald's readers have expressed their annoyance or dissatisfaction with some of the baser forms of his humor, but I always find those references and descriptions both funny and self-effacing from him. They make him three dimensional and human, a man whose diabetes and hemorrhoids are constant problems and whose underpants are a running gag. In counterpoint, his recounting of the fire on the Carnival Splendor late last year and how the crew responded is both fascinating, inspiring and a remarkable journal of the event – a must read if you ask me.

I think that allowing John to become the Brand Ambassador for the cruise line, either formally or informally, ended up being one of the best marketing decisions that the company may have ever made.

John, if nothing else is an “easy read” and, from me, that's the highest form of praise for a writer.

So, that being said, what say you give him a try? If you might be thinking about a cruise or have been on one before, all the better. He speaks the cruiser's language.

He's at www.johnhealdsblog.com. Go ahead and type it in right now.

And prepare yourself for a treat!

"Weren't You Once Named Billy Bass?"

“Weren't You Once Called Billy Bass?”

Memory is a doggone funny thing. If I cared to, I could sit here tonight and describe to you, in detail, an event that happened a half-century ago. I could tell you the people that were involved, the events that transpired, perhaps even the taste of the food that was served. I might even recall the conversations and how the people looked on that particular day. But ask me what happened the day before that event? Or the week after? Or maybe just a few weeks ago? It's almost a certainty that I'd draw a total blank. The mental fog that hangs around and conceals most of our yesterdays is as thick and opaque as an ice-coated windshield in January. But every once in a while during our normal humdrum life something is said or someone makes a remark that will suddenly connect some wires in the old cortex and, voila, something that was totally gone is... suddenly... back again. The fog is lifted and the frost is scraped away.

When I was a boy of nine or ten I was fortunate to have been exposed to the wonderful organization called the Boy Scouts of America. I had a number of childhood friends that had joined and listening to their stories of what the organization was all about and how much fun they were having in it galvanized me into deciding to join also. One of those kids who was instrumental in suggesting that I might be interested in the Scouts was a kid named Rick.

And this story is mostly about him.

Rick was and is a contemporary of mine, give or take a few months. We were both children of a post-WWII America – early members of what was to be later called the Baby Boomers or the Boomer Generation. We'd attended the same primary school in the early grades then had both shifted to another elementary school for our last year or two. We'd both been Patrol Boys where we performed crossing guard duties for the kids coming to school. We wore white Sam Browne belts and had badges proclaiming our status as “Patrol Boy”. We even shared a trip to Cleveland to watch the Indians play baseball with dozens (or was it hundreds?) of other patrol boys one summer. Those were back in the Rocky Colavito days, so it was a pretty big thing for us.

We shared a lot of the same teachers in the old grade school down in the “not so good” part of town where we lived and then shared others in the “further uptown” school we ended attending. Later we went to the same high school, which wasn't surprising as there was only one in our town in those days. We became fast friends somewhere in that time period and Rick became so common a visitor to my family's house as to be almost considered a family member, as I was at his home. Our mothers conversed with each other frequently and each took turns swatting the other one's kid when conditions warranted it, which they often did.

To make a long story short, we hung around together. A lot.

Somewhere in that time period Rick joined the Boy Scouts. And sometime after, some months perhaps, I followed. Rick had already progressed up the ranks a bit by the time I became involved, so he became a bit of a mentor or teacher to me. He helped me learn my knots, learn the Scout Oath and Law and all the formal “book learning” that had to be assimilated to become a Scout and to progress up the ranks. I took my brand new Boy Scout manual and virtually inhaled it, learning all the arcane camping knowledge and other scout skills that were described and illustrated in it's venerable pages. It wasn't long before we were the same rank and began to help each other learning the more advanced things that were necessary to reach the highest ranks and to work with each other to earn the merit badges that were also crucial. We were both aiming for the highest award that you can earn in the Scouts, the Eagle Scout award which we both attained a couple years later.

During that time period Rick and I also were passing through the excruciating time of life known as puberty. Well, at least I remember it as being pretty painful. He was the first to discover that girls weren't at all the icky creatures that we thought they were as little kids. The first to discover that there might be something about girls that was very interesting. Or maybe a whole lot interesting. I was a bit further behind in the maturation process and my interest in the fairer sex would blossom later on.

In those years Rick also started becoming what would euphemistically be called a “wild child”. He experimented with alcohol and tobacco and found that he liked both of them. In his early and middle high school years he ran with a rougher crowd and got into trouble from time to time. I followed a bit in his steps then but only to a lesser degree.

Rick fell in love as a Junior in high school with a senior girl, quit school and married her. I lost track of him a little before that period. I'd heard he'd changed his name also. Maybe. Everything was rumors.

And Rick gradually faded into memory; not forgotten but put away on a shelf somewhere, to be, perhaps, dusted off and peered at sometime down the road.

Now, faithful reader, let's leave the wonderful world of the early '60's and move onward and forward. Let's wend our way through the '70's, '80's, '90's and oughts. In fact, let's jump clear up to today. And let's bring into the discussion one of the social miracles of this time and age – Facebook.

So I'm on the computer a month or two ago and I suddenly get a message on Facebook from someone who asked the oddest question. It queried, “Were you once known as Billy Bass?”

Now the answer to that question is yes and the origin of the moniker that used to be applied to me goes way, way back, but the number of people who might even know to ask the question are extremely limited. I can think of three or four, of which most are deceased. I looked at the name of the sender and it's familiar... kinda. The first name is Rick and that seems right for the fuzzy idea that's buzzing around in my head but the last name is... not correct with the first one. But... it might be. Something about a name change? The owner's picture is there but it's current and I recognized nothing about it.

I thought a bit about my hypothesis, then wrote back, “Did you used to have a different last name?”

His reply was in the affirmative and, suddenly, I was sure of who I was talking to. This had to be Rick, my old friend from my late-childhood-and-early-teen years. My old mentor, teacher, friend and near-brother from the distant past. Rick. I'll be damned if it wasn't Rick!

We messaged back and forth a bit on FB and I found out that he was back in our hometown on a visit right that moment. He was here with his wife and their motor-home, was right up the road in a campground close by and he wanted to get together and share some memories! Would I be interested?

I was bemused, flattered and enthusiastic. Of course I'd like to get together!

So a meeting was planned for the following Saturday at my house. A mutual friend of ours was contacted and was planning to attend but an emergency precluded that from happening.

So on Saturday afternoon an unfamiliar car pulled into my driveway, two people exited and approached me as my wife and I waited in the yard. I observed the couple as they drew nearer. Rick's wife Ginny was a petite lady, light-colored hair, a pretty face and a nice smile. I liked her immediately. Rick himself was a man of approximately my size with chestnut-colored-slightly-beginning-to-gray hair worn long with a ponytail, glasses and some facial hair. He looked slightly similar to the magician/comedian Penn Jillete from the team of Penn and Teller. (He'll probably hate this association.) He was dressed casually as I was and I saw a tattoo on his forearm.

We shook hands, introduced our wives to each other and adjourned to my living room.

And we talked. And talked and talked and talked. There was so much ground to cover, so much time since we'd seen each other. We jabbered on and on about our lives, children, homes, activities and families. We reminisced about our memories of our times together as kids and young adults, what we did, what happened, what happened then and what happened later on. And as we talked, many memories that I didn't even realize I still possessed came flooding back. Camping trips, our folks, brothers, girlfriends and other poignant memories from the days when Eisenhower was president, the moon landing was a decade in the future and life was both much, much easier and much, much harder depending on one's viewpoint and one's circumstance.

And all through the conversations and reminiscing I watched Rick and listened to Rick and began to see the Rick I remembered. He was still there. The gestures, the way he put words together, his inflections and the tone of his voice. And more and more I could see the good-looking tough kid that was imprinted in my memories. And after he left I could hear his voice echoing in my mind and the old Rick came booming in loud and clear. Yes, I said to myself. That's exactly how he sounded and that's exactly how he looked and that's exactly how he smiled and laughed and acted.

It was as if my memories of the teen-age Rick and my present views of the extant Rick were blending and melding and metamorphosing into the man who had stood before me shortly before. My brain had gone through a million computations and finally done the mental gymnastics which had interspersed the in-between Ricks from then until now. And at last he stood revealed in my mind, the 3.1 model Rick, the latest generation, the updated and improved model of the Rick from the old days.

And it was soooo, soooo cool!

I stopped in to visit with him and Ginny two days later in their marvelous motor-home at the campground north of our hometown. We visited some more and they shared their scrapbooks and memories of their many journeys in the motor-home They'd been, at least to my parochial eyes, almost everywhere and had seen so, so much. Especially since they'd retired and “hit the road” for many months of the year.

And it was comfortable and welcoming sitting in their cozy home on wheels and listening to their voices and listening to the soothing thrumming of the early autumnal rain as it beat on the steel roof above our heads.

And on that day and in that place I realized that my old friend, my old compadre from the long, long ago was back in my life.

And I smiled.

Beaches and Caches and Sharks, Oh My!

Beaches and Caches and Sharks, Oh My!

The fog-choked fields of corn and soybeans flowed past the side windows of the dark blue car as it slid southward through the last hour before dawn. The two people in the car sipped coffee and munched bacon-and-egg sandwiches as they watched the beckoning white line of the roadway disappearing in front of them into the fog and mist. They chatted companionably about the vacation that lay before them and together watched the miles tick off on the GPS which glowed in the darkness of the car's cabin.

It was the beginning of my wife and my annual vacation.

We had left our small Ohio town that morning some time before six am. Since it was the middle of September, there wouldn't be much light before an hour or hour-and-a-half had passed. That was OK. We were at last on our way and the occasional ground fog and the darkness only seemed to welcome the beginning steps of our daylong drive south.

We were approaching central Ohio on the interstate before dawn at last overtook us. The fog remained our companion for another hundred miles or so before it began to burn off south of Charleston and by the time we took a break near Beckley, West Virginia, it was gone and the sun shone brightly from a robin's egg blue sky. We'd been on the road 3 or 4 hours, but it was still morning, so we grabbed another breakfast sandwich and some OJ to keep the fires burning and continued on our way. The heavily forested mountains of West Virginia and the slice of Virginia we had to bisect soon passed and before long the mountains were fading behind us. Very soon the last sentinel of Pilot Mountain shrank away to nothing in the rear-view mirror.

Lunch was an IHOP in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and the period of sitting still was relished along with the sandwiches and soup we ate. Soon we were back on the road and wending our way south by southeast, the blood-red dirt of North Carolina blending into the flat, sandy expanses of the tidewater region as we finally approached our destination. Soon the Honda pulled into the parking lot of our beachfront hotel in North Myrtle Beach and we were checking in.

My lifelong friend Chuck and his wife Pam had agreed to share this vacation with us and were waiting for our call after we checked in and had unloaded our luggage. We went to their suite and chit-chatted for an hour or two with them before adjourning to a Chinese/Seafood place for supper. After getting a bellyful of food we returned to the hotel and not long afterward hit the bed. The day had started early, the night before was short and we were asleep almost immediately.

We awoke on Sunday and at once went to our balcony to admire the gorgeous view of the blue Atlantic and the stretch of beach that was to be ours for the next week. The sun-worshipers, beach strollers, surf fishermen and sand castle manufacturers were already busy at their endeavors. We watched the activity a while then adjourned to the hotel's free buffet for breakfast. After eating we drove around and attempted to buy tickets for the shows we wanted to see that week but, as it was Sunday, most places were closed that morning. We hit a grocery store for food to make for some of our breakfasts and lunches in our rooms, then returned to the hotel. Judy and I went caching that afternoon and added 6 or 7 and a new state to our totals, then went to Walmart to buy a new camera to replace the one I thought I'd left at home. I'd have sworn I'd packed it, but we could not find it either in our room, our luggage or the car. Lunch was at Sonic, then back to the hotel for some pool and lazy river time. The weather was resort brochure perfect with sunny blue skies and warm sea breezes. Supper was at a Myrtle Beach tradition, the K & W cafeteria, and their quality was top-notch as usual. We then returned to Chuck and Pam's room and helped prepare fishing tackle for our next-day's pier fishing trip.

Monday I arose early. After a quick breakfast at the hotel buffet I went metal detecting on the beach. The day was warming quickly and soon I was wiping sweat and sand fleas from my brow. The detecting was sparse and only a small number of coins were found along with numerous trash targets. After a cleanup in the room, Chuck and I went to buy our tickets for the shows we wanted to see later in the week. After a leisurely dip in the hotel's pool we lunched at a local's BBQ place we'd discovered where the food was good and quite inexpensive. In the mid-afternoon Chuck and I drove to the Cherry Grove Pier for some fishing. Don't know exactly why, but we had very little luck. Possibly due to the squid we were using for bait? We returned later that evening and fished until 10:00 and still got bupkis. Supper that night was at Joe's Crab Shack at Barefoot Landing where I enjoyed coconut shrimp, one of my favorites.

On Tuesday we cooked in our kitchenette for breakfast. Afterward we rode with our friends to a local mall and shopped a bit. We then drove to downtown Myrtle Beach and shopped the Gay Dolphin, a Myrtle Beach landmark, for souvenirs. Lunch was on the lovely new boardwalk that Myrtle Beach has built downtown. Back to the hotel for more pool time. Hit the beach afterward for more detecting and got some more coins and a toy car. Talked to a husband and wife who were digging a large hole in the sand. They were hunting shark teeth and were apparently getting some too. Nice couple. Talked to another lady who was strolling by about metal detecting. She was from New York and was very interested in the hobby. Supper was at a North Myrtle Beach gem, Hoskin's Restaurant. There seems to ALWAYS be a line to get into this place and the food was exceptional. They had the BEST peanut butter pie I believe I've ever eaten. Superb! Judy and I played miniature golf that evening after supper as the Grand Strand is the mecca for the sport and has some extraordinary courses.

Wednesday we breakfasted at the hotel's buffet again. Chuck and I strolled the beach afterward for a while looking for shells and shark teeth and, if truth be known, watching the latest bikini fashions as they strolled around. This day was also quite hot and there were LOTS of sun worshipers around. Judy and I went caching again later and found another 6-8. We ended up somewhere in the South Carolina hinterlands inland of the Inter-coastal Waterway for our last cache and had to use the GPS to head us back to the hotel. Ended up getting scratched up legs again from more briars searching for a cache. I MUST remember to wear long pants when doing this hobby no matter how hot it is! Relaxed a bit in our cool hotel room then dined again at K & W Cafeteria. We then went to the Carolina Opry. This was a high-energy show in a huge showroom showcasing mostly country music and corn-pone comedy. It was quite good and apparently quite a treat for those who appreciated country music more than I. They asked the veterans to stand in the audience and almost 80% of the men stood up. LOTS of vets there that night. A fun evening.

Thursday we had Chuck and Pam up to our room for some of my famous French Toast breakfast. We then split up where Judy and Pam went shopping and Chuck and I returned to the Cherry Grove Pier to again attempt to harvest some salt water fish. We used shrimp for bait this time and this seemed to be the ticket. We both got LOTS of bites and I was catching fish quite often albeit little guys. Mostly spots and one angel fish. I did catch an odd one toward the end, though. A longer, skinnier fish with an odd head. I, for some reason, identified it immediately as a Remora. These are the fishes that attach themselves to sharks and eat the scraps as the sharks feed. Shortly before landing the Remora I was glancing at the water below the pier and saw something that really excited me. I elbowed Chuck and pointed to the water. “Do you see what I see down there?” I asked him. He acknowledged that he did. Swimming right below us was, I swear, a shark that HAD to be 6 or 7 feet long! Two guys that were on the pier near us asked if we had seen the shark. They told us that was good news as the shark was there feeding and that meant there were lots of fish there! So the catching of the Remora was logical if there was a big shark nearby. It was chilling, however, to watch the big fish swimming within a hundred yards of the people frolicking in the water just off the beach.

That evening we went to the “Dino's TV Variety Show”. This was a show in a small venue that was a tribute to the old Dean Martin Golddiggers Show on TV back in the '60's. They had a number of performers who portrayed Dean and a number of his guests from the TV days, Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong, Phillis Diller, Carmen Miranda and Marilyn Monroe. The performers were all great and the show was amazing. A definite MUST SEE if you ever visit the area! We met the actors after the show and chatted with them on our way out of the lounge. Another fun evening for the folks from Ohio!

Friday was our only day of dismal weather for the week, being much colder with gray skies and spitting rain. Went to the Waffle House for breakfast to get a break from hotel food and stuff we'd cooked ourselves. Went coin-shooting on the nearly empty beach afterward and gleaned a few more coins. Only the hardy folk were seen inhabiting the strand that morning. Judy and I drove to the the big mall south of Myrtle Beach and walked around a bit. We lunched at the food court, then drove out to the site of the old Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. It closed many years ago but had a display of the airplanes that used to fly out of there and we walked around them and took some pictures. We fondly recalled our vacations of the past when we'd camped on the beach and watched those same planes flying in and out of the base over our heads. We returned to the hotel by driving through the downtown Myrtle Beach area and eyeballing all the changes that had taken place over the years since we'd started going there back in the early '70's. Much has changed but there is still the spot here and there that is still the same and they all brought back memories from years past. Supper that night was again at Hoskins Restaurant. I had an exceptional cream of crab soup, a fried oyster sandwich and another piece of that extraordinary peanut butter pie. I would soon pay for all the rich food I'd eaten that week. That evening and most of the following day I was “blessed” with a very queasy/aching stomach. But the meal was a good capper for the week. We returned to our rooms to pack and load the cars for our upcoming morning trip.

Saturday was again a trip began in the dark, driving the pre-dawn Carolina roads with a spitting rain; northbound this time. My stomach was VERY ouchy from my gustatory excesses and I placated it with Tums, Pepcid and very bland food. We grabbed another geocache on our way home near Fancy Gap, N.C. and another just over the border in Virginia giving us another 2 states to add to our caching statistics. Lunch was a Denny's in Wytheville, Virginia along with some much-cheaper-than-home gasoline. Arrived home at 6:15 pm and chatted with our son who'd stayed home this trip and watched the house and the dog in our absence. The missing camera we'd supposedly left at home was NOT there and we half-tore apart the house verifying that fact. We surmised that we'd possibly dropped it off the luggage trolley we'd used to ferry our bags to the room the previous Saturday when we'd arrived. Someone got an early Christmas present that day. Hit our own bed early that evening as I was exhausted.

So thus ends another excursion with yours truly and his better half. It was a good trip with good friends and, like most trips of that kind, it ended much too soon. I find I had grown inordinately fond of the sunshine, the sea breezes, the always friendly people of the South and the great food there. I loved waking to the sound of surf just outside our balcony door and enjoyed immensely sitting there and watching the squadrons of pelicans and sea gulls gliding through the warm air above the beaches and hotels. I enjoyed watching the antics of the sandpipers as they quested for tidbits in the surf and further enjoyed watching the bronzed sun-worshipers as they strolled the sandy beach.

Being where the land meets the sea and spending time there is both exhilarating and melancholy to me. Exhilarating because of all the reasons people throng to the shores and the mountains; to exhault in the holiday atmosphere that generally inhabits those areas and to lose some of the inhibitions that forever mark the everyday world. But also melancholy as this is the place where the land ends and the sea ends. It's a watery place and a windy place and it's a place for long views and long thoughts. It's the place that'll be there long, long after we're gone, where the waves will eternally crash against the land and will be eternally drawn back again. It's a place that suits me, I think. And it's a place that will call to me wherever I am and whatever I may be doing.

But if nothing else, it's a vacation place and it was great to see it again.

I Give Up

I Give Up

OK, I give up. Ya got me. I concede that you've won. You've beaten me into submission. So can we now call it a day and get back to business?

What am I talking about? What am I blabbering about in my incoherent, clumsy way? Well I'm going to tell you in a minute. But before that, please remember that the following thoughts are MY thoughts. They MIGHT be totally correct. Or they MIGHT be totally wrong. But they're what I see from my vantage point and what I hear whispered along the grape vine.

I'll bet it's close to the truth.

Anyhow...

It's this doggone depression. Or is it a recession. Or a business downturn. Or whatever the hell it is. I'm TIRED of it. I'm tired of reading about it. I'm tired of listening to the talking heads on TV speaking nothing but doom and gloom. I'm tired of the dollar taking a beating. I was in Canada recently and I just HATED having to give more of my hard-earned dollars for less Canadian funny-money.

But I'm mostly tired of not seeing a raise, not seeing any overtime and worrying all the time about whether my job, my wife's job and my friend's jobs are going to be there tomorrow, next month or next year. And it seems that a lot of that concern is beginning to become more and more specific to my particular place of employment.

My wife is employed in the office of a manufacturer. The past year to year-and-a-half has been a good time for them. Their orders are up, they're making money and they're hiring people. In fact, they can't even get the people that they need. They're even advertising overseas for people to fill engineering spots. My wife has received decent raises the past two years and the occasional extra bonus for this and that.

Things are going well for her.

The place my son works has received huge orders for the automotive part they manufacture and are running seven-days-a-week for pretty much the entire staff. At least through Labor Day, possibly longer. They recently hired a LOT of people. They're doing very well.

I've recently talked to a number of my acquaintances and the story I'm mostly getting is that things are looking up and they're all looking at raises and promotions. Almost all of them.

In fact, most of the people I know seem to be on the upswing in their employment. They were down but are now surging forward.

The depression/recession/whatever is, for the most part, over for them.

For them, I should repeat.

But not at my place of employment.

And that sluggishness of my business has become difficult for me to understand.

Maybe a little background might be in order here.

The department that I work in is a part of a county government. Most governmental departments; local, city, county, state, federal; are funded by taxes and are often are in trouble when economies are down due to reduced tax receipts. But our department is what's called self-funded. We sell a commodity that everyone needs; water. Most people in the urban environments we're based in buy our commodity – those without wells of course – it's a necessary part of life. It's a need rather than a want. So we take in the proceeds from the sale of water plus other proceeds from fees associated with new hookups to the water system and other fees. This money, this income, is then disbursed throughout the department. We are not dependent on tax monies for income. You'd think that, with adequate forethought and decent management, at least this department should run like a top and all employees in it should share in the proceeds from this business of providing a substance that everyone needs. In a non-tax-reliant, self-funded department.

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

But you have to remember this important part of the equation. This is a governmental department. And government equates to politics.

And that's where it gets sticky.

The other departments in our county government, the ones you remember I mentioned earlier, that require taxes to function? Well, they're hurting. Revenues are down so a lot of belt-tightening has occurred. And more is expected. At least that's what our management is telling us. They say we should expect more decreases in funding in the future. And we all should “help out” our employer by thinking up ways to save some money.

They're even presenting a veiled threat of future layoffs if things don't improve in the future.

And this is a blanket statement for all of the county departments. All of them.

And what's odd about all of this is that our department is now also hurting, at least per our management it is. Apparently due to reduced new construction resulting in reduced new water hookup fees and the need to “pay down our debt”.

I may be wrong, but I thought it was the responsibility of management to make informed, learned decisions about budgeting and to not make expenditures and incur debt that would be dependent on continued urban growth in the future. To be wise about incurring debt that only a rosy future would be sufficient enough to pay off.

Apparently this did not happen. Apparently, somehow, someone dropped the ball. Apparently we now have to pay off debts from expected monies that did not come in for expenditures that, possibly, might not have to have been made. Or could have been postponed until a more stabile economic period arrived.

And that's a doggone shame.

So I look at the net pay numbers on my paycheck and see the same ones I saw last month, the month before and the year before. I've pulled out the old ones and looked. Yep, same numbers.

And I look at the prices at the grocery stores and they are not the same as last year. The prices at the restaurants aren't the same as last year. The prices at Walmart and Kmart and Lowe's aren't the same as last year. And the prices at the gas pump? Holy-Aunt-Petunia-in-a-shoe-shine-box... they are definitely not the same as last year.

And the hole we're in keeps getting deeper and deeper.

And that's a doggone shame, too.

A Quick Trip North

A Quick Trip North

7/26/11
On Tuesday, my wife, son and I embarked on a short vacation. After dropping our dog off at the kennel, we left home about 9:30 am and drove toward Canfield, Ohio where we were to visit with my cousin Lorraine and her husband John at their home. It was a beautiful day, sunny, with temperatures in the 80’s. The three of us hadn’t had a vacation together for a number of years as my son’s work had kept him from joining us in recent years, so it was interesting and kind of a treat having the whole family together on this one.

The drive to Canfield was uneventful and we arrived around 11:30 am. It’s always a treat to see my cousin and her husband John. They are gracious hosts and are always glad to see us. This time they extended their hospitality to my son and for that I was grateful. We sat and talked in their kitchen as Lorraine worked on our lunch, stirring this pot, adding ingredients to that one, checking on things. The dish she was preparing was to be something she got from a friend and involved pasta and various other tasty ingredients. Soon freshly shucked ears of sweet corn were bubbling in a big pot and not long after that the meal was ready to eat. Lorraine’s mother lives with them, so there was six of us sitting down in their dining room for lunch. Along with the delicious pasta dish there was the sweet corn, coleslaw, bread and a lemon drink Lorraine is fond of. For dessert she’d made a yellow cake with an icing incorporating bits of citrus fruit. It was quite good.

After lunch we talked some more about our family’s history and laughed at funny incidents we recounted to each other. My son Tony was enthralled with hearing all the historical facts of the family of which he was unaware. Talking with Lorraine and John is always a treat and the hours flew by effortlessly.

Not long after lunch, Lorraine’s daughter Cindy and her husband Mike and their daughter Megan visited us. Cindy and Mike were on their way to Heinz Field in Pittsburgh to see a concert by U2 and had stopped by to drop their daughter off and to say hi to us. They could only stay a short time, but we were able to chitchat a bit and renew our friendship. We wished them well on their visit to the concert and expressed our jealousy at their good fortune to see the group U2 and their lead singer Bono. We found out later that the concert was marvelous and they had enjoyed themselves immensely.

Not long after Mike and Cindy left we bid our hosts adieu ourselves and pointed our car north toward our first day’s final destination - Erie, Pennsylvania.

We arrived in Erie and found our hotel for the evening, the Country Inn and Suites. It was a quite new and beautiful hotel and we were quite pleased with our room. After checking in, Judy and I headed out to do a little geocaching and we ended up getting the six caches I had selected from home. Six for six and a new state! We were quite pleased. Tony stayed at the hotel and watched a little TV. After returning to the hotel and picking him up we went to Quaker Steak & Lube for supper. This is a regional restaurant that specializes in chicken wings and most of their restaurants reflect the décor of the original one, which resembles a gas station. We had a good supper and then drove a couple miles down the interstate to Presque Isle Downs & Casino. We knew that Lorraine and John had frequented the place in the past and we’d asked for tips on which slots to play. They recommended hitting a group of slots just inside the entrance. We did so and I was pleasantly surprised to hit a small jackpot on one almost immediately for $57. Judy and Tony weren’t quite as lucky. We didn’t stay long as we hadn’t budgeted much money for the casino and were through that amount quite quickly. Counting my win we walked out about even between us. We were back to the hotel before 11 o’clock and retired shortly afterward.

7/27/11
We ate breakfast at the hotel’s free buffet and it was quite acceptable. Some hotels are little more than doughnuts, bagels and coffee/juice with the odd apple or banana thrown in. This one was one of the better ones with waffles, boiled eggs, cereal, lots of bakery, drinks and coffees. Even some precooked sausage patties and pancakes. We were pleased. Afterward we drove along Lake Erie northeastward. We stopped at the Angola Rest Stop on the Thomas E. Dewey New York Expressway for a restroom break and to grab another geocache. Now we had another new state, New York! Wonderful! We continued onward toward Buffalo and crossed the Niagara River on the Peace Bridge into Canada. Canadian customs looked at our passports and asked some questions about our trip to their country. It wasn’t too trying and the wait in line wasn’t too long. We then drove to Old Ft. Erie. This was one of the most important forts during the War of 1812. The fort itself and the grounds have been remade to reflect exactly how it was in 1814 when the bloody battles between the British and the United States in the area were fought. The visitor’s center nearby is brand new, just having been opened weeks before our visit. We toured the fort and took lots of pictures. Judy and I had been there about 4 or 5 years ago and were pleased at all the renovations that had been done to the land, adding earthworks and revetments to reflect the area during the battles, since we were there last. Tony seemed impressed. After touring we ate a little ice cream in the visitor’s center (Tony passed on the ice cream – he was feeling a little queasy – maybe the sun or maybe a little low blood sugar) and grabbed some lunch at a local McDonald’s. I always like to eat the native food when I’m visiting a new place. Joke! I was reminded that I was in a foreign land by the price of lunch. The price itself in Canadian dollars was quite a bit higher than the U.S. price, plus the exchange rate is unfavorable to U.S. citizens. But the food was OK and we filled the empty spots in our stomachs.

We then drove about 20 miles north to Lock Number 3 on the Welland Canal. The Welland Canal is the route that all the ship traffic from and to Lakes Erie and Ontario use. We watched a big grain boat, about 282 meters long, traverse the lock. She was going toward Ontario, so she went down in the lock. Tony was feeling better by now and enjoyed the sights. We even saw a Schnauzer dog that reminded us of our old one, Bailey, and again took pictures and movies.

We then drove to our hotel for the evening, the Best Western Rose City Suites in St. Catharines, where we checked in and were happy with the lodgings. We got a suite this time with a living room, kitchenette and bedroom. Tony was happiest there as he could stay up that night and watch TV while his ol’ parents snoozed. Judy and I went out looking for caches and did quite poorly. But we were able to find one and that gave us a new country and a Canadian province to boot to add to our tally. Quite acceptable! The weather was still nice although the clouds were beginning to move in and the weather would soon be rainy.

We ate supper at a quirky restaurant recommended by the hotel staff called M.T. Bellies. We smiled at the play on words of the restaurant’s title. She said they had “everything” there and she was right. Very busy place and great food. We all had something quite different and were all pleased. Our waiter gave indications that he might be of the gay persuasion and his speech and humor amused us. A nice guy, a nice restaurant and a nice dinner.

While we were out caching, Judy and I visited a nearby park and while there saw what looked to be a living room arrangement near a rose garden. With a gentleman sitting on the sofa! When we approached the furniture we saw the couch, two easy chairs, the coffee table and the gentleman sitting on the couch were all made out of bronze. It was all metal! Fascinating. We took Tony to see the thing after supper and he was amused also. Apparently, from the placard displayed near the statuary, the gentleman was the owner of a famous furniture store and was a big donor to the city or maybe he bequeathed the park? Something like that. He apparently was a well-known citizen of St. Catharines, Ontario.

After supper and returning to the hotel we eyeballed the pictures we’d taken during the day and retired around 11 pm. Tony watched TV until sometime later.

7/28/11
We ate at the free hotel buffet again for breakfast. It was quite good also. Our run of luck is continuing. We were on the road not long after eating as the rain started. Our drive up the QEW (the Queen Elizabeth Way – a main interstate-like road in Canada) toward Toronto was fairly unpleasant with lots of rain, fog and much road spray from the tons of semis on the road. Some areas were barely moving, especially around the big bridge at the west end of Lake Ontario. And there was LOTS of traffic on the highway. Apparently there’s a whole lot of commerce going on in Canada and lots of stuff that needs moved from “here” to “there” on semis.

We were able to see about half of the iconic CN Tower in Toronto as we drove by due to the low cloud deck and rain. We were heading to the Royal Ontario Museum and found a parking garage about two blocks beyond it. Of course the garage we found was probably the most expensive one in Toronto. My luck. It was under the Hazelton Lanes Shopping Centre, one of the classiest places to shop in the city, apparently. It was $25 out of my pocket before the gate would let us leave later that day.

We walked through the light rain to the museum and, after a half-hour wait or so were in. There were LOTS of visitors to the museum that day and a substantial majority of them were children on various field trips. Perhaps Canada has year-round school? I don’t know. But there were GOBS of kids and they all seemed to be screaming, yelling, jumping up and down or running around underfoot. I seriously would recommend taking earplugs if you were thinking of visiting there. Extremely noisy, especially around the stuffed animal exhibits.

There is way too much to see at the museum for a day trip, so we skimmed through this gallery and that, taking pictures here and there and occasionally movies. The last exhibit we went through was the dinosaur one, of which the R.O.M has a good one. Lots of bones and lots of big beasts from the Jurassic. (I remember that period from the movie, of course!) Tony was again feeling woozy and again, by eating lunch, felt better. I don’t think he had enough breakfast. That meal was in the museum’s lunchroom. I had a burger with tomato and pickled onions. Quite a different taste. And, of course, it was expensive.

We gave up in the late afternoon and made our way back to our high-class parking garage. Traffic at 4 pm was, to our provincial eyes, horrendous. Busy, busy, busy. The surface streets were barely moving and the highways were either packed and slow or screamingly fast and scary in the extreme. We reached our new hotel, the Best Western Toronto Airport, eventually, with white knuckles from all the traffic and checked in. Another good one. We all took a catnap to recharge from the walking and eventually drove to a restaurant for supper. This was my choice and it wasn’t a particularly a good one. It was a Texas Longhorn. But the Canadian version isn’t like the U.S. one which we were familiar with. Mediocre food, at least mine was. Tony and Judy seemed OK with theirs. Maybe it was just my poor choice in my entrée.

We returned to the hotel afterward and I went to the exercise room for a half-hour or so. I didn’t really need the treadmill since we’d done all that walking at the museum, but used it anyhow. Also did some back exercises as I’d been neglecting them this week and was starting to hurt a bit. It seemed to help. I probably should have used the pool but was too tired to change into trunks.

Watched some TV before retiring and we all commented freely on the differences between Canadian TV and U.S. TV. Some things were very similar and others were quite different.

Sleep again around 11. All our beds on this trip were quite comfortable and we were thankful for that. We knew that Tony likes a very cold environment to sleep in, so we kept the rooms pretty cool. A bit too cool for us old folk, but we bundled up with the blankets and were OK.

7/29/11
Homeward bound. We ate breakfast at a Burger King near the hotel and started toward home around 9. Traffic was surprisingly not too bad and, although we had some off-and-on rain most of the trip home, it wasn’t as onerous as the trip up had been. Going through U.S. Customs was surprising quick after about a 45 minute to 1 hour wait in line. The customs agent was quick and only asked a couple questions. Quicker than going the other way had been. We were surprised at the quickness at the border as Judy’s boss had crossed just the previous week and had gone through a grilling. Guess it all depends on which agent you get and how much like a desperado you look. Judy’s boss must fit that bill more than we did! We stopped at the duty-free store before leaving Canada, bought some chocolate and a tee shirt for Tony. More to get rid of some of our Canadian dollars than any real need. We’re not big drinkers and that’s why most people stop at the store apparently. LOTS of folks buying up LOTS of various liquors.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful.

We were glad to return home and retrieve our dog from the kennels. He was glad to see us, too, by the furious wagging of his stumpy tail! The groomer who had watched him said he’d enjoyed his little vacation from us also.

To conclude, I guess you could say that a good time was had by all, mostly. But, as is true for most endeavors, there were some really good times and some fairly good times. And, occasionally, there were some maybe not so good times. But those were infrequent and easily forgettable.

If this were an Olympic event, I’d have scored it an 8.8 out of 10.

And thus concludes the tale of the short trip north.

Fish, Wizards and Dogs

Fish, Wizards and Dogs

I suppose you could say with some certainty that nothing really lasts forever and you'd be a hundred percent accurate in your statement. But, in your heart of hearts you always hope that some things would last forever. Or even just a shade this side of forever. Or maybe through next Tuesday? Even some dumb little things.

Let me give you an example.

As I've written about in the past, on most Fridays my wife and I eat lunch at a local restaurant which is only a short walk from our house. We can get there in 7 to 10 minutes, depending on how long a stride we take and how energetic we feel at the time. I usually walk, as I'm home during the lunch hour and my wife usually drives from work and meets me there. We go there, at least I go there, for the fish. Like a lot of restaurants, this one serves a fish special on Fridays. I guess that's a holdover from the old days when the Catholics had meatless Fridays. I happen to like fish so I'm happy for the holdover if that's what it is. Anyway, this restaurant serves your basic cornmeal battered whitefish fillets, french fries, slaw, roll/butter. And, over the years that we've been eating there, I've grown accustomed to the good fish that the restaurant serves. Do I eat their fish every week? No. You get jaded after a while, so I break it up with a club sandwich occasionally or maybe a roast beef sandwich of which they make a pretty decent one.

But fish is the primary draw for me.

But recently, sadly, it hasn't been quite the meal I remember. Last Friday, for example, the fish was definitely sub-par. I guess you could be generous and say it was edible. But it wasn't the juicy-centered, flaky, crunchy-coated yummy piece of fish it used to be. It was bad enough that I asked to have one of the fillets replaced. It was thin, tough and more resembled a piece of fish jerky. Overcooked? Definitely. Way, way, way over cooked. Perhaps a poorer fillet than what they normally serve? I think so. I was immediately given two new fresh fillets to replace the objectionable one when the owner saw my hand motions indicating a problem. And, to sadly tell the truth, the two replacements weren't all that much better. One, which was OK at best I ate. The other I left.

My wife and I are Friday regulars there and are treated like family. Our drink orders are brought without our having to state what we want, we know most of the wait staff's names and the owner's also. We're on friendly terms with everyone and we genuinely like going there. But recently... There is that less-than-optimal fish to contemplate. And last Friday wasn't the first time. I've decided to have a chat with the owner the next time this happens. I am generally known as an easily satisfied man. Most things are fine with me. If things are a little better or sometimes a little worse – I don't generally worry. But... if I am noticing a deterioration in the quality of the fish, I'll bet others are too. And I surely don't want the place to go downhill.

Like I said earlier, they're almost family!

So maybe they got a bad batch from the supplier. Maybe the oil in the fryer needed changed. Maybe it was a new fry cook or that particular day the fry cook was not 100 percent and left the fish in too long. Maybe a lot of stuff. So that's why I won't worry too much about it. But I think we might patronize another restaurant next Friday. No offense old friend, but I want a little time to recuperate from the “fish jerky”.

In a week or two I'm sure we'll go back. I'll pay attention to the fish on other patron's plates on my way to my table and make a decision then whether to try it again.

But how many chances do you give a place before it starts becoming not your favorite Friday place?

Stand by for more news later on this alarming story.

&&&

I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie on Saturday night. I am happy to report that the movie was GREAT and it met all my expectations for the culmination of the series. Now I know there are those of you out there that are not Harry Potter fans and could give a flying whatever about the end of the series. So go ahead and skip on down to the next topic. That's OK. I need to talk to my wizard-loving friends for a minute. I'll meet you down below shortly.

My wife, my son and I have been “on board” with the young wizard from the first get go, have read all the books and seen all the movies. We anticipated the release of each book and each movie and happily read and watched them as appropriate. So I guess you could call us fans. So be it. Fan or not, the movie was, as I said earlier, great! The only negative I could communicate to you would be that that this is the last one. No more Hogwarts, no more Harry, Ron, Hermione. No more Hagrid, Dumbledore, Snape and all the other fascinating characters from the fertile imagination of J.K. Rowling and the awesome abilities of the actors who have portrayed them. No more watching the principal characters grow from bright children through their awkward teen years into fascinating young adults.

We're surely going to miss them. And, from the box-office returns, so are a lot of other folks!

&&&

Took a drive on Sunday down to Wheeling, West Virginia to visit Wheeling Island Casino and Racetrack. Over the past few years we've grown to enjoy going to the greyhound races there and trying to guess which of the marvelous dogs were going to be the fastest in each race. I like to think that, with the help of the racing form and all the statistics that are displayed there, I can calculate what the winners will be a majority of the time. Sometimes my calculations seem to be “on the money” and I'll pocket a dollar or two. But, sadly, the majority of the time the pups in the races have ideas of their own and decide to finish the race in wildly different order than I anticipated. I guess that's one of the draws. Man against dog or something like that. As I always say, at least you don't have to factor in a jockey on the back of the dogs! They do their thing all alone.

As usual when the wife and I go there, one of us is usually “up” at the end of the races and the other one is “down”. Sunday was my turn to be down. Not terribly down, but definitely down. She played all the races on her original $10 and cashed out $14. Four hours of fun and she got paid for it! We shared the afternoon with two of our friends from where I work, so it was even more fun than it usually was. We ate at the casino buffet after the dog races and were pleasantly surprised at the increase in quality of the food there. They'd redecorated and obviously upped the food budget. We then paid our obligatory visit to Mr. and Mrs. One-Armed-Bandit. They were more than happy to see us and to closely examine the color of our money. We thoroughly enjoy playing the slot machines but almost never come out ahead. Sunday was no different. We wandered through the maze of blinking, shiny machines, each of which was singing that familiar slot machine tune. We tried out a number of them. Some were tight and kept about everything we gave them. Others were a bit more generous and teased us a bit with smaller jackpots. In the end we bid them farewell along with the dollars we'd allocated to our fun. I'm again always thankful that we don't have any addiction to the activity and are quite content to walk away when our budget for the day has been met.

A quiet drive back home capped the festivities for the weekend.

So now it's time to get heavily involved in last-minute planning for our 4-day escape to Canada. Stay tuned for developments!