With the resumption of school nearly a month behind us and the advent of Autumn at hand, let us pause briefly as we often do to reflect on the summer from which we are transitioning. Kids trudging back to class is always a milestone in the year, a time to look for changes in the routine.
It's too bad that we couldn't see it coming in order to anticipate it. This was a great summer. Rarely too hot. Rarely tropically humid. Almost always a light breeze and just enough rain to keep the lawn green all summer. [Usually by mid-July the grass has surrendered to an unrelenting sun and turned a straw-broom color.] In Kansas City they say we never broke 100, but I think we did briefly on my thermometer back in June during a short heat wave. Still there was much deck time during pleasant evenings.
But it hasn't all been about the weather. The economy is slowly, steadily recovering from Barney Frank's recession. The stock market's creaky climb is not the sole evidence. Look around--there are more people in restaurants, stores and car lots. Not where it needs to be yet, but better.
Perhaps the most positive thing has been the spirit and indignance shown by Americans this summer. All throught August, in 'town hall' meetings all over the country, constituents have stood up to their government. Defiant at the prospect of having politicians in charge of their health care decisions, Americans turned out in droves to say 'NO' loud and long to the Senators and Congressmen who cared to hold forums. It wasn't just a few here and there across the country and they weren't paid or organized to appear -- unlike proponents of socialized health care who called in markers from friends at liberal labor groups and community 'activist' enterprises, bussing in as many as possible to make the forums friendly to Democrat politicians; sometimes under the unspoken threat of violence. Few were intimidated and spoke their minds, most at a loss to think of anything the government has done so well that it should assume administration of their health care.
Those legislators who hosted events--if they were really listening and not just providing eye candy for TV news--should have got the message that socialized medicine is not a done deal for many of us, particularly with provisions funding abortions on demand, denial of care based on longevity and illegal alien coverage. Are they just crazy in Washington? And through all of this they tell us , "Don't be concerned, it won't raise taxes." Oh, come on! Not even Democrats will believe that.
God Bless those who attended the meetings and forced the truth.
Another great thing about the summer is that all of this health care discussion caused a large drop in the President's approval ratings. No other President has plummeted this low this early in a first term since they started watching. Indeed, folks are beginning to see the real Obama and what his 'hope and change' for America are. They, like me, don't care for it at all.
Of course as the summer wore on there were noted deaths: Michael Jackson, Walter Cronkite, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon. Those under forty are challenged to remember much about Walter Cronkite but because he was an area native and attended the University of Missouri for a while it drew even more play here. Cronkite, for those my age, was something of a trusted father figure but in his waning years as a news broadcaster he undeniably developed a clear left wing view which he had difficulty in concealing. Still he was the last of the old guard in TV news before the pretty boys all took over. He had actually grown up in the business and helped shape it, moving from print to radio and then TV as it grew.
At our house we had the much-anticipated Colorado vacation, always in at least a little doubt until right up to the last minute before we leave. Many times in the past, things happened at work to foul our departure but it was pretty smooth this year. Mary Ann's birthday / birthday week / birthday month went well. Annie and her brothers continue to grow. We had the trees trimmed and it made a world of difference around the house. One of Mary Ann's friends opened a restaurant nearby and it seems to be doing well.
Now the equinox is passing and we are headed into Autumn, a little reflective on the greatness of what has been. But let's anticipate the promise of fall weather, always the gem of the midwest seasons. And football! If only the Chiefs would cooperate. But at least the Jayhawks seem to be headed for good things this fall. Rock Chalk!
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Writing us off
Cash for clunkers?
Sounds perfectly reasonable; stimulus money put to work to benefit the ailing auto industry; to benefit the environment through the retirement of older gas-guzzling cars; and to help people afford a new car. What could be a better use of our money?
Hmmm. It's hard to argue with the benefit to the automakers and dealers. Ford, GM and Chrysler have all begun to scramble to keep up with orders for qualifying cars. And if you got $4500 Obamadollars to put toward the purchase of a new ride you are a happier camper than many of the rest of us.
But as with all things the government does, it might pay to ask a few questions:
What happens to the car (read: clunker) you trade in? The short answer is that it goes to the scrapyard. If you are turning in a rusty 1976 Olds 98 there is little to say. But if you are trading a perfectly serviceable 10-year-old GMC pickup or Chevy Suburban, especially one with lower miles, they are sending a good used car to the crusher. It is, as they say, the law.
"Big deal," you say. "Get them off the road. They burn too much gas."
True enough, but what does that do to, say, the used car market? Decent cars that might have been available to people with reduced purchasing power might soon be hard to find. That forces these people to keep their older-yet land barges on the road, smoking up the interstate with a thick cloud of heavy blue oil-rich exhaust. Cars they might have been able to afford and use for years to come are soon to be four-by-four iron cubes. Used cars for all of us, with the market being artificially tampered, will become a little more scarce and expensive to those who least can afford it.
Really? They crush these cars? Yup. they do, no matter how drivable they are. Had you asked where they go that might be an even better question, because before they are crushed, an inspector of the United States of America is obliged to check the "VIN" numbers of the clunkers, and compare them to the lists of numbers of trade-in's. The purpose of this is to prevent the gas-guzzling clunkers from finding their ways back onto American highways at great cost to our economy.
With the hiring of hundreds of inspectors to keep up with the piles of accumulating clunkers, no one has mentioned that cost to the economy. Or the cost of crushing and storing these vehicles until they can go to the steel company. It is rumored that one scrapper has several hundred acres of cars in a suburban Kansas City area county waiting for US Government clearance to be crushed. Now there is a cost to him which he will have to pass on to the rest of us, not to mention the cost of old leaky vehicles sitting on pastureland, just inviting an EPA impact statement to be completed.
What happens to the crushed cars? That's another nail in the coffin. An influx of scrap iron all over the country will drive prices down. With an economy already ailing this sector will ail even more than it was.
So we have a government program giving away money that was borrowed from the Chinese, to people who buy new cars if they are willing to trade for a higher-mileage model. It corrupts the used car market, denying poor people an opportunity to get a better car; wastes more Chinese loan money to hire so=called inspectors to verify that these trade-ins are scrapped; pollutes the countryside, and depresses the steel industry.
Any other questions? What's that? What's the matter with cars selling well, you say? Nothing I suppose.
Except half of them are Japanese. Ford, GM and Chrysler are just under fifty percent of the new car sales in the clunker program. The rest are from overseas. Even if manufactured here, the money goes back to Japan, Korea or Germany. The most optimistic among us will cheer at the fuel that will be saved with the old clunkers off the road.
But a few of us don't know why the Chinese keep loaning us money.
Like Kramer once said to Jerry, "...but they know. And they're the ones writing it off!"
Sounds perfectly reasonable; stimulus money put to work to benefit the ailing auto industry; to benefit the environment through the retirement of older gas-guzzling cars; and to help people afford a new car. What could be a better use of our money?
Hmmm. It's hard to argue with the benefit to the automakers and dealers. Ford, GM and Chrysler have all begun to scramble to keep up with orders for qualifying cars. And if you got $4500 Obamadollars to put toward the purchase of a new ride you are a happier camper than many of the rest of us.
But as with all things the government does, it might pay to ask a few questions:
What happens to the car (read: clunker) you trade in? The short answer is that it goes to the scrapyard. If you are turning in a rusty 1976 Olds 98 there is little to say. But if you are trading a perfectly serviceable 10-year-old GMC pickup or Chevy Suburban, especially one with lower miles, they are sending a good used car to the crusher. It is, as they say, the law.
"Big deal," you say. "Get them off the road. They burn too much gas."
True enough, but what does that do to, say, the used car market? Decent cars that might have been available to people with reduced purchasing power might soon be hard to find. That forces these people to keep their older-yet land barges on the road, smoking up the interstate with a thick cloud of heavy blue oil-rich exhaust. Cars they might have been able to afford and use for years to come are soon to be four-by-four iron cubes. Used cars for all of us, with the market being artificially tampered, will become a little more scarce and expensive to those who least can afford it.
Really? They crush these cars? Yup. they do, no matter how drivable they are. Had you asked where they go that might be an even better question, because before they are crushed, an inspector of the United States of America is obliged to check the "VIN" numbers of the clunkers, and compare them to the lists of numbers of trade-in's. The purpose of this is to prevent the gas-guzzling clunkers from finding their ways back onto American highways at great cost to our economy.
With the hiring of hundreds of inspectors to keep up with the piles of accumulating clunkers, no one has mentioned that cost to the economy. Or the cost of crushing and storing these vehicles until they can go to the steel company. It is rumored that one scrapper has several hundred acres of cars in a suburban Kansas City area county waiting for US Government clearance to be crushed. Now there is a cost to him which he will have to pass on to the rest of us, not to mention the cost of old leaky vehicles sitting on pastureland, just inviting an EPA impact statement to be completed.
What happens to the crushed cars? That's another nail in the coffin. An influx of scrap iron all over the country will drive prices down. With an economy already ailing this sector will ail even more than it was.
So we have a government program giving away money that was borrowed from the Chinese, to people who buy new cars if they are willing to trade for a higher-mileage model. It corrupts the used car market, denying poor people an opportunity to get a better car; wastes more Chinese loan money to hire so=called inspectors to verify that these trade-ins are scrapped; pollutes the countryside, and depresses the steel industry.
Any other questions? What's that? What's the matter with cars selling well, you say? Nothing I suppose.
Except half of them are Japanese. Ford, GM and Chrysler are just under fifty percent of the new car sales in the clunker program. The rest are from overseas. Even if manufactured here, the money goes back to Japan, Korea or Germany. The most optimistic among us will cheer at the fuel that will be saved with the old clunkers off the road.
But a few of us don't know why the Chinese keep loaning us money.
Like Kramer once said to Jerry, "...but they know. And they're the ones writing it off!"
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
C O L O R A D O !
Hello again. Back, like a bad penny. I took a vacation from everything--work, responsibility, and even the blog. Time off does that to you. But oh, what a good time we had. And ultimately it is good to get back.
Hallet Peak's reflection in Bear Lake
Since that last post on July 3, we made our annual journey to Colorado. Mary Ann and I left on the 9th, after much fretting over who will do what for Grandma, and at what time and how effectively. There was the usual family angst from hurt feelings and things said in haste, but all finally rested gently. Disruption in the life of a frail senior person is nothing with which to be trifled, I relearned.
We left easily, in mid-morning, choosing not to escape the city into the setting sun or in the early hours of darkness as has been our custom. It was just the two of us, to start with at least, so we chose the path of least resistance and drove to Hays, enjoying some gourmet turkey sandwiches for lunch as we drove. At Hays, it was hot but dry and the sky was nearly cloudless. We checked into the Fairfield Inn there, a superior example of a modern hostelry. We enjoyed the pool and the quiet, being hours ahead of the rest of our kind. It was nice to sit alternately in the sun and cool off in the pool, wondering what the poor people were doing.
Kirches rolled in as we left the pool, and the Sharps were not far behind. The nine of us went to Gella's Diner and Mini-Brewery for dinner in downtown Hays and had a great time. Even the little kids were pretty good. The food was great; the beer they make is some of the best you will have, and my endorsement doesn't come lightly. I don't drink beer often, or much alcohol at all, but I must say it was well done.
Back at the Fairfield, we turned down the air so low that the camera fogged up outside the next morning. Our six A. M. walk was thwarted by a thunderstorm's passing so we walked on the treadmills in the health / exercise room adjacent to the pool. They have a nice and very adequate little breakfast bar with waffles, oatmeal and juice which served me nicely.Loading the car, as seen with a foggy lens.
We were on the road at 0930 and paused for fuel and rest at the big truck stop at Colby. There you can select from two or three food franchises and a Starbuck's Coffee counter, of all things. Liz fed the kids some lunch and let them play at the playground there.
We dawdled too long as we wanted to stop at the City Park in Flagler, Colorado, and had to pick Katie up at the Denver airport later in the day.
We dawdled too long as we wanted to stop at the City Park in Flagler, Colorado, and had to pick Katie up at the Denver airport later in the day. Steve learning the ways of a truck stop
We pressed on to the west, with the stop in Flagler and a confusing pick-up at DIA. It took three trips through the arrivals area to recover Katie, but she finally found us. With her safely in the car we traveled the last hour up through the foot hills at the edge of the Front Range, and into Estes Park.
The nine of us were joined by Greg and Michele Plumb for our traditional pizza dinner on the first night in Colorado. The Plumbs were on their way back east, so it felt good to know we had the week out in front of us.
Annie, learning to manipulate Mommy.
For the next few days we doted on Annie, Steve and Rob; ate in our favorite places; hiked at Bear Lake; and spent a lot of time at the pool or walking through town. Kirches and Sharps left Thursday, leaving Mary Ann, Katie and I to wander aimless.
On our last night there, walking through town, is when Mary Ann met the bear.
Basically, she came out of a store to wait at the curb for Katie and I to come for her with the car. As she waited, a bear ran toward her from across the street. This does not happen to her very much.
The bear walked right by, within her reach, and headed for a nearby restaurant with outdoor dining. The bear found an entrance and went in, but was thwarted by an inner glass door. I continue to wonder what some of the more alert of the diners might have thought, seeing a shaggy looking bear watching them eat with only a thin piece of window glass separating them.
Bear was not given to breaking glass and came out to the street again, and loped up an alley. Mary Ann watched stunned as several people charged up the alley in hot pursuit. When we recovered her, she wanted to go look for the bear. It sounded like an interesting activity, so we did. And sure enough we found him wandering through some back yards. With people alarmingly close to him flashing their Kodaks and Nikons in his annoyed-looking bear eyes, he sauntered up close to the back of our car, crossed the street and waddled his fat bear butt up over a retaining wall and headed for the timber.
Later that night, our last in the cabin for this year, another bear made a terrible racket trying to break in to the dumpster across our road. The lodge owners have been chaining them shut at night to keep the bears out, so this bear--a different one from his restaurateur cousin, we assume--simply pulled the whole thing over on its front out of frustration. He then bent open a heavy sheet-steel lid on one side and sorted through some of the trash at his leisure.
Even at that hour, close to two A. M., other lodgers were out flashing pictures in the pitch dark. The bear was gone, probably on to the next group of cabins to sample their trash.
So we got up and left, a day behind Kirches and Sharps. We headed back down to the flatlands in the dim morning light, secure in our knowledge that we had seen the bear and they had not.
It has barely been a month since we left. I am ready to go again.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Often they come in threes.
OK, I admit it. I have blown it. I haven't been able to drag my tired self around to get a post together since June 21st. That is pretty bad. In my own defense they are working me way too hard at the shop these days. My wife has me on a starvation diet and walking twice a day. Relatives have been in and out of town, and we are preparing for a trip. The news has been strange lately, requiring much discussion with coworkers and family.
That is all about to change.
Vacation is coming.
I can't post anything while I am off in the Rockies, but at least I can break the streak of work, work, and more work, maybe getting out of constant panic mode.
I have missed timely posting of thoughts on the passings of Ed McMahaon, Farrah, and Michael.
Of the three, Farrah seems to me the most tragic. She wasn't the youngest or most-loved. She was far from the most talented, as Michael was obviously one of the five or ten top performers in our time. But Farrah was unfortunate to have experienced great fame and adoration early on in life, based on her looks, only to see it slip through her fingers. Finally, later in life, she was taken seriously as an actress, just once for her role in "The Burning Bed." It wasn't a classic by any means but gave her some gravitas in the business.
Farrah seemed to lose her way in life. A few years ago she appeared on a late-night talk show, virtually lacking any control of herself. She spoke English words but made no sense whatsoever. Her syntax and reasoning were soaked in what appeared to be a drug-induced mud bath. The host was obviously perplexed but carried on as best he could. I think it was Letterman, and he strangely held himself back. Perhaps that was an indication of what her life was, I don't know, but not long after came the news of her impending battle with cancer. Of course it eventually, painfully consumed her.
Michael was a tortured man, spending his adult years and fortune desperately trying to reclaim the childhood his father denied him. He, too, was tragic but also just odd to me. It is a frightening insight into what too much money can motivate people to do: his physicians, the women who bore his children, parents of children whom he is reputed to have molested. And yet he will be remembered with entertainment giants such as Caruso, Cohan, Sinatra, Presley, Paverotti, and the Beatles. His career did not span the years which it should have, yet he is known the world over.
Then there was Ed. I will miss him the most. The consummate straight-man, the foil, the voice everyone waited to hear belt out "Hiiiiyoooooooooo" just as Johnny broke throught the curtains. Ed is a lesson in why men should marry only the woman they truly love and leave the bimbos alone. He had several wives who cleaned him out financially, forcing him to do almost anything he could to generate a paycheck in his later years. He shilled DVD's of the old Carson-era "Tonight Show" and went on the road with a 'memories' show which was panned around the country. Only a year or so ago, he was nearly put out of his home until Donald Trump bought the house back for him and saved additional humiliation. Not a fitting end for a proud US Marine and the cheerful man we all knew.
Yes indeed, I will have to stay on top of the blog. There is just too much going on, and I haven't even started in on Obama yet. But first, ROAD TRIP!!
That is all about to change.
Vacation is coming.
I can't post anything while I am off in the Rockies, but at least I can break the streak of work, work, and more work, maybe getting out of constant panic mode.
I have missed timely posting of thoughts on the passings of Ed McMahaon, Farrah, and Michael.
Of the three, Farrah seems to me the most tragic. She wasn't the youngest or most-loved. She was far from the most talented, as Michael was obviously one of the five or ten top performers in our time. But Farrah was unfortunate to have experienced great fame and adoration early on in life, based on her looks, only to see it slip through her fingers. Finally, later in life, she was taken seriously as an actress, just once for her role in "The Burning Bed." It wasn't a classic by any means but gave her some gravitas in the business.
Farrah seemed to lose her way in life. A few years ago she appeared on a late-night talk show, virtually lacking any control of herself. She spoke English words but made no sense whatsoever. Her syntax and reasoning were soaked in what appeared to be a drug-induced mud bath. The host was obviously perplexed but carried on as best he could. I think it was Letterman, and he strangely held himself back. Perhaps that was an indication of what her life was, I don't know, but not long after came the news of her impending battle with cancer. Of course it eventually, painfully consumed her.
Michael was a tortured man, spending his adult years and fortune desperately trying to reclaim the childhood his father denied him. He, too, was tragic but also just odd to me. It is a frightening insight into what too much money can motivate people to do: his physicians, the women who bore his children, parents of children whom he is reputed to have molested. And yet he will be remembered with entertainment giants such as Caruso, Cohan, Sinatra, Presley, Paverotti, and the Beatles. His career did not span the years which it should have, yet he is known the world over.
Then there was Ed. I will miss him the most. The consummate straight-man, the foil, the voice everyone waited to hear belt out "Hiiiiyoooooooooo" just as Johnny broke throught the curtains. Ed is a lesson in why men should marry only the woman they truly love and leave the bimbos alone. He had several wives who cleaned him out financially, forcing him to do almost anything he could to generate a paycheck in his later years. He shilled DVD's of the old Carson-era "Tonight Show" and went on the road with a 'memories' show which was panned around the country. Only a year or so ago, he was nearly put out of his home until Donald Trump bought the house back for him and saved additional humiliation. Not a fitting end for a proud US Marine and the cheerful man we all knew.
Yes indeed, I will have to stay on top of the blog. There is just too much going on, and I haven't even started in on Obama yet. But first, ROAD TRIP!!
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Snow's almost all melted now
Eight days have passed since my last post. We have been really busy getting ready for and taking a little 3-day vacation. It required a lot of up-front planning at work for the troops to get along without me. To be sure, I am expendable, but they are used to me doing all the "sweeping" out in front of their industrial curling stone.
On the evening of that last post it was a wonderful specimen of Spring in the Midwest--the metaphorical Jennifer Aniston of weather. Well you can kiss that all goodbye. In this past week Jennifer moved out and the metaphorical Rosie O'Donnell moved in. Tonight it was a balmy 90 degrees, with the humidity hovering around a similar number. There was no breeze to cool the brow or give battle to the various insects that attempted to call me home. Today is the first day of summer; the solstice, the longest day of the year. Ahead of us lie three months of the heat we longed for all winter. It's here, fans.
Really, we all love summer. On all but the hottest, most humid days outdoor activity beckons. The fortunate ones among us can take a week or two and visit another part of the country or the world. We can charcoal a steak, a slab of ribs or a salmon fillet without concern for the cold. You can throw on shorts and a T-shirt and go anywhere except church or your arraignment. Baseball is king, but the NFL opens for business at the end of July giving hope of crisp fall days ahead.
Starting tomorrow the days will grow shorter. Imperceptibly at first but by August the change will be noted. By the middle of September it will be striking. And watch out--September will be closing on us very shortly causing us to wonder where the summer went.
On the evening of that last post it was a wonderful specimen of Spring in the Midwest--the metaphorical Jennifer Aniston of weather. Well you can kiss that all goodbye. In this past week Jennifer moved out and the metaphorical Rosie O'Donnell moved in. Tonight it was a balmy 90 degrees, with the humidity hovering around a similar number. There was no breeze to cool the brow or give battle to the various insects that attempted to call me home. Today is the first day of summer; the solstice, the longest day of the year. Ahead of us lie three months of the heat we longed for all winter. It's here, fans.
Really, we all love summer. On all but the hottest, most humid days outdoor activity beckons. The fortunate ones among us can take a week or two and visit another part of the country or the world. We can charcoal a steak, a slab of ribs or a salmon fillet without concern for the cold. You can throw on shorts and a T-shirt and go anywhere except church or your arraignment. Baseball is king, but the NFL opens for business at the end of July giving hope of crisp fall days ahead.
Starting tomorrow the days will grow shorter. Imperceptibly at first but by August the change will be noted. By the middle of September it will be striking. And watch out--September will be closing on us very shortly causing us to wonder where the summer went.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Good Evening
Amazingly at 9:30 this evening we have the windows open, the attic fan rumbling softly in the hallway and are totally comfortable.
It is a pleasant sixty-six degrees out, partly cloudy and if weather like this endured here throughout the entire summer, Kansas City would be as overcrowded and angst-ridden as Orlando or San Francisco. The humidity is seventy-three per cent which is high for normal comfort but at this temperature it makes a soft late-Spring evening. But the weather won't stay like this for the coming season. Soon it will be a hot, sticky mess. The sky will be colorless, the inhabitants irritable and the nights a festival of greenbugs swarming around the street lights.
Normally June in this outpost on the prairie has worn on far enough that heat has begun to peak in the 90's and humidity builds about that high. About every third or fourth day the atmosphere can tolerate itself no longer and a cold front pushes through creating a thunderstorm which clears the air for a day. Then the cycle starts all over again but the cold fronts grow weaker as the summer takes over, and they grow further apart. Soon there are none, only the heat.
But tonight we will sleep well in the strange coolness. It is an April evening in the middle of June. The heat is forecasted to return but for one night it has to wait and the attic fan runs. I hope that is OK with Al Gore.
It is a pleasant sixty-six degrees out, partly cloudy and if weather like this endured here throughout the entire summer, Kansas City would be as overcrowded and angst-ridden as Orlando or San Francisco. The humidity is seventy-three per cent which is high for normal comfort but at this temperature it makes a soft late-Spring evening. But the weather won't stay like this for the coming season. Soon it will be a hot, sticky mess. The sky will be colorless, the inhabitants irritable and the nights a festival of greenbugs swarming around the street lights.
Normally June in this outpost on the prairie has worn on far enough that heat has begun to peak in the 90's and humidity builds about that high. About every third or fourth day the atmosphere can tolerate itself no longer and a cold front pushes through creating a thunderstorm which clears the air for a day. Then the cycle starts all over again but the cold fronts grow weaker as the summer takes over, and they grow further apart. Soon there are none, only the heat.
But tonight we will sleep well in the strange coolness. It is an April evening in the middle of June. The heat is forecasted to return but for one night it has to wait and the attic fan runs. I hope that is OK with Al Gore.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Westbound and down
Hallet's Peak and Flattop Mountain, as seen from Estes Park.
It's getting close.
In just a month or so we will pack up the car, and head west. Just for a week, mind you, but this vacation is a sacred ritual on a par with Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at the Vatican, or the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is eight days reserved for all of our family traditions and quirks to manifest themselves, to rule and then quickly drop out of sight for another year.
The destination is, of course, is Colorado. Estes Park. A cool, pleasant little tourist town nestled in the lush mountain valley first settled by Joel Estes in 1859. The summer weather is clear and warm during the day, usually tempered by a cooling afternoon thundershower. Evenings are often chilly enough for a sweatshirt or jacket. And overnight it gets just plain cold. The cold greets you in the mornings, finally losing its grip to the nine o'clock sun. That's what we go for: the cooler, dryer mountain air. It's like the whole town is air-conditioned in the middle of summer, a break from the hot, humid flatlands here in western Missouri.
In just a month or so we will pack up the car, and head west. Just for a week, mind you, but this vacation is a sacred ritual on a par with Christmas Eve Midnight Mass at the Vatican, or the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is eight days reserved for all of our family traditions and quirks to manifest themselves, to rule and then quickly drop out of sight for another year.
The destination is, of course, is Colorado. Estes Park. A cool, pleasant little tourist town nestled in the lush mountain valley first settled by Joel Estes in 1859. The summer weather is clear and warm during the day, usually tempered by a cooling afternoon thundershower. Evenings are often chilly enough for a sweatshirt or jacket. And overnight it gets just plain cold. The cold greets you in the mornings, finally losing its grip to the nine o'clock sun. That's what we go for: the cooler, dryer mountain air. It's like the whole town is air-conditioned in the middle of summer, a break from the hot, humid flatlands here in western Missouri.
We are like football coaches with their pregame rituals. There are simply things we must do. We stop at the same motel in Hays on the first day out. We go to the Wal-Mart next to it to buy the items we inevitably forget. We go even if we remembered everything, just because. Ask a coach.
The first night in Estes Park is always pizza night. It goes back 30 years to our first voyages to Woodland Park. Always arriving tired after a 55-mph journey from Kansas City we would order a pizza instead of cooking our own food. President Reagan got the speed restriction repealed out from under the big-government crowd which shortened the trip, but the pizza tradition stuck.
Everyone likes a trip to Bear Lake
Once there we have some non-negotiable things that are on the books each year: Saturday afternoon mass at the beautiful stone and timber church; a trip to Bear Lake, of which faithful readers already know; breakfast out at the 'Egg and I' restaurant (and maybe another at the Big Horn, at the other end of town; the girls' shopping trip to Longmont, Loveland or anywhere a Ross Family Store has rooted; mini-golf at Tiny Town; a root beer float with real ice cream at the A & W; and lunch on the last day at Penelope's, the best burgers in Larimer County.
Another end-of-the-trip routine is the annual Tiny Town Invitational, a family mini-golf contest with a traveling trophy. Last year, I beat out Brett and Katie by one stroke with an all-time personal best of 38. The trophy, a child's pennant emblazoned with "Estes Park" sits proudly on my desk, waiting to be handed off to the next winner in July.
The torch is passed at the '08 TTI.
Also on the last day or two there is shopping to be done. A few presents to tote home to friends; fudge, T-shirts, ear-rings, jelly, the usual suspects. Katie always needs a T-shirt, sweatshirt and a polo to get her through the next few months.
In between arriving and leaving there is much swimming, sunning, walking by the Big Thompson River, and enjoying the magnificent scenery. Every morning is a flawless gem. The afternoons are pleasantly warm, but the breeze whispers through the tall pine trees suggesting a gathering storm. It's possible to enjoy some quiet time reading or napping. And you have to practice for the TTI.
All too soon it's over. We have to pack up the car, get up before sunrise and head east. Back down into the heat, and featureless flatlands. Back to the daily grind of work, and waiting for the weekend. But for a few days it is great to escape the unforgiving prairie summer and enjoy being together in a friendly setting. There is still one more tradition to go--lunch on the way home at the truck stop in Colby. I know, lunch at a truck stop doesn't hold much for most people, but these are the vacations of the insignificant.
Monday, June 1, 2009
The Little Ranger
Santa Fe M-119A few months ago I posted a picture of an old Santa Fe doodlebug on display in the Travel Town museum in Los Angeles. It was a long shot, not very clear and it was copyrighted -- Ahhh! -- so once I realized that it had to come off. Unfortunately de-posting the photo also de-posted the post itself. Still, I wanted to leave a post that had the sense of what 'Little Ranger' was.
So here is a better snapshot of a Santa Fe motorcar, which as you can see, also has a 'trailer' car attached behind it for added capacity. Doodlebugs were usually one-car affairs with a cab for the engineer, fireman and brakemen; a compartment for baggage and light freight; and the rear half of the conveyance was a passenger compartment. A Doodlebug could pull a trailer for seating additional passengers when needed, and two or three freight cars for mixed-train work mostly on the branch lines.
This was the train that called at my hometown of El Dorado, Kansas; the postwar 'Little Ranger,' trains 25 and 26, which linked Eldorado (that's the railroad spelling with no space and lower case 'd') and Augusta with the Emporia and Winfield terminals where the real Ranger--Santa Fe's mainline train between Chicago and Houston--made daily stops.
The Little Ranger rolled in the daylight, both north- and southbound, meandering from Emporia to Ellinor, Bazaar, Matfield Green, Chelsea, Eldorado, Vanora, Augusta, Douglass, Rock, and finally Winfield where folks could catch the southbound Ranger. Through this pastoral Flint Hills countryside she carried the mail, milk, Railway Express, newspapers, and the citizens of Chase and Butler counties off to Chicago and the East, or maybe Texas or California. Back then, trips like that were big events in the lives of ordinary people. Very few could afford air travel and it was much less prolific. In a place like El Dorado the arrival or departure of the Little Ranger often was an occasion for someone. The depot, a 1903 brick county-seat-plan similar to Iola's or the one still standing in Garden City, was a little beehive of activity for a few moments until the train scooted on down the track which lay square in the middle of Gordy Street.
Santa Fe M-177The Missouri Pacific also operated a passenger train from Wichita, through El Dorado, Eureka, Yates Center, Osawatomie and into Kansas City. The Sunflower, as it was known, didn't hold the quite as fast in my heart as the Little Ranger. Santa Fe's trains were really the best in America, capturing both eye and imagination. The classic steam power they used was just ending and the beautiful red, yellow and silver passenger locomotives were famous everywhere, as were the names Chief, Super Chief and Grand Canyon Limited. Little Ranger didn't connect with them but they all rolled under the same upper-quadrant semaphore signals up on the main line. It was a pedigree thing.
Both trains lasted until 1959. After that boarding trains was done in Newton or Wichita. Santa Fe razed the old depot in 1961. The private car tracks behind it were pulled up and it was paved over for parking. The MoPac depot survives today, magnificently restored and used as a community building of some sort. MoPac, like Santa Fe, Burlington and Union Pacific, took great pride in their station buildings which were the faces of those companies to the burghers.
With two refineries, an asphalt plant and the agriculture trade, Santa Fe and MoPac carried on at El Dorado with freight commerce. Alas, today the U.P. runs only one or two short trains a week on the old MoPac line between Wichita and El Dorado. East of there, the tracks have been gone for years. The old Santa Fe track on Gordy Street, the original 1872 branch from the main line at Florence, has been paved over. Santa Fe operates its busy transcontinental freight line around the east side of the city which joins the old line to Winfield just south of town.
Life goes on. But just for those of us from 'Eldorado' and Kansas who lived by train whistles, and waited at crossings as the trains that settled and built this part of the country rolled by, I pray the Little Ranger and her kind not be forgotten.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Justice, California-style
I shouldn't be taking the time to do this, but I can't stop myself.
Oh NO! According to MSN.com, Kim Kardashian, TV personality and magazine bimbo, is outraged. Her life has been thrown into a black hole because the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the recent referendum on gay marriage--with which the people of California said "NO" to gay marriage. "This really makes me sad..." she is quoted, also saying "Shame on you California! We must all continue to fight the h8!" (sic)
She is just so, so wrong on so many levels.
1. Why, why, why is this hate? Apparently resistance to any off-the-wall concept du jour is hateful. Conversely, if one publicly despises time-honored values which have borne us a civilized society and great freedom, that is considered a free and open exchange of ideas by my friends on the left.
2. California is a big state. A lot of people [I have no idea how many] had to have voted against the legalization of a gay marriage there. That being said, this is apparently the will of the people even if only one vote had made the difference at the time they voted on Prop 8.
3. The California Supreme Court is thought to be one of the two most liberal in the nation [equalled only perhaps by Massachusetts] by legal scholars who think about things like that. This decision was 8-1. Not even close, in a state literally percolating with lefties. This really has to frost the libs, who regard court systems everywhere as their home-owned government grocery store.
4. In three thousand years of human history where are references to a union between two [or what the hell, maybe more] people of the same sex? This is a fairly recent concept, a dandelion sitting atop the Mount Rushmore of time. And just about as significant. Gay people are free to live with each other, to do as they please [try that in the ultra-liberal socialist paradise over in North Korea] and are unable only to present themselves as man and, uh, man. Or as woman and woman. They will lack some legal benefits and protections open only to a traditional union, and they may each require their own health insurance. Why is there an assumption that every aspect of society must remake itself to be acceptable to whatever the alternative lifestyles are demanding at the moment?
5. Justice Kardashian is joined in her articulate dissent by such deep-thinking heavy hitters as Elton John, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Heidi Montag [whoever she is] and, of course, that paragon of teenage philosophy, Miley Cyrus. They're probably supported by most of the pop-culture Hollywood icons that can be swept up on Rodeo Drive buying $700 jeans, loitering there hoping the Us photographer will see them out spending someone's money.
6. And lastly, as a matter of curiosity, why would any responsible news outlet pick up on anything Kim Kardashian has to say? Share with me her credentials to publicly critique the actions of the Supreme Court, or perhaps even traffic court. Her TV show makes one yearn for the pithier wit of the late Anna Nicole Smith. What has Kim modestly done, other than to serve as a benchmark for making Paris Hilton look intelligent? Has she guarded the Republic, fed the hungry, praised the Lord, brought in a payroll? Historically her largest concern--at least in my memory--was the size of her ass. Seems appropriate to me.
We hold nothing against gay people who go about their lives like everyone else, just trying to get by, and everything against those who want to remake this nation in their own narrow image. Until that happens, I am satisfied for Kim to be sad, and ashamed of the Golden State.
Oh NO! According to MSN.com, Kim Kardashian, TV personality and magazine bimbo, is outraged. Her life has been thrown into a black hole because the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 8, the recent referendum on gay marriage--with which the people of California said "NO" to gay marriage. "This really makes me sad..." she is quoted, also saying "Shame on you California! We must all continue to fight the h8!" (sic)
She is just so, so wrong on so many levels.
1. Why, why, why is this hate? Apparently resistance to any off-the-wall concept du jour is hateful. Conversely, if one publicly despises time-honored values which have borne us a civilized society and great freedom, that is considered a free and open exchange of ideas by my friends on the left.
2. California is a big state. A lot of people [I have no idea how many] had to have voted against the legalization of a gay marriage there. That being said, this is apparently the will of the people even if only one vote had made the difference at the time they voted on Prop 8.
3. The California Supreme Court is thought to be one of the two most liberal in the nation [equalled only perhaps by Massachusetts] by legal scholars who think about things like that. This decision was 8-1. Not even close, in a state literally percolating with lefties. This really has to frost the libs, who regard court systems everywhere as their home-owned government grocery store.
4. In three thousand years of human history where are references to a union between two [or what the hell, maybe more] people of the same sex? This is a fairly recent concept, a dandelion sitting atop the Mount Rushmore of time. And just about as significant. Gay people are free to live with each other, to do as they please [try that in the ultra-liberal socialist paradise over in North Korea] and are unable only to present themselves as man and, uh, man. Or as woman and woman. They will lack some legal benefits and protections open only to a traditional union, and they may each require their own health insurance. Why is there an assumption that every aspect of society must remake itself to be acceptable to whatever the alternative lifestyles are demanding at the moment?
5. Justice Kardashian is joined in her articulate dissent by such deep-thinking heavy hitters as Elton John, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, Heidi Montag [whoever she is] and, of course, that paragon of teenage philosophy, Miley Cyrus. They're probably supported by most of the pop-culture Hollywood icons that can be swept up on Rodeo Drive buying $700 jeans, loitering there hoping the Us photographer will see them out spending someone's money.
6. And lastly, as a matter of curiosity, why would any responsible news outlet pick up on anything Kim Kardashian has to say? Share with me her credentials to publicly critique the actions of the Supreme Court, or perhaps even traffic court. Her TV show makes one yearn for the pithier wit of the late Anna Nicole Smith. What has Kim modestly done, other than to serve as a benchmark for making Paris Hilton look intelligent? Has she guarded the Republic, fed the hungry, praised the Lord, brought in a payroll? Historically her largest concern--at least in my memory--was the size of her ass. Seems appropriate to me.
We hold nothing against gay people who go about their lives like everyone else, just trying to get by, and everything against those who want to remake this nation in their own narrow image. Until that happens, I am satisfied for Kim to be sad, and ashamed of the Golden State.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Road Trip, Part II.
A lot of the interesting things on the Turnpike happened on the "Hoot Owl" [the night shift] but there was one day shift that stands out in my feeble memory. The names have been changed to protect the, uh, perpetrators which I understand are still living.
Only on a few occasions did my 19-year-old self enjoy a solid week of 8-to-4, working days like a real person and able to visit evenings with friends. And remember this was a summer job, not a career, so I treasured these day shifts. One beautiful summer morning I reported to the gate at El Dorado to relieve the "Hoot Owl" man. It was the morning after a storm had powered through, clearing the skies, lowering the humidity and refreshing all with a cool breeze. Truly a magnificent specimen of a day. Into this idyllic setting drove one Fred Grimes, Kansas State Representative for Butler County, Democrat, and lawyer from nearby Augusta.
I had heard of Grimes and seen his pictures around for years. He represented the whole county and had served for some years. Dad knew him slightly through the county Bar Association but we'd never met in person and I'd never given it a thought at all. Until that beautiful morning.
He drove in to my gate to exit from the Turnpike, and handed me his ticket. [The way it worked was you entered the Turnpike at a toll booth, and the attendant would hand you a stiff card with your vehicle class, the name of the point of entry, the time and date, and a chart with the tolls to all the other exits from that one. You would surrender it at the point of exit so the collector would know where you came from and thus how much to charge--it still works like that to this day.] As I recall, he paid the toll from Topeka where he had entered, and then said, "Can I ask you something?" [These conversations are as accurate as I can recall, having occurred almost forty years ago.]
"Sure, what can I help you with?" I replied.
"Can I keep that ticket?"
No one had ever asked me that before. I thought he would be seeking directions to something. I shook my head. "I have to turn it in. It's part of the accounting. It has to stay here so I'll balance with the bank." I wasn't kidding. The auditors checked every collector each day for cash errors and those tickets were part of the audit. I studied his young/old face. "Why do you want it?"
At this point the honorable legislator squirmed uncomfortably behind the wheel. He paused, and I could see he was choosing his words carefully. "It's for my wife."
That really confused me. But he continued, "I'm Fred Grimes. I'm the state representative for this district." He stuck his hand out the window of his car. I gave it a shake. The warm morning sun was in his face and he was squinting to get a good look at me and measure me up. "I worked late last night at the Capitol and started out for home, but I was just too tired to drive all the way back home so I stopped and slept a few hours at the rest area by Emporia. I've been gone all night and should have been home hours ago. My wife is never going to believe me, that I was sleeping in the car."
Aha! Suddenly he looked familiar. Indeed he needed a shave and to run a comb through his hair, and his shirt was rumpled, so his predicament seemed genuine. "But why do you want this?" I asked, waving the treasured ticket. I also wanted to ask him what he had done previously to earn the wife's suspicion, but for once I kept my big mouth shut.
"That has the time printed on it when I entered the turnpike, doesn't it? Look on there, you can see when I went through the gate last night." And sure enough, atop the little card in familiar blue ink, his entry had been preserved for all eternity by Topeka's entry machine at 12:30 AM. "That will prove to her that I was on my way home on the highway, and that I wasn't still in Topeka."
This was my first encounter with an adult who would openly discuss marital problems with me, and it was really more than I wanted to know. And, my training reminded me that the ticket had to be turned in. It was the state's ticket, not mine to give away.
"Oh, I see," was about all I could think to say. I really didn't care to see his marriage suffer, but then automation took over. "I'd like to help but they are clear that I have to turn this in. I don't have the option to let it go."
I glanced behind him, and around to the entry lane behind me. Fortunately no other cars were waiting during this prolonged encounter. He said, "Well how about this: when do you go off duty?"
"At four." Here we go, I thought. He's estimated my character; now he's making a deal.
"If you let me take the card home with me I will bring it back to you before you leave this afternoon." I must have grimaced, because he went on: "Look, I am an elected official and you can trust me to do that. I give you my word you'll have it back before you go home." He was nodding as he spoke, and had the slightest touch of urgency in his voice.
Mr. Grimes had found a chink in my armor. He knew I wanted to help. And I was a little concerned about not helping since he was a state official and I worked for a semi-governmental entity. If I didn't go along with this character could he cause a problem for someone at the Turnpike Authority? His marriage obviously had trust issues; how angry would he be if they were complicated by some college kid following bureaucratic rules? Who did he know at the Turnpike Authority?
So I said, "OK, if you promise to get this back to me before I close out to go home I guess I can trust you." Then I thought to add, "But if I don't get it back I will have a variance and be in all kinds of trouble--so help me out." I reluctantly handed him the card, hoping he would understand that if he crossed me lots of people would hear about this little encounter.
He took the card and asked my name. When I told him he perked up a little because he was acquainted with Dad, and he asked about the family. He once again presented his hand, saying, "Thank you, thank you very much. I will have this back to you before four, I promise." We shook hands again and Fred Grimes, Kansas State Representative for Butler County, Democrat, and lawyer from nearby Augusta, drove out of my life.
By lunchtime the sun had thoroughly warmed everything and the freshness of the early hour was gone. And I had seen nothing of the Representative or his turnpike ticket. "You dummy," I admonished myself. He isn't going to make a 20-mile round trip to give that stupid card back and now you are going to have a variance." I am sure my pulse was up all day in anticipation of my cash drawer not balancing. What bothered me the most was that up until that day I had very few cash variances. That three-dollar toll would stand out like a red-headed stepchild. Talk about trust--I wondered if my employers would trust me after that. Three bucks was a lot to be out of balance back then, and the turnpike people were strict.
One o'clock, two o'clock, two-thirty all dragged by and no one showed. I had resigned myself to having been duped by a minor politician. Finally, at three, an old pickup truck drove up and an even older man, lean and wiry, got out. He wore a western shirt and blue jeans. I can still see him in the mind's eye, walking up toward me, leaning slightly forward as he walked. He had a weathered, deeply lined face. In his hand was the card. The pressure that had built all day vanished. I stepped out of my booth to meet him.
"You the one lookin' for this?" he asked, jabbing the card out at me. I had no idea who he was but at that point I really didn't care. I was just glad that Rep. Grimes had kept his word. And he had.
I took it. "Yes, thank you very much. I'm sure glad to see this."
"Fred said you wanted it." Apparently satisfied his duty was done he began to turn away.
Then curiosity got the better of me. "Hey!" I yelled. "Did it do him any good?"
The old fellow turned all the way around and faced me with his eyebrows raised in shock, apparently surprised that I knew the real reason for the transaction. Then his face melted into a shrewd, wily grin. He shook his head slightly saying, "I don't think so, the poor sonuvabitch!"
He walked away cackling with an emphysematic laugh. I slipped the rumpled toll ticket back into the card bin where it belonged and watched him drive away wondering what kind of day old Fred must have had.
Only on a few occasions did my 19-year-old self enjoy a solid week of 8-to-4, working days like a real person and able to visit evenings with friends. And remember this was a summer job, not a career, so I treasured these day shifts. One beautiful summer morning I reported to the gate at El Dorado to relieve the "Hoot Owl" man. It was the morning after a storm had powered through, clearing the skies, lowering the humidity and refreshing all with a cool breeze. Truly a magnificent specimen of a day. Into this idyllic setting drove one Fred Grimes, Kansas State Representative for Butler County, Democrat, and lawyer from nearby Augusta.
I had heard of Grimes and seen his pictures around for years. He represented the whole county and had served for some years. Dad knew him slightly through the county Bar Association but we'd never met in person and I'd never given it a thought at all. Until that beautiful morning.
He drove in to my gate to exit from the Turnpike, and handed me his ticket. [The way it worked was you entered the Turnpike at a toll booth, and the attendant would hand you a stiff card with your vehicle class, the name of the point of entry, the time and date, and a chart with the tolls to all the other exits from that one. You would surrender it at the point of exit so the collector would know where you came from and thus how much to charge--it still works like that to this day.] As I recall, he paid the toll from Topeka where he had entered, and then said, "Can I ask you something?" [These conversations are as accurate as I can recall, having occurred almost forty years ago.]
"Sure, what can I help you with?" I replied.
"Can I keep that ticket?"
No one had ever asked me that before. I thought he would be seeking directions to something. I shook my head. "I have to turn it in. It's part of the accounting. It has to stay here so I'll balance with the bank." I wasn't kidding. The auditors checked every collector each day for cash errors and those tickets were part of the audit. I studied his young/old face. "Why do you want it?"
At this point the honorable legislator squirmed uncomfortably behind the wheel. He paused, and I could see he was choosing his words carefully. "It's for my wife."
That really confused me. But he continued, "I'm Fred Grimes. I'm the state representative for this district." He stuck his hand out the window of his car. I gave it a shake. The warm morning sun was in his face and he was squinting to get a good look at me and measure me up. "I worked late last night at the Capitol and started out for home, but I was just too tired to drive all the way back home so I stopped and slept a few hours at the rest area by Emporia. I've been gone all night and should have been home hours ago. My wife is never going to believe me, that I was sleeping in the car."
Aha! Suddenly he looked familiar. Indeed he needed a shave and to run a comb through his hair, and his shirt was rumpled, so his predicament seemed genuine. "But why do you want this?" I asked, waving the treasured ticket. I also wanted to ask him what he had done previously to earn the wife's suspicion, but for once I kept my big mouth shut.
"That has the time printed on it when I entered the turnpike, doesn't it? Look on there, you can see when I went through the gate last night." And sure enough, atop the little card in familiar blue ink, his entry had been preserved for all eternity by Topeka's entry machine at 12:30 AM. "That will prove to her that I was on my way home on the highway, and that I wasn't still in Topeka."
This was my first encounter with an adult who would openly discuss marital problems with me, and it was really more than I wanted to know. And, my training reminded me that the ticket had to be turned in. It was the state's ticket, not mine to give away.
"Oh, I see," was about all I could think to say. I really didn't care to see his marriage suffer, but then automation took over. "I'd like to help but they are clear that I have to turn this in. I don't have the option to let it go."
I glanced behind him, and around to the entry lane behind me. Fortunately no other cars were waiting during this prolonged encounter. He said, "Well how about this: when do you go off duty?"
"At four." Here we go, I thought. He's estimated my character; now he's making a deal.
"If you let me take the card home with me I will bring it back to you before you leave this afternoon." I must have grimaced, because he went on: "Look, I am an elected official and you can trust me to do that. I give you my word you'll have it back before you go home." He was nodding as he spoke, and had the slightest touch of urgency in his voice.
Mr. Grimes had found a chink in my armor. He knew I wanted to help. And I was a little concerned about not helping since he was a state official and I worked for a semi-governmental entity. If I didn't go along with this character could he cause a problem for someone at the Turnpike Authority? His marriage obviously had trust issues; how angry would he be if they were complicated by some college kid following bureaucratic rules? Who did he know at the Turnpike Authority?
So I said, "OK, if you promise to get this back to me before I close out to go home I guess I can trust you." Then I thought to add, "But if I don't get it back I will have a variance and be in all kinds of trouble--so help me out." I reluctantly handed him the card, hoping he would understand that if he crossed me lots of people would hear about this little encounter.
He took the card and asked my name. When I told him he perked up a little because he was acquainted with Dad, and he asked about the family. He once again presented his hand, saying, "Thank you, thank you very much. I will have this back to you before four, I promise." We shook hands again and Fred Grimes, Kansas State Representative for Butler County, Democrat, and lawyer from nearby Augusta, drove out of my life.
By lunchtime the sun had thoroughly warmed everything and the freshness of the early hour was gone. And I had seen nothing of the Representative or his turnpike ticket. "You dummy," I admonished myself. He isn't going to make a 20-mile round trip to give that stupid card back and now you are going to have a variance." I am sure my pulse was up all day in anticipation of my cash drawer not balancing. What bothered me the most was that up until that day I had very few cash variances. That three-dollar toll would stand out like a red-headed stepchild. Talk about trust--I wondered if my employers would trust me after that. Three bucks was a lot to be out of balance back then, and the turnpike people were strict.
One o'clock, two o'clock, two-thirty all dragged by and no one showed. I had resigned myself to having been duped by a minor politician. Finally, at three, an old pickup truck drove up and an even older man, lean and wiry, got out. He wore a western shirt and blue jeans. I can still see him in the mind's eye, walking up toward me, leaning slightly forward as he walked. He had a weathered, deeply lined face. In his hand was the card. The pressure that had built all day vanished. I stepped out of my booth to meet him.
"You the one lookin' for this?" he asked, jabbing the card out at me. I had no idea who he was but at that point I really didn't care. I was just glad that Rep. Grimes had kept his word. And he had.
I took it. "Yes, thank you very much. I'm sure glad to see this."
"Fred said you wanted it." Apparently satisfied his duty was done he began to turn away.
Then curiosity got the better of me. "Hey!" I yelled. "Did it do him any good?"
The old fellow turned all the way around and faced me with his eyebrows raised in shock, apparently surprised that I knew the real reason for the transaction. Then his face melted into a shrewd, wily grin. He shook his head slightly saying, "I don't think so, the poor sonuvabitch!"
He walked away cackling with an emphysematic laugh. I slipped the rumpled toll ticket back into the card bin where it belonged and watched him drive away wondering what kind of day old Fred must have had.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Road trip.
For five summers after I graduated from high school I worked for the Kansas Turnpike Authority as a relief toll collector. Mostly the job was to fill in for the veteran collectors who were on vacation, and also to provide additional help for the summer traffic increase. I worked four different stations, three in Wichita and one in El Dorado. It was interesting work, sometimes. Dealings with the public are always that way. The summer before I graduated I also worked for the KTA, but that time as a guard-rail painter. That was a whole lot less interesting but it was nice to be outside. At least I got a nice tan out of it. But in the toll booth it was a bit more demanding. You had to know the tolls, of course. And you had to know how to 'class' vehicles as they approached, always by axle count which was checked by a treadle in the lane next to the booth where the car or truck passed. Also you had to be good at handling cash, and a lot of it. Not huge amounts of money--although some days the take was pretty good--but always a weighty volume of coins and one-dollar bills. I spent many afternoons and evenings rolling quarters to send to the bank. And then, you had to be conversant in directions, mileages to everywhere and where to get a good meal.
There were lots of characters out there, besides just the travelling public. The very head of the KTA, the Chief Engineer-Manager, was a tall, grey-haired, distinguished-looking man by the name of L. W. Newcomer, a man with political connections, savvy, and a fierce loyalty to his alma mater, Kansas State University. It was no accident that many of my fellow guard-rail painters were high school kids who had athletic ability and had expressed an interest in K-State. Bill Fitzgerald and I were the lone KU enrollees. I guess L. W.'s savvy was so tuned that he would not discriminate, even against Jayhawks.
Mr. Newcomer often told this story which happened late one hot, still summer night. Much of it unfolded on the highway patrol radios which were also used to communicate to each toll booth. I was not on duty that night but I really wished I had been there to hear it unroll: In the wee hours, a middle-aged couple drove south from Kansas City toward the Oklahoma border. It was learned later that the wife was napping in the back seat. Needing to refuel, they stopped at the Belle Plaine service area a short distance south of Wichita. When the gentleman went into the service station office to pay for the gas, his wife apparently woke up, crawled out of the car and went in a different entrance to the service station to find the ladies' room.
So, yeah, the fellow paid his bill, went back out to his car and drove away. Shortly after the lady comes back out to find her husband and car both gone. She panics a little, and the attendants reassure her that they can call the highway patrol dispatcher and he can radio ahead to the South Haven toll gate to watch for her car. South Haven is the southern terminal and all traffic stops there to pay tolls before heading on into Oklahoma. They tell her the men at the toll gate will advise the husband that she is not sleeping in the back seat and to return to pick her up.
And as good as their word, armed with her description of the car the toll collector at South Haven spots the car in short order. "Hey," he tells the driver, "you left your wife back at the rest area when you got gas."
The man looked up and leveled his eyes at the collector. He said, "Hell, don't you think I know that?" and drove off into the night.
No, we never found out what happened after that, but it was old L. W.'s favorite story. I have no reason to doubt it actually happened because some people do very strange things. This certainly qualifies, and we will revisit the good old KTA another time as we are always looking for something strange to communicate!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Kid Stuff, Part II
Steve and his mom.
I didn't mean to let almost 10 days to go by between posts. It was a real mess at work and frankly doesn't show any sign of improving soon. But again it is Steve, my grandson, who forces me back to the keyboard. Some things must be shared.
Yesterday my wife went to visit at Liz's house. Steve was out in the driveway with a couple of the neighbor kids, and as Mary Ann approached he yelled to her "Grammy don't walk where it's wet. I peed there."
Mary Ann paused; on occasion, his parents have had to direct him to relieve himself indoors--not outside. So she said, "Stevie, why did you pee out here?"
He didn't miss a beat. "Because we needed a starting line for our race."
Apparently urinating on the driveway is more efficient than going to look for the chalk. OK. Good thinking, Steve. But as you get older please ask your Dad to leave some tape handy in the garage.
Yesterday my wife went to visit at Liz's house. Steve was out in the driveway with a couple of the neighbor kids, and as Mary Ann approached he yelled to her "Grammy don't walk where it's wet. I peed there."
Mary Ann paused; on occasion, his parents have had to direct him to relieve himself indoors--not outside. So she said, "Stevie, why did you pee out here?"
He didn't miss a beat. "Because we needed a starting line for our race."
Apparently urinating on the driveway is more efficient than going to look for the chalk. OK. Good thinking, Steve. But as you get older please ask your Dad to leave some tape handy in the garage.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Wash your hands.
This has been bothering me; if people are ostensibly infected with"Swine Flu" then are hogs that have become ill said to have "People Flu?"
The porcine has unfairly been saddled with the responsibility for our misfortunes. We don't get Swine Flu directly from porkers, or from consuming pork products. Yet there was ABC News in Mexico last week with cameras, standing at the gate of a large swine feed lot claiming that this was where the current round of influenza was born. They interviewed people in the village nearby who had been sick. They gave the name of the evil giant American conglomerate who owned the feed lot, inferring that evil American businessmen and greedy American stockholders were responsible somehow for the conditions here which clearly caused hundreds of Mexican deaths and the world to be held in the grip of a plague. "See! See!" they shout into their microphones, "Selfish rich Americans caused poor exploited Mexicans to die! It's Bush's fault! It's Bush's fault! Bush lied!!"
To know what is occurring is a good thing. To be cautious is wise as well; forewarned is forearmed. Unfortunately ABC and the other mainstream media outlets are almost demanding that we panic. They dash from CDC officials to Washington pols looking for sound bites, the next more ominous than the one before. They look sternly into the cameras and proclaim the uncertainty of public administrators to contain the raging virus. They recall influenza epidemics of bygone decades, with reminders that during one such onslaught more people died of flu than of the Black Plague in the Dark Ages. They counsel us to wash our hands and hopelessly profess beyond that there is little we can do. Some take it up a notch and tell us to stay home, avoid crowds and report to the hospital at the first signs of illness.
Just what the ER doctors want to hear: the Dark Ages media sending every nervous citizen with real or imagined symptoms in to be treated. Other than chicken soup, there really isn't much of a flu treatment. Flu shots are very strain-specific, and even so only work to prevent the flu; once you come down with a case you are on your own. You ride it out at home. Only the more severe cases would require hospitalization. Every ten-year-old knows to drink lots of fluids and rest.
Day after day the news outlets have led with dire predictions of pandemic flu. In Mexico, yes, they are having a rough Spring. Some Americans have developed flu but Great Caesar's Ghost, how many people have the flu at any one time anyway? It seems like drug crime is a much more pervasive threat in Mexico (and here as well) than sickness.
Reporting the news is the media's job. The prudent reaction to the threat of large-scale illness is up to the government but ultimately to each of us. We don't need self-righteous journalism grads out there, steering us idiots through life's maze to good health. We also don't need them attempting to be judge and jury, looking to hang someone for starting the whole thing. The whole drive-by media (look, shoot, drive on) loves a crisis they can use to find additional fault with America in the theatre of the world. Please, why all the guilt? Just report the news.
You want to know what the worst threat is? Network TV reporters and producers, who whip up unnecessary fear and concern. I am all in favor of changing the name of this influenza in honor of them. How about "Katy Couric Flu?" Or, "The ABC World News Flu with Charles Gibson?"
In the end, it seems like the whole thing is an insult to pigs.
The porcine has unfairly been saddled with the responsibility for our misfortunes. We don't get Swine Flu directly from porkers, or from consuming pork products. Yet there was ABC News in Mexico last week with cameras, standing at the gate of a large swine feed lot claiming that this was where the current round of influenza was born. They interviewed people in the village nearby who had been sick. They gave the name of the evil giant American conglomerate who owned the feed lot, inferring that evil American businessmen and greedy American stockholders were responsible somehow for the conditions here which clearly caused hundreds of Mexican deaths and the world to be held in the grip of a plague. "See! See!" they shout into their microphones, "Selfish rich Americans caused poor exploited Mexicans to die! It's Bush's fault! It's Bush's fault! Bush lied!!"
To know what is occurring is a good thing. To be cautious is wise as well; forewarned is forearmed. Unfortunately ABC and the other mainstream media outlets are almost demanding that we panic. They dash from CDC officials to Washington pols looking for sound bites, the next more ominous than the one before. They look sternly into the cameras and proclaim the uncertainty of public administrators to contain the raging virus. They recall influenza epidemics of bygone decades, with reminders that during one such onslaught more people died of flu than of the Black Plague in the Dark Ages. They counsel us to wash our hands and hopelessly profess beyond that there is little we can do. Some take it up a notch and tell us to stay home, avoid crowds and report to the hospital at the first signs of illness.
Just what the ER doctors want to hear: the Dark Ages media sending every nervous citizen with real or imagined symptoms in to be treated. Other than chicken soup, there really isn't much of a flu treatment. Flu shots are very strain-specific, and even so only work to prevent the flu; once you come down with a case you are on your own. You ride it out at home. Only the more severe cases would require hospitalization. Every ten-year-old knows to drink lots of fluids and rest.
Day after day the news outlets have led with dire predictions of pandemic flu. In Mexico, yes, they are having a rough Spring. Some Americans have developed flu but Great Caesar's Ghost, how many people have the flu at any one time anyway? It seems like drug crime is a much more pervasive threat in Mexico (and here as well) than sickness.
Reporting the news is the media's job. The prudent reaction to the threat of large-scale illness is up to the government but ultimately to each of us. We don't need self-righteous journalism grads out there, steering us idiots through life's maze to good health. We also don't need them attempting to be judge and jury, looking to hang someone for starting the whole thing. The whole drive-by media (look, shoot, drive on) loves a crisis they can use to find additional fault with America in the theatre of the world. Please, why all the guilt? Just report the news.
You want to know what the worst threat is? Network TV reporters and producers, who whip up unnecessary fear and concern. I am all in favor of changing the name of this influenza in honor of them. How about "Katy Couric Flu?" Or, "The ABC World News Flu with Charles Gibson?"
In the end, it seems like the whole thing is an insult to pigs.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Go inside.
If it isn't too much trouble, could we all practice some courtesy at drive-through places? I mean, some people turn into narcissistic wackos when they roll up to the speaker at McDonalds--which translates into rude. The lesser among us will sense not just rudeness but disdain and disrespect which will lead to rage, and on to violence, then murder, general disorder, world domination by thugs, anarchy, armageddon...OK, maybe I got carried away there but consider a few basic rules when you drive-thru the bank or Hardees:
1. Keep it simple. If you have a huge complicated order with special requests, like "no onions" or "medium rare" could you park your car and drag your fat butt inside and not clog up the traffic in the drive-thru while you spell all this out? They are going to get it wrong anyway and you know that. Go inside!
2. The car that beats me to the speaker every time is driven by a person who doesn't have a clue what he wants (I said "he" but really this is not a gender-specific issue) and as a result 10 cars wait while he weighs the qualities of the grilled chicken versus the Quarter-pounder with cheese. Then there are always fries to consider.
Often this is a matter of being completely uninformed. ("Does that come with mayo? Is it on bread or a bun? How many fat grams in that?") If you are considering an unfamiliar item--GO INSIDE and look at the menu. Chat with the counter help; there is never anyone in there. They are all behind YOU outdoors in the drive up lane.
3. At the bank, would you please not try to negotiate a loan in the drive up lane or at the ATM? Again, GO IN! Why would you try to solve an overdraft problem through a bad two-way speaker and two-inch thick bulletproof glass? I have seen this done. Please don't make the clerk tell you this is something to resolve with an assistant manager in the office. Just keep it down to deposits, withdrawls and paying your bank box rent or car payment.
4. Be ready! Be ready with your food order. Have your money out and ready to pay. Have your deposit ready. Have your ATM card out, ready to go in the slot. Act like you know what your are doing, even if it is an act.
5. Please don't sit at the pickup window and unwrap every sandwich to make sure they didn't put pickles on your burger. Pull up out of the way and let the traffic move. Keep doing this and I swear someday you will be followed home and--if you are lucky--only your car will be damaged.
6. At the ATM, it is OK to take your card, money and receipt and pull forward to count your withdrawl, put everything back in your purse or wallet, readjust your mirrors, change radio stations or CD's, etc. It is actually preferable to do that in order for the car waiting patiently behind you to pull up and conduct ATM business. If you continue to rudely make others wait, you may find yourself being shoved out into the street before you are completely prepared by the woman in line behind you with PMS who really doesn't care what the front of her car will look like. Being shoved might be the least that will happen if you are fortunate.
OK, enough. Just a few rules. Gas is expensive, and fast food isn't very fast these days and many of us are in a hurry, uninterested in your dietary concerns. We can't control that the bank has only one of their 8 drive-thrus open or that the kid at Taco Bell got your order wrong. Don't make the rest of us pay. Put some social back in society.
1. Keep it simple. If you have a huge complicated order with special requests, like "no onions" or "medium rare" could you park your car and drag your fat butt inside and not clog up the traffic in the drive-thru while you spell all this out? They are going to get it wrong anyway and you know that. Go inside!
2. The car that beats me to the speaker every time is driven by a person who doesn't have a clue what he wants (I said "he" but really this is not a gender-specific issue) and as a result 10 cars wait while he weighs the qualities of the grilled chicken versus the Quarter-pounder with cheese. Then there are always fries to consider.
Often this is a matter of being completely uninformed. ("Does that come with mayo? Is it on bread or a bun? How many fat grams in that?") If you are considering an unfamiliar item--GO INSIDE and look at the menu. Chat with the counter help; there is never anyone in there. They are all behind YOU outdoors in the drive up lane.
3. At the bank, would you please not try to negotiate a loan in the drive up lane or at the ATM? Again, GO IN! Why would you try to solve an overdraft problem through a bad two-way speaker and two-inch thick bulletproof glass? I have seen this done. Please don't make the clerk tell you this is something to resolve with an assistant manager in the office. Just keep it down to deposits, withdrawls and paying your bank box rent or car payment.
4. Be ready! Be ready with your food order. Have your money out and ready to pay. Have your deposit ready. Have your ATM card out, ready to go in the slot. Act like you know what your are doing, even if it is an act.
5. Please don't sit at the pickup window and unwrap every sandwich to make sure they didn't put pickles on your burger. Pull up out of the way and let the traffic move. Keep doing this and I swear someday you will be followed home and--if you are lucky--only your car will be damaged.
6. At the ATM, it is OK to take your card, money and receipt and pull forward to count your withdrawl, put everything back in your purse or wallet, readjust your mirrors, change radio stations or CD's, etc. It is actually preferable to do that in order for the car waiting patiently behind you to pull up and conduct ATM business. If you continue to rudely make others wait, you may find yourself being shoved out into the street before you are completely prepared by the woman in line behind you with PMS who really doesn't care what the front of her car will look like. Being shoved might be the least that will happen if you are fortunate.
OK, enough. Just a few rules. Gas is expensive, and fast food isn't very fast these days and many of us are in a hurry, uninterested in your dietary concerns. We can't control that the bank has only one of their 8 drive-thrus open or that the kid at Taco Bell got your order wrong. Don't make the rest of us pay. Put some social back in society.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A moment to remember.
This quiet scene could be the entrance to any suburban high school. But it isn't. It is the main entrance to Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado; not just a school but a memorial as well. Columbine is grimly etched in the memory of everyone alive to hear the news back on April 20, 1999. No one could contemplate what would drive two boys to do what they did that day. So this is just a reminder: yesterday was April 20, unofficially known as "Columbine Day." For whatever reasons those boys had, they changed this country forever and not in a good way. Perhaps they were out to "get even" with classmates who they perceived--or in fact--had wronged them. Maybe they were crazy. Something pushed them outside the box, far enough out to where this all looked achievable and worthwhile to them.
This picture was taken on April 18, 2005, six years almost to the day after the massacre. The students who were there in Spring, 1999, were gone; the ones who were freshmen were two years into college, and the seniors were out starting their careers. Fourteen of them were not in careers or higher education though: the 12 who were murdered, and a teacher; and the two perpetrators themselves. Six years later on a quiet Monday afternoon, there was no sign of the violence--just a bus waiting at the door and a few cheerleaders grouped on the walk.
Life is a delicate balance of order and chaos, one only a few steps from the other. It was good yesterday, ten years after, to remember those who were caught when life was out of balance.
.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Steam
Early in 2004 (and a couple of times since) the Union Pacific Railroad brought one of their two operational steam locomotives to Kansas City for a short visit. These pictures were taken in January, on a cold but sunny morning at Union Station.Number 3985 is a Challenger, named for a landmark canyon along the UP in Wyoming. Steam engines are classified by the type and order of their wheels; this wheel arrangement is 4-6-6-4 (four pilot wheels; two sets of six linked driving wheels, each functioning as a separate engine; and four trailing or truck wheels under the cab and firebox), suitable for use in both passenger and freight service. She is a monster of a machine.
The 3900's were built in the early 1940's to help with wartime traffic. Diesel locomotives were already very much in use but not approved for manufacture because of war priorities. The government did approve some production of heavy steam locomotives for several roads and thus 3985 was assembled in 1943. If they were trying to save on steel, you have to believe they failed for there is a lot of metal in this old girl.
Originally built to burn coal, many of these engines were converted to oil. The oil most railroads used was a thick, gel-like substance also used by the Navy in firing boilers for warships called "Number 6" or "6 Bunker" oil. More remarkable was the amount of water they consumed.
Wherever she goes, she totes along extra water and fuel, and a tool car in case there are mechanical issues. UP actually maintains a small steam department for 3985 and the 844, a wartime Northern (4-8-4) that also survived the scrap line. The men who are the steam department not only run these locomotives, but maintain them as well having learned to fabricate their own spare parts and diagnose problems which skilled craftsmen are no longer available to do.
The silver-painted area is the firebox, in which a large fire burned underneath part of the boiler to convert water into steam. Fireboxes on these larger engines were as big as small rooms. Steam crews probably liked the fireboxes' radiant heat in the fall and winter but oh, how they must have roasted on warm, humid summer days crossing Nebraska.
The modern diesel-electric locomotives are cleaner, more efficient and more colorful, better to such a degree that they quickly killed off steam for good once World War II was over. But they lack the fierceness, the moving parts, the smoke, noise and personalities that steamers had. I only remember them for a few short years when I was very young, seeing Santa Fe steam pass by on the main freight line in El Dorado. But I sure miss watching those big wheels and rods work together, hearing the hiss of one passing at speed, and the drama of a Santa Fe 2-10-4 starting a heavy train when a signal cleared. Fun times.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
He took my career.
The man with the best job in the world is a TV host/chef/restauranteur by the name of Guy Fieri. He does not claim the best job in the world by simply appearing on TV. Nor is being a chef or owning and operating a restaurant the best job in the world. My grandfather did that; it is hard work with long hours. Fieri has the best job in the world because as the host of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network, he gets to go around to really good places all over the U.S.A. and eat what appears to be great food--on someone else's nickle. I think I was supposed to do that.
Is there a better job?
I don't think so. Some of the diners he spotlights are not simply breakfast and burger places, but places run by men and women with food training and vision far beyond that of a fry cook. These people are awesome.
Consider Bobo's Drive-in 80 minutes west of here in Topeka. Good burgers and fries and onion rings, like you would expect. But they also serve fresh apple pie, homemade daily right there in the drive-in. They will serve it ala mode if you like, in your car. Not standard drive-in food for Sonic or McDonald's. (No, that isn't a slam on those fine restaurants.)
How about Bert's Burger Bowl in Santa Fe? Cheeseburgers there are topped out with fresh New Mexico green chile salsa. If you want to try something even more unusual, they make a lamb-burger. They have been in business selling food like that for generations, and it looks fabulous seen through my non-hi definition analog TV screen. I can only imagine how it looks in the flesh and if it tastes half that good, it is worth a ride down there.
Another Santa Fe place is the Tecolote Cafe. Watching folks crowd in to eat blue-corn pancakes with pine nuts or huevos rancheros was just killing me, again with the New Mexico chile salsa, this time green or red: your choice. Again, made fresh daily.
I am a sucker for thin-crust pizza, and Fieri found one at Louie's in Dallas. Outside Louie's looks like an old filling station. Inside the two Chicago-area brothers that run the place are making mouth-watering thin crust pizza, similar to what you get at the Pizza Man in Overland Park. But they also do bar food and cook a mean burger, just beautifully done, with a secret soy marinade.
These are the kinds of places Guy showcases. He gives you the story of the place, what the special twist is that makes it different, and then tortures you by showing how the food comes together. Then with the audience (read: me) in virtual starvation, he samples the finished products just to twist the knife a little deeper. ("Oh, yeah!" he will say. "You would like this!") Bastard.
Is there a better job?
I don't think so. Some of the diners he spotlights are not simply breakfast and burger places, but places run by men and women with food training and vision far beyond that of a fry cook. These people are awesome.
Consider Bobo's Drive-in 80 minutes west of here in Topeka. Good burgers and fries and onion rings, like you would expect. But they also serve fresh apple pie, homemade daily right there in the drive-in. They will serve it ala mode if you like, in your car. Not standard drive-in food for Sonic or McDonald's. (No, that isn't a slam on those fine restaurants.)
How about Bert's Burger Bowl in Santa Fe? Cheeseburgers there are topped out with fresh New Mexico green chile salsa. If you want to try something even more unusual, they make a lamb-burger. They have been in business selling food like that for generations, and it looks fabulous seen through my non-hi definition analog TV screen. I can only imagine how it looks in the flesh and if it tastes half that good, it is worth a ride down there.
Another Santa Fe place is the Tecolote Cafe. Watching folks crowd in to eat blue-corn pancakes with pine nuts or huevos rancheros was just killing me, again with the New Mexico chile salsa, this time green or red: your choice. Again, made fresh daily.
I am a sucker for thin-crust pizza, and Fieri found one at Louie's in Dallas. Outside Louie's looks like an old filling station. Inside the two Chicago-area brothers that run the place are making mouth-watering thin crust pizza, similar to what you get at the Pizza Man in Overland Park. But they also do bar food and cook a mean burger, just beautifully done, with a secret soy marinade.
These are the kinds of places Guy showcases. He gives you the story of the place, what the special twist is that makes it different, and then tortures you by showing how the food comes together. Then with the audience (read: me) in virtual starvation, he samples the finished products just to twist the knife a little deeper. ("Oh, yeah!" he will say. "You would like this!") Bastard.
This is the job I know I was meant to have except for my utter lack of formal food training, my absence of having a TV (or any) personality and the need to lose 55 pounds. Except for those few minor, really meaningless details, Guy Fieri stole this career right out from underneath me.
It isn't all exceptional burgers and pizzas. He has hit places that serve lamb shank, German specialites, amazing Italian food (one place in Omaha, family run, even makes their own mozzarella.) One diner in Georgia serves it all: Greek, Italian, American--it's all there, and nearly all of it done from scratch. The patrons interviewed there at the Marietta Diner, many as they were eating, looked to me like they wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
I cannot do this kind of work; Guy is already doing it. Al Roker has a similar show. The demand has been met. Thus I will have to be prepared to go to these places and pay for my own food. I fully intend to do just that, because I have to know for myself.
I have a list.
It isn't all exceptional burgers and pizzas. He has hit places that serve lamb shank, German specialites, amazing Italian food (one place in Omaha, family run, even makes their own mozzarella.) One diner in Georgia serves it all: Greek, Italian, American--it's all there, and nearly all of it done from scratch. The patrons interviewed there at the Marietta Diner, many as they were eating, looked to me like they wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
I cannot do this kind of work; Guy is already doing it. Al Roker has a similar show. The demand has been met. Thus I will have to be prepared to go to these places and pay for my own food. I fully intend to do just that, because I have to know for myself.
I have a list.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Tough kid.
Today Annie tried a swan dive off her diaper changer-table and hit the floor. There was a great amount of crying and consoling, followed by much examining of body parts. There were hurried phone calls and a fast trip to the ER. Annie was in a bit of shock immediately after the main event and was acting sluggishly but once in the hospital for a while she got her game back. After being scrutinized all afternoon she is officially just fine.
Liz had turned away only for a second when Annie stood up and instantly went over the side. She is convinced her flash of inattention makes her the worst mother ever, obviously having forgotten about Octo-Mom and perhaps Joan Crawford. But Liz has taken two antsy boys through their diaper part of life somehow managed to prevent either of them from leaping off the tall furniture. The little creatures will do unfortunate things very much on their own and that is why God makes them tough. Yes, there are conditions for which they are simply not a match. But maybe God stuck his hand out there and cushioned her fall a bit.
No mother in the world can cover every possible situation. What will Liz do when Annie is in high school playing basketball and runs into a wall at sub-warp speed, clocking herself? Liz did that to us, and all we could do is watch helplessly from the bleachers while the coaches and officials made sure she was OK. In high school, Liz's mother hurt her back cheerleading at a football game. That time, no one was there to watch and worry about her but God made them all durable for most things just the same. Mothering is a partnership with the Almighty and sometimes He picks up the slack when mom hits a rough spotl That will have to be good enough for us.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Feeding on the forest floor.
I think they are trying to kill me at work. The boss is gone on a special assignment and they have appointed me to direct our activities. I really didn't want this. I have been in charge before, for most of my career. That was enough. The last six years as an hourly employee have been pretty decent because I could leave it all at the door every night.
Of course my brief freedom has been reflected in a reduction of earnings but I guess that's OK; I never really made much money no matter what I did. It was nice to have weekends off for a while but all glory is fleeting. Being in charge has required a shift to salary from hourly, actually a pay reduction as there is no more overtime.
Now I have the burden of leadership, no weekends and no money. The dreaded management trifecta. Charter business has exploded this week with baseball season opening and military moves. I would be tempted to seek other employment but it seems that few are hiring and even fewer seem to treasure the skills I have acquired at the airport. I considered retiring but the wife preempted those thoughts as she is still working and will be for a little longer. She has almost no interest in being the only one of us gainfully employed. Retirement is also another victim of the recession: the position is available but the pay has sharply fallen off. So for now I must celebrate just being employed. The prospect of longer hours and harder work holds little except the pay check itself.
When I can stand it no longer, maybe I will go get a job as a car rental garageman. They spend their days driving, refueling, vacuuming and washing new cars. Corporate controllers in far away cities do not call garagemen and demand to be informed about details of the inventory, food cost, manpower reports or profit and loss. Garagemen are not concerned with covering vacations or hearing the complaints of those who have sensed themselves wronged by the corporate structure. Garagemen are not awakened at unreasonable hours because an inconsiderate employee, ravaged by strong drink, failed to report for work. Yes. I want to be a garageman.
For now I will have to see it through as I have the past thirty years, laboring far too hard for far too little. Garagemen don't earn much, but they do leave it at the door.
My kids are grown and gone. Our home's mortgage has been satisfied. Mark my words, let Lufthansa make one small error--just one--and I am getting on the waiting list at Avis!
Of course my brief freedom has been reflected in a reduction of earnings but I guess that's OK; I never really made much money no matter what I did. It was nice to have weekends off for a while but all glory is fleeting. Being in charge has required a shift to salary from hourly, actually a pay reduction as there is no more overtime.
Now I have the burden of leadership, no weekends and no money. The dreaded management trifecta. Charter business has exploded this week with baseball season opening and military moves. I would be tempted to seek other employment but it seems that few are hiring and even fewer seem to treasure the skills I have acquired at the airport. I considered retiring but the wife preempted those thoughts as she is still working and will be for a little longer. She has almost no interest in being the only one of us gainfully employed. Retirement is also another victim of the recession: the position is available but the pay has sharply fallen off. So for now I must celebrate just being employed. The prospect of longer hours and harder work holds little except the pay check itself.
When I can stand it no longer, maybe I will go get a job as a car rental garageman. They spend their days driving, refueling, vacuuming and washing new cars. Corporate controllers in far away cities do not call garagemen and demand to be informed about details of the inventory, food cost, manpower reports or profit and loss. Garagemen are not concerned with covering vacations or hearing the complaints of those who have sensed themselves wronged by the corporate structure. Garagemen are not awakened at unreasonable hours because an inconsiderate employee, ravaged by strong drink, failed to report for work. Yes. I want to be a garageman.
For now I will have to see it through as I have the past thirty years, laboring far too hard for far too little. Garagemen don't earn much, but they do leave it at the door.
My kids are grown and gone. Our home's mortgage has been satisfied. Mark my words, let Lufthansa make one small error--just one--and I am getting on the waiting list at Avis!
Sunday, April 5, 2009
It's how we roll.
Many people have cars that like spouses, just look like they belong with each other. William Conrad, who portrayed private investigator Frank Cannon on the old Cannon TV series absolutely had a kinship to his Lincoln Continental Mark VI. My younger daughter Katie looks like her Saturn Aura was modeled and built specially for her.
Yesterday I was waiting at the bottom of the I-29 exit ramp to 72nd street and found myself behind an aging Ford Festiva occupied by a large curly-headed Seth Rogen-looking kid wearing a T-shirt that said only "CLOWN." As we all waited for the light and the other six million cars to clear, he alternated between sitting bolt upright and dropping the seat back into full recline position all the while talking on his cell phone. "He's a clown, all right," I thought. His buddy sat next to him, a little skinny guy with a white rag tied around his head. He had a scrubby beard and never moved so much as a muscle. "Those guys are perfect for that car," I continued to muse, observing its faded red paint and hearing its rumbling (yes, it really rumbled) exhaust. They were perfect for it: not at all polished, loud and goofy, very casual.
Pretty teenaged girls are meant to drive Mazda Miata convertibles, preferably red ones. They may continue to do so until in their mid-twenties by which time they really need to trade for a Mustang convertible. Incidentally, no man should ever be seen driving a Miata. Most men have the top of the windshield obscuring their vision and are so ill-fitted in this vehicle that they look like Shriners heading to a parade; Miata is for girls only.
When I used to pick up my kids after school I got a good education in car-driver agreement. I sat there in my Ranger, one of the rare trucks in the parking lot, watching the mini-vans roll in. All of the thirty-something moms parked, got out and had mini-conferences in twos and threes gassing about who knows what. In their nylon jogging suits and mom jeans they all appeared to be a good fit with their Voyagers and Caravans, a sea of which spanned the lot by the time the kids charged in from school. I would venture that mini-vans are the jogging suits of the automobile kingdom. Ten years before, the mini-van--or its older brother the venerable station wagon--would have caused these same women to recoil in horror and run screaming back to their Mustangs. Now they had sliding doors, cup holders and even televisions in the back to entertain restless urchins.
Boys are more complicated, and have to have a gimmick. Even before high school they emerge with car personalities. There are always a few who think they have to have the speediest car and only look at ease in a Corvette. Some prefer an old Firebird, which always seems to be black or have no paint whatsoever. A lot of teens abandoned the muscle car and express themselves now with pickup trucks and vie to have the largest, loudest and highest off the ground. This is the 2009 equivalent of fully-extended peacock feathers, replacing those bygone but equally loud big-block Plymouths and SS396 Chevelles. The vast majority of boys however will just settle for what they can afford, sliding into hand-me-down family cars or perhaps an aging SUV. Reflecting their individuality, boys will turn them into neat, shiny jewels or let them deteriorate into something like the Festiva, maintaining it only to the extent that it will qualify for a state license.
In some communities your car is a statement of who you are, not unlike your clothes or hobbies or even your home itself. My buddy Norton, from Garden City, bought his first car when we were in college. He selected a 1967 RS Camaro, which like Norton himself, was small, quick, sporty and agile. If Norton was not "sporty," he at least liked sports. It was a good pick. They looked like each other. Now, later in life, he has an Acura sedan. Just conservative enough, and just edgy enough for a busy internist.
Some men go into a midlife crisis and opt for Corvettes, Mustang V-8's, or exotic roadsters from overseas. Like the crisis, these cars fail to reflect the true nature of their owners, as very few men in their fifties have anything in common with high-powered, sexy, low-slung automobiles with low profile tires. These men would normally drive Buicks or Mercurys. I really don't know what makes them do that.
The one thing you can count on is guys who wear their hair long or shaggy and have a beard are almost obligated to drive a four-wheel-drive truck. The more full the beard, the bigger the truck. Even if they don't need a truck, that is how they roll. This is a way of life. Sometimes the more disheveled they personally look, the dirtier the truck stays. It has nothing to do with their work and everything to do with how much a bad-boy they want you to believe they are. I have known men who do construction for a living and drive trucks but you would need to look long and hard to find any dirt on the ones they drive.
Then there are the celebrities. Britney Spears is a match for her white Mercedes, but she should be denied a driver's license. Her driving--like the rest of her life--is a mess, thoroughly documented in endless magazines and on TMZ. Another mess, Lindsey Lohan, just this week was given a $130,000 Maserati by an adult movie producer so I guess that's a pretty good match too, for a variety of reasons. The best match ever? Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger with the legendary Aston-Martin DB5. A sleek, fast car for a similar international spy-playboy.
This isn't an exact science but consider your friends and the cars they drive. As people and their spouses grow to look like each other, don't people and their cars somehow wind up as mirrors of each other? I think they do. Folks want to project an image of who they are if they can afford to do it. So check out their cars, and then lets have a look at their pets...
Yesterday I was waiting at the bottom of the I-29 exit ramp to 72nd street and found myself behind an aging Ford Festiva occupied by a large curly-headed Seth Rogen-looking kid wearing a T-shirt that said only "CLOWN." As we all waited for the light and the other six million cars to clear, he alternated between sitting bolt upright and dropping the seat back into full recline position all the while talking on his cell phone. "He's a clown, all right," I thought. His buddy sat next to him, a little skinny guy with a white rag tied around his head. He had a scrubby beard and never moved so much as a muscle. "Those guys are perfect for that car," I continued to muse, observing its faded red paint and hearing its rumbling (yes, it really rumbled) exhaust. They were perfect for it: not at all polished, loud and goofy, very casual.
Pretty teenaged girls are meant to drive Mazda Miata convertibles, preferably red ones. They may continue to do so until in their mid-twenties by which time they really need to trade for a Mustang convertible. Incidentally, no man should ever be seen driving a Miata. Most men have the top of the windshield obscuring their vision and are so ill-fitted in this vehicle that they look like Shriners heading to a parade; Miata is for girls only.
When I used to pick up my kids after school I got a good education in car-driver agreement. I sat there in my Ranger, one of the rare trucks in the parking lot, watching the mini-vans roll in. All of the thirty-something moms parked, got out and had mini-conferences in twos and threes gassing about who knows what. In their nylon jogging suits and mom jeans they all appeared to be a good fit with their Voyagers and Caravans, a sea of which spanned the lot by the time the kids charged in from school. I would venture that mini-vans are the jogging suits of the automobile kingdom. Ten years before, the mini-van--or its older brother the venerable station wagon--would have caused these same women to recoil in horror and run screaming back to their Mustangs. Now they had sliding doors, cup holders and even televisions in the back to entertain restless urchins.
Boys are more complicated, and have to have a gimmick. Even before high school they emerge with car personalities. There are always a few who think they have to have the speediest car and only look at ease in a Corvette. Some prefer an old Firebird, which always seems to be black or have no paint whatsoever. A lot of teens abandoned the muscle car and express themselves now with pickup trucks and vie to have the largest, loudest and highest off the ground. This is the 2009 equivalent of fully-extended peacock feathers, replacing those bygone but equally loud big-block Plymouths and SS396 Chevelles. The vast majority of boys however will just settle for what they can afford, sliding into hand-me-down family cars or perhaps an aging SUV. Reflecting their individuality, boys will turn them into neat, shiny jewels or let them deteriorate into something like the Festiva, maintaining it only to the extent that it will qualify for a state license.
In some communities your car is a statement of who you are, not unlike your clothes or hobbies or even your home itself. My buddy Norton, from Garden City, bought his first car when we were in college. He selected a 1967 RS Camaro, which like Norton himself, was small, quick, sporty and agile. If Norton was not "sporty," he at least liked sports. It was a good pick. They looked like each other. Now, later in life, he has an Acura sedan. Just conservative enough, and just edgy enough for a busy internist.
Some men go into a midlife crisis and opt for Corvettes, Mustang V-8's, or exotic roadsters from overseas. Like the crisis, these cars fail to reflect the true nature of their owners, as very few men in their fifties have anything in common with high-powered, sexy, low-slung automobiles with low profile tires. These men would normally drive Buicks or Mercurys. I really don't know what makes them do that.
The one thing you can count on is guys who wear their hair long or shaggy and have a beard are almost obligated to drive a four-wheel-drive truck. The more full the beard, the bigger the truck. Even if they don't need a truck, that is how they roll. This is a way of life. Sometimes the more disheveled they personally look, the dirtier the truck stays. It has nothing to do with their work and everything to do with how much a bad-boy they want you to believe they are. I have known men who do construction for a living and drive trucks but you would need to look long and hard to find any dirt on the ones they drive.
Then there are the celebrities. Britney Spears is a match for her white Mercedes, but she should be denied a driver's license. Her driving--like the rest of her life--is a mess, thoroughly documented in endless magazines and on TMZ. Another mess, Lindsey Lohan, just this week was given a $130,000 Maserati by an adult movie producer so I guess that's a pretty good match too, for a variety of reasons. The best match ever? Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger with the legendary Aston-Martin DB5. A sleek, fast car for a similar international spy-playboy.
This isn't an exact science but consider your friends and the cars they drive. As people and their spouses grow to look like each other, don't people and their cars somehow wind up as mirrors of each other? I think they do. Folks want to project an image of who they are if they can afford to do it. So check out their cars, and then lets have a look at their pets...
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