When I was about 6, my mom bought me a portable record player - this was a major step up from the Fisher-Price toy one with the music box tines - this new record player had needles that you could replace with a set screw to hold them in. With the record player were a few Alvin and the Chipmunk records that played at 78. I was a Theodore fan, and I liked the high pitch of the chipmunk voices. Shortly before Christmas in 1963, mom got me a record with Jingle Bell Rock by Bobby Helms. It had a wide hole in the middle so I had to use what looked like a checker with a hole in it so it could play. Looking back at that time, this was a 45 and it should have been played at 45, but I only knew about my Chipmunk records that played at 78, so Bobby Helms became a chipmunk, too. I played that record at 78 and until I was 10, I thought the Chipmunks recorded that song.
Rick Gura and I went on a hike once out of Kooser State Park. We followed trail makers and they turned a little different (I think we saw markers that hunters use, and guessed that they were good). We ended up on what I believe is Koring Road - nothing but farms. We saw a fellow and asked him how far it was to Bakersville... he said, "it's just over that ridge - about ten miles." Rick didn't hike with me after that.
One Saturday morning, Wendy and I witnessed a truck full of high school students drive up to a neighbor's, spending fifteens minutes and about twenty rolls of toilet paper to decorate their home and front tree. Wendy and I will still new to the neighborhood, and we were shocked that students would organize to perform this sort of vandalism. We grabbed a roll of trash bags along with an old clothes prop that was in the back yard. Wendy would try to pull the paper as gently as possible, so the longest strand of it would come down. In all, we spent about two and a half hours cleaning our neighbor's home, tree, and front yard. What we didn't know was that our neighbors were watching us from inside. As it turns out, the husband was a youth minister at a local church, and the students that TP'ed their home were his students, and this activity was an annual rite. On a later date he relayed to us that his friends vandalized his home and complete strangers cleaned it up.
Text from my daughter on father's day: "Thanks for being the greatest dad a girl could hope for."
I lived and worked in Japan for three years. I had one Japanese gentleman, a shop manager, thank me for ending the war. I told him that I personally had nothing to do with it; I wasn't even born. Then he told me part of his story - that he was a crewman in a two-man kamikaze submarine in Tokyo harbor when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. The detonations were only three days apart - August 6th and 9th, 1945. So, my friend concluded, he thanks me because he is alive today to have a conversation with me. I'm getting teary just recalling that moment. I've also been to both Peace Park in Hiroshima and Ground Zero in Nagasaki. If you find yourself in Japan, I strongly recommend going to both of these locations. If nothing else, a ride on the Shinkansen bullet train is well worth it, but I think the visit to these locations will change you. It's ironic that I reinforced my internal pacifist by being in the armed services.
We had a cat named Angel. She was a scrapper and in her heyday, she enjoyed leaping and catching birds. When we moved to Florida, Angel was already thirteen and well out of her prime. She developed a game with a little dove outside. The dove would land on one of the awning arms and Angel would devote her attention to the dove. Then the dove would flit to another awning arm, and Angel would run across the top of the sofa chasing her. This would continue for hours some days. Age caught up with Angel and we had to put her down - she was greatly dehydrated with all kinds of chemistry problems. The dove continued to land and look in our windows, looking for her friend. She would get as close to the glass as she could, but there was no Angel to join her in play. This continued for weeks, with the dove trying to get a response, but to no avail. I don't know if the dove felt remorse, but I'm certain that she felt loss.
In the fall of 1981, Mark Pape and I took a drive from Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago, IL to Nuke School in Orlando, FL in his MG. We took "the scenic route" by adding stops in Lexington, KY and Stillwater, OK to the list. While in Stillwater, we went to a few of the college bars and in one of those bars was a pool table. Mark and I often played pool on the Naval base, so I saw the line of stacked quarters and added four of mine to that parade. As I watched, I could see that this guy was hustling. He would win, but barely, so the next guy would be enticed to try. The bet was $20 a game, and I watched him make $120 before my turn came up. I laid down a tight rack when I was up. He made one on the break and a couple more, but then he faltered. I took the opportunity and ran the table. He laid down another $20 and asked the next person that was to play if he could play me again. He laid down a loose rack and I sunk the eight on the break. He looked at me, astonished, and said, "you'll never do that again, " as he racked the balls. I did. He left, swearing a blue streak. Everyone took up their money and I had $60 of his money to drink with.
My manager while working for Honeywell was David Williams. He would stand behind us while we worked and he often quipped: "oh, that's what a compile error looks like." He said it as if he had never submitted erroneous code to the compiler.
Facebook post from my granddaughter: "You are my hero, Pappap!"
This fits into "everything becomes a story": in an early grade at St. Martin's elementary, the class was told to gather lilac stems to celebrate May, Mary's month. My entire class showed up with two or three branches and we put them in buckets that were arranged by the window. In those days, the students didn't change class, so the smell of lilacs continued to fill the room throughout the day. That was until one girl let out a sneeze. The sneeze became a fit of sneezes, followed by coughing and... well, she was allergic to lilac. And so, all the nice lilacs were gathered up and moved into an alcove off the church/gym/lunch room to protect the student. They were purposed as adornments during some of the masses during the early part of May that year. Best laid plans...
I took one helicopter ride in my life - a ship-to-ship transfer of me with a VHF radio. The boatswain mates fitted me with a cranial helmet with a visor and they told me, somehow above the din of the whirling blades, to keep my head down, and so I did. I climbed into the empty "jump seat" on the two seater. This adventure began with our command ship, the USS Duluth, having troubles communicating with the small boats as we practiced a choreographed landing. Our XO immediately volunteered me to go over there and "help them out." As I'm being strung into the seat and cinched down, I'm holding on to this radio for all I'm worth. The pilot, a Warrant Officer, looked over at me and yelled "don't touch nothing!" I nodded in agreement, and he took the plug for my helmet comms and plugged it into something on the console. With a salute, off we went! The canopy was open on either side and the floor was transparent. So, my pilot friend put us down on the deck, wave hopping with the waves cresting just below the skids. Occasionally, the chopper would yaw, due to some unforeen force, and the pilot would right it. After about 15 minutes, we were heading straight into the side of the Duluth. It didn't look like this pilot intended to get up on the flight deck, but rather, ram right into the stern quarter of the ship! At the last minute, he popped us up in slammed it down hard on the flight deck. It scared the living crap out of me! The boatswain mates came out and shorted out the static, then helped me out of the seat.harness. I was again reminded to keep my head down as I ran toward the ship's superstructure. One of the ship's ETs met me and took me up to their shop. I gave them the one that I brought and I verified it's operation before they racked it in. They had about 20 other VHF radios that were in various states, so I went through them all, fixing and aligning as needed. Two were pretty bad off, so I asked If I could take them back to the USS Mt. Vernon (my ship) to fix them up. It was about 6pm and their XO
visited me in the ET shop asking if I was ready to return. I nodded, and I added - "not in a helicopter, though. Put a boat in the water and get me over that way." After some haggling, they did, and the Mt. Vernon did too. The two 20 foot boats met in between the two large ships and I had to transfer from one to the other, trying to time out the swells and balancing with a radio in each hand. I made it on the first try, then we were off to the Mickey-V, the pet name for the Mt. Vernon. The boatswain mates tossed down a line and I attached the radios to it. My next feat was to climb up the rigging along the side of the ship to get onboard, Not overly gracefully, I got it done and helped stow the small boat away in it's davit once it was winched back up. By this time, it was late - 10 pm and I was starving. I took the radios up to the shop and waited for some chili-mac for midrats.
When I was young, our neighborhood - Elliott in Pittsburgh, PA - had celebration days. They were called "the school picnic." The celebration would be held at the West View Amusement Park. Mom would get advanced tickets for the park rides and fix up a picnic basket for us. We would get up very early in the morning and take a bus down to the trollies on Smithfield Street. Then a trolley ride out to West View. The adventure to get there was half the fun, since school friends of mine would be on the trolley, too. And when the trolley doors folded open, it was all I could do to keep holding mom's hand. We would walk past all the rides to the picnic area, and all that was going through my head was that I was missing ride time! I would give kisses to the various aunts that had preceded us to the picnic areas. Once mom was settled, I would ask the question: can I have some tickets, please? My first dose was usually five tickets, since I was a little shaver, just over 6 years old. I would run headlong down to the rides, looking for my friends where ever they could be. They had three rollercoasters, which we called "dips": the little dips, the big dips, and the racing whippet. I remember finally being tall enough for the whippet - I waited through the line ten times or better to get on the first car or the last car. It was fun, but my favorite ride was a very simple slide, called the Flying Carpet. They had hemp rugs that resembled door entry mats, and you would grab one and climb up a number of stairs to the top of the slide. Then plop the mat down on a glistening stainless steel slide and zoom - 10 seconds later, I was at the bottom, laughing my butt off. I miss this experience; it was unique. I have had jobs where there were days associated with the amusement parks, but this was community and schools, which was very different. My mom's family was large, so this was a reunion of sorts and it was the ultimate kids' fest. We would always leave before dark and I'd fall asleep on the trolley.
My earliest memory is lying in my mother's arms while she sang "That little boy of mine."
To this day, I love custard - crème brûlée, flan, custard pie, you name the custard, and I would like to have it. When growing up, we lived in a duplex home - mirror image homes on either side of a divider wall. In the kitchen, the divider wall had a door in it, but this door opened to a shallow pantry whose depth was the thickness of the wall. You could see the lath and plaster from the neighbor's home in it. The shelves were stiffeners for the opening and they were roughly 9 inches high - perfect for a climbing toddler. Well, getting back to custard, when my mom made custard, she would fill the little bowls and place them on the top shelf of this shallow pantry. On more than one occasion, mom pulled me from my escalation of the pantry shelves, while I sought the ultimate goal of warm custard!
While working for Ahlstrom Automation, I lived in Glens Falls, NY. One commissioning project that I had was for Appleton Papers in Chambersburg, PA. This was a new converting machine for carbonless copy paper - the kind used by multicolored forms. I would normally work on-site for three weeks, then take a week back at home and repeat until commissioning was done. One of the service engineers would cover for me during my absence. On one occasion in September, I drove my 1983 Renault Alliance down to the job site, noticing that the colors had just started to show yellows in the trees. I can tell you that three weeks later, the drive home was spectacular! The oranges had just begun in south central Pennsylvania, and the colors became brighter, redder, and more majestic as I cruised up I-81 through Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and changed to I-88 in Binghamton heading to Albany. Along I-88, there was a lone farmhouse to the west of the interstate that had burning bushes and a crimson maple tree. It was stellar to view in my rear view mirror. I traded over to I-87, the Northway, which had a full spectrum of colors up to my home in Glens Falls. It was one of the best drives that I have ever taken.
The crow is a boot camp designation. The RCPO had a 1st class crow and the squad leaders, including the ARCPO, MAA and Yeoman, as second classes. I was the Yeoman. However, I had issues with my marching cadence, so I designated a guy to march for me, and he was the marching Yeoman. He filled out the paperwork for the events and training and I took it to division for the company. Because of my marching issues, I swapped duties with the MAA to present the barracks for inspection everyday. The company commander wanted the Yeoman to be his maid, so I delegated that out to another guy in the company and deemed him as the Personal Yeoman. About week 5, service week, division wanted me to report to division instead of the day to day of the company. So, I appointed another Yeoman, the Division Yeoman to appease that request. All of the Yeoman could use the courier bags so they didn't have to run everywhere and salute every ant that outranked us. They could also hit the boot camp exchange anytime they wanted. All that wheeling and dealing got me the company honorman award. After graduating bootcamp, I was elevated to ET3, a bene as part of the Nuclear Power Program that I signed up for at the recruiter. I was discharged eight years later as an ET1.
When I was about twelve, I lived with my brother and his wife on Clearfield Place in the Sheridan area of Pittsburgh. On Sundays, I would walk to church by myself. To begin, I'd take the short walk down the concrete roadway of Clearfield Place. I'd then make a left onto the asphalt of Clearfield Street. If the day was nice, I'd take a right up the asphalted red brick alley between the Fisher's and Little's homes called Ashtola Way. A short distance later, I would take the left onto Harrisburg Street and I'd walk that to it's end, which was a left onto Evanston Street, but I wouldn't take the left - instead, I'd turn to the right and follow the path down the sandstone and shale hill through the trees. This would take me to a steep hill that I would walk down to get to Kathy Drive. I'd then make a right onto McCaw Drive, which was a dead end. I would go beyond the dead end and into the woods. I would then bear to the left, since there was a very steep hill down to a somewhat busy road to the right. These woods would then clear and I would be behind the church. Getting back home was the reverse, with a tough climb between Kathy Drive and Harrisburg Street. I've always taken the road less travelled.
There's a lot of distance between Florida and Colorado where my daughter lives. Actually, she's my step-daughter, but I rarely consider the "step" part. I love her dearly. On Christmas in 2021, she sent me some pictures of my grandson (step also) opening presents that I had bought and sent through Amazon. In the background was a cello. So, I asked, "Is the cello his as well?" I was inferring that my grandson had gotten it as a present. The response floored me. My daughter replied, "Haha, actually that's mine...from you. I used my birthday Amazon gift card two years ago to get it. 😀 I was going to learn to play it and surprise you, but then covid hit and I haven't had a chance to practice much."
I once worked for a company based in Neuwied, Germany. When I started the job, I had to learn all of their systems and that called for a year in their factory, learning. There were four of us, Ian, who spoke English and French, Bernard, who spoke French and German, Kevin, who spoke only English, and me, who was having trouble remembering the words and tenses taught to me by my grandmother so many years ago. We all took classes in German at the local Volksholschule, with Bernard in an advanced class and the rest of us in the intro level class. We pal'd around quite a bit, and we would look for restaurants that spoke English. One of the service engineers, Gordon, introduced us to Udo Klien at Im Luechttrom (the lighthouse) restaurant. Udo was bigger than life and everything was stated emphatically and with purpose. He had a beautiful wife, Anja, and daughter, Anna. One evening while sitting at his "stammtisch", we got to talking about beautiful waters and reefs and beaches. Udo exclaimed, "The Maldives!" We were perplexed. "Never is there a better seashore or reef than at the Maldives!" In order to prove it, he told us to come in Sunday night, when the restaurant was usually closed. Udo brought a slide projector and many carrousels of slides. By the end of the evening, I was sold - the Maldives were heaven on earth. The water was stunningly transparent and the sand a light beige. Every photo seemed to be better than the previous one. As a result, I have wanted to go to the Maldives since then.
Another Udo story (sort of): While sitting at the stammtisch, a table reserved for good friends of the owner, I met an older gentleman and friend of Udo's. Udo told the tale of Koblenz, which I will paraphrase. Koblenz is located where the Rhine river, a wide north-south river in the west of Germany, meets the Mosel River, and east-west tributary that flows from France and the Netherlands to the west. At the confluence, there is a park and a large pedestal that now has a German flag flying on it. It wasn't always so empty. Shortly before WWI, a statue of Kaiser Wilhelm II rested atop that pedestal. The allies used the statue as a landmark, breaking west there to the bases in France. They would also expend ordinance on it. Often, Spitfires would empty their guns at the statue, chipping away at it. Bombs would be used on targets of opportunity in and around Koblenz, typically the bridges. The older gentleman started crying. He explained that he was in WWII as a member of the regular forces. Through half-sobs, he swore that he didn't know what they were doing - but then he talked about filling trains with people that were heading east. He begged for our forgiveness. I told him that I was recently in the US Navy and I understand the "code" - follow orders, even if you don't understand them. We hugged, and we bought rounds for each other. On another night, Udo promised not to tell the story of Koblenz unless he was very sure of who was in earshot.
My favorite dish from Im Leuchttrom was the Schwein filet spiess. These were grilled pork medallions on a skewer with roma tomatoes and onion slices alternating along the spit. They were covered with a garlic butter sauce and served with buttered small new potatoes, cut in two. My mouth waters just writing that down. Yummers!
More Udo stories that I need to write down:
Beergarten, the Roman fence, and the chainsaw.
Kevin and the peperoni pizza
I'd like to make an admonition here: I should have stayed in school. Actually, I should have followed my love of chemistry and went for the doctorate. I realize that would have rewritten my entire life, and I really value all of my friends and my family and I would never want to do that. However, looking back over the years, I understand that I am a much better fit for academia than I am for corporate life. I find the position of Assistant Professor calling me, but I can't heed that call. Hindsight is 20/20.
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