Political Differences and Fuddy-duddys

Political Differences and Fuddy-duddys

Other people are strange animals. They do weird things and have odd notions. They worship different gods, do incomprehensible things on vacation and all vote Democratic. Or is it Republican?

The previous thought once again flowed through my brain recently while conversing with a dear friend. Hell, I know in my heart that other people think differently than I do – I really do – and that fact shouldn't continue to surprise me. I mean, I run into it almost every day. It's like this: I'll make my mind up about something, usually political these days, and muddle it around in my head until it feels comfortable. I'll speak to others who are of a like mind and by those conversations I begin to feel as if I'm in the majority. It will become completely obvious that my viewpoint is correct, logical and unassailable.

And then I'll run into one of my other friends and, whammo, I'm again reminded that there are other viewpoints out there and that the proponents of those viewpoints are quite as assured as I am that their views are the right ones and where the hell did I get my ideas from?

That always shocks me. It shouldn't, but it does.

At that point I play the game where I weigh that particular friendship against my viewpoint. Do I want to argue with them? Is it that important to me that I might lose my friendship with that person? Am I even that much sold that my view is correct?

I then remember that, generally speaking, that the old adage of not discussing politics and religion should be your guiding principle in the continuing retention of friends and I then shut up and say something general such as “all politicians are crooks and scumbags.” And consensus is usually restored.

But in my mind I remain shocked at how one of my closest friends, some dude or chick that I'd virtually grown up with, can see things so differently. I suppose you could call me a political babe in the woods and you'd be absolutely correct.

You would also be correct to assume that my thinking more about politics these days would have been triggered by the Congress shutting down the government the other day. Of course it did. First off I guess I'll have to acknowledge that there are a lot of very smart people in Congress. People with degrees after their names and accolades from others as to their smartness and acuity. And their political acumen, for sure. But it definitely looks to me like they're a bunch of mewling third-graders who have been given bad grades on their report cards for “plays well with others.”. Most of them either don't know or don't care that the vast majority of Americans are centrists, give-or-take a little here or there, and that it's only the tiny minority of them who are the raving extremists. Of both political parties. Tea-baggers and tree-huggers I call 'em. But those extremists are quite vocal and they're the ones that you hear about the most. And most of them act as if the holy “c” word, compromise, is too vile to cross their lips. “My way or the highway,” seems to be the watchword of the day.

I'd venture to say that most Americans have a little more wiggle room in their political idealism than that. “You give me this and I'll give you that until we're both equally happy or equally sad.”

Not exactly brain surgery or rocket science, is it.

If dumb ol' me can see a middle ground, what are we paying those yahoos for anyhow?

Enough said, on to another subject.

I've often explored the topic of getting old in these pages and I'll have to ask for your indulgence as I do so again – this time for something kind of minor.

On Tuesday this week I picked up our daily newspaper and noticed something. Either my eyes were deceiving me or the son-of-a-gun had shrunk! I held it at arm's length and examined it again. Yep, it was definitely smaller. The font was different also and several long-standing ornaments on the front page, including an American flag which had graced that spot since 9/11 were gone. I did some examination of the inside of the paper and, in the editorial page they explained that, yes, the paper's format had changed and explained that the reasoning to do so was costs – printers ink, paper, yadda-yadda. They'd moved from a 6-column wide paper to a 5-column wide one.

It was, in its own small way, kind of shocking.

But I guess that's OK, I can get used to it. I can only guess at the difficulties the print media is going through at the present time with all the competition from online and broadcast journalism. I'm glad they explained themselves, though. Us oldies can sometimes be dumbfounded by a change that's not explained.

We're such fuddy-duddys that we generally think something is wrong with us.

And since we're on the subject of aging and the changes entailed in that endeavor, I must relate something else. My wife and I spent a pleasant week in California recently visiting with my brother, traveling here and there and doing various other things. For my sharp-eyed readers you might remember I wrote a bit about that journey in my past blog. Anyhow, while we were there we visited a bookstore I'd been wanting to see for ages and ages. The City Lights Bookstore. While I was there I purchased a couple books. Books which I may not have been able to procure somewhere else. One of them was Jack Kerouac's “Desolation Angels”.

I had been introduced to Jack back when I was much younger – in my 20's actually, when I had read probably his most famous book, “On the Road”. I enjoyed it immensely. I've even re-read it occasionally.

Now I was reading another of his books as an older person and... I even feel guilty for saying it... I don't like it. Here is an acknowledged genius of the literary realm and I'm reading one of his most acclaimed books and good ol' me doesn't like it.

I suppose I ought to feel ashamed. I supposed I ought to feel diminished, somehow, by not liking – hell, by not really even understanding this book. And not having the patience to read deeper to try to catch his meaning.

But I have to keep remembering, Jack Kerouac was of the Beat Generation and a lot of the literature of that period was, at least to my unlearned eyes, gobbledy-gook. Ol' Jack can run on for pages and pages with crazy-ass nonsense, sentences and paragraphs which are totally incomprehensible and then can switch and be totally lucid and quite readable. The dichotomy can be quite disconcerting.

Check out William S. Burroughs for further evidence of that generation's insanity.

I suppose I could merely state that I'm just not “hip” enough to dig his books, too middle-of-the-road or middle class to comprehend their meanings. Perhaps I'm just a child of my age, more attuned to a later style of story telling. Or perhaps Jack was using language to paint pictures or to create word symphonies which my un-hip eyes could not see or my earthbound tin-ear could not hear.

Yeah, that's probably it.

But as I rationalize my difficulties in comprehension, deep down I'm afraid it's more likely it has to do with my more – ahem – mature view of the world than my metaphorical artistic eyes or non-musical ears. Aging is a hard lesson to learn. It's sad to be reminded of it through the pages of a much-loved author from the old days.

Maybe I'll give ol' Jack a rest for the moment and dig into him sometime later in the future.

Maybe...

California Dreamin'

California Dreamin'

On an early, early, early Saturday morning a week or two ago, my wife and I took our first steps on a much anticipated vacation. I'd like to share some of my memories of it with you, but I don't think I'll use the same format as I've used in the past. I used to chronicle other vacations day by day what we did, what we ate, where we went and maybe even how much it cost. I don't believe I'll do it that way this time. I think I'll just share some of the things we did and maybe visit each one of those memories in a bit more detail than I might have done in the past. Maybe that will make it more enjoyable for the casual reader.

Or maybe less boring?

Our trip started really early as I may have mentioned before. Our original airline tickets had us leaving sometime shortly after 7 am from Cleveland Hopkins. But some weeks ago I'd received a revision from American Airlines. It said that the departure time was now 6:10. O joy. Since we live an hour away from the airport and they want you to be there 2 hours early, so... Let me see. Yep, up at 2, on the road by 3, at the airport by 4 and then we waited. We boarded at about 5:45 and at our scheduled departure time we...

No, we did not depart at that time. Some oil had been noticed below engine number one and they needed to investigate a bit before we would be cleared for take off. About 30 minutes later they determined that the oil was some residue from maintenance performed during the last stop and we were good to go – no leaks. We finally lifted off around 6:45 and were on our way.

Before that departure, however, while we were in the departure lounge waiting to board the aircraft, we happened to notice the flight crew arriving. One of the flight attendants looked over at us waiting customers and said, “Good morning!”

No one said anything. I mean, it was early and we were all apparently a bit groggy. She stopped in her tracks, did a left-face and re-examined us again. “I said GOOD MORNING!” she restated in a manner that resembled that of a Marine Corps drill sergeant. This time we all responded with a hearty good morning ourselves which garnered a smile from the attendant.

I whispered to my wife at that time, “That attendant will probably have us singing gospels before we achieve cruising altitude!” We found out that I wasn't exactly correct, but close. Later on while we were waiting permission to take off, that attendant introduced herself to us as Miss Patches and spent about 5 minutes kibitzing with us and doing her darnedest to wake us up and make us happy, happy, happy! She had us clapping and laughing and saying hello to a nearby child who was flying with us whom she'd made friends with earlier. A charming lady and an asset to her employer. We were all smiling after her impromptu show.

During our week stay in California, we stayed as guests in my brother's house in San Jose. He'd recently bought a house and was pleased to show it to us and make us feel at home. It is quite a nice place and we were very happy accepting his hospitality for the week. He had put a new bed in “our” bedroom and had things ready for us when we arrived. We were all set for a week of fun, frolic and no problems.

Of course our friend Murphy (of Murphy's Law fame) had other ideas.

The first morning we awoke in our sunny bedroom we found that we had some unwelcome visitors. A contingent of small ants had found their way to our abode and were starting to set up residence quite near our bed. My brother had been fighting battles with his ant population for some time now in his new house, but was unaware that they had made inroads in the guest bedroom. A quick spritz with the ant killer and we were insect-free the rest of the week. I really hated to embarrass my brother by telling him the news about our new “buddies”, but we really wanted the bedroom to ourselves for the week. He was chagrined, of course, but, like a good innkeeper and a better brother, he took care of the problem. We all got a good laugh out of it, too. There was another household problem that arose during our visit but it was overcome also with the help of some professionals and some dollars. I promised him I won't go into that one. Just let your imaginations run wild!

My brother invited some of his friends over on Sunday afternoon for a get together and we all enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of conversation, noshing on various tasty appetizers, having a few drinks and eating a very picnic-like lunch of hot dogs, potato salad and baked beans. I was pleased at how gracious his friends were to us wandering Ohioans and the afternoon went by in a flash. Chuck (my brother) is blessed with bright, articulate and fascinating friends.

We had an interesting encounter on Monday night while we were out to dinner. The three of us were eating at a local Marie Callendars restaurant and we were occasionally hearing cheers and some raucous laughter from somewhere down a hallway. It wasn't really intrusive, but it made me curious as to what the occasion might be. Perhaps a banquet in another room or maybe a reception? After finishing our excellent dinner, my brother and wife headed to the restrooms and I wandered toward where the commotion was coming from and stuck my head around the corner. As I should have guessed earlier it was the bar and they had on the Monday night football game. One gentleman and his wife motioned me over and asked if I wanted to join them. They were having a great time, had reached the jovial level of inebriation and seemed very friendly. We chatted for a few minutes and imparted to each other the quick biographies which were apropos to strangers meeting in a barroom. He said that he had some connections to Ohio and mentioned that he was from the “216”. I had to think for a moment before I realized he was talking about a local telephone area code! Since most of my area of Ohio had been changed from 216 to 330, I told him that we now called that the “classic 216” and that it was just up near Cleveland now. We chatted some more like we were old, old friends and I was sorely tempted to join their merrymaking, but I still had some catching up to do with my brother and told the lively couple that I had to leave. It was a very nice moment. Small encounters like that were the whipped cream and cherry on top of a nice trip.

We traveled to San Francisco on a day trip on Tuesday through the incredibly busy rush hour traffic that everyone takes for granted out there. Luckily the highways we traveled on had a “diamond” lane, a lane reserved for cars with more than one occupant, electric vehicles and buses. We fortunate diamond-laners zipped along almost at the speed limit and passed thousands of slowly moving cars each with one driver on board. This was a reminder to us that living in Cali wasn't just blue skies and nice weather most of the time. There are costs and downsides.

We didn't do the “normal” touristy stuff in San Francisco that day. We'd done that before and we had more off-the-beaten-path targets for this trip. We visited the California Academy of Science in Golden Gate Park for a few hours and checked out their exhibits and other neat stuff. Then it was off to find the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets, the birthplace of the hippy generation, for an I-was-there photograph. After searching here and there for a while, we happened upon Ashbury Street and soon after were taking a picture of the famous street signs. Then we were off to a preferred eatery of my brother's – Tommy's Joynt. This place was a very cool restaurant and an acknowledged historic landmark of the city. Very cool with large, colorful psychedelic signs painted on the outside of the building and layered with hundreds of old beer signs all over the inside. Excellent meats freshly sliced for each order and a huge assortment of beers from around the world. We had a tasty lunch there and soon were off to another San Francisco landmark – City Lights Bookstore.

I'd been a fan of the author Jack Kerouac since I'd been introduced to him back in the '60's. Reading him lead me to other “beat generation” writers and to the place a lot of them called their home away from home, the City Lights Bookstore. I'd wanted to visit there for quite a while but had never had the chance to get there. This trip I made sure it was on the top of my “to do” list.

The shop is in an old building very close to Chinatown. It looks like it carries books that you just might not be able to see in other stores, political things, historical, poetry, just lots and lots of fascinating books just sitting there waiting for your perusal and your purchase. I obliged and left with three books and a t-shirt. I'd have loved to buy more but didn't want to blow the entire budget for our trip at one stop! And it would have been so EASY to do that!

The next day was a long-planned visit with an old Air Force friend. Joe and I had spent 18 months as Air Weather Observers in the Panama Canal Zone at Howard Air Force Base back in the late '60's. We'd become friends there and promised we'd see each other after we'd returned to “the world”. We'd accomplished that in 1970 but not since, so I was anxious to see him again.

We drove from San Jose to Half Moon Bay. That trip consisted of a drive across the coastal mountains from Silicon Valley (where my brother lives) and over to the seashore where Half Moon Bay sits, an interesting drive over some quite ruggedly beautiful terrain. We met Joe at the public library where he works along with the other librarians on staff – a nice bunch of people. Joe took us on a stroll around the little town and pointed out some of the highlights therein including his church. As a side note, one of the congregants of the church decided he'd learn how to do stained glass. As one of his early projects, he designed and created the stained glass windows for this church! They were quite beautiful to start with and more amazing for the fact that it was an almost beginner who'd created them. Very impressive! We then went to a local beach and checked it out. Joe and I continued to talk about the “old” days and generally catch up on what had been happening in our lives the past 44 years. That conversation took a while! Then a coffee break at a local bakery, more conversation, a trip to the harbor to see the boats and then we had to say adios. The time for our return trip was getting short. We'd planned on taking the “scenic” route back to Chuck's house – Highway 1 along the beautiful California coast. We took that drive and feasted on the views from a number of vantage points on that fifty-mile stretch of beach. We ate an early supper on the pier in Santa Cruz and “enjoyed” another twisty-turny trip across the coastal mountains to his valley home. An unplanned treat was the daily special at the restaurant on the pier – Gilda's - prime rib dinner for a very agreeable price! Another nice Cali day.

The next day was when we stopped at a few of the places that made Silicon Valley what it is today. We stopped at the Intel Headquarters and visited their small but excellent museum showing how they make the chips that run a lot of the microcomputers in the world. It's a fascinating story. Another stop was at One Infinite Loop, the Apple Headquarters where we took pictures and visited their company store. Another quick stop was at the Facebook HQ for a photo op. Then we hit the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. They had a large amount of exhibits that highlighted the evolution of computing, from the abacus clear up to the networking systems of today. Highlights for me were the IBM 360/30 mainframe identical to the one I worked on in the early '70's and one of the wooden prototype Apple-1 computers constructed by Steve Wozniak. It's signed Woz on the front and our docent (tour guide) said that particular machine was probably worth in the neighborhood of $200,000 or maybe more. One similar had sold recently for about twice that amount. Very interesting.

On our drive back to Chuck's house that afternoon he had me detour past a very large construction site. He proudly said that what I saw going up was to be the San Francisco 49ers new football stadium. It's in Santa Clara, just up the road from his home in San Jose and just next door to the Great American Amusement Park. When it's completed it will hold the record in the NFL as the stadium furthest away from its host city – over 38 miles. It's expected to be completed for the '14-'15 football season and also will be the Super Bowl host for the following year. Levi Strauss & Co. purchased the naming rights, so it will be called Levi Stadium. It looks huge from the ground! As a further note, my brother just started work on this site as a construction electrician. His first assignment will be working on the solar panels on the roof of the stadium. I hope he's not too concerned with heights!

My brother Chuck had remembered how fond we were about Mexican food so he took us to one of his favorite Mexican eateries on Friday night. He also had invited his friend Dave to accompany us, so there were four of us that evening. The food was very good, the margaritas were plentiful and the strolling mariachis made the evening quite special. We were glad that he'd saved this particular treat for our last night there.

There were other adventures we experienced during our sojourn on the West Coast, of course, but most were probably more interesting to us than maybe they would be to you, so I'm taking pity on our gentle readers by culling the chaff and only displaying the gems.

Or something like that...

The California we saw this trip is a beautiful place with a lot of wonderful people who welcomed us with open arms. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and are already talking about how soon we can return. Check it out yourself if you can. You'll be glad you did!

(Even if you have to massacre a few ants from time to time!)

The Best Damn Onion Rings!

The Best Damn Onion Rings!

Once again I find I must ask for my reader's patience and understanding by writing another blog about how things were in the old days. I can hear your responses to that as I now sit here.

“Is he going to talk about the good ol' days again!” or

“Good Lord, he's off on a another long memory tangent again!” or

“If I read just one more story about how it was back in “the day” I think I'll...”

Yeah, I get that. I can feel your pain as another famous Bill was fond of saying. But doggone it folks, some of those stories are interesting and some of them are enjoyable, both to write (from my end) and to read (your end, of course). At least I think so. So, with that caveat floating over all our heads, here we go for another ride on the memory express.

My wife and I went out to eat on Saturday evening. Although there was food in the cupboard at home, nothing seemed to appeal to us at that moment, so we decided to motor on down the road to a new/old restaurant that had opened/reopened recently. As to why the conflicting adjectives you just read, please know that this restaurant had opened its (I think) third incarnation recently and had been receiving rave reviews from our friends who had dined there. Its name is Bishops and anyone from my hometown will immediately recognize the name and know what I'm talking about. Its probably as famous in these parts as Nathan's is in Coney Island, Geno's or Pat's is in Philly or Tony Packo's is in Toledo. On our way to this newly re-arisen icon of local gustatory splendor we happened to pass through a neighborhood of our hometown where I used to live. It was now one of the no-so-nice parts of town – a label that wasn't necessarily the truth back when I was a kid and lived there. Of course being just a kid, what did I know, eh? It was perhaps a post-war ghetto back then also, but that's beside the point. Being in that neighborhood sparked many memories of my childhood and those memories immediately caused my mouth to open and my voice to start reciting some of them to my wife. Perhaps it was more of a verbal acknowledgement of the memories rather than an actual impulse to “tell a story” to my wife. I may have even started talking if I had been alone in the car. One never knows. But of course, in our 41 years of marriage I had probably told her these stories before. Possibly multiple times. She was nice enough to hold her tongue, at least for a while, and let me blabber on which more than likely added yet another accumulating layer of polish to her halo. I wisely kept my remarks fairly short, too, not wanting to get that “look” from her, even if I felt the urge to keep on yammering.

When I was a kid – call it kindergarten through sometime in 4^th grade – maybe ages 6 through 10 or so, I lived in the south end of our town. It was definitely a working class neighborhood – low to low middle if you wanted to categorize it. Dad worked in a factory and mom was a homemaker. Both were, and in my opinion still are, honorable professions. I believe the house we lived in was a rental as I don't think dad actually bought his first house until later - 1960 or thereabouts. It had two floors plus a basement. Although I think it was an OK house for the time for us, it also happened to be situated in an ideal location for a kid.

Let me explain.

Behind the house was a largish yard with the customary swing-set and sandbox for the kiddies. Dad had made the sandbox by cutting a large truck tire in half along the tread leaving two big doughnuts. He'd painted one of them red, white and blue, placed it open side down on the ground and filled the middle with play sand. Voila, sandbox! The other half he flipped over and filled with water. That was like a little round river we could use to sail our toy boats on. The yard with it's playthings for us kids was a plus for sure, but go out the back gate to the yard and that's where the real fun began. Behind our yard was an alley and behind that? First there was the storage yard for the telephone company's telephone poles. Behind that was a railroad track and way further back from there was the city dump! To the right as you faced the pole-yard was a storage area for a gravel company and they had huge piles of gravel there. Also be aware that nothing was ever fenced! It you were an average kid, all this wonderland was freely available! I ended up spending years of my childhood playing in those areas – hide and seek in the pole-yard, king of the mountain on the gravel heaps, putting pennies on the railroad track to get flattened by the slow-moving freights that rumbled through there a few times a day, playing tag everywhere and just doing kid stuff. The only rule my folks had was to stay out of the dump and, to be honest, we did. It was smelly and had lots of rats. Not really very appetizing and we had all those other areas to play in.

It was nirvana for kids.

You might ask, did any of you get hurt messing around back there? Any one get hit by a train? Anyone? The answer is, of course. Kids do dumb stuff and occasionally get hurt. I can remember one neighbor kid breaking an arm jumping off the roof of a nearby shed. He had a sheet on his back like a cape and believed, at least for the short time before he hit the ground, that he could fly like Superman. It was a hard lesson but there were some of us that needed hard lessons before anything sunk in. As far as I know he never jumped off a roof again. I see his name on social media once in a while, too, so he's still breathing.

Once again, apparently, lesson learned.

We also messed around with b-b guns and yes, we got stung a few times from “innocently” misaimed shots. No eyes shot out in my group, although I knew a fellow later in life who suffered that injury. Just none of my group ever did.

For all the rough play and many, many hours of fooling around, remarkably few of us kids sustained any lasting injuries. Bumps, bruises, a cut here or there. What we defined as normal.

Anyhow...

On school days I had a “special” way to get from our house to my school. I would first leave the house by the back door. Then down the alley to the pole-yard. Across the pole-yard to the railroad tracks. Down the tracks a few hundred yards to another alley. Up that alley to a street where I'd pick up a friend. The two of us would then go up a street, cut through another alley and we'd be at our elementary school. It was a short cut for me and, to be truthful, it maybe cut off a tiny bit of travel distance from my home to the school.

And it was cool!

Anyhow, because we'd just driven by the house where my friend from those old days used to live, all those long ago memories fluttered through the ol' noggin.

Now, back to Bishops...

The first incarnation of this restaurant was as a drive-in just north of our hometown. It was THE place to go to see and to be seen. Everyone would, from time to time, go there for a meal and for a look-around to see who else was there. Especially the teens of the area. This was particularly evident on Friday and Saturday nights. You'd park in the lot, look at the menu posted and soon a carhop would come out and take your order. She'd return later with the goodies on a tray that attached to your car window. When you were finished you'd turn on your headlights and they'd come back out to remove the tray. All the while you were there you'd play your radio to the approved rock 'n roll stations. (C'mon, you were a teenager too. You knew which stations were cool and which ones played the best music.) You'd listen to the tunes and check out the rest of the folks there. Bishops on a Friday/Saturday night was a must do!

Most everything they had on the menu was great, but they were known far and wide as having the absolute best onion rings anywhere and anytime. Bar none! They were big, chunky rings, heavy-cut suckers with a golden-brown crunchy breading just out of the hot oil and smelling delicious! They more resembled doughnuts than onion rings. The breading mix was so beloved that they packaged it and sold it in brown paper bags with the Bishops logo on it so you could make your own rings at home!

The years went by and then the owners were... well, to be honest I'm not sure why the place closed. Was it an economical decision? Possibly the owners were offered a goodly sum for the site and chose to sell it? Their location was prime real estate in those days. Or maybe the owners grew old and weary, tired of the endless hours of running a popular restaurant? Maybe it was a combination of pressures that caused the first incarnation of Bishops to fold. I really don't know for certain.

Many years later a sit-down restaurant opened with the same name about 8 miles east of town. They were some relation to the original owners, I guess, or they had bought the rights to the name and menu, so those remained the same as the original. It remained open for some years but just didn't seem to get the business that the original did. I wasn't sure if it was because it was quite a ways out of town or maybe the ambiance was different? Maybe? Just don't know about that one either.

Anyhow, it closed too.

Word swirled around the social media in the past several years that Bishops was going to open another place here. Or was it there? It was to open next month, or six months, or a year, or two years down the road. No one seemed to know anything concrete until the rumors finally became the truth and the exact place and time of the new Bishops was disseminated. It was coming back home where it belonged.

It finally reopened a few months ago. It's within my hometown's city limits and its business, from all the accounts I've heard, has been very, very good. Most people I've talked to have mentioned waiting in line for some periods of time before being able to be seated. But they have all agreed that it was well worth the wait and the food is definitely as good as the original.

If not better!

So our stars aligned properly on Saturday and we went out to experience the new Bishops. We could hardly wait to give 'er a try and to add our comments to the throng already acclaiming the merits of the place.

First off, yes we had to wait. Not long – maybe 5-10 minutes. We were led to a table in one of the two dining rooms and it was clean and ready to go. Our waiter was prompt with the menus and to take our drink orders. He returned quickly and our supper wishes were soon in the kitchen's capable hands. In about 10 minutes our orders were being set before our hungry eyes.

Bishops is not a fancy place. It never was in the past and it remains the same today. I observed that most orders are still served in plastic baskets with a layer of heavy paper inside just like they were in the car-hop days. The food is set on the paper and brought to you just as if it was being delivered to your car window at the drive-in. We'd ordered fried chicken and onion rings. We'd loved those dishes in the past and were curious as to how today's would compare. My wife's other side dish was cole slaw and she said it was as she'd remembered from the good ol' days – sweet and creamy. I got baked beans as my side and they tasted homemade with shreds of what appeared to be pork roast intermingling with the savory beans. The chicken was as remembered, crispy/crunchy breading with moist and juicy chicken inside. The onion rings were as we'd hoped – perfect and crunchy with the fresh onion inside steaming hot.

It was every bit as good as I remembered.

I wrote a friend about our experience there that evening while it was still fresh in my mind. I was effusive in my praise. I was and am ready to return at a moment's notice. I want to check out the rest of the menu. The shrimp looked great at the next table, the clams and perch all sound yummy. And the homemade pies looked fabulous.

And of course we have to have some more of those divine onion rings!

Old Places, Old Friends

Old Places, Old Friends

The year was 1902.

The first Rose Bowl game was played in Pasadena, California – Michigan won over Sanford 49-0.

Denmark sells the Virgin Islands to the USA.

The YWHA organized in New York City.

The American Automobile Association, the AAA, was founded in Cleveland, Ohio.

Enrico Caruso became the first well-known performer to make a record.

The first motion picture theater opened in Los Angeles.

The Texas Oil Company, Texaco, formed.

The first JC Penney store opened in Kemmerer, Wyoming.

Marie and Pierre Curie isolated the element radium.

The first science fiction film was released. It was called A Trip to the Moon.

Cuban gains its independence from Spain.

The Boer War ends.

The U.S. buys the concession to build the Panama Canal from the French for $40 million.

Edward VII of England is crowned after the death of his mother, Queen Victoria.

The Trans-Pacific cable linked Hawaii to the U.S.

And...

The Walnut Street Elementary School was built in my hometown.

Fifty-two years later I began my formal education as a kindergartener in that school.

Let me try to give you a sense of how it was in those days. Unlike today, they didn't have half-day kindergarten, so us young 'uns were in class for the whole day whether we wanted to be or not. They did take pity on us, however, because of our tender ages, by allowing us a nap-time once a day. Or maybe it was twice a day? We all brought in little woven rag rugs to lay on the floor upon which we lay so we could catch our nap time zzzz's. I supposed if kindergarteners brought in rolled up rugs nowadays someone would probably call CNN, say the school was a madrassa and all the kids would be identified as Muslims. The use we actually put to our rugs back then was not to pray to Allah.

At least mine wasn't.

The school building itself was aging even when I started there – it was over 50 years old – and had seen its share of children passing through. Several generations of kids at least. The school conducted classes from kindergarten through 6^th grade as most elementary schools did. I attended there until about half-way through the 4^th grade when my family moved and I was transferred to another grade school.

Walnut Street School was and is a beautiful old structure. They call that type of building Renaissance Style architecture. The formal definition of Renaissance Style is this: it places emphasis on symmetry, proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of classic antiquity and in particular ancient Rome. Orderly arrangements of columns, pilasters and lintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemispherical domes, niches and aedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles of medieval buildings. What that meant in more rudimentary English is that the left half of the building generally mirrored the right. And as far as what aedicules are, that's anyone's guess. Its exterior is a pleasingly configured use of dressed stone and brickwork – another definition. It's a doggone handsome building when you view it from almost any angle, solid and imposing-looking. It looked as if it was built to stand for a long, long time. It had 3 stories, the first were some steps down from the entrance, the second and third up its wide oak stairs. The building's office was straight ahead when you entered and the classrooms ran along the right and left sides on all three floors.

I remember being in the first classroom to the right on the 2^nd or main floor for my fourth-grade class. The teacher was named Emerson Miller and I recall that he liked to sit on the wide window sashes and play with the sash cords while he taught, kind of a nervous habit of his. In those days the windows all opened wide to allow any available breezes to come through them. There was even a large transom above the classroom doors that could also be opened to help the ventilation on hot days, as it got quite warm there early in the school year and again in the spring as the year was winding down. Mr. Miller was a nice man, as I recall, and I enjoyed the way he taught. He wore a dress shirt and tie in the classroom and wore a sport coat when outside. The women teachers then all wore dresses. Teaching was a professional career and they all dressed appropriately. I'm not sure if they do that now. I was lucky enough to have Mr. Miller as my teacher again for sixth grade as he was reassigned to my new school.

Sometime in the '70's the old school conducted its last class and then sat empty. Talk was that it would be demolished as a lot of older buildings were. For some reason that was never accomplished and it remained empty until 1984 when its lease on life was renewed. It was rehabbed and made into the new home of the Wayne Center for the Arts.

That organization was formed in 1973 and was formerly housed on the campus of the College of Wooster. Through a gift from the Rubbermaid Foundation and with the support of the community, the Arts Center was able to move into the newly renovated Walnut Street School.

I remember the renovation proceedings quite clearly as my father had a hand in it. He was working at the time for an electrical company and they'd won the bid for doing the electrical work for the rehab. He'd talked quite a bit about the challenges of bringing an 82-year-old building (at that time) up to modern electrical code. He also talked about working in the huge attic of the building doing wiring and how terribly hot it was up there the summer he was doing the work.

The Art Center now presents exhibitions, performances, community activities and special events all year round. Some upcoming activities include: a wood-turners exhibition, a youth theater, a summer stage production, a watercolor exhibition, a jazz fest, pottery exhibition, a camera club exhibition, a potter's guild sale, a holiday artisan market and many other “arts and craft” sort of things. There are also many classes taught in the building throughout the year including drawing, working in clay, world art studies, pottery, music instruction in voice and many instruments and many dance classes in ballet, tap and others. These classes are for pre-school kids through adults.

Since I was planning on attending an upcoming theatrical performance there a week or so ago, I went down to the old school a few days early to purchase my tickets. As I climbed the old dressed-stone exterior steps and pulled open the original heavy wooden doors I almost felt transported back to my childhood again. There was the creaking oaken stairway ascending to the main floor from my memories, there were the classrooms on either side of me, their transoms and doors swung open showing the polished wood floors and the high old-fashioned windows in each room. You could see the new desks and tables where the art classes were taught. As I walked up the old steps I met dozens of little pre-school girls heading down from the upper floor where they had obviously just finished attending a ballet class. I made this assumption as they all were wearing little ballet tights and tutus. Their mothers followed along talking “mommy” talk as the little girls laughed and chattered and scampered down the stairs like a flock of brightly-colored fledgelings just leaving the nest.

After passing the gaggle of little girls I walked across the floor and up to the office's window where I purchased my tickets for the upcoming performance. While standing there I looked around the hallway and let the interior of the building soak into me, letting its present condition vie in my mind with the way I remembered the place. The conclusion was that the rehabbers had done a marvelous job. Things were very close to the way they were years and years ago, if memory serves. Everything was ship-shape, clean, the woodwork shining, the hardwood floors all polished. Those floors still creaked, I noticed, as I walked across them, the same as they did in my younger days. There was a comfortable sense of a new thing which had grown out of an old thing, the new parts intermingling with the old parts and creating a new thing altogether – an amalgam of the best parts of both.

It brought back many memories.

Which leads me, circuitously perhaps, to my next topic.

I get into discussions with a dear friend of mine on many occasions, in fact you might even say we make it a habit of confronting each other about this and that. We've known each other almost forever, we're of the same age, give or take a year or so, we work together and we share many memories of the past – the Glory Days if you will. Some of them we experienced together, others we acquired on our own over the years. Our present-day discussions most generally will evolve (or is it devolve) into good-natured disagreements on how things should be done and how things have or have not been done in the past. He is of the mind that old things should almost always be left alone and kept as they were. To keep the discussions lively I usually take the opposing side and discourse on how new things are always needed for the new generations and to keep us moving forward. The words the old must give way to the new, I've been know to utter. This generally results in a head shake from my friend and more explanations on how the old ways were the best ways.

Sooner or later, if we talk long enough, our discussion will end up about schools. Two particular schools, in fact. (You see, we did finally tie into the first subject, didn't we?) Our discussions normally go something like this:

Near the center of our town sits the “old” high school. It was built back in the dark ages of the city and served as the edifice of higher learning for a long, long time. Not counting our local college, of course. It was built on part of a city block, sharing that block with a junior high school, an elementary school, a small park and a practice football field. Some years back the population of the city and, hence, its high school-age progeny had increased and that increase in kids had resulted in putting a definite overcrowding situation in the old school. The technology of the modern age, computers, the internet, etc., had also created problems in the old building vis-a-vis its electrical capacity and its inability to accommodate computer facilities. It also had what were named “landlocked classrooms”, classrooms that were only accessible by walking through other classrooms. The varsity football field was even a couple blocks away and had been for ages.

It had reached and exceeded its capacity in a lot of areas. Most everyone agreed with those facts.

This problem seemed to have two possible solutions, both of which had their proponents.

One was to “fix up” the old school and continue onward on that property. The other was to build a new one somewhere else where there was room to grow, room for a full-sized football field on the property, room for parking, room for... well, room for everything that a modern high school should have and modern, up-to-date facilities to give the kids of the city as much advantages as possible for them to compete in the modern world.

With those needs in mind, one of our hometown's local philanthropists purchased a large lot in the north end and bequeathed it to the city if it would be used for a new high school. The caveat was that if no school, no property bequeathment. It was a very substantial gift. If I remember correctly a bond issue was voted on not long after that and a majority of the residents gave their approval for the new high school.

And so it was built. The design of the school was modern – long, high hallways, lots of skylights. An airy and cheery and bright place. They attached to the school an Olympic-sized swimming pool which was owned by the YMCA but the high school students used it as if it were their own. They also attached a large field house with an indoor walking track and 4 basketball courts. They soon added weight-training facilities there also. This was available to the general population of the town as well as the high school. It was, as they say, state-of-the-art.

I used some of the facilities myself, namely the walking track and pool, and liked the appearance of the rest of the school.

Some folks didn't. Some folks absolutely hated the place. You can probably guess that my friend was one of the vocal ones.

He was a proponent of the original plan A, fixing up the old high school, which had been shot down in flames. To add further insult to his injury, the old high school was partly demolished after the new high school was built and the remaining portion was rehabbed into our town's newest elementary school. It was apparently just the right size for a grade school and could be brought up to standards in that capacity. Of course my friend thought that if it could be used for an elementary school, it could have been rehabbed for a high school.

We disagree about this. A lot. And we'll probably continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

I remember talking to him just today about some stuff other than the old high school vs the new high school. At one point in our discussion I said something like I know you, alluding to what I assumed he would do or say for whatever circumstances we were yammering on about. He replied that I did not know him and I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was stating an important and serious fact.

I shut up for a minute and then realized that he was correct. I knew him in the context of when we were together and what we talked about, which was a miniscule portion of his life. I'd made the mistake of stereotyping him, of putting him in the box I'd labeled with his name and assuming that he would do or say what I thought he would do or say. He no more belonged in that box than I did in the one I'm sure other people have created with my name on the outside.

For that faux pas I am truly sorry.

But for goodness sakes don't tell him! He'd just use my mea culpa as a tool the next time we discuss the situation of the two high schools. Can't have that! I need every advantage I can get.

And another thing we can just keep between us, dear reader. I love old places! Hell, I got the goosebumps just walking around the old Walnut Street School the other day. I love the way it looks, the way the woodwork glows and the old wooden floor creaks. I love the way the sunlight shines through the high windows and the way the air seems to buzz with the footsteps and voices and laughter of its inhabitants, both those of today's users and those of the ghosts of yesterdays. And I love that it now provides a home for the community's artistic endeavors as it once did in the older days as a school.

So I guess my antiquarian proclivities must at last be acknowledged publicly. As much as I really, really do like new things – seriously – I also really dig the old places.

But don't spread that around, OK? I have a reputation to uphold!

I Don't Care

I Don't Care

So I'm sitting in the back row at the opera with my friend Ray and...

Hold on, wait just a minute. Before we go any further I just wanted to say how much fun it was to type those first few words! I don't suppose the context of what we were saying could be any more interesting than the fact of where we were, but let's head onward and find out, shall we?

As I was saying, I was sitting at the opera with my friend Ray...

OK, let's stop again. For your edification it was a LIGHT opera, as if that hardly makes any difference. They have those sort of things, you know. It wasn't at all the 250-pound Brunhilde warbling in German about her Viking lover being dragged away in chains to some erstwhile Valhalla. Or whatever GRAND opera is all about. This particular variant on this particular day in my hometown was a George and Ira Gershwin production from the mid '20's with lots of jazz and a silly play in between the musical numbers. It was light-hearted and quite toe-tappingly entertaining. Not at all “Der Ring des Nibelungen” or anything of that ilk. You know, ponderous and momentous.

But the light opera, as glorious as it was, wasn't what I wanted to talk about right now.

So we're sitting there, waiting for the entertainment to commence, and Ray starts recounting to me his take on one of the big stories in the news at the time. You may know the one I'm talking about. A security guard (or armed hooligan) of some sort has an altercation with a young man (or vicious criminal) and, after some sort of scuffle (or perhaps some sort of not-scuffle), a shot was fired and the young man was killed (or murdered). This discussion at the opera took place soon after the trial was over and the shooter had been found not guilty. Ray was under the impression that justice had not been served and someone had “gotten away” with murder and he continued along this path for some time.

I like Ray a lot. He's a very nice man and was smart enough to have married one of my favorite people from college, so I nodded at the appropriate places in his dialog and agreed that he had a point.

Maybe.

But I was also sure to tell him that I didn't necessarily agree or disagree with his opinion. I think he was a little disappointed that I didn't jump on the bandwagon with him and echo his suspicions that the “wrong” verdict had been reached vis-a-vis the security guard.

Truth be told I may have even been leaning in the opposite direction.

To be honest, I hadn't been following the story very closely. I'd seen it reported on the news quite a lot, of course. You couldn't turn on the television during the trial without seeing the story. But I hadn't paid too much attention to it.

Some people might gasp in shock that I would not pay attention to that particular story. Wasn't I concerned about the situation? Couldn't I immediately see that things had happened because the security guard was a bigot and had essentially laid in wait for the young man? How could I be so blind not to see this truth? Was I myself not some kind of bigot for not seeing the situation for what it was?

The answers to the above are no, no, I don't think I'm blind and no I don't think I'm a bigot.

To be brutally honest, I didn't care very much either way.

Do I hear a gasp from my faithful readers? Are you all mortified that I didn't ache for the slain young man? Are you angry with me for not vilifying the shooter and thirsting for his comeuppance? His blood?

Think about this: On the day of the incident, how many other people were shot and killed – justifiably and not, how many other people died in car wrecks, household accidents, cooking accidents, bathing accidents, lawn mowing accidents and other various ways that people seem to have discovered on how to shuffle off this mortal coil? How many people were maimed and dismembered? How many people got divorced and how many spouses died? Not to mention how many lives were lost in the myriad of wars around the world every single damn day of the year?

Do I mourn those lost lives? Do I thirst for the blood of the people who may or may not have taken them?

I don't know about you, but over my six-and-a-half decades of life I've become somewhat of a master at filtering out things, of ignoring things that do not affect me or do not interest me. It is a process that we humans all acquire or else we join the inhabitants of mental institutions. Your brain cannot assimilate all the mayhem that surrounds us. You have to pick and choose.

And I'll be damned if I'll let some television editor or some media programming director decide which particular tragedy I should be concerned with. I'm not going to rise to their bait like a befuddled trout chasing a tasty-looking mayfly with a buried hook inside.

I will choose which sad thing I will pay attention to. Or happy thing for that matter.

Again to be brutally honest, the death of my friend's dog a few weeks ago saddened and concerned me much more than the present brouhaha playing itself out on the airwaves. As to whether I feel much like demonstrating or marching for a cause, I've never really considered myself much of a Don Quixote and jousting at windmills isn't now and never will be an occupation I'm much interested in.

As I see it, an incident occurred. An investigation was performed. A person was indicted. A trial was held. A legal verdict was arrived at using the laws of that particular state. A person was found not guilty. Story over.

Story over!

Did a bad guy get away with it or did an aggrieved person gain exoneration? Was justice served or cruelly thwarted? Who am I to say. The jurors saw the whole thing presented to them, from both sides, in excruciating detail, and they said let him go. Why should my judgment, gathered from many minutes of television watching take precedence over theirs?

How foolish would that be?

I may not be happy with it or I may be. I may think the right decision was reached or I might not.

In the final analysis, what I think or what I feel are just opinions and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Because, God help me, I just didn't care very much.

As an aside, my son is a security guard. Did that color my view?

You betcha!

Rivers and Battlegrounds

Rivers and Battlegrounds

Day One…

It was one of those days when you didn’t know if you should set the windshield wipers on low or leave them on intermittent.  The rain was of that sort that morning, letting you know that it was still around, still flexing its muscles and not wanting to go away, but still easing off once in a while to tease you with begrudging dry spells from time to time.

We’d chosen to proceed to our first destination by a different route than maybe someone else would have chosen.  Our GPS directed us south and east for about half the journey, then more north and east for the remainder.  It wasn’t a terribly long drive, but far enough for all of us to get a little fidgety in the car.  So in the late morning of the first day we arrived at the Carnegie Science Center just across the river from downtown Pittsburgh.  Walking from the car to the building helped ease some of the stiffness from the trip and soon we were inside.  The three of us, my wife, my son and I had toured similar places before, so the contents weren’t terribly unfamiliar.  Plenty of science exhibits and demonstrations, of course.  My son seems to enjoy checking out things like that.  Along with the permanent displays and artifacts, most places like this have special exhibits that show up for a certain period of time and then are replaced by others.  The special ones at Carnegie at the moment all seemed to concern robots.  They had displays of famous movie and television robots – Robbie from the movie “Forbidden Planet”, the similar one in the TV show “Lost in Space” (who used to shout “Warning, Will Robinson!”) and Gort from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”.  Then there was the HAL9000 from “2001 A Space Odyssey” and maybe the two best know ones, R2D2 and C3PO from the “Star Wars” franchise.  There was an operating robot that shot basketballs, one that played air-hockey with you, another that would converse with you and numbers of others.

Another fascinating exhibit was a gigantic model train setup with dozens of different landscapes.  Even if you weren’t a model train enthusiast it was very interesting.

An exhibit that we all enjoyed was displayed in the Ohio River just outside the museum.  It was the submarine USS Requin.  It was available for touring and we enjoyed ourselves doing such.  It never fails to amaze me how many sailors and officers served on one of these subs.  At one time!  It felt cramped with a dozen or so civilians like us wandering around onboard, so it seemed incredible as to the many men who would normally crew it.  We enjoyed ourselves squeezing through the tight quarters and maneuvering through the difficult hatchways.

A little later we watched an IMAX movie about repairing the Hubble space telescope.  Watching the astronauts do the repair job while weightless in space was fascinating.

Many, many children joined us in our museum adventure.  There seems to be NO escaping kids when you tour one of these venues.  They are as common as freckles on a redhead’s face.  You just quickly learn to step aside when they surround you and let them through.

After touring the Museum and after a few minutes to check into and rest a bit in our hotel, we adjourned to Rivers Casino to meet my cousin Lorraine and her husband John.  We ate at the very nice buffet they have there and enjoyed the food and conversation for quite a while.  I ate a LOT of things and, of that, I’ll talk about a bit later.

We finally finished our dinners and wandered down to the casino.  Lorraine pointed out a few slot machines she had been lucky at in the past and we gave them a try.  It was a good decision for me, at least for a while.  I was up to about 4 times my original wager and feeling pretty good about it.  I was going to stop there, honestly, but got a bit greedy trying for the big one, and ended up “donating” a large portion of my winnings back to the casino.  Easy come and easy go I suppose.  I was playing with their money you know!  At least that’s what all of us gamblers like to say.  Of course, in reality it wasn’t.  Once you win it, it’s yours.  It was fun though and we always go into a place like that with our eyes open and a fixed amount we’ll wager and no more.  We never really get hurt.

After bidding adieu to my cousin we returned to our hotel where I spent a restless night with a too-soft mattress and a too-soft pillow.

My stomach was also quite active during the overnight hours.

Day Two…

We ate the hot breakfast provided by the high-end hotel we were staying at in the morning.  Food was good, unfortunately my stomach wasn’t.  Apparently something I’d eaten at the buffet the previous evening was playing havoc with the ol’ digestive system.  I won’t go into details about the specifics of my difficulties, but needless to say I was NOT good company for my wife and son for most of that day.  Perhaps it was the 88 crab legs I’d devoured?  (not really quite that many)  Or the sushi and wasabi?  Or the coconut gelato?  Or some ruinous combination thereof?  In any event, I suffered for better than half of this day with the stomach jimjams.

We’d planned to take a tour boat along the rivers to see Pittsburgh that day.  My son had never been there and it’s a good introduction to the city.  It was raining hard and thundering when we awoke, so we played the waiting game at the hotel to see if it would pass.  Our luck was good that day and by noon we were sitting on the dock waiting for our boat.  The tour was quite enjoyable and we were blessed with a brighter sky for its duration.  We even got a little bit of sunburn through the clouds!  After the river excursion we rode one of the two existing incline rails up to the top of Mt. Washington.  We took some pictures of the stunning city views from there (the day was clearing nicely by then) and soon were back at the bottom of the hill, in the car and heading east toward our second destination.

I let the GPS show us the way down the road to our next stop – Gettysburg.  The road trip was fairly uneventful besides my still quite uncomfortable stomach.  Luckily, one of the plazas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, along with a variety of fast foods, had some Pepto Bismol for sale.  Hurrah!  After purchase I chugged a couple large gulps of it and my misery started to ease almost at once.  We arrived at our destination in the late afternoon.  Our hotel this time was a more economical one than the previous night, but the beds were blissfully firmer as were the pillows.  A good night was anticipated.

Supper that evening was at a family-type restaurant recommended by our hotel’s clerk.  Quite tasty and my belly had recovered enough that I could enjoy it.  We were soon back to our accommodations a little after 9 p.m. and asleep before 10.

Day Three…

Breakfast this morning was at a Perkins – slow service, good food – and then we were off to the Gettysburg Tour Center not long afterward.  We took the 11:15 bus for a 2-hour tour of the battlefield.  Our guide, who narrated the entire trip, was extremely knowledgeable and kept our interest up with fascinating stories about the 1863 battle.  He was one of the officially licensed guides and those boys really knew their stuff!  We stretched our legs and looked a little closer at two stops during the tour and listened to our guide again describe what was going on at those points back during the Civil War.  I’m a bit of a history buff, so this sojourn into the old days was one of the highlights of my trip.  After a mandatory (according to my wife) trip to the souvenir shop, we walked over to the Jenny Wade house, which was quite near.  Jenny Wade, as astounding as it seems, was the ONLY civilian casualty of the Gettysburg battle.  We walked all over the house she was staying in during the battle and shuddered at the number of bullet holes on the outside and the inside, including the one made by the bullet that bored through two doors and took her life.  It was a fascinating story and well worth the time to see it.

We headed to the official (run by the National Parks Service) tour center then, toured the museum and saw the Cyclorama.  This last item is a 360-degree painting, originally 42 feet high, 365 feet around and weighing six tons.  It was first viewed in 1883 to critical acclaim.  It’s a breathtaking depiction of Pickett’s charge and other scenes of battle from an elevated viewing point.  It’s an amazing sight and a very lifelike depiction of the battle that day.

We took a hotel break after this to cool off and relax a bit.  In the late afternoon we drove our car back to the battlefield and took some pictures of the more distinctive state and regional monuments on the field.

Please be aware that visitors to Gettysburg can be deceived by first impressions.  As you tour the battlefield you can easily see that this is a very peaceful and bucolic area of south central Pennsylvania.  The bees buzz, the birds sing, the wind blows through the green and verdant landscape and you couldn’t visualize a more gentle place on earth.  But superimposed upon this present view is the knowledge that one of the most savage battles in our country’s history took place where you now stand.  The fields and the creeks in those three days in July literally ran red in blood.  Many Americans, both North and South, either died or were horribly wounded in the three days of that battle.  It is a place that, if you listen closely, the peaceful summer sounds will fade and the echoes of war will take their place with booming cannons, the crackling of musket fire and the cries of men dying or in the frenzy of war.  It’s even been said that on certain nights you can make out ghostly campfires far out in the battle fields and smell the bacon and johnnycakes cooking in the breeze.

And, if you’re into that sort of thing, it’s purported to be a very haunted place.

After supper we drove to the shop where our next “adventure” would take place.  We bought tickets at one of the flourishing ghost tour establishments.  A lady dressed in black period costume nicknamed Spooky was the one who led our tour.  She took us down some dark alleys and side streets near the shop and would stop every now and then to tell stories concerning that area 150 years ago and what had happened there during and after the battle.  She recounted tales of bloodshed and horror and was very good at describing the spookier aspects of them!  She encouraged photography during the tour and warned us that lots of times people would get pictures of ghosts!  I was, of course, quite skeptical, but kept on taking pictures all along the tour, just in case.  Spooky was a good talker, an interesting woman and her tour was quite interesting.  We’d all endorse it enthusiastically!

As a side note, when we examined the photos taken during the ghost tour on the computer at home after the trip we were astonished to see orbs in a number of them!  I’d known about the orb phenomenon from before and was quite surprised to see it demonstrated in pictures I had personally taken.  Apparently the orbs are manifestations of ghosts or ectoplasm in spherical form.  Still don’t know if I’m a firm believer yet, but the evidence, such as it is, is right there.  As Mr. Spock from Star Trek might utter – “Very interesting!”

Side note number two.  This week in Gettysburg was bike week.  All throughout the town there were motorcycles, motorcycles and, you guessed it, more motorcycles.  They rumbled and growled up and down the old streets of this town in their hundreds and hundreds.  It seemed, sometimes, like all the men you’d see had bandannas on their heads and gray beards on their faces.  An “interesting” added attraction to our visit.

The trip home was long and, with the exception being the beautiful mountain vistas we enjoyed, fairly uninteresting.

All in all it was a nice trip to Pennsylvania with many interesting things done, many historic sights viewed, many ghosts visited (?!?!) and, as a bonus, a great get together with one of our favorite couples, my cousin and her hubby.

Who could ask for anything more?

Is That the Finish Line Up Ahead?

Is That the Finish Line Up Ahead?

I've been working for a long time. If I'm figuring it correctly, and I think I'm pretty close, it comes out to about 50 years. Half a doggone century of working for someone else doing something. Sometimes something I maybe wouldn't have done if I had more of a choice. Maybe, maybe not.

I started my working life when I was 16 years old. I had a job cleaning the Chamber of Commerce offices in my hometown. I went in Saturday mornings and emptied trash, cleaned desks, swept and generally spiffed things up. Don't know how I got the job. Just remember doing it for a period of time, maybe a few months, maybe a bit longer. It had to be around 1963 because I can always equate that particular job with the assassination of John Kennedy. That tragedy happened the fall of the year I was an office cleaner. Then there was a couple weeks as a carhop at a local restaurant. Yes, they had guy carhops back in those long-ago times and we did NOT have to wear roller skates! That didn't last long but I still remember that place had the BEST peanut butter pie! Alas it's been out of business for many decades. Then I was hired at one of the first fast-food restaurants in my hometown. No, not the one with the golden arches and the clown. This one was called Burger Chef. I performed most of the positions there, waiting on customers, cooking the food, cleaning, stocking. All the stuff that needs done at one of those places. I worked there my junior and senior years of high school. I worked there after school, weekends and holidays until I graduated, then I worked at the factory where my dad was employed. I was an assembler on an assembly line (go figure) and attached various parts to Post Office trucks as they metamorphosed from bare chassis to finished red-white-and-blue truck. This was for a fairly short period of time after I graduated high school and before I joined the Air Force. The military then had me for four years. After that I went back to the factory for a while as they had to hold my job while I was in the service. Knowing I just wasn't cut out for factory work by the mind-numbing repetition of the assembly line, I then started business college and worked part time at a department store in the electronics and hunting/fishing departments. That job lasted until I got my diploma from business college when I began working for J. M. Smucker Company – the jelly guys. I worked in their computer room as an operator for them for about three years in the early '70's. Then about 9 years at a local insurance company also in the computer room. In '81 I went to work for a telecommunications company in Hudson, Ohio called Mid-Continent Telephone, again as a computer operator. I held several positions there as it changed names a few times and finally became Alltel. I was “downsized” from there in '01 and about three months later started work for a neighboring county's water department as, again, a computer operator.

That brings us to now.

I'd been toying with the idea of retirement for a number of years and had never really got around to setting a date. It was always “in a couple of years”. But recently my wife and I had actually sorta/kinda picked a target date a little over two years in the future when we decided that we would pull the pin. After setting that date, I received news from P.E.R.S., the Public Employee's Retirement Service that their rules were changing and, to qualify for their retiree's health care you had to have at least 10 years service and you had to retire before the last day of November, 2014.

Otherwise you would need to have 20 years service to qualify.

Since I will only have 13 years service next year, that announcement made my choice of retirement date easy. It would not be “about” two years from now.

It would be Thanksgiving of next year.

Wow! I was going to be a retired person! No more “working for the man.” No more having to go somewhere when the weather was awful. No more long hours doing things I might not particularly want to do or sitting and waiting for the day to end.

Now I'd be able to do pretty much what I wanted to!

And then I thought, what the hell do I want to do?

And it scared me a bit. As I've shown you, dear reader, in the earlier paragraphs of this blog, I've been working for FIFTY DOGGONE YEARS! I'm afraid that I don't know exactly HOW not to work. It's such a massive transition that it concerns me as transitions are never without some cost, some initially and some down the road.

The only thing in my past I can really equate this to is possibly my quitting smoking. That was a giant leap at the time as I'd smoked for many, many years before finally bidding the butts adios. And my life changed at that time.

A lot.

But there are no patches to put on your arms or gum to chew when you retire. There are no groups to join for assistance and advice on the correct procedures to guarantee a sure and total conclusion to the working habit.

So I'm planning on spending the next 17 months thinking about what my options are after retirement and to make some tentative plans.

There are a number of our friends and family who have retired and who like to tell us that it's “great” and that “you'll really enjoy it” and “you can do what you want when you want.” Which all sounds good. But two of the couples travel around the country and that really isn't too intriguing to my wife and I. Another likes to fix stuff up and yet another likes to fish. Likes to fish a LOT. I guess I could do some of that, too, and it does sound nice that if I wanted to start a project, I wouldn't have to piece it out between working hours. That'd be nice.

It's probably an unfortunate personal habit of mine that I always like to plan stuff before I do it. Sometimes, I'm told, I'm a bit of a fanatic about it. But that's the way I am and that surely isn't going to change.

I've even queried Uncle Google on the internet with the question: “what do retired people do?” And, after a long list of this and that, one reply stuck in my mind. It was something like, “Don't think you really have to do anything. If today you only want to watch the birds build a nest in your back yard, just do it. And if nothing is the plan for the day, go for it!”

I do know, however, you have to do some stuff to keep the brain and body active and functioning. There is one activity that I'm sure I'm not going to do. It's sitting in a recliner until I die. As the famous singer Meatloaf said in his immortal song “I'd do anything for love (but I won't do that)”, I won't do that!

So don't be too surprised if you see another blog or three on this upcoming even in the next year-and-a-half. I'm sure the subject will be at or near the top of the pile for quite a while.

At least that's the plan.