Tel Graeta

                                                                     Tel Graeta

It seemed like an endless chain of tunnels and Ilana worried that they had lost their way and were going in circles. "Don't worry, we'll be there soon",  Aminadav was leading them up to the surface along one of the carefully constructed escape routes that served as a "last resort" method to exit the base enclosure. "We were down over 150 feet, we could have withstood a direct hit."

The tunnels had been hastily cut through fused layers of earth and foam, formed from molten magma-like material, all engineered against shock, heat, and radiation. The small party rose through the last stairway and outer port. For all the careful ventilation below, it was still very special to breath in fresh surface air. It was good to feel the sun on your face. Aminadav looked across the crater to the Israeli side and remembered his home at Tel Graeta.

Among his first memories, were the precious moments his spent at his bedroom window looking out across the fields of Tel Graeta,  a  small farming community within a larger region of technical facilities and  defense manufacture. Both of his parents worked as scientists and engineers. His uncle owned and kept the farm where they all lived. Aminadav recalled the smell of the animals and the dust from the fields, the grass and the sounds of the birds, the hum of the generator plant a few miles to the south.

He looked at them looking at him and smiled. "Can't I have a few seconds for myself", and laughed.

The Threat Passes

The threat came and went. There were near misses and no great damage to their facility. Aminadav 
smiled at the captain of the defense domain. "Thank you Mordechai for your fine preparations." 
Mordechai smiled in return. "We expected a heavier force",  and questioned, "has Perfect Hit struck a 
target?"  "Indeed it has", answered  Aminadav.  "There is no enemy left within our range", as if he were 
asking for more sweet to his hot drink. This was his specialty, his pride. He spoke like a chess master of 
the early days when he has forced his opponent into an impossible situation through sheer familiarity, 
and recognition of patterns  within the game , simple rules to follow, do your homework and you succeed, 
matter of fact. Mordechai liked this about him and so did most of his command

Rising to Battle

The room smelled of the dust of recently worked rock. Aminadav stood and greeted the evaluator whom he'd known and worked with many times over the years. A light kiss on the cheek was proper and reassured  Ilana that all was well between them. They argued often about her interpretations. Aminadav preferred to take her analyses in and come up with this own solutions, but he could rarely prevent her from adding her "summaries". It annoyed him. It annoyed her that it annoyed him. It was part of her training to end with a summary. "Why didn't he know that?" She decided that he was simply flirting with her in his way and avoided solving it.

"We are in great danger, I'm afraid", he confided. "Let me hear the recording again please", she needed to check some words and intonations she missed.  "He is sending a hostile reply very soon", she summarized. "He probably decided  that you have already launched your forces, and means to damage your position." Thank you Ilana, I did not need your conclusions, just your view of his temperament." "He fears making an error and embarrassing himself in front of his staff", she added. "The direction of his message of greeting was not to us but more "through and to his staff" she said. "In addition there was real personal fear of failing his mission in his voice, especially the pause between "now"  and "please".  "Here his thoughts were all about standing in front of a court martial, the room the countenances of the judges, the advocates. It is doubtful that he prepared these thoughts, he wouldn't have had time." Aminadav thanked her and wondered how he missed that. He agreed with her and thought again. He heard the same thing, but somehow did not fully understand it. These girls are carefully trained to be totally objective. He didn't have that.  It took a while to develop. "Well, we might as well launch if they've already countered for it..."Start Perfect Hit and prepare for a level 5 shock."  His men immediately went into action. Ilana saw this coming too and wondered if it would affect her hearing. She would protect her ears. "Please G-d protect my ears",  she thought and covered her ears with her shock helmet, sat and waited. 

Colonization

Moving In

Commander Evron of the upper central fringe sector (UCFS) was no sooner inside and seated by a night illuminated periscotropic area model control panel than he saw the current weakness and ordered the correction loud and clear and without panic. "Hard missiles coming in from destroyers on the Caspian Sea. Neutralize everything and send them a thank you."   "What a welcome - eh?" Amminadav Evron sat back in his seat. drank his hot coffee and relaxed a bit. This day had just begun.

"It was always the same", he thought. "Shoot first and ask questions later- imbeciles. They don't have any idea what they're up against". Commander Evron considered what he would do if confronted with a sudden unannounced mass landing of what could be hostile troops. Each time he thought about it, he came to the same conclusion. "Investigate, improve your cover, your defense posture. If they've going to attack, they're going to attack., like a bird of prey landing on a nearby tree on a hill. Dig in, hide,  keep watching what it does, prepare some kind of defense or flight plan."  "Not these guys, they scream their location and send projectiles. So foolish, and yet so common. They will pay for this. They will pay with their servitude if they are lucky and their lives if they are not." Commander Evron was naturally upset at the immediate attack. Two or three minutes and he could possibly have lost their position, all the fighters, himself, the whole base. Well, the "thank yous" he sent out would suffice for revenge. All their launch sites would be demolished, along with their control and communication systems. "You can't send out a  particle without giving information about the sender to the receiver."  The "hostile reply" system they used, was based on that principle. It analyzed the source(s) of antagonism, located them and destroyed them.  

"What now Commander?" Captain Bar Adiyna asked despite the fact that they had all been through repeated briefings on each stage of the establishment process in detail.  Amminadav smiled. "it's all work now. Every step is work from here on out. We are all of us slaves to the Monarchy." He laughed and smiled wryly.

     They had to clean up pockets of resistance now. Tens of thousands of persons across the planet simply wouldn't abandon their ways. Many wouldn't attend meetings to discuss this. "Look he would say, I don't really want to be here either...and he would pause and look around. I would rather be elsewhere doing something else. I would rather have my own private villa on my own private island where it was warm and fruit grew and all I had to do was pick it." This usually brought a flutter of interesting sounds. There is Law in the Galaxy. It is good Law. It provides for each of us, our families and the common good. We obey it. You must learn it and obey it too. Right now, you have no real choice. Later you can vote and amend the Law. That's just how it is."  And there would be a long silence.

But now, something new: "We already have our law, G-d spoke to us through Moses, we will not allow any force other than G-d himself to change even a word of it." 

"Well, you'll be very happy to know," and a very broad smile broke Amminadav's  otherwise overtired and serious face, "that this Law is based on the very Law of Moses that you speak of. We are a battalion of Fighters from Markab" ,  and he left it there for them to digest.

The reply was long in coming since there really was no "Jewish, Christian, or Muslim" civilization outside of the Earth. "We are not aware of any such civilization." , came the reply. "In any case, we follow no laws of anyone except G-d almightly, and that is how it is." , mocking Aminadav's ultimatum.  "That's fine with me",  Aminadav answered and nodded approvingly. Something special and undefined passed through the hall, something not totally unlike the angel that stayed Abraham's hand from the sacrifice of his son Isaac thought Yehoseph, the Rabbi who had spoke in defiance to Aminadav's ultimatum. Now, suddenly, it became clear to Yehoseph the meaning of Abraham's giving up his son as a sacrifice to G-d - that his son, Isaac was not his own, but G-d's creation and that he had to leave go of Isaac to return to his creator that he be blessed and duplicated in various forms and that all the people of Israel were now the brothers and sisters of Isaac from the same source exactly, a very special people not only born of the devotion of Abraham to his G-d, where he shared in the special relationship of the creator to Isaac apart from the reality of the flesh.

What Yehoseph did not know what that his thoughts were travelling to Aminadav almost as clearly as if he'd been speaking aloud. "These people so want to believe in a continual miracle that defines their lives that they reshape every event that happens as a support for that belief",  Aminadav thought, and  breathed in and breathed out and replied: "Do as you wish then. If there's a conflict with our plans, we'll let you know. " Yehoseph bowed his head slightly in agreement. "He seems to have understood me very well", he thought.

Intelligence Arrives

Ilana enjoyed the voyage to the Earth as she did nearly every time she had the opportunity to travel the "hydroturn"  as it was called for the motion perception associated with the screaming fast, almost dreamlike, almost static, almost the speed of thought itself, movement across space. It felt like dancing through water. The only problem with it was the expense. The energy cost rose exponentially with the mass transported. Another very minor problem was that it induced a memory lapse that filled in over time but tended to blur recent memories to the point of exhausting persons from making an effort to recall their embarkation points and the thoughts surrounding their exits. A few days and all that filled in. Ilana was used to this and had developed a routine that circumvented all that tiring thought. She slept! When Aminadav called in to welcome her, he could only reach her messaging machine. "Ilana is sleeping now, please leave your message and she'll contact you as soon as she wakes." He smiled, he loved her - everyone did. He was glad that she had arrived and had activated her messaging machine.

It was morning and "Arabian Coffee" was brewing on the "Skitcher", a funny name given to an automatic heater, possibly after an ordinary crewman named Skitch who, it is said, constantly burned himself preparing food. Ilana smelled the coffee and stirred. "Oh, I wish we didn't have so much scheduled for today", she spoke out loud, even though she was alone in the room. The phone went off again, "ding - Ilana, it's me again', Aminadav's voice, yes, Commander Evron, so friendly, don't ever make the mistake of not carrying out his every wish, spoken or otherwise! "Yes, Commander, here I am", as politely as she could. "We have a meeting in about an hour", which meant to be sure and be there five to ten minutes early, "will we be having the pleasure of your company?" "Of course - I'll be early, I'm looking forward to it", she replied. She hated him at times, but it was the demands of the job. She'd been through this so many times before. They  needed her for her "thought evaluations", and she wondered how much the Commander knew already about her own state of mind. "Good, see you - click". She evaluated this quickly - "he's in trouble already!"

Catchin' Up

Catchin' up.

One of the first things I remember seeing that I hadn't yet noticed after six years abroad was how very quickly things happen here. Now, truthfully, not everything that's happened here in the US since about 1968 has been truly great. Some things have. I keep waiting for the movie to end all movies about the moon landing to come out and all I've seen is Apollo 13 - or "a near total failure that didn't really prove anything anyhow." Not fair in my book. The Lunar Landing was an intensely important and difficult achievement. This all occurred during the "Vietnam War" and extremely hostile and continual and well publicized criticism of our country as some sort of evil place that never could and never would do anyone any good - sort of like Israel right now. We were the bad people we had slaves and were racists, war mongers and otherwise ignorant people. The Jews were slaves in Egypt you know. The whole story is in the bible. Of the four years I lived in Israel, I never heard one person say that any of his problems stemmed from slavery in Egypt. The attitude in Israel was that the people themselves were ultimately responsible for their fate and that's life. And, in fact, that's how it is. So, vicious forces seem to have aligned against the good ol' USA in ways not so flattering to us.

So, we had a general falling out and away from our very fine and very deserved patriotism, pride in our country, loyalty to our own here. I noticed that too. I also noticed very heavy suppression of white people here in our cities. It's still going on and I'm sure most of you are familiar with the effects though many persons might not have experienced times when there was a full and unembarrassed pride in our country.

In 1974 when I came back here from England, there were convenience stores that stayed open until late at night and then all night long. The music was pretty good too. The ice cream was never better and I spent most of my time drinking coffee - which is especially good here- and eating ice cream which is a special case of happy that is unknown elsewhere and taken for granted here.

I enlisted in the US Army, remarried and eventually changed my major in college and became a science teacher. It took a long time and was very difficult. It was very much an "against the current" swim.

I've seen the widespread development and use of personal electronic information processing systems, cell phones, and the internet. I worked on this stuff. I was a technician for RCA and worked on one of the Apollo cameras. I also worked for Univac (now Unisys) on the development of third generation random access computer memories. It's very satisfying to see this particular thing take hold. Sure beats the bad PR from Vietnam and all the slavery.

An appreciable number of our people found some sort of comfort from drugs. I didn't know any, but I did witness some use of marijuana and odd laughter here and there. I think this was also blown way out of proportion by the media.

All in all, I'd say that these past few decades have seen enormous and significant change including a near doubling of population and somehow the "Americanization"  of new tens of millions of persons who've at least learned the basics here, including, "people are all different, but we are all human beings" and "we are much stronger as a nation united than as scattered people." This is who and why we are as far as I can tell.

Blowing Up The Berlin Wall

Blowing up the Berlin Wall

I do not want this to be misunderstood. It is important to understand that we are a great nation and have stood up to and fought against some very bad enemies. Many great Americans have perished defending our country from real evil -  crazy people.  This is no joke so don't view it the wrong way. When you're in the army, you're in the army. You do what you're told - what's expected of you - and everybody else in the army is your brother in arms (sisters in arms as well.)

Sure, you have to think for yourself. Of course you do. We are a free country, still, and aim toward freedom for the individual and self-determinism. I kid you not - the guys in the service in this country are self-determined to as large a degree as possible if you're actually on active duty. That's the way we are - simple as that.

We learn that growing up - "He'll kill you if you say that", and he will, and he does!

Dodge city all over the place. You get used to it.

We don't even need wars - we kill each other every day! We're Americans. I love this country of course and I am very patriotic! I make no secret of that.

I had spent about six years abroad and I had forgotten how great it was here. After I got back, I spent about ten hours a day eating ice cream and drinking coffee, chewing gum and smiling. I had been in Israel four years and then in England and Scotland for two years. It was great to be back home, but I was disappointed to find out how badly we were doing in Vietnam. I decided that Vietnam was a no-win situation. No way to win there at all. I wanted us to have a win out there, so I decided to enlist in the army, get a couple of the guys together, go over to Germany and blow up the Berlin Wall. I'm not kidding. I was gung ho! You have to be there.

Well, the army likes that kind of stuff you know. Don't get me wrong and I asked you not to get me wrong - the army is all about winning wars and battles and going through it - you know - rite of passage - beat the heck out of the enemy and have a beer and tell stories to your grandchildren. That's what it is guys - it's simple. Today, they lock you up for thinking bad thoughts about others. The real problem here is that it's wrong to beat the heck out of good people - very wrong in fact - and that's what just about tore our country apart over Vietnam. You have to understand that what you're trying to do is give the young people a chance to prove their loyalty to our country despite real risks by defending our values, and includes helping others in trouble. We seem to be losing at that today. You have to be able to take sides, resolve any doubts about who your friends are. Yet young people are punished today for asserting most forms of patriotism. Older people are punished for displaying their patriotism as well. See - we are failing here at exactly what we were all trying to succeed at - join the ranks of American Heroes. That's not easy my friends, but I had a plan.

Here I was on my way to the field artillery, young, inspired - a fire in my eyes and my sights on Berlin and its infamous wall. This is true. You laugh, but you would have come along - I'm sure. Certainly, it you've read this far down!

I would get a chance to preview this situation at company headquarters in Basic Training. There were a few desks in the office and, of course, "Top" himself. "Top" is what the top sergeant is called in the army. He's a well known character - burly, knuckles dragging on the floor, all arms and chest. Top is in charge. He's in charge of the army. He does everything. He's been in the service forever. Everywhere. His bed is a foxhole. He survives on C - rations. He likes C -  rations. Don't make any mistakes - Top would give his life for you or any other soldier if needed - he would not hesitate either. He knew that, you knew that - and so you followed his orders.

On the inside of a door hung a poster that read: "This Is Your Enemy". Underneath was a picture of a Russian soldier with an AK - 47 automatic rifle. I looked at this picture and I saw this Russian farmer that was probably drafted into the army. This was my enemy waiting for me in Berlin. I looked at Top and I looked back at the poster. Now who was really my friend. Top looked at me. I'm sure he would have charged right into hell, right along side of me if it came to that. "You get to know things about people as you get closer to killing them." Ideas started coming at me. The army knows about killing - it knows about people and survival. I started having doubts about my goal...Top looked at me. "Let's go". We had to go over my paperwork for AIT (advanced training)...

Another Way to Negotiate

Another way to Negotiate

After reviewing a recent video about how to properly negotiate for a house in Israel, I recalled my own negotiations - many years ago when things were a bit different.

I had attended a learning center in the north of Israel with my brother. We didn't speak any Hebrew and, of course, this was necessary to get around, albeit many Israelis had a good working knowledge of English. We studied along with many other immigrants from many different countries, England, Australia, South Aftrica, Ireland, Canada - these were the "Anglo Saxons". Others were the "Orientals" from Morocco. Algeria, Iraq, India - basically North Africa and The Middle East - also Europe and South America. The Orientals spoke French and Arabic and the Middle Eastern people spoke some French, but mostly Arabic and the South Americans spoke Spanish and Portuguese of course and the Europeans all the languages they speak. It was interesting to observe the different customs and ways among the different groups. I befriended many of the Moroccans and learned quite a bit of French while I was studying there as well as Hebrew. They made fun of us Americans - our accents - it was funny to see how others see us.  Arabic is not that different from Hebrew - not as different as English at all. The music in Morocco is very similar to what you'd hear on the radio in Israel. We didn't get the Beatles or Elvis - we got Farid Al Atash and Oumkeltoum. These were like the Beatles all across the Middle Eastern world.

I got fairly close with these people - all the people there, but especially the North Africans. I learned a lot of French and I got an inside track on how to get by in a country that was two thirds North African. I  also learned about living within strict socialist regimes. After all, people get by in most any kind of social system you can imagine. It is vital to know how though!

This is not a story about comparative socio- economics, it is a true story and a funny story about what you'd probably do yourself in a situation like the one I found myself in.   

I was living in a dormitory with my Israeli wife and my first child, my son, Avi, who  had been born and was only a few months old. The one bedroom apartment was very small and not really a good place to live for a student with a family. So I went to the Jewish Agency office and prepared to present my case for a new apartment. According to the Law of Israel, each new immigrant has a right to a home there. What kind of home depends on his needs and his work status as well as his own resources.

I had been prepped for this meeting because, in actual fact, it depended largely on "favors" (bribes) offered to the officials as well as any connections one might have I had been told . This had been explained to me by my Polish friends who were used to this approach in life. My Moroccan friends had offered a completely different slant about getting ahead in Israel. "The rusty hinge gets the oil - "squawk  as loud as you can - jump up and down and threaten as many people as possible, and their families." In America we don't do things this way at all. We are reasonable.

I explained my situation to the agent, how tight the dormitory was and how it was not a good place for a new baby. Also, I had a house coming to me by Law. He smiled a broad "Polish bribe smile" at me, I swear I could see him working this out. "There's nothing wrong with the dormitory - this is your house." He smiled and probably was waiting for me to offer him some kind of "favor" that my Polish friends had warned me about. I didn't know exactly what to do, but each second I was getting hotter and hotter and - finally I started calling him some real classic things that I had learned from my Polish and Moroccan friends - and I still don't know where I got the strength, but I started picking up all the furniture in the office and throwing it out the window - first floor - broke the glass too. He left the office to call the police and I just kept jumping up and down and throwing stuff out the window. I was really mad at the hopeless bureaucracy and frustrated by my own inability to make anything happen.

The police arrived shortly and took me downtown where I waited for the young magistrate to hear my side of the story. Israel is different in more ways than one it turns out. "What happened", he asked me as I explained to him how the response to my very real difficulty had upset me and "what would you have done?" He said "I would have done the same thing", and started to laugh and he kept laughing and added, "Don't do it again, it will be alright." The Moroccans were right. Another Israeli had a friend who was a journalist and advised me to tell him my story which would have been published in an English Language newspaper, but it never got that far.

What do you know, the Jewish Agency decided to award me a beautiful brand new three bedroom apartment about half an hour's drive from the University.

I had learned how to negotiate in the Middle East. It's an art. Don't forget, this was all conducted in the Hebrew Language with a few borrowed curse words from Polish and Arabic. It was a full validation of everything I had learned. I was extremely proud.   

Nine Twenty Two

Nine Twenty Two

"Nine Twenty Two"  was a banquet hall located at 922 North Broad Street in Philadelphia, probably for the better part of a century. It was called "Nine Twenty Two" by those who worked there and most everybody associated with it, including my father and myself. It was around the corner from "Fourteen Hundred", which was another catering hall situated at 1400 West Girard Avenue. My dad was the head waiter at Fourteen Hundred and I started  working there as a "wine waiter" at age seventeen.

It was a wedding and my dad had just finished showing me how to wrap the wine bottle in a cloth napkin and how to properly hold and pour it. There was a commotion at the top of the stairs where the guests entered . The father of the bride had fallen down the steps. He died. The wedding celebration continued. After all, all the guests were just arriving, the food was cooked and ready, the bar and tables were set, the band was there and the music already playing. This is a true story. No one will believe it anyway and I doubt that many will read it. Far too few people read anymore. I have not embellished it in any way.

Fourteen hundred was the seediest place you could imagine. It was leftover from the prohibition era. Someone had stored it in an old trunk in an attic. It was dusty, moldy, and yet somehow, like an old restaurant or resort,  still managed to hold onto a mysterious charm that had become the memories of so many thousands of guests. One of the partners of the catering business that ran Fourteen Hundred as well as Nine Twenty Two and several hotels in town, had owned at least one "speakeasy" back in the thirties I was told. They had bootlegged whiskey, made their own and whatever else they could get away with. When I got out of the army about twenty years later I saw him on South Street and called his name. He must have been ninety at the time. He smiled a broad warm smile and came and gave me a hug. He asked how I was doing. No one did this any more, but he did. No one else greeted me after the army, just him and his partner.  The other partner for whom the business was named had been in the Normandy Invasion. He was a ranger. He gave me a job in a restaurant he had when I got home and needed a job. He was still in the business,  He was a gambler.  The story was that he used to take the money the customer paid  from the "job", and bet it at the track. If he won everyone would get paid. A "job" was what any catered affair was called. A wedding, confirmation, bar - mitzvah, convention or whatever event was being celebrated. There were two unions in Philadelphia, the kosher union and the Italian union. I was in both. You get to know a lot about people when they're drunk. Italians drink beer at their weddings as opposed to hard liquor. I have no idea why. 

They were all crooks and gamblers and everything else that went with that life style. There wasn't one of them that would think twice to risk his life for you. They were all WWII vets. I used to like being part of it, even if it was just as a young "apprentice". I liked the way the call girls at the hotels smiled at me and treated me like crew. We worked a lot of hotels too. I liked the music. I met Red Rodney at Fourteen Hundred. I'll never forget that dusty old stage and Red and his trumpet. My dad told me, "That's Red Rodney." He was a jazz great.  I got to know all the bartenders too, and most of the hotels in downtown Philly. Don't think that's not an advantage. 

One day after I had been teaching in Philly for about five years or so, I passed 922 driving up broad street. The whole block was being razed, including 1400. You could see the stairway that led down to the basement where the food was prepared. There was a little office under the staircase where they used to play cards. You'd see them with their thirty eights in their holsters, smoking cigars just like in the movies. Some very high up city detectives as well. Don't tell anybody. They were always at it down there. Drinking and laughing and playing very serious card games for very serious money.One of the owner's brother's was machine gunned to death in Miami. He owed someone money. Not such a nice guy really. I didn't grieve. May he rest in peace. 

The whole thing was being razed. An entire era was being eaten up and chewed down by a hungry bulldozer. I watched it. It was more than a friend of mine. It was something very special that I can't quite define...

The West Philadelphia Regional Track Meet

This is a totally true story.

It was the Philadelphia Regional Elementary School Track Championships. This was very serious business for us guys. It meant, among other things, that we would be competing against our arch rival. The Mann School. The Mann School was located up the hill in Wynnefield, which, in those days, and probably today as well, was a much more affluent neighborhood than our own in West Philadelphia, which didn't have much of anything, not even a name: perhaps, "down there".  No, our socks didn't match and we smelled kind of funny, but, goodness, we were tough. No one messed with us. OK, we had less, but we played hard. Get the picture? And here we were. Showtime was just around the corner. We'd show them alright!

We decided to train for the event. The heel of my right foot still bears the scars of the training. Gosh. don't ever practice broad jumping on a sidewalk. Never do that! Well, it would heal well enough to compete in the hundred yard dash. Each day at recess and even after school, we'd be there racing and jumping and coaching and offering advice, like a band of young Indian braves whooping and jumping before a raid. It was exciting I tell you! We had strategies. Who ever heard of a strategy for running!?

As the day approached, our enthusiasm mounted. We did not yet know who would win the big race. We had many fast runners. I was among them. The fifth grade Olympics of West Philadelphia was about to happen. Who would get the gold? As I recall, they actually gave out ribbons. We didn't get any, but that's the heart and soul of this story anyway.

As the participants lined up for the big race, you couldn't hear yourself think for all the shouting, as all the kids started cheering out of their minds with excitement. I remember the shouts and the screaming and I remember thinking which of us would win and be the hero of Heston Elementary School. And then it happened. The heats were  timed. The girls' heats began. Out of the blue, mind you, literally from out of nowhere, with the wind itself, shot Beverly. I'm not kidding you. She flew. Beverly was a tall thin black girl whose legs reached up to her neck. She was a gazelle. No one knew, certainly none of us guys, but this was to be her day. I never saw a stride like hers on anybody, not even today, not even the real Olympics. "Wham, swish, whoosh", she swallowed up the school yard, like a hungry wildcat after a rabbit. 

That girl, that long legged girl who owned one dress and wore it every day to school and to the track meet as well. knocked the heck out of all of us. God Bless Beverly!

The Belmont Stakes 2004

    The Belmont Stakes  2004

From;  "The Continuing Adventures of Wooples the Cat"

     It was a terrible day in Philadelphia. It was raining fairly heavily and kind of cold too.  I had been watching the running of the Belmont Stakes with Wooples. Wooples rarely watched television but he would keep me company if I was interested in watching a program. He preferred watching the birds on the front lawn. Hed jump up on the back of the chair by the front window and peer out between the vertical blinds with an intensity that reminded me of documentaries of hunched lions peering at prey through high grasses.  But today was different. We were going to watch Smarty Jones win the triple crown of horse racing and have a Smarty Party.  I had been caught up in the Smarty Jones excitement that had  swept through Philadelphia. Smarty was going to win the triple crown of horse racing and Philadelphia was going to be famous and the whole world would be happy.

     I had explained all this to Wooples during a commercial about Visa credit cards. Wooples assured me that he would help me root for Smarty and that he felt confident that Smarty would win the triple crown of horse racing andPhiladelphia would be famous  and the whole world would be happy.  

      The rest is history. As Smarty got nosed out toward the finish, I turned the TV off. I couldnt bear to see or hear any more. I was thrown back to 1964 when the Phillies lost the national league pennant.  We were 6 0r 7  games ahead toward the end of the season. All we had to do was win one game, one game in ten. We lost them all! Goodbye world series. Goodbye famous Philadelphia. Goodbye happy world. It just wasnt in the cards.

     Wooples was lying on the floor with his chin on the carpet, his eyes nearly closed. He turned and looked up at me. "He ran as fast as he could" he said, and shut his eyes. He shuts his eyes whenever hes sad or sympathetic. Sometimes he shuts his eyes when you scratch his back or pet him but then he purrs too.

"I dont know what happened Wooples"  - I offered, lost for an explanation. "He was supposed to win. Everyone said he was going to win. The odds were 1-5!! for heavens sake."

     We let it go for several hours. Wooples was still brooding. He broods when he doesnt understand something. "He tried as hard as he could" he said. "He ran with all his heart Smarty probably feels real bad now."

     I felt bad too. I imagined a large number of people in Philadelphia who had to cancel their Smarty Parties felt bad as well. No triple crown. No famousPhiladelphia. No happy world. No champagne. Just a big let down. Sometimes you lose Wooples. When you lose, youre supposed to feel bad. "OK", he said, and we brooded together.

Working the System

People that claim that school is a total waste of time are definitely ignorant. Certainly they haven't listened closely to their teachers or watched what was going on because there is a wealth of learning occurring there.
It was only in second grade where I first realized there was a way to beat the system. Legal Loopholes. There're legal loopholes in everything! Anything!
My favorite thing in the second grade was candy. Ask anybody. Candy is the best thing there is without a doubt. Any second grader knows that. There's only one problem - and I'm not talking about ruining teeth or appetites for dinner. The only problem is that it is absolutely forbidden - against the law - forget it - to eat candy, chew gum, display candy of any kind in the classroom. Can't do it.
Unless you're smart. And smart is why we're in school. Many of you might have missed this lesson. so we're going over it again. The key is "Doctor". Doctor is the highest level of address, the highest level of anything there is in education - almost in the world. The only thing higher is "filthy rich"!  So there's the legal loophole. If the doctor says it's OK to eat candy in the classroom, anybody and everybody can eat candy in the classroom - every day - all the time - all over the place -  it's candy day! Get it? Sure - it's coming back. Bring in a note from the doctor. That's all you have to do. All is excused. More of this later.
Now, the Smith Brothers have already set up this loophole. Remember the Smith Brothers? Those two long bearded gents on the box of Smith Bros. Cough Drops? They're still going strong. More power to them.They got away with selling these licorice, anise and sugar candies as medicine and made quite a bit of money at it - bless them - anything works for forty percent of the people - anything - just check this out! Salt over the shoulder works too. This is not the point however. And I like Smith Bros, Cough Drops - especially the wild cherry, the bubble gum, and the roast chicken very much! I like to think that you're getting this.

Private School

A new type of teaching job has come my way recently. A sort of semi-private school, both a live-in, boarding school as well as a locally "drafted from the eighth grade" contingent of students.
The sign business has been slow meanwhile and needs more promoting.
I had a story in mind yesterday, to write for you, but I can't recall it. It would have had to be a true story and, at the same time, entertaining. I can't for the life of me remember any part of it except for birds eating seeds? - possibly an experience I had as a young boy at my friend's family's farm. - we'll see.

How to Work

                                                                            How to Work

As a retired teacher, I can't help but look back at the changes that have occurred over the years.

Certainly, many things change naturally. They keep up with social and technical developments. There's

not much need to drive a horse and wagon loaded with ice through the streets of Philadelphia today. I can recall when men did this. We really liked when the "iceman" would chip off a piece of a block of ice and throw it to us on the steamy July days that seemed to go on forever when we were kids. Hey,  I can remember summers that seemed longer than forever, and they were great summers too! No, there's no icemen around anymore, not around any place I know anyway. This is not particularly bad though. We don't have to hunt deer with bows and arrows or throw spears or rocks either. That's not bad either. The point is that we don't have to teach it in school any longer.

This story is about "work" and its meaning to a ten year old child - me.

The father of one of the students in our fifth grade class died trying to save a little girl from drowning. He had jumped in a lake or some river trying to save her and he drowned. I don't know what happened to the girl, but I felt sorry for the boy in our class. He now had no dad and the reason was that his dad had tried to save a little girl. That was sad. It wasn't right somehow. So I decided to make an effort to be a better friend to the boy. This was an introduction to the world of "work"  for me. Soon, I found myself working in the same linoleum flooring store as my friend. We would clean up and sweep the floor and carry rolls of linoleum flooring to the customers that lived around the neighborhood. Some of those rolls got real heavy on the shoulder by the time you got to the person's house. Occasionally, I would go to the store and buy a cup of coffee for our boss, the fellow that owned the store. I remember the smell of the coffee and  the paper  cup in the bag just as if I was carrying it down the street right now. "Work" had all kinds of twists and turns and details you'd never expect. The best part of this job, was getting paid on Saturdays. I think it was fifty cents for after school and Saturdays. That was a lot of money for a kid. Two comic books at least. Candy bars so you could chew on 'em and read the comic books at the same time. I also bought a stamp album and I'd buy stamps and glue them in with these little sticky transparent tabs. It was great fun for a ten year old. The ideas for all of this probably came from our class at school.

We did other kinds of "work" too. We sold pretzels around the neighborhood. Reisman's Pretzels. There were prizes for selling the most pretzels. I think they still do this.  My Mom got all our relatives to buy boxes of pretzels and I won a little flash camera. Gosh I miss that camera.  

Later, at another school, I think, we sold magazine subscriptions. I won a lamp for that.

It's amazing just how much practical know how you can pick up as a child in school.

How to "work" is an important lesson that I think needs more emphasis today. 

Memorial Day 2015

                                                               Memorial Day 2015

It was around 1976 in Washington State. We had just pulled out of Viet Nam and my permanent duty station was Ft. Lewis, Washington. Half our unit, the second of the fourth field artillery, ninth division went to Korea. I stayed "home". We had a choice and I was married and lived in Tacoma near the base with my wife. Still, even though at home, we trained hard at places like "Yakima" in western Washington state;  a large desolate area of rocks and mountains and I can't remember seeing a plant, not even sagebrush.  It was appropriate as a training ground for field artillery maneuvers.  

I remember getting "lost' out there at night and getting a ride on top of a tank turret. It really swung around and you had to hold on for dear life onto these steel handles as it spun around. It was quite a ride in the total black of that night. These tankers - they were just kids really, learning to drive, were tearing up the countryside. I don't know how they stayed on any kind of path - or if they had to. I just hung on and hoped I'd get back to my unit somehow. They stopped and opened up these big search lights they had mounted on the tanks. What a show - bright lights onto the hills and mountains in the middle of the night. I guess it was part of their training program.

I made it back to my unit and I was told there'd be training maneuvers all night long. I thought about these guys driving all over the desert with tanks and half-tracks and whatever and decided to hunker down under our deuce and a half - a two and a half ton truck, just in case one of these guys would come ripping across the desert and not even notice me in my sleeping bag. Let me tell you guys, if you haven't done your service yet. "Take care of yourself" - it might be that no one else will! "Think!" Find yourself a safe cozy spot and make a home!  I had lived and worked on a ship for a while and I'd learned a few things.

Sure enough, twenty six guys lost their lives that night - mostly all run over!  This was peacetime in the USA. Imagine being in an actual battle in Europe or the Pacific. Being shot at, bombed, I knew exactly what an artillery shell did. Pretty vicious stuff, naturally. We're lucky over here in the good ol' USA - all safe and warm and cozy.

Thanks guys!!

The Externet

There's still some controversy  surrounding the origin of the concept of the "externet". Many state that, in fact, the externet has always been here, only not as a truly formal and legally designated entity. Certainly billboards and many different kinds of outdoor advertizing have existed as well as the oral version of the externet, common speech, as an example, for that matter. What's important here, though, is what will get you a passing grade in college or any bona fide technical institution that grants  degrees or certificates in "externet design"  or "site development", which would presumably allow an applicant easy access to a real job. Let's face it, "practical" has become a nearly totally dollars and cents measurable issue anyway you look at it.

So the real answer as to "origin of the externet" lies in the story forwarded by the founding officers of T-REX  the world's premier externet provider which boasts an annual gross of three trillion (and some) dolleros currently, and that's a lot of very large words conveying a very heavy and fast moving message.

Mitchell Berkowitz and Howard Zuft, both swear to the same story. Drinking canned beer in Mitchell's garage on Garfield street in Cambridge, a few blocks from their classes in political science at Harvard University with a couple of drifters they picked up on the streets who were begging with cardboard signs. Howard said that the germ of the idea came to them from the signs, perhaps simultaneously, certainly close to  the same moment. "I will work for food", both signs proclaimed. The message struck home and the world's first externet office opened. "The text is too small on these smart phones", Mitchell spoke loudly in  a slightly beer slurred voice. "You need larger cardboards to reach the guys" Charlie Fans, soon to be Eastern US CEO of T-REX International, vitually bubbled in. He was drooling a  bit from the Bud Light.
The rest you can imagine. Protest posters, Buttons, Cardboards, Balloons. We're all familiar now with the Externet, but then it was all just an idea in a garage. Yes, there was the T-Shirt revolution that many credit with providing the foothold that the Externet needed to develop the way it has. Obviously many other areas in the enormous sphere of communication touched and contributed to its development.
You look around today and everybody has their sign. It is pinned to their shirt or hat or fixed somehow with one of the many sign frames available. It tells you their name, their favorite kind of music, information about their pets and what kinds of food they prefer - all of that. You know, before the Externet, you had to get to know people first and actually ask them questions to get to know things like that. It's so much easier today. The world just keeps getting smaller and people know so much more about your pets than ever before and anyone who works can usually be fed!

The Fastest Scoop in the East

The Fastest Scoop in the East

As a fifteen year old who really liked ice cream, and what fifteen year old doesn't, it was a perfect job in

a perfect place and at a perfect time of my short yet somehow still  fascinating life. It was an after school

job in a neighborhood luncheonette. My Mom worked next door as a courtesy driver for a  beauty shop.

She  got me the job. It was a family owned sort of diner - restaurant that specialized in huge sandwiches

and gigantic  ice cream concoctions.  The food, all of it, was better than good. It was extraordinary to the

degree that the Former  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied  that it ever existed. So it goes

for very fine  things. The ice cream was no exception, of course, and,  for that matter, a wonder  itself.

In the summer people would line up outside all the way around the corner. At least a hundred people

 would spend an hour or so talking and smoking and yelling at their kids and generally having a great time

just waiting to get in.

It was a difficult breaking-in period for me for several reasons. First of all, there was stage fright. I had

 always been on the other side of the counter. A customer. Suddenly I was on stage and absolutely

without any idea of what I was supposed to do or how to do it. I couldn't even hide. You know, fifteen year

olds stand out for their awkwardness anyway. They're funny that way. All I had to protect me was a white

shirt and pair of trousers and a folded over white apron tied around my waste. In addition I had a very 

heavy plaster cast under my chinos from my hip all the way down to my ankle.  I tried to sort of swing it
around so that no-one would notice. I had torn a cartilage playing football for school and it would take a

week or two to heal properly. They told me  later that everyone thought I was lame and were being polite

and not asking me about it. This is a true story - that's why it's funny!

Fortunately, the proprietors had two sons, both of whom "worked the fountain" and helped me learn the

tricks I needed to know to perform adequately and keep up with the customer's demand for sodas and

milkshakes and ice cream delights, There  were customers who sat at the fountain itself on round stools

that rotated - perhaps a dozen or so, and there was a special railed off space that allowed the waitresses

to access the counter and push their "dupes" onto a long spindle. These "dupes", duplicate copies of

customer orders  I assume,  were then pulled off the spindle and set up left to right over the syrup pump

bar, and checked over for fountain items and filled and placed up on the counter with the

dupe under the order when complete. That was the procedure and about eighty per cent of the fountain

production. The rest was "take out" and counter customers. When you started new, you worked  take outs

and filled cartons of ice cream to order as well as scooping ice cream onto cones for the sweltering

masses of people who had been waiting in another line. When the rush quieted down, I could observe the

owner's sons making the sundaes and waffles and ice cream and all the fancy stuff. They'd explain it all to

me and show me how to do it. It took a bit of time. Meanwhile, the two of them found time to play around

with the ice cream and stuff and the customers would laugh as they tossed it around and squirt each

other with the whipped cream bottles. They had been doing this for years and had it all down. It was a

circus. They were juggling the ice cream. You couldn't just start in and do this. These were requirements

that were strictly upper class.

Yet, here I was, at fifteen years old, finally getting into the majors. Tossing pizza dough, you know? The

 grown up world of real talent where they paid you money for playing ball. It just can't get any better than

that! So it wasn't long and all the "oohs  and aahs" were coming my way and I was eating it up. I went for

the glory. From fear and shyness, here I was now the prima uomo of  the ice cream fountain. The prodigy

- only fifteen years old and easily the fastest scoop in the east! I would learn shortly that there was more

than that to this job and work in the good ol' USA.

You think I'm kidding? I could make a chocolate nut sundae with two large scoops of ice cream, chocolate

syrup, walnuts and whipped cream in under seven seconds. I was timed. This is true. Standing start.

A black and white ice cream soda  (vanilla ice cream - two scoops - chocolate syrup, seltzer and whipped

cream in under ten seconds. That's fast my friend. The people sitting at the fountain would watch me and

I could feel their admiration and wonder. It was great! Serenity and fantasies about the "Ice Cream

Olympics" and girls of course. I was fifteen years old after all.

It was in this state of mind that I arrived at work one summer afternoon. I was thinking about getting ready

 for the evening rush. Setting up the ice cream so that it would be at exactly the right temperature that

was needed for the speed scoops we used. Too cold really slowed you down and too warm was sloppy.

There was a new fellow standing by the grille area. He was about medium height, thirty five years old or so,

very pale complexion. "Hi, I'm Bob from Chicago", I shook his hand and wondered about this strange guy

What was he, some sort of hit man or something. His Moll stood in the background, slightly taller than

Bob in a white waitress uniform. I guessed they were a couple. They had a day shift which I didn't really

have much to do with at all. The waitresses would usually get their own drinks and ice creams during the

day. I assumed they were day shift people. "We'll be working together tonight" he was short and to the

point. "I'll do the dupes, you do the take outs". He had it worked out. "Was he kidding?", I looked at it. It

took me four months to stand up under the pressure of working the dupes. And I had the "net" of the

owners'  sons right there to fall back on. I looked right at him. "Sure", I said without smiling at all. "Go

ahead."  "Yeah, go fall right on your face if that's what you want", I thought.

It turns out that the major leagues of ice cream have more than one super star. Bob could make an ice

cream soda without using a spoon. My heart totally sunk watching him pull out thirty years or so of

incredible experience, It was electrical It was all Bob. Fluorescent tan and all that time with his girl

working restaurants.  He was extremely fast. Yes, faster than even me. He was a pro. I didn't know there

was such a thing. In fact I didn't know the inside of really having to work to make a living at all. This was

an after-school job my Mom found for me.  My Mom and Dad worked of course, but they were family. It

was different. Bob was one of those guys you read about in books or saw in movies or on the TV. He and

his girlfriend were "characters". They were regulars. They belonged, were part of the social - economic

fabric of our country, like Woody Guthrie or Bonnie and Clyde. Gosh, I was not fair to them. I miss them.

I hope they're still alive and enjoying a retirement in Florida or something. Rich and healthy and with grandchildren.

After a month or so, Bob came over to me and said, "Well, you'll be glad to hear that you won't have to

put up with me any more."  He explained that he and his girlfriend were moving on. I was quietly happy

inside to get back to center stage . I shouldn't have been I should have invited them out to dinner or

something. Oh well, I was only fifteen.

Hello Spring

Well, it's a bit optimistic to welcome spring at this date, but as warm as it was today, I think it's appropriate.
I've been frantically applying for work lately. Since I lost my last teaching job, it's been downhill continually on income as well as social motion. This is understandable for a person who spends a large amount of time teaching classes of teenagers.
Nothing has been working out except a very few sign products for my sign company and now a job possibility at "milking". This doesn't really bother me, though you might expect it. It might actually be what I need to do to get through some upsets concerning my Dad who had a very painful terminal illness and who happened to have a rough childhood as well growing up on a dairy farm. He told us a lot of stories about milking cows and how tough it was on the farm. I don't feel that I've honored his memory properly. This might help.

Thinking things over

George wasn't a bad guy. He'd had a rough life, broken home, no Dad around for the longest time. What was he saying? "You gotta know somebody." It was not hard  to see why he developed that philosophy. It was easy to understand George and it was very hard to criticize anything about him to anybody. especially to George himself.

What about Dan Haddon? Should he just be happy, complete, with these plastic squirt bottles and rags? There was a time when playing with things even simpler brought an unquestioned pleasure to him, but childhood was certainly less demanding. What's the difference now? It hit him. At least an idea hit him. "I've got it", he thought. "I'll go in with George, I'll help him."

What Dan didn't see was that this wasn't a solution, perhaps a step in the right direction. George was not an easy case. Dan's father would intervene and set him straight that evening.

"What you've got in mind is what the car wash is already doing, and they've got a lot more going for them than you do. In fact, they've got George working his way up and out of his problems and looking at independence. He sees you as help in getting where he wants to go. What about you?" He looked right at his son. "Would a successful partnership with George give you what you want?" 

In Between Inspirations

A cold empty day today because of a depressing note on a job hope I had. Hypotherm is not forwarding my application... Well so what, but quite honestly, I really wanted to reenter that part of my life when I had all that "potential". It picked up on cycle completions and especially one upset- W/H combination. The hope is that with three days still left to go, I/We can get through this mass of desperation with standard W/H pulling tech!! Let's do it! 

Their Own Franchise

Dan was new at "Pro Touch" . He had to stick close to George to keep his job. This meant putting up with his cheap talk, his sarcasm, and his sick sense of humor. He could imagine times that were more difficult for people, and he appreciated being hired as a manager. "Think about it", he smiled as he thought," an associate's degree in business from "Gateway" and I get to manage my own stall at a car wash." He would be classified as "underemployed" on most national statistic surveys, but, truthfully, he considered himself well off compared to many of his classmates that had not been hired yet at all.

George came back and threw a wrapped sandwich at him. "What's this?". "A bonus. You did a good job on the Chevy."  George was already eating his own sandwich. Tuna fish, lettuce and tomato, on rye with little packets of mayonnaise and mustard would work for lunch. One dollar ninety nine cents and you got a little sticker that told you everything that was on it as well as the date you should eat it by. "You want some potato chips?" George came over and handed him a little bag of "cheddar chips".

Dan wondered about the change in "hard hearted" George. Maybe he needed a loan. Maybe he wanted to rob the place. "Thanks George, I didn't think you cared." George looked at him and laughed. "You're alright Dan. You work hard and you do a good job. You mind your own business and you're trying to get ahead and you haven't got the slightest idea of how to do it." George laughed and Dan Smiled at the truth of it. He'd been over this with his dad a hundred times. "I can understand supply and demand - that's easy. I can even understand the Lucas critque of economic models and Cambell's Law and all that. Changing economies and changing methods to measure economic strengths and weaknesses are not that difficult to see. But, what I can't understand is why something as important as the right way to make a lot of money is such a big secret. You'd expect a business college to know that, wouldn't you? His dad always come back with the same thing. "Hard work, that's all it is Dan. You have to work hard. Ask anybody. I sure did." Well he already knew the importance of hard work. Most people did. Most people worked about as hard as they could anyway. But not so many actually became very wealthy. Some did. Most didn't.

George went on. "You know where Harvey got the money to buy this franchise? His father in law signed for the loan. Two hundred thousand dollars! That's a lot of potato chips! For what? For rags and water? No. For rotating brushes that clean a car really good and don't scratch even after a hundred washes. For the right wash mix. For the dryers. For the pumps. For a million years of experience on how not to get sued. The right insurance and good safe operation. Remember when I showed you "Tire Magic"? You know how long it took me to learn that? All that stuff is worth a mint. It makes the job. Twenty cars an hour through the wash. Ten hours a day. Seven days a week. A million dollars a year". And here it came. Just what Dan expected. "Me and you Dan. We can do the same thing!"  "Yeah, Dan smiled. All we need is a rich co-signer. Maybe the blonde in the Lexus that you chased away." They both laughed.

Filthy Rich cont'd

He'd been detailing the front interior of an NX 300h Lexus. "Sweet", he thought as he wiped the center console down, "dry raggin" they called it. The car was brand new anyhow. All he could do was clean off the smudges and pull the lint off the carpets. 
He watched a girl come in. She drove through the wash herself and pulled into his stall. "She must come here often", he thought. He couldn't stop thinking about her walking away to the Dunkin Donuts. She'd paid for "Full" and asked where she could get coffee. She knew how to walk. She was probably just as  good at sliding down into the plush of that Lexus front seat.
He was looking across the street thinking about where she lived when George came up behind him. "Move it Dan, and forget the blonde. We're just pieces of furniture to her". George had a way with words. He could make "good morning" sound like an obituary. Still, there was enough truth in what he said to sting.  

A New Story - "Filthy Rich"

An aged metaphor perhaps, but there's a reason for this title and story. Basically, it's to restore values to a somewhat "tired" economy. I'm sure we all can recall spending a modest amount of change for a candy bar or an ice cream cone and having the time of our lives with it. A cool lemonade after a hard day working in the sun is a good example of where this story is trying to go, You work hard you get an appropriate reward. Life is good. It doesn't have to be psychological conditioning or capitalistic indoctrination. It can be simply fun and proper for a given occasion or activity. It can even be a heartfelt gift for things we might otherwise take for granted. The point is, the best things in life are free, if only we could properly appreciate them. It's an old story, very very old.

Dan Haddon wanted one thing. Ever since he was a young boy he dreamed of being "filthy rich". It was a phrase he'd learned from his father. It wasn't that his father's ideas impressed him to any great degree. It was that the words struck a chord and brought to mind everything Dan considered important and out of reach, forbidden for that matter.

Another "Rather Cold This Evening" blog

Here we go again! NOAA has it going down to minus twelve degrees overnight! OK - not really unusual for this time of year. A soft snow has been accumulating all day. It's pretty and it seems to insulate the garage some. I keep the dog in the garage at night and there are some things I don't want to freeze in there, so I heat it up with a propane heater before I come in for the night. It was up to about forty six degrees when I came in tonight. That should hold till morning. I spent a lot of time insulating the garage, but this year I've been lax on checking for heat leaks. Minus twelve is no joke. The wind chill advisories are posted for our area up here as well as northern New York. It seems the jet stream is still looped down and pushing the warm air stream from the south over to the east before it gets up here. It's usually till March when that reverses.
I like the cool nights and the quiet the snow brings for sleeping. There are certain advantages to living further north. You need to properly dress and prepare for it. The same thing is true about very hot climates. Cool drinks in the shade can be a real pleasure. I love the beach and the ocean when it's warm, but there's such a thing as "too hot". In Israel, we'd stay inside between noon and two o'clock in the summer. The evenings were great!
Well, "stay warm" and "pleasant dreams".

Gosh It's Cold!

A girl putting groceries into the trunk of her car shouted out "I'm freezing!", the other day in the parking lot of the supermarket across the  from where I was loading my own groceries into my pick up. I asked her if she was OK and if she needed any help and she politely declined. "You have your hands full there", or something like came from between her chattering teeth.
I really understood her. The wind was blowing fairly hard and so, even for up here in the North Country of Vermont where you'd expect people to be more or less used to it already, she was close to calling for help.
Last night was something else again. Minus twenty three was what the NOAA weather station was reporting for the low and I read minus fifteen when I went to let the dog out and feed him. I watched him pulling his hind legs up one at a time off the icy ground as if it was red hot. It was the first time I'd seen him do that. I let him in the house for a minute to warm up. "It wasn't the cold or the wind",  I thought. "There was something trying to kill us!" I took it as a challenge and assumed an attitude that the dog picked up immediately and started to bark at it. And here we were, the both of us, each in our own way barking back at the cold. It made me laugh and the dog jumped all up and down like he does when we play. "Not us, we're not afraid of the cold - are you kidding!"

Life Is What You Make It

Thoughts for the New Year

"A place to go worth going to and a way to get there - that's all you need", smiled the old sailor. He puffed on his long curved pipe and added; "steer clear of places where they prohibit smoking."

What this really means is that you can have a rewarding year if you want and if you can draw up a practical plan for it. It's neither that difficult nor that simple a task really. Is there anything you'd like to be, do or have that you aren't, aren't doing or don't have now? Do you have a way to get there? Can you handle obstacles?
Many people put off doing any of that. They limit their goals and activities to TV and cruises and "jobs".  They "watch" life. Sometimes they see someone actually living it. More often they read about it. Cultures can and have moved forward. Today most are  not doing so well. People join cultural movements to have more participation in life. There's nothing really wrong with any of that - unless things are just not moving along the way you'd like it.
Life itself provides previews and motivation to most everyone on most every subject. You can be exhilarated. Skiing down a mountain for example, sky diving, driving fast can all be exhilarating. Many people do these things. More people watch them or watch videos of them.
It doesn't have to be that dramatic or risky for that matter. Just going outside to play when you're young can be pure exhilaration. New games every day! Things to do worth doing! You can even see animals playing and having all kinds of fun. It doesn't take all that much imagination.
There's a time when being young and impulsive is most proper and there's a time when being older and wiser is more fitting for making the most of life.

Make your own choices of course, but have a really great 2015!