A Great Party

Hi Friends. Another great dog story. This posting is a repeat of one that I posted earlier, last year, but I wanted to do it again because you need to fully understand what a warped woman my wife is before you can fully appreciate my stories about her and what I have to put up with.

This one is about Abbey and is about my wife’s favorite party. To bring you up to date, Abbey was a small Shih Tzu that my daughter brought into our house to become a playmate for Cody who was a small Rat Terrier and whatever crawled under the fence. Mommy kitty [who came to us in a blizzard with a load of kittens in her belly] was between litters and had adopted Abbey as one of her own, regularly bathing her and trying to feed her by bringing small dead animals and bugs into our house. Cody was about 4 when Abbey came and he completely ignored her, just assuming she was another one of those cats. One day, after 3 weeks, she finally barked and then Cody realized she was a dog. He jumped up and ran over and smelled her. They immediately became great friends but Momma Kitty wan't about to let her go. Abbey would walk by and Momma Kitty would reach out with a big paw and knock her down and then hold her down while she bathed her from top to bottom. We held a big family party [my wife’s family] in our backyard one Saturday. Very well attended and some of her Aunts and older Cousins were a bit of the stuffed shirt variety. The party was a little weak with a lot of polite visiting and we felt we were under a microscope. Some relations were hiding in a back corner under the tent and others had grabbed the best chairs and were up front by the food. Cody and Abbey were allowed to run loose and visited everyone. They loved it as they were getting lots of petting and a little food at the same time. Abbey was standing in the middle of the group and suddenly gave out with a loud “huh---Urk”, which garnered everyone’s attention, and she coughed up a dead, slime covered, whole, mouse. One of Momma Kitty's presents. Well everyone started screaming. They apparently thought Abbey was possessed and had spit up an alien life form. I was disgusted and was grabbing paper towels to get the mouse picked up. I was expecting my wife to help me pick it up or at least grab the dog but my wife was in a fit of hysterics, Uncontrollable laughing hysterics and holding her side unable to speak or breath [she did that once at a wake but that’s another story]. After everyone regained their composure the party went on and my wife was sent away to laugh in private. When able to speak she just said, “The sight of that mouse coming out and those old ladies screaming was too much”. No one wanted to hold cute, little, Abbey after that but it was my wife's favorite party??

KeeWee's Corner

KeeWee's Corner I really need to pass this one on. Way different than anything else I've read on the net. Guns, Recipes, Dogs, Cats, Cartoons, Photography and really great humor. Humor that is from a lady in the Northwest and from Downunder. Every post is something really different. I stole her logo to make you want to go to her blog. Hope she doesn't mind.

A light in the Distance

All of this recent news and talk about a blizzard in New York City and elsewhere has me bringing up old memories of blizzards of my own. In 1975 I was a hotshot Agent working for the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation and was just leaving our office after a meeting and heading home to the SE corner of the state. I was riding with another agent, Carl and it had been snowing for a while. We both wanted to be home, for the weekend with our families so we pushed on. We contacted the State police on our radio to check the highway [Interstate 90] conditions and the Trooper we talked to told us they were getting ready to close the highway as the conditions were worsening by the minute. Carl asked if we could make it home and the Trooper replied that we might be able to but advised against it. There wasn’t going to be much snow and we thought that we could handle a little wind. Well we were “Super Agents” 30 years old and no fear of ever dying so we pushed on.

The following quote is from NOAA about the “Worst Blizzard of the Century” in South Dakota just to set the stage so that I can show you what true idiots we were.
The blizzard of Jan. 10-11, 1975 was widely considered to be the worst blizzard of the century in this area. There was only 7 inches of snow measured at Sioux Falls, but wind gusts were up to 70 mph, wind chills were down to 70 below zero, and visibilities were below a quarter mile at the airport for 24 straight hours. There were 8 deaths in South Dakota during the storm, …….. Two college students from Sioux Falls died from exposure when their car stalled 3 miles east of Sioux Falls. A 2000 foot high broadcast tower east of Sioux Falls collapsed due to the storm. Livestock loss was an estimated 10 to 15 thousand head.

So Frick and Frack push on. When we got up on the interstate we were much more exposed than we had been and we were now 20 miles from the State Capitol in Pierre. For those of you that are familiar with this general area you are aware of the fact that there is absolutely nowhere to really go to sit down and have a coffee and talk about it. We were in trouble and we knew it. The only way we could tell where we were on the highway was because I could see the edge of the road, which was gravel, by looking sideways out my window. Looking straight ahead was pure white. “A little bit right Carl” I would say “little bit more” as Carl seemed to prefer the center of the road. The only problem with that was the trucks passing us that didn’t seem to have a problem seeing the road? It was getting worse the further we drove. We had made about 175 miles and our luck was running out. “A little bit Right Carl, a little bit more” as I started to get nervous, “Your drifting right, way to far, turn right Carl, right now, HARD RIGHT CARL, HARD RIGHT” I shouted but it was too late. Carl had gotten Vertigo and drove right into the median. We were as stuck as stuck could be. No digging out, no pushing, just no nothing as we stood outside the car, in the 70 mph winds, trying to figure our options. Our Guardian Angel arrives. A mortician that Carl knew pulls up and offers us a ride, Hooray. We grab our guns, lock up the car and jump in with the Mortician. Well, we still can’t see except when we looking out the side windows and telling the Mortician how to steer. Finally we see a restaurant just off the road on an off ramp and decide to stop and have a coffee. We had come about 200 miles but we still had miles to go before we slept and none of us wanted to sleep on the floor of a restaurant for the night. I called into the town of Salem, about ONE mile away, and they still had a room in a Hotel so I reserved it and told them we would be there in about ½ hour as we were having coffee. We took off for Salem and immediately found that conditions were way worse. We were headed due north and just couldn’t see but the road was a gravel road and was a good one. I was hanging out of the drivers window staring at the gravel on the edge which helped us navigate. It was really cold and I would pull my head back in because of a blinding headache. I would have to literally break the ice that formed a mask over my face and forehead. Each time I was in terrible pain. Carl and I were trading off. He was in the back seat and having the same problems. Shortly I was hollering at our Mortician driver to slow down but he kept ignoring me and I hollered again to slow down. He said “Ted I am completely stopped”. I looked a different way and could see that he was. I had been watching the snow and the gravel on the side of the road and was suddenly concentrating on the snow which was traveling at 70 miles per hour over the gravel. It was my turn to get vertigo. We started back up but suddenly the car stopped as it had overheated. We got out and checked under the hood and found a blown radiator hose and that the 70 mph snow had jam packed the engine compartment with snow so hard we could not dig it out as steam was blowing out everywhere and instantly freezing. Once again we were stuck. This was becoming my longest mile ever. [when the storm was over, we checked and we had gone ½ mile in about 30 minutes] As we contemplated our options our Mortician notified us that he was a diabetic and took insulin. Carl and I figured we didn’t need to make him spend the night in a cold car. Carl spotted a yard light about 100 yards away that would disappear and then reappear but we couldn’t tell what it was for. It could have been for an outbuilding with no heat and no food. It could have been for a house but it might be too far to reach. There were a hundred “might be’s” between the three of us that evening as we contemplated everything, including our lives. We were in deep do do and we knew it. The three of us could probably keep the car warm enough to survive but we had no blankets, warm coats, candles, etc. etc. etc. All of the things you should have to keep you alive in a South Dakota blizzard. [The logic of staying in the car was a little bit flawed when you reference the NOAA statement above about the two college students whose car stalled.] My clothing consisted of a suit, topcoat, low cut shoes, no hat and no gloves. My two compatriots were basically in the same condition. We opted to make a “run for it “ towards the light and hope for the best. When I stepped out of the car I kinda figured I was making a mistake and was not going to make it to whatever fate was waiting at the light in the distance. I was overwhelmed by the process of making the decision about our future, which had just taken place in the confines of the warm car. We had made a life or death decision based on not very much knowledge about our real options. I thought about my wife and daughter and how I really wanted to be with them at this moment. About my parents and how I probably wasn’t going to see them again. I prayed. I thought about a lot of things and I imagine it kept me going as we plunged on through the snow, towards the light in the distance, breaking through the crusted snow that had been jammed together by the cold and 70 mile winds. I can still feel how cold it was as the wind whipped around my, now frozen, ears. My hands were totally numb but I can’t remember my feet. My feet were constantly submerged in the deep snow, my shoes were full as we struggled onward, stumbling, and trying to run when the snow was shallow. All I knew is that my feet were still working and that was all that was important. The last 50 yards our Mortician turned and hollered “It’s a house” as the image was just now becoming visible under the light. I was cold, I was tiring and I was praying that there would be lights in the house. We all trudged on, falling and cussing buoyed by the thought it was a house. At 25 yards we could make out a couple of lights in the windows. Carl knocked on the door and a wonderful older woman and her husband were at the door taking us in. It was at this point that I was at my coldest. So cold I was shaking uncontrollable and it took hours for me to get warm and stop shaking. I’m sure that wonderful couple told the story a hundred times about “The night the two DCI agents and the Mortician came by for supper and to stay a few nights”. God Bless them, South Dakota hospitality and the light in the distance.

The Howard Street Gang

I don’t know how old I was but I was old enough to swing a hammer. I was the leader of the Howard St. Gang and had about 3 or 4 members and the other gang, in town, was the Howard St. Girls Gang. You might find this fairly humorous but me and my gang didn’t take it that way. In fact we were really miffed at the Howard St. Girls Gang and wanted them gone. My right hand man LeRoy was doubly miffed because the leader of that gang was his Sister Dorothy Ann and he didn’t like her just on general purposes. We normally wouldn’t have been very concerned with them but we had just had a Gang Fight over a bicycle??? The fight was complete with 1st name calling, then rock throwing, next came some pushing and finally a fist fight between leaders. Me and Dorothy Ann. Bring it on babe!!! Well to make a long story short, and to spare you the gory details I lost. I LOST TO A GIRL!!! I made a few mental notes about fighting in general as I got my butt kicked. 1) LeRoy started this whole thing with his mouth but wasn’t around when the battle started. 2) Girls can’t throw rocks very well and next time we will pick the distance and keep it to rock throwing. 3) Girls can really punch hard but all round house swings so if you can get inside and jab…..

My gang and I immediately started building a fort on our side of Howard St from slabs of logs brought from my fathers sawmill. It was a pretty good fort as I remember it. It was two story as you had a roof to stand on and pitch rocks. I think that the first floor was only about 3x4 and about 3 or 4 feet high so it was tough to hold meetings. I remember that my mother was a little upset about the fort because it was right on the edge of the street and she thought someone would run into it. Besides she thought it was ugly. My dad must have won out on that one because it stayed. The walls came out about 2’ above the top floor and we decided to build a rock throwing machine up there. It was about 3’ long and about 6” wide and the sides were about 3” high. We took strips from a bike inner tube and built a slingshot. Put a rock or rocks in the chute and pull that old inner tube back as far as you could and let go. Those rocks would go across the street and pepper the Howard St. Girls Gang as they walked by on the street. They would scream and run off and we would yell and whoop and laugh obnoxiously. Sounds like a great game if you’re a guy, Huh? Suddenly we ruled Howard St. Eventually the girls figured it out and stole our rock-throwing machine and put it in someone’s outside incinerator and that was the end of that.

We came to tolerate the girls. We had to because there weren’t all that many kids to play with. Every evening, after supper, we had yard games, mainly in our yard. Red Rover was always early and when it started to get dark we would be playing some version of hide and seek and there were a hundred other games we would fit in between. As it really got dark, parents were calling, ringing a bell, blowing a whistle or sending an older brother or sister to fetch. We had one family that had 9 kids and they were all musical. Traveled around playing gigs all over in a limousine type of car except it was homemade. “Gumbo Lilly kids” they were called. All of the kids that played the evening games were either Howard St. Gang members or Howard St. Girls Gang members but we had an unofficial truce. It was certainly a much more gentler time but soon summer was over.

Mary Ann was 1 year older than I was and her school started one day earlier than mine. I saw her when she came back from the 1st day and she was wearing a dress, had her hair combed and was wearing her first bra. Needless to say, no more fighting and no more rock throwing and if LeRoy wanted to call her names that was his business. I was dumb struck by the “New” Mary Ann and that was that.

1st cop job

In 1970 I had been out of the Navy for 2 years, married for 3 years, had a one year old baby, lived in a new FHA 235 house, worked for my father at his sawmill making 5cents an hour above minimum wage and all of this was in my hometown in South Dakota. There was an opening on the local Police Department and I jumped at it. There were no fingerprints taken, no photo’s and no background investigation. I was given 2 sets of pants [wool], one dress jacket [wool] and 4 shirts. A gun belt complete with handcuffs and holder, can of mace and holder, 12 bullet holders and one holster.
The firearm issued was a Colt Python, 357magnum. I was given (image placeholder)1 box of practice ammunition, 1 box of Super Vel’s 180grain hollow points and 2 rounds of some type of armor piercing ammunition. I was told to get familiar with the gun but only shoot a few rounds of the Super Vel’s to get use to the kick and the noise and none of the armor piercing. Those two rounds went into the ammo holder on the belt along with Super Vel’s. Another officer gave me a couple of extra boxes of practice rounds and I headed out to the range that was a dry creek bed outside of town. Big rocks for lots of ricochet dodging practice. My wife joined me and we spent the afternoon practicing. Now I had spent most of my life shooting something but I couldn’t shoot a pistol. Started with my BB gun, next my Remington .22 single shot rifle, had a colt .22 single six revolver, 16 gauge shotgun, 12 gauge shotgun, 10 gauge lever action goose gun. Still couldn’t shoot worth a damn with a pistol. I could drop 20 or 30 targets in a row thrown in the air with my rifle, qualified through all of the NRA badges for rifle before I was 16, could shoot skeet with the best. Hunted for years for pheasants, duck, geese but I couldn’t shoot worth a damn with a pistol. I tried and every time my wife got to shoot she would out shoot me. We would keep this as our very own little secret because I was off to be a Policeman.

My partner Wayne taught me everything else I needed to know. Pursuit driving, felony takedowns, all of the law I needed to know. Choke holds, which were still allowed I think. The typical training shift was 8 at night till 4 in the morning so we could get in on all of the action. On my third night we got into a chase with a broken down 56 Chevy that was running lights and driving erratic. 2 AM it was and Wayne and I were in hot pursuit all over town. The car went up on the interstate headed for Rapid City about 25 miles away. It was a really slow chase as 60 mph was all his car would go. I was really disappointed because I didn’t get to hear and feel the acceleration as those 4 barrels kicked in. We ran used Highway Patrol cars. When we pulled alongside he would try and ram us, forcing us off the road so Wayne devised a plan. He would pull up behind, shift to the left lane and I would shoot the rear end out??? Now that seemed like the most cockeyed plan I had ever heard of, especially when you take my shooting prowess with a pistol into consideration. I had no desire to be shooting at cars and people at 2 in the morning for traffic offenses. I told Wayne I wouldn’t do it especially since I had no (image placeholder)experience with my pistol. Wayne then pulled his pistol out, [he was a lefty] slid to the right with the car, told me to take the wheel and took a shot at the rear end. Flames jumped out of that .357 about 6 feet and it scared the bejevies out of me. He missed, as we could see the sparks and the bullet hit the pavement below the rear end. Didn’t make much difference as the car soon slowed down and then stopped with a mighty puff of smoke. We got everyone rounded up and in cuffs after a major battle and ½ can of Mace. Then I noticed that one of the kids had a fresh cut on his arm. Said he got scared and was down on the floor and he must of cut himself down there. It wasn’t a cut it was a sear and tear mark made by a .357 bullet that had bounced off the pavement through the floorboards, slightly tearing his arm as it went by, through the firewall and through a radiator hose, and lodged in the radiator, which quickened the slow death of the car. That was almost the end of my Police career. After about a month I was well trained and got my own shifts. (to be continued)

T F Stern's Rantings

T F Stern's Rantings
Another good Blog by an older person.

SunsetMan

SunsetMan He blogged me and I blogged him. Worth the read.

Colonoscophy

The president has absolutely nothing to do with this posting but it sure makes a great lead.The following message was left as a comment on my posting about my recent stress test ”Now ‘Old man muser’ what you say we compare ‘Colonoscopies’.I'll be polite and let you begin. Best regards and continuing GOOD health from:A grumpy old 63 year old.” This is not my favorite subject to write about but I feel I must. If you are going to soon have a Colonoscophy I would advise you not to read this posting.

I had one because my Dr. said I was 60 years old so I needed one. He asked me who I wanted and I replied that I didn’t care and so he recommended a Dr that was in the building and I said Ok. When I told my wife she came unglued as she knew this woman Dr that was suppose to be the best around and she had never heard of the one I picked. “There is something un-American in the whole concept of having a female stick something up my butt to see if I am sick or not” I shouted. “But she is the best” she equally shouted. [She is really good at this equally shouting thing and it kinda takes the bite out of my shout] “Well it is never going to happen to this butt,” I quietly added. She refrained from answering and only smiled. That must mean I won the argument.

I went to meet the Doc and didn’t really like him. Something about him that I didn’t trust but I went ahead with the whole thing anyway. It was done at the local hospital and I had spent the evening before drinking fowl stuff and taking things to clean me out. Guess it worked because they let me take the test. Don’t remember much because they put me out with something. [My wife would add at this juncture “Probably a club”] I awoke in the middle of the procedure with all sorts of people around the world’s worst gut ache and me. There was a Nurse holding my head telling me “breath deep, it will be over in a few more minutes”. I remember breathing as deep as I could and the pain would not go away and like I would go to sleep again and wake up with this gut ache. Finally it was over and I was in the recovery room when I woke up. I remember the Dr. coming in and saying that they didn’t find anything and left and then the Nurse came back in. “Are you OK?” she inquired? “I thought we were going to loose you in there”. “What” I asked “What are you talking about, because the Dr. came in and said everything went well and I was OK.” She told me how my blood pressure had bottomed out from too much medication as I was responding badly to the pain. The Dr. was doing something wrong and I was being given more and more pain medication to counteract it until they couldn’t give me anymore. That was why I woke up and the Nurse was saying breath deeply, and that was the end of the procedure. Wow. I was way to groggy to fully understand all of this. I went to my regular Doctor and told him what had happened. He told me not to worry because they pulled that Drs, right to practice at the hospital and he had left town…………..What the Hell! When I told my wife about all the details she said those three little words. ”Told you so” and that was the end of that.

Shopping

I must depart from remembering for at least a couple of postings because it makes my head hurt. I’ll jump to the present for a while. Today I got appointed steward of the shopping cart and a 1st for me. First of all I hate shopping at large shopping malls and large stores anywhere. Today there were to many people, doing to many things, making to much noise and I am to old to enjoy it. For some unknown reason I agreed to accompany my wife to The Christmas Tree Shop. For those of you that might not be aware of this particular store, it is called New England’s Bargain Store and sells all sorts of different things such as glassware and art supplies, toys and gourmet cooking supplies. Right off the bat I got lost, I guess, as we were standing outside the bathrooms and I announced “I gotta go and I will be right back”. She replied “me too but I’ll wait until you come out.” [this is because her purse was in the cart and someone needed to guard the cart]. When I came out, I expected to see her waiting for her turn to go in but she was gone, kidnapped, vanished off the face of the store. I searched and searched while I kept an eye on the bathroom area where I figured she might return to if she was indeed not kidnapped. I was looking for security when she appeared around the corner of an isle acting as if nothing had happened. Non-chalet if you will. Could she possible be having an affair, meeting someone when she dumped me? The questions were rising. “Where have you been” I charged. Shopping “she replied “what did you think, that someone kidnapped me or something?” I didn’t respond. “I have to go to the bathroom so you stay here and watch my purse”. I saw that one coming.

Usually when we enter a store, my wife grabs a cart so she can have something to lean on when she is decision making. She will lean with her front arms resting on the cart, slowly perusing the prizes that lie ahead but this is serious shopping and one of her favorite stores so she has no reason to rest and a cart is just in her way. All she wants a cart for is a tool to hold her purse and jacket. That is where I come in. Serious shopping is the order of the day as the cart is ½ full already and the cart has been turned over to me as the steward. My God, I have been appointed Shopping Cart Steward [SCS for short]. What should I do? I start following behind her, making short turns that require me to pick the back end of the cart up to make the turns. Remembering always to stay on the right as I progress down the aisles or complete order breaks down. Gridlock will occur and anarchy will set in. Suddenly my wife turns on me threatening “I said to watch the cart and my purse not follow me everywhere”. She continues “You wait here so I know where to find you”. Oh No it is tough enough to negotiate the store while moving but now I have been ordered to stop and wait. I have become a roadblock, an impedance to orderly traffic flow. Everyone has to go around me and they all say things or just give me the eye, the evil eye. “I’m the SCS,” I offer apologetically to all who will listen and they all look at me rather weirdly, cocking their heads as they go by. A lot of whispering as people go by. By now I am half expecting to see store security show up and escort me out of the store. My wife looks around the corner and says “You have to keep up!” “I was on the other side of the store and you were no where to be found.” Go figure? In a few minutes she tells me to wait and she will be right back. Once again I am a traffic hazard. Ahead of me is another traffic hazard, guarding his shopping cart. Another SCS, Hooray! I make small talk but I don’t get much of a response. Only guttural noises emanate from this life form. Right away I can tell that he has been doing this for a long time as I quickly check his full cart. He could have been here all day and maybe his wife forgot him and went home? A fear of mine also. I chance moving and setup around the corner as there really shouldn’t be two impedances in a row, what with orderly flow and all. Later my wife returns and is upset that I have moved. Looked all over the store for me???? Now she wants me to follow her as we are going to do quick sweeps all over the store for items she might have missed the 1st time around. I can’t keep up without knocking over store displays and little children so she takes the cart from me. My God, she is knocking over store displays and little children.

Time for revenge. My wife has a habit of talking to me as she walks but while she is ahead of me, so I have no idea of what she is saying. We’re in a store and she is talking about shopping and if I could understand her I wouldn’t care what she was saying. I just make guttural noises and all is OK as long as I don’t ignore her. My favorite trick is to wait until she is stopped and doing her talking to me with her back turned trick and there are more shoppers around us and I just slip away but usually only far enough to watch. She will suddenly turn around and find some stranger standing there who is now looking at her with his head cocked as she makes some feeble, embarrassed, explanation. She always says “where did you go as I was just talking to some stranger and I thought it was you behind me.” I respond “sorry dear, I just stopped to look at something”. As we continue shopping, I have a grin from ear to ear. It makes the trip worth it and it has been working for 39 years.

Mr. Completely: Joke for the Week End

Mr. Completely: Joke for the Week End: "FINALLY SOMEONE HAS CLEARED THIS UP . . .

For centuries, Hindu women have worn a spot on their foreheads.

We have always naively thought that it had something to do with their religion.

The true story has recently been revealed by the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

When one of these women gets married, she brings with her a dowry. On her wedding night, the husband scratches off the spot to see if he has won either a convenience store, a gas station, a donut shop, or a motel in the United States."

one red paperclip

one red paperclip Well worth the trip

My Chemistry set

I need to start this posting out with a disclaimer: KIDS, PLEASE DO NOT TRY ANY OF THE FOLLOWING EXPERIMENTS AT HOME AS THEY COULD POSSIBLE KILL YOU OR SOMEONE AROUND YOU OR RESULT IN THE LOSS OF A FINGER, LIMB OR EYE OR CAUSE SERIOUS ILLINES!
In an earlier post I had told about being removed from my cozy nursery room to the basement. The basement became my bedroom and I soon found out that it was a good thing not a bad thing. I had reached an age where I would just as soon be away from the older members of my family as much as possible. Not that I disliked them but because everything I did was followed with the postscript NO! But down in my bedroom, I was the king. My brother was occasionally down, working on his chemistry set, and that was cool. My mom came down once in a while to gather food from the root cellar or from the storage boxes for other items such as ketchup and toilet paper. The huge appetites of my two older brothers and myself had forced her into buying food and cleaning supplies by the case.

I wasn’t allowed to touch my brothers chemistry set but I could sure imagine how neat it would be when I became a world renowned chemist with my own lab and staff all working together solving problems. Finally I got my own “Gilbert” chemistry set. The photograph doesn’t do it justice. It wasn’t nearly as great as my brother’s set but then he was 6 years older than I was. That would all change very soon. His interests in life were changing and chemistry was not nearly as important to him as girls [yuk], sports and cars. I was right there to pick up the abandoned chemistry set along with his notes. At about the same time, my older brothers friend brought over another chemistry set for me that he no longer used. My basement was quietly being transformed into a world-class chemistry lab. LET THE EXPERIMENTS BEGIN!!!!! My friend Steve was my lab partner. We were very short of glass wear and things like that so we went to our local Dr’s office and asked what we might have that they didn’t need anymore. The head nurse always gave us access to a drawer in one of the cabinets where all of the used needles, syringes, IV bottles, etc. were kept awaiting disposal. We even had some partially filled bottles of things like Polio vaccine, penicillin to add to our chemistry sets for some reason or other. Things have changed a bit since then. We used the syringes and needles mostly for oiling things.

We went through our books doing experiments with our sets until there were no more to do. So we turned to Gunpowder!A local pharmacists was very interested in furthering our adventures in the world of chemistry and helped us any way that he could. He would teach us about what was happening in our chemical reactions and with the ingredients if we were running out. He would help us with designing new ones, buying ingredients and with purchasing lab ware. He even got us the charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter to make gunpowder the old Chinese way and we were off and running. We made it in large quantities constantly experimenting with different formulas to get the right mix. We would light long piles of it and watch it crawl across the floor like a fuse [just like in the cowboy movies] or add different chemicals making the flame yellow or green or red as we chose. We found we could melt sulfur and use it to make molds. We heard that saltpeter was put in the food at camp so that young boys left the young girls alone. When we went to church camp we were the chemistry wizards with all of the answers. “Of course that was true”. The biggest problems with the gunpowder experiments were that they stunk really badly. Soon we were banned outside to burn the gunpowder. We made brightly glowing crystals and things that even grew in the test tubes. We did pretty well with our experimenting until lighting struck my house one summer afternoon. Immediately the neighbors thought lightning struck because of our experiments in the basement. The local Volunteer Fire Department showed up and the Chief quizzed me as to what we were doing in the basement. The nice old lady from across the street yelled at me because lightning and fire were dancing on her stove and it was my fault. Even our friendly Pharmacists quizzed me, the next time I was in the store with “Just what were you and Steve making down there”. At least the police never came by but we were forced to cool our heels for a while.

Our interests turned to Potassium Nitrate as a possible ingredient to add to the gunpowder mixture. We started putting the new mixture in used shotgun shells, along with a fuse. We would light the fuse and run like hell. Nothing! We were able to make small firecrackers out of our gunpowder mixture by wrapping them very tightly in newspaper with a wick but that was about it. What we really didn’t understand was that our new ingredient Potassium Nitrate was also known as saltpeter which we were already adding.

We attempted to make a pipe bomb for a while, not because we knew what a pipe bomb was but the “filling the shotgun shell thing wasn’t working” and we had to try something different. We had a piece of threaded pipe and a cap but we didn’t know how to seal up the other end with the fuse in it. Bingo….fill it with lead but we didn’t have any lead we could melt and use. It never dawned on us to take a fishing sinker and melt it down. All we could think of was the lead in our .22 shells would work. While I was gone, Steve decided to melt some lead for our bomb. He put some .22 shells in his mother’s skillet and turned on the heat [you have to know how this is going to come out don’t you]. The heat exploded one of the .22 shells and it dented the frying pan and while Steve was ducking the bullet entered a cabinet door. Steve’s mother never did figure out what happened to her frying pan. By this time, Steve and I both had become very adept at distorting the truth. Einstein’s we were not. The world and we were probably very lucky we couldn’t make our “Bombs” work. There was no Internet to get advice from, our friendly Pharmacists would not help and the library didn’t have any books on the subject. We were left stocking up with M-80’s and Cherry Bombs on the 4th of July instead. As bad as those things are they were probably a lot safer than what we would have created.

Steve and I both, some how lived to, advanced to High School and more Chemistry along with Biology. What we were most interested in was access to all of the chemicals and experiments. Best of all, MERCURY. We had no access to mercury except we knew that the Chemistry supply room had it in stock. We immediately managed to borrow some for our experiments. There really weren’t very many experiments that we could do that were outside the classroom so we just did those. We would also roll it around on the desk and then notice that it turned our coins shiny and if you carried one of the shiny coins in your pocket it turned the rest of you coins shiny also. It probably also gave us some high levels of mercury poisoning while we were doing it. Please read the following warning. Warning: Mercury is the second most toxic element on earth to plutonium. Toxicity of mercury has been linked to many different diseases, including autism, learning disabilities, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, arthritis, depression, and bipolar disorder. The amount of mercury found in one mercury thermometer is enough to pollute a small lake. Why we didn’t lose a hand or a finger or were poison to death was beyond me but we didn’t. The God of immortality, childhood recklessness and stupidity was always with us and more than once, in the years since, I have found fit to thank him for letting us keep all of our limbs, fingers and lives. Many times including right now as I remember all of this.

Steve went on to become teacher and taught kids for years in Nevada along with fighting fires with the BLM during his off time. Steve is now retired. In 1962 I entered the USN, volunteered for submarines and became an Engineering Lab Technician. ELT’s took care of radiation control and monitoring and responsible for all of the Nuclear water chemistry for the reactor as well as all of the steam chemistry. In fact I became Leading ELT for the USS Snook (ssn592). Kinda scary isn’t it?

What made us tick

What made us tick was living in the middle of the area surround by Bear Butte, Fort Meade, Ellsworth AFB, Sturgis, and the Black Hills. The butte raises 1253 feet above the surrounding plains, is a lacolith, and is a major center for hundreds of Indian tribe’s religious concerns and it is 5 Miles from Fort Meade. I had already climbed the Butte at least a dozen times including one trip up on the back of a burro. Trips up on Easter morning and camping trips on top and at the base. Trips up with my Scout patrol to send smoke signals, to other scouts located, back home, 7 miles away.

One mile away, from the Butte, was Bear Butte Lake and also our swimming pool. During the hot summer days we were at the pool constantly. A small bus left from town every morning, heading to the pool for swimming classes and back at noon. After the required one-hour delay after eating, to prevent cramps, we all headed back for the afternoon. There was no bus in the afternoon so we hitchhiked or walked the 7 miles. If you walked you had to be alert for rattlesnakes, bulls and electric fences. If we had a newcomer in the hike we would get into a discussion about electric fences and then always dare them to pee on the fence. Usually they would accept the dare and what fun that would be. Our pool was a large, sand lined affair with a 9’ depth by the diving boards. It wasn’t very good sand as you couldn’t see more that 3 or 4 feet. Tough on lifeguards trying to see someone in trouble. I remember a few people drowning. I also remember one of our lifeguards breaking his neck when he tried to jackknife dive off the lifeguard stand, on a dare. Not much for filtration as the water ran in from an artesian well on one end and overflowed into the lake on the other but it had a sand beach with plenty of room to show off and get into trouble.

The Fort, today, is a large Veterans Hospital but originally was a Calvary Fort with a duty to keep white settlers out of the religiously important Black Hills after gold was discovered by General George Custer in 1876. They couldn’t stop the miners so then they had to protect the miners from the Indians. It was from Ft. Meade that General Custer and his famed 7th Calvary launched his ill-fated foray into Indian Territory at the battle of the Little Bighorn. Between Sturgis and Ft. Meade was an old Calvary cemetery that held many survivors [General Reno’s troops] of that infamous battle. Ft. Meade still has all of the old buildings such as the old barracks, stables, officer quarters and parade grounds. The area abounds in arrowheads, rifle and pistol casings.

The one mile from my house to Ft. Meade was forest with sandstone cliffs and Bear Butte Creek. First you had to conquer Webers Hill, which was a private dairy farm, always being vigilant for Mr. Weber and his blue Ford Tractor because it was said he would chase you out with it if he caught you on his property. I saw Mr. Weber many times in my treks to the battlefields but he never chased me, he just waved. Sometimes the enemy was just made up, sometimes the enemy was other friends who had gone up earlier but best of all was “Tourist Kids” who were checking the area out with some local friends. We could shadow this enemy for hours without them ever knowing about us until they hit a clearing and we would attack! Coming out of the woods on a dead run, waving our BB guns and shouting war hoops. We would usually scare the enemy into submission and then charge off into the woods again to disappear like the wind from which we came. It was a real high for us and we could tell tales about a successful encounter with “Tourist Kids” for hours on end. During our other battles, our friends would sometimes go up first and we would later follow hoping to kill or capture all of them. First we reached the cover of the Cottonwoods in the gulleys and dry washes on the way up. Next came the comfort of the tall Ponderosa Pines, which were good for reconnoitering the enemy who were always camped on top of the sandstone cliffs. Storming the cliffs was always the toughest part. Our weapons of choice were Red Ryder BB guns. During these battles you usually wore a few more clothes because those BB’s really hurt. It was a battle based on trust because you had to report a hit, which meant being “Hit” by a BB. The hit was usually obvious as it was almost always followed by a loud “ow!” and a red welt that could be inspected if there was a question. If you were hit in the arm or leg, you could continue playing but the appropriate limb could not be used. Today’s paintballers had nothing on us. Why no one ever lost an eye was beyond me but they didn’t. The God of immortality and childhood recklessness was always with us and more than once, in the years since, I have found fit to thank him for both of my eyes, many times.
yesterday----today
My group was our Boy Scout Troop 14 patrol called The Panther Patrol. We could be a Calvary squad or a Sioux raiding party at the blink of an eye. The name Panthers worked well with either choice. This was our backyard and we were free to roam in it as we saw fit. If this wasn’t enough, all we had to do was turn right, as we entered our battlefields and we were on the outer edges of Ellsworth Air Force Base watching B17 [The Flying Fortress], F-84 Fighters or B-36’s take off and land in the distance and there were no fences. We even had our own UFO incident at Ellsworth and over our town to further fertilize our little minds. It wasn’t much of a leap for me and my friends to become Indian braves, Fighter Pilots or Calvary soldiers and fight many a mighty battle for imaginary prizes.

Our town was an old colorful military town with famous characters such as Poker Alice and we were only 9 miles from the wild, west, town of Deadwood with Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane. This was certainly sensory overload for young boys with imaginations locked into high gear. Our Sheriff sang, played guitar, rode a horse and wore six guns on his hip. Our Chief-of-Police rode a Harley. This is a good segue as 14 years later I would be back in Sturgis, fresh from the US Navy playing real life good guys and bad guys as Chief-of-police. I didn’t ride a Harley but we were chasing them down with “Big Engine” Chevy’s and Dodge’s that would hit 140 mph plus as the bad Harley riders tried to outrun us in the mountains or open prairie. We weren’t using Red Ryder BB guns but .357 Colt Pythons and shotguns. I had grown up……sort of. The groups were no longer called the Panther Patrol but were Calif. Hell’s Angeles, Colorado Sons of Silence and Banditos from everywhere. Six of us and six reserves were keeping the peace with a hundred thousand motorcycle enthusiasts, from all over the country at the 1970 Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. We were backed up by the State Police and the Meade County Sheriff. We did it and lived to write about it and the bikers all had a good time. Sounds like the making of another posting to me.

BB guns and Baseballs

When you read “MY first BB Gun” posting you would get the idea that I was really a baby because of all that crying. That was such a traumatic event for me that I had a really tough time presenting it to the world in the form of a blog. I feel better since I wrote about it because for 52 years I didn’t even talk about it. My mother returned my BB gun to me the following summer and I had never once asked for it back. To a 10 year old there are just some things that are wrong and that was wrong because I directly disobeyed my mom and also God and I killed something and I really new that was wrong. When I got my BB gun back the one thing I didn’t do was shoot at birds. Windows and people [especially my two older brothers when they were bending over were still fair game. Shoot them and run like Hell] were still on the ‘mom’ list but I never felt badly about violating those items. Maybe I didn’t think that shooting my brothers in the butt was on God’s list or something like that. I think I learned to replace windowpanes at about the age of 11. Dad said that if I broke the window I could use my money [lawn mowing and newspaper route money] to buy new glass and replace the windows. When I first got caught I had 10 windows to replace. By the end of 10 windowpanes, I was pretty good at it. That knowledge really paid off for us after a baseball game at a local church. A couple of times a week we would play a pick-up baseball game in a neighborhood church’s side yard. During one game a foul tip went bad and hit a window in the kitchen of the church. We all took off like our pants were on fire and then later three of us went back and surveyed the problem and how to solve it. We figured if we fixed the window, no harm done and we wouldn’t be in trouble. I was off and returned with my “measuring stick”, window putty and glazing points. The door was open and in we went and found our ball and the broken window. One of the guys stayed and cleaned up the glass while LeRoy and I headed for Mr. Anderson’s hardware store. I walked in with my measurements and Mr. Anderson quickly said “shooting windows with that new Red Ryder BB Gun again, are we Teddy”, “No sir” I responded, “Just a little accident with a baseball”. Mr. Anderson cut the new piece of glass and didn’t ask me any more questions. That was good because Mr. Anderson was a member of that church. LeRoy and I were sweating bullets the entire time and then we quickly returned and replaced the glass. It looked like a first class job and no one would be the wiser. The next day, five of us headed for the church for some practice and when we got there we realized we did not have the ball. We had left it inside the kitchen yesterday. We decided to risk a return in side but when we got to the back door to go inside we saw our ball on the back steps and the Pastor had autographed it for us.

The ghosts of 1953

Very few people, except us old folks, remember the summers of 1952 and 1953 when a disease called Polio silently knocked down our friends, siblings and even the President of the United States, a few years earlier. It was a horrible disease to be singled out by, as it left its victims crippled or confined in an Iron Lung for the rest of their lives. It struck without warning and how the virus was spread was and still is a mystery. It struck with all of its might in the months of July and August. The polio epidemic created hysteria in all of our parents and for want of anything else to do some did not allow their children to attend carnivals, circus’s, the city pools and anything else where people gathered. I had friends, brothers of friends, a girl down the street, relatives all attacked by the vicious virus. Some were left with braces, others with casts and some nothing at all. All of those attacked, that I knew of, were about my age. My parents packed us up in August and we headed for the mountains, away from the sweltering masses in our little rural town of 4,000, away from the virus, hiding from the ravages of Polio.

Legion Lake, in Custer State Park, The Black Hills of South Dakota was where we landed. It was about an hours drive from my fathers Sawmill and he would commute a couple of times during the week, bringing bookkeeping work for my mother and to stay overnight or the weekend. We stayed in a rustic cabin on the mountain. I always waited anxiously for word that he was joining us as it would mean we would be eating out somewhere or attending a play or just going for a long drive and I could be mesmerized by my fathers tales of the gold miners that used to inhabit the area.

A summer at Legion Lake was like a dream come true for a wee lad of 10. “Back in those days” we ‘wee lads’ were allowed to roam free with but a promise to come back for lunch and not to do anything bad while we were gone. Heaven. My brothers were much older than I was and always quickly ditched me to do things that a little guy around would only ruin. I was also known to tell on them when they did bad things. There I was, alone with only a beautiful lake and fishing, mountains, timber, horses and lots of animals to keep me company. A child’s dream, I think. There was also Andy, whose parents ran the place and the tourist kids that would arrive from time to time to carry on the adventures and dreams and there was Badger Clark.

Mr. Clark was the poet- Laureate of South Dakota. He eventually decided to live and write in the central Black Hills in a simple cabin, near French Creek, made of logs by and nicknamed “the Badger Hole.” I had visited Mr. Clark several times but only with my brothers as I was not allowed to go alone, not because my mother was scared of Mr. Clark but rather scared of me. I had a pretty good reputation, by this time, of badgering [no pun intended] people for hours on end. She was sure I would be able to, single-handed, give him writers block. I’m sure I would have, as I remember being fairly intense about this time.

During the end of our stay, I remember one very hot August day when I was very bored. There was no one to hang out with, Andy had to work, no tourist kids were in camp and my brothers had managed to dump me, so I decided to visit Badger Clark. I wouldn’t let him know I was there. I could sneak up on him just like an Indian Brave and watch him and my mom would never know. Mr. Clarks house was just a short trail up from my beloved Legion Lake. Like a brave Sioux warrior I walked up the edge of the trail, ever mindful that even the smallest crack of a branch on the ground could give my position away to the dreaded soldiers of General Custers 7th Calvary who would surely capture me. They would haul me, by my feet, with a rope tied off to a nearby tree and begin to interrogate me to find the rest of my raiding party [my brothers]. I was sure that I would not be able to stand it when they put the red ants on my body. Maybe if I gave up their positions, the soldiers would cut me free and let me go. It was best that I didn’t get caught. Suddenly I was confronted by two people, walking the trail back from Mr. Clarks house. I panicked and dove into the underbrush except there was no underbrush only grass. I remember feeling naked. The man stopped and reached down and picked me up and inquired as to if I was hurt. Captured!!!! I was mortified, humiliated and a disgrace to my race. I hung my head in shame but the people left and I was again alone wondering why I had not been shot?? My mission was all that counted and again I was on my way to Mr. Clarks house. This time I vowed to not be taken alive, and shortly the house was in sight. Mr. Clark was sitting outside on a home made wooden chair. His white hair, long pointed goatee, and western dress made me sure that I had stumbled on some type of high level meeting. Maybe this man was really General Custer and I had stumbled on war strategy being relayed or planned. The man and woman listening to the man with the white hair were staring intently at Mr. Clark and were hanging on his every word. I couldn’t hear anything that was being said and I needed to get closer. Silently I was slinking through the brush and tall pines and with each step getting closer and closer, now hearing mumbling and an occasional word but I needed to get closer. It was dangerous work but I kept myself under control as I approached the side of the house. Then I was there and edged towards the corner so I could better hear the secret conversations but the air was silent. What happened, where did everyone go, had I been discovered? My heart was pounding in my ears, my hands felt cold but my shirtless body was soaked with sweat. Every nerve in my body was trained on the silence. I slowly ventured a peek around the corner. Just as I looked, I felt the barrel of an 1873 Springfield “Trapdoor” Calvary Carbine, being poked in my back. It must be a Calvary lookout that I had not seen. I was dead! I let out a war hoop [of sorts] and flew towards the trail, bending over as I ran looking for cover along the way. I looked back only once and noticed an old man, waving a cane or a stick at me and laughing loudly. My “Keds” couldn’t propel me fast enough. I never revealed this story to anyone as discovery would mean I had failed plus I had not obeyed the orders of my superiors and would be subject to the worst forms of torture [my fathers belt] when I got back to camp. This was to be a very silent reconnoitering mission. I never saw Mr. Badger Clark again as he died about 4 years later.

A Cowboy's Prayer
(written for Mother)
Badger Clark

Sun and Saddle Leather
Badger Clark Memorial Society
© 1993





Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow.
I loved creation better as it stood
That day You finished it so long ago
And looked upon Your work and called it good.
I know that others find You in the light
That's sifted down through tinted window panes,
And yet I seem to feel You near tonight
In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.

I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well,
That You have made my freedom so complete;
That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell,
Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street,
Just let me live my life as I've begun
And give me work that's open to the sky;
Make me a pardner of the wind and sun,
And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.


Let me be easy on the man that's down;
Let me be square and generous with all.
I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in town,
But never let 'em say I'm mean or small!
Make me as big and open as the plains,
As honest as the hawse between my knees,
Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains,
Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze!

Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.
You know about the reasons that are hid.
You understand the things that gall and fret;
You know me better than my mother did.
Just keep an eye on all that's done and said
And right me, sometimes, when I turn aside,
And guide me down the long, dim trail ahead
That stretches upward toward the Great Divide.

Getting old is funny, sometimes

My wife is in a local service organization that helps children and a lot of the members are in there 80’s and 90’s. John is one of the older members and her good friend. They converse almost daily on the phone. John and his wife both have considerable health issues but they persevere no matter how tough things get and the humor seems to keep them going. We ran into another member, who is older than John, at a local restaurant the other day and I inquired about his health when we at last got to sit down at our table and my wife said that it isn’t very good but at least he had stopped driving. I was in shock at the thought of her friend Tom driving a car at 90+ years old. I said, “why did he stop?” and she answered that “he kept passing out and his wife made him stop”. “In fact’ she continued ’he even passed out at the meetings a couple of times”. The last time he went up to the bartender and asked if someone could walk him out to his car and the bartender replied “sure, but we then drive you home”. A big argument ensued but the bar won because Tom couldn’t get to his car by himself. That was the end of the driving. My wife inquired of John if the story was true and John replied “Yes and the time before I walked him out to his car so he could drive home”. She was in shock and said “How can you do that, you’re almost blind, and what if he fell”? John said “ I would search for him with my feet, until I found him and then help him up.”

Don’t know when I started to get old because it just kind of sneaks up on you. You know you are old when:

• The knees don’t bend as well as they use to.


• Your hips hurt a little bit.


• Tougher to get up off the floor or out of the chair. [Not very long ago I was able to get off the floor from a crossed leg position by leaning forward and up and letting my ankles and knees lift me up and now just thinking about that really hurts]


• Don’t sleep as sound as you use to because you have to get up and go to the bathroom 3 times during the night.


• You get serious about getting your flu shot.


• Dentist just pulled another tooth.


• Your on a first name basis with your Dr’s receptionists “Hi Ted, how is that old knee treating you?”


• You went out with one blue sock and one black sock by saying to yourself “no one will notice anyway.“ The young do notice and say “look at that old man over there and I’ll bet you he doesn’t even see the difference.” Well I do see the difference but that brings up another point, as it is not about my eyes, it is about bending over to change my socks. Too much work.


• You have been wearing glasses for years but the last time you were at K-Mart you picked up a couple of pairs of generic reading glasses, just in case, because you can’t read the comic strip in the bathroom anymore.


• You have noticed how all of these ‘Young People” all drive too fast.


• You can’t read the signs on the interstate, at night, until you are right on the exit.


• You now say stupid things like “I don’t remember little things because they are not important to me but I still remember the important things [like what year did Red China get admitted to the UN]


• You recently started carrying around a notebook and pen.


• You are now rewarding inconsiderate drivers by “flipping them of” something you said you would never do. Your daughter yells “DAD”!


• Building birdhouses is your new hobby.


• Store clerks automatically give you the 10% discount [I know people that will refuse the discount because they don’t think of themselves as old]


• You started saying the f-word out loud.


• You have threatened to start carrying around a tape recorder to prove to your spouse that they only think that they told you about things like going to the Jones tonight for supper and cards.


• You try and convince your spouse that the reason you went the way you did to get there, was because you like taking different routes once in a while.


• You’re a card-carrying member of the AARP.

I’ll stop now because if you’re an older person you have your own list and don’t need to be reading mine. If you’re a young person reading this list and chuckling….”Just you wait”.

Daisy Red Ryder BB gun

1953 was a very confusing year for a 10 year old. In 1953 Joseph Stalin died; The Korean War ended; Polio was in its 2nd big year; we still got our major, family, entertainment from a FM radio in the kitchen or living room; Our telephone didn’t have a dial and the number was just 26; It would be the year of my first BB gun. I bugged my mom and dad unmercifully with constant banter, “can I have a BB gun, can I, huh, all my friends have one.” “Can I please, can I”? They finally caved and said OK but I needed to buy it myself. I immediately made tracks for downtown as fast as 10 year old feet in black tennis shoes could possible travel. Right down to Mr. Anderson’s Hardware store where the brand new Daisy Red Ryder 1000 shot Western Carbine resided on the wall. It had a Walnut stock, with a 10” leather strap on a saddle ring and had a blued finish just like a real Winchester .30/.30. Mr. Anderson just watched me and grinned for several minutes because I could not speak until I caught my breath. I then started pointing at the Daisy Red Ryder 1000 and indicated that I wanted it. Mr. Anderson took it off the rack and handed it over to me with a look of suspicion in his eyes. Lovingly I caressed the stock and rubbed the barrel, as I turned the rifle over and over, making sure it had a 10” leather tie on a saddle ring. I think I was now hyperventilating. “Do you have any money?” he asked knocking me out of my trance. I had not thought about money and apologetically responded “No” and I looked down at the floor for relief. “Ted, you have to have money for me to let you have this rifle” he responded and removed the BB gun from my grip. “I’ll have to call your father about this". He went over to the phone and called my father and several times during the call, he turned and looked at me frowning. Mr. Anderson then turned and walked over towards me and placed the rifle under the counter, as my heart sank. Then I noticed a smirk on his face. “Young man your father has agreed to the sale, but I am to keep the BB gun until you give me enough money to pay for it. I will keep it right under this counter, with a note on it saying that it is yours”. “Thank you Mr. Anderson” I blurted out, “I will be back real soon”. That night, around the supper table, we discussed my financial plight and neither of my brothers agreed to give me a loan. Everyone decided that I should mow lawns for the money. We had a gray, reel, mower and the next morning I set out to mow all of the lawns in town. Soon the rifle was mine. When I got my rifle home, my mother right away set down the rules. I would only shoot at targets and never shoot at people, the dog, her flowers, the squirrels or the birds. I agreed but soon my interests wobbled a bit as shooting green army guys was getting boring. I shot at a few birds and didn’t even come close. Then I heard a bird in the tree above me and there was a sparrow chirping happily away sitting on a branch about 6 feet above me. Slowly I shouldered my new Daisy Red Ryder Carbine. I moved very, very, slowly to avoid scaring the bird. I took careful aim and fired. I hit the sparrow right where I was aiming but now my elation quickly turned to panic as the bird fell lifeless at my feet. I didn’t know what to do. I really didn’t want to kill anything and now I had. I poked at the bird with the barrel of my rifle shouting “wake up stupid bird, wake up”. It didn’t move. I was devastated. I picked up the bird and ran into the house, abandoning my rifle and shouting for my mom. The tears were now pouring out of me and were falling on the lifeless bird cradled in my hands when my mom arrived and I sobbed to her what I had done. “I’m sorry mom, you told me I couldn’t shoot birds and I did” and I’m sure my words were about impossible to understand at this point. “I’m sorry mom, I’m sorry”. My mother took me outside and picked up the BB gun and I knew it was gone. I was now sobbing hysterically, not for the gun but for the bird. She put her arm around me and walked me over to the edge of the garden and showed me where I could bury the sparrow and then said “when you bury the bird say a prayer and tell it that your really sorry and I’m sure God will forgive you.” I nodded and thanked my mom and with my bare hands dug a very nice grave for the bird. I didn’t ask for my BB gun back.

Imaginations

Our grandson Sam and his friend Tim come to our house after school and wait until the parents come and get them.  We have lots of snow on the ground including one pile, that I have made with our front end loader, that is 12 to 15 feet high and the boys have attacked it with real vigor. I was shoveling around the yard and had the chance to observe and listen to them in action.  Both are soaked including their underwear.  Both have their jackets open, no hats, no gloves and both have tennis shoes on. There is a path of gloves, hats, coats and knapsacks all the way back to my truck.  Oh ya, the temperature is 31 degrees and the sun is setting. Both were sitting on top of their mountain sucking on big chunks of snow. They have a running dialog going about another dimension and the ghost of Packachura. They are alternating quiet talk and then almost screaming talk as they act out some type of ritual.  I can’t take it any longer, “does anyone want a hot chocolate with me?” “I do, Me to” as they fall off the snow mountain.  We walk to the house and I notice that they are taking about 20 steps forward and about 10 backwards.  I ask “what’s up with that guys?”. Sam answers “Were from another dimension and they keep trying to suck us back!”. “Oh” I respond.  Tim goes on to explain that “not only is Packachura a ghost but he is also the king of their old dimension and he died 1000 years ago”. “Thanks for explaining that Tim” I offer. This dialog continued all through the hot chocolate, the pieces of Honey Ham and the dill pickles.  Enough as my head is swimming and I have a headache.  I just figured out how these remembrances that we write about are created.  They all start out with little boys and little girls with really wild imaginations.

Crabapple Tree

Enjoy some of the fruit of todays Nor'easter.



Even when plowing the 12" from todays storm, you just have to look around to find the beauty.

Coca Cooler

This is my Pop Cooler and I read the blog [see below] and ran outside and took the picture. to help with the nostalga.

For Robert and Mich

I remember a similiar cooler at every Mom and Pop store in our town. A cooling coil kept the water about 33 degrees and you didn't wish to hang around with your hand in the water, visiting. Orange Pop was my favorite. For us South Dakota boys it was called Pop and this was a pop cooler. It became a soda cooler when I moved to New England in 1985. This is a picture in my backyard of my cooler next to our out door fireplace. I use it when we have a yard party to hold the beer. The guys usually stand around, soaking up the suds and wax sentimental over their heritage. Really is a great 'ice breaker'. I have to do something with it because it is starting to rust but it still works as a beer cooler. Mabey I should will it to my son-in-law. He can figure out what to do with it.

This all comes about from reading a blog called The Blog Brothers Click on the hyperlink as it is really a great read.

The Basement Part I

The Basement Part I

The year was 1953: it cost 3 cents to mail a letter and 3 cents to mail a postcard, including the postcard; Gasoline was 29 cents a gallon with an attendant pumping gas for you and washing your windshield; air and water were still free at a filling station; Miss America was Heva Langley from Macon Georgia; and I was 10 years old, fully appreciating the benefits and exploring a new world. I had recently got a new baby brother and by the summer I came to the conclusion that he was going to be OK to have around. No one called me the baby of the family anymore and most people stopped calling me “Little Teddy Ray”. I remember going to the Post Office with my Mother and when we exited the car, a lady that my Mom had not seen for some time, came by shouting “Ruby, Ruby how are you”. I quickly moved to an invisible position behind my Mothers skirt. She carried on for some time and then turned her attention to me. It required her to reach behind my Mother and grab me by the arm pulling me out front. “My goodness, is this Little Teddy Ray”? “No it is not” My body strained to hold the words inside. “My name is Ted” I wanted to scream at this ridiculous, fat, old woman. When she reached over and pinched my cheek, my little body shook with spasms as I fought back the desire to chomp her fingers off and watch her scream in horror, as she would clutch her fingers dripping with blood and realize the error of her ways. God, I hated that name. I had just became Ted when Baby Gary came around but his coming also created a problem for me because I was evicted from my bedroom for him. There was no room for me. I never held that against him because I knew my time was up in “The Nursery” as I was just finishing up 10 years of really good pampering and it was time to pass the torch to “Little Gary Lee” the new baby of the family.

My parents decided that in the summer months I should take up residence in our basement because it was cool and in the winter I could move into the laundry room, as it would be warm. They made it sound like everyone was looking out for me but I didn’t think so. The basement was my first residence and I really didn’t like it. They had provided me with a roll-a-way bed and I didn’t find it very comfortable plus if you didn’t sit on it just right it would fold up on you. The root cellar that was behind my head, had a dirt floor and was responsible for all sorts of crawling things that invaded during the night. The basement was windowless but there was a light, with a pull string over my head. My Mother was a bit of a stickler when it came to conserving electricity and water so the stair light was off and all of the other lights in the house were extinguished when bedtime rolled around. I was not allowed to keep any light on to chase away the creepy, crawly, things. The furnace was located in the other end of the basement and was a converted coal furnace. It was an octopus looking device with arms stretching out everywhere and at night there were two opening into the firebox that glowed like eyes. My imagination conjured up all sorts of different monsters and beings. When the furnace fired, an explosion rattled all of the pipes and fittings while flames escaped around the doors and from other parts appearing like a fire breathing dragon coming alive, belching fire from its eyes, mouth and ears. I would lay in bed motionless expecting all sorts of catastrophe to occur. My bed sheets and the bed would shake to my rhythm that was quickly accelerating knowing that the furnace fan was about to start. The loud click of the switch would signal the start of the event as the basement filled with a high pitch scream, as the fan belt slipped on the pulley, that I could only imagine was some type of shrieking bird trying to escape the confines of the furnace. The shrieking would get higher and higher, almost deafening but also getting quieter and quieter as the great bird accelerated and got further and further from the cage that confined it, leaving only me to battle the furnace ogre. Then as suddenly as it started the shrieking went away leaving only a dull rumbling, like a distant thunderstorm in the pipes, causing them to shake and flex. Shortly the flames would subside, the dragon would go away, the rumbling would stop with only the two eyes glowing dimly as I prayed as hard as I could and tried to convince myself that it was only a furnace. I whimpered and usually fell sound asleep knowing that a monster was sharing my room.

A major problem I had was trying to negotiate the basement and the stairs in the pitch black as I searched for a way out, to go pee. One of my first nights I had to get up but was half asleep and couldn’t find my way out and ended up peeing on a wall. That panicked me and the next morning when I realized what I had done, I rigged up all sorts of strings to my pull light so that no matter how I swung my arm I could turn the light on. Shortly after being banned to the bowels of the house, the heat was turned off for the summer. What a relief as the monsters and birds went away and all I had to contend with were the creepy crawly things attacking from the root cellar. I didn’t mind that as most of the lizards and spiders I had already discovered and considered pretty good friends.

Part of the reason I was so scared of the furnace was from the trauma of trying to light the furnace for the previous heating season. My Dad was away on a business trip and only my Mom and I were home. The house was extremely cold with the first cold snap of the season but my Mother didn’t know how to light the furnace. Finally she called Mr. Katon, our next-door neighbor, and he agreed to come over and give it a try. I remember peeking out from around my mother, at Mr. Katon with a flashlight in his hand and his head pressed up against an opening in the furnace, surveyed the situation. Then he open a valve and I could hear a hissing noise coming from inside the furnace as Mr. Katon put a lighted match to a rolled up newspaper in his hand and then shoved the lighted newspaper into the furnace. Nothing happened and Mr. Katon would remove the burned newspaper with only black, crumbly, ashes falling off to the basement floor. Mr. Katon would shut the valve off, curse and grab another newspaper to try again. Each time my Mother would say “Mr. Katon, please be careful” and I would squeeze up tighter to her. Finally Mr. Katon succeeded. The furnace gave out a great explosion and flames exited every crack and all around Mr. Katon’s head. My Mother and I stared anxiously until Mr. Katon turned to face us and all of the whiskers were gone from his face, it was black and what was left of hair was all curly and singed. Mr. Katon said “there you go Mrs. Dickson, call me if you have any more problems with it”. When he put his hat on to leave, most of his hair fell on the floor. As soon as he left my Mother and I roared endlessly at the plight of poor Mr. Kayton but from that moment on I was scared of the furnace because it had eaten most of Mr. Katon.

Little did I know that the basement would become my sanctuary and my friend. I would learn to box down there, throw knives, hone my marksmanship skills with first my BB gun and then my .22, build bombs [or so we thought], explore the worlds of chemistry and photography and get banned from the basement after I was accused of causing lightning to strike our house.

Medicine man

At 62 one tends to start having a few ailments. I didn’t have any that were very serious except some hypertension and I thought I had a going problem but my Dr said I had a growing problem. He told me to forget about it and we could worry about it later. Easy for him to say. He’s young. Then my little brother Gary’s wife Nancy called me to say he was in the hospital in Iowa undergoing a quadruple bypass following his last heart attack. “His last heart attack”. What the hell is she talking about. Gary is 10 years younger than I am and the perfect picture of health, when last I saw him, about 2 years ago in the Black Hills with his wife. They ate healthy, exercised, were trim, didn’t smoke. He and Nancy were climbing mountains and mountain biking for kicks. We were driving from place to place to meet them. It was true but Gary survived and is now doing just excellent. All of this sent me into a depression as I realized that My Grandfather had died of a heart attack, my father died of a heart attack as did my mother. Not good signs especially since I had hypertension and was now experiencing chest pains when I pushed myself very hard. Time to see the Doc. Its funny but when you call your Dr’s office for an appointment and say that you are experiencing chest pains, they get you right in. Gary the Dr. [he is really a PA] took my blood pressure, had the nurse give me an EKG and sent me home with Nitroglycerine pills, copies of my EKG and an appointment with a Cardiologists for the next day. The Cardiologists had his Nurse take my blood pressure, listened to me with his stethoscope, had another Nurse type give me an EKG [EKG #2]. He sent me on my way but with appointments at the local hospital for more tests. At the hospital I was to undergo “Nuclear Stress Tests”. This was a brand new procedure for this hospital and it was all going to be done in brand, new, sparkling facilities deep in the bowels of the hospital. Also know as the basement. I must say, upfront, that all of the people I came into contact with were extremely nice and polite. The service was 1st class. First I had my blood pressure taken and they left the cuff on for future use. Next came another EKG and then Nurse #1 attempted to find a vein and start an IV. The reader must remember that at this time I have already heard about stress tests from all of my, so called friends, have already assumed that I was soon to have a heart attack and this “stress” test was going to give it to me, and the room was cold. I think that everything on my body had shrunk as far as it could and there were no veins to be had. Nurse #1 tried hard to find a vein three times but to no avail. She hurt me each time which was further causing me stress. In came Nurse #2 to give it a go. Nurse #2 took away the bottle of Nitroglycerine pills that I was clutching in my hand and replaced them with a rubber ball, hung my arm over the table and stuck the needle in with success and no pain. Now it is time for the dreaded stress test. I now have an EKG machine hooked up to me, an IV and a blood pressure cuff and I start off walking on the treadmill. My Cardiologists puts down the magazine he had been reading and comes over to observe and as the walking gets harder and harder, I say to myself, in a sing songie type of voice “Nurses to the left of me, Nurses to the right of me and a Cardiologists right behind”. I go and go and I can’t go any further and holler “Uncle” [see note] and everyone panics. No one had remembered to tell me that I was to go as hard as I could and then tell them I couldn’t go anymore but I still had to go for one more minute and it was Very Important that I keep going for that extra minute [sounds really confusing]. Being I am the trooper that I am, I summoned up my superhuman residual strength and completed the test. During the last minute they were squirting some type of radioactive fluid in my veins via the IV and reading my blood pressure. Everyone was shouting “keep it up” “Don’t quit” “ only 35 more seconds” and I felt someone trying to rip my fingers loose from the handle grip but I was having a balance problem. I had a death grip on the bars but the Nurse taking my blood pressure needed for me to loosen up my grip so she could take my blood pressure. My death grip on the bars included the tube from my blood pressure cuff to her gauge. I relaxed and she pumped and all was well. Anyway the test was over and I reveled in the fact that I was still alive. Nurse #2 then helped me back to the table where everyone removed the electronics and tubes that were hooked up. She then announced that I was to leave and go have a greasy lunch [something to do with my gall bladder I think]. I immediately said “ a double quarter pounder with cheese OK”? When I came back I was put into some type of photo machine and then sent on my way. I quizzed the photographer [also know as Nurse #2] as to what was happening and she stated that the machine was recording the x-rays, I believe, that were given off by the radioactive liquid that had been given to me via the IV and moved forward into my veins and heart through the action of me eating a double quarter-pounder and cheese with fries. See those things are not always bad for your heart. The next day I went back and had more radioactive stuff put in my veins and then was sent out to have a greasy breakfast. 2 eggs, sausage, home fries and toast. Upon return I had more pictures taken. 2 days later I returned to my Cardiologist’s office and had another EKG [#4or #5] and a heart ultrasound. I was then asked where the results of all the tests were to be sent. I didn't have the foggiest idea so I just said “my regular doctor”. Apparently they didn't find anything bad because no one was interested anymore. No more money to be made I guess. My Cardiologist called me in last week and told me that I was OK and I should lose some weight and exercise more. Dr Phil told me that, on TV and it didn’t cost me anything. Wonder what an EKG costs now days? My test didn’t cost me anything except the cost of the two meals. The Dr. and the Nurses all got paid I’m sure but then so does Dr. Phil. I wonder who pays these people. God I’m almost dead, or so it seems sometimes, and I have still got all these questions about life. I really don’t think I am going to live long enough to get them all answered. I’m sending in the receipts for my meals to Blue Cross as they were a necessary part of the testing. Good luck you say?

note: In my youth, growing up in South Dakota, “Uncle” meant “I give up”.

The Black Hills

I am a 62 year old, white male, living in New England and I have a lot to say. This appears to be a great medium for that task and I thank Google for this free opportunity to express myself. I have found that I am a pretty good storyteller and I have 62 years worth of experiences to draw on. Harking back to my sea-going days, these tales were called “sea stories” and always were prefaced with the statement “This aint no shit”. The one thing that sailors have is a lot of free time on their hands, especially in the Submarine Service, and the free time is spent reading, eating, playing acey duecy and weaving elaborate stories with other sailors. Every one of those stories always started out “This ain’t no shit” and I intend on filling these pages with lots of “Sea Stories” in the coming weeks. I will change the names to protect the innocent whenever possible and keep the tales as true as recollection and 62 years of failing memory allows, however I may take a bit of “artistic liberty” from time to time.

. I grew up in the Black Hills of South Dakota and my first work was at my fathers sawmill and in the woods. That was all I knew, except for a brief stint pumping gas at a ‘Standard’ station when gas was .35 cents a gallon, Standard was a brand of Gas, Ethyl and Regular were types of gas and they were called Filling Stations. When you pulled in we gave you gas, checked your oil and water levels, checked your fan belt for cracks, washed your windows and if you wished we checked the tire pressure. Then I was off to the Navy for six years on Diesel and Nuclear Submarines, Vietnam and the Cold War. Since then I have been a Father, Fireman, Ambulance Attendant, Police Officer, Chief of Police, Deputy Sheriff, State Criminal Investigator, Builder, General Manager of a Gift Products company, General Contractor, Grandfather and now I am a Cemeterian. I also hold 3 college degree’s. WOW! No wonder I never made any money.

For those of you that have visited before and wondered where I went I must report “nowhere” except for a brief visit to The Black Hills of South Dakota for our Daughter’s wedding to Michael . We joined them, our Grandson Sam, The Grooms parents, who were our old friends Dale and Sig and a whole host of wedding guests, most of whom were also old friends. Ellen, Sam and Michael all joined together in blessed matrimony, on the South Dakota prairie, under an afternoon sun with Bear Butte as the backdrop. The South Dakota prairie was on Michaels Grandfathers ranch and Bear Butte is also called Mato Paha in the Lakota language and is a place of high religious significance. It couldn’t have been nicer to make a Mother and Father prouder.

My last attempts at blogging, with this blog title, taught me a lot and I am now ready to go on with newer and better things. According to the AARP Bulletin for Dec 05, “Only 0.3 percent of the Internet's estimated 53.4 million bloggers are age 50 or older, according to a recent study by Perseus, a Web survey firm, but their ranks—160,000 or so—are growing.” I am one of those 0.3 percent. Stay Tuned!

Mike and Ellen about 1 yr old

Sam & Papa in Black Hills