I have not stepped foot in my grandfather’s house, at least that I can remember, since his death from colon cancer at 89 in 1995. But my memory is a trickster, as those who know me well often point out. So it is possible that I returned at some point in the 15 years since the Masons helped lower him into the ground a few miles from his home in Greggton, a suburb of Longview. My father’s remains rest in a mausoleum a few hundred yards away, a plaque up on a granite wall.
My mom plans to join him there, name already in place, date left blank. She is definitely in no hurry, which is a good thing, of course.
I have no intention of being the third generation to be interred below or in a third floor compartment above in this cemetery. No way. Those in charge have been instructed to scatter my ashes along Lady Bird Lake in Austin — which used to be called Town Lake, the piece of the Colorado River that winds through the city. It’s home to my favorite hike-and-bike trail with the downtown skyline as a backdrop.
The trail here in Junction City along the Republican River, off the Washington Avenue entrance to Fort Riley, is also quite beautiful — and not a bad place to have one’s remains turned into dust in the wind, to steal a song line that fits, given where I now live. But it would require quite a journey for the few who might want to remember me, so I reckon my ashes will end up back in Texas.
Sorry to be maudlin. Visiting the now-empty home of dead relatives does that to a person.
My grandfather’s widow, his third wife (he outlived the first two — no divorces in his past), died a few weeks ago at 97. She lived in the modest ranch house my grandfather bought in the 1950s until a stroke felled her. Death followed in a few weeks. That’s not a bad way to end a long life, I figure. My aunt — my late dad’s sister — was in town with one of her daughters, Reneé, to settle matters and put the house up for sale. She invited my middle brother Scott, also in town for a visit, and me over to see if there was anything in the house we wanted as a remembrance of our grandfather.
Reneé, my first cousin, and I have never met. Aunt Gail has lived in San Diego all of my life, and that’s where her children were raised. The one time Reneè was in Texas to visit, about 17 years ago, my mother inexplicably forgot to tell me, even though at the time I lived a mere 60 miles away. Our family’s communication lines break down in the oddest ways.
We all got along famously at this ad hoc reunion. Aunt Gail is 75 but neither looks nor acts her age. She generously treated us to a Cajun seafood meal at Johnny Cace’s, a venerable eating establishment in Longview that was a favorite of my grandfather’s, who was buddies with its longtime proprietor. I went to high school with Johnny’s son and daughter-in-law, who now run the place.
Then we returned to 805 Stewart Street, where two worn recliners sit facing the television and the fake fireplace with the gas logs in place. I can picture my grandfather, a gregarious man with a bald head, big belly and a jolly laugh, sitting in his recliner while Lorraine, his new bride, perched in the chair alongside. She was beautiful and vivacious, an excellent cook. My grandfather worked at being an excellent eater, so it proved a successful alliance. I looked forward to being invited to Sunday after-church dinners there, on those special occasions, such as Easter.
The house already has the look of a place looted, which is inevitable. My aunt, cousin and Brent — Lorraine’s only living son — have begun the cleaning-out process. Most of you reading this have been through this before, for a parent, spouse, sibling, someone for whom you cared. It’s a hard task. I know; my brothers and I went through this for my parents a few years ago.
I didn’t really “want” anything. But Brent had saved me a wooden clipboard that was my grandfather’s. It is made of varying strips of hardwood — probably red oak, ash, walnut, maybe poplar. His name is scrawled twice across the back, once in black ink, another in red. The clipboard comes from the Globe Wernicke Company in Cincinnati, a famous supplier of office furniture.
That clipboard will suffice, along with the tiny crescent wrench I used to take down the “805 Stewart St” metal sign my sign-painter dad had created for their front-yard light post years ago, which Scott wanted. I have my memories and a photo of my grandfather in his Boy Scout uniform, when he was in his final years as a professional Scout executive.
That’s plenty.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, June 14, 2010.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
There Is No Escaping Summer in America
The day it reached 106 degrees in Junction City, according to both weather.com and the bank thermometer, I received a $388 electric bill. The house's two air-conditioning units struggled mightily to keep the air at 80 degrees inside while I wore minimal clothing after work and kept the ceiling fans circulating. Meanwhile, my beautiful mystery companion reported that the mercury was at 98 degrees in East Texas, though the humidity certainly made it feel every bit as miserable.
There is simply no escaping summer in America.
Oh, I forgot. My buddy Frank, who showed up here from Austin in time for Junction City's impressive fireworks show — not the one at the park but the unofficial festivities put on by the neighbors living within a couple dozen blocks, which rivaled the soundtrack to ""Saving Private Ryan — reported that his extended road trip landed him in Bend, Ore. His sister lives there. The weather is lovely, he claims. Hang around, buddy, I thought. A heat wave is bound to arrive.
|———|
My kinfolks in New Hampshire, where I spent my first 13 years, endured a blast of furnace air about the same time we were enjoying a cool Kansas evening on the roof, listening and watching the fireworks light up a drizzly sky. Temperatures in early July hit 100 degrees in parts of the Granite State. That is 1,759 miles northeast of Longview, Texas, where my parents moved the brothers and me in June of 1968. It is 1,540 miles from Junction City, though not nearly as far north. (I love Mapquest.com. Just saying.)
My resentment of summer surely stems from that move from New Hampshire to East Texas. If I still lived up among the Yankees it would be winter that riled me. I have never adjusted to the heat, though I endure. Last Saturday, I got a wild hare and once again trimmed down the wild growth in my yard — this time chigger-proofing myself successfully — and then mowed most of the grass.
Big deal, you say. Big deal yourself. This yard is huge and on a hill, and I was using a self-propelled mower that cuts a measly 22-inch swath. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Roughly a gallon of iced tea and a plate of vegetarian quesadillas from El Tapatio were required to restore my equilibrium. I'm done mowing for the season and will speed dial the fellow with the big mowing machine next time the grass needs cutting.
|———|
My parents upon moving to Longview immediately enlisted me in Boy Scouts, because my grandfather was the paid executive in those parts. Just a few weeks after arriving from New Hampshire — where the snow usually doesn't disappear from the dark crannies until early May — I was drafted into a 50-mile hike from Caddo Lake to Longview, to be endured over five days.
I fell out on the third day from heat exhaustion. My parents had to come rescue me, which was embarrassing. I have borne a grudge against summer since. Perhaps I should seek therapy. I used to think I should simply seek cooler climes after the summer solstice, but where? Times are hard and uncertain, even for the luckiest of us.
The first fellow who befriended me at Troop 201 was Mickey Melton, a tall, rail-thin fellow, same age as me. We renewed acquaintances when I moved back to Longview in January 2008 as publisher of the paper, after being gone for 35 years. Mickey by then was a community leader, former school board member, one of the founders of a racial unity organization, a gentle soul. He called me soon after I returned and bought lunch. We talked about that ill-fated hike. Of course, he was kind about my failing to complete the journey — like me, a bit perplexed about my parents' judgment in sending a little Yankee kid on such a trek in the East Texas heat.
Mickey was honored earlier this year with that city's Unity Award for his efforts over many years to promote racial healing. A few months later he died of an apparent heart attack while working on his farm. I will never recall that hike without remembering gentle Mickey — invariably stooped over when we talked because I was nearly a foot shorter.
Summer will soon pass. The seasons soar by when you're my age. I need to do a better job enjoying this summer, though the temperature outside nearly outstrips my IQ. Each day is precious, even the searing ones.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, August 7, 2010.
There is simply no escaping summer in America.
Oh, I forgot. My buddy Frank, who showed up here from Austin in time for Junction City's impressive fireworks show — not the one at the park but the unofficial festivities put on by the neighbors living within a couple dozen blocks, which rivaled the soundtrack to ""Saving Private Ryan — reported that his extended road trip landed him in Bend, Ore. His sister lives there. The weather is lovely, he claims. Hang around, buddy, I thought. A heat wave is bound to arrive.
|———|
My kinfolks in New Hampshire, where I spent my first 13 years, endured a blast of furnace air about the same time we were enjoying a cool Kansas evening on the roof, listening and watching the fireworks light up a drizzly sky. Temperatures in early July hit 100 degrees in parts of the Granite State. That is 1,759 miles northeast of Longview, Texas, where my parents moved the brothers and me in June of 1968. It is 1,540 miles from Junction City, though not nearly as far north. (I love Mapquest.com. Just saying.)
My resentment of summer surely stems from that move from New Hampshire to East Texas. If I still lived up among the Yankees it would be winter that riled me. I have never adjusted to the heat, though I endure. Last Saturday, I got a wild hare and once again trimmed down the wild growth in my yard — this time chigger-proofing myself successfully — and then mowed most of the grass.
Big deal, you say. Big deal yourself. This yard is huge and on a hill, and I was using a self-propelled mower that cuts a measly 22-inch swath. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Roughly a gallon of iced tea and a plate of vegetarian quesadillas from El Tapatio were required to restore my equilibrium. I'm done mowing for the season and will speed dial the fellow with the big mowing machine next time the grass needs cutting.
|———|
My parents upon moving to Longview immediately enlisted me in Boy Scouts, because my grandfather was the paid executive in those parts. Just a few weeks after arriving from New Hampshire — where the snow usually doesn't disappear from the dark crannies until early May — I was drafted into a 50-mile hike from Caddo Lake to Longview, to be endured over five days.
I fell out on the third day from heat exhaustion. My parents had to come rescue me, which was embarrassing. I have borne a grudge against summer since. Perhaps I should seek therapy. I used to think I should simply seek cooler climes after the summer solstice, but where? Times are hard and uncertain, even for the luckiest of us.
The first fellow who befriended me at Troop 201 was Mickey Melton, a tall, rail-thin fellow, same age as me. We renewed acquaintances when I moved back to Longview in January 2008 as publisher of the paper, after being gone for 35 years. Mickey by then was a community leader, former school board member, one of the founders of a racial unity organization, a gentle soul. He called me soon after I returned and bought lunch. We talked about that ill-fated hike. Of course, he was kind about my failing to complete the journey — like me, a bit perplexed about my parents' judgment in sending a little Yankee kid on such a trek in the East Texas heat.
Mickey was honored earlier this year with that city's Unity Award for his efforts over many years to promote racial healing. A few months later he died of an apparent heart attack while working on his farm. I will never recall that hike without remembering gentle Mickey — invariably stooped over when we talked because I was nearly a foot shorter.
Summer will soon pass. The seasons soar by when you're my age. I need to do a better job enjoying this summer, though the temperature outside nearly outstrips my IQ. Each day is precious, even the searing ones.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, August 7, 2010.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
These Folks Have the Write Stuff
GRAPEVINE, TEXAS — Near the DFW airport, close enough to examine the underpinnings of the airliners taking off overhead, more than 300 writers and lovers of writing have gathered, as we do each July. Some of us enter an essay or manuscript competition and subject ourselves to an all-day workshop in which we critique each other’s work under the watchful and gentle counsel of a big-city editor, usually from the Dallas Morning News or Texas Monthly. The remaining two-and-half-days are devoted to soaking up wisdom from some of the nation’s best nonfiction writers, eating good food and then renewing acquaintances at the Bonnie & Clyde Bar.
The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, sponsored by the University of North Texas, by its sixth year has emerged as one of the premier events of its type in the country. I recharge my writing batteries each summer by attending, entering the competition, hanging out with folks who love writing as much as I do, and listening to authors whose works fill my bookshelves.
Speakers in the four years I’ve attended include famed novelist and essayist Joyce Carole Oates; raconteur nonpareil and National Book Award winner Bob Shacochis; reporter and harmonica player extraordinaire John Burnett of NPR; and Ira Glass, founder of “This American Life,” one of the quirkiest, most interesting shows on public radio.
This year’s lineup included Mary Karr, memoirist and poet, author of the “Liar’s Club” and her latest, “Lit,” about staying drunk and finally getting sober. Karr, who grew up in what we used to call Deep Dark East Texas when I was running a weekly paper near those parts, has that rare ability to write about a wretched upbringing without being maudlin or self-pitying. She is flat-out funny, both in print and in person. That’s tough to do when writing about a momma who once piled up all her toys in the front yard and set them on fire with gasoline, or once came at her with a butcher knife.
Still, Karr and her mother hung together until her mom died; her sister and she split the cremated remains — Mary’s half coming in a ziplock Baggie marked with a Sharpie: “Mom: ½.”
Another headliner this season was Mark Bowden, who wrote “Blackhawk Down,” the story of the failed attempt to capture a Somali warlord that led to a protracted and unexpected urban battle after two helicopters were shot down and nearly two dozen U.S. soldiers killed. Bowden, then a Philadelphia newspaper reporter, always hastens to explain that he is not a military expert but simply a reporter. In this case, he was trying to explain the images he saw in television in 1993 of this failed mission.
The Pied Piper of this conference is George Getschow, a former Wall Street Journal writer and editor who serves as writer-in-residence for the Mayborn Graduate School of Journalism. We have become friends over the years, because of a mutual love for good writing and stories. George refers to those who attend or otherwise participate at the conference as members of the Mayborn tribe. After four years I’m a member of that tribe. Returning each summer is akin to attending a family reunion, without the drama.
I am one of those poor souls who feel out-of-sorts if I’m not working on a writing project. Besides filling this modest space and writing editorials five days a week, at least a few nights a week I spend time trying to work on something more substantial. It might not amount to anything when all is said and done. But I feel incomplete if I
don’t try, as if a limb is missing.
When I hang out at the Mayborn each summer, I am among people who feel the same way. Plus, I get to talk to folks who are actually getting paid to write books full-time, a relative rarity — sort of like making it in the NBA. Here there are giants, I think.
I listen and learn, both from these literary rock stars and my fellow conferees. I always head home inspired and jazzed. Further, what strikes me is the humility of these writers who are household names, at least among those of us who actually read books. The authors are invariably gracious, self-effacing, funny and clearly grateful to be among the chosen few able to make a decent living writing books.
As for me, I keep slogging away most nights, my bank account a bit lighter after each Mayborn. You can’t go there without buying an armload of books, signed by the authors, after all. I have an entire year to read them before returning to buy another armload.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, July 31, 2010.
The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, sponsored by the University of North Texas, by its sixth year has emerged as one of the premier events of its type in the country. I recharge my writing batteries each summer by attending, entering the competition, hanging out with folks who love writing as much as I do, and listening to authors whose works fill my bookshelves.
Speakers in the four years I’ve attended include famed novelist and essayist Joyce Carole Oates; raconteur nonpareil and National Book Award winner Bob Shacochis; reporter and harmonica player extraordinaire John Burnett of NPR; and Ira Glass, founder of “This American Life,” one of the quirkiest, most interesting shows on public radio.
This year’s lineup included Mary Karr, memoirist and poet, author of the “Liar’s Club” and her latest, “Lit,” about staying drunk and finally getting sober. Karr, who grew up in what we used to call Deep Dark East Texas when I was running a weekly paper near those parts, has that rare ability to write about a wretched upbringing without being maudlin or self-pitying. She is flat-out funny, both in print and in person. That’s tough to do when writing about a momma who once piled up all her toys in the front yard and set them on fire with gasoline, or once came at her with a butcher knife.
Still, Karr and her mother hung together until her mom died; her sister and she split the cremated remains — Mary’s half coming in a ziplock Baggie marked with a Sharpie: “Mom: ½.”
Another headliner this season was Mark Bowden, who wrote “Blackhawk Down,” the story of the failed attempt to capture a Somali warlord that led to a protracted and unexpected urban battle after two helicopters were shot down and nearly two dozen U.S. soldiers killed. Bowden, then a Philadelphia newspaper reporter, always hastens to explain that he is not a military expert but simply a reporter. In this case, he was trying to explain the images he saw in television in 1993 of this failed mission.
The Pied Piper of this conference is George Getschow, a former Wall Street Journal writer and editor who serves as writer-in-residence for the Mayborn Graduate School of Journalism. We have become friends over the years, because of a mutual love for good writing and stories. George refers to those who attend or otherwise participate at the conference as members of the Mayborn tribe. After four years I’m a member of that tribe. Returning each summer is akin to attending a family reunion, without the drama.
I am one of those poor souls who feel out-of-sorts if I’m not working on a writing project. Besides filling this modest space and writing editorials five days a week, at least a few nights a week I spend time trying to work on something more substantial. It might not amount to anything when all is said and done. But I feel incomplete if I
don’t try, as if a limb is missing.
When I hang out at the Mayborn each summer, I am among people who feel the same way. Plus, I get to talk to folks who are actually getting paid to write books full-time, a relative rarity — sort of like making it in the NBA. Here there are giants, I think.
I listen and learn, both from these literary rock stars and my fellow conferees. I always head home inspired and jazzed. Further, what strikes me is the humility of these writers who are household names, at least among those of us who actually read books. The authors are invariably gracious, self-effacing, funny and clearly grateful to be among the chosen few able to make a decent living writing books.
As for me, I keep slogging away most nights, my bank account a bit lighter after each Mayborn. You can’t go there without buying an armload of books, signed by the authors, after all. I have an entire year to read them before returning to buy another armload.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, July 31, 2010.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Those Pesky Disappearing Items
I am convinced a malevolent spirit follows me and my peeps around, compelling semi-valuable items to permanently disappear on regular occasions — never to be found. There is simply no other explanation except perhaps that I am losing my gourd. I would rather not go there, at least not yet.
The latest involved a cell phone that belonged to the tween-ager who was visiting. It was charging on the kitchen counter as bedtime approached. Curfew had passed. To eliminate any temptation, I decided to hide the phone until the next day, in my dresser drawer.
At least that is where I thought I hid the phone. That was more than two weeks ago. We ransacked the house trying to figure out where I actually hid the phone. I even picked through the garbage, wearing disposable gloves. I made sure it wasn’t in the freezer or the wine cooler. The tween-ager and her mom, my beautiful mystery companion, have since returned to Texas, sans phone. Luckily, we have insurance to replace it, but I haven’t given up the search. At least once a day I look again. This is a big house with lots of crannies. But hope is fading fast. The tween-ager is miffed but still loves me, luckily.
On the same visit, a few days earlier, my BMC’s prescription reading glasses vanished one afternoon. We retraced her steps, from home to the coffee shop, to the newspaper office, then back home. The glasses are gone, as is her blue-jean jacket, which vanished on a trip a few days later to Wamego, possibly in the Oz Museum, possibly not. She brings it along to battle air-conditioning on steroids. Or she did. Past tense now.
I hasten to explain that we are not particularly flighty people. I have been accused of being positively OCD when it comes to keep things organized and in their place, and plead nolo contendre. I keep things tidy in my house and office, so I can find stuff. Except for the stuff that keeps disappearing.
One afternoon a few months before moving here, I was leaving work and put on my prescription sunglasses. A lens popped out. I was driving the chili-red convertible Mini Cooper my BMC and I jointly own but luckily had the top up because it was hot. No worries, I thought. I’ll find the lens when I get home.
When you have worn glasses for nearly a half-century, such mishaps are commonplace. At least a couple times a year I dig out my tiny screwdrivers and put a lens back in place, or if necessary head to an optician’s shop to let someone perform surgery.
The lens had disappeared. How could a sunglasses lens vanish inside a Mini Cooper? I searched for an hour. My brother and nephew arrived later that day from Austin on a visit. I offered the nephew, a hungry college student, twenty bucks if he could find the lens. He’s borderline brilliant and needs money, of course. No luck. Abster, the bright 12-year-old who was out a cell phone thanks to me, also took a run at finding it. It was gone.
Big deal, you say, except that these were tri-focal sunglasses that cost more than $300 to replace. I couldn’t simply replace the missing lens because I had bought the glasses in another town, before I had moved. Aaah well.
An extra garage door opener that I faithfully kept by the back door at my former home, which had a detached garage, vanished one day. I refused to spend money replacing it, the result being I eventually locked myself out of both the house and garage, which cost me $75 in locksmith fees. That only steeled my resolve not to replace the opener, and I never did.
Then there are the lost socks, books gone missing, bills I swore I mailed that never got there. It’s an ever-growing list of items I imagine are all piled somewhere, to be found someday.
Maybe I am losing my gourd. Nah. At least if I am, I have company. My BMC never did find her glasses or jacket.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Union, July 24, 2010.
The latest involved a cell phone that belonged to the tween-ager who was visiting. It was charging on the kitchen counter as bedtime approached. Curfew had passed. To eliminate any temptation, I decided to hide the phone until the next day, in my dresser drawer.
At least that is where I thought I hid the phone. That was more than two weeks ago. We ransacked the house trying to figure out where I actually hid the phone. I even picked through the garbage, wearing disposable gloves. I made sure it wasn’t in the freezer or the wine cooler. The tween-ager and her mom, my beautiful mystery companion, have since returned to Texas, sans phone. Luckily, we have insurance to replace it, but I haven’t given up the search. At least once a day I look again. This is a big house with lots of crannies. But hope is fading fast. The tween-ager is miffed but still loves me, luckily.
On the same visit, a few days earlier, my BMC’s prescription reading glasses vanished one afternoon. We retraced her steps, from home to the coffee shop, to the newspaper office, then back home. The glasses are gone, as is her blue-jean jacket, which vanished on a trip a few days later to Wamego, possibly in the Oz Museum, possibly not. She brings it along to battle air-conditioning on steroids. Or she did. Past tense now.
I hasten to explain that we are not particularly flighty people. I have been accused of being positively OCD when it comes to keep things organized and in their place, and plead nolo contendre. I keep things tidy in my house and office, so I can find stuff. Except for the stuff that keeps disappearing.
One afternoon a few months before moving here, I was leaving work and put on my prescription sunglasses. A lens popped out. I was driving the chili-red convertible Mini Cooper my BMC and I jointly own but luckily had the top up because it was hot. No worries, I thought. I’ll find the lens when I get home.
When you have worn glasses for nearly a half-century, such mishaps are commonplace. At least a couple times a year I dig out my tiny screwdrivers and put a lens back in place, or if necessary head to an optician’s shop to let someone perform surgery.
The lens had disappeared. How could a sunglasses lens vanish inside a Mini Cooper? I searched for an hour. My brother and nephew arrived later that day from Austin on a visit. I offered the nephew, a hungry college student, twenty bucks if he could find the lens. He’s borderline brilliant and needs money, of course. No luck. Abster, the bright 12-year-old who was out a cell phone thanks to me, also took a run at finding it. It was gone.
Big deal, you say, except that these were tri-focal sunglasses that cost more than $300 to replace. I couldn’t simply replace the missing lens because I had bought the glasses in another town, before I had moved. Aaah well.
An extra garage door opener that I faithfully kept by the back door at my former home, which had a detached garage, vanished one day. I refused to spend money replacing it, the result being I eventually locked myself out of both the house and garage, which cost me $75 in locksmith fees. That only steeled my resolve not to replace the opener, and I never did.
Then there are the lost socks, books gone missing, bills I swore I mailed that never got there. It’s an ever-growing list of items I imagine are all piled somewhere, to be found someday.
Maybe I am losing my gourd. Nah. At least if I am, I have company. My BMC never did find her glasses or jacket.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Union, July 24, 2010.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Slip Sliding Away
One of the assorted fringe benefits of hanging out with a 12-year-old this summer, my fiance’s daughter, is that I have been slipping down water slides all across Kansas without feeling as if I am some gross geezer pushing his luck. “Hey, I’m with the kid,” I can say if given The Look.
I will turn 55 — the double-nickel — next month, which officially entitles me to a company pension from my previous longtime employer, retiree health insurance and a discount at Schlitterbahn in Kansas City. The latter perk braises my backside, truth be known. Since when is 55 considered a senior citizen? Good grief. I have at least a decade left in the workforce, probably more. Give the discount to the poor folks. Sorry, that’s a sore spot with me.
We checked out the new Schlitterbahn in Kansas City a few weeks ago. The original park, in New Braunfels, Texas, has been an annual pilgrimage for both my beautiful mystery companion and me, since long before we met. The new park has some growing up to do, but it was worth the trip. That’s where both my BMC and Abbie pointed out that after Aug. 23 I could get the senior citizen discount. I responded by getting in line for the scariest water slide whose long line I could tolerate.
As I looked around it was clear that I would have been the clear winner of the Oldest Dude in Line Contest. My BMC is about three years younger than me but looks easily a decade my junior, so nobody ever suspects she has crossed the mid-century mark. Clerks are always trying to give me the senior citizen discount, even though I don’t yet qualify. I have been accused of being Abbie’s grandfather or even my BMC’s father, for Pete’s sake. This is a definite source of irritation to me; they find it hilarious, of course.
I read all the warnings on the sign approaching the ride, mainly there to attempt to protect Schlitterbahn from lawsuits. Don’t ride if you have had a heart attack, have high blood pressure, etc. Whatever. I’ll take my chances. After about 20 minutes my BMC and I were finally at the top. Interestingly, the Abster declined to ride, preferring to watch the aged folks risk life and limb. Near-teens are an interesting breed. They’ll happily accept your money but would prefer, like emergency vehicles, that you stay at least 100 feet back.
I am a sucker for water slides, but that’s as far as my thrill-ride derring-do goes. I am finished with roller-coasters after an unpleasant experience in my late 40s at the Six Flags in Dallas that sent me to a chiropractor for a couple of months. I am opposed to anything that makes me dizzy or sends my head below my feet. But flying down a water slide still is something I can handle, and I enjoyed my trip down the Schlitterbahn slide.
I just wish I had remembered to put sunscreen on my feet. I can’t believe I did this again. I slathered sun block on my face, arms, neck, etc. I tan easily but am old enough to know that sunburns are neither cool nor healthy. But since I was wearing water sandals, I forgot about my feet, which now sport a really interesting pattern, as if I had joined some weird foot-tattoo gang.
A quarter-century or so ago, I sat on the beach in San Diego while my young daughters splashed in the surf. Same foolishness transpired. All body parts were protected save my feet. My trip to Disneyland the next day wasn’t so wonderful, since I was limping badly.
Since Schlitterbahn, I have sampled the slides at the Junction City pool and the newly opened Manhattan pool, tagging along with the peeps. I tried all the slides at both locations. The green slide at the Junction City pool provides the twistiest ride by far. I ended up with a slight ankle limp for an hour or so after that ride. It reminded me of Disneyland.
The good news is that nobody tried to give me the senior citizen discount at the local pool. I don’t think such a discount exists, which is fine by me.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, July 17, 2010.
I will turn 55 — the double-nickel — next month, which officially entitles me to a company pension from my previous longtime employer, retiree health insurance and a discount at Schlitterbahn in Kansas City. The latter perk braises my backside, truth be known. Since when is 55 considered a senior citizen? Good grief. I have at least a decade left in the workforce, probably more. Give the discount to the poor folks. Sorry, that’s a sore spot with me.
We checked out the new Schlitterbahn in Kansas City a few weeks ago. The original park, in New Braunfels, Texas, has been an annual pilgrimage for both my beautiful mystery companion and me, since long before we met. The new park has some growing up to do, but it was worth the trip. That’s where both my BMC and Abbie pointed out that after Aug. 23 I could get the senior citizen discount. I responded by getting in line for the scariest water slide whose long line I could tolerate.
As I looked around it was clear that I would have been the clear winner of the Oldest Dude in Line Contest. My BMC is about three years younger than me but looks easily a decade my junior, so nobody ever suspects she has crossed the mid-century mark. Clerks are always trying to give me the senior citizen discount, even though I don’t yet qualify. I have been accused of being Abbie’s grandfather or even my BMC’s father, for Pete’s sake. This is a definite source of irritation to me; they find it hilarious, of course.
I read all the warnings on the sign approaching the ride, mainly there to attempt to protect Schlitterbahn from lawsuits. Don’t ride if you have had a heart attack, have high blood pressure, etc. Whatever. I’ll take my chances. After about 20 minutes my BMC and I were finally at the top. Interestingly, the Abster declined to ride, preferring to watch the aged folks risk life and limb. Near-teens are an interesting breed. They’ll happily accept your money but would prefer, like emergency vehicles, that you stay at least 100 feet back.
I am a sucker for water slides, but that’s as far as my thrill-ride derring-do goes. I am finished with roller-coasters after an unpleasant experience in my late 40s at the Six Flags in Dallas that sent me to a chiropractor for a couple of months. I am opposed to anything that makes me dizzy or sends my head below my feet. But flying down a water slide still is something I can handle, and I enjoyed my trip down the Schlitterbahn slide.
I just wish I had remembered to put sunscreen on my feet. I can’t believe I did this again. I slathered sun block on my face, arms, neck, etc. I tan easily but am old enough to know that sunburns are neither cool nor healthy. But since I was wearing water sandals, I forgot about my feet, which now sport a really interesting pattern, as if I had joined some weird foot-tattoo gang.
A quarter-century or so ago, I sat on the beach in San Diego while my young daughters splashed in the surf. Same foolishness transpired. All body parts were protected save my feet. My trip to Disneyland the next day wasn’t so wonderful, since I was limping badly.
Since Schlitterbahn, I have sampled the slides at the Junction City pool and the newly opened Manhattan pool, tagging along with the peeps. I tried all the slides at both locations. The green slide at the Junction City pool provides the twistiest ride by far. I ended up with a slight ankle limp for an hour or so after that ride. It reminded me of Disneyland.
The good news is that nobody tried to give me the senior citizen discount at the local pool. I don’t think such a discount exists, which is fine by me.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, July 17, 2010.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Flying the Not-So-Friendly Skies
The rather expensive comedy of errors I’m about to relate is typically self-induced. Before moving here, I booked a flight online back to Texas for Memorial Day weekend, well in advance in order to get the cheapest fare possible. Just a few days before climbing into my Ford Escape in mid-May to literally escape the heat and make the Flint Hills my home, I retrieved the confirmation e-mail to send to my beautiful mystery companion, so she would know when to pick me up at the Dallas airport.
At the time I was sitting on her living room couch in Longview, Texas. That’s when she heard me utter a phrase that best not be printed in a family newspaper. When I called up the e-mail, I realized that I had booked the flight in reverse order. Instead of flying from Manhattan to Dallas, I had booked it in the order I had taken to come up here for the initial job interview and then on a second trip to find a house to lease.
A panicked call to the discount online travel site that I use yielded unsatisfying results, after the requisite 30-minute delay during which I listened to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” apparently performed underwater on out-of-tune instruments. Finally a woman came on the line — such a quaint term to use in these days of cell phones. I explained my doofusness —I had booked the flight backward because I was used to starting in Texas and going to Kansas and hadn’t adapted to reversing the order. She laughed sympathetically, which gave me hope that with a quick peck of a few computer keys she would erase my stupidity and get me pointed in the right direction.
It wasn’t to be. From Bangalore or somewhere in the neighborhood, she punched buttons and finally informed me that it would cost me $1,350 to change the ticket. I asked to speak to someone else. After more Vivaldi, a gentleman no doubt from a neighboring village drew the same conclusion. I finally accepted a credit for a future purchase and went back online to rebook the flight in the proper order.
A few days ago, I called to attempt to use the credit and book another flight in August to visit my mother and, of course, my BMC, who will have returned to Texas by then. You must call; this can’t be done online. The musical selection this day was Pachelbel Canon in D — this time broadcast through two tin cans attached to each other by string. I had an hour-long conversation with a pleasant young man who had apparently secured this job at about 9 a.m. that morning, not long after finishing his ESL class.
I had gone to American Airlines’ Web site and planted the dates, flight numbers and times on the screen in front of me. Manhattan to Dallas on the first leg, where my BMC would pick me up. Then Longview to Dallas to Manhattan on the trip home. Total cost: $316 if purchased directly from the airline. But I was owed money from the online travel site and wanted to use my credit.
The customer-service representative kept putting me on hold to Pachelbel performed by the Tin Can Orchestra, then returning, determined to send me to places I didn’t want to go — even though I was providing the airport codes for all three airports. “Spokane to Dallas, correct?” he asked. No, Manhattan, I said. Kansas, not New York. Airport code MHK. He would apologize and disappear for another five minutes.
“Long Beach, yes?” he asked hopefully. “No, Longview: GGG is the code,” I replied. I decided God was paying me back for being dumb enough to book the Memorial Day flight backward, so I was being extraordinarily patient.
One hour into the conversation/concert, he informed me he had to “determine the validity and policy of the original booking.” I then was informed the airline was going to charge me $150 for changing the original fare. I argued a while, then gave up and booked the flight. As of this writing, eight hours later, I still haven’t received a confirmation e-mail, and my credit card hasn’t been charged.
The trip isn’t until early August, so I’ll give it a few days before calling back. Perhaps by then Bach will be the musical selection, performed by baying hounds. I’ll call when I have a couple of hours to spare, and my blood pressure is at low tide.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, July 10, 2010
At the time I was sitting on her living room couch in Longview, Texas. That’s when she heard me utter a phrase that best not be printed in a family newspaper. When I called up the e-mail, I realized that I had booked the flight in reverse order. Instead of flying from Manhattan to Dallas, I had booked it in the order I had taken to come up here for the initial job interview and then on a second trip to find a house to lease.
A panicked call to the discount online travel site that I use yielded unsatisfying results, after the requisite 30-minute delay during which I listened to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” apparently performed underwater on out-of-tune instruments. Finally a woman came on the line — such a quaint term to use in these days of cell phones. I explained my doofusness —I had booked the flight backward because I was used to starting in Texas and going to Kansas and hadn’t adapted to reversing the order. She laughed sympathetically, which gave me hope that with a quick peck of a few computer keys she would erase my stupidity and get me pointed in the right direction.
It wasn’t to be. From Bangalore or somewhere in the neighborhood, she punched buttons and finally informed me that it would cost me $1,350 to change the ticket. I asked to speak to someone else. After more Vivaldi, a gentleman no doubt from a neighboring village drew the same conclusion. I finally accepted a credit for a future purchase and went back online to rebook the flight in the proper order.
A few days ago, I called to attempt to use the credit and book another flight in August to visit my mother and, of course, my BMC, who will have returned to Texas by then. You must call; this can’t be done online. The musical selection this day was Pachelbel Canon in D — this time broadcast through two tin cans attached to each other by string. I had an hour-long conversation with a pleasant young man who had apparently secured this job at about 9 a.m. that morning, not long after finishing his ESL class.
I had gone to American Airlines’ Web site and planted the dates, flight numbers and times on the screen in front of me. Manhattan to Dallas on the first leg, where my BMC would pick me up. Then Longview to Dallas to Manhattan on the trip home. Total cost: $316 if purchased directly from the airline. But I was owed money from the online travel site and wanted to use my credit.
The customer-service representative kept putting me on hold to Pachelbel performed by the Tin Can Orchestra, then returning, determined to send me to places I didn’t want to go — even though I was providing the airport codes for all three airports. “Spokane to Dallas, correct?” he asked. No, Manhattan, I said. Kansas, not New York. Airport code MHK. He would apologize and disappear for another five minutes.
“Long Beach, yes?” he asked hopefully. “No, Longview: GGG is the code,” I replied. I decided God was paying me back for being dumb enough to book the Memorial Day flight backward, so I was being extraordinarily patient.
One hour into the conversation/concert, he informed me he had to “determine the validity and policy of the original booking.” I then was informed the airline was going to charge me $150 for changing the original fare. I argued a while, then gave up and booked the flight. As of this writing, eight hours later, I still haven’t received a confirmation e-mail, and my credit card hasn’t been charged.
The trip isn’t until early August, so I’ll give it a few days before calling back. Perhaps by then Bach will be the musical selection, performed by baying hounds. I’ll call when I have a couple of hours to spare, and my blood pressure is at low tide.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, July 10, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Teaching an Old Shutterbug New Tricks
I bought myself a present just before coming to Kansas, a Nikon digital SLR camera and a couple of lenses, plus a nice flash. I emptied the Domke camera bag that I’ve lugged around for 30 years of its battered Nikon film bodies, grabbed one of the old lenses that will work in manual mode with the digital, and am back taking photos with an SLR instead of a point-and-shoot digital.
What a relief. I never got used to using a camera that one peered into a LCD screen from several inches away, and then had to wait a few seconds before the image was captured with a fake click of the shutter. I’m used to cramming my left-eye glass lens into the viewfinder so often that eventually I have to buy new glasses because of lens scratches.
I’ve been a newspaper photographer off-and-on for 40 years, sometimes as a full-time job. I was never a particularly distinguished shooter but always somebody who expected something to happen when the button was pushed. I have made do with a decent digital point-and-shoot for several years until coming here, where I’m far more hands-on when it comes to taking photos that end up in the newspaper. So I watched for a sale, bought a lens on eBay and put together a new digital package to replace my old Nikon stuff and that annoying point-and-shoot. I consider this a fringe benefit of the job, by the way, because I love to take photos and write stories.
There is a learning curve to using this camera, which has more bells and whistles than I will ever need or use. Since arriving here in mid-May I have been wandering around taking photos and slowly, ever so slowly, learning how to use the camera. I keep the owner’s manual in the Domke bag and consult it regularly. A few weeks ago I shot photos down at the Smoky Hill River Festival in Salina and then headed home through the back roads, stopping outside of Enterprise to shoot photos of wheat.
I know; that’s original. Wheat is fascinating to a newcomer, a lovely color, a lot shorter plant than I expected. (Of course, that’s what people say about me as well.) So I was down on my haunches on the side of the highway, camera bag by my side, flipping through the owner’s manual because I couldn’t remember how to change the aperture without changing the ISO, which is what in the old days we called the film speed, or ASA.
That’s when the deputy sheriff showed up and scared the bejeebers out of me, mainly because I was so absorbed in what I was doing. I sensed someone watching me and finally turned around to a smiling man wearing sunglasses and a gun, leaning out of a squad car.
“Everything OK here, sir?” he asked.
“Oh sure,” I said. “Just taking photos of wheat,” I said, waving both the owner’s manual and camera in the air like an idiot. He waved back and left.
My peeps arrived a couple weeks ago for a nearly month-long visit. I bought a companion SLR for my beautiful mystery companion, who also has missed taking photographs, using chits saved up on an Amazon credit card to secure it pretty cheaply. It is a less expensive but creditable partner to my camera, so that we can swap lenses, flashes and such. Abbie, her 12-year-old daughter and the queen of all things electronic, immediately took control. She is smart, creative and quickly began tutoring me on both how her mom’s camera worked, and, by extension, how my camera functioned.
There is something that just works differently in the brain of those young ‘uns. I don’t want to sound old, though I am relatively middle-aged. But I am not a Luddite. I love technology, own an iPhone, am on Facebook (though don’t really know why), have my own Website (garyborders.com) and feel blessed to live in the midst of this amazing information revolution. My goodness. There is no question I can ask that I can’t find a reasonable answer to, except, possibly, if you’re so smart, how come you’re not rich? Google can’t handle that one.
But Abbie can figure out how to use my GPS, digital SLR — whatever device I buy — in nanoseconds, while I’m still bumbling along reading the directions, something men aren’t supposed to do. Moreover, she has an eye for composition, crazy angles, interesting juxtapositions. In short, she is both teaching and inspiring me as I re-enter the photographic world. I hope I am teaching her as well, to be patient, to not blindly fire away at everything to try to actually compose the image, to bide one’s time.
We’ll see. Literally.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, July 3, 2010.
What a relief. I never got used to using a camera that one peered into a LCD screen from several inches away, and then had to wait a few seconds before the image was captured with a fake click of the shutter. I’m used to cramming my left-eye glass lens into the viewfinder so often that eventually I have to buy new glasses because of lens scratches.
I’ve been a newspaper photographer off-and-on for 40 years, sometimes as a full-time job. I was never a particularly distinguished shooter but always somebody who expected something to happen when the button was pushed. I have made do with a decent digital point-and-shoot for several years until coming here, where I’m far more hands-on when it comes to taking photos that end up in the newspaper. So I watched for a sale, bought a lens on eBay and put together a new digital package to replace my old Nikon stuff and that annoying point-and-shoot. I consider this a fringe benefit of the job, by the way, because I love to take photos and write stories.
There is a learning curve to using this camera, which has more bells and whistles than I will ever need or use. Since arriving here in mid-May I have been wandering around taking photos and slowly, ever so slowly, learning how to use the camera. I keep the owner’s manual in the Domke bag and consult it regularly. A few weeks ago I shot photos down at the Smoky Hill River Festival in Salina and then headed home through the back roads, stopping outside of Enterprise to shoot photos of wheat.
I know; that’s original. Wheat is fascinating to a newcomer, a lovely color, a lot shorter plant than I expected. (Of course, that’s what people say about me as well.) So I was down on my haunches on the side of the highway, camera bag by my side, flipping through the owner’s manual because I couldn’t remember how to change the aperture without changing the ISO, which is what in the old days we called the film speed, or ASA.
That’s when the deputy sheriff showed up and scared the bejeebers out of me, mainly because I was so absorbed in what I was doing. I sensed someone watching me and finally turned around to a smiling man wearing sunglasses and a gun, leaning out of a squad car.
“Everything OK here, sir?” he asked.
“Oh sure,” I said. “Just taking photos of wheat,” I said, waving both the owner’s manual and camera in the air like an idiot. He waved back and left.
My peeps arrived a couple weeks ago for a nearly month-long visit. I bought a companion SLR for my beautiful mystery companion, who also has missed taking photographs, using chits saved up on an Amazon credit card to secure it pretty cheaply. It is a less expensive but creditable partner to my camera, so that we can swap lenses, flashes and such. Abbie, her 12-year-old daughter and the queen of all things electronic, immediately took control. She is smart, creative and quickly began tutoring me on both how her mom’s camera worked, and, by extension, how my camera functioned.
There is something that just works differently in the brain of those young ‘uns. I don’t want to sound old, though I am relatively middle-aged. But I am not a Luddite. I love technology, own an iPhone, am on Facebook (though don’t really know why), have my own Website (garyborders.com) and feel blessed to live in the midst of this amazing information revolution. My goodness. There is no question I can ask that I can’t find a reasonable answer to, except, possibly, if you’re so smart, how come you’re not rich? Google can’t handle that one.
But Abbie can figure out how to use my GPS, digital SLR — whatever device I buy — in nanoseconds, while I’m still bumbling along reading the directions, something men aren’t supposed to do. Moreover, she has an eye for composition, crazy angles, interesting juxtapositions. In short, she is both teaching and inspiring me as I re-enter the photographic world. I hope I am teaching her as well, to be patient, to not blindly fire away at everything to try to actually compose the image, to bide one’s time.
We’ll see. Literally.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, July 3, 2010.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Recalling Peppy Blount
My brother Gregg called to let me know Peppy Blount had died. The news wasn’t surprising but sad. Peppy has been in failing health for a few years, though each time we talked his voice was strong as ever.
Peppy was one of those larger-than-life Texas characters that the state would have created out of whole cloth just to keep its reputation intact — if folks like him didn’t exist. Born in 1926 in West Texas, he flew B-25 bombers in World War II and then came home to attend the University of Texas and play football. Peppy, who gained his nickname in childhood because he couldn’t pronounce his mother’s term of endearment, “Precious,” became a star receiver on a great Longhorn team led by legendary quarterback Bobby Layne. Tom Landry, the legendary Dallas Cowboys coach, was also on that team. It didn’t take much prompting to get Peppy talking about his football days, I promise you.
While playing football and attending classes at UT, Peppy decided to run for the Texas Legislature to represent his West Texas district. He won, becoming one of 26 UT students — all veterans — elected to the Texas Legislature in 1946, a year after the war ended. He ended up serving three terms, though he ended up getting his name legally changed to R.E. Peppy Blount after an opponent tried to keep his nickname off the ballot in an effort to defeat him.
Peppy ended up going to law school and eventually hung his legal shingle in East Texas, first in nearby Tyler and then in Longview, my hometown. I became his paperboy in the late 1960s, selling him a copy of the Longview Daily News every weekday afternoon at his law office up on the ninth floor of what then was known as the First National Bank building, the tallest building in downtown Longview. It was still his law office when I returned to Longview as publisher 40 years later. Not long after, my phone rang. It was Peppy, welcoming me back and urging me to come visit.
With his full head of hair, long turned white, his booming voice and his gift for telling a story, Peppy was a tireless civic booster. He and my late grandfather worked together for many years. Grandpa was a professional Boy Scout executive. Peppy was a longtime volunteer and fund raiser. Both were the kind of people who would walk into a restaurant and shake hands with strangers, introduce themselves and start up conversations with strangers. As a teen-ager, this would embarrass me to no end when Grandpa did it. I figure Peppy’s four boys were used to it.
For decades, Peppy wrote letters to the editor, not just to the Longview newspaper but to area newspapers. His politics and mine didn’t exactly jibe, and his letter-writing had slowed considerably by the time I had returned as publisher. But that didn’t stop him from calling and leaving voice-mails, thanking me for a column I had written. I don’t really know why he liked me, but he did.
I interviewed him in the fall of 2008 about when he became Gregg County judge in 1962 on a last-minute write-in bid. (That’s where Longview is county seat; a county judge is the chief administrator of the county, sort of like mayor, though the post also holds some judicial duties as well.) The incumbent had become entangled in a slant-hole oil scandal along with a host of well-known local figures. Folks were drilling sideways into other, more productive oil wells. The practice had been going on for years. The big oil companies, who held most the leases, had finally had enough and blown the whistle on the slant-hole drillers.
It was making headlines all over the state. Hearings were being held, lawsuits filed in courthouses all over East Texas. The incumbent, who held several crooked oil leases, had decided it was in his best interest to repair to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for treatment of an undisclosed ailment.
On the Sunday before the general election, three local attorneys including Peppy all ran ads in the Longview paper announcing they were running as write-in candidates against the incumbent, who until then was unopposed. Peppy won easily. As he put it, “We had a lot of fun out of that one… I announced on Sunday, campaigned on Monday and was written in and elected in the general election on Tuesday.”
He roared with laughter. That’s how I’ll remember Peppy. Telling a story and roaring with laughter.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, June 26, 2010
Peppy was one of those larger-than-life Texas characters that the state would have created out of whole cloth just to keep its reputation intact — if folks like him didn’t exist. Born in 1926 in West Texas, he flew B-25 bombers in World War II and then came home to attend the University of Texas and play football. Peppy, who gained his nickname in childhood because he couldn’t pronounce his mother’s term of endearment, “Precious,” became a star receiver on a great Longhorn team led by legendary quarterback Bobby Layne. Tom Landry, the legendary Dallas Cowboys coach, was also on that team. It didn’t take much prompting to get Peppy talking about his football days, I promise you.
While playing football and attending classes at UT, Peppy decided to run for the Texas Legislature to represent his West Texas district. He won, becoming one of 26 UT students — all veterans — elected to the Texas Legislature in 1946, a year after the war ended. He ended up serving three terms, though he ended up getting his name legally changed to R.E. Peppy Blount after an opponent tried to keep his nickname off the ballot in an effort to defeat him.
Peppy ended up going to law school and eventually hung his legal shingle in East Texas, first in nearby Tyler and then in Longview, my hometown. I became his paperboy in the late 1960s, selling him a copy of the Longview Daily News every weekday afternoon at his law office up on the ninth floor of what then was known as the First National Bank building, the tallest building in downtown Longview. It was still his law office when I returned to Longview as publisher 40 years later. Not long after, my phone rang. It was Peppy, welcoming me back and urging me to come visit.
With his full head of hair, long turned white, his booming voice and his gift for telling a story, Peppy was a tireless civic booster. He and my late grandfather worked together for many years. Grandpa was a professional Boy Scout executive. Peppy was a longtime volunteer and fund raiser. Both were the kind of people who would walk into a restaurant and shake hands with strangers, introduce themselves and start up conversations with strangers. As a teen-ager, this would embarrass me to no end when Grandpa did it. I figure Peppy’s four boys were used to it.
For decades, Peppy wrote letters to the editor, not just to the Longview newspaper but to area newspapers. His politics and mine didn’t exactly jibe, and his letter-writing had slowed considerably by the time I had returned as publisher. But that didn’t stop him from calling and leaving voice-mails, thanking me for a column I had written. I don’t really know why he liked me, but he did.
I interviewed him in the fall of 2008 about when he became Gregg County judge in 1962 on a last-minute write-in bid. (That’s where Longview is county seat; a county judge is the chief administrator of the county, sort of like mayor, though the post also holds some judicial duties as well.) The incumbent had become entangled in a slant-hole oil scandal along with a host of well-known local figures. Folks were drilling sideways into other, more productive oil wells. The practice had been going on for years. The big oil companies, who held most the leases, had finally had enough and blown the whistle on the slant-hole drillers.
It was making headlines all over the state. Hearings were being held, lawsuits filed in courthouses all over East Texas. The incumbent, who held several crooked oil leases, had decided it was in his best interest to repair to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for treatment of an undisclosed ailment.
On the Sunday before the general election, three local attorneys including Peppy all ran ads in the Longview paper announcing they were running as write-in candidates against the incumbent, who until then was unopposed. Peppy won easily. As he put it, “We had a lot of fun out of that one… I announced on Sunday, campaigned on Monday and was written in and elected in the general election on Tuesday.”
He roared with laughter. That’s how I’ll remember Peppy. Telling a story and roaring with laughter.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
My Earliest Memories of My Father
One of my earliest memories of my late father is watching him work behind an easel in the barn that served as his artist’s studio behind our house in Allenstown, New Hampshire. A Ben Franklin stove roared nearby, providing the only heat in this uninsulated building that we called a barn. It was really just a large outbuilding with an abandoned chicken coop tacked on to the end. One winter I jumped off the roof.
Snow hid the dangers that lurked on the ground. I ended up with a nail in my foot.
That occasioned a tetanus shot, despite my howling resistance to injections. An apocryphal story was told about some distant relative in our family coming down with lockjaw, as they called it back then. Surely I didn’t want to come down with that. Young as I was, I figured the story was made-up but reluctantly took the shot. Like most adults, I have long discovered that shots really don’t hurt much — certainly less than what they’re preventing.
Anyway, I remember toddling in to that barn and watching my dad hunched over his easel, making magic on paper. That’s what he did most nights when he came home after dinner, maybe after a desultory round of catch with us boys. But as darkness approached, he would draw or paint, in any number of mediums — pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, pastels. He made his living as a commercial artist, a fancy term for a sign painter, one of the best around first in New Hampshire and later in East Texas. Years after a disability forced him to retire far too young, not much older than I am now, I would come across folks who would talk about how fast and facile my dad was at hand-lettering signs.
Just the other day I got an e-mail from someone who has one of his prints from the Texas Sesquicentennial in 1986, hanging in her study. He and I hatched a plot to print and sell these. We printed a couple thousand, featuring about 10 famous scenes from Texas history, my dad utilizing his great pen-and-ink technique.
Sales were dismal. A kajillion artists in Texas had the same idea, and most had better marketing; a few had better artwork. If anyone out there has a hankering for a Texas Sesquicentennial print, I can hook you up. I realize that is probably a non-starter in Kansas, but I’m just saying.
|———|
I have been a father for nearly 32 years, since the day after I turned 23. My firstborn missed my birthday by 11 hours and 21 minutes. I remember looking at that little squirmy, hairless wizened baby in the Nacogdoches, Texas hospital, and thinking, “Oh, gosh, now what do I do?” That would be Kasey, who now teaches autistic children in Austin. Her middle sister, Mere, is assistant to the director of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. She’ll turn 29 next month, on my dad’s birthday. He would have turned 78 on July 24. I adopted my youngest daughter, Kristen, when she was 11. Her earliest memories of me, of course, are decidedly different.
I can’t tell you how well I have done as a father. I would leave that up to my daughters to decide. Kasey says some of her earliest memories are of hanging out at The Rambler newspaper office, starting when she was nearly four years old. That was a weekly newspaper I ran in San Augustine, Texas, back in 1982. She and Mere, who wasn’t quite a year old, would often spend afternoons hanging out in the back of the office while I pasted up the weekly paper. We had a pallet of blankets in a closet in back, and when they got tired, they would grab their stuffed animals and crawl up there and take a nap. I would take Kasey over to Stripling’s Drug Store for a Coke float or some other treat.
Mere remembers riding on the four-wheeler out in the cow pasture, me pretending I was letting her drive. She also recalls reading in my lap, her head on my chest, trying to match her breathing to mine. I loved reading that line when she sent it to me, the thought of this little girl trying to match her little lung’s breath to mine. I never had a clue.
That’s the thing about being a dad. So often you don’t have a clue. You just muddle along. And you never stop being a dad, no matter how old you get. That’s the best part, I figure.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, June 19, 2010.
Snow hid the dangers that lurked on the ground. I ended up with a nail in my foot.
That occasioned a tetanus shot, despite my howling resistance to injections. An apocryphal story was told about some distant relative in our family coming down with lockjaw, as they called it back then. Surely I didn’t want to come down with that. Young as I was, I figured the story was made-up but reluctantly took the shot. Like most adults, I have long discovered that shots really don’t hurt much — certainly less than what they’re preventing.
Anyway, I remember toddling in to that barn and watching my dad hunched over his easel, making magic on paper. That’s what he did most nights when he came home after dinner, maybe after a desultory round of catch with us boys. But as darkness approached, he would draw or paint, in any number of mediums — pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, pastels. He made his living as a commercial artist, a fancy term for a sign painter, one of the best around first in New Hampshire and later in East Texas. Years after a disability forced him to retire far too young, not much older than I am now, I would come across folks who would talk about how fast and facile my dad was at hand-lettering signs.
Just the other day I got an e-mail from someone who has one of his prints from the Texas Sesquicentennial in 1986, hanging in her study. He and I hatched a plot to print and sell these. We printed a couple thousand, featuring about 10 famous scenes from Texas history, my dad utilizing his great pen-and-ink technique.
Sales were dismal. A kajillion artists in Texas had the same idea, and most had better marketing; a few had better artwork. If anyone out there has a hankering for a Texas Sesquicentennial print, I can hook you up. I realize that is probably a non-starter in Kansas, but I’m just saying.
|———|
I have been a father for nearly 32 years, since the day after I turned 23. My firstborn missed my birthday by 11 hours and 21 minutes. I remember looking at that little squirmy, hairless wizened baby in the Nacogdoches, Texas hospital, and thinking, “Oh, gosh, now what do I do?” That would be Kasey, who now teaches autistic children in Austin. Her middle sister, Mere, is assistant to the director of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. She’ll turn 29 next month, on my dad’s birthday. He would have turned 78 on July 24. I adopted my youngest daughter, Kristen, when she was 11. Her earliest memories of me, of course, are decidedly different.
I can’t tell you how well I have done as a father. I would leave that up to my daughters to decide. Kasey says some of her earliest memories are of hanging out at The Rambler newspaper office, starting when she was nearly four years old. That was a weekly newspaper I ran in San Augustine, Texas, back in 1982. She and Mere, who wasn’t quite a year old, would often spend afternoons hanging out in the back of the office while I pasted up the weekly paper. We had a pallet of blankets in a closet in back, and when they got tired, they would grab their stuffed animals and crawl up there and take a nap. I would take Kasey over to Stripling’s Drug Store for a Coke float or some other treat.
Mere remembers riding on the four-wheeler out in the cow pasture, me pretending I was letting her drive. She also recalls reading in my lap, her head on my chest, trying to match her breathing to mine. I loved reading that line when she sent it to me, the thought of this little girl trying to match her little lung’s breath to mine. I never had a clue.
That’s the thing about being a dad. So often you don’t have a clue. You just muddle along. And you never stop being a dad, no matter how old you get. That’s the best part, I figure.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union, June 19, 2010.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
My Vegetable Garden Fits on the Porch
Thank goodness the growing season for vegetables starts later in northeast Kansas. With moving and all from Texas, I was running behind getting my crop in the ground. Back there, my son-in-law in Houston is already picking tomatoes off his plants. Matt is an engineer and very precise in these matters. He has apparently put in a plot large enough to see on Google Earth, in the backyard of the house that he and Mere, my middle daughter, bought last year just off the freeway heading into downtown.
I am decidedly not an engineer and have already endured the dubious joys of trying to raise a large vegetable garden while keeping a day job. Let those far younger than me have the fun of weeding, battling pests, and finally figuring out that one ends up giving away most of what is produced. At least I did.
My enthusiasm for planting anything in the ground here in Junction City quickly dimmed after the previously mentioned bout with chiggers, compounded with a quick survey of the rocky soil outside my abode. I opted for buying 15 clay pots in which to plant my vegetables, all of which are now arrayed neatly on the front patio. That’s where I spend an hour or so most early evenings relaxing, listening to NPR and decompressing from the day — before reloading to write, print photographs and work into the night.
I have five Celebrity tomato plants, three jalapeño plants (not a day passes that I don’t eat jalapeños with at least one meal), basil, cilantro and rosemary. I have no idea why I bought the latter spice, except it smelled great.. My fiancé, the beautiful mystery companion still professoring in Texas, doesn’t know why I bought rosemary either.
As usual, she thinks I’m a bit daft but loves me anyway. I should have gone ahead and bought parsley, sage and thyme and headed on out to Scarborough Fair. I don’t have a clue what to do with rosemary except sniff it and admire its appearance. Everything else that I planted I know how to consume or use in cooking.
The house wren that is apparently building a nest in a birdhouse left by a previous resident on the patio appreciates neither the addition of this crop nor my daily appearance. She flies out of the house, perches on a branch across from the porch, trills at me, flies back and perches on the birdhouse, looking down at me, wishing I would go inside. We finally seem to be making our peace after some days together.
I hung out a couple of bird feeders here on some existing hooks on trees with squirrel protectors, brought from East Texas where they are required. The yard squirrels here thus far are utterly uninterested in the bird feeders. I’m sure at some point their East Texas brethren will pass the word up north that there is a new sap in town, with money to burn on free food, and the party will commence. But so far, it’s just chickadees taking occasional nibbles out of the feeder. I love those little birds and haven’t seen them since living in New Hampshire, 40 years ago.
The day before I went to the nursery and spent $100 on pots and plants, a large doe pranced around in my yard as I returned from my morning walk. She eyed me as warily as the wren did. I eyed the doe cautiously as well. I’ve published a couple of stories in papers I’ve run of folks getting run over by panicked deer defending their babies. One woman I knew slightly even had her leg badly broken by a Bambi gone berserk.
Eventually, the doe crossed the street and disappeared down the ravine. After relating the story to my BMC, she pointed out my garden on the front porch likely will be excellent grazing material for the deer, not to mention the rabbits, who hop around with aplomb while I read each evening.
We’ll see. I could string some hot wire if needed, since there is an electrical outlet on the porch. That would take care of the deer and probably even the rabbits if I had both a high and low wire. Of course, I would almost certainly step into it and shock myself when wandering off to answer the call of nature, which is one of the fringe benefits of living on an isolated piece of land in the middle of town.
Think I’ll just take my chances with the deer and rabbits.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union on June 12, 2010.
I am decidedly not an engineer and have already endured the dubious joys of trying to raise a large vegetable garden while keeping a day job. Let those far younger than me have the fun of weeding, battling pests, and finally figuring out that one ends up giving away most of what is produced. At least I did.
My enthusiasm for planting anything in the ground here in Junction City quickly dimmed after the previously mentioned bout with chiggers, compounded with a quick survey of the rocky soil outside my abode. I opted for buying 15 clay pots in which to plant my vegetables, all of which are now arrayed neatly on the front patio. That’s where I spend an hour or so most early evenings relaxing, listening to NPR and decompressing from the day — before reloading to write, print photographs and work into the night.
I have five Celebrity tomato plants, three jalapeño plants (not a day passes that I don’t eat jalapeños with at least one meal), basil, cilantro and rosemary. I have no idea why I bought the latter spice, except it smelled great.. My fiancé, the beautiful mystery companion still professoring in Texas, doesn’t know why I bought rosemary either.
As usual, she thinks I’m a bit daft but loves me anyway. I should have gone ahead and bought parsley, sage and thyme and headed on out to Scarborough Fair. I don’t have a clue what to do with rosemary except sniff it and admire its appearance. Everything else that I planted I know how to consume or use in cooking.
The house wren that is apparently building a nest in a birdhouse left by a previous resident on the patio appreciates neither the addition of this crop nor my daily appearance. She flies out of the house, perches on a branch across from the porch, trills at me, flies back and perches on the birdhouse, looking down at me, wishing I would go inside. We finally seem to be making our peace after some days together.
I hung out a couple of bird feeders here on some existing hooks on trees with squirrel protectors, brought from East Texas where they are required. The yard squirrels here thus far are utterly uninterested in the bird feeders. I’m sure at some point their East Texas brethren will pass the word up north that there is a new sap in town, with money to burn on free food, and the party will commence. But so far, it’s just chickadees taking occasional nibbles out of the feeder. I love those little birds and haven’t seen them since living in New Hampshire, 40 years ago.
The day before I went to the nursery and spent $100 on pots and plants, a large doe pranced around in my yard as I returned from my morning walk. She eyed me as warily as the wren did. I eyed the doe cautiously as well. I’ve published a couple of stories in papers I’ve run of folks getting run over by panicked deer defending their babies. One woman I knew slightly even had her leg badly broken by a Bambi gone berserk.
Eventually, the doe crossed the street and disappeared down the ravine. After relating the story to my BMC, she pointed out my garden on the front porch likely will be excellent grazing material for the deer, not to mention the rabbits, who hop around with aplomb while I read each evening.
We’ll see. I could string some hot wire if needed, since there is an electrical outlet on the porch. That would take care of the deer and probably even the rabbits if I had both a high and low wire. Of course, I would almost certainly step into it and shock myself when wandering off to answer the call of nature, which is one of the fringe benefits of living on an isolated piece of land in the middle of town.
Think I’ll just take my chances with the deer and rabbits.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Daily Union on June 12, 2010.
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