An Adventure

The first school trimester at Michigan State College ended in the middle of December (1948), so Bill Cass, one of my 13 roommates, and I decided to hitchhike home. Bill was from Frewsburg, in southwest New York state, and I was from Rochester, so we could travel together to Buffalo before going our separate ways. Because of the cold winter weather, I was wearing a sweater, my ROTC winter coat covered by a top coat, with a scarf wrapped around my neck. As was the custom in those days, neither of us wore a hat.
We started out in East Lansing by riding with a family as far as Port Huron. Our good fortune continued as we were picked up by a trucker who took us to Hamilton, Ontario. It was early evening when he let us off. Shortly thereafter, we were picked up by a hockey player who was going as far as Buffalo. Bill hopped into the front seat and I settled into the back seat and promptly fell asleep, expecting to be awakened in Buffalo. Imagine my surprise when I woke up to a pleasant female voice telling me to wake up for breakfast. More surprise when I opened my eyes to find it was a nurse in the St. Catherine‘s Hospital. And I with my right arm taped to my chest. Bill was in an adjacent bed.
The story, as I found out later, was that the car skidded on some ice and slid into a steel light post, hitting about where my knees were. The ambulance crew thought at first that I was dead because of all the blood - caused by numerous cuts from window glass when my head hit. I suffered a broken collar bone; more severe injury was avoided probably because of all the padding I was wearing. I was asleep, then probably knocked unconscious by the blow, then sound asleep again in the hospital bed. I did have the sensation that I saw the lamp post coming at us, but it’s a very vague impression. The driver had a bump on his forehead and Bill had gravel in his hands as the result of being thrown out of the car when the door was flung open from the momentum.
My parents were notified and came to bring me home, where I went to visit the doctor for further treatment. He checked the x-rays, noting that the bones had shattered at the break, then left the room. I heard the sound from the basement of someone sawing wood, wondering what remodeling he was having done, when he walked back into the room carrying a piece of plywood. He had sawed it into the shape of a T and taped it to both shoulders and across my belly. “There,” he said, “that should hold it while the bones knit.”
I wore the brace for a bunch of months, including a train trip back to East Lansing to turn in my ROTC uniform and pack up my clothes. Believe me, it’s not very comfortable to wander through life with a piece of plywood taped to one’s back. It eventually came off, and the break did knit, but to this day there’s a bump at the break.

Saturday Livin'

Grandma and I finished our 30 minute walk after breakfast, then showered and got down to important stuff. Grandma composed a confirmation letter for some donations to the Westminster Village Foundation, then had some planting and harvesting to do on her Facebook farm, while I rewrote an article for our newsletter about our mascot alligator. After it gets to the final stage I'll post it here. My plans are to settle back and watch some football this afternoon and evening. Hope you have a great day!

Red Cellophane?

Last night, I had a dream about making red cellophane. Now I have no idea where that came from. Is there any significance? Can anyone help me here?

Happy New Year

I hope you all had a great 2010 and that the new year brings you good health and financial security. May all your resolutions be fulfilled and please don't send your shed weight my way.

Art

Here's my latest watercolor.

Goin' Fishin'

Howdy, Billyjoe, how y’all doin’?…Saturday?…Fishin’?…with Jimbob? Wall, bring your beer and your ownself over here ‘n sit down so’s I kin tell y’all what really happened.

Twas last Saturday when me ‘n Jimbob went down to the crick with our fishin’ poles, can a worms, foldin’ chairs and cooler fulla ice ‘n beer that was so heavy we hadta stop ever little while to rest up and so we didn’t really get at the crick so early as we thunk we‘d a done when we stepped offen Jimbob’s porch at six o the clock thet morning’. See, here we were a walkin’ along the road a tryin’ to hold onta our poles, our can a worms, our foldin’ chairs and still carry thet thar cooler thet grew heavier each step. Jimbob finally thunk out our problem and declared we oughta put everthang atop the cooler ‘n then we’d a been able to hustle right along, so we done it, but we kept gittin’ out of step with each and the other and thangs kept a slidin’ off, so we took to countin’ out our steps just like them thar soljers done we seed one time on the RCA Telley Vision down at Mr. Grandin’s country store. It sure helped for a good bit, but it turned out the cooler was a mite heavier, so we stopped ever little while to rest and the little whiles kept gittin’ closer and closer to each and the other. The one thang thet saved us was thet Mr. Franklin, who usually drives to town of a Saturday for provisions and a beer or two with his ole buddies at the Ragged Bear saloon, right here where we’re a sittin’, came chuggin’ along in his pickup truck thet had seen better days twenty yars ago, seed us a struggling’ with our gear ‘n cooler ‘n ast if we didn’t think he could help us out by letting’ us ride in the back seein’ as how he was goin’ past the crick that thar morning’ but neither one of us could reckon why he was goin’ that direction because he always went to town for provisions ‘n a beer or two. Bein’ wore down ourselves, we allowed as how we’d be happy to hold down the back end of thet thar wore-out old pickup truck, so we quick-like threw our gear and cooler in the back ‘n then hauled our own selves in, ’n all the while Mr. Franklin kept thet truck a movin’ slow-like down the road. Now I don’t recommend you go right on out ‘n try to jump into a movin’ pickup truck jist to see how hard it is, but I’m a telling’ you it’s like tryin’ to jump onto a slow movin’ freight train which I know you’ve tried onct or twice in yer lifetime.

Here, Billyjoe, let me git a round….Barkeep, two more here….Thank ya kindly.

Now whar war I? Oh yeah. Well when we got right near the crick, Mr. Franklin slowed down thet old pickup a mite so’s me ‘n Jimbob could drop off our gear ‘n cooler ‘n then jump down our own selves, so we done it and were mighty glad to see we hadn’t lost any of our bait nor spilled anything outten the cooler. We knowed the spot we wanted to settle into to fish and were mighty happy to see it weren’t taken up by anyone else, so we set up our foldin’ chairs, rigged up our fishin’ poles, popped a top ‘n settled down to some fine relaxin’ in the shade. Twarn’t more’n two or three beers later when Jimbob had a bite ‘n scared the bejesus outta me the way he sprung up outta his chair and hollered out “I got one” only it wasn’t no keeper, so we settled in agin to relax. Wall, time went on her merry ole way ‘n me ‘n Jimbob caught a bunch a keepers ‘n swapped room in the cooler, beer fer fish. It was gittin’ on toward supper time when Jimbob declared it was ‘bout time to pack up and head fer home so we done started to do just that. The troubling’ part about the packin’ up was what should we do with thet thar cooler full of fresh caught fish in with all that ice when Jinbob declared thet we oughta let some of thet ice thet had melted down to just plain water out of the cooler so we took the top off and proceeded to tilt the cooler to let the water out when one or the other of us - Jimbob said it was me, but I knowed it was Jimbob - let go and the whole dad-blamed kit and kaboodle landed in the crick. Lucky for us we had sense enough to let go afore we-uns was swept along with the fish and the water and the ice into the crick. To make a long story short…

Well, Billyjoe, thank ya kindly for this‘n. I do ‘ppreciate it. My mouth was beginning to feel like a cotton boll. Be my pleasure to git the next one.

Now y’all’re probably wonderin’ what come next so I’ll try to git through it without pointing’ any more fingers at guilty parties. Turns out we didn’t need to keep any bait ‘cause we’d used all but one or two of them worms so we took pity on ‘em and let ‘em go in some grass down near where Jimbob - I mean - where the fish and ice and such were lost. Of course, the cooler bein’ empty wasn’t no problem to carry no more, so we could set off for home at a pretty good pace and I reckon Jimbob was mighty hungry ‘bout then ‘cause he started off mostly at a trot and kept a step or two ahead of me all the way so it was just blamed hard to keep up a conversation with me doin’ all the talkin’ and Jimbob just a hustling’ his ownself off towards home. Didn’t even say Howdy when we git to his house, so I just moseyed on home my ownself and had my supper. T’other day, I seed Jimbob comin’ down the road ‘n when he seed me he crosst over to keep from Howdyin’ me head-on like usual. Not very neighborly, I’d say, considerin’ we’d gone in halves on the bait ‘n the beer, even if Jimbob did catch most of the fish.

Now, can I buy y’all one for the road, Billyjoe?…My pleasure….Did y’all have a good weekend?

Immigration - A World-wide Problem

The Arizona Republic is running a series on immigration around the world. You can read the articles at www.azcentral.com/immigration/immigration-index.html#. The problems are not local to the United States. I highly recommend the series.

A week or so, Rick Watson posted on his blog - Life 101 - a photo of his snowy yard and mentioned that I had given he and Jilda a painting of the scene. So here's a look at it. I titled it "Jilda's Deer at Dawn". Can you see the deer?

Reasons

In his new book INFINITE QUEST, John Edward posits that the only reasons we do something are FEAR and LOVE. Looking back, I can see where fear has affected my decisions. Hopefully, yours are all in the love category.

I Wonder

I wonder if the people living as the Ice Age was ending ever thought about global warming.

Happy Thanksgiving

To all our family and friends, Happy Thanksgiving. And to everyone else out there, Happy Thanksgiving. We hope you are all having a good day, and that you have many, many nore.

Facebook and Communicatimg

I was born in 1931 and grew up to participate in the growth of electronics devices and their spread into our daily lives. From manual typewriter to IBM Selectric to Apple IIe to IBM Pc. All the way through Windows to 7. The Internet and e-mail. And here we are now with iPods and iPhones and iPads and Kindle and Nook and who knows what’s next.

At the encouragement of my children, I opened an account on Facebook, just to see what all the fuss was about. Almost immediately, children and grandchildren wanted to be my “friend” which I became. That was it for a short while, until I started to figure out how to leave messages, look at their photos and comment on their postings. I really didn’t spend much time at it. Then I found that I could look at all the people they had listed as their friends, so I began collecting more and more friends; I’m up to 21 at last count. But the more I look at Facebook, the more I wonder about the art of communicating. Whatever happened to good old handwriting, where every word was spelled out? Where we waited anxiously for the Postman to deliver the notes and letters and cards? Where there was time enough in this world for all that to take place?

It seems that we are in such a rush these days to let everyone - well, just our Facebook “friends” - know that we just took a shower, or we’re going to the store, or Johnny looked at me funny do you think he really likes me. Why? Don’t we have time to sit down and compose a reasonably intelligent paragraph? LOL (whatever that means). And don’t get me started on the profanity I see from some of my descendants!

Piano

I was watching a program about Michael Feinstein the other day. Michael has always loved the music of George and Ira Gershwin and in his twenties worked with Ira to catalog his musical archives. During one of Michael's visits to a musical historian/collector, I noticed a player piano in the background. That brought me back to 1942 when my parents rented a house at 17 Bly St. in Rochester, NY. The owners had left a player piano for us to use along with several rolls of music. I remember sitting on the bench and listening to "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" while the keys jumped up and down. There were other songs we played but that's the one I loved.

Front Pages

If you'd like to know what news is on the front page of a newspaper in a city one of your relatives lives in, just go to: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/ and you can find out. Because our family is spread out, I look at Rochester, NY; Hartford, Conn; Charlotte, NC; Melbourne, FL; Tampa, FL; Birmingham, AL; San Antonio, TX; and Las Vegas, NV. I also check on friends' locations in Naples, FL; Omaha, NE; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There are maps for countries all over the world. So read away!

Trains

My first recollection of a train ride goes back to 1941. My father was in a hospital in Rochester, New York, which is where my grandmother (my mother’s mother) lived. I don’t remember how we got to Rochester, but I do remember taking the train back to Batavia, New York, where we lived. It’s only a 30 minute drive by car, so probably took less than that by train. When we arrived at Batavia, my mother had my brother and me wait outside a nearby diner while she went in to arrange a taxi ride home.

Several years later, we had moved to Rochester. It was during World War II and we didn’t own a car. My father wanted to visit his brother, Gene, in Corning, New York, so we boarded a Lehigh Valley train for the trip. The station was on Court Street, adjacent to the Genesee River; the building is now a restaurant. The first part of the trip took us along the Genesee River, then turned to the southeast through Rochester Junction. It was a beautiful ride through the hills and valleys. On one side was a slope down to a creek through some trees; opposite was looking at the side of the hill until we switched seats and could look up through the forest. I don‘t remember seeing any wildlife. I do remember the train didn‘t go very fast, which is great for sight-seeing. (I’ve tried to follow the route on Google Earth, but much of the track bed has disappeared.) Uncle Gene’s house was on Bridge Street, near the train station. We stayed overnight, and I remember the breakfast that Aunt Nellie fixed - pancakes with real maple syrup and home-made pork sausage. The smell and taste are right there with the visual recollection.

Another Quotable

"Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self." Cyril Connolly, author

My Plea to the Candidates

This is the letter I wrote that was published today in the Arizona Republic:
I, for one, am tired of all the negative campaigning that is going on all around us.
Where has the civility gone? I don't care how much of a villain each candidate claims their opponent is, I want to hear from each candidate just exactly what they stand for, not who they're against. We all know who they're against.
If we believe what they all say, the bottom line of their vitriol is that neither is worth voting for. Please, please, please, give us something positive to consider before we enter the voting booth.

Quotable

"The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it." - Leo Rosten

Corny

According to my Book-of-the-Day calendar, we should all read "The Cornbread Gospels" by Cresent Dragonwagon. Learn the difference between northern and southern cornbread, then try out some of the more than 200 recipes. Let me know which is your favorite. So have it, folks!

Weather or Not

It rained this morning, about 14 hours after the weather forecaster on TV told us that our Monsoon was over for this year. By now, we know that that announcement is usually followed in a few days by some rain. And when they announce, around this time of year, that the Monsoon is still with us, that we won't see rain for another 3 or 4 months. They might as well throw up their hands and admit it's a toss-up. But I admire their perseverance.