To Be or Not To Be.....That Is The Question

The Old Man has been acting again. Not acting up this time; just acting. The annual Christmas Cantata was presented at our church last night. There was a drama portion. In a moment of weakness 3 months ago, I agreed to take on the role of Mike Hollis, a somewhat clueless and insensitive husband to Kelly who was in the throes of pre-Christmas stress to such a degree she was ready to melt down like Frosty the Snowman caught in a tanning booth. Thanks to some very talented other folks, we managed to pull it off without embarrassing ourselves. Someone asked me afterwards, "You must have done a lot of this sort of thing". I replied, "Once....50 years ago when I was a senior in High School."


Tradition dictated at Bedford High that the senior class would conduct several fund-raisers in order to finance the Easter weekend debacle known as the Sr. Trip to New York. One of the prime vehicles was the Senior Play. So, there I was.....suddenly cast in the male lead opposite a sweet girl named Fran. I was Paul to her Annabelle. In the play, The Cat and the Canary, all the surviving relatives of Cyrus West had gathered at his mansion to hear the reading of his will.


Things were spooky enough and it got even creepier as the play unfolded. Written in 1921, It had all the elements of an old silent movie; an escaped lunatic, some shallow and greedy relatives, a monster behind the secret panel, and a climactic fight scene. We carefully rehearsed the fight scene. We went for realism, even to the extent of having my antagonist bite down on a capsule filled with catsup to simulate bleeding from the heroic punch I was to deliver just in time to save the day. All went well during the performance with no missed or forgotten lines. The big scene came and I prepared to "slug" Tommy. In the heat of the moment, Tommy forgot to lean back with the fake punch and instead, leaned forward. I caught him squarely on the chin and his fall to the stage floor was incredibly realistic to say the least. When we helped him to his feet, his eyes had all the sparkle of wax paper. He shook his head a couple of times, and we moved on. The capsule filled with "blood"? Tommy swallowed it.


I've thought a lot about that long-ago acting experience during the preparation for our little program the other night. I had relegated it to my mental safe deposit box and hadn't taken it down off the shelf for many years. I dug out my old annual and started rummaging around. The memories were there.
Three of my cast mates are gone now. Fran, Kenny, and Donnie now perform in the never ending play titled Eternity where I'm quite sure they are getting the rave reviews they so rightly deserve.

Hercules, Eat Your Heart Out

The Old Man has never had much of a "bod". "Hunk" in my vocabulary generally meant a serving of cheese. Matter of fact, as I grew and developed, I seemed to go from looking much like a hockey stick with a nose to a football with legs. I don't recall much of an in-between. Like most young boys, I fancied myself potential superhero material. A quick glance in the mirror, however, drove home the message, "We've got some work to do here, bud".

All of us in the Park Street Battalion were avid comic book connoisseurs. Our much traded reading library ran the gamut from Westerns through Crime making stops along the way at Mickey, Donald and friends and Archie and the gang. Running through all of these genres was one commonality; they all had space allocated to selling something. From X-ray glasses to a ventriloquist's 'secret' device, the back panel of the comics were loaded with those "must haves" that drilled directly into a boy's brain. Who wouldn't want X-ray glasses? After all, there were some rumblings going on deep inside that we had not yet felt, but if we could have, we could not yet identify or understand. We just knew we needed those glasses.

Far and away the one that captured my attention most often was the little cartoon story from the Charles Atlas folks. There was usually some hapless chap on the beach with his girl friend. A bully would come by and kick sand in the poor fellow's face and when confronted, the dirty scoundrel would punch his lights out. The story went on to show how the Atlas course would result in a brand new man who went back to the beach and took his just revenge. The locale and scenario might change but the story and the ending never did.

I never ordered the course. There wasn't extra money around for such things in our house, so I never even brought it up. I attempted to understand how the exercises worked and gave it a pretty half-hearted attempt to mimic them, but without success. Here are 'Before and After' photos of my efforts.

By the way, even though Charles Atlas died in the early 1970's, the company he founded still exists. Give them a look if you're so inclined.

I went on to learn about things like metabolism and genetics....about reps and resistance. And somehow they all managed to conspire against me in later quests to become the chiseled superhero figure I just knew was my destiny. And then, I thankfully came to acceptance. Like Popeye, "I yam what I yam". Now when I refer to my "six-pack", check the refrigerator. That's where you'll find it.

I'm Back Around With No Hospital Gown

The Old Man has seen a few of these in the past couple of months. It started simply enough with what the old folks liked to call a "sinking spell". In a restaurant at the coast one morning, the room started to close in on me and it sounded as if everyone was speaking to me from the back room. Head between my knees and an ice bag to the back of the neck and I was as good as new in a few minutes. I pretty much figured it out; 5 days earlier passing of a kidney stone, facing eye surgery the next day, and listening to friends describe some horrible stuff going on in their family....body just said "Enough! I'm shutting down for a while". There's an official 'doctor name' for the phenomenon; vasovagal syncope. A fancy way of saying 'faint'. I happened to casually mention this to my doctor on a kidney stone follow-up visit. Intellectually very smart, emotionally not so much.

In an effort to figure out 'faint', over the past 12 weeks the medical community has harvested some shekels thanks to an MRI (which I'm sure is an acronym for Miserably Rattling Interior), a sonogram on my heart, a sonogram on my carotid arteries, a sonogram on my thyroid, two cataract surgeries, and the creme-de-la-creme, a needle biopsy of a thyroid nodule. Throw in a couple of dentist visits and an annual exam by my dermatologist and my absence from the blogging world becomes understandable. The journey is not without merit for through this all, I've come to note some degree of "nuttiness" which, as you have learned, always intrigues me.

I advised my doctor that I was somewhat claustrophobic and felt I might need a little help on the day they were scheduled to load me in the cigar tube. "No problem, I'll call something in for you". I picked up 5 Valium tablets. Doctor man said, "Take one an hour before the procedure and then if you need it, take the second one an hour later". Wait a minute. An hour later and I would be in the culvert. I took both of them and pitched the car keys to Miss Martha. "Drive on", I said. Both of those little beauties kicked in about time I checked in at the front desk. I had a little bit of trouble finding my insurance cards, but hey......"No problem, dude".

By the time they got me ready, they could have crammed me in a garden hose for all I cared. I was in the machine for about 45 minutes. Most of the time I was enjoying the colored light show going on behind my eyelids. Operator said something. I remember replying "I can't hear you". She said, "I guess the ear plugs are working". All in all, not a bad experience thanks by and large to my two little friends. One benefit, since this was to determine if I'd had any sort of stroke issue, I was happily able to tell everyone, "They tested my head and found nothing".

So, on to the cardiologist for a consultation. He determined that since my EKG was perfect, I needed an ultrasound of both my carotid arteries and my heart. Okey-dokey. Very harmless procedures where they slap a little Wesson Oil or such on and slide the sonogram do-hickey around, all the while going, "Hmmmmm". All turned out to be letter perfect but for one small fact. The carotid-gram ratted out a nodule on my thyroid, so it was back to the Wesson Oil again. Doctor-man decreed we must do a biopsy. "Biopsy" is probably the scariest word in the English language other than the combo, "nuclear attack", or "I can't go to the prom with you because I am pregnant".

The big mistake was explaining the procedure to me. "We will take some very fine needles and harvest samples from the nodule for analysis to be sure they are benign". What! Needles? "Harvest samples".....sounds like Venusians are going to body snatch. All I could think of was these long hat pins my grandmother used to hold her hair in a bun. Enough Lidocain made the procedure tolerable and then the real "fun" began; the 5 day wait while your mind goes on a number of terrifying journeys no matter how hard you fight that.

Intellectually I'm happy to know that all is well from top to bottom. Emotionally it's been Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

I'm back.

I only have one unanswered question: If 90% of what medical personnel need to look at is in front, why do those goofy gowns open in the back?

Hut 1 Hut 2 Hut 3

The Old Man is happy to see football season come around this time of year. As with most things, I can reflect on how things about the game have changed over the course of my years. Most boy kids in Bedford played at some level. I started in the pick-up games with the Battalion and progressed on to "Sandlot" and then to High School.
Perhaps of most interest is how equipment has evolved to make the game safer. Like so many other things of the era, it's a wondrous event that we survived.

Today's player is armored to the extent it's a miracle he can move. Let me give you a few comparisons:

Helmets....today's are space-age composits with form-fitting foam inner liners designed for maximum cranium cradling. Custom face masks protect noses, eyes, and face bones. Ours were leather with a little foam rubber. They protected really well from scratches and mosquito bites. The only face masks worn were the ones we wore for trick-or-treat.

Shoulder pads...today's are ultra heavy duty with thick padding and they extend down onto the breast bone area. Back in the day, shoulder pads were a plastic-like material with some padding much like a bean bag. They protected the tops of our shoulders. The breast bone was on it's own.

Knee pads...today's are engineered to (hopefully) protect the knee from front and sides. Ours were sewn in and covered the front only. That is, if the pants were the right size. More often than not, they either hung below the knee or stopped just short.

Cup....protects......well we'll leave it at that. When I played, the cup hadn't been invented. During every game, you'd see a player bend over and grab his ankles. A collective moan would go up from every male in the stands and on the field. We could all identify with the blinding and nauseating agony.

Shoes...light weight, molded cleats, and designed to allow more speed and agility mark today's issues. Those of my era were all black, high topped, and had big Bakelite screw-on cleats. Now if any part of your body got stepped on or kicked with these things, you understood what it must have felt like to the knights of old when they were hit with a mace. Incidentally, they were never called "football shoes", only simply "cleats". God forbid that a "cleating" should happen to result in the need to grab your ankles. Some things just generate terror.
Cleats played an important role in one particular game that comes to mind.

One year during the sandlot period, the Bedford team hosted a team from a children's home. These hardy souls billed themselves as "The Shoeless Wonders" and made a name for themselves by playing every game barefooted. In addition to the novelty, they were a pretty good football team.....accustomed to a somewhat Spartan lifestyle and toughened by their circumstances.
As we practiced and prepared for the game, we all felt that our "cleats" would give us a distinct advantage. No sir, they couldn't get away from us, no way.

My position was right end. We all played both offense and defense. You didn't get a break unless the coach needed to run a play in by substitute or unless you grabbed your ankles. I was on defense and sure enough here came a "wonder" around my end and I dropped back to cover him for a pass. He caught the ball and I thought, "No problem...I can catch this guy easy" because I was truly fast. That end of our field was bare of grass since it was used all summer as a baseball diamond. This was November and an early cold snap had rendered the ground slightly frozen. My cleats made not a dent in the permafrost but his bare toes were leaving prints. I couldn't believe my eyes. I was the fastest guy on the team and this kid left me literally in his dust. Made me want to grab my ankles just to save face. As I recall, The Shoeless Wonders beat us like Tarzan's Tom-Tom.

I learned from that experience. My smugness level was reduced drastically and my arrogance grabbed its own ankles.

Look Out....Here He Comes

The Old Man has been out of commission for a while. Travel plans, a kidney stone, and eye surgery have seriously diminished my "output". A somewhat hectic travel schedule over the next 2 months and surgery to remove a cataract from my other eye is on the docket.

Keep checking back, I've many more stories to tell. Thanks for your patience.

Roscoe The Booger Eater

The Old Man always feels a little tug toward school this time of year. A round of various reunions has added leavening to the loaf. As a result, reflective time has produced memories of some colorful characters from my school days. A caveat here; in an effort to maintain some degree of sensitivity, all names in this post are fictitious. I've not used any one's real name or even a version of it. The descriptions, however, are real and true.

During assumed boring stretches in our classroom, Roscoe's intense curiosity about the hidden secrets in his body would overwhelm him, and he would begin "mining"; first one nostril and then the other. Sometimes he would peer studiously at the adornment perched atop his index finger, examining it from all angles. Other times he would go straight for his snack. Upon completion, he would gaze toward the ceiling and sort of rock his head slightly back and forth like a wine taster. I think he probably had categories and it was important to fully evaluate his little gems. I don't know if Roscoe ever moved past his habit, but as a precaution, I hope his wife doesn't use the remote.

Freddie the Fainter brought a degree of excitement to our classroom. Freddie would begin to feel faint at the first mention of blood. The teacher would mention that sap in a tree was much like the blood in our bodies, and we would all turn toward Freddie just to watch the color drain out of his face. His head would go down on his desk and the teacher would send someone out for a cup of water for him. Health class was Freddie's own private version of Hell. Teacher would say, "Today we're going to look at the circulatory system....turn to page 16 in your books". Next we would hear "thud". Freddie was down for the count. Another cup of water. Freddie spent more time with his head between his knees than a Chinese acrobat.

And of course, there was Sturdly the Stinker. Sturdly had what must have been the most bizarre intestinal arrangement known to medicine. We'd be eating lunch and Sturdly would create beautiful "methane melodies" on demand as he ate. In perfect waltz time, it was 'bite-swallow...braaaak', 'bite-swallow....braaaak'. This would continue until he had finished his lunch, or cleared the table, whichever came first.

I've not seen any of these folks for many years. And to all who were in attendance at the recent reunion, rest assured the ones mentioned here were none of you. But I remember them with the same fondness and with the same smiles as I do you all.

He No Longer Iz a Show Biz Whiz

The Old Man keeps a pretty low profile these days. No spotlights, no blasts of attention, no screaming fans....oh wait....there never were any screaming fans. I had a couple of close calls with semi-fame, however. As most of you regular readers know, I spent a few years in a past life as a Top-40 DJ in Roanoke. Last weekend, we had our annual reunion. Twenty-five or so former "personalities" who had been on the air at that station gathered for an evening of reminiscing and recalling........well.....just recalling. Every decade since the '50's was represented, so the stories covered almost 60 years of radio history. While ageing is a reality, and we were all markedly changed, the spark, energy, and quickness of quip remained.


This weekend we will attend a High School reunion for the last five classes to graduate from our school before it was closed and the consolidated school took its place. It's been 49 years since I flipped the tassel, yet when I again see these folks, it will be as if no time has passed.


The point here, is that these back-to-back activities have floated me lazily down the nostalgia river, so it was back to the box of pictures to generate some blog post ideas.


Back before the radio "career" there were The Sportsters.




It was in the late '50s and we were the quintessential rock-n-roll band. White shoes and dinner jackets and one who was known around school as "Elvis" meant we were on our way. After all, it worked for Ricky Nelson. "Elvis" had a pretty decent singing voice and could also ham it up with some Elvis moves. Johnny was a good guitar player who would try about anything. I had carved a set of drumsticks out of scrap from Dad's workshop and learned to keep a beat by listening to Bill Haley and The Comets records. I moved on to real drumsticks and drums, but I still have those hand carved ones somewhere out in my shop.

We played around Bedford and occasionally ventured on the road to Roanoke and Lynchburg. We even made a record and the only thing that kept it from going gold was that we didn't sell 999,500 more copies. The Sportsters (named after a Harley-Davidson because we thought it sounded tough) drifted apart and faded away. No problems, just as the old Statler Brothers song says, "Life gets complicated when you get past 18".


So, The Old Man now, as our "Elvis" sang from the song One Night, "always lived a very quiet life". No show business, no drumsticks, no microphones. But like last weekend, I'll be around people who remember.....and that's cool.

Which One Was Hootchie and Which One Was Cootchie?

The Old Man could never tell the difference. Every so often in Bedford the carnival would rattle and clang it's way into town. Then would begin one of the grandest weeks in a kid's life. There were several monumental events in the Battalion's existence: Christmas, the last day of school, the day The Lake opened, and carnival week.

We'd watch the ragged collection of jalopy trucks chug and grunt their way through town and over to the fairgrounds, trailing blue smoke the whole way. An occasional backfire would liven things up even further. We'd marvel at the years' accumulation of grime and rust on the vehicles and wonder how the brightly painted loads they carried could hold such magic. Sometimes, we'd ride our bikes over to watch them set up......never getting too close because stories were always told by our parents of how somewhere some kids got too close and when the carnival left town.......well you get the idea. Parental head games.

There was always one day that was designated "School Day". Schools would close at lunch time and kids could ride for half price. This was huge; second only to the last day of school. All the rides were running full bore, but most of the side show tents were quiet. "Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy" must have been resting. Those two girls, Hootchie and her friend Cootchie must have been enjoying nap time as well.

On our recent trip to the beach, the young folks among us went to the amusement park. They had a "blast", but somehow, I fear it just wouldn't seem the same to me. For example, the rides. Now they all have names; "Tilt-A-Whirl" (sounds like it should be said by Julia Childs) or even "Arctic Express"(I guess because it's painted white). Back in the day it was simply called, "The Whip". Well named because it was designed to rearrange several of your vertebrae and turn even the strongest into Bobble Heads. How about the "Eggbeater"? This was a fiendish device that looked like a shaft with a giant watermelon on each end. When you crawled into this thing, you gave your heart to Jesus because it had the rest of you. The shaft spun (like the hands on a cosmic clock) and while it was spinning, the 'watermelons' , with you inside, were spinning in opposite directions. Then the whole thing would reverse and your stomach went into full rebellion. The "Swings" were cool. Swing seats attached to long chains gave a pleasant and peaceful opportunity to regain composure after the Eggbeater. With the bravado of youth, it never occurred to us that should a chain break, they would probably find us in Tulsa.

When we went at night, the side-shows were going full speed. We made it in to see Jo Jo (stuffed) and we watched the "Wild Man of Borneo" eat a live chicken, followed up by a light bulb for desert. I remember wondering, "how bad was his last job?". The barker's preview that fascinated us the most was the one we least understood. These two girls in Arabian Nights costumes would come out on a stage. Then the barker would shout, "Step right up...she wiggles, she jiggles, she crawls on her belly like a reptile!" I remember thinking, "Why would I want to see that?" A few years later, I figured it out.

Some things, though, are still the same.....that wonderful carnival food; big red candied apples, spinning cotton candy, and the best of the best, the hot dog grill. That's one trick of the carnival trade that truly works. Always grill onions. The aroma of grilling onions will cause rapid onset hot-dog-fever even if I've just left Ruth's Chris.

I'm not much on today's Super Parks. They tend to be overpriced, overdone, and lack that aura of forbidden mystery. I love the old-fashioned, "pitch-til-you-win", "a prize every time", "come on mister, show that young lady you care" carnival. I want to be caught up in the smell of grilling onions and peppers, and have sticky, gooey red 'stuff' running down my chin from the apple. So raise a glass to Hootchie and to Cootchie. Here's hoping they don't get splinters.

Freedom Came At A Dear Price

The Old Man wishes all a happy and safe 4th! Enjoy your day and all of it's festivities.....America has much to celebrate. I do hope, however, that you will find a moment to reflect on the cost of what we enjoy today. I enclose this that I got from a friend who is spending this Independence Day in a hostile environment.

The Purchase Price

"Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

• Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
• Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
• Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
• Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

• Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
• Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
• Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
• At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
• Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
• John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.
  

So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid. Remember: freedom is never free!

I hope you will show your support by sending this to as many people as you can, please. It's time we get the word out that patriotism is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer, picnics, and baseball games."

Kum-ba-ya Yourself

The Old Man went to camp once. It was called "The Cedars" and it was a church sponsored camp deep in the Virginia mountains. My grandson, Jackson, recently got back from camp. I saw the pictures.....it wasn't always like that.

The Cedars was located in dense woods somewhere around the middle of inner earth, or so it seemed. I recall Mom & Dad driving me up a gravel/dirt road for what seemed like 1000 miles. Later in life, I would see movies about nutballs in hockey masks who frequented such a place. I got that uneasy feeling a kid can get when faced with the unknown. You know the one; like 100 butterflies carrying feathers have been let loose in your innards. I was fully equipped. I had my Bible, my perfectly washed, ironed, and packed clothes, my official Camp Cedars hat, and Mom had even pre-addressed post cards to home so I would be encouraged to write often. It was like I was going off to war. "Geeez Mom, it's just a week."

The appointed time arrived and parents left....all parents. It was just us modern-day Nimrods milling about waiting to see what would happen next.

Enter The Colonel. I suppose he had some military background because he knew how to blow a whistle. We never knew his name....only The Colonel. He would blow his whistle to signal any event; morning muster, swim time, lunch, Bible study time, rest time, supper, and evening vespers. After a couple of days, we were trying to figure out how we could physically arrange for his whistle to blow when he farted. The Colonel would blow his whistle and then stand and gaze up into a tree until we had all gathered. Always the tree. We began to speculate that he was on the lookout for some of his relatives.

In the interest of making us all better citizens, we had to learn to make our own bunks in the military style. Inspection each morning was carried out while we were at breakfast. The one whose bunk was judged to be the "winner" for that day had his name posted on the door. The judge was the lone female staffer at the camp. I can't remember her name, but she was the first to confer upon me an honor that would come back to haunt me. My head got bigger when I was called up to the front of an assembly and awarded camper of the week for my consistent bunk-making skills. Of course this became the subject of one of the pre-addressed post cards. When I returned home, I often heard, "Now if you can win the bunk-making award, you can surely make your own bed up at home." Dang that unknown lady.

If you look closely you can see the "Uh-Oh" look on my face. I'd forgotten how severe "Bunk Lady" looked until I ran across this picture. I still wonder if she ever had any fun.

We stayed in cabins. Real cabins. Made of logs and reeking of creosote, mildew, and dirty socks, they provided the true "roughing it" experience. Lights out meant that if you were on the top bunk, you reached out and pulled the chain on the single hanging light bulb between each set of bunks. But it was after "lights out" (Of course...signaled by The Colonel's whistle) that things finally got interesting.

He said his name was "Blackie". He came from a much bigger city than Bedford. Somewhere up near Washington, DC. Blackie quickly perfected the art of being able to sneak out of the cabin late at night. He'd done some exploring and discovered that we were not quite as isolated as it appeared. By climbing down a cliff and heading down the road at the bottom, he could get to a little country store that had late hours. He'd load up on candy, cheeses, Nabs, and all sorts of contraband and just as adroitly, sneak back in. During free time the next day, his enterprise profited. Just the thought of someone roaming around like that in the land of "hockey mask nutballs" gives me cold chills this day and time. Then, we thought nothing of it.

I learned a lot at The Cedars. I learned to swim, to make my bed respectably, and I can still find Isaiah in a nanosecond. I still have the official Cedars hat. It's in my workshop along with my genuine aviator helmet and my official Davy Crockett coonskin cap. And when I look around out there, I think of The Colonel, and "Bunk Lady", and I wonder whatever became of Blackie.

Just Simply, "Dad"

The Old Man honors his (and all) fathers today.

Sometimes you just don't need words.

"I'll see you later, bud."

Big Bad Biker Boys

The Old Man was quite a biker in his day. Oh no.....not the Marlon Brando "Wild One" kind, but the Park Street Battalion gang kind. We wouldn't have known 'Brando' from 'Bondo', but we roamed far and wide on our Schwinns and J. C Higgins machines.
We were light years ahead of the American Chopper crowd. A new bike wasn't considered "street worthy" until there were some additions. A headlight was a must. Never mind that it had about one millionth of one candlepower and ate size D batteries faster than a Nancy Pelosi sidestep. At least one of us absolutely had to have a speedometer. After all, it's important to know exactly how fast you were going when you hit that pothole you didn't see because you were looking down at your speedometer. The pothole always won.

One of the coolest accessories was a built-in horn. It was located in the over sized bar just in front of the seat. When you pushed the little button, the mighty horn cleared the way ahead. Forget that it sounded like a chipmunk fart. But the absolute, be-all-end-all bolt-on was the siren. It clamped onto the front wheel frame and had a cable that ran up to the handlebars. When you pulled the string, the siren moved into position against the side of the front tire and it could wail like Jimi Hendrick's guitar on steroids. At night,we liked to lay in wait and fall in behind a car just to watch for the brake lights come on.....followed in many cases by administration of the Hawaiian Good Luck Sign.

There were a number of mishap possibilities. Most of the summer, we wore no shoes or shirts. A spill meant Mercurochrome or that evil potion, Iodine. Gravel became our arch enemy. The ultimate catastrophe for us was to break a chain while pumping up a hill. Two things were assured: Your bare toes would spin downward so quickly that they would turn partially under and the tops would scrape the asphalt. Crap....more Mercurochrome. But of even more ominous note, since the "cup" had not yet been invented, certain anatomical parts were relocated to an area located approximately between your eyes.

Years later, I saw Marlon Brando in The Wild One. He and his gang were a pretty tough bunch. But I submit that even Marlon wasn't so tough if his chain broke.

Join me tomorrow for a special Fathers' Day post.

D-Day.....A Follow-up

The Old Man needs your assistance. As you are probably aware, D-Day and Bedford are forever linked. To refresh, Bedford lost more men per capita in the invasion of Normandy at Omaha Beach than any other municipality in the United States. As such, Congress agreed that the National D-Day Memorial should be located there. A private, non-government foundation was created to develop and manage the Memorial. As such, it receives very little if any government funding, and operates primarily from admissions revenue and gift shop purchases. While there is a paid staff, most are volunteers.

A "double whammy" of sorts has hit the Memorial. Donations and contributions have decreased substantially due mostly to the shrinking of the brave veterans, (we're losing around 1000 per day of World War II vets) and the general decline of the economy. Considering these financial shortfalls, there exists the possibility that the Memorial may have to close. A horrible tragedy.

Virginia legislators have introduced a bill in Congress to place the Memorial under the wing and management of the National Park Service; a move that, hopefully, would insure its survival. I have mixed emotions about this, considering some of the screwy moves government has been known to make, but these are desperate times for the Memorial.

Your assistance I mentioned? Perhaps a letter to your Congressman or Senator encouraging a positive vote on this idea at the proper time; maybe encouragement to the company you work for for donations, or even a personal contribution if you feel so led; all of these in the total could make a difference.

The very fact that I can sit in my comfortable home and write this without fear of recrimination of any type is testimony to the debt we owe the brave men who were willing to give all to insure our freedom.

All who attend the Memorial come away deeply touched. I took a group from our church up last fall and one of the members stood apart from the group and silently absorbed the scene. He is a combat veteran of Vietnam and he said later that he could look at the statues of soldiers in a desperate battle for their very lives and he "knew exactly how they felt".

I promised very few "soap boxes", so that's it for this session. Help however you feel you can.

Here's the link to the National D-Day Memorial....pay it a visit when you have the time.

http://www.dday.org

"The Longest Day"? Unquestionably

The Old Man has a lifetime "To Do List". At the very top is the entry, 'Stand on Omaha beach at Normandy'. While there are many places on this earth that beckon and compete for my attention, only Normandy touches some place deep in my psyche and drives an intense desire to pay some degree of homage to those who died there 65 years ago today. This posting will be a tribute to those "Bedford Boys" whose lives have touched my own.

On June 5, 1944, General Dwight D. Eisenhower turned to his driver Kay Summersby with tears in his eyes and said quietly, "Well, it's on". Earlier he had made the 'go' decision and given the order to begin the invasion of Adolph Hitler's stronghold in France known as The Atlantic Wall . Having just visited the departing troops and given them words of encouragement, he now was feeling the terrible weight of command....of knowing that he was sending some young men to a certain death.

Weather had been a problem for several days but a small window of opportunity had opened and Operation Overlord had to go now or be postponed for 2 weeks. Had it been delayed, the fleet would have to be refueled, and the tides would not be favorable for a landing.

June 6 dawned with the seas in the English Channel still roiling from the departing low pressure driven storms that had plagued the decision-making for days. Waves of 3-4 feet and sometimes up to 6 feet were the norm. Thousands of troops were stuffed into Higgins boats; the landing craft of choice for beach invasions. Men were soaked to the skin quickly, and the violent movement, up, down, and sideways, as well as the constant pounding caused most to puke uncontrollably. Among these dear souls were the men of Company A....now known, thanks to author Alex Kershaw's book, as "The Bedford Boys".

Coming off the end of the Great Depression, young men from Bedford (and of course elsewhere) had joined National Guard units to earn a few extra dollars. Little did they know.........

The withering hell of German gunfire and its effect on the landing is well documented by historians and other authors, so I will not spend time on it here. It's been said that the opening 20 minutes of the movie, "Saving Private Ryan" is as accurate a description of what Omaha Beach was really like as could be shown. Of the 35 men from Bedford, 21 lost their lives. Nineteen of the boys from Company A were killed in the first wave, and two shortly after.

What I want to accomplish is to make some of the boys who gave their lives there seem a little more personal to you; to make their sacrifice perhaps more meaningful. And to do that, I'll share with you my connection to them.

Lucille Hoback Boggess is a dear lady and prominent Bedford citizen. She has served our county and town well for many years. During my early years, her husband, Ralph, ran a newsstand and small sundry store. I bought my model airplanes from him. I got one dollar a week allowance and a Monogram Kit cost ninety-eight cents. Lucille's two brothers, Raymond and Bedford Hoback were both killed. As I grew, there wasn't a lot of talk about that horrible day. I knew this family, but.......little did I know.

Frank Draper, Jr, a gifted athlete and strikingly handsome young man paid the ultimate price for our freedom. I knew his brother, Gamiel. Gamiel was one of the "town police officers". Back then, we knew them by name and they, in turn, knew us. .........little did I know.

One of the young men was Weldon Rosazza. His little sister was my youth choir director.......little did I know.

Earl Parker was one of the older of the Bedford Boys. He was 26. Married to Viola, he had a daughter that he never saw. Her name was 'Danny' and she and I went to school together. A delightful and pretty girl, she was a cheerleader and was one of the most popular and well-liked girls in our school. In one of his letters, he wrote words to the effect .."all I want is to get home to hold my baby girl in my arms." His body was never found. I've been in their home many times........little did I know.

While not one of the Bedford Boys, Bill Peters deserves great mention here. Bill left his young wife, Louise to serve as a medic. Within a couple of months after D-Day, Bill was shot and killed by a German sniper as he walked down the road. Louise moved on with her life and married my uncle, where she remains a much loved member of our family.

In thoughtful moments, other connections flood my soul. The Western Union Telegraph Office that on July 17th became the conduit for those 'With regret' telegrams was located in the rear of Green's Drug Store. I've had countless cherry cokes and banana splits at the very lunch counter where Bedford mourned...........little did I know.

The train station from which the Boys left is now a restaurant. People sit daily and enjoy the food and ambiance, mostly unaware of the scene acted out there all those years ago......little do they know.

Bedford folks are a resilient lot. All of the grief, the heartache bred of loss, and the struggles with hatreds have all but disappeared. Growing up, I heard very little about the sacrifice. It seemed to be accepted as an ugly part of life; life which must go on.........little did I know.

....but now I do.

Jeffrey of "I Ain't Goin" Fame

The Old Man mentioned a while back that the Battalion always knew that when we heard the mantra, "Vacation Bible School starts next week", that our halcyon days were in a state of interruption. Just when we were getting grooved in to summer vacation we had to get back into a harness of sorts. Now, don't misunderstand me, here. As a parent, I firmly believe in getting children off to a proper start on the development of their spiritual progress. And to this end, VBS is a valuable tool for teaching values that help create lifelong integrity. But to a kid, these concepts were beyond our cognizant level. All we knew was that sleeping in, pick-up baseball games, riding bikes, and all the other "kid-things" were about to be interrupted for a week.


Another "semi-cruelty" was that the old Bedford Baptist Church had no air conditioning. Matter of fact, neither did most other buildings. Let a few weeks after school was out go by, and we were well into summer. Pack 150-200 kids with their already-broken-in U.S. Keds and the whole place began to take on the odor of old combat boots and rancid butter.


Opening day.......lined up out on the sidewalk in two directions....flag bearers at the front of each column....thundering through the front doors and tromping down the aisle we marched....singing a reasonable rendition of "Onward Christian Soldiers" and taking our positions to be seated and "indoctrinated" by the Reverend A. G. This was heady stuff.........on the first two days. After that, we didn't thunder, the singing became mostly mumbles, and as to tromping.....more of a shuffle.


Highlights were always 'snack time' and 'craft time.' Lemonade and chips usually made up the gourmet delight with maybe some cookies the good ladies of the church had provided. Crafts were another matter. We built (all within the span of a week) bird houses, leather braids, lanyards, or my personal favorite, a little dog tie rack. This was a beauty. The outline of a little puppy looking over his shoulder at his tail, which stuck out like a banana glued to a flat surface. Ingenious really, as you were to hang your ties on the tail. Ingenious but in retrospect, really kinky looking.

At the time, I owned 2 ties, so the tie rack was overkill.


Enter Jeffrey. Jeffrey lived almost across the street from the church. What you would call today a "high visibility" location. Jeffrey hated Bible School. But every year, he dutifully showed up, like all the rest of us, at the prodding of his mother. He would spend all week trying to think up creative ways to get thrown out, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, one year Jeffery simply said to his mother, "I ain't going". No amount of threatening, cajoling, begging, or pleading could change his mind. "I ain't going" became the rallying cry of the Battalion. None of us had guts enough to use it ourselves, but we all looked up to Jeffrey.


We'd line up to march in and there would be Jeffrey in his front yard....waving. We could have gleefully killed him, but secretly inside we wanted to name him king of the world.


Jeffrey suffered no ill effects from his stand and went on to a successful life. The last time I saw him, we shared a memory and a laugh about the whole experience. No harm, no foul.

I came across this picture the other day. I've indicated Jeffrey as he tried, yet again, one of his attempts to escape. The Old Man is standing beside him on his left. And by the way, that's Miss Alma on the right end of the second row behind the lady in the checked dress.




I hope to see Jeffrey in a few weeks, and I think I'll get him to say, "I ain't goin" just for old times sake.

Dear Miss Alma

The Old Man misses you. You left us 14 years ago today. You're still ever present in our thoughts and our hearts.

Love,
CS, Martha, Lauri, & Julie

The Remembrance of Heroes

The Old Man has a collection of heroes. Some are pretty obvious, the others are unaware of their status. In the spirit of this weekend of honoring and remembering those who have given their lives to preserve our freedom, I want to share something that came to me this week. I don't usually include in my posts material from outside sources, but this one is special. Special for a couple of reasons. First, it is a touching account that honors those whose names we may never know....whose deeds go unheralded. And second, because it was sent to me from one of my veteran heroes. A. J. Sartin spent his time in Vietnam as an Aviation Medic-Helicopter, patching up and caring for those who had fallen. Injured there, he proudly carries the designation, "Service Connected Disabled American Veteran". I've known A. J. for a long time, but had been out of touch for a lifetime of career and separate pathways. Lately, I've come to learn more about his service and discover that we share a deep patriotism. By the way, he'd love to see you stop by his website, http://www.floridadude.com/. Give it a try...you'll enjoy a bit of humor, and enjoy a lot of fun, mostly about the "Florida lifestyle".

So now, enjoy and be touched by this account (coincidentally titled The Old Man)

The Old Man...

As I came out of the supermarket that sunny day, pushing my cart of groceries towards my car, I saw an old man with the hood of his car up and a lady sitting inside the car, with the door open. The old man was looking at the engine. I put my groceries away in my car and continued to watch the old gentleman from about twenty five feet away. I saw a young man in his early twenties with a grocery bag in his arm, walking towards the old man. The old gentleman saw him coming too, and took a few steps towards him. I saw the old gentleman point to his open hood and say something. The young man put his grocery bag into what looked like a brand new Cadillac Escalade and then turned back to the old man and I heard him yell at the old gentleman saying, " You shouldn't even be allowed to drive a car at your age." And then with a wave of his hand, he got in his car and peeled rubber out of the parking lot. I saw the old gentleman pull out his handkerchief and mop his brow as he went back to his car and again looked at the engine. He then went to his wife and spoke with her and appeared to tell her it would be okay.

I had seen enough, and I approached the old man. He saw me coming and stood straight and as I got near him I said, “Looks like you're having a problem.” He smiled sheepishly and quietly nodded his head. I looked under the hood myself and knew that whatever the problem was, it was beyond me. Looking around I saw a gas station up the road and told the old man that I would be right back.

I drove to the station and went inside and saw three attendants working on cars. I approached one of them and related the problem the old man had with his car and offered to pay them if they could follow me back down and help him. The old man had pushed the heavy car under the shade of a tree and appeared to be comforting his wife. When he saw us, he straightened up and thanked me for my help. As the mechanics diagnosed the problem (overheated engine) I spoke with the old gentleman. When I shook hands with him earlier, he had noticed my Marine Corps ring and had commented about it, telling me that he had been a Marine too. I nodded and asked the usual question, "What outfit did you serve with?" He had mentioned that he served with the first Marine Division at Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. He had hit all the big ones and retired from the Corps after the war was over. As we talked we heard the car engine come on and saw the mechanics lower the hood. They came over to us as the old man reached for his wallet, but was stopped by me and I told him I would just put the bill on my AAA card. He still reached for the wallet and handed me a card that I assumed had his name and address on it and I stuck it in my pocket. We all shook hands all around again and I said my goodbyes to his wife. I then told the two mechanics that I would follow them back up to the station. Once at the station I told them that they had interrupted their own jobs to come along with me and help the old man. I said I wanted to pay for the help, but they refused to charge me. One of them pulled out a card from his pocket that looked exactly like the card the old man had given to me. Both of the men told me then, that they were Marine Corps Reserves. Once again we shook hands all around and as I was leaving, one of them told me I should look at the card the old man had given to me. I said I would and drove off. For some reason I had gone about two blocks when I pulled over and took the card out of my pocket and looked at it for a long, long time. The name of the old gentleman was on the card in gold leaf and under his name.......'Congressional Medal of Honor Society.' I sat there motionless looking at the card and reading it over and over. I looked up from the card and smiled to no one but myself and marveled that on this day, four Marines had all come together, because one of us needed help.

He was an old man all right, but it felt good to have stood next to greatness and courage and an honor to have been in his presence. Remember, OLD men like him gave us FREEDOM for America. Thanks to those who served....& those who supported them.

America is not at war. The U.S. Military is at war. America is at the Mall. Remember, Freedom isn't "Free" -- thousands have paid the price so we can enjoy what we have today.

"Free At Last, Free At Last,..........."

The Old Man feels a certain kinship to all children this time of year. The school year is winding down at warp speed and the ecstasy of the just-around-the-corner summer vacation is beginning to permeate kids like the smell of gym socks permeates a locker room. It's so easy to remember the feelings the Park Street Battalion had when mid-May was behind us. They revisit me often. The windows to the school rooms were opened and the smells and sounds of spring flew in on us like a tsunami. There was always one class or another on recess. With envy, we would listen to balls hitting bats, swing set chains rattling, and the normal cacophony of "kiddom". It seemed our turn would never come. It was pure torture to be forced to deal with our 300 year old teacher droning on and on about some king in some country in some year at war with some king in some other country in some year. There was always the smell of honeysuckle. It covered a fence on one end of our school's playground. Some of us would squander our entire recess just pulling blooms off the vine and sucking the sweet nectar out of them. Oh how we longed to escape.


By this time in the school year, we had endured the "Dark Ages" of January and February when no holiday gave us respite. We'd suffered through May Day where we were forced to learn some really goofy dance routine. Boys should never be required to skip. At some level, I'm probably irreparably damaged, and may end up on Oprah. We'd learned about all there was to be in that school year and the last couple of weeks were pretty much worthless.


Finally, the big day arrived. Out we were. Usually a half-day, we'd dawdle our way home with that great sense of emancipation only a kid who'd been cut loose can feel. There is no better feeling in the world than the feeling of total irresponsibility. As our chant went, "No more lessons, no more books. No more teacher's dirty looks."

Safely ensconced in our bookbag or in our lunch sack would be our final report card. You always wanted to see two things: "Conduct" or in some grades, "Citizenship" carry an A. Of more importance, was the phrase, "Promoted to 5th grade". In those days, children learned early the lesson that society eventually teaches. You will fail or succeed based on how hard you apply yourself. So when "society" came calling, we already knew the outcome of the contest. Those lessons serve me to this day.

The battalion wasted no time immersing itself in summer activities. Sleep late, head out to play ball, or war, or cowboys, or even a three-day Monopoly game on Marvin's front porch. All too soon though, a summertime spectre appeared on the horizon. It afflicted our parents like a virus. They became almost zombie-like; chanting in unison, "Vacation Bible School starts next week, Vacation Bible School starts next week, Vacation Bible School starts next week. "

And we knew, we just knew, things were gonna get weird.

Sharp Top Becomes Heartbreak Ridge

The Old Man has so many happy memories of the times at The Peaks but for five families in 1943 the memories of the Peaks are bitter indeed, as World War II intruded on Bedford. It bullied its way into our comfortable world.

February 2, 1943 was clear and cold. A light snow had fallen the day before and Bedford scooted closer to the fire to pass the long night. My mom and her friend Mary (Kenny's mother if you're a regular follower of the blog) had just come out of the Liberty Theater after catching the 7:00 movie. Along with the rest of the town, they heard the roar of engines and looked up to see a plane pass over at a very low altitude. Mom said the plane was so low, she could see lights in the cabin, and she remarked to Mary, "He'd better get higher or he'll never clear the Peaks." It was later determined that when the plane passed over Bedford it was flying at an altitude of only about 2000 feet. Sharp Top is almost 4000.

Just a few minutes later, those with a view of Sharp Top saw the flashes of explosions against the side of the mountain followed a few seconds later by their sound. An Army Air Corps Mitchell B-25 Bomber, like the ones made famous less than a year earlier by General Jimmy Doolittle who led the famous raids on mainland Japan from the decks of the carrier USS Hornet, had flown at its full 230 MPH cruising speed into the side of the mountain. The plane hit the mountain with such force and then exploded so violently that the debris field covered a wide area of the rugged terrain. Parts were in trees, others scattered about like a child's Lego project gone bad.

The accounts of the crash were discussed around Bedford for years to come. As I became older and began to learn of that hellish February night, I grew closer to those involved. One became my little league football coach, another ran a sporting goods store, and still others attended our church. Many of these people were first responders that night and provided accounts of the horror they found there.

After a torturous 3 hour climb during which they had to hands & knees crawl over ice and snow, sometimes slipping and sliding back 50 feet or so, they finally finished their climb to hell. There were no whole bodies. A decapitated torso here, an arm there, and all were mangled and charred, some still smoldering. One rescuer finally left the scene around 10:00 AM the next day, upset because he had not yet located the head of one of the crew members. While it took several days, the bodies were all recovered.

Fast forward about 35 years. A friend of mine and I hiked to the site. Most of the wreckage was still there and I assume, still is. We examined all we could see. The remains of one of the big 13 cylinder Wright Cyclone radial engines, most of it melted but some bolts with safety wires still intact, a landing gear with the rubber wheel still mounted, some miscellaneous scrap metal and part of a wing, a boot heel.......that I could not bring myself to pick up.

As time went by, the crash became more and more a distant memory, hardly talked about. I visited it a couple of times more but then adulthood and family responsibilities intervened and I moved on. The "Bedford B-25" began to retreat from collective consciousness into the back mental filing cabinets.

Around 1999, a new generation of interest became apparent. There was a resurgence of awareness, and an effort was launched to memorialize these 5 brave sons of liberty who gave their lives, training to protect us all.

Second Lieutenant George R. Beninga; Marietta, Minn.
Second Lieutenant Hiliary S. Blackwell, 22; Santa Monica, Cal.
Second Lieutenant Paul M. Pitts, 21, the pilot; Poteau, Okla.
Second Lieutenant William McClure, 22, Indianapolis, Ind.
Corporal Peter J. Biscan, 29; Chicago, Ill.

Barely out of their teens, they died on an icy cold mountain, alone, terrified, far from loved ones and home, and mostly forgotten by the world.

A fund-raising effort was mounted, and finally, on June 2, 2001 a plaque was placed commemorating and paying tribute to their sacrifice.

Once more, as these airmen fly in a higher realm, a grateful Bedford and the world says, "Thank you".

Pick A Peak

The Old Man is going to spend a little time with some follow-up to the trout fishing posting. The streams mentioned in that article are in the Jefferson National Forest, part of the Blue Ridge Mountain chain. Located there as well, are the Peaks of Otter. At some point, otters were very special to the area. Even the Bedford High School athletic teams were all called the Otters. In Bedford there is Little Otter creek and Big Otter creek. Otter River School is there as well. Interestingly, no one I've ever known has seen an otter around Bedford. Could be worse, I guess. They could be called the Peaks of Wombat.

These twin peaks are among the highest in the range, and are closely interwoven with life in the town of Bedford.

Only about 10 miles out from town, the Peaks impacted our lives on a daily basis. The peak on the left is known as Sharp Top. It appears to be higher than its sister Flat Top, but that is optically illusional. Flat Top is actually the taller of the two.

Visible from the head of Park Street, they served as our weather forecaster. If rime ice or snow nestled there in the mornings when we headed off to school, we knew that soon the winter chill would be upon us. Much like the "woolly worm" technique of prediction, "snow on the Peaks" was thought to portend a cold winter. A cry of "snow on the mountain" created excitement in the Park Street Battalion. In the little valley between the two peaks, there was a hospitality center of sorts. There you could catch a bus ride up most of the way to the top of Sharp Top. A thrill-a-minute ride as the old bus grunted and strained like the fifth day of an intestinal back-up. The little road was full of switchbacks and s-curves. In winter, that whole operation closed up.

Snow brought out the daredevils. A caravan of cars would make it's way up to the area, full of little snot-noses and sleds. We'd hike about one third of the way up the mountain, and then down the road we sailed. Our own private luge run. To a 10 year old kid, it seemed we were "balling the jack" at at least 347 miles per hour. If you want a real treat....try this at night.

The Peaks served as our summer air conditioner. When summer's heat and humidity became more than we could take, Mom, Dad, and I would head up to the Peaks. There was a spring there in the picnic area. For centuries, the Cherokee knew the area well and used the spring as a fresh water source. In typical Native American no-nonsense fashion, they named it Big Springs. To this day, it still bubbles. We drank freely from its coolness while we unpacked our picnic basket. Just to sit under the trees and enjoy the delightful freshness of the mountain air brought comfort from the oppressive August heat.

On those trout fishing trips I mentioned, we could count on seeing the elk. Sometimes a lone buck would bolt across the road in front of us, and several times I saw the herd of about 20 grazing in an open meadow. In the cemetery across from my house, a section is dedicated to those members of the Elk's Club who wish to be buried there. A life size statue of an elk sits at one end. I remember seeing that and wondering if any animal could be that big. Then I saw for myself. They could. "Progress" caused the herd to vanish through the years, and a sadness came to Bedford. But, all is not lost.....thanks to some diligent conservation efforts, the elk herd is beginning to rebuild. I hope we humans have learned something.

I've been to the top many times. Those who make the trip are rewarded with one of the most magnificent vistas possible. Of course, for a kid to spend time up there with his dad.....well as the saying goes, "It just doesn't get any better than this".

Stay tuned, for the next post will uncover tragedy and heartbreak on Sharp Top Mountain.

A Special Thank You

The Old Man needs to spend a serious moment with you. For those who may not be aware, the town of Bedford lost more men per capita than any other community in the country at the D-Day invasion of Normandy in World War II. 21 out of 35 men from Company A from Bedford lost their lives. You will read much more about this in a special post marking the 65th anniversary of the invasion.

Of those who returned, the last of what have become known as "The Bedford Boys" was laid to his final rest today. Elisha "Ray" Nance was the last man standing. He was 94.

I simply, on behalf of my free family, want to say "Thank you, Mr. Nance, and Godspeed to your reunion with Company A."

No Doubt, Scout, It's About Trout

The Old Man gets to feeling a little nostalgic around this time of year. While I haven't stayed current on fresh water fishing regulations, I remember that the "opening day" of trout season usually happened in our area in April. I believe my dad lived all year for two events; the day his garden was plowed, and opening day of trout season.

Dad would spend hours going over his plans, poring over lunar tables, checking his equipment, and listening to agricultural reports that told of stream stocking schedules. We would ride up into the mountains around Bedford and just stare at North Creek and Jennings Creek from all angles to see if we could find any clues. I vividly remember walking through the woods and feeling in my best Dan'l Boone mood, complete with my genuine coon skin cap. Ah yes.....boy against nature.....the stuff of adventure dreams.

We were a fishing family. Mom loved it as well, so "opening day" was a family event. The evening before, lunches were packed, the cooler was filled and the equipment was checked and double checked. A word about that cooler; it was a metal monstrosity with thick walls. Red with white lettering emblazoned on the side, Conan the Barbarian would have been challenged to lift it comfortably when it was filled with ice and sodas.

Pre-dawn the house on Park Street took on life. Scurrying became the order of the day with Dad issuing instructions at break-neck speed. The old Dodge finally loaded, off we chugged.

It was about 15 miles or so up to the target. The road was narrow and parts were not paved, but rather were gravel surfaced. Trout season didn't open until the stroke of noon, so in theory, there was no need to rush. In theory. In actuality, Dad felt compelled to get there early to "get the best spot". To save time, Dad chose to drive with his waders (or as he called them, "hip boots") on but rolled down. Not realizing that his "feel" for the pedals were greatly altered by the boots, we barrelled into a 90 degree curve on a graveled portion of the road. The old Dodge wasn't much, but she had enough zip in her to shoot into a fishtailing slide. Dad was scuffling to control the car, Mom was raising holy hell, and I was in the back seat going, "Wheeeeeee".

Somehow, the old Dodge righted herself and things calmed. Undeterred, Dad forged ahead until we reached our creek. Serenity had taken a sabbatical. Every trout fan in 3 counties were lined up on the banks. Dan'l Boone now had an army. About 11:30, every one had flies on their rods and were holding them up waiting for the gunshot that signaled High Noon. Boom. Lines dropped, casts were made, curses were heard from fishermen catching each other, and slowly a look of peace and contentment spread across Dad's face. It was as if he was truly in his element, and you know what? He was.

I don't remember that we caught many if any "keeper" trout. We caught plenty of a strange little fish called a "Horny Head", but we threw them back too. Even in my 10 year old mind, I think I wanted Dad to catch a citation trout. It never happened, but I treasure the memories of his trying.

I still have Dad's old tackle box, his last fishing license, and that red cooler is still in the family. And to my dying day, I'll remember the sound of that gravel flying and "Wheeeeeeee".

Confirmed: It Was The Suit

The Old Man is not a fan of confinement. Before the days of cell phones and when blackberries came off of a thorny vine and in a wizard named Alma's hands, morphed into the finest cobbler known to mankind, I spent more time in phone booths than Clark Kent. I was a salesman, and as such, was away from my office most of the day. My only form of communication was the phone booth. Stifling in the summer heat and freezing in winter's chill, they served me as well as could be expected, but they also gave me the willies. I sometimes felt as if I were in a glass walled casket. Confinement personified.



For a spell, we had a houseboat. It wasn't much to look at in the yachting world.....a camper mounted on pontoons. It did, however, have all the facilities needed to get by. The shower/toilet was about the size of those phone booths. Pretty ingenious use of space, though. You could shower, brush your teeth, and ...well, you know, all at the same time. From time to time, while you were in there, some fool would go by wide open and the wake from his boat would throw you against the door spilling your naked, tooth-brushed self out into the hall, while the shower hose flopped around like a python juiced on Red Bull. At least the confinement would end at that point and the others on the boat would discover real amusement.



But perhaps the scariest period of confinement I can recall occurred "up in the country". We would go to visit relatives who lived on a farm outside of town. They were (and still are) "salt of the earth" people. They lived according to the old ways; raising most all they ate, mending, repairing, making do, and doing what they could to earn a living. They farmed, ran a sawmill, and hunted wild game. They were a tough lot; hardened by necessity and by their environment. I love the memory of those who have gone, and love the contact with those who are left. They are among my heroes. Into this culture came yours truly. I lived in town. Already, I'm two strikes toward out. I didn't have to kill my own chickens. Strike three. Upon striking out, my cousins decided to lock me in the outhouse. In I went for the most innocent of purposes, and the next thing I knew, from outside, giggling spilled over into guffaws and I realized I was stuck. They had bolted the door. Now, forget about the modern Port-A-John concept. At the very least they have that nice blue chemical that works to deodorize for the first hour or so. No such with an outhouse; no Scrubbing Bubbles, no Tidy-Bowl. It was as I recall, a "one-holer". One hole with no mystery as to its contents.



After about a half hour of me beating on the door, they finally relented and let me out. Of course, I stormed off with righteous indignation flying off me like water drops off a Golden Retriever. They were practically clutching their sides laughing.



I had a conversation with one of them just a few weeks ago. I playfully jibed her for her role in my confinement and she said, "You probably had on that white suit." It was as if I had suddenly discovered the meaning of life! No wonder all those years ago, they had attempted to teach me a lesson. Without even realizing it, I learned in that outhouse the penalty for arrogance. I had unintentionally sent the message that I may have thought I was better than them. In my own defense, however, I had help. I didn't choose the white suit.



But now, 60 years later, I understand.

Renewal

The Old Man never tires of Spring. Nature refreshes herself and trots out the colorful finery the Almighty has provided in her closet. Here's what awaited us when we returned from Margaritaville!

Resurrection

The Old Man has a resurrection story for you today. No, not that resurrection, but one of a non-Divine old-timer that I had thought long since dead. Followers of my blog will recall several references to an old radio. Let's be more specific, here. We'll call him Philco 89, maybe Phil for short. He was born in 1933. When he was just a young thing, my dad gave him to my mother on the first Christmas they were married.

Phil provided many hours of entertainment to my folks. They heard the news of the world delivered by Lowell Thomas, Walter Winchell, and of course, Edward R. Murrow. They listened to "Make Believe Ballroom" from the Hotel Roosevelt and probably dreamed of someday traveling there. I don't know this for a fact, but it's a good bet they heard the news of Pearl Harbor from Phil.

Several years down the road, Phil was replaced by a newer radio. Time to upgrade, I suppose, and old Phil found his way down into the basement. He perched on a shelf near the washing machine. Mom would listen to what Phil had to say while doing her laundry and ironing chores. I recall (yeah, by this time I had made the scene) sitting with Dad and listening to The Shadow, Gunsmoke, or Inner Sanctum while he cranked the ice cream freezer. Phil didn't get to say much then. He spoke or sang only occasionally.

Flip many pages on the calendar. Phil rarely had anything to say now. Television had relegated him to obscurity. Dad was gone, I was all grown up, and Mom didn't spend a lot of time in the basement. One day during a visit, I asked Mom if I could take Phil back home with me. A spur of the moment bit of spontaneity, I guess.

Phil sat on an old trunk in our den for a while, seemingly content to be a curiosity for visitors. I woke him up once in a while, but never for very long. One day, Phil went silent. He could only make a guttural growling noise with a few pops and snaps thrown in for good measure.

We moved away from Virginia in 1991. Phil came with us, of course, but upon his arrival was exiled to the attic over my workshop where he remained until a couple of weeks ago.

Enter Bruce. Simply by happenstance, I discovered that Bruce was a collector/restorer of antique radios. Bruce loves radios. He eats, sleeps, and breathes radios. His collection is magnificent. Bruce came by his passion honestly. His father was an apparent genius when it came to electronics. He can regale you with stories of how his father taught him valuable lessons about the idiosyncrasies of what to my untrained eye, are simply containers of electronic spaghetti.

I took Phil over to Bruce's shop and he did an evaluation. Among other issues, it seems that some squirrels had been around nibbling and leaving bits of acorn behind. Phil's cabinet finish was pretty much gone, and there were a number of missing bits of veneer. Bruce operated and removed Phil's innards, and I brought his "skin" home to my shop.

I gave Phil a cosmetic makeover while Bruce performed the necessary surgery and stitching on his inner workings. I got a call from Bruce advising me that Phil was back, so I went over with Phil's newly buffed and polished "look" and Bruce remarried the parts.

What a thrill when we waited for the tubes to warm up to their trademark red glow, and once again after almost 25 years, Phil sang in that marvelous bass voice of his. I said to Bruce, "Wow! You've done wonders for the old radio." Bruce replied simply, "No, I rescued another one."

Late that night, I sat in the kitchen in semi-darkness, watching the tubes glow and running the dial up and down to see what I could find. I heard WCBS in New York, some station in St. Louis, and a ton of others from heaven only knows where. In that lateness, a part of me half expected to hear Edward R. Murrow say, "This is London". I know all of those old timers must be in there somewhere.

Tagged Is Me

The Old Man got tagged this morning. Seems I have to go to the 6th folder on my computer, choose the 6th picture in that folder. Well, OKeyDokey.

As many of you know from a previous posting, my dad gave this radio to my mom the first Christmas they were married. It's been languishing in my attic for many years. I recently drug it out and set it on my workbench.

My next regular posting will detail what I believe is a very interesting story about her.

Stay tuned.

" Creative Problem-Solving"....Not A New Concept

The Old Man comes from a long line of creative problem solvers. I learned at an early age that there were always simpler and common-sense solutions to most situations. There wasn't much high-tech stuff around Bedford. If we wanted to see something on TV, we went over town and looked through the window of the furniture or appliance store. Frozen foods were a novelty.....my family grew and canned our own produce.


Folks still plowed their gardens with mules, and houses were built one nail at a time. School had "recess", and most "social problems" were confined to a section of the county where Saturday nights brought out vile stuff imbibed from mason jars. Results were usually unfavorable.


As children of the Great Depression, my parents knew the importance of a non-wastefulness lifestyle. Mom would sit and darn socks for Dad and me for hours on end. I don't remember getting new ones until my foot started growing. Well into her '80s, she would sew and mend on her own clothing until it seemed that all the original cloth had been replaced by new thread and stitches.


When it came to solving a problem, or figuring out a simple way to do something, my dad was a "grand master". I recall once when he and I were going fishing, someone had told him that grasshoppers made excellent bait. For several days, he stewed and mulled over how to capture enough for an ample supply . Sitting at the kitchen table, he'd chew on the stem of his pipe, and occasionally mutter to himself. One fine Saturday morning, I noticed traffic slowing down as it passed our house. I went out on the back porch and there was Dad in the area behind our house known as "the back lot", walking back and forth with a minnow seine. Now, if you don't happen to know what a minnow seine is, picture a rectangular fine net with a stick on either end. The idea was to walk through the water and capture bait minnows. So here was Dad, out in a dry-land field seining his heart out. Remember, this is the father of the kid who used to sit up in the Mimosa tree and hum.


He had the last laugh, though. We had enough grasshoppers to take us through a whole day of fishing. Rooted in his love of fishing were other "creative" solutions. To make a fish scaler, he took a strip of wood about 10 inches long and nailed a couple of soft drink bottle caps to one side, jagged side facing. It worked like a charm and could scale a perch in nothing flat. The scaler doubled as a paint-stirring stick. Gripping the bottle-cap end wasn't the most comfortable thing to do, but it worked. I still have that scaler. I wouldn't dare use it...it's one of my connections to something precious to me. I may have it bronzed.


I leave you with a last bit of creativity. We see babies now being carried into restaurants in some really plush and interesting carriers. They are multi-function. They transport, convert into strollers, entertain, and allow baby to snooze in some degree of comfort. I jokingly refer to them as "baby buckets". Perhaps now you will understand why.

It's A Wonder

The Old Man is lucky to be here. It's a wonder I survived my youth. BB guns, sling shots, dirt clods, and arrows shot high into the air just to see where they would fall, could all entertain the Park Street Battalion for hours on end. Sometimes we would attempt the organized civility of sports, or the cerebral exercise of marathon Monopoly tournaments, but more often than not, we were engaged in some form of risky behavior.

Helmets were items worn by soldiers and football players.....never by a kid on a bike. Not only did we eschew helmets, we rode with no shoes and no shirts. While rocketing down Baltimore Avenue hill, we would let go of the handlebars and ride, steering "au naturale" by leaning a bit left or right.

We crawled through drainage pipes and culverts, climbed to 30-40 feet in trees on limbs that were never meant to support a squirrel, much less a kid, and roamed around town after dark with no thought of fear. We camped out in fields and in the woods.

Mom carved up chicken on the sideboard beside the sink, gave it a quick wipe and cut up the potatoes for salad. Meals were left on the table, covered with a cloth, after Sunday lunch and seldom re-heated for supper. We were never ill from any of this....perhaps we were lucky or I like to think that maybe it's been the passage of time that has created an evolution of bad stuff and disagreeable substances. Restaurant workers didn't wear hair nets or plastic gloves and the butchers used the same butcher block cutting surface for all their meat prep. There was sawdust on the floor of the butcher area to absorb spilled blood and prevent butcher "accidents".

We ate rabbit if Dad had a good day in the field, and during the summer we ate enough perch and bluegills from farm ponds and the County Park lake it seemed we would begin to grow scales.

If a huge flock of starlings became a bother when they decided to "park" themselves in one of our trees, Dad would simply take his shotgun and fire off a blast up into the tree. It wasn't illegal then. The starlings would scatter and peace and tranquility would return to Park St. I heard a quote on television recently that summed up most of the time on our street. "It was so quiet, you could hear a mouse peeing on cotton in China".

I recapture a little bit of that experience with my genuine Daisy Red Ryder BB gun these days when the squirrels launch an assault on my bird feeders.

I suppose a simpler time called for simpler solutions, but that delicious quiet visits me from time to time. It's rare, but when it comes, it's a treasure.

Oh, by the way......The Old Man is the second from the right.

It Ain't Margaritaville This Time

The Old Man is going on a little trip. It's not my normal run to the coast, but rather an errand of some degree of mercy. Gotta go up north where they will probably talk funny.

Since the Iwo Jima series, I've taken a few days to lick my literary wounds, but during the hiatus, I've managed to jot down a whole new stack of blog subjects. When I return, I'll get right to it.

I'm actually going to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. To get there, I will have to go perilously close to Washington D. C. I plan to sneak by quickly so none of the silliness there can attach itself to me. Wish me travel mercies.

Back in a week.

Looks A Little Pale

The Old Man finally got his wish. We had a decent snow....the best one (according to the weather guessers) in about 5 years. It started about 7:30 last night after a day of heavy rain, and continued until early morning.

Seems that Washington, DC is getting hammered along about now. Wouldn't it be a good thing if we could perceive the same degree of purity inside the buildings that heavy snow brings to the outside of them?

Nothing heavy, this post. Just a chance to share a little beauty with you.

Oh, by the way; thanks to all who commented on my Iwo Jima series. Look for a similar series in June as we honor those brave souls who encountered The Longest Day.

Black Sands of Hell (Part 3)

The Old Man concludes. For 4 days, the bloody fighting continued day and night. In an effort to discourage "sneak" attacks during nighttime combat, both sides kept the skies alight with flares, strobing the landscape with ghastly flashes of the reality of death.

The Fourth Division was tasked with the capture of the southern end of Iwo Jima including Mount Suribachi in order to neutralize the withering Japanese fire power. The Fifth Division's mission was to capture the two airfields to the North and West. As the Marines made their way toward their objectives, they began to get a better grasp of the Japanese style of combat. All other combatants in modern times have honored the red crosses worn by field medics in an attempt to bring some degree of civility to war. They are "off limits". The Japanese, however, saw things differently. Contrary to convention, medics were targeted first, the red crosses a bulls eye; after all, if a medic dies, many more other soldiers will die from lack of treatment.


The third veteran of the campaign that I have known is T. W. That's how he was known to friends. T.W. recounts how he was wounded in the battle for Guam, and back in action on Iwo. He recounts a story of how he and 3 other Marines were assisting a wounded comrade back to an aid station. They jumped in a shell crater to rest for a moment. While taking their "break", one of the men asked if T. W. would change sides with him. T. W. agreed since it would give both of their arms a rest from carrying the litter. When they came out of the crater, the one who had taken T. W. 's place took a bullet in the arm. When the war ended and T. W. came home, he felt a call into the Ministry and served as a pastor for most of the rest of his life. He was a gentle and humble soul who exhibited no indication of his witness to barbarity.

The taking of Mount Suribachi extracted a heavy toll in life and misery. American casualties totaled 5,372, of which 385 were killed.

On the morning of February 23, four Marines made it to the top of Suribachi. When they looked down into the extinct volcano's crater, they saw a battery of machine guns and stacks of ammunition, but not a living soul. They scrambled back down to their unit and told their commanding officer what they had seen. He immediately sent another 6 man patrol back up with a small American flag and instructions to "put this up".

At the top, these Marines found a 20 foot length of iron pipe and lashed the flag to it. Even though it was small, when word spread, cheers erupted all over the island. The ships anchored just off shore began to blow their foghorns and ring the ship's bells. The Japanese were not amused.

About two hours later, around 10:30 AM, 6 more Marines made their way to the top with a larger flag to replace the initial one. This flag-raising has served as the defining moment of pride and patriotism for 64 years and will, I believe, always provide an emotional boost to all generations.

Of these 6 flag raisers, three would be dead within a month. In the photo, Texas born Harlon Block is at the bottom of the pole inserting it into the ground. He was killed by a mortar shell on March 1st. Harlon was 21 years old. Two men behind and just barely visible are Mike Strank who also died on March 1st, and Rene Gagnon who was one of the three brought back to the States to participate in a bond drive. The second man up in the foreground is John "Doc" Bradley, a Corpsman who was another of the three who survived, and whose son, James Bradley, wrote the book "Flags of Our Fathers". After Bradley is Franklin Sousley, killed on March 21st. The last man is Ira Hayes, the third of the survivors who participated in the bond tour.

While the famous photograph would be perceived by many for years to come as a climactic event, the fight for control of Iwo Jima would continue on for many weeks. The last organized resistance ended on March 16th, nearly a full month after the invasion. The last Japanese gasp came on March 26th when 4 Japanese officers led 196 trapped men out of a cave and attempted to attack Airfield #2.

The toll in human life in the battle for Iwo Jima is astounding. 20,000 Japanese troops were killed and nearly 7000 Marines paid the supreme price for our freedom.

Admiral Chester Nimitz, in his official communication announcing the capture of Iwo Jima included a phrase that has become the point of clarity on the campaign. He said, "Uncommon valor was a common virtue".

On one of the "Lest They Be Forgotten" programs referred to in an earlier post, the ending again brought tears to my eyes. The camera moved from one of these men's face to the next, and as the camera focused on them, each gave a crisp salute. Even though they could not see me, I quietly stood from my chair and returned each with gratitude and pride. Thank you, my heroes, from the core of my being.

God Bless America